“Palaces for the People”: Mapping Public Libraries’ Capacity for Social Connection and Inclusion

December 6, 2022

A new report from researchers at McMaster University’s Department of Health Aging & Society and Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies looks at trends in public library-focused Library and Information Science (LIS) research from 2012 to 2022 with a focus on four questions:

1. How do public libraries help patrons create or maintain connections in their communities?
2. What population groups are included in public library research and in what ways are they differently impacted by public library services, materials, and/or spaces?
3. How are public library virtual programming and services (especially prominent during COVID-19) changing the ways in which patrons engage with public libraries?
4. In what ways does the Canadian public library research landscape compare or differ from that in European and Australasian countries, and what lessons can we glean from these differences?

Full Report: “Palaces for the People”: Mapping Public Libraries’ Capacity for Social Connection and Inclusion

Executive Summary

Background

Public libraries are trusted sociocultural hubs for enabling lifelong learning and fostering community relationships. As public facing organizations that are open to the widest range of individuals, libraries seek to create safe and welcoming spaces for individuals of different socioeconomic statuses; ages; abilities; ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural backgrounds; and sexual and gender identities. Located in diverse settings (e.g., urban, rural, and Indigenous on-reserve communities), public library branches offer tailored resources and programs to meet the specific needs of their communities who are navigating the effects of our increasingly asocial society. Library staff have been and continue to be at the frontline, engaging with individuals who are contending with higher levels of social isolation and loneliness, as well as increased rates of mental illnesses and antisocial behaviours. Accordingly, public libraries are community hubs that create social capital that can facilitate resilience, helping communities withstand and potentially prosper during challenging times.

Objectives

We examined trends in public library-focused Library and Information Science (LIS) research from 2012 to 2022 to answer the following 4 research questions:

1. How do public libraries help patrons create or maintain connections in their communities?
2. What population groups are included in public library research and in what ways are they differently impacted by public library services, materials, and/or spaces?
3. How are public library virtual programming and services (especially prominent during COVID-19) changing the ways in which patrons engage with public libraries?
4. In what ways does the Canadian public library research landscape compare or differ from that in European and Australasian countries, and what lessons can we glean from these differences?

Results

Our analysis of 235 articles highlights public libraries as agencies of community building: libraries as conduits to information and learning, libraries as spaces of social inclusion, libraries as fostering civic engagement, libraries as bridges to community resources and involvement, and libraries as promoting economic vitality. Public libraries foster connection with their communities through multiple means:

• Encouraging feelings of belonging through library services
• Creating connections through technology
• Reinforcing cultural identities
• Creating safe physical spaces
• Addressing issues of accessibility

There were many different populations studied in our sample: older adults, library workers, children, teenagers, individuals without permanent or stable housing, immigrants and recent migrant populations, individuals without permanent employment, formerly incarcerated individuals, individuals living with different abilities, and library staff. Library workers must consider and incorporate the unique circumstances, needs, and expectations connected to each patron population group in their programs, collections, arrangements of physical and virtual spaces, and administration. Library workers encountered difficulties and tensions as they aim to engage with all patrons equally, especially when different patrons have different and more complex needs. Library workers called for more robust training in responsively working and engaging with patrons with more complex needs.

Studies centered on COVID-19 spoke to the development of strategies designed to extend remote access to digital materials, services and programming to patrons including those excluded from such access by social location or status. The physical place of the public library was a hot topic too, with renewed calls for its centrality for connecting with patrons. The mental health and wellbeing of individual patrons, broader communities, as well as of library staff was another key focus in many of the studies. Strategies for coping with new patron needs and demands while negotiating the effects of the pandemic on staff morale, training and development are major concerns. Finally, there was a high sense of renewal for the value and rewards of community-engaged librarianship as a way forward through recovery into the future.

In looking at the public library research landscape across countries, there are 3 lessons for scholars seeking to understand Canadian public libraries’ capacity for social connection and inclusion:

1. Several themes are well-addressed across geographic regions meaning that Canadian findings can be put directly into conversation with findings from elsewhere in the world.
2. Some themes are not well-addressed in the Canadian context, but there is a robust body of work in other regions that Canadian researchers might build on.
3. There is a growing body of comparative multi-national studies of public libraries that provide insight into the structural and policy contexts within which public libraries can support social connection and inclusion. Canadian public libraries have not yet been well-represented in comparative international studies, and there is significant opportunity for gaining a deeper understanding of the unique features that shape their social connection work.

Key Messages

• Public libraries occupy an increasingly visible role in how individuals and communities learn, interact, connect, and share with one another.
• The feelings of connection that public libraries can create, foster, and/or sustain can only occur if patrons have access to these services.
• Public libraries are important and unique public spheres that can function to support democratic processes, which in turn, become critical grounds for freedom of expression, rights to education, rights to information, which in turn support cultural identity, social capital, social connectedness.
• Library patrons want and value the informal knowledge exchange that happens
  between library workers and patrons, as much as they want and value library as place and library as place for books and reading.
• Public libraries and library staff are being asked (implicitly and explicitly) to step into new social inclusion roles, as front-line staff.
• Public libraries and their workers are rarely adequately resourced and/or trained to do this increasing array of work.