While in this program I have not been afforded the opportunity to work or even volunteer in a library. By Tuesday afternoon, this oversight was remedied by the closure of the retail pharmacy chain that I have been employed at for several years. For every instance of job creep and burnout, I was buoyed by the “social infrastructure” (Gaetani, 2018) inherent in public facing service. With coworkers and friends, I would frame the dissolution of our jobs as a chance to build resilience, spend time with loved ones, or take it for the karmic kick in the butt to get going with our own vocational/occupational dreams. My community of coworkers, friends and customers is gone without the public space tying us together.
The Anythink Libraries partnerships along with Salt Lake City’s social services coordinator provide inspiration towards what community spaces like libraries can become. In the war over budget allotments and public support, we should instead be looking for partnerships that bolster the argument for related public services. The social services coordinator working with the homeless at the library is relevant for my community as the downtown branch is often the one most frequented by that population. An onsite social worker who could help coordinate the needs of those patrons and aid library staff so the vocational burden is not heaped on to the library staff. Additionally, as a newly unemployed person myself the availability of an onsite career counselor or work alliance representative working in partnership could remove imagined or unimagined social stigma of seeking help with employment development. Anyone can walk into a library, but only certain people need to walk into employment centers. Often it is the unemployed person, who may feel shame for needing help and may not utilize the resources available to help. It also could come from friends and family with good intentions not “understanding” why finding work is so difficult. A proposal for a future library model would be one not only with public gathering spaces but also satellite offices for non-affiliated public service representatives. Another could be in partnership with community centers that are already active centers of community engagement. This idea would be beneficial to communities where physical access to libraries may be limited due to aging infrastructure or even inadequate public transportation.
A few years ago, when I lived across the country in Connecticut, I lived in two cities where my apartment was within a couple blocks of a library branch. While my work life was not ideal, the physical proximity to a library was a dream. An evening stroll could lead to a visit to the library, where now it requires a plan and time. As an emerging librarian and public library card holder, what stops me from going to the library more regularly is what impacts every other person in the community. It has become an out of sight out of mind fixture because using a search engine requires less thought, energy and expense when looking for low-cost entertainment or enlightenment. Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT) and the Sacramento Public Library have created a partnership that addresses this issue of informing people how to get to their nearby library branch (SacRT, 2022). For many public transport options, students often ride free if they have their student id. It would be an interesting model to construct if public transportation was free with a current library card, depending on routes of course.
References
Gaetani, M. (2018). Libraries and social infrastructure. CASBS https://casbs.stanford.edu/news/qa-eric-klinenberg
Sacramento Regional Transit. (2022). Read and ride aboard the rolling library. https://www.sacrt.com/ride-and-read-on-the-new-sacramento-rolling-library-train-2/
@gneissterran This is such an inspiring model. Libraries partnering with social services just makes sense—meeting people where they are, without stigma. I’d love to see something like this up here, especially for job seekers and folks experiencing homelessness.