Reflection Blog: The Library can’t Be Everything – but it can Connect Everyone
In his article Healthy Library, Healthy Life, Cory Greenwood of State Library Victoria introduces a toolkit which helps libraries to identify the most urgent needs of their communities and their own institutional skills gaps (2023). This toolkit serves as a catalyst for building and fostering partnerships to bridge the gap and connect library users with wellbeing organizations. This is referred to as addressing the “whole person”. That is, creating a holistic, hyperlinked system of care, always with humans at the center, to address all of the factors that go into their well-being: housing, transportation, social isolation, health and mental health care, food security, and more.
Libraries, first and foremost, support their communities, but most librarians are not social workers. Libraries cannot, and should not, be responsible for providing all traditional social services. But libraries have an amazing capacity for trust and reach within their communities. As nonjudgemental and accessible spaces, libraries can curate a network of community services and partnerships to extend their impact and address the needs of the whole person. These services provide individualized care and improve the well-being of the entire community through targeted support. Through holistic practice, libraries can address more than just information needs and improve the equity, access, and inclusion of their environment and services.
Whether this is linking community members to health care organizations who can provide free access to vaccines or groceries, or a Conversation Club, such as the one developed by the Melbourne City Library during the initial Covid-19 shutdowns, which provided a venue for isolated individuals to interact with their community and build relationships (Hasan, 2023). Initiatives such as these demonstrate the power of libraries as more than just a repository for books, but as the thread that connects.
The concept of a “whole person library” reframes the institution as a relational space, not just a transactional one. By leveraging grants, partnerships, and community outreach, libraries can extend their impact far beyond traditional roles. They become proactive agents in improving community health and resilience, particularly for underserved populations.
A whole person library is a human-centered library.
References
Greenwood, C. (2023). Healthy Library, Healthy Life. State Library Victoria. Retrieved from https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Healthy-Library-Healthy-Life.pdf
Hasan, T. N. (2023, February 21). Free, nonjudgmental, and accessible: How your local library is a sanctuary of health and wellness. SBS Bangla. https://www.sbs.com.au/language/bangla/en/article/free-nonjudgmental-and-accessible-how-your-local-library-is-a-sanctuary-of-health-and-wellness/t15blzsi9
Other Resources
While not referenced above, additional interesting resources on whole person or holistic librarianship can be found here:
Sara Z’s blog: https://wholepersonlibrarianship.com/blog/
SJPL’s Holistic Library Initiative: https://www.sjpl.org/social-work/
SFPL Resources and Services: https://sfpl.org/services/transitional-age-youth/san-francisco-resources-and-services
3 Comments
Jane M
Hi Chandler,
Libraries have seemingly endless potential to provide service for so many different needs, interests, and lifestyles––this is part of the beauty of them, and one of the reasons I think many of us are drawn to work in them! You draw a necessary line in the sand though: most librarians are not social workers and cannot replace traditional social services. This made me recall an article I read in Megan Price’s 204 course last summer that confronts the pressure put on librarians to solve society’s problems and to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Check it out here if you’re interested: https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
Chandler Florence
Thanks, Jane @janem! I completely agree with you, there is so much pressure for librarians to fix social issues, but it’s just not possible, nor should it fall on librarians to fill in all of society’s cracks. That’s why I think it’s so important for the library to leverage its place in the community, its role as an anchor institution, to form partnerships to fill in the gaps. It’s about teamwork rather than putting everything on the library’s shoulders.
Michael Stephens
@chandler Love this: “A whole person library is a human-centered library.”
That article you based this post on really resonated with me because I am always thinking about how libraries can meet other needs of their communities that might be a bit out of the realm of what we have done in the past. I really believe partnerships and engaging with other social support groups in communities as a way to move these ideas of whole person care along. It’s fascinating to think