Public Libraries and the Opioid Crisis, Part 2: Community-Centered Responses

ABSTRACT

Numerous articles from major national newspapers have covered the fact that as the opioid crisis has become a pervasive problem in the United States, overdoses in public libraries have become a somewhat common occurrence. Many of these discussions center on librarians being trained to use the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, and that was the primary focus of the first part of this two-part study. However, this second article discusses what libraries are doing to mitigate the impacts of the crisis and help persons from vulnerable populations before matters escalate to become emergency situations. The authors document how libraries are attempting to educate their communities about the opioid crisis, ways they have partnered with community organizations to help opioid dependent persons, and how they have addressed various facilities and security concerns for their buildings.

KEYWORDS:

• Public libraries
• opioids
• security
• facilities management
• vulnerable populations

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian Real

Dr. Brian Real is an Assistant Professor in the Information and Library Science Department at Southern Connecticut State University. He holds a PhD in Information Studies and an MLIS from the University of Maryland. His research is split between analyses of the modern social impact of public libraries and the historical impact of federal policy on film preservation. Dr. Real has published in The Moving Image, Library Quarterly, Public Library Quarterly, and Information Technology and Libraries. He is also the author of the ALA report Rural Libraries in the United States: Recent Strides, Future Possibilities, and Meeting Community Needs and editor of the book Rural and Small Public Libraries: Challenges and Opportunities, both published in 2017.

Gayle Bogel

Dr. Gayle Bogel is an Associate Professor in the Information and Library Science Department at Southern Connecticut State University. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Information Science from the University of North Texas, an MLS from Southern Connecticut State University and an MA in Education from Sacred Heart University. Dr. Bogel has served on the state executive boards of the Connecticut Library Association, the Connecticut Association of School Librarians, and the Connecticut Library Consortium. She is former editor of Knowledge Quest, the national journal of the American Association of School Librarians, and a former writer-reviewer for the open access journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. Her current research interests focus on the pedagogy of online teaching and learning, and the intersection of service learning and professional ethics in library and information science.