Access, Advocacy, and Impact: How Public Libraries Are Contributing to Educational Equity for Children and Families in Underserved Communities

ABSTRACT

This article details the findings from Project LOCAL (Library Outreach as a Community Anchor in Learning),a mixed-methods study that explored how public libraries contribute to educational equity by going into community locations to reach and serve families and children in underserved communities who cannot come into the library due to a variety of barriers. The data revealed four main aspects to this outreach work: program types, locations, goals, and partnerships. Public libraries offer a variety of program types – literacy programs, summer meal programs, STEAM programs – in various locations, like schools, shelters, housing developments, barbershops, and others. These programs and services are developed with an array of goals in mind, broadly categorized as related to access, advocacy, and impact, to serve a variety of underserved communities. Furthermore, libraries are forming complex, fruitful partnerships with different community organizations to build trust, relationships, and goodwill in these communities. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development provides a lens for situating these four aspects within the various environmental systems in families’ lives and reveals how, through outreach work, librarians are moving from outer, less visible systems to more central ones that reinforce their relevance and importance in the lives of families in underserved communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Community partnerships
• educational equity
• family engagement
• non-traditional learning environments
• public libraries
• underserved communities

Acknowledgments

This project was made possible by funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We would like to thank the library staff and administrators for participating in the research and sharing their expertise and practices in library outreach to underserved communities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [LG-97–17–0040–17].