Envisioning Libraries as Collaborative Community Anchors for Social Service Provision to Vulnerable Populations

Abstract

The authors envision libraries as collaborative centres blending information provision, opportunities through Local Authority and human services in partnership with members of vulnerable populations. The authors offer a rationale for local public libraries as community anchors, offer a dual focus guiding interprofessional collaboration, identify five roles librarians working with social workers can serve to strengthen libraries as community anchors and suggest intersections among libraries and Local Authorities. They conclude the paper by offering blended strategies to enact libraries as community anchors for assisting people who either are reluctant to access formal assistance or who find that assistance too limiting or stigmatising.

Keywords:

• vulnerable populations
• social and human services
• libraries
• information access and utilisation
• interprofessional collaboration

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David P. Moxley

David P. Moxley Ph.D., is a Professor in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, University of Oklahoma, Norman. His research focuses on human vulnerability across the life course of those people who experience considerable marginalization.

June M. Abbas

June M. Abbas Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Information and Library Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman. Her work focuses on the capacities of public libraries to address the information needs of diverse users.