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Notes from Breakout Session: Community outreach encompassing participatory research and connecting with marginalized communities/populations

Community Outreach (Public Libraries)

• sponsored event tabling
• bringing books twice a month to seniors
• storytime weekly
• STEM engagement weekly
• emergency services bookmobile
• family-safe events
• list resources for community
• book station and staff presence at parades and public events
• tech support for communities/groups in need
• involvement in community gardens and food sustainability efforts
• books sent to correctional facilities

Community Outreach (Academic Libraries)

• participate in new student orientation
• highlight accessible study spaces
• showcase materials to public when relevant
• community can access databases/materials when present at library

Connecting with Marginalized Communities (Academic Libraries)

• liaisons with cultural centers on campus (can help with collections/research)
• streaming video
• enabling trust with loaned materials
• vetting vendors (sales of information and ethics)
• no fines
• language translation

Participatory Research

• include ambassadors from the community
• facilitate community space
• tabling at neighborhood meetings and community centers
• language ambassadors / translation for community

SWOT Analysis Notes

Strengths

• Community connections
• Belongs to everyone
• Collaboration - libraries already have pre-existing networks for sharing ideas and strategies and are comfortable collaborating
• There is nothing else like us under the sun
• Free and indoors! Nothing is free anymore
• Means-tested
• Third space that is air-conditioned
• Dedicated staff at libraries
• We are fighting for a better world - diverse books, programming, etc. - every day against serious odds
• Becoming targets demonstrates our power
• We can and should step forward in these conversations/advocacies to write the futures of wages, privacy, vendor agreements, intellectual freedom
• Agility in smaller and more focused groups
• Digital connection and governance
• Partnerships with affinity groups like ACLU and Pen America
• The know-how and history of connecting people to information
• Growing activism in youth groups that are speaking out
• Widespread, nationwide, in almost every town
• Local library workers can be responsive to specific communities
• Community support - to and from
• State and national level professional organizations
• Trained staff, ongoing learning
• Attitude - many librarians care but lack practical tools and knowledge
• High public approval ratings
• Community reputation
• Community trust (at a time when that is rare)

Weaknesses

• Mental health crisis
• Understaffing restricts services and increases reliance on cops
• Limited alternatives to shitty vendors and service providers
• Right-wing extremist attacks
• Making ilbrarians personally liable for items in the collection
• They keep giving our money to cops and we don't have organized support
• "Children don't have rights"
• Public libraries have a hard time claiming their power - leveraging/changing policy, saying no
• Taxes - "taxpayers" and "parents"
• Accessibility - we can be hard to get to
• Not enough people in public libraries seeking leadership priorities
• Post-COVID habits lost
• Budget cuts
• Lack of a living wage, especially in largely rural states
• Leadership with inaccurate ideas of who we're here to serve
• Staff retention and burnout
• Compassion fatigue
• Conflict aversion
• Staff like marketing security without library ethics training - even circ staff
• Nonexistent onboarding and high staff turnover
• Having a policy isn't enough
• Finding revenue sources is difficult
• Funding
• State legislation (DEAI) funding
• Budget constraints to fight attacks
• Some places have lack of community buy-in
• Complete lack of public awareness outside of libraryland
• Misconceptions about libraries
• Both-sidesism as a form of "neutrality"
• Willful ignorance of targeted opposition
• Information literacy
• Neutrality versus serving public interest in a progressive way
• Very white field, especially in living-wage, decision-making positions
• (Useless) LIS degree dominance reinforces white middle classness
• Job creep, burnout, saviorism and white supremacy characteristics
• Tax/government/publicly funded
• Local staff can be isolated and limited in resources
• Obsession with neutrality while misunderstanding its legal meaning
• Money, time, and energy are spread too thin
• Old-fashioned values within libraries and coworkers
• Public perception of being obsolete
• All of our software options suck and make us look bad
• The thinking that we need to operate more like businesses
• Obsession with new tech without a critical eye
• Filling social services gaps without becoming radicalized about why these gaps exist
• Limited ability to advocate for ourselves due to perceived community position
• Very white and middle class profession
• Unprofessional profession
• Bystander syndrome
• Lack of clarity on the role and mission of libraries (privacy? access? social services? we are expected to provide all of these)
• Vocational pressure to save democracy
• Administration loves trends (wasteful, pulls staff in too many directions, kills usefulness)
• Spreading ourselves and our limited funding too thin filling in gaps in social services
• Vocational awe

Weaknesses

• A great equalizer
• Public buy-in, regulars caring about libraries and feeling ownership is an opportunity to draw on
• Other ways to think of safety
• Outreach - Libraries have the opportunity to establish trust with communities who may have greater privacy concerns and use that to leverage better policy
• Regulars can mean substantial relationships - if staff have time and energy
• Easy to say “from the library” to connect with partners
• Organizing mobilizing efforts from grassroots efforts
• People have concerns about Big Tech and AI - we can help educate
• Potential backlash to the increased privatization of life
• Crafting better stories
• Great experiences
• Loss of library levy (or other funds) creates space for more advocacy and community engagement
• COVID closures gave libraries a chance to revisit core services and community needs
• Professional connections and continuing education
• High trust from community (in most cases)
• Engaging with library students to make sure they have access to the resources they need to advocate and organize (radicalize them early)
• Build user base
• Seeking common ground among all groups
• Organize supporters
• Greater representation on staff, boards, etc. of traditionally under-represented groups
• Shifting cultural values - majority may be quiet but will often speak up when pushed
• Leveraging position in the community
• Libraries partnering with other groups - public health, social services, etc.
• Continuing to organize and mobilize people around IF challenges and book bans (both library workers and patrons)
• Coalition-building
• Connecting with marginalized communities
• Free/fourth space
• Hub for activism, diversity, inclusion
• Civil rights law conversations
• Organization - if systems are not in place they can be designed from scratch
• Libraries are for everyone
• We are (or could be) part of everyone’s abundance story

Threats

• Not committed to civil rights in the way we are to the first amendment
• Hate groups
• Anti-progressive movements taking advantage of a divided society - misinformation and distrust of public institutions
• Organized and well-funded opposition
• General public not fully aware of the danger we are in
• Our opposition is way more organized than we are
• Labor precarity
• Misinformation and disinformation around labor organizing
• Normative whiteness
• Enforcement of “unhelpful” (Iowa euphemism for racist) norms
• Too big to fail structures and monopolies
• Inward strife between organizations
• Political climate
• Commitment to policing patrons, refusal to be imaginative about safety
• Pre-existing trust - public implicitly trusts libraries that may be reckless with their data - this impacts outreach abilities and is an ethics threat
• Security - increased attacks on libraries are bridging more attention to library security and makes safety at the expense of privacy more appealing
• Marketing - libraries utilizing conventional marketing teams - may be employing people with few scruples about data
• LIS programs have shifted from “professors of practice” (actually working in libraries) to traditional adjuncts (not working in libraries)
• Cool Big New Idea of unstaffed libraries (can’t actually meet many needs)
• Uninformed legislation and legislators
• Policies/legislation
• Weak protection and policies
• Burnout x 2
• General lack of information seeking behaviors - how to start the conversation with patrons, community, etc.
• AI? (related to misinformation)
• It’s legal to bring concealed weapons into public buildings in Iowa
• Get caught in crossfire of polarization (because we’re a place for everyone)
• Nationalism and religious extremism
• Vocal minority
• Community events intended to spark controversial pushback from library (Brave Books Tour)
• IF challenges under the guise of “protecting children” (in libraries) or “stopping drugs” (in prisons)
• Book-banning and censorship
• Organized attacks like M4L, bomb threats, etc.
• Organized opposition to IF
• Negative/opposition groups
• Budget cuts
• Funding