Libraries exist within communities. For public libraries, the community they serve is the general public of the surrounding geographical area. Academic libraries serve students, faculty, researchers etc at their university. School libraries serve their student bodies. Health libraries, law libraries, and corporate libraries all have specific patronage that they serve. Each library has its own focus that drives policies and collection development.
In my limited experience, I’ve often seen these libraries be so passionate about meeting the needs of their communities that they might forget to listen to those same communities. It’s easy to focus on vendor negotiations or budgeting to expand the public use computers and lose site of the connections to the communities we serve, operating on our perception of their needs. We can get out of sync. I’m looking forward to learning more about community-led librarianship this fall to better understand how that happens and how we can recenter the voices of the community.
Sometimes, community is defined by geography. Everyone within the city limits is considered the served community of the city’s public library system. Sometimes it’s defined by institutional boundaries, such as universities or hospital systems. Thinking more broadly, communities can be defined by shared interests, such as the community of fibre artists or the community of 3d printing enthusiasts. They can be defined by shared values and politics, like the solarpunk community. And they can be based around identity, such as the 2SLGBTQIA+ community or the retired community. Many of these communities can span vast geographical areas thanks to modern technology.
I think it’s important to note that community doesn’t mean “people you agree with.” For example, there are people where I live who believe that books that include transgender characters should be given warning labels for obscenity in public libraries, a position I strongly disagree with. Sometimes someone in the gardening group will dislike a movie I enjoyed. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop going to the community garden, or that I’m going to move to another city. And it doesn’t mean I’m going to advocate for a rule that you have to like the same movies I do if you’re going to visit the community garden. Living in community is difficult, and with the proliferation of options online for finding people you do (theoretically) agree with, I think there has been a shift towards echo chambers and a loss of skill in community building and tolerance.
When thinking about preparedness for climate disasters, community plays a role in between individuals and governments/NGOs. During an ice storm, it may take large-scale government response 3 days to get to me. As an individual, I may not be able to meet all of my own needs during that time, and that’s likely true of others in the various communities I’m a part of. I store more drinking water than I would need for 3 days so that I can share it with others who need it during an emergency, even if they have political views that run counter to my own. Candace on the fourth floor of my apartment building uses a wheelchair, and without the elevator wouldn’t be able to pick up her medications. I can talk to Candace about what her needs are, and share about my own, and we can have those conversations with others in our building so that we have a plan to take care of each other.
The same is true for libraries. We need to have community consultation to make sure our collections support the needs of our patrons, but our duty to support our communities extends beyond that. Not just in our role as an institution, but as people living in community with other people. Even for people who are not like us, who have different values and needs than we do. Those are the conversations we need to have in order to not just exist within a community but to be a part of it.