News
Libraries across the country are finding new ways to support patrons experiencing mental health challenges—as well as the staff who serve them.
Brian Bannon, commissioner of the Chicago Public Library (CPL) system since 2012, was recently named the Merryl and James Tisch Director of the New York Public Library (NYPL). LJ caught up with Bannon during his last month in Chicago to hear about the inspiration for his move to NYPL and his strategies for leaving a thriving CPL.
In the same way that fitness trackers offer reality checks for sedentary lifestyles, diversity audits cast light on the homogeneity embedded within library collections, providing data that identifies gaps in representations of race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and other traditionally marginalized perspectives.
As America’s opioid crisis becomes a tragic new normal, libraries have stepped up in a variety of ways. While the role of library workers—as first responders, training staff to save lives by administering Narcan to patrons who overdose in the library—has understandably received the most mainstream media attention, library responses are deeper and more proactive than that emergency intervention.
