Julia Marden

In the weeks since the 2016 presidential election, librarians across the United States have taken actions to foster dialog, confront intolerance, and reaffirm public libraries as safe spaces for all patrons. Whether as a reaction to the need to initiate community conversations or as a response to incidents taking place within the library, library employees are looking at ways to get people talking—and listening.

Three days after the Vancouver Public Library’s (VPL) June 7 launch of its Sun Life Financial Musical Instrument Lending Library, every instrument had been borrowed. Two months later, all remain checked out, with a waitlist as high as 70 for some.

Purdue University recently announced the first findings from its Resilient Communities Research Team, one of five interdisciplinary research projects funded by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grand Challenge Exploratory Award. The team, which included scholars from the library and multiple academic departments, came together to explore how people’s physical and social networks influence the resilience of their communities during periods of disaster recovery. They also explored the important role that humanists, social scientists, and librarians can play in tackling 21st Century Grand Challenges.