Category: Programming

Library Patron Loneliness: Strategies for Building Community and Connection

Editor’s Note: This guest post has been authored by Alejandro Marquez (Science and Engineering Librarian at the University of Denver Libraries) and Brady Niemitalo Woods (Patron Training Specialist at Jefferson County Public Library, Colorado).

The fall semester started recently, marking the beginning of a new school year. Imagine a new student at a college or university who has come from another state. Their social life will completely change. They have left their home community and don’t know anyone. This adjustment can be challenging, even in the best circumstances. Yet this student brings many identities—they are nonbinary and not white. Think about what this student might feel and experience. They likely feel some fear, hope, and excitement but also a little lonely.

Loneliness is a universal part of the human experience. In 2022, upwards of 42% of US adults experienced it, highlighting a substantial public health crisis. Since then, loneliness has been increasing. The U.S. Surgeon General stated that loneliness is just as bad as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Loneliness not only impacts mental health but also physical health. Loneliness is more than being alone; it’s a feeling of disconnectedness. It can affect people of all ages and backgrounds, and its impact on mental and physical health is well-documented. Chronic loneliness can lead to depression, anxiety, worse health outcomes, and increased mortality rates.

While loneliness is a common experience, it is not evenly distributed. Some are more likely to experience loneliness. Factors include low income, parenthood, singleness, and age. LGBTQ people, minorities, and women are more likely to experience loneliness than the average.

Libraries have long served as community spaces where people can connect, learn, and engage with others. Yet in a digital age, the sense of isolation among library users has become a growing concern. In this blog post, we explore the issue of loneliness in libraries and discuss strategies for librarians to address it.

Strategies for Combating Loneliness

1. Create Welcoming Spaces: Ensure library environments are warm, inviting, and inclusive. Comfortable seating, designated social areas, and welcoming signage can help people feel comfortable. Research shows that academic libraries can promote friendship. Noisy areas where people can hang out and interact are key. Welcoming spaces also involve staff participation. Library staff engaging proactively with users can go a long way toward addressing loneliness. Simple gestures, such as striking up conversations or recommending books based on shared interests, help foster meaningful connections.

2. Offer Diverse Programming and Collections: Provide a variety of programs and events that appeal to different interests and demographics. From book clubs and storytimes to workshops and cultural events, diverse programming can attract various participants and create connections. Library Journal suggests some creative ideas, including workforce preparation, food, and community art. Users should feel that they matter. Crucial to this is creating collections and services where people see themselves. Both content and media matter; graphic novels, film, print books, e-materials, and audiobooks can all be popular with different individuals. Representation and accessibility are both crucial: seeing oneself as mattering to and feeling able to participate in the community is an important step to addressing loneliness.

3. Facilitate Peer Groups: Establish peer groups focused on specific topics or shared experiences, such as knitting, book clubs, board games, parenting, or job searching. These groups provide opportunities for individuals most at risk of loneliness and facing similar challenges to connect, share resources, and provide emotional support to one another. Groups may consider partnering with campus organizations such as career centers and mental health centers to provide library spaces and share handouts, library guides, and/or bookmarks.

4. Promote Digital Literacy: Offer digital literacy workshops and resources to help users navigate online communication tools and social media platforms. By empowering individuals to connect virtually, libraries can expand social opportunities for those who face barriers to in-person interaction. Regardless of age, many library users struggle with a range of computer skills, including: computer fundamentals, artificial intelligence like Chat-GPT, and citation managers like Zotero. Classes addressing misinformation and classes about digital privacy and cybersecurity are especially important for building healthier relationships online.

5. Collaborate with Community Partners: Partner with local organizations, schools, and businesses to expand the reach of library programs and services. Collaborative efforts can enhance resources, increase visibility, and attract new audiences to library events. Strong partnerships between academic and public libraries can be particularly useful, connecting individuals with more expansive collections, a wider range of programming, and opportunities to connect. A wide range of partnerships increases the potential for fostering interaction. Washington State Library, for instance, supports libraries making space for groups playing the popular roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Networks can create positive feedback loops, creating and sustaining communities that address loneliness.

6. Provide Outreach Services: Extend library services beyond the physical building through outreach initiatives aimed at reaching marginalized or isolated populations. Many libraries offer programs to welcome students to campus early in the fall. This is an excellent way to build relationships, as well as introduce students to library services. Creating timely programming and events can also be used as opportunities to introduce students to the library. Programs might include Love Your Library (for Valentine’s Day), a wall to create blackout poems for National Poetry Month, or de-stress stations for finals.

Readers may rightfully worry about mission creep. As Fobazi Ettarh argues, vocational awe is often used as a justification for this creep. This leads to “more and more responsibilities and less time in which to accomplish them.” While loneliness harms people, library workers should be careful not to take on additional roles in addressing it. In addition, library workers face challenges to address loneliness such as limited resources, stigma associated with seeking help, and the digital divide.

It is critical that libraries serve our communities without taking on additional responsibilities. Fortunately, addressing loneliness depends on services libraries already offer to their communities. Building community is already a core value of libraries, something library workers are doing now. As with the examples above, we can address loneliness without adding more to our workloads by improving on what we are doing: implementing innovative programming, fostering social connections, and creating inclusive spaces where individuals feel valued, supported, and connected.  Through collaborative efforts, libraries play a vital role in combating loneliness and promoting well-being in their communities.

Discussion Questions

Take a look at your library’s practices and consider some of the following.

  • What are you already doing?
  • What have been your successes? With that in mind, what can you improve or add?
  • How might you meet a new student’s needs while helping them access the resources the library has on offer?

Resources

Engaging in Outreach Efforts & Meaningful Community Building

As a MLIS student at San Jose State University (SJSU), I often read about the importance of promoting library services through outreach efforts. During that time, I ran across the following quote that illustrates this point, and it continues to resonate with me:

Gone are the days when libraries can simply open their doors and expect to be perceived as the number one option for information services. With fierce competition for funding and more people assuming everything offered by a library can be found online, libraries are feeling the pressure to blow their own horn (Hallmark et al., 2007).

Last year, I started as a Lecturer Librarian at CSU Northridge. Since I began in the summer of 2023, I did not immediately have instruction requests or deadlines for collection development. Instead, I directed my attention to outreach opportunities, which continued to be part of my priorities throughout the fall and even now in the spring. I work closely with the Outreach Librarian to deliver outreach programming to keep patrons abreast of upcoming library events, and to promote library collection materials by designing book displays. I have collaborated with faculty, staff, students, and community members to make these events successfully happen. So far, I have remained committed to outreach efforts by participating in the “Ask a Librarian” tabling events, the Resources & Services Fair, the New Student Orientation, CSUN Open House, National Transfer Student Week, and library tours for K-12 students. I am particularly proud of my involvement in creating virtual and in-person book displays for Latinx Heritage Month and Black History Month.

While the outreach opportunities mentioned above have been quite rewarding, I was curious to participate in wider campus efforts centered on outreach and community building. Late last fall, I was selected to be a Library Liaison for the Office of Community Engagement (OCE) at CSU Northridge. This office strives to enhance academic experiences through community-based (service) learning, engaged research and sustained partnerships within the San Fernando Valley, and the greater Los Angeles Area. In my role, I support faculty members as they develop community-engaged projects and/or courses. Faculty members receive support in creating syllabi that outline community-based learning outcomes centered on equity, diversity, and inclusion. I expect that I will also recommend community-engaged readings, and activities for their syllabi.

Since I’m serving in the inaugural cohort, the other Library Liaisons and I have been working on recruitment. During our last departmental meeting, we offered our librarian colleagues a brief overview about the OCE, and we introduced them to grant opportunities designed for faculty members committed to community-engaged courses, projects, research, or creative activities. Additionally, I have been spreading awareness about the OCE to professors and lecturers in the department of Central American & Transborder Studies. After I teach my information literacy sessions, I’ll typically pitch an elevator speech to these faculty members. Usually, faculty members teaching Ethnic Studies already incorporate community-building into the design of their courses, which makes them great candidates.

Overall, I’m hoping my efforts evolve into effective partnerships, so that I may further engage in meaningful practices centered on community building and social justice. I’m definitely in the early stages of developing my own approach towards outreach and community service. I was hoping to hear from experienced academic librarians. Would anyone be willing to share their own strategies?

Reflecting on Open Access Week as a First-Year Academic Librarian

As an Affordability & Digital Initiatives Librarian, planning, hosting, and executing events and workshops on campus for Open Access Week is an essential part of my position. For those unfamiliar with Open Access Week, Open Access Week is a designated week, typically towards the end of October, to celebrate and spread awareness of the open access movement. This year’s theme was “Community over Commercialization.” I did not incorporate the theme into the programming primarily because I want to center our events around the university’s Affordability Initiative.

Monday

We started the week off with a celebration of affordability and open access on our campus. The purpose of the event was to highlight accomplishments made throughout the past year, such as increased use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and submissions to our Institutional Repository (IR). Next, I hosted a workshop on OER adoption, adaptation, and creation with my new faculty cohort. During the workshop, we discussed the impact OER has on equity as well as resources for finding and creating OER. New faculty were intrigued by OER and expressed interest in exploring what is available in their field. I hosted the same workshop for all faculty in the afternoon. Interestingly, this workshop sparked more of a discussion regarding Creative Commons and self-publishing.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, my colleague and I hosted two launch parties for our new sponsored affordability development opportunities, one in-person and one virtual.  We were promoting the launch of the textbook affordability self-paced course we created on D2L Brightspace (our LMS).  The course was designed for faculty to strengthen their knowledge about the open movement, pathways to open authoring, and research related to textbook affordability and OER.  Additionally, we were promoting our new program in which faculty could apply and receive sponsorship to adopt, adapt, or create OER.

Wednesday

Wednesday was dedicated to the Institutional Repository.  My colleague hosted an event regarding the role of the IR on campus.  He also encouraged faculty to bring their CVs to see how they could contribute to the IR.

Thursday

On Thursday, I hosted a small panel event about the power of self-publishing your expertise.  The panelists were faculty with experience creating OER and had all authored at least one textbook.  The panelist offered great insight into the process of self-publishing in varying disciplines.

Friday

To conclude the week, I hosted affordability and faculty collaboration hours.  These hours give faculty a chance to meet with me directly and discuss where to search for OER, how to navigate Creative Commons, how to make textbook selections for the bookstore, etc.

Reflection

Unfortunately, attendance for almost every event was lower than I had hoped.  Most of the events were held in-person in the library.  Next year, I would try doing more virtual events that could be recorded and sent to those interested.  I also wondered if the time of day was a factor in the low attendance.  We varied the times in hopes of reaching as many people as possible, but the inconsistency in time might have been a deterrent. 

An idea for next year would be to incorporate events or activities for students.  Our library’s student advisory board did hand out snacks to students on Wednesday and told them about our Textbooks on Reserve program and textbook donation drive; however, I think we could do more.  An opportunity to connect with students and amplify their voice on the topic of textbook affordability and open access would be beneficial to our Affordability Initiative.

Lastly, not having experience coordinating a week full of campus events, I was thankful to have the support of the University Library’s Dean’s Office.  They scheduled rooms, ordered refreshments, organized swag (pens, stickers, water bottles, keychains, etc.), and coordinated social media posts throughout the week advertising events, highlighting campus affordability champions, and listing resources to adopt, adapt, and create OER.  I could not have survived the week without their help.

Bad Art Day in the (Academic) Library

Last week, I hosted Bad Art Day, my second public program at Carroll Community College. Bad Art Day (or usually, Bad Art Night) is a popular program at public libraries, and it’s something I’ve wanted to try at an academic library for a while. The concept is pretty self-explanatory: you set out a bunch of art supplies and tell participants to go to town trying to make the ugliest piece of art that they can. 

This program had simple objectives: Creativity is messy. It’s ok to make mistakes. You don’t have to be a perfectionist. I even quoted Jake the Dog from Adventure Time: “Sucking is the first step towards being sort of good at something.”

"Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something," Jake the Dog quote

I made a call for donated art supplies through our faculty newsletter, and got most of our art supplies this way! The only thing I needed to purchase was a selection of glues (glitter, stick), because all the donated glue was dried out. 

I was anticipating that it would be a hard sell to get students to stop, sit down, and do an active-participation event. I was truly bracing myself to paste on a smile and say “well, sometimes the programs are a bust,” and dutifully clean up my art supplies. Instead, we had 17 participants, including a few faculty members! 

Student making bad art using art supplies
An artist at work

Since starting programming in Fall 2021, our participation has been surprisingly good; there has been a real appetite for screen-free, face-to-face, low-stakes activities on this campus.

Students came between classes, they brought friends, and they chatted with each other while creating. The program was self-explanatory and students were eager to dig in to the art supplies. For the Bad Art Contest, I had the students give their pieces titles, which added to the humor and depth of the entries. 

After Bad Art Day, I created little table-tents with each artist’s name and the title of their pieces, then put them all on display in the library lobby. Students could come see the ugly art, and could even vote on their favorites! Having the art on display stretched the program into the rest of the week; just about everyone who came into the library stopped to look and chuckle at the pieces.

Photo of Bad Art on display across two folding tables
The titles that the students chose were widely regarded as the best part!

Outreach and programming work is possible by yourself, but I don’t recommend it. Whether I’m making a puzzle, choosing a program, or thinking through the logistics of an interactive display, I find myself running my ideas past another person. Interested circulation staff, an eager student worker or volunteer, and even my partner and family have been called on for their two cents on the wording of a discussion question or the layout of a poster. My best ideas have come from these conversational brainstorm sessions at the desk. 

No programming librarian is an island. And if you don’t have colleagues, Pinterest, blogs, library literature, and your patron audience can be your collaborators. I am finding inspiration everywhere.