Libraries are on the front lines of America's problems
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Public libraries have morphed into all-purpose community centers amid soaring demand for social services.
- Libraries are enjoying a renaissance in usage. They're also battling book bans and bearing the brunt of a host of societal issues — from caring for unhoused people and migrants to distributing COVID tests and Narcan for drug overdoses.
Why it matters: The result is frazzled staff and budgets spread thin from competing needs.
Driving the news: Librarians, while still helping kids with their homework, are helping migrants apply for asylum, and jobless people write resumes.
- Libraries are offering expungement clinics to help people erase their rap sheets, and "digital navigators" to help boost patrons' computer skills. Onsite social workers are assisting people with mental illnesses.
- Libraries are becoming cooling centers and climate resilience hubs.
What they're saying: Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association, tells Axios: "We have to think of this in the context of diminishing public investment in public institutions."
- "The role that libraries are playing as community centers and social service centers has a lot to do with the fact that we're kind of the only game in town in a lot of communities."
"Libraries have never been more important than they are in 2024," adds Patrick Losinski, CEO of the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio.
- "I'd much rather have these challenges for additional services and pressures than have people saying that our time has passed."
Reality check: Librarians are fending off physical and verbal assaults from angry and unhinged customers — some of whom blame these frontline workers for the content of books they'd like banned.
- A group called Urban Libraries Unite is busy setting up "virtual support groups" to help librarians deal with trauma, Lauren Comito, a Brooklyn librarian who chairs the organization, tells Axios.
- New York City recently announced that its libraries would be closed on Sundays because of budget cuts — a move that Mayor Eric Adams tied to the cost of caring for migrants.
Zoom out: At the same time, libraries are grappling with everything from the high cost of e-books to the need to provide free outdoor Wi-Fi so people without broadband can have off-hours access.
- Many libraries are trying to ease food insecurity by adding gardens, nutrition classes, food pantries and cooking lessons.
- "During the pandemic, we distributed 350,000 COVID kits," Losinski said. "You say: 'Well, is that the library's business?' It is for us."
Zoom in: On the plus side, there's a boom in new or refurbished children's rooms — in communities including Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Paramus, New Jersey.
- Libraries in Nashville; St. Cloud, Minnesota; and Yonkers, N.Y., have built "sensory" or "calming" rooms for children with autism and other neurodivergent conditions. A branch of the Indianapolis Public Library recently became the state's first Certified Autism Center.
- A group called LibraryReady.AI is training librarians to teach kids to use AI.
