Developing Community-led Public Libraries—Evidence from the Uk and Canada

Pateman and Williment synthesize their respective library experience to present a practical roadmap for library staff to integrate and sustain community-led development in their libraries. Their data is from the UK and Canada. It is in large part a review of Pateman's work studying public libraries and social exclusion in Open to All: the Public Library and Social Exclusion and Willament's work with the Working Together Project to foster community-led approaches to library operation in Halifax, Toronto, Regina, and Vancouver. They consider needs-based library service strategies comprehensively and holistically, stressing the need to meet many user-needs and not just those of core users. They examine approaches to community-driven approaches to consultation, assessing and prioritizing needs, library image and identity, outreach and community-led development, the role of new information technologies in tackling social exclusion, developing holistic collections policies that ensure community needs are reflected, staffing and related education or training, placing community needs at the center of organizational culture, and monitoring of service performance. A final chapter presents their blueprint for changing to a more community-led library. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

John Pateman has worked in UK public libraries for over 30 years at all levels, including Head of Service in three local authorities. He was a member of the research team which produced the ground breaking Open to All? The Public Library and Social Exclusion. John has written a wide range of articles and books on public libraries and social class, social exclusion and internationalism. He was awarded La Distincion Por La Cultura Nacional by the Cuban government in recognition of his support for Cuban libraries. John was the co-founder of Information for Social Change and he has worked closely with members of the Working Together Project in Canada. He is currently Chief Executive Officer for Thunder Bay Public Library Service in Ontario, Canada. Ken Williment has recently become a branch manager at Halifax Public Libraries. Prior to this, he worked as a Community Development Manager at Halifax Public Libraries, during and post Working Together. In this role, he worked closely with branch and service managers to integrate community-led approaches within library staff work. Ken writes on community-led approaches on the Social Justice Librarian blog and published the award winning article a€?It takes a community to create a librarya€ which has been republished in a number of journals including Partnership Journal (Canada), Public Libraries (US), Bis (Sweden), and Information for Social Change (UK). He has also published articles on integrating community led work into branches in Public Libraries, and Asset Mapping in Partnership Journal.