In September 2020, the Delaware Journal of Public Health published a special issue on Public Libraries & Public Health, illustrating the increasing interest in fostering and sustaining robust partnerships. Image courtesy the Delaware Public Health Association.
Written by guest bloggers Noah Lenstra and Nicole Peritore.
In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed, the director of the Kansas City Public Library wrote, “How to unlock healthier communities? Have two critical institutions team up. … Our nation’s public libraries are a valuable asset in tackling some of America’s thorniest problems. But we can’t do it alone.”
In writing our article “Public Library Partnerships for Public Health” for the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, we set out to explain how public health partnerships can become better integrated into the teaching and research of public librarianship.
Public libraries have a long history of supporting consumer health at the library’s reference desk, helping people access reliable and up-to-date health information related to their individual needs and interests.
However, this work to support consumer health has not always been integrated into our broader health systems. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the challenges that emerge from that lack of integration. On January 18, 2022, the Washington Post reported that “The public library is the latest place to pick up a coronavirus test. Librarians are overwhelmed.” Librarians felt overwhelmed in part because they were called upon to play a role in this public health emergency, but without the planning and policymaking necessary to ensure that role was strategic and deliberate.
To combat this siloed approach to health promotion, organizations like the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and others have recently developed the Health in All Policies (HiAP) framework. HiAP is, according to the CDC, “a collaborative approach that integrates and articulates health considerations into policymaking across sectors to improve the health of all communities and people.”
To unlock the power of HiAP in public librarianship, and based on similar efforts to integrate HiAP into the workforce of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension system, our article outlines four strategies:
- Preparing public librarians and their partners to talk together about health, and about how they could collaborate;
- Establishing a common language within public librarianship about what we mean by health, and what we mean by health policy;
- Building professional development opportunities for those already working in the field;
- Providing support for public library leaders so they can advocate for the value of HiAP work in public libraries.
Our hope is that library and information science (LIS) researchers and teachers will use this framework to better prepare public librarians to proactively plan for public health partnerships, rather than react in a haphazard way to public health emergencies. We also hope that this article helps those working in the health sectors to better understand how to collaborate with public librarians to advance their missions.
In addition to our article, interested individuals can learn more in this three-part webinar we organized in collaboration with EveryLibrary Institute.
NOAH LENSTRA is an associate professor in the Library & Information Science Program in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). He is also an affiliated faculty member in the UNCG Gerontology Program.
NICOLE PERITORE is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Education and Human Development at Augusta University. She is also the Program Director for the BS in Health Promotion program.
“Public Library Partnerships for Public Health: Health in all Policies (HiAP) as a New Conceptual Framework for LIS Teaching and Research” was in the Journals of Education, Library and Information Science Volume 65, Issue 2, and is Free to Read until September 30, 2024.
Comments on this entry are closed.