“As a newer member of the WebJunction team and someone who has spent a number of years in the health and human services field, every day I learn something new in terms of the degree to which library staff are on the front line of direct services to communities and individuals in need.
How do the winter months and winter holiday seasons affect your capacity or personal drive to serve your patrons? We know that the winter months can be a time most trying for individuals. What are you doing that works? What are some challenges that you’re facing?”
Thanks to WebJunction member and staffer gesingek for this week’s question of the week. Respond to her post in the discussion boards or here, in the blog, as a comment.
If you’ve got a question you want to ask the WebJunction community or you see a good question coming in, please post it in the Question of the Week topic.
In the vein of human services for patrons especially, it always seems like a good time to:
-Brush up on addresses of local shelters, venues/dates/times for free holiday dinners
-Reminder of hotlines for those dealing with depression or considering suicide
-Make sure you’re participating as a drop off for local food and toy drives
-Think about any opportunities to bring staff together for any community volunteer opportunities (serving at a soup kitchen, story time in a family shelter).
The other thing that’s come up for me as a parent of elementary aged kids, is the need for books and other resources to address questions coming up about homelessness. I found one called This Home We Have Made that was helpful. I’m wondering if anyone has strategies for engaging all ages in our library communities around homelessness and other health and human needs. Realizing that a display would be good at this time of year!
I just saw this from American Libraries, and thought it fit with this discussion:
Libraries balance patrons, homeless
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080114/METRO01/801140337/1410/METRO01
“Across Metro Detroit, libraries function as cooling centers when it’s too hot and warming centers when it’s cold, resource centers to find out about shelters and other programming, and an online portal with which to apply for Social Security, income tax refunds and other benefits that branches of government offer online.”