Libraries as Social Hubs

In her article, Preparing Library Students to Be Managers of Social Innovation Hubs: A Framework for Course Design, Kathryn Masten lays the groundwork on what the ideal library should consist of. She states that social problems for up and coming librarians, require “new approaches for increasing community knowledge creation that improves society” (Masten 208). But how exactly do we teach our new librarians how to become social innovators? Masten answers this question by proposing we start teaching our new librarians while they are still in library school. She designs a program that is based solely on one course that defines important values, the process throughout, and follows a textbook framework. The course focused on developing “socially innovative technology plans to support underserved populations” (Masten 222).  By encouraging library students to create and experiment with possible ideas that they could develop down the line, it gives them a rewarding experience and prepares them to manage their own libraries as socially innovative hubs. 

A program that could perfectly explain this concept would be the “Tell Your Story Community Project.” The Farmington Community Library invited residents of all ages to share personal stories. The stories were then gathered to form a community booklet which created a sense of community. Click on the link to find out more about this program and how you could incorporate it into your library. Farmlib    👈

         

Works Cited

Masten, Kathryn. “Preparing Library Students to Be Managers of Social Innovation Hubs: A Framework for Course Design.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 88, no. 3, 2018, pp. 208–24. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26561791.