During Times of Crisis, Librarians Connect to their Communities

Abstract

Society today expects libraries to be information service providers and serve as catalysts for community engagement. The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation, preservation, and dissemination. When the pandemic began, many libraries closed their doors, yet they took the opportunity to transform their services to various types of formats and continue the provision of essential information and innovative services to their user communities. This poster covers and shares examples of how librarians have stepped up to being leaders in the communities they serve, especially focusing on how librarians have gone far beyond to provide non-traditional library services to their communities, during the pandemic and beyond.. It addresses the significance of creating diversified workforces in libraries, as well as how to integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the libraries' strategic plans. The poster also highlights leadership qualifications in times of crisis, taken from the results of three situation-specific studies on the provision of disaster health-information services by public libraries. Additionally, tips for community engagement will be shared based on results from several information professionals from several different countries