Libraries as a community

Many would state that libraries are a pivotal part of the surrounding community, but few recognise libraries as a community in themselves. In this post I will explore this concept and discuss the relevance of community as a term for libraries.

 

Community has two distinct commutative meanings: 1) Community can refer to a usually small, social unit of any size that shares common values, and 2) in biology, a community is a group of interacting living organisms sharing a populated environment. The latter is generally accepted as the relevant definition when referring to the community that a public library serves, but it is the former to which I refer in this post. This brief, summarising definition refers to shared ‘common values’ but linked to this is the sharing of interests, goals, advice and resources in order to strive toward attaining and projecting these common values.

 

Libraries can be referred to as a community because they share interests, goals, advice and resources, striving through the support of one another and a constant thread of networking. While you may walk into your local library and ask for a book that you cannot locate on the shelf, the librarian may be contacting 5 other libraries in the neighbouring networks in order to find a copy of that book and in doing so strengthen the connections between the libraries and develop contacts for the service of both the libraries, the staff and the public. Academic libraries often trade resources and it is quite common for libraries, during weeding, to offer their weeded resources to other libraries that may be interested in them. This networking system of trust and reliance builds up this sense of community and ensures that each library is strong and able to serve its local community to the best of its individual ability.