Constable: No showers yet, but suburban libraries expand social services
The notion of your local library as a place where you go to borrow a book seems almost as antiquated as an actual hardcover book. Suburban residents use libraries as business offices, resource centers, movie providers, club headquarters, language centers, game parlors, tax consultants, social media hubs, classrooms, lecture halls, concert venues, coffee shops and sometimes simply shelter from the storms of life.
Homeless people often hang out at libraries. Some parents treat the library as a free baby-sitter for young children. Some adults regard the library as a safe place to leave an aging parent with dementia issues. Traditionally the hub for all things literary, libraries can be a literal lifeline for some. In March, the suburban Oak Park Library will add a social worker to its staff.
"It is something you see more and more. It's becoming a trend." says Jason Kuhl, director of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Kuhl notes that most suburban libraries don't have the need, or the budget, for a full-time social worker now but still must strive to serve an increasingly diverse population.
"As you walk through the building, you can see people who are here for a long part of the day," says Julie Rothenfluh, executive director of the Naperville Public Library. She and her staff are working on a strategic plan for a future that includes "unserved or underserved" pockets of the suburbs.
"We haven't had a demand to add a social worker," Rothenfluh says. "That's what we'll be looking at - where are the demands?"
In San Francisco, where the nation's first library social worker was hired in 2008, public libraries now offer mobile showers once a week.
"Someone who needs a shower can come to the library and take a shower every Friday in the parking lot," says Julie Todaro, president-elect of the American Library Association. While saying that "it is a wonderful connection when a library hires an expert in social work," Todaro says virtually every library continues to improve that link between the traditional library and new social services.
"We try to get people connected with the services already out there. We're the glue," says Stephanie Sarnoff, director of the Schaumburg Township District Library.
In our era of tight budgets, libraries connect with schools, senior centers and local agencies to make sure services aren't duplicated, she says. Their staffs continue to receive training in ways to help library patrons with problems that might require trained social workers, Sarnoff says.
The Schaumburg Township library has full-time security employees, Sarnoff says, but rare violations of the library's code of conduct require that police be called.
"What we do here is have excellent relationships with the police departments, who have social workers," Sarnoff says. "We want to be free and open to all users, but at the same time, we have to make sure no individual does something to disrupt the use and enjoyment of the building."
In Naperville, a Mental Health First Aid program helps employees recognize people who might benefit from care.
"We not only have trained staff, we have three staff who are trained to train other people," Rothenfluh says.
Connecting people with all the world has to offer always has been part of the library mission, says Todaro.
In the 19th century, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie began funding thousands of libraries with the understanding that they would be a benefit to all of society - "providing not just a roof, but the kind of information people need," Todaro says. "Libraries are increasing the training for staff because libraries would like to be part of the solutions."