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Preface xi “patrons.” The exceptions are times when we are writing about a distinctly social work situation or perspective, in which case we say “client.” Similarly, we’ve taken care in how we refer to librarians and social workers. Not all library staff are librarians, so we try to avoid using “librarian” as a catch-all term. When the concepts and activities we discuss can apply to anyone work- ing in a library, we say “library staff.” When they are more specific to the type of work usually done by librarians, we say “librarian.” We also try to distin- guish other roles with terms like front-facing staff, public service staff, man- agers, and administrators. On the social work side of things, there are actually some legal restrictions on who can be called a social worker, limited by licensure and academic degrees. We tried to be respectful of this, but we didn’t check everyone’s cre- dentials and followed the lead of each participant who self-identified as a social worker. We do use the term “social worker” more loosely to refer to people in the community who are doing the kinds of work social workers do, whether or not the actual people involved are licensed. People doing work in the library are called “library social workers” regardless of credentials as well. However, in circumstances where we know libraries might be partner- ing with entities providing social services, but not necessarily social workers, we do say “social services” or “social service providers.” United States Perspective Because the United States is the birthplace of library-social work collabo- ration in its current form, and because it’s the territory most familiar to the authors, we speak primarily to and from an American perspective in this book. Canada was an early adopter as well, and Canadians continue to be important partners in this work. Where we feel confident to do so, we try to acknowledge this by speaking of North America more broadly. We avoid including examples from Canada and other nations not from a place of era- sure but to ensure we don’t make any false statements about regions outside our area of expertise. We also want to note Australian libraries have a great deal of interest in this work and seem poised to join us in it very soon. We were privileged to present about this topic at an international conference in Zagreb, Croatia, and met with interested librarians there as well. We look forward to sharing these connections around the world as knowledge of library-social work collaboration continues to grow. Appendixes and Online Resources To supplement each chapter, our website includes additional resources you can access to go deeper into the material presented (www.wholeperson librarianship.com/book/resources). We developed and tested many of these