8 Whole Person Librarianship institutions and policies grounded in power differentials, which prioritize those with money, status, ability, or physical strength. Social workers aim to ensure all people can live where their basic needs are met, their capacities are recognized, and their voices and perspectives are part of every decision impacting upon them. Regardless of the controversy some see in library activism—a topic we touch on in chapter 5—librarians do amazing work in service of social justice every day. The “textbook” example we’ve been using in workshops of a social justice effort is the Ferguson (Missouri) Municipal Public Library’s response to racial unrest after the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. The director of the library received a number of national awards for the extraordinary community engagement efforts he coordinated at his library (ALA 2015). We believe the collaborations explored in this book support the central place of social justice in librarianship as well as social work. Growth of Library-Social Work Collaboration In 2009, San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) took action in response to patron needs in a way no library had done before: they hired a full-time social worker to their library staff. Leah Esguerra1 became the first library social worker and began groundbreaking work that would be emulated in dozens of libraries over the following decade (we explore this model in chap- ter 4). Leah’s position was established to address the significant, visible pop- ulation of patrons experiencing homelessness using SFPL’s downtown library as a day shelter. The challenge presented by patrons sleeping, bathing, mak- ing phone calls, eating, and even having sex in the library isn’t new, but the scope of the situation in San Francisco, which has one of the highest per capita rates of people experiencing homelessness in the United States, felt especially pressing to library staff. SFPL wasn’t alone in its need to serve these patrons. Of the 38 news items we reviewed about libraries hiring social workers, published between 2014 and 2018, over 75% indicated a primary reason for those hires was the presence of a visible population of people experiencing homelessness in the library.2 Since 2009, the number of libraries participating in social work collabora- tions has grown dramatically. When we started the WPL blog in 2013, there were a handful of programs in place. San José Public Library pioneered the placement of social work students in libraries (Estreicher 2013), while Win- nipeg, Canada, was an early adopter of the SFPL model (CBC News 2013). 1. Real name. 2. We performed this environmental scan in September 2018. Articles used for the scan can be found in the interactive map at www.wholepersonlibrarianship.com.
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