Have you wondered if there are ways for your library to engage your community in promoting civic engagement and bridging differences? On this show Jennie Garner, Director of the North Liberty Library, Shamichael Hallman, Director of Civic Health & Economic Opportunity for the Urban Libraries Council and the author of Meet Me at the Library, and Tara Susman-Peña, Senior Technical Expert for IREX, talk about the Bridgebuilding in Libraries Program and how all of us can engage in work that helps bring communities closer together.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast, where we talk about libraries and leadership, and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations, and strategic insights in the profession.
Have you wondered if there are ways for your library to engage your community in promoting civic engagement and bridging differences? On this show, Jennie Garner, Director of the North Liberty Library; Shamichael Hallman, Director of Civic Health and Economic Opportunity for the Urban Libraries Council and the author of Meet Me at the Library; and TTara Susman-Peña, Senior Technical Expert for IREX, talk about the Bridgebuilding in Libraries program, and how all of us can engage in work that helps bring communities closer together. Enjoy the show!
Jennie, Shamichael and Tara. Welcome to the show.
Combination of voices:
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: Thank you for being here. We are here to discuss bridge building in libraries. Could you please share about the Library Bridgebuilding Program? 01:39
Tara Susman-Peña:
I’ll start us off with that. This is Tara. So, the Library Bridgebuilding Program was created with the idea to enhance the capacity of public libraries to build bridges, to connect disparate communities, within their communities, in order to help combat rising levels of distrust and division in the US.
It was a project of my non-profit organization, which is called IREX. It’s a global development and education organization, and we were funded by More Perfect, the Walmart Foundation, and the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. If I could just give a brief, perhaps overview—what we did was that IREX, together with Shamichael Hallman, who is our expert partner, spoke with a diversity of public libraries, library associations, bridging associations, and we did an analysis of what’s already existing in terms of bridge-building initiatives, tools, programs, etc. We looked at challenges. We looked at gaps in resources, and what libraries really want to do in terms of these activities. We also identified some needs for libraries in terms of effective tools to measure the impact of these kinds of programs. All of that information informed the development of a free and open resource hub that we have in collaboration with WebJunction, for any library that wants to learn more.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: How is bridging defined and how does it apply in the unique spaces public libraries fill in American life? 03:24
Shamichael Hallman:
The word bridging, while it may be new in some library spaces, it’s certainly a term that’s been around, particularly in civil society. Bridging can be defined as engaging across differences in ways that respect identities, foster mutual relationships, seek a common good, and promote a commitment to civic engagement. These activities contribute to increased social capital—ultimately a stronger democracy.
In public libraries, as we were going through the process and really introducing this term to folks, a lot of people were kind of puzzled and saying, I don’t really know what bridging is. But when we laid it out in that way, they said, Ahh, okay, I get it. I know what that means now. We heard a range of definitions and things that folks were doing.
In the Bridgebuilding analysis report that’s available, you’ll see essentially four typologies for bridging. The first one is facilitating access to information, resources and experiences. We think about giving folks access to books, having author talks and art exhibits and these sorts of things that really open people up to experiences.
The second typology is around meeting essential community needs. We think about job searches—supporting unhoused folks, providing food banks. We know that this is important because these more lofty conversations around civic engagement, sometimes, folks—if they’re missing out on basic, essential needs, they’re unable or unwilling to engage in more, deeper conversations.
The last two, I think, are probably what people most often think about when they hear the term bridging. The third typology is around civic engagement. This is facilitating conversations with local representatives, hosting voter registrations and serving as polling locations, helping people understand ballot measures, constitution displays and that sort of thing.
Then the last is very specific, bridging where we’re helping people understand across different identity groups, through difficult conversations. Helping people who are on different sides of a topic come together and have conversations about those topics.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: Can you share about the Bridge Building Resource Hub and how our listeners can access it? Tara. 05:52
Tara Susman-Peña:
The resource hub is really the accumulation or the compilation of everything that we learned in this project. You can access it by going onto webJunction.org. Actually just from the homepage there’s a green highlights box—at least at the time of the recording, it’s the second thing listed. It’s pretty easy to find. It includes, basically, everything that we learned as part of this project. It includes the landscape analysis, including that typology that Shamichael just mentioned. It includes a list of resources from other organizations, such as bridging organizations that do this for a living, as well as the American Library Association—a lot of different sorts of resources to help libraries improve their effectiveness in bridgebuilding.
That includes facilitation guides, training videos, and a number of different types of resources. Then it also offers ten case studies that we created that demonstrate what the activities actually look like in libraries on the ground, as well as the fruits of some of their success. North Liberty Library, the library that Jennie is the director of, is one of the case studies, so I definitely encourage folks to go on and look at the hub. It is really the reason that we created the project and it’s meant to be useful.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: It is useful. Thank you. Will you share what bridge building activities look like in libraries? 07:32
Shamichael Hallman:
Building on what Tara just said, in terms of the hub, we have a number of case studies there to talk about it. One of the examples that is on that site is some work that was happening at the Spokane Public Library. That library system partnered with another organization called Braver Angels. Braver Angels is an amazing organization. They do a lot of work around depolarization. They’re really thinking about how do we bring red, blue folks together, sit down and have a conversation about a topic? Since they are highly skilled at that work, libraries will frequently partner with an organization like that to bring them in. Essentially, the library is playing the role of host as opposed to actually doing work.
When we think about bridging, particularly in this political climate, folks most often think about these conversations that focus specifically on politics. But there are other examples that I think are worth highlighting. For instance, at the Kansas City Public Library, the bridging didn’t happen across political ideology. It actually happened across age. They used a wonderful event that happens every year called National Week of Conversation to bring together folks across generations to have conversations. So certainly in some cases, you’re thinking about politics and political issues, but other times it’s just how do we bring people together across age, across geography, class and these sorts of other issues?
Jennie Garner:
This is Jennie. I’ll just jump in and add—I think all those things start with us building trust in our communities. I think that as a library, what it looks like for us is ensuring that people know we’re a safe space where they can come and participate in activities like Shamichael just talked about, in a respectful environment that fosters their skills to help tackle these kinds of issues. I think we’re doing that in a lot of ways, and we can get into more of those specifics. I think that’s coming up, so we can talk a little more about that, but for talking about not being political, we do some other things, like programs where we bring together folks to talk about entrepreneurship and what that might look like. We’ve hosted immigrant entrepreneurs to do a program here to talk about what it would be like to try to start your own business here in our communities. Then we are looking at those tough conversations as well, and we can branch out into that in a bit.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: Can you give an example of a specific activity that can be used in libraries to foster bridge building, like you’re talking about? 10:13
Jennie Garner:
I will talk about a couple. I talked about the Immigrant Entrepreneur program that started with a program that we call Lighthouse in the Library, which is a series that we started back during the pandemic. Much to my staff’s surprise, I asked them to continue after that first year when we got the grant to do that program.
We’ve expanded that out to include a couple other things. This year we’ve done one Living Room Conversation, which we’ll continue to do. I think we’ll tweak that a little bit. The Living Room Conversations is something that’s available online, and folks can find out more about that. It’s not perfect, but it works pretty well for what we’re trying to do.
The one we’re most proud of most recently is our Good Neighbor Book Club. That started with our city. Our community relations department actually brought that to us because we do about forty or more large events to try to bring people together and foster connection. That was a smaller scale one of those that our staff—one of our staff members led to talk about some tough issues and read books on a little bit tougher subjects. We have had some really lovely responses from that, from moderating that book club. It’s now in its second iteration. We have about sixteen people. That’s about how many we had last time, about eight of those are returning from the last group and eight new. So, that means we’re growing it, I think. The first group actually asked to have a reunion prior to starting the second one. So, they’ve had their reunion, and about two-thirds of the group showed up for that reunion.
It was just a really fantastic success program. I feel like it showed a lot of success, and if you don’t mind, I would be happy to share a couple of comments that folks gave us from that program. One of them is saying, The two leaders, one of our library staff and another community leader, have been wonderful role models for developing community during difficult times. The foundation and ideas discussed offered by the book groups has enabled me to open discussions with family and friends that might otherwise not have happened. I’ve always believed the library can play a vital role as the hub of a community, and my experience has been exactly that.
The other person shared that they reached out to a family member that they hadn’t spoken to in three years and made a connection. We don’t know how that came out. They just shared their intent to do that. They said, When I first joined the book club, I was hoping to meet people who were interested in turning down the shouting and negativity that have come to define the current mood in the country. I found that in so much more—getting to discuss how to broaden our own perspectives on information gathering and things that motivate people. I’ve learned more about myself and how others may be feeling in our area, the state and the country.
To me, that literally almost brought tears to my eyes knowing that we had that impact. Nick, our adult services person, has done just a ton of research on how to work during polarizing times and help people come together and communicate.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: Those are great comments that show impact. Do you have any additional bridge building success stories from the field? 13:27
Jennie Garner:
I would definitely say that one for sure. I think telling us that somebody called a long-distant family member—that’s phenomenal. That would probably be the number one. I jumped ahead there on your question, but I think we do play a hub in these things.
For instance, we have two groups. One is a Monday Morning Coffee group that started because we started offering coffee on Monday mornings for folks who were lonely or needed a space. It’s probably twenty years old—that group, but they’ve grown from just a number of people coming and going to about twenty regulars who stay for about two to two and a half hours in the library every Monday morning. It’s young and old, older folks, it’s just really fun to see them. They get pretty spirited. We moved them into a meeting room for a while, but they don’t like that. They like sitting out in the open. I think it’s been good. They’re very welcoming. They do things outside the library now, which is what I think is a true success. They’ve become friends outside the library, but they still come here to meet.
The other one is a knitting group that meets on Tuesday nights that has grown from about six people to about eighteen. Again, we’re trying to figure out how to corral them a little bit because they drag chairs around and they tend to get pretty raucous, but it’s great. They’re coming in. They’re using the space for the intention of it—to feel a sense of belonging, which is what we want.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: That is what we want—so worthwhile. 15:04
Jennie Garner:
We did a kid’s vote—Taylor Swift versus Bluey. We did have one person comment that Taylor was a little bit political, but only one. But, it brought in about 250 adults and children to just have a big party with Taylor Swift and Bluey. We had a Bluey character and a Taylor Taylor Swift—not the real Taylor Swift, but an actor on a Saturday morning. They talked about how they can register to vote. They got to register for the few weeks before they got to vote on the day of. Bluey won. A little girl went up to Taylor and gave her a big hug and said, We don’t all win every time, and sometimes it’s hard and I’m sorry you didn’t win, which I thought was absolutely amazing. [laughter]
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: So that is amazing. Those are the kinds of stories you hope to hear coming out of this. As you engage in this work, obviously, these stories show success. What other ways can success be measured for libraries that engage in bridge-building work? 15:51
Shamichael Hallman:
In terms of success, just like there are a range of ways to think about the work, there are also a number of ways to think about what success looks like. As we have been talking to library leaders and folks on the ground who are doing this work, a couple of things are standing out. One is that people learn something new, particularly about a topic or, say, a people group. One of the libraries that we interviewed had recently done a human library. A human library is just a fantastic event. It takes a lot of work to pull off, I believe, but it is a fantastic event where you’re bringing in people to serve as books. This event had someone who was a transgender. It had someone who was unhoused, and had someone who was a returning citizen. These individuals get to sit down and be checked out by the general public. To be able to have that conversation with someone that you might not come in contact with otherwise is an amazing thing for our community, particularly, as we become more isolated and fragmented. So, learning something new is one way of looking at success.
Another way of looking at success is when people connect over an issue together. For instance, in Baltimore County they have this event called Be at the Table. Staff create a set of questions for conversation starters. They assign a staff to every table to be a facilitator. Then the participants are randomly assigned to a table. You might come in with two friends and not sit with those friends. You will be sitting with a completely different group of people, and you all are having conversations about local issues that are happening in the community. This sort of conversation with someone new about an issue is another sign of success.
Closely related to that is diversity of people reached. If you have just your regular event— your regular storytime event, or your regular Thursday night event that you do, but you say, Hey, we’re going to do it. We’re going to be a little more intentional with our outreach, and we want to go and ensure that people who might not normally come to the library actually show up.
Jennie does a wonderful work here with her outreach strategy to make sure that there’s a diversity of people there. Sometimes people might think, Man, I gotta start a whole other program, man, I don’t have capacity for that. And, we’re saying, No, no—sometimes, it is: same program, different audience. And, those are some of the ways to think about success.
Tara Susman-Peña:
I’d like to jump in a little bit on this as well, if I may. I think it’s really important what Shamichael emphasized, that there’s not necessarily one way to measure success— and there’s not. I want to emphasize what’s underneath that, which is that there’s not necessarily one right way to measure, but everything that Shamichael just called out now are different types of data. So, you can think of different types of staff observations—of ways of recording who was there as being data. So, it’s possible to collect data without a lot of extra effort.
Now, that being said, one of the things that we did as part of this project was to think about what would be some more formal measures for seeing whether or not a program was successful, or how successful it was in terms of creating stronger social cohesion. We do have some resources around that in the hub, both externally created surveys as well as some preliminary surveys that we’ve created ourselves—and we’re hoping to do some more work on that. But, the question is around trying to measure the degree to which we’ve helped to build—we being the libraries, are helping to build trust, or helping to build positive social cohesion. Of course, not everyone has the resources or time to be able to pull off surveys, but I did want to share that we have those available for those that are interested.
Jennie Garner:
I would just add too, that sometimes it’s just a matter of talking to people and hearing their stories like I just shared with you earlier, but also seeing it build. The momentum is built here as we continue to offer these programs. We’re seeing larger and larger audiences of people coming in who just are looking for a place to be and connect with others. It’s a cycle, because then from that we start thinking, Oh, we could do this other program and we could do this other thing. Now it’s just about capacity for our staff, really. I’m just like, You guys need to figure out what you can and can’t do—can’t keep doing it all. But we want to. We want to do everything.
We offer a free lunch program where we see about 200 kids a day, every single day of the summer—Monday through Friday, all summer long. We brought our summer reading program there because that’s where the folks are. As Shamichael said, we’re doing a lot of outreach and engagement, too. We’re not just in our building. We’re out in the community doing work, and people recognize the faces of our staff. They know us and they know the work that’s happening here, and they recognize it—and our city leaders recognize it.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: That is so fantastic. Is there anything else you’d like to share? 21:40
Tara Susman-Peña:
I have two things. One—maybe some just general recommendations from the project. First of all, I think it’s come through loud and clear that libraries are clearly already doing this work. There’s something really powerful and important about libraries stepping into that and recognizing the role that they’re already serving in communities to build bridges. I think it also means that you can start to observe a little bit what approaches seem to work better than others, and emphasize those while working to improve what doesn’t work as well.
I believe that by connecting with other folks that are doing this work, with resources on how to make this real super power to connect communities even stronger, then libraries can play even a more central role in this. Honestly, for me, I don’t believe that there’s anything more important in American society right now than making a concerted effort to listen to others, to learn from others, to get along with others in our communities, especially people we disagree with. Libraries’ role in connecting communities really gives me hope for the future. So, that would be the overall recommendation.
Then I’ll just say very quickly, that this project ended in 2023, but we are in the final stages of seeking grants for the next phase of this work. We don’t have any funding yet confirmed, but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to continue to support libraries in this way and even do more in helping libraries to build trust in their communities starting in early 2025. So please stay tuned, hopefully we’ll have some good news.
Jennie Garner:
And I’d add that the traction is growing too, as Tara said. We’re working right now with StoryCorps. We just got some funding from them to do a program called One Small Step, which is similar to what the Braver Angels does. We’ve had them here, too, but it’s about figuring out how to bring people together who have different opinions on common themes. Where are there commonalities? What do they share and how can they share their stories with one another? We’re pretty excited about that work going forward.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: That is exciting. I look forward to hearing more about it. Shamichael, Jennie, and Tara, do you have any favorite leadership books or resources, and why? 24:04
Shamichael Hallman:
In terms of just pure leadership, one of the books that stays very close to me is this book called The Leadership Challenge. I think it may now be in maybe a seventh or eighth edition, and has sold millions of copies by Kouzes and Posner. Regardless of where you find yourself as a new leader or a seasoned leader when it comes to your vision, execution—these sorts of things, it is just a gold standard in books. It’s been used in universities and colleges across the globe.
As we think particularly about this issue—about the issue of bridging, there are a number of books that I also think would be very helpful, particularly to library staff, but even folks who are just everyday people who maybe want to leverage the library to bring their community together. The first set of books comes from a gentleman named Eric Liu. The book that I’m particularly thinking about is called Become America. There are a number of what Eric calls “civic sermons” that he’s delivered over the years, and it’s just when you think about having a vision for what America can be and living up to its greatest ideals. I think Eric does an amazing job there.
Another book—I’ll give you two more recommendations, comes from Danielle Allen. Danielle is a professor and runs a center at Harvard. She wrote a book a number of years ago called Talking to Strangers. As we think about levels of toxic polarization, xenophobia—very harmful narratives that can sometimes creep up, particularly coming out of this last political cycle. Her book does a great service to how we disarm some of that information.
Then lastly, this is definitely for library staff, Nicole Cooke’s book, Information Services to Diverse Populations Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals. In terms of professional development as we talk about it, even as Tara mentioned earlier, the library being this safe space. If we are going to say that the library is a place that’s open to everybody, we have to wrestle with the fact that maybe everybody shows up, right? What happens if everybody shows up? What happens if every segment of the community ideologically, faith and religion—what happens if all of these individuals actually show up at the library on any given day? How are we to think about that? How are we to serve folks in a way that stays true to the mission and values of the library? I think Nicole Cooke’s book does an incredible work there.
Jennie Garner:
I’ll chime in and offer, from a management and leadership standpoint, some of my favorites are Radical Candor by Kim Scott, which I think just helps us speak to people in a direct and kind way. I’ve lived by that book for the last several years, and I would add Stephen Covey’s The Speed of Trust, which is just so integral, internally. When we build internal trust, it shifts outward. Then the public begins to see that this is a dynamic in our library. Where trust is cultivated inside and moves out. We trust the community. We say the words radical trust a lot. We don’t require ID for library cards. We try really hard to find ways to remove barriers for service. I think that’s a great read.
Also, The Infinity Game by Simon Sinek talks about competition and how we should look at the future of the work we do. Those are both corporate books. We need to take them with a grain of salt, but I think there’s so many nuggets in them. Since Schmeichel didn’t mention it, I will just mention Meet Me at the Library by Schmeichel Hallman as an absolutely stellar book on bridging, and a book that we should all be reading in our libraries.
Tara Susman-Peña:
Great. I’ll just mention one book which is IntraConnected by Dr. Dan Siegel—Dr. Daniel Siegel. He’s an interpersonal neurobiologist and psychiatrist. It talks about how, despite our modern US culture putting a very strong emphasis on individuality, we often feel very separated from each other. In fact, our neurobiological wiring, as well as other forms of knowledge systems, really tell a different story—that we’re fundamentally interconnected as people and that will do much better as individuals, as communities, as societies, if we’re better able to step into this interconnection, and understand it and embrace this perspective.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #11: Thank you all for those. In closing, what do libraries mean to you personally? 29:22
Jennie Garner:
I think that libraries are truly a place to bring folks together, and welcome all people to belong in our spaces. They’re a place of connection. Connection is always the word that I come back to for libraries every time. Libraries are positioned to encourage civic dialogue and to help us bring democracy back to the forefront of Americans’ minds right now. So to me, libraries are just a space for everyone to be welcome, and also to mitigate that loneliness and disengagement.
Tara Susman-Peña:
The next is—and I guess is very personal since I don’t work directly at the library at the moment. Libraries, honestly, have always been a place where I can go that I instantly feel relaxed. I instantly feel like I belong. As I was growing up, I spent a lot of time as a book lover, both in my local library and in school libraries—even up until now. It’s a place that, I just, am so glad is around—that I took my kids as they were growing up. They have always been spaces that I value and that I love to be in, and it’s really an honor to work on supporting them.
Shamichael Hallman:
I’ll close it out and say, I believe that libraries are pillars and cornerstones of democracy. Democracy’s future is diminished when people’s access to power, information and diversity of voices is restricted. Libraries play a crucial and critical role in advancing all of those ideals. Public libraries are perhaps one of the remaining indoor public spaces where everybody can just show up. And we need more of those spaces.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #12: We do need more of those spaces, and we need places where what you’re all sharing today, about bridge-building in libraries can happen. It’s so positive and forwards libraries as safe places—places where people can connect and where we can all bridge differences. Thank you all for being on the show and sharing this with me today. 31:19
Shamichael Hallman:
Thanks for having us.
Tara Susman-Peña:
Thanks so much.
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes, tune in to Library Leadership Podcast.com, where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right into your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
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