Library Social Work presentation Simmons Uni Rachel Williams


This was a great presentation by Rachel Williams about social work practices in libraries, particularly with regard to working with patrons who are experiencing homelessness. The presenter is Rachel Williams from Simmons University. These are the notes I took during the presentation:

Rachel Williams - Professor at Simmons University rachel.williams@simmons.edu 
Open to being contacted.

New key term to consider apart from 'homeless' is 'unhoused'.

One way to get library staff to talk about how they feel about working with people experiencing homelessness is to ask them to recount a time they have interacted with a person experiencing homelessness.

Rachel referred to a lawsuit that would be interesting to look up - Richard Kreimer (USA)

Idea: Look for mentions of 'equity of access' in library policies to see if they exist and what they say.

Find: 'Invisible people' YouTube channel (Man interviews people experiencing homelessness)
Find: Article by Provence in Public Library Quarterly v.40(3), pp. 244-257 (DONE)
Find: Article by Willian Ogden JOLIS 2020 DOI: 0961000620917720


She mentioned the Zettervall book:


This can be accessed from the CSU library:
 https://primo.csu.edu.au/permalink/61CSU_INST/1hkg98a/alma991013295080502357

There is also a website and LISTSERV that can be accessed here: https://wholepersonlibrarianship.com/

Another resource mentioned to follow up: Mental Health First Aid training. There is an Australian branch of this that can be accessed here: https://mhfa.com.au/

Dominican University, Illinois is the first library school (that she knows of) that is offering Social Work subjects in the librarianship course.

Another person to look up is Noah Lenstra - he writes about library:community partnerships.

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