A Trauma-Informed Framework for Supporting Patrons: The PLA Workbook of Best Practices

This workbook provides a framework for what it means to use a trauma-informed lens and how to use that lens in interactions with library patrons. It offers various scenarios that will provide you the opportunity to integrate what you've learned so you can implement the trauma-informed framework in your work and offers a series of exercises that focus on self-care and self-assessment.

Adult Learners Welcome Here: A Handbook for Librarians and Literacy Teachers

Adult Learners Welcome Here is designed to help librarians connect new adult readers with books and to acquaint literacy teachers with materials generally available in their public library. Weibel outlines the library's role in fostering adult literacy and shows how popular library materials art and photography books, poetry, literature, non-fiction, and print and electronic reference sources can be used by librarians and teachers in new and innovative ways. She provides recommended titles (complete with bibliographic information, annotations, subject headings, and reading levels) and ready-to-use lessons that improve visual literacy, creativity, and technological competency while building phonetic skills and comprehension. The recommendations and lessons can be used with all levels of adult learners and both native and non-native English speakers. There is guidance for improving instruction to adults and building literacy coalitions between libraries and other community organizations. This unique and comprehensive resource will help libraries improve their services and support the important work of educators in their communities.

Ask, Listen, Empower: Grounding Your Library Work in Community Engagement

This important resource provides targeted guidance on how libraries can effectively engage with the public to address a range of issues for the betterment of their community, whether it is a city, neighborhood, campus, or something else.

Cultural Humility

This accessible and compelling Special Report introduces cultural humility, a lifelong practice that can guide library workers in their day-to-day interactions by helping them recognize and address structural inequities in library services. Cultural humility is emerging as a preferred approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within librarianship. At a time when library workers are critically examining their professional practices, cultural humility offers a potentially transformative framework of compassionate accountability; it asks us to recognize the limits to our knowledge, reckon with our ongoing fallibility, educate ourselves about the power imbalances in our organizations, and commit to making change. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion In Action: Planning, Leadership, and Programming

This book offers thought-provoking ideas and actionable advice from librarians who have implemented replicable and scalable initiatives that have helped their institutions understand and address issues surrounding the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Libraries and the Substance Abuse Crisis: Supporting Your Community

This book provides an overview of the substance abuse crisis, discusses the library's role in the fight against addiction, and shares strategies, policies, and services that library staff can implement to support their community and maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all patrons.

Library Services for Immigrants and New Americans: Celebration and Integration

If you're wondering what your library can do for your community's immigrant population, start with this book, replete with resources, tips, and suggestions that will prove valuable guidance to any librarian who wants to better serve this still-growing part of America's population. The book outlines practical steps to take regardless of library size and type; shares ideas for community outreach initiatives designed both to draw in program participants and to educate local-born residents about their new community members; and describes accessibility changes that are easily implementable and will help all users, including immigrants and new Americans.

The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness: An Empathy-Driven Approach to Solving Problems, Preventing Conflict, and Serving Everyone

Homelessness is a perennial topic of concern at libraries. Staff at public libraries interact with almost as many unhoused individuals as staff at shelters do. In this book Dowd, executive director of a homeless shelter, spotlights best practices drawn from his own shelter's policies and training materials.

Words No Bars Can Hold: Literacy Learning in Prison

Words No Bars Can Hold provides a rare glimpse into literacy learning under the most dehumanizing conditions. Deborah Appleman chronicles her work teaching college-level classes at a high-security prison for men, most of whom are serving life sentences. Through narrative, poetry, memoir, and fiction, the students in Appleman’s classes attempt to write themselves back into a society that has erased their lived histories.