Article: “Public Libraries Generate Social Capital That Can Save Lives”
From an Article by Chris Cyr, Ph.D., OCLC Associate Research Scientist:
Libraries don’t provide food, water, electricity, or medical services. In many cases, libraries had suffered the same catastrophic losses as their neighbors; staff had perished or been injured, buildings completely destroyed or unusable, resources gutted. Why, then, did people so quickly turn to libraries after a disaster? Because of social capital.
And while we don’t understand all the mechanics of how these bridges within a community are built, we do know that they’re an incredibly powerful part of why people value public libraries.
Read the Complete Article (approx. 930 words)
Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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