If you wonder how to build a stronger and more cohesive community in these divided times, this episode is for you. In this episode, we will discuss the role community libraries can and do play as a key part of our social infrastructure. Our community library is one of the last free places where we are all welcome. We will explore how the library can be a place for both community bridging and bonding, as well as a place to grow civic engagement. The simple invitation to "Meet Me at the Library" is an invitation to a specific place, but it can be so much more.
Episode 69, 42 min listen
AUDIO PLAYER
You can access this episode wherever you listen to podcasts via our pod.link.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
Join me in reading Shamichael's new book, Meet Me At The Library.
The Cossitt Library and other Memphis public spaces were featured in a recent report, Reimagining the Civic Commons Metrics Report. In the specific reports for Memphis, Akron, and Detroit, you can see examples of how revitalization and repurposing of social infrastructure and public space can bring measurable results for a community. The Memphis report also has some cool before and after pictures of the Cossitt Library.
Learn more about the Cossitt Library Design Features and the Groundswell Design Group.
Read Four ways to help U.S. public libraries to build trust and bring people together at irex.org.
Learn more about the Urban Libraries Council.
Interested in programming options for your library? Explore the resources at the Programming Librarian.
Have questions around how libraries might interact with citizens who are unhoused? Find ideas and information in the LEADERSHIP BRIEF: Effective Strategies and Models for Urban Libraries Addressing Homelessness.
Can the library help with affordable housing? See what is happening in Brooklyn.
For ideas where libraries might encourage conversations and personal engagement between citizens, see Living Room Conversations, Human Library Concept.
Thinking about how to design more welcoming civic spaces, including libraries. Check out the Assembly: Civic Design Guidelines.
Learn more about the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard.
SHAMICHAEL'S BIO
Shamichael Hallman currently serves as Director of Civic Health and Economic Opportunity at Urban Libraries Council. In this role he is creating ULC’s upcoming focus on libraries as essential city and county infrastructure including their value as physical spaces, and a connector of diverse lived experiences.
Most recently he was a '23 Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University where he advanced ideals about public libraries and civic health. During his fellowship year he gave talks and worked with students at Harvard, Northeastern, Yale, and Rutgers. He is the co-creator of the Bridgebuilding Resource Hub; a free training tool designed to enhance bridgebuilding capabilities of public libraries to combat rising levels of distrust and division in the United States.
From 2017 - 2022 he served as the Senior Library Manager at Memphis Public Libraries where he oversaw the reimagining of the historic Cossitt Library. His work and efforts have recognized internationally by outlets such as Smithsonian Magazine, The Agenda with Steve Paikan, and The Urban Activist. He holds a MS Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
-Introduction
Shamichael Hallman - Meet Me At The Library
Ame Sanders 00:11
This is the State of Inclusion Podcast, where we explore topics at the intersection of equity, inclusion, and community. In each episode, we meet people who are changing their communities for the better and we discover actions that each of us can take to improve our own communities. I'm Ame Sanders. Welcome.
I am always on the lookout for guests who have not only done the hard work of building equity and inclusion on the ground in their community but can also provide us perspective and wisdom for work in our own community. So, today's guest really brings that unique combination of experience and vision.
Before we start, a small aside. You know, our guests freely share their stories with us, so we make the podcast our newsletter and related content free as well. However, if you'd like to support us and grow in our work and help to offset some of our production costs, you can find a link to our Support Us page in the show notes. We're happy that you found us. We're grateful that you listen. And we would be thankful for your support.
Today, we are happy to welcome Shamichael Hallman. Shamichael is the Director of Civic Health and Economic Opportunity at the Urban Library Council. He was also a 2023 Harvard Loeb Fellow and author of a new book, Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy. Welcome, Shamichael. Thanks for joining me.
Shamichael Hallman 01:49
Thanks for having me.
-Role of Public Libraries
Ame Sanders 01:51
You know, Shamichael, at the conclusion of your year as a Harvard Loeb fellow, you made a presentation. I watched the video of that and had something in mind that you said during that presentation. You described the central question of your fellowship year as being around the role of the public library in an increasingly fragmented, isolated, and polarized society. You also introduced your talk with kind of an intriguing photo and the idea that I'll quote here:
"Under the right conditions, there is more that can be seen."
So, my first question has three parts to it. First, if you would tell us a little bit about what a Loeb Fellow is,, because not everybody's going to know that. Then, I'd love to hear about what you see the role of our public libraries could and should serve in our communities and in our society.
Then somewhere in there, maybe you can tell us a little bit about when you talked about "With the right conditions, we can see more," what did you mean about that as it comes to the library?
Shamichael Hallman 02:58
Yeah, well, maybe I'll start with the fellowship. So, the Loeb fellowship is a program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. It provides mid-career professionals an opportunity to study and reflect on the built environment and social issues. Each year, the fellowship brings together 9-10 diverse leaders. These are folks who are architects, urban planners, designers, artists, policymakers, who are really focused on improving cities and communities. The fellowship allows you to basically spend a year, one academic year at Harvard, where you can take classes and engage with professors and students and just collaborate with others from really a variety of disciplines.
During my fellowship year, I was very interested in learning more about design, but also took an opportunity to go across Harvard. So, I spent a lot of time at the Divinity School, quite a bit of time at the Kennedy School of Government, and then also some general education classes. But, the fellowship is unique in that it also gives you access to MIT, which is just a really short drive from Harvard. I spent quite a bit of time at MIT. While at Harvard, I was trying to sort of advance my professional career. At MIT wanted to just sort of, you know, satisfy personal desire.
So, I took a class in writing. I took some entrepreneurship classes. Perhaps the most interesting class was a class on photographing the night sky and astrophotography. This is where that "seeing things under the right conditions" is. So, this would be a weekly class that would meet from basically 7 pm till about 10:30 each Thursday night. In the very beginning parts of that class, the professor stressed the importance of giving your eyes time to adjust to the night sky. He would say this very often, that there are things in the sky that are actually visible to the human eye, to the natural eye. No additional magnifying glass or telescope. Like there are some things you can just see, but it takes your eyes a little bit of time to adjust, and the longer that you can fixate your eyes on the night sky, as opposed to, say, city lights or your phone or anything, any sort of light pollution, that you will be able to see more. So, that's really where that statement was. It became really a guiding concept for me during the fellowship year as I was thinking about what is the role of public space in a society that is isolated (social isolation, that is), politically polarized, that is fragmented across almost every line.
As I think about education, we think about income levels and these sorts of things. So, that's really what that statement was. So, I got the opportunity to really explore that question and to think more deeply about it not only from a design perspective but also through many other lenses that allow me to gain a richer understanding.
Ame Sanders 06:20
So, talk a little bit, if you would, about how you see the public library helping our communities and our society in that very polarized time that we face.
Shamichael Hallman 06:32
Sure. So, before I started the fellowship at Harvard, I was a branch manager in Memphis. It was a particular, really interesting situation where the branch that I was managing was going through a reimagining and renovation process. It was a historic library branch in Memphis, actually the first library branch in Memphis, over 100 years old. As a part of this reimagining and renovation process, there were a couple of ideals and a couple of goals that we were trying to hit.
One was around socioeconomic mixing. So, we really wanted to ask ourselves, "How public is this public space? Who are the people that are not coming through the doors? Who are the people groups, the communities that are not making their way in? How might we understand ways to serve those folks?" So, this first goal here was around any given program that we did on any given day; how could we work to ensure that there was a variety of Memphians that were in attendance across all sorts of socioeconomic lenses? I think that is an important role, and I think it's one that public libraries are uniquely positioned to feel. Because, as we think about society now, there are not many spaces. There are not many indoor public spaces that do not require you to purchase something or believe a particular sort of way. There are very few spaces where you can just be, right? The library is a crucial space.
So, since the library is one of those few remaining spaces, there's a tremendous opportunity then to begin to create opportunities for people to mix. Opportunities for people to come in contact, whether that is a very light interaction or something more prolonged over the course of a one or two-hour library program, but an opportunity for people to be able to encounter folks who they might not see otherwise. So, I think that's one key role. Then another goal that we were trying to achieve was around civic engagement. Here, we really wanted people to see the library not only as a space that was that they had, that was theirs, that there was some ownership, there was some stewardship there, but we also wanted to ensure that the types of events and programs that we were doing help people see themselves in public life, right?
As we think about now where we are, particularly from a civic standpoint, the civic literacy levels in our country are at very low levels. There have been a number of surveys that have come out this year to talk about just basic levels of civics that most folks just don't understand. We also understand that in many communities, the level of people who turn out to vote is often very low, particularly in local elections. So, we want to think about the various things that libraries could do. You know, not necessarily doing new things, but how will we leverage what we already have? How do we leverage space, collections, and programming to begin to foster a sense of civic renewal in the community?
-Reimagining the Cossitt Library
Ame Sanders 07:00
As you worked on this project, how did those guiding principles shape the changes that you made in the library? Did it change how you designed it physically? Did it change who you involved in the design? How did that project go, and what were some of the results that you saw from it?
Shamichael Hallman 10:07
Yeah. Well, I want to stress here that this was a project that had many different stakeholders, starting with library leadership. I don't think it would be possible to do such a project that we did without having strong leadership. So, when I think about Keenon McCloy, who's Director of Memphis Public Libraries, it really does start with having someone who has that vision. But then there were a number of other people in the community who saw the potential of that library, right?
So, to answer your question, there are a couple of things that happened. Number one is it required us to change our orientation of that space, Cossitt, because of a number of things that were happening in the community, had suffered from decades of disinvestment, and there had actually been a number of calls publicly and news clippings and that sort of thing to close the library branch. People wanted it to be something else. They wanted it to be a better use of that real estate. It is actually situated in a very prime portion of downtown Memphis. It has an unobstructed view of the Mississippi River. But it had been, in terms of visitorship, one of the least frequented library branches.
So, to have an orientation that said there's still something special about this place. There's still something special about this community. There's something that's happening here. It's not on us to come in with a savior complex and try to save this community or try to save this library. It really is looking at the really amazing things that are already happening, that have been happening here, and tapping into those and saying, "Hey, there's really wonderful stuff that's happening. We believe this library can be a part of that." Right? So, many times I've seen with nonprofit organizations--not necessarily with government, sometimes with government--this savior complex that comes in and says, "We're here now. Things are going to be better." So, that orientation was the one thing.
I would say number two was our staffing model. The library profession--I don't think there's anything revealing or shocking here, but the library profession is still a profession that is not very diverse. It is becoming more diverse. I give total credit to our library director here, who said, "Hey, there are not a lot of people in our community who have the Master of Library Science degree. They're not a lot of people who have a library background experience, but there are people who do really amazing stuff in this community. There are artists. There are computer software developers. There are polysci majors and people who are fresh out of college who believe in the mission and the vision of the library.
Let's create room and space for these people to come and join the staff and then give them the necessary training that they need to be able to function in a library. That doesn't diminish the librarianship. We still had a number of people who were trained to be librarians, and we needed that. But being able to open and expand who could actually work in a library was a key part. What happens there and then Ame is that when people come into the library, they begin to see themselves, right? They begin to see people who work in the library who look like them. Who have a similar experience and background that they have.
So, those are two things, but this certainly plays out in our collection. We totally reshaped our collection. We wanted to lean into the history of Memphis and the great culture that was there. It played across in a design perspective. We wanted to make sure that what you saw when you walked into that space could rival what you might see when you walked into, say, a private co-working space. So, there were a number of levers that had to be pulled to create a space where you could go, where you could achieve those outcomes around socioeconomic mixing and civic engagement and so forth.
-Civic Saturdays at the Library
Ame Sanders 14:03
You're currently at the Urban Library Council, and you also co-founded an organization called Libraries as Bridges. So, in addition to your work at the Cossitt Library, I know you have the chance to see all kinds of other libraries out there and librarians and communities that are doing great work. Maybe you could just share one or two stories about some of the work that you've seen in other communities that particularly inspires you and embodies this vision that you're talking about, about libraries being part of our social and cultural infrastructure.
Shamichael Hallman 14:39
Yeah, so I was with the Memphis Public Library from 2017-2022, and then I took the fellowship. While I was at the Memphis Public Library, I started having conversations with other libraries across the country. I wanted to know particularly how they were working to stitch their community together. And that Libraries as Bridges. It's not an official organization. That was more, I would say, kind of a grassroots movement to sort of understand what people were doing. From that, you hear all sorts of really interesting programs.
The one program that I was doing in Memphis that I was really curious to see if other people were doing was this event called Civic Saturday. Civic Saturday is an event of an organization in Seattle called Citizen University. The really lovely thing about Civic Saturday is they describe themselves and that event as a civic analog to a faith gathering. Being in the South, you know, people who don't even, you know, necessarily identify from a faith perspective, still understand what it's like to be in church and to understand that the elements and the rituals behind Church--the songs, the sermons, the moments of fellowship, right? So, I've been running that program throughout the many different branches in Memphis, and I started talking to other libraries that were doing that.
One thing that as we were having conversations--this is me and other librarians across the country who were running that particular program--is we began to see the power in hosting that event in open space. When I first started hosting that event, I was doing it in the library meeting room. Of course, you certainly get some people that show up, but at some point we said, “Hey, what if we stopped doing this in the library meeting room? What if we just did this right on the library floor?” Certainly, it would be some level of disruption to people who were doing their normal business in the library, but it might be an opportunity to engage folks who wouldn't have come to the program anyway.
So, we gave this a shot with one of one library branch. We put flyers and posters up about two weeks beforehand, saying, "Hey, on this particular Saturday, we're going to do this event. It's going to be loud. There's going to be music. There are going to be songs. It's going to be open to everyone, but it's going to be right next to the public PCs. So, if you come during that two-hour stretch, it might be a little chaotic. It might feel a little chaotic, but we invite you to come and be a part of it exactly." It's exactly what happened. There were people who were kind of on the fringes when the program started, but then, as they heard songs and as they heard stories from people, they came closer and said, "Hey, this looks kind of interesting. What's going on here?" And we invited those people to come and to be fully a part of that program.
That is now something that is happening across libraries across the country, where that sort of program, people are bringing that into the open space. I think that is something that could have a tremendous impact on how we do library programming.
Ame Sanders 17:48
I love that story because I am familiar with Eric Liu and his organization, Citizen University. I haven't heard of libraries who are doing that, particularly out in their open space, but that's a beautiful way to bring that to a community and to, as you were describing earlier, to bring a sense of civic ownership and responsibility to the library as well anything else. Any other ideas that you want to share with us that you particularly like?
-Benefits of an Event Series
Shamichael Hallman 18:15
Yeah. So, there are a couple of things that I'll share. So, before I even started doing or hosting Civic Saturday gatherings, when I first started working at Memphis Public Library, I was introduced to one of their signature events, which was called Five Fridays of Jazz. This was being held at the central location, which is really great in terms of geography. It's a very easy place to get to public transit, car, whatever it might be. This event identified five jazz artists who were in the city, and every Friday afternoon, brought them to the library to do a free concert. I've watched this play out for a number of years, and it was just incredible in terms of the diversity of people who showed up, right? You had people who were just kind of already at the library, who just kind of would come just because that's their normal thing to do. But then also, now you have these jazz lovers, music lovers, who are coming from across the city to this event. It creates, again, as you think about that idea of socioeconomic mixing, it creates, number one, that very brief interaction of saying, "Oh, wow, hey, there are people here. This is a very interesting mix of people."
For some folks, it's going to be, they're going to come to one event, and then that's going to be it. It's a great thing for them. But also what we saw is that because that event was happening over five weeks, there were some people who would come every week. By week three or week four, people start saying, "Hey, you're coming here every week. I noticed that I saw you here last week, right?" That begins to spark up a conversation that then can lead you to a new acquaintance, a new friendship, whatever it might be.
But again, as we think about our communities that are isolated, that are fragmented, that are polarized, these sorts of opportunities that not only use art, culture, and food but posting those programs over a period of time where there's an opportunity for people to bump against each other multiple times is a model that I have seen in countless libraries. Cambridge Public Libraries doing it right now. They have a portable cooktop, and they do this Cambridge Cooks program, which, again, is kind of very similar. Where instead of bringing in jazz artists, they're bringing in local chefs, and they're doing that over a series of weeks, and you kind of get that same effect.
-Meet Me At The Library, a Book and a Vision
Ame Sanders 18:15
So that makes me think about your book that you're just about to release. So, the title of the book is Meet Me at the Library, which sounds very consistent with what we're just talking about. Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy. So, I don't often talk with authors, to be honest with you, but maybe you could give us a sneak peek of what we might find in your book and sort of tease it a bit for folks who might want to order a copy and learn more about some of your philosophy around the library.
Shamichael Hallman 21:18
Yep, absolutely. So, I mentioned that the Cossitt branch was undergoing renovation, and that renovation took a number of years for lots of things. It is a very old and historic building, and so you have issues. There were issues with lead and asbestos, all those sorts of things you have to deal with when you're renovating a very old building. But the building is now there, and there are all sorts of really wonderful programs. Actually, this weekend there's going to be a podcast festival that's going to be there, which is really, really great. I hate I can't go there. It's going to be wonderful and attract people from across the mid-south and Memphis and Little Rock and Tunica, Mississippi. All sorts of people that are coming to this thing.
But for a number of years, the building was closed, and we knew what was coming. We knew that in this new space, there was going to be a co-working area. We knew that there were going to be recording studios, both for audio and video purposes. We knew that there was going to be a performing arts theater space that would be there. We knew that there was going to be a cafe that was going to be there, and there was going to be a local chef who was going to be highlighted. And a lot of times when we would tell people that, they would be like, "What are you doing? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. Like that that's in a library? I don't get it." And we would have to tell people, "Okay, well, just meet us at the library tomorrow at 12. We'll do lunch, and we'll walk you through everything that's happening." So, that name is very much tied to a "come and see what's happening at the library," right?
So, the substance of the book, because I was very interested in the role of the library around issues of political polarization and around issues of social isolation, I often ventured beyond the library bubble. I found myself in conversations with researchers, people who were civil society leaders, activists, all sorts of just really interesting spaces that were outside of the traditional, say, American Library Association Conference. A couple of these were think tanks, where people were like, "Okay, we're going to come together over a couple of months and try to figure out how do we reduce the effect of polarization in the US. How do we create moments for people to feel less lonely? Almost without fail, I would be in these conversations, mainly just listening and learning. We would go days and days or weeks and weeks or months, and at the end of the conversation, people say, "Oh, in libraries, by the way." So, they would have all these solutions about, you know, things, do this and do that and this and that and that. It didn't occur to people until the last session of the last day that public libraries could be an integral part of this.
So, the book, for me, was, number one, an opportunity to talk to those people particularly. To talk to the sort of next generation of urban planners, designers, architects, right? To say, "Hey, let me show you what's actually happening in the library." Let me give you a couple of examples of ways that libraries do work to bring down levels of social isolation, and do work to bring people from diverse perspectives together. Whether that sort of moves the needle on whether people change perspectives or not, that remains to be seen. But at least they are creating moments for people to have conversations about difficult topics.
So, that is really the aim of the book to, number one talk, say, "Hey, we do have these issues." The Surgeon General saying that the loneliness crisis in this country is a crisis. The things that we see around political polarization where are people saying that I can't talk to my coworkers. Where do I go to even get off my chest the things that I believe about where our society should be heading? So, we start lifting up examples in the book about how this is actually playing out. So, of course, I start with the Memphis story because that's what I know most intimately, and talk about how we did that. How design did that. How programming did that. How partnerships did that. Right? But then we go out and start looking at other libraries--urban libraries, rural libraries, and that sort of thing.
-Libraries in Divided Times
Ame Sanders 25:24
I love hearing your vision for the library and the ideas that you have for how it can affect our communities and our society. And I really appreciate the fact that you shared these sorts of ideas and bright spots. And I can't wait to read your book and see how that has come to life in different communities. But one of the things that I have to ask you about, to get your wisdom and thoughts on, is there are tons of libraries that are kind of basically under attack today. They are being restricted.
Even my own public library here in Greenville, our board has put in place some policies that are so restrictive that it minimizes the impact the library can even have as its very basic function of being a book depot. It limits the kind of engagement that people might have even in that very basic function. I know that my library system is not alone in this. So, can you talk a little bit about how you see some of the challenges that libraries face today, and librarians face today and how you see us overcoming those?
Shamichael Hallman 26:37
Well,if I had those answers, I would probably be on a speaking circuit.
Ame Sanders 26:44
But Shamichael, I know you’ve got ideas about it.
Shamichael Hallman 26:48
Yes. So, I wanted to write this book, definitely with this audience of urban planners and designers and such in mind. But I also wanted to talk to the everyday person. So, many times as I was talking about those tours that I would do in Memphis, when I would ask people to come and see what was happening, people would often say, "Well, you know, I haven't been to the library in a very long time. Maybe I went in high school or in middle school. Maybe if I went to college, I may have gone. But, man, I haven't been in a library in years, maybe decades.
And I said, "Okay, well, that's good. Why don't you come in and let me show you what's actually happening? Let me bring you inside a typical week at the library. Let me show you the way that librarians are serving people and helping folks meet very basic needs. Let me show you the program that is for people who are learning how to run a business. Let me show you this reference librarian who's helping people do a resume for the first time. Let me show you this, this mom story time program where you know mothers are really coming and have no other sort of escape throughout the day, but this moment, they're able to connect with other moms."
People, when they would come, they would say, "Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know libraries did that. I had no idea. Oh, wow, this is interesting." Right? So, I think it is incumbent upon us library professionals, library lovers, and friends of libraries to ensure, number one, that the message is getting out there. There are some forces that are really trying to shut down the library as we know it, right? There are people who do not believe in a space such as the library.
I think, honestly if we were to introduce the concept of a library right now if it did not exist and we were to introduce it right now, people would call us crazy. People would give us all sorts of labels, and we probably know what some of those labels are. But it is on us to be able to talk about the work that libraries do. That was so much of our work in Memphis, was to say, yes, there is a part of our work that is serving the folks who are coming here every day. We have to do that because these people, some of these folks that have no other place they could go.
But we also need to get in front of the everyday folks who don't come here and say, "Let me give you concrete things that this library is doing and how it's making your community better because it's here." So, in my role at the Urban Libraries Council--it's an association of urban public libraries across North America. I'm often not necessarily driving these conversations but listening to them. I've had the opportunity to listen to so many thought leaders as I travel the country and listen to podcasts like this.
I remember being in a conversation with Carla Hayden, who was the Librarian of Congress. There were some folks who were asking her, library leaders who were asking her, "Well, you know, Carla, what do we do about these attacks? What do we do about these book bands? How do we move forward?" And she said something to the effect--I don't want to put words in your mouth--something to the effect of, "Tell me about how you are encouraging, equipping, empowering, your library users to be your fiercest champions." It was sort of a moment when she said that, where people said, "Oh, okay." This probably is not the only answer, but there's something here where we need to be looking at the people who come through the doors every day and saying, "How do we convert these people to be our fiercest advocates? How do we ensure that these people are the stewards who go to the community, who go back to their spaces and talk about it?"
I'll give you a concrete example of what this looked like for me in Memphis. As we were going through the renovation process, I knew we needed to get in front of people and communities that may not come. So, we did two things, and both of them were very, very powerful. And both of them involved people who were already using the library. The first was we said, "Hey, would you person, John, Sally, the person who uses the library every day, Would you be willing to give a tour of this library to your best friends? People in your community like your neighbor, your coworker? Like, on any given day, we'll help you. We'll give you some materials. We'll pair you with a librarian. But would you just give a tour to the people who you know and talk to them about why you love the library so much?"
There were people who did that. There were some people who were giving tours all the time. Then there were some other people who we said, "Well, hey, if you don't feel comfortable coming here and giving a tour, would you host a little party at your house, a little reception at your house? We'll have the Library Manager or library director just come and give a little talk. We'll do some white refreshments, and this will just be an opportunity for that person to share what's happening in the library."
As we did that, as the tour started coming through the library, and as we started going out into the community, we recognized that we then needed to have ways when people said, "Oh, I'm man, I haven't been in the library in a long time. What do you want me to do? How can I support you?" Well, we want to get you to get your library card. We want you to come in here again and bring a friend. But we needed to have a process, an engagement vehicle so that once people expressed an interest in the library, that we had a way to engage them. So, for us, we had a ladder. So, that ladder of engagement was we've got this program that's happening at the library next week. Will you just come and check out the program? Sure, I'll do that, right? And then maybe they come to that program, and they like, and they come out to another program, and we say, "Okay, well, hey, we've got another step for you here. This next step is we would love when you come out to this program next week, will you bring a friend? Will you bring somebody who's never been to the library before, just so they can come see what's happening?" "Sure, I can do that." Cool. So that's a second ladder there. A second step in that ladder.
Then maybe they bring somebody and say, "Oh, wow, man, this person is really excited about the library. Like, what else could we do?" Well, maybe we could ask that person if they'd be interested in coming maybe an hour earlier, helping set up, or maybe staying an hour later, breaking down, right? These sorts of things where we were turning existing library patrons into champions, and using those folks--not using, that's not the right word--really leveraging their relationships to bring other people into the library, knowing that once those people came to the library, we had some way of getting them engaged.
You might say that that really becomes kind of a Friends of the Libraries model. It's kind of something that you might do that if you don't have a friends group now, it's maybe something you could do to start a friends group. But if you have a friends group, maybe it's something you could do to strengthen your friends group. That's a very basic, very simple way of getting people acclimated to the library, interested in the library, so that then when you have these city council meetings, when you have these board meetings, you can invite these people to come and talk about, "Well, hey, no, it's important to me that there is a variety of books that are here. It's important to me that the library is open when I get off work. It's important that we don't close the hours. It's important that there's another branch over here so I don't have to make three bus runs to get here."
So, it really is about that sort of grassroots advocacy. Because the reality is that the other side, the people who don't want there to be a range of books, who don't want the library as it is, who don't want there to be multiple library staff who are paid well, those people are well organized. It is on us to be what organizes with.
Ame Sanders 26:49
I love that example because it also takes another step for the library, from your being a patron to just being a a passive consumer of library services. It actually steps up the ownership, the shared ownership, and responsibility for the library and for the community. So, I think that's a really powerful example of where any of us can start or continue to develop the relationships we have with our community.
Shamichael Hallman 35:31
Yep. So, before I was with the library, I was in a church setting. I was an assistant pastor at a very large church in Memphis. At the heart of the church was this belief that everyone who came through the door had some gift, some skill, some talent that was for the good of the rest of the body, right? Didn't matter what your education level was. Didn't matter where you worked, where you lived. If you were a member of this church, there was something that you could contribute that would be for the benefit of the rest of the body. I brought that belief perspective to the library. Some people were like, "Hey, why would you do that?" I said, "Well, hey, your tax dollars go here. So why wouldn't your talents go here as well?" Of course, we know that that's not possible for everyone. People have jobs and have families, and it's not always possible. But you'd be amazed at how people could show up for the library. How people would show up. How everyday people who are who are using it every day, if you just gave them a few steps and said, "Hey, would you write a letter of support? Would you make a call to City Hall?" Would absolutely do that for you.
Ame Sanders 36:44
It just reminds us that building community is, in every way, a team sport. It's for all of us to do. So, before we wrap up, Shamichael, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you think we should talk about or you'd like to cover?
Shamichael Hallman 36:57
I thank you for this opportunity, and it is my hope that you know, particularly in this last conversation that we've had around stewardship, that if people don't hear anything else, if they don't buy the book, if nothing else penetrates that idea of stewardship and ownership amongst library patrons, is something that we can absolutely do to make our communities better and stronger.
I will say maybe the last thing here is this book is not a complete story about the library. I don't think you can really tell that story. I mean, in my work at Urban Libraries Council right now, I actually have two distinct areas. So, there's an area that's focused on economic opportunity. So, we're thinking about workforce development and entrepreneurship. Libraries do a lot of stuff there, right? A lot of lot of things there. It'd actually been interesting that some of our advocacy work on the Hill here in DC, thinking about that aspect of the library, is something that people really love across the board. But this other part of my work around democracy and civic engagement is this whole other thing, and within both of these are numerous stories and programs and people. I can't tell all that in one book. I'm not trying to.
What I'm trying to do in this book is to look again at these very two particular things that are happening in our community right now around social isolation and political polarization and saying here is not necessarily a vision of how of what libraries can do, but this is a testimony to what libraries are already doing. I'm not asking libraries to do more. Certainly, I'm asking folks to scale. People who are doing things great to say, "Hey, how can we do more of this?" But the book is not like this sort of, "Oh, well, what if libraries were to do this?" It is to say, "No, no. Let me shine a spotlight on stuff that's already happening." These are everyday people who are library professionals, who live in the communities where the libraries are, who say, “Hey, there's something in our community that needs to change, and we believe the library can be a part of that change, one part of that change, and we're going to go do it.”
That is what we are trying to do in this book is spotlight things that are happening so that maybe somebody hears this podcast and says, "Hey, man, that stuff is not happening at our library right now. Maybe it could. Maybe it didn't have to be the library. Maybe it could be me. Maybe I, as an everyday citizen, could host something when I get off work on a Saturday morning. Or maybe I could go talk to librarian and see how I could help them, how I could assist them." That is the message that we're trying to get out.
Ame Sanders 36:58
Shamichael, I want to thank you for joining me today, and I really appreciate the work that you're doing with and on behalf of the libraries across the country. Thank you again for joining us.
Shamichael Hallman 39:46
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
-Summary and Conclusion
Ame Sanders 39:51
You know, lately, it seems that when we hear news about our libraries, it is almost always something contentious. Some days, it can even feel like our local libraries and even our librarians are under attack. But thankfully, in this episode, Shamichael Hallman painted a positive and optimistic path forward for our libraries and for their role in building more inclusive communities.
Shamichael provided a compelling vision for how libraries can be used to help combat social isolation and polarization and even build civic engagement in our communities. In my conversation with Shamichael, he asked us to see the library as so much more than just a book depot. He asked us to see the library as a key part of a community's social infrastructure, one of the last places where we can all freely come together and engage with one another. A place to learn about and build community. A place where all are welcome.
And specifically for those of us who love the library, he challenged us to be more than passive consumers of library resources. Shamichael challenged us to be true friends of our library, to stand up for our library, and to become passionate advocates for the kind of library we want to have in our community. So, I hope the next time you want to get together with a few friends, maybe you have a small gathering to host. Then I hope you'll consider saying, "Meet me at the library."
This has been the State of Inclusion podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, the best compliment for our work is your willingness to share the podcast or discuss these ideas with others. If you'd like to hear more about the practice of building an inclusive and equitable community, head over to theinclusivecommunity.com and sign up for our newsletter. Also, feel free to leave us a review or reach out. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening, and join us again next time.
CONTRIBUTORS
Guest: Shamichael Hallman
Host: Ame Sanders
Social Media and Marketing Coordinator: Kayla Nelson
Podcast Coordinator: Emma Winiski
Sound: FAROUT Media