Libraries increasingly have social workers on staff

When Jackie Narkiewicz switched careers and became a librarian, she thought she’d spend her workdays “drinking hot beverages and discussing literature with people.”

But during her 16 years as a librarian on New York’s Long Island, Narkiewicz has also faced a man threatening to kill her and a patron screaming while cutting her own hair in the bathroom. For her job, Narkiewicz has been trained in CPR and mental health crisis response and carries the opioid overdose antidote naloxone with her.

As libraries nationwide contend with a surge in patrons seeking refuge in the stacks because of poverty, drug addiction or mental illness, a growing number of institutions have social workers on staff.

It’s the latest step in an evolution that libraries have been dealing with for years as homelessness and the opioid crisis reach emergency levels and patrons have come to rely on libraries as free, safe spaces open to all.

Though homelessness has seen some declines in the U.S. since the recession, it has surged in cities like Seattle, where a homelessness state of emergency and a spike in questions from library patrons about things like housing, transportation and food led the public library system to hire its first full-time social worker in 2018.

Other libraries, unable to afford such a step, have trained librarians to handle certain emergencies themselves. That’s caused some debate among library workers about whether they’re being asked to adapt to an evolving job or to do work that goes too far beyond their expertise.

“I can get you a phone number, I can get you a book you want ... but when you’re dealing with mental health issues, I don’t feel appropriately trained for it,” Narkiewicz said.

A few master’s degree programs for aspiring librarians have classes on mental health, but most don’t. To help fill in the gaps, an estimated 40-plus library systems have fulltime social workers on staff, according to Whole Person Librarianship, an organization that tracks such partnerships.

At the Queens Public Library in New York City, resident social worker Shantel Johnson oversees a team of library case managers, but she’s also available to help librarians communicate with struggling patrons, connect visitors to services or just listen to people.

“They’ll open up to staff, and staff is doing 14 different things,” Johnson said. She says she regularly helps patrons who are homeless, experiencing abuse or having trouble applying for jobs.