2020 Poster Sessions
Leading Forward with Disaster Preparedness and Recovery:
Public Librarians Build Resilience

Intended Audience

Public Libraries, Community Engagement & Programming Departments, Library Leadership
 

Poster Summary and Objectives

In this poster presentation, we present results from the IMLS funded research project Rural Libraries and Disasters: Investigating Resiliency in the Digital Environment and Beyond (RE-96-18-0127-18). This collaborative research is led by faculty from the Florida State University’s iSchool and the University of Texas, with support from PLAN, FLA, and the State Library of Florida. We investigated how public libraries and librarians uniquely served their communities after Hurricane Michael, including their challenges and their triumphs. During this poster session, we will share findings from our fieldwork and interviews with public librarians located in the panhandle and their experiences with Hurricane Michael’s impact, aftermath, and recovery. Our findings include identified challenges such as ambiguity related to expected and unexpected library and librarian emergency social service provider roles and failures of various communication continuity following the disaster. Additionally, public librarians contributed to our understanding of resilience. Public librarians demonstrated the critical roles of not only providing shelter and connecting communities with critical emergency information services but also the roles of archiving history and storytelling central to public libraries and librarians contributing to community resilience.

Materials of current best practices in public library hurricane preparedness and response, as well as toolkits, will be provided during this session. Poster attendees will participate in a discussion of how public librarians leverage information and communication technologies to assist affected communities in coping with crisis coordination, social support, and pragmatic resource monitoring. This poster will focus on new challenges in a digital resource and information environment in which displaced community members seek public librarians’ assistance with their information, communication, and material needs in times of natural disaster.

Presenter

Zoë Leonarczyk- Florida State University, iSchool, Information Institute

• Zoë Leonarczyk is an information professional currently obtaining a Ph.D. in Information from Florida State University. Zoë has library experience that has covered cataloging, training, supervising, and user services. Additionally, Zoë has experience teaching in a variety of settings.

• Gerido, L. H., Tenney, C. S., Leonarczyk, Z. (2019). The Influence of Libraries on Population Health: Trends in Health Literacy among Vulnerable Populations. Poster to be presented at 2019 IAPHS Conference, The Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, Seattle, Washington. (National).
• Ghorbanzadeh, M., Ozguven, E. E., Tenney, C. S., Leonarczyk, Z., Jones, F. R., Mardis, M. A. (2019). Transportation Accessibility Assessment of Critical Facilities: A GIS-Based Case Study in Northwest Florida Focusing on Libraries and Hospitals. Transportation Research Record.