Title
Libraries as Resiliency Hubs
Calhoun County, FL
Contact
PROJECT LEAD
Marcia Mardis
CONTACT INFO
- mmardis@fsu.edu
THE IDEA
The Calhoun County team implemented the Rural Resiliency Hub, a plan to realign local libraries as centers of support and resiliency for natural disaster response efforts.
THE CHALLENGE
The Rural Resiliency Hub addresses the challenge of improving rural citizensʼ reliable, consistent, and efficient access to aid, services, and support in increasingly frequent natural disasters. Libraries help in disaster response efforts now, but can serve as recognized centers of support and resiliency.
THE TEAM
Research Partners:
- Florida State University
Civic Partners:
- Calhoun County, FL Public Libraries
- Calhoun County Commission
- Calhoun County Clerk, EOC Sheriff, Health Dept., and Public Schools
THE APPROACH
The team worked to identify key beneficiaries and what they needed from a resiliency hub; created an inclusive process for co-designing a public library resiliency hub; and delineated what public library resiliency hubs provide and how they can be sustained. The team co-constructed a resiliency hub design framework with community officials and residents that integrates quantitative and qualitative data to account for the interdependency and interconnectivity between social, spatial, environmental, and infrastructural factors in community resilience.
THE IMPACT
- Interactions with multiple stakeholder groups revealed informational, environmental, and infrastructural needs to foster public-library disaster resilience hubs in rural communities.
- The team’s process to address and bridge the response gap and resiliency divide using existing rural libraries as resiliency hubs against natural disasters appealed to both regional and national library systems.