Building Usage of Public Libraries as a Source of Health Information in Five Diverse Utah Communities

Our ultimate goal is to develop a models for building public library-community collaborations with diverse racial/ethnic/cultural communities which support community usage of libraries and library programs as sources for health information. We define health as the Seven Domains of Health physical, emotional, environmental, social, intellectual, financial, and spiritual. As the first step toward this goal, we held Community Engagement Studios with community experts from each community; these individuals are experts by virtue of their lived experience and participated in the Community Engagement Studios as consultants. The communities within the Salt Lake City area identified for CE Studios included the African immigrant/refugee community, African American community, Hispanic/Latino community, Pacific Islander community, and the 109/Alaskan Native community. We also held a CE Studio consultation with librarians from libraries in the areas where these community members live. Finally, we held a workshop with representatives of community organizations and the librarians to discuss the findings from the CE Studios and to draft a plan for increasing usage of public libraries and library programs as sources for health information by members of the communities.