The Library Experience Office

Community safety

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

In 2021, LAPL created the Library Experience Office to examine what it means to provide welcoming, safe, and secure spaces for library users and staff. The idea emerged from a four-year staff-driven initiative to evaluate safety and security at LAPL. Staff wanted support to help them work with an increasing number of people in libraries expressing aggressive and sometimes violent behavior, as well as those who are not yet at that level but are in crisis from substance abuse, homelessness, and mental health challenges. The Library Experience Office helps people living with trauma—often multiple forms—stay in libraries. This is vital because libraries create opportunities for learning and human connection that empower us, but unhoused and unsheltered individuals are disproportionately removed from them for conduct violations like sleeping, excessive personal items, and hygiene conditions. If LAPL welcomes all, it’s time to evolve.

The Library Experience Office has three interconnected focus areas: (1) Training frontline LAPL staff on trauma-informed approaches to serving patrons, (2) Expanding LAPL’s internal staffing to include social workers and Community Service Representatives (CSR), and (3) Building partnerships with mental health and social service organizations to support patrons and staff. LAPL’s shift to a trauma-informed system means library workers have sensitivities toward trauma, including an understanding of what it is, how it manifests in us and others, and how to respond to it. In 2024-2025, the Library Experience Office will increase staff training it piloted over the last year. This will include a two-day training customized for LAPL by Humannovations called “Library Ally Patron Interactions Skills,” which frames the relationship with the patron as an alliance and offers staff tips on how to support distress reduction rather than finding ways to get out of situations making them feel uncomfortable. LAPL staff and patrons also have direct on-demand access to two social workers, nine CSRs, and four contracted mental health and social service providers. CSRs are not clinicians but community health workers who support patrons in crisis using libraries. LA2050 funding will provide CSRs with essential items to help individuals stay in libraries, such as hygiene supplies, food, shoes, clothing, and Metro passes. These items meet patrons’ immediate needs and promote stress reduction.

Libraries are ideal places for people to coexist across differences. When public spaces foster coexistence, the potential for innovation, equity, and well-being increases exponentially. If successful, LA’s 73 city public libraries will be places where all visitors feel seen, validated, respected, and supported. LA2050 funding will help LAPL become trauma-informed, that is, promote environments of healing and recovery rather than practices that may inadvertently re-traumatize both patrons and staff. By being trauma-informed, LAPL will experience more positive interactions with individuals in crisis. Its staff will have ongoing training to confidently de-escalate confrontational incidents and prevent them from occurring. LAPL will also share what it learns with other institutions across LA County. LAPL leaders are already advising the City’s Department of Aging, which is interested in becoming trauma-informed, as well as public libraries in Arkansas, Winnipeg, and Halifax.

Library Experience Office social workers, CSRs, and contracted organizations collect patron encounter data. During their first 10 months of service (June 2023 to April 2024), CSRs had 472 incident de-escalations, connected people to resources 2,178 times, and recorded 1,173 positive patron interactions. With Library Foundation seed funding, they started distributing essentials like hygiene items and flip-flops to patrons needing them. These items quickly ran out, and LA2050 funding will replenish them for a year. Social workers also directly supported staff most often (429 times) and patrons (129 times). Partner organizations recorded nearly 3,000 positive interactions, and the Library Experience Office produced training facilitated by partners, including 498 library workers trained to administer Narcan, 198 completed the Crisis Prevention Institute training on verbal conflict de-escalation, 348 completed Boundary training, and 91 completed the Humanivations training.

While the Library Foundation of Los Angeles is the applicant as the Los Angeles Public Library’s fundraising and strategic partner for 30+ years, LAPL is overseeing, developing, and implementing this project with support from its partners. The Library Foundation will support LAPL staff in purchasing grant-funded supplies, assessing project impact, accounting for funds, and reporting. The Library Foundation will make grant funds available to LAPL for the hygienic and other basic-need items that Library Experience Office staff, most often Community Service Representatives (CSR), will distribute to patrons as needed. LAPL’s Library Experience coordinates its strategies with LAHSA, DMH, HOPICS, and the Mayor’s Office as well as contracts with local agencies to supplement its services.