Kentucky's Breathitt County Public Library Honored as Inaugural Recipient of the Gale/Library Journal Libraries Defying the Odds Award
CHICAGO, Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Breathitt County Public Library (BCPL), in Jackson, Kentucky, is the inaugural recipient of the Library Journal/Gale Libraries Defying the Odds award. The Libraries Defying the Odds award, sponsored by Gale, a Cengage company, recognizes a U.S. public library that is stepping up for its community and staff in the face of adversity and celebrates library workers providing services, programming and collections for those who need them most.
Library staff of five leverages strong community connections to provide residents with resources and support during pandemic closures, historic natural disasters
CHICAGO, Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Breathitt County Public Library (BCPL), in Jackson, Kentucky, is the inaugural recipient of the Library Journal/Gale Libraries Defying the Odds award. The Libraries Defying the Odds award, sponsored by Gale, a Cengage company, recognizes a U.S. public library that is stepping up for its community and staff in the face of adversity and celebrates library workers providing services, programming and collections for those who need them most.
In recent years all libraries have faced unanticipated obstacles, from natural disasters to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic to escalated intellectual freedom challenges. BCPL, serving a rural population of just over 13,500 in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, faced an exceptional series of hardships during the past three years and showed great creativity, grit and commitment in the ways it pivoted to serve its community.
"Over the past several years, extraordinary things were happening at this small, rural library in Kentucky. With their deep roots in the community, the library's staff listened intently to what their neighbors wanted and needed in the face of life challenges that no one anticipated. As a result, the library and the community have been forever transformed," said Lisa Peet, Executive Editor, Library Journal. "BCPL exemplifies the critical ways—beyond checking out books and answering reference questions—that libraries serve our communities."
Beginning with COVID shutdowns in 2020 and continuing with historic flooding disasters in 2021 and 2022, BCPL's small—but mighty—staff of five relied on ingenuity and close community connections to provide its residents with the services they needed to meet an evolving set of needs. From a rapid move to remote services during the pandemic to connecting residents with emergency services during two natural disasters, BCPL listened and responded as its community faced life-changing adversity.
Stephen D. Bowling, BCPL's executive director since 2001, said, "That's what we are about. We're a service agency. When the worst happened, we did everything we could."
Jackson, Kentucky, does not have a bookstore, movie theater, or video-rental outlet. Residents also depend on the library for broadband, fax, scan, and copy services; laptop lending; Wi-Fi hotspot checkouts; meeting rooms; and a safe, climate-controlled space for rest and entertainment. When faced with COVID closures in early 2020, BCPL quickly pivoted to provide the community with virtual story hours and take-home craft bags. When able to reopen with social distancing in June 2020, the library collaborated with Breathitt County Extension Services to offer mental health resources for teens and adults.
As libraries were beginning to fully reopen in March 2021, a major catastrophe hit Jackson when the North Fork of the Kentucky River flooded. The library served as a shelter, distributing water, food, and cleaning supplies. When the waters waned, residents thought they would never face a disaster like that again—it was considered a 100-year flood. However, in late 2022, a second 100-year flood hit Jackson, the worst since the county began keeping records in 1828.
BCPL's hilltop site helped it avoid the worst of the flooding. After closing for a day to allow staff to help family and neighbors, the library opened its doors the following morning and quickly became a disaster relief center, with reporters, photographers, and FEMA workers sleeping on the floor; FEMA and other agencies then set up shop in the library to serve Jackson residents. Library staff spread the word that people could come in to use the electricity, internet, and air conditioning.
Outreach was also key to BCPL's response. Bowling said, "We sent our staff out with water and cleaning supplies. We started visiting people we knew were regular users of the library and did checkups. Sometimes we mopped mud out of houses. We had requests to pick up medicine."
As days passed, library staff helped their neighbors search online for documents lost in the flooding that were needed for filing FEMA and insurance claims—everything from house deeds to Social Security cards.
Following the initial trauma of the floods, library staff realized that their community was dealing with the emotional aftermath of the upheaval of their lives. To help people verbalize what they'd been through, the library invited them to help document the flood for the Breathitt County Heritage Center, BCPL's local history and genealogy collection. "We do a lot of work in recording and preserving local history," said Bowling. "Rather than saying, 'How's your mental health,' we can say, 'We want to record your story.'"
As the BCPL team itself continues to recover from the past few years and how that time has impacted the library's building and budget, Bowling said they've learned many long-term lessons, and the first one was to "listen more effectively to what the community needs and what the community wants."
As the 2023 Libraries Defying the Odds award recipient, BCPL will receive $10,000 in grant money from Library Journal and Gale and is profiled in the August issue of the magazine in print and online. Also featured in LJ's August issue is South Carolina's Charleston County Public Library, under the leadership of Executive Director Angela Craig, earning an honorable mention for its work helping to combat food insecurity in tangible, sustainable ways that involve the entire community.
To learn more, visit https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/libraries-defying-the-odds-guidelines.
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Founded in 1876, Library Journal is one of the oldest and most respected publications covering the library field. Over 75,000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries read LJ. Library Journal reviews over 8,000 books, audiobooks, videos, databases, and websites annually, and provides coverage of technology, management, policy, and other professional concerns. For more information, visit www.libraryjournal.com. Library Journal is a publication of Media Source Inc., which also owns School Library Journal, The Horn Book, Junior Library Guild, and AKJ Education.
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Cengage Group, an education technology company serving millions of learners in 165 countries, advances the way students learn through quality, digital experiences. The company currently serves the K-12, higher education, professional, library, English language teaching and workforce training markets worldwide. Gale, part of Cengage Group, believes in the power and joy of learning. For schools, the company helps drive positive outcomes by providing essential, curriculum-aligned content that empowers educators to solve curriculum challenges and meet students where they are. Today that includes supporting distance and social and emotional learning as well as equity and inclusion goals. Gale's K-12 offerings extend from educational databases and custom eBook collections to instructional tools and professional development resources. For more information, please visit: www.gale.com/schools.
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