Spotlight – Meghan Wakeman Capital District Library Council Trauma-Informed Libraries Toolkit

Posted by benniefinch on October 25th, 2021 Posted in: Blog
Tags: Member Spotlight

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I had the opportunity to talk with Meghan Wakeman from the Capital District Library Council (CDLC). Meghan has been with CDLC since 2019 as the Resource Sharing Librarian. CDLC serves all types of libraries in the area.  Meghan’s work is primarily focused on inter-library loan. She comes to CDLC after working in public libraries and in social work and human services related roles. We also discussed Meghan’s experience collaborating on the project that developed the Trauma-Informed Libraries guide, which Meghan continues to maintain along with other resource guides.

It is becoming increasing common to hear people mention trauma-informed library spaces or trauma-informed libraries. Wondering what that means or where to start? Meghan Wakeman, Catherine Brenner, Elizabeth Putnam, and Emily Spinner, librarians in the greater Albany, NY area, created a LibGuide called Trauma-Informed Libraries. This toolkit originated as a capstone project for the New York Library Association’s Developing Leaders Program.  The toolkit is made available through the Capital District Library Council’s (CDLC) website as all of the co-creators work for library systems in the area that is served by CDLC.

The toolkit is a curated resource with lots of information and links to numerous organizations and disciplines on the topic of trauma and trauma-informed work. The toolkit provides an introduction to trauma and some of the impacts of trauma. The guide also provides information about what it means to be trauma-informed and what this might mean for libraries. Using a combination of text, infographics, and videos – such as brief informational videos, TedTalks, and animated videos – they describe relevant concepts which might be considered for a variety of settings.

Throughout each portion of this guide there are multiple descriptions and links to many other toolkits and resources on a variety of topics.  Meghan highlights some of the strengths from the toolkit as recommendations about programming such as sensory story time and resources for collection development. There is also a section on staff training and support.

When the team created the guide, they wanted to provide a resource that would be useful for everyone. The hope was to help inform library staff about trauma but also to provide a support to library staff in their work.  Librarians may find themselves feeling unprepared for their work with the public. Meghan’s focus for the project was on training and support for staff. Meghan says that while we are not always able to say the perfect thing, this toolkit “provides some context and understanding of how we do our jobs.”

As mentioned before, this curated resource contains information from a variety of disciplines and can be found at Home – Trauma-Informed Libraries – All guides at Capital District Library Council (libguides.com)