The Value of Community Ethnography in Public Library Crisis Preparation

In this brief article, I address the usefulness of including community-driven interviews into preparations for disasters. Drawing on Shera’s (1970) highly influential construction of library work as tied to communication, I analyze responses of three library organizations–the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library and the New Jersey Library Association–immediately following Hurricane Sandy. I then turn to a specific role of communication that libraries can offer surrounding communities, providing resources for local community members to conduct interviews among those who have experienced a disaster. By incorporating this kind of responsibility to communicate experiences of a crisis to a wider audience, libraries fulfill an important part of Shera’s charge to reflect the local values and norms of surrounding communities.