Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Rural Resiliency Hubs: An Integrated, Community-Centered Approach To Addressing The Resiliency Divide Through Rural Public Libraries, Marcia A. Mardis, Eren E. Ozguven, Faye R. Jones, Mark Horner, Ellen Piekalkiewicz, Scott Pickett, John Mathias, Jessica De Leon

New Librarianship Symposia Series: Fall 2021

Resilience is often treated as a single-dimension system attribute, or various dimensions of resilience are studied separately without considering multi-dimensionality. The increasing frequency of catastrophic natural or man-made disasters affecting rural areas demands holistic assessments of community vulnerability and assessment. Disproportionate effects of disasters on minorities, low-income, hard-to-reach, and vulnerable populations demand a community-oriented planning approach to address the “resilience divide.” Rural areas have many advantages, but low population density, coupled with dispersed infrastructures and community support networks, make these areas more affected by natural disasters. This paper will catalyze three key learnings from our current work in public librarians’ …