Librarians have an important role to play in building community in neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties, states and the nation. People have great faith in libraries as fair and trusted institutions and in librarians as the honest and diligent keepers and disseminators of the human record.

There are many demands on librarians today to integrate new technologies in service of a digital future. Sometimes we feel that these demands pull us from the traditional values that inform our daily work. This website is a resource to demonstrate the value of librarianship in the community building movement.

The central focus of this website and the LIBRARIAN-AT-EVERY-TABLE mailing list is to identify new tables at which librarians might take a place.

In A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building (American Library Association Editions, 2000) and in the column, "Community Building," (2000-2006) from the American Library Association journal, Reference and User Services Quarterly, basic tenets of the Community Building movement are explored as they relate to library development and library service. These form the context for the information that appears on this website and that will be sent out on the LIBRARIAN-AT-EVERY-TABLE mailing list.

About Kathleen de la Peña McCook

Kathleen de la Peña McCook is Distinguished University Professor of Library and Information Science, University of South Florida. Please e-mail comments to kmccook@tampabay.rr.com.