Category FAQs Search : Libraries for the underserved
Question: The Poor and Homeless: An Opportunity for Libraries to Serve
Answer: Serving the poor and homeless presents one of the greatest challenges America’s public libraries have ever faced. With their numbers increasing every year the poor and homeless need a path out of poverty and help to ease the pain along the way. In 2003 the poverty rate rose to 12.5% in the United States; 35.9 million people were poor in 2003. That is 1.3 million more than were poor in 2002. In 2000 the poverty rate was 11.3% with 31.6 million in poverty. In 2003 the poverty rate for the Northeast was 11.3%, Midwest 10.7%,South 14.1% and West 12.6%. From 2002 to 2003 the poverty rate in the Midwest rose from 6.6 million to 6.9 million. While the number in the South rose from 14.0 million to 14.5 million. (U.S. Bureau of the Census) Out of these numbers rise the nation’s homeless.Public libraries offer new worlds to the poor by providing information in a wide variety of different forms on every subject imaginable. The information is an opportunity which opens the door to other opportunities and can change or save lives. Librarians, as keepers of the keys of knowledge, have an obligation to spread information like a balm over those scarred by poverty. The knowledge contained in public libraries can heal the poor in body, mind, and spirit. The information contained in public libraries can empower and enable the poor to change their lives.
(Source: Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, 11 Jun 2021)
Source Link: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1199&context=seln