Carnegie UK Strategy 2021 and the public library sector

  • By Jenny Peachey and Rachel Heydecker, Carnegie UK
  • 18 August 2021
  • 3 minute read

We are delighted to have launched our new strategy earlier this month. With our refreshed approach to wellbeing, we are looking forward to developing and delivering programmes that enable us to all have what we need to live well together.

Over the course of our previous strategic plan, we delivered a range of public library focussed programmes as we recognised libraries’ potential to improve wider social, cultural and economic wellbeing. As we embark on our new strategy we will build the learning from our work with public libraries into our evidence base and future programmes. 

Public libraries are one of the few places that are free and open to all, where you can be with no question or explanation. They are places where individuals come together to encounter new things and meet new people. The ways in which libraries create the conditions for conversations and interactions between people and communities will help to inform our future work on how promoting dialogue can enhance wellbeing.

We have also seen how libraries are well placed to encourage and facilitate opportunities for kindness and can create a sense of connection in the community they are situated in. In our work going forward, we will build on this learning to support work that recognises relationships and the importance of social connectedness.

Our work with the public library sector has provided us with a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges that come with delivering practical projects in a given sector. We have developed online learning packages with partners to support leadership in the sector and beyond, as well as fostering mentor-mentee relationships. We have also brought together information, practical examples and resources in toolkits and development programmes. These projects will inform our ways of working moving forward and will provide examples of best practice.

Our new mission-focused, wellbeing-first, approach means that everything we do will start with wellbeing. Our thinking and working will be rooted in the four key domains of wellbeing (social wellbeing, economic wellbeing, environmental wellbeing and democratic wellbeing), a consideration of where the biggest threats are to these, where the biggest impact could be felt – and how we can help bring that about. This represents a marked shift in approach from our previous foregrounding of strategic themes, such as supporting towns, digital and libraries as routes to wellbeing. 

Whilst it follows that we won’t have a specific public libraries’ programme of work, given the role libraries play in relation to say, democratic wellbeing (for example, through work on misinformation) or social wellbeing (for example, by being a key connector in a local area), we anticipate that there will be many possible opportunities to work with the sector moving forward – albeit in a different way and to a different degree to which we have done previously. Furthermore, we hope that our new way of working may provide opportunities for the library sector to be connected with other sectors working towards the same wellbeing outcomes.

We are, of course, committed to ensuring a good exit to our current public libraries programme of work. For example, when Engaging Libraries comes to a close in November, we will be developing a toolkit for public engagement with research for public libraries, and putting various supports in place for our participants to ensure they get the most possible from their time on the programme.

We are grateful to the public library sector for what it has taught us about wellbeing over the past strategic plan and look forward to working with the sector in new ways as we deliver our mission-driven strategy.