Support local: Public libraries and local authors

Abstract

In 2020 we have experienced movements to support local creators, restaurants, and businesses; how can the library community support local authors? This extended abstract discusses research conducted about how public libraries support local authors, with a focus on how these works are included in library collections and made findable to community members. Twelve public libraries from British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan were selected for analysis of collection policies and item metadata. Qualitative content analysis is used to code collection policies, and systemic analysis of item metadata is used to understand methods of identifying locally-authored items. The results of this research indicate that collection policies provide both opportunities and barriers for including locally-authored items and there is a lack of consistent methods for identifying items as locally-authored within item metadata. Some of these barriers can be attributed to the challenge of identifying and defining “local authorship”. This extended abstract will conclude with recommendations for how libraries can modify collection policies and methods of identifying items as locally-authored in order to support local authors and make these items more accessible to the community.