Novel Outreach: A Report of Public Library Engagement within Virginia Communities

Abstract

This study seeks to showcase how Virginia Public Libraries have harnessed the power of innovative outreach to service populations traditionally resistant to library adoption. It examines concepts such as community partnerships, the library as a Third Place (Thiele & Klagge, 2020), and the increasing function of social services in the public libraries sphere. It highlights the evolution of modern public libraries from mere book repositories to thriving community centers for education and personal growth. Mining current website data, this study explores each of the 94 public library systems in Virginia websites, determining their reach throughout their communities to show what populations receive the most services across Virginia and what methods are employed to reach them. The purpose of this webometric content analysis is to provide a current state of the union for Virginia Public Libraries’ outreach efforts to discover common outreach methods, less commonly used, but novel ways of engaging communities, and to determine how effectively marginalized populations are serviced across the state.