What is the value of a library to its community? What is its function within local networks & social-ecological systems?

This collaboration between Northern New York Library Network, four state and four native nation and pueblo governments, and seventeen community libraries is ongoing through 2024.

We ask: In what ways are libraries a component of social wellbeing in isolated rural communities? How do they do it?

In this field and quantitative research we learned that libraries facilitate belonging, mutualism, and self-determination, helping residents experience" the good life" on their own terms.