What is the potential of public libraries to promote public mental
health & wellbeing? Findings from a cross-sectional study of
community-dwelling adults
Abstract
The role of public libraries has changed significantly over the last
few decades, but they remain popular and are increasingly
well-positioned to support the mental health and wellbeing needs of
members of the community. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey
and interview-based study with community-dwelling adults to explore the
potential of libraries as community hubs to tackle health and digital
inequalities and promote mental and physical health and wellbeing. We
analysed data from electronic survey and interviews to gauge
perceptions. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to
identify key trends and emergent themes. Our study findings show that
libraries remain popular and are considered a ‘safe place’ by community
members, irrespective of whether they are frequent users of services.
Libraries already offer a variety of resources that either directly or
indirectly support health and wellbeing, but public awareness of these
services is limited and acts as a hurdle to improving community health
and wellbeing. Targeted engagement with residents is needed to increase
awareness of the services libraries offer, including community
interventions to help tackle loneliness and inequalities in digital and
health literacy. There was a clarion call for library staff to be more
involved in decision-making. By acting as community hubs, libraries are
ideally suited to deliver interventions to help tackle the existing and
emergent health and digital inequalities following the advent of the
COVID-19 pandemic.