Civic Engagement

Engage Your Community: Hosting Forums Using the National Issues Forum Institute Model
About twelve years ago, the City of Virginia Beach began to investigate why its public hearings and other meetings with residents were so confrontational and what they could do differently. Read more...

Libraries and Democratic Life: Promoting Civic Engagement
I’m writing from outside the library world to talk about something powerful that can happen inside the library. I work with the Project on Civic Reflection, a national organization that helps get reflective discussion going in order to build community and deepen people’s understanding of their fellow community members and themselves. Read more...

Libraries and the First Amendment
When five African American men entered the Audubon Regional Library in Clinton, Louisiana, they had already broken the law. The year was 1964 and their crime was entering a segregated, whites-only library. Read more...