Do you believe in the healing power of reading? Do you feel that your library could do more to help people in recovery from substance abuse? Is your library an innovator in these domains?
May 15 and 16, 2025, the Kansas City Public Library hosted a two-day national forum that brought together library staff and experts working in the interdisciplinary recovery field. The forum included five thematic units:
- Addiction and Recovery through the lens of harm reduction
- The Promise and the Shortfall of Bibliotherapy and the Power of Human Connection
- Using Library Collections and Reading Groups to Foster Connection
- Outreach and Marketing SUD/AUD programs to different demographic groups
- Libraries and Social Connections
Each unit was kicked off by an expert speaker followed by facilitated small-group discussions and brainstorming sessions. Contents of the sessions and contributions from participants are being used to create a working paper, followed by a freely available toolkit, which will be available on this site by Fall, 2026.
Learning Materials (under development) including presentations and resources, are available here.
The forum was funded by IMLS: IMLS Grant RE-256563-OLS-24; see Google Drive for the full proposal.