Tools for Community Engagement and Innovation:
The following tools have been customized for library use. Links to tools will download PDF files.
- Turn Outward (PDF): Are you mostly “turned inward or outward”? Librarians may use this tool to assess the focus of their efforts in the community as they further shift their orientation from internal to external.
- Aspirations (PDF): This tool helps librarians to focus on their community’s aspirations, identify next steps for creating change, and to create an aspirations-based story for their community as a starting point for library action.
- Intentionality (PDF): Librarians may use this tool to test the external orientation and mindfulness of their community engagement choices and decisions.
- Sustaining Yourself (PDF): This tool helps librarians to personally map the components that feed their motivation and commitment for community work.
- How Librarians and Libraries Can Lead Community Conversations for Change (PDF): This conversation guide, inspired by The Work of Hope by Richard C. Harwood, provides a step-by-step plan for librarians to convene small group community conversations about shared aspirations and to share their findings with the community.
