It’s a Friday afternoon at the Blue Hill Public Library and 3-year-old Murray dumps out a bag of blocks on the rug downstairs in the children’s section. He’s ready to build a robot — and so is librarian Claire Malina.
Malina has had to become an expert in children’s play. That includes formal training in setting up activities that are both fun and also support child development. She says it’s substantially different from what she planned for in a career as a librarian.
The pandemic brought an influx of young families to Blue Hill, and they expressed more of a need for health and behavioral support for their children. So in 2023, the library applied and received a grant for Malina to become certified in running programs in early child development, including literacy, speech, nutrition, music and movement.
Malina says despite her efforts, there are many services people need that are outside of her wheelhouse.
“We're not always trained in the realms in which we're being asked to fill, and so I'm really doing the best that I can to connect people with the resources that they need,” she says.
Across the state, librarians are taking on more social service roles for patrons — outside of checking out books and helping people sign up for library cards — including helping people sign up for benefits, access mental health care resources and apply for jobs.
At Bridgton Public Library, Outreach Coordinator Racheal Sylvester runs a weekly technology assistance program to teach patrons how to use their devices and answer questions. But she says the help she provides falls outside of that scope, and she often helps people sign up for benefits like food assistance and health care.
The need is especially high, she says, during open enrollment period.
“There is definitely a bridge that librarians are helping to cross in terms of social services,” Sylvester said.
Sarah Skawinski, president of the Maine Library Association, says many libraries are seeing larger numbers of people experiencing homelessness or mental health challenges asking for help.
“We're finding more and more that libraries and librarians are being looked to to fill gaps in community services, and we are trying to maintain our role as a place of connection,” she said. “Like you don't come to the library necessarily for social services. You don't come to the library to meet with a social worker, but you can come to the library to make that connection.”
She says after funding cuts at the state level, local libraries have had an even harder time accessing resources and funding professional development. Adding more responsibilities to librarians is straining, but she says it might be necessary to keep library doors open.
John Martin, resource coordinator at the Millinocket Memorial Library, says the library represents a space unhoused people can access for free, fill out housing applications and even meet with their case workers.
He said rural communities often face a harder time accessing resources and depend more on libraries.
“We unfortunately don't have the luxury of that proximity to resources that urban population centers give you, and places like Bangor and Brewer are just large enough to be able to provide a lot of that,” Martin said. “Unfortunately for us up here, it can be quite difficult to get down to those things.”
Blue Hill hired another librarian — not to check out books, but to travel to schools and day cares to do outreach support and literacy outside of the library building.
But what the library really needs, Malina says, is to have a social worker on-site in the library to work directly with patrons.
“And so that's a dream of mine that, if we had the capacity to actually be able to connect people even more so with what's needed that would be really incredible,” Malina said.
