Reimagining Safety with the Library Safety Volunteers
Webinar
Some libraries reactively call the police after harm has happened. Others simply push through alone, risking burnout. Still others engage in soft censorship to avoid "controversy" altogether.
In early 2025 in Massachusetts, I founded the Library Safety Volunteers (LSV) to provide a proactive, non-carceral alternative for colleagues. Modeled on mutual aid organizing traditions in the LGBTQIA+ community, LSV trains librarians in deescalation techniques. Upon request, LSV teams attend colleagues' programs to provide supplemental assistance, monitor for signs of escalation, safely escort attendees past protesters, and calmly deescalate hecklers.
Attendees will learn:
-How LSV's model operates, as a case study
- Why librarians should organize in solidarity with one another.
- How to organize a similar mutual aid or community safety group of their own.
