Working Together: Community-Led Libraries Toolkit

The Working Together project was a Government of Canada funded project that ran from 2004-2008 in four Canadian cities. Over those four year, Vancouver Public Library, Halifax Public Libraries, Toronto Public Library, and Regina Public Library experimented with adapting community development techniques in order to develop a more inclusive approach to public library service. The project had two main objectives:

Through establishing ongoing relationships with socially excluded people, work collaboratively with socially excluded communities to articulate and respond to their library service wants and needs.
Identify and examine systemic barriers to library use for socially excluded people and propose policy and procedural change to address these barriers, including the development of an inclusive service planning model.

As part of these objectives, the project developed the Community-Led Service Planning Model, to guide libraries in planning and delivering inclusive library services. At the end of the project, The Community-Led Libraries Toolkit was published to provide insight into the project’s experiences, and practical and philosophical guidance for implementing the Community-Led Service Planning Model. Since the project ended the toolkit has been used by library systems throughout Canada and beyond, as well as serving as a teaching tool in library education programs.

Trousse d’outils pour des bibliothèques à l’écoute de la communauté (French version)