Older Adult Perspectives on Public Librarian Education in an Aging Society

Despite the reality of an aging society, public library engagement of older adults is a patchwork system across the US which does not always pursue the perspectives of older adults in what should be offered. Since formal library education is a major input into library practice, this conference paper presents early findings of a multi-year study into how public librarian education can be shaped for better cooperation and systematic engagement with older adults. Grounded in the Integrative Critical Gerontology Information Framework, this exploratory study creates a schema of the skills, services, and values that 11 interviewed older adults in 1 Southeastern US community want from public librarians. The resulting schema—a product of ongoing constructivist grounded theory analysis—will be further empirically and theoretically developed with interviews of older adults in 5 additional communities across the United States, national survey, and eventual free training resource if awarded federal funding materializes.