The Lexington Public Library’s Northside branch in Lexington. Photo: Jeremy Midkiff

The morning after historic flooding devastated Hazard in July 2022, Sheila Lindsay took a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach the Perry County Public Library on Black Gold Boulevard. The library director found a sodden scene: several inches of water had swept through the building, soaking the walls and saturating library materials. The cleanup, she knew, would be extensive and would take time. 

But Lindsay knew the damage was even worse for many other Perry County residents, who had lost family members, friends and homes. They would need support immediately and for the long recovery ahead. 

So rather than shut down, the library became a lifeline. 

“We knew we had to help, so we set up a makeshift desk in the foyer and would offer services until we could do more after the first week of mucking, cleaning and initial construction,” Lindsay recalls. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross set up temporary offices in the library, and library staff—many of whom were dealing with their own losses—worked to assess and fill the community’s immediate needs. The parking lot served as a base for first responders. 

The library building provided a cooling and charging station, snacks and meals, around-the-clock Wi-Fi access, and printing and faxing for FEMA and Red Cross forms. Library staff created a reference station in the front lobby and helped connect residents to services they needed. 

The library’s auditorium hosted 24-hour movie screenings for community members who needed a mental break from the trauma and exhaustion. The library even offered showers, a welcome relief for flood survivors and workers who were spending hours scouring mud and tearing out damaged properties in the summer heat. 

“We had our outreach librarian and bookmobile librarian out in the county daily, offering water, snacks and activity care packages to anyone who wanted one,” Lindsay says. “If you had asked me if I think these services are important before the flooding, I would have said yes. However, now I would say they are critical.” 

Meeting community needs 

The Perry County Public Library’s list of post-disaster services seems extraordinary. But libraries across the commonwealth provide a surprising range of free community services every day. Need job search assistance, tech training, genealogy resources, garden seeds or power tools? Start by asking your local library. 

“It’s about connecting people with the resources and information they need to improve their lives,” says Natalie Ruppert, who manages Kenton County Public Library’s career and job services division. 

Their role as community hubs, many library staff say, is simply an extension of libraries’ broad mission to connect people to information and knowledge. 

“I think one of the things that sort of makes expanding our role essential is that we are for everyone,” says Christina Cornelison, executive director of the Madison County Public Library in Richmond and Berea. “We like to focus on literacy of all sorts, all those things that improve the quality of life for people.” 

The Madison County Public Library has a creative studio, sewing and embroidery machines, a laser engraver, a genealogy program, financial coaching and more. On its website, the library also has a Community Resources tab that connects residents with directories for telehealth, disability, child care and other resources. 

The Kenton County Public Library boasts a makerspace for everything from button making to book binding. If your child has trouble with a math problem, call the library: it has live homework help, too. It lends tools for home repair, garden work and building projects, thanks to the Empower Tools program, a partnership between the library and The Center for Great Neighborhoods. 

Local connections like that, and a network of library volunteers, ensure library patrons are getting trustworthy information and services, library staff point out. And they expand libraries’ ability to offer more to the populations they serve. Cornelison says her library gets a better idea of what the community needs from relationships with community partners. 

“We’re in constant conversation with community partners, with our elected officials. I try to meet with our county judge at least once a year, just to ask what’s going on, what’s happening in the county, what are the county’s goals? And how does the library fit in with that?” she says. “It’s less about trying to reinvent the wheel or following trends and more about listening to what the community is actually saying that they want from us, and how can we match that.” 

Bridging the digital divide 

Libraries’ many free, accessible services also help build lasting community resilience, especially in traditionally underserved areas. 

That was one of the priorities when the Lexington Public Library opened its new Northside branch in 2008 with a state-of-the-art digital center and tech classes. The center includes rows of iMac computers, a podcast recording studio and a green screen video recording room—giving library patrons a chance not just to work on personal projects, but also to learn or strengthen highly marketable digital skills or even start their own businesses. 

“We have folks who run small businesses where they do photography for families,” says Brian Hocevar, the Northside branch manager. “They use our green screen room to do portrait photography.” 

Access to these technologies also narrows the digital skills gap and lifts whole communities. 

“Public libraries everywhere are doing a huge amount of work to help people over the digital divide,” Hocevar says. “This is the skill set that it takes to keep learning and advance as a contemporary human being. And libraries do it, I think in part because it fits neatly into our mission of supporting that lifelong learning.” 

Among its many other offerings, including traditional book lending, the Northside branch also partnered with God’s Pantry to operate a food pantry that resembles a small shop, where patrons can select the items they need. Open five days a week, the pantry serves about 200 families a week, Hocevar says. 

“We want folks to understand the services they can receive at the library,” he says. “But we also want them to understand the importance of the services that others in the community are receiving and how much those services can serve to lift up the folks around them and make Lexington a stronger community.” 

At its heart, it’s that sense of public service that has inspired libraries’ expansion says Lindsay, the Perry Country Public Library director: “We are here to serve you. Everything we do from our databases, bookmobile services to notary services and story time is to offer services our community needs.” 

An open book 

From finding a job to learning how to support libraries to connecting with the public library nearest you, these organizations can help.  

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives 

Find your public library’s contact information using the department’s Public Library Directory 

Friends of Kentucky Libraries 

This nonprofit organization supports, celebrates and advocates for libraries across the commonwealth.  

Northern Kentucky Accountability Group 

In this region, the group provides job search support group for professionals in career transition: kentonlibrary.org 

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