Indiana University (Indiana University, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering)

The Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis will develop a social service prototype for rural libraries based on multistep studies to explore rural communities’ social needs and libraries’ current practices. To achieve this, the project will explore rural communities’ diversifying needs and rural libraries’ existing efforts to meet those needs and design a prototype social service that can be used in rural libraries. How can rural libraries meet communities’ psychosocial needs? This project will provide a new way of serving rural communities for social work practitioners and for library information science education by broadening the role of library and information professionals in social services, identifying the skills and knowledge to perform this new role.