Abstract
Serving the poor and homeless presents one of the greatest challenges America’s public libraries have ever faced. With their numbers increasing every year the poor and homeless need a path out of poverty and help to ease the pain along the way. Public libraries offer new worlds to the poor by providing information in a wide variety of different forms on every subject imaginable. The information is an opportunity which opens the door to other opportunities and can change or save lives. Librarians, as keepers of the keys of knowledge, have an obligation to spread information like a balm over those scarred by poverty. The knowledge contained in public libraries can heal the poor in body, mind, and spirit. The information contained in public libraries can empower and enable the poor to change their lives.
Publication Date
Spring 2006