Episode 50 (April 2026): Open Doors: Libraries as Sanctuary Space

Libraries aspire to be a place where everyone belongs — and in Episode 50, we explore what that commitment looks like in today's world. Far from simply reaffirming tradition, libraries are actively expanding their roles, From welcoming undocumented community members without fear, to opening their doors to neighbors experiencing homelessness, to providing access and safe spaces for student well-being in schools, libraries are fulfilling their function as true public sanctuaries. At the same time, the reversal of federal protected areas policies has put libraries in a new and uncertain position, with staff navigating real questions about how to keep their doors open and welcoming to all.

Library leaders are also navigating the very real tension between serving their most vulnerable patrons and maintaining a safe, comfortable environment where families and community members of all backgrounds feel welcome. We talk policy, we talk heart, and we talk about the librarians and staff who show up every day to make sure no one is turned away.

Transcript

Libraries Lead Podcast

Episode 50 — April 2026

Open Doors: Library as Sanctuary

Hosts: Dave Lankes • Beth Patin  • Mike Eisenberg

 Introduction

Dave: Greetings and welcome back to Libraries Lead Podcast, our 50th episode. If you're interested in our back episodes or getting more library leads content in digital and print form, go to our partner, the Library Journal website, and specifically our website, librarieslead.libraryjournal.org. I am David Lankes, the Bowden Professor of Librarianship at the University of Texas at Austin, along with Beth Patin, Associate Professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies, and Mike Eisenberg, Dean Emeritus from the University of Washington's iSchool. We're going to talk about Libraries for Everyone in episode 50, April 2026, Open Doors, Library as Sanctuary. In today's world, what does it mean to be a place where everyone belongs? But first, Beth, please remind us of why we're here.

Beth: Hi, everyone, and welcome to Libraries Lead. This is a podcast about life in the information world, the changes happening now, the challenges we're facing, and what might be coming next. This show is for anyone interested in libraries and information work, whether you're deep in the profession or just library curious. And honestly, we love that so many of you listening aren't librarians at all. People like Lisa Williams, who not only listens to every one of our podcasts, but has also rated and reviewed it too. Y'all be like Lisa. Today's episode follows our usual format. We'll start with a What's Up, checking in on what's going on in our lives. Then we'll move to an AI Watch where we react to the latest AI developments, technologies, and research. After that, we deep dive into our main topic and we'll wrap up with Awesome Library Thingies, where we highlight some of the amazing things happening across the globe in the library and information world. All right, let's dive in. Dave, you have the flu. What else is up with you?

What's Up

Dave — Travel, Flu & AI Pizza Arguments

Dave: Yeah. So I just got back last week from three weeks over in Europe — did Scotland and England and then over to the Netherlands and ended up with spring break on a riverboat cruise with my wife. So it was a good amount of work, a good amount of fun. But I also just wanted to share some intensive research I think is important: the case against pineapple on pizza, argued with full conviction. They identified the moisture problem — pineapple is roughly 86% water, and when heated it releases liquid directly into the pizza, softening the crust, diluting the sauce. You paid for a pizza, you're getting a soggy compromise. I'm telling you, this AI stuff's scary because it gets the right answer on pineapple. What's up with you, Beth?

Beth — March Madness & the Interconnected Project

Beth: So I have been enjoying March Madness. It's been wonderful, fabulous. UConn beat Duke on a last-second shot. Sadly, the LSU ladies and the Notre Dame ladies lost, but it's been fun, and the Syracuse ladies and Washington too were in it. Work-wise, I've been working on my Interconnected project — a toolkit for helping librarians come up with their own disaster plans. New York State public libraries have to post a disaster plan by January 1st online, and the toolkit is going to roll out in the next month or so. I'm finishing the last touches on the website. And regarding Dave's pineapple argument — that was not a very convincing argument. The science is clear: sweet, salty, and umami is a documented flavor synergy. Pineapple isn't fighting the cheese, it's amplifying it. Pineapple on pizza is not a culinary crime, it is a cultural tradition. The only thing that actually matters is that we all have sovereignty when it comes to pizza.

Mike — Golf, Baseball & the Information Age of Sports

Mike: Well, look, guys, as a New Yorker, there's only one kind of pizza — a regular round pizza with cheese and sauce. All the rest is for make-believe. You fold it over and let it drip, and then you're there. End of discussion. I also played golf the other day, and along with the beginning of baseball season and the NCAA tournament, I'm reminded again of just how information-intensive all of this is. The detailed gathering and analysis of data and stats and performance and strategy is absolutely remarkable. It's certainly the way it is today.

AI Watch

Dave — Sycophantic AI and Its Social Consequences

Dave: Today I have a really awesome article in Ars Technica that reports on a study published about sycophantic AI undermining human judgment. Researchers at Stanford University looked at when people seek relationship advice from AI — and found it largely contradicts what therapists might recommend. What's more interesting is that even with one use, people who ask AI to validate their actions walk away feeling less responsible for their behavior and more socially disconnected. This involved 2,405 participants, and they found it is really leading to antisocial behavior — this idea that 'you are not the problem,' and therefore you shouldn't be responsible for being part of a social solution.

Mike — Personal Experiences with Claude (Insurance, Car Lease & Brackets)

Mike: My AI Watch is similar. My personal use of Claude — I've tried Google Gemini, Copilot for Microsoft, and ChatGPT, and Claude seems to be the best for me. Some recent examples: I got a really expensive insurance bill — hadn't looked at it carefully, and I was paying almost double what I should have been. I asked Claude about my situation here in Florida, and it came back with alternatives and noted I could get the same coverage for half the price. It gave me three or four different companies and mentioned independent agents. I called my independent agent and sure enough, saved about half. The second example was a new car lease. I had four different brands I was considering and gave Claude the details. It came back with dealer tendencies, inventories, VIN numbers, lease amounts — everything that put me in charge. I did a lot of it by texting and never went into a dealership, and I got the best deal. And lastly, the failure: I asked Claude for March Madness bracket predictions. It had the games wrong, the matchups wrong. After numerous rounds of corrections, it eventually suggested I approach this differently and not use it for that purpose. I'm really glad Claude recognized that, but it was a good cautionary tale.

Beth — AI Policy Tensions: States vs. Federal Government

Beth: I've been thinking a lot about the tension around AI policies and legislation. We're watching a lot of states pass AI bills and privacy laws right now, and we can see the tension with the federal government. California, Colorado, Texas, and lots of other states have bills moving through their legislatures. But in December, Trump signed an executive order establishing federal policy to preempt any AI regulations deemed to obstruct national competitiveness, and also set up an AI litigation task force. On one side you have states trying to put up guardrails; on the other side you have the federal government saying not so fast. For libraries specifically, the Colorado AI Act is supposed to start in June — it's asking developers and deployers of AI to use 'reasonable care' to avoid algorithmic discrimination. I'm wondering: who is teaching our librarians and information professionals to think not just about practical uses of AI and ethical concerns, but also these deeper policy tensions between the federal government and our states, and what those implications will be for libraries?

Main Topic: Open Doors — Libraries as Sanctuary

Libraries aspire to be a place where everyone belongs. In this episode, we explore how that commitment is being both expanded and tested in today's world — from forging new partnerships with social service agencies and healthcare providers to serve neighbors experiencing homelessness, to navigating uncertain federal policy around immigration enforcement. Libraries are redefining what it means to be a true public sanctuary.

Libraries and the Homelessness Crisis

Beth: I often start my students with a carving from ancient libraries — 'Psyche's I-treation,' roughly translating to 'a healing place for the soul.' Carved in the Library of Thebes, the Library of Alexandria, and even centuries later in Switzerland's Abbey Library of St. Gall. Libraries aren't just information repositories — they are civic infrastructure that can offer sanctuary. Salt Lake City Public Library has staff where formerly homeless patrons report that the library was the first place where they were simply treated like human beings — not moved along, not viewed as a problem, but seen and heard. Houston Public Library has a senior library service specialist focused on homelessness and does trauma-informed training for their staff. San Francisco is working with their Department of Public Health and has a 12-week vocational program employing people experiencing homelessness as health and safety associates — actually giving them job training and experience, treating the root cause, not just the symptoms. I also want to give a shout-out to Ryan Dowd, who created the Librarian's Guide to Homelessness — a book from ALA Editions, plus a 30-minute video and toolkit available online.

Dave: I was working with the Free Library of Philadelphia and they had a homelessness problem. They had people lined up at nine o'clock in the morning just to have a place to be, to be warm. The librarians put out a call asking how to deal with this, and the answers they got were all about spikes on flat surfaces and more security. To their credit, the librarians said: the problem is homelessness, not the homeless. They hired homeless individuals to be bathroom attendants — keeping things clean while also giving them a job and responsibility. My favorite: they put in a cafe — equipment supplied by Starbucks, food from local bakeries, staffing by a homelessness-to-work group. Since then they've redesigned a huge area of the library as a culinary center, because in food deserts, people have never known what to do with a carrot or an eggplant. They began inviting immigrants in too — sharing home cooking and breaking bread together. In Charleston, South Carolina, they put glass-fronted refrigerators with healthy food in rural branches — no sign-up required, because 'people shouldn't have to convince us that they're hungry in order to eat.' One of my smartest colleagues, Margot Gostina, said: the best libraries can do is mitigate harm. It doesn't sound glamorous, but if you have a government service that is not fulfilling the need, if you have a social safety net that is shredding, it's not like libraries can replace all of those services. But they can seek to mitigate harm. That's enough.

Immigration: Serving Documented and Undocumented Community Members

Dave: I want to give a shout-out to Karen Fisher, a colleague who does amazing work with immigrant and asylum-seeking situations in the Middle East and Europe. In Philadelphia, that's become about sharing local needs and breaking bread together. Academic libraries are also dealing with this on a regular basis — there are good percentages of students on visa programs. I've seen academic libraries provide summer internships as a way of demonstrating hours so that visa requirements are met. Plenty of college students are also couch-surfing, in effect homeless. We have lactation rooms, nap pods, huge numbers of food pantries that libraries are running. It all comes from a commitment to ask: how can we do it? But almost all of these examples come down to the idea that many libraries are still part of a government entity, and they're going to be restricted in what they can do.

Beth: The Public Library Association convened a webinar called 'Responding to ICE at the Library: Real World Approaches.' They had three library directors speak — from Hennepin County in Minnesota, Virginia Beach, and Middleton, Wisconsin. This is a preview for a session at the PLA conference in Minneapolis in April — which in itself is in the middle of ICE enforcement in that city. PLA had to issue a public statement about the safety of conference attendees. Just sitting with that — going to a library conference in the United States and an association having to talk about federal police presence. One director talked about arriving at work to find federal agents there — how could her employees feel safe? How could patrons feel safe? Libraries are public spaces, so law enforcement can legally enter. It's not sanctuary in the church sense. But we can be prepared: setting up incident reporting forms, communication protocols for staff, and actually rehearsing — role-playing, having cheat sheets. If agents walk through the door, our instinct is to help — but this is a moment where we need to stop and think about what information we have to give. I also want to celebrate Aurelia Garza de Cortez, a Mexican-American children's librarian who co-founded the Pura Belpré Award. She's been working on a project called Children in Crisis, taking books to the borderlands and reading to unaccompanied children in detention centers and shelters. When we talk about libraries being a sanctuary, it's also the people — reaching out and doing the support.

Mike: That reminds me — way back when the government requested circulation records, we weren't so quick to turn that information over either. Librarians have a history of respecting the privacy and information rights of individuals. The kinds of response checklists, cheat sheets, or handbooks — that would be really valuable for any librarian or library worker in any context. How widespread is that availability?

Beth: Through community organizations in Syracuse, several trainings on immigrants' rights have been shared on faculty listservs and Facebook groups. We received an email from Public Safety outlining what we're supposed to do and who to call. And in my community responsiveness class, several students are creating locally resourced websites for their communities. I see it happening in academic libraries, public libraries, and school libraries — this is an issue impacting all types of libraries.

Dave: At the University of Texas, the answer is call the Office of Legal Services and then hope for the best. But in a lot of Texas schools, there is training about who's allowed on the grounds, how they're allowed on the grounds, what services they provide. The K-12 response here has been pretty strong.

Libraries as Safe Spaces for People with Special Needs

Mike: That's our special needs people — folks who have ability questions and problems, whether physical or mental. That's been a very traditional role of libraries, being a sanctuary for those people. What's going on in academic, community, and public libraries for people with special needs?

Dave: In the area of autism and sensory issues, I've seen libraries open up sensory rooms. A lot of them are providing guidance for the physical facility — video tours ahead of time so people know what to expect, plaques saying 'this is probably a good space for headphones because it's loud.' But I don't think any of these good examples have necessarily been tied into a universal ethos of libraries. It's usually a librarian with a special concern or interest who creates these programs. We've said libraries aren't neutral. We've said libraries should be safe spaces — but I don't think we truly have an integrated ethos of dealing with homeless, dealing with sensory needs. It's kind of always extra on top of, and comes from someone's passion. I'm not sure we fully integrate it into the core job of being a librarian.

Mike: I came across the term 'whole person librarianship' — I really like that. These can't just be add-ons. They are part and parcel of the very essence of librarianship. I'm encouraged by the reaching out to social service organizations, social workers, and homeless providers. I came across a couple of libraries that actually provided housing — gave up some space so that homes could be built for people. How widespread do you think the awareness is that this isn't a redefinition of librarianship, but a redefinition of how we fulfill that role fundamentally?

Beth: We have looked at the shifting roles of librarians over time. And now we're focusing outward in the community and taking things to the people. At Syracuse, we've made the Accessible Libraries elective a mandatory class for our school librarians — not just as a one-off for those who care about it, but so all our school librarians leave with those skills. All of our librarians graduate thinking about engaged communities — how do we get people to engage with us and how do we engage with them? We also have Project Enable, which expands non-discriminatory practices for librarians around accessibility. And for those who've already gone through programs, we need to find ways to shore up skills that are new or that they might have missed. When I went to library school 20 years ago, this kind of service wasn't the focus. The Patriot Act had just happened. And again, we find ourselves at a time where we'll have to adjust how we're teaching and training librarians.

Dave: The executive order Trump signed to eliminate all DEI efforts — it actually included accessibility: diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. That impacts the Library of Congress's services to the visually impaired. It impacts a lot of stuff. We're doing really good things and doing them for the right reasons. It's not just a nice thing to do — it's part of our fundamental mission to help build knowledge. And to do that, you have to feel safe, you have to feel fed. When we begin to talk about ICE and different enforcement efforts, different libraries will have different opportunities. Public libraries will have to talk with their local government to see how far they can go. But at the very least, we can help new Americans feel welcome — creating collections in different languages, programs, community connections. The concept of library as sanctuary is alive and well. The pain we've felt over the past several years, having to enact that commitment rather than simply pronounce it, has made us better.

Awesome Library Thingies

Beth — Library Dads Program (Atlanta Public Library)

Beth: This month was my birthday — I'm a Pisces, and I went to Atlanta to celebrate with my cousins. While I was there I checked out what was happening at the Atlanta library, and I saw a program called the Library Dads Program. It was founded by Kari Arnold, who started bringing in his then four-month-old daughter, Aria, to the library and thought other dads should be doing this too. What began as a solo father-daughter outing became a movement. Now groups of fathers and their young children show up together for sing-alongs, read-alouds, tickle times, and the works. The goals are real: they combat early child literacy and chip away at the isolation that a lot of fathers have expressed. By 18 months old, Aria had a working vocabulary of 250 words. As one dad put it, it shows his kids that dads show up — they're there, they're reading, they're having fun. This is one of those ways that libraries show up as sanctuary. The events are free. That's a pretty awesome library thingy.

Mike — International School Library Workforce Survey (Merga, 2025)

Mike: Related to today's topic of libraries and sanctuary, I looked into school libraries and found an extensive, well-run international study called the International School Library Workforce Survey, administered by Margaret Merga, Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame in Australia, and Matt Roney. They collected data in July and August 2024, with 971 respondents from 63 countries. The study examined reading engagement, workforce and well-being, and digital literacy — but libraries as safe spaces was an area of particular interest. It found that a majority of school libraries prioritize student well-being and are widely used as safe spaces, and that school libraries across multiple countries consider safeguarding student welfare a core part of their role. A few quick examples: In the Netherlands, a school librarian reported that students without a safe home environment stay late at the library to avoid going home — the library is a substitute for safety that doesn't exist elsewhere in these students' lives. In Australia, a school psychologist told staff that every single student she works with identifies the library as a safe place. Another Australian student preferred the library over the school's designated sensory room because the sensory room felt forced and cold — the library offered 'organic comfort rather than institutionalized comfort.' In the UK, a school librarian works directly with special education needs students and the school counselor on well-being. And in the U.S., one school has a multi-grade autism spectrum disorder program, and those students know the library is a place they can come for respite — a place to wait out an assembly that is too stimulating. There were limitations too — access and staffing challenges, funding constraints, low recognition among some staff and students, and the use of the library as punishment in some schools. But overall, very encouraging. Well done, Margaret Merga.

Dave — The Story House, Chester, England

Dave: One of the things I got to do on my trip was visit the Story House in Chester, England, near Liverpool. It is an incredible space. What they did was take a theater, cinema, library, and restaurant, essentially, and put them together into one space. You can go to the movie theater, then come out and look for books related to it, or have conversations in the cafe. They put on world-class theater and also start community theater programs. I was meeting with their creative director and the head of library service, which is run by the county. They have about 50 different programs where anyone who is open to all can put on a program for kids or different areas. It's been used very much to revitalize an area — part of the council's urban renewal program. They're creating a safe place to be, including for teens who come into the city center and find a place where they can feel involved, included, and have some power to do things. If you happen to be in Chester, I highly recommend taking a look at the Story House — communities need services in unique ways to the community. Not everyone has to do the same thing.

Closing

Dave: That concludes episode 50 of Libraries Lead. Thanks for listening. Thanks again to our partner, Library Journal — available at libraryjournal.com and social media platforms. Please subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever you listen. Contact us at info@librarieslead.org or post on our Facebook group, Libraries Lead. Resources and references are available through our website at librarieslead.libraryjournal.org.

Mike: I have to say this leaves me more encouraged than I thought I was going to be at the end. Clearly, people are doing a lot — to mitigate harm, as Dave says. Library and information people and organizations have to deal with roadblocks and political and social opposition, but more is happening across a wider range of types of individuals and groups than I was aware of. Mitigating harm to different populations of need is my takeaway. We'll certainly keep an eye on this and circle back to this topic in a future episode.

Beth: Bye, y'all.

Mike: Bye.