Doreen Horstin, manager of San Francisco Public Library’s Park branch, adds a book to the Read to Recovery shelves, which provide free addiction recovery materials to patrons.
Photo: Jaime Wong/San Francisco Public Library
Public libraries are currently involved in building no-return collections that provide addiction and mental health support for patrons who need them. The San Francisco Public Library has instituted a Read to Recovery program, which offers free addiction recovery materials to patrons lacking library cards, with no checkout time limits or need to identify themselves. The Ames (Iowa) Public Library offers a similar program, and the youth services manager sees these programs as a bedrock of the mission of libraries – “making information accessible.” [from American Libraries Online, Jan-Feb 2025 issue]