Collaborations between Public Library Educators and Practitioners to Apply a Theory of Change and Promote Civic Engagement for Racial Justice in the American South

The Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Leadership Grants for Libraries program recently awarded a $332,939 grant titled “Civic Engagement for Racial Justice in Public Libraries” (RJ@PL) to the University of Alabama and the Chicago State University. The grant’s purpose is to build the capabilities of public librarians and selected communities to promote civic engagement for racial justice and achieve the following objectives: 1) Assessment of public library efforts to advance racial justice (externally and internally); 2) Operationalization of strategic participatory planning process using a theory of change to develop roadmaps and action plans that further racial justice in select community domains (economy, education, health, etc.); 3) Implementation of key strategic components of information-based offerings in six/eight library settings. This paper reports ongoing collaboration to further the three design components via applying a theory of change for an intended impact of increased community wellbeing resulting from improved racial climate.