This blog has been written by Sarah Houghton since
2003. Sarah is currently the Director
for the San Rafael Public Library in California but she writes the blog
“Librarian in Black” independently of her work.
The latest post is dated July 25, 2016 and deals with
the interesting and important topic of providing library services to people
with memory loss, dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. The need to understand this topic is
increasing in the western world where populations are aging, and in Sarah’s
location (Marim County, CA) the median age of the population is 45.5 years – 8
years older than the US median, and almost 10 years older than the Californian
median age.
Sarah’s experience as a member of the San Rafael
Leadership Group had highlighted to her the particular and increasing needs of
her local community and in response she organized training for all library
staff in Marim County from the Alzheimer’s Association and the local Senior
Access Association. The blog post was
created as a summation of the training and some of the experiences in Sarah’s
library.
The blog is neatly divided into sections for easy
accessibility:
- How do memory disorders usually make themselves visible?
- How might these memory
disorders present in a library environment?
- How might these memory
disorders present in a library environment?
- What are people with memory disorders experiencing?
- What is the most important thing to do when working with someone with a
memory disorder?
- Communicating with someone with an impacted memory can be very
frustrating. What should I do and not do?
- What should I do if I repeatedly see an adult alone in the library who
seems to have some kind of memory disorder and who cannot take care of himself
or herself?
- What should I do if I repeatedly see an adult alone in the library who
seems to have some kind of memory disorder and who cannot take care of himself
or herself?
- Resources.
I found the strategies discussed in the blog post to
be very useful and practical. The simple
technique of steering the person to a quieter area with fewer distractions, and
slowly providing simple instructions one and a time can help to at least
improve the quality of communication between the person and the librarian
providing services.
The idea of offering the library as a site for a
support group is also a great incentive to extend the community services and
level of engagement a library can provide.
I would thoroughly recommend reading this blog post,
as supporting persons with memory loss is becoming more frequent both in our
personal and professional lives.
