Books & Resources
Activate Peer Learning
Waldo Publishers
The Missing Link
What is peer-to-peer engagement, and why is it valuable to libraries?
Peer engagement is the interchange of ideas and learning among equals. Its value to libraries comes into play because a library offers great wisdom and knowledge, and people want to be guided by wisdom and knowledge. Library staffers want to engage community members by communicating and building relationships with them. We can play a role in leading people—especially the taxpayers—to explore their interests and creative impulse, so they support the library and keep providing for the library’s purpose and its future.
According to the origins of the word peer in Latin, par means equal. Libraries take advantage of the intent of peer learning and engagement by treating people coming to our doors as peers—as equals. The librarian learns from the user. The library user learns from the librarian. This is the essence of peer-to-peer engagement.
Activate Peer Learning in Your Library and Community offers a fresh perspective in this fast-changing world. It explores how librarians can nurture each other and engage library users as peers, as equals—whether virtually or in person—to enjoy learning. Success depends on activating in-reach (a twist on the word outreach), the ability to develop our inner best and bring that to the table.
Technology alone cannot guarantee that people will explore ideas that can lead to thoughtful discoveries. Nor can its use assure that anyone will think with discernment.
Learning to think can come by interacting with universal concepts and exploring ideas. Helpful, thoughtful mentors and educators can model what it looks like. Librarians are perfectly positioned to be those people. They are the missing link, enabling community members to learn from and with new technologies while still providing the social connections and motivation they need to learn and grow. Even mentors have much to learn about working with ideas. This book is meant to help them do that.
An excerpt adaptation from pages ix - x of Activate Peer Learning In Your Library and Community by Dorothy Stoltz with Elaine Czarnecki, Betsy Diamant-Cohen, and Carrie Sanders (Idlewylde, Maryland: Waldo Publishers © Copyright 2023 by Dorothy Stoltz. All Rights Reserved.)
