Library model of community resilience during the war. Activities of selected Polish academic libraries addressed to Ukrainians

Abstract

On February 24, 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine, an independent country. Although the topic of academic library assistance directed to Ukrainian refugees has appeared in the media, the review of literature demonstrated that these activities have not been documented in the scientific literature so far.The aim of the study was to find out what actions addressed to the Ukrainian refugees.Polish academic libraries took to help build social resilience in case of war.The study used quantitative and qualitative methods: the survey method and the heuristic method. The survey was sent to all directors of state academic libraries in Poland.The collected data were divided into the domains: institutional, social, physical and economical. These domains were then used to design a library model of building community resilience in case of war, and to describe the links between these domains.The multi-level spectrum of activities undertaken by the academic libraries in Poland to improve the situation of Ukrainians and described in this paper lead to the recognition that libraries: are important institutions of social trust, and in order to maintain this status, they have to respond to the needs of local communities on an ongoing basis.