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| Lack of money can cause tunneling |
This is the second in a series of posts about the book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, by Sendhil Mullainathan (an economics professor at Harvard) and Eldar Shafir (a psychology and public affairs professor at Princeton). Look here for a cool info-graphic visual summary of the book, created by Todd Clarke. Here’s a podcast where they talk about some of their findings.
If we think about how scarcity might be affecting the families we serve, we might make some meaningful tweaks to help make our programs and services more helpful and accessible for the people we most want to reach.
Remember that people who are experiencing scarcity are focused on the day-to-day. Programs that are rigid are not always a good fit for them. Coming to the library, or bringing a child to the library, is not inside the tunnel for most people who are struggling day-to-day to make ends meet or to find enough time in their day to sleep and eat. It’s important to think about that when planning programs, or thinking about your summer library program reading encouragements. Can families participate whenever they can make it? Is it possible for kids to participate and have access to books and even programs, even if getting to the library at a given time or date is impossible? It is worthwhile to consider these questions, especially if we want to change the trend of people who may be most in need of the free resources we offer, having the hardest time accessing them.