Describes the basic differences between the needs and wants of a community.

Librarians must know how to provide essential programs and services that make a difference for the people they serve if libraries are going to survive. It is no longer realistic for librarians to rely on the idea that “people love libraries, so they will fund them” in this economic climate. Librarians must be able to prove that their programs and services are making a difference if they want to compete for funding in their municipalities, schools, corporations, colleges, institutions and organizations. Meeting Community Needs: A Practical Guide for Librarians presents a process that librarians of all kinds can use to provide effective programs and services. This requires being in close touch with your community, whether it is a city, town, or village; college or university; public or private school; or corporation, hospital, or business. Understanding what information people need, how they access it, how they use it, how it benefits them, and how they share it is paramount. The process in this book covers community assessment, designing programs and services to meet needs, implementing and evaluating programs and services, and funding options. Providing library programs and services for your entire population - not just library users - is more important than ever. Librarians working in libraries of all types must provide programs and services that meet community needs if libraries are to stay relevant and survive in the long run. Librarians must be able to measure their success and demonstrate the library’s worth with verifiable proof if they are going to be competitive for available funds in the future. Meeting Community Needs will make you take a serious look at how well your library programs and services are meeting your community’s needs, and it will show you the way to success.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.