Introduction
Project Scope
Library Futures (LF) and News Futures (NF) want to understand how libraries and local news organizations can better support one another in their shared goal of democratizing access to quality information for the public good.
The goal of this project was to learn from librarians and community journalists within the orbit of LF/NF about the opportunities and challenges they face in partnering with one another.
This report presents learnings from the project to aid both LF and NF in identifying fertile ground for joint initiatives going forward.
Methodology
From February 19th to April 2nd, 2025, I conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with librarians, community journalists, and professionals who straddle both fields, guided by a set of questions which I developed based on NF’s charter and LF’s 2021 collaboration with the Albany Public Library and Albany Times Union newsroom.
Between interviews, I conferred regularly with LF’s Director of Programs Michelle Reed, as well as my mentor April Hines, Librarian for the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida.
After the interviews, I compiled individual notes documents for each session, including key takeaways and summaries of the conversation, impactful quotes, and resources referenced by the interviewees. In this report, I have aggregated the key takeaways from across all 11 interviews into thematic buckets.
| Interviewees | Interview Date |
| Sierra Sangetti Daniels, Community and Culture Steward at News Futures | 2.19.25 |
| Talya Cooper, Research Curation Librarian, NYU | 2.21.25 |
| Jennie Rose Halperin, Executive Director of Library Futures | 2.28.25 |
| Teresa Schultz, Scholarly Communications and Social Sciences Librarian, University of Nevada, Reno | 3.3.25 |
| Sarah Houghton, Director of Discovery and Delivery at the California Digital Library, Former Director of the San Rafael Public Library | 3.5.25 |
| Sarah Asch, journalist and library studies student located in Texas | 3.12.25 |
| Maria Bustillos, journalist and founding editor of Flaming Hydra, Popula, and Brick House Cooperative | 3.13.25 |
| kate (k.e.) harloe, independent journalist based in Kingston NY, News Futures member | 3.17.25 |
| Karolle Rabarison, Director of Communications at the Online News Association and Library Futures Advisory Board Member | 3.19.25 |
| Terry Parris Jr., Director of the Library Newsroom Project, Public Square Editor at Headway, an initiative of The New York Times, and a recent MLIS graduate of Pratt Institute | 3.21.25 |
| Darryl Holliday, journalist and civic strategist, co-founder of City Bureau, Documenters, and News Futures | 4.2.25 |
Limitations
A clear limitation of this exploratory project has been the lack of input from public librarians. Librarian interviewees were selected informally based on existing connections to LF staff, and these connections skewed toward academic librarians. Only one of the four librarians interviewed had spent significant time working in a public library. At the same time, the conversations with journalists mostly concerned potential partnership with public rather than academic libraries. Any future work on this project should include a concerted effort to solicit ideas and input from public librarians—especially those involved in either collection development or public programming.
