Disability Futures

Libraries are uniquely positioned to see changes in our regular users. We have people who come in all the time, and we can see changes in their behavior, mood, and appearance that others who see them less often would never recognize. Likewise, libraries and librarians are trusted entities–you may have people being more open and letting their guard down with you in a way that lets you observe what’s happening to them more directly. Finally, people who work in libraries generally really care a lot about other people–and that in-built sensitivity and care can help when seeing a change in someone’s mental health and abilities.

I’m going to do my best to sum up what I learned at the training as well as what we’ve seen here in our Library serving older adults with memory issues. I hope some of this can help you at your library too.

How do memory disorders usually make themselves visible?

As each of us ages, our memories get less and less reliable. Typical changes can include forgetting an occasional appointment or bill due date, forgetting words, and losing things. Changes that indicate something more progressed is happening in someone’s mind include disruptions to daily life, changes in personality, withdrawal from work or friends, poor judgment, misplacing things frequently, difficulty solving problems, confusion  about when and where you are, and trouble with spatial relationships or speaking and writing.

How might these memory disorders present in a library environment?

People will think they are in another library, another city, or another time period. They may confuse library staff for a relative of theirs. They may become upset, not remembering how they got to the library. They may repeatedly come to the library on the wrong day for an event. They may tell staff that their library card must have been stolen because they don’t remember checking out the items on their account. They may become angry and frustrated when you present them with the “correct” information. They may need to be shown the same basic procedures repeatedly, always as if for the first time. They may become uncharacteristically verbally abusive to staff or other library users when frustrated. They may pace or wander seemingly at random. They may repeatedly ask the same questions during the same short window of time. They may look and behave completely normal. One never knows for sure.