2017 MLA Annual Conference

Libraries can help foster public engagement about community and public policy issues, often through programming in partnership with government or organizational partners. Innovative partnerships provide forums for dialogue which foster relationships, build understanding and ultimately inform decisions which effect community life. These forums, are not without risk, they also have the potential to draw detractors, generate disagreement, and increase divisiveness. Presenters Dan Greensweig and Aimee Gourlay will discuss frameworks for addressing controversial issues, include multiple layers of differences, conflict, recurring patterns of incivility, and worldview differences which impede people's ability to understand each other.