With 91 Americans dying from opioid overdoses every day, more people are stepping up to the front lines of the epidemic, including some unlikely recruits: librarians.

Julie Todaro, the immediate past president of the American Library Association, said there has been a significant increase in libraries working with their communities on public health issues since the start of the opioid epidemic.

“People think of libraries as a place they can go to get out of the cold and rain and pretty much just be left alone, without judgement. So it makes sense that struggling addicts with nowhere left to turn would come to a library for help,” Torado said. 

There are several ways that libraries are working to combat opioid use in their communities, according to Todaro. The first is purely educational, providing resources like guides to addiction or information on how to seek help. This is historically how most libraries have reacted to community issues, Todaro said.

The Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System in Plattsburgh, New York, has taken this approach. 

Earlier this month, Anja Bouchard, a librarian for Clinton-Essex-Franklin, helped publish “Routes to Recovery,” a free resource guide for those struggling with addiction.

The booklet, and its corresponding app, features information about mental health and substance abuse providers in the area, as well as other support services, including food, clothing and housing resources.

“If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from or you don’t know where you’re staying tonight, it’s really hard to focus on recovery,” Bouchard told the Plattsburgh Press Republican.

Essex, one of the counties the library serves, saw the fifth highest opioid overdose rate in the New York between 2013 and 2015, according to the state’s health department.

Some libraries take their efforts a step further, by hiring full-time social workers or addiction counselors to be on-site help.

“Trained social workers and counselors can act as peer navigators that can take actions that librarians aren’t fully trained to do,” Todaro said.

And more librarians across the country are finding themselves helping out as first responders. Some are are being trained to administer Narcan and naloxone, the emergency treatment for opioid overdose. Libraries have become an unfortunate location for overdoses, and after some were fatal, librarians in Utah, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states took action and learned how to save the life of an overdose victim.

Although libraries in urban areas have been highlighted for their response to the opioid epidemic, Torado said rural libraries play a unique role in their communities.

“Because rural areas may not have any other public resources like clinics, libraries are often the only place to turn to,” Torado said.

Bouchard’s library, which is located in a town of fewer than 20,000 people in upstate New York, understands the struggles of rural addiction. “Routes to Recovery” also includes a transportation section that details how to get to appointments or support-service locations, which is often difficult in rural areas.

“We’re trying to help remove that obstacle in any way we can,” Bouchard said.

While the opioid epidemic has caused a significant increase in libraries’ outreach efforts over the past seven years, Torado said, it is certainly not the first time.

“We often act as third-tier first responders in times of crisis,” Torado said, citing natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and public health emergencies like the Flint, Michigan water crisis that started in 2014.

According Torado, libraries have participated in community outreach efforts since the 1960s, when the closure of many state hospitals caused a spike in homelessness. In 1969, the American Libraries Association formed the Social Responsibilities Round Table forum as a way to solidify social responsibility as a core value of librarianship, Torado said.

Today, there are multiple librarian-run task forces focusing on feminism, hunger, homelessness and poverty, international responsibilities, diversity and the environment.

“Libraries are unique public institutions that come in contact with and have the ability to reach broad demographics of people, and we believe it’s important to figure out the needs of our communities and how we can best serve them,” Todaro said. “Right now, that need is often centered around addiction.”

The Plattsburgh, New York Press Republican contributed to this post.