The San Diego Circuit Consortium: A Partnership for Social Impact

The San Diego Circuit, a public and academic library consortium, functions as a vital community partner through its Information Issues for Social Impact Committee, which strategically employs an inclusive participatory design process to address critical issues like health misinformation and climate resilience. This chapter examines two successful collaborative campaigns in San Diego County spearheaded by the committee. The first initiative supported the county’s fight against health misinformation, enhancing health information literacy through resource guides with local health and climate information, facilitating COVID-19 test kit distribution, hosting related programs and PubMed training, organizing author events, and developing a comprehensive toolkit for libraries. The second, more recent collaboration focused on climate action, with member libraries partnering on resource fairs, author talks, and training webinars centered on climate justice and sustainability. To ensure inclusivity, community town halls and data from the San Diego Climate Equity Index and Healthy Places Index informed programming and resource allocation, empowering vulnerable communities to navigate climate challenges. This chapter delves deeper into the implementation and impact of these collaborations.