AN EVERYBODY INSTITUTION
EXPERIMENTATION IN THE LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY
BY TOMMI LAITIO
AN EVERYBODY INSTITUTION
BY TOMMI LAITIO
Bloomberg Public Innovation Fellow (2022-2024)
Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University
JUNE, 2025
Laitio, T. (2025, June) An Everybody Institution: Experimentation at the Los Angeles Public Library
The Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University.
© Johns Hopkins University 2025. This case study is provided to the public for academic and educational use only and may not be used as part of commercial activity. Johns Hopkins University hereby disclaims any and all representations and warranties regarding the case study, including accuracy, non-infringement of thirdparty intellectual property rights, and fitness for use.
Executive Summary
This case study examines how agencies can partner for experimentation to deliver innovative results in the provision and governance of public programs. The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) partners with philanthropy and communities to experiment in advancing its mission of being “an everybody institution,” as it is described by the city librarian. The LAPL is a chartered city department with a high level of discretion that engages in a variety of partnerships in its Central Library and 72 individual branches. It exercises its experimentation capability through new programs that are tested with external funding and, when successful, incorporated into its portfolio of services supported by public funds.
This case about LAPL is one of a series that illustrates the partnership capabilities model derived from my research as a Bloomberg Public Innovation Fellow at Johns Hopkins University. The research project posed the question: What skills and practices do local governments need in order to advance innovative partnerships that sustain the legitimacy of governance? Across five cities worldwide, I examined the development and operations of public parks and libraries — areas of governance where partnerships are common. The resulting model proposes four capabilities — navigation, convening, experimentation, and codification — that local governments utilize to advance effective partnerships and produce innovative outcomes.
Experimentation at an Everybody Institution
In experimentation, the local authority and its partners engage in an adaptive learning process in which they create, test, observe, and adapt new ideas and interventions (Ehnert, 2023a, 2023b). Experimentation can improve the design quality of larger-scale rollouts by mitigating risks and creating sufficient support for new approaches. As such, it can be a successful strategy for building organizational confidence for change by producing evidence and prototypes of a different tomorrow (Bason & Austin, 2022; Ehnert, 2023b). Experimentation can drive change either by scaling up promising practices or by re-configuring existing practices through continuing experimentation (Ehnert, 2023a).
The LAPL’s capability for experimentation has three enabling factors: predictable public funding for core services, mission-driven leadership committed to equitable service delivery, and philanthropic support for new program development through the Library Foundation for Los Angeles. These factors support three partnership practices to advance experimentation.
First, city-level partnerships and new program development are coordinated through the Engagement and Learning Division. The division, itself an experimentation conceived by senior librarian staff, brings a systematic approach to the library’s programmatic development. It is the conduit for partnerships with other public agencies, resource acquisition for experimentation, program evaluation, and systemwide dissemination of effective practices.
City of Los Angeles map.
Second, library branches receive leadership support to customize offerings for community needs via active communication, microgrants for experimentation, and staff training. Proactive communication between system and branch leadership enables local experimentation at the neighborhood level, using microgrants to test ideas. Across the system, branches have the agency to design programming that fits community needs.
Third, the LAPL also strategically develops and executes cross-sectoral projects that align with the city’s policy agenda. The library and its partners emphasize the library’s position as a uniquely safe place within city government for Angelenos to seek guidance. For example, the library estimates that its New Americans Initiative partnership has assisted more than 80,000 Angelenos in pursuing a path to citizenship by providing information and services (Fleishman, 2023).
Key Lessons
This case study on the LAPL offers the following takeaways for local governments to foster experimentation as a key capability in partnerships:
1. Designate a strategic unit to drive partnerships.
2. Cultivate and invest in staff to drive frontline experimentation.
3. Demonstrate your institutional commitment to city policy priorities.
I. Introduction
In 2015, the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest recognition for public libraries in the United States. The medal was awarded largely in recognition of its social mission and excellence in service delivery. City Librarian John F. Szabo accepted the award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House with Sergio and Francisca Sanchez (Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2015; Library Foundation of Los Angeles, 2015). The Sanchezes became United States citizens in 2014 with support from the library’s New Americans program, which the LAPL delivers in partnership with other governmental and nonprofit organizations. New Americans is one of the many ways the LAPL uses partnerships to meet the needs of Angelenos and build a healthier and stronger Los Angeles.
Local governments, like the City of Los Angeles, seek partnerships to improve the quality of public spending by doing new things faster, with greater resources, and with higher design and engagement quality (Ansell & Torfing, 2021, Bloomberg Associates, 2020; Saunders-Hastings, 2022).1 While partnerships can generate these positive outcomes, they can also risk ceding control over public policy and assets beyond democratic decision-making — or creating the perception of such, and may raise questions about the legitimacy of governance institutions.2
This case study on the Los Angeles Public Library’s partnership practices is one in a research series produced by the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University that asks: What skills and practices do local governments need in order to advance innovative partnerships that sustain the legitimacy of governance? To explore this question, the research project focused on the development and operations of public parks and libraries as an area of governance where partnerships are common. Through comparative case study research in five metropolitan areas, each case study in this series analyzes partnerships that generate tangible results for residents through the pooling of resources, knowledge, or other assets.3
1 A library patron receives career assistance.
2 Banners created by artist-inresidence Christine Wong Yap on the library as a place of belonging. The artist-in-resident program is supported by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and the Wellcome Trust.
II. A Partnership Capabilities Model
The partnership capabilities model begins with the common public sector goals that motivate partnerships, namely resident health and wellbeing, equity, and sustainable development. 4 Procedural goals are also important considerations in partnerships, especially fairness, efficiency, and efficacy. To those procedural goals, I add “convivencia” as an approach to navigating friction. Convivencia refers to an orientation and active effort to co-exist across differences, in which difference is not a feature to be resolved but an opportunity for negotiation toward shared outcomes (DiMasso Tarditti, 2007; Low, 2022; Wise & Noble, 2016). 5 Because the policies and practices of local governments create the conditions that can either foster or curtail civic life, I propose convivencia as a foundation for municipal action in operationalizing responses to friction through the partnership capabilities. 6
This model proposes that navigation, convening, experimentation, and codification are the four partnership capabilities that local governments need to ensure both innovative results and legitimacy in the delivery and governance of public goods. The capabilities are interdependent, iterative, and, ideally, sequential. 7 I define each capability in more detail in the diagram on pages 7-9.
The four capabilities are interdependent and iterative and may build upon each other in sequence. Navigation enables local governments to enter partnerships with confidence, understand the root causes of friction, and assess their need for external facilitation and brokerage in convening. Convening ensures sufficient stakeholder buy-in and helps identify the resources and actors available for experimentation. Experimentation provides evidence and builds confidence for systems change. Codification sustains the lessons of the previous phases into institutionalized practices.
The model also delineates skills versus practices to illustrate how actions may differ for individuals versus teams or organizations. In reality, skills and practices are interwoven and shared among staff, teams, organizations and networks. As such, they may be less distinguishable from one another in practice compared to their depiction in the model.
The diagrams in the following pages illustrate the four capabilities in greater detail and how they build on one another.
Partnership Capabilities Model
From Capabilities to Outcomes
CODIFICATION
Institutionalizing partnership structures and policies
EXPERIMENTATION
Providing institutional spaces and resources for ideation and testing of new or reconfigured solutions
NAVIGATION
Building staff agency, support, and ability to embrace and work through uncertainty and friction in partnerships
CONVENING
Gathering partners and brokers to recognize and leverage differences and to develop a shared action plan
NAVIGATION
Local governments as employers and stewards of civic life have a responsibility to build staff agency, support, and ability to embrace and work through uncertainty and friction in partnerships. The capability to navigate friction entails being attentive to an alignment between resident needs and partnership opportunities and reconfiguring services and policies based on actively listening to stakeholder feedback. For staff, approaching friction as an opportunity to learn how to navigate complexity can improve work satisfaction, staff retention, and their sense of equity and safety. Embracing friction in partnerships with civil society can lead to a better understanding of resident concerns, foster a collaborative culture with stakeholders, and inspire new governance practices.
CONVENING
Convening establishes a foundation from which diverse stakeholders can build and advance a shared agenda. The capacity to convene for learning aims to ensure that parties with different assets, and perhaps conflicting priorities, feel seen, heard, and fairly treated as they enter into a partnership. When successful, learning together with a curiosity toward differences builds a common understanding of the challenge and problem definition, facilitates a systemic approach to addressing public problems, ensures shared recognition and ownership of the challenges, and allows the partners to understand each other’s assets and contributions towards advancing solutions (Alhanen, Soini, & Kangas, 2019; Bäcklund & Mäntysalo, 2010; Forester, 2009).
EXPERIMENTATION
In experimentation, the local authority and its partners engage in an adaptive learning process in which they create, test, observe, and adapt or reconfigure new ideas or existing practices (Ehnert, 2023a, 2023b). It is a process that can improve the design quality of scaled-up solutions by mitigating risks and creating sufficient support for new interventions. Experimentation is a useful strategy for building confidence in organizational change by producing evidence for and prototypes of a different tomorrow (Bason & Austin, 2022; Ehnert 2023b).
CODIFICATION
Codification is the process of turning the local authority’s intentions and practices into institutionalized structures and policies. Codified policies and practices communicate institutional decisions and priorities; provide frameworks for government staff in partnerships; and allow stakeholders, the public, the media, and elected officials to hold the institution accountable (Barker & Rees, 2021; Bason & Austin, 2022; Huntington, 2006; Kattel et al., 2022; Wolff & de-Shalit 2007). Legitimate codification requires stakeholder engagement that is experienced as authentic by the involved parties. Particularly germane to public innovation, successful codification strikes a balance between predictability and flexibility (Kattel et al., 2022).
Table 1: Partnership Capabilities Model
SKILLS
active listening, attentiveness to resident needs
NAVIGATION
PRACTICES embrace friction, reconfigure services
CONVENING
SKILLS
dialogue, curiosity, negotiation
PRACTICES
facilitation, learning together, shared agenda
POTENTIAL OUTCOMES
y Collaborative culture
y Better understanding of resident concerns
y Staff work satisfaction and retention
y Equity and safety
EXPERIMENTATION
SKILLS creativity, observation, learning by doing
PRACTICES testing, iteration, adaptive learning
POTENTIAL OUTCOMES
y Problem definition
y Systemic approach to collaboration
y Sense of recognition and shared ownership
y Understanding of assets
CODIFICATION
SKILLS assessment, evaluation, policy development
PRACTICES advocacy, reporting, enforcement, policy adoption
POTENTIAL OUTCOMES
y Flexibility and speed
y Higher design quality
y Proof of concept
y Confidence for change
POTENTIAL OUTCOMES
y Predictability
y Legitimacy of government
y Accountability and transparency
Meeting Los Angeles’ Diverse Needs Through Experimentation
This case study examines the Los Angeles Public Library’s partnership practices to illustrate the capability of experimentation 8 In experimentation, the local authority and its partners engage in an adaptive learning process in which they create, test, observe, and adapt new ideas and interventions (Ehnert, 2023a, 2023b). Experimentation can improve the design quality of larger-scale rollouts by mitigating risks and creating sufficient support for new approaches. As such, it can be a successful strategy for building organizational confidence for change by producing evidence and prototypes of a different tomorrow (Bason & Austin, 2022; Ehnert, 2023b). Experimentation can drive change either by scaling up promising practices or by reconfiguring existing practices (Ehnert, 2023a).
The Los Angeles Public Library uses experimentation to respond to highly diverse and changing community needs and thus deliver on its mission as an “everybody institution.” The LAPL’s capability for experimentation is enabled by a predictable funding formula codified in the City Charter. Additionally, its mission-driven leadership supports a culture of ongoing learning and adaptation and encourages experimentation to deliver neighborhood-level solutions.
The LAPL enables a high level of discretion among staff to experiment via a variety of partnerships and programs, both at the Central Library and in its 72 branches. New programs are tested with external funding and, when successful, incorporated into the LAPL’s portfolio of services supported by public funds. The affiliated Library Foundation for Los Angeles aligns philanthropic donor interests with those of the public library and provides administrative flexibility for experimentation.
The LAPL advances experimentation through three strategic partnership practices:
1. Coordination of city-wide initiatives through its Engagement and Learning Division.
2. Material and cultural support for library branches and staff to customize offerings for community needs.
3. Demonstrated responsiveness to city policy priorities via programming and services.
In the remainder of this case study, we detail these partnership practices to illustrate how experimentation works as a partnership capability at the LAPL, followed by takeaways for other organizations.
III. Partnership Practices of an “Everybody Institution”
With 3.8 million residents, Los Angeles is the largest municipality in Los Angeles County and the second-largest city in the United States. More than one-third of the population is foreign-born, and nearly half of all Angelenos identify as Hispanic/Latino (see Table 2). Median household income in 2021 across the city’s zip codes ranged from $22,291 to $212,115 (Los Angeles Almanac, n.d.). The diversity of Los Angeles and the scale of urban challenges complicate service delivery and drive the need for innovation. Urban sociologists describe Los Angeles as “a testbed” for the future of U.S. cities given its demographic diversity, concentration of creative sectors, persistent wealth inequality, and pronounced racial disparities (Sampson et al., 2017).9
Table 2: Key Demographics of the City of Los Angeles
Language other than English spoken at home, percent of persons age 5 years+, 2018-2022
housing unit rate, 2018-2022
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2018-2022 $822,600 $281,900
Median gross rent, 2018-2022
(in 2022 dollars), 2018-2022
U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). Population Estimates, July 1, 2023 (V2023) — Los Angeles City, CA and United States [data table]. Quick Facts. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US,losangelescitycalifornia/PST045223
U.S. CENSUS QUICK FACTS
LOS ANGELES
The Los Angeles Public Library has a Central Library and 72 branches (see Map 1). In 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, the LAPL had over 10 million visits and more than 7 million public access computer uses, hosted or organized 23,487 programs, and had a total circulation in excess of 17 million (Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2021).10 In 2023, the library employed 1,284 staff members and operated on an annual budget of nearly $242 million.11
At the LAPL, three enabling factors make experimentation possible. First, as a chartered department, the LAPL’s insulation from the City Council’s annual budget deliberation provides it with considerable autonomy and predictability compared to most other city departments.12 Per the City Charter, the LAPL’s budget is based on a percentage of assessed real estate values in Los Angeles. In 2011, a successful ballot initiative, Measure L, nearly doubled the library’s funding formula from 1.75% to 3.00% of assessed property values (Velasquez, 2015).13 Yet, the greatest impact of chartered funding is assured resources for LAPL each year, versus the absolute level of resources it generates, which is average compared to the 10 biggest library systems in the country (Figure 1)
Figure 1:
Operating Expenditure Per Capita ($) in the 10 Biggest Public Library Systems in the United States (2021)
Data Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services
Map 1: Los Angeles Public Library Branches
3
Second is a mission-driven leadership style under City Librarian John F. Szabo, appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2012.14 Formerly the director of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, Szabo was nationally known for increasing the Library’s community engagement and social impact. Szabo describes the LAPL’s mission as “an everybody institution” that is “serving the richest in the community … the poorest … the undocumented, people that go to school, don’t go to school, visitors, tourists. We’re really serving everybody.”15 Szabo sees his role as guardian of the 150-yearold civic institution and his main responsibility as ensuring its sustainability. He does so by setting clear and aligned priorities for managers and staff, creating space for experimentation to ensure the library responds to changing needs with innovative programming and services, and “relentlessly reminding our stakeholders of the importance of the library.”16 When mayors announce new initiatives, they often use the Los Angeles Central Library as a backdrop.17
The third enabling factor for the LAPL’s experimentation capability is its partnership with the philanthropic Library Foundation of Los Angeles, founded in 1992.18 The foundation raises $5-7 million annually for programming that meets its mission “to strengthen the Los Angeles Public Library and promote greater awareness of its valuable resources.”19 The division of tasks between the LAPL and the foundation is designed to protect the legitimacy of the public institution.20 When considering partnerships, the LAPL assesses staff capacity, impacts on the LAPL’s brand, alignment with institutional mission, and what the partnership communicates about the library’s innovation capacity. Public funding covers basic operations like salaries, utilities, collections, technology, and established programming, as well as social services common in library systems today after the initial experimentation phase. The foundation’s resources are critical for what Szabo describes as “providing the cherry on top”: developing innovative programs, meeting urgent needs (e.g., vaccination campaigns during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020), amplifying the library’s visibility, and deploying high-risk projects that would be difficult to execute within city government.21
In sum, stable public funding, mission-driven leadership, and an enduring relationship with the Library Foundation support a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement in which experimentation is possible. In turn, LAPL advances experimentation by employing the following three partnership practices.
Los Angeles Dodgers storytime at the Edendale Branch Library.
Practice 1: Coordination of City-Wide Initiatives
The Engagement and Learning Division at the LAPL advances a strategic and needs-based approach to programs and services. Organizationally positioned alongside Branch Library Services and Central Library Services (see Figure 2), the division launched in 2016 based on a proposal from four senior managers responsible for coordinating audience-specific programming (e.g., young adult) who felt “frustrated” by operating outside the library’s two main service delivery units. The division’s director, Eva Mitnick, recounted that they envisioned a model where their programming expertise instead sat alongside the main delivery units, a vision made possible after Measure L ensured funding for programming.22 The city librarian and deputy director at the time were receptive to the idea, as programming became “more and more of an important core service, not just books and reference,” Mitnick explained.23
The LAPL’s Engagement and Learning Division develops and manages system-wide (i.e., citylevel) engagement and outreach activities, youth services, lifelong learning initiatives, and other programming. Current LAPL programs that involve external partnerships range from science fairs, free passes to California State Parks, and library cards for local students to business development support for street vendors, free dental care for residents, online high school degree completion, and immigrant services. As new program development is often funded through the Library Foundation, the Engagement and Learning Division plays a fundamental role in developing and presenting concepts for exploratory initiatives to potential funders with the foundation and to LAPL leadership.
BOARD OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONERS
ASSISTANT CITY LIBRARIAN
BRANCH LIBRARY SERVICES
CENTRAL/SOUTHERN
MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES
CITY LIBRARIAN
CENTRAL LIBRARY SERVICES
RESEARCH & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
NORTHEAST CUSTOMER SERVICE
EAST VALLEY
WEST VALLEY
HOLLYWOOD
WESTERN
ENGAGEMENT & LEARNING
ENGAGEMENT & OUTREACH
PROGRAMMING & OUTREACH
LIFELONG LEARNING
ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER
HUMAN RESOURCES
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES & COLLECTIONS
PR & MARKETING YOUTH SERVICES BUSINESS OFFICE
EXPLORATION & CREATIVITY
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
LIBRARY EXPERIENCE OFFICE
Figure 2: Organization of the Los Angeles Public Library
4
The establishment of the Learning and Engagement division has brought a systematic approach to the library’s programmatic development by allowing it to build strategic partnerships with other public agencies, develop programs intentionally with the Library Foundation and branches, identify resources for experimentation, perform comprehensive evaluations, and share best practices across the system. This process of adaptive learning has generated a cycle in which increased investment in programming brings higher interest in partnering with the LAPL, which brings more investment opportunities. Greater demand has contributed to the library’s formalization of its partnership approach, with guidance from its business office and leadership from the top levels outward through the system. Mitnick illustrated the library’s learning curve with a hypothetical branch-community partnership opportunity. Branch staff now understand the formal requirements for collaboration, she explained, including a signed letter of agreement, insurance, and other documentation and procedures “if they’re going to [be] inviting outside people.”
Practice 2: Branch Agency to Meet Local Needs
The LAPL’s leadership encourages library branches to customize services and programming to meet community needs. Support includes active communication, microgrants for experimentation, and staff training on safety and equity via a Library Experience Office established in 2021.
The LAPL empowers neighborhood branches to meet its strategic goal of equitable access for all users. The city librarian relies on an executive team, managers, and senior librarians overseeing each branch to deliver on the “expectation that there is public programming in each of [their] communities” that responds to diverse users across the city’s neighborhoods. How the LAPL meets this expectation “is not standardized,” per City Librarian Szabo, because branch needs vary. Perhaps the library “could do a better job of having, you know, consistent expectations across the system,” he reflected, but the LAPL is not “a cookie-cutter system.”
A range of public services are provided at the Central Library branch.
Senior branch librarians and staff interviewed at six sites described their partnership work as active engagement with other branches and local organizations such as neighborhood councils, schools, senior care centers, and local businesses. Overall, they expressed significant agency in developing programs and organizing activities, responding affirmatively to a question about their discretion to establish local partnerships. They described the organizational culture with phrases such as “we keep each other informed,” “we check with each other,” it is about “building trust,” or it requires “being mindful.” Strong communication across branches supports staff in identifying “who to work with and who not to work with.” One interviewee described management as rarely intervening unless another branch has had a prior negative experience with a potential partner. Library leaders explained that while branch agency does result at times in overlap or mixed messages to partners, this is a reasonable trade-off for branch staff experimentation.24
The LAPL’s branch locations serve diverse neighborhoods that range from Valley communities with many immigrant families to coastal enclaves of wealthy retirees. Branch staff expressed knowing their neighborhoods well and providing programming and services to meet their needs. Thus, some branches focus on traditional library functions, such as book circulation, movie nights, and author visits, whereas others emphasize services to assist groups such as people experiencing homelessness, people learning English, or immigrant Angelenos. To account for the city’s vast wealth inequality, which means some branches enjoy greater charitable giving than others, the LAPL directs more collections funding to areas with less capacity for giving. The library has also developed models where two or three libraries have a shared “friends of” group to balance neighborhood inequities.
Many library staff have built trusted personal relationships with local organizations and active community members over their careers and through their neighborhood presence. Furthermore, residents see local branches as approachable community hubs, making the library’s physical space one of its best assets for local partnerships. An example of local branch library partnerships is the provision of COVID-19 vaccines and dental screenings at the branch in Panorama City, a mostly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley whose median household income is below the city median. The partnership emerged from an initial discussion between a local health care provider and the library’s regional manager given their facilities’ proximity. Branch staff worked with the provider to offer free health services and advertise the service to library patrons.
The LAPL has two core ways to provide resources for experimentation in the branches: a mini-grant program and friends of the library groups. Funded by the foundation, the Innovation, Discovery, Empowerment, Aspiration, and Service (IDEAS) mini-grant program provides staff with awards of $500 to $5,000 to test out new approaches that may grow into larger, city-level programs.25 One such branch pilot that scaled system-wide is the Book Bike, a fleet of tricycles that librarians ride to distribute books and sign new patrons up for library cards at community events (Metro Los Angeles, 2017).
Like mini-grants, neighborhood partnerships through friends of the library groups offer achievable experimentation and professional development for staff. According to Szabo, friends of the library groups are “good training” for librarians because they learn “how to work with an external partner.” This includes addressing “sticky issues” such as jointly making and managing funding decisions with residents. Financial or volunteer support from friends of the library groups allows branches to speed up projects, buy more books and supplies, and launch new services. Some senior librarians described their local friends of the library groups as their “ride or die.”
Practice 3: Alignment With City Priorities
The LAPL’s annual budget priorities highlight its responsiveness to Angelenos’ needs and its efforts to make Los Angeles a “healthier, stronger, more economically strong city,” per Szabo. This illustrates the LAPL’s third practice in support of experimentation: demonstrating its commitment to city government priorities through programmatic initiatives and public engagement to sustain its political support and foster intergovernmental collaboration. Given the scale of urban challenges in Los Angeles, the library continuously adapts its services and program portfolio to align with the city’s governing agenda.
Perhaps the best-known example of this practice is the LAPL’s track record of supporting immigrants, a long-time policy priority in this diverse city. The Urban Libraries Council has highlighted the LAPL’s standout innovation on this topic over the years, beginning with an agreement in 2012 between the library, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), and local nonprofits that led to the establishment of the Path to Citizenship Initiative and “Citizenship Corners” in its 73 branches (Urban Libraries Council, n.d.).26 Over time, this program evolved into the New Americans Initiative, now hosted at six branches, which won a 2018 Top Innovator award from the Council. Input from program users suggests that the library is viewed as “a social justice partner and trusted organization” in the city. The LAPL is part of a stakeholder consortium that works with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, and it is part of a national advocacy network highlighting its efforts, LAPL Associate Director of Lifelong Learning Alicia Moguel told the Council in 2019 (Urban Libraries Council, 2019). The LAPL estimates that the New Americans program has “helped nearly 80,000 immigrants prepare for becoming U.S. citizens,” according to The Los Angeles Times (Fleishman, 2023).
A more recent initiative that aligns with city priorities is the creation of the Library Experience Office in 2021 (Figure 1) in response to the rise in homelessness in Los Angeles, which almost doubled between 2012 and 2022 (City of Los Angeles, 2022). The city estimated that among its unsheltered population, “46 percent are affected by substance abuse [and] 34 percent are affected by a serious mental illness,” among other health conditions (City of Los Angeles, 2022). Libraries are often “the first place of refuge for unhoused people” (Ward, 2022), and for years, the LAPL operated a monthly program for unhoused patrons to connect them with health, housing, and job resources. But this felt insufficent, according to Joyce Cooper, director of branch library services, who told Ward (2022) that LAPL aimed “to do more to help unhoused patrons.” The LAPL’s subsequent multiyear, staff-driven Safety and Security Project was determined to bring mental health services and support into the library to meet the needs of unhoused users as well as its broader clientele (Garrova, 2022; Peet, 2025; Ward, 2022). In April 2023, the LAPL launched a pilot project modeled on programs in San Francisco, Denver, and Philadelphia’s libraries offering social and mental health services to patrons through new social work staff and on-site partners via the Library Experience Office (Palmer, 2023). Employees have learned de-escalation techniques, a trauma-informed care approach, and how to treat opioid overdoses with Naloxone (Peet, 2025).27 Mayor Karen Bass, who declared homelessness a state of emergency as her first act in office in December 2022, highlighted the Library Experience Office for serving more than 5,000 unhoused patrons seeking social and mental health services in a 2024 year-end press release (City of Los Angeles, 2024).
IV. Lessons on Experimentation as a Partnership Practice
The LAPL is a city department that successfully partners with philanthropies, nonprofits, and other public sector agencies to bolster its programmatic innovation through experimentation. Historically “one of the city’s most respected institutions,” per The Los Angeles Times (Fleishman, 2023), the LAPL delivers on the idea of being “an everybody institution,” as a 2021 user experience survey illustrates. A total of 23,800 people responded from all of its 72 branch locations and the Central Library, representing 40 different ethnic groups. Eighty-eight percent said they felt welcome, and 80% said they felt safe at the library (Los Angeles Public Library, 2021). Two quotes from our interviews highlight this success from an internal and external stakeholder perspective. First, LAPL Director of Public Relations and Marketing Lauren Skinner describes the library’s core message as follows:
One of the things we say over and over in our marketing materials is that whether people are just starting out or feel ready to start over, they start at the Los Angeles Public Library. And I think it’s really true.28
An artist who took part in its residency program sums it up:
There are many public institutions that I do not believe in at all. … I think that libraries in their current form occupy a space where they are open, and they’re helpful. They are all part of the communities that they serve. That was something that I didn’t really know. But as I did this project, it became incredibly clear to me how locked into serving their patrons libraries actually are.29
This case study featuring the LAPL offers the following takeaways for other civic institutions seeking to develop experimentation as a capability for partnerships:
1. Designate a strategic unit to drive partnerships. There is no one way to be a great library. Resources and organizational support for experimentation empower frontline staff discretion with an eye towards scaling successes system-wide. Sustained innovations are used in the LAPL’s advocacy, fundraising, and system-wide program development.
2. Cultivate frontline experimentation. There is no one way to be a great library. Resources and organizational support for experimentation empower frontline staff discretion with an eye towards scaling successes system-wide. Sustained innovations are used in the LAPL’s advocacy, fundraising, and system-wide program development.
3. Demonstrate institutional commitment to city priorities. Experimentation to ensure program alignment with city priorities sustains political support for the library and fosters cross-sectoral collaboration. The creation of the LAPL’s Library Experience Office is an example of how experimentation can lead to a system-wide response to address policy priorities, such as the needs of unhoused patrons.
V. Conclusion
Despite chronic underfunding, public libraries provide highly popular public services; partnerships are a necessary part of their culture and service delivery model. This case study has explored how the LAPL leverages partnerships to cultivate its experimentation capability. For the LAPL, experimentation through partnerships is an adaptive learning process within a highly diverse operating landscape that helps maintain public support for this “everybody institution.” The LAPL’s leadership does not take its stability and popularity for granted. Retaining broad public support and philanthropic funding requires institutional tools, staff ingenuity, and active relationships with diverse Los Angeles constituencies.
As City Librarian Szabo puts it, “Sustainability of the library is about telling our story,” so the library is not “seen as just over there within that pretty building downtown or that branch library.” Szabo continued, explaining it's “really important” for decision makers to “know that we really are...for every community in LA.”