My name is Stormy Avalos, and I am a recent MSW graduate from San Jose State University. My grad school thesis Social Workers in the Stacks: Transforming Public Libraries into Systems of Care (SWITS) was accepted for presentation at the Society for Social Work and Research's (SSWR) 2026 Convention, held in Washington DC. My thesis is an analysis on social work and its critical role in public libraries - which you can read more about below.

The total cost ($2000) includes the flight, five day hotel stay, conference registration, and presentation costs - anything left over will be for food, a visit to the Smithsonian, and maybe even a set of souvenirs for my teenagers. This is a cost I can't bear alone, and I am asking for crowd-funding to help me get there!

Social Workers in the Stacks: Transforming Public Libraries into Systems of Care was not an easy process. Like many a thesis before it and many thesis' after it, it was born from of a labor of love, midnight Zoom meetings, and many, many edits.

I first pitched my idea to San Jose State University's incredible Dr. Nayoun Lee and she was all-in. We went back on forth on ideas and landed on our approach. We took SWITS through the SJSU Institutional Review Board (we hope to publish, eventually!) and were approved. Dr. Lee worked with me, tirelessly, to help shape SWITS to a project I am forever proud of. For the primary qualitative data, I interviewed four library employees, four social workers, and four community members - from libraries across the United States. What we found is that:

Our librarians and library employees are faced with concerns of mental health, safety, and crisis everyday, without the training/specialized education of social work. While library staff learn cataloguing and patron/customer service - we learn Maslow and a whirlwind of acronyms. Library staff go into work each day, knowing they will have unhoused patrons/customers and nothing to provide them - other than the opportunity to exist in a air-conditioned building with running water from open to close. Library staff know that some (a lot) of people do not come in seeking traditional library services - but resources. Library staff are stretched thin and when crisis strikes, it hits hard.

So, my solution to the issue is to pair up both of my childhood loves: library and social work!

(Dr. Lee and I at the SJSU School of Social Work Convocation, 2025)

Note: SWITS is a passion project. I, myself, worked for my local County library system for over ten years. Library saved me: I escaped an abusive marriage (staff), I graduated from high school (COHS), I funded my undergraduate degree (CA State Library Scholarship), and grew many strong & lasting friendships with the people I met there. Every one of those pages, aides/associates, assistants, librarians, and community library managers ... deserve the world. I wrote this thesis, for them.