Walking Together, Reaching Beyond the Library: How Library Walking Groups Build Community Connections

What happens when libraries take their services beyond the building and into the streets, trails, and parks of their communities? The session focuses on how library walking groups can transform community connections.

From May 2023 to 2025, 18 public libraries across Oregon hosted weekly walking groups. Half also facilitated civic engagement projects in which walkers used small grants to improve local walkability, producing walking maps, trail signage, park exercise equipment, and pedestrian safety improvements. This session shares findings and stories from the project, showing how librarians recruited walkers — many of whom were isolated, homebound, or not regular library users — and built sustained engagement over two years.

Participants reported reduced social isolation, increased physical activity, stronger social networks, and deeper connections to both their communities and their libraries. Several groups are continuing beyond the study, and some participants became regular library users for the first time. We’ll also discuss key factors for success in this work: how librarians adapted to weather, attrition, and varying participant abilities; how they transitioned groups from library-led models to peer leadership models; and how civic engagement projects created lasting community infrastructure through partnerships with city governments, parks departments, rotary clubs, and health foundations. Whether your library serves a town of 900 or a city of 900,000, attendees will leave with a practical, replicable framework for launching a low-cost walking outreach program — including strategies for recruitment, route planning, peer leadership transitions, and community partnership development. This session demonstrates that meaningful outreach doesn’t require a vehicle or a big budget — sometimes it just takes a pair of shoes and a willingness to walk alongside your community.