COVID, global conflict, climate change, the cost of living . . . it is stressful living in an age of self-acknowledged Polycrisis. Study itself can be an emotional roller coaster for students. With the biggest impact often falling on those from marginalised communities. Emotional wellbeing is an issue of equity, as well as of kindness. Fortunately, we are increasingly as societies becoming more willing to talk openly about our mental health.

There has been increasing enthusiasm for academic libraries to contribute to how universities as a whole support the wellness of their students and staff. Libraries are increasingly creating new collections, redesigning spaces and organizing special events to support wellbeing.

For example, at Lancaster University, mental health and wellbeing remains an important driver for initiatives. Beyond the University-level helplines, policies and procedures, the Library is the heart of the campus. A dedicated Wellbeing Group meets monthly and reports activity to the Library Management Team. This embedding of reporting focuses a continued effort to support staff and students all year round. Mental health and wellbeing should not be an afterthought. It should be core to how we work and we support our library community and ourselves.

Reflecting this context, a project group of ALN has created a common resource to “support the supporters.” They have built a shared, open resource to help better understand how academic libraries can address issues of mental health and wellbeing.

The resource helps those in academic libraries who take responsibility for mental health and wellbeing related services and activities. The resource includes a research based model of the academic library role in mental health (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102256). It has notes on defining mental health and wellbeing, how to involve students in organizing events and evaluation. There is a checklist for planning an activity. There is a section on the (UK) policy context.

But the star of the show are 35 unique case studies (https://www.academiclibrariesnorth.ac.uk/case-studies-aln-libraries#overlay-context=student-mental-health-the-specifics). Each case study shares practical experience of an initiative that a ALN library has developed to support student and staff mental health and wellbeing. They range from calm spaces and wellbeing collections to colour in cafes. The case study authors explain exactly how the activity was organized, images of the set up, and contact information to find out more.

The intention of the case studies is both to share good practice. They encourage activities and initiatives to be replicated, saving planning time and increasing chance of success. Submissions are encouraged to detail what did not work, or what organisers would change next time to aid in easy replication. The call for case studies remains open, currently categorised into: Spaces, Collections, Activities Aimed at Students, Staff and Library Staff.