Åsa Kachan: Libraries and Belonging

Public libraries have run on overdue fines and quiet-please rules for generations. Increasingly, more of them are dropping both—and discovering that connection, not silence, is what makes a place worth belonging to.Åsa Kachan is CEO and Chief Librarian of Halifax Public Libraries. She drawing on her own experience growing up in libraries, she shows how removing fines, welcoming food and conversation, and designing for accidental encounters can turn libraries into places where belonging happens by design. This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Kachan spoke at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging on November 4, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.