It was Katylyn Dedrick's first night working late at the Tompkins County Public Library. Most of the patrons searching the stacks had already gone home. The building was quiet, even for a library.
“I was honestly on my way back from a break. I still had a bag of chips in my hand,” Dedrick remembers.
However, that calm was short-lived. Dedrick was stopped on the way back from her break by a frantic patron who said there was a man passed out in the bathroom.
Dedrick sprung into action.
“I could see in the stall that there was a man that had collapsed.”
He was overdosing. Dedrick called over a guard while the patron contacted 911.
Dedrick knew what she had to do. She turned the man on his side and administered Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose.
“They didn’t respond to the first dose,” she recalls. “They had started to turn, like purplish in the face and in the ears. We gave them a second dose, and that's when I began chest compressions,” Dedrick said.
Finally, emergency responders arrived to take over. Dedrick was flooded with adrenaline, mixed with relief.
“I'm very grateful I got to see that person walk out of the library alive that day,” she said.
Narcan and her fast response likely saved his life. Library staff told WSKG that although Dedrick’s story might sound shocking to outsiders, addressing the immediate impacts of the opioid crisis has become just another part of library staff’s expanding social roles.
Staff have reversed seven overdoses in the library over the past two years.
Information Saves Lives
Half of all Americans know someone who died from an overdose, according to a recent study from the RAND Corporation.
Though overdose deaths are gradually decreasing nationwide, local libraries have been thrust into the front lines of the overdose crisis in recent years.
Sasha Raffloer leads the Information Saves Lives program, a harm reduction effort at the library that includes new books on addiction, meditation sessions, workshops and other events.
“We wanted things to be really both practical and accessible,” Raffloer said. “Because a lot of the time things like that have a barrier of cost or location or any number of things, but can be so helpful to people in recovery.”
The program offers training sessions on how to administer Narcan. They also installed a vending machine where patrons can get the overdose reversal drug for free.
“It's right near the front, “ Raffloer said. “You'll see a little glimmer of it when you walk past.”
The program is funded through opioid settlement funds — money paid out by the companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis.
The Southern Tier region received over $9,500,000 in opioid settlement fund abatements from 2023 to 2025.
Funds are dispersed to counties, which then redistribute funding to organizations offering addiction resources, like the Tompkins County Library.
‘Cycle of poverty’
The Broome County Library also has a Narcan vending machine and training on how to administer the drug.
Director Josias Bartram said they see around one to two overdoses in the library each year. For the most part, library security guards have been the ones to reverse overdoses, but librarians are also trained.
He said library staff are also focusing on the root causes of addiction in the area.
“We have a population of people in the Southern Tier who are trapped in this cycle of poverty,” Bartram said. “And often addiction has played a major role in this.”
In the Broome County Library rotunda, anyone can warm up, grab some coffee or tea, and access the library’s “peer support” program. It is a nonjudgemental space for people in need to find services, Bartram said.
“We trust people to be able to figure out what they personally need,” he said. “Our room is open for anybody to come into. They don't have to give their name any information about themselves. They don't need to prove their need. They're just welcome to be there and to be, in a sense, in a part of a community.”
The library partners with Catholic Charities to run the program. Peer support staff help fill out paperwork and schedule medical appointments. They can also find addiction treatment and mental health care, plus housing and meals.
“Just figuring out how to get affordable housing is, in itself, this real crisis,” Bartram said. “And then, in the meantime, we have a growing homeless population, and nobody seems to have good answers about solving the underlying problem.”
The number of people experiencing homelessness in the Binghamton area jumped by 66% between 2022 and 2024 according to a report from the state comptroller.
Narcan gives the library time to address those big underlying challenges, Bartram said.
“When we're talking about people who are struggling with addiction, they have to survive long enough to be able to address that, and Narcan makes that possible.”