Read the notes compiled from people who attended the District Library Center Leadership Workshop sponsored by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries using LSTA funds.
You can read them by downloading this document: Sustainable Library Workshop Notes
Or…here is the simple full text of its contents right here in this blog post.
Enjoy!
The Sustainable Library
The main focus of the workshop was presentations and activities under the title “The Sustainable Library” by the team of George Needham and Joan Frye Williams. You can learn more about them and see great presentations and samples of their work at: http://www.georgeandjoan.com/
Below is a long list of highlights from the notes attendees took at the workshop in no particular order. The workshop was full of nuggets of wisdom and great talking points that we can apply NOW:
Service Ideas
1) Idea for Youth Services: In Charleston, when at least four children appear in the library, they do a spontaneous storytime.
2) Ask: Does a reference librarian in your community curate and contribute to the Wikipedia entry for your town or for your library?
3) Make it fun! Idea: Library card signup happy hour could include singing staff or dancing elves.
4) What important life situations are your customers facing? Imagine the context that people use library service in. Can your library develop services to address predictable life situations? Can you package and present library services to meet “Expecting a new baby” or “Making your first thanksgiving dinner” or “Getting married?” Think of ways that people in these situations can use the library. And it’s not just about books and lists of information. Imagine how it changes their lives.
5) Promote brain insurance: Health and senior wellness are big topics.
6) How are your services designed to help groups? (Or are they focused only on individuals?)
7) Idea: Can your library establish a fund to pay the fines/fees accrued by kids who may be considered at-risk? Think about ways you can appeal to one part of the community to support the rest.
8) Would your library consider offering “charge spots” for mobile devices like airports do? Why? Do you still ban cell phones? Why? Behavior problems are not device problems.
9) Action step to take: Get rid of clutter at desks where customers are served.
10) Enrich your point of view. Your relationship to reading is not the same as your customers. Explore custom customer service options like 3 books for 10 weeks instead of 10 books for 3 weeks. Are popular books just for fast readers? (Note: Academics have been giving semester long loan periods to faculty for a long time.) Consider developing customized services. Our circulation models are based on old paper based methods. We could consider having a borrower type that is the AVID READER plan (lots of books for fewer weeks) or the SAVORING READER plan (fewer books, more time) or the VIDEO PLAN, etc.
11) Great Program Idea: Sponsor a Candidate School (for political office) at your library. http://www.topekachamber.org/s/indexp.cfm?aid=248
12) 85% of what people find in a library is through browsing. Only 15% of customers are searching for a specific item. Customers are shopping, not retrieving. We need to make browsing easy and fun. Consider pulling together islands in topical areas that pull together all formats on one topic. Signage for areas needs to include pictures of how materials create results for civilians. Don’t just say “gardening”; show a picture of a happy family gardening together.
13) Circulation staff’s job is to move materials, not guard them.
14) Libraries need to know what the percentage of repeat business is at your library. When people get a card, do they come back?
15) The most approachable person in the library is someone shelving books. EVERYONE in the library needs to be ready to talk to people and assist them. Consider having everyone taking Nancy Pearl’s Booktalking course.
16) Most of our customer service questions such as Can I Help You or Did you find everything you need today? Imply some kind of judgment from the library. If the customer didn’t find what they were looking for, they have to ADMIT that they need help. The best question to ask is “What can we do for you today”
17) Use social networking effectively. Don’t just post your own updates, instead contribute content/input to other community organization pages. Activity idea: Post a list of subject relevant resources on the Facebook page of 5 community organizations next week. See how many new “friends” your library will get when you contribute and interact. Post on the local comments of the newspaper a list of books and online resources that will help inform those making comments.
Limited Resources
18) Don’t do More with Less. Do different with less.
19) Don’t spend time on things that aren’t visible to your stakeholders and customers.
20) The answer is not rationing. Just get used to this situation.
21) Are you thinking about trimming underperforming outlets? Be careful and approach each situation individually. Weigh criteria for minimum standards. Politics and differentiating between a library and a reading room may come into play. Remember that many see the library as the sign of life in the community—it’s about local identity. Nostalgia shapes expectations. Let community needs be the drive.
22) Libraries can’t afford to spend time and money on things people can’t see. 80% of what catalogers traditionally do don’t really have anything to do with find-ability. Only do what a civilian can spot from 20 paces away. Either stop doing it, or change what you are doing to make it show.
23) What services could you consider stopping and what would be the result? (Could you buy a $50 DVD player for the 10 customers who still use VHS?)
24) Radical thought: If you can’t convince people to use your databases, don’t spend money on them. Lesson: Don’t purchase things you want your customers to want, purchase things your customers want to use.
25) In an age of increasingly limited resources, we need to think about whether the work or services can be designed by professionals, but delivered by civilians. Perfection can’t be the goal for service delivery.
26) Don’t ask for a donation. Ask for an investment.
27) Move forward…together: Eliminate redundancies and share what’s there to make it bigger and sustainable.
28) Efficiency: Designed by PROFESSIONALS but carried out by SOMEONE ELSE You are either “at the table” or “on the menu.”
29) Explore alternate financial models. Now is the time. Everything is on the table. Some of these include:
a) Cooperative – subscription basis or is a hybrid possible
b) Public Broadcasting – members pay – some services free for all, charge for premium services; Can a service be scaled without additional cost?
c) Museum – pay each time you visit, or become member for higher price but have more access.
d) ROI – we’ll do what we can for $xx and no more.
e) Privatization – outsource library management. You should know what it would cost in your community to do this, because the question may be asked
f) Independent Tax District – probably not legal in Pennsylvania.
g) Note: Workshop leaders are not recommending any of these, but you must know the answers to these suggested models should the question be raised. Don’t assume that something wouldn’t be considered.
Strategic Planning
30) Libraries aren’t the only organizations that are discussing sustainability. Local and state governments are also experiencing this problem.
31) We need to be sure about the role of our 19th century institution in the 21st century.
32) Traditionally, we’ve talked about libraries in a vacuum. We need to tie our conversations about libraries back to what the community cares about. We need to be about what ‘sustains’ the community.
33) Mission statements aren’t really that important. Most mission statements are fine. They just shouldn’t prevent you from doing something that you want to do.
34) Libraries are in the business of making you smarter.
35) Libraries are not in the content business. They are in the transformation business, making individuals and communities stronger.
36) Just being Free isn’t enough; time and convenience are important. Information is everywhere. Help people save time.
37) Fire Department has changed from “fires only” to the rescue business (changing business/service model concept) We’re not JUST in the book business. We are in the MAKING YOU SMART business.
38) Always assess your services from a positive point of view. What are we good at? What do we do well? And, then build from there.
39) Your organization will get the results you reward.
40) Our communities care more about the benefits the library provides than about the library itself.
41) There is a limited value to library-conducted surveys. Instead, just ask your reference librarians for help to gather community data. How do they handle customers asking for information about your local community? Have you asked for help and input?
42) Demographics are not destiny. You need to know what they are, but you also need to know what people want…what their dreams are. You will be more credible to the community and funders if you use other people’s data to talk about the need for services. Most library surveys are self-aggrandizing or just really poorly done. Use data from the United Way, YWCA, news agencies, chambers, planning commissions, etc.
43) Use the data that is already available in many reporting functions of your ILS. Explore how people really use the materials you give them and customize privileges.
44) If you ask most people what they want for their community, they might say, I want my kids to care about learning. I want my daughter to have opportunities I never had. I want to do something fun with my family that doesn’t cost $100. You need to know what your community says…why they live there, what makes the community distinctive, what the community’s greatest assets are.
45) Public libraries should know where they are and reflect the best of the community. The best libraries can say that they used to be in the library business, now they are in the [city name] business.
46) Libraries need to recognize that we don’t really offer all things to all people. We’ve already made choices. Libraries need to stop rationing the services people do want (think timed computers) and stop paying for things people don’t want (like databases?). We continue to think if we just marketed the services well, people would use them.
Policy Development
47) Most, if not all, of our circulation policies imply that people are guilty unless proven innocent. The courts don’t even do that. Always presume innocence. Why do we say “CLAIMED returned”? We should believe people unless proven otherwise, and just deal with the small minority who are out to scam the library. Howard County Library has a policy that you always act as if the customer is innocent until there is proof that they are guilty.
48) Ask your staff what things do we have to keep explaining over and over again. Or, every time staff have to say NO to something, ask them to write it down and give it to management. These policies or services are candidates for change.
49) Anytime something new is proposed, people will always have a list of ‘classic’ objections. Consider posting a list of these in your meeting and stipulating that all of these are true. See list at: http://www.georgeandjoan.com/samples/ASCLA.pdf. If people say, we tried that in xxxx, and it didn’t work because xxxx, then say well how can we make sure that doesn’t happen again.
50) Treat exceptions as exceptions. Don’t what-if too much.
51) Exercise: Have your staff document the times they say “no” to a patron and why – as a planning tool. Don’t assume getting the books back is more important than getting the people back.
Customer Service
52) Position your organization so people believe you are sustaining them and your organization will be sustainable.
53) For staff who may be over-protective or police-like: You don’t own the collection—the whole community does. Libraries serve the people, not policies and procedures. Cynicism about customers is bad for sustainability. Presume innocence; trust your community of users.
54) Libraries are about tools, not rules!
55) Try to look at your library with fresh eyes. What could a tourist learn about your community by visiting your library? What is obvious?
56) Have a civilian walk through the library with you while you SHUT UP and listen to what they observe/experience (i.e. What the HECK is microfiche?)
57) Human Resources thought: If you removed the word “library” from your job postings for customer service staff, would you attract different people?
58) “LEFT TURN” Where do you get your milk? The greatest supermarket or the place where you do not need to make the left turn? (convenience)
59) Spend time observing a first time user of your facility. (Or, try getting a group/board/friends to use the Customer Service Walkabout exercise at another location and then try it at your library: http://www.georgeandjoan.com/samples/tools.html )
Partnerships
60) You don’t have to like everything about an organization to be allies/partners, you just have to agree on something and know what it is. (Will community members outside your profession attend your retirement party?)
Change
61) Staff members find their self worth in the value of knowledge/mastery of a skill. Help them understand changes to services with sensitivity. When you stop doing something you’ve done for years, it can be difficult. All services have lifecycles. Manage phase-outs effectively.
62) Some things/services/information are past their “use by” date.
63) 5 crows were sitting on a fence. 3 of them decided to leave. How many were left? (argh!) All 5, they only decided, they just didn’t do it yet. Take action. Doing nothing is a choice. Start with something and Fail Fast!
64) EBooks as enriching the experience (embedded links to historical information, for example).
Libraries and Relevance
65) The real debate isn’t electronic vs. print. It’s reading or not reading. A book is a medium to read.
66) People have a choice whether to visit the library or not. We need to entice them…not educate them about what we are.
67) In buildings, think about library lighting for stacks, for table areas, PC’s, and for new devices like eBooks that face the ceiling.
68) Help people think of a visit to the library as a gift. Romance it a little.
69) Libraries represent their own communities on the web. Encourage local content creation and sharing (uploading)!
70) eBooks won’t replace books. One medium doesn’t replace another. Forms and formats replace another.
Being Political
71) Political Sustainability is not a taboo subject. Be political; it isn’t optional. Quit keeping them separate. Align with channels of power and go into political conversations to cultivate investors. Use the force—go with it!
72) You need an elevator QUESTION not an elevator SPEECH. Ask the right questions to your community leaders and stakeholders:
a) What are your big issues?
b) What do you see as the greatest assets in the community?
c) What do you wish you knew more about? What resources do you use when you try to solve problems?
d) Who else should we talk to?
