Sacramento library employees are going through training courses to be able to properly provide assistance to customers who are suffering from a mental illness. They took part in the system’s first “Mental Health First Aid” training, a national program geared toward detecting the signs of mental illness and substance abuse. The course was not trying to make staff experts in the field or give them the ability to diagnose cases but instead to help them recognize signs and symptoms of mental illness, defuse unpredictable situations, and guide people to counselors, first responders, and other professionals who can provide care in the future.

During the crash course, instructors advised library workers to gently ask questions to assess the risk of harm, to build trust by listening, and to gauge whether the person has anyone close that might be able to intervene. Each employee left with a list of local agencies and suicide hotlines to offer to people having trouble.  

This training was not specifically developed for the homeless population. In fact, almost 18 percent of Americans suffer from some type of mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. However, the agency also estimates 46 percent of people who live without shelter deal with some form of a mental condition.¹ According to a recent count released by  Sacramento Steps Forward, the organization that coordinates local efforts to aid the homeless, there are more than 3,600 people living without permanent shelter in Sacramento County. Homelessness has risen 30 percent since the last time the transient population was counted in 2015.²

Until now, librarians had to use the police or homeless outreach workers to respond to persons with mental illness in crisis. The additional training, which includes two more sessions, will give staff more options when a crisis occurs and help them be able to provide a friendly, welcoming environment to all who walk through the doors.

References

1. National Alliance on Mental Illness. (2015). Mental Health by the Numbers. [Press Release]. Retrieved from https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers

2. Chabria, A., Hubert, C., Lillis, R., and Garrison, E. (2017, July). Sacramento sees a startling surge in homeless people. Who they are might surprise you. The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved from http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article160423019.html

The post Sacramento Library Workers Learn Mental Health First Aid first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

At the ALA conference, Lent hosted a conversation starter titled Facilitating Communication, Collaboration, and Continuing Education for Library Directors. Sounds pretty fancy doesn’t it? What really happened was Lent spoke at the microphone for a minute and a half, and then had all the attendees get in a circle, go around and introduce themselves, and share topics that they’d hope to cover. He has been offering this Directors Roundtable at conferences in New England, and it was a big hit at this national offering also. His real success has been the creation of a library directors Listserv, which now has close to 400 library directors coast to coast reading and replying to one another every day.

I recently had the opportunity of filling in for him, by hosting a Directors Roundtable on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. I met with a great group of directors who work on this island (population 15,000 but that number grows to well over 100,000 during the summer vacation months). We got together to enjoy the best homemade scones I’d ever had, but really to share stories, frustrations, and ideas for success on the Island.

Lent was looking for a service that didn’t exist, so he created one. To quote him “I didn’t start this service because I think I’m a great library director, I did it because I think I’m not” and I think that’s an idea that we can all identify with sometimes. We are a community, no matter where we work and what the task at hand is. The support from the community of library directors is one that I value greatly and am thankful to have.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, visit Librarydirectors.org today.

The post Library Directors Group Enables Collaboration and Learning first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Let’s start with a gross generalization: Libraries as an institution seem to prefer conformity within our organizations; but librarians as a profession also strive to counter conformity. We cater our services to various nonconformists, and provide service to those who want to learn something new on taboo topics, or to have access to materials they may have been denied elsewhere. We will fight to the death for the rights we all have to express ourselves, and privacy is very important to us. But as a profession, we shy away from change. Even the most forward thinking librarians can be afraid to rock the boat. Let’s face it, we embrace the rules.

According to the article, humans feel better when we stick with what we know. That makes sense, right? We believe the potential loss associated with a change is greater than the gain that may result from the change. We ignore information that challenges long held beliefs. But this has a downside in that we do not create environments where feedback is welcome, or new ideas are celebrated. Yes, a new idea here and there may be praised, but the overall environment is stagnant. When I visit libraries, I often encounter bored staff members. They share the glazed-over look that comes from repeating the same tasks; frustration with disengaged managers; and a general feeling of disconnect from the work they are doing. How can nonconformity help these staff members re-engage? By encouraging them to break rules? Of course, we know that not all conformity is bad. But to be capable of cutting-edge library service, perhaps we need to look at striking a balance between the necessary structure that comes with any organization and the freedom to be creative in their jobs that can inspire and excite employees.

I once asked a staff member to create a flyer for a display. I needed something quick and dirty. This person was usually assigned to assisting with checking out books. He reacted with fear, then disbelief in his own skills, then acceptance, and the final outcome turned out great. We later talked and I said something along the lines of, “Hey, it’s fun to be creative and engaged at work.” He actually thanked me for the opportunity. Something so simple was a big deal to him. So, in the interest of shaking things up here are 7 ways to promote nonconformity in your library:

1. Ask staff members – What makes you unique? When do you feel at your best? Use the information you glean from these questions.
2. Don’t tell them how to do it, tell them what the end goal is.  For example do not say “You need to take the following steps to increase programming attendance (insert steps).” Do say “We need you to find ways to increase attendance at programming. Please think of a few ways to accomplish this goal and present them at the next meeting.”
3. Have staff members define their own mission. An example: I will advance the library system by actively seeking out opportunities to share our online resources with every customer I encounter.
4. Give staff members the freedom to choose their responsibilities. I prefer to give a list of initiatives and have them choose one to work on.
5. Lead the way by asking why. Why are we doing things this way, why is that policy in place? Keep staff thinking about updating, changing, moving forward.
6. Variety keeps people motivated. Remember the bit about asking someone to create a flyer? Yeah, those moments are pretty important. The benefit of having people switch up their tasks is that now you have people cross-trained on different jobs.
7. Get out of your own library. Go to other libraries or shops and look around at their displays, read blogs, send out ideas to your staff. Make it your goal to send out one great idea from another library system each week.  Implement these ideas. And here’s a bonus suggestion – read this article, you’ll gain awesome insights on this theory!

Resources

Gino, Francesca. “Let your Workers Rebel.” Harvard Business Review. October 24, 2016. Accessed October 25, 2016.

The post Shaking Things Up at Your Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

However, it concerns me that in many cases the rules of research and the conceptual issues that make research valuable do not seem to be acknowledged.   For example, consider the concept of generalizability.  Generalizability refers to the ability to extend the research findings and conclusions from a study, typically done on a sample to the larger population.   In other words, if I conduct a sample on a library or two, generalizability refers to whether my results could apply to other libraries.    In most library research I see today, the answer is no.

One reason for this is appropriate sample size.  The results of a survey conducted at your library can only apply to your library.  Yet often I hear of people taking the results from one location and applying it to another.  Statistically this is not valid.  Do you know that most statistics are not valid and are not considered generalizable if the sample size is less than 120?

Another concern of mine is issues of definition, in research lingo: conceptualization and operationalization of variables.  Conceptualization refers to how a concept, such as “outcomes” or “learning,” is defined.  That is, what do these terms mean to the researcher.   Operationalization is how that concept is measured.  In other words, how do you measure if something is learned or had an effect?

With some variables this is simple and straightforward.  We all understand time and how we measure it. But some concepts can mean different things to different people, not to mention in different circumstances.  Social science has struggled with this issue forever–how does one defines and measures abstract concepts, for example love?   In libraries, we all understand and generally agree on what we mean by “a program” or even “attendance” and possibly even “library user.”  But what about concepts such as “outcome,”  “satisfaction,” or “learning?”

In many library studies, the definitions of concepts and their measurement become circular.  An outcome of library use is learning.  Learning can be measured by library use.  As a researcher, I find this means nothing.  Likewise, I’ve seen many studies that measure concepts based on perception.

For example, the library, having run a series of programs, asks attendees or library users what they thought.  Did they view themselves as learning something at the program/library?  Do they feel that it was valuable time spent?

These results are then taken as outcomes.  When the public reports that they viewed themselves as learning something at the library, some present the information as a positive outcome–people learn things at the library!  In fact, this is false.  This example measures perception, what people think and feel, not what is occurring, learning or not learning.

Don’t get me wrong, people’s perceptions are very important!  We want people to perceive us this way and these perceptions help us a great deal.  The problem is with our presentation and conclusions.  Our outcomes should be “people feel they have learned,” not “people have learned.”

The importance of this lies with credibility.  For someone who knows and understands research, we may understand what it trying to be communicated, but it isn’t accurate.  For a supporter, this may be forgiven, but for those who do not support libraries, this kind of misrepresentation can be fatal.

The post Don’t Forget Research Rules first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Leaks or Bursts
Feelings are going to come out whether they leak out or burst forward. Some of us keep feelings inside and they leak out in other ways. Some can’t help but burst with emotion at times, which isn’t always helpful. The Feelings Conversation is designed to prevent the leaks and the bursts. By following the techniques, you will find value in examining, assessing, and expressing your emotions.

Scenario:
You’re talking to a direct report about a change in procedure. This change will help save time and money, but your direct report isn’t into it. Instead of talking about the feelings behind the conversation you walk away. Now you’re annoyed your colleague doesn’t want to change and your co-worker’s annoyed you don’t care about her point of view. While we can easily focus on the business side of this–you want the change and you know it will work out–we have to change our focus in order to help the organization.

What’s the worst could happen? So, I hold in my emotions. Who cares? The pitfalls of holding your feelings in are:

• detachment from coworkers
• tension throughout the workplace
•  aggression in tone, body language
• hindrance of your ability to listen
• misdirected aggression can be perceived as sarcasm

What’s the best that could happen? You begin to create a culture where feelings are expressed without judgement. BUT you can’t just start going around dishing it all out all the time. Follow these steps:

Sort out your feelings  (Protip – Use a feelings inventory to help).

• Accept that feelings are normal and natural and everyone has them (this can be very hard for some)
• Don’t be a speedbump, allowing other people’s feelings to always go before yours
• This is about you, and shouldn’t be a blame game

Negotiate with your feelings (my favorite part!) (Protip – The authors compare this to walking around your feelings as if they are sculptures in a museum.)

• Your feelings follow your thoughts, so be clear on what you are thinking and why.
• Ask some questions: What is my story missing? What is another explanation? What is motivating me? How did I contribute to the situation

Describe the feelings (Protip – Start a lot of conversations with “I feel”)

• Hopefully, negotiations went well and now you can talk about your feelings in the context of the problem/situation
• Establish a judgement free zone – don’t evaluate each other’s feelings!

Stone, Patton, and Heen end the chapter by talking about acknowledgement which is an important concept – read the chapter for more information!

More Resources:

Needs inventory: https://www.cnvc.org/sites/default/files/feelings_inventory_0.pdf

Free course on emotional intelligence at Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/course/lead-ei

Stone, Patton, & Heen (2010). Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most. Penguin Books.

The post Leaks or Bursts: Managing Feelings in Workplace Communication first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

“These projects underscore the important role libraries play across the country in engaging all ages of learners and in providing access to content, in physical and digital form. We look forward to watching these projects evolve and develop new models, tools, and research that can be broadly adapted by the library profession,” said IMLS Acting Director Maura Marx in a recent press release. Projects cross a wide range of services and learning opportunities.

In Vermont, an early literacy initiative will increase STEM knowledge of twenty-five librarians through a National Leadership Grant. The funding will be available through a partnership between the Vermont Department of Libraries, the Vermont Center for the Book, and the Montshire Museum of Science. The librarians will learn about STEM concepts and how to use those ideas in programs for children, their parents and childcare providers.

The Free Library of Philadelphia will be developing a Prison Services project. Through the grant, families of the incarcerated will be able to share reading through televisiting. The project will also provide information on resources and temporary library cards on the day of release.

Librarian training opportunities and resources will also become available. Through the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, public librarians can expect to benefit from projects through the American Library Association. Watch for scholarship opportunities to attend World Library and Information Congress in Columbus, Ohio.

Additionally, the American Library Association is part of a joint project between Creative Commons, California State University System, and the Digital Public Library of America. This project will offer professional development opportunities for librarians.

An open source curriculum and training on web literacy skills and digital competencies will be developed. Watch for more on this project, offered by the Mozilla Foundation, in collaboration with The Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School.

The deadlines for FY2016 funding are fast approaching for the next round of federal grant opportunities. If your library has an innovative project on the back burner, now may be the time to look to IMLS grants to move it forward. Additional information about upcoming IMLS deadlines can be found on their Apply for a Grant webpage.

Resources

 “IMLS Announces 276 Grants, $14.16 Million for Libraries in the United States.” LJ INFOdocket. Accessed September 17, 2015

“IMLS Announces Grants of $14.16 Million for Libraries across the U.S.” Accessed September 17, 2015.

“National Leadership Grants for Libraries.” Accessed September 17, 2015.

 “Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries.” Accessed September 17, 2015.

The post Projects to Watch – IMLS Funds 276 Library Grants first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

My library has an existing strategic plan, but I learned a tremendous amount about its implementation during the program. Creating a vision for your library is one thing, but actually identifying the necessary steps to make it happen, while getting staff on board in the process, can be difficult. Boot Camp gave me specific tools and strategies to help refine my library’s goals and put them into action.

Perhaps the information that stuck out to me most was the importance of acclimating staff to change and helping them see the benefits of the library’s goals and objectives. The costs associated with change do not merely deal with money or facilities; there is an emotional component to it as well. By taking the time to understand how employees are feeling and address any questions or concerns they may have, a manager can help ensure his or her plan’s success.

Another rewarding aspect of Boot Camp was the small group format. This year’s class was the largest to date, featuring eighty librarians from throughout the country. Because the group was not unwieldy, participants were able to get to know each other and collaborate throughout the week. While it is very easy to become insulated in your own county or state, this setup forced us out of that habit, helping us to see how libraries operate in different areas.

For more information about strategic planning, I highly recommend instructor Sandra Nelson’s book Strategic Planning for Results, available through the ALA Store. This information contained in this work, part of the PLA Results series, mirrors much of the content covered in Boot Camp and is a necessity for any public library working towards a strategic plan.

Have questions about PLA’s other continuing education and professional development offerings? Visit http://www.ala.org/pla/education.

The post Results are What Matters: PLA Bootcamp 2015 first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Most policies considered the work being performed. Pages have to bend, stretch, climb up, and crawl on the ground – jeans, neat t-shirts, and gym shoes are considered perfectly acceptable. For clerks and librarians, however, jeans aren’t always allowed. Almost all of the policies required closed-toed shoes and did not allow t-shirts with print or logos – unless they promoted a library reading program.

Further discussion made us realize that it wasn’t the clothes, per se, but the impression we wanted to convey to our users that determined how we would prefer our staff dress. While we all wanted to encourage individuality, the parameters of such self-expression were quite different. Some directors felt that staff should be accessible. They feared that in some libraries, patrons might be intimidated by a staff that was dressed in business wear. Some even believed that just about anything, short of soiled clothing, should be allowed. Staff needs to be comfortable, they said, and that it isn’t what they wear, but how they perform that matters. Others respectfully disagreed, believing that libraries, especially now, need to prove the value of their product and their existence. These directors insisted that a staff dressed in the standard khakis and polo shirts of business casual wear would garner the respect of their users and add credence to the information dispensed.

In all cases, the directors agreed that they should dress one step above their staff – those that would allow jeans thought they should wear business casual. Those that choose business wear (including, in some cases, heels and ties) for themselves would have staff in casual business attire. I considered this conversation a few weeks later when I attended the monthly board meeting for my home library. Halfway through my second term as a trustee, I have attended a fair number of meetings – usually dressed in jeans. Yes, there were times when I came directly from work and looked more professional, but I had always considered meetings to be an event where my wardrobe could be more relaxed. Yet, some libraries where I have attended board meetings as a guest, I’ve witnessed boards that dressed in business wear because it was expected. In other board cultures, dressed up jeans are more common. A few are very casual.

So what do people in your library wear? How important is it for staff to appear professional? What is professional, anyway? Should the board adhere to the same dress code as staff? Let’s talk about it – leave a comment below.

The post Dress Codes at the Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

For this first blog post I want to focus on the issue of building trust. Patrick Lencioni addresses this in his book The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business. According to Lencioni, before you can get healthy as an organization, you need to establish a strong team. To establish a strong team, you must establish trust.

Building Trust

What is trust? We aren’t talking about trust in the way you trust your partner to tell the truth, or you trust a friend to follow through on promises. Lencioni calls it vulnerability-based trust. Be vulnerable in front of your management team. Tell them when you screw up, tell them when you struggle, and tell them when you’re sorry. In general, be vulnerable. If everyone on the team does this you avoid a lot of issues. One, everyone is speaking freely which can lead to breakthroughs. Two, you get to the heart of issues much faster. Fear takes a back seat as you express your vulnerable side more often.

But!

Librarians like to know everything, and rarely admit to not knowing something or not having thought something out. It goes against our nature to admit we don’t know. This is why you have to be the example. Truly, it should begin with the leader, but it can begin with anyone at the table. Next time you find yourself feeling defensive, take a moment and explore what you are feeling, and say it! I’m feeling overwhelmed, I messed up, I need help. Start building the trust by being honest.

Practical Steps to Building the Trusting Team

Lencioni shares two steps that essentially do the same thing: force you to get to know yourself and your team members.

• Share Personal Stories – Talk about yourself, your personal history. He suggests answering the question: what was the most difficult or interesting challenge you overcame as a child? This allows you to get to know each other’s motivations. Someone may micromanage out of fear, and another might be tight with money because he/she grew up in a certain environment.
• Take a Personality Test – I love this! I prefer Myers-Briggs, but there are others (see below). Yes, they can feel awkward to take and share but, man, I have learned a lot about myself this way. Take the test, share with others, and see how it will help your organization in the long run.

But!

We have been a team forever, this seems a little late in the game. It’s never too late. Tell your team you want to try something new. Use a consultant as a catalyst. Many local consultants will come in for just a few hours to help with something like this and it won’t cost you much money at all! But please understand it is a culture change, and it won’t happen offsite in a day-long session. This is skimming the surface to deeper cultural behaviors.

The rest of the book is really great. I recommend you read and marinate on it, then go back and read the sections that stuck out the first time.

Take some time to explore these resources as you start to build your team:

• Team Building 101 http://www.manager-tools.com/2007/05/team-building-101
• Effective Managers Earn Trust Quickly By Doing 5 Things Well http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2012/07/10/effective-managers-earn-trust-quickly-by-doing-5-things-well/
• Titles from ALA http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=3717

Personality Tests:

• Enneagram https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/guide-to-all-riso-hudson-tests/
• Myers-Briggs http://www.mbtionline.com/

Reference

Lencioni, P. (2012). The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business. Wiley.

The post It Takes More Than a Trust Fall: Establishing a Great Management Team first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The annual program begins each year at ALA Midwinter, to be held in Boston in 2016. Emerging Leaders also present their work at a poster session during ALA Annual Conference, which will take place in Orlando. Additionally, participants may get the chance to participate in an ALA committee or taskforce.

Applications and references must be submitted online no later than August 1, 2015. Applicants may elect to seek sponsorship from a number of ALA divisions in order to help defray the costs of attending the required conferences, although this is not required.

Thanks to its robust reputation, Emerging Leaders is a great opportunity for newer librarians to gain experience within ALA, network, and add to their resumes. As 2015 Emerging Leader Anna Coats, Head of Youth Services at Livingston (NJ) Public Library, states, “The point of Emerging Leaders is to get you more involved and in an upward trajectory in ALA.” Many former participants go on to serve on ALA committees, in addition to securing leadership positions. The program is also a great way to collaborate with people and organizations outside your normal day-to-day work environment. This can be truly inspirational and have a positive effect on your regular work.

To help your application stand out, Coats suggests discussing any leadership experience you may already have, and to be specific while doing so. It doesn’t necessarily have to be running a department or singlehandedly chairing a committee; the little things like volunteering to take on a project that no one else wanted or mentoring a library school student count as well. Additionally, she advises to be clear about your goals and what you hope to get out of the program. Of course, it is also important to thoroughly look over your application before submission in order to make sure it is as clear and succinct as possible.

For more information, including specific selection criteria, visit ALA’s Emerging Leaders website.

The post Deadline Approaching For 2016 Emerging Leaders Program first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

In 1939, the American Library Association adopted a Code of Ethics to “maintain ethical standards of behavior in relation to the governing authority under which they [the librarians] work, to the library constituency, to the library as an institution and to fellow workers on the staff, to other members of the library profession, and to society in general.”[1] Although the code was amended in 1981, 1995, and again in 2008, one thing didn’t change – the document remains a framework. The statements [in the code] “cannot and do not dictate to cover particular situations.”[2]

How, then, do we know what to do in such situations? “Establish ethical standards, educate staff, and take transgressions seriously!”[3] says Pat Wagner, a library consultant and trainer who believes the main reason for unethical behavior is to avoid conflict. Not enforcing front-line behavior is one of the biggest mistakes a director can make. Some common behaviors that demand attention include staff gossiping about patrons at the circulation desk, allowing special privileges for friends or favorite patrons, and not considering barriers to access.

Further, Wagner encourages libraries to engage in conversations with those both inside and outside of the library and to build relationships before issues arise so that it will be easier to deal with problems when they do. It is especially important to have a clear understanding of ethical expectations as we move into the future.

Wagner points out that issues are already arising out of use of maker spaces and curating user-created content. And with ever shrinking budgets and rapidly advancing technology, considering how best to serve the community’s needs bears discussion. “Good people can have different ethical systems and disagree about what the right thing to do is,”[4] she says.

For a list of ethical resources:

sieralearn.com/resources-for-the-study-and-practice-of-ethics/

For more information about Pat’s work:

sieralearn.com

Works Cited

[1]History of the Code of Ethics1939 Code of Ethics for Librarians (History of the Code of Ethics1939 Code of Ethics for Librarians): http://www.ala.org/advocacy/proethics/codeofethics/coehistory/1939codeethics

[2]Code of Ethics of the American Library Association (Code of Ethics of the American Library Association) http://www.ifmanual.org/codeethics

[3]Wagner, Pat. “Re: Library Ethics” Message to author. May 1, 2015. E-mail.

[4]Wagner, Pat. “Everyday Library Ethics – Part One” Online video. Florida Library Webinars. Florida Library Webinars, 16 Aug. 2013. Web.  27 Apr. 2015.

The post Library Ethics first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Do you have commonalities between large numbers of books in your collection? There are some major groupings libraries tend to use to divide books into genres. Common ones include mystery, science fiction, fantasy, westerns, inspiration, and romance. Do these groupings represent what you would consider a sizable portion of your collection?

Are there special niche books that are particularly important in your community that should be kept together? Some libraries like to keep local authors together on shelves. Other libraries choose potentially more narrow genres to group together like suspense, horror, historical fiction, or urban fiction. There can also be chick lit, humorous, book and TV, Amish, teen books for adults, sagas, supernatural, and war stories. Some libraries have a large collection of books that are recommended by the staff, and these books are all grouped together. What is really special in your library?

Do you have a defensible reason for changing either to separated genres OR putting together books that were separated before? Some communities, for whatever reason, tend to have more adults who read within a particular genre as opposed to reading a particular author. Would breaking the collection into smaller groupings, like genres, encourage more browsing or help patrons find what they are looking for more quickly? If you have books separated into genres, combining all fiction books together saves shelf space if you need more room. People are going to resist change whatever it is. When they want to talk about the change, you need to have answers for them.

How are you letting the staff and the public know changes are coming? Whether you have a newsletter, Facebook, newspaper articles, or some other way to tell the public, you’ll have to do it more than once. You may even want to get the staff and public’s opinions before you make a final decision about what to do with your fiction collection. Whatever decision you choose, make sure your staff is able to answer questions about why books were moved from “where they’d always been.” Preparing staff makes the change easier for both staff members and patrons.

Whatever you decide to do, someone isn’t going to like it. That’s just the way it goes. However, providing clear signage to help people find what they’re looking for will help quite a bit. However, making sure your decision is the right thing for your community is ultimately the most important thing.

Melanie A. Lyttle is the Head of Public Services Madison Public Library. You can watch her YouTube channel, Crabby Librarian, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rv5GLWsUow. Shawn D. Walsh is the Emerging Services and Technologies Librarian at Madison Public Library.

The post Separate or Keep Together? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

BPL turned to Tableau, a software company that offers a family of interactive data visualization products focused on business intelligence.  According to Manager of Strategic Initiatives Diana Plunkett, the hardest part of getting started was finding where the data would come from.  “We started with our simplest metrics, the ones that were easiest for us to capture. Our data around circulation is pretty clearly defined and pretty clearly understood, so that’s where we started,” said Plunkett.

Although much of the data BPL tracks is common (door count, program attendance, circulation, etc.), the data visualization reports help staff members make sense of the data. I took a look at some of the sample charts that BPL created through Tableau and am impressed with the results.  It’s one thing to look at door count numbers by hour, but to see those numbers in an attractive graph makes a much bigger impact:  http://public.tableausoftware.com/profile/bpl.it#!/vizhome/ShopperTrakv4/DoorCountbyHour

Not only does the visualization make the data more accessible, BPL makes the data available to everyone who works at the library.  I believe this is the single greatest benefit of Tableau’s capabilities and the way BPL is using it.  Giving all staff access to the data creates transparency across the organization since everyone can see the factors that are part of making decisions, and all staff members feel like they can lend a hand in making those decisions.  When data lives only within the IT Department and the Executive Committee, libraries miss out on the input of those on the front lines.

“A lot of the data we are displaying in these visualizations is data that was captured before, but there wasn’t an easy mechanism for everyone in the organization to see the result of that captured data all in one place,” Plunkett said.  “We find that people are more effective in their reporting because they can see the results. It’s not just being reported and it goes into a black hole somewhere. The visualizations make it so that people who aren’t used to diving in and mucking with the data can easily take a look at what’s going on, and understand what actions they can take as a result of it.”

Now that BPL has curated a set of data in Tableau and staff members are on board with the resource, the organization is looking to pull from local data sources as well as its own data warehouse for more ad-hoc analysis.  Plunkett believes the ad-hoc aspect will encourage more staff members to share their own ideas for data analysis and create more collective brain power.  BPL also plans to share some of the data with patrons as a way to increase awareness of the library’s services.  The appealing visual narratives might also be useful in proving the library’s importance to politicians and other stakeholders.

Sources:

http://diginomica.com/2015/02/18/how-the-brooklyn-public-library-data-visualization-a-better-library-with-tableau/

http://www.tableau.com/learn/stories/brooklyn-public-library-saves-time-money-and-headcount-tableau

http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/big_data

The post Data Visualization for Public Libraries first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Early experimenters with tablets found them a bit weighty and burdensome, but newer technology has eliminated that complaint for the most part.  Some libraries have taken the tablet concept a bit further and even use them to check out material, renew an item, or place other items on hold, thus eliminating the requisite stop at the circulation desk.  Also, in reference to downloadables (e.g., books, recorded books, movies) librarians have found that it is easier to teach the patrons how to use the features on the actual products people will have at their home, as opposed to reading directions from a desktop.

At the Boise Public Library (BPL), they have begun to switch out desktop computers altogether and replace them with tablets for the librarians in their offices/reference desk. This way they can “work” on them and also be roving reference librarians without switching from one piece of equipment to another.

Full disclosure:  I do not own a tablet, although I have used them at friend’s houses and at work for a special project.  The one I used at work was not owned by my library, but was my boss’ personal tablet that I used for an offsite cataloging project for a major donor. It took a little getting used to; I favor a mouse to a touch pad any day of the week.  That being said, I can see the efficacy and need to integrate tablets into libraries.  In the long run, they will probably eradicate paper and ink waste from printing out locations of books for patrons or receipts from check outs. The integration of tablets is just another sign of the times that libraries need to and will amend to.

References:

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/01/technology/meet-the-tabletarians-mobile-services/#_

The post Tablets: Are They Right for Your Library? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The PCLS process improvement process (yes, it’s an awkward mouthful) grew out of methods of evaluating services that PCLS began using during the economic downturn. “With the recession,” said PCLS Executive Director Georgia Lomax,¹ “we became very focused on evaluating how we do things. We started tracking how we were making improvements, particularly to save money to save staff so we could get through the recession.” Even as the economy improved, Lomax felt it was important that the library not lose this momentum. “We’re never going have all the money or all the staff that we want to do the things that our communities need,” she said. “Taxpayers appreciate us not wasting money, not wasting time, all of those things about being good stewards!”

Due to the recession, revenues for PCLS had dropped five years in a row. The system reduced operating expenses by $6.4 million between 2009 and 2013. Reductions had been taken from every area. In considering how to improve things, PCLS was wrestling, as almost all public service organizations are, with the Triple Constraint (also called the Iron Triangle). All projects, including the daily undertakings of work, hinge upon time, quality, and money.² If you want things faster and cheaper, quality will go down. If you want things faster and better quality, the cost will go up.

The more Lomax learned about various process improvement models and their impact on the business world, she realized “that’s what we’ve been doing, without in effect calling it that.” Lean is the umbrella term for a practice of eliminating waste in manufacturing processes that was pioneered by Toyota and other Japanese car manufacturers in the 1970s and ’80s.³ Lean aims to provide the best service to customers while reducing or eliminating waste. The “waste” it wants to eliminate is not people, skill, or quality. The waste is that seemingly immovable side of the Iron Triangle: time.⁴

Lomax wanted to take PCLS’s work with process improvement further, and an opportunity presented itself. PCLS’s Reading & Materials (R&M) Department is a large department with many moving parts. The department has thirty-two staff members, eighteen full-time and fourteen part-time. Under the umbrella of R&M are Acquisitions, Processing, Cataloging, Collection Development, Interlibrary Loan, Delivery, Circulation for the Processing & Administration Center, and Audio-Visual Mends. In 2013 the R&M Department added 195,000 new items to the collection and, as of November 2014, the department had added 185,000.

“Our Reading & Materials staff works very hard, but they were struggling with increasingly complex processes and managing workloads,” Lomax said. Staff was asking both management and each other if there were ways they could do things better. “They were saying ‘We can do things better.’ and they were saying ‘We want to be a part of doing things better. We have ideas.’”

Lomax worked with consultant Catherine McHugh, PhD, to create a tutorial on process improvement for staff. “Catherine comes from an industrial background and a production line environment,” Lomax said, “and this is an area she has expertise in. So she was able to support us, and helped us develop this tutorial that taught us all the key principals about customer supplier partnerships.” Lomax was concerned that the process improvement methodology used by the library not be overwhelming. “We didn’t want to be bureaucratic. We didn’t want to create a new process that overwhelmed us. We just wanted a really grassroots, effective, day-to-day thing that we could do. . . . [W]hat we ended up with is what our staff found worked for them.”

Beyond the tutorial, the library’s next step was to form a steering team responsible for applying process improvement to the R&M Department. Team members included R&M Department staff members, the Library Materials Supervisor, the R&M Department Director, the PCLS Deputy Director, and McHugh. Department members included staff from various sections and levels, including a cataloging librarian, cataloging specialist, collection development librarian, library assistant, and virtual experience librarian.

Before the R&M Process Improvement Steering Team got started with the task of process improvement, they spent the first several meetings receiving training, both about process improvement and about participating in successful meetings. The training was fundamental to their success.

The group was given a charter outlining the specific task they were to accomplish and the parameters of the project. The task before them was to evaluate the whole department and identify the section to begin implementing process improvement. Of the charter, Steering Team member Clare Murphy, virtual experience librarian, said, “[Process improvements] had to be staffing neutral and had to be within the budget. It had to be within the computer system that we have available to us. We had to look at every area within our department and figure out which areas could actually accomplish something of value [with process improvement] given those parameters.”

They also established ground rules (see figure 1 on previous page) for the meetings, which helped create a safe space. One of the challenging aspects of the team was that it was made up of staff from very different levels. Cataloging specialist Cathy O’Donnell said, “The rules and the charter emphasized that everyone was on a level playing field. There was not a boss, not a deputy director. We were told that in that room, in that meeting, everyone’s words had the exact same value.” Library assistant Sheri Kurfurst said, “The work we did could never have been done without the pre-work, without the charter, the ground rules. It took all the personality out of it [and] it allowed us to move forward and start being able to communicate and talk because we knew what the rules were.”

The training on process improvement methods cleared the way for success. O’Donnell said, “Catherine first taught us how to look at process improvement. She gave us the tools we would need, and the most important thing she taught us is that we are looking at the process. We are not looking at the person in the job. To remove ourselves and just look at the process and ask if anything can be tweaked. It’s not about how somebody does their job. This is how we do it now. Maybe if we try this, it will work out a little better, it will be easier to do it.”

Process improvement training included learning about customer-supplier partnerships, a key component of process improvement. Customer-supplier partnerships (see figure 2) are the link each department has with another. At any point in time, a department may be a customer, or they may be a supplier, depending on which hat they’re wearing.

Library assistant Sheri Kurfust said, “My biggest thing was learning about the customer-supplier roles. [We learned] that we wear these different hats all the time. It’s really important for us to communicate to the branches, and for them to communicate to us. So they can be aware that sometimes I am acting as their customer and sometimes their supplier.” Learning about the “changing hats” of customer service was vital to the success of the project.

Public service employees are always aware of the importance of customer service. We focus on providing the best service we can. Challenges arise when we forget that the people we serve also serve us. In the case of an administrative center serving many branches, the service they provide to us is almost invariably information—information that we need to serve them the best we can. Service can break down when it appears we’ve received a request to do something we can’t do. In a “customer is always right” environment, do we move heaven and earth to do it anyway, despite the problems it will cause? Do we toss it to a “problem pile” and hope they forget they asked? Or, as suggested by the customer-supplier roles, do we put on our own customer hat and ask them for more information? Do we discuss limitations and discover an alternative solution? Do we work in an environment that encourages this kind of communication?

Another key concept that was vital to the Steering Team in choosing which section to begin process improvement was the concept of low-hanging fruit, “which are the things that would be very easy to take care of but would have a major impact on what we were doing,” said O’Donnell. Identifying sections that had a bounty of low-hanging fruit helped the team ultimately decide which section would be the first to experience process improvement.

The Process Improvement Team

The Steering Team chose the Audio-Visual (AV) Mends section of the R&M Department. The AV Mends section deals with a variety of issues relating to the care of AV. They clean discs and mend or replace damaged cases and artwork. They match up cases and sets with lost and misplaced discs. They order replacement discs to complete sets with missing discs, and they manage a “boneyard” of discs from incomplete sets to complete sets when possible. The work in AV Mends also feeds into the weeding process. O’Donnell said, “We chose them first, and part of that was we saw that there was a lot of low-hanging fruit that would be easy for us to change, it was totally within our control, we didn’t have to rely on any outsider vendors.” Within the self-contained section, it would also be easy to see and measure the impact of process improvement.

Another part of the Steering Team’s role was acting as ambassadors of the process to the rest of the department. “Coming in, there was a lot of paranoia,” said team member Matt Lemanski, collection services librarian. “Morale was low.” After multiple years of budget cuts, staff was very concerned about job security. Doing more with less at top speed, while continually feeling behind, left staff exhausted and disheartened. Sally Sheldon, library assistant in the AV Mends section said, “I had reservations. I was thinking it was a point of cost cutting. I was thinking as they make things ‘leaner’ they’re going to eliminate different things that people are doing, and that will help with the elimination of positions.”

Sheldon’s feelings are not at all uncommon when staff starts hearing terms like lean and efficiencies. Terms like these and others, like trimming the fat or being nimble, have been used for years as polite euphemisms for eliminating staff and positions. The implication of using terms in this way is that staff is made to feel like they’re the problem, not the solution. An organization that wants to take on process improvement needs to open their minds to thinking about these concepts in a new way. It is not staff that needs to learn how to do the old way more efficiently with less people. Organizations must embrace the idea that it’s the process that needs to become lean so that staff can do it well, quickly, and with high quality. “Ultimately what you want is people working at the highest level of their jobs,” said Lomax. “Doing what is the most interesting to them. So the more you can process engineer the tedious stuff the more you can have fun at your job.”

“We worked really hard to be as transparent as possible,” said Lemanski. “Because we realized very quickly that the goal of this team was not to fire people.” The Steering Team sent out communications to the department after every meeting, providing a digest of the proceedings and their action steps for the next one. Full notes of each meeting were also posted on the library’s staff website. “Our end goal was to establish a safe environment within our team to [learn about] process improvement and then extend that safe environment outward,” said
Agnes Wiacek, cataloging librarian.

Team members reached out to department members about their fears. Tris Bazzar, supervisor of the AV Mends section, said, “One of the real turning points for my people was when Cathy O’Donnell came over and said ‘This is not to have the higher ups come in and tell you how to do your job. This is to empower you to do your jobs the best you can.’”

Once the AV Mends section had been chosen, The AV Mends Process Improvement (PI) Team was formed. In addition to some of the members of the original Steering Team, the new team included Bazzar, Sheldon, and Julie McKay, library assistants in the AV Mends department; Kati Irons (that’s me!), AV collection development librarian; and Kathy Norbeck, supervisor of the Buckley-PCLS branch. Original Steering Team members included Lomax, McHugh, Lemanski, and O’Donnell.

The AV Mends PI Team began with the same training on how to participate in process improvement and how to participate in effective meetings. Despite the groundwork that Steering Team members had done ahead of time, there were some rocky moments early in the process. As the AV Selector I had worked closely with the AV Mends section for years and had been asked several times over the years to lead evaluations of the department to determine ways to streamline it, and had been stymied every time. There were simply too many moving parts. In addition, since part of my professional charge is weeding, my head is full of packed branch shelves. “One in, one out” is my clear charge from the library, but my push to weed items had sometimes seemed to the AV Mends department as disrespectful to their work.

In addition, every time conversations came up about how to “fix” things over in AV Mends, the staff who worked in the section felt defensive. They were working tirelessly every day, moving hundreds of items in and out. They were being budget conscious by attempting to fix things rather than throw them away. But here they were again, being asked to fix things instead of being acknowledged for their hard work.

As the AV Mends team worked through the early stages of the process, including building ground rules (see figure 3) and clarifying the purpose of the team, the tension was obvious. Eventually a conversation revealed the different perspectives at play, which was an eye opener for both sides. Lemanski said, “I didn’t realize how many hurt feelings there were in that area and I didn’t realize the background around it. I think once people were able to talk about that and clear the air, it was a major road block removal.”

As hard as it is to experience, having those uncomfortable conversations is an important part of the process. One of the key components of looking at workflow through process improvement is “It’s the process, not the person.” When emotions are running high, that has to be acknowledged before team members can set the personal aside and start looking at the whole dispassionately.

After the AV Mends team worked through the training, it was time for the group to move on to the nuts and bolts of process improvement, the Value Stream Map (see figures 4 and 5). Value stream mapping, which could also be called a workflow map, is the actual mapping of every step in a process. It’s easy to explain, but it’s very hard to do. “It’s hard for people who do a job to recognize their own steps,” said Murphy. But the breaking down of a task into the component parts is essential to process improvement, and essential in coming to understand that it’s not the person, it’s the process.

As the process owners (those who actually do the work being mapped) worked on the map, other members of the team who were not familiar with the process pushed them to be more specific. O’Donnell said “Julie [McKay] and Sally [Sheldon] were saying ‘Okay, we have the different categories of things [cleaning, mending, etc.] and they get set here.’ Well, how do they get set there? ‘Well, Wayne [Taylor, a library assistant] goes and gets it.’ Well does he get it all at one time? ‘Well, no, some come in envelopes and some come in crates.’ Well, does he get it all at the same time, or throughout the day? And they were realizing they didn’t know that Wayne was doing all this stuff.”

As finicky as that seems (discussing who goes to get envelopes and when) it was while working through that very part of the map that led to the first process improvement breakthrough for the AV Mends section. During the discussion, I mentioned that, in my role as the AV collection development librarian, I often get CDs and DVDs sent to me from the branches that really should go to AV Mends, but I just walk them over. It’s not a big deal. O’Donnell, in her role as a cataloging specialist, then said that she gets things that should go to AV Mends too, as does her supervisor. Murphy, the virtual experiences librarian who also works with our DVD vending machines, then said that, actually, she gets them too.

Initially, I had considered not saying anything. I didn’t want to complicate things, and, really, so I have to walk envelopes over to the AV Mends section several times a week. What’s the big deal? But by bringing it up, in an attempt to make the Value Stream Map as accurate as possible, we uncovered that at least five different people were receiving materials from branches that should be sent directly to AV Mends. Five different people were walking dozens of envelopes across the building every week thinking to themselves, this is a pain, but it’s no big deal. I don’t want to make a fuss.

The Results, So Far

The Value Stream Map quickly reveals the complexity of a process, and reveals the low-hanging fruit. The AV Mends PI Team ended up mapping four different processes for which the AV Mends section is responsible, and there are still more to map. In reviewing the maps created so far, several changes have already been implemented or are in the process of being implemented.

The team created a new AV Mends slip for branches to use when sending in AV problems. The old one, which hadn’t been updated for years, was a two-sided slip that included questions the section no longer needed answered and didn’t include information AV Mends could really use. The slip has been edited to be one-sided, instead of two, and the space to indicate what’s wrong with the item has been moved to the top. This removes the need to pull out the slips and search for information. The new slip has a place for branches to indicate if the item has holds, so now mends with holds can easily be identified and pushed to the front of the line.

The team also began to set criteria for when items go to AV Mends for cleaning or repair, and when they should be weeded instead. Circulation thresholds have been set for DVDs, CDs, and Talking Books, and the branches have been informed that items that have circulated beyond these thresholds should be weeded, not sent in for cleaning.

The next process improvement came from the envelope discussion. Previously, when branches needed to send items in to AV Mends, they used a crate or an interoffice envelope. Too often the crates arrived with little to no information about where it was directed and envelopes were addressed to the wrong people. Although it would have been easy to say the solution would be to train branch staff better, the team recognized that we’re a large system and the easier we make this process for the branches, the better it’s going to be. We are now in the process of implementing an AV Mends bag, created from repurposed fabric bags formerly used by our Youth Services department. Branches can stick any and all AV problems into the bag and it will go directly to AV Mends. If they are sending in a crate, they can lay the mends bag on top of the crate, and it will be delivered to AV Mends.

Sheldon and McKay both have identified areas of day-to-day work in the department that they are working to streamline. McKay said, “Walking through the mapping makes you look at all the steps you do in your job, and it makes you want to find ways to get rid of some of those steps.” After going through the process improvement training, Sheldon immediately saw a good place for change in the disc cleaning process. “Wayne would put the discs on the top shelf, and I would move them down lower, so he would have room to put more discs, instead of just moving them over by the machine to be leaned. I was moving them to the top to the bottom to the left to the right,” she said. The work of the team made Sheldon realize she wasn’t sure why they did it that way. “I was thinking what a waste of time. Why am I doing this? Just because that’s the way I’d always done it,” she said.

Branches have been excited to participate in the changes from the AV Mends PI Team. The new AV Mends slip was launched as a trial for one month, after which we asked for feedback from the branches. They asked for a few tweaks, but expressed satisfaction with the changes as a whole. When the team asked if any branches wanted to volunteer to be “guinea pigs” for the trial run of the AV Mends bags, half of them immediately volunteered. The really exciting thing about process improvement is how much people want to be a part of it when they see the results.

The work in the AV Mends section is still in process. More analysis of the items that move in and out of the department needs to be done. Training for the branches in how best to handle AV Mends requests and weeding is being created.

As the AV Mends PI Team continues its work, Lomax has plans to continue the spread of process improvement through the system. Based on the experience of the AV Mends PI Team, the Steering Team will decide which section will make up the next process improvement team within the R&M department. “As things continue in Reading & Materials, we need to start finding other areas that want to take on the process,” Lomax said. Norbeck, who served on the AV Mends team, would like to be the first volunteer: “I think one of the biggest things I took away was looking at how to streamline everything you do.”

Starting your own process improvement process may seem daunting. It’s not a fast process, and it’s not an easy fix. It requires a mental shift, a realization that this isn’t a project with a beginning and end date. It’s a new way of operating. “Make sure you’re willing to commit what it takes to get it started, and that you’re going to sustain it,” said Lomax. “If this is going to be a one-time thing I don’t know if it’s worth it. You need to trust your staff to participate and believe, truly, that they know what they’re doing and that they can do this. And then be flexible. Adjust as it goes. Focus on the process, not the people. People want to do a good job. You have to design a process that allows them to. That is so critical in how you approach things. Everyone wants to do a good job, but you have to design a process that allows them to. It makes you approach problems in a whole different way. Everyone is trying to the best they can. If you haven’t designed something right, how can they?”

Conclusion

At the end of February, the AV Mends Process Team will be reporting back to the Process Improvement Steering Team about its work so far. Training classes for branch staff on AV Mends will also begin in late February. In addition to the practical improvements, the AV Mends Process Improvement Process is having a positive impact on employee interactions and morale. Within the department, as areas of responsibility have been clearly defined, the relationship between AV selection librarian and the library assistants is much more cheerful and productive. Helping our customers has become much easier, too! From my personal perspective, I find that instead of worrying that branches are going to ask for something I can’t give them, I now see each customer as my partner in finding a solution that works.

References and Notes

1. Georgia Lomax served as the PCLS deputy director from 2006 to November 2014, when she was appointed PCLS executive director.
2. Project Management Knowhow, “Triple Constraint,” accessed Dec. 31, 2014.
3. Lean Enterprise Institute, “What is Lean?” accessed Dec. 31, 2014.
4. John J. Huber, “Prologue: The Power of Lean Transformation,” Lean Library Management: Eleven Strategies for Reducing Costs and Improving Customer Services (New York: Neal-Schulman, 2011): 1-3.

The post Low-Hanging Fruit: Learning How to Improve Customer Service, Staff Communication, and Job Satisfaction with Process Improvement first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The Pros
Library associations are great places to network. In everyday life, you may not get a chance to randomly meet other people in your field, especially not on a regular basis. Yet within an association, one can easily parlay the relationships that are fostered into bigger and better things. You may learn a different way of assisting patrons or even be offered a new and better paying job as a result.

Associations are also great ways of keeping abreast of the latest innovations and technologies that affect our daily work lives. Let’s face it, we don’t all have a lot of time to sit around and read every journal and every article that discusses librarianship. With professional associations some of the best of these ideas are highlighted and discussed with you.

Associations also provide opportunities to flex your leadership skills. Being a member is great, but being an active member can benefit you even more. Taking the lead on a committee can give you management experience you may not get as a reference librarian. This can then give you the proficiency necessary down the road when you feel like advancing your career into library management.

The Cons
I have to admit that one of my first cons is money. Most of these associations require dues annually. For example, ALA membership is $48-$135, depending on your job status, and SLA membership is $40-$200 depending on what your annual salary is. These are just the dues though — they often do not include the cost of attending conferences, in and out of state. While I think it’s great that the fees are on a scale, it is still an extra expense that many of us, right out of school and burdened with school loans, may not be prepared to pay. Another “con” might be whether or not these associations are even necessary in today and tomorrow’s world of internet information globalism. I was reading the November 12, 2014 blog post from Beerbrarian, where he discusses what tools he cannot live without. One of his choices was Twitter because “I can’t afford to go to every conference I’d like to. Library twitter is like a 24/7/365 conference. Articles, blog posts, and other useful items get shared.”

I wonder if Beerbrarian is correct: Are Twitter and other social media sites are all you really need in order to achieve all (or at least most) of the “pros” of professional memberships? Please feel free to discuss and share your thoughts in the comments.

Sources:

http://beerbrarian.blogspot.com/

http://www.ala.org/membership/ala-personal-membership

https://hq.sla.org/cvweb_sla/cgi-bin/memberdll.dll/info?wrp=membershipapp.htm

http://letterstoayounglibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/10/association-membership-for-fun-and.html

The post To Join, Or Not To Join first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Writing strong and effective technology proposals is something that we, as educators and library professionals, should be able to do and be able to do well. Odds are, if we’re going to implement innovative and creative technology in our libraries, we’ll probably have to make a strong case for it to appear in the budget. Let’s face it, innovative technologies like 3D printers, vinyl cutters and professional recording studios don’t exactly fall into the “essential needs of the library” budget line, nor do the latest and greatest computers for that matter. While Macs are cool, they aren’t that cool.

Unless you happen to work for one of those five-star-Library-Journal-endless-budget-how-do-they-keep-doing-it-libraries, you need to accept the fact that you’ll have to put in some extra effort if you want your library to be able to keep up with what’s hot.

The following steps are a framework for creating proposals that will get people to listen:

1. What do you want? How much does it cost? Who cares?
The most important part of any proposal is identifying the thing that you actually want and how much it costs. This is simple and needs little explanation. What is not simple, however, is pinpointing who will actually care or truly benefit from the things we purchase. The best way I’ve found to begin this process is to first propose my idea (and cost) to some of my very close non-library friends. The ones who will tell it like it is. If their response is, “Why would the library waste money on that?” or the rhetorical “Who cares?” and I cannot convince them to respond otherwise, I probably have some more thinking to do.  For further information on this, see step 3, “Purpose.”

2. Know your audience: Think about who are you proposing to and tailor it towards them. The Library Board? Management? The Director? Friends of the Library?

If you’re proposing that the library should purchase a 3D printer, find out what would interest those who are you proposing to. Is the Board President an avid Star Trek fan? Of course she can print a replica of the Starship Enterprise with the new 3D printer.

Want to learn the rest of the steps? Head over to DigitalLearn.org.

Jason Pinshower is the Information Services Librarian and the Technology Trainer at the Fox River Valley Public Library District in Illinois where he creates and teaches technology courses, develops the eBook collection and manages the 3D printer among many other things. You can contact him at jpinshower@frvpld.info.

The post Getting Your Proposals Passed: How to Create Strong Technology Proposals first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Who is coming? For Thanksgiving dinner, you make a guest list and send out invitations. Then you wait to find out how many people are planning to come. Not to generalize, but there is always a guest who responds to one of the hosts, when it was the other host who was keeping track of who was coming. Of course, the one person forgets to tell the other. With our open house, we asked for an RSVP. Invitees ended up RSVP’ing to two different people, but each person didn’t realize that the other had a rather extensive list going. Both contact people thought the event would have about 20 guests. Together, the combined RSVP lists were close to 40 people. Fortunately in our case, we knew about the miscommunication the week before the event, not like Thanksgiving where the extra person shows up and there isn’t a place for them at the table!

Will you have enough food? It’s Thanksgiving. You must cook for an army whether or not you are actually feeding one! For library open houses, if you want people to come, you have to have food and assume librarians will be starving. In our case, they weren’t starving. There were a lot of left-overs! So the staff was thrilled!

Is the house clean? Before the Thanksgiving company arrives, the house must be cleaned top to bottom, until it’s spotless. For a library open house, it’s exactly the same. Are all the shelves straight?  Are our displays neat and organized? Just like you know that you should always keep your house picked up, you do your most thorough cleaning job right before there’s company. In a library, signage should always be clear and current. Unfortunately, we used our open house as an opportunity to finally update our signage to reflect some recent relocating of materials. Yes, we should have done it much earlier, but having “special visitors” coming made us finally take the time.

Who is stuck at the kids’ table? Sitting at the kids’ table you still get to eat all the Thanksgiving dinner, but the conversation topics and opportunities to talk are vastly different than at the adult table. It’s the same with a library open house, particularly if the event is while the building is open for business. Some staff members are directly involved in the open house, while other staff members have to keep the functions of the library going. They are all at the library at the same time, but that day their experiences are quite different. This happened with us. The administrative staff was split. Half were involved with the open house and half were involved with the current operations. A staff person who attended the open house said to a coworker who was working out on the library floor, “Oh, it was so good to finally meet Sally (names changed to protect the innocent) at the open house.” The other staff person replied, “I didn’t even know Sally was here. I would have loved to have met her.” Oops! It’s not that one activity was more important that the other. Both were, but one person was left feeling like he missed something. We will definitely be more careful about making all staff members feel included next time.

Who did you forget to invite? It always happens that you find out after Thanksgiving that some relative you were sure had plans spent the holiday alone eating a TV dinner. In our case, it wasn’t that we forgot to invite someone, it was that we forgot to tell some people on staff that there was a special event happening while they were working. That might possibly be worse than forgetting to invite a particular guest! Our library pages didn’t know we were having a big group of people here while they were working. They didn’t know why there were more people milling around the building than normal, and more importantly, the visitors were asking them a lot more questions than they would ordinarily expect. It looked like we didn’t value them enough to include them in the information sharing, but that’s not it at all! Another big oops. We won’t make that mistake again.

What is the take away from this entry besides convincing you to make a reservation at a restaurant for Thanksgiving instead of inviting people over? Be mindful throughout the planning and execution of your library open house event. Make sure that both guests and employees know that they are valued and important to you and that you are glad to see them in your library.

Melanie A. Lyttle is the Head of Public Services Madison Public Library. You can watch her YouTube channel, Crabby Librarian, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rv5GLWsUow. Shawn D. Walsh is the Emerging Services and Technologies Librarian at Madison Public Library.

The post How Is a Library Open House Like a Thanksgiving Dinner? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Public libraries are not immune to crime. Library directors and administration have a responsibility to ensure their staff has a safe place to work. Library staff members have a responsibility to ensure their library is a safe and welcoming place. How can we ensure our libraries are welcoming places?

Policies

Establish clear policies and guidelines. It is important to clearly communicate to both staff and patrons what is acceptable and appropriate library use. Consistently enforcing the standards is fundamental in creating a library culture that is welcoming to all. Whether it is an argument or a fistfight, rules around disruptive behavior are essential in creating a welcoming atmosphere. It is difficult to feel welcome if other patrons are allowed to engage in disruptive behavior.

Does your library have an unattended child policy? Under what circumstances might children be allowed in the library without supervision? Be clear with parents that the library is a public place, much like a park. Let parents and caregivers know that staff do not control who might be present in the building.

Be proactive

Create a relationship with law enforcement officials or security personnel before you are in the middle of a major incident. Start a conversation with your local police department. Let them know about the types of incidents that may come up in the future. Discuss how best to handle them and what resources are available. Talk to them about issues you’ve seen in the past or trends they are seeing in the community.

Check your state’s privacy policy and be sure you understand what information you are allowed to share about a patron’s library activity. Does your state limit sharing of information about a patron’s presence in the library? What types of information does data privacy law limit? It is important to understand these boundaries before a situation arises.

Most library school curriculums do not spend a lot of time covering what to do if a patron is found defacing library property or engaged in a sex act in the bathroom. Train yourself in how to deal with difficult situations. The Black Belt Librarian and Verbal Judo are both great resources for developing skills and strategies.

Address situations

Smaller disruptions can be gateways for bigger issues. A minor argument in the teen area can become a heated fight if allowed to escalate. Patrons need to be empowered to speak up if they see someone committing a crime. Staff should be open to hearing about questionable incidents and address or report them. Make observing activity in the library part of your routine workflow.

Tackling crime in the library is a long-term ongoing process. Focus should begin in changing perceptions about the library. Educate your patrons and let them know that the library is not a “safe” place to leave children unattended. Deal with inappropriate behavior whenever it occurs. Be observant and vigilant in dealing with smaller situations. This sends a message that inappropriate behavior is not tolerated. Keep the bar for disruptive behavior low to discourage more serious activities.

As libraries, our mission is to promote free speech and idea sharing. As librarians, we have a responsibility to serve the public each day. We are charged with creating an inviting environment that is safe for patrons. By setting high standards for appropriate behavior, being proactive in dealing with situations, and involving law enforcement or security personnel when necessary, we can help to prevent crimes and create public spaces where respect is a basic expectation.

Additional Resources

ALA Tools: Safety and Security

American Libraries Live: Library Security

Graham, W. The Black Belt Librarian: Real World Safety & Security, American Library Association, Chicago, IL, 2011.

Difficult Patron Behavior: Success Stories from the WebJunction Community

Thompson, G.J. and Jenkins, J.B. Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2013.

Cover Image Credit: Ildar Sagdejev

The post Library Security is Everybody’s Job first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Recently I came across a reference book in my library on American innovators called They Made America by Harold Evans. This book details the big idea people that truly changed the American way of life. Important inventors and innovators ranging from historical figures like Eli Whitney, Levi Strauss, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney to current innovators like Larry Page and Sergey Brin the founders of Google, are each given a chapter. What do all of these people have in common? An idea (or two) and the passion and energy to act on it! Librarianship is a field that is still seeing almost constant change and lends itself to people with ideas who are not afraid of challenging the way things have always been done.

When I worked at the Delray Beach Public Library, I sat across the room from an underutilized computer lab. Ten computers in a quiet and ideal environment just glaring at me, almost begging me to be used. These underutilized resources irked me, and I was even more frustrated when patrons pointed at the lab when all the public internet computers were being used and asked, “Why can’t we use the computers in there?”. I had no good answer besides the fact that we only ever used the lab for our computer classes. I was beyond fortunate to have the opportunity as a member of the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute to use this lab as my culminating project and turn the space into the Empowerment Zone – a career, eGov, and education resource that in a year would allow over 100 patrons a month to use the space and computers.

Next year, I would like to challenge everyone in our profession to try to smash the status quo. As mentioned previously, giving up takes little effort, but trying to find a way around a road block can be an important challenge. On March 21^st, the anniversary of the founding of Twitter (facilitator of change throughout the world), I propose #SmashTheStatusQuoDay, where every library professional attempts to create or reimagine an idea, or just plain blow up the status quo in a way that is beneficial to their library and profession. You can tweet about it, or mention it on Facebook and other social media platforms. The challenge is positive change for you and your organization. Good luck and remember that there are plenty of resources out there, including Public Libraries Online, to help you formulate your plan of attack!

The post Smash the Status Quo! Rejuvenating Your Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

First of all, Gwyn and I decided to host a virtual library conference on Google Hangouts after attending the 2014 PLA Conference in Indianapolis, IN. I don’t know if you’ve been to PLA before but it’s such an amazing opportunity to meet and learn from fellow public librarians. One of my favorite parts was participating in Spark Talks (link to article about SparkTalks: https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2014/04/fast-five-my-experience-as-a-spark-talks-presenter/). Gwyn and I discussed using Google Hangouts On Air to livestream library programs. We received a lot of positive feedback and had so much fun learning new ideas from other librarians that we wanted to continue the conversation.

Fast forward a couple of months and we decided to experiment: we would use Google Hangouts On Air to connect with librarians in a virtual conference, which we named Library OnConference. The conference would include a keynote presentation and then small group hangout sessions based on topics of interest. It would be free and since it was on Google Hangouts, there were no travel costs.The support that we received from fellow librarians was truly amazing: R. David Lankes agreed to deliver the keynote presentation and nine different librarians agreed to moderate small group hangout sessions that included Digital Librarianship, Business Librarianship, Community Engagement, and Reader’s Advisory.

We also created a website for the conference and a Twitter account. After that was in line, we asked people to spread the word and were pleasantly surprised to see that over 60 people registered for the conference from around the country.

On conference day, R. David Lankes delivered an incredible keynote speech that focused on continuous learning in librarianship (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB3Ewz79cKA) and participants broke up into small group hangout sessions afterwards. The whole event went surprisingly smoothly and it was fun to read the Twitter feedback from participants. We sent post-conference surveys that had both positive feedback and suggestions—both of which was very encouraging.

The Pros: It was completely free! Aside from buying the domain for the conference website, there were no start-up fees and absolutely no cost to the participants. Additionally, unlike other virtual conferences where people listen to a presenter but don’t really get to interact, the small group hangout sessions allowed people to share ideas.

The Cons: Like any other online video conference host, you will have your occasional background interruptions or connection issues. Additionally, ensuring that participants had proper training and equipment, like headsets and microphones, was a challenge.

So would we do it again? Absolutely. It was a great learning experience for everybody involved in the conference. There are things that we will change and tweak for a future Library OnConference, like improving pre-conference training sessions and the registration process. But we definitely want to do this again!

Should you host a virtual library conference? Yes! It’s challenging but also energizing to see library colleagues from around the nation connecting with one another. Even if you just use Google Hangouts to “hangout” with people that you’ve met at an in-person conferences, it’s a fantastic, free way to continue to build library relationships.

Learn more about the conference and the moderators at www.liboncon.com. Are you interested in organizing in a virtual conference?  Share your thoughts below!  

Cover Photo Credit: Scott Maxwell

The post A Free Virtual Conference for Librarians? It’s On! first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Libraries that offer gaming programs or circulate games should consider attending Gen Con to better serve their patrons.  Gen Con is a great place for librarians to learn about and playtest games to add to their collections.  I was at the convention for 3 days, and I still wasn’t able to experience everything.  While there I learned about many games I’d never even heard of. Moreover, I was able to playtest games that are currently out, as well as upcoming releases.  Reading reviews of board games, and even seeing them played on YouTube, are nothing in comparison to getting my hands on the actual games themselves, and playing through with a group of people.

The convention is broken up into an exhibit hall, a large play hall in the back, and multiple rooms with different events happening throughout the convention center.  Purchasing a badge allows you into the gaming area and the exhibit hall, but many of the events cost extra.  Many of these events require tickets, which often sell out very early. Next year I plan on deciding what events to participate in ahead of time and purchasing those tickets as early as possible.

Librarians are able to get a special pass and attend on Trade Day (Wednesday), which I think could be particularly helpful.  I was overwhelmed by all of the information and gaming that was offered throughout the website and at the convention, and I was lucky to attend with friends.  I would suggest that any librarian who is attending Gen Con for the first time should partner up with someone who has been there before.  Another suggestion would be to look through the programming book, available in PDF form on the Gen Con Indy website.  The program book is currently for this year’s convention (which just wrapped up), but should be updated soon.  Even if the program book is slightly out of date, it gives an idea of what is available at the convention.

Gen Con was an amazing experience.  I left the convention with multiple new games, and an even longer list of games that I want to purchase soon.  As a librarian, I am excited to get some more table-top games to add to our ever growing selection.  I can’t wait to attend the convention again next year.

Cover Image Credit: SuSchu

The post Games, Games, and More Games – Experiencing Gen Con as a Librarian first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Because of course a library would hire a social worker. It’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it?

As public library professionals, we do our best to serve whomever walks through our doors as ably and as knowledgeably as we can. If we don’t have the answers, we’re committed to finding them so our patrons leave happy, satisfied, and better for having interacted with us. That’s how we roll.

But despite our very best intentions, we can’t always work our magic. Homeless patrons sometimes need more immediate, skilled, or complex assistance than what we can provide during a single library visit. So kudos to DCPL for realizing it just makes sense to have a staff member on board who knows her stuff and wants to share it with colleagues.

Rather than working directly with homeless patrons like her counterpart in San Francisco, DCPL’s newly appointed Health and Human Services Coordinator (i.e. social worker) operates on a system-wide level to develop programs and partnerships that build awareness and sensitivity within the library. Better still, this smart cookie is involving staff in the process. What better way to develop workshops and trainings that adequately address real-life scenarios and questions about serving homeless patrons?

Insights and guidance from a trained human services professional could have made a critical difference in a recent interaction I had with a patron I’ll call Jeffrey. He visited the library on a sweltering evening this summer and asked to speak privately with me, the person in charge that day. After explaining he was homeless and in need of a meal and toiletries, Jeffery handed me what he considered his most valuable possession—his photo ID—and asked me to hold it as collateral in exchange for a loan.

I was stunned. What in the world was I supposed to do? Our library policies strictly prohibit patrons from asking for money and staff from giving it them. But enforcing library policies is one thing, and treating human beings with dignity is sometimes another. After all, I’m a librarian. I help.

What I ended up doing left Jeffrey hostile and me frustrated. I gently explained I’d be happy to help him, but I couldn’t grant his request for money. Instead, I could call a few of our local shelters and arrange for a free city shuttle to give him a ride. I thought I was doing the right thing by helping him find the meal and shower he said he wanted. I wasn’t.

Jeffrey replied angrily that he wasn’t interested in shelters because he’d already gone that route—what he really wanted was cash. You can probably guess things didn’t end well. Man, it all went wrong so fast, and even now I feel like just another person who let Jeffrey down.

Ever since that night, I’ve been thinking about some sage advice I once received: “Don’t try harder. Try different.” I tried my hardest with Jeffrey from within my comfort zone. What I really needed to do was step outside of it and try a different approach. Someone like DCPL’s social worker could have helped me explore more informed strategies that might have made me a better, stronger resource for Jeffrey before he even visited my library.

Now I’m wondering why more public libraries aren’t following the lead of San Francisco and D.C. I don’t know about you, but I could use a little help. I want to try different for Jeffrey, for my other homeless patrons, and for everyone who walks through my doors.

I still think having social workers in the library is a no-brainer. How about you?

Cover Image Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Danielteolijr

The post A Little Extra Help – Why Public Libraries Need Social Workers first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Along the way, we repeated our standard jokes on how we didn’t learn about this in library school and that this wasn’t really in our job description. The whole process got me thinking: particularly if you are a librarian in a small and /or rural public library, ‘other duties as assigned’ can take on a vast degree of meaning.

In addition to the recent chair, we’ve also assembled tables, desks, bookcases, speaker stands, a lawn bench, signage, and storage containers. I’ve chased bugs and chipmunks out of the library and snakes off our outside walk ways. I’ve cleaned bathrooms, weeded gardens, mopped up leaks, and trimmed hedges. I’ve driven across town to deliver materials and chicken soup to a patron recovering from surgery. We’ve helped our neighbors catch their runaway pet. We’ve cajoled the difficult and ejected the angry. We’ve disengaged as the babysitter, gracefully letting our patrons know that we are not their babysitters. We offered tissues to the distraught.

One might think these duties came about because I work in a fairly small and rural library, but I know that’s not the case. I have also worked in a large urban library, and the (mis)adventures were much the same. It wasn’t chipmunks I chased around the stacks with a trash can, but baby mice. Snakes were not sunning themselves on the walk way, but stray cats. I didn’t weed the garden; instead, I picked up trash from the lawn. But these things were in kind.

I don’t really mind these ‘other duties’ most of the time. They make the day interesting. So now, curiosity prompts me to ask – what has been the oddest thing you’d needed to do that was not mentioned in library school?

The post Who Knew? What They Don’t Teach You in Library School first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

As we had suspected, almost every “ring” we have gotten has been from materials returning to the building that had been checked out prior to the staff “going live” with RFID. For six weeks prior to the gates being turned on, we trained our patrons using the self-checks, as well as our staff doing check-outs at the circulation desk, to check out materials with the RFID software.  Unfortunately, some materials slipped through, but many fewer than we had anticipated!

It was about four months between attaching the final RFID tags and starting checking materials out with the RFID software.  In the interim, we did checking in (materials discharge) with the RFID software.  That taught us that our quality control in placing and programming the tags was not as good as we had thought.  Fortunately, we had planned to take things slow and had plenty of time to continue testing things.  We tested hardware, software, equipment, and human procedures.  D-Tech was able to help us “tune” our gates during this testing process.  They were very patient with us, and we cannot say enough good things about Chris, our installer, and James, technical support from D-Tech, who continue to answer all our questions whenever we have them.  We understood from D-Tech that “settling in” is a common step many institutions miss . This fine-tuning of settings and controls within the gates and software happens before the gates are turned on for continual use.  As a result of this testing, we felt very confident when we turned the gates on in July.

Now are patrons are greeted by a Plexiglas RFIDGate, http://www.d-techdirect.com/products/rfid-products/d-tech-plexi-gate/.  Practically every patron, regardless of age or gender, is enthralled with how attractive they are. We’ll admit that the comments about how the changing spectrum of colors on the gates should match our library’s logo colors are starting to get a little old, but we know for sure that people have noticed the gates. There are some people who stop and watch the whole cycle of colors before they leave the building.

The gates “going live,” has meant they are colorful and occasionally make noise. Thus, we have received other patron questions. Some thought the gates were to detect guns or other weapons. Many were concerned the gates were going to interfere with their pacemakers or other health-related devices. Apparently getting RFID gates is a fabulous way to find out even more about our patrons’ medical conditions! It is a credit to our circulation staff that they field questions and empathize with the medical conditions of our patrons with humor and grace. The activation of the gates has also caused patrons to question whether the tags have GPS qualities. There has been some good-natured debate among the staff as to why people think we would want GPS on our materials. We’ve concluded that people might be concerned we’re going to literally hunt their materials down when they’re overdue, or we’re going to pass judgment on where they use our materials.

By far the funniest thing with the gates turning on happened during our recent high school lock-in. Apparently when you’re a sleep deprived teenager, 6:30 AM is a great time to see if you can “sneak up” on the gates and try to make them go off. Who knew RFID gates could bring such joy to teenagers who giggled like little kids with every ring? However, the similarly sleepy library staff couldn’t stop laughing at the kids “experimenting.” A good time was had by all. We suppose now we can add “patron entertainment” to the list of benefits of RFID gates, but that’s probably still a lesser benefit than materials tracking and security.

The post More on RFID in the Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.