Throughout the years, I’ve found these ‘methods’ are always little more than a variety of helpful steps or formulas to help owners and managers formulate a direction for an organization, or person, for the future. A Boeing engineer once asked me what skills potential recruits will need to learn for the future aerospace industry. Researching the futurist literature, the only thing seemingly pertinent was something I read (irretrievable) in The Futurist Magazine over twenty years ago. The late Robert Theobald, economist and futurist author, commented on future education ‘…twenty years from now, one will learn what one needs to know when they need it,’ and now we are doing exactly that. Theobald was repeating the scenario he wrote about in 1967 about the future in 1994¹.

We have been inundated by articles about the future of the library, yet little has been said about the future of librarians; those bastions of information and troughs of information and experience people rely on. Like the oft quoted proverb from Africa “When a knowledgeable old person dies, a whole library disappears,” librarians are surely as much the library as the brick and mortar buildings they work in.

More recently I was at home with our thirteen guests at Thanksgiving, and we played a little game of getting to know each other. We passed around notes from which each person read and told us about their favorite book, their favorite activity, also, my note, “What would you like to be known for?” Well, when I was younger, I was in charge of a youth group and they started calling me “fearless leader.” I kind of liked that. Since then, I’ve come to know that a leader is not born, is not, by education nor effort, a leader. A leader is someone others ascribe that title to; usually because they have already done something significant to help or change the lives of others. This is what I find most librarians do, and thus are leaders, and that won’t go away because a building or printed books aren’t available.

As a recruiter and speaker for organizations, I try to talk about “Options and Opportunities.” What we chose as our role(s) in life, lays out our options and opportunities we may have. I believe librarians must decide to choose their role(s), and when they (we) do, we will survive all things of the future which come to pass.

Back in the 70s we heard a great deal about methods for “creating the future.” Here is another planning method; a book to help us with a range of future possibilities, probabilities, plausible options, and opportunities in creating our future:

It’s YOUR Future… Make it a Good One! by Dr. Verne Wheelwrite, 2012. This tome takes the strategic foresight and scenario planning tools utilized successfully by some corporations and scales them down for the individual.

References

1. Tegs Nineteen Ninety-Four: An Anticipation of the Near Future – June, 1972, by Robert Theobald, Jim Scott.

TEG’S 1994, written in 1967 and published in 1971, was 30 years ahead of its time. It is a portrait of the world in which we live today.

The post The Future of the Librarians 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.

New approaches, like priority-based and outcome-based budgeting, could help align a library budget with its services and dollars received. These methods can provide enhanced accountability and transparency to the budgeting process. They both have the potential to better communicate the goals and intended outcomes of new and existing programs. Outcomes, outputs, inputs, strategies, and performance are aligned and regularly evaluated. Governmental units, like libraries, can align more strongly with their city’s or county’s priorities.

A priority-driven budget is in some ways the opposite of a traditional line-item budget approach. The budget process begins with a review of the organization’s priorities rather than the dollars spent on activities the previous year. Each program or activity is evaluated based on predetermined performance indicators. The focus moves from dollars spent to effectiveness of programs and services in relation to the value of those services.

Creating priorities prior to funding considerations helps to focus on the mission and role of the organization. The process can also help to weight the value of one program over another. In cases where a program may be ranked at a lower value for results achieved, stakeholders and program participants have the opportunity to take on more responsibility for the success or support of the service. San Jose, Calif., is an example of how a city has applied this process.

Outcome-based budgeting is a specific form of priority-based budgeting. It is an approach that government entities have successfully implemented and is now moving to the non-profit sector.  It is interesting to see how some government agencies have used this method to incorporate their strategic plan initiatives directly into their budget process. An example is Newton, Massachusetts, a city that has used an outcome-based approach throughout their city, including their library budget.

The four principles of outcome-based budgeting include:

1. Establishing outcomes
2. Developing approaches to achieve outcomes
3. Developing a budget with approaches to achieve outcomes
4. Evaluating performance and making adjustments

These four principles allow the organization to align its budget tightly with its strategic plan.

Traditional library metrics and performance indicators need a tune-up. This is an opportunity for library leaders to adjust indicators to demonstrate long-term strategic priorities. By aligning them with the budgeting process, libraries will be in a better position to communicate value to financial stakeholders.

Resources

Stanz, C., Backes, S., Fokerts, N. “Budgeting for Results: Outcomes Based Budgeting.” Presentation of Nonprofit Financial Roundtable Series, Waite Park, MN, August 26, 2014. Powerpoint slides from the presentation.

Kavanagh, S.C., Johnson, J., Fabian, C. Anatomy of a Priority-Driven Budget Process, Government Finance Officers Association, 2011.

Outcomes Based Budget Overview,  City of Newton, Mass., 2014.

The post New Budget Processes for the “New Normal” first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Keep the machines in your factory, but change what they make.

Keep your technology, but use it to do something else.

Keep your reputation, but apply it to a different industry or problem.

The Unquiet Librarian applied this model to school libraries and came up with some examples of her own:[ii]

Keep books and print materials in your library, but add and promote the formats in which their content appear (i.e. audio books, databases,  e-books,  downloadable books…).

Keep teaching information literacy skills, but focus on… helping students devise personal learning networks that they can apply to any learning situation.

With that pattern in mind, I will venture to suggest a few keep/change principles that could be applied to public libraries:

Keep offering reference services, but deliver them in convenient modalities (via text message, using e-mail, through IM chats).

žKeep collecting print materials, but promote them in appealing ways (announce “Exciting New Titles” on Facebook, tweet book reviews in 140 characters or less, apply merchandising formulas in the stacks).

žKeep teaching technology, but think beyond software (creating WordPress websites, LinkedIn for job seeking, personal digital archiving).

žKeep connecting people with information, but compile it in easily digestible formats (consider tailored “reports” as opposed to unwieldy piles of books or long lists of unintelligible URLs).

Keep planning programs, but engage local groups and interests (co-sponsor events in the community, partner with arts and culture organizations, invite clubs to host workshops at the library).

Keep your service desks, but staff them differently (cross-train employees, rove during slow shifts, combine Circulation and Reference into one-stop service point

The goal is to shrink change into manageable adjustments that dovetail familiar policies, procedures, and situations. In doing so, libraries may ease the pain associated with disruptive change while still moving toward our full potential in the modern world.

The post Pivotal Change first appeared on Public Libraries Online.