The Action Guide originated from a report, Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries. The report made several conclusions including that when librarians align services to support local community goals, they will find the greatest opportunities for success. But when the community’s priorities are not well articulated in city planning documents, how do we know if the services the library offers, or plan to offer, support the goals of the community? Libraries like the Loveland (CO) Public Library are using the ‘turning outward’ approach to find the answers. They are asking community members to consider the following questions:

1. What kind of community do you want to live in?
2. Why is that important to you?
3. How is that different from how you see things now?
4. What are some things that need to happen to create that kind of change?

The “turning outward” approach originated from the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit that teaches people to change communities and solve problems. The American Library Association partnered with the Harwood Institute to teach librarians new ways to engage with their communities.

Strategies such as the aspirations tool assists libraries in facilitating these discussions. This strategy calls for participants to complete the following sentence: My hope is to live in a community where _________________ (aspirations). However, right now we face _________(challenges). In order to get there as a community, we need to ________________________ (new conditions, change). The Harwood Institute also publishes a facilitator’s guide so anyone can learn how to conduct the aspiration activity.

Members of the community group will tend to find consensus and can work together to create change through participating in this activity. Informed librarians can then begin to define and refine library services which will foster the desired change. As library activities closely align and realign with the aspirations of the community, librarians become the change agent proving their value to the community once again. This approach allows librarians to structure their programs and services in alignment with community aspirations with much more autonomy than they would have had if they asked inward questions like, “Do you want more hours on weekdays or less hours on weekends?” and other examples above.

Has your library implemented the Aspen Institute’s Action Guide for Re-Envisioning Your Public Library? Or the Harwood Institute’s aspirations tool to initiate a community discussion? If so, I would love to hear from you by commenting below!

The post Turning Outward at Your Library: Re-Envisioning first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

DILNAVAZ MIRZA SHARMA is Survey and Report Coordinator in the Office of Research, Planning, and Assessment at Meredith College, Raleigh
(NC). Contact Dilnavaz at sharmadi@meredith.edu. Dilnavaz is currently reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

This article first appeared in the NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 issue of Public Libraries.

Simply put, a Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool for organizing data so that it can be displayed and analyzed based on its geospatial characteristics. Using GIS allows users to combine multiple data sets in order to suss out connections in the subject matter that might not necessarily have been fully apparent without the added element of geographic references.

GIS is a versatile research tool that allows for an additional perspective or contextualization of a dataset based on its relationship to its physical environment. It also enables the user to visualize large quantities of disparate data and relate features of one dataset to those of another within the familiar structures of a map.

GIS and Public Libraries

GIS in public libraries has been used primarily to assess facilities usage and the impact of services in the community. Offering GIS services to patrons is still not as widespread in public libraries as it is in academic and map libraries. A 2014 survey of 115 member libraries, conducted by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), found that 100 percent of the 54 institutions responding to the survey provided GIS and mapping services to its users.¹ I failed to turn up a similarly comprehensive survey of GIS offerings in public libraries.

This is indicative of the public library’s view of GIS as an assessment tool rather than an area of service enhancement. Public libraries, accountable to a political entity by default, have embraced GIS as a tool for evaluating usage, collection development, and community impact by capturing GIS data to provide evidence of the library’s function in the community serviced.

GIS: An Assessment Tool

The all too familiar budget constraints leave public library administrators with little room for error, and under these charged circumstances GIS provides strong data to corroborate on-the-ground observations. As a result, GIS is now an integral decision support tool that library managers resort to when planning strategically for the future. Using GIS data, library personnel can fully understand the characteristics of the populations they serve and in turn develop facilities, collections, programs, and delivery points that align closely with the needs of the constituents.

When the Topeka and Shawnee County (KS) Public Library (TSCPL) began work on its ten-year strategic plan in 2008, they used Tapestry (a data analysis tool from ESRI) to develop a demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural profile of the multiple population groups served by the library system.² Tapestry allows a user to segment or classify U.S. population by zip code into 65 distinct categories.

Tapestry provides a comprehensive profile of America at the neighborhood level by mapping beyond the familiar demographic information, to present a portrait of the country based on accumulated data points generated by our daily lifestyle and consumer choices. When studied collectively, this collection of data allows GIS researchers to create an accurate and revelatory consumer profile of a given area.

In the past, such information would have been costly. GIS platforms such as Tapestry have streamlined market segment research and reduced the effort and cost associated with it. In short, Tapestry provided TSCPL with a granular look at the population it served, as well as trend analysis that enabled library staff to develop a growth strategy that was commensurate with community needs.

In-Library Usage Data

While TSCPL used GIS data to conduct a quintessential needs analysis in advance of a planning cycle, GIS can also be utilized to provide a more extensive view of in-house library use. Public libraries have traditionally relied on reference and circulation numbers to substantiate budgetary needs. While a library’s checkout rates, entry/exit counts, and reference-use statistics give administrators a balanced view of the library’s usage, GIS can help fill in the details to create a more complete account of the ways in which a public library fulfills the educational and social needs of its community.

For example, GIS can be used to provide a quantitative measure of the social activity taking place within the library. In an article about using GIS to map in-library use, Lauren Mandel gives an example workflow chart for mapping a library’s social activity.³ Mandel suggests using Microsoft Office suite in conjunction with MapWindow, an open-source GIS tool, to overlay the floor plan of a library building with data points that capture
patrons’ use of the space.

In order to create such a map, some level of advance planning would be required. By mapping in-library use data, administrators can identify building use-cycles based on time of day or seasons of the year. In turn, having use cycle information will help libraries anticipate and leverage heavy traffic periods to plan programming or showcase new acquisitions.

Jingfeng Xia, an expert in library space management, employed GIS to compare the checkout rates of items housed on shelving of different heights in a library.⁴ He mapped the circulation of library material relative to its placement on the library’s shelves. A map of where a library’s checked-out materials are housed allows management to follow the circulation trail and identify problems in signage, access, or visibility that might be causing an imbalanced use of the library’s collections.

Collection Development

Having a solid idea of your users’ demographic profile and usage habits is futile if you don’t evaluate your collections to fit closely with their information preferences and needs. GIS helps you identify potential growth areas in collections based on increased usage over time. Emerging trends that might have gone unnoticed in the day-to-day bustle of running a library are magnified and hard to ignore when depicted as a concentrated collection of dots on a map, each one representing a unique or cluster of unique library transactions.

Naturally, collection development is enhanced with the application of GIS tools. Elizabeth LaRue offers an excellent case study of how GIS maps were
used to identify public library locations in Chicago that would be ideal for providing consumer health information materials to underserved populations.⁵ Based on this study, the author was able to make recommendations for the installation of new collections in some libraries and suggest enhancements to existing collections.

LaRue built on past Internet search term studies that identified women in their forties as the most likely group to search and utilize health information online. By mapping the city based on its population’s demographic profile and citizens’ access to public libraries, LaRue pinpointed neighborhoods that had a larger distribution of women approaching middle age. The racial makeup of the various neighborhoods further enhanced her ability to recommend culturally sensitive and appropriate material for purchase by local public libraries.

LaRue used ESRI GIS products and U.S. Census Bureau information to conduct a thorough survey of a city’s information landscape. She warns of a steep learning curve when it comes to using ESRI’s ArcView and ArcGIS to accomplish research goals. From personal experience, I can assure you they get easier with practice.

In addition to ESRI GIS products, which are proprietary, there are a host of opensource GIS tools that are available online for free. The American Library Association has an excellent resource guide for opensource GIS tools published by its Map and Geography Round Table.⁶

GIS is a new tool available to librarians grappling with the question of who needs our services the most, what we should offer to maximize our impact in our communities, and where our limited resources are best spent to address the changing needs of our users. These questions and more can be answered with GIS data that is empirical, quantitative, and convincing, giving us the tools we need to better advocate for our patrons’ needs.

References

1. Ann L. Holstein, “Geographic Information and Technologies in Academic Research Libraries: An ARL Survey of Services and Support.” Information Technology and Libraries 34.1 (2015), accessed Dec. 16, 2015.
2. Jim Baumann, “Targeting Local Library Patrons: Tapestry Weaves Common Characteristics into Community Profiles,” ArcUser Online (2012), accessed Dec. 9, 2015.
3. Lauren H. Mandel, “Geographic Information Systems: Tools for Displaying In-Library Use Data,” Information Technology and Libraries 29, no. 1 (March 2010), accessed Dec. 9, 2015.
4. Jingfeng Xia, “Library Space Management: A GIS Proposal,” Library Hi Tech 22, no. 4 (2004), accessed Dec. 9, 2015.
5. Elizabeth M. LaRue, “Using GIS to Establish a Public Library Consumer Health Collection,” Biomedical Digital Libraries 1, no. 3 (Nov. 2004), accessed Dec. 9, 2015.
6. Available at www.ala.org/magirt/sites/ala.org.magirt/files/content/publicationsab/GIS_Program_Top_5_Re.pdf.

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At the outset, I would like to point out that there is value in working with different age groups.  A teen may actually benefit more (both educationally and with regards to self-efficacy) by tutoring a tween in a particular subject than by being taught the information by an adult.  In creating activities, however, a librarian needs to consider if opening an event up to a wider public will alienate some of the potential participants.  An example might be creating a coding class that is open to everyone ages 10-18.  If there are teens ages 15 to 18 with some coding experience and then younger attendees with no coding experience, the instructor is going to have a difficult time keeping everyone engaged.  In this instance, there might be greater value in creating both a beginner and an intermediate class.  Will teens engage differently in a book group that is more selective or more inclusive?

To some extent this is about knowing the community you serve.  Some communities find it impossible to reach those between the ages of 15 and 18. If that age group comes into the library at all, it is only to checkout a book and be on their way.  In these communities it makes sense that a teen event might be catered to those between the ages of 10 and 14, because that’s the population who attends.  It can, however, be difficult to determine whether these older teens are not attending because they feel the library does not cater to their needs, or because they simply do not wish to be involved with the library.  For this reason, it is incredibly important for teen librarians to reach out to local high schools and other places where teens are and ask how they can best support what teens want.  Increasingly the library is becoming a place where teens can learn about vocations, college, and other educational opportunities, but that does not mean that they will naturally be drawn to the library.  “Teen” events that do not speak to their interests will reinforce this devaluation of the library.

I am not advocating for every program to have a very specific community in mind, with a different book group for those aged 10-12, 13-15, 16-17, and 18-25 (the growth of “new adult” programming is another topic that was brought up and whether or not this group should be under the direction of young adult or adult librarians).  Firstly, there are very few libraries that would have the space, personnel, or budget to make this a viable option. Secondly, not all programs would benefit from this exclusivity.  Yet, seventeen and eighteen year-olds may face very different issues from younger teens as they get ready for college, leave home, and/or start a vocation.  Focused outreach to this group might not only be of benefit to them, but could also create events that are well attended and future supporters for the library.  Similarly, a program bringing together incoming freshman with those entering their sophomore year could help first year high school students make a smoother transition.

Perhaps my greatest takeaway from this session was that none of these changes happen overnight, but if we can achieve even moderate success, some of these changes can last generations.  Teens have friends and siblings, and if a librarian can convince a few teens that the library can be an ally to them, this can have a rippling effect.  Perhaps, the libraries that have teens attending their events are the ones who listened to the needs of their teen community five or ten years ago and have been flexible enough to meet their changing needs in the ensuing years.  Successful programming is not about what we create, but how we respond. Particularly with teens, we only get a response if we can grab their attention.

Cover image credit: SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget

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