PLA Blog

Beth blogged on this yesterday, but they had an encore performance today, and since Beth’s battery died mid-session, I thought I’d go ahead and post my notes…Plus, I think this is a really terrific, albeit very challenging concept.

Wake up call: what our customers are trying to tell us…if we’d only listen
Gwen Crenshaw, Cori Jackamore, and Susan Kotarba
Denver Public Library

How did Denver Public realign their services and branches to meet a changing population and changing service needs? It’s an evolution not a revolution, and they are in the process of implementing a new service-style model, with different branches customized to serve the needs of specific types of patrons.

Started by asking some questions:
Could more people be using the library?
What do our library users really want?
How can we give them what they want?
How can our library continue to move forward?

Their challengers:
Population was changing rapidly
Customer usage and demand changing rapidly
Resources diminishing and they had to make smart choices

What they studied:
Demographics (Census, a local foundation that does a lot of local research)
Customer Usage Patterns
Customer’s preferences through experiments

Our discovery:
Market segmentation: Businesses that use this method develop and promote their services more effectively than trying to focus on the average user. Examples of market segmentation: The Gap’s group of stores: The Gap (college students, etc.), Banana Republic (career men & women), Old Navy (soccer moms who want good buys), Baby Gap (moms, dads, grandparents)

Explorations:
At their Schlessman Branch they took a merchandising approach with longer hours, lots of pop a/v items, newsstand/magazine model…it looked like a bookstore, with tables stacked high with pop titles/materials.
Results: Circulation sky-rocketed

As they experimented, they tried to replicate the success, but they found out that “Stack ‘em high and watch them fly” doesn’t always work. When they tried it at the Blair-Caldwell Branch, the model wasn’t a success, so they started studying the demographics of their population(s) to figure out what worked, where and why.

Demographic surprises:
Slightly less than 50% white
Only 23% of Denver’s households have children living in the home
Latino households are more likely to have children in the home than white households
75% of all workers in Denver earn less than $40K
Growth in foreign born population
50% of the new babies born are born to Latino families
Denver’s two largest groups are Latino families and whites without children
Latinos are the fastest growing population and most children are Latino
The highest concentration of children live in Denver’s poorest neighborhoods

Customer Usage Patterns
At DPL, circ of adult books account for only 21% of their total circ
But A/V accounts for 54% of their total circ
Use of Spanish-language materials circulate with greater frequency
Computer use is growing (more people come to the library with the assumption that they’ll use the computers with high-speed access)
Website transactions: Very high, with 58% of usage from outside the library; 42% from inside the library
Specialized reference needs to grow: enhanced business information, genealogical research, and historical research

New directions
Pop materials and a/v
Children’s and family services
Adult learning classes
Specialized reference
Spanish-language materials
Computers and high-speed internet access
Web services

Six Targets/Service Designs (Styles)
Central Library: world-class collection, staff with subject expertise, a “hub” for the greater metro

Contemporary Libraries: new and popular materials (right now): multiple copies of bestsellers, hot items, lots of AV, longer hours, coffee carts, very bookstore-like

Learning and language libraries: computer access, adult classes, opportunities: a gateway to a new life serving foreign-born residents with an emphasis on bilingual services, English/Spanish language classes, concurrent children’s activities to allow adults to attend classes, GED and computer instruction

Family libraries: array of services for the entire family: great experiences for and with their children: children’s collections and programming that appeals to all generations, family learning, school support, homework help, Saturday programs for the families, storytimes for all ages, movies and music for the whole family, lots of children’s materials

Children’s libraries: children in low-income neighborhoods who want a fun, active place: designed for children who come to the library without adults, have a lot of assistance from staff, after school programs, arts and crafts, community outreach

DPL Online: people who want to use the library online: 24/7 interface, access from home, school, work, etc… research and homework resources, downloadable books, music, and movies

Making it happen
Staff self-selection: encouraged staff to self-select to their preferred style. In all cases they got either their first or second choice (this is very cool!)
Regrouped branches by service style rather than by geographic location
Developed design teams/gap analysis
Experimented with elements from each style
Focus groups & community conversations
Central library service design plan (branches and central library need to be on the same path)
Implementation plan

Lessons learned (It’s not easy)
Clear and ongoing communication is vitalBecause the core project team was so into it, they didn’t always remember that everyone else wasn’t as excited about it or as into it. They needed to have a lot of communication with all staff and with the public. If they had more communication throughout the process, they think it would have gone more smoothly.

Recognize that it’ll be time consuming and intensive for staff

Parallel development of Central and branch styles would have been betterThey had the branches moving first, but they think that it would have been more coordinated if they were done concurrently.

City-wide placement of branch stylesHow do you decide which branch will be which style? It won’t be easy. Lots of discussions, lots of communication are needed. They had community conversations. Their customers didn’t mind traveling a short distance to get to the branch style of their choice. In each quadrant of the city, they tried to place one of each style.

Don’t forget about your core/traditional services
Make it clear to your staff and your customers that all core services are still available. Even at a children’s library, there is a small collection of best sellers for adults. Patrons can still request a book and have it sent to any library.

Community resistance toward change
Recognize that not everyone will see the benefit. Not everyone will be on board. “Some of us were paddling, and some of us were putting water in boat.”

Core services
These are all available at all styles of libraries—the changes weren’t supposed to result in “extreme make-overs” –Patrons would still walk into libraries and be able to find the core services:
Children’s services
Collections for all ages
Customer services and care
Circulation and delivery of requested materials
Computer access
Referrals to all the services DPL offers

How do services at Central and the branches differ?
All core services are available throughout
The Central library serves the others
A lot of the styles are also available as departments at Central (for example, the fiction dept. at Central will now be in the model of the “Contemporary” library style.

What can you do to listen to your patrons and implement a service-style model?
Study your demographics: look at the right demographics for your locations: don’t just assume your metro-level stats will tell you want you need
Look at your customer usage patterns
Try your own experiments and explore service designs
Ask your customers for feedback
Ask some questions:
Could more people be using your library?
What do your library users really want?
How can you give them what they want?
How can your library continue to move forward in light of your customer demand?

Tags: conferences, PLA, PLA2006

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