On Saturday, January 12, I attended the “Best Practices in Cooperative Reference: Reference and Social Networking” session presented by QuestionPoint, with panel speakers Stephen Francoeur (Baruch College), Beth Evans (Brooklyn College) and David Lankes (Syracuse University). While the panel seemed targeted at academic librarians, I actually found a great deal that would be of interest to public librarians. (more…)
How very exciting! It turns out that Sophie Brookover and Liz Burns, two of the intrepid librarians who blog over at Pop Goes the Library, are working on a book titled Pop Goes the Library: Using Pop Culture to Connect With Your Whole Community, to be published sometime in 2008.
And they need *your* feedback! Here’s why (via a quote from their post about the book):
So while we feverishly research, write, and revise the manuscript, we have a request of all of you, dear Readers & Friends of Pop: we have this survey, you see, and it would help us out tremendously if you’d be willing to answer our questions. It’s one thing for us to write about what we think makes a great marriage between pop culture & libraries; it’s quite another, more powerful thing to quote our experienced colleagues on this topic.
Please take a few minutes to help by filling out their survey. Understanding the fit of popular culture in the library is one of the many keys to staying relevant with our patron communities, so this is a very worthy cause for your time. Thanks!
This Sunday afternoon program was intended as a follow-up for individuals who had participated in Webjunction’s Spanish Language Outreach workshops. Although I was not one of those lucky few, I decided to attend the session to learn more about it, and I am very glad I did, as the information provided could be useful to any librarian who hopes to work in a diverse community.
Yolanda Cuesta presented the first segment of the program on marketing to Spanish speakers. Yolanda’s advice was practical and very useful:
- Work with community leaders to start the needs assessment for the community; try to create a personal connection so that you will come to be trusted in the community. It is very important in this community to establish personal relationships and rely more on personal contact via phone or in person, since email or mass mailings may not be as relevant in this culture.
- Develop the “library as a brand that is culturally relevant”; a place that provides services that the community needs and wants-a place for getting help, for entertainment and fun, for learning, and for family activities- vs. the traditional promotion of the library as a provider of books and information resources.
- In the first marketing stage, translate the library card application and basic brochures into Spanish. Jump right into marketing, without over thinking it: send press releases to Spanish media outlets and start to participate in community events, where you can hand out information about the library and meet more of the leaders.
- In the second stage, start to realize the differences within the community itself, including age, country of origin, degrees of acculturation, and marital status. These factors all have a great impact on the services you provide and how they should be marketed. Also during this stage, start adapting traditional library services, such as story hours or computer classes, for the Spanish speaking community, and begin to experiment with marketing at local gathering spots such as grocery stores or pharmacies. Additionally, you should never undervalue the importance of word-of-mouth marketing.
- The third marketing stage follows a more holistic approach, where you look at the entire library and the Hispanic community in more depth, deciding which specific segments of the community you would like to target. It is hard to make this decision, since selecting one segment means you will not reach everyone, but these are necessary (hard) choices that will help the services grow well and target the marketing more specifically. During this stage, the library should also try to increase its presence in the community by organizing community events such as Dia de los niños.
- Once you have completed this process, you can start over, targeting a different portion of the community: look and learn who makes up the community, determine their needs and develop a program. It is important to keep the process going and not neglect it after the first try, as continuity is an important factor for establishing trust in the community. As the projects progress, continue to make inroads with community leaders to get a better understanding and form partnerships.
The session continued with a few stories from individuals who had participated in the workshop and the way they applied the training to their libraries. John Tull from Wallens Ridge State Prison in Virginia described the progress he has made at his prison library, including the translation of signs and procedural documents into Spanish and collaboration with the ESOL classes. Previous program participants then broke up into discussion groups to brainstorm about their different outreach projects.
To learn more about the workshops and find materials about the topic, visit Webjunction’s Spanish Outreach page: http://webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=10555
This very informative program on Saturday morning was sponsored by Reforma, the National Association to Promote Library Services to the Spanish Speaking.
Carrie Banks, director of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs discussed staff training for working with Spanish speakers with disabilities.
Issues to be aware of when working with Spanish speakers with disabilities include:
- The importance of both language competency (i.e. speaking the language of the patron) and cultural competency (i.e. being familiar with the patron’s culture).
- Problematic attitudes on the part of library staff are generally related to one of the following factors: fear (of contagion, the different, or the unknown), sympathy and pity, avoidance, repulsion, or over-protection. Some of these may be uncontrollable feelings, but you must never display them outwardly.
- In the Spanish speaking communities there are additional factors that greatly affect individuals with disabilities: the idea of “aguante” (in Spanish “getting through”), the centrality and dependence on the family, and certain religious beliefs (which may view a disability as either a blessing or a curse). Also, some disabilities are culturally more acceptable than others, including physical (such as loss of limbs) or blindness, while others, such as mental or emotional disabilities, are viewed more negatively.
- Many Spanish speaking adults have physical disabilities because of work accidents; unfortunately, Spanish-speaking adults with disabilities have the highest rate of unemployment and the least success with rehabilitation, mostly due to the lack of focus on the family as part of the rehabilitation process.
- Few Spanish speaking individuals with disabilities belong to organizations or support groups because of language barriers.
- Immigration status is another big issue, as many don’t ask for help or attend meetings because of fear of deportation.
- When speaking of people with disabilities in English, the person always comes first and the disability second (for example a man with a disability, not a disabled man). In Spanish it may different, depending on the country of origin. The terms “necesidades especiales” have generally been acceptable.
- When planning service for this population, look to partner with organizations that support the Spanish speaking community, since they already have the language and cultural competences, and help them to extend their services to individuals with disabilities.
- Market your services and do outreach through nontraditional organizations, including daycare, churches, pharmacies, hospitals, detention centers and shelters.
Loida Febo Garcia from the Queens Public Library spoke on the subject of collection development for this patron population. Unfortunately, there are limited printed resources, although there are currently a number of good web sites with Spanish language information produced by different non-profit and governmental organizations.
The basic guidelines for collection development for Spanish speakers with disabilities are:
- Look for the same materials in Spanish as those published in English, making sure that there is material available for different ages
- Facilitate access to information by purchasing materials in different formats like Braille, descriptive DVD’s, etc.; these materials should mirror the books in the regular collection
- Utilize Library of Congress’s Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped to supplement collection.
Books for children with disabilities should follow the basic criteria for children’s literature, with a few additional points:
- no stereotypes
- no “special children” represented, but rather, normal children with a special trait
- no stories about overcoming disability
- disability portrayed as only one characteristic of child
- interactions between children with and without disabilities
- attempt to help change the attitudes of people without disabilities
- no sentimentality
To improve the situation and raise awareness of this patron population, librarians should push publishers to publish more and improve the choices available. One way to do this is to buy the materials that do currently exist. They also need to share information with the publishers regarding who are their users and what are their needs. Lastly, librarians should become more active and publish articles and blogs on the topic.
The last portion of the program was a presentation by students from the University of Puerto Rico’s Library and Information Science program at the Rio Piedras campus. Elizabeth Rivera and Cindy Jimenez described the Puerto Rico Assistive Technology Program’s Information Center, which although based on the University campus, provides resources and services to the general public. The goal of this center was to increase access to assistive technology, and it offers training, consultation, evaluation, and technical support to all. For more information about the center, see http://www.pratp.upr.edu
This workshop, hosted by the California Library Association Literacy Section, brought together a roomful of highly motivated people to discuss literacy programs in libraries. My career before library science was in linguistics and TESL. I have taught basic writing and sociolinguistics, understand basic literacy issues, and have had exposure to the adult literacy program in my area called ATLAS run by the local adult and community education center, not the library. So I felt right at home with this group though I missed the morning session, “Trailblazers and the Pioneers who Followed: Discovering the Role for Literacy in Libraries,” presenting the 20 year history of literacy services in libraries around the country by leaders who were there.
In the afternoon, Joan Frye Williams, Library Futurist, explained why in 2006 the California State Library scrapped its literacy at the library marketing strategies of 20 years to start all over. They surveyed over 200 volunteers tutors and students and concluded that their current publicity efforts were not effective in getting people to “step up to the plate and participate.” The reasoning behind the change and the new approach they’ve initiated is forthcoming.
The second afternoon session featured an expert in volunteer coordination and management, Carla Lehn. Carla is a hugely motivating speaker, who massaged us with true-life stories, words of wisdom gleaned through years of working at nonprofits managing the volunteer resources, and inspirational best practices for finding and keeping your volunteers. Of most interest to me was how to write meaningful volunteer job descriptions organized from the standpoint of the volunteer job seeker, not the employer. For example: subsections include Importance of Position–what are significant outcomes brought about by this position, Qualifications–lists of skills, attitudes, knowledge necessary for the job, Responsibilities—what is expected of the volunteer, Training Provided—volunteers get training, Benefits of Volunteering—positive outcomes from serving, Time Commitments—numbers of hours and months expected, and Grounds for Termination—(yes, you can fire a volunteer). Carla had us writing meaningful descriptions, gave us a pack of job descriptions from libraries all over California, and a copy of her purple book called Volunteer Involvement in California Libraries: Best Practices.
The final day session Valerie Reinke explained the difference between outputs and outcomes and the importance of that difference in “Outcomes: Making the Case for Literacy Services.” Outputs are quantifiable data, the how much and how many statistics that libraries love to collect—circulation, cardholders, holdings, while outcomes are qualitative descriptions of successes in terms lives changed and goals achieved, not through numbers, but through stories that show increased knowledge and changed behaviors. She found that numbers without contexts do nothing to showcase the successes in literacy programs, and when looked at within the context of the library makes literacy programs the first to suffer in hard times because of their comparatively small numbers of people served. This led her to realize that library literacy programs lacked the verbiage to define outcomes according to their own paradigms and left them vulnerable to being defined by others in unfavorable terms. “We have to define ourselves and not let others define us for us.”
At the closing session Taylor Willingham helped us have a conversation about our visions of the future of literacy services in libraries. Starting with Gandhi’s dictum, “Be the change you want to see,” Taylor encouraged us to think about why this literacy symposium was called Mining Gold? She asked us to take a journey into the future and imagine us meeting again in 10 years, 2017. What will we be saying about our literacy programs? We get there from here by right now thinking abut the change you want to see and being that change!! Isn’t this true in all aspect of life?
Kristin Yiotis
SLIS, SJSU
ALASC Chair 2006-07
The title for this post comes from a sign I saw in one of the hotel elevators when I first arrived yesterday. I’ve heard Karen Hyman speak probably about 4 times by now, but it’s never too many times. Her well-attended presentation this morning on “The Customer-Centered Library: How to Stop Tweaking and Start Doing It with 12 NEW Steps,” has elements of her other presentations I’ve attended, but you know, she’s like a good movie, I just keep coming back. That, and customer service continues to be a topic you just can’t say enough about.
“People vote with their feet”
We live in a world where libraries compete with the likes of Google, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, at home wifi, movies on demand, Netflix, “Send to phone” options, and more, it’s about service. Karen’s Big Fear is that “Libraries (and what they can offer) will be increasingly irrelevant and invisible to the majority of people.” In my mind, the Web 2.0 world of membership to many networks including MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Google and Yahoo! Groups, and more, emphasizes that people like to *belong* in places (the amazing competition for numbers of Friends aside). Karen points out that if libraries are to become The Third Place, which implies a place you go that isn’t home, isn’t work, but doesn’t make you feel like a loser to be there, we need to provide quality service that is centered on the customer.
I believe that the idea of foot voting can apply to the online branch of your library (the web site), as well. Creating a site that’s easy to use from home, that highlights online services like databases and other paid services and makes them easy to access, and use technologies that appeal to patrons but also serve specific purposes to the library and the site. It keeps libraries relevant, but also gives you a whole other point of service for people who don’t come to the library proper.
Don’t feel like a loser, feel like you belong
So what brings people to The Third Place? While Karen answered this question ten times over this morning, talking about using failure as a learning experience, ditching your rules (especially the ones that sound dumb to patrons), offering choices, and all sorts of things that are, generally, considered work that is worth it, the major bits I want to focus on are about customer centrism, and just plain caring.
Libraries and librarians need to accept that we *cannot* change customer behaviors. Anyone who has tried to teach someone how to use Google, or how to search the catalog the way a librarian searches a catalog should know. I look at it as a sort of “March of the Librarians” for patrons: observe how customers do things, examine their customs and habits, ask questions about what would work, talk it over, then apply it. Get out of your head, and get into the customer’s head. Everything from library displays to text messaging to Library Elf, it all fits in here. The “Have it your way” Burger King approach can go a long way to making customers feel right at home, improve the perception of the library, and increase foot traffic physically and virtually.
And what could remind someone more of a place where they want to be than caring? People who work in libraries *need* to care. It’s a service industry, and attitude directly affects anyone’s ability to provide quality service. The best thing libraries can do when they recruit new staff members, and the best thing library schools can do in recruiting students), is to find people who care about providing good service, who care about doing a good job, who aren’t bitter and disconnected, who seek an opportunity to help people, an who really care about the profession (and aren’t there to live the stereotype). Make sure that the people you hire and that people you have are doing what they care about, as opposed to what they couldn’t care less about, avoiding the “children’s librarian who hates children” syndrome.
Libraries need workers who care about libraries, care about their jobs, and care about the people they serve (you know, without going overboard, or being crazy stalkerish about it). Caring can be the ginseng/caffeine/gingko punch for your professional life, if you let it. If you’re already trapped there at your job, and you can’t get away, even if you are unhappy, why not make it festive by caring. If you care, they’ll care, and everyone is happy.
Go to Step 12: Make something happen
Even just with the two points of service and caring, libraries can really start to do something and make a difference, and doing the work, however much or little, will create results that are overwhelmingly worth it.
This came to my attention very recently through the ALA Public Programs listserv. The deadline for application submission is very tight (December 18, 2006), but it seems like it would be worth the hustle and trouble for interested libraries. All bold emphasis mine.
Dear Library Colleague:
In the spring of 2006, Arthur marked a milestone that few children’s-or adult-series ever attain: ten seasons on the air! To celebrate the occasion, the WGBH Educational Foundation is pleased to launch Arthur’s 10th Anniversary Literacy Initiative, a new outreach effort targeting public libraries.
This new outreach effort is designed to use the series’ continuing popularity to support two intersecting target audiences-libraries and parents. Many parents become library users when their children are toddlers and preschoolers. Many also know the importance of reading aloud to support their children’s literacy development. However, as their children age and become readers themselves, parents often relegate responsibility for their children’s reading success to teachers and become less aware of how libraries can support them and their children as they grow older.
WGBH will award grants in the amount of $1,000 each to 15 public libraries, asking them to design projects using the Arthur resources and targeting parents and children, including soon-to-be as well as independent readers. We seek libraries that represent diversity in size, location, and population served (with an emphasis on reaching at-risk audiences), and will also consider the creativity of their approach and the strength of their community partners (including local PBS stations), which will be essential to access families not currently served by the library.
We invite you to apply for an Arthur’s 10th Anniversary Literacy Initiative grant. Applications are due by Monday, December 18, 2006 and can be found at http://www.ala.org/ala/ourassociation/chapters/literacyoutreach.htm.
If you have questions on the grant application, please feel free to contact Natalie Hebshie, Arthur Outreach Coordinator, at 617/300-3639 or by e-mail at .
Sincerely,
WGBH Educational OutreachWhat You Can Expect from WGBH:
- A $1,000 grant to defray the cost of staff time and materials required to develop targeted outreach activities for kids and families.
- Arthur Library Event Guide. This online resource includes ideas to engage kids across the age spectrum in reading activities.
- Let’s Read! (in English and Spanish). This family activity booklet offers ideas for how parents can support their children’s literacy at different ages.
- Arthur anniversary stickers and pencils for distribution to young patrons
- Read Aloud Book Club Kit for young readers, including six book club session cards with activity suggestions, and books for distribution.
- Arthur-themed bulletin board decorations.
What WGBH Expects From Your Library:
- Design outreach activities that support kids and families.
- Partner with your local PBS Station on your outreach activities.
- Utilize ideas and activity suggestions from the Arthur Library Event Guide.
- Distribute Arthur outreach materials, including Let’s Read!, stickers, and pencils.
- Publicize your activities.
- Complete and submit a final report on your outreach activities (final report form provided by WGBH).
Dates to Keep in Mind:
- Grant applications due to WGBH Educational Outreach: December 18, 2006
- 15 grantees selected and notified: January 2, 2007
- Grantees complete final report and submit to WGBH: April 30, 2007
Questions? Please contact Natalie Hebshie, Arthur Outreach Coordinator at 617/300-3639 or by e-mail at .
While National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is just about wrapping up, it’s not the only cancer awareness month in the year. Lung Cancer Awareness Month and Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month are just around the corner in November, and many other cancers have months of observance throughout the year (check out the calendar from Cancer.gov).
Because anytime is a good time to educate about cancer and the usefulness of clinical trials, it’s good to know that the National Cancer Institute now offers a Cancer Clinical Trials Education Series (CTES) Kit for free to libraries. More information, care of an email I received from the Massachusetts Library Association listserv:
“The CTES is a collection of more than 20 multimedia resources to educate cancer patients, health care professionals, advocates, and the general public about cancer prevention and treatment clinical trials. The series includes materials in a variety of formats, including workbooks, videos, booklets, and brochures. Some of the materials are also in Spanish. Topics include “If you have Cancer…What you should know about Clinical Trials, “If you have Cancer and Have Medicare”, “Taking Part in Clinical Trials: What Cancer Patients need to Know” are just a few of the topics.
To order materials call 1-800-4-CANCER or go to www.cancer.gov/publications. If you have questions about the materials or how to use them, contact or by calling 301-594-8992.”
Christopher Penn, the madman behind the PodCamp unconference, speaks about marketing a podcast once you have it. The value of this presentation is not just in the marketing information for a podcast, but the importance of social networking to the future of marketing, especially viral marketing, and how libraries should definitely be thinking about reaching the web market at multiple age levels.
Here’s the quick and dirty on how to market your podcast:
While these tips are podcast advertising oriented, I’d say this is a good way for libraries to start thinking about advertising what the library can do for people, especially for people who wouldn’t normally think to use or visit the library.
No, this was not another session about food but rather about strategies for reaching out to diverse communities. I came in on the second set of speakers, librarians from the Las Vegas County Library which has an increasingly diverse population of Chinese, African American, Hispanic and Native American individuals. So, the main question is, how do you reach out to all the communities? The library’s board of director made this issue a priority and dedicated resources specifically to it.
The goals:
- Families who have been traditionally under-served will find diverse cultural heritage and ethnicity reflected in the library’s collections.
- Residents will receive library services that meet their diverse cultural heritage.
- Increase library card usage.
The first step is to ask questions:
1. How can I build the best system to reach the most people?
2. How can I recruit and keep the best people, especially of color?
The keys to a successful plan:
- Make it clear that this is not an affirmative action plan
- Provide existing staff and new employees with opportunities to learn about the diversity plan. For example: brown bag lunches with speakers discussing diversity related issues.
- Monitor the accomplishments of the diversity plan.
- Focus on staff development.
Find the right stuff (books, etc.):
- Read the media (Criticas, Multicultural Review).
- Develop new relationships with vendors you know.
- Seek out new vendors (wander those far-flung aisles in the Conference Exhibit halls).
- Test drive variety.
- Choose topics based on existing English language materials
- Track your new collection to see what is used (Very important to invest in cataloging so individuals can find materials they are seeking!)
- Once the collection is established, patterns will emerge.
Programming:
- Celebrate the four national months: African American History, Asian Pacific, Hispanic and Native American.
- Recognize other heritages in the programming.
- Partner with other organizations to participate in heritage celebrations.
- Create a logo and visual materials.
- Create info guides (or path finders) with the resources in the library, including ESL programs, activities, crafts, recipes.
- Food is important for every culture: plan culture fairs with recipes, demonstrations and samples.
- Create exhibits and displays both virtual and in galleries. These offer great opportunities for organizations to sponsor receptions.
- Develop reading groups.
- Plan age-appropriate craft activities for adults and children.
- Participate in community outreach: march in parades, have booths at community cultural fairs, etc.
Important points learned:
- Expand cultural programming year-round; infuse diversity into everything!
- Celebrate as many cultures as possible.
- Create an advisory board of local community members that belong to that culture.
- Remember that nothing is universally embraced; be prepared that some of your programs will touch bigger nerves (in the Las Vegas library the GLBT programming is the most delicate).
Bad Behavior has blocked 1810 access attempts in the last 7 days.
