PLA Blog

ALA 2007: Swap’n'Shop, Special Collections, Hot Outreach Tech

This week, we’ll be highlighting various ALA events that might be of interest to our readers, whether you happen to be attending ALA, or just keeping up with the conference here on the PLA Blog.

Swap & Shop: Celebrate PR!
Sponsored by LAMA
Sunday, June 24
11 am - 1:30 pm
Washington Convention Center Special Events Area
Library professionals will have the opportunity to fill their free tote bag full of the very best ideas in library public relations (annual reports, newsletters, reading promotions, and more). More than 850 library professionals attended Swap & Shop in 2006.

Ignite Your Library’s Public Relations and Outreach Using Hot Technologies
Sponsored by LAMA PRMS
Monday, June 25
10:30 am - 12 pm
Washington Convention Center, 146C
Looking for fresh marketing ideas for your library? Trying to lure those illusive teens to your branch? Want to get undergraduates to think beyond Google and check out your collections? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this program is for you! “Ignite Your Library’s Public Relations and Outreach Using Hot Technologies” will feature Helene Blowers
(Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County), Steven Bell (Temple University) and Michael Stephens (Dominican University GSLIS) talking about strategies for using current technology to promote libraries. After their presentations, participants will break up into group discussions led by the speakers.

Leverage Technology to Enhance Fundraising
Sponsored by LAMA FRFDS
Monday, June 25th
10:30 am - 12 pm
Room 202A, Washington DC Conference Center
FUNDRAISING, a dirty word these days with so much at stake and so little funding to go around, is still the key to raising the library’s profile in our communities, while supporting sustainable services. Does technology offer any solutions to make this difficult job easier? Attend this session to find out.

On Friday, March 2, 2007, about 55 people delayed the consumption of a well-earned dinner after a long day of learnin’ to attend my presentation on wikis and the PLWiki project. You can listen to the podcast of that presentation, attached to this post. You can also download the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file of the presentation, “The Wikipedia of Public Libraries: A quickie wiki primer, the PLWiki Project, and You,” and follow along (requires Adobe Reader).

At the presentation, I promised I would post a link to the original post, A wiki for public libraries: your feedback requested (posted 1/29/2007), which includes the original idea for the project and links to wikis librarians should know about, plus the 4 big questions we have for everyone:

• As a public librarian, a graduate student, a patron, an administrator, a friend of the library, or even just an onlooker, seeking information specifically about public libraries and librarians, what would you be looking for in an encyclopedia/almanac/pathfinder/ of public librarianship?
• What kind of information about public libraries and librarianship would you seek that you can’t readily get your hands on right now?
• What about Wikipedia, which is powered by the MediaWiki software, do you like or dislike? Is it easy or hard to use? What do you think would be better?
• What about Wikipedia, as an editable encyclopedia where you can search, navigate, and edit content, do you like or dislike? We’re looking for comments on the layout and usability, and not a discussion of judgments about Wikipedia itself.

We still need your feedback! Please feel free to post your answers (and anything else you want to share about the project) as a comment on this post, or email us with your thoughts. We’ll keep you posted as the project progresses!

 

 Standard Podcast [55:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (393)

Many thanks to Po Bronson for giving us the permission to podcast his presentation at the 2007 PLA Spring Symposium Author Luncheon!

After a brief introduction from PLA president Susan Hildreth. The author of What Should I Do With My Life? and Why Do I Love These People? spoke about recent research in child learning and self esteem (you can read more about it in his New York Times article and on his blog) and how it pertains to librarians, inspirational stories from his childhood and his travels, his family’s 45 books per month library habit, and so much more.

Have a listen, and feel free to add your feedback about the presentation by posting a comment here.

 

 PLA Blog: Po Bronson, 2007 Spring Symposium Author Luncheon [56:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (205)

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

I’m a SLIS student at SJSU volunteering to report my experiences at Spring Symposium. I attended the Advocacy @ Your Library workshop on Friday morning and Mining the Gold workshop Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

Advocacy @ Your Library introduced Advocacy Toolkit for Success, a collaboration between PLA and the Metropolitan Group . Earlier in the conference in the Opening Session, Mary Baykan, director of Maryland’s Washington County Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Libraries, and the Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year, told us how Maryland Libraries succeeded in getting the Maryland legislature to increase funding to $37, 000,000 in a state with a population of 5,000,000. As a point of comparison, Susan Hildreth, the California State Librarian, reminded us California State legislature spends $28,000,000 on a population of 38,000,000 (please correct my figures).

Friday morning Laura Lee Dellinger, a principal at Metropolitan Group, gave us an Advocacy 101 crash course titled Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose and Persuasion as an introduction to the workshop. Friday afternoon and Saturday morning participants broke up into groups to work on four real library advocacy situations: bond measures/levies, library districts, general funding, and matching grants. I was encouraged to browse other workshops, which I did.

I have trouble even saying advocacy (four syllables with stress on the first), so I really appreciated the overview. I’ve straightened out my notes and publishing them here. If I’ve made any conceptual errors please correct me in the comments!

There are differences between public relations, marketing, and advocacy. Public relations concerns to long term relationship building–the ongoing interactions with people beyond the library community. Marketing relates to a specific transaction; you market a specific program to a target population to bring about a specific transaction. An example would be marketing the summer reading program to school-aged children to encourage reading.

Advocacy involves advancing a cause or proposal through persuasive argument. The cause or purpose must have a clear focus—a problem defined in terms of the community served, such as what the library can’t do because it doesn’t have the resources. The cause must have a solution—such as if the bond measure passes then the library can better serve the community. The cause must include a call to action—therefore, please vote yes on the library bond measure, or vote yes on the library funding bill.

To successfully advocate for your cause, you will need to have your public relations already established–that is your relationships with groups and people beyond the library community must already be in place. Libraries usually advocate for is increased funding. But your cause must be defined in terms of the community your serve, not in terms of what the library needs or how much money the library needs.

The very first step is building the argument. This means defining the problem and developing a solution. Defining the problem involves inquiry—asking the questions that will uncover the right information. “What are we trying to change?” “How can we meet our mission to serve the community?” Determining community needs involves surveys, polls, studies, and statistics. Bottom line: define the problem in terms of community needs and expectations of services.

The second step is developing the solution: working out how the library can meet the needs and expectations of the community and how to build a persuasive argument that best presents this solution. Here is where passion, purpose, people, and persuasion come in. Passion is ethos or character, competence and goodwill. Purpose involved stating why libraries are essential and what is needed in the community what libraries can provide. “We’re listening to you and finding out what you need;” now how does our solution address community needs?”

The third step focuses on people and persuasion, people who can advance your cause and methods to persuade them. Focus on the people who can give you what you want—who can make the choice for which you are advocating. There will be primary audiences, the decision makers such as those controlling the money, and s and secondary audiences, those who influence them, such as stakeholders in the community. Don’t waste time on those who will never be convinced, nor those who are already convinced—focus on the moveable middle, those who can be persuaded to move in your direction.

Persuade them through your commonly shared values. Base your message on commonly held existing community values rather than attempting to establish a new set of values. Get your message right. Take the argument away from money itself to what you need it for—what is needed in the community that the library can provide, not what the library needs.

A persuasive argument involves a systematic chain of reasoning—building a chain of support for your position. You must prove your position. You must make a link between what the library has to offer and what people in your community care about if you expect the community to support the library. You convince your audience by providing meaningful information: not statistics but real life stories. Blend together proof by reason with emotion: “Marry the data with a human story.”

You must consider the messenger as a key part of the argument, so make the messenger the right person. Fit the messenger to the audience. Use as proof qualitative data–sttories, examples, definitions, description, quotes, analogies/comparisons, testimonies from experts, customer leaders– and quantitative evidence—surveys, polls, studies, statistics.

The last step is the call to action: what you want your audience to do that will serve your cause. Your call to action can involve supporting a proposal, becoming a partner, passing a budget, voting, giving. Calls to action involve getting your argument heard. Use channels such as direct outreach, grassroots outreach, and media outreach. Meet directly with individuals or small groups. Meet with larger groups through partner and allies. Use formal media outlets.

The last “P” is position or measurement and evaluation. Gather information as you go. Ask your audience how you are doing and ask yourselves how you did—what happened? Did you achieve your goals?

Lasting notions about Advocacy
Champions: every cause/program/effort needs its champion. What are champions? People with the power (at varying levels) to make things happen. There are primary champions and secondary champions: Primary: people in state, county, city, or community governments that directly make things happen. Secondary: stakeholders in the community that influence the primary champions. Champions can be people or groups: In context of libraries, champions are legislators willing to sponsor a library funding bill. In the context of literacy, libraries are the natural champions of literacy.

Kristin Yiotis
SLIS, SJSU
ALASC Chair 2006-07

I’ve spent the morning in the Demonstrating Results Workshop.

The primary presenter, Rhea Joyce Rubin, has been a library consultant since the 1980’s. She is a former library director and is the author of the new PLA book- Demonstrating Results. The secondary presenter, Yolanda Cuesta, has a background in multicultural services. They are engaging speakers with a good sense of humor and the pace of the program has been just right - fast enough to stay interested, slow enough to keep up.

We spent the morning being introduced the concept of Outcome Measurement. In the Library profession, we don’t normally use Outcome Measurement to show our achievement. The United Way uses this phrase which encapsulates why Libraries should be doing Outcome Measurement - “It’s not how many worms the bird feeds its young. Its how far the fledgling can fly.” There are many benefits to Outcome Measurement, but the most compelling are:

Customers understand when we present the Library in terms of Outcomes (i.e.: 80% of people who attended a job program at the Library got jobs)

Quantifies the anecdotes and success stories. Puts a human face on statistics – the real stuff that happens to real people. Politicians and funders really respond to this

In a nutshell, Outcome Measurement is a user-centered (not library centered) approach to planning and assessment of programs/services that are provided to address particular user needs and designed to achieve change for the user.

We also went over the bibliography for the workshop, which is extensive.

Throughout the afternoon, we worked on sample programs in small groups to practice the process. This was a good way to the spend the afternoon, in discussion with peers about the difference between outputs and outcomes and how to demonstrate that a program is achieving the results desired based on data.

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.

I am attending Karen Hyman’s morning session on customer service and the customer-centered library. She is a fantastic presenter full of deadpan humor and insight. Everyone here she pointed out is an expert on customer service because everyone is a customer. THINK LIKE CUSTOMERS! It is so natural to look at other models and so far Karen has pointed out doctor’s offices, airlines, emergency rooms, the insurance industry… So step one in becoming the customer-centered library is caring, however, caring is not easy. Administrators need to offer support and rewards for caring. Like laughing- even when we fake caring- we get the same endorphins as the real thing. Curiosity is the touchstone. “Wouldn’t it be great if we…?” We can’t out-guess the customer either. We cannot continue to think we know better.

“The muffin isn’t moldy… It just looks moldy.” Karen told us the story of buying a muffin at Gloria Jean’s in the Philadelphia airport. She complained because the muffin looked moldy- apparently this was a common complaint, because batter was mixed in the same bowl as the blueberry batter and created the unusual green palour. As a frequent complaint- why didn’t Gloria Jean’s change the product? A conference participant behind me called out, “we’d make a brochue to explain it!” The room erupted in laughter, but clearly we try to change the cusotmer more often than we change our service or approach.
Like brochures, sign pollution means no one reads signs. “You pay a price for every sign.” is one of Karen’s rules. Signs should be respectful not negative and disrespectful- will it even work?

“Get a grip.” Leaving the victimized librarian attitude behind, own the things that bother you. Finish the following sentence: “My problem is that I…” Among Karen’s examples, try moving services, install skateboard storage, and allow eating in the library. No decision is without consequences, but we should put about customer service first.

I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Mary Baykan, director of Maryland’s Washington County Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Libraries, and Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year for 2007, present the keynote session for the symposium, which Mary graciously gave us permission to record and podcast for your listening pleasure.

After an entertaining introduction by PLA president and California State Librarian Susan Hildreth, she spoke about how she found out she was librarian of the year, her experiences as the originator of the feat of advocacy now known as the Maryland Poll which measured the importance of libraries to Maryland residents, fun with legislative lobbying, about how librarians choose “to fight the bull” everyday, and so much more. She was entertaining, engaging, and very, very funny, definitely worth a listen!

While there are some interesting tidbits about upcoming PLA developments in the opening remarks, if you want to skip straight to the keynote, Mary is introduced around 10mins29secs.

The Urban Libraries Council report that Mary mentions towards the end of her remarks, Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development, is available for free online (.pdf, requires Adobe Acrobat to view).

Many thanks to Susan Hildreth for the awesome PLA Blog plug at the very end, and for the recognition of the work of our peeps and volunteers as well as our contribution to what she calls “PLA 2.0.”

 

 PLA Blog: Mary Baykan, 2007 Spring Symposium keynote [48:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (236)

Userful generously offered to host a free internet cafe here at PLA Spring Symposium. So, if you’re here at the conference, you can check your email, read the news, and post photos, you can do that in the Imperial Ballroom in the main Fairmont building. Kudos to PLA for continued support of internet access for conference attendees!

If you have a laptop here at the conference, you have a few options. Attendees staying in The Fairmont for the duration of the conference can sign up for a membership with The Fairmont President’s Club, which is free and can be completed on the website or at the hotel front desk. This will give you access to free wifi in the lobby, and free ethernet-based internet in the hotel rooms.

Alternately, there is a network named MetroFi-Free, which is the city-wide free wireless network. So far, my experience with the signal in the hotel is spotty, but since it’s citywide, you’ll be able to sack out just about anywhere with signal and access the internet.

Hurray free interwebs!