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I spent my first few years in library management
overseeing a 1,100 square foot space that was centrally located within a joint
use facility. The city referred to them as neighborhood resource centers. The
building housed a recreation facility, prenatal health and dental clinics,
social service offices, meeting rooms, and an elementary school. I learned many
valuable lessons while managing there, and over the years I have found that a
majority of those lessons are applicable to most library environments, no
matter the location or the size. Out of them all, the following three have proven
to be most beneficial.
How to
Cultivate Good Partnerships
A major part of coexisting in such an unusual
public service environment was being educated about the variety of services
other departments offered. Library customers were often confused as to where library
services began and another departments’ began. In those moments, which were
often, it became incumbent upon our staff to know a great deal about the department
functions offered throughout the building, including specifics like hours of
operation, contact information, procedural needs like required forms of ID, and
any associated costs.
Libraries of any size, type, or locale can
benefit from such wisdom. Although information and referral services in
libraries have transformed extensively with the advent of technology, library professionals
should be aware of what local resources are available within their given
community, and further realize the importance of having such information
readily available when patron demand is repetitious.
How to
Capitalize on Good Communication
Cultivating and sustaining those partnerships
meant that communication between departments in the center had to be timely and
with ease. When there was a major change in available services, hours of
operation, or personnel, we had to stay in the loop in order to keep up-to-date
and correct. We also realized that we shared a sizeable portion of the customer
base, therefore we were able to take advantage of this fact when marketing a
new library service or program.
Libraries often fail to capitalize on the
marketing aspects of such collaborations. When you are in communication with
like-minded and similar focused organizations, you put your library in a great
position to reach segments of the community you would not regularly have access
to. Inclusion in newsletters, email lists and listservs, directories, on web
sites, and possible outreach or program invitations, are very likely if you
create and maintain quality communication with your partners – even if they
aren’t in the same building like ours were.
The
Importance of Staff Input
Because of the size and unique location of
the library, the feeling of isolation would set in. Our staff dealt with a
distinctive set of daily circumstances our fellow system coworkers could not
relate to. Such issues as our variation of hours and specialized collections, the
high volume of youth patrons we would attract, and historical relationships
with the other departments, made for many atypical practices and protocols that
existed only at that branch.
Those distinct procedures were designed and implemented
by our staff. As issues would arise, we never seemed to have a precedent to
refer to, or neighboring location to contact for advice. It was sink or swim,
making for an atmosphere of trial, error, and creativity. The staff also took
on an intrinsic confidence, pride, and positive morale from our situation. The
negativity of such sheltering was balanced by the level of input staff had on
the daily tasks being carried out. They had pride because of buy-in that always
came in the early stages of something new.
Larger traditional libraries with higher
staff numbers could benefit from the upsides we gained from those feelings of
seclusion. Oftentimes staff would-be contributions can get lost in such
environments. Mechanisms for sharing ideas and front line input can be muddled
by process and procedure, and creativity can be diminished, or removed
altogether. I learned that the most authentic way to earn staff buy in was to
actually allow for and incorporate staff input.
Today, I am managing a division that is
located in the main library location of major city, which is a vastly different
experience from those eleven hundred square feet. But, the lessons stated here,
and many unmentioned more, have taken me far, and wider than first imagined.
LeoNard Thompson
is a former at-risk educator, now writer, presenter and managing librarian in
Washington, DC. Find out more about him at leeyonard.com and follow him on twitter @Lee_Yo_Nard
Interesting. I worry about the future of libraries.
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