PVLD Director's Blog

More on libraries and local economies

I had a few spare minutes today so I went trolling through some of the stuff I had saved in Google Reader for future reference and found this post on libraries and local economies by Kate on the Loose Cannon Librarian blog. 

The post references a great article from Time Magazine about how buying local benefits local communities, and articulates better than I did why it is in libraries' self-interest to promote strong local economies -

"Libraries are non-profit organizations that are committed to building a strong community- and while supporting a thriving local economy hasn’t necessarily been a main goal of ours- why shouldn’t it be? If the local economy supports the tax base that in turn funds us, why shouldn’t supporting local business be a main goal of the public library?"

Unlike many libraries, PVLD actually doesn't receive any funding that is directly sales or business-tax related (apart from the 1% of our budget that comes from the State our tax funding comes entirely from local property taxes), but the principle is the same.  A healthy local economy is part of what makes a community attractive and vibrant, and that in turn drives property values and our property tax revenue higher.

In her post Kate proposes that libraries take the lead in forming Local First or similar organizations in their communities.  I'm not sure that is the best solution in every community (in our case it is the Chamber of Commerce that is leading our Local First efforts, with the library as an active supporter), but there are plenty of other things that libraries can do to support and promote local businesses and, as I noted in my earlier post, support the quality of life that also contributes to a healthy local economy.

I loved Kate's conclusion, though -

It’s time that we took a step beyond the community bulletin board and began being the true heart of the community- the one that pumps the blood throughout and ensures a long and prosperous life for those we serve.

Amen!

Libraries and local economies

The subject of what makes a thriving local economy is of interest to me both in my "day job" and in my volunteer work as a member of the Board of Directors of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

Both the Library District and the Chamber are working, sometimes separately and sometimes together, on how we can support our local businesses and contribute to the creation of a healthy local economy. The Chamber's Local First initiative, the creation of the Zerunyan Center for Business, Entrepreneurship, and Community Development at the Peninsula Center Library, the Zerunyan Center's Inaugural program a couple of weeks ago, and PVLD's efforts to "buy local" are all part of this effort.

What's been on my mind lately, though, is that creating healthy local economies is not just about supporting businesses, it's about creating healthy, vibrant communities....period. 

Los Angeles County recognized this in its recently created Strategic Plan for Economic Development which has as one of it's primary objectives "Make our communities more desirable places to live", which includes improving public safety; improving mobility and reducing traffic congestion; making available a wide range of housing options, including affordable housing; promoting healthy living;and expanding cultural and artistic amenities.  It is clear that libraries can play an important role in many of these areas.

The link between healthy, vibrant communities and economic opportunity was reinforced in a column titled Urban Lands of Opportunity  by Richard Florida in yesterday's New York Times.  The article talks about how the world of work has changed from one in which there was a strict demarcation between "work" and "life" and in where people lived was tied to where they worked to one where the work/life line has become blurred for most people and erased for some, where work can be done in places far removed from the traditional office or job site, and where people increasingly choose where to live based on factors other than having a job, and then find a way to make a living.

I love that Mr. Florida's article specifically calls out the role that libraries can play in this new world of work  -

"This new way of work has given rise to what the sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls “third places” — the Starbucks where we go not just to drink coffee but also to send an e-mail; the hotel lobby where we take a meeting; or the local library where we write a report, edit a document or revise a business plan."

He goes on to describe what makes for a healthy local "land of opportunity" -

"All successful revitalization efforts focus on upgrading existing local assets — developing better ties among colleges, universities and communities, strengthening business districts, upgrading parks and open spaces, preserving and reusing old buildings and supporting local art and music.

SUCH communities are rich in resources for working, learning and simply enjoying life. They are places where people can prosper in their careers while achieving higher levels of well-being."

Providing resources for "working, learning, and simply enjoying life"...now that's a succinct description of what libraries do to support local economies!

 

The world we live in

I think I published an earlier version of this a year or more ago....it's been updated and I still find it a fascinating snapshot, so I thought I'd pass it  along.  There are definitely plenty of things for PVLD to think about as we evolve our services and work to improve how we communicate with and engage our community....

Ignorance can be bliss

The corollary to "What I accept I approve":

Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.

- Robert J. Sawyer

[Thanks again to Michael Wade at Execupundit]

Rules

My friend Genesis Hansen posted this great discussion of rules on her blog, Wrong Again, today (and introduced me to the gruntled employees blog at the same time). 

Her comments about our desire to make rules for every situation are so true.  Here at PVLD (thanks to repeated reminders from Digital Services and Marketing Manager David Campbell) we do try to ask the question of whether we are trying to  address the "5%" of people who might do the wrong thing or the vast majority of people who want to do the right thing before we make a new rule, but we still have "rules out the [expletive]" to quote Mr. Shepherd of gruntled employees.

Genesis' post reminded me of a post from Seth Godin that I read a number of months ago and tucked away for future use.  I bet we'd have fewer rules if we used Seth's proposed policy that

Every new rule needs to be associated with one and only one person who is willing to stand up for it and explain it (to your people and to the public).

I think next time someone proposes a new rule around here I'll ask if they are willing to put their name on it in public and be the go-to person for enforcement and questions!

 

Library Monks?

I have to say I love this idea from Michael Wade at the Execupundit blog -

"I sometimes think that large organizations should have a group of "monks." These monks may be retired or they may still be drawing full pay. They would be male and female and from all levels in order to prevent too narrow a view. Some may even be from outside of the organization. There would be no more than twelve. Some secluded offices would be provided. A few could serve as monks and then return to full service but that would be rare.

Their job would be simple: Study, think, and argue. Advise any manager who seeks your assistance. Consider how the organization can be improved and what needs to be confronted now in order to prevent a crisis later. Surface what everyone knows but no one speaks. Make recommendations when you feel they are appropriate but most of all, make your presence matter.

My guess is the organization would benefit greatly."

You could argue that the monks are, at least in part, doing the work of the organization's leaders, but the reality is that it is very hard to carve out the time to "study, think, and argue", and it is very hard for people who are busy with and invested in the current organizational activities and ways of doing things to "surface what everyone knows but no one speaks".

Of course given PVLD's budget challenges our monks would need to be unpaid...or maybe we have some people currently in or associated with the library with the willingness and courage to step out of the day-to-day flow of things and take the time to really study what is going on and then give us the benefit of their thoughts...to be our monks?

Change and Fear

The subject of change has been on my mind a lot lately for various reasons, so this video by one of my very favorite bloggers, Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity really struck a nerve when I saw it today.

Chris is not only a great blogger, he is a wonderful example of what can be achieved by following your heart and your dreams even if they take you off the "expected" or comfortable path, and he's a terrific speaker to boot.  I hope you find this as meaningful as I did... 

Beach dreams

After a cool and cloudy spring and lots of "June gloom" it is finally beginning to feel like summer around here, which is very good news for a beach lover like me!

This weekend I'll be spending most of my time at the Palos Verdes Street Fair but I'll be dreaming of the beach. 

I often have said to my husband that my dream job would be joining the Los Angeles County beach maintenance crew that rides three-wheeled bikes up and down the Strand and keeps the restrooms clean...sure, parts of the job would be lousy, but parts of all jobs are lousy, and in between those parts you would get to ride along the beach and look at the ocean....

Then I saw these photos and I've decided that my REAL dream job is running a library on the beach!

First, taking the library to the beach in Denmark:

And how about this idea from an Ikea ad via Aaron Schmidt's Walking Paper blog?

Whatever YOUR dreams are I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Tough times and the future of libraries

A couple of days ago Eric Hellman had a great post on his Go to Hellman blog about how the huge financial challenges being faced by public libraries across the country (check out the very scary list of library budget cuts at the end of the post), and the way that libraries respond to them, may be compromising our ability to make the changes necessary to survive and thrive in a future where the way that people interact with books and information is fundamentally changing.

I love his comment that

"The public library of the future has to stop being about collections and start being about helping people and communities. Google can't be a physical place where people offer access, assistance and education for the internet and the information it accesses; local public libraries CAN be.   It's these "new" directions that will attract renewed public support and funding into the future. But library directors struggling to deal with budget cuts will find it hard to also reposition their services to meet the needs of an increasingly internet-based society."

Hellman is particularly concerned about the impact of cutting library hours, noting that

"One argument for cutting hours might be that the visibility of these cuts makes it easier to restore funding when the economic cycle turns. This may have been true in the past, but I think that the funding that goes away this year will never come back. The way most people access information has changed profoundly since the last economic downturn. A library that reduces its hours is just training its public to meet information needs elsewhere, and that public isn't going to rush back. The library's funding will get cut again and again, and eventually it will have to close its doors." (emphasis mine)

Here at PVLD as we wrestle with a budget outlook that remains gloomy and the ongoing need to make difficult choices about how we spend our time and our money, and as we work with the Peninsula Friends of the Library to grow community support (including financial support) for the library, I found this blog post a timely reminder that the models of the past may not work for the future.

  

Deadlines

It's funny how the web sometimes "knows" what's on my mind and delivers a timely blog post, web link, or email!

For the last few days I've been thinking about deadlines - in part because my overburdened to-do list is making it hard for me to meet the ones that I have; in part because failure of some team members to get assigned tasks done by  (fairly generous) deadlines is causing one of PVLD's key strategic projects to fall far behind where we had hoped to be at this point in time; and in part because of a Facebook posting from a colleague questioning whether she had done the right thing in telling applicants for a leadership development program that no, they cannot have more time to submit parts of their application for a program that was announced in February with a deadline of early June, and has been the subject of numerous email reminders of the impending deadline.

I know that sometimes real life emergencies (illness, family emergencies, earthquakes, etc.) mean deadlines get missed but most of the time it seems to me that most of the time they are missed because they aren't given sufficient importance or attention. 

That's why I loved this post from Seth Godin's blog that hit my Google Reader account today - here it is in its entirety -

Six things about deadlines

1. People don't like deadlines. They mean a decision, shipping and risk. They force us to decide.
    
2. Deadlines work. Products that are about to disappear, auctions that are about to end, tickets that are about to sell out--they create forward motion.
   
3. Deadlines make people do dumb things. Every time I offer a free digital document or an educational event that has a deadline, I can guarantee I will hear from several (or dozens of) people with ornate, well-considered and thoughtful arguments as to why they missed the deadline. Never mind that they had two weeks... the last fifteen minutes are all they are concerned with. If it's important enough to spend an hour complaining about, it's certainly important enough to spend four minutes to just do it in the first place.
   
4. Deadlines give you the opportunity to beat the rush. Handing in work just a little bit early is a sure-fire way to tell a positive story and get the attention you seek. The chart below tracks the day (out of 10) that I received each of the more than a thousand applications for the free nano MBA program. Want to guess which day's applications got the most attention from me?
   
5. When we set ourselves a deadline, we're incredibly lax about sticking to it. So don't (set it for yourself, in your head, informally). Write it down instead. Hand it to someone else. Publicize it. Associate it with an external reward or punishment. If you don't make the deadline, your friend gives the $20 you loaned her to a cause you disagree with...
   
6. They have a lousy name. Call them live-lines instead. That's what they are.

Key takeaway: Deadlines are a cheap and useful tool to for yourself (and others) to make a decision and to ship.

So here's to deadlines (or livelines) as something to honor, not to dread.

1. People don't like deadlines. They mean a decision, shipping and risk. They force us to decide.
    
2. Deadlines work. Products that are about to disappear, auctions that are about to end, tickets that are about to sell out--they create forward motion.
   
3. Deadlines make people do dumb things. Every time I offer a free digital document or an educational event that has a deadline, I can guarantee I will hear from several (or dozens of) people with ornate, well-considered and thoughtful arguments as to why they missed the deadline. Never mind that they had two weeks... the last fifteen minutes are all they are concerned with. If it's important enough to spend an hour complaining about, it's certainly important enough to spend four minutes to just do it in the first place.
   
4. Deadlines give you the opportunity to beat the rush. Handing in work just a little bit early is a sure-fire way to tell a positive story and get the attention you seek. The chart below tracks the day (out of 10) that I received each of the more than a thousand applications for the free nano MBA program. Want to guess which day's applications got the most attention from me?
   
5. When we set ourselves a deadline, we're incredibly lax about sticking to it. So don't (set it for yourself, in your head, informally). Write it down instead. Hand it to someone else. Publicize it. Associate it with an external reward or punishment. If you don't make the deadline, your friend gives the $20 you loaned her to a cause you disagree with...
   
6. They have a lousy name. Call them live-lines instead. That's what they are.

Key takeaway: Deadlines are a cheap and useful tool to for yourself (and others) to make a decision and to ship.

So here's to deadlines (or livelines) as something to honor, not to dread.