PVLD Director's Blog

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving will be the first in many years that my husband and I will not be enjoying a turkey dinner with family or friends.  We managed to keep up the Thanksgiving tradition even during our years Down Under, where turkeys were hard to find outside of the Christmas period, pumpkin is a vegetable and not a dessert ingredient, and cranberry sauce unheard of.

This year the combination of inexpensive airfares, an unbeatable hotel deal, and a desire to do more travelling are taking us to Paris for a week...so just about when most people are tucking into their turkey we will be boarding an airplane (and I doubt Air France will serve turkey!)  We aren't missing the holiday altogether, though, as I did cook a "lite" version of Thanksgiving dinner on the weekend, enjoyed a slice of pumpkin pie this morning (thanks Merna!) and will be spending some of the long flight to France reflecting on all of the blessings I enjoy.

Whatever your background, whoever you will be with, and wherever you will be I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Think Local this Thanksgiving

I've never been a "Black Friday" shopper, and this year I won't even be in the country for Thanksgiving or the ensuing retail frenzy, but if I were in town I'd be trying to patronize the local businesses who are the lifeblood of our communities.

As Philip Brewer wrote on the Wise Bread blog today

Market forces don't trump everything, but they trump a lot. When the big-box stores have everything you want and at a better price, it takes a certain kind of quixotic determination to shop local businesses instead.

Plenty of people have that quixotic determination in some measure and do shop at local businesses. And there are plenty of good reasons to do so:

• Local stores are usually closer (rather than out at the edge of town).
   
• Local stores are likely to have a selection that reflects the tastes of the local community (rather than whatever the corporate buyers think will make highest profit nationwide).
   
• Local stores are much more likely to be environmentally friendly than the globalized producers. (After all, any environmental harm they cause affects their customers — and happens where their customers can see it.)
   
• The people running the local store are much more likely than some minimum-wage big-box drone to care about how well your purchase works out for you.
   
• Money paid at a local store is much more likely to stay local.

 

The Wise Bread post goes on to articulate many other reasons to buy goods that are produced and sold locally, and preferably from recycled or re-used material, but even if you don't "buy" the environmental and social reasons for thinking local when it comes to your holiday shopping there are some compelling reasons to do so.

As Chair-elect of our local Chamber of Commerce I see every day how hard our members work to deliver quality goods and service at an acceptable price, and how fierce the competition from the big box stores down the road really is. 

As a citizen concerned about local services I know how vital the sales tax revenue is to our cities and counties and I also can see what happens to shopping districts and neighborhoods when local businesses aren't able to survive. 

As Library Director and involved community member I kow how much our local non-profit organizations rely on our local businesses for support from auction items to donations to event sponsorships and advertisements in our programs and publications.

So, as I head off on vacation and some of you head out for your holiday shopping, please THINK LOCAL! 

 

Why there may be fewer blog posts ahead

This diagram from Indexed is a perfect description of what the next few weeks of the holiday social whirl will be like for me...so if I spend less time blogging and more time soaking in a hot bathtub please understand!

(and yes...despite occasional appearances to the contrary I am an introvert!)

 

Learning from Trappist monks

Cultural Offering pointed me to this wonderful series on the Business Secrets of the Trappists that ran in Forbes Magazine.  It's  4-part series, and it's worth reading every part, but I especially loved the paragraph that Cultural Offering singled out, describing how it is that the handful of monks of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina manage to run a thriving egg and mushroom business, a conference center, a library, a gift shop, maintain a dozen retreat houses, and welcome a steady stream of tourists and guests all while spending several hours a day in solitary prayer and attending six church services a day:

All too often our organizations fail to reach their potential because people spend too much time looking over their shoulders. What is so striking about Mepkin is that the monks are never looking over their shoulders. They are passionately committed and totally focused on the task at hand, and they know that their brothers are doing the same. As a result, they are highly efficient and get an enormous amount done in the four hours a day they dedicate to earning their living.

Wow.  Just reflecting briefly on my own daily thought patterns made me realize how much time and energy would be freed if I stopped looking over my shoulders and just focused on the task at hand. 

The rest of the series had insights for the that were just a profound, but more personal.  Every aspiring leader should read it.

 

 

 

Creative destruction...again!

This week has been too insane to leave time for anything resembling original thought, so I thought I would poach from this November 1st post by library consultant George Needham on Viral Optimism, the blog he writes as part of the georgeandjoan consulting team.

George writes about this article by James Surowiecki from the November 12th New Yorker Magazine on why so-called "category-killer" businesses like Barnes and Noble and Blockbuster have foundered in the age of e-commerce and the Internet, and points out that if you substitute the phrase "library establishment" for the bricks and mortar business names, the analogy is more than a little frightening.

I thought Mr. Surowiecki's point about how the huge investments "both literal and psychological" that the category-killer businesses made in their physical infrastructure and business models have turned out to be weights around their necks was particularly a propos for libraries.

The article concludes by stating that "Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it"....the need for creative destruction rears its head again.  The question for libraries...are we up to the challenge?

Silver Linings

This has been a week of strange and unexpected challenges, so this quote from Richard Bach via Execupundit seems particularly apt -

"Every problem has a gift for you in its hands."  

Mysterious voices in the elevator?  An opportunity to discover that the library's online directory information is wrong and get it corrected.

A need to close the building early to deal with a false-alarm building emergency?  A chance to work out the bugs in how we would get the library emptied and closed if we had to do it for real.

A thorny leadership issue?  A chance to have coffee with a mentor you haven't been spending enough time with.

A need to find time to get the dog to the vet for his shots?  An opportunity for the vet to see that the dog has fleas, and get them treated before they start biting you.

It's been one of those weeks, so I'm trying hard to uncover the gifts that are being presented!

 

 

 

The best laid plans, or this is your elevator calling

About 3 weeks ago PVLD launched a new customer service effort to try to ensure that people who call the library during our open hours with a question about library services or their library account get to talk to a real person rather than, as was happening all too often, being sent to voicemail.  

The basic goal is to heed this advice from Nicholas Bate - "be easy to speak to, all the time, every time". 

The challenge was that, after exploring many different options, we found it impossible to provide the desired level of telephone service within the constraint of our current staffing levels without adversely affecting the face-to-face service we provide to customers within the library.

The solution we have implemented on a pilot basis is to have most incoming calls directed to a call center operated by our long-time business partner, Unique Management Services, whose trained staff can deal with many basic questions or redirect the call back to PVLD employees as appropriate.  It is a brand new service for Unique, and we are their very first customers, so there are a few kinks still to be worked out, but so far it seems to be delivering the desired outcomes in terms of enhanced customer service. 

At least, as we discovered today, it is delivering the desired outcomes for those customers who call the library's actual telephone number.  What we learned today is that, depending on how someone looks up our number they may not get an answser at all.

The back story is that nearly a year ago the newly hired Development Director for the Peninsula Friends of the Library reported that when she got into the elevator that services our back-office staff areas someone was talking through the elevators speakers as if they were calling the library, saying "hello? hello? is anyone there?"  A library volunteer then chimed in that she had had the same experience in the public elevator.  Our maintenance staff checked all of the wiring and tested the elevators' communication systems but could not identify what caused this mysterious problem.

Months have passed, and no more was heard of this issue until today when James Davis of our maintenance staff got into the elevator only to hear "hello?  hello? is anyone there?"  James knows how to operate the elevator communication system, so he was able to talk back to the person whose voice he heard.  What he learned?  This customer had looked up the library number using the "Yellow Book" yellow pages.

James went online to yellowbook.com, searched for PVLD, and discovered nearly two pages of phone numbers almost none of which go to phones that people actually answer!  When he called the first number listed it indeed went to the telephone line dedicated to emergency communication with people who might be trapped in the elevator.  The next couple of numbers were for fax machines, and then there was one that is used to generate telephone notices to tell customers about overdue items or holds that are ready for pick up.  The only one on the list that might occasionally be answered was for the book sale room, which is staffed by volunteers who aren't always there and don't necessarily answer the phone if they are.  The main library number wasn't even on the list!

Now we are wondering how many people have tried to call us using one of the listed numbers and gotten no response.

Our IT Manager is contacting yellowpages.com to correct their information, but yellowpages.com obviously just data mines the telephone company's account information and lists whatever numbers it finds without any analysis and we we have to wonder how many other directory services do the same.  The good news is that a Google search for "Palos Verdes Library District" or "PVLD" gives the correct library information as the first hit, so hopefully the problem isn't too widespread.

Just goes to show that no matter how hard you try to do something, you don't always know where the weak link is going to be. 

Thank you James for solving this mystery, and apologies to anyone who thought they were calling the library when they were actually calling our elevator!

 

 

The therapy of the mundane

Occasionally our Circulation Department will find that they have a backlog of returned items to be shelved, or a a need to move a lot of books around on the shelves, and will put out an "all points bulletin" asking for staff in other departments to help out.  I am usually one of the first to respond, and not only because I want to ease their workload.  Many years ago when I was a library Page I didn't necessarily feel this way, but now I find the activity of shelving almost therapeutic.  The repetitive, almost rhythmic actions are soothing, and while you need to pay enough attention to get the books on the shelf in the right place your mind is still free to mull over other stuff.  Often you are working with another person, but in silence so that while there is a sense of companionship you are also free to think your own thoughts. 

I feel the same way about shelving as I do about weeding the garden, or washing windows.  It's amazing how often an idea or a solution to a problem pops into my head while I am doing this kind of work.  Best of all there is immediate, visible evidence of what you have accomplished....something that is rare in managerial work where much of what you do is work through other people and on more abstract and longer term issues.

Yesterday I felt a jolt of recognition when I read Michael Wade's Execupundit post on the joys of maintenance.  Kurt J. Hardin of Cultural Offering had a lovely comment on the post in which he used the term "the therapy of the mundane" - perfect!

Kurt went on to write a lovely post last night In praise of yard work, and had this to say -

But whatever the work and whoever the company, there is a peace about the process.  Yard work is the perfect antidote for mental exhaustion.  As the leaves are raked and swept, amid the occasional whiff of a nearby fire burning, the wave of a neighbor walking by on the bike path and the smell of fall air mingled with cigar smoke, things can be put back into order.  A calm settles in and the mind clears.  Jumbled ideas line up, productive lists can be made and good stuff percolates to the surface of the brain.  I always end the work in a better mood than when I started.

I remember my father working in the yard on weekends.  Always a project.  Something to plant, a fallen tree to cut up, leaves to rake, repairs.  We would help, or not.  Friends would come and go and he'd say hello and chat, then get back to work.  He worked very hard during the week and I always wondered why he would waste his weekends on yard work.  Now I know.

Thank you Michael and Kurt, and here's to a wonderful weekend with just the right balance between rest, fun and productive therapy of the mundane!

 

Cliff Diving (more on Creative Destruction)

Read this and you will see why my friend Genesis Hansen (2008 Eureka Fellow and 2010 Eureka mentor) is  well down the road to being a powerhouse of a library leader.

Her comments on library education really resonated with me since I have long found the current distinction between "professional" and "paraprofessional" work to illogical...but her post really doesn't need my commentary - just read it!

The most important political office

As seen on today's Execupundit blog

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

- Louis D. Brandeis