PVLD Director's Blog

Germany's Open Air Library - A model for the future?

Made out of beer cans, open 24 hours, integrated with a reading cafe and open air stage, no library card required, books taken and returned on the honor system...this article from Fast Company describes the new library in Magdeburg, Germany.  A somewhat more detailed description can be found in this article.

Community generated and operated, it offers a low-cost model of what many of us believe the 21st century library is about - open access, a focus on books and reading, community engagement, and a gathering space.

Reading between the lines it also seems to be missing many of the things we librarians hold dear -professional collection development, a catalog, a website, reference services, library cards and circulation systems...

It is also not clear what, if any, involvement there has been by professional librarians. 

It's a fascinating model of what a community library could be...exciting and energizing, but also a bit scary!

I'd love to know what you think.

One Book, One Peninsula

Last night was the culmination of PVLD's first ever One Book, One Peninsula program. Our book was Adventures in Darkness by actor/musician/athlete/writer/motivational speaker (and Peninsula resident) Tom Sullivan.

About 200 people (and 3 guide dogs in training) braved a cool and windy evening to hear Tom speak, sing, and inspire on the roof of the Peninsula Center Library. Tom and his production manager Austin put on an amazing show...and Tom has been extraordinarily generous with his time and support throughout the planning of the One Book program. He even donated our essay contest prize - a private lunch with him.

We also honored the winners of the essay contest - an adult, high school student and younger student who each read their essay about "Fences I Have Jumped".

We've talked about doing a "one book" program almost as long as I've been at PVLD but it took the initiative and hard work of Adult Services Manager Sylvia Richardson to turn words into action.

Sylvia and Librarians Louise Beebe and Ashley Burdick selected the book, contacted Tom, and did all of the planning and publicity. And there was a LOT of planning and organization to be done!

They were supported by our Facilities Department, and especially James Davis, who worked with Tom's staff on a challenging set up on the roof.

Other staff including Marjeanne Blinn, Merna Marshall, and Dori Medina and volunteers (especially Peggy Hill) pitched in to help sell books and refreshments.

The end result was a terrific first effort for what we help will be an annual One Book, One Peninsula program and a truly amazing event last night.

Since I had virtually nothing to do with it I also was reminded that sometimes (usually?) the best thing a leader can do is get the h*^!€! out of the way.

Thank you to Sylvia, Tom, and everyone else who contributed - you are all amazing!

Singalong Sound of Music

I'm writing this while enjoying a wonderful Singalong Sound of Music in Farnham Martin park next to the Malaga Cove Library.

The photos don't do it justice but there must be over 200 people here on a balmy summer evening enjoying music, trivia, raffles, a bake sale hosted by our PVLD teen volunteers and of course the movie.

This is PVLD's first try at a movie in the park (and before it even started people were asking about the next one!) and there were plenty of logistical challenges to be solved.

Special thanks are due to Adult Services Librarian Ashley Burdick who took the lead to organize the event, James Davis and the Facilities employees who built the screen (and James for providing support tonight), Branch Manager Jennifer Addington and Assistant Manager Jennifer Chaffey for all they have done to make the event a success (including wearing nuns' habits tonight!), Ashley's family for leading the singing, the teen volunteers for hosting the bake sale and raffle, the city of Palos Verdes Estates for letting us use the park, the local businesses who donated raffle prizes, and of course our amazing Friends of the Library who provide the funding for all of our library programs.

And I can honestly say you've never really sung along with the Sound of Music until you are accompanied by peacocks!

Singalong Sound of Music

I'm wiring this while enjoying a wonderful Singalong Sound of Music in Farnham Martin park next to the Malaga Cove Library.

The photos don't do it justice but there must be over 200 people here on a balmy summer evening enjoying music, trivia, raffles, a bake sale hosted by our PVLD teen volunteers and of course the movie.

This is PVLD's first try at a movie in the park (and before it even started people were asking about the next one!) and there were plenty of logistical challenges to be solved.

Special thanks are due to Adult Services Librarian Ashley Burdick who took the lead to organize the event, James Davis and the Facilities employees who built the screen (and James for providing support tonight), Branch Manager Jennifer Addington and Assistant Manager Jennifer Chaffey for all they have done to make the event a success (including wearing nuns' habits tonight!), Ashley's family for leading the singing, the teen volunteers for hosting the bake sale and raffle, the city of Palos Verdes Estates for letting us use the park, the local businesses who donated raffle prizes, and of course our amazing Friends of the Library who provide the funding for all of our library programs.

And I can honestly say you've never really sung along with the Sound of Music until you are accompanied by peacocks!

Twitter and the transformation of communication

This TED video of Clay Shirky talking about "How Social Media Can Make History" has been floating around the blogosphere for little while now.  I just had a chance to watch it, and found it to be one of the most succinct and compelling descriptions yet of how the Internet is transforming not only traditional media but how people communicate and how organizations and institutions need to respond. 

The entire video provides food for thought, but I was particulaly taken by his description of a new world of what he calls media, and I would call information, that is produced locally (i.e. everywhere), by amateurs, extremely quickly (essentially in real time) and in abundance...and where it's distribution is not one to one, or even one to many, but many to many in a rich network of messages and conversations. 

Mr. Shirky's talk is in large part about how this change in the very nature of information and communication is making old models of institutional control of individuals irrelevent and driving new models of organization based on convening and supporting groups and conversations. He uses China's attemtps to control access to the Internet use as an example of the former (particularly relevent given news in the last day or so that China has suspended access to Twitter and Facebook to prevent the dissemination of information about ethnic riots in Xinjiang province) and Barack Obama's presidential campaign as an example of the latter.

He doesn't mention librarians or libraries at all, but I couldn't help thinking about what all of this means for a profession and institutions that originated to collect, organize, and disseminate information/media in a world that was the inverse of that being created by the Internet - i.e. where information/media were produced centrally, by "professionals", disseminated slowly, transmitted "one way" to a person or group, and scarce/expensive.  This model is at the very heart of the professional library disciplines of cataloging, collection development, and reference and I have to wonder how they will change in this new world.

My own view (as previously stated on this blog!) is that the role of the librarian will need to move from collecting, organizing (controlling?), and disseminating information to  fostering connections between people and to a large extent letting the information take care of itself.  We're already seeing this role emerge in the growing importance of library "programming" (speakers, events, and activities) programs in general, and at least here at PVLD we are particularly seeing an interest people in ongoing clubs (like PVLD's book groups, story times, history discussion group, chess clubs, etc.) and "series" type programs such as the concerts organized by librarian Ashely Burdick or the Cine-Monde movie series - which provide not only entertainment and learning opportunities, but foster intreaction. conversation, and relationships. Interestingly in our case these ongoing programs are increasingly supported and even led by volunteers and to an extent self-organizing.

I can see a future in which less an less of a librarian's time is spent on the traditional activities of collection management (which increasingly can increasingly be automated based on actual usage data and techniques such as standing orders) and reference (which becomes less important in a world where information and the tools to find it are ubiquitous and people feel capable of finding what they need on their own) and more time is spent as Mr. Shirky puts is "Creating an environment for convening and supporting groups".

And since the video doesn't always display correctly - here's the link! http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

PVLD Celebrates the 4th of July

It's Independence Day and the Peninsula Friends of the Library again have booths at the community celebrations in Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes . Both are great opportunities to promote the Friends and the library - thanks to the volunteers who take time out of their holiday celebrations to set up and staff the booths!

It's Independence Day and the Peninsula Friends of the library again have booths at both the Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes coomunity celebrations.

Thank you to the hardworking volunteers who take time away from their own celebrations to set up and staff the booths...and congratulations to Library Trustee Ed Long and his wife Pat for receiving the Van Dine Family Americanism Award from the Palos Verdes Estates Peninsula Independence Day Celebration Committee.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe, and relaxing 4th!

Involving Library Users

One of the things that we seem to find difficult at PVLD (and I suspect in many other libraries and types of organizations) is finding meaningful ways to get input from our library users and our communities not just when we have a big project like remodeling or expanding a library but in our day-to-day development of services. I think in part it is because as professionals librarians feel that they should be able to design services and programs "without help", and perhaps in part because we are a bit afraid of what we might learn.

That's why I found this video of the user engagement processes used by the Arhaus Library in Denmark (one of a number of videos about the amazing Arhaus library and their focus on the design of the user experience- check out this one about teen engagement, too.  Thanks Helene Blowers of LibraryBytes for passing it along. 

I like the structured use of various tools to get input as opposed to ad hoc input the way we tend to do it al PVLD.  Now I'm thinking about ways to use some of these techniques in support of our new Strategic Plan (to be adopted by our Board of Trustees this week).... 

Hope for the future of libraries

This past Wednesday I had the privelege of attending the one year reunion meeting of the Southern California area Eureka Fellows.  The Eureka Leadership program is sponsored by the California State Library as a means of developing future library leaders. Eureka Fellows are selected through  competitive applications process for a year-long leadership development process that starts with a 5-day intensive leadership institute followed by completion of a major grant-funded project over the course of the next year with opportunities for mentoring and follow-up coaching along the way.  I had the privilege of serving as a mentor for the first cohort of Eureka fellows a year ago, and Wednesday's event was the culmination of their journey.  PVLD was also fortunate to have two staff members - Branch Manager Jennifer Addington and Circulation Manager Eve Wittenmyer - selected as Eureka Fellows.

On Wednesday  the participants gave presentations on their projects to their Library Directors and the Eureka facilitators.  I was blown away by both the quality of the work they have done and the marked development in their confidence as leaders.  I knew last year that this was a special bunch of people, and seeing them at the end of the Eureka process reinforced just how special they all are.  The future of libraries is in very good hands!

Apart from the pride I felt watching the presentations, every single one of them gave me a new idea or inspiration.  All of these presentations should be up soon on the Eureka blog soon, but here are some highlights -

• Irma Morales of the Orange Public Library reported on her project to capture the history of the barrio where her branch library is located.  As part of the project she hosted a day-long event where community members were encouraged to share photos for addition to the local history collection, learn about little-known parts of the community's history such as the role it played in desegration of Mexican-Americans, and share their experiences.  What a great way to involve the community in developin local history resources!
• Thea Blair of the Mission Viejo Public Library talked about her project to install a low-vision reader and adaptive workstation for the visually impaired to meet the needs of her aging community.  I had never thought of reaching out to the Lion's Club as a partner to help us serve the visually impaired, but when Thea reminded us of their interest in vision issues it made perfect sense....
• Robin Isaacson of the San Diego County Public Library named her project "Words Gone Wild" and talked about how she is using a new online catalog interface to as she put it "free cataloging information from the constraints of the MARC record" and allow people to search the catalog in ways that make sense to them.  It was a great articulation of why the whole concept of "social cataloging" is important.
• Our own Eve and Jennifer reported on their "Culture Quake" project to transform PVLD's customer service.  For me the eye-opener was how much they've accomplished without me even really knowing what they were up to!  I'm looking forward to seeing the customer service wiki that they have in development.
• Cheryl Eberly of Santa Ana Public Library gave a moving and inspirational talk about her "Circle of Mentoring" project that connects at-risk youth with adult mentors, and also gives the youth the opportunity to mentor younger kids.
• Amanda Schukle of San Diego County Public Library described her project to give librarians data and tools so they can create Customer-Driven Collections.  Amanda has a way with words and I loved her "Dump the Junk" weeding report and "Bang for Your Buck" collection turnover report.
• Patricia Rivera of Buena Park Library District went first and gave an amazing presentation of how her "Library Lures Latinos".  She has done a great job of engaging staff in reaching out to the Latino people who make up a significant part of Buena Park's population.  She had lots of quantitative data to demonstrate the resulting increased library usage by Latinos, but to me the biggest indicator of success was the story she told of a staff member who used to get frustrated about the hesitancy of Latino patrons to speak to staff, until she herself went to the "Spanish for Non-Spanish Speakers" training for library staff and realized how difficult it is to use a language not your own.
• Cara Vera of Rancho Cucamonga described her library's participation the the City of Rancho Cucamonga's "Healthy RC" initiative.  It was a terrific example of the library adapting its existing resources to position itself squarely at the heart of something important to its community.  It also gave me an idea about our library taking the lead to develop a "Healthy PV" initiative.
• Christina Wainwright of San Diego Public Library's project was to use library programs to build long-term relationships with community members instead of "one night stands" where people enjoy a program, but then that's it until the next one they come to.  Her goal is to use library programs to create bonds both between attendees and with the library.  She described her successful "Monday Night Meetup" program where people give "speed book reviews" in "speed dating" format, and then those reviews spark conversations and connections.  She also described how she now evaluates each program in terms of both the level of interactivity between participants that it fosters and the degree to which is anchored to the library's core services, and aims for programs that offer both as these are the ones that foster long-term relationships.  Christina transformed how I am going to look at our PVLD programs in the future.
• Susan Broman of the Los Angeles County Public Library talked about her "Get Up From Behind the Desk" project to encourage and support local efforts to provide adult programming - no easy task in a massive, complex, and tradition-bound library system!  Susan has a talent for developing tools that help librarians do things better and more efficiently, and I have know via my husband, and LA County Community Library Manager, that she is having a major impact and helping transform the entire Adult Services culture at LACPL.  Her staff "What Are We Reading" blog also gave an idea for a similar blog that our staff could write for the community. 
• Polly Cipparone of San Diego County Public Library has developed a "The Future is Now" wiki for staff to share information about change initiatives in her library system.  I thought the idea of allowing employees to post questions and comments anonymously was an great non-threatening way to allow people to engage in the change process.
• Jeannie Kays of the Palm Desert Library (Riverside County Library System) has developed a staff training program that is a model for other libraries.  It has 6 core modules that are repeated every quarter so everyon has a chance to attend.  Training is done by staff volunteers and ranges from Beginning Reference for Non-Reference Staff to Frequently Asked Reference Questions to Using Microsoft Publisher to Create Flyers".  I think we may just steal her work!
• Genesis Hansen of Newport Beach reported on her project to use customer input to drive design of the new library website.  Apart from the very useful content of her presentation, which included examples of how staff perceptions of customer needs can be off base, Genesis had an amazingly crisp and succinct presentation...she also managed to make great progress on her project despite taking time off in the middle of it to have a baby!  I was also pleased that she shared information about her blog, Wrong Again which will now be part of my regular reading.
• Last but not least Andrea Taylor of the Fullerton Public Library presented her "One City One Source" initiative to reach out to city staff and educate them about library services.  She used meetings with each city department to tell them about the library and sign them up for library cards.  This is something we really need to do with our local cities...since we are independent of them they really don't know much about what we offer.

You can see why I was exhausted and exhilirated when I got home on Wednesday night... and why I didn't hesitate to say yes when asked to be a mentor again this year! 

 

Smarter Giving - anyone can be a philanthropist

PVLD's proeprty tax revenue base only covers about 88% of our operating expenses, and the funds raised by the Peninsula Friends of the Library enable us to sustain a level of library service well beyond what we could achieve with tax revenues alone.

Fundraising in a community like Palos Verdes can be challenging given the large number of local non-profit organizations seeking funding (I think I counted 24 of them at the inaugural Non-Profit Roundtable hosted by the Chamber of Commerce this week!)....and these are just the very local organizations.  A great deal of financial support also flows off the Peninsula to alma maters, and to regional and national organizations.

Last year several non-profit organizations dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in our community (the Peninsula Friends of the Library, the Peninsula Education Foundation, the Palos Verdes Art Center, the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy, H.E.L.P., Caring House, and the Norris Center for Performing Arts) came together not to solicit funds, but to educate community members about how to make the most effective use of their donated time and dollars.

The speaker was Ed Long, current Library Trustee and co-founder of the nationally recognized H.E.L.P. organization that provides low-cost legal and financial advice to older adults and their families.  Ed is extremely knowledgeable on the topic of how to be a "smarter giver" and a terrific speaker to boot.

Over 50 people attended the first sessions at the Peninsula Center Library last November, and the feedback was terrific.

Next week the group is sponsoring another Smarter Giving seminar on Wednesday, May 6 at  4:00PM at Ridgecrest Intermediate School in Rancho Palos Verdes.  As an added bonus, 35 lucky participants will receive a copy of the book Inspired Philanthropy to help them plan their future giving.

No sales pitches, no solicitations...just a wealth of information to help you make meaningful contributions to worthy causes, even in these difficult times! 

What does it mean for the library to be a "community center"?

As I've mentioned before,the PVLD Board and Management Team are hard at work on a new Strategic Plan.  The process we are following demands that we identify a small handful of Objectives that will be the focus of our efforts over the next 3 years, which in turn has caused me (and I think others) to really think hard about what each Objective really means.  One of our Objectives relates to cementing PVLD's role as a community center for lifelong learning and personal enrichment...and it has been challengng for all of us to articulate just what it means to be a community center.

The conclusion I've come to is that truly being a community center is both less tangible and more profound than just being a place where lots of people come - it's about being so tightly woven into the fabric of the community that if we are weakened the entire community is weakened...and everyone knows it.

That idea is pretty hard to measure quantitatively, although I suppose that it is reflected in things like the success of fundraising efforts.  It also means we have to stop thinking about the library as a building/collection of materials/physical thing and start thinking about it as a node in a rich network of connections with and between individuals and groups across our entire community and beyond.

That sounds simple, but I think it has many implications.  At a very basic level it means we have to first know who represents the other threads in the cloth, and reach out to make contact with them....and that in turn means we need to be creative about using our resources and leveraging technology to touch as many of them as possible.  It means we need to spend less of our staff time and effort on organizing and maintaining "stuff" and more time and effort interacting with people inside and outside the library building.  It means we have to recognize that while we think we are the central node in that network of connections, everyone else thinks they are...so we need to figure how to see the world from their perspective. 

The more we are able to do these things, the more people we will touch and the more people that will reach out to us....and this creates a virtuous circle that continuously expands and the library is truly woven into the social fabric of the community.  

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm not even sure that what I just wrote makes sense but it's what is going through my mind lately...at least when I'm not worrying about the budget!