PVLD Director's Blog

Honored

This has been a week when I've had more than ample occasion to be grateful for and proud ofthe people I work with. 

The week kicked off with our fourth Staff Day, where the library was closed so that we bring the entire staff together for some learning and some fun.  Our 85 employees, many of whom are part-time, are stretched across three libraries and an Annex with a combined 159 hours of operation each week.  This means that many employees never get to meet colleagues who work at other locations or on different shifts.  Staff Day gives us a chance to address that.

The day is organized by a team of staff members who volunteer for the task, and they did themselves proud on a shoestring budget.  We had an excellent and thought-provoking presentation on teens and how to serve them by Dr. Joni Richards Bodart in the morning, then got on buses provided by County Supervisor Don Knabe and rode over to the Miraleste Library for lunch and some fun and games before heading back to Peninsula Center Library for a tour of some of the libraries hidden places followed by a social hour in the Annex.

Since what happens at Staff Day stays at Staff Day I won't go into the details of our activities, but we had a lot of fun.  Dr. Bodart joined in as an enthusiastic participant, and before she left told both me and Louise Beebe of the organizing team that she has been in a lot of libraries and worked with a lot of different library staffs, but she has never seen a group that had come so far in breaking down internal barriers and hierarchies.  What a great reminder of what a terrific team we have here at PVLD!

The next day I spent the day wth colleagues from across the State talking about "Blue Ocean Strategy" for libraries and the State Librarian's vision of creating an "incubator" to foster library innovation and take ideas to implementation.  The day was informative if tiring, but it also made me realize how fortunate we are here at PVLD in having the resources and the environment to try new things and "incubate" new ideas without relying on external support.  If someone has an idea that is legal,seems worth trying, and we can figure out how to pay for it..we just do it.  I don't think many other libraries can say that.

And then today our "First Team" (the Department Managers and Assistant Managers from across PVLD) met, as we do regularly, to talk about how we work as a team and how we can continue to improve communication and grow the level of trust and honesty within the team and throughout PVLD.  Today consultant Cheryl Gould (no relation!) visited our meeting and we had a really good discussion about how far we have come as a team, and where we want to go.  The commitment all of our leaders have to making PVLD a vital institution in our community and to spending time and energy on the "soft" but extremely hard issues of communication and teamwork that can get in our way made me so proud.

We're now looking forward to a year of working with Cheryl to grow our ability to work together and I think great things are ahead. 

PVLD staff - it is an honor to work with you.

Like Riding a Bike

PVLD operates on a July 1 - June 30 fiscal year, so about now is when we start seriously thinking about what we want to achieve next year and beyond and how those goals will affect our budget.  For many years this has meant reviewing and updating, and periodically re-writing, our Strategic Plan.

Back in November I wrote this post about my growing feeling that PVLD may have evolved to a point where a highly structured strategic planning process resulting in a formal Strategic Plan is not only un-necessary, but possibly counter-productive. 

As the end point of our most recent three-year Strategic Plan draws ever closer I have been reflecting on how dated it already seems,how little it really guided our decision-making, and how badly we missed the mark on most of the quantitative measures.  I don't think that is because it was a bad piece of work.  It was written by smart people guided by an excellent consultant based on our best knowledge at the time.  I think the problem is that the environment is so turbulent and the pace of change so great (and getting greater) that any attempt to set objectives and goals for anything other than the very near term future (measured in weeks and months, not years) is doomed.

 A couple of weeks ago I came across this excellent post on the "Obituary of the 5 Year Strategic Plan" by Lea Blair (via Michael Bungay Stanier's Box of Crayons) and loved her idea that what we really need to to is equip people to run our organization as if they were riding a bike:

"In order to ride a bike you do the following:
1. You pack what you think (best guess) you will need for your bike ride.
2. You know your destination – or at least what you want to see when you get there.
3. You start pedaling in that direction.
4. Most important…You have a short window of time to make a decision on how to successfully navigate what comes in front of you. Especially the surprises. And surprises are one thing we can count on in ever increasing number. Whether it is a child running in front of your bike, or a turn in the road that you didn’t expect, or an oncoming biker. Only at the time when you see the actual change can you make the best decision as to how to navigate your bike."

 Let us learn what we can about the future (and pack our bags well). And, if your rider – manager or executive, has the awareness and skills necessary to be able to make those quick navigation decisions with agility and flexibility, your company will wind up at its destination… no matter what changes and surprises happen along the way."

The challenge for libraries (and, I would venture to guess, for almost every type of organization) is that  the accelerating pace of change and the unkown but surely profound outcomes of the current technological revolution make it very hard (maybe impossible?) to envision our ultimate destination. 

I'm thinking that right now maybe the best we can do is hold on tight to the handlebars, pedal like crazy, and make navigation decisions based on some core touchstone principles like whether a given course of action enhances access to information or restricts it, or whether it makes the library more connected to the community or less so, or whether it meets the test of good stewardship of the public's money.

And maybe the most recent PVLD Strategic Plan will be the last...at least for this Library Director.

 

 

Will libraries go out of business...gradually?

As expected, this holiday season saw an explosion in the sale of tablet computers and e-readers.  According to this article from MSNBC (shared by our Facilities Manager Charles Crouse), during December Amazon.com sold over 1 million Kindles of various types each week, and during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve over 20 million Adroid and Apple IOS mobile devices were activated and over 1 billion mobile apps were downloaded. 

We are certainly seeing the effects of this in the library, as patrons come in with their new devices seeking help with everything from connecting to our WiFi network to downloading e-books.  As I wrote in my earlier post, the staff is doing its best to help - our "Getting Started With E-Books" guide is prominantly featured on our website, we have invested in a selection of devices for staff training, and we will soon begin to offer small group (2-3 people) hand-on training to the public by appointment.  We also continue to beef up our e-book collection, which now has over 1,000 titles.

I'm sure we will make it through this wave in decent shape, but I am less confident about our institutional ability to respond to the tectonic shifts that are generating these waves.

 My friend Derek Wolfgram posted this article ("Why Best Buy Is Going Out of Business...Gradually") from Forbes on Facebook this morning.  It's about Best Buy's failures during the holiday season just past and what they say about the company's ability to survive in the digital age but, as Derek pointed out, the issues identified are as relevent to libraries as they are to retailers:

"Moving online required new thinking, new management structures, and new strategies.  It would also require integrated front and back-end information systems.  Customers would expect inventory to be transparent between the web and the stores, and that specials and “exclusives” would be consistent across all channels.  Whatever attributes they associated with a retailer’s brand—whether price, quality, convenience, expertise, service—would need to be translated to the online experience and enhanced.

To compete successfully against new online retailers, traditional retailers would also need to find ways to transform the expensive liabilities of physical locations with limited hours and high labor and inventory costs into assets that complemented rather than competed with the online experience.

...Amazon neither invented nor appropriated its basic strategies from Best Buy or anyone else.  It simply does what consumers want.  Best Buy does what would be most convenient for the company for consumers to want but don’t, then crosses its fingers and prays."

Antiquated back-end inventory and database systems that do not integrate seamlessly with the online experience, expensive physical locations with limited hours and high labor and inventory costs, inability to carry sufficient inventory to fulfill customer expectations, systems that are based on what we think the customer should need....sounds eerily familiar.

I know libraries and librarians across the country and around the world, and certainly here at PVLD, are working hard to fundamentally change our operating models so that we can surf the waves of technological change rather than being crushed as they crash over our heads...but I do worry that the changes are not as fast, or as fundamental, as they need to be.

 

Remembering Ted Paulson

In late November PVLD lost one of our staunch supporters and a true Friend, Ted Paulson.  Ted was a retired Army Major General who devoted countless hours to the library, serving in many capacities.  I was honored to be asked to speak at Ted's memorial service this past weekend.  Here is what I said...but words truly can't express the difference Ted made to the Palos Verdes Library District or how deeply I valued his friendship and support:

Ted Paulson not only was a steadfast support of our Palos Verdes libraries, but a friend and mentor to me, and to many library employees and volunteers.

 His involvement with the Library District spanned many years and two periods of service on the Board of Directors of the Peninsula Friends of the Library, including terms as Vice President and President, between which he served as a publicly-elected member of the Board of Library Trustees – including terms as Secretary, Vice President, and President of that body.

Ted also served as Chair of the Peninsula Center Library Advisory Committee, member of the PVLD Strategic Planning Committee, and book sale volunteer….not to mention supporting Pat during her involvement with the Friends, which included a term as President. 

Ted was a born leader, something that the Army recognized very early when he was commissioned as an Officer in the National Guard at the age of 19 – two years before he was even eligible to wear his bars!  

He started his military career as an enlisted man, and made a deliberate choice to remain in the Guard rather than following a more traditional route to military leadership via the ROTC. I understand that it is quite unusual for someone with that background to become a General Officer – another indication of Ted’s leadership ability.

I mention Ted’s military service because it was so much a part of who he was, and as such really influenced how he served the library and the community.  Some of that influence was obvious, like his firm belief in protocol, formal planning processes and documented policies and procedures.  Or how he could assert his leadership in a very commanding way when someone challenged him or was disrespectful to a staff member or volunteer.  Or his tolerance for lengthy meetings and endless cups of bad coffee.  He also had no problem giving direction, and I used to joke that Ted sometimes forgot that I was not his Aide de Camp, as it was not uncommon for him to turn to me in a meeting and order me to “write that down”.

A less obvious, but to me equally important legacy of Ted’s military background was his concern for the welfare of the library equivalent of the enlisted man or woman – the frontline employees and volunteers.  In my nearly 8 years of working with Ted in various capacities he could be relied upon to always take into consideration the impact of decisions and actions on the people who actually do the work.  After his death I heard many stories from employees about his care and concern for them whether it was a giving a quiet word of encouragement to a new employee, stopping in to say hello to members of the administrative staff when he was at the library, remembering to check in regularly with an employee going through a very difficult family situation, or advising an employee whose son was enlisting in the Army.  Not every PVLD employee had the opportunity to get to know Ted personally, but those who did loved him.

All of these attributes contributed to the key role Ted played in bringing PVLD through a period of conflict and turbulence and re-establishing the library as an important, valuable and valued community resource.

Some of his influence was informal and behind the scenes - helping recruit suitable candidates for the Board of Library Trustees, providing advice and counsel to the Library Director and colleagues on both Boards, and using his many community connections to build support for the library.

Some of his influence was more overt – participating in the final settlement of the lawsuits related to the Peninsula Center Library construction and then leading the process of remediating the building defects; participating in the difficult process of consolidating two fundraising organizations into one, and then providing leadership to the Friends as they began the transition to a more broadly-based fundraising organization; leading the development of a community relations plan and then personally going to City Council meetings and other venues to give presentations about the library and reassure the community that past issues were in fact past.

Ted wasn’t just a leader, though.  He was also someone who could be relied upon to roll up his sleeves and pitch in where needed.  When no one else volunteered to set up and tear down the Friends’ booth at community celebrations, Ted did it.  When the book sale volunteers needed help picking up a big donation, Ted was there.  When no one stepped up lead a committee, Ted would.

Lastly, for me personally and for many others, Ted was a mentor and a true friend.  From the early days of our working relationship, when Ted was President of the Board of Trustees and therefore the one of my five bosses that I worked with most closely, Ted was there when I needed him for advice or counsel about something happening in my job.  After he moved from the Library Board to the Friends Board we no longer had that boss-employee dynamic, but he remained a trusted advisor and confidante.  About once a month we would get together – for lunch at the Red Onion if we were just catching up, or for breakfast “off the hill” at Coco’s if we wanted to talk about a particular issue or concern.  In between he was always available if I needed to talk.  I still catch myself wanting to pick up the phone to call him, or thinking that an incoming “caller id blocked” call is from him, because they usually were. 

Through Ted my husband Don and I got to know Pat, and to learn a bit about their family.  He was so proud of his children and grandchildren, and valued the time he spent with all of you…he especially talked about his travels with Pat and their car trips with grandchildren to visit the California missions.

Ted cared about his career, and his community work, and the library….but he always knew what was most important - his marriage and his family. 

I know I am not alone in saying that Ted taught me more than I could ever express here – about leadership, and being engaged with your community, and most importantly about keeping first things first.

Pat and family, thank you for sharing Ted with us.  He is leaving a tremendous legacy both because of his role in making the Palos Verdes Library District the thriving institution it is today and because of the lives he touched.  We will all miss him.

Ted - RIP, and thank you.

Getting ready for the holiday parade

Tomorrow night is the Rolling Hills Estates Parade of Lights and the PVLD elves are busy making our float.

If you want to see the finished product you'll have to come out tomorrow evening to see the parade....or I may post some photos next week.

P.S. This is the first post from the new Ipad2 Don and I bought....hope it works!

Library Books on the Kindle

Over the past year or so the thing I have most frequently asked by community members is "Can I download library books to my Kindle" which is why I was very pleased when our Ebook vendor, Overdrive, announced a few weeks ago that our library patrons would now be able to download most of our e-book collection to their Kindles.

While our patrons are thrilled, some in our profession have been quick to point out some of the possible pitfalls of having Amazon as a commercial partner...one prime example being this video rant by Librarian In Black Sarah Houghton Jann.

I have to say, though, that while I wish libraries had access to cheaper, more user-friendly, and platform independent options for offering e-books I simply don't share many of Sarah's concerns. I guess you can count me as one of the librarians who she describes as making a "greedy attempt to get content into our users hands."

I was going to write a post articulating why I don't think Sarah's anger is truly justified, but discovered that Andy Woodworth of the Agnostic, Maybe blog had written it better than I ever could...in two posts:

Library Books on the Kindle, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Amazon and

Amazon, Overdrive, and Other Reasons to Be Pissed

Andy's posts are a pragmatic argument that the sky is not falling just because we are giving people what they have been asking for. They are both great reads, and the second one raises a truly interesting point about whether Amazon is actually collecting confidential library records...one that both Amazon/Overdrive and the library community needs to resolve.

In the second post Andy makes the point that many of the things generating outrage on the part of some of our colleagues are analagous to many long-standing library practices and commercial arrangements but it is his statement in the first post that really matched what I have been wanting to say:

"While it may not be the ideal, it cannot be denied that bringing Amazon (and its 40% of the eReader market share) on board with library lending doesn’t raise the profile of libraries with it. Rather than simply buying every book, Kindle users now have the option of borrowing it through their local library. It’s not perfect, but even in giving that capability it puts libraries back into the minds of people who might not otherwise be library users. For them, it’s another selling point; for us, it’s another visit to our website where we advertise our programs, services, and materials. It’s an exposure opportunity that didn’t previously exist."

If the choice is being greedy to put content in the hands of community members, and in the process expanding access and maybe exposing more people to the library and what we offer, or being fearful of the shadow of possible risks to professional principles that may in fact be falling victim to changing social mores no matter what librarians do....count me among the greedy.

Telling our stories

There is a seemingly endless stream of alerts about proposed cuts to library funding (whether local, state or federal) flowing across Library Association email lists, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds...and each new alert accompanied by a plea to contact legislators and tell them how wonderful libraries are and why it is a mistake to cut our funding.

In that context I found this blog post by Nancy Dowd on her "M Word" blog particularly compelling. 

As she so rightly points out, the people whose support we need to enlist are our community members...and many of them are facing serious fiscal crises of their own.  When families are facing pay cuts, layoffs, increased healthcare costs, and in some places tax hikes they truly do need to be convinced that the "sacrifice of having to pay taxes to support my library is worth it to my family if you want my support."

As Nancy so eloquently points out, this means telling the stories about the real difference we make in people's lives...not spouting platitudes or reeling off statistics.

This was brought home to me again at an excellent fundraising leadership development workshop (part of the Annenberg Foundation's Alchemy program) that I had the privilege of attending as part of a team from the Peninsula Friends of the Library this week.  We spent some time at the workshop trying to hone our 3-5 minute "pitch" about why a donor should give to the Friends.  We were with a couple of dozen other non-profits, and it was clear that the most compelling pitches were those that conveyed how the organization transformed lives.

This is an area where most libraries, and I count PVLD among them, really could do better.  We need to talk about the seriously ill woman who is so grateful to one of our librarians for the help she has gotten in researching her condition that she has sent not one but two bouquets of flowers over the past months; about the people who use our computers to write their resumes and send in online job applications because it is the only computer access they have; about the child transformed from reluctant to avid reader thanks to the patience of the childrens' librarians who worked hard to find him a book that captured his imagination.

Even better we need to get those people whose lives we have transformed to tell their own stories - loudly and publicly!

Definitely something I am going to think about as part of the ongoing Alchemy process and our library marketing efforts.

Maintenance

Maintenance, and by that I mean the effort it takes to keep things in good condition, has been on my mind a lot lately. 

Partly that is because we have been working on PVLD's mid-year budget update and our forecast for 2011/2012, making me even more aware than usual of the cost of maintaining our three heavily trafficked library buildings.  and of how tempting it is to defer expenditures in this area.

Partly it's because of a very interesting conversation I had with two of our major donors, both of whom have manufacturing backgrounds (as do I), are aware of the challenge of sustaining investment in maintenance when budgets are tight, and are interested in giving in ways that supports facilities maintenance needs.  This is a fairly unusual interest area for donors, and it stimulated the idea of creating a building maintenance endowment fund to help secure the long-term maintenance of our facilities.

And partly it's because in the library environment we put a lot of focus on our "library" services like our collections of books and magazines, programs and events, and information resources and sometimes forget how important the often less visible maintenance efforts are in providing an outstanding customer experience.  We can have the greatest collection in the world, but if the elevators are always out of order or the roof leaks that is what people will remember.

That's why I loved this post from Cultural Offering about the value of maintenance as a demonstration of "an appreciation of form" and the role of maintenance in creating history.

Here at PVLD we are fortunate to have an amazing team of Maintenance Workers who, despite being few in number do an amazing job keeping 3+ (the "+" is our Annex!) buildings, open 6 or 7 days a week and visited by more than 50,000 people a month, clean and in working order.  They are the guys that are here at 5AM to get the buildings cleaned before they open and stay until well after the libraries close to do their work without disrupting other staff or the public.  They are the ones that clean up the messes that happen in heavily used public spaces....and sometimes they are really nasty messes, too.  They are the ones that set up the chairs and tables for, and clean up after, the hundreds of library and community meetings and events that we host each year - sometimes dealing with three or four major events on the same weekend at three locations - and put up with event organizers that don't really know what they want or keep changing their minds.  Over the past few years they have taken on more and more of work that used to be done by contractors - from carpet cleaning to fire alarm testing to plumbing and electrical projects to painting - saving PVLD money and improving quality...without any significant increase to staffing.

As Cultural Offering says, "Upkeep and maintenance is a constant, important and underappreciated task.  But it pays."

So thank you James, Jose L, Jose P, Larry, Lorenzo, and Tommy - what you do is important, and we DO appreciate it!

The real impact of library budget cuts

This article from the USC Annenberg School of Communications Neon Tommy blog describes the real human impact of cuts to library hours and services better than I ever could.

It is true that PVLD serves communities very different from many of those served by the Los Angeles city and county library systems in terms of average income and demographics, but for many of our patrons, just as for those described in the article, the library is a place of refuge, a place of opportunity, and a home.

Each day people gather outside the doors of the Peninsula Center Library waiting for it to open, and each day the staff greets the same familiar faces - the retired gentlemen who come to read the financial press and kibbitz with each other and the staff, the people who come every day to use the computers to look for work or communicate with friends and family, and the parents and caregivers bringing little ones to story time.

At Malaga Cove Library a regular coterie of patrons come each day to read the newspapers and magazines, chat with staff members who have become friends, play chess, or visit with volunteers Pat and Gene down in the book sale area.   With its new Computer Mezzanine Malaga also has plenty of regulars who come each day to look for work, work on distance-learning programs, or surf the Internet. 

At all of the libraries, but particularly Miraleste, Peninsula Center, and the Annex the after school hours  bring  hundreds of students, sometimes accompanied by parents or tutors.  At the Annex and Miraleste the after-school crowd is made up mostly of middle school students who are too old for day care,too young to go home to an empty house, and whose parents are struggling financially just to keep their kids in our excellent schools.  For them, and their parents, the library is a haven - a safe place to be with friends, hang out, play some games, and maybe get a bit of homework done.  Peninsula Center is a magnet for high school students who need access to more sophisticated materials for their homework, and want to study in groups or work on group projects.

As school library hours, collections, and services fall victim to the unrelenting budget pressures faced by our local school district the public library increasingly serves as the de facto school library and our longstanding role in assisting with schoolwork is only growing just as our budget for purchasing the books and other materials to meet this need is shrinking.

And yes, at all of our libraries even in affluent Palos Verdes we have people who are lonely, socially isolated and even homeless for whom the library is a safe place to wile away the hours and be in the company of other human beings.

For many people, for many reasons, the public library is a lifeline.  When funding shrinks, the lifeline frays...and as the Neon Tommy post points out, the consequences are greater than many people realize. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Governor's Budget Proposal - One More Unintended Consequence

Thanks to everyone who reposted and gave feedback on my post about the Governor's budget.  It has become by far my most read blog post ever!

I wanted to point out that there is one more potential consequence to what Governor Brown has proposed.

The California State Library receives Federal funds via the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and in turn redirects those funds to local libraries and library organizations via grants.  The Eureka Leadership Program that I have blogged about before?  Funded by LSTA.  Infopeople, which provides low cost training to the staff of California libraries?  Funded by LSTA.  Califa, which among other functions negotiates purchasing discounts for California libraries and supports projects using emerging technologies?  Funded by LSTA.  PVLD's grant-funded access to the Brainfuse live homework help service and the Career Transitions job search online resource?  Funded by LSTA.

So...what does the State budget have to do with these Federal funds?  It's simple.  States only get access to LSTA funds if they provide a certain level of State support for public libraries.  Eliminate all State funding for local public libraries?  Put our LSTA funds at risk.

Unintended consequences...they'll bite you every time.