Sticky 'Brary

You gotta show up

2011-12-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

At the risk of coming across as a Seth Godin lackey, I do have to share a recent video of his. He's not specifically talking about libraries but the connections are too strong to be ignored.

The way forward. And the way backward.

2011-12-02T08:30:00.001-08:00

In library land (as well as many other lands, most likely) we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the one big thing that will blow things wide open. We'll make that perfect presentation to just the right person and adequate library funding will be secured indefinitely. We'll roll out the perfect service or resource and the City Council and Mayor will be lining up outside our doors to offer us additional revenue.

And when we aren't thinking these grand thoughts, we're thinking just the opposite: the sky is going to fall. The apocalypse is nigh. We're cutting the budget to the point where we just won't be a viable organization. We're underfunded. We're overworked. We aren't appreciated.

But here's the thing: neither of those two scenarios are likely. Instead, it is one small step at a time. If we satisfy one library member with one interaction then we are one step closer to remaining and/or becoming a valued asset in our community. If we disappoint... well, we then lose one potential voice of support. These things come in baby steps. It's a creeping thing.

While it a gradual creep (name for my next band: The Gradual Creeps) isn't nearly as dramatic as a big bang, it is somewhat comforting that the solution ultimately lies in small actions rather than some large, nebulous ideal.

Thanks to Seth Godin for the spark for these thoughts:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/11/preparing-for-the-breakthroughcalamity.html

Keepin' it real...

2011-11-09T17:41:00.000-08:00

When I give a presentation to a group of business folks I usually have about 30 - 45 minutes for my spiel. Here are the points/resources I try to cover:

Local human librarians vs. Google
ReferenceUSA
DemographicsNow
General OneFile

Often the presentation is at some sort of a networking event so try to pay attention to the make up of the audience before your presentation. I just spoke today to a group that included a man who is at the beginning stages of putting together a business plan for an indoor shooting range. Interesting. When it was my turn with the microphone I used ReferenceUSA and showed the group how he could pull together a list of all the shooting ranges in Washington State so he can instantly know who his competition -- and potential collaborators -- might be. That's a good thing to know when it comes to guns. Using DemographicsNow I then showed how to round up the demographics around other successful shooting rangers and compare them against his potential site. Also in the crowd was a woman who is thinking about starting up her own wedding planning business. Using General OneFile I showed the 21,000+ articles on the wedding industry that she could sift through and showed how to jump immediately to articles focused on "forecasts and trends." Oohs and ahhhs all around.

The end result is that by using actual real-life, present-in-the-room types of examples the content of the presentation is moved from the yeah-that's-neat-in-a-theoretical-sense sentiment to holy-crap-I-need-access-to-these-resources-right-now mentality. You can see the shift in the room as people go from uninterested nonbelievers to converts. And that's the power of keeping it real. Yo.

Side note: today I had the luxury of sitting in the back of the room and running the previously mentioned searches on my laptop before I got up to do the search live in front of the group. I generally don't shy away from doing searches on the fly but if you can squeeze in a few sample searches in private it's a good idea. That's keeping it kinda semi-real, albeit rehearsed.

Magic

2011-09-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Those of us who inhabit the library world on a day-to-day basis sometimes need to look at what we do in a fresh light.

When we run a search on ReferenceUSA and within 30 seconds pull up a list of the 46 Spokane County female-owned manufacturing businesses without websites, well, that's all in a day's work for us. No biggie. But to the public that is straight up, hardcore magic. That's the equivalent of pulling four doves out of a handkerchief and having them explode into $100 bills.

The moral? Don't let our complacency with what we do color how the public views what we do.

Outreach tip #47

2011-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

If you have ventured out into the community to do presentations/speaking engagements, here's a suggestion: keep a spreadsheet listing the contact information for each group. When a year rolls by, send them a quick note letting them know that you'd be happy to come speak with their group again and show off all the cool new things that your library has implemented in the past year.

Wish I'd thought of that sooner than right now.

Sharing

2011-08-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

It's what libraries do. We buy something and then we share it. Pretty simple, really.

But why oh why are we so clumsy when it comes to sharing with other libraries? Sure, we've got our Interlibrary Loan program which certainly rocks. Within the span of just a few days, I can have delivered to my hands pretty much any book or journal article I could desire. That's amazing. But what about our subscription databases?

Yeah, yeah. Our contracts prevent us from allowing "non-authorized" users access to our databases. The price we pay is largely dependent upon use and/or population area served. But can't we be a little more creative than that? At the very least, every library in the state (academic or public) should have an option to purchase a "non-resident" library card that would then grant access to that institution's electronic resources. With constrained budgets, that would mean that the smallest library could pony up ~$50/year to purchase a card from the largest, most well-funded libraries in the state, thus granting library staff access to the most powerful and useful databases out there. Granted, the public wouldn't have direct access to the databases but once they became aware of the possibilities that exist they just might be more willing to put some dollars into their own local library.

Gathering what is scarce

2011-06-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

When Ben Franklin started up The Library Company of Philadelphia, books were scarce and expensive. Franklin's flash of inspiration was figuring out how to make them accessible and inexpensive. And thus, the idea of the public library was born.

Fast forward 280 years. Information is no longer scarce or expensive. What is scarce and expensive is compiled, indexed, findable, useful, high-quality information and having someone know where to find it. The days of libraries putting a book on the shelf and having that provide enough of a value to our community to justify our existence is over. We still need the book, yes, and at the same time we need to show our communities what is truly scarce and how libraries are the best model out there for managing scarcity, be it 18th century scientific tracts or 21st century databases.

One and done...

2011-04-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

As much as I would like for the spreading of the library gospel to be just a simple one-shot deal, it just doesn't work that way.

Or at least it doesn't work that way for me.

I've been doing this outreach gig for coming up on five years now and in terms of reaching my entire community I'm really just at the starting line. My sense is that to get the public to fully appreciate the value that their public library holds we need to be consistently communicating like a child: unrelenting and occasionally with bits of brilliance.

Now, if I had a budget to work with or a staff to assign tasks to I might have a different take on this but I'm guessing I'd still be in roughly the same situation. It's a truism that there has never been a great organization that was built with all the resources it needed from the very beginning. That has to be earned.

Doing what they can't

2011-03-01T13:31:00.001-08:00

In my ongoing dog and pony shows that I do around town showcasing the library's resources I frequently do a compare/contrast of the library vs. Google. While the database access issue gets good play (meaning that the library has access to content that Google can't get at) the thing that really resonates is the local, human connection. Google can't match that.

Every morning when I fire up my work computer I go to my sent mail folder, go back two days, see who I sent some bit of information to and then I send them a follow up note asking if the information I sent fit the bill or if we need to take another stab at it. People really like that. And that's something that Google can't do.

Follow-up

2010-10-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Email. It's going to be the death of us all.

A week or so ago I got a request for some demographics research for a business proposal that may be bringing a new storefront to the downtown area. Snapping into professional mode I completed the research the same afternoon, attached the appropriate documents and replied to the person. I didn't hear anything back over the next several days but I just assumed they were so busy on their end of the line that they didn't have time to reply.

Part of that assumption was true.

Indeed, they were busy. So busy that they didn't even see my email come in. They then waited until this morning to call, asking rather sheepishly if I had had time to complete the work. I had a brief panic attack but then found the message in my Sent folder and the other party was able to find the email on their end.

The delay and bit of drama could have been avoided if I had just picked up the phone and let the person know that the work was done and to contact me if they had any other questions. Problem. Solved.

Catch... and release

2010-06-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of the most vexing pieces of library outreach is doing a presentation, getting people all excited about library resources, and then navigating the shoals of getting a library card into their hands. My library has an online application for city resident cards but if a person wanted (or needed) to get a library card through their business, the only option was the paper route.

Until now.

With the help of Google documents, I put together an online form that gathers the necessary information, dumps the data into a spreadsheet for easy cutting/pasting into Dynix, and voila! a new library card is born.

Here's the form:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEVBU2xOdzRZMU1pSldUQmJRTkhZaGc6MQ#gid=0

Feedback, tough to get

2010-05-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

until now...

When doing presentations out in the community, I have too much to convey in terms of the brilliance that is the public library to give over precious time to the solicitation of feedback and comments on the spot.

Solution: gather business cards/email contacts and afterward send out a Survey Monkey to the attendees. They then have a chance to provide feedback, should they be so inclined. When sent out a day or two after the presentation the survey also serves as another reminder of how frickin' awesome libraries are.

Problem. Solved.

Goals v. Duties

2010-04-02T08:56:00.001-07:00

Beware: Side rant ahead.

Goals. Every library system seems to have them. Every annual evaluation that I've had has included a "What are your goals for the coming year?" component. That's great -- we should have goals.

But here's the thing: it seems we frequently confuse goals with duties. If I say that my goal for the coming year is to provide good reference service to my community, that's admirable but it isn't a goal -- it's a duty. It's part of my job description. How lame is it that we routinely are allowed to say "My goal is to adequately do my job"?

Managers out there: please give your staff members some clear guidance on the difference between goals and duties. Duties are expected and required. Goals are things that include the coordinating of pieces that lie beyond my immediate control. If I can do it today, it isn't a goal.

Fans and Strangers

2010-01-29T08:49:00.000-08:00

Seth Godin's posted the following on his blog:

Who are you marketing to?

Strangers are customers to be, but not yet
Critics are those that would speak ill of you, or need to be converted
Friends are those that might have given permission, or even buy now and then
Fans are members of your tribe, supporters and insiders

For the bulk of my outreach efforts, I'm looking for strangers and friends. Critics of the public library? If they are out there, they are a very small and/or quiet group.

If I can get strangers and friends into the library (or using our resources), I'm happy to leave the cultivation of transforming those folks into fans to the fabulous reference and circulation staff members of the Spokane Public Library. I'm coming to find that it isn't necessarily the information that folks are wowed by, it is the availability of a human to help connect them with the information they need. That's the important part.

Circulating Librarians

2010-01-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

Amen, David Shumaker: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6707593.html

I like the phrase "embedded librarians."

What do you do?

2009-06-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

I'm trying out a new line.

When people ask that inevitable, American question of "What do you do?" I've changed my answer from the standard reference librarian response to this: Sales.

The inevitable follow-up question tends to be "Sales of what?" to which I reply "the Spokane Public Library. I sell the library."* It's fun and it immediately gives you the opportunity to pitch your collections, services, awesomeness, etc. You should give it try.

*You may want to substitute your library's name for fear of getting some really strange looks if you aren't from Spokane.

Reference Revisited

2009-04-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

I don't know about y'all, but my recollection of library school reference training went something like this:

Customer asks a question/states a need.
Librarian asks clarifying questions, generally open-ended questions at first and then follows up with closed-ended questions.
Librarian determines the information need, takes the customer to the stacks or computer, shows them the relevant material and asks them to return to the reference desk if they have any other questions.

All fine and good. Sort of.

There needs to be a step 1.5, which would sound something like this: Yes.

When a customer asks if we have information on China, avoid immediately launching into a reference interview -- this just makes people defensive. It may be unclear to them if we are just stalling because we don't know the answer or if we are mocking them or who-knows-what-other story the might be telling themselves. If we start with yes, then a number of things start to happen: the customer knows that we have an end game in mind but we just need some clarification, the customer and the librarian become part of a team working toward a common goal and we (the library) look more competent.

The next time someone swings by the desk and their question isn't extremely narrow or obscure, try saying yes right out of the gates and see what happens.

Referrals

2009-03-18T17:55:00.001-07:00

Good grief, has it really been since November?

Latest "Eureka!" moment: I'm part of a sales leads group through Greater Spokane Inc. and I've made myself the personal librarian for the ~25-30 folks who are in the group. They love it. They love having a personal face to put on the library and the longer I'm in the group the better sense they have of just how much we have to offer.

But the real beauty of participating in the leads group is that when people from the group refer others to me, they are usually sending them my way because they know that I can help this particular individual with their particular problem. The end result is that those being referred to me (after not being in a library for a number of years) come to me with softball questions that I can crush out of the ballpark. It makes a good first impression and makes it likely that they will come back with other questions when they arise.

So the nugget to remember here is this: get a group of folks out in the community who are familiar with what the library can offer and then bask in joy of being able to look really competent when referrals are sent your way.

Presentations, pt. II

2008-11-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

In addition to learning that I need to give audiences time to sign up for a library card at the end of presentations, I've also learned that I should ask the group to "share the library love."

When I find myself in front of a group of people (especially volunteer-based organizations like Kiwanis, Rotary, etc.), I've found it productive to make myself available to present to other organizations. Folks who volunteer are often involved in more than one organization and through this simple networking mechanism I've got presentations lined up and on the calendar for the next several months to come.

Slowly, slowly, slowly I feel like I'm getting this figured out...

Numbers are still up...

2008-11-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

So it looks like the uptick in database usage is keeping on track. Compared with the usage before this bookmark campaign, the numbers for October put us at a 343% increase over August. Not too shabby... Maybe it is time to start thinking about a whole series of bookmarks for our forty-some other databases, no?

It's working! Maybe.

2008-10-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know yet if it is just a random fluctuation in the numbers of users, but after slipping the bookmarks for our DemographicsNow database into books on marketing and such (see this post for the original thought), the usage for this month is up 314%. That may be a statistical anomaly but we'll see if it keeps up in the coming month...

Give 'em time...

2008-09-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm a little sheepish to admit that it has taken me so long to figure out the following, but here it is: When doing a presentation, leave a few minutes at the end to get people signed up for library cards.

In retrospect this seems like a total no-brainer but in the past I felt that I had to use all my allotted time to explain the virtues of the library. After having read most of Nudge, I now realize the error of my ways.

And what were the errors of my ways? Specifically, I didn't realize how seemingly small hurdles (like coming into a branch to get a library card) throw up roadblocks of inertia to those who would like to use the library's databases but just can't carve the time out of their day to come in and get a card. Once I have a group thinking about the benefits of the library, that is the time to get them hooked up with a card. Asking them to take the information home or back to their businesses and then come back to get a card is just asking too much. Humans don't operate that way.

Rather surprisingly, this new rule of mine holds just as true for presentations within the library as for those done out in the community. I just hosted a tour for a local Kiwanis group here at the library and even though we were all of 40 yards from the desk where you can get a library card, of the eight attendees who got new cards, seven of them were going to leave without signing up. Aaaack! Handing them an application and a pen and giving them time to fill it out is apparently really important. Huh. Who knew?

Nudged

2008-08-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

Problem: The business community could make good use of some of the library's resources, especially some of our databases. But they don't know such resources exist, or at least aren't aware that they are freely available via the library. And who has time to come into the library to sign up for a library card?

Possible solution: Each business that operates within the City of Spokane must have a city business license. I'm in the very beginning stages of working with the city's Business License office to have them issue library cards to the owners of businesses located within the city limits when they sign up of their business license. We'll see if having a card provided to them will increase the business community's library use.

Note: The bookmarks I mentioned a few posts back are nearly ready to go to the printer so I should have some news relatively soon about their effectiveness...

Summing up the 'brary

2008-07-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

As part of my business reference job, I'm the chair of a B2B leads group that meet 2x per month. The way the meetings work is we go around the table, give a 30 - 60 second spiel of who we are and what we do, and then we try to refer business to each other.

Most folks in the group can pretty easily sum up what they do in 30 - 60 seconds, but I have a hard time doing that with the library. We cover every conceivable subject area (and some inconceivable ones) and we offer a slew of services (interlibrary loan, story times, Internet access, books, movies, amazing databases, reference assistance, etc.). I've found it extremely tough to quickly convey the range of what we do.

Enter the power of metaphor.

Drawing once again on Made to Stick, one of their suggestions is to take something that people already know and then draw an analogy to that. It saves their brains the effort of constructing something new. So the tag line that I came up with, rather accidentally, is this: The Library: It's Google on Steroids.

Everyone in the B2B group knows Google and has at least a vague sense of its power and utility. But by adding the steroids part, a number of folks in the group had an "Aha! I see..." moment. The library, going from a vague combination of resources and services, takes on a bit of concreteness: we are better than Google.

Humorous aside: A man was referred to me by one of the B2B group members and when he tracked me down at the library he said that he was told "The library is Google... on crack."

Close enough.

Books and databases...

2008-07-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

Cross-marketing. We all have business books on our shelves. People check them out and we know by the subject headings/titles/content of the books what they are interested in. Generally speaking. At the same time, we have databases with powerful business applications sitting idly by. I'm in the final stages of having our printer whip up some card stock bookmarks flogging the online resources. I will then slip them into books that deal with similar topics.

Ideally, I'd like to have the bookmarks included with the book at checkout but the logistics of doing such a thing are a bit daunting. So for now I'll just put them into the recently returned titles (and with any luck, those titles will be going back out again sometime soon). I'll report back and let you know if this gives us a bump in our database stats. Any other thoughts about increasing the use of subject specific databases?

Hurdles

2008-06-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

In my efforts to do outreach to the local business community, it has become apparent that a significant number of the obstacles to overcome lie within the library itself. Here is a running list, in no particular order, of the things you might want to have hammered out before embarking on an outreach campaign:

Solidify with your manager the process for attending local business functions. What paperwork is needed? If there is a cost, how do you get reimbursed? Who gets the paperwork? What forms do you need to file? If it will be an ongoing, recurring event does that change the process? What is the easiest, least time consuming process for all involved? If the reference desk schedule needs to change, how far in advance do you need to alert your manager and/or coworkers? Who do you report your successes to? When? How?
If you are out in the community, that is the perfect time to sign people up for library cards as they don't have to carve time out of their day to come into a branch to register for a card. To make this fly you may need to talk with the head of the circulation department (or whoever is in charge of issuing cards) and figure out what information is needed. The agreement that we settled on here at Spokane Public was to jot the card number down on the card application and issue the card on the spot. When I get back to the library I hand over the applications to the good folks in the circulation dept. where they enter the data and make the card active. The safety valve is that these cards are valid for Internet use only (to give remote access to our databases) until we see positive ID in person at one of our branches. This is to make sure that I don't unwittingly issue a full-access card to someone who has thousands and thousands of dollars in fines on another card. It seems to work pretty well...
If you are doing a presentation and need library equipment like a laptop and/or projector, make sure that you have the equipment reserved. There's nothing worse than getting ready for a big show only to find that the hardware you need has been shipped off to another branch... not that that has ever happened to me.

2.0 or f2f?

2008-06-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

In the world of marketing public libraries, or any library for that matter, here is the question that I keep coming back to: What is more efficient, social software/2.0 stuff or face to face interactions?

My bias is towards f2f, for the following reasons. One of the biggest -- THE biggest? -- assets that libraries have over the general online world is giving people the ability to pick up a phone (or, horrors, their feet) and contact a real, live human being who gives a damn about their question. Being out in the community in person helps hammer this home. I view a lot of the library 2.0 mania as an online extension of the same model that got us into the bind we are in: staying comfortably within the four walls of our buildings and not having those messy interactions with real, live people.

But wait, you say, isn't the point of 2.0 interactions that we are interacting with those we don't normally reach? Yes, but I come back to the original question: is the online or the personal, physical presence more effective? For a quick, unscientific case study I have had a library blog for about six months without a single interaction of significance. Does the blog stink? Maybe... the format is surely lousy. But in contrast, in the same span of time I've done a number of personal presentations and have had dozens of people sign up for library cards, answered scores of questions and developed a nice cadre of library cheerleaders who hadn't used the library in years. And these cheerleaders are local. That is another beef that I have with the 2.0 stuff: a lot of the strategies seem to be for much larger libraries. It's great to have blog subscribers in the Dakotas but that doesn't do much for me when it comes time to vote on bond measures and such.

I realize this doesn't have to be an either/or situation of 2.0 vs. f2f, indeed I flog the blog whenever I do a presentation, but from my meager experience the personal touch is just that: a personal touch and connection that can't be replicated online. Except here on this blog, dear reader. You are the world to me.

Thoughts? Other experiences?

Trust, Public Libraries

2008-06-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

I really should round up some research on this (or the great library blog reading community could contribute ideas, if you have them) but my gut tells me that the business community trusts the library. Not just to do research and return reasonable results to their questions, but also in sharing information with us.

Case in point: Just yesterday I was doing some research for a local banker who wanted to know what the competition was offering in terms of "analysis" or "analyzed" business banking accounts. She only wanted the information from four other institutions so I told her I would call around on her behalf. When I called up the competing banks and told them that I was doing research for a patron and needed to know the fee structure for their analyzed accounts, they were more than willing to help out. I think that if I had called and said something like "Hi. I'm calling from a competitor of yours and I need you to take some time out of your day to do some work for me...", the reception would have been far less congenial.

As a marketing perk, of the four banks that I called, two of the bankers said "So the library does this type of research for patrons? Huh." I replied in the affirmative and encouraged them to contact me with any research they might have on their plates. This equates to powerful, relevant, and immediate exposure that beats any 30 minute presentation on what the library could do for them...

Falling, Forward

2008-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

As I've been wrestling with the problem of getting the local business community thinking of and turning to their public library, the most basic advice to share with myself is the following: fall forward.

Falling hurts. It hurts the ego. It hurts the knees. It hurts the ribs. It just plain hurts. But here's the deal: it hurts far less to fall forward than it does to fall backwards. No matter how awkward it feels to attend business networking events (think high school prom, sans date), just being there is enough to move things in the right direction. Remember this: people think libraries are cool, even though they have no idea what it is we actually do. The corollary is this: these misconceptions are our shortcomings, not theirs. Armed with this supercool persona that strangers are immediately willing to grant you, put yourself into acting mode when you are doing outreach. You don't have to be yourself. So go say "Howdy. What brings you here?" and eventually you will introduce yourself to the right person and things will open up from there.

But back to the falling thing. Even though this is changing pretty quickly, it seems that we librarians are pretty comfortable squatting on our heels within the confines of our four walls and waiting for the world to come to us. That approach may have hacked it back in the olden days when libraries held the monopoly on in-depth and authoritative information but here's the thing: when you're on your heels and you get bumped (say, by Google or Amazon or Netflix or iTunes or...), you're going to fall backwards. Flat on our backs is not where we want to be. Generally speaking, of course.

So the entire point here is that it doesn't really matter what we are doing in terms of outreach and marketing, the thing that matters is whether we are doing it at all. Waiting for our public to come to us seems to lead inevitably to death by a thousand (budget) cuts.

How to Date a Business Librarian

2008-06-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal. Among a number of other hats that I wear, I am the Business Reference Librarian at the Spokane Public Library. Confession: I have never owned a business, run a business, been interested in owning or running or working at a for-profit business. How's that for a resume booster?
I've been in the library world, in one capacity or another, since 1996. My passion is spreading the gospel of the public library, which in turn depends on a healthy business community to provide my paycheck. So it turns out that my greedy self-interest coupled with my passion and appreciation for the public library can (at least partially) overcome my previous lack of interest in the business world.
As I've been doing this Business Reference gig since 2006, I've been collecting "notes to self" about missteps, gaffs, and the occasional success of making the library "sticky" (in the Made to Stick sense of the word). This bloggy thing is meant more as a place to store these reminders than anything else, but in this 2.0-ey world I'm hoping that others may feel moved to contribute and comment on the ability of a single librarian working in a mid-sized, woefully underfunded public library to connect with the local business community and make them see--and support--the brilliant idea that is the pubic library. Whew. Oh, and when I say "single" I am using that word in the solitary sense; I am happily married and not trolling for a date here. I do hope you aren't overly disappointed...