Eli Neiburger, Associate Director at Ann Arbor District Library recently presented his views at the LJ/SLJ EBook Summit.   He makes the case that because of the emergence of e-books   and other pay per use online materials   “Libraries are Screwed”.    Eli’s view is that libraries remain invested in paper books, and that their primary function continues to be “owning and sharing” of local copies.  The online delivery model makes ownership and physical lending of materials unnecessary.  Borrowing of materials can be expected to decline greatly over the coming years, removing one of library’s primary reasons for existing. 

Read more…

I write this post with great sadness and a sense of personal loss.  Norman died last night at the Halifax Infirmary.  Norman  had been ill for some time, but still found time to phone us daily to keep up with what was going on at the School.  The official announcements have been made; this is an opportunity for all  of us to express our personal sentiments and memories.

Norman was a truly remarkable person; he’s the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be.  Words and phrases that come to mind when I think of Norman are: Gentleman, kind, funny, sweet, caring, patient, generous, sensitive, empathetic, classy, brilliant, absolutely phenomenal and scary memory, soccer crazy.  I could go on and on.  I never heard an impatient or unkind word from Norman, and I’m sure he was more patient and understanding with me than I deserved.  Norman’s contributions to the Information Management profession are legion and legendary; the people he touched and affected impossible to count.  I can’t imagine the School without him.

My fondest memories of Norman revolve around soccer, a passion for which we both shared.  Norman was an avid Manchester United fan, while I’m a Gunner (Arsenal) girl to the core.  Norman and I would never fail to remind each other of our respective team’s victories, and commiserate or rejoice at the results of the World Cup, UEFA Cup, Euro Cup, and so forth. When it came to international competitions, Norman and I shared a common bond in our ever-optimistic support of England.  I shall always picture Norman smiling down at me whenever I watch a Man U match, particularly if they beat Arsenal.

Norman left this world a far better place than he found it.  We miss you, Norman.

“We are United.”  Manchester United.

Hi.  I have been asked to write on the Social Justice Librarian blog, and am reposting the last blog entry that I wrote.  Over the course of the past few months I have written a number of blog postings, primarily focused on Community Led library work (also see the 2009 OLA Presidential Award winning Working Together Project), and a number of issues which are arising when implementing the approach in public library systems.

Postings have included topics such as:

Library Schools – Developing Future Librarians,

Technology,

Moving Beyond Outreach,

Engaging Communities,

Communicating Change,

Evaluation, and

Professional Librarian Identities.

I hope you enjoy.. and please feel free to comment.

Ken Williment

Making the Case for Public Libraries (Reposted from Social Justice Librarian)

Ensuring library services are meeting the needs of community members is an essential requirement for library services.  By being accountable to our local communities, we ensure that within our restricted budgets, programs and services are continuously evaluated and adjusted to meet the changing needs of community.  Therefore, based on evaluation – we must be open to the challenges of shifting how we identify, plan, develop and implement library services.

I agree with John Pateman that libraries have entered a Pandora’s box, by solely relying on statistics to justify our existence – “The minute that we started to count everything and quantify what we do – from book issues to fines income – we created a huge stick with which others can beat us… the real story is not that book issues have gone down from X to Y, but that MILLIONS of books are still borrowed from libraries every year” (CILIP Update September 2010).  In theory, as John further discusses in his article, libraries in and of themselves are public good, and this fact should be justification enough for continued support of public libraries.

However, as we can see from the U.S. case, the library as a publicly supported institution, can come under attack.  One of the first sectors to come under attack during the recent financial sector created ‘financial crisis’ is the public sector (ranging from teachers and educators, to firefighters and police officers, to libraries – link for Illinois example).  As discussed by Naomi Klein in her timely book Shock Doctrine, Milton Friedman and the Chicago Schoolers’ are prepared to take advantage of public confusion during times of economic crisis.

**OF NOTE – See NYTimes article on Privatization of Public Libraries from September 26th, 2010

So What Should We Learn From this and How to Respond?

While libraries are public goods, we need to be able to be prepared to make this justification.. and there is no time like the present!!  So, how should we proceed?

I am not advocating for replacing current measurement tools used by libraries.  Many of the indicators which we are using are very powerful and meaningful output measures.  These measures, which are primarily frequency level quantitative measures (which are difficult for using in multivariate – causal based analysis), provide a measuring stick for usage of library programs, materials and other services.  They measure concepts such as circulation statistics, gate counts, program attendance, and other quantifiable items.  Funders and the public have been taught to expect these measures, and will continue to demand them.

As described in the toolkit (see chart below), evaluation measures should continue to include these measures.  However, in order to display the impacts that library services are having on community, libraries need to capture and frequently report the narrative (qualitative) impacts.  The advantage of doing this is that this form of evaluation ‘picks up’ on the nuances of the social and human component of library services.

For example, if 70 people attend a library program and if this number is used as the performance indicator – the number does not provide information on the impacts and outcomes of the interaction between library staff and members of the public, or between community members.  These interactions, impacts, and outcomes are already occurring – where library staff are involved in the delivery of services (either within the walls of the library or out in the community).  What is needed, are effective mechanisms for library staff to capture and communicate effectively, from the voice of community, the relevancy of library services in meeting community identified need.

At a minimum, this information will allow for improved service development and increased justification for continued public support for the social good public libraries facilitate within the community.  In addition, it will provide us with the information to show the relevancy of our services to our local communities.

A great resource which discusses how to measure the impact of library services is Evaluating the Impact of Your Library.

Final Thought

So as library systems how are we doing?  A quick measure of success to determine how well we are collecting honest community evaluation is to think about the pace of innovative new practices being implemented within library systems.  If we are doing a good job of collecting this information, collaborative community based evaluation, should lead to service changes based on community identified need.

~ Ken