Public Libraries: I think most people in the US have a certain image of Greek life – whether it’s from the financial collapse, or movies, or just images of the Greek isles. But your book really shows the day-to-day life of Greeks, both in the year 2000 and during World War II. I know your parents are Greek, but how did you get all the details right?

Henriette Lazaridis Power: Well I spent a lot of time in Greece every summer when I was growing up, straight through many of the summers in college. I’d be there three months at a time, maybe fewer months when I got older. When you’re there you’re just immersed in Greek life. But I’ve lived and breathed Greekness both there and here. I’m an only child and my parents spoke Greek at home with me all the time so it felt like I was living in a little Greek bubble within the Boston suburbs.

I think also when you really love a place and the people in it you pay very close attention to the details of their lives. Especially being away from that place for the other nine months of the year, rather than give me a chance to forget the details, it made the details all the more powerful to me. It made them stand out and made me cherish them so that might be a reason why I have been somewhat successful in intimating them in the novel.

PL: You definitely get that sense in reading The Clover House of stories shaping somebody’s life, particularly in the role that the stories of Callie’s mother play in Callie’s life.

HLP: And that was an experience that I did have growing up both in Greece and here. When I was in Greece I was surrounded by my aunts – who were actually my mother’s cousins but we still called them aunts – and they had grown up together and we would always enjoy hearing them tell the stories of their childhood. And so I share with my protagonist that experience of being fascinated with a past life that you can kind of glimpse but you could never experience yourself except through these stories, which you just crave having been told them all the time.

PL:The novel has a dual plot, where we see Callie in the present day and then her mom during the war? Did you always know you wanted to tell the story from both of their perspectives? (the process of seeing both sides of the relationship)

HLP: That was a tricky part for me. Many years ago I felt this need to tell the stories of the war because those were the stories that I heard all the time from my mother [who grew up in Patras] and from my father, who had grown up in Athens. He had a very different war experience because he was occupied by the Germans so he saw the effects of the incredibly severe famine that Greece, particularly Athens, went through under the Germans.

But I knew their stories. I had seen their old photographs and I was very drawn to this material and wanted to do something with it. For a long time I toyed with the idea of telling a story that was in its entirety set in the Second World War. I tried that and it was sort of my “learner novel,” when I was switching careers from academia to wanting to be a novelist, and that one will never come out. (laughs)

Then I tried having this daughter character tell the stories that she had heard from her mother, so kind of coming close to this current protagonist. But I was trying to tell it through this neurotic unreliable narrator that I realized was too alienating even for me as the writer.

I was working on another manuscript for big chunks of this time and I would come back to these stories trying to figure out how to tell them. I finally decided that the frame was going to be much more important to me than the Second World War material because I wanted to write about the experience of someone trying to understand what had happened. So the character of the protagonist, Callie Brown, became much more important. Once I had her, I had a way into the World War II stories.

And I realized that I needed to tell the story of the novel with both of those narratives. I needed to show what actually happened in this fictional reality as well as show my protagonist trying to figure out what happened and sometimes coming close but veering off into a mistake and sometimes getting something right although she might not realize that she had gotten it right.

PL: The dual narrative puts the reader in a fun position where they know more than the protagonist does.

HLP: Yeah. I wanted the reader to know what really happened. To me it’s poignant when you see a character struggling with something that you can see the solution for and they can’t. But they can come close!

PL: I was struck in reading this by how much I don’t know about the Greek experience during World War II and my guess is a lot of readers don’t know a lot about it as well. Were you aware that you were filling a void or correcting an assumption about Greek life while writing the book?

HLP: I was. All Greeks have this little speech we make that says, “Did you know” – you have to imagine a Greek person gesturing – “Did you know that because the Greeks defeated the Italians in Albania, Hitler had to take over the war in Greece and was thus delayed in departing for Russia and was stuck in Russia and therefore turned the tide of the entire Second World War because he wasn’t able to start his Eastward march until the weather became a real factor?”

So Greeks are very proud of this. And in fact Greeks defeated an Axis power because they defeated Italy. Not a lot of people know that. Not a lot of people know about Greece’s occupation. I don’t address the famine in the novel because it didn’t affect Patras as much as it did other parts of Greece. It didn’t affect my protagonist’s family because they had access to food that they were growing themselves on their farm. But the famine was so profound. Oxfam was actually founded by Oxford students to relieve the famine in Greece during the Second World War and of course endures to this day.

And also, nobody is going to go to Patras for tourist reasons. You’ll pass through it if you’re backpacking through Europe and you have to come down through Italy to get to Greece. But you won’t stay in Patras. It’s a city I love dearly: my mother grew up there, I spent a lot of time there, it has places I love tremendously. It’s a scruffy city, and I wanted to bring it into the limelight a little bit. The Carnivale that takes place in Patras is very unique. Carnivale takes place throughout Greece but the Patras Carnivale is televised on live television throughout the nation. It’s a very important event in Greece.

PL: That’s funny you say  it’s not a tourist destination because I really wanted to go to Carnivale after reading the book.

HLP: Carnivale is fantastic! I highly recommend it for adventursome tourists who want to see a festival that is still very homegrown and very community driven and community oriented. It’s a wonderful spectacle and a wonderful demonstration of a small community’s culture

PL: The book also has a very pragmatic and unsentimental view of mother-daughter relationships. I don’t want to give anything away, but what were the challenges in terms of not offering any easy resolutions to your characters?

HLP: What I wanted to convey was a difficult relationship, but I didn’t want it to be only that. I wanted readers to see that the mother character, Clio, is a nuanced character who, though she is a very difficult person, is actually at certain points able to give her wayward daughter some important insights into her own personality and some important advice which the daughter, Callie, doesn’t necessarily take immediately

I think the challenge was to depict a relationship that was strained and difficult but not go whole hog into that. To show that even those kinds of [difficult] relationships can still involve parenting and mothering. I don’t think there are easy resolutions between mothers and daughters when they have strained relationships like that. I wanted the book to offer an example of not quite a reconciliation, or even forgiveness is a little bit the wrong word, but I wanted to offer an experience of some connection at the end of the novel.

PL: You also work with the literary magazine, The Drum. Can you talk about that?

HLP: I am a huge believer in the inherent theatricality of writing. Both as a practical tool because I read everything aloud – if it sounds right. In a short story I once changed a character’s injury because I needed a two syllable word at the end of the sentence, so she couldn’t have injured her knee she had to injure her ankle. These things matter to me!

And I love listening to audiobooks when they’re very well done and I love the theater. And so I began thinking, Shouldn’t there be a literary magazine that does for short fiction and essays what Audible, for instance, does for novels?.

I cast about a little in late 2009 to see who was doing that. There were a few magazines that were doing bits and pieces of audio at the time. There was one place that folded that was doing all audio but they were doing poetry. And I thought, well there’s a niche. I can launch this magazine.

We publish new short fiction and essays and occasionally a novel excerpt exclusively as an mp3 with the author reading the work aloud. We work with authors, usually it’s remotely because we’re getting submissions from all over the US and abroad. We guide them, “You’re not a writer anymore, now you’re an actor so you have to do this, this, this, and this to turn your writing into a performance.

We think we do a nice job of getting stories to come to life in this magazine. The great part about it is you can download a story, something you would find in a literary journal and you can listen to it at the gym. It doesn’t have to sit there in the print literary journal. You have the convenience through the technology of the mp3 that can take literature out into the world.

PL: You’re also a competitive rower. How has rowing shaped your writing?

HLP: A huge amount. It actually plays an incredibly important role for me. Sure there are times when I’m out on the water and something clicks in my head because I’m thinking about what to do next with the novel and I realize, “Oh that’s what it is!” But that can happen with anybody’s sport or hobby when your brain is idle in some way: you find the solution.

For me the big lesson I’ve gotten from rowing that has transferred very powerfully in my writing is the idea of going for broke and taking risks. There was a period of time when I first switched from being an academic to trying to write full time where I really didn’t take myself seriously. I used rowing as a distraction. I would say, “Well I would have gotten more writing done if I hadn’t trained so hard today.” Or, “Writing is such a weird business – you never know if you’re going to succeed, but hey, I raced this weekend and I came home with a couple of medals.”

But then I realized what I was doing was never going to get me success as a writer and I realized that in rowing I could also go faster if I weren’t so chicken. It’s a painful sport when you’re racing. You have to say to yourself, “Yes, you want to die, but you have to push through that if you want to go faster, because you’re not actually going to die.” (laughs) And that knowledge that you really need to go for broke carried over to my writing and I realized, “Well, you just haven’t been. You haven’t been going for broke. So you really have to throw your whole self into this project.”

Once I did that was when I realized this was how I want to tell the stories of the Second World War. Callie Brown is my protagonist. Off we go.

PL: And finally, what role have libraries played in your life?

Some of my favorite places to be in are libraries. My children laugh at me because they both attended the college that I went to and they will watch me go into the reading room that I remember spending so much time in and just dissolve. I loved my college library so much. This was before the days when libraries were open 24 hours, but I spent the night in the library – against the rules – and snuck out in the morning before the cleaning staff came. Just the idea of being surrounded by all those beautiful wonderful books was so powerful to me. I love libraries. I love them as a resource. I love them as spaces where you’re surrounded by stories.

The post Throwing Your Whole Self In: A Conversation With Henriette Lazaridis Power first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

At Natural Bridge, the wait time for the fifteen public PCs meant customers could spend an hour or more just sitting at tables. These conditions bred trouble and even the presence of a security guard didn’t prevent harsh encounters.

One might wonder why, at a 15,900 square foot library housing more than 95,000 items people would sit idly at tables. The truth was that the Natural Bridge Branch’s collection development philosophy had been devised decades earlier, and was in dire need of reconsideration. Changing that and responding to the users’ current needs would bring new life to an important community resource.

Founding Philosophy

The Natural Bridge Branch had opened in 1993 as a replacement for one of the oldest SLCL branches. Since the new building was located a mere mile west of the original, it retained the name. It also retained the identifying characteristics of all the other SLCL branches.

The service model in place at SLCL from its opening in 1947 was based on an egalitarian philosophy that resulted in branches that resembled one another as nearly as possible. This one-size-fits-all approach presupposed that users throughout the library district had similar needs, means, interests, and abilities. There were no specialized collections, no attempts to acknowledge differences, and few formal efforts to track circulation trends. Branch managers communicated with the collection development staff, and members of the public could freely request titles for purchase, but efforts at individualization were rare.

The community served by the old Natural Bridge Branch changed by the time its replacement opened. No longer solidly middle class, the area was in decline. It reflected all of the social problems that come with diminished opportunity. For example, from 1990 to 2009, the area served by Natural Bridge (chiefly the 63121 ZIP code) experienced several changes, among which were:

• The unemployment rate increased from 10 to 16.5 percent.¹
• Population decreased by 6 percent.²

The area served by Natural Bridge is among the most challenged in St. Louis County. The library, an institution with a long history and a stable funding source, was in a unique position to address the community’s needs. The will to re-imagine a library branch’s role needed administration and board support, however.

New Director/New Direction

Charles Pace became SLCL’s fourth director when he was hired in fall 2006, the same year he was named one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers. Pace left Fargo (N.Dak.) Public Library to take on a twenty-branch library system in need of new leadership and new ideas.

Among the early tasks Pace undertook was to adopt a master facilities plan as part of the strategic planning process. The master facilities plan examined each branch and made long- and short-term suggestions for each location. The plan took into account not only the physical condition of each building, but also population and demographic trends within the neighboring communities and within St. Louis County as a whole.

In some respects the master facilities plan is a wish list. The sum of the projects, $79-100 million, is well beyond the library district’s means. Like nearly every other tax-supported institution, SLCL has seen a decrease in revenues since the economic crisis of 2008. Costs have not decreased, however, and usage has increased. Thus, making the recommended changes has become difficult.³

The master facilities plan did not suggest major structural changes for the Natural Bridge Branch. The plan recommended a change in service delivery models, and that the collection should be overhauled.⁴ The changes could not have come soon enough. Statistics show that the branch was underperforming in nearly every measured category. According to an internal ranking method, Natural Bridge had been number 19 of 20 branches in circulation since 2001; in circulation per capita, the branch was also number 19 of 20.

In light of the poor statistics and the frequent unsettling incidents involving customers, the library’s administration needed to re-envision the Natural Bridge Branch.

Life Signs

One statistic gathered at Natural Bridge was quite encouraging. The number of visits to the branch was in the middle of the pack of twenty branches. The administration realized that the branch had a clientele; the question was how to give the clientele a building and a collection they would use.

One of the first decisions the administration made was to assign Peck as the branch manager. Peck had been the St. Louis Public Library deputy director. Although her most recent position there had been as a part-time librarian, taking on the Natural Bridge project intrigued her. She saw the possibilities and wanted to be a part of the branch’s transformation. Having worked nearby, she was very familiar with the area and its challenges.⁵
The next decision was enacted at all twenty SLCL branches. A strict weeding policy was adopted, divesting the library of thousands of outdated, unused, unattractive items. The shelves now had room for face-out presentation, which attracted attention to the collection. Visitors were presented not with an overwhelming phalanx of spines, but rather with an array of attractive covers featuring familiar and current authors. Another systemwide change placed emphasis on bestsellers and popular formats such as DVDs and electronic media. The new emphasis meant more copies were available and holds were filled faster. Non-holdable copies were also designated for each branch thereby further encouraging browsing.

These changes were relatively simple and not cost prohibitive. They did not create the full success envisioned by the administration. More dramatic steps were needed.

Seizing the Opportunity

The weeding project removed 47,344 books from Natural Bridge’s collection, so fewer shelf feet were needed. The continuing shift to electronic reference materials meant that the reference room was larger than it needed to be. In considering what to do with the space, the administration decided that it was time to re-envision the branch and its services. They started by identifying three problems:

1. Customers came to the branch to use the PCs and very little else.
2. While waiting to use a PC, many customers became frustrated and that frustration was evident by the disproportionate number of incident reports logged at Natural Bridge.
3. An influx of teens in the afternoon created noise and commotion each school day.

During the systemwide weeding project, it became obvious that the collection development policy needed updating. In addition to buying more bestsellers, DVDs, and electronic material, the collection was further adapted at Natural Bridge to include copies of urban fiction. This genre is particularly popular among reluctant readers and African Americans in their teens to twenties. Many of these titles are printed as paperbacks, so implementation was not expensive. The addition of titles by authors such as Tracy Brown, Shannon Holmes, Marcus Spears, and Wahida Clark was a major departure from the old standards.

The urban fiction titles became popular immediately. In accordance with the library’s efforts to market the collection, this section is visible upon entering the branch. A special section has been created for African American fiction, putting even more emphasis on the titles. In 2010, adult fiction titles at Natural Bridge checked out an average of three times per year. That same year, urban fiction titles circulated an average of five times per year. Urban fiction titles fly off of the shelves in the arms of those who have told staff that they hadn’t read a book in years.

Same Space/New Uses

After the nonfiction collection was weeded, most of the large study tables and chairs were removed from the main room. In their place, the library installed twenty-four PCs and workstations. With this addition, the Natural Bridge Branch had a total of fifty-one computers for the public’s
use, the most in the St. Louis metropolitan area at the time. The additional PCs cut the wait time and virtually eliminated the problems caused by numerous customers sitting around the branch. There was an immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of incidents. The additional PCs also made it possible for family members to use computers side-by-side. Parents could work and interact with their children simultaneously. This arrangement also shifted the responsibility to enforce good behavior from the staff to the parents.

By far the most vibrant change at Natural Bridge came when a new children’s area was opened. Named the Jean Weinstock Children’s Room (in memory of a library board president), the area is fun and educational. The design appeals to the regional affection for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, and was made possible by a $50,000 grant from the team’s charitable arm, Cardinals Care.

The Weinstock room has colored carpet tiles that form a small baseball diamond on the floor. “Fredbird’s Nest” is a free-standing structure with a puppet theatre for storytime or impromptu performances by children. When not in use for puppet shows, kids and parents can sit inside and read together. A green cloud-like structure covers the ceiling above the nest, suggesting the tree wherein the Cardinals’ mascot, Fredbird, lives. Four computers are in the room in addition to colorful, child-sized furniture, toys, and décor.

Adding the additional computers and changing the children’s area helped make the Natural Bridge Branch a place to visit quickly, to do things such as look something up on the Internet, or for an extended period, to read books in the children’s room or to play a computer game together.
Use of the children’s area has increased. Children from the St. Ann School, which is located next to the library, visit weekly. The school has no library of its own, so all the students, grades K-8, rely on Natural Bridge. Ten daycare centers, on average, bring children to the weekly storytime sessions, after which they visit the new children’s room for interactive play.

Teens without Angst

The administration realized that some of the teens coming to the library had no interest in studying or reading. After a long day in class, the teens wanted to hang out with friends and those interactions were more rambunctious than is usually tolerated in a library. Normandy Middle School is less than a quarter of a mile west of the Natural Bridge, so it was very convenient to stop there on the way home from school.

The administration decided to create a section dedicated to teens and tweens with part of the freed-up space. Furniture, equipment, and new items for the teen collection were purchased with grant funds. The teen space became inviting and comfortable, and a good place for teens to gather. The teen space is visible from the circulation desk, but it is separate enough that teens and tweens can socialize with one another without undue interference from library staff or the security guard. Doing so moved some of the livelier interactions away from those who need an atmosphere conducive to concentration.

Needs-First Library

The emphasis on addressing community needs created an atmosphere that inspired staff members to reexamine their roles. The computer lab at Natural Bridge had offered free classes since opening in 2003. The curriculum had been identical at all SLCL’s labs: intro to computers and a variety of Microsoft programs as well as tips on how to use the library’s electronic resources. The Natural Bridge lab trainer, Theresa Masters, noticed that many of the students came not for the class itself, but because they had specific questions. Masters created a service called Book-A-Trainer which gives a customer up to sixty minutes of the lab trainer’s undivided attention. The customer schedules an appointment and Masters teaches the necessary skill. Not only does the service help individual customers, but it allows the classes to stay on topic rather than being sidetracked with one person’s project.

Another need-based program has been introduced. The high school dropout rate within Natural Bridge’s service area is one of the highest in St. Louis at 11.6 percent.⁶ Peck arranged for GED classes to be offered at the branch through the St. Louis Public Schools’ Adult Education and Literacy Program. In addition to the curriculum used by the teacher, students are directed to the resources of the LearningExpress Library, an electronic database which offers prep exams for civil service and military jobs; math and language skills; workplace and career tools; and many others. The database helps those who have been referred to the branch by the Missouri Career Center, which is one half mile from Natural Bridge. The Missouri Career Center has PCs, but their usage policy is strict and limited to those who use the full services of the center. Career Center staff members refer most job hunters to the library. A growing number of adults and teens come to Natural Bridge to submit job applications, complete a résumé, conduct research on employers, or find job openings.

The Community Responds

The public’s response has reinvigorated Natural Bridge. Every effort the library’s administration and staff have taken to increase the usefulness of the branch has been embraced by the public.

“The new children’s room has made a huge difference. There is a pride in the branch we didn’t see before,” Library Board President Lynn Beckwith Jr. noted.⁷

The GED program has been very successful. In the first half of 2011, 558 students attended three class sessions each week.⁸ This program has been expanded to include an evening session.

The Natural Bridge Branch has a teen advisory group that consists of five regular members and many other occasional members, all of whom are between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. The group meets every two weeks and helps plan the teen section and programs. Members of the teen  group also volunteer at library programs for younger children. This group has grown steadily and anticipates making improvements in the teen center as a result of a donation for that purpose.

According to internal rankings, Natural Bridge showed an increase in the number of visits. In 2006, Natural Bridge was ranked 13 of 20 branches in number of visits. In 2010, the branch had moved up to number 11. Visits to Natural Bridge increased 39 percent between 2006 and 2010. The systemwide increase in those years was 28 percent.

Circulation at Natural Bridge has increased 65 percent since 2006. It should be noted that circulation usually increases when the economy is weak, as it has been since 2008. The other SLCL branches showed an average increase in the years 2006-11 of 42 percent.

Conclusion

Traditional, one-size-fits-all libraries ignore the needs of those who rely on the institution for personal growth and assistance. Tailoring a library branch’s offerings to the needs of its users not only benefits those who live within the community, it also helps the library.

SLCL’s Natural Bridge Branch was transformed by careful examination of what its users needed, and a commitment by the board and administration to find a way to get it. The administration responded to the leadership of Library Director Pace and used the skills, insights, and strengths of the staff to support his vision.

The result is that Branch Manager Peck surveys a new Natural Bridge. A bank of computer workstations is nearly full. One customer is getting the latest news from her social network while another gets one-on-one help establishing his first email account. A group of teens chat and laugh with each other in their own space. A young family in the puppet theatre reenacts a story they just read.

As Beckwith has said, “If you pay attention to the needs of the population you serve, you will attract new users. And the community will be appreciative of the branch.”⁹

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2009, revised, accessed Mar. 27, 2013.
2. Missouri Census Data Center, “MCDC Demographic Profile 3, 2000 Census,” accessed Mar. 27, 2013.
3. St. Louis County voters approved a six-cent tax increase on Nov. 6, 2012.
4. The Master Facilities Plan considered the Natural Bridge and Indian Trails branches together because they are close to one another, serve some of the same areas, and have see similar challenges among their users.
5. The City of St. Louis has a separate library system not connected or affiliated with St. Louis County Library.
6. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Comprehensive Data System, “District Dropout and Graduation Rates, 2007-2011,” accessed Mar. 27, 2013.
7. Lynn Beckwith Jr., personal interview with the author, July 6, 2011.
8. The school district does not share statistics regarding the number of students earning the GED through this program.
9. Beckwith Jr., personal interview with the author.

The post Tailored to Succeed: Meeting Community Needs Also Helped the Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Until recently, that is, when some librarians began to voice their concerns about their patrons’ abilities to efficiently and effectively navigate decimal-based organization systems. In America, Maricopa County (Ariz.) Libraries traded in DDC for BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications), a keyword-based system used by the commercial book industry, to offer patrons the parallel experience of a familiar bookstore. The Markham Public Library (Ontario, Canada) developed an entirely new local system, still numerical, but based on local library customer needs and wants.

A decade earlier, the Netherlands struggled with similar issues. The traditional system, SISO (a decimal-based system similar to DDC) was perceived as too difficult for children—even for some adults. Many individual libraries took it upon themselves to develop “audience-friendly” alternatives to SISO that used “everyday language,”¹ but these were quite specific to each institution. As more and more libraries implemented unique alternative schemes, the differences among these schemes became problematic. Classifications varied from library to library, confusing users. Local librarians had to maintain their home-grown systems and reclassify all their acquisitions accordingly. These libraries needed a system that was straightforward for patrons to use—especially patrons who don’t use the library catalog—both within individual libraries as well as across the country. Libraries cried out for a centralized classification system that would be universally applicable, easy for patrons to use and for librarians to apply.

In 1998, NBD Biblion took up the call. NBD Biblion is a national centralized library service agency which provides a variety of products and services, including acquisitions, bibliographic description/cataloging, binding, classification labeling, RFID/security, and more, to all types of libraries in the Netherlands.² NBD Biblion was originally formed by libraries, with librarians filling the board of directors. The organization is not government funded and so runs under a business model to continue offering services to libraries.

NBD Biblion began by sending representatives to tour the country and examine many of the locally developed systems, trying to glean the advantages from each one. First, they considered the idea of classification using color alone, but that was limited in many ways, mostly a lack of accommodation for colorblind patrons. Then they considered using keywords alone. Eventually, they drew ideas from all of these systems. They modeled the new nonfiction classification on a system previously designed by NBD Biblion to organize fiction by genre, where each genre is identified by a representative symbol, or pictogram, printed on the spine label of the book along with the first four letters of the author’s name (see figure 1).

The new system for nonfiction, PIM, uses a combination of color-coded pictograms and keywords to organize physical nonfiction library materials. PIM is designed to “speak for itself,” said Erwin Tuinstra, editor of subject indexing at NBD Biblion who oversees PIM.³ Unlike decimal-based systems, which essentially translate subjects into numerals, PIM clearly demonstrates the subject matter embodied in the materials. Tuinstra emphasized that PIM is specifically intended for library patrons who don’t use the library catalog or who are more inclined to browse rather than search for specific materials. Combined with wayfinding signage and innovative shelf labeling, he said PIM is designed to “show its own way” around the library without the need to rely on a catalog search or reference inquiry.⁴

How It Works

PIM is an alphabetically based system with two main parts: categories and keywords.⁵ Spine labels for books and other materials include both of these components, as well as the first four letters of the main entry (see figure 2).

Items are grouped first by category, which is represented by a color-coded symbol, one of twenty-seven pictograms grouped into color families (see figure 3). While there is no “name” for the overarching color-coded areas, each color clearly represents a topical area: red represents the area of the arts, blue for geography and history, orange for leisure activities like hobbies and sports, and so forth.⁶ Within each general pictogram category, items are assigned more specific subject keywords.

Within a library, items are grouped first by the pictograms and then arranged alphabetically by keyword. PIM has no prescribed order other than this alphabetical arrangement within categories. It is purposefully designed to be a flexible system in which local libraries can “easily make changes without prejudice to the national system.”⁷ Libraries may arrange sections in whatever order best suits their needs. So a library with a large arts section may choose to place that first in the shelf order, while a library with a collection heavy in history may emphasize that class. Some libraries may alphabetize by author or main entry within keyword sections, while other libraries forego this step. Since their patrons do not seem to utilize the alphabetical-by-author organization, these libraries save time shelving materials. Shelf labels and signage are used to navigate within a particular library rather than relying on a preset ordering system like those inherent in decimal or alphanumeric systems. Additionally, if a material is pre-assigned a PIM category that does not match the local view of how it should be categorized, it can easily be classified according to the local view without affecting the overall system.

Development

To develop the pictograms, sample symbols were shown to a test group of approximately 1,000 people, representing both librarians and patrons. Participants were shown a symbol and asked what the symbol made them think of, in order to see if the pictogram clearly expressed the intended meaning. After finalizing the symbols, a later study presented potential patrons and librarians with “dummy” books, mocked up with sample labels, for feedback.

The keywords used in PIM are derived from the Dutch NBD Biblion thesaurus (a Dutch equivalent of Library of Congress Subject Headings specifically designed for use in public libraries). However, sometimes adjustments are necessary to adapt keywords for PIM. This can be simple, like using a broader term as the PIM keyword when the work might ordinarily be assigned a much narrower term. For example, the Dutch thesaurus includes headings for individual soccer clubs, such as “Ajax Soccer Club” and “PSV Soccer Club.” Using these specific narrow terms would separate materials on the shelf, classing books on the Ajax soccer club under “Sport en Spel>Ajax” and books on PSV under “Sport en Spel>PSV.” Because keywords are filed alphabetically within categories, both of these books on soccer clubs would be separated by alphabetic distance, with “Ajax” under “A” and “PSV” with the “P”s. Instead, the broader term for “soccer clubs” (“Voetbalclubs”) is applied to ensure they file together. These changes are recorded and documented in the PIM literature maintained by NBD Biblion; however, the original subject headings are not changed in the Dutch NBD Biblion thesaurus. Rather, a “see” or “see also” reference might be included in the Dutch thesaurus to direct users to the term adjustments for PIM.

In an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) interface, what patrons see of the PIM classification depends heavily on the software used by the library. Some catalogs will only display the keyword; others are capable of displaying the colored pictograms as well. Libraries can license the rights to the pictograms in order to include them in OPAC development and display.

Application

PIM is specifically designed for libraries with nonfiction collections of up to 15,000 items—any more than that and it becomes difficult to scale. For example, a smaller library may have about a dozen books about various types of ships, and all of these would be classed in PIM under that general category. However, a larger library may have many dozen—if not a hundred or more—books about ships, which would all be classed together using PIM. This presents the library user with a large number of books to browse with no secondary class (such as types of ships: sailboats, submarines, and so forth) used for division to aid the seeker. PIM is currently used in more than four hundred small-scale libraries in the Netherlands, mostly public libraries, but also schools, and it is especially popular in prison libraries.

Some public library systems include smaller branches that use PIM while the larger central branches still use SISO. These libraries and systems consider easy shelf browsing, exploration, and access a higher priority than consistent application of a classification system across multiple branches. This also reflects a focus on tailoring the library’s organization specifically to its local users, regardless of whether it is part of a branch system or if it stands alone.

Support

NBD Biblion currently supplies pre-classified and labeled books and other materials to libraries as part of a larger cataloging and binding service in which a majority of Dutch libraries already participate. Now libraries can just choose to receive PIM labeling and processing rather than the traditional SISO classification. Libraries also have the option to purchase software and labels for printing from NBD Biblion in order to produce labels locally, in the event that labels need replacing, or if a library feels the need to make local adaptations. PIM classifications and keywords are included in the bibliographic records supplied to libraries, along with genre information, summaries (about 1,000 words, written by participating librarians and other professional authorities from all over the country), SISO classification, and Dutch NBD Biblion subject headings.

PIM is supported by the bibliographic description department at NBD Biblion, which consists of twelve full-time employees who create about 20,000 bibliographic records per year. Two developers within this department are directly responsible for PIM, but there are also many opportunities for users to offer input. In addition to the email address (pim@nbdbiblion.nl) used by librarians to submit suggestions, NBD Biblion also conducts panel discussions with librarians every other year to solicit feedback. One example of this was the major shift from twenty-six to  twenty-seven original pictograms: “religion” (“Religie”) was separated out from “spiritual life” (“Geestelijk leven”) due to popular demand, both from patrons who wanted the change for personal reasons as well as librarians who felt that the category was too large to encompass the number of materials at libraries with large religion sections. NBD Biblion seems very responsive to feedback from both librarians and patrons and is “constantly optimizing” the system.8 Any changes to PIM are processed retrospectively across previous cataloged titles and bibliographic descriptions to keep it current and adequately representative of user behavior and library collections.

Future Possibilities

Since its inception more than ten years ago, PIM continues to increase in popularity, and is in its sixth edition as of 2011. While currently only available in Dutch, NBD Biblion has received requests to translate PIM into other languages, especially Arabic and Turkish. Requests have also been made for NBD Biblion to develop a PIM-like system for larger library collections, and they are considering the possibility. However, scaling the system for larger collections entails significant challenges, the biggest of which entails developing additional levels of keywords, such as the previously described example about “ships.” Considering that until this year NBD Biblion has done little to no marketing for the classification system, PIM’s growth by word-of-mouth alone has been quite phenomenal.

So is this possible in the United States, a country 230 times the size of the Netherlands, with almost 800 times the number of libraries?9 Perhaps if we look at what characteristics make PIM successful, we can begin to evaluate the possibilities.

At the top of the list is PIM’s “audience-friendly” design: focusing on and aligning with observed patron needs and behaviors seems surely at the heart of its success. PIM offers an accessible and browseable physical collection while not significantly altering the search and retrieval experience
for those patrons who still prefer an online catalog search. Additionally, while offering consistency through centralized creation and distribution, it still offers libraries enough flexibility to make changes — local tweaks as well as contributing suggestions to larger, system-wide changes. Such participatory design in the initial design as well as ongoing maintenance of the scheme keeps it relevant to users and librarians, which surely helps contribute to lasting success.

NBD Biblion considered the scope of the project and targeted exactly which libraries and users PIM was designed to serve. By targeting smaller libraries and collections, with more niche needs and underserved by larger, all-encompassing classification schemes, NBD Biblion was able to keep the scope of the project and the scheme itself manageable, as opposed to an attempt to design a classification system meant to be used by all  libraries, everywhere. “One size fits all” often really fits none.

However, there is more to success than the design of the system. Without commitment on the part of NBD Biblion to devote time and resources to maintain PIM and keep it current, it would surely fall out of use as categories became outdated. Additionally, the centralized services provided
by NBD Biblion make it easy for libraries to use PIM—since most libraries already acquire 80 to 90 percent of their materials already cataloged, classified, bound, and labeled from NBD Biblion, they can simply choose which NBD Biblion-supported classification system should be applied to their purchases.

Scope would certainly play a major—if not the most important—role in undertaking such a project in the United States. The US may be a larger country with a larger number of libraries, but if the scope is chosen carefully, design and support of useful classification systems for smaller,
more niche groups is certainly possible.

Additionally, a secure commitment from a centralized organization to design, develop, maintain, and distribute the classification scheme would be required. Obvious choices include the Library of Congress or OCLC, although as the former struggles with funding issues and cutbacks such a
project may not be a feasible undertaking at this point in time. However, a vendor-based solution might also be viable, especially one that could offer simultaneous classification and acquisitions, as NBD Biblion does. Even a library branch or system might play this role, so long as the organization is stable and makes a solid commitment to the user-centered, participatory design of the system as well as ongoing, continued maintenance.

There are multitudes of classification systems in the world, besides just the ubiquitous Dewey and LC classifications. While these systems offer strength in longevity, it’s clear that more and more libraries in the US and abroad are interested in more user-based classification schemes while still maintaining centralized maintenance. PIM is an example from the Netherlands that we can look to as a success story to inspire similar progress all across the nation.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. NBD Biblion homepage, accessed Mar. 15, 2013.
2. NBD Biblion is the product of the 2002 merger of two library service agencies, NBD and Biblion.
3. Erwin Tuinstra and Linda de Man, personal interview with the author, Sept. 12, 2011.
4. Ibid.
5. NBD Biblion, PIM: Presentatiesysteem Informatieve Media, 6th ed. (Leidschendam, Netherlands: NBD Biblion, 2o11): 5.
6. Ibid., 7.
7. Ibid., 5.
8. NBD Biblion homepage, accessed Mar. 15, 2013.
9. American Library Association, “Number of Libraries in the United States,” accessed Mar. 15, 2013; Netherlands Institute for Social Research, “Table 1.1,” The Future of the Dutch Public Library, June 2008, accessed Mar. 15, 2013,

The post Picturing Classification The Evolution and Use of Alternative Classification in Dutch Public Libraries first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Is your library having trouble keeping popular e-book titles available? Instead of buying up multiple copies of e-books with no way of reselling them, Ingram now offers a way for libraries to pay for access credit so that concurrent users can access the same e-book at the same time. The Access Model is a new addition to their e-book platform called MyiLibrary, with more than 400,000 titles used by 3,000 libraries internationally. “As use of our MyiLibrary solution grows, our ongoing development of the platform continues to be driven in a large part by industry growth and direct library and patron feedback,” said Dan Sheehan, vice president and general manager, Ingram Content Group library services. ”Patron usage of e-books continues to climb, and the addition of our new multi-user concurrent Access Model gives libraries the flexibility to meet the content requirements of their patrons, and manage budgets effectively.”

3M Cloud Library and Tutor.com Now Integrated into the Boopsie App

For libraries currently using the 3M Cloud Library or Tutor.com, Boopsie has partnered with these companies to integrate their product with your library’s Boopsie native app. The 3M Cloud Library, with its 250,000 titles from more than 300 publishers, is now accessible to patrons through the app, making the whole process of accessing library resources seamless. With Tutor.com, library patrons can access one-on-one tutoring on the go with the Boopsie app. For students or patrons whose only access to the Internet is through their mobile device, these additions to the Boopsie app will make it easier for them to use the library’s resources.

Pay-Per-Circ Streaming Pilot from Midwest Tape’s Hoopla

Hoopla, which debuted at PLA 2012, has officially launched a beta version at Seattle Public Library and Columbus (Ohio) Metro Library. Hoopla, created by Midwest Tape after three years of intensive research, allows libraries to lend out movies, TV shows, music, and audiobooks on a one-item-per-user model or a pay-per-circ model that allows for simultaneous users. The pay-per-circ model will charge around 99 cents to $2.99 per item circulated with the majority of the collection under $1.99. Hoopla’s current collection contains around 2,500 movie and TV show titles; 9,000 audiobooks from top publishers like Blackstone, Scholastic, Tantor Audio, and Dreamscape Media; and more than 200,000 music albums. In terms of music, they hope to expand to 300,000 albums and provide more new releases from record labels.

The great thing about Hoopla is that it works on multiple platforms, and can be accessed either through their website or a mobile app. Patrons will have to go through a login and authentication process, as well as choose their library, before they can start streaming their entertainment of choice. For those who are worried that the streaming might affect the patron’s experience of the product, Hoopla utilizes a new technology that allows data to be streamed faster than it is viewed. Because everything in Hoopla is on a cloud, patrons can access their titles anywhere without ever losing their place.

Acoustik Audiobook App Now Available for Public Libraries

Patrons at libraries using Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 will now be able to download audiobooks by downloading the Acoustik audiobook app by Findaway World. The app, which is compatible with Apple devices, Androids, and the Barnes & Noble Nook, lets patrons borrow and download from more than 40,000 titles available through the Acoustik app.

“The addition of Acoustik audiobooks to Axis 360 is another major step in Baker & Taylor’s ongoing mission to provide next-generation digital services to libraries, and to provide patrons with multiple formats on one user-friendly platform,” said George Coe, president of library and education at Baker & Taylor. “To help libraries serve all the interests of their communities, we continue to innovate and expand our offerings. Our partnership with Findaway World introduces a new audiobook service to the market and ensures patrons have access to the content they want—whether they want to hear it or read it.”

Cengage Learning Releases Research App Questia

Cengage Learning is offers libraries an opportunity to help students with their research by launching the Questia app that allows students to do online research on their Apple devices. Questia is a research database with more than nine million books, articles, research tools, and tutorials. With the app, you can choose to search by keywords or topics, and users can limit their result types by books, newspapers, journals, or magazine articles.

Parents Will Benefit from the Newly Launched PBS KIDS Learning App

Looking for an app to recommend to parents of young children who want to teach their kids some math and reading skills? PBS has just launched a free app called PBS Parents Play & Learn featuring 13 interactive games, 52 hands-on activities, and a free-play sticker area. Each game includes parent notes with additional information on what the skills are that their child will learn from the app and how to maximize the game’s teachings for their child. Best of all, the app is bilingual, so both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking parents can use it.

Scholastic Introduces “The Adventures of Captain Underpants” App

Any children’s librarian can tell you about the popularity of Captain Underpants, and now Scholastic has introduced an app to make The Adventures of Captain Underpants even more entertaining. The Book-A-Rama feature will read the book aloud while readers follow the pictures. Avatarpalooza lets you create your own Captain Underpants avatar and silly name. Other games let you fight Dr. Diaper or guide Captain Underpants from danger to safety. There’s even a beatbox where you can create or listen to silly songs and sounds. Fans of Captain Underpants will love this extra way to interact with the book. The app costs $4.99 and can be downloaded from the iTunes store.

The post New Product News – Mar/Apr 2013 first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

But chasing the bleeding edge has its own pitfalls. Eventually something’s going to come along that leaves you lost in the weeds, which is exactly where I am in the search for new library data metrics.

No matter the industry, there’s a lot of opportunity to be gained if you can sort through large volumes of information and create meaningful conclusions. For me, this fixation was brought on by reading Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (W. W. Norton, 2003) almost a decade ago. Michael Lewis’ book exposed the way data analysis became an essential tool for quantifying the unquantifiable. By mixing sabermetric (taken from SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research) principles with traditional qualitative I-know-a-good-player-when-I-sees-it scouting methods, traditionally under-budgeted baseball teams could identify talented players that other teams had overlooked. The book completely changed the way I watch the sport.

Now, sabermetric principles are everywhere. Every team in the major leagues has a department devoted to crunching numbers. Governments at all levels are opening their datasets to the public, encouraging the creation of new data tools and creative approaches to municipal problems.¹ And a certain Baseball Prospectus analyst named Nate Silver applied sabermetric methods to the political sphere, making himself a household name (and helping us circulate a few books in the process).

Bearing all this in mind, I have to ask: are biblio-sabermetrics possible? Based on my conversations with other librarians, I’m not alone in asking this question. (And, yes, I recognize the irony of using anecdotal evidence to support this claim.) Conversations at conferences, the library coffeemaker, and on the web have all come to a similar conclusion: There’s something out there. We’ve just got to figure out how to harness it.

What’s Missing Now

One of the more spirited conversations I had occurred on Facebook, where I stumbled upon a thread started by Emily Clasper, system operations and training manager for the fifty-four libraries in the Suffolk Cooperative Library System in upstate New York. In a recent conversation over email, I asked her to elaborate on the topic.²

Public Libraries: Why do you see a need for new metrics?

Emily Clasper: Old methods for measuring library success just aren’t cutting it. Many library administrators are used to regularly generating a set of circulation stats and calling it a day. All of a sudden, the old circ transaction numbers are not enough to tell the library’s story—not by a long shot. Services are evolving, and they’re having a hard time showing their success to those who control the purse strings, which includes the general public. So I’m getting panicked phone calls from library staff members who intuitively know that their library is successful in serving their community, who see firsthand the growth they’re experiencing, and are frustrated because the numbers they’ve relied on for so long just don’t show that.

PL: What’s missing from our current methods of data-gathering?

EC: Lots. At least with the libraries I work with, many have no methods in place for gathering quantitative data about the non-circulation–related services they provide, even though these are the services seeing the most growth and investment. We need ways to gather meaningful statistics regarding library programming, online services, user engagement, and facilities use, just to name a few.

PL: Do you think extra training or expertise is necessary?

EC: Yes, a resounding yes. It’s really a field of expertise all to itself. But once you have the numbers in your hand, you have to know how to interpret them and what to do with them. This is, in my experience, something that is sorely lacking. I feel a lot of frustration with this, as it’s a complex topic and I’m not an analyst myself. I think we need to work on drawing from outside expertise a bit more, and it’s probably an area where library administrators need to get a bit of education so that even if they can’t do the in-depth analysis themselves, they can at least have an idea of the right questions to ask.

PL: What questions would you like to see answered?

EC: Right now, it’s mostly a matter of return on investment (ROI) for our libraries. They have some serious budgetary concerns to address, so it’s very important to be sure that the things they spend money on are effectively adding value and serving the needs of the community. Also, I think we need to ask many, many more questions about how well we really know our communities and their needs. I think that we make an awful lot of assumptions about what will be valuable to our communities from the comfort of our offices and based primarily on the feedback of the users who come to us, which is a self-selecting group.

PL: Do you see our commitment to patron privacy as a barrier to better data-gathering?

EC: Me, no. We have a duty to protect the interests of our patrons and honor their privacy, which means we have an obligation to find ways to do this without compromising that position. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done—we just have to be conscientious about it.

How Do We Do This?

Clasper’s responses above represent many of the common themes I’ve encountered talking with other librarians. Yes, we need better ways of gathering and analyzing our data. How we do this is another matter entirely. In some cases, this means diving into our integrated library systems, creating new reports, and building application programming interfaces (APIs) to identify patterns in patron data. It might mean developing new customer management tools, provided we can get our patrons to opt-in to sharing their information with us. And it might mean recruiting outside of our industry: recruiting people from the statistics or computer science world who can give us a better sense of what we’re dealing with.

Like Clasper says, there’s also the matter of what questions we should be asking in the first place. As we’ve learned from many a reference interview, knowing what to ask is more than half the battle. I’ve started a list of some of the things I’d like to examine. Here are just a few:

• Device use: In the age of multiple screens³ and BYOD (bring your own device), the raw counts of public PC use are only telling us part of the story. We could use patterns in our Wi-Fi traffic to identify much more about everything from which devices people prefer to when we can anticipate a spike in broadband usage.
• Third-spacers: The BYOD crowd also introduces the “Starbucks effect” in our buildings, where patrons camp out at open tables or study rooms for long periods of time. We’ve always talked about the library as a third space—why aren’t we supporting this argument with better data?
• Deep circulation: To borrow another concept from baseball, many of the new data measures are created by either combining two metrics together or taking an existing statistic and filtering out the less useful data.⁴ One possibility for looking at circs could be to measure the time between checkouts. If a book starts to exhibit smaller gaps between one checkout and the next, it might be a sign that it’s gaining in popularity.
• User mapping: Geographic information systems (GIS) software makes it possible to plot anonymized patron data over a map of a library’s service area. My library has used this in its strategic planning process, and it has provided a great deal of useful information about our geographic barriers to library service. As the tools become more robust, the opportunities become even greater, allowing us to identify patterns in everything from checkouts to program attendance to computer use.

Conclusion

It’s going to take a healthy mix of analytic thinking, mathematical ability, and creativity to crack this particular nut. In an essay from the 2013 Baseball Prospectus annual, Russell Carleton calls for more idiosyncratic approaches to data analysis.⁵ Given that we’re essentially looking for the inverse, I think this principle can easily be applied to our own profession. We’ve got plenty of right-brainers. We just need to develop some experimental tools to test the ideas.

So this is my proposal to you, public librarians. While data analysis has never been our strong suit, we’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge. It’s going to take a lot of trial and error, but eventually something’s going to stick. It’s time we become our own experts.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. I touched on this in a 2012 Wired Library column. If you’d like more detail, see Toby Greenwalt, “2012: The Year Code Broke,” Public Libraries 51 no. 4 (July/Aug. 2012), accessed Mar. 1, 2013.
2. Emily Clasper, email interview with the author, Feb. 27, 2013.
3. Mary Madden, “Four or More: The New Demographic,” program presented at ALA Annual Conference, Washington,D.C., June 27, 2010, accessed Mar. 9, 2013.
4. One good example of this is BABIP, or Batting Average on Balls in Play. This measure subtracts strikeouts from the original batting average, choosing instead to assess how frequently a hitter can get on base once they’ve actually made contact with the ball. The same stat can also be applied to pitchers, and reflects on their ability to get a batter to ground or fly out. But I digress.
5. Russell Carleton, “Sabermetrician Wanted, Must Have MFA,” Baseball Prospectus 2013 edition, King Kaufman and Cecilia Tan, eds. (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, John & Sons, 2013), 533-36.

The post In Search of Better Metrics first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

I will freely admit that adult reference is not my favorite area to work in, yet there are times that even though I work as a youth services manager, I still have to do adult reference. Just because I work in one department of the library does not mean I am immune to working with other age groups outside of that department. No matter which department you work in, working with every age group is part of being in public service. Which means even if you are not the go-to teen person or the teen librarian, you still will come in contact with teens at your library.

We should all advocate for and work with teen services in the library—no matter what position or department we work in. Advocating for the library is everyone’s job and teens are part of the library patronage. Every patron that walks into the library should have a positive experience, including teens. So how can everyone work with teens?

First off, don’t be shy! Say hi to the teens in your library. Make sure that they know that there are people at the library who take the time to notice them. Treat teens with respect. Don’t just point out when they are doing something wrong, but take the time to acknowledge them when they are in the library.

At my library, the reference desk and the children’s desk help pass out summer reading prizes. Our library is open more hours than the teen librarian can work, so there are many times teens are coming into the library to pick up prizes when the teen librarian is not there. Each year I encourage staff to talk to the teens that come into the library. Ask them if they’ve read any good books for summer reading or if they know about an upcoming teen program. This is something so small but it means so much to the teens who walk into the library. Taking the time to acknowledge the teens and letting them know that the library supports them and cares about them means a lot, especially to those teens who are constantly feeling as though they are on the outside and that no one cares. Something as simple as saying hi and talking to them about books can go a long way and make a big impression on a teen who will Working with have a positive experience at the library.

Did you see an article in the paper about teens in your area who did well in a debate tournament? Or was there a write-up about the local school musical or band competition? Share the good news about your teens with your entire staff, at meetings or in the staff room so everyone knows what your local teens are up to. We host a teen night after hours at my library every month and this is a great way for staff in other departments to help out with a teen program. If you have a hobby that you would like to share with teens, join up with your teen librarian to present a program. The more collaboration the better—it makes us better coworkers and it gives us insight into what is happening in all areas of the library. So often we get stuck in our own department bubbles and it’s good to branch out and try something new.

If you hear a teen talking about a library program, share that with staff. Teen librarians, you should share stories of your programs. Librarians often get caught up in statistics and we focus on numbers, but I think anecdotes and stories about our experiences at the library mean even more. Recently we hosted a local musician to talk about the music business, how to become a musician, and start a band. One of the teens that attended talked about how he was taking guitar lessons and came in the library several times after the program to get books. This sort of thing happens all the time in the library and we need to share our stories with everyone on our staff to remind us why we do what we do, and remember that it’s important to serve all ages. We are making a difference.

I know that not everyone loves working in teen services. Not everyone thrives in every area of the library, just like adult reference is not my favorite area to work in. But when I’m faced with an adult reference question, I don’t run and hide, I help the patron—because that’s my job as a librarian. We serve all ages in the library at all times and it’s everyone’s job to work with teens.

The post Working with Teens It’s Everyone’s Job first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

With funding to ALA from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), partnering with The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, this first phase of a multiphase initiative was planned to accomplish two things: (1) develop a sustainable national plan to advance community engagement and innovation and (2) transform the role of libraries in their communities.

As the importance of community engagement has always been my passion and a hallmark of my career as a librarian, I was excited to participate in Harwood Advanced Leaders Training to hone my skills in engaging with my PLA community. The four-day workshop began in earnest on day one with Richard Harwood, founder and president of the Harwood Institute, talking about the power we have as librarians to transform our communities, and how we must begin to turn outward to make real change in the lives of the people we serve. All of our work was therefore based on the Harwood Method as we learned how to turn outward to produce greater impact and relevance in our communities and how to begin this process organizationally.

We began with the importance of bringing people together to determine shared aspirations, instead of mutual gripes and complaints. We learned that when we begin to have conversations based on what people value about our library services, we begin to focus on their aspirations for the programs and services they wish to see our libraries provide and why those particular programs and services are of value.

Next, we learned the importance of Harwood’s “3A’s of Public Life: Authority, Authenticity, and Accountability,” and how to measure and assess each one to determine progress.¹ For instance, to measure your authority in the community, ask yourself if your library designs and implements programs based on a deep understanding of the community, or if your programming is simply based on the latest fad or pop culture trend. When assessing your library’s accountability, do you know the role you want to play in the community? Is it clear internally and to those outside your organization? And to access your library’s authenticity, would the people in your community say that the library’s words and actions reflect the reality of their lives?

The 3A’s can only be achieved when the public leader has deep public knowledge about the community she serves. We also learned that public knowledge can only come by having conversations with people in the community about their aspirations and concerns, and their views about their community. From these conversations, the public leader can discover the main areas of concern, specific issues, and finally arrive at what actions and solutions are needed.

On the last day of the training, I learned that ALA and the Harwood Institute will continue to develop a national scalable model for library-led change. I look forward to having a conversation with the PLA Board of Directors about our organization’s role in the implementation of this initiative!

REFERENCE

The Harwood Institute, “The 3A’s,” accessed Mar. 27, 2013.

The post Turning Outward first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

The Value of Outcomes-Based Programming

The value of outcomes-based programming is well-documented. Outcomes-based programs are relevant to the community;² they generate results that enable us to demonstrate their value;³ and they are cost-effective because they are tailored specifically to local need.⁴ However, despite this, summer reading programs are not commonly planned or evaluated according to outcomes-based principles. Consequently, the impact of summer reading programs is undocumented, although we suspect that they are not fulfilling their potential. We know that they primarily reach confirmed readers and the library regulars⁵ and they are at risk of becoming irrelevant to large segments of the community. As Francine Fialkoff stated in a call to action in Library Journal:

Libraries are no strangers to delivering community services, nor to goal-setting, but they need to ensure that they’re participants in these larger movements (often called collective impact). It’s critical that they’re providing what their communities need, and that they, too, are collecting data that illustrate the outcomes of their efforts and tell the stories of their successes to funders, donors, and voters.⁶

California Summer Reading Outcomes Initiative

With the support of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant from the California State Library, CLA has created the California Summer Reading Outcomes Initiative to help California librarians go beyond collecting output data—such as how many patrons participate in their programs, how many books those patrons read, and how many activities they participate in—and begin collecting outcomes data that provide richer and more meaningful information about the impact of summer reading. Outputs continue to provide libraries with valuable evidence about the popularity of their programs. However, outcomes data go one step further and provide us with answers to questions such as: “So what? Why does it matter that thousands of children take part in summer reading each year?”

The initiative was developed between 2007 and 2010 by Natalie Cole, Virginia Walter, Cindy Mediavilla (library programs consultant for the California State Library), and a task force of librarians from nine California library jurisdictions.⁷ Together, we created, tested, and refined two statewide outcomes; a set of survey and focus group questions; and a comprehensive collection of resources. The process was librarian-led to ensure that the initiative would be relevant to California’s summer reading programs, rigorous enough to capture valid data, and streamlined enough for librarians to implement in busy and under-resourced libraries. Because the initiative has been designed to relate to the successful summer reading programs that are presented in California libraries each year, librarians do not have to significantly alter their existing programs to participate.

California’s Statewide Summer Reading Outcomes

Two statewide outcomes that capture both the value and the potential of California’s summer reading programs are at the heart of the initiative. We developed statewide outcomes to enable CLA to gather consistent data from California’s summer reading programs and to provide libraries with a ready-made set of outcomes that can be implemented easily. However, we encourage libraries to set outcomes of their own in addition to working with those we have developed.

The statewide outcomes are specific enough to capture the essence and value of the summer reading program and general enough to be meaningful to libraries across our diverse state. They can be adopted by libraries that present children’s, teen, adult, and family summer reading programs. They are:.

1. Children (or teens, adults, or families) belong to a community of readers and library users.
2. Targeted community members participate in the summer reading program.

As we planned the initiative, we discovered that, although California’s summer reading programs are highly regarded by those who participate in them, summer reading participants tend mainly to be readers and library regulars.⁸ In all communities, there are children, teens, and adults who do not participate in summer reading and who would benefit greatly from more extensive outreach efforts by librarians. As a result, the initiative is focused on outcomes that relate both to typical summer reading participants and to California’s underserved communities.

Outcome One

Outcome one addresses the most common objective for summer reading programs: to promote reading for enjoyment. The results that are derived from programs that are designed to achieve outcome one help libraries demonstrate the value and quality of their summer reading programs. Summer reading participants tend to be active and engaged readers who already use libraries. And people who come to identify as readers are most often those who have found a social setting in which their peers also enjoy reading or those who are more introverted and like the escape that reading provides. Outcome one speaks to the first category of readers and allows for a more subtle interpretation of the library as a haven for those who find reading to be a more personal and private activity. Community is broadly defined. It assumes that any child, teen, adult, or family group that chooses to participate in a summer reading program identifies with the library and with the program, thereby becoming part of a community of interest. While the focus of the summer reading program is obviously on reading, it also aims to increase library usage and to draw new users into its community. Librarians who use the language of community to present the summer reading program to elected officials, teachers, and other significant stakeholders will find that it resonates with current political and educational values. It positions the library as a place for readers—not just children and teens, but families as well.

Outcome Two

This outcome uses the language of outputs, but it also indicates a change in behavior in the target group. It addresses the concern that most summer reading programs only reach the library regulars. It also challenges librarians to identify target groups of underserved children, teens, or families who have not traditionally participated in the summer reading program, and to devise strategies for bringing them into the library—or for bringing the library to them. Outcome one refers to libraries and community. Many specialists in child and youth development talk about the importance of building a web of community support to help families engage in the increasingly difficult task of raising healthy kids. The public library can be a critical node in that web of community support. Summer reading programs can help to draw people of all ages into that web so they can be nurtured by it and can be enabled to nurture others as well.

By being proactive about proclaiming the library’s important role in community building, librarians will build political capital at the same time that they are serving their patrons. Because we believe that this is such an important part of the library’s mission, we are committed to helping staff reach out to those community members who have not yet found their way to the library. The outreach outcome is intended to institutionalize libraries’ ongoing efforts to open their hearts and minds and doors to every man, woman, and child in their service areas.

Project Framework and Resources

Participating libraries adopt California’s two outcomes and set them as goals for their summer reading programs. They plan their summer reading programs with the outcomes in mind—which includes designing programs, activities, and outreach strategies that will help them achieve the outcomes. They use surveys and focus groups to collect data to determine whether the outcomes have been achieved. They report their results to CLA. And they use their results to improve their program, demonstrate the value and impact of their work, and set targets for the following year. The initiative is an ongoing project and we encourage participating libraries to keep presenting outcomes-based summer reading programs.
To help libraries transition to outcomes-based summer reading, CLA has developed comprehensive resources that are available for download from the association’s website. Our ready-made surveys and focus group questions make it easy for libraries to collect data to determine whether their outcomes were achieved. Each survey includes a brief list of questions and a set of indicators of community. We advise libraries to collect at least one hundred completed surveys from patrons at each participating site. Libraries can use the combined results they receive from the surveys to demonstrate that their patrons feel part of a community of readers and library users, and they can use responses to individual survey questions to gather quantitative data about the value of their program. Additionally, our focus group questions help libraries collect richer and more in-depth feedback from patrons.

Our project checklist takes library staff step by step through the planning, implementation, and reporting process. Tips and guidelines on administering surveys and convening and conducting focus groups help libraries collect their data successfully. And further resources include informational brochures; programming ideas; advice on community mapping and conducting community needs assessments; information on developing successful community partnerships; and guidance on using outcomes data to demonstrate the value of the library and improve library service. We have presented webinars on outcomes-based summer reading in partnership with Infopeople, California’s library training agency. And CLA staff is available to provide support by telephone and email.

Proven Results

The initiative has seen a variety of early and encouraging successes. In 2011, fourteen library jurisdictions participated, and in 2012, 183 main and branch libraries in eighteen library jurisdictions took part.⁹ As we hoped, survey results from both years are demonstrating that summer reading participants feel part of a community of readers and library users—a positive finding that suggests that these patrons will experience all the benefits that we know reading and library use confer.¹⁰ Furthermore, participating libraries are successfully engaging new members of underserved communities in the summer reading program.

In 2012, 175 main and branch libraries in thirteen library jurisdictions planned and evaluated their programs with the goal of achieving California’s first statewide summer reading outcome: children (or teens, adults, or families) belonging to a community of readers and library users. Of the tens of thousands of patrons who took part in summer reading in those thirteen library jurisdictions, 7,764 completed outcomes surveys (4,946 children, 1,783 teens, 171 adults, and 864 families). Taken as a whole, the data from these surveys show that most respondents see the library as a place where readers can find a community of like-minded people. They indicate that summer reading participants view the library as:

• A place to find things to read (77 percent of children, 75 percent of teens, 89 percent of adults, and 89 percent of families).
• A friendly place (49 percent of children, 53 percent of teens, 56 percent of adults, and 85 percent of families).
• A peaceful place (53 percent of children, 64 percent of teens, 69 percent of adults, and 68 percent of families).
• A place for them (48 percent of children, 51 percent of teens, 49 percent of adults, 74 percent of families).

Even more respondents reported that:

• They like to share books or talk about the books they read (65 percent of children, 63 percent of teens, 90 percent of adults, 95 percent of families).
• They enjoyed the summer reading program (87 percent of children, 77 percent of teens, 88 percent of adults, 97 percent of families).
• They will return to the library after the summer (84 percent of children, 84 percent of teens, 91 percent of adults, 96 percent of families).

Notably, a full 56 percent of children, 60 percent of teens, 44 percent of adults, and 35 percent of families reported that 2012 was the first year in which they had taken part in the summer reading program. We anticipate that these numbers reflect both the increased library use that we are also seeing at other times of the year, and outreach efforts at participating libraries.

Ninety-four main and branch libraries in thirteen library jurisdictions planned and evaluated their summer reading programs with the goal of achieving California’s second statewide summer reading outcome: targeted community members participating in the summer reading program. As a result of their efforts, 7,466 previously underserved community members participated in the summer reading program. These new summer reading participants included children and teens in a transitional housing facility; teens in a group home; Head Start parents; kids from targeted preschools, elementary schools, community centers, and housing projects; and families in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

Of these previously underserved community members, 3,063 participated in summer reading within a coordinated outreach program that was facilitated by CLA and is part of a statewide strategy (“Summer Matters: A New Vision for Summer Learning and Enrichment in California”). The strategy sees schools, after-school providers, libraries, parks, and other groups coming together to provide quality summer learning programs for low-income children across California. Public libraries are contributing to the strategy by partnering with community-based summer enrichment programs to engage children and their families with summer reading and the library. Summer Matters is spearheaded by the organization Partnership for Children and Youth and funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.¹¹

Since 2010, 10,120 Californians have taken part in summer reading as a result of outreach efforts at libraries that have participated in the California Summer Reading Outcomes Initiative. The effects of that outreach can continue long after the summer. In 2011, Sacramento Public Library took the summer reading program to a youth detention facility. More than sixty teens participated and twenty-four finished the program. All participants received books chosen with their interests and reading levels in mind and the library has since begun to provide donated books for the facility’s library. An LAPL staff member reported on the outcomes survey form: “The success to me was seeing so many new faces in the library. I continue to see some of them even after the close of the program, saying hello and of course checking out books.”

Los Angeles Public Library

LAPL has embraced outcomes-based summer reading. Serving the City of Los Angeles with its Central Library and seventy-two neighborhood branches, LAPL has offered a summer reading program since 1930. Until 2011, success was measured only by output measures such as the number of children and teens registered for the program; the number of events and activities offered; and the number of people attending those events and activities.

While these numbers are important, they only tell part of the story. Many children and teens who register for the summer reading program come to the library all summer long. But what are they getting out of the program? And who are these kids? Are they library regulars or new library patrons? To answer these questions and to plan a summer reading program that actively sets out to achieve its goals, LAPL participated in CLA’s outcomes-based reading initiative in 2011 and 2012.

LAPL has three main goals for its summer reading program: (1) to encourage kids and teens to read for pleasure; (2) to encourage kids, teens, and families to see the library as a welcoming and engaging place; and (3) to attract non-library users to the library. These mesh neatly with CLA’s two outcomes—LAPL’s first two goals could be restated as CLA’s outcome one, while LAPL’s third goal works perfectly with CLA’s outcome two.

In 2011 and 2012, all seventy-two branches and the central library participated in measuring outcome one for both the children’s and teen programs. LAPL used CLA’s survey, adding several questions at the end to gather additional data needed for in-house reporting. Every agency distributed surveys during the last month of the summer reading club and sent the completed surveys to the youth services coordinating office for collation. Because the data was being collated for the library system as a whole and not for each branch, agencies were encouraged to collect as many surveys as possible but were not given a minimum required number.

In 2011, the final number of received and collated surveys was somewhat disappointing: out of the more than 20,000 registered children, only 1,984 turned in completed surveys; and out of the more than 5,000 registered teens, only 611 turned in completed surveys. In 2012 we did much better, collecting 3,836 surveys from over 26,000 registered children and 1,478 surveys from over 6,700 registered teens.

We gleaned intriguing and important information from these surveys. The most popular answer to the question “Which of the following words describe your library?” for both children and teens was “The library is a place to find books to read.” Both children and teens indicated that they like to talk about and share the books they read, and both kids and teens love the summer reading program. In 2012, 67 percent of both children and teen survey respondents were first-time summer reading program participants, and more than 80 percent planned to visit the library after summer was over.

LAPL also measured CLA’s outcome two. Each children’s and young adult (YA) librarian was asked to work with branch managers to identify a group in the community that was not currently participating in the library’s summer reading program. Once the group was identified, librarians set a goal of how many members of that group would participate in the summer reading program at their branch. Finally, librarians specified how they planned to achieve this goal. All librarians received an orientation to this process during a professional information meeting.

In 2011, all LAPL branches took part in this process, but six branches were selected to be pilot sites. The children’s and YA librarians at these branches received more orientation and training on outcomes-based planning and were encouraged to conduct focus groups in addition to collecting surveys. Only these six branches reported back to CLA on the results of outcome two. In 2012, all branches and the Central Library participated fully in measuring outcome two, reporting at the end of summer on how many members of their targeted group actually participated in summer reading as well as on any success stories or lessons learned.

The underserved groups identified by the librarians, as well as the number they hoped would participate in the 2011 and 2012 summer reading programs, varied widely from branch to branch. Examples of goals include:

• five recently arrived Chinese-speaking families;
• twenty-five kids from a local low-performing elementary school;
• five families from a local housing project;
• twenty-five Latino teens; and
• forty teens ages fifteen to eighteen.

In 2011, when asked how they planned to achieve their goal, most librarians outlined an outreach plan, ranging from distributing flyers in their identified group’s home language to visiting a targeted school to offering incentives to those who actually come to the library to sign up. However, in only rare cases did librarians indicate that they would run the summer reading program in their branch specifically to appeal to their identified group.

In 2012, more emphasis was given during staff training on how to use desired outcomes to plan a relevant and successful summer reading program. If a children’s librarian wanted to offer a summer reading program that was welcoming to newly arrived Spanish-speaking families, then the programming and collection should reflect that goal. If a teen librarian wanted older teens to take part in the summer reading program, there needed to be something to attract these older teens and keep them coming back. Children’s and teen librarians were invited and encouraged to try new approaches in order to attract new summer reading participants and excite returning participants, including taking the program to summer camps, recreation centers, and housing shelters using our group summer reading kits. Many of our librarians rose to the challenge and created vibrant and successful programs—from enlisting teens to work with local artists to create a “library kazari” for the Los Angeles Tanabata Festival
to offering storytimes to children on the autism spectrum at the Help Group.

The 2012 results for outcome two were heartening. Librarians reported that 3,329 children and 818 teens from specifically targeted underserved groups participated in the summer reading program. When added to the fact that 67 percent of survey respondents indicated they were firsttime
summer reading participants, it’s clear that our librarians are offering and marketing a summer reading program that appeals to new library users.

LAPL will continue planning our summer reading program based on the outcomes we are trying to achieve. It’s a challenging process but well worth the effort. Our librarians have seen first-hand what happens when they plan programs with their communities in mind. Our stakeholders
have seen that the library is actively reaching out to all members of the community, not just the ones that already visit the library regularly. And our summer reading program just keeps getting better!

What’s Next?

The California Summer Reading Outcomes Initiative is enabling librarians to move towards more thoughtful and relevant summer programming and it is generating data that will help California’s summer reading programs stay vital, dynamic, and relevant.

Transitioning to any new service model can take time and resources. California public librarians are as overworked and underfinanced as any in the country. Many find it difficult to take on a new way of thinking and doing business at a time when they are challenged simply to provide basic services. Yet those who have participated have found that the initial investment in time has paid off with some unexpected dividends. Staff  members have acquired new evaluation skills. Administrators, board members, and other significant stakeholders are impressed with the results. And the more intentional and focused approach to summer reading has given it new life in many libraries.

Participating librarians tell us about the benefits they’ve derived from developing outcomes-based summer reading programs. For example:

• “Outcome two forced us out of our comfort zone and made us think about who is out there that is not being served.”
• “Focus groups gave tons of insight about what to do and how to communicate better with children and teens.”
• “The purposefulness of creating a community of readers helped greatly in making tough decisions about programming in our small and short-staffed library.”

However, despite these successes and the positive results generated by participating libraries, our numbers are small and the initiative is still nascent. To encourage more libraries to begin presenting outcomes-based summer reading in the future, we plan to: leverage the positive results and feedback to introduce more California libraries to outcomes-based summer reading; continue working with participating libraries to help them use their results as benchmark data to be improved on in future years; and disseminate information to libraries in other states. The Illinois Library Association’s iREAD summer reading program now includes California’s outcomes materials in the print and electronic resource guide it distributes to libraries nationally and internationally, which we anticipate will encourage and enable more libraries to embrace outcomes-based summer reading.

We will continue to develop new resources and provide extensive materials on CLA’s website. However, we know there is no substitute for in-person training to help librarians learn the techniques they need to present successful and enduring outcomes-based summer reading programs. We held a successful ALA preconference workshop on the initiative in June 2012, and we will conduct another ALA preconference in June 2013. In addition, we are beginning to provide smaller, personalized trainings for individual library jurisdictions.

And now that the initiative is beginning to generate data that demonstrate the value and impact of summer reading, CLA will combine these results with output statistics and with research on the value of reading and library use, and begin using them to publicize—to library communities, the media, politicians, funders, and other stakeholders—the value and impact of California’s public library summer reading programs.

We are asking for a culture shift in libraries at a time when staff and other resources are limited and we know that it will take time to facilitate  outcomes-based summer reading more widely. However, at times of limited resources, we all need to be targeting our resources to community need and demonstrating the results of our efforts, and outcomes-based programming is the way to do this. The road to widespread outcomes-based summer reading might be a long one, but the results are definitely worth it!

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. The California Summer Outcomes Initiative is part of CLA’s California Summer Reading Program which provides California libraries with summer reading materials developed by the Illinois Library Association’s iREAD program, and with training and resources to help libraries make the most of those materials. The California Summer Reading Program is supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the state librarian.
2. Rhea Joyce Rubin, Demonstrating Results: Using Outcome Measurement in Your Library (Chicago: ALA, 2006), 12–13.
3. Eliza T. Dresang, Melissa Gross, and Leslie Edmonds Holt, Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation (Chicago: ALA, 2006), 15–16.
4. Virginia A. Walter, “Documenting the Results of Good Intentions: Applying Outcomes Evaluation to Library Services for Children,” Advances in Librarianship 35 (2012), 47-62.
5. Susan Roman, Deborah T. Carran, and Carole D. Fiore, The Dominican Study: Public Library Summer Reading Programs Close the Reading Gap (River Forest, Ill.: Dominican University Graduate School of Library & Information Science, 2010), 47, accessed Mar. 27, 2013.
6. Francine Fialkoff, “As Communities Shift to Evidence-Based Measures, Libraries Must, Too,” Library Journal, Jan. 26, 2012, accessed Mar. 15, 2013.
7. County of Los Angeles Public Library, Fresno County Free Library, Long Beach Public Library, Monterey Public Library, Oakland Public Library, San Bernardino County Library, San Diego County Library, Santa Cruz Public Libraries, and Santa Monica Public Library.
8. Roman, Carran, and Fiore, The Dominican Study.
9. Arcadia Public Library, Glendora Public Library, Imperial County Library, Long Beach Public Library, Los Angeles Public Library, Moorpark Public Library, Oakland Public Library, Orland Free Library, Sacramento Public Library, San Bernardino Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, San Luis Obispo Public Library, Santa Monica Public Library, South Pasadena Public Library, Tulare County Library, Whittier Public Library, Willows Public Library, and Yolo County Library.
10. Stephen D. Krashen, The Power of Reading: Insights From the Research, Second Edition (Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited; Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 2004); Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer, Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community. (Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2006); Joan C. Durrance and Karen E. Fisher, How Libraries Help: A Guide to Identifying User-Centered Outcomes. (Chicago: ALA, 2005).
11. Full information about the strategy can be found on the website of Partnership for Children and Youth.

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