This was news to me; my how the educational product companies and toy manufacturers had shaped my understanding! I also hadn’t thought of toddler programs as educational initiatives. When I’ve seen adults and toddlers together at the library, I’ve usually thought “oh, aren’t those kids adorable” and “I’m glad people are getting together to have fun“. Though it now seems obvious, the educational and literacy component of Lapsit was lost on me.

This last point was intriguing, so I did some quick research. I googled “Lapsit” and got plenty of results from library websites around the country. I clicked through to the top 20 (all different libraries, by chance) and searched for the terms literacy and education in the page content, in images or as part of the navigation.

• 80% made no mention of literacy or education in conjunction with Lapsit
• 20% contained the term literacy
• 10% contained the terms literacy and education

Clearly these stats don’t tell the whole story, but they tell a good one about the help libraries need presenting information to the public.

Last month, library consultant Larry T. Nix (a.k.a. The Library History Buff) wrote about libraries’ success with early education programs in Little Kids and Public Libraries.

The science behind the importance of learning in children ages birth to three is overwhelming. Public libraries have proven they can implement excellent programs to serve this age group. The public education community is struggling to implement four year old kindergarten much less provide programs for this age group. There is a tremendous opportunity for public libraries to take ownership of learning in the most important years of a child’s life.

Why are public library administrators not recognizing and seizing on this opportunity. Why can’t we come up with major national and state funding programs to help public libraries take a major leadership role in this area?

This info ties into recent thoughts I’ve shared about running libraries like a business and getting behind an organization like a National Public Library Corporation.

Businesses know they need to be the top provider in at least one thing and runner up in one or two others to remain viable. Arguably, the same is true for libraries now that people have so many information and entertainment options. Early childhood education seems to be one area where libraries can emerge as an acknowledged leader. They’ll need help though — and focused efforts could go a long way in a more effectively structured system. For example, a comprehensive program kit on Lapsit could be used by thousands of libraries throughout the country. And if data systems were more uniform and better connected, electronic communication of program and training materials, administration and other functions would be unbelievably extensible. Just a click away, in fact.

The need to resource our public libraries more effectively is right in front us — as are good organizational, funding and technological models. The potential impact of doing so, through programs in early childhood learning (as just one example), is enormous.

Larry Nix is right about the value of a national and state funding program, however its impact would be mitigated if the funds were dispersed within our existing library structures.  Injecting funds for these types of programs into the system would only perpetuate its deficiencies based on what we’ve seen with a $350,000 library grant on digital privacy and a new $750,000 literacy grant. We need a new organization to solicit and wisely use funding for broad library initiatives and information infrastructure.

I’ve proposed an addition to the library ecosystem in the form of a National Public Library Corporation, similar to NPR or PBS. The National Public Library Corporation would be an additional resource to provide top-notch data systems, content, training and fund-raising support. Libraries would remain independent and locally governed and their association with the NPL would be voluntary. This idea would provide shared resources where it makes sense and preserve autonomy to nurture the authenticity and personalization community libraries currently provide. Because it’s an additive approach, there’s nothing to lose here that won’t be lost anyway if we leave things as they are. And there’s worlds to gain.

Welcome Guest Artists

I’d love to broaden the gallery with more photos and other image types that exude a love of libraries and help reinforce the brand.

Are you a visual person? Please consider becoming a guest artist.

A new $750,000 literacy grant from Dollar General Corporation caught my attention for a few reasons (here and here), not least because it exemplifies the high cost of library micro-grants. This grant, administered by the ALA, awards $5,000 to 70 libraries located in close proximity to a Dollar General store or office. The application prompted a few questions for me. If libraries get $350k, how much of the remaining $400k is allocated to program administration and development of the ALA’s American Dream Toolkit? Will this toolkit be the next PrivacyRevolution? Requiring use on bookmobiles was also curious; wouldn’t it be better to let the libraries determine how to best meet the needs for literacy services in their communities? Lastly, taking the entire effort into consideration, how much benefit would accrue to patron literacy services? (NOTE: my quick graphical cost/benefit analysis for a singular service – providing literacy tutors to individual patrons – is at the bottom of the post.)

The cost of this grant seems to far outweigh its benefit for patrons and participating libraries. I’d think staff time would be better spent delivering direct patron services and focusing on purposeful activity within their own control than working hard for a few thousand dollars laden with substantial overhead and narrowly prescribed uses. In fact, this may sound radical but I’d encourage libraries to ignore grants like this one altogether. They are structured to benefit bureaucracies and corporations and require work that is tangential to the genuine public value they can deliver.

Funding and service delivery are areas where a National Library Corporation (NPL) could add enormous value. The NPL could work with donors to leverage their contributions for maximum impact. In this case, it could use the $750,000 from Dollar General to create services to promote literacy and efficiently make them available to subscriber libraries. Surely a focused team with a large budget could do this more effectively than staff at dozens of libraries with just a few thousand dollars at their disposal and other job requirements on their plate.

For donors, the NPL’s development staff would have greater resources and expertise than individual libraries to provide visibility for their contributions. For libraries, the NPL could help them demonstrate value and reach out to their communities by creating high-quality program outreach kits. These kits would be part of a coordinated library campaign to foster constituents making connections between library programs & services … and aid them in saying “ah, there’s our libraries at work again”.

A key structural element of the NPL is that it would be more than an intermediary; it would produce services with direct patron benefit such as technical infrastructure, content, outreach and library staff training.  Individual libraries would simply subscribe to the services they find valuable rather than struggle individually to scrape together resources and create the services themselves.

It would be fabulous for patrons to know their library had access to quality programs & services they’d become aware of elsewhere. I’ll bet library usage and requests for services would increase if they were high quality, well-defined and well-promoted by the NPL. I also believe the public, foundations and corporations would more readily fund concrete, proven services — just like they do today with NPR and PBS.

Wouldn’t it be great if public library staff could…

• Conveniently access consistent, quality services from a single source for a single subscription fee?
• Access a single repository of well-organized and high-quality training, education and outreach materials (for patrons and library staff as well)?
• Work from a single dashboard with email, event/volunteer/website management, news, knowledge base, nationwide colleague network — perhaps even integrated research databases, library catalogue and patron database, meaningful statistics …
• Say goodbye to costly and tedious administrivia involved in working with micro-grants, ‘free’ internet services and multiple suppliers?

Sound good? All we need is a few million dollars to get the ball rolling … just a few million dollars to reinvigorate our public library system. Trust me, this one has a great cost/benefit ratio.

Cost Benefit Analysis of Dollar General 2010 Literacy Grant

Apply for grant & follow up.
Report grant application activity to local management, trustees, etc.
Participate in a 60 minute media training session with ALA’s Public Information Office (PIO) via conference call.
Promote the American Dream Starts @ your library using the @ your library trademark, the ALA logo, and the Dollar General logo.
Inform local and statewide library networks, including your state library association, of the ALA/Dollar General grant and your project.
Contact/inform your local Dollar General store regarding the ALA grant and your project.
Contribute print and online resources, including library profiles, to the American Dream toolkit and website.
Submit quarterly reports to ALA’s project manager.
Submit a comprehensive final report to ALA documenting your library’s accomplishments, the impact of the project, and your use of funds.
Recruit tutors
Recruit patrons
Schedule training, arrange payment for tutors
Deliver tutoring session

Welcome Guest Artists

I’d love to broaden the gallery with more photos and other image types that exude a love of libraries and help reinforce the brand.

Are you a visual person? Please consider becoming a guest artist.

They evoke feelings and thoughts.  They influence behavior.

Organizations spend billions each year creating and preserving them, for they know brand loyalty grows and dies hard.

I’d argue library is also a brand and needs to be actively managed to increase its visibility and public support.  A few thoughts and observations…

On creating a logo or service mark

Libraries currently do not have a logo; they have thousands of them. Each library creates its own and this can dilute the power of the brand.  I strongly recommend public libraries adopt a common symbol endowed with an extensible professional design (Apple does this beautifully) and clear usage guidelines.

On keeping good company

Earlier this month, the ALA/PLA announced a two-year, $750,000 grant from Dollar General.  Half of it will be distributed to 70 libraries within close proximity to a DG location.  In return for the $5,000 grant, individual libraries will be required to participate in a 60 minute media training and do a variety of other promotional work for ALA and Dollar General.

Dollar General is a low-end retailer that Hoovers describes as “living off the crumbs of Walmart”.¹ Not surprisingly, the company has a reputation for unenlightened management and undervaluing its workforce (here and here, for instance). The library grant is effective brand management for Dollar General because it associates the company with an organization that can elevate its image.  Can the same be said for the libraries?

On flattering your spokespeople

The Got Milk? campaign has painted a white moustache on hundreds of spokespeople over the years. In every image, the people look good and the brand looks real good on them.

Contrast this with a 40 year campaign to change the image of librarians. In 1970, the ALA hung a daffy librarian from a pole. In 2009 it brought nationwide attention to nordic warrior queens battling it out in the Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships. I can only imagine the campaigns in intervening years.  If choices from last year’s Top 50 Librarian Blogs² is representative, I’d prefer not to know.

On guarding your turf

I think it’s fair to say that not so long ago, people shared a reasonably consistent idea of what a library was and what services it provided.  This meaning has dissipated as libraries have become less secure about their identity and value, and other organizations have stepped in to provide traditional library services.

College libraries have become “information commons”.  Public libraries are becoming  library-communitycenter-coffeeshop-museum almagamations.  Google claims to be the custodian of public domain books on the cover page of every downloadable book in its collection and promotes its service as helping “readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences.”  And the tagline of the wonderful service, findingDulcinea, actually reads “Librarian of the Internet”.

Libraries need to stake a claim — to a strong identity and a few services they perform better than other governmental or commercial organizations.  Strong executive leadership can get them there.

¹Summary from Hoovers: Dollar General’s at ease with living off the crumbs of Wal-Mart. The retailer commands a chain of more than 8,700 discount stores in 35 states, primarily in the southern and eastern US, the Midwest and the Southwest. Offering basic household items, such as cleaning supplies and health and beauty aids, as well as some apparel and food, it targets low-, middle-, and fixed-income customers. Stores are generally located in small towns off the radar of giant discounters. Its big-city stores (about 30% of its total) are situated in lower-income neighborhoods. About 35% of its merchandise is priced at $1 or less. Two years after being taken private by affiliates of KKR and Goldman Sachs the chain went public in 2009.

²From the top 20: Annoyed Librarian, ranting from the shadows with wit and venom; The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian, a brash and sexy librarian who tells the mousy stereotypes to shove it; and The Society for Librarians* Who Say “Motherfucker”.

Libraries wisely seem interested in how to climb the ladders and avoid the chutes. With nearly 30 years (yikes) experience working in and consulting for businesses, I have perspectives and ideas that may help.  For starters, here are key imperatives that get organizations to higher ground:

Know your company

This involves taking an honest and hard look at your organization’s culture, resources and the value it delivers.  What does it do really well and what does it stub its toe on?  What is your company’s value proposition?  Which of your products or services are best of breed and which are me-too offerings?

It’s really important to know these things because they inform everything else on the list.

Know your competitors

Consultants will tell you that the top 2 providers of a given product/service have the vast majority of market share; all others divvy up the rest. They’ll also advise that you need to be the top provider in at least one thing and runner up in one or two others. So knowing your competition is just as important as knowing your own company.  What do your competitors offer?  Can you do it better or just as well?  What are the gaps in their offering and can your company fill them better than another can?  Are you able to deliver something no one else can?

Libraries have traditionally viewed themselves as outside the competitive realm, however the explosion of product and service providers over the past 30 years makes a new, competition-oriented mindset necessary.  People have more and more alternatives to meet their needs.  Given so many choices, what will draw them to a library?

Know your resources

Assuming you know your company well, where do you turn for help outside your core competencies?

Libraries tend to rely heavily on other libraries for innovations, best practices and affirmation.  It’s time for them to open up to more outside help.  I’m confident residents and community members with specific expertise like marketing, publicity, event recruitment and technology would be willing to share it if they felt their advice was valued and volunteer time well spent.  They’ll just as readily withdraw if they grow frustrated by library staff and Friends that cannot truly welcome new ideas and new people.

Protect the brand

Really important.  I’ll take a close look at this in the next post.

Be goal oriented, and specific

Setting goals is an inherent part of running a good business.  Well-run businesses continually set specific goals for themselves and their employees have personal goals, goals for their departments and more frequently for teams and projects as well.  Employees also need to be aware of and contribute to the company’s goals.  In business, we got lotza goals and ask the same question of every one:  is it measurable — for if the goal isn’t measurable, how will we know it’s been met?

We use the specifics of a goal to help drive new ideas and assess the value of work activities.  If what we’re doing brings us closer to achievement, we keep doing it.  If not we make adjustments, reassess, and abandon anything that’s not working.  It’s a continuous process and becomes second nature once you get the hang of it.

Turn challenges into opportunities

Well-run businesses are pretty good at this.  Sometimes the challenge arises out of pain reduction — employees will deem something a waste of time and figure out how to make it better. Or a customer rejects a product or service.  At other times a manager might initiate a challenge by saying “We’ve got a lot to get done this season and can’t afford to spend so much time on [work activity].  How can we get ahead of it this time?”  Either way, there is motivation to improve quality or reduce cost.  In business we’re always looking for a 2-fer or  3-fer, and so regardless of the impetus we incorporate providing better service, reducing cost and promoting the brand into everything we do.

Company culture is key here. Does your company have specific goals to help drive success?  Are employees empowered?  Are they rewarded for making things better?

Welcome Guest Artists

I’d love to broaden the gallery with more photos and other image types that exude a love of libraries and help reinforce the brand.

Are you a visual person? Please consider becoming a guest artist.

Discovery, doing research, gathering and interpreting results, that’s the very nature of being a scientist. There are people whose main focus is talking about science, but we have different names for them — teachers, journalists, editors, and publishers. Talking about science, communicating experimental results, teaching scientific concepts, and reaching out to educate non-scientists are incredibly valuable practices. Communication is an important part of being a scientist. It is not, however, the top priority for most.

Every second spent blogging, chatting on FriendFeed, or leaving comments on a PLoS paper is a second taken away from other activities.

Remember that social media shares a lot in common with pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes and social networks work better with more participants. If you’re involved in a pyramid scheme or a social network, it’s in your best interest to recruit others to join in. So there’s a nearly constant barrage of exhortations to participate, including unrealistic promises of future rewards.

Blogging tends to attract those with a strong interest in communication, writing, and teaching, along with activists who are championing a personal cause … What you see online reflects this small portion of scientists and may not be all that relevant to the greater community as a whole.

Science blogging is a tremendously insular world, and frequently an inwardly-gazing one. It’s often noted that the most common topic covered by science blogs is science blogging.

David does not suggest abandoning Web 2.0 technologies despite his reservations. Instead, he proposes a division of labor whereby scientists focus on doing science and others (publishers, journalists, etc.) focus on promoting their work.  Interestingly, this web 2.0 communication prompted a robust, multi-level discussion on the topic, an irony that I’m sure did not escape the author.

My takeaways…

• Libraries are not the only enterprises distracted by Web 2.0 technologies.
• An important aspect of this “do or die decade for public libraries” is putting technology in its place.
• David’s recommendation for science is a good strategy for public libraries.  Who would we enlist to discuss, analyze and promote the deep work of public libraries and what would they say?

Updated 3/8/2010: David extended his coverage with Science Blogging as a Public Outreach Tool — Unfulfilled Potential or Unrealistic Expectation?

Welcome Guest Artists

I’d love to broaden the gallery with more photos and other image types that exude a love of libraries and help reinforce the brand.

Are you a visual person? Please consider becoming a guest artist.

¹I’d be sure to run this particular segment after the campaign was well established and had delivered a range of spoofs, for I’d want to avoid it being construed as another example that sexism thrives in the portrayal of librarians …