Sustainability

Library Management, Library Spotlight, Online Collaboration, Rural and Small Libraries, Sustainability, Webinar
Library of the Month: NWILS — Building a Virtual Workforce
January 22nd, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

Our Library of the Month spotlight addresses an issue that many in the library world have faced: how can we continue to provide our services in the face of shrinking budgets? While none of us (normally) seek out organizational crises, the outcome of such pain can sometimes spark true innovation.

Bonnie McKewon, administrator of Northwest Iowa Library Services (NWILS) tells WebJunction how an ongoing slide in funding helped the organization to change how they delivered consultancy services. As budget and staffing shortfalls made clear the impossibility of their current model, they embraced an opportunity to develop an innovative, sustainable virtual-team/consulting model!

The spotlight provides insight into their successful program.

Bonnie is also presenting the WebJunction webinar this week on Thursday January 24, 2008 on the topic of Let’s Collaborate in 2008. She’ll provide suggestions on how to reinvigorate cooperation amongst libraries. Please join us for the webinar or stay tuned for the archive and associated resources.

edit: An archive of Bonnie’s webinar is now available for viewing at your convenience.
Featured Guest Post, Library Services, Spanish Outreach, Sustainability, Webinar
Guest Blogger: Jacqueline Ayala
December 10th, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

December Webinar - Funding for Programs and Services to the Latino Community

Join us for a free, one-hour webinar on December 11th from 10:00-11:00 AM Pacific Time.

This is the best time in the fiscal year to find sources of funding and collaboration. It’s the Holiday season, thoughts turn to human-interest stories and families are gathering to enjoy good times and special memories.

If you have a great program or service you want to implement that will serve the Latino community, and have not secured funding for it yet–we have an opportunity for you! Dr. Camila Alire, my co-author and I will present ideas and tips on how to find funding for programs and services to the Latino community.

In times of challenges to services for the underserved, lack of culturally competent workers, and too often persons in decision making positions that will not support or encourage outreach, one needs a resource that will provide a realistic approach to serving Latinos. If you have read Serving Latino Communities: A How-To-Do-It Manual then you know that Camila and I are sharing our research and passing it on to assist all those willing to reach a most rewarding destination.

Resources of all kinds are necessary to serve any target population. If your aim is to provide the best services to Latinos in your community, the funds to do so will be critical. As you draft your performance goals for work or formulate new year’s resolutions, plan to join us as we share our knowledge and experience. Then take some of these tips and work toward results.

Registration is optional, but if you choose to register and attendthe webinar, you will be entered to win one of two copies we are giving away of Serving Latino Communities: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians. Participants who register AND attend the webinar will also be eligible for a 10% discount on the book from Neal-Schuman Publishers. Select chapters of the book are now available in the Management for Outreacharea of the WebJunction website.

For more information visit Spanish Outreach - In Depth where you’ll find instructions for joining the webinar. I hope you will join us tomorrow. Feel free to post your thoughts, ideas, and comments here before or after the webinar.

Jacqueline Ayala
Principal Librarian
San Diego County Library
Featured Guest Post, Library Services, Online Collaboration, Rural and Small Libraries, Sustainability, Webinar
Next Rural Webinar: Library as Place
October 22nd, 2007 | Permalink | 3 Comments

What does the phrase “library as place” mean to you? How does it differ from “experience library” or “destination library”? What do these concepts have in common? At the next Rural Webinar, we’ll explore these concepts and share our strategies for making our library spaces inviting and useful to our “inhouse” visitors.

Please join Rural Webinar moderator, Brenda Hough and me, Cindi Hickey on Thursday in Live Space at WebJunction. Here are the meeting details:

Thursday, October 25, 2007
11:00 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET
For connection instructions, please visit:
http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=13377

Bring your ideas and success stories! We’ll see you there.

P.S. Want a preview? Check out Library As Place, posted by Peter Bromberg at the Library Garden blog.

Posted by Cindi Hickey
Advocacy, Library Management, Sustainability, Tech, chrystie
about us. about them.
September 6th, 2007 | Permalink | 5 Comments

One of the best things about my job is that I have my own librarian. Ok, she’s not ‘my’ librarian. Her name is Tam and she’s more OCLC’s librarian. But it still feels like I have my own personal librarian because I email her questions and she just, like, answers them. Rright away. It’s amazing! I’m such a happy patron right now.

Anyway, one of the projects I’m working on (with my colleagues here at the WJ, including ‘my’ librarian) is gathering some basic info about librarians in the US. Who are we? What do we do? Where do we work? How many of us are there? Frankly, though I don’t often come right out and say it, I’m generally not all that interested in numbers, but this project proved to be pretty interesting and so I thought I’d share some of our findings:
In 2006, there were 229,000 librarians, 119,000 library assistants, and 113,940 library technicians (for a total of 461,940 library workers). Side note: as of last month, WJ has around 30,000 members (total) and over 500,000 unique visitors to the site (in the last year). Looks like folks know we’re here but we have a ways to go before we entice people to join the fun!
Around 60% of librarians in the US are over 45 and projected to reach retirement age over the next 10 years; 40% of library directors plan to retire in the next eight years.
Meanwhile, there are 57 ALA accredited library schools in the US, with just under 5,000 students awarded an MLIS or equivalent every year (1980-2002 average was 4,600). There won’t be a surplus of graduates to retirees until around 2020, with the biggest deficit between the years 2015-2019.
In 2006, 30% of reported MLIS job placements went to Public Libraries, 24% to Academic Libraries, 20% to School Libraries, 8% to Special Libraries, 5% to Government Libraries, .25% to Networks and Library Schools, and 1% to Vendors. Everyone else? You guessed it: Other.
The three highest ranking job categories (also in 2006) were Reference and Information Services (19%), School Library Media Specialist (18%) and, again, Other (10%).

Two ideas emerge from these stats. First, if the bulk of retiring librarians is at the director level, who will the profession promote to those positions? Even if the post-MLIS force keeps up with retirees, will they be ready for the positions they’re asked to fill? Second, if MLIS students are increasingly moving into non-traditional environments instead of taking traditional positions in public, school, academic or other types of libraries, where does that leave us institutionally?

I’d like to append to these facts and figures with an impression that has developed for me through conversation with colleagues over the last several years. Some of my friends in LibraryLand, many of whom are extremely innovative, ambitious, and eager to contribute to the profession, are often struggling in their library jobs. They seem unsupported by their institutions, sometimes specifically by their library directors and senior colleagues. Age, along with tech savvy or advocacy and a shift towards community-based authority or expertise layers in additional divisive factors, sometimes widening the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’. I have personally benefited from relationships and mentoring with elders in our field - I won’t call them traditionalists! - as well as from very strong institutional support from my employer for my work. But I’m wondering if there’s a way to shift our culture as a profession so that my experiences along these lines are more of a norm, rather than an exception.

And so, how can we bridge these gaps in our daily work? Can we create inter-generational or inter-experiential dialog and (two-way) mentoring so that the library profession, and our institutions, can thrive (not just survive) in the midst of this particular change?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach this. At least two projects in the works so far! Stay tuned…

August 21st, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

Join us on August 23, 11:00 am PT/ 2:00 pm ET for You can do it! Practical techniques for supporting public computing. How are your peers meeting the challenges of providing access to public computers? Pooling resources, developing technology plans, and staff training are three things that can help. In this month’s Rural In Focus webinar, we will take a look at The Joy of Computing Cookbook for small and rural libraries at www.maintainitproject.org. Join a lively discussion around best practices that will include three of the libraries who contributed to the cookbook. Bring your success stories as well as your nightmares, and let’s find solutions together! Find information on joining the webinar and see archives of past webinars at Rural In Focus.

July 30th, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

I know that competencies are a hot topic when 160 people show up for one of WJ’s Learning Webinars. If you missed Core Competencies for Library Staff, the archive is available for viewing. Launch the recording, type your name in the box and click Enter. (If the login window doesn’t pop up, click the “Participant Login” button.) If you’ve used Wimba on your computer before, there’s no need to run the wizard again; just use the “click here” link. The movable table of contents window allows you to jump forward and back through the slides.

Many thanks again to Sarah and Karen for sharing their expertise!

July 23rd, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

I noted over on the CE Buzz blog the recent sizzle over competencies for library staff. How timely that WebJunction’s Learning Webinar series is spotlighting competencies in this week’s presentation: Core Competencies for Library Staff. With guests Sarah Houghton-Jan, author of Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries, and Karen Strege, project director for Western Council of State Libraries, there should be a rich flow of information on the topic.

Follow the instructions for getting online. And I hope to see you Wednesday!

July 6th, 2007 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Yes, it’s true; we’re passionate about rural libraries.

And I can’t think of anything more invigorating than a gathering of fellow rural library fans. After every conference, I spend weeks reminiscing about the sessions, the conversations, and the inspiration. But this year really tops them all. WebJunction had the great honor of hosting a gathering of over 180 library staff who work in or for rural libraries across the country. I told you back in May about the folks selected to attend the Rural Forum @ ALA and am now excited to share news of the fantastic presentations, resources and rich discussion coming out of the gathering (and check out the great stuff from last year’s gathering in New Orleans!). We’ll be talking about this year’s highlights during July’s Rural In Focus webinar including the Rural Café (imagine a café filled with 180 librarians brainstorming) and Jana Ponce’s dynamic and inspirational keynote presentation (everyone’s talking about it!).

Oh, and did I mention the pictures?? (Thank you Susan!)

June 21st, 2007 | Permalink | 2 Comments

Rural Course
Certainly not to be overshadowed by all the ALA doings, today is the official launch of WebJunction’s Rural Library Sustainability Online Course. With the completion of 3 rounds of on-the-ground workshops in 42 states across the country, this course now provides the opportunity for everyone in the WebJunction community to learn (at their own pace and for FREE) new strategies for sustaining the great work of their libraries. The course explores seven areas critical to sustainability and includes case studies of rural libraries that have developed and completed action plans in these areas. Learners are guided through a supportive action planning process by identifying goals, selecting activities and learning about peer-recommended resources that will help them accomplish their goals! We’re VERY excited about the course (can’t you tell!!) because it allows folks to focus on ANY area and provides customized documentation for them to actively engage with their staff, boards, and library communities in the action planning process. Please, spread the word!

May 10th, 2007 | Permalink | 1 Comment

I’m checking in from the Wilkes County Public Library in North Carolina, where I’ve been camped out on wireless, finally getting caught up on some work. It’s amazing how much I can get done when I’m out of the office! My completed tasks include finally getting some Rural Library Sustainability workshop photos into WebJunction at Flickr. I’ve added shots from LA, MN, TX and NC where I was most recently treated to the themed workshop, “Your Library Fortune.” Dana and Timothy, the NC trainer and coordinator, pulled out all the stops with their celebratory Chinese theme, complete with fans, snazzy take-out containers, dragons and fortune cookies. Dana had us share a variation on the fortune cookie game…you know the one, where you tag THAT phrase on the end of the fortune. Well instead, we added “in the library” so my fortune read “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love, in the library.” Lots of unexpected fortunes were shared, but perhaps the most exciting was meeting Jackie Cornette, Library Journal’s Paraprofessional of the Year 2007! See more about her at PARAPROSE, the North Carolina Library Paraprofessional Association’s blog.

March 15th, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

WJ Meeting at Seattle Public Library
Kannan (his hand anyway), Chrystie, Anna, Dave, Jeff, Joe, Doug, Clayton, Dale, Mike and Janet….toasting WJ in the middle of a big ole’ planning meeting.

Here is a very happy shot of a nice hunk of your friendly neighborhood WJ team members during a recent meeting we had in Seattle. Three days of very productive meetings were held in the always visually impressive main Seattle Public Library. We worked and thought very hard, focusing like lasers on the tasks at hand and getting lots and lots done. Heck, we even sang a song along the way. In fact, we were singing when I took this shot! While I can’t repeat the words to this particular song, suffice it to say that Jeff was hazing me by leading the group sing-along of this particular ditty. Don’t worry, for the greater good of the community legal action will not be forthcoming.

In addition to singing, we really did work very hard. Trust me when I promise that you’ll see result springing up as we move forward (cool, cool stuff!).

While we’re talking about being at the Seattle Public Library here is a shot of one of Libraryland’s very favorite Chrysities, Chrystie Hill. She was on break from this meeting in the hallway, on her cell phone, in a separate meeting! Between that and the reflection on the floor, we’ve got some seriously recursive action going on here! Enjoy!

March 1st, 2007 | Permalink | 4 Comments

What gives? Why haven’t you seen more BlogJunction posts this week? Two words:

1. Refresh!

2. Meetings!

Well, that might be a slight over simplification, but we really have been kicking up some dust ’round WebJunction way lately, both in relation to current projects and in relation to the planning of future projects. Sweet, sweet planning, how we love you (I really mean that btw).

Have you heard any of us say lately that this is the most exciting time ever to work in/with and/or for libraries? The buzz is palpable around the office, the main WebJunction site, the Community Partner sites, and most importantly in lots of libraries all over the place, the very libraries that are the reason we exist in the first place. Sure, I sound like a cheerleader, but I promise you it is genuine and well deserved excitement.

Now, just so you know we are working hard in our many meetings to get the things you need us and want us to get accomplished actually accomplished, I offer you a bit of a visual riddle. Perhaps the riddle might soften the blow of fewer blog posts this week? Sadly, I can’t really jump out there and say the answer to the visual riddle provided below. Still, it might be fun to hear your speculations about this image. What the heck were we doing in this meeting anyway? Rest assured we do know! *snicker* Even though *we* know, it might fun to hear what you might guess. You’ll play nice with this one, right? Here’s the picture (click it for a link to a larger size if you need it):

Anyone care to speculate?

November 8th, 2006 | Permalink | Comment?

Having just come back from the tech-infectious Internet Librarian conference, I have notes full of new online toys to investigate and a head swimming with new ideas. In the midst of my saturation in stimulating conference sessions, I was writing up the November Library of the Month story about the Northwest Regional Library in South Dakota. What a contrast!

As enticing as it is to be swept up in all the must-do’s and gotta-get’s of cool new technologies for libraries, the story of rural Harding County’s library and bookmobile reminds me that there is a core of library service that endures apart from technology. The story is about family and community and an abiding belief in the transformational power of libraries, no matter how small. Yes, there are DSL connections and electronic databases, but the real energy comes from the human sparkplugs, the individuals with the dedication and “we can do it” attitude that drives true success, whether high tech or low.

July 13th, 2006 | Permalink | Comment?

Cindi Hickey is one of my most inspiring colleagues. Her recent work on WebJunction Kansas deserves a round of applause. Congrats Cindi, the site really looks fab, not to mention all the great work you’re doing to let Kansas librarians know about their new service!
But what Cindi impressed me with most recently is her new Building a Sustainable Future blog - just started to support her work with Kansas-statewide Rural Library Sustainability workshops offered in collaboration with the Gates Foundation, the State Library of Kansas, and WebJunction. Cindi even took Brendan up on his offer and posted our fancy new “join WebJunction” button on the right side bar.
Just knowing that you have a blog out there supporting the idea of building a sustainable future for libraries in Kansas makes me simply feel a bit better about (and more supported around) the challenging and sometimes overwhelming task all libraries ultimately have in this area. Looks great, Cindi! Keep up the good work.

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Sustainability

Library Management, Library Spotlight, Online Collaboration, Rural and Small Libraries, Sustainability, Webinar

Featured Guest Post, Library Services, Spanish Outreach, Sustainability, Webinar

Featured Guest Post, Library Services, Online Collaboration, Rural and Small Libraries, Sustainability, Webinar

Advocacy, Library Management, Sustainability, Tech, chrystie

Sustainability, Tech

Library Management, Sustainability, Tech

Library Management, Library Services, Sustainability, Technology Planning

ALA2007, Sustainability

Online Learning, Sustainability

Library Services, News, Sustainability

Meet Ups, Seattle, Sustainability, WebJunction Staff

Advocacy, Design, Library Services, Online Collaboration, Online Learning, Sustainability, Technology Planning

Library Services, Sustainability

Advocacy, Library Management, Online Collaboration, Sustainability