Western New York Library Resources Council

Friday April 24, 2015

Stephen Abram, MLS

Provocations: Big Trends in Library Land:Member, Researcher & Learner Engagement

TRADIGITAL!

WHAT WEDGIES DO WE NEED TO SUCCEED?

Libraries are multifaceted and complex . . . And not trivial

There is a lot to do to craft a strategy and argument for libraries

What should help…

Measurements (not stats)

Public Opinion

Stories and Testimonials

Digital and Social Presence

Political Presence

Influence Training for the Team

What Technologies work and have impact?

Are libraries social institutions?

Why do we ask questions? Where does learning become research?

Why do we read? How do we read?

What really supports community engagement?

What really looks like learning?

What are the right questions?

From good questions . . .

Come great answers and strategies

Who do you serve?

Think Deeper, Know More.

So, from an international perspective… just next door in America’s Hat

• Ontario Public Library Statistics (open data, 1997-2013, ranked by cohort)

• Specialized research into reading readiness, school libraries, e-books, etc.)

• Surveyed city clerks and politicians about strengths and weaknesses of public libraries

• FOPL Index of Community Engagement• 2015 Ontario-wide Public Opinion Poll • Census of Digital Presence (websites, positioning, social

media, social networks)• 10 Part Advocacy webinar series plus a MOOC• VIP Value Impact and Positioning of Libraries• Leading to an Open Media Desk• For the scholars . . . OCUL

So now we know stuff

• For example:

• We have no real need to reinforce the book issues

• Cardholder growth is lagging population growth

• We have cardholder holes and underperform in certain segments

• Our funders think we don’t play well with others or work hard enough on economic and development impact issues

• Digital libraries continue to suck

• etc.

Why?

Because libraries are entering the perfect storm.

You decide!

You decide!

You decide!

You decide!

You decide!

You decide!

And, sadly, there is no single, right answer.

THE TPL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY

Insights from Qualitative and Quantitative Impact Measurements

Kimberly Silk, MLS - Data Librarian, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Co-Author, “So Much More: The Economic Impact of Toronto Public Library on the City of Toronto”

Katherine PalmerDr. Kevin StolarickKimberly Silk, MLS

So Much More:

The Economic Impact

of the Toronto Public

Library on the City

of Toronto

January 15, 2014

Message 1: The Economic Impact of TPL

Message 3: The Value of an Open Hour

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Total direct benefits reach $502 per member

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Toronto Public Library delivers $5.63 of economic impact for every $1 spent

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Return on Investment

ROI is 463%

The return from the City of Toronto’s investment in the Toronto Public Library is

463%, which is the midpoint of a range very conservatively estimated to be 244% and is

comfortably shown to reach 681%.

Neighbourhood Branches Provide Communities Intangible Benefits

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“Cities that promote diversity and tolerance also tend to become places that are open to new ideas and different perspectives, promoting creativity. This in turn builds cities that are attractive to individuals and businesses involved in the creation of new ideas, products and services.”

The Importance of Diversity to the Economic and Social Prosperity of Toronto, MPI, 2010

Intangible benefits deliver

valueOpportunities for residents to improve their literacy skills, enhance their educational and employment opportunities, and improve quality of life for themselves and their families through library collections, services and programs deliver a lifetime of value to residents and increase the economic competitiveness and prosperity of Toronto.

Why These Findings Matter• At the City Council meeting, January 15-17, 2013, Council passed a motion to request that the

Chief Librarian prepare a cost-benefit analysis of the Open Hours Policy and the economic impact of Library services and provide a report to the City Manager for review and report prior to the 2014 budget process.

• The 3 key findings addressed the information request from Toronto City Council.

• These findings provided the information councillors needed to make an informed vote re: TPL proposed budget.

• Result: TPL’s 2014 budget request for a 1.4% increase over the 2013 budget approved, including funding for for the first year operating costs of two new branches, Fort York and Scarborough Civic Centre. It also includes funding for increased open hours at seven district libraries and the Toronto Reference Library, standardizing hours for all research and reference libraries and district branches to 69 hours per week, including Sundays. (Source: TPL news release)

What We Learned• Collecting lots of data doesn’t mean you’re collecting the useful

data.

• Data collection must be directly linked to the message / proof you need to deliver to stakeholders.

• A data snapshot isn’t enough – data collection strategy & analysis must be an ongoing process, to provide ongoing evidence of economic value.

• We can replicate the expensive MPI study quickly and simply at lower cost.

For Scholars• How we communicate consortial buys

• E.g. $300 Mil + $180 mil

• Or

• 2 cents an article and a thousand times more resources

• Or

• $56 per student or half the cost of just one textbook for one course

• Value and impact studies in academic libraries are underdeveloped.

Next Week . . .

• Libraries 2025

• (based on the success of Libraries 2020 that generated $15 + 3 Million)

• Invested in:– Province wide database licensing

– Province wide e-book collections

– LearnHQ – sector wide e-learning, mentoring and performance management

– Marketing campaign in works

Stop the Insanity

New Hashtag

#specialkindofstupid

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Libraries core skill is not delivering information

Libraries improve the quality of the question and the

success of user experiences

Libraries are about improving learning and building communities

Retail Sales Down?

Teen Reading Down?

Titles Down?

Circulation Down?

Reading Down?

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

Focus on the REAL IssuesNot BOOKS! The experience

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Stop Having and Engaging in Trivial Discussions

• Libraries are more relevant than ever

• We have no good reason to be on the defence – change to offensive positioning

• Reading is UP

• E-Books aren’t replacing p-Books - the dynamic is a new hybrid marketplace

• E-Books have benefits that p-Books don’t and vice versa

• Librarians are being hired and doing well

• Our market is growing and diversity and teams are a norm

• Change is our tradition

• We have (nearly) all evolved and become TRADIGITAL

• That said . . . Our image in public opinion lags this evolution

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Comprehensive Digital Strategies: More than just Content!

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Biggest Issue: Getting Lost in the Reeds

Digital is more complicated than Print.

What are the BIG Questions?

What are your top 20 buckets of questions?

When you know that, what are your staffing, programs, and collection alignment

strategies?

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Re-Framing

• Libraries are essential economic, social, innovation, and educational infrastructure.

• It’s not just going beyond books – we always did!

• Community engagement is a platform. Books are a foundation. The magic happens in the programs.

• Every collection justifies and aligns with a program.

• Every statistic serves to create a measurement and every measurement supports a story and a matrix of proof for positive impact.

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Branding: How are Ontario PL’s describing themselves?

Some (not all) ‘Trends’

Diffusion is the issueNot ideas and pilots and experiments

It’s not the money – but leadership, risk-taking, culture, energy and breaking inertia

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Let’s talk top tech trends . . . There are too many! Arrghhh!

• Cloud & TCO• Mobile – mobile first and apps• Discovery• Engagement• Geo• Data through Insight – Data Info Knowledge Behaviour• SurveyMonkey and ForeSee• Research: Pew, Market Probe, OPLDS, OMBI, etc.• Personas• Steaming media• BiblioCommons • Experience Portals• MOOCs, e-Learning, & more• Measurements and Stories• Branding• CRM, Customer Service and cross functional teams• Beacons

RECREATIONAL READING

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BISAC

Schools

STREAMING MEDIAWhat pilots are you engaging in?:• to replace the DVD portfolio• for audiobooks, talking books• for podcast discovery• for the visually impaired community• to deal with subscription and community gaming• to support discovery and reviews• to support multilingual discovery• non-fiction vs. fiction video discovery• Trailers

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REPOSITORIES

Get real

• Go beyond text

• Linked Data in a bigger way

• Avoid archipelagos

• Do the SEO

• Make them visible and not dark web

• Stop hiding them

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POP-UP EVENTS

• Word on the Street

• Sidewalk Sales

• Campus quads

• Mall Walkers

• Survey and cardholder campaigns

• Reach (vs. Outreach)

• Mobile Makerspaces

• Partnerships (Chambers of Commerce, Clubs, etc.)

• Search G-Images for Pop-Up Library or Little Free Libraries for inspiration…

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REINVENTED BOOKMOBILES

Fraser Valley’s LiLi

Ottawa Public Library’s (Pop-Up) Bookmobiles

LibraryBox, iBeacons

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STORY HOURS

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Record your Story HoursYouTube Your Story HoursTie in to collection• Parenting• Children’s Health• Continuing EducationMoms and Caregivers Social Glue Teddy Bears, PJ’s, Pets, ToysHow do you find kids’ books?

YOUR WEBSITE

Websites webbed…

How many doors?

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MAKER

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3D is 4DSTEM & STEAMCreativeEntrepreneursChanging Life ArcsAnd so much more…

BAKERSPACES

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AUTHORSHIP & WRITING

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Douglas County and Colorado ModelsLulu, Amazon Singles, Self-publishingFifty Shades of GreyThis is an economic activity

EVENTS AND PROGRAMS

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Hand-knitting Sweaters or an Industrial Revolution for librariesConsider scalability and replicabilityCooperation on a massive scaleMobility of programmingThinking big – over 1000 attendees or 30?Mobile MakerspacesMobile staff talent

HOBBIES

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PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO

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Green WallsVideo editingRepositoriesContestsGenealogyTourism

LEARNING OR EDUCATION OR HOMEWORK

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Top Questions PatternCommon Core Curriculum

UNDERSTAND YOUR KIDS

Education Changes (Common Core)What do you know about curriculum? (e.g. Shakespeare)IQ ChangesHuman Genome and Learning StylesBehavioural ChangesDevelopmental UnderstandingTeens and development

In academia recognize that you’re dealing with teens to a large degree and these are post-millennials now

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PASSION SERVICES

Community service indexing – 211, Blue Book, making sense of so many governments, social services, and charities. . .

Finding and choosing schools and continuing education

Services to veterans and in-the-field military

Seniors – social glue, isolation, home bound, connections to teens & community

What are your passions?

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PROMOTION AND SOCIAL MEDIA

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Websites and e-mailBlogsFacebookPinterestTwitterTumblrVimeo / YouTube / VineInstagramEtc.

Integrate!Write once, broadcast widely and wildly

BUILDINGS VS. SPACE

What does a community centred space feel like?

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ENGAGEMENT

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TECHNOLOGY AND SOLUTIONS

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Get ‘em

Do it with your team

Consortia and partnerships

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Mobile – too many devicesMobile – screen differencesAppsILS in the fieldCloud

The justifications are efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity aligned with user demand and behaviours

Understand the difference between Search and Find

• Roy Tennant and I have been saying for years: “Users want to find not search”.

• Librarians enjoy the challenge of search and try to create mini-librarians.• Information literacy is different than contextual information fluency.

•The user experience is mostly “elsewhere”.• Learning, research and decision-making processes trump search.

Understand the difference between the roles of discovery services and native

search

• Search is the identification of potential objects to read or view in either a known item retrieval scenario or – more importantly – an immersion

environment where choices are made.• Until recently, we handled immersion environments in the context of

defined subsets of content (a single database or small group).• Discovery services are one step before search – the identification and

discovery of the resources (databases) that are worth searching.

Get the naming and labeling right • Vendors must develop unique names and brands for their services to meet

positioning, marketing and sales needs to you.• There is no need for you to fall in line and pass through these names – or

worse try to train end users to know hundreds of them!• Can anyone defend using these titles to be the single most important label for

end users? MLA, Scopus, Compendex, ABI/Inform . . .OPAC!?• Honestly! The needs of trademark law don’t match the needs of users to

identify resources.

1000%+Growth

Are you using numbers strategically?

• Statistics versus measurements• Satisfaction and Impact

• Visual versus data• Stories build on data springboards

• Are your numbers showing customer satisfaction or just activity?

• Do you trust your numbers (It’s easy to mess with an interface and increase hits or whatever statistics you’re using.)

• How can the vendor help your numbers issues and insights?

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Talking Money

• Price

• Cost

• Billing

• Value

• Deals

• TCO

• Value of Your Time

• Value of Their Time

Core Statistics (CLA Draft)

1. Service points and visits

2. Reference questions

3. Circulation (of particular item types)

4. Population served

5. E-resource holdings

6. Children’s membership and services

7. Staffing

8. Internet/PAC/WiFi

9. Programming

10. Total operating expenditures

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Core Measurements (FOPL Draft)1. Overall value of a library membership (usage not cardholders)2. Value of an 'open hour' (new metric unique to MPI TPL study that aggregates cost + value)3. Economic impact (vs. ROI) (Households and Population)4. Per Capita 'Usage" comparison across systems, groups (like small, medium. large, urban, suburban, rural, remote, FN, etc.), and jurisdictions (province/state)5. A 'new' usage algorithm to modernize the old circulation stat and combine digital and print usage into a standard, comparable metric6. A metric for technology access tied to the digital/economic divide(s)7. A standard operational effectiveness metric (Value for Tax Dollars)8. Average cost per household (taxes are based on household rather than population and better reflects funding models)9. A metric for Use of Space (meetings, study, rooms) which was new for the MPI study and hadn't been done before

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The Public Library Value Proposition

1. Excellent Return on Investment

2. Strong Economic Development

3. Great Employment Support

4. Welcoming Newcomers

5. Provable Early Literacy Development & school readiness

6. Ongoing Support for Formal Education and Homework Help

7. Serve the whole community equitably

8. Affordable access to community resources

9. Access to Government Services and e-government

10. Questions Deserve Quality Answers

11. Support Cultural Vitality

12. Recognized and Valued Leisure Activities for majority of residents

13. Infrastructure Support (ADA and Buildings)

Do circulation numbers even begin to capture this value?

Until lions learn to write their own story, the story will always be from the perspective

of the hunter not the hunted.

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• Library Advocacy: The Lion's Story

• Are you framing your library's story well?

• Are you sharing measurements about your impact, or still beating the drum of raw statistics that show funders where to cut?

• Are your measurement strategies too driven by easy to assemble computer tracked stats or are you sampling and researching qualitative insights and stories?

• Are you using great gift of social media to engage and get your message out.

• Has your library's marketing and communication plan stepped up to the 21st Century?

• Are we ready for advanced data mining of our websites, circulation and membership records?

• Are you ready for the reach beyond outreach?

• What are the skills and competencies that library teams need?

First . . .

Let’s stop using the word technology

Let’s discuss experience and user satisfaction . . .

Second . . .

Let’s start using verbs to describe our service portfolio in the context(s) of our members, audiences and communities.

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NOUNS

Books, eBooks

Magazines

Websites

Buildings, Branches

Rooms

Desks

Programs

Nouns can be warehoused and ‘cut’

ServeAnswerEngageLinkEntertainTell a storyDoAction verbs imply dynamism and impact

SmellyYellowLiquid?

OrSex

Appeal?

Third . . .

Let’s build on our legacy of trust and respect and our foundation of collections and places to shine

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Foundations

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House

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Home

Fourth . . .

Let’s emphasize the humans that make the magic happen . . . Library

Staff

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Librarian and Staff Magic Should Not be Invisible

Grocery Stores

Grocery Stores

Grocery Stores

Cookbooks, Chefs . . .

Chefs

Meals

Fifth . . .

Let’s focus on VALUE, IMPACT, and POSITIONING (VIP)

What’s the music and magic you hear? Play? Do?

Are you locked into library financial mindsets?

What about value and impact?

Or shall we stick with this?

It’s the stories that happen inside your library that matter . . . Not just the ones

you have on the shelves.Tell those stories

Encourage the heart . . .Better yet . . . Collect the stories in your users’ voices

BUT HOW?

YouTube Channel?

Invest in persona development

• Segment by behaviour and goals . . .• Does anyone really prioritize content and answers by

format?• Are we viewing the workflow or learning flow or life

stages through a camera hole?

Sixth . . . Reorganize and Invest in Staff

• Align with modern structures (Municipal official research…)• Cross-functional teams

• Customer Service Models (Disney, Starbucks, Ritz Carlton, Marriott)• Reduce backroom and increase front-room

• Increase outside the walls time• MOOCs, e-learning, Conferences, PD, etc.

The signs . . . There’s always another view…

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Are we a culture of poverty?

Do You Feel Poor?

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Personal and Institutional Impact: Strategies and Tactics

EDIT them down . . . But how?

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Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLALighthouse Consulting

Cel: 416-669-4855stephen.abram@gmail.com

Stephen’s Lighthouse Bloghttp://stephenslighthouse.com

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