| Friday Follow-up: a weekly message from Brian M. Hildreth, STLS Executive Director |
Nontraditional Training through Library System Partnerships
“Risk is what makes librarianship so great.” This is a statement from my April 8, 2016 Friday Follow-up: Never Take Yourself Too Seriously. Some of you may recall I discussed 6 things library directors and boards can do to build library capacity. Here is one of the six items:
Never Take Yourself Too Seriously: I feel like this should be termed Leadership 101. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to make them often. But, the last thing you want to do is take yourself too seriously. Directors and trustees prohibit themselves from innovating when they strictly focus on minimizing mistakes. Risk is what makes librarianship so great. We work in a field that encourages us to experiment. Who cares if a new program has low attendance or that a new genre never circulates. We won’t know what is successful if we don’t try.
I want to revisit this concept because I believe risk (or the lack of risk) can prevent rural libraries from meeting their full potential. Any library board that has gathered with me to talk local funding knows I fully encourage risk taking behavior. And it isn’t until this behavior is put into action that we see authentic results.
In 2014, Dundee Library secured an increase of 151% in local public funds with 70% approval from its school district community. The following year, Cohocton Public Library increased local funds by 93% with 64% approval. And in 2016, Montour Falls Library obtained a 261% increase along with its neighboring library Odessa, which leveraged a 70% increase. Their budgets passed with 68% approval.
These funding campaigns required three things… risk, commitment and hard work. Commitment and hard work are exactly what they sound like. The directors and board members of these libraries did everything within their abilities to realize successful outcomes. This includes making well-thought, passionate pitches to community members following restless nights (hard work and commitment). It also means leaping from what is comfortable to what can be extremely challenging, exhausting and unknown (risk).
Last week, STLS consultants attended a retreat with consultants from the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System and Pioneer Library System. These neighboring systems are similar to STLS taking into account size, geographic location and member libraries’ needs.
The purpose of the retreat was to identify current and effective training practices as well as areas of collaboration and innovation. This type of partnership is not only required of our 2017 – 2021 Plan of Service, but is also a best practice. How can our systems work together to build our own capacity for the betterment of our valued member libraries?
As you can imagine, we examined many areas of professional development to empower our members with tools to thrive. It is a challenge because our members’ needs are quite diverse despite their similarities. How do 3 rural library systems reach 126 libraries and their directors, nearly 500 staff, roughly 900 trustees and the 750,000 residents they serve? You can envision the task at hand just by looking at the numbers on the surface.
The retreat’s culmination may have been a defining moment for our systems. After going through the 24-hour process of investigating numerous approaches, we challenged ourselves to move past our own comfort zones and work on something less traditional. How do we train library systems and members to (1) experiment, (2) make mistakes, (3) innovate, (4) create and (5) take risks?
I realize it sounds a bit abstract. Don’t we just need to learn more about the Roles and Responsibilities of Trustees/Directors, or perhaps how libraries Support and Preserve Democracy by providing Open, Non-Judgmental Institutions? Let’s dig even deeper. Shouldn’t library systems and member libraries develop more tech skills such as running useful reports from the ILS or helping patrons navigate their eReader? These are the skills that connect us to our community.
Striking equitable balance is what will sustain us as a profession. Focusing on one type of service, training or skillset limits our abilities to bond with other people. Several colleagues of mine have said that one of the amazing elements of librarianship is that there is no subject not worth learning. Everything is applicable. I find this frustrating because it means I am not 100% of value to my members until I learn all. It’s an impossible, but worthy pursuit.
It is too early to know what this nontraditional approach means for library systems or members. I guess we will have to experiment, make mistakes, innovate, create and take risks to figure it out. Nevertheless, the idea has us excited to work with our partnering library systems for the betterment of public library services in our region. Most importantly it has us excited about building our relationships and bonds with STLS member libraries.
Have a wonderful summer weekend, STLS. If you are looking to get out of your comfort zone and explore ways to reimagine fear, please click here for a recommended TED Talk by Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Age of Miracles.
Kindest Regards, Brian Hildreth, Executive Director Follow me on Twitter: @comlibpartner |
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