Strategic Plan Talk

U.S. Public Libraries: A Snapshot of Priorities & Perspectives -- This new report details findings from a study OCLC conducted with libraries in mid-2011 to learn about their priorities, initiatives, thoughts on the future of their service points and the sources they use to keep up with developments in the library field.

Several things were interesting to me, such as these quotes:

"The majority of public library staff surveyed indicate that borrowing books and materials is still the top reason patrons use the public library today, followed by technology.  Most expect those reasons to change over the next five years."

"Public library staff expect use of the library—both physical and online—to grow in the next two years.  Just 8% see a decline in in-person traffic to their library."

Anything stand out to you in the findings summarized in the 4-page report?

I attended an OCLC session on Friday that referenced this very document, presented by Eric Forte of OCLC. He also referenced: "Libraries at Webscale" available through their website: http://www.oclc.org/ca/en/reports/webscale/default.htm

In his presentation, Mr. Forte said the customers still view the library as primarily being a place of books. The public trusts librarians, but strangely, only 8% surveyed think of us as experts. And, in OCLC's last survey, they found that 0% of customers begin their searches using a library website. (The first thing that came to my mind was making buttons for staff that say "Ask me, I'm an EXPERT" in big letters!)

The biggest challenge to be faced by libraries in the next 10 years, he said, is the challenge of proving relevance to a customer base who have limited research skills but who practice "satisfice" (a new word for me) which means: to act in such a way as to satisfy the minimum requirements for achieving a particular result.

With all the proliferation of the doom and gloom literature regarding libraries, I was particularly struck by the expected increase in the use of libraries. 85% of respondents expect the use of the online library to increase and 55% expect the use of the physical library will increase. I would be very curious to know how they envision the future of libraries. Will the virtual role that libraries play in the future be limited to providing e-resources, or will there be a growth in virtual librarianship? Will services such as simultaneous chat grow or will the trend be more towards immersive libraries such as some future iteration of Second Life?

As regards to physical libraries, do they still expect them to be used mainly to check out materials, or do they expect the function of the libraries to change to be one more of the library as a place or cultural and education center rather than a storehouse of knowledge.

I expect libraries to have a long and glorious future, and I am eagerly waiting to see how it will pan out. How do you envision the future of libraries?

I think the point that stood out to me the most was that we have to show our value to funders. For us, it is not funders in the traditional political sense; but the funders are our taxpayers and I think it will be vital as we move forward to demonstrate to our users the value of the services we offer and the value in the community.

I also went to a program at PLA that talked about targeted demographics which can help us to more finely focus on the citizens of a certain community or library. I think it will help us to spend our material dollars on things that community really wants and uses and also our services and programs would be more targeted and diverse from community to community.

I see a lot of what we do in Outreach impacting the way the library is viewed in the community. The partnerships that we make as a library system really solidify our role as an vital and active member of our community. I think it shows people that we have a stake in the pride, recent revitalization, and growth of Oklahoma City and its surrounding areas.