The Access and Engagement workgroup had the chance to meet for the first time yesterday. We did a lot of brainstorming, but we want to be certain we're including as many viewpoints as possible. With that in mind, we'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.
What does community engagement look like to you, both inside and outside of the library?
If you aren't comfortable answering here, you're welcome to email any of us and we will share your feedback anonymously.
- The Access and Engagement workgroup
Kate Brooks Etzkorn, Ashley Welke, Dana Beach, Mark Schuster, Michelle Merriman, Britni Brecheen
Disclaimer: This is coming from my role as an LEC and is informed by the things I did wrong. This isn't exactly what you were asking for, but I hope it helps. When I first began collaborations with different community organizations, here are a few ways I failed:
1. Trying to be everything to everyone - We are a community hub. Not an all encompassing solution. It is important that we not only provide access to the resources we have available to community members, but also that we act like a router and direct members to the organizations that can provide the products, services, or information they need. When I first began meeting with outside organizations, I wanted to bend over backwards to ensure that METRO could provide them with anything they needed. Instead, I should have been making sure that Metro could connect them with anything they needed.
2. Looking for Metro benefits without using the Strategic plan - It is easy to engage that rational, consumer, profit maximizer that lives within all of us when approaching collaborations with another organization. What tangibles do we get out of it, how much are we spending, how many staff hours will this take, etc. Often, however, if you study Library Unbound -- which I would encourage you to do -- the formula is far from obvious. Our goals are frequently so long-sighted and integrated with the community's evolution, that a successful collaboration may seem like we are giving far more than we are getting. For example, the Oklahoma County Veterans Program uses DN's rooms constantly, but didn't previously utilize any of our services outside of the rooms. The downtown spaces team concentrated on that final goal of our Relationship Growth Cycle of "Hold loyalty," however, and over time the results began to show in both the numbers and in engagement experiences. There was even an occasion at a program that a veteran stood up and made a call to action for all attendees to get a library account if they didn't already have one. Six accounts grew out of the loyalty of one individual.
3. Realize that engagement is ultimately people talking and working with people - We all have bad days. We all have good days. Collaboration with community organizations take a great deal of patience and grace. You will have situations where no one will respond to your emails. Or will suddenly cease to respond. Here, I feel the need to caution everyone against negative tones. You should be persistent and send follow-up emails if you aren't getting responses, but they should always be positive and primarily concerned with the health and future of the collaboration. Instead of saying, "Why didn't you respond," focus on "What do we need to do to move forward."
Off topic but maybe of interest, especially to those serving veterans. Mergent Intellect's Job Search includes a special search for veterans. Mergent partnered with the US government to map military job titles to civilian job titles. This tool will help veterans build resumes that reflect the skills they've acquired in the military to language used in the private/local government sectors.
Yes on #1! Community engagement should clearly connect library services and advance M&M. A list of guidelines for engagement events would be helpful. Kelley Riha found a list of criteria to do community outreach events (what we would call interreach) at another library system. I'll see if I can find it. A similar document would be helpful for engagement.
I also think it would be a worthwhile effort to identify staff members' talents across the system. We have some very talented staff members who could train others in their trade thereby increasing the quality and breadth of the engagement services we offer at each location. For example, Rondia does the children's music times at NW. I would love to learn from her how to develop such a program - this would expand my own skill set as well as the programs at BI. This also raises the issue of paid presenters - going forward with programs, will we receive the directive to hire more or fewer paid presenters? I have had conversations with colleagues about the merit of hiring presenters. Many times they bring a high level of expertise and save planning time. However, should we be using taxpayers dollars to pay someone for a service we could do ourselves at no cost with a little training? It might be an issue for another time, but it's a conversation I've had with a few colleagues that touches on community engagement.
I agree, community engagement should clearly connect library services and advance the M&M.
Your question on the second part was intriguing, and definitely something we should be thinking about. Kudos! "Should we be using taxpayers dollars to pay someone for a service we could do ourselves at no cost with a little training?" One thing that was taught to me early in my career is that free programs aren't really free, even though it does sometimes seems like it is free. All programs do come with a cost, specifically of staff time and effort (paid), plus any supplies or training costs, and the impacts those decisions have on other staff. I do agree with the core of what you are asking. However, I think what really gets to the meat of what you are asking is, "When is it more appropriate to train staff to conduct a program, verses using a an outside presenter (paid or volunteer)?" These are questions we should critically think through when making decisions about programming. We need to balance the costs of training/staff time against the cost of a paid presenter in order to make the most responsible decision possible, consistent with the core value you alluded to of "Integrity and Trust in Us and by Us".
I'd love to see more people engage with how they make the decision between when to conduct a program themselves, and when they make the decision to hire an outside presenter. What informs your decisions? How do you decide?
"I'd love to see more people engage with how they make the decision between when to conduct a program themselves, and when they make the decision to hire an outside presenter. What informs your decisions? How do you decide?"
I would always start by looking at the strengths of the team, and the particular interests and aptitudes people have. I feel like it's always counterintuitive to force someone into a role they are not effective in, so I would approach the issue of programming as starting with finding ways to maximize the potential of the staffing resources we have, and then balancing that with bringing in outside presenters to ensure the broadest, most eclectic mix of offerings possible for the budget that we have.
I said I wasn't a fan of forcing someone into a role, but I believe it's the role of the manager to find sparks of interest and aptitude within their staff and find ways to nurture that. Support them and give them the freedom to fail, but let them know they are expected to try and give it their best. A program like Music Time could be done by a number of staff people at each location in a number of different ways, and still be considered a successful program. I've done it at NW a few times, and it's completely different than the way Rondia does it, but it still worked to make that connection with our members. Before I ever led a storytime, I assumed I couldn't - that my particular skills just didn't fit. But necessity is the mother of invention, and I suddenly inherited the role and had my sink or swim moment. Thankfully, I was able to swim! I didn't feel forced into the role because I had the freedom and flexibility to do it the way I thought it should be done, and not the way my predecessor had done it.
So I believe in providing a culture of support, and flexibility for someone to build off a basic structure and guidelines - it has to have "X, Y, and Z." The order they are in is up to you - the connecting tissue is up to you. I think once you have exhausted the natural interests/talents of your staff, and worked to uncover those hidden veins of talent, you do well to supplement with paid presenters who achieve a level of mastery of their subject that can't be trained in a short period of time. It keeps things fresh and definitely increases our M&M by reaching audiences who may not otherwise come to our programs and keeping them returning to see what else we will offer.
Kate,
Community engagement is one of the things about my job I find is the most rewarding. And for me, great community engagement has excellent customer service at its core. I feel that when it is done correctly it achieves the joint goals of market penetration (creating new library members) and member retention (making those new members view the library as a valuable resource and a place to come back to and use for years).
Personally, I have witnessed this happen with the Oklahoma County Veterans Program. This is a diversion program that has been wonderful at keeping veterans out of trouble and offering community and counseling for the prevention of suicide. When I first began working with room reservations Downtown we were only renting rooms to them on a very limited basis, and there was not a lot of communication between us and this organization. We decided to reach out and see if there was more we could do to help them and the veterans who use the program. This was warmly received and showed them that the library cared about people who are often forgotten. We decided to view these people (most were not current library card holders) as potential members, and we put them first. There wasn't really a precedent Downtown for the kind of partnership we forged, but we felt that their program was valuable and that we had the means to help.
We now offer them free spaces on an almost daily basis, we provide staff-led database and catalog training for their program, and soon members of our staff will be helping them with basic computer skills. Most of the veterans who did not previously have library cards now do. But more than that, they use their cards regularly, they attend library events (one graduate of the program even won first place in our filmmaking competition!), and they promote the library to other people in the community. Just this past Tuesday the director of the program came to tell me that they were seeing record numbers at their meetings and that the library was a major part of that growth. He said, "I just want to shout from the rooftops how important the library is!" I couldn't agree more. Not only do I think it's possible to help our communities in a profound way while meeting our goals of member retention and market penetration, I believe that reaching these goals depends on the success of our community engagement.
Hope that's of any help.
Breck
First I would like to say, I enjoy the forums very much they are very informative. I agree completely with you Kate, regarding customer service being at the core, regarding our work and community engagement. With that being said, I myself have a spirit of service and truly enjoy working with people from all walks of life (No matter if I was working with enter-city children in Chicago, or being a preschool instructor or working for the parolee program in Denton TX), in utilizing our customer service skills and being given the opportunity to work with a company that allows us to reach out to individuals such as veterans and even the homeless population. I feel this is a great opportunity to learn, train and work with the community. The community engagement program to me is for employees to learn and train on projects along with assisting MLS with reaching out to our local communities. I would hope that RE will be able to implement the veterans program that you have mentioned in your post. The best form of advertisement is word of mouth, as you also mentioned in your post. I hope to see more outreach programs such as DN veterans program spring up as we move forward through our new alignment program. I also agree 100% that our community engagement will be a key source in increasing retention and market penetration.
To me, community engagement is where we look at our communities and see where our goals meet with theirs. It is also about forming relationships with not only groups in our communities but with individuals. We have a wealth of resources and knowledge that we can share with our communities and our communities have a lot that they can teach us and help us with in turn. This doesn't mean that we should go into forming partnerships with the mindset of quid pro quo, but more with the mindset of how can this community engagement help lift us all up.
For instance, we (DN) have recently started a partnership with The Dragonfly Home. The Dragonfly Home is a program that serves victims and survivors of human trafficking. While it might seem like an odd partnership, we share a lot of the same clientele. For our partnership we are offering them rooms at the Downtown Library for their Impact Meetings and we will also be hosting library card drives for their clients, trainings/presentations to their staff, and other services for their clients. While we will be meeting M&M, our involvement is actually deeper. Getting these men, women, and children library cards gives them stability. It gives them free access to resources that they can use to educate themselves, to find jobs, to go back to school, and to use as self-therapy. Training The Dragonfly Home's staff will allow them to better serve their clients while also teaching them about the various resources that we offer and how to use said resources. Our engagement with this organization allows us to really foster lifelong learning on a multi-generational level and also allows us to try to curb some of the cycles that we see everyday that can lead to illiteracy and homelessness.
I'm really impressed by what everyone has added, especially by the DN staff and 2 of the outreach efforts. Dragonfly Home and the Oklahoma County Veterans Program are great examples and not what I would have thought of. Makes me think on what's here in MC that we could partner with. Maybe we need a page of what's going on around the system to help spark ideas for others.
Thanks for the input, Sarah and Breck.
The examples provided by DN are great reminders that we shouldn't always favor quantity over quality when it comes to community engagement. The demographics supported through their initiatives (victims of human trafficking and veterans with mental health issues) make up a very small slice of the overall OKC population. From a purely strategic perspective, it wouldn't make sense to invest so much time and effort into partnerships with them because they won't "move the needle" that much. However, from an ideological and human perspective, they are prime recipients of our efforts given the extent to which they can benefit from library services and the opportunities for collaboration that can genuinely enrich people's lives. Through community engagement, libraries have the opportunity to become true social equalizers. This requires a paradigmatic shift from the model of "libraries as providers" to "libraries as partners." Historically, libraries have acted as experts and provided community services based on librarians' own needs appraisal. True community engagement recognizes the service population as the expert and empowers community leaders to communicate their needs.
TL;DR: "Let me tell you what the library can do for you" =/ "What are your needs and how can the library support you?"
"In order to identify needs, libraries must go much further than passive consultation and actively engage and involve all sections of the local community in the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of library services. The community is an expert in its needs. The library worker becomes an enabler, facilitator and co-producer of library services with the community. This requires a number of fundamental shifts in attitudes, behaviours and values." http://www.open-shelf.ca/class/
Katherine, I really like what you quoted here: "...The community is an expert on its needs..." I think my best engagement efforts have stemmed from this concept. This requires actually being out in the community and starting with listening and asking good questions. For example, last month I was at a nearby private school just for a brief time while Angie did a presentation about Come Read With Me. But out of that came a couple of conversations in which (long story short) I found out about a need that the school has and about a volunteer initiative they've already started, both of which dovetail perfectly with MLS's mission and goals.
As several people have already done a great job of pointing out on this forum thread, any engagement efforts should be focused on MLS's mission, goals, and values. The language of MLS's mission statement works well with this: we want to be the community's hub for critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and lifelong enrichment. A hub is the center part of a wheel from which several spokes go out. Perhaps we can think of engagement as those spokes -- reaching out into the community and connecting people to lifelong enrichment, etc. Perhaps we can also think about where in the community there already exist pockets of people who are engaged in critical thinking, problem-solving, and lifelong learning in various ways, and how we can connect those pockets back to the library.
…Making connections with businesses and organizations, influential community members and groups, other public services entities, special needs groups, members of the community, and the like. In my mind this happens through such things as attending representative meetings, holding community events at the library, presenting our services at events these organizations hold, and showing up to areas of the community where members congregate.
My thinking is that the engagement and access people work together to determine which connections need to be made based upon the community served (such as the Dragonfly and Veteran programs mentioned here). The access librarians could plan, organize, arrange the engagement person’s schedule, and set up anything that may need to happen on-location. The engagement librarians might identify resources they will need in order to convey our message. Support and administration staff can make sure those things are available. The engagement staff would go out into the community, then report back. The different staff groups would work together to tweak as needed, reflect, and brainstorm the next course of action.
Within the library, I see engagement as in-depth member interactions. That’s not to say engagement folks can’t or shouldn’t put items on hold, tell members where the restroom is, or help someone copy & paste within a document. But I think it’s a difference in critical thinking. The engagement staff member should take those interactions a step further to assess if the members needs are being met. So, for example, if a lot of members have asked for a computer class, then the engagement librarian may determine there is a need for basic computer skill lessons and would work with access staff towards finding a way to provide that service or, as mentioned above, finding a way to connect members to a resource for learning those skills.
Community engagement is a personal passion of mine, and I am a huge proponent of the value we can add to a community just through providing service to members and non-members outside of the Library.
Most of my work started at the Village branch, as a Lead. Fortunately, Ben was very open to how we as Leads and Librarians wanted to engage with the community both inside and outside of the Library.
For me personally, all good community engagement starts within our branch. We have the power to affect change in our community simply through how we act and how we treat those we interact with (even if they're frustrating us!). At the Village and now at DN, I have members who request me, will only work with me, and trust me to provide them with assistance. I would spend considerable amounts of time helping people on computers especially, and that became my way of connecting with the community. But really, I also just sat and listened. I helped people find jobs, discussed fish in the tank with a little girl, and hung out listening to kids read to our visiting dog of the week. Each of those actions took very little time out of my day, but they created a bond with a person that would last long beyond that single visit. At VI, we were fortunate that many of our visitors were regulars, and so we all got to know them. We knew their names, we knew their families, and we connected with them. While we cannot (and should not!) make a connection with every single visitor (I recall one member in particular who shunned all efforts at engagement, and was most comfortable just left alone), those we can connect with value that connection.
Once you start to know your regulars, your community, and their needs, then you can start to build your engagement outside of the branch. Kara, a former Lead at VI as well (now at Jones), started by making a connection with Jeremiah, who directs the Crossings Community Center next door to the VI branch. While she wasn't able to find a space for her engagement there, both myself and Elisabeth Wright (Librarian at VI) were able to make connections, which Kara kindly facilitated. She heard him mention several needs, and knew we could meet them.
I started in October/November teaching computers one night weekly at the Community Center. The Center is able to provide brand new computers and any software we might need. They've been very generous with their time and resources, and have been very encouraging of our efforts. I offer a mix of one-on-one teaching and free websites that offer excellent teaching. I supplement the websites as needed with additional information. Crossings provides the fliers as well. After a recent lull in which we thought a break might be needed, people are back and ready to learn. Just this past Wednesday, I spent an hour helping a woman learn how to operate Windows 10, and also learn more about advertising her business via Facebook. I've assisted with apartment hunting, setting up emails, and general education. I am hoping that with our new engagement tracks, I'll have more hours to dedicate to training people on computers. Without having spent so much time talking to people at the branch though, I likely would never have realized how much of a need there really was in the community for computer training. As I will always say, engagement starts within your branch.
I think it is also imperative that we share what we have learned from our engagement efforts, and not be afraid to talk about things that didn't work. I've shared my experiences working with members and computers with two other staff members from different branches who reached out to me about my classes, and have mentioned it to many more.
I have continued to teach computer classes, and am finding new ways to engage as a Librarian at DN. Here at DN, I was fortunate enough to connect with Chris Gordon, purely by happenstance. Chris runs the Veterans program that often uses the spaces at the DN branch. Thanks to the work I've done at Crossings and elsewhere, I can train him to offer computer training to his veterans, reaching another group in our community. A brief connection we made while chatting (on the spot engagement!) led to him asking for my help. I provided him with a flier I designed for the classes that gives online resources for people to take home, and offered to assist in any way I can. He intends to visit my class on a Wednesday, and have me assist him as I can. In addition, I will be assisting Sarah with her upcoming presentation to the new Veterans, offering them a short informational session on computer resources they might want to utilize.
In addition, here at DN I recently taught a session to students on databases and computer resources. By making it fun and interesting, as well as making an effort to connect with the students and the teacher, I am hopefully building lifelong library users. I made my presentation silly and fun, and even included games. I want people to associate the library and librarians with fun and enjoyment!
Overall, I think some of the most valuable connections I've made have simply been through working with people. Being available to them, and working with them one-on-one has led to some awesome experiences.
I love all the comments everyone has added! From cautioning not to try to be everything for everyone, but looking for places where we can act as a connector and identifying areas where their needs overlap with what the library can provide, to giving shining examples of partnerships that went beyond just offering free space, everyone has made really awesome contributions!
For me, I think engagement is about going deeper. We're not just offering free rooms, programs, or events in the community, but we are highlighting how the library can really be useful to people. At programs we are upselling library services, actively recruiting new library members, and displaying related materials for members to check out. In community partnerships we aren't trying to be everything for them, but connect them with the what library can reasonably provide from staff training w/our databases to teaching members critical skills such as the computer classes mentioned above, or outside resources as appropriate. At school visits we are taking ipads and books, and letting kids use their OneCard to check out materials or showing them how to use our e-resources without having to physically step into the library. Just having a program or group meet in our space is not enough. We must make that connection for members to share how we can be the community's hub for critical thinking, creative problem solving, and lifelong enrichment. Engagement also includes going deeper with the "at home" library interactions. When someone contacts us about a community event that's not in our direct area, do we just say no, or do we connect them with the library or department that is better situated to assist them and offer to help as needed? How do we make a reader's advisory interview more meaningful to the member? What are those things we do to really make an impact on the lives of those in our communities?
Thank you for posting this question, A&E Workgroup! I also have loved reading through the posted comments above and learning more about some of the fabulous work happening throughout the system. As we can all attest to, there are many layers to thoughtful and effective community engagement.
When I think about what community engagement looks like inside the library one of the things that I immediately begin to think about is how important it is to ensure that our members see themselves reflected in our spaces, whether those spaces be physical or digital. I love the idea of providing our members with the opportunity to contribute to our library landscape. We can do this (and already do this!) on a variety of levels. From hanging up library coloring sheets creatively colored by little ones, to showcasing art work submitted to our Fan Art contest, to displaying LEGO builds designed by young builders at LEGO Club, to forming teen + adult advisory boards, to creating displays of materials recommended by library members, to offering writing contests and publishing the winners on our website and in our upcoming literary journal, and more! What better (and more simple) way to engage our community than to continue to provide our members with opportunities to shape their ideal library environment and share their creative contributions with others.