Outreach for Impact: Strategies to Grow Library Instruction and Services
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This document discusses strategies for outreach and community partnerships in library instruction and services. It emphasizes identifying key stakeholders in the community and creating dialogue with them to gain support. Staff should be empowered to contribute ideas and help accomplish outreach goals. Continuous evaluation and willingness to make changes based on feedback is important. The focus of outreach is shifting to partnerships and collaborative leadership. Outreach involves an organization's involvement in the community, especially regarding social welfare.
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Outreach for Impact: Strategies to Grow Library Instruction and Services
- 1. Outreach for Impact: Strategies to Grow Library Instruction & Services
- 2. Organizational change in Library Instruction Services Outreach is transforming in the library world.
- 3. Today the Outreach focus is on Community Partnerships and Collaborative Leadership
- 4. Outreach - an organization's involvement with or activity in the community, especially in the context of social welfare. 4
- 5. SUCCESSFULLY CREATE AN IMPACT IN OUTREACH Stakeholders Identify those who are key members of the community and create a dialogue with them. Get their ‘buy in’. Staff involvement Empower them to speak up with ideas and show their willingness to help accomplish a goal. Evaluation Evaluate and reevaluate from the very beginning. Be willing to make changes midstream. Listen to those with positive and negative feedback. 5
- 7. SUCCESSFULLY CREATE AN IMPACT IN OUTREACH Stakeholders Identify those who are key members of the community and create a dialogue with them. Get their ‘buy in’. Staff involvement Empower them to speak up with ideas and show their willingness to help accomplish a goal. Evaluation Evaluate and reevaluate from the very beginning. Be willing to make changes midstream. Listen to those with positive and negative feedback. 7
- 12. Embedded Business Librarianship - Community involvement and collaboration ▫ “Embedded business librarianship means that a librarian leaves the physical library space and becomes integrated within the business community and its dialogue.”(Alvarez) ▫ “Not only cultivates awareness of the library’s resources and expertise, but also is a valued contributor to the business community’s conversation” (Alvarez) 12
- 13. “ 13 Who else? Online Students & Alumni Association
- 16. Credits Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free: ▫ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival ▫ Photographs by Unsplash ▫ www.FutureReady.org/Librarians ▫ Alvarez, Barbara A. Embedded Business Librarianship for the Public Librarian. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2016. ▫ Naperville Public Library, Illinois handout “New Idea Considerations” ▫ http://www.ilovelibraries.org/librariestransform/ 16
Notas del editor
- Good morning, my name is Crystal Hutchinson and I am here to speak to you about Outreach for Impact: Strategies to Grow Library Instruction and services. Once upon a time, there were librarians who sat at a desk and the patrons came to them. Reference questions were brought to librarians to research and return results. Children’s programming was one of the only forms of programming, and Interlibrary Loan was a great service, if patrons were willing to wait however long it took to find, request and wait for the item to arrive in the mail.
- This is no longer the case. You may have heard the American Library Association’s branding, “Libraries Transform”. This initiative was created QUOTE “because transformation is essential to the communities we serve.” END QUOTE There has been an organizational change in library services due to this transformation. Outreach continues to maintain the traditional services, while looking at new, emerging methods of service in this area. Technology and advancement of web 2.0 has caused a rapid transition to create a “Future Ready Librarian”. Use of Space & Time, Curriculum instruction & assessment, personalized professional learning, robust infrastructure, budget & resources, community partnerships, data & privacy, and collaborative leaderships are the strategic initiatives necessary to create a personalized student learning environment.
- Outreach is involved in 2 aspects of a future ready librarian. Cultivating Community Partnerships involves partnerships between the school and local community. The communities can be families and caregivers, non-profit organizations, government agencies, public and higher education libraries and for profit businesses. I visited with a librarian at a conference who explained that her library partnered with a coffee shop to create a coffee corner in the library. It has been a very successful partnership. Collaborative leadership “Leads Beyond the Library”. This leadership QUOTE “fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation to empower teachers and learners.” END QUOTE This Quote and graphic is the result of “A Project of the Alliance for Excellent Education.” In this session,I will talk about the key points to have a successful Outreach service. I will also point out specific examples of potential outreach programs and services that a future ready librarian can use to grow library instruction and services.
- Outreach has become an important aspect of librarian instruction and services, and is now in varying forms of Educational Outreach and Library Outreach. Outreach can be defined as … an organization’s involvement with or activity in the community, especially in the context of social welfare. That certainly sounds like a library to me. When I was in grad school between 2010 and 2012, Libraries were focusing on the concept of a “roving librarian”. This was someone who stepped out from behind the desk. They moved around the stacks and tried to engage anyone who looked like they could use some help. In 2018, the focus has moved out of the building and into the community. Librarians collaborate with businesses and other organizations to offer resources and services that are useful to the community.
- GETTING STARTED with new outreach strategies - What are some factors that will successfully help create Outreach that has an impact? First, the Stakeholders. They provide a different view than yours. They have been in the community longer than you, or they are involved in relationships that you can tap into. On an academic level, this can be departmental, the administration of the campus, or even the student community that you are trying to reach through Outreach. This is where we get our buy in and make sure we are on target. Next is the Staff involvement. Having Staff empowerment! The staff are on the frontlines everyday.I hear staff say that they have new ideas, but don’t have a way to share it with the middle and upper management. Making sure there is an avenue to share ideas is important.
- I attended this years Public Library Association Conference, or PLA. The Naperville Public Library from Naperville Illinois presented a session at PLA. The topic they covered included: utilizing staff talent, rethinking our understanding of training, and building a culture of learning. They created a “new idea considerations” handout to give their staff. This procedure gives staff an opportunity to convey their ideas and establish the responsibility of considering all aspects of their idea. I’ve got a great idea to: is the initial idea that they write in the center of the handout. The costs, benefits and potential issues gives the staff member a chance to work out the logistics before presenting it to the administrator or manager.
- Evaluation - Evaluation is an important component in any forward thinking situation. Evaluation is an ongoing process. When I became a supervisor, I realized that the Technical Services department needed updated both in procedures and current practices. I met with the staff regularly to ask their opinion on future changes and on one occasion, I learned that an procedure that I wanted to implement had potential problems. The staff was able to explain that this idea was not sound. Much like the “New Idea Consideration” on the slide before, strategies to grow library instruction services needs to be evaluated at all angles before implementing. Also, being in constant dialog with the staff created a sense of transparency. Evaluation also pertains to “Evaluating the Student Culture”. Part of the purpose for the creation of the Future Ready Librarian is due to the constant change in culture, and in an academic setting, evaluating the student culture will keep the current and emerging needs in the forefront. Finally, evaluate the people we intend to impact. Venturing into the community as an embedded librarian will help to accomplish this research. I will explain a little more about this concept in a moment.
- It might be best to break down the Forsyth Library patrons into target audience groups that we can assess for Outreach.. Here are some Outreach services we can or may already provide for these groups. There are on-campus students, the faculty and administration and virtual college students who do not come to campus.
- The Incoming Freshmen and transfer students. Freshman Orientation is a consistently scheduled event. Move in day for new freshmen is on August 16th and I will be there moving my son. In the afternoon, there is family farewell, where the campus says, Ok parents. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Tiger Impact runs from Thursday night until classes start on Monday. One outreach concept is if A librarian goes to one of the early orientations meetings with all the freshmen attending and promote an “orientation program” for new students at the library. For example, Come to the library on these specific dates and times over the weekend or during the first week of classes and learn about resources that Forsyth has to offer. When they arrive at the library- Go over the ‘Research Guides’/ ‘Ask a Librarian’ feature/ ‘Learning Commons’/ and ‘Library Databases’. Talk about highlights of the different collections, GovDocs, the wardrobe collection, the digital content and more. Then offer to help anyone sign into Tigertracks and help with questions they may have. By coming to the library, each student receives an FHSU bumper sticker, Free coffee coupon, (or an incentive of some kind) An incentive for this age group is very beneficial. I say bumper sticker because my son and his friends are big on personalizing their vehicles.
- Non-traditional students that live on campus. I am very familiar with this group of people because my sophomore year at FHSU, I married and had a son. We moved into Wooster apartments, and the opportunities to go to the library were greatly diminished. Consider the Outreach concept of having a “bookmobile” style visit to Wooster apartments. There used to be a building in the center of the apartments that can be used for this weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly Outreach to parents and children. Any resources in the Forsyth library that are of interest to children can be used. Other materials that can be included are Parenting and pregnancy books, budgeting, meal prep or any books that may pertain to young adults dealing with life situations. Finally, provide promotional materials for services that these non-traditional students have access to; but may not be aware of, such as the databases and other services offered through TigerTracks. Do they know that we have “Ask a Librarian” available? Part of Outreach is explaining what each of the resources have to offer our non-traditional students. The evaluation reference I mentioned earlier comes into play with this idea. -Perhaps a bookmobile concept is not possible in the Wooster apartments area, maybe it is better served at Tiger tots in Rarick Hall. Or maybe the target audience is not the best selection, there are not many children in Wooster currently, and a better concept is to set up in front of the student health center. Instead of children's materials, Health and new fiction books is better content to take to the students.
- Your Faculty typically have a goal or need already in mind when they interact with the Forsyth Library. How can outreach pertain to the faculty? Do they know all the resources at their fingertips? Or are they only familiar with what they have experienced in the past. When addressing Faculty and administration, I ask myself Are there specific departmental events happening, or overall FHSU events that a librarian can attend to find out what is going on with other departments? This is where the “embedded librarian” may come in to play.
- Embedded Librarianship is an emerging trend that is proving to be helpful when used along with Outreach. Also referred to as “Embedded Business Librarianship”, it places a librarian out into the community and interacts with organizations and businesses, or in Forsyth Library’s case, the departments on the FHSU campus. In a typical public library setting, librarians attend community events and meetings, and the typical reason to have a presence is to promote the library services. Embedded Librarianship is intended to go out to community events, and ask about business needs, not just promote library services. Perhaps a community member will talk to the librarian about technology issues, or a business owner will tell the librarian that they are having a hard time keeping employees due to high turnover. The purpose and goal is to create a meaningful relationship between community businesses and the library, not just promote the library. It makes the relationship a two way connection. Once an embedded librarian brings information back to the library staff, then programs or services can be created to accommodate the community and businesses. I live in Great Bend. I decided to assess the community as an embedded librarian would do. Great Bend is a town of small businesses. The Payless Shoe Store, JCPenneys and Verizon have closed the national chains. What these small businesses need are employees with more technology skills. The library can respond to this community need and provide programs to educate potential and existing employees on technology training. Embedded Librarianship in a college community can be scaled down to a departmental setting, rather than the whole Hays population. This is a completely scalable concept. I first discovered this type of librarianship when I read the book “Embedded Business Librarianship for the Public Librarian” by Alvarez. I highly recommend it, and at 100 pages; it is a quick read.
- These are the target audiences that typically are not considered when it comes to Outreach. The online student community is increasing. This Spring, the Virtual college increased by 92 to 6,744 enrolled.Since they don’t use the physical library, We can reach out and help with their digital knowledge and organization of their digital content. The librarian can create an outreach webinar that shows all the services available to them, the same way the outreach concept served the on campus students. Part of the webinar can show new online students how to save their files in a consistent nomenclature. (Possible SLIM COMMENT)I am so much more organized now that I have a consistent method of saving my data by date. The webinar could also demonstrate resources that show how to organize student web content. “LiveBinder” is an online digital binder created to help the student have resources that are on the web in one place. I envision a student curating their binder into different class courses. There are other apps and websites that offer this type of resource, This one happens to be a current trending resource. It is our job, as librarians to disseminate information that we discover that is the most recent and current to our patrons. We can also use Text alerts and eNewsletters are other ways of reaching out to this patron base. The Alumni Association and former FHSU graduates that are not necessarily members of the Alumni Association are two forms of the same target audience. One way to provide outreach and expand our services is tied to an upcoming event at FHSU. The FHSU Art & Design Reunion is in September. This is an event that pertains to Tiger Alumni and coincides with Homecoming weekend. Currently, On Friday, there will be a Tiger Traditions Reception at Forsyth Library, and this is a great way to get people into the library and showcase how it’s changed since they attended school. While the Alumni are in Forsyth, they could get library cards to use the databases, if this is something they are interested in. And a more focused Outreach concept is to send out an invitation postcard before the Homecoming and promote a program on Thursday morning. The kick off is a golf tournament at between 8 and 9:30am. Offer coffee and donuts to alumni and an opportunity to get a library card on Thursday morning at 7-9 am in the morning.. The postcard could include some information about the different databases that may pique interest for the members. This is another concept that could be evaluated and altered. Maybe only paid alumni association members may have a library card. Forsyth Library can partnership with the Alumni Association and have people become members of the Alumni Association and get their library card at the same time in the library.
- These ideas are my brainstorming on how to get the library out of the building and visit with various patrons to make an impact in a positive way. Successfully implementing Outreach for Impact requires transparency and teamwork. Collaboration and partnerships increases library instruction and service opportunities. I started this presentation with Once upon a time, and every story we hear that starts with that statement ends with “happily ever after. Our story concludes with a librarian who ventures out into the community and provides Outreach that will reach the community needs. The librarian will return to the library with new ideas and know that he or she is making a difference. The partnerships between the library and the community make the library a valuable asset for all parties. These Library Instruction Services will touch the young, the online community, the status quo and current and former students. And they all lived Happily Ever after.
- Thank you so much for listening. We have some time for any questions or comments.