Daily Thoughts 5/8/2009

The Owl 1896

Daily Thoughts 5/8/2009

Hello, I went to the Westchester Library Association
conference today. I had a great time. During the first
part, I spent quite a bit of time talking to Baker and
Taylor about some of the different things which we
needed to do. I took away a few interesting ideas.
Baker and Taylor has a leasing program for books and
dvds where you can get a number of items for a brief
period, keep a few of them and return the rest. I think
this may be good for our bestsellers and other high
demand items.

This is a link for a slideshow on the first program I
attended, Programming on a Shoestring presented by Janie Hernan.

http://www.slideshare.net/JanieH/high-impact-programs-on-a-shoestring-budget-presentation . It is what was
presented.

There were some comments that were not part of the
slideshow. If you base your programs on highly
circulating items in a collection you are more likely to
get a crowd of people. You need to tie in your programs
with books. It is not just about numbers, it is about
audience satisfaction as well.

At least once a month you should spend money on a large
program that will definitely draw a crowd. Don't give
up. We plan programs six months in advance.

She highlighted a number of programs including video and
photo contests, gaming nights, podcasting events that
have already happened. She mentioned poetry as a nice
draw. There are always of local poets. Poetry readings
work well.

You need to do an adult summer reading club. You need
to tell the adults who are coming for the teenage and
childrens summer reading program that there is also an
adult summer reading program.

The objective is to become the communities living room
where there are a lot of activities all over the library
for people. The library showed worldcup soccer on the big
screen in the community room. Her library showed Obama's
inauguratiion at the library.

Her library has not had an official survey, be they do spot
surveys after each program to see what people want.
They fill out a short sheet for feedback.

This is what I got from my first session at the
conference.

I also attended a session on Library Advocacy For Tough
Economic Times presented by Michael J. Borges. This was interesting. I

wasn't sure what to make of it. The presenter basically outlined
what you needed to do as an advocate for libraries.

He emphasized a number of different things; start at the
top where the money is, before you ask for money build
lots of friendships in your community, libraries have a
built in constituency, their patrons. This constituency
includes a friends group and your
foundation.

You should have a newsletter and an email newsletter
which you can send to people. Try and get other
libraries to help you. Libraries are too fragmented,
they should help each other more.

One surprising statement was that you cannot target
twitter and many social tools. Your message should be
targeted.

This is a brief of summary of what I heard. It is not
everything, it is just what I thought was
interesting.

I had a chance to talk with many different people and
collect a lot of business cards. There are some useful
changes which may be coming as a result of the
conference. I am still pondering a few ideas right now.

The lunch was not bad. I had the vegetarian lunch. Lee
Child was there to give a speech about his thrillers as
a key note speaker. I thought his speech was
entertaining. My favorite part was his statement about
writers block. He asked the audience if they ever got
librarians block. He would put his mortgage, his bills,
and his contract in front of him and start
writing.

The last session which I attended was on Your Role In
Achieving Positive Change presented by Ma' lis Wendt. The speaker gave

two resources http://www.appreciativeinquiry.org and http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm This was about a set

of tools which helps people react to change in a more positive way.

Appreciate Inquiry is supposed to help people identify the positive aspects of change and focus on how to build on past successes. I still have to take a closer look at the website and read it more. It was a very upbeat session.