The strategy is to move ahead of the continuously changing information environment; becoming agile and flexible for community use and community dependability. This is the 'Settlement Library' working theory in practice: a learning organization presenting steps toward the changing expectations of users through strategies which appreciate change, accept challenge, and develop new skills. A learning organization which knows, understands, and thinks in line with the community in order to become essential to the community.
Good customer service becomes the foundation for all the organization needs to be.
Adapting new ideas is the beginning of community appropriate programs and services by appreciating the skills, values, and work/social history of residents. Exchanging information and sharing ideas and experiences throughout the region through partnering creates opportunities for creativity and new levels of expertise.
The simplicity of it is to simply focus on the resident's, their culture, and their identity when securing programs, establishing a collection, and creating a learning service oriented organization. Being a shared vision, a 'Settlement Library' is about action. A 'Settlement Library' encourages individual learning and self-mastery as a way to address change - personally, environmentally, socially, and politically - and to explore new ideas while respecting the key concepts of librarianship and community.
A 'Settlement Library' is a social enterprise and symbolic site of collective memory (Augst) for each individual rural community it serves. Small changes can lead to big results.
After all, we must honor the past to create the future (Gorman).
Image: tutor2u.net/.../business-with-a-social-face/
