Commentary on Survival

Persuasion is an Art.

However, persuading is different from convincing. To convince people means that you get them to agree that your argument or position is reasonable. To persuade them means that you motivate them to act based on their convictions.

  

In my neck of the woods there are many really, really small public libraries in no close proximity to any growing metropolis. There are also only seven bookmobiles in the entire state. These small rural libraries, falling under the Urban Development code of 2500 people or less, have only one or two paid workers, many volunteers, and probably with little exception, no one supporting an MLS. 

The backbone of librarianship can be seen in the small libraries which populate rural/urban America. These institutions may not be well funded, well stocked or glamorous, but they house the foundations of our national life through the contribution of the preservation of some of our national ideals; the maintenance of the family as a social institution and the cultivation of independent self-reliance and neighborliness. Pancake breakfasts, book sales, public auctions, and putting letters in the water bills begging for money in many cases augments poorly funded facilities. The success story for these “bypassed growth areas” has in fact been the internet, although in many cases not without a little kicking and screaming from the “old standard.” I have personally experienced a number of the “old standard” who sacrificed much to keep these community units alive. These are faithful and commendable individuals. 

Computer networks are currently available in even the smallest libraries; unfortunately, an unprecedented number do not have an internet presence or even a library email address. In addition, if it were not for women’s organizations, a substantial number of these units of rural America would not have survived as long as they have: many functioning in substandard buildings or, at the very least, those in desperate need of a makeover (the building, I mean).  

The educational needs of staff in small and rural libraries is relevant. A solo librarian does it all and usually does it all alone: cataloging, to funding, to fixing the toilet and mopping up the overflow. Unfortunately, the information culture that technology creates many times takes a back seat to more pressing issues, and what solo librarian has the time or resources to take webinars, go to conferences, or attend college when there is no proximity? As a matter of fact, in my state, there are only two colleges which offer an MLS and neither offer it completely online. Boards are usually locals who volunteer their time but have no concept of what it takes to run a library and feed the hungry masses either intellectually or socially outside of church or the volunteer fire hall. Although these individuals are to be commended for their efforts and sacrifices, many communities house a library in which the stacks are filled with 95% fiction, the only outreach services are to children, reference works are substantially minimal and outdated, and the hierarchy looks at “outsiders” who try to persuade for change as suspect. 

Although many public libraries see a decline in state revenues, there is no question that there are small and rural libraries which “have made it” in the library world and created citadels within their communities. This was never accomplished, however, without forward and inventive thinking, creativity, and a lot of energy used to convince hierarchy's and persuade for change.  It is correct that the Internet leveled the playing field between small and large libraries because of the opportunities it presents to small-town America. However, without special handling, the small, rural library cannot survive. On my side of the creek, the issue of survival definitely should be served up on the soup spoon daily - with or without the meat. 

The bottom line is this: There does not exist a library that is powerful enough to stand by itself in isolation.  

Cooperation does alleviate many burdens that make rural libraries reluctant to participate in  networking. Libraries should evaluate network opportunities, carefully weighing the challenges with the advantages, but always working toward providing their patrons with better service and materials. The community rural library can effectively be a blueprint for cultural improvement. Though staff running small or rural libraries may often feel like islands, cut off from the networking, technology, and resources available to larger libraries, there is an abundance of help for such libraries and plenty of opportunities for continued education. 

image: http://sanderscountyartscouncil.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/an-unladylike-battle-for-survival-in-the-sunnyside-library-ignites-students-questions/

Citizen Librarianship - Local Not Global

Citizen vs. Hermit

Librarians in a small, rural community often work with many survival issues prevalent on a daily basis: solo professionals or paraprofessionals; single libraries serving a patron base diverse in regard to education level, literacy, interest, age and abilities; small budgets; and ongoing competition for funds with other agency units which also provide public services. Frequently there is professional isolation; limited opportunities for professional development and peer exchange; insufficient guidance on the job; and too often a lack of formal professional training or poor initial training in the field. Other disadvantages may also include too little operating funds for adequate materials and equipment; low pay; poor physical facilities with little space for collection, equipment, and computers; and not enough help. For these reasons, small town librarians share the same potential for falling under one of two categories of librarianship: that of Citizen or that of Hermit.

A Hermit lacks certain Citizen qualities and cares little for public relations for the purpose of building up goodwill within a community. The Hermit is content with administrative duties on the inside and building institutional organizational structures usually bound by traditional teachings, hierarchies or stereotypes. Institutions operate in an environment consisting of other institutions. Every institution is influenced by the broader environment through what is known as "institutional peer pressure." The main goal for institutions is survival and legitimacy. And although institutions clearly have the capacity to grow and adapt, they also possess the habit of being prisoners of their own institutionalized history whether calamitous or otherwise. For a librarian in a small, rural community library, this type of Hermit behavior will not only hinder any possible relationships within the community, but will also limit the role the library plays in the lives of its service sector.

In the small town library, a library professional guides the library in building an image in the minds of the community in order to assure the local library the best place in community life. Even the smallest library needs at least one paid staff member designated as director to automatically instill the sense of responsibility necessary for a successful operation, and provide a sense of authority with staff members, the library board, and volunteers. This leads to smoother operations, more stable personnel relationships, as well as giving the library direction. As a Citizen focused on community goals with a mission toward outreach, the librarian in a rural community must possess the knowledge, skills, and fortitude to make the library an integral player in the lives of residents.

If rural communities are to develop an adequate collection of information materials and provide effective library services, it is vital that community leaders hire library and information professionals who have the knowledge and skills to make the library an integral part of the overall effort to educate and build relationships inside and outside library walls. How the librarian deals with the local community as a Citizen is, to a large extent, the responsibility of the individual librarian.

At some point in their careers, public librarians must walk down Main Street as a Citizen of the community. For the trained librarian, networking and collaborating is an answer for collection development and a source of communication in the rural community. However, it is up to the rural public librarian whether he/she becomes an engaged Citizen or an institutionalized Hermit.

Citizen Librarianship

Thomas Jefferson once wrote to James Madison that a public servant should be constantly at his post. The Citizen librarian of a public library is a public servant whose post stretches beyond the confines of the library building as a representative of the community at large. The first step outside the traditional boundaries of librarianship is also the first step toward success: the commitment to the goal of making library services available to all.

“Perhaps the single largest error librarians working in small libraries make is that they attempt to do too much of the job alone. There are many resources available to assist them in their development if they can open up and avail themselves of opportunities, especially from nearby larger libraries, the systems, the state library agencies, and associations. When small libraries cooperate and affiliate with other libraries, they might continue to do more than exist. They might even thrive.”

This “off-site approach” offers librarians the opportunity to open up communication about the library and its services on the “user’s turf” and beyond. It gives librarians the opportunity to observe and listen to the population intended to be served so that barriers can be overcome. Bringing a library outside its ‘walls’ “clears the way for the library to function as a critical access point for information and personal development resources, and [to be] perceived as a source of personal empowerment by its users.”

There are three major attributes that all Citizen librarians need to capitalize on:

• The first is accessibility.
The Citizen librarian will be known and approachable by the service population whether it is inside the library facility or outside in the rural community.
• The second attribute is openness.
In a small community rumors, misconceptions and fears can run rampant. The Citizen librarian keeps the doors of communication open and humanizes community residents in each individual service segment.
• The third attribute is that of educator.
The Citizen librarian teaches community residents the role of the public library and offers them resources to enhance their lives.

Outreach

All libraries have some segment of the population in their service areas which are misunderstood and therefore underserved. Outreach service is one of the techniques that librarians employ to help reach isolated groups. In exercising Citizen strengths, librarians create partnerships with community entities for expanded services as well as promoting public awareness and understanding toward the needs and issues of the rural population. Through this relationship, community groups and organizations band together to form a cadre of support for community administrators and librarians as they seek to improve library services for all as well as providing a friendly response to prevalent issues facing this segment of librarianship such as professional isolation, lack of training, and limited opportunities for peer exchange.

Through Citizen Librarianship the libraries of rural communities have the opportunity to play a distinctive role in many lives through up-to-date informative legal resources, life-changing programming, reading materials and services, and census and government information educating the general public. And for the librarians employed by these organizations, Citizen Librarianship offers an opportunity for professional sustenance and advocacy and personal support.

Katz, “The How To Do It Manual,” 70.
Williams, “The Big House,” 72.
Image: http://libguides.emporia.edu/participatorylibrarianship

Free Agent Librarianship: Open to Create

Individuality - not Collectivity

Hobson's Choice refers to an apparent free choice which offers no real alternative: a take it or leave it collective manifestation.

The story goes that Mr. Hobson, a 1600's livery stable owner, had some 40 animals in his rent-a-horse business and a straightforward system: a returning horse goes to the end of the line, and the horse at the top of the line goes to the next server. He had good intentions - rotating horses so his steeds received good rest and equal wear - but his heavy-handed enforcement of the policy didn't provide the patron a choice and thereby denied any potential for customer service value.

So how does Hobson's Choice apply to rural libraries today?

Rural libraries should be as individual as the community in which they serve. Not every philosophy identified through a library organization could or should apply to the library supporters/patrons in every individual community. A library's business is people, and a library should mirror the community it serves; not a collective establishment of information services or programs.

A vital library is not necessarily about size, a single technology, or the same management practices, but rather how it is deployed and with how much freedom to innovate and take risks.

This is the beauty of the rural library in a small community: freedom to innovate, opportunities to focus, and openness to create. There is a difference between being efficient and being persuasive. Outcomes must match or exceed the expectations or customer service really only reflects Hobson's Choice.

Emotional connections always precede economic connections.

Quality personal services thrive on enthusiasm for problem solving because in a quality service setting each person should be treated as a respected individual. Quality service is emotional, and process is just as important as the results. As with Mr. Hobson, professional services may be very competent and knowledgeable but still not able to provide that which meets or exceeds the expectations - or information needs - of the customer. Customer service relies on active involvement between the library professional and the library supporter or user. Personal service is not a one-way relationship - it is an interaction: not a single event, but a continuing process.

Don't fall for Hobson's Choice in your library by basing your decisions on demographics alone: that tells you very little about how the individual's in your community feel. Take a deeper look by seizing opportunities to get to know your residents and take a fresh look through new eyes at what your library is presently offering. Create a customer service model which will give your library "legs" to attract repeat patronage from the larger population.

The bottom line is that your customers and staff are going to have an emotional experience because of their contact with your library whether you like it or not. Your responsibility - and challenge - is to provide them with the kind of emotional connection through individual interaction and services to inspire loyalty.

Afterall, library services should respond to what the community needs: It's about individuality, not collectivity.



Is your library technically considered a Rural Library? And what exactly is Free Agent Librarianship?

According to the United States Census Bureau, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents. Areas designated as rural can have population densities as high as 999 per square mile or as low as 1 person per square mile. On the other hand, according to the ALA/APA Rural Libraries Survey, rural librarians define rural differently: to some a library is rural if it is isolated; to another, a library is rural if the main patrons are in agriculture or commute long distances to larger metropolitan areas for work; and yet another defines rural as a population of less than 5000 with more deer per square mile than people!

Regardless of how you define your demographic, Free Agent Librarianship can be a reality in your library and in your life. A librarian who is a Free Agent is not subject to external constraints through organizational structures, influential and politically motivated library associations, and is not bound by traditional teachings, hierarchies or stereotypes. Free Agent Librarianship promotes a library professional who is set at liberty to create, organize and advance an eclectic librarianship for the purpose of providing highly customized services and inventive possibilities for community information centers focusing on the community at large.

Free Agent Librarianship is ALL about entrepreneurship and making your library the center of your community. So be one!!

Image: cmblog.cityofventura.net/2009/01/is-closing-w...

Navigating the Library Road

Direction for getting Personal

When it comes to finding direction for rural or small libraries, there can be no doubt that imagination and innovation will be required to overcome the traditional source pool of the past. Financial challenges will always be an issue for libraries regardless of state or federal opportunities and easy access to the Web. Proving value and making library services essential to a community or organization are first steps beyond the operating budget of a parent organization or source. Because there is no such thing as a constant anymore, encouraging a feeling of contribution and excitement in the giver is the goal which makes “digging deeper” into the pockets of outside sources less intimidating. It’s the difference between navigating the library road, or taking a wrong turn.

For almost any library segment nontraditional support is probably the main support. Fund raising activities involving the community or organization both physically and emotionally create informed reality-based movers and shakers ready and able to meet initiatives and continuing financial needs. Just as volunteer fire fighter, ambulance squad, and police department’s sponsor annual programs, events and ticket sales to support their public service, so it must become when securing additional monies for a rural or small library. According to the true definition of “patron,” individuals or particular businesses/institutions/foundations should be called upon, convinced, and encouraged to lend practical and financial support to the library. This might include personal benefactors or organizational philanthropy.

The goal is to build a civic group of multiple stakeholders interested and committed to reinforcing and rewarding library values, service, access and intellectual freedom.

Your direction should be to prove out that the library can be the glue holding the community (or organization) together: a very vital and necessary link in the chain.

In the far reaching scope of acquiring funds, library staff should be called upon to contribute personal time and energy into capital campaigns in a broader marketing objective. Marketing specialized library services is a cooperative action challenging each member to assume leadership in some capacity according to their personal skills.

The goal is for the Friends Group and library board to work alongside staff and library volunteers in contacting and gaining support from community “influential’s,” and to rub elbows with the masses - becoming a familiar face within the community – to promote a helpful and friendly feeling of, “This library belongs to all of us.”

Your direction should be to maximize exposure and develop strategies to motivate assistance.

The direction for any rural or small library should be toward a relationship with the segment to be served. The library should be an external force breathing life and longevity into the community or organization. Once a relationship is secured - and value is proven by an emotional connection - support will naturally flow from varied sources. Giving to the furtherance of the library will become just as essential as giving to the fire squad or police department: the targeted segment will feel the necessity of library services and programs.

It is this relationship which secures the rural or small library’s path on the library road, and extends the new vision for the new librarian.

Image: www.davincis.org/Traditional%20.htm

Community Sturm und Drang

Translation: Storm and Stress, Urge or Yearning

Every township, city, and hamlet has a personality and a story. Local history is a means to define and reach a customer base with appropriate and adequate information expectations and perceptions. The achievement of excellence in the delivery of information products and services requires a commitment to customer service, and customer service is only attainable when the customer is understood.

Bigger is not necessarily better or required. Small, rural libraries possess the greater opportunity to tap into community individuality through personal knowledge of the community and its historical and cultural strivings. The larger metropolitan areas do not have this unique priviledge. Creating and establishing an ongoing community archival project secures a community's culture and identity for generations - serving as a connecting source.

Using the residents of the community itself as historical sources and donators while striving toward retention of the historical quality of the community, and tapping into its native human resources, can easily be established by a volunteer archiving initiative through the library setting. Human history and culture are what extends a library as a traditional champion of information gathering and information access. Community archiving is simply a natural product of the library ideal.

Ground breaking; home-steading; barn raising; water divining; births, deaths, wars, and choices made which altered individual and corporate existence, all constitute the storms, stresses, and yearnings of the human spirit. Library community historical archiving is a means to secure and connect the past with the present - creating a breathable space in between for those who long to know and want to remember.

As the last puzzle piece in Appalachia, Settlement Library community information center's offer a relationship by creating a local, personal historical connection through community participation. Even a small collection serves to establish a unity and camaraderie between neighbors through something very basic which we all share - ancestry and hometown familiarity.

Every community is bursting with human history. A central value of librarianship is the recognition that the past serves as a guide to the future. The library is called upon to not only provide new information, but to also protect the historical record of our communities (Rubin).

After all, libraries serve humanity.

This image of the sturm und drang daylilly can be retrieved at:
http://www.ashwooddaylilies.com/INTRODUCTIONS%201999-04.htm

The Settlement Library Project

A library should be a reflection of its community.

The Settlement Library Project promotes the idea that the library of the future is a cultural center and information resource. It is an evolving, growing member of society solving the information requirements of the immediate community.

The community is the home-base of the Settlement Library Project in that the library institution creates a relationship with the rural community to be served. Resources should be provided to support that which is defined as most important for the community growth and the community good by the community itself. Diverse arenas for cultural expression and historical preservation are all part of the Settlement Library concept and the library of the future which fulfills the information needs, identity, and personality of the residents. Libraries build communities; however, it is the history and culture of the community which give the library its soul and its character. Through capitalizing on opportunities for broader impact, the Settlement Library Project develops innovative ways to provide access to resources and initiate community specific services.

Afterall, a library is a growing organism.

The Settlement Library Project from The Settlement Library Project

Settlement Libraries

Studying Rural Librarianship

Settlement Schools were initiated at the turn of the 20th century to address extreme isolation and poverty of school aged children and their families. Attention focused on Appalachia where communities were identified which would benefit from the establishment of an educational outreach program. A Settlement Institution was then defined as a non-profit, private, rural organization in Appalachia designed to promote and provide programs, services, and development for the immediate community and the nearby surrounding area. The purpose was not intended to proselytize, restrict, or remove traditional customs and manners, but rather to enhance and capitalize on the already rich culture propagated in this region.

One hundred years later, in the true tradition of the Settlement Institution ideal, so it is with the concept of the Settlement Library Project™. As an evolving educational outreach library system intiative - with a focus on native and traditional Appalachian culture, customs, and resources - a Settlement Library can be intiated in an already existing small rural library available to local residents. For those communities separated from larger metropolitan areas which offer traditional library services and the benefits thereof, a Settlement Library offers an opportunity to establish non-traditional - less than full-service - information centers designed to promote and provide programs, services, and educational development while striving toward the retention of the historical quality of the community. A Settlement Library is a local link for rural residents to greater and larger resources.

The objective of a Settlement Library is to empower local residents through educational pursuits, opportunities, linked services, and skills provided by private and public agencies and various organizations working cooperatively: addressing the present educational and informational needs of the community, and securing a link with local historical customs and culture.

Not every rural community requires a full-service library. For those communities separated by distance or economic difficulties supplementing library services for the obtainment of appropriate and adequate information access promotes a sense of community identity, individual intellectual freedom, and Constitutional democratic ideals leading to an informed and educated citizenry.

Libraries build communities; however, it is the history and culture of the community which give the library its soul and its character. Through capitalizing on opportunities for broader impact, the Settlement Library Project™ develops innovative ways to provide access to resources and services.

After all, a library's business is people.

More about Settlement Schools is available at this link:
http://www.ket.org/settlement/index.html

This image available at: http://www.eerc.ra.utk.edu/sightline/VegetationV2N1.html