Outreach to Remote Users: Taking the Library Road into the Woods

Some of the most exciting opportunities in rural librarianship are in areas that have not been attempted before.  The goal is to give the patrons the best possible access to the largest possible amount of high-quality, high-relevance information.  The rural librarian in a small community may need to be prepared to depart from professional norms in order to benefit patrons.  Historically, librarians have not generally been rewarded for coming up with and implementing new ideas. Nonetheless, we need to encourage those who have crazy ideas to implement them, and run the risk that change sometimes brings.  A historical unwillingness to take risks and embrace new ideas is exactly the reason why some libraries are ignored by their public, while others thrive.

It is clear that fewer and fewer people are physically crossing the threshold into the public library.  Users not coming to us doesn't necessarily mean they don't want to see us; it may simply mean that we need to go to them. The forward thinking rural librarian sees this as an opportunity, rather than a crisis. A rural librarian is in a position to shape the future of a small community.

But there is an obvious problem:  a plate already full and the solo librarian or staff already going full-tilt.

So, what do we do?

Reexamine what you are already involved in, and the amount of time spent in traditional library practices. Weigh the benefits these actions provide against the cost of lost opportunities--in other words, the benefits that could be realized by doing other things instead. 

The opportunity is in online resources and making them easy to access and use.  This expands the number of people who actually make use of the library's services.  Offering remote access is a chance to make libraries as essential in the electronic era as they were in the print era, only richer, more complete, and more fun! 

Service to remote users is necessary in small, rural communities.  The 'Fotched-On' Librarian in small town America is needed to serve those who can't afford broad access, as well as to act on behalf of the sponsoring communities who require remote access.  This includes reaching-out to invite people not only through the library doors, but also through the doors that exist in Web-space:  doors patrons have a key to by virtue of their membership within the community.  Once a patron is through the doors of cyberspace, it is still our job to help them find and select from the manifold information available.  Services provided to users from a distance are every bit as real and valuable as those provided within library's walls.  Sometimes all it takes is to simply inform our patrons that we have these services for them to explore.

You may never see your remote users.  In fact, there are more differences than similarities among remote library users.  So go big with those wonderful crazy ideas, implement some of them, and take risks.  Swallow hard and plunge off the paved library road and into the woods, leaving some of your traditional burdens behind.

Brought to you by The Settlement Library Project:
Serving People, Changing Perspectives, and Sharing Resources in Libraries

Image: 
Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd
Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2434370/Festival-No-6-unique-magical-festivals-around.html

Thanks to:  Donnelyn Curtis, Ed. 2002. Attracting, Educating, and Serving Remote Users Through the Web: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians.  New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Infectious Leadership - Begins with YOU!

Good Managers Don't Just Happen: They are Built

There are three central values in life: the experiential, or that which happens to us; the creative, or that which we bring into existence; and the attitudinal, which is our response to circumstances. What matters most is how we respond to what we experience and what we do with that experience. For the Solo or rural librarian, management is realized through effective relationships. As a manager - whether lone or with a staff - certain principles encourage the establishment of standards. These can be used as an ethical criterion to establish some sort of code of ethics – or Credo.

To manage well, you need a Management Credo to guide yourself personally, your actions, and your decisions. Here are the basics:

• Understand the individual.
An individual's values determine what actions will result.
• Build relationships.
What is important to another person should be important to you as manager.
• Attend to the little things.
These are actually the big things in relationships.
• Keep your commitments.
Breaking a promise is a major contributor to lack of trust.
• Clarify expectations.
The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in ambiguous, conflicting expectations around roles and goals. Making an investment of time and effort up front saves time and avoids major problems later.
• Show personal integrity.
A lack of integrity can undermine almost any effort you attempt.
• Integrity requires conforming reality to your words.
Keeping promises will fulfill someone else's expectations.
• Apologize sincerely and don’t wait.

Although not necessarily in this order, these are personal and active professional values to attain to:

Value One: Manage Self

Managing ourselves focuses on preserving and enhancing relationships and accomplishing results, thereby maintaining balance. When communicating we often prescribe before making a proper diagnosis. We don’t listen to others because we don’t control ourselves. Whatever the orientation of the person we are dealing with, the relationship is key to turning the situation around and can be managed through our own self-control.

Value Two: Listen Emphatically

Emphatic listening is listening with the intent to understand another person's frame of reference and feelings. Emphatic listening is accomplished using the ears, eyes, and heart. Skills of empathic listening are built on personal character which inspires openness and trust. Emphatic listening takes time; but not as much time as correcting misunderstandings.

Value Three: Diagnose Before You Prescribe

An effective manager seeks to understand the needs, concerns and situations of staff and customers: “An amateur sells products, the professional sells solutions”. As we appreciate people, they will appreciate us. Patience in all things preserves all things.

Value Four: Synergize

Synergy is all about valuing differences; respecting them; building on strengths; and compensating for weaknesses. High trust leads to high cooperation and communication. A manager who is truly effective possesses the humility to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through communication with others.

Value Five: Be Proactive

Pro-activity means that we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. What makes pro-activity indispensable is the fact that pro-activity is grounded in facing reality while also understanding we have the power to choose a positive response to our circumstances. The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct it, and learn from it.

Value Six: Be Accountable

In organizations, and in our personal lives, lack of accountability is a highly contagious disease. The willingness to be accountable for what we do, and what we fail or refuse to do, is a crucial sign of character. Being accountable is one of the fastest ways to earn respect and trust, and it puts an individual in control of his/her life. Responding accountably to life's challenges gives us the power to change things.

Value Seven: Be a Steward Delegator

Effective managers use Stewardship Delegation which focuses on results as well as methods. People are able to choose a method to achieve specific results. Stewardship Delegation requires a clear, upfront mutual understanding of and commitment to expectations. It offers a real opportunity for real progress and can help establish healthy team connections.

Value Eight: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Civility doesn't apply to only words. Being civil requires paying attention, listening, showing respect for people's time and space, and speaking kindly. Those we work with and work for have worth and value and deserve to be treated as we would like to be treated in turn: with consideration, patience and respect. Because what goes around comes around, responding to others as we desire to be responded to is good medicine and good management. Allowing for the benefit of the doubt gives time for investigation, contemplation, and a carefully thought out response.

To work well with others, you need a Management Credo. Become a living and breathing one yourself!

Image: http://www.employee-performance.com/blog/?p=2482
References: Seven Habits, n.d., Schilling, The Power, 2009.

Special Libraries

What is 'Fotched-On' ?
'Fotched-On' is a term used by mountain folk when referring to Settlement School teachers who left the comforts of home and hearth to navigate uncharted clan-type communities within the Appalachia region at the turn of the 20th century. The actual phrase is "fetched in;" however, regional dialect overtook the pronounciation and configured it into "fotched on." The phrase refers to these teachers having been "fetched" from the city - or outside the settlements - and placed in rural, isolated communities within the region to create educational outreach programs.

'Fotched-On' is used here as a phrase exemplifying a modern concept of maverick librarians who promote an eclectic form of librarianship. Through moving out of metropolitan areas - and the traditional concepts of librarianship - a 'fotched-on' librarian is one who is "called-out" as a type of circuit-out-rider into remote, rural regions which do not have close proximity to a library system. A 'fotched-on' librarian is one who either promotes, establishes, or builds up a non-traditional information center for communities which may or may not have existing library services available.

This blog is being designed to indicate and establish an ongoing interest in special libraries, the special needs of communities requiring customized library services, and the solo or one person information professional who asserts the marketing and advocacy necessary for the creation, implementation, and survival of these unique and specialized emerging units of the modern library system.

More about 'Fotched-On' is available at this link:
http://www.ket.org/settlement/setschools_01.html
This image is available at:
http://maqonline.org/

Solo or One Person Libraries

Welcome to the Solo Librarians Division of SLA

Due to their reputation for "connecting people and information," the Special Libraries Association (http://www.sla.org/) has a blog for Solo's. Under the 'Community' link I located 'SLA Blogs' and chose the blog entitled, "Solos Helping Solos Blog" due to the commonality that many special libraries are manned and operated by one person under budget restraints.

My attraction to this blog was in its simplicity and excitement. This solo librarian discovered a cost effective marketing strategy to boost library popularity and services to her special segment.

This excerpt can be found directly at http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/solo_division_blog/ and scrolling down to "Library Newsletter."

I understand that with the many responsibilities required of a solo librarian, creating a library newsletter may not seem like something of great importance. It's amazing to me, however, just how effective a marketing mechanism a library newsletter can be!

My library's newsletter is not elaborate. Some months it is merely a list of the materials we have on a particular topic. Sometimes I ask other employees to write a few sentences about a book they had checked out and found particularly helpful. These endorsements by peers increase the popularity of the materials they mention exponentially. By reviewing an item for the newsletter, it also seems to increase an employee's sense of connection to the library.

Not only does the newsletter's presence market the individual items in the library, it also reminds people that there is a library and a librarian available to assist them.

Image:  http://catsandlibraries.tumbler.com