PLA 2012 Friday March 16

Astonishing to think that I put so much in my brain in two and a half days. PLA had a terrific Boopsie app for the conference this year, which helped tremendously. I could review the conference schedule, set up my own conference plan, find speakers and exhibitors by name, see hotels and restaurant info, follow various social feeds, and more. I didn't even scroll all the way down the app until Friday morning. I'll make better use of this next time. This was helpful personally because I did not clearly understand what Boopsie could do - I just enjoyed saying Boopsie out loud.

I know there were some individual library blogger meetups (YALSA had one), but I didn't see a general talk table - or as the annoying new nomenclature has it, ConverStations. I'd love to meet some of the bloggers I follow.

Friday began the best possible way, with a Belgian sugar waffle at Bonte. That should hold me until second breakfast. The next stop was the redoubtable Joan and George Show (Frye Williams and Needham). I've seen Joan and George once in person and once via webinar, and they're always lively and bring something new. This morning, however, I felt a bit put upon. Just for a moment. Yes, digital downloads are all that, but we're still checking out 100,000 physical items a month versus 1,000 digital items. If it were as EASY to check out digital items, then we might have a horse race.

G and J were talking about sustainability Friday morning.

• Be able to scale up (success) AND scale down (shifting interests or population). Can a service grow without needing more finite resources (space, money, hours)?
• Look for services that support a growing clientele - don't spend your energy on the last four people who want VHS tapes.
• Shared skills are more sustainable than unique/solo ones. Staff must be willing to do "everything" - however you define that.
• We still have SO MUCH: building, collection, volunteers, engaged staff, community.
• Focus on the results - get data - even if you don't like potential outcomes, acknowledge them!
• We don't necessarily need more/better marketing, we need more users telling other users about us. Let people comment on our website, publish the paper comments. (some of us don't need better marketing, but I posit that a lot of libraries need to look at their PR materials and then slap themselve.s)
• Sustainability means relationships outside the library - with organizations and people that matter. (I added "that matter", because I sometimes feel we're so busy protecting the downtrodden that we forget to schmooze the Mayor.)
• Expand self-directed service beyond the self-check. Don't keep your "best" service away from the patron. 

Yeah, Joan and George are still pretty remarkable.

I had a pile o' spinach lasagna and roasted vegetables at the market for lunch. Followed up with an Irish Coffee ice cream waffle cone. 

My 2:00 session was Choosing to Lead: Budget Decisions and their Impact, featuring the directors (some very new in their position) of Seattle, Sacramento and Charlotte Mecklenburg. They've all been hit with big cuts, going from stellar examples of what to do well to laying off a third of their staff in some cases. Seattle Public chose furloughs instead of layoffs. The moderator was Peter Pearson, President of the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, a very active fundraiser and advocacy group.

This was a sobering and thoughtful panel, with a very attentive audience. All of the speakers emphasized honesty and relentless transparency; being as available to staff as possible, acknowledging the emotional fallout for those losing their jobs and those "left behind." Other thoughts:

• Rivkah Sass (2006 Librarian of the year) spoke of ceasing to be "a good girl" when it came to asking for what the library needed, and also in talking to the public. Let them know, in a politic way, what they stood to lose, and who they could call to speak their mind. 
• This was echoed ringingly by Mr. Pearson, who spoke of the role a Friends or other 501C3 group could have in lobbying leaders for library needs.
• Be data driven. Have concrete results to show others. CMeck is partnering with schools to demonstrate that summer reading programs improve returning students reading test scores.
• Know what you value internally - the staff? The collection? The building(s)? For some libraries, patrons could manage with fewer books, but insisted on all locations being open.
• Fundraising - be realistic and know your community. Donors like to give to the collection, they don't want to pay for operating costs. They like to support children's activities, and aren't interested in adult reading clubs.
• Break down silos and solo acts - we can't afford them.
• Give everyone advocacy training. Keep them educated and on point.

Their last word was to the library schools. "Create classes in HR - librarians WILL be managing staff."

After this workshop I ran back to the exhibits, to try to see a last few vendors before I had to get on the train to the airport. I visited Library Insight (Evanced-like calendar product), Sage (sleek new statistics dbase from CQ Press), Livemocha (language learning product similar to HelpNow) and about 60 seconds at Freegal/Freading. I stopped to say hi and thank you to John at Televend, who provides our fax service.

I would have stopped to yell at Overdrive, but there was a line to beat them up, sort of like this:



OK, I'm kidding. Sort of. 

My official PLA 2012 experience ended in a perfect storm of timing, delight and gratitude, when Karen and I encountered Duncan Smith on the exhibit floor, heading back to the EBSCO booth. To say that I adore Duncan would be understating the case. There may have been some squee-ing involved. Just thinking about him makes me all goopy. Not only is he the kindest person in the world, he is a leader and a mentor to dozens of people who love fiction and reading and believe in the power of Story. Plus he has the best smile on the planet. 

After the hugging and grinning, Duncan showed us the exciting new product coming from NoveList in June - LibraryAware. Get on the update list now, people, this looks mahhvelous. It's a turnkey product for marketing and communications, creating everything from bookmarks to RSS feeds. Plus it talks to Evanced and Baker and Taylor, so you can easily import book and DVD jackets. It's a planning (internal communication) as well as a production tool.

And then - and then! - Joyce Saricks walked over and my Great Circle of Library Life was complete. Joyce has been "retired" for several years, but is as active and present as she ever was, continuing to inspire and educate library staff all over the country (and probably the world too). I could hardly tear myself away from the two of them.

Well, that was my PLA conference. See you in 2014 in Indianapolis! 



  





 

PLA 2012 Thursday March 15

Thursday morning I put on this dress, this cardigan, and my denim jacket, and ran off to give my piece of a five-person panel presentation. I was invited by Rebecca Vnuk of Shelf Renewal (and Booklist magazine) to do fifteen minutes on Science Fiction, along with a stellar panel of Readers' Advisory experts on literary, historical, romance and thriller fiction. First, it was a blast to be talking about books again, and second, SO FUN to see these particular folks again. We had a good time, talking reallllly fast and urging everyone to visit the website for the handouts! The resulting list of favorites books and authors should do me for the rest of 2012.

While we were rattling off titles, my colleague was at a program entitled Abolishing Performance Evaluations: Why they Don't Work and What Does. You might well lift an eyebrow! The presenters seemed to have been relying on annual evaluations to manage staff they never saw, and "discovered" that didn't work so well. Huh. I like our performance evaluations and don't intend to discard them.

The next session was Now What? 12 Steps to Thriving in a Different World, featuring Karen Hyman and Peter Bromberg. Wandering around the enormous convention center, I was late finding the room, so I missed a couple of the steps, but loved what I did hear. See all the slides here.

• Improv as a theme (this was everywhere at PLA). Find ways to move the "scene" forward. 
• Action beats inaction every time. If you wait for the perfect moment, there will be lots of dead airspace, and your customer will move on.
• Engaging customers via their senses (sight, sound, touch), action (physical movement), emotions and minds. "Mind" is what we've traditionally done well, but we have to work on the others, particularly with adults.
• Acceptance is not acquiescence. We don't have the budget we used to, but we're still going to build, innovate, and befriend.
• Become a black belt in time management. You are never going to "catch up", so use your time effectively on the important stuff.

The presenters showed a great short video of how a mass transit system encouraged people to use the stairs (escalators overburdened) by making the stairs really fun. Seriously, spend a minute and a half watching this and think about what you want your patrons to do more or less of in the library.

The key message, I think, was not to hunker down, but to remember how fabulous we are and how much fun we can be.

(At some point that morning I got a great cup of coffee and a hunk of soda bread at the Reading Terminal Market, just one of the many reasons why I'd like to go back to Philly tomorrow.)

My 2:00 program was Creating a Vibrant Organizational Culture at your Library, featuring Richard Mott of Jacksonville Public Library and Cheryl Gould, a library training consultant. I'm going to try to bring this duo out to Illinois, by partnering with local libraries as we have done with other great speakers. 

Richard Mott started out with a graph of JPL's last five years that looked just like ours: circ, visitors, website usage all up, $$ and staff down. Key points from their very lively and pertinent talk:

• There is no clear road map for libraries. Be positive, confident and comfortable with ambiguity.
• Be cautious of the expertise trap, "Our search is better than your search". Recognize and collaborate with others' expertise.
• Shift from reactive to creative, keep moving (another common theme at PLA), experiment and take risks.
• The "best" company has perhaps 50% of their staff truly engaged, global average is 1 in 5 employees. 15% are disengaged AND actively criticizing, undermining the organization.
• Support your colleagues' decisions. Say "yes, and" instead of "yes, but." 
• Use your all-staff moments (meetings, days) to self-assess and answer questions. "How are we doing?" Discover what words describe your culture (we already did this, yay!)

This program made me think in particular of activities that almost every staff member at my library are involved in, like programming. That great experience is made possible by staff creating, organizing, registering, setting up/taking down, providing technology, promoting, paying for.

After this fantastic day, my work brain was full, so I decided to exercise the shoe-shopping part of my amygdala, and went back to the Kenneth Cole store, where I'd seen a particular pair of boots on sale. Long gone in the store, but they found them in El Paso or some such, and they were only $99 (from $250)! Of course I ordered them.

Here they are, but I got them in a lovely soft tan suede. Can't wait to put them on!

The last fabulous thing about Thursday was going for drinks and hors d'oeuvres, courtesy of Mandarin Library Automation, here:

No sign of Himself, sadly, but the food was yummy. The building is a massive, dome topped, white marble former bank, with a central louge and separate private dining rooms in The Vault and The Reserve. Thank you, Mandarin! I promise I will remember you if we go ILS shopping next year!