State of America's Libraries Report 2012

Public libraries continue to be battered by a national economy whose recovery from the Great Recession is proving to be sluggish at best. While providing what many state and local governments view as an easy target for budget-slashing, “People depend on libraries now more than ever,” said Susan Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. “Not only do visits and circulation continue to rise, the role of public libraries in providing Internet resources to the public continues to increase as well. . . . 

“Despite this demonstrated ability of libraries to adjust to meet the growing needs of the public, many libraries across the country face severe budget cuts,” Hildreth said, commenting on a study of library use in the decade ending in 2009. “It’s important to remember that this data ends with 2009, before even more severe budget crises put so many libraries and library programs at risk.” 

Today’s public libraries are grappling with a “new normal” of flat or decreased funding, paired with increased demand for public library technology resources. (Source: Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, 2010–2011)

read more at http://www.ala.org/news/mediapresscenter/americaslibraries/soal2012/public-libraries

WisconsinEye

On May 16th WisconsinEye will mark its fifth anniversary of bringing gavel-to-gavel, C-SPAN-style nonpartisan coverage of state government and politics to Wisconsin. At a time of major changes in our state's public life and news media, WisconsinEye has established itself as a unique and vital resource for meeting the information needs of citizens and communities. 
 Here's is a list of their achievements so far: 

• Gavel-to-gavel, nonpartisan coverage of state government, providing the public with a verbatim record of legislative debate for the first time in the state's history—all at no cost to taxpayers. 
• More than 300 hours of coverage of the historic political confrontation in Madison in February and March 2011, including live coverage of an unprecedented 62-hour Assembly session and mass demonstrations inside and outside of the Capitol. 
• Transparent and thorough coverage of Gov. Walker’s 2009-11 budget repair bill and 2011-13 state budget, including end-to-end coverage of all Joint Finance Committee meetings in Madison and statewide. 
•  Oral arguments and other public sessions of the state Supreme Court covered in their entirety. -Produced studio and field programming presenting the daily public policy discussion statewide that constitutes "Civic Wisconsin." 
•  Hundreds of hours of coverage of candidates and campaigns during the 2008 and 2010 state election cycles. 
•  Multimedia, multiplatform delivery on cable TV and the Web, including a permanent online archive of state government proceedings available to the public at no charge. We're now available 24/7 on Time Warner Cable digital Channel 363 in addition to Charter digital Channel 995 and BadgerNet. 
•  Feeds to other local, national and international news organizations for their reporting on Wisconsin state government and politics. 

 If you would like to learn more about WisconsinEye, I welcome the opportunity to speak with you and your colleagues about the network and show you our services, including MyWisconsinEye.

Christopher Long, President and CEO

ph: 608-316-6850 x302

Toll Free: 866-273-5755

cell: 608-658-7901

fax: 608-316-6868

chris.long@wiseye.org

www.wiseye.org

ALA Launches Text-Message Advocacy Service

This year, the American Library Association launched Mobile Commons, a new advocacy tool that will allow library supporters to receive text message alerts from the ALA’s Office of Government Relations. The opt-in service will allow the ALA to communicate advocacy messages in a quick and effective fashion using an innovative texting and calling feature.

Advocacy subscribers will have the option to call legislators to discuss particular issues toll-free through Mobile Commons. The text messages will provide subscribers with talking points on issues before automatically transferring the advocates to the offices of their legislators.
Advocates who wish to sign up for the service can text the word “library” to 877877 or sign up online at districtdispatch.org/textalerts.

Mobile Commons was created to deliver more timely communication with advocates and to generate a higher volume of calls into Congress. The Office of Government Relations was alerted to the service after the micro-blogging site Tumblr used it to generate 88,000 calls into the House of Representatives in 14 hours as part of their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Example: “This timely program will make it much easier for library advocates to stay informed and get involved in the issues facing our nation’s libraries.”

Service subscribers can expect to receive 2-3 texts per month on average.

from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-launches-text-message-advocacy-service

Visual is In - Are You into Visual?

From David Lee King's blog at http://www.davidleeking.com/2012/04/10/visual-is-in-are-you-into-visual/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidleeking+%28David+Lee+King%29#.T5bt5jJYvf8

Two huge social media sites have been mentioned in the news in the last couple of weeks: Pinterest and Instagram:

Pinterest – Experian claims Pinterest is the 3rd most popular U.S. social networking site.
Instagram – just purchased by Facebook for a whopping 1 billion.

What’s going on? Why are these two sites so hot right now? Well… it’s because of this:

• Pinterest = visual 
• Instagram = visual 
• Facebook = visual (depending on what you do with your status update) 
• Youtube = visual 
• etc. 

Visual is in. Why? Because you visually “get it” immediately. It takes seconds to look at a photo and understand what’s going on. It’s very easy to look and like … and then click through to the meat of the post/site/message/video/etc if the visual carrot being displayed is interesting enough to make you click.

Is your website visual? Do you use visual parts and pieces to get people interested in your stuff? If not, you should maybe take a hint from the growing popularity of visual-based sites, and … add some things to look at.

Some visual starter ideas:

• blog post – add an image that relates to the post. The image can help some people “get” the post better 
• Video post – make a short video, showing off a new thing in your library. Videos are easy to watch and share. Since the video is usually embedded into a site, there’s a visual component, too. Do video well, and people will stick around (and hopefully click around, too). 
• Facebook – add an image of that packed program. This visually shows popularity – much better than having someone type “the event was really well-attended.” 
• Twitter – tweet links to your photos and videos. 
• Pinterest, Instagram – start experimenting, and figure out how (or if) you can use one or both of these for your organization. I’ll bet you can. 
• Websites – add photos and graphics. 

How are you making your website visual? Adding visual elements to social media?

The Day After: Spring Election To-Do List for Library Directors and Boards of Trustees

From Paul Nelson's blog "Retiring Guys Digest" April 4th.  
http://paulsnewsline.blogspot.com/2012/04/day-after-spring-election-to-do-list.html


1.  Call the newly elected (i.e., first-time) members of your city council/village board to offer your congratulations.  Extend the same courtesy to a newly elected mayor and members of the county board of supervisors who represents the library's service area.

2.  Invite them to visit the library.

3.  If possible, schedule the visit at a time when the library is busy.

Better yet, attend the council/board meeting at which new officials are sworn in and extend the invitation in person. This is a particularly effective approach at the local level.  Admittedly, it can be unwieldy to attempt this type of contact before or after a county board meeting.

Why is this important?

On average, Wisconsin municipalities and counties provide 82% of public library revenue. 

Just as important is that it allows you to begin the process of building relationships with newly elected officials.

*"The Importance of Creating a Common Agenda" by Patricia Cavill.

  

Finally, be sure to keep everyone -- newly elected and incumbent officials --  in the loop throughout the year.  An email distribution list works well.  More traditionally, Retiring Guy used to place monthly reports and newsletters into the council members' (paper) in-boxes on the Friday before a (Tuesday) Middleton Common Council meeting.  Whatever works. (And whatever options are available.)

(Originally published on April 7, 2010.  This version revised and updated.)

Top Five Take Aways from PLA

Posted on March 28, 2012 on 658point8.com by Susan Brown.

PLA 2012 (Public Library Association Conference) in Philly was a great one - a conference that revealed the hard work and innovative thinking of librarians around the country and the world. It’s taken me a week to recover! I went to a great preconference, saw some amazing new products on the exhibit floor, went to some inspiring sessions, and networked with some folks who I only knew by name and reputation and now consider contacts and colleagues.

Stay tuned in the next week or so for some more in-depth articles about PLA12, but in the meantime, here are the top five things that I am bringing back home to my library to guide my actions and keep in the forefront of my thoughts:

5. Sharpen your focus. Libraries often try to be all things to all people, heralding themselves as having “something for everyone,” when that is simply not true or realistic. We need to look hard at our community’s needs and our institutional strengths and prioritize. Figure out two or three priorities, form a strategy based on those, and go for it! If you are library in a suburban area with a large demographic of families with young children, perhaps you will focus on serving them. You will still have programs and services for adults, seniors, non-native speakers, etc, but your decision-making will be made clearer because it is based on a set of institutional priorities. Maybe your local government has decided to position itself as a retirement destination. Align yourself with that goal and make it a priority! And remember that these priorities will likely shift over time, which is why you’ll need to keep up with national trends and shifts in community demographics.

4. Chasing trends is a tricky business, knowing trends is essential. As part of a truly great preconference called “Digging Deep to Get What Your Community Really Wants,” Barbara Genco and Cathi Alloway talked about this. Trying to align yourself with the newest trends of the moment can be fruitless, but understanding broad demographic trends can help you plan for the near future and beyond. Some of the trends they talked about that will have the biggest impact on libraries and how they serve their customers are the rise of solo living across ages, the concept of the “power patron,” the diverse demography within the growing senior population, and of course, the broadDigital Shift that is taking place across our culture, with a special emphasis on e-content and mobile devices. I must admit that I had read quite a bit about the Patron Profilesavailable from Library Journal, but was not sold on their content or value until I had an in-depth look at them on the exhibit floor. Patron Profiles not only offers a qualitative look at trends in library usage and users, but it also offer actionable advice on how to respond to these trends on a local level.

3. Go beyond door counts and circ stats. Value relationships over transactions. Talk less about your stuff and more about your customer’s experience. We will alway monitor door counts and collect circ data, but they are becoming less and less important as the nature of what we do everyday evolves. We need to gather richer statistics to offer a more complete picture of what we do and its value. Libraries are gathering anecdotal, qualitative measures from the Ref Desk that show the depth and complexity required of librarians and the real life questions that our customers come to us for help with. Librarians are measuring social media engagement to understand how our tech-savvy, digital patrons are interacting with us on our social networks and what they say about us on their own personal networks. As more and more of the content we provide is digital, the human touch we offer and the deep relationships we build become more and more important. They also define our value proposition for the future, which makes it even more important that we develop effective measurements.

2. It’s all about the value. Library marketing mavens have been preaching this for some time now and it really is what it’s all about. An ongoing demonstration of value can both bolster advocacy efforts and head off what I call the “library as victim” position and mentality. First you have to figure out what Alison Circle (who is lovely and very generous with her time, btw) calls your value proposition She wrote about this in a 2009 article that I still re-read and offered this handy visual diagram:

After you figure out your value proposition, you have to demonstrate it! This may take many physical forms – annual reports, presentations to stakeholders, testimonials, ROI calculators, etc. The important thing is that they are all backed up by real measurement of that value – crunching the numbers will first help figure out what your customers need and then help demonstrate how you met that need and the value it brought to their lives and the life of the community you serve.

1. Be data-driven to become customer-centric. This is the biggie, IMO. We all too often *think* we know what our customers want, without ever really asking them. We develop services and coordinate programs that seem great to us, but are not driven by customer needs or wants. Truly engaged and successful libraries analyze their community, develop a strategy, implement a plan of action, and continually measure the results of their actions. Most librarians aren’t highly trained demographers and statisticians, so luckily, there are lots of outlets for help. Look for upcoming posts aboutCivic Technologies, the Ivy Group, LibraryAware, and more companies and products that were on display at PLA that will help libraries and librarians better demonstrate their value.

Were you at PLA? Other than canvas bags and galleys, what did you bring home that is inspiring you?

Five Ways to Sabotage Your Ask for Support

From NONPROFIT MARKETING GUIDE.COM:

I hear it all the time from nonprofits: "Our e-newsletter doesn't work." "Direct mail doesn't work for us." "Social media doesn't work for us."

When I probe a little deeper, what people often mean is that their communications don't seem to be motivating people to do what the nonprofit wants, whether that's donating money, signing up to volunteer, or registering for an event. A closer look at these communications often leads to a common problem: vague, inconsistent, or buried asks. Many times, it's simply not clear what the nonprofit is asking the reader to do!

“Making the Ask: Getting People to Give, Volunteer, and More” is the topic of today's free webinar (3/20/12).  One of the points I'll cover is recognizing and avoiding common ways that nonprofits sabotage their asks.

Here are five frequent problems with the way nonprofits ask for support, whether it’s donating money or time or some other valuable.

1. Assuming One Size Fits All. There is no such thing as the general public. Know your supporters, donors, participants or whoever you are talking to, and customize the way you ask for support to that group.  You should talk to your long-time volunteers differently than you talk to someone you just met. Your major donors have different expectations of you than someone who just clicked “like” on your Facebook page.

Of course, avoiding the one size fits all approach requires that you are tracking data about your supporters so that you can more easily segment them into groups and customize your messages accordingly.

2. Being Too Vague. Don’t ask for “support” or “help” or use any of these other weak calls to action. People don’t know what you are asking for. Be specific.

3. Failing to Make It Relevant. What’s in for them? Why should they care? What good will it do? You have to answer these questions or people won’t follow through. Another way to think about this is "So What? and Who Cares?"

4. Not Making It Super Easy to Do It. Put yourself in their shoes and walk through the exact process you are asking others to follow. How can you make it easier and faster? Is donating online super easy? Is getting the right person on the phone super easy? (Think nonprofits are pretty good at this? Think again.)

5. Asking Sheepishly. If you seem embarrassed or guilty when asking, that’s a clear sign to your volunteers or donors that they might feel embarrassed or guilty themselves by following through. Remember, asking is about giving people an opportunity, not about taking something away from them. We often mirror emotions in these situations, so if you want someone to be excited to volunteer, you should show a little enthusiasm yourself.

If you missed the webinar or can't join us live, you can access the recording with an All-Access Pass to Nonprofit Marketing Guide.