PLA Draws Nearly 10K to Minneapolis

An enthusiastic and engaged crowd of 9,635 people attended the 2008 Public Library Association National Conference March 25–29 in Minneapolis, and another 175 “attended” the first-ever virtual conference accompanying it. The total, which included 6,772 individuals and 2,863 exhibitors, was less than the 11,029 total in Boston in 2006 but more than the 8,691 total in Seattle in 2004. Some 800 companies filled the exhibit hall.

Guest speakers included opening keynoter John Wood, founder and CEO of Room To Read, which aims to help children in the developing world with literacy skills, and Book Lust author (and Librarian Action Figure model) Nancy Pearl, whose “Book Buzz” preconference brought together library representatives from HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Random House, as well as local publisher Milkweed. The PLA store sold out of copies of consultant Sandra Nelson's Strategic Planning for Results.

Attendees were reminded in more than one panel that people use the library less to find information than to borrow books. Susan Kent, library consultant and former director of the Los Angeles Public Library and the New York Public Library's Branch Libraries, acknowledged that she, too, relies on Google, not library databases. She challenged the audience to rethink the public library mission.

An obsession with statistics—especially those beloved by the profession—may not be that telling, Nelson said at a panel. New research to emerge soon from OCLC, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, describes characteristics shared by “super-supporters” of libraries, she said. One is “a belief in the transformational, not transactional nature of libraries”; another is that “their librarian is passionate about what they do.”

“We are in the ideas business, not the information business,” consultant Joan Frye Williams observed at another session. “The information business is in Bangalore.... When I talk to civilians, they're surprised how passive we are,” she added. “They want reading evangelists, ideas evangelists.”

Nelson told attendees that libraries “rely far too much” on promotion as opposed to three other Ps: product, place, and price, which are about convenience. “What kind of hoops do I have to go through to check out a DVD, to sign up to use a computer, to get a meeting room?” she asked rhetorically.

Williams, along with OCLC's George Needham, challenged attendees to give up “legacy librarianship,” the notion that things should simply be done because they've always been done. “If we're talking about making our stuff useful, it has to be recombinant with other sources, some of which may have bibliographic cooties,” Williams said. As for libraries looking at Web 2.0, she suggested, “It's more useful to post a library point of view or contribution or resources to someone else's blog than to start your own.”

She proposed that a nonlibrarian customer service staffer should be the first point of contact for the public: “This is one of the very few ways we might get at the idea that a librarian isn't [just] any person who works at the library.”

Joseph Janes (Information School, Univ. of Washington, Seattle) suggested that reference librarians articulate better their strengths and play up their service orientation: “We do a poor job of telling people what we do.” Janes even sees print reference in the short run as a secret weapon for libraries.

Carlos Manjarrez, a research analyst who cowrote Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development for the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) while at the Urban Institute, noted that “libraries are in the business of building human and social capital.” He suggested that the return on investment (ROI) studies currently in vogue are inadequate.

His work on the ULC study, he said, taught him that “libraries were meeting and articulating needs in ways they really weren't communicating,” including service to job-seekers, organizations, and communities and standing as anchors for new development.

Mike Christenson, director of the Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development, said, “The private sector is telling us that the workforce is more important than location,” meaning that libraries are a significant part of workforce development.

As for quick improvements, Williams stressed “simplified wayfinding,” with less clutter, plus civilian terminology (not “periodicals”), situational directories (“Do any of you have a sign that says 'Pay here'?”), power paths and nodes (with information at a crossroads), and layout by activity rather than collection.

She suggested that libraries consider staff not at service points but by zones, so workers are “not just responsible for your tasks but…for the experience the civilians are getting,” which leads to job descriptions like manager, first floor, rather than head of adult services.

People will choose the library only if it integrates with the rest of their lives and how they feel about themselves, Williams said, reporting how many people say the library “makes them feel stupid.”

She suggested new roles for librarians, such as offering prepackaged information FAQs. “People tell me they're shocked when there's a hot topic and librarians don't have anything ready,” she said. “You need to listen to [National Public Radio] and figure out what's today's topic.” She also suggested offering the option for appointments with a librarian.

Participants at a popular session on the future of the central library agreed that it is evolving from a research-centric facility. While Denver Public Library's (DPL) Central Library is still a crown jewel, said director of public services Susan Kotarba, it has been transformed from “grand landmark” to a “community gathering place.”

Shelagh Flaherty, Central Library director, Vancouver Public Library, BC, said that “our role has been diminished,” partly because of a lesser demand for reference service, but because “we've not moved out into our communities enough, and that's what we're doing [now].” Greg Edwards of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County explained how the main library had been revamped, as six subject departments for nonfiction were consolidated; new features include a Popular Library, a TeenSpot, and a technology center.

Jane Appling, director of public services for Seattle Public Library, said, “We've got the icon thing down,” but library leaders are planning for a diversifying, densifying city, serving as a place for new residents, a lure to high-tech hipsters who may not think they need the building, and a welcoming place for all users, including the homeless.

While central libraries are undergoing transformation, so, too, are other buildings—big box retail stores, which last typically a decade before chains choose newer locations, providing an opportunity for civic buildings such as libraries. There are 356 Wal-Mart stores for sale, 38 in Texas, said architect Jack Poling of Minneapolis's Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle.

He described an effort to convert a Wal-Mart for the McAllen Public Library, TX. Such big boxes offer a quick answer to three major challenges faced by libraries: finding a site, finding room for parking, and providing a cost-effective solution.

McAllen library director José Gamez said the large site allows for a drive-up window and, given the history of successful retail, the potential for a sublease of some space and after-hours limited service, such as computer access, in part of the bulding.

On the other hand, the structure is long, with a diagonal distance of more than one-tenth of a mile. “We're not going to make someone walk 535 feet,” Gamez said. Service desks will be split into mobile units, and the library is considering clustering services in quadrants that would include a children's area, a staff area, a “traditional public library,” and meeting rooms. In fact, he added, that last cluster could serve as “a mini-convention center.”

For some visitors, the conference was less a chance to explore new ideas than to consolidate what they already knew—or felt they ought to know, such as developing a weeding policy or promoting backlist titles. At a panel on “Market-Driven Readers' Advisory,” Neal Wyatt (author of LJ's online RA feature Wyatt's World) offered cyber-suggestions for tracking big books in the “ocean of buzz,” e.g., via web sites (Booksense Pick of the Month).

It's not a giant step from serving readers to serving listeners, but there are differences, explained RA expert Joyce Saricks at a preconference on the future of audio. She noted that, for audio, the RA conversation must consider both the appeal of the book and the appeal of the audio package and advised librarians to add audiobooks to all of a library's displays.

Mary Kay Chelton (GSLIS, Queens College) focused on the importance of the narrator in spoken-word programs, urging librarians to name the narrators in their catalogs and on every audiobook list and also to invite narrators to talk to library patrons.

Just as millions of Americans watch political speeches on YouTube, so libraries must meet their patrons on the web, said DPL's Michelle Jeske in a panel on online services. One story time podcast on the DPL site has garnered more than 37,000 listens since it was posted in summer 2006. The average number of individuals listening to a typical DPL story time podcast, 546, said Jeske, is several times more children than can fit into the physical library's story time space.

The DPL podcasts are mostly read by authors and library staff; sometimes, and optimally, said Jeske, content is patron-generated. Several patrons also recently starred—alongside a human-sized furry cat—in a video (DPLvideo.notlong.com) promoting the library's summer reading program. The cost of such a production? Staff time and editing software (iMovie) aside, roughly $80 to rent the kitty costume and 99¢ to download the soundtrack, a song by a local band.

AV can help libraries get their message out, Jeske said, connect with new audiences, preserve art exhibits (e.g., DPL's flash video stills of its 130-yard-long Ed Ruscha mural), and increase circulation, thanks to podcast reviews.

Next on the library's agenda? “Kitty Video, Pt. 2,” a National Poetry Month audio project, a cell-phone video contest, collating the library's videos onto a YouTube channel, a Facebook page (the library already has MySpace), and even mobile technology.

“My team did not come with those skills,” Jeske reassured the audience. “Over time, they taught themselves and one another.” (See some of Jeske's favorite library AV sites.)

While conference programs often focus on special populations, one highlighted a group that uses libraries but isn't noticed: the so-called Disconnecteds, adults 18–24 years old who are neither in school nor working. They comprise an estimated 3.8 million individuals nationwide.

They may have dropped out of high school, aged out of the foster care system, be teen runaways, or have criminal records; some are refugees from abusive homes. Most are poor, many are African American or Hispanic, and some have children of their own.

According to Queens Library, NY, assistant director of programs and services Kathleen Degyansky, many in this group come to libraries for free Internet access. She suggested that libraries offer job search help, pre-GED programs to improve basic literacy and connect them to the school system, and parent-oriented sessions piggy-backed with toddler time.

Some 78 percent of libraries nationwide develop programs and services in Spanish, the number one non-English language used in public libraries today, according to a study released by the American Library Association as the conference began. Asian languages ranked number two at 29 percent, and Indo-European languages came in next at 17.6 percent, reported “Serving Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries”, the first national survey to examine the range of specialized library services for non-English speakers.

About 21 million people in the United States speak limited or no English, 50 percent more than a decade ago. As the nation's demographics continue to change, public libraries are ramping up efforts to meet these demands. Libraries reported that the most successful services for non-English speakers were English as a Second Language (ESL), language-specific materials and collections, computer use and computer classes, story time, and special programs.

Although most people believe that non-English speakers live in large, urban settings, the opposite is true, the report said. More than 53 percent of inhabitants of smaller communities traveled between one and three miles to reach a library, and another 21 percent traveled between four and six miles for library service.

Surprisingly, getting to the library wasn't the most difficult barrier to library use. Literacy and reading scored higher (76 percent) when it came to having a negative impact on non-English speakers visiting the library. Knowledge of the services offered by the library was the second most frequent barrier to participation (74.7 percent). A lack of discretionary time was the third most common obstacle (73.1 percent).