The past couple of weeks have been very busy at work, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m getting the opportunity to be creative in so many different ways and I really feel like I’m making a contribution. Besides my regular reference and collection management duties, I’m also working on a lot of programming for the library, including an upcoming event to celebrate APA (Asian Pacific American) Heritage month and the first-ever Thousand Oaks Reads — One City One Book program. I’m actually in charge of creating a separate website for the program so it’s pretty exciting for me. The site isn’t available to the public yet, but as soon as it is, I’ll post the url here. I’m also busy trying to prepare for two new classes we’re offering, one on blogging and the other on Flickr.
With everything that’s going on at work, it’s been a struggle for me to keep up with my feeds. I realized that I’m subscribed to so many feeds that missing even one day of checking my Google Reader account creates a huge pile of content to read through for the next day. With CIL 2007, there seems to have been even more posting from blogging librarians, so it’s been even tougher to keep up.
The topic that really caught my attention from all the CIL-related discussions is change management, which David Lee King presented on. Click here for some good notes on the presentation and here for DLK’s pdf files for all three (!) of his CIL presentations. Mental note: find some way to get over to the CIL 2008 conference!
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The Travelin’ Librarian just put up notes from a presentation called ” The Customer-Centered Library: How to stop tweaking and start doing it with new steps for 2007.” It was given by Karen Hyman, South Jersey Library Cooperative, Columbus Public Library, Columbus, NE. A pdf of the presentation is available for download on the PLA Symposium 2007 website. Every library administrator and librarian should be thinking about how to make their library more customer-centered.
I think my Library is doing great in most areas, but the way I see it, there’s always room for improvement, especially if it means making our patrons happier! One thing I’m going to do right now is add another page (see top menu) on this site called “Brainstorm.” This will be where I keep a running list of ideas for ways to improve my particular library’s service to its community. Please feel free to add to this list by leaving a comment. If you’re a library staff person or a library user from the community, please share your ideas on how to make this a better library. If you’re a library staff person and reading this blog, one way to approach this is to note each time you say “No, we can’t…” or “No, we don’t…” to a patron and ask yourself if this is something we can change to improve our services.
Here are the 12 steps to a customer-centered library according to the presentation:
- Care
- Think like a customer
- See the problem(s)
- Change your approach, not the customer
- Abandon victimhood
- Organize your library to support quality service
- Walk through everything
- Get the book into the customers’ hands
- Transform the library experience
- Overcome overdues
- Take the library to the people
- Make something happen
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The screening of the documentary film “The Lost Boys of Sudan” was a huge success! We really had no idea how many people would show up, so at about 15 minutes before the event was scheduled to start, we were happy to see around 20 people in the room. Then, between 6:15 and 6:30, I’d say around 60-70 more people walked in and the room was beginning to feel crowded. People were still coming in when we finally started the film at about 6:40pm. We had 100 chairs set up in the community room and we still had to bring about 20 more to accommodate everyone so I’d say the total number in the audience was 120+. Around 20 or so of those in the audience were from a local middle school. I found out that a teacher, who was also there, offered her students a deal: come watch the film and you don’t have to do homework for a few days, or something like that. Brilliant!
After the film ended, many of the audience members came up to me and my colleagues and told us how much they enjoyed the event and expressed their thanks. I gotta say, even though I feel like I help people and do positive things for the community on a daily basis, having 100+ people in the Library for an event like this was extremely encouraging. I felt like it was proof of how public libraries can bring a community together and contribute to the common good. It felt very good to be a librarian 
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I’m really excited about two of our upcoming events at the Library. On Wednesday night (March 28) at 6:30pm, we’re showing the award-winning documentary film, The Lost Boys of Sudan, directed by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk. The film tells the story of two of the “lost boys,” focusing on their journey to and life in the U.S. Watching it a few months ago reminded me of just how fortunate I’ve been in my life up to this point. Things I often take for granted, like a roof over my head and the opportunity to get a college education, are simply things that these “lost boys” have had to struggle for their entire lives. Their stories, both collective and individual, are truly amazing.
The screening is actually a prelude to the main event, which is a visit to the Library by Valentino Achak Deng. Deng is a “lost boy” and is the subject of Dave Eggers’ (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) new bestselling book, What is the What. He’ll be at the Library on Thursday, April 5 from 7-9pm to talk about his experiences and life story. If you haven’t read this book yet, start now. Copies of the book will be on sale at both the film screening on Wednesday and the Deng visit. Of course, the Library also has multiple copies available to checkout.
For more information on both events, visit the Library’s website or go straight to the flyer for the two events.
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Used Book Sale sign
Originally uploaded by tolrich7.
I stopped by the Friends’ used book sale this past Saturday morning. Arriving shortly before the doors opened, I was surprised to see just a small group waiting to get in. Later, I heard from a Friend that most of the serious book sellers and collectors showed up the night before, which makes sense. Apparently there were about 200 people Friday night and over 40% of the books on sale were sold. Still, I found a lot of interesting stuff on Saturday morning and came home with four nice books for the grand total of $5! By the time I left, around 10:40am, there were quite a few people there. The next time the Friends have a big book sale, I’ll definitely try to get there on the first day and take pictures of the madness
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