It's Academic

Back in 2013 I was doing my ALA due-diligence and keeping tabs on trends and broad conversations and was struck by a call, in one of the Strategic Objectives of their updated Missions, Priority Areas & Goals, for an “increase public awareness of the value and impact of all types of libraries and the important role of librarians and other library staff.” This shift to a more finely tuned consideration of the public/user perspective, much like the one transpiring in Human Information Seeking Behavior studies over the past 2o years, is critical to evolving with your user base and is increasingly driven by habits and info-seeking behaviors shaped by the better funded and ubiquitous commercial service areas. For most users (call them patrons, students, consumers, etc.), the expectation of what happens after they click on your resource or walk through your front door is inevitably shaped, initially at least, by expectations built from the service areas encountered in previous experiences. It stands to reason, then, that looking to the private or commercial sector for benchmarks and best practices in reaching and best-serving the shared user base makes sense.

Enter Sheryl Kaye’s work developing the ACE—Adaptable Cycle of Engagement. Shaped by her years as a Journalist and Business Consultant in various for-profit industries and the resulting observations on how varied approaches positively or adversely affected public engagement, this six-stage model proposes active steps to achieve tangible, measurable increases in the effectiveness of your public engagement strategies. Further, these six steps are cyclical…meaning that, if wielded effectively, positive action and public engagement only serves to reinforce and feed the next initiative in your agenda.

Figure 1: ACE Model from http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/411/679

I encourage you to read Sheryl’s work, and brush up on how your projects and priorities line up with those driving the ALA. Following her sense-making, yet effective steps will not only help you better design your outreach strategies, but the more engaged your user base, the more demonstrated value exists behind you and your library. In an era with melting budgets and an evolve-or-evaporate/ROI driven organizational review, fewer aids are more powerful than an engaged and well-served user base there to demonstrate and reinforce your real-world value.

KAYE, Sheryl. The Adaptable Cycle of Engagement: A Win/Win Model for the Library.Journal of Library Innovation, [S.l.], v. 6, n. 2, p. 66-72, dec. 2015. ISSN 1947-525X. Available at: <http://www.libraryinnovation.org/article/view/411/679>. Date accessed: 14 feb. 2016.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION—from the Juniata-Conemaugh Chapter of PaLA

Inspire your colleagues with presentations and posters at the annual workshop on May 13, 2016. This year, we will meet at the beautiful American Philatelic Center in Bellefonte, PA. The focus of this year’s workshop is:

Connect & Reconnect: Transforming Our Profession.

Changes and trends can influence how we plan, promote, and support our patrons, collections, and libraries. Tell us how you and your colleagues are transforming your employees, spaces, collections and instruction. We invite presentations and posters that reflect one of the elements of the workshop:

• Employees- How do you empower, support and educate your staff and librarians?
  Social Media & Technology – What is “hot” in libraries that you are using?
• Collection Development – How do you share and weed your collections?
• Outreach & Marketing – What programs do you offer to children, adults, students, and faculty?
• Assessment -What and how you assess, and what do you do with your data and statistics?

Presentation Guidelines: 30 minutes plus 10 minutes for Q&A. You will have access to a computer, projector and wireless.

Poster Guidelines: Dimensions: 3 feet X 4 feet
The best poster will receive a prize! Posters will be judged on information and visual impact.

Please send a working title of your presentation/poster, a 300-word maximum synopsis of the presentation/poster, and a 150-word maximum biography.
Send your submission to: Alessia Zanin-Yost, arz10@psu.edu

Deadline for submission: March 4, 2016, at 5:00pm

Questions? Please contact Alessia Zanin-Yost, arz10@psu.edu.

Workshop registration for PaLA members is $30.00, for non-members is $45.00. Registration includes a light breakfast and lunch. The workshop will be held at 9:00am-3:00pm. A social event in conjunction with the workshop will be announced at a later time.

Date: Friday, May 20th, 2016

Location: Marywood University, Scranton, Pennsylvania

CRD invites proposals for breakout sessions for the 2016 CRD Spring Workshop “Critical Pedagogy and Information Literacy Instruction. Critical pedagogy encourages students to question social norms and explore the relationship between power and knowledge in order to develop a critical consciousness and implement social change. Librarians are beginning to look at the environment that surrounds information and challenge students to explore beyond search but rather discover and address the ecosystem that interacts with information.We invite speakers to talk about their practical or creative approaches to this topic.  How did you address this topic at your institution? What was the process? What were you trying to achieve? Who was involved? What was the result? How can the ideas be adapted beyond your library situation? Breakout sessions will be one hour in length. To be considered for a session, you must be from a Pennsylvania library. Please submit the following form http://goo.gl/forms/T8kDqIEe1I by April 1, 2016.

For more information, contact:

Leslie Worrell Christianson, MLIS
Vice Chair, PaLA College and Research Division
User Services Librarian, Assistant Professor
Marywood University
lchristianson@maryu.marywood.edu
570-348-6264

When it comes to creating engaging programming in any library, the most difficult challenge seems to be striking a balance between what your patrons want to do and what kind of programs your library can afford to plan and staff. But not all programs need to involve equipment rentals, room scheduling, guest speakers, or even just having librarians in attendance! This (not so new) movement is called passive programming. Passive programs are easy to plan, require little to no expense in terms of materials or staff time, and are designed to run almost completely on their own. They also allow us to get creative with little risk of wasting time or money, and allow patrons interact with the program however they like.

Passive programming is, generally, more common among public libraries than academic, and especially common to youth services areas. Do a quick search of Pinterest for “passive programming ideas” and you’ll see what I mean – there are a lot of resources out there for grade-school crafts, themed obstacle courses, and scavenger hunts designed specifically to appeal to kids. But that doesn’t meant passive programming has no place among college students! In fact, passive programs provide the perfect way to create small “study breaks” for your students that will help them see the library as an interactive space where they can be comfortable, not just an awkward building they have to plod through to find a study room where they can suffer in peace.

If all this is starting to sound like something you’d like to try in your library, I’d suggest starting with some of the following common (and easy) passive programs!

• Adult coloring pages! This trend could not be bigger, and there are tons of free printable pages to be found on Pinterest – putting them and a tub of crayons or colored pencils out is easy, but it makes a big impact! If you can, look for coloring pages that have something to do with your school, mascot, or area. Want to step up your game a little? Cover the table in blank paper and ask students to draw, write on, or “tag” it however they’d like!

• Before midterms or finals, try a special “study break” table with coloring pages, word searches, sudoku pages, crosswords, etc. Add in board games, puzzles, or playing cards if you can! Let students take the items throughout the building if possible, but be sure to ask they return everything to the table when they’re done. Want something a little more challenging? Include a contest, like designing a library mascot, captioning a picture, or illustrating a quote, and leave out worksheets for students to submit their designs.

• If you want something a little more DIY, figure out a date, event, or mascot that’s important to your campus, and make up a simple craft around it. Bookmarks made from paint-chips and yarn in your school’s colors are easy and nearly free to supply – provide students with a hole punch, scissors, and pens to add designs! If your library has never done something like this before, include some information at the table about how creative study breaks can improve memorization and mental function, and definitely drop in an ad for your research help or reference services while you’re at it!

Want to learn more about passive programming? Check out the following links for more information and ideas.

Reaching Teens Subversively through Passive Programming (Programming Librarian)

The Who, What, Where, Why, When, and Hows of Passive Programing (OLC Small Libraries)

Does Programming Have a Place in Academic Libraries? (Mississippi Libraries)

Passive Programming Ideas (GoogleDoc)

Passive Library Programs (Pinterest)