Active, professional, local - the value of marketing

The CILIP Member Support Unit offered several free training days this year to branch and group committee members, including running events and marketing, the latter of which I attended today. Considering the usual high price of CILIP training I was keen to take this up and it was an interesting day.

Elizabeth Elford from the British Library opened proceedings, talking about why marketing is so important, how to plan it and carry it out. She talked about the huge variety of platforms now available, and we looked at several successful LIS and non-LIS online campaigns. This all inspired me to update our CILIP Sussex Facebook page which has been sadly neglected...and also got me thinking about twittering, both for Sussex and also for our branch libraries. I was thinking twittering about events, book recommendations and user engagement, but I'm wary of the time to outcome ration, so will do some research.

The rest of the day we talked in the group about our experiences of good and bad marketing and got lots of useful tips from Kathy and Lyndsay who facilitated the event. To be summarised as:

* Have a marketing strategy, planned for at least a year, rather than just lurching from event to event. Be clear about what your goals are.
*Target events at specific groups rather then trying to make them appeal to everyone (public libraries take note...)
* Have a tagline and six or so objectives for your branch/group/organisation. Our tagline for CILIP Sussex was 'Active,professional,local'.
* Provide quality publicity materials - well designed!
* Show value - make people think they want to pay for what you're offering.

Lots of food for thought, which I will use both at the SE and Sussex branches, and also back in my workplace.

A morning in prison

I spent a very interesting morning today work shadowing the librarian at HMP Ford, John. Ford is a category D open prison for men and the library is open for just over an hour at lunchtime, then again in the evening. John has a team of orderlies that work in the library too, shelving and checking magazines/papers/books in and out.

It was very useful to get an idea of the practicalities of running a library within a custodial environment and the views and impact of current policy discussions around how prison libraries are funded and run. Currently prison libraries are run to a PSO (Prison Service Order) written nearly ten years ago which requires that the library replicates a small branch library. A new 'Draft Specification' was produced in 2005 which had saw a more educative and training aim at the heart of the service. This draft spec has been the subject of much controversy, as amongst other issues, the funding available to library authorities does not enable the specification to be fulfilled, requiring subsidising from the host library authority. Due to this some authorities are considering withdrawing their subsidised service.

The Cedar Partnership are currently reviewing the arrangements for library services in public sector prisons in light of the draft specs perceived failings, and are due to report soon, however a recent presentation at the Prison Library Group Conference was not received well due to perceptions of a lack of consultation. So the horizon looks a little confused at present, and I was interested to hear that the fiction role of the library is not really understood by prison management, and not reflected in recent policy discussion.

There seems to me to be a great opportunity for Get Into Reading model bibliotherapy practice in prisons, and this may well be underway elsewhere, but I do strongly believe that the value of fiction should not be underestimated.

There are many inspiring programmes throughout the country, particularly peer support literacy schemes like 'Toe by Toe' and 'Cool Books' which produced illustrated books for learner readers in prison. The publisher New Leaf produces books specifically for this category of reader too. And the Storybook Dads (and Mums) programmes are well known, encouraging communication and relationship-building between parents in prison and their children.

So a fascinating day, which provided a practical context for the greater understanding of prison library issues I have been gaining recently.

Dealing with change

Last week saw another successful evening event organised by CILIP Sussex. The subject this time was 'Dealing with change' - successfully for yourself, to support colleagues and also as a manager.

The workshop leader, Pete Pearce, was great and gave us plenty of practical tools, most usefully to deal with the naysayers. We looked at the typical responses to change, looked at the reasonings behind them and came up with come-back lines to use in those situations. Often the best way to challenge a negativity is with a question - for example, how do you know it won't work? Why didn't it work last time?

Acknowledging and understanding people's fears is important. We looked at a few theories around the change process and the different stages, useful to be able to recognise where colleagues are and where they may be likely to go next. Providing as many facts as possible is vital, otherwise rumour and supposition fills the vacuum. Also voicing people's fears for them can be a useful way to gain credibility - but then you need to have the answer or a way through them!

Overall a really useful session, and particularly pertinent for West Sussex as a potentially huge 'redesign' of the service is looming.

Youth Cabinet mystery shopping

An enterprising member of the West Sussex Youth Cabinet (and one of our Saturday assistants) is keen to investigate library provision for teens. The Cabinet are to undertake a mystery shopping exercise of a sample of our libraries and survey of users and non-users, from pupils at their schools and colleges.

We are so pleased that they are interested and engaged with libraries and keen to work with us to improve them. Additionally the service is about to be quite radically restructured, so now is an ideal time for their ideas to get actually listened to and incororated into our future service shape.

Tonight my colleague Russell and I presented to the Youth Cabinet in the council chamber at County Hall. It was a great atmosphere, the young people had really taken over the building, and were clearly really engaged and enthusiastic about their roles. We had some interesting comments - about Sunday opening, ideal for teens who work on a Saturday, and a range of different experiences in West Sussex libraries, positive and negative.

I've been working closely with our Saturday assistant Cabinet member to advise on the shopping framework and survey structure. This has been really interesting - I love thinking about and doing research - and a different challenge as my role has been purely advisory - it is very much their exercise. I've also needed to bear in mind how the library service might emerge from particularly the shopping element, and with my colleague Russell we have established baselines that we would expect for each size of library. The results are going to be really interesting, certain things we are expecting to find, however what is really great is that now we hope concerted action will be able to be taken to improve on areas identified as weaker as part of our wider restructure.

Pinch me I’m dreaming – a national vision for public libraries

So I have just enjoyed reading the much-awaited All-Party Parliamentary Group report into public library governance and leadership. Chaired for the majority of its life by our critical friend in a high place Lyn Brown MP, this is a clear and forthright document setting the future direction of public library services.

The enquiry invited written responses from services, organisations and individuals and hosted several round table discussions. Despite only 31 responses from local authorities (an indication of the scale of the problem?), the responses they did get appear to cover the spectrum of issues facing the sector. The enquiry asked six questions, about the pros and cons of the current governance system, local involvement in services, central government’s role, who should provide the service, the roles of the various advisory bodies (ACL, MLA, DCMS) and finally what changes are required to improve governance and leadership.

Their recommendations are not ground-breaking, but largely sensible and long overdue. Firstly, government funding and responsibility are to be brought into one department, as at present the DCLG funds while the DCMS does policy. Secondly, the Secretary of State’s powers of intervention are to be retained and, this should be interesting to hammer out – ‘a comprehensive and efficient service’ will actually be defined.

Additionally, the 1964 Act will be further clarified by a ‘clear definition’ of the minimum service level to be expected by customers. This will be very useful, for as the report says several times, standards vary enormously across the country.
Local authorities are to continue to be responsible for providing the service, however efficiencies will be sought in back office functions (this sounds familiar). And you’ll be glad to hear, the service will continue to be free at the point of delivery.

ACL, that nebulous creation of uncertain purpose are to be pulled up by the bootstraps and have their role, purpose etc all clearly defined and promoted via a website (!) and Annual Report.

And here’s the exciting bit...a Library Development Agency for England is to be established to advocate, articulate national vision, market/promote, disseminate good practice and establish an evidence base. Personally I find this all thrilling – a clear national sense of purpose, national marketing and promotion AND working from evidence and best practice – somebody pinch me.

Not done yet though, in the light of the above, the ‘role and funding of the MLA should be adjusted accordingly’...it’s a bit unclear but it seems to be that MLA will lose the L and the money will be given to those who can deliver a unified effort for public libraries, undistracted by museums and nautical metaphor.

And the final points revolve around more use of volunteers (great – see previous post), clear methodology for engaging with users and non-users and training schemes for library staff on management, leadership and corporate governance skills (excellent). So far, so fantastic ... now let’s make it happen.

Read it at www.cilip.org.uk/policyadvocacy/publiclibraries/appg.htm

Summer Reading Challenge - measuring impact and outcomes

Every year we collect hundreds of comments sheets from parents and children when they finish the summer reading game and every year these supply the staff and volunteers involved with a big pat on the back. They are usually unanimously complimentary that we have offered this free activity over the long summer holidays, encouraging their children to keep reading through a mix of incentives, activities and willingness to listen to their recounting of what they’ve been reading. The comments often offer moving stories of the progress a previously reluctant child has made, how families are making more time to read together, visiting the library more regularly, reading more widely and much more.

Capturing and publicising the evidence of these outcomes has not been attempted though, and this has been a missed opportunity. So this year our new Children’s Library Development Officer and myself put our heads together and decided that we would collate the comments in a meaningful and empirically sound way.
So today we did lots of counting and sorting, organising the comments into the key themes reflected within:

• Developing the library habit
• Encouraging new customers
• Providing activity over the summer holiday
• Encouraging and supporting family literacy
• Developing independent readers
• Enjoyment of reading

In addition to the quantitative data this yielded we also extracted the most powerful stories that will be used in the final report to senior management and councillors. Many of these are very moving, and we intend to use them to good effect, including scanned copies of the original text in the child’s handwriting for the full emotional impact. My favourites are around reluctant readers engaged and increasing in confidence through participation in the scheme, and those where the whole family is now reading together more, with books embedded as part of their regular activity. To close here is a comment from a parent of a 7 year old from Lancing (one of my libraries):

“This is such a good idea throughout the holidays, thank you so much. Yes I would say the Quest Seekers made me as a mother remain focused on my child’s reading throughout this holiday period. Thank you for all the support you provide in our community”

Encouraging adult learning and reading

Friday I attended a Vital Link and 6 Book Challenge feedback session hosted by the Reading Agency in London. Representing West Sussex, who have run the challenge successfully for two years, this was a great opportunity to learn from the successes of other authorities. The 6 Book Challenge is a scheme for emergent adult readers - those on basic literacy courses, learning English as a second language or just those who recognise the need to brush up on their reading skills.

The aim is to read six books over a given time period (Jan – Jun), fill in a reading diary and gain incentives along the way and certificate at the end. Library staff lead on promoting and encouraging the scheme, visiting classes and hosting classes in the library.

In West Sussex we have had some great results, 109 starting the challenge (5th highest nationally) and 47% completing (national average 40%). And the feedback from participants is incredibly powerful, about the positive changes reading has made to their life and how they enjoy getting into the library habit.

We’ve been working primarily with Skills For Life students via adult education tutors over the last two years, however we hope to branch out into working more with ESOL students, workplaces and hostels next year. The other authorities at the event had some great ideas to share – including working with homeless shelters and prisons.

Working with adult learners is essential work for libraries, and The Reading Agency’s Vital Link Framework provides a toolkit to embed this meaningfully in the service business plan and practical means to evaluate projects undertaken, for more see www.readingagency.org.uk/adults/the-vital-link-principles/