Proving Your Library's Value

Proving Your Library's Value
Author: Alan Fishel
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838948006

You know the value of your library, but elected officials, donors, community leaders, funders, and other important stakeholders may not. How can you make the library a priority for these groups, who may have preconceived notions about what the library does, as you compete with other important community organizations for funding? In this book from United for Libraries, you’ll learn how to use The E’s of Libraries® (Education, Employment, Entrepreneurship, Engagement, and Empowerment) to quickly demonstrate why your library is essential and worthy of funding, using messaging that is organized, persuasive, and memorable. With the help of worksheets, charts, and prompts, you will learn how to use language designed to win over stakeholders, funders, and partners; craft custom messaging in several formats that is easily accessible and memorable, including elevator speeches, budget presentations, and annual appeals; and create presentations and other materials tailored to any audience based on the sample documents included. This book's innovative framework can be used by any size or type of library, and by any library advocate, including Friends groups, library staff, trustees, and foundations.

Book Traces

Book Traces
Author: Andrew M. Stauffer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-02-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0812252683

In most college and university libraries, materials published before 1800 have been moved into special collections, while the post-1923 books remain in general circulation. But books published between these dates are vulnerable to deaccessioning, as libraries increasingly reconfigure access to public-domain texts via digital repositories such as Google Books. Even libraries with strong commitments to their print collections are clearing out the duplicates, assuming that circulating copies of any given nineteenth-century edition are essentially identical to one another. When you look closely, however, you see that they are not. Many nineteenth-century books were donated by alumni or their families decades ago, and many of them bear traces left behind by the people who first owned and used them. In Book Traces, Andrew M. Stauffer adopts what he calls "guided serendipity" as a tactic in pursuit of two goals: first, to read nineteenth-century poetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left in their books and, second, to defend the value of keeping the physical volumes on the shelves. Finding in such books of poetry the inscriptions, annotations, and insertions made by their original owners, and using them as exemplary case studies, Stauffer shows how the physical, historical book enables a modern reader to encounter poetry through the eyes of someone for whom it was personal.

Measuring Your Library's Value

Measuring Your Library's Value
Author: Donald S. Elliott
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2007
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780838909232

With tax-funded organizations under microscopic scrutiny, library directors need to make a strong public case for the value their library provides. Measuring Your Library's Value, designed to serve large to medium-sized public libraries, gives librarians the tools to conduct a defensible and credible Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). Based on research funded by IMLS and PLA, this hands-on reference covers the economic basics with librarian-friendly terms and examples, preparing library leaders to collaborate with economist-consultants. Library directors and trustees will learn how to credibly measure the dollars and cents value your community receives from library services and access proven examples for communicating what different community stakeholders need to hear.

Academic Library Value

Academic Library Value
Author: Megan Oakleaf
Publisher: ALA Editions
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780838915929

This resource from Megan Oakleaf, who wrote a benchmark ACRL report on library value, will help you apply value and impact concepts to your own library. It includes 52 activities designed as part of professional development workshops and in consultation with libraries.

Public Libraries and Resilient Cities

Public Libraries and Resilient Cities
Author: Michael Dudley
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2013
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0838911366

Public libraries are keystone public institutions for any thriving community, and as such can be leaders in making cities better places to work, play, and live. Here, Dudley shows how public libraries can contribute to 'placemaking', or the creation and nurturing of vital and unique communities for their residents.

The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services

The Evaluation and Measurement of Library Services
Author: Joseph R. Matthews
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2017-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1440855374

This guide provides library directors, managers, and administrators in all types of libraries with complete and up-to-date instructions on how to evaluate library services in order to improve them. It's a fact: today's libraries must evaluate their services in order to find ways to better serve patrons and prove their value to their communities. In this greatly updated and expanded edition of Matthews' seminal text, you'll discover a breadth of tools that can be used to evaluate any library service, including newer tools designed to measure customer and patron outcomes. The book offers practical advice backed by solid research on virtually every aspect of evaluation, including quantitative and qualitative tools, data analysis, and specific recommendations for measuring individual services, such as technical services and reference and interlibrary loan. New chapters give readers effective ways to evaluate critical aspects of their libraries such as automated systems, physical space, staff, performance management frameworks, eBooks, social media, and information literacy. The author explains how broader and more robust adoption of evaluation techniques will help library managers combine traditional internal measurements, such as circulation and reference transactions, with more customer-centric metrics that reflect how well patrons feel they are served and how satisfied they are with the library. By applying this comprehensive strategy, readers will gain the ability to form a truer picture of their library's value to its stakeholders and patrons.

The Value of Academic Libraries

The Value of Academic Libraries
Author: Megan J. Oakleaf
Publisher: Assoc of Cllge & Rsrch Libr
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0838985688

This report provides Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) leaders and the academic community with a clear view of the current state of the literature on value of libraries within an institutional context, suggestions for immediate "Next Steps" in the demonstration of academic library value, and a "Research Agenda" for articulating academic library value. Its focus is to help librarians understand, based on professional literature, the current answer to the question, "How does the library advance the missions of the institution?" This report is also of interest to higher educational professionals external to libraries, including senior leaders, administrators, faculty, and student affairs professionals.

Fool's Gold

Fool's Gold
Author: Mark Y. Herring
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2015-01-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0786453931

This work skeptically explores the notion that the internet will soon obviate any need for traditional print-based academic libraries. It makes a case for the library's staying power in the face of technological advancements (television, microfilm, and CD-ROM's were all once predicted as the contemporary library's heir-apparent), and devotes individual chapters to the pitfalls and prevarications of popular search engines, e-books, and the mass digitization of traditional print material.

Managing Information Services

Managing Information Services
Author: Jo Bryson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2016-05-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317101561

This fourth edition of Jo Bryson's highly regarded Managing Information Services has been thoroughly revised with an emphasis on innovation. Operating in a digital era, libraries must innovate to survive and grow. This means librarians having radical ideas which challenge the status quo, shifting strategic directions to change the way services are managed, and developing new skills and knowledge. Challenges include developing new uses for floorspace, where shelving is being replaced by mobile networking, and new practices and procedures for managing new products such as e-books and self-service. Libraries can achieve long term sustainability by information managers having more creative responses and developing innovative thinking. Essential reading for information students, this text also serves as a comprehensive and detailed reference on the key management topics for information service managers.