Librarians can provide effective and efficient ways of delivering services to their users by understanding their role. Aaron Cohen Associates, LTD has developed organizational staff plans that allow leadership to get the pulse of the library. Is it stable? Are there areas of concern? We use three common measurements to determine the health of the library – users, collections and staff. Each of these variables are analyzed by our team, considering the limits and potentials for the organization.
We live in an ever-changing community in which new trends and challenges are constantly evident. Take for example, the peoples university concept, Libraries regularly provide education support. We provide use case needs assessments, statistical gathering and in-depth studies that will define the resources and education to develop and staff new competencies.
Do you know the needs of your users (and non-users)? Have you ever done an evaluation of how well the collections supports these needs?
The library is a dynamic environment that can provide a range of opportunities from makerspaces to the enhancement of reader service. You can improve library facilities and services with a library program. You can start the process by developing a “culture of assessment.” Here, you can involve all employees and partners in a collaborative process. An evidence-based assessment that encourages collaboration in order to collect objective and user-centered data for use in decision making. This may be your opportunity to grow. CONTACT US
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
Already many communities are meeting the challenge and forging new models for both the physical and virtual delivery of library and educational service. This includes the development of digital asset management systems and communities of practice to support it.
The increasing role of librarians in online education is not something new. For years, there have been collaborative projects with the University library, student success and tutoring, disability services and advancement. According to the founders page Cal State Monterrey Bay, Janie Silveria stated, “Librarians don’t teach? That would get to us because that was the core of what we were doing. And it was more of a one on one kind of interaction and a small class single session rather than an ongoing Information Literacy kind of course. We did things in the community. We did research. We did publications. So one of the things I and we did was to promote the Library as a resource and promote librarians as helpful educators who would work with other classroom faculty and work with students to create the best learning experiences.”
We need to understand the dimensions of your community to enhance service delivery. Community needs are easily taken for granted. Aaron Cohen Associates, LTD offers detailed metrics on library service performance. In addition to service visioning, we can help overcome changes in space planning, and technological advancements. To do this, we can provide a measurement framework that will balance the future with today’s needs. Kind of like a medical chart for your library.
- Here are a few suggestions to get started:
- Make investments into digital collection(s) governance. Dramatically alter the organizations information landscape. This includes automation training, workflows and quality assurance.
- We know that donors like hearing about the library’s vision, and there are ways to enhance the vision through a series of listening sessions/workshops. We include gamification into our work, which makes the workshops an energetic and productive experience.
- Develop joint learning outcomes and an assessment plan team.
(Each team will create its own set of learning outcomes and assessment tools) - Encourage more partners (faculty, tutors, etc.) to hold office hours with the library.
(Provide at least one hour per week to support each course or program, and develop an evaluation form to document user experiences) - Train “library tutors” to help users with research projects.
(Training your community to help other users, make the link between partners and the library, provide quality resources to improve student papers) - Develop more structured learning spaces in the library.
(Create additional learning pod spaces, the study participants can help identify strategies to provide such space)
Aaron Cohen Associates, LTD has several ways of measuring how well a library is achieving its mission. If you need leadership to move a master plan forward, we can support your community and organization members to participate in the project. We will make sure that library stays connected to its service mission.
We need to recognize that the library’s job has changed in the online world. We provide new library programs for our clients. CONTACT US