For many of us, the beginning of the school year starts a new cycle. \u00a0 Which programs and projects will continue, what changes will we make and do we have the time and staff to make it all happen? \u00a0This is a refreshing process for me and one I look forward to each and every year, \u00a0but this year I’m heading into it with a new gusto!<\/p>\n
I attended a session at ALA in San Francisco called, “What I Stopped Doing.” \u00a0This session was essentially one librarian’s story about taking a step back and evaluating what she was doing. \u00a0 She had things she enjoyed, things she didn’t enjoy, programs that are sacred\u00a0\u00a0cows for libraries (story time), \u00a0and a variety of new things she \u00a0wanted to add to the mix. \u00a0 The problem is, how \u00a0do you add to the mix successfully, when do you walk away from a specific kind of program, and what if there are outside organizations in the mix?<\/p>\n
This really hit home for me. \u00a0As the manager of the three person children’s department at the Kendallville Public Library, \u00a0I have set a programming schedule that conducts more than 100 outreach programs a month in our elementary schools. \u00a0 And that’s just one facet of our monthly program schedule. \u00a0 It’s really crazy, but we’ve had great return on our investment. \u00a0Is this something we\u00a0can walk away from? \u00a0No, probably not. \u00a0 I believe our children’s circulation numbers jumping from 75,038 in 2013 to 132,208 in 2014 are directly connected with these programs and the relationships we have established with the schools, teachers, and students. \u00a0 But not all partnerships have this kind of return.<\/p>\n
There are a number of other programs that we conduct monthly, programs that we are encouraged to participate in with a variety of other local and national organizations. \u00a0 Getting some of them up and running was tough, maintaining them has been tougher, and as I’m finding out walking away –on good terms — is toughest yet!<\/p>\n
So, how do you know when to restructure and when to end? \u00a0There are indicators, of course, but as a library we make connections, and help to build a community, is walking away from a partnership ever really a good idea?<\/p>\n
In a time when I am jazzed about quitting things so that I have room to grow and change, I need help! \u00a0What have you quit doing that has taken your library to the next level? \u00a0How did you gently walk away?<\/p>\n
Beth Munk, past chair of the Liaison to National Organizations Committee<\/p>\n
Kendallville Public Library, bmunk@kendallvillelibrary.org<\/p>\n
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For many of us, the beginning of the school year starts a new cycle. \u00a0 Which programs and projects will continue, what changes will we make and do we have the time and staff to make it all happen? \u00a0This is a refreshing process for me and one I look forward to each and every year, \u00a0but this year I’m heading into it with a new gusto! I attended a session at ALA in San Francisco called, “What I Stopped Doing.” \u00a0This session was essentially one librarian’s story about taking a step back and evaluating what she was doing. \u00a0 She had things she enjoyed, things she didn’t enjoy, programs that are sacred\u00a0\u00a0cows for libraries (story time), \u00a0and a variety of new things she \u00a0wanted to add to the mix. \u00a0 The problem is, how \u00a0do you add to the mix successfully, when do you walk away from a specific…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}