Intrapreneurship Handbook for Librarians

Finished June 24

Intrapreneurship Handbook for Librarians: How To Be a Change Agent in Your Library by Arne J. Almquist and Sharon G. Almquist

There is a common saying that the only real constant is change, but too often we get into a rut and do the same thing because it works okay and we're used to it. But sometimes there is a better way to do something, sometimes it is something we don't need to do anymore, and sometimes there are other things that are even better to do. But it is hard to leave that place of comfort and this book helps you help your library make those changes. 

The book is organized into nine chapters plus a couple of useful appendices. 

Chapter One digs into the idea of entrepreneurs and how entrepreneurship is defined, what it looks like, what the history of it is, and what it has looked like in a library context, giving actual library-related examples, and looking into the motivations of those entrepreneurs.

Chapter Two looks at Intrapreneurs and how they are different than entrepreneurs and how they are similar to them. Here we also have a definition and I really liked the idea of the five Ps that is associated with this: Passion, Perseverance, Promotion, Planning, and Professionalism. This chapter looks at the qualities associated with intrapreneurs, and how they measure success in their actions. It also gives some questions that can help you get going.

Chapter Three discusses the idea of Agents of Change and the idea of intrapreneurial innovation. There are many things associated with these people and actions including creativity, communication and collaboration. The role of strategy is discussed, as well as that of conflict, which will definitely happen at some point. Various barriers to change are introduced from groupthink to collective disfunction, and you will likely recognize a few of them. They also differentiate between true innovation and improvements (both good things!), and give some advice on how to become a change agent. 

Chapter Four gets into corporate culture and how to develop an intrapreneurial culture at your library. These include things like accepting for mistakes, taking risks, considering diversity, and working with professional respect. They also talk about how to support that type of culture and to recognize that you will likely need to pick your battles. The idea of competitive advantage is also given some discussion in terms of opportunities versus choices.

Chapter Five looks at process, the nitty gritty of making changes. Ways to get going includes brainstorming, needs assessments, and thinking through ideas. You will have to be prepared to answer the difficult questions that will come up. It can be helpful to think of it as creating your future. Not everything will work as you originally propose it, and they discuss the process as a form of distillation. There are lots of good tools mentioned here: SCAMPER, SCORE analysis, and feasibility studies are some. 

Chapter Six gets into how to pitch your ideas and get others on board. From writing and delivering your elevator speech to a slide checklist for a pitch presentation, this will help you put your best foot forward. It will also help you deal with the reaction, whether it is acceptance, rejection, or something in between. Also included in this chapter are things such as pilots, project plans, and funding plans. Funding can be internal or external, and donors can be one way to get your project going. 

Chapter Seven looks at the team, how you put it together, what the roles and responsibilities of team members are, and how the team and the project are managed. 

Chapter Eight gets into implementation, including tools for project management, how to analyze the failures that may arise, and how to celebrate achievements. 

Chapter Nine takes you from the completion of one innovation to moving on to the next. You want to make this type of change a part of the expected culture of your library.

The appendices give some tests and commentary that may be useful to you as you decide on how you want to do intrapreneurship. 

All in all, this book offers great guidance for the move for you to get your library looking at change in a more positive way.

Audio Recorders to Zucchini Seeds

Finished June 20

Audio Recorders to Zucchini Seeds: Building a Library of Things edited by Mark Robinson and Lindley Shedd

The authors have solicited input from libraries around the world, of all types and gathered the information here to show you some of the things other than books that libraries lend out to their communities.The book starts with a history of library lending discussing some of the earlier types of things such as curriculum materials, tools, toys and games, a/v equipment, and more. It then moves to a closer look at public libraries and what kinds of things some of them lend. Each example here looks at the history of that particular collection, the community involvement in the collection creation and maintenance, the funding for the collection including the ongoing budget, any special equipment involved, and the management and maintenance of the collection. There are seven collections covered here: Tool Lending; Book a Bike; Library Farm; Seed Libraries; Toys; and Sacramento's multifaceted "Create, Share, Play".

The next section looks at the lending of non-traditional things in academic libraries, again looking at the different aspects of each collection. Here are: technology items such as GoPros and microphones; curriculum material; cameras, tripods, external harddrives and other technology; video production tools; lendable tech like ereaders, calculators, Raspberry Pis and Arduinos; games, both tabletop and video; and scopes and instruments. 

The following section, looking at a special library that offers more esoteric material: from Alaska we see a library that lends furs, skulls, and other animal mounts.

The last section of the book brings together best practices from all of these libraries. It covers: planning; funding; acquisition and purchasing; cataloguing and describing; processing; storage and shelving; circulation; policies and procedures; staff training; collection maintenance; advertising and outreach; and assessment. 

There is an appendix with some useful documents that you can adapt for your own purposes, such as checklists, forms and agreements.

A good overview of this unique area of librarianship.

Library Service Design

Finished June 12 

Library Service Design: A LITA Guide to Holistic Assessment, Insight, and Improvement by Joe J. Marquez and Annie Downey

This book promises to give methodology and tools for library service design and speak to mindset. In my opinion, it delivers.

The book is organized in three sections, each consisting of two chapters. The first explains services design so that the reader clearly understands it. The second gives example of what service design looks like. The third shows how you can own your library service design and adapt it to your needs. 

The first section talks about Henry Dreyfuss, an industrial designer who brought the human element into design, showing that interconnected elements work to fulfill the purpose of the work, and exposing the problems of decisions made in isolation. The human elements that he included meant that the designer had to work to understand the user, their needs, and even their emotions. He also showed that design is scalable and flexible. This section also discusses what makes something a service. There are three categories here, with overlaps: care, access, and response. What this looks like in the library is facilitating the access to information and enabling the tasks associated with that, which includes things like tables, desks, copies, and computers. Services also have context, purpose and function; an interaction with either another person or a thing; and are experienced rather than possessed. Points of view also come into it, through both the user experience and that of the service provider. Design elements associated with this include scripting, setting, wayfinding, and consistency. There is a sense of making the intangible tangible through some type of evidence of an exchange taking place. The authors caution against default thinking such as "I know my users", and instead encourage open-mindedness and empathy.

The second section includes both phases of the service design process and the tools and techniques used. Phases can include prework, teamwork (including assigned roles and tasks and a set of rules), scope, scheduling, an observation phase, an understanding/thinking phase, and implementation and post-assessment phases. The tools and techniques are wide-ranging and more than one type will be used in any particular case. These include ecology maps, space analysis, interviews, contextual inquiries, surveys, personas, service safaris, discussion groups, design ethnography, customer journey mapping, journaling, scenarios and expectation mapping, five whys, prototyping, analysis and synthesis, focus groups, and blueprinting. Essentially, all the what, why, how, when, who discovery methods.

The third section gets into how you can adapt service design to your specific library and service situation. In particular, it looks at how you choose your team, and the importance of communication with that group, especially listening. You will want people with functional expertise, but also those open to experimentation and learning, with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, diverse perspectives, and big-picture thinking. You will also want a user working group. With this group you also need diversity, motivators or incentives of some type, openness and transparency, and trust. You need to understand your particular context, know what is unique, have knowledge of both culture and the built environment in which you are working and the external environment that is outside of your purview but which has its effect. It also expands into changing your culture to own service design. This means stepping outside of comfort zones and not blindly following trends. You will want to have ongoing assessments that are done in a mindful way, and done regularly, with reflection, consistency, and with an eye to new projects. 

I found this book energizing and enlightening. 

BiblioTech

Finished September 16
BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google by John Palfrey

Unlike most books looking at the role of libraries, this book is written by someone not trained as a librarian, but who has come into the library world through work. Palfrey is the Head of School at Phillips Academy in Andover, and led the effort to reorganize the Harvard Law School Library. He is also the founding chairman of the Digital Public Library of America.
While Palfrey acknowledges the world of information we now live in, he makes good arguments for the library being more important than ever before.
He looks at libraries in their role as equalizing access to information, education, jobs, and technology. The library is a safe place, one of the few where people from many walks of life come together. He also acknowledges the threats to libraries, the struggle to adapt to rapid change, lack of funding, and lower government support. The book is divided into themed chapters, each looking at a different aspect of libraries and using examples to make the point.
The first chapter, crisis, outlines the situation and the threats facing libraries. The second chapter looks at who uses libraries and how they use libraries. The next chapter looks at the spaces that libraries occupy and offer, both physical and virtual. The fourth addresses platforms and how the move to the cloud impacts libraries.
Then we move to those libraries trying something different, in a chapter titles Hacking Libraries. There are many forward-looking librarians moving their libraries into new and interesting territory. The following chapter looks at the human network of librarians, a sharing community like few others. Then the topic is preservation, with a focus on preserving culture. Following this is a chapter on the important role libraries play in education. Finishing up the topics is a chapter on law and libraries, looking at copyright and privacy in particular.
He concludes with a chapter emphasizing the importance of libraries and what we stand to lose if they don't adapt to meet the needs of their communities. As yet another well written book on the importance of moving to a community-led model, this outlines many important aspects to consider for those libraries serious about planning their futures.

Letting Go of Legacy Services

Finished May 2
Letting Go of Legacy Services: Library Case Studies edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong

Libraries are being asked to do more with less these days, and many of us find it difficult to stop offering services that we've been offering for years to free up resources for those new things people want us to provide. The libraries here looked at the concept of planned abandonment, a concept popularized by Peter Drucker, and how it applies to libraries. Also included are several interviews that look at solutions to common pressure points.
This book contains a number of case studies of libraries who have taken a good hard look at either those things "we've always done" or things "we've always done that way" and determined if they are still worth doing or if they should be done differently. Each case study is wrapped up with a summary by the editors called Bookend.
Case studies included here are:
* a college library that changed the way they provide periodicals to their patrons.
* a county library system that took a good look at their web-based services, overhauled their website and improved community outreach.
* a university library that eliminated their reserve services.
* a university library that redefined reference service.
* a university library that used a series of crisis situations over six years to redefine mission critical services.
* a university library that used ethnographic research techniques to help them redefine library spaces to better meet student needs, reexamine resource delivery, checkout service, fines, ILL, and equipment lending.
* a university library who used collaborative strategic planning to facilitate the shift towards electronic resources.
* a public library who responded to a natural disaster and a financial crisis to look for efficiency opportunities in technical services, acquisitions, and cataloging.
* a university library used surveys and space analysis to create more useful spaces for their patrons

Interviews include:
* talking with David Consiglio about data driven decision making in a library context
* talking with Valerie Diggs about communication strategies for successful change

The conclusion to this book provides a lot of reflection on change in the library community. One sentence in particular spoke to me: "Among the many things we need to abandon is the nostalgia that unfortunately gives us an inaccurate perception of the past and hinders discussions of the present, and the future of libraries." Insights here range from the urgency of library as space for our communities to come together in a variety of ways, you can never had enough communication, and that fostering leadership and diversity is a necessity.

Staff Development on a Shoestring

Finished November 16
Staff Development on a Shoestring by Marcia Trotta.

This manual is aimed at library managers and covers a lot of ground. The first chapter looks at the reasons to engage in staff development, first giving a definition of what staff development can include. The second chapter is a how-to guide on creating a program for staff development for your library. Chapter Three looks at more than just training opportunities using in-house expertise. It covers creating a team of people in your organization through figuring out tasks and determining needs and delivery methods. Chapter Four looks at what the Manager's responsibilities at for staff training, from making sure the training relates to the library's vision to addressing specific needs, tying in job descriptions, giving feedback, and a self-audit tool for the manager.
The fifth chapter looks at best practices, giving some good ideas from what some libraries have done successfully already. Chapter Six looks at the role of mentoring in developing staff. Chapter Seven goes beyond the in-house and looks at opportunities for development outside your library, from the larger organization, to professional organizations, other agencies with similar goals or mandates, local partnership opportunities, institutes of higher educations, and e-learning.
The eighth chapter gives several models for specific training sessions. Topics here are Effective Communication, Orientation, Teamwork, Time Management, and Customer Service. Some are quite extensive. Chapter Nine looks at both developing staff in terms of technology and using technology to provide staff development. The tenth chapter looks at the role of evaluation, including a section on responding to resistance to change. Chapter Eleven covers performance rewards from recognition to more tangible rewards, and motivators.
The last chapter is a collection of resources, some lists, some referrals, and some bibliographies.
A useful book with many tools to get your library organized around this important element for successful library practice.

Getting Started with Evaluation

Finished October 21
Getting Started with Evaluation by Peter Hernon, Robert E. Dugan, and Joseph R. Matthews

This book starts with a definition of evaluation, looking at different ways to measure, benchmarking, and best practices. EBLIP, evidence-based library and information practice is discussed. There is a chapter on library metrics, looking at where we get the data we use. Following chapters look at subsets of this data.
Internal Evaluation for Planning and Decision Making includes a road map and a discussion of the three different types of data to collection: input, process, and output. External Evaluation to Inform Stakeholders and to Guide Continuous Improvement talks about the importance of thinking first about what and how you want to show the data, and about the quality of the data you collect. Types of data here include partnerships, customer satisfaction, supporting education and reputation.
There is a chapter dedicated to measuring satisfaction, looking at the different gap models that can be used, methods of data collection, and some samples. Measuring service quality is differentiated and gets its own chapter, looking at the two components: what is provided and how it is delivered. This discussion includes e-services.
The authors then move to ROI, looking at the economic benefits of direct use, indirect use, and non-use. It also includes ways to look at the cumulative impact on the community in areas such as community development, social inclusiveness, and an open democratic society. Measuring the value of the library and its service is also differentiated, and split into many categories: cognitive results, affective results, meeting expectations, accomplishments in relation to tasks, time aspects and money aspects. There is specific mention of the public library here with its role both as a traditional library, and as a community member.
Chapter 10 looks at what to do with the data we collection, including both how to use it and how to communicate it. This is split into sections of who to communicate to, what to communicate, and how to communicate it. It discusses the importance of aligning the three parts so that the what and the how are appropriate to the intended audience. Raw data should never be used, and libraries should be selective in the use of graphics. If a paragraph has more than five numbers in it, a table would be preferred to text. graphics are best with minimal text, and simple is always better than complex. Libraries should do test runs to ensure that the tool communicates the message that was intended. Another good reminder here is that colour can also play a subtle role, and choosing the appropriate type of chart for the message is important. An example of this is the guideline that pie charts show proportions, bar charts show relationships, and time series charts show change.
Any communication is to influence a particular group or groups of stakeholders. The timing of communication relates to the method. Libraries can be creative in the use of human interest stories placed in newspaper articles, written reports should always include an executive summary, presentations should be thought of in terms of visual appeal and good design, and newsletters should include information on progress towards goals.
The final chapter is a look at how evaluation leads to positive organizational change.
Every chapter has exercises, so this book would work well for classes in library school as well.

The Weeding Handbook

Finished September 17
The Weeding Handbook: A Shelf-by-Shelf guide by Rebecca Vnuk

This book is an overview of weeding helpful for the small public library. It begins with an overview of weeding, discussing the purposes behind weeding, the issues around it, and how to get started.
It next goes through a collection by DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) number, talking about Fiction along with the 800s. For each range it talks about the type of information than gets outdated, and suggests guidelines for weeding books in that area. The book is clear about these being guidelines in many areas, as each community will have its own unique needs and things like space available and budget for collection will impact decisions.
The book then goes on to brief discussions for Reference material, media (CDs and DVDs along with older formats), ebooks, and databases.
There is a chapter about Youth collections which discusses some issues particular to Children's and Young Adult collections.
There is a section on Weeding Gone Wrong, which looks at some examples of bad planning and preparation and the issues that arose due to them.
The book them moves on to Collection Development Plans, explaining why these are a necessity behind every well-planned weeding procedure or project. Some sample plans are included: six for public libraries, two for academic, and one for a school library.
This book covers the main issues, explains the importance of weeding and collection development plans, and provides some helpful tips.

Developing Community-Led Public Libraries

Finished April 20
Developing Community-Led Public Libraries: Evidence from the UK and Canada by John Pateman and Ken Williams

I've been immersed in this book for months as I determine how our library will be moving forward with this new model of service. The authors take a lot of their information from two large multiple library projects that focused on the community and its needs. In the UK, the Open to All? project focused on the issue of social exclusion and on creating library services that addressed the needs of specific communities. In Canada, the Working Together project involved Halifax, Regina, Vancouver, and Toronto Public Libraries and focused on understanding and developing library specific community development, learning about different approaches.
John Pateman's library experience is mostly in Britain, but he joined the Thunder Bay Public Library as its CEO a few years ago. He was heavily involved in the Open to All? project in the UK.
Ken Williment is a branch manager for Halifax Public Libraries, but he was the Community Development Manager during the Working Together project.
The book begins with an overview of the two projects, and a summary of the learnings from each. Each following chapters focuses on a different aspect of the learnings, and offers helpful hints on how to move forward for that particular learning, challenge, or aspect.
The first chapter talks about the variety of approaches that can be used to connect with the local community. Libraries have to figure out what approach will work for them and the community they are targeting.
The next topic is Needs Assessment and Research, which looks at how to get at the real needs of the community. The most important thing to remember here is that we aren't the experts on the needs of the community, the community is the expert. Often libraries go in with preconceived notions of what the community needs. This is not the way to develop a true partnership, nor is it a way to get at the real needs that libraries can help address. This may be one of the more difficult things to get our heads around, as it goes against decades of "how we do things." Needs will be specific to each community, and we have to recognize and respond to that, not focus on statistics and generalizations.
Which brings us to Library Image and Identity. How do we identify ourselves and how do others see us. Libraries are made up of parts that include the buildings we occupy, the staff that work for us, and the services we offer. We have to look closely at all these things and specifically at barriers these bring to our relationships with the community. Barriers may be institutional (hours, policies, signage, staff attitude, prescriptive collections), personal and social (literacy, low income, discrimination, self-esteem, housing), environmental (physical access, safety issues, isolation, transportation), or perceptional (ideas about library services, isolation, relevancy, technology fears). We have to look closely at these and try to eliminate them where we can.
The next chapter is a sort of bridge or continuum from traditional library services to the community-led model, explaining the differences between outreach, partnerships, community development, and true co-production. Many of us have the first two in some way, and it is understanding how these can help up move towards a greater integration with our communities, and where each type of activity has its place.
We then move to the role of technology in addressing social exclusion issues. This is another chapter that looks at common library assumptions and moves beyond them.
Following that the book addresses the provision of materials, a core service of libraries, and emphasizes the need to have the libraries step back and let the community determine the focus and makeup of the collections offered.
The next topic is library staff, what skills are needed, how we find staff, and how we training and develop the staff we have now to change to this new model of service. Included here is a useful appendix for library schools to help them develop appropriate courses to meet this new model so that new graduates are ready to hit the ground running.
The following chapter focuses on addressing social exclusion, and changing the focus of libraries to bring this issue back to the core of library services. This looks a strategy, and how libraries can focus their staffing, service structure, systems, policies and procedures, and values and culture to make the community needs the centre of what we do.
Of course, a big part of library service is measuring our success towards our mandate, and the next chapter focuses on how we create measurements, performance indicators, and evaluation systems that are meaningful. Once again this comes back to working with the community so that these are not set by the library, but by the community in partnership with us. There is also the need to continually adjust these as we learn from what we do, from the feedback we get. This is a movement away from quantitative indicators and statistics to the more difficult qualitative, impact, and outcome measures. How are we relevant to our community? And how do we continue to be relevant as the needs of the community change?
The last two chapters provide additional help in moving towards this new, necessary model for library service, offering a blueprint for change and a road map to how to proceed.
Now comes the difficult work of implementation, but many of us are looking hopefully forward with this model, and we can learn from each others' experiences as we continue to listen carefully to our communities and become more integral to them.

Some books related to work

Finished this Fall
I've been some reading lately around work topics: planning, assessing; etc.

Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers by Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman
This one covers several related topics. It covers the whole idea of library service and what that means to different people. It looks and how you determine the value of a library and the services it offers. It looks at different ways of measuring those services, both qualitative and quantitative. It looks at the difference between service quality and customer satisfaction and shows the relationship between them. And it looks at what to do with the information you gather of both to improve and change what the library does.
Lots of tools, but also a lot to think about.

The Patron-Driven Library: A Practical Guide for Managing Collections and Services in the Digital Age by Dee Ann Allison
This book covers even more than the title suggests. On the collections side, it talks about how to enhance and improve the experience of those who use the collections. We see the power of collaboration, whether it is through social networks with our users, through collaboration with our colleagues in other libraries, or through a number of channels in terms of advocacy. The old "how we measure our success" raises its head again here in the discussion of metrics to base decisions on. It covers the various tools and add-ons available in terms of making the collections more visible and getting people interested in using them. It covers the various formats digital content comes in and how to manage and make choices. We also see how changes to the world of publishing, and about how data is stored and shared all influence the collection.
On the service side, we see experiences from those in the field to see that using real-life experiences when teaching information literacy gives better learning outcomes. We see how experimentation when linking services to collections adds value. There is discussion on how to assess the services the library offers and how they are tied to the collections. The last chapter also offers a look at the future of the library and what kinds of uses will be provided.
There is also a chapter on the "new professional librarian" that looks at different workplace opportunities, the competencies we now expect from our professional staff, and how to take advantage of the skills and abilities we have on hand as well as developing staff.

Productivity for Librarians: How to Get More Done in Less Time by Samantha Hines
This book was extremely practical. It started by looking at productivity and how it relates to libraries and librarians. It then looks at various influences on productivity: motivation, procrastination, and time management. The following sections looks at various systems of productivity, as outlined in popular management books. I found the summaries of each system, and the quiz to help you determine which systems might work best for you very interesting. Some I knew well, and others I was less familiar with. The next chapter looks at productivity for those with management responsibilities, again with many good points and approaches to situations. The next topic was very useful indeed, "sticking with productivity", and could be applied to more than just this topic. It really discusses various ways to keep with a program of change, ways to stay motivated, and tactics to deal with barriers that may arise. The final section includes information and links to resources that may be helpful in terms of changing your productivity habits, or learning more about different topics covered here. An extremely practical and useful book.

Crash Course in Dealing with Difficult Library Customers

Finished August 15
Crash Course in Dealing with Difficult Library Customers by Shelley E Mosley, Dennis C Tucker and Sandra Van Winkle

This book covers a variety of situations that one can encounter in a library environment. It begins with an overview of general guidelines when dealing with customer-related problems at the library.
The book is then divided into sections grouping different types of problem customers. Each type within the grouping is described well, and strategies are given for dealing with them, followed by a brief summary. Some of these didn't meet my library's normal procedure, seeming too restrictive or aimed at a smaller library with less resources than mine. Most strategies suggested were helpful and simple to understand though.
The first grouping is disruptive behaviours. This includes those who abuse privileges, those whose behaviour is disruptive to other library users, and those who take up more staff time than their information need should require due to their behaviour.
The second grouping are those who believe that their needs are more important than others. This includes aggressive customers, those who want to censor material, the name-droppers and self-important, and the ones who just like to be difficult.
The next grouping was of parental issues and included a range from permissive to abusive, as well as those who just drop their kids to fend for themselves.
The fourth group was those with social service needs from the job seekers to homeless and mentally ill. Information on other helpful organizations for those in the U.S. are also given in this section.
The fifth group was those who break the law, in terms of property or information. So this includes vandalism, theft and computer crime.
The last group is those who are dangerous or potentially dangerous and covers those with substance abuse issues, sex crimes, and stalkers among others.
There is also a helpful appendix that includes examples of policies, forms, and procedures.
A very good resource that will be helpful to most libraries.

Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians

Finished May 8
Time and Project Management Strategies for Librarians edited by Carol Smallwood, Jason Kuhl, and Lisa Fraser

This collection of articles offers several useful tips for becoming more effective, productive, and organized.
Information that I found particularly useful dealt with core competencies (taking a hard look at what you need people to know and do), management strategies (how to best train and direct staff and tasks), reference services (how to help adjust to changing services), project charts (taking a big picture approach to projects in the organization), time management (setting aside blocks of time for specific tasks), to do list software (I'm trying one that I like and it is looking good so far), email management (using the power of the email tool I already have), asynchronous collaboration (getting rid of some of the barriers around working with others, especially those in different locations).
There's something here for pretty much everyone, and every type of library. A great professional resource.

Adult Programs in the Library

Finished March 17
Adult Programs in the Library by Brett W. Lear

This is the second edition that I read, and I liked the process and planning parts of the book, findings several elements quite useful. The program planning timeline checklist was good, as was the advice to tie the programming to the library's strategic plan, something I am trying to formalize. The chapter on formats helped to show the different options available and how they are best used.
The chapter on Technology gave some links to good examples of libraries using technology and showed different ideas for expanding the audience for programs through recording, remote technology tools like Skype, and online discussions.
I also found the different examples of programs delivered by other libraries, their promotional materials and planning notes very interesting.

Two books completed

Finished September 28
The Practical Library Manager by Bruce Massis
I've been slowly reading this one for a while and I did find the information on core competencies useful, but a lot of the rest of it wasn't very helpful to me, at least not where I am working presently. The idea of a technology needs survey was interesting, but the one they had as a sample in the appendix was not anywhere like what we would be looking at in terms of needs. We are all technologically literate here, it would be learning more about 2.0 technologies that would be something that we would want to do. Borrow it and get what information is useful to you from it, but I would say that it isn't really worth buying.

Finished September 27
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
This is a very different book, and I found it a bit slow going, mostly due to its format. It is written as that which is spoken by one character, mostly reviewing to someone he has just met his experiences at school in the United States, in his first job there, and how he came to be back in Pakistan. The speaker is a male Pakistani native from a upper-class family fallen on hard times and the person he is talking to is an American who is visiting Pakistan, but not as a tourist. The second person does occasionally make conversation back to the speaker, although we don't hear exactly what is said. We get the gist of it from the context of the speaker's word and know it is fairly limited. It is unclear why the speaker feels the need to give this information, and also why the listener feels compelled to stay for the several hours necessary to hear him out. The story is one of a man trying to fit into a world that he eventually realizes he doesn't fit into. The listener is wary and nervous, yet listens. I find myself asking questions about the book afterwards, revisiting it in my head. This is definitely one that makes you think.