Bókasafnið - 01.06.2014, Qupperneq 90

Bókasafnið 38. árg. 2014
90
Changing practice
In an age of smooth­talking marketing, most org­
anisations claim a lot more than they deliver in
practice. Public libraries are one of the very few org­
anisations who routinely deliver much more than they
claim. They usually do not articulate their huge contri­
bution to individual and public wellbeing, but just
quietly get on with doing the business.
Libraries have always undertaken work as a
matter of course which is now dignified with new
names and initiatives. The poor man’s university of
the nineteenth century has consistently been at the
centre of lifelong learning. Libraries were child­centred
long before other services recognised children as indi­
viduals with rights. They provided material in alter­
native formats before disability awareness and ran
mobile and housebound services when no­one else
delivered any outreach. Libraries welcomed homeless
people, eccentrics of all kinds and new arrivals from
other countries before the invention of the term social
inclusion. Libraries have offered participative demo­
cracy and been the hub of local communities for deca­
des, whether through access to ideas or displays of
local planning applications.
So why do libraries need to change? The main
change we seek to support is to move from a largely
passive approach to service provision to libraries taking
a more active role. Traditionally, libraries focus on the
organisation of collections and responding to requests
for information. If you ask a librarian anything, they will
go to the ends of the earth to help you. This is a wond­
erful service – friendly, knowledgeable and non­
judgmental. But what about those people who don’t
ask? Opening the Book research in UK libraries uncov­
ered evidence that the majority of library visitors never
ask staff anything.
The reader­centred approach asks staff to engage
with readers, rather than waiting for readers to ask. It sets
out to make all of the collection work harder ﴾not just the
latest bestsellers﴿ and to adapt retail solutions to solve li­
brary problems. A reader­centred approach moves the
focus from the organisation of collections to how people
use books in their lives. After all, the principal aim in any
lending library is not to shelve books but to promote them ­
to use the most successful methods to get books off the li­
brary shelves and into people’s homes and minds.
The whole point of initiating training is to embed
new skills – to change practice. The distinct advantage
of delivering online training is that new ways of working
are tried out and assessed in the learner’s own library.
What doesn’t work can be adapted. The impact is
visible for staff and readers. Learners get an under­
standing of the theory behind the approach but, more
importantly, experience and apply it personally and so
are motivated to make change to the way they do their
own jobs.
So what’s in it for me?
All of our course contents and methodology have
been tested and refined with feedback from library staff
who use them. The current courses we offer have been
shaped in discussion ﴾face­to­face as well as online!﴿
with many librarians. Library managers told us they
want to pick and choose to develop specific reader­
centred skills in their staff teams. Skills to Go is a suite
of five short, practical courses which can be taken
together or separately to develop skills in engaging rea­
ders, creating promotions, merchandising bookshelves,
increasing collection knowledge and managing first
impressions of your library. Skills to Go is for staff who
work on the frontline – the courses are quick and fun to
take and the tasks are within the remit of anyone who
works in a customer­facing role in a library. Examples
and tasks range across all areas of a collection – fiction,
non­fiction, audiobooks, ebooks, books for children and
young adults.
Picture 1. Starting from the Reader
"A reader-centered approach gives libraries an important new role at the
centre of the cultural landscape."