Introduction

Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about managing resources. If your people don’t have the things they need to get their jobs done, your leadership skills could use some sharpening!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to chat with you this season about building your leadership skills. We provide support and training for all types of libraries, and our work can be used by anyone who wants to build skills, and to become a better leader in your own organization. Check out our website for more information

And now, on with the show!

 

The Basics

It seems pretty obvious when you think about: you and your organization need money and stuff to accomplish your mission. But it can be really easy to assume this is someone else’s job, or to assume that things just appear in front of you – maybe by magic!

The reality is simpler, and maybe less romantic: as a leader it is your job to get things done, and that means you need to be sure everyone has what they need. You need to find the money and the facilities and any supplies to make everything happen.

Let’s talk about three different types of resources you will need to provide for your library.

 

Money

Money is important. It’s pretty crucial, in fact. Your organization is not going to function without money. If you have a library that has no budget for staff, materials, or space – that’s not a library. It may be a cute collection of musty, old books, but it’s not a library. You may be in a library, or in some other workplace; but if you don’t have money, it’s a nice volunteer thing and not sustainable.

So in a leadership position, you want to work to bring in a flow of money, and also to spend that money well. Go back to our Season Three episode on Budgeting to get some ideas about handling money in a library.

 

Let’s go find some money. Where do you find money?

• Parent organization
• Grants
• Fundraising
• Miscellaneous
  • Merchandise: t-shirts, coffee mugs, stickers, etc.
  • Library used book sale

Don’t be nervous about talking about money! It’s important to your organization, and it’s important to you to have enough money. So ask for it when you can, be brave about looking around for more money outside of your usual area of resources, and talk about it frequently with others.

Your library may not have much of a budget – in many of our small member libraries, there is very little money or little hope of getting money. So we encourage you to reach out to other people who can help you to provide money, or maybe with some ideas about funding.

It never hurts to ask. And it never hurts to keep reminding people that your organization needs to have money to keep functioning. Don’t hesitate to remind people of all the wonderful things libraries provide for that investment of money, and the truly impressive return on investment we provide to our funders!

 

 

 

Facilities

You need a location, and it needs to meet some basic criteria. If your library is too small, has water leaks and bugs everywhere, or a severe shortage of outlets – these are problems. What can you do as a leader to be sure you get into good facilities, and that you stay there?

First you need a good place to house your organization. You may be in a lovely new building, or you may be in part of a room inside another organization. It does not matter how big or small your place is – anything can work for your community members. You need enough space to display your materials, to plug in computers, and to do the work that is required for your library to function.

Then you want to think about making it both usable and inviting. Think about grocery store aisles; they are deliberately made to be wide enough for two carts to pass each other without bumping. Likewise, the aisles in your bookshelves, or other display furniture, needs to be wide enough that one person can stand facing the shelves while someone else walks behind them without touching each other. Are your tables arranged so that people can walk through them easily? Is it obvious where to return books when someone walks in the front door, or where to check them out after they are pulled off the shelf? All of that is important when you are thinking about arranging your space for the best usability.

 

Now that is exists, and is usable, you want to think about making it look inviting. We have a lot of school library members, and they are doing some very creative things in their libraries! We have seen tents in the library, lofts, and lots of bright colors to indicate different sections of the library to visit. At least, you should be able to paint the walls a cheerful color. Or if you are stuck with just boring white wall, put up a lot of artwork. If you are appealing to a younger audience, that is one type of image to share. If your collection includes art or images, putting them on the walls may encourage people to not only admire them, but to take them home! Putting up materials and images that represent your organization can help to put people in the right frame of mind: in a hospital library, pictures of nurses helping people are good, in an academic library having some statues with scholarly theme are nice, and in school libraries it is always good to see student-created art.

Make your library a place people want to visit!

 

Materials

Libraries are all about the materials! Books are kind of our brand, but of course we have so many other great things that we provide to our community members. Way back in Episode Two of this podcast, we were taking about Library Materials. We do other neat things, including all sorts of programs, services, and training – but without good materials it’s pretty hard to see the value in that other stuff.

Be sure your materials are displayed in a way that they look good for people who come to the library. You also want to be sure they are being displayed on your website, so your remote community members can still be dazzled by all your stuff! (Remember: your website is your electronic branch, and it needs to look good itself.)

What kinds of materials are in libraries and archives? Literally anything could be part of the collection! So as a leader, you want to be part of the decision-making process about acquiring new things (a Collection Development policy) and weeding or de-accessioning things that are worn out or no longer fit your collection (a Weeding policy).

 

We have admired libraries with a wide variety of materials including:

• Books, magazines, journals
• Reference material (almanacs, etc.)
• GPSs
• Telescopes
• Fishing poles
• Heirloom vegetable seeds
• Local history books
• E-books written by patrons
• Toys – for kids and for student teachers
• All kinds of makerspace materials

Being a leader or manager in a library means you need to keep a lot of things moving. Good resource management skills will help to set you apart from other, less-skilled leaders because your organization will look good, it will be funded, and you will have some great things for your community. What could be better???

 

Books We Read

Everyone shares a book (or two) they have enjoyed, or are currently reading:
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, by Meg Medina “One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she’s done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn’t Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first Piddy is more concerned with trying to find out more about the father she’s never met and how to balance honors courses with her weekend job at the neighborhood hair salon. But as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away? In an all-too-realistic novel, Meg Medina portrays a sympathetic heroine who is forced to decide who she really is.”

Magic Triumphs, by Ilona Andrews “Kate has come a long way from her origins as a loner taking care of paranormal problems in post-Shift Atlanta. She’s made friends and enemies. She’s found love and started a family with Curran Lennart, the former Beast Lord. But her magic is too strong for the power players of the world to let her be.

Kate and her father, Roland, currently have an uneasy truce, but when he starts testing her defenses again, she knows that sooner or later, a confrontation is inevitable. The Witch Oracle has begun seeing visions of blood, fire, and human bones. And when a mysterious box is delivered to Kate’s doorstep, a threat of war from the ancient enemy who nearly destroyed her family, she knows their time is up.

Kate Daniels sees no other choice but to combine forces with the unlikeliest of allies. She knows betrayal is inevitable. She knows she may not survive the coming battle. But she has to try.”

The Road to Wellville, by T.C. Boyle, “Will Lightbody is a man with a stomach ailment whose only sin is loving his wife, Eleanor, too much. Eleanor is a health nut of the first stripe, and when in 1907 she journeys to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s infamous Battle Creek Spa to live out the vegetarian ethos, poor Will goes too.

So begins T. Coraghessan Boyle‘s wickedly comic look at turn-of-the-century fanatics in search of the magic pill to prolong their lives–or the profit to be had from manufacturing it. Brimming with a Dickensian cast of characters and laced with wildly wonderful plot twists, Jane Smiley in the New York Times Book Review called The Road to Wellville “A marvel, enjoyable from beginning to end.””

 

 

 

Conclusion

Thanks so much for joining us today! Remember to check out our website for all the information we just discussed.

As always, if you want to talk about this topic further, or you would like us to come talk with you, your staff, or your organization on this or any other leadership topics, you can check out our website at cmle.org and click on “Can We Help You?” right at the top of the page. Or you can email us at admin@cmle.org. You do not need to be a CMLE member; we are here to help everyone build skills!

If you want to keep up with some good books, be sure to check out our podcast Reading With Libraries. We look at all kinds of genres, and are currently dropping two quick Book Bites episodes each week to keep you up to date with a wide variety of books.

Tune in next Thursday for another important leadership skill! We are looking forward to chatting with you then.