10. Up Your Game
• Know your local community demographics
• Focus on needs assessment and social assessments
• Outreach versus engagement and partnerships
• Prioritize: Love all, Serve all, Save the World means nothing
gets done
• Priorities are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, & Time bound
• Look for partnerships that add value
11. Amazon
Chapters/Indigo
Barnes & Noble
BN BookBrowser
Borders
Suggestica
Inside a Dog (teens)
MySpace Books
Books We Like
OCLC's FictionFinder
All Consuming
LibraryThing
Next Favorite
StoryCode
Rating Zone
Hypatia and AlexLit
WhichBook.net
AllReaders.com
Reader's Robot
gnooks
12. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – every collection must be justified by
programs and strategic alignment
• Force strategic investment budgeting
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Don’t go it alone. Focus on large scale sustainable programs
• Connect to the longer process not just events - Virtual and in-person
• Programs that aren’t text first – Arduino, Makerspaces, music, media…
• In the Library and reaching out with partners
13. What are the real issues?
• Craft versus Industrial Strength
• Personal service only when there’s impact
• Pilot, Project, Initiative versus Portfolio Strategy
• Hand-knitted prototypes versus Production
• e.g. Information Literacy and Fluency initiatives
• Discovery versus Search versus Deep Search
• eLearning units and program dissemination
• Citation and information ethics
• Content and repository archipelagos
14. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – But add virtual experiences
• Start being Mobile in the extreme
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Focus on relationship management / liaisons
• Ensure the program delivery person is embedded including
librarians
• What are your top 20 question domains? Start there.
• Don’t go it alone. Build scalability and sustainability.
• Look for replicability – every neighbourhood
16. Up Your Game
• Start offering diplomas and certificates
• The Non-credit Course
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Offer real educational opportunities not just adjacencies
• What does your community need for economic advantage?
• What courses to you offer or recommend? (TED, Khan Academy, etc.)
• Play and connect yourself
17. Up Your Game
• Understand the new Common Curriculum (esp. 6-8 and 9-12)
• Understand Pedagogy in the context of student experiences
and educational goals
• Understand human development from early years through
teens and adult learning
• Understand the projects
• Connect across developmental stages, link to schools
• Consider partnerships to put teachers in the library
• Consider coaches and tutoring partnerships
18. Up Your Game
• Take the strong ‘library’ brand and add dimension
• Personal branding – Who are your stars? Promote them.
• Program branding
• Take risks for attention (AIDA)
• Embed your brand beyond the library walls and virtually
• Go beyond the information brand to informing, creating, and
social
19. Up Your Game
• Grow collections investments in strategic areas (for example
economic impact, jobs, early years, hobbies, political alignment,
homework, curriculum, degrees…)
• Develop hybrid strategies that are consistent and integrated for
digital and print and programs
• Be obsessive about consultation, recommendations and advice
• Integrate virtual and physical – hybridize
• Social alignment rules
20. Value & Impact Measures
Behaviours, Satisfaction
Economic and strategic alignment
Beyond circulation (Ugh)
20
21. Up Your Game
• Dog, Star, Cow, Problem Child/?
• Reduce investment in successes
• Increase investment
• Look at TCO
• Look at all costs incurred and not just hard costs
• Do NOT value your time at zero
• Review opportunity costs in soft costs
22. Stephen Abram, MLS, FSLA
Consultant, Dysart & Jones/Lighthouse Partners
Cel: 416-669-4855
stephen.abram@gmail.com
Stephen’s Lighthouse Blog
http://stephenslighthouse.com
Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr: Stephen Abram
LinkedIn / Plaxo: Stephen Abram
Twitter: @sabram
SlideShare: StephenAbram1
