2018-08-10 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 1, Issue 6

Featured Story

Moving Collections

One of the most daunting tasks that a library can face is moving collections. While this can be a monumental task, there are resources available that can help make your move planning easy and painless. These resources are helpful whether you want to shift a collection for space, move a collection to a different floor, or move your entire library across town.

The American Library Association has a fact sheet available with a list of articles and publications that will help move a library. By using the tools and information available from ALA, as well as the following additional tips, you eliminate a lot of the stress and guesswork that is inherent in library moves.

ALA Editions has published a book about moving collections. Moving Your Library: Getting the Collection from Here to There by Steven Fortriede is a thorough and helpful look at how to move a library. The book illustrates real world scenarios and solutions, and provides tools that are useful in planning the space for your new collections. One of the most useful skills and tools inside his book teaches you how to measure a collection of items and input the information into a spreadsheet that determines how much space that collection will need. It also incorporates growth room, and can be adjusted for growth patterns that are faster or slower than normal. This tool has been useful in shifting collections within the same shelving area, to moving from one side of the room to another, to changing buildings and shelving patterns. The Nampa Public Library has a copy of this books available for check-out and InterLibrary Loan.

In addition to ALA’s resources, here are some other tips you may want to consider when moving collections.

  • A move coordinator will keep the bigger picture in mind and juggle the moving pieces throughout the move.
  • Someone in charge of personnel and volunteers will ensure that each person is assigned to every task needed throughout the move.
  • A morale officer will keep the teams motivated, especially when progress is hard to see.
  • An information officer is valuable to distribute information about the move to the teams moving the collections as well as getting information from the teams to the move coordinator.
  • Involving staff members in these positions as early as possible helps create a core of dedicated and knowledgeable people to rely on during the entire move.

Mike Sloan

Fail Forward

We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.

Getting the Timing Right

Getting the timing right is one of the aspects of planning events and programming that I have struggled with. There are so many variables to consider when picking a date, it is almost impossible to pick the “perfect” date and time. The first event that I planned at the Lewis-Clark State College library, a Murder Mystery scavenger hunt night, only had  meager turnout of 10 attendees, probably because we planned the event too late in the semester. When we moved it up to the Friday before classes started, we had about 5X the number of attendees. A fun book to get you thinking about what time of year certain events will do well is A Year of Programs for Millennials and More by Amy J. Alessio, Katie LaMantia, and Emily Vinci.

Kate Flower

Crush Corner

Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you in the work you do? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Cindy Bigler and the Gooding Public Library

Over the last month I have been totally crushing on Cindy Bigler and the Gooding Public Library. They recently collaborated with their local junior high to participate in FABSlam. What I love about this is that Cindy is a great example of what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it. In talking to her about her experience with this and other activities she said “the size of the library should not be a limitation.” She goes after every grant she can in order to bring every opportunity that she can to her community. In fact, she was able to pull the support of her community, and on May 15th had an election vote that will open up a new library district in the Gooding area.

Check them out on their website: http://gooding.lili.org/

Jackie Wood

SPLAT explores new ways to build capacity and support library folk as they serve their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org

SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and is funded in part with a federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-00-17-0013-17). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.