2021-02-12 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 7, Issue 7

Featured Story

Message from the editor

Do you enjoy reading the Curiosity Report? Do you see change as an opportunity to learn and grow? Do you find yourself going with the flow when things don’t go as planned? Great, you should apply to be part of SPLAT! Applications are open through February 14th.

The SPLAT team is composed of a diverse group of Idaho library staff that seek to have representation from all geographic areas, all types of libraries, all sizes of libraries, and individuals in differing stages of their careers. These varied perspectives strengthen the group by enabling members to address a multitude of needs that are found within our library communities.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Curiosity Report.
– Deana Brown

6 Lessons from a Project Management Degree That Have Made Me a Better Librarian

Prepare for the Worst
Also known as Risk Management. One of the core principles of project management is assessing risks and planning for them. While I have absolutely been accused of being a pessimist at times when applying risk management strategies to projects, it’s still a wildly important skill. I love having back up plans for my back up plans – “what happens if my presenter doesn’t show up?” or “what if a pandemic happens in the middle of my amazing in-person training project?” or “what happens if tax revenue decreases and collection development budgets are decreased?” Learning how to ask the right questions is the first step, but what I love about risk management is coming up with innovative solutions to potential issues, so when and if they happen, I’m ready to roll with the punches.

Keep your friends close, and your stakeholders closer
One of the most delightful, gossipy, yet totally professional artifacts from a complete project plan is making a Burn Book, also known as a Stakeholder Register. A formal one will list everyone who has a stake in the success of the project, then rank them by level of influence, involvement, and decide how often they should be updated about the project, and how many details they need. I’ve found that this way of thinking has been really helpful. It’s good to know who in your organization will speed a project up, who will bog it down unnecessarily, and who needs to actually give the go ahead. Also, directors and managers don’t realistically have time to be involved in every project, so deciding how to communicate just the important details will save everyone time.

People are resources too
Librarians are DIY champions, with a huge variety of skills. We can knit, make felt puppets, edit videos, and run electrical. And sometimes, in an effort to save money, we spend a lot of time making something ourselves. In most Project Management software, you enter people in as resources, including their salary and what percentage of their time they can dedicate to the project, and it calculates staff time as part of the overall budget. When we’re looking at DIY cost savings, we need to consider the cost of staff time. Sometimes it really is more cost efficient to just buy something.

Start with the end in mind
This is a lesson I need to learn over and over, especially with planning programs. I frequently see a fun idea, and start running with it before thinking what I want to happen. Do I want patrons to walk away with more knowledge? Better connections? If I have a good idea of what I’m hoping will happen before I start, that can make small decisions easier to make along the way and keep the project on track.

You can’t be everything to everyone
As much as we’d love to solve all of the problems in our community, it’s important for us to come back to our core services and make sure we’re offering those well. In Project Management, every project gets a really well-defined scope, that states clearly what the project will and will not do. Scope creep is what it’s called when things start sneaking in. There is always a limited amount of time and money, and clearly defining what you’re doing can make sure you’re making the best use of your time.

Make To Do Lists for your To Do Lists
This was the hardest thing for me to learn, as someone who prefers to do everything by the seat of my pants. I’m also a terrible procrastinator, and at first, making really in-depth to do lists felt like a form of procrastination. But, miraculously, spending extra time at the beginning to think about all of the pieces has actually made me stay on track better, because when I hit a wall I can refer back to my list and pick a different piece to work on for a while. Breaking down a large task into all of the smaller pieces makes it a lot less daunting to start.
– Alex Johnatakis

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.

ILL

I have been trying to find a particular book to ILL for a patron and had NO luck at all.  I was getting frustrated because it was not popping up in any search through OCLC – for months!  Ugh!  Mind you, I had a very specific search process that’s fairly efficient when requesting tons and tons of items for our patrons.  When the title never came up after repeated searches, I decided to set that aside for when I had a larger chunk of time to dedicate to it instead of telling the patron I couldn’t find it.  I’m glad I did!  When I took more time to dig into it, I discovered that it was a short story that was published as an ebook and an eAudiobook, however, someone had taken the time to collect many short stories by different authors into a printed book.  I was able to find the story my patron wanted.  She was excited that I had found it because she had no luck either, but she was also happy to have found similar authors published in the collection. Now she is reading new authors!   Ever since then, when I come across these short stories, I’ve been able to find others for many other patrons in print form just by taking a few moments to dig.
– Vanessa Thiele

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? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Circulating Ideas Podcast

I’ve been all about the Circulating Ideas podcast from Steve Thomas. It’s a truly excellent interview-format podcast featuring guests from all over libraryland as well as allied professions. It’s fascinating both to learn about changes & initiatives across the country, as well as the personalities driving them. With almost 200 episodes clocking in between 30 & 60 minutes each, there’s a lot to catch up on. New episodes come out roughly monthly.
– Tyler McLane

SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of 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 was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.