2021-05-07 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 8, Issue 4

Featured Story

Delivering the Library

One of my favorite paradoxes is the fact that constraints breed creativity. When our options are limitless, it’s hard to narrow anything down, but when we suddenly have strict parameters, bam, brilliant ideas start flowing.

In Spring of 2020, we all suddenly had the same strict parameters, and creative solutions to providing library services started popping up everywhere. In Caldwell, we were setting up computers under canopies outside. In Meridian, they were building a Home Delivery system.

When I came back to Meridian Library this summer, I had a million questions about how they had set everything up and the “why” behind the setup. I wanted to know the biggest challenges so far, and how patrons were responding to the service.

The logistics are fairly straightforward, even if it took quite a bit of backend set up to get things to run as smoothly as they do now. Patrons place a hold on a book through the catalog and select “Meridian Home Delivery” as their pickup location. Home delivery staff check out the books and package them for delivery. Next, the driver drops the item off at people’s homes. The whole service is completely contactless.

Allie Poole, the Page and Home Delivery Supervisor presented at ILA on this topic, and is putting together a lovely toolkit that explains the ins and outs of the project for anyone who is interested in starting their own Home Delivery service. The backend delivery management system is built in Airtable and uses Routific to generate delivery routes. If you geek about awesome workflows or are interested in implementing your own delivery service, I highly recommend chatting with Allie and the Home Delivery team.

As I mentioned before, I wanted to know the “why” behind the service. I spent some time chatting with the team and looking at industry trends for delivery services, and found that Home Delivery not only met the immediate need of supplying patrons with library materials when physical locations were closed, it also met other ongoing community needs.

If we look at consumer trends from 2020, a few things stand out in context of Home Delivery:
1- Brand loyalty is down
2 – Changes in buyer behavior are accelerated
3 – Delivery demographics have shifted to working parents and tech professionals

I’m going to work backward through those trends backwards – in the past, we’ve thought of home delivery as a service for homebound patrons. Libraries have been offering it for years, but in a very limited capacity. While I’m sure there were lots of reasons for having limitations, our self-imposed limitations have shaped our perceptions of the service. While it’s not a perfect parallel, I looked at the food delivery industry for insight. Not surprisingly, the two groups that are most likely to use food delivery services are working parents and tech professionals. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that they might also be the most likely to use a library home delivery service. Working parents are often overlooked in library programming, with little to no storytimes scheduled during evenings and weekends. According to Pew, people with less education and household income have reported the largest decline in library use from 2012 to 2015. These groups are also more likely to be single parent households – removing barriers by delivering books to their doorsteps can go a long ways towards making sure all kids have something to read.

Next on our trends list: changes are accelerated right now. Disney Plus did in three months what it took Netflix 6 years to do. Online delivery orders hit their 10 year projected market growth in 8 weeks. This is in a market that has already grown 200% in the past five years. It’s pretty clear that people really like the convenience of having their favorite things delivered to their doorsteps, and the extra time at home this past year has cemented that.

Related to the last trend, brand loyalty is down. People have had their routines completely changed, and that makes them more likely to try something new. People who have been loyal to brands for decades are willing to change their habits if it saves them money, is more convenient, or has a positive impact on their community or the environment.

All of this leads to the perfect environment to create new library users and demonstrate our value. The library is already saving people money and definitely having a positive impact on their communities. Add in the convenience of home delivery, and it’s almost irresistible to switch to using the library over purchasing items (or going without).

Overall, our home delivery service has been well received by the community and we’ve seen consistent month-over-month growth in requests. We’re planning on keeping it running, even once things are “normal.”  We’re exploring ways to streamline. I’m definitely curious to see if it leads to an increase in new cardholders or not, especially in areas where people are not within walking distance to the library.

I’d love to hear about the creative ways other libraries have adapted their services because of the pandemic and why or why not you’re keeping them in the future.

References:

– 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.

Containing Kits

One of our staff was asked to prepare several Healing Library Kits for our collection last fall. She eagerly began ordering items to include in the kits.  After the items arrived and she began preparing the kits for processing, she realized not all of the items were going to fit into the containers intended for the kits.  Drats!  What would become of the extra toys, games and activities?  She failed to consider the limitations of the kit containers before choosing items.

Luckily her wonderful supervisor came up with a solution. Since one of the kits had extra books , we were able to redistribute the kit contents and create two kits using the combined resources.  What could have been a waste of resources became an opportunity to create an additional kit for patrons to check out.

– Mike Sloan

 

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!

Crushing on you!

I have a crush on all of you. You all, who are being positive during the pandemic. Thank you for sharing the positive vibes. Those projects you are working on look pretty amazing and the work you do matters. To all the libraries still getting materials to the public and answering those reference questions. Way to go! I know each library is different and we are trying to get materials to the public while keeping people safe. I know at my library our hold requests are bigger than they were before. I know we spend a lot of time getting materials to our curbside area for the patrons all day long. This can be stressful, exhausting but we try to keep up the positive vibes. Libraries across the state have really transformed and worked to provide new services to get materials out to the public. We show up daily and try to stay positive while living during the pandemic. It is upsetting that nobody has said how amazing you are today. We are all amazing!

– Eric Hovey

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.