PLa Conference in Minneapolis (2)

One of the programs I have now seen at least three times is Karen Hyman’s on Reinventing the Library.  I am normally skittish about “re-invention”, because I feel strongly about the mission of the public library and don’t think very highly of efforts by the likes of Steve Coffman to re-invent it. A re-invented wheel could roll better or it might be square. The way to tell the difference it to see it it still fulfills its mission. Too often, re-invented libraries are square wheels.

This is not true of Hyman’s presentations. They can be a bit of a slap across the face, in a good Zen way. Some of her best bits were in a section on the dangers of “active Inertia.”

[Organizations can] fall prey to active inertia — responding to even the most disruptive market shifts by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past. When the world changes, organizations trapped in active inertia do more of the same.  … To avoid active inertia, you can forget about…  “Best practices” i.e. things that possibly worked somewhere else last year.   The traditional long range plan with action steps i.e. things that might be good ideas if this year was like last year and next year was like this year.

This is based on the writings of Donald Sull, like Porter, someone who appears in Harvard Business Review. Damn, I have to get back to scanning articles there.

This ties back to the difference between operational and strategic. If you are in a hole, operational thinking asks how to make the hole deeper, wider and more comfortable. Strategic thinking asks about maybe getting out. (Note to GW Bush and friends)

Another takeaway is that every library is a destination / experience library, some just care about the experience people have when they arrive. Can  we be rude to a cute 9 year old - certainly, without thinking twice. If we are concerned about hospitality, we would need to change a lot of things.

One approach she and several other speakers mentioned is “zoning”, having a variety of spaces with differing rulesets, some loud gathering spaces, some quiet study spots, places for children and families, areas for adults to look at books. I think we “get” this at McMillan, but have it about half implemented. I’ll stop here since I have a dinner to cook and you can see the handout at the link above, which includes Hyman’s contact information.