Libraries Build Communities

1. the book that started this blog is sitting on the coffee table next to me as I write this post. ten copies, actually. each has a little post-it note with the name of a person who is also mentioned in the acknowledgments. next to that is a stack of 28 additional stickies that include everyone else in the acknowledgments, my boss, our new city librarian, and everyone who contributed selections within each chapter. this list includes, but should likely not be limited to:

Michael Porter
Roy Tennant
Sharon Streams
Rebecca Miller
Walt Crawford
Susan Hildreth
Jennifer Peterson
Rachel Van Noord
George Needham
Marilyn Mason
Helene Blowers
Brian Bannon
Zac Ray
Jenni Fry
Rachel MacNeilly
Rebekkah Smith-Aldrich
Brenda Hough
Cindi Hickey
Cynthia Fuerst
Catherine D’Italia
Joanne Roukens
Molly Rodgers
Jill Stover
Cheryl Napsha
Marlena Boggs
Valerie Wonder
Rachel Singer Gordon
Meg Canada
Steven Bell
Jeff Scott
Chris Jowaisis
Meredith Farkas
Sarah Reynolds
My ‘e-group’
Mom
Dad
Rose
Heather
Andrew
Trudee
Aaron
Everyone at ALA Editions
Hundreds of you who responded to the LBC survey

And of course, Steven Cohen.

Thanks again to you all for your support and contributions.

2. Seattle has a new city librarian and I’ve been remiss in telling you how fabulous I think this is for us. I’m excited by the vision and direction that Susan Hildreth has for our city library and I feel that we are very fortunate to have her here in this fabulous city that loves its libraries! Read more about her appointment…

3. an unusual “living (or not living) online” thing happened to me this week. I’m checking my email and I notice a reminder from Amazon.com (which I usually like to see, truth be told). But this one said: Rose Hill’s Birthday is in 7 Days! Thanks Amazon, as if I wasn’t already thinking about that. A few seconds in my private settings and I realized that I could turn off the reminders without “deleting” her as my “friend”. This precious little wish list my sister left on Amazon I couldn’t bear to separate from, but the email? Too much.

4. WebJunction is six this month and (though unrelated to the birthday)

5. Nancy White is coming to visit our office in two weeks. She’ll be doing a webinar on Technology Stewardship and I strongly encourage you to register to attend if you’re into building online community of any kind, but especially if you’re working for online engagement on behalf of libraries.

6. I eloped for the “official” part of my July wedding in February. The video is now on you tube so I suppose that it’s not really a secret any more.

7. tonight i had dinner at the FareStart in Seattle and witnessed the graduation of two individuals from this intensive 16 week program that was obviously transforming for them, all while eating an exceptional meal from Seattle’s famous Little Italy chef Luigi. I admit I cried while listening to the graduates talk about the incredible community they had been a part of in this program. It reinforced what I said several weeks ago about what I’d read recently in Made to Stick. You want stories? They got stories. It must be so rewarding to go home every day from a job where you are visibly and dramatically changing people’s lives. I know I help the people who help the people, but right this minute I feel very far away from the real stories about where it has helped and why it matters. if you’re a big WebJunction fan and are reading this, drop me a line and tell me why WJ matters to you - I’d love to hear *your* stories!

isn’t this fun?

you may now order it and it will be shipped to you when it is available.

I highly recommend Made to Stick.

Over the course of the last six weeks or so I’ve been working to get up to speed on a renewed area of responsibility at my day job: marketing communications. My boss brought in his marketing textbook, which I keep as a reference on my desk, but then he suggested that I read Say It and Live It: 50 corporate mission statements that hit the mark and Made to Stick. Both were extremely helpful and I wish I had read them before I wrote the chapter on community engagement. Ah well, it was the first book and there will likely be more chances to pull in all the things I’m bound to learn tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

At home I’ve been working with Aaron on his new project at citycrops.org. We set up his domain, used a word press template to set up his site and blog, and even hosted with LIS host (where Blake was again extremely helpful in getting our site set up when I was too bugged out to remember you have to load word press before you load the theme). But you would not believe how easily, relatively, the concept, brand, name, and even the tagline came to us. Because citycrops is new and we’re essentially building the concept into a brand from scratch, all it took was a little brainstorming over maybe 10 days and Viola! 

At work I came into an organization with an existing name and brand. We updated our brand to a more “grown up” and “professional” though some would say “corporate” look and feel last summer when we relaunched our platform. Now we’re working hard to *refine* our messaging in an attempt to crystalize and effectively convey what we do, why it’s different, and why it matters. My colleague Sharon Streams (WebJunction Content Manager) has been extremely helpful in this process - not only is she the kick-ass-est of copy editors but she keeps reminding me of the principles that underly those clear, consistent, and memorable messages. Michael Porter is also reminding me whenever he gets the chance - we have to be concise, or there’s too many words. 

The reason that I need these reminders, at almost every turn, is because I am the Czar of WebJunction Knowledge. And when it comes to “making it stick,” too much institutional knowledge is like a solvent. I’ve been with this organization since 2003, before we even launched our first website. What WebJunction is “about” is like oxygen to me. How we are different and why it matters is in my blood. But having passionate knowledge and interest in your project, turns out, doesn’t help you write a mission statement that’s worth it’s weight in bytes.

Which got me thinking about libraries. Libraries have been “what we do” for many hundreds of years and “why we’re different” and “why it matters” are questions that we can get defensive about when called upon to answer them. If I’m the Czar of Knowledge at WJ, and that’s more of a liability than it is an asset, then what when we’re all Czars of Knowledge (it’s part of the professional identity)? I’m thinking that this makes it even more difficult for us to get to what Made to Stick authors call SUCCESS in our messaging about library missions.

If your library is revising your mission statement, or you think you need to look at it again for accuracy and effectiveness, I’d recommend going back to those three questions that Sharon reminded me sit at the core of any mission and vision: 

-What do we do?

-How is it different?

-Why does it matter?

And again I say, read Made to Stick. I’d love to hear what you think and if you’re applying it in your library.

I’d like to thank Jill at ALA Editions for listening to my thoughts about the book cover, and for working with me to get to the final. I really appreciate all the attention you gave to this process!

thanks Blake for all of your help. everything looks in order.

Update: here’s the link to the main mover & shaker page on LJ’s site.

Ann Dutton Ewbank
Brian Bannon
* congrats BBannon. you are my favorite LIS rockstar ever and your work at SFPL is awe inspiring!
Jill Bourne
Lia Friedman
Carey Gross
Lisa Harris
Sarah Houghton-Jan
Lisa G. Rosenblum
Joe Murphy
Casey Long
Toby Greenwalt
Karen Kleckner Keefe
Kristi L. Palmer
Barry Bailey
Rebecca M. Blakeley
Maureen Ambrosino
Koren Stembridge
William Harmer
Rebecca Near
Daniel Marcou
Melissa L. Rethlefsen
Carlene Engstrom
Nancy J. Keane
Susan Conlon
Laverne Mann
Allison Santos
Carlie Webber
Natalie Caruso
Jenica P. Rogers-Urbanek
Kim Duckett
Lauren Pressley
Lori Reed
*congrats Lori - we’re so happy for you and have so enjoyed working with you at WebJunction!
Pam Sessoms
Chad Boeninger
Julie Scordato
Ingrid Kalchthaler
Ken Pienkos
J. Drusilla Carter
Jason Griffey
Rachel Walden
Karen Coombs
Kenning Arlitsch
Michael Porter
*congrats Mr.P - I’m very proud of all your accomplishments. your honor is well-deserved.
Matt L. Moran
Dorothea Salo
Jamie Markus
Dean Giustini
Dave Pattern
Erik Boekesteijn
Jaap Van De Geer
Geert Van Den Boogaard

If you receive American Libraries (in print) and flip to page 38, you will find an article written by me that is mostly an excerpt of the first section of the book “inside, outside, and online”.  I’ve received quite a few comments via all the various channels (fb, twitter, email, f2f) and they have all been thought-provoking or conversation-starting - thank you! Still hoping that I can soon provide a link to the article on the Am Libs website.

Also, I received word yesterday that the book now has a binding date: April 27, 2009. Doesn’t that feel lovely?

In the meantime, I’m still learning how to re-write mission, vision, and elevator pitches for my updated role at WJ. It’s hard. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

I admit that watching the Seattle layoffs take place, along with those around the country, has been sobering. The last two months have been particularly difficult (huge understatement) because as my management team was trying to “right-size” our organization for the resources we have and the work we have to do, Aaron was being laid off himself, along with hundreds of other architects in the Seattle area.

Word on the street? There’s nothing going on out there.

So, what’s an itgirl to do? First thing I’ve done is tried to acquaint myself with my new role at work, as I’ve taken on new responsibilities in areas that I’m familiar with but don’t have a ton of formal experience or expertise.  You guessed it: MarCom.

Truth is, I love strategic marketing (now that I know what that is). I’ve been reading Made to Stick and Marketing Straight to the Heart and Communities Dominate Brands and Mission-Based Marketing. I’ve been cleaning out the cobwebs on my social marketing RSS feeds, and thinking more about social media, word-of-mouth,  community-based brands, and viral marketing. I am anxious to have some authority to work from in these areas and have been flirting with the differences between “dominate” and  “lead.”

Bottom line: I may be becoming a business-person. This has become very handy for Aaron as he’s reacquainting himself with his real interests in architecture, and finding new ways to articulate why he’s interested in his projects, and why they matter. Now he’s reading Made to Stick.

So while I’m living the manager side of the lay-off dream, Aaron is living on unemployment. But it’s not as bad as that sounds. He’s way less stressed about it than I would be, I can only imagine, and so it has given me a better understanding of who he is (amazing) and who I am (neurotic). Not exactly the way that I had planned to spend my first six months post-writing on a new “self-care” plan.  In a word, this has been good.

I am very blessed to realize that hard times help you get to know yourself and your partner better. Very blessed to recognize that my good fortune (so far) makes it relatively “easy” to tighten my belt and just focus on paying the damn mortgage. (Thanks to Sallie Mae’s pay-back policy, student loans can wait - although this does make me feel a little cranky on certain days.) But the most wondrous thing about all these circumstances is that you realize what’s most important: people and how their lives can be impacted by what you do and what you don’t.

I’m still searching for a purpose for my blog post-production for the book that started it. Speaking of, here’s an update on the book: it’s in final proof, the cover-art is in production, and there’s an American Libraries article coming out next month that’s primarily an excerpt from the first chapter. I’ll post when it’s available…and/or when I better understand what the blog should be for in its next iteration. Until then, I’ll share tid-bits of things I’m learning from personal and professional life as it goes on.

Hope y’all are doing ok out there amidst all this craziness.

tonight I was playing around with WorldCat.org, which is something that’s not unusual for me on a Saturday evening, and wouldn’t you know it, my book is now cataloged there.  which made me think now isn’t that somethin’?

my editor was very kind and said my book was delightful. i hope she’s right. and i hope you think so too.

which leads me to the next logical announcement: i’m getting married. to a boy. and he’s from texas. and he’s delightful. and there it is.

and so, I will very not likely be at ALA this year.  our wedding plans will keep us at home the weekend of July 11. I’ll miss seeing many of you for our regular catch-ups, but I am also very much looking forward to re-directing some of my energies from the professional to the personal now that the book is on its way.