Empowerment Zone at the Delray Beach Public Library

Since last October I have been attending the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute once a month in Cocoa, Florida. We meet typically on the last Wednesday of the month for an all day session on issues related to library leadership. I am very fortunate that my library is sponsoring me for this program, and I have learned a lot so far from the sessions, and also from my mentor Daniel B.. For completion of the program each student must create and manage a project in their library that employs some of these learned leadership principles, and hopefully involves collaboration with another community organization.

For my project I decided to use our library's Technology Center since it seemed underutilized, and most of the 40 public computers are busy all day. My idea was to create an environment where patrons can work on their resumes, search for jobs online, fill out food stamp and unemployment applications, and other eGov and job/career related endeavors. The public computers only allow patrons to work for 30 minutes before they are logged off, and they only can use the computers for 120 minutes a day. This project would allow patrons to work for 3 hours without any interruptions.

After talking with my supervisor we decided that the best time and day for my project would be Thursday mornings from 9-12pm. Thursday is the day when there are typically 4 reference librarians on staff, and the library is only open from 9-5. A few things needed to be done in order to have the Technology Center become functional for this project. I first wanted to mount the projector that we use for the computer classes on the ceiling, but after looking at the panels on the ceiling we decided that this would be too expensive. We also needed to put the job search icon on the PC desktops, along with a link to a typing tutorial software web site, and install a printer. The links were easy fixes, but the library had to order another printer and then our IT guy had to set it up. Everything was completed during January and February 2010, minus the printer, which didn't arrive until mid-March.

Besides the set up of the Tech Center I came up with a catchy name for my project and decided on the Empowerment Zone. The word empowerment illustrates the concept I wanted the patrons to embrace, since they would be working to better their lives primarily on their own. The Empowerment Zone (EZ) is not meant to be a place where librarians type up your resume for you, or conduct a job search for you. It is a place where patrons embark on these tasks mainly alone, and librarians and computer volunteers are available if help is needed to steer patrons in the right direction.

I decided on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 as the start date for the project after talking to my director about everything. I figured if I gave myself 2 months, that would be enough time to get everything set up. I also created a poster and ordered 2 of them online. I put one upstairs, and the other downstairs. My director and I decided not to use any press at first, because we didn't want to get overwhelmed with too many people wishing to use the service.

The first date nobody showed up, but after the first month we served 7 patrons, who worked on their resumes, job searched, and filled out unemployment applications. I decided to add Monday mornings too, after talking to my supervisor, and thinking that we could serve more people if we opened up for more hours. So, beginning in April the EZ will now be open on Monday and Thursday mornings from 9-12.

Another recent development is that due to somewhat low attendance we will be issuing press releases to the major papers in the area. Dave DiPino, writer for the Delray Forum, will be doing a feature story on the EZ as well. We are hoping with some added press we can increase the number of people we help in the community. I am also training some computer volunteers to help out in the event that we are overwhelmed, and to allow me to gain some training and supervisory experience. This project has taught me a lot so far, and I am sure to learn more regardless of whether it is a big hit or not.