One-on-One Career Help in EZ Blows Up

Yesterday was the third segment of what has turned out to be a very popular addition to the Empowerment Zone. About a month ago I wrote about how the EZ had partnered with a volunteer named Austin with 44 years of HR experience. Austin has been meeting with patrons one-on-one to offer resume, interview, and career advice. Unfortunately he will be headed back up North in a few weeks since he is a snowbird.

What really set off the one-on-one sessions was a Sunday article in the SunSentinel that appeared on the front page of the Community section. We have received at least 20 phone calls since the article was printed, and a handful of email inquiries. I have had to turn a few people down since there is not enough time slots available for Austin to meet with people. I have been reminding people that Austin is an unpaid volunteer, who is retired, in hopes that they will go easy on him. Since this partnership has been so well received we will be looking for a few more volunteers to offer the same service for the off season until Austin returns in the Fall. Here is a link to a previous article about this program http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/delray-beach/fl-drf-career-0319-20110316,0,2419985.story

Virtual Reference

I might not have time today to get to this next topic today, since I am currently actually staffing a virtual reference service, but today on the way to work I was thinking about my experiences last night with VR and have concluded that VR actually makes our patrons lazier. Instead of coming into the library to do real research - like I had to in college and grad school - they can now go online and ask librarians questions through email, text, and chat. I always thought that part of the assignment was actually doing the research yourself, but every week I get a few people who are just trying to get easy answers without spending any effort. I will write more on this later. Now off to experiment with mailchimp...

Overdue Books

I have worked at two fairly different public libraries - one a large county system, and the other a medium sized stand alone library. At both libraries there are problems concerning overdue books. My question is when does a book move from being merely "overdue" to being labeled stolen? 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, a decade? Maybe never, since we public libraries are so forgiving and don't want to associate ourselves with bill collectors god forbid we send a bill to someone on a fixed income, or an old lady who might call the local news. Instead we leave the book status as "overdue" when we know that there is a very small likelihood of the library ever reclaiming the book. This then brings up another important question - to use, or not use a collection agency?

Advocacy

I have always been an advocate of various endeavors - mostly political, but mostly not too personal. I have some pretty strong political opinions and sign petitions online on a pretty much daily basis. I also write emails to my local commissioners, mayor, and city manager on a weekly basis. Last fall I got involved with a grass roots campaign to help get two commissioners elected in my city of Lake Worth. The older I get the more passionate I seem to be getting when it comes to both local, state, and national issues. I have gravitated from just signing form letters, and petitions, to actually walking the streets of my City to campaign for candidates. And this past weekend I took it a step further by sending out a plea for help for the Lake Worth Public Library. I sent an email to both the Florida Library Association listserv and the Palm Beach County Library Association Listserv. Many people emailed me to offer support and encouragement and it was very appreciated. Besides this email to the listservs, I also sent a more personal email to the city commission, mayor, and city manager. I have copy and pasted both messages below. The more libraries get attacked - and it now seems to be a yearly thing - the more proactive those of us who care about them need to be.

Letter to the FLA and PBCLA listservs:

Good afternoon Library Community of Florida,

The Lake Worth Public Library needs your support. The Lake Worth City Manager is proposing drastic cuts to the Lake Worth Public Library and will be meeting with the City Commission this Monday (3/21) at 5pm to discuss, and possibly implement, these cuts. The City Manager is suggesting that the library staff needs to be cut from 7 full time employees to 1 full time employee and adding an additional 2 part time employees. She intends to run the library with 1 full time staff member and 4 part time employees. She is also proposing to cut the hours the library is open from 40 hours a week to 30 hours a week. The City Manager believes that this minimal staff can maintain the library with the additional help of volunteers. This proposal comes in the middle of a budget year that has already been approved by the City Commission. I encourage those of you who value libraries to contact the Mayor, City Commission, and City Manager of Lake Worth, to show your support for the Lake Worth Public Library. Their contact information can be found below.

Mayor – Rene Varela - rvarela@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1730

City Commission:

Suzanne Mulvehill, Vice-Mayor – smulvehill@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1734

Jo-Ann Golden – jgolden@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1730

Scott Maxwell – smaxwell@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1730

Christopher McVoy – cmcvoy@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1730

City Manager – Susan Stanton – sstanton@lakeworth.org / Phone: 561-586-1630

Lake Worth City Hall is located at 7 North Dixie Highway, near downtown Lake Worth. Public Comments are allowed at the meeting on Monday.

Attached is a copy of the proposed budget cuts. The part about the library is on page 7.

Brian R. Smith

(Member - Lake Worth Library Advisory Board)
Reference/Interlibrary Loan Librarian
Delray Beach Public Library
100 W. Atlantic Ave.
Delray Beach, FL 33444
(561) 819-6405

Letter to City of Lake Worth officials:

Good morning City of Lake Worth officials,

I took the time this weekend to read the proposed staffing cuts to our City and I honestly don't know where to begin. The level of service we citizens already receive is poor in my estimation and I can only imagine it will get worse with less staff. As a librarian I am especially concerned with the proposed cuts to the library. I have been a professional librarian in public libraries for close to 5 years and you can not run a library with volunteers. It is not possible and not recommended by anybody in the profession. Even getting volunteers to show up for routine tasks such as shelving books is difficult. It is important that you know that a cut in hours from 40 to 30 per week eliminates any state aid the library may receive in the future, either directly or indirectly (see Florida Statute, Chapter 257.17 (2a)). The library is now only open minimally 5 days a week for 40 hours, and this already makes it difficult for citizens to use the services provided. Less hours means less opportunity for families, the unemployed, entrepreneurs, and everybody else who relies on the library for empowerment. I strongly urge you to maintain the current level of funding to the library and if anything increase the staffing and increase the hours the library is open. I plan on speaking tonight at your meeting more on this. I believe that this proposed cut of 70 employees could be the death blow to the City. I have invested too much in my neighborhood, my home, and my City, to let Lake Worth die and I will go down fighting. I am also extremely offended that both the Library Advisory Board and the Library Supervisor were not consulted before proposing these cuts. I have taken the time to inform both the Palm Beach and State library community of these matters.

Sincerely, Brian

Brian R. Smith
City of Lake Worth Library Advisory Board Member
Mango Groves Neighborhood Association Board Member
Vice-President/President-Elect Palm Beach County Library Association
Florida Library Association Public Relations Committee Member
My Address
My Phone Number

The Gloves Come Off

This past week a few things have happened to motivate me into making this blog more than just positive news about the Empowerment Zone, other Delray Beach PL events, or my various library related adventures. I have been thinking a lot about how to get my name out there more since the library world has become ultra-competitive lately and I know that locally I am probably well recognized, but nationally not so much. I have been a busy member of the PR Committee for the Florida Library Association the past year and Snapshot Day definitely got a lot of us statewide recognition. Not to mention I graduated from the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute which allowed me to create the EZ in the first place, and to partake in a whole lot of networking. On top of these efforts a few weeks ago I was voted in as President-Elect of the Palm Beach County Library Association. Regardless of these combined accomplishments, while perusing the latest Library Journal I saw a colleague of mine from graduate school at Wayne State University. He had been named a Mover and Shaker. This colleague was no slacker in library school, but I am definitely more passionate and driven than them, which makes me wonder what do I need to do to get more name recognition?

Added to reading about this colleague my proposal to do a program on the EZ at this year's FLA conference was recently rejected. That either means that the EZ is really not all that, I am not well enough known, or the other entries were really awesome. If the first two are true then I have some work to do. Also, I applied late last year for an ALA New Member's Roundtable travel scholarship. This scholarship is stated as being based on librarian prowess and believe me I talked up ALL of my accomplishments. There were around 75 applicants and they gave out 3 scholarships. I was not chosen. Which again makes me wonder - what do I need to do to make people think of me amongst the best and brightest librarians not just in Palm Beach County and Florida, but the nation?

That is why the gloves will be coming off and I will now be talking about more controversial topics on my blog. I will of course strive to be professional and make sure that I am not going out of my way to offend anyone. It is fairly certain people won't agree with all of my viewpoints, but I hope to open a dialogue, and showcase my ability to reason and discuss important library related issues. My main goals will be to engage librarians and library advocates in a discussion of relevant and current library topics. And to blow off some steam of course. What I won't do is call people out, or tear down without discussing how to build up. Criticism is fine, but if you don't plan on improving things then you have no right complaining in the first place.