 We're going to need how to do this. I see a lot of infocrapments here because I think it's important to be able to understand any interesting tidbits of knowledge, like Facebook, Instagram, privacy, whatever it is. Hello. Hi. Now, you know, these tables had fabulous prizes underneath the chairs. So you know, so you know. Anyway, I'm delighted to see all tonight of Brenda Keely from the South East Library System. Kathy Tucker from Eastern Library System. I'm delighted to have you here for another colloquium. We're also getting funding from Nebraska Library Commission to support the colloquium tonight. Part two of Kathy Dempsey will be tomorrow. Christa Burns is organizing that with part of the BTOP project. So, anyway, some of you will have the opportunity here twice. But it's my delight to welcome you here tonight. Kathy is a consultant trainer through her business. Libraries are essential. She's the author of the Accidental Library Marketer. And I... Good job. And I love this. She said, her work is dedicated to helping librarians and information professionals promote their value and expertise in order to gain respect and funding. I love that. And funding. So, that's great. She's also the editor of the Marketing Library Services newsletter for 18 years. She's formerly editor in chief of computers and libraries. And she blogs at the M-word. She's a member of the New Jersey Library Association and chair of its newsletter editorial board. Please help me welcome Kathy Dempsey. I will do magic. This is usually what the green rooms are for. It's so loud. How's that? Is that hearable, but not too higher? Make it louder? Okay. This is why I usually go miclips. But we're being recorded. So everyone either you know, behave or realize that it's going to be on tape. So... Hi everybody. Very good. You guys are good. How was dinner? It was. Wasn't it? Okay. Hi. Here I am. And I love to talk to small informal groups like this because it's just sort of what I'm used to. I'm a very small town girl myself. I was born in New Jersey. I actually grew up in Central Pennsylvania. Spent many years there. And then ended up back in New Jersey for about the last 15 years or so. So perhaps it's no coincidence that you all put me in the Yankee room. But that's fine. I'm comfortable there as long as I don't trip over this tablecloth. That would be bad. My lovely assistant is handing out your handouts which I wanted to... Thank you lovely assistant. Which I wanted to make sure everyone had all the information that I'm going to talk about tonight because this is usually a pretty rapid fire presentation. Okay. I have lots and lots of partnership ideas. And the first couple times I gave this talk people were just sitting there like madly writing everything down because I was talking really fast because I'm from the Northeast. So if I go too fast just you know, throw something at me. You know, a spoon, hopefully not a knife. But I'm going to try to go not too fast but get through all this information pretty quickly. And I don't want you to have to scribble everything down. There's room for you to take some notes if you want to. But writing down all the ideas would be a little crazy. Also there's a lot of links. There's a lot of URLs here to some of the groups I'm going to talk about. So hopefully that will help you connect with some of these things. So apparently I'm here to talk about building community partnerships. And it's something that I think all libraries should do. And I think most everyone does in a way. There's always a couple groups that you know that you're familiar with that you've done things with year after year. But how long has it been since you approached a new partner? How long has it been since you've really expanded your world a little bit? Now are you adjusting the sound? Because I don't sound like I'm on a microphone. Not that I want to. Wow. Okay. I'm really here. I feel like I'm talking into a lapel flower or something. Very 007. Okay. Community partnerships. How many of you raise your hands actually do some things already with people with other groups in your community outside the library? Does everybody do something? Okay. Are you constantly seeking new partnerships or are you kind of just comfy where you are? Okay. That's good. I'm going to give you a whole bunch of ideas. But first I want to start a little bit with just by talking about what's great about the library. I know what's great about libraries already but the funny thing is that we in the library we'll talk so much amongst ourselves that we don't really reach out to others as much as we should and we assume that everyone knows how great the library is. We assume that people know that we have all these great things. We have all the latest technology and I can tell you from experience, people don't know. Most people sadly don't have a clue. You know, especially there's still so many people who haven't been into that library since high school or since college and if you're like me in college was quite a long time ago things have changed a lot. They really don't have a clue why libraries still matter especially now in the age of Google and Amazon and Wikipedia so many people just really honestly don't know why libraries still matter, why they would do anything with you. So I start the handout with a list of reasons why libraries are awesome just to help you give you more things to say when you're approaching a partner and of course small business owners, a lot of things a group that is often approached are the small business owners because everyone says oh we have business databases here's the thing a lot of people don't even get like what's a database? They think an Excel spreadsheet so why do you have business stuff in a database and why would I care? It's one of the things I'm going to talk about a lot tomorrow in my accidental marketer presentation is the lingo and the communication and the way you talk to people is to tell them what you have it's very important you can't just say hey we have databases because people say so, I have Google who cares so you want to say things like we have how to information for people wanting to start a small business so we have books that can tell you how to do taxes for a small business things like that computer classes pretty much everyone has figured that out at this point internet access hopefully everyone hears on board with that thanks to our friends Uncle Bill and Aunt Melinda where people have computers and access than they had some years ago homework help after school programs expert help it's another thing that I really want you to think about when you approach potential partners they think libraries are books hopefully a lot of you have seen read the OCLC report that came out a couple years ago the library perceptions report has anyone seen that excellent very good you all pass so if you've seen that you know that when someone says library most people's first reaction is books people who don't read books or people who read ebooks why would they bother and one of the things that librarians are bad at doing is promoting themselves and promoting their expertise you know there's still tons of people who have no idea why you went to library school like oh is that where you want to do a decimal system I know you want to smack people at least I do I shouldn't project by rage on to you but I want to smack people when they say things like that they have no idea that you are expert searchers they just really don't know what you're doing or why you had to get a master's degree for that so talk about your expertise talk about the fact that you can find things faster that you can put together lots of information that's vetted and trustworthy and that you're super searchers really you know you can do more than Google with the keyword you can do not only advanced Google search but even better than that so you see lots of the other things here ESL classes people with special needs one of the things that's also good to point out especially if you have some budget battles is that libraries have been proven to have positive effects on real estate markets local real estate markets always do do better with a strong library entail for some reason I don't know why that's something that new homeowners really look for people even if they don't ever come to get a card and use the library they want to be in a town that has a strong library I'm not sure why the psychology is like that but it's true and there's a link here to one of many articles that carries some of that proof same with just below that being a community anchor downtown anchor for any kind of town city libraries have a long history of doing that so anyway just lots of things to help you when you sit there and say oh my gosh I have a meeting I'm going to talk to these new people tomorrow what am I going to say besides hi we're the library and we have more than books like all these things that we take for granted that are so ingrained in us like fighting for intellectual freedom we think everyone knows what we know but they don't so just a list to help get you started and bonus on the bottom for people who say well you know libraries don't matter anymore why they're passing if libraries don't matter then why is one of the richest and smartest men in the world giving millions of dollars to continue building them up that's your little gotcha raise in case you get into trouble with people so now I will start into the long to the litany of the partnership ideas and I'm going to go through them fairly quickly because there's a lot here and I want to have time for questions afterwards and please don't be afraid to laugh in fact I expect you to laugh in all the right parts especially you I've got to know Julie and she's a lot of fun but I definitely want this to be interactive in order to keep yourselves awake if you have questions, if you have thoughts if you want to say something about a partnership that you've done just shout out and I'll pay attention hopefully okay so I start with the easy things Chamber of Commerce most libraries have gotten to the point where they work with people in the Chamber of Commerce they've gotten to know them they've spoken at some meetings they get the attention of the business people it's pretty simple and if you're part of the Chamber of Commerce then you probably also have some connections with the groups like the Kiwanis, the Rotary the Lions Club, things like that these are very important because this is often where the community leaders are people who are also the mayors in a small town or the councilmen or something they're always part of these other groups and so joining these groups if you can or at least speaking to them in presentations is a great way to get to know them on a first name basis and for them to get to know you because sometimes when people get to know a real librarian and you're not the stereotype it can really change their minds about what libraries can be just by you being yourselves Number three this is one of my very favorite things partner with a grocery store to hold story times there have a branch there that sort of thing many many years ago I had an article that was about a project that was called Feed Me a Story was one of the coolest things ever I thought there was a grocery I think this is in Williamsburg, Virginia area there was a locally owned grocery store small chain called U-Crops and they had in the years before all these big fancy stores came out one of the first grocery stores to have a big cafe area and the cafe was sort of upstairs in a little loft and then big grocery stores underneath the library, believe it or not was too small I know that almost never happens right but they didn't have space to do all the programs that they wanted to do so the library partnered with the U-Crops grocery store to have story times there every Saturday morning the cafe area in the loft didn't open until lunchtime so the library was able to go in there like you know 9 or 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning have a story hour there the grocery store agreed to donate some snacks for the kids related to whatever book they were reading so they worked together so if they were reading the runaway pancake that week then the kids all got little pancakes or if you give a mouse a cookie or something of course they got mouses to eat thank you for being awake ok they got cookies the mouse and the mouse bottles but it worked out great and the parents really really loved it because if you've ever been in a grocery store with a small child and you're pushing your cart mommy I want this, I want this give me that, give me the chocolate, give me the candy so the parents could go and put the children up away in the loft get their grocery shopping done and then get them at the end of story time it was a beautiful partnership and it brought new people to the story times who had never been to the library it also brought new people to shop in that grocery store that used to shop in other places so something that sounds so unconventional really turned out to be a beautiful thing poor events at a shopping mall I had a great article about this where again another library out of space if you can imagine it for a book sale and you know what it's like when you're having your book sales and in the month before that people were dropping off boxes of National Geographic from 1943 they just had room to put on anything so in an economic downturn this particular mall in southeastern Pennsylvania had a lot of empty storefronts and they were looking to bring business in so the library worked with them said to the mall owners can we have some of your empty stores to take our donations in and to sort everything and then they had their annual book sale in the shopping mall with like tables and tables tons of stuff spread out this way the library was able to take so many more donations than they normally could have fit they had a lot more space to sell them and it was a big draw to get people to come into the mall so even I realized that some shopping centers are run by gigantic corporations and you could never find the right human being to talk to but if you're in a location that has something a little bit smaller don't overlook that because there's still a lot of malls at least in my area that have a lot of empty spaces in them and they're looking for ways to draw people in so okay groups similar values or missions you probably already do these historical societies, genealogical groups all types of special interest groups who is out there who has similar missions to what you do and that brings me to an important point about partnerships one of the big things to remember if you want to really be successful in partnerships is first don't just think oh my gosh we have to do something who knows somebody somewhere what's your point what's your mission what do you really want to accomplish with a partnership what are you in need of is it space, is it money is it promotion is it getting in better with the town or the county management to make sure you have a budget next year first think about what your point is what is it that you really need and think about partners who can help supply that need and things that you can do they also need things too so your partnerships will be more successful if you have a point in mind and not just run around willy-nilly trying to talk to everyone in town okay number six identify target markets that can use your help and this is something I'll talk a lot about tomorrow when you look at groups of people in marketing parlance you want to call them target markets and a group of like people a group of like you can say well senior citizens is a target market but that's really broad what you really want to do with target markets is narrow it down so if you're looking at senior citizens you want to think okay seniors between 62 and 70 have very different needs you know 70 and 85 seniors who are still active and can drive versus seniors who live in an assisted care facility you want to narrow down your target market because it makes it a lot easier to communicate with them and the other thing about that is you want to you don't always have to get right to the big cheese you don't have to find the owner of the big shopping mall or the CEO of the business because as you all know who's really behind most businesses that run it's you know the CEO who's in the big chair and it's the big paycheck but so often it's their administrative assistant or their secretary or their right hand person it actually makes everything happen and they're usually a lot easier to reach so if you're trying to get in good with mayor or someone like that you have to go right to the mayor you know go to the person that works for the mayor the peon as you might say who you know what the mayor says I need this go make that happen little assistant person that's the person that's the person who's searching for the information the mayor's not sitting there looking up his own stuff or her own stuff so think about the assistants and the one level down person if you can become their champion and their information hero you're going to get a lot of traction with that office okay number seven trade deals with small business owners this could be just about anything one of the simple things you can do if you're having an open house or something like that and you want to decorate the library with beautiful fabulous flowers for the open house but you really can afford $50 for every little tiny vase of flowers partner with Betty's bouquets down the street and say hi Betty you know what if you can make me six arrangements and donate them for our library's open house we will give you in kind advertising we will have you put stacks of business cards by each bouquet we'll put you in the program an acknowledgement that says you know you're going to be provided by Betty's bouquets and that way people are seeing their work they're getting free advertising so that kind of thing is so simple and you might not think of it as a partnership but it's a great place to start I just edited an article that's going into the upcoming edition of the New Jersey Library Association newsletter and it was sort of about marketing but it was sort of about partnerships and the librarian who wrote it had paragraphs on chili the chili that you eat there was some big library fundraiser and they wanted to have a chili cook off and they invited a few of the big restaurants around town to each donate these giant collars of chili and she sort of didn't feel like she was asking very much because she had been cultivating these restaurant owners for months and months ahead of time stopping in and saying hi and do you have a library card to patronize her business herself and then when it came time to ask for donations these people already knew her and were very happy to donate chili and of course they named each of the bats of chili said where it was from and who the chef was and everything and she actually said after this event she very thoughtfully stopped in again to each of these restaurants that had donated and one chef in particular said I've had so much good feedback from your event so many people came up to me afterwards and said I really like that you know what are your hours give me a business card so they were getting new business from it as well so anything that you're doing for an event try to see if you can get any kind donations for okay blah blah blah blah number 7 gosh I've been talking forever and I'm only on number 8 wow okay IT experts who might trade their services for your services repair companies website hosts people who build websites now I know this one is impossible for everyone because some libraries have particular contracts with especially if you're part of a city although I understand more of you here are independent if you don't have particular contracts that you have to stick to when you look for new people there may be something that you can don't automatically assume I've got to go to a big fat expensive repair company everything's going to cost me $5,000 you know ask if you can do something for them or invite them to come into the library and maybe teach a couple classes for you actually that one you're getting everything because you're getting in classes and maybe some discounts on new repairs but they in exchange are getting exposure to the public and getting a chance to reach out and find new customers themselves and that's really the thing about partnerships is you need to have something to offer in return obviously otherwise it's not really a partnership it's just hey could you do for me because I'm a little tired which is great you could do it go for it but just in case when you approach a potential partner have something in mind that you can say and for all your trouble here's what we have to offer you and again as I said people have no clue of what you have to offer them so sometimes they might be very pleasantly surprised okay number nine here's a good one contact college professors to see if they can create student projects that are actually real work for you I mean so many professors are you know marketing classes art classes design they try to come up with all these fake ideas projects that they can get people to why should they do something that's only for pretend doing something real that's useful for you I have talked to some people who have had logos designed this way they couldn't afford thousands and thousands of dollars for some big fancy design firm so they went to the college and asked some of the art or design professors could you make this a class project now some very important caveats with that that this person had learned if you're going with non-professionals for anything for logo design website design anything make sure somehow that in your little contest there's a clause that says you do not have to actually use what they come up with because you could get ten different logos that are unbelievably ugly okay I mean it probably won't happen but you could so you want to make sure that especially if it's something where the teacher is wants to decide or you're going to pick three top logos and put it up for a public vote or something definitely make sure that you're not roped into keeping what someone else has decided is right for you because just in case it doesn't work out you don't want to have an ugly logo for the next day but think about the colleges nearby and I think you all have a few here think about how they can help you and again that helps the teacher and the professor because they don't have to think of a whole new fake project every semester to have the kids do so okay number 10 scout troops, youth organizations you know all those cute little scouts that are out there selling stuff and you know delivering Girl Scout cookies and everything they have to do community service projects that you know there's badges to be earned but there's also kinds of different things that they need to do to move up in the different levels. Scouts I've talked to librarians who have had some new bookcases built or display like they needed a nice new display table on wheels that they could move around and you know nothing against the vendors but have you looked at the furniture catalogs for library vendors oh my gosh every chair is a thousand dollars so if you need a little something that could be home grown, ask a scout to do it you know we've got gardening out front, a little bit of landscaping a flower bed, new sign many of those simple things could become projects for cute little scouts to do and they will get the experience and get their badges and then you're also getting buy-in from everyone who works on that project because then they get to know more about the library and they're invested in it and they want to bring all their family in come on, I built this this shelf to get my badge so everyone in the family have to come and see it and they're going to put the picture on their Facebook page and all that stuff so this is how these sort of things blossom Form an alliance, here's an interesting one and I wonder if anyone has ever done this with video game stores or skateboard shops or arcades or something I hear so often that you know those darn teenagers what do you need to get them off the streets and into the library but they're so hard to attract so if you do partnerships with types of places where they already hang out it's a way to bring them in there's all kinds of exchanges you know, read X number of books during your summer reading and get a coupon for a free video game or something like that what I worked in sorry about free in Colorado we worked out the reading program theme was a mystery theme and we had a cut out of a character and then at the library we had clues of where the character was going to be and the sponsor shops and vendor stores and things in town would post this character for a week and then the children were supposed to figure out you know where it was and then whoever won it would get like a prize package of things from the store that's cool and it was really fun was everyone able to hear that just in case not for the reporting I think the gist of it was that part of your it was summer reading right part of the summer reading was there was a character that would be hidden in different places around town and businesses would post this character hide it in the stores and as the kids went around to find it then they got points for that and they could earn prizes by also finding the character is that the basic okay talk to her later and hear more about her good idea has anyone else done anything specifically for teenagers like video stores or anything but my young adult coordinator at our library she gives I always thought it was a great idea but the kids that come to the program that she offers get bonus bucks so they get so many for each event that they go to and then she has a store that they can use her bonus bucks where she has gotten all kinds of different things invasive so kids who come to programs earn bonus bucks that they can then use to buy things later and the store that she had now has she gotten the things in her store donated from different places she's had grants to do this and then just from her budget for the YA so I think it's great I would like to try it with adults for her to get them at programs yeah getting adults to programs we can talk about that after if nothing else hits that but sometimes even one of the things that comes immediately to mind for getting adults to programs is so often the library staff and of course you never have enough staff either just like you never have enough money one of the great things I've been hearing about lately is getting people from the community to present the programs specifically like if you're an expert in it or whatever it is and if you get people outside the library to do the presenting then they're going to tell their friends and then their friends may come to the program if they have a genuine interest or they may come just to heckle their friend or something or to see what it's all about but it gets new people at least talking about the library so that's one little quick thing that might help with some of the some of the grown-ups okay number 12 I'm on right similar to the other one school gaming clubs I know that a lot of libraries in recent years have tried to get gaming things going chess, board games, video games multiplayer online video games and sometimes they just can't seem to get the people interested in coming to the library because they already game somewhere else so go find out where that somewhere else is and go talk to them and see if you can work together maybe the library has a bigger space than the other place or maybe they can put all their tech together so instead of just having six gaming stations here you can put it all together and have 20 and have a giant event a library in the Netherlands where some of my colleagues had overnight like 24-hour gaming nights with the big online things where they're playing other people all around the world and they get parents permission and everything and kids pack their clothes and their food and they literally are logged in for 24 hours just sitting in the dark all playing games sounds a little scary to me but it was a really really big draw and that sort of thing all it takes is one cool kid to say oh I'm going to that and then suddenly everyone else has to go to that so don't overlook the power of peer pressure in your partnerships either 13, have a dine and donate night it's a really big where I am in New Jersey there's a lot of restaurants that will work with you to have a dine and donate and they'll say this one particular day 10% of the proceeds will go to your cause and do people do that here already is that a good thing? and the restaurants love it too because then they get people coming in and you never would have come into their right to work so that's a good one that helps everyone in the community and besides we all got to eat anyone else dislike cooking? yeah restaurants let's do it instigate meetings, office assistance liaisons, government officials actually sitting down with people sometimes just don't walk up and ask for a partnership but just have a little meeting with them, have coffee, invite them to breakfast or something and say what are your information needs what are you trying to do especially with government officials city planners they're always looking for information they sense a state and they're thinking how soon are we going to have to widen this highway are we going to need to build another assisted living facility soon because our community is raging, something like that they're always looking to plan ahead and who can find data better than you nobody they may think that they have a mind to all of that but I guarantee that your reference libraries can find things that they cannot find on Google or the census so definitely look at talking to them about their needs and then who knows what grows from that once they start to see you as the information experts A, beautiful things can happen and B, when they're sitting there with their budget and their red pen ready to cross out your line item they might think you know they really helped me on my latest planning document on my presentation that you know, yeah I guess the library is still important in the age of Google 15, okay something totally different big organizations like AARP I had articles where libraries have joined with their local AARP not that any of you would know that that's the American Association of Retired Versus I would like to know that much sooner than I'm going to but they need a place to reach people, they wanted to have a lunch and learn or they wanted to come in and basically they needed meeting space where they could get a lot of people together where everyone could find it you know we want to have a local event where we sit down and explain the changes to Medicare or something like that that people really need the information the library can just be the place where that can happen and the library can also help to put together handouts or information sheets or take the people after the meeting and say, you know, here's all the information you just got and I'll show you a couple of places where you can find more here's a resource for this, here's something for that and by the way, everyone in the meeting today do you all have a library card so that you can use our other things afterward when you get people into the library for things like meetings make sure that they have cards don't be shy if your form is still on paper take it right out there, put it on the table okay everyone, before you leave library card's free and then people have a lot more incentive to come back this is one I'm curious to see if y'all have here the welcome wagon or the greeters groups do you have something like that that goes around to people who are new in the community and they say, hi here's where the welcome wagon you don't see some way okay, here's a welcome wagon in a lot of areas I think it's just a volunteer position basically and happened whenever I moved to my most recent town about 15 years ago someone literally they work with the real estate agents so they know who's new in town and they knock on your door with a big basket of stuff and they come in and say hi, I'm the welcome wagon welcome to your new town and they give you one of everything from their basket brochures about the library brochures of all the dentists office in town for some reason I can't forget one of the little giveaways I got was a big refrigerator magnet in the shape of a tooth advertising that particular and I never went there because seeing the tooth on the fridge just freaked me out don't make tooth magnets they give away the businesses who want to be known to the newcomers and who want to do that kind of personal advertising and fill up these greeting baskets and lovely people go and give them out so definitely if you have any services like that and even if you don't have that service around go to your realtors office because remember you can tell them and you can look up information how good libraries keep up the real estate prices so make sure that whenever they are talking to people here's a selling point, here's the brochure about our library, here's our website tell them how strong we are tell them what great programs we have maybe don't help you make a sale plus people are already introduced to the library before they even get in town so okay partner with pediatricians to reach parents and young children has anyone done this has anyone worked with pediatricians offices foster care places okay we have not pediatricians per se but hospitals newborns get a packet an invitation to get a library card for their child awesome so newborn packets that's a great thing and there was something in Harrisburg Pennsylvania the state capitol there had a big grant a couple of years ago to do that sort of thing they had like little bids print you know the micro-bids something like that they had little giveaways made and also library card applications and they actually went so far with this grant in Pennsylvania making a calendar for like you know baby's first year calendar and it was one of the things that I think you filled in the dates yourself according to when the child was born but it had helpful information on it like you know at three months have you been vaccinated for this, this and this and just the basic like the what you need to know the first year having a child you know don't forget to register for this and of course they accidentally sort of slipped in some wire you know don't forget we have story times every Wednesday things like that so reaching new parents is a great way you know the adults that you're trying to get to come to your adulthood grounds if they're new parents their whole lives are going to be pretty much devoted to the kids but so if you can get them to start bringing their children right away that's a beautiful thing and something else that works really nicely is to get the parents in if you want to have a program for parents have something for the kids at the very same time so they can come in leave the kids in that room over there and then they get to attend something you know have a moving night for the kids or something you know they hate it when parents just drop off the kids but if it's if it's a program that you planned a dual program that can be another way to bring the parents in okay here's 18 is something that probably a lot of you do already working with the museums the zoo, the orchestra all kinds of cultural centers I know that more libraries now are getting like pre-museum passes that people can check out from the library they can be used over and over again because the museum just gives them to you to partner but then it's something great that you can advertise something that you can promote that you know oh if you're a member of the library with your card you can check out pre-passes to the museum you know that are good from Monday through Friday or something like that does anyone here do that already any museum passes zoo passes well there you go go immediately to the museum that I just saw from my hotel window that's like right down the street and see if you can do something with them because you have a lot of things in common already as cultural institutions and places of education so see if you can if you can work out some of that make allies and if that's not big enough make allies of everyone in your community I'm not going for small stuff here I have had articles one of them that I listed here are book sponsors and actually a lot of places on the east coast that were now hit by Hurricane Sandy are doing the book sponsor thing I think it's Urban Libraries Unite which is based in New York state they have they put a huge wish list on Amazon knows Powell's books a lot of places have done it on Amazon too you can make a list of all the books that you need or that you want and advertise your community here's a really really easy way to donate here's the URL for our list we have books there ranging from $3 to $87 you can order it there have it shipped directly to us you know we'll put a nameplate in it for you or something like that if your collection budget has dwindled if I say that like it doesn't happen or if you know in times of need with the disasters when a lot of collections were just wiped out they're counting on this to really build some of their collections so working with these online stores can be a really easy way to do that I've also seen people doing for Christmas time with the Christmas tree have you seen the wish trees where there's a tree you write down or the child writes down the gift that they would like to get to hang on the tree and then all the good Samaritans can go and pick a thing off the tree and go and buy it to donate so there's a lot of ways that you can just do that community-wide and make everyone aware of your needs too because the funny thing is I joke about how little money libraries have and you go oh I know I need too much staff but a lot of people don't know you know all those people who walk in your library and say my taxes pay your salary so you have plenty of money people think that libraries have money I know it's crazy isn't it because you know they walk in and they see thousands of books and they think oh my gosh you're not hurting for anything but one of the things also that OCLC and the Gates Foundation when they set up the library project I don't know if any of you have been geeking the library but one of the things that their studies found is that people assume that libraries have plenty of funding because you know it comes from the federal government right I mean they just hand out money to everybody so that's how your library runs and most people who haven't sat down at your budget meet realize that your funding has been cut and so sometimes with the really nice people all you have to do is let them know what kind of condition you're in or that you're in jeopardy of having hours cuts or that your collections budget has been slashed in half and sometimes they'll say oh my gosh I thought the state and the feds just totally took care of you but again unless you say it to them they have their own assumptions well they're free libraries yeah everything's free it's free to you as well as it is to me no no dear we have to pay for all those things and then you know even with the Gates grants the computers oh yeah yeah well they gave you those computers so they're free okay yeah but not forever and not the internet access isn't free forever people are crazy but that's a whole other presentation number 20 help reporters to fill the void everybody wants to get good press at some point or another you have something going on you want to get some media coverage but how do you do that the answer is build a long term relationship with the editors take them to coffee nice but again that's another presentation here's the other thing media are used to people saying me me me give me something cover me I need three minutes of airtime or I really need six inches of coffee space to get my message out and can you imagine someone in the media sit there saying oh yeah well what can you do for me that you can be there go to research assistance you would think it would be obvious again not always obvious and I know that in the state of journalism today my degree initially my degree is in journalism they don't teach journalism like they used to and the people who are working for what newspapers are left at this point are either like the grizzled old veterans who are going to die with that paper or their new 23 year old kids who just got out of school and can afford a job that pays almost nothing because they have no life and no responsibility so just by telling them like say don't google if you're working on an important story don't google everything you know come to me send me questions our reference desk is open to these this is what we're here for to help you write better articles let us help you make better coverage and just by reframing it sort of by spinning it that way might actually get a couple people to use google a little less no promises but it's certainly worth a shot because I have read some really really lousy journalism in the past few years ok here's an interesting one 21 getting involved with emergency workers firefighters police um so often libraries see them as competition because they compete for your budget firefighters the police the parks commission parks and rec all that sort of thing um often are taking money from the same pool as you are and when it comes down to budget battles and to votes especially everyone is afraid to vote for the library budget over the firemen's budget because oh my gosh my house is going to burn down to a heart um but in New York state they did something really interesting New York state has and I think I gave you a link has a program of the mithudson regional library system called building your base and they are doing fantastic target marketing one of the groups that they decided to target specifically is firefighters and what they did you know they reached out to the fire chief and said did you know that we have all this stuff because apparently and I never knew this firefighters have to do certain things to keep their what is he certification whatever they call it um they have to take exams they have to you know do so much reading they have to keep up with all the fire tech because just like people think libraries aren't techie they think firemen are just hoses but they have a lot of technology on their trucks now and so anyway people at mithudson reached out to the firefighters and said did you know that we can proctor exams on like when you have to sit online and take those certification exams you can do that at the library because they can't sit in doing their firehouse and have nobody proctor the test because that's kind of cheating um they also said you guys are probably in every single firehouse are subscribing to your own three periodicals well did didn't you know that we get fire and brush news here in the library didn't you know that we get you know truck tech magazine in the library and like we're already buying this for you as part of the community so you can save money by stopping your subscriptions and at any rate they made friends with the fire company by doing all these things and explaining what they had and then suddenly there wasn't quite I don't want to say animosity but the firemen themselves you know when it came time for budget discussions they the firemen were not trashing the library saying we don't need that you know forget the library we need the money because they had come to realize the value of the library and what it could really do for everybody and on the building your base website it's maybe you could I could get lost there I could spend all day on the site they have all kinds of information just like that specifically for many different target markets and they have been really successful going to one group at a time explaining the value of the library and what it has to offer and making whole new relationships with groups that never used the library before hunters and sportsmen was another one you know everyone's subscribing to their own field and stream while it's at the library and you know that you know you can get your hunting license here so we have a notary and all that sort of thing so and it was a lot of rural stuff too so definitely take a look at the building your base site who knows what you'll come up with 22 I talked about this a little bit earlier senior centers nursing homes and again there's a lot of back and forth I've read about a lot of libraries who have partnered with senior centers to get the seniors help with things like they're great at listening to kids read helping kids learn to read they're good with obviously intergenerational programs you know for someone to sit down and like back in my day you know we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways and not only the uphill both ways which I still haven't figured out but programs on any historical thing to get an actual human being to come in you know like I can stay here and say in the war of 1812 this is what happened what if you could find someone who remembers the war of 1812 let me try how much press coverage I didn't get in the back the new papers will be all over you but really they can help out with a lot of things and volunteers not just even for pages but really for helping the programs helping to tutor kids there's a lot of potential there one of my favorite things which actually was sort of a partnership but benefited more the assisted living center years ago I had an article in marketing library services by the way if you all have never seen the marketing newsletter come on up and take a look when we're done I have a lot of case studies in there and lots of good ideas and I don't write all this stuff the librarians who have actually done certain campaigns and certain programs write their own experiences about what worked and what didn't work and that's what I deliver in the newsletter and one of my favorites was about a group that went to a senior center and they used to like take out large print books and sit and you know but then they decided seniors really wanted to be more active so they took their Wii games to the senior center and set them up and they were teaching people bowling and tennis and it was really really enjoyable and it made everybody involved see the library in a different light it's not just when I want to sit in my rocking chair and read a book it was a lot more than that and I remember that particular issue had a picture of a bunch of seniors you know to stand there with their game controllers and one of them was like this a little tiny old lady about four feet tall she was standing there going someone had a game and like it felt so young and vital and it was a very cool thing so there's a lot that you can do with groups like that okay 23 parents I know that y'all already you talk to parents you try to get them to come in her program she tried to get the kids library cards but do you really think of them as partners in learning you know is the library just a place where they can drop the kids off for a while probably go to the grocery store or is it a place that they really think of as seriously educational like do they know that you and you can't just say like well we have tutor.com nobody knows what that is you know we have software that can help your kids get their homework done we have human tutors available I know in my little tiny towns library every time I go in there there's a certain table in the corner where someone is always being tutored by an adult and it's just a good little tutoring corner do they realize that you can offer individual help and in fact that you're more than books that you can sit down and that there are educational things that the kids can do if you have a chess club or whatever if they want a safe place to have their kids go for events do they really know what you do there and sometimes when I say sit down with the parent like you can just invite the whole community in and sit right down and have some coffee but realistically in small groups or go to your local schools make sure you tell the teachers everything go to the PTA see if you can have a presentation with the parent teacher association to tell them all the different things that you offer now that a library never did when they were little kids so parents can be very important partners hey and well teachers look at that I segue right into my own next one hey to 12 teachers I know that a lot of people work with teachers as a matter of course for summer reading do you do anything besides summer reading with them like teachers are there you know the whole rest of the year do you put lesson plans together do you talk about the lesson plans and build collections around them uh-huh we've partnered with them for several things we have well it used to be provided in our town it's now shot go but every year during the summer they donate all their extra books to us so we get like 32 boxes books so we hold an open house for the teachers during their orientation week so they can come get books for their classrooms and we feed them lunch and everything and then sit down and talk to them about what they're going to be doing through the year so we can purchase our books to compliment their curriculum perfect that's perfect talking with teachers about the curriculum so that you can purchase the books getting how do you get extra books at what school has extra books to donate to you it's no it's a MITA it's a retail store oh it's the only one yeah okay so and they just clean house every summer and they donate all the books that's that's fantastic all right anyone else do you do what do you do with your schools besides summer reading yeah uh-huh they did um our children's people do third grade tours where all the third graders come over and are introduced to the Taiwan library so forth cool okay tours for the third graders so they get to see what the library is all about I like that you know what about you well I know one of the teachers got a hard building grant whatever that was so every month the teachers have in service and they send all the kids to the library that afternoon and we've gotten it coordinated now that it's a program for all the children okay so that in service they go to the month and then there's something there about 55 wow and a lot of them are in so that's great so the teachers on their in service days for the afternoon send all the kids to the public library which is a good place to put them as long as you don't want them like this they can go home I mean at first we talked about less service but then we sent them we really couldn't because it's K through 5 you can't have the whole school come to the library all at once but you know on the other day that's a big 55 yeah 55 all the kids all sugared up actually that reminds me I was in a recent issue of MLS someone was talking about a public library in Connecticut that has had a very long term partnership with the schools and I forget if it's third grade or first grade but for a billion years they have always had an afternoon where they bring if not all at once bring all the kids to the library and the library, Ferguson actually has a purple bus like they bought an old school bus years ago painted a purple and put all kinds of crazy stuff on it and in whatever grade it is first or second grade during one day every single kid in the school is bused to the library and they get a tour and they get their library cards and they get a little snack and they have a little program and everything and that way everybody whenever they are young everyone who goes through that whole school system gets a card and gets familiar too and the tour is a nice part of it because when I was a little kid and I walked into the library I was in awe and I loved it but I was a geek so not everyone is like that you can walk into a gigantic lot and you say oh we have a collection of 250 million books that sounds really good to you like you just walk in and there's stuff everywhere where do I start, where do I go, what do I do so to be introduced to that when you're small and told that there is some order to things and there are people here to help you and just to know what's available and then it's not just books but also software and movies and games and programs they make a really big difference we partner with a lot of skills last and once a week I'm part of the library so you have a little program the teacher provides the program they choose books so you partner with a life skills class and in the school system oh it's part of the schools okay and they're so excited that's how old are they from K through really, okay I don't know it's a life skills class they're 21 and I think they divided that so they overcame so people every week come from life skills class wow the library is a life skill don't you think that should be the core of their curriculum that's awesome anybody else doing anything like that with education? this isn't with education but our friends sponsor a writing contest every year for 5th through 9th grade 8th grade and the winners each grade has its own winner 3 winners the libraries of those contest winners also get a $100 prize statement as their child it's becoming more and more popular then we also have a lot of people do this probably the one Brooklyn community partner in the schools to read the book okay that's great so the first thing that she said in case anyone did here was a writing contest for 5th through 8th grade students and each of the winners not only does the child get $100 prize but their school library school or public library gets $100 prize either or home school okay I could use that to build my own library okay anybody else on that on that part? in addition to all the tours that come through in the different age groups of the schools we have a middle school and a high school book club that meet at the school and then also the school psychologists meet once a month at our library and a lot of teachers have discovered that our meeting room is an excellent place to do their planning so when the schools were closed a few weeks ago we had teachers in there for the two days planning and we've got wifi so that helps too okay so teachers planning and school psychologists coming in to use your rooms to do planning interesting I would like to delve into the psyche of why they think the library is a good place for that we are friendly we are friendly and we are part of the community that's what you want to be and really that's a great way to think about the partnerships because it's not just here's your community and here's the library and here's the hardware store and here's the school and here's the post office that is just a collection of buildings in the same area really not community until people are working together and knowing why doesn't the person at the hardware store know the person from the school who knows the person from the library and just representing the library in other whatever clubs you're part of or whatever groups or organizations or nonprofits that you work for is just being a representative of a library is a great thing and that's getting a lot into the idea of embedded library and ship I think it's something that people have always done but now it's a buzz phrase because now they're calling it embedded library and ship where you're representing your library at the PTA or at the Rotary Club or whatever and groups in Colorado have been doing that and other places but I just had an article from Colorado they're having great success just having a librarian join a group and when the group's sitting there saying we really need to plan for next year's fundraiser does anyone know the statistics about blah blah blah and the librarian says oh yeah I can hang on got my phone and they look it right up and give it to them and people are just astonished and then they realize the value of the library so the last thing I have on here which I'm sure you've already read while I was gathering on forming relationships with consultants marketing advertising image branding people space planners here's the tricky thing they need information to do their business transactions and to work for their clients you have the information would you give it to them for nothing sure you would do you have to tell them that not at first oh we can make you more successful we can help you with your clients approaching them with that specific partnership in mind and who knows maybe in return for in return for doing something for you for this particular project we're having a little problem with our space planning here and we want to redo this section but we're a little short on ideas what do you think might work just a little casual back and forth so that's the main stuff and as you see just very quickly I'll point out that I have tips and strategies here because it's great to go home with a pocket full of ideas and then you wake up to them and go to work and say okay how am I going to start this what am I going to do some of these I've covered already to choose potential partners know exactly what you need and what you want to achieve this is something that sometimes libraries are great at because you're so short staffed and you're in such a hurry and you just want to do all the great stuff and you want to do this and this and this and this and you don't take the time to sit down and make always a concrete plan unless it's for something like technology where you sort of have to have a plan but really think about what do you most want to achieve and start your partnerships from there look at the potential partners to see who fits well and who knows who knows how to find out everything about everybody else so go look them up do some research for yourself on the different organizations it's definitely easier to start with someone that you already know someone that you're comfortable with someone that you have a relationship with is a lot easier for a first time out than a cold call with a stranger here's one that a lot of you maybe couldn't say out loud but I can I'm working in a library right now your director who often wants to be the one to do everything they may not be the best person to do this there may be other people there may be paraprofessionals with the best connections who belong to the Lions Club who happens to have just gotten a $50,000 brand really whoever's the most comfortable talking about a topic or whoever has the best connection should be the one to reach out to that particular organization and the libraries that are most successful with this who are doing a lot of the embedding are letting everybody in the library choose what group you want to work with who do you know who can you start to talk to for us so don't let the director say well nobody else can ever do this because I have to be in charge of it because they can't do everything and other people have better connections here's one that's fun and sometimes when I do this talk as a longer workshop we actually do some role playing and I ask people to come up and talk to me pretend that I am whomever they're seeking some kind of partnership you know I'm the director of the museum or something and I have them come up to me and ask what they want and of course I mean it nasty and I initially say no you suck you know the libraries but at least not me I don't know really really if you're not especially comfortable talking with people asking for things if you stumble over your words a little bit if you're not sure how to put it seriously honestly role play with some other people you're going to feel silly looking at your friend or your spouse and doing this but running over something saying it out loud several times I found as a speaker makes a huge difference that when you're actually in the situation it comes to you more quickly and you're not stumbling through your words and if you're going to make a fool of yourself for God's sake do it with friends before you get out to the other people that's really the bottom line there using documented facts that's a big one I know we've had a little trouble with facts lately in the country one is a fact really a fact you guys know what a fact is really a fact and at this point I want to point out here too speaking of facts does anyone know the ICMA the international city county management association most places I go they're like what they are full of awesome and they have a lot of reports on their website studies that they've done about city county managers working with libraries partnering with libraries they have some fantastic studies on there that were written before the county management types that say here all the economic benefits are working with your local public library so if your people don't know that or even they might know it so what show them that you know it like take some of these reports you can download them for free print them out share it with them it's not me the librarian saying work with me it's people like you it's people in your trade association saying how great it is so when you present most people with the facts it helps not all of them no names will be named social networks of course that works into partnerships as well for social networks working everything these days working their ways into our lives in a permanent way but one of the easy ways to do that is as your library organization if you have facebook count twitter something like that follow the organizations you want to partner with and invite them to follow you as well it's like spying legally it's the easiest way to see everything they're doing everything they're talking about and they can see what you're doing or how they talk what's important to them all that sort of thing start small I always say start small partnerships are a little easier when I talk to people about things like writing marketing plans it seems like a big scary thing but just start small get a little success under your belt take baby steps and keep going it's not all about money well okay it's mostly about money but relationships are valuable it doesn't even lead to money so in the end it's mostly all about money partner oh yeah that's a long story which I won't tell you right now but there was a very interesting conference in Denmark but almost an unconference which was just more big discussions where they were talking a lot about partnerships and someone would bring up an idea of partnering with x-group and the other people that's preposterous that would never work and then one person would come up and say well you know what I did that and here's how it worked and here's why and the point of this really being I'm sure that a couple of the things I've said tonight definitely will sound preposterous to some of you depending on your situation but don't take anything on the table without getting some different viewpoints about it because the one partner that you think is totally silly could be the one that ends up being the most profitable for you and always start with the good opening line like you gotta have a pick up line for your partnerships just like you would for your dates this is why you practice this is why you practice hey yeah don't do it right now girls some of us need practice well we can we should practice afterwards something simple and safe like I want to make you an offer you can't repeat something you know a little bit humor really really helps it's kept you guys awake after dinner for an hour it works so I just have at the end some really great things that you can look up on your own time because I know you're all going to rush in my fantasy world the study from Denmark is one that I've put in there really really really amazing comprehensive document about the sides of partnerships with some really great points some excellent quotes that you can use and there's a couple other things in there too so that's that's my giant batch of ideas rolled together with hopefully some inspiration and some good lines and some hoping to make you feel not strange about going out and asking people for partnerships is there anyone else who wants to share anything cool that they did or anything that they tried that didn't work because I know people love to share things like that actually the funny thing is everybody wants to hear about other people's to learn from them but nobody ever wants to tell about their own but anything good or bad any other cool ideas that you want to share with your group with the reading program coming up in 2013 it's kind of a digging and underground thing and I'm part of a federated garden club so I'm trying to get the garden club folks involved and get the word out and it's a national organization but it's also statewide as well so we're trying to get the word out through the state, through the garden club to have them offer to do programs at the libraries and also have the library folks be ready and receptive for when a person contacts them from a garden club and suggests doing some kind of gardening program that's very interesting there's a program coming up that's kind of digging subterranean what program is that if there's any such thing as an archeological club right we're looking at some of that too some things with fossils or archeological findings and also thinking of getting hold of people in the construction field so that we can have some back homes and things like that close up in person for the children that's cool and yeah maybe you can accidentally get the kids to plant a bunch of flower bulbs or something do all your fault plantings with the labor from your summer reading program okay anybody else have a last minute cool thing yes ma'am we partnered with American Red Cross and do blood drives at our library and then we display items that are people might not know that we actually have and you have kind of a captive audience because they're waiting before they give waiting so that they have to consume enough so they can leave it's great working with the Red Cross is always good and in fact if you want to make displays for people while they're donating blood you know the best place to put them on the ceiling because you know when you're laying there for 15 minutes like okay am I done yet that's really cool too and I have done some work with the Red Cross so my I'm part of the community emergency response team at home with the first some of the first responders and the police and the firemen and I'm trying to get them together with my county library system so that in times of emergency you know they they know what they're doing and what they're dispatching but sometimes they just need statistics or they need information like how many whatever do we need to cover this but you know what's the population of this particular town when we send people in and I would love to have a librarian on call during an emergency to take specific reference questions like that so to help the people on the go you know on the fly whenever they're out doing emergency services so on that high note talking about disasters that's all I have to talk with anyone after I understand I'm going to see some of you tomorrow too I hope I've kept you all awake enough to at least take a few new ideas things that you haven't thought about before that can blossom into some really beautiful partnerships so thank you very much for your attention she talked on the phone and I said I knew she'd be a great person because of her name and then we found out we're both Kathleen yes with the K with the K we're only way to go I hope you're going home with some new ideas or maybe some that you've thought about and then put aside and not thought about doing but now have the impetus and the idea to go ahead with it because it really is all about building partnerships and building community and I think there's a lot of good ideas in here and I love the one I've got an idea that would benefit us both because I always thought that you should ask what you can do for them but what can they do for the library too it should be a two-way street and so go home tonight, drive safely think it over and then wake up tomorrow with a bunch of new ideas and those of you that are going to be here can come up and tell Kathy so thank you all very much for coming we hope you've enjoyed these colloquiums Brenda and I have enjoyed it so have a good trip home and good night all