Do we encourage our employees to leave?

If someone leaves your system for the same job in another (i.e. lateral move), that should get you thinking.

If the average new-employee retention is less two years before they move on to another position, you definitely want to take notice.

If your system sees people leave and then watches them flourish in another position, you shouldn't brag that "they started off in this system." It should raise questions as to why your system couldn't seem to hold on to him/her.

Employee retention has always been difficult in our profession but, sometimes, we unknownngly encourage people to leave.

The list below is a compilation of reasons I've heard Librarians give for leaving their positions. If any of these sounds like a familiar complaint of former employees, you may want to consider it, especially from the employee's perspective.

Pay- Bosses, Directors and Board Members tend to roll their eyes when this issue is brought up. However, this is going to be a key factor for applicants. If two positions are posted and one offers more money than the other it is no surprise which will get more applications. Furthermore, I know several people over the last two years who have earned up to ten thousand dollars a year difference in pay simply by moving, laterally, into another system. How much of a difference can that be? How about the difference of affording your own rent or having to live with someone else.

Vacation and/or Holidays- Some New Jersey Library systems offer 10 days of vacation a year while others offer 24+ days. This does not include federal, personal, floating holidays or sick time. If everything else is equal (pay, benefits, etc.) which system would you rather work for?

Hours and/or Nights- How many nights a week do you require your librarians to work? How many Saturdays and/or Sundays a month?
Yes, we are in public services but we are also highly educated professionals with families, friends and social needs. On the nights that I work I don't get to see my children or wife. One night is tough enough but two nights a week would be nearly impossible and a bigger strain on my family as it means my wife would have to feed, bathe and put both kids to bed by herself. The effects of working multiple nights are further reaching than just the employee's schedule.

Professional Investment- Some systems have a budget for training and others do not. Some systems encourage employees to pursue professional interests and others look for a homogeneous staff. Employees who feel invested tend to support their systems and be happier as they know they may not get the same treatment elsewhere. This can also be a big draw for new employees as it shows the system's interest in professional development. And consider this; the more an employee can pursue their interest, the more they are noticed in the professional realm as an expert in that subject which, in turn, is good for the system's noticability.

Advancement- A professor once told me that Librarians tend to have to promote themselves and that means they leave the system they are working in. Obviously, we cannot promote everyone as there are fewer positions the higher up we go. But, other than steady employment, what are we doing to encourage these people to stay?

If employees leave because of these reasons it doesn't necessarily mean that they are in a bad system but it should rasie a warning flag. As systems, we are in competition with each other to employ the best possible professionals. Although we may hire that professional, what are we doing to keep him/her?

Sigh

I just logged in to check my Comcast account and the following headline was in the top five:

"Dead? You still have to pay library fine!"

What started as a story in the local paper has been now picked up by the AP and is out on the wires. The AP version is brief and it was not until I found the detailed local one that I got truly disheartened, especially when I read this:

When she returned the book last week, Schaper said, "I explained that my mother had died suddenly and that I was returning a book she had checked out."

Schaper said she was stunned when the man behind the library counter informed her of the 50-cent late fee.

...

Schaper said the man, whose name she doesn't know, "showed no compassion or understanding at all."

"He didn't say he was sorry and didn't offer to waive the fine," she said. "He did say he would cancel my mother's library card. He seemed to have ce in his veins, and he had the demeanor of a robot.''

In the end, Schaper said, "I gave him two quarters and left in total isbelief.''

Honestly, is this kind of bad PR worth the 50 cents? And it is no longer just bad PR for that one library now that it has been picked up by AP and is flahsing as a headline for everyone in my region of NJ who is logging on to their Comcast account tonight.

Help Shape the Future of Libraries in NJ!

From an e-mail from Peggy Cadigan, Consultant for Innovation and Communication, at the New Jersey State Library. (I'm so happy to see this come out of the futures conference that was held - my app is already in!)

Subject: Participation in NJSL Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future - applications needed by August 15, 2007

Norma Blake, State Librarian, has instituted a "Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future" to continue the groundbreaking work begun by the Mid-Atlantic Library Futures Conference. The State Library recognizes that it is imperative to have input from the people who are shaping the future of New Jersey's libraries.

This is an open invitation to anyone currently working in a New Jersey library who has an interest in the future of libraries to apply for a possible appointment to the Task Force. The Task Force will comprise members from different types of libraries and from different job titles. Applications will be reviewed by a panel selected by the State Librarian and appointments made following the review process. The goal of the Task Force will be to make recommendations about how libraries can respond in the future to the information received at the conference and the challenges presented. How can local libraries and the State Library respond to projected demographic changes, growing diversity, an aging population, and technological advances?

We expect that this task force will require a short-term commitment. It is expected that the task force will meet once a month for six months, beginning September 2007, culminating in a report to the State Librarian by March 2008. The report will be presented at the April 2008 NJLA Conference.

If you are interested in serving on this panel, please complete page two of the application which can be found at https://mail01.palsplus.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.njstatelib.org/News/Blue%2520Ribbon%2520Panel.pdf and return it by August 15, 2007 to:

Peggy Cadigan
Consultant for Innovation and Communication
New Jersey State Library
185 West State Street
P.O. Box 520
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0520

You may send the application as a word document e-mail attachment or fax it to: 609-633-3963.
Contact Peggy Cadigan with any questions. 609-278-2640, Ext. 113 or 609-292-4161, pcadigan@njstatelib.org

The Ultimate Question and One More...

I just came across this article in OCLC's NextSpace No. 5 (from Dec. 2006 - Yikes! Where was I!?) Are You Asking the Ultimate Question? which talks about a book by Fred Reichheld, The Ultimate Question.

This article talks about how the most important question to ask of your customers/patrons is "Would you recommend us to a friend?" In fact, the argument is made that this need be the ONLY question if you survey. Yes, a one-word survey!

I actually heard this recently when I toured a hospital in Paterson - they have this question stated explicitly as a goal - "Would you (in this case the employee) recommend this hospital to your friends or family members?" A pretty good question to keep in mind! I think it is a good thing just to ask ourselves to make sure we are providing a level of service that we would be proud to offer to our own circle.

Which reminds of something I heard recently about the bathrooms in some public libraries - the staff wouldn't stand for having to use them and have their own bathrooms which are in much better shape, but they expect their patrons to use them all the time!? This is like a "home" and the patrons are a guest in your home - is that the bathroom condition you would present to your guests at home?

Anyway . . .

Fred Reichheld is saying that the answer to this one question could determine the future of your business or library.

With something that is this "old" (the book came out in January 2006) I always worry that someone else has already addressed this, but it is totally new to me and I think very important for libraries.

Nonbusiness organizations also have customers; they need to delight the people
they serve, and they too can benefit greatly from the use of one simple metric.
- Fred Reichheld in NextSpace No. 5.

Wow! DELIGHT the people they serve! What a novel idea! So how does this one question work?

You ask a question such as, "On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?"

Promoters score 9 or 10 - are loyally enthusiastic, keep coming and urging others to do so

Passives score 7 or 8 - are satisfied but easily wooed away

Detractors are the rest - UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS, feel ignored/mistreated, plot to get even!

Sometimes a follow-up question is asked to gain more insight. "If you would not recommend us, why not?" (Those answers might be hard to face!)

Ironically, customer loyalty provides companies with a powerful advantage - a
battalion of credible sales and marketing and PR troops who require no salary or
commissions. Yet the importance of these customer promoters is overlooked. -
Fred Reichheld, NextSpace No. 5.

We already know the power of negative experiences in stores or libraries and the studies that show that if a customer has a bad experience they are likely to tell (something like) 12 people! If they have a good experience they don't tell nearly as many. It takes way more positive experiences to overcome one negative experience. We need to create as many positive experiences, and positive, PROMOTER-users as possible!

I recommend you read the article if you're not familiar with this - it also contains information on the OCLC report Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources. Steve Hiller also provides a lot of information in this article.

I plan to check this out some more and do some reading on the blogs related to this idea. I think it would be fascinating to do this type of one- or two-word survey and see what we get!

One other question I want to bring up here is "What business are we in?" I used this today when a volunteer came to me with yet another ripped magazine cover, very distressed. I told her that we aren't in the business of preserving magazines perfectly forever. We are in the business of providing magazines to be read. True, if one person destroys a magazine they are obstructing others from having access to it, but some ripped and torn covers is not really the priority of our business.

So I say, ask yourself, "What business are you in?" and then ask yourself and your customers, "Would you recommend us to a friend or family member?"

EDIT:
Okay sorry I'm having trouble in the comments but the link for the new forum on Net Promoter is:

http://netpromoter.groupee.net/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2731073251/m/6701054452

Sorry I couldn't edit or delete those messed up comments b/c I didn't install greasemonkey yet per Peter! :-)

Free Comic Book Day--Highlighting "Super Librarian" Comic in NJ!

The third phase of the Super Librarian campaign begins today, May 5, 2007, in conjunction with North America's 6th Free Comic Book Day, a single day when participating comic book stores (find one near you) give away comic books for free to anyone who comes into their stores. It usually coincides with the release of a well-known superhero movie--and this year, it is Spider-Man 3 (can't wait to see it myself later today--and yes, I got my tickets earlier this week!).

Well, as much as I am interested in seeing Spider-Man 3, I am just as interested to visit my local library as the brand-new Super Librarian comic book will be proudly given out at over 200 New Jersey libraries. Why is this important? Nancy Dowd from the NJ State Library explains the history behind it at her blog--here's an excerpt:

"...the target audience from the general population to the tweens and teens. We had run a contest having teens write a backstory and from there two very talented librarians (David Lisa and Manny Rosca- Miracle) stepped forward to write the comic itself.The comic was drawn by a professional graphic designer. Appealing to the YA librarians just made sense. The next big step was finding a way to launch. Partnering with Diamond Comics for their Free Comic Book Day gave us a national event to join AND gave our libraries an added incentive to join up. Sure enough the new strategies worked... we have over 200 libraries signed up. Those libraries close to a comic book store are partnering with them and will hopefully create some great synergies. Those that don't have a comic book store nearby will be getting free comics from Diamond. Everyone gets the Super Librarian comics."

So, come on into your local library today and see what's happening--that's what I am going to do in an hour. Check out the graphic novel section and if you are in NJ, get a free Super Librarian comic book. Invite a tween, teen, or an interested adult to go with you. Then you have my permission to go see Spider-Man 3!

Technorati Tags: libraries, LibraryGarden, New Jersey, Super Librarian, Free Comic Book Day

Hope Springs Eternal in the Library Garden

First off, I have to thank Pete for inviting me to join Library Garden; it has been an honor and I hope my contributions have been for the better ;-) Second, thanks to all my other fellow biblio-green thumbs, I have learned a tremendous amount from your posts.

With spring in the air and the rejuvenating feelings of a first anniversary (did anyone bring cake?), I thought it might be take a look at what we hope might happen/change in the library profession over the next year or so. Personally, I am going to break this down into three categories; 1-What should've been done last year, 2- the change I am going to push for and 3- my pie in the sky wishful thinking. I will finish up with a Nostradamus-esque prediction... Why? Eh, it's nice out, I'm inside and it seems like the right time to do so.

What we need to do already!- Allow our computers to accept memory sticks/flash drives. Some PCs don't even come with a floppy drive anymore, it's time for us to quit worrying about security issues with these devices and let our patrons use the information they have.

What I am pushing for- I am going to continue my push to get video games into libraries. We can no longer hide behind the fear that teens will not return games when we already lost thousands of dollars a year to adults not returning books, CDs and movies.

My Pie in the sky dream- I would love for our library system to get their own library card maker so patrons could make custom library cards! We could still have the standard card but, for a small fee, grandparents could get their grandkids pictures on their cards, people could put their pets, favorite band or celebrity on it. Heck, let teens put their boyfriend or girlfriend pictures on there... at the rate they go through relationships, you would pay for the machine before midterms let out!

Nostradummy Prediction- A Book will be banned somewhere and there will be much discourse about it. In time, people will learn that one of the protesters did not read the book. This will be their downfall; for how can you protest what you do not know? It might be found out that a defender did not read the book either but it wont matter; as it turns out, the protest is not about the book itself, but an person's choice to read it.

Should Accessing Open Wi-Fi Spots be Illegal?

In Palmer, Alaska, Brian Tanner was arrested for using the public library's wi-fi in their parking when the library was closed. Local police had tired of chasing Tanner from various locations where he was accessing open ended wi-fi and arrested him. They confiscated his laptop to see what files Tanner had downloaded as well.

Is this really a legal issue or the responsibility of the people who hold the access points? All wi-fi hardware/software allow their owners to create password protected access so that only selected users may take advantage of it. If an owner fails to opt for this protection, does it mean they can still say "no, you can't use it" and be legally binding?

We really haven't set up ethical rules for the digital age yet. We still argue over ideas like privacy for users in public settings, rights applied to digital information, what can/cannot be written over emails and whether we should have some sort of program in place to restrict content to certain users on public computers.

Our computers are designed to find hotspots now and even default to open wi-fi networks when available. My Nintendo Wii has actually picked up two other open networks near my house along with my own wireless system. If an upgrade was placed into the program to access the fastest network or default to another open network when my wireless went down, would it make me criminally liable?

It seems this is more of an ethical question over a legal one. I certainly wouldn't argue that Tanner seems to have a lack in ethics and common sense but it also seems that there were protective measures the library could take to prevent his access as well.

In the physical world we have many different legal words for the various types of theft as it is not simply a black and white issue. Are we going to find ourselves at a point where we need to do the same for the digital world as well?

On a semi-tangent; is his being chased from point to point really enough evidence to confiscate the laptop?

Cyberbullying and Libraries

There is often a really fine line between what is funny, what is offensive and to what degree someone is offended.

Make no mistake, there is some joy to be had in bullying. It is about empowerment, positioning, status, hierarchy and the pleasure is the solidification of one's place through the bullying act. In other words, it is largely about attention and acceptance.

And if someone is looking for attention, then the Internet is a heaven for their needs.

As much as I am a fan for social networks and social technologies I can understand peoples' concern about its bullying potential. Text messages, Instant messages, photoshops, podcasts and blogs (forgive me if I left a few tactics out) don't just make a myriad of methods to bully with, but also encourage the creativity of the bully... and the reward is the hundreds to thousands of hits their post may receive.

Example? Check out Ghyslain Raza, better known as the Star Wars Kid. He filmed a solo light saber sequence as part of a school project but when some of his classmates got a hold of the film, Ghyslain became an overnight cyber-celebrity. When the Canadian news source, National Post, asked him how he felt about all the 'attention,' he responsed "I want my life back."

A hell for Gyshlain but incredible empowerment for the kids who posted it!


Rather than make this post solely about cyberbullying, lets think about what it could mean for libraries. Certain states have made blanket anti-bullying policies that go as strict as zero-tolerance. As sites like Myspace gain notoriety more for their negative aspects, and stories about unfortunate cyberbullying and suicide become more popularized, there is a possibility that state and federal legislature may push through DOPA-esque policies.

But before we go down that slippery slope, I'd like to ask some more some questions for us to think about:

-If we market our library as a "Safe Zone," how safe are our teens within the library's cyber-walls? Do we, or should we, take this into account of a Safe Zone policy?

-What will happen when someone can confirm the cyberbullying took place inside of the library?

-What, if any, measures should libraries take in order to prevent cyberbullying?

-What proactive steps can we take against cyberbullying right now?

-If we consider ourselves as a cultural center, does that mean that we consider excessive bullying as part of our culture? This one if for the Sociologists out there!


As much as I am an advocate for Freedom of Information and Freedom of Speech, I also spent many years working with teens who have been greatly affected by bullying, physically and mentally. And because I have worked with teens in a counseling setting before I became a librarian, I greatly struggle with where the line is drawn in a library.

To an extent, being bullied is a part of growing up. For some, they grow up and walk away unscathed; for others, they live an entire life around it's effects. So where do we, as libraries, take our stand in the issue?

Sad to say... this is what I think about at 2a.m. when I can't sleep.