A Place at the Table Building Community A Step Beyond Advocacy

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A Place at the TableBuilding Community A Step
Beyond Advocacy

• Prepared by Nancy Bolt
• Nancy Bolt Associates
• Based on the work of
• Kathleen de la pena McCook

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AINT IT AWFUL

• A Place at the Table by Kathleen de la pena
  McCook the role of libraries in bringing about
  community change. McCook
• Studied community building literature
• Interviewed librarians around the country

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McCook found

• It is ironic that while librarians seem to
  understand very well their centrality to the
  delivery of vital public service, and while
  citizens will laud the library public venues,
  that libraries are seldom mentioned or discussed
  in the broad literature of community building.

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In Managing Illinois Libraries

• 69 of library administrators reported that the
  library was higher or much higher in
  responding to citizen needs than other city
  services. Local public officials, on the other
  hand, were less complimentary. Only 32 reported
  that libraries were higher or much higher in
  their responsiveness to citizens than other
  agencies.

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What is Community Building?

• Focusing on the communitys goals, not the
  librarys goals
• Planning to meet community needs, not the
  librarys needs
• Caring and devoting time to the community, even
  if there is not a library angle.

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What You Can Do to Build Community?

• Restructure job descriptions and daily work with
  a community building orientation
• Deploy every librarian on staff to build
  community and integrate into the performance
  review process
• Develop an astute sense of the communitys
  direction and be a full participant in plans to
  get there.

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What you can do (contd)

• Be a community member first and a librarian
  second. As trust is built, the roles will flow
  together.
• Demonstrate awareness by library staff about
  community issues.
• Be active in political parties

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What you can do (contd)

• Adopt community building as a value and a policy
  of the library.
• Support participation of library staff in
  meetings that occur outside of normal working
  hours.
• Provide resources that affirm community building.

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Summary

• Restructure the work of frontline librarians
• Demonstrate administrative commitment to activate
  participation of libraries in initiatives
• Exercise leadership to secure libraries a full
  partnership in community policy implementation

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• ITS HARD
• TO INFLUENCE DECISIONS
• IF YOU
• DONT HAVE
• A PLACE AT THE TABLE