Prioritize Sharing Your Collection
It is a deceptively simple statement, but in reality it is complex and can be taken in so many different directions by different people across your entire staff.
Everything I do here on the blog, everything I include in my training programs with library staff all over the world, and even my new book aimed at reaching readers directly-- all of it revolves around the idea of finding as many different ways as possible to share the joy of a good read. In fact, if something does not serve this mission, I probably won't share it.
It is why I share awards linguists and not winner for example. It is why I encourage you to promote the back list so heavily.
If you use my tags for Booktalking, Interactive RA, and Conversation Starters, you can find more examples.
I do this to encourage you to think about everything you do in your work with readers whether it is in the building or online, all of it, and ask you to ask yourself-- how is this helping me put sharing the collections we have at the forefront?
For too long we have been focused on our service as a transactional one, based off of a traditional reference model. Person comes to desk, asks for a book rec, and we give them one.
And while it make sense that RA began as the counterpoint to reference, as a version of leisure reading reference, it definitely should not have stayed that way. In fact, tallying transactions (as we do with reference questions) not only does not work for RA Service, it is also quite frankly, holding us back from reaching as many readers as possible and showcasing what the library can do that NO OTHER resource or location can do.
I see this manifested in the most common question I receive in my training sessions-- how do I do more RA when no one is asking me reading based questions?
My answer is always stop waiting for them to come to you and start modeling the behavior you want to see. You want them to engage in your service to their leisure reading needs, start sharing good reads before they ask, spontaneously, without being asked first-- out loud, online, with props, etc.... there are so many ways. I chronicle them in my popular Booktalk Your Way to the Friendliest Library in Town presentation and feature these ideas in my 10 Rules for Basic RA Service.
[Click through to both for many examples and longer posts by me explaining how to do those things]
Cultivating conversations with readers in as many ways as possible is the way to serve the mission of prioritizing sharing your collection, This should be a goal under that mission.
Everything you do, every day, ask yourself, is this going to help me share the collection we have diligently built? If the answer is no, don't do it. We have limited time and resources. We cannot do everything.
This does come with a big caveat, though, and it is key to the mission of "prioritizing" sharing as much of your collection, with as many people, as possible. You need to understand that you cannot do this work alone. This is the foundation of the "all" in RA for All.
Reading is a cornerstone of why the library exists. Our books, take up the most space in our buildings, and our collection of those books is among the largest financial investment our community has made in our institutions. (The building is usually a larger investment-- but both are owned by your community and they have paid a lot of them to exist).
We need to cash in on this investment and get the books into the hands of readers. I like to joke that your job isn't done until every book is checked out at the same time. And I am only slightly going there. If that is your goal-- you are truly living by the mission to prioritize sharing your collection.
Yes, it is not an attainable goal, but the pursuit of it will improve your RA Service greatly. Why? Because if your goal is ti get every item in your collection in the hands of readers, all at once, you understand everything I am trying to teach you about RA service (This concept will be a post soon as well)
There are so many ways to share your collections and to share the love of a good read-- but if only you or your staff are doing it, you will miss out on other titles, age levels, and even items to share.
Our staff members, every single one of them who want to help us, all bring something unique to the table. They all like different types of books, they come from different backgrounds, and they have different ways they like to share what they are reading. And since every single one of them works at your library, they are also part of your overall community of readers. Their voice not only matters, but it adds depth to your service.
Maybe you like interacting with reader one on one, but your shelver likes recording themself sharing their favorite reads, and your tech services clerk loves building lists to share on Libby. You see where this is going. Compound interest of taking everyone's strengths and reading preferences and putting them all into one pot. A pot that privatizes sharing our collections to as many readers in as many ways as possible.
[Again there is a lot more about this in the Booktalking slides]
Which leads me to part 2 of the mission of "Prioritizing Sharing Your Collection," and this is crucial to your success-- enlisting more staff means sharing more of the collection.
This is why Rule 8 of my 10 Rules of RA service is: "Working together is your best resource." And it is also why in the last year I added Champaign [IL] Public Library’s Stellar Example.
I know there is a lot of high level information today. But that is my goal over the next few weeks, to have these higher level conversations here. Not everyday, but I do want to share more of the concepts I bring to my training programs with all of you on the blog.
Thanks for following along.
And remember, if you are doing some stellar work at your library, I would love to hear about it.
Email me: bspratford at hotmail dot com and we can talk about you doing a guest post here on the blog.
