Valuing Libraries: Demonstrating Your Librarys Impact on Your Community

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Valuing Libraries Demonstrating Your Librarys
Impact on Your Community
The New Jersey State Library the
Highlands Regional Library Cooperative
present

• Association of Jewish Libraries National
  Conference
• June 23, 2008
• Presented by
• Joanne P. Roukens, Highlands Regional Library
  Cooperative
• www.hrlc.org

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Special Acknowledgement

• Special thanks are due to Donna Bachowski,
  formerly the director of the Edgewater Public
  Library (NJ) and now with the Orange County
  Library System (FL).
• Donna co-wrote and originally co-presented these
  workshops with me and none of this would have
  happened without her hard work, insight
  enthusiasm and friendship.

Joanne P. Roukens
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Acknowledgements

• HRLC Funding and Resource Development Taskforce
• New Jersey State Library
• Marian Bauman, Neptune Public Library
• Miriam Parkinson, Thomas Jefferson Middle School,
  Fair Lawn

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Special Acknowledgement To

• www.webjunction.org OCLC
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

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Today is about showing you how valuable your
library is and how you can communicate its impact
to your school, synagogue or community center
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Valuing Libraries Part 1

• Valuing Your Services

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Overview

• All materials for this workshop are based on the
  WebJunction Demonstrating Impact
• web documents
• http//webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id1193

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Overview
Three steps to demonstrating impact

• Strategize
• Quantify
• Make the Case

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Objectives

• After this program, you will be able to
• Define what is valuable to customers and
  funders/stakeholders
• Execute a seven-part strategic process
• Identify your librarys Value Proposition
• Quantify your librarys value

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Value and Vision

• What is value?
• "Value and Vision" by Eleanor Jo Joey Rodger,
  American Libraries, Nov. 1, 2002
• Ideas of value have changed
• Moving target, constantly needs assessment
• Usefulness, quality, availability, image

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Value and Vision

• What it is not
• Historic is not valuable
• Doesnt correspond to staff ideas of importance
• Is not about our professional values

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Value and Vision

• Not enough money to go around
• How do we create more public value?
• Bridging the Value Gap getting past
  professional values to customer value in the
  public library, by Gary Deane, Public Libraries,
  Sept/Oct 2003
• Doing wrong things well does not create value

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Value and Vision

• Strategic triangle
• Publicly valuable
• Politically and legally supported
• Administratively and operationally feasible
• Commit to reflection, listening and flexibility

Publicly Valuable
Political Legal Support
Feasible
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Value and Vision
Enhance Value

• Evaluate each service
• Identify feasible enhancements
• Listen and understand agendas
• Recognize trends and realignment

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Valuable to Your Customers
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Valuable to Administrators and Funders
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Value and Vision Summary

• Identify was is and is not value
• Examine services using the Strategic Triangle
• Need to keep an eye on trends and realign
• List what is valuable to customers,
  funders/stakeholders

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Demonstrating Impact

• Step 1 Strategizing

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Strategizing Steps

• Assess your resources
• Identify your target
• Become a lobbyist
• Identify what is important to funders
• Identify what you do best
• Determine how to articulate value
• Find the connection

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1. Assess your resources

• All types and all sizes can do this
• Principles stay the same
• Fit your plans to your library

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2. Identify your target

• Critical to success
• Understand your audience
• Express your value so it relates to them
• Relate value in real-world terms

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3. Become a Library Lobbyist

• Get out of the room
• Mingle in your building
• Go have lunch
• Build personal connections
• Make yourself visible

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4. What is important to funders

• What is on the school boards mind?
• Clergy, staff, trustees?
• Administrators?
• What economic trends are effecting your
  customers/funders?
• What are the hot-button issues?

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5. Identify what you do best

• Clear mission statement
• Strategic plan

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6. Articulating Value

• What you offer, what funders value
• Limited audience attention, limited time
• Concise, understandable, substantiated

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7. Find the connection

• Connect the dots
• Simple and powerful
• Value Proposition

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The Value Proposition

• An offer, not a demand
• Not what you value
• Only valuable perspective is the customers
• Valuable in a competitive environment

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OR

• If you give me this
• (the money I am seeking),
• you will get that
• (specific benefits that come from library
  services).

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OR

• The promise that a library makes to its
• customers about what they can expect
• to receive in return for their time,
• their effort, their loyalty, and especially their
  dollars.

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Value Proposition
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The Value Proposition
Must fill two requirements

• Actionable by you and your organization
• Credible and compelling to target audience

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Create Your Own Value Proposition!
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Example
Services the Acme Cleaners do best
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Example
You, the customer, needs
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Acme Cleaners Value Proposition
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Value Proposition - Example
What the Acme Cleaners does best

• Quick, reliable
• Good value
• Clean suede
• Spotless results
• Odorless
• Environmentally friendly
• Reasonably priced repairs
• Will not shrink or lose clothes

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Value Proposition - Example
What the Acme Cleaners does best

• Friendly service
• Home pickup and delivery
• Drive through
• Updated technology
• Work done on premises
• 24/7

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Value Proposition - Example
You, the customer, need

• One hour service
• Reasonable prices
• Spotless, pressed and folded clothes
• No more wire hangers, except for shirts
• No shrinkage
• Delivery service

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Value Proposition - Example
You, the customer, need

• Extended hours
• Drive through
• Refreshments, magazines
• Carry out to car
• Free repairs
• Courtesy
• honesty

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Acme Cleaners Value Proposition

• If you give us your clothing to clean, we will do
  an excellent, professional job at a reasonable
  price, quickly and on time. Satisfaction
  guaranteed.

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Niceville School Value Proposition

• When you use the library, you can count on a
  welcoming atmosphere where you can quickly find
  information for assignments, teaching, great
  books to read and computers to use for word
  processing, databases, websites and more.
  Assistance is always readily available.

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Summary

• Assess your resources
• Identify your target
• Become a lobbyist
• Identify what is important to funders
• Identify what you do best
• Determine how to articulate value
• Find the connection

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Demonstrating Impact

• Step 2 Quantifying

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Demonstrating Impact Quantifying

• Translate intangible benefits into hard numbers
• What are our intangible benefits?

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Approaches to Quantifying

• Traditional statistics
• Outcome Based Evaluation - OBE
• Return on investment - ROI
• Anecdotal
• Data from peers

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1. Traditional Statistics

• Circulation figures, patron visits, collection
  size, reference transactions, program attendance
• Pro Demonstrate base level of service
• Con Doesnt speak powerfully to funders

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2. Outcome Based Evaluation

• Shows results as determined by previously set
  categories
• Pro Specific, powerful, becoming more prevalent
• Con Can be an involved process

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3. Return On Investment

• Common in the for-profit sector
• Shows value of services
• Pro Clear, accurate statement of fund use and
  resulting benefits
• Con Difficult to quantify benefits from
  non-priced goods and services

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4. Anecdotal

• Humanizes your services
• Pro Powerful communication tool
• Con Lacks hard evidence

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5. Data From Peers

• Comparison of your services and statistics to
  libraries with similar service profiles
• Pro Fairly easy to complete
• Con Can backfire all politics are local

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Bottom Line

• Best and most powerful arguments will come from
  information about the realities of your own
  community and your own library.

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What Data Do You Need?

• Based on your strategy and your locality
• Need enough to establish the library value to
  your funders

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Data Collection

• Easiest repackaging existing data
• More difficult compiling, analyzing raw data
• Most difficult collecting fresh data

We are going to do it the easy way!
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What You Are Going to Do!

• Gather your statistics
• Population
• Total of last fiscal year budget
• Last years circ/usage stats
• Use price list from website and select
• Open worksheet and fill in numbers

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What You Are Going to Do!

• Divide total value figure by budget figure
• Multiply by 100 to get ROI percentage

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How Easy!

• Niceville Public Library
• Budget of 458,000
• Population 9,358

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Review

• Value what is it and how do we enhance
• 7 steps to strategizing
• Value Proposition
• Quantify benefits

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ACTION!

• Gather your statistics
• Access the Excel spreadsheet template
• Fill in your figures
• Add short description or narrative, if you wish
• Polish, if you wish
• Share Value of Services documents

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Valuing Libraries Toolkit
All the materials for the Valuing Libraries
Toolkit are available at

• www.hrlc.org/funding/valuinglibs.htm

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QUESTIONS?
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Part 2 - Making Your Case

• Tell your story effectively
• Deliver a one or three minute speech
• Write an impact letter
• Create a Strategy for Communication Document

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Conclusion

• Strategy
• quantify
• Impact

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Valuing Libraries Contact Info

• Joanne P. Roukens, Executive Director
• Highlands Regional Library Cooperative
• 973-664-1776
• jroukens_at_hrlc.org

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The Highlands Regional Library Cooperative (HRLC)
is a proud member of the New Jersey Library
Network.
This workshop was made possible by a funding
partnership between the New Jersey State Library
and HRLC. Norma Blake, New Jersey State
Librarian Joanne P. Roukens, Executive Director,
HRLC