Block Party, Library Comparison, and Friends Meeting

Daily Hours: 7.5
Total Hours: 26.5

Today ended up being an interesting mix of activities, starting off with joining Chris to walk over to the Multicultural Catholic Center to attend a planning meeting for the Block Party they are putting on later in the summer.  The meeting was a particularly good example of the high level of coordination and networking between the organizations in the neighborhood.  The event will feature performances by local musicians, youth dance groups etc. and the library will be running a game at the event and donating books for prizes.  I observed a few interesting things during the course of the meeting:

• There was a discussion about whether community organizations should have tables or just activities at the event.  But then, everyone came to the general consensus that informational tables really just don't work at these kinds of event; it is much better to get your name out through some sort of interactive game/activity and leave it at that.

• The amount of networking that happened at the meeting was impressive; everyone was dropping names and sharing tips and techniques for outreach etc.  For example, "Do you have any relationship with ____?" was a common phrase bandied around, and Chris shared information about a source of free ice cream donation that everyone was happy to hear about.

I have talked about this before in past journal entries, but the amount of support resources in the area really is impressive;  I was talking to René Bue at the Hedberg Public Library, who I will be working with this summer for my Spanish-language services independent study, and she commented on the prime location of the Goodman Branch, describing the area as almost a "strip mall of non-profits," which it really is!  I noticed that the Catholic Multicultural Center had a computer lab, and I asked her how they all manage to not overlap services.  She said communication is key; they recently banded together to start the weekly"Job Mob" event at MATC because they all realized that they were all doing employment services on some level, but none of them were really doing a good job of it.  So now they have gathered together their resources and all have a representative at the event each week.

Next, I did a bit of library observation, as Michael had suggested.  Since the user-ship overlaps between Fitchburg Library and Goodman, I spent some time at both branches, looking at services, useage, space etc.  What a difference!  Here is a brief summary of my observations:

• Bulletin Boards: the Goodman branch's board is full of resources about community organizations and their services, many of which are multi-lingual (including library event postings), whereas the Fitchburg board totally lacked those resources and only had one multi-lingual advertisement for a library event.

• Spanish-language collections: Goodman has much larger Spanish-language sections.  However, Fitchburg also has a small Hmong and Mandarin section.  Goodman even has a whole shelf dedicated to face-out display of Spanish materials, including a topical section on the World Cup.

• Children's areas:  Despite the fact that it was prime after-school time while I was at both branches, there were only two children reading quietly in chairs in the whole room dedicated to children's materials at Fitchburg, whereas at Goodman there were multiple parents playing with their children using library materials like the dinosaurs and colored abacus toys.

• Noise level: Let's just say that the Fitchburg library seemed uncomfortably quiet for me after the Goodman branch...

• Computer stations:  All the stations were full at Goodman, which they are most of the time, whereas at Fitchburg not even half were in use.  Fitchburg has its own computer lab, whereas at Goodman the computers are situated in the center of the library between the circulation and reference desks.  Despite the fact that they really need more computers, I think that arrangement works well for Goodman, because as one of the library pages told me, users at the branch generally have lower-level technology skills and so employees are constantly helping them with tasks on the computer, so it is easier to reach them and notice when an issue arises that way.

I came back to the Goodman for the evening Friends of the Library meeting.  It was interesting to hear that they have a sliding scale membership fee to take into account the general demographics of the area, which I especially appreciated.  We talked about the results of the book sale (less revenue than usual, but still around $1,000), whether or not to sell bags as a fundraiser again this year (it was decided that we should, but that they should be sturdier canvas like the Fitchburg ones).  Chris asked for $50 for Catholic Multicultural Center Block Party, which was easily approved, and she also brought up the idea of organizing a donation campaign to get people to buy copies of The Fault in Our Stars for the branch because it has been in crazy demand since the movie came out.  I gave a pitch to the group about starting a Facebook page for them this summer, giving them a general idea of how other branches' Friends groups utilize theirs and how I would run ours.  They all agreed to let me take on the project, so that will be another part of my practicum work this summer. I am especially excited about that opportunity since I will get to put into action some of the wealth of social media knowledge I just gained in the one-credit class SLIS offered a few weeks ago!