Public libraries - too valuable to lose? Can we do and measure ‘things’ differently?

Public libraries - too valuable to lose?

Can we do and measure ‘things’ differently?

Mark Norman Coordinator, Rockdale Library and

Community Information Services

Rockdale City Council Library & Community Information

Services • Rockdale – main library, in ‘temporary’

accommodation in the Town Hall building for 30 years

• Arncliffe• Bexley – two days per week• Bexley North• Brighton-le-Sands – two days per week• Sans Souci

• Open 224 hours per week

• Circulation over 700,000

• Visits over 580,000

• Serving LGA population over 103,000

• Library expenditure over $35.00/capita

• Stock over 175,000

• 28.4 EFT staff for six libraries

Rockdale Demographics

• 0-14 years 17.4%• 15-29 20.9%• 30-49 30.1%• 50-64 16.4%• 65+ 15.1%• Residents born overseas 44.0%• From countries where English is not the first language 39.0%• Speaking only English at home 58.0%

Rockdale Demographics

CALD Communities• Chinese 6.3% (Sydney 3.4%)• Arabic 4.4% (1.7%)• Greek 3.2% (0.7%)• Macedonian 3.0% (0.3%)• Nepalese 2.1% (0.3%)

Population forecast• 16.4% growth over next 18 years

Public libraries - too valuable to lose?

Yes, and you all know why…

Can we do and measure ‘things’ differently?

Yes, and here is a summary of how some libraries have been collaborating to:

Save budgetShare expertiseMentor younger staffMove $ saved to other collections or programs

• Julian Boyd said “…libraries can render (their unique services) more usefully by pooling their strengths rather than competing with one another.”

• That was in 1942• Ellen Lupton on collaboration says “… it’s a great

idea,

• as long as it doesn’t violate my personal work schedule or on my sense of control and authorship.”

So why not collaborate?

• distance - no meetings, no travelling, no Skype or videoconferencing

• dissension - goals, philosophy and agenda are your own - you do not have to change your views

• organisational - you know and work within the confines of your organisation and do not have to work with other organisations

• operational - why change what you do, when things have worked well for so long?

So why collaborate at all?

• promoting proactive rather than reactive decision making

• building relationships and understanding that fosters trust

• empowering staff and shifting power downwards• mobilising shared resources (staff, information,

authority, funding, expertise) into action to get work done

• fostering ownership of problems, responsibility and stewardship

• bringing about a paradigm shift in thinking about effective management

So why collaborate at all?The management paradigm shift• From competition to collaboration and consensus

• From one correct view to multiple legitimate views

• From one right answer to multiple potential solutions

• From reactive to proactive and reactive

• From fragmentation to integration across boundaries

• From ‘them’ (their faults/problems) to ‘us’ (ownership)

Yaffee, S (2003)

Collaborative projects

• Book selection

• Shared cataloguing and end processing

• Specialist shelf ready suppliers

• Talking Books

• Large Print

• One LMS

Collaborative Benefits: Major Book and Processing Supplier

Fiction titles: $26.00; 28% discount = $16.00Non Fiction titles: $29.30; 25% disc = $22.00

For a $200,000 collection budget, with a 60 Fiction/40 Non Fiction split, this is 7,500 Fiction and 3,600 Non Fiction titlescompared to 4,600 F and 2,750 NF titlesbefore the discounts are applied


Fiction titles: $26.00; 28% discount = $16.00Non Fiction titles: $29.30; 25% disc = $22.00

For a $26,000 collection budget with a 60 Fiction/40Non Fiction split, this is 975 Fiction and 475 Non Fiction titlescompared to 600 F and 360 N F titles

before the discounts are applied


Fees for cataloguing and end processing

For individual libraries were

• Fiction: $7.15/item

• Non Fiction: $9.14/item

• Based on materials budgets from $26,000 to $200,000

Collaborative Cataloguing and Processing Specifications

• Standardising cataloguing and processing specifications reduces operating costs for suppliers

• The collaborative group established and reviews annually, 30 pages of specifications

• Agreed cataloguing standards have (only) 16 specific exceptions, e.g. full Dewey for Australian Aborigines 305.89915; four digits after point for plants; four digits after point for cookery of a country…


For eight libraries with combined collection

budget of $850,000 and agreed cataloguing and

end processing standards

• Fiction: drops from $7.15 to $4.65/item

= 35% discount• Non Fiction: drops from $9.14 to $6.86/item

= 25% disc


• For a $200,000 budget, with a 60F/40NF split, this is $34,875F and $24,696NF, or $59,571 in total for shelf ready materials

• Saving = $27,894 on individual library costs

• For a $26,000 budget with a 60F/40NF split, this is $4,534F and $3,259NF or $7,793 in total for shelf ready materials

• Saving = $3,638 on individual library costs


• If a library withdraws from the collaborative group, the costs increase, for example

• Fiction: from $4.65 to $6.53/item• Non Fiction: from $6.86 to $7.41/item• For a $200,000 budget, this is a loss of

$16,000 in discounts• For a $26,000 budget, this is a loss of $2,094

in discounts


The clear message is • Grow the collaborative group to improve

returns• Hold on to members already in the group to

avoid price increases • And work together to resolve issues and the

desire to ‘go it alone’

Collaborative Benefits: Specialist Cataloguing and Processing SupplierOne Library

100% Catalogue and End process fee.

$5.77 per item

Saving

0%


Two Libraries



$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%


Two Libraries

Three Libraries




$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%


Two Libraries

Three Libraries

Four Libraries





$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

$1.44 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%

Saving 75%


Two Libraries

Three Libraries

Four Libraries

Five Libraries






$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

$1.44 per item

$1.15 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%

Saving 75%

Saving 80%


Two Libraries

Three Libraries

Four Libraries

Five Libraries

Six Libraries







$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

$1.44 per item

$1.15 per item

$0.96 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%

Saving 75%

Saving 80%

Saving 85%


Two Libraries

Three Libraries

Four Libraries

Five Libraries

Six Libraries

Seven Libraries








$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

$1.44 per item

$1.15 per item

$0.96 per item

$0.82 per item

Saving

0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%

Saving 75%

Saving 80%

Saving 85%

Saving 86%

Collaborative Benefits: Specialist Cataloguing and Processing Supplier

One Library

Two Libraries

Three Libraries

Four Libraries

Five Libraries

Six Libraries

Seven Libraries

Eight Libraries








12.5% Catalogue and End process fee.

$5.77 per item

$2.89 per item

$1.82 per item

$1.44 per item

$1.15 per item

$0.96 per item

$0.82 per item

$0.72 per item

Saving 0%

Saving 50%

Saving 66%

Saving 75%

Saving 80%

Saving 85%

Saving 86%

Saving 87.5%

Collaborative Benefits: Talking Books

• In response to the high cost of Talking Books (the average cost being $90 for CDs and $60 for MP3s) due to the ‘Library Edition’ prices, the collaborative group turned to a major retailer to source retail editions

• The average price of a Talking Book dropped to $45 for a CD and $35 for MP3 – all shelf ready

• This meant that for libraries with $4,000 budget for Talking Books, the number of new titles added to the collection rose from 33CDs, 17MP3s to approximately 66CDs, 28MP3s

Collaborative Benefits: Large Print

• Most of the libraries in the collaborative group found they could not afford the largest plan for LP titles and were instead purchasing smaller plans

• For example, six libraries were taking out the same plan for 10 titles/month; 120 new titles/year each

• By pooling budgets, the collaborative libraries now share a large plan delivering 60 titles/month; 360 new titles/year

• This project shares best sellers released each month around the libraries. The benefits of one shared catalogue is that customers can request an intra-library loan for titles held in another library and have them delivered to their ‘home’ library

Collaborative Benefits: One LMS

• Six NSW libraries joined the Swift Victoria Library Consortium providing their customers with access to over 550,000 titles in comparison to their smaller individual collections

• Customers can request items 24/7 and have them delivered to their ‘home’ library free of charge

• In 2010/11, over 90,000 items were provided by intra-library loan, compared to 98,200 ILL requests across all NSW public libraries

• Swift NSW libraries averaged 15,000 intra-library loans compared to all NSW libraries averaging 992 ILL items requests

Collaborative Benefits: Bookstores

• English language and IELTS supplier – from no discount to any library to 10% discount for collaborative purchases

• Graphic Novels supplier – 15% discount for an individual library to 25% discount for collaborative purchases

• World Music and Movies – from 10% discount to an individual library to 22% discount for collaborative purchases

The benefits of collaboration for customers• improved access to search a larger collection;

request free intra-library loans 24/7; understand and enjoy standardised loans policies and rules (the consortium LMS)

• customers using different libraries are familiar with the one LMS

• improved growth and development of the individual and consortium collection (shared profiling, selection and shelf-ready services); larger collections (niche collection buying power)

• additional staff available to provide customer service and to plan and deliver events and programs

The benefits of collaboration for libraries• better decision-making through shared knowledge

and expertise• lowering operating costs provides additional funds

for other services• promotes learning across the libraries• decreases positional power in decision-making

and engenders staff confidence and morale • positive customer feedback in surveys on library

services, collections, programs, events• improves relationships between suppliers and

libraries

The benefits of collaboration for suppliers• consistency of workflows through use of agreed

cataloguing and end processing standards speeds the throughput of new materials

• cataloguing once into libraries Australia

• streamlines staff training and scheduling of staff to manage workflows and reduce processing time and costs

• agreed budget levels for new materials allows companies to plan their annual anticipated income with more certainty

Thank you

Questions?

Making Rockdale a Better City

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Public libraries - too valuable to lose? Can we do and measure ‘things’ differently?