Broaden Your Reach!! Using the Harwood Approach and Design Thinking to Engage Your

Community

Sarah Goodwin ThielHead of Community EngagementUniversity of Kansas LibrariesLawrence, Kansassgthiel@ku.edu

NEKLS Annual Assembly, 2016

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

- Michelangelo

NEKLS Annual Assembly, 2016

Audience Takeaways:

• Intentionally engaging with others helps librarians to deepen community relationships and to encourage collaborative opportunities

• Through honest conversations, we can build bridges between our institutions and identify our shared goals

• By learning about each other and listening empathically, a natural community of practice is created around shared interests and challenges

Design Thinking and the Harwood Approach

As trusted relationship builders, librarians are following the Harwood Approach to support and assist their communities, hosting community conversations, listening to aspirations and looking for ways to have a greater impact.

Designers, known as innovative problem solvers, follow the Design Thinking methodology to listen closely, think imaginatively and combine their intuitive and process-oriented understandings to create user-centered results.

By following these methodologies, researchers can, in collaboration with colleagues, creatively and empathically determine high-impact opportunities that speak to the aspirations of our communities.

The American Library’s Association’s partner inLibraries Transforming Communities is the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation

Harwood’s “turning outward” approach emphasizes an external (community-facing) orientation so that institutions and individuals develop a deep understanding of their communities and use that knowledge to fundamentally change the way they approach their work.

• When we talk with others about our aspirations we often find common ground

• We find out what people value, where they wish to go and why

• We come away with a set of ideas people will stand up for

Aspirations

Economist and Nobel Laureate, Herbert Simondefined Design as

“… concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent, not with how things are but how they might be.

Design devises courses of action aimed at changing existing conditions into preferred ones.”

According to Simon’s definition,design is always about an improved future.

Imagination is the cognitive capacity to ask what if?—

to think about something…as if it could be otherwise.Scott Noppe-BrandonDirector of Arts Education, Lincoln Center

•determine high-impact opportunities that speak to the aspirations of our communities

•move those aspirations into actions

Creative and empathic thinking and listening can help us to:

Imaginewhat are your aspirations?what if???

Empathiseare there common themes?where are the patterns?

Immersewhat are the perceived obstacles?what are the

challenges/opportunities?Create

what new conditions would have an impact?

how might we move forward?Innovate

hey… why not?!

Our contemporary social and ecological problems… necessitate solutions informed by multiple backgrounds that singular disciplines seem unable to provide, and possibly, are even incapable of providing.

Paul Stock and Rob J.F. BurtonSustainability, Vol. 3, No. 8. (26 July 2011)

What if librarians understood:

• Each other’s aspirations for their communities

• Shared themes and common purposes• How to set realistic goals• How to make choices that are more

relevant and have greater impact – that are based on honest community conversations

What if we shift our conversations from the problems we independently face to the possibility of our working together?

Libraries working together to meet the information needs of Lawrence residents,

both campus and city, through shared services, collections and expertise.

Positive change is achieved through practical steps:

•take measures to better understand communities

•put community aspirations first

•change processes and thinking to make your work more community-focused

But first we have to understand each other.

What are Our Aspirations?• When we talk with others about our

aspirations we often find common ground

• We find out what people value, where they wish to go and why

• We come away with a set of ideas people will stand up for

What if our libraries worked together to meet the information needs of Lawrence residents,

both campus and city??

Libraries Love Lawrence Aspirations:1. Staff from both libraries would be conversant in

each other’s services and collections and able to direct patrons to appropriate facilities

2. Both libraries would work together to provide subject specialized programming

3. Joint promotion to increase awareness of collections, services and events

4.The Public Library would provide specialized promotion at KU such as: tabling at the student union, resident halls, orientation

5. The Public Library would provide recreational reading materials and offer reading lists and book talks to KU staff.

6. KU Libraries would provide the Public Library detailed information about and easier access to its databases and online journals

Feasibility review and assessment based on:

• Impact – how does implementation of this idea bring us closer to our aspiration?

• Merits – • Financial cost –• Staff cost –• Complexity –

“Libraries are conveners—they bring the community together. They are fair and honest, and they don’t have agendas.”

- Richard Harwood

NEKLS Annual Assembly, 2016

“aim for the highest…”- Andrew Carnegie

NEKLS Annual Assembly, 2016

Thank you very much!Sarah Goodwin Thielsgthiel@ku.edu

NEKLS Annual Assembly, 2016

•Design Thinking for Librarieshttp://www.designthinkingforlibraries.com/

•Harwood Institutehttp://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/