When systems in Illinois were founded in the late 1960′s, they numbered 18. Budget cuts through the years lead to consolidations and 9 systems. Since 1994, there have been no budget increases but actually several funding decreases. The Alliance Library System, until recently has used those budget challenges to effect immediate and major positive changes as the opportunity arose.
Every time an employee left, the position description was re-evaluated. Is this exact position what we need now? Or can we tweak it into something that will help us grow into our library’s vision? Are there projects or services we no longer need or ones we want to add? Sometimes this even lead to the creation of new departments or the elimination of other departments. As a system, we followed trends and became a trend setter ourselves. In earlier years, we cultivated and rewarded staff who took risks and wrote grants to try out new services.
In more recent years, the system developed an Innovation Department with a Director of Innovation, Lori Bell. Isn’t that a great job title? She wrote grants for new programs and was a trend setter herself. She was pushing ebooks back in the late 1990s, started libraries in the virtual world Second Life a few years ago, founded the INFOQUEST project with reference services accessible through your cellphone, and started us on our downloadable books project this past year. In the last few months, she designed some creative fundraising with online one day conferences through the Handheld and Trendy Topics themes. Talking to her is fun; you never know what innovative topic has caught her imagination. She is a collaborator and encourages colleagues in her workplace and literally all over the country and sometimes the world to join whatever new grant or project she envisions.
Libraries are making cuts while their services are more in demand than ever before. There is not enough time or money to do even what you need to do each day. Exhausted library staff who deal with the stress and demand need our help. I know it is tough, but try some of the methods that ALS tried. Not everyone is set up to present online conferences, I know, but do think about rewarding the idea people, the risk takers who come up with time or money-saving ideas or ideas for new services that answer your community’s needs. This is the time to jettison the dead weight collections and services that slow you down and move with the high demand services or technology innovations. Watch the trends and adopt those that make sense as soon as you can. They can energize your organization and often make work more focused and simpler.
