04/11 Readings

"Working With Friends Groups: Enhancing Participation Through Cultivation and Planning"

 Sara Lowman’s and Mary Bixby’s “Working With Friends Groups” was about the support Rice University’s library’s Friends group provides for the library. It was my favorite article by far because I thought that the Friends approach to publicizing the library through social events was innovative and a great way to make the library a campus focal point. Although these social events primarily targeted university officials, donors, and other influential people at Rice University, this same approach could be used to publicize a public library and draw new patrons and donors. Instead of trying to publicize library improvements through conventional routes, a public library could follow Rice University’s example by hosting a big social event in order to publicize its services and establish itself as an important part of the community. Such events held on a regular basis would get a lot of people in the door, bring the community together, bring librarians in contact with the community in a whole new context, make people think about the library differently, and make people more aware of what the library has to offer.

"We Would If We Could, But It Is Not In The Budget: Success Stories In Third Party Funding For Public Library Programs" 

Jack Goodman’s “We Would if We Could” article discussed the financial struggles of public libraries in Australia and how they are trying to overcome financial shortages by partnering with local businesses and other community institutions. The idea of libraries partnering with local businesses has been raised in class several times, and while I thought it was an interesting idea, I wasn’t really sure how it would work in the real world. However, the examples of partnerships Goodman provides reveal that while businesses might not directly help libraries, they can put libraries in touch with other resources. His first example in which an online tutoring company helped a library by putting it in contact with a community organization that funded community institutions through profits made from poker machines just goes to show that librarians need to look for funding in unlikely places. 

" Key Donor Cultivation: Building for the Future" 

Thomas Leonhardt’s “Key Donor Cultivation” discussed the basics to cultivating relationships with a library’s potential financial donors. His article discussed the library-donor relationship in the context of a university, but the basic ideas he presented could easily be transferred to the public library setting. While much of what he said seemed like common sense, I did appreciate his systematic approach; his article provides an instruction guide of sorts to navigating the social side of being a librarian, and would be helpful to a library struggling with ways to attract donors.