An anonymous commenter wrote:

… in the current political climate an “NPL” campaign would just be an excuse to cut public library funding further since we wouldn’t “need the public dollars”. I think that the kind of project you envision could be accomplished through IMLS …

And I replied:

… I’m convinced that without fresh thinking and bold leadership our public libraries will wither in all but the most affluent communities. ALA, OCLC and IMLS cannot effectively provide what’s needed; they would have done it already if they could.

A key strength of the NPL model is that it is well-established with a successful track record. PBS and NPR continue to make great strides in content & delivery and seem to be holding their own on the funding side. Rather than put local public stations out of business, they’ve helped sustain and nurture them through an array of good programming to draw listeners and funding support to draw contributors. (For some examples of how public radio is expanding, see last week’s article by Outsell news analyst, Ken Doctor.) I believe an NPL would do the same for local libraries.

The commenter responded:

I just can’t see it…it seems to me that only affluent communities would support this model, and it sure wouldn’t be in my urban rust belt community! And the other issue is basing public libraries on a national model of content and programming. Libraries are not one size fits all. I don’t want a national consortium telling me what topics my community should have or what programming we can offer. Not trying to be difficult here…honest!

And here is where I’d like to pick up the conversation …

Looking at public TV and radio can provide info and insights about how an NPL might work.

Evidence suggests people will support quality programming and services, even in areas with less affluent communities. U.S. Census data for 2007 lists West Virginia residents with the lowest level of personal income in the nation, yet they seem to support a healthy public broadcasting system. Its 14 radio stations and TV station attract 500,000 viewers weekly and produce 1,600 hours of content locally per year.

This model helps reduce inequities between income levels by creating resources that can be shared by all. In West Virginia, 30% of their public broadcasting operating budget comes from community support. Over 12,000 individuals and 100 businesses contribute to a resource used by half a million people each week. The poorest person in West Virginia can turn on the TV or radio and get the same programming as the richest. This isn’t true for libraries where differences in income levels result in significant disparities in facilities, collections and programming. Which is a nice seque into your concern about programming …

Public broadcasting makes good content available for local stations to choose for their individual communities. Some is produced by the broadcasting networks and some by local stations. Consider a few of the most popular programs on public radio. Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me is produced by NPR, This American Life by Chicago Public Media, WBUR of Boston produces Car Talk and Philadelphia’s WHYY produces Fresh Air. Though these programs are produced by four different entities, stations all across the country position them alongside their own local news and programming. Each station picks and chooses what best suits its needs. Sometimes the local stations are the consumer and other times they are the producer.

I envision things working this way with public libraries. Let’s say you needed content for an early literacy program at your library. Today you might create your own, or use something you got from a neighboring library, or you might trawl the web to see if any other libraries posted their materials. Wouldn’t it be great if you could access a nation-wide library intranet and easily get the info you needed? You could use it as-is or modify it — and upload your changes so other libraries could benefit. The NPL infrastructre I envision would make this internal sharing possible and provide tools so you could easily share information with the public. So let’s say PBS was running a documentary and your library wanted to host a discussion group about it. You could easily find materials other libraries had compiled and quickly post them to your website or pop them into your newsletter (also using tools provided by the NPL).

And this brings me back to the point about smoothing out inequities. A key reason public libraries struggle and the quality of their output is low is because their staffs are spread too thin, recreating the wheel over and over again. Having an efficient, shared resource pool would make content created by the wealthiest communities available to the poorest. Top-notch information tools would mean every library could have a good website, an electronic newsletter, etc. The availability of these resources would free up staff in the overburdened libraries to do what they cannot do today … so we might find them creating materials of value to the better funded libraries. The sharing would go both ways and everybody in the system would benefit.

Lastly, the NPL would help recruit funding for itself and also to local libraries. It would provide visibility and ROI for large donors and turn those funds into services for the public and local libraries, just as the public broadcasters do today. ALA & OCLC currently receive large donations on behalf of libraries and are unable to put them to widespread good use. They fund useless studies or create new library holidays or launch high cost projects with meager impact such as Privacy Revolution and GeektheLibrary. On the other hand, donations to PBS and NPR bring us things like documentaries and news reporting that contribute to the public good. As is true of PBS and NPR, the NPL would be staffed with professional fundraisers who would structure local funding campaigns that would augment local book sales, bake sales and raffles.

Two key points about the NPL: it is additive. Nothing is taken away from your library; you’d still have your local funding and your local autonomy. There would also not be competition for donations within your community. Like NPR, the National Public Library Corp would not accept individual donations but rather would direct contributors back to their local libraries. (I know, because I’ve tried to contribute directly to NPR and been forwarded to my local station.)

Participation in the NPL would also by voluntary. You could choose to become a member or not — and if your library was a member, you would choose which technology tools, content and fund-raising campaigns you wanted to use.

An outstanding podcast series, written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor, was my introduction to the project. Here’s how MacGregor describes it:

I’m travelling back in time, and across the globe, to see how we humans over 2 million years have shaped our world and been shaped by it, and I’m going to tell this story exclusively through the things that humans have made: all sorts of things, carefully designed, and then either admired and preserved, or used, broken and thrown away.

The podcasts led me to the website, an engaging place for learning, enjoyment and connection. Each page has rich content and gateways to other points in history, locations throughout the UK where artifacts originated, to the British Museum and other people who are extending and enjoying the collection. Superb integration of the past and present, physical and virtual, central and local are among its many achievements.¹ Indeed, I began my exploration with ancient relics and followed my interests seamlessly to local news and things to do in Hereford and Worcester. It was an engaging journey to a specific part of the world I’d never heard of before.

A History of the World in 100 Objects is extremely well conceived and executed and I cannot think of anything this comprehensive, cohesive and uniformly high qualilty in the U.S. Perhaps that’s because an undertaking of this scope is beyond the reach of any individual cultural or public institution. Would it be out of reach as a collaborative effort between strong partners?

What could libraries contribute to projects like this one? Is there managerial or research talent in the library community? Does the profession have people that can help make connections between knowledge areas? And what about the local aspect? Every community in America has history and talent waiting to be shared. Could our public libraries be good locations to help bring the local richness forward and the distant richness back to their communities in highly personalized and contextualized ways?

This sense of higher purpose, collaboration, excellence and richness is my vision … and I know it’s possible to do great things. We have the talent. We also have the financial resources, among the billions spent annually² to operate our public and cultural institutions, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable donations they receive each year. What we don’t have is a calling to high standards, a shared sense of purpose and a spirit of collaboration. American instincts sometimes predispose us to settle for less through independent efforts than we could achieve by working together. Take a look at our public schools and libraries to see what I mean.

Let’s stop settling for less. Creation of an NPL with the right leadership would be a bold step in the right direction.

¹The project is a veritable primer on how to use digital technologies. I’ll review it from that angle tomorrow.
²The IMLS report, Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 2007, indicates total public library operating revenue of $11 billion per year.

These were the norms I was born into and since then a consensus developed that we used to invest authority in too few sources. It’s true—but my, how the pendulum has swung the other way! I’d argue that the prevailing norms have severely disrupted our ability to identify authoritative sources. The guidelines are still reasonable but the content has been subverted.

Standards for even our best journalism privilege speed over accuracy. A significant portion of the scientific and medical knowledge we create is subsidized, sponsored or ghostwritten by industry.¹ And digital technology has enabled the worst excesses of the academy, bloating scholarly publications with dross. It’s not all bad, of course, but there sure is a lot of garbage floating around the good material.

I’ve read many times that librarians know how to find the most authoritative sources. Based on my experience & observations, that claim is wearing thin. In the academic realm, I think it’s truer that librarians know how to use their databases and trust (perhaps too readily) that the information they contain is authoritative. Of public librarians, I’d say many, many are overwhelmed and not any more equipped to sort and sift information than an average intelligent patron.

It’s a law of nature that equilibrium will be reached. I see a great opportunity for libraries to influence and expedite this process. (What a rich topic this is, and how I’d love to collaborate with folks within the library community to craft a manifesto.) For now, I’ll offer some advice and questions for libraries that might help get the ball rolling.

Set a high standard for locating yourself and establishing your authority

Refer only the most authoritative sources

See also: How librarians can advocate for authoritative sources, part 2

¹Interview With a Ghost (Writer) describes how this takes place in the medical literature.

Andy Woodworth of the Burlington County Library System addressed both quite recently. In a guest post on Will Manley’s blog, he asked his colleagues  “How do you feel about the Librarian image?” On his own blog he writes in The Master’s Degree Misperception: “It is a disservice to the education, to the degree, and to the profession when the bulk of a librarian’s daily tasks could be performed by someone with a GED.” Both essays generated a cascade of comments, as these posts always seem to, and reveal how frustrated and beleaguered many public library employees feel.

Kudos to Andy for saying what many observe: the ceiling is low in terms of the services most public libraries provide and professional opportunity they can offer to employees. This is a significant structural problem that will accrue to their demise as much as technological disruption or tight funding. We’ve got to raise the ceiling — not to save libraries, but because there are so many things our citizens and communities need that the marketplace does not provide (and librarians are well-trained and positioned to provide). I’ve offered a number of ideas and have more to share.

The sky is the limit. Digital technology has made so much possible and based on the people I met at the Reference Renaissance conference last month, I believe we have an incredible untapped labor pool in our nation’s librarians. It’s time to tap into it.

It’s unlikely these professionals will be adequately leveraged within the current ecosystem. If our public libraries have remained impervious to substantive change up to this point, what will it take to budge them?  I’ve been pushing a National Public Library Corporation to address funding, deliver better content & services and provide increased employment and upward mobility for the library profession. Weigh in. Can you get behind an NPL? If not, can you think of ways to get this stone to roll?

Additional reading:
1. A recent blog post on employment outlook from the front lines.
2. ALA, Planning for 2015: The Recent History and Future Supply of Librarians, June 2009

John Blyberg, Assistant Director of Innovation & User Experience, supports a range of applications on the Library’s in-house server. Some organizations simply need a basic webhosting account, others use a blogging platform and a few require a CMS. He also provides consultation for organizations unfamiliar with web technologies to help them determine the best configuration to meet their needs.

The plethora of web technologies (and reconciling recommendations from consultants, peer organizations and personal connections) can be overwhelming for most folks. As a result, many NPOs and municipal agencies spend more time and money than they need to on technology services. The Darien organizations are extremely fortunate to receive webhosting and consultation free-of-charge from their library.

In my first article on a National Public Library Corporation, I suggested:

It would also benefit the public and libraries if [the NPL technology] solutions could be shared by other municipal agencies. The public would receive more convenient, consolidated access to their local governments and have their library to thank for it. Libraries might find agencies that currently compete with them for local funding becoming allies if they were using modules of the library’s information system to manage some of their administrative functions.

When we spoke, John actually highlighted this as a benefit by pointing out that people who use the webhosting are “influencers” and voters who may not necessarily use traditional library services. Way to go Darien Public Library — for finding a powerful way to serve the community and advocate for the library!

When it comes to fundraising and donors, it’s no longer enough for non-profit organizations to talk about the relative value of their mission, activities, and results. Funders are comparison-shopping, and they want to know that their gifts will deliver more bang-for-the-buck if contributed to one organization versus another.

Her first reference, a working paper from Harvard Business School, articulates an aspect of the dilemma quite well:

[The] literature points to two basic tensions confronting nonprofit managers. First, nonprofits that focus on measuring results at the front end of the logic chain (inputs and outputs) risk being seen as failing to be accountable, failing to convince funders and citizens that they are making a difference. Those that do try to demonstrate broader societal outcomes and impacts risk overreaching by taking credit for social changes beyond their actual control.

In libraryland, one side of the tension plays out in the manual tracking of questions received at the service desk, gate counts, library cards issued and other discrete activity measures. On the other are unverifiable claims such as libraries’ preservation of democracy or putting people back to work during the current recession.

Like it or not, public libraries are positioned more like nonprofits than governmental agencies and will likely need to increase their reliance on donated resources. Alix Vance concludes “measures of impact offer significant competitive advantages in marketing and fundraising — and can give major advantages to organizations that crack the code.” Large nonprofits are equipped to work on the challenge. Can the same be said for libraries?

I pitched the idea of a National Public Library Corporation, which sparked some spirited discussion.  Here’s an outline of the proposal:

The Dilemma

• Public libraries across America are struggling.
• Current public library funding models are unsustainable.
• Library staff are bogged down with the basics – recreating the same wheels.
• Operations/maintenance take time away from more value-added services.
• It’s too hard to be a library professional and an IT professional; libraries do not have staff or funding to develop effective websites, content management or collaboration/productivity systems needed to provide high-end services.

The National Public Library Corporation (NPL)

• It’s time to leverage resources where it makes sense while retaining local autonomy & authenticity
• Create a national library organization similar to PBS and NPR; leverage: IT & software development & common content development (literacy, reference, etc). Retain: personal service, programming, local content development.
• Participation would be voluntary.
• For a single annual membership fee, libraries could leverage a range of services that they currently source through multiple suppliers or not at all — and select the ones best suited to the needs of their constituents.

What Libraries Get

• Freedom from techno-drudgery; figuring out what to invest time in, researching options, self-training, creating accounts with multiple services, managing passwords, vendors, agreements …
• A top-notch external online platform; unique domain name, webhosting with templates & all the fixin’s (email, calendar, chat, survey, newsletter, blog, syndication) and tech support
• A top-notch internal productivity & collaboration platform; configurable personal account for each staff member, email, chat, RSS feed reader, doc storage, access to content, events, newsletter, continuing education…
• Top-notch content; a library “race to the top” via collaboration, content sharing & continuous improvement; libraries select what content best meets their local needs
• Brand awareness thru excellence; national syndication of outstanding content & services; extension of the public’s trust with a “Librarian Stamp of Approval” on factual information sources
• Professional mobility; gain vertical mobility by becoming a collection curator, a blogger, technical trainer; horizontal mobility because standardization makes moving between libraries easier; visibility beyond libraries for outstanding work

What The Public Gets

• Better content & services; libraries’ “Cream of the Crop”
• Online services we can trust; secure and non-commercial
• Richer library experiences; library staff can be more engaged with patrons because they have access to better resources and aren’t so bogged down with operations
• Personalization and embodiment that PBS and NPR cannot deliver; having 3 complimentary national services would be a rich information trifecta!

What Financial Contributors Get

• Local funding (taxes, Friends, Foundations) remain the same and local donors would receive the same visibility in their communities.
• The NPL would receive funds from the federal government as well as large corporate and organizational contributions. These funds would be used to provide resources for all libraries and donors would receive visibility by delivering tangible value directly to users.

How to Get Started

• Find a champion.
• Bill Moyers comes to mind for his outstanding career and public service. He’s recently retired and speaks persuasively about the enduring needs of the nation.
• Arianna Huffington also comes to mind for her political conversion, advocacy for average Americans and media savvy.

** ADDITIONAL READING **
Reader response to a National Public Library Corporation

There are things in this country that the market will not provide: public education, public art, public schools, public broadcasting, public toilets. I mean, there are things that are not profitable, but that still serve a value.

And I think the most important thing that we can do is to continue to treat Americans as citizens, not just consumers. If you look out and see an audience of consumers, you want to sell them something. If you look out and see an audience of citizens, you want to share something with them, and there is a difference.
Click to Listen

That’s Bill Moyers in 2004, with NPR’s Terry Gross, reflecting on his work in the mid-1960s to help establish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Nurturing citizens is one of the primary reasons public libraries were established in this country. When they proliferated in the early 20th century, they were structured and resourced to meet this need.

The need is just as vital 100 years later. If we were creating our public libraries today, how would they be optimized to nurture citizens?

The info would be available to libraries via a well-conceived and executed data system that made it easy to incorporate online resources within their websites or to quickly assemble and brand materials. Just point and click. No vendors to evaluate, no purchase orders to process, no systems to maintain; it would all come as part of an annual membership with the NPL.

These collections would quickly become among the best in the world, for libraries all across the country would contribute to them.

Think about the enormous power of libraries working together like this. It absolutely blows my mind. Systems like this are used by millions of people every day in corporations, real estate firms, hospitals … and I’m filled with excitement when I think about them for libraries. For now, I hope you enjoy these two selections from my imaginary architecture collection.

Falling Water – an appreciation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece

Virtual Tour of the Sistene Chapel

These days, the notion of an “American Dream” bumps up against some pretty harsh realities: 1 in 4 children on foodstamps, devastating unemployment, millions of homes foreclosed, millions of people without access to adequate healthcare and public education. With so many Americans lacking or losing basic necessitites, evoking The American Dream and suggesting there’s a simple toolkit for it seems out of touch and a bit insensitive.

I find the partnership with Dollar General disconcerting and the requirements for these literacy grants onerous, for they benefit DG and the ALA more than the libraries doing the valuable work.

And then there’s the actual toolkit, which the ALA describes as “first of its kind” and “remarkable”. To this library watcher, it’s “more of the same” from the ALA — a mish-mash of regurgitated information, irrelevant library & ALA references and a lousy website. The remarkable thing is that the ALA just can’t seem to improve; it keeps pumping this stuff out with the same weaknesses. No need for a more detailed critique here, open up The American Dream Toolkit and you’ll see for yourself.

Foregrounding literacy is a great strategy for public libraries. They already deliver literacy services and their potential is enormous. Instead of going it alone, imagine the impact of cultivating relationships that enhance libraries’ ability to deliver even more value while bolstering their sustainability. Prospective collaborators might include the National Institute for Literacy and the National Center for Family Literacy.

The National Institute for Literacy is a federal program with a comprehensive resource list that is much better than what the ALA slapped together. Using these resources would save time and money over creating a library toolkit. Additionally, collaborating with a federal program would promote the image of our libraries as national and local resources, which I believe is vital for sustainability. It may be an opportune time to forge an alliance with NIL because the Obama Administration is actively working to improve the program’s performance. It would be a good move for the federal government (as well as public libraries and the people who need these vital services) to leverage the nation’s existing library infrastructure and legion of employees with literacy experience.

The National Center for Family Literacy is a seasoned non-profit closely allied with educators. Strengthening ties with educators is a good idea and learning about marketing and fundraising might be a by-product of working closely with successful non-profits. While the complexion of NCFL’s leadership council and online presence hints at a lack of focus, its relationship with leading charitable foundations make it worth a look.

Lots to consider here, to be sure. I’ll add it to the list of things a National Public Library Corporation could do.