The Future is Finally Here!

Yes, I do understand that the title of this post doesn't immediately make sense. What I'm referring to is the excitement I'm feeling about the Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library, where I'm lucky enough to serve as the City Librarian. I've been on the job now for four months and, in that very brief period of time, the Library has gone through some changes that have proven fairly traumatic for many of us here.

Stockton, like most cities, is experiencing serious fiscal challenges. How has this affected the Library? We've had to close a branch that had served its community for a century. That's traumatic. We thought we were going to have to close another branch, the busiest in the entire system, but we avoided that calamity (thanks to the City Council and a great many very vocal library lovers) at the last minute. That caused untold stress among staff and the community. We lost staff due to lay-offs. Not nearly as many as we originally anticipated but the loss of even one person is tragic. Lay-offs affect everyone; not just those who actually lose their jobs. All of this adds up to a lot of stress for a team of employees who have lived in stress and uncertainty for several years due to uncertain management techniques (from a now-departed Director) and the negative press that naturally accompanies that.

The combined effects of a staff that had come to feel some measure of distrust (and are only now beginning to relax after a year of competent management) and a severe budget crunch that has reduced hours at our branches by a third over the past two years has fairly stymied any forward momentum. SSJCPL has simply not been able to effectively assess what we do, how we do it, and how we might reorient our services to most effectively provide meaningful services to our communities.

The great news is that this is all about to change. The budget cycle is behind us and the Library is gearing up to undertake a lot of exciting activities and projects that will result in greater focus on what we do and greater efficiency in how we do it.

First and foremost, we will, very shortly, embark on the development of an plan for implementing our recently completed strategic plan. Library staff did a great job of creating a plan that reflects an understanding of our communities' library needs; now we'll translate our recognition of those needs into actionable steps. Ours won't be a strategic plan that collects dust!

Another milestone event for SSJCPL coming over the horizon is a complete website redesign. Our current online presence is serviceable but nothing more. Along with the process of redesigning our website so that it is more useful to our "virtual branch" visitors, SSJCPL is also making great strides in integrating the use of social media as a way for engaging with fans of the Library even while they aren't inside our buildings. (Hint: check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!)

Three more tremendously exciting changes at SSJCPL are a result of the staff reorganization that we undertook at the start of our brand new fiscal year. First, we now have a dedicated Youth Services Coordinator that will work toward developing consistently excellent system-wide services to two of our most important demographics: emerging and teen readers. Second, I'm thrilled that we now have a library trainer! Any public library that intends to embrace the mantra of continual improvement must start with staff. How can any library expect to improve its services if it doesn't make an investment in providing opportunities for staff to continually learn and evolve? Third, as of July 1, 11 of our 12 library locations are now open every single Saturday!

SSJCPL is also undergoing less transformational changes this year that, nonetheless, will have an extremely positive effect on the way we do business. With all of our hard-working staff serving ever more library visitors, we will deploy in the coming months self-check machines that are truly functional: reliable and providing the same range of activities that a library user can conduct in a face to face transaction. One of the most important of these transactions is the ability to pay for fines and fees using a credit or debit card. Another new service we will be rolling out (beginning in just a week or so at our first two locations) will be the ability for our customers to use credit and debit cards at our circulation desks.

From a slightly longer term perspective, SSJPCL is actively investigating the potential benefits (both operationally and fiscally) of migrating to an open source ILS (the software we use to manage collection and customer records) and converting from traditional barcode inventory management technology to radio frequency identification (RFID). The former would not sacrifice functionality but could save SSJCPL tens of thousands of dollars each and every year. The latter transforms check-out and check-in processes (not to mention regular collection inventory activities), greatly enhancing the speed and ease of customer transactions whether at the circulation desk or at our self-checks.

Overall, this is a very exciting time to be at SSJCPL. The staff who work here are extraordinarily dedicated to serving the communities in this region; being on the cusp of so much positive change along with them is a great privilege for me!