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AccessMichigan: The Challenges and Rewards of Statewide Library Cooperation

Slide 7 of 17

Statewide cooperation in three (un)easy lessons

• Focus on the user, not the channel
• Focus on how everyone benefits
• Present a united front!
  

There really are only three secrets to making a successful statewide program. And if you believe that, there’s a bridge I’d like to see you over in Brooklyn. But there are three lessons I learned, two in Michigan and one in an earlier battle for public library funding in Ohio.

Focus on the user, not the channel. Describe my model student and how she used many different libraries in the course of a school year.

Focus on how everyone benefits. Public librarians: access to many different resources. Save money on baseline services. Leverage for small public libraries with their funders to get money for technology. Academic librarians: less BI, if everyone is using the same system. Money saved on expensive services freed up to buy new sources. School media specialists: recognition of their key role in prepping young people for a life in the information world. Special librarians: access to resources and links to the rest of the information community.

Present a united front! Discuss the Ohio battle over the Library and Local Government Support Fund. Talk about, after a year long process of consultation, compromise, and open discussion, how one librarian nearly blew the whole thing out of the water.

Will talk more about how I learned these lessons the hard way in a few minutes.