\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guidelines & Policies:<\/b><\/p>\n
Surveys<\/strong> – Surveys need to be anonymous; no identifying information should be included with the surveys. Questions will need to be a combination of open and closed questions. Multiple choice questions and scales would be great to gauge answers. However the survey will need to have some questions that are open ended so community members can express their answers fully. The online survey should be set-up in a way so that only residents within the community are able to participate and should include a question about which branch is closest to them.\u00a0 Survey questions should be reviewed by administrators once a year to ensure that questions are still relevant.<\/span><\/p>\nBlog<\/strong> – Comments should be opened however a moderator will need to review blog comments consistently to ensure that no inflammatory language is being used.\u00a0 There will need to be a code of conduct available to people who make comments so they ensure that what they post is appropriate.\u00a0 Comments with criticism should remain on the blog and should be answered by the moderator.<\/span><\/p>\nOutreach<\/strong> – Events should be planned in advance by finding major community events that already draw community interest such as health fairs, car shows, farmer\u2019s markets, etc. If a major event is not available, outreach should be conducted at local coffee shops, grocery shops, etc.\u00a0 This allows the library to meet the community where they are at.\u00a0 These outreach events are not passive but rather a way to have conversations with our community members.\u00a0 The goal is to meet community members, find out if they use the library, find out why they do or don\u2019t, and get some feedback so we can build a better library for the community by reaching their needs. Training sessions will need to be conducted to model the kind of conversations that need to happen for a successful outreach. Membership to the library is not needed to fill out surveys at events.\u00a0 After each outreach, there should be a debrief between staff to share what they learned and any feedback they received.<\/span><\/p>\nProgram<\/strong> – Those representing the library at the <\/span>\u201cCoffee with the Librarian<\/span><\/i>\u201d should be outgoing, friendly, and approachable.\u00a0 They will need to be comfortable with having conversations with community members and should attend training with those that are conducting outreach.\u00a0 There will probably be crossover between both.\u00a0 After each program, there should be a debrief between staff to share what they learned and any feedback they received.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Timeline for Implementation<\/b><\/p>\n
The system already uses 6-month out planning for current offerings so this programming should be implemented within 6 months.<\/span><\/p>\nPhase 1: Start building policies for the blog, start blog, and begin to create surveys (1-3 months)<\/span><\/p>\nPhase 2: Plan <\/span>\u201cCoffee with the Librarian<\/span><\/i>\u201d programs – where they will take place, when, who will represent the library, and ordering of coffee and food ( 2-4 months)<\/span><\/p>\nPhase 3: Plan new and improved outreach programs including reaching out to organizers for permission to be at events and fill out any paperwork necessary. Also, begin partnerships with local businesses to see if outreach is possible at their locations (3-5 months).<\/span><\/p>\nPhase 4: Begin \u201c<\/span>Coffee with the Librarian\u201d<\/span><\/i> programs and quarterly outreaches (6 months)<\/span><\/p>\nPhase 5: Blog about results from surveys every quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Marketing & Promotion<\/b><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/Our-Voice-Our-Community.Our-Library-286x300.png\")
Proposed logo for initiative<\/p><\/div>\n
Within the organization, the new model of participatory service will be revealed at the annual Staff Development Day with the reveal of its name \u201cOur Voice, Our Community, Our Library.\u201d\u00a0 This is where the whys will be explained to staff as well as what we hope to build with this kind of service. \u00a0 We will go over the blog, the new program, and outreach improvements.\u00a0 At the same time, we\u2019ll gauge staff excitement.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that dynamic staff that are excited about this are involved with this program.\u00a0 For the community (both users and non-users) marketing on social media about our initiative will roll out, fliers will be posted in our branches and at partnership businesses, and of course a marketing of our new blog.\u00a0 Email blasts will be sent out to users as well to market the upcoming programming and services.\u00a0 \u201cOur Voice, Our Community, Our Library\u201d will be the tag line attached to this initiative and can be used for all marketing purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Staff Training & Readiness<\/b><\/p>\n
Staff will need to be trained in how conversations with community members should be conducted.\u00a0 These are not formal conversations, this is meant to be a casual way to introduce the library to the community by giving the library a face and personality.\u00a0 Staff at outreaches should be personable,\u00a0 outgoing, friendly, and approachable.\u00a0 Training sessions should be mandatory for staff that will be helping with outreaches and at <\/span>\u201cCoffee with the Librarian\u201d <\/span><\/i>programs.\u00a0 The training sessions will go over what kind of information we are looking for as well as modeling good ways to handle conversations with the public.\u00a0 Meetings with staff will be conducted monthly in order to go over best practices and go over what is working and what is not working.<\/span><\/p>\nStaff moderating and designing the blog will meet monthly as well to go over what is working and what is not working.\u00a0 The county librarian will be at these meetings in order to review comments that were made in the past month.<\/span><\/p>\nTraining in how to evaluate the survey answers will need to be held as well.\u00a0 In addition, there should be a running \u201ctally\u201d of answers so we are prepared to share our findings on our blog as well as our staff members.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Evaluation & Future Expansion![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/Connection-300x227.png\")
<\/b><\/p>\n
If this new participatory experience is a success, we should see an increase in activity on our blog as well as an increase of usage of our tools (digital tools, programs, physical materials, etc.), and an increase in our door counts as we become visible in our communities.\u00a0 Success will really be measured by how we are able to take feedback and use that to inspire our offerings so we are consistently having a dialog with our communities.\u00a0 Over time, our growing blog presence, stronger ties to our community organizations, and the ability to reach more people will ensure that the library remains a relevant institution. The meaning of this new participatory service model is to make connections with members of our communities and ultimately to make sure we are staying relevant by serving their unique needs.\u00a0 Through connections we may be able to build a larger footprint by making ourselves known.\u00a0 In addition, the community will have made more connections. More conversation type programs can be implemented into our libraries which can reach even more people of diverse backgrounds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/b><\/p>\n
San Bernardino County Library (2026). <\/span>Library information: About Us. <\/span><\/i>https:\/\/library.sbcounty.gov\/information\/tion \u2013 Library<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nStephens, M. (2016).\u00a0 <\/span>The heart of librarianship: Attentive, positive, and purposeful change. <\/span><\/i>ALA Editions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is the Idea? Participatory service allows our communities to give us input about what they need.\u00a0 Transparency allows the library to show the community how we use that input.\u00a0 Both lead to new and exciting possibilities. Unfortunately, participatory service and transparency is sorely lacking in our system.\u00a0 Community members and the library are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":880,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,8,16,17,7,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-community-engagement","category-conversations","category-hyperlinked-community","category-hyperlinked-environment","category-hyperlinked-library","category-innovation-roadmap"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/conversation-300x245.png\")
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/coffeeanddonuts-300x200.png\")
are there.\u00a0 Any pressing news\/programs will be shared and then the floor is open for community members to ask questions, make comments, etc.\u00a0 Surveys will be available for customers to fill out.\u00a0 In addition, a link with the survey will be made available on our website for customers to fill out as wanted.\u00a0 The survey will allow community members to voice their opinions on the library.\u00a0 The program will be held at rotating library locations to make sure all community members have the\u00a0 opportunity to be heard.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/sanjosepubliclibraryoutreach-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/coffeeandconversation2-300x241.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu\/inmyhyperlinkedera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/608\/2026\/10\/coffeeandconversation-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>