Since I’ve discussed the significance of shared stories in our Hyperlinked Communities reflection, I would like to cover a topic from Module 7: Planning for Participatory Services.
Lenstra & Barbakoff’s (2024) “Working Hand in Hand” serves as a wonderful and enlightening reminder that we are not the user! Nobody knows the community more than the community themselves, hence the need for community-led planning “The library cannot and should not try to impose a rigid set of steps or schedule, because the community determines how the process will progress” (Lenstra & Barbakoff, 2024). Communities know what will and will not help them—this is especially relevant when it comes to different information communities that come into the library; for example, a service for teens might not be a useful service for seniors. Libraries and the communities they serve should be in consistent, open collaboration with one another to bring forward successful services, programming, materials, and even events. Community-led planning is broken down into five steps in the Working Together Project:
(1) Systematically build knowledge about community through community assessment
(2) Identify community goals and needs
(3) Plan services
(4) Deliver services
(5) Evaluate results. (Lenstra & Barbakoff, 2024)
I was specifically drawn to Lenstra and Barbakoff’s proposal of encouraging the community to be involved in the evaluation process of planning. Typically when we think of evaluating services, we can limit ourselves to numbers and statistics—this doesn’t have to be the case! Qualitative data, which can be in the form of a paper survey or feedback in a monthly meeting in the community room or even a simple email, is just as important. Through community-led planning, members can freely and comfortably express what a service is doing best, what a service can improve on, or even propose a service that does not exist. Through shared evaluation, the library can assist the community through the perspective of their community.
Community-led programming allows users to be visible and encourages participation. I also believe community-led programming will bring in members who aren’t using the library. Members may not be using the library because they believe there’s nothing there for them. While there could be a service that they may not be aware of, there is still a possibility that there isn’t a service for them; of course, it doesn’t have to stay this way. Through communication and collaboration, librarians can achieve improvements that their members are involved with throughout the entire process. Once again, we are not the user!
References
Lenstra, N., & Barbakoff, A. (2024, March 1). Working hand in hand: How to conduct community-led planning. American Libraries Magazine. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2024/03/01/working-hand-in-hand/
@lorraine5and thank you for highlighting the importance of qualitative data. I am of the same mind and I think the story that qualitative results can tell are much more powerful than numbers. That’s one of the reasons I highlight narrative inquiry in the module on the power of stories. Thanks for going back to the planning module as well to highlight that article.