12.11.07
Process Improvement for Libraries
SERLS would like to invite your library to participate in an important training opportunity brought to you collaboratively by the Regional Library Systems of Ohio and through funding by an LSTA Continuing Education Grant from the State Library of Ohio.
“Process Improvement for Libraries” is a series of four workshops designed to comprehensively address the needs of an entire library or library system. Each library system will put together a team of three participants to attend this series of workshops. Teams should be made up of upper-level managers, including the library director, or with full support of the library director to complete their work. In larger library systems, teams may be made up of managers from a single department who intend to improve a process for that department. Smaller libraries may elect to send managers from across the library and select a process to improve.
During the first session, each team will receive training on how to evaluate processes within their library to determine which ones are working great and which ones could be improved. Between sessions, each team will work to apply the concepts learned on a specific process used in their own libraries. By the end of the fourth session, each team will have identified a process that is inefficient or in need of improvement and will have made clear progress towards implementing positive changes. The final session will include a showcase of each team’s process improvements.
This series of four workshops will be offered separately at two different locations.
Mohican State Park, Loudonville:
Monday, February 25th, 2008Monday, April 21st, 2008
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Roberts Centre, Wilmington:
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008Tuesday, April 22st, 2008
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Sara Laughlin said,
December 20, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Cheilon invited Ray Wilson and I to introduce ourselves. I’ll start. Ray and I will be presenting the Process Improvement series. I’m the librarian half of the team. I started my career in 1973 at the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County. Since then, I’ve worked as a reference librarian, branch manager, consortium director, library school adjunct faculty member, trustee. For the last 10 years, I’ve been an independent consultant, and just last September I agreed to serve as interim director of the Monroe County Public Library. During this learning series, we’ll be teaching and learning about process improvement. You’ll probably find our approach to be quite different than most workshops you’ve attended before. First of all, you’ll be attending with a team from your library. At each session, we’ll introduce some ideas and some tools and you’ll have a chance to practice them at the session. Back home, you’ll work with your team to try them out on a process that you choose. We’ll support you via e-mail and the phone and answer questions as you report at the next session.
A word about the content: At the first session, we’ll talk about the library as a system, define “process,” help your team identify a process, and learn an approach to standardize it. Next, you’ll learn some standard continuous improvement tools that are disarmingly easy, but which change the way people work together and help you find root causes of problems and brainstorm and prioritze solutions. At the third session, you’ll learn some ways to measure your process, which is the beginning of improving it. The fourth session is the most fun, because that’s when each team presents its results.
We’ve worked with about 100 libraries–academic, public, school, and special–and we have seen some remarkable improvements:
Here are a sampling of processes that libraries have improved:
“prepare new items for circulation”
“shelve AV materials” process”
“prepare the library classroom for an instructions session”
“gather data for payroll”
Do you have any questions you’d like to ask us? We’d love to hear what you’re thinking. And we love it even more if you register for one of the Ohio sessions. The price will never be cheaper, thanks to the support of the State Library and LSTA. See you real soon.
Jennifer Thompson said,
January 4, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Hi–we are considering attending. The days and dates given for the Wilmington series do not match each other (e. g., Feb. 26 is really on a Tuesday, not a monday). I am leaving on a trip for three weeks, so we will not decide until the last week in January whether to participate. In any case, best wishes–a great idea for a workshop series. Jennifer Thompson, Chillicothe and Ross Co. PL
Mary said,
January 7, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Thank you for pointing out the day/date problem Jennifer- we have corrected the days of the week for the Wilmington events. Have a great time on your trip!! We will check back with you at the end of January.