D. Apply the Principles of Planning, Management, and Marketing

Introduction to Core Competency D. Apply the fundamental principles of planning, management and marketing/advocacy.

I am completing an internship at the San Jose Public Library that involves planning opening day collections for six new branch libraries in San Jose. This project is part of the Branch Library Bond Measure San Jose taxpayers funded in 2000 for renovating existing buildings and building new branches. I am one of a team of seven librarians and interns who are working on this project.

Our goal by the end March is to have ready a Request for Proposal (RFP) to submit to the City Board of Supervisors. An RFP is an invitation to bid on the specified items and services that SJPL requires from library vendor for these new collections. The FRP must go through the San Jose City Purchasing Unit, just like any other city purchase.

Marketing these libraries to the people of San Jose involves their participation. The communities surrounding these branches have been part of the process of planning the physical attributes of the branch libraries. They are also part of the process of planning the collections for these branches. Our team created and administered a survey titled Help Choose Your New Library Collection to solicit information from the community. We administered this survey in four languages--English, Chinese, Spanish, and Vietnamese--with one community center in San Jose translating it into Korean on their own.

Our development process involved first, deciding what we want to find out through this survey and second, creating questions that lead to what we want to know. We also considered the need to use clear, direct language, simple instructions, and to keep the survey to one page. We developed a map of San Jose Public Branch Libraries for the back on which users indicate their new branch.

We discussed how to administer the survey within the new branch communities. We researched mass mailings and bulk rate postage. We pinpointed stakeholders within the communities and centers to hand deliver and administer the survey. We researched schools, churches, community centers in these neighborhoods and contacted San Jose City Council members. We are currently in the process of administering the survey, after which will come the analysis stage. The Report on Research for New Branch Libraries Survey is submitted as evidence of competency in this marketing project.

In addition to the survey project, I am working independently on a proposal for a new collection development policy for SJPL for the Head of Technical Services. For this project I researched collection development policies currently used in large urban public libraries with diverse populations like San Jose. I gathered policies from 20 libraries around the country and compared the structures. I researched the literature on best practices. Although still in process, the Proposal for Revising the SJPL Collection Development Policy and the Revised SJPL Collection Development Policy is included as evidence of competency.

LIBR 266 Collection Management was instrumental in my preparation for this internship and in meeting this competency. I completed an Opening Day Collection in Terrorism Studies for an academic military library, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey. Assuming the role of academic librarian at NPS, I surveyed the course catalog to determine broad areas of study and found terrorism to be the focus of many courses across departments and programs. I pinpointed classes that studied terrorism, acquired the curricula for these classes, examined the library's existing resources, and found a need to extend our collection to include more material on terrorism studies. The Opening Day Collection includes a $2,300 order list with justification for each item and lists of selection tools and publishers.

Managing a library's collection requires evaluating the existing collection according to specific criteria. In Woman in Islam, I evaluate the Middle Eastern Studies collection at a local community college and conclude that the move into electronic books necessitates monitoring usage records and user satisfaction. This community college library is mandated by its Board of Trustees to select materials that best meet the teaching and learning mission of the college. I examined the course offerings at the college to pinpoint courses that covered the topic of Women in Islam or Muslim Women. Then I evaluated the library materials that support these courses according to several criteria.

Managing collections requires building a repertoire of professional collection development skills and using a range of materials selection resources. I interviewed a collection development expert in the field of Middle East Studies to learn the tools and professional development resources he used to develop his expertise in collection development. Based on what I learned in the interview, I developed an annotated bibliography of Professional Resources in Middle East Studies.

Also instrumental in meeting this competency was LIBR 204 Information Organizations and Management, a course that helped me understand management and organizational styles. Organizational management styles involve the supervision of a person's actions and the evaluation of a person's behavior. In Management and Organizational Styles Experienced in the Workplace, I reflect on the managers I have encountered in my home and work life and report on the most and least effective. These reflections have helped me learn to handle criticism and evaluation constructively and have made me a better manager of others.

My SLIS program has helped me learned how to motivate others to want to exceed their own expectations. In my present leadership position as the 2006-07 Chairman of the SJSU student chapter of the American Library Association (ALASC), I constantly strive to develop the talents of my staff of five officers. Evidence of my leadership has been in receiving a CASA Professional Development California Lottery Grant in which I outline the progress that ALASC has made this year. I have advocated for student success in various ways, from designing a SLIS Scholarships Web site, in which I interact with students to help them select scholarships, to developing opportunities for SLIS students to participate in professional conferences as volunteers. Recently on behalf of ALASC I nominated ALASC to the Committee to Enhance Equity and Diversity (CEED) and CASA for the Diversity Enhancement Recognition Award. The Justification for Recommendation section of the application best explains the outreach and advocacy work ALASC has done this year to better serve SLIS students. Hopefully I will know before April 23 that ALASC has achieved this award.

SLIS has in many ways taught me that I can exceed my own expectations. One such time was creating a Strategic Plan that built on a Case Study group project. Strategic Plan 2005-2008: Achieving Equity in Distance Learning Library Services for California University builds on the outcomes discovered through our research of library services for distance learning students discussed in Competency M: Are Some Students More Equal than Others? Equity for Distance Learners in Academic Libraries. For the Strategic Plan, I assumed the role of distance learning librarian charged with strategic planning for distance learning library services. I am charged with analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOTs) of distance learning services and presenting a five-year plan that improve services.