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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 06032003 - D2 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORSContra FROM: Anne Cain, County Librarian CSS i�dae:. , Costa DATE: June 3, 2033 SUBJECT: Library Service in Pleasant Hill 2. Count� SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION 1. Accept the report"Pleasant Hill and Contra Costa County Library: Community and County Library Needs Assessment and Preliminary Analysis of Site Options". 2. Express appreciation to the members of the steering committee (residents of Pleasant Hill and Supervisorial District IV, the Chair of the Board of Supervisors, representatives from the Pleasant Hill City Council, the Pleasant Hill Parks and Recreation District Board and the County Library Commission, and staff from the City of Pleasant Hill, the Parks and Recreation District, the Mt. Diablo Unified School District and the County Library. 3. Acknowledge that the Chair of the Board of Supervisors, the County Administrator and the County Librarian have met with officials and staff from the City of Pleasant Hill to discuss the City's interest in planning a Community Library in Pleasant Hili. 4. Direct the County Librarian and staff to continue to work with the City of Pleasant Hill, as they do with other cities, to assist with the community's planning effort for a new Community Library. 5. Direct the County Librarian to return to the Board of Supervisors with a planning process for the Countywide Support and Administrative Services and Shared Resources components identified in the report, to include: • Identifying/confirming countywide library service needs • Providing countywide services that respond to those needs • Locating services (geographically and organizationally)for most effective delivery • Developing and deploying staff for most effective service delivery • Transitioning from where the library is today to where it needs to be • Positioning the library to handle future growth in use of library facilities, resources and services FINANCIAL IMPACT There is no financial impact. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: a YES SIGNATURE: R�ECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR ❑ RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE 54 PROVE OTHER 1-7 SICNATURE(s): -- ACTION OF B04ko ON APPROVED ASR COMMENDED E3 OTHER 61/ VOTE OF SUPERVISORS: I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE AND X UNANIMOUS (ABSENT N= CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AND AYES: NOES: ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF ----- -- SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. ABSENT: ABSTAIN: r Contact: ATTESTED: JOHN SWEETEN, CLERK OF THE cc: County Library BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND County Administrator COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR DATM: JM 3, 2003 By 4 ;,". , Deputy Pleasant Hill Library Plan June 3, 2003 Page 2 BACKGROUND In 2002, the City of Pleasant Hill and Contra Costa County jointly hired Anderson Brute Architects and Joan Frye Williams, Library Consultant, to conduct a community and county library needs assessment and preliminary site options for a new library is Pleasant Hill. The outcome of this study was a report issued in January 2003 that contained a number of findings and recommendations. Library Service for the Pleasant Hill Community Working with a steering committee, through focus groups and surveys the consultants found a remarkably unified vision for library service in the Pleasant Hill community. The information received clustered around a relatively small number of key components of desirable library service, with a clear and consistent description of needs. The following service responses have been selected to create a relevant environment, rich with resources, which will meet the needs of the Pleasant Hill community. An Educational Organization Center for Reading 13 Part of"critical mass"for Pleasant Hill as a city • Strong virtual as well as physical presence in the community • Gateway to resources beyond the Pleasant Hill Library • Support for independent exploration and discovery • Family friendly destination 13 Amenities The report recommends realigning services to create a Pleasant Hill Community Library. Due to the nature and organizational structure of the Central Library, Pleasant Hill's community has not been served as other communities are by their libraries. In general, there has been more emphasis on advanced reference and unique non-fiction collections in Pleasant Hill, and less attention given to reading, library events and programs, and services to families, children and youth. To meet the documented library needs of the residents of Pleasant Hill, the consultants recommend that a strong, focused program of community-oriented library services, collections, and staffing should be developed. Contra Costa County Library Needs Assessment In looking at countywide library needs, the consultants have proposed a new service model that identifies two key components of County Library service. These include Shared Resources, and Support and Administrative Services. Shared Resources includes the collections and staff necessary to support all county patrons, whether onsite or remotely. Support and Administrative Services includes administration, policy and program development, information technology, staff development and training, and collection support. A preliminary assessment of space needs to support these two components total approximately 43,006 s.f. to 59,939 s.f. depending upon the future direction of the shared resources collection and its availability through electronic resources. In the proposed model, each community library responds to the needs of its community and collaborates with its 22 peer libraries to support services to the county population as a whole. This study concurred with the David M. Griffith study of 5 years ago in recommending that a number of shared countywide services be housed and managed centrally, on behalf of the entire county library. This approach: realizes economies of scale G ensures consistency in service standards and delivery techniques streamlines processing and distribution maximizes use of special purpose spaces and equipment 11 maximizes the countywide benefit and impact of advanced staff expertise 13 maximizes access to the county library's most costly materials and resources allows specialized handling of unique, fragile, or irreplaceable materials These shared countywide services are comprised of the following county library service components. Any or all of these service components could potentially be housed at any of the 23 community library facilities. Criteria for locating each component for optimum effectiveness are detailed below. These components fall into two categories: Support and Administrative Services, and Shared Resources. Support and Administrative Services is comprised of leadership and centralized support, and should be focused on leveraging resource allocation to--and effectiveness of--each of the community libraries. The most effective utilization of these five service components is through centralized support and development of services, programs, tools, training and techniques that can be deployed throughout the community libraries directly to patrons. This model proposes re-characterizing centralized reference services, focusing leadership in reference toward highest benefit of the system's shared resources to every patron, rather than in giving priority to direct service to the public in Pleasant Hill. This will effectively position each community library to better serve their patrons immediately and directly, rather than referring them to "Central". For example, C:\Personai\Personal\Word Files-Julie\BOARD AGENDA\BC3_PH LIBRARY PLAN 6-3-03.DOC Pleasant Hill Library Plan June 3, 2003 Page 3 reference leadership could focus on analyzing the nature and type of questions posed by the community, and building collections and staff expertise at community libraries to strengthen service delivery at point of contact. The measure of the success of these efforts will be in a reduction of dependence on backup reference at "Central". Additionally, reference and research leadership and specialists should be periodically deployed to community libraries for training and evaluation of locally delivered reference service, to further distribute their expertise in a strategic fashion to all County Library service points. Administration Personnel Budget Purchasing Accounting Contract and grant administration ° Statistics and measurement Fundraising 13 Public information/marketing ° Liaison with County administration 13 Liaison with City administrations ° Facilities management Preliminary Criteria ° Co-locate with Policy and Program Development to ensure consistency between library's mission/message and its services Policy and Program Development Service needs assessment and planning Service design ° Service development and testing ° Service evaluation Liaison with other individual libraries/agencies/service providers Liaison with BALIS, other cooperative library agencies Service grant development Preliminary Criteria ° Co-locate with Administration to ensure consistency between library's mission/message and its services ° Co-locate with "typical" branch for realistic testing/incubation of new services • Specialists keyed to target service populations—age group, language, special needs Staff Development andTrainin Training needs assessment and planning Training design Training development and testing Training delivery Training evaluation ° Liaison with other training providers ° Training grant development Preliminary Criteria • Co-locate with Policy and Program Development to ensure that training is closely integrated with service planning • Easy transportation from all parts of county for attendance at training events • Training space(s) • Sophisticated technology and communications infrastructure to support technology-based training Information Technoloav 13 Network needs assessment and planning Network design Network implementation and testing Network troubleshooting, maintenance and upgrades ° Application needs assessment and planning ° Application evaluation and selection Cl Application implementation and testing El Application troubleshooting, maintenance and upgrades 13 Web site design • Web site implementation and testing ° Web site troubleshooting, maintenance and upgrades ° Liaison with IT vendors C.\Personal\PersonaMord Piles-Julie\BOARD AGENDA\B4_PH LIBRARY PLAN 6.3-03.DOC Pleasant Hill Library Plan June 3, 2003 Page 4 El Liaison with County IT Department Custom programming Preliminary Criteria • Sophisticated technology and communications infrastructure • Secure space r, Clean, reliable power Out of flood plain Equipment storage and repair space Co-locate with Policy and Program Development to ensure that IT is closely integrated with service planning Easy transportation to all parts of county for service calls Collection Supg)ort • Collection development needs assessment and planning n Acquisitions/ordering/receiving • Catalog ing/techinical processing • Subscription management Materials repair Inventory Preliminary Criteria 13 Loading dock • Materials sorting, processing, storage space • Easy transportation to all parts of county for shipping materials The Shared Resources component is comprised of those services, collections and related staff expertise that are held in common by all community libraries. The staff associated with these shared resources should be specialists, with expertise appropriate to making these collections and services directly available to all patrons within the County library system. Where the previous service model required patrons to travel to use shared resources, the future emphasis should be on making as many resources as possible available at the first point of contact in each community's library. Emerging technologies will continue to allow greater distribution of library resources electronically, making them more accessible at the community libraries. However, all shared resources will not be electronically distributable in the foreseeable future, and this component of service should be focused on maintaining and developing this collection as appropriate. Resource Sharing Intrabranch delivery 13 Hold/reserve policies and planning M Backup reference Preliminary Criteria • Loading dock • Materials sorting space • Delivery vehicle parking 13 Easy transportation to all parts of county for shipping materials • Deep reference collection • Reference specialist(s) Emerging Trends Emerging trends in library service delivery that will drive the dynamic at community libraries and therefore the functional requirements and organization of Support and Administrative services include: Increased utilization of paraprofessionals to enhance direct service delivery at community libraries (first line service staff) Diversification of the job classifications and skill sets utilized by the library 13 Increased emphasis on enabling community library staff, thereby focusing the role of countywide leadership on leverage of expertise rather than direct service delivery by senior staff 0 Community libraries hosting service personnel from other disciplines and partner organizations, both volunteer and paid Continued reliance on volunteers—and in the mid to long term, the volunteer capacity will increase through the `Boomer" generation retirement, creating a volunteer force with higher expectations for more challenging work and a need to manage volunteer efforts at a different level Continued reliance on and expansion of outsourcing opportunities to achieve maximum efficiency Modern building design, with potential that fewer staff will be needed to supervise activity in the library ® After school care moved to the library — which continues to be perceived by parents and caregivers as a safe place for learning and enrichment More library services delivered offsite, through outreach, with library staff going out into the community A focus outward toward target audiences, rather than inward toward collections. This represents a reversal in the traditional organization of library services and requires a greater level of outreach, C:\Personal\Personal\Word Piles-Julie\BOARD AGENDA\BO PH LIBRARY PLAN 6-3-03.DOC Pleasant Hill Library Plan June 3, 2003 Page 5 assessment and ongoing analysis of the needs of the communities to be served, with development of services and collections as a response. • Continued and increasing requirements for training, delivered either by the library or through outsourcing. Orientation and organizational training is best delivered internally, where training on new technologies, and development of skills may be best delivered through outsourcing. • Change in techniques of library service delivery, to include both new technology and new formats of library collections. • Changes in the dynamic and demographic of communities, and a need for the local community and its needs to be reflected in the service priorities of each community library in the county system C:\Personal\PersonaMord Files-Julie\BOARD AGENDA\BO PH LIBRARY PLAN 6-3-03.130C