Sites and Soundbytes

At the library, we conducted a series of focus groups to gather information for our long range planning process.  We decided against using surveys for a number of reasons, and the focus group model has seemed to work very well for us.  We had four focus groups in all:  Diversity Teachers, Diversity Teens, Special Needs, and Children.  Our groups had users and nonusers, and we are very lucky they did.

I learned the most from the non-users and their opinions of libraries.  Some of it was shocking but all of it informed me about what I need to do as a library director with this long range plan. 

Here's what I learned:

Intelligent people in your community are not using your library.
Even more so, they have no idea what a modern library is.
They see us as conservative institutions.
They see us as insular and unresponsive in the extreme.
They believe every librarian fits the stereotype because they don't know or interact with librarians in real life.
They believe we don't care, don't want to serve, don't understand society.

My point is not to argue with these.  Of course they are erroneous statements.  My point is that these opinions offered so blatantly and openly were immensely valuable.  They speak not about what we ARE doing, but about how to get our message out there that we are changing, interested, dynamic.  We are not little old ladies with buns and no social aptitude.  Even if we are ladies with buns of certain years, we are not insular and certainly not conservative! 

We were told time and again that our collections were dated.  We had no new movies, no new books, no new anything.  Yes, it's untrue.  But somewhere the message is getting lost.  Perhaps it is less that non-users don't have time for us in their busy online schedules and more that they really have no idea what libraries offer.

And before you insist that of course your non-users know exactly what you do, I was speaking to people served by a variety of libraries not just here.  All non-users said the same sorts of things, no matter which community they were from.  This is a learning opportunity for us as librarians if we are gutsy enough to learn it.  Or are we insular, conservative thinkers who refuse to be responsive?  I think not!