As a new manager I have had the opportunity over this last year to critically look at Taber Public Library and to ask a lot of questions, which lead to tweaks, updates, changes and additions. Some of these have worked well and others, admittedly, not so well. This presentation reflects upon some of those observations and changes, as well as where TPL is headed with its upcoming needs assessment and plan of service.

1. Successes and Challenges as a New
Library Manager

2. • About Taber and Taber Public Library
• About Me
• Asking “Why”
• Implementations That Worked
• Implementations that Didn’t Work So Well
• TPL Heading into Needs Assessment for 2019-2022 Plan
of Service

3. Town of Taber, 2015.
Mission: to meet the informational, educational,
recreational and cultural needs of the public of the
Town of Taber and surrounding area.

5. TeroVesalainen. 2017. Retrieve from https://pixabay.com/en/question-mark-why-problem-solution-2123967/

6. • Administration
• Formalized 1:1 staff supervision and PD sessions
• SMART goal setting
• Increased the amount of all-staff meetings
• Comes down to: increasing communication and individual
accountability

7. Ohio Library Council. (2014). Ohio Public Library Core Competencies.

8. • Finance
• Thank you, thank you, thank you!
• Formalized bank deposit and Receiver General sheets
• Applying for Young Canada Works and Canada Summer Jobs
• Programs and Services
• Being a ‘yes’ person (to a certain degree)
• Summer Reading Program overhaul
• New format
• Reaching out to local businesses for support
• Lessons Learned
• Reinstating program evaluation forms
• Utilizing Outlook calendar
• Pushing Partnerships

13. • Facilities & Branding
Standardizing our in-house
signage
Branding in program signage

14. • Acquisitions & Collection Development
• Specifying acquisition budget by catalogue
• Being Intentional with Purchases
• Getting staff to look through the catalogues
• Statistics
• Collection HQ: popular authors, over/understocked collections
• Reviews
• Books: Booklist; Kirkus Reviews; Publisher’s Weekly; Quill and
Quire; Good Reads
• Movies: Rotten Tomatoes; Robert Ebert; IMDb
• Requests and Popular Titles
• Weeding

16. • General Organization & Procedure
• Social Media Plan
• Spreading accounts over a number of staff, but ensuring we’re all
on the same page.
• Increasing posters around town
• Circulation desk schedule
• Mail Merged daily cash, computer sign-up and stats sheets
• Inventory
• In-house Use Baskets
• Streamlining ILL Request Process

17. Young, S. H., & Rossmann, D. (2015). Building Library Community Through Social Media. Information Technology &
Libraries, 34(1), 20-37.

19. • Administration
• Informal meetings
• Finance
• Adopt a Book
• Accounting Software Seminars
• Acquisitions & Collection Development
• SCiP student
• General Organization & Procedure
• Shelf talkers and “Staff/Patron Picks” bookmarks
• Library at Town Canada 150 celebrations

21. • Collecting data
• Daily stats
• Desk interactions
• Computer usage
• In-house-use
• Program evaluations
• Why people attend
• How they heard about it
• Would they attend a similar program/when
• Other comments
• One-off program reports
• What we did
• How it went
• What would be done next time to improve – if it’s done again

22. • Three-pronged approach
• Blue Chair
• Hearing how successful Lethbridge Public Library’s Red Chair
initiative was, TPL will attend a number of local events hoping
to get input from non-users.
• Surveys
• in person
• online
• Conversation Cafes
• Spring 2018

23. • Always keep kaizen in mind.
• What is your Plan of Service, and how can you fulfill it better?
• Take professional development seriously.
• Tie to your SMART goals: how do you want to grow in 2018?
• Attend related conferences.
• Participate in related webinars.
• Ask for help/ talk to other libraries.
• Other libraries in your Regional Library System
• Regional Library System Staff
• Listservs
• Library Directors Google Group
• Just try it!

25. • American Library Association. (2017). Effective Library Signage:
Tips, Tricks & Best Practices.
• Lombardi, D. (2017). Growing Your Library: How to Markey and
Raise Funds for New Service Offerings. Alberta Library Conference.
• MacLeod, L. (2012), Marking SMART Goals Smarter. Physician
Executive, 38(2), 68-72.
• Martin, D. (1993). Towards Kaizen: The Quest for Quality
Improvement. Library Management, 14(4), 4-12.
• Nelson, E. (2015). Using Six Sigma and Lean in the Library. College
& Undergraduate Libraries, 22(3/4), 312-324.
• Ohio Library Council. (2014). Ohio Public Library Core
Competencies.
• Town of Taber. (2015). Town of Taber 2015 Census Report.
Retrieved from http://www.taber.ca/DocumentCenter/View/1357
• Wiser, J. (2005). Kaizen meets dewey. Information outlook, 9(6), 27-
37.
• Young, S. H., & Rossmann, D. (2015). Building Library Community
Through Social Media. Information Technology & Libraries, 34(1), 20-
37.

26. Heather Martin-Detka, MLIS
manager@taberlibrary.ca
403.223.4343