Australia’s best community library. Part 2 - Checklists

I believe that every public library in Australia is now, or could be, “the country’s best community library.” And it could all happen simultaneously and continuously, because just as every community is unique, every library needs to be unique too – delivering a mix of core library services that best meet the particular needs of its community.

In my last blog I talked about the differences between ‘reading’, ‘activity’ and ‘place’ libraries – and the need for libraries to know what their community wants from them. Today I want to tick off the things we look for when we do a library review.

First up, we look at ABS census and other data to produce a community profile so that we understand the local demographics and what the community might be looking for in their library (more in my next blog).

Second, we crunch the statistics on library service delivery and use, concentrating on the key benchmarking indicators mentioned in my Library Scorecard blog (https://www.analibraryse.com/blog/library-scorecard) and the latest national public library standards.

Finally, our desktop and onsite assessment of a library covers the 14 areas in the framework described more fully in APLA/ALIA’s 2016 Guidelines, Standards and Outcome Measures for Australian Public Libraries.[1] We look at strategies, policies and practices, and (here’s the fun bit) we hang out in the library – watching people enter and move around, chatting to them, observing where they go, what they do, and how they interact with staff, the facilities and one another.

We have a ‘traffic light’ rating system that highlights a library service’s relative strengths and weaknesses. It clearly points to priorities for action as shown in the following example. This library had lots of green areas – with exceptional customer service – but there were concerns in relation to some aspects of their collection, programming and staffing, and a critical issue in the sustainability of their library facilities. At last report this Council was looking to relocate its main library to a new building in a central city area to better meet community access and library needs.

With 8 points available in each area our ratings produce a maximum score of 112. While a few libraries get close to 100, most that we review are mid 70s – which works out at 66%, or on my old school report … a solid ‘C’ with room for improvement.

But the most interesting part of our search for a great library is the little things that point to a customer-focused library that is truly embedded in and welcoming to its community. Not every library can do all of these things – there are real-world constraints. And everywhere we go we find something new or special to add to our list. So here, in no particular order, are some of the things on our checklist for a great library.

I’ll stop there. I could go on.

Next time I want to talk about library outcomes and serve up a few statistics about communities that everyone advocating for libraries should have at their fingertips.

[1] APLA/ALIA, Guidelines, Standards and Outcome Measures for Australian Public Libraries, 2016.