User and Community Needs

SLO 4: Graduates will be able to assess community needs, formulate plans to respond to the users of information agencies, and instruct users in using informational resources

Meeting community needs is the most fundamental role of a librarian. An unused library is a waste of space and resources, so it is vital for librarians to understand and meet the community’s informational, educational, cultural, and recreational needs. This understanding is shown when the library has an appropriate collection of materials and appropriate programs and events. Things like database management or budgeting may seem far removed from patrons, but they all work towards the end goal of ensuing the users have what they want and need. My three assignments demonstrate my understanding of the primary role of the user.

Assignment 1 is an evaluation of the collection at the Hogwarts Library that I wrote for my Collection and Access Management class. Hogwarts is the boarding school attended by Harry Potter and his friends in JK Rowling’s series. While the school teaches magic, it is also just a high school so I determined which methods would work best to evaluate whether the collection meets the informational and instructional needs of students. I included this assignment because knowing how to remove inappropriate materials is just as important ensuring that the collection contains appropriate items to meet user needs. Weeding materials is not as easy as it sounds: a librarian needs to juggle current user needs, future user needs, intellectual freedom, physical space limits, and budget restrictions.

Assignment 2 is a proposal for a new library program that I created for my Public Library class. It proposes a collaboration between the Champaign (IL) Public Library and the Champaign School District to expand the District’s summer meals program for kids. I decided on this project after watching a webinar about using the library for summer meals and completing a community analysis of Champaign for other assignments in the same class. The proposal includes an explanation of my idea, a budget, a timeline, and a draft promotional flyer. This assignment shows my ability plan programs, but more importantly provides an example of how to meet the needs of the community, specifically marginalized users. Not all community needs are for materials and sometimes librarians need to think outside of the box.

Assignment 3 is a compilation of the annotations I wrote about books in a variety of genres for my Readers Advisory class. Each week I read a book in that week’s genre and wrote a short annotation describing the plot, characters, reader warnings, and any read-alikes. They were posted on the class discussion board for review and comment by all students. I included this assignment for two reasons. First, the challenge of succinctly describing books without giving away too much is good practice for my goal of working in a public library where readers advisory is more common that other library types. Secondly, the idea of every reader his/her book is why I got into this profession in the first place. There is obviously a lot more to librarianship, but I think recommending and providing appropriate material to patrons is the ultimate point of a library; all other work is done to ensure that patrons have a good book, movie, or research article.

As mentioned above, meeting community needs is the fundamental point of a library. A library without users is a waste of space, time, and money so it is essential for librarians to understand their communities. Librarians have always valued service and one of the best ways to achieve high quality service is to know what patrons want and need. All communities have different wants and needs and assessing these needs is vital to good library service.

Proposal for a new initiative at the Champaign (IL) Public Library

Annotations of books in a variety of genres