A Team Approach to Libraries

Libraries have come a long way since the card catalogs of the 20th century.

The what?

Before everything was electronically filed via the Dewey decimal system, there was one source to look up information – the library card catalog. That meant you had to be physically present at the library to look things up, unless you reached a helpful reference librarian by phone and he or she was willing to look stuff up for you.

Fast forward to today, where all you need is computer access to search for books and other materials at the library, and once you’ve found what you are looking for, you can put items on hold. That was a great advancement for library patrons, but Kinga Jacobson of the Gibraltar School District Library believes there is more libraries can do for their communities through collaboration.

“A lot of libraries are pretty confined within their four walls,” she said. “We want to move them into the next century for those who need them 24-7. That leap still has to be made. A lot of tools are there, but we need to do a better job of promoting and allowing searches that draw people to us. We have a lot to offer, but I don’t think a lot of people know we are there.”

Jacobson, who joined the Gibraltar School District at the start of this school year, learned that Wisconsin was about to get involved in a growing national initiative called ILEAD USA. Which was designed to better serve library patrons through the collaboration of academic and public libraries.

“When I got here in this job, I realized there are two completely different worlds, between school libraries and public libraries. They do not communicate at all. They feel rivalry instead of being peers,” Jacobson said. “It’s very interesting. I right away saw a better collaboration would be wonderful locally and statewide. We can combine forces and be more efficient. We would not pay for the same instructional tools or same service twice. Just pay once and we would all use it.”

“This is an exciting initiative,” said State Superintendent Tony Evers in a press release announcing the program. “Library staff will be collaborating on community-based projects to improve services as well as honing their leadership and technology skills.”

ILEAD USA will have teams of library staff work together to identify a community need and develop, manage and evaluate a project to meet that need. The Wisconsin teams will attend three in-person sessions, the first March 23-26 in Green Lake. In addition to the Green Lake sessions, teams will hold virtual meetings and use collaborative, digital-based technologies to work on their projects.

Six teams have been formed of five members each from libraries throughout the state. Jacobson’s team is called “Minerva” and is made up of Nancy Larson of the West Bend Community Memorial Library, Amanda Burns of the Suring Area Public Library, Kimberly Young of the Brown County Library in Green Bay and Debbie Olguin of the Matheson Memorial Library in Elkhorn.

“What we intend to do is to develop a small book or handout,” Jacobson said, “a training piece that could be circulated across the state regarding the best instructional technology that libraries can use to better serve their patrons, and that could be school libraries or branches within the public library system, and maybe a website that goes along with it, and then we can direct and help our librarian peers by providing a one-stop place for the best of the best.”

Before any of that is accomplished, however, Jacobson said a first will happen in Door County on Feb. 26 when school librarians and public librarians meet for the first time to discuss collaborations and how to better serve their patrons.

“I come from a technical college system and corporate world,” she said. “To me these are things that need to be done. I’m just really happy that I’m there and that maybe I can make a difference.”