Library Director Moves System in Digital Directions
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- To get an idea of Heidi Daniel’s plans for the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, don’t look in her desk or, for that matter, on top it. Look behind it. Plans in various stages of execution are scrawled from one end to the other on the wall -- painted with special whiteboard paint -- behind the desk of the library system’s director.
“My fiscal officer found this whiteboard paint because I was constantly writing on little Post-It notes and sticking them everywhere, like ideas of things I wanted to do or things I just didn’t want myself to forget about,” Daniel said.
“I highly recommend whiteboard paint. It’s a lot of fun,” she added, smiling.
Daniel has been filling the back wall of her office over the past year and working toward implementing the various objectives written on it, among them upgrading the library’s services to better assist businesses as well as introducing new technology and services to patrons.
Tuesday saw the the debut of the system’s first “pop-up” library event, where visitors to 20 Federal Place downtown will have the opportunity to avail themselves of the library’s services. Librarians were on hand for individuals to talk to, including the business and investment center librarian with whom patrons could schedule an appointment.
“We’re looking at new models that get us out of the idea of the traditional brick-and-mortar building and into those communities,” Daniel said. “You don’t always have to have a physical presence to serve a community, so we are looking at new models of service that allow us to do that.”
Daniel was hired by the Youngstown/Mahoning County library’s board of trustees in July 2012 from the Houston Public Library, where she had worked since 2005. As neighborhood library team leader/district supervisor she oversaw management of 16 neighborhood libraries.
Although she hadn’t been a library director before, the group of libraries Daniel oversaw within the Houston system was “every bit as big as what our library system is right now,” observed Dr. David Ritchie, president of the library’s board of trustees. After conducting candidate interviews and reviewing the applications, board members felt she had “great experience coming from a large sector library” and was very involved with programs that would fit with the Mahoning County system.
Ritchie says he and the other board members “feel she has done more in one year than we ever anticipated.”
In addition to addressing problems early in her tenure at the Poland branch due to air quality issues that kept the building closed for a couple of weeks and other issues, the system opened the new Tri-Lakes branch “and she really took hold of that,” he said. “Now we’re in the beginning stages of the Canfield library and she has jumped in with both feet and doing a great job there.”
Daniel “inherited a library system that is in great shape,” she acknowledged, with great versatility in the existing branches and “so much promise and potential” for libraries to be created in the future.
“I did feel that we needed to step up our digital game,” she added.
At the Tri-Lakes branch in North Jackson, which opened this summer to replace the North Jackson and Lake Milton/Craig Beach branches, the library introduced new digital services that she believes patrons will enjoy.
More recently, the library made digital content -- including streaming movies, TV shows, audiobooks and music -- available to cardholders through the Hoopla app or via the library’s website. Youngstown/Mahoning County is one of the first libraries offering the service nationally, she says.
“The best thing about the audiobook selection is that you don’t have to wait on a reserve list,” she said. Selections can be checked out instantaneously and simultaneously “so I can check out an audiobook and you can check out the same audiobook,” she explained.
According to the 2011-2012 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, released last year, public computer and Wi-Fi usage increased over the year at more than 60% of libraries, and 76.3% offer access to e-books, up 9.1% over the year. The percentage of libraries offering e-books has climbed from 38% in 2007.
Digital is “incredibly important” to the library’s mission, Daniel remarked. This year the Youngstown/Mahoning County system recorded 116,269 logins to its Wi-Fi system for the January-September period, up from 85,896 for the first nine months of 2011, a 35.4% increase.
“People tend to think of us as bricks and mortar and we don’t think that that’s going away because we see people using our library spaces differently but still using them frequently,” she said. “We know that people are becoming increasingly more digital and accessing content from various devices even more so than a traditional [personal computer].”
One of the services the library now offers to businesses is the ability to send a print job from a PC or laptop to a printer at one of the library branches. “So [if] you’re out and about, you’re working, you have your laptop, you need to print something, you don’t have a printer accessible to you, you can send it to one of the libraries and go pick it up,” Daniel said. “We see so many people utilizing our spaces to work in various ways for their jobs or for schools, so we thought this was an excellent way to serve that customer who might be accessing our Wi-Fi and they need to print as well.”
Additionally, the system recently introduced faxing service at two locations.
“Here at [the main library branch] you can fax, scan or save to a USB drive,” Daniel said. “We just invested in some new equipment to allow our business customers to be able to access that service as well.” The library also began circulating laptops to allow patrons who didn’t bring their own device to access services.
Daniel also is exploring further ways to increase the availability of its business services to patrons. Many people don’t realize that the business and investment librarian or grants librarian can be booked for one-on-one sessions, she said.
“We would encourage people to look into those types of services because it’s not just the resources we have in the buildings but our staff is a resource that can be used to the business customer’s advantage to get further in-depth knowledge,” she said. “It would be like having your own expert right there and we would like to continue and expand that.”
Technology plays a role that continues to expand throughout the library, Daniel acknowledges. The library is a key provider of computer and Internet access to populations that don’t have ready access to them, even as they are increasingly needed to access government services or for finding employment opportunities. Traditional PC use in the library has increased 12.3% over the last three years, a trend she expects to continue, but the system is exploring ways to reach patrons through mobile technology.
“We’re not quite there yet. We’re still heavily reliant on the traditional PC setup,” she acknowledged. “We are continually looking for ways to support the technology needs of lower-income residents who might need access to computers or laptops. We hope to get to a point where they could perhaps check tablets from us if they need to utilize that format, or if they’re looking for e-books and they need to check out an e-reader.”
Technology is making its presence felt throughout the library system in other ways. Use of radio frequency identification – or RFID – tags in library materials not only serve as a security measure, triggering an alarm if an individual leaves with an item without checking it out, but is also allowing the library to introduce a self-checkout system. “It’s a system you see widely throughout the country, especially as resources diminish or as we focus our staff on something slightly different than just the traditional check-in/checkout,” she said.
This year’s children’s summer reading program offered online registration and tracking for the first time, an important convenience Daniel acknowledged as the mother of two young children, ages 5 and 3. The program saw an increase not only in registration but in hours read, which she said “could just be because people were more easily able to report those hours and complete the program.”
At the main branch, as soon as later this year, the library will introduce what Daniel calls a “technology playground,” essentially offering devices such as new tablets or Mac computers, which many people might not use ordinarily, or software programs they might not have much experience with. In addition, the library is looking at putting in place a “maker space,” featuring devices ranging from sewing machines to 3-D printers to give patrons the opportunity to “create in a space,” she said.
TIn early 2014, the library plans to introduce download stations at different locations in the community when patrons can download e-books to their mobile device. Locations for the service are still being determined. “We are constantly trying to balance the idea of having a physical branch and serving areas that maybe don’t have a physical branch but making sure that they get service in that community as well,” she said.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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