I was listening to a keynote speaker this week, and he defined innovation as the ability to find a problem and solve it. I think that is exactly what innovation is about. Now, we have to ask ourselves, what does a problem look like? In some ways, in our field, a problem looks like this:

“We don’t have time.”

“Have you seen our budget, we don’t have the money!”

“So many ideas, so few resources.”

“We’ve always done it this way, and I don’t see anyone complaining.”

“Our community is too poor and too challenged to handle that.”

“Just because it worked at XYZ library doesn’t mean it’s going to work here.”

“With our unions! Are you kidding?”

“We don’t need to change. I retire in five years.”

I’m sure everyone has heard some variation on these comments. I hear them far too often. One SirsiDynix client took the step of reviewing the top 10 tasks that their staff spent the most time on. In no particular order, their list looked like this:

• Shelving
• Materials Check In
• Materials Check Out
• Boxes/Bins Management
• New Material Processing
• Shelving Maintenance
• Reference/Information Services
• Patron Registration
• Supervision
• General Maintenance/Operations

The complexity of library management is evident in this list. There is the gamut of tasks – from the necessary clerical issues through service delivery and management. Just like any enterprise, they were seeking the best place to concentrate their energies to make their organization both more efficient and effective. Do we do this sort of analysis often enough in libraries? How would we stack up against other government or private organizations in this sort of self-review?

          “There are those who ask why, I ask why not.”

Mostly in this space I write articles about the user experience. That’s very important and certainly the space where a lot of the action and attention is going. Our SirsiDynix vision, however, has another component, and that’s to improve the productivity of libraries. In many ways this is about the experience and efficiency of library workers. Maybe it’s heresy to write this, but libraries are not progressing quickly enough on this front. If we want to position a greater number of resources on developing new ways to interact more engagingly with our users, both virtually and in our facilities, we need to free up staff and monetary resources and point them at these initiatives.

Among other sectors, the military, commercial enterprises, and governments worked intensely over the past decade moving to more efficient and effective ways of work in order to achieve the transformation of their organizations. They adapted to a Web-centric world with little additional net cash or staff. These sectors lead in e-commerce, e-government, and other transformations.

Can all libraries point to the same transformation? Some yes; some no. We can point to many individual projects of which many libraries can be justifiably proud. Then again, is the e-library a product of libraries or Google? Are we more efficient and effective in this millennium than we were a century ago? Have we adopted the new ways of work, and are we more productive? 

Listening to the leaders out in library land, it feels to me that I am hearing that we’re not being aggressive enough in improving our productivity and ensuring better value for our funders’ and taxpayer dollars. Ssshhhh. Maybe we’re just keeping our candles under a basket. There are plenty of innovations in libraries, but the successes need to be shared.

Sometimes the huge range of third party products and add-ons to the SirsiDynix systems seems crazy and complicated. It’s far more strategic to look at them through the lens of productivity improvement. Look for the opportunities in these areas to improve your library’s performance using these types of solutions.

Circulation & Booking

The Circulation area is one of the main places in which our users interact with the library. Largely “retail” in nature, we have seen enormous changes in this operation over the past decades. Originally, bar-coding our items resulted in improved performance and quality. Now we can review RFID opportunities that also extend productivity options for inventory and security.

The unique SirsiDynix SIP2/NCIP Certification Program allows you to experience increased confidence that third-party productivity solutions will interoperate with your ILS. From the SirsiDynix OneStop user self-service station, PC and print management and debt collection tools... to voice automation systems and PDA circulation devices... SirsiDynix and our Technology Partners offer solutions that will save you and your institution time, money, and resources, while helping you better serve users.  Through these innovations we can provide productivity-enhancing tools such as the following:

·         SirsiDynix OneStop is an integrated solution for full self-service management of library public services. With OneStop, when a user is checking out materials and a fee is owed, borrowers can pay fines immediately with cash or a credit card. A true e-commerce solution for libraries, OneStop can also be used to collect print or copy payments, or to add value to a library debit card. OneStop was designed by SirsiDynix and integrates seamlessly with the full range of SirsiDynix integrated library systems, as well as some systems from other vendors. Any ILS that supports SIP2 is compatible with self-check using OneStop. So if your library, like most, is challenged by too few staff members to serve a growing number of visitors (particularly at peak times), SirsiDynix OneStop is an important new strategic productivity tool for your institution.

·         SirsiDynix Self-Check solutions can free up staff to work on other activities in the circulation area and beyond.

·         Libraries lose thousands of dollars every year because there just isn't the time or resources to invest in collecting long-overdue fines and fees. With SirsiDynix's integrated solution with Unique Management, Inc., your library can reap the benefits of collecting that revenue without your staff having to invest time in asking users to "pay up."

·         SirsiDynix's handheld circulation tools give library staff the freedom to conduct daily circulation procedures, as well as large inventory projects, in either an offline or wireless online environment. SirsiDynix PocketCirc™ is a wireless circulation unit that frees your staff to serve users and perform both online and offline circulation operations away from the computer with a handheld PDA device. Combining the power of the Unicorn® Library Management System with the flexibility and ease of a PDA, PocketCirc enables you to extend services, increase operation efficiency, and save staff time. You can even circulate books off-site in schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.

·         Smartcards, Biometrics, and other innovative tools allow you to repurpose the library card as a multi-use tool.  It can be a payment card, a borrower’s card, or a student card – simplifying both the user’s and library worker’s life. Those libraries that have started using fingerprint recognition technology have found their lost card replacement tasks take a precipitous drop.

·         Booking of computers can be a flashpoint with users. SirsiDynix offers a wide range of patron-driven booking solutions that can reduce friction between staff and users, increase user satisfaction, and save staff time.

·         E-reserves can be handled more quickly and with less staff involvement with Docutek ERes.

·         Web Reporter and Director’s Station provide you with the management tools to track performance in your system. You can target and identify the places where the efforts need to be focused to improve performance, productivity, and customer satisfaction.

So, we can see there are lots of opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the circulation operations. Many libraries have adopted these. Can we start to share the results? Even if we tell each other that improvements happened, confidence will increase for our colleagues to adopt these innovations too.

Acquisitions & Cataloging

The information and ordering supply chain has undergone a lot of changes in the past few years. New standards and the ability to carry information and content over to other parts of the system have the potential to drastically improve quality and performance. Such innovations as 9XX, SirsiDynix SmartSource™, the MARC order uploader, bindery systems, and more, have forever changed the workflow of library back-office operations. Have you reviewed how these might improve the performance of your library?

These possibilities in circulation & booking and acquisitions & cataloging are just a few of the many options for improving productivity at your library. Look for others in the conclusion to this article in the May 2006 SirsiDynix OneSource.

Stephen Abram, MLS is Vice President, Innovation for SirsiDynix. He is an SLA Fellow and will be president-elect of SLA in June 2006.  He is the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the immediate past president of the Canadian Library Association. In June 2003 he was awarded SLA’s John Cotton Dana Award.  Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.