Cambridge Public Library
Five-year Strategic Plan
--December 2000
Introduction
The citizens of Cambridge have used and valued their public library for nearly 150 years. At the dawn of a new century the Cambridge Public Library Board of Trustees, staff, and constituents have worked together to conceive a vision and blueprint for the development and preservation of library services to meet community needs now and in the future.
In spite of its many successes and accolades, the Cambridge Public Library is continually challenged to offer world class library services with inadequate finances, inferior facilities, and insufficient staff. The community consistently voices its desire for more books, CD’s, videos, computers, hours, programs, and services. The trustees and staff are acutely aware of what needs to be done to serve the community better and to make the CPL a national model for outstanding library service. We are ready and willing to make this dream a reality. The challenge for the leaders of the Library and the City is to formulate a successful strategy to advance the Cambridge Public Library system from its "diamond in the rough" status to its rightful place as the City’s "crown jewel."
While a five-year strategic plan can help to move this agenda forward, the Library Board of Trustees and staff concur that a grander and longer-term vision must be articulated. We hope this document will convey both the long view and the incremental steps necessary to its realization.
Vision
Cambridge, a diverse community of active citizens, proud of its past, hopeful of its future, envisions its public library as a doorway to opportunity, self-development and recreation for all its residents, and as a forum where they may share ideas, cultures and resources among themselves and with people around the globe. The free availability of information, the lively interaction of people, and the open exchange of ideas animate and extend the democratic traditions from which our city, our country and our people have so greatly benefited.
Mission
So that enlightenment and literacy may flourish in our community, the Cambridge Public Library dedicates itself to collecting and disseminating an array of information and ideas that is diverse in nature, varied in format, and rich in viewpoint, reflecting the multicultural character of the community it serves and of our wider world. The library provides free, equal and confidential access to its resources and services, and actively promotes their use by all residents of the city.
System Role
The Cambridge Public Library is a dynamic, community-oriented library system providing excellent services, collections and programs to all members of the community. The library is dedicated to affording the people of Cambridge resources for reference, recreational reading, independent learning, and the introduction of children to the world of literacy and learning that are second to none anywhere.
The Cambridge Public Library is designed to work as a unified system with a strong main library and six active branch libraries each tailored to the unique constituencies and needs of its immediate neighborhood. The primary roles for the library system and the Main Library are:
Independent Learning: The library supports individuals of all ages pursuing a sustained program of learning independent of any educational provider.
Child’s Door to Learning: The library encourages children to develop literacy skills and an interest in reading and learning through services for children and for parents and children together.
Reference Library: The library provides timely, accurate, and useful information for community residents.
Research Center for Cambridge History: The library collects and provides access to selected city archives of general interest, genealogical resources, and books and other materials related to Cambridge history.
Formal Education Support: The library elementary and high school students in meeting educational objectives established during their formal courses of study.
Roles for Branch Libraries:
Boudreau:
Central Square:
* indicates a secondary role
Collins:
O’Connell:
O’Neill:
Valente:
Main Library Children’s Room:
Statement of Needs and Action Plan
Funding
Challenges: In a study of Cambridge and eight comparable communities done by the Harvard Business School, the CPL’s funding per capita was 17% below the average. The CPL spent the least amount of money in proportion to circulation, fully 29% below the average. In all instances, comparable libraries were operating fewer locations with more money. The Harvard Business School study supports anecdotal reports of staff and trustees that the expectations and obligations of the CPL system are not commensurate with its funding levels. The library is not adequately funded to support its operating hours and locations.
Current budget allocations are:
Solutions: The bottom line is that the CPL system must be regularly funded beyond the "basic need". The trustees’ vision and the community’s expectations of the library require that the operations budget of the CPL be commensurate with libraries serving similar communities with a full range of services. Cambridge should compare favorably with outstanding regional and national libraries, in both funding and performance. A comprehensive program of fund raising should be established to supplement public funds and to initiate new services and programs. Public officials and citizens must be convinced that the library is a worthy and worthwhile recipient of additional financial support.
Goals: Funding
Increase CPL appropriation to fund goals in outlined in strategic plan
Develop fund raising campaign for endowment fund:
Develop print materials encouraging estate giving to library
Implement birthday/celebration/memorial book donation program
Implement Trustees Communication Plan
Human Resources
Challenges: Every aspect of a library’s success hinges on the availability and capacity of qualified staff. The CPL is blessed with a skilled and professional workforce that is continually challenged by the demands for public service, the unprecedented developments in information technology, the necessity for continuing education, and the need for sufficient personnel. There are two human resources factors that adversely affect the CPL’s functions: inadequate staffing and recruitment of personnel. Compared to peer libraries, the CPL’s operating hours per FTE (full time equivalent), are 90% higher than the group average. This indicates that the CPL staff is grossly overextended. The need for additional staff is irrespective of any of the new programs and services advocated in other sections of this plan. It is essential to maintain current operations.
Competition for highly skilled professionals with technical expertise, especially in the information field, is intense and shows no signs of abating in the future. Industry projections indicate that there will be a shortage of librarians in the near future as many seasoned professionals retire. Salary comparisons with comparable libraries in Massachusetts and New England indicate that CPL compensation is below average, particularly for professional staff. They also compare unfavorably with other regions in the country which the cost of living is lower.
Solutions: In view of the difficulty in recruiting professional staff, it is crucial that the CPL offer competitive salaries, opportunities for staff development and advancement, as well as adequate coverage for public service desks. Staffing levels must be increased to provide coverage beyond the basic need and the library must be able to attract and retain the personnel necessary to realize the library’s goals.
Goals: Human Resources
Ensure that staff pay is above average for comparable communities and libraries, both locally and nationally.
Increase staff to equal to 3 FTE’s per hour of operation:
Develop coordinated program of staff development:
Increase funding for staff development by 50%
Recruit diverse, multi-lingual staff
Resources and Services
Challenges: The Cambridge Public Library should offer a truly outstanding collection of print, electronic, and A-V (audio-visual) materials to the community in a variety of languages. Given its high circulation per capita, the library cannot keep up with the demand for new acquisitions with current funding. As a result, the CPL is a very heavy user of inter-library loan services, borrowing more than twice as many titles as it lends. Processing inter-library loans is more labor intensive and costly than acquiring the item initially. Over the past 15 years, acquisitions budgets have had to absorb the purchase of CD’s, books on tape, videocassettes, online databases, and CD-ROM’s without any commensurate increase in funding. The Harvard Business School analysis indicates that the CPL spends 29% below the peer average on library resources. In comparing the CPL’s A-V holdings with comparable Minuteman Network libraries the CPL is below average in every category except one:
Although CPL program offerings are exceptionally high in both quality and quantity, there are many services that have been identified by trustees, staff, and users that would greatly improve library services: telephone reference service (separate from reference desk), bibliographic instruction and other classes offered at the RTLC, and open access to Cambridge historical materials. Providing such services with available staffing is impossible.
Solutions: Additional funding for the acquisitions budget is the only way to increase holdings in both print and A-V mediums. Offering additional services is largely a matter of increasing staffing.
Goals: Resources and Services
Develop excellent, well-balanced collection:
Use summer help to re-label existing collection (after weeding)
Explore ways to automate and reorganize book ordering so that high demand titles are received more quickly
Schedule more staff time to attend to A-V (checking recent returns, repairing damaged materials and/or packaging, reordering replacement pieces, etc)
Hire staff to create telephone reference service away from public areas
Hire archivist to organize Cambridge History Collection and to offer direct service to the public
Hire additional staff to extend drop-in hours at Rotary Technology Learning Center
Change Main Library Children’s Room hours to equal Adult Library’s hours
Coordinate branch hours so that, in both the north west and south east areas of the city, at least one branch is open every evening, Monday through Thursday
Audiences
Challenges: The Cambridge Public Library serves an extremely diverse community which encompasses wealth and poverty, exceptional intellectual and academic achievement and functional illiteracy, new immigrants and life-long residents’ all within six square miles. The demand on the library to serve highly educated users, new adult learners, non-English speakers, children, seniors, persons with disabilities, and students requires physical, financial, and human resources beyond our current capacity. The City’s commitment, through the Agenda for Children, to ensure that all children and their families are literate places a major responsibility on the library to do multi-lingual outreach, public relations, literacy training, and program development beyond the traditional norms. The democratic mission of the library is intrinsically connected to its ability to serve the educational and informational needs of its diverse community.
Solutions: The CPL must initiate a system-wide plan to attract and properly serve individuals with disabilities. Staff must be freed from staffing desks to go out into the community to promote library use and literacy to all families in the city. In some cases, staff may be required to "bring the library to the community" rather than waiting for the community to come to the library. This is especially true with new immigrants, families living in poverty, young adults, and persons with disabilities.
Goals: Audiences
Offer accessible services, programs, collections and facilities to serve persons with disabilities.
Install software for visually impaired public access pc’s
Acquire and make available devices for hearing impaired for one-on-one communication and program attendance
Develop an array of services, programs, and collections tailored to the unique needs of junior and high school age students
Develop monthly YA (young adult) programming
Visit Youth Centers at least twice a year to promote library
Coordinate with CRLS librarian information about assignments, special programs
Expand participation in YA summer reading program by 20%
Improve cooperative efforts between the public library and the public schools
Facilities
Challenges: The Cambridge Public Library system includes seven facilities throughout the city. As public buildings, all public libraries should be fully compliant with the current provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. All city libraries should be well maintained, comfortably furnished, logically organized, properly lit, clean, well ventilated, climate controlled, attractively decorated, and nicely landscaped. Although progress has been made in the last few years, much of it has been in addressing deferred maintenance in all buildings. The lack of a consistent annual budget for ongoing maintenance of furnishings and structures makes it difficult to address issues before they become major problems and/or eyesores.
Solutions: An ongoing plan and budget, for building maintenance as well as furniture and equipment replacement, are essential to the provision of good service to the community. It goes without saying that the atrocious condition of the CPL’s "flagship", the main library, must be addressed immediately. The city’s leaders, the trustees, and the library staff must find a resolution to the current stalemate so that long overdue construction can begin as soon as possible.
Goals: Facilities
Conduct a system-wide study of building needs.
Main Library (new):
Main Library: (current building)
CSQ:
Valente:
O’Neill:
Collins:
O’Connell:
Communications
Challenges: The need for better communication runs throughout all aspects of CPL operations: multi-lingual outreach and introductory brochures, television and radio public service announcements, press releases, targeted marketing campaigns, public speaking, building signage, and displays. With limited staff and funds, outreach inevitably takes a back seat to direct public service. As a result, those who need the library the most are all too frequently unaware of what it has to offer them.
Solutions: The promotion of library use and services is crucial to the library’s mission and should be viewed as such by funders and policy makers. The library must achieve visibility and better outreach to non-users. Additional staff, specifically for outreach and public relations, is essential to the realization of our vision.
Goals : Communications
Hire person with outreach, marketing, and public relations skills to develop coordinated ongoing promotional campaign to various constituencies
Install signs throughout the city to direct people to public libraries
Technology
Challenges: New technologies have created an unprecedented opportunity for libraries to equalize access to an ever-expanding world of information. They have also created an unprecedented demand for computers and other high tech devices, which need to be acquired, serviced, upgraded or replaced with mind spinning frequency. As equipment changes so does the media; CD’s replaced LP’s, DVD’s will most likely replace VHS, online resources are supplanting some journals and reference books, and e-books may replace some bound books. These new and exciting technologies are essential to the provision of quality library services in the new century yet, little or no accommodation has been made in funding to provide the resources necessary to excel in these areas.
In a recent survey commissioned by the City Council, 81% of the respondents had used the Internet during the past year. It is clear that there is a demand for access, either at home or at the library, to electronic information resources. In FY00, use of public access computers at the CPL increased 41 %. In the Main Library Reference Room, use increased 69%.
The Cambridge Public Library must juggle the demands of very sophisticated high tech users with the remedial needs of users without access to electronic resources. Cambridge residents who lack the basic technical skills required for employment need to acquire those skills. It is also necessary to serve school children who do not have access to computers at home. The library is uniquely poised to bridge this "digital divide" by extending its traditional educational functions into the electronic arena. The library needs to embrace this new educational challenge with vigor and imagination.
The fast pace of technological change and electronic development necessitates constant staff development, both technical and bibliographical. The intensity of this demand affects public service coverage and the quality of service at all locations. The availability of sophisticated resources in all libraries has also raised the minimum level of competency required of staff. In the past, only highly educated reference librarians (in the Main Library only) were expected to answer sophisticated reference questions. The availability of the Internet and many online databases at the branch libraries has raised the expectations of branch users and has put an undue burden on untrained staff to meet them.
Solutions: As the library budget has traditionally included annual appropriations for acquisition of books, magazines, and recordings it must now include annual appropriations for the acquisition of computer technology, peripherals, software, and staff. Staff development must be considered as an essential component of the library’s technical advancement.
Goals: Technology
Develop a system-wide plan for library technology that ensures availability of electronic resources at all library locations
Ensure that each location has:
Install four public access computers at each of the following locations: O’Neill, Valente, and Central Square
Plan to replace computers every four years
Ensure that each public computers has its own printer
Replace all terminals with PC’s and switch MLN telecommunications functions to the city network
Install receipt printers at all circulation points
Acquire desktop PC’s for all staff members who require them
Establish program of regular maintenance and cleaning of computer equipment
Maintain reserve PC’s, printers, etc., for quick replacement of malfunctioning public equipment
Develop ongoing plan for staff evaluation and development in the area of technology
Method and Process
In May of 1996 the City Manager appointed the Library 21 Committee, made up of citizens and city officials. This committee was charged with making a comprehensive study of the needs of the Cambridge Public Library and to involve the broadest possible cross-section of the community in the process. The committee met 20 times in open, interactive public meetings throughout the city. The committee solicited input from 40 different community organizations and hundreds of residents. Some 3,000 suggestions were received and logged in a database. The Library 21 Committee concluded its work in October of 1997.
In the summer of 1999 the library hired facilitator, Steven Miller, to engage the staff and trustees in a strategic planning process which would incorporate the ideas gleaned from the Library 21 process. The trustees and selected department heads drafted the mission statement, vision statement, and roles which were then presented to the full staff for feedback and review. General staff meetings were held to identify challenges and solutions. Library department heads met with Trustees to set priorities. The final distillation of challenges, solutions, and goals was completed by the Board of Trustees in the fall of 2000.
December 2000
Accomplishments from FY96 Five Year Strategic Plan
Facilities:
O’Connell Branch:
Collins Branch:
Valente:
CSQ:
Main Library:
Installed exterior library logo signs at: O’Neill, Collins, Main, Central Square, and O’Connell
Technology:
Hired Information Systems Coordinator
Developed LAN for Main Library
Developed WAN for library system as part of city-wide network
Introduced public access PC’s at all library locations
Purchases VCR’s and monitors for all locations
Began transition from terminal based MLN system to PC based system
Encouraged and directed staff to participate in multiple technical training classes offered by City, Minuteman Network, and MetroWest Regional Library System
Offered Internet 101 classes at RTLC to public
Offered MLN Web II classes to staff
Expanded access to electronic databases at all library locations through membership in MLN and MetroWest
Networked CD-ROM sources at Main Library
Installed administrative fax machines at all locations
Communications
Received grant from Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners to hire outreach worker to promote library to residents of Newtowne Court, Washington Elms, and Roosevelt Towers Low Income Housing Developments.
Developed unique programming to promote library on site at each location
Distributed library newsletter each month door-to-door and engaged residents in conversation about the library
Created 10 minute video to promote library use to non-users
Worked with Harrington, Maynard, and Fletcher Schools to promote family literacy and library use
Developed award winning Cambridge Public Library Web Page
Designed new logo for library system
Instituted "Friend of the Library Awards"
Installed Suggestions Boxes at all locations, in addition to MLN and web page online suggestion boxes
Instituted On & Off Broadway, a monthly library newsletter and calendar of events
Services
Worked with Cambridge Community Partnership for Children to institute home delivery of library materials to family based home day care providers
Hired Young Adult Librarian at Main Library
Hired Internet Bookers in Main Reference Department
Instituted online "Ask a Librarian" service
Developed Bengali collection at CSQ Branch
Instituted Spanish language and Chinese language story hours in addition to Portuguese
Revived TTY service at Main Library
Funding
Developed a thriving Friends of the Library group which numbers over 400 members and hosts two major fund raising events each year
Established an endowment fund under the auspices of the Cambridge Community Foundation
Received major donation from Rotary Club of Cambridge to fund the construction of Rotary Technology Learning Center
Established Trust Funds in honor of Joseph G Sakey and in memory of Anthony DeVito and Kathleen Nickerson