In this environment of increasing library usage compounded by staff cuts and decreasing budgets it is more important than ever for libraries to form strong partnerships in order to leverage limited resources and raise awareness of the impact of library services. Find out more about how you can identify partnerships and build collaboration in this issue of “What’s New @ WJIL.”
Contents: Resources | Courses and Learning | Community | What could I do with…? | What’s New RSS Feed 
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Resources
Communication and Partnerships: Tools
Excerpted from the MaintainIT Planning for Success Cookbook, this list of resources will get you rolling with new partnerships.
- Possible Resources and Tools for Establishing Library Collaboration
- Compatible Library Partners Chart
- What to Consider when Entering into a Collaborative Process
- Tips and Techniques for Creating Strong Partnerships
- Path: [Library Management » Community Relations » Partnerships]
Community and Library Services Analysis Tool
- Analysis worksheets created by Kitty Yancheff of the Humboldt County Library in Eureka, California to assess community and library services to triage social services
- Path: [Library Management » Community Relations » Partnerships]
Building Partnerships Success Stories
- WebJunction members and their libraries engage in a wide range of successful partnerships. Here are some of the success stories from the field.
- Path: [Library Management » Community Relations » Partnerships]
- Although an archive from a January 2008 Rural In Focus webinar, the resources and ideas presented like shared programming, shared staffing, board and staff development days, and countywide wikis are just as relevant today.
- Path: [Library Management » Community Relations » Partnerships]
Courses and Learning
Enroll in the following WJIL courses related to building library partnerships.
Improving Your Communication Skills: Presentation Skills for Librarians
- Building partnerships requires good communication. Use this UNT LE@D course to polish your presentation and communication skills.
Leadership for Libraries: Becoming an Everyday Leader
- Library leadership used to be defined mostly by age, experience, credentials, seniority and tenure, job position or other traditional models of status with the library tribe. Today, leadership skills are required at every level to ensure libraries can respond effectively to the new worlds we live in. The changes won’t wait for a model of top-down responses. We need different models of leadership: Everybody needs to be able to think and act like a leader.
Creating Collaborative Lessons for the Elementary School
- There are tremendous benefits for schools from successful collaboration efforts between classroom teachers and the school librarian. Collaborative lessons with classroom teachers can support the development of vibrant, curriculum centered school library programming that effectively meets students’ development and learning needs. Effective collaboration requires commitment from the school librarian to building and maintaining relationships with teachers and integrating classroom needs with administrative curriculum goals, library programming activities, and collection development efforts.
Community
Join in the Discussions on topics related to partnerships.
What Could I do with…Partnerships?
- Set aside the time to consider the long term benefits of community partnerships.
- Use the resources from this newsletter to determine if there are compatible partnerships for your library that you’ve never thought of, or never pursued.
- Form a working team from your library staff to brainstorm ideas around potential partnerships
- Make yourself available to other community organizations for presentations about your library. (Before you do, be sure to take the free course listed here on Improving Your Communication Skills!)
- Ask yourself what your library and other community organizations have in common and what community resources can be leveraged by a partnership.