MLA 2015

We really enjoyed giving this presentation at MLA 2015 in Worcester, MA this week. Thanks to everyone who attended. Here's a copy of the presentation. Enjoy and email me at kim@rethinkinglibraries.org if you have questions.

Stay tuned for the furniture vendor list that I promised. I'll be posting it soon.

2014 New York Library Annual Conference

Rob and I were so pleased to present, yet once again, for the Leadership and Management Section (LAMS) at the 2014 NYLA Annual Conference. We hope everyone took away at least one tip from our presentation titled, "Your Future, Your Library" or, lovingly referred to over the years as, "21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries." Don't hesitate to let us know if you have questions or need anything to help you along as you strive for library greatness.

ALA Annual 2014

For anyone attending ALA Annual in Las Vegas this June, I'll be conducting some free 1:1 space planning sessions. Register here. NOTE: If my time slots are full, email me directly.

Also, on Saturday, June 28 from 1 - 2:30 in the Las Vegas Convention Center (room N243), I will be part of panel presentation discussing Developing Collaborative Spaces.  Would love to see you there!

ALA 2012, Anaheim, CA

For those of you who have emailed me (and for those of you who haven't) for information about my presentations at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim (CA), here are the links to my slides:

Rethink and Re-envison: Dynamic Redesigns of Existing Spaces

Where the Wild Things Are: Children's Discovery & Learning Spaces  
(Note: My section of this was titled, "Zoning in on Children's Space: Engaging Your Youngest Visitors")

Please feel free to contact me directly for additional information or with questions.

Top 10 Benefits of Tough Times

Just a quick follow-up to the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. For all of you who attended Cathy Hakala-Ausperk's and my Pre-conference, thanks so much for participating. We had a great time and hope you did too (and hopefully you took away a few inspirational ideas while you were at it).

So, here again are the top 10 benefits of tough times:

10. Refresh Your Organization
9. Developing Staff Skills
8. Make New Friends
7. Finally Write That Grant
6. Say It Better (Improve Communications)
5. Kill Mission Creep
4. Enjoy Spring Cleaning (Leaner Facilities)
3. Weed’em and Reap
2. Meet New Needs and Create New Users
1. Adjust Your Attitude

For more details, check out the PLA Blog and P. Sweeney's post.

Here too is the .pdf copy of the presentation as well as the quotes from the beginning of the day. If there's anything else don't hesitate to contact me.

Also, for any of you who attended or missed the panel presentation "Consulting From Both Sides of the Fence: Why Libraries Hire Consultants, and How Consultants Get Jobs ," feel free to contact me with questions.

Midwinter 2011

Just a quick follow-up for those of you who attended "21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries" in San Diego at Midwinter...

Feel free to contact me at kim@libraryexperience.com for a copy of the presentation if you want to share it with your staff, board members and/or community.

Also, many of you were interested in more information on FireSign, that great digital signage vendor that Rob and I spoke with at the conference. Please check them out. They're doing great things with wayfinding and digital signage as well as integration of their product with other products such as Evanced Solution's Events and Room Reserve software.

Public Libraries Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century

Just wanted to remind everyone that you can still register for the PLA Institute: Public Libraries Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century to be held at ALA Midwinter on Friday, January 7, 2011 (9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.). Registration is open until December 29, 2010.

Rob and I will be presenting "21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries" during the afternoon session. We'll provide you with ideas and best practices--covering facilities, marketing, staffing, community collaborations, customer service, and technology--that will help your library thrive in the 21st century. Learn how to manage, in good times and in bad, and how to incorporate innovative new ideas in your library.

Overall, our goal is to inspire you! We want you to leave the session motivated and enthused, even in the light of tough economic times. Think of tough times not as a negative, but as a positive--a prime opportunity to make changes and improvements and to offer service like you never have before.

For more information and registration details visit the PLA @ Midwinter website.

Libraries Rock in Indiana!

"Libraries Rock" was the theme of this year's 2010 Indiana Library Federation Annual Conference held this week in Indianapolis, IN. Rob and I were glad to be a part of it (and to be home)!

We presented our 21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries CE session on Monday for over 50 people. We were pleased to see so many there to hear about new ideas and best practices--covering facilities, marketing, staffing, community collaborations, customer service, and technology--that will help libraries thrive in the 21st century. Our focus was on helping people learn how to manage and be a success in good times and in bad and how to incorporate innovative ideas in libraries of all sizes and budgets.

On Tuesday afternoon I did a mini session called What's Your Sign: Signage & Wayfinding in Libraries. I was amazed that we had a packed house -- over 65 people. Now, that's dedication, especially when it's late in the afternoon and we're talking about signage--typically, not the most exciting of topics ;-).

Just a quick reminder to everyone to download my Signage Planning Worksheet and to try out the "Beautiful>Ugly" graph developed by Aaron Schmidt. Read more on his blog Walking Paper. You can also print out a copy of the graph from the What's Your Sign presentation.

Also, here are some other helpful signage and wayfinding resources including some vendor information that was requested during the sessions:

Vinyl lettering resources (there are so many out there, but here are a few): Try Demco, Highsmith, Brodart. Also, FastSigns, Right on the Walls, Signazon, and many, many more...

Indiana-based pop-up banner companies: CustomBannerLab.com, Indy Displays, Matrix Imaging, and, once again, many, many more...

Libris Design's Wayfinding and Signage Document

San Jose Public Library's Signage Design Guidelines

Demco's Signage Planning

Don't forget to call if you need anything or have questions. Thanks everyone!

New York in Fall, More 21 Ideas, and Lawler Kang

Well, it proved to be another great New York Library Association (NYLA) conference this year. Saratoga Springs was beautiful (even with the rain). Rob and I were happy to see so many of our friends and colleagues at the exhibits and were extremely enthused by the turnout at our 21+ Ideas for 21st Century Libraries presentation.

We also had the pleasure to hear Lawler Kang speak at the Library Administration and Management Section luncheon. Check out his book Passion at Work: How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life. Very inspirational.

ALA 2010

As promised, here are copies of my two presentations from this year's ALA conference: Teen Space: Design with Economy and Top Library Building Trends.

Thanks to @librarian_cyn who tweeted about me -- "Great library space is more than furniture and architecture: service plan must come first!"

Among other things, I know a few of you had specific questions about digital creativity and content creation. I've been working on developing planning tools on this topic and have several colleagues throughout the U.S. who have collaborated with me on this type of thing. See too my 6/21/10 post on the Transformation Lab and the Aarhus Library in Denmark.

If you have further questions or need additional assistance in this area (or in any other facilities planning area), don't hesitate to contact me.

Also, many of you asked for copies of Supporting the Next Generation of Public Computing, the LITA Public Library Technology Interest Group presentation Rob and I coordinated. Just click on the presenters name to access each presentation. Thanks again to Chuck McClure, David Leonard and Rob Caluori for being on the panel.

LACONI Youth Services Conference, Illinois

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and sharing ideas at the LACONI Youth Services Conference. Thanks to Kathy Fredrickson for asking me and to the La Grange Public Library and its staff for hosting. It was a great day!

As we discussed, here's a copy of the presentation with the notes. Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions about any of the content or if you need additional information.

Don't forget to check out my Teen Spaces Flickr site and several of the other resources on this blog that I mentioned in the session.

I was really inspired by several of you who asked questions and came up to talk with me after the session. Best of luck on all your projects and keep thinking BIG for teens!

What's Hot in Teen Spaces @ FLA

I just arrived at the Florida Library Association conference in Orlando, FL last night. I'm very happy to be in Florida again and to be presenting at the 2010 conference.

For all of you attending my "What's Hot in Teen Spaces" presentation, below is a copy of the presentation as well as a few additional resources to supplement the handouts I gave you.

Thanks for attending and keep in touch.

What's Hot in Teen Spaces

The Need for Teen Space

The Asset Approach and Teen Space

Teen Spaces Guidelines

Digital Creativity Spaces Overview

Teen Spaces Bibliography
*Also check out Sandra Feinberg's and James Keller's article "Designing Space for Children and Teens" in the April 2010 edition of American Libraries.

Be a Good Boss

I'm on my way to the 2010 PLA National Conference in Portland, OR on Monday. In addition to helping my husband in the Evanced Solutions' booth #2133 (they're releasing their latest product BranchAnywhere, an automated library materials vending solution), I will also be presenting "Be a Good Boss: One Year to Success" on Friday, 3/26 (8:30 a.m.) with my friend and colleague Cathy Hakala-Ausperk.

Cathy and I are looking forward to the presentation and hope to leave everyone enthusiastic about being a better boss.

Click here for a copy of our presentation. We'd also like to share the Table of Contents and a Sample Workbook Outline from Cathy's upcoming book "Be a Great Boss" (to be published by ALA Editions in Late Summer / Early Fall 2010).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at Kim@libraryexperience.com or Cathy at chakalaausperk@gmail.com

Get Assistance to Attend ALA 2010

Evanced Solutions just posted that they're sponsoring a "We Love Evanced" Video Competition. Prizes include free software as well as a $1000 scholarship to attend ALA 2010 in Washington, D.C. Find more information on the Evanced blog.

Massachusetts Library Association Conference 2009

Rob and I really enjoyed our time in Springfield, MA. Thanks to everyone who attended our sessions, 21 Ideas for 21st Century Libraries and Teen Third Place. We hope you found the sessions useful. Let us know if you have any questions.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the 2010 conference, if not before.

2009 PLA Symposium

What a great day and a half at the 2009 PLA Symposium in Nashville, TN on April 3 and 4. Jane, Tim, Marc, Cathy and I would like to thank the 106 participants who attended our session, "Today's Library: From the Inside Out." We had a great time and learned a lot. We hope you did too.

As promised, here is a .pdf of the final PowerPoint presentation. It will remain on my blog for the next several weeks. If you have questions, please let me know.
Today's Library Powerpoint

Also, here are a few other items people requested:

1. "Wood" ceiling information for the Ramsey County (MN) - Maplewood Library project
Organtex
Acoustigreen Organtex
Photo of Maplewood ceiling

2. "Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill" articles include, but aren't limited to:
Peter Carbonara Article #1
Peter Carbonara Article #2

3. Meeting room management software is called Room Reserve by Evanced Solutions and the vending solution for libraries is called GoLibrary also by Evanced Solutions. See also my blog post from 1/13/09.

4. See my 3/15/09 post for mobile service point solutions.

5. Free Signage - The Dewey pictograms are available on the California State Library's literacy website. They can be downloaded in low or high resolution at California Library Literacy Services.

PLA 2008

Thanks to everyone who attended my PLA sessions (21st Century Library Design and Talking without Jargon). Also, thanks to everyone for their warm wedding wishes. It was a crazy ride going from a busy PLA week in Minneapolis straight on to our wedding in Aurora, NY on March 29. It was an absolutely beautiful day! Stay tuned for more photos.

As promised, here are copies of both presentations. Feel free to email me at bolan_kimberly@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

21st Century Library Design - PLA Conference - March 27, 2008

Talking without Jargon: Improving Library & IT Relations - PLA Conference - March 27, 2008

Kim's Presentation Schedule (January - June 2008)

January 2008
24th - Southwest Georgia RESA (Pelham, GA) - Teen Spaces

February 2008
28th - Seymour Public Library (Auburn, NY) - Customer Service Made Simple

March 2008
27th (10:30 a.m.) - PLA (Minneapolis, MN) - 21st Century Library Design
27th (4 p.m.) - PLA (Minneapolis, MN) - Technology Made Simple

April 2008
7th - Computers in Libraries Conference (Arlington, VA) - High Touch With Customer Care
21st - Lincoln Trail Libraries System (IL) - Teen Spaces
28th - Central Massachusetts Regional Library System - Teen Spaces

May 2008
5th - Prairie Area Library System (IL) - Teen Spaces

June 2008
28th and 29th (3 p.m.)- ALA (Anaheim, CA) - Q & A on the 2nd edition of Teen Spaces (due out in fall 2008) and Technology Made Simple

30th (1:30 p.m.) - ALA (Anaheim, CA) - YALSA President's Program - Between Home & School: The Teen Third Space

More to come...

More Shining Stars

At ALA Annual the PLA Small and Medium-Sized Libraries Committee sponsored a program entitled More Shining Stars: Award-Winning Programs from Small and Medium-Sized Public Libraries . The program featured a panel of award winners from small and medium-sized public libraries. These libraries show a remarkable range of creativity in developing services and programs that can be replicated by other libraries. The award winners that were showcased have had success in developing collaboration with other libraries and partnerships with schools or other agencies and they have raised their visibility as community centers by developing award-winning programs which will be shared with attendees.

Speakers included Peggy Carlson, Adult Services Dept. Head, Bloomingdale (IL) Public Library; Abby Williams, Librarian, Bloomingdale (IL) Public Library; Linda Yoder, Director, Nappanee (IN) Public Library; Laurel Best, Director, Linebaugh (TN) Public Library.

As the new chair of the Small and Medium-Size Library Committee, I have been asked to post some of the presentations and handouts to share.

Nappanee Presentation

Bloomingdale Presentation

Bloomingdale Handout #1

Bloomingdale Handout #2

2006 New York State Annual Conference

As the 2006 NYLA Conference Chair, I am happy to report that this year's conference in Saratoga Spring was a huge success! Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police, opened the conference with an inspirational keynote address and

Bill Barnes & Gene Ambaum, of the comic strip Unshelved http://www.overduemedia.com/, provided a very entertaining farewell luncheon (more people than we've seen in years for the closing session). From the excellent selection of programs to the wide array of vendors to the DJ and dancing at the Inaugural Banquet, this http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=1278">conference will definitely be one to remember.