always learning

Yesterday Tara and I had the pleasure of hosting a one-day workshop at ISB entitled Rethink: Inspiring School Library Spaces, led by Kevin Hennah, an exceptionally engaging library consultant from Melbourne. Not only was the presentation informative and inspiring (more on that later), but the story of how it all came to be is pretty interesting too.

Once again, the power of personal learning networks leads to amazing real life connections. Kevin was presenting at a conference in Cairns with Judy O’Connell last April, who, though she has never been to our Learning Hub, included a picture or two from my Flickr set in her presentation. When Kevin saw the pictures of our space, Judy connected us via e-mail, and Kevin, on one of his regular visits to Bangkok, was standing in our library a few weeks later!

As soon as we met him, Tara and I knew he would be a fantastic speaker (and have tons of crucial advice on adding the finishing touches to our Learning Hub), so, in the span of a few weeks we arranged a one-day workshop here in Bangkok and invited any and all interested regional librarians. Amazingly, despite the fact that we started our planning in early May (at the very hectic end to our school year) and the fact that the workshop took place during the first week of school for most people, we had quite a crowd. Over 30 librarians flew in from all over Asia: Taiwan, China, Brunei, Singapore, and of course, Thailand.

As we anticipated, Kevin did not dissappoint. His previous experience in retail sales and marketing gives him a unique perspective on libraries, and his endless suply of “before and after” images provided practical ideas that librarians can implement immediately. A few of Kevin’s points really jumped out at me:

Libraries have customers, not patrons: If libraries take only one thing from retail, it should be that their job is to attract and entice customers into their space by branding (think logos and bold signage), attractive marketing of books, and a welcoming environment. Kevin challenges librarians to see their library from the customer’s perspective – finding things should be breeze, customers should be able to pinpoint the resources they’re looking for without a map, and the strategic arrangement of resources should encourage “impulse” borrowing.

Think of your library like a monopoly board: When a customer walks in to the space, they should find themselves on “Park Place” or “Boardwalk.” The most popular, most interesting and most inviting resources should be front and center. Kevin recommends walking around your space to determine your “hot,” “warm,” and “cold” zones to ensure that whatever is placed in the hot zone is “paying the rent.”

Make the books the stars! Instead of thinking about creating complicated “displays,” focus on a marketing strategy to “sell” as many books as possible. Keep the covers front and center using a quick and easy strategy for high impact visuals, instead of something contrived that takes ages to construct. Think DVD or CD displays in a mall – the more covers a customer can see, the more likely they’ll be to pick something up. Take advantage of the ends of aisles like a supermarket, where browsing can lead to borrowing.

Kevin had some great quick and easy ideas for high impact marketing strategies that libraries can implement in no time at all:

• Put a recent returns cart or shelf in front of a library with a big sign, capitalizing on easy of display as well as ensuring that high interest books are front and center.
• Welcome your customers, don’t nag them. Why is the first thing we often see when walking into a library a (usually poorly made) notices not to eat, not to talk, and not to use your phone instead of a welcoming sign?
• Use those glass cases to showcase books on hold, rather than books you actually want people to borrow. Tantalize your patrons with something they can’t get their hands on yet, to entice them to come back again.

Final Thoughts

If retail strategies have so much to offer libraries, I’m now left wondering, what do popular and “addictive” websites, like Facebook, have to offer schools trying to shape their online presence?

This past week we have been very fortunate to have two fantastic library experts, Doug Johnson and Ann Krembs, here at ISB to help guide us through our Main Library Review. While they were here specifically to share recommendations for our upcoming renovation of our Main Library (for middle and high school students), they also generously stopped down in the ES Learning Hub to give us some advice on how to improve our space.

It’s amazing what a fresh pair of eyes can see.

Within moments, Doug and Ann, had several easy, but very effective, suggestions for us. Interestingly, one of those suggestions was exactly what Silvia said about our Tech Zone when she was here in Bangkok a few weeks ago, but it didn’t really hit me until this week:

You have to give them something different. The Learning Hub (library) has to offer a physical environment that is different than other spaces teachers and students regularly use.

This hit me like a bolt of lightening. Of course! Why would they use our space, when they can continue to use their own, more private space, that has been customized to their specific classroom needs? Especially considering how well-resourced we are as a school, with laptop carts for every 2 classrooms and extensive classroom libraries.

In our efforts to make a 21st century learning environment, we had mistakenly recreated a standard, formal classroom space at the very front of the Learning Hub, assuming that teachers would want to use it as an expanded classroom:

Of course, that space was also back-to-back with our “computer lab” space, making it very difficult to have classes in both spaces at the same time.

Now, with the advice of Doug and Ann, we’ve redesigned the space to make it more of a “movie theater” look for story time, as well as open up the shelving to spread the tables throughout the library to allow more privacy in seating:

We’re hoping we’ve captured the “something different” idea with this arrangement. Who has a movie theater in their classroom with comfy chairs and surround sound speakers?

And just for fun we added some chess boards:

And rearranged our fiction reading nook:

Our next step is to tackle the “computer lab” area (called the Tech Zone) and transform it into a multimedia editing suite, with a green-screen and podcasting stations:

What are you doing to offer something different in your learning space? What other changes would you recommend we make in this space?