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Collaboration: Leveraging Local and State Resources within Public Libraries in Oklahoma

Alyson Hayes

LIS - 5233

Summer 2019

Public libraries today epitomize the phrase “doing more, with less”. They offer more

services, programs and items for check out and often have less money and fewer staff than in
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years past, due to constant budget cuts. So how to they do it? How do they meet the constant and

varied demands of their public with fewer and fewer resources? The answer, collaboration.

Bertot’s 2013 article states, “A growing number of libraries have entered into

partnerships with government agencies and/or other community organizations. These

partnerships are driven by community needs and economic realities, as the partnerships are better

able to deliver existing services or can combine efforts to provide new services in response to

rapidly changing community needs.” Whether it is at the local or state level, collaboration is key

to a public library’s success.This essay will provide resources and examples of possible

community collaborations at the local and state level and how both can be beneficial public

libraries, their partners and the community as a whole.

Local:

We have all heard the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. This is

absolutely true when it comes to collaborating with community partners. “Collaborations start

with relationships; it is all about interactions between people” (“Effectively Collaborating”,

2019). When exploring potential collaboration partnerships, start with personal connections that

already exist. If you are a municipal library, explore partnering with other city departments, such

as Parks and Recreation and Community Resources. If you are a library system, start with your

Board of Trustees and staff members to see what they have to offer and what potential

partnerships already exist. An example of one such collaborative alliance in Southern Oklahoma

is called Southern Oklahoma Area Partners (SOAP). SOAP is a group of non-profit and

educational organizations who all provide unique services to the area. This group hosts regular

meetings and provides members with immediate collaborative partnership opportunities.

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Another major collaborative partner at the local level is the local school system. “State

after state and city after city have drastically cut the number of libraries in their public schools

and the number of librarians employed,” (Breeding, 2015). Common collaborations between

schools and their public libraries are collection, technology and service based. One example that

combines collection and technology is between the Love County Library and the Marietta

Middle School in Marietta, OK. The middle school has provided all of its students with tablets

and the Love County Library is providing all students library cards with access to their online

Overdrive library. A collaboration such as this relieves the school of being burdened with the

high cost of implementing an online library collection for students, while increasing the number

of cardholders and reaching a new audience at the public library.

Public libraries should also look to their local businesses, non-profit and civic

organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, Lions and Rotary clubs, nursing

homes, daycare centers and extension offices for potential collaborative partners. A Library

Journal article provides an example of this with the Denver Public Library which, due to the

demand for technology related classes, opened up a Community Technology Center. The staff at

the library didn’t feel that they were equipped to teach classes to patrons so they partnered with

local technology companies.

Staff from the companies came into the library and instructed the classes and staff sat in

and participated so they could learn the technology to teach classes in the future, (Enis, 2016).

With technology playing such a major role in today’s world, classes such as these are in demand

at all libraries. Access to technology educators for more rural communities could come from

local extension offices, colleges or universities and technology centers.

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County cooperative extension offices offer many opportunities for collaboration

throughout the state. They offer many life skills classes such as computer education, cooking,

sewing, gardening and farming. One of their current projects is providing a grant opportunity that

allows rural libraries across the state to check out Wi-Fi hotspots to their patrons. This grant

provides internet service to many people in rural areas who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford

or have access to it. It is made even more beneficial by the fact that patrons are able to check out

the devices and take them home for up to a week at a time.

State:

The state of Oklahoma has two wonderful resources specifically for libraries in the

Oklahoma Library Association (OLA) and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries (ODL). OLA

(oklibs.org) hosts an annual conference and educational workshops throughout the year. One of

the biggest benefits OLA offers is the ability to meet and build relationships with other librarians

around the state. These relationships allow for the sharing of resources across libraries statewide.

One example of this is the “Book Club Kit Exchange” started by Aaron Gray of the Ponca City

Public Library in 2018. This program allows participating libraries across the state to share book

club books. Participating in this program means libraries have a much bigger selection of books

to choose from without the cost of buying the books or worrying about storing them when not in

use.

ODL (libraries.ok.gov) has many potential opportunities and resources available to

libraries including Digital Prairie, the Citizenship and Immigration Project and the health literacy

initiative. Digital Prairie is a wonderful online resource made possible by ODL and the Institute

of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Libraries, whether public, school or academic, know

the importance of databases. They also know how expensive these databases can be. Digital
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Prairie offers access to databases such as EBSCO and Britannica free of charge to all Oklahoma

Libraries. This allows libraries to provide reliable information sources to their patrons while

saving the library money.

ODL’s Citizenship and Immigration Project was started to meet the growing need for

English language instruction and immigration services in Oklahoma. Multiple libraries across the

state have participated in the program and each is tailored specifically to the needs of its

community. “According to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, more than 55% of new

Americans use the public library at least once a week.” (For Libraries, 2019). This statistic

proves that public libraries are seen as a trusted environment where people can go to improve

their circumstances and that classes such as these are very beneficial to communities across the

state.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Libraries website Oklahoma ranks 47th

overall in terms of health. This is due to high rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and low

physical activity and healthy eating among residents. To help improve the state’s overall health,

since 2012 ODL has provided libraries across the state with health literacy grants and as of 2019,

they had provided 108 grants benefiting 52 communities across the state (For Libraries, 2019).

As stated in a 2018 article by Eliza D. Whiteman et al. (2018), “Public libraries are free and

accessible to all and are centers of community engagement and education, making them logical

choices as partners for improving population health.” This health literacy initiative has libraries

seeking collaboration at both the local and state level.

Local partners may include doctors and healthy living professionals, health departments,

food banks, nutrition centers, gyms, YMCAs, yoga studios, county extension offices, etc. At the

state level, partners may include Oklahoma Healthy Aging Initiative (OHAI), OU Health
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Sciences Center, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, etc. These businesses and organizations can bring

programs into the library such as tai-chi, low impact stretching and exercise classes, diabetes

care, healthy cooking, and many more. These programs allow libraries to meet a community

need, and provide professional services to the public, who might not otherwise have access to

these resources.

The possibilities for potential partnerships between libraries and other organizations can

be endless, regardless of library size. There are two fundamental requirements to ensuring

success in these partnerships. The first is to determine the community’s needs. Each community,

even libraries within the same system, has unique needs specific to that community and libraries

must make sure they are meeting those needs. The second is to establish and maintain positive

relationships with partners and make sure that the collaboration is beneficial to both parties.

With every community’s unique needs, there are organizations that have to ability to

meet those needs, it is simply up to the library to seek out and establish relationships with those

partners. The task may seem daunting at first, but once the relationships are formed, the benefits

of these collaborations; for the library, its partners and the community are endless.

Bibliography:

Bertot, J., Jaeger, P., Gorham, U., Taylor, N., & Lincoln, R. (2013). Delivering e-government

services and transforming communities through innovative partnerships: Public libraries,

government agencies, and community organizations. Information Polity,18(2), 127-138.

Retrieved from:
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http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?

vid=1&sid=91d89baa-eeb9-4639-988f-50bfc55052b5%40sdc-v-sessmgr03

Breeding, M. (2015). “A Combined Effort: Partnerships Between School and Public Libraries.”

Computers in Libraries. 35(7). 14-16. Retrieved from:

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?

vid=1&sid=8fdd7638-26a4-4e83-a2b3-34416d82bc34%40pdc-v-sessmgr04

Effectively collaborating with other libraries and partners. (n.d.). Retrieved from:

http://www.techsoupforlibraries.org/Cookbooks/Planning%20for

%20Success/Communication%20and%20Partnerships/effectively-collaborating-with-

other-l

Enis, M. (2016). “How to speak code: as computer programming skills become a new frontier in

digital literacy, public libraries are forging ahead with partnerships, meet-ups and

advanced courses.” Library Journal. 41(3), 37. Retrieved from :

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=cf

be3cbe-6981-4656-8b55-f332228fc5df%40pdc-v-sessmgr02

For Libraries. Oklahoma Department of libraries (2019). Retrieved from:

https://libraries.ok.gov/librarians/

Whiteman, E., Dupuis, R., Morgan, A., D'Alonzo, B., Epstein, C., Klusaritz, H., & Cannuscio, C.

(2018). Public Libraries As Partners for Health. Preventing Chronic Disease, 15(5), E64.

Retrieved from: https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-

gov.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/pmc/articles/PMC5985906/pdf/PCD-15-E64.pdf