Jun 27 2008
Final Project
Caveat: Although the statistics cited for the city of New Haven are real and were taken from the U.S. Census Bureau at www.censu.gov, the rest of background information contained in this plan is a work of fiction, created for this project.
Background Information/Description of Library
My project is to launch a Virtual Women’s Center as a part of the New Haven Free Public Library. We have a population of about 125,000 (52% female); median income is about $30,000 per year; 28 % of the population speaks a language other than English at home; and 24% of the population live below the poverty line.
The creation of a Women’s Resource Center (WRC) was targeted in our library’s Millennium Goals and also our 2004 updated Five Year Plan. A center such as this would compliment the Children’s, Young Adult, Reference, Periodicals and Technology units housed in our central library building. The need for a WRC is driven by research showing our community has a large population of women with self-sufficiency issues, and that if left unchecked and unaddressed, their dependency may create a burden on our city’s budget and resources. Yet, due to budget cuts and the mushrooming energy costs needed to run the library facilities, it has become clear to the library staff that our goal of a physical space for the WRC will not come to pass. Therefore, we must begin to think outside of the box and create new ways of reaching this large portion of our population.
WRC Mission Statement
The Women’s Center is dedicated to the empowerment of women. As advocates of the cultural, intellectual, social and spiritual lives of the women we serve, we provide resources and support as these women enrich our community through the pursuit of their individual goals.
Purpose/justification for project
With this in mind, I would like to propose to the Library Board of Directors, my plans to implement a “virtual” WRC. This web-based center would provide services without a footprint or walls, and without operational costs and constraints. Services and resources could be accessed from home, school and work or from public terminals within our buildings.
The purpose of the VWRC is to help women in transitional stages of their lives cope with the challenges of those changes. Our target audience would be women between 20 and 65 years of age, who, through choice or circumstances beyond their control, find themselves in transition: newly alone and struggling. These women are widows, divorced, single heads of households, empty nesters and women whose partners are fighting in Iraq. They are finding themselves alone, back in school or back to work for the first time in years, and they are struggling to keep their new lives together.
We have identified the following services as those most important in addressing the needs of our patrons in order to fulfill the mission statement of the VWRC.
- Awareness and training on remote access of library resources for educational and personal growth.
- Knowledge of resources available for assistance with education, family, economic and health needs.
- Career counseling and training on marketable skills.
- Support groups for sense of community.
- Flexibility in regards to training, workshops and informational needs.
I ask for your patience as I now list through the proposed technology for this venture, its cost, and its impact on staff and training.
Technology requirements – Implications for staffing
You will be relieved to hear that what I am proposing is based on either Web 2.0 tools that are freely accessible to the general public, or applications already in use by our library.
At this point in my presentation, I feel I should pause for a moment and explain just what I mean when I refer to Web 2.0 technologies. I know you are all familiar with the web, but perhaps you are unsure of what the new buzz word “Web 2.0” means. Web 2.0 is the participatory web. Web 2.0 tools use the web interactively. We no longer need web masters to create our web pages. We can create them ourselves and we can take them one step further, as with “wikis” and create a site where our work can be edited or added to by others. We can create blogs to push our information out and we can stay connected with our patrons through instant messaging. You will sometimes hear these tools referred to as “social networking tools” due to the interaction they provide among users. They are therefore, the perfect choice for tools I would use in the VWRC in order to provide our patrons with the sense of unity and sisterhood they need at this difficult juncture of their lives.
Proposed Points of Access
- New Haven Free Public Library at http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/library/. The first point of access to the VWRC will be our link of the NHPL’s webpage.
- There would be a fee involved in the redesigning of the library web page to include the VWRC logo. Quotes from the original NHPL web designer and two competitors ran from $750 – $1000.
- Mock up of proposed VWRC:
- Links on the VWRC. These would include research guides pertaining to women’s issues of health, finances, employment, family and religion.
- For educational resources, subject guides by discipline are already available.
- Costs are negligible since the databases, publications and URLs listed are already available and factored into the library’s budget. I estimate it would take $450 (15 hours at the rate of a Librarian I salary) to compile the bibliography.
- VWRC Librarian’s Blog. A blog is short for web log. It is a website usually maintained by an individual and is used to push information to the general public. Posts can be commentary, announcements of events and new products or just something fun you’d like to share. The posts are listed in chronological order, and using technology similar to our OPACs, they can be tagged with keywords to enable searching by topic. Readers are allowed to respond to your posts but their comments do not go up on the blog unless you accept them.
- The VWRC blog would be used to inform women of upcoming workshops and new resources of interest. As a single parent who got their degree while working and raising a family, I hope that the insight of my editorials will connect with them so they know they are not alone in their struggles.
- Again, the costs would be negligible. I will use Edublog software, which lets you create a free blog for educational purposes. I estimate spending roughly 5 hours per week, at the rate of Librarian I salary ($7800 per year), monitoring and adding to the blog.
- My blog would also contain a Blogroll, which lists other blogs of interest. The following blog is one example – Mother’s Click is an award winning social networking tool. http://www.mothersclick.com/
- For an example, please check out my personal blog at: http://dfalvey.edublogs.org/
- Videos and Podcasts. The blog would be used as a vehicle for notifying patrons of videos and podcasts for personal instruction and training.
- Videos on any topic can be watched or downloaded from sites like YouTube: www.youtube.com. The library also has a large selection of videos and access to the holdings of the Connecticut Digital Library (iConn).
- I plan to compile a list of links on YouTube for videos on household repairs and car maintenance, two skills most of our patrons find themselves in need of.
- Here is an example of a video on repairing a hole in a wall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbtRGTFtA6I
- Here is an example of a video on replacing your windshield wiper blades: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMzviqD5cCs
- Podcasts are portable media that you can download and listen to just as you would download music to your IPod. In fact, the name podcast is derived from the words IPod and broadcast. Podcasts can be a taped lecture, a talking book, or a how to guide. Podcasts can be done in series, almost like a spoken blog, and you can opt to be notified or have updates sent directly to you through an RSS feed. (RSS feeds are ongoing notification subscriptions to the blog or newsfeed content of your choice.)
- I plan to compile a list of recommended sites offering podcasts. They are not only educational but can also provide a relaxing way to keep up with the news and cultural topics of the times. Busy women juggling many hats might find it a luxury to be able to listen to someone read to them while they are cooking and cleaning after a long day of work or school. Some examples:
- List of educational podcasts: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec700/POD/resources.htm
- List of free podcasts of novels: http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/2403
- Instant Messaging (IM). Instant messages provide a way for people to chat back in forth online – similar to a phone conversation but with typing. There are many free IM services (Meebo, AIM, Yahoo) that one can sign up for. Through the use of IM services, I plan to create a WRCW chatroom (similar to a conference call) of of the VWRC page, where patrons can log in and chat with others, share experiences and know they are not alone.
- Training and workshops. I plan to provide bi-weekly training sessions and workshops on skill building, accessing needed resources, and a variety of Web 2.0 tools. For those not able to attend in house training, these workshops will be video taped to provide videos and podcasts for viewing at a later date. Costs would be negligible since I would be able to use the library’s video equipment for this purpose and there is a separate budget line for some promotion of instructional technology within the library. Examples of workshops would include:
- Working with social networking tools such as Del.icio.us and Backback, which help with the organization of web links and sharing of bookmarks.
Plan of action for implementation
1. Await approval and budget from Library Board of Directors. Estimated start up funds of $9250.00 would be needed to pay a portion of my salary, web consultation, staff training of web 2.0 technologies and possible work shops for patrons.
2. While awaiting approval, I plan to look for available grant money by searching the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance: http://www.cfda.gov/.
3. Apply for grants available through CFDA for ongoing yearly costs to be supplemented through grant funding.
4. Train staff in the new Web 2.0 technologies to be offered by the VWRC. Staff are already very knowledgeable in the online resources the library currently provides.
5. Work with web designers to create the VWRC page. Launch web page and blog.
6. Advertise the VWRC though the following:
- Send a mailing announcement to each library card holder.
- Advertise in local newspapers.
- Flyers posted in library and local supermarkets.
- I will create the flyers and announcement by utilizing the free online photo management Web 2.0 tool Flicr: http://www.flickr.com/ and its tool http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/.
The Down Side – Negative consequences and how to deal with them.
- There will be startup costs involved. As I mentioned earlier, I estimate that it will take $9250 in money and work hours spent to implement this project. On going costs will be supplemented through grants. I feel the money will be well spent if we can add value to the lives of members of our community. By providing them with the skills needed to become more self-sufficient, they are less likely to become a burden to their families and communities in the future.
- I enter this undertaking with the knowledge that the same thing that appeals to some – a virtual environment that it is broadly reaching – is what alienates others. Not everyone feels comfortable working in such an environment, such as older women, who might be less inclined to embrace Web 2.0 technologies. Although some of my workday will be spent in this virtual environment, I will still be available for personal consultation during the library’s open hours.
I hope you will see that this proposal for a Virtual Women’s Resource center is the most cost effective solution for servicing the needs of a large portion of our population, while promoting the visibility of our library as the center of our community and enhancing our presence in the digital environment of the future.
Thank You –
Debbie Catalano Falvey
