Finding Value in Unusual Places: Transforming Collaboration Workshop Data to Inform a Library Cooperative’s Strategic Plan

Abstract

Academic and public librarians, administrators, and other information professionals will appreciate research activities that tell the stories of participants from a recent Collaborating with Strangers (CoLAB) workshop conducted for a regional multitype library cooperative (MLC). This presentation describes the facilitated workshop and resulting qualitative analysis from which the research team presented solid evidence to the MLC leadership for informing a five-year strategic planning process and for suggesting advocacy initiatives led by the MLC member libraries. The team will share the process used to elicit useful data gleaned from CoLAB workshop materials created by participants. The method used to analyze resulting data demonstrates the efficacy of CoLAB workshops for quickly extracting substantial amounts of qualitative data and insights, some of which may result in potential longterm impacts on specific communities such as libraries and patrons. CoLABs are intentionally designed to increase comfort in speaking with strangers. Future workshops for other academic library stakeholders, such as students and faculty, offer the potential to reveal what they value within the higher education environment. Introduction Academic library professionals are increasingly involved with the research community to fulfill their primary objectives of expanding digital collections, web-based discovery systems, and use of social media and mobile devices in information-seeking. Public library professionals are faced with requests for social service support and for more diverse information resources from communities for which libraries serve as anchor institutions providing equitable access. These demands require dynamic professional development where experts agree that “the informal network developed through many library leadership training programs is often the most valuable and durable benefit of training.”1 Despite the long-term positive impact of facilitating new internal and external connections, engagement provided for professional development can be costly and time-consuming. To understand the professional development capacity among regional library professionals, with a view toward informing strategic planning processes, the Northeast Florida Multitype Library Cooperative (NEFLIN) enlisted the Collaborating with Strangers (CoLAB) workshop2 team to facilitate a 45-minute CoLAB mini-workshop during the region’s 2017 annual meeting. The conference workshop provided a structured environment where participants connected during one-onone, three-minute speed meetings, using profile cards produced during the workshop to practice (1) conversing with others; (2) discovering untapped resources; and (3) initiating cooperative, collaborative, or mentoring partnerships. More than 100 participants generated qualitative data captured by the profile cards that included 11 demographic questions and inquiries about the participant’s role in the library, passion for their work, projects or interests, and a “hidden” personal fact. The purpose in analyzing these CoLAB responses for the NEFLIN strategic planning process was to provide (1) information about the scope of NEFLIN library stakeholders’ competencies, interests, and needs, creating a stakeholder profile featuring identified individual assets; and, (2) ways in which the CoLAB participants intended to further engage with the information shared or discovered during this collaborative process. By understanding both the status of these stakeholders and their self-described future planned actions, NEFLIN leadership can better understand the scope of library professionals’ current interests and improve understanding of the “assets” already available in this library community of practice.