The Niles Public Library District will spend $25,000 on consulting services to help with its strategic planning process.
Library district board members voted unanimously at their Aug. 17 meeting to hire Indiana-based Kimberly Bolan and Associates to help the library gather input across all of the district’s demographic groups, consolidate the data and steer officials through the planning process, said Susan Lempke, executive director of the Niles Public Library.
Although all library trustees opted to hire the firm, which specializes in consulting services for public, school and academic libraries, Lempke said some board members were “a little reluctant to spend that money, but they definitely wanted to get the (the strategic planning process) rolling.”
Niles library officials last approved a long-term strategic plan in 2011.
Lempke said she is confident the firm will be able to solicit information from constituents that library officials would otherwise have a difficult time reaching.
The firm is headed by Kimberly Bolan Cullin, a librarian and author, and Rob Cullin, who specializes in marketing, data and demographic analysis, and founded a company that provides calendar management software to libraries across the country, Canada and Australia, according to the consulting firm’s website.
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Lempke said the firm will conduct focus groups with different segments of the district’s population, breaking them into groups like “singles and starters” and “golden-year guardians.” She said the firm will take a closer look at library users to get a more “nuanced” sense of their interest in and their needs from the public library.
“You have to know who your population is and if you’re developing focus groups, you want to talk to people who represent different parts of the community,” Lempke said. “You want to make sure you talk to your business community, your education community, anybody that forms a significant number of people who are using the library.”
She said the company will host 10 to 12 focus groups and a six-hour retreat with staff, elected officials and other community members.
Several pairs of outside eyes will help officials figure out what areas of the community could be better served by the library, Lempke said.
“I’ve worked at this library for almost 19 years — I’m almost too familiar,” Lempke said. “I have set ideas of who lives here and what they want, and we need an outside perspective to help us see things we wouldn’t see for ourselves.”
The themes that rise to the top in the data-gathering process will ultimately guide the library over the course of the next several years. Lempke said officials have various ideas for the library, but it’s best for the people who rely on it to influence the library’s future.
“We know people have a lot of needs, but we need to hear more about what those are,” she said.
Lee Gaines is a freelancer reporter for Pioneer Press.