It has not all been library visits and meetings on this trip by any means and on 15 June, after arriving at O’Hare, it was good to leave cities behind for a while and take a three-hour drive out into the countryside in Wisconsin. On the following day I visited the architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s house, Taliesin, in Spring Green. I was already familiar with some of his work in the Chicago suburb Oak Park from a visit some years ago, so this helped place my previous visit into context. Taliesin is in a magical setting and there are numerous trademark details that demonstrate FLW’s extraordinary talent. His life was extraordinary too, but that’s too long a tale to go into here. Returning to Chicago, I was also able to get a glimpse from the outside of the famous Johnson Wax building that he built in Racine.
In Chicago, rather than stay in the heart of the noise and bustle of downtown, I chose to stay in a room above a spa-treatment and yoga centre. This was in an area called Wicker Park, which is rapidly being gentrified by young, white professionals. I was very amused, to find in the bakery-cum-coffee house opposite where I was staying, the following choice on the blackboard “Decaf Librarian Blend: a flavorful blend of Indonesian, African & Central American beans that represents the soul of a librarian – steady and subtle with a little eccentric edge.” I chose it, of course.
Downtown Chicago is an exciting place to be and despite the drawback that it is unbelievably noisy – partly because of the trains on the elevated Loop system, partly traffic, air conditioning plant and general clamour – it also has a lot of panache. I really enjoyed the new Millenium Park, helped I’m sure by the hot sunshine and loads of kids and adults from all sorts of backgrounds splashing in the water features. I also enjoyed a river boat trip, which was run through the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
I met with Satia Orange at the American Libraries Association, who is the Director of the Office for Literacy and Outreach Services. Its role is to provide technical assistance, staff development and advocacy support. As it was immediately before their annual conference it was an exceptionally hectic time for her, so we didn’t have long, but it meant that we both cut to the chase in conveying key information and realised very quickly that we were both talking about exactly the same issues. I asked her to tell me a success story and her biggest challenge. She told me about the advocacy materials they have produced for rural libraries - useful for any library anywhere, and gave me a handout, which has been in great demand. One of the challenges is to prevent the very services that reach most effectively into communities that wouldn’t otherwise have access to library services, such as bookmobiles, from being highly vulnerable to being cut. We also talked about the Spectrum initiative, which provides scholarships to support diversity in the library profession and she gave me an interesting book From Outreach to Equity: innovative models of library service and practice.
At one point, I clearly remember her saying “there’s outreach and there’s outreach” – her way of conveying the increasingly strong feeling I have that terms that are bandied around need much sharper definition and shared understanding of what they really mean if public libraries are to change the way they work. Outreach seems to mean very different things to different people. Moving from a service-led approach that places the library service and its procedures first to one where library staff play a proactive, flexible and listening role and then find imaginative and collaborative ways to meet real needs in their locality is the real challenge for everyone. It is what Welcome To Your Library in the UK and the Working Together project in Canada are all about.
The following day I met with nearly the whole staff team at the Urban Libraries Council. From looking previously at their website and publications I had high hopes, and I wasn’t disappointed. This was also a very hectic time as they were about to go to Washington DC for the annual American Libraries Association conference…but they all gave their time freely and I was very impressed with what they do and how, with their thoughtfulness, openness to thinking about future possible scenarios and their energy. I’ve come away with a lot of information, which is being mailed to me in the UK, so when I’ve had a chance to absorb it, I will no doubt be going back to them by e-mail with further questions. Some of their publications are available to download.
As with the web junction team in Seattle, I felt an instant sense of connection. In both cases, perhaps it’s because as organisations they have no room for complacency and are at the cutting edge of thinking ahead- ULC is a membership body, so one of the challenges is being able constantly to demonstrate its value to the members and webjunction is also in a position of constantly reinventing itself in order to sustain the work started through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation support. In Chicago too, I was struck by the scope for future development of international sharing of learning - the issues around diversity, workforce development and management of change are just the same as in the UK. Thank you all for your generosity to everybody I met in Chicago …I found it tremendously stimulating and a real source of inspiration about what we could do in the UK and share further.
As a UK librarian-poet I loved this piece, especially reference to the “Decaf Librarian Blend: a flavorful blend of Indonesian, African & Central American beans that represents the soul of a librarian – steady and subtle with a little eccentric edge.” If I ever visit the US again, this has to be a must!