by: Laura Barnes

1. As part of its strategic plan and with the encouragement of the membership committee, LTLS has committed to pursuing partnerships with cultural institutions. In support of this goal, LTLS sent letters to 25 cultural organizations within system boundaries in FY 2008. Of those, three signed agreements to become system affiliates.
   
   
2. The Bishop O'Rourke Library at the Institute of Catholic Thought moved from developmental to full member in FY 2008 when they became an OCLC governing member. Nearly all LTLS libraries meet this criterion for system membership. The few who do not aren’t able to afford the governing member price quoted to them when the rates increased.
   
   
3. In a continuing effort to encourage developmental members to make progress toward full membership, the membership committee has established procedures and a timeline for developmental members to follow. Unfortunately, not all libraries get there. Last year, after much time and effort on the part of LTLS staff, including written requests for an action plan to meet the committee's concerns, the membership committee dropped three school libraries that had been developmental members for at least five years and made no progress toward full membership. In each case, the issue was a lack of certified staff in the library.
   
   
4. LTLS asks members each year to self-report that they are meeting the standards relevant to their particular library type. They are also asked to evaluate LTLS services, state their greatest accomplishments, identify their biggest challenges, and indicate how LTLS can help with those challenges. Here are some trends we noticed from these comments:
   

• One frustration expressed by LTLS consultants is that they are not able to visit libraries as often as they used to because of gradual consultant staff attrition and budget constraints. They believe that it's harder to build relationships with member library staff if they can't occasionally get out of the office to meet them on their own turf. One new director echoes this frustration, stating that he/she would have appreciated some contact from system consultants to see how things were going in the library. Although he/she called often with specific questions, it was clear that an ongoing relationship with two-way communication would have also been welcomed, particularly because this librarian was new to the system.
  
• One school librarian commented, "I appreciate the "looking forward" aspect of system staff since I am often kept busy with day to day things." Several other libraries also made this observation. This goes along with the previous comment about consultants not having time for library visits. As the numbers of consulting staff decrease, it becomes more difficult for those who remain to keep up with new, emerging technologies and communicate this knowledge to system members.
  
• Many smaller public and school libraries said that they wouldn't be able to meet their patron's needs without LTLS services, specifically delivery, interlibrary loan, and cataloging center services.


• There were several comments about delivery lags. Most of these libraries said that they would like more frequent delivery. One library said, "Delivery is the backbone of LTLS service."


• Several libraries identified more space and more collection money as specific needs. Several libraries also mentioned that they are now depending more on alternate funding sources (fundraisers, donations, etc.) because public money isn't keeping up with the cost of materials and services they want to provide.

Check Out Previous Feature Articles