administration: April 2009 Archives

(from Channel Weekly, Vol. 11, No. 27, April 9, 2009 - posted with permission)

The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice prepared and issued in installments a technical assistance document designed to assist state and local officials to improve compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in their programs, services, activities, and facilities.  The technical assistance document series is entitled “The ADA Best Practices Tool Kit for State and Local Governments.”

 

The Tool Kit is designed to teach state and local government officials how to identify and fix problems that prevent people with disabilities from gaining equal access to state and local government programs, services, and activities.  It will also teach state and local officials how to conduct accessibility surveys of their buildings and facilities to identify and remove architectural barriers to access. While state and local governments are not required to use the ADA Best Practices Tool Kit, the U.S. Department of Justice encourages its use as one effective means of complying with the requirements of Title II of the ADA. The Toolkit can be found here: http://www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/toolkitmain.htm.

 

Other useful ADA information and guidelines for local governments, as well as links to publications on topics such as “Accessibility of State and Local Websites,” and “ADA Guide for Small Towns” are listed on the ADA Home Page: http://www.ada.gov/.

The 2008 Outagamie County and Waupaca County circulation matrices are now posted on the OWLS Statistics page.  Each county's circulation matrix shows the circulation by every library in the county to every jurisdiction in the county that doesn't operate a library.  A county's circulation matrix provides a detailed breakdown of the circulation for which the county reimburses its municipal libraries, i.e., it's the circulation we use to make the annual county budget requests.  In addition, the population and circulation per capita is listed for each town.  Take a look and see how much the neighboring towns use your library.  You might be surprised by the numbers.

> contributed by Rick via News for Directors

This quote from 37 signals recently appeared on walking paper:

Southwest Airlines. The airline has succeeded in large part due to its embrace of constraints. For example, its fleet consists exclusively of aircraft from the Boeing 737 line. By flying only a single aircraft, the company spends less to train pilots, ground crew, and mechanics. And maintenance, purchasing, and other operations are also vastly simplified, which reduces costs too.

More ways that Southwest keeps it simple: It offers flights only to select cities, no seating class distinctions, a simple pricing structure, a bare-bones frequent flier program, no meal service, etc.

Shows how executing on essential functions and leaving the rest out can still take you a long way.

Libraries are used to trying to be all things to all people. We invent programs to help our patrons with the latest issues they face. We try to keep up with technology and current expectations of service. But is it time to consider sunsetting some services and focusing on few rather than more, more, more?

Limits can bring success, as Southwest Airlines has proven. Can we focus on essential functions and still have engaging libraries? Post your thoughts in the comments. What could you limit in an effort to strengthen something else happening at your library?

> contributed by Beth