Libraries Board tour with new members

The Libraries Board had Vini Ciccarello and Andrew Luckhust-Smith appointed to it in February.  Ms Ciccarello is the former State MP for Norwood and the former mayor of Norwood (now part of the Norwood, Payneham & St Peters council).  She is also a former employee of the State Library.  Mr Luckhurst-Smith is a qualified lawyer and director at Angus Securities.  These two new Board members bring a wealth of diverse experience, which will complement that of the existing Board members.

 As is its practice the Board will embark on its annual country tour, however this year’s tour will be in April (26 & 27) rather than its usual springtime tour.  The Board will visit libraries in the Mallee, Riverland and Murraylands regions.  On Thursday we will be visiting:

1. Murray Bridge
2. Lameroo
3. Pinnaroo
4. Loxton
5. Renmark
6. Berri

And then on Friday we will visit:

1. Barmera
2. Waikerie
3. Swan Reach
4. Cambrai
5. Mannum

As you can see this will be quite a busy couple of days.  Given the diversity of libraries that we will be visiting this will give all Board members a feel for the issues being faced by libraries across the State while also providing information about the specific issues faced in these councils.

Ratification of User Group policies

The PLS Standing Committee met on Tuesday and ratified the latest decisions of the LMS User Group.  The Committee commented on the thoroughness of both the consideration of the issues as well as the consultation process.  They were very clear that this level of engagement will contribute to the success of the project.

These decisions are now available on the intranet here .  These decisions provide a degree of consistency around a range of library policies.  However it needs to be reinforced that while we are looking to provide some consistency in customer experience there will always be scope for local variations which are required to meet local needs.  This balance of overarching consistency combined with local variations will become more evident as the LMS is deployed.

Some examples of the variations include the need to accommodate the policies of some libraries which have a "fines" regime and those that don't.  And of course, the fines policies of each council is different, so different rules for this need to be accommodated.

A couple of other issues currently occurring within the project include:

• Training for start up libraries
• Project Managers to support system roll out
• Communication with all councils about the roll out.  This will include a service contract, a timetable, a list of the suite of services and products included in the offer, and other relevant information

I will comment on these issues in coming days as we finalise the details of these and other matters.

How we will work - 1st set of policies published

Well, the Transitional User Group has been working really hard over the last few months & their work is now beginning to see the light of day.  As many of you would be aware, the Group has been considering the fundamental policies and rules which will govern how the consortium will work.

 The Group's considerations were put out to the Network for consultation and to gain feedback.  this feedback was considered, the Group's recommendations modified, and then these recommendations went to the Libraries Board's Standing Committee for approval.  At its meeting on 6 December the Standing Committee approved the Group's recommendations.  All of these are now found on the Intranet here.

The Group met yesterday and considered your feedback to the 3rd paper.  A 4th paper was also considered by the group.  The Group's recommendations from this 4th paper will be out for consultation in the next few days.

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback on these papers.  It has been invaluable to both hear your views and to know that you are engaged in the discussion.

New Libraries Board member

I'm delighted to let you know that Lynn Spurling, the Manager of the Copper Coast Library Service has been appointed to the Libraries Board for an initial term of 3 years.  The deliberations of the Board will be enhanced by the addition of a practising librarian to its ranks.

I am sure that you will join me in congratulating Lynn in her appointment to the Board.

PLS Standing Committee - new members

The LGA put a call out a few months ago for new members of the PLS Standing Committee.  I'm delighted to announce that the LGA has put forward Louise Mrdjen or Port Lincoln & Sandra Skinner of Playford as new committee members.  I look forward to working with them both in this capacity. 

The PLS Standing Committee is a committee of the Libraries Board which is identified in the Memorandum of Agreement as having a role to advise the Libraries Board on its role in relation to public libraries, including the allocation of grants to councils.  It has also played a role as a sounding board and the incubator for a range of key directions for the public library network.  For me the committee also serves as a really good place to test ideas & utilise the wisdom and different perspectives of people from a range of backgrounds.  I find it an invaluable source of balance and expertise. 

Governance - beyond "transition"

On Wednesday I wrote about the governance of the LMS project during the implementation process.  As you can see from the diagram on 10 October there is a final phase beyond implementation when we will close down the Transitional User Group, and move to the final ongoing User Group model.

It is likely that this transition will happen in about 3 years - when we're through all or most of the implementations.  At this stage we will move to an ongoing User Group model.  The PLS Standing Committee has endorsed indicative terms of reference for this Group, but they will be reviewed by the Standing Committee prior to be activated in a few years time.

The major change in this environment will be the membership and representation  approach for the User Group.  In consultation with the LGA we have designed a model, based in part on the way that the LGA constitutes its State Executive. Each LGA country region will nominate one member to the User Group.  These will be matched by an equal number of metropolitan nominees.  A Chair will be elected from within this group.

This approach will ensure that people will know who their local representative is. People will either have a seat at the table - or be only be one step removed from the decision makers - having nominated and voted for their local representative.

Each representative will be elected for a 2 year period and can serve for a maximum or 2 terms before someone else in the region must be elected & appointed.  This ensures that the committee stays fresh and over time a number of people have the opportunity to participate in the decision making.

The need to have decisions ratified by the PLS Standing Committee remains, as does the membership of the User Group Chair on the Standing Committee.

We are conscious of the cost burden for people to travel to meetings, so we are looking at ways of addressing this so that people can participate without it being overly costly to do so.

As the implementation of this is still some way off, there will be opportunities to discuss more fully and fine tune this model.  I will be working with all in the network as the time for implementation draws closer.

Governance & decision making during implementation

It’s been a week since I posted about governance & decision making.  And I mentioned that I would post another article about the process during the implementation phase.  It’s taken me a week to get to it because I have spent 2 days on the Board tour, had house guests over the weekend, spent today hosting the Libraries Australia Advisory Committee.  And tomorrow I have to present a paper to the Libraries Australia Forum – so I have been preparing my paper during this time as well.

Anyway – I’ve finally grabbed a few moments to add the next instalment about this topic.

I want to talk about the section from the diagram of 18 October which shows the Transitional User Group reporting to the PLS Standing Committee.  This is the phase we are now moving into.  The role of this group is to assist the consortium to establish the ways that it will operate.  This will necessitate the members of the Group providing leadership, consulting widely across the network, reconciling diverse points of view, and providing feedback to all libraries about the decisions being made.

You will see on the diagram that the Steering Committee is transitioning its responsibilities to the PLS Standing Committee, and the the Interim User Group is transitioning into the Transitional User Group.  These changes are indicated by the dotted lines.

The Terms of Reference for the Transitional User Group can be found on the Intranet if you are interested in them.

I can’t stress enough that the role of the group is to consult and recommend rather than decide.  The Group will be making recommendations to the PLS Standing Committee which has the delegated responsibility from the Libraries Board to make decisions.  To ensure accurate communication the Chair of the Transitional User Group will be a member of the PLS Standing Committee.

The initial group of people on the Group will be the managers or representatives from each of the “Year 1” libraries, along with several libraries who were represented on the Interim User Group – who are not in the year 1 group.  This will ensure continuity, and diversity in the Group.

The Libraries Board’s aim for this project is 100% participation by libraries over time.  Therefore it is important that those libraries not participating in year 1 are consulted and their voices are heard.  This will ensure that everyone feels that they have had an opportunity to influence and argue for particular positions that they may have.  Obviously, members of any group endeavour will not always get 100% of what they want, but they need to be given opportunities to influence decisions.

The Group meets for the 1^st time next Monday, where some preliminary work will be done on some high level policies.  In the first instance there will be a look at existing policies and practices within our network to see whether we can align LMS consortium practices with current intent.  We will also map out a process for communication and what other decisions needs to be made in coming months.  Some of these decisions will be critical to allowing the supplier to configure the LMS database.

Once the group has met we will let everyone know the “where to from here” in the medium term.

I should add that as we move into subsequent years we will be looking to ensure that each library joining in a particular year will have a the option of a seat on the Transitional User Group.  That way, as we move from year to year all participating libraries will have an opportunity to participate in the decision making process.  At the end of the formal implementation phase we will move to the final User Group model which I will write about soon.

Libraries Board Tour - new Board Chair

I mentioned on 10 October that the Board would be on tour in the Mid-North. Well the tour is over & it has been another very positive trip for Board members. We travelled over 700 Kms and visited 8 libraries in 2 days as well as conducting a Board meeting.

As always we were greeted with wonderful enthusiasm & hospitality, and we got to see ongoing changes in each of the libraries we visited.  And the presentations by library managers about what was happening locally, and what was planned for the future helps the Board to have a sense of what the issues and successes are. Also having an opportunity to catch up with Council staff members, Councillors and school staff (in SCLs) also provides additional information.   Libraries Board members also came home with local produce they purchased which included eggs & olive oil along with a few raffle tickets.  This is a general and additional "thank you" to all who we visited and caught up with. 

We were also informed that James Bruce (current Board member) had been appointed as the incoming Chair of the Board.  As this was James' 1st tour he assiduously took notes and had many insightful questions and comments about various aspects of library operations and policy.  I look forward to working with James in coming years in supporting public libraries and in visiting more libraries on coming tours.  I think the next one is to the Riverland.

LMS Governance & Decision Making (part 1)

I mentioned the other day that we have been working on ensuring that we have the correct governance and decision making processes.  As I have mentioned in a number of forums and documents, this work has been ongoing, since before the Request For Proposal was issued, & it continues to evolve.  We have worked with the Libraries Board, the Local Government Association and the Public Libraries SA Executive to ensure that we have the structures and processes that allow for effective consultation and decision-making.

Rather than creating a whole new decision making process we have used both existing Libraries Board decision-making structures and utilized existing mechanisms which are used in local government as much as possible to establish how decisions will be made regarding the LMS establishment, configuration and longer term management.

The structures and processes are best viewed at a high level using the table below.  While no diagram is perfect or can explain everything, it is a good place to start. 

 
On the left hand side of the table you can see the processes that were in place during the procurement phase of the project.  The Libraries Board established a Steering Committee, which signed off on an Evaluation Plan (EP) and managed the Request For Proposal process.  The Steering Committee utilized an Evaluation Team to undertake the evaluation of the various RFP responses.  As identified in the EP the Evaluation Team established a number Subject Matter Expert groups (the red boxes) that provided advice to the Evaluation Team.  This process has stood us in good stead in ensuring wide engagement in the process, with coordinated access to many experts who could provide their expertise to the process.

Towards the end of the evaluation process the Steering Committee established an Interim User Group.  The role of this group was to identify all of the questions that we would need to answer to ensure that we have a consortium that has a set of known policies, procedures and processes that will govern interactions between libraries and with library customers.  This group was not asked to answer these questions, but to identify what the questions were.  The significant question which hung over the work of this group was which decisions would be made locally and which would be made as a consortium.  The other issue was, “What is the capability of the (at that time unselected) LMS to deal with complexity and diversity?”  The membership of this group was self-selecting through an expression of interest process that was open to all in the public library network.  This group has done a great job in asking the questions that we now need answers to. 

So we’ve now got to the conclusion of the procurement process & we know what the LMS can do.  So on this basis we will soon be moving from procurement to implementation.  I will provide a similar post soon about the decision making process during the implementation phase of this project, where the Transitional User Group will operate & then follow it up by writing about the final shape of the governance and decision making process post implementation.