Libraries as Catalysts for Creative Interagency Cooperation and Community Networking: Successful Central Illinois LSCA Projects

Overview

Libraries can and should serve as catalysts for creative interagency cooperation to provide improved information access at the community and regional levels. With Library Service and Construction Act (LSCA) Title I (public library) and Title III (multi-type library cooperation) funding awarded by the Illinois State Library to Lincoln Trail Libraries System (LTLS) over the past 10 years, four demonstration projects in particular have focused on identifying and creating new interagency partnerships to better meet unique or emerging information needs.

LSCA funding provided the opportunity for a multi-type cooperative library system to coordinate efforts of several libraries and to take the lead to initiate interagency networking opportunities on their behalf with various local, regional and statewide service agencies, governmental units and educational institutions.

From child abuse awareness to caregiving of the elderly, from Cooperative Extension Service outreach to community Internet access leadership, these four projects involved dozens of libraries and other agencies, attracted hundreds of workshop attendees, and highlighted unique combinations of human, material and electronic resources to better meet community information needs. Libraries (and library systems) served as the creative community catalysts in each instance, initiating and expanding upon new interagency networking possibilities that might not have been tried without the support of LSCA. Several interagency indicators of success emerge when we review these LSCA-supported efforts — indicators that serve as reminders of the positive impact that results from libraries' pursuit of cooperative interagency efforts.

In chronological order, the four Lincoln Trail Libraries System interagency cooperative projects highlighted here include:

FY 1989 Title I
Children in Crisis: Cooperative Library and Community Agency Support for Abused and Neglected Youth (Brenda Pacey, Project Director; Pat Boze, Project Coordinator)

FY 1993 Title I
Rural Information Partnership: A Library System/Illinois Cooperative Extension Service (ICES) Mutual Cooperation Project (Joe Sciacca, Project Director)

FY 1993 Title I
Seniors and Their Caregivers: Libraries and Community Agencies Cooperating to Meet Their Needs (Jan Ison, Project Director; Patricia Turnbull, Project Manager)

FY 1995 Title III
INTERCONNECTIONS: An Information Technology Conference Series (Brenda Pacey, Project Director)

Project Highlights
Children in Crisis: Cooperative Library and Community Agency Support for Abused and Neglected Youth

* Brenda McElroy Pacey, Associate Director, Lincoln Trail Libraries System, Champaign.

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Goals for this project included: 1) increased cooperation/referral between libraries and agencies serving youth and families in crisis; 2) increased public library staff awareness of the child abuse/neglect problem and of available print, audiovisual and community resources and programs dealing with the problem; and 3) increased patron access to print and non-print abuse and neglect support material throughout the system and ILLINET.

Six specific activities helped carry out these goals successfully. An advisory committee made up of social service, medical, education and library professionals assisted with the project design. Appropriate and unique library print and non-print materials (aimed at youth, adult lay, and professional user levels) were identified, acquired, added to the nine libraries collections and made available via the system's shared online catalog and ILLINET Online. Professional quality promotional aids (annotated resource lists/brochures, bookmarks, display signs and camera-ready border sheets, press releases, etc.) were used throughout the system service area, with concentrated distribution in the nine demonstration communities. Each demonstration library was required to sponsor at least one program or display and to make three additional community contacts during a three-month outreach period. A statewide awareness workshop was held in Champaign, drawing more than 100 participants, evenly divided between librarians and social service professionals. Finally, a resource manual was produced and distributed to all Illinois public libraries, outlining the development of the project, offering program and networking hints, and including recommended resource lists.

In implementing this project, nine LTLS public libraries serving communities in three population and materials budget ranges were chosen as demonstration libraries. Representatives were involved in an interagency advisory committee, received demonstration collections of specialized materials, and were coached on conducting local community outreach PR campaigns and public and agency programming and library resource orientation sessions. In the years since the project, libraries have continued (in varying degrees in each community) collection development, reference and referral, and community networking outreach activities to build upon what was initiated in the demonstration LSCA project.

Evaluative feedback from this project showed just how strong and positive the impact of coordinated library/agency planning and communication can be. More than 700 individuals were made aware of the project in the demonstration communities within a five-month period. Ninety-two percent (92%) of attendees at a statewide workshop indicated that their awareness of library support services had increased. "Until this conference, I did not know that librarians would be a resource in this topic area," commented one social service professional. An excellent return rate (25%) for a survey sent not regional social service agencies showed great positive impact on the library/agency connection — 58 percent indicated they were aware of the project, 20 percent had indicated use of library resources during the project and 51 percent anticipated using library resources in the next six months, and 39 percent indicated they had told other social service professionals about the project. Additionally, significant numbers of library materials were circulated in local communities and were requested on interlibrary loan from throughout the state and the nation. Presentations at state and national levels and recognition of the program by the National Victim Center resulted in dozens of requests for copies of the program planning manual and annotated resource lists.

Rural Information Partnership: A Library System/Illinois Cooperative Extension Service Mutual Cooperation Project

The Title I project, Rural Information Partnership, brought together staff members from Lincoln Trail Libraries System and the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service (ICES) in a unique partnership designed to enhance the information-providing function of both organizations. Following the one-year project, both agencies were committed to the ongoing partnership and have since cooperated on a variety of continuing education events and electronic information services. Also, the ICES has since become an affiliate agency of Lincoln Trail to recognize ongoing cooperative communication efforts.

Thirty-four public libraries in Champaign, Edgar, Ford, Iroquois and Vermilion Counties (corresponding to the Champaign cluster of the ICES), five CES county unit offices, one Extension Center office and the statewide ICES administrative/programming headquarters at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were invited to participate in several planning sessions. Out of these information sharing and information needs assessment meetings, two training sessions were developed and conducted in March 1993. The hands-on training sessions focused on three areas of cooperation: staff expertise and information partnership sharing, print-based collection development planning (ICES publications, general library sources) and demonstrations of the LTLS online catalog and the then-just-developed Illinois Dial-up Extension Access (IDEA) database.

As a follow-up, library staff members were allowed special access to the IDEA database during the project to help better communicate with ICES experts and to access ICES information. In turn. Cooperative Extension

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unit staff members were encouraged to access the Lincoln Trail's online catalog via dial access, and the system headquarters and local public libraries assisted with interlibrary loan and document delivery of requested materials. The cooperating agencies also conducted an orientation session on the Internet, which was just then beginning to be recognized as a central focal point for managing, organizing and distributing the unique informational resources of both libraries and Cooperative Extension Services.

LTLS and ICES also cooperated in the area of collection development. LTLS and ICES/University of Illinois Office of Agricultural communications and Education identified a core group of CES publications that were acquired, catalogued and distributed to the participating public libraries. Also, cooperative newsletters (Rural Information Partnership Update) and bookmarks highlighting libraries and CES unit offices in the five counties were produced and distributed throughout the area, promoting the availability of these two types of information agencies for many months after the project.

Perhaps the most important outcome of this focused partnership was the greatly increased awareness of each agency's types of services. Also, strong support for cooperative activities was committed at the highest levels of ICES and Lincoln Trail Libraries System to work together to test and provide access to the newly-emerging information highway — the Internet. And, indeed, over the next three years, LTLS and ICES led the way in cooperative awareness and training workshops and joint ventures for citizen access in this new means of information provision.

Seniors and Their Caregivers: Libraries and Community Agencies Cooperating to Meet Their Needs

Goals for this Title I project mirrored the increased awareness, training and interagency networking, and specialized cooperative collection development so successful in the FY 1989 Children in Crisis project. In this case, libraries and agencies in east central Illinois had identified a definite need to address the information needs of caregivers in our increasingly older society. Six public libraries of varying sizes in Piatt, Champaign and Ford counties participated in collection development, promotion and workshop presentations. Additionally, all public libraries and targeted social service agencies in LTLS received copies of annotated resource lists and program manuals. An advisory committee of professional service providers, personal caregivers and librarians helped to identify unique print and audiovisual resources and plan workshops aimed at individual caregivers who often feel isolated from others as well as from support resources.

Topics of materials added to the system online shared database and made available for interlibrary loan included: caregiving handbooks and guides for the personal caregiver; resources for Alzheimers Disease caregivers; books for children relating to aging; resource materials for professionals aiding caregivers; and bi-folkal multi-media interactive kits for use with intergenerational and elderly patrons. Workshops covered topics of caregivers needs, community resources available, and the role of libraries as the starting point/local community focal point to share information.

Extensive use of professional quality promotional materials helped to raise community awareness of resources and libraries interest in specialized information services. A quilt-block pattern was repeated on publicity flyers, resource lists and program manuals, which were modeled in format and content elements on the successful Children in Crisis project. Library staff made concerted efforts for personal and speaker outreach services as well. Such efforts were instrumental in making a number of different audiences aware of the project.

Advances in technology also provided a welcome, unanticipated bonus to this project, as it did in the Rural Information Partnership project. In this case, Lincoln Trail's change of shared automation vendors during this project period offered the opportunity to use a new community resource module as part of the new Local Library System Automation Program. The greatly enhanced access to community and regional community agency services is a help to both library reference and referral staff and to the general public as well.

INTERCONNECTIONS: An Information Technology Conference Series

A fourth LSCA-funded project focusing on interagency cooperation concentrated on professional development and continuing education on a broader, statewide basis to address key components of better understanding, planning for and using emerging electronic information technology.

Lincoln Trail Libraries System, with cooperation from Rolling Prairie Library System, was awarded an LSCA Title III grant for FY 1995 to coordinate a series of four statewide INTERCONNECTIONS information technology conferences planned cooperatively by and aimed at attendees representing a wide range of library, business and agriculture, community agency, educational institution, telecommunications industry and governmental bodies. Overwhelming response to a fall 1993 Internet conference (presented cooperatively by LTLS and the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service as an outgrowth of Rural Information Partnership project interest), along with a recognized need for

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quality professional development in information technology-related topics served as the impetus to coordinate this four-part continuing education series.

Three major goals for the project were met: 1) increase public/private interagency continuing education cooperative planning efforts among libraries, educational institutions, community agencies, and business and technology representatives; 2) plan and present a coordinated series of four information technology workshops to be held in central Illinois, open to statewide attendance by library, education, community and government agency, business and industry, and citizen participants; and 3) assess impact on conference participants and identify ongoing library and information agency continuing education needs in the areas of new information technologies, based on conference attendee evaluations, selective participant follow-up survey activities and advisory group summary review.

Four INTERCONNECTIONS conferences were held in Champaign, Decatur and Springfield, with a total attendance of 637 attendees from 203 academic, public, school and special libraries representing all 12 Illinois cooperative library systems and 24 agencies, business, and governmental units. The all-day conferences featured nationally recognized leaders in the information technology, library, and public policy arena, and topics focused on: telecommunications — getting connected for information access; navigating the Internet — new tools and state-of-the-art access; electronic reference — meeting information needs via the Internet; and National Information Infrastructure — policies and issues. Each conference provided five contact hours, with a total of 3,185 hours of continuing education offered to Illinois librarians. The series appealed to the intended wide range of targeted audiences academic libraries (26%), public (21%), school (16%), special (15%), and non-library agencies and individuals (22%).

In addition to individual event evaluations and input from a planning advisory committee representing all types of libraries and information agencies, a follow-up mail survey assessed attendees' ongoing needs for further continuing education of information technology. The survey data showed clearly that attendees increased/enhanced their local use of new information technologies over the course of the eight-month series.

Also, a project summary newsletter was prepared for distribution to all Illinois systems and conference attendees and was added to the ERIC Clearinghouse for national and international availability. If not only highlighted each series event, but shared project evaluative data and the top Internet-related challenges and the top Internet-related opportunities as identified by the library and agency participants in 1995. These same challenges (public access/Internet setup; funding and staffing resources; training of agency staff and users; hardware and technical issues; Internet searching skills and specific resource access; and guidelines and policies on use) and opportunities (libraries and agencies serving as an Internet leader/hub in communities; increasing public access; new hardware and technical infrastructure; more skilled utilization of Internet tools and resources; serving as an Internet information provider; and developing home pages) would, no doubt, rank highly among librarians and other information providers today in we were to gather a group together for an interagency focus group update session.

The INTERCONNECTIONS series provided the rare opportunity for Illinois librarians of all types and levels of experience to learn from national experts and cutting-edge practitioners in an atmosphere conducive to interpersonal networking and idea-sharing. Time and again, presenters and attendees commented on how stimulating this approach was for them. Library staff and community agency and governmental unit participants had the opportunity to make connections that have since proven helpful in trying to work cooperatively in their home communities, counties and regions to provide effective access to the Internet. While interlibrary and interagency cooperation is essential to all forms of library and information service, the Internet explosion is perhaps one of the more compelling and highly visible examples of the crucial need for open communication, joint planning and shared public policy and funding.

LSCA Serendipity: Unexpected Benefits of Interagency Cooperation

While each of the four LSCA grant projects summarized focused on a unique information topic and each utilized previously non-traditional library approaches, they are interrelated in some respects — several unanticipated bonus benefits resulted from one or more earlier LSCA interagency cooperative activities.

For instance, the Children in Crisis project introduced a design model that proved so useful to libraries and agencies statewide that several elements were adapted successfully in the Seniors and Their Care-givers project.

When Lincoln Trail staff and Illinois Cooperative Extension Service staff began their official collaborations as part of the FY93 Rural Information Partnership grant project, the use of Internet electronic communication in the CES and the library community was in an early experimental state. LTLS and ICES jointly identified the importance of the fast-growing and ever-changing role of technology (especially the Internet) in providing community information access and adult continuing

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education and realized that by working cooperatively, both agencies and their respective and overlapping clienteles could be even better served. Two years later, when LSCA funding of INTERCONNECTIONS resulted in statewide state-of-the-art continuing education programs aimed at libraries and information providers of all sizes and types, the Illinois Cooperative Extension Services was a key leadership partner in the planning and presentation of the series.

In a similar vein, the increased interaction and cooperative involvement of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Education, an LTLS special library member, in the Children in Crisis and INTERCONNECTIONS projects has led to expanded cooperative planning for enhancing statewide access to the National Parent Informational Network. This electronic specialized resource service is administered by ERIC/EECE and increased citizen awareness outreach is being conducted through LTLS coordination of communication among all types of libraries, school districts and regional offices of education and social services agencies.

One INTERCONNECTIONS program change evolved into a highly successful added value networking opportunity. As travel plans were being finalized to bring together a truly world class group of speakers to central Illinois for the "National Information Infrastructure: Policies and Issues" session, project staff were able to coordinate VIP tours of two nationally recognized state-of-the-art library and information technology facilities housed on the University of Illinois campus. A networking meeting involving several of the speakers and some advisory committee members capped the day before the conference and provided the setting for some creative library visioning and cooperative planning among Illinois and national leaders in the field.

Another unexpected benefit relating to technological advances was that during the course of the Seniors and Their Caregivers grant project, the LTLS automation vendors product line made online community resource file access feasible. The INTERCONNECTIONS workshop series provided other examples of how cooperatively identified interagency community referral information can now become available even more easily via the Internet and via library, community and ICES online databases.

Therefore, human networking and technological networking are intertwined, and by libraries taking the lead to serve as catalysts for community-wide cooperative networking, everyone has and will continue to benefit. More importantly, no one could have foreseen or predicted all the extra benefits that have resulted from the interagency cooperative goals originally outlined at the beginning of each LSCA project. LSCA support not only allows libraries to try identified new approaches to information services, but in the case of interagency cooperative efforts, our experience has been that LSCA support even encourages and creates additional opportunities no one could have imagined or predicted prior to the start of a demonstration project.

Interagency Cooperation Indicators of Success: Implications for Libraries

Several interagency cooperation benefits emerge from a review of the conscious evaluation process carried out as part of the four LSCA projects outlined above. It is important to keep them in mind as libraries move forward into the 21st century. Often, we become too busy providing service on a day-to-day basis to take time to evaluate and consciously focus attention on specific activities or approaches learned or proven successful as part of past demonstration and model projects. In the case of interagency cooperation, lessons learned by participating libraries and agencies in LSCA projects initiated and administered by Lincoln Trail Libraries System in the past decade that merit review include:

• LSCA projects coordinated at the cooperative multi-type library system level enabled several libraries to join forces to focus shared energy on one issue — the sum result being greater than any one part could have been alone.

• Networking contacts have resulted in unforseen and unpredictable bonus serendipity cooperative successes.

• Libraries were catalysts for initiating and maintaining interagency cooperation and networking in topic areas not previously considered typical.

• Advisory group input provided topical experts and consumer insights and created an organized mechanism to keep a pulse on the targeted service, trends and issues involved in areas not previously associated with traditional library services.

• Publicizing and promoting availability of library and community information resources was essential to reaching those who need unique information but who may not have thought of libraries before, who may have been afraid to directly contact a service agency but would consider libraries neutral and supportive, or who may have been totally unaware of what service agencies exist and how to locate them.

• Development and dissemination of program manuals and other professional program resources have helped other libraries and communities to more easily access agencies, develop partnerships, develop and promote resource collections and programming. Program manuals are well received

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and libraries should be reminded to even better document and suggest ways for others to implement successful ventures.

• When developing cooperative collection development and information resource referral programs, it is essential to identify appropriate materials in a variety of formats aimed at a variety of audiences, to effectively monitor their availability and levels of use, to make resources available beyond local libraries via shared databases, to assure interlibrary loan and delivery support, and to provide continuing education opportunities on use of the resources.

• Since growing numbers of libraries are joining shared automated databases, effective use of such technologies greatly increases the potential for even wider citizen access to items, full-text and community information. Library technology and electronic access takes information beyond the walls of libraries, community agencies, schools and churches and businesses to the users.

• Sponsoring public/community awareness programs where patrons, professional service providers, library and other information provider staff can all network together informally as well as formally is an essential component of building successful interagency partnerships.

• Despite inevitable changes in staffing at agencies and libraries and, in some cases, changes in governing authority or funding authority structures, the connections that have been made can more easily help re-ignite the cooperative candles flame over time.

In summary, libraries of all types can help communities weave a rich network of human, material and electronic information and referral resources, serving as catalysts for cooperative interagency information service. Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA) funding support and encouragement of such projects has enabled library systems and their members to initiate successful and creative interagency efforts to provide quality information service prototypes.

Related Publications

Children in Crisis: A Planning Manual for Cooperative Library and Community Agency Support for Abused and Neglected Youth. Brenda Pacey, Project Director; Pat Boze, Project Coordinator. Lincoln Trail Libraries System, Champaign, IL, 1989.

INTERCONNECTIONS: An Information Technology Conference Series (Final report and newsletter). Brenda Pacey, Project Director. Lincoln Trail Libraries System, Champaign, IL, 1995.

Seniors and Their Caregivers: A Planning Manual for Cooperative Library and Community Agency Support for Caregivers of the Elderly. Jan Ison, Project Director; Pat Turnbull, Project Manager; Pat Boze and Ximena Chrisagis, Editors. Lincoln Trail Libraries System, Champaign, IL, 1993.

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