REVIEW: PARTNERING WITH PURPOSE
Janet L. Crowther and Barry Trott. Partnering with Purpose: A Guide to Strategic Partnership Development for Libraries and Other Organizations. Libraries Unlimited, 2005. 1-59158-090-0. $32.00. Reviewed by Marylaine Block
In these days of static or shrinking budgets, libraries are increasingly using "partnerships" to leverage their funds and promote their services to new audiences. But how often are they true partnerships, in the sense that each partner contributes equally and each partner obtains measurable benefits that advance their strategic goals? How often does the work librarians put into these partnerships pay off in new resources, new users, new services, and increased community support?
Janet Crowther, Director of Community Partnership Development at the Williamsburg (VA) Regional Library(WRL), and her colleague Barry Trott, Adult Services Director, have helped to build several such genuine and fruitful partnerships, most notably with the Williamsburg Community Hospital to create a Cancer Resource Center in the library. Other partners have included the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, James City County Neighborhood Connections, and the Colonial National Historical Park and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. In this volume, they draw on their experiences to show you, step-by-step, how to create partnerships that work.
No library can afford to invest significant resources and staff time on partnerships that do not advance the library's strategic goals. If the library doesn't have a strategic plan, the authors suggest, developing one is a necessary foundation for any partnership program, and they offer guidance on how to do that. Since partnerships will affect every department in the library, they also offer advice on how to involve every staff member in building an internal structure and tracking system for managing partnerships.
The next step is understanding all the assets and strengths the library can bring to any partnership. Williamsburg Regional Library's list, included in this book, extends for six pages, and includes facilities, equipment, collection, services, programs, staff, and intangibles like its visibility, the trust the community places in it, and the fact that it serves all segments of the community. Knowing everything you have to offer increases your bargaining position. You won't see yourself as a beggar seeking a handout, pretty please, but as an equal, a strong partner entitled to demand equivalent value from prospective partners.
They discuss how to explore the community for unmet community needs and potential partners, how to choose high-priority partners with compatible missions and equal ability to contribute, and how to open discussions with them. They also include a "Partnership Development Toolkit," a checklist of information and answers to likely questions you will need to be able to provide when you meet with them.
Once you've determined the level of partnership -- WRL distinguishes between a "glance," a "date," an "engagement," and a "marriage" -- it's time to write a letter of agreement that identifies the goals, the programs, the resources each partner will provide, a timeline, the evaluation method, etc. The final chapters deal with evaluation, management, and possible partnership problems.
The book is full of handy checklists and samples: a flowchart for developing a partnership proposal, partnership proposal review questions, a checklist of common elements in letter of agreement, actual WRL letters of agreements, a tool listing project measurement tools for each goal, a list of frequently asked questions and answers about the partnership program, etc.
I would consider this book essential reading for anybody contemplating partnering with other agencies. It's well-presented, proven, practical, and thorough advice, delivered by people who have made it work, time and again, to the betterment of the library, its partners, and the community they serve.
* * * * *
COOL QUOTE:
The library forms community partnerships to achieve specific goals: to reach new users, to reach library users in a new way, to tap into community assets and strengths, to gain support for library resources/programs, to gain valuable feedback, and to create new resources. An engagement or marriage is successful if it helps the library achieve one or more of theser goals.
From the form Williamsburg Regional Library uses to propose the formation of a partnership. In Partnering with Purpose. Libraries Unlimited, 2005, p. 45.
* * *
You are welcome to copy and forward any of my own articles (but not those by my guest writers) for noncommercial purposes as long as you credit ExLibris and cite the permanent URL for the article. Please do NOT copy and post my articles to your own web sites, however. Instead, please copy a brief excerpt and link to the URL for the remainder of the article.
Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2005.
[Publishers may license the content for a reasonable fee.]
