Best Practices for Library Collaborations and Partnerships with Other Organizations

Library collaborations and partnerships can work if we consider several factors, many of which have a lot to do with the cultural and economic climate of the region where your library is located.

Similar Perspectives

Unless all organizations in the collaboration agree that “a community can help raise a child reader,” the entire project will be in jeopardy.

We should never forget that there are people that do not believe libraries are still relevant, and if the organization the library is partnering with secretly or outrightly believe so, then the project is doomed from the start.

Examples of Library Collaborations

Some partnership projects your library can join are the following:

a book drive for disaster areas
workshops for slow readers (children/adults)
a recurring storybook reading session

Challenges of Library Collaborations One can dream that all library partnerships will be smooth-sailing, but experience tells us this is never true. One of more of the following problems could arise.

Logistics. How will books reach disaster areas? Language barrier. Can all community children understand the story being read?
Manpower. How many of the library’s meager staff can be deployed to the project site?
Fund management. Whether the funds will be shouldered by the sponsoring organization needs to be clarified.
Evaluation of success is needed for future activities and reporting to stakeholders. Statistics quantify the success rate for future planning, sponsorship solicitations, etc.

Best Practices for Library Collaborations

Communication with school/public librarians is the key to success. Librarians are the grassroot experts, because they know what happens in their communities. Thus, local libraries can tell you more about the pulse of the community than any kind of internet search.

Capitalize on collaborating agency’s strengths and negotiate a fair and effective give-and-take process. Therefore, if your partner agency has a wide network, maybe you can use that to disseminate information about the project. Nothing is for free. Determine how tie-up activities affect every collaborating agency involved and use the strategy to create future projects with the same agencies.

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Ruby Galvez, RL

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