How You Can Help Shape the Future of Your Local Library

I live in one of the thousands of small towns in the U.S. that has a local library. Ours dates back to 1864, when a small group of residents came together to create it. Today, it is publicly funded and governed by a nine-member board of library trustees. I’ve served as one of those trustees since 2017.

I came to the role with several decades of experience working in publishing, something that helps both our board and our library director, who grapples regularly with the changing landscape of publishers, platforms, and distributors. Sometimes I can act as a sounding board or an interpreter, particularly when supply-chain issues come up.

These insights into the lifeblood of libraries have helped me make the most of my board service. And my experience has convinced me that people with publishing industry experience are often ideally suited to library board work. We share library values, and we understand how the information world works.

A Call to Serve

Although trustee positions are unpaid, serving on the board has been rewarding. Everyone recruited for the board comes with a love of what the library does for our community. And almost everyone who uses the library wants to see it succeed, so our conversations with patrons often touch on what we can do together to build on what the library does well.

I live in New Jersey, a state that requires villages and towns to include funding for libraries as part of the local property taxes collected each year. That funding mechanism provides stability, particularly in times like these when other resources are being curtailed. Our library is also fortunate to have both a foundation, which works to deliver funding for capital projects, and a local Friends of the Library group, whose annual fundraising helps the library address gaps between the mandated funding and current-year operational needs.

Still, there are always challenges. Among them, the demand for library resources and services in the community continues to grow, while our operational budget remains limited. Patrons today expect the library to offer to a broad array of books and other materials in both physical and digital form, including subscriptions, movies, internet access, and more. The library also fills several social roles for the community, including regular story hours, visiting seniors to share library resources, helping people with limited digital access with job searches, and serving as a cooling center when needed.

Working as a library trustees is a complicated balancing act between running the library (the day-to-day responsibilities for which of course fall on the library director) and making sure that the library is well-run, between meeting present day needs and planning for the future. But while most trustees come to the role because they want to help the library, almost no one joins a library board because they have a passion for governance. The work is not glamorous. If you're lucky, you’ll get one groundbreaking ceremony along the way. But the work is absolutely essential.

For all of my time on the board, for example, we’ve been working on a project to expand the library's physical plant. The idea was first proposed more than a decade ago but its only in the last few years that we've been able to move the project forward. Within the board, advocates for the expansion have been working tirelessly to generate support, secure funding, evaluate and hire architects and contractors, and, finally, to lay out and manage the complex process to move the library out of its permanent location while construction takes place.

Many of the trustees involved in this project had only limited experience with this kind of work. But guided by our passion for ensuring the library is a beacon within our village, we were able to rely on other community members whose expertise to fill in any knowledge gaps. And that vision and leadership has turned a decade-long dream into what will soon be a reality.

This is also a time when book bans are increasingly an issue for librarians and the boards that oversee their work. Public institutions are best guided by development and application of effective policies, work that takes time. This is another area where book industry experience is helpful. In the publishing industry, we’re keenly aware of attempts to limit access to content, and we understand how important it is to have book selection managed by the librarians who have been trained for this work.

My publishing experience helped me raise book bans as an issue when they were somewhat less common than they are today. In reponse, the library director shared existing policies, which the board and the director reviewed in tandem. Opportunities to strengthen the policies were discussed, and the changes were then voted on in public meetings. To date, no one has challenged a title in our collection. But if that day comes, we know we have a clear process for fielding and evaluating these complaints, a process which starts with the staff.

Again, work like this is not glamorous. But the board's support and respect for the work of our library staff, coupled with a long-term commitment to the health of the library, stands as a major service to our community.

Rewarding Work

Unglamorous work for no pay, and an endless stream of sometimes complex challenges? Who, you might ask: would sign up for this job? The answer, I suggest: maybe you.

Do you want to help shape the future of your local library, and ensure your library can meet the needs of the community? Do you have the kind of skills that can help make long term plans become reality, sometimes against the odds? Do you want to be part of a dedicated team that marshals different skill sets and experiences in pursuit of a common goal? Then I encourage you to stand for your local library board.

Especially for those of you working in the publishing industry, I can attest that leveraging your knowledge and skills on behalf of your local library is a rewarding exercise in public service. And in an era where we’re increasingly seen as a nation that is bowling alone, that's a pretty good reason to want the job.

Brian O'Leary is Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group. Before joining BISG in 2016, he was principal of Magellan Media Consulting, which helped publishers improve how they create, manage, and distribute content and co-edited Book: A Futurist's Manifesto (O'Reilly Media, 2012) with Hugh McGuire.