Community Organizing for Database Trial 1
Community Organizing for Database Trial Buy-In by Patrons
JJ Pionke
Assistant Professor and Applied Health Sciences Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
pionke@illinois.edu
Received: March 19, 2015
Accepted: April 15, 2015
Abstract:
Database trials do not often garner a lot of feedback. Using community-organizing techniques
can not only potentially increase the amount of feedback received but also deepen the
relationship between the librarian and their constituent group. This is a case study of the use of
community-organizing techniques in a series of database trials for the health sciences.
Keywords: community organizing, database trials, outreach
Community Organizing for Database Trial 2
Community Organizing for Database Trial Buy-In by Patrons
One of the greatest issues that faces a librarian who is running a database trial is to get the
buy-in and feedback from the patrons at whom the trial is aimed, in order to make a truly
informed decision about the acquisitions of databases. Typically, a database trial might look
something like this:
1. Someone (a librarian, a faculty member, or an administrator) instigates the trial.
2. The librarian sets up the trial.
3. The librarian might send an email to patrons and a note might be posted somewhere on
the library website.
4. The trial runs.
5. The librarian might hear from one or two patrons about the database that was trialed.
6. Based on often limited user feedback and usage statistics, as well as collection
development needs, a decision is made about whether or not to purchase the database.
In this current and widely used configuration, while patrons are included, their role in the whole
acquisition process is actually quite minimal. The decision to purchase or not to purchase falls
almost solely on the librarian’s shoulders. Using community-organizing techniques, which have
been used by labor unions for decades, librarians can not only get more feedback on the
databases that they are trialing but also create stronger relationships with their patrons.
Literature Review
There is a good deal of literature on librarian outreach because it is a core component of
many librarians’ jobs. However, as pointed out by Dorsett (2014), “…[there is] no clear
definition of what constitutes outreach work” (p. 75). Librarian literature often focuses explicitly
on reaching out to a specific population such as adult learners, as discussed by Cannady, King,
Community Organizing for Database Trial 3
and Blendinger (2012) and Ismail (2011), or as something that is included as part of another
activity like embedded librarianship as discussed by Jacobs (2010) or Caminita (2015). While
there are plenty of examples of outreach activities, for instance as described by Silver (2014),
there is very little in the literature that addresses overall strategy or the use of any kind of theory
in order to boost patron buy-in. There are many different modes of thought for outreach and
information literacy, and the same is true for community-organizing. That said, there are some
common trends among theorists in community-organizing and these trends revolve around
discussions about topics, issues, and concerns, education around them, and social action of some
kind to address them. Martinson and Su (2012), paraphrasing Rothman (2008) and Sen (2003),
state “Community organizing in practice, of course, rarely reflects an ideal model in its pure
form, as each effort requires strategies and tactics that are specific to the given situation” (p. 59).
This is a key point in community-organizing, as the techniques used in one place and situation
might not work in another similar place and situation. A community-organizer must be
adaptable to the situation and the people in it, if the organizer is to have any success. In short,
building a large and diverse theoretical toolbox of techniques is to the organizer’s advantage, as
it will help him or her adapt to the people and situation at hand.
Within the world of community-organizing, one of the key theorists is Saul Alinsky who,
beginning in the 1930s, started organizing the poor and working class people of ghettos into solid
groups that would then campaign for better wages, living conditions, and so on. In his influential
and still widely read book, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals,
Alinsky (1971) states that “…it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to
change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system” (p. xix). “The
system” can be broadly defined as any entity that controls what people do and how they do it. In
Community Organizing for Database Trial 4
the case of academia, it is the university itself that is “the system” that must be worked within to
get the changes that constituent groups want to see. To be a good community-organizer is to
understand “the system” as it is and the forces to be used and played out in order to effect
change. Change here is broadly defined, and in the context of the case study, it is the purchase of
two health databases for the use of students and faculty after a database trial and feedback
period. In order for a community organizer to start effecting change, he or she needs to know
what it is that constituent groups are frustrated and upset about.
Rogers (1990) discusses how to elicit understanding of change issues in her influential
book Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics, which focuses on Ernesto Cortes as a
case study of organizing success. Quoting Cortes,
‘If I want to organize you, I don’t sell you an idea. What I do, if I’m smart, is try to find
out what’s your interest. What are your dreams? I try to kindle your imagination, stir the
possibilities, and then propose some ways in which you can act on those dreams and act
on those values and act on your own visions.’ (p. 17)
Both Alinsky and Cortes are espousing the idea of integrating the organizer into the community
that they support. To be a community-organizer is to be an outsider who is accepted within the
community served. While this is not true for every librarian; for many academic librarians, this
is certainly the case. Their first academic focus is typically not in the area for which they are
subject librarians. Sometimes this change is radical as in the case of librarians who have a
background in the humanities and become science, health, or engineering subject specialists.
This presents a particular challenge for these librarians, as they have no strong sense of insider
knowledge or discipline-specific language in the areas that they support.
Community Organizing for Database Trial 5
How can librarians integrate into the communities that they serve when they have no
background in that area? Following the Cortes quote, librarians need to listen to the needs of the
constituent groups within the community. Needs typically aren’t discipline-specific and can
usually be understood on a more general basis and in a broader context like new equipment,
better education on certain topics like citation or plagiarism, and so on. From a broader point of
view, one could delve more deeply into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, wherein the more basic
needs like shelter and food are at the bottom of the pyramid and must be met before needs like
self-actualization can be attained (Fitzgerald, 1977). It is from this view that programs in
libraries that promote safe spaces for LGBTQ patrons becomes incredibly important as it plays
into the safety need that Maslow describes as near the base of his pyramid. While most of the
physiological needs have been met for a large segment of the patron population, there are more
individualized and discipline specific needs that will make self-actualization far more readily
available to patrons. While details are important, understanding the greater issue and how it is
nestled within the cultural context of the department, library, and university as a whole is even
more so. In a real-world application, here is a case study of the use of community-organizing
techniques to librarian outreach through the lenses of database trials.
Case Study
In the summer of 2013, a new health librarian arrived at Wichita State University. There
hadn’t been a health librarian for several years, so the outreach to that community was largely a
tabula rasa. The librarian started their relationship building with asking some basic questions,
including, “If money, time, and resources were no object, what would you want to do?” The
answers varied but often focused on more integrated and robust learning experiences for students
and providing better resources for them as well. After listening to their frustrations and their
Community Organizing for Database Trial 6
hopes, the health librarian asked for names of databases that the nursing and physician-assistant
faculty wish they had. The health librarian then took that list to the collection-development
librarian who successfully convinced the dean to at least sample the databases on a trial. Perhaps
owing to the somewhat tenuous nature of administrative approval, a decision was made to trial
six databases all at once. The databases were a mixture of clinical and pharmacological types as
those two areas were of the greatest need and concern for nursing and physician-assistant faculty.
Following the decision to go forward with the trials, the health librarian immediately
began mentioning the trial in conversations with College of Health Professions faculty, staff, and
students in order to put the trial on their respective radars. Once the trial dates were set -- the
entire month of March 2014 -- the health librarian then sought to create a comprehensive
marketing campaign to garner not only use of the trials, but also feedback from patrons. March
was a fortuitous month for a variety of reasons, including that the graduate nursing students were
taking their comprehensive exams, and the Wichita State Shockers were participating in the
annual NCAA basketball tournament and expected to do well. To this end, every conversation
with a graduate nursing student included a discussion of the trials and the health librarian dubbed
the trials as “Database Trial March Madness” to capitalize on the basketball fever that was
sweeping through the university.
While sports mania flooded the university, the health librarian was waging a campaign to
raise awareness of the database trials and ensure that feedback was received, so that the
university libraries could make an informed decision. A variety of communication strategies
were employed, including the use of social media, inclusion of the trials in information literacy
sessions, and email announcements. The largest strategy that the health librarian relied on was
that of inclusion through personal contact. Kahn (1991) states, “Person-to-person
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communication carries the message that we see people as individuals, not simply as consumers
or producers. When we communicate person-to-person we say that each person’s ideas are
valuable, that each person should have control of his or her life” (p. 198). Incorporating the
constituent groups into the decision-making process of purchasing the databases gave the
constituent groups a greater feeling of inclusion and value in the eyes of the university libraries
as well as the university as a whole. The health librarian consistently discussed the database
trials with every person who was part of the constituent group in order to not only advertise the
database trials and promote a sense of inclusion in the process, but also to develop deeper and
stronger relationships with the constituent group.
The relationship building focused in part on the use of inclusionary language on the part
of the health librarian. Kahn (1991) points out the value of using language like “we,” which
promotes the inclusion of the organizer, in this case the health librarian, into the community that
they are organizing. The health librarian was careful to try and consistently use the “we”
language in order to communicate that she felt that she were part of the health professions
community at the university, although the health librarian was in a different building and
department entirely. Clark (2000) very aptly states, “A source [for instance, the health librarian]
who is considered to be ‘one of us’ will be more likely to gain acceptance than a source who is
seen as ‘different’” (p. 117). Language use is an important part of integrating into the
community, and to that end, the health librarian limited library jargon and instead focused on
using health-specific language and scenarios, for instance by stressing the importance of mobile
access for clinical resources in clinical settings. While feedback continued to steadily come in
through email, it was determined within the library that a survey to capture quantitative data
would be useful to the decision-making process.
Community Organizing for Database Trial 8
The health librarian developed a quick survey to gather user feedback. The survey would
only run for the last 8 days of the trial. By day 4, only four people had taken the survey.
Keeping in mind that one of the core principles of community-organizing is individual contact
because making personal contact is more inclusive and generates a greater degree of buy-in.
Knowing that acquisition of even one of the databases would be of great value to the College of
Health Professions and that a new database would help faculty fulfill the dreams that they had
discussed earlier, the health librarian made a personal phone call to the department head for
nursing to discuss the trial and why feedback, including filling out the survey, was important.
While the health librarian had been good about marketing and outreach in general, a further
discussion to a key leader was needed. The phone call and subsequent email follow up, which
was then forwarded by the department head to the department with a note of endorsement, was a
success in terms of feedback on the survey. By the final day of the survey, there were a total of
41 responses.
Between the survey and the response emails that gave feedback, the library dean agreed
to fund the purchase of two databases, UpToDate and Clinical Pharmacology, for the College of
Health Professions. While the database trial was a success using community-organizing
techniques, the work of a community-organizer is never done. In this case, the health librarian
immediately got training for the two databases and developed materials to educate the
constituent groups on how to use them. The health librarian started spreading the word about the
acquisitions so that faculty could immediately begin incorporating the databases into curriculum
planning for the Fall 2014 semester. The health librarian also developed a marketing campaign
to reach as many as possible about the new databases, including specifically pointing them out in
information sessions, orientations, and conversations where appropriate.
Community Organizing for Database Trial 9
Though the health librarian was industrious with community-organizing around the issue
of database trials, a key component of the health librarian’s success revolved around educating
the constituent groups as to why the feedback was so important in the context of the university
libraries’ decision-making process. Contextualization of information and transparency in the
process certainly helped convince students and faculty alike to provide the feedback that was
needed to convince the library dean that the acquisition of those resources would be of
tremendous value to the College of Health Professions.
Conclusion
While the collection-development librarian had remarked that the database trial was one
of the most successful that they had seen in terms of user feedback. Even if it had not been, the
database trials would have been considered a success by the health librarian because of the level
of community integration that occurred. Owing to the increased visibility from the database
trials, the health librarian received more invitations to do information-literacy sessions and was
approached more readily by faculty and students when they needed assistance. While the goal of
the database trial was to try out databases and make a determination if one or more should be
purchased, the goal of the health librarian was to do all that and learn more about the community.
Using community-organizing techniques, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning
outcomes and faculty productivity, is the change that the health librarian wanted to see in terms
of overarching goals and the change within “the system” that the health librarian wanted to
effect. Overall, the database trial was a success on all fronts because of the communityorganizing that was done by the health librarian in order to address a need that was articulated by
the health professions faculty.
References
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