Community Connections

Connections with your community Louise Sherriff

Paper for the March 2007 Weekend School of the Otago/Southland Region of LIANZA

Introduction

Yesterday we heard about the Rural Community Resource Centre (RCRC) model from Mike. Today I will tell you about similar developments evolving from Turn Off TV Week (TOTVW) since April 2006 to 'Turn on Life' in the Blueskin Bay community and library now and in the future. In a moment we will watch a movie about that evolution. As you watch, think about your library's role in encouraging community education and empowerment.

Mike talked in some depth on the following headings.

• Community Leadership
• Education
• Library and Community
• Library without Walls
• Social and Economic Capital
  

As you watch the movie try to make the connections between these headings and how they fit into your library environment.

Movie (20 minutes)

The Blueskin Bay library (BBL) is the smallest community library of the Dunedin Public Libraries network and is 20 km north of Dunedin.

The Blueskin Bay library serves a community of approximately 2000 people with an eclectic but coherent mix of ethnicities and lifestyles. The library has adapted to demographic changes in the community by expanding its traditional role and seeking avenues to become more engaged in community initiatives. Hence the library’s coordination of the Blueskin Bay Turn Off TV Week (TOTVW) that has been run for five years by an enthusiastic local team. The idea originated from the international TOTVW movement based in America. Such initiatives are important for rural libraries, where the communities they serve have experienced significant contractions in local and central government services - the library is the sole remaining local government based facility.

The coordination of TOTVW required considerable community engagement, with the community running the workshops, and the library organising and providing speakers, venues, and publicity. Involvement with TOTVW has allowed the library to expand the range of services it offers to its community, whilst also retaining its more fundamental roles. Various spin-off activities that will occur during the year are a mural project, a discussion series run in conjunction with the local Church, and compiling a documentary tracing the history and development of Blueskin Bay TOTVW. Direct library benefits have been an increase in visitor numbers and the offering of a more diverse range of community services.

TOTVW has enabled us to build enduring and mutually beneficial relationships within the community - an essential requirement of a rural Library[1]

Discussion

Community Leadership

First of all, Mike spoke yesterday about the need for community library staff to become involved with their community and to keep their finger on the community's pulse. In order to do this we need to involve ourselves with the key committees at the heart of the community and become active participants.

Such involvement guards against parallel developments and encourages multi purpose facilities for a variety of community needs. Being a member of a variety of groups’ means you can make connections to help to knit the community together. Below are some examples of our involvement at BBL.

• Blueskin Bay TOTVW convener
• Blueskin A&P committee member – actively involved with the annual clearing sale and family fun day
• Waitati Hall secretary – the library is next door to the hall, we take the hall bookings and use the hall for many of our programmes
• Blueskin History Steering Committee secretary
• Blueskin Youth hall committee member – encourage their facilities to be multi-purpose and close to the library. Our young people need to be noticed
• Blueskin Media committee member
• Close liaison with the Waikouaiti Coast Community Board
• Blueskin Bay Library Extension Steering Committee member

Education

To recap on what Mike said yesterday, we need to look for institutions in our wider communities that we can form collaborative partnerships with. Some of these include schools, polytechnics, REAP, marae and whare. Looking back 100 years, many of our library roots started from Mechanics Institutes and Mutual Improvement Associations. Blueskin Bay Library itself started as a Mutual Improvement Association in 1867. Part of their constitution stated that:

“…to promote religious, moral and intellectual improvement of the district in whatever we may be conducive to the end…That at each meeting of the Association a lecture, essay, a reading be or a debate be held.”

Six months of lectures followed including a lecture on “The Henpecked husband.”[2]

We have much to learn from our public library beginnings.

Below are some examples of partnerships in their early inception stages.

• Possible partnership between Dunedin Public Libraries and the Otago Polytechnic's (OP) Community Learning Centres - There are many synergies, resources and connections that could be shared between Dunedin Public Libraries and the Polytechnic's Community Learning Centres. The libraries would provide the space and OP the computers and expertise.
• Multidisciplinary Polytechnic Project with building BBL extension
• Worm Farm project – could develop into a community garden outside the library

Library and Community

As Mike discussed yesterday the boundaries between the library and the community are often blurred. The library plays a key role in the informational, educational and social well being of the community. However, it is easy to assume that we know what the community wants. For example, we organised several programmes at Blueskin Bay library with a very poor attendance. Now, we actively listen and survey our customers before planning any programmes. An example of this is the Men’s wellness series that Mike is planning to run during the winter. He has questioned the needs of various men from the community and found them different to his expectation. Watch this space.

Other examples of the library and the community working together are listed below.

• Blueskin Amnesty International monthly meetings held at the library
• Current Lenten studies on ‘Finding God among the poets’
• Library staff encouraged to work a regular time slot at their local Citizens Advice Bureau
• Investigation of a monthly time slot where the local Justice of the Peace can deal with any issues the community may have in a room adjacent to the library.

Sometimes we act as a bridge until another group in the community captures the vision and runs with it. Often the need arises that we facilitate an event and another group carries on the idea. This is a time to rejoice, the community is sharing the vision!

Library without walls

We are taking our library to the community because a good proportion of our users are isolated. For example, travelling distances from the Blueskin Bay Library to Evansdale is five kilometres, to Warrington eight kilometres and to Seacliff thirteen kilometres. Also, there is no footpath between Waitati and the other communities of the bay. State Highway One only connects them, where the traffic is fast and constant. Given the cost of petrol, people in the distant reaches of the district now think twice about using their cars. Generally the whole population of the area practises conservation values in terms of use of their vehicles and so they walk where practicable or thumb a lift. Public transport is virtually non-existent in the district. Therefore, the BBL is planning to take a collection of items over to Warrington as a trial, using a laptop with radio connection to issue material.

• Loans to the Blueskin Bay community
• Warrington Children’s Book Club
• Warrington Play Centre
• Visit during the day for senior citizens with tea and coffee provided with maybe a speaker
• An evening visit with a particular theme e.g. Poetry evening, coincide with a speaker and include themed items
• Satellite collections at the whare, two play centres and Warrington School
• Using the laptop as a teaching tool to show people how to place holds, search the catalogue and use the library’s databases remotely
• Using the laptop at community events e.g. at the Blueskin A&P Show on 31 March: to issue items, to register people and to teach people how to access the library catalogue from home

Key role in community planning – advancement of Social and economic capital

The people of our communities are our most valuable resource. We need to get to know our communities actively, keeping our ears to the ground and developing sustainable relationships.

There are also many different networks that dwell within our communities. We need to also act as a bridge between the many networks that exist in our communities. Quoting Sally Gaze:

“In many rural villages, there used to be one recognizable shared culture for that community in living memory. The churches were a central part of that culture. Among older villagers and particularly within the churches there is often a sense of nostalgia for that time and even sometimes denial that those times will never return. Today, rural areas are full of people who belong to different ‘networks’ and subcultures. Farmers are a good example of a network culture with common experiences and meetings around livestock or farmer’s markets. Other networks are focused on local schools or on places of work and leisure way beyond the parish boundaries. Different networks present in the countryside have different values and it may be difficult for each small parish church to respond effectively to this diversity.”