Librarian’s Share: Hennepin County Library

It's time to check in with another winner of this year's Digital Library Champions contest! Since last August, we've been highlighting winners and their success stories through a series of Librarian's Share blog posts. This week, we feature the winner of the “Inside the Library” category, Hennepin County Library, as written by Senior Librarian Shannon Crary.   "eBooks & More" at Hennepin County Library In a large library system, many departments must be involved to make a system-wide initiative successful. To support the Hennepin County Library eBook collection and services, and to encourage staff collaboration, a cross-departmental "eBooks & More" staff team was created. The team focuses on managing our system's downloadable collections and facilitating staff understanding and patron access. Members of the "eBooks & More" team include frontline staff and IT help desk staff, circulation managers, collection managers and information service managers. eReader Kits To provide consistent staff development and patron training in eBooks Basics classes throughout Hennepin County Library's 41 locations, the team developed eight eReader Kits containing a variety of devices, software and library card information, and a practice guide. Our eReader Kits include iPads, Kindles, Kindle Fires, Sony Readers, Nooks, and Kobos. Each kit has a laptop with appropriate software and library card information authorized with the devices in the kit. The practice guide in the kit helps staff who need additional direction with the devices. Activities in the practice guide take staff through all of the basics of using the devices with the Library's eBook collection. The kits also have adapters that allow the iPads to be used with a projector. This allows staff to demonstrate how the OverDrive iPad app is used for accessing the Library's collections.   eBook Basics Curriculum The "eBooks & More" team also developed an eBook Basics curriculum available to all staff for self- or group training, or for use with patrons. When a library chooses to offer an eBook Basics class for patrons, staff can reserve an eReader Kit for the class and it comes with everything they need. To kick off the development of the eBook Basics curriculum as well as the configuring of the eReader Kits to support public classes, we held staff eBook Basics sessions. We invited our libraries to send representatives to several scheduled classes. The representatives then took the training back to their location to share with their peers. In our libraries, posters promote eBook classes and business cards at service points promote the digital collection. See the Hennepin County Library poster promoting eBook classes (at right). To maintain communication with staff about eBooks, at our system-wide ERUG (Electronic Resources Users' Group) staff meetings once every two months, we often cover eBook topics to respond to questions and keep staff up-to-date on changes in technology and services. In addition, we maintain an information services portal on our internal staff web, where we keep eBook Basics information and training materials for all staff to access at any time. Our public eBooks blog and staff blog also help to keep staff informed, and staff can approach their colleagues on the "eBooks & More" team to ask questions or to make suggestions for improvements in training or patron service. Cross-departmental collaboration, consistent training, effective promotion, and open staff communication have contributed to making the Hennepin County Library eBook collection highly successful.   Shannon Crary is Senior Librarian, Electronic Resources, Periodicals, Reference at Hennepin County Library.

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