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Q&A
Council member Rivera inquires about library program prioritization and community feedback
1:09:03
·
4 min
Council Member Carlina Rivera asks how libraries gather feedback from communities to prioritize programs and if any programs are in jeopardy. Representatives from Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, and New York Public Library respond, discussing their methods for program selection, community engagement, and strategic planning.
- Libraries use a combination of attendance data, community feedback, and strategic planning to determine program priorities.
- They balance community demand with aspirational goals and civic responsibilities.
- Libraries are investing in programs for new immigrants, civic engagement, and emerging technologies like AI.
- Challenges include balancing data collection for decision-making with protecting user privacy.
Carlina Rivera
1:09:03
I appreciate that whether it's Jackson Heights or Eastern Parkway, Westchester Square, these are all important projects.
1:09:10
My last question, because I know my colleagues have some are, you know, all of this affects the programming you provide and and that's what's, right, the jewel in addition to the books.
1:09:21
How do libraries gather feedback from communities to decide which programs and activities to prioritize?
1:09:28
And are any of those programs in jeopardy seriously?
1:09:34
That'll be my last question.
1:09:35
Mister chair.
Linda Johnson
1:09:38
You know, it's a a balancing act.
1:09:42
We look at attendance and where the demand is the greatest.
1:09:47
We have also a sense of a pedagogy that you know we can be proud of.
1:09:54
It's at least in Brooklyn.
1:09:56
So it's not just about it's not just about demand, it's also about aspirations and what we want our community to learn.
1:10:07
You know, we're very heavily invested in services to newest New Yorkers, civic engagement, voter registration, all the things that come with being a responsible citizen in the city of New York, in the state of New York, in the country.
1:10:22
And there are always great and innovative ideas that are coming from staff, and so you know we have a strategy department that specifically looks at what kind of programs in the branches are likely to be successful, and we incubate them and work on a small scale, and if they're successful then spread them more broadly across the borough.
Dennis Walcott
1:10:47
In Queens, we just approved, I guess last year, our five year strategic plan, and so that serves as a foundation as far as working with the community and implementing new initiatives and strengthening existing programs and service, And part of that plan was engaging the community as far as their feedback.
1:11:08
We rely on our managers who are on the ground who know more than I know as far as the need to the respective communities and really feeding that into both the strategic plan and the overall discussion process itself.
1:11:21
And then taking a look at funding.
1:11:22
I mean, we have a very great relationship with the city as all of us do as far as the needs of the city and how we play that role, then whether we can allocate our existing dollars from you, the city council, and the city overall, or raise money to meet those needs.
1:11:42
It's all part of that process of really blending the initiatives to meet the increased demands of services.
1:11:49
And then again, I think strategic planning really provides that foundation.
1:11:53
Linda talked about the aspirational.
1:11:55
It's keeping that aspirational vision of what we want to do, but also unlocking the creativity of our team members to provide those services.
Anthony "Tony" Marx
1:12:05
Madam chair.
1:12:07
Madam chair, thank you for that question.
1:12:09
So just to reiterate, we we have also just we've just completed a five year strategic plan, so we've been reviewing exactly this question.
1:12:17
We've seen over the last five or ten years a massive increase of our investment with your and the mayor's partnership in everything from after school, teen programming, and teen centers, and teen ambassadors, band book clubs.
1:12:35
We see English language instruction for the immigrant community that's being pressed on so many fronts at this point in terms of what the feds, are doing.
1:12:45
Computer skills essential for making it in in this world.
1:12:49
AI now is a new area we're going into in terms of helping New Yorkers understand it.
1:12:55
We we respond to what we hear in surveys, what our staff tells us is working or not working.
1:13:04
Obviously, it varies by neighborhood to neighborhood, so we do some programs more, some less, depending on what the real needs are there.
1:13:13
One of our strategic initiatives is to increase our data capacity, our capacity for gathering data, to be responsive, and at the same time, we have to figure out, and we we work at this, how to balance having the information to make the right decisions based on the resources that you and the mayor provide to us, but also protecting people's privacy as we do it.
1:13:36
And that's a little tricky.
1:13:38
We may be the last institutions left that care about and respect privacy, but we have to keep that balance, and that's what we're doing.