Announcing the Uptown Project

Hello, all KPLers
Over the past few months, I have been talking about our challenges serving the Uptown neighborhood. Circulation at that branch has decreased by 50% since 2011. Visits are down 37% during the same period. This year has been particularly tough. We need to make some changes. Uptown is a challenged neighborhood with too many kids who are failing in school and too many adults who are failing in life. The library can be their lifeline to a better future. I'm ready to accept that challenge and I hope you are, too.
I can sit in my office and stare at statistics and formulate what I think is a plan for improvement. Or I can bring all of you together who have worked in that neighborhood for years or lived there or know the neighborhood dynamics well, and ask you. I think the second option is the one that's more likely to get us where we need to go.
So I'm inviting you to join me at Uptown Library on Friday, December 6th for two sessions, either 9am or 1pm,  where we'll use a tool called factor analysis to determine the reasons we think Uptown library service has not been successful and strategies to turn it around. If you have experience working at Uptown or you are passionate about improving equitable service across KPL, I need you there. If you cannot attend that day, I will send out a staff survey to collect your ideas after the session. If enough people express interest but can't attend, I'll schedule an additional session.

These factor analysis sessions with staff are one tool we'll use to figure out how to serve the Uptown neighborhood better. Here are several more strategies already underway:

• Curtis Strange and Grant Elementary schools will send a survey to parents about why they do or don't visit the library and how we can become a family tradition.
• We're hiring a Branch Manager to focus on collections, staff training, and space considerations.
• We're working hard to attract more diverse staff candidates who reflect the racial makeup of the neighborhood.
• We're finalizing a new contract with the Literacy Council to gain more first floor library service space.
• We're considering ways other libraries have tailored services in challenged neighborhoods.
• We're gearing up to partner with the job center to improve our workforce development training.
• We're pursuing a grant funded Preparing Adults for the Workplace program through the ProLiteracy Education Center that we'll pilot at Shalom, then repeat at Uptown.

If you are able to join us on Friday, December 6th, or if you can't attend but are interested in participating, please add your name to this list. 

Thanks so much!

Barb