Nordic Camp 2011 - Idea description
Group & member's names Los Involvadores: Anja, Kenneth, Lotte, Kristin, Britt-Marie
Name of Idea? The Nordic Portal of Fear
What is it? Empowerment of staff To get out of the fear zone and enter new and unknown areas To feel comfortable with changes especially fear of involvement of users
What does it solve? Key to involvement Bring out all good qualities and competence in the staff Solves obstacles to involvement
Why is it good? That the staff feels safe is a precondition to involvement of users and commities. Beware you have only a milli-second of truth facing the users, so you better catch it right. It opens the library to the local community It is necessary for real democracy and for the libraries’ contribution to democracy.
How would you implement it tomorrow? We started yesterday by co-operationg in the camp and developing ideas. Transnordic staff credit system: Job exchange across the Nordic libraries: Today the libraries give each other giftcards of 12 members of the staff for 2 weeks. Competence sharing inspired by the Reykjavik intercultural gathering model across NGO’s and institutions with contact with target groups for involvement use all competences in the staff and start every idea of involvement by gathering all competences in the staff (Tech-staff, assistants, adminstration, accounts, clerks, librarians, ITC etc); a common platform from idea to implementation appreciating all and diverse competences and personalities. See diversity as a ressource and not at problem. Job rotation: borrow a collegue, inspired by the library service; borrow a person ( a handicapped, a policemen, a youngster, a gangster, a homeless...) competence development; bodylanguage (how you show (and feel) that you are safe and secure about the users/target groups for involvement methods for user involvement any areas where the staff feel insecure methods for un-fear-ring: mental change. Like Alice in wonderland and Harry Potter, we need to face our fears, but it is not the same things, we fear. make successes visible and celebrate mistakes ”Elephant order”; a way members of the staff appreciate each other for special good performances (managers don’t alway remember to give compliments, so the staff must help each others) Recruitment; diverse matching the users in the community diverse in personality and interests; generalists and specialists competences for user involvement Break down internal prejudices, for instance by mixing different groups of staff at meetings where they co-create solutions for challenges of the library. Common tasks bring together different groups.