Capacity Plan Status Report

Key Information

The Board Capacity Plan Committee has requested three sets of capacity recommendations:
1. 10% budget reduction
2. Status quo operations
3. Ideal operations

Capacity Plan Components

Communications Plan - Four public meetings were held, and online comments were accepted, to introduce the capacity planning process, and gather community input about the library’s priorities and services for the future.

Received: 1) Stakeholder Interview Notes Summary, 2) Summary of Comments from Four Community Meetings, 3) Website Comments Summary

Expected: 1) Four additional public meetings will be held to report the key findings and recommendations, 2) Communications Plan to market the capacity plan and specific capacity plan elements, and to help ensure that staff, stakeholders and the community are familiar with the outcome of the planning process and understand how it impacts them, 3) Action Plan with timelines to achieve recommendations.

Reduction, Status Quo and Ideal Scenario Recommendations

Draft Reports Received: 1) Reduction Scenario - JPL Schedule Option, 2) Status Quo Scenario - Services & Facilities Functional Assessment, 3) All three scenarios – Alternative Model Libraries (defined as less than a full-service facility, with minimal staffing).

Expected: 1) Ideal Scenario – White Paper based on Buxton data for ideal library locations if starting “from scratch”, 2) A presentation from the consultants that ties all of the data together to present a clear, transparent plan to present to the Mayor and the Council.

Facilities

Received: 1) Space Planning Guidelines and Preliminary Standards, 2) Physical Assessment of Library Buildings, 3) Building retrofit costs, 4) Functional Assessment of Facilities (includes manager and staff input)

Expected: 1) Long Term Facilities Plan

Information Technology

Received: 1) Information Technology Report Draft

Services

Expected: 1) Service Capacity Report

Market Segmentation

Received: 1) Mosaic Descriptions of Customer Profile Groups, 2) Model Draft Report (includes drive time, trade areas, segmentation profiles by branch, customer profiles by material category and branch, and score sheets that indicate branch materials use compared to JPL average use).

Expected: 1) Cross Over Charts, 2) Computer use data added to score sheets

Funding

Expected: 1) Sustainable funding plan

Next steps

1) Capacity Plan Committee Meeting – December 17, 9-12, Conference Center, Room G4. Consultants will share key findings and recommendations.
2) Administrative Team visits to branches to share key findings.
2) Four Public Meetings are scheduled in January:
January 11, 2:30-4:00, Beaches
January 11, 7:00-8:30, Highlands
January 12, 2:30-4:00, Graham
January 12, 7:00-8:30, Southeast
3) Final Capacity Plan Committee meeting – February 8, 9:00-12:00, Conference Center, Room G4.
4) When the final capacity plan report has been received by the Board, JPL will have 60 days to provide the Mayor and Council with recommendations for action by the legislative and executive branches of government.
5) COJ Budget workshops will be held February – April.

Capacity Plan - October Report

Four public meetings held at Northwest, Mandarin, South Mandarin and Webb were attended by 100 library customers who offered their ideas for providing quality programs and services in a cost-effective way. Ideas ranged from increasing volunteers to improving communications to trimming costs. Customers who could not attend the meetings had an opportunity to share ideas online, and over 100 comments were received. Ideas, comments and priorities from the community will be considered by the consultants and incorporated into the Capacity Plan.

As a result of public interest in the capacity planning process, ILS has created a page for the Capacity Plan on JPL’s website. The purpose of the page is to post information and documents during the capacity planning process so staff and the public can keep abreast of developments.

The Capacity Plan is now linked from About the Library. It is listed in the yellow floatbox on the right as one of the options to click to learn more about the library.

http://jaxpubliclibrary.org/lib/about.html
http://jaxpubliclibrary.org/lib/capacity-plan-page.html

Please let us know what you think!

Capacity Plan - September Report

The Capacity Planning process for September centers on four public meetings to obtain community ideas about delivering quality programs and services in a cost effective way. In advance of those meetings, over 100 comments have already been received from customers and will be incorporated into the results. The three categories getting the most comments are fines, computers, and hours. Encourage your customers to attend the public meetings!

Our consultants are still in the data gathering phase of the project. They have finished functional and electrical/mechanical evaluations of the facilities, and will complete the architectural evaluations in September with Main and Regency. A staff facilities survey is currently underway. The facilities data, along with recommendations from customer segmentation profiles, will be used to create a long term facilities plan and provide recommendations for facilities changes. Data analysis is underway to complete customer segmentation profiles for each library. These profiles will define trade areas and provide recommendations about materials, services, hours and library location.

The plan is expected to be completed by February 2011.

If you have questions about the capacity planning process, please contact any member of the Capacity Plan Team: Melonee Slocum (Project Manager), Barbara Gubbin, Carolyn Williams, Barrett King, Luis Flores, Gretchen Mitchell, or Kathy Lussier.

Capacity Plan - Take the Staff Survey!

Godfrey's Associates has been hired by the Library to conduct a "capacity" study to identify how the Jacksonville Public Library can offer the best possible service with the limited resources that are available. The quality and efficiency of library buildings is one of the things that will be explored. The following survey provides an opportunity for you to tell the consultants what works well about your branch and what doesn't work so well.

I encourage each of you to participate in the survey. The survey link follows:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/345708/jacksonville-staff

Capacity Plan - July Report

The JPL Capacity Plan got off to a good start this week with a three day site visit from Godfrey's Associates library consultants. Activities included meetings with the Board Capacity Plan Team, JPL Capacity Plan Team, Ron Block, and system managers; interviewing City department representatives from Facilities, IT and Planning; gathering data; evaluating the Webb Wesconnett library; interviewing Board Chair Jim Selzer; and meeting with Lynn Jacobson and Karen Walker to review data acquistion requirements.

During August, consultants will coordinate with Assistant Director Luis Flores to schedule site visits to evaluate various branches, an online survey will be posted for staff, and the consultants will begin to analyze the data that they have collected. The consultants will meet with the Board and JPL Capacity Plan teams on August 13 to update them on the results.

A total of eight community meetings will be held as part of the capacity planning process. The first four meetings will be to gather input at the beginning of the process, the final four will be to communicate the results of the process. The first four community meetings are scheduled at Webb Wesconnett and Pablo Creek on Wednesday, September 15 and, Bradham Brooks Northwest and Mandarin on Thursday, September 16. Meetings be from 7:00-8:30 pm. The communications process is being managed by a member of the consulting team, Amy Rankin, who will provide JPL with advertising, flyers and a marketing message.

If you have questions about the planning process, contact Melonee Slocum, mslocum@coj.net.

JPL Capacity Plan - Overview

In March of this year, JPL issued a Request for Proposal for a consulting team to help determine the capacity of JPL to provide services in a rapidly changing information environment given reduced funding, uncertainty about future funding, and to obtain direction from the community about which service priorities and locations are most important for the future.

Godfrey's Associates, Inc. was awarded the contract and will begin consultation work for the Library on their first site visit July 27th - July 29th. An ad hoc Board Capacity Plan team has been appointed by Board Chairperson Jim Selzer, and a senior staff team has been appointed by Director Barbara Gubbin, to work with the consultants during this process. The senior staff team includes Deputy Director Barrett King, Deputy Director Carolyn Williams, Assistant Director Luis Flores, Assistant Director Gretchen Mitchell, and Project Manager Melonee Slocum.

Project Background

JPL opened seven new libraries in FY04-05 doubling the footprint of JPL. DESTINATION:next, the Strategic Plan which following, was predicated on an expanded system, service growth and a healthy economy. Since then, the General Fund expendable accounts have been cut every year and fiscal uncertainty continues.

JPL continues to provide services at all twenty one locations with fewer staff than five years ago, and in the face of reductions to overall funding including facilities and IT. The BOT has already reduced hours at five locations to 20 hours per week, eliminated Sunday hours at all locations except the Main library, reorganized operations and eliminated positions to meet a City current year budget shortfall.

Project Purpose

The purpose of the Capacity Plan is to determine the capacity of JPL to provide services in a rapidly changing information environment given reduced funding, and uncertainty about future funding, and to obtain direction from the community about which service priorities and locations are the most important for the future.

Project Goals

A consulting firm will formulate the plan within the context of the current and anticipated budgets, the existing Strategic Plan, and library service trends including digital service delivery and other cost effective service delivery systems, to recommend sustainable library services for City of Jacksonville.

To determine capacity, the consultant will evaluate every public library facility, analyze library usage patterns, consider cost effective service delivery methods, and compile market segmentation/customer analytics data. The results will be presented to the community to determine their priorities among the affordable options.

The capacity plan will produce a long-range facilities master plan that will provide the Jacksonville community with equitable, appropriate, flexible, safe and secure environments. It will identify and recommend sustainable facilities capacity options which will best serve community needs now and in the future, and include a listing of facilities needs and costs.

JPL does not have adequate IT infrastructure and support to provide the community with the technology access they require to meet their information needs. IT analysis and cost estimates for upgrades will be a key element of the infrastructure review and analysis.

The consultants will lead a process that will engage the community on the issues of declining budgets, use and maintenance of facilities and IT, preferred library services for the various market segments in Jacksonville, and service priorities for the course of the plan. The process will explore service capacity options which may include closing, combining, or replacing existing libraries and services, and will include new digital and cost effective service delivery options.

JPL and its Board compete with other City agencies for General Fund dollars, and as a result, are subject to uncertain budget funding each year and, have no capacity to do long term planning for funding library services. The capacity plan will explore options for funding which would provide a consistent revenue stream for the administration of Jacksonville Public Library by the BOT.
Project Timeline - The capacity planning process is envisioned to be a 6-9 month project beginning in July 2010 and concluding with the final plan approval by the JPL Library Board of Trustees by February 2011.