The Free Library of Philadelphia has 52 branches and is organized into geographical clusters.
According to Joe Benford, Deputy Director of Customer Engagement, the managing director is the main point of contact rather than Mayor.
The major issue of the Free Library of Philadelphia is the heroin/opioid crisis
Mcpherson Square branch in Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia has been the epicenter with 1200 deaths last year. They tried taking ID for bathroom use, then time limits. They still saw needles in the bathrooms. Overdoses started to occur outside and inside the branch. In 2016 they had an overdose and emergency services was taking too long to respond, but they got Prevention Point to come to the library faster and reverse the overdose. After that they asked for Narcan training - it took a year to get that approved. Then they saw more overdoses in warmer weather. Security’s assistance was vital. When the city started sending police there was a decrease in overdoses in the park, but the overdoses moved to other parts in the neighborhood.
They offer training to any staff member who wants it as well as trauma and therapy for staff affected.
The library sits on a task force that has cleaned up an encampment with 100,000 used syringes.
Free Library of Philadelphia has an office of strategic initiatives and a program called Hatching Innovation which gives our monetary awards for new ways of doing things.
Business Resource and Innovation Center
The BRIC is currently undergoing a huge expansion - construction has started and it is expected to open in Fall 2018. For now the space continues to be in the Business, Health and Science department.
Current BRIC
The new area will have a laptop bar and more flexible space. It will also be connected to the teen area and may include joint programming for teens and adults.
They had a small enclosed area where work-study students do head shots for patrons’ LinkedIn profiles. They edit them lightly and e-mail to patrons within a week.
Video pitch and head shots are sent to patrons via Google Drive.
Got a grant from US Bancorp for video and photography equipment, backgrounds, and lighting.
PARTNERS
They don’t offer maker activities at the main library, but do at other sites. There are 4 large local makerspaces that most of their clientele use through a program called “Maker Jawn”
jawn
jôn/
noun
US dialect
- (chiefly in eastern Pennsylvania) used to refer to a thing, place, person, or event that one need not or cannot give a specific name to.
- "these jawns are very inexpensive"
The free library partners with them instead of providing direct services. But they are moving into more traditional types of making, especially food products with their Culinary Literacy Center, which is next to some nice and modern meeting rooms.
They also partner with the Corzo Center in Philadelphia, which is sort of like Springboard but now is moving from serving artists to students. They share clients.
They have had success partnering with Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses.
Home-grown classes: Business plan toolkit based on business model canvas.
MARKETING
They mostly use Twitter and Facebook, also joining other people’s Meetups, such as Nonprofit Nerds.
Their most successful marketing tool are the newsletters they create using Constant Contact:
7000 people 60% open rate
3 separate newsletters for these audiences:
- Workplace
- Business
- Nonprofit
PROGRAMS
1:1 appts for marketing, competitive analysis, and nonprofit research are very popular.
Host library job fairs in grand entrance.
Had a very popular nonprofit job fair.
The library has 40-50 public computers but getting into research computers for departments.
--Amanda @GLCL
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