What We Do

BiblioDev, LLC offers a range of services to support libraries, drawing on the founder's strengths in training, research, and management of libraries in intercultural contexts:

Management and Administration
Strategic Planning
Advocacy and Outreach
Research
Training

Whether your library is well established or brand new, with staff who are experienced or just learning the profession, BiblioDev can customize a response to address your particular needs.

If you have a specific issue you want to discuss, please drop us a line . We're happy to discuss possibilities at no initial charge.

Management and Administration

Excellent managers aren't born, they're forged. Nothing can replace the lessons learned from the School of Hard Knocks, but BiblioDev can make the learning process a bit less painful.

Whether you're new to a management or director position and don't know where to start, or you're a seasoned professional looking for a new technique or refresher, BiblioDev can tailor a package of skills development for you.

We encourage skills packages for your whole team, because management doesn't happen in a vacuum. Someone always leads, and that person should be well equipped with the appropriate skills. BiblioDev can support your forging into the best manager you can be, with fewer scars.

Policy development
Leadership
HR practices
Negotiation
Change and conflict resolution
Intercultural communication
Board of Directors relations

Strategic Planning

If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. This may lead to some scenic wandering rides, but it's more likely that you want to get to your destination more quickly and with fewer rest stops. You need a strategic plan, and BiblioDev can help.

We can guide you through the process of conducting a needs assessment - what do your clients or patrons want, what do the library staff want? Next, we'll support you through a series of analysis tools to discover where you are headed, and plan how to get there. Finally, we assist you in choosing the most appropriate strategies and tactics for reaching your goal, and the means to measure progress. In the end, you have a clear destination, a well defined map, and identifiable milestones to mark travel down the road.

Needs assessment
Goal and mission identification
Strategy development
Tactics development
Assessment

Advocacy and Outreach

"Who needs libraries, all the information is online!"

"What does a librarian even do?"

"Why should I care?"

How do you answer these questions? How do you demonstrate the services and purpose of the library to your community, your Board, your funders? How do you convince them of its worth?

First you have to know your community - especially those members who do not use the library. BiblioDev can help you conduct a needs assessment to identify how to best reach that elusive group. Then, we assist you with crafting messages to reach this group as well as refresh relationships with regular users, and with designing and deploying attractive and engaging materials. Finally, we guide you through an impact assessment to determine the effectiveness.

Or, if you'd rather leave it all up to us, we can design, test, deploy, and assess a complete marketing pacakge for you, based on your specifications.

Needs assessment
Message design
Material design
Marketing campaign deployment
Impact assessment

Research

The most important step towards development is recognizing you don't know what you don't know. Research fills that gap.

Dr. Rebecca Miller has over two decades of experience in conducting research for results. She specializes in intercultural research, having practiced "in the field" in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Afghanistan, and can apply these lessons to any situation.

BiblioDev can support you from start to finish in the research process, guiding you through problem identification, method design and deployment, and analysis. We can also assist you in designing and implementing a monitoring and evaluation system to collect regular performance data and derive formative or summative evaluations.

Or, if you'd rather leave it all up to us, we can design and conduct research to suit your needs, providing you with a customized actionable final product.

Individual interviews
Focus groups
Observation
Surveys and questionnaires
Content analysis
Bibliometrics
Monitoring and evaluation

Basic librarianship
- Reference
- Cataloging
- Collection management
- Library services online platforms
Information Literacy
Management skills
Research skills
Outreach and Programs
Training methods

Training

Knowledge is power, and we can all learn something new. This is our key motivation at BiblioDev - we love to learn, and we love to help people learn. Whether it's a new approach to management, or the fundamentals of librarianship, we can design a professional development and capacity training program to meet your exact needs. We believe in engaged programs, not just one-shot workshops. We believe in learner-centered delivery, not the "sage on a stage." We believe in integrating problem-solving techniques to address real world issues.

Our firm belief in continuous education underpins each of our other services. You want to learn techniques in research, outreach, management, or training, and just need a guiding hand? We're here with educational techniques to help you realize your own style of training.

Intercultural communication
Libraries and international development
- Libraries in Afghanistan
Information literacy

Speaking

Are you looking for an engaging speaker to kick off an event, motivate staff, or inform your community? Our founder, Dr. Rebecca Miller, has years of presentation experience to groups large and small as an invited participant on ALA panels and programs, international conferences, and Rotary Clubs. Based on your particular needs and audience, we can provide an interactive, engaging, and informative presentation for your event.