Inconvenient Public Library Hours in Hawaii

In Hawaii the public library hours are inconvenient for students and adults alike. It does not allow full use of the libraries across the state, and in order to fix that hopefully a policy can be implemented in which the hours are switched around so that the library is open for a more convenient visiting time. We researched previous methods that have been tried in libraries both here in Hawaii and across the nation. We used these ideas and came up with an idea that formed from the previoud methods of dealing with inconvenient library hours.
Problem
Inconvenient public library hours in the Mililani and the rest of the state of Hawaii, is pretty serious problem, due to the fact that “it is one of the libraries with the highest usage in the state” (Lee). This problem is a state problem and particularly to the people who like to go the library at night. The inconvenient library hours should be handled by the government due to the funding and contractual agreements but people in the community can help through volunteer work, fund-raising and/or donations (Lee). One possible cause can be “through the budgetary process, the committees on Education and Finance receive multitudes of testimony from leaders of the library system and the Department of Education, as well as from teachers, librarians, children, and other private individuals who use the libraries. Ideas are discussed and opinions are shared so that everyone can understand how communities, people, and state leaders feel about these ideas like budget cuts to the libraries—so that in committee everyone can come to a compromise on their ideas and understand each other” (Yamane).
The public policy for dealing with the inconvenient hours is basically to have open access and to be used as much as possible. This public policy is adequate, but it isn’t exactly well implemented. There are a few disagreements within the community about the public library hours. Most adults prefer to go to the library at night while most kids like to go between 2pm and 5pm so they can wait to be picked up by their parents, do their homework, research, etc. (Lee). The procedure is “through the budgetary process, the committees on Education and Finance receive multitudes of testimony from leaders of the library system and the Department of Education, as well as from teachers, librarians, children, and other private individuals who use the libraries. Ideas are discussed and opinions are shared so that everyone can understand how communities, people, and state leaders feel about these ideas like budget cuts to the libraries—so that in committee everyone can come to a compromise on their ideas and understand each other” (Yamane).
The major people involved with this problem are the friends of the library, the Board of Education, schools, and the neighborhood board (Lee). The Department of Education, the Board of Education, the Hawaii State Teachers Association, the Hawaii Librarian Association and the Hawaii Association of School Librarians are all affected by this problem (Yamane). Their interest in the problem is accessible hours that are flexible, well equipped, well maintained, and well staffed. They take similar positions with different views on the problem (Lee). The disadvantage is that “there are people who believe that more funding should be provided to the libraries so that the libraries can remain open longer. People who feel that way need to tell this to the community library, Department of Education, and the State Librarian so that the hours of availability and funding can be discussed or adjusted” (Yamane).
They are also urging the legislature to find adequate money for funding the library and willing people to donate money and time (Lee). “The State Budget is a law taken in form of a bill passed through the State Legislature of that year. It encompasses two fiscal years called the "biennium" to make current payments now for the programs and services our state provides and to plan to make payments for the next year” (Yamane).
“The Department of Education of the Executive Branch of the State of Hawaii under the leadership of the Governor is in charge of the funding the Legislature gives to the Department of Education and Libraries. Members of the Legislature vote on the money given to the Department of Education and the Department of Education determines how to use the money under the Governor's supervision” (Yamane). The branch of government that is responsible for dealing with this problem is legislature. The level is Board of Education and administration (Lee).
Alternative Policies
One of the existing policies is the volunteers program. The volunteer program basically allows a few people to volunteer at the library depending on the time of the year, how busy they are and how many tasks are available for the volunteers to do. Basically the volunteers do small tasks such as shelving books. There are volunteer forms that are available inside the library (Mililani Public Library Librarian). Also the volunteer program allows people who are interested in the library and eager in supporting and helping the library, to help volunteer and help in the library (Volunteer pg.1).The disadvantages of this program, is that there is only a limited amount of people who are allowed to volunteer at the library. Since only a limited amount of people can volunteer, it limits the resources in the community. Also since not everybody knows about the volunteer program at the library, those people are at a disadvantage (Mililani Public Library Librarian). Another disadvantage is that they don’t have a website or website page dedicated to information talking about the volunteer program in public libraries. For instance, we found a website talking about the volunteer program and how people can volunteer and trying to persuade people to volunteer (Volunteer pg. 2).The advantage of this program is that there are people who get to volunteer to help with the efficiency of the library. Since there are volunteers, tasks can get done a lot quicker. Also a lot more people can volunteer during the summer because there are more opportunities such as summer reading programs, children’s story time, yoga demonstrations, contests and etc. (http://www.librarieshawaii.org/text/programs-text.htm). Also it is a good thing that people like to volunteer because in Virginia, “Individual and corporate volunteers donated almost 145,000 hours of work for the library in fiscal year 2009.”Also another advantage is the skills that you get out of volunteering at a library and you will be able to broaden your horizons (Library Volunteer Program pg.1)Another existing policy is the “furlough days” at the library. The furlough days basically state that when public schools have furlough Fridays, the libraries have furloughs on Wednesday. The disadvantage of this policy is that the people, who visit the libraries on Wednesdays, such as kids and teens, cannot visit the library after school to finish homework. They are trying to save money quickly because “the Hawaii State Public Library System is immediately implementing ‘Furlough Days’ beginning on Wednesday, December 16” (Hawaii State Public Library System pg. 2). Also, in the incoming year they are planning to have furlough days because “In addition, all full-time HGEA employees within HSPLS will be placed on unpaid furlough for 15 days in FY 2011 (July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011)” (Hawaii State Public Library System pg 3). Another disadvantage is that “the furlough days are difficult for employees who work on weekends and have children who will not have school on Fridays” (Libraries to see 30 furloughed Wednesdays through 2011 pg. 9)The advantage of this policy is that the state is saving money. The state is saving money by not having to pay for a day for the library to be open. “Unlike other state agencies, libraries would close on Wednesday because it is one of only two days that all libraries are open, and would produce the most savings and cause the least confusion for customers” (Libraries to see 30 furloughed Wednesdays through 2011 pg.8). Another advantage is that “instead of closing down five branches on the Big Island, Oahu and Maui, the state librarian (Richard Burns) is now proposing furloughs” (Furloughs for Hawaii’s Libraries? pg. 2). Also “Hawaii is the only state that has a library monetary donation box on its' state income tax forms” (Furlough for Hawaii’s Libraries? pg. 5). In addition, it gives people breaks. "It's nice to have a job during the holiday," he said, adding that libraries should stay open on Fridays "for the people who need it” (Libraries to see 30 furloughed Wednesdays through 2011 pg. 11).
Group Policy
We have come to the conclusion that the best way to solve the problem of having inconvenient public library hours is to simply extend the hours. Through research, we have found an organization known as the Office of Leadership and Management Services (OLMS) (Spec Kits pg. 3). They have a program that has ways to extend library hours, as well as fix other common problems in libraries. Through extensive research, the Office of Leadership and Management Services have developed SPEC kits. SPEC kits are up-to-date information on issues concerning libraries and librarians today, such as inconvenient hours. The kits help to take care of problems by providing helpful information (Extended Library Hours).
The main advantage of this information is that it has been used before and it has been proven to work in other libraries in the past. Because OLMS has been working on these issues for over 20 years, they have experience educating people on how to run libraries more efficiently so we believe this could work very well at our library (Extended Library Hours). Another advantage is that the library can hire students to be volunteers to do things like reshelf books which could earn the students community service hours. A disadvantage to this idea is that librarians would be working later and they might have obligations where they are not able to stay at work later in the day.
Our policy does not go against the constitution. It does not limit the right people have to speech, liberty, property, or life. It provides equal opportunity for people who wish to go to the library and use its resources.
“The Department of Education of the Executive Branch of the State of Hawaii under the leadership of the Governor is in charge of the funding the Legislature gives to the Department of Education and Libraries” (Yamane).The branch of government that is responsible for dealing with this problem is legislature. The level is Board of Education and administration (Lee). Our policy will be carried out by the public-Private partnerships which are very beneficial to schools and libraries. It allows for the chance for higher community involvement and allows businesses to participate in their own communities (Yamane).
Action Plan
In order to help implement our plan of changing the hours we need the support of the private sphere. The more people that know about our policy the better, because this means that if the state were to present it to the people of Hawaii it would not be a completely random thing. We could go around publicizing our policy by word, but a more efficient way would be to go on the internet and spread the word there. For example, we went to Facebook and Twitter and made pages on our problem and have put links to a Weebly website that will inform the public more about our problem. In order to have the public’s approval it would have to be talked about and considered long before it made an actual policy, and so the more people that we have that know about it and that support the better.
In order to get the support of civil society on this policy we would have to show them how this would benefit society as well as whatever their group is for. For example we could try and get the support of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), which “is an organization of parents, teachers, educators, other professionals, and community leaders who unite to address the unique needs of children and youth with demonstrated gifts and talents as well as those children who may be able to develop their talent potential with appropriate educational experiences” (National Association for Gifted Children pg. 1). We could use the fact that since if the library is staying open longer on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays the kids can go in and do more research on a subject that they are studying rather than going online. This would not only help the child to learn how to properly search for something in a library, it would also have the NAGC urge people to go to the library on days that the policy would have be longer, which helps give support to our policy. However, there might be groups that will be opposed to policy and if that happens we would also have to show them how our policy appeals to them.
Since public libraries are technically state property we would have to see what government program it is a part of on the state level. This would be the Hawaii State Public Library System, which is then further monitored and managed by the Board of Education (BOE) who “set policies and standards for the public library system and monitor progress toward their attainment in order to enable the public libraries to provide all people with the products and services necessary for literacy and life-long learning” (Board of Education, pg. 1). So we would need the approval of the BOE to get our policy forward, and for that we would need to inform the members of the board of what exactly we would want to do. For government, we would have to meet with the representatives to go over the policy to see if it can actually happen.
In order to inform the board we would have to write letters to the members of legislature that are in charge of the public libraries. With the survey results we could show them that people would like for different days to open longer or to be open earlier, and this would help us to show them that more people want the hours to change than just the group working on this policy change. On top of informing the state government that we want to change the policy, we would also have to be able to make it so that the head librarian and their administration to be to enforce it (Furloughs for Hawaii’s Libraries? pg. 7). If people in the government were to oppose this then we would have to bring forward legitimate proof that the people of Hawaii do want the hours to change for more convenience, and so a larger and more widespread survey would have to be conducted in order to show better results. This would help the representatives to see that the majority of the private spheres in Hawaii want to see a change in the public library hours.
Bibliography
Board of Education: State of Hawai’i, Department of Education. 6 May 2010. <http://lilinote.k12.hi.us/STATE/BOE/HomePage.nsf/0739841587e358de0a25687e007158e2/b2292ee660a4a0cf0a25697e0078b1e5?OpenDocument>.
“Brooklyn Public Library.” Volunteer.2010. 8 May 2010. <http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/support/volunteer/>.
Caiger, Anne. SPEC Kits: Complied Information about Library Management Policies, Procedures, and Techniques. 2010. 5 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/40293435>.
“Fairfax County Virginia.” Library Volunteer Program. 15 Jan. 2010. 8 May 2010. <http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/volunteer/>.

“Furloughs for Hawaii’s Libraries?.” LISNews Librarian And Information Science New. 28 Aug. 2009. 8 May 2010. <http://www.lisnews.org/furloughs_hawaiis_libraries>.
“Hawaii State Public Library System.” Furlough Days will begin on December 16, 2009. 2008. 4 May 2010. <http://www.librarieshawaii.org/>.
HSPLS. 8 May 2010. <http://www.librarieshawaii.org/text/programs-text.htm>.
Lee, Marilyn. Personal Interview. 6 May 2010.
“National Association for Gifted Children.” NAGC Mission Statement. 2008. 6 May 2010. <http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=661>.
Shikina, Rob. “Libraries to see 30 furloughed Wednesdays through 2011.” Star Bulletin. 23 Oct. 2009. 8 May 2010. <http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20091023_Libraries_to_see_30_furloughed_Wednesdays_through_2011.html>.

“SPEC.” Extended Library Hours. Sept. 2001. 5 May 2010. <http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec264web.pdf>.
Yamane, Ryan. Personal Interview. 11 May 2010.

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