by Rebecca J. Jones

Table of Contents

• Background and Purpose
• Summary of Focus Group Findings
  • Profile of focus groups
  • Is the Chapter meeting their needs? Why do people attend meetings or become involved in the infrastructure?
  • Why don't people attend meetings, or become/stay involved?
  • How can the Chapter sustain itself? What would happen if the Toronto Chapter didn't exist?
• What types of meetings or programmes would meet members' needs?
• Suggested Topics
• Comparison with other Associations
• Interpretation of the Findings

Background and Purpose

Although the Toronto Chapter, with 650+ members, is one of the largest within SLA, the Chapter executive has been increasingly concerned about certain trends impacting the Chapter:

1. Only 10% of the membership attends meetings or events.
2. Only 5% of the membership participates in the Chapter infrastructure as board or committee members.
3. Members who are active early in their careers seem to "cycle through" the Chapter after 5-10 years, particularly if their career leads them outside the library or information centre setting.

These trends raised a series of questions for the executive:

• Is the Chapter meeting the needs of only 5 - 10 % of the membership?
• What about the remaining 90%? Why don't they participate? Is the Chapter meeting their needs?
• Why do members seem to "cycle through" the Chapter as active board and committee members rather early in their careers and then lose interest?
• With these types of trends, how can the Chapter sustain itself?

Juanita Richardson, Chapter President, approached me about conducting focus groups of the membership to try to find answers to some of these questions. Unlike a survey, focus groups would allow us to gain insights from people who might not ordinarily complete a survey, and, more importantly, would enable us to pursue these issues in more depth and generate creative solutions and suggestions. We agreed that the focus groups should consist of "members", meaning that their membership dues are up-to-date, and that they should be segmented according to the level of members' activity within the Chapter.

Three focus groups were held during April 1996. Our sincere appreciation to those of who you contributed your time, energy and insights to this initiative. The names of the participants are confidential. The groups were segmented as follows:

1. "Active" members: currently participating in the majority of meetings, are on the board/ committees.
2. "Non-Active" members: rarely attend meetings or other Chapter events and have never been on board/committees.
3. "Past-Active" members: at one time were very involved but rarely participate in events or meetings now.

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Summary of Focus Group Findings

Profile of focus groups:

• All three groups had similar profiles in terms of:
  • Age groups represented.
  • Residence location: Most people live within Metro Toronto, but each group had individuals living outside Metro, from Burlington to Oshawa to King City
  • Membership payments: Each group had participants who personally pay their membership dues as well as those whose organizations pay.

     

• The profiles differed in the following areas:
  • Years working in the library/information field: Most in the "active" group have been working the library field less than 10 years; those in the "non-active" group have been working in the field 10-25 years; those in the "past-active" group have been working in the field 15-25 years.
  • Home ownership and children: All of the "past-active" own homes and have children; 80% of those in the "non-active" own homes and 30% have children; 80% in the "active" group own homes, but none have children
  • Involvement in other associations: Individuals in all three groups belong to other associations and attend some of the events offered by these associations; but only those individuals in the "past-active" group are involved in the infrastructure (board/committees) of other associations.

Is the Chapter meeting their needs? Why do people attend meetings or become involved in the infrastructure?

• Primary reasons given for belonging to SLA by all three groups:
  • to network
  • to stay in touch with their colleagues and profession
  • to take advantage of learning opportunities
  • for the credibility of belonging to a professional association
• All agreed these needs are being met, otherwise they would not continue their membership.
• "Active" members value the meetings and board/committee work both from a professional and social aspect; they felt the social time available should be expanded; they enjoy the meetings, the chance to dine with friends, meet new people, and the opportunity to expand their career opportunities through board work.
• "Non-active" members attend an occasional meeting when the topic and/or speaker is pertinent to their job and the logistics are easy.
• "Past-actives" attend meetings when they can accommodate it in their schedules, when they can join one of their friends at the meeting and are drawn more for the social aspect than the topic; topics on new technologies are still of interest to them, but many topics do not relate to their current responsibilities

Why don't people attend meetings, or become/stay involved?

Non-Actives

• "Non-actives" listed these reasons for not attending many meetings:
  • Topics not pertinent to their jobs
  • Logistics too difficult
  • Prior commitments
  • Dinner meetings; some much prefer the approach CASLIS uses of potluck, sandwiches and a quick meeting right after work
  • Shyness; perceive that there are cliques that are not deliberate, but that are difficult to mingle with or break into; many did not attend school in this area or now work alone, so have no "group" that they automatically fit into.
  • Not interested in becoming more involved in volunteer work
• Suggestions from the "non-actives":
  • Provide an abstract explaining topic; topic title often unclear or misleading
  • Have someone call and "invite" a member to meeting, arrange to meet them so that it is not as intimidating

Past Actives

• "Past-actives" listed these reasons for not attending anymore:
  • jobs changed, lives changed, interests and priorities changed
  • conflicting commitments, particularly with spouses and children
  • fallen into the habit of "not" going
  • topics too "library" oriented, not information management oriented
  • most are still willing to contribute, if asked, depending on what it is and the timing
• Suggestions from the "past-active":
  • develop a "buddy system" to call people to invite them to meetings
  • inform people of what occurs at association level or levels beyond the Chapter

How can the Chapter sustain itself? What would happen if the Toronto Chapter didn't exist?

• Response to this question was one of shock, from all three groups; participants questioned why the Chapter might have trouble sustaining itself over the long term.
• All groups agreed that it is difficult for Chapter to serve such a diverse membership
• Suggestions for bringing members in and maintaining their participation:
  • mentorship program; develop this with faculty
  • free meeting for students; take students for lunch
  • hold a separate "introductory" meeting for new members; "coddle" them

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What types of meetings or programmes would meet members' needs?

• most prefer downtown locations for events, subway accessible
• prefer an earlier starting time; want them to end before 9:00 pm
• 45% suggested occasional lunch meetings
• speaker, Table of Contentsic and location are the determining factors
• price is not a major determining factor
• consider a "one-day mini conference"
  • could have longer sessions than a meeting allows
  • follow sessions with an evening social
  • include vendor exhibits; most members are not managers and are therefore not targeted by vendors
  • would appeal to the many members who cannot afford CE courses or the SLA conference
• hold non-library, "fun" meetings once in a while to get people out
• consider a "hybrid" programme year with less meetings, but more targeted topics
• since chapter has so many diverse interests, allow each meeting to target one of these interests (ie: management for one meeting, information management for another, etc...)
• utilize "past" active members by involving them in a "round table" meeting, one topic per table, with more senior or possibly more experienced members at each table
• review the association/chapter structure at the beginning of the year; introduce committees, chairs, issues each will be dealing with for coming year; may increase people's understanding of need for committees, hopefully remove some of the "mystique" and misunderstanding surrounding the structure; may also encourage people to join committees
• once a year, repeat a meeting in another location, "outside" of the downtown core - (ie: Mississauga, north, Scarborough) either with the same speaker or perhaps even video-taped

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Suggested Topics:

[To put these suggestions in context, it may be useful to recognize that the participants in all three focus groups felt, overwhelmingly, that tow of the best meetings during the past few years were the Micromedia Technology Update and the Internet meeting held in conjunction with the Internet World Canada conference.]

• technology (ie: product evaluations; Hoover (who is using?); Lotus (who is using?))
• Internet (ie: newspaper sources on the Net; Canadian sources)
• benchmarking
• creating a best practice
• intellectual capital
• core competencies
• management issues, particularly hiring & firing
• networking: how to network with others, how to "work a room"
• "issues" meeting, using round-table process for each issue with facilitator
• outsourcing; alternative sourcing
• copyright
• what entrepreneurial librarians are doing; consultants
• vendors' showcases of products, with panel of libraries who are using these products

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Comparison with other Associations

The issues confronting the executive also raised another question: are these statistics and trends unique to the SLA Toronto Chapter? Or, in fact, are these trends"normal?" We agreed that the best way to answer these questions was to talk with other associations.

Brian Moore spoke with the following associations:

Canadian Library Association
Federation of Women's Teachers Associations
Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario
American Library Association
Ontario Nurses Association

Common themes prevalent among most of these associations:

1. Proportion of active members is usually about 10-15%.
2. "Life cycle" of members is usually about 5 years.
3. All stressed the importance of getting new members involved as soon as they join and in giving them special consideration.
4. Critical to show members the value of their membership.
5. Barriers preventing people from becoming "active" in associations are time and money.
6. Very important to find out what members are interested in and to fulfil those interests.
7. A few volunteers do most of the work.

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Interpretation of the Findings

Overall, these findings indicate that the Toronto Chapter is in good shape and should have no difficulty sustaining itself. I base this comment on the following:

If the Chapter needs them, they will come: Everyone we approached about participating in a focus group was very accommodating and glad to contribute. All three groups suggested a type of "buddy" system to bring people out to meetings, in which someone would call and invite a member who hadn't been attended for a while. It certainly worked for the focus groups, so why not for meetings?

Common needs, common understandings. Members share a common need that drives them to be SLA members: they want to network, to stay in touch and to learn. They also understand that, in a Chapter of this size and with this diversity, it is impossible to offer meetings that appeal to everyone. They feel that the Chapter is meeting their needs and believe that so long as the Chapter is there for them when they need it, so long as there is the Listserv, and so long as there is a meeting every so often that interests them, the Chapter is serving its purpose.

The trends impacting the Chapter impact all associations. As Brian's survey of other associations revealed, it's quite normal for only 10% of the membership to be active.

Different strokes for different folks. It's just a fact of life that there are different types of people. Some people become involved in organizing and operating volunteer organizations and some do not. There's an old adage that says "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it."

Shifting priorities. The "past actives" have different priorities in their lives and careers now. The current "actives" may well become "past actives" themselves. But they are still the type of people who take on responsibilities in volunteer organizations and, given that they are still loyal members of SLA, will still lend a hand when asked.

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