Stephen Abram's first trip to the Yukon

The Yukon Energy, Mines and Resources Library invited Stephen Abram to Whitehorse, Yukon, and Stephen took us up on our offer! While he had visited Barrow, Alaska (for the Alaska Library Association's annual conference in 2005), this was his first visit north of 60? in Canada. The Yukon library community eagerly anticipated Stephen's visit. During his whirlwind visit, Stephen met many local librarians and enjoyed the long days of the Yukon summer.

Stephen was very generous with his time. While he was only here for three days (July 3-5, 2008), he packed two of those days with presentations, library visits, social events, and a visit to CBC Yukon for a radio interview (on one of his favourite topics: millenials).

Stephen began his visit with a bang, speaking to the Yukon Library community at large on the topic of "Open Library 2.0: The Whole Package?". This was the first time in many years that the Yukon library community came together under one roof. Approximately 45 people attended (including one SLA-WCC member from Vancouver), and Stephen did his best to get us thinking about how we can improve our libraries' services and our technological know-how by diving into the 2.0 world. As anyone who has either met or seen Stephen present knows, he is a very knowledgeable, dynamic, and passionate speaker.

From the moment he began speaking, his audience was engaged. From exposing his audience to a broad array of technologies to challenging us to be proactive, Stephen pushed us to embrace and explore the future of the Library 2.0 world. The main themes from his presentation were:

1. Think big: achieve large goals via cooperation, collaboration, and vision:

Remember the commonalities shared by public, special, and academic libraries: we all deal with information.
Let's use our combined assets (both material and personnel), let's cooperate. I found this particular point very poignant as we do not have an active library association in the Yukon, though I hope we will soon.

2. Market your library's people and skills … not collections:

Our libraries offer "experiences", far more valuable than our collections.
We are experts at finding and identifying the information that our users need, even when they can't tell us what they need ... and we are good at finding it fast!

3. Experiment with 2.0 technologies:

"Let's all just do it together". Try out SLA's Innovation Lab or 23 Things.
"When studying something to death - remember that death was not the original goal"
Use new social tools to share our knowledge with each other and our users

Feedback from this session clearly demonstrates the impact Stephen's presentation had on attendees:

"His talk was inspiring and motivating and kind of rocked my world a bit. I have been sitting on the fence on trying some forms of the new technology he spoke about and after his talk I went out and tried some new things"

"Our library community in the Yukon is very small and spread out and exposure to new ideas from a vibrant, knowledgeable library professional was a real eye opener to what is going on in the rest of Canada in the library world."

"Stephen Abram was an engaging and thought-provoking speaker. He challenged people in the information management field to look at new ways of delivering programs and to embrace new ways of learning."

In addition to this presentation, Stephen also visited three Whitehorse libraries, where he met with staff and discussed their specific goals and challenges: Whitehorse Public Library, Yukon College Library, and the Yukon Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) Library.

The staff at the Yukon EMR Library found his insights and thoughts invaluable. We gave him a brief tour of the library and described our major client groups. We then sat down to discuss methods to improve client awareness of our services and how we can make our space more welcoming to clients. As a special library with a large and diverse client base (50% public (such as consultants, mining companies, and visiting scholars) and 50% government), we find it difficult to effectively market the library. Two hours later, thanks to Stephen's acute observation skills and practical advice, we were seeing our library with new eyes.

Here are some of Stephen's suggestions for the Yukon EMR Library that made the most impact on us:

Create a vision, using Yukon-specific terminology and touchstones:
- frontier attitudes,
- cater to the independent spirit of Yukoners,
- opportunities abound now that we have control of our natural resources,
Marketing
- Personalization and niche markets: Who are our client groups and how are they connected to us?
- Go to where our clients are.
- Have a specific marketing goal for each marketing activity.
- Read the government's "Budget Address" and identify library services (new and/or existing) that contribute towards the government's priorities

Since his visit we have already made some simple, easy, and inexpensive changes:

Instead of just unlocking our front door during "open" hours, we now prop it open with a doorstop each morning.
We are creating learning guides and bookmarks to reach our clients "where they are" (such as a guide to mineral prospecting resources for the Yukon Chamber of Mines, and a guide to cartographic resources for specific subjects: geology, topography, and land use). First of the press is our new "gardening and farming resources" old-fashioned yet very practical bookmark for the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources Agriculture Branch and the Yukon Agricultural Association
Purchased USB extension cables for our public computers (no need for clients to crawl on the floor to plug in their jump-drives).

We are also discussing how to make our entrance area more inviting and make it a more social space. We are testing out chairs and discussing new layouts for the area. Our goal is to change the ambience of the area by October.

Beyond simple changes, we are now working on defining and describing both our core and our niche client groups. We will use this information to target key individual clients and work with them to learn how we can better meet their information needs. In addition, we will use both personal interviews and a survey to determine the specific information needs of each identified client group. Once this is completed, we will re-jig our marketing efforts by reaching out and actively demonstrating what we can do for each group. Key points for this endeavor are:

Getting to know our clients' information needs
Meeting with our clients on their turf (in their offices, at their meetings, etc.)
Looking at the library's services from the clients' points of view
Demonstrating to our clients, using non-library terminology, what we can do for them

Our end goal is for the library to be recognized as a vital Yukon information resource that is contributing towards the strategic management of Yukon's natural resources. Thanks to Stephen, not only do we have the tools to improve our outreach and marketing efforts for now and the future, we also have made some very simple yet effective changes to our library right away!

Stephen was just as busy on his day "off" as he was during his two days of presentations and visits. On the third day of his Yukon trip, we drove to Skagway, Alaska (176 km south of Whitehorse) via the Alaska Highway and the south Klondike Highway. We stopped to explore the historic Matthew Watson General Store and enjoy ice-cream in Carcross, YT, before heading over the White Pass Summit to Skagway, Alaska. On the way back to Whitehorse we stopped at the Yukon Artists at Work gallery. Later that night, we went to the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue.

Overall, Stephen's first visit to the Yukon was a huge success. He has given the Yukon library community lots to think about in terms of improving our services to our clients and increasing our technological knowledge base and skill set. Thank you Stephen.

Aimee Ellis is the Manager of theYukon Energy, Mines and Resources Library.

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