Academic Libraries Enriched by Friends

By Janelle M. Zauha, Reference Librarian, Montana State University - Bozeman, and Linda Wyckoff, Director of Development and Relations, Montana State University - Bozeman

Public libraries are the quintessential experts at soliciting and capitalizing on community involvement. Mission and necessity have made it so. Gathering support from constituents is a way of life for the public library so it is no wonder that the highest profile friends-of-the-library groups are often found in public libraries. Friends groups have become an excellent mechanism for integrating and ensuring community support through volunteers and fund-raising.

The need for community support has not traditionally existed in the same way for the academic library. Its primary community of users — students, staff, and faculty — has long been a captive clientele whose use of the library has been virtually guaranteed by the very nature of the academic system. Indeed, the academic library's metaphoric place is usually mapped at the "heart of the university," ensuring that, while levels of funding may be inadequate, no one would think of closing the academic library completely for fear of jeopardizing accreditation.

The certainty of institutional support at a minimum level may have generated some complacency and has perhaps limited the academic library's public agenda. Put simply, most academic libraries have not had to market themselves as a survival tactic in the same way public libraries have. Things are changing, however. With tighter budgets, variable student enrollment, remote access, and Internet competition, academic libraries are increasingly seeing the value of a heightened public profile. They are finding that friends groups can be a critical part of their outreach efforts in times of changing politics, budgets, user behavior and expectations.

Friendly Benefits

In recent decades of funding and enrollment challenges, the academic institution has had to place greater emphasis on extramural fund-raising, calling on contributions from college alumni to ensure the continued development and strength of their college and the larger institution. Academic libraries face special challenges in the arena of extramural fund-raising because they have no graduates, no alumni, per se. A friends group is one model that helps the library tap into campus loyalties through programs and outreach specifically targeted at library-loving alumni.

Forming an active friends group can help the academic library focus community attention on its resources and programs in ways that its day to day functions cannot. The friends model provides a structure for community involvement in the library, including past and present students, staff, and faculty. Membership benefits may include special borrowing privileges, invitations to events, advance book sale opportunities, bookplates, and other forms of public recognition or involvement. The structure of friends groups varies. Most are set up as advisory boards without policy or operational responsibilities. In this capacity they provide a connection to the library for avid supporters that is mutually beneficial.

On the library side, benefits from friends groups are many. Friends can help raise funds for special purchases, initiatives, or programs. Volunteers drawn from friends groups can help carry off functions that the library's short staffing might make impossible. Friends can help the academic library form partnerships with other community entities, including the public library, by co-sponsoring programs and events with them. Friends can act as advocates to increase community awareness of library issues and challenges.

One of the great appeals of the academic friends group is the opportunity it affords the library to conduct public programs that have not traditionally been part of the library's role. Many academic libraries utilize friends groups to enter more fully into the intellectual life of the campus and surrounding community. The library and its friends may co-sponsor public programs such as exhibits highlighting the collection, friend and fund-raiser dinners, author lectures, book signings, book groups, and seminar series. Friends groups help open the door of the university's academic enterprise to the broader community.

Many Still Friendless

Increasingly academic libraries are recognizing these and other benefits of friends organizations. Of the seven states and provinces comprising the Pacific Northwest Library Association region (Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington), five of the primary land grant campuses (or the Canadian equivalent) feature a friends presence on the library's Web site. Beyond this region, the literature shows that the number of academic library friends groups is growing, but at a slower rate that in public libraries (Barksdale and Hay 17).

In fact, a significant percentage of academic libraries do not have friends groups. A random sampling of 600 U.S. academic libraries in the mid-1990s revealed that only 43% had friends groups (Latour). Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA) reports that only 147 of its member groups are from academic libraries, compared with 1,304 from public libraries, as of January 2000 (Williams). This number may reflect FOLUSA's primary focus on public libraries in the past. A glance at the current FOLUSA newsletter, News Update, does indicate increasing attention paid to friends of academic libraries. Since October 1998, each bimonthly issue now includes a full-page column devoted to "Friends on Campus" edited by Tom Mendina, of the University of Memphis, who is also a member of the FOLUSA Board of Directors.

Friends groups are just part of an array of fund-raising and public relations efforts utilized by academic libraries, just as they are in public libraries (Latour). Because of the personnel time needed to establish a friends group and to integrate it into the library's short and long-range plans, only those libraries with sufficient resources may be turning to friends groups as part of their extra-mural outreach efforts.

Perhaps the immediate returns of friends groups are not high enough to warrant serious consideration by some academic libraries. But the PR generated by public programs may yield returns that are unforeseeable. As Dobb states, "Good ideas that yield some cash can be more important if they yield positive attention" (Dobb 2-3). In other words, the innovative programs or services that a friends group makes possible in the academic library may not bring in buckets of money, but they will focus the eyes of potential donors on the library.

Making New Friends

It is true that, while there are many benefits to having a friends group, they do not function on automatic pilot. They can be time-consuming to develop and to maintain because of their volunteer component and political nature. Leaders of friends must make constant effort to motivate, inform, recognize, and harness the talents of members. The group is a long-term commitment for the library, requiring careful consideration of focus, governance, membership benefits, roles, and resources.

To ease the startup process, however, academic libraries can draw on external resources. Friends groups from peer institutions are a good source of ideas and examples. Even within the same area one group may tap another group for help without jeopardizing the agenda of the other. Typically individual academic friends groups do not draw on the same pool of potential members even if they are in the same city, relying as they do on their own alumni, faculty, and staff. Sharing and networking may benefit both groups.

Another source of information on friends groups is FOLUSA, an organization that offers member groups resources such as special programs, a bimonthly newsletter (including the academic-focused column), fact sheets and pamphlets, videos, an electronic discussion list, and other valuable networking tools (Friends of Libraries U.S.A.). FOLUSA is also active at the annual and midwinter American Library Association conferences, staffing a booth at both conferences and providing programs of academic interest at the annual conference (Dolnick interview).

Other resources for friends groups, academic and public, are available in the literature. The FOLUSA Friends of Libraries Sourcebook (Dolnick) addresses issues basic to any friends group and provides chapters focused specifically on academic and special libraries. Organizing Friends Groups, one of the Neal-Schuman How-To-Do-It Manuals for Libraries, is written from the first-person experience of the director of a small academic library but can be useful to any setting. It has an especially helpful "Twenty Questions" section and an extensive bibliography (Herring).

The journal literature also provides examples of how friends groups have been successfully utilized by academic libraries. Articles outlining the governance, goals, and activities of friends in modest-sized institutions (Gamewell and Dowell) as well as very large institutions (Hood) provide detailed accounts of local practices that can be transferred to other settings.

Friends groups are not for every academic library. They can be an effective part of a larger public relations and fund-raising vision if the library understands the work involved, as well as the potential benefits. The resources listed above are helpful at every stage of group development, but they are perhaps most useful at the beginning, in the soul-searching stage. Deciding whether to begin a group warrants considerable attention. Not unlike personal friends, library friends require careful cultivation. They will offer tremendous enrichment -- after years of knowing them.

Illustrations: Invitations to the Friends of Montana State University Libraries Annual Friend-Raiser Dinners

Works Cited:

Barksdale, Ken, and Charles C. Hay. ""Friendly Development": Organizing and Using a Friends Group in Academic Library Development." Kentucky Libraries 61 (1997): 16-23.

Dobb, Linda. "Cry Me a River: Searching for Revneue Streams in Academic Libraries." Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 9th National Conference, "Racing Toward Tomorrow." Detroit, MI. April 8-11, 1999. Online. PDF File. URL: http://www.ala.org/acrl/dobb.pdf. January 23, 2000.

Dolnick, Sandy, editor. Friends of Libraries Sourcebook. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 1996.

---. Telephone Interview. March 13, 2000.

Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA). "Friends of Libraries U.S.A." January 10, 2000. Web Page. URL: http://www.folusa.com/. March 13, 2000.

Gamewell, Mary, and David R. Dowell. "Spinning Straw into Gold: A Look at Cuesta College's Friends of the Library." C&RL News 60.8 (1999): 649-51.

Herring, Mark Y. Organizing Friends Groups. How-to-Do-It Manuals for Libraries. 29. New York, NY: Neil-Schuman Publishers, 1993.

Hood, Joan M. "An Academic Library's Approach to Fundraising." Fundraising for Nonprofit Institutions. Ed. Sandy F. Dolnick. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc., 1987. 203-21.

Latour, Terry S. "Fund Raising Activities at Colleges and Universities in the United States." Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 8th National Conference, "Choosing Our Futures." Nashville, TN. April 11-14, 1997. Online. Web Page. URL: http://www.ala.org/acrl/paperhtm/b15.html.

Williams, Jeannie. Telephone Interview. March 14, 2000.

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