“I love these books,” Library Journal’s Cheryl LaGuardia says of Neal-Schuman’s How-To-Do-It Manuals. Read her Library Journal blog post on Neal-Schuman’s new, free How-To-Do-It tips at http://blog.libraryjournal.com?/eviews/2011/08/09/free-online?-how-to-do-it-tips-from-neal-s?chuman/.

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Budgetary constraints and a weak economy mean that you need to find creative solutions for keeping your library thriving. Receiving grant funding is one of the best solutions. But the writing grant proposals can be a frustrating process.

Does this situation sound familiar? You have written two proposals. You’ve spent considerable amounts of time and energy ensuring they were perfect…and yet neither of them received funding. You’re wondering, What am I doing wrong?

Grant writing isn’t any easy process, but advice from successful library grant recipients will give you a leg up and help you write a winning proposal.

Today’s How-To-Do-It Tip comes from Winning Grants: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians with Multimedia Tutorials and Grant Development Tools by Pamela H. MacKellar and Stephanie K. Gerding.

“Writing Tips

Writing a proposal is different from other types of writing. Proposal writing is similar to sales or marketing work, or even good storytelling. You are attempting to convince the funder to sponsor and support your idea and project. Your proposal should tell the story of the people in your community, the need that they have and how your project, supported by the funder’s grant, can make a positive and even life-changing impact in their lives. Creative storytelling techniques can be useful in demonstrating need, helping the funder see your community as real people with real problems. Your well-planned grant project with objectives and activities are the resolution to the need.

Making your story come alive successfully is especially important in the proposal summary or abstract, as some grant reviewers may use only this one section of your grant to judge your entire proposal. At the very least, your summary or abstract will make a first impression that will color the reviewer’s approach to the rest of your proposal.

Display confidence and capability by approaching your project with the belief that it will be successful. Use language throughout your proposal that shows positive assurance. Demonstrate your ability to achieve the stated objectives. Your grant must show that you will be able to implement the project with success. Be persuasive, but reinforce your claims with plans, as bravado alone will not impress a funder. Be specific and include your goals, measurable objectives, and outcomes.

Proposals should also be concise. Elaborations should add depth and scope, insight, and interest. The proposal will be judged on content, not weight.

For a powerful and energetic proposal, avoid using passive verbs, such as was and were or static verbs such as am, is, are, be, have, do, could, should, would. Use active verbs instead (see below).

Using the active voice demonstrates that you own the project and the work it will involve. For instance, “Library staff will develop and provide technology classes for seniors” communicates a much different sense of your relationship to the project than, ‘Technology classes will be provided.’”

-Excerpted from: Winning Grants, pp. 108-109. ©2010 by Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Learn more about this How-To-Do-It Manual ® here.

Remember, there is a practical, new How-To-Do-It Tip from Neal-Schuman’s acclaimed How-To-Do-It Manuals® every two weeks. Make sure you never miss an update by subscribing to our blog feed or signing up for email delivery.

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Award-winning publisher will offer free tips and other guidance from its premier series to support continuing LIS education.

August 8, 2011 (New York, NY) — For more than 20 years, librarians’ bookshelves have been filled with Neal-Schuman’s solid-colored 8 ½ x 11 How-To-Do-It Manuals® on such nitty-gritty topics as strategic planning, marketing, web page development, and customer service.  Many of the books in the series such as Connecting Young Adults and Libraries and Book Repair are now the de facto standard references in their specialties.

Neal-Schuman President Patricia Glass Schuman is pleased to announce that beginning on August 10, 2011, the practical advice and expert guidance from the How-To-Do-It series will be available by free email subscription or RSS feed directly from Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Readers who sign up for this new free online service will receive tips on a diverse range of topics, from preparing for a book discussion with ready-made questions to writing a winning grant proposal. As with the How-To-Do-It Manuals® themselves, each concise, easy-to-follow installment will be carefully designed to give librarians a new idea or concept they can immediately implement in their library.

The first How-To-Do-It Tip was selected from Conducting the Reference Interview: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians®, Second Edition by Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Kirsti Nilsen, and Marie L. Radford, and offers advice for avoiding the common causes of miscommunication at the reference desk (whether physical or virtual). The tips are available online at www.neal-schuman.com/blog. Future tips will follow the same format and cover areas such as management, implementing new technology, new ways to connect with users, and more.

About the How-To-Do-It Series that Spawned this Free Online Service:

The now 181-volume strong series was inspired by Neal-Schuman’s 1988 publication of The How-To-Do-It Manual for Small Libraries edited by Bill Katz, which offered broad guidance for small libraries. Neal-Schuman launched its How-To-Do-It Manuals® the following year, starting with Using Lotus 1-2-3 by Robert Machalow. Today, the series features a wide array of practical guides, each focused on an important aspect of running a successful library. Recent titles include Metadata for Digital Collections (2011) by Steven J. Miller, Finding the Answers to Legal Questions (2011) by Virginia Tucker and Marc Lampson, and Winning Grants (2010) by Pamela H. MacKellar and Stephanie K. Gerding. The manuals have garnered acclaim from a number of professional sources. The Journal of the Medical Library Association praised Training Paraprofessionals for Library Service, Second Edition (2009) by Pamela J. Morgan for its “clear, concise format.” Library Journal called E-Journals (2005) by Donnelyn Curtis and Virginia M. Scheschy “an indispensable reference for every serial and acquisitions librarian…an essential purchase for all libraries” in a “starred” review.

These valuable excerpts will help librarians in all settings — public, academic, school, special — by giving them practical, hands-on guidance written by librarians, for librarians. In addition to reading the tips on Neal-Schuman Publishers Blog at www.neal-schuman.com/blog, readers may subscribe to How-To-Do-It Tips via RSS feed or email delivery by clicking the corresponding buttons at the top of this blog page.

About Neal-Schuman Publishers

Neal-Schuman Publishers is a leading publisher of professional books for librarians, archivists and knowledge managers. Founded in 1976, Neal-Schuman Publishers is based in New York City, with offices in London, UK.

For More Information

Contact Laura Berlinsky-Schine

laura.berlinsky-Schine@neal-schuman.com

100 William Street, Suite 2004

New York,NY10038

212-925-8650

www.neal-schuman.com

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“Lean” is an especially timely concept for librarians now as demand for their services surge while budgets are being cut. That’s why we sat down with Neal-Schuman author John Huber to talk about his new book, Lean Library Management: Eleven Strategies for Reducing Costs and Improving Services.

John Huber at ALA New Orleans 2011

Huber’s background, with that of J. Huber and Associates–the management consulting firm he founded, is in helping organizations improve their customer service through improved process performance. He has assisted more than 100 organizations transform their operations.

Here, he answers a few questions about his book, Lean principles, and the response of the library community.

1. What is “Lean Manufacturing” and how did it come about?

Lean first and foremost engages and motivates the entire workforce to identify and eliminate all waste in a process. In the early 1980’s manufacturing and distribution companies (following the lead of the Toyota Motor Company) discovered that by eliminating waste in their processes they not only reduced cost and improved quality, they also dramatically reduced the lead-time required to deliver products and services to their customers. It was a game changer and a win-win strategy. In fact, it is no longer a question of whether a manufacturing company should deploy the concepts of Lean: it is a fundamental requirement of entry.

2. Why do you feel Lean Manufacturing has particularly relevance to libraries?

In 2001, I was invited by the Tulsa City/County Library to evaluate and improve the service capability of their delivery process (what I call the service delivery chain.) The ability of customers to request on-line a hold to be delivered to the branch of their choice had become hugely popular to the Tulsa community. Unfortunately the supporting delivery system (vans, tote boxes, pick list, in-transit slips and hold wrappers) was not able to support the ever-increasing volumes this popular service option had created. During our tour, I admit I was a bit apprehensive, after all what did I know about libraries? That changed very quickly, for I soon recognized many familiar things. I saw a manufacturing company (acquisitions, purchasing, technical services, processing); I saw a distribution company (receiving, warehousing, sorting, shipping, returns) and a retail organization (circulation desk, retail services, help desk). I discovered that behind the doors of every library, there was a complex manufacturing, distribution and retail organization. I realized at that moment that all my Lean skills, developed over a twenty-five years career, could be adapted to the library environment. In addition, I realized that Lean could transform the library world. As a result of this epiphany, I dedicated myself to assist libraries across North America transform their service and cost capabilities. The results have been dramatic:

• 50-75% reduction in new book delivery time.

• 50-75% reduction in holds delivery lead-time.

• 20-45% reduction in service delivery costs.

• 25-40% improvement in service days available.

• 25-90% reduction in injury related tasks.

• 25-90% reduction in internal book damage.

Huber at ALA New Orleans 2011

3. What is the main message you would like people to take away from Lean Library Management?

Lean is like a smooth flowing river, no twists and turns, no stagnant water, no dry banks, no hidden rocks, no white water and no flooding. The opposite of the Lean River is the Snake River. A river full of twists and turns, rocks that lie in wait to destroy your boat, dry banks that force you to carry your boat and flooding that forces you off the main flow of the river. The river, of course, is your service delivery chain, a series of processes that cross department boundaries. For example two primary service delivery chains are the New Book Service Delivery Chain and the Holds Service Delivery Chain. Every library I have worked with attempts to navigate the Snake River, which is a costly endeavor. To transform your library from the Snake River to the River Lean, you must engage your workforce to understand where these twists and turns, rocks, and dry banks occur and more importantly why. Lean is that strategy. Lean defines, measures, analyzes, improves and controls the performance of your service delivery chains.

Secondarily, libraries appear to be driven by two primary measurements: circulation and budgets. How many of you wake up in the morning and say: “I can’t wait to get to work today so I can increase our circulation and reduce our budgets”. Nearly every librarian and library staff member I have worked with are not motivated by circulation and budgets, but by servicing their customers. For me, Lean is not about cost reduction, Lean is about service improvement. It just happens to be a not very well known fact that as you improve service you reduce costs. My main message to libraries is that to survive in today’s competitive market (and yes, you have some tough competition) you must embrace Lean and you must embrace the service nature of your staff. If your staff embraces Lean to improve the service capability of your processes, you will reduce costs.

4. We heard from Dr. Annie Norman, State Librarian of Delaware, that she handed out your book “to rave reviews.” What kind of response has your book found in the library community?

Librarians and their staff are a highly intelligent and a well-educated group of people. It is no surprise to me that once explained, the concepts of Lean would be fully embraced by the library community. On a related note, I am frustrated that some city managers have come to a different conclusion. By their decisions to outsource library management responsibilities to ‘for-profit’ managers, they assume library leadership teams are incapable of adapting and responding to our current economic challenges. The facts and my experience argue just the opposite. Historically, libraries have been the very first to embrace change and to embrace new technology. For example, Libraries were one of the first to embrace the power and capability of the Internet, bar coding technology and now RFID. The idea that libraries cannot respond and adapt to new challenges is a false proposition.

However, prior to this book, it is true that most library managers and their staff had not been exposed or educated on how Lean concepts could streamline and improve their service delivery chains. Now that the book has been released and Libraries now understand the River Lean, it is just a matter of time that the concepts of Lean Library Management will be as common to libraries as every other new technology they have embraced.

Finally, I have been very pleased and humbled by how the library community has so fully embraced my book and the concepts of the Lean Library Management. As such, for all of you that have contributed to the ‘buzz’ that surrounds this book, I want to take this opportunity to thank you. Furthermore, I look forward to thanking you in person.

Learn more about Lean Library Management on the book’s webpage.

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