Refining Relationship: Milwaukee Public Library and Community Reflection

The goal of the administrative team of the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) is to create policies that ensure successful use of the library services and collections on an uninterrupted basis by all the members of their community. The team has pursued strategies over a period of years to address potential barriers to use caused specifically by overdue materials and subsequent fines. The latest of these strategies produced a data set, available to MPL through the shared Milwaukee County Federated Library System, that allowed authorized MPL staff, in partnership with the School of Information Studies of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (SOIS), to engage fine-constricted patrons in a review of library policies. Utilizing a telephone survey and focus groups, MPL/SOIS identified a constellation of issues that affect patrons’ use of the library beyond the single question of fines to engage the broader question of the impact of policies. Patrons indicated a desire for more communication strategies initiated by the library and an elimination of the collection agency and the associated fee, as well as a concern about who benefits from the fines that are collected. They also identified an underlying value for the library that supports that use. This dialogue produced a study that extends beyond simply the elimination of “barriers to use” to a more affirmative approach of supporting not just access, but relationship between the library and their patrons.