Memphis Public Libraries (MPL) strives to empower all members of its community, including all library employees. MPL has created a number of formal and informal systems and initiatives to try to create a library system where a growth mindsets flourishes at all levels, with all library staff empowered to seek out collaborations internally and externally.

Christine Weinreich, Executive Director at Memphis Library Foundation, explained how that system operates: “Our library director’s success over the time she’s been at the library is largely because she’s incredibly politically savvy, so she can navigate the city system better than I’d ever be able to. And she lets the staffers do what they’re good at [without worrying about navigating the city system]. Within the library ‘we trust you. Whatever staff role you might have we want you to do your job, and to do it well, and to do it in the way that you can be most successful.'”

“I speak at library meetings all the time and I tell them that we want them to take a risk. We want them to go out on a limb believe in their vision. We believe in their creativity, we know, their desire to transform their community for the better. And the role of the foundation is to enable that to happen for them. You know, the operating budget that the city provides works within a box. That’s how city budgets work. So I spend a lot of my time telling library staffers, ‘we want you to talk to us about your dreams, your dreams for your program, your vision, what you believe is the need in your neighborhood where you work because you know the need, I don’t know the need.’ And largely they live there [in those neighborhoods] too. They’re there in the library every day. They have the relationships with patrons, and they get the most wonderful ideas. I’ll give you an example: One of the applications we got for funding in our last round was from the North Branch which is a very high poverty area. The teen services person there asked us for money to buy equipment for a drumming program for tweens and teens. And he said, the schools [around] the library don’t have music programs anymore. He watches teenagers create their own percussion instruments and then sing make up their own songs. But they don’t have anything to nurture that. So we’re buying them all the all of the equipment, the drums, funding, snacks for the program, all of those kinds of things, so that he can run classes, drumming classes, and you know, those kinds of things. The city isn’t going to fund that [so the Foundation steps in].”

“The Friends of the Library support the staff in every day professional development. They have funding for the staff to go to conferences. And they give each branch a few hundred bucks each year just to spend on whatever. For example, if they have a lot of kids coming in to do their homework after school and none of them have pencils, maybe you want to just buy some pens, just make sure that those little quality of life things and professional development opportunities are met for the staff: the friends of the library are really good at supporting that piece.”

“You put all that together when you’ve got library leadership saying ‘you’re the experts at your job.’ And the Foundation saying, ‘bring us your dreams, bring us your vision,’ and the Friends of the Library saying, ‘we want you to get all the professional development that you need and we want you to have all of those interim smaller needs met, whether they be pencils or snacks or something else. And I’m not saying we don’t have any dissatisfied staff. But mostly I think they feel really supported. They know they they are empowered to do the work.”

This case study is part of  HEAL (Healthy Eating and Active Living) at the Library, funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services (# RE-246336-OLS-20)

Memphis Public Library works hard to be visible, to build awareness of all the opportunities the library currently provide and could provide through community partnerships.  MPL takes the concept of “visibility” beyond standard marketing practices by recognizing that being visible is the necessary first step to building relationships and forming partnerships. 

Christine M. Weinreich started her journey as the executive director of the Memphis Public Library Foundation by making herself visible to all the branches, visiting, asking questions, and getting to know the staff. “From the day I started until the point at which we were launching our year end, I didn’t do anything but learn,” said Christine.

Seeing her in person showed the staff her sincere interest and dedication, creating a strong foundation for building relationships between the library staff and the foundation. Acknowledging that being in a leadership position requires learning about those you lead allowed Christine to understand their needs, but also create relationships with staff so they feel seen and valued. The internal transparency has allowed Christine to become a conduit to partnerships, matching staff needs with other staff or external partners to achieve more impactful results.

The library system has also experienced the snowball effect of visibility in which being visible leads to partnerships which lead to better visibility. “The local news will be more likely to pick something up that is a collaboration with some pretty big players on the stage,” said Christine while talking about a collaboration of the libraries, the Library Foundation, Baptist Health, and an entrepreneur who developed a computer game called Fitnexx. 

The Memphis based company, Fitnexx, is working to reduce childhood obesity, and partnering with the library is helping them reach more youth in need of intervention. Explaining how Fitnexx is different from fitness games with handheld controllers, Tony Knox, one of the game’s designers, said, “we have a motion tracking camera that captures the participants’ movements.” Available in several branches and used during the library’s afterschool program, the collaboration has received coverage in the local news and is continuing to attract attention, gaining visibility for all those involved. 

Taking visibility to the next level, MPL is sharing their story of the library’s impact on the national level. In May of 2021 the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced that MPL was one of six winners of the 2021 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, and a story in Smithsonian Magazine was published in November of 2021 highlighting the innovative ethos of the organization.