When we think of impact – we tend to think big and fast. Something akin to a boulder rolling down a hill – it’s almost unstoppable. We hardly ever think of impact as something slow and steady, and we tend to measure success in terms of impact.
Unfortunately, when we think of impact as something that is only big and fast, we think of success the same way. So, if we aren’t staying busy—or if the programs we facilitate don’t have tons of people at them—we don’t think of them (or at least we are less likely to think of them) as successes.
Libraries are about impact. They are about figuring out what our community needs and wants and delivering those results (insofar as they pertain to libraries) back to the community. Everything we do creates an impact.
But even here at the library, even though we know that everything we do creates an impact, it’s hard to see all of them.
There are some that are easy; something like the recent author talk with Ross Gay would be easily seen as a success since 180 people showed up. That’s a big impact, and one that is easy for people to see.
But then there are the big impacts we don’t see as easily, like the Medford Writers Workshop patron starting to submit the poetry he’s been sharing with the group. This was a slow and steady thing. It happened because a regular group of 10 or so people felt vulnerable enough to share their work and give constructive feedback to each other a few times a month. It built confidence in that patron – so much so that they are submitting their work for publication. That’s a BIG impact – but it didn’t happen right away – and there isn’t an impressive big number to attach to it.
Our Queer Coffee House program started out with 2-4 regulars and has slowly grown to 12-15 regulars. Staff has also shared that they watched attendees go from strangers to very close friends who spend time with each other outside of the program.
Our Technology Education Services (formerly Digital Services) department sees a lot of these impact stories. Here is a comment from a patron who recently attended an Android basics program: “When [the class started] I thought I was just going to zone out the whole time because it was just too much. However, I can now say that I will be leaving [the class] with at least 5 new things that I feel confident doing.”
Then there is something like the Dolly Parton Imagination Library – where we can see its impact through large numbers (more than 5,000 children in Jackson County have benefited from this program), but all of that didn’t happen right away. After the initial excitement (which did have that big and fast impact), its impact has been steadily happening over 2 years – 10, 20, and sometimes 30 new registrations a week. A sort of gradual climb.
In Earnest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, a character named Mike says, “Two ways: gradually and then suddenly” when asked how he went bankrupt.
This phrase “gradually, then suddenly” has been applied to many things: falling asleep, avalanches, and death. Novelist John Green used a version of it in his young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars, saying, “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
I’d also like to add community impact and success to the list. And not just for libraries either, but for anyone who has ever felt like they weren’t doing enough, or “climbing the corporate ladder” fast enough, or that they should have accomplished whatever milestone by whatever age.
Because I know that’s how it feels most often – gradually and then suddenly. And when you’re in the gradual part, it’s hard to remember that the “suddenly” part is coming. Sometimes, “gradually” feels so slow that it feels like failing.
But it isn’t – and you’re not (failing that is).