Chicago Public Library Resource Analysis
Clients: Chicago Public Library
Partners: The Academy Group, Protiviti
Challenge: The Chicago Public Library (CPL) serves all Chicagoans with free and open places to gather, learn, connect, read, and be transformed. With 81 locations across all 77 community areas, CPL branches provide free resources and act as anchor institutions that can respond to community needs. For instance, four libraries are piloting a program with the Chicago Department of Public Health to offer mental health services and Narcan kits to reverse opioid overdoses. Because CPL’s network of branches has varying usage levels and unique resource needs, CPL requested short-term expertise and capacity to establish a baseline level of branch resourcing and options for resource models that support future program innovation.
Action: Civic Consulting Alliance, along with a pro bono fellow from The Academy Group, conducted best practice research on library resource models, comparing best practices to the current state of CPL. The team collected both qualitative and quantitative data to assess operational considerations for potential new models. Based on the findings, the Civic Consulting Alliance team developed future state options and created a detailed implementation plan, including strategies for communication and adoption. To support ongoing monitoring and evaluation, a pro bono fellow from Protiviti built a data dashboard to track key performance indicators and identify trends.
Result: The tools and recommendations that Civic Consulting Alliance provided enable executive-level decisions that are data-driven and responsive to community needs. This analysis was timely for CPL’s budget cycle and will inform multi-year planning to enable programming innovation and new strategic partnerships. Long term, this work will support CPL’s evolution as a neighborhood anchor that provides free services that are unique to each community.
