Provoking Innovation
Interface Volume 27 Number 4, Winter, 2005. Interface is the quarterly newsletter published by the ASCLA division of the ALA. The Metropolitan Library System in Chicago and south suburban Chicago has established the Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program, a compendium of services geared to the questions of innovation and creativity in libraries.
Volume 27, Number 4, Winter 2005
Provoking Innovation
by Kathryn J. Deiss, Director, MLS Strategic Learning Center, and Team Leader, Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program
How do libraries find the time to innovate? How can library employees learn to find their creative powers? What are the
politics of innovation and how can libraries capitalize on understanding these? How can libraries learn to create prototypes
of services in order to learn and thus create the best possible permanent iteration of a new service?
The Metropolitan Library System in Chicago and south suburban Chicago has established the Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program
to help libraries with just such questions. The Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program (Zephyr) is a compendium of services
geared to the questions of innovation and creativity in libraries.
Among the services provided are:
- Innovation guides and spaces – people to help facilitate the innovation and creativity process with library staff
and uniquely created spaces in which to do innovative thinking.
- An innovation and creativity curriculum – classes and series designed to provide library staff with the critical
skills necessary for innovative or break-through thinking.
- Future scanning and trend spotting – information gathering to help libraries see the emerging issues more quickly.
- Innovation technologies – introductions to new technologies or new uses of known technologies that can create
innovation in services and products that libraries provide
The MLS Strategic Learning team has itself learned some new skills in order to better assist member library staff. The
services named above are currently being introduced to the MLS membership and have been met with enthusiasm and a
confirmation that innovation is, indeed, difficult to find time for and yet – ironically – it is the most needed of abilities
in the current environment. Some member library directors have said that even as their budgets shrink, their need for
innovative services, solutions to problems, and new ways of doing things increases exponentially.
You can read more about the MLS Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program by visiting the
Web site
or by contacting Kathryn Deiss, Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program.
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Provoking Innovation