Open Password – Friday, July 23, 2021
#951
Olsberg City Library – Petra Böhler-Winterberg – Olsberg – Right to exist – Attractiveness of the community – Educational institutions – Cultural offerings – Change management – Library strategy – Sonja Bluhm – Environmental analysis – Inventory – Vision – Employer – Cooperation with administration – Acquisition budget – Dun & Bradstreet – Headquarters – Black Knight – Anthony Jabbour – Lorena Inclán – Jacksonville – Lenny Curry – BIIA – Global Identity and Fraud Report – BIIA – Experian – APAC – Security – Freaud Prevention – Revenue Generation – Experian – Digitization – Pandemic – Consumer Preferences – Customer Journey – Fraud Checks – Authentication – Loyalty – Trust
- Cover story
Olsberg City LibraryOf red threads and colorful dreams – A complex but successful path to the “Third Place” – The development of individual strategies
for small libraries – By Petra Böhler-Winterberg
II.
Dun & Brad Street:
Moving its headquarters to Jacksonville, Florida
III.
Global Identity and Fraud Report
Businesses in Asia are Deprioritizing Security and Fraud Prevention
Olsberg city library
Of red threads and colorful dreams
A complex but successful path to the “Third Place”
The development of individual strategies
for small libraries
By Petra Böhler-Winterberg
Petra Böhler-Winterberg
“Olsberg? Never heard! Where is that?” A legitimate question for many! Olsberg is a small town in the Hochsauerland district with 14,500 inhabitants and has been a state-recognized Kneipp spa since December 2016. If you had to describe Olsberg in a few words, the profile could look like this:
- Located in the heart of the Sauerland in the immediate vicinity of Willingen and Winterberg
- Location of three vocational schools (Olsberg vocational college, Heinrich-Sommer vocational college, training college for pharmaceutical-technical assistants), one secondary school and three primary schools, the school at Ruhraue (municipal special school for physical and motor development), eleven kindergartens and one Office of the Brilon Adult Education Center, Marsberg, Olsberg
- low unemployment rate of 2.6% (December 2019)
- since November 2019 with a direct connection to the A 46 motorway
- two train stations for connection to the Hagen – Warburg/Kassel and Dortmund – Winterberg/Brilon rail transport
- Local recreation area, hiking mecca, health oasis with 125 years of Kneipp history and very modern with a Kneipp Adventure Park Olsberg and a Sauerlandtherme AquaOlsberg
- Kulturbahnhof line 73, concert hall, no cinema, no youth club, but a city library since 1989!
A city library that has gone through many changes since it was founded over thirty years ago. After two moves, the library and the adult education center have been at their current location on the main street since 2003: open 27 hours a week, staffed with a full-time qualified librarian as manager and two part-time employees with a total of 0.59 staff positions. In addition to the usual media mix, the library has been offering all customers and visitors free Wi-Fi and the loan of digital media via Onleihe24 since 2012 on 324 square meters of public space.
Nevertheless, like countless other libraries, the library also has to deal with declining borrowing numbers and significantly changing media usage among customers. This raises questions about the future. How does a library have to be set up in order to continue to exist in the future? What can she do for her community to increase the attractiveness of the city, to sustainably support the educational institutions in their activities, to enrich the cultural offerings and thus make Olsberg an even more livable place for young families?
Urgent questions! But how is a small town library with a small team of partly non-professional employees supposed to answer these questions without outside help? A chronology:
The six city libraries in the Hochsauerland district were hoping for answers in 2015 from a joint in-house training course on the subject of “Change Management” by the Department of Public Libraries. A great training course that clearly explains how change can be successful, how to involve teams in change processes and thus create the greatest possible acceptance for change. Unfortunately, this training does not answer what the necessary changes should look like. Looking back, this puts the second step before the first.
In 2016, the Department of Public Libraries is launching a new training course that finally promises the longed-for answers to questions about the future. With “Finding the common thread – we develop a library strategy”, the department is creating a training format that is aimed specifically at the management of small libraries with a maximum of five staff positions. Exactly what Olsberg is looking for and needs.
Those who take part are not training for the sprint, but for the marathon. Ten libraries are setting out together. The planned duration of the training is one year. Days of attendance in Düsseldorf and Dortmund with intensive exchange among colleagues, brainstorming and developing a vision always end with concrete work assignments for the time in between. The process is closely accompanied by the employees of the Department of Public Libraries, significantly structured and controlled by the professional trainer, consultant and coach Sonja Bluhm from Nuremberg.
Educators and children at play
At the beginning there is the environmental analysis. It quickly becomes clear: there are no patent recipes. Every city is unique in terms of population, education and labor market structure, as well as topography, transport connections and so on. This is where the first work order lies. Get to know your city! What is there, what is needed, what would be desirable? A tough battle with countless statistics begins. Find reliable numbers, evaluate them and put them on paper in an appealing way. The partial results are sent to the specialist office and the coach at specified deadlines. After a short time, the submitted concept part is returned, supplemented by extensive comments, suggestions for improvement, praise and/or criticism, and the work begins again. Smooth out edges, rethink wording, close gaps in logic. According to this principle, the concept grows continuously.
Second task: navel gazing! Check out your library! Opening times, customer structure, loan numbers, inventory structure, efficiencies, financial and personnel resources, comparison with other libraries of the same size using the DBS indicator grid, cooperation partners, interpretation and classification of the collected data… So we have the IST, what is still missing is the SHOULD!
What is the fundamental role of libraries in society? What is her mission? What is already being achieved in Olsberg? What has perhaps not yet been addressed for various reasons (space situation, personnel structure, lack of technical infrastructure, financial resources)? Where does Olsberg want to develop? What does the city need from its library so that both go in the same direction?
The consent of the employer to take part in the training, which was required by the department, proved to be a blessing. Of course, the employer must always approve the planned participation in further training. But the administration is on board right from the start, knows what is being worked on and that the results achieved can or must have possible consequences for future actions.
In Olsberg, every part of the concept was presented not only to the specialist department and coach during the processing phase, but also to the department management at the same time. In this way, suggestions and criticism from the administration were also incorporated into the strategy and helped shape it. If you want to have a chance of later implementing the finished concept and not work for the trash, good contact with the administration and constant communication are at least desirable, if not essential.
With the finish line already in sight, concrete areas of action are finally determined from all evaluations, the data collected and political and social mandates. From this, clearly formulated goals and measures to achieve the goals are developed.
In mid-2017, after a year of intensive work – day-to-day business continues undeterred – it was actually done! The result is a forty-page library strategy, tailored precisely to the circumstances and needs of the city of Olsberg and peppered with numerous orders for action that clearly outline the city library’s path into the near future! A small downside: not every one of the ten participants successfully completes the training and ends up with a library strategy for their own house in their own hands.
The beginning has been made, but “The beginning is only half of the whole” (Aristotle), and a strategy paper, no matter how good, well-founded and well thought out, only has value and the chance to bring about change if it reaches the decision-makers.
In September 2017, the head of the Olsberg city library, Petra Böhler-Winterberg, was able to present her library strategy to the Education, Sport and Leisure Committee. With overwhelming success! Instead of the proposed budget cuts, the technical committee recommends that the city council increase the library’s acquisition budget by 25 percent and set up a separate budget for event work for the first time since the library was founded.
Read the final episode: Implementing the strategy
Dun & Brad Street
Moving its headquarters to Jacksonville, Florida
(BIIA) Dun & Bradstreet made it official Thursday May 20th that its new headquarters is moving from New Jersey to Jacksonville. The news comes after the financial data analytics company was acquired by a group of investors including Black Knight which already based in Jacksonville.
CEO Anthony Jabbour, who’s also the CEO at Black Knight, said they’re seeing a shift of talent moving to the south. »We currently aren’t in the southeast US so it’ll give us a great opportunity to capture some of that talent that is moving here,” said Jabbour.
Once the company moves to Jacksonville it’ll create 500 jobs that pay an average salary of $77,000. Action News Jax Lorena Inclán asked if most of those positions will be filled by locals. »Well, we wouldn’t relocate if we couldn’t get them from here, » said Jabbour. Dun & Bradstreet said it will make a $77 million capital investment in its new headquarters.
Jacksonville’s Mayor Lenny Curry said his office is currently working on an incentives proposal to bring before city council. “We believe this will lead to even more down the road and it puts us on the map also to other companies,” said Curry. It’s still unclear where exactly the new HQ will go but Jabbour said they’ve narrowed it down to a few places. “We’re hoping to make a decision maybe summertime and then be in it by the fall,” he said. Local authorities are willing to incentivize Dun & Bradstreet with a US$25 million payment to make the move more tenable. What is Jacksonville’s gain will be New Jersey’s loss?
Global Identity and Fraud Report
Businesses in Asia are Deprioritizing
Security and Fraud Prevention
(BIIA) A new global report by Experian shows businesses across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region are deprioritizing security and fraud prevention, as nearly one third favor an emphasis on revenue generation. This is an approach that could increase the risk of an already vulnerable digital ecosystem for consumers across the region.This is according to Experian’s 5th Global Identity and Fraud Report, which included respondents from Australia, India, Japan and Singapore.
Across these four markets, businesses are increasingly shifting to digital to meet consumers online: 8 in 10 say they currently have a digital online identity strategy in place for recognizing customers across digital platforms, while 73% are confident they have the right metrics and KPIs in place to effectively manage fraud. As businesses focus on digitization, the risk of fraud grows significantly as fraudsters can increase their scale of attack through faceless, automated schemes.
Despite growing fraud risk due to digitization, there was a 16-percentage point decline in business intention to increase fraud management budgets from June 2020 to January 2021, with half (53%) expecting to do so in the next six months. Overall, the APAC region reported the most significant change compared to the other regions globally, with India (59%) and Australia (57%) most likely to increase fraud management budgets, followed by Singapore (52%) and Japan (46%) .
These results indicate that businesses may not realize the same data and tools utilized to improve security and fraud detection also enhance the customer experience, if implemented properly. The pandemic caused a surge in digital activity, far greater than expected, and this trend is not likely to go away. In fact, nearly half (46%) of consumers from the countries surveyed anticipate increasing their spending on items purchased online in the next three to six months. With fraud rates continuing to rise, APAC consumers are prioritizing a safe and secure online environment. 56% indicate that security is the most important dimension when it comes to an online experience.
Additionally, three out of five APAC consumers expect that businesses should provide increased levels of security and data protection when going online. The report also uncovered a mismatch between fraud detection and prevention methods adopted by businesses and consumer preferences. While businesses across the countries surveyed in the APAC region are still investing in traditional methods to mitigate fraud, such as security questions and passwords, APAC consumers prefer invisible means of security. In fact, 72% feel the most secure while using physical biometrics or having a PIN code sent to their mobile device. This demonstrates a shift in consumer behavior that moves away from outdated security measures, indicating that businesses should take a new approach to security, layering visible and invisible methods.
These changing consumer expectations for security will affect businesses across all aspects of the customer journey – for example, more than two-thirds of APAC consumers will abandon a transaction if they have to wait more than 30 seconds. This means fraud checks and authentication is also required to be fast and seamless to improve loyalty and trust. Investments by APAC businesses into advanced customer authentication methods translates into improved consumer opinion.
The annual Global Identity and Fraud Report surveyed more than 9,000 consumers and 2,700 businesses during three waves throughout the pandemic across 10 countries spanning North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific. This includes the 3,000 consumers and 900 business executives across four Asia Pacific countries – Australia, India, Japan and Singapore.
OpenPassword
Forum and news
for the information industry
in German-speaking countries
New editions of Open Password appear three times a week.
If you would like to subscribe to the email service free of charge, please register at www.password-online.de.
The current edition of Open Password can be accessed immediately after it appears on the web. www.password-online.de/archiv. This also applies to all previously published editions.
International Cooperation Partner:
Outsell (London)
Business Industry Information Association/BIIA (Hong Kong)
Open Password Archive – Publications
OPEN PASSWORD ARCHIVE
DATA JOURNALISM
Handelsblatt’s Digital Reach