by Michael Jourdan
 

Introduction
According to George Elliot there is a synergy between private and public: "There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life." However, in actual practice, the worlds of the private and the public are oftentimes decidedly more separate, especially where the private and public sectors are concerned. This is what makes the Community Resource Database of Long Island (or CRD) so unusual. Under the direction of Long Island's Middle Country Public Library (MCPL), the CRD has been in development 1990 due to the efforts of a consortium of more than 40 Suffolk County, NY organizations and agencies-both public and private. Since then, the CRD has incorporated community information for Nassau County as well, thus extending the scope of the database to serve all of Long Island. The CRD's 7,500 entries can be accessed barrier free from public libraries across Long Island. However, in an attempt to enhance the long-term sustainability of the project, online access is restricted to organizations with paid subscriptions. 

Recently, I spoke with Barbara Jordan, project director for the CRD, as well as the Head of Grants Administration and Special Projects at MCPL. We discussed the advantages and potential pitfalls of the CRD's public/private collaboration, the lessons the MCPL takes from the business world, and the ways that the project group markets and evaluates the effectiveness of their database.
 

A Broad-Based Partnership
The consortium that oversees the CRD is made up of organizations from the government, business, library, health, social service, and educational communities. A steering committee that includes members from all of these groups guides the database's ongoing development. In addition, a business user group has been established to offer perspectives on the use of database applications in the workplace. Needless to say, balancing the needs and interests of such a varied group can be challenging. As Jordan puts it, "You can be pulled in many different directions. It is important for us as a group to always refer back to our primary mission."

Of course, the collaboration also has distinct advantages. Having a more broad-based consortium means that you can "stretch" the project further than you could otherwise. For example, because the CRD group has such rich representation from within the social services community, the expertise of that constituency is reflected in the richness of the database.

In addition, by casting a wider net, the CRD has received buy-in from across Long Island, which means that it has been able to do something almost unprecedented: get Suffolk and Nassau counties to cooperate in a way that allowed for an island-wide service. It is more typical for the two counties on Long Island to do things along "county lines" as opposed to regionally. These county governments join eight private foundations and United Way of Long Island in extending their collaboration and providing substantial financial support to the database.
 

Speaking the Language of Business What makes the CRD different from many other community information initiatives is the way in which it looks to the private sector as a source of ideas and funding. As Jordan notes, forgoing private sector funding was never really an option: "Private sector help is a necessity for a smaller library. We couldn't rely on our regular library budget, especially considering that we were proposing a regional project despite the fact that MCPL's service area is considerably smaller." With this in mind, the staff at MCPL has turned to a variety of private firms--such as banks and local corporations--for financial sponsorship of the CRD.

As the library has partnered with the private sector, it has begun to borrow strategy from the business playbook as well. Early on in the development of the database, MCPL approached private foundations as a source of funding and partnering. The foundations encouraged them to develop a business plan that addressed issues such as long-term sustainability and potential competition/overlap with service provided by other agency databases. More generally, the business plan needed to make the case that the CRD would actually serve to fill a need in the Long Island community.

According to Jordan, having a business plan for the CRD gives the library credibility with the private sector: "It allows us to speak to businesses in their language." In addition, the plan creates a framework for the project. The CRD web site describes it in this way: "This plan serves as a financial planning tool and management guide for the database for personnel, technology, and marketing decisions." Jordan likens their business plan to a well-written grant: "If you write it well, it provides a roadmap for the process."
 

Marketing Opens Doors
While using a business plan has proven beneficial to the library as they manage the CRD, other business-oriented aspects of the project have proven a greater departure from the role normally played by a library. An article that Jordan and MCPL director Sandra Feinberg wrote for Public Libraries in 1997 makes the point nicely:

Being in the forefront of technology, providing exemplary patron service, and tailoring services to meet the needs of specific audiences

is the consummate role of the public library in the 1990s. Selling subscriptions and initiating a marketing strategy around a regional

database, however, presents challenges unfamiliar to us as library professionals.

Just as tricky for the library as reconciling the new business-oriented approaches of the CRD to itself is explaining them to patrons. As Jordan notes, "Selling things is not something that librarians are comfortable with." And, because the library charges for access to the database for users who are not in a library (on a subscription basis), some voice concerns, arguing that everything a public library does should be free. In these situations, it is up to the CRD staff to point out the great expense involved in maintaining such an extensive database. The staff is also happy to point out that there is barrier free access to the CRD available from terminals in libraries throughout Long Island.
 

Evaluation: Yes Long Island, There Is a Santa Claus
While creating a useful service is important, having systems in place to evaluate it and adjust it to the needs of the community is also crucial. Jordan admits that this is an area where CRD has room to grow: "We haven't done much to date in terms of formal evaluation." In 1996, MCPL conducted focus groups to get feedback on the database (then in its developmental stage) and to hear users' thoughts regarding pricing and marketing of the service. More recently, they have conducted some phone interviews with users. In addition, they are looking into some more high tech solutions. The CRD staff analyzes site hit statistics to get a sense of what people are using the database for and how they go about searching. And, in fall 1999 the CRD will roll out an online survey so that they can get feedback from a broader spectrum of users.

Of course, much of the information that MCPL receives about the usefulness of the database has been anecdotal. While such comments are gathered in an unscientific manner, they still speak volumes. Here is a particularly memorable example….During the holiday season the library received a phone call from a Santa at a hospital. As it turned out, he had a surplus of gifts to distribute that year and was looking for advice on worthy organizations that could take the excess off his hands. With help from listings in the CRD, the library staff was able to hook Mr. Claus up in minutes with agencies that could use his extra presents.

To learn more about the CRD, please visit the project web site at http://www.crdli.org/

• Project funded and managed by a coalition of public agencies, private foundations, and businesses
• Middle Country Public Library is the Central Manager for the database
• features more than 8,000 entries covering two Long Island counties (Suffolk & Nassau)
• Accessibility: available free via public access terminals at libraries; on subscription basis elsewhere (URL: http://www.crdli.org/). 
• Currently, there are 50 paid subscribers, including two county governments, three town governments, six local businesses, as well as hospitals, school districts and not-for-profit groups.
• CI organized using the AIRS/Infoline Taxonomy