Shaker
Library
Michael J. Bertsch Appointed
to Library Board of Trustees
The Shaker Heights Board of Education
appointed Michael J. Bertsch to complete
the remaining term of retired board member
Judith Allen. He was sworn in by School
Board President William Clawson at the
December board meeting.
Bertsch
is a Northeast
Ohio native
and long-time
Shaker resident.
He graduated
magna cum laude
with a degree in
economics from
Xavier University
and earned his
law degree from
Cleveland Marshall
College of Law. He
is a member of the
Cleveland law firm
Nicola, Gudbranson & Cooper.
Bertsch and his wife Linda, an active
volunteer with the Shaker Schools, live in the
Fernway area with their children, Vivienne,
a 7th grader; Raymond, a 6th grader; and
Marcus, a 4th grader.
Bertsch enjoys nonfiction, including
history, biography, religion, and philosophy.
His favorite books include the Bible, Man’s
Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, The Great
Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Unbroken by
Laura Hillenbrand, and Tuesdays with Morrie
by Mitch Albom.
“Our family frequently uses the Library.
So we are firsthand observers of its phenomenal
resources and highly professional,
most helpful staff,” he says. “We have also
witnessed its ongoing evolution as a valuable
community institution over the years.”
Bertsch believes that Shaker Library’s
future is tied to its continuing ability to
meet the challenges of the digital age and to
exceed the high expectations of its diverse
and engaged community.
18 SHAKERONLINE.COM | SPRING 2015
Director has Seen Many Changes
in His Ten Years at Shaker Library
Library Director Luren Dickinson is marking
a number of personal milestones in 2015.
He began his first library job years ago, has
worked as a public library director for 40
years, and celebrates his 10th anniversary at
Shaker Library in May.
He notes that libraries were much
different in 1975. “One of my first jobs
was to file new author, title, and subject
cards in the card catalogue. As a newbie, I
had to leave the cards ‘above the rod’ to be
inspected by the librarian to make sure that
they were in proper order.”
Four decades ago, there was little or
no automation. People signed out books by
writing their names, and sometimes their
addresses, on the book card and a due date
was rubber stamped on another card that
went into the book pocket. Ohio was one of
the first places in the nation to offer shared
cataloging of new material via dedicated
terminals. Most libraries were not even automated before the 1990s. Shaker Library
was ahead of the curve, having joined CLEVNET in 1983.
Shaker Library was also ahead of its time when it added Sunday hours in 1975,
but still only circulated 480,000 items that year. When cassette tapes for music,
audiobooks, and movies on videocassettes came along in the 1980s, people who had
never used libraries streamed in to check out these new types of media. Shaker’s
video collection began to grow in the early 1990s, and by 1996 the library checked
out a million items for the first time.
Compact discs eventually replaced cassette tapes as DVDs replaced videocassettes.
The Internet has led to little use of CDs and a decline in DVDs. Public
computers were introduced at Shaker Library in 1994, around the time that the
World Wide Web came into being, and usage has grown every year since.
Forty years ago, mobile devices and digital databases were things out of Dick
Tracy and Star Trek, but they have become a reality today. Check out Hoopla for
streaming access to movies, TV shows, music, and audiobooks; Zinio for digital
magazines; OverDrive for e-books and e-audio material; and many of the other
resources readily available through the Library’s website.
Update of Library’s Strategic Plan Continues
The Library last completed a comprehensive strategic plan in late 2011 using a Balanced
Scorecard approach, which uses finances as a basis and builds upward. Because a variety of
important tasks have been completed as a result – including self-checkout, the reconfiguration
of Main Library’s first floor, redesign of the Library’s website, and the completion of facility
studies – the Board of Trustees is revising and updating the strategic plan.
In preparation, staff completed an observational study of customers over a two-week
period last November, during every hour of operation at both Main Library and Bertram
Woods Branch. Staff tabulated the activities of nearly 8,000 customers, identifying them
as children, teens, adults, or seniors, and determining what each was doing at the observational
time: reading, browsing, meeting with others, or using a computer or digital device.
A newly created Balanced Scorecard Team, composed of Library staff with board representation,
will be working to examine the data and to study Library trends as they begin to revise
the strategic plan and to chart the course for future Library goals and objectives. The Board
of Trustees will host a retreat this spring to provide input and feedback. While the numbers