At WiLS, it’s important to us that we are respectful of our members’ time. It’s a notion embedded in our mission and our values, and it’s a critical consideration of any service or project we develop. We know there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get done what we all want to get done.
That’s why we are especially grateful that so many of you used some of that precious time to respond to our Community Survey this spring, helping to make us better for all the organizations we serve.
We listen to this feedback. Your past survey responses have led us to develop and improve on a number of WiLS services. You said you needed help finding and using data, so we developed the WiLS Data Classroom. You said legacy planning and institutional knowledge capture were a struggle, so we launched the WiLS Documentation Lab. You said you didn’t know enough about some of our services, like the WiLS Ideas to Action Fund and the less-obvious perks of WiLS Cooperative Purchasing, so we bolstered our communications efforts to raise awareness. Thank you for being honest, constructive, and inspiring with your input.
What follows is a deeper look at the results of the 2026 survey, but because we do indeed respect your time, here are some key takeaways:
- Our community remains overwhelmingly satisfied with our work.
- You view WiLS as an important part of the library and cultural organization landscape.
- Your awareness and use of our services continue to grow in nearly every area of our work.
- You have lots of good ideas for how we can rise to meet emerging or evolving needs.
- You are thinking about staff development, organizational data, storytelling, advocacy, and artificial intelligence when you think about the future of your organization.
Living our values is very important to us, but our members are the only ones who can tell us if we are really doing it. And in this survey, you think we are! When asked if you agree or disagree with these statements, you strongly agreed that WiLS:
- is an important part of the library and cultural ecosystem in the state.
- is approachable and you feel comfortable contacting WiLS staff members.
- stands up for its members and helps your organization support its mission.
- understands your budget constraints.
- is an organization that can help you get things done.
- helps you understand what is happening in the Wisconsin library world.
- supports its members by creating engaging opportunities.
- is an organization that helps you approach problems innovatively.
- is available for project work on a reasonable timeline.
We are particularly proud to see a jump in agreement with the statement that we stand up for members and help support member missions. Among very important things, it’s a very, very important thing. We hope we demonstrate that commitment in the work we have done to partner with Unite Against Book Bans, in staff participation in the WLA Intellectual Freedom Special Interest Group, in our continuous search for ways to keep services affordable and attainable for all the members of our community, and more.
Your awareness of our services continues to grow over time for nearly every area of our work.
Likewise, your usage of our services also continues to grow in almost every area, with a big jump in your use of our communications.
Speaking of, we learned that nearly all of you discover useful information in our newsletters, either sometimes, often, or always. This makes us happy!
We are also encouraged to see the growing awareness of our Ideas to Action Fund, including growth in members who are replicating previous Ideas to Action projects. This helps us see progress toward a key goal of the Fund: to seed the development of processes, methods, or resources that can be used by others to further the field as a whole.
But enough about us! What about you? A critical component of this survey is understanding what’s on our members’ minds.
We asked you about your organization’s current needs, and overall you told us that these were the four most important to you:
We dug a little deeper into that data to see which members of our community were most invested in having which needs met. Public libraries and library systems are most interested in advocacy and marketing. Academic libraries ranked staff development and the use and impact of AI as their most important needs. K-12 libraries also felt the use and impact of AI were most important.
We also asked you to tell us what comes to mind when you think about your organization’s future or the broader landscape for libraries and cultural organizations over the next 3-5 years. You said:
We learn so much from this important information you’ve provided. Immediately, we can see there are opportunities for more research and improvement for us.
We will work harder to gather input from across our membership in more equal numbers. We would love to hear from more of our K12 community. For future communications, including surveys, we’re going to learn more about how best to reach those members with the least intrusion on their time at work. Similarly, we have a wide array of community members that fall into the “special libraries and cultural organization” categories. We will also be thinking about how to engage more effectively with them.
We’ll make a dedicated effort to get more learning opportunities on your radar. WiLSWorld Shorts, Taco Tuesdays, and our partners’ opportunities benefit our membership and deserve the highest quality communications.
We’ll dig deeper to understand what “Staff Development” means to our members. What services, support, or approaches are needed in the context of our member organizations?
There is a lot more revealed in this survey that will take us longer to digest, interpret, and respond to. But, alongside our strategic plan and other feedback we receive, this survey will be a beacon to guide our work in the coming years.
Thank you for being on this ride with us and for taking time to help us improve what we offer. If you have any additional feedback or any questions, or if you are interested in helping us dig deeper into some of these findings through additional surveys or focus groups, please reach out to us at information@wils.org.
