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NOAA Climate Program Office Outreach Plan By Robbin Zirkle Situational Analysis The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an extremely large organization that supports its six major line offices and many staff offices through a single library located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The budget for NOAA Program Support has decreased significantly over the last few years, providing challenges for supplying researchers with up-to-date, relevant resources. As such, NOAA has established a network of twenty-six partner libraries to help support its users. It is important for all of NOAAs subsidiaries to receive ample support and resources, including the Climate Program Office (CPO), which falls within the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR). Current outreach efforts to NOAA staff as a whole include Brown Bag Seminars addressing specific subject areas, Library Training Seminars, and a Friends of the Library Program. No outreach is designed specifically for the CPO, which would benefit tremendously from outreach, whether in the form of sharing information regarding interlibrary loan or by reinforcing the integral necessity of the NOAA Library to the CPO. Additionally, hosting webinars regarding search strategies will help staff to maximize the resources to which they do have access, and decrease the amount of time librarians must dedicate to simple reference requests. Communications Program Overview Established in October 2005, the CPO labels itself a research enterprise focusing on everything from grant programs to cooperative partnerships and public research. While it seems like this organization attempts to address every facet of climate impact, the scope of its scientists is surprisingly refined. Focus on the climate itself helps narrow focus, as does the CPOs interest in members of society: Businesses, policy leaders, resource managers and citizens are increasingly asking for information to help them address (climate- and weatherrelated disaster-based) challenges. Scientists researching within and with funding from the CPO specifically address concerns related to reducing vulnerability to extreme weather, preparation for drought and water resource challenges, management of risks to coastlines and coastal infrastructure, sustainable management of marine ecosystems and adaptation to and mitigation of climate impacts. Furthermore, the CPO aims to develop and sustain a global in situ climate observing system that will support its specific interests. The objectives of the CPO within NOAA directly support improved lifestyles for citizens, but such narrow research requires equally specific (and expensive) resources. It is unlikely that

staff spread across the United States is aware of the different varieties of databases and services available to them due to decentralization of the organization and poor advertisement on the part of the library. Improving this will increase the librarys return on investment while improving the quality of service received by staff within the CPO. Outreach Plan Goals Provide targeted outreach measures to NOAAs subsidiaries, such as the CPO, to make staff aware of the wealth of resources at their disposal. Through such outreach, the community will begin to better-understand the support that it receives to increase relevancy, transparency, and support. Communications Plan Objectives Achieve each of the following: Increase materials requests by at least thirty percent from staff members at the COP. Provide targeted virtual instruction to members of each of the six major line offices, including OAR. Ensure that all communications from NOAAs library include at least one fact about a new holding or consortial agreement. Target Stakeholders Note: While no specific data about the number of staff members within NOAA, OAR, or the CPO is available, its Organization Chart lists more than thirty individuals in positions of authority, that is, overseeing the work of others. This indicates that the pool of potential users in the CPO alone is quite large. Furthermore, while no specific data is available publicly for the number of locations for various projects, international, lab and cooperative partnerships indicate that personnel are spread out geographically. Primary Stakeholders Climate Program Office Staff Secondary Stakeholders Legislative Bodies General Public Key Messages The following are the communitys primary and secondary messages for this Plan: 1. NOAA has developed consortial agreements with other libraries throughout the United States to share resources.

a. Materials that are not available in the NOAA Library may be requested through interlibrary loan. b. Sharing resources with other libraries is more cost-effective than purchasing all items needed for research. c. Requesting materials is easy and takes very little time on the part of COP staff. 2. Continued instruction is important for staff to ensure the integrity of their research. a. Library professionals are available to instruct staff on how to best-utilize different resources. b. A great deal of information can be accessed remotely using appropriate search techniques. Communications Tools and Tactics Primary Stakeholders: Stakeholder Group: Climate Program Office Staff Objective: To ensure that CPO Staff is made aware of the wealth of resources available to them and of the benefit of using such resources. Tactics: Blog posts regarding new holdings and/or underutilized resources. Monthly webinars addressing different remote tools, particularly databases. Brief publicity advertising materials available through interlibrary loan. Evaluation: Compare statistics regarding the type of resources requested, number of times databases are accessed, and requests through interlibrary loan. Secondary Stakeholders: Stakeholder Group: Legislative Bodies Objective: Make these bodies aware of outreach efforts and improvements to justify financial expenditures. Tactics: Collect detailed statistics necessary for return on investment report. Prepare reports to direct toward legislative bodies allocating federal budgets. Evaluation: Consider the differences in budgetary allocations following the first five years of implementation. Stakeholder Group: General Public Objective: Justify expenditures on support funding for NOAA to general public. Tactics: Publicize reports and/or blog posts about relevance of library support through social media. Create monthly public newsletter and make available on website.

Evaluation: Utilize a survey following website visits to determine how the public is affected by information. Communications Activities Action Plan Activity Current (one to three months from 03-01-2013) Establish a library blog that is RSS compatible hosted on website. Develop webinar schedule addressing COP resources. Create interlibrary loan workflow that involves detailed statistics. Begin monthly newsletter based on blog content to be sent to staff and to be made available to public on library website. Three to six months Develop presence through social media to advertise blog posts. Create customized materials advertisements to send to offices. Begin hosting monthly webinars regarding available resources. Six to nine months Compile and analyze interlibrary loan statistics and patron requests. Nine to twelve months Prepare reports for legislative bodies regarding staff utilization of resources and return on investment. References BakerAECOM. (2010). Community outreach plan template Climate program office. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.cpo.noaa.gov/ NOAA. (2012). Program support FY 2013 budget highlights. Retrieved from http://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/nbo/fy13_budget_highlights/PS_FY13_One_Pager .pdf NOAA central library. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.lib.noaa.gov/ Deadline 04-01-2013 04-15-2013 04-01-2013 05-01-2013 07-01-2013 07-01-2013 06-01-2013 12-01-2013 03-01-2014