Using a World Café to Explore New Spaces and New Models for Front Line Services: A Case Study from the Irish University Library Sector

World Cafe, sometimes termed Knowledge Cafe, is now an established method of facilitating productive dialogue between a group or groups of people around an issue that matters to the group as a whole. Now a world movement, the methodology is straightforward and uses conversation as a key process to connect people, who may be from different organizations, age groups, cultures, continents, and so forth. Cafe conversations draw on the wisdom and creativity of the participants to explore issues of concern to them and to confront real life challenges. Following some background information and a brief review of the literature relating to the World Cafe, this article presents a case study of the application of the model to facilitate discussion and learning around a topic of common concern, frontline desk services, for 61 staff from 11 Irish academic libraries at Maynooth University (MU) Library in October 2015. This was part of a one-day staff development event: MU Library Innovation Day. The application of the World Cafe methodology is described. The results of the evaluation of the event are presented and discussed. Actions and outcomes are provided. Limitations of the case study are presented