Library Revolution

I came across an interesting site today via a BoingBoing mention. The Laws of Simplicity blog offers some interesting ideas centering around the idea (or the ideal?) of simplicity.

The post that caught my eye featured a picture of this light switch:

I took one look at this ultra complex interpretation of such a normally simple device, and I just had to laugh. I mean, come on. You shouldn’t need a users manual  to operate a light switch. There are many things in life that benefit from enhancement, improvement, the addition of features and all of the complexity that comes along with all of that. Light switches are not in this category.

For me, that is a basic problem I often see in LibraryWorld. Yes, there are many aspects of library service that can use enhancement these days. But there are many that just don’t. They are what they are and don’t need to be made any more complex than they are. Doing so would just screw them up and make them unusable. Or, like I suspect would happen with this light switch, virtually all users will skip all of the fancy features (those that took a lot of hard work to design!) and just go for plain old ON/OFF.

The trick is in determining which category your various projects/services/etc. fall - and in creating a balance between complexity and simplicity whenever “improvements” are made.

Those of us who tend to be overzealous about implementing change must constantly ask ourselves if change in this particular instance is the best thing - and be sure that we aren’t unnecessarily making things more complicated for ourselves and our users. Change shouldn’t be made for change’s sake alone - and complexity shouldn’t be introduced without a benefit resulting. Sure, it would be great if I could easily dim my lights, preset lighting levels, and so on… but is a complicated redesign of my switch really necessary? Is the end goal achieved by introducing change where it may not have been needed?

Those who tend to resist change should similarly assess the individual situation. I am often surprised at how often those who resist change make things way more complicated for themselves and their users by doing so. Just as we shouldn’t introduce unnecessary complexity in the name of moving forward, we should also avoid the trap of making things more complicated by clinging to “the way we do things here” or “the way it’s always been done.”

Balance.

I was working with someone the other day who has long kept “secret” paper files on all of  her library’s holds. As far as I was concerned, she could throw all of that paper in the trash and replace all of that work filing and keeping track of little slips of paper with some regular reports and some new procedures. As far as she was concerned, the paper file needed to be maintained… only it was getting to be so much work! Clinging to the “old, simple way” was just too complicated!

But it’s not always as easy as all that to just dump the old system. Once we talked it out a bit and went through a little of my way and a little of hers, I think we found some good solutions for her… taking a bit from each method. Big chunks of the “old way” are going to get dumped in favor of aspects of my “new way.” But not all of them. Frankly, some of the old procedures work just fine for them, and changing would just be introducing complexity where it isn’t needed. So why not keep them? This way, I think she can achieve a balance that will work for her and her library.

I’m interested in what John Maeda has to say on his blog - and I want to thumb through his book, too.

Of course, when I went to request the book from my local library system, I found that the only library in my area will not lend it to me. So now I have to jump through some hoops, call in some favors… no simplicity here.

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We got our tax bill this week… ouch!

But what really stands out to me among all of the lines for schools, fire department, police, random county taxes, etc. is the library district charge.

Best $172.00 I spent all year.

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With libraries venturing into the world of “official library blogs” left and right, there is a persistent theme I hear emerging from the behind-the-scenes discussion of these blogs. I can’t even count the number of times that I have heard library staff and directors comment that their blogs don’t get any comments.

 “You know, we’ve been working so hard to keep up our library blog, but nobody leaves any comments!”

In response, I would like to offer a bit of unsolicited advice to frustrated library bloggers who are upset over the silence they get in return for their blogging efforts.

1. First and foremost, write something worth commenting on.

A lot of library blogs I read feature posts that go something like this:

 “Please join us next Tuesday for an art exhibit opening. We are so excited about this event, and there will be food!!”

OK, so you got your announcement out. Mission accomplished on that goal. If you want to use your library blog as an e version of your newsletter, you’re in business. But do you really expect anyone to comment on that? What are your users supposed to say, when your posts are structured like a broadcast? Thing about broadcasts is that they don’t really encourage commentary.

Comments take effort. Not much effort, but in the world of the Internet, effort is effort. I’m not taking the time and effort to leave a comment unless there is something interesting an engaging to comment on. Otherwise, I skim my eye across it, read half of the words (maybe!) and move on.

How about a post discussing the artist whose exhibit is opening at your library? Or the type of art being displayed? Or a more general discussion of the kinds of events that go on in your library (with a not-so-subtle plug for this one)? Sure, those are a little more difficult to write, but if you’re looking for comments, they’d be a much better bet than a bland, uninteresting announcement.

2. Get Linky.

Blogs are about conversation. Community. Interaction.

If you’re looking for comments, I’d like to think you’re looking to foster conversations, community, and interaction. So what better way to encourage dialog than to join in on or continue a conversation already in the works?

By linking to other blogs, you encourage comments on your blog in a couple of different ways. For one, you’re attracting readers by getting yourself out there in the blogosphere. Whenever someone links to my blog, I go and read what they have to say, and I often comment or link back. The conversation can really get going… and spread!

Besides attracting new readers, linking to other sites gives your blog posts context, and maybe even more legitimacy in the eyes of your readers. Hey, look! What we’re doing here in our library is relevant in the larger scope of the world! What we’re doing is interesting to people other than us! We are relevant!

Get more readers, join the conversations already out there, and give yourself some context, and you may see more comments coming your way. Bring on the links!

(And for God’s sake – if you’re going to blog about the materials in your collection, PLEASE include links to the materials in your catalog! It’s all good and fine to recommend a book, for instance, but without a link into the catalog, I’d have to go to way too much trouble to place a hold on it. Put the resource right there where I can make an “impulse purchase”!)

3. Make people feel comfortable

Does you library’s tone make readers feel comfortable enough to comment? Is your voice friendly and approachable? Do you give the impression that you genuinely want to hear what people have to say?

As I’ve discussed before, I tend to have a pretty negative view about the impersonal, “corporate persona” type library blog. Sure, it works OK in some cases, but in general, I’m among the segment of Web users who tend to be really cynical about blogs that seem too official. To me, it just reads as phony.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t project a professional image whenever you represent your organization. But I just don’t see what’s so bad about librarians projecting their true individual personalities. To me, and to a large segment of blog readers (as L’Oreal found out the hard way!!), official corporate personas or made up characters read as fake, and they’re a huge turnoff.

I actually think it’s a measure of respect to your readers to be honest with them, and as a blog reader, I definitely feel disrespected and condescended to by corporate blogs that are too impersonal or that I feel aren’t really being honest. We want some measure of authenticity.

If your blog reads like a press release, good luck getting comments.

If it reads like a cold, impersonal institution, don’t bet on replies.

If it sounds like a naggy old lady with a bun, I wouldn’t comment on it. Would you?

4. Actively Invite Commentary

Besides developing an authentic, inviting voice, I might also suggest taking David Lee King’s advice and creating posts that actively invite readers to give their input.

If you really want comments, it’s simple. Just ask.

His tips:

• Think like a dj: You know - you’ve all heard a dj at a radio station announce “be the 10th caller and win a [fill in the blank].” While I don’t think we should give away cars and trips to Japan, I think we can adapt that mentality of dangling carrots in order to gain participation.  Even simple things, like asking people to click a link, read a short article, or to watch a video are great ways to “direct” customers into participation.  And a blog is the perfect place to do this.
• Figure out the goal for your post: What do you want the customer to do after they’ve read your blog post? Why not tell them what they should do to make that thing happen. An easy (well, maybe not TOO easy) way to do that is to figure out what the end result of your blog post should be, and then write the post to support that goal.
• Ask for Opinions: Opinions are always great, because people are more willing to share… so ask for them! Ask things like: what’s your favorite movie/book?  What’s your favorite genre? Why? Asking these things is a great way to start a discussion.
• Use polls and surveys: Not really sure why (other than referring to my last point on opinions), but people tend to fill out online polls and short surveys - especially if they’re about more trivial stuff. You can simply do these within a blog post.
• Use props: When supplementing the text in your blog post with images and links, make sure to invite readers to click on them. This tells readers “ooh - I can click on this!”

Actually, read his whole series of posts about inviting participation in Web 2.0 projects. Great ideas!

I couldn’t agree more. What are some ways you can invite participation in your blog? 

5. React to Comments

If you do start getting comments, I think it’s really important to encourage the comment train to keep on a-rollin’. When someone takes the time to comment, try to acknowledge them and respond. I’m not personally as good at this as I should be… I really hope that everyone who comments here knows that I really appreciate them taking the time to do so!!!

But if you have a whole team of librarians working on a collaborative blog, I don’t see why it should be so hard to respond regularly. It’s just one more way to seem less like a cold, impersonal institution and more like a group of real people who genuinely care what their patrons have to say.

Again, it’s about respect. If I feel strongly enough to take the time to put a bunch of words together in a coherent way and comment on the library blog, then I deserve to be heard. And letting people know that they have been heard and that their input is respected and appreciated is an excellent business practice.

6. Embrace Negative Comments!

If you’re in the habit of responding to comments, you’ve put yourself in a great position to deal with negative comments… and come out the better for it!

Many would-be library bloggers have mentioned to me their fear of getting negative comments. We’re so used to closely guarding our library’s public image and keeping a tight reign on anything that is said about the library in a public forum that it’s really hard for many librarians to imagine just letting go and seeing what people really have to say.

The thing I always remind folks about, however, is that it is your blog. So, if you get a negative comment, it’s on your terms and it can really give you a great chance to react to the comment on your own terms. Responding to negative comments can actually put your library in an extremely positive light. It shows that you are really listening, that you’re happy to discuss complaints, and often an honest, well thought-out response to criticism may bring out library supporters who have been lurking.

I was talking to a friend whose business blog (non-library) received a whole slew of negative comments at one point. He took the bull by the horns and posted a few well-written, well-argued replies. BAM. Suddenly his supporters came out of the woodwork to back him up. Not only because they agreed with him, but also because by addressing the bad comments openly he proved himself as an honest, conscientious person who doesn’t blow off complaints. His business has benefited from the experience immensely.

Need more evidence? Read this.

Don’t overmoderate comments- let folks express their disagreement or disapproval. Then be sure not to blow off these comments. A bad comment sets you up to deliver a good response. This is a winning proposition, and a positive response to a negative comment will put both you and your library in a good light.

Actually, there are a lot of good posts out there with good ideas for handling negative comments. For example, here, here, here and here.

The last thing I’d like to say is that library bloggers really shouldn’t rely on comments alone as an indication of total readership. Librarians love use statistics – but don’t misuse comments in this way. Comments are a very important aspect of blogging because in the end blogs are really all about conversation.

Without that conversational quality, it’s just a bunch of press releases. Don’t call it a blog. Call it an online newsletter.

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The Pew Research Center’s “Number of the Day” today lists The number of people who support banning books with “dangerous ideas”: 46%. Link
What is shocking to me is that this is the lowes level of support for book banning in the last 20 years.

46% still seems a little high to me.

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From Lifehacker today.

Love it.

What “hacks” are we providing for out users?

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I haven’t had much blogging time in the past week or so, but I hope to remedy that soon. In the meantime, I just want to mention one thing. Call it a little pet peeve I have developed in the past 16 months or so.

If your business caters to parents and small children, for God’s sake make your space stroller friendly. And that means your library (or at least your children’s room!), too.

Yes, yes space is at a premium.  But it just pisses me off when I can’t fit the stroller through the maze of chairs, displays, racks, and random crap that both businesses and libraries seem to enjoy arranging between me and the stuff I want to get to. It’s got to be a fire hazard of some kind, too.

Once again, it’s time to think more like our customers. What is important to them?

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OK, here’s another one I had read, nodded at in agreement, then forgotten about until Bloglines randomly spit it back out at me again.

It’s a post from Library Nation discussing the way the image of the library fits (or doesn’t fit) with our own self image. It references Seth Godin’s post on the way self image and being able to identify with a business or product heavily impacts on buying decisions. I love Seth Godin’s work, so I was really excited to see his comments discussed so nicely in a library-related blog!

Here’s the deal, folks. Libraries have a pretty big image problem. I think we all realize that. But I don’t think many librarians have a good sense of how deeply that image problem may be impacting the amount of “business” we’re getting from our customers.

It’s not just that the patrons coming in the door need to be better informed of what services we have to offer. It’s also that the community as a whole need to be presented with a better image of what the library is and how that can fit with who they are. That’s a much taller order.

Let me put it this way. Most of my friends and family are not library users. Why not? As a group, they are educated, intelligent people who read, watch movies, need and use information, enjoy educational and social activities, and don’t like spending a whole lot of their hard earned cash on these things. So why don’t we see them at the library?

Because libraries are for the poor, the old, and children.

At least, that’s the gut feeling a lot of the people I know, and it doesn’t fit with their own sense of personal identity.

Now before anyone jumps all over me for this, of course I don’t really think this is who libraries are for. And when the people I’m talking about actually think about it, they don’t really believe that either. But it’s the gut impression that many people get when libraries are mentioned – the impression some folks get when they are not thinking real hard about it. It’s an asset to the community as a whole, but not for me. They don’t envision themselves as library users, so they never get so far as to walk in the door and see what the place is really all about.

So what are we doing about it???

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Bloglines had a meltdown on me today and started spitting up all sorts of older posts, seemingly at random. At first it was really annoying, but it may have been a blessing in disguise, as I happened to rediscover a few things I had read.

Here is one of them. Take a look - It’s a nice, concise post about the phrase that makes me bristle more than any other: “I didn’t get an MLS to do that!”

And the comments are great, too. I love Terry Dawson’s comment that:

“I didn’t get an MLS so I could shelve books, pick up scraps of paper off the rug, or clean restrooms. But in the 31 years I’ve had the degree, I’ve done them all. And doubtless will again.”

This particular post focuses on the argument that librarians are not there to fill up the printer or help format a spreadsheet. But Steve’s core arguments could really hold true with so many of the duties librarians find themselves performing even though they are not strictly “professional activities.”

For me, the bottom line is that professionals do whatever needs to be done in order to fulfill their professional mission. In the case of a profession dedicated to delivering information services, sometimes that means rolling up your sleeves and getting out of your chair to make sure the patrons have access to the information they need. Sometimes it means that you’ll have to answer a phone or place a hold, even though it’s not technically your job. Sometimes it means stepping outside of your comfort zone a little. Sometimes it means that professionals need to stop hiding behind their degrees and start going out there and doing whatever needs to be done.

In my opinion, if you are not willing to go all out and do whatever it takes to fulfill the missions of our profession, then you’re not much of a professional at all.

Note:

When I went back to the archives, I found that Steve had followed this post with another excellent post examining where we must draw the line when it comes to the kinds of computer questions professional librarians should be expected to handle. He raises some great points about competency levels (a topic I plan to post on in the near future…), connecting with patrons, and the expectations we set up by even making computers available in the first place.

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Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

Here are a few anecdotes (true, each one of them!) that will hopefully make my point for me.

• I know of one library where patrons were dropping items off at the circ desk, then running straight over to the OPAC to check to see if their record was clear. The problem was that they did this so quickly that the OPAC display of the patron record did not yet show the items removed from their accounts. The process was about 5 seconds too slow. What did they do? They shifted the nearest OPAC terminal about five feet further away from the circ desk.

• Another library was having problems with the traffic patterns in their beautiful new reference room.  The layout was beautiful, but patrons were unthinkingly cutting behind the reference desks to get from one side of the library to another. The renovations (including immovable, built in desks!) had cost a fortune and the library didn’t really want to reorganize all over again, but this was starting to really cause problems. So they shifted the position of a couple of reading chairs so that they formed a mini reading area right in the path the patrons were absentmindedly using as a cut through.

• After a software upgrade, a library found that their circulation system automatically printed receipts for renewals.  They loved this for most transactions, but complained to a particularly charming and brilliant system administrator that they didn’t want this feature on one of their computers… the one by the phone that was used only for phone renewals. The system administrator (did I mention that she was charming and brilliant?) suggested a fix that worked like a charm and made everyone happy - without a major software rewrite. She told them to unplug the receipt printer on that machine.

• I visited a library that had a lovely built in bulletin board in a somewhat secluded area near to the circulation desk. Unfortunately, patrons were completely missing the program announcements and information posted there. The staff there had resorted to taping flyers to the wall in a more high traffic area (which looked terrible) and the nice bulletin board was basically not used. When I visited again a short time later, I noticed that the situation had changed… the ugly flyers were gone, and patrons were flocking around the bulletin board. Someone had the bright idea to move the cart with newly returned DVDs on it waiting to be shelved so that the cart was directly under the bulletin board. 

• All of the informational brochures in the world didn’t seem to hep one library explain to their patrons how to access their online catalog from home. They had a beautiful, professionally designed Web site and many savvy users, but the catalog just wasn’t getting the use anyone expected. What helped? They outlined the “Catalog” button in a contrasting color. Suddenly it leapt off the page… and patrons started using more!

Sometimes the smallest, simplest changes make all the difference in the world. No complexity required.

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As you may or may not know by now, I’m still not entirely sold on Second Life. That isn’t to say I don’t think there isn’t a future in 3-D virtual worlds - quite the contrary. But I still think the primary incentive for getting involved in SL projects is to prepare ourselves for the next “next big thing” to grow out of them.

So I was interested to take a peek at this slideshow and the video clips in it…  take a peek!!! And look at the accompanying article, too.)

It seems that I’m not alone in my sneaking suspicion that 3-D online worlds are here to stay.

(Of course, there are still some things that totally baffle me about the way these virtual environments are being used… but I think that’s a post for another day…..)

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