Library Revolution

Sesame Street is now a big part of my daily life. Just ask me what’s the letter of the day, number of the day, and what Elmo was thinking about today. K, 12, Weather.

So I couldn’t resist when I saw Martha at The Vital Library posted this fun quiz.

Which Sesame Street Character Are You?
	You are part Elmo. You are lovable and ticklish, and always inquisitive. Sometimes, though, your excitement about the world can make you seem childish, naive, and occasionally irritating to others.
	You are part Cookie Monster. You are a glutton. You often make attempts at controlling yourself, but why stop yourself from getting what you really want? Cookies. Inside, you are sensitive and vulnerable and it just may be the source of your problems.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

I think it pretty much nailed me…  except for the glutton part. Sure, I enjoy a good cookie as much as the next girl. But glutton??

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Summer is officially coming to an end, and things seem to be returning to normal for me, but by bit. These last few weeks were a little tough for me, which is why I’ve been eerily quiet. Between my husband’s recovery from back surgery, some big projects at work, being involved in a major car accident (we’re OK, but there has been some recovery time from that!), and of course taking care of a very active toddler, I haven’t had two minutes to even hear myself think!

But all is well now. Chris is starting to go back to work, my projects are starting to take shape, the whiplash is getting better, I get the car back tomorrow, and Robert… well, Robert is still a toddler with all of the stress and drama that goes along with it.

I tell ‘ya, the kid should win an Academy Award.

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My sister is a wonderful person. She’s also a complete packrat. You know, the kind of person who never seems to throw anything away… everything is kept “just in case,” “for the future,” or “because of sentimental value.” And I mean everything. She’s gotten better in the past few years, but I remember a time when entire rooms of her house seemed to be filled with random objects that hadn’t been used in years. Thank God she decided to overhaul things a bit before her house became a fire hazard!

My father in law is the same way. You should see his garage. And I’ll always remember the time we tried to help him clear out by having a garage sale. He was loathe to part with any of it, and kept smuggling items back into the garage. Then, when people tried to buy things, he wouldn’t budge on the price – I think he just wanted to keep everything.

I know a lot of librarians like this, too. Not necessarily when it comes to their homes or personal possessions, but in terms of their library collections. I don’t think there is a librarian in the world that doesn’t wish he or she had more space for materials, and in many ways I sympathize. But I often get a chance to see the contents of their collections and I frequently ask myself “Why are they keeping this?????”

Sure, they have collection development policies in place that in theory should be the driving force behind the decision to keep or to toss. But it all ultimately comes down to the librarian’s decision. And it can be really hard to give things up.

But is there really much value, at least in a public library setting, to keeping travel guides to Indonesia from 2000, or even 1990? (Believe me, I have seen this recently! Um, hi. Did you miss this?) And when you finally decide to get rid of your stamp collecting price guide from 1986, do you really need to advertise it on every library Listserv around? Well, I guess so, because these “gifts” always seem to be snapped up by another librarian as soon as they are posted.

I’m not talking about keeping things for historical value. As a former historian, I definitely understand the value of retaining cultural artifacts for future studies. But here I’m talking about a regular old public library collection. What, exactly, and I supposed to do with the 1997 New York City With Kids travel guide I found at my local library? Is any of that stuff even still there?? And prescription drug guides from 1997 are simply irresponsible.

Come on, folks. It’s time to let go. I know you spent a lot of money on some of those books. I k now you may not be able to afford to replace everything. I know you are busy. I know that you can’t keep up with everything. But I don’t want to hear you complaining about “no shelf space” if you have a collection full of old junk. Throw it out.

Then there are those of us who want to react in the opposite way. I’d just as soon throw out almost everything that’s even the least bit outdated. And maybe that’s not the solution, either. But there must be a balance between keeping it all and pitching it all. In theory, that’s what we are trained to do – make intelligent decisions about the collections we cultivate and the information we make available.

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Several weeks ago, a colleague and I ran a small workshop for librarians on wikis. We had a great group of people who were enthusiastic about learning something new, but some of them had no clue whatsoever about what a wiki even was. No problem, though, since the whole point of a wiki is that it is quick, easy, and collaborative in nature. By the end of the session, we had worked together to learn about wikis (with a short digression to discuss XML feeds), the uses they could be put to in their libraries, and each member of the group had edited a pre-established wiki and created at least one of their own. Everyone left with a smile on their face.

Now, I usually find it easy to run a training session or workshop and have everyone leave the room smiling and enthusiastic, to one degree or another. But the real trick is the follow-up. What happens when they get back to their libraries, get socked with a pile of work and a line of patrons to help, and I’m not there to cheer them on with the project they were working on? Sometimes nothing happens. I talk to the people a few weeks later, and all I get is a sheepish look. “Well, I meant to work on it, but, well… you know!”

This time was different, at least at first. I was so encouraged to get some feedback after the session that every single one of the participants had been working on at least one wiki to serve a particular purpose int heir library. WOW!

However, wikis seem to me to be one of those things that’s easy, fun, and exciting to get started, but that can be absolutely torturous to keep going. Especially since the collaborative nature of a wiki relies on a certain amount of buy in by others who may not be as charged with the enthusiasm you came into the project with.

And this is exactly the feedback I’m getting from several of the workshop participants now. They have a wiki going that seems like a great and efficient way to meet their particular goal. They got it set up, added initial content, and brought in the group. It was OK at first, but by now the effort has died. Now what?

This is why I like Wikipatterns. I can’t remember who suggested this site to me (thank you!, but I have found it a great source for tackling just this sort of a situation. By exploring the sort of behavioral patterns that have emerged around other wiki projects and taking a close look at how your situation may or may not resemble the patterns experienced by others, some real insight can be gained… and some problems addressed.

Maybe you thought you were taking on the role of the Wiki Champion… when everyone else thinks you’re really the Do It All or the Over Organizer. Maybe someone needs to Seed It With Content or combat a feeling of Page Ownership among your users in order to get the ball rolling. The folks contributing to this wiki have all been there and done that, and are willing to share and discuss ways to get past these sorts of roadblocks. Sure, they’re all generalizations and don’t apply to every situation. But I’ve found the patterns to be pretty spot on with the kinds of situations I’ve encountered.

And I find the patterns can apply to other projects as well, not just wikis. Who among us hasn’t dealt with someone who sounds suspiciously like their description of a Wiki Bully in other situations where people might need to be convinced to adopt a new way of doing things? Believe me, there’s a lot of bullies out there, not just when it comes to Wikis. And a lot of the time the first step towards dealing with it is to recognize the problem.

Anyway, Wiki patterns isn’t perfect by any means. But I definitely think it’s nice to see a resource out there for dealing with the hardest part of a collaborative project - the collaboration. Setting up the site is one thing. Getting the group to work together and create a sustainable project is quite anther.

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Here’s a post on the “Customer Review Effect” on the Church of the Consumer Blog.

The long and short of it is that retailers in the US, UK, and Europe report an interesting effect resulting from their providing a product review component to their retail Web sites.  According to the full article,

Over three-quarters said their site traffic had increased. Only 5% said it had fallen. Average order values rose for 42% of the responding online retailers, and only 6% said they had decreased.

Ben at Church of the Consmer comments,

Personally, I don’t buy anything or visit any new merchant today without first locating a number of customer-generated reviews for it.

That sounds awfully familiar. My gut feeling is that a lot of us feel that way. I can’t remember the last time I read a book without reading a bunch of consumer reviews before deciding if it was worth my time or not (professional reviews, too, but sometimes I just want to see what other “real people” had to say!). I try to find out what people are saying about the product/service/provider before every major purchase I make (and many minor ones, too!). And even though I haven’t kept track, I have a feeling that the sites where I find those reviews are the ones that get my business in the end.

Writing reviews is something I generally enjoy as well, if I have time. I’m not one of those manic reviewers who seems to have all the time in the world to write detailed reviews of every single product they have ever purchased, but from time to time I do like to express my opinion. And I don’t think I’m alone in that.

So what does this mean for libraries? Do we allow our patrons to review our materials in the OPAC? (I’m cool with the idea, but I know that not every librarian is.) Do we provide other public forums for our users to share their impressions of our services? What about giving them some sort of a venue for sharing reviews/opinions/impressions of non-library services, products, etc. How do we assist our patrons looking for information in the form of amateur, consumer-created reviews? Does this assistance include assistance with authoring reviews? … Moderation? … Professional reviews? … Library neutrality?… I could go on and on with questions….

Once again, I think it comes back to the idea of entering into a two-way conversation with our patrons… and in this case, encouraging them to converse with other members of their community.  Now how do we make this work?

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So I read Seth Godin’s new book, The Dip the other day. Like most of the things he writes, it’s a little gem filled with common sense ideas that make you say “duh” and “AHA!” both at the same time.

I am glad to have read it, as I took away a powerful reminder of something I have a real tendency to forget.  Like a lot of things, it’s something I know, but sometimes need to be reminded about. And this book did that for me. Here it is:

Not everyone I deal with intends to be the best in the world - not should they.

Like a lot of the people I know read this blog, I am one of those really supermotivated self-starters who doesn’t do anything in life without the full expectation (realistic or not) that I will succeed remarkably. You know, the old if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right…. only taken to a completely new level. I expect myself to succeed, to be a stand out, to make every one of my endeavors brilliant. I call it motivated. My husband says I’m a workaholic. Can anyone relate?

So that is a big part of my persona at work. Those off you who have encountered me professionally would, I’m sure agree. I assume that the task at hand will be a huge success and will do anything to make it so. Whatever I do must be the best I can possibly make it. I just don’t know any other way.

The thing is, I sometimes forget that not everyone thinks that way. As Seth Godin says in The Dip:

People settle. They settle for less than they are capable of. Organizations settle, too. For good enough instead of best in the world.

Thing is, as a trainer, I have to keep this in mind more. Not everyone comes to the table with the expectation that they, or the project we’re working on will be the “best in the world.” Could it? Of course! But that’s not the way a lot of people (most people??) think.

They come into the training session wanting to learn just enough to get by, because that is how they live their lives. It’s totally understandable because this is the safe way, the easy way. I mean, isn’t it a lot easier in LibraryWorld to get a job, do a good enough job to keep it (maybe even an above average job), and then just wait for someone to retire? Maybe I’m just beating my head against the wall and making myself miserable by thinking that I (and my organization and our libraries) can do better than that. It would be so much safer to never stick my neck out, to settle for good enough all the time and forget about reaching for exceptional. I’ll tell you, I’d have a lot fewer sleepless nights and nerve-wracking meetings that way! Trying to be a superstar is hard work!

This doesn’t mean I should let the folks I work with settle… or at least not all of them. I’m the person I am, and that’s why I have the job I do. Pushing people to do better is my middle name. But I need to remember where these folks are coming from. In order to motivate them, I need to be reminded that not everyone even WANTS to be the best. It’s too much pressure, too much risk. For most people, good enough is good enough.

I’ll never forget the first semester I taught a college course. I was so nervous when I gave out the grades at the end of the semester. I mean, I couldn’t just give everyone A’s, after all, and what was I going to say when the students came and complained (as I figured they were bound to - I would have freaked out not to get an A!!). The next day, a student knocked on my office door. I cringed and thought “oh, here it comes,” since I had given him a B. To my surprise, he thanked me for a great course, and seemed quite pleased with his grade. It was my first real look into the psyche of people who, while not underachievers, aren’t overachievers either. Not a single person in the class complained about their grade.

The world (and that includes LibraryWorld!) needs people who don’t necessarily want to be the best. In fact, that’s very beneficial to those of us who do. But I feel like we can motivate them, maybe not to want to stick their necks out to be THE BEST, but to be a little bit better than good enough. And I really think the first step in that, at least for me, is in understanding where they’re coming from, and that the possibility of being exceptional may not be on their agenda in the first place.

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