Library Revolution

One thing people ask me pretty often id how I find the time to “do it all.” Well, the short answer is that I don’t. None of us do. But I do put a lot of effort into making time for the important things. Which means prioritizing.

So during these last few weeks, I haven’t posted much… there were just too many other important things to take care of. Hopefully things wills start to calm down a little, now, though, and I’ll get to put blogging back on my “things to get done” list without going completely crazy.

To summarize what’s been going on with me, here are a few of the highlights of the last two weeks for me:

Long Island Economic Trends Forums: OK, so speaker Martin Cantor was a bit of a blatant name dropper (it was pretty funny, actually). But he gave a very interesting talk about the economic trends he sees on Long Island’s horizon. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, either. And the really important part, I think was that it was real food for thought in terms of where we can imagine libraries fitting in with the economic landscape of this area. Some of the reports he referenced can be found here.

Suffolk County YA Librarians meeting: This was the first time I’ve attended a YA librarian’s meeting (as I’m not a YA librarian), and it was so much fun! It was considerably more spirited than the meetings I’m accustomed to, including salsa music and mango chutney (thanks, Barbara!) I was there to do a presentation about some of the new and exciting OPAC features that are going to be introduced for the county soon (shhh… it’s top secret!). The feedback I got from this group was so positive and constructive, which made it such a pleasure. Plus, I’ve since heard from a number of the people who were at the meeting that day – folks who sought me out to work on other projects or ask questions they might otherwise not have asked. One of the great things about my job is that I get opportunities like this to connect with the folks out in our libraries. It’s fun when I get a chance to do that with new groups and people I didn’t know before!

Helene Blowers: Helene came to visit SCLS last week and gave two excellent presentations to the staff and directors of our libraries. I can not even begin to say how awesome it was to hear her speak… and even more awesome to hear the buzz that has resulted from those talks. Most awesome of all was the chance to meet Helene… I hope our paths cross again soon!

Sharon Cates-Williams: I also got a chance to hear the Suffolk County CIO and Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology speak about the WiFi Long Island project. I have to say I’ve been really skeptical about the whole project, both in terms of feasibility and sustainability. But her presentation sure did sound convincing. Maybe too good to be true… or is that just me being a cynic? Hey, if they can make it work, make it affordable, and keep it going, then I’m all for the idea.

Feedback: I love getting feedback on the projects I work on, and these last few weeks have been really great for that. Thanks to everyone who has been so great about giving me positive, constructive commentary, especially on the OPAC design I’ve been working so hard on. I love the feeling of getting somewhere… and often the best way to make progress is to get involved in a good feedback cycle.

Facebook app: After much playing around and with great thanks to everyone who helped me out on this one (especially Lou at SCLS and Graham at Reyerson University), the Suffolk County Catalog Search application for Facebook is now available. With over 43,000 members belonging to the Suffolk County network (not to mention all of the other networks Suffolk residents belong to!), I thought it would be a real shame not to have an app. So now we do, and folks are starting to add it to their profiles…

So that’s some of the stuff I’ve been doing. And, of course, there’s work. You know, the regular day-to day stuff that you do all the time, so it doesn’t seem to count… but it has to because it takes up all of your time. And there’s the whole sick toddler screaming his lungs out because his ear hurts and he wants to play with the toaster and I’m the meanest Mommy ever and where is Daddy??? And of course, the Holidays, which means shopping, errands and ten million office parties. Plus that whole birthday thing.

Well, hopefully things will calm down a little in the next few weeks, and my priorities will get another chance to shift. I’m well overdue for a good rant.

 Share

A wonderful colleague of mine said something very interesting (and very true!) over lunch a few weeks ago: “Librarians like to provide services for the people that they know.” She said this with a sigh, going on to point out that this is all fine and good, but that sometimes it leads us to neglect services for other segments of the population we serve just because they’re not already coming in the door.

Please read David Lee King’s excellent post about the dilemma this puts us in.

In one sentence: “Stop ignoring your library’s rapidly-growing digital community.”

 Share

Roy Tenant has posted his Library Software Manifesto, which is an excellent document for all of us to review.

In my line of work, I hear a lot of complaints about ILS vendors and what they should be doing for us. What I think is really important about Roy’s manifesto is that it reminds us that we have responsibilities, too, when it comes to working with software vendors to provide our customers with the service they deserve.

Pay special attention to the points Roy raises about our responsibilities as consumers:

Consumer Responsiblities

• I have a responsibility to know the needs of my users.
• I have a responsibility to put the needs of my users before my own.
• I have a responsibility to communicate my needs clearly and specifically.
• I have a responsibility to verify that the enhancement requests I make are really what I want.
• I have a responsibility to assign enhancement priorities fairly. — Not every enhancement request can be top priority.
• I have a responsibility to realize I’m not special. — Therefore we should try to come to agreement on how to do the same things so we can minimize the investment in writing software to help us do it.
• I have a responsibility to select software using a fair and reasonable process. — Specifically, can we all agree to stop the pain of the RFP process? Please?
• I have a responsibility to report reproducible bugs in a way as to facilitate reproducing them.
• I have a responsibility to report irreproducible bugs with as much detail as I can provide.
• I have a responsibility to view any adjustments to default settings critically.

It’s all good and fine to be critical of your ILS, but you have to accept some responsibility as well and be willing to meet them halfway. Only then can you really complain about what the vendor isn’t doing.

 Share

Copyblogger had an interesting post yesterday about indirect selling. (Read the article!) The main idea is that blogs promoting products and services (such as your library’s blog) are the most effective if they aren’t always in heavy sales mode. As the article points out,

“…if you spend all your time relentlessly pitching your wares, you’ll find that you alienate a good portion of your prospective audience.”

Using a set of “prospect awareness categories” first introduced back in 1966, the article gives some  sound advice and strategies for reaching different parts of your readership and “sell” your business (or library) to them in a more subtle way. I thought this was an approach that lent itself particularly nicely to public library bloggers, who often grapple with the challenges associated with communicating with a widely diverse potential audience.

The bottom line, though?

“The blogs that attract audiences in the first place offer valuable content—it’s as simple as that. While pitching relentlessly from your blog may work for a limited group of Internet marketing types, it likely will ruin your blogging effectiveness for most businesses.”

Got that? Offer valuable content. Maybe that’s easier said than done (OK, definitely that’s easier said than done!). But it’s key. If your blog isn’t worth reading, no one will read it. And that doesn’t convert your effort into use by your community of the services you’re trying to promote. Then it’s just all a big waste of time.

 Share

A little item on Slashdot today touched on something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

Their take: Web 2.0 may be a threat to IT job security. (Interesting comments on this!)

My take: Web 2.0 empowers folks to get many jobs done themselves “without involving IT.”

It’s something I think about every time I hear someone in a library talking about “giving that to the tech guy” when it comes to posting something to the Web site, blog, wiki, whatever.

These technologies are designed to be easy to use, learn, and maintain. But we’re so used to giving the assignment to the “person who handles that,” that I often see librarians who could have done the job themselves in about two minutes playing the handoff game - which starts to add up to days and weeks of waiting for the task to get done.

Yes, we’re all busy. Yes, we should be able to delegate duties as necessary. Yes, the library’s “tech guy” is very important to it’s survival and shouldn’t be ushered out the door (please no! We need you!!!) But we’re very lucky to have access to great technologies and resources that give us the power to stop relying so much on other people when it comes to using technology.

We don’t need a specialized person to handle everything remotely connected to a computer. We can do it ourselves. We don’t have to wait. We can put our professional skills to use in designing and maintaining many of our services without a middleman.

 Share

Thanks to Ryan for a great post about the future of accessibility in libraries. I love technology, but this is something I really worry about. He’s right - when you work on Web stuff for libraries it really does seem hopeless… but he has some good suggestions for things we can do to help make our resources more accessible.

 Share

While I’m showing videos, here is another one that really grabbed me (found via).

A few of my random thoughts on the video and the conversations it led me to explore:

• Did you catch the question: “To whom were these questions directed B.G. (Before Google)?”
• I’d like to recommend adding another line to the section at the end. Why not “Ask Your Library:”?
• Another thing I want to point out is the “Key Question” associated with this project:
  

  “Given the realities of our modern age and the demands of our children’s future, is it really okay to allow teachers to choose whether or not they incorporate modern technologies into their instruction?”

And don’t be afraid to accept the invitation to join the conversation. I think libraries have a lot that they could add. Or at least, they should.

 Share

How much do I love this video?

“There is no ‘top’ to the World Wide Web.”

 Share

Check out this interesting list of “Good Reasons Not To Blog” (found via)

Here are some of my favorites (but be sure to peek at the full list):

(2) Is afraid of harsh or challenging comment posters, or discussion of real issues, i.e., blogocombat.

(5) Has no interesting stories to tell about how your products have solved problems for users, how your company got started, or lessons learned along the way.

(6) Is fearful of “losing control of the message” — which is probably a non-differentiating, feature-driven, “we-oriented” message that’s boring and alienating customers anyway.

(7) Has no need of media coverage by trade journalists who search blogs for news items, controversies, and emerging trends.

(8) Is not willing to spend a fair amount of time (several hours per week) writing blog posts, replying to comment posters, and contributing comments to other blogs relevant to your industry or audience.

(13) Believes in commanding and controlling, rather than engaging in conversations with the public.

(20) Cannot commit to being truthful, transparent, and trustworthy, by displaying corporate values and goals in a public forum.

Do any of these remind you of your library?

Then maybe you should stop wasting your time.

 Share

Bravo, Dorothea!

One of the most common things I hear myself saying to the library staff I train is: “Play with it. You can’t break anything!!”

But I know that a lot of them are reluctant, or downright terrified of the idea of just jumping in and trying things out.

Read her full post about the “training wheels culture” and cataloging… I think it will ring true with many of the frustrations felt by many of us who find ourselves doing training for library staff. And she pulls no punches in venting these frustrations.

Librarians are a timorous breed, fearful of ignorance and failure. We believe knowledge is power, which taken to an unhealthy extreme can mean that we do not do anything until we think we understand everything. We do not learn by doing, because learning by doing invariably means failure. So a librarian just won’t sit down with AACR2, Connexions, and the AUTOCAT mailing-list archive and work out how to catalogue a novel item. Nor she won’t sit down at the computer and beat software with rocks until it works.

She’ll sit passively, hands in lap, and ask for training, feeling guilty the whole time for displaying ignorance.

And

What they need is to kick off the training wheels, honestly. Their locus of control vis-a-vis technology needs to move a long way inward. There is nothing more frustrating than dealing with fear-based apathy. I don’t mind intelligent skepticism; I’ll prove a given tool’s worth or I’ll abandon it. I don’t mind dealing with genuine problems. They happen.

I do mind, quite a lot, having to stand over a grown professional’s shoulder teaching her to use a set of essentially self-explanatory web forms because she cannot be bothered to learn by doing. And I do this a lot.

My husband and I picked up a new wii game last week. Did we:

A. Sit down with the manual and try to memorize all of the controller movements and their proper applications

B. Call Best Buy and ask that a member of their “Geek Squad” swing by the house to thoroughly train us in how to use the game

C. Refuse to play the game because it was unfamiliar to us

D. Pop the disc into the slot and start shooting away at bad guys until we figured it out

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I think a lot of librarians could learn a lot from playing more video games.

 Share