Google "Research" Tool

First off, let me have a slight panic moment: why is Google trying to make librarians obsolete? Since they don't necessarily even understand what we do?

Having said that, let me tell you a little bit about a new "research" tool on Google. I read an interesting (depressing) review on the Chronicle's ProfHacker blog about Google docs' addition of a Research Tool (official language). Basically, users can highlight select portions of text in a Google doc, click on the Tools menu, and have Google try to find a matching citation on the web. Recent changes to the feature allow users to limit to Google Scholar and make citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago. I will also state that at least two people in the comment fields had written reviews earlier in the week only to have Google update the Research Tool, thus rendering their reviews obsolete. So as you read this post, keep in mind some of the features may have changed.

The research tool has pros and cons.

Pro	Con
Students really struggle with citation. Having a tool to show them how to do it will help	Will students actually learn the citation style for their discipline? And how important is that?
Students will have help doing research with tools that are familiar to them.	Information literacy is an important component of an academic library. Using this tool is no proof that students actually understand the concepts of information literacy.
Students can limit their search to academic resources.	What guarantee is there that the students will read more than the abstract if they can't access the article?
Might help cut down on plagiarism	But will students do the research themselves and then write the paper? Or will they write the paper and then try to find sources that fit what they wrote?

I'm sure there are more pros and cons than what I listed.

What I found most shocking were the comments from the faculty members at the bottom of the page. I felt as though none of them addressed the possible pitfalls of the tool. Granted none of them were librarians, and perhaps I am being reactionary.

Thoughts?

College Librarians and Media Specialists of Washington State Spring Conference

Last week I attended the CLAMS conference at South Seattle Community College in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. It was a two day conference entitled Library Advocacy Success Stories. I couldn’t attend all sessions because of my work schedule, but I had a few nuggets I thought I’d share.

The first day featured a “library success” presentation by Pierce College, mostly about their recent remodel of the library space. It really turned out beautifully. They focused on creating clearly defined spaces for different types of learning – collaborative, individual, multi-media, instruction – and different “vibes” – absolute silence, coffee-shop, whisper-level, interactive etc.

This photo from Library Journal terms it as “zoned” for different types of interaction. The signage is all one-word. The reference desk just says ASK and the circ desk says BORROW. You can kind of see them in this photo:

I’m not sure if I’m 100% sold on those terms, but the effect is striking and definitely closer to meaning something to a student than REFERENCE and CIRCULATION. (As I just read somewhere the latter terms are what WE do and the others are what the STUDENTS do – shouldn’t we be using signage that speaks to the user not us?)

One of the key phrases I took away from the presentation was the idea of “facilities as pedagogy.” We are having an impact on learning through our layout, facilities, signage, and yes, even furniture, and we should remember that if we’re ever lucky enough to have money to remodel J

Another important piece of their presentation was that the way they were able to get the money to remodel was by “proving their worth” in our favorite way… assessment. Oh, Pine Tree will never leave us. They were able, through surveys and analysis, to positively correlate interactions with a librarian with a higher student GPA at Pierce College. This really hit me – this is probably true at all of our institutions, but we have to create the data for anyone to know or care. No one is going to come along and create this data for us; we have to take the initiative. But when we do, our reward will be the irrefutable evidence that we matter to student success and (hopefully) the guarantee that our positions will exist in perpetuity. They left us with: “assess what you value, don’t value that which you can assess.” This is easier said than done, but something to think about.

Day two featured a series of shorter presentations on a variety of topics. I’m running out of steam so I will make them another post. Hope to see you all at ALA2012!

Computers in Libraries: March 23

Conference: last day

I could only attend one session on Friday, but it was so well worth it! The presenters are doing some pretty cool stuff! It also doesn't hurt that I don't really like reference shifts....

Redesigning Reference Models

This was one of my favorite sessions! The tag for the session was #undesk. The Millersville University librarians who presented this session had to find new ways to reach students. Their library building is undergoing renovations, and the new, smaller space the library was moved to does not have offices or room for a reference desk. There solutions were innovative. Most of the librarians are now physically embedded in their academic subject building, and they hold office hours. They make use of chat, phone/SMS (Google Voice), Jing (screen captures answer reference questions), digital signs, iPads, and being a visible presence at campus events and organization meetings. The librarians realized that forming relationships with faculty and students inside and outside the library is essential. Questions they feel they’ve had to address:

• How do we connect with students?
• How do we encourage and support experimentation?
• What does it mean to be a librarian?

They’ve had to really rethink their definition of librarians though, and I liked their summation: “We provide the building, but the building does not provide us.”

• http://bit.ly/undesk
• http://youtu.be/Au4SZa1t5vI
• http://www.slideshare.net/libscenester/redesigning-reference-models

Computers in Libraries: March 22

Conference: Second Day

Ebook Publishers and Libraries: Win-Win Solutions

Led by Canadian librarians, this session was informative but not particularly applicable to me. Canadian libraries have been able to personalize license agreements with ebook publishers due to the Canadian book market, Canadian laws governing book purchasing rules, and the unity of the Canadian libraries. I didn’t get as much from this session because I don’t think American libraries have the unity needed to demand the same terms as the Canadian libraries.

They are doing some really neat stuff up north with ebooks, and I wish American libraries could copy some of their model.

Tinkerers: Maker Culture and Libraries

Maker culture was something that I have never heard of before this conference, so it was particularly interesting. Maker culture is essentially hacker culture: taking existing devices and software and re-appropriating them to meet a specific need. Most of maker culture happens in hacker spaces; maker culture can also be seen as a way to informally learn about technology. The speaker stated that although maker culture started as activists and continues to believe they work against “the man,” many of the hackers are white males, between the ages of 20-40 who make over $100,000 a year. Many of the products that they make can’t be used by the general public and actually have no economic value for their communities. The speaker argued that if libraries got involved, makers/hackers from different communities would be able to work together in their communities in a free access space. By bringing in librarians and libraries, the end products would be better tied to the local communities because it would be the local community members who made them. This talk was so insightful. I’m not sure that it would be something that worked at King, especially due to limitations from other departments, the administration, and space considerations, but it would be cool if it could!

Examples: FabLab (Fayetteville Free Library, MIT), HackDC

Open Source Trends & Migration

I had certain expectations about the session because my library will be migrating to an open source ILS is the next year or two. The first presenter simply read the results of his survey about what library perceptions of open source are. I would have been more interested if he discussed why libraries make the decision to move to open source or stay with a proprietary ILS, but he didn’t cover those topics. One interesting fact that he did share was the number of libraries adopting cloud-based ILSs, like Sierra. I wasn’t aware that this was a trend, or that libraries were considering it.

Integrating Tablets and Apps Into the Library

Hosted by two public children’s librarians and two academic librarians, this session gave me more insight into integrating tablets. At my library, we are interested in purchasing tablets for reference and instruction. Most of the information provided by the public librarians wasn’t especially relevant; they did mention considerations that had not even occurred to me: data privacy and restricting access to features. The academic librarians talked about their decision to get a droid based tablet v. iPads, using the tablets in instruction, and student reactions to the tablets in instruction. Droid was cheaper and open source. The student reaction was actually not overwhelmingly positive; the students were frustrated by the technology and having to learn a new technology on top of learning research skills, and they worried about damaging the tablet. The librarians ran into their own problems: compatibility of browsers, weak wifi, printing considerations, and wiping devices of data. Another big consideration is the importance of staff training on the devices so that they can assist students and other users.

Computers in Libraries: March 21

In the following three posts, I will provide a brief synopsis of sessions I attended at the Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, D.C. this past week. It was a pretty awesome conference, and I would recommend any e-resources or web librarians attend. I also enjoyed that it was a conference full of technology librarians, so none of us really wanted to meet new people.

I went to 4 sessions the first day.

Strategic Approaches to Mobile:

Presented by a reference librarian, a systems librarian, and a vendor, this session focused on doing environment scans of existing mobile interfaces, library user analysis for smartphones / tablets, what libraries can learn from business created mobile interfaces, and three ways to make a mobile site (stylesheet, mobile website, and native app). I learned so much in this session. I think mobile website development is key. I hope to use what I learned here to create a mobile website or stylesheet redirect for my library website this summer.

Getting Ready for the Semantic Web

This session taught listeners about the basic differences between the existing web and the semantic web, how RDA as a standard would enable library information to work on the semantic web, and current projects in libraries to work with the semantic web. I knew the least about semantic web and programming, so I learned the most at this session. I enjoyed learning about the cataloging standards, and how the semantic web will change searching.

• RDA: uses FRBR and FRAD standards
• Open Metadata Project (OMR): RDA vocab is published on the OMR
  http://rdvocab.info/
• MulDiCat: Authoritative IFLA standards translated into different languages
  http://iflastandards.info/
• OCLC’s Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST)
  http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/fast/default.htm
• OCLC’s Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)
  www.oclc.org/research/activities/viaf/

Getting to Know HTML5 and CSS3

An introduction to changes in markup languages hosted by a head of technical services at a Montana university. This session covered changes in tags, how HTML5 will work with the semantic web, HTML5 and microdata, HTML5 and media formats, Javascript API (application programming interface) compatibility, CSS3 response to web design trend changes, and tools to play with the changes. This session as really interesting, and it answered many of my questions about HTML5. I don’t do much of the website backend programming at my library, but it will help me understand what our IT staff does. I belive it will also enable to me code my own mobile website or mobile redirect stylesheet, which is something I hope to implement soon.

• http://pinboard.in/u:jasonclark/t:cil-html5/
• Marcotte, E. (2010, May 25). Responsive web design. A List Apart, 306. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/
• Ronallo, J. (2012, February 2). HTML5 microdata and schema.org. code4lib. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/6400

Quick Quantifiable QR Codes

This session had too many presenters, in my opinion. The presenters (all academic librarians) discussed how to make QR codes, the importance of shortening the URL, using Google URL shortener to track analytics, and ways to use the QR code. Some of the ideas I liked were a QR code in the stacks that leads to LibGuides to help the student research, a QR code in the stacks that leads to a list of comparable ebooks (merging print and electronic), and using QR codes in place of print maps.

I do have more detailed notes, if anyone is interested!

Group Work is Rewarding?

In library school they always made us do a ton of group work in a slightly desperate attempt to teach us how to collaborate. This will mimic the real world, they said. Once you get your job, you’ll have to collaborate with your co-workers on projects. Why not start that now?

Well, for the most part, they were right, but for some reason “group work” seems even worse in the workforce than it did in grad school. I think that group work in grad school is tolerable because there is a pretty good chance you’ll get at least one team member who is on the ball. Also, the group work suffering ends at an appointed time (i.e. the end of the semester), so the diligent students feel free to work harder on their projects because there is an end in sight.

Reasons I am thinking about this: my library is currently in the middle of a massive shifting project. (At least it feels massive. There are only 2 floors to my library, so it’s not as bad as it could be.) In the midst of this project, the rest of the librarians realize that the library has NEVER been weeded. Ever. Since its inception. Cue massive weeding project. And now we arrive at my group work frustration.

Once everyone realized that project (i.e. the cataloger) participants were not pleased with the direction of the project, we had a big brainstorm group meeting to communicate our goals and plans accurately to each other (which should have happened in the beginning). Communication is not a strong point of my library, primarily because most of the employees have been there a while and understand how operations are supposed to work. We all collectively decided in this meeting that we would weed certain areas per our subject “specialties”, write the faculty for approval, and then remove the books. Weeding is a collaborative process: librarians, the cataloger, and faculty are all involved. Our workflow is

Librarian analyzes / weeds books >> Faculty approve or disapprove selections >> Books go to the cataloger for removal and disposal

The workflow works pretty well, except for the fact that it is a funnel: there are multiple librarians and faculty and one cataloger (who refuses to ask for help). Furthermore, the cataloger feels that it is her job to re-evaluate our weeds. I can’t quite figure out what bothers me about this. Is it because my authority and experience is questioned? Is it because this slows the process down immensely as our cataloger spends 5 minutes on every book? Is it because I feel that she is an interfering busybody? Is it her tone when she questions my weeds? I don’t know. I also realize that her input is important because she has been at the library so long, and she knows the collection really well. She doesn’t really have a firm grasp on how students use our resources, but she knows what books we have, why we have them, where they came from, what courses they support, and so on.

My boss has stressed over and over how weeding is a collaborative process. My boss doesn’t want to get involved in what I am sure she views as territorial scuffles. Meanwhile, the other librarians and I are getting very frustrated. In group work, everyone has a part of the project to complete. If someone doesn’t do their part, the other group members pick up the slack. Currently, we are all doing our work, so there is no need for others to pick up the slack. There is also a person at the end of the project who makes sure that everything is cohesive. It just burns my biscuit that the cataloger is that end of project person, and she doesn’t seem to share the same vision of an academic library as the librarians.

Stay Fresh at Roesch

In an earlier post I described how I tracked what students said about the library on Twitter. Not only does it give me some good feedback to share with the rest of the staff (slow Internet, it's too warm in here, etc.) certain tweets inspired our theme for finals week: Stay Fresh at Roesch.

Two students tweeted about #RoeschBreath which they explained was the way your breath smells after spending too much time in the library (smells like musty books!) One of the students kindly edited our "Top Ten Reasons to Visit" brochure by crossing out 10 and replacing it with 11 - Roesch Breath being the 11th reason. Even though this was only two students who had their own inside joke I knew we could use it to turn it into something clever: they had to know we want to hear about their experiences at the library.

So, I came up with the slogan "Stay Fresh at Roesch" while the Dean had the idea to put the slogan on mint candies and have them out during finals (we ordered 4,000 mint candies from a local vendor). The Marketing and Outreach Team that I chair took the theme and ran with it: one member found the perfect font and images that come across as retro, fun, and quirky. Others organized the actual finals event services: free pizza, coffee, chair massages, and taxi rides to the student neighborhoods.

This morning I had help distributing the mints to the upper floors and students are already tweeting about the theme and the mints. One of the first students to notice was a student who originally tweeted about Roesch Breath:

Student: Love that #ClubRoesch offerers mints to prevent #RoeschBreath##StayfreshatRoesch

RoeschLibrary: So glad you noticed! We got the mints because of your#RoeschBreath tweets and we saw the Top "11" Reasons to Visit brochure :)

Student: @roeschlibrary I'm so happy someone read it! I was upset when it wasn't there upon my next adventure at #ClubRoesch!#AlwaysFresh

RoeschLibrary: Oh, sorry! I took it so I could show all the other staff members - you are so funny! Let me know if you want it back :)

I plan on taking pictures of students throughout finals week with the mints (if they last!) and uploading them to a Facebook album. Since the concept came from the students I'd like to keep them involved as much as possible. I went up to each group that had a bowl of mints and asked them what they thought, if I could take their picture, and told them they'd be library celebrities on the Facebook.com. I hope this interaction in person and on Twitter shows students that someone is listening. I think a lot of them are really clever and have funny AND important things to say!

'Til next time: Stay fresh at Roesch!

Knowledge Transfer

Good news: my contract has been renewed for another year!

When I first took this position, there was one page (3/4 full) of what my predecessor had in the works, and three file folders (slim) of documentation. Most of my first semester on this job was trying to figure out what my position entailed. Granted, I had the job description, but those can be very vague. I decided to create a detailed “E-Resources Librarian Manual” for my successor.

I, of course, remembered how important knowledge transfer is for organizations. (Drucker anyone?) Because I work at a small college, it seems like I work in several different departments. For instance, even though I manage our electronic resources and website, I also do instruction, reference, collection development, and serve on several committees. I thought that it would be easier for my successor to get an overview of important technical information that I had to learn and best practices for the management of those programs.

The bulk of my job is the management of electronic resources, so those sections of my document have way more information than the others. I broke down my “manual” by my different areas of work: I have database administration, statistics, Journal Finder, EZProxy, instruction, website, and so on. Obviously, the areas that I spend most of my time doing are more complete than others. I included information like where to find certain documents in our shared document folder (I have my own for Technical services), URLs to administrator sites that my boss had to email me because my predecessor didn’t, expectations about yearly tasks (i.e. statistics, database reports), and helpful places to look for information.

This “manual” is clearly a document in process simply because information changes or other duties may appear, especially since I seem unable to say no. It makes me more comfortable as an employee because I know that there is clear documentation of what I do, and how I do it.

throw me a bone

When I teach students how to search, I typically ask the class to tell me what I should search for. This serves two purposes:

1. It's an attempt to engage the class. This is an opportunity for them to be creative, funny, and maybe, just maybe, smart (they almost never have me search for a topic related to their assignment or class...)

2. I get to show them what happens when they search using too broad of terms.

For example, yesterday I taught 4 classes. In 2 of them I asked the class to tell me what to search for during my demonstration of LexisNexis' Search the News. In the first class a kid said "dogs" then I showed them what happens when you just type in dogs. I asked for a narrower search. His answer? "Dog bones."

2nd class: A kid has me search for "partying." I ask him to be more specific. What ABOUT partying does he want to know about? "BEER!" "GAMES!" At least with this one I got to show them "beer and games not liquor."

So, sometimes these attempts to make class "exciting" DO work out. Other times it just becomes awkward for everyone involved.

Weeding isn't for Wimps

Since the spring semester hasn’t started yet, I took the opportunity to weed some of our collection. My purpose was threefold: to get an idea of what circulates (and what doesn’t), remove that really old HTML for Dummies book from the late 1990s, and try to figure out what to collect for some of my different liaison departments. Strangely, I really enjoyed weeding, and I want to do it again as soon as possible.

I learned a lot about our collection, but mainly I learned about my own approach to weeding.

• Apparently, I am a slash-and-burner; I would much rather get rid of nasty, old, and un-circulated material even if we have no other books on the subject. I want shiny new books, because I know that our students will not even consider touching that dusty book from 1899, no matter how cool I think it is.
• Gifts from patrons can be a nuisance. We have a number of gifts from participating members of our college community that need to be weeded. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how they made it into the collection in the first place. I feel no guilt weeding gifts from people I don’t work with, but it is another matter entirely if, say, the cataloger donated a self-help book that really is not appropriate for our psychology department. Mainly the gifts that I need to get rid of are out-dated technology books, because who even uses books to learn how to code anymore?
• Other librarians really don’t like to weed. I have had to justify again and again why we don’t need to keep that book on trends in mathematics education from the 1950s, because even if someone wanted an historical perspective, they would not come to our institution looking for it!
• I always forget to check what e-books we have and what is available on Project Gutenberg or Google Books. I know in some of my liaison departments, key theoretical works are now available free online. Does that mean I need to purchase a print copy as well? I’m not sure about that one.
• Weeding is an excellent time to shelf read. I found quite a few cataloging anomalies, missing volumes, and incorrectly shelved books. I was able to reorganize my different sections.

Weeding really opens up space on the shelf. I have purchased numerous new books this past semester, and now they have a home!

Oh my, a Marketing Plan!

It makes me feel good when I can apply what I learned in library school directly to my work. This doesn't happen too often (I haven't had to reference Robert S. Taylor - yet!) but when it does I AM PUMPED. I am heading up the Marketing and Outreach team at my library. The committee/team charge or plan hasn't been updated since 2005. Now, with a new team and dedicated communications librarian (me!) we're on our way to be the coolest library committee ever.

Our first awesome, exciting challenge... and by that I mean time-consuming, annoying obstacle, is revising the GIANT 17-page long Marketing Plan that describes goals, "objectives/outcomes", and tactics. I put objectives/outcomes in quotes because in their current form they are not measureable! And what's an outcome if you can't measure it - amiright? So, each meeting we've tackled about 1 to 2 pages of content. It is painful. The document is 5 years old, so a lot has changed. Even the charge of the marketing team has been revised so some goals aren't applicable anymore.

I am using a textbook, Demonstrating Results, from our Planning, Marketing, and Assessment class. The worksheets in the back should help us make the plan clearer, with more concise and focused goals and outcomes. I plan on having teams of two revise an outcome and the indicators that go along with it. I think I'll also take a page from me and Yogurt Moon's PMA to use as an example. I think it will be less frustrating for my team to write new outcomes using a standard guide and not just trying to fix what's already in the plan.

You Can't Live in the Library

Yesterday one of our regular community users was arrested and charged with "criminal trespassing" and "failure to control/comply" (both misdemeanors). Our janitor had noticed hair clippings in one of the men's bathrooms for several months until yesterday when he caught this man shaving and bathing in one of the sinks. Campus Public Safety was called and I guess the guy was taken out in cuffs. Previously, one of my coworkers had found an iron and a bag of belongings back in Government Documents and thought it was probably his. As she and Gwen noted... No one goes back in GovDocs so when people wander back there you have to wonder.

Anyway, I think he trespassed to other places on campus so that is why they took it so seriously. As you can probably tell, the only details I have are from my coworker Tom who saw the arrest and information from the county jail's website. Even though it's winter intercession, the library is still open and those of us who didn't take vacation days are still here. It's been nice to get writing done (all I hear is my space heater!) but when something like this happens it's nice to have 2 other people present in your department. I hope this man gets assistance because he never bothered or even approached anyone so I don't think his intentions are bad - he probably just needed a warm place to sleep and a computer to watch YouTube videos on (these are basic needs, people).

Related story from Laura about an NYU student (of course his major is creative writing) living in Bobst Library: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-04-27-nyu-student_x.htm

Good Customer Service: A Facebook Odyssey

I am sorely lacking beautiful screenshots like Laura's Twitter post, but we had kind of a nice library-related social media thing happen this week, so I stole her title.

Kool Kat Katy tweeted earlier this week about a site, oddly called Reasons to Hate (why?), that allows you to search Facebook status updates for strings of words. I searched our library's proper name and came up with a user who had said something like "come on, [Name of My Library], how can you not have [Name of a Fairly Standard Seeming Reference Book]."

I did a quick search and couldn't find it in our catalog either (or in all of WordCat), so I emailed half a dozen of our reference librarians to see if they could find it. I thought I wasn't doing a good search, or that the book was lost or something -- but it turned out that we really didn't have it, and the selector considered it a fairly major ordering oversight. I'm not exactly sure of this part of the story, but apparently the vendor hadn't notified us.... in any case, though, one of the awesome librarians ordered it immediately, found the FB commenter's name, and said he'd email him as soon as the book comes in.

I commented on the guy's FB page this morning, which is ever-so-slightly creepy, especially since I had to do it from my personal account because FB doesn't let me comment as the admin of the library's page. I also gave him the URLs of how to place a purchase request and how to chat with a librarian next time he can't find something that seems like it should be there. He said he was surprised and pleased, and a few of his friends who had commented on the initial status update liked the update. (After he asked, I told him how I'd found him, too... hopefully that takes some of the creepy fourth-wall feeling out of it.)

It would be vastly more helpful if the search could be refined to use boolean terms and -- even more helpful -- to search within particular networks. Most of our users wouldn't actually write our proper name out; they'd just say "the library" and their FB friends would know which library they meant. If it could be limited to networks, we'd really be able to do get a picture of what people are saying.

But anyway, this felt like a little victory -- to be able to help one patron with a reasonable request almost immediately, and surprise him and his friends and maybe make them see the library as a little more responsive. I don't do any direct service at my job at all, so this felt doubly nice. Woo!

Image from gadishamia.wordpress.com

Story time!

One of my colleagues cut her waist length hair to a cute little bob. The look really works on her - she no longer looks like a flower child from the sixties, and the bob complements her small features.

Recently, this same colleague asked our ILL person to mail a package, media mail, for her. The ILL person had no problem, as she frequently makes post office runs. Of course there was no postage, but our ILL person assumed that it was one of the many ILLs and didn't worry too much about it. It wasn't until a student worker was leaning on the ILL person's desk that we all realized what was in the package: "Oh. Locks for Love. Cool".

My newly shortened hair colleague wanted to mail her chopped off locks, media mail, with the university paying for it Locks of Love. Of course, there are a lot of things of wrong with this story: 1) hair is not media, 2)the university should not pay for your personal mail, 3) it is wrong to defraud the post office, 4) it is weird to mail your hair from work.

Luckily, our ILL person handled it pretty gracefully, pretending that my colleague had forgotten postage, and then reminding my colleague that it is a personal mail. But still. That's pretty weird.

"No soup [library service] for you!"

I really enjoy the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld. At times, I find I act a lot like the Soup Nazi, especially when patrons don't behave the way I want them to, like following basic rules. I work at a private academic university, and I feel we have a community patron problem. Why do we even have community patrons, you ask? Mainly because we are a partial federal depository library, and we are legally required to allow community users access to our materials. Also, academic libraries generally allow patrons outside the campus community to look at their books, periodicals, etc.

Our community patron, R., doesn't make use of our books. He monopolizes a computer - a computer from which he runs a business. He doesn't understand why he cannot use his cell phone right next to the library computer, in case, as he terms it, of conference calls. When he's on a computer, we have to kick him off so students can use it. He has figured out the student login (not as though that was difficult), so now he has unlimited printing. He never brings his own pens or pencils, so he is always using ours or a student's. One time, he asked to use the reference desk phone, then our personal cell phones because he was having trouble with his. When we all refused, he asked a student to use hers. He constantly has technology problems, which he then needs help solving. We have to constantly remind him that he cannot use the lab, to please take his cell phone calls outside, stop pestering the students, and so on. (As you can tell, he has been the fly in my ointment for a while).

There are all sorts of theories flying around about what he is actually doing. For a while, we were convinced he was running a spam operations because we had to help him with pdf problems. Then, we thought he was running a phone scam because he is constantly asking for and promising large sums of money to people. (He'd also like us to find the number for Goldman Sachs).

I have really worked on my attitude (although it doesn't seem like it). I don't want to be the only librarian who constantly complains about R. My colleagues try to remind me that it isn't my problem; my boss has made a decision to let him stay. For some reason, I find this unhelpful. I can't see a problem like this, where someone is disrupting library service, and not do anything about it. On the other hand, I did not decide to work in a public library, so all I really want to deal with is snotty college students. Upon further reflection, though, I realized that even a public library would not put up with his behavior. I think the problem I'm having comes down to valuation of library services. Apparently, my colleagues and I have a difference of opinion.

On this day in history...

On November 2, 1815, George Boole was born, the English mathematician from whom we got Boolean operators. I teach Boolean operators by elaborating on this joke that I read somewhere in my first semester of library school:

If you send a librarian (or a database, as I tell students) to the store with a shopping list for sugar and flour and butter and chocolate chips, the librarian (or the database) will come back from the store with a cookie.

Sure, it's a nerdy joke, but it's a good jumping-off point and involves lots of pictures of delicious baked goods (flour AND chocolate = brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate croissants). I find this particularly effective when the class is right before dinner.

So, thank you, George Boole, and happy birthday! Read more about him here.

Soundtrack to Instruction

Have any of you ever tried playing music before or during instruction sessions? Today was the second time I tried it out and students and the professor seem to like it. I suggest putting on Pandora before class starts as the students are coming in, muting it during the instruction session, and then unmuting for the hands-on work time. My favorite channel on Pandora for this is Vampire Weekend but I've also been known to switch it up a bit and put on the Passion Pit or MGMT channels. These channels give a wide variety of music that is upbeat/fun (I wouldn't recommend like the Bright Eyes channel!)

Pandora provides a good variety of background noise while students work. This morning the students knew the bands (Beatles, Miike Snow, Feist) and seemed to enjoy the laid-back environment this type of music creates. If you think about it, putting on music sort of recreates students' relaxed study environment (dorm room, apartment) and takes away the traditional classroom feel. It just takes the edge off of everything and students seem to relax a bit while still staying on task. I recommend trying it out one day! I find the morning classes (8am, 9am) really appreciate it.

I also want people to think I'm cool. And it's totally working. The professor today called me a young, hip librarian. I can go home now because I've achieved my ultimate goal!

Organization charts are nice, but....

In library school, in certain classes especially (scarf woman and the suspender'ed, bearded wonder), we were told that as librarians, we were entering management positions. We needed to make sure that our "underlings" understood their new position. Organization charts are our friends because they would tell us who and how to rule. I have found, within about four hours of my new job that organization charts are really just for the administration to feel as though the library has some order.

In small libraries, like my library, I think organization charts are difficult to construct because each worker wears so many hats. My main job deals with the databases and website, but I also do instruction, reference, circulation, IT trouble-shooting, collection development, and programming (as much programming as there is in an academic library). For some of these different duties, I am the "expert". For others, I answer to another librarian. It really just depends on what the task is. The same is true of the library staff: our cataloger (who doesn't have a library degree) does collection development. Our circulation person does ILL. Where would each of these workers fall on an organization chart?

I need to keep in mind that each person wears multiple hats, so when a cataloger questions my collection development decisions, she is not questioning me as the cataloger, but as my fellow collection developer. Library school was wrong: yes, technically, librarians should be in charge, but that is not actually how it works out in my library.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

There's a minor problem in my academic library because of a signage failure. Here's the situation: the library has two floors. After 5 pm on weeknights and all day Saturdays and Sundays, users are supposed to check out a laminated access card before going upstairs so that we can track the number of people using the upstairs study space. This is also due to limited evening and weekend staffing; the cards help the staff (1 or 2 people during evenings and weekends) identify how many people are in the building at closing time in order to find them all and make sure they're not in the bathroom when we shut off the lights and lock up. Right now, there's a sign at the foot of the stairs that looks like this:

Actually, I've been trying to take a picture or scan it, but I haven't had an opportunity when no one would see me and think I was nuts, so I'll describe it. It says:

Going up?

Get your
3rd Floor Access Card
at the Check-out desk

*After 5:00 pm Only*
Mondays-Thursdays
*All day*
Saturdays-Sundays

Please do not leave your
belongings unattended.

All this is in Comic Sans font, on an 11x17 yellow background with a blue border. There are also a couple of stars and a picture of a clock with the 5 circled.

People don't notice it. If they do, they either don't read it or don't understand it. Working the desk in the evenings requires constant watch over the stairs, to catch people on their way up and ask them to come back to the desk for a card. Part of the problem is that the library is on the second and third floors of a three-story building. Because the campus is on a hill, library users enter the library on the second floor, but it's on ground level with the quad and many of the other academic buildings' first floors. The sign says you need a third floor access card, and many users that I've stopped think they're only going to the second floor, not the third. So there's a communication breakdown here. We've batted around alternatives to signs, like setting up ropes to guide the traffic flow or block the stairs... all of which are fire hazards.

I was thinking a sign like this might be simpler to understand and catch more people's attention.

Then again, it's not exactly the most friendly sign. I went to a conference in June where the keynote speaker asked us to look at our signs and really think about how those signs are "talking" to patrons. Would we say those same things face-to-face? Probably not, since signs and posters have a tendency to bring out the best of our passive-aggressiveness. There's also an interesting article here about library signs, which the author says should be very simple and uniform.

So, fellow librarians, how do we create a welcoming, friendly space while effectively communicating library procedures? And on a more practical note, do you have any ideas for redesigning my stop sign?