Professional reading Tuesday, May 13 2008

Even though my newsreader is loaded for bear with all the hip and happening 2.0 blogs, I’m still awfully fond of professional journals in print.  There’s something about curling up in a quiet space with a lovely beverage and actually making time to pay close attention to what one’s professional colleagues have to say, as opposed to skimming through their ideas between patron conversations.

This past week brought the PaLA Bulletin, the official publication of the Pennsylvania Library Association, to my door.  Among its many gems is an article called “Beyond Browsing,” by Tina Hertel.  The essay is a recap of Hertel’s 2007 PaLA presentation, and it’s a great summary for those of us who couldn’t make it out there to see her speak.  Essentially, it covers a variety of Web 2.0 tools and discusses how they might be useful for libraries and library patrons.  Below. some random thoughts about the sections within the article:

Browsing:  Hertel makes the excellent point that the browser we choose to use is not necessarily the one our patrons like, and we should get familiar with alternatives like Firefox and Opera. I have not been great about this myself, primarily because up until now we’ve only used IE here at CLP. Now that Firefox is coming, though, I should probably devote an hour or two to playing around with it…

Social Bookmarking: This section contains intriguing gems that serve as adjuncts to del.icio.us. While del.icio.us is great for basic library organizing, Furl offers the added advantage of saving to a cache; that way, you’ve got a true archive that persists despite URL changes, so it requires less weeding and upkeep.

Another service, StumbleUpon uses the collective wisdom to help you find websites you might not have considered - the electronic equivalent of your friend walking up to you and saying, “Have you seen this?” While this seems more informal, I can imagine a librarian who has the time and energy to establish a presence there being a really good advocate for scores of credible sources many people might not be aware of. My gut instinct, though, is that this is more of a fun, sharing site than anything else - and there’s always time for a little fun, right?

Citation Management: One interesting find here, Connotea. is noteworthy because it allows you to work with PubMed citations. Limited application in our current situtaion, but it’s good to be aware of citation services, given that we get lots of students from across the lawn…

Collaboration and Team Work: Take a peek at Doodle, a poll creator and meeting scheduler. Will this solve the “Where should we have dinner?” problem, or just make it more fun to figure out? Hm.

The article ends with a miscellaneous category that contains links to things a lot of folks have already seen, but are worth reminding people about, such as LibraryThing and Flickr. If you’re interested and/or curious, you can visit Hertel’s wiki to join in the conversation and learn more.

Making time for professional reading can seem overwhelming, but if we all covered different journals, and made the time to share links and summaries from works that aren’t online (yet), we’d really be helping each other out. What journals are you reading lately? Any gems therein?

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Meebo: coming soon! Friday, May 9 2008

The steering committee had many good questions for us, and in the end, they decided to allow us to embed a Meebo widget in the countywide OPAC.  Huzzah!  This means I’ve spent most of today writing or revising drafts of things:  staff documentation, training docs, an FAQ, etc.   Next week we’ll get organized, hold staff trainings, meet one more time with einetwork to make sure our ducks are in a row…and then, we’re up.

It will be interesting to see if this particular Web 2.0 tool is one that our patrons will use and appreciate.  We are also testing the Qwidget for AskHere PA, which you’ll find on the Ask A Librarian page. I think the advantage of the Meebo widget, for CLP and other ACLA patrons, will be that local users who chat via Meebo are guaranteed to get a local librarian. While the benefits of nationwide service are many, patrons who use the Meebo widget will get faster and better help on a local service issue than they would with the statewide or 24/7 national service.

At least, that’s my theory. We shall see. Wish us luck!

Next week, tidbits gleaned from professional reading…and why you should make time to do your professional reading!

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Conclusion: Homo Mobilis Wednesday, May 7 2008

In which we come to the end of Andreas Kluth’s special report.

Summary:

Some scholars worry that nomadic technologies are having adverse effects on language and communication.  Grammar, spelling, and the ability to compose coherent thoughts appear to be on the wane, and technologies that value speed over correctness are the culprit.  Others argue that the new technologies have contributed to greater creativity, and that every new technological revolution has spawned a period of alarmism that turned out to be mostly unfounded.  The author declines to give his own opinion, leaving these opposing viewpoints up to the reader to reconcile him/herself.

 Random Thoughts:

 I find myself in a weird position here.  Technically, I’m one of those people over thirty that you’re not supposed to trust.  However, technology and culture move so quickly now, that I sometimes feel almost overwhelmed by these kids and their geegaws, and their Panic at the Disco, and their Snakes on a Plane. And in the time it took me to type that, all those things I mentioned are already soooo five minutes ago, and other things have taken their place.

Crikey!

But you know what? When I was younger, my parents didn’t get me and my cultural habits either. And I’m guessing you had the same struggles with your folks, to a certain extent. The difference is that the technology has evolved to the point where these phenomena are disseminated faster, and easier to observe because they are much more public.

So, what do we do? If today’s youth are breaking all of the rules we so carefully set up, and casually dismissing all the librariany standards we hold so dear, how do we respond?

The same way those with the greater wisdom and responsibility have responded for years: by continuing to uphold our highest and best standards while still attempting to understand the perspective of upcoming generations.

Face it: the fact that a tech-savvy generation doesn’t care where the facts come from, or how accurate they are, doesn’t mean that there aren’t objective standards for facts. The fact that most researchers want things quickly and easily doesn’t change the fact that some things are difficult, or that some things may always require more work and thought than a five-second sound bite can provide. The point of libraries is to be the storehouse of all human knowledge; humans can then exercise their free will as to how much of it they want, or not.

Okay, though, smarty-pants, you might be saying to yourself: what if the current generation decides, when it’s their turn to have the disposable income, that they don’t want to fund such outdated antiquities as libraries?

That’s where understanding their perspective comes in. Fiddling with Facebook, Second Life, Meebo, Twitter, and whatever cool thing is coming down the pike tomorrow is not always about finding a practical application for your library. It’s sometimes about learning a culture that may be foreign to you. The best way to understand where somebody else is coming from is to immerse yourself in their world and learn its customs. If we want to serve people, we have to understand who they are and what makes them tick. If you’re not willing to do that, it’s going to hamper your effectiveness as a librarian. And since we are the most visible face of the institutuion, people are going to make future decisions about whether or not to support us based on their interactions with us.

Every day we get a choice as to how we want to see our profession. What would be really great is if we could combine the wisdom of Prospero with the hopeful outlook of Miranada to create a truly brave new library world, one in which both an appreciation for the old and an open-mindedness about the new prevailed. We can’t go backward, so we’ve got to press on, stay flexible, and keeping trying out solutions until we get it right - whatever “it” happens to be for our particular patron population.

Well, that was fun, for me! I hope it wasn’t too tedious for you. Thanks to Don for the Washington Post link.

Next time we meet, a Meebo update.

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Part V: A World of Witnesses Tuesday, May 6 2008

A/K/A “Normadic Monitoring,” here’s Part V of Andreas Kluth’s special report.

Summary:

For good or ill, nomadic technologies are helping people organize groups more efficiently.  Kluth defines three broad areas where group technology collaborations are having noticeable effects:  human rights violations, health care, and environmental monitoring.  Future applications, some of which are already being developed now, might include automatic problem tracking/reporting and the use of sensors.  Most people see these phenomena as contributions to a healthier, more accountable society, and downplay privacy concerns. 

Random Thoughts:

All of the evidence provided here goes to show that it’s not the technology, per se, but the applications. The positive examples Kluth provides are really encouraging, because they demonstrate what passionate, committed, caring citizens can do when they join forces.

The problem, though, is fostering that passion, committment, and care. People care about global warming. They care about human rights violations. Libraries, alas, tend to suffer from “don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” syndrome, as this recent letter to the editor, from a newspaper in Salem, MA, illustrates beautifully. Note, especially, this snippet:

The principal objections listed by respondents for improving existing library facilities were opposition to increased taxes or questioning the need, in this age of the Internet, for any library.

So, let’s talk pre-emptive strike. How can we use technology to organize and mobilize both current and prospective library users so we don’t have to write a letter like that, ever, justifying anything we do?

As always, I have some mad-hatteresque ideas.   The one of which I’m most fond at the moment is the library use calculator, which would be a lot easier to pull off right now than my next most cherished wish, which is a weekly library video news show. Think about it: we’re entering a recession, er, Period of Interesting Economy (PIE). When it comes to PIE, people want to see how it’s sliced. So we build a little gadget that lets them show how much money they’re saving by using our services instead of buying all those books, using NetFlix, or dropping by FedEx Kinkos to use the wireless.

That’s not exactly what Kluth was talking about. But when it comes to libraries, I worry that, unless we somehow connect with people’s passions, they wouldn’t respond to us the way they might to a rigged election or a human rights violation. We know how valuable we are; now we have to convince them. And they are loaded for bear with technology, so we had better be, too.

In our next installment, Kluth marches on and on…

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Lame interlude Monday, May 5 2008

What better way to start a work week than with a list of lame excuses for not innovating? If something on this list doesn’t make you chuckle with self-conscious corporate cultural awareness, you’re working at my dream library, and you should send me an application.

In all seriousness, it’s really easy to blindly accept limits on the possible. One has to stay grounded in reality, of course, because sometimes the innovations you want aren’t feasible yet. But that “yet” is a key word, and means you should always have something in the hopper for when the tides turn. And turn they most assuredly do.

At any rate, my favorite excuse on this list is #93, with #75 a close second. Which one is yours? Which one would you like to wipe off the face of the earth, if you could?

Next on the blog docket, more Kluth. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon…

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Sidebar: Location, location, location Friday, May 2 2008

Today’s Kluth excerpt is short: from the sidebar of the special report, the section entitled Mobility and Location. This appears as “Location, Location, Location” in the print version.

Summary:

In which location-based services are introduced, and the future of the mobile phone pondered upon, now that we have the technology to know only know “who” and “when,” but also “where.”

Random thoughts:

As long as the technology continues to have an off switch, it’s all good.  There are, however, shades of both Aldous Huxley and Neil Postman in the following sentences:

Within a few years…phones will know where you are going, at what time, and where you are going next, based on your electronic diary.  The phone may also know, from your address book, that you have a friend in the building, whose diary says that he is going to the same place.  Your two phones will alert you so that you can share a taxi.

Or did I mean Ray Kurzweil? At any rate, if phones are going to be that good, here’s what I want them to be able to do in and for the library:

• Run Millennium.  Yes, we have AIRpac.  AIRpac doesn’t tell me everything I, as the librarian, would need to know while helping somebody in the stacks.
• Accommodate some sort of chat reference client.  Texting is great for quick answers, but darn it, I want to be able to chat with those folks lost in the Romance language section, unable to find the Moliere criticism.
• Work with our print client.  Yes, I want wireless printing.  And so do our patrons.  Don’t believe me?  Next time you see a patron using a laptop, ask him/her!  In fact, let’s start there and gradually work up to the phones…
• An integrated book-retrieval system that’s a mash-up of GPS and RFID.  For patron privacy, we could pass on the extended range RFID and make it extremely short-range, enough to be able to track down the HQ title that was surreptitiously read in the oversize room, and ultimately left on a table in Crazy Mocha.
• Wearable on a lanyard or necklace.  Bluetooh just doesn’t work for me - I want my technology fashionable AND functional, darn it.

And, of course, I want them affordable enough so that everybody on the public service staff can have one.  You can always turn yours off if you feel like curling up with a good reference book on seventh stack…

I’m kind of astonished by what we humans can do.  Of course, the question of whether or not we should is a valid concern–nuclear fission comes to mind–but if change is inevitable, then we have a responsibility to make sure we get the kinds of changes we want, instead of letting the world continually surprise and steamroll us.

Heady stuff, this new nomadism. We’ll be back next week with more of the report. And let me just say how grateful I am that nobody twitted me on misspelling Kluth’s name four days in a row; that error’s been fixed, with a huge sigh of relief.

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Part IV: Family Ties Thursday, May 1 2008

Nope, not the infamous Family Ties. It’s time for summary and analysis of Part IV of Andreas Kluth’s special report on mobility.

Summary:

Nomadic technologies have affected our interpersonal relationships in that psychological closeness has become more important than physical proximity, and is an important factor for people trying to determine just who and what to pay attention to in a field of sensory stimuli. However, the erosion of weaker ties at the expense of stronger ties may be detremental to society as a whole. Kluth gives examples of how certain relationships manipulate technology in certain situations to enhance closeness, while other personal interactions are hampered by ever-present technologies. Concerns about privacy and etiquette are raised briefly.

Random Thoughts:

This portion of the report seems to have taken us back into the realm of policies and etiquette:  if technology has changed the rules of polite conduct, perhaps it’s time for a re-write of the rules? Swiss Army Librarian recently posted about some changes in his organization that are worth looking at.

We’ve now reached the part of the report where I start to sound like a bit of a Luddite, because I simply don’t understand the “always on” phenomenon. I don’t own a cellphone, because when I’m not home, I’m either at work, and you can call me here, or I’m having an adventure and I don’t necessarily want to be found! Thanks to various Web 2.0 applications, I remain close to the people I care about, even though I’m no longer near most of them. However, I also value the spaces and disconnects between conversations, because that means we’re all out having lives, gathering up experiences to talk about. If you’re always communicating, won’t you eventually run out of things to say?

No matter: our patrons don’t seem to think that way. Take a stroll through the Reference department and you’ll see screens full of Myspace, Facebook, and chat clients that people have figured out how to download, despite the fact that they technically shouldn’t be able to. They’re not coming to the library to connect with us, per se; they’re coming to the library to connect with each other.

This means that the ratio of “just in case” services to “just in time” services might have to be altered a bit. More computers, yes. But also, more electronic databases, more web applications, more outreach in the shiny box. That way, when they reach the limits of what the shiny box can provide, they have enough confidence in us to turn around and ask us a question. Or, as Kluth might say, we currently have “weak” ties to patrons, when what we need are “strong” ones.

I’m going to skip the privacy issue here, especially since our current policy covers the waterfront, librarywise. Both privacy and etiquette are, to a certain extent, matters of honor, and you simply can’t legislate or regulate patrons’ honor. I am proud, however, that librarians put thought into ways we can, ourselves, be pillars of professional honor.

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Part III: The New Oases (a/k/a A Nomadic Environment) Tuesday, Apr 29 2008

Summary of, and commentary on, Part III of Andreas Kluth’s special report.

Summary:

 Kluth examines how the new nomadism has affected architecture, citing examples of specific nomadic workspaces.  The phrase “third place” is defined, and the history of its manifestations is traced from 1989 (when the phrase was first coined) to the present.   One major challenge facing contemporary third spaces is techno-isolation, to which many “third spaces” have responded by proving more opportunities for human interaction.  The effects of third spaces on city planning and traffic patterns is analyzed.

 Random Thoughts:

According to Kluth, the new nomadism has strongly affected the creation of new architecture, which makes me worry just a little when I look around our beautiful building, which was built in 1895. For the moment, it passes the William Morris test in that it’s both useful AND beautiful. It’s also a historic landmark, so there’s no danger that it’s going anywhere anytime soon (whew). But, as a third space, can our library remain competitive with new creations specifically designed for a new culture?

Take, for example, the notion (which I did not know, and I’d love to see the research) that “people working on laptops find it comforting to have their backs to a wall.” Could that really be the make or break function for whether or not somebody might choose to use the library? If you’ve been Googling or searching databases all afternoon, and you still can’t find what you’re looking for, do you care if your back is to the wall, or do you want to be where you can find what you’re looking for? That being said, if a space can be altered so that it’s a more amenable environment, why not try it?

In terms of what our patrons seem to need and want, space-wise, here are some random thoughts and observations:

• Pittsburghers love long tables.  The more they can spread out, the better.  The few study carrels we have are used far less frequently.  I’d scrap them in favor of more long tables, or large round ones, which are also popular.
• Computer users on our floor would rather sit down than stand up.  If it were up to me, I’d transform the six “express” terminals into 60-minute sit-down workstations.  Hardly anyone chooses to the 30-minute stand-ups, even when all the sit-down slots are filled. 
• Quiet spaces are still important to many folks.  I think the most embarrassing moment of my career to date was when I was shushed by a patron while enthusiastically explaining to another patron how to use one of our databases.   And the two quiet reading rooms in the south wing are steadily populated, even when the main room is not.
• The encyclopedia island should probably be in the front of the room rather than in the back.  We get a lot of students from the nearby high schools and universities, and their teachers–bless them–still give assignments that require print encyclopedias.  Ergo, front and center!
• Shelf labels for the reference section might be a good idea.  We have a lot of books lining the walls, and they’re only designated by call number.  This works for people doing focused searches for specific reference books, but what about casual browsers?
• Our reference desk is still a huge, intimidating barrier.  I’d love to see the two wings on a slant, with space for people to walk around and behind us., with the computer signup island remaining in the middle, and the “Ask A Librarian” sign between us.  All the better to dance around!

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, for the moment.  Objections?  Spatial factors I hadn’t considered?

As for traffic patterns, I’m in favor of anything that would make Oakland more parkable, beginning with more bike racks for the public and ending with telecommuting (an alchemist can dream).  Like many bookstores and other third places, the library offers lots of programming; the problem is, it’s tough for people to take advantage of it because it’s hard to find someplace to park (and we’re only open until 8, but that’s another issue for another day).  I’m not sure how much we can do about that, and if that’s out of our control, how should we adjust our programming strategies to take advantage of an inflexible reality?

One objection that comes up whenever issues like these are raised is the argument that the library as we know it is vanishing. Some people feel very strongly that this is a bad thing; I’m a little more confident about our ability to preserve what’s worth keeping while still making room for new perspectives. As long as we continue to use solid criteria to select our materials, does it really matter if we choose to arrange them in a more aesthetically pleasing fashion than we have heretofore? As long as library staff observe the ALA code of ethics, does it matter if we all come to different conclusions about whether or not we want food / coffee / cell phones, etc. in our respective libraries, or how we arrange the furniture, or whether or not it’s comfy-squooshy? As long as libraries retain their committment to taking care of things that are big issues for librarians, we can agree to disagree on the ones that are, ultimately, smaller in terms of our missions, but bigger in the minds of our patrons. In other words, most of the audience doesn’t want to know how the magicians do their tricks. They just want a good show.

Too radical? Perhaps. But that’s how we get anywhere in life - by pushing the envelope, trying the back door when the front door is locked, putting ideas out there, and taking risks.

More Kluth on Thursday.

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Interlude - Page update Tuesday, Apr 29 2008

New resource on the Everyday 2.0 page - why not take a gander while you’re waiting for today’s main entry?

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Part II: Labour Movement (a/k/a “Working From Anywhere”) Saturday, Apr 26 2008

In which we discuss part two of Andreas Kluth’s special report on contemporary nomadism.

Summary:

 According to at least one set of current research data, workflow for so-called “knowledge workers” is evenly divided in thirds between a traditional office space, the home, and a “third place” of choice.  Unlike telecommunting, which took place in isolation, work nomadism combines periods of solitude with periods of connectivity, in the ratio and manner of the worker’s choice.  The complexities of negotiating communication and “office” politics are examined here, and the challenge of preserving work-life balance (in a world where your work can very easily become your life) is discussed at length.

Random Thoughts:

 The “money quote” from today’s Kluth excerpt is as follows:

James Ware, a co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative, a small think-tank, says that nomadic work styles are fast becoming the norm for “knowledge workers”. His research shows that in America such people spend less than a third of their working time in traditional corporate offices, about a third in their home offices and the remaining third working from “third places” such as cafés, public libraries or parks.

Librarians, the archetypal knowledge workers, have embraced nomadic technologies wholeheartedly.  But how about the workflow?  As I surf my newsreader, I read about a lot of innovative projects various libraries are implementing, making good use of Web 2.0 phenomena.  As far as I can tell, though, most folks are still working in an office in a library.   Would anyone like to share their current experiences?

My own dabblings in this regard are minimal, but, I think, significant.  Take, for example, the blog branding project.  Technically I’m on vacation, but I choose to peek at work mail from time to time.  This is mostly because, if I don’t, my mailbox fills and shuts down with alamring rapidity.  While winnowing for the key messages, I found the .jpg proof of the custom blog banner graphics has been working on for Eleventh Stack. The sooner we get the blog up to CLP graphics/IT standards, the sooner it will be more prominently placed on the website. This will lead, we hope, to better outreach and customer service.

So I sent the file to the blog team listserv and waited a day or so to round up comments. I’m in the process of writing up that feedback and sending it back to the Communication and Creative Services Team. Did I have to be in the office to do that? No. Should the team have to wait until next Tuesday, when I’m physically present, for the project to move forward? No. Did doing twenty minutes of work in the middle of a long, glorious series of recreational activities seriously impair my ability to enjoy a life outside the office? Emphatically, no. And that’s not the only bit of business I was able to take care of quickly and efficiently from a distance, either.

You could make the argument that working from home or a “third place” puts an unfair burden on the folks who have to staff the desk and take care of other tasks in your absence. In my own library’s situation, I would counter with two key arguments:

1.  The number of in-person reference questions we’ve received has dropped, slowly but consistently, over the past few years.
2. The reference questions we DO get require a greater amount of legwork.

In other words, people are using Google, Wikipedia, etc. before they turn to us.  Librarians used to be generalists.  Now that general knowledge is more easily available due to technology, librarians who work at a traditional reference desk are forced to become specialists,  skilled at using traditional resources that are not yet available online in full-text (including, at CLP, certain engineering standards and the local artists’ files). Some people are suited for this kind of work, but it’s not the only way to be a librarian anymore. Ergo, why not save the bulk of the desk work for the people who truly enjoy the desk and the tough questions? Though it’s not always clear-cut, current library rhetoric treats the differences between “old-schoolers” and “twopointtopians” as if it were a fight between the Capulets and the Montagues, when it really isn’t.

The question instead, it seems to me, is, “What kinds of librarians do we want to be?  Generalists, or specialists?”  And the beauty of that question is that people can self-select based on their own interests and inclinations, and everybody can contribute to the organization in the manner that works best for him/her.  Gone are the days when you had to work an 80-hour week and never have a life to prove your loyalty to an organization.  Now, provided your mind is engaged and contributing, your physical body can be in the environment that works best for you.  Again, a win-win situation, with librarians who identify as introverts probably benefiting the most from nomadic arrangements. This is not always clear-cut. I’m a professed introvert, but I truly relish the few hours a week I spend at the reference desk. And I can name at least four regular readers of this blog who move beautifully between both workstyles - true Renaissance librarians!

The work/life balance issue is a complicated one that folks with considerably more experience have debated in various forums. Only the individual, however, knows for sure when s/he has achieved balance. Many of us became librarians after dabbling in other professions, and some of us perceive our profession as a vocation rather than as just a job, or even as just a career.  Those of us who feel that way might be more likely to take the TIPS home, for example, or spend a lovely Saturday morning writing in his/her professional blog. That’s why I think one thing libraries might want to consider doing, if they aren’t already doing so, is investigating workplace wellness initiatives, to help us keep each other balanced and accountable. Granted, we CLP folks have access to a great EAP. However, I’d really love to see a more personal initiative, one on which staff and administration actively collaborate, for everybody’s benefit, just to make sure that we don’t start thinking like attorneys.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Critique?

We’ll pick up with part III of Kluth’s report on Tuesday.

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