Future of Libraries

From my comments, someone just asked for a list of interesting librarian-related job titles. Can you guys help out? I’ll start the list off with some previous posts of mine:

• NextGen Librarian
• Digital Access Architect
• 21st Century Librarian

Then add in a few others:

• Director of Digital Strategy (Helene Blowers‘ job title)
• Digital Branch & Services Manager (that’s me)
• Open Source Evangelist (Nicole Engard’s new title)
• Vice President of Innovation (Stephen Abram’s title)
• Emerging Technologies Librarian (Houston Public Library job ad)
• Emergent Technologies Librarian
• Emerging Technology Manager
• Librarian 2.0

So - does anyone want to add to this list? Thanks!

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Speakers: George Needham and Joan Frye Williams

Aside - if you’ve never heard them speak, you need to. They are great presenters, and have great things to say. The combination is awesome!

Aside - George pulled up iTunes before the presentation and is playing some cool blues as background music. What a cool way to add a certain feel to a room!

Joan started by reviewing the “presentation policies” - spoofing all the rules that libraries have

“Legacy Librarianship” describes the fundamental truths learned in library school, handed down through the generations.

Some of our basic assumptions of librarianship need to change - recent studies have shown that!

Assumption: libraries are the go-to place form information

Reality:
- libraries don’t rank high - search engines 82%, libraries 1%
- Another study asked a similar question - libraries 1% (from a study done in 1947!!!)

We need to design for open use - not in-library use
- mainstream data formats
- easy import/export/snip
- toolbars, gadgets, APIs
- institutional and civilian-defined tags
- mashup was a graphic on the slide, and a great example

enhanced discoverability
- engines, not opacs
- crawl-able databases
- text/IM/microformats
- digitization
- captioning
- contributions to non-library sites and sources

We cannot offer a service if you have to find us to use it

More important to post good info on other blogs rather than your own (people clapped! I’m wondering if those people understood her point)

Assumption: libraries aren’t just about books anymore

reality: people think we’re about books
- this is not a bad thing - that’s great brand recognition
Why do people use the library? Studies show it’s mainly books…

If we have a brand, let’s use it.

Talk about reading, learning and enjoying. We aren’t in the information business - we are in the ideas business. We need to be in the ideas economy.

Push the books/reading lifestyle
- Success through reading
- sociable reading
- artistry of books
- write it yourself
- reading to maintain your brain
- books as ties to popular culture/books

“Civilian” - anybody that doesn’t have library training

Emphasis on abundance:
- focus on assets, not deficiencies
- demand-based resource allocation - if you need more best-sellers, you need to buy more.
- fast, convenient service delivery - spend more time and money on delivery tools
- minimal rationing - Libraries usually do this - “the more you want it, the less you can have it.” -Don’t do that!
- appreciative inquiry
- no victims

Assumption: patrons aren’t capable of finding good things on their own

Reality: time is scarce, not information

The world is changing. Ex - we do stuff ourselves now instead of using specialists (ie., Expedia or Travelocity vs travel agents).

Who provides worthwhile information? Libraries don’t rank high among civilians.

Comparing libraries to search engines - SEs win in categories like easy to use, convenient, fast, reliable…

Why? People think there’s no difference between the trustworthiness of libraries and the trustworthiness of search engines.

What to do:
- make the library very different than it is now
- we like it that users need help - that’s a bad thing! We should knock down those barriers
- we need to simplify everything!
- less clutter, civilian terminology, situational directions, power paths & nodes, layout by activity, not collection
- this is true in both online and physical libraries

Use civilian words!!!
- focus on situational terms
- Pay here, ask, get
- circulation or fines doesn’t tell civilians anything situational

Arrange the library by what people do there
- Do Your homework
- ask a question
- read new stuff

Zone staffing
- service points are wrong
- not just on desk - you’re responsible for a whole area.
- you’re responsible for the civlian’s successful experience - not just for specific transactions

Success insurance
- information at the point of use
- minimal gate-keeping
- fewer simpler rules
- presumption of innocence

the real world is training people
- ex: if customers already know how to get in line at starbucks or the grocery store, use that experience

“I have a really dumb question”
- this means your library just made me feel stupid
- is that really the experience you want to leave your customers with?

Assumption: one-on-one service is our most valuable product

Reality: comparing librarians to search engines: no difference

how can we highlight and reinforce librarians status as professionals?

Great idea: dispatched service
- no other profession puts their professionals at a single point (desk)
- librarians should not be the first point of contact
- centrally located desk:
- staffed by non librarian dispatcher
- matches questions to the best person to handle it
- librarians work on call
- tech staff work on call
- work to completion with each person

Don’t call it reference librarian - call it researcher (aside - I’m thinking of the Apple Store’s Mac Genius)

Redeployed reference - if they aren’t sitting at the desk, what are they doing?
- creating prepackaged information, FAQs
- research
- check your work
- appointments
- learning specialists (instead of subject specialists)
- constituent specialists
- someone focused on certain community groups
- understanding what makes them tick
- and working to meet their needs
- outreach - out in the community!

Aside - OMG - this is the missing link for the digital branch! More time for librarians to write, present, do FAQs, etc…

Upselling
- this is what store clerks do when you’re looking at pants, ie., “this belt would go great with those pants”
- for staff in the stacks:
- Not just “here’s the cookbooks”
- but here’s the cookbooks, and we have a cooking program today”

Assumption: civilians recognize and value library confidentiality

Reality
- not so much.
- many people have given up on the idea of privacy
- we don’t use the data we have to improve our own services!

How can we use the data we already collect?
- real-time activities buzz
- show live circulation activity ex.: yorba linda pl book feed - here’s what people are turning back into the library - it’s a web feed widget thing on the websites…??? it’s the most popular thing on their site

live program excerpts
- use video
- show people what’s happening in programs (2 minute thing)

Push stuff!
- new titles - 800 new books this week!

wireless strength - tell people which rooms have the best wifi!

parking cam! We could do that!

These are ways to show the buzz already happening at your library, and to bump the buzz up a notch.

Evidence-based planning and marketing
- design for most common situations
- community segments/profiles
- reports framed to match stakeholder (civilian) agendas
- collaboration based on audiences shared with non-library partners

Assumption: we need to educate these people

Reality - we need to provide what they want
- how can we contribute to civilians quality of life, work, and learning - on their terms
- how can we be part of their story?
- it is not our job to straighten these people out!

Don’t try to get people to care about libraries. Show them how the library helps them care about their stuff.

Technorati Tags: pla2008, pla08, pla

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Michael Stephens, John Blyberg and Jen Maney

Jen’s title: Let’s Get Excited (and realistic) about Web 2.0

“not really a technological phenomenon at all; it’s a social one, enabled by technology.”

Can’t understand new tools in the abstract - you have to use them.

They have an emerging technologies team - they help evaluate services and new stuff

They think of 2.0 stuff as outreach outside of the library

Pima County Public Library has 4.5 web staff: Designer, programmer, electronic resources, head (and a part timer)

2.0 site is moving toward a conversation

Michael Stephens is next:

Title: Scary things & Great Opportunities: Web 2.0 & Libraries 2008

Best thing - remember to say “yes”

Look for “Library as place” on youtube - trying to find books at Chicago Public Library - they video’d the experience, including getting kicked out of the library by security.

Aside - Check out Nashville Public Library’s social stuff

“Please bring your heart with you to work.”

Three important things:
1. Don’t stop learning
2. adapt to change
3. watch the horizon

John Blyberg spoke last:

Title: Keen on 2.0: The Amateurs are Coming!

Going to talk about the naysayers of 2.0

Keen thinks 2.0 is dangerous much like communism! What’s up with that?

Blyberg is pointing out specific quotes/thoughts from Keen’s writings, and poking large holes in them

Example - Keen doesn’t think the long tail really exists. Hmm…

Andrew Keen’s writings is what happens when we succum to fear.

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Maricopa County Library District Perry Branch dumped Dewey

Marshall Shore was one of the speakers (there were two others from his library as well)

Customers wanted a comfortable, browsable space - they thought of the concept of third space, and merchandising type stuff

signage - looked good 2 feet away, completely unreadable at 30 feet away

all the staff do staff picks, then display it

shelves on wheels - so you have a flexible space

Extremely large labels on walls -3′ letters!

No reference - everything circulates!!! That’s cool. And the second time I’ve heard that today.

Used the bookstore BISAC system - they simplified and customized that

Customers - 95% satisfied (via a survey)

staff - 100% satisfied!

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Speaker: Joseph Janes

Title: What Does it Take to be Good at Reference in the Age of Google?

Aside - Sorta humorous - moderator asked us to turn off our cell phones… in THIS session about emerging trends in the age of google! Hee. Probably should have said “put cell phones on mute.”

“we can find things they can’t find” - this is a revelation to many people.

we shouldn’t emphasize ready reference anymore - Google is the rough equivalent of ready reference, and we can’t compete with it.

We can do better than that - we don’t have to answer the dumb questions anymore!

Google does great at orientation

Google is free, quick, easy, and good enough - we can’t beat that!

What Google cannot do:
- not good at gathering - Google does great at finding, but not gathering…
- google doesn’t evaluate, decide, understand, help
- google doesn’t do print (yet)
- doesn’t do fee-based stuff
- google doesn’t have highly sophisticated search (lexis-nexis, etc)
- not part of the community

How to be a good reference librarian in the age of google?
- be a reference librarian
- just not the same one you would have been 10 years ago
- do a good interview - regardless of mode (in person, phone, email, chat, IM, text message, etc)

Know the tricks:
- be more effective searchers
- know all the tricks, advanced features, etc
- know alternatives, when to use it and not to use it

articulate our strengths - we don’t do a good job of that!

(aside - Joe works a couple hours at the desk at the library - that’s cool! My library profs hadn’t worked in libraries for years)

Build tools that help people without direct intervention
- research guides (Cornell vodcasting Research Minutes on YouTube - how to use the library in 90 seconds or less - I need to check these out!)
- use easily understood names for services, tools, etc…
- citation = traffic ticket
- catalog = comes from LandsEnd

Position ourselves and our services as time-savers
- google’s fast, but we can save you time! average time spent searching in Google is 11 minutes! Wow! We are obviously faster than that!
- why search when we can help you find?

Be where they are
- we must be available, positioned, and ready to support, assist, and participate - on their terms

good point - when people ask us questions, it’s because they already tried and failed…

people ask shelvers questions - why? Because they’re there…

what to do:
we can’t beat them on quick, fast, easy, and cheap - we can fight them on quality, depth, education, instruction, literacy, etc
- play on our strengths
- and how they fit in the emerging world

What about print?
- in the short run, it’s a secret weapon - not everyone has access to print!
- they are unique
- in the longer run, they will be slowly decreasing in importance

wikipedia - if you don’t like it, get over it!
- instead of whining about it… do something about it!
- if you don’t vote, don’t complain
- create and edit entries, cite sources, fight for quality, be a positive force (a la learning 2.0)

YouTube
- search for libraries - even funnier - search for “libary”
- make a video!

blogosphere
- have your own, yes, but also participate in community/others

Read blogs of people in your community - and participate by commenting!

Second Life
- it’s a new way to create
- it’s a way to get into the ground floor of a whole new way of creating

Most important - Work Together.

the idea of library has escaped the building
it’s now an extended notion of library - anywhere, anytime, any way in which people interact with information organized, provided, supported by their own community via their library staff.

“We have to be even better online than in person”

Technorati Tags: pla08, pla2008, pla

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Some of you might have noticed I’ve been dropping very vague hints on this blog about my library’s website redesign… well, no more vagueness! In fact - how about checking it out for yourselves? Go to webdev.tscpl.org and and see what my web team has been busy creating.

A few asides:

• If something doesn’t work, most likely we are still working on it - we’re mostly done, but it’s still a work-in-progress at this point
• We do our “soft launch” on March 17
• We “go live” officially on March 31

Feel free to check it out, let me know what you like/don’t like, etc! Some things I’m real excited about:

• RSS Everywhere. Think AADL - we are blog-based, for lack of a better term. You can subscribe to the whole site via RSS, or parts and pieces of it (i.e., if you just want to subscribe to the Business & Investments Guide, you can).
• Content is provided by library staff - more on this later, but we consider our Digital Branch to be an actual branch… and our library staff is providing content, answering comments, creating resources, etc.
• We’re trying to be very community focused - and we’re showing that via open commenting on the site, our IM Meebo widget prominently displayed, and via RSS feeds and multimedia (more photos and videos).
• Modern visual design and a new logo for the library

And this is just phase one - we are starting to plan future phases right now! That’s all I can think of at the moment… 2008 should be a wild ride for us!

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Gee whiz. Every now and then, someone decides to share that some new-fangled “library 2.0″ project didn’t work out … and others start claiming “After John Blyberg and others come out and say that library 2.0 didn’t work and neither did tagging, etc., the flood gates open.” Huh?

It might be good to remember two things:

1. If one 2.0 project doesn’t work as expected, that doesn’t mean that “library 2.0 didn’t work” as a whole.
2. Social 2.0 projects require “Elvis” to leave the building.

Here’s what I mean. For #1 above, realize this - not every blog, wiki, IM reference service, Second Life project, or podcast that your library creates will be a blazing success. Some will be dismal failures. And that’s great! Why? Because you learned something, and you can take that knowledge and move on to the next project.

John Blyberg might be correct when he says “SOPAC was by-and-large a success, but its use of user-contributed tags is a failure.” Why does he think it was a failure? Because it’s not used by that library’s community. He’s not saying tagging in catalogs is bad in general (at least, I don’t think he’s saying that). He’s saying that a particular library’s 2.0-ish experiment wasn’t successful (though I’m sure they learned something about building stuff - that’s always a good thing). Make sure to read the comments to that post - he goes on to say that larger-scale tagging that can be added to catalogs (i.e., LibraryThing for Libraries) is much more useful than the SOPAC’s localized version.

How about #2? Who’s this Elvis guy? Elvis is the librarian - has he left the building? Or is he still sitting behind the oak reference desk, waiting for patrons to visit? You cannot participate if you haven’t “left the building.” What does it take for librarians to be successful in the digital space? Well… we have to go there. Not just randomly peek in once in awhile, but actually be present and active in that space.

Here’s a lame example - lots of people read my blog. It’s taken four years for that to happen (well, and me not spewing forth stupidity too often - that also helps) - four years of me thinking, writing, reading, and participating on other librarian blogs. That was active participation rather than passive flirting on the 2.0 block.

When you start hanging out in a new social circle, what’s it take to be respected there? You have to actually DO some things, like hang out with them, share yourself with them, build them up, be authentic, etc - you have to spend a significant amount of time just “being” in that social circle in order to be accepted by the new group. Social networking tools are the same - because we’re NOT DEALING WITH TECHNOLOGY. We’re dealing with people.

If you want people to comment on your library’s blog post, to friend your MySpace page, or to watch your YouTube videos… you have to actually tell your community they exist. here are some examples:

“No one subscribes to our RSS feeds!” Well - have you told them what RSS is and what they can do with it?

“No one watches our YouTube videos on bibliographic instruction!” Well… have you embedded the video on your website (I’ve seen some libraries that don’t do this)? Have you introduced them to your videos at all? Are your videos extremely boring?

Have you left your library building to visit community groups to introduce them to your new offerings? Have you asked your community how they want to participate?

The title to this post is “Has Elvis Left the Building?” Has he?

Tagged as: library2.0, Social Networking, web2.0

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In December, the awesome blog ReadWriteWeb posted a couple of great articles about how librarians are needed (and even linked to Michael Porter’s flickr photo of Michael and yours truly battling it out on Guitar Hero). That’s all dandy!

But the ReadWriteWeb just posted Deconstructing Real Google Searches: Why Powerset Matters … I’d add “real BAD Google searches” to that title. Sure, the point of the article was to point out the perils of current search engine searches/results, and to show why a semantic-based or a natural language search engine would be better. And ultimately, that really might be the case.

But my librarian self kicked in as I was reading the post, because the author obviously needed the help of us sexy librarians! Here are the search examples given:

1. what are movie spears made out of?
2. car hit by bicycle
3. Famous science fiction writers other than Isaac Asimov

Librarians… I ask you. Are these good Google queries? Hmm… I’m hearing a resounding “not.”

And this is a great example of why we’re still needed. Yes - there’s the web. Yes - there’s Google. And yes - there are extremely smart people that write great blogs like the ReadWriteWeb. But does that mean everyone knows how to search? What happens if the semantic web or true natural language searching kicked in tomorrow - would that negate us? No - we’d still encounter people asking why they get 50 million hits when they type “I need to find stuff on cars” or whatever into search engines.

I’m thinking we can improve the ReadWriteWeb’s search examples mentioned in the article - let’s have some fun and help them out (not that they’ll notice, but heck - we can try, can’t we?). So - here are my “better” suggestions on structuring the three search queries:

1. what are movie spears made out of? Why not try zulu extras spears instead?
2. car hit by bicycle - how about “bicycle accident” “hitting car” or car “hit by bicycle” or even “car damage” bicycle?
3. Famous science fiction writers other than Isaac Asimov - hmm… why not try “science fiction author” famous -”isaac asimov” instead?

I found better results … but I don’t consider myself to be an expert searcher by any means. What do you think? How can we improve those searches? Librarians, show your awesome search skills! How would YOU do the three searches?

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The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a new report out: Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help.

It’s an interesting read… and I’m not quite sure how to take it! So… here’s a list of what I saw as some highlights in the report, with some yays and boos to go along with each (mainly taken from the executive summary part of the report):

Page v: “Faced with a problem in the past two years that they needed to address, about one in eight adults (13%) say they turned to their local public library for help and information.”

• Yay! a goodly chunk of people used the library for real help - cool!
• Boo! One in eight is dismal! How can we raise that number?

Page vi: “Major finding: 53% of American adults report going to a local public library in the past 12 months.”

• Yay! 53%! That’s a majority of Americans! They love us!
• Boo! Read the fine print - “in the past 12 months.” This says nothing about how many times they visited - only that they had visited at least once. Dave’s illogical translation: that could be one visit last year, to stop off at the bathroom or to pick up a child. that’s not a good indicator of library use!

Page viii: “Major finding: About a fifth of Americans with problems to address said they were concerned about privacy disclosures as they hunted for information.”

• Yay! We’re all about privacy!
• Boo! 4/5’s of Americans could care less about what librarians consider a major, huge issue. We’re spinning our wheels on the wrong road!

So… here’s what Pew concludes (from their website): “The survey results challenge the assumption that libraries are losing relevance in the internet age. Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes, not just the problems mentioned in this survey. And it was the young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) who led the pack. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and in general patronage for any purpose.”

But here’s what I saw:

• only 1 in 8 adults use the library [when faced with a problem]
• 53% of American adults visited the library… at least once.
• 4/5’s of Americans aren’t as concerned about privacy as librarians are

I think we have some more work to do!

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