Accepting the Public in Public Library

Recently there has been a bit of media coverage on incidents that have happened in public libraries ^[2]. As a public librarian I find myself a bit bewildered by the tone of these articles and the outrage expressed by some citizens and librarians. What do they expect to happen in a public space? Where have they been for the past thirty years?

Are libraries safe places? I would argue that libraries in general are as safe as any other public space. Does this mean that it is a good place to just drop off your kids or to leave your purse sitting around? No. You should not expect your local public library to be any safer that the local shopping mall.

I would say to the “outraged” citizens and librarians who do not feel safe, that the library is much safer than many other private and public spaces. I feel much safer working in my library than I would if I worked at the local convenience store. If I where a banker I would worry about bank robbers with large caliber weapons pointed at my head. Here at the library, I know that I will have to deal with unstable people and potentially acts of violence, but I face the same threat when I walk with my family downtown.

Librarians, and anyone else, should not have to work in a hostile environment. So what should they do? Since my daughter was able to understand what a phone was both of her parents have taught her how to dial 911. Imagine that, a nine year old who knows to call the police if she feels threatened. If she can do it so can librarians. Librarians are public service workers and thus must accept the fact that they will have to deal with all kinds of situations and they may never feel 100% safe. They have the right and authority to call the police any time they feel unsafe, regardless of what they may perceive their administrators position to be. Be an adult and make the call.

Let’s face it, most librarians tend to be a fastidious lot, but the general public is often much less so. When you are in a public space you are likely to be exposed to the full range of unwashed and tasteless humanity. Many people, including librarians, seem to have this Hollywood image of what a library should be, but the reality is much different. Is any of this radical or new? Honestly I don’t know. I might imagine that the increase in homelessness (not intended to accusatory) and the current economic situation may be placing additional strain on individuals that may be more obvious in our public spaces ^[1].

Unless we are willing to give in to the bigots within our communities or turn our libraries into police bunkers, we will always have public space issues in our libraries. Just as most of us do not expect our library spaces to be the nearly silent edifices pictured in movies, we must realize that much of our personal security is in our own hands. Public libraries were intended to give free access to, well the public, thus the name.

Additional reading/resources:

1. A very interesting and informative article was written by Chip Ward on Libraries and homeless people: http://www.alternet.org/story/50023/
2. A recent series of articles about the Hartford, Connecticut Library: http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/hc-hartfordlibrary-may18,0,2336731.story (original article) & http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/hc-ctlibrary0606.artjun06,0,7150601.story (follow-up article)
3. A recent ALA article on the Hartford library: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6562745.html

DRM is Evil?

I heard it at CiL 2008 and have heard it talked about on blogs. There seems to be and obsession with DRM (Digital Rights Management) with many librarians and with some of the general public. Since I come from a business background I don’t quite understand all the huff amongst librarians. Following is a reply I made to a post on another blog regarding DRM that kind of encapsulates my current thoughts on the issue:

The above comments offer great insights into the whole libraries and DRM issue, but I have a little bit to add, even though I am a public librarian.

Many academic institutions are moving towards a more open standard, which I fully applaud. Harvard Law School is an example in the academic realm that is starting to use CC to open up their materials to a wider public and improve the dissemination of knowledge. But in my humble opinion, academia and the “real” world should not be lumped together.

When discussing DRM and who is pushing it, the finger can not just be pointed at the publishers. Any real discussion must include the authors of the materials. If authors where interested in producing works truly free of any form of DRM, then they would not be sending their works to the publishers in the first place. Why bother? Just type it up in your favorite word processor, attach a CC license to, make it a PDF file and put it online. Done no DRM!

But the reality, as we have all heard before, is that self publishing CC content is not the way to get your books into libraries or make a decent living. The author – publisher relationship is a financial one and is not generally based on altruism. I seriously doubt that you would find one bestselling author today that would have rather been self published into obscurity and the poor house.

Authors need to be monetarily rewarded for their hard work. They to have families to feed and bills to pay just like you and me. To imagine a totally DRM free world is simply unrealistic. Would you go to work tomorrow and every day for the rest of your life for free? I sure wouldn’t.

I welcome you thoughts and opinions on this issue and or my response.

Posted on librarian in black 5/18/08

My Signature

Recently over at ACR Log blog StevenB posted the following:

Most academic librarians go through their careers performing a host of jobs and filling a multitude of functions. From selection to reference to instruction and more we are true workplace multi-taskers. But amidst all these different activities have you ever stopped to ask yourself what’s at the center of it all? What defines you as a librarian? What’s your signature statement?

Now I am not an academic librarian and I have not been a librarian for very long, but I found this thought provoking. I am aspiring to be a reference librarian along with the technology side that takes up most of my day. I say aspire, because I have a long way to go, even though I do work the reference desk several days a week. Even though Steven was addressing academic librarians, I think public librarians should attempt to come up with their own signature statements as well.

I originally came across this idea on the Librarians Matter blog, where I posted my signature. My hope is that my signature is a reflection of my personality, job and professional goals. It serves as guide to the way I approach each and every day. I am sure this will change over time, but currently mine is:

“Absorb everything, challenge everything and take the risks needed to get it done and excel.”

You might have noticed that I did not include the words, library, librarian or technology in my signature. I hope my signature is more about who I am than what job I do. Can I take this signature with my when I leave the library? I think I can.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts or reading your signatures.

Feed success

I was part of an interesting conversation the other day that stemmed from a post made by Greg on his blog Open Stacks. For today the most relevant part of his post was this:

The children’s librarian was unable to keep it going as she needed to start gearing up for summer reading.

So I did what any father/librarian would do. I offered to keep it going myself. Well, let me rephrase that. I suggested that the parents who were in attendance might do well to try to keep the momentum going and organize our own weekly storytime at the same time and in the same place as the program that was ending. There seemed to be enough interest for me to pursue it further.

It is what happened to an apparently successful program that concerns me. I do not know all the details of the situation, and never will. The apparent abandoning of a program that was working for another touched on some of my own experiences this week at the library where I work.

In two days, I encountered no less than three “because we have always done it that way” statements. This is apparently much more acceptable/common in the library profession than in the business one I come from. Businesses that stick to this mantra seldom last long and are very vulnerable to “sea changes” within an industry. Successful organizations have a culture that honors tradition and their core mission, while allowing for flexibility.

I know that Greg’s library may have been sort staffed, low on funds or in any one of a dozen other situations that may have precluded the continuation of the program he and his son where enrolled in. My point or maybe challenge is to encourage libraries, especially my own, to feed successful programs the resources and staffing need to keep them going and not end them “just because we have always done it that way.”

Libraries that can honor tradition and be flexible/responsive to the needs of their customers will be successful libraries. Not to sound to flippant, but a lot more “can do” in libraries would be refreshing.

Should Public Libraries Teach?

I recently took an online survey that asked for input from both public and academic libraries. From my view point as a public librarian (although a brand spanking new one) is seemed pretty obvious that the survey was geared towards academic libraries.

Quite a few of the questions on this survey asked about teaching users how to use our resources and what teaching methodologies that we might be using. This got me to thinking about “teaching” in public libraries. Should public libraries “teach?” How much time should be spent “teaching?” Do our customers even want to be taught and if so what? How do we reach them?

Now understand that I am just starting to ask these questions and have not formed any hard answers yet. For me this is an exploration and a request for information. I welcome your thoughts and examples.

While working the reference desk, I have interacted with large numbers of individuals seeking information. I can say that very few of them seemed interested in learning how to find the information themselves. Many times I have offered to show people how to find the information themselves, but only a very few have ever been interested. I am willing to say that my selling skills are perhaps not the best, but I have a gut feeling that this is what most reference librarians in public libraries experience. Can you teach people how to do something that they would rather you do for them?

I have watched many public and private schools take tours of my library and then they are turned loose to do “research.” These tours seem to be mostly composed of here are the books, ask for help. I would not call this teaching. The reference librarians also give a tour of the databases we have and the catalog, if the teacher has allowed time. But to cover dozens of databases in ten minutes does not make it very educational. Is this the kind of teaching we should be doing? I would basically call this giving a tour. But is it also leads me to ask, if we are not given the opportunity to teach, what can we do?

So I see two main hindrances so far: one, people don’t want to learn, they just want the information so they can get on with their lives; two, we often do not have the opportunity to teach. We might not ever actually encounter the individual or we may not have the time, such as the school tours mentioned above. So what are some solutions?

Until there are no more reference librarians to hand out answers and teachers have all the time in the world, the above issues will not go away. What about giving how to use your library classes? This might work, but I have my doubts. Let me know if you have had success doing classes like this in a public library. For me the most interesting opportunity to teach in the public library setting is presented by technology.

I will start this thought process by making a couple of big assumptions. I would guess that users that use our websites or the terminals within the library are technically more savvy, more motivated (most importantly) and more willing to learn if we offer them the opportunity. As we go through our website redesign process I am looking for potential learning opportunities that I can sneak in. Many academic and some public libraries use guides to assist researchers, which is a great first step, but not quite far enough. I am hoping to offer very unobtrusive “learning moments” throughout the website, along with guides, screen casts and video training. I just love to make more work for myself!

So I have a plan to help the people already using library technology become better at it (if they choose to). So what do I do to get others to become more motivated self learners? This is the challenge and what I am still trying to figure out. As for the school tour scenario, I see outreach as the most effective tool we have. We need to get into the classroom before they set foot into the library. Sounds easy? No!

So to answer my own question from the title of this post… Yes, public libraries should teach. It’s the how that we have to figure out and get better at. Feel free to sock it to me!

Marketing Librarians, not Libraries?????

It seems I have become embroiled in a debate about marketing librarians and not necessarily marketing heir libraries at the same time. My friend Greg over at Open Stacks recently wrote a blog where he talked about being interest in:

“And please note, my interest is NOT in marketing libraries. There are plenty of other people worrying about that. I’m talking about marketing librarians. I hope to find ways to demonstrate the importance of that distinction to others in our profession. Who’s with me?”

I made several pithy (that’s my opinion) statements that basically disagree with this approach. After a couple ruffled feathers and back and forth’s I made the following statement:

“Nothing I said was against passion, quite t[he] opposite in my view. What I am saying is that if we are not effectively marketing our libraries, then marketing a librarian does not do us much good. Also marketing librarians outside of the context of the library and its’ services does make much sense to me. Perhaps a balance[d] approach is what is most needed.”

I stick to my statement. Libraries are struggling to find their footing in the realm of marketing their services, we do not need to redirect energy into marketing personalities, unless that effort is directly tied into supporting the libraries mission.

Perhaps a little bit of clarification of my perspective on the issue of marketing versus public relations will help other understand where I am coming from. I think what Greg and some of the others are really talking about is librarians becoming active public relations ambassadors and not really marketing. If you are marketing something you are trying to sell it or get people to use it. If you are doing the public relations things, you are trying to get people to think positively about you, to develop goodwill when they think of an individual or institution. Now if librarians are going to “market” themselves, the still need to have a library (academic, public, law, medical, special or corporate) behind them. How else are they going to give any service or have anything to market?

Now is there a time that I could see marketing the profession of librarian itself? Yes.

Now I may be totally off the mark here, but I am trying to understand, so thank you for putting up with me!

From the Marrian-Webster Online Dictionary

librarian

Main Entry: li·brar·i·an

Pronunciation: \lī-ˈbrer-ē-ən, -ˈbre-rē-\

Function: noun

Date:1 671

: a specialist in the care or management of a library

— li·brar·i·an·ship \-ˌship\ noun

Evolving Solutions

A few days ago I wrote a post where I lambasted librarians and libraries in general about not taking risks (this was part of the committee rant). I would like to briefly continue this train of thought here and perhaps offer you a different way to think about developing solutions within the library world.

Evolution!

No matter where you stand on the issues of the origins of the species, I think we can all see that, at the very least, manmade things do change over time (can you say Internet). This is call evolution. Most manmade things do not strike out on their own and decide to reinvent themselves. They require input from those that interact with them or those who are knowledgeable enough to modify them to suit their needs or the needs of others. I am sure all of you out there in library land have witnessed the demands of your job evolving over time.

Now if we can accept the fact that evolution does occur in the above fashion, we can also agree to apply the concept of evolution to the services libraries offer their customers/patrons. I hope we can anyway.

Design – Develop – Test – Deploy – Evaluate – Redesign – Do it again – and again

Above is my mantra for website and software development. Too many organizations, people and yes libraries seem to get stuck in the design stage. They so badly want to get things “right” the first time, they never make it to the deployment stage.

Take a deep breath and deploy the damn thing! Set a deployment date (make it reasonable) and deploy on that date what you have accomplished, then let the service or product evolve over time. You will learn so much more by putting it out there than you will by keeping it hidden while you search for perfection.

Not going to make your launch date? Then scale back the product and make the date with what you have ready to go. The important thing here is to get projects out the door and into the real world while accepting that it may not be perfect or “finished.”

You can do it, it is okay, I give you permission to make glorious messes and failures. That’s what we call life!

Marketing Libraries

Why not? Why do so many libraries and librarians seem genetically disinclined to promote themselves?

Being an “accidental librarian” (I know I use that a lot, but what else works) and coming form a marketing and business background, I am completely baffled by this attitude. Libraries sit around with their hat in their hands, giving weak smiles to passer-bys hoping to receive a little support or appreciation. Bah!

These days even the U.S. Government is marketing its’ services, especially online services, while businesses, non-profits and other institutions are shamelessly letting the world know what they are doing, through multi-channel aggressive marketing campaigns. I think it is time for libraries to get off their duffs and do the same thing.

While we may bemoan the competition we now face for our customer’s attention (whine! Google is evil), we must move away from our historical passive stance as institutions if we are to retain our support infrastructure and remain relevant in the modern world. We should be loud and proud of our profession, our libraries and let the world know it!

My (short) Life with Kindle…

I may have to have my appearance changed after this blog post, but I am going to risk it.

I love the Amazon Kindle!

Yes it has its issues, but I would love to have one, right now (stamps feet and throws fit)! I have been using a Kindle that our library purchased for evaluation (I am the New & Emerging Technologies Librarian, it’s a hard job I tell ya!). The Kindle does have an evil side; it would swallow my bank account since it is so easy to download books. In just over a week I went through four books and if the accounting office had not cut me off, I would be almost finished with my fifth one. So now it is time to share my experiences with you.

There are problems with this first version of the kindle, but most of them are easy to live with. To keep this review simple I will just try to list the pro and con’s of this latest e-book. Her it goes:

Cons:

1. The damn thing costs too much! You will have to lay out $400 bucks to get one.
2. The availability sucks. These have been hard to get hold of almost since day one.
3. You are tied to the Amazon Kindle service for the life of the product. You will have to hope that they stay in business and continue to support the product.
4. You cannot transfer titles you have purchased to other devices. They remain on your Kindle or on the Amazon server if your Kindle storage is full.
5. Apparently they have told libraries NO! about lending out Kindles.
6. Does not have a backlight. This saves battery life, but severely limits its’ use as a portable device in low light situations. It would not need to be on all the time.
7. Graphics are so, so. It has some neat “screen” saves that are fun.
8. Diagrams and code, yes I downloaded books with code in them since I am such a geek, do not enlarge with the text size. They come across every small and hard to read.
9. Pretty much both sides of the device have active edges. This makes it very easy to accidentally “turn” the page. Keep it in the cover and this problem is reduced.
10. There is an annoying page “flash” every time you “turn” a page.
11. The lack of real page numbers is a pain. The location system that is used is easy to understand but not so easy to remember what location you where at (five digit numbers).
12. Skipping a large number of pages requires that you use the built-in key board or hit the next/previous page button till you go nuts.
13. Not every book ever written is available… yet! But there is more than 150K books available right now. Magazines are a bit under represented here as well.
14. Fill in your thoughts here…

Pros:

1. It is amazing easy to learn how to use. After about 10 minutes or less I was into my first book and navigating around the interface.
2. The manual is on board. So you always have it close to hand.
3. It is VERY easy to find and download books. The book store has an interface that is almost exactly like the very familiar Amazon online interface.
4. It has built in wireless that connects in places that do not have WiFi. Journeying from Wisconsin to Washington D.C. there where no spots that I could not get access to the online store.
5. Books download very quickly!
6. It holds lots and lots of books. Something like 200, I have heard, but not test. And if you have more titles than you have space, they are conveniently stored on the Amazon server for you.
7. It has a memory expansion slot.
8. The battery lasts a really long time.
9. The clarity of the text is great.
10. You can change text size, but not font or color, very quickly. Largest size is equivalent to any large print book.
11. While there can be screen glare from external light sources the Kindle display does not fade out in bright sunlight.
12. Moving from page to page is fast and easy.
13. It remembers that last page you where viewing, so you don’t have to search for your spot.
14. You can place electronic bookmarks so you don’t loose your place. This is helpful if multiple people are using the device and reading the same book.
15. You can place neat little “highlight” boxes around text.
16. You can insert notes anywhere you want. This feature put writing in the margins to shame and shame on you if you have been writing in the margins anyway!
17. You can save pages as “clippings” in a separate folder. That way you don’t have to go back to the actual book and try to find the page you wanted. Just go to your clippings and there it is.
18. It has a built in dictionary. This really works well.
19. You can download a sample of a book and check it out before you buy.
20. Although not tested by me apparently you can also do audio books on the Kindle.
21. Fill in your thought here…

So who should buy a Kindle?

If you travel and love to read, you should have a Kindle. If you love to read a lot of books that you never want to keep afterwards, do the planet a favor and buy a Kindle. If you’re a gadget junkie, you should have a Kindle. If you only read computer manuals with lots of diagrams and code in them, then the Kindle is not for you… yet.

Kindle and Libraries

I can see Kindles or similar devices playing a very active role in the future of libraries. These kinds of products would offer a level of access and availability that we just can not offer our patrons at this time. If we could offer a Kindle like service that was cost effective to our patrons, we would be in a win/win situation.

Final thoughts on the Kindle

I have really enjoyed my experience with the Kindle and hope to use it in the future. I plan on taking it with me to every conference I attend, on vacation and any other time I can sneak it out of the library. Yes, there are issues with the Kindle that need to be addressed, such as the active edges and the lack of a backlight for nighttime reading, but this a heck of a well designed first generation product. With some minor changes and if Amazon gets off it big butt and ups production numbers, the Kindle should claim its’ place in history and have a long happy life. It’s on my Christmas wish list this year.

The Amazon product review page is here.

The Truth

Okay here is the truth…

 

I have attempted personal blogs in the past, all of which have been well, frankly disasters. Why you may ask (you really didn’t ask and I know this, but)? Well frankly I am just not that good at talking about myself and the little minutia of my life. All my friends out there, especially in library land, can now stop laughing at me.

 

So here I am again filled with good intentions and ready to pollute the blogosphere with what ever pours out of my dirty little mind. Well not really, while I may post some vaguely personal things here now again, I am hoping to use this as a more professional blog. Not to professional of a start, you say? Get over it!

 

What’s my profession? Well I am sort of a librarian, but not by training (and my disposition is under question as well). My high and mighty title is: New and Emerging Technologies Librarian, at the La Crosse Public Library in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I started this new adventure/job November 1^st 2007 and it has been an interesting ride so far. I am sure that a job description existed as of last November, but it has become a distant memory, hazed by the realities of real/work life.

 

Well that’s enough for now I will be adding more “posts” (bring to mind the song “Don’t Fence Me In”) as time allows. Feel free to comment to your hearts desire or as much as your stomach will allow.

 

P.S. Any complaints about my grammar or content can be directed to the Wal-Mart Corporation.