The Librarian's Commute

Online Classes: The Current Dichotomy

2012-01-25T17:54:00.001-05:00

Enrollment in online classes is very healthy where I work. Enrollment in some of the traditional, on-campus classes is less so. I'm torn about this.

Not so long ago, I was a student trying to get through a master's program in a reasonable amount of time. From my student perspective, the available online courses were attractive because they offered convenience and flexibility. As a student, my priority was earning the degree rather than worrying about the quality of the courses. This was at least partially because I assumed it was the duty of the institution to ensure that the courses were meaningful regardless of format. Basically, I trusted Syracuse to take care of that side of things, and I was easily frustrated by anything I interpreted as an administrative hurdle.

Now as someone who works for a college, I see other perspectives about online courses. Those concerned with enrollment numbers view online courses as a boon; those concerned with student retention view the high attrition rates in online courses with horror. Faculty perspectives range. Some faculty assume that teaching online is easier and see it as a chance to put their feet up at their desks and ignore students whom they no longer have to deal with face-to-face. Then there are other faculty who spend more time on their online courses than they would on their traditional in-person ones -- mostly to take full advantage of the platform and to digitize their class materials. You can't always tell which type of professor you're getting when you sign up to take a class. At their best, online courses are more interactive, more immersive, and more comprehensive than traditional courses. At their worst, online courses permit more cheating, more laziness from both instructor and student, and more disengagement from the subject.

MIT's open courses have been in the news lately (see this Commentary from the Chronicle about MITx), and the venture seems like a promising direction for online courses. Online courses can be of high quality. The hard part will be to make high quality the norm.

Work Flow

2012-01-18T22:45:00.003-05:00

It is probably common at most jobs to have work that is distributed unevenly, meaning that it's very busy at some times and not so busy at others. The break between the fall and spring semesters is typically a quieter period on campus, at least as far as students and faculty are concerned. The winter intercession is usually a great time for planning and preparation. This year, however, I was barely able to catch my breath, and I completed only about half of what I set out to. Now classes are in session again, and I'm already scrambling. When it's busy, multiple people all need a librarian at exactly the same time, resulting in back-to-back instruction sessions all day, demand for a reference librarian at the service desk, on the phone, and on chat all day, and sudden interest from faculty to work on projects and initiatives. I can learn how to delay people, and I can learn how to schedule my time efficiently, but unfortunately I can't be in five places simultaneously.

Inevitably, this means I start work on projects during the slower periods, but they never quite move past the brainstorming and planning phase, and then I get swamped with more urgent things and forget about them until the next time it slows down.

Maybe there is nothing I can do about this, but on the other hand if there was an efficient way to bookmark my work to make it quick and easy to return to, I could make more progress during the slower times. Is there an app for this?

VALE Conference 2012

2012-01-10T18:53:00.002-05:00

Last Thursday I attended New Jersey's VALE Conference, and I wanted to mention a few things I'll be following up on that were directly inspired by my participation:

(1) A few semesters ago a faculty member approached me about getting the resource SciFinder Scholar for our library. Unfortunately we haven't figured out how to justify the expense. I believe it would be about ten thousand dollars for an institutional subscription, but pricing is not usually made public, and I don't see it on their web site. Two-year institutions are not their primary market, either. But after speaking with a science librarian at one of New Jersey's colleges, I now wonder if CAS might be able to work with us to find a solution that would provide some kind of introductory or neutered (also cheaper) version of SciFinder. It's worth investigating, at least.

(2) I'll be doing a presentation to faculty in a few weeks discussing assignments that the library has helped to support. I'd like to cover assignments from both inside the college and out, and at the conference I learned about a great assignment involving Wikipedia. It was being done at a 4-year college, but for first-year students, so I think it will be relevant.

(3) Every institution's library is unique, which is something I knew but which was illustrated starkly by the keynote speaker Brian Mathews, who has worked in several large research libraries. What this can mean for library space is that depending on the users there may be a need to have multiple zones. Although it's a bit obvious upon reflection, the idea that a traditional quiet reading room with comfortable lighting and a no-food policy could exist side by side, instead of competing with, a flashy high-tech collaborative space, was novel to me.

This was my fourth consecutive year attending this conference, and again I found it extremely rewarding. In fact, I've gotten so much out of it that I'm feeling obliged to give back in return. Assuming I do something worthwhile this year, I'd like to to submit a proposal to do a presentation in 2013. I've presented a poster at VALE before, but I've never done a presentation. I think many of the librarians who attend are required to present their work as part of their professional obligations, for tenure when they have faculty status and for administrative advancement when they do not. I do not have a requirement like this for my own position, but I hope I would be encouraged to present my work at VALE.

Looking Forward

2012-01-03T17:53:00.003-05:00

I'm planning on rounding off this year and then ending this blog. It's been a fun project, and I've enjoyed doing it, but there are a lot of reasons behind this decision.

For one, I need to rethink what this is and why I'm doing it. If the purpose is to regularly reflect on my work, there are other productive ways to do that without involving a public forum. If the purpose is to participate in the profession, again there are plenty of other meaningful ways to do so.

Another reason is that occasionally I want to write about something specific to my particular place of work, but I have no wish to create a problem. I'm no rogue employee; I'm part of a team. So there have been times when I felt disappointed because my writing was not entirely forthright. It's no secret where I work; I'm not anonymous. I'm even wincing a little as I type this, in case it implies there is something wrong with my institution. I don't mean to communicate that, and it's evidence of how strongly I support my library that I am so careful about how I represent it. But I'm weary of wrestling with this.

Also I notice some unwanted pessimism creeping into my writing. Maybe it's just the shiny newness of librarianship wearing off. But when I entered this profession I thought I was being practical, that the world needed librarians and that I would be a useful addition to the field. Now I'm starting to feel like a librarian is viewed as a luxury -- or worse, a trophy -- and that libraries and librarians are a privilege for a select few while the norm for most people is to slog away with google and make do with whatever is free online. I hate this. For me it is untenable to spend large numbers of my working hours defending what I do and justifying my position. I don't mind being assessed, and I don't mind regular performance reviews, but right now I feel I face constant questioning about whether my entire job is necessary, and there's nothing I can do to prove myself. Maybe it's the economy, but I can't believe other professions are facing such severe scrutiny. Believe me, I'm thrilled to have full time employment at all, and I'm not looking for personal praise or reassurance because I think the problem is profession-wide. But what kind of job is it when others regard you as pork fat, when they regard you at all?

Lastly, and most superficially, I'm tired of this platform. Rather than migrating somewhere new, I'd rather just finish this and start another blog somewhere else, if I decide to continue.

I'm not going anywhere yet, though! Here's to 2012!

***
Update 1/4/12: Anyone getting bummed out by this post should go read this and be inspired.

Here's to January

2011-12-31T16:22:00.005-05:00

I've posted a lot less this month than I wanted to, due to what seems like one illness after another. I'm hoping to be back in action again in January. In the meantime, there's a great New Yorker cartoon that is at once appropriate for the end of the year and relevant to libraries, at least from where I'm sitting. I don't think I can preview it here without upsetting Conde Naste, so here's the link.

Ultimately, You Can't Tell People How To Use Technology

2011-12-20T18:46:00.001-05:00

I've been mulling over a New Yorker piece by Malcolm Gladwell about Steve Jobs. It characterizes Jobs as someone who tinkered with products until they achieved what he considered perfection. And because he considered the finished products perfect, there was no need to allow others (i.e. users) to tinker with them further. Thus a lot of the devices that Jobs gets credit for are also strangely closed, or they would be if their maker had had his way.

I find this problematic on a number of levels.

First, I recently came across the phrase "If you can't modify it, it isn't yours" (in the comments section), and it resonates. It's very rare that a device (or a living space, or any object really) is so suited to its purpose that there is no desire for alteration. I would say that the best objects anticipate this, and flexibility is built into the design so that users can customize as needed. And maybe a lot of design problems could be prevented by focusing on the notion that the user directs the device rather than the other way around.

When I think about my use of Apple products, I give them a lot of credit for successfully anticipating what I want to do. When I got my own computer for the first time, a first-generation iMac, I was attracted to the idea that I could plug it in and do what I needed very simply. There were times the iMac wasn't perfect, but I was able to work around them. Even if iPhones are actually somewhat locked down technically, users feel free to customize them with apps.

Observing people at the library's public computers, I notice that they regularly disregard our attempts to explain how they can and cannot use the machines. They just try and do whatever they need to, wherever they sit down first and regardless of what the signs say.

Put simplistically, the technology that wins in the long run is the technology that works. If you try to get a device to do something and it tells you NO all the time, you've discovered a market for something better. In my experience, if I'm frustrated by technology, I know I am probably not the first to be irritated, and I know that someone more computer savvy than I am has probably found or made a solution. Or they're about to.

That there are so few perfect tools is magnified by modern technology. When something becomes available for purchase, download, or installation, its users -- connected to each other & frequently collaborating -- instantly take over and make it work for them. This makes it surprising that we're willing to mythologize one single person in this process. It also makes it surprising that we're attempting to build durable electronic libraries while everything is still so untried.

The False Economy of E-Textbooks

2011-12-08T18:56:00.002-05:00

It's time for another round of coordinating the library's textbooks-on-reserve service here. Every semester I look to see if we're any closer to moving away from the print -- I keep seeing various news stories about the impending dominance of the electronic versions. I notice that our school book store is increasingly promoting the online versions too. On the supply side, things do seem to be heading in that direction. The message to students seems to be all about saving money, which I could see being very persuasive at the community college. In the long run, however, I have to wonder if there is truly a cost saving.

First, there is the issue of portability. Online classes aside, if everyone taking classes had a tablet or a laptop, the electronic version might (might!) rival the print version. But not everyone does, and not all classrooms have computers. Even the number of public computers available on campus seems to be shrinking. The resulting level of inconvenience should be apparent to anyone.

Then there is the issue of durability, both of the book and the book's content. An online textbook might not face the same risk of damage or loss as a printed one, but switching access on and off depending on whether a bill has been paid doesn't seem wonderful either. Plus let's not forget Penguin's recent maneuvers or Amazon's remote deletion of the Orwell books a couple of years ago.

Also I wonder about content retention after students no longer have access to the book (i.e after their temporary access expires). I know people like to imagine they are in control of their computing and could hack into ebooks to copy and keep them forever, but actually the trend in computing seems to be moving away from that, thanks largely to smart phones.It seems like if you wanted to review something after the class ended, you would need to make another purchase. (Or heck, I don't know; maybe students will be savvy enough to print out the entire books when they do have the access.)

As far as the publishing business goes, e-textbooks in their current form seem like a great deal. The pesky used market is effectively eliminated, access to student customers is newly unconstrained, and there's a captive audience if professors make the texts mandatory. The question is, will consumers bite?

Splintering Collections

2011-11-30T18:13:00.013-05:00

Recently I learned that one of our academic departments purchases special access to an expensive database that the library also buys. This duplicates holdings, obviously, and the library is now on the verge of losing the database. The other department seems willing to pay for it on an ongoing basis.

I'm having trouble formulating an argument for why this scenario shouldn't repeat itself in the future. It might very well be cheaper for each academic department to subscribe to a resource when its students need access, instead of the library signing up for a college-wide subscription. It is a neat budget-saving trick. It may bring producers of specialized content one step closer to their primary audiences. However, it completely cuts out the library and the idea of a shared, general collection accessible to all.

And frankly, it is a negative consequence of accountability: Rather than appeal to the institution and the library's stretched purse, it might seem less of a hassle for departments that need specialized resources to absorb them into their own budgets. (If it meant that library money was freed for other things, I might feel better, but it doesn't.)

I'm sure not all departments will have the money or the willingness to tackle this type of shared resources model, however. Perhaps the healthiest reaction is to incorporate it into the modern, multifarious collections environment.

Hard to Want It Online Until You Know You Need It

2011-11-21T10:05:00.001-05:00

With some regularity, I find myself saying cheerily to students, "It used to be in print, but now it's online."

And just last week it dawned on me that they might think I'm talking about the free web.

Nope; I'm talking about subscription periodicals and books -- the library is still buying them, but they're online.

And then I realized we may have shot ourselves in the foot here, because a lot of the library's online subscriptions may as well be invisible now that they are exclusively web-based. Invisible, that is, until someone identifies a need for them and thinks to wonder if they are available on the computer -- a process and a step beyond many of the first year students I work with, I'm afraid. It takes being aware of the existence of scholarly books on a broad range of subjects to imagine that those same books could be accessible through a computer. At the community college, I'm pretty sure most students have little idea of the breadth of scholarship that's out there. I couldn't say precisely when I started to comprehend it either, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with walking through rows and rows and rows and rows of books on particular subjects.

Now that the community who previously relied on those rows and rows and rows and rows of books is happily whittling them down to just the core texts to keep in print, it should be time to celebrate that everything is online. But everything can be nothing if you don't already know it's there.

Anecdotes from Textbook Reserves

2011-11-07T21:35:00.002-05:00

While I was away, there were a few developments with the textbooks on reserve project. I thought they were worth mentioning here.

First, I won't be presenting or writing formally about the project anytime soon. This makes me a bit sad, as I like to spread the good news in libraryland. But I'm not sure what we could say. We have no budget and little administrative backing (gratitude is a different matter). It seems like the participating businesses could change their minds tomorrow, and the service would be over. It is clearly unsustainable the way it is, plus everywhere I look I see evidence of a sea change as course materials go online.

In fact, a common refrain from students using the textbooks is "Why can't I download this online, for free?" This is a good illustration of the tendency among students to equate online with gratis, and although I don't see it happening, especially under the purview of textbook publishers, the expectation is there, and they may at least get half of what they wish for at some point soon.

Another trend is that students taking online classes expect support from our physical library. Most recently, a student living in Camden and taking a class online expected the book at our Camden campus location. We have a sharing agreement with Rutgers Camden, but the Blackwood campus is the primary location for the college, and we did have the book at the Blackwood library. This was apparently insufficient for the student. I should figure out how to capture this as data -- it would be interesting to have numbers showing how much we are supporting the online classes.

We've also had a couple of thefts, one where it seemed the person walked straight through the security gates. What's that saying in libraryland, about how stolen books are the highest praise for your collection?

But as the end of the semester approaches, overall I'm still satisfied that we're providing a popular service to the college community.

Why Should Our Taxes Go to a Public Library ...

2011-11-03T09:33:00.001-04:00

... when we can just pay Amazon directly instead?

At least, that's what I anticipate will be the reaction.

Of course, Amazon has a ready-made population of e-book enthusiasts who are using kindles. And public libraries do lend e-books, but not all of their patrons know about them or use them.

But all hail Amazon. A lending library, what an original idea.

Sorry if this sounds snarky; it's getting toward the end of the week here.

(Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of Amazon & use it a lot, although I don't have a kindle.)

Back to Work, and Looking Forward to ...

2011-10-31T18:00:00.013-04:00

Wow do I have a lot to do!

First, I'm glad to have been invited to participate in the college's Curriculum Committee. I've missed the first several meetings of the semester, and the next one is in December, but I'm looking forward to being a member.

It sounds like I'll also be more involved with a college-wide information literacy plan, which currently doesn't exist. No doubt it will be a lot of work, and I think there will inevitably be many pieces to it, but it's important and necessary right now. (Even if we only call it "the information literacy plan" internally. It might as well be a code name when it comes to what those words mean to the rest of the college.) In the immediate present I've been focusing on one chunk of the plan, teaching. I have jumped right back into library instruction, which I always find simultaneously invigorating, satisfying, and exhausting.

Lastly, with the introduction of a new library director we're experimenting with a new service model and layout in the library. The reference desk has been moved & is staffed continuously, reliant on a complicated, ever-changing schedule of librarian availability. The leisure reading area has moved to where the reference area used to be, and we're looking forward to a cafe and new furniture (!)

Time to roll up the sleeves and jump right in!

All That Glitters

2011-10-06T12:30:00.002-04:00

I continue to be on leave but am looking forward to being back soon!

As I've been out of libraryland for the past months, I now see something more clearly in light of my own media consumption habits. Traditional library collections, which are inevitably limited by space, expertise, and resources, are being supplanted by portable personal libraries, and at present this is to the advantage of business but to the disadvantage of the public.

For certain [better-off] individuals, the new collection model is a dream come true -- free from historical constraints, it's within reach to have access to a mind-bogglingly vast personal collection with you at all times. Then again, this collection is probably not free, it can be hard to manage, and time will tell how durable it is.

Even when librarians are savvy about collecting electronic materials, the content may still be invisible due to a lack of awareness of libraries doing this. So the process has to start again -- we have to re-invent the idea of a shared library for a group of people with similar interests. This library will look very different -- heck, it might be almost unrecognizable -- but there is definitely utility and need for it.

---

P.S. There is a nice post about e-books and access over at Attempting Elegance that succinctly says what I've tried to in various posts.

Notes from Leave

2011-08-26T13:53:00.000-04:00

I'm still on leave, but I wanted to write up some of the ideas that have been knocking around my head recently:

Libraries traditionally operated according to certain physical constraints, in that they needed, along with book sellers and publishers, to categorize primarily printed materials. Electronic materials don't necessarily have to abide by the same constraints, in that you should be able to invest minimal organization into web-based materials yet successfully retrieve them with a keystroke. Unfortunately (?) we live in a polyglot world of information where web-based materials are still only one piece of the whole, and universal standards for them are lacking. I hope it becomes more widely recognized that librarians have been doing what needs to be done for the web since before the web was around.

Part of the mission of community colleges is to provide access to higher education. I've started to worry whether we are doing a disservice to community college students, and to anyone unfamiliar with higher education, by removing physical experiences. For example, a traditional classroom means more than showing up and listening to a lecture. Among other things, it is also learning about how to behave in a meaningful, considerate, mature way in a group. These things are different in an online environment. When students enter the workplace, it will certainly be beneficial if they understand how to behave online. Yet they also need to be able to respect each other and work as a team. Another example is with e-books. The assumption is that community college students are computer-savvy, but the reality is that they may be barely computer literate outside of facebook and their cell phone's texting plan. It's not only the library that requires students to use a computer to complete tasks, but demand for e-books is often a result of using printed books. The advantages (and existence) of e-books may not be clear to a community college's incoming freshmen.

I'm very interested in the cultural meaning of books, and the abstract attachment people have to what books represent. In Western history, books are a consequence of improvements in literacy and technology. Books are proof of our culture's intellectual activity, but they are not the only possible form that intellectual activity can take. This last is why I sometimes find my own and other people's attachment to books a bit irrational in the face of serviceable technology-based alternatives. I really like books, but it's safe to say that their scope is limited compared to what they were originally designed to do. Yet their elevated societal status continues.

Wisdom of the Crowds / Refereeing Soccer

2011-07-21T13:45:00.000-04:00

The Women's World Cup ended on Sunday (disappointingly for the U.S. is all I'll say), and while watching the games I realized that stadium sports are a simplified illustration of the potential strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourcing. Here's what I mean:

The elements at play are the athletes on the field who are following a set of established rules, the referees who are there to objectively enforce those rules, and the spectators who attend the event to watch. Besides entertainment, the main point of being a spectator is to support a team. There are many more spectators than referees watching any given game, yet the referees are the only people with authority to influence the direction of the proceedings. When a handball occurs in soccer, for example, it may as well not have happened if the referee didn't see it. Some fans may witness the offense the very instant it happens, but the referee is the only one designated as neutral enough to penalize the player.

I actually worked as a soccer referee for a summer in college, and apart from a few hostile parents and coaches, I had a blast. As a former player, I loved being so close to the game, and I enjoyed understanding the rules inside and out. (I would have continued, but it was hard to start up again in the state I moved to after college.)

This would never happen due to obvious practical considerations, but what if there were no referees, and officiating was done by the spectators in the stadium? Would bias be canceled out by those who wanted to see a fair game, or would everyone side with the team they supported?

The web at large has taken the form of a giant unrefereed sporting event. In some instances, there are referee-types of roles, with authority to regulate, but most often the model is that the crowd dominates, whether it be through comments, views, links, or generated content such as Wikipedia articles. When it works, it's great -- so great that it's easy to forget about why referees were ever needed in the first place.

Librarians are a type of referee. Academic librarians are not only knowledgeable about the hows, whys, and wheres of normative academic information, but they filter what's relevant and irrelevant for their specific patron group. The question is, when faced with an information world so often without referees, will people remember why librarians are useful?

A Pause

2011-06-09T14:42:00.000-04:00

It's time to acknowledge that I've dropped the ball here recently. This is due to a lot of changes, both professional and personal.

At work, the ground seems to shift in a new direction every week. Many and various adjustments and rearrangements are going on at the state and county level, as well as at the college. It's been difficult to know where I should be focusing my energies, so I've been spending a lot of time working on the textbooks project in preparation for the fall semester. It still requires a lot of care and feeding, but it doesn't make for thrilling narration.

In addition, starting at the end of next week I'll officially be on leave for a little while. This is not because of anything bad (on the contrary!), but I'd rather not write about it here ("libraries, technology, and higher education," remember?).

So starting now, I don't expect to post as regularly until I'm back at work.

Technology for Pleasure, Technology for Work

2011-05-30T17:09:00.002-04:00

These days I'm interacting with a computer during almost all of my working hours. Even in meetings, there is usually at least a smart phone at hand, and this comes in addition to computers in my office, at the reference desk, & when teaching in the computer classroom. Maybe this is why when I am not at work I now tend to avoid computers. Computers have become associated with my job, and only when not at my job do I feel free not to be at a computer.

There are a few reasons why I bring this up. First, I always try to use my time at work productively, and I tend to scrutinize my behavior to that end. However, I've noticed that simply using a computer -- even in ways not obviously related to my job, such as reading a New York Times article -- frequently has a positive impact on my performance, be it when supporting a technical problem or explaining the difference between a wikipedia article and a Britannica article to a class.

Secondly, I seem to be losing the component of fun in my relationship to computers. Part of what used to make technology interesting to me -- its potential for teaching and learning in uniquely challenging and entertaining ways -- has morphed into something different, in that now I think of technology in the limited context of productivity and efficiency.

I find it really easy to forget that not everyone has such ready and continuous access to computers, and that the students I interact with are often still mainly interested in technology for fun activities like communicating with friends. But it's frequently this spirit of play that drives widespread adoption of a technology, rather workplace productivity.

For instance, last semester the library's instant messaging account was friended by someone who now regularly writes short stories to us. While some of the librarians find this less charming than I do, I'm glad to cultivate this type of connection. It's hard to put my finger on why (could it be something to do with exploring the possibilities and limitations of the tool?), but in the scheme of technology-centered interactions, this one seems more interesting and meaningful than those involving merely mechanics.

Starting the Summer

2011-05-17T10:35:00.000-04:00

It's between semesters right now, as Commencement is on Saturday and the summer sessions don't begin until the following Monday. Usually this is a good time to play catch-up, take a breather, and plan for the future.

However, due to a budgeting miscommunication we're suddenly having to make large cuts to our subscription databases; we should have a new Library Director by the end of June; and there are several staff absences on the horizon. Variables like these tend to make planning difficult.

Begin side note / In one episode of the TV show Parks and Recreation, the main character Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, faces losing her job as a consequence of cuts in local government funding. Despite being thoroughly apathetic about their department, Knope's boss Ron Swanson ends up coming to her defense. His own job is secure because he is seen as someone who keeps costs down, compared to the exuberant Knope who continually has a new project or improvement in mind. Here's my point (finally): Sometimes I feel like Leslie Knope, in that I'm constantly having to be told no. Which I understand, I really do. This is a horrible economic climate for any department to be asking for resources. So we keep plugging along as usual, doing our best despite myriad limitations in time and money. (And now serious cuts, which I already mentioned.) On bad days, this makes me frustrated and sad; on the good days I'm motivated to face the challenges and keep fighting the good fight. / End side note

So rather than focusing on the long-term, I'm working on the short: I'm starting to get the reserves textbook collection in order for the fall, I'm trying to resolve some ongoing computer issues, and I'm putting together the library's faculty newsletter.

Next week the college switches to a 4-day workweek. It's a good time to transition to summer.

Outsourcing our Brains?

2011-05-09T11:33:00.000-04:00

As it becomes more socially acceptable to halt a conversation to look something up on a smartphone, I wonder what is happening to our memories. Memorization of everyday facts doesn't seem to get a lot of respect these days, compared to a person with an iPhone.

Outsourcing our memories to machines is unlikely to stop anytime soon, but it will be interesting to see how other professions besides librarianship change in the coming years. Would you trust a physician who relies on an electronic device to remember standard diagnoses and dosages, for example? What about a researcher who can't spell? Reference librarians hardly do any work that involves looking up routine facts; increasingly we have shifted to assist more with informational processes related to comprehension, analysis, and integration.

Even if computers can beat us in the memory arena, the skill is still a measure of human intelligence. Unfortunately this is only obvious when when we are offline and disconnected, which is a decreasing amount of the time. But what makes us smarter than the machines we have created? We tend to change what we mean by intelligence in order to feel smarter than the machines, but there is less and less that machines don't 'know.' Here I'm echoing thoughts from a recent New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik:

"We have been outsourcing our intelligence, and our humanity, to machines for centuries. They have long been faster, bigger, tougher, more deadly. Now they are much quicker at calculation and infinitely more adept at memory than we have ever been. And so now we decide that memory and calculation are not really part of mind. ... We place the communicative element of language above the propositional and argumentative element, not because it matters more but because it's all that's left to us." [my bold]

Or maybe this is all wrong, and it's most accurate to say that our memories have been technologically enhanced in order to compensate for the increased quantity and availability of digital information. Machines may assist us, but we will continue to rely on our analog brains for the type of information -- even dry, fact-based information -- that we use every day at work and home. This is still quicker, at least until we embed microchips in our heads. But memorizing the type of information we don't access regularly, just for the sake of it, is less and less necessary. Fair enough?

The Current Collection and Services

2011-04-29T13:42:00.003-04:00

Thanks flickr. This photo displays *much* better than when I try to use blogger.

Let me begin by saying that our library's collection of printed books is increasingly out-of-date and shrinking. Printed books, once perhaps the primary focus of library collections, have for a number of years been demoted to just one of many available types of media. The Internet is not entirely to blame -- even before electronic collections hit their heyday, printed books faced stiff competition for dollars from periodicals. (Although, come to think of it, was electronic access to journals partly to blame for the disproportionate rise in periodical subscription costs?)

Unfortunately, a certain segment of our student population is not particularly sophisticated academically or technologically. And for these students, the easiest gateway to learning to use the library is through printed books. I think this is why plenty of instructors specifically assign students to use printed books. Invariably, these students reject our selection of e-books because they see them as too complicated or equivalent to the Internet, which their instructors warned them away from. This is a pity, particularly in light of the wealth of academic e-book titles we have available through ebrary, but it's not always something librarians can correct, no matter how gently or persistently we try.

I feel I'm swimming against the tide when I try to make the case that printed books are still important to our users. And I do understand that at a commuter school where enrollment for online classes is growing, off-campus access must be a priority. The climate is not right to advocate for allocating more money to improve and increase the size of our printed book collection.

There is a company advertising on NPR right now with the slogan "People when you want them, technology when you don't," and I think that captures what we are struggling with. We try to staff a physical reference desk in addition to providing chat (instant messaging), phone, email, and SMS (text messaging) reference services, as well as providing largely unmediated web resources such as LibGuides, LibAnswers, and a vibrant library web page -- not to mention library presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Similarly, we try to have a physical library with books and DVDs and even archives of certain printed periodicals, while also collecting e-books, streaming media, and of course online subscriptions to journals. But rather than building a coherent collection, sometimes it feels like we are just being spread thinner and thinner -- our printed books are all old in one area because we subscribe to a great e-book collection in the same discipline; the streaming media fails when there is not enough bandwidth; we have foreign language dictionaries online but not in print for the student who wants to take one to a test; our e-books can't be used outside of our system or borrowed on interlibrary loan, etc. etc. etc.

Of course, we usually only hear about the problems rather than the successes, and it's possible our library is serving the majority of patrons admirably. And I don't really have a solution to offer, except that perhaps we should be treating this as a difficult balancing act rather than irreversibly prioritizing one type of media, format, or access point over another.

Future Projects

2011-04-22T16:43:00.000-04:00

yellow viola / wild pansy

I've been mulling over a few ideas I picked up at ACRL, and as a result there are some projects I'd like to pursue as part of my job over the next year or two:

-More outreach to college staff. I'm coming to realize that here at the community college, staff members have more research needs than faculty. Staff members are frequently working on second degrees (often in education / public administration / management) or are working on projects that should be backed by credible research. I think we could be doing more to support these activities, and simultaneously we could be establishing a home-grown base of loyal library patrons.

-Learning Commons done well. We expect to hire a new library director in the next few months, and I hope at that point we'll take the reins on transitioning toward a more fully integrated learning commons. I know these types of changes can create tension, but when they are done well they improve not only the institution but the library and library services.

-More Reserves. As I'm in charge of library reserves, I'd really like to expand the collection from just textbooks to technology that would be useful to our students. Of course, that immediately begs the question of how to fund such technology. But maybe this is not an insurmountable obstacle; after all, we didn't have any money for a textbook collection either, and we got that done. This might fit with some of the college IT department's priorities, and I can't imagine it wouldn't be popular; the trick would be to make the service manageable.
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In other news, for some reason blogger is making my photographs look particularly bad lately. I understand I'm no Tartine Gourmande, but my botanical images look crisp and clear all the way until I upload them here; this week is no exception. So I may just stop doing this for a while until I figure out why it's happening.

ACRL Part 2

2011-04-15T16:27:00.000-04:00

Viola, in the grass

I finally got around to sorting through my notes and reviewing what I did at ACRL. Instead of dragging readers through a detailed play-by-play, I'll just make a few points here:

Many events I hoped to attend were scheduled simultaneously, and I was disappointed not to be able to do everything I wanted to. This may have been inevitable at a highly relevant conference like ACRL, as opposed to a conference with fewer events targeted at academic libraries. In any case, I now really appreciate the existence of the Virtual Conference, which I'm just starting to explore. It sounds like I will be able to catch some of the things I missed this way. I hope the Virtual Conference continues to be active during the summer when things slow down a little at the college.

Sarah Faye Cohen over at The Sheck Spot put it well when she said of ACRL: "I heard an awful lot of the same talk as I've heard before" and "I feel like those are the same talks we've been having on blogs, in articles, and at conferences for years." This was my first time attending an ACRL conference, and to be honest I thought I would encounter more that was new to me. Particularly working at a community college, my reaction at professional events is often 'ack, there's so much we should be doing that we need to catch up with!' -- but not this time. While I was inspired and motivated, I didn't have any huge revelations.

Along similar lines, I thought some of the ideas presented could have been very satisfactory blog posts rather than events at a national conference. However, I do understand, and I can report from personal experience, that a blog post does not typically generate as much fanfare or professional accolades as presenting a paper on a stage as large as ACRL's. When testing a hypothesis was carefully planned around a project (rather than analyzing a project upon completion, which results in more of a report); when literature was thoroughly reviewed and methodological questions were anticipated; and when ideas had the potential to be applied beyond one single library or institution, the resulting presentation at ACRL was impressive. And there were plenty of presentations of this caliber, but to be honest I thought they all would be that good. At certain events I expected better.

I'm sorry if all this doesn't sound as upbeat as my posts about ALA in Chicago in 2009 (found here, here and here), but to be honest my expectations were a little higher for ACRL. I definitely found the conference valuable, though, and will do my best to attend again.

ACRL Part 1

2011-04-09T10:04:00.001-04:00

cherry tree, blooming on campus

I'm still organizing my thoughts and notes from ACRL, and I'll try to have a summary here next week.

In the meantime I wanted to comment that I was glad to participate in a conference where attendees shared such a deep sense of mission and relevance. One of the things I worry about constantly at the community college is whether the library is still relevant to campus (and off-campus, in the case of students taking online classes) life, but there was no question of this at ACRL. Participants and presenters all displayed a vibrancy and engagement that was refreshing. It's true there was the usual talk of the changing needs of our patrons, but academic libraries seem to be working to meet those needs, figuring out how to best support them, rather than blandly accepting marginalization and obsolescence. This was consistent across a range of topics, from access to collections and information literacy to supporting traditional and non-traditional scholarship. I was glad to be in there.

ACRL & Community Colleges

2011-03-30T15:04:00.003-04:00

I am thrilled to be attending the ACRL Conference in Philadelphia for the first time this year. I'll be there all day Thursday and Friday.

However, as I peruse the schedule and look at the affiliations of the presenters (listed in the January issue of College & Research Libraries News), I count only two community colleges. Subsequent editions of the schedule may have brought changes*, but I doubt that number has altered substantially. The bulk of the presenters are from four-year colleges and universities.

So kudos to the librarians at Cleveland State Community College and the Borough of Manhattan Community College, but where are the rest of us? Are we not as smart as the college and university librarians? Were all of our proposals rejected? Or did we not write any proposals, because our abilities to find funding to attend the conference are so bleak? Will I see us at the poster sessions? Also worrisome is the fact that I don't even see any panel sessions where a community college collaborated with a university/college. Does this imply utter disconnect?

A consequence of this under-representation is that community colleges are in the position of following rather than leading. I struggle to understand how this benefits them.

Community colleges are unique in many ways. As teaching institutions, community college faculty are not held to the same publishing expectations as elsewhere, and this is equally true for community college librarians. Without incentive, community colleges do not typically pursue monies to fund research, so community college librarians rarely get to contribute to ground-breaking, highly-publicized projects. Also, the open door policy of most community colleges means that remediation is a constant issue, along with the shifting sands of local, state, and federal support.

At the same time, community and junior colleges are undeniably a significant part of the higher education landscape in this country, and any organization that aims to "serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching, and research" has an obligation to include them.

I must be missing something, right?

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* Looking at the copy of the program I received at the conference, I now count an additional 2 panel sessions, both involving collaboration with colleges & universities. I also count 5 roundtable discussions, 1 unconference event, and 3 poster sessions hosted by community colleges. This perhaps makes our numbers a bit more respectable, but they are still low.

The Latest on the Textbook Reserves Project

2011-03-28T12:40:00.000-04:00

forsythia, near the physical plant

Having textbooks available on reserve continues to be a wildly popular service. It really gets students into the library, which in itself is an accomplishment in light of an item I discussed a few weeks ago -- the fact that at a commuter college students don't necessarily come to the building, unless they must for an assignment. This semester we were also able to expand the service to include all three college library locations. Even when we aren't able to get copies of the textbook for every campus where a class is offered, it's been useful to extend the possibility. Here are some other observations from the semester so far:

-I still don't entirely understand the publishers' policy of providing desk copies. As a whole, the publishers' representatives are really nice to work with -- in particular, certain individuals at Cengage, Pearson, McGraw and Wiley. Providing an extra copy of the book to faculty is common practice, so this easily extends to the library. But I have to wonder, is there internal research showing that when a student has temporary access to a book he/she is more likely to subsequently purchase it? I wouldn't be surprised if there was; I remember being a student short on funds, but it would never have been sufficient to use a library copy of a required textbook for the duration of the class.

-For the past two semesters, we used a survey to collect feedback from students who were using the textbooks on reserve. A frequent response to a question about how to improve the service was the desire to access the textbook online. When I created the survey, I added this option out of curiosity rather than because I thought it would truly appeal to most students. But if the feedback is accurate, and if online access to textbooks is a highly desired feature for our student population, the next thing the library could be doing is working with the publishers to arrange institutional subscriptions and access to the the textbooks through the college's online course management system.

-Another interesting occurrence is that students in online courses have come to the library expecting us to have a textbook unique to the online course. I think most people (including administrators) assume that students taking an online course will not expect physical, in-person services from the college, but this demonstrates the opposite. The fact that it has happened more than once may reflect certain things about our college's population of students taking online courses: That they are local residents; that they are taking other classes on the campus, or come to campus frequently despite not being required to; and/or that they expect a hybrid environment even when their classroom is entirely online.

Appropriation of Research

2011-03-18T12:11:00.001-04:00

crocus, blooming in the woods

I've found myself annoyed lately by certain information labeled research. Lots of this so-called research seems very questionable, and possibly corrupted by money and special interests, yet giving it the name research lends it an air of authority. True scientific research, on the other hand, is typically difficult. It is rarely able to prove something conclusively and is honest about its limitations. In the face of confirmation bias or blindness caused by over-specialization, it is hard enough to test a hypothesis fairly without vested interests pushing one way or another.

The problem is two-fold: There is misinterpretation of otherwise valid research, and there is research that receives the bulk of its funding from a non-objective third party and so has incentive to ask or avoid certain questions. Because valid research is often inaccessible to the general public behind paywalls, and because published research is not required to reveal the source of its funding, the entire issue largely goes unnoticed, unexamined, or ignored.

At best it is unflattering to those involved when research is used to score points in matters of popular persuasion. I'd rather not give specific examples, because in some cases the original researchers may have been well-intentioned, but it seems that nearly every day there is news of some partisan group or commercial entity seizing upon a Research Study as validation of its platform or product.

This may be because having an opinion, and arguing endlessly and blindly in support of it, is much easier than revealing objective, neutral truth through methodical research. I suppose it's possible for a researcher in higher education to remain untarnished by special interests, but it takes a lot of luck to repeatedly make high-profile, scientifically valid, and credible discoveries. Meanwhile, funding to support research is too often awarded to support someone's agenda.

Various in Libraryland

2011-03-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

twigs in a pattern, after storms

I have a bunch of short ideas hanging around, so I'm combining them into one post. Here goes:

-I wonder if at some point there will be a period of dust settling when people stroll into the library and wonder where all the books went. I get the feeling that folks who are not regular users expect things to be exactly the way they left them when they went to set up their new personal computers, as though libraries might be immune to budgetary pressures, not to mention the immediate mobile access mentality. As frustrated as I am by faculty who quaintly insist that their students come to the library and find some newspapers to photocopy, I also pity them. They will be the ones who understand what is lost when they eventually realize the library collection is now largely leased instead of purchased.

-I wish librarians had the same type of leverage that instructors do, in terms of requiring students to use the library. Librarians end up competing with all the other support services at the college even though we are distinctly different from, say, the financial aid office. Encouraging people to use the college library is a good thing to do, and most people intuitively understand this, but that message doesn't necessarily extend into the classroom unless it's incorporated into assignments. At a commuter college, a classroom is often the only thing students are coming to campus for. They're not coming to explore the college library, no matter how beneficial that may be. Students might wander through if they have a few spare hours between classes, but they just as easily might not. And many instructors seem intent on what I've heard called a trade school mentality, meaning that they do not encourage students to explore something that's not strictly part of a narrow curriculum of, say, how to use Microsoft Word.

-Another reason I like being a librarian is that I get to be intellectually curious but no longer have to go through the hassle of wondering where to find a source. I watch students who struggle with evaluating and synthesizing ideas even when a text is provided for them. Asking them to wander out into the vast information landscape and think carefully not only about the sources they do find but about their research process in general is a lot to bite off and chew in a few short weeks or at best the course of a semester. As a librarian, it's a privilege to finally be able to focus on the research aspect of the process.

Higher Ed: Another Financial Bubble?

2011-03-02T10:15:00.003-05:00

Skunk cabbage coming up in the woods. Ugly, but I'm always glad to see it.

I'm not trying to exaggerate the importance of higher education as an industry here -- if there is a bubble right now, and if it does burst, I doubt the ramifications will be as severe as with the housing crisis. However, several things have me a little concerned:

First is the emergence of for-profit institutions as a force in the higher education landscape. Recently there was a blog post in the New York Times discussing for-profit education with an optimistic angle. Commenters react with a range of opinions. Taken with the comments, I think the piece covers the major points of contention. The main one for me is the fate of students who graduate from for-profits, are unable to find jobs, and who default on their student loan obligations. If I understand correctly, for-profits generally charge more than comparable institutions, and most of that funding comes from student loans. As with mortgage lending, educational lending has in the past been considered a relatively safe form of debt, but what if large numbers of students start defaulting? In a way that echoes mortgage lending, loans have increasingly been offered to non-traditional borrowers. These students have often been lured into going to college with the promise of better jobs and greater incomes. On the relationship between steady employment and a college degree, I see correlation but not causation. We're about to find out which is the case.

Secondly but strongly related, nearly all degree-granting institutions rely heavily on the federal government for funding. It's true there are some private schools, and schools with big enough reputations and endowments, that could probably survive independently, but most would not. Recent signs from the U.S. government indicate that financial support for higher education will continue. Lately I've heard a lot of talk about investment in education as part of the national infrastructure. If higher education continues to be a prerogative for the national government and words are backed by financial support even if student loan defaults rise, maybe everything will be fine, but I have a sickening feeling that the current system relies too heavily on this single funding stream.

Lastly, a significant reason why the cost of college continues to rise is that funding from state and local governments has been declining for approximately 30 years. Funding from the national government now provides financial aid for students in a way that is almost impossible for any college to ignore. The debate in the United States about the appropriate role of government could easily lead to ever less spending on higher education. Unless tuition, alumni giving, and endowments rose, government-supported institutions would then have to shrink or close.

What does all this mean for the academic library? In a worst case scenario, a golden age of access to electronic resources is coming to an end. I can't imagine any institution wanting to maintain a print-centered collection in this day and age, yet with an increasing proportion of our collections leased rather than purchased we are now more dependent than ever on continued levels of funding. Future cuts would mean we would lose much more than with cuts in the past. It would be like switching off the light and letting the room go dark.
***
Update 12/12/11: There's a recent piece by James Surowiecki in the New Yorker that addresses this more elegantly than I have here.

When Technology Doesn't Do What It's Supposed To ...

2011-02-23T11:47:00.000-05:00

A bit more snow on Tuesday

This may be a common trope here, but for all the work I do teaching people how to use the library and how to find and get the materials they need, I also troubleshoot a lot of purely technology problems. I'm bringing this up again because I've modified my opinions: In the past I may have complained about having to support technology problems instead of library problems, but now I think we should be professionally embracing both. The word 'troubleshoot' brings to mind images of changing toner cartridges and checking power cords, but a lot of troubleshooting can be subtle and sophisticated and can require a certain amount of expertise.

For example, the cognitive process of finding the right keywords to search an academic database for a given topic can be really tricky for students accustomed to typing "when was prezidnt lincon shot?" into google and being matched with the correct answer.

Also, despite everyone's best efforts, many online interfaces are poorly designed and difficult to use. Savvy users will be able to overcome confusing web design, but many people -- even those who use computers and cell phones somewhat regularly -- are limited in their computer skills and have little understanding of how the underlying technology works.

In addition, when we support systems outside of the library -- such as the online materials attached to textbooks -- we increase our value to the institution as a whole. Often when a service is moved online, the expectation is that there will be no need for human mediation. When this proves false, librarians are often on the front lines of supporting services outside of our expertise. Instead of rejecting this role, why not expand outside of the library and become proficient in understanding the college's email and online course management systems?

We strengthen the profession when we can not only provide but demonstrate the value of human assistance with technology problems. There may be a day when this is no longer necessary, but I doubt it. And although I still occasionally catch myself asking "Is this the best use of my time?", I now see the library as a more holistic space, where a traditional reference question may intersect with an off-campus authentication question, and where I should be able to assist with both. When I can, it improves people's perceptions of the overall usefulness of librarians.

Weeding the Printed Books

2011-02-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

Book stacks on the 2nd floor

In recent weeks, because the library instruction room has been reserved for something else, I've been helping with a big weeding project. An entire floor of shelves needs to be looked over in order to make more room for group study tables. The experience has reminded me of several things about collection management:

Discarding books is difficult, in that it's time-consuming and brain-sucking, not to mention dusty work. It's the type of task that can make librarians and people who work with books embrace e-books. It's much easier to let ebrary (or amazon, or whomever) manage the electronic titles and bring problems to their attention, rather than having to diligently perform inventory of the stacks ourselves. Right? (Yes, that is tongue-in-cheek.)

Maybe I'm overestimating the importance of the printed collection, but with every decision I feel personally responsible for the historical record -- particularly as I'm working mainly in the D section. As a librarian, I was trained to do this, and as a rational, educated person I feel equipped to do this, but the necessary individuality of the task, as well as the need for haste, makes me a bit uncomfortable. Don't worry, I am being supervised, but my tendency is to linger over every title and weigh each one very carefully. This does not translate into an efficient process. I understand that a community college library is not a research library, and that our collection has never had the depth one might expect from a full university library, but the process still pains me. And when perusing the great events of European history, for example, the present-day desire to push them aside to make room for student seating seems somewhat frivolous.

Even though I trim using tweezers rather than a machete (multiples copies and poor condition are my most common reasons for deciding to discard something), I still find it really hard to get rid of something. I'll be welcoming next week, which is jam-packed with classes, with something like relief.

Anatomy of a Reference Question (Mine)

2011-02-07T20:30:00.000-05:00

Snowy campus

At the reference desk last week, I decided to research a question I've had for a while. I've been wondering where to find information about performances and recordings of classical music. Partly this is due to a radio program on Princeton's WPRB called Towe on Thursday, which I listen to on my commute, and partly it's just general curiosity about not only specific pieces of music but the various iterations.

So first, here's what I did:

-I searched past questions on Ask Metafilter and found a couple of relevant conversations.

-Then, I browsed some of the sites mentioned (American Record Guide, Fanfare Magazine, and a neat reviewing site from the BBC, among others).
-After realizing that most of the content from Fanfare and American Record Guide was subscription-only, I checked to see if the library where I work had access to those publications. We did, so I was able to sample the content by searching the archives for reviews of a few pieces I was particularly interested in.
-I compared some of these reviews to reviews on Amazon.
-I bookmarked everything and linked to the most useful sources in our Music Subject LibGuide, to remember for next time.

Upon reflection, a couple of things strike me as interesting about this process. First of all, I wasn't looking for and didn't expect to find any one particular authoritative source, instead relying on the wisdom of the crowd in several instances (metafilter, amazon). Also, the entire process occurred online, and although I took advantage of many people's advice, I did not interact directly with anyone in person. Even though I traveled down several different blind alleyways, I never felt lost or overwhelmed. Actually, the only delay I encountered was when I was looking at the free interfaces of the review sites and wondering if it would be worth subscribing. It took a beat to remember to check our library's holdings. And I'm a librarian.

When analyzing my own information-seeking behavior, it's hard to judge how much of the process is normal and how much is influenced by being a librarian, but I think there are a couple of lessons to take away here: (1) I seriously appreciated the fact that I could do all this without getting up from my desk, and (2) I was able to figure out a satisfactory answer using a combination of sources instead of consulting a single expert. Or librarian.

Fear of the Machine

2011-01-30T15:07:00.001-05:00

Snowpocalypse, from Wednesday night

One thing I've noticed from observing students at the reference desk is a common apprehension surrounding interactions with computers. I say computers, but I'm thinking about the photocopier and the printer too. We gather internal statistics to count the number of times we are called upon to support these technologies, which is nice to know, but I wonder if this is common everywhere, or whether it's more typical at a community college where students are often coming from a lower-than-average socioeconomic background.

I'm not claiming to always be savvy when interacting with new technology (I'm quick to ask for help when the supermarket self-checkout machine fails, for example), but I watch students who are unwilling to take the first basic steps of interacting with the photocopier, and I can't help but wonder what's going on.

It might be a combination of variables such as age, past experience with technology, and the appearance of a machine. But what is it that allows some people to be willing to walk up to certain technology, interact with it, and learn how to get it to work, while other people immediately look for a human to guide them? Even if personal assistance is not immediately available, some students will spend more time tracking down a library staff member than it would have taken them to figure out the machine. Does it come down mainly to personality? Some people seem to assume they need permission to use a machine and that they will be held responsible if it breaks; others just seem lazy. Some people seem unwilling or unable to read instructions; others seem to prefer a human connection as they accomplish their tasks.

It gets more interesting when wondering whether this is even a technology question at all. Maybe some people automatically seek others to explain whatever system they are interacting with, regardless of the task they are trying to accomplish. Then again, I don't think so. I see far, far fewer people asking for help with how to take a book off the shelves. But there could be a scale of complexity, and certain people might be more likely to look for human assistance when the task reaches a certain point on that scale.

Oh, to be a researcher and have time to explore this.

Beginning of the Semester Busy-ness

2011-01-22T15:58:00.002-05:00

More snow. Looks a lot like last week.

Through a combination of weather and being generally swamped at work during the first week of the semester, I seem to have dropped the ball on blogging this week. Here's what kept me from writing sooner:

Reserves textbooks. With all due respect to its importance and popularity, this project seems never-ending. I'm trying to change the strategy this semester, to working with the academic departments rather than approaching the publishers' representatives. This is having degrees of success. It should be easier for everyone if the academic departments take more responsibility for providing a desk copy to the library for reserve, but convincing them of that is another matter. Also we're trying to expand the service to two other campus libraries, which adds another logistical challenge.
Preparing for instruction. Library instruction begins in earnest next week, and a new responsibility for me is to be in charge of scheduling and working with instructors on what they hope to accomplish.
I finished editing and producing the spring issue of the library's faculty newsletter, and distributed it on campus.
Because classes were in session, we staffed the reference desk, and a lot of students needed orientation to the library.
Did I mention all the snow and ice we've been having? Good thing I don't mind shoveling...

I hope to be back and at 'em properly next week. In the meantime, I recommend reading Meredith Farkas's excellent piece on ebooks and libraries.

Big Picture Hand-Wringing

2011-01-13T20:32:00.001-05:00

The most recent snow, from Wednesday night

Maybe it's just been a cold and bleak January, but I feel like I've been encountering a lot of negativity about the profession recently.

For example, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University James G. Neal was the keynote speaker at the VALE conference and had a lot of criticism for libraries, from how we provide service to how we manage collections. (I don't have a transcript of his speech, but his Power Point, which conveys the gist of it, can be found on the VALE web site.)

And then there was the so-called Academic Library Autopsy Report, 2050 that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a week ago.

In both cases, a lot of the points are well-taken. But being a younger librarian, and having had a pretty high-tech library school experience, I've found in my career so far that the often-maligned traditional aspects of the profession are not only relevant but useful on a daily basis. I'm also finding that a nuanced understanding of where the information world has been, as we anticipate where it's going, is essential. Which is partly how this turned into a rant:

-First, we librarians have niche expertise. When it comes to the information world, we know why things are the way they are, we know why systems were built the way they were, and we can usually figure out how to get a thing in the best format and in the most convenient manner. We're the ones who comprehend the big picture. But it's not as though we've just been standing around watching -- we've been in there with our sleeves rolled up, participating in much of the change everyone is experiencing. That's why I resent arguments that imply we're out of touch. Just because we may be slow to change, or reluctant to adopt the latest unproven gizmo in favor of something that has lasted 100+ years, does not automatically mean we're oblivious. We're supposed to be beating ourselves up because we're applying critical thinking skills to the continuous change that has occurred over the past 20 or so years? Please.

-Secondly, librarians are invariably useful people on a campus, and our usefulness extends beyond knowing where some book is. We have a user-centered feel for technology, we are whizzes with information, and we understand how information is structured in various specialized fields. Is there something wrong with the word 'librarian' -- do we need to stop calling ourselves librarians to give ourselves some credit and admit we are valuable? I'm not sure we've been merely caretakers of books for a very long time, if that's what librarian means.

-Further, despite globalization and the World Wide Web, much of working life does not take place on such a grand scale. Going back to James Neal, Columbia University is a player on a national and even international stage, but a good portion of us are at small institutions with limited geographical reach and resources. Frankly, most of our energies are directed locally. And rightly so -- while it's important to know what's going on outside of our particular localities, our primary mission is to best serve constituents at hand. How can we expect our institutions to commit resources to projects that may not even benefit them?

-OK, I know I'm relatively young and supposed to be married to technology, but printed books are not dead. I would say this if I wasn't a librarian; unfortunately, because I am a librarian, saying it makes me seem old-fashioned and curmudgeonly. But printed books are still useful objects, despite whatever statistics Amazon publicizes about how many e-books it sold this month. Why is this so hard for some people to understand? Is the allure of empty shelves so strong that they are willing to be dismissive of reality? I'm not denying a preference for electronic access rather than print, but I'm annoyed when people see print as intrinsically not useful. Circulation of physical materials is not as uncommon as some seem to think. (See the previous point about everything being local.)

-One thing we do well as librarians is that we identify and recognize what is important. And I would argue that while archiving tweets is interesting in an anthropological way, and even in a historical-research way, I can't support the idea that we are letting down future generations by not preserving them properly. The web is ephemeral. A collection of web pages is like a collection of posters or post-it notes -- interesting, but of questionable necessity for posterity. I'm sure the world is rife with examples to contrary, but I feel comfortable believing that if something is considered important there will be people -- and not just librarians, and not just big corporations and/or governments -- worried about preserving it. If this blog didn't survive a nuclear apocalypse, I would not shed a tear. If all existing copies of the United States Constitution disappeared, I might. There is a vast difference between the two. Librarians at the very least should be confident in their abilities to tell the difference -- isn't that part of what information literacy is about? Admittedly, I'm speaking here as an academic librarian who does not work in a research library, and so I have little commitment to the idea of preserving everything humanly possible. But at the very least, librarians should see that any digital preservation effort is not their exclusive responsibility and requires other committed stakeholders.

-In-person service still has a place. I'm happy to create as many technology-based avenues for connecting with the library as possible, but I'm not happy about the idea of throwing basic, face-to-face service out the window as if it's no longer useful because everyone has a laptop.

This concludes my rant. Thanks for hanging in there if you made it to the end.

2011 VALE Conference

2011-01-06T19:49:00.000-05:00

Exiting the library on a cold winter evening...

On Wednesday I was able to attend New Jersey's VALE Conference, which as usual was a very rewarding experience professionally. More and more, I believe that nothing can fully replace in-person attendance at meetings like this, because there is so much fast, free-flowing dialogue. It's true that a person can grasp the content of what was presented by reviewing the materials afterward, but a good conference involves participation as much as absorption. Also, this is difficult to quantify but I always notice a certain energy in the room when librarians with a common mission are assembled together. Burnout is understandable in any profession, and an opportunity to collectively remember who we are and what we are doing is invaluable.

In fact, the more I know about it the more I'm impressed that the academic library community in New Jersey is able to hold this conference every year. Registration is always free, and it's my understanding that it is organized entirely by volunteers. This speaks volumes about the commitment of those involved. The conference is deliberately scheduled at a time when classes are not yet in session, so that as many librarians from as many institutions as possible are able to attend and represent themselves and their specialties. The workshops and speakers are always highly relevant, and the opportunity for information-sharing is, again, invaluable. Although I didn't present this year, last year I displayed a poster, and the conference prior my boss was part of a presenter's panel. Over the course of a year, there is no other time the community comes together like this. As the web site explains, VALE is truly a grass roots organization, in that it is not dependent on the state government or on any one institution in particular, although some institutions do take on more responsibility than others.

I wanted to say all this because when I review my notes from successful conferences like this one, in order to try and summarize for colleagues who weren't able to make it, they are inevitably inadequate. What I learned as an individual was likely different from what others would have learned, and due to multiple simultaneous sessions I was not able to attend everything. As much as possible, participation in this one-day event should be expected for academic librarians in New Jersey.

What Do Our Patrons Need Us to Be?

2010-12-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

the winter landscape right now

I think there are changes afoot at the library where I work. I'm pretty low on the organizational totem pole, but I sense it in the air.

I have been thinking about what we should do if we are given a directive to become a fully modern academic library, and recently I realized I've had my head in the clouds. I've been thinking about possible changes from the perspective of a librarian instead of as a library patron. This is a kind of professional blindness. Any big changes should be informed by our patrons.

So I've been thinking about what patrons have told me they need since I started working as a librarian, either by approaching me directly or by their actions. Here is my list so far, in no order:

Tutoring. We've got this one covered -- a full half of the library's 3rd floor is devoted to the Tutoring Department.
Computers. We've got this one too, for the most part. While some of our hardware could use updating, the other half of the library's 3rd floor hosts a computer lab, and more work stations are scattered through the building. There is also free wireless for those who bring laptops or smart devices. I have a long list of technologies that students request besides computers (fax machine, color printing, blue-tooth enabled printer, etc.), but they tend to vary semester by semester.
Textbooks and required readings. I got to check this one off the list this past semester, and even though the textbook collection promises to be a major headache to maintain it's been very worthwhile.
Quiet spaces. Neutral, productive places to read or study. In case this supports the library-downgraded-to-study-hall model, there are plenty of places on campus to study that are not the library. Studying at the library implies a seriousness of intention, and for all the talk of supporting group work, many students are still trying to find elusive quiet.
In the past, a core part of a library involved books, so for those who come looking for them I don't think it's time to throw them out the window yet. Is a library truly a library without printed books?
Support for off-campus access. Quite often, after coming to the library and learning about books and journals, patrons want to know what they can get to from home and how.
Real, in-person help. Even with silly things. Whether we like it or not, library staff are ambassadors for the college, and it's in our public service mission to assist with all manner of unusual situations.
A collection of relevant resources. We should try to have whatever academic material our patrons are looking for, and be pro-active when we don't have it. Students should be able to expect that if an instructor makes a reference, recommends material, or shows something in class, the library has it. This may be the most difficult item on this list to achieve, because of the cost.
Access to other collections. The more sophisticated patrons expect us to be plugged into the larger library world, which we currently are with our county-wide agreement and our interlibrary loan service. If we don't have an item they need, we should know how to find and get it.

If anyone has more ideas, please feel free to contribute!

Blogging: What Works

2010-12-22T18:49:00.001-05:00

poinsettias, alla cell phone

Although it may not always be reflected in my entries, it takes a lot of time and energy to post here regularly. That it's so easy to produce and distribute content on a blog is great, but to create anything meaningful is still a lot of work. Which begs the question, why do it? What types of things are most effectively communicated in blog format? In reading other blogs, I've picked up a general sense of what works for this medium. To illustrate, here are three examples:

-The Bloggess: Profane and funny, the author writes with engaging wit about her everyday life. Most recently she has leveraged her popularity toward a great charitable cause.

-Design*Sponge: Frequently updated, this design site covers projects, highlights artists and designers, and is a wonderful representation of ideas about visual arts of many types.

-In the Library with the Lead Pipe: I have a lot of respect for the darling of the library world, even though I often end up only scanning the articles. The content is regularly intelligent and well-reasoned.

So ideally I should try to combine elements of these three -- entertainment, visual appeal, and careful consideration of the profession. I've got some work to do [I cringe looking at my photograph for the week], but it's good to have inspiration.

Three Things I'm Grateful for This Year

2010-12-15T15:49:00.001-05:00

Freeze, thaw, repeat. (Illustrated by the pavement)

Not to get too sentimental, but now seems like a good time of year to mention my appreciation of certain job-related things. Here's what presently stands out, in no particular order:

(1) Work that seems useful and important. At times, I admit, I fantasize about pursuing a more lucrative profession, but I think my conscience would bother me if I wasn't doing something I felt was directly beneficial to the world at large, and I regularly feel this way at the community college. I say this in spite of some of the insurmountable obstacles that poverty and mis-education create. And yes, I'm aware of the 'greed is good' argument and how self-interest is the engine of capitalism etc. etc. etc. I'm saying it would be hard for me personally to get up every morning just to count my pile of gold.

(2) Community college students. This experience on Monday sums up what I mean: I was helping a student find out whether the library had a copy of her textbook on reserve, and we did not. I explained how we had been getting the textbooks through donations, and she offered to give her copy to the library after the semester was over. I reminded her that she could get some money back for reselling her book, but she said the amount was minimal. That it even occurred to her to do this made my day.

(3) Departmental and professional autonomy. Being trusted to make decisions is important. For example, I sincerely appreciate that our library instruction program -- and using the word 'program' elevates what is basically a grab-bag of inadequate one-shot sessions -- does not spend class time on assessment. How about this for assessment: When the session fails, we never hear from the instructor again. When it succeeds, the instructor returns and tells friends. Thank goodness we don't have to spend 30 minutes out of a mere 50 administering a pre-test and a post-test! I'm not saying all library instruction assessment is bad -- in many cases I'm certain it makes instruction programs stronger -- but in our specific case it would be more trouble than it would be worth. For all of the top-down administrative mandates out there, I'm glad that on some level our librarians and staff can rely upon their own judgments without excessive micromanagement.

Library Outreach to Students

2010-12-08T10:09:00.000-05:00

Old wooden fencepost, in the woods

Recently, the library held a well-attended student advisory meeting. Led by a designated librarian, we all recruited students, sat them down in a conference room with an internet projector, and asked them questions about the college library. A point that came up repeatedly was that students did not know about many of the great services the library provides. Since then, I have been wondering how we could fix this.

Here are some of the obstacles:

There is currently no mandatory orientation to the college for incoming students.

There is a constant influx of new students, and many enroll for only one semester.

The campus is not residential – students must commute to classes.

The library does not have a spare staff member to devote full attention to outreach to students.

At present, when the library debuts a service or resource we try to publicize it as much as possible, but sustaining that level of energy to constant new batches of students is not feasible. Also, for many students each semester the entire library is new, and the point of a new library service is lost except on those returning.

Here are some of ideas for what we could be doing:

Work more closely with the Student Activities office. For many of the same reasons mentioned above, however, there is usually a shortage of students participating in activities.

Try to use low-tech methods of communication as well as high-tech. The college has such a variety of students that in some cases it may be easier to reach students using bulletin boards and word of mouth than through anything involving a computer.

Create a packet of information explaining the library's student services. A librarian could be in charge of updating this once per year and distributing it to students. As a starting place we could send it to their college email, but it could also be available at service desks throughout the campus. In addition we could make it readily available to instructors so they could distribute it when needed.

Perform further outreach to instructors? I wonder if in many cases the instructors are the only human interface students have at the college. There are a variety of factors that regularly make comprehensive outreach to instructors difficult, not least of which are the communication habits of the instructors and their feelings toward the college administration, which the library is part of according to the organizational chart.

Although I'm not certain what has already been tried in the past, I think these ideas are worth pursuing if we're going to take student criticism seriously.

Unintended Consequences of Moving to E-Books

2010-12-01T15:56:00.002-05:00

Taft Hall, with a poster depicting the new science building (site to the right)

Recently I've noticed certain side effects of e-books, and I think these side effects are tied up with format. (The question of book format is currently viewed as either unimportant or all-important depending on whom you're listening to. I don't fall on either side but am going to discuss it anyway.) When I say book format, I mean the difference between a tangible physical object and a digital one. I can't think of another word besides format for this, where a thing having a presence and taking up real space might also exist entirely digitally. But here are some effects:

(1) Use / Access
At the college, we share a library system with the county, and we share our collections. It's very easy to search all collections simultaneously. This benefits the college students who can borrow books from the public library, and the public library patrons who can borrow academic titles from the college. While the college adds more e-books to its collection every day, however, our license agreement does not allow public library patrons to access our academic e-books. Suddenly the public is denied access to titles they could recently route to their local branch with a click of a button. More broadly, something similar happens with interlibrary loan services. Interlibrary loan, for the uninitiated, is a commonly available service that allows a patron to request a book from another library located almost anywhere in the world, with some restrictions. Interlibrary loan becomes impossible if access agreements permit use of e-books by local patrons only.

(2) Re-use
Our library staff keeps a little internal lending library, mostly of paperbacks. The source for this collection is now drying up because the primary donor got a kindle. Along the same used-book lines, if textbooks go digital I suppose used textbooks will no longer be available. Students might be forced to pay top dollar for a single available digital edition, and there would be no competition in price.

(3) Ownership
My own use of printed library books reflects less of an economic necessity than a desire to read something. I don't want to have to own it, and the library makes this very convenient. A library book allows me to fully test the thing before deciding whether or not I want to keep it forever. I have no plans to run out and buy an e-reader, but as we approach the holiday season, I wonder what would happen if I received one as a gift. It certainly is a convenient gadget, but to get books I would suddenly have to own them. I am a discriminating reader; I really don't want to own every book I read.

Computer Programming for Librarians

2010-11-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

beech leaves

This post has been on a back burner for a while, but I remembered it when I read Will Manley's November 22 entry that developed into a discussion about what library school does and does not teach you.

Looking back, a library school course I would have taken in a heartbeat was "Computer Programming for Libraries." It would have been unrealistic to expect to learn programming from scratch, but it could have been an introduction to various languages, and there could have been a sandbox for trying out different projects, all related to libraries.

I would have loved to take this class for a variety of reasons. I know that systems change, but many of them are built using similar design principles and programming languages. In many instances in my career so far, a basic familiarity with some of the languages and applications would have been really helpful. I did take classes that covered database design and networks, and they have proven helpful but weren't enough.

People who have experience coding and then decide to go to library school are few and far between, and I would guess that most of my classmates would have found this course valuable too. From what I've seen, libraries that have computer programmers on staff tend to hold on to them tightly. A nice piece in Computers in Libraries back in June by Marshall Breeding covered a lot of this.

And I do realize I can learn basic programming on my own. Plenty of librarians teach themselves programming on the job. I know there are a variety of opportunities to roll up my sleeves and get my feet wet, and I know there are a lot of great online programming communities. Plus I did take an introductory programming class at the college where I worked a few years ago.

At the same time, I'm currently stretched thin at my job, and I'm not required or expected to do this. Usually by the time the thought "Gee, I bet this task could be automated with a clever computer program" crosses my mind, I'm already waist-deep into the project and don't have time to go down the rabbit hole of learning the fundamentals of C++, or Java, or PHP, or whatever that particular project would require. This is why I think "Computer Programming for Libraries" would have made a valuable library school class: Some exposure to library-related programming would have been a nice starting point for whatever project I find myself working on.

Academic Library Buildings

2010-11-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

Bradford pear, on campus. It looks much prettier in person.

It's possible I have been reading too much technology news, but these days I'm feeling pessimistic about the future of academic library buildings. (Note that I'm specifically talking about academic library buildings, which I believe have far less of a role as community centers and gathering places than public library buildings.)

A library building is the kind of thing that people love to support in theory, but it is expensive to properly maintain both a print collection that justifies the space as well as an electronic collection. I wonder if a college that was to be built tomorrow would include a library building when online access to digital collections is starting to make coming to the college library unnecessary. I know the latter is a good thing, and I know I should feel optimistic about what our online services and collections enable people to do. On certain days I'm really excited about what's going on with digital libraries - look at this, for example - but as someone who has always enjoyed library buildings, I also feel wistful. Yet, as overwhelming as the shift from a print world to a digital world can be, it does seem like progress. Technology promises progress for many endeavors, and often it does not deliver, but in searching for, acquiring, and storing information, the benefits are clear.

But if we don't have to use academic library buildings, and if we remove the physical presence of libraries from a campus, the next logical step is to whittle down the library's collection budget and pass the fees for subscriptions to students. And then where would we be?

Perhaps some national digital library would spring up, with a netflix-like model that students and researchers could subscribe to a month at a time and customize as needed. Is this is WorldCat's vision? Or is this subscription google?

Unrealistic Expectations of Community Colleges?

2010-11-08T16:11:00.000-05:00

oriental bittersweet berries

Aside from the question of whether community & junior colleges exist primarily to educate or to provide job training is the question of what a college with open enrollment is reasonably able to do.

The idea of a college without an admissions application is wonderfully democratic. It means that college is in reach for anyone who takes an interest. Optimistically, I always imagine enthusiastic and determined students who for whatever reason cannot afford or are unable to attend a traditional institution. I think hopefully of this type of student whenever I think of the community college's purpose.

But the elephant in the room at community colleges is student ability. It's nice to say that everyone should get a college degree, & that America needs more college graduates, and thus community colleges should increase their retention levels and number of graduates. However, community college graduates should be expected to be able to read, write, and do basic math, right? Yet how are community colleges supposed to increase their graduation rates when a shockingly high percentage of those enrolling require some form of academic remediation? Allowing standards to slip is an easy fix in the short-term, but it does no-one any favors in the long-term.

It is fashionable right now to blame public institutions for society's failures, including failures in education. When a person is still unable to read, write, or do basic math as an adult, what are her options? A community college is one, but is it fair to then blame the community college when she drops out after two years of remedial classes? What are the causes of this situation? Is this a parenting failure? Is it the proud anti-intellectual streak in American culture? Is it due to bad teachers, and bad K-12 schools? Can any blame be assigned to those individuals themselves who haven't mastered basic skills they've surely been told repeatedly are important?

If community colleges are to be part of a serious solution, this has to be an acknowledged starting point.

Design Redunancy in Support of Accidental Discovery

2010-11-01T15:30:00.002-04:00

The woods in Blackwood. I took a very similar picture last year.

We might not have considered ourselves designers when we became librarians, but we end up making a lot of design decisions. We make decisions about physical space, our web pages, how patrons should navigate our services, etc. And one thing I'm starting to notice about effective design is that it's redundant.

Here's what I mean: Think of a roadway going from point A to point B. Several other roads run basically parallel to it. When there's an accident or roadblock on the main road, travelers are not prevented from getting to point B. Or here's another example: When a user's computer dies, she can still accomplish many of the same tasks using the phone.

A lot of redundancy is accidental, left over from a previous way of doing things. A new way becomes the standard, but the old infrastructure is still left in place. It is difficult to justify the expense of building redundancy just to provide a safety net for an unlikely possibility. So when faced with designing something from scratch, it may be easier to justify redundancy by trying to imagine all of the different ways a user might interact with the design, and planning for them. This takes some imagination, but if you build something that can direct user behavior effectively, the user experience overall is bound to be less frustrating and more engaging.

In fact, when I'm the user I notice that consistent, clear information ends up teaching me more than how to get from Point A to Point B. It's true that when I'm trying to accomplish a task I'm not openly interested in stopping to smell the roses, but when first learning to do that task, I'm in high learning mode. The more ambient information I'm exposed to as I navigate the task, the more I absorb. I notice this a lot when using computer software -- I'll try to figure out how to do something, whether that means learning terminology or a simple function, and meanwhile I encounter various other functions. Often, the next time I need to do something new, I already have some understanding because of the previous exposure. (How else would I have learned to animate PowerPoint slides?)

I am completely fascinated by how people use computers. This might sound weird, but I really enjoy observing people's idiosyncrasies during tasks as simple as navigating a web page. From watching myself and patrons, and from helping students in classes, I think redundancy is one answer to supporting the most number of possible users.

Copyright & the Economics of Digital Publishing

2010-10-25T21:03:00.002-04:00

burning bush, near the library

A recent post here reminded me of studying the history of copyright in library school. The origins of copyright can be seen as a three-way tug of war among businesses, the public, and the government.

I think this tension also exists currently in the modern networked marketplace. It seems applicable to content that is published digitally, for example. Publishers see an avenue for reducing costs, but there is a problem with the lack of control over digital content. So, publishers invent new controls to preserve their business. While that is going on, the public happily embraces online content, but by and large resists the new controls. Government, meanwhile, treads the fine line of creating rules both to give the public what it wants (cheap stuff, easy access) while encouraging profitable business.

As with copyright, librarians are somewhat stuck in the middle of digital publishing. We generally don't want to be lackeys for business, and tend toward supporting the public, but libraries are frequently supported by governments. It's an interesting vantage point.

Personal Floating Libraries

2010-10-18T09:05:00.001-04:00

rose, outside of the library building

Something slotted into place for me last week, perhaps prompted by this article and this Amazon page. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of where this crazy information world is going:

We're all going to have our own personal libraries in the cloud that we can access anywhere and at any time. This portable collection can be built over a lifetime. It is not format or device-specific, but instead is compatible with multiple platforms and hardware.

All we're waiting for is ubiquitous connectivity (for when we don't have the object we need on hand), and many people already have that, almost -- you can see them becoming disoriented when they wander out of signal range.

While this type of collection seems very possible, I doubt it will be free, and that is where libraries can come in. What we need are digital objects that will self-destruct after a set amount of time. When certain objects (copies of a digital original) reach a set expiration date, they can disappear -- from all locations except the original. Is it naive to imagine something like this, with libraries still part of the picture? I can easily imagine appreciating a temporary, loaned digital object as a user, because I wouldn't want just anything included in my personal floating library, even if it were possible.

Or has this ship passed libraries by? I notice that the word 'library' in certain contexts means something different from what it used to. And when the word library is brought up in a media-related conversation, it often means an individual, customized collection of digital objects. Maybe the future is already here.

Calculating the Value of Service

2010-10-11T08:55:00.001-04:00

Cosmos bipinnatus, in morning sun

I was glad to see a recent New Yorker article confirming what I have begun to suspect: It's difficult to calculate the cost-benefits of customer service. I worry about this because I spend a lot of my time assisting people as they try to use the library. I work really hard at this, and I think I do a good job, but I'm not sure I could demonstrate the tangible benefit of what I do.

It's true the library collects reference statistics, and so I have a lot of numbers at my fingertips that reflect the types and volume of problems we handle, but translating those into student success is tough. Should I be counting the number of enthusiastic 'thank-yous' I get every week? Should I try and get the name of every person I help so that I can track their subsequent achievement? (Yikes.)

The fact that librarianship is a a service-oriented profession is a source of pride for many in the field. But the bulk of an academic library's beneficiaries are students, and on a campus they are an ever-shifting population. This means that unless we establish long-standing relationships, it is difficult to call upon them when we need support.

I can understand that people accountable for money don't like messy calculations. However, it's hard to quantify -- never mind take exclusive credit for -- a student who has a wonderful experience when helped by a librarian, who goes on to write a stellar paper, and who stays in school instead of dropping out.

This is almost as difficult as justifying the benefit of a library building and collection. Many people have an intuitive sense that a library is valuable, and that service at the library is also valuable, but I worry about how to demonstrate that value in black and white. The public image of a library is great -- libraries are generally viewed as a social good -- but I'm concerned that in the future we'll have to do more than hide behind that.

***

(For further reading, here is a post on a similar topic at greater length, in the context of special collections.)

Print is great for some things, and not for others

2010-10-03T21:57:00.004-04:00

coleus, on campus

I notice a lot of nostalgia floating around out there for printed materials. I would understand if it was just librarians, whose ways of organizing things are being wrecked, but it's also from educators and downright technophiles (see The Shallows). I understand this, I really do. And there are plenty of instances where I too prefer a printed book. Then again, I'd rather not forget that our recent escape from being dependent on the printed page -- despite print's many advantages such as The Focused Concentration! The One-On-One Dialogue that a printed book permits! The ability to Spill Coffee on a printed object and still have it function! -- is something to celebrate.

We are moving away from a world where print sufficed for many things but wasn't ideal, into one where we can use it for some things but don't have to for others. (Learning how to pronounce a foreign language? Looking for lyrics to a song? Hooray for not being limited to a print world!)

As with many discussions, it's tempting to turn the conversation about printed materials into a simplistic pro/con debate, and although the situation is complex, I've caught myself wanting to commit firmly to either printed books or an e-reader and be done with it.

But right now there are certain situations where print is still superior, and perhaps it's important to identify which situations those are so we can move forward from there, instead of feeling we're losing something by not printing the vast quantities of junk that used to appear in book form. Instead of waiting for printing, binding, and delivery, we can now choose to bestow printed status only on certain things. When we want to focus, when we don't want to multi-tast or socialize, we print the thing. And skimming -- which, let's be honest, is a valuable skill for many serious readers -- is now easier than ever.

This last is where e-readers are getting things wrong as they attempt to replace printed books: They forget that the main benefit of a printed book is the ability to do a close, sustained, uninterrupted reading. (Also, my personal gripe is that e-readers are not durable. I buy a book, read it, and there's the chance that I can sell it or swap it with someone else. I buy a Kindle, use it, get sand in its buttons, and nobody wants to take it off my hands.)

We find ourselves at the point where the consequence of printing something is an elevation of the content being printed. Spending the energy on putting something into a printed format lends it importance. The question is, how often does that need to happen? Most writers like to think that their work is worth printing and putting into a book so that an audience can devote sustained attention to it, but now they face a filtering layer of the online world. Suddenly there might be less need to expand an idea of dubious consequence into an entire book.

Which I think is a good place to end for the week...

Audio Book Round-up

2010-09-26T21:05:00.005-04:00

sassafras leaf

This is a little more personal than my usual posts, but I'll proceed because it still relates to technology and libraries. Also, I wrote about something similar last year and have been keeping track of the titles I've listened to since then. (I'm still on the look-out for recommendations!) Currently I'm in the middle of The Hemingses of Monticello, which is consistent with what I've come to appreciate: histories, biographies, literary or historical fiction (particularly travel or journey-related), and most non-fiction except for self-help. I haven't really enjoyed mysteries, because, wimpy me, I don't like the additional stress in the mornings.

So here's a selection of what I tried over the past year:

PERSONAL FAVORITES:
* Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke, read by Simon Prebble
Prebble (who earlier this year won an award for his work) was truly excellent -- the voices, inflections, pacing, and accents were brilliantly done. Even the footnotes were made vastly more entertaining than they might have been otherwise.

* Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande, read by John Bedford Lloyd
Most of the credit should probably go to Gawande's writing, but the audio was very well done.

NOT PERSONAL FAVORITES:
A lot of time and energy goes into audio books, and I hate to be a jerk critic. In all cases below except one (Larsson), my dislike of the audio book was based largely on the narrator's reading.

* The Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell, read by the author

* Straight Man - Richard Russo, read by Sam Freed
(Interestingly, I read this in printed format during the summer & really enjoyed it. So this is nothing against Russo here.)

* The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery, read by Barbara Rosenblat and Cassandra Morris

* The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson read by Simon Vance
The latter, I want to make clear, was not the problem. Simon Vance was doing wonderfully when I quit listening. Lots of people seem to love this book and the series, but apparently I do not. As I didn't make it through the entire work, I couldn't bring myself to list it with the WELL PRODUCED (recommended) titles below, but in all fairness it probably belongs there.

WELL PRODUCED (recommended)
* The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls, read by Julia Gibson

* The Alchemist - Paul Coelho, read by Jeremy Irons

* Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel, read by Simon Slater

* Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo, read by Arthur Morey

* The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt, read by Rosalyn Landor

* The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz, read by Jonathan Davis

* Family Album - Penelope Lively, read by Josephine Bailey

* The Help - Kathryn Stockett, read by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell

* The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett read by John Lee

OTHER
* The Education of Henry Adams - by Henry Adams read by David Colacci
This title has been on my 'to read' list for years, and I agree with everyone who calls it an Important Book. It's particularly so for someone who works in higher education and spends vast quantities of time thinking about epistemology, as I do. Having said that, the audio definitely helped me get through it. Although Adams writes with a certain dry humor, I occasionally found my mind wandering. Colacci, who if he read another book in the same tone I might accuse of over-acting, lends life and music (not literally) to Adams's often long and winding sentences; he parses them clearly while moving at a good clip. In addition, this is one of the few audio titles I might benefit from owning and listening to repeatedly, as there is so much to think about contained in it.

A few related notes on audio books in general:

-When the person reading the book out loud is an actor, and he makes up his own rhythm rather than trying to follow the author's writing, the results are typically horrible. I notice it often happens with American male narrators.

-With a number of titles above, listening to the audio book inspired me to buy the printed book, either as a gift or for myself. This supports the idea that both audio books and public libraries support the publishing business.

-I tried a subscription to audible, and the experience was mixed. It took three tries before I was completely happy with an audio book I downloaded. (The sound quality on an older book was dreadful; another one I tried and didn't like, so I felt like I had wasted my credit.) And although the convenience is a plus, I'm not sure the subscription model works well for me. Even with the amount of driving I do, there are just not that many audio books that I want to own or listen to repeatedly. As is reflected in this post, three per year would be more than sufficient, but the current subscription packages seem to have 12 as the minimum (1 per month). The breadth of audible's holdings is getting better all the time, and if you want a recently-published title to download instantly, there's no competition. In view of the preferences I describe above, however, I might not be their ideal customer.

Systems Interoperability: An Example

2010-09-20T09:05:00.001-04:00

Chrysanthemums opening

In the past I've been naively amazed to encounter computer software that does not make itself compatible with other programs. Even when it's due to short-sighted design rather than a result of a proprietary mentality, it's still frustrating.

A recent example from libraryland has been when I try to email the instructors whose classes use the textbook we have on reserve. Simple, right? For such a repetitive, relatively straightforward task, this currently involves a tremendous amount of manual labor on my part. I have to toggle between three different programs -- a spreadsheet, the college registration system, and my email program (Outlook). I also need the integrated library system open to double-check certain things.

If I were a very clever programmer, I might have an idea of where to start to automate this process. Unfortunately, my familiarity with this particular integrated library system (iii's Millennium) and the college registration system is poor. I can bludgeon my way around to basically do what I need in both, but I have a sophisticated understanding of neither.

Which is why I now face (1) printing out the entire manual for the integrated library system & reading it from start to finish, and (2) signing up for training on the college registration system. I'm sure the time I invest will result in many useful skills and abilities, but I'm once again surprised to find this all isn't easier. I guess we're all waiting for the day when systems are designed to be more open and interoperable. What will we do then?

Meanwhile, I'm rolling up my sleeves...

More on the Reserves Project

2010-09-12T17:58:00.004-04:00

Swallowtail butterfly, on campus

Judging by the positive feedback last week, I thought it might be helpful to expand on the reserves project, and to clarify some of the details:

First, the project was (and continues to be) extremely time-consuming – I'd estimate conservatively that I spent about 200 hours this past summer collecting information & tracking down copies of the texts. I would like to think that in the future it might not take so long, but on the other hand there were lots of books I had to give up on because I ran out of time.

After they arrived in my office, I routed the books to the access services department for entry into our integrated library system and physical processing. I don't know exactly how many hours that took, but it was a lot of additional work for our already small, over-extended staff.

Next, I tried to get the word out. I figured the service would be pointless if nobody knew about it, but word spread like wildfire before I even had a message properly composed. Still, formally describing the project was worthwhile because as the news spread, so did the rumors and inaccuracies. In fact, I probably should have started the publicity process sooner. During the summer, I made sure the deans, program chairs, and academic coordinators knew about it, and then as the semester began the librarians announced it at academic meetings. The final push in the past few weeks involved me emailing each of the instructors who are using the 129 (and counting) books. This last, extremely targeted approach was definitely worth the effort judging by the appreciative replies.

With the service up and running, we wanted to be sure to collect feedback from the users, and so the circulation staff has been putting survey forms in the textbooks. Students return them with the textbooks, and we do not ask for their names. As of last Friday, we had gathered 62 completed feedback forms, which have been helpful to review even though they only represent a small segment of overall usage.

Based on responses to my targeted emails and the user feedback forms, it sounds like students and faculty really appreciate this service. To someone coming from the outside & surveying the project, the reaction might be "Well of course they love it, you're supplying them with a book they now don't have to buy," but from what I'm seeing this is not all about depriving the bookstore of money.

This service does not replace buying the book. The textbooks can only be used in the library for three hours per loan period, which makes it extremely inconvenient for a student to rely exclusively on the library's copy for an entire semester. What the library is providing is a stop-gap: If anything, exposure to the book makes students realize how much they need their own copies.

Keeping a copy of a required text on reserve at the library is useful for reasons beyond enabling reluctant purchasers. For example, I keep hearing about delays in financial aid. Many students rely on financial aid to purchase their textbooks. No financial aid means no money for textbooks. Students at a community college do not necessarily have a wallet full of credit cards or other financial means to cover unanticipated college expenses such as textbooks.

For better or worse, this service is bringing campus-wide attention to the library. On the bright side, it sends a message that the library is actively concerned about the obstacles students face. I'm also starting to think that the textbooks are pulling students into the library at the beginning of the school year in a way that's more immediate and relevant than a library orientation. I haven't checked, but I would guess that the number of library card applications is up, and once they have a library card I hope students might consider using the library for something else besides textbooks.

I'm also noticing that the publishers willing to supply these extra desk copies look really good. I can imagine that faculty might want to work with publishers that seem cooperative and accommodating in this way.

I'd like to end on a positive note, so I'll gloss over some of the negatives of this project – new administrative mandates that the library immediately expand the service rather than evaluate and gradually extend as we are able; faculty who are annoyed because they think if we have one textbook we should have them all; students complaining that we don't have more than one copy of a textbook – and say that for anyone with the energy to work on this, go for it.

Reserves, Newsletter, Instruction

2010-09-06T16:40:00.004-04:00

Rudbeckia, on the table

Things are getting busy again at the library. I find my attention divided right now among the following projects:

The debut of the reserves textbook collection

I began this project back in May, when I created a list of textbooks that would be required for the Fall, 2010 classes. Then I tried to gather up as many of those books as possible, in order to put them on reserve at the library. (A textbook on reserve means a three-hour loan period, & in-house use only.) I had, and still have, no budget, and frankly I'm surprised how far we've gotten with it.

First, there was concern that the textbook publishers and/or the college book store would be unhappy about this project, but that turned out not to be the case. A colleague contacted the Association of American Publishers (AAP), explained what we wanted to do, and was told it would be fine. I got in touch with the book store manager, and his staff went so far as to send me a list of the college's textbook sales representatives. Then I called those reps, explained what I was doing, and asked if they would be able to send an extra copy of the textbook to the library. By and large, the representatives from Cengage, Pearson, McGraw, and Wiley were extremely helpful, taking it in stride that I was a librarian, and adding the library to their locations to send desk copies. The smaller publishers and the medical publishers were not as amenable, but by the time I realized this I already had a full shelf of complimentary textbooks in my office.

After exhausting that avenue of getting the books, I started contacting the academic departments at the college. I got in touch with secretaries, technicians, deans, program coordinators, and faculty (full-time and adjunct) to find out who was involved in textbook selection & whether they might be able to give or loan the library an extra copy. This second stage was messier and involved a lot of running around the campus and figuring out the preferred communication method for various individuals, but with some exceptions (i.e. the medical texts again) it was effective.

With this combined assistance, the result is that library now has approximately 20 percent of the required textbooks for classes on the Blackwood campus on reserve. The physical processing was an extra burden on the circulation staff, but everyone seemed willing to help & enthusiastic about the utility of this project. And so far, after the first week of class, it seems like the collection is going to be heavily used and popular.

However, I must say that it took a lot of time and energy. If I had known how much, I might have been intimidated about doing it. (The organization of the project revolves around a massive, complicated spreadsheet to keep track of everything. Thanks Google Docs!)

Also, there are a number of unintended consequences. For example, the service should ideally exist at all campuses where classes are being taught, but in most cases I was only able to get one copy of the textbook. If a certain class is taught at all three campuses, but the textbook is only available at a library on one campus, there follows unhappiness from those who feel they are denied the service.

Another complication is that the academic departments have their own various ways of deciding and managing their textbook selections. Also, the departments have different relationships and attitudes toward the library. I am still a relatively new employee at the college, and I treated the project of communicating with the academic departments as a way of getting to know people I haven't met. It was a great outreach exercise, but I haven't figured out how to streamline the process for the future.

Judging by the reaction of students and faculty, however, I think this will be a valuable service to continue in future semesters. I'm sure it will be running smoothly just in time for everyone to switch to using e-textbooks.

Library newsletter

Due to a retirement, I inherited this task, and I've had a sinking feeling about it for a while. This is not because I don't enjoy doing this type of work; on the contrary, I could (and did) spend literally hours tinkering with fonts and playing with the layout. For better or worse, my feelings about design make it difficult to produce something of this kind and feel completely satisfied with it. I knew I wanted to make some changes from past editions, in part out of respect to the previous editor and in part because I wanted to make it less labor-intensive, but in the end I didn't give myself enough time to do as good a job as I wanted. Oh well.

Library instruction, with attendant LibGuides

The first library instruction sessions are on the schedule for this coming week, and these are a major part of my job. Despite still getting the jitters, I think I do a pretty good job in front of classes -- but there is a lot of work to be done in advance. I think I'm ready; I guess we'll find out...

Items in Mind as the School Year Begins

2010-08-29T14:06:00.002-04:00

Building on campus, with canna lilies

Right now I'm trying to organize thoughts and priorities as the semester begins, and I anticipate the following themes will appear frequently in the coming school year:

(1) The Economics of Higher Education
Even before the financial crisis I was reading that increases in the price of college regularly outpace the rate of inflation, and although the economic landcape has changed in recent years, not much about the cost of college has. I find this surprising because the people I know who work in higher education do not appear to be trying to scam students. The majority of them are smart, hard-working, decent, and more well-meaning than most people. I'm trying to understand the causes and possible solutions to this situation.

On a long side note - As this relates to organizational structure in higher education, I notice a tendency to compartmentalize departments instead of viewing the endeavor holistically. That is to say, Enrollment department=money-maker, while Library department=money pit, regardless of whether students are enrolling because of the great library. There many unfortunate side effects to this mentality, the least of which is that the library feels defensive about being seen as a drain on college resources. Where I work, the library hasn't been asked (yet) to show a ROI, but on the other hand I think it would be a good idea if the library at least tried to offset some of the basic costs of attending school. Thus another reason for the reserves textbook project, which is coming along nicely. / end side note

Some of the reasons for the high cost of college I've heard so far are:
-Most industries experience increased productivity and so increased costs balance out, but this balancing has not occurred in higher education. (I do have trouble understanding this, however, with the cost-savings resulting from the steady decrease in full-time faculty positions.)
-Increased technology costs. Could it be that the relatively low-tech process of educating students has become dependent on technologies that have not paid off?

And some of the solutions I've heard so far are:
-Put education online. Bill Gates seems to think this is the right way to go. Then again, I've also seen online classes called "The Poor White Trash of Education." I'm also starting to believe that a great online class actually involves more work than a great in-person class, but present compensation levels do not reflect this.
-Move away from the non-profit model. However, there's a lot to dislike about for-profit education. And should educators really take notes from the business world, obsessed with cutting costs in order to offer a cheaper product?

(2) Usability
I'm interested in how this relates to information-seeking, but especially as it relates to e-books & e-textbooks. This is nothing new for me, but the topic continues because not much is conclusively resolved.

(3) Pedagogy
In particular, information literacy and library instruction are ongoing concerns, particularly after my crisis of confidence earlier this summer. So far in my experience, the theory and practice of teaching and learning often fail to meet, and I'm still trying to figure out what's effective.

Summer Reading

2010-07-29T16:00:00.012-04:00

Partridge pea (Cassia), in the woods

It's time for my annual break from blogging.

"Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity." - Robert Louis Stevenson, "Apology for Idlers" in Virginibus Puerisque, 1881

I'll be back later in August as we gear up for the fall semester. In the meantime, here's what I'll be reading:

Cognitive Surplus - Clay Shirky's name has been cropping up in various places recently. Alright, alright, you've got my attention.

The Shallows - by Nicholas Carr, of Is Google Making Us Stupid? fame. I'll be curious to find out whether my suspicion that Carr's thinking is at best binary (ha) and at worst paranoid is correct. There was an interesting review of it in the New York Times.

The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It - The title is a bit misleading, as author Jonathan Zittrain is no Luddite. Rather than questioning the entire existence of the internet, he is concerned about its current direction.

In Search of Zarathustra by Paul Kriwaczek

Moo! by Jane Smiley

Straight Man by Richard Russo

Neill! Neill! Orange Peel! An autobiography by A.S. Neill, a reference in which prompted me to read some of R.L. Stevenson's essays. One is quoted at the beginning of this post, one is now in the blog's subheading, and here's one more, from "Walking Tours":

For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realise, and castles in the fire to turn into solid habitable mansions on gravel soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts -- namely, to live.

Information Literacy: Why? Selling It to Faculty

2010-07-25T14:58:00.003-04:00

crepe myrtle, in bloom on campus

I am perplexed. I am a supporter and a believer when it comes to the value of information literacy. But in trying to promote it recently, and integrate it into a classroom assignment, a professor asked me why. Is there money for information literacy? Is there prestige associated with it? Is there a mandate supporting it?

I am very glad this question has emerged so early in my career, because I think the simple answer to all those questions is no. (Although granted, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education does recognize information literacy as a characteristic of excellence in higher education.)

I know that information literacy proponents are highly organized, locally and beyond, and that it is ready for assessment. I know that in the state of New Jersey, information literacy can count toward a Technology credit for transfer from a community college to another institution in the General Education curriculum. And information literacy is getting national attention and support.

However, is there any research I can point to that clearly demonstrates its value? So far I have been unable to find studies showing its benefits. It makes intuitive sense to think that information literacy is good for higher-level teaching and learning, but there are plenty of things that are theoretically good for teaching and learning that don't make it into the classroom.

From where I sit, as a non-faculty instruction librarian, the best I can do is offer my services to support faculty in their teaching. Offering my skills and knowledge in order to collaborate may be the most useful thing I can do, whether or not I make a point of mentioning the phrase information literacy.

Importance of the Digital World, Besides Search

2010-07-18T14:40:00.002-04:00

Deptford Pink (dianthus armeria) near the athletic track

No-one would deny the importance of online search at this point. It illuminates previously dark or hidden corners of the world, for better or worse, in a way that has never been possible before in history. It makes information accessible to people who in the past were never able to reach it, and it can relieve geography of its constraint.

This democratization of access is impressive to say the least, but widespread digitization doesn't change the existence of information -- only the way of getting to it. Accordingly, I struggle to find examples of meaningful changes to human knowledge.

It is true that new technologies enable certain endeavors in the realms of business, medicine, and even the arts, and also serious scholarship that technology companies such as google are encouraging. It is even mainstream to believe that computers are opening up new ways to teach and learn. (This last reminds me of the high hopes for television when it was new. At best, that one turned out to be a mixed bag.) As much as I appreciate and use technology in my everyday life, occasionally I wonder whether it's all one giant convenience masquerading as something more enduring.

Someone recommended a book called In Search of Zarathustra to me this week. In my local library system, I can only get it as a browser-based e-book. This is the first time this has happened, and so I tried to read it exclusively online. It drove me nuts, and I'm to the point of making the effort to get a printed copy. I've heard other people recount what I'm experiencing: I'm trying to do a close reading, engaging with an entire composition, rather than searching for something or skimming it, and the e-book is failing. For searching or skimming, an e-book is fine, but in trying to seriously pay attention to a piece from beginning to end, the format doesn't work.

In the past when I've heard people say this, I've frankly been a bit dismissive. I figured they weren't trying hard enough. But usually, the reason to adopt a new technology is that it makes something easier. I had to work really hard to read a browser-based e-book in the way I'm accustomed to reading a printed book. It's true I wasn't using a devoted e-reader, but I was reading on my relatively new flat screen computer monitor, which I use regularly to read on the internet. Maybe the lack of an e-reader is the problem? Right now, I'm not inclined to try and solve a technology problem by throwing more technology at it.

And so I continue to swing between whole-heartedly embracing new technologies and hoarding printed books out of fear that they will disappear in my lifetime. Next, to get a copy of Zarathustra.

Permanence, Impermanence, and Libraries

2010-07-10T16:52:00.001-04:00

black-eyed susans (rudbeckia) amongst boxwood

Things are changing in academic libraries. Everyone knows this. Librarians discuss it ad nauseum. The end results are not yet entirely clear, but the way librarians manage collections, the way we all find things, the ways scholarship is performed -- all this and more is adapting to the times.

In more pessimistic moments it reminds me of the very short story by Arthur C. Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God." At other times it seems natural and orderly and something like progress.

This week I've been thinking about the sometimes contradictory desires to both have everything accessible at your fingertips, and also to be able to hold something Real that is not just a piece of technology connecting you to a virtual version. In the past I haven't quite understood the appeal of espresso book machines for printing on demand, but maybe that type of thing is important in the way that it supports the urge to possess while complementing electronic content. One of the things I learned when studying the history of the book is that when printing was new, the quality of printed materials was often very poor -- smudged ink, pages missing or bound incorrectly, type letters worn out. Maybe printing technology is heading back in that direction. Maybe binding books by hand will come into fashion again.

While cloud computing almost guarantees that we will never be able to completely 'lose' something on the web, anyone who takes advantage of the convenience of modern technology is also aware of the potentially catastrophic effects when it fails. This is partly why a tangible object still has value when it comes to durability. No matter how much you love your iPhone today, it will be dead and gone in a few years, replaced with a newer and shinier one.

I found the recent news about Stanford's Engineering Library's books unsurprising; what is perhaps more interesting is that an engineering library would continue to find 10,000 books worth holding onto. That's still a lot of books, and if book production in the U.S. and elsewhere has finally peaked after centuries of growth, those 10,000 are now imbued with particular importance. The other 75,000+ can languish in the cloud, but those 10,000 are the select, to be honored with shelf space and a groomed physical form.

I don't think people who appreciate printed books are just being nostalgic; I think the design (the technology) of a book really is still very useful. (I'm probably too far down the rabbit hole for this to be relevant, but personally when I want to read a particular book, I never choose the e-book version when I have the option of the printed.) Technology can be fussy and unreliable, and there is a learning curve to it. It makes its presence felt as an intermediary in a way that a printed book rarely does.

What I'm leading to is that from a usability standpoint there is still room for both printed materials as well as collections that only exist online. The question is whether economics will ultimately support both.

Higher Education: Sanctuary or Superstore?

2010-07-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

Limenitis arthemis, a.k.a Red-spotted Purple butterfly, see previously. The above lacked spots.

I'm still reading Why We Buy and enjoying it, but I've run into an apparent hitch when I go to apply some of the ideas to libraryland: The usability research discussed in the book supports goals having to do with increasing buying and selling in retail environments.

Does it benefit academic libraries to behave as though we are competing for customers in a marketplace? Libraries would not compete with each other, presumably, but with other sources for scholarly information. We have already lost the war if we are hoping to compete with google, for example.

Though not a true business, higher education is not free, and it sometimes seems that patrons expect the same kind of treatment from a college as they would if they purchased a cruise. There are a number of problems with seeing those two expenditures as equivalent.

This is not to say that libraries should make services and spaces inhospitable, but that a tendency to focus on all-inclusive service encourages those being served to avoid independent thinking, action, and exploration. These last form the basis of academic inquiry. Am I wrong in thinking that inquiry is the heart of higher education? (If this sounds familiar, I've wrestled before with providing service via instant gratification or via a lesson with more enduring value.)

The library is not the only sector in higher education being influenced by ideas from the business world -- I've noticed many students approaching their classes with a transactional mentality. They register and pay for a class, and then seem to carry to their instructor the sentiment "I have paid for you to teach me X subject. Here I am, so if I don't learn X subject and get an A in the class, it is your fault." This is along the path toward getting a job, for which a degree is a requirement. If this perception does exist, shouldn't we in higher education be working to gently correct it, rather than encouraging it?

Back in library school I myself noticed the irony of paying someone to assign me to do lifelike work, and this is one of the limitations of skills-based education. Learning how to do a specific task equips you to do a certain thing very well, but it does not encourage independent, flexible, or creative thinking.

I am not alone in these concerns. A lot of my reading about higher education recently has been the irreverent Margaret Soltan at her blog University Diaries. Consistently skeptical of the intersection between money and education, one post in particular this week asks questions similar to the ones I've raised above.

I also happen to be reading the novel The Pillars of the Earth at the moment, which concerns the psychology behind building medieval cathedrals. I notice that certain monastic ideals are surprisingly familiar in their emphasis on a higher purpose excused from commercial life. (Symbolically, the grounds of college where I work were once a seminary.)

Perhaps nowhere else is the tension between the commercial and the non-commercial more overt than at a community college, where extremely practical education (skills training) sits side by side with more traditional education (arts and sciences). Both of these directions in secondary education have fervent constituents, and they both rely on funding and support from the local community, but their attitudes toward the 'real world' are strikingly different.

I'm afraid I fall with the monks on this issue, but I'm not confident I'm on the winning side.

How to Choose Projects

2010-06-27T15:52:00.007-04:00

lily, in one of the beds near the library

The library is in the happy position of having a number of big projects on the horizon right now.

For example,
-There is increased attention being paid to teaching information literacy across academic disciplines, and the library will need to take an active role in any such endeavors.

-A brand new print-based collection is necessary for one of the academic programs to become accredited by its national organization.

-The textbook collection I've been working on for reserve at the library is a big time commitment, and I haven't even begun the process of making the college community aware of it yet.

-Another project, currently still in the fact-finding stage, would be important to the college and the community at large but might require diverting time and energy of staff currently committed elsewhere.

-We've made some progress toward putting the library into the college's online classes, but ongoing cooperation and regular communication with the distance education department is necessary to fully integrate the library's services and collections.

So, the question becomes which one(s) to tackle. Which ones can we reasonably hope to accomplish? I've learned the hard way that my native enthusiasm can lead me to overextend myself. Maybe it would help to examine whether each of these projects has a stated mission, or at least goals. Is there a visible path from Point A to Point B? While allowing flexibility for experimentation and complications, are there clear expectations for the library's role and time commitments?

It's possible we can accomplish all of the projects listed, and more. But it will require some thoughtful organization ahead of time. Maybe I can add the item "organize projects" to the top of the list, and that can be the starting point...

Hats off to Will Manley this week

2010-06-19T17:24:00.000-04:00

Poppies in bloom on campus

Recently I feel like I've been playing Whac-A-Mole at work, where every time I complete a task, some other thing pops up. Meanwhile there is a blog that has been producing some important content this week, Will Unwound. A few posts in particular caught my attention, but by the time I was able to formulate a response the conversation had moved on.

First were the posts "The Death of Library Schools" and "Angry Librarians are Angry ... Now What?". They address something I've caught myself wondering before: Is it my imagination, or is library work being de-professionalized while enrollments in library graduate programs continue to rise?

Is this happening in other fields? When a job can be done without a graduate degree, those managing budgets may choose not to make it a requirement, and who can blame them? Those who have the degree can appear irritatingly entitled in their expectation for employment that matches their qualifications*, but the personal and financial sacrifices that come with graduate school are very real, making their frustration understandable. Is a glut of people with advanced degrees even a new phenomenon? It seems as though everywhere I look there are new master's degree programs...are there truly jobs for all the graduates?

Then came the posts "Big Box Libraries" and "Who Cares about Service?", which touch on an issue very close to my heart -- public services and communities as they relate to libraries.

I'll skip putting it in generational terms, but I wonder whether in recent years customer service expectations have changed in the following way: There is a lot of assistance online now. There are a lot of online communities, composed of real people, who will gladly write reviews and answer questions about services, products, and companies (companies they don't even work for!) for free, seemingly because they like helping other people. (Granted, there may be other reasons too.) This may not be entirely responsible for the success of big box stores, but it is an important part of why they continue to flourish.

As is visible from comments on the blog, many people sincerely enjoy helping others. The audience of people to help on the internet is vastly larger than the people who are reachable at a single store in a single town. This is not to devalue solid in-person customer service, but customers frequently turn to the internet when looking for customer service that used to be provided locally in person. I suspect large corporations are aware of this abundance of free support online, and they might see cutting expertise in a store-front as a viable cost-saving method. In the context of libraries, yes, I think this trend does affect patron expectations at the reference desk, in that elsewhere it is now relatively uncommon to find a trained professional on the front lines of public service.

So, thanks to Will Unwound for providing thought-provoking contributions to libraryland -- I'll continue to be in the audience even when I'm not quick enough to be part of the conversation there.

------------------------

*I include myself in this category

Forgetting What It's Like to Be a User

2010-06-13T21:00:00.000-04:00

Hydrangea, in bloom near the criminal justice building

A few times on my commute recently, I noticed a construction sign that displayed the meaningless (though intriguing) message "Modem 9." This prompted me think about how easy it is to forget about the people who have to use the systems you design. We all specialize, and often we only work on small pieces of big projects. It's surprisingly easy to lose concern for the users.

How does this forgetting occur? For me, it goes something like this: (1) I encounter frustration with how a building was designed, or how a computer was administered, or where information is located on a web site, etc. (2) I struggle to fix the problem, or at least find a reason for why things are the way they are. Sometimes I succeed at making a change, but when I do not, (3) I become blind toward the problem. Frankly, this is probably so that I don't feel helpless. If I am unable to fix a problem, I resign myself to accepting it & creating a work-around.

As a public services librarian, however, I am frequently in the position of helping library users navigate the same frustrating obstacles, with full awareness of the design flaws and my own impotence. I would be willing to bet that the most intelligent organizations have procedures in place to combat the apathy that develops around poor design. This could be done by creating an avenue for users (including employees) to submit their ideas for improvements, or regularly scheduled reviews of processes and how things work in general.

Along these lines, I'm reading a really interesting book right now called Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill. (Try not to judge it by its packaging.) The author reports on studies performed for retailers on the behavior of shoppers, and he reveals many obvious components of functionality.

As is true for any service-oriented organization, academic libraries are responsible for evaluating whether their users are able to successfully navigate buildings and services. The trend in recent years of doing usability testing is a start, but I think there is still room to more fully integrate this type of thinking into our work.

Media, Access, and Libraries

2010-06-05T16:05:00.002-04:00

Roses in bloom in front of the library

Isn't it weird that new media (blogs, digital downloads, etc) often seem to be striving for attention from old media? Bloggers frequently want to write books, for example. Musicians still crave record deals. People making home movies still dream of attracting the attention of studio executives. Sometimes I wonder if we're in a brave new world at all, or just in an expanded one, where the preeminence of certain institutions is as great as ever. It may be true that content creation and distribution have been radically democratized, but in many cases old media still choose when to allow mainstream recognition. Conversely, old media are feeling threatened by new media's effect on their bottom lines.

Relating this to libraries, an interesting tidbit I heard at the e-book symposium a few weeks ago is that when libraries provide access to e-books, their overall circulation of physical books increases as well. This is consistent with what I observed when I worked in a large interlibrary loan office -- interlibrary loan requests were increasing over the years, probably due to the internet enabling researchers to discover more sources than ever before. Maybe it's that long tail thing in action.

And I can't help but picture web-based forces, such as online social networks, creating a new channel into the world of serious scholarship and academic information. This sounds stunningly obvious when I put it this way, but the alternative view is that a widely accessible internet signals the demise of libraries. I disagree with the latter: Traditional institutions and old media are certainly changing, but when all is said and done they will continue to have a role, and they will have new media to thank.

Ebooks: Questions and Issues for Libraries

2010-05-29T14:35:00.001-04:00

Mountain laurel, in full boom last week

Last Friday (May 21) I was able to attend a fascinating Ebook Collections Symposium at Montclair State University. Collection development is not my specialty, so many of the ideas were new to me. I'll try to summarize what I encountered.

First, where should a library put an ebook? No one publisher has the rights to all ebooks, so everyone is developing different ways to offer them. This means that when libraries purchase ebooks, they are not always easy to organize or find. To make ebooks straightforward to find, there should ideally be many different access points, including the traditional library catalog.

It is important to keep in mind that librarians did not choose or design the format of a physical book -- the book developed as buyers, sellers, and content-producers gradually realized it was a fair, standard way of doing business. That product uniformity does not seem to be happening with ebooks yet, which leaves libraries in a bind as we work with platforms and interfaces that vary by vendor.

Another issue is the Subscription vs Collection model of acquisition. This is very similar to the Access vs Ownership choice that individual consumers face. With a Subscription model, acquisitions librarians would no longer necessarily need to be able to distinguish quality or have expertise in a field. All they would need to do is pick a "Business" package containing thousands of pre-selected ebooks, for example.

Libraries faced similar decisions when transitioning serials subscriptions from mostly print to mostly electronic. Will books parallel what happened with journals, in terms of titles being bundled into bulk packages instead of being purchased individually?

The publishers who attended the symposium seemed to prefer the Subscription model. Along with that model comes the increased possibility of patron-driven acquisition, meaning a library's user community can have much more direct influence on which books the library purchases access to. Taken to a logical extreme, one might ask at what point an administration takes away a library's book budget entirely, giving the money directly to students and faculty and letting them decide which books they want to access. With a Subscription model, the idea of carefully selecting titles and building a collection goes out the window.

In plenty of disciplines, however, a high quantity of ebooks is not always a priority. In medicine, for example, there are particular titles that are considered classics, and currency is extremely important. So it may vary by subject whether the Subscription model or the Collection model is better. This is messy when it comes to creating workable policies and processes for the library. Another difficulty with collecting ebooks by title instead of as a packaged collection is that there is currently no standard format for an ebook. Thus, when you buy a particular title as an ebook, you are still largely beholden to software or a hosting platform to provide access to it. EPUB is one format that seems to be getting a lot of positive attention lately, but things are by no means settled.

Learning about all this makes me wonder if a printed book now has a place of more prestige than ever. If someone (a publisher, usually) goes to the trouble of producing and marketing a printed book in this electronic age, that book seems particularly special. It is comparatively easy for an ebook to get a bit lost, but the books that take a physical form have attained importance by their very presence. Funny how that works.

Things that I'm learning, but which don't make exciting blog posts

2010-05-20T09:17:00.010-04:00

Indian cucumber root, campus woods, taken with a different camera than usual

I take a lot of photographs, in part to illustrate this blog, and I notice that certain subjects (grasses, tiny wildflowers) repeatedly elude capture. Part of the problem is my camera, which on the bright side is very portable; part of it is my lack of skill as a photographer; and part of it is the various ways that digital images display on a computer screen.

Along the same lines, some experiences as an academic librarian have not easily converted into blog posts. At times things happen too quickly, or too slowly, to suit the format of a blog, but perhaps they deserve some recognition. Here is what I mean:

-The longer I work, the more essential accurate and detailed record-keeping seems. I haven't yet figured out how to make this sound interesting, but I recommend Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto for a fascinating account of how following sensible procedures can dramatically increase effectiveness.

-The necessity of intelligent workplace policies that are flexible enough to incorporate new information is also becoming abundantly clear to me.

-Developing the ability to manage time effectively is an extremely important skill, but one that doesn't draw much attention to itself.

-For a variety of reasons, regular meetings involving key parties seem to be the basis for highly productive and functional teams. It is far more common to complain about meetings than to herald them, though.

See what I mean? Even I'm bored reading this. And so I'll keep it short this week, and hope that I've made my point.

Textbooks on Reserve and Student Retention

2010-05-13T09:30:00.013-04:00

Bearded Iris, in bloom on campus

Consistent with a national trend (there was a nice write-up in the New York Times Magazine this past week), our community college is currently engaged with the problem of student retention. Put simply, the college administration is trying to discover the reasons why students drop out of school, in order to encourage them instead to complete a college degree. There is a lot to say about this, and there is a lot of data out there. There has also been a lot of past educational research about the reasons why college students drop out of school. From my position as a librarian, I have been trying to figure out how the library in particular could factor into college student retention and persistence.

The best idea I've come up with so far is to try and make as many textbooks as possible available on reserve at the library. Requests for textbooks are extremely common at the reference desk, and I happen to manage reserves policies, so I seem to be in a good position to work on this. Putting a book (or anything) on reserve means that students must use the library as an access point, whether for a textbook, an article, a calculator, a laptop, etc. With physical objects such as textbooks, use is typically restricted to in-house for 2-3 hours per circulation. At other colleges where I have worked, having access to textbooks in the library has been an extremely popular option for students.

There are plenty of reasons why students use textbooks on reserve, such as forgetting or choosing not to bring their own books, or waiting for postal service or financial aid. Sometimes, students feel they cannot afford their textbooks, in which case having a copy on reserve at the library is a stopgap. The library's usage limitations are usually enough of an inconvenience that students do not spend an entire semester exclusively reliant on the library's copy of a textbook. But this type of support from the library does seem to be welcome.

A relationship between having textbooks on reserve and student retention is only intuitive at this point, and so far I have found no data to support a positive correlation. But I'm willing to try this out. At the least, I hope it will bring positive attention to the library and greater visibility to one of our services. Currently we do have a few textbooks on reserve, but availability varies by department. We have no room in the budget for maintaining an ongoing textbook collection, but we have been told by a number of sources that a spare copy of a required textbook for reserve at the library is something that publishers might supply.

Working with various constituencies -- the book store, department secretaries, and publishers' book representatives -- I hope to have as many of the required textbooks on reserve in the Fall 2010 semester as possible, and then we'll try and find out if the students who used them went on to complete their degrees.

Understandably, the organization and planning of this project has been occupying a good portion of my attention recently...

Skills at Ignoring and Filtering

2010-05-07T09:29:00.011-04:00

black locust tree in bloom

I've been wondering if selective attention can be tied to information literacy.

Here is what I mean: When people interact with information, sometimes that information is

(1) Redundant (already known)

For example, this week while driving on the highway, I hit a clod of dirt that had fallen off a dump truck, and it knocked a fog light loose. I realized this directly after it happened because an alert went off, so I pulled over, got out of the car, and discovered the problem. I have ordered the replacement bulb. The car drives fine. But now every time I start the car, I get various A/V alerts that one of my lights is not working. I'm to the point where I'm tuning them out. Does this sound familiar to those who have to click through various known messages every day?

(2) Irrelevant (not needed)

For example, what if, on the fifth or sixth time visiting the same web page, you were given the option to rearrange the page elements in whatever way you chose? Wouldn't that be great? That way you could put all the things you actually use where it made sense for them to be. I for one catch myself repeating the same computer tasks according to habit. Once I've spent the time and energy figuring out how to accomplish something on the computer, I tend to do the same thing over and over again rather than figuring out how to do it a different way. (Unless I'm bored.) I realize it helps to acknowledge when we're doing this, so that we can encourage ourselves to notice things we may be missing, but unless there's a compelling reason it can be difficult to find the incentive for change.

Maybe in environments that are saturated with information, being skilled at ignoring is as important as being skilled at paying attention.

I'm still working on how this relates to the library. Apart from trying to be relevant instead of just more noise.

SMS Reference from Springshare, Woo-Hoo!

2010-04-29T14:18:00.005-04:00

Blackwood library building, rose bush in the foreground

Soon after I wrote my thank you note to Springshare last month, our library signed up for a fairly new service from the same company, allowing us to receive and answer questions via SMS (text messaging). This has been on my mind for a while, but we didn't get it off the ground until now. And let me say, Springshare has done a beautiful thing.

We were already using Springshare's LibAnswers, which, in a way similar to NJIT's use of IntelliResponse, funnels questions typed into a search box into a data bank. This means that before a patron sends an email s/he can see if someone has already asked a similar question, neatly combining reference email and library FAQs. We're also already using Springshare's LibAnalytics, which tracks information about our reference transactions. With the SMS product, we're not only able to provide a phone number for students to text, but those questions arrive in our LibAnswers queue and can be added to our Analytics. Impressive, no?

One barrier in the past to providing an SMS reference service was the price. Although we have a large student body, we weren't sure how many students would really use the service (it kinda reminded me of this Onion story -- Post Office Extends Hours To 3 A.M. To Attract Late-Night Bar Crowd), and we were reluctant to sign up for something very costly. Before Springshare came along, I was looking for something that would allow us to provide text reference through our instant messaging service (we use Meebo). For various reasons involving money, that didn't look like it would happen soon. Through Springshare, we paid a flat fee for a local phone number and 4,800 text message credits, and the rest of the service is free. This will allow us to gauge whether there is enough usage to continue.

I was going to hold off writing about all this until I got a feel for how patrons were using it, but to be honest the SMS messages are so seamlessly integrated into LibAnswers that I haven't noticed a dramatic change. When a librarian replies by SMS, the form looks a little different than usual, and the replies are limited to a certain number of characters, but that's about all. Frankly, it's a relief that this has been so easy. No-one needs to administer anything outside of the Springshare module, and the initial set-up was simple. Meaning I can focus my energy on the other 700 (or so) things I'm working on...

Online Learning and Being Officially Educated

2010-04-22T10:51:00.013-04:00

wisteria, in bloom at the park

I noticed with interest the story "Downloadable Education," on the cover of last weekend's Education Life section of the New York Times, which discussed various free educational resources. The world of free education might be attractive for lifelong learners and home-schoolers, but, glaringly, it doesn't come with an official degree, accreditation, or recognition.

The obvious follow-up question to this is, what is the purpose of such official recognition? My thinking is that a degree from an institution is a guarantee by an objective third party. An individual may claim to be good at math, but if Harvard grants him/her a degree in math, the claim is more persuasive. At the least, an educational institution acts as a responsible agent to ensure that tests are administered fairly. Even if an educational institution ends up teaching educational culture as much as any subject, learning how to succeed under someone else's rules does have real-life relevance, as when a person goes to work in an organization or a corporation.

This is to say, an individual may have the capacity, and it is becoming increasingly possible, to learn something online without having to register for a class or become an apprentice to an expert, but to learn something and be recognized by society for it (and barring some product of your learning such as an independent portfolio), that individual continues to be somewhat beholden to occasionally messy, dysfunctional, or unfair educational systems.

Consider on the one hand an example of online learning deployed in real life: An organization's mandatory employee training program, covering topics such as How to Lift Heavy Objects and How Not to Sexually Harass One's Co-workers. Self-paced, easy to use, with quantifiable assessments, would it be surprising to hear employees trying to figure out how to cheat the system? Many might consider the training a chore to be done as quickly as possible, using tactics ethical or not. On the other hand, consider learning for the sake of learning, in the form of a higher degree in the humanities. Every anecdote I hear about a humanities PhD relates that it should be pursued out of love for a subject rather than hope of professional reward. With that in mind, what motivates people to participate in the humiliating, grueling, and time-consuming process of a graduate degree program? Is it the attention of an insulated group of scholars? Why not just remain an enthusiast, reading books and attending public lectures and exhibits -- much of which can now be done online? Does an individual truly need formal academic training to satisfy a curiosity about the world? Open learning may be for the people who answer "No" to this question.

And so, while open access to enriching educational materials is wonderful, I wonder whether it revolutionizes education to the extent that some imply. It is true that all you need for a learning experience these days is a computer and a network connection. But in the mainstream, open educational materials are supplemental, and it is still necessary for someone to validate that learning experience. Can technology fully replace this last, yet?

Reasons to Feel Sorry for Students Sometimes

2010-04-15T09:59:00.017-04:00

dogwoods, in bloom near the gym

It's high research paper season again, and I continue to be impressed by the variety of ways that students can misunderstand things. Maybe that sounds snarky, but I mean it sincerely. For example,

-A Web Site Is a Web Site is a Web Site

Displayed on a computer monitor, a free web site can look identical to a subscription-based journal article, or a page of an e-book. It's all on the internet, and unless a student is scrupulous about figuring out exactly what s/he is looking at, it's just another web page.

I suppose this becomes another argument in support of books, because with a self-contained physical object there are more clues about what it is, whereas an out-of-context link may require some analysis...

-Does catering to unique learning styles encourage people to avoid challenging themselves?

It is interesting and occasionally useful to know how a person 'best' learns (I'm referring to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences here), but there are many situations where students have no choice about how they learn something -- they simply must. If a student arrives at college where a professor has certain immutable expectations for how a student learns something, and if these vary from what a student thrives under, I'm not sure how learning theory helps. (Only, when students go to study independently they might understand how to teach themselves? This requires very self-reflective students.)

-Web 2.0 may prove to be just another niche in the diffusion of information thing I was talking about last week.

As geeked as I am about Web 2.0 (look at this fashion site where you can clip things from the web and make them into a collage, for instance!), sometimes new technology just ends up being another skill to learn, another tool to add to the arsenal, another time suck. Rather than making the picture clearer, for some it may instead muddy a learning process.

It's true that my experiences with students skew toward those who are struggling, and many may not have difficulties with these things at all. Or, perhaps a lot of them are struggling and don't say anything.

Diffusion of Information, and E-books in Libraries

2010-04-08T11:16:00.014-04:00

Bradford pears, framed by cherry, in bloom this week

I notice that in the current information landscape, the preferences and habits of individual users are supported as never before. Those who are mobile can go mobile. Those who sit in front of a personal computer all day have habits grounded in PCs. Those who hate computers can still buy books.

This thoughtful post from a personal finance blog addresses the idea that purchases should follow from needs, rather than the other way around. People who read a lot might think about buying kindles; people who merely want to read a lot should not buy a kindle. (Let's forget for a moment about those who would buy a kindle to look cool.)

So should community college students, who are not always readers in the first place, be required to use e-book readers? Sometimes I have trouble imagining this. Not that the e-readers will fail, but they are perhaps most heartily embraced by those who habitually read books. People who are familiar with books are currently deciding how e-book readers should work, but these decisions are meaningless for those unfamiliar with books. (On the other hand, if typical college students are expected to use e-book readers, students at a community college should be expected to use e-book readers too.)

In The Case for Books, Robert Darnton writes that "The strongest argument for the old-fashioned book is its effectiveness for ordinary readers. Thanks to Google, scholars are able to search, navigate, harvest, mine, deep link, and crawl ... through millions of Web sites and electronic texts. At the same time, anyone in search of a good read can pick up a printed volume and thumb through it at ease, enjoying the magic of words as ink on paper."

Then again, book publishing is a business, and people who buy books are the customers. If I'm not mistaken, the number of readers buying printed books is in decline. I read a little while ago that the market for Amazon's e-reader, the kindle, is dominated by affluent baby boomers, and I wonder if that will dictate the book environment for everyone. Or, is the kindle just a device for a certain niche, and some people will find and use all the information they need through their cell phones? Or, will it all be e-reader apps? iBooks? Or, all of the above and more? This returns to ideas about diffusion and personalization that began this post.

I just read an article in Computers in Libraries about an experiment giving students at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) e-book readers. Students there overall enjoyed using the e-readers, but the librarians had some interesting observations and practical considerations on why the library will not be purchasing them. For example "The e-reader market is developing so fast that it is almost impossible to keep up ... By the time our project was finalized, more companies were bringing e-reading devices and book-reading applications for smartphones to the market" and "The devices available on the market work well for an individual user but create many problems when it comes to using them in the library. The issues of circulation, content acquisition in terms of physical management and copyright, cataloging, and other library-related matters have not been addressed by the distributors of these portable reading devices."

When information was centralized into only a few different formats, libraries could process, organize, and provide access to it in a straightforward way. When information is dispersed, the situation becomes more difficult for libraries. With relative ease, we can continue our historic relationship with books, keeping an eye on e-books and e-book readers, and we can continue to manage subscriptions to established periodicals in print and online, but what about the free (and not-free-but-not-usually-part-of-a-library-collection) content online? What about the content that is fee-based but is not a book or a periodical? However we proceed, the clear, organized model we traditionally relied upon now seems limited.

Perhaps the specialization inherent to libraries will be our enduring strength. At a college, the role of the library is to acquire, maintain, provide access, and increasingly instruct about the various resources -- regardless of format -- necessary to support teaching and learning in higher education. As long as we are paying attention, we should be able to successfully continue doing this.

Can We Teach Information Literacy and Not Be Tech Support?

2010-04-01T09:39:00.019-04:00

March showers, April flowers

The short answer to this post's title is no. Here are some examples of what I mean:

-If we put our library resources and services into an online course management system (CMS), aren't we responsible for answering questions about that CMS to some degree?

-If we help students with how to cite resources, is it fair to withdraw assistance when there are questions about how to use a word processing program to create a works cited page?

-If we provide instruction in computer classrooms, shouldn't we be capable of troubleshooting when a computer is not working and is preventing a student from following our lesson?

As I've said before, I did not become a librarian to be a tech support person. We librarians do have specialized knowledge and skills, but people should not believe they have to be librarians to successfully use technology for academic work.

And while I'm all for being helpful, I also think it is appropriate to draw some lines. For instance, the last time I found myself on hands and knees at a computer after someone didn't believe a USB port was where I said it was, I realized that students need to be able to figure out how to use their flash drives themselves. When it comes to computer problems, I describe, confirm, encourage, etc., but sometimes I find myself saying, in the end, "Fiddle around a little and you'll get it." This approach is not always popular, particularly if due dates are looming.

I have embraced being a librarian-teacher, but I'm not particularly thrilled about being a librarian-do-this-computer-thing-for-me. And as librarians try to define our roles, I am not convinced that the latter is even something we should even aspire to.

But sometimes we are stuck in roles whether we like them or not, and so I do my best to make tech support a teaching and learning experience. If we are to be the champions of information literacy, a skill unavoidably integrated with technology, this may be the cost.

Glumness about New Jersey State Budget Cuts and the Future of the Open Web

2010-03-24T11:07:00.017-04:00

Forsythia in bloom this week, in front of a pine tree

The proposed New Jersey state budget would negatively affect many types of libraries. (Keep an eye on the Save My NJ Library page for information.) At the community college, we face losing our interlibrary loan service, a number of heavily-used databases, and other things we receive by being part of a state consortium. As the college itself is also facing significant cuts in state funding, I really have no idea how everything will play out.

Moreover, I worry about the perception that everything is free and online now, implying that the library doesn't need funding. Everything is not free and online, of course, and the future of the free web is far from secure. Often it seems that support for 'free' content is the first to go when belts tighten. In recent news there have been stories about the BBC, Cornell's ArXiv, and the New York Times charging for content that had previously been given away.

If our subscriptions are cut, what will the college library then have? (Let's not even broach the topic of how we've been transitioning to an access-over-ownership collection model because of the preference for online materials instead of print.) We would have the expertise of the librarians, who would do their best to help people but who would be unable to supply the actual resources. Would the subscription fees be pushed onto students? Yikes, if so.

Librarians can talk themselves blue about the value of library resources and services, but I can imagine those in the state government might not listen to them -- meaningful support must come from constituents. These constituents are allies of the library only if the library provides them with what they consider valuable and necessary. We'll be hoping for support from faculty, staff, and students as we face the challenges ahead.

Spring Break Project: Digital Learning Object

2010-03-18T08:58:00.026-04:00

Mourning Cloak Butterfly (Aglais antiopa), in the woods near campus on Tuesday

This week, with many students and faculty away for spring break, I was hoping to have some uninterrupted time to work on various projects.

One was the creation of a digital learning object for a recurring library-related biology assignment.

I have been worrying about pouring a lot of energy into this and having to realize later that I wasted my time due to technical problems I should have anticipated. Also, the more I think about it, the more complicated it seems to migrate a physical lesson to a virtual platform, and the more sympathy I have for instructors trying to figure out how to teach online. For example:

-To put a lesson into an online learning environment, some technical skills are necessary. Luckily I'm a librarian, but there are plenty of academic disciplines where technical skills are not a requirement. (Topics in technology are treated as academic subjects and assigned to departments at most institutions of higher education, recall.) Plenty of people would not consider teaching a tech-heavy occupation.

-I catch myself constantly assessing whether the resulting product will be durable. A lecture in person, due to being ephemeral, is very easy to revise. In lectures, I am always incorporating new information, responding to feedback, and figuring out clearer ways of communicating. In building this digital learning object, I am planning on being able to make subsequent edits easily, but any editing will not be real-time. Considering all the support for interactivity in learning, this renders the learning object oddly top-down and 'old media'.

-On the other hand, I think focusing on interactivity and learning styles can allow a person to lose sight of the actual lesson to be taught and learned. Effective oration does exist, and it doesn't necessarily require gadgets. (Supporting this point, there was a fascinating Chronicle article a few months ago about how learning style matters less than effective presentation of content.) Newly available tools can also be effective and useful, but not if faculty members regard the accompanying technology with hostility.

I end up concluding that each discipline -- better yet, each lesson -- should be carefully evaluated in terms of whether or not it can be taught effectively online. Such an evaluation process would be complicated to carry out, but ultimately it would be in the best interest of the learners. As far as I know, it is not happening on a large scale at present.

So, maybe what I really need to do is create a set of standards or guidelines to determine whether this biology assignment can be taught online effectively.

Meanwhile, it's the end of spring break week, and my learning object for the biology department is not finished...

The Cost of Google

2010-03-11T10:06:00.017-05:00

Seen flowering near the library- Cranesbill Geranium?

For the record, I think life with Google surpasses life with no Google.

But when reading The Case for Books by Robert Darnton last week, I had this tangential thought:

Google is not free. We act as though it is, because it certainly seems free (and fast, and easy), but there is a price nonetheless.

First, when we search using Google, a commercial interest is deciding how information is shown to us. When it comes to finding simple, widely-known facts, such as the capital of the Ukraine for example, this effect is not noticeable. But what about when you want to know something more complicated, such as what happened during the bombing of Dresden in World War II? I know Google is good, but if you start with a lack of knowledge about German history and politics, and ask an American corporation (even one trying not to be evil) for the answer, I'm not sure clarity and truth will always result. I'm not picking on Germany, as the world is rife with examples (continuing the World War II theme, let's go with the bombing of Hiroshima), but inevitably Google's ranking is strongly related to majority opinion, and situations are often more complex than the crisp results page implies. Digressing slightly, I think this is where librarians and other information professionals are still relevant.

Second, I'm sure lots of people, like me, are logged into iGoogle all day, and so our web searches and online activities are neatly tied to our names and other Google services. This is a goldmine! Think of all the data that is precisely harvested with this set-up! In exchange for using Google's services, I blithely give all this information away. Typically I am concerned about protecting my privacy, yet this form of invasiveness hasn't bothered me -- for a really interesting article concerning some of how Google uses our data, as well as other articles about the data generated by networked computers, check out the Feb 27 issue of the Economist.

For a while, I have been wondering whether Google will ever get too big. I worry that what it started out as (web indexer, page ranker, data miner) is fast becoming confused with something else (Truth Teller, oracle, gatekeeper). Google's Director of Research recently explained in Nature what the company has in mind for 2020 -- here's the story filtered through Bill Garrity -- and I'm not sure whether to be soothed or perturbed. Even if we wanted to, I don't think there is a way to stop or slow much of this, but I hope the more we understand, the more we can choose to be willing participants (or not). I hope that is what Google ultimately wants, too.

Thank You Note to Springshare

2010-03-04T09:41:00.013-05:00

March landscape

I realized when the electricity went out last week that submitting complaints and problems to companies is easy, but it's not always so easy to communicate appreciation. (Thanks for turning our power on again so quickly, PSEG, if you're reading this for some reason!)

In libraryland, I have found the company Springshare to be consistently helpful, professional, and one step ahead of me when it comes to new features and upgrades. Not only do they seem to understand Library 2.0, but also in person their representatives were unflaggingly polite and seemed interested in what I had to say when I stopped by their ALA booths in Chicago and Boston.

Currently our library is using their LibGuides and LibAnswers products (examples at the end of this post), and we also recently started using their Analytics tool (currently in Beta) for our reference statistics. All of these have worked really well for our needs. The interfaces are clear and intuitive meaning we can dive right in, there are tons of useful tools but a lot of flexibility, and the company is responsive if we are looking for something additional. The user community is helpful, as expected, and that advice is supplemented nicely by Springshare tech support. Importantly, LibGuides allows you to create a guide quickly, and updating is a cinch. I have modified guides in front of classes when I'm teaching.

Most recently I noticed a print/mobile view on the LibGuides, which again is fantastic and which I hadn't thought to ask for yet. (Definitely still on the horizon, though.) I don't know if Springshare comes up with these things themselves, or if they just pay close attention to their user community, but thank you: Great work.

(And no, I'm not affiliated with the company beyond being a client, and Springshare didn't pay me to write this.)

Here are some particular examples of our LibGuides. If the links are ever dead, it's probably because the guide is no longer public:

-Music Subject Guide
-Psychology 101 Group Project
-Psychology Journal Article Assignment

And here is what our LibAnswers looks like.

About Me (and this blog)

2010-02-24T12:35:00.013-05:00

For a while I've been assuming that the only people looking at this weblog were those I worked with (or knew by extension) in libraryland. Yes, I know it's public, but I believed not many others would read it, hence the lack of an informative "About Me" page common to most blogs. Now seems like a good time to clarify things for anyone who arrives here and is confused.

Who I Am:
I am a Reference and Instruction Librarian at a community college in southern New Jersey. Before that, I was an adjunct librarian at several community colleges in upstate New York. Before that, I was a paraprofessional at the Cornell University Library while I worked on my MSLIS at Syracuse University's iSchool. Before that, I worked in journalism as a freelancer and office manager for a small newspaper. Before that, I bounced around the following departments as an undergraduate (this may not seem important, but the interests continue and seem to crop up in the blog): journalism, psychology, classics, literature, philosophy, and history. Eventually this resulted in a BA in history, with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies.

Blog History:
I started the Librarian's Commute during the 'adjunct' phase of the above biography, when I was shuttling among different jobs and job functions. I used three or four different computers for work every day, and I did not have a true 'home' at work. I also spent a lot of time in the car. I felt the need to have some record of what I was doing, and I looked for a way to make the hours in the car more productive. Hence the name of the blog. I know the title is kind of lame. I would probably think it sounded too stupid to be worth my attention if I wasn't the one writing it. Oh well; at the same time, I still like the idea of the liminal nature of being in transit, when a person is neither here nor there.

Subsequent to my adjuncting days, I found a less temporary position, and at that point I wondered whether I should continue with the blog. For various reasons, I'm still in the car two hours every day, thus I still have plenty of time to ponder things while driving, and so I figured I might as well keep at it.

What this Blog Tries to Be:
Overall, this is my attempt to be a part of, and contribute to, the library community. I am one of many figuring out what a librarian is as the information world changes, and libraries, technology, and higher education are the topics I try and stick to.

Having studied journalism, I'm aware of how difficult it is to be objective, and this is partly why I write from a first-person narrative point of view. Mostly I use this blog as a sounding board while I organize ideas. I try to write in a way that is clear, rational, and conversational, but I'm probably guilty of seeming alternately simplistic and over-earnest. I do my best to be honest and fair.

What this Blog Is Not:
-An official representation of the college where I work. I speak for myself as an individual, not for the college.
-Breaking news. You can find it lots of other places.
-Tech tips, for the same reason as above. I will elaborate on stuff I find useful, but I'm not usually the first to know.
-I don't think of this a place to air my personal grievances, and I don't want to talk about my cat or what I had for lunch here, unless it relates to libraries, technology, or higher education.

Where Else You Might Find Me:
I have private (not particularly library-related) accounts on Facebook and Twitter. I also administer and provide some of the content for my library's Facebook and Twitter pages. I tried to get involved with ning and several other groups online, but they haven't held my attention. I'm a member of ALA, & ACRL, and so I lurk & occasionally post to the CJC, COLLIB, OFFCAMP (DLS), ILI, RSS (RUSA), and NMRT listservs. Locally I try to be involved in VALE, NJ-ACRL, SJRLC, and CJARL.

Relevant Policies etc.:
I attempt to post at least once per week, and I've been able to hold to that so far. When I notice a typographical or factual error, I will edit a previously published post. Because I've been treating this as more of a writing project than a technology project, I've been lazy about adding gadgets and whatnot, preferring to keep it plain and simple. I'm using google's blogger software, which is free free free, and sometimes it shows. I have no plans to monetize any time soon.

Photos
The photos are my own unless attributed. At first they were strictly from my commute, and then when I got bored of taking pictures of the road I started posting anything I saw during the week.

Comments
For a long time commenting was open to anyone, but then someone submitted a bunch of advertising in Chinese, so I changed the permissions. Recently I changed them back to being more open, but I reserve the right to delete anything I consider inappropriate.

Creative Commons
I just added a license, because it bugged me to think someone might take credit for and profit from my work. It hadn't occurred to me before that anyone would want or be able to do that, but who knows. Please be nice and give me credit for my writing and photos, if you recycle them.

Future
There may be a time when I don't want to do this any more. I'll probably re-evaluate the whole project when it hits five years old. Just because five seems like a good number.

Interesting Feedback...

2010-02-21T11:06:00.010-05:00

Thanks to Google Alerts* I was notified about a fairly unpleasant description of this blog, which appears to be written as a class exercise for Meredith Farkas's LIBR246-04/13 Web 2.0 course. The author's name is Marc Schatkun. You can read it here.

I'd like to respond.

1) "Judging by the few comments she receives, it appears that her blog is not very successful."

Wait, so the best measure of a 'successful' blog is by counting the number of comments? I guess I really should quit now then. I've been measuring success differently: I have really enjoyed maintaining a log of what I've been working on and thinking about in libraryland over the years. When I look back I can see where my thinking has developed and where I've improved. Also, I'm really glad to have a professional 'face' outside of my job where I can work through ideas and thinking. Anyone is welcome to comment, but worrying about how many people are leaving comments has certainly never been high on my priority list for this.

2) "I browsed through a few of her writings, and it seems that she is anti-Facebook, anti-Twitter, and anti-social software in general"

Hold up, I am not anti- any of those things! I am the administrator of our library's Facebook and Twitter accounts! Please Mr. Schatkun, do more than 'browse' next time! And give me a little credit for being a bit skeptical about social technologies, unlike many of my young peers.

3) "I like to read about professional topics, not personal diaries (as in the Librarian’s Commute)."

Wait, does this blog come across as a personal diary? Holy moley, I thought I was being really good about Avoiding Personal Topics, & writing about what I run into in higher education and librarianship. I do try and keep the tone light and friendly, but I really don't think this blog is any more personal than other well-respected library blogs, such as Jenica Rogers Urbank's delightful "Attempting Elegance," K.G. Schneider's "Free Range Librarian" and Meredith's own "Information Wants to be Free"

I really don't care whether Mr. Schatkun wants to read my blog or not, but I wish his criticism was accurate! (And yes, a part of me is thinking 'maybe the whole point of what he wrote was to get a reaction and encourage social media participation.' If so I blow a big raspberry to you, sir.)

Next week: Mission statement for the Librarian's Commute, for the next time there's confusion.

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* Schatkun's post is marked as being from 2/10/10 -- would have been nice to know about it a little sooner, ahem Google.

Participating Online

2010-02-18T14:03:00.011-05:00

Campus buildings, a patch of blue sky, and snow everywhere (still)

For a while I've been wondering what motivates people to give away the kitchen sink online. Bragging rights? Loneliness? Boredom?

But then I caught myself contributing a couple of times recently, and so here's one perspective:

Personally, I am highly motivated to participate online -- in a discussion, Facebook conversation, a wiki, whatever -- when I notice a blatant error. I experience a very strong urge to correct the error. Even anonymously. In fact, I prefer when I can do it anonymously. Now I'm wondering whether I'm unique, if this is a symptom of some control disorder, or if this the same thing that motivates a lot of people. Is this how wikipedia came to be?

That is all, for now. It's been a long week.

How to Best Help

2010-02-10T13:00:00.008-05:00

(yep, lots of snow lately)

I've been trying to understand how to provide effective public service, both at the library and more broadly at the college. This may be oversimplifying, but I see two different ways of doing so:

(1) Spoon feeding -- No questions asked, provide an answer or solution as quickly as possible.

(2) Teaching how to fish, as in "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." -- Show how to accomplish a task independently.

In America, the second approach is widely admired, but when it comes to being on the receiving end of service, people prefer the former.

So when it comes to 18-year-old community college students, is our mission to promote independence, or to continue some of the hand-holding they might have gotten in their K-12 experiences? I think I know the answer, but I resent the abuse that can come along with it. Many students I encounter seem not to have been expected to act independently in the past. This means that in addition to the new academic subjects they are learning in college, they are also being asked to behave like adults for the first time.

I attended an ALA presentation last summer about a study of the academic habits of graduate students. Researchers found that not only were graduate student habits dictated by the preferences and tendencies of their departments and advisors, and that those expectations varied dramatically by department, but also that the graduate students were largely expected to be equipped and qualified for graduate level work from day one. For students who moved from undergraduate work directly to graduate school, this could be bewildering. If they did not get a base of understanding research in their fields as undergraduates, there was no built-in process for them to be brought up to speed in graduate school. They were supposed to already know.

I suspect this also happens during the transition from high school to college. High schools do their jobs with students who are considered children by legal standards. When these children turn 18 and come to college, they are held up to a sometimes different set of expectations. Yet it is possible that no-one ever introduced them to adulthood. I imagine the experience can be disorienting at best, and harsh at worst. And for community college students who already face various obstacles encouraging them not to persist with college, it may be one of those variables that convinces them they are not fit for higher education.

Here are some possible solutions I see that involve the library:
-Greater outreach to the K-12 schools that are feeding students to the college.
-Some kind of mandatory introduction or orientation to college, so that incoming students get the basics of what is expected.
-Some kind of computer prerequisite or test, to establish a minimum level of comprehension. I'm on shaky ground with this one, but I think college students are often given more credit than they deserve when it comes to computers and technology, in particular when it comes to doing serious academic work.

Librarian Tech Support

2010-02-04T10:09:00.018-05:00

(pine cone surrounded by snow)

I keep returning to the thought that in the current information environment, which is enriched by computers and technology, librarians are responsible for more rather than less.

Digital objects and the machines connecting to them seem to require as much attention and maintenance as any physical object in the library. On some days, a substantial portion of what I do involves making sure computers work properly: Computer hardware appears to have a shorter shelf-life (ha!) than a book.

In library school, I did not imagine that technical support would be such a major component of my job as a professional librarian, but I am slowly accepting it. Sometimes I feel spread thin trying to learn what seems to be expected from tech support -- digital devices, audio visual formats and standards, digital objects, etc. But often we compose the immediate assistance for the myriad computer applications and programs and systems. If there are computers and patrons needing help, they look to us -- not necessarily because we are equipped or qualified, but because we are present.

As someone with first-hand experience teaching how to print a document ten different times in a morning (yesterday), I am not surprised by librarian resentment over this state of affairs. But whether we like it or not we are at least partially responsible for an array of fallible machines & associated technology. In addition to books, we are now nominally in charge of maintaining and preserving digital devices and objects.

Librarianship has always been about information, but most of us do not have much control over the directions it takes. We are facing increased responsibility, and we can respond in two ways: Cover our ears and hum to ourselves, or roll up our sleeves, do what we can, and try and embrace the new roles we find ourselves in, adding tech support to teaching and research assistance. I'm for the latter.

Is Using the Library Like Cleaning the Bathroom?

2010-01-28T11:07:00.006-05:00

Driveway, after Monday's storm

I was thinking the other day about what a lazy person I am. Now, anyone who took a peek at my calendar and various to-do lists would probably not characterize me as lazy, but here's what I mean: I'm lazy when it comes to doing things I don't feel like doing. In fact, unless I enjoy doing something, I'll procrastinate until the last minute and then rush through it, even when I know it's important.

Usually I would keep this psychological insight to myself, but I think it has implications for providing services at the library:

(1) This probably sounds trite, but motivation and attitude can change everything. Once something seems interesting, the amount of time and energy invested doesn't seem as big a chore -- Suddenly there is no need to avoid it.

(2) I care about words and sound in general, and so I find myself concerned about preserving books and audio. If the task before me was "Read X" or "Listen to X," and I did not care about words or sound, would I care about books or audio files? Probably not. I'm short on numerical data, but I venture to guess that this is the case for many of our students.

(3) When I do not want to do something and finally talk myself into it, I move from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. This is labor in the fullest sense of the word. Again I don't have the numbers to back myself up, but I wonder if this is where the bulk of our students find themselves when they use the library. It is also why the library needs to make its processes as convenient as possible: We can and should always dangle out the possibility of further exploration for when a student comes to agree that Literature Is Fun, but we cannot depend on this happening, and this assumption cannot be the library's bread and butter.

(On a side note, reading the discussion of book piracy at Mad Woman in the Forest makes me wonder: Does anyone pirate books due to the convenience & immediacy, and not only because they're free? I think libraries are mostly successful at replicating the convenience & immediacy of file sharing servers as they foray into collecting digital content, so it'll be nice when people don't have that excuse.)

To return to the title of this post, it's very easy for librarians and regular users to forget that many students turn away from the library because they perceive using it to be a chore. This is worth keeping in mind when we try to win them over.

Mobile Services at the Library - Status Update

2010-01-20T15:07:00.013-05:00

City skyline, from the Boston Convention Center on Summer Street
(I happened to be in town for ALA Midwinter & went to the exhibits)

Earlier in December I was preparing to contact hand-picked faculty to see what they thought of EBSCO's mobile interface. Since then, I've been ... thinking more about it.

First, what is our library trying to offer here? (With a budget of zero, bear in mind.)

-Are we trying to offer a mobile interface for our web pages? Lacking a content management system, who should be in charge of making sure these pages are updated and current?

-Are we trying to offer an app that would allow a person to search our collections? Is it worth developing one that would only be compatible with a certain phone or plan? Our integrated library system has a mobile app for sale, for example, but it only works with an iPhone or a Blackberry.

-Are we trying to offer the opportunity to send a text message to a reference librarian? Ruling out purchasing a cell phone for the reference desk, and adding the fact that I haven't found a reliable and free way to funnel a text message into an email or a chat session (to use Google Voice we would need a google account for the library; also we'd have to be invited), I'm not sure how to accomplish that right now. I'm always looking, however, and it's always changing...

We do have the immediate capability of offering a mobile interface for our EBSCO databases. This allows patrons to search for articles, and then to email those articles from their mobile devices. Most patrons would not be able to read the articles that are in PDF format from their mobile devices -- at last glance Adobe wasn't offering something compatible with all mobile devices -- nor would they probably want to.

This begs the question, which mobile services are relevant to our user population? EBSCO Mobile might be most useful for select groups, such as nursing students frequently using CINAHL. Other options, such as Naxos's free iPhone app, are limited to patrons with certain phones, and I'm not sure how we could identify those patrons, never mind selectively target them in light of which classes they are taking.

If it does become possible for us to offer SMS reference for free, it would be a neat addition to our suite of ways to connect with the library. But as things stand right now, I'm not confident it would get enough traffic to justify paying much for it.

Ultimately, if the purpose of providing mobile services at the library in some form or other is to have a 'look-at-me' moment where the library seems really hip and technologically up-to-date, we should do implement them pronto. If, on the other hand, we are trying to provide viable, robust, dare-I-say useful services, the current picture doesn't look as rosy.

VALE Conference, Part 2

2010-01-12T15:24:00.011-05:00

(small, blurry shot of my VALE poster*)

Following last week's post, I got a lot of helpful and interesting feedback at the VALE Conference, and I wanted to share some of it. I won't use names in case people prefer not to be identified here, but these are some ideas I picked up:

-I had a long interesting discussion with a Rutgers librarian about how transactions at the reference desk should be treated more as an art than a science. The conversation with her paralleled what I wrote last week, in that many interactions at the reference desk were more complex than I had originally anticipated. She recommended a lot of great reading, mostly to do with The Reference Interview. While I definitely agree that patrons are best served when they are treated as individuals rather than a uniform group, I still see some inefficiencies and areas for improvement in reference services.

-There was a great conversation with an NJIT librarian about their campus-wide use of intelliresponse, which you can see in action front and center on their library page. Spearheaded by my boss, we are going to debut Springshare's LibAnswers at the college this spring, and the two products seem quite similar. I am really excited to be able to combine our FAQs with our Ask-A-Librarian page, and it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in the volume and types of questions we get. In fact, using LibAnswers this spring will be a great follow-up to the data I gathered last semester.

-I talked with a number of other librarians struggling with how best to serve patron groups similar to those at the community college, such as ESL students, students with latent or obvious learning disabilities, etc. A great number of reference desk transactions that I recorded seemed to hinge on a lack of student reading/writing/computing skills, and I wonder how different the transactions would be if I only gathered data from a population with relatively equal abilities, such as nursing students. Would I be able to pinpoint more specific areas of need than "I don't know how to look up a book"? What are the reasons that it does not occur to students to look for a library web page with a search system? Or, if students try and fail, at what point do they give up?

At any rate, this spring I'm looking forward to the second semester of collecting data at the reference desk and thinking about usability. (Note the new LJ column The User Experience.)
_________________________

*I learned the important lesson that scotch tape rolled into a circle does not encourage paper to lie flush against foam board. Must try a different tactic next time.

VALE Conference

2010-01-06T08:36:00.020-05:00

(pine cone, surrounded by leaves & pine needles)

After a lovely week of vacation, I am hard at work on a poster for Friday's VALE Conference. Originally the poster's title was "Reference Desk (Point of Service) Interactions Re-framed as Usability Problems," and while that still accurately conveys the spirit, the current heading is "376 Questions for the Reference Librarian = Ideas for Improving Library Usability?"

Notice the question mark at the end of the heading. When I blithely began this project at the beginning of the Fall 2009 semester, I genuinely believed that most interactions with patrons at the reference desk could be thought of in the context of usability, and that clear, preemptive solutions to students' problems could be found. (I have read various definitions of usability, mostly in reference to web design, but what I mean is getting from Point A to Point B in a straightforward, intuitive manner.) In fact, this is not necessary so.

In analyzing my data, I notice a few things. I should not be surprised that students' mannerisms and attitudes affected my reference responses, and that recording the transactions influenced how I thought about them. However, the high number of ESL students I assisted, and the large amount of basic orientation I did, suggest that what I am doing at the reference desk is more nuanced than I thought.

I also realized that solutions to some problems can be extremely complicated or ultimately not worth the effort. A library orientation program, for example, would prevent a lot of common confusion, but due to a number of local factors this will probably not be implemented. From my perch, it is easy to shake my head at design failures, but for others it can take far more energy to undo something than to find an acceptable alternative or work-around.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to discussing this and other topics with colleagues on Friday!

Twitter after a Year

2009-12-22T11:25:00.009-05:00

parking lot cleared of Saturday's snow

I set up a twitter account for our library (@camdencclibrary) a little more than a year ago as a bit of an experiment, and 355 tweets later -- admittedly not much in the land of twitter -- I still think it's a good idea, and that it's important to be there.

First and perhaps foremost, the speed of the service is amazing. This can be invaluable for world, local, and professional news and information. Often when people are faced with the overwhelming information landscape, whatever they can access the quickest trumps all else, including quality. (I used to think this was laziness, but now I think of it more as a coping mechanism.) This makes twitter relevant to librarians as information providers, but it is also relevant to librarians as information consumers, because if your network is good enough any information you could want is at your finger tips in ways that can be smarter than google.

If you miss information in real time, a twitter search is also a valuable tool for asynchronous communication. If you are looking for solutions to technical problems, or synopses of conferences or events, it can be really useful to go back and see if anyone else is struggling with the same questions or is on the same wavelength.

The messages on twitter are continually being aggregated, and thanks to the large community of people using the service, this often reveals meaningful patterns. Even if it doesn't seem that anyone is reading your messages, the words you are using contribute to a rich network of trends.

Having said all this, I have some caveats:

Your twitter account is only as good as the people and organizations you are following, and those who are following you. If your contacts are the types of people who share the minutiae of every waking moment, your experience with twitter may be completely vapid.

And as is true for many endeavors, a twitter account requires maintenance. I have noticed that when I am extremely busy I allow other things to take precedence over it, and only when things slow down enough again do I go back to it. I don't think this is entirely bad, as it functions like any other online community in this way; never too far away, and always waiting for you.

Consistent with lots of things on the web, twitter is constantly changing. It can sometimes be hard to see through the hype, and who knows what clever uses people will come up with for it next, but as a tool for informal, flexible, and fast communication, it's pretty darn neat.

Why Outreach to Adjunct Instructors Is Important

2009-12-16T09:46:00.019-05:00

sunset reflecting in the Madison building

A while ago I worked as an adjunct librarian, and I remember asking someone at the college what the word 'adjunct' meant. I know I sounded foolish -- I understood the basic definition (temporary and part time), but I was unclear about what the term meant to the wider academic community. I should have looked in the Oxford English Dictionary, whose definition refers to being joined, added, connected, annexed, subordinate, auxiliary, or dependent. In the field of logic, an adjunct is "Anything added to the essence of a thing; an accompanying quality or circumstance; a non-essential attribute."

Being a professor has achieved such status that many highly qualified instructors seem content with prolonged adjunct positions, despite the low pay and lack of benefits.* This may be why community college administrations in New Jersey employed 75 percent of their teachers as adjuncts in 2007.** This compares with 56 percent in higher education statewide. It is also a national trend, although again the word 'adjunct' is not used: The number of full time instructional faculty dropped from 78 percent to 52 percent from 1970 to 2007, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Like it or not, this contract model of employment seems to be here to stay, and there are plenty of reasons why libraries and librarians should be making an active effort to include adjunct instructor in any outreach efforts:

#1) I already mentioned there are more adjuncts than full-time instructors teaching in community colleges, but in addition adjuncts are often teaching the introductory courses where orientation to an academic library might be particularly valuable for students.

#2) Due to their liminal status, adjuncts need more guidance and orientation than other employees. Information about services and resources they can expect to find through the institution's library should be relevant wherever they ultimately end up.

#3) Many adjuncts return to the same institution year after year. Although it is not entirely dependable, what does the library have to lose by forming a relationship? Specialized work can often be recycled, and it improves the library's reputation as a welcoming, helpful place.

Fourth and finally, it is the right thing to do. Ideally, working in higher education means participating in an intellectual community with the shared goal of teaching and learning. Many instructors are so committed to teaching that they are willing to endure the various indignities that correspond with adjunct status. At the very least, their efforts warrant cooperation from full time staff, faculty, and librarians.

____________________________________________

*Or sometimes not -- see the recent stories in the Chronicle of Higher Education "Surge in Adjunct Activism Is Spurred by Bad Economy and Hungry Unions" and "'Chronicle' Survey Yields a Rare Look Into Adjuncts' Work Lives".
** I'm looking at New Jersey's Commission for Higher Education for these and other numbers, and I'm assuming that 'part-time' and 'adjunct' are interchangeable -- the number of full professors who only work part-time is probably negligible.

Testing Mobile Services on Faculty

2009-12-10T13:05:00.010-05:00

Storm blowing through this week

Once again, we are reviewing the mobile landscape and wondering if it is time to dive in. Will our users take advantage of mobile library services if we provide them?

Recently I had three interactions with faculty members where email communication from them was sent from their mobile devices. It seems likely that professors at our college spend more time traveling to and teaching classes than in front of a computer, and so they might be the first to adopt mobile library services. In fact, faculty may demand more sophisticated applications from their phones than students, and they may be more inclined to think of them as productivity tools as much as social tools. They also may have more money to spend on a phone and a plan.

EBSCO recently announced they are providing a mobile platform, and so I'm trying to set that up and will then encourage faculty to test it out. We can gauge the usefulness and think about how to promote the service to students after that. (And then maybe we can also convince someone we need iii's airpac?)

The Reference Desk As Lifeline to the College

2009-12-03T08:48:00.020-05:00

pine needles on sandy soil

In the past I have expressed ambivalence about working at the reference desk. Despite my best efforts to be helpful and kind, I still become frustrated and occasionally bored, and I catch myself hoping for work that is more challenging than answering directional and computer skills questions.

Having said that, there are a number of benefits to the desk that make me think we should not toss it out the window yet, at least at my current institution.

First of all, face time with students allows us a perspective on what is going on that we would not necessarily get otherwise. We can learn sometimes subtle things from observing. For example, this semester I helped a number of students who did not seem to understand the concept of library reserves but were assigned to use them. I interpreted this to mean that their instructors did not understand library reserves sufficiently either, and a logical response was to create and send a hand-out to certain faculty. The reaction was uniformly grateful.

Also, if faculty opt not to work with us, sometimes we only find out about a library-related assignment when a student appears at the reference desk. When a student has a positive experience with a helpful reference librarian, that information makes its way back to the professor and generates organic publicity for the library. It may even motivate the faculty to work more closely with us in the future.

Again, being stationed at the reference desk permits us get a direct look at what students are struggling with, what they do not understand, what information is missing from assignments, etc. Even if a population of students in the library is not representative of an entire class, the information is often useful.

All this translates into opportunities for us to get involved and broadcast the library's relevance. I cannot count the number of times a transaction at the desk has prompted greater involvement in the college or with faculty. I am not confident the same would have occurred if everything was automated, or if I sat in my office all day.

It can be a stretch for an organization to staff a service desk with professionals, and there are many indicators encouraging librarians to move away from this model. Local circumstances vary, obviously, and we should certainly be figuring out how to assist students who no longer come to the library. But as long as the college library has a building and supports academic work, it will be wise in the long-term to hang on to this tradition.

Why Librarians Should Be Faculty: A Short List

2009-11-25T10:56:00.021-05:00

Gray and rainy this week, leaves continuing to drop

Back in April, I wondered whether librarians should be classified as faculty or administrators, because in reality we are neither. Since then, I have formed the definite opinion that we should be faculty. Below are my reasons, briefly. While perhaps no one reason alone would be persuasive, taken collectively I believe there is a strong case for librarians having faculty status at a college or university.

#1: Librarians are part of an academic discipline. Some who see information sciences as a skills-based subject might turn their noses up at it, but I think most would at least agree that it's a relevant field in this age of ubiquitous technology. There are plenty of topics ripe for serious study due to all of the new types of data currently being generated, and this is research that practicing librarians are capable of and should be encouraged to do.

#2: In light of our discipline, when a course is proposed that involves some aspect of information literacy or information science, librarians should naturally be contributing to it. In New Jersey, for example, there exists a transferable General Education course involving information literacy. Information literacy is a topic that librarians have been championing for years. Yet, there is little obligation to consult librarians about the creation of such a course if the librarians do not have faculty status.

#3: When it comes to collaborating with faculty members, comparable status might get some measure of attention. If librarians are classified with the "blood-sucking overhead," that likelihood dims. (And yes, I have heard an administration referred to in this way, although not at my current institution.) This can make outreach work extremely difficult, as faculty are free to treat librarians more as servants than as equals.

#4: Many librarians are already teaching in the classroom, or have expertise in an additional subject besides information science, or both. And although the library as a department is beholden to the larger institution, many everyday duties of librarians directly involve teaching and learning in ways that the everyday duties of administrators do not. Thus, the concerns of librarians are more closely aligned with faculty.

This topic does not seem to be debated much, but I know where I stand the next time it comes up...

Fitting the Patron into the Organization

2009-11-20T08:57:00.008-05:00

Bradford pears next to the science building (library obscured)

Listening to the radio on the way to work on a recent morning, I heard an advertisement for a bank (Ally Bank, if anyone is curious) promising service from "a real human." This implies a person answering the phone instead of an automated phone system. As a customer, this sounded attractive to me -- the very thought of an automated phone system makes me groan. It's an annoying process, but doubtless it saves the company money...

...And there are parallels with the reference desk. What I would love to do is automate the process of answering some of our most common questions. Mostly this is for selfish reasons related to the sense that I answer the same question 20 times per day. But by doing this we may not be best serving the students. They may instead groan because they have to read a sign explaining how to print instead of asking someone to show them quickly, for example.

Then again, what service are we at the college providing? While public libraries have public service as part of their core missions, at the college we are focused on education. We are trying to promote independent adult behavior and a desire to learn.

Our students come from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of expectations, and becoming an independent learner is not always at the top of their lists. Perhaps in the past the librarian looked up books for them, they were never expected to know how to handle malfunctioning computers, or they were never even allowed to work on a computer unsupervised. Now they are in college. Should we encourage students to work without mediation, or should we behave like a business and cater to their every whim?

E-Textbooks for Libraries, Anyone?

2009-11-11T08:41:00.013-05:00

Seed pods on leafless black locust tree

So last week in a meeting I proposed the idea of spending some of our reference budget on student textbooks available electronically. The library's policy of not purchasing textbooks was partly because they went missing all the time. E-books would not be at the same risk. Simple, right? I thought this would be an instance of the library being really helpful to students. Of course, when I suggested the idea I did not know what it would mean to accomplish it.

To figure out how to make this a reality, I went to the college book store and asked if they knew which of the current textbooks are available online. The book store representative gave me the web site they use and said the books were listed there (whywaitforbooks.com). So I called the customer support number on that page, and the support specialist directed me to the two vendors they use, CourseSmart and VitalSource. I called both of them, and at both the customer service representatives seemed surprised by the idea, took my information, and promised to get back to me.

Within 24 hours, I received a polite email from CourseSmart expressing pretty much what I expected: "Currently, our business rules only allow for individual accounts that assign responsibility to one individual rather than multiple users for the same account. The publishing companies that partner with CourseSmart determine these guidelines." The email did mention that they would keep me posted if a library use model is developed in the future, however.

Also within 24 hours, I got a voicemail from VitalSource saying they were confused about my message and would try and contact me later in the day. I have not heard from them again, and the representative, who described himself in the message as technical support, did not leave a number for me to call back.

So, fellow librarians, this is so far a bust. Has anyone else had any luck? I thought I had reason to hope due to things like the downloadable audio book program now in effect at the public libraries in New Jersey, and the Nook's ability to share e-books. But maybe the situation is exactly what D.J. Hoek describes when he discussed music collections in a lucid article recently in American Libraries: Libraries are not necessarily considered part of the market when it comes to digital content, because companies are typically licensing directly with individuals and are not encouraging sharing.

We can change this, right?

E-Books: Are People are Finally Ready?

2009-11-05T09:26:00.005-05:00

November sky, near the athletic fields on Wednesday

This is purely anecdotal, but -

I notice that e-books are suddenly being greeted with previously-unseen enthusiasm this semester. Is it due to kindles and nooks creeping into the popular mindset?

The change in attitude has been subtle and difficult to pinpoint, but it seems that instead of reacting with surprise/fear/ennui, the majority of students are now expecting e-books and sometimes even look forward to using them. Particularly in instruction sessions, I'm noticing a downright electricity in the room when I bring up e-books. The first time a student asked in class how to use the e-books I nearly fell off my computer stool in surprise, but now I anticipate the interest as a matter of course.

It's true that in other semesters I heard a few students singing the praises of e-books (as well as students looking for 'regular' books, and why are you showing me all this confusing computer stuff?), but it's as if all of a sudden the idea of an e-book is understood and is being taken more seriously. Perhaps the word has sunk in?

I'm waiting until the end of the semester to review usage statistics, but even faculty (sometimes the slowest adopters, alas) seem to be catching on. I've helped a number of professors on the phone recently as they navigate our e-books. I wonder what the tipping point was -- Barnes & Noble, the economy, some textbooks being offered electronically, a critical mass of preference for electronic resources? Perhaps in a small way, our library's outreach efforts? In any case, the future seems to be arriving here.

Library Photos

2009-10-29T11:16:00.005-04:00

Life at the community college library continues as normal, replete with all the usual challenges. I had planned on writing about The Student Research Process (or lack thereof) this week, but as I've been taking a lot of amateurish photographs of the library building recently, I thought I'd share some of those instead, alla flickr:

GUI Design Thoughts

2009-10-21T12:35:00.017-04:00

Blackwood woods, on Wednesday

It's a short post this week: I'm feeling swamped.

When I do a lot of library instruction, I repeatedly return to this thought: Many computing activities try to mimic a physical environment.

Think the floppy disc icon = Save:

Think file folders for organization:

Think journal articles: our online bibliographic databases often display journal articles by (unintentionally?) making reference to the paper version of the journal. Paper is still the standard. But why do we need page numbers when Ctrl+F exists, for example?

Also, is continuously referring to a different format effective? At times it is sort of nice to have a physical representation to refer to. When I am in front of a class explaining what a journal is, I sometimes show students a printed journal. But does this get to the heart of scholarly communication? Is pointing to a physical object that an increasing number of students have never seen the best way to teach them about the relevance of scholarly publishing?

We are now working with students who have perhaps always done research at least partially online. I wonder how many of them have ever interacted with printed magazines and newspapers. While it's true that not everything is available full-text online, increasing numbers of items are born digital. It seems unfortunate to have to tether the digital objects to a frame of reference that in the future may no longer exist. But maybe this is a natural consequence of living in a transitional time.

How Much Should I Worry about the Student Sleeping in the Back?

2009-10-14T11:21:00.018-04:00

yellow flower whose name I don't know, in bloom right now

Well, the semester (and thus library instruction) is again in full swing. This means I am as likely to be found in front of a class as at the reference desk right now.

I notice a few things have changed since I last thought about how to teach effectively:

(1) I no longer assume students know what I'm talking about. I don't assume they know what a catalog is & what it's doing when they click 'search', I don't assume they know what books (particularly academic titles) are all about, I don't assume they know what a journal is, or know the meaning of the word 'periodical'. (In fact, strong majorities in BIO1 classes told me with a show of hands that they did not know what a journal was.) I try to define my terms as much as possible while still getting to the point of the lesson, but this leads to (2) me talking for a lot longer -- it's suddenly easy to go for 45 minutes without interruption. I wonder if this is good for the students, and in fact I have noticed a few of them falling asleep. And so I go back to being conflicted over (3) how I can make the material interesting to them. Moreover, how much energy should I spend worrying about this?

Begin rant / These are adult college students, and they have the responsibility to sit up and pay attention, and if they choose not to do this, how is it my fault if they decide to go to sleep? School -- even college -- is by its very nature boring for some students, and for every one student who is snoozing, there are 15 who are wide awake and attentive. Why should I grease the squeaky wheels by dumbing down my lesson with fireworks displays? I have no idea why they are sleeping -- maybe they are working three jobs, maybe the room is too hot, maybe they were kept up all night by screaming children, or maybe they really do not want to be in college. I usually only see them once, in a single class, which is not enough time to try and understand what is going on with them & what learning style will best work for them. / End rant

In an ideal world, of course, we would all be able to create learning experiences like this one:

I assume this video was meant to show a novel approach to changing people's behavior (while promoting fitness or decreasing energy consumption?). But really, how I can I make using library databases -- even taking into consideration all my enthusiasm and confidence that they are magical -- into an experience similar to this? Modify them into a first-person shooter game? I'm going to need some serious programming skills for that one.

Then again, if you asked the people who participated in the video above, I wonder what they would say they learned? Did they learn that using the stairs makes them fit and healthy? Did they begin to understand how much more energy the escalator uses than the stairs? No, they learned that they could play music on this set of stairs. Although perhaps the use of that staircase increased, those same people might well have kept using the escalator everywhere else -- i.e. where the steps had not been turned into musical keys.

The problem is, work is not always fun. Work is sometimes work. And isn't being able to successfully do something that is not particularly fun a valuable skill? Or, should we be encouraging the ability to constantly turn work into something fun?

Creating, Maintaining, and Sharing Personal Libraries

2009-10-06T15:14:00.008-04:00

purple sweetgum leaf

I've been pondering how personal collections (libraries) are changing, and I think it comes down to sharing: It used to be more difficult to share items from a personal collection because of concerns about loss or damage. Now, however, with digital copies and high-speed networks, sharing your collection can be much easier.

So, what does this mean for public & institutional libraries? If folks are now able to share easily amongst themselves, what purpose do we have? Are we providing resources for those who do not participate in those sharing networks for one reason or other? Are we exposing people to new resources that they might not have encountered in their networks? More importantly, are librarians part of these networks? I believe librarians now have the responsibility not just to keep up with, collect, and maintain materials, but also to disseminate them by engaging in networks.

Unfortunately, many (I hesitate to say most) people do not consider the organization of their collections terribly important. For a lot of people it slides to the bottom of their priorities list. In librarian terms, this means the metadata is often a mess.

To put this in more concrete terms, I can think of a number of tools I use to organize my own personal libraries: delicious to organize my collection of web sites, Visual Bookshelf to organize my leisure reading, zotero to organize my scholarly projects and citations, iTunes to organize my music, etc. But I don't know of one tool that brings my collections together, lets me connect to people I know, and allows me to share all that information. Is it Ning? FriendFeed? Where is the one tool or set of standards to support this? Maybe an important component of information literacy (which is now getting attention from the president) is exactly how we should all be creating, maintaining, and sharing our personal collections.

Facebook, LibGuides & TLC event

2009-09-29T14:19:00.022-04:00

Acorns! (and leaves, and a mushroom)

Days at the library have been extremely busy for me lately, and so instead of writing one of my usual meditative/rambling posts this week, I'm just going to describe some of the projects I'm currently working on:

#1) Camden County College Library's Facebook page

There have been a couple of past attempts at creating and maintaining a page for our library, but when I was recently nominated to take charge of the library's Facebook presence I decided to start from scratch. Due to a great many discussions in libraryland on the topic, I feel well-versed in the theory of library facebook magic, so this is a great opportunity to implement it.

I'm looking at the Green Library (Stanford University), the Library of Congress, and the TC3 Baker Commons pages for ideas. Also I'm hoping to eventually embed widgets from our various vendors in the page. Glad to see that the Camden County Library System has already created them for CamCat (our shared OPAC).

#2) LibGuides, LibGuides, and more LibGuides

We began using LibGuides when I started my job, so I cannot imagine our instruction program without them. They are a fantastic resource for librarians, students, and faculty. They supplant the paper subject guides or pathfinders, but they also can be used for a variety of other projects such as faculty support and special event pages.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's one way we're using them: A professor requests a library instruction session, usually related to a particular assignment. We create a LibGuide to highlight resources and materials to support the assignment. We publish the guide, the faculty member reviews it, and then we cover the material in the guide in class. The guides can be quickly and easily updated if anything changes, and they are extremely useful for students and the reference librarians to refer to. All librarians can edit the guides, but some of us have claimed ownership of particular ones.

At this point, we have 45 published (active) guides, and approximately 75 unpublished (in-process) guides. Here are some of the ones I've worked on: English Composition 102, Intro to Literature, Music subject guide.

#3) Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) event at the college "Technology In and Out of the Classroom: Online Communication with Students."

On Thursday I'm helping to host this event for faculty on campus. Two colleagues and I have divided up various Web 2.0 tools to discuss. My part of the presentation will be about how to use twitter as an educational tool. I'm looking forward to hearing faculty responses and questions!

Whew!