Libraries/Info Sci Archives - Page 10 of 27

ALA 2007 – Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks & Libraries

This talk was broken up into three pieces – one each by Matthew Bejune (Assistant Professor of Library Science at Purdue University Libraries), Meredith Farkas (‘Queen of Wikis’ and Distance learning librarian at Norwich University), and Tim Spalding (founder of LibraryThing).

Matthew opened with a summary of his research into wiki use in libraries. The results will appear more formally in the 9/07 issue of ITAL. For his purposes, library wikis can be classified in one of four groups:

1. Collaboration between libraries
2. Collaboration between library staff (internal)
3. Collaboration between staff and patrons
4. Collaboration between patrons

Groups one and two combined make up about 76% of all library wiki use.

Some highlighted examples included the SJCPL subject guide wiki, the USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library’s site (using a wiki as a full CMS), OCLC’s Wikid, and The Biz Wiki from Ohio University.

As we move forward with Wikis, Matthew highlighted some questions to keep in mind:

Why aren’t we more in category 3 or 4?

How might we enable patrons to build or modify a library’s information?

How will libraries next use wikis?

His own wiki (http://librarywikis.pbwiki.com/) has many more details.

Meredith took the stage next. Her presentation is available online at meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com

She stressed the need for knowledge management. All organizations need it to collect and maintain just how to do a task and share areas of expertise. Many libraries’ systems for this purpose are too informal right now. For example, scraps of paper with notes left at the reference desk can very easily disappear. A blog might work, but the reverse chronological listing makes it hard to locate an item in the long run.

Meredith also talked about user tagging as used in Ann Arbor District Library’s catalog – these tags are more familiar to users than the LCSH system. But, tagging needs a critical mass of tags applied to items to be of much use in making recommendations. Hennepin County’s catalog lets users create lists like on Amazon, and leave comments in the catalog. Worldcat is going to allow these lists too.

A great example of a community-focused wiki that Meredith showed is the RocWiki – a big guide to the city of Rochester, NY. (near where I grew up, incidentally) Users have asked and answered each others’ questions in discussion areas of the wiki. While this one isn’t run by a library, why couldn’t a library build something like this as a community service? It would enhance reference service too.

The Biz Wiki was brought up again, as an example of drawing on faculty expertise and what students have picked up.

But a Wiki is not an easy solution. It takes time to get buy-in, run training for staff, and then integrate it into an existing workflow. Also, I got a big kick out of this library wiki tech troubleshooting page.

Later, in Q&A Meredith mentioned that some moderation by authority is necessary for online communities. But it has to be done carefully to maintain a grassroots feel.

Tim Spalding’s presentation was jaw dropping. I’ve played with LibraryThing before, but only a little bit. I had no idea of how deep its current functionality goes. LibraryThing is now the second largest library catalog type system in the world.

It relies on “social cataloging” and the idea that knowledge is a conversation. A catalog itself is not a conversation, but is a tool to get you to it. LCSH helps start this process, but then users need to ascend.

The users do an amazing amount of cataloging work for librarything, probably without even realizing it. They combine multiple editions into one authority listing, write extensive author pages (making sure to clear copyright for any pictures of them), etc. By letting users apply tags of their own design, the resulting system is a bit more natural than LCSH – ‘cooking’ instead of ‘cookery’, for example. There are also tags for genres like chick lit and cyberpunk, which LCSH doesn’t cover. And even if LCSH were to add headings for these areas, there’s no guarantee that past written books would be classified with it retroactively.

Of course, tagging isn’t perfect. What if someone labeled The Diary of Anne Frank with an antisemitic tag? Well, it hasn’t really happened. But relatively useless and infrequently used tags for the book like “in belgium” or “historyish” can be ignored when only popular tags are shown. This relies on a critical mass of tags though, enough that the oddities can be declared mere statistical blips and ignored. Any new tagging system has this hurdle to overcome.

LibraryThing has some cool new functionality coming soon, including the ability to combine and subtract tags. For example, users will be able to search for books with the tags WWII and France, but without the tag Fiction. Also, the mass of tags that LibraryThing has accumulated will soon be made available to libraries (for a fee) for use in their catalog. Tim says it’ll work with any OPAC! Danbury Library is the first to take advantage of it. He’d also like to apply LibraryThing’s methodologies to articles soon. I think I’m going to give LibraryThing a more in depth look when I get home…

ALA 2007 – Google Book Project update

I only caught a little of this session due to a conflict with other events I wanted to be at. Google’s Adam Smith opened with a walkthrough of the http://books.google.com/ website. He noted that Google has agreements with roughly 40,000 publishers to scan their books that are still under copyright. I hadn’t heard that anywhere before. Records with metadata have been added for non-scanned books too, like Harry Potter.

Representatives of each of the first five schools to join the scanning project were also on hand. I didn’t get to hear them all, but most noted that their efforts started with off site collections that in storage to minimize impact on the main collection. Harvard is including all bound volumes, not just books. Michigan scans fragile items in house and lets the outside scanners handle the rest. Interestingly, they keep their own copies of the scan in addition to what they pass on to Google. They plan to build their own interface to search the local copies – I’d be really interested to see the final result and compare the functionality of each.

ALA 2007 – The Ultimate Debate: Do Libraries Innovate?

Moderated by Andrew Pace, this session was in the format of a Q&A/debate among the panelists: Stephen Abram, Joseph Janes, and Karen Schneider.

Lots of fascinating things here – I don’t think I got it all down on paper, but I left with a lot of new thoughts on my mind. One major point that all three agreed on is that the profession should not be so afraid to take risks. If something fails, so what? We tried. Learn from it and apply that knowledge to something else. And innovation does not necessarily have to be on vast scales – something small can be just as important and ultimately build to something larger.

The central question was the titular ‘Do Libraries Innovate?’

While each panelist phrased it a bit differently, all seemed to agree that while individuals in libraries are innovating, the institutional support is very often lacking. New ideas are squelched with negative criticism even before they have a chance to succeed or fail on their own. A prime example of this was Maricopa County Library’s experiment with ditching Dewey in one branch. Even before their doors opened, the criticism had reached thunderstorm levels. But, the patrons seem to love it.

So what are the marks of an innovative library?

Abram: Having a tough hide is necessary, the process should be shared so others can learn from it, and don’t be afraid to be a follower of a new idea.

Janes: Don’t be afraid to fail. Example of why not: Even when Apple’s Lisa computer failed, that ultimately led to the Macintosh. Development is more important than Research (in tech areas at least) – get out there and experiment.

Schneider: Be willing to re-evaluate the definition of success. Example: Flickr started as some sort of gaming site, then shifted to photography when it became apparent that users wanted that aspect of their functionality above all others.

Discussion also repeatedly came back to the “culture of victimization” that permeates the profession. Why do we focus so much on the disasters, instead of celebrating successes? Yes, a few libraries had to close due to budget cuts recently. But meanwhile, overall funding increased nationwide. The closings are what we give headlines to. Janes mentioned that maybe we ultimately feel dispensable and don’t give ourselves enough credit.

I didn’t note who said this, but the quote “Change happens from those who show up” stuck with me. Innovation is impossible without someone willing to try. Libraries won’t innovate themselves.

How can we compete with the private sector for both hiring and for the users’ attention?

Janes: We should get over the idea of requiring an MLS to be useful in a library. Experts of all backgrounds have a role to play.

Schneider: For that matter, why do we make systems librarians do shifts on the reference desk? Shouldn’t their time be spent where they are most useful?

What about the role associations like ALA play in innovation? Abram noted that ALA often serves as a sandbox – new things are experimented with there, then rolled back into individual libraries. But on the downside, recent discussion on the Ning Library 2.0 site beats any of ALA’s 2.0 efforts. Janes says we have to revitalize ALA from within, not start over from scratch. We need the advantages of scale that organizations like ALA and OCLC have. No libraries have that same critical mass to initiate a profession-wide change.

Another point that came up often is just how long it takes for new ideas, after being proven successful, to spread to other institutions. The diffusion rate is painfully slow, so even when a great innovation comes along it is often not adopted by all.

What are the panelists’ visions for library innovation?
(I didn’t note who said what here)
-Share our experiences
-Learn to brag
-Cultivate a culture of acceptance for risk and failure, be more merit-driven
-Find what the end users want, then do it
-Learn to think broadly, don’t get paralyzed by really far out concepts
-Work to change where libraries fall in national priorities
-Set up reciprocal mentoring among generations to draw on each’s strengths

These are only a few of the major points from the discussion. There was no way I could write fast enough to keep up with them all 🙂

Facebook application – a first try

Over the last couple days I’ve cobbled together a Facebook application that searches the UAH book catalog:

http://apps.facebook.com/uahcatalog/

You can add it to your profile here. To give credit where it’s due, this is very heavily based on the code from UIUC’s similar application.

Having code to work from, the process was pretty straightforward. I did hit some speed bumps though. The largest was that once finished, the app didn’t show up on anybody else’s profile once added. It was fine on mine, but not on anybody else’s! I’m still not entirely sure how I fixed that one, but it seems to be working now.

I also ran across one issue that really bugs me: Facebook’s cache refresh time. They appear to be caching my application, so the recent design changes I made won’t show up yet. This cache seems to last an inordinately long time (more than 24 hours), especially when the app is in active development like mine is. I’d like to see changes reflected immediately to make sure I haven’t broken anything. A method to force a refresh would be much appreciated. (Maybe such a thing exists already, but I couldn’t find any mention of it in the developers’ forums)

As it is, once you add this to your profile the app will look rather suspiciously like UIUC’s for the time being… until the cache refreshes and my aesthetic design changes kick in.

This is just an early early application, but I wanted to see what is possible. Learning a new API is never simple, and I am barely scratching the surface here.

E-Info Global 2007

I am very, very pleased to point out that the website for the E-Info Global Symposium 2007 is live!

http://eInfoGlobal.uah.edu/

Last year’s inaugural symposium went amazingly well, and this year promises to be even better – Stephen Abram is our Conference Chair! His welcome message is here. And as with last year’s, our goal is to keep the event very affordable – registration was $99 last time, and we’re aiming for something similar again. Stephen and Jane Dysart are working on pulling together a group of speakers, and I’ll be sure to point out more info as it becomes available. But in the meantime, save the date:
December 6th and 7th, 2007.

I’m really excited about this 🙂

Attending ALA Annual

I’ve forgotten to mention it, but I’ll be at ALA in DC later this month. If anybody wants to meet up, drop me a line. Or just look for the guy hanging around the Lexis/Nexis booth, desperately hoping to pick up any and all tidbits of training. Or if I’m not there, check the Guitar Hero setup in the ALA Pavilion 🙂

Decline of the Reference Desk

I meant to comment about this back when the article first appeared, but let it slip a bit. The Chronicle recently published an article called “Are Reference Desks Dying Out?”

Even with my limited experience working the desk (a bit over 18 months now), there’s a lot in the article I can immediately agree with. Our stats for questions answered are dropping, especially when you look at how many in depth questions are asked. Most that remain are simple yes/no answers, overhead issues like the location of the bathroom, or quick directions to where a certain source is on the shelf. There are still some questions that require full length reference interviews, but it isn’t uncommon for me to go a full desk shift without encountering one.

One place I don’t see this dropoff is in our virtual reference system. Right now we only accept questions via a web form or e-mail. I haven’t analyzed this mathematically, but I have no doubt that a much higher proportion of e-questions involve extensive research than their in-person counterparts. As frustrating as answering questions this way can be (for both librarians and the students), I find it interesting that students do prefer this method for asking in-depth questions. I think it’s mostly a matter of convenience.

An interesting side effect of accepting questions this way is that we tend to get questions from an entirely different set of users than we would otherwise. We were recently able to help a researcher in New Zealand get access to one of our special collections online, for example.

I don’t think the reference desk will completely disappear in our lifetimes. But like anything else, it won’t stay static either – the service is in transition.

Redefining what service means for online students

With my recent excursion into distance learning, I’ve had to re-evaluate my concept of what service means.

The student population we serve is entirely online – More than 99% of them will never set foot in the physical library. So by absolute necessity, our website becomes the primary point of service. We can’t count on even the limited face time with library staff that on campus students get. Let’s assume for a minute that our website is competently designed to get students to the resources they need. (And I like to think ours is.) Clear navigation, explanations, tutorials, etc. Most students will be able to find what they need on their own. We’ll never even see them at the reference desk to point out where the bathroom is. Of course, some of these students will still need help with the search process itself. They contact us by e-mail or phone, and this service is essentially the same as we provide to on-campus students. But most “overhead” type student questions disappear (ones like “where are your computers?”, “What resources do you have on topic X?” etc).

But after that winnowing, a new type of question rises to fill the gap. For lack of a better term, I’ll call them infrastructure questions. Most common is simple requests for forgotten passwords. Next is questions related to what exactly our distance learning site’s address is – one of our current major hurdles is to communicate better with online professors, and make sure they are giving correct instructions to access the resources. And thirdly, we get a large volume of phone calls from students who have virtually no experience with computers. These questions often become more like tech support calls than anything else. There are issues with proxies, firewalls, internet security software, spyware, viruses, browser updates, cookie settings, and any number of other things to take into account. Sometimes it even boils down to basic keyboard and mouse use. And while we do our best, the most frustrating end to a call is when there is literally nothing we can do to help a student. If they’re at work or on a military base, very often their network simply will not work with our proxy for the databases.

Some of this can probably be applied to traditional reference work as well: build a solid infrastructure for your resources, and many difficulties for users disappear. But with traditional service, there’s almost always a fallback option: the user can come to the library and sit down with a librarian for face to face help. With a phone conversation, and even with online tools to help, that experience can’t quite be replicated for our online students. For example, sometimes it turns out that my instructions weren’t clear to the student. Sitting next to them, I would have spotted the disconnect between us immediately. But over the phone, it may take a very confusing five or ten minutes to get back on track.

Suddenly, infrastructure becomes a more critical element of service. My new goal is to improve our website and online guides so that as many as possible of these confusing conversations can be avoided.

Changes

Over at The Liminal Librarian, Rachel has a great post about “Making Our Careers Happen”. She highlights one thing that I really love about being a librarian: we have the power to make things happen in any number of areas. My job has had a remarkable amount of flexibility, letting me get experience in a number of areas: reference desk hours, instruction, systems work, and any number of special projects. Starting next monday, I’ve found a new hat to wear: distance learning.

At UAH we provide library services to Kaplan University, a mostly online school with over 20,000 students (and quickly growing! In 2001 they had just 34). We manage their database subscriptions, provide reference service, set up course reserves, and deliver articles and books to students worldwide. I’ll be stepping in and supervising the department – at first on a short term basis, keeping an eye on how to restructure my role and the whole department in the future. I’m really, really excited about this opportunity! I’ve spent the last two weeks intensively observing and training in the department (causing my online disappearance), and really like what I see. It’s been exhausting, but I still feel genuinely motivated. Distance learning is pretty cutting edge stuff, and the chance to work on emerging services and technologies like this is something I’ve always wanted. On a smaller level, the stories of distance learning students continually amaze me. Today a call came in from a student deployed in Iraq, and I’ve heard about others in the most remote parts of Alaska or central Asia.

I can’t say that I truly made this opportunity happen – to be honest it actually fell in my lap. But I still feel that the skills I’ve cultivated in myself over the years have led to this point like an arrow. Will I stay in distance learning long term? Who knows? But now that I’ve gotten my feet wet in a number of areas, I’m ready to focus in on just one for a bit. I’m nervous, but also excited. And the latter outweighs the former.

With the ability to make our careers happen comes a responsibility to learn to roll with change as it comes – made by us or not. Take the skills learned from change and mash them into your career direction. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned in my year and a half since grad school.

It runs in the family

I started working at the Fairport Public Library when I was 15, shelving books. I eventually worked my way up to a part time clerk during college.

My brother also shelved books there in high school.

My mom is an elementary school librarian.

My dad took a position this winter on the Board of Trustees at FPL.

So now my entire immediate family has worked in a library, and three of us at the same one.

Anyone want to do a study on whether genetics can predispose someone into the field? 🙂