Problems again? Let’s change

The theme of changes is on my mind. In my last post I alluded to one change in the profession which I did not accept – the building of especially public library collections on the basis of public consumer demand. That reminded me of my days in the Management of Libraries as Organizations class in library school at IU.

Dr. Mildred Lowell stressed over and over and over that one characteristic all library employers expected from job candidates is the ability to adapt to changes. One example: you may be planning to be a cataloger (as I was at the time) and at the last moment need to take on reference duties in addition to cataloging. I remember thinking “no sweat – I can do that” and yet also thinking that I had just a bit too much stubbornness to change easily.

One of the case study exercises she gave us during the sessions on “systems analysis” was to evaluate an everyday task and discover the best way of doing it. This necessitated our looking at every step in the task’s execution and measuring the work involved to accomplish it. Next we had to discover and describe alternative ways of doing the exact same task. Third, you probably guessed by now, was to measure the work involved in each of the alternative ways. We then chose and justified the best way of doing that task.

Her evaluation of our projects looked at how well we described the task at hand, whether we discovered all of the alternatives, and how well we justified our final choice of method. I discovered that the more aspects one considered of even a simple task (like walking from home to class – my task for the assignment) made decision-making and its justification quite complex. In my case, one factor I looked at was the amount of vehicular traffic I encountered and particularly my perception of the amount of exhaust fumes therefrom – how important to me was my encountering exhaust every time I walked to or from class?

Related to this style of systemic thinking is the determination of the need for change. The same kinds of questions about potential change(s) as about particular task efficiencies must be asked, and just as honestly. One of the tenets in my thinking about collection development vis-a-vis censorship is which of my biases are working as I consider to add or to withdraw this title from the collection? Just so, one’s biases must be acknowledged up front when addressing potential changes. In other words, one’s biases need to be identified during the planning of and for change.

A project Dr Lowell had us working on all semester was the identification of management journals useful to the librarian be s/he entry-level, junior management, or director. While looking at many of the usual suspects, I discovered that a philosophy was sweeping the country – namely, s/he who is not changing is dead. There seemed to be some sort of justification made for the idea from the biological sciences – we slough off cells about as fast as we grow them, and so we are constantly changing. That idea got into much of the management literature.

Which meant that too many managers, I figure, devised ways of keeping their worksites in a constant state of flux. Change became necessary because it was change, not because it was necessary given “systems analysis” – indeed, those of us who raised systems-related questions were chided (or worse) as being naysayers, or even Luddites. To me, the refusal to analyse operations, identify problems, propose alternatives, and evaluate them exhibited wrong-headed biases being ignored in favor of CHANGE’s forward(?) march.

One incident at MFPOW involved a change initiated by a new manager, a change which had been evaluated and found lacking six months prior to this manager’s arrival. She stated her problem and its solution. Front-line employees in meeting after meeting explained how the change was not working because it did not address underlying causes of the problem. The manager persisted – until a system-wide meeting of public service staff pointed out how the change exacerbated the problem. She responded almost in shock, “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? We shouldn’t have done that,” thereby initiating a new change – back to an older way of doing things.

Unfortunately, that style of change management has ruled many libraries for the past 25 to 30 years. Perhaps it is not so much love of change for change sake as it is ignorance of basic management tools that lead to solid problem-solving change. But I fear, love of change for change sake is the unrecognized bias debilitating most problem-solving in libraries today.

C’est la Vie!

Changelings in the library

Recently an Annual Report came my way from the library I regularly support – I went to school and worked there while in school, so I still donate fairly regularly. One statement therein caught my eye – “As libraries change, so does our definition of collections.” And of course, I began to think.

Every so often during the last ten to fifteen years, and then at least once a month the last two years or so before I retired, people would ask me ’How has your job changed?” Or more pointedly, they would ask it camouflaged as a statement – “My, I bet your job has really changed what with all the new technology and stuff!” By “stuff” I think they meant all the library resources not in the form of books.

My usual response (even now that I am out) is “While I have seen major changes in technology and the concomitant changes in formats of the resources we supply to library users, my job of helping them find what they need has not changed – the number of ways I can do so has increased (somewhat to the good).” Having a sense that the primary purpose of the library is to provide various collections of material so that all users have an opportunity to explore whatever their hearts desire, the changes that I have seen in the past 35-plus years merely mean that I had to add more ways of answering users’ questions.

One of my challenges in MFPOW was the demand to change out old materials and replace with new – assumedly because the public only wants what is new, or only the new is correct. Previous experiences with doctors, academicians, and food researchers indicated to me that while the public may only want what is the newest published thing often the only available and correct information was that in an older publication. Too often, it was that publication that I had weeded last week, month, or year.

I was reminded of this when reading Wendell Berry’s Life Is a Miracle, especially the essay about Edward O. Wilson’s Consiliance. Starting on page 67, Berry writes, about Wilson,

“[H]e is in agreement with the apparent majority of the public who now believe the new inevitably replaces or invalidates the old, because the new, coming from an ever-growing fund of data, is inevitably better than the old. The rails of the future have been laid by genetic (or technological or economic) determination, and as we move forward we destroy justly and properly the rails of the past. This is strong, easeful, and reassuring doctrine, so long as one does not count its costs or number its losses.”

How well that describes my experience. Indeed, having been brought into librarianship believing that the library maintains collections not only of the new and entertaining but also of the nation’s culture, I chafed every time I confronted the attitude that the new replaces the old. The result has been a major loss of resources in select libraries who have followed this dictum. (Perhaps this was the change in the profession to which I refused to adapt.)

One milestone in the U.S. public library world that adapted this dictum full hog was the revamping of the collection policies of the Baltimore (MD) County Public Library by their then Director Charles Robinson. His idea was to put only that which was demanded by the user onto the shelves and to withdraw all the rest. He especially advocated the use of “best seller” lists in order to do so. (I wonder what their collection looks like now?)

It used to be said – see for example comments often made by Ray Bradbury on where he got his education – that especially the public library was an important factor in an author’s education and development. Now, after a very basic shift in the philosophy of collection development over the past ten to twenty years, the library may lose that very special status.

We shall see.

Back to it

Never having been in the computer department, I feel safe in saying I am back to it. “It” is this blog from which I took a leave of absence. Well, I’m back!

While libraries will not be a source of remuneration for me in the foreseeable future, I do want to address them probably once a week this year. Someone at church suggested me for the position of parish librarian, so my doing libraries will not cease. Besides, can you really rid yourself of that part of your being?

You see, last May I began my retirement from Library Work – nearly a half-century’s worth when I count the ten-plus years as a student assistant in junior high, college, and graduate school; I even experienced a year as a page in my local public library.

A recent op-ed piece by Bob Herbert in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/opinion/05herbert.html?emc=eta1) entitled “An Uneasy Feeling” worries about many big issues the media are ignoring while they focus on the Christmas Day bomber and Tiger Woods. He begins his piece with “I’m starting the new year with the sinking feeling that important opportunities are slipping from the nation’s grasp.” With most of his concerns I am in agreement.

The one closest to home is “We keep talking about how essential it is to radically improve public education while, at the same time, we’re closing libraries and firing teachers by the tens of thousands for economic reasons.” He doesn’t mention that the “economic reasons” are the public’s refusals to raise taxes. (Actually, his recording of the problems includes predominantly taxation issues which have become the “economic reasons.”) It used to be part of the library’s mission to preserve and to provide access to our culture; while the that mission seems to be changing among today’s library professionals, the budget cuts are accelerating that change.

Though Herbert does not mention the H. P. Wright Library, a branch of the Ventura, Calif., library system, this one got a lot of attention early last summer because of its financial straits – especially did it garner attention when Ray Bradbury did a benefit on its behalf. Of course, after the elections this fall the government (in the person of the taxpayers) said “No, this branch is not worth saving.”

Another disaster waiting to happen is the cutting of the budget for the library where I live (thankfully not the one from which I retired). Somehow, the local government (in this case the city council and mayor) seem to think that this service to the public can be diminished significantly without public harm. While it is true that the population’s physical well-being probably will not be harmed, our intellectual and, dare I say, economic well-being will suffer. I think especially of those dependent upon the computers of the library so that they can file their unemployment claims and search for new jobs.

In the midst of, or should I say in spite of, this negativity there are bright spots – small victories where local voters have said that library service is so important to them that they voted to increase their taxes designated for library service. One such victory was the campaign entered into this year by my FE – they went to the voters for an increase in the library levy, and won. This library system’s approach was not to ask for the full levy to which they are entitled by state constitution, but for about two-thirds of what they could have requested – and that worked.

Every so often I have the doubt: could they have asked for more, even the full levy amount to which they are entitled? Given the current economy and the presence of Tea Party-ites in the county even had they increased their request from ten cents to twelve cents they may have lost. So, it is good that they went for what they did, and thus won!

More about library missions next week.

Post Retirement

Recently I helped my last patron find the information she needed for a school assignment. Her initiating question to me was “Can you google some information for me?”

After a bit of reflection (at home) I thought that a fitting comment with which to close my public library service – it epitomizes the developments in not only librarianship but also education.

Most teachers are now accepting the Internet as a valid resource for information. Many librarians are now googling for that information on behalf of their patrons. Some even say it is much faster than showing the patron where to find it in a book.

When I suggested that we could find the answer over here on the shelf the student wondered “What – in a book? Wouldn’t it be faster just to look it up on the computer?” By then we were in front of the shelves holding the book in which we would find her answer.

I pulled down the book, verified the precise bit she needed, turned right to it, and lay the opened book before her on the table behind us. She thanked me, and I returned to my station to finish gathering my stuff for my final leave-taking.

As I walked back to my office the student stopped by to thank me and to say “That book was exactly what my teacher told me to use, but I thought librarians only used Google.” While there are in this incident several aspects of complexity (not the least being the student’s history with librarians), let it suffice for me to say that the comment illustrates what is becoming a major flaw in education be it formal or not.

We are not taking the time to inculcate digital literacy and its necessary component, critical thinking skills vis-a-vis digitized information. Indeed, we seem to be pushing bits and bytes to our users assuming that electronic forms are more trustworthy than are their printed forerunners. In some cases the electronic form is the only one available and so we have no choice. But in so many other cases we have the information in print and yet because it is also available electronically we prefer the bits and bytes. Monetarily this often makes sense because more users will be served (especially simultaneously) than would be if we could not afford multiple copies of the printed version.

It seems, though, that turning to the Internet for a bit of information when that bit is available in print on the shelf behind us shows an infatuation with electronics that ultimately will become a dependence thereon. That dependency is already raising benefactors’ doubting the need for librarians and well-trained professionals. That dependency certainly narrows the options we provide our patrons, and the flexibility that we might need should the power fail.

BTW, what was the question? The student wanted to see a section of the codified state law. The book? A volume in the revised code of the state.

Dewey have to suffer more ‘bookstore’ assaults?

Dewey overdue for a makeover, librarians say!

What a misleading headline! But I have noticed that not only does journalism strive to mislead but also my profession – librarianship – tends to mislead. Indeed, lately it seems that we are about obfuscation rather than aiding users to find what they desire.

It is true that if you do not like numbers then Dewey Decimal Classification is at best unattractive to you. Also, the DDC (as it is often referred to) has suffered so many changes over the past four decades that it is a wonder its basic scheme resembles that of Melvil Dewey.

But to throw out the numbers almost just because they are numbers, and just what do numbers mean, in order to make the library more like a bookstore is really throwing out any sense of what intellectual life librarianship may still have.

The newspaper article implies a dire need to impart a different organization to the nonfiction collection in the Frankfort library. I dare say the amount of resources expended is more than would have been expended had the library kept its collection up-to-date in the first place.

One wonders about the sophistication (or lack thereof) the Frankfort folks have – do they not know that domestic animals are different from wild animals, or that botany in the wild is different from that in the cultivated garden. Then there is that weird statement - Ironically, this places “cooking” and “heart attacks” in the same 600 category, according to Dewey’s system – really? Frankly, I think such reorganization exhibits not only a dumbing down of service to the public, but also an anti-intellectual attitude to professional service.

Librarians are the intermediaries charged with training our patrons how to find materials skillfully. Many a time patrons have returned to my desk to thank me for showing them how to navigate the system so that they can do it on their own.

Online NW 02222008 – Thinking Summarily

Today was the 25th annual conference originally called ‘Oregon Online’ – it is now well known as Online Northwest. Besides Corvallis, Portland and Eugene have also hosted it; today’s version was the 13th in Corvallis. (It seems that the Oregon attendees much prefer the central location of Corvallis.)  

From what I know the format of the conference has been the same – it opens with a keynote speaker; then follow two ‘breakout’ sessions each about an hour long; then lunch with some door prize drawings (the first one I attended I won one); and then two more breakout sessions. This makes for a comfortably long, informative, and entertaining day with many opportunities for networking with colleagues in the Northwest.  

If there were a theme to this year’s conference, it has to How do we help the user? From Jared Spool’s keynote through the four breakout sessions I attended (I would guess from the descriptions of the other sessions they too) the users were the focus. Spool’s keynote “Why Good Content Must Suck: Designing for the Scent of Information” highlighted his company’s research into good design for Web sites which discovered that one’s ability to use the Web does not predict one’s ability to find information on a particular site – design components are the predictors.  

“Building a Future for Remote Public Services” had as its primary assumption that public service is essential to every library’s mission. Caleb Tucker-Raymond explored his model for simplifying the librarians’ work in responding to the multiplicity of technologies now being used to communicate between and among people. And then he set technology aside to stress that the most important aspect of public service is that communication between user and the human being called ‘librarian’.  

Kyle Banerjee and Terry Reese presented what they foresee coming down the pike in their session, “Next Generation Catalogs: Issues and Opportunities” wherein they discussed  how we must not stop with changing the facade of our catalogs and their eye-catching displays; we must go beyond that to the true integration of all our especially electronic resources with the ILS in truly an interoperable context. 

Two UW librarians presented their two ways of introducing Web 2.0 to their colleagues – A Tale of 2.0 Workshops: Two Approaches to Introducing Emerging Technologies. Alyssa Deutscher presented the way her campus did it over a summer quarter as a series of loosely linked exercises with discussion. Laura Barrett presented how her campus had a one-day workshop that covered those topics of most interest to the attendees. These sessions came out of a larger picture whose purpose was to prepare librarians to be able to guide users in the applications of the new technologies.   

The concluding session was presented by three principals of the blog Infodoodads, who talked about how librarians can stay aware of the new Web gizmos out there. 

Online NW 02222008s4 – Information Discovery for Librarians

How can librarians stay abreast of the Web 2.0 world, especially since it seems to be changing so rapidly? One way is watch a blog that is dedicated to telling us about new things out there - Infodoodads written by a team of six Oregon located librarians.  

Three of the six presented on how they came to be – what they choose to write about, how they market the blog, how they maintain freshness, as well as how they research and test the technologies they review. They also gave tips on writing for blogs, managing blogs, and finding the next topic. 

Online NW 02222008s3 – A Tale of 2.0 Workshops

University of Washington librarians in an effort to educate one another and prepare to educate faculty and students about Web 2.0 technologies set about doing so in two different yet complementary ways – a multi-session or multi-modular program during the slow summer quarter and a one-day relaxed workshop.  

The modular approach was modeled after the Charlotte Mecklinburg Public Library’s 23 Things program.  The basic format was introduction of the technology, discussion of its uses, practice with it, and then further exploration of/with it. This approach was done on a smaller campus reaching ten of the twelve librarians. Since it was spread over a quarter’s worth of time, participants could play/practice with the tools at their leisure in their offices, at home, and on the desk.  

On the larger campus, sixty of the 100-plus librarians worked in a highly sophisticated lab setting encountering an overview of a given technology, its fundamentals of use and applications, and then hands-on practice.  

They found that both novices and experts benefitted from the workshops, be they extended over time or limited to the one-day format. The approach of ‘23 Things’ scales well to any group and/or situation. And thus, the audience, while having differing needs and wants, can be ‘taught’ quite easily. The style of the approach must like most of the topics we had today depends muchly upon the culture of the audience. And as is true for any new venture or training, there must be evaluation, evaluation, evaluation! 

Online NW 02222008s2 – “Next Generation” Catalogs

This session was very informative vis-a-vis what seems to be the prevailing hopes for what the new ILS versions will be like. Terry Reese and Kyle Banerjee reminded us that the ILS is merely a specialized inventory control system and makes up a small segment of our electronic resources, especially in academic libraries.  

Both Terry and Kyle preferred an emendation to their topic’s title – instead of catalog, platform. This change allows us to talk about interoperability and standardization across vendors. For example, MARC format has been a standard in the library business for decades, yet even some ILS vendors still do not produce as if they understood the format. (I wonder how much of that is due to the vendors’ proprietary instincts.) One basic problem with most of the platforms is accessibility – can your Iphone give you access to your library’s catalog? 

Kyle did a dog and pony show of some of the attempts currently on the Web – most of them depend upon an underlying ILS for the data. Among those he showed us were Evergreen, AquaBrowser, VuFind, Endeca, Primo, WorldCat Local, and Encore. A side criticism of all of them he made is that rarely on their respective facades could you find any identifying marks of the host library.  

They concluded their presentation with about ten questions to ask of ourselves and our vendors, the necessity of identifying the details involved, and  acknowledging the limits. One very important thing to remember – continuing on the current route will lead many libraries into consortia that will become nothing more than server farms (not exactly what libraries are about).

Online NW 02222008s1 – Building a Future for Remote Public Services

Caleb Tucker-Raymond, presenter 
 This presentation assumes three things – 1) public service is essential to every library’s mission, 2) the choices for remote contact are proliferating, and 3) we prefer not to outsource our services and even the ones we purchase we provide to the users without charge.  

 In order to allow users to access reference services from any technology and simultaneously reduce the library’s investment in and the librarians’ having to learn a multiplicity of tools, Caleb developed a model for providing a black box that would interpret these various technologies into a single interface for the librarians. H e quickly learned of the Carolina service where they use an XMPP server (apparently Jabber based) to do this translation.   

Caleb then discussed basic issues to be considered – faced-to-face interaction seems still to be the best way of providing service (users respond best to the person, not the technology). Some principles to keep in mind – understand the culture of the library’s users, ask Do we need to do this technology at all, and ask May we control privacy instead of protecting it?  

At the minimum – remember that email is still a primary form of communication, and, consider the possibility of putting the IM link into the catalog’s ‘not found’ pages.