So, who (or what) are we? And what does that mean for the future?

A few things I've been reading/listening to this week (and yes, some of this is rather old - takes me a while to catch up on my professional reading sometimes and then I get taken on a tangent!) have been raising the question of whether libraries and librarians are about a physical space, a specific service or program (and specific processes to support them), a specific format in which information is provided, or something more nebulous.
Of course, this is not a new question and not one that will be answered in the short term even with the interesting conversations already taking place in print, in blogs, at conferences etc., but I wanted to put down some of my thoughts...

• Our customers are moving online, but they're not all there yet. It may be another generation (or maybe never!) before we have a customer base who is comfortable with all things electronic. I'm amazed sometimes when young (to my eyes) Uni students want me to help find print materials rather than electronic (and are quite adamant in their belief that print is superior). My sister travels most months and remotely accesses many of her work tools, but finds technology too difficult/complex/frustrating to invest her private time in learning. She's smart and savvy about many things, but this is not a priority. And don't get me started on my Dad!
  We shouldn't assume that there won't be a need to continue to provide existing materials and services for the foreseeable future.

• The library as a collaborative space is very important to many people. But many people still crave a quiet space too. A place for research or just some peace. Sometimes these competing needs are from the same people with differing needs at different times. Juggling continues, particularly for Academic libraries!

•  Yes, there are many processes that we have done because they used to be needed, but may no longer be the most appropriate or required at all. Ongoing reviewing of our services/programs/procedures is healthy. However, communication of the aims of any review must be clearly communicated (and repeated as necessary) as otherwise staff may experience natural concerns about their future resulting in uncertainty. Not good for the health and vibrancy or teamwork of a library team. And review after review without benefits clearly being seen can lead to inertia or resistance (passive or aggressive). Ongoing dialogue is key to ensuring staff feel that they are an active part of the process rather than being steamrolled.

• A recurring (and rather important I think) theme is  “If we built it today what would it look like?” (Nussbaumer and Merkley 2010) This seems to be a good way to review our services and do some future dreaming.

• Dorney and Frierson (2011) have an interesting discussion of plans for reference service provision when there is no physical library (at least, not with reference librarians in situ). The librarians will be in another physical space altogether, but moving around campus and possibly logging their locations via social media. Most 'just in time' reference services will be provided remotely.
  This has relevance for Murdoch's review of service delivery (with specific emphasis for me on the reference service - I may be out of a job that I really enjoy, very soon!). Millerville's 'experiment' in alternative reference provision is certainly one to watch - nothing particularly new in the proposals, but the fact that they are not running it alongside a 'traditional' service means that the results will possibly be more meaningful.

In summary? We need to ensure that changes and 'moving with the times' are not at the expense of those who don't or can't move at the same pace that we want them to. There may need to be parallel services for some time yet (with cost implications of course) and above all, communication and education to help along those (patrons and staff) who just find the changes a little difficult but will get there in time.

Dorney, E. and E. Frierson. 2011. "Renovation as a catalyst for change".  In the Library with the Lead Pipe http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2011/renovation-catalyst/ (accessed 3 December 2011).

Garrison, J.. 2011. What Do We Do Now?: A Case for Abandoning Yesterday and Making the Future. Reference & User Services Quarterly 51, no. 1, (October 1): 12-14.  http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed December 3, 2011). 

King, D. L. (2005). Website as destination.
http://www.davidleeking.com/2005/09/22/website-as-destination/#.Trqe_PLeIhE (accessed 3 December 2011).

Lankes, R. David (2011) A New Librarianship for a New Age. http://vimeo.com/32400532 (accessed 3 December 2011).

Nussbaumer, Alison and Merkley, Wendy. 2010. The path of transformational change. Library Management 31, no. 8/9, (October 10): 678-689.  http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed December 3, 2011).

Strategically Social Online Seminar

This week I had the enjoyable experience of sitting in on a Webinar presented by Zaana Howard (via QUT Information Studies) titled "strategically social. plan. engage. act." and then reviewing the mp4 a few days later (I remember better if I get to see/hear/consider again!)

For  future reference, Zaana's slide set is available on Slideshare.

I found the whole presentation quite useful for getting my head around some of the issues regarding growing a social media strategy (either in general or for a specific tool) from scratch to ensure that it is structured and sustainable. For this post (linked to my reason for this blog in general) I'm going to just dot point and then flesh out a few of the many things that stood out to me/that I want to remember and refer to again/that I want to find out more about.

• 1 in 4 businesses have a Facebook presence but this is actually less than 2009 (which was a big year for experimentation).  
• Public and private sectors using social media very differently.
• Interesting stats and comments on EU Libraries and their use of social media. Does this carry across into Australian situation smoothly, or are we different?
• UTS is a great example of a library effectively using multiple channels to reach it's target community. http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/  
•  POST framework from Groundswell. These should be considered in this order. Too often we start with the tools, but we need to first establish WHY we want to be present in Social media in the first place. Then consider:
• People - Who is the audience? What are their specific needs? (Don't assume that you know them - need to ask/observe) How would we like them to interact with us know, and in the future?
• Objectives - What are we trying to achieve? What actions do we want the audience to take? What benefits are there for the customers? For the providers?What will success look like in this sphere?
• Strategy - How will we get there? What existing services can we collaborate with? Timelines? Are there barriers to be overcome? Map them to better understand how they can be overcome. Governance issues?
• Tools - Once we have established the above, we can look at specific tools and determine which is the most appropriate. Ensure we look at where users are, and also the levels of resourcing available.
• Also looked at Buy-in - both bottom up and top down buy-in are important for success. And buy-in is not a one off event - need to build a strong, consistent, ongoing relationship.
• Evidence - where does it LIE? (Provide evidence that "speaks" to the people that you need to convince.
• Literature
• Industry
• Experience
• Need to establish roles & responsibilities (eg may be one key person, but they will need a support team especially for leave/holidays)
• RASCI for resourcing.
• Map out the first three months (slides 84-86). Make it explicit for each tool. Remember, it's about growing the audience.
• Allow enough resources. For example, initially Twitter will require one person, one hour per day until they build up their presence through regular posting of good content, and involvement in conversations.  However, although there will generally be one key person, they need to have a team behind them to find useful information and also cover when on leave etc. Also means not just one perspective and results in a more rounded account. Note, unlikely to see success with Twitter for 6 + months.
• Measurement is very key.
• Not just followers/friends/views/click throughs although these are valuable.
• Sentiment analysis – what are people saying and what emotions are they showing? There are some measurement tools available in this area but still being developed.
• Conversations and stories are the richest part of social media, but difficult to measure. 
•  Some specific tips for Twitter
• Plan ahead and know what you are going to post - don't necessarily limit to core business but consider other related information that will be of interest to the majority of your customers.
• Frequency 1-5 tweets per day (any more can be overload)
• Use relevant hash tags
• Consider who you should and shouldn't follow (don't need to follow everyone who follows you)
• Use @ replies
• Use URL shortening services - eg Bit.ly which allows you to track stats of the click throughs, etc.
• Some specific tips for Facebook
• Profile vs Group vs Page (which is indexed in search engines). Once set up can be difficult to change.
• What to post - as per notes for Twitter above.
• Admins - who, and enough in case people leave.
• Frequency of updates
• Friending 
• Events
• IN summary, a quote from Sarah Houghton-Jan "Be clear, Be there, Be Present" - paraphrased as be consistent, authentic, available.

Things that I want to follow up/find out more about:

• Bit.ly for URL shortening & tracking
• Foursquare - esp growth in Australia
• Diigo - taken over in some respects from Delicious, but more functionality
• POST framework 
• Groundswell (2008) by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li

Useful tools to examine (at some point!)

This is another post to help with my absolutely appalling memory!

With many thanks to Judy Connell (2011) for her slideshare post 'Taming Information Chaos' http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/taming-information-chaos/ accessed Sept 17 2011

 http://search.carrot2.org/stable/search

"Carrot2 organizes your search results into topics. With an instant overview of what's available, you will quickly find what you're looking for."

http://quintura.com/

And of course, remember to use Google's "related search".

http://search-cube.com/

"search-cube is a visual search engine that presents web search results in a unique, three-dimensional cube interface. It shows previews of up to ninety-six websites, videos and images."
 
http://infospace.com/

"Powered by metasearch technology, InfoSpace.com returns all the best results from leading search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask...we look at all the results from each separate search engine and compile the best of the best in one easy place. In the end, you get a list of results more complete than anywhere else on the Web."

http://www.pandia.com/index.html

"The Pandia Search Central gives Internet surfers access to several tools that will help them become more able net searchers. Then there is a vast amount of information for Webmasters trying to achieve higher search engine rankings for their sites."

 

LibCampOz September 19 2011

Written fairly late at night...
Stimulating, tiring, horizon expanding, pushing me out of my comfort zone, challenging... These were all things that I expected from my first unconference, and it delivered. It was a good experience.
But I also had reinforced what I'd heard about this format - you really get the most out of it if you give freely of yourself, and throw yourself into the process.
In many ways I was more of an observer than a participant - not what I'd intended.
However, I found that I had few relevant experiences to offer on the topics discussed. But I figure that is partly because of where I'm at in my life/work journey and partly because of the topics which were chosen to be discussed. And that's ok, because I learnt and was challenged and stimulated and made some interesting people's acquaintance and discovered some resources that I want to follow up, and there is (hopefully) next year!

Subject guides/Pathfinders/Library Guides and social media

I've been doing some reading around Subject Guides/Pathfinders/Library Guides, with a focus on their use of social media tools. My specific focus is on use in small/medium academic libraries.

Readings included:

Morris, S. and Del Bosque, D. (2009). Getting More From Your Subject Guides by Going 2.0: MPLA/KLA Annual conference 2009

http://www.mpla.us/documents/handouts/2009/morris.pdf
Yang, S. (2009).  Subject Guide 2.0: A Dream or Reality? Journal of Library and Information Science 35,1:90 – 98 April, 2009 http://jlis.glis.ntnu.edu.tw/ojs/index.php/jlis/article/viewFile/528/522 accessed 10 September 2011

Farkas, M. (2007). The long road towards subject guide 2.0

http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2007/10/24/the-long-road-towards-subject-guide-20/. accessed 10 September 2011

Hamilton, B. (2009) Integrating Social Media as Authoritative Information into Research Pathfinders     http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/?p=595  accessed 10 September 2011

Lamb, A. and Johnson, L. (2010)  Pathfinders, Subject Guides, & Thematic Resources: http://eduscapes.com/earth/informational/path1.html

Subject guides have come a long way from when I first was first involved in creating some, nearly 20 years ago. The inclusion of social media to make them a two way, interactive conversation that allows for the expertise of the users to improve the end product, seems like a great thing! However, to do it efficiently for the ‘average’ librarian requires an investment in time to learn the tools to use, and a regular updating process to keep the conversation current (although this in itself is not different - guides have always needed that investment of time to keep them valuable).

Of particular interest is the concept of getting our guides to where people are - how is that possible when we host them (hide them) on our multi-layered websites. I’m always amazed at how many students are not aware of the LibGuides that we have available - and they’re generally amazed at what useful information they’ve been missing. As Farkas states, "I think the key is to focus on being where our students are, both physically and online. If we can understand their information-seeking behavior and put ourselves in their path, right at reach, we’ll be much more likely to have an impact." (Farkas, October 2007).

However, I’m also interested in some of the kinds of information that our LibGuides don’t include - subject wiki’s/blogs, social bookmarking and online chat (presumably with the specific subject librarian). It may be that our software (LibGuides) allows staff to use these items but that our staff don’t currently feel comfortable using them, or they simply aren’t aware of the options available. And I know that we can use video and presumably podcasts. But I think we can add in twitter feeds, and I love the ideas from Hamilton’s (2009) blog about mashups using Google Maps (especially for topical subjects with changing situations).

How will you apply what you learned?

Good question.
One day when the time is right I will return triumphantly to an academic library near me! Well, hopefully Murdoch and I will increase our involvement when I have more time and they have more money. I think this part of the outreach/increasing our value to our users is very important and useful when done correctly. And hey, I find it very interesting.

I’m hoping to put together a bit of a page of links on the Murdoch Library staff blog that has some of this information, for those who aren’t aware of what is possible...

I will continue to use the existing LibGuides as I find them invaluable as a casual librarian. And I will possibly look at mentioning to individual staff some interesting material that I find that may enhance their existing guides.

Update: I have had my hours extended, and I've been able to work on a LibGuide from scratch, so revisiting some of my readings has been very helpful. However, we have also had a change to the subscription (we now have more functionality) and a change to a standardised format to assist with branding. This has been both great, and a bit limiting. 
The guides are now more find-able and there has been talk of including them in the student's Unit information this may already have been done in some cases) so that it's all more integrated.

Wow. How could I not be inspired...

Just discovered a new blog through a link to the post:

Amy Buckland, “in forming thoughts » Blog Archive » the talk i meant to give,” blog, in forming thoughts, Retrieved June 26, 2011, http://jambina.com/blog/the-talk-i-meant-to-give/.

 I love the passion and vision. I'm very safe in many respects, and yet I agree with her - maybe I'm more of a revolutionary than I thought! I have to say that I like the concept of Libraryland. And the power that together we can harness. I do feel tied professionally in that I'm not in a position of any 'power'. Except the power of the one to one discussion, where I help one person find what they need, or change their mind about what libraries are, or what can be done by individuals.

I know that this CPD program is giving me permission to continue to learn, to be challenged and, when I re-enter the workforce and am (hopefully) in a position of influence I won't shrink back but step up, stand up for what I believe in, and help build the future I think we should have.

Favourite quotes:

true thought leaders, true revolutionaries, are willing to overthrow the system, or join it, if that’s what works best for their community.

I think we overlook the 'change from within' option too much. We see things as threats to be fought against, but sometimes we need to be willing to work with things, maintaining our core of separateness and 'right' if necessary, for a better outcome for our community. 

it’s a kickass time to be a librarian. so many opportunities to make society better. and that’s why we do this, right? we aren’t becoming millionaires. we aren’t going to rule the world (ok, maybe we will).

 Can't help but love the way that this is put.

That's it for now...

And from the Daddy of the Web...

On the  20 years anniversary of the web, Tim Berners-Lee has writen a piece for Scientific American. It's a bit of a review of where we are now, and some of the potential issues.

Berners-Lee, T. (2010). Long live the web. Scientific American, 303(6), 80-85. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web&print=true25 June 2011.

Some of the key issues that he sees are not new, but how they will be worked out is yet to be defined, and requires discussion amongst the users - not just governments or those in big corporations.  It may be that many of the freedoms that we enjoy and take for granted now, may be eroded. Or there may be potential for the freedoms to impinges on the rights to privacy that we now enjoy.

Universality  - is the ability to access regardless of age, gender, religion, disabilities but also physical location and interface being used.  This is under threat in some cases where providers are limiting access to certain sites (slowing download speeds to sites outside of the company's domain etc.) There is also the more obvious threat where certain governments have tried (with varying success) to limit the access of their people to non-approved sites. It's linked to Net Neutrality.

He also sees a threat to this as being silos of information - people being (intentionally or not) stuck using just the subset of information that they are comfortable with. Perhaps only using Facebook with it's chat, organisational pages and advertising. Or only using Google products because they are comfortable with the interface. This is something I hadn't considered as a threat and I can see that there will be more people in this situation. The innovators and tech savvy will move to new products that better meet their needs, but many people don't have the time or inclination to spend learning a new interface or working out the quirks of a new product. I'm not sure how much of a problem this will be in the short term, but if it reduces innovation long term then it is a definitive concern.

Another issue that I hadn't considered is the huge increase in smartphone apps threatening  access to information.  I do know it's painful if you can have a fantastic app on Iphone for example and not on Android and move from one to the other. Or have both platforms in one family and cannot share as you should... He makes an argument for the apps to be web apps that also run on phones. I don't know enough about the technology behind to make an informed judgement - I'm just a user who is happy when it all works & syncs across my phone, desktop & ipad.

Net neutrality

Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic. Wikipedia, accessed 28 June 2011

This is another big issue in relation to free access, regardless of your personal, economic, geographic position. Given some recent situations (Google and Verizon are mentioned in the article) Mr Berners-Lee suggests that government legislation is required to protect net neutrality. I can't see this going down well in certain quarters, and it would be challenging to do so in an internationally acceptable way, but I can definitely see his argument. As we have seen in the last 12 months, neutrality of technology can play a key role in allowing political dissent and freedoms to blossom!

Also linked is the issue of snooping, particularly by government agencies. Web freedom overall is the general thrust of this article. As he concludes:

Now is an exciting time. Web developers, companies, governments and citizens should work together openly and cooperatively, as we have done thus far, to preserve the Web’s fundamental principles, as well as those of the Internet, ensuring that the technological protocols and social conventions we set up respect basic human values. The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine.

Can't argue with that!

 

Keeping up with the Jones's

I'm trying to catch up on some of the readings I've been doing lately, and keeping my information in the one place. So, here's another one. Thanks to Kathryn Greenhill for pointing me towards it.

Sheehan, K. (2010, August 3). Keeping Up with Keeping Up. ALA Techsource. Retrieved June 20, 2011, from http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2010/07/keeping-up-with-keeping-up.html

Very interesting article - clarifies some of my thoughts and gives guidance on what really are appropriate actions to do to try to keep up with technology and changes. It can feel so hard with limited time. And I feel like I'm really not doing very well compared with the people who's writing I follow. I need to target my work/reading/development because I can't hope to do it all (as Kate Sheehan points out clearly).
However, when I compare myself with many of my collegues (not that I intentially try to benchmark, just what comes up in conversation) I realise that other people are struggling even more than me, or have less interest/see it as much less of a priority. Again, as pointed out by Kate Sheehan.

Soooo, how will I implement this new knowledge? Well, although my current work is in Higher Education, I still have a passion for public libraries, and a growing interest in school libraries.
The areas that I find easier to keep up with and most interesting are more social networking - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, etc. The areas that I find more difficult are the issues around DRM, ePortfolios and some of the content creation areas (Vimeo etc.). So the areas that I am less confident with are probably the ones which aren't focussed on in public and school libraries as much (although of course they are still relevant). And I do read enough to know of the basic issues/that there are issues with DRM, that there is a variety of ePortfolio platforms and software and that there are some absolutely amazing content creation applications out there.And where to go or who to talk to, to get more information. Which means that (according to Kate) I'm doing ok.

So I will leave you with my new favourite quote:

“Keeping up with technology” seems overwhelming and huge and ridiculously hard if it’s presented as a monolith that must be scaled. Keeping up doesn’t mean knowing every single tech trend that’s out there. It means being engaged with your community and knowing what your patrons are using. ... Just like the rest of librarianship – it isn’t about being an expert; it’s about knowing where to look.

Technology and Learning

I really enjoy reading blog posts by Judy O'Connell and others working in the Education system. Having a sister who is a literacy consultant to small independant schools (and who finds technology frustrating) and also having two children now in Primary school, I find myself viewing it with different perspectives. So it's good to see someone championing technology and using it in innovative ways.
Today I read in one of her posts:

We use technology to think and learn.  We don’t use technology because it’s a cool tech tool, and because our syllabus says we need a certain percentage of technology in the curriculum. http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/leaders-can-make-magic-happen-too/ Accessed 25 June 2011

 I like the concept, but I don't think we are there in my children's school, or in the schools where my sister is an educational consultant.
In the former, the Library Officer (untrained but fantastic) is also expected to assist teachers with the bank of computers in the library. These are (to my knowledge) the only bank in the school, although there are individual machines in most classrooms, and electronic whiteboards in a few. The teachers and other staff are moving on the continuim towards using technology as a basic part of their toolkit, but for many there is a long way to go.
And in my sister's schools, many are remote and have limited net access, and very few staff  at each location. If the teachers aren't passionate about using technology, then the machines will sit in the corner and gather dust. It's all just too hard, just trying to teach the kids the basics of literacy and numeracy with all of the issues of ESL, cultural issues etc.
Hmm, now I'm slightly depressed. BUT it is a continuim, and as new teachers move through the University system we should continue to move to Judy's world!

And this is my problem....

"It’s very easy to buy all the bestselling business books and read everything novel that comes up on Twitter or your favorite blogs but, your competitors probably do the same and… this will only lead to information overload.
The real goal with knowledge – and where you can out-learn your competitors – is to internalize learnings and let things you learn change you. After all, you can know the name of all the tools in the shed but, if you’ve never learned to use any of them, your knowledge isn’t worth very much.
By actively seeking opportunities to learn, absorb and reinterpret knowledge, you build the thinking that will allow you to out-learn and, eventually, out-teach your competitors.
Make sure you have the best learning process in your market. Reading is only half the battle."
 How I Managed to Out-Learn the Competition. (n.d.). . Retrieved June 23, 2011, from http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-i-managed-to-out-learn-the-competition.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifeHack+%28lifehack.org%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Although I am not in a competitive situation in a business sense, I am trying to compete with my memory! I tend not to internalise the information that I take in or, when I do, I don't keep appropriate or detailed enough records. So, yet again I am planning to come back to this blog to keep myself on track.

Banana Cake (Gluten Free)

We've recently begun a journey to become gluten free. This is mainly for DD1 and DH, but when it comes to snacks it will be for all of us. So I'm experimenting. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. And then I can't remember what worked!
Today I'm going to jot down the details of a recipe in case it does work - cause it was simple :)
200g brown rice flour (I used whole rice & ground in the thermie)
50g potato starch
200g raw sugar
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp bicarb soda
2 tsp baking powder (I used a gluten free one from the EDC book)
pinch salt
2 eggs
230g ripe banana (from the freezer)
120 ml rice bran oil
120 ml rice milk

Combine dry ingredients in Thermie (approx speed 3 for 5-10 seconds, scraping down the sides as necessary). Add remaining ingredients and mix speed 3 until blended. Then turn up to speed 6 for a minute or two.
Oil/grease a decent sized cake tin (or use as muffins)
Bake at 180' (fan forced) for 50 min for cake, or 20 mins for muffins.

It's currently cooling & smelling very good, but the proof will be in the tasting!