Connecting Librarian

The travelling Infosciences Carnival #48 will be coming to Connecting Librarian in the week starting August 7th. If there is something that you think should be aired more widely, please send it to me at tango@michevan.id.au. Submissions close Sunday 6th August at 12.oo midnight (which is sometime Sunday morning UK time and sometime Saturday night US time.)

The land down under is looking forward to this international journey of the Carnival, so please help make it special.

Further to my blog entry “Internet access in public libraries and filtering” the Australian federal government has announced that free filters will be provided to all Australian families, as part of a package of measures aimed at cracking down on Internet pornography. More…..

Interestingly, it is also being imposed on the National Library of Australia, whose budget is controlled by the federal government and being offered to public libraries Australia wide. At present, only the state of Tasmania has compulsory filtering state wide, a fairly recent innovation and one that is being widely criticised. As public libraries around the country do not receive any direct funding from the federal government, they can not force filtering on them. However, they may pressure the state governments, from whom public libraries do receive some measure of funding, to in turn exert the pressure on the libraries, to install the free filtering. At this time, no-one has been able to convince me that filtering is the way to go.

The Australian Library and Information Association is supporting the federal government in all aspects of this initiative except public library filtering. More….

Elizabeth Beales has written a great paper “Librarian as Cyber-Nanny” which won the Jean Arnot Memorial Fellowship 2006. This fellowship is awarded for an outstanding original paper on any aspect of librarianship by a woman librarian or female student of librarianship. Elizabeth raises some good points for both sides of the argument and is well worth looking at.

This story isn’t over yet. Only time will tell what it will mean for public library staff and users.

I have been doing a bit of reading on the different generations of late – the Boomers, Gen Xers, Gen Yers and Zeds (sometimes known as Millenials). There is some good stuff out there about them and in particular, how to deal with them as library users and in the case of Gen Yers, as library staff.

My first problem with all this is deciding who goes where. In some studies I am considered a Baby Boomer, in others a Gen Xer, depending on which year you draw the line. I have always thought of myself as a Gen Xer, maybe because I am a bit more comfortable with tech than people who may be a little bit older than me. It also helps that I married a younger man and all our friends are closer to his age than mine. I guess its a problem with all sorts of labels, despite what people may think, they are not one size fits all.

So getting back to it, the Baby Boomers have been talked about quite a bit, as the biggest generation – one that will place quite a strain on our nation’s finances as they retire and we have a smaller tax base from which to support them in retirement. With them also living longer (and don’t get me wrong, I think its great that they can live to enjoy their retirement), it also further strains not only the finances of our country, but our health services.

As they live longer and are healthier into their old age, they are looking for what to do with that extra time. This is where the public library becomes so very important. Life-long learning applies to the baby boomers now in a way like never before – they have the time so they want to learn more and contribute more in a new way. If you can, get a copy of “Wanting it now: baby boomers and the public library of the future” by Kirsty Williamson et al. Australian Library Journal February 2006, pages 54-71. (I haven’t been able to find an electronic copy – have it only in print). It talks about how this generation is very different to the ones before and how libraries have to be planning now to best meet their needs in the coming years.

At the other end of the scale are the Gen Yers (what about us poor hard working Gen Xers?). They are about as far removed from the Baby Boomers as can be, never having known life without TV, computers, mobile phones etc. An excellent study as been done by McCrindle Research – “New generations at work: attracting, recruiting, retraining & training Generation Y” . This research examined this generation in detail here in Australia, incorporating much information direct from Gen Yers. It is well worth a look too as it gives great information on the preceding generations and a brief look at what the Gen Zers may be like. It also includes a lexicon of Gen Y language – an eye-opener for anyone not very experienced in dealing with todays teens.

I did this brief information paper for the staff at work. Thought this would be a good place for it to go for others who may have a passing interest in knowing more about ISBN 13.

As of 1st January 2007, International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) will be 13 digits long, extended from the current 10 digits. ISBN’s are unique identifiers, assigned to each edition of a book and book like product. (eg. Hardback, paperback, audio, e-book etc) This information paper will give some brief background on why it is happening and how it may affect library staff.

1. Why is the ISBN changing to 13 digits?
ISBNs came into being in the 1960s, but with the expansion of publishing into digital, amongst other changes, the capacity of the 10 digit system is fast dwindling. The expansion to 13 digits brings the ISBN into line with EAN-UCC International product coding system for barcodes – which is already 13 digits long.

2. What will happen to existing 10 digit ISBNs?
Existing 10 digit ISBNs will be translated into 13 digits, by adding the 978 prefix to the start of number and recalculating the check digit at the end. Therefore, as can be seen on some books already, they will have both a 10 and 13 digit ISBN – one is translatable into the other.

Eg. ISBN10 = 1-55853-234-X corresponding to ISBN13 = 978-1-55853-234-2

3. Adding a fixed 3 digit prefix won’t expand the range of ISBN’s though.
That’s correct, which is why once the 978 prefixes have been exhausted, new ISBN’s will be issued with the 979 prefix, effectively doubling the number of ISBN’s.

4. I want to check for an item by ISBN, but it’s a 10 digit one and it’s after Jan 2007, what can I do?
If there is a publisher’s barcode on the back of the item, just use that as it already represents the new ISBN13. If it doesn’t have a barcode, ISBN 10s can be translated to ISBN 13, just add the 978 prefix and recalculate the check digit. If you can’t find the formula to do that, try searching on the truncated 12 digit number. HOWEVER, it can only work in the reverse if the ISBN13 has a 978 prefix. With the new 979 prefixes that are coming out before the end of the decade, there will be no ISBN10 equivalent.

Busy blogging day, but Dewey and fines are related in terms of borrowers, but they are also big enough to warrant their own entries. So here’s to fines.

My public library service was very late in coming to fines. Our service has been in existence since 1970 with one branch, but we didn’t introduce fines until the early 1990′s (either then or the late 80′s). At that time, the average loan period on items was 6 weeks – our loans periods then were 4 weeks on print and audio books and 1 week on other AV. I was never a big fan when we were introducing them, but grew to love them when I could see how they worked. We don’t make tons of money from fines, but what is earned is sown back into buying more for our collections – patrons paying overdue fines get a some satisfaction from that at least.

Now in 2006, with 7 branches, our library manager is reconsidering having overdue fines – which is also at a time when the issue has been popping up in several of the blogs I regularly read. It is interesting reading both sides of the issue, particularly when I have been on either side at one time or another.

I think my first awareness of the issue in the blogosphere, was when several of the blogs I regularly read pointed me to an article in the Christian Science Monitor – “Is the lifting of library fines long overdue?” Interesting too was the poll which followed up a month later at http://www.csmonitor.com/poll/index.php?poll_id=421 – be sure to read the disclaimer.

It turns out this was another link in a chain of discussions which surfaces on a regular basis, but as I am relatively new to the blogosphere, was new to me in this format. There is no middle ground on the blog entries I have come across, they are either vehemently for or against library overdue fines. Check out some of the discussions on this and other library policies and rules, with ensuing comments at Information Wants to be Free, Walking Paper, Librarian.net and Librarian in Black, just to name a few. Whilst doing some more background for this entry, I did a search on Google Blog search on library fines and got over 22,000 hits. Its definitely a topic of discussion in blogs.

So where do I stand now on overdue fines? In all I have read, from both sides I can find no basis for disagreement. All the arguments are well reasoned and have solid bases. I have a history, as I said earlier, of vacillating between the two sides and its time for the pendulum to swing the other way. At a time where our society is changing, the library needs to change too and this is one of the areas I think we can make a positive change – a great PR move if you like.

If my library service goes down this path, as I believe it might, we will still have policies in place to get our stock returned, as we do now, but we won’t penalise late returns. Most of our fines are small – because items are only a little overdue. Many of these borrowers are regular late returners but only ever by a few days at most. To them we would give the freedom to be a little late. To those who bring back items late or never return them or don’t borrow due to the fear of fines, maybe they’ll come back earlier, bring them back altogether and return without fear of penalty. The small percentage that don’t return items, we will follow up with existing long overdue policies which includes using a collection agency and charging the borrower their fee.

In reference to the concerns about request for books being unsatisfied, think how much cheaper and easier it would be to satisfy those unfilled holds by being the odd extra copy of a title as required. In the meantime, we have a better situation at the front desk, less disputes, more happy people – both staff and borrowers.

So yes, I believe dropping library fines is a good idea. Its a big change in library policy and could be considered a risk, but I think its one worth taking.

A lot of what I have been reading in library blogs lately is matching up with many of the things that our library has been doing and our CEO has been considering.

First off has come the move towards rearranging non-fiction collections into genres, rather than strict dewey order. Quite a few public libraries in Melbourne have done this – and we have just opened a new branch with this feature applied to the adult non-fiction collection. Several of our other branches have done it already and the others will follow in due course. So far, the anecdotal evidence has been positive with regards to the move, hopefully the statistical evidence will follow. It has been hard to judge thus far, as we have also made other changes which have impacted loans.

One of those changes was loan periods. We previously had 4 week loan periods for all books, magazines and audio books and 1 week loans for all AV. This was with the option of one renewal – if the item was not overdue or reserved. About this time last year, we extended the AV loan period to 2 weeks, and reduced the magazines loan period to that same 2 week period. A grace period of several months was set on magazines to help our borrowers to adjust and now a year later, I can say that anecdotally, it has been well received and utilised by our borrowers. Our renewal period has not changed.

An interesting viewpoint on Dewey and spine labels can be found in “Spine labels and De-Dewefication” by Michael Casey at Library Crunch. He asks why we need Dewey at all on non-fiction books – why not just subject labels, especially in libraries which have already genrified their non-fiction collections. Going with that is why we even need author labels on fiction, as the author’s names are in a large font on the side of the books already. His entry is thought provoking, as are the many comments which accompany it, both agreeing and disagreeing with his stance.

Where do I stand? I was not keen at first on the whole idea of genrification, but I can see that for the borrower, in most instances it will be easier for them to find what they are looking for. It might be harder for staff (at least until the become familiar with how and where the genres are located in their branch), but once past that, they will go to the shelves in the same way they go for a book in normal dewey order. It will be confusing for borrowers seeking a particular book, but I don’t think it will be any more that straight Dewey is now and at least when they get to the area, they will be able to find other titles which may interest them.

Our library service has genrified by gathering Dewey numbers together in one area and linking them with a colour coded genre label. We have nine genre categories, with the rest of the stock still filed in straight Dewey order. On the point of having just those genre labels, there is something to be said for using just author order within that area. However, we are not at the point where that can happen. Firstly, we have several libraries with large collections – one with approximately 40,000 non-fiction items. I believe this is too large a collection to organise this way. We also have smaller branches, but our users tend to be mobile and we don’t want to further confuse them by having different systems at different libraries. Secondly, not all our non-fiction is in genres. Do we again add to the confusion by having these books in dewey order, but others in genres. We are trying to make it easier for our borrowers and by having the genres we are taking the steps we can take to do this. As for the fiction – if all fiction books had easy to read author names, then I think we could justify dropping the author spine labels. But considering how long it takes me to find books in bookstores without labels, I think I am happier to stick with the system we have.

What is good in all this, is that all these things are being considered and reconsidered in light of our changing society and users. We can’t just stick to the way things are because that’s the way we have always done it. It is good to take the time and realistically consider and then maybe take a risk and try something different.