Connecting Librarian

by Homdaum (Flickr - CC Licence some rights reserved)

I have been doing reviews for everything ranging from our library’s main blog to our family Christmas letter which went out with the cards, but realised I haven’t done one for Connecting Librarian.  So here’s my year in review as a librarian and a preview of what is already planned to occur in the New Year.

2008:

• Continued working as Information Librarian at my library, but with an even greater focus on our website and virtual services.  Pretty much all of my off desk time is now web related, not much in the way of traditional reference service for me anymore- apart from direct customer service when rostered on desk.  And very happy with the lot of it, having lots of fun and learning so much.
• Had a chapter on public libraries and information literacy, based on what I learned from my study tour, published in the book “Information Literacy meets Library 2.0″.
• Had an article on my study tour, a then and now review of how public libraries are using Web 2.0, published in the November issue of the Australian Library Journal.
• Spoke at several seminars and conferences, including a co-presented paper at the ALIA Dreaming conference and one of my own at the New Librarian’s Symposium.  As a result, I met a lot of great people from right around the country, from leaders in our profession to enthusiastic new librarians. It was an honour to meet each one.
• NLS4 gave me an opportunity to present on something other than my study tour or Web/Library 2.0.  I spoke there on keeping up-to-date with the profession.  It was a challenge to cover new material and I appreciated both the challenge and the opportunity to do so.

2009:

• My library is building a new website and we will be doing it in house using Drupal. I am very excited about this project, as I will be one of the key people involved in it.  It will be a huge learning curve, but one I am very much looking forward to being on.
• I have been selected to attend the Aurora Symposium in February.  I have the great honour of being able to attend, alongside some workmates and library friends and look forward to learning alongside them, as well as learning from key thinkers in our profession.
• We will be reworking our joint paper from ALIA Dreaming to be published as an article in another library journal.
• I will continue to be involved in the conference planning committee for VALA2010 – working with an amazing team of dedicated librarians.
• I will also continue both this blog, blogging at Libraries Interact, on 2 of our libraries four blogs and on the Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 blog when I can.

So its been a busy year professionally and looks to be the same next year.  I have really enjoyed my professional development and engagement this year and look forward to continuing and developing it into 2009.  Aurora will play a key part in what direction I will take in future, so stay tuned as I let you know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, I hope you have had a great 2008, both professionally and personally.  My New Year’s wish for you is that 2009 is much bigger and better.  Happy New Year!

Author of the book – The book is dead: long live the book.

History of the world in 3.5 slides. In the beginning was the book and it was good. It was the basis for the modern world. Then came the falll (this is the half slide). The conflict came in the form of electronic media. Bringing the villain, television and other media which seemed to kill the book all for the worship of money. We became people of the screen. However, the screen has now be rehabilitated and is now a place where connections can be formed, and much more.

A history of the web in 3.5 slides. First was Web 1.0, and the ability to communicate with the world. Then Web 2.0 in which we are currently immersed – summarised as We are the Web. People not only consuming but producing content and as a result, building the web.
Next is Web 3.0 – about making the web more like librarians, finding meaning not just data in response to a simple question.

In the beginning was the web – and it was good. Then came the fall (the 1/2 slide), the evil villain – the moving image destroyed the web, in the form of sites such as You Tube. Question being asked if YouTube is the new Google. Screen literacy is the next skill. What the future will be is unknown, it is still being written.

The book is not dead – just resting. We need to preserve both text literacies and book literacies. Future of books – wikibooks, networked books. We need book literacies, books do things that no other form can, including enable us to slow down in this fast paced world.

Alan Kay – quote – The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
We need to do exactly that.

Showed their US tour video, introducing everyone to the concept of the Shanachie tour.

Jaap then started filming Erik talking, whilst also showing it live on the big screen. Deer caught in the headlights is what comes to mind when looking at the big screen. Erik spoke about the need for librarians in the Netherlands, and encouraged attendees to consider heading over!

Gave background to the project. Decided they wanted to show how Web 2.0 can be used to create content, easily and quickly. Was glad to be able to watch the video interview of Paul Holdengraber again – very inspiring that guy.

Back to live filming and interviewing people in the audience. Asking about the role of libraries in education and the importance f imagination and information. They then showed the video of Imaginon, of the mobile games box and of the Domincan Uni students perspective on the future of libraries.

Then interviewed a few more librarians about the library of the future and the ideal library in less than 10 words. They finished with part of the video on DOK.

The challenge of social and market norms in the workplace: book – predictably irrational. How are we dealing with change? Getting ahead, riding the curve or trailing behind it? Change is creating competing and conflicting needs. Which should we value: the craft, the experience or code, future potential and flexibility. We need both.

In organisations, culture is king. We need to be human centred, but technically informed. They need a framework which will help your organisation to head in the right direction. Balancing competing needs – with a ship analogy, the ship is present needs, speedboat is future potential, which comes back to the ship with its discoveries

Mix up teams and make the most of any mentoring opportunities you can create. New librarians may have up-to-date knowledge and technical skills, may have new ways to do old tricks, have a well developed external social networks. Experienced librarians have tacit knowledge perform contextualising and interpretative roles, may have tested tricks to save timme, have a strong internal social network within the organisation.

Break social barriers – its not them and us, its we as a team.

Create information profiles of your team – identify each persons craft and code, allow effective networking. Combining craft and code can lead to innovation. Book – Think, play, do.

Recognise people as information resources. Need talking, listening, presenting and interviewing skills. Develope a wisdom network internally. eg. SLVs fridge. Expand beyond your internal network – he highlighed Libraries Interact -woo hoo!, Web Junction and the LISWiki.

Maintaining motivation and incentive is vital. Leverage social capital – use mass collaboration to achieve shared incomes. The move from rules to principles – which gives a bit of flexibility. Staff should learn the principles, not the rules, which helps them to be more adaptive. Think like a 10 year old – they learn by exploring. Book: Everything bad is good for you. Need to develop this in staff.

Why become familiar with new tech? So that we can actively and productively contribute to creation and adoption. Staff need to be active and educated participants in digital environments. Book: The future of the internet and how to stop it.

Encourage think, play,, do. Experiment with ready, fire, aim model. Used in business. Try to create safe fail environment – provide opportunities for this, which is free.

Summing up- break social barriers that prevent knowledge sharing use social capital to engage with new technologies, recongise that experimenting is risky but should be part of the strategic plan of the library.

Question: papers available – yes, lots of books and they are referred to in the paper.

Started with Sesame Street video on library and Cookie Monster. In the video, Cookie Monster represented the current young generation, he knows what he wants and he wants it now, regardless of the paradigm of the existing library. Hence Cookie Monsters needs go unfulfilled.

Library services are being increasingly shaped by a new generation of users and their needs. Gen Y has a need for fast-food delivery. Like fast food, they dont always know whats good for them and to have the patience to wait for the better stuff which will take a bit longer to deliver. Recruiting gen Y is recruiting fresh perspectives and libraries are beginning to take up the challenge that they bring.

Librarianship is an ageing profession and there are not enough new graduates to fill the gaps that the projected retirements will produce.

Graduate program which provides 9 placements over 12 months. It provides a solid foundation, provides a range of diverse experiences, enables knowledge sharing, a supportive environment with the involvement of mentors, allows for Gen Y work patterns.

The graduate program is breaking barriers for graduates, which will include participants from Marketing, History, ICT in 2010. For knowledge retention, including the 23 things and knowledge communities.

Question: UWA also has a program, were they developed in collaboration? No, totally independent.

Question: program is for new graduates, would they consider mature age applicants. Yes, absolutely.

Question: what happened to Gen X – were floating in the middle – been overlooked.

Question: millenials what about them – will adapt to them when they arrive on the scene.

Question: at the end of the program, what happen? Try to fit them into appropriate roles that match their preferences.

Tendency to focus on the largest, most visible users group – being the students. However they also serve the academics and corporate arms of the uni. Their multiple users groups mean they also have multiple support roles including teaching, learning and research. The strategic goals need to align with those of their uni and at Swinburne means a focus on research. However, it is difficult to quantify the value of the library. Libraries need to change and be more entrepreneurial and innovative. Libraries collaborate but universities dont.

Libraries are not dead, although many people see them as such. We need to be flexible adaptable, responsive and extensible to help change their minds. What do we need from libraries of the future? A new kind of grail?

Possible futures: diffuse libraries – dispersed,decentralised and distributed librarians into the workings of the university, diverse libraries – culturally, gender.

Cutting edge libraries are one step ahead – mission creep. Looking to engage with other activities in unis, particularly research.

Institutional repositories are not a new role, but an extension an existing one. Librarian skills are vital for this type of role. They catalogue, faciltate access to information and more.

So why arent people interested in working in repositories – Rebecca believes taht there is a problematic relationship with LIS education, that reference is held up as the ideal which leads to expectations and a cycle of conservatism.

We need to break own internal barriers within libraries if we are going to embrace the climate of change that we live in.

Question: which is the authorative version – would encourage users to use the published versions, as that has been peer reviewed.

Question: what experiences led you to the IR role, who works on it, what do you use etc. – ARROW project involvement was an advantage in setting up their infrastructure, they use Fedora and has took 18 months to publicly launch the repository. Now have 4 librarians working on it, but managed with just over 1 for a time.

Vanessa is a liason librarian at the Launceston campus and works in collection development, research support, teaching and learning, reference services and strategic planning and an awful lot of improvisation.

In a reorganisation in 2007, all liason librarians were reclassified to take account of skills and levels of expertise, which could in turn prevent new graduates from applying for such positions. They introduced a framework that would enable new graduates to obtain such a position at a lower level and then graduate to the reclassified level.

Framework was separated into 3 distinct sections – direction which incorporated capability and performance criteria, how to get there which covered learning activities and types of evidence to be used to demonstrate that the learning had been achieved, what happened on the way reflected through discussion which was kept online and accessible to all stakeholders involved and open to their comments.

Changes in management left Vanessa in the lurch and the need for a mentor was overlooked, even though it had been needed. Her angst over the whole process was only overridden when she obtained an informal mentor and discovered how much she had achieved.

Framework was supposed to replace the normal HR reclassification process. However, when it came to reclassification, HR still required the old documentation. However, the framework gave all required content and this process was completed in a timely manner.

The framework has been useful to new librarians in getting established in their roles, but also as a refresher to experienced librarians in all the particulars of their roles. It is still developing as a framework and will continue to do so as new graduates move through the process.

Fairfax Media has no physical space. The library is embedded into various areas in the company, and has been since 2006. Fairfax Media provides research to all areas of the company, with the exception of the Age, which has its own research library.

Librarians have desks in amongst the departments and the collection dispersed to various spaces, basement storage, corridors and more.

The benefits of embedded librarians to clients: library team is not tied to the image of a room of books, but acknowledged for their information skills. They are flexible and accessible and on hand for the urgent information queries. They are part of the news meeting where stories are discussed and available for immediate consultation. A survey of Fairfax Media staff of this arrangement returned an overwhelmingly positive result.

Drawbacks of the model: communications barriers arose, librarians were stripped of their immediate resources apart from their desktops – leading to frustration and vulnerability and the feeling that they were not able to provide the high quality of service they had before, the dispersal of the physical collection led to the devaluing of it in the eyes of both library and company staff.

Breaking down communication barriers within the library team – go drinking, use RefTracker to monitor requests to stop duplication of work, library team meets after the news conference. Breaking down barriers with clients – having the library staff location clearly branded, online branding through notes on emails etc, proactive information generation including background to developing stories, moved serials collections close to where the librarians were located.

Moderated by Craig Anderson.

Positive: Julie Rae – would love to say that they dont need to requalify, but experience shows that they are not keeping up-to-date. Need to be more competitive, need to be recognised as industry leaders and cant do this unless we are keeping current. We need to better understand our communities, build our profession, be proactive – when is it going to happen. Will have to agree with the affirmative, because they will employ you.

Negative – Roxanne Missingham – NLS4 storytime. Long time ago, people started on a learning journey, right from the time of using fire. Their learning journey didnt involve university, short courses or watching TV, but they learnt how to provide for themselves – there was a little bit of the librarian in all of them. In some, that librarian within was strong and they brought all the stories together, shared them and built communities. The true profession developed and librarians were placed into their temples, which is where they should be. As the world developed the world became confused and so librarians again took the lead to make sense of the world, and so lead the people forward with meta-data. Take the little bit of librarian in you and grow it by engaging in your professional development.

Positive – Karyn Siegmann – she scoffed in Roxannes general direction. If Roxannes argument held up, then we would never have gone to uni in the first place. The online world alone is ever changing and we need to keep current. Although there are librarians who are taking up the challenge, not everyone does. Need training to be able to plan strategically. We need to be able to deal with the questions that people are asking us, from finding information to using the technology available in our libraries. Staff need to understand what our users are talking about and if they need to requalify to do that, then so be it.

Negative – Gill Hallam – requalifying – we dont have the educators to do it. Universities have far more aging problems that librarians. They have more problems with keeping up to date than librarians do. Technology is allowing us to have new learning opportunities, enabling us to learn from each other. Libraries are lifelong learning centres, if we cant teach ourselves, then how can we lead the way. What are we doing for the next generation?

Positive – Andrew Finnegan – Tragedy of Batgirl – noone remembers her glory days as information champion, only as they girl who ran alongside Batman and Robin. Librarians have a trusted brand when it comes to books, known as passionate founts of knowledge with no bias. However, when it comes to technology, we have enormous problems with branding. Friends just believe that librarians are bigger nerds than they previously thought. There is no clarity in professional branding with some corporates divorcing themsleves from the librarian label. Books are our brand, not technology. The public doesnt recognise our formal qualifications. CPAs need to requalify – economy might collapse if they were responsible for their own professional development! We need a PR revolution – with every librarian guaranteed by ALIA on requalification. Roxannes assertion that is a little bit of librarian in all of us sounds a bit rude. If thats the case though, why do we need training and where are the standards? If we cant do it for ourselves, do it for Barbara Gordon – Batgirl!

Negative – Kate Davis – single best reference librarian Kate ever worked with was not qualified. She didnt learn her search skills in her library degree. Will requalifying bring us to the place that Julie wants us to be. The answer is in marketing,not requalifying. Its about a commitment to lifelong learning and a passion to learn – if we dont have that, requalifying is not going to change that. If we dont have this commitment, we need to requalify as something else, not a librarian. Google is not going to be the end of us, its ourselves, our lack of marketing of our services, our collections, our lack of customer service techniques, our lack of business acumen, some of which is inate. Failure to find external fundings sources and the demonisation of big business and the lack of partnership opportunities. We dont need to requalify, we need to upskill. Book: get into bed with Google – we are already there, but need to ask ourselves will Google still love us in the morning.

Craig Anderson did a beautiful job of doing an amusing summary of the arguments, coming from a pre-Google librarian.

By the vote of claps, the winner was determined to be the positive.

This was a great session.

Major lessons learned about her career: you never know where your career will take you… but always think big.

The first thing she noticed (someone yelled out that librarians drink a lot): the stereotype that people applied to her and commented automatically. They included: you must luv to read, you seem pretty smart and I thought you said you went to college your like woo way too sexxxy to be a librarian, dont you check books in and out, you wrote a book, what about?? the dewey decimal system, how to say shhhh? She was forever fighting and defending the profession – but she has now embraced the challenge.

However, the stereotype can work to your advantage and your amusement if you play it right.

2. Flexibility: a restless person such as Elaina finds a home in the variety of opportunities available in the profession. Library will not go extinct, but the positions will adapt and evolve.

3. Global perspective: we are family. A friend of hers met someone in Senegal who had read her book and was thrilled to meet someone who knew her. Life is always bigger than you imagine: find out what other libraries are doing, not just by reading, but by talking to other librarians, both here and around the world. She worked with librarians on the Isle of Yap for a week in 2008 – eye opening experience for her, but even though they didnt have much, they were passionate and giving to their profession.

4. Successful libraries: in 1996 a professor reminded her that libraries would be extinct in 5 years. Library closings are happening more often in the US, as are the threats of closures. In Malaysia, many of the 1384 libraries in the country may be force to closed down for lack of visitors. EPA Libraries closure and then reopened, but as a shell of its former glory. Philadelphia Free Public Library was Library of the Year in 2005, but will be closing 11 of their 54 branches – 200 staff to go. Her observations on this: need to be proactive – not reactive, the most successful libraries operate like small not-for-profit organisations, successful libraries do the little things to make big impacts, marketing is a long term strategy not a short term solution.

5. Commitment to life long learning: passion to keep people relevant, quote: without this training, I quickly become obsolete – Richard E. Ashby Jr – Queens Public Library.

6. Librarians change lives. We are doing amazing work. She spoke about a program she was involved with – the Peer Information Counseling Program, training students to work in the library, so they would learn how all about the library and to encourage students to become librarians.

7. Librarians have a passion to serve: all the things that librarians do to help people, often way above and beyond the call of duty.

In conclusion: always be proud of our title – its an uphill battle but worth it, lets bridge a gap and continue to learn from each other, lets always fight to stay not only relevant but enhance our message… we are vital to our community….