Connecting Librarian

Today was the first day of NLS4, which I have blogged about already, but only the last afternoon session and plenary. I missed a lot because I ended up spending most of the day with other public librarians and Erik and Jaap the Shanachietour guys.

I began the day at the State Library of Victoria with friends and colleagues from other public libraries, to talk to the Shanachie boys about what we are doing in Victorian public libraries. I had to leave early to go and present at NLS4 – my presentation is linked from the presentation page. After I had done that, I headed back to SLV for the Shanachie guys and ended up joining them for a tour of the State LIbrary of Victoria and lunch. Check out the photos on Flickr.

Then back to the conference for the days end and then for the Cocktail Party which was held at Experimedia at the State Library. Drinks, finger foods and fun games got us all talking with friends we hadnt met yet. Presentations were made – Kate Davis from Gold Coast Libraries received the Metcalfe Award and Rachel Crowe the ALIA Aurora Scholarship. More photos of this too on Flickr.

Another day of NLS4 tomorrow, which will include a presentation from Erik and Jaap. If you havent checked out the Shanachie tour, I highly recommend you do. And if you have never done a tour of the State Library of Victoria, I suggest you add it to your list of must dos- its an amazing building.

Part 1 – Crash through or crash

1999 – Britannica went online, all
30+ volumes. The servers, network connections and all crashed because
of the amount of traffic hitting it at once – 50 million people.
Britannica had tapped into the need for high quality information. It
didnt need to advertise to bring traffic to its site, everyone just
came. Within a few weeks it was back in business and also became one
of the most trafficed sites on the internet. However, it lost money
and as a result several months later they introduced fees and the
traffic dropped to 1/100^th of the original. Wikipedia
stepped into the place that Britannica vacated.

Wikipedia is an example of crowd
sourcing – user contributions, transparent editing, governance and
goals. High quality facts encourage high quality visitors who then
further edited and added to the quality of the site. It has long
since surpassed Britannica in size.

We dont think about Britannica anymore,
Wikipedia has eaten up its market – one which had been dominated by
Britannica for 200 years. Britannica began to die when they
introduced payment.

2 weeks ago, the EU launched Europeana,
a cultural showcase for Europe. Launched on 20^th November
and immediately crashed. It will relaunch when additional servers and
broader internet connections are established.

The more something is shared, the more
valuable it becomes. Hopefully Europeana learns from the lessons of
Britannica and the success of Wikipedia.

Part 2 – the Universal Library

A few weeks ago, Google agreed to pay a
licence fee to publishers, even if they are out of copyright. The
Google Book search library now has millions of items, accessible by
the vast majority of the worlds population, through computers, phones
and other mobile devices.

Within a few years, every book within
the reach of Google, will be scanned and made available through book
search. What does this mean for the library as we know it. Has it
obsolesced the library stacks? The stacks have gone virtual, it is
now universal and we are all part of the library.

Part 3 – the necessary army. If this
is so, what happens to the librarians? The central task of the
librarian is to bring order to chaos – which happens differently
from situation to situation. Even if we are done with the library, we
are not done with library science. The skills that our profession are
based on are desperately needed in the online world.

We are rapidly becoming a data
generating species – ie, email, video, photos, text messages – it
all adds up. Our culture is going to be permanently recorded and it
all needs to be indexed, stored and retrieved. To enable us to deal
with this, we are all going to have to become library scientists.
Librarians will become life coaches for the digital lifestyle. We
need to help people to capture, store and index their creations.

Library scientists need to be wherever
data is created. The proof of our value will be obvious once its put
to the test – we will need to throw a life preserver to users, and
once they realise our worth, we will be indispensable and highly
valued in the management of content.

The transition to a digital
civilization will founder without the input of librarians. The more
we share what we know, the more valuable we become to our culture. If
we are to make sense of the digital era ahead of us, then librarians
will be needed and many more of them.

Question: librarian roles in the
political sphere? – need to be involved in the copyright, filtering
and censorship debates – something that we need to own.

Question: are we teaching new
librarians the necessary skills to be that army? – its not about a
particular system (Dewey), but how to create systems, including
public parts that enable it to be shared with others, and thats where
librarians are important

Question: should we be concerned that
Google owns all that content and could start charging ? – not real
concern, Google makes better money elsewhere, need to be more worried
about having a single source for anything.

Question: libraries still have a place
because of the feel and the romance of the physical book – Mark
agrees, but we are in a transition and we need to think about how the
online version may not be as supple but is more immediate.

Question: Google didnt take the path of
subject cataloguing because its full text searchable – decision
they made that this data had no value, but we should be providing as
many access points as possible.

Question: libraries in different
sectors have different purposes – the future of these libraries can
be very different due to this. Libraries will get more promiscuous
about what they do – school library will be where the rubber meets
the road when it comes to how the internet is used. Each institution
is dealing with the other world that is out there, the challenge is
to make their specialist collections as widely available as possible.
Libraries need to be everywhere and if they are not, they are doing
a disservice to their users and their collections.

Question: limitations of tagging versus
controlled vocabulary – strength of tagging is that the wisdom of
everyone is stronger than the small group. Its not an either or and
or, we need both. There are ways to do this, which are not abusive.

Question: commercialisation impacts
heavily on the results you get online – Its an arms race, we need
to keep pace with the noise that this thing generates.

Question: Will Google try to develop
their own operating system. No, they are already bigger than
Microsoft, they already won. Microsoft and Apple are only being used
as portals to getting people to Google.

Question: Librarians need to have an
alliance with Google but they seem reluctant. – Google holds an
entire copy of the entire internet, for searching. Now that Google is
holding on to the Book search content, they are changing the rules –
this will have an impact. Google wants the data, so this is giving us
something to negotiate with.

Question: library as a building is not
in danger of extinction, would it help to change the name to match
the new image? The fault is in people not knowing that they need a
librarian – we dont need rebranding.

Began with the UWA Library strategy
2005-2007, In 2007, they started the Flying Start program for new
librarians at UWA. It is a 12 month program that sees new librarians
work ½ their time in reader services, the other half in
information services, to give them the bigger picture of UWA
libraries.

Core competencies have been developed
for each side of the library, but they are also expected to pick up
additional elective skills in more specilaist areas of either
information or reader services. This has included a project
management module, which results in participants then working on a
major project team at the library.

At the end of the program, participants
are able to give feedback on the program to the Executive and to
indicate their preference as to where they would like to work after
the programs conclusion.

Matts experience of the program has
been both challenging and rewarding, enabled him to deal with variety
of tasks in reader services, was given other development
opportunities, enabled him to break down internal barriers.

Knowledge of both sections of the
library has helped break down the existing silos, enabled him to
better serve users and fellow library staff. Challenges included
information overload two part-time jobs but in the same location,
difficult to switch off from one half, neede to develop task
prioritisation skills.

Other participants expressed that the
found the program to be beneficial, both to the individua librarians
and to the teams they worked with, however a preference was expressed
for different timing – working in 6 month blocks in each section,
rather than half weeks. The program will continue and longstanding
librarians are expressing an interest in undertaking a similar
program.

Alyson Dalby -

I have missed most of the day so far at NLS4 as I have spent most of the time with the Shanachie boys at the State Library of Victoria. More on that later. For now, here I am live blogging for the rest of today and for all of tomorrow (at least that is the plan).

What is professional involvement? Is attendance at a conference enough? It means having an input into the profession, contributing your knowledge and ideas to the greater pool of librarianship. Professional development and professional involvement are linked, but although you can have the 1st without the 2nd, you cant have the 2nd without the 1st.

So why be involved? It will make you better at what you do – you encounter new ideas, builds your communication and negotiation skills, its strengthens your voice and helps you to develop your perspectives, helps you find new tools, prepares you for the next job, helps promote your organisation as one which supports such things and therefore makes you an employer of choice.

Professional involvement makes you love what you do, it can help you to learn about things that arent necessary for your job, gives you the opportunity to do things just for fun, helps you to see the bigger picture that we are all part of and you make friends, not just connections.

The profession needs people to be involved – we need a professional voice, someone talking to government, to lobby and more, we need to know whats going on, sharing is good – if we all share what we know, then we all benefit. Represenatation needs to be real, hold your representatives to account.

When you shouldnt bother? When youre just not into it, you just want a job and not a career. Its not as hard as it may seem. You can make involvement work for you. Do a little extra, its not a lifetime commitment, its flexible and the level of your involvement is entirely up to you. However, it can be addictive.

So what can you do? Join and post emails to e-lists, comment on someones blog, ask a question, write an article (for Incite or something else), hang out with library folk (NSW – library folk in the pub, elsewhere – start your own), join a committee.

Just do something!

I had the great pleasure of attending the latest stop in the Shanachie Tour down under, held today at the State Library. I introduced myself to them before we started, and as expected, to be absolutely delightful and a joy to chat with. I looking forward to seeing them also at NLS4 on Friday.

So heres my live blogging of the event.

They showed us part of a video of the LBI Shanachie tour of the USA, which told stories of innovation in libraries in the USA, as discovered on tour in 2007. Eric spoke about the need for libraries in the future, for the benefit of our grandchildren, against the expectation that libraries will not be around in future, because the internet will be all everyone needs.

DOK is looking for partners in innovation – have already established a partnership with Darien Library in the US. Looking for a library in Australia to have a concept centre – in partnership with DOK.

They spoke about how the tour started – by being thrown out of the Internet Librarian International conference. You will have to check it out. They highly recommended the conference (I would love to go sometime).

They then showed a short interview with Jenny Levine – the Shifted Librarian, on gaming for a gaming conference they were involved with in the Netherlands. (DOK has been lending games since 1996)

Their videos are at http://www.vimeo.com/shanachietour.

Libraries should be involved in gaming, as at least 30% of the population is involved in it.
Showed a video on Kankakee Library and their gaming program. They used gaming as part of a program which helps teens to develop their social, cooperative, negotiation and other skills – much needed skills for the future workforce. Kankakee has found ways to slide technological skills, reading, writing and more into the gaming they offer.

Their interview with Michael Stephens from Tame the Web talked about how Web 2.0, gaming etc, if used within the mission of the library, can be very powerful. They are tools to be used by libraries for a purpose, not to be used for coolness sake. Libraries can level the playing field, by giving people a place to try new technologies, use fast internet access and more.

Everything is subject to change!

This first trip with Jenny and Michael on gaming, led to the idea of the full Shanchie tour, which they started 7 months after the first one week visit to Chicago. This tour expanded the focus to Web 2.0 and took them across the country, doing video interviews as they went. They would edit their videos whilst still travelling and then find a park for their Winnebago where they could upload the edited content from the day.

They started in New York City. (I love how they do their videos, theyre awesome). Quote mentioned by Eric in the video – the Universe is made of stories, not atoms. Wow! You have to watch this video inteview with Paul Holdengraber – he has great ideas and is inspiring as to what libraries can and should reach for and achieve.

The first question asked of an audience member was about whether libraries should be taking over some of the education that schools undertake. Should libraries be encouraging imagination was asked next. How can it be achieved? – by relaxing rules, creating spaces and giving potential for creativity to happen. Is the librarian in Australia ready to do this – in general no, but there are leaders in the field who are paving the way for this to happen.

After New York, they went to PLCMC and the Imaginon Library, where they spoke with Matt Gullett about the future of libraries and technology in them. Spoke of containers holding information and culture and which form, whether its print, video, online or other and determining the best form for that content. Sees libraries as becoming more community, learning areas – where innovation can be learnt about and also created. Pointed out that the book is one of the best technologies ever created.

The PLCMC visit inspired them to look at portable gaming and they created a portable gaming unit. They showed a video on it. Cool! And its controlled with a remote – the flatscreen monitor rising out of the box is a beauty to behold! (should have been accompanied by the them from 2001: a Space Odyssey) There is definite interest in getting them in Australia, so the DOK guys will be looking at the possibilities of doing this.

The next round of questions was about gaming in Australia. Not much at moment, but its starting to happen. YPRL has started with 2 Wiis at Lalor Library, where they have just started running gaming nights, which they will hold monthly after the library closes next year. Teens were keen, but pizza and manga are great motivations. For some libraries, dealing with Council IT departments, finances, space and other restrictions, is a barrier to having gaming in our libraries. Convincing the public is also a problem, when they dont understand the benefits of gaming and dont see why libraries should be offering it.
Another problem is that a lot of our staff have trouble dealing with young people. Need to see how young people use technology, so we need to change our setups to suit the way they work, whilst still meeting the needs of other users. Gaming is not just about the electronic, its also about board games, lego and more.

They showed another video, this of Michael Stephens Dominican University students and what their hope for libraries of the future. Michael sees the library of the future as encouraging his heart, inspiring and encouraging him and he prompted his students to go and run with their ideas. We should do the same.

After Michael and his students in Illinois, they went to Salt Lake City. Andrew from Salt Lake City Library shared that the library of the future will be more interactive, where people can come together in a neutral playing field, where discourse will be elevated, opposing viewpoints will be respected and heard. The future librarian will be very different to that of the past – we should keep looking to the future, in our own communities and in the wider world and keep responding to our user needs, whist always staying tech savvy.

What skills should librarians of the future have? Willing to make partnerships, work with opportunities that arise – in next 5 years we will be able to work with young people – eg. early childhood literacy, gaming programs and more. Libraries will be important with civic engagement – we need more great people to do that. The library of the future will continue to need to be a welcoming place for all, where people can do what they wish to do. Need to also remember the baby boomers, not just the very young – we have the staff to do it, just need the ideas.

They finished their USA tour in Monterey.

After a short break, where I caught up with a few library friends I hadnt seen in years, we watched a short video interview with Stephen Abram – VicePresident for Innovation at SirsiDynix. Stephen summarised his presentation as our profession being in a renewal, a renaissance in preparation for a future where information is unlimited, but it is not only in print. We need to be open and flexible to different learning styles. He has discovered that people go into libraries for learning and community, which we need to be open to. He said a lot whole more, all of which is well worth watching. We need to be experiential and learn by playing.

The next tour was Jamaica (lifes tough) and we watched a short video of whats happening there.

We then watched a virtual tour of DOK. He showed us a great tool called PicLens from CoolIris, which does fun things with your Flickr images – cant wait to play with that!
Check out nearly 3500 photos of DOK Delft on Flickr.

DOK is in Delft, with a population of 96,000. The library is in an old supermarket and although it has been renovated, amny architectural features from the supermarket remain.

DOK has free wifi, with no login required. They have signage on the their wooden floors – very colourful and very obvious. (way cool) All collections are on wheels, giving the whole library great flexibility. The shelves are organised so that the bottom shelf can be used as a step up to reach the top shelves. Shelving is made from recycled wood and was cheaper than conventional library shelving and are slightly inclined so that books dont fall off. They have a staff member dedicated to applying for grants and seeking sponsorship. Some of this money was used to purchase sonic chairs, where you can listen to music with your whole body! Whole building is wireless and they have internet telephony – 155 megabit speed – as a result, they can live stream music and videos to the sonic pod.
Lighting is very important, as are the comfort of library users and this is reflected in the seating and the architecture.

They lend art, with the option to buy. They have built their own ILS. The consult to other libraries – wow!

They are fully RFID with their 240,000 items. Self serve checkin and checkout. Checkin is one item at a time, checkout can be multiple. They have a pay station on hand, for coffees as well as library charges. Get a recipe from their website, go to the supermarket on site, pick up the ingredients for it from a special display, scan their library card at the checkout and get a 25% discount on those ingredients – omg!

Using Wiis for narrowcasting on 12 big screens around the library, pushing out information. Can also be used for gaming. Have a coffee corner and no restrictions on food and drink in the library. Have a portal for downloading content to mobile phones, using bluetooth – including audio books, music, online magazines. Portals will be able to be installed in community locations. Next iteration of the portal will use touch screens.

Quote = Life is all about having more fun than you can think and it starts at the Library.

They are lending games, including Nintendo DS games and iPod touches. Will have a shop next year which will sell technology and LBI T-shirts as well as library souvenirs.

Finished with a 5 minute video on DOK – a library concept centre. Quote – the most important collection – people.

Question: do DOK staff do outreach to the community – do a summer camp in the country with about 150 kids where they do workshops on creating video, art etc. They have a partnership with health services. Library is used 5 nights a week for programs.

Question: is there a music compilation available? Not at this stage. Different music on the DVD (with the book) to that which we saw on the digital videos.

Question: whats the rest of their trip? Going home on the 7th. At SLV tomorrow and then NLS4 for rest of Friday and Saturday.

Question: what do you look for in staff? Their staff reflect their users, women in their 30s and 40s.

And that was it, a wonderful afternoon. Look for more over the next two days from NLS4.

Last week, our biggest library was recarpeted and repainted and I was part of the moving team.  Narre Warren Library is a 1300 sq mt building, comprising the library, a meeting room, family history space, local history archive, workroom, staffroom, foyer and amenities – the majority of which had to be emptied to allow the makeover to happen.  Apart from some recarpeting around the circulation desk a few years ago, this was the first makeover in the building’s 16 year history.

The moving team comprised 6 core staff, including myself, who worked full-time (or close to it) from Sunday night to Friday afternoon, in varying shifts, ranging from 7am to 3pm, to 1pm to 9pm.  A further 4-6 staff were involved in big moving times and on the last 2 days when we were getting everything back on shelves and into place.  A contract company was hired to assist with heavy moving of shelving and boxes, but the majority of the work was done by the library team.

Over the course of 5 1/2 days, we moved 60,000 items, much of that in boxes and their shelving, twice.  The first move was half of the library’s collection, packed into the other half. Sunday night we began after closing by moving the children’s and young adult areas, whose shelving was on castors.  We then also boxed up and moved the AV collections, magazines, genre fiction, adult fiction and large print collections, as well as the shelving they used and all the furniture that comprised those areas.  Took a few hours, but was fairly straightforward, especially as we were able to just roll some of the shelving, still fully stocked, out of the way. This was the easy part.

Monday was an early start, for all involved.  The painters and carpeters started their work, whilst the moving team started packing up the reference and non-fiction collections we could reach between boxes and shelving.  It took all of Monday for the old carpet to be ripped up on that side of the library, so laying the new carpet didn’t happen until Tuesday.  We were concerned that this would put a big dint in our plans for reopening to the public on Saturday, but were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at 1pm on Tuesday to find that they carpeters had nearly finished and that we were able to start moving things back across to that side of the library.  Which we did.  We finished boxing up non-fiction and moved all 60,000 items, boxes and shelving across to the newly carpeted side of the library.

Wednesday was another early start, with the library team starting to reshelve large print and fiction, whilst the other half of the library was recarpeted and painted.  This left the last 2 days to do the final moving of everything back into place and onto shelves, in preparation for Saturday reopening.

Thursday morning was another early start, but within a couple of hours we had all the non-fiction and reference shelving back in place and it was the start of a major haul, with all hands on deck, to get everything back on shelf and in place throughout the library by Friday evening.

Add to this the fact that we were accepting returns and phone calls from patrons who weren’t aware of the closure and that our daily courier run from other libraries was still happening, there was a lot to still manage in terms of circulation.  So apart from the moving team, we had 2 staff on desk and were open to the public (at least to the edge of the desk), from 10am to 5pm each day.  Amazing how many people, even on seeing the chaos that was the library during this time, asked if they could come in and use the internet, or find a book etc.

Only adding to the interesting times we were experiencing was the opportunity we were taking to tweak some of the collection arrangements.  Although most of the shelving was going back to its original location, some wasn’t and would need to be recreated and reorganised as we started reshelving.  We were also changing some shelving arrangements, including totally redoing adult fiction and large print and changing the sequence of non-fiction.  All to give a better flow for the collections and all for the benefit of our users. Nothing like a bit of spice to keep us on our toes!

So Thursday had the shelving back in place, reference and the adult collections in place and the beginnings of non-fiction reshelved.  New shelving had been creating from the skeletons of old and new homes had been found for our Italian and Basic English collections.

Which left Friday to bring it all together.  Which we did. The last book was reshelved in non-fiction at 2.35pm (not bad as most of the staff were working 7am to 3pm that day).  The last 1/2 hour was spent moving the last of the shelving into place – AV and childrens etc, getting the furniture back in place and then leaving the remaining staff to clear the desk area of its boxes, trolleys and more, ready to reopen on Saturday.

So that was the process.  You can check out the photos on Flickr for a fuller account of proceedings and for a better idea of the size of the job. However, I wanted this blog post to be more than a reflection on the work that was done.  So here goes.

I would highly recommend that any library who wants to do some team building, do a recarpeting project like this. The 6 of us on the main carpeting team, had a wonderful time working together all week.  We all worked very hard, doing exhausting work (the last minor aches disappeared by Monday), working unusual shifts and had an absolute ball doing so.  We had a great team of people, both the core team and the extended team, who were determined to make it happen.  We bonded in a way we couldn’t doing normal library work for several reasons I believe, including – spending so much dedicated time together, being away from the public and the demands they make, being able to be more relaxed and more ourselves as a result of that and also because we genuinely liked and respected our team mates before we started the project.

We were able to share the achievements (applause and much congratulations once the last book was in place), the amusements and the mishaps.  Amusements included finding a 1945 penny in a building only 16 years old and under one bay of shelving finding a fruit tingle, a tic tac, a mint and a nail file (someone’s secret stash!!!).  The mishaps included various cuts from various tools and accessories, including scissors, utlity knives, table legs, tape dispensers and the ultimate of an attack by a drawing pin, which jumped out from a display board and got entrapped in the wild hair of one of our team.

Extra weekend staff helped clear the boxed up backlog from the courier, as well as dealing with the enthusiastic library users who poured through the doors, although it will take several weeks to get the stock reorganised on shelves properly, as we were in such a hurry to get reshelved that we ended up with very full shelves in most cases, but with room to expand into unused bays.

However, it has been all worthwhile as the library is looking great and the feedback from users has been overwhelmingly positive.

From my point of view, the week was a roaring success.  We achieved our goal of getting it all done in 5 days (I’m so task oriented) and was able to do so in good company.  I learned a bit about myself and a lot about my workmates, which has given me greater respect for them personally and professionally.  I am really happy that our users are taking to the new look and shelving changes well, as it adds that nice bit of icing to the cake.

It was a physically taxing week, but I am more than happy to be involved in such a project again if it ever arises, because it was fun.  They say a change is as good as a holiday and I couldn’t have done much different work that usual in this week, but would be happy to do it again, as long as its only periodic – I couldn’t do it everyday!