Connecting Librarian

I am working as Acting Branch Manager again at my library – a branch of a regional public library service, so taking care of the running of our biggest branch, on top of my usual Info Services tasks, were what made up my work day in this 8th round of Library Day in the Life.  I worked a late shift today, so it didn’t start until 1pm, so the morning was spent in domestic duties etc.

So here goes my work day.

12.00pm – Start work at 1pm so of course I arrived at work at 12.00pm, where I completed the staff timesheets for yesterday, whilst also catching up on what had been happening during the morning. Business as usual, except that it has been much busier than we had experienced of late. And of course, checked email.

12.30pm – Followed up on the resignation of a shelver – she had resigned on the weekend, so I followed up with the staff member who took the details and chased up with the personnel manager about what was required as follow-up. Signed off on a pile of leave applications and travel allowance forms. Followed up on completed and in process maintenance issues.

1.00 – 3.00pm – Frantically busy on desk. We were down a person due to staff training on our new discovery layer being launched next week and spent the first hour just trying to clear the backlog of returns etc, whilst serving the library users still pouring into the library. Once the backlog was cleared, spent the next hour just trying to catch up with clearing all the returns from the desk and back out into the library where users could gain access to them.

3.00pm – Uploaded helpsheets for our new discovery layer and created new links on our website, in preparation for next week’s hard launch and for our soft launch, which went live today. Also dealt with assorted staff needs and queries. And phone calls to various staff following up on assorted items.

3.45pm – Created some new book covers and information for our new books slideshow on our website. And more staff queries.

4.00pm – Added our recent library news blog post and the Gorilla Librarian (Monty Python) video to our Facebook page.

4.15pm – Did a tidy up of our website RSS feeds and deleted expired events slides.

4.20pm – Made some calls related to maintenance issues.

4.35pm – Emailed our library bloggers about changes to the new catalogue and the need to begin adding links to the new catalogue in their posts.

4.45pm – Catch up and clean up of email.

4.50pm – Started a blog post on our adult blog about Oscar Best Picture nominees which came from books. Saved it in draft form for completion another day.

5.00pm – Home for dinner.

6.00pm – 9.00pm – Back on desk for the evening – filled with loans, returns, memberships, internet assistance, copier/printer assistance, holds, console games bookings – setup – pack-up, tidy up around the library (amazing how messy some people are), as well as other numerous administrative tasks.

9.05pm – Home for another day.

Pretty normal day really. Nothing exciting in a way, but I love my job and I work in a wonderful library service with great people, so I wouldn’t change a thing.

Happy New Year everyone. Here’s hoping that 2012 is better than 2011, regardless of whether it was good or bad.

I just finished reading a post by Andy Burkhardt at Information Tyrannosaur which got me pondering. I’m only new to Andy’s blog, but I highly recommend you check it out, if you haven’t already.  Entitled Creating Meaning for Library Users, it took some great ideas from a TED talk by Experience Designer Nathan Shedroff.

What caught my attention however, was his closing paragraph.

“We are not simply delivering access to e-books or databases. We are not only conducting reference interviews or doing information literacy. We are doing something much more important than that.”

He’s referring to all the things that libraries do for their users, that is meaningful to their users. The things that keep them coming back for more, that leave them satisfied each time they leave our buildings.

It’s not new. We all know the future of libraries is not just tied up in our collections or our roles as information intermediaries.

But what are those things we do, that address the ‘meaning’ that our users are seeking. And what are the things we want to do that we aren’t doing yet and why aren’t we?

At my library, we have had an amazing increase in the number of people wanting to use the space for study this year. Not necessarily the collection, but definitely the wi-fi, the tables and in a lot of instances, some quiet. Unfortunately, we are not too well set up for the latter, with every inch of floorspace being used and being a public library, more often than not, its far from quiet. Plans are being made to fix this, but it all takes time and money. In the meantime, we do what we can. So one of the things we would like to do, is to be able to provide that ‘quiet’ study space, whilst not becoming the ‘shhh’ police that we all abhor (and don’t have the time for).

I want our users to know and remember the services we have that suit their needs, so that they can access them when they need or want them. Unfortunately, we can only tell them about those services when they join and when they ask, otherwise we can’t make them remember. Its very frustrating too, I can tell you.

I want more people from our community to come in and discover the treasures that we offer, in facilities, programs, collections and more. Our communities are great supporters of libraries, but nowhere near enough of them are members.  Our marketing programs are great, but somehow people still don’t actually make it into our buildings or onto our websites, to learn more and make use of the great things we have on offer. If only there was a way to make a library card the latest hip trend, one that never goes out of fashion……

What do you want for your users? What can you do to make it happen? I don’t know what I can do to make my wishes reality, but I am going to work on finding out.

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

I had a play with QR Codes a while ago, but only recently has my library undertaken a  trial in using them. Its informal, there has been no big song and dance about it, but if nothing else comes about as a result of this experiment, we have at least raised awareness about them.

Its interesting to see what people are saying about them in the library landscape and elsewhere.  On the more supportive side:

•  QR Codes and Information Literacy

on the more sceptical side there is

• Why the QR code is failing
• QR Codes go to College

So what are we doing with them and why, if they are ‘going to fail’?

We have started with creating a QR Code for our website and our Facebook page. We put them up on our website and on signs in our branches advertising our online presences.  At the same time, we did introductions to QR Codes for our staff and an article in our monthly newsletter for library users.

We have no indication at this point how well they are being used, if at all, but if nothing else we have taken a step in the education process. I know from discussions with staff, that they appreciate having explained to them the black square boxes that they have seen appearing in marketing everywhere. Hopefully, its the same for our users. As librarians know, its the information literacy that is always the hardest part.

So far, we are happy with what we have done – it hasn’t taken much time or effort to produce.

The next step is to create new shelf talkers to advertise our online resources in the appropriate on-shelf collections, so its very simple and straightforward to create a QR code to take users straight to the resource.

I can understand the scepticism about QR Codes, after all, it takes knowledge and software to use them. The fact that it is being used widely in advertising, will help its adoption. It doesn’t hurt us either, that the library is using something which could in time, be considered cool.

If it doesn’t gain that widespread adoption, its no great loss. It hasn’t taken much time and its been quickly absorbed into things we would normally do anyway. If it succeeds, then we will look at expanding its use into other areas – and there are many.  Some of these include:

•  QR Codes – Library Success Wiki
• Learn more about QR Codes – UTS Library
• QR codes in the library – an investigative and fun orientation program (14 June) – Sally
• QR codes and libraries – what’s all the fuss about? – SLNSW
• QR Codes – University of Wollongong

It’s very gratifying seeing lots of libraries trying these out and will be interesting to see where they go, both in libraries and in the general world.

Is your library using or planning to use QR Codes? Why/why not? I would love to hear your experiences of how they are being used or why they’re not.

 

 

Its amazing how you can view your work processes differently, when fresh eyes asks you to examine it.Recently, we had a librarianship student come to our library to learn more about the reference inquiries we receive.  Myself, my local history colleague (Heather) and the student (Liz) ended having a great chat and exploration of reference in the here and now. Thanks to both Heather and Liz for an interesting and eye-opening exploration.

So what did we decide were beyond the basics?  To start with, a comprehensive knowledge of your collection. Is the item being requested, something that your library would hold? I know that we don’t collect tertiary textbooks, so save both myself and the library user time when I can say that straight away. Having said that, there have been times when I was sure we wouldn’t have something, but the enquirer pushed and I searched and we did have it. So being aware that I am not omnipotent about everything our library has, I usually take a moment to do at least a quick search just to confirm. That search can also help me to determine if we have something else, which although not asked for, could be useful.

What’s the difference, if I’m going to search anyway? If I am reasonably sure we won’t have something, my search will be relatively quick and cursory (but thorough). If I think we may have something, I’ll spend more time trying to find it.

Leading on from that, is knowing where to refer people to when you can’t help them with their inquiry. On one day at our library, I referred different library users to a university library, local historical society, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the local community information centre and their local Council.  That day combined two sets of knowledge, that come with experience.

The first is particularly important in public libraries, that being local knowledge. Who are the information/service providers in your area, where are things located etc. If you don’t know, you should at least need to know where you can find out – eg. Council Community Directories are an invaluable source, or who on your staff  to ask, as they have that knowledge.

The second comes with experience. One of the questions asked that day related to data about a particular health condition and its prevalence in Australia. Having worked with Australian Bureau of Statistics data for many years, I was able to match the enquirer with this resource, for which he was extremely grateful.  Our experience, both within libraries and outside them, is invaluable in our roles as information seekers on our own behalf, or for others.

It also helps to have a bit of general knowledge about absolutely everything!  I know it seems like a bit much, but if you have a general idea that C is a computer programming language and not just a letter of the alphabet or that flashing is to do with building and not just a criminal offence, it can make finding the information your enquirer seeks, much quicker and more accurate. And if you don’t know or are vague about what they are talking about, do a quick background search for context (Wikipedia is often great for this), so that you are least looking in the right area when you do go searching.

Unfortunately, the enquirer does not always know what they are seeking, or know how to best articulate it.  So although the basic reference interview is requisite, a few more savvy questions that get down to the nitty gritty (with skills again picked up from experience – both life and library), can make all the difference in getting to a successful result.

And finally, refine, recheck and refine, recheck. Really ask the questions about whether the enquiry has been satisfied. Or at least, use your people skills to figure out if they have had enough of you and would you please go away, lol.

Was very happy to be able Friday 23rd September’s seminar in Melbourne with David Lee King from Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, fresh from his appearance at NLS #5 in Perth and Hamish Curry from the State Library of Victoria – presented by VALA: Libraries, Technology & the Future Inc. (thanks guys for organising this awesome afternoon’s presentation).

Freak out, geek out or seek out: trends, transformations & change in libraries – David Lee King

New book coming out next year – Face to Face – connecting with users online.

Was at NLS #5, lots of energy and enthusiasm. Saw lots of good ideas there.  Also had lots of staff telling him that they take their ideas back to their libraries and get told NO. Got told a few times that their IT guys are Evil!

Mentioned Grove Library and Community Centre – doing sustainability type things underground. Have movable, comfortable furniture. Don’t have a ref desk, but have staff workstations located around the library as the staff are circulating. They moved shelving and furniture to make room for the community.

Can be a bad place to be freaking out – not good for anybody. Should we be geeking out – as soon as it hits market? No, should be testing out for our users. We need to be seeking out.

Personal technology has changed dramatically in the last twenty years. In libraries, we have online resources, new technologies, new collections and new user expectations, online resources. Gone the way of the past: floppy disks, typewriters, film cameras and watches seem to be on the way out, at least for some.

One big change is we now have competition. Thirty years ago, the only place to get answers or borrow books was the library. Book stores have gotten big and offer many of the same services – they do storytimes, read books, enjoy coffee. Breaks down in the reference question department. If you want something fast – Amazon. They are a big competitor for us.

Not so much competition, but a change that has messed with libraries, is that newspapers are disappearing from print. In US, 120 newspapers have already changed from print to digital. On the Newspaper extinction timeline – it is expected that Australia will no longer have any print newspapers by 2022.

In US, they have rent DVDs from a vending machines on the street. But they don’t have the older titles. Competition for us. E-books, are the same. Overdrive now offers Kindle compatible ebooks now for libraries which maybe helps ease the pressure if we offer it.

Tablets, notebooks and laptops are taking over from desktops. Google has taken over from the ready reference collection. The positive is that it frees us up to answer the deeper questions, that’s if they know to come to us to ask. And then there’s the smart phone – which does everything!  Including making phone calls!

Tech changes in libraries – in the past included fiction, electricity, phone reference, copiers and then in the 1970′s we got our online catalogues and in the 1980′s the PC took off, the 1990′s the internet appears and in 2004 it was Web 2.0. The three biggest destination sights now are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which were created in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Emerging web has changed dramatically and has nothing to do with technology – it is about connecting people. It is real time, decentralised (can visit library on the web, without going to the website), its multimedia (line between newspaper and TV websites are blurring). Every company is a media company – we write articles, create content, pushing out our wares. Emerging web is very mobile – the web is in my pocket – but it should also be that the library is in my pocket. Mobile websites for libraries are a valuable tool – want it to be useful for people who want to do a task quickly – renew, ask a question etc. Emerging web is social, its two way, public with global reach, so need to be careful about what you say – if you can’t say it in person, don’t say it online.

David is Digital Branch Manager, he has a department – IT and a concept – Digital branch. He is a community manager, he scans the horizon, he is executive editor, long range planner, manager, evangelist and he answers the tough questions.

His 3 realities:
1. all services will be physical and digital – not so easy to achieve eg. storytimes
2. we’ll use the web to build unique stuff
3. to some, the digital branch will be their only branch – can place holds and pay to have them mailed out

Content – digital branch has to have things for people to see, do, read etc when they visit. They have catalogue searches on their website as well as their Facebook page. You can subscribe to their blogs by RSS or email. Blogs have photos and info about their blog contributors, so you can focus on the content you enjoy most. Photos they have on Flickr and YouTube are also reposted on their website in their blogs etc.

Community – how do you do community in a digital branch? They have instant messaging reference (using Meebo) and get an answer (if the library is open) – on both their website and embedded in their catalogue. Need to have a front door – that’s dramatic, but every page on the website is a front door, as well as Google, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter are also front doors. We have many digital borders.

Conversation – lots of discussions going on, between staff and users and between users. Conversations on the digital branch include the instant messaging widget, email reference, comments on the blogs (good and bad – which provides opinions and can help you continue the conversation), Facebook comments, Flickr comments, Twitter. Will follow their customers that follow them on Twitter, because they want to focus on their local community. Will celebrate achievements – they sent out a T-shirt to their 1000th follower.

Can have vanity searches for your library, town, postcodes and things like reading etc. Find out what the community is talking about. It gives you an opportunity to step in if you see they’re talking about you, but not talking to you.

Tackle change – ideas to get started thinking about it. A lot of libraries are not seen as relevant in our communities. They go to everyone else, before they come to us and only if they remember. We need to be first. How?
Model the way – you better be doing it first if you expect your staff to be doing it, everyone needs to be on the bus (Jim Collins book – “Good to great” – if you don’t have the right people on the bus, get the wrong ones off and get the right ones on) .

Our websites, our buildings, our services need to be as easy as a light switch to use – so that they don’t have to think about what’s going on – libraries have to stay out of their users way, unless they want to deal with you
Know your patrons – know what they are doing in your buildings, on your PCs, on your website – it can help you with designs and redesigns. It also helps you to know who doesn’t use your library. Find out where your non-users are and then market to them.
Online services have to reflect physical – no “will answer your email within two business days” on your online reference.

If we don’t change, we will die and some libraries in the US are already closing.

As print books slowly disappear and ebooks come to the fore, we will still need libraries, we will still have jobs – our patrons will lead us to where they want us to go.

Finding time – “what do you want me to drop, so that I can do that”. Its not about that, its about changing focus – what is the priority of your library and concentrate on that first, then if there’s time left, you can do other staff. If you can’t, the other stuff will fall to wayside and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Its about the user ultimately and they are online – so we need to be there.

Question: Improvement in catalogue, that negates the need to have instant messaging in catalogue. They are getting a new OPAC, which will meet that. There are overlays, and plugins that can be used to improve catalogue response.

Tablets and roving reference experience. Staff are answering a lot of questions when they are roving around, working well.

New website – can we get immediate content on there. Yes, it is possible, consult with your website provider (small library – Council IT).

Sustainability – what are you doing? Measure use against work input. Have service – personalised reading lists – fill in a form and a librarian will compile a personalised reading list for you, to meet your needs. Wasn’t getting a lot of use, so they re-jigged the form and marketed it and already the response has been good. If it doesn’t improve, they will stop the service.

What is the one next big thing?  Fun – thinks he will be wrong. Google + – just gone public in the last few days. No organisational pages yet, but that will come. Very different to both Twitter and Facebook, so there is definite potential there. Very closely tied to Google Apps, which is potentially a huge change – brings together Facebook, Microsoft and wiki-like content.

His current book: Designing the digital experience.  Website: www.davidleeking.com

Putting IT back in reality – Hamish Curry, Application and Online Learning Manager – State Library of Victoria

Mash-up idea – take photos and put them on top of each, as you rub the them on your  iPhone, you rub down through the years and see the space/place as it was going backwards through time.

Contact: hcurry@slv.vic.gov.au @hamishcurry  slideshare.net/hcurry

Statements heard from people he has spoken to about the SLV: ebooks must be killing libraries, this digital stuff must be making your job hard, guess no-one wants to go the library any more, bet your numbers are down.

Reality – the worst game ever! IT can help augment the experience. Smart phones, tablets are helping to do this. Extend the experience – after this you will look further, online of course. Enhance the engagement – you may tweet your own thoughts and ideas which enhances things.

What breaks assumptions over expectations? How can we get people to come in physically or online, to see for themselves. Seeing is believing, but you have to not only market, but be able to back it up in reality, to participate. They have to also have a social connection, not with the building, but with the people in the building – with people in the library who they believe are more honest and authentic.

Instead, you can offer surprises – offer them something they don’t expect. You need to do things that make your users curious. Give them a chance to discover – so that they end up owning it – even if we miss out on getting the credit. Let them make connections, both to people and to the place.  Learn – check out Happy Planet Index: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/ – number five is learning. So very important to ensure people keep learning. All this will keep people coming back.

Do something unexpected and make it cool, both in the physical and online environments. (I geek the library).

Always offer silence, trustworthiness, answers, quality and Wi-Fi. Quality, means finding the balance between doing it right and do it quickly.

From the community section on SLV website – helps embed them back in with their users.

Digital is not so scary – we are still trying to make the worlds information accessible in our pockets – but has moved from a miniature library in a matchbox, to online – the only difference is that we use mobile devices to access it and the content has been outsourced.

Technology has really shaped learning and literacy. We can talk to anyone at any time. We can work together from anywhere at any time. We can connect with people anywhere, any time. The curriculum has had to change too, but teachers are struggling to keep up with these phenomenal changes, so that they can lead young minds. They are getting on board and librarians have to do so too.

Information has changed, but even though trusted sources are always the best, they are not the first two results on a Google search, where people think they are trusted sources. There is so much learning now available on the web, not just content, but ways of providing learning – eg. Video conferencing. Information scarcity has changed to information complexity. Clay Shirky – “Its not information overload. Its filter failure.” This is what librarians are great at and we need to be able teach everyone.

Khan Academy – www.khanacademy.org – 2500 videos to teach you just about everything. Some good, some bad.

We are answer rich, but question poor. (Susan Greenfield – “Quest for identity in the 21st century.”) Hamish has great admiration for reference librarians who deal with people who have done the search but cant navigate what they found, or find the answer they seek.

University of Sydney has created a great range of engaging resources to help people to search and filter. SLV has done the same with ERGO (http://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/). Designed for students, but stats showing that teachers are finding it very valuable.

Hoddle Waddle (http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/explore/student-teacher-resources/hoddle-waddle-education-kit) – program to help students navigate 50 sites in the CBD in a day. Not taken up initially, but once they made most of the content Freemium, bookings have improved and all the resources are being much better used. Teachers are now presenting on the program at conferences. They are now considering offering it as a public program, for cultural visitors to use it. Improvements in progress including mobile contributions using Broadcastr. ARIS is another app which does something similar. As augmented reality becomes more mainstream, there will be even more opportunities to put IT back into reality.

Change involving technology, needs not only the tech, but also a cultural change.

Interaction with inanimate. SLV playing with QR codes – used it in a gallery to see how people
use it. There are also Google Goggles, i-nigma, Red Laser, Photosynth – a 360 degree mapping app.

Risk: Partners and programs – risk is not a dirty word, being risk adverse – makes you slow and inflexible – wont do anything because we could get it wrong, it requires trust of the organisation in their staff, motivation, relationship – always remembering that shift will happen.

If you don’t step in and do it, someone else will – and they not present what you think should be.

Some tools to do this: RSS, Twitter, Google +, Facebook, Yammer. Half of SLV is now on Yammer, after starting with 5 a year ago.

Networks are always changing – online mimics what nature does – new networks develop and old ones die and drop away.

“Use the force, Luke”. – Obi Wan Kenobi. We need to harness the world around us. We want to be able to pull people on site and push them online. Don’t create your own social space, go to where your users are already. Need to occupy multiple spaces to access different audiences.

Sometimes you need to prepackage content and bring it to the fore, to make it easier for people to access and to bring our collections alive.

“The more you learn, the more acutely aware you become of your ignorance.” (Peter Senge – “Fifth discipline”) SLV programs: TedX Melbourne and now happening around the world, but it pulls people in and engaging with you, Personal Learning Network with SLAV teaching teachers and teacher librarians about the online world.

Its not so much I Communication T, but change as the C in ICT. We need libraries to be FUN – not just the physical, but the online as well. Need to know what the drivers are, have to be prepared to play and technology has a role. (Night at the Mitchell Library video).

Video games are changing how things work. They have play, replay and experimentation, they involve risk and reward, they can be integrated experiences and augmented experiences. The only difference between chess and video games is a shift in format – the skills and experience are very similar.

International initiatives – Find the Library at NYPL, National Gaming Day in US Libraries, Freeplay at SLV.

Merge and mirror programs – a fusion between what they experience in one space and are further enhanced in another. Transmedia – can stand alone (eg. Facebook), but can also be linked to draw people to other spaces. Hacks and Library Apps can also be used to enhance experiences.

Data is becoming sexy as people are presenting it differently. eg. Infographics, Library Hack, Open Government Data.
“But problem solving , however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results. ” (Peter Drucker – “The Effective Executive”)

“When people in motion, meet a library in motion, anything is possible” – Director Stockholm Public Library.

I am very big on efficiency, including ensuring that our information flow from our library is used as effectively as possible.

Our library has five blogs, four of which are hosted by Blogger. To make the most of this content, to ensure that people are seeing it when they don’t know about the blogs (and many don’t, regardless of how much we promote them), we feed each of them to our library homepage. (the fifth is already there)

We were wondering how effective this was and started doing some statistical analysis. Up until recently, we only counted visits to the actual blogs at  Blogger and to our news blog on Drupal.  The statistics were better for some than for others, but one of our blogs was quite low and it was getting a bit discouraging, when you considered the effort that went into creating both the blog and the regular content that goes into it.

So I took another look at the blog content and how it was being used in various locations.  Between readers of the actual blogs (counted using Google Analytics), subscribers (using Feedburner) and then reads of the blog posts on our website (counted using Drupal Statistics), we found that our blog content was being read by anything up to 300% more than just at the blogs alone!  Quite eye-opening really.

And this doesn’t count the people who just scan read the summary of each post as it appears on the library’s homepage. The Drupal only counts a read when the post title is clicked on and the reader goes to the full-text of the posts (which is also on the website).

So we have this great content, being utilised in numerous locations and getting a much wider audience, with little effort from library staff, due to the joy of RSS feeds. (gotta love em).

Then back in August, Brian Herzog posted on his blog Swiss Army Librarian – Visualising the flow of my library’s information online and I pounced on that idea.  His flowchart came after their Facebook page launch and so I created one for our library, to help convince our management that we should launch our Facebook page.  Their reasonable concern was that it would be too staff-intensive for too little return. The flowchart was designed to show that staff time would be minimal and after some guidelines on management of the page were created, we got the go ahead to launch.

Here’s the flowchart I created:

We could have automated the process further, by posting the feed from our library news blog straight to Facebook, but decided against it. Instead, we post that content to our Wall, in a bit more of a casual voice, which gives us the opportunity to engage more personally with our Facebook page and our fans.

The flowchart has also given us some areas to consider improving in and things to consider if we ever expand our online presences to include sites like Twitter, Google Plus and others. (after all, who knows what the next big online thing will be!)

Can we use this concept for other information flows?  I am thinking of doing one for my personal presences, seeing where I can maybe get a more consistent message out on my various networks.  But that’s a task for another day.

How does your library’s online information flow work?  Would love to hear any ideas you have that might help us change or improve ours.

And thanks Brian for the awesome idea!

I know how tough it can be to give a presentation/talk/speech/seminar etc. Even after having done quite a few over the years, I still get nervous beforehand, but have learned now that I can handle them and it will all be OK once I have started.

However, there are many people who never get there.  I know that I was terrified at my first conference presentation, but because I survived it intact and because I got good feedback, it gave me the courage(?) to go back and try again.

So anyway, I’m looking at my son the other day, who was getting all excited about his own presentation (he’s 9). The differences between his and mine? He’s a child and his presentation is called ‘Show and Tell’.

We all remember ‘Show and Tell’ at school. How we would get excited, particularly after Christmas, birthdays and holidays, at being able to tell our classmates all about the wonderful new thing we got from said occasion. We would extol its virtues and proudly show it off without fear of judgement or ridicule.

What happened to the excitement we used to have when presenting “Show and Tell”?

Are we more concerned about the opinions of our audience than we were then? Maybe, but if we got a bad review then, we shrugged it off and either dished it back to the bad reviewer when it was their turn, or came up with something even grander at next “Show and Tell”.

Are we less excited about the subject of our presentation than we were at “Show and Tell”? Could be, but if we aren’t excited, then why aren’t we? We do really great stuff in libraries and we get the chance to present on these things, because other people think they’re great too.

What else is there? Can we step back to our childhood and recapture that confidence and excitement we had for “Show and Tell” and bring them into our presentations today? Can you imagine if every presenter at a conference had that? It would make for an amazing conference – over the top maybe, but I imagine you wouldn’t be able to help but get excited about what they were presenting on.

So can we get past the adult blocks that stop us from presenting or presenting well? A little bit of childhood magic might just be the trick. I’ll have to try using that mindset next time I present – I’ll let you know what happens.

 

 

 

The Public Libraries Victoria Network ICT Special Interest Group, of which I am convener, ran a one-day seminar last week on discovery layers and public libraries. We invited four Victorian public library speakers to talk about their experiences, new as they are to discovery layers and then speakers from the State Library of Victoria and Trove, to give us an idea of potential and a chance to dream of what might be…..

Here’s my notes from the day.

If you are unfamiliar with discovery layers, check out my short introductory powerpoint, which will give you framework from which to read the rest of this post.

Ken Harris, Port Phillip Library Service – Serials Solution’s 360 Search and Civica’s Sorcer
Have not chosen full Discovery layer software, but have introduced federated search and what they call a bibliographic discovery layer.  Most library users expect more from a search than just keyword and browse.  There is no “did you mean” on Sorcer.

About a year ago, they talked to various vendors, but most said “you couldn’t afford us” or were academic based. Looked at Encore – too expensive and Aqua Browser.

Was about to sign up with a product when realised there were major issues – couldn’t moderate comments.  Instead, found that Federated Search could meet their searching needs across platforms.

WebFeat was chosen for federated search, better back end and could be administered themselves and included a proxy solution. Set all up quickly, they were very good with remote support. Called it super search and went live.

All stats went up, but was it because all databases were being searched individually? Full article stats also went up. Didn’t get the stats add-on for Web Feat (didn’t realise), so no other statistics. No feedback from borrowers, unless it stopped working.

In recent months, they updated their LMS so they could implement Sorcer – their bibliographic discovery layer.
Sorcer is a module of Spydus, based on a subscription service. It leverages off the bibliographic data. It’s mostly live, but pre-indexes some of the facts, so it can drill down.  Its gives browsing capabilities that are not available in the base catalogue.

Includes Word Clouds, which are useful. Sorcer is as good as you want it to be. You set up the containers they way you want. You can save lists, set up pre-packaged Boolean searches.  Limit of 52 items in a gallery display -  a limit which they had to work out for themselves.  Cover images have to come from external sources such as Syndetics (sourced and paid for by the library)

How is it going? Stats don’t compare to catalogue use, but should they? Civicia doesn’t support Google Analytics, so they set it up themselves. Can get stats on titles once clicked on, but not on containers.

They are not replacing the catalogue with Sorcer. It is not WC3 compliant, it doesn’t render in all browsers, etc so it is an extra. Borrowers like it, the look, the auto complete feature, and other things.

Issues they have found: Staff interface is technical, they have to be able to edit HTML. Not able to use Library Thing for Libraries – where the catalogue can. Friends functionality is limited and has no privacy restrictions. Some glitches with the container functionality. It does not search other resources, not a federated search tool – at least not yet – to alleviate this, they have added their database and ebook records into the catalogue.

Civica has plans to implement federated search through Sorcer – first stop will be the ability to search other sorcer libraries.

They have now migrated to 360 search from WebFeat. Express migration took 6 months (sigh), but they now have an improved search function and it does some relevancy ranking. Most connectors are maintained by support – can not be done by library staff any longer, inlike WebFeat.

Its live now at http://library.portphillip.vic.gov.au/OnlineResources.html

You can get widget code to embed in your website and it uses IP authentication.

Unfortunately it lists database vendor names, rather than the database name.

Can stop a search partway through and it will give you the results it has already found.

Port Phillip Library Service is building a new website – they are aiming to provide a seamless gateway to the catalogue and federated search through widgets and html dressing on external sites.  Sorcer can’t be changed in look and feel, so they can’t bring it into the new website yet.

May still be looking at an alternative discovery layer – there are many new products on the market which would be worth investigating.

Question/Answers
Web Feat uses its own proxy, they commission their own end point. Kind of like a limited Ezy Proxy. They can build connectors, more quickly if you pay for it.

Primo and Aquabrowser are not WC3 compliant. Accessibilty increases costs, may be new products which are better in this area

Hugh Rundle – Boroondara – Civica’s Sorcer
Haven’t launched it yet, (next week or so)

The Dream: Staff on board and excited, Everything in the collection findable in new ways, Replace booklists, fliers and pathfinders and Provide a new way to explore the collection for the majority of users who never ask for help.

Reality – staff need to be convinced (especially when not live), some things are not accessible (only bibliographic) – not federated search and some things can’t be seen through Sorcer (even though can through the catalogue) eg. individual copies of journals . Old ways die hard – people think they know how to do it the old way, ability to be nimble doesn’t mean you have more time – it can be quick to create new containers etc, but you then end up creating a lot more.

Civica’s definition – Sorcer – new Consumer Portal.  Hugh’s definition – a web 2.0 enabled catalogue encouraging browsing and discovery, but not replacing the catalogue.

Catalogues don’t speak human, they speak librarian. And sometimes librarians don’t even speak librarian very well.

Sorcer makes connections – gives you the standard catalogue information, but also people who borrowed this also borrowed and similar titles – makes it a bit more like Amazon. Data mining……… All of these recommendations are only titles within the collection. Very useful.

Sorcer makes information more beautiful – word clouds and gallery displays.  Easier to use for our users.

How does it work – Front End -  Sorcer uses tags, which can be created by users or staff – they can be made public or private. If private, its a shortcut for the user. If public, it becomes searchable. Tags can be deleted and blacklisted – so they can never be created again.

Friends not investigated yet, because they haven’t launched yet.

Front end – patron login. Can look at Sorcer or login and then look at it. When you login, you get options like books for you – look at your borrowing history and makes suggestions, recently borrowed – by anyone in the library, recent biographies and prize winning books. The latter uses the save list technology – a collection of titles library staff create and insert into a Sorcer container. Can do it with anything – eg. currently no subject headings on fiction books (but they are looking at doing so), but can create a save list on a genre.

The back end is complicated.  If you have the data in your database, you can do just about anything with it. If you can do it as a search or advanced search in your catalogue, you can put it in a container. Includes wildcards.

Sideway ends – standard OPAC. Port Phillip has kept catalogue as main and link to Sorcer. Boroondara is planning on making OPAC and website catalogue Sorcer, with a link back to the standard catalogue.

In a nutshell – Sorcer is much better than standard OPAC, but can not yet completely replace the OPAC (they do have plans to bring in new things). You’ll need some Boolean – to create containers. Sorcer is flexible and allows instant changes via Spydus Supervisor – no FTP required.

Questions/Answers:
Saved lists don’t update – static and need to be updated. Boolean lists are created on the fly, so update as new items are added to the catalogue that meet that search. Static list option caches overnight rather than everytime you load in.

Have problems with LOTE collections in standard catalogue as the older records are not in Unicode. New records are, but can’t be done retrospectively. Sorcer will read Unicode, so newer records are fine.

Lloyd Brady – SWIFT – SirsiDynix’s Enterprise/Portfolio
Portfolio is the expanded version of Enterprise, brings digital asset management into the discovery layer/content management system based Enterprise. Swift Libraries who are live now are on Enterprise 3.1. Portfolio 4.1 will go live with Swift Libraries in coming months.

Enterprise is a discovery layer for interacting with the OPAC and other federated search target – via 39.50 or with Serials Solutions’ 360 search, but is also a content management system of its own.

Enterprise allows you to play with colours, CSS and can customise extensively, with some restrictions. 20 of the 22 Swift Libraries have purchased Portfolio/Enterprise.

Enterprise was initially just an alternative search interface for the catalogue with Google type features. Have added content management, better integration with library accounts etc.

Has a simple search box, can configure search limits – SWIFT has configured limits on home library service etc.
Enterprise has “Did you mean”, but it will also give you the possible alternatives in search results, regardless. It is Unicode compliant, so can search in non-Roman script, depending on your catalogue records of course.

Have incorporated Web 2.0 functions, eg. facebook share, digg submit, tweet this, tag in delicious, library thing links etc.  Facets are displayed on the left side in Portfolio.  eg. narrow your results etc by various facets including format, type, date etc.

The database Portfolio uses is indexed from the LMS. It is harvested overnight and then uses those items, in its own index.  Copy availability is live – using web services to pull that info from the LMS at that time. New records added, will not appear til next day.  Results are produced in relevancy order – the limit is 75% – no items are shown under this limit (it is adjustable in setup).

There can be issues with this eg. Ballet – when typed in a search, had westerns appear in the search , because of the similarity to bullet. Wimmera bumped up to 80% to fix this. Can be too harsh though and miss out on things when users spell incorrectly.

Have rooms that feature particular areas and can limit the search within that space to items relevant to that area eg. childrens, local history etc.

Can separate out catalogue and federated search results in different tabs. Can group federated search sources however you like.

Portfolio is the next level up, but incorporates all of Enterprise. Adds digital assets management – so you can add your scanned newspapers or documents, historical photos, digital audio or video. Set up asset collections using Dublin Core and it becomes accessible through the catalogue. Is also OAIPMH compliant, so images can be harvested by Picture Australia and it can harvest OAIPMH compliant databases.

Have upgraded search, can use Google-like search interface or limit search by field, like in a traditional catalogue. Can select multiple facets and exclude or include them, select multiple items and place a hold on them etc. Has lists, email etc features. Can also integrate Project Gutenberg titles and download the full text of the ebook.

Questions/Answers:
Uses Google Analytics for reporting statistics. Administration via a Web interface and have user access restrictions.  No need to know HTML, uses WYSIWYG.  Also available for Horizon.

User suggestions, etc not in the works yet, but under discussion. Development still going on. Have their own Facebook ap. Have a good booklists function.

BookMyne app is a discovery layer as well for the iPhone, coming soon for Android.

No user interaction – no tagging, but under development is conversations, where users can talk about things they find in the catalogue, or about particular rooms – chat and feedback functionality. If a search term is typed in three times, it is configured as an auto complete and sent to the admin as inclusion as a search term. Can also blacklist search terms.

Accessbility compliant – meets US standard (ADA mode) via a link.

Suzanne Male – Yarra Plenty – Bibliocommons
Went live at end of November 2010. Have just taken off beta release from the logo – still is a work in progress.
There are two components, the discovery layer and the website. They are combined to provide a seamless user experience. Incorporates web 2.0 features like Facebook, and google type search facilities.

First Bibliocommons combined site, using Drupal for content management system.

Public feature – My Shelves, can add titles to this and they are then visible to others (not everything you borrow). Can turn on a private recording of what you borrow.  Can add comments and share your thoughts on a catalogue record, as well as tags.  Can create lists – both users and staff, used for recommendations.  Have asked for more recommendation type features (Amazon like).

Can explore by facet, check out library blogs, staff lists and more.  Site search needs some work, but the catalogue search is good.  Getting good feedback on facets.

Events function and blogs will eventually come up in search results – can also book for events online.

Positives: Seamless user experience, its social, enhances the catalogue using what is already there, can browse serendipitously, encourages staff to be part of the community.

Bibliocommons now incorporates the Google Books preview.

Created lists can be chosen as local or of broader interest.

Will look at rewarding prolific contributors to their site – those who create many lists, recommendations, comments, thoughts etc with prizes.

RSS feeds not available at present, but coming. Has a mobile app for iPhone, android and a mobile version for other devices.

Bibliocommons – SaaS, as their LMS is already. Have some speed issues as it is hosted in the US.  Nightly synchronisation and indexing. Indexed to their server, constantly updated in a 15 minute cycle.

Have a bug tracking system and they talk to Bibliocommons daily. Privacy concerns, so have strict policies and users must specify their level of privacy – haven’t had any problems with this in the 7 months of operation. Inappropriate content can be removed by staff or voted out by other users. Users can opt to ignore another user.

Questions/Answers:
Some confusion for borrowers with having username and a library card – as each are required in different places. Some users have tried to borrow with their username etc.

Does have local history photos on their catalogue.

Custom template as they were first – but not their template, was created and owned by Bibliocommons.  There is an annual cost as well as setup.

They manage most of their Drupal site inhouse, but some of it managed by Bibliocommons.

Who owns the comments – don’t know, but think they would belong to Biblicommons.

Patron takeup – don’t know numbers, but its growing.

Kirstie McRobert – State Library of Victoria (SLV) – Ex Libris’ Primo
Primo – high end product – mainly academic.

On the whole have been very pleased with it.

Working on version 2 at present, will soon upgrade to 3. Primo has a federated search component – called MetaLib, also a Ex libris product and a link resolver – SFX. Together its a solution.

Dream – provide simultaneous search across the Library’s website incorporating both internal and external data sites.

Created a link to new style catalogue and moved the classic link over. People started using it straight away. Recommends this sneaky launch.

Launched the big red search box on every page when the new website was launched in 2010.

Wanted to provide a google type experience, single search across all library resources and incorporating web 2.0 features.

Simpler search for all, one interface to learn – seamless, natural language, fewer zero hits than OPAC, provides clearer pathways to targeted resources.

Provides a means to discover more of the library resources, by aggregating data sources, by exposing more metadata through results facets, start discovery though scoped default searches and make serendipity possible.

Wanted more visible journal/newspaper articles and ebooks search – via articles database tab, consistent search experience. Web 2.0 included reviews, comments, tags, store search results, alerts, bookmarking services, check requests.

Benefits – highly configurable – collection scopes, search indexes, relevance ranking, results facets, record displays, links to external sources such as Google Books, Trove, WorldCat etc. Can have Library Thing and Syndetics, but don’t at present.

Benefits for SLV – Data configuration managed by librarians – rather than by IT staff – via web admin module, normalisation rules to control search and display, each data source can have its own normalisation rules. Also gives SLV a greater return on investment, as eletronic resources have greater visibility – both licenced and in-house. Exposes more SLV data where users are searching – eg. in Trove and WorldCat – next version will enable them to expose more through OAI harvests (to go to Trove) and opening it up to Google, if they so choose.

SLQ One Search is where SLV is headed with the next version of Primo.

Have various pre-searching limiting options – eg. books, journals, pictures, audio and video  – but not websites or database because of poor quality coding on them.

Big challenge for staff to leave refining searches until the initial search is completed. Works best with the ‘dumb’ search. As long as there is metadata, you can setup a facet for it.

Allows you to tailor further suggested searches, generated from authors, subjects etc. Automatic word stemming if results below configurable threshold (set at 25 by SLV). Also has FRBRisation of editions – brings different editions together – this can be turned off for certain sets of items.

Can make tags, comments and reviews, but none are private. Must be logged in to make them, but can do so anonymously, even whilst logged in. Most tags they have seen added, are pretty esoteric. There is no real moderation, but they have set up an Oracle report to monitor them. Haven’t removed any at this time, but can if need be.

Pitfalls- try to avoid excessive look and feel design – have to rebuild when there are upgrades; avoid customisation that is not vendor supported where possible – just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Phase 3 due December 2011 – new look and feel, enhanced brief results summary, more default OPAC-like indexes, more default sorting options.

Users are directed to Primo, but have the option to go to the  OPAC. However, SLV wants to retire it and will continue investigating the gaps, to ensure no functionality is lost when that happens.

Next phase – incorporate library web pages as sources, eg. Mirror of the World site, or La Trobe Journal – set up as a separate search and eventually replace the existing website search and  offer a mobile version as well.

Questions/Answers:
Comments – historical just accepted as a comment. If it points out something clearly wrong, which can be verified, the original is changed. If it is fixed, people will often then remove their comment.

Alison Delitt – National Library of Australia – Trove
Trove was built by NLA – more flexibility.

Content is king. People will put up with a lot if you have good content – they will complain, but they will access it. 80% of usage is  the newspapers/magazines. 50% of their keenest researchers are genealogists, the other 50% have special interests – eg. crime in victoria, transport etc.

Most popular – digital and can get immediately, rare content which can’t be found elsewhere, and the undiscovered – for example, theses. When designing systems, what are the drawcards that are bringing people into your site and content.

Convenience. Most users want to get through your site to what they want to get, as quickly and painlessly as possible. Single search box was the only thing they got right, right from the start, everything else has been changed since then. Users particularly love the copyright check and cite this buttons. The FRBRisation of titles has created some problems – if you are seeking a particular edition of a title, it is almost impossible.  Are working to resolve it.  The system has to be simple for the majority but also have a level of complexity for those who want it – likely to involve multiple screens. User testing is king. If Trove staff can’t agree on something, they will adjudicate it through user testing.

Collaboration. Deliberately built a community who have ownership over what they do. Over 40 million lines of newspaper have been corrected by the community. Users are correcting newspapers, adding images, tagging, commenting, merging or splitting works and adding lists. Small team of staff do censor comments,  have had to do so, including removal of some spam.

On Trove, you can access some online content, with your local library membership. (eg. Gale/Cengage, RMIT/Informit). If your library subscribes to those resources, you can search them and authenticate on Trove, using your local library card.

Implemented a user forum.  Due to privacy restrictions, they couldn’t connect users directly, but users can find each other there and do, particularly the newspaper text correctors.

Changes to Libraries Australia are immediately updated on Trove.

How do they do it?

Iterative – did a soft launch – but actively solicited feedback, every change was made from this. Any enquiry about that relates to using Trove starts a process of investigating how they could improve how Trove works. Launched with an imperfect product, so they could test with live users and adjust as they went.

Collaborative. Only possible because of the great team, many of whom work on other things at the NLA.  Built using SOLR – which underlines a lot of other discovery layer software. Its a base level of software. They have a full development team. Heavily use javascript.

Questions/Answers:
Flickr harvested photos go to both Picture Australian and Trove. Picture Australia will eventually be rolled into Trove, but a lot has to be resolved before that happens. Trove directly harvests images from 10 cultural institutions. (80 go through Picture Australia).

Can turn fuzzy logic off for advanced searches.

Library Day in the Life  happens twice a year and I think I’ve participated in most. It is intended to showcase what librarians do, but I think its also becoming a history of the same thing. (Reminds me, I’ll have to go back and have a look at what I was doing on a Monday three years ago!)

So here’s my Monday 25th July – pretty stock standard really.

 

8.50am

• Sign in and get a glass of water
• Talk to various staff about issues that arose on my Sunday shift – some for notification, some for follow-up
• Start my computer and login whilst doing so – computer takes forever to start up, so happy to multi-task

9.00am

• Check email and start dealing with it
• Read memos and minutes in my inbox
• Look over the latest draft of the VALA conference program and reply with my thoughts – deep, they were not

9.15am

• Website updates and assess what needs to be done to bring it fully up to date

9.30am

• Create slides for our events slide show for some of our regular events, these are happening in the next few weeks and now we are past the school holidays, we have room for them on our website. We use PhotoShop Elements to create the slides – makes us feel like graphic artists – and its fun!

10.10am

• Compile a summary of the feedback from the Discovery Layers seminar, run, last week, by the Public Libraries Victoria Network ICT Special Interest Group (PLVN ICT SIG), of which I am convenor.  Glad to see that we had a very positive response on paper, as well as verbally on the day.
• Squeeze in a tea break and enjoy a very sweet and juicy Australian navel orange
• Go back to my desk and fight with Excel over formatting of the feedback summary – finally win the battle

11.00am

• Catch up with my immediate manager – just back from holidays and he is heading out later – find we are on the same page (what will happen to that cliche when books do finally disappear?)
• Finish battling with Excel, but its more attitude than actual issues

11.45am

• Email the Committee ICT Special Interest Group with a reminder of our forthcoming meeting and a copy of the feedback summary.
• Email the speakers from our Discovery Layers seminar, thanking them once more, providing a copy of the feedback summary for their interest and asking them to send me their presentations, so they can be made available via the PLVN website.

12.00noon

• Emails have backed up again, so spend a few minutes catching up
• CEO asks me a question about Open Library, so refresh my memory about it and then chat with him about his questions.

12.15pm

• More website administration – this time its cleaning out unpublished content and moderating comments
• Check out our vanity search – few tweets about our recently opened new Pakenham library – some blog posts too

12.30pm

• Wrote a library blog post about our new learning languages database – Learn a New Language Today – or is it Byki?  They can’t seem to make up their mind.
• Created a couple of new book cover entries for our new books slide show.

12.45pm

• Learned a bit about Facebook Places, so we can claim our branches.

12.55pm

• Started filling out a training report form, for the Discovery Layers seminar I attended (ran), last week.  All I have to do is get my notes off my notebook, edit them, post them to my blog, then print them out and attach them to the training report.

1.00pm – Lunch!  Grabbed a chicken roll on the way to returning my costume from a 70′s party I went to on the weekend.

1.45pm

• I was only gone 45 minutes, but of course the email and the admin backed up again

2.00pm

• Began a local install of Drupal 7 – want to be able to play with it on our local PCs first

2.50pm

• Tech talk with our CEO – who is compiling the questions for our annual public survey. Talk expanded beyond the questions and into Facebook and its use in libraries.

3.10pm

• Updated our weekly event promotions sheet. This is an A4 page which we display forthcoming events on, which is placed next to our RFID kiosks. This way we still get a chance to promote events, even when we aren’t talking to those patrons who use the kiosks.
• Noticed an issue with an event slide, so a quick edit.

3.30pm

• Is it tea time yet? Oh it is? Good. Enjoyed another juicy Australian navel orange and stimulating conversation around the tea table.

3.45pm

• Tried out some content with another librarian, for our forthcoming Staff Development dinner.

4.05pm

• Website tweaking
• Still trying to get Drupal 7 installed locally. Won’t work the way I want it to (it has to go its own way), so am deferring this task until later in the week)

4.25pm

• Touching base again briefly with my manager
• Making a note to think about how we can present free ebook options to our patrons
• Beginning a draft post on our staff training blog about one of our new databases

Which takes us to 5.00pm and home time.

But of course, I also check email and our website when I’m home, but that’s not unusual for me…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the last day of Blog Every Day of  June, so I thought it appropriate to talk about when a project should finish in a library.

The quick answer is never.

Let me clarify. Any new service, equipment, initiative, procedure etc being started in a library has an implementation program. The implementation part has a finish date, but the new ‘whatever’ it is, shouldn’t.

For every new thing that comes into our libraries, there should be a monitoring and assessment program that is ongoing, either until the day it dies or is replaced, or otherwise forever. Not only does this help you to assess whether it’s being used and whether its an effective use of your staffing hours and resources, but only it gives you useful data for demonstrating your library’s worth.

On a side note, the same goes for professional development. It also does not end when you have finished your qualification. It goes on and on and on and on and on……

This question also has a second answer.  It is also no. But it should sometimes be yes.

If we had these ongoing monitoring programs (and in some instances, even when we do), we need to determine when the point is reached that running such a program/equipment/service is no longer justified, in whatever terms have been set. So when we start, we need to determine what will be considered a success and what will be required to write off the project as completed once and for all.

We are good at starting things in libraries, not always so good at finishing them. And there are many things we do that require no finishing, but do need to be demonstrated as having worth and ongoing assessment will give us that. In fact, we need to be shouting out about them from the rooftops, but that’s another issues altogether.

But there are things we do, that do need to end and we need to let them go.  That can be hard, so work out what it will need to look like for that to happen and we might just find it easier to do it when the time comes.

Thanks everyone for following patiently during the last 30 days of blogging. Looking back, I never thought I could have so much to say in this forum. Not all of it was good, I freely acknowledge.

Surprisingly, I find that there are a couple of things I had planned on, but didn’t blog about in this month, so there will be more to come, just not every day, (sigh of relief for everyone!) and probably not even this week.

But I thank you for joining me on this ride and for your comments, they are both truly appeciated.

Michelle