Connecting Librarian

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!

I was fortunate enough to be invited by Patricia Genat to attend the ALS Breakfast during the ALIA Dreaming 08 conference. Over a lovely pancake breakfast we had a casual conversation with Margie Seale from Random House on publishing trends and the scene in the Australian industry.

Margie began by saying that she was impressed by our library websites and what we do with them, that they are not just about information.

The retail market for books has 3 major segments: discount department
stores like Kmart and BIg W, with 22% of the market, chain bookstores like Dymocks, Borders and A&R with 50% of the market and independent bookstores with 25%. The latter is a fast disappearing breed in the US, due to price competition, which has also resulted in a lack of diversity. In Australia, our markets is very vibrant, generally successful and still very diverse.

The Book Scan service has helped suppliers and publishers to recognise
trends and ajdust their business strategy on the fly as the trends are revealed.

The 2008 top sellers in Australia so far are: Ingredients, Underbelly, Change of heart by Piccoult and Breath by Winton. Last year it was The Secret, ahead of the adult edition of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. For childrens books, this year so far has been Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers and last year was Harry Potter. Interestingly, many of the attendees
were not aware of many of these titles, because they were mainly managerial staff.

At present, the big sellers in each of the markets are; Breaking Dawn in the chain bookstores, Very hungry caterpillar in the discount department stores and Gallup in the independents. The US top titles at present are New Earth – a republishing of Eckhardt Tolls book an the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. The same titles will follow here as our markket is similar to the US. In the UK, the top titles are A thousand splendid suns and the latest Delia Smith cookbook.

Across all 3 markets there are only 3 books in common in the top 10 bestsellers – Atonement, Kite runner and A thousand splendid suns. Australia and UK have 5 titles in common, Australia and US have 8 in common and the US and UK only have those 3.

The Australian market leans slightly towards the US in trends. If a title is going to work here though, it does so quickly. However, UK covers and formats work better here. Why? Margie believes because it is better quality, more stylish, more anglo is design. Our covers are more subtle, not so blatant.

An issue of interest to the book industry at present is the 30/90 rule, which is under review. The rule was introduced in the 1990s to allow certainty of copyright and to provide consumers with titles in a timely manner. Publishers buy rights for a territory so only they can bring the title in. This means that publishers had to publish that title within 30 days of it being
published in English anywhere else in the world. If it goes out of stock, publishers have 90 days to restock. If neither of these conditions is met the copyright is lost and the title goes back to the open market.

The government is reviewing this and looking at making Australia a totally open market, where anyone can bring in titles from anywhere at any time. The UK and US markets are not considering doing this at present.

Booksellers say that it will bring book prices down. Publishers are concerned that they will not be able to invest in new authors, because they wont have the certainty of their protected business to support the risk. It may also put Australian book printers out of business.

Drivers for this change? US currency makes US book prices look cheap. The
Australian Booksellers Association is in support of the change, although not necessarily all of its members. As for the book printing business, although colour printing is done overseas, 50-60% of Random Houses black and white printing is done in Australia. The rule has been reviewed several times over the years, so this is only the lastest in a series. It will be interesting to see what develops.

Margie Seale was an engaging speaker. It was interesting to hear the publishing perspective and see how it matched with the borrowing behaviours we see in our libraries.

Morgan at Exploded Library got me thinking about this more fully with his recent blog post “Living with myself as a law librarian“. He pondered his dilemma – “what happens if I am indirectly helping a client do things which conflict with my personal values?” He also ponders whether “these questions are a lot easier for people who work in public libraries or school or academic libraries”.  Check out the blog post to find out what he has discovered.

As a long serving public librarian, I think we have the same sorts of issues, but maybe with a slightly different view. I have concerns about teenage girls taking out items on astrology and witchcraft, but that is a personal issue which I have kept out of my professional work. New age and Feng Shui are not for me neither, but if that is what a user wants, I am professionally obliged to help them find it and I do. I would love to see people read more good fiction or non-fiction, but if they want graphic novels and paperback romances, I am happy to provide them with those – they are still reading.

I don’t like all of the books, DVDs, CDs, magazines etc that we purchase for our collections, but I can’t censor those collections based on my preferences, because not everyone likes the same things that I do. My job as a librarian is to try to meet our users’ needs, not mine. As a librarian colleague once joked, if it was up to her, she would just run a mobile library service with only paperback romances and Where’s Wally (Waldo for US readers) and the circulation stats would go through the roof! But on the otherhand, our membership would be reduced by 90%, but they would be awesome borrowers!

On the other side of the ethical question, we had a borrower this week, who almost accused us of stealing some money that had been left in a returned library book. When she realised and the book was traced, the money was not there. I was one of the staff members working on the day this allegedly happened and was surprised and indignant. Not only would neither I or any of the staff think of taking any money found in a book, but we would usually be so shocked that we had found it that we would announce it to all and sundry, so it would not be able to be kept secret. Most librarians I know are honest and committed to their work and the community they serve and doing such a thing would never cross their minds for a second.

Library staff can be highly ethical creatures and will do much to serve our users and to protect their interests (including potentially lost property, however insignificant to us). That doesn’t mean we are perfect, maybe its more a case of library work drawing those who are community minded, etc. That’s who we are, both personally and at work. I work with a fantastic group of people, both librarians and library officers and I have yet to discover in my 23 years in public libraries, of one instance where someone I know or work with has been unethical in any way.

So that’s my public librarian’s view of the ethical question. I would love to hear if your views as a public librarian are similar or not, or what sorts of ethical issues you have to deal with as a school, academic or special librarian.

Came in late, so I missed the start while I set up. Library Thing has a page for every work. Shows how many people share the book in their collections, how many reviews have been written, the top 32 tags that have been attached and more.

Has a recommendation feature. Those who have this also have that, similar tags, ratings, all the different versions of the covers that people have uploaded.

Library Things treat authors as an entity as important as a book, so the same features. Related tags, pictures uploaded by members, links, similarly tagged, also known as (ie. In different countries)

Tags – have own pages, what has been tagged, who has tagged with it, related tags – could be used as a reading list for a particular category. Eg paranormal romance has 1800 tags, yet it falls through traditional indexing systems.

Recommendations feature, includes a Unsuggester feature – if you like this, you will not like…… Using the data in the system in a multitude of ways.

What does it mean for social networking – not a niche site, as books are the centre of life for many, a Second Life for readers is books! Amazon is not the best book site forever, nor is Google Books. Books are not just items of commerce. Library Thing is what people kept, what books remain with people even after they no longer have it physically. Library Thing is about our identity which has been influenced by the books we have read. Books are objects of obsession.

Tags – every item is tagged. The bolder and larger it is, the more times it has been assigned that tag. Click on that tag and you will link to all titles that have that tag assigned. Tim did a comparison between the Library of Congress subject headings and Library Thing tags – very amusing and very demonstrative of the power of tags – not that he advocates that we no longer use subject headings, instead use both!

There is now Library Thing for libraries. Top is normal ILS data, but then all social networking tools are from Library Thing, included recommended titles, but only to titles that you hold. Integrates seamlessly to the back end of your ILS. This is not the solution – Tim says that in about 10 years we will be able to get all that we want from our vendors – getting it as XML if we want, and probably coming from Library Thing. Library Thing will offer these enhancements in the meantime.

Libraries need an OCLC type group for user generated data, which can be collected by libraries and then shared between libraries.