Connecting Librarian

On Thursday 22nd March, I was convener of the Public Libraries Victoria Network, ICT Special Interest Group Unconference in Melbourne.

Forty-seven enthusiastic library staff attended, from a wide range of public libraries from across Victoria. After a quick introduction and some guidelines, people put down their topics of interest on presentation paper. Astoundingly, after a big of juggling with the program for the day, we managed to find a place in the schedule for all 15 topics – with three concurrent sessions over 5 time periods.

As organiser, I tended to float around the different sessions, putting in my two cents worth and picking up gems of wisdom from the amazing people who work with ICT and the Internet in libraries.

You can see our final program at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tang02/7009523295/

In the first concurrent session, the Library Design for Tech sessions discussed new building design and the things we hope to try and plan for the future (difficult when we don’t know what they will be) ,as well modifying our existing buildings for things that weren’t even imagined when they were first built. Thinking revolutionary challenged us to think outside the box. To leave aside our preconceived ideas of everything and to consider ideas that we wouldn’t normally associate with libraries. Staff training explored how we keep our staff up-to-date with new technologies and more.

In the second concurrent session the Mobile web design and apps session discovered that there are some apps already around suitable for our public libraries that we didn’t already know about. Lending e-readers and iPads discovered what Geelong is doing with their program and explored issues around this and Internet speed/NBN discussed what type of speeds should be considered standard and just what we will be wanting and able to do once we have the NBN in our libraries and our neighbourhoods.

A lunch break, where most of the attendees ate and then stuck around and networked and then it was back into the program.

The third concurrent session explored what we would like in a Digital Media Lab – everything from creative software suites, to tech staff and 3D printers.  Responsive web design talked a bit about options for making our library websites the way we want, from choosing the platform to getting in with Council’s IT on choosing same. RFID Devices and Returns was the largest session by far and the queries of those who are planning to or embarking on the RFID path, were well-answered by those who have been there and done that.

We then all came together for our next session, which was supposed to be two guest speakers, but which fell through. Taking the idea from Library Camp Oz, we ended up with a bunch of wonderful volunteers, who each gave 2 minute lightning talks on innovative things that were happening at their library. I thought this ended up being one of the highlights of the day!

The topics covered were: lending iPads, using Pinterest in the library, iPad program for toddlers, automated suggestion for purchase system, next phase Learning 2.0 program for staff, library apps, touch screens for kids, Yammer group for Library IT communication and more……

The fourth concurrent session explored the IT Department and Vendor relationships – how to improve them and get the best out of them for the library, eBooks which are on everyone’s agenda for this year and Statistics and how we can get some useful data from those resources we use that don’t give it to us.

The final concurrent session expanded on iPads as tools, using Tech for local history and I finally sat down for an entire session, which was on Social integration. In Social integration, we discussed how to amalgamate our web presences, how to get more users to those same presences, using tricks and tools that are readily available, but not necessarily well known.

So finally, what did I learn as an organiser of the event.  I learned that:

• the day truly does belong to those who attend. We had great feedback and from that alone, I would like to run another unconference. Not everyone had been to an unconference before, but almost all of the 47 attendees so it was perfect for IT and libraries.  
• that you can’t run it alone. I had great organisation skill and arrangements from Elisabeth Jackson at PLVN, who took all the bookings, handled all the payments and organised all the food.
• that you can’t run it alone, part 2. The PLVN ICT Committee, which was responsible for this event, not only were invaluable in the organisation of the day, but also in convening concurrent sessions and sharing their expertise and in stepping up and giving lightning talks with virtually no notice.
• that you can learn a lot from others doing the same thing – so thanks to Yarra Plenty Regional Libraries and Library Camp Australia who both gave me wonderful examples of library unconferences to learn from.
• that you can either organise or attend, but can’t really do both to any level of satisfaction – I was really only able to attend the lightning talks (where I was time keeper) and the last concurrent session, as I was too busy organising and then keeping an eye on the sessions the rest of the day.  Still, it was absolutely worth it.  Even with only being able to attend those few sessions and picking up bits and pieces as I checked, I still got a lot out of the day, as an attendee as well as an organiser.

If you haven’t attended an unconference, then you must add it to your list of things to do. And if you ever get the chance to organise one, do it – its a fantastic experience all of its own.

Repositioning Brimbank Libraries for 21^st century service deliver – Chris Kelly & Jarrod Coyles

 Libraries are competing for the time of their local communities. They have to have a good knowledge of not only their current users, but also of whole community.

Commenced a period of substantial change, which moved it from a collection service to a dynamic community hub. The change process incorporated three key areas – new technologies, building design and staff work practices. All changes were in direct response to community needs and aspirations.

One such change was self-service system. Sydenham gave them the opportunity to trial RFID. They ended up moving their self-serve kiosks which initially were too far from staff assistance. With the new model of having the kiosks and staff assistance adjacent, they were able to increase self-serve loans from 40% to 95%.

Lessons learnt from this were used in the deconstruction of the desk at Deer Park Library. That space ended up being more flexible and has since 2008, been moved and rearranged several times.

In 2010, they developed a customer self-sort returns system – in conjunction with their RFID vendor. It took some time, but it works and it works in an area where 1/3 of the residents have low literacy. They also changed back end functions to help the flow – including more floating collections, express holds and increased loan limit (without telling the users). Around 65% of items go through customer self-sorted returns. They have consisently maintained 95% of loans and 65% of returns through self-service.

Greatest fear was job loss. That hasn’t happened – instead, they have increased hours and got additional staff hours to support those extra hours. Staff have moved from passive to active customer support service – they have to be encouraged and trained in this. They have also doubled the amount of programs they offer, many focused on lifelong learning. Many of these programs have been delivered with community partners and many have a focus on literacy, reading culture, social connectedness and employment.

Staff are heavily involved in developing programs, through a variety of teams and management groups, where discussions are open and staff are encouraged to contribute to future directions and decision making.

In 2005, they had 35 PCs library service wide. Now they have 75 and have the highest PC bookings for a public library service in Victoria. They have designed spaces to accommodate PC and games use. Youth were using them almost like an extended living room and doing so together.

For young people, the spectator space is just as important as the gaming space, so at Deer Park, they have made the space and the furniture to fit this need.

Learned that Flexible Design is required, because your users will be the ultimate designers, the IT department relationship is vital, continuous improvement through incremental budgets and small wins help build resilience.

The big bang: establishing the Victorian Government Library Service – Laurie Atkinson and Bernie Lewin

Government libraries in Victoria have expanded and contracted over the years, quite like our universe. At present, it has again contracted, from multiple government department libraries to a single library service working across 15 departments.

Why did it happen? To give greater access to resources, equitable service across government, reduce the cost of providing services, reduce the effort, delays and costs associated with departmental restructures, professional development for staff. Although government librarians were quite informally collaborative, it has now been formalised, with all library staff now working for the Department of Treasury and Finance, although based in the various government departments.

The Vision – shared service provider and clients linked to resource identification, resource procurement and collection management – which result in access to the right information at the best price, for library users.

It has been a huge journey, taking more than 10 independent library services, over 15 sites, managed by over 50 staff, serving a workforce of 50,000 and with a mission to build one high-powered streamlined information machine and do so within a couple of years. Time invested in developing a common lexicon made further integration much easier. Even the range of roles that librarians undertook in their departments was very broad.

They had to integrate 40 in-house catalogues and related databases across a huge range of software and platforms. Ranged from large to small services, running from InMagic and Lotus Notes to Symphony and many more.

The vision was one interface for 50,000 staff, which incorporated the catalogue, inter-library loans and enquiry management, which had to include both physical, electronic and subscriptions services and had comprehensive reporting. No single vendor could do it, so they ended up with Sirsi Dynix for the system with extra modules, including Serials Solutions and Ref Tracker. Achieved it in a ridiculous timeline, but only achieved with a funding extension.

Some of the difficulties included:

• departmental IT policies and setups made some changes more difficult and couldn’t always been foreseen

• funding cycles and resource access to a single government library service has had its challenges with licensing etc

• conflict with IE 6 needed for in-house software, but didn’t work well with SD discovery layer until one of the VGLS tweaked the style sheets

The implementation team was resourced internally, with backup staff were appointed temporarily to backfill them. Advantage that the team was totally involved in the change process. Libraries were clustered by subject area, then by process.

Staff communication was vital. Had regular management meetings and regular staff meetings which seemed to come too fast, but whose value was outstanding. Heavily used a wiki for staff communication and has a blog for news, calendar and wiki pages for whatever they needed. Incorporated a Q&A section – so that staff knew what they had to have done and by when.

Lessons learned: still learning, system integration is incomplete, a the bleeding edge of Whole of Government, the data is still a problem. Opportunities: scalable business model, stakeholder management. Integration is the way of the future.

Engaging student spaces: Library in the Deakin Online Learning Environment – Sharee Crocker

A Learning Management System is the most efficient way to get resources to students. Libraries need to be in that space, to help students get the resources they need.

Because of the plethora of resources that we offer and that are available on the web. Its all very confusing for students. Despite all their efforts, some students don’t attend library classes and are sometimes not embedded into courses. Even if they do attend a course, they may walk away still confused. They may not know about library guides, never ask or never come to the physical building.

How do they reach these students? LMS is used as a central teaching space and provides online learning anywhere any time. Library resources alongside unit specific learning materials – give seamless access to customised unit specific information and necessary to encourage searching beyond the web. If the extra information is one click way, they will use it. Its our responsibility to customise the user experience, designed to connect students in a familiar environment.

In 2010 – Deakin transitioned to Desire to Learn (D2L) LMS from Blackboard. Transition was a staged process over 12 months. Library began by embedding a permanent link to the top menu bar on D2L. Needed more. They then embedded the core library resources for each course, including databases, library guides and journal titles, into the D2L page for that course.

They also created a Library Showcase, which displayed all library resources. Anyone can see the page and if requested by faculty, a resource on this page can be imported into a course page, for easy access to those students.

A widget was created to further enhance access. Faculties were very supportive, so one was developed for each faculty, in conjunction with faculty staff and the LMS vendor. The content in each widget could include e-readings, library eresource guide, specific databases, ebooks, ejournals and external websites. Every widget also included a library catalogue search box. They started with 4 widgets in Trimester 1.However, 60 units going live in Trimester 2 meant a huge increase in the creation of customised course specific widgets.

However, with the need for 1200 widgets eventually, the view changed. Instead of course specific widgets, they moved to 85 discipline specific widgets, with a limit of 5 links – chosen by faculty. However, every course widget also includes a catalogue search box. Every student will have access to these.

Used dynamic linking that enabled the widget to recognise the course and then link to the appropriate e-resources. All widgets also link to at least one library resource guide.

Gotta love this. Thanks to Michael at Travelin’ Librarian for the heads up!

Katrina Hughes shared the results of a worldwide survey of hardcopy versus electronic resources in libraries. She had 1653 responses, including 639 from Australia and 544 from the USA – the rest came from 55 different countries.

The results were similar for all locations (Oz, US and world). To sum up briefly:
– libraries are still collecting both (80-90%+)
– because they are client preferred or packaged that way
– less than half of the libraries have a policy to help decide on which form if
limited to one. But if have to choose, electronic wins over
harcopy, in most, but not all countries.
– main reasons include ease of access, cost, clients needs and client preferences, but not as the same priorities in different countries.

The 3 main reasons for still using hardcopy – cost, ease of use or client preference and access issues. Something to think about, when considering our users demographics.

James Robertson from StepTwo design spoke on Intranets as Business tools. He went through the evolution of an intranet, the same pattern of which has been repeated in intranet development worldwide.

1. Born – comes out of a good idea and it begins.
2. Rapid organic growth – grows fast and haphazardly and as a result becomes difficult to manage or find things. Most info is published because it might be of use to someone, although 10% is vanity publishing. Common problems emerge, including navigation, findability, no organisational recognition, lack of use.
3. Redesign – to get it used, the intranet is redesigned and relaunched. This improves use, but only for a time and it eventually drops back again. Several redesigns and relaunches can occur in an attempt to boost use.
4. Usability and Information architecture comes into play then, so that the intranet team understands how people use it and how it should be set up. Another redesign and relaunch is the result, which promotes short terms use but again tapers off.
5. Useable but not useful. The intranet can now be used, but isn’t because it isn’t useful. It doesn’t contain the content that people need to do their job on a daily basis. This is where the staff are then consulted for their input on content, through interviews, observations etc. The end, to deliver an intranet that meets those needs.
6. That’s when it becomes a business tool, not just a publishing platform. The intranet will prosper whenit is tied directly to the way people do their work.

So the Intranet should not be seen as an internal website, but rather as a core part of business, with activities that are targeted to deliver the greatest value and to build momentum. These actitivities are based on organisational targets and constraints and should be delivered on regular basis, like software patches and upgrades (ie. Intranet 2.01 for a minor change, 2.1 for a major, 3.0 as an overhaul.) Its about an upward spiral, deliver a little, gain support, deliver some more…..

Lisa Tyson from University of Western Sydney spoke on librarians and IT staff and how they have to work together. Although they work on the same result, they come from differing views, library staff from client to system, IT from system to client. Their common goal is to provide format independent information to location independent users. Even if the library has an IT dept, library staff still have to have some IT skills, due to client expectations, prevalence of online content, ever improving ILMS’s, federated search and google addiction. The client expects the first person they talk to will be able to help them.

Identification of IT skill is mostly done inhouse, there is no professional skills list that covers IT related skills for librarians. UWS does an annual in-house skills audit that examines this amongst other skills. It also assists with training development. Developed inhouse, using Access and email, it personalises to each position, each set of questions asked from a bank of 130 questions. It involves some tech skills to set up, but clear instructions on how to do this are also sent. Of 120 staff, only 5 needed help to do this. Questions are reviewed after each audit and there is a sliding scale for assessment. The staff member can comment and on completion, is sent to their supervisor for comment, before being sent centrally to be collated. Each staff member gets the results of their audit, a copy is also sent to the supervisor, so that they can coordinate training requirements. A list of training options is also available so they know where they go to from there with their training needs.

We need library staff who can serve the client and can talk to IT staff about theat need.

And that’s just the morning session!