Connecting Librarian

Got thinking about this topic the other day at work. We are trialling self-serve holds, where the patron collects their own hold. We are trialling it, because our holds are getting out of control, since we changed our LMS with a consortia of now 12 library services and dropped our holds fee. So now our users have access to the collections of 12 public library services, through our holds facility and it doesn’t cost them anything. We are getting so many holds that we don’t have enough room at the desk to hold them and it was causing all sorts of issues.

Anyway, the trial has only started this week and the first I heard about how it was going, was the fact that they had already had a complaint. We do things that our patrons don’t want all the time. We introduced library fines years ago and have lending limits on our collections. Quite a few years ago we stopped stamping our items and starting giving people receipts for their loans and we had an uproar of complaints and people almost begging to be able to stamp items themselves, if nothing else. Many, many years later, we still have the odd complaint about receipts, but these days its usually because they lost their receipt and then incurred overdue fines for not returning their items on time.

We have gaming consoles in one of our branches and are launching it in 2 others this week. When our first branch went live, we had a raft of complaints, which I thought our library CEO handled very well. A lot of people didn’t like it, but that hasn’t stopped us from installing them in 2 other branches.

Why don’t our users want these things? Because they perceive that its not better for them, or as with the gaming consoles, can be detrimental. Sometimes its because it doesn’t fit the image of what a public library is or does (as with many of the gaming complaints). But at what point do we do things or stop doing them, despite people not liking it?

We introduced fines many years ago because our average loan period, which should have been about 2 1/2 weeks, with items having either a 1 week or 4 week loan, was averaging about 6 weeks. We introduced fines so that people would be inspired to return items in a more timely manner, thereby making them available to all our users in a fairer manner. The same reasoning of fairness applies to our limit of 1 renewal and our limits on DVD, CD and video loans.

So I have some questions: What is the percentage of dissatisatisfaction you accept, before you stop a service or restriction? ie. proportion of people that are unhappy with something - 50%? 80%? Is there a limit or do other factors come into play to balance against those proportions? I know printing receipts has markedly reduced the possibility of RSI from the stamping process. How long do you trial something that causes dissatisfaction? In other words, how long do you give your users to get used to it and the benefits (because hopefully it will ultimately benefit them in some way) it produces, before you give up it? For our loan limits, it was decades!

Would love to hear of your experiences of when you give your users what they don’t want.

Next Space (OCLC) magazine includes a social networking article featuring Stuart Weibel.

Where is the Library as a brand?
Perceptions of libraries and information resources - OCLC report (available online)
3300 respondents to questions on library use, awareness and use of library electronic resources, internet search engine the library and the librarian, free vs for-fee information, the brand itself.
Libraries are trusted sources of information, search engines are trusted about the same, people care about quality and quantity of info they find, but speed is less important (not believable). However, convenience is very important.
Do not view paid infomration as more accurate than free info.
The overwhelming brand image of libraries is BOOKS!

Library Brand Equity - we need a strong visible brand on the web.  Libraries currently are a black and white presence in a colorful, flashy web world.
How do we build the brand?  Build on the trust of our patrons. Build on our business model - making info look free to our end-users.  Build on the scale that libraries represent - presence in every community, global scope and reach.  Improve awareness of library resources.  Make libraires a part of the new electronic environments that dominate social, educational and work environments.  We need to be there!

Social netowrking software!  Its not new, just the technical manifestation is. Deliver library services into the emerging social networks. Motivate people to participate: tagging, book reviews, emergent relationships that are evident from data about what people borrow, like and dislike, link to the people as well.  Need to build our own systems into the social structures that are so quickly developing.

Numbers of content creators and contributors are changing - increasing.  More people are wanting to get their content out on the web.  Their are great innovative approaches to attract that content to the library community.

Social Networking is not just for games: Facebook, MySpace, Second Life and Twitter.  All are flawed as service delivery models - business models are closed or obscure, features are rudimentary or overbearing. But they foretell a digital future in both their virtues and faults. Stuart Weibel has both Twitter and Facebook accounts and will be your friend.  They teach us about what people are doing out there - think of it as a professional investment.  They are all goofy because they are all new.  They will develop and some of that development will be interesting.

Libraries must compare favourably with experiences that our patrons expect: discovery and recommender services, web 2.0 social network capabilities, experiences of comparable commerical services, last-mile delivery capability, bookstore social experiences.  We are offering an experience as well as a service.  Save the user time.

Can Libraries compete in this space?  Should they?
Social software movement is fueled by (dollar denominated) entrepreneurial fervor.  Rate of innovation (and failure) is rapid. Distinguish between trends and the trendy and don’t get wrapped on the latter, especially when they fail.

Future of library catalogues?
Evolving towards network level. Collections linked to people, organisations, global location, concepts, context, metadata and social networking benefits.  Fit into the workflow and social lives of patrons. Help create a scaffolding for past knowledge and future productivity.

Web or Scaffolding?  We want more conherence and context, durable environments that help us preserve and fix resources in the context of culture, librarianship embedded in the emerging technologies of a social web.

Our catalogues need to be wholistic, treating not only works, but also people, concepts, works and objects (FRBR).  In addition we need book reviews, lists, services, commentary, other?  Book reviews are part of social bibliography, user created content.  All these things should be First Class Objects which have to ahve a persistent identity on the web, accessible by anyone or any applicaation, stand alone (attribution, clear IP rights), curated (not left alone). Allow the user to enter and tranverse the catalogue from any point.

WorldCat Identities - Beta product from OCLC - Another piece of the puzzle?
Tag cloud shows the top 100 identities.  Uses bibliographic data and mining it from other sources at OCLC.

Complicated puzzle - where ya gonna turn?
People, information, resources, places, terminologies, user generated content, FRBR (explain it to your patrons).  We need to better mine and utilise the data that we have.  Hook everything together with the right sort of identifiers.  A coherent identifier infrastructure is essential. Broad dissemination of identifiers serves the library collaborative and is the single most compelling means of making library assets persistent and visible on the web.

Persistence: not technological but rather a function of the commitment of organisations.  Libraries and other cultural memory organisations do this well.  Harder to do in the digital era, but the community is up to the task.
Universal access and global scoping: open to all, public identifiers in a public Web. Should work everywhere. WorldCat is the first globally-scoped identifier architecture for library assets in which the global surrogate is mapped to locality.  But we’re not quite done yet.
SEO and canonical identifiers - visibility of assets in the global library is diluted by the multiplicity of identifiers, agreement is needed on a canonical identifier.  Lack of it is a dilution of our brand and a lack of visibility on the web.
Branding is an important component of URIs - every URI is a micro-billboard branding library content in a crowded and largely commercial Web landscape. URIs need to be designed for people as well as machines, should be speakable, should be as short can be as managed, should have a predictable pattern that makes them hackable and truncatable.

FRBR is an important ocintrubtion to resource organisation on the web, but it is a challenge to explain to users.

World Cat - Mid 2006. Globally unique, freely available, citable and resolvable, independent of location, but not quite canonical.  Falls short because of duplicates, either mistaken or functional, not always resolvable to content and only sort of canonical.

NEWS!!!   Pilot project by OCLC - GLIMIR - Global Library Manifestation Identifier which is global in scope, canonical, business neutral, provides the URL equity necessary to support the library brand, fits comfortably with the FRBR model.  If its going to work, it can’t be an OCLC product, but it will be managed by them. It will require participation, buy in and support, all of which will be very tricky to achieve.  Can a global community agree and adopt this when there are already so many identifiers - eg. ISBN.  OCLC is launching this pilot to identify functional requirements and practicalities solicited review from technical specialists,moving forward will require a careful balance of use cases, business issue and more.

Identifiers are key to fulfilling the mission of libraries in a digital future, to compete ont he open web for recognition of our brand, to integrate our traditional bibliographic values with social networking content, to provides services and access to the digital tribe - our future constituency.

weibel-lines.typepad.com.
twitter - stuartweibel
flickr - weibel-lines

Kim Tairi - Swinburne University of Technology, Rob McCormack - Peodair Leihy and Peter Ring - Victoria University
“Fairy tales and Elggs: social networking with student rovers in learning commons”

Rovers were used in the Learning commons - student peer mentors who worked in pairs.  Created RoverSpace - an online community for Rovers to share knowledge and problems, initially used Elgg (open source social networking space), now use Google Groups and Mediawiki.

Student rovers need to be peers (complementary service to librarians), seed a culture of learning (exemplars of good learning practice, paid work as a positive (good addition to or complement of their coursework), where the community meets (some rovers see working for the library as an honour).
Having rovers who reflect the university’s student population, in terms of background, courses etc.

RoverSpace - contains shift reports, statistics, administrative communication, reflective tasks, organic information sharing space.

Duties: - basic advice, assistance, operational support to students in the Learning Commons regarding IT and Library queries
- assist students to clarify their learning issues and develop strategiese to tackle them
- refer students to online/library resources, formal student learning advice and other forms of assistance

Rovers handled 4500 queries in the first 2 semesters of 2007  83% dealt with in a few minutes. 7.2% referred to library staff. 70.5% of queries were for printing, photocopying, catalogue, borrowing and returning, finding items on shelf and the swipe card technology.

Happily Ever After?
better publicity and more visibility
more training and better knowledge management
different roles (lead rover and webmaster)
more efficient support (only one in off peak times)
capitalising on online support potential
other platforms - Cosmopolis
PDAs

Bruce Heterick - JSTOR
“Shift happens: how the network effect, two-sided markets and the wisdom of crowds are impacting libraries and scholarly communication”

Check out the YouTube video “Shift happens” - series of factoids on how the world is changing.

“Technology is everything that is invented after you were born.”  “Technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything.”
eg. Printing press (Gutenberg -1440) led to the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance
Linotype machine (Merganthaler - 1886) led to increased newspaper circulation (cheaper production costs)
Integrated circuit (Kilby/Noyce - 1961) led to digital computing
World Wide Web (BernersLee - 1989) led to search engines, e-commerce, information transition
iPod (Apple - 2001) - led to portable media

Library in use is using audio avatars - surfer dude on using Google, southern lady on archives from JSTOR - podcast how to use the resources.  Students downloading and listening to them when they want.

Four exponentials ….. working together
- Moore’s Law - power of computing is doubling every 18 months ( hold true for last 25 years and probably for next 10 to 15)
- Law of Fiber - capacity of the bandwith is doubling every 9 months - allowing us to deliver much more than we could have imagined a few years ago
- Law of Storage - digital storage doubles for the same cost every 12 months (its not a concern anymore because it is so cheap)
- Law of Community (Metcalf’s Law) - the power of the network goes up with the square of the networked people interacting with it
Each law is an exponential change agent, but with all of them working together, feeding off one another, it has caused such great change that it has become unsettling for people.

“If things are under control, you are moving too slow”.

They are facilitating the transition from the Information Age to the Age of Participation:
- actively engaging with what they are receiving - blogs and wikis are descendents of that need
- multilateral, not unilateral - not just working person to person - more apparent but also can be more confusing
- communities, not silos - around the information, how will they be facilitated through the platforms being used
- contribution as well as consumption

They are contributing to an environment with new dynamics:
- The Network effect - service becomes available as more people use it, growth can be extraordinarily fast (often virally) and can occur with little or no centralized control, glider - the power of the network must move down.
- Two-sided markets - WEb 2.0 where people contribute and consumer, economic network having two distinct user groups

Wisdom of crowds - groups are smarter than the smartest individual in the right circumstances
- decisions by crowds work when the crowd is diverse, decentralized & work independently ie. Wikipedia

Libraries will have to engage more at the place where their users are - proactive engagement.
Publishers have to be building self-sustaining communities or be consolidated.
Faculty - have to become more conversant with the technologies, adopt these advances, focus on networks, not institutions.

Law of change - libraries will have to change as the larger system of which we are a part changes, or risk being ejected from it.
Gorbachev Syndrome - leaders swept away by the tide they have created.

Do we move forward to what is inevitable or do we hold on to the continuity that we have, however profoundly it is flawed?

There has been a lot of discussion lately around the biblioblogosphere on Library 2.0 and whether its over, whether it should ever have been, what it is, whether its new or not and much more. If you want to follow the discussions, I suggest you check out Annoyed Librarian, David Lee King, Information Wants to be Free and many more.

I started thinking about it more when Ryan Deschamps at The Other Librarian came out with “We asked for Library 2.0 and got 2.0 Librarians.” Although I agree with his premise, I wailed when I read the part that said that he sensed that the “prominence of the Library 2.0 moniker has plateaued”. Why did I wail? Because we had only just started! Our library blog is now a year old (had to stop to do a blogiversary post on that blog!), but it is just scratching the surface of what we hope to do.

Anyway, that got me thinking out what Ryan was saying and yes a lot of the changes at my library have been driven by me, a 2.0 librarian and initially I think my attitude was of the “cool tools, how can we use them” kind. Fortunately, that time passed quickly and I have been refocusing back on our users. Nicole at What I learned today took the words out of my mouth -
“I’m all for everyone learning everything they possibly can, but not all the tools are the right fit in all organisations….. I just want to bring every tool I can to your attention, because one might just be the one you were looking for to solve that one pesky problem you were having.”

At the same time, our users have been changing. Our library website use is just starting to skyrocket - we have seen an over 200% increase in virtual visitors to our website in the past year. Our website is a destination for our library users, more than ever before, I think partly because of our new library system, but also because of the development of our users as computer literate people. Apart from the catalogue, a few select webpages and the blog, our website is an online brochure, which is fine in itself. However, my aim now is to try and make the virtual experience of the library at least equal to the physical experience and an online brochure doesn’t do it. We don’t have programmers on our staff and there are only 2 staff here with html skills, so the only way to provide better service through our website is by using Web 2.0 tools. We have started with simple things like booklists linking directly to our catalogue (not web 2.0 I know), a Flickr account and a Google Maps mashup for our branches and mobile library stops.

I’m not alone in this either. A big group of our library staff have enthusiastically started the Learning 2.0 program, in a project driven by the State Library of Victoria, which I am very excited about. We will have staff knowledgeable about Web 2.0 tools which is great for them and our users, but hopefully some them will also be full of ideas for projects and the motivation to be the ones to drive it. I can’t do everything, much as I try, so it will be great to have others on board to contribute, especially in areas where I have neither the skill, interest or motivation.

There’s so much more I can say here, but it would go on forever if I let him. So for me and my library, Library 2.0 is just entering the building, so its far from over for us. We may not call it Library 2.0 and in a way its something we have been doing for forever, but its also a new frontier that we are going to explore and have fun doing it too!

For yet another perspective and well worth readings is Kathryn’s post at Librarians Matter - “What’s new about Library 2.0? Shift in power“. She makes some great points and it brings home to me that the definition of Library 2.0 is not only different to each library, but to each librarian, all depending where they are at, as institutions and individuals. You have to love something that is that flexible!

On a final note. There was a ton of feedback on Annoyed Librarian’s post - the “Cult of Twopointopia“. The post was fascinating, both in its biting wit and its ability to make me think. The numerous comments on the post were even more fascinating, for a couple of reasons. First - it was nice to see the passion of librarians on both sides of the argument. That’s one of the great things about our profession - we are generally very passionate about what we do. I guess it makes up only a bit for the less than professional level wages we generally earn. Second was that the arguments and flames were flying thick and fast and all I could think was that we are all supposed to be on the same side, so why are we turning on each other like this. We all have our interests and specialities, why aren’t we more grateful, accepting and understanding of the differing viewpoints that make us such a great profession?

That’s my 2 cents worth on the topic. Would love to hear what you think!

Our library service has changed some long standing policies, in order to encourage more use of our libraries. In the middle of last year, we changed our loan periods from 1 week to 2 weeks for DVDs, videos and CD’s and at the same time dropped the magazines loans period from 4 weeks to 2 weeks, to improve their turnover. The increased AV loan period has been very well accepted and generally the magazines too, as people see more issues more often.

In November last year we increased our loan limits. It used to be a maximum of 20 items, with a maximum of 2 DVDs, 4 videos and 4 CDs within those 20 items. Now we have unlimited print (books and mags), CD-Roms, Kits and audio books, 15 CDs, 15 videos and hopefully will be able to increase to 3 DVDs by mid year. Again very well accepted, although there was a concern it would impact memberships. Hasn’t happened from where I sit, the memberships are still streaming in. (the DVD limit is one reason).

Now last week, we dropped our reservation charges. We used to charge $1 to place a hold on a title which wasn’t on shelf at the requesting branch. The charge applied whether all copies were out, or if it was available on shelf at another of our libraries. In just a week, the pickup shelves have doubled in size, as people take advantage of this free service.

Now that’s a good thing. Although it creates more work for us, its amazing what good will it has expressed. The people who wouldn’t place holds because of the charge, love it because they don’t have to pay and the people who were used to paying love it, because they no longer have to. They would not necessarily have thought of suggesting that as a service improvement, but they love it!

And for the library, with more people placing holds, it means they will come in more often and borrow more, maybe beyond the items they are reserving. They will be happier in terms of service delivery and they will be more generous in their recommendations of the library service.

We still charge for lost and damaged items (of course) and for printing and overdues, but the latter is also under review. In the meantime, lots of smiles in our libraries, both on the faces of our users and our staff. And despite fears, we haven’t had anyone place holds on everything in sight, yet!