Why I didn't share my Library Day in the Life

Last week, a number of colleagues and friends posted their Library Day in a Life. This was one of those memes that made me stop. And while I think Bobbi Newman rocks for putting this together, I have been asking myself what I can learn from the experience. What is it that librarians are trying to acheive by participating in this meme? What does it tell us about ourselves? About our profession?

The first thing that it tells me is that we lead incredibly varied lives. It really makes me proud to be in a profession that brings so much intellectual and creative energy to the information stream.

However, at the same time, I ask myself who we are writing these memes for. It would be one thing if we were taking these various "day in the life" scenarios and publicizing them in a way that encouraged patrons and other professions to rethink what they mean when they say "librarian". All those folks that cock an eyebrow or give a little giggle and a joke about Dewey...those folks could learn so much by reading these expositions on our profession.

But that's not what the library blogosphere is up to with this meme, really. And it really wasn't until I saw Amanda McNeil's tweet this morning that it really struck me as to why I didn't participate in this meme:



Amanda's link to an article wasn't what took my attention here. It was the vibe that she picks up on. I love being part of a group of people that are proud of the work we do. And I love working with people that speak up and speak out. But this meme leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth in part because I don't see the meme itself having a role in our relevance, or our creativity, or out sociality (is that a word?!). Are we using these memes as collaboration tools? As ways to develop our own practices based on the practices of others? If you are, BRAVO! And share that! THAT is what I want to hear about. THAT is what I want to see happen with learning more about the nitty gritty of our day. THAT is what makes the technology we feel so comfortable with and the wealth of librarians being social media butterflies (had to steal Andy's metaphor there!) so valuable to our profession. But just sharing what you do on a daily basis--that doesn't have value in and of itself. And as Steven Bell rightly points out, we need to be spending our hours adding value to the learning process. And not just in the classroom. But amongst ourselves. At our conferences. At our Tweetups. On our blogs. I'm not saying we should abandon fun, laughs, and humor on our blogs (although, I haven't seen a single Library-Day-In-The-Life that admits to checking their Facebook or watching a YouTube or reading the New York Times). But I do think that the intentionality to learning that we bring into our classrooms could have a valuable role in our social media.

What do you think? Have you gotten something from the Library Day in the Life posts that have given you more value than I am allotting? Share it! I am dying to know.

RIP Encarta, Viva Information Literacy and Wikipedia

Microsoft has announced that they will be closing down their online Encyclopedia, Encarta, due to the extensive use of Wikipedia. The part of the article that I was particularly excited about was this quote:

Christopher Dawson of ZDNet certainly doesn’t think so. The demise of the encyclopedia, he argues, should simply galvanize educators into teaching the research skills students need to wade through “brutally powerful knowledge sources” like Wikipedia and Google. “The encyclopedia is dead,” Mr. Dawson writes. “Long live critical thinking.”

Here is a link to the full article.

This kind of article reminds us how valuable and important the work we do is to our students but also reminds us that while we might be using the language of information literacy, faculty are viewing this "wading" through the web as critical thinking. This harks back to the questions asked at one the LILAC presentations I attended: Getting the Student Perspective, Is Joe Student Paying Attention? Are we using language that actually engages our communities to think about the actions they take every day as they dive into the world of information? Are we rendering ourselves obsolete by using terms like "information literacy" in the first place?

What language should we be using instead? Isn't that always the tough question? But really, what ideas do you have for other ways to frame these essential skills?

The One, the only...the amazing librarian

Finally, a discussion of librarianship that actually looks beyond the physical strucutre and considers the value of librarians as a disseminators, arbiters, and creators of information. It is affirming and reassuring to read a non-librarian who steps outside past experience and look ahead at the world in which we live and the significance of our profession in it!

Thanks Elaine for sharing this post with me...and how exciting to see the Incredible Greg Schwartz being cited.

Rohit's list of why he believes in Library 2.0 is awesome:

1. Everyone is a content creator and creating content is easier than ever.
2. A new wealth of content online means finding things is more difficult.
3. Algorithms and automated methods of search are no longer adequate.
4. People are relying on each other to catalogue information and make search better.
5. The professionals dedicating to indexing content, trying new search tools and generally helping connect people to information are the librarians.

Rohit studies and writes about social searching and human filtered search. Funny how librarians have been performing similar searches under the guise of reader's advisory for quite some time, although now with so much information and so little indexing, it is harder than ever to find what we're looking for. And that is where librarians can come in handy. That is not to say that we hold the keys to the kingdom, as I think we are sometimes perceived as doing (per the Research Divide post). But we do spend a lot of our time playing with, discussing, and trying to improve access to information. That's what we get paid for.

Between becoming hip, using new and exciting tools through Technology, and improving our image, librarians are finally getting their due: we're amazing!

A face with a name

Tonight is my first night as a Library Commissioner for the City of Burlington. I am really looking forward to getting to know another side of our local library, the Fletcher Free, and to dip my feet into the murky waters of public librarianshhip.

So Steve Bell's post in my Feevy about being lucky to be an academic librarian seemed perfectly timed to the day ahead. I agree with Steve that academic libraries are fortunate in that we have an immediate audience: students and faculty. However, I think Steve has been fortunate to work at institutions where the library is imbedded in the intellectual and academic culture of the college. I think that community college librarians might know what I mean. At small, growing institutions like mine, the library is trying with all of its might to not stay relevant but become relevant to our professionally focused students and faculty in the first place. So our outreach is extensive, creative, and constant.

One of the methods of outreach I rely on most is getting out on campus. I go to stuff. I introduce myself to new folks. I always chipper that "come up to the library to find that," or "I just saw a book about that at the library," or someother such quip. Getting out around campus is a way for people to put a face with the library, to feel like there is someone there that they know and can approach, either virtually or physically. It seems that librarians are so often chained to our facility, only getting out when we are invited to class sessions or for necessary meetings. But if we showed our smiling faces, or our thoughtfulness and intellectual curiousity (which seems a prerequisite for our jobs in many ways), our standing among faculty will rise, thereby bringing them to our lecture series, our brown bag lunches, our introductions to new databases, our meet and greets...and then our website, our stacks, our instruction sessions. Wouldn't that be something?!?

I chose to be an academic librarian because I wanted to work with a specific audience and because I wanted to know I always had a budget line, even if less than I wish it were. I applaud public librarians for their open-mindedness, their courage, their creativity, and their problem solving. But let's not give away the store. We all have issues with audience. As I pointed out last post, even in an article about how cool librarians are, we still are rivaling Google.

I will keep you posted, loyal readers (?), about how the Library Commission goes and my first foray into public service. And I hope that those of you that are sitting at a desk, working hard but browsing the blog, will head out to the cafeteria, the student union, wherever to say hi and put a face with your library.

Sassy, smart, maybe even sexy. What do you mean you're a librarian?

Yes, I too am going to throw in my two cents about the New York Times article on librarians. To start off, it is currently holding the most e-mailed article from the Times. Perhaps that explains why I had a total of 12 emails and 4 phone calls alerting me to its presence. Or perhaps that just shows us that while it is no surprise to the library community that we are "hip", techie, sexy, cool (is that the name of an album?), it clearly is a surprise to everyone else. And hey, if you don't have the Sheck or someone like her in your local library, it's no wonder that this might come as a surprise to you. If I had a dollar for every time I hear "you don't look/act/seem like a librarian"...I'd have a library of my own!

All in all, I think it's a great article for us. Yeah, I hated reading "The myth prevails that librarians are becoming obsolete." It seems clearly oxymoronic in an article that touts rising LIS program enrollment and tries to elucidate on how librarians do a lot more than read books and put them on shelves (oh, wouldn't that be nice).

Many other bloggers had far more difficulty swallowing the public's perception of our work. To me, it just shows, yet again, how library friendly the New York Times really is. At least in the Sunday edition. Over the last few months that we have taken advantage of a sweet deal for getting the Times on Sundays, I've been amazed by how many articles show librarians and libraries in a positive light.

But I also am reminded of picking out my new specs this weekend. Jon and I went to the hip glasses shop in town and I walked around trying to find something that could accomodate my near blindness so on occasion I could not wear contacts. And as I moved from pair to pair, the shopkeeper remarked that one of them seemed funky librarian. Indeed they were, and they are also mine strarting tomorrow. But funny isn't it that there needs to be the adjective "funky" in front? Aren't all librarians (distributors of free information, protectors of privacy and our rights to information, knowers of the next good thing to read) funky? Bun or not?

The Research Divide

Wow, this article in the Chronicle is interesting but the real fun comes from the comments at the end. I was shocked that a professor would claim that librians are " incapable of anything beyond using the keywords in their database" and the slew of rude remarks librarians returned. Comments like SteveB (is that Steve Bell, perhaps?) and SusanB try to remind the audience that this is a chance to help someone understand the library and librarians. It is not an appropriate time to bring out the gloves.

I think the real issue here is about the Professor's(here I am referring to the commentator) conflicting expectations of the library. On one hand, he seems to want to develop a close relationship with his collection and someone who can guide him through it. Otherwise, why else does he come to the library and approach a librarian? On the other hand, he has been "Google-ized"--he wants answers and he wants them RIGHT NOW. The nuance of his question and of research itself has been lost, even on this, let's assume, experience researcher.

And perhaps that is where the actual content of the article comes into play. While Mann might have a point in saying that books continue to hold ground in research, that is a day gone by. Technology is here to stay and the key, it seems to me, is to figure out how to use it and share it with novices and advanced researchers so that nuances or straightforward questions can be addressed with the wealth of information available to us, in print and online. And our goal as librians is to not only guide people through that practice but teach them how to go about it on their own, knowing we are always here to help.

It is technical and instructional and customer service and detailed and general all at once. That is why it is only for the fierce at heart. Roar.

Exploring New Technology 7: You Tube

You Tube, where you are encouraged to "broadcast yourself," is not all that new to me. I have been enjoying snippets of skateboarding, ballet, whatever, for a while. But it was this article in C&RL that helped me connect some dots.

As Paula Webb's article rightly points out, YouTube could radically change how we deliver information and instruction to our students. I have heard from many librarians that they would rather provide all library instruction to students via the library web page or college websites. Why? Imagine a 19 year old student putting Champlain College in as a search term in YouTube and a video on how to use the databases comes up. Perhaps that student might discard it at that moment. But perhaps they realize that the library is there the next time they have a question at 4 in the morning and they can't find an article. The chances of them going to YouTube sounds greater than their chances of going to the library homepage, if for no other reason than out of habit, no?

Or, let's look at the really creative folks out there, especially the folks at Common Craft. I've highlighted their amazing video on RSS, which I have shared with our IT folks who loved it. They also offer a great one on wikis.

Rock on Common Craft! Not only are these great explanations of technologies whose names are thrown about frequently, but they are explained in an understandable and enjoyable way. YES!

But to return to YouTube...Common Craft shows us that YouTube doesn't have to be institution specific. General information that is valuable to everyone, whether it be technology, plagiarism, citations, search techniques, readers advisery, copyright clues...it all could be valuable and useful on YouTube and reach any audience.

And let's not forget the web 2.0 applicability here: YouTube is interactive. Perhaps student interns can create something that appeals to their peers, something like this video from the Undergrad at UIUC:


Granted, it's kind of hokey but come on! Digital pics, downloading music to your Ipod, group study, open til 3 am, career services, writing center...this video is hokey but awesome and all inclusive! And when students look up UIUC on YouTube, there it is! And we can rest assured that with so many students in the video, they shared it with their friends, spreading the word to their "social network."

YouTube offers libraries an amazing opportunity to expand our message and our image beyond traditional boundaries. Even if we didn't have the time or technology to make videos of our own, including YouTube videos in our instruction and website seems like a great way to share resources and information in a way that mirrors students' use of the web. So we continue to not only do our jobs, acheive our mission, but we look cool too.

Exploring New Technology 6: the Help Desk

This hysterical video demonstrates that the Help Desk is often still a new technology, or at least a new resource,to many.



And here, again, is that dichotomy between the technologists and the "rest of us." But if you notice the technologist in this video is fully connected to the user? Is it me, or is the "guy from the help desk" just helpful, not condescending?

This incredulous notion of the truly helpful helpdesk surfaces as well in Sunday's New York Times with a piece about what makes Apple's Stores so successful. Quite simply, it is the emotional connection users make with the help they are offered from the resident "geniuses" (Apple's helpdesk). According to the article, the help provided or rather, the feeling that help is just around the corner, results in an unprecedented retail phenomenon: “People can just walk in, absorb the fumes and feel like the smartest technophile in the world.”

Isn't it interesting that the library does not incite the same phenomenon? That a place where information is at your finger tips without requiring a purchase and help is ever present and always free is still often considered obsolete? Often I would suggest that we need an image change or need to represent ourselves better but in this instance, but not this time. Wouldn't it seem that the Help Desk model is based on the Reference Desk concept? Wouldn't it seem that even the Apple bar of Geniuses is based on help in human form, much like what you find at any library?

ACRL: So Much to Learn, Not Enough Time

Went to the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference this weekend in much-warmer-than-Vermont Baltimore. And incredible display of curiousity, innovation, and commitment on the part of academic librarians. It's hard to understand how anyone could suggest that librarians are stodgy and immovable. I was impressed again and again at the attempts by libraries across the country to improve their services using the latest technology, the efforts to understand the implications of technology on the institution and our students, and the excitement and collaboration among librarians to not just keep up but lead the way in incorporating technology with traditional methods of instruction to ensure that our students are developed and learned.

Once I have the chance to read through my notes, there will be more to come on the inspiring talk on Library 2.0 and blogging by David Silver, media studies professor at the Univ. of San Francisco, on the highly original and interesting use of gaming in the undergrad library by my friend David Ward at UIUC, and perceptions of authority in Wikipedia by Dan Ream (I forget where he's from but I will find out before I post about it).

Library's Blogs?

My fellow funky librarian, Paula, and I were discussing whether blogs would serve a purpose at the institutional level? Does the Miller Information Commons need a blog?

We think no. What would we say? For example, my previous post on Copyright is a personal experience. If I had to write solely as a representative of the Library, and not as a individual librarian, that post wouldn't be up for all of you to see (tongue in cheek).

We scanned Google for library blogs and found a few, but none kept up, which proves our point: what is there to say from the institutional perspective?

Well, then Paula mentions (she is standing next to the Sheck as she writes), that our local community college, CCV, has blog . And it's pretty cool. They aren't limiting themselves to just library stuff. They have a post for the Oscars for pete's sake! How is that library related? Or is it? It brings us back to the question of image: what is the library and to whom? Is it so hard to believe that the library could be fun? Funky? Interesting? Entertaining?

No way. They just have dusty old books over there and old ladies with buns. (Paula Whoops!)

Copyright Collaboration

Yesterday was Professional Development Day at the college and we worked on setting goals. One of mine was to use the skills and knowledge I gain at a workshop and apply it when I return to strengthen our team and the library.

More specifically, I am attending the ACRL preconference on copyright. The college and the Library has neither sufficiently addressed copyright, nor have we developed any kind of resource for faculty that have basic questions.

I want to develop and implement a "Copyright Questions" page to our faculty resources that addresses the most frequently asked questions and direct them to an identified resource if they need further help. In doing so, the Library would help clarify the college's position on copyright. We would work with the Provost's office and perhaps a legal consultant to provide appropriate information to faculty. We would review other college's copyright websites: Smith, Wellesley, Bates, Carlton, and many more. We would identify particular issues we would address and those issues that would lead to consultation.

So, once I developed my goal, we shared it with the group. I then find out that the VP of Administration has already initiated a institutional copyright policy group with no representation from the library! My question to him was how could the college try to address copyright without collaborating with the library? The library is where students come to get information from their professors; it is where faculty leave reserves; it is to whom the majority of questions regarding copyright are addressed.

After sharing my goals with him, I will be the representative on the committee from here on out. But it only reminds me of how important it is for the Library to remind the greater college community, not just the faculty, of our role. As the VP said, he wouldn't know to turn to the library for such things. Shame on us for his not knowing that. Again, it is an issue of our image: he didn't see the Library as a place for collaboration or as a central part of the academic core. That is our problem, not his.

"Scrotum" in the Library

The hoopla surrounding the use of the anatomical term "scrotum" in this year's Newbery Medal is yet another exanple of librarians taking themselves too seriously. It's no wonder that we are often pegged as matronly, out of touch gatekeepers. How can we suggest that the use of an anatomical term in a children's story is inapproriate while children watch primetime tv that exposes them to sexualized content that has no objective or educational value.

The use of scrotum in childrens literature should be used as a teaching tool to help children feel more comfortable with their bodies, more comfortable asking questions about their bodies and sex, and to make books, libraries, and librarians into figures to whome children feel comfortable asking questions. We are not judges. We are guides through the process of learning.