Going back to Web 1.0, or worse?

Two things catch my attention today, both of which have come up at work in the last week or so. First, this announcement from EBSCO:

Effective with a software release due this week, EBSCO will treat a short list of command line search tags (when entered in lower or mixed case) as text. Only UPPER CASE instances of these tags will be treated as search tags.... We highly recommend that all users become accustomed to entering ALL command line search tags in UPPER CASE to accomodate future additions to the short list of affected tags....

So, what can we do to incovenience power users? If you want to do an author search, you need to enter AU, not au. Descriptors (subject terms) are only DE, and not lowercase de. Let's go back to the good old days of case-sensitivity. Let's change something people are used to using, for no clear reason to the customer. As my director said, "Let's re-learn DOS while we're at it."

Then, a colleague noticed that a lot of the locations in our library catalog (which are somewhat cryptic abbreviations) no longer have links to what the location codes mean. Since it's a consortial catalog, there's often no way for a user to know what library has the book they need. I'm told there are over a thousand location codes in our catalog, and that individual libraries are responsible for maintaining their own information. Since some of them aren't doing it, it's the patrons that lose. And who knows why those libraries aren't doing it; maybe they don't have the staff time, or the system makes it too hard to keep up. But once again, our users get the short stick.

In the meantime, we've put on our a website a list of the main tags, and which libraries they represent. We'll try to see if something can be done at the consortial level. I don't know what we can do about EBSCO - may get the patrons after them?

Instructional Progress Report

We're into the second week of classes, and so far I've talked to one international marketing class and three finance classes. Coming up are marketing, PR writing, and advertising to see me to the end of the month. I have more classes scheduled this term than my average, with still a couple of faculty I'm waiting to hear from. The library must be hot this year!

Also coming up are presentations with my colleagues at the South Dakota and Minnesota Library Associations meetings, talking about our high school librarian/student research. It is SO neat to be doing original research, however small, and talking to audiences that REALLY are interested in your topic. So even though work is hectic, it's pretty satisfying.

Guides and More Guides

How sad that I haven't blogged since June. Since then I've had a vacation in the Black Hills, and have been short on sleep. Two colleagues and I went to Duluth to do a presentation on our high school research. I've also been working on LibGuides, the oh-so-wonderful new-to-us product for presenting our subject guides. It's addictive!

Gotta go - I have to work on a LibGuide for biography.

What I've Been Up To

So, what HAVE I been up to since April? Darned if I know. I know I've been working with students, teaching (talked to a graduate International Marketing class this week), preparing for our poster session next week at the Association of Christian Librarians conference (more on our high school research, and the poster is VERY well done, thanks to Donna!) Transitioning our subject guides to LibGuides. Keeping up with our databases, and reviewing "mine" as they come up for renewal. Had a retreat/strategic planning meeting for our latest reorganization, which is partially triggered by the several early retirements we'll have at the end of the fiscal year. Using up vacation time before the end of June.

I really, REALLY like LibGuides. I treat myself to working in it, when I'm caught up on my other projects. Our goal is to migrate our guides for fall. The business librarians will be meeting in a few weeks to review our business guides, decide who will handle what, and decide which guides can be combined or go away. I've already been looking at the usage and working on some of my guides. I haven't figured out yet how I'll migrate the international business guides: we have eight, which could be trimmed down - but how? Do we need separate international marketing, company, and industry guides? What about country information (used by other disciplines than business)? And the regional guides, which overlap a lot? I'm still pondering this.

In a week, I'm off to the Special Library Association (SLA) conference in New Orleans. I've never been to the city, so I'm looking forward to that, mixed in with my recent dislike of travel and utter confusion about how this conference is organized. Although I've been to SLA more than once, their conference and their online site for it bewilder me. But, onward I go!

Conference presentation

This week, my colleagues and I presented some findings of our high school research project at the National Catholic Education Association conference here in the Twin Cities. We had a good turnout (35-40 folks), the technology behaved itself, and we somehow managed to talk over the hymn singing session in the room next door. We found that graduating students from Catholic high schools know a few things that we academic librarians can build on (plagiarism is bad, how to cite sources in MLA style, how to select and organize materials for their project, etc.) One thing that surprised me is that they don't know about investigation footnotes, bibliographies, and other clues along the research path. This is something I'll want to talk about more when helping students one-on-one.

In the next few months, I'm talking to a management capstone class, I'm a co-presenter at a regional conference (different topic), and our group is doing a poster session at another national conference. I'll try and catch my breath, every now and then.

Thoughts on being a professional

I've had three or four ideas for blog posts recently, but when I don't make time to blog, they get lost in the ether and miscellany of my life. At least in my last post I noted one: what does it mean to be a professional? I've noticed that within the community of librarians (those "degreed" or job-titled folks), not everyone has the same standards of how you do your job. I've seen some behavior that is incomprehensible to me. How can you do x, or not do y, and still call yourself a professional? It's been in my mind for awhile, so today I'll riff on that a bit.

• A professional (in the library biz) takes a stab at a question, even if it's not their area of expertise. Even if the technology is way beyond them. A professional tries.
• A professional is not afraid to say, "I don't know," and then keep trying.
• A professional can say, "I didn't think of that," and give credit to another's good idea.
• A professional can learn from anyone: younger, older, peer.
• A professional thinks about the patrons.
• A professional goes the extra mile (which can get them in trouble.)
• A professional cares.
• A professional may "lose it" at a meeting (we all lose it sometimes), but a professional tries to improve their behavior - they don't keep "losing it," meeting after meeting.
• A professional has a bad day, or a bad week, and so sometimes fails to live up to the idea of a professional. But they acknowledge that, and move on.
• A professional wants to do something for the profession, and does it when they can.
• A professional learns and grows in their profession.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled workday. Take care out there.

What I've been up to lately

I'm dismayed that it's been so long since I've done a blog post. It isn't like I haven't been working. It isn't like I haven't had good ideas for blogging (so far I've found one: what does it mean to be a professional? I'll have to figure out where I hid the other ideas.) But December mean the holidays, and getting ready for them. Just as we rolled into January, the valve on our dishwasher at home broke, and much of our upstairs and downstairs was flooded while we were at work. For the past few weeks, we've been living out of storage tubs (luckily, insurance will cover most of the repairs.) I may blog more on that later. But here's what I've been up to professionally.

Two colleagues and I are doing research on the information literacy skills of our incoming first-year students. We have surveyed (and are interviewing this month) the librarians at some of our "feeder" private high schools, to see what their graduates know, that we can build on. It's a hot topic right now. We are replicating a study done by Islam and Murno in 2006 ("From perceptions to connections: Informing information literacy program planning in academic libraries through examination of high school library media center curricula." College and Research Libraries, 67(6), 492-514.) Earlier this month, we interviewed high school librarians in the Twin Cities metro area, and for the last two weeks of January, we're doing greater Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin (we were "iced in" earlier this week in Des Moines.) It is very exciting to be involved in primary research, even in a small way. I'll try to post more on this later, but right now I need to do more catchup now that I'm back in my office.

Do You Like Being a Librarian?

"Do you like being a librarian?" asked the student. I was helping her track down the journal article she needed. She couldn't find it in print upstairs. We'd looked up the title (she'd gotten it wrong a few times while we figured it out.) It started with "U.S.", which puts it at the very beginning at the U's. So as I went upstairs with her to make sure she could find it, she asked me, "Do you enjoy being a librarian?"

I must have been having a good day. Without even thinking about it much, I said, "Oh, yes. It's like being a detective. Right now, I'm helping you find something. And it's like solving a mystery." And I went on in my head, "The research process is a lot like that. Which way do I go, which terms do I use, how do I even get started." Much of life is a mystery to me, trying to make sense of the world, and it's such an important part of my life, that it's my vocation.

It's interesting that in 20+ years of being librarian, this is the first time I can remember a patron asking me if I liked doing what I do. I've been asked why I do it, how I got into it. I wrote last time about why I do it. I remember (with some embarrassment) years ago when a colleague introduced me to a friend who was planning to go to library school, and I laughed. I was thinking at the time, "why would anyone just starting out want to follow MY example? We're all going to be obsolete in a few years anyway." So I guess I was young, and very foolish.

Things are very busy at work. Change is happening faster, and faster. Much of technology is confusing to me, and I don't like many user interfaces. Times to think are few and far between. But I'm fortunate to have a job, and I'm happy to say that I like being a librarian.

That's my job

Sometimes in the rush of actually doing your job, you don't notice, or have time to savor, the best moments of your job. In my case, the moments that say, "and that's why I became a librarian." I was lucky enough to have two of those moments this week, so I'm taking the time to enjoy them.

On Monday night I talked to an Entrepreneurship class. I was asked to update a case they'd studied this term, and show resources to find information on the industry, where to look for articles, etc. One interesting thing was the different ways that the faculty member (who's in the field) and I talked about what information they would want to find. I used terms as you saw above - about the industry, about companies, about products and markets, etc. Her terminology was more specific - customer segments, industry economics, regulatory issues, etc. (Luckily, we both use the term "competitors!") The variation in the industry that they wanted to explore was "green" - i.e., how to produce the service in an environmentally responsible way (or however you define "green.") One student asked me to do a search on that industry and "green" in one of our subscription databases. Here's my "ah-ha" momement: just as I'm saying that "green" is a broad term, which doesn't have an exact definition, I find that the database has added the subject term "green business." Bless their hearts! You learn something every day in libraryland.

The moment I cherish happened at the reference desk this week. I'd been helping a student find books and book chapters on his topic - first how and what to search, then how to find books in our building. Soon he came back to the desk and said, "I can't find it." (I always try to tell students if they can't find something, to let us know.) I offered to go to the shelves with him, with my usual patter about sometimes the books don't want to be found, etc. We found the book, not quite in the place he'd been looking. He apologized for bothering me, but I said, "no, no, I'm glad to help. And that book looks right on for your topic." I didn't want to embarrass him further, but I wanted to say, "that's what I DO as a librarian. It's my job - every reader, his or her book. And I really do enjoy it!" I didn't say it, but I thought it. And I savor it, because it's my job.

Technology thoughts

I've been working hard preparing for classes, and teaching classes (and working on an article-in-progress), so I haven't been blogging much, or following other blogs. I didn't realize that Free Range Librarian had asked for ideas on netbooks and other technology purchases. What would have been my advice? My Samsung NC10, how I love it! Lightweight, portable, friendly - did I mention that her name is Harriet Jones? (All of our computers and peripherals are named after Doctor Who characters.) But Free Range is waiting for Windows 7, and has her eye on an Acer. I think that was on our short list; we just preferred the Samsung.

I got a great error message from Firefox this week: "Well, this is embarrassing. Firefox is having trouble" doing what I wanted it to do. I have never seen a Microsoft product indicate that it was embarrassed (although as a friend pointed out to me on Facebook, maybe it wasn't Firefox that was supposed to be embarrassed.) It's still one of my favorite error messages.

The Best Classes

The fall rush is on, and I've been teaching a lot of classes on library stuff - mostly marketing classes, with some finance thrown in. Still to come are advertising/public relations classes and accounting. I've had some great sessions and some not so great, so my thoughts today concern what leads towards the best library instruction classes.

• Faculty buy-in. Generally, most faculty don't schedule a library session for their class unless they believe it's important (not counting the "I'll be out of town, can you talk to my students?" minority.) But there are levels of buy-in, including those who collaborate with the librarian on the assignment, or share a copy of the assignment before the session, or who attend the session and participate in it, or time it so that the students realize its importance.
• Student buy-in (which depends a lot on faculty buy-in.) There's nothing like the faculty stressing the importance of the session to make students pay attention (except maybe "this is due real soon, so I'd better pay attention.") When they're really interested, it generates an energy like nothing else.
• "Ah-ha" moments, for the students, and even for the presenter. It's great when the "I get it" light bulb goes on (for them, and for us.)
• Technology that behaves. This includes hardware that works (machines that aren't in la-la-land, computer mice and monitors that are actually talking to the computers) and a network that's in a good mood.
• Databases and other resources that behave. Two weeks ago I presented at one of our satellite locations: the first database I went to gave us the "we're too busy, try again later" message; the third database had a similar message (and these were database messages, not our network.) It's nice when that DOESN'T happen, when everything behaves as it's supposed to.
• Databases that haven't done anything wacky since last term. I understand vendors changing interfaces; I can handle that, and the students can handle that. What I don't like are vendors asking for mysterious plug-ins that you didn't need last term (never mind the fact that you probably don't have admin rights on the machine you're using, and couldn't download a plug-in anyway.) Nor do I appreciate vendors whose products suddenly have less functionality that they had last term (if I could use this example in the spring, why have you changed your content so that it's not possible to recreate that search?)

Here's hoping that your fall is going well, and that things are behaving themselves.

This 'n That

• Twice recently I've been asked, "so what kind of netbook did you get?" I realized yesterday that I didn't put that info in this blog! So for the record, I have a Samsung NC10. Have I mentioned that I love it?
• I have had a small flood of faculty asking me for presentations this semester. So far my peak time is the week after next, when I have 6 library sessions, 3 finance and 3 marketing. So I won't be very profound in my blog posts for now.
• I have a reference desk shift this weekend, so one thing I could work on if it's slow is collection development. It's not very flashy, or very 2.0, but I enjoy it. At least I do nearly all of my selecting online, and use almost no paper!

Library 2.0 seeds take root

We're seeing a few 2.0 changes around my library these days, which is exciting (when I have time to think about it.) Here are some things that are happening, or going to happen soon:

• We've added a Discover Layer to our public catalog. While it's sometimes confusing to me as a power user, I think it's appealing to the novice. (It's funny that the html title for the initial page is 'Encore,' while the "classic catalog" has the regular catalog's name.)
• We're moving along in implementing Sharepoint as our new intranet/wiki/online bulletin board. We've roughed out a structure, and we're opening it up to staff to use. Our first 'killer app' is a new statistics application, which all staff will use to track patron questions. (It's great to have a web developer on staff!)
• We're looking at sprucing up our subject/resource guides. We've come up with a few short-term facelifts for fall; long-term, we're looking at products like LibGuides and Library a la Carte.

It's been interesting being involved in these developments. Sometimes I have the reaction, "Well, it's about time. I thought we should do something like this years ago!" Sometimes it's gratifying when staff are getting it. Sometimes I have to stop and take a breath, and get used to change. But I guess it keeps me on my toes.

Subject guides, netbooks, and Cary Grant

I'm on a task force at my library looking at various options for subject guides (aka research guides, pathfinders, etc.) I've registered for a free webinar that OCLC is doing next week on Library à la Carte from the University of Oregon. I'm glad we're finally going to do something about our guides. This has been one of my interests for years, and I remember being excited some years ago when I first heard about SpringShare's LibGuides. We've needed products like this for a long time, and it's great that there's now competition (I feel like I've been ahead of the pack in MPOW on this for one so long.)

In netbook news, I watched a movie on my netbook this week. Now this is no big thing for many people, but my personal movie-watching time has been quite limited as a working parent, and my chances to play with my netbook haven't been plentiful either. This week my family wanted to watch "Coraline" on the dvd we'd just bought (they'd seen it a week earlier, at the World Science Fiction Convention, but what the heck?) I'd noticed that "An Affair to Remember" with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr was on Turner Classic Movies, realized that we had dvds of both films, and I said, "We can watch one on the TV and one on the netbook. I don't care which one I get." So I got to sit in the comfy chair and watch my movie, while they watched theirs. Very nice.

My Own Travel 2.0

So next week (I hope), I'm off on vacation. Since spouse works for an airline, we fly "standby." This is not my idea of a good time, but he prefers to take advantage of this perk. I'm crossing my fingers, and toes, and anything else I can cross without being a safety hazard.

But in the spirit of 2.0, I revisited my Travel 2.0 posting. The Travel 2.0 blog reminded me that airlines charge fees for a lot these days, including bags (I don't think we stand-byers have to do that, but this may have changed.) I still haven't decided if I'm taking my new netbook, or we'll be bringing a couple to share for the family (it will depend on how much carry-on weight/bulk I want to deal with), but I probably won't be keeping a travel journal on Mapness. I think it would take away quality time from La Famille. I hope to be on Facebook, though, so I'll still keep a hand in the 2.0 world. So far the ratings on TripAdvisor for our hotel are positive, so once we get there, we should be fine.

I have a new error message to add to my collection. Yesterday I was trying to get into our content management system to update some web pages, and I got this friendly error: "Several Java Virtual Machines running in the same process caused an error." Yeah, well, what does that mean? There's too much going on somewhere, I get that part. Does that mean it's on my computer, at the other end, or somewhere in between? And what should I do about it? What process were they involved in, and is it legal in all 50 states? In the end, the brower crashed, so all the windows I had in that brower disappeared (at least it wasn't ALL of my browser sessions.) Will the new Millennium eventually bring error messages that make sense to non-techs? I'm not holding my breath on that.

This morning's hailstorm

We had hail this morning. It was worse in the cities around us, but we had weather enough to keep us home longer than usual and away from the windows (although we did have to look when the hail started.) They'd been talking about golfball-sized hail on the radio; we didn't quite get than, but some was definitely 3/4-inch size. I said, "I should use my new Netbook to take a picture or something." (Yes, the Netbooks are configured, and I've used mine a little bit. Her name is Harriet Jones, after the Doctor Who character.)

My husband said, "I'll take a picture on the digital camera, and you can upload it." So he walked my through it, first on Facebook and then onto my email (I hate the new Outlook web access; it's SO hard to look up an email address, and move around your email, grrr.) The Netbook has a slot on the bottom for a memory card, of the kind our camera uses. Now I'll see if I can upload it here. It worked! I feel so very 2.0 today.

A puzzlement: it's pretty easy with the right tools and a bit of help to do this sort of thing (upload a photo, make a video, etc.) Why does it seem so difficult at work? How much of it is my being used to the old, hard way of doing things, and how much is that I just don't have the right equipment?

P.S. My one fan asked what happened to my avatar. I didn't do anything to it, but it seems to be messed up. I'll have to try troubleshooting it sometime. And the paragraph spacing at the end of my post is being flaky - what's up with that?

It's time for Laundry 2.0

I've been using Facebook for almost a year (I started it in connection with 23 Things on a Stick.) My non-work friends became a critical mass earlier this year, so I check in every day or so to see how people are doing. Given my circle of friends, I thought my post this week about the website recreating the Apollo 11 mission, We Choose the Moon, would stir up some interest. But no. What got people commenting this week? Laundry.

I noted that my family had been asking about laundry this weekend, since we'll be on the road soon. I said, "Who needs clean laundry?" Well, a goodly number of my friends had thoughts on laundry, whether it can be planned, how it can be done, and who should be able to do it. (I agreed with the comments on red clothes. Only once have I had something bleed significantly that wasn't red, and it was a dark green t-shirt from Wales.) Who knew that laundry would be such a hot item?

So given this flurry of interest, I propose that it's time for Laundry 2.0. Dare I paraphrase from A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto?

• I will recognize that the universe of cleaning culture is changing fast, and that laundry and cleaning services need to respond positively to these changes to provide what users need and want.
• I will try to educate myself (no promises here) about cleaning culture and look for ways to incorporate what I learn into laundry services.
• I will not be defensive about my laundry, but will look clearly at its situation and make an honest assessment about what can be accomplished.
• I will become an active participant in moving my laundry forward. [There's got to be something about user contributions in this - hold on - yeah...]
• I will recognize that homes and cleaning processes change slowly, and will work with my colleagues to expedite our responsiveness to change.
• I will be courageous about proposing new cleaning processes and services, and new ways of providing cleaning services, even though some of my household will be resistant.
• I will lobby for an open laundry room that provides personalized, interactive features that users expect in modern cleaning environments. [!]
• I will encourage my household's administration to clean.

What do you think? Will it ever take the place of night baseball?

What can I do to improve patrons' lives?

Al Franken was sworn in this week as Minnesota's junior senator, many months after the election. In his remarks after taking the oath of office, he said (quoting the late Paull Wellstone) that he's going to "wake up every day saying, 'what can I do to improve people's lives?' " As I librarian, I find that very inspiring. Here's why.

At my institution, we are intensively weeding the print reference collection, to remove resources that are no longer relevant. The web has changed how students and faculty do research, and it has changed the kinds of questions we get as reference librarians. Statistics in books? If they can't download them, they don't want them. Quotations? They look on the web. Big encyclopedias? Why come in to look at books - the library may not even be open when they're doing their research.

We acquire online databases, and monographs - to the point that we don't exactly know what "reference" works we have right now. The print reference collection was a collaborative effort, librarians working together to recommend titles, including titles not in their subject areas. The online collection is often developed in a vacuum, or at least done solo - fewer discussions on how this fits into the greater collection, or gaps we see in others' subjects. I feel sad to see the old collections going away, even as I know it's part of modern reference work.

Then I hear a quote like Franken's, reminding me that my job, the reference librarian's job, is to improve patrons' lives. To help them find their stuff. The patrons are online, so we need to make sure they find their stuff online. Some will continue to use print, or need to use print for their disciplines or topics, but we need to have the stuff online. And we need to know what we have online, so that we can connect patrons with it. One of Ranganathan's laws of library science is "every reader his (or her) book." Which today might be "every researcher his/her source," be it online or print, pdf or html or ILL or paper. And I wonder if I can live up to the call of waking up every day, thinking about how I can improve patrons' lives. I'll try.

New computer (I think)

When I went to Computers in Libraries in March, I noticed many people at the conference with small laptops, which I found out are often called "notebooks" or "netbooks." I thought, "This could be a killer app for me. If I had a small, lightweight computer, I might really use it! and take it with me out of town!" I went to a session about mobile reference at the Frederick County Public Libraries (they use Samsungs) and got more excited. Then I went to Wiscon (the feminist science fiction convention) in May, and attended their session on netbooks with my computer spouse. Oooh, we wanted them!

Computer spouse did some research, and we decided to get one to try out - if we liked it, we'd get more of the same. He couldn't find what we wanted in a bricks-and-mortar store, so he ordered one online. After several days of trying it out, we were hooked. So the new ones were ordered (a total of one each for me, computer spouse, and daughter.) But so far the first one is the only one he's had time to configure, so I almost have a new computer. Real soon.

At my library, a few of us are thinking about how to let students know what we have in the realm of online reference tools, particularly the specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias. Do students even use that terminology anymore - should we be calling them "background sources?" Reference work in the modern world is anything but dull.

End of the fiscal year

I'm sad (and surprised) to realize how long it's been since I've blogged. No good excuses, but the reasons include using up vacation time before the end of the fiscal year, reviewing databases that come up for renewal at this time, and summer projects. Today I have to work on another database renewal and my performance review. On the 2.0 front, I can report that a coworker and I are planning this summer to work together on some of the 23 Things.

In a totally different vein, I have to say that lately I've become more thoughtful about my writing style. I recently purchased a book for my daughter called Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly, by Gail Carson Levine. My daughter is a writer, and for her at age 11 this sounded like a good title. She hasn't read it yet, but I have. Among other things, Levine talks about what to include, and not include, in your writing (for example, appealing to the senses - what does the character hear? what does the character touch?) as well as the craft of writing. I find myself doing more tweaking of my sentences, to make them read more clearly. Maybe someday I'll be a writer after all.