Three weeks later...

Wow. Where has the time gone? I started my new job on August 15th and already it is Labor Day. Where to begin?

First, my colleagues at my new job are absolutely wonderful people. They are warm and friendly. They are passionate about their chosen profession. If any of them read this blog, I want to thank them for tolerating my interruptions and persist questions over the past three weeks. They have been patient and helpful and always answered with a smile.

Second, I now possess a real degree of authority and decision-making responsibility. In my previous position, the librarians occasionally solicited my opinions about collection or IT issues. Now I am the one making decisions. For example, already on my first day my colleagues delegated to me the decision of whether or not to keep the previous edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music.

I am finding myself busier than ever. I arrive most days between 8 and 8:15am and often am still in my office long after 5pm. One night I was in until 11pm. Mind you, I am not complaining, but there always seems to be more things to do in a day than there are hours for. It will be challenging, therefore, to keep up with personal professional development activities, such as reading the professional journals and library blogs. My technical services professors warned us that once we started our first professional positions we would find that we have little time for such activities and simply time for reflection. Indeed, I am finding this to be the case. I will have to work harder to accomplish this.

Since my position is "instruction/reference librarian," a lot of my job is building relationships. For collection development and library instruction, I am the library's liasion to the departments of music, history, religion, and church professions, as well as the administrative offices of the campus pastors and the ELCA's local synod office, among others. I have spent a lot of time meeting people around campus, such as at the fall faculty workshop or in a department faculty meeting. I have mailed letters of introduction to all faculty in my departments, letting them know who I am and outlining my general responsibilities. I also included my business card and to the academic departments I mailed "profile" sheets with hopes to better learn my assigned faculty's research interests and teaching areas. I still have a lot more hands to shake, but all of those I have shaken so far have been those of friendly, interested, and interesting people.

Already I'm trying to get involved in the campus community. I contacted one of the campus pastors and volunteered to read one of the readings at the service on the second day of fall workshop. (I read from Isaiah.) The new band director and I connected at the new faculty orientation, and before I knew it, I was in a practice room getting my embrochure in shape to join the band for their opening convocation performance. It was a lot of fun playing in an ensemble again. It has been three years. I then attended the opening faculty recital. The energy and enthusiasm of the faculty performers and the students in the audience was impressive and inspiring.

These are some top-of-my-head thoughts. Hopefully in the weeks ahead I can share some more thoughtful, organized impressions. But what is most important to me is that I am having fun, loving what I am doing, and working with outstanding colleagues. I am learning a lot and hope to contribute to this learning community of which I am a member and in whose mission and purpose I strongly believe.

gag me?

Good timing!

Michael Gorman said recently that nobody had challenged the portion of the PATRIOT Act that applies to libraries (Section 215). Well - now they have.

According to a story in Wired, a library in Connecticut (with the ACLU) has filed suit against Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, claiming the actions of the FBI are unconstitutional and asking that the built-in gag order be lifted so that we can talk about what is involved. Given the push to reauthorize this section before the sun sets on it in December, this suit may bring some attention to the issue at a critical moment. Interestingly, the court papers show what's involved - the Department of Justice insisted in redacting much of the documentation.

By the way, if you're on campus on September 12th, we're having the first event of several for our part of The September Project. At 7pm on the first floor of the library several faculty members will discuss the implications of the government's response to 9/11 from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. And there's more to come throughout the fall. I'll post a link to what's up on campus soon.

Barbara

Empty? Deserted? uh, no, actually ...

The Christian Science Monitor has a piece on the University of Texas's decision to move 90,000 books from their Undergraduate Library and replace them with computers. It sounds like a terrible move, but the fact is the UGLI, as it was known when I was in their MLIS program long ago, was a very small collection, hand-picked for providing somewhat canned materials for a required composition course assignment. A lot of students preferred to use the main library, which is still there with its millions of volumes.

There is always a Sophie's Choice tone to these pieces - what's it gonna be, books or computers? Scott Carlson's famous "Deserted Libraries" story sparked a lot of controversy when it was first published in 2001, but it's the headline that sets off the alarms. In reality, the piece presents a range of issues and talks about libraries that are anything but deserted.

Both stories are about a changing persception of the library as place. Scott Bennett's report on libraries as learning commons shifts the focus from either/or to both and from information to learning. And that makes a lot of sense.

Barbara

challenging issues

There are signs that book challenges are on the rise, part of a cultural shift to the right (or at least, to some segments of the right feeling their oats). Focus on the Family is one organization pushing for more activism by parents in the books that are assigned in schools. There will no doubt be more press coverage and debate when Banned Books Week rolls around, September 24th - October 1st.

Barbara

Yes, I'm still here...

Hi, everyone. I'm still alive. :) I started my first professional position in an academic library last week, and I'm having a great time. When I have some more time, I'll try to summarize the events and my impressions of the past several days.

interested in the public interest?

Here's another piece on librarians' activism in legal and political matters. One important role librarians have is ensuring that the public interest is protected in areas of privacy, freedom to read, and culture, and that sometimes means going up against tough opponents. For some reason, it often surprises people that we can be a bit pushy about things that matter to us.

Barbara

Patrons and Patriots

Michael Gorman has some things to say about the Patriot Act - boiled down to one word: Kafkaesque.

There's a fascinating article in First Monday by Joan Starr that goes over the history of librarians' responses to national security threats.

Barbara

"Research at Risk"

One of my library heroes, Thomas Mann, has published a new article in Library Journal.

Environmental scans

The library literature that I've read on strategic planning stresses the importance of determining the external factors outside of the library that may influence future library users, collections, and services. OCLC, a major player in the library world, published a document in 2004 titled 2003 Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition. As the introduction states, the purpose of the study "is the identification and description of issues and trends that are impacting and will impact OCLC, libraries, museums, archives and other allied organizations, positively and negatively. ... The scope... is the social, political, economic and technological spheres in which [these] organizations operate." It's a fascinating document, and a "must read" for librarians and library administrators.

Right now, environmental scanning is being discussed in a blog written by three OCLC staff members, It's all good. You can read part one here and part two here.

The ethics of academic librarianship

At the ALA Annual conference last month, I attended a session that explored the ethics of academic librarianship. It was a wide-ranging discussion, and there were few answers to many of the ethical quandaries that librarians face everyday in the college or university. At the present, the library profession is guided by the American Library Association Code of Ethics, the Library Bill of Rights, and the Freedom to Read Statement. I keep a copy of the Library Bill of Rights and the Code of Ethics taped on the wall near my computer so they are always in view.

One of the ethical dilemmas that was mentioned involved equitable service. As one of the speakers asked, do we really provide equal levels of service to college or university library users? For example, suppose you are helping someone at the reference desk, but then you receive a call from the college president's office, requesting some reference assistance. Would you finish helping the patron you are currently working with, or would you give preferred treatment to the president? The president, after all, influences college policy and makes decisions that directly affects the library. But according to the first part of the Code of Ethics, librarians provide "equitable service policies" "to all library users."

These and other issues are challenges librarians face everyday. It is important that we reread the Code of Ethics and other such documents frequently to remind ourselves of the basic principles that we as the profession have agreed should guide our behavior and services.

wiki mania

I am tech savvy person. I started using an RSS reader over two years ago before it really became a "big" thing both in the tech world and among the general public (and I'm not sure really how pervasive RSS is among the general public). I studied computer science in college and worked for three years in the college IT department. However, I have a healthy skepticism when new technologies are introduced. One such technology is the wiki, the technology that drives the Wikipedia.

Some librarians in the library blog community are known for their tech enthusiasm (they shall remain nameless here). And wikis are really big among these bloggers right now. These bloggers have mentioned two new library wikis that launched this week: Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki and LISwiki.com.

The former I see as having a definite purpose and potential. It reminds me of the Association of College and Research Libraries Instruction Section's PRIMO project. "Best practices" Web site and articles seem common in the library world.

As far as the latter wiki, I don't understand what it is for or about. Is it trying to be an Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science or an Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science or something more? Or is this simply a demonstration of "technolust"? That is, is this an example of a wiki set up just because it's the hip new cool tool/toy of the moment?

Sharing library tips

In recent blog posts over the past two days, non-librarians are sharing their library advice. LifeHacker has a post on How to finish library books on time. Ask Metafilter had a recent question about the best way to handle a lost library book.

I really like the Ask Metafilter site because users can submit questions about virtually any topic and receive lots of valuable answers. Many of these are questions that reference librarians simply can't or won't answer: questions that involve personal opinions or recommendations or speculation--basically questions that may not have an "answer" or a source to which librarians can point patrons to.

The "i" in IL: internet or information?

This recent CNN news item covers a new standardized test that has been getting a fair amount of coverage in the press lately. Some librarians think it's a good idea to have some sort of assessment tool that goes beyond how to use libraries and can be applied in various settings. Others worry that if information literacy is conflated with tech skills we'll fail to keep our eye on the ball. And still others (like me!) wonder if multiple choice testing isn't too blunt an instrument for assessing something as complex as mastering the art of inquiry. Still, there are several on-the-ball librarians who are working on this project so I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

The real surprise to me was Dominc Basulto's take on the issue. He thinks librarians are trying to "own" information and be gatekeepers of what will be considered legitimate--and this test is just one more manifestation of our worst control-freak impulses. Though I initially thought "huh? librarians as censors? Where is that coming from?" But on further reflection I do think the word "literacy" carries with it some very odd, controlling baggage. And we do tend to use scare tactics in "selling" information literacy as a cause. Careful with that information! It might explode!!

Barbara

Notes from ATLA, Day Two

Friday was another busy day at the ATLA conference. I first went to a session titled "'Treasures Hid in the Sand': Finding Information for Religious Studies Research in Electronic Non-Theological Resources." The presenter, Judy Clarence, instruction librarian at California State University East Bay, demonstrated how to find information for religious and theological studies research in a number of different library databases, ones we might not normally think of. For example, Agricola, the primary database in agriculture, contains many citations related to church work with the hungry. CINAHL (Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health) provides access to some literature on spiritual care and chaplaincy. GenderWatch and Ethnic NewsWatch contain information about religious topics with emphases on gender issues and ethic and minority groups. (Ethinic NewsWatch is particularly useful because one can narrow search results by ethnic group.) As a final example here, ABI/Inform, the major database in business, provides access to literature on church management and fundraising. Clarence's session showed once again the importance of cross-disciplinary database/index searches in comprehensive research.

The second session I attended was a talk by Anne LeVeque, who is currently employed by the Congressional Research Service. Anne explained that librarians for the CRS work exclusively for members of Congress, not the general public. She gave examples of broad types of issues she regularly researches. Many of these are obvious: faith-based and community initiatives, church-state issues, evolution, school prayer, public displays (the Ten Commandment, for example), inaugural traditions (e.g, with respect to the Bible and prayers), demographic questions (e.g., "How many Presbyterians live in my district?"), world religious traditions, holiday traditions, ecumenical/interfaith relations, cults, and bioethics (abortion, stem cell research, and end-of-life issues). She receives everything from simple and quick ready-reference questions to those that take days to research. (If providing reference services to members of Congress sounds interesting, the CRS currently has job openings!)

I then heard Libby Peterek, a recent graduate of the School of Information at the University of Texas-Austin, speak about information retrieval strategies. She focused mostly on RSS. (Her presentation is online.)

RSS is not new to me: I've used RSS for over two years. It is my primary means of news gathering. I subscribe to over 155 RSS feeds through my Bloglines account. I won't explain what RSS is here (google it), but I agree with Libby that it is a form of information retrieval. I had previously thought of RSS simply as a form of "push" content, but I read an interesting essay today by Kevin Hale, who argues quite persuasively that RSS is actually the next paradigm in search. However, I didn't agree with everything he wrote (e.g., "Google is essentially a library").

The final session I attended was about OpenURLs. Andrew Keck from the Duke Divinity School library explained what OpenURLs are and how they are implemented. (Keck was quoted in a recent Library Journal article about the use of iPods in libraries.) For those of you who know what OpenURL is, it is now officially a NISO standard. Essentially, OpenURLs are links between electronic resources. In a library database, an article citation which may actually be included in full text in another database is linked to the full text via an OpenURL. This assumes that the two databases are OpenURL-enabled and the library has an OpenURL server. OpenURLs are big time-savers for users and greatly increase access to a library's full text holdings.

The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman

I recently read Donald Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things (the first edition was titled Psychology of Everyday Things). Norman is an expert in product design, and is currently Professor of Computer Science, Psychology and Cognitive Science at Northwestern University.

Why I mention this book now and in this blog is because, in the ATLA conference hotel, I became flustered with my room's clock radio. It has an "Auto / Off / On" switch and a wheel labeled "Off Buzz/Volume" with a small right triangle nearby. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out whether "Auto" or "On" turned the alarm on. Similarly, I couldn't tell immediately what "Off Buzz" really meant and which way to turn the wheel for a loud alarm. I finally gave up and used by cell phone alarm.

Was I stupid or was this a case of bad design? In cases like this the product is almost always at fault, Norman would argue. The clock radio labels weren't intuitive (what do "Auto" and "Off Buzz" really mean?) and the clock didn't provide me with clear feedback as to whether the alarm was actually set or not.

His book illustrates a number of very basic design principles that can apply to almost any product. Consequently, I'll never look at light switches, doors, car radios, telephones, stove tops, and public restroom faucets in the same way ever again. (Yes, doors.) In fact, I'm starting to see design flaws in almost everything around me! While his book focuses on physical objects, many of his design principles can apply to computer interfaces, including library catalogs, electronic journals, e-books, and databases. Some of his principles include: provide the user with feedback, use natural mappings/mental models, use constraints, bridge the gulf of execution and the gulf of evaluation, use forcing functions, and in cases where good design cannot be implemented, use cultural standards. All of these principles are clearly defined and illustrated in the book. Recommended. It is also a title on Josh Kaufman's Personal MBA program book list.

The study and application of good, user-centered design principles to computer interfaces and products and other technology is the focus of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. Some library schools, like the School of Information at the University of Michigan, offer HCI specializations.

WorldCat and the RLG Union Catalog

Any serious library researcher has probably either used WorldCat or the RLG Union Catalog to track down the location of books in other libraries. Both WorldCat and the RLG Union Catalog are union catalogs. The Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science defines union catalog as a "list of the holdings of all the libraries in a library system, or of all or a portion of the collections of a group of independent libraries, indicating by name and/or location symbol which libraries own at least one copy of each item."

Both of these catalogs, until recently, have only been available to library users who have been fortunate enough to be members of libraries that have paid for access to them. However, substantial subsets of both catalogs are now freely accessible and searchable. Although these two tools have been available for months, only recently, in my opinion, have they become truly usable.

The first is Open WorldCat, a program that "makes records of library-owned materials in OCLC's WorldCat database available to Web users on popular Internet search, bibliographic and bookselling sites." As the program's Web site explains,

A Web user visits a site such as Yahoo! Search or Google and enters a search phrase that matches the title of a library-owned item. The returned search results include a link to the Open WorldCat "Find in a Library" interface, where they can enter geographic information that helps them locate the item at a library in their city, region or country.

However, standard Google and Yahoo! searches didn't always display the book results at the top of the list, making them hard to spot in the usual list of thousands of Web sites for any given search. Relatively new search tools make direct searching for books in these search engines easier. Of particular note are a Yahoo! toolbar for the Internet Explorer browser and a search extension for the Firefox browser.

Now, almost all 58 million records in WorldCat have been made available to Google and Yahoo! for searching.

The second tool is RedLightGreen, which I consider to be the most innovative and helpful.

RedLightGreen helps you locate the most important books and other research materials in your area of interest, and find out whether what you need is available at your favorite library.

For the longest time, I had no idea exactly what RedLightGreen was searching. Yes, it helps you locate books and other materials, but which books? Their FAQ now explains that, "RedLightGreen's database is based on the RLG Union Catalog. ... Currently, RedLightGreen's database is the books portion of the RLG Union Catalog." You can read more about the contents of the RLG Union Catalog here.

RedLightGreen provides a helpful Google-style search interface (a single box). Alternatively, a Firefox search extension is also available (click on "Information for Librarians" in the upper-righthand corner).

Why I think RedLightGreen is innovative is that it provides the familiar, single Google-style search box, but after presenting you with the results of a search, suggests subjects to search. By clicking on a subject, RedLightGreen then displays all the books categorized with that subject. I believe that these subjects correspond to Library of Congress subject headings from database's respective catalog records in the RLG Union Catalog. (Example: a search for "cookbook" suggests "cookery," which is a Library of Congress subject heading.) Searches like these bring together all works categorized by the subject, without you needing to worry about thinking of all possible synonyms that are usually required for a complete keyword search. My explanation probably does not do the subject search justice; just try it out.

Another innovative feature is that RedLightGreen will create citations out of your search results and will save the citations so that you can easily create a bibliography. You can e-mail the citations to yourself or display them in a print-friendly format. This can be a big time-saver for students and reduces a bit of stress they usually feel trying to get everything formatted correctly.

Yet a third feature is that RedLightGreen provides you links from the records to booksellers should you wish to buy the books. Links to table of contents are also available for some records.

I think these efforts to make the union catalogs freely accessible and searchable in these ways do two things. One, they make library materials more accessible than ever. No longer is it only possible to find books in a library catalog. WorldCat is now indirectly searchable through everyone's favorite and easy-to-use search engine. Not only library books in search results remind people of the value of books in research, but these tools should bring more people into the library. Librarians can feel more at ease that what they thought was a threat to the library is actually helping to bring users back to it. Two, the innovative approaches to book searching, as demonstrated by RedLightGreen, should lead to easier-to-use library catalogs. People like an uncluttered, single-box search interface. RedLightGreen demonstrates that such an interface can work for a library catalog, while providing power users advanced searching tools/options that don't get in the way of the basic user. (I asked an Endeavor representative at the ATLA conference if they were considering such an interface for their Voyager library catalog product. She said they were!)

Note: Both RedLightGreen and Open WorldCat (through Google and Yahoo!) display advertising.

Privacy and Google Print

A contract between Google and the University of Michigan released publicly on Friday contains no provisions for protecting the privacy of people who will eventually be able to search the school's vast library collection over the Internet.

Google announced plans late last year to digitize and index as many as 7 million volumes of material from the University of Michigan to make them searchable on the Internet as part of its Google Print service, a searchable index of books.

...

The American Library Association code of ethics recommends that libraries preserve the privacy and confidentiality of library users and recommends they ask third-party partners to retain the same degree of protection, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director for the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "Access should be anonymous," she said.

Read more about the exact nature of the privacy concern in this article posted at CNET.

How to Become a Librarian

A new article in Library Journal.

Notes from ATLA

Day 1 of the American Theological Library Association annual conference has just concluded. It was a good day. The opening plenary speaker was Nancy Pearl, the author of Book Lust: Recommended Readings for Every Mood and model for the Librarian Action Figure. Her talk was titled "The Pleasures and Perils of a Life of Reading." She was hilarious and kept everyone in stitches throughout her hour-long speech. What struck me as most interesting was what she identified as the perils of a life of reading. They included:

1. Never learning how to pronounce the words we read. After all, if we read to ourselves all the time, there's no pressure to check pronunciations of unfamiliar words. The examples she gave included "segue" and "fugue." For the longest time, she said, she pronounced segue as "sagooee."

2. Being too lazy to pick up the dictionary off of the bookshelf to look up unfamiliar words. When we're settled and comfortable in our chair reading a good book, who wants to interrupt the flow to get that heavy thing off of a high shelf?

3. Never knowing for sure if our memories are actually ours. She related a story in which she had told her daughter that she had gone to her junior prom. Nancy's daughter asked, "Mom, are you sure you went to your junior prom?" Nancy proceeded to explain to her daughter that, yes, she had gone to prom with a guy named Monk and even described her dress in detail. Then there was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "Mom," her daughter said, "that story is from a book we had both read." Sure enough, Nancy checked the book her daughter had said the story was in, and there was the Monk and the prom dress, exactly how she had described.

While I have yet to suffer from peril number three, I am guilty of perils one and two. It is very comforting that I can identify with someone who is an avid reader and fellow librarian.

After Nancy's talk, the exhibits officially opened. Then, I attended one of the many concurrent sessions. It was a roundtable discussion about the format/design, audience, and value of pathfinders. "Pathfinder" has a number of definitions. One of the session's handouts included three definitions. Two of the three that I most identified with included:

A guide designed to assist the user in researching a particular discipline or topic. A pathfinder identifies key subject headings related to the topic, important reference books, periodical indexes, journals and other resources available at the local library. Sources on the World Wide Web are usually also included. Pathfinders can be printed or available online. (See: http://tru.ca/library/guides/glossary.html.)

and

A library pathfinder is a document that serves as a map and guide to bibliographic research on a specific topic. (See: http://208.11.226.6/library/research/vocabulary.htm.)

Participants mentioned that pathfinders seem to be most successful when they are compiled in consultation with faculty. Students like to know that the list of sources has been "approved" or "recommended" by professors, and may be afraid to use sources that they perceive as not receiving such approval. One participant explained that dropping a draft of a pathfinder in a professor's mailbox for review is like dropping something into a black hole. She instead visits faculty during their office hours to discuss sources that should be included and to develop annotations explaining each resource.

I pointed out, though, that pathfinders are both a blessing and a curse. Students like the lists (if they know about them, and can find and understand them). The lists reduce library anxiety by presenting a small, "digestible" universe of library resources with which to begin a research project. However, students may be afraid to venture off of this list, thus limiting their searches to a few resources while many potentially rich sources in the library go unused. This leads to a flaw with lists of sources that Thomas Mann pointed out in Library Research Models. People tend to forget the sources and at the same time don't learn of a constructive research process. Thus, pathfinders fail as an instructional tool (obviously) unless there is some effort to convey a procedure or method. But, as one participant wisely pointed out, librarians have to assure students that if they feel like they have a method that they should not be limited by what a pathfinder or tutorial might suggest to them.

One participant wondered if there was a compilation of particularly outstanding pathfinders. By this time in the discussion, the terms "pathfinders" and "online tutorials" were being used synonymously. I suggested that the participants check out the Association of College and Research Library's Instruction Section's PRIMO project. PRIMO "is a means to promote and share peer-reviewed instructional materials created by librarians to teach people about discovering, accessing and evaluating information in networked environments."

After this discussion, I attended a vendor product talk. In this case, the vendor was Thomson-Gale describing their resources in religious studies and philosophy, including the new second edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion. The vendor representative also addressed the criticisms of the New Catholic Encyclopedia and mentioned the upcoming update to the Encyclopedia Judaica, which is set for publication in late 2006.

This evening, I went on one of the "hosted excursions" to the Austin Museum of Art. The current primary exhibition is a series of photos by Annie Leibovitz.

But will it get through the Senate?

House votes to limit Patriot Act rules on library records

June 16, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The House voted Wednesday to block the FBI and the Justice Department from using the anti-terror Patriot Act to search library and book store records, responding to complaints about potential invasion of privacy of innocent readers.

Despite a veto threat from President Bush, lawmakers voted 238-187 to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.

The vote reversed a narrow loss last year by lawmakers complaining about threats to privacy rights.

ATLA conference

Professional associations provide excellent networking and continuing education opportunities. I encourage library school students to join one or more professional associations. One such organization I belong to is the American Theological Library Association. This is a particularly good association for LIS students to join. ATLA provides $500 travel grants to 10 student members every year for attendance at the annual conference. (I have been fortunate to receive one of these grants for two consecutive years.) Also, the number of annual conference attendees is small enough that it's possible meet just about everyone there. The attendees are really friendly and are very welcoming of students. Last year, I had the chance to meet ATLA board members personally and to dine with one of them at the closing banquet. I met many theological library directors and was even offered jobs!

I leave Wednesday for this year's annual conference, which is being held in Austin, TX. There are lots of interesting speakers on the program. Nancy Pearl, the author of Book Lust: Recommended Readings for Every Mood and model for the Librarian Action Figure, is the opening plenary speaker. Lindsay Jones, editor of the second revised edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion (published this year by Macmillian Reference USA), will speak on Saturday about this work, which is considered to be the foremost reference work in the field of comparative religion. There will also be sessions on everything from e-books, OpenURLs, and information overload, to information literacy, contemporary religious fiction, and the care of CDs and DVDs. It looks like it's going to be a great conference!

"What to Ask Your Interviewer"

The newest issue of LIScareers.com was posted today. One of the article is about questions to ask prospective employers. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had found this to be a helpful article: Biggs, D.R., et. al., Proactive interviewing [strategies for the assertive job hunt]. College & Research Libraries News no. 1 (January 1987) p. 13-17.

Recommended readings for new academic librarians

Did you just graduate from library school or get your first academic library job? Be sure to check out the article, Ten must reads for new academic librarians, in this month's issue of Reference Services Review (vol. 33, no. 2, pages 228-234).

Giving away a book... increases sales?

From Scholarly Communication, a newsletter prepared by University Librarian Paula Kaufman:

One of the most interesting presentations at this fantastic conference was given by Eve Gray, of Eve Gray & Associates. Gray was asked to study the publishing strategy of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa. This research institution had a traditional strategy of publishing lots of research books, and selling them. Gray convinced them to change their strategy­to give away all their research books for free online, and offer a high quality print-on-demand service for anyone who wants the paper version. The result: "the sales turnover of the publishing department has risen by 300%." As she concluded her presentation, "giving away books and lead to an increase in our book sales." There's much much more in her interesting analysis. She has generously offered it for downloading. Here's the press release. Lessig Blog 5/27/05 http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/eve_gray.pdf

I seem to remember that this was similar to the case with the National Academies Press. Unfortunately, I cannot find or recall a citation at the moment.

Insider Higher Ed

Today, two interesting articles about libraries appeared in the RSS feed to Inside Higher Ed, the delightful new competitor to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The first article, The Joy of the Stacks, discusses the University of Chicago's library expansion plan. The vision is to keep as much of the collection under one roof as possible. This is a notable step in the other direction in the academic library community, since remote storage facilities are all the rage these days. Those interviewed in the article talked about the somewhat romantic notion of serendipitous discovery in the stacks, which often isn't possible or allowed in remote storage facilities. (For more on one type of remote storage facility--known as the print repository--here.)

The author of the other article, Silence in the Stacks, bemoans the lack of lengthy discourse in the academic library blogosphere. Where are the voices, he asks, expounding upon the issues of the day? It is true, there are many blogs about librarianship, but the few that are most well known are generally technology-related (e.g., Library Stuff [which should be renamed RSS Stuff] and The Shifted Librarian). There don't seem to be blogs in which lively debates over intellectual freedom or classification are raging, specifically in a college or university context. Steven Bell, one of the people interviewed, reacts to the article here.

untamed

If you're wondering if librarianship might be a tad too traditional or tame for your tastes, check out what Radical Reference has going on at the American Library Association annual meeting this month.

Barbara

Library Research Models, by Thomas Mann

I just finished reading Thomas Mann's Library Research Models: A Guide to Classification, Cataloging, and Computers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). It is an outstanding book, one I recommend for all library students and librarians. I wish my reference professor had assigned this as a text!

Mann, who is currently (as far as I know) a reference librarian at the Library of Congress, describes a number of different library research models, including: specific subject or discipline model, traditional library science model (classification scheme, vocabulary-controlled catalog, published bibliographies and indexes), type-of-literature model, actual-practice model, and computer workstation model. He notes the limitations and powers of each approach, and he concludes the book with a cumulative methods-of searching model that uses most of these models to account for the weaknesses of the others. If you want a comprehensive approach to your next massive research project, Mann provides it!

Along the way, he made a number of excellent arguments. The first is that most people believe that the organization of information in the library consists of the classification scheme alone. Thus, people assume the only way to access the information in a library is to find the call number or class where a certain subject might be and browse around that area in the stacks. Unfortunately, this is a deficient assumption. As Mann and critics of classification schemes point out, one book can address many subjects. So, where does a book go then? Similarly, a book addressing one subject can address many different aspects of it. Which aspect should be be brought out in its class assignment? Given these probelms, a person browsing the stacks may be missing several relevant books if he or she restricts the search to one class area in the stacks. Nevertheless, classification is important, as it provides a library user access to the full text of the library's collection. Mann provides examples of information that cannot be found through a library's catalog or various bibliographies and indexes, but only through browsing in the book's of a library's collection.

Another argument he makes is the controlled vocabulary used in the library's catalog is a powerful mechanism for providing access to information. Specifically, controlled vocabulary provides predictability and serendipity. Yes, that's right. Mann provides innumerable examples to show this. He rightly criticizes information scientists who insist that keyword/postcoordinate searches have made controlled vocabulary irrelevant. As we've discussed in this blog, "tagging" has become popular. However, tagging lacks authority control and the syndetic structure of thesauri and books of subject headings, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings, and thus lacks the full predictability of formal controlled vocabularies.

Mann describes another aspect not emphasized in research or in library science education: the importance of bibliographies and indexes. He notes that the Library of Congress classification places encyclopedias and other guides to the literature in the A class (these works, he says, serve as a "table of contents" to everything after it, that is, works in the B through V range). Class Z includes bibliographies and indexes. These are at the end in the classification scheme; they serve as an index to everything before it. Mann explains how to find bibliographies, both in the catalog and in the classification scheme, and, again, provides illustrative examples of the usefulness of these works.

If there are powerful, traditional approaches to finding information during the research process, why don't we use them? There are many reasons. Mann speculates at length. One reason is that methods courses in graduate work tend to focus on discipline or subject specific resources (often in the form of lists), instead of library research approaches. Library science education, on the other hand, tends toward the type-of-literature model. Students in a LIS reference course, for example, learn about specific almanacs, atlases, encyclopedias, etc., without learning how to find them more generally, for any subject, using a library's controlled vocabulary. Reference course work in specific areas, such as government information or science, is actually a combination of the type-of-literature and the discipline/subject models. This has been the case, in my experience. If I were to teach a course in general reference, I would definitely assign chapters 3-5 in this book! (These chapters cover the library science model: classification, controlled vocabulary, and published bibliographies and indexes).

Another reason why many of these approaches aren't used is due to what is known as the Principle of Least Effort. Mann refers to this principle repeatedly throughout the book and wrote a chapter on it. We are comfortable chatting with our fellow students or coworkers and asking for good articles or books they may have read or seen, or simply looking at the footnotes of one or two articles we may have happened across in a simple keyword search of some particular database.

Mann's reliance on controlled vocabulary could be considered one of the book's weaknesses. Yes, it is important for finding information in the library, but it is difficult to teach. I would guess that most librarians would not feel comfortable teaching the LCSH! Also, most people loathe to consult the big red LCSH books, but, at the same time, there isn't an easy way to browse them online. Even the LOC's authorities Web site isn't as easy as browsing the LCSH books, in my opinion.

Another criticism of the book may be that it is a systems approach to research. That is, the book emphasizes the systems of research rather than the user. Well, that may be, but Mann does acknowledge the weaknesses of these research models and the systems they use. He also acknowledges that they take some learning. But, especially for print resources, how else is a user to find information in the library? There's been lots of research done on information seeking behavior, but few if any of these studies have suggested real changes to the current library organization model of classification, a vocabulary-controlled catalog, and indexes and bibliographies. If I'm wrong on this, please let me know!

In spite of these possible criticisms, this book helped me see the organization of library information as a whole (classification [browsing], vocabulary-controlled catalog, bibliographies and indexes). This book has me looking very much forward to an update of Mann's other book, which will be released later this year: The Oxford Guide to Library Research.

Browse This

Google Print finally has a site of its own. Though still labeled a "beta" version, it's only recently that the books digitized through Google had their own search page (like Google News or Google Maps). At first glance, the bulk of books are publisher-supplied, not part of their library digitization project. But so far, results suggest for now it may have a higher percentage of scholarly content than Amazon's Search Inside does.

Another interesting development - OCLC has made Open WorldCat searchable through Yahoo, Google, or Firefox toolbars. Each works a bit differently, but it means your browser can easily chase down whether a particular book is available in a local library or not.

Barbara

News items

Lots of interesting news today.

These readers are all ears. An article about audiobooks and the industry's award, the Audie. The winners are announced Thursday.

U.S. Book Production Reaches New High of 195,000 Titles in 2004; Fiction Soars. [Link courtesy of the ResourceShelf.]

A new review of Google Scholar. [Link courtesy of the ResourceShelf.]

Poetry and philosophy

Although this isn't really about libraries per se, I think you readers in library land might be interested in this news item. Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has vetoed a bill that would have established the post of Minnesota state poet laureate. MPR has more.

His primary objection is ostensibly the slippery slope argument:

"Even though we have a state 'folklorist,' I also have concern this will lead to calls for other similar positions," Pawlenty wrote in letter accompanying the veto. "We could also see requests for a state mime, interpretive dancer or potter."

After I alerted my friends about this, one of them informed me that a Gustavus professor has proposed that communities consider appointing philosophers laureate.

I did some scrounging around in some library databases and discovered that the city of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, appointed a philosopher laureate in 1991!

"What should I take?"

So, you've been accepted into library school. Now what? Since master's programs are typically shorter than undergraduate programs, each and every class you take counts. But if you're unsure what sort of library you would like to work in or simply unsure what courses to take, might I suggest a basic outline from an editorial written by American Library Association President-Elect Michael Gorman. He proposes the following:

• Collection development (definition) and acquisitions (definition)


• Cataloging (definition)


• Reference (definition) and library instruction (definition)


• Circulation (definition), maintenance (definition), preservation (definition), and so forth


• Systems (definition)


• Management (definition)


• Types of library

Michael Gorman, "What Ails Library Education?" Journal of Academic Librarianship 30(2) (March 2004): 99-101.

One reason why Gorman came up with this list is because he's concerned that there is no national core library science curriculum. Yes, master's degree programs are accredited by the American Library Association, but library students often have great leeway in choosing their entire course schedule. Thus, employers are unsure what their hires know and don't know. Gorman's tentative list is based on his library experience and what he believes defines the professional librarian and what he or she should know.

His list is focused exclusively on libraries and librarians, and their operations and activities. Note that this list does not include things like "Web page design." While technology is important, it is not something that stands on its own. The best library science programs integrate "technology" (how-tos, planning aspects, etc.) into core library coursework.

To translate this list into a course schedule, I have matched it with courses from an actual course catalog (in this case, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign):

• Collection development and acquisitions: LIS590CD Collection Development and LIS578 Technical Services Functions


• Cataloguing: LIS507 Cataloging and Classification I (and maybe even LIS577 Cataloging and Classification II)


• Reference and library instruction: LIS504 Reference and Information Services and LIS458 Instruction and Assistance Systems. Since readers' advisory is a reference service, I would suggest a course devoted to it, such as LIS590KK Adult Popular Literature.


• Circulation, maintenance, preservation, and so forth: LIS578 Technical Services Functions and LIS582 Preserving Information Resources


• Systems: LIS451 Introduction to Networked Information Systems (and maybe even LIS452 Foundations of Information Processing in LIS and LIS453 Systems Analysis and Management)


• Management: LIS505 Administration and Management of Libraries and Information Centers


• Types of library: Examples include LIS590SL Special Library Administration and LIS590RB Rare Books and Special Collections Librarianship.

Of course, if you do know what sort of library you would like to work in, you would take the relevant courses. For example, if you were interested in being a children's librarian, you would take courses in children's literature and storytelling.

If you're about to enter library school and are wondering what might be involved in some of these courses, I have provided links to the syllabi of some of these courses, all at the University of Illinois:

• LIS590CD Collection Development


• LIS504 Reference and Information Services


• LIS458 Instruction and Assistance Systems (formerly LIS316)


• LIS590KK Adult Popular Literature


• LIS451 Introduction to Networked Information Systems


• LIS452 Foundations of Information Processing in LIS


• LIS505 Administration and Management of Libraries and Information Centers (or this)


• LIS409 Storytelling (or this)

Where I Work

I work in Central Reference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Here are some photos of the Reference Room:

• Looking south, toward Government Documents. Entrance to the library is at the right.


• A bird's-eye view, also looking south. The National Union Catalog is to the left.


• A quiet corner.


• A wall of books.

(These photos are courtesy of some gentleman by the name of Oldtasty.)

The Venerable Readers' Guide

For years, high school and college students have used the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, one of the most well known periodical indexes.

However, as more and more (especially) academic libraries provide access to large article databases, such as Expanded Academic ASAP (InfoTrac) and Academic Search Elite/Premier (EBSCO), they are choosing to cancel their subscriptions to Readers' Guide, whether they be print or electronic. There is some justification for this. Readers' Guide only indexes some several hundred magazines and journals, whereas Expanded Academic and Academic Search Elite provide full text access to several thousand publications, many of those which are indexed by Readers' Guide.

"Opponents" of Readers' Guide will often scoff at defenders of this venerable work, accusing them of not "letting go" of a standard reference work that is now, in their view, past its prime and supplanted by other databases/indexes.

That may be true, but I had a real reference interview in which I, a reference assistant at a major research university, was unable to help the patron because the library had no indexes to the magazines he was searching. Specifically, the patron wanted to find articles in Teen and Seventeen magazines. According to Ulrich's, these two magazines are indexed by Readers' Guide, but not by Expanded Academic or Academic Search Elite. While we do have older Readers' Guides, we cancelled our print and electronic subscriptions last year, so the patron couldn't use them to find more current articles.

Do I have a point in all of this? Well, for one, Readers' Guide is still useful for providing access to more "popular" magazines. And, two, considering replacements for standard reference sources involves some amount of study and comparison. For example, here are the source lists to Readers' Guide (electronic edition), Expanded Academic ASAP, and Academic Search Elite. As you will see, indeed, the latter two resources do not index Teen and Seventeen!

I just returned from a great conference, WILU 2005 - a Canadian version of LOEX. What an alphabet soup, eh? They're both annual conferences on information literacy--or whatever you call that thing we do when we try to help students and faculty make the most of information resources in their college education. (I'm ambivalent about the phrase, as you can tell from the talk I gave there, but it's currently what is most in use. )

One of the great things about the conference--apart from the interesting presentations on everything from media literacy to GIS--was the warmth of the hosts and the interactions of the 150 attendees. And it made for a terrific crossroads. Shiela Webber and Bill Johnston came over from the UK to talk about their take on information literacy. Canada makes for a great mixing-chamber for North American and UK ideas.

I mentioned how great the planning was - librarians even rose early and painted the canon for us! No, it's not a strange giraffe, it's the "Kaliedoscope" conference theme. Students at Guelph use the canon (pointed always at the President's office) as a form of expression. Gee, reminds me of a certain Gustavus tradition . . .



All in all, a great conference and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in Information Literacy. Next year's will be held at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

One other interesting thing--that relates in a way to the importance of media literacy becoming part of information literacy: during the conference, Canada was going through an amazing political crisis. The Conservative party aligned itself with the separatist Bloc Quebecois and came very close to toppling the goverment. Only the defection of one Convervative member to the Liberal camp and a single tie-breaking vote kept the goverment from falling. Did this make news in the US? A few column inches in the International section of The New York Times, but otherwise barely a peep. Which is, frankly, a sad comment on the state of the news media.

Barbara

Libraries: Books!

The latest issue of American Libraries (May 2005) features an interview with librarian and readers' advisor Nancy Pearl, author of such books as Book Lust and model for the Librarian Action Figure.

She makes some provocative comments:

The library community is finally getting wise to the fact that libraries, especially public libraries, are not just about information access, but about helping people find good books to read--for their leisure time and for the recreational learning that goes on in many people's lives.

...

If you kept track of the number of times a librarian is asked how to build a website versus how many times they're asked to recommend a good book, you'd find that many more people ask the latter than the former. Yet we routinely teach master's students [in library science] how to do the former, while for the most part ignoring the latter.

I've selected these quotes because, once again, I want to highlight the fact that librarians need training in readers' advisory and that librarianship isn't about technology--it's about people and information (still mostly books). As I mentioned in a previous post, I have about four years experience in IT and an undergraduate minor in computer science, but when I had fellow students ask me what classes to take in library school, I always discouraged them from taking courses on Web page development and the like. Yes, basic Web publishing skills are almost a necessity these days, but they are not unique to librarianship, and can be learned in community college or in workshops and tutorials. If you are a library school student, avoid these classes and instead spend your time and mental energy on unique skills and knowledge to the profession of librarianship. This includes readers' advisory.

Please read my earlier post about readers' advisory for a definition and a bibliography.

Provocative Quotes

Steven Johnson, in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You, wrote,

Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying--which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements--books are simply a barren string of words on the page. . . .

Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. . . .

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion--you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they're powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it's a submissive one.

(As quoted in "Brain Candy," by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker, May 16, 2005, pgs. 88-89.)

Dr. Arthur Aufderheide of the University of Minnesota Duluth and author of The Scientific Study of Mummies, has said, "All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections."

(As quoted in "The Mummy Doctor," by Kevin Krajick, The New Yorker, May 16, 2005, pgs. 66-75.)

A Library School Commencement

I graduated on Sunday, May 15, 2005, from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. GSLIS held its own commencement program, separate from the university-wide ceremony. (See the commencement program.) I guess now, officially, in the eyes of the library profession, I am a "real" librarian! The ceremony was held in the University's Smith Memorial Hall. My class's commencement speaker was Mary Dempsey, the commissioner of the Chicago Public Library system. (She is currently serving as Chicago's interim chief procurement officer). Yours truly was awarded the school's Bryce Allen Award for Reference Services. The ceremony was followed by a reception in the University Library's Marshall Gallery. Overall, a pleasant afternoon.

curiosity pays

Before the semester ends I'm trying to wrap up a report on what we've learned this year from our students. Why? So that we can help our students learn.

Each year we do a few things designed to give us some insights into how the library works for students (or doesn't). As all academic departments here do, we have an assessment plan to remind us where we are in the process. Though its important to know what resources we have and how much they get used - and how those things stack up to comparison colleges, we also want to find out whether all those resources and services actually contribute something.

This year we've heard some very interesting things from first years students, interviewed in a focus group by fellow students. (Thank you, Laura and Paul!) The students made lots of good suggestions and underscored the importance of the library as a place (and that we should have couches as comfortable as the ones in Confer Hall!). We also are looking at surveys we distrbuted a couple of weeks after teaching our library sessions. What did students appreciate learning about? RefWorks, a citation management system. The thing that's most confusing? How the books are shelved and how to find a journal article that's in print, not online.

What I love about doing this is having the opportunity to rethink the library from a fresh perspective - the one that counts the most in an undergraduate library. And besides, I'm just nosey.

Barbara

Top original cataloger

This bit of news is also courtesy of Gary Price's most useful blog, ResourceShelf: Apparently the Center for Research Libraries, for the second year in a row, has contributed the most original cataloging records to the WorldCat union catalog. Read the announcement. I thought that the Library of Congress would have been #1, but I guess I was wrong!

For those entering library school, you'll soon learn about the great cataloging debates. Many libraries have eliminated cataloging librarian positions, choosing instead to outsource their cataloging to vendors (such as the jobbers they acquire books from), rely on copy cataloging, and/or cede cataloging to paraprofessionals.

I have worked in reference and my next position will be in reference and instruction. However, I admire and depend on the work of catalogers. I try to keep up with the latest cataloging developments. For example, I attended a session on the upcoming AACR3 cataloging standard at the ACRL national conference, and, in a recent paper I wrote for my Technical Services class, I wrote about the acquisition and cataloging of e-books. (See Richard Bothmann's excellent article, "Cataloging Electronic Books.")

Not only do I admire catalogers, I also admire libraries that contribute original cataloging records to biblographic utilities. If libraries continue to cut corners and depend on others for their cataloging records, soon there will be no one actually cataloging anymore! (Well, I suppose other than the vendors...) Cataloging is a professional activities of librarians. Let's continue to keep it a part of our repertoire.

Federated searching with Google

Gary Price is reporting that libraries with compatible link resolving software can now provide direct links from article citations in Google Scholar to the full text in libraries' subscription article databases! Sweet! Thank you, Google!

Generally, I cringe when I hear the phrase federated search, but I am excited about this project. Still, I do have some concerns, which Gary expresses succinctly:

However, even as the Google Scholar database continues to grow, we still don't know precisely when or how often it's updated, the lag time (if any) for material to get into the database, and other important facts like what will or will not be included in the database. It would also be great if Google could provide a list of sources to which they are providing access.

If you are a student or faculty and a user of Google Scholar, be sure to set your preferences so that Google Scholar is aware you are affiliated with a participating library. Then, you'll be provided with links to the full text of articles indexed by Google Scholar if your library participates in this program and your library has a paid subscription to the databases(s) that contain the articles.

Librarians, read this page for more information.

Information Literacy and the Media

According to the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, information literacy is defined as: "a set of abilities requiring individuals to 'recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.'" (This definition is originally from the American Library Association's Presidential Committee on Information Literacy's Final Report.)

We get a lot of our information from the various news media via the Web, TV, newspaper, and radio (e.g., The New York Times, Fox News, the Drudge Report, Google News, Minnesota Public Radio, etc.). As such, we must be able to evaluate this news critically. Is the news biased in any way? What assumptions do the editors, reporters, or journalists make? How might the media's reliance on advertising revenue in turn affect reporting? (Etc., etc., etc.)

I have found two public radio programs that have been helpful to me in analyzing the news media:

1) On the Media: "The weekly, one-hour program [that] is America's only national radio program devoted to media criticism and analysis."

2) Media Matters: Full disclosure: the show's host, Bob McChesney, is a research professor at my school, the University of Illinois.

You can listen to both of these shows online. Both Web sites have podcast feeds.

Alec

Reference fun

I found two interesting reference-related pieces today in my news aggregator:

1) Offbeat reference books [via LISnews.com]: This article describes some "wacky" reference books that have been published recently. Perhaps the most interesting fact (to me) mentioned in this article is that, "Isaac Asimov is the only author to have [written] at least one book in every category of the Dewey decimal system." (This fact is found in Mitchell Symon's That Book ... of Perfectly Useless Information.)

2) The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form [via Boing Boing]: The goal of this site is to "to write at least one limerick for each and every word in the English language." Here's a good one for the word apostrophe:

The apostrophe's often abused:
It gets battered, and bruised, and misused.
On a plural, a blight;
For possessives, just right,
Barring "its", which leaves people confused.
(by mino)

speaking of the Library of Congress...

I'm reminded of the time I spent doing a bit of research there. It's not the most user-friendly public library (you have to go to another building to get a card, and every block in DC seems ten times as long as blocks anywhere else - what's up with that?) but it's well worth it to use a phenomenal collection in this glorious reading room. You can't browse the stacks, except virtually through the catalog, but they bring the books straight to your personal desk. Makes you feel special.

Rooms like this - at the New York Public Library, the British Museum, or in the newly-renovated Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington (aka U Dub, which has its very own Red Square!) - are a little intimidating. They're so grand! But once you settle in and begin to feel at home, there's something very exciting about doing research in a public space like that is pretty amazing.

Barbara

Fun Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

A great link was posted by Library Link of the Day today.

Newsflash! Subject Headings not boring!

I'm now proud to know that, yes, there are books published about odor control in my home state of Minnesota. :) Apparently, there are also works about the grudges of fishes?

Alec

landing that first job

Alec, thanks so much for your detailed description of what an academic library job interview is like. Though mine was nearly twenty years ago (gack!) I had a similar experience: a packed, exhausting couple of days that left me totally energized. An interview is a good time for the people hiring you to get to know you - but also for you to get to know them, and the environment you might be working in. So ask questions, not just about the library but the community it serves and the place the library holds in it .

When I first read that Library Journal story I started to post it here - then paused. It's a real downer! So first, I talked it over with some other librarians for a reality check. Is it that tough? It's an interesting conversation that I want to get back to, but here's my take for now:

There's a movement afoot to recruit new librarians. Good! We want you! To establish this as a social issue worth people's attention, a little anxiety is put into the mix. My God!! We'll have a world without librarians!!! They're all doddering ancients who are about to kick off !!! Quick, run to library school and save the world - and of course you'll have your pick of jobs.

Nope.

The fact is, you can get a good job (well, scratch the Jag XK from your wish list, not that good) but not without effort. A couple things you should bear in mind:

ONE: limiting yourself to a particular locale will make finding the right job difficult. Be adventurous. Look for a place that's right for you, but don't limit yourself by city or state. This isn't a date, folks, it's a commitment.

TWO: Any real-world library experience you can offer (an internship, working as a student employee while an undergraduate, field work that involves you in doing research in a real library, even volunteering) will help. And remember, whatever job you apply for, you're not the only applicant. So putting your best foot forward is key.

I worry the profession has oversold its message a bit. The reality is jobs in libraries are not going to fall in your lap. But if you love the work and use your brains and are willing to make some effort to find the right match - there will be a place at the table for you.

Barbara

An academic library job interview, part 2

On Wednesday, April 13, and Thursday, April 14, I had my first "real" academic library job interview. I flew out of Chicago Wednesday early in the afternoon, transferred to another plane in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and then landed in Fargo, ND, late that afternoon.

The chair of the search committee picked me up at the airport. That evening, I had dinner with her and the director of the library. After dinner, the chair dropped me off at the hotel. With respect to practical matters, the college covered the cost of both the airfare and hotel accommodations.

The next day was packed. Here was the formal schedule:

9:00-9:45 Meeting with library director
9:45-10:15 Coffee with the library staff
10:30-11:15 Meeting with the college's Academic Dean
11:15-11:30 Meeting with the reference manager
11:30-12:00 Tour of library
12:00-1:15 Lunch with Search Committee (and students)
1:30-2:45 Teaching demonstration and meeting with Library Faculty
3:00-3:45 Meeting with Search Committee

This schedule may appear a bit intimidating, but the day flew by. I thought I would be exhausted by 3:45pm, but I was energized at the end of the interview.

The library faculty and staff were great. They made me feel welcomed and I felt that they treated me like an "equal." During coffee, for example, we had fun sharing the titles of books we had recently read. These were not people who were trying to trick or stump their candidates; I could tell that they genuinely wanted us to succeed. Indeed, the search committee was particularly interested in finding a good fit for the interviewee and the library. Important to them was finding a candidate who strongly supported information literacy programming and was sympathic with the mission of a liberal arts college (in this case, with a Lutheran liberal arts college).

This all very much relates to an article in Library Journal that was discussed on the collib-l listserv today. In responses to this article, many librarians on the listserv who had served on search committees commented that they sometimes receive 20-100 applications for job openings at their libraries. These applications, they said, are frequently cookie-cutter. That is, many of the applications they receive are not tailored for the particular job or institution.

However, such tailoring is important. Job applicants should remember that libraries spend considerable resources in conducting searches and hiring librarians. They want to hire people who are interested in their particular libraries, not just because they have a job opening. Thus, applications that mention an interest in the library or explain how the applicant's experience or skills relate directly to the job description are important. Yes, experience and education are important, but after all, if you were going to invite people for an interview, you would want to make sure the applicants are interested in working at your library, right? That the person you ultimately hire will want to stay after being hired, happily support the library's causes/mission, and make valuable contributions to the library and the greater institution?

Back to interviewing: In preparing for an interview, it is not only important to prepare for questions you might be asked, but it is also important to prepare questions you want to ask the interviewers (i.e., search committee, etc.) I found this to be a helpful article:

Biggs, D.R., et. al., Proactive interviewing [strategies for the assertive job hunt]. College & Research Libraries News no. 1 (January 1987) p. 13-17.

PS: I got the job! Starting August 15, I'll be one of Concordia College's instruction/reference librarians. I can't wait to start!

The Wikipedia

If you don't know what the Wikipedia is, it's time for you to catch up.

Among librarians I work with, there has been some bemused conversation about the Wikipedia. Some flatly reject it as a reference source, since it is not formally reviewed or written by "experts." Others I know believe that it is an authoritative reference, since its entries can be corrected instantaneously by anyone around the world.

What formal library research has been done on the Wikipedia? One might think that several reviews and articles would have been written and published in library research journals, full of interesting analysis about its potential (or not) as a reference source. However, I ran a search this evening in two of the primary library and information science indexes. There hasn't been much discussion, unfortunately:

Library and Information Science Abstracts: 7 articles (2 of those peer-reviewed)
Library Literature: 7 articles (4 of those peer-reviewed)

The Wikipedia itself contains an incomplete list of academic papers and presentations on/about the Wikipedia. Interestingly, it also contains an incomplete list of academic works that use the Wikipedia as a source! (It would be interesting to look at those papers now and compare the Wikipedia articles they cite.)

I haven't made up my mind as to whether I would, at the reference desk, consult or recommend to a person the Wikipedia as a reference work. I think the best bet, as in any research, is to use as many sources as realistically possible to confirm known facts. That is, use two or more works to act as checks on the other(s).

As a final thought, I think reference librarians must remember that "authoritative" reference works have their flaws. The "long-awaited publication of Oxford University Press's updated Dictionary of National Biography," published "after 12 years of research," "contains more than 50,000 biographies and costs £7,500." But as this article in The Observer notes, this reference work contains errors in biographies as basic as those of Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen! Note that, if this had been instead published as a Wiki, the errors would have been corrected, and the library wouldn't have spent £7,500 on a massive work with errors.

Alec

iPods and Libraries

Today, I received in the mail the iPod mini that I had ordered as a graduation present for myself. There has been a lot of chat in library land about how iPods (or any portable music device more generally) can be integrated into library services and education more generally.

Perhaps the two most well known iPod experiments in libraries and in higher education are:

1) Duke University last fall give all of its 1,650 incoming first-year students iPods. Duke is currently evaluating its iPod program, but not everyone there is convinced of their value as a teaching and learning tool. According to an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Last month editors of Duke's student newspaper, The Chronicle, urged campus officials to discontinue the iPod program, arguing that the university had not proved that iPods were legitimate classroom tools, and that Duke officials should look for more flexible devices if they want to encourage professors to teach with technology."

2) According to an article in Library Journal, "South Huntington Library, NY, became one of the first public libraries to circulate iPods, specifically the iPod Shuffle. ... Assistant Director Joseph Latini reports that the library purchased ten devices, six 1GB iPod shuffles ($149 each), the equivalent of a 16-hour audiobook, and four 512MB devices ($99 each), with eight-hour capacities. Titles come from the Apple iTunes site via Audible.com."

For South Huntington, the experiment has been a learning experience: "'Because it's so new we had to figure out how to catalog the audiobook on the Shuffle, get it into the public catalog, and allow people to place reserves,' [Director Ken] Weil says. 'There was no bib record to attach to iPods. We had to learn as we went along.' Getting them into the public catalog is important since 'that's how the public finds out what we have.'"

Besides serving as players for audiobooks, how might iPods and other such devices be used in the library? The Library Journal article mentions a couple of possibilities. First, they can be used for audio materials on reserves. Two, they can be used to provide instruction:

The Duke Divinity School Library, Durham, NC, has launched a project that puts audio instructions for using two electronic tools (Bibleworks and the ATLA Religions Database) and for navigating the print exegesis tools (Bible analysis and interpretation) in the Reference Room. "Since the librarians only work eight to five, Monday through Friday, and the library is open additional hours, we decided to record some instructions,"said Andrew Keck, Duke's electronic services librarian. Librarians like the iPod feature that alters playback speed (when saved in audiobook format), so that time-starved students can listen to a lecture at a faster rate. "Conversely, our students who work with English as a second language can slow things down," says Keck.

The Chronicle article ("Seriously, iPods Are Educational," March 18, 2005) offers other instructional possibilities. Some professors have gotten very creative indeed in using them as teaching and learning tools. For further examples, check out Duke's iPod First-Year Experience page for links to academic and course iPod projects.

Reinventing the wheel

Librarians and information scientists have studied various methods of information organization and retrieval for a number of years. Thus, when articles like this are published, I am both discouraged that our work has been ignored and encouraged that the work we do continues to have value today:

'Tags' Ease Sifting of Digital Data

This concept of "tagging," though, is nothing other than indexing. Consider Lancaster's definition of the process of indexing: "...the indexer describes [a document's] contents by using one or several index terms, often selecting them from some form of controlled vocabulary. ...the terms assigned by an indexer serve as access points through which an item can be located and retrieved in a subject search..." (Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice (2003)).

Traditionally, indexing has been in the hands of experts or been automated to a certain degree. So, is user indexing, as described in the "tagging" article, a new concept? No. Lancaster notes the following research: "Fidel (1994) uses the term 'user-centered indexing' to refer to the principle of indexing on the basis of requests expected from a particular audience. Hjorland (2001) agrees that indexing must be tailored to the needs of a particular clientele... writers such as Shatford (1986) and Enser (1995) point out that collections of images can be viewed quite differently by different groups of users. Thus, each group has different indexing needs. This led Brown et al. (1996) to suggest the need for a 'democratic' approach to indexing, with users of the images adding their own terms to a record where necessary and appropriate." Others Lancaster cites include Desser (1997) and Villarroel et al. (2002).

(The vocabularies that emerge from these user indexing systems are known as "folksonomies." This has been a hot topic in the blogging community this past spring.)

Lancaster has written:

"While new faces and new approaches are always welcome, it is unfortunate that many now working the field [of information retrieval] have absolutely no previous background and, thus, no firm foundation upon which to build. ... Many ideas appearing today have obvious antecedents in the literature of 30 or 40 years ago, yet these pioneering works are completely unknown to current investigators."

Perhaps the best examples of this ignorance is the popularity associated with metadata. Many people think this is a new idea, but, metadata, after all, is only structured information used to describe some resouce. Catalogers/librarians have been creating "metadata" for years to describe books. As Milstead and Feldman (1999) write, "...librarians and indexers have been producing and standardizing metadata for centuries."

It is popular to portray librarians as graybeards and the work that they do as outdated in the information age. But if "metadata" and "tagging" and "folksonomies" are any indication, the time-tested prinicples of information organization practiced by librarians and the research into information retrieval are as relevant as ever today.

Might I recommend to everyone Lancaster’s excellent Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice (2003). He is one of my professional heroes. His historical perspective and comprehensive literature reviews are important for the work that librarians, "information architects," information scientists, and indexers do.

[If you want the complete citation information to any of the above references, let me know.]

Alec