Look inside the mind of a library circulation worker...

...when things are super slow, I get sucked into the Bermuda Triangle of social media:


When I'm really bored, I make Venn Diagrams:



Thankfully I have enough on my plate that this doesn't happen super often!

Demystifying ILL

As an undergrad, I LOVED interlibrary loan. I was doing one of those crazy esoteric senior projects - examining the historical development of agriculture technology and the bifurcation of nature and society (say that 10 times fast). While we had an awesome library, it didn't have most of what I needed to write this paper. Interlibrary loan saved the day. Putting in a request one day and having it show up in either my email inbox or campus mailbox was amazing. If I knew then that I would be working in an interlibrary loan office a few years later, I would have been much more appreciative.

I now realize that interlibrary loan is a lot of work. And I don't think that library users are aware of this. I know I didn't before I worked in a library. So I posted this thought on twitter:

I hope patrons realize how much work goes into getting their articles through ILL...

..and I got this response:

@JenniferMReads I'm a librarian & don't know exactly what goes into getting an article via ILL! Blog post idea??!!

Well, JenniferMReads, here it is. I lift the veil of Inter-Library Loan:

First, a note. My responsibility right now is just to process incoming lending requests, providing patrons from other libraries with materials from our collection. Also, we're a relatively large medical academic library, so we get a lot of lending requests. That said, here is a *brief* description of how this process goes down:

- Request comes in through one of three avenues: illiad, docline or document delivery

- I process the request, locating where it might be in the library (physical location or electronic database) and what format the requesting library would like it in (physical book/journal or tiff or pdf)

- Locate the item, pulling it from the stacks or navigating databases and publishers websites

- Scan the item and save it in the preferred format or download the article

- Send the item: package and address the book or journal or make sure that the proper electronic format gets sent through the appropriate electronic pathways (through Ariel or Odyssey software or save the pdf on a server and email the link to the library).

- Repeat again, and again. and again. and again.

The craziest part about ILL is that requests never. stop. coming. in. It's like running up a giant sand dune. Each step takes you closer to the top, but you are constantly sliding backwards. If you ever stop, you'll find yourself back at the bottom.

And these are just requests from other libraries, let alone placing a request for material from another library for our patrons.

While this post might sound "woe is me," I love working in inter-library loan. It provides many hands on learning opportunities. I am constantly thinking of the user, remembering what it was like to receive requested articles. I also remember what it was like to receive an article that was blurry, cut off, hard to read or had lots of black areas from poor scanning/copying that wasted toner when printed off. So I take care to ensure that my scans are readable and printable. I know patrons don't stop to think about the quality of their article - unless the quality is poor. So my goal is to make sure that patrons don't don't how awesome there scans and copies are.

I'm also getting some great experience navigating through databases and publisher websites. In the few weeks that I have worked in the ILL office, I have probably looked up more journal articles than in the entirety of my post-secondary academic career.

And of course I spend the time with some great individuals who create a pretty awesome work environment.

ILL is an essential part to the library system, creating additional avenues for patrons to access information they need. I hope this description helps clear up some of how those materials are brought in. And if you ever receive a journal article from a medical library in the Pacific Northwest, know that it was sent with a little bit of love!

Outreach never ends...

This is the third post in a series celebrating National Library Week.

Today is National Bookmobile Day! While I have never had personal experience with bookmobiles - I grew up in a pretty compact town, with little need for one - I have always been in awe of them. I think they're amazing services, especially for rural libraries, with excellent outreach and marketing capabilities. And they don't even have to be motorized.

In the 21st century, there are two ways for users to interact with their libraries: physically and virtually. Bookmobiles are just one amazing example of physical outreach to our communities - but how do we outreach to our virtual communities? By utilizing the same technology that has made so many of our users deem libraries irrelevant: social media.

Murray Library (UT) has incorporated an amazing blog feature right on their homepage, creating virtual reader's advisory. Initiated by a senior librarian who wanted to really encourage all library workers to become involved with readers advisory, the feature is simple but well implemented. Each post includes a well written review, clicking on the image takes the user straight to the catalog record and if the user enjoys the staff member's review, they can click on the reviewer's name and see what else they recommend. And it's not just books that are reviewed - the blog offers music reviews with YouTube videos of the featured artist. Even if their users are never interacting with librarians in the library, this is a great way for them to interact with the organization when they log on to check out books.

And then there are the "traditional" social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, etc. While libraries are still figuring out the bast way to put them to use (with some having better results than others), individual librarians are certainly all over social media. I was having a conversation with a classmate this weekend (@overgeeked for those of you on twitter) about how twitter seemed pretty irrelevant before we were in library school. But now it seems necessary. We have these tools whose primary purpose is to share information - how can we, as information professionals, not be a part of that?

Bookmobiles have always seemed to be a part of libraries - reaching patrons outside of libraries certainly has. Now that librarianship and information services are becoming much more nebulous, its time to start adapting and start realizing that adaptations are going to be a regular part of the game.

photo credit: New York Public Library, 1938, via The Commons

A Call for Creativity

This is the second post in a series celebrating National Library Week.

This term I am enrolled in the class "Information Services for Academic Libraries," which has provided some of the best readings to date in my MLIS program. One of the latest articles we read was Lingo and Tepper's "The Creative Campus" from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

While this article called for the need of more creativity in the academic institution as a whole, I feel that this argument is especially true for academic libraries. In a day and age where shouting out your relevancy to your users, communities and power holders may not even be enough, incorporating and promoting creativity within your organizational culture can certainly go a long way. Here are some recent examples of creative efforts by academic librarians:

Using free social networking tools to embed yourself in classes. Again in the Chronicle, there was an article highlighting a librarian who is embedded in a classroom, where she and the students are logged into twitter together. Throughout the class discussion, she will tweet relevant information sources and material. What is amazing about this is how in happens in real time, and the sources she recommends are in response to the topics and ideas brought up in discussion, not based off of a course reading list or research topic list - creating organic librarianship rather than static librarianship.

Re-imagining physical library space. I found this one by browsing Library Journal's list of 2011 movers and shakers. Joesph Sanchez, Library Director at Red Rocks Community College, converted an old storage room into a recording studio. Not only is that an amazing service to offer to students, but this would also be a great resource to include in marketing campaigns.

Providing amazing User Experience and Web Design. Everyone laments the ineffectual design found on academic websites (xkcd captured the sentiment perfectly). Creativity is an essential element of good design, and a lack of creativity equals bad design. Library websites are not immune from this phenomenon. I find that the typical causes for poor design on library websites are the stiffing policies set in stone by bureaucratic institutions. However, there are some libraries out there who are getting it right: While not perfect, I think PNCA's Fine Art Library is one of the better academic library websites I have seen. Simple? check... Navigable? check... Visually appealing? ...check and check!

Not only is this week National Library Week, but today is National Library Workers Day. Library workers (especially student workers) can be some of your biggest sources of creative potential, often bringing specialized skills and resources to the table. And keeping with the theme of Big Tent Librarianship, while this post focused on Academic Libraries any and all forms of libraries could always incorporate creativity. In fact, one of my favorite library websites comes from a public library! When it comes to creativity, I am a firm believer that we all have a thing or two to teach each other!

photo credit: New York Public Library, 1923, via The Commons

#libchat

Due to a cold that is making its way around the library and coworkers on spring break, I had the privilege of six uninterrupted hours at the circulation desk..

...It actually wasn't that bad. I was able to get a lot of school work done, and I had an hour and a half dedicated to the second weekly libchat on twitter, which helped the time fly by.

Started by Natalie Binder (@nataliebinder), wh0 offers an excellent explanation on her blog, Libchat is like a live mini-discussion with people who are interested in libraries and information management. But it is a discussion where location and geography doesn't matter.

It works like this like this: Folks tweet their questions to Natalie ahead of time. During the chat, every 20 minutes or so she shares a question. The rest is a pretty organic experience - like any other normal conversation -with people from all over sharing their answers, ideas and insights. And it's pretty fascinating to watch what happens.

However, it certainly isn't a perfect medium for having a conversation. What is most frustrating is the fact that it is twitter, and you only have 140 characters. So it is a little awkward and it can be hard to offer an answer when there are some pretty big questions raised. For Example:


Really? Where to begin...

Thankfully there were some great answers, such as @ValentineLuLu's:

And @overgeeked's:

Which leads us to the benefits of libchat. It was great to see all of the different topics raised in such a short amount of time. The quickness of the format got your mind churning about all of the different issues that libraries are having to deal with. It was also awesome having so many library students in attendance: we're already thinking about a multitude of issues from our different classes, libchat was an additional exercise to keep those ideas freshly flowing.

Along with the different ideas, it was great to see some themes emerge as well. Natalie asked:



Participants answer's revolved around user centered missions such as customer service and information access. Questions like this helped support my belief that no matter how much the industry evolves, our missions and core values will prevail. After all, Ranganathan developed the five laws of library science in the middle of the 20th century, and they are still relevant today.

I'm pretty excited about the potential libchat holds. It is an amazing way for the library community to connect, no matter where members are located. And it is going be to a great way for us to discuss the current issues and support each other as we weather the changes that keep us on our toes (was it a coincidence that the Harper Collins debate popped up in both this week and last week's chat? Of course not).

I really hope that these chats continue, they certainly seem to be picking up steam. Right now they are scheduled for Wednesday evenings at 8pm eastern time (5pm here on the west coast), and I hope to see you at the next one...

Public Librarians, take a bow!

The past few days have been pretty exciting for libraries. There has been some amazing, and loud, debate surrounding Harper Collins' new policies surrounding library's purchasing their ebooks. In simplest terms, Harper Collins - working with Over Drive - will sell their ebook to a library, but that ebook can only circulate 26 times before the library has to repurchase said book.

Librarians are not pleased, and between Facebook, Blogs, and Twitter they are letting the world know how disgruntled they are. To see the crazy amount of noise that librarians are making for yourself, just go to twitter.com and search for #hcod. You don't even have to log in or create an account, the results will pop up. Just be sure to come back here when you're done.

And it makes sense why librarians are up in arms. This would take collection development in a whole new direction. When library funds are limited it can be challenging enough to try and make your collection grow appropriately. But, as this youtube video highlights, Harper Collins' new policy would add even more constraints to collection development.

It would be like trying to buy gas, but for every five gallons, you would have to buy back the keys to your car.

I am finding this debate absolutely fascinating. Working in a medical academic library, we certainly emphasize electronic journals, but not so much electronic books. This issue is going to affect public libraries the most...

...While ebooks have been around for about a decade, best practices for delivering content to the masses still need to be figured out. Even for-profit organizations are scrambling. Traditional booksellers like Borders are going belly up while independent writers who avoid traditional publishing houses are making millions. And it's just as confusing for libraries. There has been a lot of discussion among my classmates on what the best answer is, and the debate seems to follow most debates in librarianship: services versus systems.

So, what's the best answer? I have no idea. I'm not sure anyone does. But that's not important. What is important is that librarians are contributing to the discussions. While many people argue that libraries are irrelevant in the 21st century, this debate is proving that librarians help shape the way individuals will receive digital content. Need evidence? Both authors and publishers are taking notice:

Marilyn Johnson, author of The Dead Beat and This Book is Overdue, posted on her blog that while publisher and authors need to be compensated, it should not be off the backs of libraries.While it may be lukewarm, Harper Collins themselves commented on the debate that librarians are stirring up. They call for collaboration, but it doesn't sound like they will change their policy.

I'm real excited to see where this debate goes. But I am mostly excited, and proud, of the way that librarians are refusing to give in without a fight.While I may only be on the sidelines, battles like this are the reason I went into library school.

In defense of twitter...

So, I am one week in to my own twitter account, and I'm loving it.

On a superficial level it's a great way to pass the time during the quiet hours in the library when I am working the circulation desk.

On a deeper level I love the constant sharing of information. Maybe it's because I am such an extrovert, but I love microblogging. It's quick and dirty and gets the information out fast. I love seeing all of the different links that people share and I love having a place where I can unabashedly share my own links. Sometimes I am hesitant to post stories/videos/pictures/stuff to Facebook, because I'm afraid of over-sharing. But that's kind of the point of twitter, to over-share.

I have been getting interesting responses when I tell people that I have a twitter account. People who have an account seem supportive or amused. People who don't have an account seem skeptical (at best) or express their out right disdain for twitter (at worst). I'll admit that I stayed away from it for a while, but that was mostly because it seemed overwhelming to me (and I thought you had to have a smart phone to use it). I think with any form of social media, there are going to be people who don't see it's relevant use.

But I have been finding Twitter super useful. Whereas Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people, Twitter is a great way to follow the informational people consume - especially when their interests align with yours.

Photo credit: dbarronoss

tweet tweet

It seems the one social media trend that librarians are all over is twitter. I hate feeling left out. So...

...It's official. I've joined the revolution. Follow me.