Around 11 today I found myself in one of those Kafkaesque moments when you have to have a paper receipt from someone to show someone else and find yourself shuttling from office to office in what, in the Florida heat, seems like an endless circle. Everyone is very nice, but it all gets a bit exasperating.
At one stage I was leaving the Olin Library when I met a first year student I had helped on the reference desk a couple of weeks ago. I asked her how her research had turned out and she happily told me how well it had gone and how helpful my assistance had been. She then told me she wanted to get a photo of me for a class project about people on campus who had helped her during her first week, so she is coming back later this afternoon to get a photo of me on the desk. How sweet!
I became a librarian because I love to help people find and use information. I came to Rollins because this kind of relationship with students is possible, or rather encouraged, here.
Suddenly my Kafkaesque moment evaporated.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Interlibrary loan (ILL)
A staff person at Olin recently asked me why we had to proceed quickly in terms of, as she put it, overhauling ILL. Here is an edited version of my response to her. Of course, what I think is not necessarily what will end up happening, there need to be a lot more people involved than me.
Parenthetically, isn't it interesting that we always refer to the service as interlibrary lending not borrowing? My philosophy is that we lend our materials to other libraries so that we can borrow material for our users. Getting stuff that our users want is the real core service here
One of the services I heard about that our users, at least the ones who spoke to me, thought needed improving is ILL. I heard about it at my interview and I heard about it as soon as I arrived on campus. I have learnt that when this happens, you listen. One of the big issues most liberal arts college libraries face is that their collections are too small to satisfy their active faculty and student users. ILL can be one of the most effective ways to alleviate this pressure.
Here are some of the things we should be thinking about:
ILL is an important part of the array of library services. Just remember: what do our users want? Our goal should be to get it for them, with no hassles.
Parenthetically, isn't it interesting that we always refer to the service as interlibrary lending not borrowing? My philosophy is that we lend our materials to other libraries so that we can borrow material for our users. Getting stuff that our users want is the real core service here
One of the services I heard about that our users, at least the ones who spoke to me, thought needed improving is ILL. I heard about it at my interview and I heard about it as soon as I arrived on campus. I have learnt that when this happens, you listen. One of the big issues most liberal arts college libraries face is that their collections are too small to satisfy their active faculty and student users. ILL can be one of the most effective ways to alleviate this pressure.
Here are some of the things we should be thinking about:
- Our policies regarding fees to users, limitations on the number or type of requests, how they place requests, and what we loan to other libraries. We need to think about whether what we do now best serves our users and if it does not can we change it.
- Are we making the best use of technology in ILL and in connection with ILL? Some of the things we have to think about here are an ILL management system (currently we use Clio) that will enable our users to request materials they find in a database without having to retype the bibliographic information (.i.e an Open URL compliant ILL system like Clio Advanced or Illiad. To implement that we would also need a Link Resolver that would enable our users to find licensed fulltext anywhere in our system. Take a look at Article Linker for an example. We need to consider ways of increasing borrowing turnaround like RapidILL We also need to think about ways to enable our users to track their own requests online, again take a look at Clio Advanced or Illiad to examples. We also need to maximize our use of Ariel so that we are not printing out articles for our users but posting them to a web server where our users can get them when they want them and sending our users a notifying e-mail. Finally, we need to think about ways we can maximize our use of the OCLC ILL subsystem with systems like custom holdings, direct borrowing etc.
- We need to think about why we lend twice as much as we borrow. We have a small collection and a smart student body and actively researching faculty. Why do we lend more than we borrow? My intuition tells me there are a number of answers to that question that include borrowing service level in ILL, direct cost of borrowing from Rollins for partner libraries, quality if not quantity of our collection, etc.
- Improving our resource sharing relationship with UCF. At the moment they are an active ILL partner and our users travel to UCF to borrow. We should think about a shared patron initiated borrowing service in which our users can borrow from the partner library quickly and easily without having to travel.
- Over the long term, the next decade, I want Rollins to be linked into statewide borrowing systems that rival OhioLINK and I-Share.
- The most important thing we need to think about is our customer service. We have to look at this from our users perspective. Are we giving them the service they want? LibQual will help answer some of this, we will also have to find other ways to answer this question.
ILL is an important part of the array of library services. Just remember: what do our users want? Our goal should be to get it for them, with no hassles.
Weekend Post
I spent the weekend back in Pittsburgh with my family. We had a great time, but it is hard on both them and me when we go back to being apart until we get back into the routine.
I am sure I can hear the gnashing of Floridian teeth as I tell you that I went for a gorgeous run on Sunday morning on a beautiful cool and misty fall morning. The trees are just turning, the geese are preparing to migrate. The run was cool and dry and so much more pleasant that running in the Orlando humidity.
Anyway, back to work!
I am sure I can hear the gnashing of Floridian teeth as I tell you that I went for a gorgeous run on Sunday morning on a beautiful cool and misty fall morning. The trees are just turning, the geese are preparing to migrate. The run was cool and dry and so much more pleasant that running in the Orlando humidity.
Anyway, back to work!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Qualitative Research into User Needs
Naomi Harrison recently shared a couple of interesting pieces from SirsiDynix OneSource with me. They are about seeing the library as the user sees it, something that is of great interest to us in the Olin Library at the moment.
The author, Mary Lee Kennedy of TKG Consulting advocates using persona, "characters created from a composite of data that emerges from traditional market research, the collective experience as narrated by users and non-users themselves, and observations of user and non-user behavior to understand groups of users." (Kennedy.) This makes me think that a persona is more than the mean of a particular demographic segment. It contains that kind of information, but also a lot of qualitative information that makes it richer and deeper than demographic statistical data. I am sure it is not incidental that it probably also makes TGK's market research more accessible and palatable to a statistically unsophisticated audience.
Kennedy's second article focuses more on what she has learnt from her market research. I particularly like this list.
"Users expect the following:
The author, Mary Lee Kennedy of TKG Consulting advocates using persona, "characters created from a composite of data that emerges from traditional market research, the collective experience as narrated by users and non-users themselves, and observations of user and non-user behavior to understand groups of users." (Kennedy.) This makes me think that a persona is more than the mean of a particular demographic segment. It contains that kind of information, but also a lot of qualitative information that makes it richer and deeper than demographic statistical data. I am sure it is not incidental that it probably also makes TGK's market research more accessible and palatable to a statistically unsophisticated audience.
Kennedy's second article focuses more on what she has learnt from her market research. I particularly like this list.
"Users expect the following:
- Easy access using their library or government issued ID.
- Friendly conversation with a library staff member who knows how to help them.
- Materials found easily where they are expected to be, including easy access online.
- Use of as many items as needed.
- Collection and building in good physical condition.
- Web site that is easy to use.
- Lots of choices, including diversity in format, language, and topics.
- Awareness and advisement of upcoming events.
- Friendly, personable staff." (Kennedy.)
Kennedy's research was conducted in the context of public libraries, but I don't see much on that list that does not apply to an academic library like the Olin Library. So, how do you think we are doing at meeting those nine expectations? Are there other expectations that you think a library like Olin should meet?
Monday, September 11, 2006
Chinese Libraries
I mentioned in an earlier post (7/15/06) that I had a couple of opportunities to travel to China in recent years. In 2002, while I was Library Director at Augustana College, I spent a month or more as a guest of the Department of Library and Information Management at Central China Normal University (CCNU) in Wuhan. I gave a number of presentations on library consortia, digital reference, and information literacy. Then in 2004, while working at the University of Pittsburgh, I returned to Wuhan, again for more than a month, this time as the guest of Wuhan University Library.
Both trips were amazing opportunities. Frankly, the first was a bit overwhelming. Everyone was very kind but things were so foreign, my Chinese was virtually non-existent, and I tended to withdraw into my room. CCNU grew from a teacher training college, but is now a large university of 20,000 students. I suppose a local US equivalent would be something like UCF, in the sense that an institution with a limited mission has grown with the local economy into something much larger.
The most impressive thing about China is how quickly it is growing and changing. I was able to revisit CCNU when I returned to Wuhan and in just two years the campus had changed significantly. Chinese librarians are also very impressive. I certainly did not feel as though I was the foreign expert bringing enlightenment to the backward Chinese librarians. They are struggling with exactly the same problems that librarians face in America: how to negotiate this hybrid infoWorld of print and digital information, how to teach students, who are facile with information technology, to be information literate, how to maximize a library's and the wider society's investment in information resources, and how to preserve the best of the past and embrace the promise of the future. The difference is that they are doing it on a much bigger scale, with far fewer resources, forcing them to react far more quickly, and without the same (at least modern) history of a cadre of professional librarians and a culture of open information access.
But I would never bet against the Chinese. I heard a story when I was in Wuhan about the first bridge across the Chang Jiang built in the 1950's. They brought in a series of foreign engineers and each group told they it could not be done, so they decided to do it themselves. The second time I flew back from China my flight was full of American engineers. They stood around in small groups with shell shocked expressions on their faces as they discussed the prospect of trying to compete with Chinese businesses that could now, or would be able to soon, do what their American companies could do but for a fraction of the cost. Like their Indian counterparts, Chinese business people and academics are very polite and do not seek to scare their foreign guests, but I think it is clear they are not aiming to be a second class economy or system of higher education that happily services the US. Their standard is pre-modern, when China was the center of the intellectual and economy world, even if we in Europe were only dimly aware of it. There have been studies recently that have downgraded the quality of Chinese engineering graduates, but as I say, I am not going to bet against the Chinese.
My second trip to China was far more enjoyable on a personal level than the first. Wuhan University is very highly rated and the librarians I worked with there were even better than the ones I worked with at CCNU. I worked with people I would hire in a minute if I had the opportunity. It is also renowned as a a beautiful campus (remind you of anywhere?) But it is even bigger than CCNU with 45,000 students. The scale of operations in China is breathtaking. Wuhan itself has about 7.2 million residents and I had never heard of it! I am reasonably geographically literate. How can there be a city of 7.2 million people I have never heard of? The really mind blowing thing is that there are lots of multi-million resident cities in China that I have, or had, never heard of and they are growing rapidly as the population moves from rural to urban.
Chinese libraries don't have the history of high quality, proactive public services that is the great gift of American librarians to the world, but they are keen to learn and discriminating in what they adopt and what they do not. They are interested in information literacy and in digital reference services. In the latter case, most are convinced, unlike US librarians, that digital reference can grow into sophisticated knowledge management and expert systems that can reuse the content and form of a response to a previous query to assist a future user. Most American librarians would say that the interaction between user and librarian is individual and so ephemeral that once stored the value is lost. But, as I say, I wouldn't bet against the Chinese.
One of my goals when I finish the PhD is to learn Pu tung hua, the Chinese common tongue.
Both trips were amazing opportunities. Frankly, the first was a bit overwhelming. Everyone was very kind but things were so foreign, my Chinese was virtually non-existent, and I tended to withdraw into my room. CCNU grew from a teacher training college, but is now a large university of 20,000 students. I suppose a local US equivalent would be something like UCF, in the sense that an institution with a limited mission has grown with the local economy into something much larger.
The most impressive thing about China is how quickly it is growing and changing. I was able to revisit CCNU when I returned to Wuhan and in just two years the campus had changed significantly. Chinese librarians are also very impressive. I certainly did not feel as though I was the foreign expert bringing enlightenment to the backward Chinese librarians. They are struggling with exactly the same problems that librarians face in America: how to negotiate this hybrid infoWorld of print and digital information, how to teach students, who are facile with information technology, to be information literate, how to maximize a library's and the wider society's investment in information resources, and how to preserve the best of the past and embrace the promise of the future. The difference is that they are doing it on a much bigger scale, with far fewer resources, forcing them to react far more quickly, and without the same (at least modern) history of a cadre of professional librarians and a culture of open information access.
But I would never bet against the Chinese. I heard a story when I was in Wuhan about the first bridge across the Chang Jiang built in the 1950's. They brought in a series of foreign engineers and each group told they it could not be done, so they decided to do it themselves. The second time I flew back from China my flight was full of American engineers. They stood around in small groups with shell shocked expressions on their faces as they discussed the prospect of trying to compete with Chinese businesses that could now, or would be able to soon, do what their American companies could do but for a fraction of the cost. Like their Indian counterparts, Chinese business people and academics are very polite and do not seek to scare their foreign guests, but I think it is clear they are not aiming to be a second class economy or system of higher education that happily services the US. Their standard is pre-modern, when China was the center of the intellectual and economy world, even if we in Europe were only dimly aware of it. There have been studies recently that have downgraded the quality of Chinese engineering graduates, but as I say, I am not going to bet against the Chinese.
My second trip to China was far more enjoyable on a personal level than the first. Wuhan University is very highly rated and the librarians I worked with there were even better than the ones I worked with at CCNU. I worked with people I would hire in a minute if I had the opportunity. It is also renowned as a a beautiful campus (remind you of anywhere?) But it is even bigger than CCNU with 45,000 students. The scale of operations in China is breathtaking. Wuhan itself has about 7.2 million residents and I had never heard of it! I am reasonably geographically literate. How can there be a city of 7.2 million people I have never heard of? The really mind blowing thing is that there are lots of multi-million resident cities in China that I have, or had, never heard of and they are growing rapidly as the population moves from rural to urban.
Chinese libraries don't have the history of high quality, proactive public services that is the great gift of American librarians to the world, but they are keen to learn and discriminating in what they adopt and what they do not. They are interested in information literacy and in digital reference services. In the latter case, most are convinced, unlike US librarians, that digital reference can grow into sophisticated knowledge management and expert systems that can reuse the content and form of a response to a previous query to assist a future user. Most American librarians would say that the interaction between user and librarian is individual and so ephemeral that once stored the value is lost. But, as I say, I wouldn't bet against the Chinese.
One of my goals when I finish the PhD is to learn Pu tung hua, the Chinese common tongue.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Rita Bornstein and Legitimacy
I met Rita a recent event and was struck by how closely she engaged with me. She certainly understands active listening and I can see why she was such a successful fund raiser, amongst other things. I hope I get the chance to get to know her better as I spend more time at Rollins.
When we talked about my plans for the library she recommended her book, "Legitimacy in the academic presidency : from entrance to exit." We have it in the Olin collection at LB2341 .B596 2003, but I have it checked out at the moment -- sorry. It is available at the Winter park Public Library in both print (3rd Floor - Adult Nonfiction 378.111 Bor) and as an e-book.
Reading this book is an eye opening experience for me. I am only part way through, but each page has at least one of what I think of as intellectual depth charges. Ideas that sink into your mind and then explode making links to current and previous experiences and spawning ideas that I am finding really fruitful.
There are so many differences between an academic president and a library director, but they are both leadership positions and as a new director I am finding the points that Rita makes, and those that she quotes from other writers on academic leadership, to be really useful.
I also think this concept of legitimacy can also be a useful lens through which to view an institution like a library. Libraries enjoy an enormous reservoir of legitimacy in academe and in our wider society. There is a reason why everyone and his brother wants to call their newest Internet start up a "library." This institutional legitimacy is something that has been built up over the decades, perhaps centuries, by diligent librarians working in the print environment, building collections and services that met the long term needs of their users. As we move further into this hybrid world of print and digital collections and services, we need to make sure that we retain this legitimacy and built it anew as information providers in the digital environment. As Rita points out it is easy to lose legitimacy and hard to regain it.
When we talked about my plans for the library she recommended her book, "Legitimacy in the academic presidency : from entrance to exit." We have it in the Olin collection at LB2341 .B596 2003, but I have it checked out at the moment -- sorry. It is available at the Winter park Public Library in both print (3rd Floor - Adult Nonfiction 378.111 Bor) and as an e-book.
Reading this book is an eye opening experience for me. I am only part way through, but each page has at least one of what I think of as intellectual depth charges. Ideas that sink into your mind and then explode making links to current and previous experiences and spawning ideas that I am finding really fruitful.
There are so many differences between an academic president and a library director, but they are both leadership positions and as a new director I am finding the points that Rita makes, and those that she quotes from other writers on academic leadership, to be really useful.
I also think this concept of legitimacy can also be a useful lens through which to view an institution like a library. Libraries enjoy an enormous reservoir of legitimacy in academe and in our wider society. There is a reason why everyone and his brother wants to call their newest Internet start up a "library." This institutional legitimacy is something that has been built up over the decades, perhaps centuries, by diligent librarians working in the print environment, building collections and services that met the long term needs of their users. As we move further into this hybrid world of print and digital collections and services, we need to make sure that we retain this legitimacy and built it anew as information providers in the digital environment. As Rita points out it is easy to lose legitimacy and hard to regain it.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Reference Evaluation
Well my post on websites (8/23/06) has resulted in the most comments (both posted to the blog, sent to me in e-mail, and mentioned to me in person) so far and I think we will return to that issue a bit later. Rollins is closed today as hurricane, not wait, tropical storm, no wait, depression Ernesto trundles our way so I am getting some much needed time to work on my diss.
In the meantime, here is a presentation I made at the ALA Conference in New Orleans in June on reference evaluation. It is best viewed with a recent version of IE.
Ongoing evaluation and assessment of library services is only going to become more important as colleges like Rollins continue to think about how to maximize their investment in resources that help them fulfill their educational mission.
In the meantime, here is a presentation I made at the ALA Conference in New Orleans in June on reference evaluation. It is best viewed with a recent version of IE.
Ongoing evaluation and assessment of library services is only going to become more important as colleges like Rollins continue to think about how to maximize their investment in resources that help them fulfill their educational mission.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Let's talk about websites
Specifically college library websites. What do you like about the Olin Library's website and what do you not like? Are there sites out there that you really like? Not because of the content of the site or the library, but because of how you navigate through the site, what you can do at the site, and the look and feel of the site?
Here are a few that I think are worth looking at, for either good or ill.
Middlebury College. I like the cool photos, the white space, and the san serif script (I am a sucker for san serif.) I really like the integration of IT and the library, but that is a topic for a different post. I like the navigation route thingy (I forget the technical term) that shows you what route you took to get here and enables you to get home or to any intermediate page easily. I like the quick links on the right. But the whole page has too many links. It is overwhelming.
Oberlin College. This is a sorry excuse for a website. Overstuffed with a weird mixture of services etc. and buttons with mixed fonts on the left. But hold on, what is this? A new and very definitely improved website. Changing images, the cool news blog, san serif and white space (of course), the integration of the catalog into the website, the quick links drop down menu. Perhaps still too many links (news and newspapers? Dictionaries? Do they really belong on the opening page?) I also had to scroll down to see the whole page, but overall, a huge improvement.
Smith College. It is fussy on the left hand side, but I like the menus that appear when your mouse floats over the, mercifully few, choices in the middle of the page.
Gustavus Adolphus College. I don't like the color scheme, but I rather like the Mondrianesque arrangement and the spare three column menu arrangement. Another OPAC search feature integrated into the home page, I like that.
Bowdoin College. Notice how it is integrated into the College home page via the top frame. The tabs in the middle are an interesting solution to the volume of information libraries have to convey. As well as my preferred elements that I have talked to death earlier in this list, I like the way your eyes are drawn to the center of the page where the real business links of the library are laid out.
Look, there are lots more. None are perfect. I don't think any college library website can fully satisfy all the needs of its constituents, but some do a better job than others. Which ones would you recommend? For even more fun, tell me which ones are truly appalling and why.
Here are a few that I think are worth looking at, for either good or ill.
Middlebury College. I like the cool photos, the white space, and the san serif script (I am a sucker for san serif.) I really like the integration of IT and the library, but that is a topic for a different post. I like the navigation route thingy (I forget the technical term) that shows you what route you took to get here and enables you to get home or to any intermediate page easily. I like the quick links on the right. But the whole page has too many links. It is overwhelming.
Oberlin College. This is a sorry excuse for a website. Overstuffed with a weird mixture of services etc. and buttons with mixed fonts on the left. But hold on, what is this? A new and very definitely improved website. Changing images, the cool news blog, san serif and white space (of course), the integration of the catalog into the website, the quick links drop down menu. Perhaps still too many links (news and newspapers? Dictionaries? Do they really belong on the opening page?) I also had to scroll down to see the whole page, but overall, a huge improvement.
Smith College. It is fussy on the left hand side, but I like the menus that appear when your mouse floats over the, mercifully few, choices in the middle of the page.
Gustavus Adolphus College. I don't like the color scheme, but I rather like the Mondrianesque arrangement and the spare three column menu arrangement. Another OPAC search feature integrated into the home page, I like that.
Bowdoin College. Notice how it is integrated into the College home page via the top frame. The tabs in the middle are an interesting solution to the volume of information libraries have to convey. As well as my preferred elements that I have talked to death earlier in this list, I like the way your eyes are drawn to the center of the page where the real business links of the library are laid out.
Look, there are lots more. None are perfect. I don't think any college library website can fully satisfy all the needs of its constituents, but some do a better job than others. Which ones would you recommend? For even more fun, tell me which ones are truly appalling and why.
Monday, August 21, 2006
The Book of Lost Books
I am reading Stuart Kelly's The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You'll Never Read and thoroughly enjoying it. I am afraid we do not have a copy in the Olin Library, but it is at the Winter Park Public Library, though checked out at the moment. It consists of many short chapters, each one about an author who wrote at least one work that is lost, no copies are known to exist, was never written, or not finished . It is fascinating, funny, heart breaking, and thought provoking.
You can imagine what a horribly delicious read this is for a librarian.
You can imagine what a horribly delicious read this is for a librarian.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Opening Libraries to the World
If you look to your left you will see a new feature of this blog. I have added some code (beta by the way) that enables anyone to search the WorldCat database (which includes at this writing more than 67 million bibliographic records and 1 billion individual holdings in 9,000 libraries around the world, including the Olin Library.)
One of the issues librarians have struggled with over the past decade is how to make their collections as visible to web users as openly accessible websites. WorldCat on the web is one way to do this. It enables you to search for an author, title, or topic and the use a ZIP code to find out if local libraries have what you want. Of course, you still have to be bona fide user of an owning library to be able to borrow something, but you can even buy a title if you prefer.
One thing that I think we in the Olin Library have to consider doing is finding more ways to take the library's collections, services, and professionals to the user, rather than waiting for the user to come to us. This means proactively getting out of the physical library, but it also means being proactive and taking the library to our users online, on the web, in Blackboard, in Facebook, throughout the Rollins website, and anywhere else our users might be when they want to use the library or have, what we call in the trade, an information need.
All you need is something to search for and a ZIP code. Give it a go and tell me what you think.
One of the issues librarians have struggled with over the past decade is how to make their collections as visible to web users as openly accessible websites. WorldCat on the web is one way to do this. It enables you to search for an author, title, or topic and the use a ZIP code to find out if local libraries have what you want. Of course, you still have to be bona fide user of an owning library to be able to borrow something, but you can even buy a title if you prefer.
One thing that I think we in the Olin Library have to consider doing is finding more ways to take the library's collections, services, and professionals to the user, rather than waiting for the user to come to us. This means proactively getting out of the physical library, but it also means being proactive and taking the library to our users online, on the web, in Blackboard, in Facebook, throughout the Rollins website, and anywhere else our users might be when they want to use the library or have, what we call in the trade, an information need.
All you need is something to search for and a ZIP code. Give it a go and tell me what you think.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The world is full of surprises. The big question is how you react to them.
The title of this post comes from an article on today's New York Times ( "Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower" by William C. Taylor. Business section, New York Times, August 13, 2006. From Rollins, you can find it here.)
It is all about unusual ways to collect information on how customers use products and services. For instance a hedge fund that invests in banks etc. spends a day using bank branches throughout Manhattan and gets a very different view of customer service and operations than the one it hears from the head office. Or an industrial design firm that films people taking showers instead of just asking them about how they shower. Taylor's conclusion -- and my title -- is a quote from Jana Eggers.
At the Olin Library, we certainly need to find a variety of ways to assess and evaluate our services, facilities, and resources as we develop a plan for the future, but what really matters is how we react to what we learn.
It is all about unusual ways to collect information on how customers use products and services. For instance a hedge fund that invests in banks etc. spends a day using bank branches throughout Manhattan and gets a very different view of customer service and operations than the one it hears from the head office. Or an industrial design firm that films people taking showers instead of just asking them about how they shower. Taylor's conclusion -- and my title -- is a quote from Jana Eggers.
At the Olin Library, we certainly need to find a variety of ways to assess and evaluate our services, facilities, and resources as we develop a plan for the future, but what really matters is how we react to what we learn.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Presentation to Rollins
During my interview I was asked to make a presentation and chose to talk about the Role of the College Library in the Age of the Universal Library. So I load it here in case anyone who was not able to attend is interested. It is best viewed with recent versions of Internet Explorer.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Planning
One of the things that struck me when I interviewed here and that has been reinforced by the contact I have had with the Olin Library and Rollins College since then, including my first day here, is that this is a well run library that has the support of the Rollins community.
There is no big crisis that I need to come in quickly and fix. (If you disagree, please let me know!)
What this library does need is a new strategic plan. The present plan is dated 2003 and much of it has either been successfully completed or superseded.
President Duncan was right when he was asked what his immediate plans were, ""My plan is to listen. I'll listen and ask questions ... and actually those are two very different things." A wise librarian once advised me on becoming a new director, if at all possible, to listen for the first year and really get to know the campus community.
Listening to students and faculty, as part of a thorough environmental scan, should be the first stage of an good strategic planning process. This can be done through general surveys like LibQual, through focus groups, and also through personal meetings, either individually or in groups.
There is a lot more to successful strategic planning and I hope to write about that soon, but in the meantime, expect to see a lot of such listening and questioning this year.
If you want to jump the gun and tell me what you think now, be my guest. Send me an e-mail or post a comment to this blog.
There is no big crisis that I need to come in quickly and fix. (If you disagree, please let me know!)
What this library does need is a new strategic plan. The present plan is dated 2003 and much of it has either been successfully completed or superseded.
President Duncan was right when he was asked what his immediate plans were, ""My plan is to listen. I'll listen and ask questions ... and actually those are two very different things." A wise librarian once advised me on becoming a new director, if at all possible, to listen for the first year and really get to know the campus community.
Listening to students and faculty, as part of a thorough environmental scan, should be the first stage of an good strategic planning process. This can be done through general surveys like LibQual, through focus groups, and also through personal meetings, either individually or in groups.
There is a lot more to successful strategic planning and I hope to write about that soon, but in the meantime, expect to see a lot of such listening and questioning this year.
If you want to jump the gun and tell me what you think now, be my guest. Send me an e-mail or post a comment to this blog.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Arriving on campus
I arrived on the Rollins campus today after a long but uneventful trip from Pittsburgh. I don't have much time to write today, but I did want to note a few things I noticed on arriving here. No, not the heat. I think it has been hotter in Pittsburgh that here for the last few days!
Facilities and Campus Security staff helped me get settled in the Sutton Place Apartments. Despite being very busy with preparations for the begining of term everyone was unfailingly polite, helpful and friendly and I dealt with individuals with names -- Sharon, Phil, Duane, Ken, Kim, Laura. This is a huge difference from a place like Pitt, where you rarely get to know someone's name and only deal with offices, not individual people.
Another difference: no forms. I am sure there will be some, but so far I haven't had to fill in a form. Lovely.
Finally, the campus is as beautiful as I remember it.
Facilities and Campus Security staff helped me get settled in the Sutton Place Apartments. Despite being very busy with preparations for the begining of term everyone was unfailingly polite, helpful and friendly and I dealt with individuals with names -- Sharon, Phil, Duane, Ken, Kim, Laura. This is a huge difference from a place like Pitt, where you rarely get to know someone's name and only deal with offices, not individual people.
Another difference: no forms. I am sure there will be some, but so far I haven't had to fill in a form. Lovely.
Finally, the campus is as beautiful as I remember it.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Traveling to Orlando
I am going to be moving over the next few days so don't expect an entry until next week.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Congratulations to Yvonne Jones
Our own Yvonne Jones has just published her article "Oversized and underused: Size Matters in Academic Libraries" -- gotta love that title! -- in the July 2006 College & Research Libraries (you can find it here via Rollins.)
It is a useful study of how college libraries define and shelve oversized books, which are in my experience surprisingly vexing problems, and whether this impacts the overall level of use. She found that how the library handled these materials didn't make too much of a difference, probably because users are now often browsing and finding such books in the OPAC rather than by browsing the shelves.
College & Research Libraries is one of the top journals in academic librarianship, so congratulations to Yvonne.
It is a useful study of how college libraries define and shelve oversized books, which are in my experience surprisingly vexing problems, and whether this impacts the overall level of use. She found that how the library handled these materials didn't make too much of a difference, probably because users are now often browsing and finding such books in the OPAC rather than by browsing the shelves.
College & Research Libraries is one of the top journals in academic librarianship, so congratulations to Yvonne.
Fred Kilgour 1914-2006
I learned that Fred Kilgour died yesterday. He was one of the great librarians of the 20th century. One of the first librarians to recognize how useful computing technologies could be to libraries, he founded a computerized system that enabled academic libraries in Ohio to share cataloging records called OCLC. Sharing online cataloging records meant that only one library had to originally catalog a book, all the others could simply link to that record and download the record to their own catalog. This was a huge saving in terms of labor. The system also improved how libraries found out what other libraries owned, and enabled libraries to borrow and lend those materials. This union catalog has grown into what we know today as WorldCat.
A great librarian; creative, effective, visionary. He will be sadly missed.
A great librarian; creative, effective, visionary. He will be sadly missed.
Friday, July 28, 2006
To Be Literate is to Possess the Cow of Plenty
I have loved the title of this post since I first picked up S.R. Ranganathan's "Five Laws of Library Science" back in library school in the early 90's. It is the motto of the Madras Library Association that first published Ranganathan's book back in 1931. A good image of it and the seal of the MLA has been scanned by a librarian at the Colorado College Tutt Library.
As a reference librarian, I am embarrassed to say that I am not sure what it means exactly or where the MLA found it (brownie points to the first reader who can provide the answer) but I am sure you get the point. My guess is it is another, far more poetic, way of saying knowledge is power (and I do know that is a derived from Francis Bacon's Meditationes Sacrae.)
Ranganathan was a remarkable man. A mathematician who became India's most famous and influential librarian. He promolgated his five laws in the context of a manual of library service. They are simple yet profound and I have found them to be important guideposts throughout my career.
Books are for use.
Every reader his or her book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The Library is a growing organism.
The book (especially the 1931 edition) is now difficult to get hold of. I am afraid it is not in any local libraries and unavailable at any of the big online new and used book sellers. Copies are available in Florida State University and the State Library's collections. But I would wait for dLIST's digital version.
As a reference librarian, I am embarrassed to say that I am not sure what it means exactly or where the MLA found it (brownie points to the first reader who can provide the answer) but I am sure you get the point. My guess is it is another, far more poetic, way of saying knowledge is power (and I do know that is a derived from Francis Bacon's Meditationes Sacrae.)
Ranganathan was a remarkable man. A mathematician who became India's most famous and influential librarian. He promolgated his five laws in the context of a manual of library service. They are simple yet profound and I have found them to be important guideposts throughout my career.
Books are for use.
Every reader his or her book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The Library is a growing organism.
The book (especially the 1931 edition) is now difficult to get hold of. I am afraid it is not in any local libraries and unavailable at any of the big online new and used book sellers. Copies are available in Florida State University and the State Library's collections. But I would wait for dLIST's digital version.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Take a look to the left.
I have some links to various online open access journals in the left hand bar and a few things caught my eye this evening.
The first is a whole issue of "First Monday" devoted to papers from their 2006 First Monday Conference on the Open Access (OA) movement. Open Access is already having a major impact upon scholarly communication, and therefore libraries, and this will only grow in the years ahead. Access that is free to the end user via the Internet has great potential for relatively small libraries like the Olin Library. These papers indicate that the potential of OA goes far beyond libraries and U.S. higher education.
The other is an article in the current issue of "Ariadne" on the history and future of search engines by Phil Bradley. His conclusions bring me straight back to a point I seem to never escape from: one role of the library, in partnership with the rest of the faculty, will be to help students understand and think critically about how these commercial search engines relate to the wider information environment and how individuals want to interact with these search engines.
The first is a whole issue of "First Monday" devoted to papers from their 2006 First Monday Conference on the Open Access (OA) movement. Open Access is already having a major impact upon scholarly communication, and therefore libraries, and this will only grow in the years ahead. Access that is free to the end user via the Internet has great potential for relatively small libraries like the Olin Library. These papers indicate that the potential of OA goes far beyond libraries and U.S. higher education.
The other is an article in the current issue of "Ariadne" on the history and future of search engines by Phil Bradley. His conclusions bring me straight back to a point I seem to never escape from: one role of the library, in partnership with the rest of the faculty, will be to help students understand and think critically about how these commercial search engines relate to the wider information environment and how individuals want to interact with these search engines.
Disaster Plans
As you might imagine, I have a growing list of things I need to find out about when I get the Olin Library. With hurricane season upon us and the library's beautiful location right next to a lake, one thing I am interested in finding out about is what kind of disaster plans exist on campus and in the library.
American Libraries Direct (a newsletter from the American Libraries Association) had a brief item today about D-plan, "a free online program to help institutions write comprehensive disaster plans. dPlan provides an easy-to-use template that allows museums, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions of all sizes to develop a customized plan" from the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
Fire, flood, earthquakes, negligence, war, theft, pests, mold ... the list of things that can damage or destroy a library seems endless. Two books that give you a good sense of the impact of disaster on libraries and thus on the wider society (and perhaps more interestingly, the impact of societal collapse on libraries) are Matthew Battles' Library: An Unquiet History (not available in Olin unfortunately, but it is in the Winter Park Public Library at 027.009 Bat and in UCF Main Library General Collection at Z721 .B28 2003) and Lionel Casson's Libraries in the Ancient World (available in the Olin library General Collection at Z722.C37 2001)
American Libraries Direct (a newsletter from the American Libraries Association) had a brief item today about D-plan, "a free online program to help institutions write comprehensive disaster plans. dPlan provides an easy-to-use template that allows museums, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions of all sizes to develop a customized plan" from the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
Fire, flood, earthquakes, negligence, war, theft, pests, mold ... the list of things that can damage or destroy a library seems endless. Two books that give you a good sense of the impact of disaster on libraries and thus on the wider society (and perhaps more interestingly, the impact of societal collapse on libraries) are Matthew Battles' Library: An Unquiet History (not available in Olin unfortunately, but it is in the Winter Park Public Library at 027.009 Bat and in UCF Main Library General Collection at Z721 .B28 2003) and Lionel Casson's Libraries in the Ancient World (available in the Olin library General Collection at Z722.C37 2001)
No plan can cover every eventuality and, to paraphrase Moltke, no plan survives contact with reality. But a thorough disaster plan, that everyone who needs to know is aware of, can save you from a "world of pain", to quote another great strategic thinker.
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