Outsourcing Librarianship to an iPhone App

Yep, I’ve found a way to marginalize our profession with a simple iPhone application.  I bought an iPhone last week and I LOVE it.  It’s the best invention since the iPod and will be even better once they make the storage on them big enough to hold all my music (other 50 GB right now).  I downloaded an app called “Librarian.”  Yep, our days are numbered!  You turn it on, set the noise sensitivity meter and when the volume goes over that point, it goes “Shhhhhh!”  THAT’S IT, WE’RE FINISHED!!  I mean, yeah now we have more time to check out books, but that is also being taken over by self checkout systems.  So I guess we’ll get to just sit around and do the part of our jobs we enjoy the most, READ!

Seriously, isn’t that what many people think about our profession?  Come on, we’ve all heard it…we tell people we are a librarian and they say “OH!  I love to read!  That would be a great job.”  Or when I was in library school I would have people ask me why I needed a special degree for to do that?  I heard that more when I lived in Kentucky than I do in Indiana – I’m not making Kentucky jokes, just stating a fact.  But even in Indiana, among other professionals and highly educated people, there is general lack of understanding of what we do.  I’ve spoken to people who realize it is a profession and that a Masters degree is required.  They have respect for the field, but still ask, “so what EXACTLY do you do on a day to day basis?”  They don’t know.  So I guess next time someone asks me, I will break out my iPhone, turn on that app, and say, “Well, I used to do this” (and play the Shhhh sound), but now my iPhone does it for me.  I figure that might be a good starting point when having to once again, explain what exactly librarianship is all about.

Is Google the New Microsoft?

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/is-google-the-new-microsoft
Ok, so now Google is challenging Facebook and Twitter by adding new social features to Gmail that would allow users to more quickly and easily share status updates and media.  These features are the heart and soul of Facebook and Twitter and by integrating it into their other programs such as Gmail, Picasa Photos, and YouTube, it poses the question, is Google beginning to look and act like Microsoft by trying to get in on every new innovation and make it their own?  Ever since they first produced their Windows operating system, Microsoft has always taken existing ideas and made them their own.  They have been highly successful and profitable with their flagship products, their Windows operating system and Office productivity suite.  While I still value these products, it seems like in the last ten years, they have done nothing original.  They latch onto a new concept or product developed by someone else and try to make it their own, often times unsuccessfully.  In contrast, Google has been a leader in new innovations and has done very well with their products, which by the way are mostly free.  But as Google expands into an ever increasing array of areas such as their own cell phone, and now these new Gmail services, you have to wonder, are they losing their edge?  Are they becoming another Microsoft?

Read more at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/08/gmail-social-feature-to-l_n_453809.html

Social media: A guide for college and university libraries

ACRL has put out a guide for those librarians who are beginning to experiment with using social media services.  This is a good tips and tricks article oh how these services can be best utilized to promote library services and to dialog with users.  Since I am in the early stages of these experiments myself, I found this guide somewhat useful.  The guide can be found at http://crln.acrl.org/content/71/1/10.full

TONIGHT: PBS FrontLine: Digital Nation

This looks like an excellent program on how the digital world and the real world converge.  Looks like it will be a great program; don’t miss it!   http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

The Library Website with a Face: Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/the-library-we…where-they-are
Yesterday I gave a summary of the Indiana Online Users Group (IOLUG) Fall 2009 Meeting in Plainfield, Indiana on Nov 13, 2009.  Today I would like to expand a little upon what I spoke about.  I only spoke for 15 minutes, but it was about something I discovered that has profound implications for a small college library like mine.  My topic was “The Library Website with a Face:  Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are.”  In summary, creating a website where the users can always see if a librarian is available to help them and the ability to connect to them instantly through a chat widget.

At Logan Library, we experimented with a third party virtual reference service for one year.  We had very few virtual reference sessions.  First, to keep the price down, we could only have one librarian logged in at a time and there were large chunks of time when nobody was online.  Second, the chat link, a button that said “Online” or “Offline” depending on whether someone was logged in or not, was only located on the library website’s main page.  At the time that we stopped this service, we began a subscription to LibGuides, a Web 2.0 platform for creating subject guides.  By default, each LibGuide adds the guide owner’s profile to each page of the guide.  Profiles can include numerous types of contact information as well as a chat widget from almost any of the major IM services.  While the most commonly used widget by librarians is for Meebo, we decided to use AOL Instant Messenger and use their widget directly.  We found this best to suit our needs.  We also use Trillian instead of the actual AIM software because it allows us to set the time for the “away” message to coincide with the screen saver; thus we can set it to a very short amount of time so that if we walk away from our computer, the away message will kick in shortly thereafter.  This decreases the chances of users sending us a message and not getting a reply.  Since we only have two reference librarians, we also made it so that the profile of each of us was on the main page of each guide home page, thus they can see if either of us is available.  Finally, we added a “Help” tab to each guide which contains contact information and chat widgets to other library staff members who can help in other ways.  For example, our Interlibrary loan librarian’s box has her contact information, her chat widget, and her picture with the caption “I can help you with questions about Interlibrary loan requests.”   Likewise, each reference librarian’s caption says “I can help you with your research.”  This removes the ambiguity regarding who can help for certain questions.

As a result, we have seen virtual reference questions jump from a handful a quarter to a handful a day.  Most questions such as “what database would be best to search for a particular topic?” or “how can I find out if we subscribe to a particular journal?” can be answered quickly and easily.  In the past, most students would wait until they had time to come to the library to ask these simple questions.   If someone needs more in-depth reference assistance that is hard to do through chat, we can simply set up a time to meet them in the library to give them the appropriate attention.  Thus, knowing that most research is being done outside of the library and with the frequency of use, we know that we have filled an important void in our library service.

Our LibGuides site can be viewed at http://library.rose-hulman.edu and my presentation can be viewed at  http://www.slideshare.net/histrydude/the-library-website-with-a-face-digitally-connecting-to-people-where-they-are or by clicking the image above.

IOLUG Fall Meeting on Managing Your Digital Identity a Huge Success

Well, I’ve been quiet the last week or so but I’ve been busy.  Between spending large chunks of time at ISU to listen to ILS vendors give us sales pitches and demos of their systems, planning for the IOLUG meeting, and probably a dozen other little things that have popped up in the last week, I have not had much time to blog.  But again, that IS the theme of my blog…doing this, that, and the other thing!  So here is a quick wrap up of the Fall 2009 Indiana Online Users Group (IOLUG) Meeting.  The theme was “Hot or Not: Managing Your Digital Identity” it it was held at the Plainfield Public Library.  The morning Keynote was “Yes, You Are Speaking in Public: the Implications of Building a Personal and Professional Online Presence” by Jenica Rogers, Director of libraries at SUNNY, Potsdam.  This was followed by three breakout sessions 1) Online Public Identities: The Unexpected Dangers, by Jenica Rogers; 2) Tips and Tricks – a)New Friend Requests: Managing Personal and Professional Contacts on Facebook, by Jason Fields, b) Search Engine Optimization by Michael Witt, c) The Website with a Face: Digitally Connecting to People Where They Are, by me, Richard Bernier, and c) Virtual Venues and Collaborations:  Strengthening Your Staff and Services Using Facebook by Misti Shaw; 3) Facebook Basics (workshop) by Daniel Nguyen, Bill Helling, Emily Griffin, and Melissa Hostetler.  The afternoon keynote was “Social Library is People: Strategies for Making Your Online Organization More Human, by Toby Greenwalt, Virtual Services Coordinator for the Skokie Public Library.  The three breakout sessions included the Tips and Tricks and Facebook Basics again along with “Putting It All Together: Monitoring and Participating in Your Online Community without Losing Your Mind, by Toby Greenwalt.  The day was capped off with a Panel on Personal Experiences with Digital Identity.  Panelists were Melissa Kiser, Kayla Gregory, Malissa Hostetler, and Lisa Lobdell.

For me, this was the most enjoyable and enlightening IOLUG meeting so far.  It could not have come at a better time since I am currently engrossed in Web 2.0, social networking, and their integration into my libraries operations.  I also have two research projects in the works in this area.  I also enjoyed being a speaker.  It has been a while and I enjoyed it a great deal.  The highlights of the program for me included Jenica Roger’s Keynote, and learning more about the permission controls of Facebook by Jason Fields.  I am now reconsidering my decision to use a second Facebook account for professional uses and I may just make friends with my coworkers after all.  Actually, I will need to do so one way or another if I am going to launch and promote our Library’s Facebook page.  In my next posting, I will discuss the topic I spoke about in further detail.

Our Spring program will be on mobile computing and the integration of library services, or something like that.

Multitasking is the brain seeking novelty

There is multitasking and there multitasking!  The former is what I do throughout the day, balancing various duties that must be done, website updates, reference assistance, library instruction, resource evaluation, etc.  I can’t do all of my duties every day, that would be impossible.  So I try to focus on specific ones and occasionally I get pulled away to attend to something unplanned such as a database bill that needs to be paid, or answer a phone call by a vendor.  The latter form of multitasking I am referring to is the dangerous kind.  It’s the kind that will pull me in several different directions, or as some have called “task switching.”  It’s checking email every few minutes or updates on my favorite news website when I am working on updating EBSCO AtoZ records or creating a LibGuide.  It’s having my phone attached to me all day buzzing me about appointments coming up, or text messages from friends, and phone calls from anyone and everyone.  It’s the kind of thing that can completely destroy my agenda for a week, month, or year if I don’t keep it in check.  I read a fascinating blog post today by a neuroscientist who suggests that multitasking and our attachment to our smart phone and other forms of technology has much to do with the brain’s craving for novelty.  He says that dopamine is more of a “gimme more” neurotransmitter than it is a “feel good” neurotransmitter like many believe.  It is like an addictive drug that keeps us coming back for more.  Furthermore, he states that like drug cravings, we can lessen that impulse to keep going back to these various stimuli by giving ourselves little vacations from them, thus allowing us to go back to living a “normal life.”  I often find myself needing to do this.  I will shut down Outlook for a good portion of the day to avoid distractions.  Or I may shut my cell phone off while at home and keep the computer off for several evenings so that I can simply “be home” and enjoy it.  I highly recommend reading the article for further information.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-poldrack/multitasking-the-brain-se_b_334674.html

But I would like to reflect for a moment on attractions to Web 2.0 technologies.  Having jumped headlong into Library 2.0 implementation for my library in the past year, I have found myself constantly experimenting with different platforms.  I find that I get excited about something different and use it extensively, then I move onto something else.  For me, it has become somewhat of a drug.  Some technologies have stuck while some I have let fall by the wayside.  I think what is important is to stay focused on a set of goals and objective and apply these tools as a means to accomplish these goals and not a means in themselves. I am very interested in hearing from other librarians, especially Web 2.0 junkies like myself, who may have some thoughts on this topic.

Lost in a Sea of Web 2.0

OK, so I am exploring a research topic which in part will evaluate which Web 2.0 applications our students use for communication and various other productivity applications.  I know the quantity of internet tools has been growing over the years, but I am lost in a sea of applications that can be used.  The number of options for “add this” buttons comes to almost 200.  I don’t know what the overwhelming majority of them are for.   My first step would be to classify them by type, social network, social bookmarking, , etc.  Anyone know of an easy way to explore, categorize, and list these resources for an online survey?

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/lost-in-a-sea-of-web-2-0/

Becoming Library 2.0 the Right Way

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/?p=132
As Logan Library moves towards Library 2.0 by integrating Web.2.0 technology, there is already discussion in the blogosphere about Web 3.0.  Any discussion of this by librarians at this point is premature at best.  Many libraries have rushed to embrace Web 2.0 technologies without having asked themselves why they should.  Many have jumped headlong and into creating a library blog and adding other features without it being tied into their library’s strategic goals.  An article in Information Today “Making Web 2.0 Work—From ‘Librarian Habilis’ to ‘Librarian Sapiens’ by Milica Cvetkovic makes the point that it must be tied into a library’s strategic goals.  Without doing so, two problems soon become apparent.  First, technologies are adopted by the library and not by their patrons.  Second, librarians often do not have the time to work on these technologies once they are launched.  It is something extra that they take on their own and considered secondary to their job.  On both of these points, I have something to say.

On the first point, I have always been reluctant to adopt something without foreseeing a direct benefit to our users.  However, I did try a few things through trial and error.  First, we started virtual reference a year and a half ago, it was hardly ever used.  But we used an external commercial service where we could only have one librarian logged in at a time and we had the link to the service only on the library’s main page.  With our implementation of LibGuides, we have placed chat widgets for each of our reference librarians (2) on every LibGuide.  Every Libguide page has at least one chat widget.  Thus, they can see if we are available wherever they are on our website doing research.  The response has been excellent; we get several IM reference requests per day.  The second experiment was to use Twitter to inform a class on updates to a specific LibGuide as well as for other library news.  In three weeks, we have only gained only four followers.  I have conducted a survey by show of hands of over 300 students during Freshmen College and Life Skills classes, asking how many use Twitter.  I often got zero hands or occasionally one or two.  But Twitter does have a scrolling ticker widget that we were able to put on our webpage so it was not a total waste.  On the second point, the title of my blog says it all.  I already do many jobs and so engaging in blogging and managing Web 2.0 platforms is just more work for me…and more stress.

It was quite timely that I read this article today (it came out today) because just a few hours before, I decided to conduct a study.  The study will 1) survey our users on what Web 2.0 technologies they are currently using (social networks, social bookmarking, communication, etc;  2) Reevaluate how our library resources are being utilized by all of our user population (database usage, location usage, etc); and 3) survey our students on their research practices.  This purpose of the study will be for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and for our own knowledge as we revise our strategic goals and objectives.  As Logan Library wades into the murky waters of Library 2.0, we will do so armed with factual knowledge of our users and not just assumptions.

Do Fancier Communication Tools Hinder Communication?

http://thisthatotherthing.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/do-fancier-communication-tools-hinder-communication/

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today discusses how email is being replaced by other forms of communication tools such as facebook, twitter, and the new beta version of Google Wave, a tool that combines photo sharing, email and commenting all in real time.  The article points out that while these tools are fun and more intuitive, they are also more impersonal.  For instance, if your friends on facebook are posting regular updates on what they are doing throughout the day, why bother to call them up to see how they are doing?  Another problem, I would like to point out is how easy it is to get inundated with information to the point to where you start tuning out.  We can miss important information by tuning out or through conscious filtering using filtering tools these services incorporate.  A final point is just how meaningful is this communication.  Just as phone conversations chop out a great deal of non verbal communication that we get in face to face communication, textual communication cuts off communication we get from talking.  And so I’ll throw text messaging into this mix.  Text messaging through cell phones is a great way to send quick information to someone.  For instance, you can say “Hey, I’m heading out the door” to someone you are going to pick up.  It’s simpler and more efficient than calling them to tell them that.  You can also carry on a short conversation at a time when talking is not appropriate.  I use text messaging all the time but it does have its limitations.  You reach a point where a text conversation is taking place that could be best done through a vocal phone conversation.  And forget about having any kind of meaningful relationship with someone through text messaging only.  This leads us to the question, does fancier communication tools hinder communication.

I will answer that question by simply saying that it can, but not necessarily.  I would like to address how we at Logan Library at Rose-Hulman are experimenting with one such technology to augment our reference communication with our students.  We have recently implemented LibGuides with profiles and chat widgets to each of our reference librarians on each subject guide.  Although we encourage our students to come to see us for research help any time they need it, there are times when a trip to the library is not necessary.  We know for a fact that most student research is done outside of the library, specifically in the residence halls and Greek houses.  Often times a student may have a simple question about which database would be their best option to search for a specific topic or how to find if we have a specific journal.  The chat option is a means of making ourselves available to them wherever they are.  Needless to say, there are times when the level of research assistance they need would be best carried out face to face.  In which case, we would ask them to come to the library at a convenient time for both parties.

Any kind of communication technology must used just like other tool.  If you go into a workshop (wood, machine, etc) each tool has a specific purpose.  Likewise, communication tools should be used for the right purposes.  So depending on the situation, choose your tool properly.