The Grump Who Stole Libraries

Go now and read "The Grump Who Stole Libraries," by Andrew Pace.

Of course, now that I'm firmly enrooted in reference, I assumed that when the Grin...I mean, the Grump...took away the computers, the librarians would actually look things up in books, and I was disappointed to realize that wasn't exactly the point. I then realized that Pace is talking about the OPAC, in which case it is funny just as is.

I'm working on Toastmaster's speech #2, and this one is going to be about the future of reference. I'm excited, and hope to get to work on it as soon as I'm done with the January schedule. Also, for anyone who was there at speech #1, I promise not to cry at the end of this one.

If you had asked me a year ago, is it in your career plans to be a reference department manager, I would have laughed. I DID laugh when it was suggested to me. Reference is DEAD, man! But here I am, and it's good--even when I've got five weeks of schedule staring me in the face.

Reference services, creatively imagined, is the place where people and information meet. It can happen in a kaleidescope of ways, in physical and cyber space. It happens over thick reference books or quick, quirky chick lit titles. It happens in person, and it happens on the phone. It happens in ways both serious and fun. Reference is dead! Long live reference!

Time Keeps On Ticking, Ticking, Ticking, Into the Future

November 14 is a bit past, but I am just now getting around to updating the name of the blog. Thirty-two is by no means old, but I can definitely tell that I am moving into a different demographic.

What Does Web 2.0 Taste Like?

So, I'm reconsidering the whole likelihood-of-first-heart-attack-before-age-50 thing, and thinking that I've gotta start eating healthy. Really. Soon. Via a wandering path, I discovered The Daily Plate, which is a pretty robustly featured online food diary.

However, I think it's both appealling and appalling that you can share your food lists and your food diary with others. Do I really want to hook up with someone who has also eaten a Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad today? Would we be some kind of soul mates or just conincidental strangers? Maybe there is some kind of support group development there, but I...just...don't...know.



One thing that I do think we could do more of at my library is to serve as a focal point for actual people making actual, physical connections. Why not have a long-term weight loss program going on here? Why not OA meetings, AA meetings, business plan development groups, and on, and on? I know that we are almost maxed out on programming, but one thing that Web 2.0 tools do is enable a sustained interaction as well as one-time-hookups. Our programs are one-time-hookups in many ways, when we could be working to build relationships.

Back in the Blog of Things?

I haven't posted in what seems like forever, but I have been adding comments to other people's blogs; it finally occurred to me to just use the TrackBack feature, post my comments here, and "light two candles with one match."

So, here's the first comment-cum-post, on TScott's post referencing a Krafty post about change management.

I have gotten the chance recently to both encounter the kind of barriers TScott, Krafty (and Michael Stephens before them) describe, and to be perceived as the barrier myself. The simple fact is that everyone has a logical reason for their behavior. Now, that reason may not be a good reason, but it is on some level important to them.

The key to success in navigating the barriers desribed is to a)uncover the reason behind the barrier and b)address the reason itself insead of the barrier, which is just a symptom. Bashing the barrier will only make your head hurt.

Now of course, my reasons for being a barrier are all good, and noble, and have nothing at all to do with my ego or other personal issues. Ha ha. But, for example, my staff is having some serious issues with a new scheduling system I've created. Unfortunately, their repeatedly saying, "We don't like this" doesn't provide me any incentive to change it. My job isn't to make my staff happy; my job is to successfully create a structure that allows flexibility for change and adaptation. I've told them, if you can provide alternatives that still meet this underlying need (successfully create a structure that allows flexibility for change and adaptation), then I'm all ears. Otherwise, I'll continue to be an annoying "barrier" saying, "This is the way it's going to be."

Where's the barrier in your life? Is this person or group acting as a barrier "on purpose," or because they "don't get it"? Or, is there something else going on there? Look for the "something else," and see if you barrier doesn't become a little more manageable.

My Big News

Well, there have been no posts recently because I've been unable to think of anything other than my big news: I was interviewing for and have been offered the Information Services Manager position at the Johnson County Public Library. I am, as one of our delightful assistant librarians puts it, "out of my body with excitement." My last day here will be June 2, which seems a long, long ways off. I'm sure it will come soon enough.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end, yeah."
(Closing Time, by Semisonic, a little blast from the late 90's, boy, I love that song.)

Today's Horoscope

This one is for me, but it could be for you, too--

The term 'creative type' doesn't even begin to do you justice, you know. You are more of an 'incredibly productive super generative creative type.' You take every bit of raw material the world throws at you -- paints, paper, digital tools, happiness, pastels, sadness, tragedy, comedy, mud, clay, rock -- and you make it sing. This is a real gift -- don't forget to be grateful for it.

What a beautiful thought. Go forth and make your raw material SING!

It's Raining Thesauri, Hallelujah!

(Today's title with apologies to The Weather Girls. Also, try not to think about thousands of copies of the LCSH falling from the sky.)

All of a sudden, I am dealing with not one, not two, but three major classification/indexing/thesaurus questions.

The first is a revival of a project that has been dead for almost a year, as the SOM is finally ready to start indexing their materials for the new curriculum. I'm putting the final polish on what I suppose you could consider a baby thesaurus based on the USMLE subcategories. The next step is getting enough stuff actually indexed to determine if it works or not.

The second is a project with the hospital to write a thesaurus to form the backend of their content management system for their website. I'm having quite the time wrapping my mind around this, but I am learning a LOT. This project absolutely feel out of the sky and into my lap, and I am so thankful. Oh, yes, Lord, let me read ANSI/NISO standards on thesaurus development. That's the KIND OF NERD I AM. I'm also enthused about this because I'm hoping to port it out to another project that needs a consumer health information thesaurus (shh!).

The third item is in the same vein although of a different type, as I am perplexed about the proposed changes to MEDLINE subheadings. On first blush, I would have to say I agree that 83 subheadings is too many. However, I am tending to agree with real reference librarians like Cindy Schmidt that the choices made for removal are not necessarily obvious or useful.

What I want to see, and what I have requested from NLM, is data supporting their proposal. I'm sure they've looked at the same questions I've been looking at: how much is enough? What kind of search is happening, and how can we best facilitate that? I'm hoping to get some good, solid answers to these questions, as I certainly hope the decision process was not, well, we need to get rid of some subheadings and these seem the most likely candidates. Some hard data will go a long way towards informing my decision.

So, it really is raining thesauri, and my nerdy, nerdy soul is all set to get soaking wet!

The Library of Babel

I'm awash in thoughts of indexing, and searching, and finding today. In a very-random-Vannevar-Bush-kind-of-way I came across a reference to The Library of Babel, and in a very Google-uber-alles-kind-of-way I followed the first link to the first reference to discover the tale.

I have a sneaking suspicion that in an alternate universe, I teach cataloging. I use this story to illustrate a number of my points about the organization of information. The students give me bad reviews because I don't talk enough about authority control.

"We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god."

Learning a New Language

I've always had an interest in programming. When I was with the RML, I started learning PHP as part of my job duties and found it fascinating, but I didn't get very far as it required time and quiet--both practically nonexistant when working with the RML.

However, I'm thinking again about the benefits of knowing a language, probably because I really am tipping over into insanity. I personally would like to do some of my own mucking in our DSpace instance, although this will be mostly handled by our Internet Development department, so Java seems a good answer. XML and XSL are everywhere these days, so that seems to be a good possibility, too. PHP and MySQL seem so darn handy, and they pretty much run the web these days, so that's always a good option.

The key to learning a language is then regularly using it so you don't forget it. Which would I be most likely to use? Probably XML because it's an area of lack in our otherwise fantastic Internet Development department. I got a great suggestion for Visual Basic as well, and that seems like a great idea for a manager but maybe less useful for a repo rat.

Part of me also says, you know, this really isn't necessary and I could focus on more concrete things. Is this a "moneymaker"? Or a distraction from things I don't want to do?

My Pirate Name

Thanks to InfoCommuner for this bit of humor. Arr, call me Annie, matey.

My pirate name is:

Captain Anne Vane

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

T Scott "Bridges the Gap"

T Scott has an thoughtful post about an upcoming talk he will be giving to the good people of Elsevier.

I applaud the effort, and as T Scott points out, I appreciate the efforts of Elsevier to recognize that librarians are one of their core market groups. It makes sense for them to play nice with us.

However, as I am REPEATEDLY told, I am young, and headstrong, and naive (gentle reader, you may or may not have caught these threads in my blogging, ha ha).

I believe, I think, I feel in my 31-year-old-anything-is-possible bones that the time of publishers as we know them is passing, just like I believe, I think, and I feel that the time of libraries as we know them is passing. Our fates are intertwined (like Gollum and the Ring, but that may not be a positive metaphor).

Information wants to be free. Institutional repositories, run by librarians, can help make this happen. NIH can make this happen. The whole Open Access movement can make this happen.

I am not saying that it will happen tomorrow, primarily because many of the researchers and most of the librarians of today are Baby Boomers. They grew up and made their places in the world based on the old model. Today's smart PhD students want to get into PLoS or PLoM, and they want their articles in DSpace so they're findable in Google Scholar. Flexible librarians are making this possible.

At some point, the entire process will reach critical mass and the world as we know it will be gone.

Now, as we walk away from high journal prices, we also to some extent walk away from the peer review structure, the permanent record of research, and in many cases, the concept of "authority" as we know it. This is scary, and problematic, but the fact is that peer review is flawed in a variety of ways and authority can be conferred through other means.

To come back to T Scott: I wish him well. I'm sure he'll speak fairly and eloquently about the issues that face publishers and librarians alike. In my dream world, Scott speaks and the Elsevier folk look at each other and say, wow, we can do so much more together than we can apart. A new day dawns where we all work together to face the new reality, and we usher it in on golden wings instead of fighting it--and each other--all the way.

Reading the Headlines: Insights from 20 Minutes of Blog Skimming

I've streamlined my daily activities to some extent and now only actually READ a few blogs each day (a few being less than 10, depending on who has posted). That means when I have a slow time on the desk or a half hour set aside for "professional reading," I'm essentially skimming a couple hundred headlines and summaries, primarily from library science and technology blogs.

Today, this is what I see (I'm not saying any of this is deep or new, just that it literally JUMPS off of the screen at you after a bit):

• The digitally-induced identity crisis for libraries and librarians is deepening. Best quote (lost the source, sorry): "The librarian's new role is to help people build their own libraries." I absolutely love this idea.
• I perceive a growing divide between the blogging librarians and what I consider "the rest of the profession." Among bloggers, knowing a programming or scripting language is like music catalogers knowing at least one foreign language, but to expect or even suggest that this should be a standard for librarianship is a pretty big leap. How's your Italian? How's your PHP coding? Can you do the funny voices for storytime? Can you do all three? No? What kind of librarian are you???
• Rules are always an issue. Schools won't let kids access MySpace accounts. DRM makes videos useless. Censorship continues. Check-out times are too short. The need to focus on the service and forget about unnecessary restrictions popped out again and again.
  

So, that's the zeitgeist according to Whitney. Distilled down even further, it's obvious that these aren't new ideas at all:

• First item above: save the time of the reader.
• Second item above: respect diversity.
• Third item above: service with a smile.
  

A Lovely Online Memorial

http://www.erinsunshine.com

This is a lovely memorial site for a woman I don't know; I work with her brother-in-law and although we work well together, we don't work closely. "Erin Sunshine" was just 29 and died suddenly. This online memorial shows how many ripples a life can have; and now there's another ripple, because I've shared it with you.

Erin's family has kept her passing so positive; I think it's an inspiration to face life rather than an acknowledgement of death. They're having a party tomorrow, not a memorial. How lovely.

My dad wants a lot of beer and a New Orleans-style band at his party; I want Pachabel's Canon and lots of chocolate. No matter what, party is the operative word.

My thoughts are with Mike, his wife, and their family.

That Moneymaker-Shakin' Thing Again

From User Education Resources for Librarians, a pointer to a terrific item on working smarter, not harder.

The juiciest part (as far as I'm concerned):
The 80/20 rule says that 80 percent of your results come from just 20 percent of your efforts. Companies find most profits come from a few customers. And you'll find most of your output comes from a few of your tasks. So what? Well, look at the math. If you double the time you spend on real-output-producing activities and stop doing the others, you'll double your output and spend 60 percent less time! If you started with a ten-hour workday, you'll get twice as much done, working just four hours.

This is not just limited to profit-making ventures; 80 percent of the benefits of what libraries do comes from just 20 percent of our efforts. The trick is figuring out which activities are REALLY those 20 percent and focusing on those.

Consuming Podcasts

OK, here's what I've learned about listening to podcasts so far: Apparently my podcast attention span is about 15 minutes. During my listening times, I was perfectly pleased with the shorter items but then found that I'd get to a longer broadcast and skip out at about the fifteen minute mark.

I don't have this problem with audiobooks; I have even extended my walk a couple of times so I could hear a little more. However, the podcasts I'm subscribed to are all entertainment, and so I think the issue is that if it's not entertaining, I can always skip to the next item to see if it's better. And frankly, if I run out of content while I'm walking, I can take the darn earphones out and listen to the birds, or the cars, or whatever's around me. That's more entertaining than an hour of blather. It's a pretty high standard for a poor podcast to live up to!

If you listen to podcasts, what's your favorite feed? I'm open to suggestions.

Podcasting, the Diffusion of Innovation, and the Miracle of the Global Web

I've had my little red MP3 player for some time now, and I can honestly say it has served its purpose well. Audio recording and playback is clean, crisp, and easy, which is the real reason I bought it. And, as I thought when I purchased, the built-in FM receiver really is about all I need as far as music goes. I've also listened to an audiobook, and I even used the device as a portable hard drive one day when I was in a pinch. I can definitely say I've gotten $59 of value out of owning it.

Of course, the obvious thing to do with an MP3 player is to listen to podcasts, and I have yet to do so. My main excuse has been that the learning curve is too steep for the eventual gain. I haven't felt that the time expended to get it working would be worth the value of the content available. There's definitely a lesson here about the balance between innovation adoption and percieved benefit. There has to be a benefit somewhere for most users to make the effort, and I am no different. I may adopt a little earlier than many people, but I'm not one of those folks who gets a new toy just because it's new and it's fun to be first. I'm most definitely second wave.

I have now reached the tipping point with podcasting; I'm in need of more mobile content, and there seems to be some decent stuff out there. So, the hurdle then becomes finding a easy way to work with a non-iPod player. A quick look at the Wikipedia and I found PodCatcher on a Stick, a stunningly neat little piece of software out of Bauhaus-University Weimar in Germany. Germany!

This little miracle completely installs on the MP3 player itself, so I can update my feeds at work or at home. I just plug my player in, open the directory, and start. There's even some configuration I can do to get it to work on its own but I don't think I need to go that far. It just boggles my mind that someone in Germany has so neatly and cleanly solved my little problem; that I can find and access the solution; and that it's free!

I picked out some feeds (from Odeo, home of the 43Folders podcasts), added them to my PCOAS, and poof! Mobile audio! Of course, my paltry 256 MB of space filled up fast, but it should be enough to get me through a few strolls around the block.

OK, and I have to admit--I don't adopt just for the sake of adoption, but I do get a buzz off of this kind of thing. I'll let you know how it works on an ongoing basis.

Scenario Planning: A Postscript

I've been thinking about my scenarios and how to apply them. Personally, I think it's glaringly obvious that the way to survive all three scenarios is to embrace the concept of transferable skills. Even in the worst case scenario, those with "transferable skills" survive (and I wasn't thinking of my ability to answer a phone with nine lines, although that has come in handy a number of times).

What this makes me think is that I need to learn some programming, and sooner rather than later. There's a great post on Caveat Lector about why librarians don't code and some good reasons why they should. According to this item, I would technically count already as I can "code" MARC 21, but I'm really thinking PHP/MySQL may be the answer.

However, I absolutely do not think that transferable skills have to be technology skills. In the worst case scenario (library closes), maybe a reference manager could move to managing the help desk or hospital information, or into something like alumni relations. In the middle-of-the-road scenario (variation but no major change), this same reference manager could be looking at integrating a BI class into every introductory course taught on his or her campus. In the best case scenario (radical change), a free-thinking reference manager could be finding ways to move reference away from the desk. Roving through the cafeteria? It might work!

Finally, and any of you who read the scenarios probably realize this, but these came out to be more about scenarios for me than for libraries on the whole. To that end, it was a tremendously useful process. I don't know that I will ever be the director (here or anywhere), but I do know that I've pitched a new version of "federated" searching that pretty much exactly mirrors that in the best case scenario, and I think our users are going to LOVE it. It's what they have been asking for since I began asking them what they want. It will be long, hard work, but hopefully I'll be raising a glass to the "new catalog" in 2007 as well.

WDT

Scenario Planning: The End Result

My last scenario almost wrote itself as the philosophy that underlies my visions became clear:

• Worst case: librarians rigidly hold on to old models (pre-Y2K models) and die as more nimble competitors do a better job at doing our job.
• Middle case: librarians do much what they have since their inception, holding onto traditional values but molding them to meet patron needs and other new challenges.
• Best case: librarians let go of all preconceptions and free themselves to do whatever is necessary to survive and thrive.

Now, just because I've tagged it as "best case," I definitely see some downsides to the best case scenario. Some of the staff in that scenario are uncomfortable with the changes being made, and that would need to be addressed. In addition, there is little attention paid to the archival function of libraries, which remains important even in a digital age. I'm sure there are other things missing as well.

However, I think the underlying idea of freeing ourselves to do what needs to be done would also allow us to answer complex questions like that of preservation. It's almost an open-source or organic model of librarianship; if we're free to think, free to follow our thoughts, and free to grow, I think we'll also be free to succeed.

WDT

Ups and Downs, but Mostly the Same

(This is the "middle of the road" scenario.)

It had been another long day in another long week, but it was over, and Jim was on his way to dinner with some of his good friends from other libraries.

When he arrived, one of his friends was already there and waiting. They exchanged pleasantries while the waitress took their drink order.

“So, who’s going to be here tonight?” Jim asked.

“Well, Jane’s on reference, Tom’s teaching, and Celia is home with a sick kid, so it just leaves you, me, and Amy,” his friend replied.

As if on cue, Amy walked in. They waved her over and as she joined them she said, “So few? I don’t think there’s been just three of us for years.”

Jim thought back. Yes, they had been getting together like this for almost five years now, and they almost always had five or six people. The quarterly gatherings were important enough to people that they usually cleared their schedules. Somehow, some quality book geek time with other librarians seemed to serve a purpose.

“Jane’s on reference?” asked Jim. “I thought they had turfed off evening hours to the parapros in her building.”

Amy answered. “Oh, yeah, they had, but they have a new director who is really back-to-basics and wants a librarian on the desk whenever they’re open.”

Jim and his other friend goggled. “Wow. Aren’t they open until 1AM? I wouldn’t want that shift. What else are they doing?”

“Well, Tom’s email said he wouldn’t be here tonight because he’s teaching, and he and Jane are in the same library. Jane was telling me it’s one of their new goals for each librarian to teach at least three bibliographic instruction classes this fall. It’s internal outreach. Aren’t you guys doing that?”

Jim’s friend snorted. “We aren’t doing much of anything like that. We moved all of our BI online a couple of years ago. We found that the number of people who access the modules is about equal to the number of people we were teaching in person, and we only have to update them once a year.”

She continued, “We are running a new collection use analysis, though, and it’s showing some really interesting trends. We’re trying to break up a couple of journal packages and just by the really high-impact titles.”

“Hey, that sounds neat,” said Jim. “Are you hoping to save money?”

“Actually, no,” his friend replied. “We’re just trying to streamline our interface and only give people what they really want. Any cost savings would be a bonus.”

“What a concept,” said Amy. “Actually buying less to improve access. Hmm.”

“Actually, that’s not so unreasonable,” said Jim. “When I was in the public library, there was a rule that weeding your collection would improve circulation, and it really worked. I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen the same way online.”

Amy and the other librarian nodded. “Weren’t you in the public library, like, 10 years ago?” Jim’s friend asked. “We were young when you were a public librarian.”

Jim laughed, but then sobered as he thought about it. “Oh, boy, you are right. Time flies. You know, that’s one of the things about this profession that just boggles my mind. It seems like we do the same things over and over; we just tweak this or alter that. The basic concept remains the same.”

Amy nodded. “That’s one of the things that I like about librarianship, though. There’s a sort of consistency and constancy about us. We collect things, we organize things, and we provide access to things. It’s been that way for thousands of years, and it will be that way for thousands of years more.”

“I agree,” Jim’s friend said. “There have been a lot of changes, but the fundamental mission remains the same. Whether you’re my library trimming titles or Jane’s library adding librarians, we’re both trying to improve access. The end result is the same, but the how is just window dressing.”

The waitress arrived to take their order and interrupted the flow of conversation. Jim sat back and thought. He loved these dinners, because he always came out of them so energized and firmer in the belief that librarians are good people doing good work. There were challenges in his library—there were challenges everywhere—but the fundamental mission was always the same. Amy and the other librarian started chatting about the latest bugs in the latest iteration of federated searching, and Jim just listened to them and smiled.

Scenario Planning: The Best Case Scenario

First, let me say that what you consider the best case scenario and what I consider the best case scenario may be totally different things. However, this is my answer to the assumptions that I posted some time ago. Here are my conclusions and the assumptions they are based upon:

We must meet patrons where they are instead of trying to force them into a place we want them to be.
1. Patron preference for digital over print will continue to increase
5. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to come to the library for materials
6. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to wait or pay for ILL
7. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to learn separate database interfaces
8. As more information becomes available, the idea of “good enough” information will completely overtake the search for “the best” or “all available” information

Budget limitations (always present even if budgets are not flat or decreasing) will force us to abandon traditional programs and to increase reliance on paraprofessionals in order to meet patron demands.
2. More materials will be freely available online although considerable content will still be within paid access “walled gardens”
3. Prices for print and paid-access “walled gardens” will continue to increase at a rate faster than inflation
4. Budgets will increase at a rate less than that of inflation causing ongoing shortfalls each year

I welcome comments and thank those of you who have already commented on the process.

Death and Transfiguration

“Get me another beer!” said the director to the waitress. The library staff with her laughed as the waitress retuned and poured.

“Speech!” yelled one of the librarians. “Oh, Lord, no,” said another.

“Well, I do think the occasion deserves a few words,” said the director, “and since this is only beer number two, this is probably the time.”

She looked around the table. “I have to tell you; five years ago this was not the vision I had for the library. I saw more librarians, doing more teaching, with instruction being our focus. I knew that traditional services were on their way out—circulation, interlibrary loan, and reference—and I honestly thought that bibliographic instruction was the answer.”

“In fact, we were midway though the original course correction when the wave hit, weren’t we?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” said one of the librarians who had been through it. “We staffed the reference desk with paraprofessionals in 2004, and we changed interlibrary loan to copyright compliance around then, too.”

The director nodded. “Then, we spent a lot of 2005 and almost all of 2006 trying to integrate with the teaching mission. And when we were done, we weren’t much further along than we had been. We were busier,” she continued, “and that was good—better than the downward slide we had seen before we got ourselves out there. But it was certainly a struggle.”

“What made the difference?” asked one of the several assistant librarians sitting at the table. “What was the change?”

The director took a swig of her beer. “It was a lot of things, but frankly, I can pinpoint the day the change happened, at least for me. I was coming back from yet another meeting where I was there ‘in hopes’ of something coming up that we could work on, when I realized that I could do great things for the library if I could get out of being a librarian.”

“She means, ‘If I could move into management,’” an old friend on the staff said. The group laughed.

“That’s right; I wasn’t the director at the time. But that wasn’t the issue,” the director said.

“And you are a librarian,” said the AL. You’re one of the biggest library geeks I know!”

The director laughed. “In 2006, being a librarian meant working with faculty, working with the schools, meeting with students. We were expending a tremendous amount of energy and reaching only a fraction of our patrons. On the way back from that meeting, I realized, if I could get out of being a librarian, I could get into projects that had major impact.”

“Like the new catalog,” one of the staff threw in. “That went live in mid-2007.”

“That’s right,” agreed the director. “One of the first things I did after my epiphany was suggest that we devote as much money and staff to our electronic presence as we did to our physical facilities. Of course, my old boss laughed, but the idea started to take hold. We abandoned federated searching as a dead end and instead hired a systems librarian who integrated an open source ILS, a DSpace install, and our open source course management system into one big digital library database.”

The programmer chimed in, “And then we got that huge NLM grant to make it work with PubMed! Usage went through the roof! It’s been a huge success.” There were murmurs of agreement, as they were actaully out celebrating their most recent award for the project.

“The annual stakeholder analysis has been a big deal,” said the librarian responsible for assessment. “Every year, we base our planning on that analysis. It’s like we’re in a constant state of change.”

There were some uncomfortable looks around the table. The director just laughed. “Yes, we added and then killed virtual reference; we did a reconfiguration on the ground floor even though we just completed a remodel in 2005; we’ve tried and abandoned a lot of things. Why stick with something just because? If we’re not really serving the patrons, who cares? The annual analysis has also shown that patron satisfaction is increasing every year. We went from about 75% to almost 90% satisfaction rates, and this year’s goal is 93. It’s a sea change.”

The assistant librarian piped up again. “I still don’t see how you ‘got out of being a librarian.’”

The director smiled. “In 2006, there were really two kinds of librarians: the kind who waited for patrons to come, and the kind who went out and essentially drummed up business. I got out of doing the traditional ‘stuff’ that librarians do and was able to actually make a meaningful difference. I wasn’t sitting at the desk or sitting in faculty meetings; I was working; I was thinking. I was able to do great things for the library by not being a librarian.”

The AL still looked confused. “But, we do those things. We teach classes and do tours and all that stuff. We have three people on the desk these days, and one roving around upstairs. That’s more than there were.”

The director caught the eye of one of the other librarians and winked. “Yes, you do those things. That’s hugely different from 2005, where librarians were still intimately involved in those activities. We made a policy to hire competent paraprofessionals and new MLS holders to do that kind of work. Librarian work. The librarians plan it, design it, and oversee it, and you do it. It doesn’t mean the work isn’t important, or that what the librarians are doing now is somehow more important than that day-to-day patron touch. It’s just different.”

“You made the librarians management and made the paras librarians,” one outspoken staffer said. “You essentially killed the librarians.”

The director winced. “That’s an apt analogy, although I would argue that the librarians as they were would have died with or without my help. We transformed the librarians and transformed the library. And the numbers don't lie; it's been a huge success.”

After a bit of silence, she said, “Death and transfiguration. It awaits us all. Now, my beer is empty and this conversation has gotten entirely too heavy. We're here to celebrate! Jamie, what’s the news with your two-year-old?”

Scenario Planning: Update

I'm working on my best-case scenario, and I don't have time to finish it today, but it hinges on the following thunderbolt that nearly knocked me over on my way back from a meeting:

If I could get out of being a librarian, I could do great things for the library.

More on this later, but I didn't want to lose the thought.

WDT

Go Give Yourself a Hug. Right Now.

I have about 50 "deep thoughts" floating around, but none of them are ready for prime time, so today's a day for a fluffy post:

Take a moment, and think about something you really want to do, but for some reason feel you "can't". What is it? Do you want to go outside? Do you want to just read the comics and your friends in your feed aggregator but feel compelled to review the "real" content, too? Do you want to bend a rule to help a patron instead of making him or her jump through another hoop? Do you want to have lunch with someone you adore and whom you do not see nearly enough?

What we're looking for is one little gift that you can give yourself right now. Don't wait. Just do it. Don't feel guilty about it. I personally give you permission to do this one thing and to enjoy doing it.

I've talked with a lot of librarians, and many of us are very other-oriented. We are in a service industry, you know, so that's not surprising. What I want is for you to think about YOU, and give yourself a little gift--a hug, as it were.

Frankly, I've done all five of the above today and these small things have helped me tackle several other incredibly unpleasant tasks with more grace than usual (meaning some instead of none). By giving to myself, I've got just a little more to give to others.

Best wishes,

WDT

"Searching" vs. "Finding"

So, it turns out that the class script I posted yesterday wasn't ANYTHING like what my faculty person wanted; fortunately, he called me at about 11AM today to clarify and I think I was able to give them something useful.

I always learn something when I teach, and what I learned is an idea that may not be groundbreaking for you, but which stopped me in my tracks when it occurred to me. I'm talking about the difference between "searching" and "finding."

Searching is what librarians are REALLY good at: we build strategies, use thesauri, cross databases, and generally think of every way we possibly can to get at information. The mechanics of searching are complex: using the Clipboard in PubMed is one of the mechanics of searching, and there are a lot of little technical minutiae just like that.

However, the mechanics of searching actually have very little to do with finding (and this was the Ah-ha! for me). Finding is getting to some piece of information that will actually meet your information need. It has absolutely nothing to do with the process of looking for what you eventually find. Good searching can help you find, and bad searching can keep you from finding, but searching is not and never will be finding.

What this means is that I'm REALLY TEMPTED to stop showing the MeSH browser in PubMed. I'm REALLY TEMPTED to tell people that for most searching, a keyword and limits and the "related articles" link will find them something useful. I'm REALLY TEMPTED to start talking about finding instead of spending all my time on searching.

Librarians in general and medical librarians especially scream at this sort of thinking. If there's a life on the line, by golly, you better be running the most robust search you can. Yes, of course you should. But, how many hospitals live without librarians these days? And WHAT CLINICIAN CAN ACTUALLY DO A DECENT SEARCH? I mean, really? I would rather have a half-assed search find something in PubMed than have a clinican with no access to a librarian stumbling around in Ovid (or worse).

I say, Amen! to NCBI for figuring out that finding is what we're trying to do, and making it as easy as possible to find something. Why aren't all library systems like this? Why don't they all map an incredibly sophisticated and robust taxonomy to an even more sophisticatedmetathesaurus?

Of course sophisticated systems that make finding possible without a lot of searching crap takes out the obvious need for a librarian, which might be a wee bit of a snicker, but otherwise it is pure genius. And frankly, once our obvious reasons for existence are gone, we can start looking for real ways to make a difference.

Outcomes Research in Health Care Script

In case anyone has ever wondered what I talk to the Health Policy department about, here's the script of a class I'm giving on Tuesday. At least, I hope this is the script. I'm not really clear on what exactly my faculty wants and I've asked four times. I'm frankly a little afraid to ask him again.

*******
Outcomes Research in Health
January 31, 2006
One hour (45 minutes)

Introduction
• Introduce self
• Just talking about resources, not search fundamentals; happy to do one-on-one for assistance with actually doing a search
• Launch browser
• Click through to library
• Use links on web site to activate proxy server (doesn’t work from the VA)

PubMed
• Open PubMed
• PubMed is really the place to start all heathcare research
• Can use OVID, too, but PubMed has some special features for this area
• Can run a regular search and narrow down, absolutely
o Use MESH and subheadings to really get into things
o Can limit to practice guidelines
o Nice tutorials linked from the sidebar
o Pneumonia[MAJR] AND “outcome assessment (health care)”[mesh]
• Open Special Queries page
• Special Queries page provides a goldmine of goodies

Clinical Queries
• Find clinical trials, systematic reviews
• Access to clinical information
• Pneumonia[MAJR], clinical prediction guides and narrow
• Narrow vs. broad

Health Services Research Queries
• Articles related to quality or costs (see handout for specifics)
• Pneumonia[MAJR], outcomes assessment and narrow
• Narrow vs. broad
• Surprisingly little overlap with the “outcome assessment” Mesh search above

“HealthStar” Subset Search
• HealthStar used to be a separate NLM database for administrative information
• In regular PubMed search box, enter: jsubseth AND economics
• Then “and” in whatever major topic desired
• This can be like using a flamethrower to light a match but can be useful
• jsubseth AND economics AND pneumonia


Books of Possible Interest
• Under the “Books” link on far right in PubMed interface
• Health Services/Technology Assessment Text (HSTAT)Show this one
• Health, United States, 2004

Cochrane
• Serious EBP resource
• Link on library databases page
• Open Cochrane
• Searching is a little less clear
• Click on advanced search, use the Mesh search
• Pneumonia
• Show what comes up in the different areas

Ebsco Health Business Fulltext Elite (if time)
• Very heavily administrative
• Link on library databases page
• Open EHBFTE
• Use subjects “outcome assessment (medical care)” or “medical care—quality control”

The Last Refuge of the Damned

Why did I do the worst case scenario first? I don't know, but it came to me almost fully formed.

I would really appreciate comments on these; remember, this is the first of three and it is supposed to represent the worst case scenario. Did I miss anything? Is there some way the future could be even more bleak?

The Last Refuge of the Damned
“I never thought I would say this,” the director began, “but we are in a dangerous situation. We’ve done everything we possibly could to make the building and our services appealing to our end users, but usage continues to decline. On this year’s student survey, only one in five students had even visited the library this year.”

There were grim looks between the librarians around the table. They all knew what had happened over the last ten years: the library renovation, the move to provide outreach and department- or school-specific services, the push to expand the idea of what a library was and could do—nothing had stopped the slide in usage that had begun in the late 90’s. At best, they could say that all of their work had merely postponed the inevitable.

“Ubiquitous computing killed us,” said one of the librarians. “Once enough information really was easily available anytime and anywhere, people just didn’t need a library anymore.”

“I agree,” said another. “I think it was the Tablet PC rollout in 2006. “Once those kids got those machines in their hands, we never saw them again.”

“I don’t know that it was just the machines,” said the first. “The fact that there is so much out there that really is free on the Internet these days just makes what we have to offer less appealing.”

Several people replied at once: “But, the stuff on the Internet is crap!”

“You know that, and I know that,” said the director, “but our patrons don’t know and don’t care. The end result is the same.” She sent a stern look around the table. “We could also look at ourselves and say we didn’t look enough to patron needs, that we stuck with the traditional model of librarianship too long, and then it was too late to really do anything.”

One staffer piped up, “You could also blame administration for never fully funding us and for treating us like second-class citizens for the last 15 years!”

The director ignored this and turned on the overhead projector. The librarians saw the lines of an organizational chart appear. As what the document represented became clear in their minds, faces paled with fear or turned red with anger.

“What is this?!?” demanded one of the staff.

“This is the new reality,” said the director. “The remnants of the print collection are being moved to offsite storage. One clerical position will be retained to maintain the print collection and to fill whatever limited requests come in for access. Copyright compliance will be integrated into Teaching and Learning Technologies. I’ve talked with their director and she doesn’t anticipate needing more than two people for this.”

“Where’s reference?” asked the head of public services in a small voice.

The director looked over the top of her glasses. “There won’t be any more reference,” she said. “Once the print collection is gone, the building will be turned over to the schools for testing and study space.”

General groaning followed this announcement. “Even if the collection is all electronic, they’ll still need people to buy it and organize it,” someone commented. “Where are those people?”

The director looked around. “An Elsevier rep was at the last management meeting. With all of the financial savings from eliminating the library, the institution will be making the ConsultSuite available. They’re touting it as a ‘true virtual library’ and saying it will more than adequately meet the needs of faculty, students, and staff. All of you will be employed until the end of the fiscal year and then your positions will be eliminated. Those of you with applicable skills will have preference given if you apply for positions elsewhere in Information Resources.”

Silence followed this pronouncement. “I don’t see your name on here,” one of the librarians said to the director. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m retiring,” the director said, taking off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Enough is enough.”

Scenario Planning

SLIM's theory-based curriculum has been berated by a number of people, and their online classes have gotten a lot of guff as well, but one of the best classes I took was an online management course on scenario planning. The basic concept is that you gather information, look at it, and come up with a best case, worst case, and middle of the road scenario. Then, you undertake activities that fit into all three scenarios. That way, everything you do will be "right," regardless of what actually happens--which is of course completely unpredictable.

I'm elbow-deep in the future of libraries right now, what with journal club (x2), the changes happening at our insitution, and the general buzz in libraryland, so I decided to do a little scenario scripting as I begin to make recommendations for the future of digital resources here.

Here are some of my basic assumptions, and I'll post my first completed scenario in a minute.

1. Patron preference for digital over print will continue to increase
2. More materials will be freely available online although considerable content will still be within paid access “walled gardens”
3. Prices for print and paid-access “walled gardens” will continue to increase at a rate faster than inflation
4. Budgets will increase at a rate less than that of inflation causing ongoing shortfalls each year
5. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to come to the library for materials
6. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to wait or pay for ILL
7. Patrons are going to be increasingly less willing to learn separate database interfaces
8. As more information becomes available, the idea of “good enough” information will completely overtake the search for “the best” or “all available” information

Lazy Post

If Queequeg can do it, I can do it, too.

1. Name three things you can't live without:
Beatrice, sunlight, text

2. If you could hang out for a night with any fictional character, who would it be?
I have absolutely no answer for this! I just don't know!

3. As a kid, what did you want to be when you grow up?
Meteorologist, professional musician (string bass)

4. Right now what do you want to be when you grow up?
The big boss lady

5. What song always makes you cry?
"Stones in the Road" by Mary Chapin Carpenter

6. What's the best advice you've ever been given?
The way to manage your to-do list is not to do more but to manage the expectations behind the list.

7. Are you a good liar?
Absolutely not--my face shows everything

8. What still surprises you about your life?
I'm a suburbanite mommy librarian and generally happy being just that

9. What quality can make you instantly connect to someone?
Eye sparkle

10. What turns you off right away?
An "I deserve it" attitude

11. What's really difficult for you?
Managing the expectations behind the list (see #6)

12. What do you wish you'd done differently?
I wish I had demanded my parents buy me a bass for high school graduation

13. Desert island picks?
Swiss army knife and a semi full of sunscreen

14. Favorite spot at home?
Kitchen table--I just love to sit there

15. What emotion motivates too many of your actions?
Fear (see #6, yet again)

16. Favorite kind of extreme weather?
Wind without storms--it's a Kansas thing, and maybe a southern/western Kansas thing at that

17. Do you have any recurring dreams?
I have nightmares about tornadoes

18. Psychic or shrink?
Shrink

19. Vintage or modern?
Modern

20. Do you ever scream?
Not usually, although I yell more than I'd like

21. What are you most afraid of?
My to-do list (again, see #6)

The Clean Inbox: An Update

So, I dumped my entire inbox into a folder for "later" a few days ago and started over with a clean slate. I'm pleased to say that I have maintained the serenity of the clean inbox, now having just four messages which all require action this morning (that is, they should be gone by noon). I highly recommend this, as it's so easy to go ahead and tidy the inbox when there's only 10 to 30 messages instead of 100+.

Most interesting about this process has been watching the things that I let sit and thinking about why I let them turn into e-clutter. There was email about a project I can't make any headway on; there's guilt and annoyance attached to those. I decided to file them without even trying to take action, because there's nothing I can do and just looking at the the email upset me. I know what's next on that project and there's no reason to beat myself up about it.

Two that I held onto were negative responses to something I had done; when I really looked at it, I was holding onto them because I wanted there to be some way to go back in time or argue with the senders and change their content. That's not very likely, is it? I was keeping the email to remind myself to try something different next time. Yuck. Into the trash with those.

I read somewhere that there's always a really good reason we keep things beyond their use or time of intent, and I have realized that in this case, I'm not keeping email--I'm keeping feelings, and a lot of negative feelings at that! That's just not useful.

Maybe with this understanding I can make the change in my inbox permanent. My new mantra is that email is email; reply to it, act on it, file it, or trash it. A clean inbox is a happy inbox.

Now, I wonder if I can start going through my email backfiles five messages at a time?

WDT

Well, Maybe YOU'LL Be Interested In It

So, I says to myself I says, why not start a blog of all the stuff you see that might be interesting to the department you serve? Usually I email juicy tidbits to individuals, and I've gotten positive response, so blogging it seemed like a good idea. SEEMED.

I set it up (over at http://hpmmeta.blogspot.com, if you happen to want to look) and sent out an email announcing its construction. I get three responses, all, shall I say, underwhelming. I'm not sure if it's the medium, the message, or both.

Oh, well. I'm going to keep it up for a while because it's a useful exercise for me to ground myself in their area. And, if you're interested in the things that interest the people who teach the people who will evenutally be hospital CEOs (and thus, looking to cut your little budget), by all means, take a look and let me know what you think.

Ring-a-ring o' EBooks

Trixie LOVES "Ring-a-ring of roses", and for some reason the froufrala we are having about ebooks right now makes me think of the rhyme. Perhaps it's because we're all holding hands, running around and around in circles, and we occasionally all fall down. It's not as much fun doing it metaphorically at work as it is doing it in real life with my beautiful girl, though.

Here's the deal: the School of Medicine wants ebooks for their new curriculum. Fantastic! The library is helping them select useful materials. Fantastic! Many of the faculty love AccessMedicine, which I shepharded through as a purchase last year for another purpose but which is proving quite popular. Excellente!

Then, why do we all keep "falling down"? It's a combination of communication problems, varying definitions of what an ebook is or can be, and a total lack of understanding of the how the process of collecting and aquiring of library materials works. These people have no idea that we're extensively experienced in looking at a resouce and dtermining the quality of both the information and the interface, and so we are having to constantly reinterject ourselves into probelm conversations where WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWERS, if someone would just bother to ask us.

Many people have decried the fact that librarianship has a serious Rodney Dangerfield aspect--"we just can't get no respect." I don't have any new insight into the phenomenon, I can just say that it's darned annoying to see it in action.

WDT

The Clean Slate

Today I did something that would have been unthinkable for me a short while ago: I categorically dumped all of the email sitting in my inbox into a folder to think about "later," and I unchecked the "keep new" boxes on the hundreds of items I was keeping new in Bloglines. So, I now have a shiny clean inbox and a shiny clean feed reader. It's scary, and I'm consumed with guilt for some reason, but I feel lighter somehow.

The simple fact is that I hoard electronic clutter. Emails, documents, news items, web pages--it doesn't take up any space, right? I might need it someday, right?? It's just too cool to let go, right???

Wrong. At some point the material ceases to be useful and just sucks up my time and energy. I would never consider keeping this kind of clutter in the real world (I'm a regular shredder of paper material), so why do I keep it in the virtual world, especially when the virtual world is where I spend almost all of my work time?

The question now is if I can keep the inbox and the feed reader clean. We'll see.

WDT