I made a lot of changes to the topics covered in the class in light of how much Web 2.0 technologies have changed. I’d originally wanted to teach a class on online communities, but I couldn’t find enough good readings (or a textbook) for an entire course (now that Nancy White, et al.’s new book on Digital Habitats is out, it might be easier to do). I decided instead to focus more on online community-building in the course and am spending two weeks on it. I’m also having three guest speakers who run online communities: Frances Roehm of Skokie Net, Jessamyn West of MetaFilter, and my hubby, Adam Farkas, of ODwire. I know there are a lot of other topics I could have covered (cloud computing, mobile technologies, mashups, etc.), but I’m pretty happy with this semester’s lineup and I look forward to read my students reflections and discussions on these topics.

A while back, I’d asked folks on Twitter/FriendFeed/Facebook for suggestions of good Facebook pages to use as examples in my class. I thought I’d share those in case others are interested. You can find the list here. I don’t know that they’re the best Facebook pages, but I think they will give students some interesting food for thought.

As always in my classes, people from outside the class can register in the classroom and post comments on mine and my students’ posts. So feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed and/or join the conversation!

I’ve found it interesting how some vendors are vilified (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) while others get a free pass — to the point where we no longer even think of them as vendors. Open source vendor? You’re cool. Vendor who blogs and gives talks about 2.0 stuff (a la Paul Miller, Stephen Abram and Tim Spalding)? You’re cool too. Product manager, marketing dude or executive at a company like Ex Libris or EBSCO or Elsevier? Not so much. And why is that? They’re all trying to sell something to libraries, right? They all want to make money from us. But some of these people are seen as being good and having our best interests at heart while others of them are seen as being out to screw us.

Once upon a time, I was asked to speak on a panel. So was Tim Spalding. Because I was a member of this organization, I was not paid and had to pay for my travel to get to the conference. Tim got paid to come and be a part of this panel, in which he spoke about his product, LibraryThing. I mentioned it to the organizers because I thought it was odd that a vendor get paid for the opportunity to drum up free publicity for his product. The organizer said that she really hadn’t thought of Tim as a vendor. Interesting. Is Tim an awesome guy who most of us think a great deal of? Certainly. Is he a very entertaining speaker? Without question. Does he sell stuff to libraries? Yes. Does he sometimes exhibit at conferences? Yes. Does that make him a vendor? I’d say so!

And that’s not to say that vendors are bad. Most aren’t. But I really take issue with the way our profession tends to idealize some types of vendors and vilify others. I think a lot of people have started to see this black-and-white thinking as problematic in light of the whole LibLime Koha fork thing. Because suddenly you have this open source company — a company that is supposed to be good and out to benefit the larger open source community — doing something that benefits them and their customers at the expense of the community. But weren’t we just hoisting the LibLime folks on our shoulders last year? Weren’t many of us (me included) promoting them and weren’t we excited when we saw their client list growing and growing and growing? (Many of us may still be happy to see their client list grow as it’s a sign that the market share of open source software in libraries is growing.)

Folks at OCLC definitely used to get a pass in the same way the open source folks did, though that seems to be changing as public perception shifts towards viewing them as a vendor that wants to gobble up and control our data (which is also a simplification). It reminds me a lot of how some librarians felt about Google — how they went from loving Google to feeling totally betrayed by them. I guess my take is that if someone makes their money off a library without working in it, they are a vendor. Consultants are vendors. People who sell products are vendors. People who sell services, like maintaining open source systems, are vendors. And all of them will put the good of their company over the good of libraries. That doesn’t make them evil — it makes them good businesspeople.

And again, with the Stephen Abram thing. I didn’t like his paper because it lacked a level of quality and polish that I would expect from Stephen and a company like SirsiDynix. It was about at the level of professionalism of a poorly-researched blog post (hey, like this!). I take issue with anything that doesn’t cite where its information is coming from and uses phrases like “some companies”, “some software” “some argue.” There were lots of factual inaccuracies and opinion masquerading as fact (”Proprietary software has more features. Period. Proprietary software is much more user-friendly”). And what was up with the completely pointless chart on page 4? It was just an awful piece. The fact is, there are a lot of good arguments against open source and against choosing an open source ILS, but Stephen’s lack of good hard facts and citations made any point he made seem less credible.

Part of me started to wonder on Friday if someone from an open source company wrote a similar screed against proprietary systems, would it garner the same reaction from the Twittersphere/blogosphere? And I hate to say it, but I think the answer is no. If someone from Equinox went off on the weaknesses of proprietary systems in a way that was badly researched and perhaps contained some hyperbole, many folks would probably nod their head and say, “yeah, they do suck.” Some of us might send the link to our colleagues, writing that it contains a great distillation of why open source is the better option for the ILS. I’m not saying this to damn anyone or shame anyone, because I know I do it too sometimes without even thinking about the double-standard.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve been so sleep-deprived lately that I’ve been seeing everything through whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses are (green?). I guess what I’m trying to say is that we really can’t look at things as being so black and white. We can’t say open source=good, proprietary=bad. It’s not that simple. Stephen Abram is not a bad person because he wrote a crappy “position paper. OCLC isn’t necessarily evil. Open source vendors aren’t necessarily good. We shouldn’t assume that a vendor is out to take us to the cleaners and steal all our data, but neither should we assume that a vendor has our best interests at heart (no matter how cool they or their representatives are). Things are really, really gray, and require a much more critical eye than we sometimes have by default.

Updated: I just read Cindi Trainor’s The Sacred Cows of Library Technologists, which I think dovetails so nicely with my points and is far, far more eloquently written. Check it out!

I wasn’t one of those people who first worked in a library before going to library school. I started library school about a month after I started my first job in a library, so obviously I’d made the decision to pursue this career before I had the inside scoop on what library work was like. I’d read a number of articles about digital preservation and digitization of special collections materials and thought that librarianship seemed to be an exciting profession that allowed people to pursue all sorts of interesting and diverse work and would have a tremendous impact on the preservation of born digital materials. Also, coming from a helping profession (social work), I was looking to do work where I felt like I could make a difference in people’s lives. But did I have any idea what I’d be doing as a librarian on a day-to-day basis? Not a clue! I took a huge leap of faith and luckily it paid off. I would have loved to have had a better idea of what librarians do in their jobs, but, at the time, there weren’t really many resources that offered that sort of information.

Because of my blog, I get a lot of people emailing me for advice on whether or not they should become a librarian or asking me what librarians do (or what I do as if my experience is somehow representative). I never tell someone if they should or shouldn’t go to library school, but try to dispel some of the myths about librarianship (it’s not stressful, you read books all day, etc.) and point them to resources that give them a sense of the breadth of experiences in our profession. That, I think, is what Library Day in the Life offers. It paints a picture of the diverse work we do as librarians in a very real and unromanticized sense. If you’re interested in working in public services, you can visit the blogs of librarians who work in public services and see what their days are like. If you’re interested in working with library systems, you can see what sorts of projects those librarians are working on. It doesn’t romanticize, doesn’t cheer our work — it just lays out what we do in a way that people who are interested in our profession can learn from.

So, I guess I’d say that I was writing this for the “me” of seven years ago, or for people who, like me, have not worked in the profession but think librarianship sounds like a good match for their interests and might want to participate. And while it’s valuable for future librarians, I also found it interesting myself to see what people at other libraries do during their work days. It’s fascinating to me how different the work of instruction/information literacy librarians can be at different institutions. But, again, I think it’s less for us than for those people who are searching the web in an effort to get a sense of what this profession they’re thinking of joining is really like.

When someone emails me and tells me they’re considering becoming a librarian, I will tell them that before they make any sort of decision, they should look at librarians’ library day in the life posts and see what the work of a librarian is really like. It’s an awesome resource and I applaud Bobbi Newman for starting it all.

ALA with a baby is certainly different. I didn’t stay out late or go to as many events as I would have liked to. I felt really torn between librarian/speaker/blogger Meredith and mommy Meredith, and it felt kind of weird when those worlds collided in Chicago. There were some moments where I really felt socially awkward — especially when I got my award at the LITA reception. But it was still a lot of fun to learn things, take part in discussions, and see some people who are very dear to me. The programs I took part in all went really well and I was happy to see that I hadn’t lost my ability to give a presentation. I was on two panels about Library/Web 2.0 that both looked at the trend retrospectively in terms of what we’ve learned, what we’ve accomplished, and whether or not 2.0 has met its promise (whatever that promise was). This really meshed well with what I’ve been talking and writing about the past year (why 2.0 initiatives have failed at libraries, what institutions need to do to position themselves to implement 2.0 tools, etc.) so it was fun to take part in a discussion of these topics with some really smart people. It was obvious from the comments after both presentations that a lot of people have implemented 2.0 tools that have not had the ROI they’d hoped for, and others have implemented 2.0 tools without really considering whether they are a right fit for their intended population.

The Unconference on Friday went so well (in spite of the fact that it was planned by two women with babies)!!! Everything flowed nicely throughout the day and the discussions people had were really interesting and rich. Things just seemed to fall into place on their own and the people we had there were so interested, motivated, and fun! We got lots of positive feedback from the attendees. Jim Rettig even showed up at lunchtime to see how it was going and to say hi to the attendees. I feel grateful to have been given the chance to help blaze what will hopefully soon be a well-worn trail for ALA — it’s exciting to see the organization experimenting with new models for conference participation. Michelle and I will be doing a survey for the participants on their experience, so we’ll be sure to share those results later on. You can read coverage of the Unconference here, here and here and you can check out what was discussed in the backchannel and on Twitter here.

Other than destroying my shoulder, it was a really awesome conference, though I am definitely looking forward to putting my whole self into conferences when Reed is a bit less dependent on me. It was hard to balance the two.

And for those of you who want to see what you missed out on at the conference (whether you were there or not since no one can be everywhere!), check out this awesome project by Heather Devine at Flex Your Info. I had the pleasure of meeting her briefly on Monday and seeing a new LIS grad creating a valuable resource for the ALA Conference brings back memories of my own experience four years ago.

I’ve known about this for almost a year as my library had its links shut off because we didn’t want to pay to be able to link to HBR in our online classes. Fortunately there weren’t any links to HBR in the course management system when our links were shut off, so it didn’t have any real impact on us. I’d assume that we were approached by Harvard because our online programs spend quite a bit of money on case studies from Harvard Business School Press, since we’re certainly not a big fish otherwise. When I was told by our rep about the new service where we could pay to link to HBR articles in EBSCO, I’d had no idea that we had previously been unable to link to them in the first place (how many of us have access to our contracts with our vendors?). The links to HBR articles are available in the same way as links to any other article in the Business Source products. If there’s a persistent link in the database to an article that a professor wants to use for their class, they’re going to use it. And apparently, I’m not the only one who was unaware of this.

These are the current use restrictions, which have changed since my school signed an agreement with EBSCO:

“Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009 Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org.”

One has to wonder what “any other means of incorporating the content into course resources” means. Does that mean one can’t tell students in a class to access a HBR article from Business Source Premier without providing a link? Absurd!

Personally, I find the whole thing really sleazy. We are already paying to access the content from Harvard Business Review in the EBSCO database, just like every other journal in there. We link to other journals in EBSCO databases in our course management system without incident. Why not this one? Why we would need to essentially double-pay just to have a direct link to the content? And, as Paul also asks, how does EBSCO know that a school is using links to HBR content in a course management system or e-reserve?

I guess HBSP can make whatever rules they want with regards to their content, since they’re big and basically essential to any MBA program. But I’m curious — are any of your libraries actually paying HBSP to be able to create permalinks? And have any of you had your EBSCO permalinks to HBR shut off because you wouldn’t pay?

In the beginning of my talk, I showed screenshots of library blogs that haven’t been posted to, MySpace pages that haven’t been logged into, and podcasts that haven’t had new episodes in years. And I talked about some of the reasons why these 2.0 projects may have failed:

The first reason is that frequently social software implementations are not tied to institutional goals. Research has shown that libraries have been much more successful in marketing information literacy instruction when it’s tied to University goals/General Education requirements/etc. It’s the same with 2.0 technologies. Whatever we’re doing should be tied to the library’s strategic goals and planning. If it’s not tied to the library’s goals, then how will it be seen as a priority?

Similarly, 2.0 technologies should be planned for in a strategic way, which I think has not happened at a lot of libraries. Some libraries jumped on the blogging bandwagon because they thought (or were told) that every library must have a blog. Other libraries started wikis because staff were really excited about the idea of having a wiki. Neither are good reasons to implement a technology. We first need to understand the needs of our population (be it patrons or staff) and then implement whatever technology and/or service will best meet those needs. We need to have clear goals in mind from the outset so that we can later assess if it’s successful or not. These technologies may be fun, but they’re simply tools. We don’t walk around with hammers looking for nails to smash in.

In some cases, social software is treated as one staff member’s “pet project.” The use of 2.0 technologies in the library is often one person’s initiative at their library. They will make a passionate case for a blog, wiki, or whatever and will end up handling every aspect of its implementation. When that person leaves their job or gets too busy with other job responsibilities, guess what ends up being abandoned? I heard a horror story from a library that entrusted one staff member with running their MySpace profile and when she left under not-so-friendly circumstances, she refused to give anyone at the library the login information for their profile. This is just as foolish as a library only having one person who can access the back-end of their server or ILS. What if that person gets hit by a bus?!?!? Cross-training is a critical component of building an effective organization, and the same should be the case with any 2.0 technologies a library implements. Making it one person’s sole responsibility is a great way to doom a project.

I think one of the biggest reasons for problems with 2.0 technologies is also one of the major reasons why so many libraries are using them — they’re just so easy to get started with. It takes five minutes to start a blog, a wiki, a del.icio.us account or a MySpace page. And yet, keeping 2.0 technologies going takes significantly more time and effort. Blogs need to be posted to, MySpace pages need to be updated, and wikis need content. And something that people are very excited about maintaining in the first month or two of its existence might lose its allure over time. If there isn’t a plan for how you will maintain the tech from the get-go — be it scheduling posting and moderation, updating the software, etc. — it’s very possible that it will be abandoned when staff become less enthusiastic about it or they just get busy with other things. Libraries need to plan for the implementation and continued maintenance of 2.0 tech in the same way they plan for the technologies they pay a small fortune for. Even 2.0 tech costs money in terms of staff time, so it’s important to take it just as seriously as costly tech.

Finally, I think a lot of library staff end up abandoning 2.0 projects because they simply aren’t given time to work on them. We all have lots of duties that are non-negotiable in our job — reference shifts, instruction, web updates, committee appointments, etc. — and blogs, wikis and podcasts are often seen as something “extra.” If you create a weekly podcast and are totally bogged down one week with library instruction, it’s pretty obvious what won’t get done. While administrators may initially say that implementing 2.0 tech is important to keep up with other libraries and our patrons, they may not give you any additional time to work on these things. I’ve heard that complaint from a number of people at talks I’ve given. If you already have a full workload, your Director tells you that it’s critically important that the library have a blog, but doesn’t free up any time for you to work on it, he or she is sending a really mixed message about its import.

Two attendees actually asked when they should abandon a 2.0 project that just doesn’t have the ROI they were hoping for. Here are some of my thoughts on that:

I think before you abandon a project, you should try to figure out why your 2.0 technology isn’t having the impact you’d hoped for. That way, even if you do need to abandon the project, at least you’ve learned valuable lessons about your population from the failure. We can learn a lot from trying things and failing that can help us better meet our patrons’ needs in the future.

If it’s something your patrons aren’t visiting/using, think about why that might be. Are they not aware it exists? Then try doing more marketing. Is it just not meeting their needs in its current form? See if there’s a way you can make it more useful to them. Maybe your podcast is too long or your blog posts are boring. You should survey your patrons or at least talk to some of them and figure out how you can better meet their needs. Are there barriers to use that your patrons find unacceptable? See if you can bring those down. Our distance learners didn’t use our IM reference service when we first launched it 3 years ago, because most of them didn’t use IM normally (their average age is significantly older than that of our undergrad population) and weren’t exactly going to download a client and create an account just to chat with us. When we started using MeeboMe, everything changed, because the students just had to type words into a box and click enter to chat with us. So look for possible barriers to use. Are you making it too difficult for patrons to comment on your blog or add content to your wiki? Bring those walls down.

If it’s something that’s failing because staff aren’t contributing to it, you need to try to understand what’s behind their resistance. Make sure you’ve done all you can to secure buy-in. Are staff comfortable with the technology? Are they not being given time to add content? Did you offer trainings on it? Are there any technology barriers that you can bring down — make it easier to post, make the wiki/blog/etc. the homepage on their computer, even post things for people to get them started, etc.? But honestly, if most staff members don’t recognize that there’s a need for a library wiki or library blog or whatever in the first place, or the project isn’t strongly supported by administration, it’s not going to be a good fit for your library. That doesn’t mean that it might not be a good fit in the future, but it’s not a good fit now. I’d been wanting to create subject guides using a wiki at our library for a really long time, but waited until my colleagues recognized a need for it (and our Head of Public Services saw a need for it) to actually develop one. And I made sure to offer trainings so that people could practice editing the wiki in a safe space with a knowledgeable facilitator there. Had I introduced the idea earlier or not offered trainings, it would likely have ended in failure.

These are just some thoughts off the top of my pregnancy-addled head. What tips would you give to people who have implemented 2.0 technologies in their library and just aren’t seeing much return on investment from them? What can libraries do to get off on the right foot with 2.0 technologies?

I know a lot of people out there have great ideas that they never try to make happen because they don’t believe in their ability to make them happen. I was always one of those people. I could always find a good reason not to do something and was always very good at talking myself out of things. So many opportunities were wasted. But when I stopped doing that — when my response to trying something new and scary went from “why should I?” to “why not?” — my life got about 100,000 times better than it was before. Everything hasn’t always gone right and most of the things I’ve done have ended up being a ton of work, but I’m now a true believer in doing things that scare me and I no longer make excuses for why I shouldn’t.

What I found is that every time you do something that scares you, you feel more capable of doing something that is even scarier for you; until the things that seemed insurmountably frightening feel quite achievable. Most of the time, having whatever the worst case scenario you’re fearing happen is actually worse than the fear you feel in the first place. Putting myself out there on the web with a blog was scary, but when I started that, I never would have imagined that I’d put myself out there with a book or on a stage with hundreds of librarians looking at me (that was the stuff of nightmares for me). Not in a million years. And each thing was scary at first. I spent hours crying over the book, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I was shaking like a leaf (and sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News) when I gave that first talk at CIL. But once I did it, I realized that it wasn’t so bad and I could do it again. Now I love public speaking. I love the adrenaline rush I get from getting up in front of people and I love teaching. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing that someone learned something useful from you — it beats any award you can get.

What helped get me started was having people who made me think I could do the crazy things I’d been thinking about. I was lucky to be encouraged very early on (even before I had my first professional library job in some cases) by people who for some inexplicable reason believed in me. Paul Pival (without whose resume and cover letter coaching I probably wouldn’t have a job), Dorothea Salo, Roy Tennant, Rachel Singer Gordon, and Michael Stephens were amazing mentors and cheerleaders early on, and their faith in me was so instrumental to any success I’ve had. And through it all, of course, my husband Adam made me believe I could do anything. I’d never have started this blog without him. Thank you all so much! I’d like to say that I could have done all this on my own, but before I had evidence that I could achieve the things I dreamed about, I really needed that encouragement. I admire people who can do it all without encouragement from others, but believing in myself has never come naturally to me.

We are very lucky to work in a profession where someone fresh out of library school (or even IN library school for that matter) is allowed to achieve so much. I have respect for experience and have learned a lot over the past few years, but I’m glad that no one ever said to me “what does she know about social software in libraries? She’s a brand-new librarian!” It never happened. I was allowed and encouraged to create and contribute and I still find that extraordinary. So folks out there who are LIS students or are just settling into their first job: the only barriers to your contributing to the profession are you. If you have a vision and are willing to work hard to achieve it, you really can make it happen.

This award came at such a nice time. I know that once my baby comes (in less than a month — ack!) I won’t have much time to devote to my extracurricular activities. I know it will take me a good long while to get back to a place where I can start focusing on the million project ideas that are banging around in my head like pinballs. And I know that I will never be as single-mindedly focused on my career again because that’s the choice I made when I decided to have a child. But this award reminds me that I did make a difference with what I’ve done over the past four years and that I do want to continue to contribute in any way I can in the future. My priorities have changed, but contributing to the profession is still something I feel passionately about and will always be a priority in my life.

The online conference that’s coming up is the ACRL Virtual Conference. This is the virtual component of ACRL’s National Conference which takes place next month in Seattle. I’m on the ACRL Virtual Conference committee, though I can’t take any credit for the coolness of this online conference. ACRL has had a virtual conference component for many years, though in the past, it didn’t offer a lot of bang for the buck — usually a few virtual talks and access to the conference community for networking and conference handouts. This time it’s very different. ACRL has contracted with a company that will be capturing the audio and slides of every presentation, and offering them as a movie at nearly the same time that the live session is going on (with just a tiny delay). This means that people registered for the virtual conference will be able to access every single presentation at the live conference. In addition, there will be live virtual presentations that are completely unique to the Virtual Conference, organized chat discussions, events in Second Life and more!

Attending the ACRL Virtual Conference will only set you back $165 (if you’re an ACRL member); a lot less than the physical conference, especially when you factor in travel expenses. And if you’re already registered for the National Conference, it’s FREE! For those who would love to attend ACRL but just don’t have the funds, this is a terrific opportunity to benefit from the knowledge being shared in Seattle without leaving your office.

The ACRL Virtual Conference committee is actually offering a Webcast kickoff event this week that anyone interested in social software, research and education should definitely be interested in:

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 – 1:00 – 2:15 p.m. CST
(11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. PST | 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. MST | 2:00 – 3:15 p.m. EST)
The Virtual Conference kicks into high gear with a new feature for 2009 – the Kick-Off Webcast! On Tuesday, February 17, the Virtual Conference presents Jean-Claude Bradley, Associate Professor of Chemistry and E-Learning Coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, giving an invited presentation that can be seen as part of the Virtual Conference. Take advantage of this opportunity to interact in real-time with this expert in e-learning and “open science.”

Jean-Claude is someone who has really inspired me with his use of social technologies and gaming in the classroom as well as his research on the potential of social software in improving research. More information about registering and the features of the Virtual Conference are available on the ACRL Conference website.

The other awesome online conference I was involved in was the Iowa Small Libraries Online Conference. In places like Iowa, small library can take on a meaning totally different from ALA’s definition of what a small library is. The libraries targeted by this conference tend to be really small and without the resources to send its library staff across the state to attend a conference. So, instead of having a conference that only libraries with sufficient funding could afford to send staff to, the regional library associations in Iowa created an online conference that any interested librarian could participate in. They capitalized on their WebJunction membership and used the Wimba web conferencing platform. It was just like any normal conference with live scheduled presentations. They even had a virtual exhibit hall where attendees could chat with vendors!

I had the pleasure of giving the keynote presentation at the conference. As someone who has done gazillions of webcasts using just about every platform imaginable, I was really impressed with how well the conference organizers supported attendees and speakers technologically. Things went extremely smoothly and given the professionalism and preparedness of the organizers, I would assume that it continued that way throughout the day. I was absolutely touched that they sent me a little care package with chocolates, socks, a mug and hot cocoa so I’d be cozy and comfortable during my talk (that has to be the most adorable speaker’s gift I’ve ever received). But much more than that, I was so proud to be part of a conference that made professional development accessible to people who may never have been able to get to a national or even state conference. Associations that have lots of rural or small library members should definitely take a lesson from the wonderful people in Iowa who made this possible.

I’d originally wanted to make the ALA Unconference a hybrid f2f/online experience, but most people on Jim Rettig’s advisory committee felt that we should focus on the in-person element. In hindsight, I think they were right. As it turns out, the Unconference is going to be located in a hotel that may or may not offer wireless Internet access (or Internet access at all — I have no idea since we don’t even know what hotel it’ll be in). Given how difficult it can be to get really reliable wireless access at an ALA Conference we could have ended up creating expectations for an online component that we simply could not deliver on. And while the online/offline balance for the Top Tech Trends meeting at Midwinter was brilliantly executed to allow for maximum participation from all (kudos to the tireless organizers of that!), the online components integrated into that same panel actually ended up being a distraction at Annual. While I’d love to do a hybrid Unconference in the future, I’m glad other folks talked us out of it this time around. I’d hate to have created something that would have served to show ALA that Unconferences are not a good model for them.

I feel much more optimistic this year about the growth of online conference opportunities than I did last year. And as budgets shrink and professional development funds become scarce, I hope more organizations will consider creating online conferences — if not as the main event, at least as a component of a F2F conference like ACRL. Because it’s likely that far fewer of us will be able to jet off to Seattle or Chicago or Boston or DC next year and conference organizers will have to be creative to keep their own revenues up.

So, Michelle and I are planning what we hope will be an awesome Unconference at ALA Annual this year, and registration for the Unconference just opened today. The Unconference is a full-day event which will take place Friday, July 10th from 9am – 5pm. Registration is free and lunch is included (you do need to be registered for the general ALA Conference to participate though). The unconference is limited to 75 people only, and we’ll open up a waitlist when the number of registrants goes above that. The reason for the size was partially related to cost constraints, but was largely because we wanted to make sure the discussions at the unconference could be more intimate, giving everyone an opportunity to have a voice and participate.

Attendees will collaborate online prior to the Unconference to identify topics they’re interested in presenting to the group or facilitating a discussion about. Everyone will be both teacher and learner, discussing the topics they’re most interested in.

There will be two types of experiences at the Unconference:

1. Presentations that last 7 minutes with 5 minutes for questions/feedback. Presentations will either be about a project an attendee has done that they think other librarians would be interested in or an idea they have for a library-related project that they’d like feedback on from the audience. There will be 10 of these presentations throughout the day.
2. Group discussions that last 50 minutes. There will be 10 different discussion groups going on during each of three discussion periods and no more than 10 people can participate in any discussion. The goal of this is to allow everyone to contribute to the discussion.

Each individual attending the Unconference must either suggest a presentation they would like to give or a discussion topic they would be willing to facilitate. We will then take all of those proposed topics and have participants vote on them. This will take place approximately six weeks before the conference. Those seven presentation topics and thirty discussion topics that receive the most votes will be the ones offered during the Unconference.

There is no specific limitation on the topics that can be discussed at this unconference as long as they’re in some way related to librarianship. They can run the gamut from services to children to cataloging standards to issues in reference services to bleeding edge technologies and more.

I’m really excited to see how this model will work, especially within the structure of ALA Annual. I think it’s great to experiment with new participatory models within the framework of Annual and I still believe that positive change is possible within ALA. It just doesn’t make sense anymore for the topics discussed at a conference to be decided more than a year in advance (I think I was asked to speak at Annual 1 1/2 yrs in advance!!!). The Social Software Showcase has been an inspiring breath of fresh air at Annual and hopefully this will be too. I also love the idea of just about everyone playing an active role — whether they are speaking, facilitating a discussion, or just taking part in that discussion. The format for unconferences is so flexible and allows for a lot of variation in how it’s designed. Not only should it be a good learning experience, but it should be FUN!

If you’re attending ALA Annual and are interested in the opportunity to participate in discussions on topics you’re interested in (or maybe even present!), register for the Unconference. We hope to get a really diverse group of people at the Unconference, not only the folks who are into hot bleeding-edge technologies. This is truly meant for everyone.

We’re also looking for two people to help us make sure things run smoothly with the registration, voting for topics, and the Unconference itself (we already have one fantastic volunteer, Steve Lawson, who is an unconference veteran). Past experience with planning unconferences or conferences would definitely be a plus. I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be able to be there for the Unconference with the new baby and all, so we want to make sure to have other fantastic helpers just in case. If you’re interested, drop me an email.

Hope you can join us for this awesome unconferency goodness!

It was some of the comments on David’s post (and in follow-up posts on other blogs) that really made me write this post. Particularly this comment from “Jill” (which also included her sweetly telling David that he’s out of touch with the realities of public services):

As to defining parameters for the service, I don’t see this as a bad thing. Unless you have a staff member dedicated to monitoring virtual reference at a location away from a public service desk, in-person patrons should absolutely take precedence over a virtual patron. Common sense dictates that you pay attention to the person who is physically in the same space as you. Not that the virtual patron’s question is any less important, but you do need to set some guidelines of who to help first

I may be as dense and out-of-touch as David, because I don’t see why common sense dictates that in-person patrons should take precedence. Why? Because they are standing in front of you and the virtual patron is easier to ignore? It’s still a human being sitting at their computer waiting for your answer. Because they took the time to come to the library? Don’t we all have patrons who are physically unable to come to the library? The logic of this really escapes me.

In academic libraries, I’ve seen a lot of virtual reference policies that say that they will always give priority to in-person reference queries. Anna confirms that her library has just such a policy in her post:

There is a note on the IM page of the website which states, “Users at the Main Service Desk have priority over IM users. IM users are taken in a first-come, first served order. If you would prefer not to wait, you may always email a librarian.” Essentially, this is the only way we can manage IM reference service with one person handling it at the same time they are answering questions at the desk and responding to email queries. So far, our users have been understanding, and IM reference makes up approximately 10% of our reference interactions.

I don’t see this as discriminating against our virtual users. Anyone in customer service will tell you that the person standing in front of you takes priority.

I work at a library that has fewer than half the staff of Anna’s library at the University of Richmond (and we serve a larger combined graduate/undergraduate population). We have six librarians who staff all of the hours we are available to provide reference services and only one person covers IM, phone, email, and physical reference all at once. Yet our policy for reference has always been “first-come, first-served.” If I am online working with a student via IM, I will not tell them to wait or give me their email address when a physical student comes to the desk. I will tell that student, “I am working with another student through IM, can you wait a couple of minutes?” Each situation is different and sometimes I can work with both simultaneously. Sometimes I will take down the question and email address of one of them (if their question is particularly in-depth and/or their paper is not due in 10 hours — sometimes we’ll do this regardless of having competing priorities because the question is huge or would be better answered by another librarian or I want to do more digging on it and the patron needs to go) and will get back to them as soon as things settle down. But I never give preference to the student physically standing in front of me — each type of reference customer is equally important and deserves the same level of service.

I really have to question the logic of the statement “the person standing in front of you takes priority” for libraries that offer synchronous virtual reference services. People keep saying it, but no one has explained why they should take priority. And I don’t get it. Is it because your physical patrons are more important than your virtual patrons? Because the reference interview can take longer with a virtual reference patron? Because it makes you uncomfortable to tell someone standing in front of you that you’re working with someone online and they’ll have to wait a moment? I really can’t understand that statement at all.

When I developed our IM reference service three years ago, I was guided by the ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services, which includes the following statement:

Members of the distance learning community, including those with disabilities, must therefore be provided effective and appropriate library services and resources, which may differ from, but must be equivalent to those provided for students and faculty in traditional campus settings.

If you are saying that in-person questions take precedence over the medium open to distance learners for contacting you, you are not providing equivalent services. I can’t stand when distance learners are treated like second-class citizens — having been a distance learner and a distance learning librarian, it really makes my blood boil. And this is just one example of how service to on-campus patrons takes precedence over service to online patrons. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re less deserving of timely and high-quality services. They pay your salary as much as every other student does. Here’s our help page for distance learners which clearly does not state that there are any limits to the reference services available to them or that questions from other patrons take precedence over their questions.

I know plenty of libraries do not serve distance learners, but I think the spirit of this document should apply to all virtual users of our library. There are many reasons why people may not come into the library to ask their question. It’s not just because they’re lazy or didn’t feel like it. Perhaps they are disabled. Perhaps they do not have transportation. Perhaps they have a mental illness like social anxiety disorder or agoraphobia or are asking a question that they’d be too uncomfortable to ask in person. What excites me most about providing synchronous virtual reference services is not the convenience, but that it has made reference services accessible to many people who never would have or could have used our reference services before. And to tell these people that your physical patrons take precedence is a subtle message that they are less important than the people who could make it to the library.

And let’s not forget that there is a whole other synchronous reference medium that’s been around for many, many years: the phone. At our library, when the phone rings and I’m working with a patron, I’ll answer the phone, take down their info really quick and let them know I’ll call them back because I’m with another patron. If I’m on the phone with someone and another patron comes to the desk, I’ll let the in-person patron know that I’m answering a reference question on the phone and that I can work with them in a few minutes or they can write down their query and leave me their email address and I’ll get to their question as soon as I’m done. It’s no different from how we treat our virtual reference patrons. And I don’t understand why it should be any other way.

I know that the reference interview can be more challenging and take more time in the virtual medium. I know it’s hard to staff four forms of reference service at once. I get it. I work in public services too, at a library where our reference stats have not gone down over the past five years and where we have a very small number of staff members to cover reference (and we don’t use students). But to say that there’s some logical reason why the person standing in front of you should receive preference over the person on the phone or in your chat window makes absolutely no sense to me. Can someone explain it?