One of the commenters on my post wrote “where is a David to take down this Goliath?” In my mind, what we really need to take down this Goliath is another Goliath; specifically, a Goliath made up of a lot of Davids. Pretty much all libraries are members of consortia of some sort; local, regional and national groups dedicated to advocating for and supporting their member libraries. If these aren’t the groups that should be fighting unfair or unethical practices of vendors, I don’t know who should! It’s only in large numbers that we can actually make a difference in scholarly publishing.

We’ve certainly seen major Universities doing it, since it seriously impacts their bottom line. Back when I was in library school, I remember when a whole bunch of big schools like Cornell, Harvard, etc. boycotted Elsevier journals in response to bundling of journals, exorbitant pricing, and an unwillingness to negotiate fair deals. In addition, their faculty Senates made statements suggesting that faculty not support journals with exorbitant pricing by not publishing in them or serving on their boards. When we’re being faced with unfair deals or unethical behavior from publishers, we should get our faculty members involved too. We have three members of the Society for Military History on the Norwich faculty. I contacted them last week, as I thought they might be able to exert pressure on the Society. If faculty drop their memberships and stop publishing and serving on the boards of journals like this, the journals will have little choice but to change their practices (not that I think that will all happen, especially with historians rather than scientists, but one can dream, right?).

I’m not an expert on what consortia do by any stretch of the imagination, so maybe those of you with more experience can answer this. Are our consortia exerting pressure on vendors when they do things like this? I know the consortia we belong to get us discounts with vendors (and mainly seem focused on group discounts and training), but do they fight vendors when those vendors do things that are harmful or exploitative to their member libraries? I see that an International Coalition of Library Consortia exists and that they’ve made some statements about issues in scholarly publishing, but they’ve made so few over the years in light of the huge number of issues libraries have grappled with. Looking at the mission statements of a few consortia, they talk about group purchasing and a single point of contact for dealing with vendors, but I see nothing about actively advocating for member libraries.

So, if the consortia don’t fight for us, who should? ALA? ACRL? I always hear about how ALA has such a strong advocacy arm, but it seems to be all about advocating for libraries in the national and state governments, not with scholarly publishers and content providers. It certainly makes no sense for us to form separate organizations to advocate for libraries in this realm when we have these consortia that have relationships with publishers and are supposed to be negotiating with them on our behalf.

More important than making our dissatisfaction known to our vendors is to make our dissatisfaction known to the organizations that are supposed to represent and advocate for us. We are much more powerful in large numbers than we are alone, and we joined consortia in the first place to band together for our common good. It’s not just about getting deals and taking classes on cataloging and Web 2.0 technologies — it should be about collective advocacy. And if the organizations we give money to are not providing that for us, then we should pressure them to do so. Because we will not be able to create real change in the scholarly publishing and library technology landscape unless we act as a group.

I really don’t know what happens! I start writing and my fingers just seem to take over. This is what happens when my husband goes away and leaves me alone with my thoughts. Sorry folks!

Something I frequently think about when I go to conferences is the whole idea of “service to the profession.” I’m not a fan of the idea that librarians must provide service outside of their daily work and I think, for way too long, there was a very specific prescription for how one even could provide service to the profession. I guess it’s the obstinate anti-authoritarian in me that hates being told that I need to do anything. On the flip side, I have discovered that helping and sharing with other librarians is really fun, whether it’s sharing knowledge or code, serving on a committee, teaching, writing or just sitting down with a colleague and showing them how something works. Even if it wasn’t fun, it’s worth helping your colleagues, because we would want someone to do the same for us (and we may need them to do the same for us one day).

I don’t like the term “service to the profession” because it feels so impersonal. We are the profession. Me. You. Your colleagues. The other library bloggers you read. The people you see at conferences. When you do something good for the profession, more often than not, you are doing something good for librarians. You’re not usually doing something for ALA, ACRL, PLA or some other organization; you’re doing it to benefit people just like you.

There are so many generous librarians out there who are putting their time and their passion into making things better for other librarians (usually for nothing). Sharing just seems to be the norm in this profession, which is why we really should be more into open source software and the open source development model than we are (maybe we’re better at sharing than we are at collaborating?). I’m amazed by the generosity of the people I meet in this profession. I have only e-mailed one “important person” in this field for help who blew me off; everyone else has been willing to help and offer advice when I ask for it. Librarians are frequently willing to take that hard-won knowledge and give it away. I do it all the time. Maybe I shouldn’t? It’s hard to be an expert when you give people the tools to learn as much as (if not more than) you about a subject. From experience, it feels much better to see someone you taught using the tools successfully and passing that knowledge on to others than it is to hold onto knowledge with a death grip.

This sharing is not the norm in many other fields. In some fields, people hold onto their knowledge as if it were made of gold. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is money. Knowledge is job security. I’m friendly with the University Webmaster and he once told me that he has a huge list of resources for web design. When I suggested he put his collection on del.icio.us, he balked, saying that he doesn’t share that information; he just gives it out to people he likes in drips and drabs. I’ve gotten a few of those drips and drabs, so I guess I should consider myself lucky. He’s a great guy, very willing to help me when I’m trying to figure something out. But he feels, like many, that his knowledge is what gives him an edge over the competition and that giving it away completely will make him lose his edge. I can’t entirely disagree with all that. I know that my tech knowledge helped me get my job and does give me an edge in my work. It makes me indispensable (or at least less dispensable than I would be otherwise). So why would I want to give away my intellectual capital so freely? I’ll tell you a secret… it feels really good. I remember the first time I heard that someone started a wiki because of what I taught them. It was an amazing feeling. Giving it all away is a whole lot more satisfying than hoarding it.

Maybe it’s because sharing is so natural in our field that some people reacted so negatively to the idea of a library charging librarians to attend webinars offered by their staff. The Orange County Library System in Orlando, Florida is one of the most innovative and technology-forward systems in the country. I am constantly impressed with the things they do, from creating online tutorials to offering classes on podcasting to getting young people using technology creatively. Clearly, they have a lot to teach all of us. However, instead of freely sharing that information, they are charging librarians for it:

PUSHING IT FORWARD: TAKING YOUR LIBRARY TO THE NEXT LEVEL!
Our technology series can give you the edge you need. The Orange County Library System is a recognized leader in information technology. Grab lunch (or breakfast!), login and join colleagues from around the country for presentations by OCLS staff, discussion and idea sharing online. RESERVE YOUR SEAT TODAY! $75 per session or $199 for entire series

My initial reaction, like Helene’s, was quite negative. I felt that it was awful to be making money that way off your fellow librarians. I especially felt that way when I saw that they are currently doing Helene’s Learning 2.0 program, for which she has generously shared the model, the materials and her expertise. I am not against libraries charging a bit for Webinars to cover the costs of the technology infrastructure or to get people to show up, but at $75 a pop, I can’t imagine they aren’t trying to turn a profit. Even if just 20 people attended each session, they would make $4,500. I guess it adds insult to injury to know that they used to offer these webinars for free.

I started to think more about my reaction to this last night. What’s wrong with making money this way? Lots of other organizations offer for-pay trainings for their peers. Some non-profits offer classes in their subject areas for money. Also, our library organizations offer classes that we have to pay for. Like Helene, I find it frustrating to see people charging for what we’re willing to give away for free. However, while it’s not something I’d do, it’s not wrong. It just doesn’t fit into our view of professional service. I may be totally off-base, but maybe we’re reacting to this in the same way some people reacted to that library in Arizona getting rid of Dewey numbers? It’s certainly not something I’d ever do at my library, but you can’t blame ‘em for trying, especially in Florida with the budget disasters going on there.

I guess this feels to me like someone using open source code in a proprietary and costly application. We all got our ideas from somewhere. None of us can pretend that we do not owe someone a debt of gratitude for some of the cool things we’ve implemented in our work or outside-of-work professional life. I got the idea for Five Weeks to a Social Library from the ALA 2.0 Bootcamp. I got the inspiration for using del.icio.us to create annotated web guides that are syndicated on the library website by looking at the Washington State Library’s blog. Helene Blowers was inspired to do Learning 2.0 by something Stephen Abrams wrote. Whether we copy an idea wholesale, make it our own, or just use it for inspiration, we can’t pretend that there isn’t someone in this profession we don’t owe a debt of gratitude to. If someone was willing to freely share their knowledge with us, why not pay it forward?

When we were choosing participants for Five Weeks to a Social Library, I really had my eye out for people whose applications indicated they would pay it forward. I think we chose well, because many of our former participants are teaching their colleagues about social software and are even spreading the gospel beyond their library. One of our participants, Holly Ristau, gave a talk this month on wikis at the Tribal College Librarians Institute meeting. How cool is that? It’s really gratifying for all of us who were involved in making Five Weeks happen, to see our participants using what they’ve learned and giving back to the profession.

The other great thing that comes from sharing are the connections you make with other people. Had I not chosen this path, I would never have met all the wonderful people I’m now connected to; many of whom I consider friends. They have inspired me, challenged me, supported me, made me laugh, and held me up in tough times. I’ve connected to a much bigger world outside of my library and I think that is a huge benefit that comes from “professional service.” I feel unbelievably lucky to have the friends in the profession I do, and I can’t imagine how different my life would have been had I kept things locked up inside.

We all have something to offer others in the profession. If you think you don’t, it’s more a reflection of your self-esteem than any reality. Have you ever had a good idea? Do you know about some really cool technology, product or idea that could benefit libraries? Have you done something at your library that was successful (a program, service, technology, etc.)? No matter how small you may think that achievement is, there may be someone out there right now looking for what you already know or trying to do what you’ve already achieved. Why not share it? Share it on the Library Success Wiki. Share it on listservs. Share it on a blog. Share it in a journal. Share it at a conference. Whatever you do, just please do share it. Think of how much easier our lives would be if we stopped reinventing the wheel and started sharing more.

On the flip side, I think there is a danger of giving too much. On the panel I was a part of for PLA, Tom Peters described “Second Life burnout.” Lots of people would volunteer for the Second Life Library 2.0 and would spend hours there, staffing the reference desk and just generally making things great. They’d spend so much time that they’d end up neglecting their first life. Finally, something would have to give and many of them left the Second Life Library never to return. I think people who are very excited about something can run the risk of working on it with a level of intensity that is unsustainable in the long term. Second Lifers do it. Wikipedians do it. Lots of people involved in online communities do it. I do it. It’s important to find that balance that allows you to work on the projects you’re passionate about and not let go of the other things in your life.

It was telling for me how exhausted I felt throughout the ALA conference; like I’d been run over by a bus. It’s been a crazy few years and I haven’t really had the chance to stop and take stock in a long time. I’ve been feeling kind of at loose ends lately; like I’m not sure what my next step should be and what I should be moving towards in the long term. I first started writing and speaking to establish myself professionally (I had no idea at the time how much I would enjoy both activities). I was working towards something. I’m at a point where I feel like I have a lot of options, but I’m not sure which direction to move in. I’ve discovered that I’m most passionate about something (teaching and online education) that I never thought was “my thing” before, and now I don’t know how to reorganize my priorities and get to do the sorts of things I want to do (like adjunct instruction for a library school program or technology training). My career sort of took on a life of its own over the past two years and now I need to make real decisions in order to move towards the career I want two, five, ten and twenty years from now. But I’m not sure what my next step should be. As I told Andrew Pace at ALA, “I just need someone to tell me what I should be doing!” Pretty ironic for someone who hates to be told what to do as much as I do.

But whatever I’m doing, I will be sure to share it with you. The connections I have made with you all through these magical tubes we call the Internet make me feel so excited about my work and this profession. To all of you who read blogs and listservs but never comment, consider sharing ideas. Consider connecting to others. While it may seem like “just more work” the value of the connections you make to other (both on an emotional and professional level) are immeasurable.

While I was very interested in all of the talks in the social computing track today, I really wanted to expand my knowledge of certain topics that I know very little about. I knew that Roy would be likely to give a very practical nuts-and-bolts introduction to developing institutional repositories and I was certainly not disappointed.

Why do it?

• Allows you to capture the intellectual output of an institution and provide it freely to others (pre-prints, post-prints, things that folks have the rights to archive). Many publishers allow authors to publish their work in archives either as a pre-print or after the fact.
• To increase exposure and use of an institution’s intellectual capital. It can increase their impact on a field. More citations from open access and archived materials.
• To increase the reputation of your institution.

How do you do it?

• Don’t enter into this lightly. Get a clear commitment from your institution and management. This is a very long-term project.
• Obtain funding and staffing. If you don’t have the staffing, you will need to throw more money at it. You will need to not only develop the repository, but market it to faculty and students.
• Select software.
• Install and configure. Some may require more configuration than others
• Create policies and procedures
• Promote it tirelessly. The hardest part is often getting people to use the repository and add their stuff.
• Provide training and support.

Software options

• Digital Commons – owned by ProQuest. Created originally by bepress.com at Berkeley. http://repositories.cdlib.org. This is what Roy’s folks use at the University of California System and they were actually the first implementation. It’s easy to upload documents and full online peer-review process is available. However, this is not open source and does cost money. It’s also a hosted solution.
• DSpace – open source. Created by HP and MIT. http://dspace.mit.edu. Most widely implemented IR solution, so there is a major community of people to ask questions of and work with. However, it is complicated and doesn’t include online peer review capability.
• ePrints – open source
• ePubs – open source
• Fedora – open source

Roy showed us how his system works by uploading a document into the system. It looks quite easy to use. When you upload a Word file, the system creates a PDF which is all that is available to those who wish to read the paper.

Key decisions

• What types of content do you want to accept (just documents? PPT files, lesson plans, etc?)
• How will you handle copyright?
• Will you charge for service? Or for specific value-added services?
• What will the division of responsibilities be?
• What implementation model will you adopt?
• You will need to develop a policy document that covers these issues and more.

Implementation models

• Self archiving – ceaselessly championed by Stevan Harnad. Authors upload their own work into institutional respositories. Most faculty don’t want to do this.
• Overlay – new system (IR) overlays the way people normally do things. Typically faculty give their work to an administrative assistant to put it on the Web. Now, the repository folks train the admin assistant to upload to the repository instead. Content is more likely to be deposited than if faculty have to do it. However, there may be a lot of turnover among staff so replacements will have to be trained.
• Service provider – not a model for a large institution. Library will upload papers for faculty. The positives is that works are much more likely to be deposited. The negative is that it’s a lot of work and won’t scale.

Who should do it? Project manager, system administrator, application administrator, promoter trainer.

Discovery options: Most traffic comes from Google searches, but only for repositories that are easily crawlable and have a unique URL for each document. OAI aggregators like OAIster.org have millions and millions of records. They harvest metadata from many repositories. Some may come direct to the repository, but most people will not come there looking for something specific. Citations will drive traffic back to the repository.

Barriers to success:

• Lack of institutional commitment
• Faculty apathy (lack of adoption and use)
• If it is difficult to upload content, people won’t use it.
• If you don’t implement it completely or follow through it will fail.

Strategies for Success

• Start with early adopters and work outward.
• Market all the time. Make presentations at division meetings and stuff
• Seek institutional mandates
• Provide methods to bulk upload from things already living in other databases
• Make it easy for people to participate. Reduce barriers and technical/policy issues.
• Build technological enhancements to make it ridiculously easy for people to upload their content.

Indicators of success: New adopters, continuous uploading of content, increased traffic.

Advice: This is a huge project and requires real commitment. Don’t just do because it’s the hot new thing. Don’t do it without a strong institutional commitment. Make sure that your project is sustainable. Review the experiences of others. Consider your implementation model and don’t make it hard for people to add their content to the repository.

Still, the idea has been marinating in my head since November, and I’m so thrilled to see that I’m not the only person thinking in this direction. This week we see the birth of Pay “IT” Forward, a space where people can share their tech skills with others. Folks who are willing to help others can post their contact info and area of expertise that they’re willing to help people with. I don’t know if I’m techie enough for the list, but I wanted to do my part so I posted my contact info and said I’d answer questions about wikis. Since I already get at least a few wiki-related questions a week, it’s not such a big deal to get a few more. Right now, the list of people willing to help is just a page on a wiki that isn’t even in alphabetical order. I’d love to see it become a database where you could search for people by geographic area and by skill area (which would maybe allow people to choose general skill areas — like network admin, web design, etc. — and then also write in specific things they have expertise in). It could also be set up where people can write up projects they are working on that they need help with and what they’re looking for so that people who feel most confident in that area can take it (rather than having the person choose someone who may not feel up to the task or may be too busy). I’m not a database designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I saw some on the list (hint hint!) and I hope that’s what this project grows into.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Glenn Peterson from the Hennepin County Public Library (a library that is doing some terrific stuff with tech). He has a new venture called EngagedPatrons.org which provides services to libraries that want to create a more “engaging and interactive web presence.” Here’s some info from the press release:

“Many public libraries would love to offer their users a more interactive web presence, but don’t have the programming skills to make it happen”, said EP founder Glenn Peterson. “Other libraries have a strong interest but are stymied by uncooperative IT departments. Some aren’t even allowed access to their own web servers”, Peterson noted.

EngagedPatrons.org solves these problems by offering a series of web “modules” hosted on its own web servers. Member libraries can customize the modules to meet the needs of their users by filling out an easy-to-use web form. When completed, the library is provided with the HTML code needed to link users from their website to their new service hosted at EP. Libraries can embed EP services within the look-and-feel of their own website for a seamless experience for their users.

EngagedPatrons.org currently offers these modules:

• Library Events – searchable listings of upcoming events at the library, including the option for online registration, integrated graphics and more.
• Library Blogs – communicate with users in ways never possible before, get the word out about happenings at the library and turn on optional patron comments to start a two-way conversation! RSS feeds are included.
• Contact Us – offer your users an easy way to get in touch with you right on your site.
• Custom Databases – EP can also help libraries create customized, searchable databases based on existing card files or in-house databases.

What is really cool about this is that EP is offering these services for FREE to public libraries that receive less than $1 million per year in total income. To other libraries, the services are offered at a low cost. I think what he’s doing is great, but that he’s really selling himself short. His time isn’t free and server space certainly isn’t free either. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money from libraries, especially if you are providing them with a good and needed service and you are charging a lot less than it would cost them to hire their own techie. If I were to do it, I’d charge everyone, though on a sliding scale. I really see this as a model for making real money as a techie librarian/free agent without having to join some faceless vendor. I’d love to partner up with my genius husband and provide services like this one day. I worry that Glenn will quickly become inundated with freebie libraries, but I’m sure he’s thought about this a lot more than I have and has sound reasoning for the way he’s doing it. Either way, it’s a very good-hearted thing to do, and I hope he makes piles of money from it.

I know tech skills are in high demand, but they aren’t the only things we’re often lacking at smaller libraries. We could benefit from the expertise of a lot of non-techie librarians. How about archivists, preservationists, non-book catalogers, foreign language-speakers, instruction librarians and many others? At my school, we really could use someone who could give us a clear roadmap to improving our instruction program. And we have skills here that other libraries might want, like a super-fantastic archivist and a distance learning librarian who knows a thing or two about social software. I’d love to see this skill-sharing go beyond tech. I’d also love to see it be more of a two-way street. I’d love to see a database of “haves” and “wants”. For each library that has a “want”, they have to also post a “have,” a skill that they have that not every library has and that other libraries may want. And if they can find someone listed who has a want they can fill, they can just take on that task. I guess it requires trust that people will not just be selfish and will give at least as much as they get. I don’t know if this is a viable model, but I’d love to see it attempted. Obviously, some tasks would require that people are geographically close to one another, but if you have enough participants, that shouldn’t be a problem in most (but not all) places.

And another way we can share is by depositing the things we write into repositories. You can add all sorts of things like tutorials, book chapters, articles, presentations, etc. And what you’re adding to is an amazing collection of knowledge in the library science field. I just added to E-LIS for the very first time, depositing the article I’d written for WebJunction. As I publish things that I’m allowed to archive, I’ll be putting more in there. This is a great way to expose more people to your work so that they can benefit from your knowledge. It’s cool to make your stuff available on your Web site, but even better to make it available in a searchable repository for the profession. Or if your institution has a repository, you can add to the wealth of institutional knowledge contained within. And if you want to learn more about repositories and the open access movement, look at some of the great resources on the subject that Dorothea Salo has archived at her institution’s repository!

It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to see the ideas come together for us to really share our skills and knowledge.

IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE: The Seattle Public Library cares about the privacy of your personal information. Patrons who use public RSS aggregator Web sites, such as Bloglines, Rojo or Feedster, are cautioned that some of these services allow other users of the service to read your RSS feeds. This means that other people can view information regarding items you have checked out or have placed on hold.

Usually you can control this by using an option in your profile or in the setup of the feed to mark it “private” or “public.”

Please contact the provider of the service you use if you have questions about this setup or its privacy policy. To view The Seattle Public Library’s privacy policy, please visit: http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=privacy_splpolicy

They write “Usually you can control this by using an option in your profile or in the setup of the feed to mark it “private” or “public,” but have they actually tested that in those feed readers they recommend? Apparently not.

Mary discovered something very interesting yesterday about putting in your Library Elf feed into Bloglines… we can all see it. When she did a search for “Library Elf” in bloglines under “all blogs,” she found over 200 people’s personal feeds where you could see their e-mail address, what they have out, what they have on hold, and what library they use. YIKES! I tried it out and was easily able to see what a number of my friends subscribed to Library Elf were reading. Creepy. According to Kelli Staley, even making the feed private doesn’t matter, because it still will show up in the search. All making your feed private will do means it won’t show up in your blogroll. It will still be listed in Blogline’s database of feeds. All the “private” thing is for is if you subscribe to a blog that you don’t want people to know you subscribe to. If you really want information like this to be private, put it in a desktop aggregator or go for the e-mail alert option. Frankly, I feel uncomfortable giving my library log-in info to a third party, even for the sake of saving time. Since Mary’s post, Library Elf has warned its users (in the FAQ) about Bloglines, but how many people really read an FAQ unless they are having real problems? They really should have a warning smack dab on the front page if they are concerned about privacy. I’m no feed expert, but is there any way Library Elf could generate these feeds where so much personal info isn’t showing? Like don’t tie a person’s name and e-mail address to the feed, but give it a unique number. It still sucks the people can see what other people are reading, but it’s less meaningful to see what #593832 is reading as opposed to seeing what Bob Jones is reading.

We put a lot of information out there on the Websites of third parties and give a lot out to different Web sites. We need to read terms of service and carefully test the privacy claims companies make. We need to find out what rights the company has to our info and what would happen if they went belly-up or were bought by another company. We can’t afford to take our privacy for granted.

Library Elf, Elf, privacy, Bloglines, RSS, feeds, privacy policy, terms of service, libraries, library record, PATRIOT ACT

By the way, if you’re wondering where you’ve heard of State Senator Kevin Murray before, he’s the politician who also made it illegal to send any media file in California anonymously. Despite the questionable basis for such a law (and the fact that it probably violates other laws concerning privacy — especially with respect to children), it appears that Murray doesn’t really care about the facts of the situation, but just that folks in the entertainment industry are happy with all the laws he’s passed in their favor. Anyway, based on my reading of the actual proposal, it would also threaten to put anyone who has written FTP software and possibly even web browsers in jail. Maybe his next law will simply outlaw the internet, and force us all to watch broadcast content instead. That would really help, wouldn’t it?

Ahh… dare to dream! If you’d like to read the bill, it’s here. I have never understood people and organizations who employ the same strategy again and again, even when it fails every time. It’s like, “if it doesn’t work once, keep doing the same thing but do it harder!” Or, to quote The Simpsons “‘There’s three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way.’” “‘Isn’t that the wrong way?’” “‘Yeah, but faster!’” The recording and motion picture industries don’t want to look at alternative economic models or look at how they can make file sharing work in their favor. They just want to keep trying to block people from doing it, using the courts and the legislature as their hired guns. And it just doesn’t work.

From the New York Times:

I.B.M. executives say the company’s new approach to intellectual property represents more than a rethinking of where the company’s self-interest lies. In recent speeches, for example, Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive, has emphasized the need for more open technology standards and collaboration as a way to stimulate economic growth and job creation.

Imagine a big company like IBM actually “getting it.” Almost gives you hope regarding the future of intellectual property (that is, until you read anything about Microsoft or SCO or Disney or just about every other company in the world). Sigh…