I’m sure anyone working in an academic library has already heard that the JSTOR interface was changing this summer. Well, how nice that they wait to finally make the change live the week that students are coming back to most schools. One of our librarians attended a webinar on the new interface and reported about it to the rest of the staff so we were pretty prepared for what was coming in terms of the interface change. But the thing that’s a really big deal is that JSTOR is now going to display everything in their collection by default. That probably doesn’t matter to a large University that subscribes to every JSTOR collection known to man, but for libraries of small to medium size that only subscribe to maybe 4 or fewer collections, your students will suddenly be seeing a lot of results in JSTOR that they can’t access. I did a search on World War II and Poland and out of the first 10 results there were only 2 that were in the JSTOR collections we subscribe to. If a student clicked on one of the eight of ten results that did not have a green check mark to the right of it they would see this:

What’s interesting is that we actually have many of these articles available in full-text through other databases.

I know what you’re probably thinking — “every database displays things that aren’t available in full-text. You can just enable your link resolver and students will be able to link to the full-text.” That would be nice, but JSTOR has decided not to make that possible. The response we got from tech support was “OpenURL links are not currently available when your users arrive at articles in collections that you do not license.” So, we can link out from full-text articles in JSTOR to versions of the same full-text in other collections, but we can’t link out from articles we do not have the full-text of in JSTOR to full-text in other collections. Either a lot of smart people don’t understand the purpose of OpenURL or they really don’t want to make it easy for students to figure out that their library has access to these resources through another database.

The other response we got was this: “At this time it is also not possible to change the default search to just your licensed collections.” Students can check a box on the Advanced Search page only that will “Include only content I can access”, but how many students are going to 1) notice that check box and 2) know what it really means? Especially when the default option (the box already checked) says “Include links to external content” and the explanation next to it says “JSTOR displays citation information and an outside link to the full-text of some recently published articles on external sites.” It makes it sound like students can get more full-text content that way when the reality is that they’ll just get more results that ask them to pay $12 or $30 for the article.

The tech support person went on to state “I will make sure that your suggestion of setting default search limits, and expanding OpenURL links to cover all non-licensed content, is passed on to our development team for consideration.” I have to call BS here. I can’t believe that these were not conscious decisions on their part. Was this developed by one lone dude in a shack with no input from other designers and librarians? I have to believe that they can’t be surprised that libraries would want these features.

I refuse to believe that all of the smart people at JSTOR have no idea how OpenURL works and have no idea how pretty much every other database vendor in the known world operates these days. Even if they were clueless, JSTOR has advisory boards made up of librarians who could tell them how things work. So my first thought was clearly they want to confuse students into paying for access to articles they could get through another database or ILL. But then I remember that this is JSTOR. They’re a not-for-profit. Something is clearly going on behind the scenes that we’re missing the boat on. And the first thing that pops into my head is PUBLISHERS. Are the pressures of publishers pulling out of JSTOR to pursue lucrative deals with EBSCO become to much? Did you have to make concessions that benefit your publishing partners but hurt the end user? I do understand that this change will make it easier for people not affiliated with a library to search JSTOR (helping to increase their base of individuals purchasing articles), but there is no reason that they couldn’t at the same time give libraries the ability to customize the default at their institutions or to make OpenURL work across the board.

So which one is it, JSTOR? Are you really that clueless about how modern databases and OpenURL link resolvers work? Are you out to make a buck off confused Freshmen with credit cards? Or did your publishing partners force you into it? Either way, you’re putting the customer dead last in this equation and, IMHO, breaking a trust relationship you’ve had with librarians for many years. I know that my solution to this will be simple. I just won’t teach JSTOR to social science majors here and will encourage students to use WorldCat Local. JSTOR articles are indexed in WC Local, so students can find the articles there and use Serials Solutions 360 Linker to link out to whichever database holds the full-text. Problem solved. And I doubt I’ll be the only librarian looking for a way around teaching JSTOR in information literacy classes if JSTOR doesn’t make a change ASAP. Way to make yourself less visible to future scholars, JSTOR!

I’ll be really curious to see how this shakes out, because I can’t imagine we’re the only library that’s going to be very negatively impacted by JSTOR’s bad decisions. I hope they make a change, and soon, because my History and Political Science info lit classes are coming in just a couple of weeks.

Update: For those who think that this is already resolved or have mentioned that you’re seeing a link resolver link to some articles, let me explain what you’re looking at as I’ve done a bit more digging. There are three types of results you can get right now in JSTOR, and you’ll see each in this screenshot (sorry for the size, my computer is being wonky — just click on it to expand it):

JSTOR results

The first (with the gray asterisk) is from a journal that is not in a JSTOR collection we subscribe to. There will be no link resolver link that lets patrons easily get to the article in another database to to our library’s ILL form. Frequently, there will be something that tells the user they need to pay to access the article. Otherwise, it’ll just be a dead end.

The second (with the green check mark) is an article that is in our JSTOR collection. Students can click on the title and get to the full-text.

The third (with the yellow arrow) is from a journal this is in our JSTOR collection, but it is not from the date range of full-text that is available through JSTOR (in this case, the article is from 2006 and JSTOR’s coverage goes to 2005). Clicking on the title of this type of result will provide a link resolver link so that the patron can check to see if the library has this in full-text elsewhere.

For those who are seeing link resolver links right now, what you are seeing is the third type of link. You may just have too many JSTOR collections to easily get a result in the second category which is very lucky for you.

In a tight market like this, having a good cover letter and resume can mean the difference between getting a phone interview and ending up in the round file. I have served on four search committees in my five years at Norwich and chaired two of them. I learned so much from being on the other side of the job search experience that I wish I’d known when I was looking for a job. I made so many rookie mistakes when I was looking for my first professional position; mistakes that I’ve seen made time and time again when looking through other people’s cover letters and resumes. I’m writing out these tips in the hopes that others can avoid those mistakes when they’re applying for jobs. Keep in mind that these tips are just from my point of view and others may disagree with them, but they were definitely things that made me and my fellow committee members more or less likely to give the applicant further consideration.

Also, for those looking for information on professional online networking and using social media for career advancement, I’ve written three columns on the topic for American Libraries Magazine: “Your Virtual Brand”, “Finding Your Voice”, and “Dipping into the Stream.”

DO’s

• This first one can’t be stresesed enough — tailor your cover letter to the job you’re applying for. Most importantly, address the specific requirements in the job ad. You may be particularly proud of how you designed your library’s intranet, but if the job you’re applying for has nothing to do with any of the skills you exhibited during that project, it’s not worth detailing in the cover letter. In all of the committees I was on, we’d go through each cover letter and resume with a list of required and preferred qualifications and would see which ones the applicant addressed. If they didn’t show evidence of one of the required qualifications, they’d be out of the running. Period.
• Tailor your resume to some extent to the job you’re applying for. Highlight things that you’ve done or skills that you have that are on the list of required’s and preferred’s for that job.
• Tell me why you want to work here and why you want this job. When I see a cover letter from someone who clearly wants the job they’re applying for (as opposed to wanting a job), I am much more likely to want to interview them. When we were hiring for a distance learning librarian, I gave the most weight to people whose letters made it seem like they really wanted to be a distance learning librarian.
• Learn about the organization. This is important early on, but is especially important when you get to the interview. I remember having a candidate who asked me what my job was at the library and then talked about how we should do IM reference with a Meebo widget when we had one right on the front page of our website. I figure if they are too lazy to research the library and the search committee members, they are going to apply themselves similarly to their day-to-day work.
• Include experience outside of libraries that might be relevant (school, other jobs, etc.). I always made an effort to describe how the skills I’d developed as a psychotherapist were relevant to reference and instruction work. If you’re applying for a library job where you’re working with the public, retail experience is a great asset.
• Include any extra-curricular professional activities you’ve engaged in, such as speaking gigs, committee memberships, articles written, etc. Personally, I am jazzed when I see a new grad or soon-to-be-grad who has published, presented or otherwise contributed to the profession beyond their library schoolwork. It tells me that they have a passion for going above and beyond and that they’ll probably do that in this job as well. I want to hire someone who sees this as more than just a job; passion is a real asset in an employee.
• Express enthusiasm and confidence. Write your cover letter as if you know you’re the right person for the job (though don’t be full of yourself either!).
• Read the application requirements carefully. We once required that applicants send us a link to at least one example of a website they created. Many people didn’t send us anything, which meant we wouldn’t consider them no matter how great they sounded otherwise, since web design skills were a required qualification. It’s never a bad idea to take screenshots of web design work you’ve done, just in case it gets replaced in the future.
• Unless the reason is particularly sensitive, do explain gaps in your resume. Whatever the search committee will imagine is probably worse than your actual reason.
• If you have job hopped a lot, explain why, and for the same reason as above.
• If you currently work in a different library type (or have only taken coursework towards working in a different area) address why you are now applying for this job. We got a lot of applications for a distance learning librarian position from folks who were catalogers, were members of the Society of American Archivists, etc. Had they said “I’m really interested in getting more experience in online instruction” or something similar we would have given them greater consideration. Otherwise, it just looks like they don’t really want to work in that area and will bolt the minute something comes available that they do want.
• If there’s a reason why you want the job beyond the position itself (like you want to relocate to the area, you have ties to the area, etc.) do state that. It can let people know that you’re seriously interested in relocating. Just make sure it doesn’t sound like it’s your only reason for applying.
• Read over your cover letter and imagine what impression the search committee would get of you if that’s all they read. It should tell them without looking at your resume how you are qualified for the job.

DON’Ts

• Apply for a job you know you wouldn’t want (whether because of location, duties, hours, etc.) You’re not only wasting your time, but you’re wasting the time of the people who are reading your resume and interviewing you). And definitely make sure you are really interested in a job before you go for an in-person interview (especially if it requires travel funding). You don’t want to make enemies early in your career by wasting the search committee’s time (and the library’s money… especially during these lean years). There’s nothing wrong with realizing after interviewing that a place isn’t a good fit, but if you’re interviewing in a big city you’d never want to live in or for a job you’d never want, you’re wasting people’s time.
• Send a generic cover letter. Passing off a generic cover letter makes you look like you don’t want the job that much. And usually, it’s pretty darn obvious that a cover letter is the same one you’ve used to apply for 10 other jobs.
• Just list everything you’ve done in your cover letter. Specifically address what the search committee cares about — the required and preferred qualifications.
• If you’re applying for a job that requires technical skills, be honest about your level of skill. A small stretching of the truth is ok, but if it’s a big stretch, it’s likely that you’ll be found out. I remember one candidate talking about their amazing web programming skills, and one look at the websites they’d designed told me that they were grossly overstating their skills.
• Talk about your personal hobbies. I can’t tell you how many resumes I’ve seen that talk about people’s interests in gardening and genealogy, their involvement in the Boy Scouts, or their passion for yoga. All very nice, but unless these somehow relate to the job requirements, they don’t belong in a professional resume.
• Have a generic “objective” on your resume I personally never put an objective on my resume, but if you’re going to, make it meaningful or leave it off. I love ones that say things like to obtain a position where I can apply my knowledge, experience and education in the field of librarianship. How is this useful???
• Write well, but don’t use lots of big words to impress. Usually it’s pretty obvious and many applicants actually use those words incorrectly. I have seen this happen way too many times and it makes the candidate look dumber than if they’d just used terms they’re really familiar with.
• Apply for a job that requires an MLIS if you don’t have one or aren’t close to getting one. A few months away is usually ok, but if you’re just starting an MLIS program, don’t bother.
• Maybe it’s just me, but I hate when people write things like “My background and accomplishments seem to be a good match for your needs”. I’m not just looking for someone who has the qualifications I need; I’m looking for someone who really wants the job.
• Just list the positions you’ve had in your resume – also describe your duties and (in the cover letter) the skills that you gained in those jobs that will benefit you in the position(s) you now want.
• Unless the job requires specific subject expertise, I don’t want to see a list of the databases you’ve used. If you have general reference experience in an academic library, I’ll assume that you are competent at searching most databases and can learn the ones you’re not familiar with.
• List your GPA unless something in the job description asks you to address academic achievement.
• Make your cover letter over 1 1/3 pages and under 1/2 page. Personally, I prefer a cover letter that is exactly one page long.
• Just tell us generic things like you’re “detail oriented” or “innovative” — illustrate it in some way with things you’ve done.

Any tips you’d offer to folks looking for a position in libraries? Any egregious mistakes you’ve seen (or have made) along the way that you’d like to share?

Fortunately, the first two posts I’m pointing to acknowledge that Luddite is a pejorative term, though I don’t know that I would have bothered reading Love thy Luddite by Mick Jacobsen (who mentions that “it is probably better not call anybody a Luddite” only at the very end of his post ) had I not first read You should listen to the non-techies too by Angel Rivera. The use of the term Luddite throughout the former post really made it difficult for me to read, which is a shame, because the arguments are quite good.

Both Angel and Mick talk about opening a dialogue with non-techies instead of writing them off as being anti-tech. But Mick is coming at this from the standpoint of someone who loves tech and wants to share that love with others (the evangelist) and Angel is coming from the standpoint of someone who likes tech that is useful to him and is sick to death of people trying to push him to use technologies that just aren’t for him.

I feel strongly that we should not engage in dialogue with people who aren’t into the technologies we’re into just to convince them that we’re right, because, frankly, we might not be. I was happy to see Mick acknowledge just that fact:

You might be introducing the wrong technology at that particular time or you may need to reexamine the technology. The Luddite may very well have thought of something you haven’t and it may not be as useful as you hope (I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me).

Yes!!! I wish someone at my place of work had told me that an internal wiki was a terrible idea when I first proposed creating one 3 1/2 years ago. Early on at my time at Norwich, I saw a great need for an internal wiki to share knowledge among staff members. Was there a real need for better knowledge-sharing? Yes. But it didn’t really matter, because there were so many competing priorities for people’s time and this simply was not anyone else’s top priority. But I just saw the need and created a wiki that I didn’t do a great job introducing (an email with instructions on how to use the wiki — dumb Meredith) and wasted a lot of time on something that never took off. Would I have listened back then if one of my colleagues had told me it wouldn’t work? I don’t know. But I’ve gotten a lot less hard-headed since then, and understand that it’s not just the right technology for the need, but it’s people acknowledging the need, wanting to put effort into fulfilling that need (or having the time to put in that effort), being ready for the technology, and especially how the technology is introduced. The wiki didn’t fail because it was a wiki (or because my colleagues were anti-tech). It failed because fixing that problem was not a top priority. It still isn’t. A wiki worked great with my colleagues as a subject guide tool because reference and instruction are seen as top priorities by all staff.

Mick also talks about showing the person how you or others are actually using the technology to convince them of its utility:

Show how you are personally using this new technology, how others are using it, and how they specifically could. Hypothetical situations just don’t seem to work.

So true! I always pack my presentations with lots and lots of practical examples of how libraries are successfully using specific technologies, because it’s the concrete examples that sell it for most people. That’s how it works for me, even. I may not see the utility of something until I see clever uses for it beyond the “wow, this is fun!” I thought wikis were pretty cool, but it wasn’t until I could think of concrete uses for them in the profession that I really understood how amazing they were. And for a lot of people, it isn’t until they see what other libraries have done with wikis that they will understand that. “Wikis are so cool” isn’t an argument that’s going to work for most people.

I really like what Angel said about the pushiness of some people who just can’t understand why someone wouldn’t think their technology of choice isn’t the best thing since sliced bread (and are sometimes rude and dismissive towards those who disagree). There’s being a pragmatist about tech — and you can even really love the tech you use and still be pragmatic about it — and then there’s being religious about tech. We don’t need proselytizing. We don’t all have to use the same tools and just because we don’t like something you love doesn’t mean we need to be educated (ugh! I hate when someone makes the assumption that a person must not agree with them because they haven’t been educated about it properly — it really does stink of fundamentalism at that point, doesn’t it?). While there are certain technologies I can hardly live without, there are plenty that just don’t fit into my life. They may be “cool” and they may be really useful to you, but they’re just not for me. Twitter is one thing that I use extremely sporadically and I’ve found just doesn’t fit my day-to-day lifestyle. It’s great for conferences (and I’m sure I’ll use it at ALA Annual), but I don’t have the time to stick with it and I have a hard time multitasking between work and Twitter. It doesn’t mean I “don’t get it.” I just don’t need it.

And just because we use it, our friends use it, and we think it’s the best thing since sliced bread doesn’t mean that our patrons use it. This is why I am madly in love with the graphic from Char Booth and Chris Gruder’s ACRL presentation on the study they did of their users at Ohio University, which Char highlighted in her post, two-way touché. One of the things they did was ask users was what technologies they use and some technologies that many librarians use and are crazy about — Twitter, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Second Life in particular — they found were barely used by students at OU.

How many of us really know how many of our users are using these tools? It’s kind of important, right? If we’re spending time putting pictures of our library on Flickr so more our patrons can find them, it would be good to know if a lot of our users are actually on there. But in other cases, it may not matter so much, depending on how you are using the technology. I bet the number of our distance learners who use IM is a lot smaller than the number who use our MeeboMe Ask a Librarian service, because it doesn’t require them to really know anything about IM (just how to type words into a box). They don’t need to love IM or even know they’re using IM to benefit from it. Similarly, our subject guide wiki doesn’t look like a wiki at all to our patrons, so it doesn’t really matter if they use wikis or not as long as they can navigate a normal website. And if you’re using Flickr mainly as a storage repository and republish the pictures on your library website, it doesn’t matter if your patrons don’t use Flickr. But in some cases, it’s crazy that we spend valuable staff time trying to communicate with patrons using tools we don’t even know if they use.

And we need to keep assessing these things because as Char admits (with a nod to Brian Matthews’ post on Twitter) these things change all the time. While Twitter may not be hot right now with your population, it may be hot in a few months, so we really need to keep our finger on the pulse of our patrons. And there may be times when it make sense to step out in front of your patrons with new tech.

(As a side note: I came to the conclusion that Twitter had jumped the shark, not because it has been featured in every news outlet in the known universe over the past few weeks, but because my father started “following” me on Twitter 2 weeks ago. )

I think sometimes we all need to try and step outside of our personal feelings about these technologies, which isn’t easy when we think they’re the best thing since sliced bread. When we are talking to others about technology, we need to realize that what we find useful may not be useful to them (and that’s ok). When we are thinking about implementing new tech with our patrons, we need to understand how our patrons use tech and whether this is really a good fit for that population. Charging in with an “I know better” attitude rarely leads to positive outcomes. Effective 2-way communication and understanding other perspectives is critical.

When I was named the Head of Instructional Initiatives, the Rook Tours were the first thing that I wanted to tackle. I wanted to make them engaging, experiential, and maybe even a little fun. I immediately thought of doing a scavenger hunt, and after reading about some other schools who’d done similar orientations, I settled upon that as a good way of getting students familiar with the library. To make up for not taking them up and down the library, I figured we could make a movie that would introduce them to what’s on each floor.

Our movie is a testament to the fact that you don’t always need a lot of time, talent or technology to make a half-way decent orientation movie. When it was less than three weeks before rook tours and my colleague, Josh, hadn’t started on the movie (not his fault, he had a million other things on his plate), I suggested that we should just take pictures of the library and sew them together into a movie instead of trying to film and edit something full-motion, which would have taken much longer. So I went around the library taking photos of everything. Josh put those together into an order that made sense and then managed to create a pretty darn entertaining movie with his folksy narration. I don’t think it even suffers much from the lack of technical sophistication or full-motion. We got lots of laughs from students, some applause, and a number of students asked if the movie was going to be available on YouTube. Freshman are a tough audience, and I’m really impressed that Josh was able to put something so entertaining together in a matter of days. I also created a very brief screencast that introduced students to the library website and the features that they’d need to use during the scavenger hunt. We showed both together before the students were sent off on the scavenger hunt.

We plan to make a better movie during this year with work study students, but I was pretty pleased with how things turned out this time around.

For the scavenger hunt, I made a list of the things that it would be important for Freshmen to know about the library before they (hopefully) come in with their English 101 class. There were certain rooms I wanted them to be able to find (the Learning Support Center, group study rooms, etc.) as well as certain items (the new periodicals, etc.). I also wanted them to be able to look up a book in the catalog and find it on the shelf. Finally, I wanted them to be able to find the research guides on our website and to know how to IM a librarian from our MeeboMe widget. So I built all of those goals into the 6 separate sets of clues/tasks I created for five teams. We’d break each group of students up into five teams and each would have a separate bunch of clues to look for. But no matter what group they were in, they’d be developing the same basic skills.

Doing a scavenger hunt is exceedingly difficult when your orientation is scheduled the way our rook tours are. We had to pull off the same scavenger hunt 12 times, which meant hoping that the five sets of clues were still where they were supposed to be each and every time. For each thing students had to find, I put 15 clues (on color-coded slips of paper) in an envelope and put that envelope at the location they were supposed to visit. The students were supposed to just take one clue out and leave the envelope for the next group. Unlikely with the average Freshman population, but I knew that our Rooks tend to be exceedingly polite due to the fact that it’s drilled into them in the military part of their training. For each clue, I also kept a backup envelope in my office with about 25 more copies of the clues.

While we did have a couple of mishaps with books being put back in the wrong place, envelopes disappearing, etc., it went a lot better than I thought. My colleague, Josh, and I tried to check on the clues after every session or two and I was pleased by how few disasters we had. No group ended up not having a clue at their location. But still, it caused me a lot of anxiety throughout those three days. Next time, I plan to have people take shifts for checking on the clues before the next group comes. It’s too much for two people.

My other huge worry was timing. I had my husband (who isn’t a fan of libraries and doesn’t really know the dewey decimal system or the layout of our library) try doing one set of the clues and it took him about 15 minutes to get through it. I thought for the average Freshman, it would probably take 20-25, though really I had no idea. Would they pay attention to the movie and remember which floor things were on? Would they be able to figure out how to use the library catalog and then find a book on the shelf? I sweat bullets over the first group on Monday morning, but was relieved when one team got back in 15 minutes and the others made it back within 10 minutes of that. A couple of groups didn’t quite finish, but they were usually only one clue short of being done, so not bad.

I think they definitely learned a lot during the activity, which is fantastic. So many students give up on the library because they don’t know how to find a book or they don’t know how to get help. By having them learn these things in a game situation, I think it made it more tempting to try to figure things out on their own (well, in groups) instead of giving up. The best part was seeing how much fun they were having. The students got really competitive about the scavenger hunt and would rush around at light speed trying to get through it before any of the other teams did. It was also a great team-building activity. Students were really proud of themselves when they finished. We got comments from their Cadre (the upperclassmen in charge of the Rooks) that they’d wished their orientation had been like that. Awesome!

It’s always hard to try something new after doing it a certain way for years and years, so probably the biggest difficulty was with some staff members who were very accustomed to a certain kind of rook tour and weren’t quite clear on the details of how these needed to be done. But once each librarian had worked with one group, they had a much easier time facilitating it the second time. I’m sure it’ll be even easier next year.

I spent the few weeks before orientation really nervous about this new model. It’s easy to say that something is boring and suggest a change, but when the responsibility for its success or failure is 100% on you, you start to worry about whether or not your idea was really a good one. I had lots of doubts. It certainly would have been safer to do things the way we’d done them forever (and less stressful for me!), but I couldn’t be happier that things turned out as they did. Risk-taking can be super-scary, but it’s better to try something new than to stick with something that just isn’t working (especially if the students aren’t learning anyway). The worst thing that can happen is that it won’t work well and you’ll learn from it to make it even better next year.

Next stop, improving how we teach and assess English 101 library sessions. No pressure!

I’ve been the Head of Instructional Initiatives for four months now and I’ve really been enjoying the new position. I’m also the liaison to the social sciences, which is the largest division at the University by far. It’s brought a bit more stress and a lot more work than I had before, but I’m loving the new challenges. I get bored pretty easily, and this is definitely a huge job with lots of different elements that will keep me on my toes for a long time.

Here’s what I was able to get done this summer:

• Evaluating 100+ year old books – this project has never been done before, so it involved going through all of the circulating books from the early 1800s to 1908 (yes, we had circulating books from the early 1800s) and determining whether to keep them in the circulating collection, deselect them, or send them to special collections. Not surprisingly, my liaison areas (criminal justice, history, psychology, political science and education) contained far more books than anyone else’s so it was a massive project for me. Fortunately, next year it’ll just be the 1909 books. What was really amazing about this project was how many of the 100+ year old history books I found in Google Books. It’s a real treasure-trove for people doing historical research, . Favorite book title found: Bibliomania or Book Madness: A Bibliographical Romance.
• Revamping the “Rook Tours” – when the new cadets (half of our student population is military) start their orientation a week before classes, they all get a tour of the library. For time immemorial, the tour has been pretty boring — we’d tell them a bunch of stuff about the library they didn’t care about and then dragged them around the library. When I became the Head of Instruction, I was really enthusiastic about changing this. My colleague Josh is making a brief movie intro to the library for the students to watch. They’ll then have a scavenger hunt to go on that requires them to find and do a lot of the basic things they’ll need to use during their first year — like finding a book on the shelf, finding the subject guides, finding the Learning Support Center, etc. I’ve spent a long time planning it and have no idea how it will go, but I’m glad to be trying something new that might provide more value to students.
• Integrating information literacy into the history curriculum – this one has been a lot of fun for me. I received an email in June from a History faculty member asking if she (and a few other faculty members I’ve worked with) could meet with me about integrating library instruction into 100 and 200-level courses. That’s the kind of email most instruction librarians dream of getting! We had a good talk about how to do this and what to teach at different points. I developed an assignment to support/assess student information literacy and am looking forward to teaching in a lot more history classes this year than last.
• Developing an instruction menu and learning activities for English 101 – I’ve worked this summer with our liaison to the Humanities to really integrate active learning more into our teaching of EN101 classes. I developed a worksheet that students will work on during the library session that will both assess their learning in the class and to give them a record of what they’ve tried so far in their research (thanks for the inspiration UT Austin!). I’ve shown it to a number of faculty members this summer, and they’ve all really liked the idea. I’m still not sure how we’ll use this as an assessment tool internally (if the faculty member collects it) and I need to figure that out ASAP. The other thing I’ve been working on is a menu of instruction to give to faculty. Often, we’ll have faculty ask us to teach the research process from soup to nuts in 50 minutes. And then we end up trying to pack far too much into a session and leave no time for students to practice what they’re learning. The menu shows faculty a large number of modules (such as developing a search strategy, determining whether something is peer-reviewed, etc.) with an amount of time attached to each. Faculty can then combine these modules into an instruction session (or more than one), keeping in mind how long the class is. Faculty have really liked the menu, because they didn’t know how long things took or what topics we could be covering. Some have even realized that we need more than a single session to cover what they want students to learn and have given us two class sessions! It’s definitely been a win-win.
• Orienting the new Distance Learning Librarian – I has me an employee! Her name is Toni and she is bright, energetic and has a ton of great new ideas. I was really looking for someone who wouldn’t just keep doing the same stuff I’ve done over the years. I’ll admit that it’s a bit hard to watch someone changing tutorials and other materials that always felt like “mine”, but I also can’t wait to see what new services and ideas she brings to the table. I really look forward to working with her to better promote information literacy instruction in the online graduate programs. It’s also great to have another tech-savvy librarian — we’re pretty close to having a critical mass now!

Here are a few of the things that… well… didn’t happen:

• Weeding storage – I get the sense that there were a whole lot of pack-rats working in this library back in the day, because our storage area is full of things that really should have been weeded straight away instead of thrown into a basement purgatory. For those of you who take an overly conservative approach to weeding, just remember that you may be dooming your successor to a Herculean weeding task.
• Weeding the 900s – we’re soon going to have a big influx of Chinese history books to support the increased number of courses in Chinese history, language, literature and culture. With the 900s packed to the rafters as it is, I was hoping to make some room for the new books. It’s something I probably won’t be able to ignore for much longer.
• Writing a report on Faculty Perceptions of Student Research Skills – towards the end of the Spring semester, my colleague and I administered a survey we’d developed to get an idea about what faculty think about their student research skills and their attitudes towards information literacy instruction. So far, I have gone through the data (which makes a strong case for library research instruction), but haven’t really had time to write anything up. And my report has to be good since it’s going to go to faculty and administrators and will likely be an important document for the University retention committee.
• Doing lots of research on instruction and assessment – while I’m so excited about this job, I do feel woefully out of my depth. I never had a course in grad school on library instruction and have never had any training since then. All of my knowledge comes from experience. I’ve read some literature, but not enough to feel like I’m not fumbling and stumbling. What I do have is a real passion for instruction and the will to do what it takes to improve our instruction program. I’d also rather have a job that forces me to learn new skills and stretch myself than one that I can do with one hand tied behind my back. How boring is that?!? I wish I’d had more time to read up on pedagogy and assessment, but it’s rare that I have time to read when there are so many more immediate needs at work. How do you make time for professional development reading at work? What are your favorite books or articles on library/information literacy instruction?
• Working on marketing – I’d wanted to create a marketing committee and really get a group together whose sole focus was how to market library resources and services to faculty and students. I think this is of critical importance, but no time or funding has been devoted to marketing the library. I figure we can’t really complain about how little faculty know about what we offer when we’re not doing a great job of telling them.

It’s hard to believe that the students will be back in a week and a half and the onslaught of instruction will begin soon after. I had wanted to be a lot more prepared for it, but there are only so many hours in the day, and the best laid plans often go awry thanks to hard drives failures, proxy server meltdowns, student access issues, Voyager upgrades, and really tough research questions. C’est la vie.

Here’s the ad:

Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University, Northfield, VT

The Kreitzberg Library at Norwich University seeks an energetic, tech-savvy and service-oriented librarian to join the library team in developing and providing services to our distance learning population. Norwich University enrolls 1800 online students in 10 master’s degree programs.

Position Description: The Distance Learning Librarian develops procedures and implements programs for library distance education services. Develops and maintains library web presence, web technologies and instructional materials for distance education. Serves as a liaison to campus units involved with distance education. Provides support to distance learners and faculty teaching distance education courses. Coordinates activities of library staff in their work associated with distance education. Collaborates with faculty, library staff and departments to develop collections and services to support distance education programs. Provides reference services and instruction in a broad range of subject areas. Some evening/weekend hours required. Reports to the Head of Instructional Initiatives.

Qualifications:

Required Qualifications

• ALA-accredited master’s degree in library and/or information science
• Knowledge of current and emerging trends in instructional technologies
• Demonstrated ability to design web pages using HTML and CSS
• Ability to speak and write knowledgeably and effectively
• Strong customer service orientation
• Ability to work with various stakeholders and in team environments
• Excellent organizational and time management skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in learning and applying new technologies
• Experience with server administration
• Knowledge of scripting languages and database design
• Experience with online course management systems
• Experience developing online tutorials
• Experience providing reference assistance and instruction

Salary: Minimum salary of $40,000, commensurate with qualifications and experience. This is a faculty rank, non-tenure track appointment commensurate with academic achievements. Compensation includes a benefits package of medical, dental, group life and long term disability insurance, flexible spending accounts for health and dependent care, a retirement annuity plan, tuition scholarships for eligible employees and their family members, and generous professional development support.

Deadline: Review of applications will begin on April 28, 2008 and will continue until the position is filled.

To Apply: Send a cover letter (including the URLs of any websites you’ve designed), resume, and three references to:

Distance Learning Librarian Search
Human Resources
Norwich University
Northfield, VT 05663

or via email: jobs@norwich.edu

Environment:

Norwich University enrolls a civilian and military student body of 3,700 FTEs in undergraduate, professional and graduate programs. Most of the graduate programs are offered exclusively in an online environment. The library is a beautifully designed, sixteen year old facility with six floors. It contains more than 175,000 volumes and receives nearly 33,000 periodical titles in print or electronic formats. The library is part of a statewide library network and participates in several consortia.

Northfield, a New England village with population of 5,800, was founded in 1781, and is ten miles south of Montpelier, the Vermont state capital. It is 150 miles north of Boston and 100 miles south of Montreal.

More Information on Norwich University:

Institutional Profile http://www.norwich.edu/
Kreitzberg Library http://www.norwich.edu/academics/library/
School of Graduate Studies http://www.graduate.norwich.edu/
Official Vermont Tourism Site http://www.1-800-vermont.com/

In Effects of distance learning on public libraries, Carleen writes about her library’s struggles to provide services to students at a satellite campus in her town that has no library:

Although we’re happy to assist them, I always try to ask whether they have considered using their schools databases since they tend to be bigger, better and more geared towards their needs. They usually look at me with a blank stare.

We’ve tried to address this issue in various collection development meetings but I think it’s an area we’re a little afraid to tread on. In the past, we have purchased reference books specifically with university students needs in mind, but are reluctant to take it much further.

I agree that there are limits to what the public library should be providing to these students. The library shouldn’t be purchasing databases or pricey journal subscriptions for students who should have access to this through their academic library. On the other hand, these students should be treated like any other member of the community. If you had an illiteracy problem in the community, you’d probably start a literacy program. If you had a small Spanish-speaking population, you might do some collection development in that area. You provide for the needs of your patrons.

I think about the role public libraries play in distance education quite frequently, because I often do refer our distance learners to their local library. We provide a lot of services to our distance learners. I have created a special portal to library services that lives in WebCT and is linked in every online classroom. I have created many, many tutorials (flash movies, html, etc.) to teach them how to use our resources. I am embedded into some of the more research intensive classes. We have more than 10 times the number of databases that we had 5 years ago. We will mail our books to our students and will frequently purchase books for the collection at the time a student needs it (within reason). We will get them any journal article they want via ILL. The one thing that is lacking is that we do not do traditional ILL with books. With the short loan times and the fact that we have students all over the world, there simply isn’t enough time to receive the book, mail it to the student, allow them to consult it, get it back from them and then mail it back to the lending institution. And while we will purchase books for the collection that students request, there are times when a book is too expensive, out of print and not readily available or just blatantly inappropriate for the collection. At those times, I usually suggest to the student that they utilize the interlibrary loan services of their local library.

I often feel badly about it, as if I’m abandoning them on the doorstep of their public library with little more than a note pinned to their clothes. On the other hand, they are members of the community and thus are entitled to their local library services. And they are likely able to get an ILL more quickly from their local library than if we ordered a book from Amazon, received it here, and then mailed it to them. Of course there have been times when a student has come back to us stating that their library won’t do ILL, but those are fortunately rare cases.

What I always find interesting is the fact that our students have no idea that most public libraries do provide ILL services. They are floored when I tell them that. It doesn’t occur to many of them to even see what their local public library might have to offer them. Public libraries often have excellent microfilm collections with lots of great primary source historical material. We don’t mail our microfilm to students, so if they can find and access back issues of The Chicago Defender or Harper’s at their public library, that is a great thing. The students don’t think of this. When I suggested to one graduating student that he could do research in the future at his local public library (which was the Pima County Library, a huge and excellent system), he said that his wife takes their toddler there, but that it wouldn’t have much to offer him. Then I showed him the list of databases available through the library and he realized that there might be some things he could benefit from.

So consider that when a public library provides a service to a distance learner, they may be creating a lifelong patron.

What I found most frustrating about Carleen’s post was the attitude of the University:

The response I recieved was that they didn’t feel the need to spend the money on another library since they had a computer lab and well, us. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get it through to them how much their students need better access to university library resources. Not to mention, a university librarian… I get the feeling that they expect distance students going to other branches to travel all the way to the main campus in order to get full library services.

Well, I agree that they probably shouldn’t build a new library. However, they could offer information literacy classes online. They could create tutorials for their distance learners and put them in the students’ online classrooms. They could even collaborate with the public library. Perhaps they could give the librarians access to their databases, so that they could teach the students what was available and how to use it. Maybe they could purchase some print nursing resources and keep them at the library or could at least mail books to the public library. If the public librarians were willing, maybe they could use the computer lab at the satellite campus to teach information literacy classes (which would earn those public librarians a gold star in my book). The University library shouldn’t just leave it at “well the students should come to the main campus.” You go where your students are. You provide services to them at their point of need. Otherwise, what good are you?

So many universities have gone gung-ho into offering online programs. These programs often make a lot of money for the universities. Too often, the university doesn’t put much (or any) of that money into the library. If you have online learners, chances are good that you’re going to need to beef up your library’s online services and collections. But the libraries don’t escape blame here. I have examined the websites of libraries at major universities that offer distance learning programs and have seen nothing for distance learners. If I search their site I will sometimes find a page that tells them how to log into the proxy server, but that’s it. Too many libraries don’t provide online information literacy instruction or even simple HTML tutorials. And even if they do, these services aren’t usually integrated into the online courseware the students use. A student’s course management system (WebCT, eCollege, Moodle, etc.) is essentially their online campus. If the library isn’t in there, how can you possibly expect your students to utilize your collections and services?

I feel very lucky that our library was never an afterthought when Norwich planned for distance learning. The library has been very well funded by the distance learning programs. We have been able to purchase a lot of new stuff for the distance learners and have been able to buy lots of books for students in programs where the online resources have been insufficient (like military history). But even if library services are an afterthought, there are a lot of things libraries can do to at least make their current resources more accessible to their students and easier to find. There is no excuse for a situation where a large chunk of your students are only using the public library for their research.

The most important part of my job is providing outreach to the distance learners and faculty through research assistance and instruction. This can be really challenging. Our distance learners are all over the world and some have real issues accessing the library resources or doing research. A good number of our distance learners are deployed overseas and often have security software/hardware that block the databases and even some free Websites (try doing online research on terrorism while stationed in Iraq!). Others have never done research online in their lives. While someone might make the assumption that anyone who decides to get a degree online must be relatively tech savvy, they would be wrong. A large number of our students have serious difficulties doing online research and our faculty aren’t usually any more tech-savvy than the students. People often forget that the distance faculty also require reference and instruction services, and it can be even more difficult to build a rapport with them. It’s taken a lot of work to build a real rapport with the various graduate programs. Being a liaison means going to faculty/staff meetings, serving on committees, staying in contact as much as possible with the administrators of the programs and just trying to be generally useful to them. Probably my biggest challenge is getting to be seen as a member of the team and getting the programs to see that information literacy instruction should be an essential part of the curriculum.

I thought I would chronicle my day in an effort to show how many different hats a distance learning librarian often has to wear. In my job, every day is so different; there are few routines. One day I may be doing a lot of in-person reference and face-to-face meetings. Another day I might be hunched over my desk for 8 hours. Today was a fairly typical day in the sense that I rarely have the opportunity to continue any one task for more than 30 minutes at a time:

8:00 a.m. – arrive at work. Check my e-mail and answer some questions from confused distance learners. One student is looking for some of the tutorials I created (they’re in the Library Access portal). Another is wondering how to get books from the library sent to her (it’s explained in the Library Access portal). Another is unable to access the library resources from his classroom. I’ve got a long list in my head of reasons why he might not be able to access the databases, but this student can’t even get into the library portal in WebCT. I log into WebCT and take a look at his seminar. I find that I also can’t get into the library resources from there, so I contact the Instructional Developer for his program.

8:30 a.m. – we just got a whole bunch of new ProQuest databases (yay!). Of course that means that I have to add them to the library Website and all of the databases by subject pages in our WebCT portal. I add them to the on-campus Websites first and remind myself to work on the portal later in the week since I know we have some more changes in the pipeline (and it’s a pain to update stuff in WebCT).

8:55 a.m. – hear from the instructional developer. The problem is fixed. I check WebCT and find that I can now get into the Library Access portal from that classroom. I contact the student to let him know.

9:05 a.m. – go to Wordpress.org and download what I need to start installing Wordpress. I’m redesigning our Website and we’re going to have a news page with information about new resources, events at the library and database trials. I decided to set up a blog on our library server, but then syndicate the content from it onto a page that looks like any other page on our Website. IT isn’t keen on the idea of blogs, so by syndicating the content, it won’t even look like a blog, but will allow people other than me to add content to it.

9:20 a.m. – I’m about to start the process of installing Wordpress when a student calls in a bit of a tizzy because he’s having trouble using the library resources. Once I calm him down, I find out that he is in eBrary and wants to download books so that he can read them offline because his Internet connection has been spotty. I explain to him that it just isn’t possible and he says that at his old library he could download eBooks. I apologize for eBrary’s DRM (believe me, I’m no fan of it all either). I then ask him what his research topic is. It’s a History topic, so I try to steer him towards JSTOR, Historical Abstracts and Academic Search Premiere. I let him know that he can print out or save anything from these databases to his hard drive. I also point him to the tutorial on doing research in these three databases. The History students in particular get really stuck on the idea of only using books for their research, but in an online course, you have to be willing to explore other avenues.

9:45 a.m. – Take a quick walk around the library. I start to feel really tired if I sit for too long. Say hi to some of my colleagues. Ask the Head of Tech Services if we’ve gotten access to some of the new databases in the pipeline. “Not yet.”

10:00 a.m. – come back to find an e-mail from a course developer (faculty member whose job is to actually design courses — lectures, readings, assignments, etc.) looking for full-text online articles for the course he is developing. Do some research in ABI/INFORM and Business Source Premiere and end up with quite a few references to send him. I send him a bunch of citations and also suggest that he search the databases as well since he would know better what readings would meet his needs. I suggest some databases to search and some search terms to use. I don’t know this faculty member well, so I don’t know how comfortable he is with online research. Some of our people are research whizzes, and others have barely ever used a database in their life. So I try to give them a lot of helpful hints if I don’t know how comfortable they are with online research.

10:45 a.m. – the Head of Academic Computing calls to talk about how to better highlight essential library information inWebCT classrooms so that students don’t get frustrated and give up on using the library. We throw around some ideas and also discuss my idea to do an “embedded librarian” pilot project in the Spring with the Military History graduate program. She likes the idea but thinks I could easily get overwhelmed by the number of distance learning classes. I realize that I definitely can’t embed myself into every classroom, but it would really benefit students in their first seminar (especially in those programs that are research-intensive) to have a librarian enrolled in the course and an Ask a Librarian discussion board in the classroom.

11:10 a.m. – answer a few work-related e-mails. We’re moving from GAIM to Meebo as our IM Reference client (to take advantage of the MeeboMe widget), so I write up some basic instructions on how to log into our Meebo account and how to set-up an away message. I also address some issues with our ILL librarian who has been getting a large number of requests all of a sudden from military history students. I realize that there is a School of Graduate Studies meeting this afternoon (d’oh!) and I already have meetings scheduled at 1pm and 2pm. I’d really like to go and talk about my Embedded Librarian idea there, but I doubt I’ll be able to get out of my meetings in time.

11:50 p.m. – eat lunch at my desk while reading Bloglines. IM my husband to see how he’s doing.

12:15 p.m. – do a little work creating persistent links to articles for a graduate course. This is truly my least favorite part of my job and one that takes up way too much time. Before I started, people were putting all sorts of links to articles in their classrooms without understanding which links were persistent/durable or that they needed a proxy prefix to go through the proxy server. Once I was hired, it was decided that part of my job would be providing links to required readings in our databases for all of the distance learning courses. This wasn’t so bad last year when there were far fewer programs. Now, there are 9 programs (soon-to-be 10) with six seminars going live each start date. I got a spreadsheet of course readings earlier in the week that was horribly filled out. The article titles were not in full, the volume and issue numbers were not put in, and there were tons of misspellings. If I was so careless when entering these links into the spreadsheet, students would not be able to get to their readings. It just bugs me sometimes. We set a deadline of Friday the 15th for people to send me spreadsheets of their required course readings and so far I’ve barely gotten any. This is the first time that I’m really putting my foot down and am absolutely not going to accept anything late. They can learn to do it themselves if they can’t send it to me on time. [/rant]

1:00 p.m. – meet with our library’s archivist and her assistant in special collections. I’m trying to meet with everyone around the library to talk about their area of the Web site and how we can improve it. Right now, special collections has a sad little page without much information that would be useful to people, and I know that our archivist is as eager to improve the page as I am. A few days ago, I asked the two of them to think about the redesign in light of the following questions:

1. Why would someone be visiting your page(s)?
2. What are the most important things a person needs to know if they want to visit/do research in special collections?
3. What do people who visit special collections often ask about that we could provide on the Website (this could be anything from your hours, to how to do historical research there, to a specific history question)?

They had some really good ideas for improving the site and promised to send me some content in the near future. It’s great when people are enthusiastic about this… I’m going to have to make all of the decisions about some of the areas of the Website since I can’t get feedback from anyone in those ares. It’s cool that I’m given so much freedom in this Web design project, but I’d feel much better knowing that the new Website reflects the vision of everyone at the library.

2:00 p.m. – head downstairs for a conference call training for Serial Solutions AMS. We are in the process of switching over to it, and since my agitating was a big part of the reason we’re switching, I figured I should learn as much as I can to make other people’s lives easier. Our Systems Librarian is leaving for vacation soon, so we have 2 1/2 days to get this all working and configured. No pressure!

3:30 p.m. – ok… where was I? Right, installing Wordpress. Get it done. Very happy to be able to check something off my list.

4:05 p.m. – get a call from a colleague who is on the reference desk. A distance student on IM is having trouble accessing library resources. I run downstairs and take over the chat. It’s an easy question to answer, but there really are only two people here at the library who remember the answers to these sorts of questions (which worries me). I’ve put a lot of answers to commonly asked questions on our wiki, but no one ever bothers to look at that. I remind my colleague that the information is on the wiki.

4:15 p.m. – few more e-mails. One from a student, several from faculty and staff. I answer the ones I can do quickly. More spreadsheets with course readings sent in

4:40 p.m. – before I head home, I update my “To do” list with other things I absolutely have to get done before the holiday break. Realize that the list is longer than the time I have left. Sigh.

4:45 p.m. – head home (20 minute drive) to black bean soup, pumpkin gingerbread and the best husband ever. No matter how frustrating some days might be, I always try to leave that stuff at the office. My home time with Adam is precious to me, even if we’re just laying in bed next to each other with laptops.

A little over a year ago when no one knew me, I really didn’t mind being a “drudge.” I’ve always hidden from the spotlight and that’s why I liked blogging because I could write, but still be somewhat anonymous. Ok, it didn’t really work out that way. Not only am I being asked to write articles and speak at conferences, but somehow I got a book deal out of my blog. This was never my intention, not that I’m complaining. Somehow, the more recognition I get, the more uncomfortable I feel. The more I am mentioned in the blogosphere and asked to write things and speak at conferences, the more worried I become about how people perceive me. Why?

The day the Movers and Shakers issue of Library Journal came out, the fact that two Vermont Librarians were named M&S was announced on the Vermont Libraries e-mail list, and my Director then sent an e-mail out to everyone at the library letting them know about it. Strangely, that entire day, no one else at work congratulated me. I went to a public services meeting and no one said anything to me about it. I just felt really weird about it — sad and embarassed. A day that should have been so happy for me was the exact opposite. I was actually embarassed for having been named a Mover and Shaker.

Where I work, there really isn’t a big push to speak at conferences and publish. And the vast majority of people don’t. So each time I get some sort of recognition, my Director publicly congratulates me and I feel embarassed. Why? Because for some reason I feel like I should be ashamed about getting so much attention when other people at work are not. I worry that people will think I’m an egomaniac or a “shameless self-promoter.” I even feel too embarassed to tell most people at work about things I wrote or when I’m giving a talk they could attend because I feel like I’m “tooting my own horn.” I just feel like a jerk. What’s the deal?

If I am a self-promoter, I have to be the stupidest one in the world. I started the ALA Wiki because I was sick of being clueless at conferences and because I thought it might help others too. I take opportunities (like chairing HigherEd BlogCon or doing an OPAL talk) based not on money or what will get me the most attention. I take them because I feel committed to the promotion of free online education/conferences or because there is something that draws me to them. I just agreed to give a talk beacuse a friend of mine was going to be there! I am a complete idiot about money. The first time I agreed to speak at a conference, I thought when people mentioned a “small honorarium” that it was like $30. I found out a friend of mine is getting paid to do something that I agreed to do for free. I am horrible at promoting myself and asserting my worth because I am not used to thinking that I have all that much worth. And yet the opportunities keep coming and some even pay. I asked a librarian whom I consider a mentor for advice about money, and we both felt very weird talking about it. Why?

I’m willing to admit that part of this has to do with my own inferiority complex, but since I entered the blogosphere I have sometimes heard people talking about how this successful librarian or that well-known librarian is a shameless self-promoter and that they don’t deserve the recognition they get. Ouch. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if people are really shameless self-promoters or if they kind of fell into this because they did something good. Maybe they became known for something and then lots of people started talking about them. Maybe they were asked to speak at things and write things and they had to get savvy about promoting their interests because otherwise they’d be speaking for free when everyone else was getting paid. Or maybe they were just more savvy in the first place about promoting the work they did so that it got people’s attention. Is there something wrong with being smart like that?

Not only do I think self-promotion is not wrong, but I think we should offer classes on it! Like Rachel said, self-promotion is an art that we librarians are really bad at. I feel so clueless about this stuff and it was so helpful for my mentor to tell me about how much people get paid and what I should ask for at this point in my career. We should be helping each other learn how to promote ourselves at work, get people to notice the good work we did, deal with book contracts, how to write proposals, how to build an audience with a blog, which publishers are the best to work with, which conferences treat their speakers the best, etc. Because this knowledge does not magically come to us when we get our diplomas. If we don’t promote ourselves, we will not only not get attention for our hard work, we will likely end up getting screwed.

You know what? I’m pretty damn proud of everything I’ve accomplished over the past year and I’m not going to keep being embarassed about it. For someone who has spent 27 years of her life not getting recognized for hard work, it’s nice to finally be on the other end of things. And from here on in, I am not going to feel guilty for all of the good things I have accomplished. Yay me!

When I proposed the Web redesign project to the staff, everyone was very supportive. The staff aggreed that they should have a hand in editing content for the areas that they know a lot about. Obviously, it makes very little sense for the newest employee to be in charge of all of the content, especially stuff like circulation and ILL which I don’t deal with at all. After discussing the idea with the Library Director, I created a staff wiki and then spent many hours taking all of the existing content from the Web site and plugging it into the wiki, organized in the new Web page hierarchy I’d developed for the redesign. I then explained to the staff that they could go into the wiki and update and edit the content for the sections. I gave detailed instructions on how to use the wiki and told them that I’d be happy to give any of them a one-on-one explanation. This was almost 2 months ago, and so far one other person has gone into the wiki. No one else has even bothered to look at it, including people who had told me it was a good idea. Yes, wikis are easy to use, but many of the people I work with are averse to new technologies, especially those they don’t absolutely have to learn for their job. I learned something important from this: the tool may be the right one for the job, but if the staff isn’t ready for it, no one will use it.

A couple of months ago I also created a blog. At the library, we had been talking a great deal about how to improve communications between the library, Academic Computing, and the Online Graduate Programs. I had recently given a talk to the administrators of the Online Graduate Program about social software and they were very interested in learning more. The idea of a blog came to me immediately. I thought a blog would be a great way to do that without everyone having to be in the same room. I suggested to the Library Director that I could start a blog where we could share things that are going on at the library and offer information about blogs, wikis, RSS, etc. We could also ask for people from Academic Computing and the Online Graduate Program to take part also and they could share the interesting things they’re working on. I thought it would be a great way to make the three departments feel more like a team (since we’re all supporting the online grad students) and the Library Director agreed. I started the blog, did a few posts about using RSS to keep up and sent out an e-mail to all of the relevant people, letting them know about the blog and asking for people to volunteer to write for it. I got a few “thanks for doing this” comments, but no one volunteered. Looking at my site stats a few weeks later, I found that almost no one had visited the blog. From this, I learned that the group might be tech savvy enough to appreciate the tool, but if they don’t see a need for it, they won’t use it.

I have had some successes though. I’ve helped the Dean of the Online Graduate Program set up a wiki for policy development, and helped another faculty member set one up for similar purposes. I’m helping to advise the Online Graduate Program about blogs, because they want to set one up to share information without e-mail and without having to call a meeting. I have since used the wiki for another project where I developed content with only two other librarians, and that worked out fine. I’ve been working with a faculty member on developing a comprehensive research guide for the Masters in Justice Administration program that includes screencasts to demonstrate each database. Once it’s done, there are several other departments that want me to create something similar. My fellow reference librarians have also shown interest in creating some sort of reference wiki for the reference staff. Each of us has strengths in different areas of research. Rather than running to my colleague every time I have an architecture question or to my supervisor when I have an engineering question, I can find the information I need about library resources in the reference wiki. The librarian who knows a lot about architecture could put her knowledge about architecture resources into the wiki. The librarian who knows a lot about engineering resources could add information about resources that he uses frequently. When a number of students come to the desk with the same assignment, the librarian could enter information about the assignment and what resources they used. That way, the next librarians at the reference desk would have this information at their fingertips. By putting all of this information into the wiki, it’s like having all of your colleagues at the desk with you each time you need to answer a reference question. The difference with these projects is that the people using the tools have a need for the tools and were sufficiently tech-savvy to be inclined to use them.

I’m definitely more cautious now about trying new things. In my excitement to make a difference and in a climate where I was basically given carte blanche, I think I tried to do too much too quickly. Now I know that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I’m only going to try things where there is a real need (and not one only I see) and where the population is ready for what I’m trying to offer them.

One thing I learned as a psychotherapist was to start from where your client is. Some of my clients were in complete denial about their issues. Others were at a place where they could start to better understand their problems. Still others were already on the road to making changes in their lives. The way I approached each client had to be based on where they were at that moment. If someone is ready to talk the trauma in their life that’s great, but you can’t base your intervention on what worked with another client. Similarly, Library 2.0 is good goal to have, but you really need to start from where your staff and your patrons are. Sometimes it’s not the staff or the administration that are the barriers. Even if your staff is 2.0, your patrons are unlikely to use the “2.0 tools” if they’re not using the tools in their daily lives. I wonder how many patrons actually started using Instant Messaging because IM Reference was offered by their library. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. It’s great that all these cool things worked at the Ann Arbor District Library or at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library, but not every library has a population like theirs. They patrons in Barre, VT are certainly not the same as the patrons in Chicagoland or Ann Arbor. In addition, there must be a perceived need that can be fulfilled by this technology. I’m just as eager as the next person to do cool things with technology, but I think we all need to take a step back and ask ourselves “where are our patrons at?” “what needs are not being met or could be met better?” “can technology actually fulfill any of these needs?”

As much as I like trying and learning new things, I really don’t want to have any more “brilliant failures.”

learning, technology implementation, technology, libraries, library2.0