I found a good example recently at work. All state university libraries in Florida started allowing students in any state university to borrow from other state university library. This service was launched with the name, U-Borrow. It’s faster than the traditional ILL (interlibrary loan). It also offers a longer borrowing period.  It’s a great service for library user

In order to advertise this service and make it easier for users to discover, the search result screen in the library catalog now shows the U-Borrow option as a link (as shown below).

Search Result Screen from the Library Catalog

If the user clicks the U-Borrow link, the computer presents the search search result done in the union catalog. This allows the user to see what state university library may have the item s/he is looking for that is not available in her or his own university library, and to request the item from the closest library from his or her own.

But there is one problem.  Since the original search in the user’s own library catalog was not restricted to a particular format, the U-borrow link also presents items in all formats that match including online resources(see below). But(!) the U-borrow service does ‘not’ apply to online resources.

The Search Result from the Union Catalog

So the current solution is to bring this information to a user’s attention when the user actually clicks any record for an online resource in the search result list.  See below the screenshot where it says “this item is not available through the UBorrow Service.”

Catalog Record with a Note about U-Borrow Restriction

This is a solution. But not the best solution. If a user gets to this page, s/he is likely to just click the link on top and get frustrated instead of examining the record fully by scrolling down and recognize the note at the bottom.

So in this case, the best solution would be to make the U-Borrow link in the first screenshot result in only the items available through the U-Borrow service. This will obviate the need for the user to heed later the note about certain items are not available. By removing irrelevant options in the first place, we can allow users to make the right choice without making a conscious choice.

Can you think of similar examples like this? Guiding people to make the right choice by providing information is good. But all the better if the right choice can be automatically selected based upon the previous option.

Learn to Code in 2012!

If you are a librarian interested in learning how to code, 2012 is a perfect year for you to start the project. Thanks to CodeAcademy (http://codeacademy.com), free JavaScript lessons are provided every week at http://codeyear.com/. The lessons are interactive and geared towards beginners. So even if you do not have any previous experience in programming, you will be able to pick up the new skill soon enough as long as you are patient and willing to spend time on mastering each lesson every week.

A great thing about this learn-how-to-program project, called #codeyear in Twitter (#libcodeyear and #catcode in the library-land) is that there are +375,443 people (and counting up) out there who are doing exactly the same lessons as you are. The greatest thing about this #libcodeyear / #catcode project is that librarians have organized themselves around this project for the collective learning experience.  How librarian-like, don’t you think?

Now, if you are ready to dive in, here are some useful resources.  And after these Resources, I will tell you a little bit more about how to best ask help about your codes when they are not working for you.

Resources for Collective Learning

• CodeYear Group in ALAConnect
  http://connect.ala.org/codeyear
  //Meet other librarians who are also doing the #codeyear project, ask questions, rant out your frustration, find support from your peers.
• CatCode Wiki
  http://catcode.pbworks.com/w/page/49328692/Welcome%20to%20CatCode
  //Meet other librarians – particularly catalogers – who are doing the #codeyear project. The wiki also includes useful resources (http://catcode.pbworks.com/w/page/49680175/Resources) for budding coders.
• CatCode IRC
  http://webchat.freenode.net/, and enter the channel name #catcode
  //#catcode folks also set up an IRC channel for real-time chat. It is a nerdier version of group chat (e.g. Meebo, MSN, etc.)  Read IRC info here at Code4Lib wiki (http://code4lib.org/irc/faq) but remember the channel name is #catcode instead of #code4lib.
• Twitter hastags
• #codeyear : http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23codeyear
• #libcodeyear :http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23libcodeyear
• #catcode : http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23catcode

Syntax Error: Catch the most frustrating bugs!

Now what I really like about #codeyear lessons so far is that some of the lessons trip you by trivial things like a typo! So you need to find a typo and fix it to pass a certain lesson. Now you may ask “How the hell does fixing a typo count as a programming lesson?”

Let me tell you. Finding a typo is no triviality in coding. Catching a similar syntax error will save you from the most frustrating experience in coding.

The examples of seemingly innocuous syntax errors are:

• var myFunction = funtction (){blah, blah, blah … };
• var myNewFunction = function (]{blah, blah, blah … };
• for(i=0,  i<10, i++;)
• var substr=’Hello World’; alert(subst);
• –//This is my first JavaScript

Can you figure out why these lines would not work?  Give it a try! You won’t be sorry. Post your answers in the comments section.

How to Ask Help about Your Codes      

by Matteo De Felice in Flickr (http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3577/3502347936_43b5e2a886.jpg)

I am assuming that as #codeyear, #catcode, #libcodeyear project progresses, more people are going to ask questions about problems that stump them. Some lessons already have Q&A in the CodeAcademy site. So check those out. Reading through others’ questions will give valuable insight to how codes work and where they can easily trip you.

That having been said, you may want to ask questions to the places mentioned in the Resources section above. If you do, it’s a good idea to follow some rules. This will make your question more likely to be looked at by others and way more likely to be answered correctly.

• Before asking a question, try to research yourself. Google the question, check out the Q&A section in the CodeAcademy website, check out other online tutorials about JS (see below for some of the recommended ones).
• If this fails, do the following:
  • Specify your problem clearly.
    (Don’t say things like “I don’t get lesson 3.5.” or “JavaScript function is too hard” unless the purpose is just to rant.)
  • Provide your codes with any parts/details that are related to the lines with a problem.
    (Bear in mind that you might think there is a problem in line 10 but the problem may lie in line 1, which you are not looking.) Highlight/color code the line you are having a problem. Make it easy for others to immediately see the problematic part.
  • Describe what you have done to troubleshoot this (even if it didn’t work.)
    : This helps the possible commenter to know what your reasoning is behind your codes and what solutions you have already tried, thereby saving their time. So this will make it more likely that someone will actually help you. To believe it or not, what seems completely obvious and clear to you can be completely alien and unfathomable to others.

Some JavaScript Resources

There are many resources that will facilitate your learning JavaScript. In addition to the lessons provided by CodeAcademy, you may also find these other tutorials helpful to get a quick overview of JavaScript syntax, usage, functions, etc. From my experience, I know that I get a better understanding when I review the same subject from more than one resource.

If you have other favorite Javascript please share in the comment section.

• W3Schools JavaScript Tutorial
  http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
• TiZag JavaScript Tutorial:
  http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/
• WebMonkey Basic JavaScript Tutorial:
  http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/JavaScript_Tutorial_-_Lesson_1/
• WebMonkey Advanced JavaScript Tutorial:
  http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/Advanced_JavaScript_Tutorial_-_Lesson_1/

ACRL TechConnect blog will continue to cover #libcodeyear / #catcode related topics throughout the year!  The post up next will tell you all about some of the excuses people deploy to postpone learning how to code and what might break the mental blockage!

This is a tough question as years of service doesn’t necessarily equate with how much contribution you make to the library you work at.  It’s a tough question because improving on whatever you learned already is almost always more difficult than learning it first time. This is also a tough question whether you are a library employer or an employee (fill the ‘____’ above with either library or the library staff) as this is something both an employer and an employee should work together.

As a library employee, I think about this more and more as I am getting out of the new librarian phase. Being a professional librarian for more than 3 years now, it is hard to argue that I am still new at this point. I try hard not to settle in the everyday work that is familiar to me and not to get comfortable with the status quo. I try to keep taking up on a new project that would improve library’s services and operation even if no one is asking for it. I try to learn new things even if that would not affect the work I do immediately because I know that in the long run, there is a good chance that the stuff I am teaching myself today would be come in handy.

What I am trying to is to meet the challenge of how to make my years of service meaningful. I want it to represent the amount of experience and knowledge I have as a librarian, not the mere number of years I was staying at one place.  That is a tough call.  Many librarians face this challenge in one way or another, as they gain more experience at their workplace unless they are continuously hopping from one job to another for higher rank/salary, which will also make it inevitable to learn some new skills and assume new responsibilities).

Now shifting the focus from employees to employers, even to observers who do not know the internal workings of the Harvard libraries system, what made the librarians and library staff at Harvard most upset about the town hall meeting seems to be the feeling of betrayal, aside from the unclear meeting agenda and the lack of answers to obvious questions. It appears that many Harvard library staff were loyal to their workplace (legitimately perhaps considering its collection size and scale of service) and took pride in working there, which is reflected in many staff’s long years of service (i.e. low rate of staff turnover). However, the unclear messages from the top and the impending layoff announcement seemed to have demoralized them, as shown in one of the comments in this LJ article “After Furor, Harvard Library Spokesperson Says ‘Inaccurate’ That All Staff Will Have to Reapply” :

“I acknowledge that change is inevitable, but what I feel, after yesterday’s meeting, was the unnecessary devaluation of the librarians and library assistants, many of whom have worked at Harvard for decades and are experts in their particular field or have particular skills. … I didn’t feel we were valued as employees or as persons. So many of us asked after the meeting yesterday, what was the point of the it? Why call a meeting when there are no answers ready for our biggest questions? Was the purpose of it to instill fear? Because, sadly, that was the main result. Fear for ourselves and for the future of one of the best library systems in the world.”

In her blog post “on #hlth and bearpoking,” Jenica Rogers pointed out why the years of service argument would work against the library staff in the re-organization situation rather than in favor. As she correctly notes, effectiveness, relevance, skills do not correlate to years of service by themselves. To the management, this argument has no real merit.

This is a valid point. In times in which permanent jobs are a joke, asking loyalty for employees is an absurd idea. The flip side of it is, however, that it would be equally silly for employees to think that loyalty itself would have any significant meaning (beyond maybe the fact that the low staff-turnover rate will save operating costs related to hiring replacements), particularly when the employer goes through re-organization (based upon the belief that the ‘past’ operation was not optimal ).

But nothing is ever so black-and-white. As a 100% observer, I would have liked to see what systematic incentives and measures Harvard libraries are creating in order to help its staff to continuously improve their skills and knowledge in their jobs. More so when they are planning a big layoff and asking all their staff to submit a summary of their skills and qualifications. (I am not even going to comment on how bureaucratic and utterly ineffective this sounds like. )

I believe that experienced library staffs are not just employees with the long-years-of-service tag on them. Some of them may be chair warmers. (Yes, we have all seen chair warmers!)  ‘But’ many of them are the precious enablers in library operation and the best deliverers of quality library service.  This is not a ‘sentimental’ argument. Losing these people will cost the organization no matter how hard it is to quantitatively measure its impact.

You may say those people with good performance will be saved one way or another. But what I am saying is that an organization has the responsibility to beclear about what it values in its employees.  As an employer, an organization may ask for and demand whatever qualifications it sees fit for employees to be equipped with. But it would help employees if an organization can state them clearly and, if possible, provide concrete steps to take to actually attain that goal.

So looking forward, I suggest any library that goes through re-organization should ask this question: What kind of system do you have in place to help and enable for your staff to stay relevant, skilled, effective, and efficient over the long period of time? What are the standards you would like to see in your staff in terms of skills and knowledge? Why are those relevant skills and knowledge in your organization in light of its mission and vision? What kinds of initiatives and activities would you like your staff to work on and be engaged in on a daily basis?  Communicating clear answers to these questions alone would greatly alleviate the concern of library staff during any reorganization process.  I hope that Harvard libraries staff would use this reorganization as an opportunity to ask these questions and get satisfactory answers.

Reorganization can be painful. But reorganization without a clear vision and goal and the road-map to achieve the goal would be disastrous. I am worried about the possibility of library re-organization done in the absence of clear vision and strategies. I am concerned about the possibility that libraries may dive into reorganization in lieu of establishing first assessing clearly where they want to go and how they plan to get there.

Sadly, the data from Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2010: Insights from U.S. Academic Library Directors doesn’t make me feel so optimistic. (See this blog post “My peers are not my tribe” by Jenica Rogers and despair. 65 percent of US academic library directors confirmed that their library does NOT have a well-developed strategy to meet changing user needs and research habits!)

I do so hope that this is not the whole story. But are you surprised at this finding?

This conviction, however, was completely swept away since I had taken out a library Kindle a few days ago. I never thought that someone like me, who is a firm believer in the superiority of a multi-purpose device (like a smartphone) to a single-purpose device, would become a fan of a single-purpose e-reader.

Kindle I took out from the library

The university library (which is separate from the library where I work which belongs to the same university but to its medical school) has recently started lending Kindle devices loaded with a number of e-books.  As soon as I heard the news, I ran down to the circulation desk to check it out for curiosity.  Sure, I had seen an e-book reader before. But there is a world of difference between just looking at a device and tinkering with it for a few minutes and actually using it for oneself for days and weeks.  So, I was eager to test it out myself.

I decided to read the e-book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I have been meaning to read for a while but never found time to. To my surprise, I found myself enjoying the library e-reader way more than I expected.

I loved the much lighter weight and the much less eye-straining screen of a Kindle (compared to my first-generation iPad).  But what I loved most about this e-reader was actually its limitation. The fact that I can do nothing but reading.

The greatest problem I had with an iPad ‘as an e-reader’ was that aside from its weight and the eye-straining screen, I could not really concentrate on reading for a long time. I don’t know if this is a non-issue for others with stronger willpower. But for me, this was certainly a big problem. While reading, I would get easily distracted into web surfing, checking e-mails, and reading tweets and Facebook updates.  On the other hand, on this single-purpose device, it was easy to continue reading for a much longer time. Sometimes, I would have an urge to go online and do something else. But often I would just ignore the urge as I simply didn’t feel like moving.

Of course, I am not sure if this virtue of a single-purpose device would apply beyond reading, and for that matter, beyond leisure reading.  If I were reading for research, I would prefer more robust annotation options as well as easy importing and exporting of documents, which would be much easier on a multi-purpose device.  I may well also prefer to be able to easily surf the Internet to search and download whatever document I find useful and start reading it right then and there.

Nevertheless, I found it interesting to think about the merit of a single-purpose device in the times in which multi-purpose devices are more and more prevalent.  Maybe we will always have a multi-purpose device and a single-purpose device no matter how advanced technology becomes just like a Swiss Army Knife and a normal knife.  Or would more and more devices converge into a few?

*** An additional bonus of a library Kindle is that it comes with more than one book.  The borrowing period for this Kindle is two weeks, but I am done with the book already.  So after browsing +90 library books that I did not know about, I decided on reading another book.  As a librarian, I like the fact that a library e-reader preloaded with multiple library books offer an opportunity for a user to discover more than the one title s/he selected.  But also as a librarian, I disliked the fact that the copies of +90 e-books are sitting idly in the device while a user is only using one title.  Would there be a possible compromise between these two options? 

• For more information, see here or click the image below: http://sopablackout.org/learnmore/
• Sign the petition here: http://sopastrike.com/strike

This is the first time my article has been published as a book chapter. So I am pretty excited. On the other hand, I am realizing how much time can pass between a presentation and a publication.

Almost two years have been passed since the presentation, but many of the observations we made in the presentation seem to still remain the case so far. Still the time passed alone makes me think that perhaps it’s time to revisit what I have reviewed back then two years ago…

You can see the original presentation slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/bohyunkim/mobile-access-to-licensed-databases-in-medicine-and-other-subject-areas.

Before becoming the book chapter, this presentation was also published as an article in The Reference Librarian 52(1), 2011.

I greatly appreciate that my library purchased this book as part of the professional development collection for the library staff.  (I didn’t get a copy of the book probably because the copyright belongs to the Taylor and Francis, the publisher of The Reference Librarian, on which the article originally appeared…)

I took a few shots from the book processed today at the library.

First page

Mobile Devices and the Library, Routledge, 2012

Contents

Colorful Chairs at Florida International University BBC Campus Library

The library building at the BBC campus has a pretty traditional look. The building is clean and neatly kept, but the colors of the wall and the carpet are neutral and conservative. While this might induce the sentiments suitable for serious study and concentration, the uniformly neutral colors may also create an impression that the library is dull and boring.

I was quite impressed by how these several colorful chairs do a great deal in counteracting such an impression. Considering that re-painting or re-carpeting is quite expensive, adding some color chairs like this can be a simple and effective way to create a more positive impression about library space to users.

While I was hanging out at the first floor, I was looking for a power outlet to plug in my laptop.  The BBC campus library has power outlets on the floor in addition to some on the walls. This is a great feature because often users would be studying in the middle of the library space where they would be too far away from the walls.

Hard-to Notice Power Outlets

However, the power outlets are not very visible in its white color. Considering that a lot of library users look for power outlets, it would be great if they are made visually more prominent.

To come to think of it, hard-to notice power outlets are a problem in other places. At any coffee shop, the tables near the wall where power outlets appear are often the first ones to be taken.  The same goes for the chairs near power outlets at an airport.  I would be delighted if I can easily locate a free power outlet at a coffee shop or an airport. This means that easy-to-notice power outlets are one sure way for coffee shops and airports to win me over as their client.

Granted power outlets are not the major function of a coffee shop or an airport. But if it is an amenity that is highly sought-after by users, then why not make it easy for them to find and use it?

I wonder what other secondary functions or non-major amenities of a library are frequently used by library patrons and how we can make them stand out more. Perhaps, libraries can match those features with services or resources that they want to promote for a better marketing effect.

What if you want to proactively digitize relatively current materials of your institution?

- The opportunity to capture materials within the context and in communication with the contributors.

- Express digitization grant from the national network of libraries of medicine. 2010-2011

CHALLENGES

- scan or not scan?
Many variables to consider before making the items public because of the currency and the content of the materials
[ +33500 peocessed; 8000 scanned ]
- no institutional policy on copyright
- hard to form a complete collection
- hard to imagine use cases; too early to tell
- digital archiving / curation before the test of time.
- connecting the outcome to the institution itself

BENEFITS of proactive digitization

- library promotion
- certain context easily lost can be preserved
- materials previously unidentified or scattered are gathered together

The greatest mistake about this decision is that Netflix is trying to force what “they” see as what their business is to users rather than going the other way around. As mentioned here, to Netflix users, Netflix is a place to go in order to get movies. Yes, there is a way to get movies by mail as DVDs, and there is another way to get movies by streaming online. You say Tomato, I say Tomahto. It is one vegetable to one who eats it.

Of course, things are not quite so simple if you look at the matter as one who runs the business itself. “Streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently,” says the CEO of Netflix in his explanation. I do not doubt the truth of it.

The problem is whether it is wise to base a business decision upon what those who run the business see what their business is. The answer is that it is NOT.

I surmise the Netflix CEO thought that this would streamline their operation and raise the efficiency of the company, now that they are separating already two quite distinct businesses in terms of operation and logistics.

But the result is more likely to be a large number of their so-far-have-been-happy-and-content users becoming confused and upset over changes that do not make sense to them. Instead of going to one place where I manage movies that I want to watch, now I have to think about what movies I want to watch as DVD and what I want to watch instantly. I have to manage two different queues, maintain separate accounts for each, and pay for them separately.

Why do you want to suddenly make your users re-think about your service that they are already happily using and paying for it? Why would you force a decision to your users when they were happy without unless there is some great benefit added to users? If there is any benefit from this decision, it doesn’t seem to go to Netflix users.

Now, let’s talk about how this applies to libraries, particularly the e-resources with which all of us, librarians and users alike, have alove-hate relationship. E-resources are kind of like streaming movies. They are convenient and fast. But they require additional set-up unlike print books. They require more trouble-shooting and tend to be more scarce in selection and may lack a certain feature (closed caption or copy-and-paste/print/page number/diagrams and pictures in articles).

It was hard to find e-resources when they were buried in online public access catalog without a discovery layer in particular in the past. So the libraries started to create a place for e-resources only. Now there is a library web page that lists databases, e-book vendors, e-journals separately. You search for print books and journals at one place; you find e-books and e-journals at another place. Often, the same title appears as separate records depending on the format in the online public access catalog (OPAC). Sometimes you only want e-books downloadable to your e-reader. For that information, you may need to go to a completely separate web page for instructions and find out what titles are available for that service. Searching an OPAC and jumping between an OPAC and an e-journal portal/a database list page/e-reader information page are not very pleasant or reassuring experience to library users.

We separated print resources and e-resources because ‘clearly’ they are completely different beasts. Are they so separate and distinct to users’ mind? Not so much. But we separate them for the efficiency of ‘our’ operation. Users pay by being forced to take an additional step. Probably a decision as bad as Netflix and Qwikster.

Academic libraries also like to think of themselves as teaching partners. Sadly, library users – both faculty and students alike – tend to have a very different perception on that matter. Many library users also think of libraries as a warehouse of books while most libraries do not think their mission is simply purchasing and keeping books in a library building. Librarians constantly make efforts to change these prevalent but incorrect perceptions of users. But in order to address them more successfully, we need to think from users’ point of view, not libarians’ point of view.

On the other hand, both libraries and library users think of libraries as a place to go for study either as an individual or as a group. There, libraries ARE what their users think they are. For a long time, libraries have been banning food and drinks inside the library. For librarians, books and food/drinks were not compatible. For users, they were the same kind of activity. You eat and drink while studying. So libraries eventually came to change the policies. That was a good decision for both libraries and users.

So, as a librarian, it is not so easy for me to simply criticize Netflix’s bad business decision. It is hard to make a good business decision when you think as someone who runs the business rather than as someone who uses the service the business offers. Librarians will need to remember Netflix and Qwickster for example, every time we are tempted to organize information on the library website by departments rather than services.

And yes, of course, whenever we are tempted to make a design decision by a committee through an agreement, we will have to remember how bad the name ‘Qwickster’ is.

“Research Librarianship in Crisis: Mediate When, Where, and How?”

I would love to know what others think on this topic!