My MLIS program experience

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Thanks to a blog post, “MLIS Programs Need To Be Revamped,” I had a chance to reflect on my MLIS program experience. I am a relatively new graduate. Like many other LIS students, I have attended the program part-time while working full-time at libraries.

Although I wished a few times that I were attending the LIS program full-time, I still think that I learned much more because I was working full-time at various libraries while studying. There are several disadvantages to being a part-time student. Less face-to-face time with your fellow students, LIS professors, less chances to work on any distinct awards or scholarships (mostly due to the lack of time), and less chances to be involved in any student chapters of various LIS associations such as ALA and ASIS&T.

But there are some great advantages as well. One of them is a chance to meet with great librarians and have them as mentors. As in any vocation, what is taught to be librarianship and what librarians actually do every day are quite different. Although it is true that a lot of instructors at LIS programs are either current or ex-librarians, meeting them in a classroom and working with them at libraries are two different things.

In my case, it was working with great librarians that convinced me that I picked the right path. I decided to become a librarian after I quit the PhD program I was attending. At that time I didn’t have a slightest realistic idea about what being a librarian is like other than that a librarian works with books, which by the way is becoming more and more an anachronistic idea. But I knew some good librarians that I respected. I was also extremely lucky in meeting great librarians as my supervisors. They were passionate and knowledgeable about what they did, and this greatly impressed me. My ex-bosses were surprisingly generous in training me and giving me chances to take initiatives. They also were happy to listen to my (many times naive) ideas and to provide guidance and advice.

Many LIS students who work as library assistants are quite knowledgeable and intelligent. They may not know all the details and challenges of librarianship, but often they spent much time in academia (with Master’s degrees in non-LIS areas) and/or have the experience of working for years in other areas as  professionals. (I also believe that it is a generalizable truth that smart people who love to learn are naturally drawn to librarianship.)

Unfortunately, work assigned to library assistants are often clerical and mundane. This can easily depress ambitious budding librarians. I still have the vivid memory of fixing all the broken links in the knowledge base of an open-url link resolver system day after day. It was an undoubtedly repetitive task. But the fact that my boss made efforts to explain to me exactly how open url works and how that creates and solves various problems in e-resources management made the mundane work interesting and more bearable. (And I assure  you, explaining this to newbies is not an easy task.)  At one library, I made several video tutorials. Those who worked on making video tutorials know that it can be quite tedious and time-consuming. But the fact that I was encouraged to document the process, experiment with various tools, collaborate with very smart and cool student workers, and present the result to the library staff made all the difference. I loved working on video tutorial projects.

In addition to having these lucky chances to meet and work with great librarians, I also tried to maximize my advantage as a full-time library assistant/part-time LIS student by picking courses that would have direct bearings on the work I was doing at that time. Right after I worked at a corporate library, I took a course on corporate libraries. While working at a library that was going through some digitization projects, I took courses on preservation management and digital libraries. While working at a reference desk, I took a reference class. And while I was working at a systems office, I took technology-related courses and had a great conversation with a systems librarian who was usually very very busy for a chat. (I was never refused an interview when I requested it for homework!)

Of course, it would be far from the truth if I say that I enjoyed my MLIS program 100 % . I took some classes that I wasn’t interested in because they were required. I did some assignments that I thought were not that helpful. I sometimes skipped classes because I was bored. And many times I wishsed that there were certain classes that I could take for credit, which were only infrequently or not offered at all. There were also classes that I wanted but could not get in because they were already filled up. On the other hand, I also have to admit that there were classes in which I would have been more attentive if I had known that I would be looking for jobs in those certain areas. I also still wish I had more time to interact with faculty/instructors/students in the program while I was attending the program.

But overall, I think it is still a good strategy to work at a library first, see if it really is something one would like to do as a career, and then continue working while attending the program. Working with real librarians, watching them work, and learning from them was the greatest lesson I learned. I hope that many LIS students try working at various libraries in many different areas of librarianship to find out which area interests them most and which type of libraries is the best fit for them.

One thing that surprised me most after I started working as a full-fledged librarian was how much more challenging it is to be a Digital Services Librarian than I thought. I had previous (and strong I thought!) experience in almost all the aspects of what I do right now. Still the level of responsibility and decision-making involved in being a librarian, particularly a solo web services librarian, was higher than I thought. This is a great thing because it proves that librarianship is full of challenges and adventures. I kind of hoped that that would be the case when I was a LIS student. But I am happy that I can confirm it as an actual truth now.

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Tips and Methods for Effective Screencasting

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

I have spent last week making a four-minute video tutorial on how to use a medical database called AccessMedicine.   It has been a while since I have worked on screencasting.  And of course, I lost all my documentation I have created in my previous workplace.  So, it took a while for me to remember how things are to be done to make a video tutorial effectively.

A little belatedly, I remembered that a crucial thing in making a video tutorial is doing things in the right order (meaning what works for you). So I thought I would share some methods I have experimented in the past.  I will call them method A, B, C.

The tools I used are Audacity-free sound-editor-and Camtasia. If you have a Mac, you can use GarageBand instead of Audacity. If you do not have Camtasia and would rather not use Jing or any other free screencasting tool because of the difficulty of recording both voice and screen at the same time, you may want to try MS Powerpoint.

Method A is what works for me best.

Method A

  1. Outline the tutorial and decide on what is going to be covered.
  2. Write the script while checking each and every item you want to cover in the tutorial.
  3. Re-read the script several times to make each narration brief and succinct.
  4. Record the narration using Audacity and a headset.
  5. After recording, import all mp3 files into Camtasia.
  6. Record the video portion of a tutorial while listening to the recording.
    (This allows one to create a video clip in which things happen in a way that matches the audio instructions, thereby saving a lot of efforts in video editing later on.)
  7. Create Title clips (slides or images) and other slides to be inserted into the Camtasia Project file.
  8. Import the video files, audio files, and slides.
  9. Add transition effects.
  10. While playing repeatedly,  arrange video, audio, and slides in the right sequence.
  11. Add special effects such as zooming, notes, spotlights etc.
  12. Do Audio Enhancement in Camtasia.
    (I even out the volume and increase gain by about 1/3 of the original to make the narration loud enough. The new clicking and clipping options are very useful. These sound editing and enhancement can be done in Audacity as well. But doing it en masse in Camtasia saves time. )
  13. Close all the programs so that the computer can concentrate on producing a smooth video.
  14. Produce the video in swf and mp4 format.
    (Make sure to fill in all the metadata.)
  15. While the video files are created, don’t do anything on the computer. It may cause bumpy transitions or flickering on the produced video file.
  16. Done!

 

This procedure works for me because I seem to be unable to focus on the mouse movement and the computer screen while I am also recording instructions at the same time. So I separate voice recording from video recording.

Method B

However, those who have no such problem can easily use Camtasia or Jing-a free screencapture/screencasting software – in order to create a video tutorial in a very short time in a much simpler manner. There are many simple but effective web tutorials out there made with Jing without any special effects.  Also, once-recorded, Jing can convert the recorded video so that it can be further edited in CAMTASIA.

Method C

Another way to make a video tutorial fast is to create Powerpoint slides. You can create Powerpoint slides with instructions and screenshots and then narrate your voice over the slides. If you can handle voice recording while simply moving slides, which is much easier than actually doing a live demo and recording the screen, using powerpoint slides for a video and focus on voice instruction is a great way to cut down time spent on creating a video tutorial.

This method works well for instructional tutorials which use a limited amount of screenshots but  less so for tutorials that are meant to be a demonstration.  I tried making demo tutorials using Powerpoint.  It required a lot of screencaptureing, Photoshop editing, and loads of special effects in Powerpoint and the heavy use of animation feature. Once you perfect your Powerpoint this way, you can create a PPS file (Powerpoint presentation) which can be downloaded and run like a movie. So you may not even need Camtasia to create a tutorial this way. But I would not recommend using this method in order to create a demo tutorial because importing sound and image files into Powerpoint and adding effects and using the animation feature heavily can be very time-consuming.

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If the Help Desk thinks your question is stupid,

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

This is so totally hilarious, it deserves to get its own blog post I think.  Enjoy!!!

Source: http://digg.com/d310et4 ; http://imgur.com/E9ppQ.jpg

Continue reading →

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Academic Librarians and Library Scholarship

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

What would be the difference between librarians classified as faculty and librarians classified as staff?  The first thing that comes to many people’s mind would be that faculty librarians are promoted based upon their scholarship/research outcome and are often given the title of professor just as other teaching faculty members in academic departments.

But, really, what would be the internal –and not external such as promotion criteria and job title– difference between faculty librarians and staff librarians? One may naturally assume that librarians who are faculty will be expected to spend more time on scholarship and research while librarians who are staff may focus more on daily library services. But is it really the case? Not many librarians in a faculty position actually can afford time for research and scholarship except outside their normal work hours and the weekends. Taking a sabbatical for research would be a rare luxury.

Although it is a nice thing for a librarian to be given a faculty status, there is a big difference between an academic librarian’s daily activities and those of a usual teaching faculty member. Not every librarian teaches regularly; no academic faculty is expected to provide services like what a library offers on a daily basis.

For librarians classified as non-tenure-track faculty, there is even a stronger inconsistency between their everyday work and what is expected of them. While there is no tenure issue that may justify spending time on research/scholarly activities, as faculty they are still expected to engage in some level of research/scholarly activities while performing all other library service-related duties.  It is problematic that while librarians are expected to spend most of their time on providing library services, research and scholarship may function as a more important criteria for evaluation and promotion later on.

On the other hand, there is a strong component of research in every librarian’s work. Particularly these days, librarians are expected to keep up with changing technologies and to be innovative in planning and executing both traditional and new library services. This requires a significant amount of research. But if you are a librarian classified as staff, your research activities may not be properly recognized and rewarded.

So we have problems in our hands. Should librarians focus on traditional scholarly activities such as writing research papers? Or should they rather invest more of their time on researching on and implementing new services and programs? Should librarians be given more time for continuing education and research? Or are librarians to be clearly distinguished from academic faculty because of the nature of each group’s daily work is significantly different?

In his recent article in Library Journal, “the Value of Innovation: New Criteria for Library Scholarship” Eric Schnell, Associate Professor/Librarian of Prior Health Sciences Library of Ohio State University argues that academic libraries need to create rewards systems based on the unique attributes of our field as well as individual departmental goals and needs and that recognition and achievement must be measured using criteria that both value the activities of academic librarians as they exists today and are flexible enough to adapt to future changes.

I think it is a high time to resolve the inconsistency between what academic librarians do on a daily basis and the criteria by which those librarians are rewarded, recognized, and promoted. And it should begin with admitting that academic librarianship is quite different from other areas of scholarship. Academic librarianship involves the continuous development of new customer services and the refinement of internal processes, as Schnell correctly points out. Furthermore, the continuous development of new customer services relates to many different areas such as metadata, collections, web services, systems, reference, and instruction.

The traditional model for faculty activity—teaching, scholarship, and service— is not a basis upon which librarians’ activities and academic librarianship can be properly evaluated, measured, recognized, and rewarded. We need to find a way to reward librarians who work differently and appropriately in the fields of their choice so that they can prosper no matter how they choose to pursue and develop their academic librarianship. We need a definition of academic librarianship that would represent well what successful librarians do most of their time, not what they may do during the weekends or outside the work hours in order to meet the promotion criteria.

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Library Day in the Life – Day 3, 4, 5

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

This week has been so busy that I didn’t have time to write up  my posts for the Library Day in the Life project since Wednesday this week. So here is the summary of what happened on my day 3, 4, 5 this week.  People often think that being a librarian is a pretty undramatic job.  But it may not be the case. I  had pretty dramatic three days which even involved pulling an all nighter.  (Ah, well, almost.  Having four-hour sleep is tantamount to pulling an all nighter at my age I think.)

Wednesday

Morning

  • Catch up with Emails
  • A new printer set-up in the library site with IT.  This one is going to allow students to send print jobs directly from their laptops. Another printer that is hooked up with library PCs are already in a working order.
  • Install Flash plug-in and Quicktime Player on each public access computers.  Now that I put integrity management system on each PC last week, installing new program is more complicated.  I have to reboot before and after change to turn off and on the integrity management system.

Afternoon

  • Get the news from the web design company that they will give me an access to files that comprise the library website. I requested this several months ago and the day that I am getting access to the files is right before the site going live. The company wants me to finish anything I will do on those files today. That is only a few hours to work.  I plead and ask when they are “really” planning to move the site from the company’s server to the university’s server. I hear that I can work until Friday morning and then have to sign them off.  Much better than by today at 5 pm.
  • Start looking at the codes. Why there are no comments?  Spend more time to figure out where the files I need to change are located.
  • Figure that I will need to work all night Thursday. Get the permission to work from home Friday morning to push in as many web pages as possible to the company server before the site goes live.
  • More web work.  Tired and head out home near 6 pm.

Thursday

9 am – 5 pm

Attend SEFLIN (Southeast Florida Library Information Network)’s “New Technologies: Libraries & Beyond” conference  During the keynote address, emails notify me that I need some kind of job description for a work-study student I am planning to get. Emailing back and forth while listening to the kenote presentation. Then three more sessions to attend. The conference had sufficient amount of free coffee available. I was very happy with that.

  • Keynote Address:
    Library automation after Web 2.0: Integrating Social Networking Concepts into the Library Infrastructure
     Presented by: Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research for the Vanderbilt University
  • Tablet Computers for Public Service
    Maria Crespi, Victor Hernandez, Charles Roig & Jennifer Dewsnap Shipley, Miami-Dade Public Library System
  • Social Media: Gems from Computers In Libraries 2009
     Prepared by Karen Coussey, Computer Center Supervisor at Broward County Library, Weston Branch Library
    Presented by Loria Hyatt, Computer Center Supervisor at Broward County Library, African American Research Library and Cultural Center
  • Going Mobile with Library Services
    Rich Ackerman, Director of Electronic Resources and Web Services & Carrie Gits, Assistant Director of Reference at Nova Southeastern University

Evening to Next day Morning: 8 pm – 4 am

It was great spending time at a conference all day.  But now there is work waiting for me.  After dinner, I start moving the webpage files from work to my personal computer.  Start working on adding more library pages. Each deparment was allowed to submit up to 6 pages.  The library was no exception but we have + 50 pages more to go.  I had a test site set up with most of the web pages ready. I start creating new web page files that would fit into the new template created by a web design company.  The site and file structure are, in my opinion, not so optimal for those who will be maintaining and updating codes for a portion of the site.

I continue somewhat repetitive web work. The spell checker in Dreamweaver is a godsend.  Still there are many files to go and the night is short. I start to realize that while I will be able to add as many webpages as I can during the given time, it would be  very very difficult to drive to work tomorrow considering the sleep-deprived state I will be in tomorrow.

Friday

Morning

After three hours of sleep, I come back to my computer with a large cup of coffee.  More coding, more coding. I am adding JQuery and some Javascript files.  And more webpages.  Now the library site will have 30-40 pages instead of the initial 6.  Around 10 am, I check with the company.  More content may come in but the deadline is not changed. I start uploading my files.  But soon I hear back that other departments are going to submit more content by 5pm today.

So I get more time to work on webpages, which is nice but exhausting because I have been up very long without much sleep.  I take a short break and get a permission to work from home for the rest of the day.

Afternoon

More web pages, more javascript files, and more coffee.  I am missing some very important staff meeting today that will include some delicious cake.  I contunue my work wishing there would be some left Monday.  And of course, looking forward to the new updated site which I will be seeing Monday!

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Library Day in the Life – Day 2

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

8:30  I am ready to go to the university web group meeting for the three CMS vendor presentation today that begins at 9.  But boy oh boy, I just hear from the colleague that Aleph 19-the new version we are upgrading  today-needs to be downloaded anew from a completely different URL than what I was informed yesterday. So two hours of yesterday’s work is gone. And I am running around 5 different staff PCs to install the new version of Aleph. Two PCs are gives me real pain freezing up and refusing multiple times to get the new Aleph version installed.  Finally fixed all. Now the clock says 10:15 and I would not have known even if I drank my morning coffee through the nose.

10: 30 So now I am finally ready to go to the CMS vendor presentations. But where is it? It is in Campus Support Complex which is at a far far end of the campus. I run to my car in Red garage, drive to CSC building, and there is no spot in the parking lot in front of the building. And yes, there is. NO, it is only for DECAL. Yes there is one. I run for Rm 1134, which is not on the 11th fl. Actually it is on the first floor!

11:00 At least I made it to the meeting. There is a presentation about dotCMS going on. Well, almost any CMS looks good to me when all I have is SharePoint. While watching the presentation, I keep checking emails and continue emailing.  Multi-tasking is good I guess but I become afflicted with ADD sometimes. What did he just say?

12: 30 The third presentaiton about Cascade by Hannon Hill (?) is over. I really liked the option of repurposing the content in different formats–xml, pdf, html etc.  I leave hoping the 5-member evaluation committee will pick this one but wondering about the first CMS presentation I missed.

1:00 Back at the garage. Got a even better spot! Since the presentation actually ended an hour early, I head out to Student Center to pick up something to eat.  The hair salon in the student center is awfully empty today.  I decide to get a much-needed hair cut.  It takes less than 20 min.! I run back to office with my lunch-Oreo cookies and milk I bought from a small store in Student Center.

2:00 Staff meeting to check the progress of To-Do items before the library opens next week. We look good!

3:00 Work on Library page content on the Student Intranet being constantly interrupted by continuously urgent emails. Make some plans for the library orientation slides. Send out the last Public Access PC to the school IT.

5:15 How come I am the only person left again in the office? I am going home now.

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Library Now vs. Library of the Future

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Have you ever heard remarks like these?

* “Why do we need books? Everything is online.”
* “Why do we need computers at a library? All our students have computers.”
* “Why do we need a library? You can find everything on the Internet.”

Many times, I have seen these sort-of arguments functioning as an excuse for not tending to the needs of current library users.  Of course, these arguments are fragile, but that is not my point.  I am not going to argue that not all the information and knowledge of the past, present, and future will be available in a digital format online.  Why not? Maybe it will; who knows?  I am not going to argue that there is always going to be a social divide that will require a library to provide some types of IT equipments useful for accessing information no matter how far in the future a library is.  Maybe everyone will be equipped in a equal enough way to access information in the future; if so, that would be only great.  Neither am I going to argue that no matter what change happens to the way humans access information and acquire knowledge, they will always need some sort of space for study and research as an individual as well as a group.  Maybe everyone will stay at home in the future and will communicate and socialize only via telecommunication.  Why not all education be distance learning?  You never know.  (I am not cynical here and actually can even think of some advantages of 100% distance learning.)

But right now, not everything is online, and not every library user has or brings a computer to a library.  And whatever the reasons are, there are people sitting and walking around in a library browsing books, typing stuff on a computer, and asking questions.  So, when someone predicts a future library as a God-knows-what type of information network and uses that against investing in the space, furniture, equipment, and ‘some’ print materials of a library, I get confused.  Thinking about the future of a library is great.  But that library will be a library for users of the future.  The library that needs some plants, some white boards, some computers, and some photocopiers, some comfy chairs are a library for users of now.  Don’t run away to a future library when your present library needs help.

Is it inevitable that a library is going to exist mostly online in the future? Some say so and argue that that is the case because a lot of information and knowledge will no longer need to be housed in a physical space.  Hence a library won’t need to exist in a physical space either.  Maybe, but not inevitably.  Why do we want to say that it is even likely?  What a library will be in the future is something we can and should decide as a society, not something that will happen one day as a matter of laws of nature.

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Library Day in the Life – Day 1

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Below is my post for Library Day in the Life Project

I am writing down my everyday tasks here in the most mundane manner.  But that is what it is like to work as a librarian every day.  You do not get to do exciting projects everyday. 

Monday Morning

I get into my office around 8:30-ish.  Fixes a cup of tea.  There is already an email  waiting about British Journal of Radiology  not being set up correctly.  I investigate the problem, send away EZproxy configuration, double-check SerialsSolutions, email back.

ILL web-pages need to be redone. More changes need to be made. At least I got it in my email. Need to put them aside for now as more important things need to be done today. But I can fix the Google form for ILL. Google Form somehow does not handle apostrophe. Why is that?

Plan the outline of the library page in the students’ intranet.  Our library’s website is still not live due to reasons none of which are related to the library.  So this is important.  Retrieve some photos I took last week around our new library with my iPhone, which I downloaded and emailed back to me during the weekend.  Start doing some photo-editing in Photoshop.  Create an OK-looking banner for the page after some tinkering.  Trying to come up with some useful content for the rest of the page: links, short info about various library services, facilities, etc.  Add some announcements. The RSS reader in SharePoint still does not work… Sigh… Need to email the school Sys Admin about it…

The library’s Facebook page needs to be updated with new hours and some more detailed info. After working for a while on it, send out emails to the school folks to go to FB and become a fan of the library. Two people did, yay!  That is a good start.

One of our school deans is dropping by to check our office space.  So some meeting and lots of conversation, moving, etc for half an hour. I am making coffee in the kitchen. Too bad I can’t drink it because of acid reflux.

In the library site, the large screen LCD monitor is being mounted on the wall for a group study room.  Very exciting!

Lunch

Time to eat.  A colleague in school IT suggests lunch at the student center.  At least today I get to eat at noon. Usually I end up eating at 2 or 3 and often in my office still working. This is good. We discuss Gates scandal, True Blood, NCIS over lunch.

Afternoon

The web-design company hired by the school is so slow getting pages ready, and there are still lots of bugs. I reported some cross-browser issues, and they say they cannot replicate. Who is a web designer here and who is supposed to do testing?  Anyway, I send them more screenshots.  Our reference librarian finds additional bugs. I email that one to them too.  No response. Yet. Hope they are working on them.

My boss calls me from the library site to come over and check the successfully mounted LCD screen. Looks magnificent. I ask about the cable that would connect a laptop to the monitor and get one cable for free. Will need to order another to be safe. Will need to worry about how to fix the remote control onto the wall so that it would not be lost.

Time for the conference meeting with Tom, a sales rep for VH dissector. VH Dissector is a really cool human anatomy software. I am learning how to use this program today with a couple of other librarians. The cross-section of human bodies, arteries, nerves, brains… fascinating and somewhat gross images appear.  The software is amazing, and we are going to promote it to faculty and students.  During the meeting, we find that our VH Dissector lacks some lessons.  The vendor will check back and let us know.  And we will have more training in upcoming weeks.  There are some nice printouts in the vendor website that we may be able to hand out to students. Good.

Library PCs need QuickTime player to play our tutorial video. So I install it as well as Firefox Flash plug-in. It takes additional time because I have to deactivate and activate Integrity Management Software everytime I do something to these computers.

Our ILL Assistant comes up and asks if I can do some configuration change for the HelpDesk PC as well. We set aside a meeting for half an hour tomorrow.

Add more database permanent links to the library page of students’ intranet.  A small project of checking the 176 medical e-journals links in the OPAC can be launched as our new part-time Library Assistant just started her work and there is not much work at the Circulation Desk until the library opens.  After handing out the project, I go back to adding more and more database links.

My boss comes up and wants to have a meeting tomorrow. I start writing up a short report listing all items that have been done or are in progress. They fill up two pages.  The font size is 10 to believe it or not.

Tomorrow Aleph (our ILS) is version upgraded from 18 to 19. I call up University Libraray and find out that I cannot delay installing the new version on all staff machines until Wednesday.  So I get up and start installing new Aleph Version to all machines around the office. It is close to 5. Where did my day go?

Our reference librarian requests I add a new link to DOCLINE in the browser toolbar I made for the quick access to our staff intranet. I go to Conduit but cannot recall the username and password. After trial and error, finally I retrieve the password, add the link button, the toolbar has been updated.

It is time to go home and I am the only one left at the office. I am really going home now. What a day! Ready to pass out.

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Why a Library needs Comfy Chairs and Bright Colors

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Have you ever thought about bringing in comfy chairs and painting library walls in bright upbeat colors?  Would that make a difference to a library in any substantial way?

Here is a library that said YES to this question.  It is DOK-Library Concept Center, a Delft Public Library in Holland. Here are two videos about this cool library.  The first video is a guided tour of the library by its director.  The second video shows a Microsoft Multitouch Surface table with a Cultural Heritage Browser that is programmed to work with DOK library cards, so that library users can simply place their library card and view and browse the 25,000 images of their town from the city archive.

Shanachie Tour: DOK
http://wordpress.shanachietour.com/video/MOV/episode_12.1_DOK_Library_Concept_Center.mov

Multitouch Microsoft Surface: Cultural Heritage Browser
http://vimeo.com/5643953

Despite dusty stacks, testy photocopiers, outdated computers, and boring-looking furniture, librarians love being at a library.  Probably that is the reason why they became librarians.  But maybe that is a problem.  If there is one thing that librarians and the public share, if there is one thing that the staff of an academic library and the upper administration of a college/university, that would be the image of a library that is way too familiar and somewhat depressing at the same time.

The image of a library familiar to the public is an outdated building filled with books in which you are supposed to quietly study in uncomfortable chairs and often have to fight for computers if you didn’t bring your own laptop.  If you are hungry, too bad.  You are not allowed to eat inside a library.  You better go out and eat something.  Would you come back?  Maybe or maybe not.  But that is OK because you are at a library because you are supposed to do serious activities in the first place.  Do study, research, explore ideas that will shake the world.  But do so in a hungry, caffeine-deprived, muscle aching mode.

Of course, I am a bit exaggerating here.  But I can confirm that even as a current librarian, I didn’t enjoy my time in libraries in my past as a college/graduate student frequenting libraries.  And I am saying that the preconception of a library as a serious place reserved for reading, study, and research is actually shunning library users away.

If you have a choice between staying at MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) and at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), where would you hang out?  (Just make believe that you don’t have to pay $20 to go into MOMA for now.)   If you have a choice between staying at a library and at a Starbucks, where would you hang out?

Potential answers are: “Whatever I need to get at a library, I will get them there and will go to Starbuck to do reading.”  Or, “if I can get those things I need online, I will just go to Starbucks.”  Or, “I won’t worry about going to a library at all, because it is not so much fun any way. Guess no reading for me.”

I loved and still love “the idea of being at a library.”  Loving “the idea of being at a library” is, however, totally different from actually loving being at a library.  It is the different between “library as a place I have to go for such and such” and “library as a place I love going to just to check out.”

I wonder why we aren’t paying more attention to making our libraries as a cool place to stay, to transforming them from a place to drop by for transaction to a preferred place to hang out for unique experience and environment that would encourage exploring knowledge and information.  Of course, the model would be not Starbucks but something like DOK.

It is sad to see that academic libraries are less interested in this aspect of a library than public libraries.  The fact that students hang out at libraries for exam and papers itself does not mean that a library is successful.  An academic library will be successful when students want to come in even when there are no exams and papers due in a week.  There lies the difference between a library being utilized and a library being cherished and valued.

Here is students’ plea for more comfy chairs, pillows and bean bags at the libraries of Western Washington University:  http://lib206.lib.wwu.edu/14days/node/31

(No wonder why I have the fond memories of Robbins rather than of Widener; I had lots of coffee there in old comfy chairs with ottomans.)

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ERM Systems: The Promise and Disappointment

Posted on July 21, 2009 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Some conference sessions are just irresistible because of their titles.  For example, “Ultimate Debate: Has Library 2.0 fulfilled its promise?” Right?  I know that “Electronic Resource Management Systems: The Promise and Disappointment” would have been just as irresistible to some librarians.  If you deal with e-resources at work, whether you are cataloging them, acquiring them, setting up access for them, troubleshooting constant issues with them, you will know what I mean.  I can only imagine how many E-resources librarians have been dreaming about the one ultimate ERM system that would do the magic of cleaning up the messy Hydra-like workflow around e-resources and make ERM less of Sisiphus’ labor.

I didn’t have much information in advance about this session and guessed it would be more of a panel discussion.  But actually it consisted of four presentations by librarians who have implemented a ERM system recently.  The ERMS(E-Resources Management System)es covered in the presentations were SerialsSolutions’ 360 Resource Manager, Verde, and Gold Rush.

The presenters were (not by the order of presentation):

  • Apryl Price, Electronic Resources Librarian, Texas A&M University  (Gold Rush)
  • Jeanne Langendorfer, Coordinator of Serials, Bowling Green State University  (SerSol?)
  • Jeannie Downey, Electronic Resources Coordinator, University of Houston Libraries  (Verde?)
  • Betsy Friesen, Technical Services Analyst, University of Minnesota Libraries  (Verde?)

I missed the first presentation about SerialsSolutions’ ERM product.  This was a shame because that is the one I have access to where I work.  But I know even from my limited experience that this product is not only clunky as an ERMS  but also lacks many functionalities that any desirable ERMS should probably have.  I am not going to say I cannot search e-resources in this system by the system’s own identifier nor search any notes that I can attach to e-resources.  There, I said it… whoops.

The two presenters expressed much disappointments about Verde, an ExLibris product, particularly about its complexity and rigidity.  One pointed out that the Verde implementation forced them to fit their workflow around the system rather than fit the system around the workflow.  It was also mentioned that a lot of vocabularies in Verde which come from the ERMI data dictionary were not familiar to the librarians who worked for Verde implementation and that this delayed the implementation process.  One presenter said that her library started Verde implementation two years ago but it was still in testing and not in production.

So, it was a surprise to me that ExLibris is discontinuing Verde development and going for thier new product, URM (University Resource Management) system, instead. I would have liked some discussion about what librarians would like to see ERMS do, but that was not covered much.  My personal opinion is that ERM workflows are very fluid and iterative (also vary from organization to organization) and the tools offered have been failing to capture this aspect.  And probably that is why sometimes a homegrown ERM system works better than a complicated but rigid system offered by various vendors.

The last presentation about Gold Rush was of particular interest to me as it seemed to be the only product whose implementation was relatively easy and smooth.  The cost was also said to be on a less expensive side.  Texas A&M University library implemented it pretty quickly.  Overall, it seemed to be a neat small and simple product.  The presenter pointed out that it doesn’t handle e-books well.  Gold Rush also doesn’t have many features like Verde and is a stand-alone product/a hosted solution, which doesn’t talk to an ILS nor to an Open URL link resolver.  Still, it looked pretty good to me as my library is small and there is no tech-support staff available other than me who will be able to work on the implementation and maintenance of the system.  So, fast implementation and ease of use would be a big plus to me.

I would have liked to hear from libraries that do not currently have a commercial ERMS product about how they manage their e-resources and what kind of system they use.  Also, some discussion and experience about open-source ERMes would have been great such as  CUFTS and Univeristy of Wisconsin-La Crosse ERM.  But it was great to be in the room discussing ERMes with other e-resources librarians.

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