Reference 101: What to do when...

So this is a new little feature I'm going to start throwing in every once in awhile, for new librarians on the reference desk. As a new reference librarian, I have come across a variety of different situations, some more extreme than others, that I have had to learn first-hand how to deal with. Here are a few more recent ones:

What to do when...

A patron calls and says they've been mugged and all their library books were in their bag.

Answer: Tell them to bring in the police report with a description of what was stolen. At that point the branch manager will most likely discharge the fines.

*****

A patron calls in on Friday and says they returned 2 DVDs on Wednesday, but when they looked at their account today, it says one of the DVDs is still charged out to them and is now overdue.

Answer: First, look up their patron record to see which DVD title is still overdue. If it is from your own branch, look for said DVD first to see if it's on the shelf or if it got put somewhere else. Clerks come in handy here. If you can't find it or it is from another branch, place a claims return on the DVD. This will basically freeze that overdue item so that no more fines are added on, while also flagging the item to be looked for. Let the patron know you placed a claims return, meaning we know they called to report they had returned the book but it's still on their account, and tell them the system will have the library look up to 5 times (or whatever the policy is in your system) for the item. Once found, the fines will be removed. Also, try to "gently" ask the patron to keep their eyes out for the DVD, in case it accidentally was not returned...

If the DVD was from another branch, also let the patron know that the DVD probably was never discharged after he returned it, but it is most likely still in transit back to the original branch. Explain what the claims hold does, and in the meantime, tell him to wait patiently for a week, keep an eye on his account, and call back at the end of next week if the overdue item in question has not been removed yet.

*****

A patron calls in and says they checked out a book and they want to renew it because they misplaced it, and they want more time to look for it. You go into the patron's account to renew it, but realize they've run out of renewals and the due date can't be pushed back any further. The patron demands you do something about it.

Answer: Tricky one. Explain to the patron that once the book is checked out to them, it is their responsibility to return it on time, and there is nothing else we can do from our end because they have exceeded the number of renewals for that book. Unfortunately, this is not going to make them happy, so if they're still giving you a hard time, refer them to the branch manager, or let them know when the branch manager will be in next. Try to stay polite-- but don't abjectly apologize, because it's not your fault they can't keep tract of their books!

*****

You're sitting at the reference desk and out of the corner of your eye, you see some guy in the stacks masturbating.

Answer: Call the police immediately! If the branch manager is there, let them know what's going on. If you're on your own, alert the clerks or whoever you're there with, but don't approach the culprit unless you're OK doing so. Yeah, this is always a fun situation to deal with...

*****

These are all situations that I've had to deal with in my year as a substitute reference librarian for the public libraries. Of course, the way you do things for your branch libraries may be somewhat different, but I think that in general, these are valid solutions to scenarios you may run into.

10 Technologies that Revolutionized Libraries

Here is another link that I wanted to share with you guys, which I found through a fellow librarian's blog...

The article is called 10 Technologies that Revolutionized Libraries, and it takes an interesting look back in time, and toward the future, of the different technologies, old and new, that have had a revolutionary impact on how libraries function and serve their communities...

I will give you a snippet from the beginning of the article, because I thought it was really good in how it supports the purpose of our libraries-- and anywhere I can find support in defense of the library is worthy of note to me!

"Libraries form an essential component of human society — they educate, they enlighten, they entertain. But, most importantly, they bring together members of the community in order to keep intellectualism and innovation flowing. And in order to stay relevant, libraries have to open themselves up to emergent technologies, discovering creative ways to apply them in the service of the people." 

Here there is mention of such forward-thinking innovations as the written language, scrolls and paper-- it provides a brief but interesting history to some of the things that we take for granted (what would we do without barcode scanners??), but that have really changed the way we live and think... It ends with the Internet and eBook Readers, which are definitely changing how we librarians define our jobs and the places we work-- in a good way! Hope you enjoy this short walk through library technologies that have revolutionized our jobs.  

Librarian in Charge

 Oops...

OK, I know it has been awhile since I have posted anything here, so I thought I would FINALLY take a few moments to update everyone on what has been going on! As you may know, I also have another blog where I review YA fiction books, so that has also been taking up my time.

It has been a little over a year since I graduated from library school at Syracuse University, and I have been so blessed in the opportunities that I have had between then and now. Currently, I am still working as a part-time Reference & Instruction Librarian at a small satellite campus that provides undergrad and grad programs for more "non-traditional" students-- AKA, students who have been out of school for awhile and mostly work full-time and have families now. This is a challenge, but it also provides a great opportunity to work within a unique area of librarianship. At this college, I can hone my skills at library instruction and reference within a smaller and more intimate environment, which has been really nice.

I am also still working as a substitute librarian for the city public libraries-- there are around 11 branches and I have worked at all of them but one! This has also given me some really diverse experience with working with all kinds of different people and communities, while also seeing how individual library branches are customized to their specific areas and the patrons they serve. For example, one branch has a really large Filipino community, with many children, and the branch manager at that library has worked tirelessly to provide after school programs and meals and tutoring in English for those kids. Another branch in a very run-down area of the city has a toy resource center for the children there. So it has been really great to see those adaptations, based on the communities that each individual library serves.

I would have to say that I have already reached a rather... interesting point in my young career. I just received news last week that the other librarian who I work with at the college was just offered a full-time job at a university-- this means that I will be going from second-in-charge to "Captain of the Ship" here at our campus. Needless to say, I am excited, but I am also majorly freaking out-- I really want to thrive in this new position, even though I have never held such a managerial position before (I was a weekend manager at a local sub shop when I was an undergrad, but I don't really think that compares!).

So, in a month and a half I will essentially become a branch manager myself, at an academic library. I will be in charge of organizing and running all of the library instruction classes (that probably has me most freaked out), scheduling and running the Writing Lab, scheduling and organizing any "boot camp" classes for students who need extra help, and then of course doing all of the day to day tasks to keep the library running. Eventually, I will also be developing, organizing and running various workshops on certain library-related topics as well-- but first thing is first, I need to get used to running the place!

I think that this is an awesome opportunity for me as a new librarian, and even though I'm a nervous wreck and question my own capabilities after being here only 9 months, I fully intend to put everything I have into this new challenge and making my library (haha, yes my library) a great one for students to go to and get extra help. I won't be totally alone- we'll be hiring a new part-time Ref & Instruction Librarian as well. So there will be some training to do, too. Not gonna lie, sometimes I'm just like, wow this a lot for one 26-year old to handle, but it is an opportunity that has been given to me to advance my career and learn a lot of new things as a librarian, so I guess I need to just embrace it and do the best that I can!

I will probably be posting more frequently now, as I want to not only keep a record and share the experiences that I go through in my new job (and my old one at the public library too!), but I also want to be encouraged and provide encouragement to any other newly-graduated library school students, who may be facing similar challenges, or are still trying to get their feet on the ground in their new careers. I have a month and a half to learn as much as I can about running the library, and then I'm on my own...

But then hey, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and wing it!

The Future of Book Collecting

Probably one of the most fascinating and memorable experiences I took away from my two years as a library student involved a trip to the Special Collections and Research Center of Syracuse University, where the Curator of Rare Books and one of our professors gave us a tour of some of the treasures included in the Rare Book Collection of E.S. Bird Library. I can remember sitting there, craning my neck to get a better view of some of the physical remnants of literary history, wishing I could actually hold those relics in my own hands.

There were 12th-century illuminated manuscripts, hand-written and hand-painted with illustrations so bright and vivid that they could have been completed only yesterday. There were stone cuneiform tablets over 4,000 years old, first editions of Alice and Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, and-- my absolute favorite that made me positively green with envy-- a small prayer book that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. It even had notes in her own hand in the margins.

With the advent of ebooks and the increasing trend towards digital formats, I have been wondering lately: exactly what is the future of book collecting? In an age of digital book formats where copies are absolutely limitless and one edition can be created, multiplied and destroyed in a matter of seconds, what will become of our dusty first editions that make us feel privileged to own, or even see in person? Will there still exist editions in the book world that are both unique and difficult to obtain? And finally, should we even care, as long as the written word is universally accessible to as many people as possible? Should there even exist certain editions of books that only a few privileged people/institutions are lucky enough to own? Or is the democratization of books a trend that supersedes the singularity and particular qualities that make certain books unique and irreplaceable?

I actually had some difficulty finding anything on the WWW about this issue of the proliferation of ebooks and its impact on physical book collecting. I did find one interesting blog post, titled 100 Years Ago; Or, The Future of Book Collecting-- I am not sure of the author, but his blog can be found at A New Look at Old Books. The post gives some interesting opinions about where book collecting is headed, given the trends toward book-digitizing:

• "Now, for the first time ever, the book itself is under threat. Over the next ten years the public will be asked to choose which we want, carbon or silicon, paper or screens."

• "Book collecting will only survive if new collectors take it up and they will only do that if they have some sort of relationship with books."

• "When there’s nobody left to appreciate a binding or care about condition or pay extra for a first edition then our books will become worthless clutter like shellac 78s and worn out clothes."

I feel like this perspective is a little bit too doom-and-gloom, and that the popularity of ebook readers does not necessarily mean the demise of book collecting altogether. But I do wonder about the future of first editions and rare editions- will they even exist any more in the sense that they have for hundreds of years? Will there even be such a thing as a "rare edition" in the future when it is so easy now to digitally recreate millions of copies of a book? And should books still be considered as "treasures," or should they all be commonplace and equally available to everyone?

I really only have one "treasure" in my own personal library at home-- and I cherish it as one of my most prized possessions. It is a 1929 edition of Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, illustrated by Harry Clarke. The book is in almost perfect condition and still has all of its color plates intact. (Note: the picture to the right is not my own copy, but it is an image of the same edition.) My grandma picked it up years ago at a used book sale for $0.25. Today this book is worth over $400 in good condition. I coincidentally caught an episode of the Antiques Roadshow that had my book showcased one evening, and to my utter surprise and delight, I found out just how valuable my edition was!

I don't think that any ebook could take away the inherent value of the physical book. Isn't there just something inexplicable about having a rare edition that is hard to find and expensive to acquire? And isn't there something to cherish and love in that old dog-eared, beat-up copy of your favorite book that you've taken with you everywhere and read over and over again countless times?

Ebooks are great and they have a definite place in today's market and today's society, but for me personally, nothing will ever replace The Book in its physical form. It is completely irreplaceable and has an inherent value that can not be supplanted by digitization. For this reason, I really don't know what the future of book collecting will look like, but I think it will be a very long time before physical books are completely replaced by ebooks, or digital copies take the place of physical ones in the heart of the book lover. Maybe that's a sentimental viewpoint that holds little weight in the face of huge publishing companies out to make a profit, but I think it's fair to say that plenty of people still can and do appreciate the unique qualities of a rare book. I can only hope that somehow, some way, future generations will still be able to see their worth as well.

Public, Academic, or Special Libraries? I Can't Choose!

OK, so I must be the most indecisive person ever when it comes to picking a career direction. Back in library school I had this issue as well- which kind of library do I want to get into? At the time, I was all about the Special Library and Special Collections. I took classes on preservation and archives, and even considered adding on a second degree in Museum Studies. However, once I graduated, my first library job turned out to be in exactly the kind of library I had no interest in as a grad student: public libraries. Last September I started working as a substitute librarian for the city library branches and realized just how much fun it can be to work in the public library world!

About a month later I was lucky enough to get a steady, part-time job as an academic Reference and Instruction Librarian at a small satellite campus for a business-centered college. For the past 7 months now I have been gaining invaluable experience in library instruction, one-on-one reference, programming, marketing, and many other things.

So then yesterday I found a job opening for a librarian needed at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is a part of the United States Department of Defense, and I was just thinking, oh my gosh! How cool would that be to say I worked for the DIA? (Plus, it pays REALLY good.) Unfortunately, I'm under-qualified for that specific position at the moment, but who knows, maybe someday...?

So here I am, almost a year after graduating from library school-- working as both a public and academic librarian and looking into becoming a special collections librarian. Still haven't made up my mind! I love aspects of each type. Public libraries are great because I feel like both the people you work for and the people you work with are more laid-back, and the job gives you more flexibility to do things that you want. Like murder-mysteries? Throw a murder-mystery party. Like story-telling and playing Wii bowling? Become a children's or YA librarian. Like wine? Have a wine-tasting session at your next staff day (no, I am not making this up, we really did have one of these!) I like academic libraries because I really love working one-on-one with students and helping them do their research and citations-- I just get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when I know I have just helped someone to understand where to look for something or how to cite something. Plus I feel like I am getting experience in library instruction that I couldn't get anywhere else-- I'm still incredibly nervous when I have to teach, but I figure that goes away with time and practice. Finally, I love special collections too, because, well, they're just cool. I mean c'mon, who wouldn't want to work some place that has illuminated texts from the 12th century or first editions of Alice in Wonderland? Being that close to the physical remnants of history just sounds amazing to me. (And as I said, who wouldn't want to be like, "yes, I work in Washington D.C. for the Defense Intelligence Agency" at their next school reunion?) So special libraries are still on my potential list of places to work too.

Have you figured out where you ultimately want to be in LibraryLand? Have you realized where your niche is and have no doubt that you'll remain there for the rest of your career? Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you had chosen another direction? And is there anyone else out there who is still as indecisive as I am?

Just some thoughts I've been having lately! I really am happy that I have the opportunity to work in more than one type of library and to gain experience in each. Who knows where I will end up? As long as my job still involves books and helping people, I suppose I will be happy  :)

Are academic librarians becoming extinct?

If you are a librarian and/or library school student, I really encourage you to take a moment and read this article that was posted by Karen over at the Free Range Librarian-- it really speaks to our profession and where it is headed.

Karen Schneider is the director of the Cushing Library at Holy Names University in Oakland, California. She has over 20 years of library experience and has published over 100 articles, along with 2 books. In this blog post, she responds to Jeff Trzeciak, the University Librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Trzeciak (no clue how that's pronounced) gave a talk earlier this month having to do with the direction that academic libraries should be headed in. The new trend, according to him and many other college library directors, is to do away with traditional library services and replace them with large-scale digital projects carried out by PhD-level academics and  IT professionals. Why? Because digital projects put college libraries on the map and make library directors look good. Problem? Not every college library has the funding, resources or even the need for huge digital collections-- but they are being pursued nonetheless. The result has been many librarians quitting or being laid off because they simply weren't trained to be IT professionals.

So basically (If Jeff's vision goes through), all of us bumbling, old-fashioned librarians will no longer have a place in the academic library world. Oh, and all of us newly-graduated library school students? Yeah, those MSLIS's and MLIS's aren't going to land us an academic librarian job any time soon-- we may as well have paid $50,000+ to have a piece of paper to hang on the wall, because from now on directors will only be hiring candidates with extensive IT backgrounds and even higher-level (and multiple) degrees.

I can speak from personal experience that I have seen this trend occurring in university libraries-- even small ones, and that for me is what is so disturbing. Yes, large schools like Syracuse University and UNC have both the funding to carry out large-scale digital projects AND the kind of collections that draw researchers to their campuses from all over the world. Umm... smaller schools don't have either of those, and yet their directors are still forcing them to compete with the big fish in order-- I am assuming-- to make themselves look good. It's almost as if, and maybe I'm wrong, but it's almost as if the new plan is to have college libraries go in whatever direction is most gratifying to the director's ego. And you know what? I think that any director who values these kinds of projects over traditional library services will ultimately ruin the library they are supposed to be leading.


Our place as librarians in the academic world is to provide research assistance and information literacy instruction to students and faculty-- that is our number one purpose, whatever any director has to say about it. I can only hope that there are more directors out there like Karen who are still realistic enough to understand the value of librarians in the academic world. Otherwise, I truly weep for our profession.

Librarian Lessons: Electronic Resource Management

So every now and then, I take it upon myself to read an article about something I know next to nothing about, in the hopes that I will learn something new. Now, I am far from being a technology-guru (I may have mentioned this before but me and phrases like "structural metadata" and "syntactic interoperability" don't mix). I remember taking a class in digital libraries when I was in library school, and anything that went beyond the bare basics left me with a headache. So with that being said, I stumbled upon a fun-looking article (and I mean that in the broadest sense) in last month's Library Journal called "Building A Better ERMS," written by Maria Collins and Jill E. Grogg.

Electronic Resource Management. Huh. Now here was something that would take me some time to mentally digest. It did turn out to be somewhat thought-provoking for me and I felt even a little smart just sitting there reading it, so that was a plus. Here is a summary of this article and what I managed to carry away from it:

Topic: ERMS, also known as "Electronic Resource Management Systems"

Intro: Librarians have been struggling over the past decade or so, trying to figure out what the best way is to handle the influx of new electronic resources. Learning to manage these resources is no simple matter. According to Collins & Grogg, "the problem is that managing e-resources is a distinctly nonlinear and nonstandardized process." And while the ERM systems that have developed recently address some issues (like license management and storing administrative info) they are still far from being the answer to other librarian needs, such as being interoperable with other systems. In a nutshell, ERM systems are mighty complicated, and the purpose of this article was to take a look at what we currently have, and see how it can be made better based on the needs/wants of today's librarians.

So what are librarians asking for from their typical ERM systems? What are the most important aspects of these tools that make them so valuable to what we do on a daily basis? Here are the 6 top priorities that librarians see for building a good ERMS:

PRIORITY #1: They have to be able to manage workflow and help make it more (not less) efficient

A large chunk of the librarians surveyed for this study said that one of the biggest problems they have with current ERMS is that they aren't efficient and they have poor functionality. ERMS right now make it pretty difficult to move from Task A to Task B because there are so many different systems being used to get library work done, and they're all owned/run by different vendors- none of them work together very well so getting things done takes forever. Besides this, nothing is standardized or centralized in one overall system, so trying to manage e-resources can be a real nightmare. Instead of having a bunch of clunky systems that can't "bend" to the needs of individual branches, digital collections librarians have said that a good ERMS will be flexible enough to adapt to local needs, which are unique to each library. I know all too well how the details of processing collections can differ between various branches! A good ERMS needs to be specific enough that it can support the details of local workflows (AKA how things are done at one branch) but general enough that it's adaptable/customizable across many branches.

PRIORITY #2: They have to be capable of license management


Now, I'm only a part-time librarian at the moment, but I do know that librarians have to deal with licenses and licensing terms A LOT. So far, it seems that ERMS have done a pretty good job in this area. Managing licenses and contracts, being able to categorize them, link them, and make them easily searchable has been one achievement in the development of ERMS. Being able to find specific terms of use, rules and policies, etc. makes it easier for librarians in every department of the library to make informed decisions. The only major issue right now is that a lot of library license terms need to be input manually into the system, which can be a drag and take a lot of time. Things get even trickier when you're using services from a bunch of different vendors, since now you have multiple licensing terms to keep tract of.

PRIORITY #3: They have to be able to manage statistics

Ahh yes, statistics. A part of every librarian job-- love 'em or hate 'em, you need to use them and appreciate how they help increase the value of library resources and services. In general, usage reports are needed to:

                                         *Build monthly and annual overviews of usage at your library
                                         *Measure usage of new publications
                                         *Make informed purchasing decisions
                                         *Understand and predict user patterns

Now, when dealing with statistics it's always helpful to have some sort of standardization so that you can relate the stats to each other, make sense of them and how they connect, and get an overall picture of how your library is doing. With this being said, did you know that librarian-lingo includes an acronym called "SUSHI?" OK, I didn't either, but it does. It stands for "Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative," and it's a standard with open source codes (ie. it's free to access and can be re-programmed to suite your needs) to measure how e-resources are being used. Using this code, libraries can retrieve and enter usage statistics (in the form of "COUNTER reports") in a standardized/consistent way, and librarians are saved the laborious process of generating spreadsheet reports themselves (which doesn't sound like much fun).
Basically, as it stands right now, statistics management is difficult with ERMS because they don't support the SUSHI standard, so librarians are still entering stats and generating reports manually. This is another thing they would like fixed with current ERMS.


PRIORITY #4: They'll be able to efficiently store administrative information


ERMS need to be able to store and make accessible info like staff usernames and passwords, vendor contacts, orders, and notes on past problems. So far, they have done a pretty good job of sticking all this metadata into one centralized place, but it still has to be entered manually, which is a pain.

PRIORITY #5: They'll support acquisitions functionality


Librarians really want a centralized, stream-lined system that can support all acquisition functions- managing funds, projecting budgets, generating expenditure reports (by category)- and be able to track all of this data over time. Right now ERMS aren't very good at this, and librarians are still entering things like cost data manually.


PRIORITY #6: They should be interoperable


Interoperability is a big one. Pretty much all librarians have identified the need for systems that can work together, but it's still something that's largely absent in current ERMS. For the most part they work just swell by themselves, but try to get them to work together and talk to one another, and they freak out. This makes data transfer nearly impossible. There needs to be a greater level of integration between library systems: the ILS (Integrated Library System) should work with various knowledgebases and vendor systems. Right now, the lack of interoperability is due to a lack of standards between vendors, libraries, and publishers. Luckily, all of these entities are working together with standards organizations (like NISO) to develop said standards and make systems more integrated. This, in theory, will make them able to function between each other and not just as a stand-alone system.

Up until now, the implementation of data standards and best practices has been minimal, so interoperability between ERMS is still a big issue. A lack of system interoperability has led to a bunch of other frustrating problems for librarians-- poor reporting of statistics, no data maintenance (so it just sits there, static and not updated), and inconsistent info being given to the public are just a few.

[NOTE: NISO stands for the National Information Standards Organization- I know we all learned about this in library school, but I always need reminders for all these acronyms. NISO sets technical standards for publishing, bibliographic and library applications.]

*****

So... what exactly does all this add up to and why the heck is it so important to me? Well, the whole reason I wanted to look at ERM systems and what they're meant to accomplish is because we are heading into an ever-evolving digital world, and it's essential for today's librarian to at least be aware of new resource types, access methods and purchasing models if they want to stay on top of their game. There are many challenges that go along with electronic resource management: how do we buy/acquire these resources? How do we keep and maintain them? How do we provide access to them? Right now, there is no one, single system that can do all of this.

A final note

The article ends with this: "Building a better and more responsive ERMS is an iterative process, and no emerging system is a silver bullet. Nonetheless, it is possible to work together toward a more integrated e-resource solution." I think that what they're getting at is taking a more holistic approach to managing e-resources, instead of concentrating on the smaller aspects of management that have gotten to be so disconnected.

[Article: Collins, M. & J. E. Grogg. (2011, March 1). Building a better ERMS. Library Journal.]

I know that, for me anyways, a lot of this stuff can seem pretty dry, but hey, it's definitely good to be aware of! Have you had any experience with electronic resource management in your libraries, or have you had the chance to wrap your head around the kinds of issues presented in this article? Just wondering-- I don't think that we necessarily have to be computer geniuses, but getting a handle on what's up will help make us that much more valuable in our own jobs :)

And on that note, it is almost Friday and time to enjoy one (or two!) of these...

 

To all my librarians out there, have a great weekend!!