Office 2013 Intersects with the Cloud and Tablet Computing

As Microsoft prepares to release Office 2013, it is clear that some of the most compelling features and upgrades are designed with cloud, tablet and mobile technologies in mind.  Each of the products included within Office 2013 also received minor tweaks and additional functionality.  The ribbon is still in place, but features a flatter less three dimensional mobile and tablet friendly profile.  The result is a cleaner, simpler look that works well on whatever device the customer is using.  In a move designed to gain traction in the mobile/tablet market, Microsoft will be including Office Home and Student 2013 RT on ARM processor based Windows 8 devices.  For desktop users, a major new feature of Office 2013 is the integration of SkyDrive cloud based storage, which will save and sync files across multiple devices.  The Office 2013 suite itself will be available through the cloud as a subscription service.  Subscribers will receive updates automatically, are allotted more SkyDrive space and are allowed multiple installations for several users.  Users choosing this route can stream Office apps to a Windows PC with an internet connection.  Microsoft is clearly behind the game in productivity applications for tablets and mobile users.  For the first time Microsoft will offer touch and stylus features in Office 2013.  These features will function much like using a smartphone.  For example, you can swipe to move to the next page, write with your finger or stylus and pinch to zoom.  Outlook 2013 will convert handwritten emails using stylus or finger into text.  New in Word 2013 is the hugely helpful ability to edit PDF documents.  Word will treat the text in a PDF document as editable and allows insertion of multimedia.  This feature is pretty exciting.  Occasionally at work a patron will have a resume in PDF format that they want to edit.  Currently this requires expensive Adobe software.  Adding this functionality to an overall productivity suite is a small but powerful reason to think about upgrading at least one machine.  Further technological innovation in Office 2013 derives from combining productivity suite software with Skype and social networking tools recently acquired by Microsoft.

Read Full Post »

Great Volunteers Help Make a Great Library

I’m a little late posting for last week, so…

Last Week At the Library
Last week at the library I really started to make some headway on our project to reorganize our movie browser packs by genre.  Together Jessica and I got through about fifty records.  I’m starting to get into the flow of the steps we need to take in re-tooling our movie records.  Unfortunately I realized last night that we have lost our major source for obtaining record information.  I have been using Firstsearch, which usually provides some pretty decent information on items to help catalogers create good records for items.  Well, I knew Firstsearch was on its way out, it is a service that has been dropped from OCLC.  So I got the nasty but not unexpected surprise last night of having no access to Firstsearch.  This will significantly slow ALL cataloging down, at least for a while.  I try to really make a good record for each item I catalog, with multiple subject access points, and a summary.  Now instead of going to one source for most of my information I’m stuck in the position of going to multiple sources (Melcat for subject headings, publication information) Amazon for some of the summaries, I imagine I’ll also be using the Library of Congress website.

Last week we also received TWO MONTHS worth of young adult and AV materials.  I came in Friday to a disaster on my work table and had to spend thirty or forty-five minutes just organizing items that needed cataloging before I could get down to work.  Who can work like that?  Not me.  Our donated materials will be receiving a lower priority as we move along with the movie project, so for now I moved the donations to the

Our New PDF Newsletter, Created By Jessica Enget

basement and organized all the movies we received in a box.  Stacking them up on my work table just doesn’t work.  As the work piles up, I’m more grateful than ever for our new volunteer, Emily.  You can read about Emily on Vicksburg District Library’s new downloadable PDF newsletter.  Last week Emily cleared an entire cart of items to be placed in our book sale.  Once the records for withdrawn items are taken out of the computer, the item is stamped with a discard stamp and the barcode is taken off.  Emily spent a couple of hours Monday doing just that.  When discarding staff have to be particularly careful about removing memorial plates and Emily did an excellent job catching them.  She also started changing the browser packs over to our new genre scheme, for the records Jessica and I managed to get through.  All the yellowing, cracking old browser packs are gone and in their place are new packs with the genre stickers and genre headings written out.  They are looking fantastic.

Jessica and I will be meeting with one of Kalamazoo Public Library’s catalogers to discuss issues of cataloging, and in particular, movie records before we get too far into the project.  We will be discussing what KPL considers important when cataloging, what fields are particularly important and which ones could perhaps be left out for the sake of speeding the project.  We will be asking all the questions we have about cataloging in general.  Last week Jessica and I took a look at pulling information from Firstsearch into the cataloging records and how I go about building my records.  Of course, all this will have to go through some changes since we have now lost our predominant source of record information.

Last Week In Library School

Over the week and week-end I studied for and took my first test for my technology class.  I was really stressing out about it because it’s my first test as a graduate student and I just didn’t know what it would be like.  However, it was not very difficult for me and I believe I did well.  I was face palming myself the next day though because I’m pretty sure one of the questions was supposed to be obvious to me at the time and it just wasn’t.  The next day it was somewhat more obvious.  However, it was only worth one point so I am not too concerned.  Now that I know what the tests are like I can adjust my note taking process accordingly.  I am really really enjoying the technology class.  It’s filling in some gaps that I had in my knowledge and I feel like I just can’t get enough of it.

Last week we finished up our group blogs for our Introduction to the Profession class.  I love how our blog turned out.  We had a very talented member who created a custom header for us, and I think it just looks great and professional.  It’s already been graded and I received full points on the assignment.  It’s been a really fun experience reading everyone’s blogs and thinking about the issues that are affecting Librarianship.  The blogs on censorship, multiculturalism and increasing relevancy in tough economic times all were great food for thought.  In particular, one of my classmates brought up the topic of assigning rates to movies that come in “not rated” and stated this could be a form of censorship.  I do this regularly to help provide some guidance on the content of movies that are not rated.  If they are not rated so they can add extra content beyond the R rating, they get an R rating.  If they are not rated for some other reason I have to look at it carefully and make a judgement call.  I have never considered that this could be a form of censorship, but in fact I am making a rating assignment based slightly on my own values.  But I am also really considering what the MPAA generally uses as criteria for ratings.  So is the MPAA rating system a form of censorship?  Lots of interesting topics this week, all important to Librarianship.

Read Full Post »

The Movie Project Begins

This week at the library I started to review our movie records in cataloging to change them over to the new genre schema.  I was simply delighted to find that the records I anticipated making a few changes to needed major re-tooling.  This will slow the project significantly.  In fact, I’ve only been able to finish about twenty-five records so far since I have many other duties as well.  Many of our early movie records include no summary, just one or two subject access points, and are simply not up to my standard of cataloging.  My colleague Jessica, the current children’s librarian, and I began a discussion of how we will approach this project.  Jessica is not a cataloger, but has taken the “basic” course at library school.

So yesterday I sat down and created a cheat sheet with all the MARC fields I could think of that are used in cataloging movies.  I then created a sample record including all these fields.  Not very realistic, since I don’t think I’ve ever created records that use all the tags at the same time, but informative.  I also printed some FirstSearch records and annotated them to point where the information in a FirstSearch record actually goes in the cataloging record.  We plan to discuss the cataloging more on Wednesday when our work schedules overlap.

I was very excited to start getting to know our new volunteer and sub for the library this week.  She worked with me Tuesday evening and I showed her how to perform many of the tasks our other circulation clerks work on.  Some of the many tasks I demonstrated to Emily included packing MelCat books for outgoing delivery, balancing the cash drawer at the end of the evening and closing procedures.  I also explained the reasoning behind why we do things the way we do them as much as possible.  I felt this was not explained to me very well when I started working in libraries.

Perhaps to avoid overwhelming me, I received training that went like this “we do it this way, period.”  I really enjoyed explaining how certain things work in the library world.  I think it’s important support staff understand the underlying philosophy and challenges faced by the profession.  In this way, they become more engaged, more excited, more aware (I hope).  When I started working in libraries I had only a basic understanding of the underlying philosophy and challenges faced by the profession.  I think my standards could have been so much higher with the right information.  We also went over the process of re-processing browser packs in great detail.  There are many steps involved with the process, but the basic procedure is two steps:

1.  Re-processing the browser packs from the list provided by the cataloger, and annotating those browser packs not found.
2. Determining the status of the browser packs not found and returning the list back to the cataloger for further action.

There are many sub-steps involved and I anticipate the project getting off the ground slowly, just as it is for the cataloging back-end.  I have to become conditioned to scan records and identify missing fields quicker.  I hope this will happen naturally as we go along.  I also finished cataloging all the new video games for the library and they were processed by our clerks.  They will be going out this week and I’m super excited about it!

In related news, I have started reading the book Library 2.0 and Beyond.  It is slightly outdated, but I think there will still be some good information to learn.  I am also really excited about a FREE virtual conference, Library 2.011 Worldwide Virtual Conference, which is November 2-3.  I learned about the conference from following Michael Stephens on Twitter.  If you don’t know who Michael Stephens is, go find out!  He’s awesome.  He writes a blog title “Tame the Web,” is an LIS professor and whose research focuses on emerging technologies in the library profession.

This week in Library School I finished my portion of the blog for our Introduction to the Profession class.  The blog focuses on the impact of E-Reader technology on the library profession.  I’m gearing up for my library visit, which is a big project involving a visit to two libraries and a detailed comparison paper.  I will be visiting the Portage District Library and the Kalamazoo Public Library.  I hope to schedule visits soon!  Some of my readings this week focused on copyright issues.  While it’s not a subject area I love, it’s certainly an important topic in Librarianship.

I was surprised to find out how poorly the law actually defines free use.  In fact, you aren’t even necessarily safe if you are carefully citing sources in a scholarly paper.  There are a number of factors the courts use to determine whether a work falls within the safe haven of fair use, but even if you document everything properly and follow copyright “fair use checklists” you might still end up on the wrong side of the copyright divide.

Read Full Post »

Systems Librarian

At the library this week I was very excited to begin cataloging our new video game collection.  I love video games and I think they are a great resource to offer our village, since we no longer have any rental stores.  I set up the rules sets for the video games this week and created a processing policy for the games.  Moving ahead on the movie browser pack reorganization, I created new processing policies for our dvds and a list of steps for reprocessing our current browser packs.  I also created a label cheat sheet that lists the new movie genre headings with their respective labels.  We cleared up a few last loose ends and I cataloged my first movies under the new schema.

immediately an issue cropped up for us when I was cataloging a DVD that contains a mystery episode from a BBC series.  We all wondered should this go under TV or under Suspense/Mystery/…  In the end we decided to put it in with the mystery section, but this may change later down the road.  This dilemma underscores the challenge we face with this project.  As the cataloger, I’ve tried to think of everything.  But you can’t think of everything.  If one thing in life is certain, it’s that the unexpected will come up.  There will be challenges along the way, some moderate and some mild.  It will be the first time I have undertaken a project of such enormity and complexity.  The details are VERY important in this project, and the details cannot be allowed to slip out from under us.  However, I’m excited about the challenge.  I think it will be a great thing to accomplish for our community and for ourselves.

In Library School this week  This week was very exciting for me.  In my intro to the profession class I read about the different career paths that Librarians can choose.  Who knew that some Librarians rarely work with the public?  In my small library we all work with the public, and I really like working with people.  It’s certainly a great break from hours of working in front of the computer when I’m cataloging.  But I digress, Wayne State University offers a Graduate Degree Certificate in Information Management (IM) that you can earn along with your MLIS.  After reading about career paths, I think this is definitely the right track for me to get on.

I have always loved technology, although if I’m not careful I can end up a little overwhelmed.  I remember having a computer with the DOS command line when I was a kid, back when you had to tell the computer what to do!  I signed up for my first email account when I was 16, that was only a couple of years after the internet went public with services such as AOL.  I was quick to embrace one of the first instant messaging services, ICQ.  I even met my husband of nine years (ten in January) on ICQ.  He was also an early adopter of technology, and launched his first web business around 2002.

I have built my own computers, own a nook color with a modded SD card that allows it to boot up as an underpowered Android tablet and just generally geek out over the latest and greatest innovations.  I joined the library profession as a clerk out of high school.  This was an exciting time for libraries and technology.  Our library was only partially/incompletely automated and I was eventually asked by the then-director to recommend a new ILS system.  I trained staff in emerging technologies and built our first website.  I worked at an ebay store briefly before starting my own business ComicChixs.  My husband and I have been powersellers on ebay for some years now.  We also sell on Amazon.com and I do the majority of my shopping on Amazon.  I love shopping online!

Technologies are transforming libraries more rapidly than ever.  The cutting edge libraries have mobile apps that run checkout modules!  You can scan a book on the shelf for reviews, check it out and access your account all from the app.  This is AWESOME!  Rather than believing technologies will phase out libraries as some pessimists do, I think libraries will be more relevant than ever.  Libraries are teaching centers.  If you don’t know how to use the internet, come on in to the library.  If you don’t know how to submit your resume online, let us help.  There are plenty of people who are rather unskilled in the use of basic technologies such as the internet, word processing, ect.  Libraries are here in the same role they have always played: bridging the gap, educating, providing resources.

This is “my thing” and I’m going to pursue it relentlessly.  Along with my core eighteen credits of professional Librarianship classes, I plan on taking classes in productivity tools for libraries, database applications for libraries, two systems implementation classes and a couple of coding classes.  I believe these skills will make me a great addition to any library, and more importantly, help both directly and indirectly move patrons towards technological literacy.

Read Full Post »

Ontologies, Taxonomies, Oh My!

In my second week of library school I learned some fun new terms that are used in the LIS field, specifically when discussing organization of information: Ontology and Taxonomy.  I still am not quite sure what the difference is between an Ontology and Taxonomy.  This week’s readings focused on organizing information and the basics of cataloging.  I think Ontology in the LIS field simply refers to the organization schema used in various libraries.  Taxonomy is a word associated with more than one discipline, such as the classification of organisms in biology.  In the broadest sense a Taxonomy is a parent/child or supertype/subtype relationship with a main trunk and various branches.  Taxonomies are hierarchical, but can sometimes be more loosely arranged.  I think a perfect example of a Taxonomy is the Dewey Decimal System, which “burrows down” from a broader topic to more and more specific topics as you build the Dewey number and classify an item.

Incidentally, I attended an online workshop for the Dewey Decimal System this week through the library services co-op MCLS.  At first I found it very interesting to start learning what Dewey numbers meant.  As a mostly copy cataloger, and a cataloger who receives records through Baker and Taylor, I do not build my own Dewey numbers.  As an informally trained paraprofessional Librarian, I  didn’t even know what most of “The Hundreds” in the Dewey were.  The workshop was great as an overview to Dewey, but frankly I am astounded by the antique character of this classification system.  I was rather horrified to realize just how arbitrary Dewey really is.  Both the classification system as a whole and the number building process is not nearly as tidy as it should be.  The fact that only 20% of the section for religion allows for the cataloging of non-Christian materials is offensive to me.  Computer books cataloged in next the “mysteries and unexplained” (think UFO’s people) is ridiculous.  Why are they next to the unexplained section?  Because computers didn’t exist in the late 19th century.  Don’t even get me started on the building of Dewey numbers.  Even our presenter was at a loss to explain some records he downloaded from Worldcat and commented that “this cataloger was clearly on Crack cocaine,” when looking at a nearly 20 digit long dewey code.  At our library we still have the 20th edition of the DDC, and the current edition is the 24th.  I am becoming aware that I will need that 24th edition, especially when we start re-classifying our Heritage Room, which is a historical collection currently under a hodgepodge of a classification system.  I will have to start to build numbers.  I was at a loss today when cataloging a local poet’s self published volume.  I finally ended up with 811.08 based on other items in the collection.  811 I understand, American Literature, but where does the .08 come from?  I classified two books on birds found in Vicksburg, Michigan under the dewey for a book on Michigan birds in our collection.  But this is unsatisfying, because I can’t look at the number and be sure that it is correct.

I feel dewey number building can easily become absurd and the classification system itself harbors natural absurdities.  Do patrons use the dewey, do they have any idea what a certain dewey code means?  Besides the cookbooks and biographies, I don’t think the majority of patrons use the dewey.  In fact, progressive libraries have argued that we should get rid of the dewey all together and go with BISACH, the book store model for shelving.  After taking a beginning workshop on dewey, I have such a headache that I have to agree, we use dewey for the library staff.  And it really doesn’t even make sense some of the time to us!

On a positive note, the readings for my technology class were great this week.  I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know, but I continue to just really be enamored with the idea of a machine that uses a program and an electric circuit signaling 1’s and 0’s to render a sophisticated video game.  It’s such an elegant and simple system.  I feel sometimes like computers are something out of the sci-fi and fantasy books I read.  I think I need to learn some magic coding!

For my Introduction to the Profession class this week I prepared an overview of the impact E-Readers are having on the Library Profession for the rest of my group.  I don’t think anyone else in my group is currently employed in a library, so I think it was good to have an overview from someone in the field.  I also reviewed some themes for the blog, but in the end delegated the design to another group member.

In preparation for the major movie reorganization I will be undertaking, I trained two circ staff members in Melcat materials processing.  We discussed the movie project at the monthly staff meeting yesterday and finalized the genre categories.  I’m still working on a crucial step in the preparation for the movie project and am researching policies for discarding lost/long overdue DVDs.  I have contacted a cataloger at the Kalamazoo Public Library about KPL’s policies and hope to hear something soon.  I did a new batch upload of patron cards to our Overdrive system.

Something I’m really excited about is the new video game collection we are gearing up for.  I created a new holdings code in our system for videogames and created the rule set for this material type.  At least for now, 0ur video games:

-Will be on a first serve basis, no holds will be allowed
-Are limit one checkout per patron
-Have no grace period before accruing fines
-Go out for a seven day loan
-Are a dollar a day for each day overdue
-Are not allowed to be checked out by reciprocal card holders or Summer Reading Program cards

Read Full Post »

Project to Reorganize Movie Browser Packs

This week I was asked by our director to come up with a plan for reorganizing our visual browser pack system for our DVDs.  Currently they are organized by number based on when the DVD was purchased.  So we have over three thousand browser packs organized in a basically arbitrary way (from a user’s point of view) that is cumbersome and inconvenient.  This is unfortunate because we are a village library and all our village rental stores have gone out of business.  So the movies are huge draw for us, even as inefficiently organized as they currently are.  As the cataloger, I was asked to come up with a plan and a potential timeline to organize our DVDs by major genre categories and within the genre categories, by title.  Right away the issue of continued “browsability” comes up.  This project will take a long time no matter what.  Even if every staff member was working towards this reorganization, I don’t believe we could finish in a week or even two weeks.  So as the cataloger, it becomes my job to think about what I can do from the back end to make the process easier and less painful for everyone.  So, my plan is a back end process involving:

1. Deciding the Genre Categories (We have tentatively decided upon about 11-12 genres)
-only one genre may be assigned to a movie in the catalog call code (for example DVD COMEDY #3201)
-our system only allows about six letters for a call code and a short, easy call code helps the user identify the section to browse under
-subcategories will be established based on visual dividing “cards” between the genres, for example a major genre heading will be ACTION, followed by adventure and westerns
(the visual sub-category system was an idea I formulated with the hope that it will help users identify where to look for related genres without a cumbersome number of genre listings)

2. The cataloger (me, hopefully with some help from my colleague Jessica) reviews each movie record and checks for:
-an authoritative title (in this case, the authoritative title is that title under which most users would look, i.e. Bambi instead of Walt Disney’s Bambi)
-a genre MARC tag (655) consistent with where the movie will be filed, if the MARC tag is not in the record, it must be added
-in addition, the genre catalog call code must be added in the 092 and 996 fields
We have a movie list in Excel format that will be updated concurrently with changes made to the MARC record.  The title will be changed to the authoritative version when necessary and the genre will be established.  Some of our users use a hard copy of this list to browse for movies (the movie binder), so it must be updated to reflect the new browsing system.  It will also help in the re-processing of browser packs in the next steps.

3. The director and I are hoping that our new volunteer will be able to help us with the re-processing of the browser packs.  When I finish correcting records for movies 1-50 for example, I will print out the updated list for the processor.  The processor will then have access to the authoritative title and genre information.  In addition, Jessica or I will prepare a genre cheat sheet for the processor, as each major genre category will be identified by a specific sticker on the browser pack.  With these two items, the processor can easily remove the current tab in the top of the browser pack and create a new one based on the authoritative title and genre category, with the appropriate sticker.  I will also need to prepare a list of steps to follow for the creation of a new browser pack, and steps to follow for movies and browser packs that can’t be found.

-when a browser pack cannot be found, the movie status must be identified as lost or checked out on the computer
-movies that are currently checked out should have browser packs filed in the back that will be pulled, updated, and returned to the back counter
for filing as a movie that’s checked out
-movies listed as lost or long overdue should be refered to the cataloger for possible removal from the catalog
-if a movie is present on the shelf, but no browser pack is present: check the section of checked out movie browser packs, double check
browser packs waiting to be filed (for movies checked out), check the lost section, check the refilling cart
-if a movie is not present on the shelf or return cart and there is no browser pack, refer to the cataloger for confirmation the movie is still
owned
-if the movie is owned but cannot be found the cataloger will flag the movie as lost: staff action or possibly remove the record if the movie has
not been checked out for some time (an indication the movie is probably lost)
-movies changed to lost: staff action still need a browser pack in anticipation of finding the movie
-discarded movies are identified by number gaps on the movie list

4. Updated browser packs are returned to the shelving cart for filing, or for checked out movies, returned to the back counter for filing.  Patrons may still browse as usual according to the number on the browser pack which corresponds to the number on the movie case in the moveable shelving.

5. When all browser packs are updated, a one day shut down on movie checkouts will commence and the browser packs will be refiled according to genre and then title.  Visual dividers with genre headings will need to be prepared ahead of time.

Time Frame: as a part time employee with about limited hours dedicated cataloging time each week, it will be difficult to complete the project in less than three to four months.  If I checked and updated the records and movie list for fifty movies a day (I don’t even work every day) it would take two months.  However, I still must check new registrations, ship Melcat items, generate reports and uploads for Melcat, and catalog new materials.  The cataloging of new materials takes precedence over the movie project.

Issues:
1) The library currently has no policy for removing lost items or long overdue items from the catalog, a policy will have to be determined before the project begins.

To-Do:
1) Genre categories must be finalized
2) Policy for removing lost or long overdue items, including a timeframe for removing those items that cannot be found (i.e., those not checked out for one year AND cannot be found will be removed from the catalog)
3) Overview of project for staff meeting on September 9, including information on cataloging donations
4) Create a list of steps for the cataloger to follow
5) Create a list of steps for the processor to follow
6) Create a “genre cheat sheet” for the processor to use

Notes: the re-processor could mark all the movies that are checked out on the printed list and process those browser packs separately to help ensure the browser packs all go back to the right places.

Read Full Post »

First Week of Library School

This week I began my journey into library school.  I am taking all my courses online through Wayne State University’s excellent MLIS (Master’s in Library and Information Science) program.  I am taking an introduction to the profession course and an information technology course.  My assignments this week included introductory presentations for both classes.  These presentations include information about:

-my name and some biographical information
-educational and professional background
-current employment information
-career goals
-expectations of the program
-my skills
-some additional “personal” information (i.e. hobbies, interests, ect.)

For my introduction to the profession class I created a slide show in Powerpoint viewable and downloadable at: http://www.slideshare.net/leia198116/joanna-sturgeons-introduction-9102022
Please download the presentation if you want to view all the effects I created.  For my information technology course I created a video presentation, which can be viewed on you tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgj4uxZOn4&feature=youtube_gdata

For my introduction to the profession class, we had quite a bit of reading to do.  From the textbook, we read about thinking like a Librarian.  This mainly covered Ranganathan’s five laws of Librarianship.  Information about these “laws” or tenants of the profession can be found at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_laws_of_library_science), which states correctly:

The Five Laws of Library Science are some of the most influential concepts in the field of library science. Since they were published in 1931, these five laws “have remained a centerpiece of professional values…”.^[4] In fact, these basic theories of Library Science continue to directly affect the development of this discipline and the service of all libraries.

These laws are:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.

Having worked in a library for about six years, these concepts were never something I had read or heard about before, however they seem self-contained in the spirit of what it is to be a Librarian:

1) To find the correct and most useful resources for the particular user, without prejudice.
2) Library resources are free for all to use (this does become a slightly stickier concept in Libraries where different resources are available depending on the level of membership and Librarians must wrestle with fair access depending on the resources a user gives to the library).
3) The third law refers to using whatever means available to get the material to the user, whether through interlibrary loan, by mailing information printed from the computer to homebound individuals, bookmobiles, electronic resources, interlibrary loan, reciprocal borrowing.  As Library professionals we should strive to do our very best to get the resources to the user, however we can.
4) Save the user time – this is really a growing trend in Librarianship right now.  Instead of the old staid and stuffy ways of shelving materials, we’re starting to think about saving the user time by getting rid of the Dewey and moving to a more book-store like set – up, we are thinking about pulling fiction genres into separate sections, we’re thinking about mobile apps for libraries.  We are starting to meet the people where they are in terms of service expectations as we move to formats more familiar to the user.
5) Libraries are growing and evolving more than ever!  This is an exciting time in the library world!  New technologies we could not have imagined five or ten years ago are emerging to redefine our industry and our user’s expectations.  We must grow to meet these new expectations or face the danger of losing relevancy.

Possibly the most important tenant of Librarianship is to be as open-minded and free from prejudice as possible.  I still struggle with this concept at times.  Poorly groomed individuals who come into the library for services can be a challenge.  Individuals who appear to be at the bottom of the socio-economic scale can sometimes appear to be very rude.  They interrupt me when I am speaking with patrons, try to speak with me when I am calling a patron with a hold, and just generally don’t seem to follow the same societal norms that I am conditioned with.  My eyes were really opened on this subject when I started reading about the realities of working class and poverty-stricken  individuals.  I learned that for some of these individuals, being on time to a job was a skill they had to learn.  It seemed unbelievable, but skills most of us take for granted are simply not developed in some situations.  These are often the families where parents work multiple jobs just to eat and have a place to live, where the schools are so poor a teacher can tell the students that it doesn’t matter if he teaches or not because he has tenure.  In my readings on the working class and poverty-stricken I learned that my perception of an individuals “rudeness” is usually the result of an upbringing where an “attitude” is necessary or helpful to survive.  I realized that the people I perceived as rude were usually just using the only strategies they knew to receive services that another individual might patiently wait in line for.  In other words, these users are usually not trying to be rude.

One of my classmates in introduction to the profession spoke about her experiences in working class jobs in her introduction assignment.  My reply on the message board was:

I am very interested in the social commentary on the working class.  Some Americans still believe that if you work hard, you can earn enough to live and if you aren’t earning enough to live, you must be lazy.  Books such as: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, are an excellent source of education for realities faced by the working class in America.  As Librarians, the working class are one of the underserved populations.  They may not be able to afford computers, may be totally lacking in computer skills, and may need extensive help with obtaining resources.  As Librarians, we stand in a position to help bridge the gap as much as we are able between the socioeconomic classes.

I also read some lengthy, and other not so lengthy articles from an article titled “Why the World Needs Libraries” from Computers in Libraries.  I read about library kiosks in the UAE (United Arab Emerates) where most library services can be accessed from a kiosk, including checking out materials held inside the kiosk, a strange concept for me and one that seems to threaten library positions.  I read about the strange business model that is an academic database.  Academics pay for inclusion of their material into journals, and then pay again for access to their own material through academic databases.  The author of this particular article argued for more access to the general public.  The author also argues against restrictive copyrights that, in the worst case scenario, can lead to damaged or destroyed materials as the shelf life of an audio archive deteriorates faster than the copyright.  I also read futurist Thomas Frey’s vision of the “library of the future.”  He argues that libraries have always served as community cornerstones and he believes in whatever form the library of the future takes, we will still fill this important role.  Interesting readings on contemporary issues of Librarianship.

And that’s week one!

Picture of Book cover from: http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/nickelanddimed.htm

Read Full Post »