underbooked (and overlooked!)

Indeed, theoverbookedlibrarian is underbooked. That is to say, I am currently without occupation.

After finishing my MLIS program at the beginning of the summer, I began a job search that has yet to produce a job. Okay I guess that isn’t entirely accurate, as I was hired as a social media consultant for a small business, but that’s it, and that was just for a single consultation.

(For future reference: Please disregard the below remarks once I actually have some work experience.)

It would seem as though the current job market is better suited to those with more…what’s the word…experience. I guess that will just about always be the case, but if you ask me, experience comes with too many strings attached. It is my contention that I would be a better hire than someone who’s been in the field for ________(enter amount of time here).

To begin with, someone who has years of experience will cost more to put on the payroll than I would. They may feel that they are worth more than the starting salary, but I certainly don’t! They may claim to have learned some tricks of the trade, but I say I’m untarnished and brand new. I have a very low price tag and come with some assembly required, but think about it…an organization gets to put me together however they want me! I am as moldable as a lump of clay.

Conversely, if an organization goes out and hires someone who has been working for a couple years, they may end up with either damaged goods or an overpriced product. An individual who has been working somewhere for a while will not only expect to get paid more than I do, they will likely bring at least some bad habits with them. They may feel that they know the best way to do something in particular, when in fact they just know how to do what they were taught at wherever their last gig was. I can be added to a team or organization that can then show me exactly how to do things that I don’t know.

And finally, while I’m still young and naive an idealist, M. Candidatewithyearsofexperience is probably at least somewhat jaded. If I learned anything from John Grisham (…yes, I admit to having read Grisham), it’s that you’re only wet behind the ears once. Generally it goes as follows: you finish school, look for a job, enter your chosen field, etc. One thing leads to another, and by the end of the book you’re fed up with working, probably stuck in the middle of some murder-for-hire/embezzlement/corporate wrongdoing scenario, and ready to get out. Of course by then, you’re also fabulously rich, own a boat, and are on your way to the Caymans, so you just leave. Anyway, I’m not there yet. I believe in stories. In sharing stories. In sharing information.

Nobody wants to hire someone who’s just trying to earn enough money to take off, buy a yacht, and stash their cash in off-shore bank accounts, right? That doesn’t benefit anyone. Instead, hire me right now! Low price, all new features, low usage, runs great…all in all a wonderful investment opportunity. Invest! Invest in me. Get me into a setting that needs some fresh blood…someone with a new perspective. Help me help you – give me a job and I will literally do your work for you! (Please give me a job, that is.)

morning musings: Connecting to society before 7am.

News 2.0:

250 years ago, a person waking up early trying to get their news fix had a pretty limited number of options. Today, as in – the past 35  minutes, I’ve tuned in to 5 different all-news tv channels, 3 all-sports tv channels, used Google News to access sources and news outlets from every continent except Antarctica, read accounts of the coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the deadly tornado(es) that are tearing through the Sun Belt, and communicated with my wife who is currently in Montreal. Of course, all this while eating a bowl of Shreddies.

Library management during times of economic economic duress.

Call for input:

As a topic for one of my last MLIS classes, I’m writing about the title of this post. If anyone reading this has a strategy for dealing with budget cuts, reductions in hours, hiring freezes, layoffs, etc, please share them!

I’d love to have some quotes from actual library managers who have dealt with/are dealing with economic hardship in the library…I’ll check the comment section for anybody with ideas to share.

P.S. Successful strategies are certainly more constructive, but just as valuable are failed strategies…there’s no use in ignoring the lessons learned by others, right? So ideas to avoid would also be welcome.

shreddies

Busy of late – almost through SLAIS. Looking forward to not having papers.

In the meantime, the wife and I bought some Post Shreddies cereal. Since this is an blog about things informational, I’ll say that I wish I’d known how tastey Post Shreddies are. And, now that I do, I’m sharing that information.

If you’re into cereals that aren’t just bowls of sugar, get some Post Shreddies next time they’re on sale. A couple chopped pecans or sliced bananas on top equals perfection. Goes great in trail mix too, with some chocolate chips, nuts, and some dried fruit.

Thank you Shreddies, for helping me write term papers on independent libraries in Cuba, libraries in financial trouble, library support for raising multi-literate children, etc…

something to write about

Indeed, something about which to write has manifested itself…

The return flights from Florida were peppered with people wearing surgical masks, and made my wife and I wonder what the deal was. Only after we actually got back did we find out about the swine flu spreading north from Mexico into the US and Canada…this lack of awareness was self imposed – the week-long visit served as a hiatus from the internet & television. Anyway, this is related to something Google has been working on for a little while now. To say, “everyone knows about Google” is a fairly safe statement at this point. Technically untrue, of course, depending on the definition of ‘everyone,’ but for a moment, let’s assume a collective familiarity with both Google and the plethora of features Google has. One of these features is a flu tracker. I’m not sure if it’s technically a Web 2.0 tech or not, since keeping track of users’ search terms isn’t exactly collaborating…more like spying. In any event, the argument is now being presented that this could have been used in the earlier detection and suppression of the current swine flu outbreak. Currently classified as a ‘widespread human infection’ by the World Health Organization, I think that ‘everyone’ can agree that the sooner the number of infected people starts going down, rather than up, the better.

One question that comes from this is about Google’s responsibility to look for something like a budding pandemic. Employing the Spider-Man philosophy, Google should call the CDC and give them a heads up that everyone is becoming as sick as a pig. But isn’t that why we have the CDC anyway? To know that? Google’s problem is that they’ve been so successful with just about everything they do that now, people (me) tend to rely on and expect great things from them.

The beginning has ended

So, with the submission of this blog’s url to my professor, the first semester of my MLIS program has come to an end. Already I’ve gone on and returned from my first vacation of the summer, read a bunch of books, gotten a little burnt and a little tan. Now I’m back in Vancouver killing time till May, when the next courses start. To feel as though I’ve accomplished something, I figure a post here and there will do me good.

So…I’m sure I’ll think of something to write about.

web 2.0 – lib 2.0

The topics that have been covered thus far in the blog (remember, if anyone new to blogs is reading this, ‘written first, read last’) have been but a few examples of ‘2.0’ technology. Collaboration, sharing, user participation and feedback are all components of Web 2.0 thinking. Applied to libraries, this thinking is intuitively referred to as Library 2.0.

As I mentioned at the end of the Virtual Reference post, the web has changed so much already in its lifespan, there is almost no way we can even guess at where it’ll be 10 years from now (or even less than that). Tim Berners-Lee will be one of the first to say that the web is nowhere near mature…Web 2.0, a big, big deal right now, will eventually be talked about in the past tense.

So what does that mean right now?

What does that mean for libraries and the people who work in them?

That question was asked 2 years ago (I’m sure it’s been asked many times, far more recently than that) on lisnews.org, but the answers weren’t particularly penetrating. Trying now to predict our own future will do us little good, with all of the advancement that we’re facing. If we could see where the web, and even our jobs, would be taking us, we wouldn’t know what to do with it.

What will likely be the most constructive course of action will be learning as much as possible from as many sources as possible. Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat draws on 10 Flatteners, of which five are technological. Though largely economic, his book draws the same conclusion about what is to be done…adaptation will the key.

Adapting to 2.0 technology has been the goal of the library for this first decade of the ‘new’ millennium. And for the most part, it has been working. Libraries are bringing automatic book-sorting machines to do what a library assistant use to do, but at the same time, librarians are expanding their roles at an unprecedented rate. In 1964, Ellinor G. Preston wrote the following:

The librarian, that is the person who has been trained in the evaluation, selection and organization primarily of books, has a greatly expanded role in a facility offering not only books, but a great variety of materials. He must then be ready to accept this new role and contribute his skills to the efficient organization of all materials.

It was clear then, to Ellinor G. Preston, that the future was murky at best. More preparatory than cautionary, the message is the same: adapt.  While the exact duties to come were unknown, the role would be distinct, and crucial.

As I look at libraries where I grew up and worked, I know that the future may be hard for them. Especially the library in my hometown…only a few thousand people in the combined towns that share the library, many of whom don’t support the library as it is. In the face of changing technology as well as a foundering economy, libraries have a tough row to hoe…a long book to write…a…

…a need for capable, and (once more for good measure) adaptable employees and patrons alike. Or else I just might change the name of this blog to the underbooked librarian.

overbooked isn’t as bad as it sounds

I thought I’d take a post to talk about something that’s very non-web 2.0/library 2.0. It’s more library 1.0. You know – books.

The title of this blog, theoverbookedlibrarian, may sound worse than it actually is…it’s a good thing really. It refers to the literary oeuvre of the world…the number of books is so daunting it can be hard to carry on (with reading). The sheer amount of text is basically unfathomable. At some point in my life…I think it was AP European History in 11th Grade…I was told that Desiderius Erasmus was the last person to read every book published during his life. Just imagine!! The thought of reading every…book….

Like I said – daunting.

I think that may be why I enjoy rereading books. Ender’s Game, Atlas Shrugged, The Adventures of Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer, The Yearling, Cat’s Cradle, Watership Down, Where the Red Fern Grows…in no particular order, those are books I’ve read several times at a minimum, some (Ender, Watership) I literally don’t have an idea of how many times I’ve read them.

So, with my favorites firmly in place and waaay too many fine pieces of literature to count in the future, call me…daunted (in a good way). Call me awed.

Call me overbooked.

Image Sharing

A good start for this post would be with the site Flickr…a photo sharing site that is made possible by the ease with which an individual can upload an image from a camera onto a computer. Similar abilities exist on Facebook and MySpace (discussed in further detail in an earlier post), but Flickr stands apart from these other two in that its sole purpose is the uploading and viewing of images.

Libraries have been joining, as indicated by this thread, and uploading.

Let’s create a list here of libraries that have Flickr accounts. Please list the library name and the Flicrk URL. We’ll compile the entire list here in a few weeks.

Though the initial estimate of ‘a few weeks’ is a little off, seeing as it was posted over three years ago. As recently as 2 days ago, the most recent library joined the sharing; VPL posted their site this past December.

Posting news on library wikis and blogs is mainly focused at the users of an individual library, but images can be viewed by almost anyone and still possess meaning. Sharing images is a way for libraries to connect with their users (the theme of most of the posts on this blog) as well as with each other.

This blog generated a lot of responses when it asked if readers, “know of any examples of a library using Flickr that…are particularly cool.” Of the 19 responses over the two weeks following the initial post, several of the libraries reported using Flickr to show the progress of renovations or remodeling going on the building.  One reported uploading images of programming and another for an art contest.

While users of these individual libraries would have to be familiar with the workings of Flickr to browse their way to these pictures, the libraries can also make the link available on their website. On the Denver Public Library site, they do have a Flickr link, though it is hard to find, thus minimizing its traffic. The University of Michigan’s library Flickr page was much easier to find, and features pictures uploaded by several different members.

The downside to sites like Flickr and Photobucket is how young they are; they’ve yet to be legislated. This leads to uncertainty and, unfortunately, allegations of wrongdoing. This past September, tametheweb.com asked the void whether or not libraries should be using Flickr. The response was a bit mixed…one of the replies argued the point that people may be unknowingly photographed, only to have that image picked up and randomly circulated throughout the internet. Another memorable reply rebuked the author for even asking the question, saying:

I think this analysis stinks. Not that it isn’t accurate nor am I to argue any points, however, this kind of thinking is exactly why libraries don’t try new things. We try to play by the book when no one else is. We try to protect user privacy when they don’t care. It cripples us. No one is going to sue me because I put someone’s face on my library’s flickr account. They think it’s awesome!

Part of the enjoyment to be had from these sites is the communal nature of them…a collection of images uploaded by a large number of people will likely produce some good pictures of enjoyable activities. One aspect of Flickr that hasn’t even been discussed here is the tagging of images. Users are enabled to give their images labels, like this author enjoys doing for his blog posts. This concept, tagging, is also a recent development, and a subject unto itself. We’ll just let that go for now.

The moral for dealing with the sensitive nature of taking pictures of people is addressed here, a post also mentioned on that same tametheweb post. The simple way to avoid getting into trouble is to either avoid taking pictures of people that can be identified, or to have some type of disclaimer signed by the would-be subjects of the picture. After that, photos should be good to go up on the web.

Virtual Reference

This post will focus on messages of the instant persuasion. Often referred to as Virtual Reference, chatting programs are marketed as away to connect directly and immediately with a reference librarian. The service is based on the premise of convenience…the ability to chat from your own home – in your bathrobe! And slippers! I thought about putting a link to the Snuggie website here, but I didn’t want to get too far off topic. Just believe me when I say, the idea of chatting with librarian is supposed to make reference as convenient as a corner produce stand in downtown Vancouver.

The program with which I’ve had the most interaction in this field has been askaway, where you get to talk to “Real people.” And you receive “Real help.” Or so they say…I’ve used the service several times though, and have no complaints.

I’ve asked away to two different libraries, Vancouver Public Library and UBC’s library system, and like I said, the experiences were positive. The first time, I signed in to ask a librarian at Koerner Library for assistance in locating some DVD’s for my viewing pleasure. While the exchange went well enough, there were not many results that worked for that particular situation. More recently (about a week and a half ago as of this writing), I engaged VPL Central to assist in a search for government documents. In this case the both the exchange and the results were favorable. As we were chatting, the librarian sent me a list of links (and I didn’t have to write anything down) to browse; I found useful and usable information very quickly.

Apparently, having taken part in this particular mode of communication, both myself and the librarians with whom I was conversing are, as the kids say, “hip.” So Marshall Breeding would have us believe anyway…he labels instant messaging as such.

Not wanting to get left behind, Green River Community College’s Holman Library became hip this past summer, announcing the addition of virtual reference to their services. This has been a common theme in the past few years. In 2006, a statewide website was launched in Pennsylvania called Ask Here PA that now covers nearly 60 libraries in the state.

Considering the success I’ve had with virtual reference, it’s hard to imagine any true disconnects that others may have had. That would be the problem that I would suggest to be the worst-case scenario – being disconnected. This post quotes several users who feel similarly to the way I do…the convenience is appreciated, even when the results may lack.

Following the rules of responsible blogging (which may or may not exist…I’ll google it sometime), I will admit to the existence of naysayers, and even post a link here. This post is from 2005, but the points made by the author are not wholly unreasonable or outdated. The author feels as though virtual reference is not in the best interest of the patron, nor is it the best medium through which the library can accurately connect with their patrons. He says that we lose our sense of “community” and replace it with an insecure conversation with a person who may not even be affiliated with our local libraries.

The American Library Association (ALA) tells us that Virtual Reference has been around for some time, having gotten its start in 1995 with the Internet Public Library. It is relatively recent, however, that instantaneous chat has been the primary means of communicating. The initial service was based on email, and still has the potential to be helpful (just…not really). On the Library of Congress webpage, most of the reference question are still set up to be answered by email. Email suffers when compared to chat based on the time it takes to communicate. Email is, by nature, a slower medium, with more of an emphasis placed on composition instead of instant transmission.

If ever there was an attempt by libraries to engage their users, this would likely be it. Reaching out to the homes of patrons via the internet allows for quick reference help on a wide range of topics. As the technology available continues to develop, the process will be smoothed out. The next generation of library users will likely be comfortable with a concept that was developed only 14 years ago.