Holly Hibner

January Reads (& Listens)

2012-02-02T09:00:00.003-05:00

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I never read this in high school or college, and just didn't get around to it until now. I've just started it, but plan to keep picking away at it. I'll reserve judgement...

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Cameron Smith, a high school junior, has mad cow disease. An angel named Dulcie tells him that he can be saved if he finds Dr. X, a time traveling physicist. Cameron and his friend Gonzo go off on an adventure to find Dr. X. The book is funny in a dark, sarcastic way. There are all kinds of ridiculous, yet interesting, characters. The reader can't tell if the adventure is really happening or if it is just in Cameron's fevered mind. This book won the Michael Printz award in 2010.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Here's another one I finally got around to reading. I listened to the audio book, which was really well-done! It is a family saga about the American dream - and the fragility of that dream. The story follows three generations of a Greek family in Detroit from the perspective of Callie. Callie is a hermaphrodite, and as much as this is a major theme of the book, I didn't find that the story really focused on that aspect. Yes, it was discussed and always sort of lingered in the background of the story, but I thought the story was more about the family, their Greek heritage, the changing times in Detroit's history, and relationships. It is a great story, if a bit long. This is one of the few books I would agree HAD to be that long. I didn't think there was much "extra" that could have been taken out.

The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison

Read my review on the PDL Staff Choices blog.

The World According to Twitter
By David Pogue and His 500,000 Followers

This was a really cute, funny book! I didn't read it cover-to-cover, but browsed through it. Every week, David Pogue tweeted a question to his followers. Their responses make up this book. It includes questions like, "What's your brilliant idea to improve air travel" and answers like "Snacks for the adults, sedatives for the children (-@justbustr)" and "In-flight Bingo. With swell prizes! (-@noveldoctor)."

Skin and Bones by Foo Fighters

This is a live acoustic album. The song "Times Like These" is especially good! Over all, I prefer non-acoustic for this particular band, but it highlighted Dave Grohl's singing. That guy's a heck of a singer!

Wasting Light by Foo Fighters

This album was released in April 2011. It was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage, since he wanted a less digital and more traditional/authentic sound. It was nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year. The whole thing is awesome, start to finish.

Library Day in the Life - Part 3

2012-02-01T18:13:00.000-05:00

(My previous Library Day in the Life posts can be found here.)

It occurs to me that my list of stuff I do all day is filled with library jargon. If the point of #libday8 is to reach out of our library/librarian echo chamber, then it is the non-librarians or other types of librarians that we should try to reach. So, this post is for my non-librarian and non-public librarian friends. You know, people who don't know what an ILS is, or what it means to be "on desk" and "off desk."

Today is Wednesday. That means I work 1-9. In public libraries, you can almost guarantee your job as librarian to include evening(s) and weekend(s). My library is open seven days a week and until 9:00pm Monday through Thursday. That means we need reference staff in the building during as many of those open hours as possible. Sometimes that means we have substitute librarians working in place of regular staff who are on vacation or sick or something, but they are still reference staff (though not necessarily "librarians." That's a whole another blog post.)

One of my duties is scheduling, and it is something I spend a lot of time on. I need to be sure that three service desks are covered by a librarian, an intern, or a reference assistant at all times. With a three-story building, it is a security issue as much as it is a service issue. We can't leave an entire floor unstaffed. Today I dealt with four time off request forms ("TORFS"), altered a co-worker's schedule for the next few weeks, and printed out the May schedule sheets (yup - we still use paper). I also created June and July schedule pages, but didn't print them yet.

Another project I'm working on is writing a collection management guidelines document. Our library has policies in place that define what we buy and what we get rid of ("Selection" is choosing what is added to the library collection and "weeding" is removing old/obsolete items from the collection). I wanted to create a document that covers all of the things that go into managing a library collection. We don't just buy stuff and remove stuff - we manage how they are used, where they are shelved, the condition they are in, where we buy them, and a whole book's worth of other things. (*Shameless plug: that book is called "Making a Collection Count" and I co-wrote it with Mary Kelly last year. Ha!) The library has all kinds of collections, not just books. We buy different kinds of books for different age groups, music, movies, video games, puppet kits, etc. The document covers each collection, and even hints at some we may collect in the future and what we don't collect (and why).

For the document I'm writing, I started with a template over 20 pages long and whittled it down to five pages. I sent it to the two other department heads - Teen Services and Youth Services - as well as my boss, the Library Director. I've gotten some great feedback from them, which I have been working on incorporating into the draft. Today I made the last of their suggested changes and re-sent the document. I think we're close to having a working copy that I can send to all the librarians for their input. I wanted to start with the department heads to make sure that the draft that goes out to about a dozen librarians a solid one.

Yesterday our Technical Services Coordinator needed to work with a vendor to place my February non-fiction order. She is working on setting up a new way of ordering through that vendor, and wanted to use my February order as the test. She finally got it to go through today, but in the process, my "upcoming titles" folder was changed to a status that won't allow me to put any more titles in it. I keep one folder for my next order (titles published the following month) and one for titles I'm thinking of ordering when they are published a few months from now.

I manage the adult non-fiction math and science materials. A report I got showed that one book in that collection went missing last month. It's an organic chemistry book, and I'd like to replace it with something more current anyway. I created a new folder in the vendor software for March math & science books and put a few organic chemistry titles in it to be purchased next month. I'll have to wait and see what the TSC can do with that "upcoming titles" folder. Some of the items in it won't be published until July. If we order them now, they will just get cancelled by the vendor in a few months. They need to be ordered within about three months of their publication date to avoid cancellation.

For no other reason than it's free and interesting, I'm learning to code in javascript. I'm using guided lessons in an online program called Code Academy. I finished the first section and am heading into week 2. The only computer language I know is html (like, the ORIGINAL html...), so this is really a challenge for me. I am alternately frustrated and exhilerated with the lessons. This is a great on-desk project.

What's "on desk," you ask? My library is lucky enough to have enough staff where we each spend time at the public service desks, like the reference desk, only about 3-4 hours a day. Being "on desk" means serving the public directly. These are my favorite hours of the day. When we're "off desk" we are at our own desks in the staff areas of the building, or sometimes working with the collections themselves or putting up displays - working on things that still benefit the public, but where we can focus, mostly uninterrupted.

Today I'm at the reference desk for two hours and the readers advisory desk for one. The reference desk is on the upper level (third floor) of our building, and it is where adult non-fiction and 20-some public computers are located. We also have six individual study rooms and two group study rooms up there. The questions we answer at that desk tend to be technology-driven and subject-driven (ie. "Where can I find a biography of George Washington?" or "Do you have books about organic chemistry?") The readers advisory desk is on the main level, so it is pretty busy. That's where we keep adult novels (fiction, mystery, sci-fi, etc.), large print books, movies, audio books, and music. It is also where the Teen Zone is located. It's the desk I work the least, but it's a fun one. We get questions like "What's #3 in the Twilight series" and "Do you have the movie 'The Help'?" and "Could you put me on hold for the audio version of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'?"

Every Wednesday we have an "Admin" meeting. That's where department heads (ie. Administrators) meet to talk about whatever we want. They take anywhere from a half hour to an hour, depending on who has things to discuss. Today we talked about potential goals for the library for 2012. Some great ideas surfaced!

Afterward, I met with my boss for 15 minutes or so to talk about our search for a new ILS. That stands for "Integrated Library System." Basically, it is the computer system that lets us check items out to people, keep track of the items in our collection, and includes the catalog that the public uses to look things up to see if we have them. Our current system works, but it is old and won't be supported by the vendor much longer. The vendor has upgraded a few times since this system. We may or may not go with the current vendor's newest product. We may or may not switch to an entirely new company's product. Either way, we have to choose our next system, and it is a huge undertaking. It will include making sure it has all the functionality we want for our staff and our patrons, at the right price, with the right kind of vendor support, and then migrating all of our existing data into it and training the staff and patrons how to use it.

I was asked to share my Excel handouts, which yesterday I said I was going to update. I didn't update them yet, but I did share the link. If you're curious, they're all available in my Scribd account, along with all the handouts for any computer class I've ever taught in the last decade or so.

I have one more journal to finish reading and two new publisher spring catalogs to go through. I'll do that on-desk tonight.

And that, my non-public-library friends, was my Wednesday.

Library Day in the Life 8 - Part 2

2012-01-31T16:20:00.000-05:00

It's day two of #libday8. Here's the plan for today:

-Update Excel handouts for next week's class. I taught it last month, but want to tweak the bit about charts/graphs a bit. (Started 4:20pm)

-Print handouts for a meeting I'm presenting at on Monday. The Library Network Adult Services Committee invited Mary Kelly and I to their regular meeting to talk about weeding technique, weeding schedules, and shelf balancing. My favorite topic! We don't usually provide handouts, but this is a smaller group than we usually present to. (DONE 12:53 PM)

-Finish going through the stack of publisher catalogs. I have two left. I found some good titles to buy this spring! (DONE 10:45 AM)

-See how my co-worker is doing with a collection project I gave her. I weeded all the VHS tapes from the 500s, and I asked her to find some new math & science DVDs to buy. She's a library school student, so hopefully this will be a good project for her! I've set aside some money from my 500s budget for her to actually place the orders, too. (DONE - Received month-end report from her that included this. 12:30 PM)

-Meet with my boss and the Youth Services Coordinator about salaries. This library had a consultant set up the pay rate system ten or so years ago. It's time to see where everyone is currently placed in the scale and whether it is time to have it looked at again for adjustments. She explained the philosophy of the system to us a few weeks ago and gave us the original report from the consultant. I read that report in 2009 when I was new here, but it was good to hear it again and be reminded of how the system works and why it is set up that way. I'm glad to have this meeting today because I have to admit that I have found the system to be...difficult. (DONE 3:00 PM)

-Our Technical Services Librarian is setting up a new order system with one of our vendors, and she was using my February order as a test. It didn't go through right on Friday. I need to get those items ordered, though, so I have to find out where she is in the process of getting it to work. I think she was waiting on a phone call from the vendor, so it could be a while! (UPDATE: She's going to try placing the order again today.)

-Three hours on desk: two at reference and one at youth. Cool. I made today's desk schedule, so I can't really complain! Again, though, my perfect day is spent half on-desk and half off-desk, so I wouldn't have minded a fourth hour. We're really well-staffed on Tuesdays, though, so I couldn't fit myself in anywhere else (and still get all that stuff above accomplished!). I tend to go light on desk hours on Tuesdays and load up on Thursdays. (All three hours DONE 9:00-11:00 and 1:00-2:00)

-Send the draft of the collection management policy I wrote to my boss. Yay for having that project mostly done! The Youth Services and Teen Services Coordinators have already seen it and made their suggestions. After my boss sees it, I'll send it to the librarians for their input. I believe in this document a lot. Public libraries like ours should have collection management documents, not just selection and weeding policies. More on that in an upcoming post. (DONE 10:05 AM)

Things that came up later:

-While I was on desk I got distracted by the PLA program list. Wow, there's some good stuff. I've started a preliminary list of sessions to attend.

-Two new review journals showed up at the reference desk. I should be able to get through at least one of them. (1 down, 1 to go. 1:52pm) - (DONE, 4:17PM)

-My boss likes the collection management policy. She made three suggestions, which are completely do-able and good ideas. I'll make those changes tomorrow, probably.

-After meeting with my boss and the Youth Services Coordinator about salaries, had an impromptu meeting with my boss and the Technical Services Coordinator about the timeline and plans for implementing a new ILS this year.

-Received a contract in the mail for an upcoming speaking engagement for the Library of Michigan. Signed, sealed, mailed back.

-Spoke briefly with co-worker about feasibility of the library goals I drafted yesterday, to be shared with Admin staff at tomorrow's meeting.

Library Day in the Life 8 - Part 1

2012-01-30T20:48:00.001-05:00

I participated in Library Day in the Life 6 and 7, and am back for #8.

It's Monday, so I work from 1:00pm to 9:00pm. It's like getting an extra half-day on your weekend, which I love! Anyway, here's the plan for today:

-Read the weekend pile-up of email

-Read an article my boss left for me

-Write some draft institutional goals for 2012, to be talked about at the Admin meeting on Wednesday

-Go through some spring catalogs for various publishers to see what's coming out in my collection areas

-Read Library Journal and Kirkus, which are both waiting up at the reference desk for me

-Today's desk schedule maker gave me from 5-7 at reference and 8-9 at reader advisory. I love desk time, so I wouldn't have minded another hour.

-Re-start Code Academy. I played with it over the weekend, and am really enjoying it. I'd like to re-do the first few lessons for real, though.

We'll see how the day actually turns out. That's the best part of my job, actually. You go in with a basic plan and find yourself doing things that just pop up throughout the day that you hadn't planned on. It keeps things interesting.

Later...
Well, it is now 6:00pm. I've accomplished a few things from my list...and a few things that cropped up that weren't on my list:

-Email read.

-Substitute librarians for next Monday and next Saturday scheduled

-I got really into Code Academy and spent about two hours on it. The time sort of slipped away from me, but I really wanted to figure out one of the exercises I was stuck on. I started a the beginning and got to 7.1, where I left off.

-I'm currently at the reference desk. I've answered questions about Asperger's Syndrome in Adults (Trickier than you'd think. Everything seemed to be about parenting and children.), showed a tween girl where books on ghosts and spirits are, locked up both group study rooms that were left open, renewed someone's MEL interloans, and verified someone's computer class registration via chat.

-I added two more copies of "Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss to my February 500s order, since there are currently 14 requests.

-I talked about processing phone books with two different people. Good grief, let's just slap a letter on them and put them on a shelf for the public. Done.

-Spent about ten minutes on Twitter to see what's going on in library land. There is currently a heated discussion about copyright between two people I follow. I love Twitter because, at least with the people I follow, I get library news as it's happening, cool library ideas, and links to some great articles I probably otherwise wouldn't find.

-Did three read alikes on a spreadsheet I share with Mary Kelly for a freelance project we are working on. I generally do not do these at work, but it just happened that both Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal were talking about the same books, and it was just too relevant to the spreadsheet to let it go and come back to on the weekend. I had to read those journals anyway.

With 45 minutes left of this desk shift, I hope to finish reading LJ and Kirkus as well as read that article my boss gave me.

8:36PM
-Article from my boss = read. Very interesting!

-Emailed Women of China magazine to let them know that the contact person they are sending free issues to at our library passed away several years ago.

-Solved the case of the missing "shelving cart" copy of The Help.

-Wrote three potential library goals for 2012.

-Talked to a co-worker about Code Academy when I saw her working on it at the desk. She pep-talked me into keep going with it!

Cut, print, let's go home!

2011 Reads

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

According to Goodreads, I read 41 books in 2011. I know that's not a lot by many librarians' standards, but it's pretty good for me!

Only four books got five stars:
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
The Complete Homebrew Beer Book by George Hummel (ha!)

I gave twenty-one books three stars. That's the rating I gave the most books.

There were three books that I only gave two stars:
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
Legacy by Danielle Steel
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

No books got one star.

Nine books were by male authors, 31 by female, and one by a company (Real Simple).

The most books were read in April: Seven. Most months were around four or five.

I seem to like books with cover art of the back of a woman's head. That's weird, but five books have variations on this cover:
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Grace Fallen by Mary Hooper
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

It's been an interesting year! Goal for 2012: 50 books. Can I do it?

Google

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

I like Google. I use a variety of their services, and I find most of their products and apps very useful. Here are some of my favorite Google Tools:

Google Hotel Finder
Find hotels by various criteria, such as location and price.

Google Flights
Search and compare prices of flights.

Google Lit Trips
Create geographic presentations of literature. Very cool for book clubs and class discussions.

Google Product Search
Find the best product for your needs. For example, if you type "ebook reader" you get a list of devices, who is selling them, and at what price. You can limit results to a price range, to only products that are currently in stock, only those with free shipping, with or without wifi capability, by brand, and by several other specifications (screen size, multimedia capability, etc.)

Google Images
Find a picture of just about anything! You can also limit results to creative commons images if you plan to re-use them on your own creation.

Google Video
Find videos in various sources. YouTube is great, but you only get YouTube videos when you go straight to that source. In Google videos, you get results for sites like eHow.com, cnet.com, discovery.com, and YouTube (and about a million more!)

Google Maps and Google Earth - I like the ability to "search nearby." If you find a hotel, you can "search nearby" for restaurants, malls, or whatever.

Google News - up to the minute...literally

Gmail - I'm a huge fan of the labels vs. folders organization and the ability to see an entire conversation in one file.

Gchat - You can choose to have chat transcripts saved in your Gmail account.

Google Documents - Ability to share documents with a web link and collaborate on them with others.

Google Calendar - You can share these with other Google calendar users, too. You can also color code your life, which is fantastic!

Google Reader - I'll admit, this one is falling a bit farther down my list of Google loves. The last "upgrade" was a downgrade. One of the things I loved best was the ability to click the "share" link at the bottom of a blog post and have it list automatically in the "Shared Items" box on my own blog.

Related tools that are owned/hosted/whatever by Google:

Picasa - online photo storage and sharing
Blogger - HollyHibner.com is a Blogger site.
Android - operating system for my phone, which I love
YouTube
Picnik - online photo editing

National Geographic Index

2012-01-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note: National Geographic is no longer publishing the annual index. Instead, they have an index freely available at http://publicationsindex.nationalgeographic.com. It is keyword searchable, and very easy to use.

I'm not a huge fan of dusty old reference tomes that are hidden away in a separate reference collection, little used, largely overlooked, and forgotten. I did, however, like THIS particular reference book! I have found it very useful in helping patrons use our National Geographic back issues...and we have a LOT of them (back to the early 1980s, I think).

I'm happy to see the new FREE online index, though, and accept it wholeheartedly as a replacement for the print volume.

World Book Night

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

http://www.us.worldbooknight.org

What a cool idea! You sign up to be giver. Then you choose from a list of 30 titles which one you want to give away. They send you 20 copies, which you then have to give away. You're supposed to give them to light readers or non-readers. So, for example, you could go to a mall or a park and just give them away to passers-by. You give them away on or very near "World Book Night," which is April 23.

Libraries can get involved by:

1. Publicizing World Book Night on their web sites, newsletters, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. Let people know how they can get involved.

2. Offer to be a pick-up location. Givers can have their 20 copies sent to the library, where they come to pick them up.

3. Hold a rally to entice people to be givers.

The organization's goal is to give away 1 million books and to share the love of reading with those who have not found it yet.

Givers have to fill out an application stating who they plan to give the books to and why they chose the title they chose. The organization wants enthusiastic readers who are dedicated to inspiring others to experience the books they love.

I love this idea! I fully intend to set my library up as a pick-up location for givers and to advertise the program so that people will think about becoming givers.

December Reads

2012-01-10T09:00:00.053-05:00

Here's what I read last month:

Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
Review on the PDL Staff Choices blog

One Hundred Candles by Mara Purnhagen
A teenage girl named Charlotte Silver, whose parents are paranormal investigators, is just trying to be normal. When popular football player Harris Abbott shows sudden interest in her, she thinks things may finally be normal in her life. Then strange things start happening at school after she attends a "One Hundred Candles" party. (Kids sit around a circle telling stories of paranormal situations they heard of or experienced themselves, and light a candle for each story until they get to 100.) Will her parents investigate? Are they truly paranormal events? There is a good twist at the end of this book. Entertaining, if not life-changing!

Bumped by Megan McCafferty
In a desolate future, there is a virus that renders people infertile after about 20 years old. Teenagers are the only hope for procreation, and many go amateur or pro (complete with corporate sponsorship!) and sell their babies (or "deliveries" as they call them) to the highest bidder. "Pregging" is almost a sport, and girls compete for the most deliveries and the best sponsors. Drugs have made the whole experience completely forgettable. There is no bonding whatsoever between mother and child. This is the story of a girl who goes pro, then finds out she has an identical twin sister who grew up in a religious community. Just when she is about to be paired with Jondoe, the most sought-after stud, her world is turned upside down. This was funny and thought-provoking. I hope there is a sequel!

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
I thought I'd try a sci-fi novel, and this is a classic. I hated it. I hated the whole thing, start to finish. I listened to it on audio and it just seemed kind of dumb to me. The children seemed like creepy tiny adults. Maybe it was because the voice of Ender was read by a man with a very deep voice that I could not visualize him as a six-year-old. Ender's brother and sister, Peter and Valentine, were equally precocious and unbelievable. If children are to save the planet from the buggers, I guess these are the kids to do it, but I could not get into the idea or the book. I only gave it two stars instead of one because I recognize that it is a classic and has stood the test of time. Sci-fi readers seem to appreciate it.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
This is the sequel to Shanghai Girls, which I loved. Joy is the daughter of the Shanghai Girls (May gave birth to her and Pearl raised her). She has run off to China to help with the Communist Revolution. She believes she can help create the New Society, but is sorely disappointed. This is raw, depressing, and real. Great book! Not as good as Shanghai Girls, but still worth reading for sure.

Rainwater by Sandra Brown
I wanted to read another book to cure my literature snobbery. I had never read a book by Sandra Brown, but definitely judged her harshly and unfairly. This was probably not the best book to choose by her, though. It is historical fiction, which is not her typical story. I really liked this book! Mr. Rainwater shows up at Ella's boarding house, looking for a place to live his last days. He has been diagnosed with cancer, and asks only for discretion from Ella. Times are hard in Texas, with racism and the Depression thwarting any possible success from the locals. Mr. Rainwater is especially helpful and loyal to the townspeople, as well as to Ella's autistic son. This book was touching and emotional.

Kindle Touch

2012-01-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

I want this e-book reader. This is it - I've found my favorite. I still really like the Nook Simple Touch, and it's really close on which I like better. Today I'm calling the Kindle Touch my favorite.

It's a great size, about the size of my hand - which is about the size of a paperback book.

I checked out a Kindle book from my library's Overdrive collection. Once downloaded, they show up in a folder on the Home screen called "Archived Items.

Just a little tap and you're into the Archived Items folder and can tap the title you want.

Once it installs on the device, which takes about ten seconds, a little "New" icon appears next to it and it shows up on the home screen.

Now you can tap on the title to open and read it. Easy!

Turning pages is so nice on this device. You barely touch the right or left side of the screen and the page turns. It turns quickly, and there is very little "flashing" like the older e-readers seem to have.

To get choices like the menu screen, the font screen, or to sync or go to a certain page, tap the top of the screen.

This is the font screen.

I have one criticism, and it's very minor. I had trouble finding the power button. It's on the bottom.

This one is the Kindle Touch "with special offers," which means that when you turn it off, a full-screen ad shows. On the home screen, there is a banner ad at the bottom. There are no advertisements when you are reading, as you can see from the photos above.

Getting an Overdrive book onto the Kindle was easier than I thought. One of the reasons I like this device so much is that it doesn't require Adobe Digital Editions. When you click the "download" button in Overdrive, you are directed to Amazon.com. There, you click another download button. With your device hooked up to your computer, it takes a few seconds and voila!, the title shows up in that "Archived Items" folder I mentioned above.

Sure, Amazon keeps track of who downloads what. You log in to Amazon with your Amazon account to download the title. Amazon keeps track of everything you buy in their store too, so I guess I don't mind this so much. No matter where you buy stuff online they keep track of your purchases. The problem is that libraries are now caught up in this business where Amazon keeps track of what patrons checked out at the library - a clear breach of library privacy laws. I'm conflicted because I accept this as a consumer...but it really bothers me professionally. I'm not going to solve that dilemma today.

The verdict: I love the device. I love how it feels, how it looks, and how it works. I like its price, too ($99 for this one, "with special offers" and without 3G).

Daily Life Through History

2011-12-27T09:00:00.006-05:00

Daily Life Through History is a wonderful database for middle and high schoolers. It is a subscription-based database, not free on the web, so it is important that we promote it to our patrons.

You can choose an era and get nice, detailed essays about them. Kids doing history reports will find great information here. There is a link at the top of each essay to "Cite This Document," and the citations are given in a variety of styles (MLA, APA, and Chicago). You can also print and email the documents - very convenient for use between school, library, and home.

This image shows what kinds of information you can get on a subject. The topics cover pretty much ever aspect of daily life.

I don't work for ABC-CLIO, and I'm not in charge of database subscriptions at my library, but I do love this database and highly recommend it!

Just to be fair, places to get similar information on the free web include:

Library of Congress American Memory

Internet History Sourcebooks Project from Fordham University

BBC History for Kids

dMarie Time Capsule

Eyewitness to History

Odyssey Online

...and about a million more, but that's a good start!

Slide Deck Style

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Mary Kelly and I do a lot of speaking at library conferences on behalf of our other blog, Awful Library Books. We enjoy it, and hope to continue traveling to several conferences each year. Our presentation style has changed and developed over the years, which is what I want to write about today.

There is a movement in library conferences away from standard Power Point presentations with bullet points and a few clip arts thrown in here and there. Thank goodness, right? No one wants to listen to a speaker drone on and on when they can read the screen on their own perfectly fine. You don't need me, the speaker, if you can just read the material. Reading is what blogs, journal articles, and books are for. Ned Potter (@theREALwikiman) said it best in this presentation, titled "Stop Breaking the Basic Rules of Presenting."

Speakers are now encouraged to use something engaging like Prezi (which just causes motion sickness if done incorrectly...) or a slide deck. Basically, you use an image to relay the theme of the slide, and the speaker fills in the content. The pressure is on the speaker to make sense of what the audience is seeing on the screen through a verbally eloquent presentation. Done well, the audience really pays attention to the speaker and is more invested in the information and the concepts being shared - and less invested in what is on the screen. The screen becomes secondary; a visual cue that only hints at what the speaker is saying.

There are two down sides to this style of presentation:
1. It's much more difficult to time a presentation when you find yourself very conversationally talking about your topic. You have to have pretty good notes for yourself to stay on-topic and not give away concepts that you intended to use later in the presentation. The beauty of bullet points was that the presentation flowed as intended and the speaker tended to stay on track. You really have to practice your material to do a slide deck style presentation properly.

2. When the audience goes to look at the presentation later (because who provides handouts these days?? It's online, people!), they can not make any sense of what they are seeing. It's just a bunch of images. Unless they took really good notes, going back to see the presentation online is useless. If you missed the live presentation and go online to catch it later, you've really missed out on the content.

Mary and I have started doing more slide deck style presentations in the last year. We revised every presentation in our arsenal so that they weren't just a bunch of bullet points. We've gotten much better at just saying what we came to say. In the past, we were guilty of reading the bullet points on the screen and maybe adding a few examples. We really try to avoid that now.

We're still working on this style. It isn't easy, and we have been guilty of miss-timing presentations, giving away each others' examples too early in the show, and relying too heavily on our notes. We will keep practicing and getting better at it, but I admit that I miss the days of bullet-pointed Power Point. It was a safety and a crutch. We are definitely all-around better presenters without it, but it is something we have to work at. I hope that the information we are imparting to our audiences is more passionate and more pure. The words that come out of our mouths are more organic and inspire more conversation than rehearsed bullet points ever did. When one of us starts talking about something that the next slide was supposed to be about, we both have to think fast and come up with something relevant to talk about when we get to that slide. We've come up with some of our best examples in those moments, and new concepts that we hadn't thought of before.

As Mary says, it's "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" - and I like it!

Outcomes not Outputs

2011-12-16T09:00:00.002-05:00

http://www.michigan.gov/midashboard

"The information provided on this web site tells you how the state performs in areas that affect you and your family. The dashboard...can be used to view Michigan's performance and how it compares with other states."

I've been reading about the Governor's interest in outcomes vs. outputs, and I think it is a wonderful lesson for libraries to take. We could use this dashboard-type model to:

-Compare our individual library's services to state benchmarks. In Michigan, we could use QSAC (Quality Services Audit Checklist) for those benchmarks.

-Track strategic plan progress. Libraries with strategic plans could use a dashboard to compare where they were to where they are headed, and show how much work needs to be done to get there.

-Tie library services into this state dashboard to let people know how/what their libraries (or the state library) are doing compared to other state services. The Library of Michigan is now under the Department of Education, so maybe library services could be compared to other MDE agencies - value for the dollar, quality of life, etc.

Libraries are pretty good about gathering data. We keep track of all kinds of things. However, we can continue improving upon reporting what it all means. That is, the outcomes rather than the outputs. (Data = outputs.) It's wonderful to say that librarians answered 50,000 reference questions this year, but what is the outcome? The outcome is that library staff were able to share their expertise 50,000 times and help tens of thousands of people find answers and jobs, save time, and do better research.

Even better than that, though, are stories. Who cares if 50,000 people got answers? It's the few really poignant stories that people relate to. It is the single mother who was laid off from her job and got a new one after attending a job fair at the library. It is the child who was struggling in school, and reached grade-level after working with a tutor at the library. It is the senior citizen who got a librarian to help him navigate Medicare Part D.

I love the idea of a dashboard that makes our outputs very transparent. It would be great to compare libraries to other agencies and to other libraries in one place, rather than in a variety of reports (state aid reports, library annual reports, QSAC reports, monthly Library Board reports...). Even better, though, would be a dashboard that includes both the outputs and the outcomes.

Integrated Advisory

2011-12-13T09:00:00.015-05:00

I had been calling these "multi-type advisory," but the September/October 2011 issue of Public Libraries has an article called "Getting Lost: Books, Television, and Integrated Advisory" by Andrea Lau (p.36) and I think "integrated advisory" is a much better term for this idea. Thank you, Ms. Lau: integrated advisory it shall be henceforth!

Here's another installment.

Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World
By Larrie D. Ferreiro

In the 1730s, a group of scientists from France and Spain decided that they needed to measure the earth. Knowing its shape would help them navigate the oceans and map new places, giving them military and economic power. They went to Peru, a Spanish-owned country at the Equator, and literally measured a degree of latitude. This book, though non-fiction and based on real history and science, reads like an adventure novel. The scientists have weather, mountains, suspicious native people, and plenty of other hostilities to deal with in their quest. This is an exciting book about an important time in history, when Europeans learned more about South America and scientists made great strides in understanding our world.
(Review published on PDL's Staff Choices blog)

A Watery Grave: A Mystery
By Joan Druett

This story takes place about a hundred years after Measure of the Earth, but the plots have a lot in common. This is a mystery novel about a scientific expedition of map makers, astronomers, and other scientists who are trying to sail around the world. A Maori-American man is taken with them to help translate to the people they encounter along the way, but is accused of a murder he didn't commit.

Maphead
By Ken Jennings

Yup - that Ken Jennings. He's moved on from Jeopardy and trivia and wrote a great book about the history of map making.

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down
By Colin Woodard

Ok, this might be a stretch. Pirates were still common in the 18th century, so they were a real threat to the sailors in Measuring the Earth. I'll take any excuse to suggest a book about pirates, though.

The Bells of St. Genevieve and Other Baroque Delights

Measuring the Earth takes place during what is now considered the Baroque period. This classical music CD highlights some of the great Baroque composers, like J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Pachelbel.

The Shape of the World

This is a riveting documentary on the history of how the world was mapped. It's narrated by Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame, which is just a bonus!

Collection Management Interview

2011-12-08T09:00:00.002-05:00

I was recently interviewed for a blog called Artifact Collector. Their readers are mostly non-librarians, so it was great to be able to explain weeding and collection management to those who probably never really thought about it.

Click on the image below to go to the site and read the interview.

NoveList vs Books & Authors

2011-12-05T09:00:00.006-05:00

I've written before about the Michigan eLibrary databases, a resource that Michigan residents are extremely lucky to have access to. A recent contract change removed NoveList from MeL, which outraged many Michigan librarians who had come to know and love it. I'm not here to talk about the politics of how and which databases are chosen by MeL. My angle is to look at both NoveList to Gale's Books and Authors database, which is still available in the MeL databases lineup, and see what each has to offer.

NoveList

1. We subscribe to NoveList Plus, which integrates with our library's online catalog. Patrons can find a title in NoveList and click a button to see if it is available in the library.

2. Includes description information that explains why a particular book was chosen as a read alike for another.

3. Book discussion guides are available for lots and lots of titles.

4. Has some great reading lists by suggested age level and genre

5. Includes children's and teen books

6. Lots of articles on readers advisory and fiction topics.

7. Pre-made book talks!

8. Very, very easy search interface

9. Includes links to GoodReads reviews for titles.

10. Ability to share titles via Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, and many more places.

Books and Authors

1. Available to all Michigan libraries through a contract with MeL.

2. Very, very easy to browse genres. Just click through from the database homepage!

3. Finding read alikes is also easy. Once you choose a title, you can click through to lists of titles by the same genre, subject, and setting. There's an easy "Read Alike Wizard," too.

4. Expert Picks lists, like "15 Memorable Apocalyptic Novels."

5. Lots of ways to keep your own lists, from "My Author lists" to "My Book Lists" to "My Ratings and Reviews."

6. Non-fiction lists and read alikes are included. This is big. If NoveList includes non-fiction, I couldn't find it. Of course, NoveList has "novel" in its title, so maybe they just don't want to go toward non-fiction.

7. Ability to share titles via Delicious, Digg, and a few other sites. Not as many places as NoveList.

8. Very browsable format. NoveList feels like a database. Books and Authors feels more like a web site.

9. Very easy to find award winners, bestsellers, and newly published titles from the home page.

10. Has a "Meet the Editors" link where you can see who did the work. I couldn't find this on NoveList. I guess NoveList staff does the work of selecting and writing, whereas Books and Authors contracts outsiders.

The verdict? Which is my favorite? Tough call. I like them for different reasons. Since I don't currently have to give one up, I don't have to choose. Maybe that's a cop-out, but it's my answer. I use them both and I like them both. I'm glad that MeL still has a readers advisory database in their line-up, and I hope that library staff and patrons are giving Books and Authors a fair try. I also hope that those who could afford to keep NoveList around did so.

Medicare Part D

2011-12-01T09:00:00.002-05:00

Free stock photo from http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mfP1aok/Meds

My library presents Medicare Part D programs every week during open enrollment season. One of our librarians presents a 15-20 minute Power Point that covers the basics of Part D, and then she and I work with the attendees one by one, entering their prescriptions into the online system . We print for them the details of the top three prescription drug plans for their individual needs. It is a very well-attended, much-needed, and useful program.

These programs have not only helped me answer reference questions about Medicare, and specifically Part D, but they have also opened my eyes to the state of health care in this country and also to the plight of senior citizens. For one thing, many of the seniors who attend the program are pretty clueless about Medicare, and even about insurance in general. I was shocked to find out how few people know what a premium and deductible are, and when you add the complications of things like drug tiers, Medicare's "coverage gap," and late enrollment fees, it quickly turns into a very frustrating experience. Anything we can do at the library to help people understand the system is appreciated by them, and rewarding for us.

Others who attend these programs are representing their elderly parents who live in nursing homes or other assisted living arrangements. They have to be pretty familiar with the prescriptions their family member takes, the doctors they see, and other personal information in order to choose the Part D plan that will best suit their needs. There is a lot of pressure on these caregivers to make the right choices for their loved ones.

Medicare Part D has changed significantly in the three open enrollment seasons I have participated in. The coverage gap (or "donut hole") has closed slightly, the open enrollment dates have changed, the maximum deductible has been raised, and the cheapest possible plan for those who take no drugs has also changed hands more than once. The late enrollment penalty changes every year, there are more drugs manufactured, and more generics available. It's something we have to re-learn each year.

We enter each person's prescriptions, one by one, and then print a comparison of the top three most cost effective plans that come up. It's not so hard to enter the drugs and print the comparison chart. It's more difficult to explain the chart to them. They have to look at their estimated annual costs, including premium, deductible, and co-pays. They have to decide which plan will help them best deal with the coverage gap if they are unlucky enough to fall into it. They have to decide if they'd rather pay a higher premium and have no deductible or pay more up front with a deductible and then have lower payments through the rest of the year. They have to look at the cost of each individual drug in the different plan options and talk to their doctor about the drugs they are prescribed vs. what is in each plan's formulary. We give them the tools and information to make an informed decision. They leave our programs armed with a print-out that includes phone numbers for each plan, as well as a lesson on what they should consider when deciding which plan to go with.

Most importantly, they leave with the understanding that they'll have to do it all over again next year. These plans change every single year, and you have to run your prescriptions through the online program each open enrollment season to find out if they should switch plans. Maybe their prescriptions have changed, their financial situation, or the plan they've been on all year.

The Medicare & You booklet is the best place to start if you're thinking about offering a program like this at your library. I highly recommend it! We do not give any medical advice, we do not actually enroll people in a plan, and we do not made a specific plan recommendation. We give ~~piece~~ peace (oops!) of mind and arm people with information they wouldn't have had otherwise. It's nice to get people in the same room who are dealing with the same frustrations and who have the same questions. It's almost like a support group where they can see that they are not alone. There are millions of Americans dealing with Medicare Part D every year, and anything we can do to help is always so appreciated by them. It is definitely a feel-good program for us, knowing we gave out crucial information to people who have to make a careful decision.

November Reads

2011-11-28T09:00:00.003-05:00

I check out a lot of things from the library each month. If I were to do one of those library use calculators, I'm sure my use well exceeds the taxes I pay for library service. This month I did a lot of browsing and not a lot of reading. That's ok - I enjoyed a lot of different types of items all checked out from my library!

Locally Buzzed: The Great Michigan Beer Movie
(DVD)
2011
Image: http://www.locallybuzzed.com/

A group of beer enthusiasts spent a week touring around Michigan breweries, interviewing beer drinkers, brewery owners, and brewers. This documentary is the result. It is recommended to people who like: beer, microbrews, Michigan companies, and stories about the positive turnaround of the Michigan economy.

Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries
by Leonard Kniffel
2011

Celebrities share their love of libraries and reading. Check out my full review on the Staff Choices Blog.

Legacy
By Danielle Steel

Check out my review here.

Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen it Before
by Alastair Fothergill

This is the companion book to the BBC tv series. I admit, I mostly looked at the pictures, but was fascinated by the variety of plants, animals, and landforms pictured in it. Beautiful photography!

Shop Smart magazine from Consumer Reports
http://shopsmartmag.org/

This is not the issue I checked out - I believe I took September and October 2011. I really like this magazine. It has all the goodness of Consumer Reports, but more articles and tips than "reports."

Doctor Who
Season One

I've seen a few episodes of Doctor Who in my time - mostly in the mid-80s when I was a middle schooler and didn't really understand it. A bunch of librarians I follow on Twitter have been raving about Doctor Who lately, so I decided to check it out again. Hilarious! I've really enjoyed it now that I am old enough to "get" it. Good stuff.

Literature Snobs

2011-11-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

Confession: I'm a literature snob. I didn't think I was, but I am. Oh, sure, I happily help patrons find whatever it is they want without judgement. To each their own and all that. I honestly don't care who reads what or why, and can be completely impartial in readers advisory.

And then there is my own reading. I definitely judge certain books as "worthy" of my time. How can I possibly make that judgement unless I've read something by those authors? It is completely unfair to dismiss an author's entire works based on what I think I know about their books.

I did a mystery challenge last summer to broaden my horizons in that genre. It helped a lot, and I've read several more mysteries since then. I have more authors and series to recommend when I'm doing readers advisory. So, what I need to do is a reading challenge that includes only authors that I've dismissed as unworthy. The only criteria for this challenge are that they have to be books I would never have considered or looked twice at previously, but which are popular among my library's patrons.

Here are my first two.

Legacy
By Danielle Steel

Danielle Steel has written so many books, and is so well-loved by her fans that she seemed like the obvious place to start. I chose one of her recent historical novels. (Is that cheating since I typically enjoy historical fiction?)

The story starts with Brigitte, a modern-day academic who just lost everything she held dear. She agrees to help her mother do genealogy research to pass the time, and finds herself fascinated by a Sioux woman named Wachiwi who shows up in their family tree. She tracks down Wachiwi's story. The story then switches to Wachiwi's perspective. She was stolen from her family by Crow warriors and given as a gift to their chief. Her story is actually very interesting! When the book abruptly changed back to Brigitte's, I was actually disappointed.

The best parts of the book are Wachiwi's. It was a good story! What I didn't like about this book were the constant repetition and re-iteration of key themes. Yes, Brigitte wasted years of her life on a man and a job she didn't like. Yes, Wachiwi was brave and stubborn and beautiful. Good grief, I wanted the author to stop saying it.

I was actually surprised at the PG-type rating of this book. There is implied sex, but nothing graphic and virtually no violence or language (even with the warring Native Americans!). It was all much tamer than I had expected. I have never recommended a Danielle Steel novel to gentle readers, but now I have an idea who I can suggest her books to.

So...will I read another Danielle Steel book? Maybe. I liked the historical story here. I know that she's written other historical novels. It was quick, fluffy, brain candy - and there's nothing wrong with that! Did it change my life? Um...no.

The Secret
by Beverly Lewis
Seasons of Grace, Book 1

Here's another genre I just never really gave a try. Grace Byler's Amish family seems ordinary enough. But then Grace finds her mother crying in the night, and her father goes on as if everything were normal. When Grace's mother disappears, her world is shattered. She can't marry her long-time beau and she wants to find her mother, but must keep her family going in her mother's absence.

The story is told partially from Grace's perspective and also from her mother's. We get little pieces of the puzzle, but I'm sure you have to read all three books in the series to figure it all out.

The story also has a third voice: Heather Nelson. Heather has been diagnosed with cancer, but can't bare to tell her father. Her mother died of cancer a few years before, and it would devastate him to lose Heather too. Heather goes to Amish country, where her father bought a house. It was one of her parents' favorite places to vacation together. Heather sees a holistic medicine practitioner in hopes of relief. Will she find it?

What I liked about this book was an introduction to another culture. I grew up near enough to an Amish community that they aren't completely foreign to me, but I learned a lot about them by reading this book. I also liked the mystery aspect. Darn it, I want to know what's up with the mother! I may have to read books 2 and 3 to find out.

What annoyed me about this book was the sickeningly-sweet, naive, innocence of it all. I didn't mind the religious bits because they weren't overwhelming. (I once read a Karen Kingsbury book and found it waaaayy more in-your-face preaching than this was.) It seemed more true to the characters and their way of life - necessary to the story to make the setting believable. My problem was that the characters were supposed to be frustrated, depressed, and facing life-changing obstacles, but it was just a bunch of "golly gee whiz, we're in a pickle." (Exaggeration, but you get the idea.)

I might read book 2 to find out more about the mother's story. I'm not invested in Heather's story because I want her to just go to an oncologist.

Basics of Genealogy Reference

2011-11-17T09:00:00.031-05:00

Basics of Genealogy Reference: A Librarian's Guide
by Jack Simpson
2008

I'm still picking away at some of the items in our professional reference collection, which happens to reside in my office, and which happens to have some really great books in it.

I know just enough about genealogy to get patrons started. I'm aware of what's available through Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest, as well as the SSDI and the Family History Library. In other words, I have half a clue. Patrons who have done genealogy for years and are looking for help with a roadblock will probably be disappointed in my skills (although I firmly believe that just running your idea by someone else is worthwhile - they may just have a different angle of thinking about it than you do).

So, I picked up this book hoping for a refresher. That's exactly what I got. This is an excellent book for library staff who help patrons with genealogy questions on any level. It goes through details of using census records, vital records, city directories, church/cemetery/military records, immigration records, and even the National Archives. Best of all, it talks about the reference interview as it pertains specifically to genealogy patrons. Whether you know next to nothing about genealogy or just want a refresher, this is an excellent source.

Kiddie Lit

2011-11-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

When I work at the Youth Services desk, I'm a little out of my league. Strangely enough, I minored in children's literature in my undergrad degree, but that was in 1996. I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with new authors and series since then. I read a few children's books here and there so I'm not completely unaware, but I'm just not as quick as the Youth Services Librarians are at youth readers advisory. I thought I'd share some of the series I like to recommend (my "go-to list"), and some online tools I use in the realm of children's literature.

My Go-To List

My favorite youth fiction authors to recommend are:
Avi (historical)
Patricia Reilly Giff (historical)
Andrew Clements (funny)
Margaret Peterson Haddix (sci-fi)
E.L. Konigsburg (funny)
Kate DiCamillo (fiction/realistic fiction)
Sue Stauffacher (funny/realistic fiction)

...and my favorite youth series to recommend are:
Time Warp Trio by Jon Scieszka (fantasy)
Freddie Fernortner, Fearless First Grader by Jonathan Rand (funny)
Ghostville Elementary by Marcia Jones (funny/fantasy)
Geronimo Stilton by a variety of authors (funny)
Royal Diaries by a variety of authors (historical)
Dear America by a variety of authors (historical)
Dragon Slayers' Academy by Kate McMullan (fantasy)

Online Tools

Fantastic Fiction
This site is out of the UK, and one-stop shopping for series lists, author information, and upcoming titles.

Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site
I love the age-level and grade-level reading lists on this site, as well as themed reading lists. This site is great for students, but also teachers and homeschooling parents.

KidsRead.com
Reviews, author info, podcasts, and series summaries make this a GREAT place to find age-appropriate series for kids.

Mid-Continent Public Library Juvenile Series and Sequels
I love all the reading lists they make a MCPL, but this page is exceptional. It has "Juvenile Easy" lists for birth through 2nd graders, Juvenile lists for 2nd - 6th graders, and Young Adult lists for 6th - 12th graders.

October Reads

2011-11-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, one of my September reads, took me so long to get through that I didn't read very many books in October. Here's October's list:

The Complete Homebrew Beer Book: 200 easy recipes from ales & lagers to extreme beers & international favorites
by George Hummel
2011

Big thanks to one of my co-workers for putting me on the list for this new book! It's the most complete collection of beer recipes I've seen in any homebrewing book. My husband has been really into sour beers lately, so he has been looking for different lambic and gueuze recipes. This book has a recipe on every possible style. I now have two lambic yeast starters reproducing in my living room.

Eliza's Freedom Road: An Underground Railroad Diary
by Jerdine Nolen
2011

This is an excellent runaway slave story written in the style of her diary. Read my complete review on the PDL Staff Choices blog. Highly recommended!

The Knife of Never Letting Go
Chaos Walking, Book One
by Patrick Ness
2008

I listened to the audio version of this title - another recommendation by another co-worker. I don't know if I'll read/listen to the rest of the series, but it has an interesting premise. Again, my full review is on the PDL Staff Choices blog.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs
2011

This recommendation came from a librarian at another library. Her description: "totally creepers", is what made me decide to read it, and that's exactly right. I'll call it "creeptastic" and recommend it to anyone who likes books about asylums, orphanages, peculiar children, and supernatural powers. I can't say a whole lot about it without giving the whole thing away, but it includes vintage photographs that go along with the story line.

Book Covers

2011-11-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

I absolutely judge books by their covers. This is especially true of non-fiction, but fiction as well. A cool cover is inviting and eye-catching! I like to point out interesting covers to library patrons when I'm doing readers advisory, too. There's a fun web site called The Book Cover Archive, which I love to browse through.

Here are some of my favorite book covers.

And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture
by Bill Wasik
2009

The way each word repeats indicates the number of times the story is told. Simple, but eye-catching.

Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood
by Jennifer Traig
2004

You can just picture someone with OCD taking a bag of M&Ms and putting them in careful rows by color. It illustrates the book's topic really well.

In Defense of English Cooking
by George Orwell
(Essay in a collection called "Such, such were the joys & other essays")
1989

I, for one, like English cooking. Make me some mushy peas any day! I have to admit that the English breakfast shown here is not so appetizing, though - especially the lower picture where they've blurred as if it were just one big pile of beans and eggs and stuff. I still like the cover.

Our Lady of the Forest: A Novel
by David Guterson
2003

This is a book about a woman who sees the Virgin Mary. The cover, with it's close up of what I would assume represents the Virgin Mary, gives you the impression of someone watching over you. She's looking down, and she's really close. Religion aside, it's beautiful.

Raising the Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation
by Elizabeth Beckwith
2009

Ha ha ha! That's just funny. The title is hilarious, and the people have that retro "perfect" look. The squeaky-clean mother and daughter just don't match up with the guilt and manipulation part of the title, which is hilarious!!

The Revolution of Little Girls: A Novel
by Blanche McCrary Boyd
1991

I have not read this book, but the cover is creepy. The words form an X over her, and she's shown as a negative. Does she die in the book? I don't know, but I would pick this off the shelf in a minute to find out.

The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: a Novel
by Jerome Charyn
2010

Again, I haven't read this, but the cover indicates that Emily Dickinson had a secret life that was somehow scandalous. If her purple skirt were solid, she would have that late-1800s prude look. Instead, we see a black silhouette that implies something outrageous or even indecent.

MLA 2011 Report

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, October 26
9:00am - Professional Pursuits: Posting, Publishing, and Presenting
This is the first or two programs that Mary Kelly and I presented together. This was a new program for us, but it went over really well! It was about how to get started in blogging, publishing, and presenting at library conferences. There were more public librarians in the audience than I had expected, which was nice. We got a lot of great feedback afterward.

10:15am - Librarian in Black, Sarah Houghton
This was the keynote presentation, and it was great! I follow Sarah's blog. She's direct, honest, and funny. She spoke about the future of libraries.

1:15pm - Working with Young Professionals, presented by Kathryn Bergeron
This is probably my favorite presentation of the conference. Kathryn talked about how to serve young professionals - the Millennial generation of 20 & 30-somethings. We have lots of programs for babies, children, teens, and seniors, but not a lot for this age group. My favorite programming suggestion came from an audience member: Show a movie and encourage the audience to heckle, like on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Our library has a book club that meets in a local brewery, which is well-attended by young professionals. Kathryn also suggested collection development techniques and outreach to this demographic.

3:00pm - Employee Orientation: Are We Setting New Employees Up to Sink or Swim of Jump Ship? Presented by Terry New, HR Manager, Kalamazoo Public Library; Jennifer Cornell, Assistant to
the Director, Kalamazoo Public Library
Handouts are not available online for this presentation. This was a good presentation for most attendees. I'm going to pat myself on the back, though, for the training program I have created for new employees in my department. I've got a very detailed checklist and my training schedule lasts about six weeks total. The way our reference services staff (ie. librarians, interns, and reference assistants) are trained here is detailed, carefully scheduled, and results in a more well-rounded staff member. I think some of the people in the audience, based on their questions and reactions throughout the program, just say, "Hi, here's your desk. Have a great day!" and leave their new employees to figure it out. The information presented in this session would have been very helpful for them. Honestly, I didn't get a whole lot of new ideas out of this program, but I did walk away feeling like I'm on the right track with my own training program.

4:15pm - I really wanted to see Cathy Russ, the director of the Troy Public Library, present "If It Can Happen in Troy," but I got an opportunity to tour the Kalamazoo Public Library's Central library (their main downtown branch). Kevin King, who is in charge of Adult Programs and Circulation, toured several librarians around that beautiful facility. We especially liked their children's storytime room, which is shaped like a castle and has a throne for the story reader. So cute! There is a lot of great artwork around the building and places for people to work with library materials, computers, or their own laptops.

Thursday, October 27
9:00am - Business Reference: Common Sense Strategies for Uncommonly Challenging Questions, presented by Celia Ross, Associate Librarian, Kresge Business Administration Library, University of Michigan
Handouts are not available online for this presentation.
The presenter gave techniques and suggested free resources for helping people with difficult business-related questions. I really enjoy this kind of reference, whether the topic is business or something else. Trying to figure out who has the information that the patron wants, and then finding THEM is such a great strategy! There were lots of government agencies and other free online sources presented, but ultimately I have to admit that I'm very happy that my library has access to the ReferenceUSA database. So many of the examples the presenter was giving would have been much easier questions to answer with access to ReferenceUSA. I do appreciate that the program was geared to libraries that don't have fancy paid-databases, though. I also like that she referenced several MeL databases, reminding people that we ALL have access to them.

10:15 - Non-Fiction Readers Advisory for Everyone
This was the second program presented by Mary Kelly and I. I'll be honest - it's not my favorite one. I like the topic, but I don't get as excited about it as I do with some of the other programs we do. We had a large audience with people standing in the back, I think we entertained them, and I know that they went away with some new ideas for titles and techniques in non-fiction reader advisory.

We headed home after our 10:15 session on Thursday. (I only paid for one day - Wednesday. Technically, I crashed the 9:00 session on Thursday. I guess it made up for the 4:00 session I missed on Wednesday!)

MLA: NF Reader Advisory

2011-10-26T09:00:00.001-04:00

Here's the second program that Mary Kelly and I are presenting at MLA 2011. This one is Thursday morning at 10:30am. Hope to see you there!

Program description:
Not sure how to break the ice and “sell” non-fiction? Not a big non-fiction reader? No problem! Everyone has something to share in the world of reader advisory. This program is designed to help librarians develop strategies for talking about non-fiction with all patrons and create a personal go-to list of titles—even if your knowledge and experience with non-fiction are limited.

Non-Fiction Readers Advisory

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Professional Pursuits

2011-10-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

This is one of two programs that Mary Kelly and I are presenting at the Michigan Library Association annual conference this week. Stop by Wednesday morning at 9:00am if you're interested!

Here's the description:
Are you ready to kick your career up to the next level? Consider posting, publishing, and presenting! First, we will help you identify the subject you want to pursue as your area of expertise. Then learn how easy it is to get involved in blog posting, from gaining an audience to networking and being an active participant in the blogosphere. This is the first step to putting your ideas in writing and sharing them with others (for the “good of all!”). The next step is publishing your ideas outside of your blog through journal articles or even books. Learn to write winning proposals to begin publishing those great ideas! We will suggest places to submit your work and look at a typical proposal. Then, present your ideas to library boards, colleagues, and even your community. We will help you conquer your fears of public speaking with practical tips that will make your presentations more dynamic at the same time. Follow these steps to successfully enter the world of posting, publishing, and presenting, and watch your career flourish!

Professional Pursuits: Posting, Publishing, and Presenting

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Tech Tools Program Video

2011-10-23T17:17:00.000-04:00

It's not great quality (note to self: leave lights on when video taping in this meeting room!), but here's the video of my Tech Tools for Reference program that I did two weeks ago for The Library Network Adult Services Committee's fall workshop, "Keeping Up with the Techno-Geeks: Tools for Librarians & Patrons."

Weeding Q&A

2011-10-20T09:00:00.001-04:00

My last post talked about the Weeding webinar that Mary Kelly and I were involved with. Afterward, the panelists were assigned questions from attendees to answer that didn't get answered during the webinar. I thought I'd share those questions and our answers.

Question #1: There used to be core collection recommendations for the nonfiction area. Is that still a relevant tool to use for collection development and weeding?

Answer: The Public Library Catalog still exists, and is still a relevant tool to use for collection management. I caution you about using it as the "final answer," though. The PLC can not speak to YOUR community and YOUR patrons and YOUR mission. It is a general list of core titles for a general public library. It can help you make some decisions about weeding and selection, but I would never choose something for any library collection just because the PLC says you should have it. It's a nice starting point, but definitely consider your audience and your purpose in your decision making.

Question #2: Since I am not a subject expert in everything -we are a small academic library with a small staff-how can I identify the "classic" or "landmark" books in a subject that we would want to keep? or should it not even be a consideration? thanks!

Answer: A small academic library could use the Public Library Catalog to build a core collection in different subject areas. To be perfectly honest, I've never worked in an academic library and I don't know if there is an academic library equivalent to the PLC, but if there is I would guess that it is geared to large university libraries. For most small academics, the PLC might be just the thing. Be sure to keep YOUR patrons and YOUR mission in mind when making choices for your collection, since the PLC can't do that. It's a good starting point for non-subject specialists building a collection, though.

Question #3: “How can we effectively weed a floating collection?” and “Are there any good strategies for weeding a branch library, in a library system which "floats" its collection among branches?”

Answer: Neither Mary nor I have ever worked in libraries with floating collections, but maybe they could consider assigning a system-wide "weeding specialist" to go from branch to branch and weed what's on the shelves at that branch at that time. They would catch the majority of what needs to be weeded, and then the individual branches could catch the rest.

The person assigned to this project would need a lot of:
a) time
b) travel
c) patience
d) understanding of the communities served by each branch so they don't weed something that seems like a weird choice at one library, but works well in another.

Most ILSs will allow you to turn off the float feature, too. The system could stop floating for a few weeks or months, everyone do a big weed at their individual branches, and then turn the floating feature back on when everyone's ready. This would require a closely-guarded weeding schedule (no slacker branches holding up everyone else!). The staff at each branch would still have to understand the communities served by other branches so that they don't weed something that might do well elsewhere. They would have to look at not only what circulates, but WHERE it circulates frequently.

Weeding Webinar

2011-10-17T09:00:00.019-04:00

Image credit: Library Journal

Mary Kelly and I were panelists last week for a webinar hosted by Library Journal and sponsored by Collection HQ.

First of all, let me just say how weird it is to present a webinar. This was our first time presenting this way. This particular webinar was done in software called "On24." We had a moderator dashboard that we worked with to advance our slides and chat with the other moderators, but we couldn't see the real-time chat box that the attendees were using (if there was one...I'm not even sure about that!). Just sitting in my office talking to apparently no one was a little disconcerting. There was no body language or eye contact or facial expression from the audience to tell if they were getting what we were saying. So, we just kept talking and hoped for the best.

Second, apparently there were close to 2,000 people registered for the free event. The largest live audience I've ever presented to was probably 200. They said that over 700 people actually logged in to the webinar! I presented virtually to over SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE!! That's incredible. Again, though, since you can't see or hear them, it could have been one person or 2,000 and it didn't really make any difference.

If you'd like to hear the webinar, just register for free and give it a listen! (I haven't listened yet. I hope I don't sound like a child. My voice does that.)

Multi-Type Advisory, Take 3

2011-10-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

Secret History of the Pink Carnation
by Lauren Willig

I blogged a short review of this book here. It's taking me forever to get through the book, and I have another third or so to go. I really, really love this book, but between moving to a new house and a month full of speaking gigs at library workshops, I just haven't been reading much. I think it goes well with so many other items that can be found in the library, though, that I wanted to do a multi-type advisory post about it. Here goes:

The Scarlet Pimpernel
Orczy
1903

"The Scarlet Pimpernel is a play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy." If you're lucky enough to be able to get your hands on a copy, this would be an interesting side-read. The Purple Gentian is a main character in Pink Carnation, and he was inspired by the then-retired Scarlet Pimpernel. The Pink Carnation was in turn inspired by the Purple Gentian.

The Scarlet Pimpernel
This was an A&E TV Series in 1999. There are other editions of this show/movie, and I'm sure people have their favorites. I chose the one my library owns.

Madam Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution
Moran
2011

I haven't read this, but it looks good! Madam Tussaud does not make an appearance in Pink Carnation (at least, not in the 2/3s I've read so far...), but she's an interesting character. Pink Carnation is set during the French Revolution and deals with the Reign of Terror, and Madam Tussaud was a victim. There's the connection.

Berlioz - La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise is the French national anthem. It was written by Captain Rouget de L'Isle in 1792. This is also available on a CD called ""La Marseillaise & Other Berlioz Favorites."

Resolute Determination: Napoleon and the French Empire
The Modern Scholar series (CD-Book)
Read by Donald M.G. Sutherland
2009
Published and recorded by Recorded Books
This is a great series of audio books for serious listeners. They're a bit academic, but still often found in public libraries. this one is, obviously, about Napoleon Bonaparte, who is a side character in Pink Carnation.

Tech Tools for Reference

2011-10-07T09:00:00.005-04:00

On Wednesday, I gave a talk for The Library Network Adult Services Committee. I've given this particular talk a few times previously at different workshops, and it's one of my favorites. Tech Tools for Reference focuses on free online tools that help reference librarians do our jobs more easily. It includes work-arounds for common problems our patrons face. The emphasis is on free and online - no downloads or installations and no money necessary.

I'll embed the Slideshare here, but keep in mind that I wasn't going for design. It's just a list of URLs by category. When I gave the actual presentation, I used links in my Delicous account tagged as "tln" and "techtools." Feel free to have a look!

Tech tools for reference tln

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Books are Sacred

2011-10-04T09:00:00.009-04:00

(Photo credit: Vaultboy on Flickr)

Somewhere along the way, books became sacred. I don't just mean Bibles and other truly sacred texts, either. There are some really interesting books about...well, books and the history of written language. I find that kind of thing fascinating!

I moved houses recently, and it made me look at the books I own. I'm not a big book-buyer or book-owner. The books I do own are mostly gifts, cook books, and a very few (maybe 10?) titles I bought at used book sales and the Borders close-out sale and haven't read yet.

As a child, a teen, and even a young adult, I loved books and couldn't stand the thought of parting with them. They would have been the first items to get moved to the new house.

Now that I'm older, maybe it's that the library business has made me look at books in a different way. They aren't as sacred to me because I'm surrounded by them all day every day. I'm more into the idea of "open source," and sharing where books are concerned. I am happy to take my turn with a books I want and then pass it back for the good of the community.

Owning a book that sits on a shelf just seems wasteful. I never read a book twice. Ever. I can't think of a book that I've read more than once. There are so many books in the world, and I take too long to get through each one that I choose, that re-reading a book seems like a waste of time. I envy people who do, though. I'm sure a second reading would give so much more meaning and depth to a book.

The moral of the story is that when I moved recently, books were among the first things sorted into "keep" or "weed" piles. The "weed" pile got donated back to the library. The "keep" pile will find their way into my new house. I weeded a lot, actually...but I know that if I ever want to read them, they're probably available at a library somewhere.

(As an aside, I don't own an eReader, but that would have pretty much solved my problem of which books to move, wouldn't it?)

Shelf Balancing Follow-Up

2011-09-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

As you all know, I'm a big fan of Tony Greiner, the author of the article that my shelf-shifting project was based on. (November/December 2005 issue of Public Libraries magazine called "Collection Development and Shelf Space: A Proposal for Nonfiction Collections). The word is out, and Mr. Greiner emailed me! Very cool. He's thinking about writing a follow-up article, and was excited that someone followed his formula. I'll be keeping careful track of the changes in circulation patterns now that the shift is done in my non-fiction collection, and Mr. Greiner and I will collaborate on a follow-up to his article sometime down the road.

I'm very excited to get September's circulation statistics, but even more so to watch them over the next few months. I *hope* that things start circulating more, now that the collections are fresher and spaced more comfortably.

In the meantime, the school year has started and that also lends certain collections to higher circulation. Math, science, history, language arts...I would expect those collections to have a bit of a bump in circulation in September over the summer months.

I'll let you all know what happens over the next few months!

September Reading List

2011-09-27T09:00:00.006-04:00

Change of Heart
by Jodi Picoult

Where to even begin to describe this interesting, layered book? June Nealon lost her first husband in a car accident, and her second husband and daughter murdered by their handyman, Shay Bourne. June was seven months pregnant at the time, and her second daughter was born with a heart defect. Talk about bad luck! The story is told from various perspectives: the priest who was on Shay Bourne's jury and becomes his spiritual advisor, Shay's ACLU lawyer who tries to get him an execution by hanging rather than lethal injection (so that he can be an organ donor and give his heart to June's second daughter), and from another inmate in the cell next to Shay's - among others. I listened to this full-cast recording on audio. It was a little longer than necessary - as Picoult's books often are - but definitely interesting. There is a weird side-story about miracles that Shay seems to be performing, making religious fundamentalists believe he is the Messiah.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
by Lauren Willig

This is about the most elusive spy of all time called The Pink Carnation. In the vein of The Scarlet Pimpernell, The Pink Carnation takes up at the end of the French Revolution and tries to thwart Napoleon’s plans. It has just enough detail to be informative and to make sense of the story, but without being dry or boring. The characters and their dialogue are interesting, and funny at times. Love it! Recommended!

Matched
by Ally Condie

Cassia has been matched to Xander. This is almost unheard of, since they grew up together. Most matches are between people in different parts of the country. The Society knows best, though, so Cassia and Xander are happy about their matching. Why, then, can't Cassia get Ky out of her mind?

Not My Daughter
by Barbara Delinsky

Susan Tate, a respected high school principal, is questioned about her parenting abilities when her daughter is part of a pregnancy pact. That's right, not one but THREE pregnant teenagers! All bright, responsible, well-behaved young women. Susan's job is on the line, and the fact that she, herself, was a teenage mother is also brought up. Thank goodness Susan has close friendships to help her through this hard time. Barbara Delinsky is one of my go-to authors for what I call "brain candy."

Shelf Balancing Results

2011-09-13T09:00:00.006-04:00

(Read my previous posts on shelf balancing here.)

Before...books on the very top shelves and very little extra space on any shelf

After...lots of extra space on every shelf, and no books on the very top shelves (which you can't see here. There's one more empty shelf above the top row of books in this picture.)

The goal of my shelf-balancing project (which just sounds fancier than "shifting," but shifting is basically what we did) was to balance the available space between the collections. It wasn't to equalize the space, but to create balance - a very important distinction. This project was focused solely on non-fiction, so the "collections" are the Dewey ranges from 000 to 900. I took into consideration the average size of the items in any given collection (art books are huge; poetry books are small), the average circulation of the items (some collections circulate more during the school year and less in the summer, and some just have a higher turnover rate), and how much space was actually available. We shifted the reference collection enough to add about half a row of shelves to the end of the non-fiction section. A lot of weeding has been done in the last year, and there were big pockets of space here and there throughout non-fiction. That space was needed in different areas, so we balanced it out.

I admit, I was nervous about the whole thing. Once you start shifting, it can snowball out of control. You can end up with an empty row at the end, when you thought you'd run out of space well before that. In that case, you have to start over and adjust your spacing as you go. That would have been really, really bad! The opposite could have also happened - you could run out of space much too soon and not get to shift the collections that need it most. It is a delicate endeavor that requires a lot of attention.

So, we started at the end of the 900s and shifted toward the 000s. At one point, there was a completely empty row. I had some confidence in my numbers, and that we'd fill it back up when we got a bit further in, but I was definitely nervous at times!

Here's a half-empty row with another half-empty row on the other side.

I honestly thought we'd run out of extra space around the 500s. That didn't happen. We made it all the way to the beginning with just enough space to give a little breathing room to the computer books in the 000s. I would have liked to have more space left to give the computer books, but they did get a nudge.

The formula I started with came from an article by Tony Greiner from the November/December 2005 issue of Public Libraries magazine called "Collection Development and Shelf Space: A Proposal for Nonfiction Collections." The man is a genius and I would LOVE to meet him someday! (Anybody know him?) It was actually a combination of formulas that assigns shelf space by percentage of circulation. Basically, he says that the percentage of the total available shelving assigned to any collection should be equal to that collection's percentage of the total circulation. If the 400s contribute to 2% of the total circulation, they should be assigned 2% of the total available shelving. You have to adjust for size, like in the 700s where the art books are oversized, but that's the general premise. When I ran the numbers, it looked like the 000s should get 73 more shelves and the 300s should give up 32 shelves. Some of the numbers, like these, seemed a little extreme. I guess I couldn't commit completely to Mr. Greiner's philosophy. I added an "adjusted for practicality" column to my spreadsheet and went with adding 15 shelves to the 000s and only giving up 6 shelves from the 300s.

In addition to not quite committing 100% to Mr. Greiner's philosophy, I was in a position not mentioned in his article: the shelf balancing part. I had those big pockets of space created by weeding that needed to be acknowledged. I didn't want to penalize collections that had been weeded by giving away all the space created by those diligent librarians. They needed to be left some room to grow and replace some of what was removed. I also didn't want to award the collections that were overfull from lack of weeding. They weren't going to get extra space to accommodate their out-of-date books. Again, I wanted to balance the space. Luckily, there really weren't any horribly neglected collections, so it wasn't too much of an issue - but I did take it into consideration.

The good news is that every collection now has a comfortable amount of space.

The bad news is that a lot of different people contributed to the shifting, and some people had a different idea of what was "enough" space to leave on each shelf. Had one person done all of the shifting, it would have been more consistent. That was impossible, so we ended up with some inconsistency. I would have liked certain collections to get a bit more space than they ended up getting.

Back to the good news: every collection has a comfortable amount of space. I went back and counted how many shelves each Dewey range ended up occupying after the shift. My "adjusted for practicality" numbers are reasonably close to the final numbers! For example, I planned to assign 75 total shelves to the 500s and they ended up with 71. The 700s were assigned 160 and ended up with 158. The one that was the furthest off was the 900s, which I had assigned 250 and ended up with 227. Even the 000s ended up on 45 shelves, while I had hoped for 60. After shifting every single item starting at 999, I feel pretty good about giving the 000s five extra shelves, even if I had hoped for 15 extra. Especially since I thought we'd run out of extra shelves by the 500s.

I wish I had more scientific or logical reasoning to share for the "adjusted for practicality" column on the spreadsheet. It was a combination of having done a shift like this before, closely following circulation patterns and weeding habits of the librarians, and a good guess. It was totally worth doing and I'm happy with the results!

Funny Reference Questions

2011-09-09T09:00:00.006-04:00

I love swapping reference stories with librarians! I've had a few interesting reference encounters recently, so I thought I'd share.

Russian Weather
Patron: What's the weather in Russia?
Me: What part of Russia?
Patron: Just Russia.
Me: Russia is even bigger than the United States. The weather in the U.S. is different depending on which part you are in.
Patron: Ok, what's a city in Russia?
Me: Any city?
Patron: Yeah.
Me: Moscow?
Patron: Sure. What's the weather in Moscow?
Me: (Googled it.) High of 64, low of 52, partly cloudy.

What Year is My Car?
This one took place as I relieved another librarian from the desk at shift change. She'd been on the phone with him for some time, and explained as much as she knew to me and passed the phone over for me to continue with the patron. In a nutshell, the patron had bought a car and wanted to know what year it is. (My first thought: how do you buy a car and not know what year it is??)
Patron: I bought a car at this place for $10. I want to know what year it is.
Me: Wow, $10??
Patron: Yeah, it's a Porsche Boxter.
Me: WOW, TEN DOLLARS?? (Slightly louder than necessary)
Patron: Yeah. What year is it?
Me: I can find you a book about Porsche cars and you can match yours to the picture. Or you can type the car's VIN into a site like CarFax.com and it would tell you.
Patron: Ok. The VIN is "42"
Me: The VIN should be a much longer number.
Patron: (yells to someone in background) "Honey! Bring me that car from the dresser!"
Me: Oooohhhhh! Is it a model?
Patron: Yeah, a model.
Me: That explains the $10. Also, Porsche started making Boxters in 1997, but you might still want to look at a book to match yours to a picture.
Patron: Ok, thanks. Bye. (hangs up)
Me: (stares at phone in disbelief.)

Gypsy Music
I don't remember the exact dialogue of this transaction, but basically, a patron asked for a CD of Hungarian Rhapsodies. I wasn't finding much in our own catalog, and the classical music by Hungarian composers like Franz Liszt wasn't working for her. In talking, she finally told me that she wants to be able to make requests in restaurants that have those roaming musicians. "You know, 'gypsy music.'" We did find music cataloged under "gypsies - music" and she was satisfied.

July and August Reads

2011-09-03T09:00:00.001-04:00

What?! I didn't do reading lists for July or August? Oops! Here's what I've been reading:

Real Simple Solutions
by Real Simple
My spring cleaning happened a little late. I was just looking for some tips on non-toxic, green cleaning solutions. Real Simple had a lot of great ideas. The book is a little heavy on pictures and a little light on content, but the pictures are well-done at least.

Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving
by Ellie Topp
Apparently, you don't have to can a bajillion quarts of pickles at once. You can do 2 or 3 quarts at once. Genius!

The Hunting Wind
by Steve Hamilton
A little brain candy for my summer reading. I like Steve Hamilton's books because of the U.P. setting and the fast-paced plot. Where a normal book takes me a full month or more to get through, these thrillers are quick reads at a week or less. One thing that I always notice about the recurring main character, Alex McKnight: he doesn't sleep much. He's always up for days at a time, tracking down a killer. He can sure take a beating, too.

Empire State: A Love Story
by Jason Shiga
I decided it was time to delve into the graphic novels collection. This is about a sheltered, home-body boy who is in love with his best friend: a girl who moves to New York to take an editing internship to expand her horizons and spread her wings. Will they find a way to be together? Will he proclaim his love for her? A very cute book!

Stitches
by David Small
This graphic novel is very emotional, dark, and dramatic. It is autobiographical in nature - the author's father accidentally gave him thyroid cancer by overexposing him to radiation as a child. His father, the radiologist, x-rayed him over and over for every little malady he may have had. They told him he was going into surgery to have a cyst removed from his neck, but he woke up without a thyroid. They never told him it was cancer - he found out accidentally. Full of dis-functional family drama, this book is a page turner.

Handle with Care
by Jodi Picoult
Another emotional read. I love Jodi Picoult. There are always layers in her stories, and sometimes metaphors that you don't "get" until you finish the book. This is about a girl born with osteogenesis imperfecta - brittle bones. Her mother decides to sue her best friend (who was unfortunately her obstetrician) for wrongful birth. The story is told from the perspectives of each player: the mother, her husband, the sister, and the best friend. I found myself agreeing with all sides of the story, which was confusing and a bit disconcerting. I wanted to choose a side and stick to it, but as each character weighed in, I found myself agreeing with what they had to say. I listened to this on audio, which was done by a full cast of performers for each character.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

2011-08-31T09:00:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it? I've been in my current job for two years today. In some ways, it's like I was always here. In other ways, it's like I'm still new.

Like I was always here
I have begun to fill in the history of things. How people, collections, random files, procedures, etc. got to be the way they are now. I can tell new people the history, and I'm even part of the history sometimes.

I am fairly familiar with the building. I know where the weird storage area is at the bottom of the emergency stairwell. I know how the snow melt system works. I have trained two other people how to work with the fire alarm panel. I know where the hot spots, and the cold spots, are.

I've gotten to know my co-workers better. I'm not a nosy, too-familiar, "tell me every detail of your weekend" kind of person, so I don't know people intimately - but that's who I am. I do have an idea of who likes mornings and who would rather work evenings, who likes the youth desk and who prefers the readers advisory desk, and who likes to weed and who does it because they have to.

Like I'm still new
And then there are the details I learn pretty much every day.

I've done annual collection budget requests twice. This year could have been the first time. I learned that certain collections go in certain librarians' budgets (that I wouldn't have guessed...). I learned that overdue fines for certain collections are tracked separately as revenue. I learned that I have more freedom to move money around than I realized.

Every time I train someone new, they ask a question that I'd never considered, and don't know the answer to.

I just started managing a collection, so that procedure is new to me.

New, old, whatever. I love my job and I'm happy to be here. Two years in, and roughly 20 to go (before I can retire).

The PLC

2011-08-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Public Library Core Collection: Nonfiction
13th edition
2008

This reference book (and also database) is more commonly known as the Public Library Catalog, or the PLC. It lists titles that are considered "core" for the average public library nonfiction collection. I have opinions about it. Are you surprised?

This can be a handy tool for a number of reasons:
-Wondering if a title is cataloged correctly? There are a lot of ways to check that, including looking it up in the PLC. Subject headings and call numbers are provided for the titles it includes.

-Wondering if a title should be kept vs. weeded? Look it up in the PLC to see if it is considered a "core" title.

-Building a library from scratch? Look for titles considered "core" in each subject area to give you a starting point.

Here's what it is not intended for:
-Giving the final answer in that keep or weed scenario. Circulation data means more than a listing in the PLC. Is the item being used, or has it been a shelf-sitter for a while? Personally, I don't care what the PLC says. If a book has been sitting untouched for several years, the community has spoken: it's unwanted. Besides, I can probably ILL it from somewhere if I weed it.

-Defining a collection. Your library's mission and collection management policy define your collection. The PLC can't speak to the intricacies and specifics of your community. Let your users lead the way in collection scope, and write mission statements and collection policies that follow their lead.

Conclusion:
The PLC is a great starting point and a handy reference tool. It should be taken with a grain of salt and never supercede what the public demands. You never have to buy a title just because it is listed in the PLC, and you never have to keep a title just because it is listed in the PLC. It is one set of data among all the other collection data available to you.

Interns

2011-08-23T09:00:00.006-04:00

Sorry about the picture - I couldn't resist.

I love interns, and I am grateful that my library has an active internship program. We have three professional interns at any given time. The benefit to the library is that we get fresh-perspective, enthusiastic, paraprofessional-level help. The benefit to the intern is hands-on, real-world experience in a stable, respectable public library.

One of the requirements is that they be currently enrolled in a library science program. We do take into consideration that not all universities call their program "library science" - we will accept information science or other equivalent, but it has to be a masters-level program in this industry. Once they graduate, the internship is over. They are then invited to become a substitute librarian for our library.

We prefer to hire masters students who have taken a few of the core classes in the program, but who still have a year or so to go in the program. This gives us time to provide a well-rounded experience in various areas of public service. It also gives them time to experience a full calendar year at our library, from summer reading program to winter exam week and everything in between. It is not a requirement that they intern for a full year, but a preference. We avoid hiring someone in September who will graduate in December. Our internship program is more structured than three months will allow. Someone who wants a brief hands-on experience in a library should consider a practicum (although practicums cost money and our internship pays.) The maximum time on an internship is two years.

Interns start out with mostly service desk duties. They provide reference, reader advisory, tech support, and general help to library patrons of all ages. Once they are pretty self-sufficient at all three of our service desks (youth, readers advisory, and reference), they can start to pick up side projects. The great thing about being an intern is that you can try things fairly risk-free. Some ideas pan out and others don't, but they have lots of guidance available from the professional staff.

As they progress through the internship, they are given more freedom to do solo projects like plan and implement a program from scratch, teach a computer class, post book reviews on the staff choices blog, and take collection inventory. If they try something and hate it, they can back off and try something else. If they love it, they can take it to the next level. It's a wonderful opportunity to find their niche and build an expertise.

When I interview and hire interns, I'm looking for philosophical and personality fit more than industry knowledge. I recognize that they are probably just starting library school and have a lot to learn. That's fine - they don't need to know what's in the 100 field of a MARC record or how to access the 1880 census on day one. I can teach that. I can't teach personality. Their philosophies might also change as they move through the masters program, but if they have good instincts and a general openness to people and situations, they will make a great intern. I'm looking for a curiosity and an interest in public libraries, someone with those soft skills I'm always harping about, and someone who has energy and enthusiasm.

Interns also get to decide if they want to focus their attention on youth services, teen services, or adult services. They will be required to interact with all age groups at the various service desks, but they can specialize in a particular area if they like. For example, if they're more interested in doing storytime than teaching an adult computer class, they can choose. Or they can do both. It is completely up to the intern to make their experience what they want it to be. I always have suggestions for projects, but I also want them to come to me with ideas and interests they have.

I wish we had more time, money, and other resources to work with even more interns! I absolutely hate choosing who's in and who's out when we receive resumes for intern openings. I received 24 resumes for 3 open internships for this year, so some hard choices have to be made. Ours are all paid internships, so we have to be choosy. Unpaid interns still take time and space, but maybe you could accept one or two more on a limited basis, like shorter term for specific projects.

If you don't have interns, I highly recommend them! They bring fresh ideas to the library and help us keep up with changes in the industry.

Reading Aloud

2011-08-15T09:00:00.008-04:00

(Image borrowed from http://angiesbooknook.blogspot.com)

My bachelor's degree is in elementary education. Within that program, I majored in English and American Language and Literature and minored in Children's Literature. One of the best classes I ever took was (and I don't remember the exact title) something about teaching reading to children. The professor was amazing (I don't remember her name, though). One of the best things we learned in that class was how to read aloud. Every elementary teacher needs to know how to read aloud.

Sometimes when I am at the youth desk at my library, I can hear parents reading aloud to their children. It's such a lovely thing when parents take the time to hunker down on the little stools and read to their children! However...so often they read aloud to their children like they would read to themselves. They read really fast and with very little emotion. The children are not nearly as invested in the story as they could be.

It is a real talent to tell a good story, and to read aloud from a book. You have to put on voices for the different characters. You have to make your facial expressions match what the characters are feeling. You have to read slowly and dramatically. It takes effort. It is a performance.

I absolutely love reading to children. It is so fun to see them react physically - they gasp when the character (well, me reading the character...) gasps. They jump when your voice goes suddenly louder. Their eyes widen when you put on a slow, creepy, quiet voice. I think they get so much more out of a story when their senses are engaged.

Another thing I learned in that same reading class was that repetition is key. I cringe when I hear parents telling their kids that they can't take a particular book home because "we just had that one." Clearly, the child loves that book. They want to hear it again. What's the harm in that? It won't cost you anything to check it out from the library again. Yes, it gets annoying to read the same book over and over. Annoying for the storyteller, anyway. Children like the familiar. The best part is that if you hold up the book and move your finger along with the words, they will start to recognize the words you are reading. When they hear the story over and over, they start to memorize the words. Giving them the opportunity to see what those words look like in print is wonderful! Read the stories as many times as they like! Once they know the story, start to show them the printed word. Word recognition is a powerful tool in teaching reading. (I should admit: I hate phonics. I believe in whole language learning. That's another blog post for another time.)

The third thing I want to share about reading aloud is the idea of tying in a lesson to what you are reading. If there are ten monkeys jumping on the bed in the story, think about what else you could count to ten with (ten marbles in a bowl, ten cookies in a batch, ten cracks in the sidewalk...) Can you draw a monkey jumping on the bed? Can you make a sock monkey? Can you learn about real monkeys and where they live/what they eat? Can you act like a monkey and make sounds like a monkey? Can you make a bed? Where can you jump that is safer than a bed? My favorite part of teaching was lesson planning. It is a lot of fun to come up with activities around a central theme. Children will retain more of what they read if there are activities to go with it.

So...reading aloud is crucially important to child development, but a lot more can be gotten out of it with a little effort.

Oversized Books

2011-08-10T09:00:00.005-04:00

Many of my posts start off with a strong opinion. Here is today's: I HATE OVERSIZE BOOKS! Coffee table books belong on coffee tables. There, I've said it. Well...I don't hate oversize books themselves. They're gorgeous. What I hate is the problems they cause when casually interspersed in regular non-fiction collections in public libraries.

As I was weeding the 500s, I found a lot of oversize books: huge books with color photos of the animals of the African safari, enormous tomes of pictures of ocean life, ginormous volumes of rainforest photography, and a gigundus atlas of the constellations in the night sky. Really beautiful books. Really, really, really in the way. My library doesn't have a separate section for oversize books, so they get piled on the bottom shelf closest to where they would have fit numerically. In trying to get the books off the top shelves of the section, I needed to use those bottom shelves. I couldn't forfeit an entire shelf, or even half a shelf, for one large book that didn't fit anywhere else.

Here's the other thing: I checked the circulation statistics on most of them, and they don't circulate very well. People may browse them in-house, but they aren't lugging them home.

Not to mention the cost. Oversize books are expensive! Worth every penny, for what they are, but when given the choice between an oversize book and one that fits nicely on the shelf with the same information in it, I'll take the small one 9 times out of 10.

There are a few exceptions where oversize books are ok in public libraries:

1. Art books. They don't come any other way, so you don't really have a choice. The whole point of art books is to see the art in all its glorious details.

2. Atlases. Again, they just come in huge sizes. Atlas stands are a thing of beauty because you can keep atlases separate from regular-sized books.

3. Where there is a section devoted to oversized books where they don't get in the way of all the other, regular-sized books. That comes with its own set of issues. Patrons have to know to go to that section or risk missing out on the glorious books it holds, for one thing.

Here are some ideas I have on what to do with these oversize books.

1. They aren't circulating, so taking them away from their current location probably won't hurt the statistics any. How about scattering them around the library on end tables, displays, and coffee tables? They're more likely to be browsed that way, at least.

2. Loan them to nursing homes and waiting rooms around the community. The library where I used to work had an outreach program called "Read While You Wait." They took donated paperbacks to waiting rooms and put stickers on them with the library name. People could start reading them while waiting, and then just take the book home to finish. If they wanted to return the book to the library - great. If not, they could just keep it. The library replenished the pile every now and then. Since oversize books are not likely to be carried home (too big!!), they would make great "Read While You Wait" books. Nursing home residents, senior center members, coffee shop loiterers - anywhere people hang out - are good places for an outreach collection of oversize books.

3. If you had space, you could put those tall, skinny carts at the ends of some of the non-fiction rows and fill the carts with oversize books. This is sort of an impromptu, mobile solution to a separate oversize section. It would get the oversize books out of the regular non-fiction section (where they stick out into the aisles, tripping people) and make them more noticeable by being at the forefront of several rows.

That's it. That's all I've got. Oversize books are beautiful, but they just don't work well when interfiled with regular-sized books. I avoid buying them unless they are so special, so irreplaceable, and so unique that we simply must have them. In other words, rarely.

New MeL Databases

2011-08-06T09:00:00.002-04:00

I wrote a while back about my favorite MeL Databases. The Michigan eLibrary has negotiated new contracts for databases, and there are some significant changes to what will be offered starting in October. I'm happy to report that only one of my top ten has been cut!

Starting in October, MeL databases will include (those included in my top ten are bolded):

Gale/Cengage Learning
-Academic OneFile with eCollections
-Biography & Genealogy Master Index
-Books & Authors
-Business and Company Resource Center
-Chilton’s
-Gale Virtual Reference Library
-General OneFile with eCollections
-Health and Wellness Resource Center and Alternative Health Module
-Health Reference Center Academic
-Informe!
-InfoTrac Newstand
-Kids InfoBits
-Nursing Resource Center with Alternative Health Module
-Opposing Viewpoints in Context
-Sabin Michigana
-Small Business Resource Center

ProQuest
-eLibrary
-eLibrary Elementary
-SIRS Discoverer
-SIRS Renaissance
-CultureGrams Online
-HeritageQuest Online
-Lansing State Journal

LearningExpress, LLC
-LearningExpress Library (inc. Basic Computer Skills)
-Job & Career Accelerator

NewsBank
-Detroit News
-Grand Rapids Press
-Traverse City Record Eagle

NetLibrary is not listed, but the titles included in that database were purchased by the Library of Michigan, so they aren't going away.

The one from my top ten list that got cut was WorldCat. I did use it and I did like it, but I can work with this cut. Between Worldcat.org and the Library of Congress, I can get most of the information I was getting from the WorldCat database. I had been using WorldCat to look up library holdings to see how plausible an inter-library loan might be, and to look up Dewey call numbers and subject headings for new and forthcoming titles (to see if they fall into the collections I select for). I also used WorldCat in some of my freelance work to find other books under the same subject headings.

I'm also happy to see that both the Grand Rapids Press and the Traverse City Record Eagle are available through NewsBank. (Were they before?? I don't even know!) I only care now because my library was subscribing to both titles in print, and they were among the subscription cancellations I just made. Anyone who was reading the print copies can still have access via NewsBank (as well as the web sites for both titles for browsing current articles.)

The new additions that I'm most excited about are CultureGrams and Opposing Viewpoints, which my library was subscribing to directly. I'm also glad to see eLibrary added, since I love eLibrary Elementary so much. I have one complaint, and that is that at least some of the companies are only offering credit to libraries who already paid for databases directly that have now been added to MeL. Many libraries would rather be reimbursed.

I know a lot of libraries are concerned about the loss of NoveList. I like NoveList, but I am fortunate to work in a library with a budget that can probably pay for it directly (especially now that we don't have to pay for CultureGrams or Opposing Viewpoints). Deals are being made with consortia around the state so that there are discount options available to libraries who still want to subscribe to NoveList. The content is largely available through Books and Authors, although the interface of the two databases is significantly different. Libraries who can not afford to subscribe to NoveList directly will still have access to Books and Authors, so their patrons do still have an option for a readers advisory-type database.

How are you all feeling about these changes?

Writing Reviews

2011-08-02T09:00:00.004-04:00

Hooper, B. (2010). Writing reviews for readers' advisory. Chicago: American Library Association.

I've been poking through the professional collection at my library, which happens to reside in my office. I already reviewed "Crash Course in Reference," and now I've moved on to an area where I can use all the help I can get: reader advisory. I'm not bad at RA...it's just not an area of service that comes easily to me.

The main reason I chose this book, though, is because writing book reviews always feels like a chore to me. As a smart librarian - Kathryn Bergeron of the blog Reference Counterculture wrote recently, the reason she writes a lot of read-alike posts is because she hates doing them, and the best way to get over that hatred is to do it. I agree. I hate writing book reviews because I'm not that good at it. I will never get better unless I write more reviews. My library has a staff choices blog, and I try to write one a month. I also write a "what I've been reading" post monthly for this blog. I'd like to get better at it.

That's where this book comes in. The author is a reviewer for Booklist. He gives advice on how to write good reviews. It's a tiny book with practical advice. It's very easy to get through, and includes lots of examples. The best pieces of advice I picked up from this book are:

1. Every book review should tell the reader what the book is about and how good it is. Sounds simple, right? Here's how you do that:

2. Read critically, not just for enjoyment. Really pay attention to characters, plot, theme, setting, and writing style.

3. Be lively in your reviews. Use humor where appropriate. Match the mood of your review to the mood of the book.

4. Be critical, not cranky. If you have an opinion, share it. If that opinion is negative, that's ok, but be constructive and back up your point with examples. You can't just say "worst book ever" without explaining why.

5. Be generous. You can write a negative review, but if the book has any redeeming qualities, point them out.

6. Remember that you are reviewing someone else's work. They are the star here, not you. Don't overwrite and try to put the focus on yourself and your writing. Put the focus on the book. That's what the point of a book review is.

It Ain't Easy

2011-07-28T09:00:00.003-04:00

I love to weed. Love it. That's no surprise to anyone. Here's the thing, though: it's not about the weeding itself. It's about what you create when you weed. I really love a shiny, clean, up-to-date collection where you know that everything you pull off the shelf is relevant.

I also love the relationship you create with a collection when you weed it. Too psycho-babble-y? Ok, I'm not in there singing Kum ba yah and laying hands on the books. I just mean that when you separate the good from the bad, you become more aware of what you have.

I weeded the 500s yesterday. For those of you who don't know, that is the Dewey section for science and math. I'd already gone over it once and pulled the most obvious shelf-sitters. I started with a report from the library catalog that listed every title in the 500s section that hadn't been checked out in the last five years. There were a couple hundred. Yesterday was the second go-over of this collection. I really needed to make more space there, so I narrowed that list to titles that hadn't been checked out in the last three years. There were another couple of hundred. I've pulled maybe fifty from that list so far.

I'm a firm believer that you can not rely on circulation statistics alone. My first pass was mainly to pull shelf-sitters, but this time I wanted to pay more attention to what was on the shelf while I was in there: what looked dirty, torn, yellowed, and stupid.

Yes, I said stupid. I found a book called "The Abacus: A Pocket Computer." Seriously. It had gone out in the last two years, so it wasn't on the report. I can only imagine the person who checked it out, taking it home to show their friends, "Look what I found at the library! Har har har!" Oh, the shame. I'm sure that person didn't mention all the current books that were sitting right next to the abacus book! I can't fault any particular person for this oversight, though. Things get missed. It might have been checked out when this section was last weeded. Librarians-of-500s-past might have a different philosophy than I do about books of a historical nature. Lord knows this collection has changed hands a few times since 1968 when this book was published. However, whatever the reason it was still there in 2011, in my humble opinion, a book about how to use an abacus is...stupid. That was an easy weed.

I also found a lot of titles on the list that were really great books. I found The Geologic Story of Isle Royale National Park by Normal King Huber, c.1983. I found Northern Flights: Tracking the Birds and Birders of Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Sheryl De Vore, c.1999. I found The World of the Penguin by Jonathan Chester, c.1996. I found Rare and Elusive Birds of North America by William Burt, c.2001. All great books; all with information duplicated in other books or databases; all with no circulations in the last three to five years.

In my first pass with the five-year list, there were some books that I just couldn't part with. I had to wait and see what else was in the collection before I could commit to weeding them. Those titles, of course, showed up again on the three-year list. It was time to make some tough choices. I had to look for other places that might contain the same information. I had to see the bigger picture.

It was painful. I still have to go back and make up about four more shelves worth of space, too. The moral of the story is: as much as I love to weed, I also love books. I have as much trouble as everyone else letting go. There are some terrific books that will have to be passed to the Friends of the Library book sale because they just aren't working in this community. I can look forward to all of the books I will continue to select for this collection that will hopefully do better, but their day will come to be weeded too. Quality collections are not static. They grow, they are used, they are popular...and then they stop. Weeding has to be done, and putting the focus back on the needs of the community and the mission of this library helps, but it ain't always easy.

Library Day in the Life 7

2011-07-25T18:03:00.001-04:00

Hey, everybody, it's #libday7! That means you get to read another stimulating day in the life of me at work. Rarely do people give me the line about "must be nice to read at work all day" (completely false), but they do sometimes assume I stamp due dates (we have receipt printers for that) and shelve books (we have Pages for that, and their job is CRUCIAL - but it's not what I do). Here's what I did today.

I came in with a plan:
1. Look at the week's service desk coverage to see where any subs maybe needed
2. Finalize the shelf balancing plan (aka shifting of non-fiction)
3. Write a book review for the staff choices blog
4. Plan service desk coverage during upcoming in-house Joomla training
5. Read resumes/cover letters sent in for internship positions

Here's what actually happened:
1. My mailbox was packed! There were four time off request forms (torfs...the devil's paperwork), a big envelope of brochures for a nearby university (passed to college search collection person), an internship resume/cover letter, and some junk mail.

2. Dealt with the torfs. It won't be pretty on those days, but we'll get the desks covered. I sent an email to the sub list to see who's available to cover on those days.

3. Moving on to email. Received a few more intern applications. I printed them and added to the pile of those to be read.

4. I took the camera up to the third floor to take some "before" pictures of the non-fiction section. I am planning a shelf balancing project to start next month. Some of the Dewey ranges within non-fiction are really tight on space. Other sections have been recently weeded, and so they have lots of open space available. I took pictures of the tight spots and the really open spots.

5. If you read those shelf balancing posts I already wrote, you will see how mathematical the whole thing is. I need to make sure that each section is allotted enough space, but not too much. I need to count the shelves that each range currently takes up and figure out how many shelves each collection needs - and stay within the total number of shelves available. It is difficult because some sections have six shelves per column and some have five. Some, like the 700s, are spaced wider because those art books are so huge. When we shift, the 700s won't be on those wider spots anymore, and the places where they land will have to be re-spaced. What a nightmare. I still don't have it quite right. I realized by the time I got to the 500s (my collection) that it wasn't going to fit.

6. So I weeded. First, I ran a new report - everything in the 500s that hasn't been checked out in three years or more, organized by publication date. With 13 pages of titles in hand, I grabbed a cart and headed back upstairs. As much as I love a clean collection, and the act of weeding, My collection is down to where it is starting to hurt to let go of some of the titles. They aren't bad books - they just aren't being used. I filled an entire cart with books to be passed on to the Friends of the Library's book sale.

7. I unloaded the cart onto the counter in my office so that the cart could be used elsewhere in the building. I had to be on-desk in fifteen minutes, so I updated #libday7 on my twitter feed, checked email quickly, and went back upstairs to the reference desk.

8. I am now on-desk. It's a slow night, reference-wise! I've been here for an hour and only had one question so far: "How do I get to the Detroit Free Press Index?" He really wanted to search the Detroit Free Press Historical database, and I got him in to it. I've got another hour at this desk, then an hour off, then back on at the reader's advisory desk. I'm planning to get that Staff Choices blog book review written while I'm on desk, and start reading those resumes too.

So, better get to it! If this week shapes up interesting, I'll write up another #libday7 post.

Multi-Type Advisory, Take 2

2011-07-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

My first attempt at multi-type advisory was blogged here. Here's my second attempt.

We'll start with a CD this time. You know who's popular? Pink. I have her CD "Greatest Hits...So Far," released in 2010. Obviously, it includes her greatest hits: songs like "Get the Party Started," "Don't Let Me Get Me," and my personal favorite, "Raise Your Glass." Pink is loud, aggressive, and obnoxious. She's also strong, creative, and sincere. She and her music make no apologies for who they are, and seem to accept other people as they are as well, but encourages people to get out there and try things, to have a personality, and to live large.

Here are my pairing suggestions:

Books:
The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure by Rachel Friedman. Rachel had always been a good girl. She was a good student; obedient and safe. On a whim, she bought a ticket to Ireland and set off on a journey of self-discovery.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tim Robbins. A road trip book about sassy girls. What else need I say? Pink could be a character in this book!

Web Site:
Geek the Library - whatever you are into, the library has something for you. Just as Pink is who she is and likes what she likes, you can too. Whatever your thing is, geek it! Be it! Live it! Enjoy it!

Movies:
Charlie's Angels (2000). Pink would make a great Angel.

Get Him to the Greek (2010). Pink is actually in this movie. She plays herself. This movie is funny, over-the-top, and party-laden. Perfect match.

A Few More Tech Tools

2011-07-21T09:00:00.003-04:00

Here are a few tech tools I've been using lately. Enjoy!

BibMe
Requires a free account, but worth doing so your citations are saved for you. First, click on the colored tab that matches what type of material you want to ~~site~~ cite [update: (thanks for the correction, anonymous commenter!)] (book, magazine, etc.) Let's look at a book example. Type in an ISBN, a title, or an author and BibMe finds the book. *Shameless Plug*: I searched for "Making a Collection Count." If you click on a title in the results list, a new browser tab opens to the WorldCat.org record for that title. Do this to make sure it's the right one. Once verified, close that browser tab and go back to the BibMe tab. Now click on the green "Select" check-mark next to the title. A form appears with the citation information for that item. You can choose to site the whole book or a chapter from the book. If you scroll down, there is a place to add an annotation if you want. Click on "Add to My Bibliography." An ad appears. Your choice: click it or ignore it. Your citation is now saved in the "My Saved Bibliography" tab at the top of the screen. In that tab, you can choose a different citation style and the list changes to that style. Genius!

I still love Son of Citation Machine, too, but it doesn't save your citations. I can see using BibMe while writing papers and books, but even just to keep a list of books and articles you want to remember to read later.

PDF to JPG Online Converter
No accounts or software downloads required. Ignore (or click if you like) the ad in the middle of the page. Scroll down to the "Choose File" button. Find the PDF saved on your computer. If you want to be notified when the conversion is completed, enter your email address. I never do this, honestly. Click on "Convert PDF to JPG" and sit back. About two seconds later, a new screen comes up. Again, an ad is prominent at the top of the page (hey, it's a free service, isn't it?) usually, you will have two choices below the ad: JPG Pictures and ZIP Archive. Just click on "Download" under JPG Pictures and save your new JPG. Very, very simple.

There's always Zamzar for other file conversions, too. Upload your file, get it back in another format. No accounts or software installations necessary. It'll convert just about anything to just about anything else.

Fagan Finder
Fagan Finder is a search engine for finding specific things, like definitions, images, quotations, Wikipedia articles, videos, weather, maps, etc. Yes, Google will find all of that for you too, but Fagan Finder lets you just select a radio button for your choice and put in your key word. Fagan Finder is more like a collection of the best sources for your answer. It is useful for those times when Google is too much, or too irrelevant. Fagan Finder will give you the best tools to search. It is a great starting point for research on a topic. Read their about page for a great description of this tool.

Customer's Always Right

2011-07-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Yes, the customer is always right. Even when they're wrong. I handled a complaint today. It was a minor one, but a lady asked for a manager and I happened to walk past at that moment. Lucky me! You never know what to expect when someone asks for a manager.

We were standing next to an empty conference room, so I invited her in. My first rule of dealing with this kind of thing is to try to go somewhere that is private. That way other patrons don't have to witness it when/if it gets heated. That's just embarrassing! It also shows the patron that you care enough to give them some privacy. We pulled up chairs and I introduced myself as the Adult Services Coordinator (I don't think that impressed her. What the heck is an ASC, after all?)

My second rule is to ask them to explain what happened. Sometimes this takes a while. They start talking and they keep talking. There's no point in interrupting to ask questions. They have something to say, and by gosh they're going to say it. Make eye contact, nod thoughtfully, and just let them get it all out. Eventually they will stop talking.

That brings me to rules #3 and #4: be sincere and do not be defensive. Remember that the patron is always right! Sometimes, they are clearly wrong, but if they bothered to ask for a manager to complain, they get to be right. Apologize if need be. If the patron is clearly wrong, you just say "I'm so sorry you had a bad experience at the library." Don't offer excuses. Ask what they would like to see happen. Then compromise if you need to. No, the staff person won't necessarily be fired, but the staff person will be met with and perhaps re-trained. A policy won't necessarily be re-written, deleted, or created, but it will be discussed in a manager's meeting. Offer to get back to them after it has been discussed with the Powers That Be.

In my experience, after you listen carefully and sympathize, the complainer is often done. They just wanted to be heard by someone in a position of power. When the manager gets defensive ("My staff would never do that!" or "That's not our policy!"), it fuels the complainer even further. The injustice of it all! They will NOT be treated that way! Your staff did TOO do that! It may not be your policy, but IT HAPPENED!

The most difficult part, to me, is suggesting a compromise. It's not that I don't want to - heck, I don't care, just give 'em what they want! It's that you don't want to promise something you can't deliver and you don't want to pass the buck to your boss, either. As a middle-manager, I need to just be able to deal with complaints. I can't pass simple complaints, like the one I took today, up the chain. I have to come up with something reassuring, sensitive, and sympathetic to say that doesn't break too many major policies. I suggested that the staff member be asked about it, that the managers discuss it in our meeting, and that I call her back after those two things have happened. This promised follow-through, but gives me a chance to see what the other managers think - and get the staff person's side of the story.

When the patron is clearly wrong, it is difficult to stay neutral. You want to defend your staff and your library! But, the customer is always right. Always. Even when they're wrong.

Nook Simple Touch Reader

2011-07-14T09:00:00.004-04:00

The newest Nook eReader is awesome. It is my current favorite. If I were to buy an eReader, this would be the one I would get.

It is black and white, so it has the eInk technology that looks like real paper. There is no glare. Of course, that means you can't read in the dark, but it also means that the screen looks great in direct sunlight. There is a tiny bit of flashing when you turn pages, but B&N claims it is 80% less than other eReaders. The only devices that don't flash between page turns are those with full-color displays.

It is wifi enabled. You can purchase books wirelessly through the Barnes & Noble eBook store. When I tried to download a free title, though, I couldn't because this device belongs to the library and does not have a default credit card set up. Even free titles apparently require a credit card number on file. But...if it were my own device, I could download both free and for-pay titles through the B&N store wirelessly on the device. Also, Nook has a "LendMe" feature that allows you to share and swap titles with other Nook users.

I also transferred an Overdrive title to the device. It was just as easy as the other Nook devices. Just download the title to your computer, open it in Adobe Digital Editions, and drag the title to the device in ADE. This requires the device to be connected to the computer's USB port. This device is also compatible with Project Gutenberg and Google eBooks collections, as well as any other ePub

It has a real touch screen. Not like the black & white "original" Nook, which has a touch pad area at the bottom of the screen, but a real, full touch screen like the Nook Color. You turn pages with a swipe of the finger on the screen. You type with a fully touch keyboard. You make selections on the on-screen menus. I also love that the menus are very easy to open and close. They have little Xs in the top, right-hand corner of the menus, so it looks like closing a menu on a Windows computer. You just tap the X and the menu closes. Touch the screen anywhere and the menu appears.

This device is the perfect size, shape, and weight. It is about as big as my hand - 6.5" tall by 5" wide (see picture below). It's the same size screen as the Kindle (6"), but the device is smaller because it doesn't have that button keyboard at the bottom like the Kindle does. It's 7.48 ounces in weight, which is lighter than your average paperback book. The battery life is up to two months (depending, of course, on how long you read in one sitting, and less if the wifi is on. I believe that is based on half-hour reading sessions with wifi turned off.)

As for other features, you can re-size the font, choose from different font styles, bookmark, highlight passages, and connect it to your social networks. Want to tweet and facebook passages you are reading? Want to tell people what page you're on? Just go to the "Social" setup menu and connect your profiles. See the picture below.

Other specs:
-Holds 2GB, or roughly 1,000 books.
-Has a microSD slot for more storage.
-Supports ePub, PDF, JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP files. No audio.

Pictures:

Reading a book.

Change the font size and style easily.

Connect the device to your social networking profiles.

Compare to the size of my hand.

Or, compare to the size of a soda can.

June Reads

2011-07-11T09:00:00.002-04:00

Here's what I've been reading this month!

Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Two very different girls sign up for a student exchange program. Ivy June Mosley is from rural Kentucky, while Catherine Combs is from the city of Lexington. These seventh graders fear that they will have nothing in common, but find that they are alike in more ways than they realized. This is a very cute book for any tween girl, and family-friendly as well.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Abilene Tucker is sent off to Manifest, Kansas live with an old friend of her father's. The story takes place alternately between Abilene in 1936 and when her father lived there in 1918. Abilene hopes to learn more about her father and his time there. When she finds an old cigar box full of letters from a spy named The Rattler, and when she meets the local diviner who only tells stories from the past, Abilene's summer gets more interesting.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

This is the second book in the Uglies series. I liked Uglies - didn't love it - but was entertained by it. Sometimes you need to read at least one more book in a series to make up your mind one way or another. Uglies was better than Pretties, but Pretties was interesting enough to keep reading. I don't think I'll read more in the series, but it wouldn't be the worst choice if stranded on a deserted island with no other reading material. I read the first one to see what all the fuss was about. Everyone has been talking about this series. In Pretties, Tally Youngblood has had the operation to become pretty. She's as brainless and superficial as everyone else. Memories keep surfacing, though, and when an old friend from The Smoke appears, she knows there's something not quite right. They give her "the cure" - pills she takes that cure her brain from the lesions all pretties have. Suddenly she is more "bubbly" (ie. focused) than ever. Her boyfriend took the cure too, though, and has suffered headaches ever since. They need help from the New Smoke people to cure him for good.

Put 'Em Up: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling by Sherri Brooks Vinton

I want to learn to can the produce from my garden. I've been looking through lots of books on the subject, but so far this is my favorite. It's organized nicely by ingredient (want bean recipes? Look under beans!), and has an excellent chapter on technique where there are step-by-step procedures on things like cold-pack canning and hot-pack canning. It also has color pictures throughout.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Elizabeth Lerner was kidnapped at age 15 by Walter Bowman. She was the only victim to survive, but no one is really sure exactly how many girls he kidnapped, raped, and killed. Walter was sentenced to death for the rape and death of his final victim, and has lived on death row for twenty years. His execution is now drawing near, and he wants to talk to Elizabeth (who now goes by Eliza Benedict). She is content with her life, has moved on, and is raising her own family when he comes back into her life, but only she can help him get a stay of execution. Will she help him? How, exactly, does he think she can help him? Will he get a stay or finally be put to death? This book is fast-paced, gritty, and psychological.

Training Program

2011-07-07T09:00:00.006-04:00

I created a training manual for our staff, which has been updated and added to over the almost-two-years I've worked in my current library. It's on paper, in a ridiculously huge three-ring binder. It's unwieldy and intimidating, although organized nicely (if I do say so myself!). My plan is to put it on the staff intranet at some point. I have used it in training the few staff I've trained, and I find it helpful. A few of you have asked me for specifics on the training program I use with new employees, so here goes.

First of all, each new employee gets a training program customized to their position, experience, and familiarity with both libraries and specifically our library. I've trained new interns who had limited library work experience - but who had more library science knowledge than, say, a parapro in the Reference Assistant position. Reference Assistants are often library employees like Pages or Clerks who have been re-assigned to a new position in the institution. They have more library work experience, and more understanding of how various departments co-exist, but very little knowledge of reference tools or reader advisory techniques. So, the first step in my training program is to consider what knowledge they bring with them.

We have a basic training checklist. When I was hired, it was a page or two long. Now it's 14 pages. I know, I know, you're thinking that is overkill. Really, though, if you're going to "check off" that someone has learned something on their "checklist," it should list everything they need to know. Right? Right. So, 14 pages is the basic model. Some people need to know more than others. The Reference Assistants who used to be Pages do not need to be told where to park. They do not need to be told where the staff lounge is. New interns who have never worked here before do. My checklist is organized by floor, since this is a three-story building. Every collection, every staff area, every desk, every storage area...everything you could possibly need to know about that floor is listed. It's not just listed, though. Most things have a few bullet points that describe what it is, where it is, and why it is important. For example, under "Public Phone" are two bullet points:
-Pay phone between double doors at public entrance to the building. Requires exact change.
-Patrons may use service desk phones if necessary. Dial “8” for an outside line.

It is more useful to the new employee to refer back to their checklist later if it doesn't just say "Public Phone."

After I go through and decide which pieces of the checklist are necessary to go over, I pull pages out of the training manual to pair up with them. There is not a training manual page for every checklist item (since, really, those two bullet points are all you need to know about the public phone. don't need a whole page on it.) I parcel the pages and checklist items by days. For example, on Day 1 of training, the employee might get a tour of one specific floor. They also get the training manual pages for that floor. We go over the checklist while they get their tour and they are given time to read the training manual pages later that day that correspond with what we talked about. The training manual pages are more of a refresher, since they will have already seen and heard about the items during the tour. I try to limit training manual pages to five or ten for any given shift. No more than what could be read easily in a half hour or so. The employee gets copies of the training manual pages to keep for themselves and refer back to later, too.

New employees will spend their first week on that same floor. Depending on the person and the specifics of their job, the checklist and training manual pages might extend that first week. I meet with them each day to go over whatever that day's items are. The rest of their time that first week is spent reading the staff intranet, their new email account, the staff blogs and wikis, and exploring. I build time into each shift for them to just wander that one floor of the library, noticing displays, signage, collections, series, authors, finding chairs, tables, and electrical outlets...just taking note of things they may not have noticed before. They also spend time each shift just observing at the staff desk on that floor.

Week two, we add another floor of the library and repeat the process of checklist, training manual, exploring, and observing. Week three, the third floor, rinse, repeat. Meanwhile, the employee is adding more and more responsibility on the previous floors. They are scheduled time with specific staff members to learn things like databases, phone system, and computer print/time management system. Observing turns into helping patrons and answering the phone over time. By the end of the third week, they are pretty proficient at the first floor desk, halfway there on the second floor desk, and familiar with the third floor desk. All the while, they are given suggested reading from the professional collection and library and book blogs.

The most important parts of the whole process are:

Talking with the new employee regularly. I have sit-downs with them at least weekly, and quick chats in passing daily, to see how they're feeling about things. What have they enjoyed most so far? What are they feeling least confident about so far?

Pairing them with long-time employees. When I was new here, I learned the most from the people who had been here the longest. They knew the history of why things were done they way they were done. It's also important to pair new employees with a variety of people so that they get to know the staff.

Teaching them in a way that ensures good habits. The written training manual pages are part of that. When I was new, sometimes different people would give me different answers to the same question. It was very confusing to know which was the correct way, or the best or most efficient way. Having things written down helps create consistency. It also gives the new employee confidence. They have paperwork (which always feels official) to back up why they are doing something a certain way and to remind themselves later.

That is the basics of my training program. It is a time investment, but so worth doing it right. It creates staff members who are confident, who can make informed decisions, and who can help patrons find what they came for. That's a valuable thing!

Multi-Type Advisory

2011-07-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

Readers advisory is often pigeon-holed as fiction or non-fiction. Some brave ~~soles~~ [edit] souls combine the two. It's easy enough to find book lists online of read alikes. I'd like to see that expanded to everything the library offers. Why limit ourselves to reading lists or watching lists or listening lists? Let's give our patrons across-the-board ideas on things they may enjoy. Here are a few examples:

We'll start with a book.

The Passage by Justin Cronin, 2010
Military experiment gone wrong: a virus turns soldiers into vampiric creatures with superhuman strength. Only a six-year-old child can save the uninfected - she can talk to the monsters with her mind.

Here's what I'm thinking for similar items:

Movies:
Miss Evers' Boys - an HBO movie and stage play about the Tuskegee experiments that took place from the 1930's to the 1970's. The government studied the effects of untreated syphillis on poor African Americans, who thought they were getting free health care. The theme of human experimentation follows from the book.

Outbreak - an older movie about the spread of the Ebola virus.

TV Shows:
Jericho - about a small town that is isolated after a nuclear attack.

Twilight Zone - several episodes have apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic themes.

Lost - the idea of a small group of people trying to make sense of their surroundings and create a community of survivors. "The Others" could be compared to the government, complete with human experimentation.

Music:
"American Soldier" by Queensryche - progressive rock with songs all about war, being a soldier, coming home from war, the effects of war, etc. The military theme, as well as the metaphorical "monster" theme carries through from the book. (Of course, in the book, the monster theme is quite literal!)

"Piece of Mind" by Iron Maiden - Dark, heavy, military themed (especially the song "The Trooper").

Audiobook, eBook, or print book:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (also a movie) - Post-apocalyptic, regular humans trying to survive and avoid the bad guys (humans who have become cannibalistic scavengers).

Shannara series by Terry Brooks - Earth was destroyed in a chemical and nuclear holocaust. The books are filled with science, technology, and magic. This one is a bit of a stretch, but there are some shared themes between Shannara and The Passage, like post-apocalyptic society, science, and different beings.

Video Games:
Metro 2033 - for XBox. Rated M. First-person shooter navigates the post-apocalyptic Moscow metro system, shooting mutants.

Fallen Earth - Windows or Mac. Rated M. Based on a real map of the Grand Canyon. A spreading virus, a super-company that becomes a self-sufficient economic and military state, and genetically-altered creatures.

There you have it - my first attempt at multi-type advisory!

Squidoo

2011-06-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

I heard about Squidoo a few years ago. It was one of those tech tools that sounded cool and I wanted to try, so I set up a free account with them and gave it a whirl.

Squidoo allows you to create what they call "lenses" on any topic. Lenses are basically little web pages. They have modules so you can link to a tag in your Delicious account, a list of pre-chosen books on Amazon, a guest book so people can leave comments on your lens, straight-up text, and others. You do have to know a bit of very basic html, but nothing crazy.
Squidoo is great for finding information on a topic. Like all web pages, authority and accuracy needs to be considered before using any information you find on Squidoo, since anyone can make a lens. What I like about Squidoo is the clean format. Some lenses are better than others in terms of content, but you can count on having the same general format in any lens you look at.

I've created a few lenses on Squidoo:

http://www.squidoo.com/libraryebooks
http://www.squidoo.com/michiganreports
http://www.squidoo.com/researchonline
http://www.squidoo.com/healthinfo2
http://www.squidoo.com/careerinfo
http://www.squidoo.com/genealogyinfo
http://www.squidoo.com/consumerinfo

Update on eReaders

2011-06-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

At the end of last year, my library purchased several different e-book readers so that our staff could become familiar with them. We were getting a lot of questions about them at the service desks, and we wanted to be able to give good answers. We purchased (links go to my reviews of the devices):
- Black & White Nook
- Nook Color
- iPad 1
- Borders Kobo
- Kindle with 3G and wifi
- Sony Touch (Part 2 of my review here)

Now, six months later, we purchased the newest Nook. It just became available this month, so we're feeling pretty cutting-edge right now! I will review it fully soon. For this post, I thought I'd just update where we are in the e-book and e-reader world. Of course, I can only speak from my own experience, so this doesn't necessarily represent the experiences of my co-workers.

First of all, I get fewer questions about e-reader devices now than I did immediately following the holiday season. I still get one or two a week, probably, but it was pretty constant for the month of January. The hardware-related questions I get now seem to be more from people who are either upgrading, changing devices for one reason or another, or who are at least a little more aware of e-books and e-readers than those who got on the holiday present bandwagon.

Second, I get more questions about e-books now than I did then. People have their devices and are looking for books. They're looking for better, faster, cheaper, and more books! We've signed up with the Overdrive Advantage Plan, so we'll be able to provide more e-books and e-audio books soon.

Next, the whole Harper Collins e-book limits business hasn't affected us very much. A very small percentage of our e-book collection are Harper Collins titles, and an even smaller number of our total circulation are HC titles. So, while I agree that their limit is a very arbitrary number and won't work for a lot of e-book lenders out there (and sets a bad precident for other publishers to follow), it hasn't been a big deal for us...yet.

Finally, the Amazon/Overdrive partnership announcement for Kindle Library Lending was huge! I am extremely happy about this, and I hope it works out as nicely as they've made it sound. I always feel like I need to apologize to Kindle owners when they ask about our Overdrive collection. It's certainly not my fault the collection isn't currently compatible, but I can't wait until I don't have to give the "UNLESS you're a Kindle user..." speech anymore.

As for me, I do not own an e-reader. Maybe someday I will (ok, probably someday I will), because I do like them a lot. For now, I'm happy to work with my library's seven devices every now and then and read paper books the rest of the time.

Why I Like Twitter

2011-06-20T09:00:00.003-04:00

I am a Twitter user. Feel free to follow me @hhibner. I do not have protected tweets, so I don't have to approve who follows me. I do look in on recent followers every now and then (and am always surprised at who's following me!), but I don't moderate new followers. Here's why.

Twitter, for me, is a professional network. My own feed crosses the line between personal and professional, but even my personal tweets are very generic. I don't worry about who sees my tweets because I never tweet anything I wouldn't say out loud. My boss can follow me, my mother can follow me, my co-workers can follow me - it doesn't matter to me who sees my tweets. Remember my post about integrity and intent? I follow my own advice. I also follow Mary Kelly's advice as she lays it out in her post about brand management.

Twitter is pretty big in librarianship. All the "cool kids" (as Mary and I like to call them) in the library world are on Twitter. I follow people like David Lee King, Michael Stephens, Bobbi Newman (Librarian By Day), Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black), and a host of others (182 others to be exact!). These are people on the cusp of library science. They were the first to break news about the Harper Collins Overdrive checkout limits, the merger of Ebsco and H.W. Wilson, the Kindle announcement of Overdrive compatibility, and various other big news announcements affecting libraries. They are the first to respond to these announcements, too. They have blogs that they tweet about, alerting me to new posts on these issues.

I also love the occasional patron tweet. These are one-liners about interesting, difficult, or weird reference questions that real librarians are experiencing. We all sympathize with them and we know where they are coming from. Patron tweets, done well, do not name patrons or describe them in enough detail to "out" who they may be in real life. They may say something like:

I do "weed" my Twitter account fairly often. I may start following someone that is re-tweeted by someone I admire. I may start following someone who's blog I discovered. I follow them for a week or so and then make a decision: am I getting enough value from their stream to keep following them? If not, they get un-followed (sorry! It's nothing personal. I'm sure they're lovely people in real life.) I try to keep my Twitter stream reasonable enough that I don't miss anything too major. When I log in, I only spend about 15 minutes reading back-tweets. If I follow too many people, I miss too much and the whole thing is useless. I don't follow everyone who follows me because I just can't keep up. I follow people who tweet regularly enough for me to get to know their specialty, but I do get annoyed with people who tweet constantly all day, every day (but who don't really SAY anything useful). Again, nothing personal...it's just how I've chosen to use my Twitter time.

So, for me, Twitter is a way to keep up with breaking news in libraryland (as well as in my hometown, since I follow the local news tv channels and newspapers). It is a way to find hot-off-the-presses blog posts. It is a way to keep up with what library movers and shakers are working on and thinking about. It is a way to keep a sense of humor about working with the public.

How Rude!

2011-06-17T09:00:00.000-04:00

Let's be honest: there are certain patrons you see coming who make you want to hide, or for your phone to suddenly ring so you don't have to deal with them. There are just unpleasant people in the world, and in a public library we work with all types. Mary Kelly wrote about "time suckers" and now it is time to talk about "energy suckers."

Energy suckers come along when everything else seems to be going well. You're doing your job, your having a good day, you're getting things done...and then Mr. X shows up. He's obnoxious. He's demeaning. He's demanding. He's also a tax paying member of the community who must be served, whether we like it or not.

It's a challenge to deal with Mr. X because he sucks the energy and inspiration out of you. If we're being reeeeeally honest, we can admit that we are probably not quite as outgoing and pleasant to him as we are to patrons we enjoy seeing. It's true. We deal with him, we serve him, and we handle him. In some cases, when he's especially troublesome, we're just shy of rude to him. We're not proud, but it happens. He pushes our buttons until our pasted-on happy face is more of a grimace.

There's only so much we can take, right? What is the breaking point between putting up with someone and...well, NOT putting up with him? How bad does someone have to be? How much abuse are we expected to take? I wrote a while back about soft skills, which I believe are important. Soft skills help you cope with situations you find difficult. I'm talking now about when the situation has gone beyond coping and requires resolution. Maybe it has happened too often with the same person or maybe the person needs more obvious, more firm talking-to because they don't get a hint.

Here are my own breaking points:

1. Personal space is important to me. I don't like to be touched by strangers and I don't like it when people lean in too close. I often stand with one foot slightly forward and my arms crossed, creating a little more space between myself and the person I'm talking to. They can't get any closer than my forward foot, and if they're a "toucher" (you know, those people who always touch your elbow or shoulder when they talk), they're only going to get some sleeve...which I can deal with. I'm willing to accept that this is my issue most of the time - the vast majority of people aren't trying to be creepy, they just don't have any personal space issues so they don't notice their proximity. If my evasive measures don't work, I will ask them to give me more space. Not rudely; more apologetically. If they still don't get it, that's my breaking point. It has never happened, but I think I would just walk away and get someone else to work with them.

2. Swearing. I've been known to utter a few strong words in my time. Not in inappropriate places or situations - I control my vocabulary pretty well most of the time. I have had patrons go on a tirade about !@#$ politician or !@#$ religious institution or even how !@#$ stupid a book, author, staff member, or local business is. The worst part is when they try to get you to agree. I just won't get into political, religious, or other pointed discussions with patrons. I will ask them what it is that they'd like me to do for them. I will tell them, straight-up, that I won't make personal comments, but that I'd be glad to look something up for them or find them a book that better suits their tastes. I will ask them to keep their voice down so that other patrons don't have to hear it. I will ask them to please watch their language, as this is a place of business. Most of the time they just want to be heard. Once they get it off their chest, they're fine. Once you firmly take a stand, they will respect it. Not always, and that would again be my breaking point. I will ask someone to leave the building who can not abide by the library's code of behavior policy.

Those are the situations that I find the most difficult. What are your breaking points?

Micro-Managers

2011-06-13T09:00:00.140-04:00

I'm a very hands-off manager. Do the management books have a name for that? Don't get me wrong - I'm very available to my co-workers. "My door is always open" and all that (although, more sincerely than that old cliche sounds. It really, literally, is open!), but I trust each of them implicitly. While I'm aware of what they're working on and how it's going, I do not micro-manage or get in their way. I can't stand the thought of nit-picking every little thing or being in their way all the time. They are professionals and they will come to me for a) time, b) resources, or c) advice as needed...and they do.

I was "raised" as a professional librarian by directors who were aware and available, but not micro-managers, so I have followed that model. Hands-off doesn't mean I'm not willing to be hands-on; it means I wait to be invited to the party and leave my involvement at "aware overseer" otherwise. My job is to give my co-workers the time, resources, and support they need to do their jobs.

I love hands-on library work, but I never impose myself on the others' projects. They're fine, and they will ask for help when they need it (at which time I will jump at the chance to play whenever possible!) One of my responsibilities is to provide learning opportunities for the Interns and to keep the Reference Assistants engaged, interested, and invested in their jobs. That means that most often when hands-on help is asked for by the librarians, I have to pass it on to an Intern or RA, rather than do it myself (no matter how much I'd like to!). There just aren't enough cool projects to share with them to go around, so they get most of them. I jump in where go-between is necessary between upper management and other staff, or where a decision has to be made before work can continue. I listen to concerns and ideas and then provide the resources to make things happen. I set up the meeting. I re-arrange the budget. I get buy-in from the staff. I evaluate how it worked.

Here's the other management philosophy I believe strongly: don't expect your co-workers to do anything you aren't willing to do. I'm willing to handle rowdy teens, deal with stinky and belligerent patrons, take extra service desk time, cleaning/plumbing/fixing, and anything else that may come up. I will never ask anyone else to do something just because I don't feel like it or because it's uncomfortable. I may ask them because I'm not available, but never because I'm not willing.

So, my management style is intended to be hands-off but ready to be hands-on at a moment's notice, always willing, usually able, always approachable, usually flexible, and always, always, always as an active part of the team.

My New Collections

2011-06-09T09:00:00.003-04:00

I've inherited two new collections! Those who know me know how excited I am. I mentioned how not-thrilled I am with the periodicals collections (it's ok, but I have missed having a "real" book collection!). Ok, so I complain a bit about it. Alright, alright...I complain a lot about it. One of my co-workers, who is a part-time librarian, was assigned a lot of collections, and gave up two for me. I wasn't going to just take someone's collection (unless they left for some reason, when I would totally swoop in for the kill), but she offered me the adult non-fiction 000s (excluding the computer books, which are managed by someone else) and the adult non-fiction 500s. Here's my plan for digging in to these new collection responsibilities.

First, I need to just become familiar with what's there. I think I'll start by shelf-reading both sections. That's a good opportunity to look at what's there, the balance of call numbers, and any shifting or shelf balancing needed.

Then I'll run a few reports to see what I'm working with. Is there anything that hasn't circulated recently? I know both collections were weeded in the last few years, but I'd like to be aware of titles to keep my eye on - and any that need to be weeded since the last go-around.

Meanwhile, I'll start paying closer attention to these categories in the review journals. Previously, I was kind of browsing the review journals for general awareness of what's coming out, for reader's advisory and reference purposes. I'll start looking specifically for titles to buy in my new collections.

A basic RFID inventory was taken about a year ago in both of these collections, but I'd like to do a hands-on physical inventory. I'll run shelf lists and go title-by-title to verify what's there, what they're linked to, what the records look like, what the condition of the physical items is, etc. This is another chance to put my hands on the items, one by one, and look more closely at them than I would during the first-pass shelf read.

In our library, the reference collection is managed by each Dewey-range selector. I'll now be in charge of the reference 000's and 500's. I'll need to look at what's there too.

Thanks, co-worker, for humoring me! She had a lot to keep up with, and I was desperate for a more interesting collection. Collection management is one of the things I miss the most about my small library days. Our library has a fantastic collection, and I'm grateful to be surrounded by such a great team of librarians who each do their part. Now I get a part, too!

Managing Periodicals

2011-06-06T09:00:00.016-04:00

[Image credit: http://drycreek.k12.ca.us]

When I started my current job, I was assigned a collection to manage: serials. Honestly, I was less than excited about that. I was responsible for serials in my old job too, and was hoping to get away from it! I have a lot of admiration for librarians and library staff who work with serials because they can be...difficult. Our annual renewal list from our magazine jobber (EBSCO) came in this week, so I've been thinking and working with them constantly ever since.

First of all, I like to think of them as periodicals rather than serials. Technically, a serial is something published in a series. In our library, we separate what we call "continuations" from periodicals, so I am not responsible for annual editions of books like exam preparation, travel guides, or price guides to antiques/collectibles. I am, however, responsible for business reference items like insurance rating books and stock price guides like Value Line. So, it's mostly magazines and a few other volumes published more than once per year.

The good thing about this collection is that it is not at all stagnant. I have to keep up with title changes, changes in publication frequency (from weekly to monthly, for example), and recently the regular dropping-off of magazines that are just plain ceasing publication.

The bad thing about this collection is that it is not at all stagnant. What you know to be true today may or may not be true tomorrow. You have to roll with the changes, expect them, and make frequent decisions.

I mentioned above that we purchase the majority of our periodicals through EBSCO. We have some direct orders when it is significantly cheaper or when a title is not available through EBSCO, but those get tricky to manage, so we like the added services of a vendor. They warn us about a lot of those changes, and it's nice to have the bulk of our subscriptions on one annual renewal list. Direct orders tend to expire all over the calendar, so we have to keep up with them on our own. There are lots of magazine vendors out there, but my library has been pretty happy with EBSCO for years before I ever came on board.

Yet, I am really surprised at the difference in price sometimes between the publisher's direct subscription price and EBSCO's. For example, Billboard magazine is about half the price directly, a savings of nearly $150. The New England Journal of Medicine is less than half of EBSCO's cost when subscribed directly.

So, this week I have been going through the renewal list with a fine-toothed comb. I am looking at circulation figures (which can be misleading in such a browsable collection, since many titles are used in-house but never checked out). I am also looking at annual price against frequency (four issues per year at $100 per year is $25 per title, quite exorbitant!). I'm asking my co-workers if certain titles enhance their other collections in some way, or if they might use them as part of their selection process. I'm also balancing religious and political magazines so that our collection is not one-sided in any way.

The result? So far, I have whittled the total renewal cost for 2011 down by almost $6,000. That is money that is needed in other places, like eBooks, where demand significantly outweighs the current budget allocation. I did not go into this project with any particular dollar amount in mind. Luckily, the money is available. It is important to me that our collections reflect our mission and our community, and that the tax dollars we collect are spent in the most efficient and widely-used way.

I think of this as my annual weeding of the magazine collection. I've weeded subscriptions that are no longer pulling their weight. Titles like the New England Journal of Medicine, Billboard, and North Korean Review do not belong in my library, so they have been removed. I will also look at "best of" lists for new magazines and consider adding some new titles (most definitely not ~$6,000 worth, but maybe a few!).

Serials (periodicals) are not an easy collection, but can be challenging. I only take this focused a look at the whole collection once a year when the big renewal list comes around. The rest of the year it is managing donations, adopted titles, and all those changes that crop up. Luckily for me, my library has assigned a circulation clerk to this collection who handles all of the ordering, cancelling, and the technical services end of things (processing, cataloging, checking in issues, etc.) She is wonderful, and I think we make a good team on this tricky collection!

May Reading

2011-06-03T17:05:00.000-04:00

After by Amy Efaw

This book is so emotionally intense that it affects you long after you finish reading! You feel as desperate as the teenager in the story, who dumped her newborn baby in the trash after it was born. In this YouTube video the author talks about what made her want to write this story, about how she wanted to find out what kind of person would do such a thing, and under what circumstances. Devon Davenport, the teen in the book, was a straight-A student and star athlete. She was reliable and never got in trouble. Read the book to find out what caused her to commit such a tragic act, and what happens to her as a result of it.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Tally is a 15-year-old, which makes her an "Ugly" until she gets the operation that all 16-year-olds undergo to make them a "Pretty." Her friend Shay decides to skip out on the operation, stay ugly, and live in a place called "The Smoke." Will Tally follow her? Will she get the operation? I picked up this book to see what all the fuss was about. It was better than I thought it would be, actually! The action is pretty continuous and the characters definitely develop throughout the story. My own biases and moral compass about excessive plastic surgery and individualism surfaced, making this book more and more interesting. I might just continue the series with the next installment, which is "Pretties."

Don't Fail Me

2011-05-31T09:00:00.002-04:00

There was a fantastic documentary on CNN recently called "Don't Fail Me: Education in America." I became aware of it through an organization that my husband volunteers with called FIRST. The documentary follows three high school students from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds as they participate in building a robot for the 2011 FIRST Robotics Competition. It was also about the huge discrepancies in their public school systems. One student went to a school in Tennessee that didn't offer any AP classes. One went to a school with an enormous drop-out rate where they were more concerned with keeping kids in school and giving them a general education than challenging them with higher math and science options. The third student went to an affluent school with lots of AP classes and after-school activities to choose from. All three participated in their school's FIRST Robotics team.

The sad truth is that there are huge discrepancies between the public educations received in different parts of the country. The No Child Left Behind Act tried to remedy this, but has its own challenges. Libraries are in a similar position. There are some thriving library systems out there, offering awesome, innovative services. Then there are those who are closing their doors because there just isn't enough money to keep the lights on any more. What a tragedy! The communities who need their library the most are often those that have the least money to support them.

Many states have published library standards (Michigan has QSAC, for example). That's nice because it pushes libraries to meet certain criteria and also sets benchmarks. Now, if states would tie library standards certification to state aid, things would get really interesting. (Some bad, some good...for now, I'll stick with "interesting.")

I don't have any genius solutions - just making the connection between inequalities in the public school system and inequalities in the public library system. Savelibraries.org has some really good information about all this, so give it a look!

Scribd

2011-05-26T09:00:00.011-04:00

I used to teach several computer classes in the course of a normal week. That's not the case any more - I teach a few each year, but not very often. I've written before about handouts and instruction styles, but today I wanted to mention a tech tool called Scribd.

All of the instructional handouts I've created over the years are uploaded to my Scribd account, and all are fully available and downloadable for anyone to use. I upload them from MS Word 2007, and Scribd re-formats them for displaying on their web site. The formatting is weird sometimes - underlining and tabbing don't always turn out like the original. That's one of the two complaints I have about Scribd. The other is that you have to have your own account with Scribd in order to download or embed other peoples' files. In the past I have provided a link to class handouts to the students, but in beginner classes they are unlikely to set up an account in order to download the file. It would be great if they could just go to the link and click on "print" or "save," but it's more complicated than that. Google Docs definitely has the upper hand in this area!

But...for the purposes of sharing curriculum and handout ideas with teachers and librarians, Scribd works pretty well. Documents can be download as PDF, Word, or TXT files. You can provide direct links like http://www.scribd.com/hhibner or http://www.scribd.com/doc/6465232/Internet (the first goes to my account, so you can see all of the documents available and the second goes to a specific "Internet Basics" document.)

Even if you're not into sharing files, you can search Scribd for documents that might help you do your job in some way. There are lots of papers, articles, handouts, diagrams, and the like available! They do encourage you to share files if you're going to download them from other people, but it isn't a requirement.

You can also set your files to "private," making Scribd an option for cloud storage of a few of your prescious files. I have several documents in my account marked private. Some need updating and some are just "super-backup-I'm-paranoid" copies of things on my hard drive. Again, they encourage you to share something with the Scribd community.

There you have it - my tech tool of the week!

Giving Resume Advice

2011-05-22T09:00:00.165-04:00

I'm going to rant.

I've heard too many patrons say to me lately that they've been to various libraries and can't get a librarian to help them with their resume. The reasons given to the patron at those libraries vary from "too busy" to "not my job" to "we don't offer that service here" to "I'm not qualified." I'd like to respond to each of these excuses.

Too Busy
There are times when patrons show up at our reference desks with zero computer skills and not even a clue as to how to begin to create a resume. They only know that they have hungry children and a mortgage, and the unemployment office requires them to have a resume on file with Michigan Works in order to qualify for unemployment benefits. They might show up at the reference desk's busiest hour. You're right...you don't have time to get that person up to speed at that very moment. You can't possibly say "I don't have time" and leave it at that, though. I can't sleep at night thinking that this scenario is happening at public libraries! You have time to put a resume book in their hands and let them look at examples and get ideas. You have time to tell them to start writing (with pencil and paper) a list of their previous employers, educational background, references, etc. You have time to make a one-on-one appointment with that person for a time when you have...well, more TIME! You have time to suggest that they sign up for a computer class at the library. You have time to let them know that there are career counselors over at Michigan Works. We are never too busy to help our patrons with the bare minimum of referral. It's not what you say as much as how you say it. While "I'm too busy to help you" is never acceptable, "The desk is too busy for me to give you as much individual attention as I'd like to right now, but here's what I can do to get you started" is just fine.

Not My Job
Who's job is it? What is your job? It's your job to connect people with the resources they need to complete their information-seeking mission. It is not your job to create a resume for them. It is your job to give them information about writing a resume. I'll even add that it is your job to help people use technology, so if they need help centering and bolding their resume items, that's your job. I have been known to sit a person at a computer, open MS Word for them, and have them "just start typing." Get the words on the page. I can help them "pretty it up" later, but they need to push the buttons on the keyboard to type the words. I show them how to capitalize letters and press the Enter key to move down a line. That's enough to get them started. They are to list the places they've worked and some keywords about what they did in that job. You're probably not going to end up with an award-winning resume, but you're getting them started. You can instruct them on how to improve it later. You check in on them every so often to see how they're coming along, and you move on to other reference questions. You have time to give this basic level of resume service, and it is your job.

We Don't Offer That Service Here
Ok, we're not a typing service. I do usually insist that the patron puts the words on the page on their own. We do offer resume books, the service of connecting people to books, and the service of helping people use technology. I have had patrons ask me to proof read their resume countless times. That is something I'm pretty good at, so I'm willing to take a few minutes to glance at a resume. That's how I interact with the patron, too: "Sure, I've got a minute to glance at your resume." I point out any glaring grammar and spelling errors, inconsistencies in formatting or wording, and suggest additions of missing information or removal of other. I'll say something like, "Otherwise, looks ok to me, but I'm not an expert." Patrons aren't looking for an expert. They're looking for one more set of eyes to look at their resume. Don't claim to be an expert, but do offer to be that second pair of eyes. It only takes a minute - no more time than any other general reference transaction would take. Now, I've also been asked to proof read academic papers several pages long. That's not something I'm willing to do. I'd be willing to glance at a thesis statement or skim through a specific paragraph or section, but I think it's ok to pass on proof reading an entire essay. I would, however, suggest that they ask at their school if there is a tutor or writing center that would offer that service. We don't have to be rude when we decline. Try this: "Sorry, I just can't read the whole thing right now. Did you have a question about a specific part?" Then, be willing to help with that specific question or refer to someone who might be able to help more thoroughly with the whole paper.

I'm Not Qualified
How does one become qualified? We've all created a resume at some point. Most of us can probably spot a dud a mile away. Even if it isn't our personal specialty, most reference staff can help patrons enough - better than the patron would do on their own. We can show them how to run a spell check. We can show them examples of good resumes in resume books. We can suggest that they not include certain information. (I kid you not, I once had to tell a man to take "Don't drink and don't run around with women" off of his resume.) Anyone who works at a reference desk can do these things. You may want to let the patron know that spelling or grammar isn't your specialty, but tell them what you can do. "I'm not great at spelling, but I can double-check that you've included the most-expected sections and that your columns line up" is a fine response. All you're really looking for is a glaring mistake. Trust me, most of us will find them. (If they have "Don't drink and don't run around with women" on their resume, please suggest that current resumes should not include personal statements!)

What's the real cost to the library? In most cases, this minute or two of service will put a patron's mind at ease. It will make them feel like they're heading in the right direction. It will make them feel like someone cares about their situation and that there are options. Any help is better than no help! I just cringe when people tell me that a nearby library wouldn't help them at all.

What about human kindness? Many librarians got into this business because we like helping people, we like organizing information, and we care about literacy. Giving a little resume advice that could get a person one step closer to employment than they were when they walked in the library doors is only a good thing. It's good for our communities, good for our patrons, and good for the soul.

It's Not Free

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000-04:00

I just read a very good blog post by Dan Zamboni called "In Defence of The Library." He's not a librarian, and talks about discovering libraries while traveling. He's a big supporter now, which is great! I love his view of libraries as relevant and welcoming. That's exactly what we strive for. He's realistic about the position many libraries are in, and responds to Seth Godin's "Future of the Library" article saying that libraries don't lack vision, they lack cash. Zamboni's direct quote is, "And you know what you can do with less? Less." So true.

There are two things that bother me a little bit about Zamboni's post. The first is his constant use of the four-letter "f" word: "free." It's a big theme in the post, used in capital letters several times. How can you write an entire article about how library funding must be protected and then call library services "free" at least five times? Library staff do the public library industry no favors by calling their services and collections free. "Pre-paid" maybe, or "No extra charge," but definitely not free. We should be reminding our library users repeatedly that they paid for those services. When they get their tax bill and see "library" next to $100 or so, it should be no surprise to them. In fact, I love Brian Herzog's idea of displaying per-circ costs on library shelves just like per-unit costs are displayed in grocery stores. Genius!

Here's my second contention. I agree completely with the idea of offering video games, DVDs and BluRays, graphic novels, and other "non-literary" or "less-literary" collections in libraries. Zamboni mentions that strategic placement of these popular items can sort of lure people in. Once they see the graphic novels, they might move in a little further and read a book. That's the part that bothers me, like the library's goal is to get people to read "real" books. There are definitely librarians out there who are reading snobs and believe that there is some sort of self-actualization achieved when people start reading books (and not romance paperbacks or comics!). That's sad. It's horrible that a member of the general public - Zamboni himself - seems to believe that the library's main goal is to get people to read books. We don't want people to feel guilty or ashamed for checking out movies or video games instead of books! Sure, we care about literacy and lifelong learning, but that's why we offer book clubs, discussion groups, and summer reading programs for all ages. We still buy books because there are still readers. Good librarians will support patrons' individual interests. We might suggest a book as a read-alike to a movie or video game, but we don't have an ulterior motive to make people read. We just want people to know all of their options.

Overall, this is a great article. These are just the two ideas that struck me the most.

Choosing the Tech

2011-05-19T09:00:00.002-04:00

When I learn about a new technology tool, I often want to try it. Then I want everyone else to try it. The problem becomes too many choices. Many tech tools have the same basic premise, with just a few unique twists. You can end up with a lot of accounts, a lot of software on your computer, and a lot of add-ons, plug-ins, browser extensions, and widgets. At some point, you have to pick one to keep up your productivity.

A great example is universal chat clients. The idea is to save you from having to support G-Talk, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, etc. by making them all accessible through one interface. That's great, but there are various ways to do this. Some require a download/installation and some only require an account.
Meebo.com - Set up an account with Meebo and log in to your various accounts there. Uses any web browser, so no downloads or installs required.
Digsby.com - Not only can you access your various chat accounts, but also alerts you to new emails and activity on your social networks.
Pidgin.im - Access your various chat accounts through one easy-to-use interface. Requires download and installation.
Trillian.im - Everything Pidgin does, but includes mobile access for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry.

Chat clients is only one example. Think about how many social bookmarking sites there are (Delicious.com, Diigo.com, Pinboard.in, Evernote.com), picture sharing (TwitPic.com, Yfrog.com, Instagr.am), Twitter platform alternatives (Tweetdeck.com, Twhirl.com, Hootsuite.com)...I could go on and on.

My point is that I want to try lots of them so I can decide which one has the best features for the way the tool or service fits into my workstyle and my projects. I want to be aware of lots of services so I can recognize them when I see other people using them. I can't use them all at once, though. Deciding which are worth trying sometimes comes down to who else I see is using them or which are mentioned in blogs, articles, and conference presentations.

Ok, now I have to go uninstall some redundant software and install some new platforms to try!

Crash Course in Reference

2011-05-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

Crash Course in Reference
by Charlotte Ford
2008

This is an excellent primer in reference service! I recommend it to library school students, paraprofessionals who provide reference service, and library interns. In fact, library interns are the reason I read this. I was browsing the professional reference collection in my office when it caught my eye. I wasn't looking for anything specific, but did have intern training in mind.

This book assumes no knowledge or understanding of library reference services. It starts with a chapter called "What is Reference Service."

Then there is a chapter on doing a reference interview, but it takes into account the idea that each situation and circumstance warrants its own methods and techniques of communicating with the patron. Sometimes closed questions are better than open-ended. Sometimes you need to follow through more with one patron than another. Sometimes patrons are frustrated and angry with the answer (or lack thereof).

The book goes through all kinds of sources, describing standard titles like the Merck Manual and the World Almanac and Book of Facts. It also discusses databases, library catalogs, and search engines and search techniques for each.

Finally, there is a section on ethics and policies. Those new to reference service definitely need to be reminded to be discreet when necessary, as well as issues like copyright. The book wraps up with a chapter about networking with other librarians, staying current through various current awareness tools, and continuing education.

I hope that Ms. Ford updates this book in the next few years. It's still very relevant, but as I was reading I kept thinking that in a few years some of the links cited throughout could be obsolete. The nature of reference is changing, and a nod to the different types of questions librarians are asked these days would be welcomed.

Overall, this is a timely, relevant, and useful training tool for new librarians and other reference service providers.

Talking Points

2011-05-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

They say you should have an elevator pitch ready to go about your library. I agree, and I would add to that the idea that you should also have a spiel about librarianship ready to go at all times. When people find out I'm a librarian, the first thing they ask me (after they stop laughing at the unlikeliness of that...) is what librarians do. If they knew what librarians do, they wouldn't be laughing, because librarian is the perfect profession for me! They know (thankfully) that I don't sit around and read books all day, but they don't know what it is I do. Here are my talking points on what librarians do.

1. We find information. We know when Google and Wikipedia are a good first step in research. We also know when to skip the general internet and dive into databases. We know our own library's collection well enough to know when a catalog search is likely to find a book on the topic. We know when a subject exceeds the scope of our local collection and requires searching holdings at a different kind of library. People come to us and say "I didn't find anything online!" and are amazed when we come up with journal articles and books on exactly what they need.

2. We evaluate information. The library's collection is made up of items chosen by librarians. Librarians are trained to assess materials for accuracy, authority, currency, and relevancy. When you find an item on a library's shelves, someone looked at it and dubbed it worthy of being in the collection. (That's why collection management is so important! Awful Library Books is what happens when collections are ignored!) We've done the work for you, so the information a librarian gives you is trustworthy.

3. We teach people how to do #1 and #2 above. We teach people how to use a computer so that they can find, use, and evaluate information. We teach people how to use the library and its resources. We teach people how to weed through all the information on the Internet and find the good stuff.

4. We share information. We plan programs and events where people can get together and learn something new. We share books in discussion groups, we bring speakers to the library on a variety of topics that they might also find in the library collection.

There are lots of other activities that librarians do, but you have to keep an elevator speech short! No one wants a lecture on librarianship when they are just curious about what we do. I love the Library Day in the Life project because it lets librarians share what it is they do directly with anyone who cares to read it.

What the Future Holds

2011-05-10T09:00:00.129-04:00

I started a new job a little over a year and a half ago. It was a step up, career-wise: a bigger library and all the things that come with that (budget, collection, staff, etc.) I have loved every minute of the time I've worked here. I've learned so much and experienced things I would never have experienced in a smaller library. Let me be clear: I have no plans to do anything different, career-wise, any time soon. I've got a ways to go in my current position. There is still a lot to learn and experience. I'm just starting to hit my stride, so I'm not interested in making a change for a while.

That said, I do sometimes wonder what the future holds. I'm ambitious by nature and never want to become bored or burned out. I'm only 37 years old, so I'll realistically be working for twenty more years, minimum. It is reasonable to think that there's at least one more move in my career. That move does not have to be "up," but it does have to come with new challenges and it has to excite me.

I went to a workshop recently called "Financial Fitness for Libraries." It was very intense; information that Directors, Business Managers, and other Department Heads should be aware of. As it turns out, I was the only person in the entire room who was not either a Director, a Business Manager/Financial Director, or Trustee. I was the only Reference Librarian there (which I didn't cop to...maybe others were there and didn't either?) They talked about fraud prevention, avoiding auditing errors, the Federal Standards Labor Act, and budget forecasting, among other serious topics. I went into this program with an open mind and a good attitude. These are topics I need to learn and that I want to learn.

As the day went on, though, I realized just how out of my league I was. Since the majority of the attendees were already aware of these topics, if not completely confident with them, a lot of terms were not carefully defined. The whole day was very tightly scheduled, and they moved very quickly from one topic to the next. I found myself frantically searching Google for definitions just to keep up. Words and phrases I did know started to blur because they were being used in context I didn't understand. Suddenly a fund balance wasn't a fund balance. Bond issues weren't bond issues. I got very frustrated. I started to lose my focus.

I did learn things that I can use in my job. Budget forecasting is a useful idea for things I'm involved in like collection budgets and staffing. Also, internal controls to prevent fraud apply to every department. Since I'm in charge of scheduling for the reference staff, I definitely need to be aware of FSLA rules.

What I really learned that day was what the future probably holds for me. Not only was I out of my league and frustrated, but I was honestly just not that interested. I was bored. In the past, the workshops and conferences I've attended have excited me and inspired me. For example, the Computers in Libraries conference is filled with ideas that I find fascinating (QR codes, augmented reality, and content management systems). For another example, MLA's Fantastic Fiction program always helps me perform readers advisory. I love talking with librarians about reference tools and techniques, collection management, and ways to incorporate technology into reference service. I am so passionate about these topics that I often present about them at conferences. I won't be presenting sessions on library finance any time soon - or ever, if I'm being honest.

I understand that library finance is important. Crucial, even. Someone has to love those topics. Someone has to care deeply, with passion, so that the library is fiscally sound. I care that our library is fiscally sound, and will do my part to make sure my department plays by the rules set by those in charge, but I can not imagine spending my days thinking about and working on library finance issues. I make sure our collection budgets are balanced. I make sure our staff is available at the times we need them, without going over the staffing budget. I'm interested in these things. It's that bigger picture of bond issues and millages and fund balances that don't thrill me.

So, what does the future hold? Something in the realm of patron services, technology, collection management, and reference. And I'm happy about that.

2011-05-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

Image Credit: http://www.fallingfifth.com/comics/20070808

I said in a previous blog post that I don't make a dime on this blog (see #3 in the opportunities section...the second #3 in the post. Wow, I like to number things, don't I?!) That's about to change, and I want to explain why.

I set up an account with Google Ad Sense. Mostly, I just wanted to learn how Ad Sense works. I'm always looking for ways to keep my tech skills up-to-date. I'm always trying to stretch my abilities in that area. Ad Sense is pretty easy to deal with, as it turns out, but in order to find that out and be able to talk to other people about it, I had to try it out.

There is one ad in the right side-bar and one in each post (assuming it works, since this is the first post). Click if you like, or don't, but know that I plan to donate all earnings from this blog to a Michigan public library in need. I support libraries fairly regularly through their used book sales too. This is just a little something extra. I'm not campaigning or fundraising for any particular library. I'm learning how ad sales work in free blogging sites like Blogger. If that results in a few bucks that I can give directly to a library, then great!

If not, well...I'll be happy to teach anyone how to set up Google Ad Sense on their blog.

What the Public Sees

2011-05-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

Image credit http://www.moondragon.org/

What kinds of things do you work on when you're on-desk? You want to be approachable and interruptable, but you don't want to just sit there and look bored between questions. Some projects look suspiciously like slacking off, but could be legitimate work!

Updating the Library's Facebook and Twitter feeds, for example, could be misconstrued as just playing around. We use social networking tools to accomplish real work, but the public might not realize that.

Reading blogs and journals could also be misinterpreted. Patrons might not be able to see the cover, which clearly displays Library Journal, so for all they know we're reading People or Cosmo.

Chat reference is another one. Is the librarian chatting with her boyfriend about date night? Probably not. She's probably chatting with a patron through the live reference chat service. What if reference staff used smart phones to answer SMS (text) questions instead of a web service like Google Voice? It would look like they were texting - which they are - but maybe not very professional. In reality, what a relevant, current service for a library to offer! They might use those same devices for roaming reference using mobile apps for the library catalog or databases. Again, it might just look like playing around to those who don't understand the service.

Patrons often apologize for interrupting the staff person at the desk, so maybe they do know we're working on something legitimate. I've always been subconscious about what I work on while on-desk, though. I spent the first ten years of my librarian career 100% on-desk, so I'm probably just touchy about it. I did ALL of my work on-desk back then, so I was always working on something between reference questions. Even then, I wondered if patrons thought I was reading books at the desk when I was actually assigning call numbers or taking them off of "new" status. Did they see the Facebook screen open on my computer and think I spent my days (and their tax dollars) playing Farmville? (Mind you, Farmville was NEVER open on a work computer...I've never actually played it!) Patrons might see that telltale blue Facebook logo and make assumptions, not looking closer to see the library name there too.

Of course, if anyone ever asks what we're doing, we can describe whatever project we're working on and use it as an opportunity to talk about librarianship. The problem is that they probably won't ask. They'll tell their friends that they were at the library and the person at the desk was on Facebook.

Am I paranoid, or do other people think about this?

Professional Association

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

Are you a member of either the American Library Association or your state library association? What value do you get from your membership?

I was an active member of MLA for years. I participated in work groups that planned continuing education events. I participated in a committee that helped reorganize the association. I have spoken at the annual conference several times. I have contributed articles to the newsletter. I have to admit, though, that when I started a new job a year and a half ago, I finished my final commitment and stepped back from it all. It was nothing personal; I wanted to focus on learning my new job. I also believe that if the same people contribute year after year, the organization reflects the interests of those people. The group needs fresh blood and new perspectives, so by stepping back I created openings for others to step in.

I am also a member of ALA and PLA, but have never been active in any committees with either organization. The benefit I get from those memberships is membership rates for conferences and webinars and a nice subscription to Public Libraries and American Libraries magazines.

I also benefit professionally from the advocacy efforts of all three groups (MLA, ALA, and PLA). Librarians have struggled with our public image for years. If we want to be considered professionals, we need a professional association. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers...they all have professional associations. What would happen if we lost ours? Whether we agree with every decision the groups make or how they are run, we need to have a professional association. It is up to us to get involved so that our views are represented.

Times are tough. Our budgets have never been stretched further. I understand why libraries who have to cut their budgets would cut the "dues and workshops" line and cancel their memberships. Professional associations are clearly important...but not crucial to everyday operation of the library and keeping its doors open and its staff employed (and paid). It's a catch-22 because without an association there would be no one organized to advocate our intereststo congress. Without that advocacy our communities and our elected officials don't know we're struggling. Yet, it is because we are struggling that we can't participate. The associations need membership dues in order to do their job.

I don't know what the answer is, but I would hate to see our professional associations disappear because they can't afford to exist. A volunteer-staffed professional association sort of defeats the purpose of showing the world that libraries can not be staffed solely on volunteers; that we are professionals and need to be recognized as such.

Be a member if you can. Be active if you can. Encourage those who can if you can't.

Update on Ever Changing Reference

2011-05-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

Last week I commented on the Library Journal Article "Geeks are the Future: A Program in Ann Arbor, MI, Argues for a Shift Toward IT. (http://hhibner.blogspot.com/2011/04/ever-changing-reference.html) Yesterday I attended the "Library Camp" unconference at the Ann Arbor District Library and participated in a discussion about the future of reference librarians and whether reference is truly dead.

I stand by a few main points I made in my blog post last week: Librarians need to stay connected to the community they serve and remember that all of their work, both off-desk and on, is for the good of the patrons. After yesterday's discussion, though, I have a new perspective on a few other points.

Someone brought up the idea that when we're working at the reference desk, we are likely helping one or two (maybe three on a really busy day) people at once. Maybe you help a dozen or so people in an hour. However, the work we do behind the scenes likely impacts hundreds or even thousands of people. We write blog posts for our web sites and social media accounts, we plan programs, we purchase materials, we create videos and podcasts, we create displays, and countless other projects. The impact of these off-desk projects is much farther-reaching than our on-desk work. Our highest paid and most highly skilled staff need to be responsible for those projects that bring the greatest impact to the most people.

Everyone agreed that the work we do at the reference desk is important. It is very important that we help people with their resumes, their searches, and their use of the various services we offer. Yesterday at the unconference, Eli Neiburger said that the work itself is not meant to be diminished. It is not as important, however, that the person offering the help has an MLIS (or equivalent) as it is that the person getting the help gets, well...helped. The kinds of questions typically asked at reference desks do not require MLIS degrees. They require training, experience, a customer service mentality, and some specific core competencies. An Ann Arbor librarian pointed out that help is never far away for those times when a deeper level of knowledge or skill is required at the reference desk. We need to put the right people in every position in the library, and to embrace the idea that every position has a purpose and contributes to the success of the whole building.

So, I'm softening my stance on the idea that "reference is dead." Reference Librarians have always had to keep up with changes in technology and information access/retrieval. Ours is still a vital profession, but will continue to change. We don't have to feel threatened by these changes; we can see them as an opportunity. We won't be pulling reference librarians off of the desk any time soon at my library, but in the last two years their time at the service desks has been augmented by the use of Reference Assistants. That works for us.

I still stand by the my statement that every library needs to know what is relevant to their community. Citizens don't know what is possible at libraries. It is up to us to innovate and, to borrow a phrase from SSLDL, to "imagine the possibilities" for them. There are a lot of really cool and innovative services at libraries all over the country, but just because they're cool doesn't mean they're right for every community. We have to give our community what they need and imagine a future for them that is relevant.

Ever Changing Reference

2011-04-29T09:00:00.011-04:00

By now most of you have read this article: "Geeks are the Future: A Program in Ann Arbor, MI, Argues for a Shift Toward IT." If you haven't, read it now!

Eli Neiburger, Associate Director of IT and production, AADL is quoted as saying "We need big servers and the geeks to take care of them...What are we going to cut to be able to hire a geek? We are going to cut reference staff. Reference is dead."

Richard Kong, Information Services Manager at AHML, commented. He said, "As much as I agree with Eli’s statement that libraries need to invest more in geeks, I hope he agrees that librarians, many of whom have passionately served their local communities for years, can find new life."

Here's what I think:

Reference Librarians need to keep up with technology. It's not avoidable any more. The nature of the questions we get at public library reference desks has changed. People aren't asking what the gross national product of Peru is or what the state symbol of Kentucky is. Those things can be Googled. Easily. Eli is right - people are "acclimated to Google searches." People need librarians to help them find library databases and the catalog (since, as the article points out, they aren't starting their searches there...). People need librarians to help them learn to use eBook Readers and other mobile devices, and especially to connect to library resources with these devices. Sure, with the proper aptitudes and training, parapros can offer these services. Who's going to train them? Who's going to provide a reference role model? Librarians are. We can't train parapros unless we're up to speed ourselves.

Part-time, paraprofessional staff tend to be more transitory than full-time professional staff. They are often students, who move on to full-time jobs elsewhere or in a different field once they graduate. They may be older adults working part-time retirement jobs to get them out of the house a few days a week. They are surely lovely people who are very smart and great at their jobs. If you're lucky, you get a really great parapro who makes a long-term career out of it, but temporary or "moving through the system" staff are less invested in the long term.

Eli also said, in this article, "If they are professionals, librarians should be behind the scenes and their time should be spent carefully. And you can get a lot of savings by staffing with a different level of support at the reference desk." I believe that Librarians need to be aware that everything they do while at work, whether it is done at a service desk or in a back room cubicle, is done for the good of the patrons. We plan programs for patrons. We buy materials for patrons. In order for Librarians to do their off-desk activities successfully, they need to be aware of what the patrons want and need. They need to know their community and the "flavor" of their library. I'm a believer in holistic library practices, or the idea that everything is connected. We have to see the bigger picture of the library as a whole in order to make decisions that do the most good for the most people. How do reference transactions translate to programs? How do programs translate to collections? Librarians need to interact with patrons in order to do the rest of their job holistically.

Parapros might get bored with the idea of being on-desk all the time. They don't get to do much else, beyond maybe making displays or special projects here and there. How will libraries keep them excited, inspired, and challenged? Do the professional librarians now spend their days thinking up ways to make sure the parapros are engaged? Don't misunderstand; parapros at the service desks are wonderful. They are so helpful and so good at their jobs that I can't imagine not having them around. They allow the professional librarians to have off-desk time. They have not, however, replaced us at the service desks. I do, admittedly, spend time balancing projects between Interns and Reference Assistants to make sure everyone has something interesting going on. I encourage our parapros to attend workshops and webinars to be constantly learning and motivated. I encourage them to follow their passion - whatever that may be - and seek ways to encorporate what they love into their jobs. Those who are great at technology get to teach an occasional computer class. Those who are great at readers advisory get to post reviews on the Staff Choices blog. There are all kinds of ongoing projects that parapros can get involved in, while still working mainly at the service desks...but someone has to oversee their projects and make sure they have opportunities.

The deal AADL made with Magnatune is really, really cool! It requires professional IT personnel to pull off. There's little doubt that your average reference librarian (like me, for example) couldn't pull off a project of that scale. I'm somewhat techie for a reference librarian, but I am not techie at all by professional IT standards! I rely heavily on our IT staff for many projects that are nowhere near as groundbreaking. AADL clearly has an amazing IT staff.

In the end, I think that every library has to decide for itself whether they want to be an IT library and offer truly awesome IT projects or if they are more of a collection-based or traditional programming-based institution. Is early literacy and storytime the big draw, or is the local history collection the thing that brings people in? Maybe it's a legendary collection of DVDs or an amazing annual community reads program. There are lots of exciting things that libraries of all sizes can make their name for. In Ann Arbor, it's technology. That is one cool library system, and I applaud them for doing what works in their community.

I'm not sure reference is dead in mine.

Shelf Balancing, Part 3

2011-04-28T09:00:00.006-04:00

(Please refer back to Shelf Balancing, Part 1 and Part 2 for context.)

I've got the numbers and I know what needs to go where. I've only been waiting for a few more sections to be weeded. There are several fairly large weeding projects in progress, so it's important that I don't start having any collections shifted until I really know how much space we're playing with. Here's how I figured it out, using the data in the spreadsheets I shared in Part 2 (except that here I'm sharing real data so I don't have to figure it out twice!)

The total percent of circulation of the non-fiction collection and the percentage of total shelves should be equal, according to Tony Greiner in his article "Collection Development and Shelf Space: A Proposal for Nonfiction Collections" (Public Libraries, November/December 2005, pages347-50). So, if the 200s make up 6% of the circulation of the non-fiction collection, they should get 6% of the available shelving in that collection. They do, within 1%. That section is good as is (although it will certainly get shifted as shelving is added to the ranges around it).

Dewey Range 000 currently takes up 42 shelves, which is roughly 4% of the total shelving available in the entire non-fiction range. Items in the 000 range make up roughly 8% of the total circulation of adult non-fiction. In order to balance 4% shelving to 8% circulation, I need to add 4% of the available shelving, or 49 shelves, to that range. (There are 1,012 shelves in the entire range of non-fiction.)

The biggest changes will be to the 700's - 21% of the circulation, currently on 16% of the shelves. I'm going off the numbers a little bit in this area to account for the huge physical size of art books. This section has fewer shelves per row because they are spaced more widely apart. I'd like to see about 25% of the shelves assigned to the 700's, which would be 253 shelves. I need to add 92 shelves to that range. That's a LOT of shelves!

Luckily, the 800s have had a nice big weed. Even more luckily, the 700s and 800s are back-to-back, so shifting will be easy. Can I take 92 shelves away from the 800s? No. I can take 85 shelves from the 800s because they currently have 15% of the total shelf space and only need 6%. The other 7 shelves will come from other areas (the 300s need to give up 35 shelves, for example.)

I will walk through the stacks, counting shelf by shelf and marking them so that those doing the shifting will know what call number should fall in what area. That way, they will know that they have shifted too much or too little before they get too far to fix it. I'll mark the bottom of every few columns or something similar to that.

In the end, the shelves will be re-balanced with the correct number of shelves allocated to each range of the collection. We shouldn't have to use the very top shelves in some areas and not in others.

My plan right now - and this could change - is to have the shifting happen at the end of the summer. We do a big full-building shelf reading project in August, and that would be the best time to do it. (I think...must ask others what they think of that idea!)

This has been such a fun project! I hate math, but I've really gotten into figuring it all out. Stay tuned for Part 4 when the shifting actually happens!

Integrity and Intent

2011-04-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

So many things in life boil down to integrity and intent, don't they? The decisions we make, both bad and good, come back to these two characteristics. Anyone can make a bad decision, but if they did it with good intent and with integrity, that means something. We can only hope that those around us accept our mistakes and apologies. I think integrity and good intent can help.

There are those who have a history of making bad decision after bad decision. It isn't that they are necessarily out to get us or ruin our day. It isn't that they have deceitful intentions (although sometimes they do.) It is that they are missing the lesson. Everyone screws up sometimes, but as long as they learn from that mistake and take steps to not repeat it, then it isn't a total loss.

Do you ever go on Twitter or Facebook or read a blog and think, "Wow, that person should really re-evaluate what they are posting!" I know I do. If you make your profiles publicly available, you have to own your statements. If you intend to be negative online, lock down your profiles so that only a very specific audience sees it. On Facebook, you can make lists of people. Make a "friends" list and a "colleagues" list. Divide your followers into specific groups of who gets to see what. Make your posts visible to only those you choose. Lock down your Twitter profile to only those with specific permission. Consider getting a separate account to post personal statements vs. work-related statements. If you blog, make it very clear what are your personal statements and not those of your employer. Whether your employer has a policy about this or not, show integrity by drawing that line yourself.

I was watching the show Undercover Boss the other day. While at work, the employees behaved a certain way. Either they were the epitome of customer service and human kindness - good intent and a lot of integrity in their actions - or they were lazy slackers who made up the underbelly of the company. Maybe they did their job well enough to get by, but didn't go out of their way. Little did they know that the "trainee" to whom they were showing the ropes was the CEO of the company! They were giving tips on how to work the system to the person who created the system. Not a lot of integrity or good intent there.

We all have days that are more difficult than others, where we are lazy, tired, moody, or whatever. Real integrity and intent show up in how we deal with those days. Do we take it out on our co-workers and customers? I hope not. We have to find coping mechanisms that keep our integrity and good intentions in tact. Here are some suggestions:

1. Take a sick day. That's what they are for. Sickness includes mental health.

2. Ask a co-worker to cover for you on the public service desk so you can hide out in back and work on other, more solitary projects (and repay the favor later!)

3. Channel your energy into something fun. Focus on whatever it is that makes you happiest at work. Weeding? Reading library blogs and journals? Scrolling through your Twitter stream? Planning programs? Updating web links? Whatever it is - even if it isn't the most pressing thing you could have worked on that day - it will make the day bareable.

The important thing is to remember that you have to enter difficult days with integrity and good intent. Every day can't be a difficult day. These coping mechanisms are meant to be occasional. They can't take over your productivity. They can't hinder your ability to learn from your mistakes and move on. Bad days are not an excuse to rant inappropriately online. They do happen to all of us on occasion, though, and we can deal with them.

That Depends

2011-04-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

I really hate giving the answer "that depends" to reference questions. Sometimes, though, that's the answer. At least, the first answer. The reference interview can usually give you more details on the real question, so explaining WHY "that depends" is crucial.

A woman called the reference desk with the question "What do republican corporations pay in taxes?" I wondered if she meant the republican party itself. No...she had an argument with her sister about how corporations get a lot of tax breaks and don't really pay much in taxes. Her sister believes that corporations pay a lot in taxes. Who's right?

The next part of the reference interview was my asking how republicans fit into the equation. She conceded that they didn't. At this point, the question turned into "What do corporations pay in taxes?" You see how "that depends" came into play.

We chatted a bit about tax credits and different types of corporations (ie. a small business is not going to pay the same taxes as, say, Ford Motor Company). I pointed her to http://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations to read all about it. I suggested that sometimes a company's annual report includes financials that includes taxes they paid that year. There are some basic flat-rate percentages that could apply in certain circumstances, but there isn't really a one-size-fits-all answer for how much ALL corporations pay in taxes. All PEOPLE don't pay the same taxes, so why would all corporations? The patron was not happy with my answer or with the reasons I offered for why "that depends." Even after we talked about it, she said she guessed she would have to go online herself and get the dollar amount that republican corporations pay in taxes. I suggested she ask a tax preparer what they thought, or call the IRS hotline.

This is just one example. How about a scenario where the patron has a very personal or private situation, and doesn't want to give you more information to help find an answer. I'm thinking of medical or financial questions. I mean, "Where is the medical section" and "Where is the legal section" are asked quite a lot, and it takes some subtlety to get more information from the patron to narrow their search. The reference librarian in me just doesn't feel right saying "these three rows" and leaving them to figure it out. The human in me does not want to pry or embarass the patron. I also don't want to make the patron feel stupid or wrong for asking. I often ask something like, "What area of law are you interested in?" or just point out "This section is about family law, further down this row is about tax law, and the other side goes into consumer law. Does that help?"

What are your strategies for answering those "that depends" questions?(Especially when there truly is not one answer and the patron just won't accept that!)

Salem Press Blog Awards

2011-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Mary Kelly and I have been invited to be judges for this year's Salem Press Blog Awards, since Awful Library Books was a winner in the Quirky Blogs category last year. Check it out and nominate your favorite blogs!

April Reads (So Far)

2011-04-16T09:00:00.003-04:00

Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
ePub, read on the Borders Kobo device

I decided to go back through each of the eReader devices my library has to try them out again. It's been so helpful to be able to answer patron questions about eBooks and eReaders after putting my hands on several different devices! The Kobo was what was available, so that's the device I used. This title was available and seemed quick and easy, so that's the title I checked out.

I was pleasantly surprised! I've decided that I kind of like "cozy mysteries." That's the surprising part. I enjoyed this book! It required very little effort to get through: brain candy all the way.

It's set in 1930s London. A distant member of the royal family tries to make her way in the world independently. Her family's funds have dwindled thanks to her deceased father's gambling habits. She's used to having servants, and so she must learn to set a fire in the fireplace, clean up a bit, and cook enough to get by.

The mystery comes in when the beneficiary of the gambled estate shows up dead in the bath tub of their London home. No one knows who killed him...or why. The main character, Georgie (rather, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie) and her brother are suspects. Strange "accidents" keep happening to Georgie, though, and she begins to wonder if it is all connected. Georgie is instructed by Her Royal Majesty the Queen to spy on the prince and his American girlfriend. Somehow the dead man in the bath tub, the accidents Georgie experiences, and various run-ins with her boarding school friends, childhood friends, and a new man she meets create a mystery that Georgie must solve in order to survive.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Trade paperback edition

I loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by this author, and have wanted to read Shanghai Girls for a while now. While it wasn't quite as good as Snow Flower, I did like it. Loved it, even!

Two sisters, Pearl and May, grew up in Shanghai. In their late teens and early 20's, they were "beautiful girls;" models for calendars and advertisements. They had servants and they were carefree.

Behind the scenes, things were not so glamorous. The girls' father has lost everything to gambling debts (I see a theme forming this month!), and has promised the girls to American men as wives in payment. Then the Japanese attacked Shanghai and everything fell apart. The girls escape, realizing that their prospective grooms in America might be their only option for survival.

Family secrets, the loyalty and bonds of sisters, and the kindness of strangers are all themes in this story. The girls' lives in America is much different than what they are used to, and they are living with a big secret that they can't possibly explain. Read the book for all the details!

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Audio book edition

This story is set in the 19th century, where Gemma Doyle grew up in India. She is sent to boarding school in England after her mother dies. She suddenly begins having visions that she can't explain, but which seem to warn of future events. These visions, she finds out, are related to an ancient group of men called Rakshana, as well as an ancient circle of women called the Order. There have been others at Spence Academy with visions, and Gemma and her friends embrace this power for their own, creating their own Order. The story tells of their travels to the spirit realms, the origins of their gifts, and the consequences of using them. The story is continued in book two: Rebel Angels and book three: The Sweet Far Thing.

Workflows

2011-04-12T09:00:00.002-04:00

It's so important to study and lean staff workflows in a library. How and where does the work get done, and who is responsible for which pieces? Just as important are workflows that affect the public. How do customers get what they came for?

Transactions
Let's look at a few basic transactions that patrons would have with staff. First, checking out library materials. It goes something like this: patron finds the check-out desk, gets in line, approaches staff on their turn, hands over materials to be checked out, waits while staff checks them out, receives a receipt with titles and due dates listed, gathers up their stuff, leaves the building.

Questions to consider when analyzing this workflow might include:

-Where is the check-out desk? Is there one desk in the building? Is it next to the exit? Is it labeled or signed so that people can find it?

-How and where does a line form? Is it obvious where people are supposed to stand until their turn comes up? Is there space for a line so that main walkways and the front door are not blocked? Is there a place for people to set a heavy stack of items while they wait? How many lines form: one total line or one for each available circulation terminal?

-Is a self-check station available? Where is it located in relation to the nearest service desk? How many screens do they have to go through to get to the point where they start actually checking items out? How many screens do they have to acknowledge between items?

-Are there extra pieces or parts that are necessary to complete the transaction? For example, does a case need to be unlocked, a disc found and placed in an empty case, due dates stamped, or discs counted? If these things need to be done at the self-check station, how will patrons know?

Here's another transaction: Asking a reference question. It goes something like this: Patron finds reference desk, lines up if necessary, approaches the desk on their turn, asks their question, is led to the stacks to find materials, is possibly asked to wait while librarian prints some online information, is invited to return to the reference desk if they have further questions.

Here are some questions to ask when evaluating this workflow:
-How many reference desks are there? What is the average distance to the reference desk from any given point on the floor? Is the reference desk in the middle of the room or in a far corner?

-Is there space for a line to form without blocking walkways?

-Is the reference desk signed or labeled so that patrons know it is a place where they can ask for help?

-Is there a place for patrons to sit during lengthy reference transactions?

-How often are patrons re-directed to another service desk?

-How many staff members do patrons typically talk to before they get to the reference librarian by phone? Is it clear which extension they should pick?

-How many places around the room does the patron need to go to get materials to answer his question? For example, perhaps they are led to the non-fiction 500s for some circulating books, then across the room to the reference 500s to look at some reference books, then across the room again to a computer terminal to expand their catalog search or print some articles from the databases (or do they have to find their library card, log in to the computer system, and put money on their account to do this?). Then they realize they have a follow-up question and go back to the front of the room to the reference desk to ask the librarian. This is an awful lot of steps!

Analyzing the answers
Here's where I'm going with all this. It is very important to lean operations and staff workflows by streamlining them. It is equally (or even more) important to streamline patron interactions. Find out how many steps there are to patrons completing the most common transactions. It may become clear that some procedures are awkward, redundant, or unclear. Remember: it is not the public's job to know who they can ask what kinds of questions. They do not know or care what our internal procedures are. For example, they don't care that Marge in receiving handles checking in today's newspapers; they just want today's newspaper. They don't care that the Wii games are kept behind the check-out desk; they just want to check out the game they chose. They don't care that certain books are renewed at one desk and inter-loaned books are renewed at a different desk; they just want their books renewed.

It's ok to have certain transactions take place at certain desks, as long as it makes sense. We should go around our buildings and ask WHY those transactions take place there. If a particular question comes up at a particular desk most often, then that is the desk that should handle that transaction. There's no need to refer patrons all over the building or transfer them all over the phone system to get what they came for. Services like roving reference, wireless phones, re-worded phone menus, well-placed "kiosk" computers, integrated collections (combine formats, or maybe reference and circulating collections), and chairs at the service desks could make all the difference.

Speaker Fees

2011-04-08T10:35:00.000-04:00

Mary Kelly and I do a bit of public speaking on the side. We love to present at library conferences, and we do a few every year. We usually represent Awful Library Books on the road, but sometimes we represent our workplace libraries. (We're careful to separate the two! We use vacation time from work to speak at library conferences that fall under the ALB umbrella.)

When we represent Awful Library Books, we usually get paid. We're very flexible with fees and will work with just about any budget, but we do need our travel expenses covered at the very least. Setting a speaker fee is a difficult thing! There are two of us, so we know we're more expensive than hiring one person - two airfares, two sets of meals, etc. It's that base fee that is tricky. In the past we have charged roughly what we make in a day at our regular jobs. We figured that we burned a vacation day to be there, so we'd like to be compensated for that vacation day. As much fun as we have at these speaking gigs, it's not exactly a vacation!

I'm interested to know what others charge. If you have time, please consider taking my quick, anonymous, two-question survey below. I'm interested in your speaking fees separate from travel and per diem - just the speaking part! I'll post the results next week.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Authors I Like

2011-04-08T09:00:00.002-04:00

A while back I wrote about my favorite books. That's an ever-changing list. Here is a list of authors I like a lot. To be eligible for this list, the only criteria is that I've read and enjoyed more than one book by the author. It's not a list of my favorite authors - some of them have only written one book, or I only liked one of their books. This list is more about authors I like to suggest to people because no matter what title they pick, they're likely to enjoy it.

Here's a list of twenty authors I like (not in order of preference, because that's just impossible). I've avoided those major authors that the general public has probably heard of. You won't find James Patterson or Janet Evanovich here. I've tried to go a little more obscure than that, although most of these are certainly popular authors. These are authors I would suggest to people who have read everything by those big-name authors, to branch out.

1. Elizabeth Berg
2. Jodi Picoult
3. Lisa Genova
4. Sophie Kinsella
5. Avi
6. Tori Carrington
7. Laurie Halse Anderson
8. Barbara Delinsky
9. Sandra Kring
10. Denise Hamilton
11. Maureen Johnson
12. Steve Hamilton
13. Donna Jo Napoli
14. Terry Trueman
15. Michael Zadoorian
16. Emily Giffin
17. Margaret Peterson Haddix
18. Patricia Reilly Giff
19. Elizabeth Strout
20. Marek Halter

Some are literary, some are "brain candy," some are teen or children's authors...I like these authors for a variety of reasons and for a variety of moods.

@FakeAPStyleBook

2011-04-04T18:31:00.000-04:00

Write More Good: An Absolutely Phony Guide
The Bureau Chiefs

One perk of blogging is that sometimes people send you free books, in hopes that you will review them. When they're this cool, I most certainly will! I follow @fakeapstylebook on Twitter for a daily laugh. These guys are hilarious! The book does not disappoint.

Sections like "News & Headline Writing" ("Having trouble finding an audience for your food section? Consider running a story similar to the 'mad cow disease scare' e.g. 'irritable chicken syndrome,' 'moody pork disorder,' or 'uncomfortably needy fish situation.' Remember, vegetables do not have feelings." p.9) and "Citation and Attribution: Do Not Hit the Snooze Button" ("Scholarly Works: Not exactly sure what this is. If you can't get it on the Internet, don't worry about it" p.186) are just a few examples of what you'll find here.

Notice the green dot on the front cover? It says, "If you use this, you will get fired!" This book makes fun of the "lowering standards of the written word" (back cover). And, as Roger Ebert points out in the forward, it's not just a slapped-together copy of their Twitter stream. This is new material!

This book is available on April 5. Run, do not walk, to get your copy! You need this for a laugh (and, if I'm being honest, there's some sad truth to some of it too.)

March Reading List

2011-04-04T09:00:00.003-04:00

Here's what I read in March:

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

This is one of my favorite newer authors. Her other book, Still Alice, was equally good. Left Neglected is about a high-powered business woman who has it all: great job, vacation home in Vermont, three children, and an equal partner in her husband. Then she is in a car accident and has a traumatic brain injury. The condition (a real medical condition, by the way) is called "left neglect." She doesn't see or recognize things on the left side: the left side of the page, the left side of her body, etc. She knows intellectually that she has a left hand, but can't find it or use it easily. Fascinating stuff! At the same time, her oldest son is diagnosed with ADHD, her estranged mother comes to live with them to help out, and she feels like she has lost everything. She can't work, can't drive, can't dress herself, and can't take care of her children. The story is about how she figures out how to get by day by day and re-prioritize her life.

Killing Cousins by Rett MacPherson

I've been picking my way through the Victory O'Shea series by this author. They're funny and easy and quick - brain candy. This was one of my least favorites in the series so far, though. It was ok; I was entertained. I just wasn't wowed by it. In this installment, Tory O'Shea has been asked to write the biography of a famous jazz singer who lived in New Kassel, MO (her home town, where all of these mysteries take place.) The singer's baby was kidnapped in the 1930's and never found. When a man is found dead in a house slated for demolition in town, Tory finds a connection with the jazz singer and her stolen baby. The man is a cousin to the kidnapped child. Another cousin is a prominent politician in Missouri. What do these cousins know about the kidnapped baby? Tory can be counted on to nose her way around and find out!

Next up:

I still really want to read "Shanghai Girls" by Lisa See, as well as "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout. Right now I'm sidetracked by a cute mystery by Rhys Bowen called "Her Royal Spyness."

Advocacy and Difficult Patrons

2011-03-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Mary Kelly recently wrote about what she calls "Time Suckers." The brilliance of that post is the idea that public libraries include the WHOLE public. We don't get to choose which patrons we will help. We don't get to treat the difficult ones differently than the easy ones. Everyone deserves the same level of help and professionalism. Patrons don't earn our help; they pay for it. We have jobs because they choose to take advantage of our services. A very smart and customer-centric librarian I know calls patrons our "bread and butter."

There are definitely librarians with better "soft skills" than others in public libraries around the country. Their social graces, friendliness, and optimism help them to smooth over tough conversations and work with difficult people. Those who lack these soft skills are more likely to revert to "I can't help you" or "We don't do that here" or "That's not allowed."

Soft skills seem to me to be partially intrinsic, or part of a person's personality. They are very difficult to teach. No matter how many customer service seminars someone sits through, if they aren't a socially graceful, friendly, or optimistic person by nature, they are likely to deal with adversity on an instinctual level. No one likes controversy. It makes us nervous and defensive.

I have experienced this lack of soft skills from the patron side, and it is very uncomfortable for both parties. I once went to a public library and asked for directions to a bed and breakfast, where I was headed for a bridal shower. It was within a few blocks of the library. (I'm not great with directions...I knew I was close, but just couldn't find it. What luck to find a public library in the vicinity!) I asked the librarian if he knew where the B&B was. He didn't look up, but just said, "No." That was all. I hovered there, stupified that the transaction was over. I was just horrified that this is the way that librarian treats his patrons. Of course I couldn't let it go. I said, "I have the address...could you ask someone else who might be familiar with the area?" He sighed, looked up, and pointed to some phone books. "Look in there." Really?

Ultimately, I got a different map from the one I came in with, and my answer (no thanks to Librarian X!). I could have been really nasty and informed him that I was a librarian and that he really should, I don't know...DO HIS JOB. I didn't. Because I have soft skills. I APOLOGIZED for taking his time, THANKED him, and moved on. All I could think of was that if he treated me, the easy patron, that way, how would he treat a difficult person?

Here's the message: Public librarians don't get to choose. We are being paid to be helpful. People who bother to ask for help in the first place, no matter how rudely, should get that help. Preferably with a smile, but at least a pleasant transaction. We have to suck it up, put on our happy face, and help them. I'm not suggesting we accept abusive behavior - there are obvious limits to what we should be forced to put up with. We don't have to allow patrons to swear at us, touch us in any way, or threaten us. Here's the thing, though: the nicer you are, the more apologetic for the situation, and the more willing to fix it, the nicer THEY are, the more apologetic THEY will become, and the more willing they will be to compromise. I swear, it works.

Those people will remember us at voting time. Those people will be nicer to us next time they come in. Those people might even mention us to their friends. Don't you love it when people say "The librarians here are always so helpful"? I do! I'm lucky to hear that a lot, and I love it. It puts all librarians in a good light, advocates for our profession and the value of the public library institution. When we are unhelpful and rude, the same things apply: they will remember us at voting time, they will be rude to us next time they are in, and they will mention us to their friends.

Look, folks, the customer is always right. Even when they are clearly wrong...they get to be right. Advocate for libraries and librarians and put your soft skills to work when dealing with the public.

MeL Databases

2011-03-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

What would we do without Michigan eLibrary databases? They are the great equalizer among libraries in Michigan. No matter what type of library they use throughout the state, residents of Michigan have access to a core collection of electronic resources. If funding for MeL databases is threatened, there will be a great divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots."

I recently filled out a survey about the value of specific MeL databases to my daily work. Here are my top ten, along with the reasons why I've chosen them. These are in alphabetic order, not preference.

1. Academic OneFile
This is a Gale database of mostly full-text journal articles and other reference resources on a wide variety of subjects. This is ideal for college students who do research in public libraries, since public libraries typically don't subscribe to academic journals or text books. There are several colleges and universities within about ten miles of where I work, so we get a lot of academic, college-level research questions.

2. Books & Authors
Another Gale database. This used to be called "What Do I Read Next" and is a great reader advisory tool. There are book lists, author information, subject essays, and series lists. It also covers both fiction and non-fiction.

3. Business and Company Resource Center
Hmmm...another Gale database. I swear I'm not biased. This is a mostly full-text database of articles, company profiles and histories, brand and industry information, rankings, and investment reports. It is appropriate for business people, business students, and average-Joe investors.

4. eLibrary Elementary
This one is a ProQuest database, marketed towards children. Don't be fooled by its cutesiness, though - it is wonderful for all ages! Full-text articles, reference books exerpts, maps, pictures, radio and TV show transcripts...in terms of favorites, this is in my top three. It has an easy interface to use, it gives the reading level of articles, and it has both audio and video as well as text sources. Love it!

5. General OneFile
Aaaaand we're back to Gale. This is a great choice for lay-people and students. It includes mostly full-text articles from periodicals and newspapers on a huge variety of topics. This is a great starting point for general users.

6. Health and Wellness Resource Center
Gale again. Here you can find articles in health journals, pamphlets, videos, and links to reputable health web sites. It includes a health dictionary, alternative medicine, and drug information. It is incredibly user-friendly, and the results are lay-person friendly (unlike the Health Reference Center Academic, which is a great database, but very, very academic. I can read and understand the articles found in Health & Wellness Resource Center, but rarely in the academic database.)

7. HeritageQuest
This is another ProQuest database. If I had to choose between Ancestry or HeritageQuest, I'd go with Ancestry. Since that isn't a choice in MeL, I think it's important to have a genealogy database available in libraries (this one is not available remotely), so I'm adding this one to my top 10. The census images are useful, and it includes local and family histories. There are thousands of digitized books in this database! There are also tax lists, city directories, and probate records, as well as Revolutionary War Pension files and the Freedman’s Bank Records...and more!

8. Learning Express Library
This is a unique database from Learning Express, LLC. It includes practice tests for all kinds of certification, licensing, and academic tests. It also includes a section on job assessment. What a great way to take practice tests, which are timed and scored! Libraries with budget and space concerns can offer test prep resources outside of books. The number and variety of tests are staggering - very useful, practical, and realistic!

(9. I'm counting MelCat as a separate MeL service, not a database, but it is 100% crucial. #1 on my list if it counted here. I'm not counting any of the portals, like Michigana.)

9. NetLibrary
Here is an Ebsco database. I'm on the fence about this one. In theory, I love having access to thousands of digital books that don't require software downloads or digital devices. They are mostly non-fiction and classic literature, and tend toward the academic. This is great for college students who use the public library and for research when the instructor requires a certain number of book-format sources. My problem with NetLibrary is that the titles seem to be kind of old (health and financial titles from the late 90's and early 2000's), and the system requires that an account be created on a library computer. Patrons can't just log in with their library card number as they do for all the other MeL database. To check a book out in NetLibrary they have to have a separate account, and that account had to be created on a computer with an IP address associated with a Michigan library. This is all kind of a hassle. You can browse the titles for a certain amount of time without checking them out, though, and there is content in NetLibrary that I wouldn't be able to get as quickly if I had to inter-library loan it in print.

10. WorldCat
Right from OCLC! We use this for looking up availability of books via inter-library loan. Aything not available through MelCat gets looked up in WorldCat next. I have also used it to find descriptors (subject headings) to expand a subject search. It's a staple for book-specific searching (and magazines too), even though you just get a citation and not the actual item through this database.

Honorable Mentions:

New York Times
Gale! All full-text back to 1985! Nice.

Newsbank Michigan Newspapers
Created by Newsbank. This includes full text from the Detroit News (1999 to current) and the Grand Rapids Press (2002 to current), plus a few dozen national news magazines. This is a great source for current events projects and finding specific articles from back issues.

SIRS Discoverer Deluxe
This is a Proquest database for kids. I REALLY wanted to include this in the top 10! I like their subject categories, like countries, health, and current events. In addition to print, it includes video and audio. You can get articles from children's magazines like Weekly Reader, as well as youth-oriented encyclopedias and reference books. I almost want to swap NetLibrary for this one on my top ten list.

What are your top ten MeL databases?

Computers in Libraries 2011 Day Three

2011-03-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

Today I'm focusing on the "User Experience" and "Mobile Trends & Practice" tracks.

Keynote: Adding Value to Communities
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

33% of internet users create content tags
26% post comments on sites and blogs

44% of those living below the poverty line used library connections. They rely on the library AND library staff expertise.

2/3 of library connection users surveyed sought assistance from library staff

Most people (48%) who aren’t using the internet say it’s irrelevant to their lives (6% availability, 18% usability, 21% price, 7% other)

57% of adults use mobile internet connectors.

Mobile Landscape and Location
Joe Murphy, Science Librarian, Coordinator of Instruction & Technology, Yale University
Chanitra Bishop, Instruction & Emerging Technologies Librarian, Indiana University
Jason A. Clark, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Head of Digital Access and Web Services, Montana State University Libraries

New to an area? Use location-based apps to find out what’s available in the area.
Often, you can get coupons/exclusive deals when you check in (targeted marketing)

Foursquare:
-Users check in to a place
-Can create a to-do list (like at a museum or library)
-Find out what friends are doing
-Learn about events, restaurants, etc.
-Foursquare is more like a game with mayor, collecting badges, a leader board, and points

Claim your location to run promotions. Merge info already there if someone already put you there. No authority control.

Reward the mayor with a prize. Add locations around the building (ie. reward someone for going to the reference desk, youth desk, etc.) Consider having separate prizes for staff and public.

Provide tips for specific locations or whole place (ie. "Quiet study rooms on upper level"). Add descriptions, photos, and tags.

Usability Express: Recipe for Libraries
Bohyun Kim, Digital Access Librarian, Medical Library, Florida International University
Marissa Ball, Emerging Technologies Librarian, Florida International University

Users do not read content on a web page. They do not want to learn to use your web site. They do not visit your web site every day. They do not return to a site where they could not achieve what they set out to do.

Usable = "Fit for Use"
-Intuitive to use
-Easy to recover from being lost/a mistake
-Conducive to users' performing tasks
-No need to learn at the first visit
-No need to recall at repeated visits.

Libraries offer a lot!
-Many systems, many different services, many details, forms, and departments

Common usability problems & examples
-Promote all things, so nothing stands out. Users have no idea where to focus/start. Information overload is stressful. Improve by taking things out rather than adding them. Be aware of clutter creeping in. Users are happy to click as long as it is mindless and they know that they are getting close.

-Dated look: lowers the credibility of the site. Users suspect outdated content. Replace old icons, images,typography. Update a CSS file to give a new look.

-Too subtle design: users scan web pages like billboard while driving a car at 60 miles/hr. Make visually clear what's most important, valuable, popular. Provide a clear visual hierarchy on the page. Break pages up into clearly defined areas.

-Unclear terms/library jargon. Replace all jargons and acronyms with plain terms.

-Redundant/unnecessary content: unnecessary content = small talk. Users have no interest in small talk (ie. "Library has XX volumes, great atmosphere," etc.). Answer users' questions, not yours. Serve content that users can grab and go. If you have to introduce or explain a link further, you haven't used the right terms for the link itself.

-Bad writing: rewrite a page to be the half of its length, then cut more! Use clear headings, make paragraphs short, start with the key point, make content easy to scan with bullets.

-Design against convention. The best ally of usability is conservativism. Don't give people choices or make them pause. Don't underestimate the value of convention. Be creative without sacrificing usability. Make web sites predictable and familiar to people so they feel comfortable.

-Unintuitive navigation

QR Codes
David Lee King
-Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library did a QR Code scavenger hunt as part of their "Big Read" program. Many signed up, not very many finished. Staff need to be able to answer questions about the program.

Lauren Pressley, Instructional Design librarian, Wake Forest University
Kevin Gilbertson, Web Services Librarian, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University
-QR codes around the library pointing people to more resources. QR codes on web site that point to places in the physical world, like availability of study rooms, location of stacks, etc.

Jon Lutz, Electronic Services Librarian, FSU College of Law Research Center
-Add QR code to paper handouts & documents that link to PDF copy. Promote library services by creating a bookmark (MS Publisher) with pic of library on one side and several QR codes on the other (links to catalog, electronic resources, research guides, library blog, etc.).

Margaret Clark, Research Librarian, FSU College of Law Research Center
-QR codes on new books that links to online book review of that item. QR codes on legal materials like U.S. Code that links to online version, which might be more up to date than print. Idea: QR code links to online video that explains how to use a tricky resource: Value Line, PDR, microfilm machine, scanner. We're already making these videos - put QR codes in those places!

Digital Collections: Creative Development & User Experience

Channel Yourself: Using YouTube Playlists to Create Online Collections
Cathy Wolford, Systems Librarian, DALNET
-YouTube: Basic account is what DALNET has. Even if you want to apply for an EDU account, you have to have a basic account first. Customize your channel to make it attractive. Send a bulletin update to your subscribers.
-YouTube EDU: intended for educational materials as opposed to promotional. Only one EDU channel allowed per institution. Benefits: can put in a logo and content longer than ten minutes.
-Nonprofit program: Must have IRS 501(c)3 status. Can brand with logo, more capacity, add Google donate checkout box. No political or religious institutions. Public Library Friends programs could use it.
-Playlist: virtual collection of videos. Suggestions: historical anniversaries, local history, current events, music videos. Can add other users' content to your playlist. Most time intensive part of creating a playlist is analyzing video content. Find trusted users that upload quality content. Look for date video was uploaded to get an idea of how permanent it might be. Watch the entire video to see if there is a last-minute bias message added.
-DALNET added to their catalog as embeds. Added URL, title, and summary, plus added 590 to pull together as a catalog search.
-Need to periodically review playlists, especially if you embed in catalog, to make sure videos still exist.
-Could make playlists private part-year, then public at specific times.