by Donna Slaton, Kentucky & Tennessee Valley Chapters, Solo Librarians Division

Selection is the librarian’s most valuable tool for the future. Selection is not censorship. Librarians of the future should select for value and purpose with clearly defined goals in mind. When the whole world can “Google” anything in print pretty much, what will set libraries apart is the professional arrangement of valuable and useful materials, not the inclusion of vulgar, pornagraphic or trendy material just to say they are not censoring anything. It is time to “control” your stuff and choose wisely, not catalog anything and everything but choose selectively so that libraries are a respected resource not a less than “Google” sized collection of anything and everything.

Selection policies need to be reviewed often in this changing world not to reflect the largest possibilities for gathering in but the most specific scope for the library and its population to be served. Public and academic libraries more than special libraries have continuously grown beyond reason because they have in the last two decades tried to collect everything. But even special libraries that have a more narrow focus have been growing with the attitude that bigger is better to the point where storage and staff expense is not in line with value given to anyone except other librarians.

Weeding is also a necessary tool of selection. Once you have selected it, you have to recognize if it is not in use, or has never been used, you should move it out to provide space for necessary materials. Too many librarians still horde old stuff because they cannot bear to throw away a book. There is simply too much stuff in print for anyone to ever read and too many copies of most of it.

With the advent of OCLC network and Inter Library Loan accessibility, budgets for that continuously grew as well. When I graduated college in the mid 70s, ILL was for serious scholarly research – not for the public, private or special libraries to loan each other at growing mail expenses( which is more than the cost of a paperback), either the second oldest James Patterson novel, or an obscure author that is only held by three libraries, because his second cousin in another state just decided he wanted to read it.

We have promoted libraries as the respository of everything without focusing on needs instead of wants. Libraries cannot out google Google. We do not accept paid advertising. The sooner we realize that and specialize in what we do best as the original search engine the more ready for the future we will be with valuable materials and useful information, not just a room full of stuff.

With sharply focused collections, bibliographies of materials, and links specifically addressing our unique clientele’s needs, special librarians have an opportunity to lead the way in guiding users to the needed materials without gathering all of it ourselves. Future ready is smaller and smarter.

Donna F. Slaton is Librarian II for the Green River Correctional Complex – a medium security prison in Kentucky’s Dept of Corrections. She served 10 years as Associate Director of the Hopkins County-Madisonville Public Library and switched from public to special libraries in 2008, joining SLA in 2009. She writes a weekly column for the Madisonville Messenger newspaper and blogs under LibraryUp and LibraryLadyWrites and is Past President of the Kentucky Storytelling Association. Her web site is www.misspockets3.com.

by Catherine Lavallée-Welch, Florida & Caribbean Chapter, Academic, IT and Sci-Tech Divisions

Could you describe the design of an academic library constructed in 2016? It’s easy to imagine following current trends: emphasis on the learning process and the creation of a learning community, more collaborative work, the increasing amount of electronic resources, the use of technology, increased interdisciplinarity, accountability and sustainability.

What about designing the building for 2031? Or 2061? Today’s librarian in charge of designing a new building must cope with a library evolving at a rate faster than any time since Gutenberg.

Faced with such an opportunity, I recently attended a conference on library space planning and revitalization. My main takeaway was to put the emphasis on the infrastructure, and not on fixtures or furniture. Key components are flexible, multi-use space, lots of natural light, extensive electrical wiring and the presence of quiet study zones. The types of services offered and the roles and functions of librarians and staff are evolving.

The new library is a place that is used simultaneously physically and virtually; a place that permits users to participate and collaborate in a learning, scholarly community.

Should we mention the “p” word? Yes, there will be “print” collections. Some new libraries opt for a digital-only collection through extensive storage and digitizing. Other lean toward the digital-heavy approach – see Helen Josephine’s excellent post on this blog on the new Engineering Library at Stanford University. I believe that libraries will utilize select print monographs until publishers use business models for e-books that meet all libraries’ and users’ needs. Don’t hide your print books; use the stacks as architectural elements to create zones. Libraries still have a huge symbolic value and book stacks are the clearest representation of such.

Conference attendees had the opportunity to visit the recently renovated Thompson Library at the Ohio State University. With large glass walls, the book tower is a prime visual focus. However, the building stays user-centered with a variety of seating areas for individual, communal and collaborative work.

I spoke to students about their library habits. A finance junior admitted to not checking out books and rarely using the electronic resources.  Still, he chooses the library to study over myriad options spread over the campus. He found when students go to the library, it’s to hunker down, get to work and study seriously. It’s the building – and the atmosphere within – that attracts him.

User studies offer one of the best ways to develop the library design. Users are usually thrilled to be a part of the process and the studies provide insights into unarticulated needs. Don’t limit recruitment to library staff, student workers or your regular users. Most important are the people who are not currently using your library.

What is keeping them away? What tools, spaces or services are you missing? What will convince them to utilize the facility? Don’t neglect to poll the school’s administration. What are the organizational strategic goals?

Gather input beyond surveys and focus groups. You can use design charrettes; usage observation; user diaries; photo surveys; usage mapping; interviews outside the library; late-night residence hall visits; reply cards left around the facility, etc.

Campus space is at a premium and financial resources are scarce. This situation may continue for a long time. Rest assured though that success in the short and long term will go to the flexible academic library closely aligned with user and organization culture and goals.

Catherine Lavallée-Welch is the Director of the University of South Florida Polytechnic Library. One of her current projects is planning and design of a library and learning commons  for her institution’s new campus. Catherine is a board member of the Florida and Caribbean Chapter and of the Academic Division. She’s a candidate for Division Cabinet Chair-Elect for the 2012 SLA Board of Directors.

by Jane Kirby, Oregon Chapter, Government Information Division

A few weeks ago, a library customer hailed me in the parking lot as I returned from lunch.  “Hi Jane, I have a DVD to return.  I’ll stop by the library when you open at 1:00.”  I glanced at my watch: 12:50. “No need wait,” I said.  “I’ll take it now so you can be on your way.  I know you have a manager’s meeting this afternoon.”  I smiled as I walked into my building. “Working in a special library is like being a librarian in a small town,” I thought. “You represent the library wherever you go and you always know what’s going on.”

We special librarians are in a position to know our customers very well.  After all, we have a long-term clientele made up of co-workers and business associates. This close-knit relationship offers a unique opportunity to anticipate and respond to our customers’ information needs. If we simply tap into the grapevine, we’ll quickly learn how we can help.

Is the government affairs manager convening a task force and looking for volunteers?  Step up and join the team.  Who better than a librarian to provide research and analysis for a high-visibility project? 

Does one of the engineers have a reputation for being demanding and difficult to please?  Win her over with the current awareness service and you might find your library’s best advocate.

Or, how about the young data analyst who is overwhelmed with a major project, not to mention a new baby at home?  Save him some time by delivering information to his cubicle. It only takes a minute.

Reach out.  Listen. Be flexible. The Future Ready special library melds high touch with high technology.

by Josh Walters

At the end of 2010 I reviewed and reported on the goals I’d set for my work-year back in January.  These included top level categories like service delivery, business partner engagement, advocacy and outreach, and strategy and communications. Tactics within each of these areas involved extensive use of web communications vehicles and online business networking platforms. Time and time again I was called upon to join teams as a consultant, a critical ear, or to aid in the redirection of a team mired in its own detail.

I should mention that technically, I’m an Access and Interface librarian–that means I do web design, usability, optimization; I “productize” services we’ve traditionally done as manual processes using the web, or translate business partner and end user needs into a service we can “sell” inside the enterprise to other groups.  In many cases, this leads to innovation.  In others, it means greater user-awareness and more work.  In either, it’s exposure, proof, leverage, an elevator speech… that said, considering the words “access” and “interface,” and using a broad interpretation, it may be apt.

We have a leadership attribute inside our company that translates to: Finds a way.  It implies that when the road is ill-defined (or non-existent) one who will succeed is one who taps some inner reservoir and marshals a solution.  During this current economic downturn–as we have fewer resources, people and consequently, time–it is often the punchline to a dire joke.  But it’s serious as a heart attack to librarians under the gun.

Librarians jump into new platforms and mediums as easily as breathing.  New social bookmarking app?  Librarians are in it.  Putting web pieces together using JQuery and AJAX?  Librarians.  Extending the blog as a strategic communications vehicle? Turning a wiki into a publishing platform? Tying together underpowered SharePoint environments for greater collaboration? Teaching groups that there’s more to the library than what they ever thought possible?  Librarians, librarians, librarians… librarians.

In reviewing my goals at the end of 2010 I noted that in more than one of my focus areas ‘come 2011, I’d be putting “Finds a Way” to extensive use.  Being “Future Ready,” none of those subject areas are going away:  Service, engagement, outreach, strategy, communications: open the tool box, find a way.  The fun is just beginning.

Talk to you again soon,
Josh

Josh Walters is a librarian with The Boeing Company. He spends extensive time consulting on projects throughout the enterprise related to optimal use of tools and collaboration environments, supporting the Knowledge Management effort, and talking about effective communications practices using social business platforms.  Though physically located in Durham, North Carolina, and with due respect to the locals, he considers himself an SLA-Southern California Chapter member in diaspora.

by Greg Lambert, Texas Chapter, Legal Division

As I was riding the bus into work this morning, I started putting some puzzle pieces together in my mind, and things that I’ve been reading, watching and preparing came together and made me wonder if the library world’s push to find its place in the age of social communications may mean that it needs to re-embrace its stereotype as a place where you go to quietly study and work without being interrupted. Let me list out the three puzzle pieces I’m thinking about, and then I’ll fill you in on what I mean…

1. Ark Group’s February 2011 conference on Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers – At this meeting, I will be co-presenting with WilmerHale’s Library Director, Matthew J. Todd, on the issue of reconsidering the physical space of a law firm library from a “Social Engineering” perspective. In other words, using the physical library as conduit for actually talking and sharing ideas with your peers in real face-to-face interactions.
2. Jason Fried’s TEDx Talk on Why work doesn’t happen at work – The e-Discovery manager in my office sent this video to me a couple weeks ago and found it interesting the amount of time, money and effort that law firms spend on work space, only to find out that real work may be going on elsewhere.
3. The University of Arizona’s law library got some interesting press in the student paper saying that the law library refuses undergraduates. It seems that one of the best kept secrets at the University of Arizona is that if you want a place where you can study and actually get something done without interruption, the law library is the place to go.

I’ve been prepping for this Ark Group conference by discussing the idea that the library could re-invent its space and become the new water cooler location for small gatherings of peers to discuss work they are conducting, or just getting to know each other better in a neutral setting. The idea is that lawyers tend to be too reliant upon communications via e-mail, text, chat or phone and have lost touch with those down the hall simply because they don’t reach out to them through those electronic communication tools. Kind of like the trend that many of us don’t know the names of our neighbors where we live… many lawyers have only had brief conversations with their fellow lawyers that office down the hall.

However, when I watched the Fried presentation on the fact that one of the reasons we don’t get work done at work is the fact that we have too many distractions that are related to these exact social interactions:

When’s the last time you had three or four hours to yourself to get work done? It probably wasn’t at the office. A phone call, a co-worker tapping on your shoulder or knocking on your door, a required meeting — all the things prevent you from having long uninterrupted stretches of time to get things done. Good work requires thinking, and thinking requires time.

Fried’s concept is that social interaction has its place and time, but so does uninterrupted work.

The final piece of the puzzle I was putting together this morning was remembering the story of how the undergraduates at the University of Arizona loved going to the law library because they could actually get some peace and quite there and actually get some work done. While the main libraries on campus were bustling with activity, social meetings, coffee shops and other activities, the law library seems to be what we think of when we think of a traditional library… a place you are expected to be quiet.

So, am I wrong in my idea that the physical space of a law library (in this instance, a law firm library) should be transformed away from its traditional approach as a place where you are expected to work quietly and not disturb others, and made into a water cooler setting where people talk and discuss the issues they are working on? Or, should we be promoting the law library as a quiet place to get work done? Perhaps there’s a happy medium somewhere that we could do.

Fried half-heartedly jokes that “Instead of casual Fridays, how about no-talk Thursdays?” Maybe the library can be the exact place for a “No-Talk-Thursday” to happen. To balance the “No-Talk-Thursdays,” perhaps we could then have a “Water-Cooler-Fridays” where the library is set up to handle open discussions on any issue a lawyer wants to throw out to his or her peers.

I’d been pretty wrapped up in the idea that the drop in “foot traffic” in the library was due to the fact that people tended to just think of it as a quiet place to go. Now I’m thinking that maybe people just think of it as a place that has books, and the drop-off in traffic is because they have forgotten that it is a quiet place to get work done. The University of Arizona undergraduates talk about their law library as one of the best kept secrets on campus, and value it for its peace and quiet. Perhaps we’ve also become the best kept secret in our place of work. If that is the case, then I’m thinking that I need to let that secret out and find ways of embracing the fact that we are still an outstanding place to go to get work done and at the same time start working on expanding the library as a place where ideas are shared.

Greg Lambert is the Library & Records Manager and King & Spalding LLP. He is the recent Past-President of the Texas Chapter of SLA.

by Aaron Schmidt

Libraries have been following trends in the larger  information world in an attempt to remain relevant. Libraries have strived to be nimble, flexible, and experimental, integrating popular tools and devices so that their offerings make sense to their patrons. Top Tech Trends panels at conferences prime librarians for what’s coming down the pike with the implication that libraries will gain some ground if they’re early adopters.

All of this is fine. Necessary, even. But it isn’t going to secure libraries a place in the future. Why?

This approach is reactive and it makes libraries beholden to the whims of industry. The current eBook quagmire is a perfect example of this. Most people that use commercial digital content are getting their needs filled outside of libraries. Some librarians cling to the notion of libraries as commercial content providers and are trying to fight over the remaining scraps.

This approach is shallow. It emphasizes matching library operations with people’s behaviors, not their motivations. It doesn’t matter, for instance, that some library users use Twitter. What really matters is that some library users want to broadcast their lives and read about other people’s lives. Libraries shouldn’t be concerned with using a hammer. They should be concerned with building something.

Instead of looking to technology for relevance, libraries ought to look at the lives of their patrons and the issues in their communities. Libraries user research budgets should be as big as their tech budgets. Libraries that do things like develop patron personas and conduct ethnographic studies will know not just what people do, but why they do it and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Those libraries can evolve into supportive, problem solving institutions, integrated into their communities.

Aaron Schmidt is the Digital Initiatives Librarian for the District of Columbia Public Library while residing in Portland, Oregon. For more information, view his blog, walkingpaper.org.

Debra Kolah, Texas Chapter

Envisioning the future from the user perspective helps us to create the most amazing experiences possible. If we have thought ahead and steered our way through the ever raging course of technology and change, then we are not shocked by the future, but rather feel the electricity of possibility.

The term “user experience,” while familiar in the context of computer usability, is fairly new in the library environment. The first user experience or “UX” librarian job descriptions started appearing only within the last few years.

But UX in libraries is gaining strength. The user experience deserves our attention. My own title changed in December 2009, I was one of three science librarians when I was promoted to the new position of UX librarian. Solo UX work is not uncommon, but it is hard. Now libraries have had a taste of it and the roles are beginning to expand. Over time, UX will become embedded in librarianship, and all librarians will focus on the user experience if we want to continue to exist and thrive.

The future demands that we create a holistic, user-centered, innovative approach to service design for virtual and physical spaces as well as digital and physical collections. Focus groups, surveys, usability studies, embedded librarianship and ethnographic studies are some of the tools used to gather data and anecdotal information about the user experience. We need to focus on the elephant which is the library website as well as the hundreds of little details that go into making libraries places where people want to go. Everyday we have an opportunity to make the library a user-centered place that teaches, inspires, and creates the future.

We must transition staff to new roles. These include: user needs assessment, usability testing, gathering and interpreting statistics, virtual sites design and production (web and mobile), embedding content outside of our own systems (in YouTube, Slideshare, course management systems, etc.), and marketing and communication.

The times we are living in call for creative ways of doing things that we might not have done in the past. We must look at new user needs and discover new ways to become the libraries of the future. That future has the user at the core of everything we do.

Debra Kolah is User Experience (UX) Librarian at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She is a member of multiple divisions and currently serves as Public Relations Chair of the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division.