More conference tips

Five conference tips from a one year veteran:

1) Wear comfortable shoes. This might seem obvious to some, but the days can be long and comfortable shoes are a must. I recommend bringing multiple pairs and even switching out during the day for extra comfort. Your feet will thank you.

2) Don't feel obliged to stay for every session you attend. If you get to a session and it is not what you hoped it would be ... leave. Just do it quietly. Make sure you sit at the end of a row and slip out at an unobtrusive time. Remember you paid to attend the conference so get what you want out of it.

3) Even though you'll be exhausted, go to the social events. It's a great way to meet other LIS students and new librarians. You can compare notes on library schools, employers, courses you should take or wish you had taken, and life in general. Hopefully, you'll be seeing these people for years to come, so start building your peer network.

4) If you can, stay for part of the AMG. It will provide you with an interesting insight into how CLA works and where your membership fees go. Like the sessions, don't feel obligated to stay for the whole meeting, just pop in and out quietly.

5) Have fun! I think this is the most important advice I can give. The CLA conference should be, if nothing else, fun. Especially when you're a new librarian. So meet new people, learn new things, and have a great time.

I hope to see everyone in St. John's!

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Re-energizing your collection arrangement

Re-energizing your collection arrangement.

Sooner or later, it’s going to happen – you outgrow your building. For those of us, whose buildings were constructed 30+ years ago, that time is now. There’s only so much “shifting to fit” until there’s no more room to fit.

My library was built for a student enrolment of 8000. Our current enrolment is close to double that. We’re out of room, and there’s no budget for a new building. This year, we were voted “best place to study” in the local indie paper, and we have had a full house. Our user feedback is clear: more computers, more study space, especially more quiet study space.

In addition, our library arrangement of our printed collection just didn’t make sense to most of our users. This is part of the legacy of a significant fire in another library on campus a couple of decades back. Although that library was rebuilt, safety audits of the remaining facilities meant that one collection had to move into another library building. This lead to an arrangement where journals were inter-shelved with books for social sciences and humanities, but not for sciences. A was on the same floor as Z, with E-N and some P’s (but not all!) on a different floor. Science had a separate floor. To accommodate a Learning/Information Commons a few years ago, government documents (we are a depository library) moved to two different floors. Sound confusing? Oh yeah.

So what are we doing about it all?

First we weeded. We’ve stored journals that are duplicated online on stable platforms. Now we’re containing government documents to one floor, and putting everything else in call number order: 750,000 items in 15 weeks. Think of it as a Suduko puzzle with 750,000 spaces - and more than one correct answer.

The project managers looked at the current stack arrangement to determine how to accomplish this with the fewest moves. (Rubik’s cube, anyone?) Some items will be shifted to a temporary location before reaching their final destination.

We also gave a lot of thought to how to promote this project on campus. We really needed faculty to be onside with this, especially the journal storage. In addition, we needed reliable ways of communicating what was where throughout the move. To accomplish this, we’ve jumped into blogging. The project managers update the blog (killamcollectionmove.wordpress.com) twice a day to let users know where the action is. We also post daily updates in our lobby. One page indicates which call number ranges have been moved to new locations, and the other gives a floor by floor description of what is happening where, which areas are closed, and where a user can still find quiet study space.

Three weeks into the project – what has been learned?

• Communication counts! When users see the former reading room group study tables filled with journals and shelving being taken down, they need a really good explanation, already in place outside the door.
• You need to emphasize that even though there is a major move going on, you’re still open and ready for business.
• Even with all kinds of PR, some patrons will not notice anything is going on until their favourite collection has moved, or a study area has been converted to stacks.
• Staff who have not previously been bloggers, can quickly become effective bloggers.
• Your moving staff need to have critical thinking skills to head off potential problems before they become real problems.
• This is a perfect time to get out the vacuum cleaners for the books, and sponge off the shelves. Dust masks and gloves are necessary too.
• When you move bound journals onto shelving formerly used by government documents, make sure the shelving is adequately supported for the extra weight.
• Keep the digital camera handy – everyone likes pictures.
• There will be problems, but there are solutions. Treat your project managers gently, particularly on the days when the problems outnumber the solutions.

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I like wikis, but...

Over the past year, I've participated in a number of work and school-related wiki initiatives and projects, and I'm currently conducting an independent study on the use and potential uses of wikis in academic libraries. Theoretically, wikis are fantastic collaborative tools that could provide library users with a way of actively contributing to a library's community and its informational content. But, unfortunately, from my experience, such online library communities haven't seemed to develop.

Thankfully, wikis are versatile creatures that can serve librarians in a number of ways, so the development of such communities is not essential to their successful and effective use. They can, for instance, act as a collaborative space for group projects, connecting distant librarians and institutions. They can serve as an interesting web-design alternative for pages that need to be updated frequently. And, they can act as an educational tool, which is something that they may be best suited to do, for the grade incentive ensures that students contribute to some extent. In fact, while I was on co-op recently, two geography professors at McMaster University incorporated group wiki projects into their classes. In the end, the students seemed to embrace the idea, and the final products are impressive (take a look at them here and here).

Indeed, wikis are ideal for those types of scenarios, but I always hearken back to the question of community: how can an academic library actually get a group of non-library people to contibute to a library wiki? Well, as I was sitting on a dreadfully long bus ride yesterday and thinking about wikis and this post, I was reminded of a comment I received on an earlier post of mine about social software:

If social softwares are only being used to promote library services then why would anyone participate?

This is a valid question, and, in the case of wikis, one that is especially relevant. Social software tools may be dynamic and exciting, but simply using them doesn't make a library dynamic and exciting, and we definitely shouldn't expect users to be excited about dynamic and exciting tools that are filled with mundane library information.

So, if a library wiki is to foster an active and participative community, it will probably have to be on a subject that is of interest to the user and not necessarily the library. So, rather than fill blogs and wikis with library promotions, academic libraries could instead consider offering non-academic programs and services, like destressers, gaming nights, and other activities that are geared more towards the student and the student life. Such activities could create a library culture that appeals to the 'modern' library user, and wikis could complement that culture by providing students with a space to share information about the campus, community, etc., online. And although I like the idea of libraries moving in this direction, I still find it unlikely that wikis would work in such a scenario, as ideal as it is.

For a library wiki to captivate non-library people, I think it would have to work off an already engrained sense of community, and I would be surprised if a wiki could create (has created?) a participative community from scratch. I like wikis, and they are definitely useful in certain instances, but in terms of community, they don't come close to meeting their potential. Having said that, if there are some examples of academic libraries successfully using wikis to build and/or support user communities, I would to like hear about them.

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Surviving the Conference Maelstrom

It’s that time of year again and for me, it’s far more stressful than any September. Between getting funding together, planning and executing trips to cities i have little knowledge of, and – if I’m lucky – preparing presentations, it’s a busy season. But while the planning can still be overwhelming, I’ve been to enough conferences now to know how to make them pleasant and rewarding experiences. This is the start of what I hope will be a fruitful conversation about how to get the most out of library conferences – please feel free to share your experiences.

Gillian’s Top Five

1. Stay as close as you can afford. There are always breaks between sessions and evening events, but they’re usually very short – the closer you stay the more you can participate. Your feet will thank you.
   
2. Wear your name tag at all times. This is coming from the girl who has never made it through a conference without losing her tag (I actually bring spares), but it’s what gives people an “in” to start up a conversation with you. This means that it’s very important to give conference organizers as much detail as possible to put on the tag. “Joe Smith, Librarian” doesn’t give me a lot to go on.
   
3. Dress appropriately. No need to drag out the suits (though by all means feel free to class up the joint!), but try shooting for a mix of professional and comfortable. See those guys in the corner wearing jeans? They have jobs (most likely in systems).
   
4. Take time outs. There‘s pressure, especially if you’re being funded, to hit every session possible, but beware of overload. If there isn’t a session going on that interests you, take a break. Go for a walk, meet some vendors, hook up with friends...
   
5. Vendors are your friends. If they’re not busy, vendors appreciate chatting with people – even those with no (immediate) power to make or suggest purchases. Many of them are librarians too, and like to talk about what’s going on in the field or at the conference. Don’t be scared; they’re people too!
   

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Library Discourse

I just read Stephen J. Bell’s blog posting, “Good at Reviewing Books but Not Each Other” http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/04/27/bell and it made me think about my part in the absence of library discourse and dissention.

First off, I don’t have a permanent job, so I’m not eager to throw the gauntlet down and have a heated, online ‘debate’ with a peer. This isn’t to say that I am unable or unwilling to express my opinion, even if it’s in opposition, but at this stage in my career I have to pick my battles and my platforms carefully. I’ve learned that perspective employers will go online to check out a viable candidate, and I don’t want to introduce myself to them through angry rants and online arguments.

But this isn’t the only reason for my quiet observation of the library discourse. I don’t feel that I have the experience to speak up, especially online. I’m afraid of making a stupid comment, which is now out there for anyone to see and snigger at. I think a lot of people think this way about blogging in general, but I see this extending to all forms of our discourse – blogs, listservs, conferences, etc. Is the fear of ridicule mine alone? I don’t think so, but I do wonder at what stage in my career will I feel comfortable enough to publicly disagree?

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