Better electronic resource trials

Just read "Community organizing for database trial buy-in by patrons" by JJ Pionke.

• Via IDEALS (Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship): https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/79049
• Via Taylor and Francis: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1941126X.2015.1059643#

Good article suggesting some tips on running more successful, or rather, more patron-involved trials of electronic resources.  The typical trial process given in the article is basically what I do with a few "flourishes" added, so I learned a few things that I may try for next time and add to my list of steps:

1. Listen to the needs of the potentially affected patrons.  Although this seems obvious, I know we all find it hard to seek out the needs instead of just assuming we know them.  And sometimes the needs mentioned are not actual needs.  But understanding them better should be part of the process.
2. The trial acting as a case study was done in March.  I've tended to have them run whenever the trial requestor suggests or simply as soon as possible.  But there may be some value in running them during either March or November since, at my current institution at least, these are the peak periods of use for electronic resources.  All other things being held equal, this should ensure the most use and therefore the most supported feedback possible.
3. In the case study, the health librarian running the trial made personal contact with the relevant patrons, including the faculty department head.  I've always thought this should happen more but as eResources Librarian, it's not part of my role.  But I could encourage this and try to make it easier for those subject liaisons who would be doing this.
4. The article makes the true point that someone who is "one of us" is more likely to be listened to than otherwise.  Again, this is not my current role, and I'm not sure that it's as simple as that, but some aspects of becoming closer to the relevant patron group might be helpful in this and other situations.
5. The article finally mentions that training, support material, and updating communications followed immediately on the heels of the trial end.  Although this kind of this on my list of things to do, it might be helpful to increase the priority of the timing.

Good article, JJ.  Thanks for the tips!  Anyone else have anything interesting to suggest for running trials?

Library School: What I'd Fix

It's been a while since I graduated from my Master of Librarian and Information Science program (in 2001) but I just read "The future of library education: reflections of a newly educated librarian" from Open Shelf, and it made me think back to my glory days on campus learning to do what I've been doing ever since.  Specifically, I was thinking about what I would have preferred in the program:

A better understanding of what the program and each course was going to focus on: practical skills versus theory.

As it said in the inspirational article above, "library schools could better communicate to students exactly what parts of their education are intended to target" each.  These are professional masters degrees so a certain amount of both is required:  we need to be able to both do the job and know why we're doing it so we can maybe do it better.  It would be ideal if every course, regardless of subject had a clear balance of each.  In my experience, some courses had it and others didn't, and my school seemed to particularly focus on the practical skills when I was yearning for more theory.

More education on the collections management side.

My current position (and previous position, and probably several future positions) is in collections management and other technical services functions.  Sure, I had a reference resources course but having worked with resources, vendors, publishers and all the technology involved, I've found that I've had to learn much of it on the job.  Part of the problem is certainly the fact that electronic resources were still pretty young in 2001, but I don't recall learning anything about the publishing industry, in general or regarding specific players.  Evaluation of resources would have been very useful, even in general principles since they shouldn't have changed that much despite the resources themselves changing.

More information about the details of the library school's focus.

A not-too-recent blog entry stated that "it really does not matter which library school you attend".  I beg to differ.  It might not matter whether you come from a "top rated" school or not (although this article basically says that it's pretty much the only thing that matters in most fields), but there are certainly differences between library schools that, when I was applying and for many years after graduating, I didn't know at all.  But in speaking with colleagues from various institutions, particularly ones that were actually smart enough to look into the matter before handing over the tuition dough, library schools can differ greatly.  Some are best for producing mass quantities of just general librarians, whereas others are more suitable for those looking to continue on with a PhD; some have a great Archivists' program, while others are better for public librarians.  Perhaps this has changed since I was really looking into choosing a school, but, just like with any institution of higher education, marketing yourself as a solution for everyone when you aren't isn't good for you or your students.

Don't worry about making the argument for the program being a good investment or not.

Honestly, this was never really a concern of mine but I see it more and more in higher education.  I'm not sure a Master of Library and Information Science program or the like could be described as a good investment (sometimes yes, sometimes maybe, sometimes no) but I'm not sure it really matters.  Heading down a career path shouldn't be considered in the same way as sizing up stocks and bonds.  Deciding to take a certain academic or professional program that tends to lead to a certain career is all about whether YOU will be able to at least live with it if not enjoy it.  You don't have to like the company that you're investing in, at least not as much as you're going to have to like the job you may be doing for the rest of your life.

Make it less about books and more about information.

Yes, I know that we all like books (see the first paragraph from "So You've Decided to Go to Library School"), but we shouldn't be basing our choice of a profession on such a stereotypical understand of what librarians do.  Libraries are, and always have been about more than just books.  Yes, we can take advantage of the public's seemingly permanent connection between libraries and books, but if we don't make a bit of a connection with other things, then the second society loses their love affair with the dusty old tomes, we're toast.  In fact, in some libraries, books aren't even the thing the collections budget is spent most on.  I would like to see more focus on the Information part of the MLIS than on the Library part.  Don't get me wrong, I like that it's in the degree name (I don't like the MIS or the, shudder, MI) but I would gladly get rid if it if that's what it took to make our profession a little more respectable.

Ok, so I've had my rant.  What do you think?  What would you change (or not) about librarianship education?

Top four things I've learned cataloguing my own books

For several weeks now, I've been (somewhat amateurly) cataloguing my personal collection of books with LibraryThing.  I love it.  Basically I'm just ensuring the proper and well-formatted title, checking it has the right cover, including the main authors and other responsibility holders, tagging them with my own main "categories", putting  them in collections of who in my family it really belongs to, specifying where and when I got it (if I can remember or figure it out), and putting in a Dewey number.  It's fun, of course, being the librarian nerd that I am, but it's also fascinating and I was thinking about how valuable but impossible it would be to have library school students actually do some personal cataloguing of at least a hundred titles.  Here are some of the interesting things I've found:

1. I've never really thought about the categories of books I've had before.  I've collected books from many sources and over a long period of time so I've never really had a very clear personal "collection policy" so there's plenty of odd stuff in there.  It's mostly graphic novels, reference books, philosophy stuff, science stuff, and of course kid's books but there are ones that stand out:  "Sesshu's Long Scroll", a spiral bound copy of "Understanding Neural Networks", and a nicely bound copy of the Qu'ran.  In the course of cataloguing some of these works, particularly when I'm tagging them with my basic subject areas of interest -- figuring out how broad or specific to make those tags or whether to use them at all if there's only going to be one or two with that tag anyway -- it really makes me think about subject headings and how they can and/or should be used.  I initially just wanted to be able to see the numbers of certain books in a subject that I find interesting and retrieve them easily.  But then I had to add non-subject tags like ".damaged" or ".gift".  And then format tags, such as "REFERENCE" or "GRAPHIC NOVELS".  I came across my copy of "Dark side of the moon : the making of the Pink Floyd masterpiece" and realized that, although I like music, I don't really have a lot of books on the subject.  Should I get more?  Is it worth my time?  I have so many other interests.  Going through my books subject-wise is like walking through a list of my interests, both proven by past actions and potential or maybe just hinted at.
2. Dewey numbers are crap for fiction.  Ok, everybody knows that but trying to put my books into some sort of order led to using Dewey numbers which led to the hard fact that Dewey doesn't do any kind of fiction justice, especially comic strip compilations and graphic novels.  I had to invent a personal organization method to use instead, roughly based on the solutions I've seen in public library.  For example, "FIC A Smi 1997" is a work of fiction, considered an "adult" novel (not sexual, just grown-up, to differentiate it from my YA books and juvenile books, or other formats), by someone with the last name starting with "Smi" published (or originally created) in the year 1997.  It's mostly, as Dewey is supposed to do, to lump alike things together.
3. It's a lot of work.  Again, not a new discovery here but it's really hit home.  And I'm not even truly cataloguing them.  Just cleaning up a few key pieces of metadata.  I was tidying up the publication statement and ensuring it had the right ISBNs but that starting taking too long and I didn't think it was really worth it.  And besides, I think LibraryThing records include ISBNs that I can't easily see since I get records with a search for an ISBN that doesn't end up being the in field.  Odd.  Anyway, not really important, and not worrying about it made things go a little quicker.
4. Finally, although you have to "judge a book by it's cover" it's better if you don't have to.  Describing a book, or really anything, should be done with someone that has a good deal of knowledge about the work (or thing).  Some key access points may not be immediately clear to someone who hasn't read the book.  If you don't know the subject area, then how could you know the place this particular work has in it?  Ideally, cataloguing should be done slowly by a few people who love the particular work, perhaps the particular author.  Philosophy texts should be catalogued by philosphers, collections of poetry, by poets.  How can I truly describe my book on neural networks?  I know very little about cognitive science.  But cataloguers don't and can't know the subject matter to that degree.  The work is done by people who know classification and the rules of AACR2 and RDA.  But when keying in even the tiny specks of metadata about my own collection, I find it much easier and much more rewarding to work with a book I have written a review of, like "Knitting the Semantic Web", or read a million times, like "Waiting for Godot".  Sometimes it makes me think of the part of "Farhenheit 451" when the main character meets the "books", the people who have memorized entire novels and have saved them that way.  Perhaps each book should have it's own cataloguer, who gets to know the work, inside and out, and therefore is the only one qualified to know how to describe it and give access to it.  Not good for the people in those jobs though, I guess, right?

Oh, and one more thing.  I've discovered that I'm really weird.  I take great pleasure in considering the proper capitalization of my books.  For example, in AACR2, the only title words that get capitalized are the first one and any proper nouns.  I have the graphic novel "Star trek : countdown".  Although it looks weird, "trek" doesn't get capitalized because, in the context of the title, it's not a proper noun.  It's just a "trek" through the "stars".  But I also have "Star Trek : The Next Generation : technical manual".  In this case, "Trek" is capitalized because this is a technical manual for the ship in the TV show "Star Trek : The Next Generation".  TV show names are proper nouns.  (I mean, technically, the book should have been called something like "Technical manual for the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701D" or something like that, and not had a cool cover, but publishers like to think they're tricking us into buying their crap...  which they are.)  In the first case, the work is using the term as a name for the work and isn't referring to itself.  It's just using the words as they are, as the entire "Star trek" universe does.  The second case is using the term in reference to the series, to the previous works, to the fictional universe that the TV shows, movies, comics, etc. make up.

Of course, I'm only half way through my books so far so perhaps I'll learn more (or learn better?) as I go.  And then there's my movies and video games...  I need a "LibraryThing" for those.

E-Resource licensing and negotiations

Summary of and reactions to "Licensing Electronic Resources and Contract Negotiation" by Ryan O. Weir, chapter four of "Managing Electronic Resources: A LITA Guide" edited by Ryan O. Weir.

Things to remember when acquiring electronic resources

Summary of and reactions to "Acquiring Electronic Resources" by Denise Pan, chapter three of "Managing Electronic Resources: A LITA Guide" edited by Ryan O. Weir.

How to survive the clash between e-resources and budgets

Summary of and reactions to "Coping with Economic Issues and a Paradign Shift in Collections" by Regina Koury, chapter two of "Managing Electronic Resources: a LITA Guide" edited by Ryan O. Weir.

Law and logic

I just heard of a new case of a publisher (actually several) threatening another librarian with a defamation and libel suit.  See http://www.yousendit.com/download/UW13SU5OUnF0TW5FdzhUQw

The very first paragraph of meaning (after all the preamble of introductions), they claim:

By placing all four of our client's companies on your "list", you have published facts about these companies, by claiming that each and every company is a potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publisher.  These statements are false, in that our client's companies are not, in fact, predatory publishers.

 Is it me, or are they trying to claim that the four companies in question are BY DEFINITION not predatory?  In essence  that's what these words say to me.  They are saying that it is false that each company is a possible predatory publisher, among other things.  By saying this, they are saying that it is not possible that they are, meaning that, in all possible worlds, Redfame Publishing, for example, is never predatory.  They are claiming logical necessity or an analytical truth, or that these companies are, by definition, not predatory.  I would love to watch the legal proceedings in that case.

Now I know that legal terms are not always to be understood by their proper non-legal definitions, and lawyers are certainly not philosophers or logicians.  But at some point, "The Law" needs to follow some basic logical rules.  You can say that things are not possible simply because the current incarnation is so, unless you're talking about one plus one equaling two, or all bachelors being unmarried.  What I think they really should be calling foul on is the SUGGESTION that these claimed possibilities are indeed facts.  If my name gets put on a list of possible ax murderers, I'm not going to say that couldn't possibly be an ax murderer (although I do not own an ax) since I may go completely insane tomorrow and visit Canadian Tire's ax aisle.  What I will complain is that such a list may make people think that there's some good reason for being afraid of my ax-wielding future endeavours because of this list.

If such a case is allowed to be successfully argued, can we even use the term "possible" anymore?  Everything lies in the realm of possibility to some degree until certainty is achieved.  What we usually mean by "possible" is that we have some reason to believe that this might be the case BUT there are not enough facts to even be practically and publicly certain.  The argument against even the common understanding of "possibility" needs to be on the criteria for making such a judgement.  (Of course, the letter barely mentions these criteria, only arguing that the number suggests lack of justification.  And nowhere does it take to task these criteria specifically.)

(Here's the Scholarly Open Access site itself, complete with blog and the offending lists.  Arm yourself with knowledge.)

Ethics of Vendors Having Direct Communications with Patrons

I was sitting in a meeting with a sales rep from a library information resource vendor when he mentioned that his sales visits were quite different in the past.  He would spend all day on campus, talking with faculty, handing out brochures, giving demos of his products, etc.  He went on to say how he could help us with promoting his products within our institution, with premade emails with links, graphics, brochures, etc.

This made me think:  academic libraries, and particularly mine, I think, have a hard time "getting the word" out about the products that we add to our collection.  It always difficult to know which resources to promote and how exactly to do so.  We want them to know and appreciate the value of the collection but we don't want to overstep our bounds and become pushy sales staff in the minds of our faculty and students.  Even if we knew which and how, it's a question of time and staffing:  there are so many things that we all have to do, promotion tends to get put to the bottom.

But it's always in the best interest of the company that we acquired the products from that our patrons use them more.  We collection statistics and how and how often these resources are used and these numbers tend to inform our decisions on whether to renew, cancel or change our subscriptions, and even if we should get more products from the same vendor.  Why don't we allow vendors to provide training to our patrons?  Why don't we want vendors to communicate with faculty, pushing new and old products?  Why don't we let them take some of the work of letting our patrons know what we have and what we could have?

Some of the answers are obvious:  vendors are biased.  Librarians like to think that we're a little more objective when it comes to the various products that are available.  Allowing vendors to promote directly to the users would be the difference between deciding on a car by reading Consumer Reports or by watching car commercials.  Yes, the producers may know more about their products but they don't always say it all.  They will always fib a little.  But is this such a bad thing?  We all know salespeople lie, so maybe the value of the increased information would outweigh the hopefully slight misrepresentations.

Also, vendors want to sell new products.  This is fine and good when they are talking with the people who have control of the money that will be spent on them and are experienced in managing similar products.  But librarians find that when faculty know about new products, however they find out about them, they tend to pester us with requests for products that we can't afford, can't use, or are not going to be valuable to anyone else.  This wastes our time and harms our relationship with our patrons.  But again, maybe this shouldn't be the end of the discussion.  Perhaps by having to deal with these issues, faculty and other users on campus can learn more about the nature of acquisition of these resources, that immediately perceived use isn't the end of the analysis, and that things are much more complicated in the library than they may think.  And maybe "waste of time" is the price we pay to have a more involved faculty.

Finally, I think one of the reasons we don't let vendors train users directly is a bit of fear for our own jobs.  If a ProQuest-paid instructor can teach how to use ABI/INFORM Complete, what's left for the info lit librarian to do?  Well, actually I think we SHOULDN'T be teaching how to use interfaces, but rather general search strategies regardless of interface, judging quality of sources, etc.  Just as staff are short when it comes to promotion efforts, many libraries don't have enough instructors to teach all the students frequently enough. Why not let the vendors lighten the load where they can?  There is plenty of instruction to go around.

Perhaps there are other reasons why we should or should not allow vendors direct communicative access to our users.  What do you think?

Happy Open Access Week!

From "Open Access Week Preview," Information Today, October 15, 2012

Organizations around the world are gearing up to celebrate Open Access Week, officially held Oct. 22–28, 2012. For most institutions, Open Access Week is a way to increase the visibility of open access among scientists, researchers, librarians, university faculty members, and students. At the same time, it also provides opportunities for open access practitioners to exchange knowledge and share ideas. Open access means free, unrestricted access to and reuse rights for scholarly research, either through publication in open access journals or by posting copies of the peer-reviewed version of articles into open access repositories. This year’s theme for the week is Set the Default to Open Access, intending to make open access the norm in journal publishing rather than the exception. An increasing number of libraries, publishers, research funding agencies, NGOs, and other organizations are hosting workshops, speeches, and other types of events; launching advocacy campaigns; kicking off new initiatives; and participating in ongoing shows of support.

It should go without saying that I am in support of Open Access (OA) efforts.  There is one aspect of how OA is currently being spoken of that bothers me however.  It seems like most of the conversation about OA in my experience, at least in terms of viability and sustainability is how it will be paid for, and although I don't know the actual breakdown, it seems like most full or partial OA journals are funded by author (or author-related institution) paid fees.  IMHO, this is neither effective (leading to some unsavoury publishing efforts or putting up a barrier to new authors) nor necessary.  Just like much of academia, the funds required to get things done are paid indirectly:  people volunteering time, expertise or resources, or institutional support.

Enough of my complaining though...  Happy Open Access Week!  Spread the word and support OA yourself!

Teach by NOT teaching

According to a relatively recent article in the "Journal of Learning Sciences" (learned of from Time magazine via Lifehacker), we are doing a disservice to our students and workers when we 'making learning easy'.  Kapur and Bielaczyc found that, in comparing students with and without direct teacher-involved instruction, those without consistently outperformed those with in post-tests.  On the one hand this is counter-intuitive:  when I'm building a barn, it's probably going to take me longer and I'm probably going to do a poorer job if I'm all alone than if my friends and neighbours come and help me.  It's easier to climb stairs than a rocky cliff.    But on the other hand, we tend to place more importance (and therefore internal resources such as attention, confidence, memory, etc.) on things that were difficult to achieve if for no other reason than we don't want to feel like we've wasted our time or, worse, looked foolish wasting our time.  Here is the summary of how to use this nugget of info in practice (from the Time magazine article):

First, choose problems to work on that “challenge but do not frustrate.” Second, provide learners with opportunities to explain and elaborate on what they’re doing. Third, give learners the chance to compare and contrast good and bad solutions to the problems.

Sounds like good advice.  As a parent, this suggests that I should back off a bit from helping my kids figure out homework or difficult new concepts.  As a librarian, this suggests that we should do our best to find that middle ground between challenging and frustrating info searchers and that perhaps we be more involved in the learning review steps, perhaps by providing venues and/or tools support such review.

[ Read Lifehacker's "The More You Struggle with New Information the More Likely You Are to Learn It" then Time magazine's "Why Floundering Is Good" then, if you have time and access Journal of Learning Sciences' "Designing for Productive Failure" ]

Yeah, I'm looking at you, Single Search Box.

I'm torn about developments in search functionality these days.

Yes, the one-search-box interface is here to stay and if libraries and information resource developers don't get on the band-wagon, we will all miss the boat.  Users want simplicity and nothing's simpler than one box you can type whatever you want into and results and thrown back at you.  But, given current technology, the single search box can NOT provide better results than a more functional interface with more options.  Searching is about communication:  the user is trying to tell the system what he/she wants and the system responds with what it thinks is appropriate.  Too little information and the system either doesn't know what to do or simply guesses.  And, too often, too little information means the user is assuming a whole bunch of information.  The system doesn't (or more accurately, the system designers don't) necessarily have those same assumptions.

One objection to this might be, "But what are 'good' or 'bad' results? Can you make that kind of judgment?  Aren't all results either useful or not?  And isn't it just the user that must decide this in the end?"  This is all valid.  Usefulness IS the value in results.  It's what makes them good or bad.  This is not a case of moral value but utility of the results.  And yes of course it's the user that must decide in the end but, by definition, the user cannot perfectly judge results.  They're searching because they don't have the answer.  Hopefully, while putting pieces together, they can make a more knowledgeable assessment of the results but in some cases the user may just be judging them on whether they LOOK like their good.  So there are limits to how much the user is able to be the final judge.  But there must be a judge otherwise what are we doing by providing search results (or any kind of library resources for that matter)?  There must be some kind of assumption that results can be objectively determined as useful or not based on user input otherwise there's no point in developing a computer system to take such input and spit out results.

The other objection is that the library is not here to make things purposely difficult.  If there is an easier way of doing something, why shouldn't we provide it?  Those against the single search box may describe providing one as 'pandering' but aren't all efforts to make things easier a kind of pandering?  Where's the line beyond which such developments become a negative thing?  And again, this is basically true.  We should be making things easier.  Particularly in this age where putting up barriers may serve only to scare users off.  But there are plenty of cases where simply giving the users what they want, even giving your paying customers what they want is inappropriate.  In education, students consciously want a perfect grade.  We may suppose that what they want in the end is an effective education but if you gave every student the choice between a free A+ and an well-earned B-, the vast majority would choose the former.  I have no doubt about this.  Wouldn't you?  Especially in this increasingly competitive education and job market.  But educators do not simply hand over perfect grades despite this desire because that would defeat the purpose of teaching.  On a similar note, we cannot simply hand over free search results when it's clear that this is not the best way of searching.  This results in more garbage and less quality and, in my opinion, leads either to a misuse and misunderstanding of the information found, or more work on the part of the patron.

What single searching should do when used properly is simply backload the work farther down the line, which may work better in the long run (i.e. the novice user gets an idea of the info available early on which can then inform the search strategy) but unfortunately gives the impression that what pops up first at the top is what they were looking for all along.  A savvy user should recognize that more work is necessary but wouldn't the savvy user be fine with a more advanced search interface to begin with? If they know enough to recognize good and bad results, they should know enough to aim toward good results in the beginning.

I guess my point is that single search box interfaces are necessary but imperfect as we now use them.  Perhaps this is not really an argument with anyone serious about the topic at all.

Canadian publishers want two paychecks

I would like to get a complete list of the publishers represented by Access Copyright.

It seems to me that, from my perspective as a collection development librarian, the take-away from the fact that there are so many publishers voluntarily working with Access Copyright (over 600) is that they want to get revenue every way they can.  This is only natural and I can hardly blame for-profit companies (or even non-profit society publishers and university presses who need to justify their existence to administration or membership) from trying to get an extra buck.  But on the other hand, they can't blame us for wanting to both pay less and to pay in a more straightforward way.  Getting paid directly for use via with often complex license agreements and then getting paid again for something that could have easily been negotiated through those original license agreements seems a little underhanded, particularly because the second payment has not typically come out of the library's budget (but certainly has an impact on it eventually).  This not only is like "double dipping" but undermines the library's reputation with university administration since it suggests that we are not capable of managing all resource use and cannot be trusted with copyright issues.

My recommendation is that we merely take this into consideration.  For those publishers that are affiliates of Access Copyright and therefore bring in revenue that way, such a relationship should be considered a negative when evaluating their resources.  Reputation and cooperation are considered and this is just an aspect of both.  It should not be an over-riding variable since there are plenty of other things to take into consideration but it must be a variable.

An idea concerning moving library collections from 'ownership' to pure 'access'

Just read through the slides from a 2011 presentation by Colin Koproske entitled "Redefining the academic library: managing the migration to digital information services, part I: planning for transformation and the future of ebooks" and I have to say something:  I am convinced.  I don't know whether it was the slide or just the ideas rolling around in my head finally falling into place, but I think I am sold on patron driven access (PDA) (which was basically what the slides were about).

I had a lot of the usual concerns about PDA:  controlling cost, ensuring a good collection, preventing gaming of the system.  But the one slide about moving from an ownership model to an access model is probably what brought me over to the dark side.  Having read a Rick Anderson article on Scholarly Kitchen a while ago, which was effectively about PDA, the idea of moving from "just in case" to "just in time" has been brewing in my head.  Although I don't agree that librarians are particularly bad at judging future quality (in fact I think we are uniquely qualified, more so than any other professional), the fact of the matter is that there is too much change and uncertainty nowadays to be able to do effectively and sustainably.

You may notice that I actually wrote patron driven "access" instead of acquisition.  Well, I'm not sure I'm sold on the acquisition part.  I mean, if the point of PDA is to provide a resource when demand is there and to not be building a "legacy" collection, why purchase the item?  Perhaps a pattern of patron use does predict future value better than a devoted selector (arguable) but there will be an end to that value.  Even great present patron use can't predict future use far into the future and with the information universe exploding as it is and will be, this will be increasingly true.  If use is required now, then provide access now.

What I'm suggesting is the 'pay per use' model basically.  I have not read much about the effectiveness of this model (more additions to my reading list) but I do see one big straight off:  control of budget.  If you give access to resources to your patrons and are billed per use by them without vetting that use in some way, who knows how much you will be spending per year?  This could be controlled by having an account with the vendor from which fees are withdrawn.  Access is provided (and displayed) when there is sufficient funds in the account and removed when insufficient.  Perhaps, once a certain level of usage of the contents of a package were reached, access would be guaranteed for the rest of the year?  Who knows.

Financials could easily get out of control in this model or at least stay quite unpredictable and difficult to react to (e.g. what to do if your patrons surprise you and use up all the money in the account early in the year?) so some experimenting would have to be done.  The vendors' resources could also be called upon since, because their revenue would be based on usage, they would be motivated to increase usage by your patrons as much as possible.  I am never happy with the idea of injecting advertising into the scholarly environment (ethical considerations here) but the fact is that advertising is already strewn through the information universe and trying to keep companies out of campus seems increasingly futile.  Why not harness their motivation and resources and allow them to sponsor programs, services, staff, etc. on campus and allow them to drum up usage?  Librarians are always bemoaning how hard it is to get the faculty and students to listen to us when we say how useful these expensive resources are...  perhaps we could use some help.

This is just a blast of an idea that I had while eating lunch today, so perhaps I've missed something obviously flawed with my thinking.  Feel free to blast back.

Incoming! As usual.

When challenged to move their institutions forward in this information-intensive age, administrators are generally quick to employ new technologies in pursuit of enhanced service offerings.

The troubling reality though is that the implementation of such technologies is almost always seen as providing desirable opportu­ni­ties to reduce budgets.

True. We seem to be in a fight with technology in the eyes of administartion when we should be seen as more invaluable because of the increases in technology. Fewer academic librarians means less skilled research being done in the university both by faculty and by students. Instructors bemoan the research skills of students and yet deny librarians class time with their students to help them with the problem.

[ Academic Librarians Are under Attack ]

The problem with classification

There's a problem with classification systems (e.g. DDC, LCC, etc.). And it's not a secret. I certainly didn't discover this problem but it's not going away and classification will still be important enough in the near future that it would be nice if it were solved.

The problem lies in the two pressures on the system: change and resistance to change. The resistance to change is obvious: in a library of any decent size, change means work. More change means more work. Libraries do not tend to re-classify every item that would otherwise get a new call number every time OCLC and/or LC decides that the system needs expanding or restructuring. And consistency is good for the user as well; if they've become accustomed to the system as it is, then altering the system will be a little stressful. Not too much but a little.

But on the other hand, classification systems, at least the currently used and practical ones (i.e. the ones we like) are founded on something that does change, and quite rapidly nowadays: subject terminology. The words we use to describe what books (mostly) are about, the hierarchies that we put these terms into, the disciplines studying or working in these subjects, and the relative popularity of all of these, all change over time and therefore push the classification system in the same direction.

Collapse of societies... and the library?

As I watched this TED presentation, as usual, I thought about it's application to the library world. Many within and without feel that librarianship is in danger of losing ground, of becoming less relevant, of "collapsing" and "dying out". While I'm not sure whether this can or will happen, I certainly think that the potential is there despite the harm that might result if it does come to pass. Just as the Easter Islanders had to have reached a point when they were chopping down the last tree despite the apparently obvious death sentence that went along with it, society may reach a point where we are closing the last library despite any damage that may do. And even if this could never happen, for any industry it is valuable to at least imagine the coming obsolescence and take steps to avoid it.

My passion

I came across a simple question in my reading just now:  What is my passion/purpose?  Hmmm...  Good question.  My undergrad degree was in philosophy so I've thought about the purpose of life or existence but I have to say, honestly, I have never thought about what my passion would be.

So I started thinking.  The work I was reading suggested that I start writing down possibilities for what my passion/purpose could be and then stop when I find something that brings a tear to my eye.  Well, I am man enough to admit it had that happened but I found it pretty quickly and, although it didn't well up any tears, I was quite sure when I got to it.  The first thing I wrote down was "make a contribution".  I stared at that for a minute thinking, "Well, it should be a little more specific than that, right?"  I thought of my kids and how I'd like to help them grow up to be good and reasonable people.  I thought about philosophy and how I would like to promote rational thought.  And I thought about my work as a librarian, and then crazy words flew into my head:  SAVE THE LIBRARY.  I would like to save librarianship.  I would like to make more people understand the importance of libraries and librarians.  I would like to convince funders to do more funding, whoever they may be.  I would like the regular Joe/Joan on the street to have a better understanding and appreciation for what we do.  AND I would like for us to do better what we should and can do to maintain and streamline access to information.

Woah, right?  Big wish.  Big plan.  All you non-librarians out there may even think that it's a little silly.  (I'm hoping those in the profession don't think that.  lol)  But that's what would make me happy:  to ensure that librarians and what we do are still around in 10, 20, 50, or 100 years.

But how?  Well, some of the details of the wish suggest some of the macro-methods:  setting down the importance of librarianship and communicating it, contacting and lobbying those with the money that do and/or can support libraries, and to actively market libraries and librarians to the public.  And of course, to promote ways to improve ourselves.  We are not perfect.  No profession is.  But we, perhaps unlike many professionals, have the resources, the intelligence, and the flexibility to make those improvements.  All we really need is the plan and the desire.

Yeah...  that's what I'm talkin' about...

The serials crisis is over, and other fairy tales

From "Not Looking for Sympathy", an interview With Derk Haank, CEO, Springer Science+Business Media, by Richard Poynder:

"...the serials crisis, which [Derk Haank] says was resolved in the 1990s, after publishers introduced the Big Deal. Librarians will surely disagree. Haank responds by pointing out that the number of papers published each year continues to grow at 6% to 7%. Consequently, he says prices must inevitably rise a little each year. And he is confident the research community will eventually agree, since "scientists have to have sufficient funding to keep abreast of new developments." As such, he says the current difficulties are cyclical, not structural. He adds that librarians' current fad for publicly berating publishers overpricing is simply a canny negotiating strategy intended to put pressure on publishers. While this makes life more difficult, he says he is not looking for sympathy. Here then is our conversation, which has been edited for style."

Problems:

1. As supply increases, price typically falls.  This is a pretty standard economic concept, but perhaps the economics of scholarly communication works in a completely different way.  It would have been great to have a little more exploration of this idea instead of it just being presented as obvious fact.
2. The "papers published" number is controlled by the publishers.  They are not at the mercy of this number.  So even if the increase in supply requires an increase in price, it is still artificial since the publishers do not have to publish more just because there are more submissions.
3. Scientists (or academics, researches, professionals) need to keep abreast of new developments.  But they are not able to take in 6-7% more content each year.  They have a limit.  And at some point in a mature academic's life, it certainly decreases each year.  Perhaps publishers need to do a better job of "culling the herd", of reducing the numbers of publications, to keep only the best work, to help academics be able to focus on what they need.
4. Librarians are not typically canny negotiators.  We have too much work to do, dealing with crappy budgets, changing technologies, and needy patrons.  lol  But honestly, "negotiating" with vendors is not as subtle as this suggests.  And besides, reading through the entire interview, this seems to be his response to anything that librarians (and others) state:  it's just a negotiating ploy.  Translation:  we're liars just trying to get a lower price.

When I first started reading this, I was hoping to get an entertaining and informative view of the issue from the other side (especially considering the glowing introduction in the article) but there was not that much information and, I suppose, the charm didn't translate into text.  Perhaps I did get a view from the other side but it appears to have been the biased, profit-oriented side that cynical librarians tend to see the publishers on.

But perhaps I'm a little biased myself...  I'm not NOT involved in all this.  What do you think?

Librarianship needs to solve the information overload crisis

Watched "No Time to Think" and Dr. Levy, the presenter, describes a series of crises and resolutions in the recent past:

1. The rise in business and size of organizations threatened with lack of management mechanisms, ergo the creation of the corporation and office management technologies.
2. The increase in production with the declining demand for products threatened over-production, but then led to the development of modern advertising and marketing practices.

He points out the current "information overload" and "lack of time to think" crisis that we are in and sees the Web and online technologies as at least part of the solution.  And of course, I think about how librarianship needs to be a part of that solution as well.

We, as librarians, need to consider how to help our patrons with these problems.  Sure, we provide access to the information and assist people in finding exactly what they need/want. We even work at helping in the management of that information.  But I don't think we're doing exactly what needs to be done to resolve the problem, particularly in the eye of our users (or those non-users that influence our funding).  We need to LOOK like we're helping.  We need to make our users FEEL like we are lifting a weight off their shoulders and make it obvious to non-users that that's what we're doing.

Here are some suggestions (inspired by the presentation's points):

1. Raise awareness:  Librarians are in a somewhat unique position to be authoritative on this topic.  Think about the issue yourself, and tell others about it.
2. Provide the space:  Honestly, I thought about this before Dr. Levy mentioned it, but libraries have typically been a place for this contemplative study time.  We need to promote it and nurture it.
3. Provide the tools:  We provide access to information tools to manage and access resources.  We need to do this more intentionally and widen the scope of these tools.

Anything else?

[ Discovered this video through Lifehacker's "David Levy on Having No Time to Think" ]

Libraries can be, should be and are the hub of the school

From parentcentral.ca:

“A contemporary library that is running well should be the learning hub, the go-to place that kids flock to when they need to find something out,” said Kelsall of John G. Althouse Middle School in Etobicoke.

“In my library, kids come here to play chess, it’s the place they go to knit, run the Eco-Team — it’s the home base for student government.

“It’s where they can get really good reading materials, books they can’t get in the public libraries because the waiting lists are too long.”