DIY Librarian

APS booth at StampShow 2010

I’ve written before about my experiences attending technology conferences as a librarian outsider. Last week I got another perspective on conferences and trade shows as I sat on the other side of the booth at the American Philatelic Society’s StampShow in Richmond.

It was an exhausting–but exciting–four days. Many APS members came to the booth looking to meet “the new librarian.” It was great to meet so many library users in person, because most of them use the library remotely.

I got used to saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can find out,” pretty quickly. When interviewed for this job, I said that I would learn about philately in part from library users, and I learned quite a bit at the show, both from talking to people at the booth and from listening to my coworkers answer questions.

I’ve gotten a taste of being behind the scenes at conferences before, by doing program planning for APLIC and for the SLA Social Science Division, but now that I’ve done everything from shake hands with a famous keynote speaker at a fancy dinner to pack up the booth at the end of the show, I have even more appreciation for what it takes to put on an event like this.

Last week I started a new job as librarian for the American Philatelic Research Library, and this week is far from the typical quiet week in the library because it is our first Volunteer Week and we have four volunteers in the library sorting old journals.

Volunteers sort journals at the American Philatelic Research Library

So when I first saw that this week is Library Day in the Life, round 5, I thought that I wouldn’t participate because this is clearly not a typical time in this librarian’s life. Then I decided it was actually a good time for me to participate, as I begin to explore what exactly a day in my life will be like. I’ve been keeping a diary at work, so this is kind of a public extension of that.

Here’s a little recap of my day, from my Twitter feed:

Run, breakfast, bike to work, say hello, talk about volunteer work week at the library. THEN check email.

Met member of board of directors for the first time. (This is my second week on the job. Trying to remember names and faces!)

Also, I actually do get to read a lot at this job. Reading up on the library and society history to start.

Morning train just went by. I love my new office.

Met with board member about library blog, digitization, union catalog. Volunteers busy sorting journals. No time for snacks.

Biked home for lunch. Came back and sent introduction letters to other philatelic libraries and librarians, because I’m new.

The volunteers already finished their first project! Wow.

I also learned how to send mail. Important when you work for a philatelic library!

Finished my correspondence. Went out to help volunteers sort old journals. Favorite title: The Precancel Optimist.

While people discuss the value of embedded librarians versus centralized libraries, and the value of having an information professional within the department versus the value of having a library as study, research, and meeting space, I’ve had the best of both worlds for the past 9 years.

I’ve been embedded in a research center, along with my library. Really, this is not so different from the department library model, except that I work at an interdisciplinary research center with faculty and students from multiple departments and colleges – and I work for the research center, rather than the library system.

An article on embedded librarians from Inside Higher Ed examines the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University, which is well ahead of most libraries in embedding its librarians. Some of the commenters note that losing the library as place means losing access to space for patrons who do not have their own offices, losing access to resources not available online, and losing access to collaborative space.

Having an embedded library – a thing that used to be common in NICHD-funded population research centers, but that is no longer being encouraged in new centers – provides immense benefits that, unfortunately, cannot be measured in research funding.

Because my office is in the research center, I know about new projects as working groups are formed or proposals drafted, and can provide assistance. Faculty and students see me in the elevator and ask questions. I overhear conversations that lead me to develop new workshops.

Because the library is also in the research center, graduate students have a place for informal meetings. While they are in the library, they have a chance to browse new books and journals. This is especially important in an interdisciplinary field, because resources related to population are not gathered in one place in the main university library.

As one commenter noted, the one thing I am missing is a connection to my librarian colleagues. In fact, since I work for the research center, I don’t have any formal connection to them. So, instead of having to work hard to connect with my patrons, I’ve had to work hard to connect with other librarians. Overall, though, I think this model has worked.

photo by Belkus

Iggy Pop is known for a lot of things, including wearing leather pants with no shirt and being pelted with bottles on stage. He’s not generally known for his thoughts on copyright and fair use.

In a piece for Interview, though, he discusses copyright, fair use, and art with Shepard Fairey, the artist who made the iconic Obama HOPE portrait. (The AP is suing Fairey, claiming he violated copyright by using an AP photo as reference.)

2010 CVIM Marathoners for Medicine team with homorary coaches Joe and Sue Paterno and Greg Fredericks

Please indulge me in a rare post that has nothing to do with libraries, but everything to do with communities.

On April 19th, I will join a group of local runners in running the Boston Marathon to raise money for Centre Volunteers in Medicine, Centre County’s free medical and dental clinic. This is the fourth year I am doing this, and it is by far the hardest year.

I got lost on a snowshoeing trip at the beginning of February and ended up with 6 frostbitten toes. I am very fortunate that frostbite was the worst of it, and that I was able to keep all of my toes. I am unbelievably fortunate that I am able to run 26.2 miles so soon after this injury. (At least, I think I can…)

I couldn’t run for a month, but I am back out there and will be at the start line in Hopkinton on April 19. I was able to recover so well because I wasn’t worried about going to the doctor — I had good health insurance. I went first to my family doctor, then to the emergency room, and then to a wound care specialist. (Apparently frostbite is not that common, even here in central Pennsylvania!) This experience made me think about the kinds of choices people make when they don’t have insurance. What if I had to choose between treating my toes and paying the heating bill?

Thanks to Centre Volunteers in Medicine, people in Centre County do not have to make that choice. Please consider supporting CVIM with a donation – any amount helps and every cent goes to CVIM.

You can donate online through CVIM’s website.

On race day, track my progress on the Boston Marathon website and send kind thoughts to my toes! I’ll be wearing bib # 15042.

Oh, and this is a little bit library-related: the Boston Marathon finishes in front of the Boston Public Library. The marathon I ran to qualify for Boston, the Richmond Marathon, starts in front of the Virginia Commonwealth Library.

As a librarian with a pit bull, I can’t resist sharing this. Grant is a library dog who is trained to help kids gain confidence reading out loud. Back in February, he made the evening news.  You can follow his adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Grant is also an American Staffordshire Terrier (AKC)/American Pit Bull Terrier (UKC). Nice to see him working so hard to promote literacy and dispel myths about pit bulls at the same time. (Though I think his job looks pretty cushy!)

My pit bull likes books, too, but mostly she eats them. I don’t think she’s cut out for a library career.

Libraries have been debating what to call the people who use them for some time now — patrons? customers? users? See, for example, my post on retail reference from 2006.

Now, it appears the customer model is being advocated in higher education. In a letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bill Sams of Ohio University argues that students should behave more like customers, demanding value for their tuition dollars.

Students give little thought to paying $2,000 each to sleep through courses for which they are forced to sit for hours at a time in hard seats in auditoriums jammed with other students. Customers would instead download free podcasts from iTunes U and—curled up in their own warm beds with their iPods and earbuds—listen comfortably as the same material was presented by top faculty members from MIT, Harvard, or Stanford.

Really? The classroom experience is worthless and we’d get better value from a recorded lecture?

A second letter by Michael Armstrong offers a rebuttal:

A good student is not someone to whom something is done (teaching), but rather someone who does something for themselves (learning).

I’m beginning to think there is a reason we developed these specific terms (library, patron, teacher, student). Sure, “customer” implies a certain level of power and input. A customer can take his money elsewhere if he is not happy. However, a business is only invested in a customer as long as that customer is paying. Don’t we expect a more multidimensional relationship between a teacher and student, librarian and patron, or doctor and patient?

I recently wrote a blog post for the SLA Social Science Division about “loyalty strategist” James Kane. His ideas about the relationships between organizations and the people they serve are relevant to this discussion — especially the idea that customer satisfaction is only a base from which to build loyalty.

A couple years ago, I wrote about infiltrating a tech conference. I did it again today, this time attending my college’s IT conference. I was a bit nervous about it, since everyone else in the room was classed as an IT professional while my job is in the library group (but not in the library – go figure).

Partway through his opening remarks, our university CIO was addressing a problem and said, “We need a librarian in the room. You wouldn’t believe how badly we need librarians right now.” (Little did he know there was a librarian sitting right in the middle of the room!)

This is just one anecdote, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard an IT professional say they need a librarian to work with them. It reinforced my belief that “the L-word” has a lot of value and meaning and was very timely considering the proposed SLA name change (which I wrote about yesterday).

Later, I mentioned the SLA name debate to one of our system administrators who also happens to have a library degree. He said he didn’t like the idea of dropping the L-word from the name, and that he specifically wanted library training to complement his IT training.

SLA may be changing its name, depending on the outcome of a vote currently underway. The proposed new name is Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals.

Since the proposed announcement, Twitter and other outlets have been buzzing with reactions and discussion.

In the midst of all this, I was catching up on some back reading and read an article about the One Book, One Community in Library Journal. I happened to notice that the author works for “a firm specializing in strategic communications for knowledge organizations” – and thought, I have no idea what that means. It just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords mixed together to me. Now why would I want to belong to an association whose name sounds like a bunch of buzzwords to me?

Anne Barker has posted her “lengthy thoughts” at her blog. Like me, she was in favor of the proposed name change in 2003 but doesn’t like the current proposed name. While I don’t agree with her on everything, I think she makes a lot of good points. (As of her last post, Anne had not yet decided which way she would vote. Kendra Levine, Dan Cherubin, and David Shumaker, three librarians with very different experiences, wrote thoughtful posts explaining their “no” votes.)

I don’t have a traditional library job. My working job title, which I did not choose, is “Information Core Director.” When people ask what that means, I explain that I am a librarian. It means something to people, and explains the kind of work I do.

I’m not against a name change, but I’m holding out for one that feels right to me.

Pennsylvania, my home state for the last 9 years, has been without a budget for 75 days. The crisis has affected pay for state employees and threatened or shut down many recipients of state funding. The latest potential victim is the Free Library of Philadelphia, which will close on Oct. 2 if a budget is not passed.