DIY Librarian

Presenting a poster is a great way to share your ideas with colleagues – and it can be a gentle introduction to presenting in other formats.

If you are attending SLA 2012 in Chicago this summer, you have an opportunity to present a poster during an open house hosted by the Social Science, Academic, Education, and Museum, Arts & Humanities Divisions.

Next week I’ll be giving a webinar on poster presentations for anyone considering submitting a proposal for this or any other poster session. The webinar is on April 20 at noon Eastern, and I hope to have a registration link soon registration is now open!

Following are some additional resources for poster presenters:

In my previous job, I taught an annual workshop for graduate students on presenting posters. The idea for the workshop came from a discussion with a faculty member about how to improve the quality of posters at a conference he organized, and evolved over the years as I worked with students.

The guide I created, while tailored to the needs of demography graduate students, provides a summary of design and presentation advice I gathered.

Other resources I found helpful:

Displaying Your Findings: A Practical Guide for Creating Figures, Posters, and Presentations by Adelheid A. M. Nicol and Penny M. Pexman (American Psychological Association, 2003)

Poster Presentations: Designing Effective Posters by Fred Stoss (University at Buffalo Libraries)

Developing Poster Presentations in the Social Sciences (George Mason University Writing Center)

E-reader fair at the Allen County (Indiana) Public Library. Photo by ACPL.

The rise of e-reading, a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, says that e-book readers are more likely to buy books rather than borrow them, and are more likely to start a search at a bookseller than a library.

So does this mean libraries are no longer relevant for these readers?

I don’t think so. Slightly more e-readers than print-only readers reported getting recommendations from librarians or library websites (21% vs. 19% – not a significant difference). And all readers in the study preferred to buy over borrow – except in the case of audio books.

I suspect that starting a search at a bookseller has more to do with availability (or perceived availability) of e-books.

There is something about getting together in person – just like there is something about browsing the shelves in a library – that leads to discoveries.

At SLA last month, I attended a tour of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s map collection with the Social Science Division Geography and Map Section. I decided to attend because I’ve always enjoyed G&M Section programs in the past, even though I’m not a map librarian, and because I always learn something when I get to visit another library behind the scenes.

I did, of course, learn a lot from seeing the different kinds of maps in the collection, how they were stored, and learning about conservation and digitization projects. The best part of the tour for me, though, came from a casual question I asked as I was about to leave: “Do you have any postal maps?”

The answer to that question led me to a resource that my library patrons can use, a potential collaboration, and to thinking about what other postal history-related collections might be tucked away in unexpected places.

On my library’s blog, I wrote a post about what I found at the Free Library of Philadelphia and more about finding postal history information in libraries. That post was featured in our member newsletter, and literally overnight became one of our most-read blog posts.

Kids at one California library no longer have access to a program that aims to help them build confidence and develop a passion for reading. The program, Paws for Tales, allows kids to read to a therapy dog. Among its volunteers was Jonny Justice, a survivor of Michael Vick’s dogfighting ring, now a Canine Good Citizen and certified therapy dog.

The Burlingame library participated in the program but decided to ban pit bulls. When Jonny and his owner protested, based on California law that prohibits breed-based discrimination, the library pulled out of the program completely. Read the whole sad story as report by Jim Gorant (The Lost Dogs) in Parade magazine.

(For happier news about pit bulls and libraries, check out Grant the Library Dog, who gets to listen to kids reading at the Milford Memorial Library in Iowa.)

Of course, you can’t actually check out Grant – he stays in the library – but students at Yale’s law library can check out a therapy dog. In a pilot program starting at the end of this month, stressed-out law students will be able to check out a dog for thirty minute periods. Read more in the Yale Daily News.

This video, posted by the Minnesota chapter of SLA, has been making the rounds.

Many people were amused by the librarian with his little black bag and amazing photocopier. Others noted that his work is not that different from what we do today; it’s just the tools that have changed.

I noted that my job is very similar. Philatelic libraries are, in many ways, old-fashioned. While my library’s catalog is online, we routinely use print and card indexes to access the journal literature. Very few publications are digital, and very little of the older material has been digitized. We just started publishing our own journal online this year.

We are making progress, but there is a definite digital library divide. The New York Times recently ran an article about where American libraries stand in terms of digitization efforts: Playing Catch-Up in a Digital Library Race.

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.

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.

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.

Blogging at Inside Higher Ed, librarian Mary George observes that the library can be difficult for new college students to find.

No, not the big hulking building on campus. The library web site, where students can find all those great online resources that eliminate the need to go to the physical library.

I recently scrutinized the home pages of fifty colleges and universities, all rated highly by U.S. News for their undergraduate programs. A dozen of the Web sites I examined do not have the L word in evidence, and some that do effectively hide it because you need to scroll or squint to find it.

I looked at the web site for the university where I work. There is a link right in the main menu for libraries. Then I looked at the home page for the research center where I manage the library. Yup, a link to the library right on the main page. Phew!