DIY Librarian

I was in Vermont last weekend to run a race, and happened to pass by the Joslin Memorial Library in Waitsfield. I didn’t get a chance to go inside, but it looked like a nice library. I did go in the pottery store across the street, and in an outdoor sports store. When we pulled up to our motel, the proprietor was sitting on the front porch with a can of beer and his dogs. I couldn’t sleep the first night, so I went out on the back deck and looked at the stars and listened to the bullfrogs. In the morning, we were greeted by a great blue heron. I really like where I live, but there is nothing quite like a small Vermont town.

In a letter published in the April 1 Library Journal, Stephanie Chase asks the magazine to provide more coverage of truly small libraries—not small like LJ’s Best Small Library in America, a county library with a yearly budget of over $400,000, but really small like those libraries where the budget is not even equal to a decent professional salary.

I work in a tiny academic library. With 3 full-time staff serving about 75 faculty and a somewhat larger number of graduate students, we are a good size for what we do, but we are a tiny flea compared to the behemoth University Libraries next door.

This always presents problems when I fill out a research survey (which I try to do whenever I am asked). If select “Library Director” as my job title (which it is) and “University” as my type of institution (which it is) it makes my job seem a lot bigger than it is. Yes, I do have my own budget and make purchasing decisions, but my budget is so small that some vendors won’t even return a phone call. “Department Manager”, while also appropriate, doesn’t usually make sense because I don’t report to another librarian.

I rely very heavily on the resources of the behemoth next door, so in some ways I am as much a library patron as a librarian. However, I also do a lot on my own, and this was, in part, the inspiration for DIY Librarian.

I relate to the stories of very small rural libraries Jessamyn West tells at librarian.net. These libraries are quirky. They have limited resources, but they know their communities very well. While my budget probably seems like a dream to these libraries, in the academic world I think it is probably around the same level. We have good computer support and quality equipment, and we can easily purchase books that are priced for academic libraries and run around $100-$200 each. But we can’t purchase online databases or journals because of the price and because of technological issues (our users don’t have a defined IP address range because they are scattered across campus).

My previous place of work, a beautiful old Carnegie library which also houses a gymnasium and music hall, is hosting a Patti Smith concert!

I work with graduate students from all over the world, some of whom have not studied at an American university before, and I think one of their many challenges is getting used to our libraries. I decided to attend the Global Librarianship session at SLA to get a glimpse of how libraries work outside of North America.

None of the speakers talked specifically about university libraries, but their remarks about Africa were still useful to me, and all of their stories were very inspiring. I thought all three were great speakers on causes they were truly passionate about, and they demonstrated the great diversity within sub-Saharan Africa.

Melanie Sellars of Librarians Without Borders spoke about her work developing a library in Angola. Kevin Cullen of the Univeristy of Colorado spoke about his experience volunteering for Peace Corps in Botswana. Jane Kinney Meyers, who received the Dow Jones Leadership Award and a standing ovation at the opening general session, spoke about the Lubuto Library Project.

Constraining Public Libraries: The World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services, reviewed in the April 15 Library Journal, cautions libraries about applying business models, fees for services, privatization, and outsourcing in light of GATS. While reviewer John Berry says that “some readers will find this book alarmist,” he concludes that the book “provides an increasingly rare and thoughtful discussion of certain aspects of library management, such as the tendency toward privatization, to which the profession should pay more attention.”

Outsourcing makes many people shudder. But can we really explain why it’s so bad?

In the latest Cites & Insights, Walt Crawford points to a post about measuring staff time at The Other Librarian. In the post, Ryan Deschamps argues that just measuring the staff time it would take to complete a project in-house is not relevant. The only relevant measure is the time the staff person would be away from other valuable projects. In other words:

If you’d be taking that staff person away from a really valuable project, then I’d say you are justified in outsourcing. If that staff is just twiddling his or her thumbs then you are losing lots.

Deschamps brings up other issues too, such as the knowledge gained by doing work in-house, and the usability and maintainability of the system.

So, outsourcing is not inherently bad, but I think in many cases libraries turn to outsourcing without evaluating the true costs and benefits.

Of course, some things are just better done locally. Pasadena Now has been making headlines by outsourcing coverage of local meetings to journalists in India. This might seem to make financial sense, but I think it makes very little common sense to me. (Then again, it might not make financial sense either. I’ve known a lot of local newspaper correspondents, and they weren’t always making any more than the Indian journalists mentioned in the article.)

It’s conference season again, and I’ll bet that most conferences will include a session where attendees can work on their elevator speeches.

I worked on mine at the SLA Leadership Summit in January, but it hasn’t gotten much use since our elevator’s been on the fritz. (It’s difficult to talk about much of anything when you’re climbing 6 flights of stairs.) I’ve decided that instead I will work on my plane speech.

After the last few conferences I’ve attended, I’ve sat next to a talker on the plane. The talker invariably asks lots of questions upon learning that I’ve been at a library conference.

Aren’t libraries obsolete? Isn’t everything on the internet? What do I think of Google? What do librarians talk about at library conferences?

This is a perfect opportunity to talk about why libraries are important, the good and the bad of Google, and dispel a few librarian myths (why yes, I do have a master’s in that). I have a captive and interested audience. I’ve just been at a conference talking about all of these issues.

After attending the APLIC-I conference this year, I sat next to a man who was curious about Google. Having just heard Siva Vaidhyanathan talk about the Google book scanning project, I was prepared to talk about the pros and cons.

If you sit next to me on the plane coming back from SLA, watch out! If you don’t want to know about libraries, you might want to bring a book, or break out the crossword from the in-flight magazine.

I haven’t been posting much about comics and libraries lately, in part because it seems almost commonplace these days. Libraries are embracing comics, and the comics industry is paying attention to libraries.

Why, just today Library Journal includes a report from the New York Comic Con that casually opens with “San Diego move over…” as if all librarians know that the San Diego Comic Con is the big comics convention.
In fact, comics have become so commonplace that the censors have taken to going after Newbery Award winners rather than comics. (There are references to this controversy all over the biblioblogosphere—for a little different take, see Neil Gaiman’s post. Personally, I think the censors should go straight to the source and advocate pants for dogs.)

I simply don’t have time to report all the comics and libraries stories out there, and since comics are way outside of my research library’s scope, I’m not the best person to report on them anyway.

However, I thought I’d report on a local event I attended. Penn State’s library hosted a panel discussion with Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and Phoebe Gloeckner (The Diary of a Teenage Girl) on graphic novels. This panel discussion was part of the Charles W. Mann, Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts series, no less, and the auditorium was standing room only. The discussion was accompanied by an exhibit on graphic novels using materials from the library’s collection. Very cool.

Despite the arguments in its favor, I do not like calling the people who use my library customers. Something about it just doesn’t seem right. I have not been able to put my finger on what until now.

Try completing this analogy: Library is to student as [blank] is to customer. Do you like what goes in the blank?

I modified that analogy from one in a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Rob Jenkins, an associate professor at a community college. Jenkins has found that the language of customer service on college campuses has extended into the classroom, and he makes a compelling argument that it is not appropriate.

He does not specifically mention libraries, and I think they are a gray area between two cases he does mention: the classroom and the registrar’s office. While librarians do not have the same kind of relationship with students that professors do, I do not think it is strictly a customer service relationship.

Think about your library’s mission, and then think about whether customer service fits that mission. Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. Do you always give your students what they want? Or do you sometimes give them what, in your professional judgment, is best for their education?

I have arrived safely back in Pennsylvania, where I no longer hear the slot machines yelling “Wheel! Of! Fortune!” 24 hours a day.

Jill Hurst-Wahl has already blogged about the summit for the SLA IT Division Blogging Section as well as at Digitization 101.

The summit had some good sessions, some sessions I didn’t care for, and a lot of opportunities to network. Networking at bigger conferences too often means walking around receptions clutching a wine glass, working up the occasional courage to introduce yourself to someone, only to find you have nothing to talk about. Not at the Leadership Summit.

I mentioned an issue my local chapter is facing to a colleague from my division, and was promptly introduced to someone from another chapter who was facing the same issue—and had solutions. I met other conference planners for Seattle. I talked to vendor representatives. I met SLA board members. I reconnected with my fellow division and chapter leaders. My only complaint is that the packed schedule doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for this kind of activity. (Well, I have other complaints, but mainly having to do with catering and wireless access and other mundane things.)

I don’t generally get bowled over by keynote speakers, but Chip Heath’s talk actually helped me with a request I received while I was in Reno (er, Sparks). The request is to communicate about a service my library offers to our faculty. Rather than craft my usual informative but uninventive message, I’m going to attempt to create a “sticky message”. Chip Heath quoted Frank Sinatra on New York: “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” If I can get faculty to read an email message and remember the library when they need us, I’ll say I’ve made it.