Back in June, I took an early morning walk with my 1 year old and had the sudden inspiration to whip up an Instagram Reel on a topic I care deeply about: telling people that it’s OK to stop reading books you don’t like:
This might sound familiar because I’ve done a similar one before. But in this new one I called upon my authority as a librarian to issue absolutions to struggling readers:
You’re not being graded.
No one cares if you don’t finish a book.
The author isn’t going to find out.
Apparently this message resonates, because in the last few days the reel has jumped to (as of this writing) 16k views, over 1k likes, and 350 shares—all by far the biggest responses I’ve ever gotten on a social post. The shares metric is most rewarding to me, because it shows how many people felt compelled to forward it to others through DMs or Stories.
After nearly 7 years, today is my last day at my library job.
It was my first full-time library position after a few part-time jobs out of library school, and for that alone I am immensely grateful.
Whenever someone asks me how I like working at a library, I say I love it because every day is different. It’s been a blessing to be able to do so many things that were both personally and professionally fulfilling:
put together the weekly email newsletter, which directly led to my next role in email marketing
Including grad school, I’ve been in the library world for over 10 years. And though I’m leaving it for the time being, rest assured I’ll remain an avid library patron and advocate. You can take the boy out of the library but you can’t take the library out of the boy.
how the information-collecting missions of the Library of Congress, OSS, and the Allied forces conflicted and aligned before, during, and after the war
how individuals engaged with those missions on the ground
One person’s story that stood out was Maria Josepha Meyer, employed by the Library of Congress and the publisher Hachette to collect books, documents, propaganda, and any other useful material in pre-occupation Paris. When the Nazis invaded in June 1940, she found herself trapped in Paris with no money and an expired passport. She eventually got an export permit from the Germans for her professional library, personal effects, and furniture, and at the last minute swapped her furniture for the war collection she would have been forbidden to ship.
Another was Adele Kibre, an academic who found herself spearheading a clandestine microfilming operation in Stockholm as a way to send foreign publications to OSS for intelligence gathering. Microfilm technology was in its infancy, so quality varied generally. But Kibre’s results were clear and consistent despite her limitations and the secrecy required.
A central figure in the book was Archibald MacLeish, the poet and writer who served as Librarian of Congress from 1939-1944. His work with William Donovan to develop the Research & Analysis branch of OSS helped modernize the Library of Congress and push it beyond the traditional understanding of libraries as neutral providers of books and information.
Peiss:
With the growing international crisis, [MacLeish] raised the stakes for books and democracy, calling upon librarians to be not merely custodians of culture but defenders of freedom. Like Donovan, he had perceived the dangers of fascism early and believed in American intervention. As an artist, intellectual, and the nation’s leading librarian, he was convinced, as he later put it, that ‘the country of the mind must also attack.’
As MacLeigh wrote in 1940, the keeping of war-related records “is itself a kind of warfare. The keepers, whether they wish so or not, cannot be neutral.”
As much as I’d like to view libraries as places that don’t discriminate or take ideological stands, the right to read is itself an ideology, as are the rights to privacy and access. Despite being taken for granted in democratic and literate societies, they must be believed in, fought for, and defended like any other ideology. (Notice too the war-like language.)
Peiss’s book examines how people and institutions reckoned with that dilemma in extraordinary situations. Overall, I found the parts about the people much more engaging than the broader institutional machinations, which often get bogged down in the acronyms and esoterica endemic to academia, government, and the military.
But if that sort of thing is your jam, Information Hunters is right on target.
(See also: The Book Thieves by Anders Rydell and When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning.)
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.
On Tuesday I hosted a discussion at the library on the films of 2018. It was an informal time to swap favorites (or least favorites) from the year, and discuss the Oscar nominations that had just been announced. Opinions abounded, of course.
I brought a laptop and projector so we could watch trailers of the movies being discussed. This turned out to be helpful, as I was surprised by how few of the movies the attendees had seen. Of the eight Best Picture nominees, one man had only seen Black Panther.
This gave me the unique opportunity of curating their exposure to the year in film. We watched trailers for high-profile nominees like The Favourite, Vice, Roma, and BlacKkKlansman, but also lesser-known indies like Leave No Trace, The Death of Stalin, Cold War, and First Reformed. I was this close to just going through the rest of my top 10, but I restrained myself (and ran out of time).
Librarians are in this position often. Introducing readers to their next book or viewers to their next movie is part of the job, but also a privilege and a pleasure I take seriously. Maybe a title I recommend will become their all-time favorite, or become inextricably linked with a future memory, or be forgotten as soon as it’s over. Regardless, we’re point guards. We’re there to make the assist, to keep feeding the shooting guard and forwards and hope they score more often than not.
After the program, I walked past the reference desk and saw the gentleman who had only seen Black Panther. He was asking to be placed on hold for Leave No Trace and The Death of Stalin, and I couldn’t help but smile.
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.
You know how doctors are always on call? Someone has a heart attack on an airplane or chokes at a restaurant, and doctors, nurses, or other care providers jump to the rescue, even if they are off the clock. Even medical students count: I witnessed a friend dash to the aid of a woman who injured herself while dancing during a wedding reception.
Professionals never know when they will be called to duty, librarians included. We might not be setting broken bones or taking vitals, but we info-slingers have a knack for finding opportunities to serve random reference needs.
One day, I was chatting with a neighbor in my apartment building’s laundry room. He’s a counselor, and he had just read about a theory that he wanted to learn more about. Google wasn’t offering much of any depth. He didn’t work for or attend a university, so he didn’t have access to specialized journals and databases. Amid the thrum of tumbling clothes, I told him I would help him check with our local public library to see what they had access to.
It was just that simple. Simple for me, anyway, but not for my neighbor. Familiarity bias makes it easy for librarians to forget that most people do not know everything the library offers, or even think of the library as a potential remedy for a problem. This can limit our fellow citizens’ information epiphanies.
I recently attended a seminar, and while grazing the snack table for coffee and a bagel (the Official Refreshments™ of seminars everywhere), I struck up a conversation with another attendee. He was a newly hired city planner in charge of reaching out to local businesses, and the task was overwhelming him because he was new to the area. I knew that his library was likely to be subscribed to ReferenceUSA or something similar, so I told him how he could use an e-reference tool like this for his project, without costing the city extra money.
Again, this public library pitch required hardly any effort in the moment, but it will likely pay dividends in the future. The actual work lies in the preparation, before the opportunity to share presents itself. The more knowledgeable you are about what libraries offer—and not just your library—the better equipped you will be to save the day. A friend is in the market for a new car? Consumer Reports online. Need a template for a new lease? EBSCO’s Legal Information Reference Center. Want a software refresher before a job interview? Lynda.com.
Whether the unsuspecting patron actually uses the resource is out of your control. But it’s exciting to consider what planting that seed could lead to: maybe that person’s first library visit in years, or a card renewal, or excitement about e-books and museum passes. Or maybe even a word-of-mouth recommendation to a friend, which starts the cycle anew.
I wonder how the woman at the wedding reception would have fared had my friend not been there. Since the spirit of the celebration rendered most of the other guests unhelpful (and telling her to check out MedlinePlus didn’t seem useful in that moment), she no doubt would have been worse off without a professional’s help. Luckily she only ended up suffering a swollen ankle and a bruised ego, but my friend didn’t know that when he jumped to her aid. He just wanted to help.
One podcast that survived my recent purge is The Keepers, a series from The Kitchen Sisters and NPR. The series features:
“stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians. Keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep. Guardians of history, large and small, protectors of the free flow of information and ideas, eccentric individuals who take it upon themselves to preserve some part of our cultural heritage.”
The latest episode is about the “Pack Horse Librarians,” a group of women in 1930s rural Kentucky who brought books to isolated areas. The Depression-era WPA paid their salary of $1 per day; everything else was their responsibility, including renting the horses and collecting donated books and magazines to distribute.
It’s an inspiring, well-told story that shows the value of preserving local history.
Despite their great intentions, those “required reading” lists of books make me cringe. Required reading usually feels like work, whether they’re from a friend, a professor, or a stranger on the internet. Pleasure reading should be based on freedom and empowerment and whim, not compulsion. Use those lists as a resource, sure, but don’t feel obliged to them.
Austin Kleon gets it right by assigning not a specific book, but a way to get one:
Visit your local library and apply for a library card. (Or pay your fines and renew.)
Ask a librarian for a tour of the library building, the online catalog, and the digital holdings. Ask the librarian to show you how to put materials on hold, how to request materials for purchase, and how to use interlibrary loan.
Check out at least one item. (So you have to return.)
I can’t tell you how beneficial these would be to you and your kids, and how happy this would make your librarians. Summer is the perfect time too; most libraries have summer reading programs for kids and adults, with prizes and fun activities.
Librarians and library staff have been fighting the incorrect stereotype (among many others) that their jobs consist of reading all day long. And while I still have programs to plan, books to weed, research questions to respond to, and other things to worry about, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, we took a little time to read on the job and model the behavior we want to see, if we just might see our communities a little better for it.
I love the spirit behind this, especially for youth librarians seeking to model and encourage positive behavior. But since the whole premise of this article is that patrons assume we’re reading a lot anyway, are PDRs (public displays of reading) the best way to bust this particular myth?
If it were up to me, all librarians would be allowed to do some pleasure reading while on the clock. It directly relates to the essence of the job, even if it doesn’t specifically include readers advisory.
But to “model the behavior we want to see” would require us to read while on public service desks, and I think that’s bad customer service.
If we’re engrossed in or even skimming a book, they will think they are bothering us if they ask a question, which is another very common assumption I would love to destroy.
That said, if you can fit reading in with the other aforementioned responsibilities away from the desk, all the better! It’s a shame some managers would frown upon this. As if looking busy in your cubicle is the only metric for what constitutes good work. I find lunch breaks, pre-bedtime, and audiobooks during my commute enough for me to read 70-80 books per year, but your mileage and busyness may vary.
Perhaps a more structured “read-in” event would be another option: “Read With Your Librarian” or a kind of (not so) silent reading party. People reading in libraries is not a novel concept, but people of all ages intentionally reading their own books together with their neighbors is a photo-op waiting to happen.
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.
In my library, one of the information desks sits in a high-traffic area where all the activity from the entrance, auditorium, elevator, and stairs to Youth Services converge. One result of this configuration is that whoever is at the desk (and anyone in the nearby Periodicals area) can hear everything that happens in the cacophonous cement stairwell that leads to Youth Services. Sometimes it’s a toddler’s tantrum or a boisterous conversation. And sometimes it’s a parent who doesn’t realize strangers are listening.
The other day it was a mother frustrated with her son, probably a four year old. From what I gathered, the boy had not been a good listener and they were leaving this library trip in a bad mood.
“I do this for you,” the mother said as they emerged from the stairwell and walked out the door. “I could be home, doing nothing. But I’m nice. I actually care about you and want you to read good books.”
In one interpretation of this scene, the mother is the villain for snapping at her child. But she wasn’t. Her tone was part frustration and part disappointment, without animus or aggression. Since I didn’t see what had happened before their departure, I can’t judge the son for his behavior or the mother for her reaction to it (though from his lowered head and lack of protest I’m guessing he deserved the rebuke).
Despite not being a parent myself, I deeply sympathize with parents in public with their kids. Planes, parks, restaurants, stores, and other public spaces offer ample opportunities for kids to misbehave and beckon the judgmental glances (and even comments) of other adults.
But unless it’s the parent who is egregiously misbehaving, I usually side with the adult. Especially one who brings her child to the library when she’d rather be at home, doing nothing.
Watch out, world: we’ve got ourselves a 90-year-old hot take!
In the June 1928 issue of The American Mercury, a periodical edited by the famous journalist H.L. Mencken, there’s an article by Fletcher Pratt called “A Glance At The Public Libraries”. I stumbled upon the issue while processing material at the Frances Willard House Museum. It was there because of the article about Willard in the same issue, but the library article was what first caught my eye.
Pratt, a writer of science fiction and history, worked at Buffalo Public Library for a time and used that experience to write this sardonic, dismissive, sexist contrarian take on the public libraries of that time.
Why read it at all? First, as a historical artifact, it provides valuable context from a different era. Second, even though it’s almost 100 years old and, to modern minds, retrograde in its view of library workers and their work, I think it’s important to read contrarian perspectives on issues close to one’s heart and mind. Librarianship is my career and one I love, but that doesn’t mean I should ignore criticisms of it.
It’s also just plain funny, in a tongue-in-cheek, insult comic kind of way. Pratt goes Don Rickles on the profession in a way only someone familiar with it could pull off.
So let’s consider what Fletcher Pratt tells us about how public libraries have changed since 1928 and in what ways they remain the same, if at all. I recommend reading the whole thing to get the full experience. But let’s take a look at some of my favorite parts:
It begins:
Every public library in the United States now places restrictions on the use of fiction.
Librarians, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. Restricting fiction seems laughable now, given how popular and dominant it is in the book and library worlds.
American librarians, in fact, have become obsessed with the idea that the national literature will go to the dogs unless they persuade their customers to read something beside fiction. Indignant papers in the library journals and long discussions at librarians meetings are given over to the great question of how to keep the public from reading what it likes and how to induce it to read the moldering stacks of books it doesn’t care about.
That’s what I mean about funny.
Three classes of books—travel, biography and history—are held in orthodox library circles to be the best antidote to this depraved fondness for works of the imagination. To these the best shelves are given, for them the special bulletins are printed, and on them the lady attendant spends the best efforts of her cajolery to make her percentage of nonfiction circulation high.
A favorite device for increasing circulation painlessly is to require every reader who uses a reference book to fill out a slip for it.… Another potent scheme is to take books into the schools; a third is to offer vacation libraries of twenty-five or fifty books for the summer. Are they read? Who cares? It makes circulation, and circulation, in the librarian’s mind, is the summum bonum.
Here is where things get a little more familiar to us moderns. Circulation remains the summum bonum of the profession, however much local value and subject matter still factor into collection development. If a book doesn’t circulate, it won’t last long in a space-limited library.
Nothing is more curious to the outside observer than the typical librarians’ preoccupation with the infinitely little. Recently, for example, an angry controversy raged through the library world as to whether Radio or Wireless should be the heading under which books on the subject were classified. … In the library where the writer once worked hours of discussion at a staff meeting were given over to the absorbing question as to whether it was better to hold a book in the left hand and insert the charge slip with the right, or vice versa.
Book in left, charge slip in right. Wanna fight about it?
This tireless energy over trivialities argues that small minds are at work, and sure enough, there is a certain lack of intelligence among librarians. The reason is not far to see; intelligence follows the cornucopia, and library work is probably the worst paid of all intellectual vocations.
In our defense, tedious discussions about trivialities are hardly exclusive to libraries. But if you’re mad about Pratt asserting a lack of intelligence among librarians, you’re definitely not gonna like his reasoning:
Since girls first discovered that it could furnish them with pin-money while they waited for someone to love them, library work has been a prime favorite with the female of the species. It involves little labor, and that of a highly genteel character; it demands no great mental ability and it places the husband-hunter who enters it on public exhibition, where she can look over and be looked over by all the nubile males of the district under the most refined auspices.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest Pratt would not have fared well in the #MeToo era. Next he tackles library school:
In no case does the course extend beyond two years, and the pedagogues have had to drag in such subjects as the History and Philosophy of Printing to make it last that long. Before the schools got under way the libraries trained rather better staffs than they have now on a month’s lectures with practical experience. The truth is that there is very little to teach; any literate person can learn all there is to a library system in a few weeks. Consequently the library schools have to drill their future B.S.’s and M.A.’s in the beautifully vague principles of “library economy,” and to impress them with the importance of such details as inserting the charging slip with the right hand, or lettering the title on a thin book in the proper direction.
I’ll save the discussion about the pros and cons of library school for another post. But “beautifully vague principles” mixed with arcane details is pretty spot-on—and why I love libraries so much. He then tips his cap to Andrew Carnegie, patron saint of library buildings:
There are never enough branches to go round, but the head librarians, pushed from below by their staffs and from above by aldermen anxious for pork, do their best, and so new branches are added apace. The fund established by the obliging Mr. Carnegie makes it easy; all the city has to do is furnish the books; the Carnegie fund will put up the imitation Greek temple and even the funerary vegetation around it.
Finally, Pratt touts the Newark library as the “highest peak” of effectiveness, unlike that of its neighbor:
Right across the Hudson is the great New York Public, in any one of whose vaulted corridors Newark’s whole collection would be lost. The contrast of striking. In the New Jersey institution one watchman is at the door and a whole corps of eager assistants stand ready to help the visitor; in the marble monument to the Astors one may count a dozen policemen in neat horizon blue idling about to enforce the library rules, while one poor boy struggles vainly with requests for information.
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. [Note: this was originally published at Booklist.]
In the office one day, my colleagues got to discussing who our library’s Mount Rushmore of patrons would be. Not necessarily the nicest ones but the ones who have become iconic among staff largely because of the mystery that surrounds them.
I thought of a few candidates right away. The man with the quiet, husky voice who calls our small, suburban Illinois library for phone numbers in California. Or the woman who calls looking for information on a website, the same one every time, whose calls are so predictable they could follow a script.
And then there’s the man who calls occasionally with a request: for us to print out the Google Maps Street View of certain intersections, all four corners of them. Sometimes it’s a specific one, but other times he just names a landmark or a city and will accept any street-view pictures of it.
He’s also into appraisal. If we’re not on Google Maps for him, we’re looking up the value of certain artifacts and printing screenshots of similar items on eBay. Previous examples include a Star Wars novelty coin, a book about the First Cavalry Division in the Korean War, an 1853 French coin, and a John Lennon and Yoko Ono “Let Them Stay In” button.
All of this begs so many questions. Where does he get these artifacts? Is he a collector or just trying to make a buck? How amazing is his coin collection? Why the fascination with intersections? (I heard a rumor he asks for the street views because he’s unable to travel and uses the pictures to do so vicariously.)
Whatever the truth is, it’s not my business to ask. I’m very curious about the lives of certain patrons; curiosity is an occupational asset in librarianship. But I’m also very cognizant about not breaking the confidence of people who trust the library enough to bring us their personal requests, however odd or seemingly simple they might be.
So I’m fine with not knowing everything about who’s on the other end of the line. Like the real Mount Rushmore, whose presidential likenesses are famously unfinished but iconic nevertheless, the incompleteness of patrons’ stories is instrumental to their mysteries. And if there’s anything desk librarians should enjoy, it’s chasing down a mystery.
Libraries are safer spaces. The internet brings people together, often in enjoyable and productive ways, such as over shared interests (pop culture blogs, fanfic sites) or common challenges (online support groups). But cyberbullying and trolling can leave people reluctant to engage with folks they disagree with or to share their ideas in the first place. Libraries are places where people can gather constructively and all are welcome.
Libraries respect history. Web pages are ephemeral, and link rot is a real problem. The content of library collections is much more stable. Printed materials are generally published on acid-free paper, which will not disintegrate. And librarians are leading the way to bring similar stability to the web through services like the Internet Archive and perma.cc.
Librarians do not track your reading or search history to sell you things. Amazon’s book purchase recommendation feature is useful for learning about new books. But this usefulness comes at the expense of your privacy because your reading data is valuable business intelligence for Amazon. The same is true for your web searching history, which is why you often see ads for a product for weeks after searching for it just once. Librarians value and protect your privacy.
The last one is my personal favorite. Though modern library catalogs provide the option to record your checkout history, it is opt-in and the data it collects isn’t sold to anyone.
If I could add one more to the original list:
Libraries are local. Though most libraries are in a consortium or resource-sharing system of some kind and have a lot of the same materials, no one library is the same, and each is the product of its community. I marvel at how true this is when someone asks in a listserv about how other libraries do something and each response is something different.
Lots of great bits in this Atlas Obscura story about the Manhattan Project‘s librarian. J. Robert Oppenheimer selected Charlotte Serber, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, statistician, and freelance journalist to organize and lead the scientific library at Los Alamos not because of her library experience (she had none), but because “he wanted someone who would be willing to bend the rules of cataloguing.”
At one point Oppenheimer sends Serber and her husband to Santa Fe and personally spread false information about Los Alamos to dispel any true rumors:
The Serbers entered a local bar with the express intent of telling residents that the Los Alamos scientists were building “an electric rocket,” rather than a bomb. But no one seemed to care. At one point, Charlotte danced with a local man, all the while pestering him about Los Alamos. “What’s your guess about what cooks up there?” she asked. “Beats me,” he said. “Don’t care. May I have another dance later?”
In fact the secrets almost did get out. The Santa Fe Library sent out routine letters to library card holders, which reached scientists at Los Alamos:
A small crisis ensued. The security teams demanded to know how the Santa Fe Library had obtained the names of so many Los Alamos scientists. As a result, “a dark and cryptic gentleman appeared to find out how this flood of mail happened to be sent them and where All Those Names were obtained.”
Turned out, many scientists, impatient with the long wait for books, had gone into Santa Fe and checked them out themselves, under their real names—a major security violation.
When the Santa Fe librarians explained this, the man left. “If a strange character with a long cigar and his hat over his eyes tailed the staff members, they were not aware of it and feel that he could rarely have had a duller assignment,” the library later wrote.
I went to the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago two weeks ago. Got to meet up with old colleagues, collect some sweet pens, and hear some interesting speakers, including the godfather of Hamilton, Ron Chernow. But most enriching were the sessions I attended. Here are some notes from the ones that enlightened me the most.
The Intentional Library: Creating A Better User Experience With Service Design And Design Thinking
Presenters: Joe Marquez, Annie Downey, Julka Almquist, Juliana Culbert
This session got me thinking about how to look at our library space as if I were a tourist seeing it for the first time. Would our service design make sense to them? If we aren’t intentionally seeking feedback from patrons and staff about how we can meet people’s needs and eliminate patrons’ “pain points”, then we’re not serving our patrons well.
Another key takeaway was that from a patron’s perspective, everyone who works in the library is a librarian; they don’t understand the professional distinctions. So regardless of job title, all staff should understand the library as a whole and be ready to serve the patron with good customer service skills.
Notes:
“If the point of contact between the product and people becomes a point of friction, the designer has failed.” -Henry Dreyfuss
If seeking to implement new design, follow the process: empathize → define → ideate → prototype → test → implement
need fresh eyes on space and processes, like a tourist
there are differences between what people say, do, think, and feel
discover people’s needs and pain-points, and create solutions to those so users can get what they want
educate colleagues on user experience (UX) and what it looks like to put into practice
questions to consider:
what is the audience?
what is the goal, call to action for users?
what is the timeline?
mindset to have:
everyone is a designer
embrace failure
people are at the center
prototyping builds confidence and saves money
Inherited ecology: older things and systems that haven’t changed but should, need new eyes
libraries are “tightly coupled” system, so changes affect everyone
from patron’s perspective, everyone is a librarian; all staff should know library as a whole
understand needs and expectations of patrons: these are often unexpressed
everything is a service
establish reasonable duration and tempo for patron services
accessibility: a range of behaviors are available to patrons
ask patrons: what problems do libraries solve? why are we important?
What Do You Need to Know? Learning and Knowing and Libraries in the Age of the Internet
Daniel Russell is Google’s Über Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness and he studies “how groups of people think about, understand, and use the technology of information.” He expanded on the concept of informacy, or the literacy of information, which requires a deep knowledge of information as a domain and knowing how to work well within it. Three things he said librarians ought to know were: 1) what’s possible to find online, 2) what search capabilities allow you to find them, and 3) what do you need to know to be able to do this? Pairing these skills with curiosity and a skeptical eye will help librarians make the shift in mindset from things that used to be impossible to find to what’s now expected to be provided instantaneously.
Notes:
Russell is a software engineer, research scientist, and a self-described “cyber-tribal-techno-cognitive-anthropologist” who studies “how groups of people think about, understand, and use the technology of information”
literacy: the ability to read and write in a symbol system and assumed, associated body of knowledge; defined with regard to a cultural group
“Pear Republic” hoax on Snopes is an example of the “false authority” fallacy
Need to perceive knowledge gap
skills of how to look things up
attitude of curiosity
Things librarians ought to know:
What’s possible to find online
What search capabilities allow you to find them
What do you need to know to be able to do this?
example of finding location of a photo using EXIF metadata (EXIF Metadata Viewer) and Google Maps
intuition/understanding of what and how often you do something is unreliable
informacy (like numeracy): the literacy of information
deeply knowledgeable about information as a domain, and knowing how to use and interact with it
Ctrl-F not used by 90% computer users: why?
Examples of untrustworthy sources on the internet:
fake author “Lambert Surhone” on Amazon
Clonezone
Italian Wikipedia article for Leonardo da Vinci much longer than English one: which one is better?
need to shift thinking from impossible to instantaneous
how to convert attitude from complaining to seeking out answers?
Social metacognition strategy of using “contact list intelligence”: know people who know things you don’t
“When in doubt, search it out”
“knowledge exists outside of yourself”
Three keys:
learn how to ask questions
know who can answer questions
know what tools are out there
Better Service than Amazon and Nordstrom: Secrets to How It’s Done
Presenters: Jane Martel, Linda Speas, Caroline Heinselman
This was presented by staff from the Arapahoe Library in Colorado, which gets very high marks in customer service rankings, even compared to popular companies like Amazon and Apple. I gathered there were 3 aspects of their customer service success. One was creating “exceptional experiences” for patrons that “surprise and delight” them and turn what would otherwise have been a good but standard library experience into great ones that they might tell their non-library-using friends about. Another was finding ways to “say yes” and avoid saying no in customer service situations, and documenting the times you have to “say no” so that you can pinpoint problems and get to yes. Another was rigorously training and supporting staff, not only in how to provide great customer service but also by allowing staff to feel fulfilled in their jobs by gathering positive stories of staff successes.
Notes:
poor customer service acts as a barrier to access
library being essential vs. “nice to have”
what can we offer to bring in more non-users? Nothing to convince them to come.
who are we at our best?
get users to “tell a friend” via word of mouth; create exceptional experiences they will want to tell about — ”surprise & delight”
specifically ask people to tell their friends/family about good library experiences
find ways to say yes and avoid saying no
hire for people skills over library skills: harder to teach
train and support staff: CS training for all
Process: greet warmly and smile, introduce yourself, have good small talk, offer assistance in “let’s find out” attitude, say thank you, make known they aren’t interrupting
have someone intentionally look at birds-eye view of CS
have staff submit positive stories: recognition/morale, training examples, board (Desk Tracker or Google Form?)
new hires: welcome bag, lunch, etc.
October 3 Customer Experience Day cxday.org
Tips for improving CS:
No log or Sorry/Thanks log to chart when have to say no and spot pain points
annual CS survey for patrons: look for things that either can be solved or are repeated
online anonymous comment form
staff see much more than patrons do
Desegregating Public Libraries: The Tougaloo Nine
Presenters: Michael Crowell, Geraldine Edwards Hollis, Susan Brown
This session was less about modern library practices and more about how past ones have failed patrons. Geraldine Edwards Hollis was one of the Tougaloo Nine, a group of students in Mississippi who did a “study-in” at their local segregated library and were arrested. Hollis told the story of the experience, which I’d never heard about until then. The session was a good opportunity to consider potential blind spots we have in current library services and honor those who risked their livelihoods to challenge them in the past.
Notes:
Hollis: a voracious reader
During this session was the first time Hollis had seen footage of the study-in and her arrest since it happened
Hollis: they didn’t want to just do lunch counter sit-ins or something mediocre: they did a library because libraries and reading mattered
Group started with 50 students interested, but once possibility of beatings, jailing, or even death was made clear, only 16 remained interested
many had parents who worked for state and schools, so those who remained had the least at stake
16 total involved: 9 in the library, the rest on lookout
parents didn’t know until a few hours before
Hollis made her own clothes, was very meticulous; “I made sure I was well padded” for jail with lots of layers
Hollis: we were told all their lives we didn’t belong, but what what we were showing was “we belong where we want to be”
Asking for a Friend: Tough Questions (and Honest Answers) about Organizational Culture
Presenters: Susan Brown, Richard Kong, Megan Egbert, Christopher Warren
This panel was comprised of one middle manager and three library directors, all of whom had taken over from long-serving directors and embarked on an overhaul of their organizational structure and culture. It was largely Q&A, with librarians voicing a variety of frustrations with their management, office politics, and other challenges that can pop up in the library environment. Key takeaways include: managers need to remember that some people view change as loss, and creating change means accountability combined with compassion.
Notes:
organizational culture is something you can hope will change, or be intentional about it
moving people to different offices was “worst thing ever” (Kong)
can’t reshape OC alone: need evangelists
OC defined by worst behavior that manager allows
counter toxic culture with emphasis on serving patrons
accountability + compassion to create change
communicate a lot, but also hold people accountable to consuming it and responding; if there are complaints of communication lack, look for what’s underneath
find ways to help people contribute to positive culture
trust: say you’ll do something, then do it — performance tied to trust
directors/managers should give time to allow feedback, but once decision is made staff should follow it; everyone gets a voice, but not a vote
re: siloing, Kong resists designating one authority figure or chain: wants people and departments to talk to each other
mixed departments on project teams and interviews
“what’s broken, what’s the rumor” at meetings
Junior Librarian program to mentor high schoolers and get non-traditional people in LIS
Lots of great anecdotes from the New Yorker story “Scenes from the Oscar Night Implosion“, including this one on the Academy librarians planted in the corner of the press room:
In the back corner was my favorite part of the press room: the librarians’ table, where the Academy librarians are on hand to answer questions. Under a sign that said “Reference,” a librarian named Lucia Schultz had a thick binder of Oscar history and another of credits for the nominated films. Reporters came by to ask questions. Had there previously been two African-American acting winners in the same year? (Yes, in 2002, 2005, and 2007.) If Lin-Manuel Miranda won Best Original Song, would he be the youngest-ever “EGOT”? (Depends on whether you count noncompetitive awards. Barbra Streisand was younger, but she won a Special Tony Award.) Was Mahershala Ali the first Muslim to win an Oscar? (They couldn’t say, because the Academy doesn’t keep records on winners’ religious affiliations.) After Colleen Atwood won for Best Costume Design, a Metro.co.uk reporter rushed up to Schultz and asked if any other British people had won four Oscars. “Yes, but Colleen Atwood is from Washington State,” Schultz said.
Later on, as the Best Picture snafu was happening, Schultz had what we could call a run on the reference desk:
On the monitors, a guy in a headset was onstage, and the “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz was saying, “This is not a joke. ‘Moonlight’ has won Best Picture.” When the camera zoomed in on the envelope, the press room collectively screamed. A reporter ran up to Schultz and asked, “Has anything like this ever happened before?” Schultz, who had not prepared for this scenario, was frantically searching her records. “I cannot think of a case where this has happened,” she said. “There are times when people thought it happened.” More reporters lined up with the same question—it was the most attention Schultz had got all night. She remembered something about Quincy Jones and Sharon Stone forgetting the envelope for Best Original Score, in 1996, but no other precedent came to mind. (In fact, Sammy Davis, Jr., once read from the wrong envelope, in 1964.)
The first article that came up when I hit Wikipedia’s “Random Article” button. I’ll call it a win.
Greatly appreciated this post from Jessamyn West promoting the #1Lib1Ref campaign (One Librarian, One Reference), which seeks to get every librarian to add at least one reliable reference source to a Wikipedia article that needs it. Jessamyn:
This helps make Wikipedia better in the process. I added my cite today to the Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow article. I’m not even trying to be sassy, that is just the page that was handed to me by this great tool that lets you know which articles need citations. I did some Googling, found a Google Book that had some supporting detail for the fact in question, used a book citation tool to turn it into Wikistyle and there you go. I might do two, just in case someone doesn’t have time to add a citation to Wikipedia this week.
Wikipedia is 15 years old today. About a month ago I donated to the Wikimedia Foundation for the first time during one of their fundraisers, because I’ve been a cheapskate freeloader for long enough. I’ve been using it since high school, when it started getting big and quickly became anathema to cite in any academic or “serious” setting, given its unreliability as an authoritative source. (As an editor at my college paper I once received a story from a staff writer that began “According to Wikipedia…” Headdesk.)
But for a trivia-brain like me, Wikipedia was and remains a delectable time-suck of arcana, and a handy resource I consult more frequently than I realize. For looking up films, for instance, I much prefer its spartan UI and rigid structure to the once-helpful but now-bloated and gaudy IMDb. And though Goodreads is usually my first stop for book ratings and reviews, the sidebar for a well-enough-known book has all the metadata I’d usually need. In good articles the References and Further Reading sections also make great portals to related topics and sources you didn’t realize you were interested in.
I once read somewhere that Wikipedia is like the opposite of communism: it doesn’t work in theory but somehow works in practice. That it hasn’t fizzled out already is a minor miracle, a credit largely due to the many volunteer editors who keep it running (and probably to enough of those annoying fundraising banners that show up in increasingly creative and strident ways). I’ve made edits very sporadically over the years—mostly cosmetic ones like italicizing titles and correcting links—but once while in a Wiki-rabbit-hole I excised a vicious ad hominem comment someone had written on Taylor Momsen’s page, which was pretty sparse at the time and therefore more liable to vandalism.
Speaking of: the site has issues, clearly. Who knows how much longer it’ll be around in its current form. Like the rest of the open web, I hope it lasts and evolves into a sustainable and dependent force for good. This #1Lib1Ref challenge is a good opportunity for librarians like me to be more proactive in this weird and wonderful experiment, if only as a professional obligation.
So thanks Jimmy for 15 years and counting. In celebration I will click the Random Article button (the site’s best feature) 15 times and only 15 times. I’ve got stuff to do after all.
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.
Earlier this year I started keeping a list of things people have asked me at the library information desk. It’s not totally comprehensive: some questions either aren’t noteworthy (“Where’s the bathroom?”) or slipped my mind during a busy rush. But even as a scattershot sample, it’s an interesting snapshot of what people care about.
Here are the ten most recent items on the list people have asked me for or wondered about:
Introduction to Academic Writing by Alice Oshima et al
Casper DVD
Halloween DVD
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Cars For U.S. Troops phone number
History of Monroney stickers on new cars
The Court and the World by Stephen Breyer
Stonewall Uprising documentary
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
So we have five books of diverse genres, three very different movies, one phone number request, and one reference question I was able to find info on pretty quickly (and learn about myself). A more accurate representation would have more requests for phone numbers and addresses, but it still gives you an idea of the kinds of things people ask a total stranger for.
And that’s what I’ve found so intriguing and invigorating about my public library jobs thus far into my short career. Aside from the regulars whose desires you can pretty well anticipate as they approach, when a person walks up to the desk I have no idea what they’re gonna ask. So when people ask how my job is going, I can legitimately say that every day is different, and I like that. I appreciate the trust people put in me as the guy behind the desk to get them what they need. And I don’t want to jeopardize that trust by blowing them off, judging their requests (openly anyway), or getting them bad information.
Because it’s their lives we’re dealing with. I’ve written before about how I’ve come to view libraries as sanctuaries and the librarian as a kind of secular pastor. Indeed, the info desk can sometimes feel like a confession booth, which patrons approach with every conceivable attitude: frustrated by their inability to find something, ashamed in the asking of it, happy to be getting help at all, and so on. Whatever they throw at me, I have to be ready to respond accurately, with patience and grace when applicable. Librarians have to do a lot of different things, but good public service is and should be number one.
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk.
If you’re a librarian, it’s likely you’re expected to provide readers advisory. (Or is it reader’s?) Every librarian has his or her own area of expertise and blind spots, but whether through direct knowledge or other resources, you’re supposed to be able to give patrons who ask some reliable recommendations on what to read, watch, listen to, or do. This happens fairly regularly at a public library and is, as the NFL puts it, a “major point of emphasis.”
Less common, but just as valuable, is when patrons advise librarians. Last week a man came to the desk looking for the album Trio by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. He said the catalog said it was in, but he couldn’t understand the CD labeling. I tracked it down and explained the labeling system (MC for country, MJ for jazz, etc.—I can see his point…). He thanked me for finding it and said, “Have you ever heard this?” I hadn’t. “Their voices blend so well. Check it out sometime.”
So I did, and he was right: it’s a beautiful record (with hilarious hair) that got nominated for Album of the Year in 1987. I’m not a pop-culture elitist, but it’s important to be reminded that just because librarians get paid to make recommendations doesn’t mean we’re right, or that other people who didn’t get a library degree can’t do it well either.
I’ve heard patrons say this to me or other librarians at the information desk so many times. And every time, I want to respond: “That’s what we’re here for!” Maybe we at the desk were talking to each other, or typing on the computer, or reading a trade journal, or even just sitting there waiting to answer a question. Whatever it is, patrons often feel they’re being a bother by asking questions when in fact answering questions is literally the librarian’s job. It’s what we enjoy doing and get paid for. But either they don’t get it or we’re not doing a good enough job making that known.
This could be a design problem: old-school reference desks, which are quickly falling out of fashion, can be imposing, alienating beasts. Libraries of all kinds that have been around a while probably have those hefty wooden desks, long and encompassing like ramparts of Reference Castle, with the lofty librarians holding the front line against the swarming public. Librarian’s Domain: None Shall Pass! Or, at desks that seem to sink into the earth, like Bilbo Baggins at Bag End we burrow in behind computer screens or stand-up signage and treat interruptions (“except on party business”) as inconveniences rather than essential.
Many libraries have done away with the traditional info desk altogether. They take a “roving reference” approach, which either has librarians stand at a table a la the Apple Store or sends them onto the floor with an iPad to actively help people find what they’re looking for. I’d love to hear from other librarians who do this about how well it works. Do patrons feel more at ease if they’re approached by staff? Do you feel like you work at Best Buy? I’d love to see data from two libraries of similar size who take these different reference approaches. Does one get more questions over the other?
As a patron I enjoy being able to browse undisturbed and, being a librarian myself, usually don’t need help getting around or finding something. But I’m also not afraid to approach the desk, and neither should you. Regardless of what the desk looks like, librarians are responsible for answering questions and patrons are responsible for asking them. We can’t read your mind, and we can’t help you until we know what you need help with.
So please: Bother us. Early and often. Whatever else we’re doing at the desk, however game we look for whatever you’re about to ask, ask it—no matter what it is.
(And don’t even get me started on “This is probably a stupid question, but…”)
