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ALA New Orleans, 2018 – Richard’s report

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ALA Annual, New Orleans, 2018 Conference Report
Below are some of the significant things I learned at the many sessions I attended:
1. OCLC Expert Cataloging Community Sharing Session
As OCLC continues to develop its WorldShare manager systems and related services, OCLC reps assured catalogers that support for Connexion would not be going away without plenty of notice. I asked about the recent spate of DLC records without controlled headings. While no one had any certain answer, some in the group speculated that: a) records were being used by OSU before LC had created authority records for personal names (although the records included uncontrolled subject headings); b) records created by other libraries that had controlled headings were copy-cataloged by LC and for some unknown reason the headings became uncontrolled; c) something was going awry at LC. In any event, OCLC did not claim responsibility and suggested I get in touch with someone at LC.

2. Emerging Leaders Poster Session
The Emerging Leaders program enables ALA units to task groups of early career librarians with research and development projects that further the aims of the association. IRRT again sponsored a group of emerging leaders to survey international librarians who are members of ALA and/or IRRT as to how the round table can better serve their needs and engage them in the work of the association/round table. I also spoke with some who did a project for the American Indian Library Association to create a database of tribal museums and libraries accessible on the web. I noted that they missed the ones in Oregon, but as this is an ongoing project, they assured me I could submit information for inclusion in the database.
3. International Librarians Orientation – an orientation for some of the 500 librarians from overseas so that they can get the most out of their conference experience.
4. Opening General Session with Michelle Obama
Ms. Obama was interviewed by Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress. This was an event not to be missed. Ms. Obama was her warm, compassionate self in describing her early life, life in the White House, and her support for girls and women to be all that they can be. If she had any inkling of running for office, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I think she has other plans for her future.
5. IRRT All Committees Meeting
Committee chairs shared about programs planned for Annual and beyond as well as other IRRT business. The session is a good networking opportunity for all.
6. IFLA Update
Gerald Leitner, IFLA General Secretary, and Gloria Salmeron-Diaz, IFLA President, reported on IFLA initiatives, especially the Global Vision Project and the Library Map of the World. The former is an effort to collect input from librarians worldwide to create an “idea store” to further the ten foci for the future of libraries around the world. The latter is a project to collect data on libraries around the world to further library development and integrate stories from libraries with the UN’s Sustainable Development goals.
7. IRRT Chair’s Program: Libraries Saving Lives: Supporting Refugees and Immigrants
3 speakers from very different venues spoke on their libraries’ efforts to support immigrants and refugees:
a. Louisville (KY) Public Library. The city has seen an incredible uptick in diversity with 138 languages listed as the primary language spoken in home, with the top 5 non-English languages being: Spanish, Arabic, Somali, Nepali, Swahili. Programs include: free English conversation classes given by the school district; partnering with universities and high schools to have immigrants integrated into syllabi of appropriate classes; veterans speaking with refugees from the countries they were stationed in; engaging retired immigration lawyers to respond to questions from immigrants; having immigrant musicians play together at the library and offer lessons (oud, ukulele) at the same time as English lessons. Citizenship ceremonies are conducted at the library. Numerous other examples were given: multiethnic iftars; film series about causes that brought refugees here; language salons (Arabic, Somali, etc.); even bringing books to a local slaughterhouse where immigrants worked so they could take advantage of library services on their lunch break.
b. Koln, Germany, public library. The 4th biggest city in Germany where 37% of population is minority immigrants, but are well integrated in the city. Plus about 10,000 refugees. Public libraries funded by municipality but unlike the US, they charge a $45 fee to borrow books. They offer intercultural mediakits for schools and other locations. In 2015, they created a language space, open to all, as a place to practice German, using volunteers come from the community. Library serves as mediator between committee members and refugees, offering training for the volunteers. The library also encourages immigrants to tell their stories, which are recorded and posted on the libraries website. Their stories are also told through art, such as painting. The library has also used reading dogs, an idea borrowed from their sister library in Indianapolis; multilingual reading events; encouraging story times with fathers – especially important for people from countries where reading aloud to children isn’t well established.
c. The director of Libraries of Malmo, Sweden discussed their efforts where 1/3 of the population was born abroad. They have an obligation to prioritize people with a first language other than Swedish. Over 150,000 refugees coming to Malmo – a large strain on resources. They have created a children’s library in Arabic on Facebook. “Maktabat al atfal” (sp?). Also a service called “A Million Stories” at www.refugeelives.eu. The library cooperates with outside groups that work with immigrants to conduct language workshops where new immigrants can practice Swedish skills and also to learn English.
8. Catalog Form and Function Interest Group
Several interesting projects were described here. One involved using MARCEdit to crosswalk tab delimited text (Excel) describing finding aids to Marc. Records, which were still very brief, were then loaded into the local ILS, but not shared with WorldCat.
Dallas Public Library created something called Library.Link to take their 100+terabytes of MARC records and make it discoverable on the web. They used Bibframe to move the data to Dublin Core as well as schema.org. Using “Data dashboard” (?) they were able to generated links reconcile data, then publish it on the open web. This was definitely a bit beyond me, but seemed like a very cool project nevertheless. New Directions in Non-Latin Script Access
9. International Papers Session: Libraries Supporting Social Inclusion for Refugees and Immigrants
Since this was the IRRT chair’s theme for this year, this program also featured a variety of innovative ways of reaching out to immigrants and refugees.
Libraries empowering immigrant communities in Hawaii: Using a Hawaiian approach, the ”talk-story” which is similar to storytelling. About ¼ of the Hawaiian population are immigrants: Japanese, Filipino (the largest group), Portuguese, Americans, Puerto Rico, etc. In pidgin Hawaiian, talk-story means that the more you chitchat, the more you understand. It legitimizes storytelling. There are many social issues that need addressing. Many immigrants live on Oahu where the cost of living is very high and the need for affordable housing is very great. Many are homeless. The indigenous population is struggling for sovereignty. Immigrants struggle for equitable wages. At the University of Hawaii it is hard to keep faculty because of how expensive it is. Hamilton Library is the largest in Hawaii. It does outreach to high schools to try to reduce the library anxiety. They conduct many cultural sensitivity activities in an attempt to reduce ethnic slurs and bullying – problems which make attendance undesirable to kids. The library sponsors events that include eating and dancing in the library and a chance to share about their history. Their goal is to flip their stories to hope instead of despair.
Nordic World Library Project: This project delivers digital library services to immigrant communities in the Nordic countries, a cooperative project between the national libraries of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. A digital platform for disseminating film and music was developed by the Royal Library in Denmark with the goal to improve digital library services to minorities in Nordic countries. The project purchases rights, services, cataloging, etc. for these resources. Many immigrants from these countries are illiterate, so the project also needs to teach languages to enable them to read, educate, and enable users to find employment and integrate into Nordic society. Materials are purchased in 5 languages: Somali, Arabic, Farsi, Serbo-Croatian, and Tigrinya.
Two Norwegian presenters discussed their public library’s programs in the northernmost part of the country. They sought to make their public library a place for learning and social inclusion of immigrants. Of the total population of Norway, 880,000 are foreign born or have foreign-born people. Their county in the very northern part of Norway has a population of 75,000 and borders on Russia and Finland, with their small town of 7000. The county has settled the most immigrants per capita. They offer literature in the immigrants’ own languages, including literature from their home countries and Norwegian literature in translation. Over 70 different languages are represented. They host “anguage cafes” – places where immigrants and refugees can talk about a particular topic in Norwegian, to encourage speaking in the language. They also create meeting points between immigrants and local citizens based on hobbies and interests.
10. Technical Services Discussion Group (ACRL-Rare Books and Manuscripts Section)
This was my first time attending this discussion group. The floor was open for discussing topics from participants rather than having any formal presentations as many discussion groups have. The most relevant part was the discussion of links in records for archival finding aids, something that the OCA has been dealing with this past year. I shared some about the effort to remove portfolios from our finding aid records.
11. IRRT Executive Board Meeting
The was our semiannual meeting face-to-face. The board was very happy with the Emerging Leaders project mentioned above, which will likely result in some changes in the way the IRRT conducts its business and communicates with the membership.
12. Authority Control Interest Group
Janis Young (LC) provided the following info:
a. “multiple” subdivisions in LCSH will be going away over a yearlong project to begin June 30 and expected to last a year. These are subject headings of the type [Topic] in Christianity [Judaism, Islam, etc.] where the cataloger could substitute the name of the religion in the heading freely. These types of headings cause problems for linked data. LC will work with OCLC to provide strings of these multiples so that proper subject heading authority records can be created for each one. Once that is done, multiple subdivision authority records will be cancelled. For now, LC is asking that catalogers don’t propose any new ones of this ilk, but you can continue using multiples as needed. They also ask that catalogers don’t try to help by making individual proposals. Propose new subdivisions as needed where a multiple does not exist. Instructions are now included in the Subject Cataloging Manual under H1090.
b. There are duplicate authority records for some entities, such as the Catholic Church, in both NAF and LCSH. These are not a true duplicates. These are created when LC needs to provide info. Please do not report these as duplicates.
c. For a variety of reasons, only LC staff will add LC-verified author numbers in LC Classification from now on rather than allowing PCC and other catalogers to propose author numbers in the P schedules.

13. Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Participants Meeting
a. Guidelines for bibliographic file maintenance were provided.
b. Gender and authority records report based on the recent survey has been completed, including best practice recommendations. An approved DCM will be placed in Cataloger’s Desktop and the policy posted on the PCC website.
c. Library and Archives Canada has joined NACO, but because of bilingualism, training, etc., we are asked to report anything unusual in the NAF.
d. Relationship designations for authority records have had guidelines approved. A general announcement about the guidelines will go out soon and should be a big help for linked data.
e. Literary author class numbers (053 field in authority records) have been included in PCC authority record proposals in the past. However, LC is no longer allowing these as they cause problems for LC authority record reviewers given a number of suppressed classification records that PCC members cannot see but LC catalogers can.
f. Janis Young reviewed the processes that LC performs when reviewing subject heading proposals and advised libraries submitting new subject heading proposals to be patient when awaiting approval.
g. Isabel Quintana reported on a pilot project to include ISNI identifiers in authority records. A report and other information is available on the website.
14. Heads of Cataloging Departments Interest Group
a. Casey Mullin, WSU, reported on his experience coordinating with multiple other units and staff at WSU with respect to cataloging of resources in their IR. His collaborative model of digital collection management was very interesting and reminiscent of our own Metadata Interest Group discussions.
b. Dave Van Kleeck, U. of Florida, reported on their efforts to improve legacy metadata quality issues in order to improve discoverability. They partnered with Access Innovations, Inc., to clean up metadata since different standards had been applied over time. This included enhancing subject terms for ETDs and digitizing issues of a Florida journal.

15. OCLC Research update
a. The main presentation here was from Andrew Pace who discussed their linked data project to enhance cataloging productivity using Wikidata, MediaWiki, and OpenRefine. A website at OCLC provides details of the project.

ALA MW Denver 2018 – Conference Highlights!

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I use to live in Colorado, worked at CU Boulder for 3 years running the Map Library;  then for 5 years I worked as a consultant mainly in the western part of Colorado.  So it’s a going home feeling to be back there,  and I saw many people I use to work with or support in Colorado which was so lovely!!   Though the cold and snow reminded me of why I left 🙂  We did rent a cool AirBnB close to the Convention Center and cool downtown Denver views.  And we had one blue sky day to walk the canal and see the outside art in Denver.

Mainly my trip to Denver in February was for two committees. First, the Sustainability Round Table.  The Business Meeting included several new people, and several from other groups wanted to collaborate such as the AALL and IRRT’s sustainability group We learned about :

  • FREE student memberships to SustainRT!
  • the upcoming resolution from our governance team to keep ALAs investments socially (and fossil free) responsible,
  • a white paper due in June, including a survey and online forums (coming soon) from an ALA Sustainability Task Force including key sustainrt members looking at the triple bottom line and other guiding principles of sustainability

Saturday evening in the snow and cold only a few of us made it to the SustainRT Social Event at Mercury Cafe, http://mercurycafe.com/ –  What a cool place! solar energy on the roof, grilled tofu with amazing sauces,  and a locally-sourced cocktails!

Sunday I facilitated a discussion: Crisis and Community (notes are in ALA Connect) where we discussed how Libraries and librarians can (and do) play a pivotal role in helping vulnerable communities build the physical, social, economic, and emotional resources and skills necessary to endure and thrive in the face of catastrophic climate, social, and economic disruptions.  We defined sustainability in connection to Crisis & Community; we brainstormed examples of what libraries are doing  in this area (such as the New England spring training for librarians); What support could ALA provide for libraries that have or are experiencing climate change crisis (such as more training like this NE one; and ways to collect and share these stories more widely); and What would it be perfect…idealistically? (such as  creating Climate Avengers, like Librarians Without Borders for ALA and taking it on a road show like the schol com for ACRL does)

Monday we had a lively panel for our News You Can Use: Sustainability Strategies for Libraries and Communities (Symposium on the Future of Libraries)  This session assembled practitioners doing sustainability work in a range of settings, including the implementation of a regional certification program, an institutional transition to renewable energy sources, a university system-wide sustainable OER initiative, and a classroom approach to teaching information literacy from a civic engagement perspective.  Check out the NYLA Roadmap to sustainability for librarians!

I also attended my ACRL committee New Roles and Changing Landscapes business meeting and lunch with the committee. This is a ACRL strategic plan goal committee to oversee and implement this by working with the ACRL Board and other ACRL units in creating a comprehensive effort including coalition building, professional development, publications, research, advocacy, diversity, and consultation services and in developing the ACRL New Roles and Changing Landscapes Initiative; and monitor and assess the effectiveness of this initiative. I’m fairly new on this group and still finding my place but I am excited about the one collaborative effort to help create this new  Symposium for Strategic Leadership in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion happening in May.

I also visited CU Denver’s Auraria library and saw some cool spaces, services and furniture. check out my slides of the photos of took of the space here

Re-think It: Libraries for a new age conference

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In lovely Austin TX in early January, this Re-think It conference was small, focus and full of a variety of types  of sessions: from keynotes, to lighting rounds, to panels, to 20 min talks, to visits of various spaces.  Mainly academics and hosted on UT Austin campus, there were architects, planners, public librarians and even school librarians there. We presented on the Studio project, more so on the process of rapidly creating this space in our library.

 

Skim the tweets #rethinkit18   to hear about the conference conversation  or view photos from all the library visits and Austin highlights. This conference only happened once before and may not happen again, but it was a great topic, theme and very well organized. Great for people looking at space design and informal space use.

Libraries and Archives in the Anthropocene Colloquium

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Fabulous colloquium in NYU – May 13-14, 2017 – small, everyone attending the same sessions all day, lots of discussions in break and diverse content and perspectives to share.  This first time event was created and planned by:

WATCH THE RECORDINGS + read a great summary on the SustainRT blog
+ read my detailed notes below:

Saturday

9:00-10:00 Keynote, Roy Scranton, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene
We failed to stop climate change. Period. Hope is a 4 letter word.
To imagine something different in the present and future, to save something of the past for the future is a Utopian presence. Is it really all that bad you think? We are growing our renewable energy for one example… but it would be prudent to act on the evidence – we know that those in power won’t care. things have just gone downhill over the recent decades.  Those in power do not care about the future. Capitalism. Greed. We need a survivalist ethos now.
You want answers?  How might we imagine ourselves in the late Anthropocene dead state?  Look at authors who discuss post-apocalyptic futures. Sci Fi.  Suggested reads :

  • The Collapse of western civilization novel by Oreske and  Conway
  • William Gibson’s  novel Peripheral
  • A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr
  • JG Ballard’s the Drowned World

So what does this mean for the future of our work?
Keep in mind the reality: History will be rewritten again and again by the winners
What do we need to do?  Best option Go Local. Build sustainable communities.

10:00-12:00 – 20-minute papers – Archival Theory and the Crisis

  1. Rick Prelinger: Collecting Strategies for the Anthropocene
    Be careful about our priorities when outside forces are controlling what we can prioritize.
    How are we responding to the effects of the anthropocene in collecting?
    Collections need to be protected but so does the process and the archives themselves. EX: internet archives building a mirror site outside the US
    Communities should own and collect their assets yes but how can/are they being preserved/maintained/accessible? … specially if that community does not survive?
    Twitter share:   “at stake… are not the worlds these collections claim to represent, but… the worlds they invite us to imagine and even realize “#archivesFail (@bspalmieri )
    He suggest we use permaculture principles apply to archival work:

  1. Jen Hoyer and Nora Almeida: Living Archives*
    They are librarians who volunteers at the Interference Archive in Brooklyn! Open stacks, volunteer run, community funded. The local place in the community is important. Collection policy defines the community.
    A living archives – a place for social interaction, a nexus between communities, a bridge between past and future.
    Anthropocene is framed in a narrative – ideological, post political, disconnected from socio political reality, a place that is not quite this place now.
    Problems with this narrative – mainly from wealthy countries, that frame capitalism and tech as neutral, etc. this undermines our agency
    Environmental change as social change – a continuum of events that we are both in and affected by
    Reimagine Anthropocene as discipline, cultural and social
    It might look like – activism, art, scholarship, civic engagement documentation… need to open to other voices so all voices can be heard
    Archives and silence – change cultural expectations and make alternative narratives heard
    Archives can foster dialogue btw time and space.
    Propaganda parties!
    Check out their “anthropo-zine”
  2. Jill Kubit: DearTomorrow
  • Climate change communication has not been effective … need more narrative storytelling, visual imagery and trusted messages
  • She created a digital platform for people to personalize climate change and share message with others to influence the public education on the topic “Dear Tomorrow”  #deartomorrow
  • Stand in the future and talk to someone in the present they care about and will that make it more personal
  • Research shows legacy is a strong driver to people’s actions now for the future. (BUT HOW DO YOU GET THE PEOPLE WHO NEED TO HEAR THIS AND THINK ABOUT LEGACY TO PAY ATTENTION OR CARE???)
  • Scale – distributed model works best
  • Other narratives are weaved into this story (ex blacklivesmatter & climate change in one letter)  Also – they are asking people to make a public commitment in their lives and share it.  They put together a video of the letters (its on FB)
  • Biking to work for political reasons, getting a CSA or going to a farmers market is such white privilege
  • 3 main groups they work with: Mothers out front, Moms  ???,  Climate parents — but she feels its not limited to moms, the narrative can expand to others groups too
  1. Aruna Magier: Water, Land, and Forests: Documenting India’s Environmental Activism
  • overview of the litany of environmental degradation in India. Irresponsible farming, mining, rivers full of plastic.
  • A young girl has filed a law suit against the govt of India about the environmental conditions and she blames them for not taking care of their people. Farmers protesting the management of repeated droughts. Protests against mining.
  • Historical social movements in India are critical to where they are today
  • Magier speaking on documenting these movements
  1. Ben Goldman: Things the Grandchildren Should Know: Archives and the Origin of an Ecocentric Future
  • Grew up in a very different sheltered conservative upbringing – took a while for him to become educated on the reality of climate change.
  • How can his role in archives make a difference he ponders. How do you talk to your kids and grandkids about this? And your irresponsibility?
  • His goal – how can archives make a difference in capturing the environmental issues as stewards
  • Archivist appraisal is critical (there is still no consensus on how to do this) Look to our planetary evidence. Records of environmental activists. Need to become more engaged across disciplines to capture data & stories   – need to listen to key communities!
  • Keep in mind to preserve something in an archives we also add to the problem – aka fossil fuels used to keep these materials : (

Q/A summary:  Tension between fighting the capitalistic society but we need a space/place and to pay for it and make sure we don’t take money from those we disagree with but …its complex.

Less is more.

 

1:15-2:50 – 20-minute papers – Crisis and Survival

  1. John Burgess: Adaptability and Resilience: A Core LIS Value
    A report from the field – a case for resilience and adaptability as lis core values (LIS grad school in Alabama) – aka how he slips in sustainability to his students on the down low.
  2. Personal stake  – Never mention the word ethics or people think you are judging them. But really its whatever you find a way to growth toward what is most meaningful to you. some days you are down and loose hope but you recover and keep at it to give passion to others.
  3. Moral imperatives of Anthropocene /4 moral obligations– awareness and memory (L Floridi) – moral imperative to fight entropy and what is your mission on earth?; rational agency and continuance (I. Kant) – cant bend humans to your will ;fairness (j. Rawls, D. Parfit, G. Wolf) – social responsibility is Rawls; authentic otherness (A. Naess) – diversity of ways of thinking, cognitive justice
  4. Are the core values of LIS sufficient to address those imperatives?  Core values such as Access, confidentiality/privacy, democracy, diversity, education, lifelong learning, IF, preservation, the Public good, professionalism, service, social responsibility… whats lacking?  If you disuses these as LIS core values and label them “from ALA” students will follow along.
  5. Are  (personal, community, country) resilience and adaptability LIS values?  Do these core values +resilience + adaptability sufficiently address those imperatives? Or is it just my personal stake (we think both) Maps the core values  3 to moral imperatives 2 and rational agency included adaptability and resilience.  Collective Action with all our policies and process in the library, cross dept. with many different ways to do this. Changing habits.
  6. Billy Templeton: School Libraries and the Anthropocene: A Curricular Hail Mary to the Future   Teaches in a public school.  Married to a librarian 🙂
  • Terrible story about a school, science teaches climate change but the english teacher does not and makes then debate their belief (these are adults, people of power over kids and poisons then kids open minded school culture)
  • Incompetence in our federal school system for teaching about climate change. Though we are supposed to “teach kids how to succeed in global economy” how can we when we are not allowed or have to be careful in taking about climate change ?!
  • Heartland institute is trying to get a copy of its book – why scientist do not believe in climate change –  into every science teaching and is succeeding in some states – scary https://www.heartland.org/topics/climate-change/
  • his idea – place based learning for students to do service learning, hands on, library innovation lab, etc. Teaching children problem solving skills is our moral imperative.
  1. Ellie Irons and Anne Percoco: Next Epoch Seed Library: An Archive of Weedy Species (*love*)
  • Nextepochseedlibrary.com   – lend seeds, collect seeds – the gaps between what most seed banks do (Most seed banks are mainly agricultural). They collect weed seeds in the city!  Are there really a bad thing – but a weed can be a positive (imagine them coming up in cracks in the cement) and useful.  But these weeds are becoming endangered.  What they do:
  • They look for “junk spaces” to collect them
  • Have installation at various places of their finds.
  • Have a seed walks too
  • Did a seed viability test. Grew many of them!
  • Want to work with children more  – share, grow, educate
  • Creating better documentation
  • Did you know …. Ceramic is a great material in which to store seeds!!! (800 year old squash seeds were found in a ceramic container and grew)
  • Reminds me of https://www.amazon.com/Weed-Any-Other-Name-Learning/dp/0807085529
  • Chalking to promote weeds around town!!!!  (they wrote with chalk around “weeds” around town to tell people what these things were good for  … an act of Resistance)
  1. Fred Stoss: Preparedness Matters: Library Roles in Planning for Disaster

How do you become and stay prepared for upcoming disasters in your library?  The role of public libraries. Good science, good data. Lots of info on slides  – LOOK FOR HIS RECORDING OR SLIDES! I missed some of this session….

2:50-3:30 – Five minute lightning talks with 15 minutes for discussion

  1. Jennifer Bonnet: Engaging with the Human Dimensions of Climate Change – films, books with a professor to create a series/program and discussion. virtual displays of materials in the library; included twitter posts of their discussions.
  2. Monica Berger and John Carey: Open Scholarship and Climate Change: The Imperative for a New Information Ecosystem for the Anthropocene – our scholarly com system is broken – neoliberalism, a commodity. Global south has lots of scholarly lit but they will also be the ones most effective. Open Science!
  3. Robert Chen: Enabling Interdisciplinary Use of Scientific Data on Human Interactions in the Environment – manages a NASA data center on social and natural sciences at Columbia (need both these disciplines of social + natural sciences to study climate change); some barriers of two disciplines – focus on people vs pixels
  4. Hannah Hamalainen: Humanitarian Crisis Mapping in the Library – earthquake in Haiti. Live tweets and asking for help. They mapped the tweets of people’s needs. And it was overlaid on satelight maps then used by gov’t and military. Crisis mapping! map-a-thon for humanitarian crisis mapping – librarians can teach these skills, connect people, host event

Q/A  Listen to this https://soundcloud.com/generation-anthropocene   Storytelling is key but does depend on the audience – public might want stories but economist might need facts.  Also look at archival evidence too – make your own narrative.

3:40-5:00 – Plenary and end of day discussion: Howard Besser, Eira Tansey, Jill Kubit, and John Burgess *

  • What are we going to do for new fuels? no  what’s  really wrong? That we need so many fuels to begin with. Capitalism.
  • Mitigation or adaption side? Adaptation ?  Doesn’t get to the root cause and masks the real issue. To find a solution.  The root cause is really that we are a consumption based society, a disempowered society, not just “climate change” .  It’s a continuum not are we going to fix it or not
  • Reject the narrative –  “We fucked it all up and now we are fucked”  – this dissolves us of responsibility.
  • Several disagree with the keynote – we need to keep up with HOPE.  Read the Hope in the Dark book  “hope is an ax that you use to knock down doors with” – rebecca solint
  • Record whats happening or play a role in shaping whats happening. Teaching more than info lit,  teach political rhetoric.
  • Reclaiming the language of climate change, use other words or use the words….
  • IMLS grant transforming communities – training libraries to be facilitators of dialogues in their communities
  • Think about end of something and beginning something new era –  Should be called the Capitalisocene not Anthropocene
  • Look to the tribal infrastructure –  knowing your neighbors and communities.
  • Physically living off the land is hard but spiritually being a part of capitalistic society is really harh
  • “patriarchal theocracy”
  • Collapse of the world as we know it, has been happening to many already.
  • What is the tipping point to get people to realize this issue? Insurance underwriting might be it? really until the water is at their door, people will not wake up to it!

Sunday

9:00-10:30 – 20-minute papers – Rethinking Libraries

  1. Amy Brunvand: Re-Localizing the Library: An Environmental Humanities Model
    • Seeing.climatecentral.org
      • The end of nature 1989 by bill mckibben . The age of missing information bill mckibben – idea of placelessness; people are losing the sense of place,
      •  the university is sort of like this; but Amy says the library can help create a local sense of place
      • Environmental humanities grad program stated by terry tempest williams of U of U.  Field course to engage in the community and create a sense of place
      • Libraries are mainly about licensing electronic publications etc, that everyone else is buying. Yes it should be a portal to information but it should also represent the local, unique collections. Libraries should aim to be the local node in a global information system representing their local.
      • Environmental humanities model— “ecology of residency
      • Tell stories that can make change. Share books that made a difference
      • Movie “Wrenched” – people inspired by The Monkey Wrench Gang  with Tim Dechristopher http://www.timdechristopher.org/about
      • Geographic distribution of libraries  if perfect to create many nodes representing their local.
      • Poetry reflects the local landscape too:

        Poem from http://littlestarjournal.com/blog/2010/10/%E2%80%9Cbreak-the-glass%E2%80%9D-by-jean-valentine/

        Poem from  http://littlestarjournal.com/blog/2010/10/%E2%80%9Cbreak-the-glass%E2%80%9D-by-jean-valentine/

      1. Jodi Shaw: Climate Change, Libraries, and Survival Literacy: A Practical Guide *
      • Get away from centralize infrastructure (the grid) and go uber local, libraries can help be a force to achieve this transition. Focus on cities. More than half global population lives in cities.
      • Grid – for water, energy waste, sewage, transport people and commodities, transmit communications.  It’s all getting old, but we all depend on it and are vulnerable because a of it.
      • Local infrastructures are more resilient  – have the local create them so they support them.
      • Our current high tech is using the old grid (one power line down it all goes out)
      • Even renewables depend on minerals harvested from the earth and live on the grid
      • How can we create and build the infrastructure locally?  Libraries! We can teach and offer resources:
      • Air – no good answer
      • Water – humans need 5 liters a day, need for growing food (animals), basic hygiene, sanitation (?)  – when cities flood then we are walking around in our own feces. Waterless sanitation!
      • Going off the pipe – rainwater harvesting, stormwater collection (italians are using coffee filters and other things to figure out how to get rid of heavy metals) – see her slides for other ideas. Maybe libraries can have examples of these for people to see – maerkspace-ish.
      • Food – rooftop gardens,  ( vertical farming (not a viable solution right now – still uses the grid and only for lettuce and herbs –  but ideas here that we can apply and learn from), hunting/gathering (picking local, what you can pick and how to eat it – libraries can offer resources and classes on this!)
      • Shelter – learn from slum dwellers who live very local – maybe we can learn from them?
      • Sanitation – we need to start composting our feces instead of putting it in the water.  Joe Jenkinds “humanure Handbook” been composting his feces for 30 years!
      • Energy –  going off grid but on the grid house.
      • Information – find it in the library
      • Teach Survival literacy 

       

      1. Jennifer Gunter King: A Changing Library for Rising Tides
      • Adapting to change – Designing off site collection spaces for materials for libraries that are in critical places
      • Start first with what is a library, question what we are and what we do
      • Hampshire college 1970 to prepared students for changing world; the library was also
      • “The library and information transfer center” a good read from 1969 that predicted trends of today
      • Library – knowledge commons – libraries teaching exposition skills, along with writing etc
      • Fastest rate of sea level rise in the world is from Cape Hatteress to Maine.
      • Are archives primary repositories?  Then how are we dealing with various local collections everywhere around the world. Can we share print regional repositories and get over the ego of ownership and come together, save energy in high density, shared space.
    1. Jacob Berg, Angela Galvan, and Eamon Tewell: Academic Libraries and the False Promises of Resiliency 
    • Libraries need to learn to say NO . We are professional martyrs.
    • It should be libraries save not save libraries
    • Angela Galvan: Resilience offers an individual response to a structural problem
    • We should pay more for salaries PEOPLE over things MATERIALS since those costs go up 5% each year our salaries do not.
    • Center for the future of libraries  – resilience theme. Does not like this.  Libraries have been resilient over the years  but  now it’s turned into librarians and archivists not the library as an institution
    • What we need is to Give people space to fail. (uh yea that is behind the maker movement)
    • Collection dev can offer counter narratives
    • Neoliberal  fight for resilient resources
    • “Think like a marxist” – who benefits from these narratives about resilience?
    • Supervisors: Encourage risk taking, give space to fail, staff time to be melancholy 
  21. Q/A I really connected to sense of place  (placelessness) theme in the talks today!
    Adaptation? Or not? Words. Nuances. Hidden meanings. Narratives. Discussion  ensued on the 2 ideas of resilience  – and its connection to what we came here today to solve. Conflation of resilience term.  The term is used here in terms of resiliency of communities (and their libraries)  facing environmental change not people.  Are libraries now pushed in competition for funding and existence –  which in turns is pushes the burden on the staff/the people after collections?————————————————————————————————————————————-10:30-12:00 – 20-minute papers – Maintaining Access, Digital Resilience
  22. 1.Heather Christenson: The Large-scale Digital Library and Response to the Anthropocene
    • Research library at large scale Hathi Trust, 128 libraries (north america) mission is preservation and access.
    • Digitizing resources even though they are from the past, the ideas/concepts can be used again, learned from. Such as solar power or electric cars – might give us ideas we can apply now.
    • Bethany Nowviskie   – digital humanities in the anthropocene 
    • Check out the “Other lab” in san fran

2. Sarah Lamdan: Improving Access to Environmental Information and Records (Lawyer and librarian)

    • We have no good laws in the US on what environmental info is and parameters on what we collect and save.
    • According to the EU –  What is environmental information?  See slide
    • Decentralized information. On so many location – national and local. Can be really frustrating to find the info needed. Multitude of sources. From researchers to govt to polluters  so …. She wrote a book on it/coming out soon:  Environmental information: research access and decision-making by sarah lamdan
    • Quick review of govt processes:  Legislature branch passes laws and create documentation. Judicial interprets what that documentation means and how it applies.  Executive is where most information is created (NASA, EPA, etc) and executive orders tell those agencies to do it …. Legislative branch = congress –  grants admin authority to the agency to figure out how to carry details out. These agencies can response quickly more so than legislature.
    • Why is it so impt?  3 key reasons: Much of our environmental data is in gov databases.  they use this info to make decisions, and we have a right to know what our government is up to!
    • Data Refuge! FOIA is broken – we need central hubs for this information and experts to help us understand it, advocate for open access of information and quick access.
    • Recommends re read (have in our library) and comment on laws and proposals —  the art of commenting beth mullins 

    1. Robert Montoya: Documenting Biodiversity: Information, Libraries, and Professional Ethics

    The catalog of life: nomenclature and hierarchy  http://www.catalogueoflife.org/  Global database of species

  2. 1:00-2:40 – 20-minute papers – Architectures of Resilience
    1. Paulina Mikiewicz: The Library of 2114

    Not a librarian but studies libraries.

    Examples:

    • Library of water
    • Global seed vault in Norway
    • Baltimore aquarium seeking status to be a living library (?)
    • Liyuan library in china

     

    1. Charlie Macquarie: Libraries, Landscapes, Stewardship: The Library of Approximate Location
    • Its easier to imagine the end of the world then the end of capitalism!
    • The American West as living Space by Wallace Stegner
    • End of capitalism we could start to organize things much like we do as libraries.

     

    1. Eira Tansey, Ben Golditman, Tara Mazurczyk, and Nathan Piekielek: Climate Control: Vulnerabilities of American Archives to Rising Seas, Hotter Days and More Powerful Storms
    • Intense session on climate change and climate modeling and how scary it really is!
    • Next Steps – archives need to start collecting data about ourselves (archive local data), open data for public reuse
    • “what if it’s a big hoax and we created a better world for nothing”  cartoon

     

    1. Mark Wolfe: Efficiency: Friend or Foe of Sustainability? Exploring the Impact of Jevons Paradox on the Archival Profession
    • In economics, the Jevons paradox (or effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand. EX: More lanes on a highway = more traffic!
    • What would jevons drive a prius or a hummer? (actually the hummer has its own carbon tax built into it aka user has to put more $$ into their commute) Paradox of fuel efficiency. It actually increases use of fuel.
    • Dream of the paperless office – a falsehood.  Rise of the PC gave rise to MORE paper docs
    • Moore’s Law – really an observation – “the number of electronic components which could be crammed into an integrated circuit was doubling every year”
    • Invest in people not things
    • More greener repository means less carbon tax so you can build MORE spaces; growing means more use instead of less. And we end up with more “dirty” activities (like I saved a lot of money so I can take a long hot shower!)
    • Suggested read – Peter Senge Thinking of System

     

    2:40-3:30 – Five minute lightning talks with 15 minutes for discussion

    1. Carla Leitao: Foundation Landscapes of Massive Oblivion
    2. Wendy Highby: The Tesseract, The Tesla, and the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis: How Librarians Can Save the World
    3. William Denton: GHG.EARTH
    4. Andrea Atkins: Libraries and Sustainability in the Former Soviet Union
    5. Beth Filar Williams: Integrating Sustainability into the Daily Work Practices: Lessons Learned as a Manager
    6. Evi Klett: Supporting Regenerative Practices in Denver: Programming and Networking @DPL
    7. Sarah Burke Cahalan: Libraries and Laudato Si’
    8. Amanda Avery: Our Dark Materials: A Steampunk Future for Libraries?

     

     

 

Mindfulness in Libraries

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marys river photo by bethIn the cold, icy, snowy, dark, month of January I took an unusual (I thought for librarians) course called “Mindfulness for Librarians: Handling Stress and Thriving Under Pressure.”  Having read a number of books over the years on mindfulness, and tried to practice (often unsuccessfully) in my personal life, and through inspiration from librarian colleagues I respect applying these concepts in their librarianship and teaching,  I thought I would try it out this course.

Though the course was 100% online (no virtual synchronous meet ups) – which is not always my best style to learn –  over the 4 weeks,  the engagement of students as well as instructors, keep my attention. The class  size was large, making it hard to read everyone’s posts and respond, but I managed to pick up tips and ideas.  Simply realizing everyone else enrolled was also struggling with an information overload, too many meetings/projects and not enough staff, etc scenarios too and looking for ways to be mindful and present in these situations was helpful and bonding.   I enjoyed readings  and discussions about “job demands-resources theory,” librarians and burnout, why relationships are important in libraries, mindful reference interactions, and job crafting – and I  recommend  an article by Schein “learning leader as cultural manager.” I found the mediation exercises (such as the Insight Timer Mediation App,  these from UCLA, this loving kindness meditation, and Jon Kabat-Zinn resources.)  and discussion about our struggles to practice very helpful. I joined a Facebook group  with others from the course, that is sharing and virtually meeting up for synchronous  mindfulness sessions. Others are now taking various online/in person  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction courses.

photo of clouds by bethI hope to bring some of these ideas and methods into my work place by sharing applicable ideas/reading with others,  encouraging being present for my staff and role modeling that behavior, and bringing mindfulness and mediation moments throughout the work day. Wish me luck!

Other Recommended Readings for the Course:

  • Charney, Madeleine. Contemplative Studies LibGuide. UMass Amherst Libraries.
    http://guides.library.umass.edu/contemplative
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. NY: Harper & Row, 1990.
  • Eng, Kim. “Kim Eng – Guided Breathing Meditation.” YouTube. YouTube, 4 Oct. 2011.
  • Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon, 2006.
  • Institute for Mindful Leadership. Institute for Mindful Leadership.
    http://instituteformindfulleadership.org/  –> this looks interesting to attend! 
  • Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment–and Your Life. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2012.
  • Mindful Magazine. http://www.mindful.org/magazine/
  • Moniz, Richard J., Joe Eshleman, Jo Henry, Howard Slutzky, and Lisa Moniz. The Mindful Librarian: Connecting the Practice of Mindfulness to Librarianship. MA: Chandos/Elsevier, 2016.
  • Neff, Kristin. Self-compassion: Stop Beating Yourself up and Leave Insecurity behind. New York: William Morrow, 2011.
  • Rinzler, Lodro. The Buddha Walks into a Bar–: A Guide to Life for a New Generation. Boston:
    Shambhala, 2012.
  • Salomon, Gavriel. “To Be or Not to Be (Mindful).” Paper presented at the American Educational
  • Research Association Meetings, New Orleans, LA, 1994.
    Salzberg, Sharon. Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace. NY: Workman, 2013.
  • Shen, Lan. “Improving the Effectiveness of Librarian-faculty Collection Development.” Collaborative Librarianship 4(1), 14-22.
  • Hạnh, Nhất, and Mai Vo-Dinh. The Miracle of Mindfulness: A Manual on Meditation. Boston: Beacon, 1987.

 

Library Assessment Conference 2016

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” If you are not at the table you might be on the menu”

Plenary Session 2 – Keynote III: Brian Nosek, University of Virginia, Promoting an Open  Research Culture http://projectimplicit.net/nosek/

Space:

Reading Library Spaces: Using Mobile Assessment to Complete Your Library’s Story by Tobi Hines, Cornell University, Camille Andrews, Cornell University and Sara Wright, Cornell University

  • SUMA – most useful for asking a specific question
  • Improvements — Optimizing the screen real estate, adding a multiplier button, managed list of the most popular configurations

Evidence-Based Decision Making Using New Library Data, by Heather Scalf, University of Texas Arlington

  • Sampled 4 times a day for 3 weeks – found over 400 students studying at 2am (we generally have only 40); learning who is in the library by having swipe cards in and out  – used that for example to keep coffee shop open past 10pm; found out it’s mainly engineering students. Used EZproxy to determine habits of online students.

Driving the BUS: A Multimodal Building Use Study and Needs Assessment  by Mandy Shannon, Wright State University  

  • Building use study (Current use patterns and constrained needs)and needs assessment (prospective and unconstrained needs) – two different apples. Study – Semester, week, day. 2 days a week, 6 times a day, 6 weeks a semester.
  • Data: gate counts; used SUMA (zone based analysis – as a whole on some floors and zones on other floors according to noise levels, and grabbed info on tech use, furniture, and size), white boards for voting and why; questionnaire on random tables; photographs by those doing use counts that can’t easily come up in other data count methods. (ALL DONE IN SPRING TERM). Needs assessment survey in Fall with office of institutional research. Analyzed data = variety, diverse, it depends.  Still value quiet.
  • Tip – build in planning time! Work with a non library entity for perspective.

Don’t Dismiss Directional: Analyzing Reference Desk Interactions to Develop an Evidence-Based Content Strategy for a Digital Wayfinding System Christine Tobias, Michigan State University 

  • Developed their content via Ref desk transaction — looking at directional questions (like we are doing with concierge data!) 
  • MSU Digital Signage Working Group: allowed library to centrally manage signage, created formal guidelines for future digital signage installations (this was in collaboration with the whole university). This group included UX librarians/staff
  • Content strategy:  Signs had to include school brand, campus maps, emergency information in addition to wayfinding;  organized directional questions into broad categories (ex. events/exhibits, photocopiers etc) Renovated floor maps, directory, event scroll, weather on 1 screen

Shh Stats: Mining the Library’s Chat Transcripts to Identify Patterns in Noise Complaints Jason Vance, Middle Tennessee State University

After the Ribbon Cutting: Creating and Executing an Efficient Assessment Plan for a Large-Scale Learning Space Project Krystal Wyatt-Baxter, University of Texas at Austin Michele Ostrow, University of Texas at Austin

  • Repurposed staff space into media lab, active learning classrooms, and writing center.
  • Tips – use mixed methods, show users the changes, start with loose policies and grow them, maybe sure you are super granular in assigning who does what. And – Take workflow into account to schedule time intensive methods for when you are less busy

Lead Users: A Strategy for Predictive, Context-Sensitive Service and Space Design Ameet Doshi, Georgia Institute of Technology  Elliot Felix, brightspot strategy

  • “The future is already here but it’s just not evenly distributed”  – william gibson
  • Eric Von Hippel –  book – Democratizing Innovation  “lead users”
  • Everett M Rodgers  – book  – Diffusion of Innovations  “early adopters”
  • Methodology:
    • ID Lead users (early adopters) top 15%  – ask around in the library for who falls in this group; looked to advisory boards
    • Engage through interviews (1st), workshops,  shadowing (quietly, unobtrusively), journaling (for a week) –  then they synthesized the data with post it notes to get insights.
    • ID workarounds, innovations — looked for key moments, discovery times, when they were growing, creation times, showcasing moments
    • Compare their behaviors to how other users are trending – what could they learn from those people?
    • Create  concepts based in lead users ideas and new ones to meet their needs. (gave some examples)
    • The methodology will only get you so far, you have to cultivate the empathy of your users so they will open up, share and be willing to allow you to shadow them.

From Data to Development: Using Qualitative Data to Create New Ideas and Solutions Ingela Wahlgren, Lund University, Åsa Forsberg, Lund University

  • 2nd largest university in Sweden.  A 62 foot reference desk!!
  • Touchstone tours – users showed librarians a tour of the key touchpoints the person used when visiting the library (30 min)
  • Cognitive mapping – had users draw their vision of the library, change color pen every 2 minutes (for 6 min total) so you can see what they saw as important (drew first) then interviewed them for 10 min afterwards (EX:  first showed the cafe, then commented on the so-so exhibit, then drew the restrooms, and then sits in his spot, then nothing much else except he lastly wrote “I do not know what happens in here”  haha!)
  • Then spent 2 days in a conference room to analyze data and do affinity mapping and analysis.  EX change – moved their digital sign to near the restroom where people were queuing and would see and read it!
  • Sorted using how now wow matrix http://gamestorming.com/games-for-decision-making/how-now-wow-matrix/
  • Insights:  Can gain many insights from just a few people &  Asking people in person gives a much higher response rate —  went into the library and just asked people instead of sending an email to a ton of people

Space: Describing and Assessing Library and Other Learning Spaces Bob Fox, University of Louisville, Steve Hiller, University of Washington, Martha Kyrillidou, Quality Metrics, LLC Joan Lippincott, CNI

 

 

Assessing to Transform an Aging Learning Commons: Leveraging Multiple Methods to Create a Holistic Picture of Student Needs Jessica Adamick, University of Massachusetts Amherst Sarah Hutton, University of Massachusetts Amherst

  • Desk stats (libanalytics)  – from  3 different service points in one area. Use Tableau to visualize. Headcounts –  every hour for a 6 weeks a year
  • Microclimate spaces  analysis – classroom, presentation style practice and group study space (what worked and what didn’t, place to test before developing long term)
  • Focus Groups  – Had school of management, do it they did 10!
  • Ethnographic research  – used anthropologist on campus, and her students did the work, part of their syllabus,  they with many different methods
  • Workflow studies too
  • Findings and Recommendations!
    • Wayfinding and communication problems identified.
    • Consolidated ref, ill and circ
    • Individual spaces in open area (semi-enclosed seating).  Students like microclimates – smaller areas within the larger area.

Consulting Detectives: How One Library Deduced the Effectiveness of Its Consultation Area & Services Camille Andrews, Cornell University Tobi Hines, Cornell University

  • Context/Goals
    • Mixed methods  assessment for consultation area
    • Multiple help desks in 2014 which was confusing with different hours
    • Declining reference traffic,
    • Wanted to improve the visibility of the internal and external consult services
  • Methods:
    • Completed lit review, site visits and environmental scan
    • Focus groups
    • Interviews with staff
    • Prototype spaces and surveys
    • Space observations
    • Reference transaction analysis
    • LED TO: people don’t mind separate desks, but need to know where to get what ⇒ Wayfinding!  Highly visible first point of contact, but a quieter area for longer ref consultations. Also – improve signage, merge poster printing and circ, made room for in depth consult services.
  • RESULTS:
    • New, eye-catching signage that listed each service available.
    • Everyone that works at the combined circ/printing desk knows how to do everything, student coverage has improved.
    • Reconfigured space using existing furniture and tech for consult space, available for group study after 6pm.  Used SUMA to get info on size of groups using it after 6pm.
    • Added a (paper?) survey so students could complete
    • Staff survey to ask what worked and what could be improved.
    • More visual and acoustic privacy wanted — will be purchasing furniture that will work for this.
    • Will add digital signage at entrance  and will have tablets on stands at various workstations
    • NOTE: Important to know what other institutions are doing BUT make sure you listen to YOUR users.

Public Workstation Use: Visualizing Occupancy Rates Jeremy Buhler, University of British Columbia

  • Assessment as map-making – showing a rough sketch of how/where people are and what they’re doing/using.
  • Multiple campus study.  But hadn’t researched basic questions about numbers, distribution, placement.
  • Simple data – how many logins/logouts – but doesn’t tell about occupancy.  Excel allows to extract occupancy rates, which gives a much richer dataset – same pattern, but the bars show concurrent occupancy rather than number of logins/logouts.  These bars show when they’re at full occupancy.
  • Studied occupancy rates/patterns at specific locations – realized they were under-occupied in some spaces (people don’t know they’re there), at 100% occupancy in others (that are obvious).
  • Set up for anything that has target based time stamps so that they could set goals for workstation use.  (see slide for url to show tableau data visualization)

Library Snapshot Day, or the 5 Ws—Who, What, When, Where, and Why Are Students Using Academic Library Space: A Method for Library User Experience Assessment Gricel Dominguez, Florida International University Genevieve Diamond, Florida International University Enrique Caboverde, Florida International University Denisse Solis, Florida International University

  • one day library snapshot day!
    • 1 day, 3 hours, observational
    • 6 public floors, 9 zones
    • Teams of 2-4 per zone (2 single researcher in 2 zones)
    • 34 factors in 3 categories under observation
    • IRB
    • A little ethnographic work too, tweet campaign across campus including the provost, marketing
  • Purpose – to ID user behavior and needs and find areas for improvement and promote library as a place
  • Methods – sweating sweeps and observation
  • What they did:  ID zones/locations to observe, came up with factors, choose a time of term, created an intense checklist, scheduled it with everyone, did practice run through, include staff too!

 

Organizational Issues/Other 

Assessment by Design: A Design Thinking Project at the University of Washington Libraries Linda Garcia, Washington State University Vancouver (linda.garcia@wsu.edu) Jackie Belanger, University of Washington    http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/belanger-handout.pdf

Space Assessment Via Tableau  – U of Washington Libraries  https://visualibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/library-space-assessment-in-tableau-a-step-by-step-guide-to-custom-polygon-maps-and-dashboard-actions/

Used Tableau to visualize the data https://public.tableau.com/profile/libraryviz#!/vizhome/REACH_1/REACHDashboard

Using Peers to Shed Light on Service Hours for Librarians
Hector Escobar, University of Dayton @greenghopper Heidi Gauder, University of Dayton

  • Staffs a ref desk about 40 hours a week
  • Surveyed peers institutions about their reference staff on the desk
    • What does your reference staffing model look like now
    • What are the roles of your librarians
    • Have there been shifts
  • Combined service desk was most, then traditional service desk, then other then ref consultations only (smallest)
  • Results:
    • Mixed bag of who staffed – (see slide)
    • Have the number of public service hours for your professional librarians declined?      60% Yes 40% No
    • 12 of the 17 will change or have changed service approaches by decreasing service hours.
    • Decreases because of liaison activities, less consultations, more chat reference
    • How can you be equitable Workload Policy. (fairness important)
    • http://www.slideshare.net/HectorEscobar20/using-peers-to-shed-light-on-service-hours

Active Learning with Assessment
Katharine Hall, Concordia University Meredith Giffin, Concordia University

  • Developed staff 2 part workshop with active learning exercise to learn about assessment
  • Workshops also met strategic plan initiative to increase skills/share expertise
  • The same people who did not like it before still did not not like it afterwards!
  • Scenario breakout groups good chance to work with others and get different perspectives on assessment
  • Active learning component of the workshop was successful

 

A Comparison Study of the Perceptions, Expectations, and Behaviors of Library Employers on Job Negotiations as Hiring Employers and as Job Seekers
Leo Lo, Old Dominion U  Jason Reed, Purdue

  • 74% of our profession have negotiated a job offer in the past.  This is low compared to national average which is 82%.
  • Why don’t some people negotiate? Afraid to jeopardize the job offer.
  • What you should know:
    • Employers expect candidates to negotiate.
    • Only 71% have withdrawn the offer.  If so, it’s because salary demanded was unreasonable. Or issues arose during background check, or candidates did not accept one or more elements of the offer. Or they suspected the candidate was holding out for another position.
    • Didn’t find significant gender diff in negotiation, but older respondents were less likely to negotiate
    • People who had more jobs tended to negotiate MORE
  • How much flexibility is there for salary?  Seems like there is more depending on how senior the position was.
  • Human psychology at work here  – as employers we believe there is flexibility but (same people) as job seeker do not see there is flexibility!
  • Australians (this was presented at an Australian Library Association conference) believe Americans are “more proactive” and more likely to negotiate. So cultural norms or assumptions about cultural norms may affect behavior.  
  • Questions for these researchers to ask later: did you distinguish between staff-level and faculty-level (tenure specific) librarian positions? did you take into account whether job seekers were “currently employed” at the time of their search?    
  • READ: “You’re hired! An analysis of the perceptions and behaviors of library job candidates on job offer negotiation”   The Southeastern Librarian 64(2), 2-13.

Impact of Academic Libraries on UG Degree Completion  http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2016/09/27/crl16-968.full.pdf

 

 

 

 

Lori’s Alliance Summer Meeting Report

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Monday night – 10:26pm

SO that flat tire in the middle of I-205 really sucked. Having ODOT incident response pull up right behind us and change the tire did NOT suck at all.  How lucky am I?  I guess that travelling mercies are a real thing.  Here is my donut.  DO NOT MOCK IT.  I think it’s cute.  I was, of course, all prepared to change that f&*%@r myself should the need arise.

IMG_1818But the ride with Dan (we all know not to call him Discovery Dan, right?  RIGHT?) was really good.  A great chance to get to know him and he gets my official cool dude stamp of approval.

I finally practiced my presentation tonight, and guess what!  It’s 10 minutes too short, so tomorrow I’m going to attempt something pretty dangerous.  As long as there is a stable internet connection, I”m going to try to do some live edits in front of the studio audience.  I promise not to break anything.  Much.  Please wish me luck.  I’m really nervous.  The flat tire just means all the bad luck is out of the way.  

In other news, the motor pool guy (I think his name was Justin) gave me a disposable camera and told me to take 5 photos with it on this trip.  He’s using them for a cool montage of some kind.  I can’t wait to figure out what to photograph!

Okay – off to bed.  I need my beauty rest for the big show tomorrow.

 

Tuesday morning – 8:52am

A nice breakfast with Dan, Dana Bostrom (the new Alliance president) and her sister.  Thought it was the continental breakfast but no – $12 buffet.  Dan tried to warn me but, as usual, I failed to listen.  Dana gave us a ride to Warner Pacific which is really really small but very beautiful.  Reported to the chapel to load my presentation on the laptop we’ll be using and wallah – I will presenting from the pulpit this morning!

IMG_1820

Summit 101 – Meghan Williams @ WWU, Shanel Parette @ Willamette

Alliance Website – very large and can be confusing, but a huge resource

Rota 1:1 ratio – if you borrow one, you lend one.  Sometimes the rota gets out of whack and people borrow more than they lend.  The rota gets adjusted every 6 months to try to keep that balance.

Borrowing and lending demonstration – this is really cool – they’re actually going to do a full life-cycle of a request LIVE.

Brief discussion of the difference between available and requestable – that a patron may not actually be able to get it even if it shows available because it may be in a special location – archives, reserves, ref, etc.  

Lending library side – start with printing slips and send it to the summit print server.  Go to the print server and print your paging slip.  Pull the item from the stacks. Go to “Shipping items” and don’t use “Scan In Items” if at all possible.  Make sure you have chosen the correct long loan or short loan, and type in your barcode. If successful, the item will show “Shipped Physically” when you’re done.  Attach the strap or sticker to the book, put the paging slip in the front of the book and get it into a summit courier bag.

Borrowing library side – open the courier bag and go to “Receiving Items” to type in the barcode.  Double check that the location is correct (long loan vs. short loan), also check for damage and note it on the strap or sticker if present.  You can also add a fulfillment note for a pop up about the damage (I wish our summit folks would start doing this! – they’re here so maybe they will!). Send the item to the hold shelf and let it check out.

When book comes back – if damaged and no note of PRIOR damage, use the pink damaged item flag.  If item returned at wrong location, use the green return slip to make sure the item gets checked in at the location it was loaned from.  Just check the item in otherwise, cross off your band, and ship it back to the owning library.

Lending library side – use “Scan in items” to finish the process, then off to re-shelving.

Use the facets in the borrowing and lending requests to see what’s outstanding and identify potentially stuck or problematic requests.

Okay, a little disappointed – I apparently know more about Summit than I thought I did.  While entertaining, I didn’t get a lot of new info on this one.  The main thing Iwould say is helpful is the continual reminder to check before you scan. Check condition, check who it goes to, check long vs. short loan, check volumes, call or email each other with questions instead of assuming.  Assumptions can supply the wrong item and delay your patron’s requests.

Queue Maintenance – Heidi Nance UW, David Ketchum UO, and Meghan Williams WWU

Borrowing and lending request statuses and when to check them: use Jesse’s (UI) document from the Alliance website – https://www.orbiscascade.org/discovery-delivery – they are the first 2 documents under the workflow section

ONLY resource sharing staff should do queue maintenance – if you have too many people doing the maintenance it becomes unmanageable.

Use a web task list to help assign specific tasks to people -AND designate backups (she recommends TODOist).  Easy to drag tasks between people to cover vacations and etc, as long as people have been cross trained on the basics.

Add notes to the notes field in requests – they are searchable!

Queues can also be exported to excel to allow a more organised and sortable list.

Check the “Assigned to Others” and “Assigned to Me” lists – stuff can be hiding that you don’t know is there!  (this is also true in course reserves)

This is kind of funny – David Ketchum is spending the majority of his time presenting explaining why Jesse’s list of “when to check what” is wrong! I’ve got to ask Cheryl about him when we see her on Friday.  I’m excited to see the Bemi!  Ray is always such a great mediator – “Every library has different volume, different staffing and different time tables”

Troubleshooting – Jesse Thomas UI, Kate Cabe WWU

This should be a really good session because both of these people are super smart.

3 basic problem causes: System errors, configuration errors and user/workflow errors.  Focusing on configuration and its impacts on workflow.

Configuration: Alliance, Locally with Alliance standards, truly local config

  1. Rota templates: manually changed every 6 months to maintain the 1:1 average.  You won’t see your own library in your rota list.  Every request right now goes to PSU first!
  2. Rota assignment rules: you will only need an institution rule list if you’ve integrated ILLiad.
  3. Locate Profiles: for both borrowing and lending.  Borrowing isn’t editable (set up at the Alliance level).  Locate is centered around title, ISBN/ISSN and OCLC number.
  4. Sending Borrowing Request Rules – keeps things from getting stuck in “ready to be sent” and is set up just like Rota assignment rules.  If you have ILLiad configured, you have to have institution rule for that AND Summit3, otherwise all requests will go to ILLiad.

Locally:

  1. Your resource sharing library can be chosen (we picked Valley), default location can be set (Long or Short loan), can reject requests when no available/requestable.
  2. Partners (was done for us by Ex Libris) – make sure barcodes and and requester information are shared!  If not, this can cause problems.
  3. Temp Item Creation – long due dates are 67 days, short due dates are 25 days.  If days until due date are >30, it assigns LONG, if not, it assigns SHORT
  4. Library level fulfillment rules – these should be your only library-level rules.

Troubleshooting a bad request starts by locating the request (don’t forget to look in the assigned to me/others tabs for lending, or the Active/Completed/All.  Once found, the audit trail may come in handy.  It details the actual steps taken at both the borrowing and lending institution, as well as the messages that were sent between the partners.

Items shipped with incorrect short or long loan location – you can’t fix these.  Just let it go for that length of time.

COMMUNICATE!  Even if we can’t fix it, at least we can all be on the lookout when something goes amiss.

Summit Visiting Patron – Dawn Lowe OrTech

YAY! I really want to get this to work correctly.  User type ID – still gets checked on the Alliance website.  We need to make sure they are current, and we need to know if they student staff or faculty.  Go to patron services and register new user.  Pick the correct user group Summit Visiting or whatever we have set up.  Do a Resource Sharing Library (that should be Valley, I think) or they won’t be able to request through Summit.  They still log in as a community user (convenience card).

I guess I’m still missing something as far as visibility of the request summit button.  I really need to sit down and figure out how to make this work! Will do a test patron to see what’s going on.

Courier 101 – Elizabeth Duell and Ray Henry, Alliance

I have to admit I won’t be listening closely to this one because my presentation is next!

So far just talking about shipping supplies.  And a lengthy argument over when to use the gray bags and when to use the brown bags.  This is apparently a very important thing.  Who’d’a’thought!

TOUs and FUs – Chelle Batchellor UW and Bill Kelm Willamette

This presentation is all about deduplicating the policies, TOUs and FUs and making sure that you have a cleaner, easier set up.  Main point is not to build more infrastructure than you need.  

Advanced Policies – Generic policy won’t have a delete button in most cases.  If Institution is the owner, you usually can delete it.  Be sure to use the “Show related terms of use” to see if the policy is actually useful.  If it is not, remove it (you have to unhook it from the TOU first).  You can also switch it to the default policy (which is also generally undesirable).  Delete those that aren’t attached to TOUs, adjust ones that are redundant and then delete.

Terms of Use – again, Alma won’t let you delete something that’s in use so you’ll have to adjust things before deleting. Make your default TOU for each fulfillment unit and for each type (loan, request, etc) the MAIN rule – you can remove a lot of TOUs this way.

Fulfillment Units – start HERE! You can disable fulfillment rules you don’t think matter instead of deleting them. Give it a week or 2 as a test to see if it makes something not work. Make a concrete plan of how you want it to be structured now that you understand how the parts work together. We built our TOUs, FUs and policies before we understood what we were working with.  It’s time to look again with the fuller understanding and do a strategic change.

I really seriously want to do this as well.  I think it’s a big enough process that I’d like to have a planning team for it.  Maybe we can discuss this idea at the next circ meeting?

Alma and ILLiad Integration – Kun Lin and Julie Carter – Whitman

Patrons should not have to know the difference between Summit and ILL – AMEN and HALLELUJAH!  All requests will use the same form, all items will show up in the Alma account. Temp items in Alma just like for Summit, auto delete on return.

Lending – in ILLiad, process and add the barcode to the Ref Num field (use the Primo AddOn) – leads to a primo search where you can copy and paste the barcode.  NCIP sent to Alma, creates the request and moves item to a temp location for ILLprocess so it shows as unavailable.

Borrowing – Set up ILLiad as the patron of last resort (I think we’ve already done this but not sure). Crap – I got distracted and missed a whole bunch of the directions!  But I got a very nice compliment on my 2 sessions and I feel so good about it all now! Hopefully the powerpoints will be made available.  Sorry!  You can’t use lending library due dates.  Match your 6 days, 6 weeks from Summit.  Your patrons are used to that anyway.  Notices need to be customized, patron accounts need to be loaded in ILL, time delivery expectations are a little longer for some ILL so it can confuse patrons.  Plan for stats ahead of time.  How will you designate ILL vs. Summit for stats?

If you set up a reading room for the resource sharing library/circ desk you can also do the in-house use only items very smoothly.

 

Wednesday morning, 9:09am

Plenary session – Faye introducing the new incoming chair (Lynn Baird) and the new Alliance President (Dana Bostrum).  Introduction of the new board members and an overview of 2016 in the Alliance.  52 groups and teams, over 200 people involved in these groups and more than 40 playing more than 1 role.  Very impressive level of involvement and dedication. (There’s someone on the assessment team named Kate Cate!  That’s so awesome! Sorry….)

Collaborative Workforce Team outlined how our work together can balance out the load on individual institutions.  Content Creation & Dissemination Team got an LSTA grant this year!  YAY!  Grant money is really hard to get.

2017 – focus on evaluating the Shared ILS and work processes, start a Courier RFP process to see if Senvoy is still our best option, new strategic plan prep focusing on measurable goals.

Course Reserves and Beyond – Joanna Baily WWU, Mary Van Court & Stephen Weber UW

This session is going to focus on the service of reserves, not necessarily the nuts and bolts of Alma.  In Primo – the facets on the sides DO NOT include the course you searched, they are a narrowing or expansion of the search you preformed.  Facets are limited to content of 40 matches.

UW student directed reserves requests – used just as they would for instructor requests. Purchasing 30-40 items a quarter. PSU is purchasing for high volume courses (100 or more enrollment) without need for student requests – getting data from admissions, filling for the top 100 classes.  This is exactly what I had suggested with my ploy to get ASOSU to give us a grant or funding.  PPR (patron purchase request) adapted for Course Reserves – not yet but sounds like it could work except for the materials type being limited to book or journal.

WWU – concierge model, course reserves delivered through Canvas in a homegrown system.  Purchases are faculty driven. Course reserves became its own department, instead of being part of circulation.  Only using Alma for the temp location of reserves and the shortened loan periods – not using the course reading lists, course reserve tab in Primo and etc.  Running 2 systems, but good feedback and a 10% increase in submissions from faculty.  This feels like they are just doing double work to avoid using Alma instead of learning how to use Alma and adapt it to what they need.  It’s kind of like they’ve just given up on learning/using the system.  This is not a direction I would like to see us go – I’d much rather have us learn to use and adapt.

I might feel differently if we were doing eReserves and streaming and storage were a problem.

There library will cover the costs for copyright permissions when necessary – but costs haven’t been very high.  

Shelf Report Tool Lightning Talk – Kate Cabe

Excited to see if they have solved the call number range problem.  They have moved their ref collection fairly regularly and need to use the tool to fix inventory problems.

DANG- She just said “Range still isn’t working.” Fix for quarter 4 this year.  BLAH!!!

Set tool – but we know how to do that already!  Scan the barcodes you want to inventory, create set of the location you’re working with, add the set you created.

Alma APIs – Jeremy McWilliams L&C, Linda Akers LCC, Bill Kelm Willamette

API (application programming interface) – a back door designed to allow others to introduce code and mods. Get, Update, Post, Delete, Put or Read. The Ex Libris Developers Network has a huge amount of information.  Keys and code for you to use.  Create an application.  “I Want Hours” choose configuration API.  If it’s designed to make a change be sure to try it on a sandbox instead of production.  Get your results and then “get some code” for a sample to take with you and use to develop further.

Analytics API can get published analytics report – use it for new books, get a fund code report for your librarians, improve data visualization.  It doesn’t work the first time you try it. It is delayed so try it again!  It will work.

COCC is using the Bibs API to display study room availability.  Kelly – who is our person with Trey gone? Could this be useful to us?

Config API can be used to display hours as in the example in the first paragraph.  Can run any manual job programmatically or on a cron setting.  Also can be used with MD Import to load records for an import file.  David – Is this what you’re doing with the serials?

I need to learn more about this in all my spare time.

Courses API is super slow but can be used to allow faculty to place items on reserve from Primo GES links, can make a completely different staff input front-end, etc.

Task lists can let you update and view borrowing and lending requests.

Users API can be used for loading patrons, can also use it show ILL loans on the Primo display! Could also create your own DIY self-check machine with raspberry Pi….

Using it without a server is difficult.  YOu could set up a local machine to run PHP or another language

Linda Akers – Alma Analytics API for a browse-able interface for new books, picture books, on display, and other specialty collections.  Wow – their browse new books is BEAUTIFUL!!  **is Laurel Kristick still in charge of our new books page?**

Start by getting the key from the developer network, create the analytic report – be sure to include ISBN so you can pull in the google book covers!, Construct your URL – get the path from analytics location and add the shared location (see the powerpoint when we get it!), write code (PHP most likely), read the XML and pull the parts you want and write each title to the webpage.  It is SLOW and times out.  Not ALL fields can be queried, so not all info can be displayed.  Seasons numbers and multiple disc sets are hard.

Bill Kelm – how Willamette uses APIs – patron batch deletes, YBP acquisitions, WEST Holdings

Delete sheet – this kind of duplicates what April and I just created, but we’re just using Excel and Alma functions to achieve the same results.

The other items from Bill’s list are outside Circ’s responsibility, but his know-how is pretty useful so we could probably use them for a training tool!

No-PDS Authentication – Nathan Mealy

Patron Directory Services (it’s that 3 option authentication page we use).  Letting Primo decide and authenticate each patron.  Supports Shibb, LDAP, ALma, CAS

Parallel authentication profiles – provides 2 options to your user (Campus or community)

Cascading profiles (only works for Alma and LDAP) – if LDAP doesn’t work, it hops to Alma to double check without the user knowing.

Silent or auto login – single sign on through shib transfers to Primo.

Why? resolves known issue with quoted searches, local control of sign-in page and options, removes a potential point of failure, integrates well with the new Primo UI

If you use Shib – there’s not a single reason not to use this.

Implementation steps

  1. multiple profiles – campus and community patrons
  2. create a new profil in the authentication config wizard
  3. Choose shib (SAML) and alma (the Alma one is easy with no choices or inputs), set one as primary and one as secondary (Download Metadata for the shib one – this is the certificate that you supply to your Shib admin for the conversation)
  4. deploy
  5. change lables in the code tables – auth1, auth 2, error messages, submit and cancel buttons and etc.

Sounds really easy BUT we’ve had auth problems before so be careful! Can we test in a sandbox?

Dinner at the Slide Inn with the DD Team

There were creepy pictures, old clocks and this group of weirdos.

IMG_1824 IMG_1827 IMG_1821

Beth’s ALA 2016 Summary

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flying

Window views: from Portland, to Phoenix, to Orlando!

atlas rocker

…got to see an rocket launch from my Aunts porch!

After taking vacation on the front end to see family….

ocean

West coast beaches are beautiful but you can SWIN in the Atlantic!

…I headed friday to ALA in Orlando!  As I have been rotating off many of commitments and committees this past year, it was nice to wrap up many things and enjoy ALA networking with new and old friends.  My main focus this year was seeing the ALA Sustainability Round Table (of which I was a founding member & published an article on) finally have a real presence at ALA. Check out these   to hear more and read about two of the sessions SustainRT hosted in American Libraries Magazine:

Carribean Libs at ALAAlso, a panel of Caribbean Librarians spoke about The National Library of Aruba: Promoting, Enhancing and Embracing Green Education  0701161555

Did you notice the name badges had no plastic sleeve, thank  SustainRT folks for pushing back on that!

atwood

Margaret Atwood was hilarious  – so witty – I found myself laughing out loud. I cant wait to read her book this fall as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project!

browns posters

I also got to see my former colleagues from UNCG as we celebrated the much deserved award to one of my favorite folks at UNCG Brown Biggers as LJ’s Paralibrarian of the Year.

I enjoyed small group discussion at the Heads of Public Service DG meet up where we discussed space allocation and staffing with no miraculous answers but nice to connect with others in similar roles.  The  ACRL ULS Taking Our Seat at the Table: How Academic Librarians Can Help Shape the Future of Higher Education was a little disappointing in content  – hmm or maybe we are already doing many of the things discussed – though I did hear some large libraries say they are stopping their Gov Docs collecting (!), and much on affordable textbook initiatives. I did really like this slide quizzing us on what we should know/be able to answer about our schools.

2 min quiz on your school

and this humorous one on how to earn your seat at the table!

earn a seat at the table how

 

 

OLA debrief….

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A few of us met to share what we learned at OLA and ideas on what we might be able to apply here:

Library of Things Lightning Talks:  Giveaway boxes – seeing libraries as a cultural center. What people need and what people want along with academic mission  EX: seed library, partner with food pantry; tool lending library.  Issues: staff problem to maintain and lack of space.  Ideas:  do we have to be the keepers?  facilitate where to go to get these types of things? like a libguide?  OR could be have a spinning rack to display but store them elsewhere.
Follow Up???? 

Better connection with public library and Valley library? a think session between the two entities? when they get a new adult services manager we should connect. Getting public library card applications in our library so students can get cards to access resources?
Follow up: Maybe Beth should be the liaison to this new adult services manager? 

“doing more with less” marketing in libraries. what do we want the users to get from the libraries rather then everything that is overwhelming to them.
Follow Up: spotlight feature on website needed, to highlight events/items/info – is this happening? Beth/Uta will ask Mike 

The Edge Tools – assessing & measuring your technology needs and usage; free for basic set; ts for public libraries from Gates foundation but can our land grant mission help us get access?
Follow Up:  brooke/lori will follow up on possibilities of getting access to this 

Other good sessions:

  • Curiosity Session – people loved it and would love to see it again. 
  • Auto ethnography Session  -telling your own story; approaches to research; your story; gather a wide collection of stories; self assessing reactions to an event, content, etc. emotional intelligence based. Beth still doesn’t quite get this 🙂 
  • OR Readers Choice Awards Books  https://oregonreaderschoiceaward.wordpress.com/  Ideas: maybe kelly could do book talks like this? How about a poetry slam on 4th floor rotunda once a month/quarter? maybe talk to Marty about book talks for Press Books?  Follow up:  Korey will contact Marty about this idea