Library Day in the Life 7/25/11
Hi, blog, I’ve missed you! Figured I’d use Library Day in the Life as a re-entry opportunity, rather than trying to catch up on what’s been happening over the past several months.
If you’ve ever wondered what a librarian does all day, check out some of the blogs and twitter feeds listed on the site above – you’ll see a real variety of job duties and get a good picture of what we do (HINT: it’s not “sit and read all day.” I don’t know of a single librarian that gets to do that at work, although many might like to 
.
I’m the Reference and Web Services Coordinator at a public library. Here’s what I did yesterday:
8:00 am – check email
8:15 – discussion with colleague re: schedules and prep for a meeting later in the day
8:25 – more email
8:30 – prepare second floor for opening at 9:00 (log in staff computers, put money in cash drawer, check that all equipment is turned on and working, etc.)
8:45 – troubleshoot downloadable book problems for two different customers
9:00 – prepare for book discussion podcast recording later in the day (REALLY should have done this further in advance); quick skim to refresh my memory on character names and major plot points
9:45 – email
10:00 – 1 hour shift at Information Desk in what we call the “Popular Library” area (high-demand items like new books, DVDs, magazines, CDs, etc.) – help lots of customers find books and DVDs; teach one customer how to download ebooks to her Nook
11:00 – 1 hour shift at Reference Desk; lots of computer questions and a little readers’ advisory; talk to one frustrated customer who just found out he has to pay for email addresses from Reference USA because they aren’t included in the library’s subscription – help him find free alternatives, none of which are exactly what he wants; in between questions, try to take a look at the project management software that our website vendor is using for the final stages of our project but quickly realize I need more time to be able to focus on that alone – put if off until later
12:00 – prep for meetings with a couple of staff members
12:30 – meet with staff member about change in job duties; touch base with another staffer and set up meeting for later in the day
1:00 lunch
1:50 – touch base with my supervisor, get his first impression of one of our new board members
2:00 – lead book discussion of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for the library’s monthly podcast (recording went smoothly – yay!)
2:30 – meet with two Web Team members to discuss screencasts and training classes to help with the launch of our new website in September
2:50 – email
3:00 – meet with another staff member to discuss change in job duties
3:35 – more email; follow up with customer on downloadable books troubleshooting progress
3:45 – break
4:00 – 1 hour shift at Reference Desk; mostly computer and book-finding help
5:00 – done for the day!
Gratitude and rumors: the power of the Internet
About 20 years ago, a T.A. in one of my college classes said something to me that affected me deeply and profoundly for years afterward. I often wished that I could tell her thanks, but I never saw her again. Over the years I’d think about her periodically, and once even attempted to find her online but was unsuccessful (probably would have helped if I had spelled her name correctly).
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a TEDTalk on his Facebook page. The speaker’s name rang a bell, and when I watched it, sure enough it was my former T.A. I looked up her bio, found out where she worked, and sent her a “you will probably think I’m crazy, but I just had to thank you for something you said to me 20 years ago” email. Being able to say thanks after so many years was truly a gift, and to top it off, she responded very thoughtfully and graciously.
I was awed at the amazing connective power of the Internet. I know there are plenty of people out there who say that Internet connections are shallow and meaningless and actually serve to distance us from each other, but in my opinion the chances of me running into Johanna and having the chance to say thanks in a non-Internet world were pretty much nil. For a couple of weeks I was floating on a cloud of Internet love.
I’m trying really hard to remember that feeling right now.
A couple of days ago a local reporter wrote a story about one potential service model that’s been discussed for one of our smaller branches. The original article gave, at best, a very incomplete picture of the multiple proposals being considered, but it got picked up by a larger news outlet and the rest is Internet history. The news is getting reused and re-edited and two days later major websites and national news organizations are reporting that the Newport Beach Public Library is getting rid of all its books.
Oy vey.
You can read the City’s official response if you’re interested. I was struck once again by how the Internet has made it so easy to connect and spread information. And yet, that amazing power has this really dark side. Does anyone think the City’s press release is going to go viral? Me neither. The damage has been done. Ironically, the misinformation quickly spread nationwide through the Internet, but the cleanup is going to be labor-intensive, local and personal.
Believe me, I’m not trying to argue that the Internet is evil. It’s a tool. It’s all in how we use it. So please don’t believe everything you read. Make sure your B.S. detector is properly calibrated. Check sources. I know it’s a pain, but do it. And be careful what you write. The Internet has put incredible power into the hands of ordinary citizens, which is awesome. But as we all learned from Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Read. Think critically. Dig deeper. Share thoughtfully. Use the power of the Internet for good.
Being Indispensable
You get paid to go to work and do something of value. But your job is also a platform for generosity, for expression, for art. – Seth Godin
I read Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
I read a few articles and things that Godin wrote about this book, and he seemed to think the chapter on Resistance might be the most powerful. It is powerful. But the idea that resonated most strongly with me was his discussion of emotional labor. Being a linchpin is about more than just completing a list of tasks. You have to put in the emotional effort to turn your work into art, into a gift. It’s how you add the value that only you can add, and what makes you indispensable. And he’s right – it’s a big investment to make, but the emotional labor pays tremendous dividends for your organization and the people you encounter in your work, not to mention yourself.
Emotional labor is hard. Really hard. But I find that the more emotional labor I exert, the more energy I seem to have. When I start phoning it in and just doing the job, I’m exhausted at the end of the day even though I haven’t worked as hard. It seems like a great paradox, but it’s not that hard to figure out - one path feeds your soul and the other doesn’t.
I also love what Godin says about optimism:
Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow. And all artists have this optimism, because artists can honestly say that they are working to make things better.
This is why organizations under pressure often crack. All parties can see that their current system isn’t working, but they’re unable to embrace a new one because they’re certain that it won’t turn out perfectly, that it can’t be as good as what they have now. Organizations under pressure are stuck because their pain makes it hard for them to believe in the future.
I know a lot of people and organizations experience this. We fall into the trap of waiting for the “perfect” solution. Our inability to tolerate failure or even uncertainty holds us back. Godin again:
What does it take to lead?
The key distinction is the ability to forge your own path, to discover a route from one place to another that hasn’t been paved, measured, and quantified. So many times we want someone to tell us exactly what to do, and so many times that’s exactly the wrong approach.
The higher the stakes, the harder it is to take that risk, to go off the map. I found this book was a good reminder of how I want to approach my life and work on a day to day basis. It’s not a perfect book. The chapters are broken down into short chunks and stories that don’t always gel into a cohesive narrative. But you could turn that weakness into an advantage; read a chunk or two at a time for inspiration – your daily kick in the butt.
I was given an extra copy of this book, and I’d like to give it to someone who’d really like to read it. If you’re interested in a free copy of Linchpin, leave a comment on this post by noon on Monday, February 14th (Pacific Time). I’ll do a random drawing on Monday to determine the winner.
Beginner’s Mind
My friend Paul posted a link on Facebook to an interesting little article about the advantage of being a newbie and not knowing the rules – you don’t realize that something’s “not possible” and you’re not confined to an established set of constraints. I haven’t been in my profession all that long, but it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day operations and I find it harder and harder to see things with new eyes – I want to keep seeing the potential in things the way I did when I started, but it’s not easy. How do you maintain that “beginner’s mind” state?
The more experience I have, the more I need to interact with a group and bounce ideas around with others to start seeing things in a different way. A group of passionate, intelligent people always revives me and helps me see the possibilities again.
Places of Realized Potential
Over the years I’ve read a number of books on leadership and/or management. One of my favorites is Max DePree’s Leading without Power. It’s not the best-written book out there, but several of the lessons have stuck with me year after year. Considering how many leadership books are utterly forgettable, that’s an accomplishment! This book is geared towards non-profit organizations, but many of the lessons have wider application.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of libraries, and what I’d like to see in the future. DePree nails it in his first chapter, when he talks about organizations as “places of realized potential.” Here are the characteristics he identifies:
- A place of realized potential opens itself to change, to contrary opinion, to the mystery of potential, to involvement, to unsettling ideas.
- Places of realized potential offer people the opportunity to learn and grow.
- A place of realized potential offers the gift of challenging work.
- A place of realized potential sheds its obsolete baggage.
- A place of realized potential encourages people to decide what needs to be measured and then helps them do the work.
- A place of realized potential heals people with trust and with caring and with forgetfulness.
- People in places of realized potential know that organizations are social environments.
- Last, a place of realized potential celebrates.
I love this concept, and I think it applies really well to libraries, both in our internal dynamics and in the way we serve our customers. Whatever our service models look like (and they are bound to change over time), I think we realize our potential as organizations by helping our customers to realize their potential. We’re in the possibility business!
Blazing Trails, pt. 8: Pioneers! O Pioneers!
This is the final post in the Blazing Trails series. Previous posts can be found here: part 1, part 2,part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.
The entire time I’ve been working on this series (much longer than I originally anticipated), I’ve been thinking that the final post would focus on leadership. But lately something else has been percolating, and with the announcement of the Governor’s proposed budget here in California this week, it finally coalesced. For those of you outside of California, the proposed budget cuts off virtually all state funding for public libraries. My friend Kathy Gould has a good summary of the situation on her blog, and another post which reveals some of the unintended consequences of the proposed cuts.
It’s a frightening prospect. Some libraries will be harder hit than others when the cuts are first effected, but the ripple effect in the loss of LSTA funds and the sharing network built up in this state over many years will affect all of our libraries and dramatically decrease our potential for long-term survival. On a more personal note, my heart breaks at the thought of losing funding for Infopeople and the Eureka! Leadership Institute, which has had such a profound impact on me both personally and professionally. The state of California is in bad shape, and I know there are no easy answers. I know we’re going to feel the pain one way or another. But a total elimination of funding for libraries creates more problems than it solves.
We have to make sure we don’t defeat our own cause. Librarians value intellectual freedom, we are opinionated and can be a fractious bunch. In recent years there’s been a lot of debate in library land about the best way to move forward. But now is a time for unified action. The steps we take today determine our future survival, and we have to get ready to enter battle. The Whitman poem I referenced in the title of this post is actually a little “manifest destiny” for my taste, but he has some good images and phrases that stick in my head:
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger
Library advocates have fought many tough battles over the years. As some tire, others always step up and take up the charge. Some of this fight is very familiar, but it’s taking place on some new terrain. We have to continue to learn from those that have gone before, and continue to break new ground as we move forward.
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
I admit, I get really frustrated when people resist change or refuse to try new things. I am often tempted to say something like this:
“Them that’s going,” he said, “get in the goddamn wagon. Them that ain’t, get out of the goddamn way.” – William Faulkner [via Attempting Elegance]
And you know, sometimes that’s necessary. But right now we need to pull together, and the more people I can get in the wagon the happier I will be. At times like this, we need leaders who will be bold, take risks, show the way. But we also need others – people who will march alongside us and say “you can’t do that to my library. You can’t do that to my community.”
And in the end it doesn’t matter that to one person the library is books and literacy, and to someone else it’s ebooks and databases and to someone else it’s summer reading program and storytime and to someone else it’s video games and DVDs. I think The Library is bigger than any one person’s conception of it. It’s big enough to be what each person needs it to be. That’s our strength. So rather than pulling against each other, we have to remember how to pull together in a common cause. Abraham Lincoln said it much better than I ever could:
We can succeed only by concert. It is not “can any of us imagine better?” but, “can we all do better?” The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
And our libraries, too, I hope.
Meanwhile…
I just got back from the CLA/CSLA joint conference in Sacramento, so I have a lot to process. I’ll try to write more about the conference this week as well as writing the final post in the Blazing Trails series. In the meantime, I wrote a guest post for Will Manley’s blog, Will Unwound. Not only is Will’s blog great, but there’s always a lively discussion going on in the comment section. Check it out!
Blazing Trails, pt. 7: Cliff diving
This post is part 7 of the Blazing Trails series. Earlier parts are here: part 1, part 2,part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6.
I’ve been working on this post for over a month now, and despite many revisions it just wasn’t coming together. Well, last week my friend Kathy Gould supplied me with the missing element. I read her fantastic post, then the post and article that inspired it (you have to register to read the article, but you can get a login at bugmenot.com), and she’s right – while neither of her sources is talking about libraries, so much of what they are talking about is remarkably pertinent to us.
Here are a few choice quotes from the Zuboff article:
Once individuals have the assets they want, they must be able to reconfigure those assets according to their own values, interests, convenience, and pleasure….Successful mutations offer consumers the digital tools, platforms, and social relationships that support them in living their lives as they choose. The new sources of economic value can be discovered and realized in I-space only when consumption strengthens the sense of personal control, delivers opportunities for voicing ideas, and enables freely chosen social connections. [emphasis mine]
I think those last sentences are a pretty good summation of what libraries need to be doing. Our services need to support our customers in living the lives they want to live. But if we are to move past the “digital facelift” and harness the power of technology in a meaningful way, the only way to get there is to bypass slow, methodical change and take some flying leaps into the unknown.
Here’s an example: how much money does your library spend on online databases? How much time, energy and money do you spend marketing them and training people to use them? And how much use do they actually get? I have to admit, I’m torn. I know there’s a lot of quality information in the databases we provide. But it’s locked into these clunky products that each have a different user interface. It’s no surprise that few, if any, of our customers ever become expert users. Federated search is problematic at best. We’ve tried to come up with new ways to market our databases to customers. But every time I renew a database contract I think “What if…?”
What if a bunch of libraries got together, stopped putting money into databases and pooled our resources to build or adapt something better? It’s a really scary prospect – for at least a period of time you’d have a giant gaping hole in your collection. Most of us are much more comfortable letting go of undetermined long-term benefits than we are taking such a big risk in the here and now. But I think we are reaching the point when something drastic has to be done. We have been reluctant in the past to build things ourselves. We let for-profit companies duke it out in the marketplace and then we take whatever they’re willing to give us. We sit back and complain about the options and the limited choices we have, but we don’t step up to make changes.
And now ebooks have gained traction and we’re finding ourselves in the same position again – waiting for others to figure out the hard issues and then throw us some scraps. But if we are truly advocates for our customers, then we should be doing our damnedest to get a seat at the table and represent their interests and the interests of libraries before all the decisions are made. Collectively libraries are a significant market for content – that gives us some power and we shouldn’t take that lightly.
One of my big fears is that we will become obsolete because we hang on to fatally flawed products that are designed specifically for libraries, while out in the marketplace people are coming up with faster, better, more intuitive solutions. How did Google get to be such a monster in the search industry? They combined quality search results with an incredibly simple interface. What Google understood is that most users don’t want to become search experts. They want to type in a few words and find what they need. Sure, there’s an advanced search option, but it’s not prominent and it’s rarely necessary. By contrast, our databases are designed not for customers but for librarians (and they’re not really great on that score, either). Seriously, the next time you demonstrate a database for a customer, time yourself. There’s no way you can give a 30-second explanation and expect the customer to be able to use the service on their own. And I can tell you that if our services aren’t usable it won’t matter that they’re free. Don’t believe me? Just read this.
Kathy was right – “survival will depend on our ability to forge revolutionary, not evolutionary change.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the context of the MLIS and how we train librarians. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re no longer educating and equipping librarians to do the jobs they actually do. It’s no wonder that there’s tension between professionals and para-professionals – the nature of the job has changed, but the education system and hierarchical structures of our organizations have not kept up. We’re holding on to old labels even when they don’t make sense anymore.
I don’t have a fully evolved 10 point plan, but I do think we need to focus less on preparing people for entry-level librarian jobs and more on preparing people for moving up. The entry level stuff can be taught on the job – I’d love to see a librarian credential, where you work in a library under the supervision of a mentor for a year, with a bit of supplemental coursework on the underlying values of librarianship. Then revamp the master’s degree program to be more a hybrid of an MPA and an MLIS – a lot more preparation for managment and leadership, ideally with some hard-core technology training thrown in (I think there should be a language requirement for an MLIS, but it should be a programming language). I like the idea of alternate career paths, too – options for people who don’t want to manage but do want to stay engaged and continue on a path of professional growth; options for people who have years of valuable experience and have proven their worth but don’t have a degree.
These ideas sound simple enough, but they’d involve a massive change to the existing education and employment systems we deal with now. I don’t think minor tweaks will do the job – we need to kick out some bearing walls, to paraphrase Annie Dillard. “Creative destruction” is really the perfect phrase for what’s coming (thanks for that, Kathy). We can’t just patch holes anymore. It’s terrifying, but we tear down so that we can build something better and stronger. Ultimately, it’s a phrase full of hope.
