And then, because it’s easier to change your environment than your behavior, i set out to make sure that i didn’t just declare these focus areas, but that i made sure I could stick to them. I started out by tweaking my google calendars. I’m a very visual person so in order to tell if i’m spending my time more in one area than another, each focus got a color and I made sure the calendars reflected this. But i realized that I needed go one step further – I don’t just spend my time getting things done or meeting with people (stuff that gets scheduled), I also spend my time communicating about all those items and I’d want to make sure email was set up in a similar way, organized around my five focuses.

Here’s where I realized the problem of consistent design across products and just how much it can throw someone off if they’re expecting one thing and getting another. Let’s start with format.

gcal makes the entire calendar in the cal list and each event in that calendar whatever color you’ve specified, very pretty and easy to figure out:

Gmail isn’t as pretty. Check out what similar category colors look like in gmail:

The other interesting thing is that the colors you have available to you aren’t even the same! Sure, gmail and gcal are different products, but they’re still Google products and you’d think there’d be some consistency with the little things like this (especially after their massive look & feel overhaul). See what the colors look like in gcal:

and gmail:

I’m not going to discuss google reader (whose new look & feel doesn’t even render correctly in safari) and google docs who both don’t have the ability to add colors to categories at all.

Why is it so important to have a consistent design & features across your interfaces? It makes your product easier to manage, use, and customize. Most importantly, it limits customer pain when they’re trying to figure out how to do things, where to go, or if they’re even still dealing with you (instead of having gone to an outside org or product). With libraries, we know the whole “oh this is an EBSCO product so I know what it will look like and what features I’ll have available to me.” But do you give two thoughts to how your library website and your library catalog integrate (or, more usually, don’t)?

The Darien library website has a consistent feel even into their catalog because they’re not using their OPAC’s interface for customers. But take a look at St. Mary’s County Library in Maryland and now their catalog. In the middle, I think The Free Library of Philadelphia did a good job at integrating a stand-alone OPAC interface with their regular website look & feel (check it out).

So while i figure out what i’m going to do with my organization in gmail and my other applications, how are you making sure you have a consistent look & feel in your organizations?

Ps – this doesn’t just apply to your online interfaces… do you have tax forms by the door in Branch A and behind the reference desk in Branch B? Is renewing a book super simple online and really complicated in the branch (or vise versa)? Just sayin’

possibly related posts:

1. Internet Desintation
2. How do you stay organized?

add an extra level of fun if you’re like me and you have more than one library’s card and look up those books in each of those other library catalogs (i have dreams of a statewide catalog that will let me search at once the libraries i have access to but that’s another post).

Most of the time i find one of my libraries has the item i want but sometimes they don’t. when this happens, my ILL department gets a phone call or a visit (their office is right next to mine). more often than not, though, the item I want is “too new” and isn’t being lended.

Last week, however, my library surprised me in the best way. I saw that one particular item i wanted wasn’t owned by ANY public library in Maryland. On a whim, i submitted a “purchase request” for the item and THE NEXT DAY, i had received an email back saying they’d reviewed their holdings and needs and determined that they’ll be purchasing the book. Oh, and we’ve put it on hold for you so when it comes in you’ve got first dibs.

That was October 26th. On November 10th I got an email saying it was ready for pickup and this morning I was able to get in and grab it. All new and shiny and just for me.

There are a lot of things that libraries do – specifically mine – that I would do differently if it were my choice but this is one of those wonderful moments of customer service excellence where i really felt valued as a customer. I was listened to, my requests acknowledged and then and followed up with or acted upon quickly.

Not every library has the budget or collection development policies that allow them to purchase whatever their communities want but it’s these moments of listening to your customers that will set you aside.

When i say listening i’m not talking about that in-one-ear-out-the-other business that placates no one. I mean active listening – making sure the person whom you are listening to understands you’ve heard them (there’s the acknowledgement piece) and then now that you’ve heard what they have to say, it’s on your plate – some action is needed – evaluate that policy, form a team to look at a new service model, add their comment to the list that’s going to be reviewed next month, or put that purchase request in the queue.

But it’s not enough to listen to your community when it speaks to you – because they may not always seek you out for a conversation or submit a comment card – you also have to hear what they aren’t saying…

Case in point: Karen Hyman spoke at the Tri-County Summit in Western Maryland on Friday on Great Libraries. An example of a library doing great things included a NJ library where there were couches upon which a group of older gentlemen used to sit and complain about the noise from the children at the nearby circulation desk. You might say the gentlemen should get over it or that the children should be quieter but the library took the couches and moved them to a quiet corner of the library and put a few chairs in place of where the couches were. The gentleman’s group moved and are happy now! No one asked them to move the couches, but the library paid attention to their community, or parts of their community, and made a change for the better.

Paying attention to and making changes for your community also includes your internal community and not just your end-users. In 2008 and again in 2010, I did a series of “Listening Tours” for AskUsNow! partner institutions. They were meetings with myself and whatever liaison or staff wanted to attend. The meetings had no agenda and I had no assumptions. I went in, kept quiet, and listened.  A lot of good came out of those sessions – some of them turned into mini-refresher trainings, others into bitch sessions that ended up solving some problems, and allowing librarians to get things off their chest. Regardless of the outcome, everyone had a chance to be heard which was overwhelmingly appreciated. They were heard, and I listened. And then acted. and our service and morale were better for it.

What is your community saying? Are you paying attention? Are you asking? And most importantly, are you acting?

possibly related posts:

1. Get over it: “Pay for blog feeds? yuck!”
2. Xtreme Customer Service or TTWWADI must die.

(c) erinbarker*, on Flickr

the boy and i were discussing something the other day which lead me to my normal rant of content versus container. here it is in case you’ve never heard it before:

When knowledge and stories finally got a container, they were preserved and shared in book form. (prior was via spoken word.) Libraries were the vessel for those book containers. Along the way to present day, the containers changed (disk, cd, dvd, database, journal, magazine, playaway, flash drive, internet, conversations with humans, etc). But during this change over the last umpteen decades, libraries had forgotten to tell people the knowledge moved which is exactly why people still equate libraries with books – except nowadays, books are those frivolous things some people use for entertainment (but who reads nowadays anyways).

[see also: Try again buddy: a note on libraries and books]

The reason libraries do not equal books anymore is because libraries are about knowledge – and the knowledge moved**. And we forgot to send out “we’ve moved” cards. Silly us.

Except we still haven’t sent out those cards (I’m generalizing here to make a point – I know many many libraries, library systems and librarians have sent out those metaphorical cards). We continue to have more book clubs than technology classes, advertise more bestsellers than databases, and hire more shy bookish people than interesting and engaging customer service focused people who love information and people.

We can’t keep complaining that no one loves us, funds us, or cares if we die a slow and lonely death and then continue to sell ourselves and our customers the same old, dusty and worn-out kool-aid.

The kool-aid is no longer hip. We’re all drinking martinis now.

And our martini is made of equal parts of the following:

• libraries are places where people can learn – we’ve got ridiculously awesome resources and ridiculously awesome people to help teach you how to find what you need (*cough*information literacy) and other amazing things (google+ for example)

• libraries are places where people can create- we’ve got ridiculously awesome resources for that too!

• libraries are places where people can grow- Sally grows by falling in love with The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Brian grows by taking a class on photoshop. Marianne grows by joining in on a knitting group.

• libraries are places where people commune***- we’ve got space, ac/heat, a cafe, and the resources for you to create whatever community you want

• libraries are places where magic can happen- ’nuff said.

You may have noticed a trend here. Libraries are places where people do stuff. And you better believe i mean “place” in the broadest sense- your building, your website, all your presences around the community. And “people”- that’s a no brainer. Libraries exist for the people who use them. And the best way to engage people? By talking AND listening to them. It’s the only way you’ll know what they want and they’ll know what you’ve got (*cough*databases).

So. Are you drinking the kool-aid or the martinis? Which is your library drinking? And what are you doing about it?

——————–

* thank to Erin for graciously letting me use her photo

** credit goes to the boy for the succinct and awesome phrasing

*** I was told i was using commune in an obsolete manner ala Shakespeare. Well if it was good enough for him, my friends, it’s good enough for you. (commune: to talk over, discuss)

possibly related posts:

1. Why we should stop caring about e-books versus “real” books
2. the perception of librarians Or so you like to read

As of June 6th I am officially an adjunct professor for the University of Maryland ischool and i’m teaching “Information Access Services” in the fall.

(epic happy dance)

to be honest, if at any other point in my life you asked me if i wanted to teach i’d have said, “no” because that phrase “teaching” invoked an image of someone standing at the front of the class lecturing or imparting information to you. but when you reframe it as being the facilitator of learning, it’s a much less daunting proposition (at least for me).

guiding other people to find their way with a subject, helping light their fire (or help keep it lit), and having exchanges with people is what i love doing – and something i hope that i’m doing every day anyway.

and indeed, it was those rare teachers in my life that thought of teaching as a performance art (Mr. Howard, english) or let you follow your passion within the curricula (Madame Knobler, French; Professor Garcia, so many classes; Professor Radford, lib school) or encouraged you to learn in your own way and make up your own projects (Ms. Breslin, physics, Mrs. Deal, English) that really made the difference.

for me there is a direct correlation to the subjects i enjoy or am good at and the teachers that were more engaging.

I’ve trained people before, lead workshops, and even lead mini classes, but this is a new beast for me and if you’re a professor, I’d love to talk to you about things (leave comments or contact me!) but in the meantime, i’m very excited about being able to #hacklibschool from the inside.

As i tweeted today:

Someone said “if you’re doing it right, teaching is easy” meaning that if you’re facilitating ideas and discussion and being a guide to students rather than the all-knowing “sage on the stage” it’s a lot more fun, too!

And that’s exactly what i plan to do- we’ll see how that goes.

You learn the most when you’re encouraged to take control of their own learning – being able to follow the things that you love. Now, of course, i will have a syllabus with lesson plans but having that built in time to allow students to get out of the class what they wish to and letting them follow what lights their fire I think is the best way to have students be successful.

It’s like applying the 80/20 rule to school.

so, YAY I’M A PROFESSOR! i’m sure the nervousness will set in later, but for now, it’s pure glee.

if you’re in library school, talk to me about what you’d want to learn. If you’re a professor, talk to me about… everything! :-)

possibly related posts:

1. How I stumbled into libraryland and didn’t trip
2. 23 Things: Week 1, Thing 1 & 2 (an intro)

Until I read Pete Bromberg’s eloquent and biting post I was having trouble finding the words to discuss what was happening in my beloved home state. Please take a moment to read what he has to say.

Building on what Pete said, here are my own 2¢:

QandANJ, and other services around the world like it, are tremendously valuable for the libraries who provide it, librarians who staff it and customers and students who use it. QandANJ provides reliable information access to customers, understanding that questions don’t have business hours. In a time of decreased library hours and staffing, QandANJ ensures that people get what they need even when their library can’t. QandANJ provides opportunities for staff to increase their technology, interpersonal and customer service skills in an online environment – one that is only going to be more important and ever-increasing in the coming years/decades. Not to mention the staggeringly awesome benefit to citizenss, QandANJ provides the same benefits as my own service:

• provides a positive return on small investment of staff hours for e.g. small institutions provide a few hours of staff time in return for 24/7 access;
• reaches new users and bring them into library services;
• supports customer preferences for online engagement;
• gives visibility for other library services through service provider referrals;
• increases usage of online databases: enhanced access to experts facilitates student and lifelong learner use of online databases;
• provides consistent service across K-12 and post-secondary sector and addressing the needs of the lifelong learner;
• creates collaborative partnerships within and across sectors e.g. multi-sector bundle, resource sharing, building the shared services of our library community;
• encourages innovation within a supported environment; centralized coordination and training means libraries don’t have to provide administrative or technical support;
• offers professional development for service providers: a collaborative environment facilitates sharing of expertise;
• serves as risk avoidance in the event of a disaster, QandANJ provides a way for libraries to maintain access to reference service if library service is compromised

I might even argue that because of the way NJ municipalities are set up, QandANJ provides much-needed cohesion of services throughout the state.

You only have to look at librarian and customer comments to see the immense value this service has to both the citizens of New Jersey but to the world. In the last 10 years QandANJ has been a model for other services around the globe. Maryland AskUsNow!, launched in 2003, took cues from and brainstormed with the leadership of QandANJ and enjoys continued success because of the intellectual partnership between QandANJ and other state- and province-wide services around the world.

Deciding to end such a valuable, respected, and needed service in the library world today without good reason should be punishable by banishment from the library community.

QandANJ (as well as all vr services, including my own) will always and forever have my support as a library user, library staffer, and citizen of this universe.

Check out the Save QandANJ event on facebook, the QandANJ facebook page, read customer comments on twitter and add your supportive voice here.

possibly related posts:

1. Xtreme Customer Service or TTWWADI must die.
2. (inter)national virtual reference service?

The concept of personal branding isn’t new- being able to market yourself and project a good image has been around since the dawn of civilization. What is new are the ways you can do it and the benefits and negatives that come with those different ways. Regardless of what technology you choose in your quest to learn, brand, and grow; remember that your personal brand is the reputation that proceeds you. For the purposes of this post, i’ll be focusing on the online stuff and leaving the work of being a good person/worker to you. :-)

Google yourself.

Searching is how people get a first (or second) impression about you these days. Knowing that fact of life, be aware of what comes up when you’re searched. Set up an RSS feed for yourself to keep track of mentions of your name, your email addresses, screen names, etc. I’ve got multiple google alerts set up for myself with varying forms of my name, handles, and keywords people might use to search me.

If you’re not online or have the awesome google fu that keeps you from being found, the absence of a presence isn’t detrimental. Unless, of course, you’re trying to get a job as an emerging technologies librarian or a community manager.

If you’re online, you want to know what comes up. Anything you wouldn’t want potential employers seeing? Facebook i think is the biggest offender in this capacity. Did a high school friend of yours suddenly start scanning and posting old photos of you? My apologies.

Update your facebook privacy settings and lock that mess down. I utilize a combination of friends lists and different privacy settings for each group to control what people see. My best friend can see, tag and post all. My coworkers can’t see photos i don’t post myself and won’t see wall posts i only post for friends. There’s nothing incriminating, but it’s part of my attempt to still keep two separate lives – my professional life and my personal life. In the old days (listen to me, haha) the only way a coworker would see pictures of me at a wedding would be if i brought the prints in to work. I like keeping those lines. Here’s the “10 Settings every Facebook user needs to know” from Mashable.

In the group tonight at UM, a student asked what happens if someone does post something bad about you. Good question. If it’s something like an old picture or post, ask them to take it down. If it’s someone disagreeing with your message, consider the source and/or speak to them about it; it might be an opportunity for an open conversation or rebuttal.

Know your goals.

It’s hard to figure out what to say and how to say it when you don’t know what you want your message to do for you. A successful personal brand is just one piece of the puzzle in the pursuit of one’s interests, contributions and networking. To start, you have to figure out who you are and who you want to be. This is the hardest part. What is your message? What are your goals? Where do you want to end up? You need to figure all these out before you can figure out what will get you there.

Don’t freak out, you don’t have to have your entire life figured out (which i believe is an impossible task, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise). You just have to know what your current goal is. Do you want to be an academic librarian? Do you have a passion for transliteracy? What’s your goal? Whatever it is, it is from there that your message will come.

Create your toolkit.

How will you spread your message? Will you have a business card? Is Twitter your thing? Will you have a website to guide people to your tumblr, flickr, etc?

Whatever you do, make sure it fits what your goals are. Don’t use the technology for the sake of using the technology- make sure it is serving a purpose for you, helping you achieve your goals.

Whatever tools you choose, make sure your message and information are consistent. Have one avatar that you use- use the same screen name if you can (i use stnglibrarian and strangelibrarian for my professional things depending on how long the sn can be). Make sure your information is up to date; don’t be crossing out phone numbers on a business card- just get a different business card.

If you want to keep the different parts of your online life separate, use different sns or emails addresses. Right now i’m trying to figure out how to brand the artist part of me while still keeping it under the umbrella of “julie strange, awesome girl who does lots.”

Get out there.

There’s no point in creating a message and building your toolkit if you’re going to expect people to come to you. The technology is a tool to help you, it won’t do the work for you. Get out there and do the legwork. Go to meetings, conferences and groups. Introduce yourself and get your name out there. Who you should be talking to and networking with depends on where you want to end up.

Do the work.

Don’t forget to do the work. You build your personal brand every time you do a good job at work, help a coworker, solve a puzzle, etc. Your brand isn’t strictly what you say you are, it’s who you are. Building your brand online is your first or second impression. Being good at what you do is the lasting impression. But that’s a whole other post.

Those are the main points to get you started, but here are some other things i wanted to mention:

Ignore LinkedIn

When it tells you your “profile is only 80% complete! upload your resume,” just say no. I think it’s important to NOT post your entire resume online. Each resume should be tweaked and crafted to reflect the job you’re applying for. Having a standard, uncustomized resume out there for all to see isn’t putting your best foot forward. There’s nothing wrong with having your list of presentations, papers, classes, or even previous employers listed, but a full resume should be kept only for those to whom you are directing it.

Frequency matters, or not.

The frequency conversation can be a heated one. I say frequency doesn’t necessarily matter but it does depend on what your goals are. If you want to be known as an expert blogger on TopicA or its your goal to be paid for writing about TopicB, then frequent posts (of quality) are probably a good idea.

Make your own rules.

At the end of the day, you have to be comfortable with who you are, where you’re going and how you did it. Mix and match and find what works for you. Just remember to be consistent, keep things up to date as you change and morph your goals and use the tech to your advantage when you can. Oh, and have fun!

What ideas do you have about personal branding?

———————–
Additional Reading:

• Five Ways To Not Screw Up Your Next Networking Attempt (Peter Shankman)
• How to Maintain Your Personal Brand as a Corporate Employee (Smashing Magazine)
• Keeping your personal brand organized: An interview with Dan Schawbel (Unclutterer)
• How to Monitor Your Personal Brand (For Free) (Librarian by Day, Bobbi Newman)
• Surprise – a Personal Brand is a By-product! (Library Hat, Bohyun Kim)
• Personal Branding for Public Librarians: Maintaining Your Brand (Spine Label, Julia Riley)

possibly related posts:

1. cil2009: 25 ideas for collaborating in 40 mins
2. fun with websites and what i was going to post

is the ad i found at the bottom of the ALA JobLIST Direct email last week.

as someone who agrees with the statement “today’s libraries are more than books” i was excited to see what the ad might be for. until i realized it was an ad for Recorded Books, an audiobooks publisher.

The word book traditionally refers to “physical objects consisting of a number of pages bound together” but then isn’t the phrase “audio book” a misnomer? if we go off the definition above, then an audio book conjures more an image of a physical, bound item with lips than a cd, cassette or electronic item that has the audio of a book read aloud. or maybe that’s just me.

so what’s my real issue with this ad? it’s the fact that libraries ARE more than books these days (and if yours isn’t, let’s get with the program, shall we?). libraries are about information sharing/learning, content creation, customer service excellence and community engagement. the physical items in a library are irrelevant. it’s what’s inside them that counts. (hence my annoyance with last month’s American Libraries cover [pic])

it is the words and wisdom conveyed on paper bound with glue; the research and ideas shown in black and white in a database’s journal; the power and feeling in a well-read audio book- all of these things are important, but it’s the message, not the medium that is key.

take a look:

[via Librarian by Day and the MLXexperience]

it’s what we convey, not how we convey it that’s the meat and potatoes.

Let’s take another example. You meet someone for the first time and see that they are well dressed and well spoken. the medium is the outfit, clean and pressed, and the words, well thought-out and spoken, but the message you get might be that this person is put together, important, confident, – any number of things. This might be a bit abstract, but what i’m trying to say is that we interpret the mediums into a message. And i might interpret the same mediums into a whole different message based on my experiences being different than yours. mostly though, common human experience (a whole other conversation, mind you) leads most of us to mostly the same message. Like with the orange mug.

which is why libraries are more than the physical (and electronic) items they give people access to. libraries are the people, the creation, the engagement, the learning. that’s the stuff that make libraries so priceless. Can a library survive without physical (or electronic) items? Abso-freakin-lutely. Librarians are info finders and relationship builders (or, they should be). Customers are info processors and creators of new things. Together, with or without stuff we can continue the mission of libraries. Sure, holding the bestseller’s book club might be difficult, but let’s be serious, it’s the engagement and conversations amongst people with a common interest that’s really of value.

so back to my gripe about this advert. i think Recorded Books could have done a better job promoting their products. I feel like saying “more than books” when “books” is in your company’s name is kind of shooting yourself in the foot. or missing the point of your own ad.

besides, it’s just plain cruel to see a vendor finally say something i agree with and then find out its only about audiobooks. don’t get me wrong- i live on a steady drip of the things with my 2+ hour-a-day commute (round trip, let’s not get crazy) but i was hoping for something a little more mind-blowing.

next time.

possibly related posts:

1. Why we should stop caring about e-books versus “real” books
2. ReferenceExtract: missing the point

The focus, for whatever reason, seems to always be on the “technology” (usually perceived as disruptive) and how it’s going to put us out of business or put a lot of us out of jobs or some such other nonsense. Books- for instance, are perceived as our primary business- not just by the customers (usually non-users) but also (unfortunately) by those who work in libraries (time for you to retire yet?). When i was in library school i remember discussions about libraries versus booksellers. It was always “versus” and i never understood why since we’re not really in the same business.

And now, as people are freaking out about ebooks, i ask the same question- why?

It seems we forget that our business is not defined by our things – the modes in which our information is delivered- physical book, ebook, database, audio cd, computer, etc- our technology if you will. The library is NOT an information warehouse and calling it such removes the element that actually IS our business – the people. Calling us “information gatekeepers” also does us a disservice – enforcing that stereotype that we are better than you and only we can dole out the world’s knowledge on a need-to-know basis and only if you’re worthy. Um, no.

Libraries are in the people business and i’d like to invite everyone who is in the profession on a front lines service desk who does not agree with me to do some soul searching and perhaps find another calling. Libraries are in the people business- connecting people to people (staff to customers and customers to their communities) and people to things (information, skills, knowledge, etc); usually people to the things they need to become better people. When libraries define themselves through their community, suddenly the technology doesn’t matter. And it shouldn’t. Technology is simply a way of getting things done, of solving problems. Sure, I’ll be the first to sign up for something flashy and new just because it is such but that doesn’t mean i’m going to implement it on a system-wide basis simply because it’s “the new thing.” In fact i’m very much against technology for technology’s sake in this context. With something new and interesting, I’m going to file it away and hope i recall it later when i’m faced with a challenge it might help solve. Wordle, for instance- was fun to play with in the beginning but what the hell can i use a word cloud for? Not much… until it came time to write the final grant report and i needed a visual way of representing the year’s worth of customer comments. Bingo.

That’s a simple example but i’m hoping you get my drift. If we define ourselves by the needs of the people in our community, and the relationships we build with them, suddenly we’ve just given ourselves the flexibility to ebb and flow with whatever the world throws at us. Suddenly “omg mobile” doesn’t seem so scary.

See, we have to be limber. Not just people and libraries, but everyone. Businesses that can’t move with the waves of life suffer. Take Western Union- the president of the company in 1876 said, ”this ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” Missed opportunity there. And i bet he’d pass out if he could look around the world today.

We’re very good, in libraries, at letting others decide what we should be doing – waiting for others to define who we are and what business we’re in. The great thing about the future that people tend to forget is that WE CAN INVENT IT! The Future is not something that happens to us; we are something that happens to the future. Feel free to quote me on that.

Seriously though, if libraries defined their identities and purposes by their specific community’s needs and stopped worrying about what other people were doing (not in that informed, always-looking kind of way but the “i don’t know what to do, oh lets do what they’re doing” kind of way), libraries would be more embraced into their community as a whole, start to chip away at the stereotype (the stuffy one, not the sexpot one.. though that annoys me too), and be more relevant to their worlds and more flexible as technology shifts (as it tends to do).

It’s our communities that binds us together. Sure, everyone has a hugely different demographic and community base but regardless of who their community is, libraries should be building relationships with those people, asking them what they need in life, and then providing it (either directly or as a referral or partnership).

I’ll go back to my mobile example from a bit ago- Sure, mobile is the thing we need to be in right now- its not going away. the xx billion text messages sent daily is a sign that something’s up. But if your small town library serves a community of aging ESL, perhaps texting and mobile isn’t really a bandwagon you should be jumping on right yet. But if you have conversations with them – keep them up to date with the world just as you try to be as a professional (you ARE, right?) and it piques their interest – ask them what they want to do. Maybe they’ll surprise you and already all have iphones and they want to try this new augmented reality thing. Or maybe you’ll delight them when they finally learn how to retrieve a text message from their granddaughter. You never know unless you ask.

The moral of the story is this- Stop freaking out about technology. Play with it, learn it, talk to people about it, but don’t let it cause an identify crisis. Be flexible. Build relationships with your community. Ask them what they need (and then give it to them).

So- now that i’ve said all that… what do YOU think the future of libraries is? I want to hear what you have to say- comment or trackback. :-)

[oh, and for giggles, here's this post in wordle (for no good reason other than i felt like it)]

possibly related posts:

1. Foresight 2020- Scenario Planning: Learning to Think in the Future Tense
2. You are the Future of Libraries, no pressure (or Be the conversation people)

(c) Andrew Mason on Flickr

Why do we care about e-books versus “real” books?

I, for one, don’t.

“Tree*” books, “real” books or just plain “books” as they’re often called have been around for 5,000 +/- years and now i swear there are more “ebooks vs books” writings than curls on my head. Why is that? Why does anyone care what format our stories, facts, conversations, and fun come in? Why are we so worried that tree books might be going away? Is it because they are “tradition”? Is it because “books” are what libraries are known for and if they go away, we think we’ll disappear too?

I would like to take this moment to remind you that it isn’t the technology that is important but rather the information it is sharing or the problem it is solving. True, a book is very old “technology”, but that’s what it is- it is just another casing through which ideas, stories, facts, conversations, teachings, are shared. And it’s not the method of transmission that’s important- which is only as good as it’s content. Sure, perhaps you like the feel or smell of the book and it’s pages over a device- but don’t you like the story or knowledge ultimately more? Sure, i might be upset if the next generation doesn’t know what it feels like to read a paperback on the beach- sand between the pages and all- but i’m sure my mom isn’t distraught that i have no idea what an 8 track feels like or sounds like.

Perhaps you argue that we’ll be leaving people behind because not everyone will be able to afford an e-reader- well, you’re right. But I’d like to remind you that no matter how fast things seem to go- a 5000 year old technology is going to take a little more time than overnight to disappear- if it ever does. We will always have books- even if they’re in the archives and 100 years old instead of the library for circulation. If the world’s new normal are reading devices that aren’t today’s “book”, libraries will just change their model and loan e-readers. Because in a world of e-readers and no printed materials, e-readers are cheap like books and we wouldn’t care if they’re lost, stolen, or smeared with jelly.

That’s the point, though, isn’t it?- libraries provide ACCESS and COMMUNITY to those who want it. And neither of those things, along with learning, are dependent on a technology, a medium, or a casing. Yes, the hundred-year stereotype of the library is “book”- but that’s just because a book was the primary source of entertainment and education for so, so long. If our current and modern conception of a “book” truly does go away, i’m not worried- I know that society will still thrive on the transmission, creation, and sharing of ideas, facts, stories, and more. And Libraries will always have a place in that world.

e- or not.

==================

Additional Readings:

Bold Prediction: Why e-books will never replace real books. Jan Swafford, Slate.
Books versus documents: what’s wrong with so-called “e-books.” Jon Stokes, ArsTechnica
Buyers of E-Books Still Like Print Too, Survey Shows. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Wall Street Journal.
Will E-Books Really Destroy Libraries?. Charlotte Abbott, Follow the Reader.
The future of libraries, with or without books. John D. Sutter, CNN
Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books: Cushing Academy embraces a digital future. David Abel, boston.com

Footnotes

*first heard at #ALA10 as said by Dr. Marie Radford

possibly related posts:

1. “the knowledge moved”
2. try again, buddy. a note on libraries and books

interesting

to see

our community’s

library usage

in 3D?

In his blog, Doug McCune shared his 3D renderings of crime stats for San Fransisco.
Seeing data in this way can help us make decisions. (Like what neighborhoods to avoid).

Seeing our library usage data could help us see where we need to market ourselves more.

Where are your library card holders?
How often do people visit your libraries?
How does the world look?

possibly related posts:

1. Book lending; Netflix style
2. September 10th: Slam the Boards Day!