Archive for the 'work' Category

this post is about food…and libraries…but mostly food

Published July 9, 2011 the profession , work 3 Comments
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I just made these cookies. Cowboy cookies courtesy of Isa Chandra Moskowitz. And the are vegan. And you bet your bottom they are good.

Vegan Cowboy Cookies

Don’t know if they are as good as the ones I made on Tuesday for a vegan friend’s birthday, but they are up there. I’ve been baking a lot lately. I love to bake for one. I especially like baking vegan goodies because people always seem so skeptical and then are always, always so amazed at how good they taste. The reality is baking is just chemistry with edible components. If you have the right ingredients to create certain chemical reactions, then you will end up with a cookie every time. That’s why the food industry can make good-tasting creations without using real food. In vegan baking (or cooking) you start with (usually) real food and then have an added bonus of cruelty-free. I’m not vegan and I have fallen from my vegetarian pedestal many times, but honestly vegan baking is just a win-win.

I also tend to bake when I’m stressed about something and this is where the library comes in. UNCG’s Chancellor announced a 15% budget cut yesterday. Terrible news for the library, the university, and for NC’s educational system. I’m not denying we could trim some fat, but we have been trimming like crazy since I became a librarian. We are also living through a few big changes in our library; some I think will be positive and others could have long term costs. We will work through the future, but no one can deny that change is stressful.

The thing I worry about for libraries, especially academic libraries, is that we tend to respond to our perceived failings and so rarely celebrate our actual successes. The reality of declining questions at the reference desk is a fact at UNCG.  But focusing on the way things used to be ignores the soaring numbers of consultations, emails, and chats that our reference librarians are receiving. And no one seems to be examine why that is happening. Why, if reference is dead, do we still see a large number of people coming to ask for our assistance on their research? What is it we are doing right?

Maybe my library happens to be staffed by outrageously smart, personable and outgoing people who just bring in the crowds. I mean it is really, but something else is going on here. We’ve had instruction class numbers through the roof. The business librarian gets a crazy number of contacts from faculty and students (around 500 a year I think). And last year I hit my high of over 250. What are we doing right? What are the ingredients that make us still be part of the research process?

These are ongoing questions for me and I haven’t figured them out obviously. Maybe someday I should do a study. If you have ideas, leave them here. I’d love to hear them.

In the meantime, back to some vegan baking.

Help! I’ve got govdocs dust in my eye!

Published March 24, 2011 outreach , work Leave a Comment
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I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian…

My apologies to anyone who has used this title before, but well, you know, creativity and all that. Anyway, the NCLA’s Government Resources Section is trying out a webinar series starting in April and (fingers-crossed) having one once a month through the summer. Upcoming topics will include law, Economic Census, and lots more (maybe even military history??). I’ve opened this up to anyone hoping that our Elluminate software can manage it. Hope you can join us! It is a great prof dev opportunity to put on the pesky annual report.

Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions (or concerns). We can commiserate over a froyo.

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian…

For many reference staff, even those with years of reference experience, integrating government information into our ‘reference toolkit’ can be a daunting prospect.  The proliferation of electronic government information means that reference staff will be expected to have knowledge of government information that was previously largely the purview of government documents staff.

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

Our first session, “The Basics,” provides a general, basic overview of government information as it pertains to reference work.  What types of information flow from the three branches of government that are important to your patrons?  What major portals are most useful for finding U.S. Government information? What types of government statistics are available and how can they be found?  What basic knowledge do I need to effectively locate government information?

The introductory session will be followed over the next few months by more specialized government information sessions on congressional materials, legal materials, government information for business, statistical resources, historical/genealogical resources, science, state-level information, and more.

Leader for the first session, “The Basics,” will be Bryna Coonin, M.L.I.S, M.B.A.  Bryna served as a graduate student at UNC Libraries in the mid-1980’s for the late Ridley Kessler. She has worked as a reference librarian at the University of Georgia, NC State University, and is currently at Joyner Library, East Carolina University (ECU).  Bryna taught basic reference for the School of Information & Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill and basic reference and government documents courses for the graduate library school program at ECU. A longtime member of NCLA, she has chaired both the Reference & Adult Services Section (RASS) and the Government Resources Section (GRS).

We will meet together for Session #1: The Basics, online on Thursday, April 14, 2011 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Please RSVP for the Session #1 by April 13: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session1

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software. The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page at http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources .

Teaching time management

Published March 9, 2011 teaching , work Leave a Comment
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I made a huge confession in the time management workshops I taught this past week. Something only a few loved ones know.

I read time management books. Yes, yes, it is crazy. And, yes, yes, they are not well-written generally. It is a self-help sub-genre that can scrape the bottom of the prose barrel. However, at one point in life I was particularly overwhelmed and I picked up my first time management book. And I kept reading.

I enjoy comparing the simple or complex or, frankly, bizarre systems people come up with and then try to market into time management empires. I love it when an author argues that the type of tool you use for time management doesn’t really matter, that what matters is how you use it. Then a year later you see on the shelves a planner or datebook from the same author marked at an inflated price because, of course, his calendar has a special touch! But I digress.

Because I’ve read a lot of time management books and because I’m seen as having good time management skills, I was asked to teach a workshop for our library staff. The ironic part about teaching this class is that I am a huge procrastinator. If you ask my mom about my time management skills, she would probably scoff and say, “Yeah. She manages time…up until the last minute!” Well, she wouldn’t be mean, but she is right. I procrastinate.

So, in reading time management books I’ve learned a few tricks to keep from procrastinating. And really, that’s what time management is about — learning a few tricks to fool yourself into better managing your tasks or your calendar or getting started on projects. When it comes down to your daily life, it doesn’t matter which system you choose for time management as long as you choose the one or parts of the ones that work for you. Think of it like a time management buffet. I like some principles of Getting Things Done by David Allen, but Julie Morgenstern has an interesting approach to thinking about time as space and estimating how long tasks take. For finishing tasks, the Pomodoro Technique is powerful. And then others like the Zen to Done approach that focuses on the three main tasks of the day.

Where people get lost with time management (myself included) is when they start focusing on tools and not techniques. I love trying out a new tool and I’m a big nerd for office supplies, but at some point you have to realize that tool-hopping is productivity porn and not productivity. The tool obsession hit home for me when I wrote a blog post about Evernote. This one post had 1,700 hits in one day (mostly thanks to Evernote tweeting it) and is continually hit by random people every single day. People seem to find it useful. Why? Because they are searching for a tool that will be the magic bullet, and Evernote is close to it, but only if you have an idea of how you can use it productively.

In designing a workshop on time management, I didn’t want to focus on tools because there are plenty to discover and many descriptions of how to use them. What we need to teach are the techniques. How do we think about time and tasks and managing all of it? What are the approaches that are deceptively simple but have tremendous power? I use the project planning activity in GTD (outlined on the slides) all the time and find it to be helpful. I think it has particular application to teaching students how to do research (more on that to come.)

Time management isn’t something you are born with. I didn’t come out of the womb a good time manager. Time management is like writing and critical reading in that these are skills that can be learned. Some people are more attuned to time and some may have an unmistakable talent. But the actual skills of managing time, tasks, and projects can be made a habit, and then you can focus on the most important part … doing!

the girl down at the library is so funny…

Published January 8, 2011 work , writing 1 Comment
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I’m back. I haven’t posted in a while simply because I couldn’t. I had neither the time nor the words. Now we’ve hit 2011 and I have to decide whether it is worth keeping this blog. I will have more time to write this year and some really awesome things are coming up in libraryland (and lyndaland). I like to write and a few people seem to read it, so why not. In the words of the Everybodyfields, it’s so good to be home…

As for a quick 2010 recap, here’s the newsflash.

  • I got married, bought a house, and moved. While our house rocks and the wedding was tremendous fun, those activities take up a ridiculous amount of time. Not doing them again anytime soon.
  • In 2009 I was contracted to write a book with my friend Katharin Peter introducing non-data librarians to the wild wonderful world of data reference and data instruction. As you can imagine, this project took up much of  2010. The book will be published in March 2011, so if you are curious look for it in your local academic library (hopefully). Since finishing this book in October (although I’m still working on the index), I haven’t had much interest in writing anything, even piddly little blog posts. Mostly I just wanted to sleep. I seem to have gotten over that, but I have promised myself I will never again agree to a book project. Let’s see how long that promise lasts.
  • I had some major swings in liking or disliking instruction in the fall. Some classes, especially with upper-level and graduate students, were kick ass. A couple were the most depressing and distressing experiences of my young life. (Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration). A goal for spring is to concentrate on mixing things up more in my lower-level political science sessions. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to rethink the same boring stuff I’ve been doing forever and I’m starting to bore myself. Wish me luck on this one.
  • Libguides were introduced and I am in love. They are easy to use, accessible from anywhere, and do really cool things. When we first started with them, I thought I might move away from creating guides for each course. It hasn’t happened yet because I really like embedding my instruction activities into the webguide. I asked polisigh students what they think and only heard positive comments. So, I think this was a success and have to thank Amy Harris and Jenny Dale for getting our library to buy them.
  • Research consultations are the new black. OMG, I’m so not kidding. I’ve always kept good track of my consults, emails, chats, etc (because I’m an ocd data librarian), but my 2010 goal was to document fully my personal research/reference interactions. And, lordy, it has been through the roof. Certainly I’ve not had as many as our business librarian. Still to go from 1 personal chat in spring 2010 to 8 in fall 2010 is awesome!  And those were just the chats I actually picked up (I had a few at 2am on days I forgot to turn off my chat client, but I don’t count those). Also a good number of political science students feel very comfortable just walking into my office and asking “quick questions”.
  • Traveling is fun and I traveled a lot (for me) in 2010. ALA midwinter, ALA annual, computers in libraries, IASSIST were the main conferences I attended. My data conference, IASSIST, was fabulous and informative as always. The ALA conferences were also good for networking and stepping out of the academic library world. I developed my own skills through the Emerging Leaders Program and its projects. I couldn’t justify going every time though because I had difficulty seeing how attendance would directly help my users and my position. But, this may be a side affect of burn out more than anything else :) After a year of relatively little travel (2011), I’ll probably be itching for more in 2012.
  • What does in-house librarianship mean to me? Well, I’m still figuring it out, but I’ve been working on a pilot program where I serve as the “in-house librarian” for our Warren Ashby Residential College. In the fall this meant holding office hours (rarely attended) and working with the faculty in the college (more productive). I also trained a student who lives in the dorm to work with library resources. In  the spring we are going to develop the program a bit more by putting my information in all of the ARC syllabi, doing short presentations, and giving a full library instruction session in at least one class. I also realized we were missing a bit of the virtual aspects of “in-house librarianship” and created a libguide just for ARC students. If the polisigh students are willing to ask questions through chat, then maybe the ARC students would be up for it. More to come soon I am sure.

Beyond committee work and all the other usual things, this was my 2010. Some exciting things are coming up for 2011: the book’s publication, a chapter in the works, IASSIST in Vancouver, some new instruction sessions on the books, and the development of our in-house librarian program.  Let’s see where the road takes us…

In-house librarian

Published August 21, 2010 outreach , work 4 Comments
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In-House Librarian is my de facto new title (in addition to Data Services Librarian). For now, it is still informal, someone used it and it stuck, but it works. So, what’s the story behind the new title? Read on…

The past two years I have been the library liaison to the oldest residential college in NC, the Warren Ashby Residential College (ARC). I volunteered because Ashby is a fun place, and the students are intelligent and engaged. Plus I took classes there when I was an undergraduate and spent countless hours with the Fousters. I was never an official student–I was a commuter and didn’t take the core classes–but it was a home away from my parent’s home many times. The ARC borrows from Oxford and Cambridge where students take classes with each other in the hall where they live. Also, like the U Michigan model, these students participate in the governance of the hall.

So, I became the library liaison when the library started appointing liaisons to student groups. Mostly the liaisons serve as contacts for library services; we send email announcements for game nights, etc. We will also sometimes give presentations. At least this was the mode for the past two years.

Then, ARC got a new director. She wanted to explore ways to intensify the research focus on the college and to provide more in-house support to the students. A few of us from reference had a brainstorming session with her where we came up with some ideas: 1) librarian office hours in the college; 2) training a res college student to be a “first responder” for research needs; and 3) in-house faculty training on info lit principles.

So, I became the In-House Librarian for ARC. The director considers me part of the team, and I have been participating in staff meetings and the orientation events. I will have office hours two hours a week in the early part of the semester with four to five during exam periods. I am going to train an ARC student to be another support person for library services and resources. She won’t be expected to provide research help, but to point students in the right directions. I’ll also be the point person for ARC faculty who want to incorporate library research.

I’m excited about the possibilities for this new role as it is embedded librarianship at its most extreme. I hope the students and even the faculty benefit from it. Plus, it demonstrates a real innovative touch for the library to participate in this. Admittedly I have been a bit worried about the time I will need to spend only on this project. My supervisor gave me a release from some reference desk hours, which will help quite a bit. And everyone in reference has been supportive. We talked about having a rotating cast of librarians for the office hours, but I doubt the students would respond well, especially at a place like ARC where the students are accustomed to working with a small group of faculty. Ultimately though it is a grand experiment–perfect for a place that used to be called the “Experimental College”, and I am thrilled to be doing this.

More to come soon!

How do I love Evernote? Let me count the ways…

Published February 12, 2010 work 23 Comments
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evernote

My evernote set up

My friends know I’m a big Evernote geek, and one of them recently asked me about my use of it. She actually introduced me to the company, but it is always helpful to have another person’s perspective on integrating a tool into your life.

If you don’t know Evernote, be sure to give it a try. It is a note taking tool on the surface, somewhat like Microsoft’s OneNote. The big difference is that you can use it on multiple devices (like iPhone, PC, Blackberry). The company has gotten a lot of attention lately (and hype), but honestly it is deserved. I have tremendous respect for this company and think they deliver a solid product. Admittedly though it can take a while to get used to it and make it your own.

So, in the interest of sharing, below are some of the ways I use Evernote. These are written for someone at least somewhat familiar with the layout. And then, for fun, the top 10 reasons I love Evernote.

1. I use the inbox as a staging ground for other notebooks. Like if I have a meeting, I’ll take notes in a note in the inbox. Then after the meeting and after I’ve gotten the to do’s off, I’ll take the note and put it in the appropriate folder and tag it as necessary.

2. I’ve created “temp” folders for big active projects (like ala midwinter or our upcoming wedding). Once a project is finished I tag the notes, merge them altogether into one, and throw them into my Reference notebook.

3. I have a work reference and a personal reference notebook so that my past projects at work are separate from my gift ideas.

4. I create a committee folder which includes notes from all of my committees (university, library or professional). I tag the heck out of those notes so I can create pseudo-subfolders. For example, any notes I take from a reference department meeting, I throw in the committee notebook and tag with reference mtng. If I want to reference anything, I can click on the notebook and then click on the reference mtng tag. Or I can search for notes with that tag (see image).

Reference Meeting Notes

5. I email into Evernote any supporting documents for my committee meetings (which is why I went premium) and then merge the files and use content tags. For example, for a reference department meeting on information literacy assessment, I tag it “reference mtng” and “infolit assess”. This way I can get back to the info lit stuff without having to remember at which reference meeting it was discussed.

6. I nest tags. I have a committee tag that includes acronyms for all of my committees. That way I’m not hunting though a long list of tags. I did the same for all of the classes I teach using the main tag as .instruction and then the subtags for each class (psc 260, eng 101 etc.).

You can nest tags by dragging one tag and dropping it on another tag. At least this is true for Mac and for the Web versions. I can’t recall for the Windows version. It is a handy little hidden feature.

7. I have a reference questions folder for the complex questions I am currently working on. I create a note with the person’s name and the date and then throw in any documents, URLs, whatever. I can also use it to take notes, keep their contact info, and then refer back to it all later. VERY HELPFUL!!

Those are the main tips I gave. Now. What do I love most about Evernote?
1. Fun geeky podcasts and yes, I listen to them.

2. You can clip screen shots. I’ve found this most helpful for comparison shopping on the web. If I comparison shop, then I might buy something, which is good for the economy. Therefore Evernote should get a stimulus grant. How’s that logic for you?

3. If you have a iPhone-like phone (ie, not mine), you can take pics in Evernote and then include them in your collection. If you are not so lucky, like me, you can still email pics to Evernote. They give an example on their blog of using the snapshot function to create a picture collection of your favorite wines. I did this just for kicks one night, and it really came in handy when I returned to the store and couldn’t remember the name of that cheap but bearable wine.

4. The company is responsive and adaptable. They don’t just make a product for the Mac or just for the iPhone. They have created versions for Pre, Pixi, Droid, Blackberry, as well as a mobile site. You have to appreciate that. They also have a huge audience of geeks on their forum that like to give advice on using the software.

5. I can access it from any of my computers, the web, or my phone and then sync across those devices. Def a huge reason to luv.

6. Tagging is fun. Nested tags are double the fun.

7. It keeps me from being a grumpy girl because I can forward emails from our awful email system. The less time I spend in LotusNotes, the more likely I am to smile at you. True story.

8. Anything is better than anything Microsoft produces (ie, OneNote).

9. Even the free version allows a ton of uploads. The monthly allowance for free users is 40 MB.

10. The elephant logo gives remember the milk’s bob t. monkey a run for his money.

Do you use Evernote? What tips do you have?

Library Instruction Marathon: Debriefing

Published September 13, 2009 the profession , work Leave a Comment
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It’s funny that I feel like I’m finished with library instruction sessions this semester when I have around 15 more classes. The difference? The upcoming classes are English 101s and University Studies tours. The tours require no preparation (beyond a big smile and raging enthusiasm) and English 101s need minimum prep. English 101 sessions needing lots of prep are usually (though not always) the result of poorly written assignments.

Side note to all English instructors out there: if you are going to require a research assignment, make sure it can actually be done. For example, don’t limit your students to print sources only and disallow electronic equivalents for a contemporary novel that was written five years ago. They will just hate you, period. And they should because it’s a dumb assignment. If you want them to come into the library, require that they come into the library to do something that makes sense and is useful.

OK, off the soap box.

So, I’m done with my political science sessions. I may have a stray one come up later in the semester, but the bulk of the sessions are over. They went well, but I can’t help feeling like the students were short-changed in a couple of the sessions. The upper-level political science classes seldom have prerequisites because the department needs the bodies for enrollment, and I spend a good deal of time making sure everyone is up to speed on the basics of searching. I’ve tried to skip over basic Boolean searching only to realize while walking around the class that many of them don’t know how to do basic searching. Do I ignore the poor souls who have never had an intro library instruction class?

On average I save about 10 minutes at the end of each class for the students who could benefit from being pushed or challenged in their research. But, that is about it. I rarely get time to do justice to my specialty areas of data and government information, which honestly would be a lot more interesting for me to teach and them to learn. Of course they can always come visit with me (and oh, so many do), but they have to take the initiative and time out of their busy days to stop by the library. Plus each consultation lasts on average 30 minutes. In the spring semester I had over 40 poli sci consultations alone, plus around 25 data and 25 government information. That’s over 45 hours spent with individual people. Over a week of one semester was spent with one-on-one consultations. That doesn’t seem like a big deal in this profession, but I can’t help wondering how many of those poli sci questions could have been dealt with in the classroom setting if I had simply had the time.

More and more I wish we could teach discipline focused research classes. Poli Sci, as most other disciplines, has a research methods course, but it is focused on quantitative methods. To supplement that I would like to see a research methods class focused on research strategies within the discipline. Wake Forest University has created LIB 200 research courses that focus on research in a larger disciplinary area like social sciences or humanities. Each week features a different discipline within the social sciences and its special concerns (so, NGO research in the poli sci week). The primary point is to teach students studying in social sciences disciplines about the unique needs and characteristics of social science research. I love this class especially because the poli sci majors are required to learn a bit about research in economics or anthropology thereby supporting the liberal arts purpose of general education requirements. But it does the gen ed thing in a way that is focused and makes sense (as opposed to taking random classes simply because it fits your schedule).

I’m sure these classes have their own challenges, but I for one am a HUGE fan. Sadly, we would have difficulty implementing them at my school because of our size. Most subject librarians would need to commit to teaching a semester long class and I don’t see that happening. But, I see plenty of proposals going through the Undergraduate Curriculum committee every semester that pay much less attention to the actual needs of students. A course like this would be relatively easy to justify. If we had library-wide support, I don’t see why we couldn’t do it. As staffing shifts at UNCG, we may see some changes in the way research instruction is handled. Will this be one change? I certainly hope so, but we will see.

Do you have ideas for discipline integrated instruction? How does your school go beyond basic information literacy initiatives to support disciplinary literacy initiatives? At UNCG we teach to specific assignments as a form of “curriculum-integrated instruction,” but is that enough? The embedded librarian approach may be the future, but how do you fully embed in multiple classes in a high research department (like political science and others)?

T.S. Eliot was dead wrong

Published August 28, 2009 the profession , work 1 Comment
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August is the cruellest month. And September is a close second. At least in academic libraryland. But enough with butchering lines of poetry for my own purposes. That’s not why I came here today.

I came here because my personal blog is now becoming sporadic just like everything else. The past two weeks have been a study in infrequency with sporadic writing sessions, sporadic meetings, sporadic sleeping, sporadic meals. I can’t even seem to finish reading a blog post. I can’t complain really because the masochist in me loves the chaotic periods, but it is a bit overwhelming to go from a quiet lazy summer day in the library to a sudden onslaught of people, meetings, work, and stress.

And of course teaching. Next week I will be teaching nine classes, three introductory tours (piece o’ cake) and six upper-level political science classes. The “Lynda” students encounter on the tours is usually a different “Lynda” from the one political science students get. The tour version of me is some annoyingly enthusiastic doppelganger that I often don’t recognize. Actually, the real me would probably want to smack around the “tour version” of me. The political science students get the me that has had to do the exact same assignments and conduct the exact same research to get the exact same degree. They get the authentic me, I guess. They are the reason I stayed in academia after all.

In college I aspired to be a teacher, not of high school students, but at the college level. I blame bell hooks and her book Teaching to Transgress for inciting such madness. I went to a PhD program in political science because I wanted to teach. Three years later I realized that I had made a huge mistake. I had taught twice–I was a Teaching Assistant! after all–and I knew absolutely NOTHING about teaching. Zero. Later when I entered library school I was a rare LIS student who took a class in library instruction and information literacy where I learned about learning styles and educational theories. I practiced with my peers and spent time observing others. It was the most training I have ever received in instruction. I was also amazed how much time librarians spend talking and writing about teaching compared to the “teaching faculty.” Now entering into my third year in my position I spend a good deal of my time with instruction—large groups, small groups, one-on-one. My path was definitely circuitous but I finally got here.

Staying with the theme of randomness, this blog post has no overarching point except to say that I love teaching. And I was thrilled to see that the latest post on In the Library with the Lead Pipe was about teaching. Carrie Donovan’s Sense of self: Embracing your teacher identity is like a mini call to arms for all the academic librarians out there about to start the fall semester. She makes the case for authenticity in our teaching by “[p]utting away the “persona” of teacher and disclosing more of the personal.” While this is so hard to do in our one-shot sessions, I definitely take home her point.

When I first started teaching library instruction sessions, I would write out full sentences for every portion of the session (I didn’t read it, thank goodness). I would have the exact details of every search I would conduct, knew what search terms would be successful and pick out the exact citation for discussion. The students would see a polished example of research without failure. I was the embodiment of A BIG FAT LIE. Period.

Research is messy and iterative and at times frustrating. Sometimes you are successful and sometimes the databases conspire against you. But once you start seeing the patterns—in the names, in the ideas—it becomes euphoric. I remember the first time I conducted real research in college and hit that moment of connection. I was researching air pollution regulation in Central Europe and read everything I could find. I was sitting in my bedroom floor with all of this stuff spread out around me when I realized that I finally got it, that I was capable of creating something interesting (if not groundbreaking) from all of that research. I love to see my political science students enter that space with their work. And I love that I might be able to serve as a guide on their journey. It is rare, but it makes the stress and the cruelty of August (and September) so very worth it.

Required Reading: Marketing Today’s Academic Library

Published August 7, 2009 outreach , the profession , work 2 Comments
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After reading a College and Research Libraries News blurb about Brian Mathews, the author of Marketing Today’s Academic Library, I began to see his name all over the blogosphere. I decided it was fate and I needed to read his book. Admittedly I didn’t start reading with much enthusiasm (because the topic has plenty of coverage in libraryland), but this book is a fantastic guide to understanding basic marketing principles and should be required reading for anyone involved in library marketing efforts.

I knew I would like the guy after reading his description of “becoming ubiquitous”. As a support institution for the academic life of our students we focus so intensely on courses and assignments and lose sight of the larger institution and its life. He argues that we need to engage with the lives of our students to communicate with them effectively.

I can appreciate such an argument because I have a unique relationship with my institution. I was an undergraduate in the 1990s; later I got a job as a staff member and entered graduate school. After grad school I became a faculty member. I have been on this campus over ten years. I know the university and its challenges very well. While knowing the campus too well can have drawbacks, I’m often dismayed by the lack of campus awareness in my library. In many ways this is what Mathews is arguing for—engagement with our communities rather than just attempts to sell ourselves to the communities.

The challenge is that engaging with the community requires a lot of commitment, work, and creativity. It isn’t as simple as throwing out a new bookmark or flyer geared “for the undergraduates”. Luckily Mathews’ book provides excellent guidance for understanding our student populations and planning a user focused marketing campaign. He also provides great examples and recommendations throughout. Also I was really happy to see the chapter “Measuring Your Impact”. He gives concrete advice for the admittedly difficult part—evaluating your efforts. For example he suggests response based marketing—asking users to visit a website for “more information” – as a simple measure of a campaign’s impact. The key consideration is that he suggests multiple approaches for assessment rather than relying on one old stand-by.

One challenge for me is that a few of his examples rely on a particular understanding of the organization of the library. In his library (assumedly modeled on Georgia Tech), there are “fun” collections such as movies and music CDs. There are also video cameras, coffee shops, and much more. At my university the movies and rental video cams are housed in the Teaching and Learning Center, a separate entity from the library. The Music Library has music CDs but they are not in a browsable collection and students need special permission to take them out of the building. We have a fun reading collection that I certainly love, but I’m a geek who likes books. Needless to say we don’t have an in-house coffee shop. While this is a minor point, it may take a bit of creative thinking to relate some of his examples to your own particular setting. Just don’t get demoralized trying to live up to (what sounds like) the coolest library ever.

Additionally a committee approach to implementing his ideas would be effective but everyone would need to be on the same page (and preferably familiar with the book). I tried to convey some of his arguments in my marketing committee meeting, but it is difficult to describe his approach to people who haven’t read it. I would encourage any marketing committee to read this book as a group and have a giant brainstorming session afterwards (Brian can thank me for increasing his circulation numbers). Seriously, it would be worth the time. And considering it is a short and fun read, it won’t require a lot of effort!

Have you read Marketing Today’s Academic Library? If so, what did you think? What ideas do you have for library marketing?

Friday = Summertime Blues

Published July 31, 2009 the profession , work Leave a Comment
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#librarydayinthelife
I am participating in the Library Day in the Life project. Join us! It’s painless. Me = Data Services and Government Information Librarian.

Arrival at 9:00 am, but wishing I could have taken the day off. Oh well! Emails, vmails, rss are the usual starting points.
9:30 am: Started brushing up on some statistics. T test anybody?
10:30 am: Spent some time trying track down the library’s video camera that a LIS student was supposed to use for interviews with our library liaisons. Found it in the DE librarian’s desk (with her permission of course). There goes that half hour. I was actually hoping I couldn’t find it so I wouldn’t have to do an interview today :) That’s what I get for efficiency.
11:00 am: Early lunch because of filming: Amy at noon and me at 1:00 pm.
12:00 pm: Sent off emergency email to the NCLA Government Resources Section board about changing our sessions. I’m ready for the conference to start. No changes can be made then!
12:15 pm: The student came early to film. It went fine, but you never can tell when filming the Lynda. We want to use these short segments as videos for our subject guide welcome pages. Good stuff. Glad I have the rest of the afternoon to myself though.
12:30 pm: Started working on my reappointment package. Sigh. Not looking forward to it, but need to just get it done! Decided to work on it for exactly an hour and no more!
1:30 pm: Wanted to work on something easy so switched to updating the user guide for our Blackboard integration project. Listened to the latest Evernote podcast while working on it. I love Evernote. Love it. Big thanks to Lauren Pressley for showing it to me back a year ago.
2:30 pm: Met with Beth, my co-presenter from the Creative Commons workshop. We created a short evaluation through Google forms and sent it out to the group. The difficult part was remembering who was in the session.
3:30 pm: Met with Amy (impromptu) and talked about creating a pre & post-test that could be launched in a wide variety of classes. Now we acquire qualitative data that requires quite a bit of work. I’d like to see something a bit easier.
4:00 pm: Started reading articles for a writing project as the rain starts to fall. This will end out my day.

Here is to the end of July. Because August is usually just preparation for the semester, I’m considering summer officially over. So, the theme song for today is Summertime Blues by The Who.

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