Speaking at WISCNET conference

That was fun.

Wiscnet are the people who run the non-commercial side of the Internet in Wisconsin, that is the Un iversities, K-12, libraries.  The main focus of the conference was broadband and more broadband. I’m in favor of that myself. We have a double T-1 now and know that that will not be enough in the future. The Northern Tier (Internet in Wis, MN, IA, ND, SD) is near completion  (at least the Wisconsin Minnesota part) and that will have a big unseen impact. Extra large fiber from Chicago to Madison, Eau Claire and Twin Cities. Madison is what matters to us, since our feeder lines run from there. This is so fast and secure that something in Chicago will be much like something on our LAN.

Star of the show – Chris Lehman, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Dynamic and sensible. Old school (yeh Dewey) and pushing the edge. Loves tech, but no techno-lust. Tech is a means, not an end. Anyone who focuses on first priciples, mission  and what works is a neo-traditionalist.

Second star – the Monona Terrace. Beautiful facility. Great view. Love visiting Madcity, just wouldn’t like to work/live there.  Excellent food. Nice meeting rooms. Was there previously to hear my bro Tom (www.thomaspmbarnett.com) speak. Much better when you don’t have to perform.

My piece was small. Only public librarian to talk, almost the only one there. Spent an hour nattering about using Google Maps, Flickr and Print on Demand to re-purpose some of our historical content to a respectable crowd of 26. Program available though I will add narration when I have time. Love the sound of my own voice?

For me the best part is POD, which changes a lot of things. Short runs of items are financially possible. In fact, I could publish as few as two copies of a 100 page book, color cover, perfect bound for about $15 total (counting shipping).  It takes vanity publishing to a whole new level. It makes it possible to publish something for your family or friends, to get extra copies of your thesis, you name it. Lotsa classroom applications. Let your kids write, take photos, draw and then publish it for under $5.00 per copy? Color costs more of course,  but still!

So, happy to have been invited. Now I have a staff development day to work on, a system wide planning session to participate in, a healthly living program (got a free pedometer!!) to walk through and , oh yes, I rolled double nickles this week. Sing it Sammy—I – can’t – be —–55!!!!!!!!

Long time no post

Well, this bog is focused on  two things, my work in libraries and what I am reading and can recommend. As I have noted before  my political writing takes place at Kos and religious comments over at Street Prophets.

So have I been slacking off? Nope. Here’s what I’ve been writing on libraries, all posted at McMillan Memorial Library:

Connecting with Friends and Family
A presentation covering email. instant messaging, VOIP, video email and video calls, including Tokbox and Skype.  Though general in nature, this program can be easily adapted for use with military families. Put this together when we added webcams. We needed to have a training session and this is the outline for it.

Creating Google Map mashups.

A brief look at how McMillan created four different Google Map mashups. I put together four different projects using Google Maps and the Library’s existing digital content. Here’s the how-to.

Wood County cemetery map

McMillan’s Google Maps mashup of the cemeteries of Wood County. Here’s one of the products, a map of the location of the sixty plus cemeteries in Wood County, Wisconsin.

Webcams @ McMillan
In March 2009, the Library added public webcams. We use both Skype and Tokbox to provide video messaging and email. This covers the how-to, including what equipment we used, what it cost and what our policies are.

I have been a slacker about posting book reviews, so I try and catch up.

PLa Conference in Minneapolis (2)

One of the programs I have now seen at least three times is Karen Hyman’s on Reinventing the Library.  I am normally skittish about “re-invention”, because I feel strongly about the mission of the public library and don’t think very highly of efforts by the likes of Steve Coffman to re-invent it. A re-invented wheel could roll better or it might be square. The way to tell the difference it to see it it still fulfills its mission. Too often, re-invented libraries are square wheels.

This is not true of Hyman’s presentations. They can be a bit of a slap across the face, in a good Zen way. Some of her best bits were in a section on the dangers of “active Inertia.”

[Organizations can] fall prey to active inertia — responding to even the most disruptive market shifts by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past. When the world changes, organizations trapped in active inertia do more of the same.  … To avoid active inertia, you can forget about…  “Best practices” i.e. things that possibly worked somewhere else last year.   The traditional long range plan with action steps i.e. things that might be good ideas if this year was like last year and next year was like this year.

This is based on the writings of Donald Sull, like Porter, someone who appears in Harvard Business Review. Damn, I have to get back to scanning articles there.

This ties back to the difference between operational and strategic. If you are in a hole, operational thinking asks how to make the hole deeper, wider and more comfortable. Strategic thinking asks about maybe getting out. (Note to GW Bush and friends)

Another takeaway is that every library is a destination / experience library, some just care about the experience people have when they arrive. Can  we be rude to a cute 9 year old – certainly, without thinking twice. If we are concerned about hospitality, we would need to change a lot of things.

One approach she and several other speakers mentioned is “zoning”, having a variety of spaces with differing rulesets, some loud gathering spaces, some quiet study spots, places for children and families, areas for adults to look at books. I think we “get” this at McMillan, but have it about half implemented. I’ll stop here since I have a dinner to cook and you can see the handout at the link above, which includes Hyman’s contact information.

CIP on the Moon – comments

CIP on the moon -By John Celli — netConnect, 1/15/2008

I often blow through the Net Connect part of Library Journal. I am not alone in that. I am probably the only person at my library who pays any attention to it at all.  Too much Library 2.0 and other hooey. But Celli caught my attention. Not only does he quote the Boston Trustees, he also cites Michael Porter, another favorite of mine and a seminal source for my writing.

Here is why this article matters:

“Improving operational effectiveness is a necessary part of management,” Michael Porter notes in On Competition (Harvard Business Sch., 1998), “but it is not strategy.”

A company’s history, Porter suggests, can also help to revitalize its strategy. “What was the vision of the founder? What were the products and customers that made the company?” he reminds us to ask. In his History of Libraries in the Western World (Scarecrow Pr., 1984), Michael Harris identifies a passage in the 1852 Trustees Report of the Boston Public Library that articulates, “perhaps better than any document before or since, the ideal conception of public library service”:

As Porter says elsewhere, technology is not only not a strategy, it isn’t even a competitive advantage.

Now that I am bumping up against just copying the article, time for some comments.

It is great to improve operational effectiveness and that is the function of good management. Keeping the basis of your business/ operations in mind and using it to guide the operations is leadership and strategy. Librarians, being a passive/aggressive profession, make decent managers, but few aspire to leadership. We love to tweak libraries and make them better, but there is a serious resistance to looking under the hood and seeing just what it is we actually are doing for a living. Library history is made even more boring than is needs to be and it isn’t thrilling reading. But without it, we lose sight of why libraries exist. As this article suggests, it is not the containers (books), but the content. Celli may not have all the answers, but he is asking the right questions. Bravo!

Another recent article in a non-library source asked if libraries could be started today and what justification could they use in requesting public funding. The only answer is: the same rationale that was used the first time.  Public education for citizens is the only answer that has any traction. Not as a middle class entitlement, not as some legacy institution. Certainly not as a First Amendment institution.

I was heartened to see mission emphasized in several programs at the 2008 PLA. Too many programs focus on how rather than why. It is great to see how someone displays materials or designs cool spaces, but why are those spaces designed that way, why does display matter. Why do we talk so little about the contents of our libraries? No matter how much content a library has, how much on-line access it facilitates, how much it displays, if the content isn’t first rate, you are reduced to selling sizzle when you are charged with providing steak. Thus we can circle back to mission, serving the local community and making the world a better place. To do less is to be less than managers – just bureaucrats.

Public Library Association in Minneapolis (1)

I now interrupt my tour of the Boston Trustees for a series of comments of the 2008 Public Library Association conference in Minneapolis.

For a start I will mention one of the highlights and a slight disappointment. The most energizing program I attended was presented by Greg Buss, the director of Richmond Public Library (BC). They generously keep their presentations on their website under About Us.

Now, my library (like many others) has used Richmond as a test bed for the last decade. They try things out and after we can see that they work, we adapt them to our situation.  We went self check after seeing how they did it, though we also owe a debt to Waukesha Public Library, who provided  a more local example. We have moved to display areas, also following their example. While we did not get any amazing new ideas from them this time, Buss did remind us of our goals and that sparked what I hope will be a new wave of innovation. His presentation may be the focus of our next staff training day.  He also echoed our main thesis – that you do all this to become a great library. Not a great bookstore, not an excellent retail establishment. No innovation should be planned without seeing that it serves the library’s mission – otherwise why bother. All this is also in line with my favorite Chesterton quote. I won’t repeat it, though you can find it in my book under Chesterton.

I was disappointed in the virtual conference – not in the content, but in the participation. I was granted permission to host a virtual Talk Table. Now I hosted a non-virtual Talk Table in Seattle four years ago and found it enlightening. It is helpful to get all your ducks in a row, think things through and put it on paper. My topic this time was about how we slowly evolved into a more displayed oriented library, especially small steps that can be taken to start on the road to where Richmond PL already is. I was quite pleased with the presentation, which was narrated /recorded PowerPoint, a format I hadn’t attempted before. But in the event, it seems that none of the Talk Tables generated much discussion. They also seemed hard to find and poorly linked from the main conference. Since they required registration (and a fee), I can’t link to it, though I may post it here later.

It’s too bad about the Talk Tables, since one of them was very relevant to us. It concerned coffee and tea service in a library, something that we have had a problem with. We simply do not have enough traffic for it to make financial sense. The start of the presentation made it clear though – if you are doing coffee/tea/food service, you must do it to support the mission of your institution. You can’t do it to make money, to be an entrepreneur or to show off. It has to make sense as a portion of your service or you shouldn’t spend any of your time on it.

As I write up my notes, I will be posting them here

Report of the Boston Trustees and comments (2)

The Trustees of the public library, in compliance with the order of the two branches of the City Council, submit the following report on the objects to be attained by the establishment of a public library and the best mode of effecting them : –

Comment: From the start libraries depended upon both the executive (mayor in this case) and the legislative (city council).

Of all human arts that of writing, as it was one of the earliest invented, is also one of the most important. Perhaps it would be safe to pronounce it, without exception the most useful and important. It is the great medium of communication between mind and mind, as respects different individuals, countries, and periods of time. We know from history that only those portions of the human family have made any considerable and permanent progress in civilization, which have possessed and used this great instrument of improvement.

Comment: Writing seems to be connected to the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculture. Where agriculture started, there also arose writing. This is true even in Mesoamerica, which seems to have developed its own form of agriculture independently from the Eurasian tradition. This is not to disparage the value of orals traditions, but to recognize their limitations. Writing is a very powerful tool. Trade and government are limited without it (though the Native Americans had impressive trade routes and systems of governance).

It is principally in the form of books that the art of writing, though useful in many other ways, has exerted its influence on human progress. It is almost exclusively by books that a permanent record has been made of word and deed, of thought and feeling; that history, philosophy and poetry, that literature and science in their full comprehension, have been called into being, by the co-operation of intellects acting in concert with each other, though living in different countries and at different periods, and often using different languages.

Comment: Books (the codex) date to about 0 CE, with scrolls and tablets being common before that. Since Caesar’s works, the Jewish Scriptures, and what remains of Classic Greek culture were composed on scrolls, it is hard to just pass them over. Books were a major change. It was much more than just convenience (one book instead of ten scrolls). Books are sturdier and less damaged by use. They replaced scrolls more completely than CDs have replaced vinyl.

Till the middle of the fifteenth century of our era, it was literally the art of writing by which these effects were produced. No means of multiplying books was known but the tedious process of transcription. This of course rendered them comparatively scarce and dear, and thus greatly limited their usefulness. It was a chief cause also of the loss of some of the most valuable literary productions. However much this loss may be regretted, we cannot but reflect with wonder and gratitude on the number of invaluable works which have been handed down to us from antiquity, notwithstanding the cost and labor attending their multiplication.

Comment: Transcription also meant that works were, in effect, continuously edited. The Bible took quite a while to assume its final form. Many of the earliest physical texts lack familiar portions. Later transcribers added explanations and glosses, since the original context was being lost. In the case of early texts, the oldest physical texts are centuries later than the actual composition. It is simply not possible to recover the original text. Despite this problem, books have brought texts down to us in remarkably fine form. The Bible, the Greeks and others are as we have known them for centuries, with few alterations.

The same cause would necessarily operate to some extent against the formation of public and private libraries. Still however, valuable collections of books were made in all the cultivated states of antiquity, both by governments and individuals. The library formed by the Ptolemies at Alexandria in Egypt was probably the direct means by which the most valuable works of ancient literature have been preserved to us. At a later period, the collections of books in the religious houses contributed efficaciously toward the same end.

Comment: The value that societies placed on texts in antiquity is enlightening. The library in Alexandria was formed by the required confiscation of all scrolls that came into the port (which were often returned after being copied). Texts and books were part of an economy of scarcity until recently. Jefferson owned hundreds of books and was an object of wonder for that reason alone. He knew each of them almost be heart and prized them all. As for the religious houses, I would recommend Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish saved civilization : the untold story of Ireland’s heroic role from the fall of Rome to the rise of medieval Europe .

To be continued…

A Neo-Traditional exercise: The Boston Trustees Report & comments (1)

In 1852, soon after the birth of the public school system, the City of Boston established a committee to look at the goals of a possible public library. This was needed because public libraries were almost an unknown occurrence and far from what could be called an institution. In this series of posts, I will look at the report that committee created and how it is the core of the modern library. A full copy of the report is on-line at McMillan Memorial Library. I consider this a great example of neo-traditional librarianship – a digital copy of a core statement of the library’s historical mission.

The document starts with the names of the committee members and the officials who ordered the report and its printing.

Ordered, That the Trustees of the City Library be requested to report to the City Council upon the objects to be attained by the establishment of a Public Library, and the best mode of effecting them; and that they be authorized to report in print.

Comment:It is not inconsequential that the public library gets its start from city government. This is in keeping with the principal of subsidiarity. Government should undertake operations that are beyond the competence of individuals, but do so at the lowest level that can handle the operation. In most cases, the public library is best handled on the city or county level. I understand that in some states, state government has gone beyond setting standards, regulations and guidelines and actually operates the public libraries, but I do not consider that optimal.

Note that public libraries, from the start, are both part of and insulated from government and politics. The City Council and Mayor request the report, but it is written by appointed trustees. This duality is important. Libraries serve a civil function, else they would have no claim on tax revenue, but they are set aside from direct political control. In authoritarian regimes,  government has direct control of libraries, but this is not the role envisioned for American public libraries. Not that libraries are that well insulated. Many directors will attest they politics cost them their positions and even their careers, but it rarely does so directly. Additionally, when politics does interfere with the operation of a library, it rarely results in better service or a more complete fulfillment of the mission.

Despite that, libraries are a part of local government and I applaud that. Libraries exist to serve their community. If they happen to lose sight of that, they are straying from their mission. They only deserve tax dollars to the extent that they serve the needs of the community. Tax dollars are not spent to meet mere demand, which can be met by the marketplace and private sector. Public sector funds must be spent on community needs.

From the start, there was a need to be clear about the mission of the library. I recently saw a discussion that questioned if the public library could be started in the current environment.  Using this report as a justification, maybe. Sold as a middle class entitlement, First Amendment institution or a free book/video store – never. The Boston trustees wanted to be clear about why they were requesting tax dollars, how those dollars would be used and they wanted it in writing. Bravo!

Display shelving : old habits are hard to break

Old habits are hard to break, even for people who consciously work to be innovative.

We bought a number of display shelves two years ago. I was in charge of the layout and immediately arranged these marvelous slanted shelves in  – aisles. Just like they were standard stacks. Wide aisles. Four feet wide and more in some cases, but aisles.

Display shelves should be used to build a display area, not as faux stacks.  We have rearranged one set of three into a C shape ( | __ | ), forming a small room within a room, an area where fiction readers can wander around and examine the new fiction. In many ways, this is a return to the alcoves designed in the original Carnegie libraries.

We will soon be  moving the new non-fiction to a similar arrangement, maybe an L ( | __ __ ), which will have the same effect within the larger room.

We will probably also make changes to our DVD / AV area, widening the aisles from four feet to six feet, making them display areas instead of aisles. In this case a change of degree may turn into a change of kind.

As we are also growing our YA area as a display area.  No stacks, just shelves that can be easily browsed, chairs to sit in,  good light and lots of room.

To a great extent, a librarian’s task to to build display areas where the collection can be highlighted. Items in stacks must be linked to the display collections, otherwise they will wither. New mysteries help move older titles by the same author. A book that is a singleton is much harder to promote and harder to justify keeping on the shelf.

Libraries can benefit from the long tail without maintaining extensive stacks IF they are part of a larger shared system / collection. Our library has about 120,000 items, but is part of a shared system that has over 3,000,000 items and a solid delivery system. We can afford to buy a book from a series, knowing that if it is popular, the older titles are available within a couple of days. If it is not used, then we know we don’t need to revisit the decision for a while.

Self-Checkout at Public Libraries: Different Rule Sets for Different Folks

I have explored self-checkout as implemented in a number of libraries and been involved in implementing self-checkout. There seem to be four main varieties of self-checkout, which employ increasingly restrictive rule sets.

Rule set #1. One way to implement self-check is to purchase a machine, put it somewhere convenient and wait. Oh, there will be publicity, brochures and signs, maybe assistance for perplexed users, but nothing really changes. Patrons can use it or not and there is no real pressure either way. Use might top out at as much as 20% of circulation. This is a maximally permissive rule set. As an end state, this is not very useful, but it is a good first step on a library’s way to a more thorough implementation. It can help work out the bugs, identify the bottlenecks, get materials and patrons identified in a way that the self-check will recognize, see how the staffing might change and purchase appropriate furniture.

Comments: If this rule set is a step in a plan for fuller implementation, then I like it. In fact, it is the process I helped plan and implement. We purchased two self-checks in 2003 and used this rule set until we removed our circulation desk a year later. Sadly, some libraries install self-checks without a solid long range plan or brisk follow-up. The machines aren’t magic. Like any tool they only accomplish certain tasks in specific situations. It is up to the librarian to recognize those limitations and create the proper conditions for success.

Rule set #2. A second approach is express checkout. In this implementation, self-checks are placed near the existing checkout desks. All steps are taken to encourage self-check, but this remains a very permissive rule set. Patrons can use either the express check or the existing circulation desk. It is totally up to the patron and very few changes are made at the circulation desk. This approach has definite advantages. The staff (and their union) is less likely to object, since job descriptions and numbers will remain unchanged. A minimum of new furniture is needed and existing floor plans can be adapted without wholesale remodeling. Use can be significant as patrons get accustomed to the system, as much as 50% of all circulation. The circulation desk staff will be able to focus more on non-checkout related tasks, such as registration and fines. Though the financial benefits may be delayed, this approach can allow a library to improve service or face increased use without expanding staff. In many ways, this rule set most closely models a business implementation, such as one would see at WalMart. In most retail settings, no shopper is forced into a self-checkout, though the shorter lines may make them attractive. As long as the use is significant enough to justify the cost of the stations, this is a good idea.

Comments: It is unclear whether this is a final state. Is this is just a plateau on the way to a higher peak or is this the best mix of efficiency / service for the community? I think it is a way station, but libraries may stop here for a decade or more with no ill effects.

Rule set #3. I have more familiarity with this approach, since it is the one I currently oversee. After a one year phase in period (under rule set #1), we took steps to fully maximize self-check when consistent with a high touch / high service approach. This is a pretty thorough implementation. We removed the circulation desk and replaced it with a circulation services desk in a new location. This desk is designed to handle registration, fines and only occasional checkouts. Staff will often operate the self-check for patrons rather handling the transaction at the desk, thus encouraging them to use it themselves in the future. Many job descriptions were rewritten to reflect the new workplace. This is a more restrictive rule set, with self-check the default outcome.

Comments: Despite that default, this approach does not abandon the patron. The self-checks are staffed, with staff able to monitor the patron’s screen and know when to assist. In our case, we run about 75% self-check, 5% on-line self-renewal, 5% done by staff elsewhere and less than 15% staff mediated at the circulation services desk. That 15% includes rentals, patrons picking up items for family members, lost / blocked / forgotten cards and interlibrary loans. While we could lower that number, we want to interact with patrons in certain situations. Also, keeping staff where they can be of most use to the patrons remains a high priority. Since checkout (even self-checkout) is a place where problems occur, it is where our staff should be. Even when patrons can handle it flawlessly, they should know that help is at hand if needed.

Rule set #4. The final approach has a maximally restrictive rule set. Self-checkout is all but mandatory. The library utilizes self-registration, kiosk based fine payment and other techniques to cut patron interaction (and staffing) to a minimum. There is no substitute for a library card in good standing. Staff mediated circulation is avoided by not having staff near the self checks. Circulation related services are provided at desks elsewhere in the facility, often out of sight of the self-checks. Though this approach could free staff for non-circulation interactions, it is also used to operate with a minimal staff. Some libraries facing extreme population and usage increases, such as Maricopa (AZ) County, have implemented branches with this approach.

Comments: These branches achieve their goals. They provide access to large shared collections through small service outlets that are inexpensive to build, staff and operate. Since much of the ordering is done on-line, a modest collection and staff is all that is needed at the branch. It is a stripped down version of the traditional library, but it might also be the future of the suburban branch library. I do not like this approach, not because of it’s self-service status, but because it strips something essential from the public library, but that is a subject for another day.

Some Tenets of Self-Service in Public Libraries

Some Tenets of Self-Service

1. A great deal of library service has always been self-service. Many patrons use the library without assistance and with minimal contact with staff and like it that way. They are not unsocial or dysfunctional. Many shoppers don’t like sales associates hanging around them either.

2. Some core functions can not be provided well by self-service. Reference. Reader’s advisory. Teaching people to use the library’s resources. Arts and cultural programming. Libraries should focus on making staff support of these as available and visible as possible.

3. Some core functions work quite well as self-service. Internet access with patron self-registration. Holds pickup. Wireless Internet access. Community gathering space. Displays. Remote use and placing of holds. These all require considerable work to make them function properly, but not at Point of Service.

4. Repetitive tasks should be automated as much as possible and, if physically burdensome, split among part-time staff. Good management and worker’s compensation demand nothing less.

5. The move to self-service will bring about disruption in staffing, procedures and routines. It is likely that certain kinds of positions (those that checked out books) will be phased out and new positions (service desk types) will replace them.

6. Staff is the most expensive part of the library. If you are not planning to move to self-service and the staff reorganization it will bring, you are not making the best use of that resource. Too much of library work is still in a pre-automation stage.

7. At some libraries, the reorganization will help handle growth in use without new staff. At other libraries, it will entail fewer staff and/or staff at new classifications.

8. A split between check-in/shelvers and service desk staff does not represent deskilling, but a recognition that they operate at different levels. Service desk staff will require a different (and higher level) skill set than checkout desk staff. Shelving is, unfortunately, mainly a McJob.

9. Self-service should always be optional, with staff on hand to assist patrons as required, even if it means operating a self-check station for the patron. Self-service as a form of abandonment is suicide for the organization. If self-service does not improve service, why is it being implemented?

10. Self-service will annoy some patrons, my mother among them. Many more will see it as a sign that the library is being responsible and technologically forward. Anyone under 30 will love it.

11. Like MARC records, automated library systems and digital resources, the self-service library will cause anguish in the profession for the next decade and then become the status quo. By 2015, no one will be quite sure what all the fuss was about.

12. Self-service either changes everything or it changes nothing. If you are self-checking 80% of your circulation, have patron pickup of holds, patron self-registration for workstations and wireless Internet, then you have changed just about everything. Welcome to the future. If not, then you have merely waded into the shallow end of the pool and have a lot of work ahead of you. Sooner or later, you will have to learn to swim. It’s a car, not a horseless carriage.

13. Throughout all this change, the public library can and must remain constant. Not constant in superficial things like the types of technology used or position descriptions, but in its mission. That hasn’t changed since the Boston Trustees first enunciated it in 1852.

I had this posted at my previous site, so I am porting it over to here.