on age, technology, and culture

Yesterday morning I wrote 90% of a long, well-thought-out post about online identity and librarianship and stereotypes and age and leadership… and WordPress ate it sometime between leaving my house and arriving at work.  I can’t recreate it.

So I’ll say this, which bears some passing resemblance to that, though I think yesterdays was less manifesto-y and more thoughtful-y.

The issue (alluded to here, and discussed with some passion here) is not age.

Of course there are librarians over 35, 40, 60 who are tech-savvy and have chosen to dive into online communication and the identity it creates.  Of course there are librarians straight out of grad school who think Twitter is inane.  Of course all teenagers don’t know how to hack their iPhone or program their mom’s Roomba or do more than post a cell-phone picture to Facebook.  OF COURSE.  I’m a big fan of critical thinking, so  I don’t believe that any blanket generalization about age is true or correct.  I count on people like Bill Drew and Walt Crawford to remind me of this if I ever slip in my language, so I try to be precise in what I mean when I write or say something that alludes to age in our profession.  But it’s a touchy issue.  I know this because every. single. time. that I mention generational differences, “new” or “young” librarians, or the rapid aging of our professional leadership pool, someone leaps on it and says “Not me!  NOT ME! HA! WRONG!”  We are obsessed.  I was even warned, this time ’round, that for speaking my opinion about age within our profession — even with caveats and generalizations –  and describing my own (true, real, legitimate) experiences with same, I was putting myself at risk of being sued for age discrimination.  For talking about it.

And so I feel compelled, since it is such a hot-button issue that prompts such immediate ire and conflict from people, to state what I do believe, based on my own experiences and my perceptions of our profession and our professional culture.

What I believe is this:  Because of cultural shifts, generational differences, and the ongoing permeation of our culture by technology, we are thinking about technology differently as time moves forward, and as with anything that moves from being a novelty to being an integral part of daily life, where you were and what you were doing when that became true for you then serves to define how you interact with the thing at hand. The portable mp3 player has gone from being a novelty item to a ubiquitous piece of technology.  The point you were at in your life, and therefore your comfort with, your familiarity with, and your perception of the utility of the thing will be different depending on that point.  Do you commute?  Are you a runner?  Do you love music?  Are you a news radio person?  Do you love audiobooks?  Do you have a visual disability? And, to my point, were you 2 years old when you got your first iPod, and therefore don’t know life without one?  All of those questions, and your personal answers to them, will define how you view the now-ubiquitous iPod.  How you engage with using the hardware and software.  How you view the issue of DRM and the music industry.  How you perceive the role of streaming and downloading music in our entertainment and learning environments.  Whether you even care about these things.  And thus, how you engage with planning for the use of the technology in your library.

And so I believe that there are real, measurable differences between the way that, in general, the leaders and holders of official and unofficial power in our libraries relate to technology, online communication, and online identity, and the ways that our up-and-coming users, say, the cohort that’s currently at age 13, will relate to technology, online communication, and online identity in 5 years when they walk in the doors of my library.

I don’t see that statement as discriminatory.  I see it as cultural fact.  Different generations, different experiences, different adoption models and behavior patterns that create different assumptions and different expectations.

Furthermore, given that I believe that, I long to see more library leadership trying to forge a path that’s designed around the needs and wants and emerging culture of those young users, not around the needs and wants and established  culture of libraries and librarianship.  Not at the sacrifice of what libraries are, but with an acknowledgment that, as Michele Ann Jenkins said at Web 2.You on Friday, “Your internet is not my internet.”  And we seem to have built a decision-making culture in our libraries that looks like this:

Librarian A ………. Decision ………. Librarian B

Librarian A proposed something to the left.  Librarian B proposed something to the right.  They compromised on a decision.  But what happens if you add in a prospective users:

Librarian A ………. Decision ………. Librarian B …………………………………………………… Users

Is that compromise decision located where you need it to be to provide good, relevant, meaningful service, given where the users and their expectations are located?

I would exhort all librarians, in a position of current power or not — young, old, or in between — to realize, acknowledge, and pay attention to the fact that our internet — the internet we love, that we hate, that we use, that we teach — is not the internet that our young future users see and immerse themselves in and use and love and hate.  I would also exhort all librarians in a position of current power, be it leadership power, administrative power, or the power of longevity and respect, to support rather than belittle the colleagues at your institution who want to bridge the gap between us and them.  To encourage rather than stifle those librarians and library staff who want to try to think like the user, who want to build systems and services to meet their needs.  Because we are not them, and they are not us, and we mustn’t build systems for ourselves.  We must be sympathetic to their perspectives, and move ourselves toward being what they want and need us to be.  We cannot build libraries that satisfy just us, because it’s not about us.  It’s about them.

Help!

So, I’m trying to write a strategic plan for the libraries.  (Real life and daily work seem to be interfering, but I’m going to get it done.)  And today is one of those days when I have two options: Pull my hair out, or turn this experience into fodder for the strategic plan.

My vote, as of right now? We need an info commons that integrates tech support, STAT.  Students need Blackboard assistance.  They need access to all campus software.  They need more hardware.  They need tech help.  And I’m all they’ve got, here at the Reference Desk in the library.

So far, in my hour and nine minutes on the ref desk, I have:

• Had Meebo bomb out on me repeatedly.  Sorry remote users, no help for you today.
• Got a report that one of our iMacs is failing to log in, and was unable to resolve the issue myself. I directed the student to check out a laptop, and apologized that they’re not MacBooks, since he was hoping for MacOS.
• Helped a student troubleshoot “I can’t open this attachment”, which was because it’s a .pages file, which MSOffice cannot, apparently, open.
• Tried to help a student with a Blackboard quiz; failed due to lack of depth of understanding of the nuances of Blackboard.
• Showed a student how to get back to the dual-boot login screen on the iMacs. (FYI; he wanted Mac OS.)
• Helped a student find her professor’s contact information in Blackboard and the campus directory.
• Showed a professor the new location of the videos (we did it over winter break).
• Tried to help a student open her lab project; failed.  We do not appear to have that software on the campus lab image.

None of those questions were about the research process or the intellectual work of using the library’s resources or services.  All of them were about using our facilities or our campus technology infrastructure or services.  All of which I can handle, to a certain extent, but none of which is my area of expertise.  Librarians are often jacks-of-all-trades, but that doesn’t mean we automatically have the right training or resources to be everything to everyone, in an environment where “everything” means, more and more, “technology assistance.”  We’re doing our best, and it’s holding back the flood, but we could do better. We want to do better.  We try to do better.  The students deserve better.

So I’m going to go with “fodder for the strategic plan” rather than “pull my hair out”.  I do like a challenge.

Hitting the mark

Being in a position of power isn’t easy.

I have a staff member who, despite my smile, always says, “What did I do?” when I show up in his/her work area.

I have a staff member who always worries, despite his/her own awareness of his/her actions, that I’m referring to him/her when I send out a generic “Hey, guys, I got a report of X.  In the future, please be sure to do Y instead of X, okay?  Thanks.” email.

I have a staff member who always looks as though s/he is waiting for me to drop a bomb in staff meetings.

On the flip side, though…

I have a staff member who admits that s/he only says certain things when in my office, because I’ll listen and not judge.

I have a staff member who regularly thanks me for letting him/her play with new ideas and concepts.

I have a staff member who is asking for my support and pushing forward with a plan s/he drafted several years ago, diligently trying again to make things happen that still seem like the right thing to do.

Sometimes you have to be a leader.  Sometimes you have to be a manager.  I spend a lot of my time trying to be both.  They’re different jobs.  It’s not easy. One needs to control and listen, teach and retrain, where the other needs to convince and inspire, support and redirect.  A big set of skills.  I don’t have them all, as deep or as broad as I feel I need to.  I’m learning on the job every day, and going home exhausted.

But, man, if I can do this just right… hit that mark of leading and managing… with this group of people… we can do awesome things.

Director Day In The Life, Friday

This morning was my triumphant (?) return to the gym.  Picked Steve up at 7, and we went and walked and ran until 7:45, then I headed home to shower, breakfast, and drive back to campus, this time in a suit jacket rather than running shoes.

9:30-11:45:  Ref desk shift.  Turn on the computer and patron-facing monitor, launch the libraries’ Meebo account, check the Reference Wiki for updates, make sure the stats sheet is for today’s date, and get ready for the (non)onslaught.  I wonder about the future of traditional reference services, but I can’t underestimate the value of face-to-face point-of-need help, either.  A big challenge for small institutions with limited staff, and one I don’t have a good answer for other than doing my part and sitting out here once a week.

• “I need help with Chicago Style citations.”
• *crickets* (there are 16 students at our 24 reference-area computers, and the printers are running non-stop, as is the stapler.  The cafe is doing steady business, and there are students sitting in every study area I can see from the desk.  They just don’t need any help.  It is, after all, the first week of classes.)
• Chat (and laugh) with Archivist about yesterday’s faculty issue.
• Talk to Reference Coordinator about weeding going on in the Reference Collection, and about the books I ordered with a grant last year, which are finally arriving and getting cataloged, to fill in our basic religion collection — what to put in Reference, what in stacks?
• “What’s the easiest way to set up Interlibrary Loan privileges?”
• “How do I find articles for a paper due at the end of the semester?”  This one turned into a longish interview in which I showed how to use our major databases, explained why using MultiSearch with a broad keyword like “Vietnam” is never going to work well, and helped her understand why she might need to narrow her topic *first* and do research *second*.
• Talked with current chair of the Personnel Committee about scheduling issues, and our Bylaws.
• Meebo question about international newspapers.

Total actual Helping Patrons questions:  4.  Less than two per hour.  Other stuff accomplished at the desk: Reviewed the digital camera recommendation from the librarians I asked to find us a good new one, emailed HR about our next librarian search, read a bunch of Day In The Life blog posts, poked around in a couple of our databases to stay up-to-date on them, printed some documents in advance of my afternoon responsibilities, checked yesterday’s budget spreadsheets to monitor our spending position, responded to some FriendFeed librarian-y threads, and generally watched the library hum around me.

11:45-12:30:  Lunch with a faculty friend.

12:30-1:30:  Interview with Public Affairs candidate.

1:30-2:  Stop into Human Resources to talk through questions related to attendance, union structures, strategic planning, reorganization, retirements, employee benefits, the online recruitment system, and annual evaluations.  There’s a lot for a new Director to learn!

2:15-4:  Office work!

• Faxed some documents across campus
• Checked email and voicemail
• Logged into online recruitment system and used my new knowledge to expedite the job description approval process
• Reviewed the ACRL 2011 submission deadlines and documents… I have ideas…
• Started reading background stuff related to strategic planning, with a highlighter, pen, and post-its in hand.

4: Home.  It’s Friday.  Time for a weekend…

Director Day In The Life, Thursday

Woke up slow this morning, listening to NPR and dozing and hoping, knowingly in vain, that I’d get a snow day today.  Nope. Got dressed in clothes that specifically allowed me to wear one of the pairs of earrings I made last night, then more cold pizza for breakfast, and a Diet Coke from the machine inside Kellas as I arrived for my meeting.

8-9: Chair campus Teaching and Learning with Technology Roundtable meeting, discussing Large Format Printing (posters for research, etc), the success of the recent TLT Day/IT Fair, updates on tech infrastructure on campus, and the results of the campus technology and teaching survey.  Highlights:  we need more tech training for both faculty and students, the search on the campus site needs to be a top priority, and nobody loves our calendaring software, but Blackboard is getting a better rep on campus.

9-10:30:  Office time.  Soundtrack: Yesterday’s mix of Sinead O’Connor, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Concrete Blonde, with some added Violent Femmes and Jane’s Addiction.

• Talked with Angie.
• Forwarded two emails to the staff who I am asking to take point on the projects in question.
• Reviewed the LSW Friendfeed thread where I asked for help on identifying facilities peers.  Awesome help.
• Deleted stuff in my email.
• Printed stuff from my email.
• Started composing message to campus contact for Facilities Master Plan about facilities peers.
• Cleaned up my desk (by moving piles, not really an effective long-term solution)
• Dragged my attention back to staff performance plans.  Boring but vital, and they deserve more attention from me.
• Oh, look, we have a leak in the E’s.  Staff are capably handling it; they’ll tell me if I need to do anything.
• Laughing that one of our students has beat me out of being Mayor of the library on FourSquare.  I mean, sure, that makes SENSE, what with this being a student-centered institution, but… I wanted that!  Must. check. in. more!  (Yes, I am a dork.)

10:30-11: Regular monthly meeting with Distance Learning Coordinator.

11ish-12:  Lunch!  Took some reading over to the cafeteria so I could get a big salad and something indulgent for dessert, and sat and read and nibbled for an hour.

12-1:30:  Work work work.

• Returned a call from Maryruth from Buff State about the SUNY Council of Library Directors spring meeting, and how to make it more useful to new directors.  I suggested she should label us prominently on our nametags so that we can identify each other. 
• Org chart work.
• Another fine appeal.

1:30-2:  Regular monthly meeting with Special Projects Associate. Discussed student satisfaction survey, space reorganization, a few ongoing facilities issues, ILL, and outreach and programming for the lobby.

2-3: Office work — Library Tech coordinator came over to upgrade my F-Secure on the Parallels Windows installation, so I did a bunch of paperwork sorting and filing.  Talked with the secretary about work-study issues, and talked with the archivist about faculty-relations issues.

3:00: Regular bi-weekly  meeting with the Assistant Vice President for Information Technology, in which I toured that newly-finished and newly-renovated spaces they’re all working in now, and did some brainstorming about computer labs on campus, the library’s involvement in those, and space use.  Hrm……

4-5:  Work work work.  Office stuff.  Email stuff.  Stuff.

5:00:  Going over to the faculty art opening at the gallery to see work by my friends and colleagues, then home to do… something not work.