Service is service, online or off January 10, 2009
Posted by Jenica Rogers in Libraries, Users, library blogs, reference.8 comments
Hoo-boy. Lots of debate online and off, public and private, about David Lee King’s two posts on IM reference, and the many varied blog replies to them.
Here’s my very short answer to the question “How should IM reference queries be treated?”: You decide for your library.
Because you know your users. And your librarians. And your service policies. And your user expectations. And your traffic in reference and instruction interactions. And a million other things that should frame how you respond to that question.
But personally? In my own professional definition of information services for academic library users? I think that there is absolutely no difference between an IM query and a face-to-face query, and they need to be treated with the same respect, attentiveness, and thoroughness of service. They are both synchronous communication streams in which a user asks for assistance, and they should be treated as such.
I have an experience set that makes this an easy thing to say; I work on a residential academic campus in a library that is experiencing declining use of our reference expertise. As a result, we have tried to change and revalue the way we offer reference service by expanding and personalizing our interactions. We set up follow-up stations for patrons to use near the reference desk so that they can work independently but get continuous research assistance. We expanded and aggressively marketed our one-on-one research appointments. We implemented and broadened and began marketing our IM reference service. We joined AskUs 24-7. All of these are ways to reach a bigger slice of our campus users, where and when and how they need our help, taking into account the teaching and learning environment in which our users live and work. On our residential campus with a strong traditional undergraduate student body as well as a robust graduate program and growing distance learning opportunities, our users’ learning environment is distributed, online, community-based, and independently focused. The library is not the center of their learning world, and I don’t expect it ever will be. But we need to be a part of their world, and having a robust and service-oriented online presence is a key piece of our efforts.
If I, then, say that IM reference is less important than face-to-face reference in my library, I am directly contradicting our attempts to place greater value on reaching our users where they live and work. Our building use statistics indicate that while we are a vital and busy library, the majority of our students do not live and work in the library. Who are we trying to serve? Only the users who come to the building? No. We’re trying to serve all of our potential users, and our attempts to broaden our service offerings into the online communication realm are an expression of that. If I fail to place equal priority on those online users, I am undermining our efforts.
And I think it’s too important to prove the value of information professionals and resources to as many of our students as possible to ever undermine those efforts.
So if I’m answering an IM reference question when a user walks up to the desk, I will do what I have always done: Politely and with a welcoming smile ask, “Can you please wait one moment? I’m helping someone else.” And I will trust that our students will continue to wait their turn in our virtual and physical line.
oh yeah, it’s a library “science” November 17, 2008
Posted by Jenica Rogers in Growly, Libraries, The Profession, annoyed librarian, library blogs, scholarship.9 comments
Because in the sciences it’s totally okay to blow the concept of peer review out of the water in service of being trendy, right? I roll my eyes. For those not yet following along at home, some links:
The problem:
Journal of Access Services 5:4
The blowback, and only the parts that show up in my FriendFeed as of 3:20pm. I’m certain there’s more:
Apparently Annoyed Anonymous Bloggers can get published in peer-reviewed journals
Being Annoyed with out Being Annoying
Professionally Annoyed
Ridiculous. Frustrating. Stupid. I want it to be some kind of joke that we just missed the punchline on. Barring that, I can’t wait to hear what Haworth has to say for themselves; I hope they have some excuse for their blatant disregard of their own editorial policies other than “don’t people love the AL? Now they’ll love us, too!”
Amanda Etches-Johnson: More wow for blogs October 19, 2008
Posted by Jenica Rogers in IL2008, Libraries, Technology, conferences, library blogs.add a comment
Blogs: Less what, more how, more wow.
Blots are: easy, effective, conversational, distributed. But: require commitment! (Amanda says she cannot hold herself up as an example because she hasn’t blogged in months… but when she does, we love her!) Blogs are perfect fodder for RSS feeds, allowing you to create content on the blog and then reuse it at your leisure in other places on the web.
So how to do all that with some extra wow?
Design matters. Jacob Neilsen (web usability guru) wrote about blog usability, indicting bloggers for failing to pay attention to web usability. Good pointers: Blogs should be clean and simple, and contain useful links. Academic libraries are often constrained by institutional templates, but outside of that, work to stay within usability guidelines.
Crucial questions: Why are you blogging? What’s your purpose? What’s your scope? AE-J recommends focusing on a specific audience or a specific topic, to help your participants stay on task, stay excited, and retain focus. And once you’ve decided, publish it on your blog’s About page.
Know your audience.
Your audience dictates your content, your design, your timing, everything. Make no assumptions about your audience, what they want, and what they understand. AE-J comments on the number of blogs with links to RSS feeds without any indication of what that is. That’s an assumption about user understanding that may not be justified.
Drop the PR-speak
It’s not a press release! Don’t speak as The Library — and drop the passive/third person language. Not compelling to read “The Library’s policy on fines has been updated.”, but more compelling to read “We’re excited to let you know that we’ve updated our fine policy. Some details that will affect you include…”
Guarding against blog abandonment
Share authorship, so that there is no one person solely responsible for feeding and watering the critter. Multiple authors can feed off of each others’ ideas and energy. In a multi-author environment, make sure to be transparent, putting up clear authorship statements on each post and blurbs about each author on the blog.
Steal that blog!
What are other places doing? Take that which will work for you! AE-J makes reference to NYPL Labs, where they talk about what they’re working on and what’s upcoming. Great place to get ideas and find new and innovative stuff. McMaster is doing the same, creating a library lab… not yet released to the world, but AE-J is excited about it.
Got content?
Get it out!
Display headlines on your home page. Get it on other pages. Use bits of code like Feed2JS and plug your content in wherever you can put it. The web is a distributed information environment, so distribute yourself! Your library website, your campus course management system, the campus website, wherever is appropriate for your campus.
Make your blog a 2-way street.
Open up comments, and then engage your users with compelling content. Without compelling content, you’ll never build a community! Have a comment policy, and then invite the community to self-moderate, as well.
More for Less.
Why blog when you can microblog? Microblogging can be terribly inane, but can also be really great for building a community. Status updates (construction, exhibits, network problems, etc), quick information, reference questions, etc.
Questions
In re: one blog with multiple authors, is there a breaking point where everyone should have their own blog? AE-J: Depends on the scope and purpose. If your blog’s purpose is specific and narrow, ti probably doesn’t matter how many authors. On a more general blog, if people start specializing, then they may need their own blog.
In re: how to link to a blog? Value your blog, value your real-estate, and make decisions based on how important you want your marketing and outreach initiatives to be.
Management geeks unite! April 20, 2008
Posted by Jenica Rogers in Leadership, Libraries, Links in Review, Management, library blogs.3 comments
So, lots of librarians I know cringe when conversation starts to sway toward issues of management, leadership, planning, strategy… and that’s okay. Not everyone wants to be a manager, not everyone is good at strategic planning, and not everyone has the knack for leading others. That doesn’t make them bad librarians or bad people. (It might make them bad leaders and managers, but that’s another question entirely.)
I, on the other hand, revel in conversations about strategic positioning, horizon thinking, managing in our libraries, and leading from the middle. I’m a management geek. I admit it. I want to be a good leader, a strong planner, and a capable manager, and I love learning things that will make that happen.
Which is why I’m nearly giddy that I’ve found the Harvard Business blogs. If you, too, get all intrigued by discussions of workplace dynamics, generational office behaviors, “viral leadership”, and strategy and tactics for successful worker motivation, then by all means go check out these blogs. They’re conversationally written, and if you’re anything like me, they’ll spark new thoughts, remind you of good practices you’ve forgotten, and teach you things you hadn’t already encountered elsewhere. And, to paraphrase a conversation with Steven Cohen at Computers in Libraries, shouldn’t we want to learn from other industries? Doesn’t a breadth of information sources make libraries better places? I’ve added John Baldoni: Leadership at Work, Tammy Erickson: Across the Ages, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li: The Groundswell Effect, and Michael Watkins: The Leading Edge to my reader. There are many more; pick your interest.
One of the best quotes I read this evening comes from John Baldoni in a post called “Leadership Lessons from Barack Obama’s Speech” (emphasis mine).
In tough times, or even in good times, too many senior leaders are cocooned, off limits to all but the chosen few. People want to see their leaders. Even more, they want their leaders to listen. Respect for the intelligence of an audience involves more than well-chosen words; it also involves well-chosen times for listening.
What are you doing to treat your staff like adults?
CiL day one April 7, 2008
Posted by Jenica Rogers in Libraries, My Life, cil2008, conferences, library blogs.3 comments
I’m sitting in my room at 6:48 on day one of the conference, tired’er than tired. When did I get so old? My feet hurt, my shoulder’s achy, and I kind of just want to go to bed. I am, in fact, 32 years old. This is not acceptable. I used to be fun! I used to have time to be fun before I got tired!
A beer is also not dinner, no matter if it was free in the vendor hall. I should remedy that somehow.
I skipped the keynote this morning, because while I think Lee Rainie is very interesting and Pew presents some unique statistics, I’ve heard him keynote twice in the past year, and I think if I give him a brief break before hearing him again it’ll do us both credit. I also skipped the morning sessions in general, the first because I was getting out of the shower after a lovely “I needed some sleep” morning and the second because, well, I was hungry and people were going to lunch. We followed last year’s Lunch 2.0 path and, defying the spirit of Lunch 2.0, went to the same Italian restaurant which was, again, quite good.
I’ve blogged the afternoon sessions here, as you can see, and I was, as always, pleased and invigorated by the content of this conference. Bravo, ITI and presenters! I love it when you make a conference worth my time and energy by providing good content.
More than the content, though, I had a great time today talking to people who entertain, challenge, and interest me. People I would never get to see face-to-face without conferences like these. (Which makes it all the more entertaining that I spent the vendor reception talking to four other SUNY librarians, and the ever-patient Anna Creech who listened to us talk endlessly about local issues without ever getting annoyed.)
The highlight of the day was the LSW presentation, though. Watching Griffey sit next to me diligently trying to subvert the LSW chat room… well. The whole thing was fun, if it did provoke a feeling in me that there was a crowd of librarians behind us saying to themselves “What? Why? Who are you young rascals, anyway?” We’re the future, that’s what.
The weirdest moment of the day was when Rudy told me that I’m in the latest issue of CiL. Uh, what? I… what?!
Well, then. I guess it’s a good thing I’m actually blogging the conference, or that’d be embarrassing…
Jenica Rogers
