shinylib

Organizing People & Software Options for Maximum Service

Another session which really illustrates the differences between chat reference and IM reference. Interesting that M. Kathleen Kern reports patrons choose IM over vendor-chat 7 to 1. I understand the limitations of most of the existing IM services, but I’m not sure I see why they developed their own client. I suspect that they were simultaneously developing alongside clients like libraryh3lp and Hab.la, both of which are now freely available and solve many of the issues that prompted them to design in-house in the first place. Also interesting was her discussion of why collaborative VR is worthwhile, even on a single campus.

USC libraries contribute to an OCLC QuestionPoint similar to L-net and still wanted to explore the IM options in addition to the vendor-chat method. Most interesting about this decision was the belief that users should be able to stay in their native chat environment and not have to come to the library website to use the chat service. Other presenters indicate their agencies approached this in different ways, some deciding that forcing users into the library website is the most effective way to provide service and others, like USC, deciding that it’s a barrier. I come down firmly on the side of it being a barrier. If I can get you to remember me as a resource just by getting into your buddy list once it seems far more effective than forcing you onto the library website. Continue reading…

VR Varieties: Specialized, Blended, & Academic

I suppose I hadn’t really grokked the difference between “chat” and IM reference before this conference. Chat reference is used to refer to using some software suite such as QuestionPoint that offers services such as archives/transcripts which can be emailed to the user, some statistics on usage, co-browsing, etc. IM is the use of one of the major IM services (gtalk, AIM, yahoo, MSN, jabber, meebo) to provide limited, but perhaps faster transactions.

I was especially interested in the challenges K-state reported to rolling out IM. Across the conference it seems as though there are reasons to choose to provide chat or IM services. In terms of PCC, I think that IM would be a good option. Many presenters note that IM users self-select and thus understand the limitations of the service–not as apt to ask in-depth questions. Also, IM is (mostly) free whereas a full-service chat suite is gonna cost ya. Continue reading…

Innovative Approaches: Shaking, Sharing, & Spanning

This group of presentations was the first of the sessions I attended. On the whole I didn’t find anything that I can really apply to my environment. I was pleased to see an example of how another library has used video teleconferencing to provide reference service. This has come up a few times now, but I don’t think it will work for PCC…at least not any time soon. It seems expensive and like something that is really going to work for some extra large agencies, but again not too much for us right now.

Here are my notes, slides will be available at BCR soon. Continue reading…

“Reference in the Age of Wikipedia, Or Not…”

David W. Lewis of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis was the keynote speaker for the Reference Renaissance conference. His talk was good, but didn’t inspire me the way I was hoping. Perhaps it was the style of the address: mostly using a lot of quotes from other notable thinkers in the field. I was hoping for more synthesis… slides will appear at BCR later. Apologies, my notes are fairly jumbled and you’re probably better off waiting for the slides. Continue reading…

Things to do in Denver yadda yadda

Arrived in Denver with significantly less drama than was involved in getting to Anaheim.* The Reference Renaissance doesn’t actually begin until tomorrow but today held registration and a reception, replete with mediocre snacks and pricey booze. I digress, the snacks are not the reason I’m writing.

You know I seldom wax personal here at shinylib, but I have some personal reflectin’ to do. It’s necessary sometimes.

I went out with friends and colleagues this evening for dinner and such and as always happens I tell a lot of stories. (I’m not a player I just talk a lot… a ha ha) Anyway, I was talking about experiences I have had in the recent and less-recent past and I realized (again) that I can be a total ass sometimes. This isn’t really news, but it’s a good thing to reflect on from time to time and to keep in check.

It’s interesting to me how I can leave all most of my judgments at the door when I go to work. I’m not there to stress you about anything, my job is to help make your life easier and I love that you might get to learn something new. But when I’m not on the clock? I’m like a lot of people in our profession, I’m sure: hyper critical and especially snarky about things I find less-than. The world and it’s people frustrate me and don’t behave according to logic and it makes me cranky. It’s temping to say, “Well, I’m not a librarian all the time,” and just dismiss it, but I’m not sure that I’m not a librarian all the time. I don’t shut her off at the end of the work day and leave her in my office. Maybe I should, but I don’t know how.

Anyway, I was reminded tonight that people are more apt to learn things when you’re not an ass during the delivery. Well, the message was more eloquently put, but that’s the sentiment. It’s so easy to remember this when I’m at work, but I need to work on transferring this to my personal life. I’m sure that given time it will make me less $^$%&#@$%* and that could be a good thing. Work-life balance, yanno?

That’s enough personal reflection. More later on conference happenings. Needless to say I’m going to a LOT of virtual reference sessions. That is both good and bad. Good because it’s something I dig, bad because while I’m doing that I’m not getting informed on other realms. Good things I have 2 colleagues here from PCC with me, we can share the knowledge.

*What, I haven’t told you about the near mid-air collision?! Ask me about it sometime…

blashepmy

I was at a discussion of some kind while at ALA, I honestly forget which. I think it might have been the ACRL Instruction Section discussion on social software. Anyway we at the table began to debate in earnest the merits and methods of teaching students (again, the implied students are those pesky millennials) how to value their privacy.

At first I began by sharing my typical method: show n’ shock (show them stuff and attempt to shock them into giving a crap). Then the woman next to me (delightful, wish I knew who she was) countered by asking why we believe this is something we should be teaching in the first place. Then all hell broke loose. I just got it, I totally knew what she was asking and why.

I hadn’t previously been thinking about it, but I followed up on her question with one of my own. Are we sure there is merit to forcing our values on our students? I mean yes, I want them to know how much info Facebook is sucking down with the potential to sell it, barter with it, or do who-knows-what. But really, just because I give a crap about my privacy and the relationship between my online identity and this (to me) very important concept tells you just that: it’s important to me. The assumption is always that millennial students are too stupid to understand the importance of privacy.

But maybe they do get it…and maybe they just don’t care. I think that every generation can come up with a list of values they embrace that they feel the other generations just don’t get. This is probably true of most cultures, subcultures, etc. These aren’t necessarily values for the masses, y’know. If you want to blast your puketastic weekend photos all over MySpace that’s your business. I might just start approaching you with the idea that you at least think you know what’s best for your image, for your privacy. And if that turns out not to be true? Well, I’m not sure what happens then.

experience economy @ your library

While I was at ALA I attended the BIGWIG unconference and had a great conversation with David Lee King and other unconference participants about the ideas of experience economy and community development within your digital community. For example, consider the idea of Build-a-Bear (those creepy overpriced bears that you stuff on your own). It costs so much more money to build a bear than it does to just buy a plush bear from somewhere. The idea is that people want to buy the experience, if you just wanted a bear you’d go to HugeBoxStore and buy one for 8 bucks. What you’re really paying for is the experience of choosing fur, stuffing the thing yourself, selecting your own beady little eyes, and having it all stitched together within the hour: customization. Experience economy tells us that people are in search of more than a service, more than a product. Continue reading…

Brainfire

I love the way I feel after a conference, like I have all of this brainfire motivating me and synapses pinging all over the place. This is a sharp contrast to how I feel at the end of the quarter, which is a lot more accurately described as brainfried. The challenge is to keep all of this fire going through the summer and into fall quarter. Hopefully having another conference in August will keep things rolling along.

I think it’s amazing that just a few weeks ago I was as skeptical of Twitter as many folks out there and now I think I’m a solid convert. Without Twitter I’d have spent much of ALA alone and hungry. I know there has to be some application for community college libraries– I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. I’ve heard my boss might have caught some serious brainfire at ALA as well, so I am looking forward to connecting with her and seeing what our collective imaginations can come up with.

As with every national conference I attend I am always struck by the numbers of librarians out there stagnating away in libraries with administrators who are afraid to do something different than they’ve always done. I feel like I need to keep pinching myself because I certainly don’t suffer under any stale conditions. How awesome to have a boss who wants you to dream big and figure out ways to apply those dreams in practical, user-centered ways. I swear I’m not sucking up, just reflecting.

If, like me, you are blessed with an environment in which you can dream big, I recommend a column in the current RUSQ, written by Michale Stephens. Taming technolust: Ten steps for planning in a 2.0 world offers concrete steps to take on your way to embracing the twopointopian mishegas while ensuring that you don’t go overboard with “flashy, sexy technology” that does nothing to further your end goals.

Wrapping up

It’s always a bit sad to leave conference. You make new friends, see old friends, and generally have a sleepaway camp feel about the whole event. At least that’s how I feel about the time spent.

Yesterday I went to the ACRL Science and Technology section (STS) program on innovation in science learning and the ACRL President’s Program. The President’s program speaker, Dan Ariely, was really interesting. So much so, in fact, that I was motivated to buy his new book. I’ve never really done much thinking from the behavioral economist perspective and his talk was quite fascinating. For me, the biggest Ah Ha! was related to the idea of free and what that means to people. Dan suggested that if a person buy’s a gym membership, but fails to use it, you motivate them to come back by reminding them that they are ripping themselves off each month for $__. In the library environment we tend to remind people ad nauseum that what we are providing is free. So, rather than emphasizing that the students have access to x number of databases for free, we need to emphasize that x  percentage of their tuition is spent on databases and they are in fact wasting $__ by not using them. Or something that that effect, he does a much better job with it.

Ironically, this is similar to something I do in the classroom all the time—and I was worried I was doing it wrong. I tell students all the time that our resources are incredibly expensive, certainly not free, and mostly paid for by them. I just don’t emphasize that they are losing out in a financial sense if they don’t use them.

The STS program was interesting although I felt that Felice Frankel, the first presenter, did not have anything for me that I could apply in the library or classroom. She’s the author of several books and is a well-known scientific image creator/photographer. It seemed the session was largely intended to promote her new book of scientific images. The imagery is stunning, don’t get me wrong, and even the concepts around science instruction. I guess I was just missing the bits on science and IL instruction—on a community college library budget. Here’s what there is from my sparse notes… Continue reading…

notes from Anaheim

Just a quick note from Anaheim to say that our ACRL 101 program went off without a hitch. I am so pleased and proud of the work of all of the Emerging Leaders in my group. Planning a national conference program was a totally new thing to me but I think it’s a skill set that I can really get a lot of mileage from.

Had dinner with Kevin and Sara Ryan last night. That was a blast. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and my lack of dinner company when Kevmo came through with the plan to meet at the Hilton. Sara and I have crossed paths a few times at conferences but never actually hung out. Holy mess, I hope to put in more face time with this powerhouse sometime. Our blends of ridiculous hilarity mesh very well…and there were $9 potato chips!

After dinner and assorted hijinks we parted ways about 10:30 last night…and I promptly got really lost and end up walking all over hell and gone. After uttering the words, “I don’t get lost at conferences too often,” I suppose it’s what I get. In either case I have some gnarly blisters to show for it.

There really haven’t been any groundshaking (for me) sessions just yet. Today I’m off to check out a program on the future of face to face reference and then some research into reference services. After that, it’s an ACRL membership advisory committee meeting and presentation (by me, eek).