shinylib

The end of silence

Interesting interaction with a student this morning. Still puzzling through whether I was a jerk or this was a kindness.

Working with a student who came in at 8:30 to finish last night’s ref consultation about her research paper. We’re just getting into the substance of our collective research AHA! when a man approaches the desk.

He says, “Excuse me, I appreciate that you’re…enthusiastic about whatever you’re doing..but can you please be quiet now?”

I respond, “Actually, no, but we do have quiet study zones on the second floor. I’d be happy to help you locate a table there and ensure that it stays quiet — you know at least until the construction crew arrives in about an hour to start banging on things. We’re in the midst of a remodel.”

He says he knows that and that it’s absolutely irrelevant to his request. I explain, in relatively sparing language, that the library as an entirely quiet space is an outdated modality (at MPOW) and that we welcome appropriate collaboration-related noise. We also do our best to protect defined quite zones (wall in the silence, not the noise, essentially).

I conclude that I think the best way forward is for us to both agree to moderate things – student and I will moderate our voices a bit and he can perhaps moderate his expectations of the library. Together we can find a place to respect and support everyone’s needs.

His response? “Are you staff here?” (you know where that’s usually leading) I explain that I am indeed faculty here and that it’s my job to have these dialogs with students, here at the reference desk. I reiterate my hope that we can work together on this because it’s our best way to respect one another’s goals and keep things moving. He says, “I guess that’s your way.”

He returned to his seat, where he continued working for a while. Last I looked he was no longer there, wondering if that’s because he left at a natural point for him or whether he left because he was upset. Truly, I don’t want students to leave for any reason. I’m also not going to refuse to help other students based on dated expectations.

How are you helping your stakeholders to come to terms with collaborative space noise? Is yours a library that defaults to the silent model? If so, are you anticipating things remaining silent?

Further, how do you deal with the idea that you yourself are a stakeholder in the space as well? From my perspective, my stake may not be more important than my patrons’ but it’s certainly equally valid. I cannot support them without a bit of noise.

privacy and suckers

I just watched a patron get suckered by one of our frequent flyers. He’s a nice guy, but I’ve seen him do the “woe is me, I have no printer credits” performance many times. The well-meaning student logged into her student account to help the other guy print (100 pages no less, which I know will have wiped out the student’s entire term allowance for printing).

The other guy is not a student, and uses the library every day on a 1-hour guest account, which doesn’t come with free printing privileges (community patrons can purchase their own print credits with a debit card, I believe).

The question is, is it my job to get involved? On the one hand I sort of resent the part where the student attempted to swoop in and save him because the mean librarian wouldn’t print 100 pages for him (hey I’m human, whatevs). I feel like they are her printing credits to do with as she sees fit. I also wonder, is it a breach of dude’s privacy to tell this woman “that’s nice of you honey, but he does this to a new person every day and you’re perpetuating his belief in the success of this method”?

Ultimately, I have bigger fish to fry, but it’s something I was wondering about…then a nosy student came along and literally started reading this blog post over my shoulder. Don’t blog at the refdesk, there’s a lesson learned. (:

Conversations

I had an interesting conversation with a student tonight. She mentioned that she had just transitioned from English language learner classes to “regular” college classes.

The writing class she ended up in focuses on political themes and she said she felt completely unprepared for political language. I hadn’t really thought about that. Sure the classes prepare you for basic college English, but then you end up in a Writing 121 that focuses on the 60s and you’re trying to decipher peacenik-speak anti-hippie rhetoric.  Or you end up in the writing class focused on popular culture references that are completely out of your framework. Most of the time students have no idea what kind of writing class it will turn out to be. As far as I know it’s completely at the discretion of the instructor. Sure the student could drop the class and try to take a different section, but that’s a total crapshoot when you’re competing with thousands of other students for the right spot in the right class at the right time on the right campus. Ugh, I don’t envy them.

What she didn’t say, but would have been completely justified in doing so, was that on top of this there’s the added layer of research language for which no one had prepared her either. As we looked at a few results in a fairly basic database search I could see her almost physically shrinking away from the screen. I backed up a few steps and tried to give her a basic rundown of what a database is and does (she’d already identified a need for articles, not books) and I think that was working for her.

I think on a more fundamental level she was struggling to understand why I was being so helpful. Maybe she was trying to figure out why someone had sent her to me in the first place (I got the distinct impression she didn’t wander in on her own). I finally realized she just hadn’t ever worked with a librarian. Once I figured that out I could assert the it’s my job factor in a convincing manner. I think we’re in good shape for a future visit.

I just wish her paper wasn’t due Monday. Or that she’d come in sooner. Something. It’s hard to go from zero to research in a short period of time.

Update on the PCC Bond

Hooray, the PCC Bond passed with about 53% approval (~28,000 votes). As my colleague noted in a comment, bond funds actually can’t be used to hire another librarian, but the hope is that if we build more library facilities it will become apparent to the powers that be (PTB) that library professionals are a necessary element of that facility.

Comments on the folly of depending on the PTB to grasp what’s apparent and obvious are unnecessary, but totally welcome. (:

Roads too few or too many?

We’re having a number of debates discussions amongst our librarians these days. Principally the discussions have taken two avenues: 1) access to electronic information via the library website and 2) federated searching via the library website. Basically it’s all about our website and how we envision it being used.

Some librarians advocate for the most simplified process possible. Students don’t need to know that articles come from databases and that peer review is an editorial process. Proponents of this argument suggest that we add links to the homepage that will take the user to the expected content with as few decisions (clicks) as possible along the way. Want a peer reviewed article? Follow the peer reviewed article link, in which the requisite checkboxes will have already been checked on your behalf.

A good bit of support for the first viewpoint (shortcutting) says that we see and interact with so few students in the library (distance learning, y0), via email, or on the telephone that we have to assume a large percentage of the unseen are not finding what they are looking for. And if they’re finding it, they’re likely doing so with more frustration than necessary. For this reason it has also been suggested that we invest in some kind of federated searching tool.

For me, personally, I have a difficult time wearing the librarian hat and the design hat at the same time. I’ve been accused of striving for the ideal (and perhaps missing the reality) in these discussions—and I’m generally okeh with that.

My librarian objection is that is our job to teach these skills and I fear our students will go out into a world full of libraries that might not have a “Peer Reviewed Articles” link. If we’ve taught them to think categorically about research they will know that they learned that articles are found in databases and try to start there. I don’t want to find that we’ve handicapped our students by “dumbing things down.” True, not all of our students (by far) have any plan for further formal education. I still expect them to become competant consumers and producers of information. This also doesn’t mean that I don’t grok the other argument, I’ve just chosen to hope for the best, I guess.

If our students don’t have these skills let’s work harder to get the education to them, not make it easier to check-out on the process. Distance learning students need librarians and IL instruction—hell, everyone needs this stuff if you ask me—and I’m just going to have to stalk those students who are roaming the campus but never coming in the library. Don’t want to learn controlled vocabulary in the library? Fine, I’ll bring it to you in the cafeteria, the gym, and this here screencast tutorial.

My design stance on this is that providing all of these links is just adding clutter to the homepage. Good design needs room to breathe and all of that jazz. It’s a pretty short argument, but an important one. We just spent the better part of year a completely scrapping our woefully inadequate website and building a new one. The last thing I want is to see it overrun with rampant linking. That’s what all that beautiful nav is about.

A colleague’s Frostian reflection today was that she wished our students didn’t have to choose between two roads (on our website) in order to search for information. I think this is an interesting notion. Where she sees too many roads, I think I see too few. I see the need to simplify access for some students but not at the expense of options and precision.

How do you navigate these discussions in your library? Where is the happy medium? Do we need to go to the completely customizable portal model? Click here if you want your website eerily simplified, click here if you’d like frustration with a side of controlled vocabulary…

Overwhelmed but hopeful…

Like most people I am overwhelmed and overjoyed at the results of the presidential election. I feel like I am unable to heave that deep sigh of relief just yet. I will say I was surprised at the extent of my emotional response to Obama as the new president-elect. I could fully remember sitting in Ms. Russo’s 4th grade class, learning about politics and saying things like “one day there’s gonna be a black president” but not actually believing that in my heart. No part of me as a child, growing up in Oakland, really thought this day would come. It is amazing.

Amazing as it is that change may actually be coming, some things are still the same. Proposition 8 passed. There will definitely be a court battle to follow, but I am disheartened that Californians (and also Floridians and Arizonans) are still taking it upon themselves to dictate who can partake in the legal marriage system.

Prop K also failed and while I certainly didn’t expect it to pass I am really pleased beyond measure that it even made it to the light of day. I have no qualms about letting you know that I am pro legalizing sex work. Prop K would have made it possible for sex workers in San Francisco to seek health care and tell the truth. Not having to lie about potential STI exposure would be a huge move for public health concerns. I hope that this iniative is put forth again.

We have our own bond measure on the local ballot this year and it’s looking like it’s really going to come down to each and every last individual ballot counted. So far we’re down 186 votes with still more votes being counted. The bond is critical to the continued success of the library as part of the monies would go toward building an actual library (and hiring additional library professionals) at the Southeast Center (currently a center, not a campus).

There were some other critical gains and losses by my evaluation but I don’t see a need to get into the minutiae. We won some, we lost some, we’re still going strong.

Worms and their cans

Cans of worms a’poppin open all over. There’s a discussion on one of the campus listservs pertaining to hate crimes. A banner for Semana de la Raza was stolen recently after it had already been defaced with KKK and other such crap.

The discussion on the faculty list has been variously wounded, combative, and most of all passive aggressive. I believe that whenever you reply to a person by using their language in quotes throughout the email you are really just attempting to bait them into some kind of conversation. Some kind of “conversation” indeed.

So although I really try like hell to avoid these interactions, I felt compelled to send a message to the list. Here’s hoping I don’t get flamed to death. I just feel strongly that a) I don’t want to receive these damn emails every day, b) this is totally not the point of the faculty list, and c) the “conversation” has already gone to crap.

I agree that there is a conversation to be had here but I would respectfully ask that the conversation take place off of this listserv. This asynchronous email environment is one in which there is great potential for misunderstanding one another without the benefit of both vocal and non-verbal expression.

If we are a community then let us come together as a community:  honestly and with good intention. Strive to use language that is transparent– not to bait one another into responding. We have to embrace the notion that we may feel and experience these complex constructs very differently. We should allow language to open us to one another and to ourselves, not to close each other off.

In the words of John Dewey, “There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication…. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.”

Out of respect for my colleagues I won’t be sharing any of the other emails on this topic. I can say that while I was writing this an e-mail came through that in response a face to face discussion has been scheduled for next week in the TLC. That’s all I really wanted.

Hysterical climate

I just got back from what can categorically be called NOT a relaxing lunch. I am having something of a frantic and exhausted day to begin with so I decided to forgo my carton of soup in favor of a burger and fries from the caf (I know, I know).

While in the cafeteria a very loud alarm, possible the active shooter alert, began chiming. Only one caf employee began freaking out—and boy did he freak, but understandably—while the students sat complacently in their chairs, staring like downer cows waiting for the death to come and find them. I felt extreme pressure because, as faculty, it’s my job to drop everything and start doing emergency procedures. The most stressful part was the not knowing—is this an emergency? And the alarm stopped 30 seconds later… we still have no clue, but judging the pacific faces in the library I am guessing there was no emergency.

Existing in this hysterical climate is beyond exhausting. As though students and faculty both didn’t have enough to contemplate on a daily basis… now we worry that we come to work and to school and get gunned down in the course of our mundaneity. Although nothing came of it and people really looked at the caf worker like he was insane, I really appreciated how seriously he was prepared to take the incident. If someone’s coming to blow me away (maybe they hated ARTStor that much?) I would much rather someone take the idea of keeping us all alive very seriously.

Did I mention today is the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy? No, I’m sure you knew that already.