It’s here! Part 4 in the series on photography best practices that Cindi Trainor has been doing. Part 4 is titled Take Pictures, Tell Stories: Part 4: Fun with Photos at Library Events. Go back and see parts 1-3 as well.
Google Editions is on its way, a cloud bookstore in direct competition with Amazon and Apple. So far, there is no explicit model for libraries to use, but Google insiders say that it might be in the works. Library Journal does a nice job of covering the story. I can’t wait. More competition, especially in a freemium model, is just what publishing needs to give it a shot in the arm and cut out the middle man. Boo-yah.
AudioPal: Free text to speech and voice recording/emailing tool that you can use via the phone. Nice!
via @Philbradley on Twitter
Tomorrow I talk about planning & running a library’s social media presence at the online all-day Innovation for Libraries in the 21st Century Conference, put on by the Alliance Library System and LearningTimes. Many awesome presenters will be speaking too, so take a look at the schedule! There are even multiple tracks, so you can pick and choose to attend what works best for you.
You can still register & learn more about the full conference program on the conference website. Hope to see many of you there!
A week ago, I did a poll on Twitter for library staff using the tool Twtpoll. Please respond to the poll if you have not yet done so.
I asked one simple question: “Why do you continue to work in libraries?” Here are the results. We had 92 respondents as of today and the poll is still open so it may go up and the results may change. But here’s what it looks like today. People could select more than once choice, so the total is over 100%.
UPDATE: WE NOW HAVE MANY MORE RESPONDENTS, SO THE RESULTS ARE SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT. SEE THE UPDATED RESULTS AS OF 6/9/2010. LAZINESS & “HOLDING ON FOR RETIREMENT” WENT UP A BIT 
While I had sincerely hoped that belief in the library’s mission would rank first, it’s interesting to me that love for customers (which is the library’s mission) only came in with 26%. And we apparently love the customers more than we love our co-workers
I wasn’t surprised by the low ranking of the ‘good pay & benefits’ option, but I did think that the ‘fear’ and ‘holding on til I’m retired’ questions would have come in higher. Then again, this was a poll on Twitter (& I sent it out via Facebook as well). I don’t think that a representative sampling of our near-retirement-age library staff are on Twitter & Facebook.
In all honesty, for me personally, I still work in libraries due to a combination of ‘belief in the library’s mission in society’ and ‘fear that I’m not qualified for anything else’ (which may be why I thought that would come in higher).
The thought of moving out of libraries after my impending probable lay-off in July is both exhilarating and scary. Exhilarating at the possibility of making much better wages and benefits in private industry or non-profits with my skill set and willingness to work long hours. Scary because I really like libraries and I want to work in them longer. I want to contribute to the great equalizer in our society. I want to better people’s lives in a non-profit environment. And also scary because maybe private industry doesn’t have a role for a tech-savvy project manager, information architect, and writer. In some ways, I think about moving into consulting full time — speaking and writing my days away, but the thought of not having stable income or health insurance scares the devil out of me. But in the end, I just like libraries too much to leave. And maybe that’s the case for most of us. What we do is admirable in my book. We make differences in people’s lives, and that’s something that I think we should all be proud of at the end of the day.
Talking with co-workers my age, there seems to be a common thread — we feel that we deserve/want better pay & benefits, but don’t want to leave libraries for ethical and security reasons. So, what’s a librarian to do? Hang tight and hope to goodness that we don’t keep bleeding jobs in our field? Pray that in five years we don’t have a critical librarian shortage as those who left the field today aren’t willing to come back to replace all the soon-to-be-retirees? Hope that we make up some of the concessions and losses in our salaries and benefits over the last few years (our management union is losing 7 1/2% + no wage increases for 3 years). That’s a 20% reduction in standard of living between now (which isn’t so hot to begin with) and 2013. Plead with lawmakers to reinstate library hours and funding? Rebuild the “new library” in a different way to accommodate the far smaller staff and make the library what we want it to be, instead of what it has been? Or do we jump ship? Do we flee the sinking vessel in favor of better financial and lifestyle rewards?
I sincerely hope that most of us will stay. But realistically, I think that libraries will be losing many quality library employees to other industries better positioned to reward them. If we do have a comeback as a field, we’re going to have to figure out what we can offer these ex-patriots to motivate them to come back when we need them.
Isn’t this everyone’s dream? “5 Simple Tools for a Paperless Office.” I think that every one of these is implementable, today, in any work environment.
Good list on Mashable: “5 Free Android Apps for Web Developers.” If you do any web development on your phone (even just making changes to your website’s stylesheet or adding content), take a look at the list.
For anyone who speaks, presents, or consults for work–be it to a small group or a huge auditorium: “The TED Commandments – rules every speaker needs to know.” (For those of you unfamiliar, TED Talks are a huge collection of video recorded talks from rather influential & well-known folks on their areas of expertise, on just about any subject imaginable. I have the Android App that lets me view TED Talks on my phone quite easily, which I use to better myself when standing in line at the post office or pharmacy counter.)
My favorite has to be #1: “Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.” I am so tired of hearing the same library speakers talk, and give the same presentation they gave 5 years ago, on the same topic with the same slides and the same stupid jokes. New content = king. I never give the same presentation twice. Every time the slides change, the entire outline changes, or the recommended resources change…preferably all three.
via @librarianbyday on Twitter
Mozilla is previewing a new Firefox add-ons manager. ‘Bout time! The new one looks really nice, with a lot more functionality than the current old janky one.
via @mashable on Twitter
Great article about 4-year trends in the use of a large public library’s online catalog at the State Library of Victoria in Australia: “Accessing the Collection of a Large Public Library: An Analysis of OPAC Use” (27 pg PDF) by Dr Vivienne Waller.
From the abstract:
Despite widespread use of Internet search engines, the online catalogue is still the main pathway to the collection of a particular library. The use of Internet search engines does, however, have implications for user expectations around the online catalogue, and search strategies when using the online catalogue. There is much research on online catalogue use that predates search engine use, and there is a need for more up-to-date research, particularly on the use of online catalogues in public libraries. This paper reports on an analysis of transaction logs of end users of the online catalogue of a large public library in Australia, the State Library of Victoria. It compares searches over four years, taking into account the search settings and search strategies and looking at search success, including the reasons for search failure. The paper also introduces the concept of abandonment rates to online catalogue search, defining a metric that adds to the useful information that can be determined from transaction logs. The paper uses the findings as the basis for its concluding recommendations for how public library users can be assisted to find what they are looking for on the library catalogue.
via ResourceShelf
Recent Comments: