From the Portland Mercury’s Blogtown PDX: Late Night WiFi in Inner SE?

There are lots of coffee shops in my ‘hood during the days and evenings with wifi, but I’m specifically looking for a place I can go on a Friday night that’s open at least until midnight, and won’t be so cacophonous and crazy that I’ll have to worry about either not having anyplace to sit down, or having some staggering drunk spill beer on my keyboard on their way to the blasting jukebox.

I still think that the neighborhood cafe complete with wifi, magazines (for browsing, not checking out), a jukebox and attractive librarian baristas is a totally viable service opportunity in many places. It would be a natural space for community events and book groups. Perhaps even more natural than newspapers and bars hooking up and hosting movie discussions. Come to think of it, running a library branch like that would be really fun! Any takers?

My small post about the reference desk stapler solicited some hilarious and insightful comments both here and at a pic of the stapler on flickr.

Highlights include Richard Ackerman’s comment:

Of course we let our patrons use staplers! We just require they take training in the use of advanced stapler features first

and Jenny’s response. As usual, she’s spot on:

And we call it a collation tool that you have to reserve in advance and show a library card to use. Then we make you use it in the designated collating area, where no more than two people can be at any one time. Removing the collation tool from the collating area will result in an immediate suspension of all collating privileges.

Users are allowed to collate up to 30 pages or 10 sets before they must surrender the tool to the next patron in line. If no one else is waiting, the patron may continue to use it for an additional 15 pages or 5 sets. Patrons may not exceed 60 pages or 20 sets in any one 24-hour period. Failure to observe these rules will result in the immediate suspension of all collation privileges. Staff will refill staples in collation tool within 24 hours of the first written report of an empty cartridge.

Collation tool hours are 9:16 a.m. - 8:44 p.m., Tuesday - Thursday. Classes in basic and advanced stapling are offered in January, June, and October.

JanieH links to a post on “Library Garden” which asks the great question, “Have you considered the price you are paying by punishing the majority of your good customers to deal with a few of the bad?” It also links to an amazingly titled bit from “Pop Goes the Library:” Red Tape = Patron Kryptonite

All of this is feeding into what I decided was going to be my theme for this year: Let’s Make Libraries Easy. I’m not a big fan of when people throw their arms up in the air and proclaim, “Libraries can’t be everything to everyone” because, duh, it’s a totally obvious statement. What I really dislike about the phrase is that it seems to discourage innovation and prevents us from striving to do the best we can. Right? “We can’t be everything to everyone so we probably shouldn’t try this new service.” “It might be nice to have IM clients installed our our PACs, but we can’t do everything.” Concentrating on the fact that we can’t be everything to everyone will lead us to become nothing for nobody. So instead, let’s think locally. We can be, and often are a heck of a lot to our communities. And I don’t mean communities in just the geographical sense.

We can’t maximize what we can do for our communities unless we stop with the passive-aggressiveness and make nice library signage, reduce barriers to service and think about our libraries from a non-librarian perspective.

Here are five things you can do this week to make your library a better place:

• Let people bring drinks into your building. Let that group of high schoolers studying together eat the cupcakes they brought in. They might even offer you one. If they do, take it. It’ll make you seem human.
• Communicate with your users who IM.
• Let patrons plug their digital cameras into your computers.
• By your DVD collection, have hold slips filled out with the info for popular films. They’ll just need to write in their name and hand it to you.
• Allow kids to bring their skateboards in the library

The next time you’re involved with making a decision in your library, please consider the needs of your users. My thanks go out to all of the library workers - shelvers, administrators, IT geeks, janitors, catalogers and everyone else - who are working to make their libraries easier to use.

I haven’t been writing much on walking paper lately because of competing projects. One of the neat things I’ve been working on is westernspringshistory.org If you visit the site, you’ll learn that the TFML got a grant to work in conjunction with the local historical society to digitize a portion of its historic home collection. Like everything, it isn’t perfect, and like many things, it is a work in progress, but I’d like to point out that the site is run by WordPress, so it was a no brainer to have (moderated) commenting available for each house. We were hoping that people would add data to the project by sharing their knowledge and questions. After everyone in town received a nice brochure about the project, our hopes came true. Take this comment from 4350 Lawn:

This was our first house in Western Springs. The year was 1976 – Memorial Day weekend. A parade marching by woke us our first morning – it was then we fell in love with this wonderful town!

We lived on the North side of this two family house. The beautiful high ceilings, carved fireplace and large rooms were very unique. Only spent 3 years in this house – welcomed our first born child and decided this was the place to raise our family.

The comment on 619 47threquests more information, and invites us to take an updated photo of the house.

The library has yet to reply to the comments, but when we do we’ll be sure to email the people, and post our reply on the website. This interaction is amazing, and leaves me wanting more. The moderation process is quite simple (alerts are sent to our email address when a comments is awaiting moderation, where we can approve – or deny if it happens to be spam). The ease of this leads me to believe we should venture into some things I’ve thought about doing for quite some time, like enabling comments on our Readers Advisory pages, or creating a special section on the website for discussion. These things seem like a can of worms that could be well worth opening. Imagine a library gathering their community virtually and creating a library based web community!

Anyone else have experience with user generated content on a library website?

In, the February 2005 Cites & Insights Walt has a number of interesting comments responding to some of my posts here. I’m extra glad he quoted an earlier post of mine where I said “More on that later.” It is nice to have reminders!

The issue at hand is the role of libraries in their communities’ usage of technology. Answering some questions will help us explore the issue.

1. What would it mean for a library to lead their community through new info technologies?

and

2. Why should libraries get involved with leading their community through new information technologies?

1. The important thing to mention here is that a library can’t help the community it serves with technology by simply buying technology. As nice as it would be to install a wireless network, do VR, buy 10 of the latest widgets and call it a day, we can’t do only that. Simply buying technology and using it themselves won’t do the trick either. The answer to question one above is education. Libraries should demonstrate their expertise with information technologies by writing articles about new technologies on their websites and newsletters, and by offering classes. Chances are that someone at your library is a RSS junkie, or a blogging fiend, and would do a great job sharing their passion with people in your community. If a library happens to be looking for a project, they could consider contacting local organizations (government, park district, theatre, gardening club, genealogy/history groups), and set up infotech consulting sessions. Groups probably have all kinds of questions about how they can use the Web, wireless, photo-quality printers, digital cameras (and more) and libraries can help them!

2. Part of your library’s mission statement is (or should be) meeting the information needs of your community. Clearly, helping your community with new infotech is an aspect of meeting their information needs.

Aside from this, it is incredible PR for your library to be seen as the go-to place when it comes to questions about infotech. Being a community leader is a good way to get positive recognition. With positive recognition comes being valued, and increased use of your vital and active library. Whoop!

In Practice
This is fine and dandy on screen, but how does it play out in real life? We’ll see. This Spring we’re going to be offering at least two advanced classes/information sessions for patrons.

Web Logs and Really Simple Syndication: Getting the most out of the Web and publishing to it.

What is Wireless? Information on wireless networks and how you can use them.

When I have the presentations written, I’ll be sure to post them here for others to use. Once they transpire, I’ll be sure to write about the outcomes. Go out on a limb and report back too!

My previous few posts highlight the quagmire in which many public libraries find themselves. On one hand there are many public library users that are not terribly adept with technology. On the other hand there are public library users that work with technology on a regular basis and have fairly high technology expectations. If we had unlimited fiscal and temporal resources there wouldn’t be an issue; we could collect resources and equipment appropriate every skill level. In the real world, however, with limited resources, libraries are forced to make decisions pertaining to all aspect of the library. This of course includes technology.

What, then, is the best course to take? Clearly there isn’t one answer that will apply to all situations. PubLibs are accountable to their communities, and every community is different. There are certain things to keep in mind, however, that can guide your library’s decision making process related to technology.

-Include technology in community surveys. These don’t happen very often, but when they do they can be useful in painting some broad strokes about the technology in your community. A survey might tell you whether you’d be better off investing in more computers for internet use or a wireless network.

-Mine public services staff for information. These are the folks that have first hand experience with people’s technology skills. They can give some more details about people’s tech skills. They should also tell you if there are things about the technology in your library which constantly trips up your users (e.g. many people looking for usb drives on the front of your computers and not finding them (something that we’re experiencing as of late)).

-Do trial projects. Dip your proverbial toe in the water. Sufficiently promote the project, and if it takes off, expand it. The trick with trial projects is finding a balance between putting in too much effort and so little that it is automatically dead.

-Spy. Look at other places in your community and what they offer people. If there’s a coffee shop in town that offers wifi and people are using, copy their idea and do it better. If a nearby library is getting more people using their internet computers because they have an easy going sign-up policy, realize that you have a choice to make.

It is most realistic for libraries to aim to be as current as their surrounding community. Less realistic but perhaps more appealing is the notion of libraries being their community’s technology mentor. While I think certain situations warrant that the majority of a library’s attention be given to making sure people’s basic needs are met, I think there are some scenarios in which libraries could lead their communities by purchasing certain types of technology. More on this later.

In conclusion, libraries have the difficult mandate of trying to make everyone happy. Being attentive to the basics of technology while remaining interesting to those that have mastered them is a good challenge and keeps things interesting.

(non-tech post)

I’ve been wanting to post about this for some time but the entire story was still unfolding. It is now over for the most part, so I can write a bit about it. In short, the library and people in our community were told how to think.

I run a film discussion group at the library. I have fun doing it, and it is a good for the community. My pal Gabe at the La Grange Park Public Library started a film discussion group years ago for that library. Being clever, we host our groups on alternate Fridays so that nearly every Friday, people in our area can see independent/art house/or otherwise important films close to home. Our FDGs groups have been well received. We’ve both been featured in the local papers, and we have a number of people who regularly attend our movies. Yay.

For those of you who might think it was naive of me to schedule “Fahrenheit 9/11” for the end of October, please understand that the decision wasn’t come to arbitrarily. When it came out on DVD, I exhibited Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” to the delight of many people in my FDG. Even better, there was a interesting, healthy, lively, and friendly discussion afterwards. The event was a stellar example of a public library qua community meeting place. People came together to listen, learn and reflect. When I mentioned its release on DVD, people in my group expressed interest in Moore’s latest offering. This wasn’t a surprise considering that the film has received plenty of attention in the media and is the highest grossing documentary of all time (about $100 million).

A number of weeks ago we received two emails objecting to the showing of the film. I was happy that someone was using the email submission form to the board’s email address, and didn’t think too much of it. We also received a number of positive comments about our showing of the film. People were looking foward to seeing it. The board was supportive of the department heads’ decision to continue with the showing of the film. The fact that we discussed the film at the board meeting was in the local paper. The next issue of the paper contained a lovely letter to the editor commending the library on its decision. People approached us and thanked us for not backing down.

Some time later, another public library in Illinois faced some controversy for their scheduled showing of the film. I started to get a bit nervous when they decided to cancel the film because of vitriolic telephone calls and the like. Last Thursday I joked with the director of our library, “Only 8 days to get through before I show this!”

It turned out to be a tough next few days for the library. Two days ago the showing of “Fahrenheit 9/11” at my library was a topic of discussion on a right-wing radio show broadcast in the Chicagoland area. Ouch. After the show, there were a number of negative phone calls to the library. When I arrived at the library Monday afternoon, there had been some more calls. They continuted in the evening.

Many of these people shared the same outrage, and thought it was inappropriate for the library to be showing the film. Many of these people were not even residents of our community, which invalidated any business they had phoning us. Regardless, the library’s director (best.director.ever) was harassed by a number of random people. At this point we decided to route all communication about the movie to email and letters. The telephone calls were too much to handle. Later on in the evening a man stopped in to tell me that if we didn’t agree to cancel the film, he was going to file a temporary retstraining order to stop us. He then told me that “Fahrenheit 9/11” wasn’t a documentary. I encouraged him to come to the FDG to share his views on cinema. Then another person called and also mentioned bringing an injunction against us. It was a tough day at the library.

Things didn’t get truly bad, however, until today when the library received some threatening phone calls. With this, the library’s director and I had a long conversation and decided to cancel the film. Neither of us wanted to, but we felt that there were staff and patron safety concerns that could be resolved by doing it.

After we put a sign on the doors to the library, four or five people approached me within the hour stating how terrible they thought it was that we were forced to cancel the film. One patron echoed my thoughts exactly when he stated that he didn’t understand what the big deal was. Just like we don’t force people to read any of our books, we don’t force them to come to my film discussion group.

I’m sad that those that wanted to come to watch and talk about the film won’t get the opportunity to do so. I’m also sad that the bully tactics of a few people were effective.

As for silver linings, I learned a number of things from this ordeal and it confirmed other thoughts I have had.

-The library does well under stress. Some of the people that called were so livid that they could hardly get the words out of their mouth. Think of your least favorite raving political radio pundit and multiply that by two. Even so, we all kept our cool and were very professional. The library board did a fantastic job letting us make our decisions and supporting them.

-Some people like to communicate, orthers like to rant. Early on in the taking of phone calls, I thought, “Okay, you’re right and they are wrong. If you calmly explain what is going on, perhaps you can diffuse the situation.” Trust me, I was mistaken about this.

-The current political climate is hindering free speech. Not wanting to participate in a conversation is one thing, but to prevent the conversation from taking place is another. There are many people who do not want conversations taking place in which criticisms of the current administration might be found.

Friday night from 6:45-7:00 I’ll be sitting on the bench outside of the library explaning to dissapointed patrons how their freedoms of speech and thought were violated.

Public libraries are one of the last potential public fora. Let’s do our best to keep them that way.

One of the most important aspects of reference work is the development of relationships. Libraries, through the individual actions of librarians, need to form a bond with their patrons. This isn’t terribly difficult to accomplish because people coming to the reference desk have a problem to solve. When a librarian helps them solve a problem, there is the potential for a connection to be made. This should be evident through examples from our daily lives: Aren’t problem solvers useful people? Do you feel loyal to the last institution from which you received good service? Will you return to the institution when a similar need arises?

Virtual Reference, as conceived by many projects, makes it nearly impossible to create this bond. The absence of this possibility isn’t a function of the fact that the transaction is virtual, it is a function of how there’s no steady or repeated connection. To get more coverage, one of the VR projects we’re working for has welcomed libraries from very disparate areas. Joining forces makes sense for this reason, but I don’t think it takes into account that it causes patrons to have seemingly random reference encounters. Throughout the week, there are many, many individuals with whom patrons may come into contact. In essence, these transactions are reference one night stands.

Another thing to note is that the librarians working for this VR project, including us, have made it standard practice to use pseudonyms for our online presence. This is a barrier perhaps not recognized by the patrons, but a barrier nonetheless.

Another problem with VR is that current programs still aren’t meeting patrons in a convenient place. Simply having some presence on the web isn’t good enough. Patrons surfing the web either do or do not presently use a major instant messaging service (AIM, YIM, MSN, etc…); this is a fact. Those that are already chatting would find it more useful if libraries were present in one of these services. As simple as it may be, it is still an extra few steps to navigate to a VR website and enter in a zip code to log in. Those that don’t already chat are perhaps even less likely to consult a VR service. (Thinking to consult a service, navigating to the site, logging in and then chatting can all be big hurdles).

A possible solution to both of these issues would be to simply meet the patrons where some of them are, the major IM services. Librarians would be at the fingertips of their patrons if they would have an IM program running. There would be no navigation for users. We would be integrated into their lives. Patrons would be familiar with whom they were chatting, and they’d chat with the same library, the library that they visit in person, on a regular basis. A relationship would be formed.

Michael Stephens made a serious but somewhat offhand comment advocating the adoption of using a major IM service for VR instead of expensive vendor software. People took note and blogged about just that one comment because it makes common sense. VR software from vendors is bloatware.

Some libraries are indeed using AIM for VR. I’d love to hear how it is going. Does having an IM name out on the web flood librarians with questions from random netizens any more than having a telephone or fax number out there? I’d guess probably not. Even if it did, imagine the possibilities.

I recently registered a new AIM name, one for the library. Soon there will be business cards with this name to be handed out to the young adults in the library. The name will also go on our website. I bet we’ll get more response from this than we have from our current VR project.