StratusLib: Librarians, Libraries, and Beyond

Writer's Block

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:24:00 +0000

I recently read a really good article in Communication Briefings about how to dump writer's block, and thought I'd share some snippets:

"To write well, you must lose your fear of writing a really bad first draft. The first part of the writing process involves putting words on paper--or on the computer screen--without editing them. Suggestion: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and write freely without stopping. After the timer dings, read what you wrote...You will overcome the psychological block, stimulate your creativity and end up with an outline you can use to begin writing the finished piece."

You Bought It, Now Sell It!

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:38:00 +0000

Here is a copy of my PowerPoint presentation on Merchandising Reference Services, viewed off the BCR website in PDF:

You Bought It, Now Sell It!

Marketing Reference Services

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Since I did a seminar on Marketing Reference Services in public libraries, I was interested in finding out what other marketing strategies were out there. Here are some tidbits:

Marketing a Virtual Reference Service--QuestionPoint 24/7

Virtual Services:
-Change people's expectations; create a service people wouldn't expect
-Target patrons who don't come to the library

Collaborative Marketing Campaign:
-Newspaper, magazines, banners, library website
-YouTube contest--students submit short videos advertising virtual reference services (beware of a lot of library stereotypes)
-MTV commercial--met with local cable provider
-Determined coverage area
-Dates for beginning/end of campaign
-Who they wanted to reach
-Commerical aired right before a Britney Spears video
-Hired video producer--30 second spot, debuted during MTV video music awards
-Wanted to reach the back-to-school crowd

-After MTV video was put in schools and on public access channels (cheaper)

-Poll results--611 votes saw advertisement on MTV
126 votes saw advertisement on YouTube

-Usage affect after advertising--went up 50% the night the commercial debuted

-Cost--Video production $2200 (You can contact your local college video production dept. if you don't want to spend this much money), or have a contest (such as the YouTube contest)
--MTV continued airing cost $4800 (specifically for the video music awards)
--Movie theater advertising--can get a non-profit rate, just be careful of timing (don't air video 40 minutes before movie begins for example)

Things to consider:

What is your goal?

Who is your target audience?--Make sure what you produce appeals to them

How much can you afford to spend?--Know what your budget is before you meet with collaborative parties

Lessons Learned:

Easier and cheaper than they thought to advertise on TV

TV reaches a lot of people

It was fun and they wanted to do it again

Understanding Our Users

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:30:00 +0000

This seminar at RUSA's Reference Renaissance Conference discussed diverse users and understanding how to best meet their needs. The presentation began with a discussion of gender, continued with a presentation on culture concluded with communicating with students via Virtual Reference.

Gender

-There are gendered styles of computer searching

-Men are more likely to scan and collect and go back and revise searching
and felt they had more control over their searching

-Women read results, collect fewer results and return to previous sites and results
and have a more personal connection with information

-Technology

-Sociopolitical = personal values and world views are getting integrated into technology
design

-We need to look at how social relationships influence the process of technology

-Users do not trust their ability to seek information ( this makes appear unmotivated, but they are not)

-Authorities are given greater value than self, but they are not trusted as much; thus, it is hard to appeal to learners

-And yet--people tend to depend on information professionals to evaluate information; knowledge is open to re-evaluation because it is subjective

-The best thing we can do is retain open communication with both colleagues and users, and consider other points of view

---

Breaking Barriers for International Students

-International student population is growing

-International student challenges include:
-Insufficient assistance to overcome cultural and language barriers
-Lack of knowledge in how to seek out information
-Gaps in understanding

-Librarians can use learner-centered teaching strategies to overcome these barriers

Learner-centered teaching:
-focuses on student learning base and experiences rather than librarian's teaching base
-means putting oneself into the shoes of the learner
-is a philosophy, not a procedure

-Engagement--connecting learner's previous knowledge (from their unique culture) to
what they are learning
-Practice--feedback from instructor
-Assessment--instructor needs to make sure learner internalizes new information

Communication Difficulties--international students have very quiet and choppy English because they are nervous and afraid of making mistakes

-International Students have a different communication system
-They sometimes have a negative image of librarians due to their cultural norms

Surface techniques--Librarians should not talk down to international students and shouldn't
make judgments--Librarians' words can have a deep impact on
how students feel

-Many international students are computer literate but become frustrated with keyword searching, due to language barriers; this creates teaching opportunities for librarians (i.e. controlled vocabulary)

-Google offers spelling suggestions while databases do not
-Librarians should do guided instruction, allowing students to type keywords on thier own

-Classification systems (LC and Dewey) make students feel lost and are unfamiliar with these systems

Best practices--Neutral questioning
-Follow-up to check understanding to take care of communication gaps
-Remind students that they are not expected to know everything right away
-Give students time to think
-Be approachable
-Avoid mere show-and-tell; let students try and do new tasks
-Listen
-Observe reactions of students
-Anticipate questions, encourage students to ask more questions
-*Offer opportunities for follow-up instruction*
---

Meaning in Virtual Reference Environments

-Virtual Reference (VR) librarians often hesitate to instruct, but students are usually more receptive to instruction (92%)

-VR requires a more student-centered approach, and requires educator to go where students are and build on students' experiences

-VR librarians are viewed by students as being more equal in status and approachable

-Students want to become independent learners, and VR environments are conducive to power-sharing relationships

-Two discourses--native and acquired--these need to be lined up in VR--this is done by listening to the student and adjusting the reference interview accordingly

-It is important for VR librarians to reliquish control as the student becomes more comfortable in using the information; this allows students to engage in crticial thinking

-Librarians should let students suggest search terms

UStream? Ebooks?

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:18:00 +0000

Having just returned from ALA, I am brimming with new info that I will post regularly in the coming weeks.

My first bit of new info is a really neat technology I learned about, called UStream . This website allows you to film yourself (doing lectures, facilitating meetings, etc.) and then provides an embedded web code to allow you to post the streaming video to your library's website. This would be particularly useful for librarians in distance ed (posting lectures or library instruction sessions online, for instance). It will be interesting to see how this technology can help librarians.

UStream might be more useful for distance ed students than ebooks have been. I came across an article in Library Hotline today that discussed an ebrary study on ebooks. It found that only half of students use ebooks on a regular basis. The reason? A lot of students (about 51%) do not know where to find them or are unaware that they are even offered. As a result, students end up using more popular means of finding their information. According to LH, "This survey further confirmed a lot of online behavior among students that will come as no surprise to libraries: Google is dominant among student searchers; Wikipedia has arrived as a 'tool of choice' and e-reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are 'established self-help reference.'"

So, some questions I have are: Regarding distance ed and library services, is it a matter of lack of ebook promotion? What would be a good way to promote online reference services to distance students? And, would UStream be a better way to reach students in an online setting, than say, blackboard?

Spanish weeding

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:01:00 +0000

I am in charge of the Spanish collection here at my library, and was recently slated to weed the Spanish books. The collection is new enough that it had not yet been weeded.

As a result, I researched weeding strategies for Spanish books, and found that there is not a lot of data in the current library lit. The bulk of what I found consisted of acquistions and collection development rather than collection management and discarding.

Once I got out into the stacks, I was able to use the information I had gleaned to get a rough idea of which books to keep and which to discard. Our library uses the CREW method of weeding.

Some of the general rules of thumb I used were:

1. It is best to err on the side of keeping Spanish materials. I usually kept books that I would have normally discarded in English because Spanish-language books are usually harder to find from vendors or through ILL.

2. Regarding fiction, it is better to keep Spanish or Mexican authors instead of Spanish translations of well-known English authors. Not only are Spanish readers less likely to relate to popular American writers like Stephen King and Michael Crichton, but usually Spanish versions of these books do not have very good translations, particularly those published before 2000. Titles such as "Like Water for Chocolate" that were originally published in Spanish are better to keep. There is also a list of top 100 Spanish fiction titles, courtesy of the editors at the Criticas Magazine.

3. In public libraries, it is better to keep materials published in Mexico rather than those published in Spain. Make sure you know whether your community prefers Mexican Spanish.

4. In general, some non-fiction topics to keep include:

-Books on Citizenship, how to secure a green card
-Cookbooks and sewing books
-Parenting and child care, pregnancy and childbirth
-Home repair and how-to
-Excercise and fitness, health and beauty
-Materials on learning English
-Biographies
-Business and careers
-Computer basics

For more information about Spanish collection development, consult the following Spanish Collections wiki

Add a Google chat box to your blog

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:07:00 +0000

For all Gmail users, go to the following link:

http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New

Copy and paste the code into your blog:

1. Layout
2. Add a Page Element
3. HTML/JavaScript: Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog

RSS and Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:49:00 +0000

So after much troubleshooting, doing, undoing, redoing, I have figured out how to add an RSS script to my blogger page so that others can click on my RSS feed and receive my blog updates in their RSS reader. In trying to learn this process for myself, I did some reasearch and found that other users of bloggers have run into similar roadblocks. To help others, I will provide a step-by-step method (minus all the trip-ups I faced).

1. Validate your blog address (yourblog.blogspot.com) though feedvalidator.org

2. Create your own syndicated RSS feed. Feedburner (www.feedburner.com) is very user-friendly.

3. Once you have your feed up and running, click on the "Publicize" tab toward the top of the page

4. On the Publicize Your Feed page, click on the "friendly graphic" link

5. Choose your icon of choice, scroll down to the bottom and highlight the webcode, and type Ctrl C to copy it.

4. To add this web code to your feed, go to Customize, Add a Page Element, and click on "HTML/JavaScript: Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog"

5. Paste the feed code (Ctrl V)

6. Save and view.

If this doesn't work for some of you, please let me know.

Project Management

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:12:00 +0000

From my understanding, more group work is done in public libraries than academic. If I am wrong on this, I am open to corrections...

Still, I wonder how many librarians are familiar with project management strategies? How often are they taught in library school? In my management class, all I remember is case studies and group projects. We did not go over various project management structures (or if we did, I must have spaced them out). Today, in talking with my supervisor about a project I have been working on, I learned about some effective project management techniques that can be used to ensure that all group members working on a project (or program) are on the same page and understand what needs to happen in order to ensure an effective end result. One of these structures is known as the fishbone structure .

The project management structure is the "how to" of effectively involving and engaging all group members from start to finish. First, the project leader figures out the main scope of the project and works to ensure that the other people involved in the project are clear on what that scope is. The project manager also needs to make sure that all the people are engaged in every step. That is what the "big bones" part of the fishbone structure demonstrates; it allows the people involved with the project to think of the main steps along the way, how to accomplish them, and how much time will be needed.

Before the big bones are figured out, smaller bones need to be analyzed. Smaller bones are components of the larger ones and usually have their own steps to them. As an example, a big bone could be user assessment and smaller bones would be how long the assessment will take, what assessment strategies will be used, who will assess, etc. With all these possibilities, it is important for all the people invovled with the project to agree upon the various steps (big bones).

It is also important for a project leader to keep all the group members excited about the project instead of feeling bogged down. This means:

- not requiring a lot of extra work for those involved
- having a clear sequence and direction for the project plan
- having an estimated date of completion

So, thoughts? Has this been useful to some of you?

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (The Writer Librarian) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:04:00 +0000

So, this is my very first blog. I am hoping it will cover all aspects of librarianship, and will cater to both new and seasoned librarians. I was racking my brain trying to think of a clever (and simple) name for this blog and ended up (with the help of a fellow librarian) coming up with StratusLib. "Stratus" is derived from a kind of cloud that extends over a large area and is low to the ground. It is my hope to benefit this profession as widely as possible, and, being a rural librarian, I feel that currently I am somewhat under the radar. The cloud concept is derived from a nickname, of sorts. A close friend of mine teaches English in Japan and once wrote my name "Ka-ren" in Kanji characters. "Ka" is a word for "cloud".

So by now a lot of you are probably thinking, "Giant who cares," but I hope that my future posts will be more librarian specific, and more beneficial to my fellow colleagues.

I will leave you with what my coworker told me when I told him I was starting my blog: "That reminds me of a T-shirt I saw once that said, 'This T-shirt has been read more than your blog.'"