Category: librarianing

Bagged & Boarded: House of Night

houseofnight

[If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you know that I’ve really gotten into comics in the last six or so months for personal reading as well as I’ve also been collecting graphic novels for work. Starting today, and every Wednesday, I’ll be reviewing comics and graphic novels that I’ve recently read. Some will be new stuff, some will be old, others will be about the theory and practice of sequential art, with the goal to not only learn more myself but to help other comic virgins navigate this world.]
House of Night (5 book miniseries) | 3.5/5
Quick Summary: Miniseries that takes place behind and between the scenes of Betrayed, the second novel in the HoN series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast.
I picked up House of Night for two reasons: Issue #1 was staring at me in my face AND I liked the cover art. Since House of Night was released in November, I was able to find all five issues fairly quickly and read the series in quick succession. The story was pretty simple: main protagonist, Zoey Redbird, has become the unwilling leader of the Dark Daughters, an elite society at her vampire boarding [Continue Reading]
Originally published at: Lisa @ EPbaB

So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: A Portrait of the Librarian as a Young(ish) Woman #libday7

When I applied to library school several years ago, it was not because I specifically wanted to work in a library or that I had dreamt of becoming a librarian since I was a wee lass, or that I had to work with books in some capacity and becoming a librarian would fulfill that and other bookish desires.
In truth, I applied to library school because a lot of jobs I wanted to apply to when I was finishing my first masters were requiring a MLIS or equivalent and they were not in the traditional library setting. I saw obtaining my MLIS as a means to an end, not to fulfill long held craving.
Now, if you talk to my mother, she will tell you a different story. She will weave you a tale of my interest in libraries and books stems back to when I was knee high to a grasshopper, when during the summers I would pack my lunch, hop on my bike and ride to our local library, get my books for the day(s) and spend most of my time reading/writing on the banks of St. Clair River before coming back home in the early evening.
She will probably then go on how when I was footless and floundering about in my 20s that she knew I needed to go to library school and begged me to go because it was my destiny. During these stories, she will interject that my love affair with reading is generational and ordained and if my brother is there, he will pipe in that my world has always been in ink and vellum, never of this current plane.
In the ways of Rashomon, all of these stories are true. Reading and books, were (and on some levels, still are) these ultra sacred spaces for me and me alone. I’ve built up a pretty turret with my fine cavalcade of books and who are you to traspass, uninvited, onto my sacred space? I was deathly afraid that I might lose my passion for books and reading if I were to make a living from it in some capacity.
This seems to be the opposite advice of what most will tell you when they start sprouting those pithy, borrowed unoriginal commentary of “DO WHAT YOU LOVE!” when it comes to job advice. I didn’t necessarily want to share my passion with the world, when along with my Ted E. Bear, had been my sole companion and comforter since I was young. 1 On some levels, these are lines of bullshit. I did toy with going to library school several times during my undergrad and during my first masters, but it was not at the top of my list of future career prospects.
I did not find, as I may have previously suggested, that working in a bookstore for four years to diminish my love of books and reading. It, in fact, enhanced it significantly, more specifically when my employee discount was applicable to bargin and used books. Connecting people with new authors, new ways of doing things was terribly exciting. I loved doing Reader’s Advisory on the book floor because I often got an education myself from my customers, which in turn allowed me to enhance the stores fiction collection with titles that were previously not stocked. I met a lot of amazing people. I was able to create programming that was geared for our community and those programs were well attended. And lastly, working in a bookstore (sans all the bullshit body politic) was fun and on a lot of levels, I miss it greatly. So when people come to me and ask me about whether or not they should attend library school, I get this awkward feeling inside. Who am I to dispense myths and wonder when my own myriad of job career paths was hardly the place for attribution. I love the idea of library school as a figurehead but the actual going to and ultimately obtaining the MLIS degree?
It’s a joke and here’s why:

  • As academia moves slow, so too does library school with their course structures – therefore many of what is being offered is either no longer relevant or is losing relevancy to the real world; education is fast tracked on the job or in addition to it
    Almost every librarian I have talked to on this subject over the years has said that most of their education was done on the job or in relation to their job in some capacity, and was not necessarily obtained in the library school environment. Several had said privately to me that their own degrees were, on the education received, worthless. These same individuals also conferred that they only reason why they had attended, and eventually graduated from, their institutions was because having MLIS after their name gave them better recognition professionally and a pay boost to do essentially the same job they were doing before.This is of course not to say that this affects ALL programs, but it is to say that there is much to be said for the splitting of library programs from the traditional to iSchools. In my experience where iSchools tend to concentrate more on theory and research, traditional library schools are still lagging in the days of card catalogs, paper indices and manual typewriters. There does not seem to be a program, that I have found at a least, that offers a blend of the cutting edge with relevant theory and practical application.My alma mater attempted this blend, as they needed to stay relevant to compete with a huge iSchool located on the same side of the state. But wehre as the iSchool might teach human interaction and computational behaviors in relation to user searching behaviors, we got classes that taught Silverlight and using Microsoft Office. On several mailing lists I’m on, a recent conversation took place on Lita-L within the last year, there is loads of posts on this topic as more and more hiring managers and directors were getting frustrated with the lack of quality students being churned out – namely because what libraries seek (across the board) for new employees is NOT being produced by these programs. This does not mean that students, new graduates and the currently employed should not be doing professional development – far from it, but it DOES mean that library schools needs to start taking responsibility for what they are producing in terms of graduates, concentrate more on quality over quantity and putting together comprehensive programs that blend theory with relevant course applications that can be applied to the real world.
  • Chances are the professors who are teaching you the ways of the library have probably never worked in a library themselves 
    Now I will freely admit this may be something that is more of a Lisa-quirk rather then a legitimate complaint, but I don’t really think so. When I started looking for mentors within my program, with my particular interest in technologies, the advisor I was assigned to was absolutely nice guy. Very lovely man – but his interest and expertise was specifically with Microsoft Development software. He had never worked in a library, had no (to my knowledge) interest in working in a library but yet he was teaching at a library school. Hired, I would assume, for his technical expertise in a specific subject rather than that expertise as applied to libraries. Nice man, very lovely but had no clue about what libraries were dealing with in terms of technology needs or requirements.2


1. This also applies to writing, in some capacity. It is not that I do not handle rejection well, but, that perhaps I get defeated far too easily.
2. He was the reason, I believe, behind why Silverlight was being taught in the web development classes geared for libraries.

So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist: Plan

The first thing I’m going to do is warn you that this post is going to be fairly lengthy. I’ve been attempting to outline it in my head for nearly a week now but it is going to be a brain dump; this is not going to be as organized or methodological as the prior pieces in the series.
Second thing I’m going to tell you is that this is going to be probably fairly raw and really personal. Last thing I want to point is that I’m not bitter or cynical.
Really.
I’m just incredibly frustrated.
Based upon my vast academic experiences since obtaining my GED in 1991, I’ve known what works and what doesn’t in order for me to succeed in the academic arena. I knew, for example, when I was attending GRCC in the early ’90s that my heavy involvement on campus with the college newspaper, attempting to start a campus radio station, and other things I threw myself into were great for professional and personal networking but not so great for my academic standing.1
When I went back to finish my undergrad in 2003, I did a 180 by eschewing campus involvement to concentrate on grades. This proved to be successful as I was able to raise my overall GPA from 1.7 to a graduating GPA of a 3.3, but the downfall of that move was that I missed the action of being involved on campus and I hardly knew anyone upon graduation. You cannot reach the age of 36 without knowing a thing or two about yourself.
Thus I knew based upon said stated prior experience that the best way for me to succeed in library school was to do a combination of campus involvement AND concentrate on my grades. I also knew from research and people networking that librarians were incredibly, heavily involved with their profession. In order to succeed after lib school, I’d have to get my little tush involved in everything and anything related to the profession while still maintaining the grades. Not a problem. My resume is a good indicator of how involved I was on campus during my two years at Wayne State and my grades? Overall GPA is a 3.89. Not only was I involved with various associations on campus2, but I was also presenting at professional conferences while still in school and working with senior librarians on a variety of projects. Coupled with my library experience, finding a job should have been a snap.
In the fall of 2009, TheHusband and I sat down and figured out our plans. We knew coupled with my rock star3 status on campus, experience, and the fact we could relocate4 anywhere in the lower 48, we assumed I was a very attractive candidate for positions when I would begin to apply for jobs in spring of 2010. I vainly assumed, “Who wouldn’t want me?” Since May of 2010, I’ve submitted 100+ job applications/resumes and had dozens of interviews: not a single job offer. In that interim, I’ve been given scads of advice from the pithy, “Chin up, it’ll get better” to “It’s not you it’s them” with the reverse, “It’s not them, it’s you” also thrown in anytime I start getting depressed about the job market.
In the rejection department, I’ve been rejected for my writing style in my cover letter to my resume had too much information on it(!) to I was too overly ambitious to I presented myself in a negative light5 on the social media sites I was active on and so forth. I’ve received conflicting advice from librarians AND hiring managers AND HR people in a variety of fields of librarianship. Every time I shucked for one company/institution, my jiving (apparently) irritated another. I wrote about the reality of the situation back in August and now that it is mid-November, everything I mentioned before? Nothing has changed and the market is only getting worse.
In the fall of 2009, TheHusband and I sat down and figured out our plan of attack. We decided (then) that if I did not obtain a position by mid-August 2010, we’d move to Chicago and settle there. We reasoned if we were living in Chicagoland area, I would have greater access to jobs/opportunities than staying in Detroit. This plan was modified by mid-summer of 2010 when it became clear that it would take longer than a few months to obtain a job due to slowness of institutions/etc responding to applications and coupled with the piling rejections. We also realized that living in Chicago was awesome if we both had jobs, but with my almost crippling student loans AND a mortgage, we’d be eating ramen every night.
A new amendment was interred to our plan which then stated after 100 job applications submitted, if no job offer, relocate to a city and start nesting. This would, obviously, limit my opportunities significantly but really? I’m awesome, who wouldn’t want to hire me before then? Right? I hit the 100 mark at the beginning of October. TheHusband and I have both gained at least 15 lbs each since the job hunt started. We have competitions like who can go the longest without bathing to who can wear their pajamas the longest. In the last several months, when it became clearer that I was not going to be working in a big girl job anytime soon, we talked a lot about my options. What the hell can I do to make a living AND contribute to society AND utilize the skills that I have just earned? It became abundantly clear to me that if someone was not going to offer me a job, I was going to have to to create one.
If you’ve been following me via Twitter for the last few months, I’ve been vaguely mentioning this on and off. I’ve got numerous projects that I have seeds planted for that are creating opportunities for myself in this profession but none are outright paying gigs (yet). To build this up, it’s going to take time, coupled with a few consulting gigs here and there, I’ll make something. But here’s a comparison: this year I will make slight more than I did at the age of 14, making $3.35/hr while working at Sbarro’s at the local mall.6 People have read SYWTBALA and have asked, “What’s next? I’ve done everything and then some and I still don’t have a job.” to “Why aren’t you writing more SYWTBALA?” Because I don’t have an answer AND to write SYWTBALA sends me into a crying jag every single time. How can I advise YOU when I myself do not have a job? But I’ll do it anyway:

  • Create a back-up plan. Then create another one. And then one more. And then another. Several positions that were 90% guaranteed for me fell through before graduation. I don’t blame anyone, it’s just the way it worked out.
  • Pay off all your debt. Even if it means creating a budget and it sucks because you have to give up weekly beer. One of the smartest things TheHusband and I did in the course of my lib schooling was to pay off all extraneous debt (except for student loans).
  • Be fucking flexible.
  • Create another back-up plan.
  • Save money. Yes, it sucks and means giving up more beer or a CD or whatever, but create a savings account.
  • Continue to be active in the profession and if this means attending local meetings, virtual meetings, collaborating with colleagues on projects, whatever. Keep your skills fresh. Just because you do not work in a library does not mean you’re not a librarian.
  • Make decisions for your long term goals, not just your short term goals. I had to turn down an interview recently because the institution wanted me to pay out of my own pocket to fly there AND were not willing to do a phone interview before hand. This was too risky for us to consider financially AND the timing was bad since it was almost certain we would not hear back before our lease was up.

Here is our plan of attack:

  • Our lease runs up on December 31, 2010. Therefore, jobs I have interviewed for have until that date to make up their mind on whether or not to hire me.
  • We have decided, based on location, housing inventory and cost, that if no job materializes between now and then, we’re moving back to Grand Rapids and buying a house.
  • I have been applying to positions in the GRR area and will continue to do so upon arrival. I will also volunteer at local libraries to keep my skills fresh.
  • I will use GRR as my home base since I will be doing a bit of traveling across the state for my library related projects. I’m also looking into consulting gigs and other opportunities I can do from home/virtually.

I will be the most connected, hard-working, project wrangling but unemployed librarianista EVAH. Now if you will excuse me, I have a cake to go bake.

1. I never graduated from GRCC, but I was president/founder/editor of a lot of things. My grades? Yeah – my overall GPA was a 1.7, but what did my 22 year old self care? I got to go to gigs, meet bands, and hang out with celebs! 2. A few of us also founded a campus student chapter of the PLG, which turned out to be the most successful student org on campus for the 2009-10 academic year.
3. I ran into a few of my mentors at a recent (last week) conference for the state library association and was told by a senior librarian I was the sure thing, the “golden child against the recession”, in getting a job. I was extremely touched by her comment but um, yeah.
4. TheHusband telecommutes for his position, which is super awesome.
5. It was suggested that since some of my commentary was risque or that I swore a lot, I was getting rejected from positions. Based upon the responses I’ve heard from HR people, the sheer number of applicants is at LEAST 200:1, that’s a lot of g-d googling for each and every candidate.
6. $3.35/hr was the minimum wage in 1986, when I was 14.

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part V

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part V: Using Social Media for Outreach and PR, part ii: The Big Why
A couple of weeks ago I ended the post on advocacy with the following:

You might be asking yourself “Why should I do this?” Good question and also the point of this post: At the heart of library/archive advocacy is the active pursuit to continue to influence the community at large to the worth and purpose of the local library or archives.

In last week’s (fairly lengthy) post, I summarized the entire post with one sentence that gets to the heart of the matter:

Engage with your community.

In April of this year, ALA released their annual report, The State of American Libraries [pdf], with the beginning tag line, “Recession drives more Americans to libraries.” Statistically, ALA noted that library use has increased, nationally, on average of 20% since the last report. In addition, the ALA also found that 94% of American’s find presence of libraries in their communities as enriching their lives and that 71% of libraries report they are the only sources of free access to computers and interwebs in their community. Those statistics, to me, are pretty staggering and it would also suggest that if public libraries are so beloved, we’d do anything to keep them open and running, yes?
Well, not quite. Here is the reality of this year’s election results:
Tacoma, WA look to close branches
Buffalo, NY looks at $4M cut from their library system
Indy libraries cut 37 employees
And the cherry on top:
Troy, MI libraries set to close June 30, 2011
Let’s take a look at some other stats, this time from Pew Internet:
American adults (ages 18 and over):

  • 83% have cell phones or smartphones.
    • 35% access the web from their phones.
    • 17% own a smartphone
  • 74% use the Internet.
  • 60% have broadband at home.
  • 46% have a laptop.

The Pew Internet statistics validate that an ever growing number of Americans are not only getting online, but they are also accessing the web in a variety of ways, outside of a plain old home computer. Your patrons are not only going mobile, but your virtual front door is another portal for them to access. So why are you keeping that door closed?
Since I love statistics, here are more stats from ALA’s The State of American Libraries [pdf] 2010 report:

  • 71% of public libraries provide their community’s only free public access to computers and the Internet.
  • 60% [of Americans] renew their materials online
  • 57% access their library’s website on a regular basis
  • Number of social networking users has doubled in the last 2 years.

The research project that I’m currently working on with Kristin LaLonde, and presenting this week at Michigan Library Association Annual Conference, looks at how Michigan public libraries utilize and represent themselves online. Taking the information from the statistics listed above and applying them to our sampling data, we found that nearly 10% of Michigan public libraries did not have ANY kind of web presence (including a library website) and almost 50% of those that did have a website, were not updating most of the information, including even listing contact information or news bits. What makes this even more shocking is that the Library of Michigan has a FREE program in which they will build, deploy and train staff on using Plinkit to maintain their library website. FREE!
David Lee King is paraphrased in the The State of American Libraries [pdf] report that librarians who state they have no time for Lib2.0 projects or initiatives have bad time management. At first I thought this was very provocative but then I realized, he’s not softening the blow on the reality of the situation AND he also has an incredibly valid point.
There is no reason why any library, regardless of class size, cannot find or make the time to create and maintain their web presence online when 99.9% of the tools available are free, include tutorials, and can be operational in under 15 minutes. There is no longer a relative, logical or reasonable argument that money or time is the factor on why librarians/archivists and libraries/archives cannot do these things.
If libraries/archives need to engage with their community, and their community is going virtual, shouldn’t these institutions be engaging with their community where they are most likely to be found? Why continue to use promotions and services that are slowly becoming irrelevant or no longer useful?
How are YOU representing your institution online?

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part IV

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part IV: Using Social Media for Outreach and PR, part i
Last week, I talked about the difference between advocacy and public relations as well as presented a good base on how to create and use social media as advocacy outlets. Since the steps to create a social media outreach/PR campaign are similar to creating an advocacy campaign, I’ll discuss more on how to use social media effectively to create, maintain and engage with your community.
Because there is so much to cover with this topic, it is divided into two parts, the first of which covers creating a brand, connecting your social networks, engaging your users, and lastly, creating meaningful content. While I give examples to illustrate my points in this week’s post, next week I’ll spend more time on the WHY you should be doing this rather than just creating the approach to doing it.

  • Create a (consistent) brand
    This is one thing I did not cover last week, but is an incredibly important part of your social media strategy/policy. When creating accounts on social media or blog networks, make sure the username you create is consistent AND searchable across the network. For example, Detroit Public Library (DPL) is known as DetroitLibrary on Twitter. At first glance, this username doesn’t seem unrealistic given the public library’s name, but actually it is problematic. Since Twitter (and most social networks in general) has a character limit for username creation, the word “Public” was dropped. Since there was also a character limit in the “Name” field, the word “Public” was again dropped. Why is this a problem? Because if you decided to search and friend DPL on Twitter using the keywords “Detroit Public Library,” you would not be able to find them.1
    Here is another example: Traverse District Library. A search for them on Twitter by name reveals nothing. So I searched Google instead. Aha! Found them. Their username is not indicative of who the account is for and while their institution name is in their bio, Twitter does not search the bio via keyword searches, and their account was only found via Google search. Secondly, consistent name across social networks. If I find a library and I’m curious to see their presence across the social web, I’ll search for the same username across those networks. 90% of the time, these institutions are not using a consistent name across the social web. I end up finding these institutions by searching for their full name, adding or removing words as necessary until I can either find them or give up and mark it as a loss. With character limitations, names already used by other entities and such can be an issue, the idea is to create a single username or similar enough name that your patrons can find you. For example, Alpena (MI) County Library has direct links to their Facebook and Twitter accounts of their main page of their website – great! Not great – Their Twitter username isAlpenaCoLibrary, their Facebook username is Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library and a non-linked Flickr account is AlpenaCountyLibrary. With very little consistency, if they had not linked their Twitter and Facebook pages from their website, as a patron and unable to find them otherwise, I would have never have known they had online presences since searching for them via those social network websites initially turned up no results.The question to ask yourself is, “If my patrons are using Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/YouTube, can they find my institution via search?” Then search for your institution. If you cannot find your institution via the social network’s search function or using Google, then neither can your patrons.
  • Connect your networks
    Have a blog? Facebook page? Multiple Facebook pages? Twitter or Flickr account? Do the patrons who visit your website know that you do? Make sure that you provide links or badges or widgets pointing your users/community to these other virtual front doors. Detroit Public Library has two large, easy to find badges hyperlinking to their accounts on other social networks. Links, badges, and widgets should be eye-catching, easy to find and correctly link to these social networks. They should also be available on all of the sites. For example, you should have links on Facebook to your main website, blog, and other social network accounts in your info tab or in the about me section. On your blog/website, add badges or widgets to link back to your other networks. On social networks that only have space for one website link (like Twitter), make sure that link goes to your main virtual front door.In my research on Michigan public libraries and the status of their online presence, 85% of those libraries that have a Facebook page (or a presence on any other social networks) do not advertise it anywhere else – even on their own website. How did I find out about the library having a Facebook page if it’s not on their website? I searched Facebook directly and found them. But I also know that not everyone is like me, so to assume that your patrons should or will automatically know to search the social networks for your presence is a dangerous assumption that may cost you big in the long run.Another interesting phenomenon is that most of libraries with a Facebook page were incredibly active by routinely engaging with their community while their other presences (website, blog, whatever) were nearly stagnant. Yes, you should go to where your online community is located but it should not be assumed that all of your online community is going to be in one centralized location. Having at least a public website will provide the basic information of hours, services, catalog search and other pertinent information to the public at large AND makes it searchable via search engines. Remember, for services like Facebook which require logins to participate, many people do not feel comfortable with creating accounts or providing information they feel is private AND the content is not searchable via search engines or viewable to the public without an account.
  • Engage with your users
    First sub-rule of this rule? Do NOT utilize your institution’s social media accounts for personal use. I mutter “They’re doin’ it wrong.” a lot when I look at social media accounts linked to public institutions and the person running the account is using it for personal use. Personal use means engaging in behavior that would not be associated with the public face of a public institution, such as discussing what you ate for lunch, how sick your pets are or how big your behind looks in that day’s outfit. Second sub-rule of this rule? Only follow people on public services (such as Twitter) that accurately reflect your institutions goals or services. I live in the Detroit-metro area. On my personal Twitter account, I get followed A LOT by public libraries across the globe. On one hand, it’s flattering. On the other, I’m perplexed as to why a local library in Colorado or Sweden who only tweets about what’s happening in their particular branches is following someone who is clearly not in their community. If you find someone you think is interesting then create you own personal Twitter account and engage with that person outside of the “professional” account. Last week I talked about creating a social media policy – this type of issues and behaviors would be covered quite nicely in that policy.Now that I’ve covered two sub-rules: Here is the main crux of this post: Engage with your community. There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to engage with your community virtually. How?
    • Host contests (and offer prizes) for your patrons only via Twitter or Facebook or your blog or whatever social network(s) you use.
    • Feed your blog into Facebook2, so that you can streamline your posting process across multiple social networks so that you are spending less time updating all of your social networks and more time responding and engaging with your community. Use a free online tool, such as HootSuite, which allows you to monitor your social networks, cross-post, post-date and autopost your posts and much more, all in one tool.
    • Dedicate a short (15 minute) chucks of time several times a day to check your accounts, respond to messages and provide status updates. Lots of libraries use Twitter and Facebook for Reader’s Advisory and quick reference questions, incorporate checking into your social networks and responding to your patrons inquiries part of your daily duties.
  • Create meaningful content
    This is the second emphasis of this post: Create meaningful content. Meaningful content is anything that is related or of interest to your institution and the community you serve. Use social networking to promote upcoming programs, events, author signings or any other happenings at your library and don’t be shy on promoting as often as you need. Several libraries will post about a big event on Twitter several times a day for a week or two leading up to the event, which is then pushed forward by their followers retweeting it for them. Or create multiple reminders in Facebook for their fans and have those reminders forwarded on to other Facebook fans. Other types of content to provide is historical or fun facts about the library, archives or community. Create auto-posts to post couple times a week reminding the community of the services you provide and vary the posts.Does your library offer services that are underused such as ILL, typewriters or special services for the physically impaired? Self-checkout down? Printers jammed? Wireless gone the way of the dodo? Did an author come in and do an impromptu signing? Is a popular book that is constantly checked out now have multiple copies available? Offering a one day only dismissal of fines for some reason? You can use social networking to broadcast the great to the mundane and it is communicated to your patrons quickly and efficiently.The Orkney Library in Scotland Twitter account does all the above beautifully as they combine humour, promotion and fun facts while also engaging with their community. Some examples of their tweets,

    Enjoying the Autumnwatch seals? Find out more about the folklore and mythology of selkies in Orkney with a book from 398 Y

    and

    Stromness Library Reading Group is canceled this evening due to a swarm of killer eagles circling the town

    Which was followed up by:

    RE: Stromness Library Reading Group. That should have read canceled due to illness.

Next week: Part V: Using Social Media for Outreach and PR, part ii

1. The person who runs DPL’s Twitter is aware of the naming issue. While the word “Public” is in the Twitter bio, the Twitter search algorithm does not search bios when doing keyword searches. However, if you search Google for “Detroit Public Library Twitter”, DPL’s Twitter account does come up. Since the account has been active for a year or two, renaming it would be more of a pain than it is worth. So be careful when selecting usernames on social networks.
2. I wrote about “Feeding Your Blog Into Facebook” a year ago and of course, the whole process has changed AGAIN as Facebook has changed its API setup. If you’re using WordPress, using the Notes import tool in Facebook is haphazard at best. A plugin I’ve started using recently on my personal blog is WPBook. There is few extra steps than what I describe in the post above, but it is consistent AND reliable, which is pretty significant.

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part III

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part III: Using Social Media for Advocacy
When I began to outline this series, my goal was to make sure that each weekly topic flowed into the next so that the current week built upon the previous weeks discussions. As I spent time moving topics around so that each week would (hopefully) flow seamlessly to the next, I kept getting a nagging feeling that something was just not right. Two of my topics, advocacy and public relations/outreach, were the culprits and I finally realized why. The nagging comes in because at first blush, I tend to personally use the words advocacy and public relations pretty interchangeably and I wondered if I did that, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to believe that others might do so as well. So what is the difference between the two and why are each of them important?
In very broad terms, the definition of advocacy is the active support for a cause by influencing those in public, political or societal groups who allocate monetary and other resources that can help the cause out. Public relations/outreach, on the other hand and which I will cover next week, is the art of promoting and maintaining goodwill of a product/service/person to the public. The difference between the two is slight, but enough to necessitate that libraries/archives need to utilize both approaches.
It is also easy to see why I used these words interchangeably with the other, but the distinction between them is important to note. In the library/archives world, the public doesn’t necessarily see how much the services provided by these institutions are vital to their community until it is almost too late. Thanks to social media, the face of library advocacy is quickly changing but it is still not enough as we need to start and continue to do more. Advocacy, regardless of how it is done, should not be something that is done when the library/archives are in dire need but rather it should be kept up even in good times. This is where the public relations aspect comes in but since advocacy is more about, and I hate to use this word, pleading for monetary and other resources, advocacy should not be discontinued once the financial or resource goals are met.
Here are some steps, using social media, an institution can use to begin and maintain their advocacy:

  • Create a social media plan or policy
    If your institution does not have a social media plan or policy, it should probably draft one as it will not only protect you but also your patrons. This will be your cornerstone for any type of social media you use or engage in, regardless for what purpose. Tame the Web and Mashable have excellent tips on creating social media policies for your institution.
  • Define what services to use and why
    When constructing your social media policy, do not worry about the intricacies as this will always be a living document, but one thing you do want to concentrate on is what services you should use and why. Other than your website and blogging, the major services are Facebook and Twitter, withMySpace/LinkedIn/YouTube/Flickr and other smaller or lesser used services making up the backlist.
  • Create a portal 
    I’m currently doing research on the online presence of public libraries in Michigan and nearly 20% of public libraries Michigan do not have a web presence in ANY form (website, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, whatever). For those that have web presence, the presences are not connected. For example, it was not unusual for a library to have a website AND a Facebook page, but the Facebook page was almost never linked off their website or vice versa via Facebook info page. Whatever you decide to do, whether it is a single presence (website OR Facebook) or many presences, make sure you choose one as the main portal (aka jumping off point) to the rest of your web presences. This will also make it easier to scale and add web presences as they are needed.
  • Create a blog 
    If you have little time (or money or hours or employees or whatever) to update your website but you want to keep your patrons and community current on what is happening via online, you can always create a blog on one of the many free sites such as WordPress or Blogger. With the learning curve low, support and additional free features high, these sites are attractive option for libraries on limited budget or time. To make your time even more efficient, you can automatically feed your blog into your Facebook page or just update your Facebook page when you update your blog via cut/paste.
  • Email lists 
    I’m a big proponent of email lists and I know that many other people are as well. Why? Email lists are great for those of us who are not diligent in visiting a website, logging into Facebook or reading RSS feeds on a regular basis. Creating and maintaining a mailing list is an excellent way to keep in touch with your patrons without depending them to come to you for that information. When creating social presences, we often think that if we are on X social networking site, so too will the people we wish to engage with will be as well. This is not necessarily true. I have friends who refuse to use Facebook, refuse to use Twitter and only read my blog via RSS feed. Mailing lists, with the option to opt out of course, allows you to push information to the community without requiring the community to participate with you. The other nice thing is that you don’t necessarily have to format your mailing lists differently than your blog posts. You could, for intents and purposes, just cut/paste your blog post into your email and viola! Instant newsletter.
  • “Friends of”
    Another thing I have noticed in my research is that the “Friends of” support of whatever library’s website I’m looking at is almost always missing. This does not mean that that particular library does not have a “Friends of” affiliation, almost every public library has a “Friends of” board/group, but their information is almost always missing from the website/Facebook/blog itself. “Friends of” groups are hugely paramount in gaining and maintaining financial support of their particular library and because of the work that “Friends of” groups do, they too need their own space. Why? Since “Friends of” groups operate separately from the library, they should be treated as separate entities. Many “Friends of” pages were used to successfully campaign for money, resources, supplies while keeping the community up to date on donations, programming, speakers, and other activities happening in the community and the library. For many libraries, “Friends of” groups are directly responsible for maintaining support for the library.

Now that I’ve listed steps on how to get your advocacy group up and running from the ground up, I’ve also included web links below for additional sources on library/archives and advocacy. You might be asking yourself “Why should I do this?” Good question and also the point of this post: At the heart of library/archive advocacy is the active pursuit to continue to influence the community at large to the worth and purpose of the local library or archives. This pursuit should not be only when the institution is in danger, but constant to remind the community just how important and needed the institution is. Local libraries/archives will always be “in need” whether it is for resources, volunteers, money, supplies or something else and it is always good to keep the presence of the library favorable in the community’s opinion.
To paraphrase a presentation from #ALA10, “We are at war. Your portal/blog/website is your castle. Your community is your army to fight for you. Your social media policy is your battle plan. Use your battle plan to mobilize and deploy your army to help keep your library.”

Resources:

  • ALA 2010: REFORMA Advocacy & Social Media: Library Services for All in the Community – Breakdown of the presentation at ALA annual, presented by Andy Woodworth.
  • ALA’s Clearinghouse for Advocacy & Legislation
  • Everyday Advocacy: Making a case for libraries is easy with web tools.
  • i love libraries – ALA’s website dedicated to grassroots advocacy and organization, geared for the general public.
  • Save Libraries! – Nationwide grassroots listing hub of library advocacy campaigns.
  • Wikipedia: Public Library Advocacy

 
Next week: Part IV: Using Social Media for Outreach/PR

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part II

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part II: Social Media Simply Explained
When we presented on social media at AMIA last year, we opined that social media could be easily explained by two statements:

  • Social networking is about connecting people with similar interests on a much larger scale.

AND

  • It is about conversations.

A year later, I still firmly believe that it really is that simple. As I said last week, the problem, however, is that in the last year there seems to be plethora of presentations, sites, workshops, and classes (to name a few) that will push the need for social media in libraries and archives but rarely will define what social media is. One hand, this is great as it gets the word out for the need of using social media as part of a librarians or archivists daily job routine. On the other hand, the pushing of the tool without defining the tool is still causing huge resistance in using that particular tool.
Why?
One answer is that the approach seems to be, “Everyone is doing it, so should you.” This approach is hugely problematic. If one cannot understand the foundation of using a particular tool, one is less likely to even use the tool. It is with this understanding that I believe is one of the reasons why social media has yet to be adopted more widely across libraries and archives.
I would like to add one more statement to the above list:

  • Social media is your institution’s virtual front door.

Just as one would not barricade the entrance to an institution’s physical location, why would one barricade or remove the front door to your virtual institution?
It is easier for an institution to visualize that, “No, we won’t barricade the front door of our library!” because by doing so would be incredibly silly. By applying the same logic to their virtual presences, it provides a better rationale (perhaps even logical) way to approach the why on using social media.
Many institutions still firmly believe that their virtual presence is not as important as their physical one, while the Pew Internet & American Life project illustrates the complete opposite. Information seeking behavior, according to Pew, is constantly changing and as such, content providers (i.e. the Internet) need to make sure they are keeping up with those changes. For example, within a year (2009 to 2010), the amount of seniors (defined as those aged over 50) using social media has doubled from 22% to 42%. While Pew documented that were also huge jumps across other age groups, the largest was with seniors.
What does this mean? It reshapes the perspective that the only ones getting online and using online tools are the younger generations and also illustrates the growth in the older market, as it were, is only going to increase as the population ages.
Let’s take a step back for a moment: The reason for this series is to explain social media and networking, what it is, why you should use it as well as giving tips and tricks to making the most out of it. So, let us answer the questions posed at the beginning of this post:
What is social media?

  • Social networking is about connecting people with similar interests on a much larger scale.
    It allows for libraries, archives, communities of any type or sort to create advocacy, marketing, public relations, transliteracy and communication device to its community both near and far while also acting as a discovery tool for that community.
  • It is about conversations. 
    Social media is dynamic. It allows the institution to engage with community and for the community to participate and be a part of the institution.
  • Social media is your institutions virtual front door. 
    Just as an institution is concerned with its physical appearance, it too should be concerned with not only having a presence online but also how the presence is being utilized. Having a website is good, having an active website is even better. Engaging with your patrons and community via your online presence is ideal.

Next week: Part III: Using Social Media for Advocacy

I iz a level 2 professional librarian, for realz


The last couple of weeks have not been that great: Mumsy was hospitalized with congestive heart failure, I did not make the cut as an Emerging Leader, I neared the 100 job application mark with nary a job in sight. While I’m thankful that I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, awesome friends near and wide and that Justin has a great job and is an AWESOME husband to boot, I really shant complain when I know there are others out there who are far worse off than I. But! As I often tell Justin, no matter how many awesome (mainly non-paying) projects I do, I still do not feel like I’m being a productive member of society or that the profession really wants me. I do not feel like I’m contributing somehow and that is the part that hurts the most. Forget the snide commentary about my student loans and obsession with Fluevogs1, let me make a contribution at least to our household GDP!
GAH. Did not want this to go into a rant or a pity party. ANYWAY, found out recently that for several public library positions I applied for in the state of Michigan require librarian certification. As my SLIS school never mentioned this was something we actually needed to HAVE to work at a PL in MI, I did some research and found out that the application process was actually pretty simple. As a recent MLIS grad, I qualify for a level 2 qualification, which meant all I had to do was have my transcripts posted to the Library of Michigan and viola! Certificate in hand. A level 1, top certification, would be my graduate degree and work experience of four years or more. Despite nearly two years working in an academic library, I still needed additional hours to make level 1.
This certificate also qualifies me to serve as director to libraries serving less than 26,000 persons. Which there are quite a lot of those in the state of MI.
It’s not much and it really doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot, but on days when it feels like this profession doesn’t want me, I at last have this. Right? Right.
1. I bought a pair of super on-clearance Fluevogs for my wedding shoes, fell in love and now I want more. Which I can’t get until I have a job. Shoe lust is a terrible thing.

Rated SFW: Reimagining the librarian stereotype through porn.*

*This is not a typo. [Though it DOES sound like a great article/book title…]
When I started library school a few years ago, I made a half-hearted attempt at collecting librar. related paraphernalia (books, t-shirts, etc), obtaining anything that gave even a passing nod on this topic. One of my “treasures” was an awful romance called, The Dewey Decimal System of Love [Pub date, 2003]. And yes, the book is as bad as the title sounds as I gave it a one star at LibraryThing and GoodReads, complete with a scathing review.
I put the collecting part on hold for bit as the librar. themed materials began to outgrow what my wallet would allow. It’s only natural that as librarians become more vocal in reimagining themselves in the public eye, so too must follow the send-ups, parodies, satire and love-letters (to an extent) to those wonderful keepers of knowledge.
What I was not expecting, however, was just how thick (pardon the innuendo) the treasure trove of heaving bosom romance/erotica dedicated to librarians has become in the last few years. Last night I was doing some research on professional development books for librarians on Amazon.com and found the mother lode of erotica and porn dedicated to and about librarians mixed in with professional development materials. (That also cracked me up, but at 3AM I’m fairly easy to please.) One result would be a guide to reader’s advisory and the next would be a XXX offering of hot librarian lurve.
What made this even better is that almost every book had a Kindle version (or was only available in the Kindle format), which meant they almost ALL had first chapters to read for free. So what did I do last night for several hours? Sought out and read terrible erotica with a librarian theme! And it was not terrible because I’m a prude by any stretch of the imagination, it was terrible when you have lines like “..feeling the bubbling juices squish luxuriously within my spasming cunt.” and “Cheryl Parker reached up to the highest bookshelf to grab the misplaced book with a tiny, frustrated sound. She made a mental note to speak to the new book shelfer.” Or lovely titles such as Lusty Librarians and Threesome in The Mattress Store [Pub date, unknown. Kindle availability only.].
As I am a mistress of obtaining, sorting and providing information – and for you own amusement – I’m including majority of the titles I read last night. You’re welcome.

P.S. Yes, it becomes clear that many of these are self-published for a reason but by the grace of Nigel, would it have KILLED them to use a spell-checker. Shelfer? Really? Ugh.
P.P.S. Now that I think about it, it would not be unrealistic to learn that with the plethora of new titles in the last few years, these were written by recent MLIS grads or librarians recently made redundant. Mortgages and student loans do not pay themselves you know. Or themselfs. Heh.

So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist?: Getting “Developed”

Image used by permission from the lovely John Kirriemuir.

One question I am asked in almost every single interview is how do I keep up with the profession? Recently I started thinking about framing this question back when I started my MLIS in 2008. I remember in those ye olde days I had a very difficult time finding blogs, wikis, podcasts or anything really by library students or librarians themselves on the intertubes that discussed librarianship in any format.
That has changed significantly in the last two years since I started my journey down this rabbit hole so I thought it would be a good idea to put together a thorough resource encompassing how librarianating is done as well as include resources for free or cheap on professional development to develop ones ibrarianating.
Blogs
While plowing through mailing list emails one day, a conversation erupted on the “value” of professional journals and magazines, meaning that what is the point of spending several hundreds of dollars for a personal subscription to LibraryJournal when a print subscription to Wired, which some consider more relevant for librarinating, is only $10? Fair point. Bottom line: what is relevant to one’s profession is dependent on their interests. With that in mind, I created gReader bundles that pulls top libraryesque blogs by the rock stars as well as blogs by friends of mine who are librarians as well as one specifically on social media, web design and other similar flavors.

  • Librar*.*: A gReader bundle that consists of 80+ blogs by or for librarian/archivists. It’s got stuff like American Libraries Magazine, Librarian By Day, 8bit Library, Tame The Web to The Librarian Kate and The Steampunk Librarian and back again.
  • Web Lisa dot 1: Another gReader bundle that includes top tech, social media and web design blogs such as /.,A List Apart, ReadWriteWeb and more. If it’s specifically library+technology related, it’s in the Librar*.* bundle, if it’s general tech/geekery, it’s here.

Journals
There are loads of free-access journals and magazines on the intertubes dedicated to librarians and other information wranglers. Here is a smattering of them.

Podcasts
I really got into podcasts while I was in libschool and if there is a dearth of anything in this profession of ours, it is the lack of librarian produced podcasts. When I lamented about this on Twitter one day, Jason said, “Hey! I have a podcast that you can find in iTunes called Adventures in Library Instruction. And a girlcrush was born.

Webinars
What you learned or will learn in libschool is a drop to what you need to know to or get a big girl/boy job in librarianating. Why? Internships, practicums and volunteering are all well and good, but most of the experience or skills are learned on the job. Learning theory and how to catalog is one thing, actually being able to do it is another. The secondary problem is that if you went to libschool for every skill set needed or required, the degree would take a decade to complete. This is where workshops and webinars come into play. There is a PLETHORA of free or super cheap webinars that cover everything from academic instruction to using Zotero.

  • ALA’s Online Learning: Sorts by topic, subject or ALA unit (LITA, ACRL, RUSA, etc), with many of the offerings reasonably priced or free.
  • Cisco’s WebEx Free Webinars: Done by another tech industry leader, Cisco, these webinars cover management, leadership, information management and additional topics.
  • Emerging Technologies Summer Institute: I was asked by ever awesome Rochelle to participate in a one month only crowd sourced prof development blog. Unfortunately, that one month was in July and I spent most of it driving/flying hither and tither to job interviews and other fun things, so I didn’t get to add to the content. But I love this idea and she’s kept up the site, so while it’s not a webinar exactly there is loads of videos on how to do/use variety of different stuff.
  • InfoPeople: Provides fairly extensive on specialized topics by tons of names I recognize. Many of the webinars I selected to check out were free, so this resource is definitely worth checking out.
  • New Horizons Computer Training Centers Webinars: Concentrates mainly on Office based training, but that can be useful if you’re looking to brush up.
  • North East Florida Library Information Network Webinar Blog : Maintained by NEFLIN for area library professionals and originally intended for the locals, it’s become wildly popular go-to source for webinar roundup.
  • O’Reilly Training: Listing of free or nearly free tech training from the masters.
  • Techsoup For Libraries
  • WebinarListings.com: While some of the calendaring functions are slightly buggy, the “by category” and “search webinar” options are fantastic. Deals mainly with PR, marking, social media, best practices and some technology. Best of all: Most of the webinars are free.

Misc.
Anything that doesn’t fit in the above.

  • To:Librarianate – Amazon WishList This is NOT a ploy for you to buy me something, rather it’s a save-hold for books on topics that I think are important to becoming a librarian. Easier to create an AMZ wishlist than to list them out one by one.
  • The Library Route Project: Interested in medical librarianship? Music librarianship? Librarianship in another country? This project, started in October 2009, has librarians and info professionals from around the globe detailing their experiences. What makes this a great resource is not only to see the paths that others took to get to their career/jobs, but they are also choke full of resources for their particular position.

Please let me know, via comments, email or Twitter, any blogs, podcasts, journals, webinars or misc that I’m missing and should be included here. I’d like to keep this as complete as possible!
Updates:10.15.10 – Updated with two new webinar sites and book list for librarianating.

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