libraries | PC Sweeney

What If Patrons Decide Their Own Due Dates?

Posted on February 7, 2011February 7, 2011 by pcsweeney

Patron Generated Check-out Lengths
While writing my last blog post I had another idea spurred by the need for an extended check out length for the business book bins. I realized (as I’m sure many of you have as well) that many different patrons read at different speeds and check out books and resources of varying degrees of length and difficulty. Not only that but, many patrons are working on research projects that might take longer than the standard the 2 weeks or 3 weeks that a library assigns to all of its books. The problem here is that we have invented one sized shoe in a world where people have different sized feet. But what if the patron could decide what sized shoe they wear? Or, what I really mean is, what if the patron could decide what length of checkout their items had?

I feel like this would be fairly simple to accomplish in many libraries. Basically when a patron checks out an item they would type in their preferred due date. They could choose however long that they figured it would take them to read the book or finish their project. Of course, I suppose some limits should be set. I wouldn’t want someone checking out a book for a hundred years or anything but I would love to see the length of time be set to something much longer than it currently is.

It seems like this would solve a lot of problems. In this system, since the patrons pre-determined their own due date they could remember it better and not have that argument at the counter about not remembering when their books were due. They would also be able to have the item for the length of time that they need it and they couldn’t complain about not having enough time to finish it or their project. It would also mean that when there are holds on the item (thus negating the option for renewals) the patrons could still have the time to do what they need to do.

In contrast to a no fines system
One of the other solutions is a no-fine system. Well, yeah right! Try to get that to fly with budgets being so tight and cities thinking that library fines are a money making system to supplement their new crosswalk project. I think that no-fine systems are good for a number of reasons, but in real-life I have seen some problems arise that I won’t take the time to outline here. So, I would think that we could still issue daily overdue fines and fees as a way to get materials returned, but patrons would have more power over their charges and I’m always for power to the people.

The Big Problem
The most glaring obvious problem here is the circulation software. This option is definitely not set-up in the software for patrons so I doubt this idea has any real legs to run on. Maybe some of you out there can get someone to try it out at your library? I don’t know, that’s a vendor fight that we would never win, but if anyone wants to take it on, be my guest.

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Libraries Will Save the World (if we let them)

Posted on December 10, 2010December 10, 2010 by pcsweeney

When I attended the Eureka! Institute we gave a presentation at the end about innovative ideas in libraries. Our group had a whole bunch of them and I presented them. The response was “it seems like your trying to save the world.” I kept my mouth shut, but what I thought was “Well… Yeah, we are!” I mean, I am obviously biased, but the intense amount of good that a library does is why I got into librarianship in the first place. Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is that I have once again found that libraries are one of the only institutions that can save the world.

I was watching a Ted presentation by Tim Jackson called Tim Jackson’s Economic Reality Check. While I totally agree with so much of what he says and am so excited to throw away my stuff and move aboard my boat for a couple months (Henry David Thoreau) I am more impressed with his statements at the end of his presentation. These statements make it perfectly clear that libraries, once again, are going to be the savior of humanity. But only if librarians allow them to be.

Basically, it comes down to people’s ability to achieve a new kind of fulfillment beyond material goods. We need to begin to not only provide the information to allow people to fulfill the needs in their life, but we also need to provide the materials they need. After all, what good is a book if you don’t have the resources to learn from them? I’m suggesting that these materials are our collections beyond books. Things like seeds, guitars, tools, video games, and maybe even augmented reality. But, as a great man once said, “You don’t have to take my word for it.”

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Free Seminars for Librarians: Its time to learn something!!

Posted on December 3, 2010December 3, 2010 by pcsweeney

So… I wrote a super snarky blog post yesterday that basically came down to complaining about librarians or library workers who claim they can’t do something because they don’t know how (we work in a library, everything you need to know is on the shelf, in our databases, or you should know how to find it). However, I decided not to post it on the advice of quite a few librarians. So instead, I’ll post this blog about an organization that presents a solution. I don’t like complaining but I do like solutions after all.

I’m going to put out a plug for an organization called InfoPeople who I have had many great experiences with but whose Twitter account I just found. From their website InfoPeople describes themselves as:

“A statewide LSTA project that functions as the training arm of the California State Library. Some other state libraries provide training via in-house staff. California has opted to essentially outsource training in order to leverage the maximum return on investment of training dollars. The Infopeople model provides a breadth of training topics and a depth of training expertise greater than any single library or library agency, no matter how large, could provide.”

While I do like this organization quite a bit, you might have noticed a tweet once or twice where I expressed my frustration with some of the trainings that they offered. This was more in regard to the fact that they saw a need for those trainings and not because the organization did something wrong. (Ex. A $75 training for Googledocs? Librarians should already know how to use this)

Anyway, I have been to some of their trainings and I enjoyed them and learned quite a bit. More recently I had a couple of experiences with some of the folks behind the organization and I have to say that they are all good people trying to do good work for libraries.

While they do charge for their trainings, they do provide quite a few webcasts and online seminars that are archived that you and your staff can see for free. Even though this is a California based organization, it seems that anyone can access the free webinars! What a great service to libraries! If you haven’t checked out their webinars you really should. One of my favorites being George and Joan: Thinking out Loud.

Here are some of their more recent offerings;

Re-energizing Your Preschool Storytime: New Ideas for Busy Children’s Staff

Top Tech Trends for the Non-Technical

Michael Cart Talks about Patrick Ness and Chaos Walking

George & Joan, Thinking Out Loud about Competition and Disruptive Technologies

Writing a Library Behavior Code – an Update

The New Medline Plus: An In-Depth Look

Michael Cart talks about the life and career of Sid Fleischman

Cool New Legal Sources Online

George and Joan, Thinking Out Loud about the Space Between

Infopeople webinar at noon PDT today:

So if these don’t help you learn something new, check out their website because they have a whole lot more to offer. Don’t forget you can also check your library’s shelves, or its databases, or a podcast, or youtube, or google, or even wikipedia. Once again, I will restate what spurred this post in the first place and simply say – If you work in a library, not knowing something is no excuse.

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An EPIC Uncon at #intlib10

Posted on November 3, 2010November 3, 2010 by pcsweeney

I woke up on Wednesday morning at Internet Librarian to a text from Nate Hill who said that he was organizing a road trip down the gorgeous California Coast with Toby Greenwalt, Loida Garcia-Foibo, and Andrea Davis. It was early, but there was no way I could say no.

This trip turned out to be a lot of work actually as we talked about all kinds of library stuff. As Toby said “We can’t help but librarianing.” So, while this video that Loida made doesn’t capture all the ideas we came up with for the next Internet Librarian it does capture a really great aspect of the trip. BTW, if it did capture everything awesome on that trip, it would be hours long. 🙂

Internet librarian “Pre-Conference” #intlib10

Posted on October 25, 2010 by pcsweeney

Internet librarian started for many people on Saturday at the Monterey Conference Center in California. For me though, it started on my sailboat in San Mateo on Friday afternoon. In fact, I never even went to a preconference workshop, which is too bad because I really wanted to attend the WordPress workshop. Luckily it was blogged by Polly Alida and you can read it here if you want. I don’t think I really regret not going to any workshop because my “preconference” was pretty awesome anyway.

Friday
I have been inviting some of the librarians I’ve met at conferences and around my area to my boat for a day of sailing in the California Bay for a couple of months and Andrea, Lisa, and Nate took me up on it. Unfortunately, this was the one time my engine didn’t work. That was fine, there was no wind and it was raining anyway. So we sat on my boat having drinks made by my roommate bartender and her cousin (also serves as my crew) and I listened while the smart folks on my boat talked about all kinds of library related things until it was time for dinner in the yacht club where they continued to come up with all kinds of library awesome.

It would be difficult to explain some of the great ideas that came up on the boat and I won’t really try but it was a great creative thinking experience free from the constraints of library system’s rules and regulations. It was amazing to listen to these intensely smart folks talk about libraries on my boat. My big realization was that we need to do more to create these kinds of freeform opportunities for librarians to gather and socialize and just brainstorm possible innovations.

At the end of the night, most of us passed out on the boat listening to the rain on the deck and the wind in the rigging. I hope everyone had as great of a time as I did. Next year, “librarians on a boat” will be bigger and better. You’ll be invited, so don’t miss out!

Saturday
Unfortunately, on Saturday I had to work but that was fine because I love my library! So I drove my motorcycle through the rain to Monterey right after work in the dark and after finally finding my hotel and warming up, I found myself in the lobby bar of the Portola Plaza with even more library awesome! How is that possible? I have no idea. But once again a whole lot of smart library folks were blowing my mind with creative ideas. Some of these ubersmarties were Stephan Abram, Roy Tennent, Marshall Breeding, Lisa Carlucci Thomas, and Nina McPhail, who just sat around with some good drinks and once again said the kinds of things that need to be said about libraries. So, once again I just sat and listened and had my brains blown out with awesome bombs until I had to finally sleep.

Sunday
This was a tourist day for me and I went on an amazing drive with Lisa and Nina down highway one in the rain and checked out the pacific coast. If you’re reading this and you’re at the conference, I really suggest you take a couple of hours and make the drive south to Big Sur and see some of the gorgeous coastline in our great state.

Afterwards, my roommate (And bartender from my boat), who had heard about my conference good times, came down to see how the librarians party. We went out to eat with so many great folks and stayed out way too late (of course). Once again, being that we are librarians, there were many great discussions about libraries and librarianship in general and I heard some heated and intense debates between fantastic library folks on issues that I never even thought existed! I now have so many new things to think and lots of new motivations to get out and do something about some of the things I’m concerned about.

I simply could not have learned more (or had more fun) by attending the preconference. Instead, having my own little “preconference” where I sat and listened to the brilliant people in libraries say amazing things I was able to hear some ideas from people that could not have occurred in a structured or more restrictive environment. And… Of course it was awesome!

Are Guerrilla Libraries Saving the Soul of Librarianship? Redefining Libraries (Part 3)

Posted on August 25, 2010August 25, 2010 by pcsweeney

For this third edition of the redefinition of librarians I would like to point out that there are quite a few librarians (and non-librarians) creating libraries in areas where other libraries can’t (or refuse) to reach. These are normal people who believe so wholeheartedly in the benefits of libraries that they are going out into the world and creating libraries. These people are the Johnny Appleseed of librarianship and without their work many people wouldn’t have the opportunity to have access to a collection of information or literature. These are also not collections that are maintained or controlled by an entity or a formalized organization. They are more like an anarchist’s library as many don’t have any rules, regulations, or memberships. What is great about this is that I have noticed more and more people taking up the cause as libraries around the country falter and I’d like to point out a few guerilla libraries that have been put together around the world.

Mick Jones' Library — Mick Jones Library

Mick Jones of The Clash and various other bands has created a Rock and Roll Library. This library features rock memorabilia from his own personal collection and contains nearly 10,000 items. From what I gather this is not a quiet library (it is rock and roll after all) and since its punk, you know it will tear down the walls of the library and scream with a rebel yell at the establishment.

Here’s another one from the UK. This is one of Britain’s old red phone booths like you see on Harry Potter. It has been recycled into one of the country’s smallest lending libraries and only stock around 100 books. Since this library employs zero librarians, the Villagers from Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset can use the library 24 hours a day. The library’s “Patrons” simply replace the books they take, with books they have read thus keeping the library’s collection well stocked.

Of course, America has its own version of this but maybe it’s not quite as elegant. It does work however. The concept is basically the same in that it’s an old public phone that has been re-commissioned into a self-service library that is available to the local community 24 hours a day.

Alright, this one really gets me mad. It was set up by Ikea to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of the Billy Bookcase. I’m mad because absolutely love it and it should have been done by someone other than Ikea. I would however, like to point out that I LOVE Ikea so don’t think I have anything against them. It’s just that I really feel like a guerilla librarian or even a regular library really dropped the ball on this one. But maybe we can get some folks to replicate it somewhere else in the world. Or… There’s an Ikea right down the street from my library actually. Hmmm…

Here is a kid that is full of awesome! Apparently when he found that his school library had a bunch books that had been banned, he decided that he would offer these books from his school locker library. Here is his quote “…I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it’s the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on…”

For my last entry, here is another set of kids with their own Guerrilla Library. The California State University in Los Angeles, due to budget cuts, closed its library during FINALS!! Does anything sound more asinine that that? I don’t think so, and neither do the students at CSULA. So they built their own library to study for finals and they did it Guerrilla style!

My Last one is my favorite but it isn’t really a Guerrilla library as I have defined it here because its done in cooperation with a city and a library system. This library is a pub in the Yorkshire Dales may be a vision of the future for many communities. The awesome villagers of Hudswell have bought their local pub to save it from closure and have now set up a small library in part of the bar! There is nothing I love more than reading a good book with a beer in a good bar! I mean that seriously! Here is the video

Now I ask you… If libraries are going away, or aren’t necessary, why is it that so many people take the time to create their own personal libraries at home OR take the time and effort to create guerrilla libraries in their communities? I’ll tell you why! It’s because people still love libraries in all of their forms and won’t let the man hold the library back!

How Steampunk can Save Librarianship: Libraries Redefined (Part 2)

Posted on August 17, 2010August 17, 2010 by pcsweeney

As I am continuing to explore the experiences that are changing how I view librarianship, I came across the steampunk movement. What is a steampunk you ask? Well, steampunk is a genre of speculative futurist fiction where the world is powered by steam and the design of the future is modeled after the Victorian craftsmanship of the 1800’s. Yet, in this steam powered world, all of the conveniences of a modern world exist. Things like digital watches, computers, airplanes and spaceships. Each of these things, while being futurist in nature, in melded with the design and power of the past. Each of these things still benefits society in the same way that they are designed to and as we envision them. It’s just that they’re powered by a different energy source and look Victorian in nature.

So, it seems to me that in the same way that steam punk is creating the future with the power and design of the past, libraries are trying to provide the future of information with the power and design of our informational past. We’re providing modern technology such as computers and Internet access within the framework of an organization that is designed for the information access of the past. We are trying to power and design libraries with books and physical collections (steam) while providing the same benefits to society with the future digital forms of information such as mobile technology.

Because this parallel only occurred to me yesterday, I haven’t had much time to think about it. I put the thought out to twitter and received a positive response. In fact, Rudibrarian provided me with this definition of a steampunk movement within libraries – “Hi-tech futuristic gears keeping the old style functions of learning and research moving forward!” While I think this was a fairly accurate definition, I did take some liberties and changed it as follows to more closely fit what I am getting at-

Steampunk librarianship- Old style gears keeping the futuristic high tech functions of learning and research moving forward!

I hope she isn’t too mad at me for changing her words, but I couldn’t have come up with my definition without her. So thank you!

So why am I inclined to say that this concept can save librarianship? Because, perhaps, we can start to think about libraries in terms of steampunk ideologies to help us understand how we can live in a world where the technologies and designs of past can power the organizations ability to provide the services of the future. We no longer need to argue about whether or not books power libraries, or if its computers and technology that power libraries, and we can agree that there can be a successful melding of the two and that this melding can create something entirely new and exciting while still providing the same kinds of benefits to society.

I would like to point out that I think a lot of our libraries are already working to achieve a successful melding of old vs new and I would love to see more libraries finding ways to more successfully meld the two. As I wrote this blog post I realized that I had actually visited, took pictures of, and wrote a blog post about a very successful steampunk library. This happened while I was at CLA in Pasadena last year and the title of the blog (while not being familiar with steampunk) was “Tour of a Library Cyborg.”

Blogged: Libraries and Online Social Capital in a 2.0 World

Posted on May 12, 2010May 12, 2010 by pcsweeney

While I was playing around with SlideShare.com and finding all kinds of library awesomeness, I decided that I would post one of my own. This presentation isn’t finished and I want to write some blog posts to go along with it because I think I might be on to something.

Yeah, I know there is a large amount of text on this presentation, but that is so that it makes more sense without me speaking. When I finally get the courage to submit this to a conference to present I’m going to remake it without the text.

This presentation about the concept of Online Social Capital and how libraries need to be thinking about it when they are creating their online profiles. I haven’t read about anyone thinking about online social capital but everyone is kind of dancing around the subject in various ways. I hope that this concept helps to clear up the question of “Why libraries should be involved in online networks.”

I won’t go into too much detail in this post and I hope that you get the information you need from this presentation, but expect some future blog posts that expand on some of the key concepts here. Let me know what you think.

*I am a little frustrated with figuring out how to get the pictures in the presentation to load. Right now there are photos that say that Quicktime and a Decompressor are needed to view the photos. If someone knows how to get that to work I’m all ears.

Does Library circulation = library sales? What do you think?

Posted on October 14, 2009October 14, 2009 by pcsweeney

First, let me say that I absolutely love the idea of libraries following a bookstore model so I’m already coming from a biased opinion. I think that, in general, libraries have a lot to learn from all retail businesses about getting our resources off our shelves and into the hands of our patrons. In fact, I would even go so far as to relate an item circulating in libraries making a sale in retail. It seems to me that having the objective of increasing the number our library materials coming off of our shelves in an efficient manner is the same thing that retail stores are attempting to do with their sales. If that’s true, and a library wants to increase its circulation or its “sales” maybe I should just start calling the circulation of library materials, library sales?

There are, of course, quite a few differences between library materials and retail products. For example, people have to return a library item and the item is owned by

the people of the community as whole through the government purchase and distribution of it. The item can be “re-sold” a multitude of times and people only pay for the item if it is lost, damaged, or returned late. We try not to let the market dictate too fully about which items are purchased. And I’m not suggesting that we are competing with bookstores or retail markets because I think we serve fundamentally different purposes. But really, I think that the actual process of getting the item off the shelf and into the hands of the patron is the same as making a sale and many of the techniques of making more successful sales can be applied to increasing circulation.

In the end, I don’t think that anything would really change about the actual circulation of library materials by simply calling it a new name except that we might begin to look at circulation in a new way and our “sales” would hopefully increase. By renaming the process we might look more closely at the vast number of more refined techniques that retail stores (not just bookstores) use to get their products into the hands of the people in their places of business. Perhaps by simply renaming the movement of the library materials we will get librarians to start thinking about using some of those techniques more often. So maybe from now I won’t “check out books,” instead I’ll “make sales.”

Of course, I could be wrong. What do you think?

Libraries… Use get clicky

Posted on April 15, 2009October 1, 2009 by pcsweeney

Getclicky.com is a great web analytics tool that is not only free and easy to use but extremely powerful. You can see who is visiting your website, from where, where they go on your site, and what operating system and browser they use. This can allow libraries to make better educated decisions about the design of their websites. Take a look!

If you find better websites or use getclicky please email or comment and let me know how you use it. And, as always, comment, criticize, and don’t forget to subscribe.