Register today for the
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
We all know that LAUC is a self-determining and planning body, and that we are all interested in future of our profession and in our own professional development at the University of California. That’s a given. But you should attend this region’s meeting because the responsibility and value of participation isn’t all that different from that of a vote in an election. You are a part of a solution and can contribute to a plan to improve as a group. You provide the impetus for change, and understand how decisions are made and why. You get to choose based on your priorities and values and the priorities and values of your UC.
But some people ask, why should I, as a (insert your departmental or divisional affiliation here) librarian come to the LAUC Southern Regional Meeting? All of these agenda items look like they’re related to someone else’s job. But, all of these agenda items are also intertwined with what we do. They affect one another. They are not truly separate. Take a look at SOPAG , HOTS , HOPS and the UC Commission on the Future. It’s pretty clear by looking at the reports, initiatives, proposed policies and actions, that communication and collaboration are required across many areas. They do affect you and they do require your consideration.
Don’t reference services change if students of all stripes don’t have to come to a desk to get reference assistance or resources because professors have changed their delivery of education, their assignments, or their research (Topic 1)? They do. Library instruction changes. Acquisitions changes. Collections change. Processing changes. Licensing changes. Access services changes. Personnel changes. Where people work changes (home, department, you name it). Skills change. The technology changes. Space needs change. The amount of money needed and how it’s controlled changes. Unique collections change. Archival curation changes. This is only one example of the ripples that radiate from a single set of actions.
This still, however, doesn’t get to the heart of what we can do in a regional meeting. We already have answers to what we might do in the form of reports and initiatives in play, but we need to decide where to place our energies as a group because our work is increasingly distributed across all UC libraries. So, decide. What solutions of those offered here on this blog and in our own campus assemblies work best for all of us? How will we know if we have succeeded? How can we minimize risk and maximize benefits to everyone through testing and evaluation? What are you able to commit to? What can we achieve and when?
The heart of your participation in a regional meeting is a focus on solutions-based concepts associated with concrete actions. Not the specific issues or technologies that you dislike or champion, but a careful consideration and articulation of the factors that will facilitate positive actions and ways to overcome impediments. So, how can you do this? It seems overwhelming, but preparation will make it less so.
*Look at the questions that Esther Grassian posted for the meeting and take a specific note how you rank and articulate your responses. Post your thoughts in the comments or apply to post to the blog via Phoebe Ayers. Your ranking of these questions forms the basis of your values and will help you decide what’s really important.
*Take a look at the discussion group notes and decide how to address the notes that were taken. Change the questions you see into propositions and try some on for size. Choose a couple. What are the elements that will allow a proposal to work? How will we test and/or evaluate the substantial success of a proposal to determine what is of highest value to our clients? If you can’t evaluate it, it’s not a proposal that can be addressed. What do we need to change to implement those ideas? How much money? What kinds of technologies? How much time would it take? How much disruption or training would it involve? What are the easy wins (things everyone can do)?
*Take a look at this (admittedly incomplete) mapping of the nine topics onto the five prepared for the LAUC Southern Regional meeting agenda:
Topic 1: The consequences of changing university pedagogy.
See Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Library Buildings
Topic 2: Preparing the current and future generations to work in 21st century settings.
See Personnel ; Reference ; Relationship to Information Providers ; Technology ; Organizational Culture
Topic 3: Acquiring unique materials assuming a UC one copy universe – challenges and justifications.
See Collections ; Technology ; Library Buildings ; Campus roles ; Relationship to Information Providers
Topic 4: Evaluating ourselves for promotion. What should count in the future?
Relationship to Information Providers ; Reference ; Technology ; Campus roles
Topic 5: Getting stuff where it needs to go: Discovery and delivery.
Technology ; Reference ; Campus roles; Relationship to Information Providers
Here’s what will we do at this meeting after you have done your homework:
We will gather your proposals, write them down and synthesize them and vote on them. Once we have compiled your votes, we will communicate them to everyone.
What are your comments?
Register today for the
LAUC Southern California Regional Meeting
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
From General Reference to Subject Specialty
David Michalski
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Libraries and librarians have made great strides over the years to simplify access to resources by promoting to the general public good practices in the use and construction of databases and search engines. The society we serve has changed too. Information navigation skills are widely held, acquired by children at an early age, and mastered by adults who are compelled to learn the latest technologies to conduct the business of their everyday lives. Large databases are omnipresent and following inter-text citations is routine. More than ever, our social lives and social networks our influenced by our management and manipulation of digital social networks. Most new university students are no longer unfamiliar with things like Boolean searching, tags, faceted browsing, or the once arcane structures of databases. Great ‘world-cataloging’ initiatives like, WorldCat, Google, and Youtube, are no longer sublime. They are the commonplace, practical and personal instruments of an expansive cognitive world.
These transformations have important implications for reference service. One positive effect of the diminished aura associated with database technology has been to liberate the librarian from some aspects of repetitive general instruction. The orientation work on the basic operation of information technology is less necessary. Rather than explaining how to construct search strings or how to combine or filter result lists with subject headings/tags or other limits, more attention can be paid to information literacy, on teaching patrons how to analyze and evaluate the content of search results, and to deciphering their relation within the topic of inquiry. Thanks to the popularity of database experience, time spent on teaching ‘how to search’, can now be devoted to teaching patrons ‘how best to search’ in respect to the particular research project at hand.
Too be sure, reference communication still requires both general and specialized knowledge. General skills are not universally mastered. In fact, the populations we serve are diverse, both culturally and in terms of research experience. With popular information skills more widely distributed, however, it has been somewhat easier to teach people how to interact with our search tools, how to expand and contract results and how to discovery unforeseen links to like-documents. The emerging popular familiarity with relational databases makes it easier for patrons to transition from one interface to another. With such general skills in place, I can now concentrate on showing patrons how to trace a document’s authority, provenance, and how one might uncover future citations or link to common vocabulary terms in related datasets. I still meet many patrons who are new to both academic research and complex database searching, but even in such meetings, these patrons increasingly demand both advice on how to use information technological and advice about the intellectual content of their results. The more difficult part for the reference librarian at a university has always been to situate the patron in the social life of information.
Even as general librarianship is made easier by the popularity of library/database skills, this later challenge has been made more difficult by the kind of tools emerging today. Many of the vast fulltext aggregator databases shield the scope of their contents from their users. Others offer seemingly arbitrary sets of documents based on publishers or unseen publisher agreements. The coherent subject orientated index and abstracting tool takes on new importance in such an environment, but even many of these have become unwieldy. Today the reference librarian needs to have a handle on the discourse, and better, a foot in the intellectual world she or he is charged to serve. Knowledge of a subject’s own language or jargon, its intra-disciplinary fragmentation, the distribution and repudiation of its publishers is increasingly necessary. The librarian must position the research question within the diverse cultures of inquiry that make up today’s university. If in years past, the librarian had concerned her or his self the mastery of information science alone, the interrelation of information content with information structures no longer makes such an approach viable. Librarians are now often enlisted in the construction of literature reviews.
Today’s researcher, undergraduate or professor, must confront vast displays of initial search results and from these make crucial decisions. The flatness of their representation lends the results the illusion of exchangeability and makes their use values harder to decipher. In this environment the subject grounded librarian is called upon to guide and interpret results, to provide context and relief in the horizontal displays of equivalency. For the advanced researcher or inquisitive undergraduate, the subject specialist librarian can serve as a cross disciplinary translator, one who can help lead the researcher who endeavors to enter new areas of exploration. The subject specialist/bibliographer, trained both formally and through ongoing collection development work, can make connections between schools, publishers, and intellectual movements. Librarians are often called upon to orient researchers in rapidly hybridizing fields of study.
The undergraduate especially benefits from this contextualization. After meeting with subject specialists, and walking the contours of their topic of inquiry, after situating their question within their field of study, and then situating their field within the larger information landscape, the student can engage their projects from firmer ground. She or he can then return with more thoughtful, intellectually informed questions and a better understanding of the history of ideas, the value of citations, and a more cogent understanding of the social organization of knowledge and how it relates to her or his project. In other words, the subject librarian can facilitate the progressive intellectual development of the student by helping the student to avoid repeating the same entry level queries.
Today’s researchers want to speak with people who understand their complex language, projects and ideas. They like to meet with people who know the general authors, theories, tenets, and controversies which occupy them. This not only gives them the confidence that the library is acting as a powerful partner in their own mission. It allows them to interconnect to wider or related discourses.
To maximize quality reference service the Librarian needs to work in partnership with teaching faculty. She or he must have a familiarity with the work of the professors, an understanding of what their assignments are designed to teach, and how the class project fits into the course’s wider disciplinary context. By reiterating course teachings in the context of the information environment a practical knowledge of information is fostered.
The rise in programs and departments on our campuses combined with the level of staffing currently supported by our budgets makes an ideal symmetry between subject expertise and academic programs impossible to obtain. At the University of California at Davis, I am responsible to no less than ten programs across the Humanities and Social Sciences. I can not master the knowledge of all these areas, and the idea that I am a specialist in all of them diminishes the authority such a status ought to convey. Yet, to these programs, and to the work of the professors and students in them, I remain devoted, doing the best I can, based on the research, training, and reading I do to perform as a knowledgeable guide to the available resources and literatures. I know my colleagues across the University do the same. But there is no doubt, the need for subject specialty is growing just as our resources are being reduced.
In our challenging times, however, we ought not coil back from this responsibility, and concern ourselves only with generalities of research. Instead we need to restructure the library so that it becomes more effective at meeting this growing need. Posturing as if all information were of equal value, as if libraries were only responsible for the management of interchangeable info-widgets is to distort the complexity of the information landscape today. Instead, we must work at finding the best ways to teach and promote the contextual value of information, and do our best to support the practices and policies which add knowledge based assistance to the research process.
See also...
The Qualitative Place of the Reference Desk Today
On Ubiquitous Instruction
.
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Libraries and librarians have made great strides over the years to simplify access to resources by promoting to the general public good practices in the use and construction of databases and search engines. The society we serve has changed too. Information navigation skills are widely held, acquired by children at an early age, and mastered by adults who are compelled to learn the latest technologies to conduct the business of their everyday lives. Large databases are omnipresent and following inter-text citations is routine. More than ever, our social lives and social networks our influenced by our management and manipulation of digital social networks. Most new university students are no longer unfamiliar with things like Boolean searching, tags, faceted browsing, or the once arcane structures of databases. Great ‘world-cataloging’ initiatives like, WorldCat, Google, and Youtube, are no longer sublime. They are the commonplace, practical and personal instruments of an expansive cognitive world.
These transformations have important implications for reference service. One positive effect of the diminished aura associated with database technology has been to liberate the librarian from some aspects of repetitive general instruction. The orientation work on the basic operation of information technology is less necessary. Rather than explaining how to construct search strings or how to combine or filter result lists with subject headings/tags or other limits, more attention can be paid to information literacy, on teaching patrons how to analyze and evaluate the content of search results, and to deciphering their relation within the topic of inquiry. Thanks to the popularity of database experience, time spent on teaching ‘how to search’, can now be devoted to teaching patrons ‘how best to search’ in respect to the particular research project at hand.
Too be sure, reference communication still requires both general and specialized knowledge. General skills are not universally mastered. In fact, the populations we serve are diverse, both culturally and in terms of research experience. With popular information skills more widely distributed, however, it has been somewhat easier to teach people how to interact with our search tools, how to expand and contract results and how to discovery unforeseen links to like-documents. The emerging popular familiarity with relational databases makes it easier for patrons to transition from one interface to another. With such general skills in place, I can now concentrate on showing patrons how to trace a document’s authority, provenance, and how one might uncover future citations or link to common vocabulary terms in related datasets. I still meet many patrons who are new to both academic research and complex database searching, but even in such meetings, these patrons increasingly demand both advice on how to use information technological and advice about the intellectual content of their results. The more difficult part for the reference librarian at a university has always been to situate the patron in the social life of information.
Even as general librarianship is made easier by the popularity of library/database skills, this later challenge has been made more difficult by the kind of tools emerging today. Many of the vast fulltext aggregator databases shield the scope of their contents from their users. Others offer seemingly arbitrary sets of documents based on publishers or unseen publisher agreements. The coherent subject orientated index and abstracting tool takes on new importance in such an environment, but even many of these have become unwieldy. Today the reference librarian needs to have a handle on the discourse, and better, a foot in the intellectual world she or he is charged to serve. Knowledge of a subject’s own language or jargon, its intra-disciplinary fragmentation, the distribution and repudiation of its publishers is increasingly necessary. The librarian must position the research question within the diverse cultures of inquiry that make up today’s university. If in years past, the librarian had concerned her or his self the mastery of information science alone, the interrelation of information content with information structures no longer makes such an approach viable. Librarians are now often enlisted in the construction of literature reviews.
Today’s researcher, undergraduate or professor, must confront vast displays of initial search results and from these make crucial decisions. The flatness of their representation lends the results the illusion of exchangeability and makes their use values harder to decipher. In this environment the subject grounded librarian is called upon to guide and interpret results, to provide context and relief in the horizontal displays of equivalency. For the advanced researcher or inquisitive undergraduate, the subject specialist librarian can serve as a cross disciplinary translator, one who can help lead the researcher who endeavors to enter new areas of exploration. The subject specialist/bibliographer, trained both formally and through ongoing collection development work, can make connections between schools, publishers, and intellectual movements. Librarians are often called upon to orient researchers in rapidly hybridizing fields of study.
The undergraduate especially benefits from this contextualization. After meeting with subject specialists, and walking the contours of their topic of inquiry, after situating their question within their field of study, and then situating their field within the larger information landscape, the student can engage their projects from firmer ground. She or he can then return with more thoughtful, intellectually informed questions and a better understanding of the history of ideas, the value of citations, and a more cogent understanding of the social organization of knowledge and how it relates to her or his project. In other words, the subject librarian can facilitate the progressive intellectual development of the student by helping the student to avoid repeating the same entry level queries.
Today’s researchers want to speak with people who understand their complex language, projects and ideas. They like to meet with people who know the general authors, theories, tenets, and controversies which occupy them. This not only gives them the confidence that the library is acting as a powerful partner in their own mission. It allows them to interconnect to wider or related discourses.
To maximize quality reference service the Librarian needs to work in partnership with teaching faculty. She or he must have a familiarity with the work of the professors, an understanding of what their assignments are designed to teach, and how the class project fits into the course’s wider disciplinary context. By reiterating course teachings in the context of the information environment a practical knowledge of information is fostered.
The rise in programs and departments on our campuses combined with the level of staffing currently supported by our budgets makes an ideal symmetry between subject expertise and academic programs impossible to obtain. At the University of California at Davis, I am responsible to no less than ten programs across the Humanities and Social Sciences. I can not master the knowledge of all these areas, and the idea that I am a specialist in all of them diminishes the authority such a status ought to convey. Yet, to these programs, and to the work of the professors and students in them, I remain devoted, doing the best I can, based on the research, training, and reading I do to perform as a knowledgeable guide to the available resources and literatures. I know my colleagues across the University do the same. But there is no doubt, the need for subject specialty is growing just as our resources are being reduced.
In our challenging times, however, we ought not coil back from this responsibility, and concern ourselves only with generalities of research. Instead we need to restructure the library so that it becomes more effective at meeting this growing need. Posturing as if all information were of equal value, as if libraries were only responsible for the management of interchangeable info-widgets is to distort the complexity of the information landscape today. Instead, we must work at finding the best ways to teach and promote the contextual value of information, and do our best to support the practices and policies which add knowledge based assistance to the research process.
See also...
The Qualitative Place of the Reference Desk Today
On Ubiquitous Instruction
.
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Qualitative Place of the Reference Desk Today
David Michalski
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Even as we reach and serve more and more patrons remotely through new forms of tele-presence, the properly equipped and staffed Reference Desk remains an important part of both the 21st Century library and university. It not only serves as the symbolic center for our activities, it continues as the physical embodiment our mission to the campus. It is, of course, not our only point of contact. The Reference Desk is a site in a wider network of reference interactions made through both static and interactive online tools, virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings in offices and in class instruction, as well as in other public forums. Yet the Reference Desk, by virtue of its very immobility and permanence, is a central hinge between the library and its users. It serves as the anchor and dispatch center for all our flexible and mobile initiatives. It is our office and our laboratory, an open and public node where we can engage the climate of our researchers and the hub from which we embark in service of the university’s educational and research missions. Both history and current events show space and materiality are still important in the construct of our social world, in fact, no less so in today’s fast and liquid information environment. Ultimately, we occupy this space so that we are accountable to our public.
Spatially, the Reference Desk serves as an invitation to our users. It shows that we are employed in their interest. In my experience at Peter J. Shields Library at the University of California, Davis, I find patrons approaching the Reference Desk on which I serve for many reasons, for orientation, for resource discovery, and for conversations about the distribution and context of information. Situated at the center of campus, our Reference Desk is often busy. Every quarter, I meet new faculty and researchers, help new students with old problems and new assignments, and meet continuing students who have progressed from the academic novice to the intellectually engaged scholar. It is a mutually rewarding and challenging space from which to serve the campus and community.
New powerful tools and burgeoning resources in print and online have allowed the information environment to flourish. New possibilities, truly await today’s scholars, but these advances also make the information landscape increasingly complex. In this environment, the Reference Desk is used increasingly to ameliorate the confusion encountered online. The opportunity to speak directly with the librarian offers patrons a clear and direct communication of their needs and their challenges. The Reference Desk provides the much needed space and time to listen and provide information and advice in a relatively unmediated way. Time and again I’ve seen the reference desk, staffed by knowledgeable people turn frustrated users back into hopeful researchers. Undoubtedly, this commitment to our users contains costs, and its value is, like most knowledge, difficult to account, but beside counting the papers saved, insights sparked, or careers changed because of the fruitful interplay between librarians and researchers, the Reference Desk must also be recognized as a place to communicate our ethical responsibility to our users.
The rapport created there not only translates into future good will towards the library and university, but better research skills for the patron. Even when the patron approaches the desk to ask for known items or to access sets of pre-conceived information, the contact with the librarian often leads to new, more complex, questions, and sometimes, new research endeavors. New questions develop and new ways to organize projects take form, because reference is a more than a place of questions and answers. It is a space of translation, interpretation, and knowledge formation.
Face-to-face researcher-librarian interaction allows researchers to engage in embodied conversations in concert with the information world. Researchers can walk through their search results with the librarian as an interpretive guide or docent. It is a form of interaction that benefits both the researcher and the library as an institution. In the anthropological terms, it is a rich site for the transfer of cultures and skills. The librarian uses this interaction to impart search techniques, and convey the peculiarities of a discourse’s publication and distribution. Pertinent information about the scope and coverage of available resources is also taught, all with a consciousness of, and reciprocity to the researcher’s disposition. With an eye and ear to the situation at hand, to the patron’s level of skill, the signs and postures of time and attention allow for in-situ adjustments. Communication strategy can be altered by assessing the value and comprehension of communication and instruction imparted. Information is not simply dispensed at the Reference Desk, but communicated in a humane manner. In the best circumstances, knowledge about the fuller social life of information can be discussed. The librarian can work to put the researcher’s project in context with the wider intellectual environment. The new perspective built through conversations can lead to new paths of discovery.
Being there, being present, helps the library work in concert with faculty and students. In our large and complex Universities, perhaps uniquely, the librarian at the Reference Desk is there to listen, to put a face in front of the machine. We perform as information consultants and counselors and the Reference Desk becomes the safe place for such communication. It is a confidential place away from the judgment of professors, a place to inquire, explore, learn and grow. It is where we teach novices not to be intimidated by the languages of scholarship. It is where we hear problems, and in the best cases, where we offer solutions and build confidence.
The librarian at the Reference Desk is also uniquely positioned to convey the institution’s message and mission. She or he wears the University’s public face, offering the best attributes of what is too often dismissed as mere customer service. In the University today we must strengthen our engagement with the public. This node is where the library as an institution can best learn from the populations it serves. It is a prime and unfiltered information gathering point for the library in its efforts to remain relevant to the University. Each conversation there informs collection development decisions, instructional needs, and outreach methods. The librarian on the Reference Desk records the core concerns and trends of our faculty and students. As such, the Reference Desk is generative of library and librarian expertise. It enables us as an institution to react, adjust, and think. A librarian confronted with the assignments and research projects learns the challenges of the engaged student or advanced scholar, and develops creative problem solving techniques as well as information that can be used to enhance the library and better support the University’s mission.
The Reference desk is only one node in the overall provision of reference services, but it is unique in its extensibility, flexibility, and power. It creates conversations that build sustained relationships under the partnership of mutual inquiry and concern for the information experience. It is also the place where our commitment to our public is judged. And rightfully so, for if we can not be bothered to engage the public here, what faith will the public have in us across the screen?
See also...
From General Reference to Subject Specialty
On Ubiquitous Instruction
.
Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian
University of California, Davis
michalski@ucdavis.edu
Even as we reach and serve more and more patrons remotely through new forms of tele-presence, the properly equipped and staffed Reference Desk remains an important part of both the 21st Century library and university. It not only serves as the symbolic center for our activities, it continues as the physical embodiment our mission to the campus. It is, of course, not our only point of contact. The Reference Desk is a site in a wider network of reference interactions made through both static and interactive online tools, virtual meetings and face-to-face meetings in offices and in class instruction, as well as in other public forums. Yet the Reference Desk, by virtue of its very immobility and permanence, is a central hinge between the library and its users. It serves as the anchor and dispatch center for all our flexible and mobile initiatives. It is our office and our laboratory, an open and public node where we can engage the climate of our researchers and the hub from which we embark in service of the university’s educational and research missions. Both history and current events show space and materiality are still important in the construct of our social world, in fact, no less so in today’s fast and liquid information environment. Ultimately, we occupy this space so that we are accountable to our public.
Spatially, the Reference Desk serves as an invitation to our users. It shows that we are employed in their interest. In my experience at Peter J. Shields Library at the University of California, Davis, I find patrons approaching the Reference Desk on which I serve for many reasons, for orientation, for resource discovery, and for conversations about the distribution and context of information. Situated at the center of campus, our Reference Desk is often busy. Every quarter, I meet new faculty and researchers, help new students with old problems and new assignments, and meet continuing students who have progressed from the academic novice to the intellectually engaged scholar. It is a mutually rewarding and challenging space from which to serve the campus and community.
New powerful tools and burgeoning resources in print and online have allowed the information environment to flourish. New possibilities, truly await today’s scholars, but these advances also make the information landscape increasingly complex. In this environment, the Reference Desk is used increasingly to ameliorate the confusion encountered online. The opportunity to speak directly with the librarian offers patrons a clear and direct communication of their needs and their challenges. The Reference Desk provides the much needed space and time to listen and provide information and advice in a relatively unmediated way. Time and again I’ve seen the reference desk, staffed by knowledgeable people turn frustrated users back into hopeful researchers. Undoubtedly, this commitment to our users contains costs, and its value is, like most knowledge, difficult to account, but beside counting the papers saved, insights sparked, or careers changed because of the fruitful interplay between librarians and researchers, the Reference Desk must also be recognized as a place to communicate our ethical responsibility to our users.
The rapport created there not only translates into future good will towards the library and university, but better research skills for the patron. Even when the patron approaches the desk to ask for known items or to access sets of pre-conceived information, the contact with the librarian often leads to new, more complex, questions, and sometimes, new research endeavors. New questions develop and new ways to organize projects take form, because reference is a more than a place of questions and answers. It is a space of translation, interpretation, and knowledge formation.
Face-to-face researcher-librarian interaction allows researchers to engage in embodied conversations in concert with the information world. Researchers can walk through their search results with the librarian as an interpretive guide or docent. It is a form of interaction that benefits both the researcher and the library as an institution. In the anthropological terms, it is a rich site for the transfer of cultures and skills. The librarian uses this interaction to impart search techniques, and convey the peculiarities of a discourse’s publication and distribution. Pertinent information about the scope and coverage of available resources is also taught, all with a consciousness of, and reciprocity to the researcher’s disposition. With an eye and ear to the situation at hand, to the patron’s level of skill, the signs and postures of time and attention allow for in-situ adjustments. Communication strategy can be altered by assessing the value and comprehension of communication and instruction imparted. Information is not simply dispensed at the Reference Desk, but communicated in a humane manner. In the best circumstances, knowledge about the fuller social life of information can be discussed. The librarian can work to put the researcher’s project in context with the wider intellectual environment. The new perspective built through conversations can lead to new paths of discovery.
Being there, being present, helps the library work in concert with faculty and students. In our large and complex Universities, perhaps uniquely, the librarian at the Reference Desk is there to listen, to put a face in front of the machine. We perform as information consultants and counselors and the Reference Desk becomes the safe place for such communication. It is a confidential place away from the judgment of professors, a place to inquire, explore, learn and grow. It is where we teach novices not to be intimidated by the languages of scholarship. It is where we hear problems, and in the best cases, where we offer solutions and build confidence.
The librarian at the Reference Desk is also uniquely positioned to convey the institution’s message and mission. She or he wears the University’s public face, offering the best attributes of what is too often dismissed as mere customer service. In the University today we must strengthen our engagement with the public. This node is where the library as an institution can best learn from the populations it serves. It is a prime and unfiltered information gathering point for the library in its efforts to remain relevant to the University. Each conversation there informs collection development decisions, instructional needs, and outreach methods. The librarian on the Reference Desk records the core concerns and trends of our faculty and students. As such, the Reference Desk is generative of library and librarian expertise. It enables us as an institution to react, adjust, and think. A librarian confronted with the assignments and research projects learns the challenges of the engaged student or advanced scholar, and develops creative problem solving techniques as well as information that can be used to enhance the library and better support the University’s mission.
The Reference desk is only one node in the overall provision of reference services, but it is unique in its extensibility, flexibility, and power. It creates conversations that build sustained relationships under the partnership of mutual inquiry and concern for the information experience. It is also the place where our commitment to our public is judged. And rightfully so, for if we can not be bothered to engage the public here, what faith will the public have in us across the screen?
See also...
From General Reference to Subject Specialty
On Ubiquitous Instruction
.
Questions for the UCI South Regional Assembly
1. Reference and Instruction
Which aspects of reference and instruction do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to reference and instruction?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
Possible article of interest for this discussion: Beck, Clare. 1991. "Reference Services: a Handmaid's Tale." Library Journal 116 (7):32-38.
Contrast the Beck article with the item cited in the UCSF blog posting (2/10/10) on the LAUC blog: Kaufman, Paula. 2009. "Carpe Diem: Transforming Services in Academic Libraries"
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/12032
2. Relationship to information providers
What differences do you see now between librarians and non-librarian information providers?
In what ways do you see these differences evolving?
In what practical ways can librarians draw attention to and demonstrate these differences?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
3. Library Personnel
What do you see, generally, as the current functions of library personnel?
How do you see these functions and responsibility for them evolving?
In what practical ways can librarians demonstrate their value in analyzing and making recommendations regarding the roles and functions of library personnel?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
4. Technology
Which aspects of technology do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to technology functions?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
5. Collections
Which aspects of collections do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to collections functions?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
6. Library Buildings
In which ways are librarians and physical library spaces linked, currently?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding physical library spaces?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
7. Campus Roles
How does your campus view the role of librarians, currently?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding their campus roles?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
8. Library Networks
What do you see as the current role of librarians at your institution regarding library networks?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding their campus roles?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
9. Organizational Culture
Librarians:
Which aspects of organizational culture at your institution affect your work directly?
Which aspects are supportive?
Which aspects are obstacles?
In what practical ways should the organization change to meet your evolving professional needs?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
Which aspects of reference and instruction do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to reference and instruction?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
Possible article of interest for this discussion: Beck, Clare. 1991. "Reference Services: a Handmaid's Tale." Library Journal 116 (7):32-38.
Contrast the Beck article with the item cited in the UCSF blog posting (2/10/10) on the LAUC blog: Kaufman, Paula. 2009. "Carpe Diem: Transforming Services in Academic Libraries"
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/12032
2. Relationship to information providers
What differences do you see now between librarians and non-librarian information providers?
In what ways do you see these differences evolving?
In what practical ways can librarians draw attention to and demonstrate these differences?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
3. Library Personnel
What do you see, generally, as the current functions of library personnel?
How do you see these functions and responsibility for them evolving?
In what practical ways can librarians demonstrate their value in analyzing and making recommendations regarding the roles and functions of library personnel?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
4. Technology
Which aspects of technology do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to technology functions?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
5. Collections
Which aspects of collections do you see as ongoing functions of librarians?
Which aspects do you see fading away?
Which aspects do you see evolving, and how?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider in relation to collections functions?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
6. Library Buildings
In which ways are librarians and physical library spaces linked, currently?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding physical library spaces?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
7. Campus Roles
How does your campus view the role of librarians, currently?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding their campus roles?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
8. Library Networks
What do you see as the current role of librarians at your institution regarding library networks?
In which ways do you see this evolving?
What are some practical approaches librarians should consider regarding their campus roles?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
9. Organizational Culture
Librarians:
Which aspects of organizational culture at your institution affect your work directly?
Which aspects are supportive?
Which aspects are obstacles?
In what practical ways should the organization change to meet your evolving professional needs?
Please rank each on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being lowest & 5 being highest.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Committee on Diversity at the UCDavis Libraries
Last week, I attended the first meeting of the UCDavis Libraries Committee on Diversity, and this proved to be an illuminating look at two of the nine topics that have defined our discussion of the future of UC librarianship. The meeting was based on a presentation by Associate Executive Vice Chancellor for the Office of Campus Community Relations Rahim Reed. He reiterated throughout his talk his respect for the Library Diversity committee which has a history of contributing to the campus, he said. This contribution has largely taken the form of support for a centerpiece of the campus's diversity programming which is the campus community book project. Every year, a committee selects a campus book related to the theme of diversity. Previous designees include The Kite Runner and Mountains Beyond Mountains. This year's book is The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. Each year, there is ongoing programming on campus surrounding the book that consists of exhibits and discussions. The author is always invited for a series of high-profile talks at the campus's main performance venue, The Mondavi Center. With the focus on a book, such a project is a natural for the library. In previous years, the library has always obtained the campus book and hosted exhibits and discussions.
At this time, the diversity office is facing a particularly urgent concern in the form of a rash of acts of discrimination. These include swastikas painted on the doors of Jewish students, defacement of the LBGT office and harassment of African-American students. Here we are in the 21st century! Some people are slow to get the message. As was pointed out at the meeting, these incidents are so far beyond the pale and at such an opposite pole from discussions on diversity, that, at first glance it is hard to know how to begin to deal with this. It's like teaching people to add and subtract. One is not sure where to start. Rahim admitted that no place can be guaranteed to be safe against everything, but he offered a comprehensive vision. In part, security will be stepped up around campus. But the main effort will be a version of "draining the swamp" that discriminators live in through education and training of staff, and this is the centerpiece, too, of the conversations that the diversity office plans to hold around campus. New ideas are always welcome. With this challenge to the Library's diversity committee, Rahim ended his presentation. Not only does the library have an opportunity to intervene in the life of the campus, but it has a history of doing so which was news to me as a relatively new member of the campus. In anything to do with cross-disciplinary education, it makes sense that the library should be at the forefront of such an effort, and it will be interesting to see what unique contributions that the library can make in the upcoming year.
For its first action, the committee decided to look internally at the library before looking outward to the campus. There have been a spate of troubles within the last few months. One was an incident in which a self-appointed group delivered letters to certain individuals claiming that they were not doing their share of the work. Another was a series of angry emails regarding the timing and nature of communications about layoffs that the library may be forced to implement in the near future. All incidents did not reflect the Principles of Community that the UC Davis campus prides itself on--to say the least. Some of have speculated that these incidents reflect the tension surrounding the budget crisis that afflicts the entire UC system, and, from that perspective, they are understandable. However, the themes of inequality and that certain classes of staff within the library are more privileged than others are ones that I, for one, have seen elsewhere and seem to be general in library culture. So, the committee's first move will be to address this aspect of the organizational culture of libraries. One of the features of diversity programming, mentioned by Rahim, is a series of workshops and courses on the campus on different aspects of diversity. Rather than sending individuals to this training, the committee is considering a special session tailored to library concerns to focus on healing divisions and increasing communication and effectiveness to face the challenges that lie ahead. The UC Davis Library Committee on Diversity will be a place to watch with regards to both library campus roles and organizational cultures.
Matt
At this time, the diversity office is facing a particularly urgent concern in the form of a rash of acts of discrimination. These include swastikas painted on the doors of Jewish students, defacement of the LBGT office and harassment of African-American students. Here we are in the 21st century! Some people are slow to get the message. As was pointed out at the meeting, these incidents are so far beyond the pale and at such an opposite pole from discussions on diversity, that, at first glance it is hard to know how to begin to deal with this. It's like teaching people to add and subtract. One is not sure where to start. Rahim admitted that no place can be guaranteed to be safe against everything, but he offered a comprehensive vision. In part, security will be stepped up around campus. But the main effort will be a version of "draining the swamp" that discriminators live in through education and training of staff, and this is the centerpiece, too, of the conversations that the diversity office plans to hold around campus. New ideas are always welcome. With this challenge to the Library's diversity committee, Rahim ended his presentation. Not only does the library have an opportunity to intervene in the life of the campus, but it has a history of doing so which was news to me as a relatively new member of the campus. In anything to do with cross-disciplinary education, it makes sense that the library should be at the forefront of such an effort, and it will be interesting to see what unique contributions that the library can make in the upcoming year.
For its first action, the committee decided to look internally at the library before looking outward to the campus. There have been a spate of troubles within the last few months. One was an incident in which a self-appointed group delivered letters to certain individuals claiming that they were not doing their share of the work. Another was a series of angry emails regarding the timing and nature of communications about layoffs that the library may be forced to implement in the near future. All incidents did not reflect the Principles of Community that the UC Davis campus prides itself on--to say the least. Some of have speculated that these incidents reflect the tension surrounding the budget crisis that afflicts the entire UC system, and, from that perspective, they are understandable. However, the themes of inequality and that certain classes of staff within the library are more privileged than others are ones that I, for one, have seen elsewhere and seem to be general in library culture. So, the committee's first move will be to address this aspect of the organizational culture of libraries. One of the features of diversity programming, mentioned by Rahim, is a series of workshops and courses on the campus on different aspects of diversity. Rather than sending individuals to this training, the committee is considering a special session tailored to library concerns to focus on healing divisions and increasing communication and effectiveness to face the challenges that lie ahead. The UC Davis Library Committee on Diversity will be a place to watch with regards to both library campus roles and organizational cultures.
Matt
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
UC Commission on the Future First Recommendations
Here is a summary of the first round of recommendations of the UC Commission on the Future. Links to expanded documents are appended. The big picture might be useful to see where libraries can insert themselves. The last heading "Educating Tomorrow's Innovators" seems to me like the likeliest entry point.
Matt
Vision for the future
The UC Commission on the Future just released the first round of recommendations from its five working groups. Some recommendations you likely won't find controversial. Others represent changes that we probably would not be talking about if it weren't for the fiscal crisis that inspired the birth of this commission. This is just a first step and by no means the end of the commission's work. We expect lively debate over some of these recommendations.
During the next two months, the commission is gathering feedback before presenting prioritized recommendations to the regents in July. The commission will continue working and will present final recommendations in the fall.
As a UC advocate, your voice is important to this process. You can read the first round of recommendations and submit your feedback online .
As you can see, despite our budget challenges, UC is not standing still. Here are just a few of the recent efforts to serve our students and the people of California.
Campus Climate
University leaders are taking a hard look at the issues of intolerance that have come to light on some of our campuses in recent weeks. You may have read about these incidents .
Campus leaders reported to the UC Regents (Watch video) on the steps they have taken to address those incidents. Regents also heard from students about their experiences with bigotry and about UC's need to increase diversity on all of its campuses.
As President Mark Yudof said at the meeting, "We do not shy away from examining our own problems, from acting decisively and with dispatch to address them."
We want you to know that work continues to investigate the campus incidents and appropriately discipline those responsible whenever possible. At the same time, UC Regents have pledged to take responsibility for monitoring campus climate throughout the system and for increasing the diversity of our students, faculty, staff and curriculum to better reflect the rich, multicultural environment of California.
We are confident that together we can move forward and reaffirm our commitment to tolerance, civility and inclusiveness. Those are values we embrace and that underpin the great work accomplished at the University of California.
Public service
At the governor's request, UC is exploring what role it can play in helping the state save millions of dollars in prison health costs.
Green research
Our annual sustainability report highlights all the ways we're cutting the carbon footprint of our campuses and saving money at the same time. In the growing field of green technology, UC is a national leader, and we practice what we teach.
Educating tomorrow's innovators
Our students continue to learn and apply their knowledge to the real world. Check out some of the research projects our undergrads are working on and see why it's so important that we keep advocating for UC's future. http://undergrads.universityofcalifornia.edu/
Your support makes our successes possible.
Thank you for standing with us.
Please visit http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/uc4ca/home/ if you'd like to learn more about our advocacy efforts and take action.
Visit UC Newsroom for the latest systemwide news.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/
Sincerely,
UC Advocacy Team
The recommendations can be found at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/23070
full report at:
http://ucfuture.universityofcalifornia.edu/presentations/cotf_wg_first_recs.pdf
Matt
Vision for the future
The UC Commission on the Future just released the first round of recommendations from its five working groups. Some recommendations you likely won't find controversial. Others represent changes that we probably would not be talking about if it weren't for the fiscal crisis that inspired the birth of this commission. This is just a first step and by no means the end of the commission's work. We expect lively debate over some of these recommendations.
During the next two months, the commission is gathering feedback before presenting prioritized recommendations to the regents in July. The commission will continue working and will present final recommendations in the fall.
As a UC advocate, your voice is important to this process. You can read the first round of recommendations and submit your feedback online .
As you can see, despite our budget challenges, UC is not standing still. Here are just a few of the recent efforts to serve our students and the people of California.
Campus Climate
University leaders are taking a hard look at the issues of intolerance that have come to light on some of our campuses in recent weeks. You may have read about these incidents .
Campus leaders reported to the UC Regents (Watch video) on the steps they have taken to address those incidents. Regents also heard from students about their experiences with bigotry and about UC's need to increase diversity on all of its campuses.
As President Mark Yudof said at the meeting, "We do not shy away from examining our own problems, from acting decisively and with dispatch to address them."
We want you to know that work continues to investigate the campus incidents and appropriately discipline those responsible whenever possible. At the same time, UC Regents have pledged to take responsibility for monitoring campus climate throughout the system and for increasing the diversity of our students, faculty, staff and curriculum to better reflect the rich, multicultural environment of California.
We are confident that together we can move forward and reaffirm our commitment to tolerance, civility and inclusiveness. Those are values we embrace and that underpin the great work accomplished at the University of California.
Public service
At the governor's request, UC is exploring what role it can play in helping the state save millions of dollars in prison health costs.
Green research
Our annual sustainability report highlights all the ways we're cutting the carbon footprint of our campuses and saving money at the same time. In the growing field of green technology, UC is a national leader, and we practice what we teach.
Educating tomorrow's innovators
Our students continue to learn and apply their knowledge to the real world. Check out some of the research projects our undergrads are working on and see why it's so important that we keep advocating for UC's future. http://undergrads.universityofcalifornia.edu/
Your support makes our successes possible.
Thank you for standing with us.
Please visit http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/uc4ca/home/ if you'd like to learn more about our advocacy efforts and take action.
Visit UC Newsroom for the latest systemwide news.
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/
Sincerely,
UC Advocacy Team
The recommendations can be found at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/23070
full report at:
http://ucfuture.universityofcalifornia.edu/presentations/cotf_wg_first_recs.pdf
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
SOPAG Reports on Collection Space Planning
Here are links to the SOPAG reports:
Final report: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collspace-report-mar24_final.pdf
• Appendices A-D: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collspaceAPPENDIX-A-D-mar24-rev.pdf
• Appendix E: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collSpaceAPPENDIX-E-growth-mar24-rev.pdf
Final report: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collspace-report-mar24_final.pdf
• Appendices A-D: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collspaceAPPENDIX-A-D-mar24-rev.pdf
• Appendix E: http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/sopag/spaceplantf/collSpaceAPPENDIX-E-growth-mar24-rev.pdf
Thursday, March 11, 2010
UC Budget and Libraries
In times of severe budget crisis as we are surely in, it makes sense to consider all points of view and, as librarians, it behooves us to consider as well the alternative press. So, here is a short review of an article that summarizes well one extreme view of the UC Budget crisis.
Parrish, Will, and Darwin Bond-Graham. "Disaster Capitalist University." Anderson Valley Advertiser 58.7(2010).
The article is listed on the LAUC Futures bibliography on the LAUC wiki with an active link.
The article starts with the decision of last July by the California State Legislature to remove $813 million from the University of California's budget for the next fiscal year. In response, the university's Board of Regents declared a "state of emergency" accompanied by special "emergency powers" for UC President Mark Yudof with which he has implemented cost-cutting measures that have been the subject of controversy. The article generalizes this incident to a general trend which it calls "disaster capitalism" based on a 2007 book called The Shock Doctrine by journalist Naomi Klein. The theory is that major players in a capitalist society will fabricate crises in order to suspend the freedom of the people, suppress their spirit of inquiry and arrogate special powers to themselves (players) for their own advancement. This notion has had currency elsewhere. In George Orwell's iconic novel 1984, societies are kept united and oppressed by remote wars created for this purpose. More recently, Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear, postulated that the entire of issue of global warming is the fabrication of environmentalist groups and corrupt elements of government for their own hidden agendas.
Applied to the UCs, the "shock doctrine" introduces numbers, similar to those heard already, to show that the university is not facing a crisis that is beyond the resources it has available. The article goes on to build a complex web of political and financial connections, including Yudof. This network, allegedly, is using the current financial crisis to gain unprecedented control of university money and invest it in large corporations for personal profit.
I've selected this article for review partly because it appeared in a library listserve, so it is a specimen of the discourses that we are exposed to. It also, rather articulately, gives voice to some of the most extreme objections to the current handling of the budget crisis as well as the misgivings and dissatisfaction that one could hardly avoid feeling in the midst of these events.
How are librarians to respond to this line of reasoning? First, one can hardly deny that this is a specimen of conspiracy theories that have appeared in many contexts. This does not mean that they are to be dismissed out of hand, and it seems undeniable to me that there is some degree of truth in the claims. However as part of the conspiracy genre, this article is liable to a lot of concerns with others of its type. First of all, the claims tend to be long on suggestiveness and insinuations but hard to prove. In this category is another issue that deserves to be singled out. There is a practice of throwing out numbers here and there to support a picture of injustice by the university policy. Maybe these numbers are correct. Yet, it is undeniable that the whole financial picture is far, far more complicated to the point where it is very likely impossible to summarize by a few numbers as has been done. Is it even possible to communicate the essence of the university's finacial situation to the populace at large? I don't know. But it seems to me futile for proponents of both sides to quote a few numbers here or there and claim that their side is right. This just doesn't convince anyone.
In any case, what are librarians to do? Sadly, not a great deal that I can see. We certainly are not in a position to do investigative reporting to expose the truth of large conspiracy theories. It seems like the best we can do is to keep on doing our job and advocating wherever possible the importance of libraries and librarians for the public good against which uses of the public money, even by conspirators, will, ultimately, be held accountable.
For these seeking to explore the actual financial state of the university in all its details and communicate this to constituents, it's important to develop a picture that persuasively shows the complexity of the finances rather than what looks like soundbites and partisan data.
Matt
Parrish, Will, and Darwin Bond-Graham. "Disaster Capitalist University." Anderson Valley Advertiser 58.7(2010).
The article is listed on the LAUC Futures bibliography on the LAUC wiki with an active link.
The article starts with the decision of last July by the California State Legislature to remove $813 million from the University of California's budget for the next fiscal year. In response, the university's Board of Regents declared a "state of emergency" accompanied by special "emergency powers" for UC President Mark Yudof with which he has implemented cost-cutting measures that have been the subject of controversy. The article generalizes this incident to a general trend which it calls "disaster capitalism" based on a 2007 book called The Shock Doctrine by journalist Naomi Klein. The theory is that major players in a capitalist society will fabricate crises in order to suspend the freedom of the people, suppress their spirit of inquiry and arrogate special powers to themselves (players) for their own advancement. This notion has had currency elsewhere. In George Orwell's iconic novel 1984, societies are kept united and oppressed by remote wars created for this purpose. More recently, Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear, postulated that the entire of issue of global warming is the fabrication of environmentalist groups and corrupt elements of government for their own hidden agendas.
Applied to the UCs, the "shock doctrine" introduces numbers, similar to those heard already, to show that the university is not facing a crisis that is beyond the resources it has available. The article goes on to build a complex web of political and financial connections, including Yudof. This network, allegedly, is using the current financial crisis to gain unprecedented control of university money and invest it in large corporations for personal profit.
I've selected this article for review partly because it appeared in a library listserve, so it is a specimen of the discourses that we are exposed to. It also, rather articulately, gives voice to some of the most extreme objections to the current handling of the budget crisis as well as the misgivings and dissatisfaction that one could hardly avoid feeling in the midst of these events.
How are librarians to respond to this line of reasoning? First, one can hardly deny that this is a specimen of conspiracy theories that have appeared in many contexts. This does not mean that they are to be dismissed out of hand, and it seems undeniable to me that there is some degree of truth in the claims. However as part of the conspiracy genre, this article is liable to a lot of concerns with others of its type. First of all, the claims tend to be long on suggestiveness and insinuations but hard to prove. In this category is another issue that deserves to be singled out. There is a practice of throwing out numbers here and there to support a picture of injustice by the university policy. Maybe these numbers are correct. Yet, it is undeniable that the whole financial picture is far, far more complicated to the point where it is very likely impossible to summarize by a few numbers as has been done. Is it even possible to communicate the essence of the university's finacial situation to the populace at large? I don't know. But it seems to me futile for proponents of both sides to quote a few numbers here or there and claim that their side is right. This just doesn't convince anyone.
In any case, what are librarians to do? Sadly, not a great deal that I can see. We certainly are not in a position to do investigative reporting to expose the truth of large conspiracy theories. It seems like the best we can do is to keep on doing our job and advocating wherever possible the importance of libraries and librarians for the public good against which uses of the public money, even by conspirators, will, ultimately, be held accountable.
For these seeking to explore the actual financial state of the university in all its details and communicate this to constituents, it's important to develop a picture that persuasively shows the complexity of the finances rather than what looks like soundbites and partisan data.
Matt
Monday, March 1, 2010
International Digital Library Research & Development Meeting
The UC's efforts at digitizing library material in cooperation with Google and the HathiTrust are being paralleled by other cooperative efforts as described in a report called "International Digital Library Research & Development Meeting" which describes an international meeting at Stanford University on library cooperatives. The report can be found in full at (http://www.clir.org/globaldigitallibraries/INTL_LIB_R&D_Partic_FinalA.pdf) .
The report claims that "in an era of retrenchment, [senior administrators and senior technologists] are seeking to extend the reach of their institutions through unprecedented integration of their digital collections with others' in the international library community." In other words, crisis is opportunity and in a time of budgetary challenges, library leaders hope not only to reduce costs but expand service at the same time. These twin imperatives lead to a sense of urgency. "We need to be positively impatient," according to one of the participants.
Progress, however, has foundered or at least been held up by an irresolvable "tension" between two different points of view. On the one hand, "The piece-by-piece maturation of the digital library, growing as it has from separately funded initiatives that are often redundant, is neither efficient nor sustainable." On the other, "Striving to achieve widespread agreement on priorities for digital library development" is slow and even "counter-productive." In other words, neither a top-down nor bottom-top method serves the purpose and no procedural compromise has been discovered. Yet, the report elsewhere describes this tension as "fertile" and productive. Specific initiatives include:
1. Repository Architectural Review
2. Data Curation and Preservation
3. Digital Manuscripts
4. Digital Forensics
5. Semantic Web
6. Hydra/Blacklight - tools for building an environment for hosting and managing digital assets (http://www.fedora-commons.org/confluence/display/hydra/The+Hydra+Project)
7. PLANETS - a European-based initiative for building tools, codifying best practices, and fostering a community around digital preservation(http://www.planets-project.edu/).
and many more.
The report claims that "in an era of retrenchment, [senior administrators and senior technologists] are seeking to extend the reach of their institutions through unprecedented integration of their digital collections with others' in the international library community." In other words, crisis is opportunity and in a time of budgetary challenges, library leaders hope not only to reduce costs but expand service at the same time. These twin imperatives lead to a sense of urgency. "We need to be positively impatient," according to one of the participants.
Progress, however, has foundered or at least been held up by an irresolvable "tension" between two different points of view. On the one hand, "The piece-by-piece maturation of the digital library, growing as it has from separately funded initiatives that are often redundant, is neither efficient nor sustainable." On the other, "Striving to achieve widespread agreement on priorities for digital library development" is slow and even "counter-productive." In other words, neither a top-down nor bottom-top method serves the purpose and no procedural compromise has been discovered. Yet, the report elsewhere describes this tension as "fertile" and productive. Specific initiatives include:
1. Repository Architectural Review
2. Data Curation and Preservation
3. Digital Manuscripts
4. Digital Forensics
5. Semantic Web
6. Hydra/Blacklight - tools for building an environment for hosting and managing digital assets (http://www.fedora-commons.org/confluence/display/hydra/The+Hydra+Project)
7. PLANETS - a European-based initiative for building tools, codifying best practices, and fostering a community around digital preservation
and many more.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Collection Preservation and Budget Issues at UCDavis
The UC Davis Binding Services Section hosted a workshop on their services on Monday, February 22, 2010. The Binding Services Section is part of the Margaret B. Harrison Preservation Department which is housed in the Technical Services Department of the Peter J. Shields Library. The talk was presented by Charlotte Payne, supervisor of the Binding Services Section and Wendy Jones, supervisor of the Conservation Treatment and In-House Binding Sub-Section.
The services of the Binding Section take place against a backdrop of shrinking budgets and offer not only ingenious techniques for doing the job with less money but also a portrait of how the budget-crisis of the UCs is affecting every aspect of libraries. The binding budget has dropped by almost 40% in the last two years from $106,868 to $77,376. Charlotte said that the first consideration is mandatory requirements. All monographs and monographic series housed at the Physical Sciences Library (PSE) are bound, amounting to $4,000 of the buddget. This is partly because space is so compact there that the binding is necessary to squeeze everything in although it was noted that binding also increases the size of a book by a small amount. Gift books are generally not bound or repaired, however, those in need of serious repair will be bound. Otherwise, in order to allot the limited resources of the binding department, Charlotte gathers as much information as possible on the usage level and value of the book. She checks circulation levels of old copies and provdes slips to collection developers asking for their expectations of usage. One librarian mentioned that he had been told not to use these slips, but Charlotte said that, from the point-of-view of the binding department, information was always helpful. Active involvement of the bibliographers is an important element in successful cost reduction.
Among the binding materials available for paperback books, mylar is the champion: it is sturdier than plastic boook jackets, has superior openability, retains front and back covers, and is cheaper than buckram binding with almost equivalent durability. Buckram is reserved for books of significant size and weight. Use of the fastback machine has now been discontinued as the machinery had so much downtime that it was cost-effective to send the jobs to the UC bindery instead. In addition, in-house fastbacking was impacted by cuts in the budget for student assistants. In response to a question, Charlotte said that she was not aware of any "green binding" yet in existence other than the use of acid-free board in binding. What cannot be repaired in-house or at the UC bindery is sent to collection developers with a list of options, including replacement or discard.
Wendy discussed the repair processes of the preservattion department. Books arrive from all branches and departmeents in the Library but the bulk, 270 per month, come from the Circulation department. About 100 per month are sent to the UC bindery, a much smaller number than previously since books are increasingly repaired on-site to save money. An average of 170 books per month have conservattion treatment including rebacking and treatmeent for a bindery new case. Categories of problems include books with sugar and coffee stains or any other kind of stain that could attract insects and threaten the collection. Wendy observed that the quantity of damaged books has increased significantly. There is also an increased incidence of ink markings in books. Asian language books often arrive with very fragile bindings that need to be replaced. The preservattion department works hard to do conservation work that can reduce the costs of UC biinding which, for rebinding or a new case, costs $16. However, the student staff has been cut from 10 to six because of budget cuts, and the preservation departmeent has become significantly backlogged. Repair options include tack binding, velo binding, pam binding and custom-made boxes for books, and full conservation treatments, including resewing. Sometimes books are sent to NRLF where they will be handled less. Wendy reiterated that she works very closely with Charlotte and both check the Melvyl catalog to formulate the most cost-effective repair choices. Wendy added that you cannot always predict which items will be used. GRE Prrep books from 2003 have been borrowed many times already in 2010. Those people are desperate....
Matt
The services of the Binding Section take place against a backdrop of shrinking budgets and offer not only ingenious techniques for doing the job with less money but also a portrait of how the budget-crisis of the UCs is affecting every aspect of libraries. The binding budget has dropped by almost 40% in the last two years from $106,868 to $77,376. Charlotte said that the first consideration is mandatory requirements. All monographs and monographic series housed at the Physical Sciences Library (PSE) are bound, amounting to $4,000 of the buddget. This is partly because space is so compact there that the binding is necessary to squeeze everything in although it was noted that binding also increases the size of a book by a small amount. Gift books are generally not bound or repaired, however, those in need of serious repair will be bound. Otherwise, in order to allot the limited resources of the binding department, Charlotte gathers as much information as possible on the usage level and value of the book. She checks circulation levels of old copies and provdes slips to collection developers asking for their expectations of usage. One librarian mentioned that he had been told not to use these slips, but Charlotte said that, from the point-of-view of the binding department, information was always helpful. Active involvement of the bibliographers is an important element in successful cost reduction.
Among the binding materials available for paperback books, mylar is the champion: it is sturdier than plastic boook jackets, has superior openability, retains front and back covers, and is cheaper than buckram binding with almost equivalent durability. Buckram is reserved for books of significant size and weight. Use of the fastback machine has now been discontinued as the machinery had so much downtime that it was cost-effective to send the jobs to the UC bindery instead. In addition, in-house fastbacking was impacted by cuts in the budget for student assistants. In response to a question, Charlotte said that she was not aware of any "green binding" yet in existence other than the use of acid-free board in binding. What cannot be repaired in-house or at the UC bindery is sent to collection developers with a list of options, including replacement or discard.
Wendy discussed the repair processes of the preservattion department. Books arrive from all branches and departmeents in the Library but the bulk, 270 per month, come from the Circulation department. About 100 per month are sent to the UC bindery, a much smaller number than previously since books are increasingly repaired on-site to save money. An average of 170 books per month have conservattion treatment including rebacking and treatmeent for a bindery new case. Categories of problems include books with sugar and coffee stains or any other kind of stain that could attract insects and threaten the collection. Wendy observed that the quantity of damaged books has increased significantly. There is also an increased incidence of ink markings in books. Asian language books often arrive with very fragile bindings that need to be replaced. The preservattion department works hard to do conservation work that can reduce the costs of UC biinding which, for rebinding or a new case, costs $16. However, the student staff has been cut from 10 to six because of budget cuts, and the preservation departmeent has become significantly backlogged. Repair options include tack binding, velo binding, pam binding and custom-made boxes for books, and full conservation treatments, including resewing. Sometimes books are sent to NRLF where they will be handled less. Wendy reiterated that she works very closely with Charlotte and both check the Melvyl catalog to formulate the most cost-effective repair choices. Wendy added that you cannot always predict which items will be used. GRE Prrep books from 2003 have been borrowed many times already in 2010. Those people are desperate....
Matt
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Hurtling Toward the Finish Line: Should the Google Books Settlement Be Approved?: California Digital Library
Hurtling Toward the Finish Line: Should the Google Books Settlement Be Approved?
February 16, 2010
Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections
California Digital Library
"Late last week, Google and the plaintiffs filed their final briefs in defense of the Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) that is before the New York Southern Federal District Court. As the rhetoric around the Settlement heats up to white-hot intensity in the final days before the Fairness Hearing on February 18th, I’d like to offer a few personal thoughts from my vantage point at the California Digital Library."
February 16, 2010
Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections
California Digital Library
"Late last week, Google and the plaintiffs filed their final briefs in defense of the Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) that is before the New York Southern Federal District Court. As the rhetoric around the Settlement heats up to white-hot intensity in the final days before the Fairness Hearing on February 18th, I’d like to offer a few personal thoughts from my vantage point at the California Digital Library."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
UCSF Discussion of the Future of UC Libraries
On Monday, February 8, LAUC-SF hosted a local discussion about the future of UC libraries and the evolving roles of librarians. Members of LAUC-SF attended, as well as senior library leadership including university librarian Karen Butter. We invited the entire library staff to attend, and a few interested staff members (including a circulation assistant who recently earned his MLIS) were also in attendance.
Prompted by the table reports from the December Assembly in Berkeley, as well as the CDC concept paper on the 21st century collection, a healthy discussion ensued. There remains a gap in conceptions of whether we have a UC "collection" or "collections," and continued discussions are needed about how to balance a campus's rightful ownership with more widespread access. There was a general consensus that our roles needed to evolve in order for librarians to remain relevant, but into what is less clear.
At UCSF we've taken a somewhat different approach to the concept of "library as place," with the Library's active involvement in the development of the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) to open in 2011. The TLC will replace a floor that used to be devoted, in part, to more traditional functions such as housing bound journals. Although there were initial concerns about "losing space," most library staff now see the TLC as a positive development that will cause us to develop new services and ways of teaching. We are not advocating clinging to the building for the building's sake, but rather converting our physical assets into more vital space that benefits the aims of the Library in tandem with those of the University.
Space, mission, roles--all of these are in flux right now. Following the meeting, our UL pointed us to a useful paper by Paula Kaufman of the University of Illinois that addresses similar themes: "Carpe Diem: Transforming Services in Academic Libraries." The gathering at UCSF led to a productive discussion, and I hope many more follow.
Marcus Banks
Chair, LAUC-SF
Prompted by the table reports from the December Assembly in Berkeley, as well as the CDC concept paper on the 21st century collection, a healthy discussion ensued. There remains a gap in conceptions of whether we have a UC "collection" or "collections," and continued discussions are needed about how to balance a campus's rightful ownership with more widespread access. There was a general consensus that our roles needed to evolve in order for librarians to remain relevant, but into what is less clear.
At UCSF we've taken a somewhat different approach to the concept of "library as place," with the Library's active involvement in the development of the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) to open in 2011. The TLC will replace a floor that used to be devoted, in part, to more traditional functions such as housing bound journals. Although there were initial concerns about "losing space," most library staff now see the TLC as a positive development that will cause us to develop new services and ways of teaching. We are not advocating clinging to the building for the building's sake, but rather converting our physical assets into more vital space that benefits the aims of the Library in tandem with those of the University.
Space, mission, roles--all of these are in flux right now. Following the meeting, our UL pointed us to a useful paper by Paula Kaufman of the University of Illinois that addresses similar themes: "Carpe Diem: Transforming Services in Academic Libraries." The gathering at UCSF led to a productive discussion, and I hope many more follow.
Marcus Banks
Chair, LAUC-SF
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Library Buildings -- UCDavis Sleep-In
This past weekend February 5-7, the Peter J. Shields Library was the site of a "sleep-in" to protest the rise of student fees and budget cuts throughout the UC system. Students remained in the library throughout the weekend, holding talks on the progress of the budget, hanging posters, operating coffee stands, and, of course, studying.
The event represents another turn in a string of creative protests at UCDavis. In the fall quarter, Davis students staged a rally on the central quad clad in their underwear to protest fee hikes. At a later date, demonstrators occupied Mrak Hall, the site of the Registrar's office and refused to leave. Some were forcibly removed and there were arrests on-site. When I told my Dad about the library sleep-in, his response was "Why a library?" I said that this is in the tradition of activism from the 1960s where our very own UC Berkeley helped to make history with occupations of university buildings. "I know all that," he said. "But those were symbols of power. Usually people take over administrative buildings. What do they plan to do with a library?"
Why indeed? It appears that what transpired did not quite follow anyone's original vision but was more of an evolution. Earlier in the week, the library and the Chancellor's office received notice that the library would be occupied by students over the weekend. Since, as we know, the library closes for part of that time, in the case of the Shields Library at 6pm on Friday to reopen at noon on Saturday, this announcement was distinctly challenging with the threat of conflict. Linda Katehi, newly appointed Chancellor of UCDavis responded with an announcement that the university recognizes the difficulties upon students imposed by the budget crisis and hopes to assist them by holding extra library hours. So, indeed the library remained open all weekend. Library AULs and acting co-ULs staffed the circulation desk through both Friday and Saturday night. The scene that unfolded was a benign one. Friday evening began with a series of talks on the budget crisis during which the only disruption was when a union speaker was asked to cut his remarks short to make room for student speakers. There were workshops on self-defense and various crafts, coffee stations provided and run by the students, and motivational posters hung up throughout the building. In addition to quoting the likes of Oscar Wilde and Dr. Seuss on various metaphysical truths were several thanking "our wonderful librarians and staff." Mostly students did indeed study and occupied their usual niches throughout the building.
In answer to "why a library building?" this episode, I think has, potentially, much to say about the physical space of the library building in the context of change in education. Players which have sometimes been potentially at odds--the administration, the library, and the users--through political strategy, flexibility, and a spirit of cooperation managed to turn an event that could have been ugly and full of conflict (police dragging people out of a library would be much more inflammatory than dragging people out of the registrar's building as has been replayed on UCDavis TV monitors for weeks) into one that was not only benign but productive. Lo and behold, the mythical library coffee shop, which is often discussed but seldom realized, materialized on its own along with other activities and an "information commons." Perhaps this merging and temperate harmonizing of elements is what the library can offer to campuses in a period of change.
The event represents another turn in a string of creative protests at UCDavis. In the fall quarter, Davis students staged a rally on the central quad clad in their underwear to protest fee hikes. At a later date, demonstrators occupied Mrak Hall, the site of the Registrar's office and refused to leave. Some were forcibly removed and there were arrests on-site. When I told my Dad about the library sleep-in, his response was "Why a library?" I said that this is in the tradition of activism from the 1960s where our very own UC Berkeley helped to make history with occupations of university buildings. "I know all that," he said. "But those were symbols of power. Usually people take over administrative buildings. What do they plan to do with a library?"
Why indeed? It appears that what transpired did not quite follow anyone's original vision but was more of an evolution. Earlier in the week, the library and the Chancellor's office received notice that the library would be occupied by students over the weekend. Since, as we know, the library closes for part of that time, in the case of the Shields Library at 6pm on Friday to reopen at noon on Saturday, this announcement was distinctly challenging with the threat of conflict. Linda Katehi, newly appointed Chancellor of UCDavis responded with an announcement that the university recognizes the difficulties upon students imposed by the budget crisis and hopes to assist them by holding extra library hours. So, indeed the library remained open all weekend. Library AULs and acting co-ULs staffed the circulation desk through both Friday and Saturday night. The scene that unfolded was a benign one. Friday evening began with a series of talks on the budget crisis during which the only disruption was when a union speaker was asked to cut his remarks short to make room for student speakers. There were workshops on self-defense and various crafts, coffee stations provided and run by the students, and motivational posters hung up throughout the building. In addition to quoting the likes of Oscar Wilde and Dr. Seuss on various metaphysical truths were several thanking "our wonderful librarians and staff." Mostly students did indeed study and occupied their usual niches throughout the building.
In answer to "why a library building?" this episode, I think has, potentially, much to say about the physical space of the library building in the context of change in education. Players which have sometimes been potentially at odds--the administration, the library, and the users--through political strategy, flexibility, and a spirit of cooperation managed to turn an event that could have been ugly and full of conflict (police dragging people out of a library would be much more inflammatory than dragging people out of the registrar's building as has been replayed on UCDavis TV monitors for weeks) into one that was not only benign but productive. Lo and behold, the mythical library coffee shop, which is often discussed but seldom realized, materialized on its own along with other activities and an "information commons." Perhaps this merging and temperate harmonizing of elements is what the library can offer to campuses in a period of change.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Futures Discussion
Below is the online discussion growing out of the Fall 2009 LAUC Assembly. The broad topic of the future of librarianship in California has been divided into nine topics labeled below. The post for each topic summarizes the work of the group assigned to that topic at the assembly. Please add comments to particular topics via the "comments" link at the bottom of each post.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Discussion group 9: organizational culture
• Org culture – how we do business, may be overt or covert
o how slow change occurs, attachment to how we currently do things, resistance to change
o many impediments to change
o culture is rarely questioned & smothers new ideas
• LAUC’s relevance – is it? need to make ourselves more visible
o lots of librarians not outward looking, only focused
o Librarians not viewed as essential to research, teaching
o disconnection between with services we deliver & perception of who makes these available
o Not effective at telling our story
• We don’t know what to let go of, what to take on
• Who else is equipped to handle UC’s research needs
• Strike balance between just in time and just in case
• Great faith and belief in our systems – this attitude works against new ideas and approaches – fear of unknown, of looking bad, huge problem of how to deal with everything that’s gone on before (retro catalog?) – how much to our students care about this?
• Just in time vs just in case
• quick vs slow
• innovation vs tradition
• experimenting vs inertia
• empowerment vs micro-management
• willing to take a risk vs fear of punishment for mistakes/looking bad
o how slow change occurs, attachment to how we currently do things, resistance to change
o many impediments to change
o culture is rarely questioned & smothers new ideas
• LAUC’s relevance – is it? need to make ourselves more visible
o lots of librarians not outward looking, only focused
o Librarians not viewed as essential to research, teaching
o disconnection between with services we deliver & perception of who makes these available
o Not effective at telling our story
• We don’t know what to let go of, what to take on
• Who else is equipped to handle UC’s research needs
• Strike balance between just in time and just in case
• Great faith and belief in our systems – this attitude works against new ideas and approaches – fear of unknown, of looking bad, huge problem of how to deal with everything that’s gone on before (retro catalog?) – how much to our students care about this?
• Just in time vs just in case
• quick vs slow
• innovation vs tradition
• experimenting vs inertia
• empowerment vs micro-management
• willing to take a risk vs fear of punishment for mistakes/looking bad
Discussion group 8: library networks
Recorder name and email: Lisa Sibert
Focused on UC Library Networks
Addressed issue off timelines, i.e. 5y, 10y; short-term v. long-term
Networks in place:
Springer e-boooks
YBP approval, plans are linked
NGM—networked across UCs collaboration with outside entity
Shared print
Networks under development and/or consideration:
NGTS efforts
Western states coordinated plan for managing
Permanent retrospective print collections (issue: how will this affect stats for ARL libraries?)
Collaborative approval plans (print & electronic)
Collaborative e-book purchasing
Focused on UC Library Networks
Addressed issue off timelines, i.e. 5y, 10y; short-term v. long-term
Networks in place:
Springer e-boooks
YBP approval, plans are linked
NGM—networked across UCs collaboration with outside entity
Shared print
Networks under development and/or consideration:
NGTS efforts
Western states coordinated plan for managing
Permanent retrospective print collections (issue: how will this affect stats for ARL libraries?)
Collaborative approval plans (print & electronic)
Collaborative e-book purchasing
Discussion group 7: campus roles
Campus Roles - Where does the library fit in on campus?
Recorded by Susan Mikkelsen and Ann Frenkel
What is your first order of business?
Library space, services and collections are integral part of every UC Campus. As librarians we understand that we are critical to the academic success of students and faculty. But we don’t always do a very good job at self-promotion or educating our campus communities about the value of our services. We need to find new ways to communicate to others on our campuses about what librarians have to offer, and make library spaces and services an indispensible component of research and study on every UC campus.
DISCUSSION POINTS (Note: There was not consensus in the group on all points)
Library Spaces
As collections move to the online environment, library spaces must be repurposed to meet the needs of the learning community. The creation of the Information Commons is a growing trend in academic libraries that has developed in response to the need for a more user-centered approach to resources and services. The Information Commons supports and enhances student learning and research by providing state of the art technology and resources in an academic environment that promotes collaborative work. The new Teaching & Learning Center at UCSF is a tailored version of an Information Commons that includes a simulation and clinical skills education center, technology-enhanced active-learning classrooms and computing labs. Other possible models for future Information Commons include creating spaces for students to play with and receive instruction with technology (video-editing, presentation software, poster production, etc).
Instruction
Information literacy skills need to be integrated into the academic curriculum. A for-credit library course would be desirable in some ways, but this is unlikely to be accepted by the University as librarians do not have faculty status. A better approach may be to work with academic departments to get information literacy objectives written into course outcomes. Although librarians across campuses have been fairly successful in collaborating with individual faculty members, faculty and librarian turnover make these partnerships tenuous. Programmatic collaboration provides a more stable platform for continuity in library instruction. Librarians need to advocate with department chairs and other key stakeholders to get information literacy standards integrated into course curriculums.
Academic Senate
If librarians want a voice in the in the academic senate, they will need to fight for faculty status.
Campus Consultants
Librarians need to be willing to act as research consultants for other units on campus. This means that we may have to say yes when asked to be involved in some projects that we previously would not have accepted. Ann Frenkel (AUL - UCR) gave two examples from her campus. (1)An academic committee at UCR asked for librarian assistance using ISI for impact factor/citation analysis. Their librarians wrote searches for citation information in response to this request. (2)The photography museum approached the library with a request to catalog images and place them in the library collection. Though this request was not feasible, Ann saw this as a great opportunity. Opportunities like these exist on all campuses, particularly with the Office of Research (impact factor questions can lead to opportunities to inform about other research metrics) and the Office of Development (research on potential donors).
Talking Points for the Library
Librarians need to be equipped with talking points about the library to effectively communicate with faculty and other key stakeholders about libraries services/resources/initiatives.
Publish outside the Library Literature
Publishing outside the library literature and attending conferences in other disciplines has the potential to make library services more visible to campus stakeholders. For example, Josephine Tan UCSF librarian recently published an article in an academic medical journal with several UCSF faculty members.* We are aware that some social science librarians have also published outside of the library literature, but these efforts need to be encouraged and expanded.
Communicate the Message “Use It or Lose It”
We need to send the message that library resources are costly to acquire and maintain. None of the resources that students and faculty use on a routine basis would be available without librarian expertise. Instruction librarians should deliver this message during instruction sessions to help raise awareness of all the behind-the-scenes work done by librarians. As an additional awareness raising event, the group proposed a “day without resources” when access to library resources would be completely turned off. Along with restricted access, users would receive a message about the cost of the resources.
*Chen HC, Tan JPG, O’Sullivan P, Boscardin C, Li A, Muller J. Impact of an Information Retrieval and Management Curriculum on Medical Student Citations. Acad Med 2009 84 (10 Supp): S38-S41.
Recorded by Susan Mikkelsen and Ann Frenkel
What is your first order of business?
Library space, services and collections are integral part of every UC Campus. As librarians we understand that we are critical to the academic success of students and faculty. But we don’t always do a very good job at self-promotion or educating our campus communities about the value of our services. We need to find new ways to communicate to others on our campuses about what librarians have to offer, and make library spaces and services an indispensible component of research and study on every UC campus.
DISCUSSION POINTS (Note: There was not consensus in the group on all points)
Library Spaces
As collections move to the online environment, library spaces must be repurposed to meet the needs of the learning community. The creation of the Information Commons is a growing trend in academic libraries that has developed in response to the need for a more user-centered approach to resources and services. The Information Commons supports and enhances student learning and research by providing state of the art technology and resources in an academic environment that promotes collaborative work. The new Teaching & Learning Center at UCSF is a tailored version of an Information Commons that includes a simulation and clinical skills education center, technology-enhanced active-learning classrooms and computing labs. Other possible models for future Information Commons include creating spaces for students to play with and receive instruction with technology (video-editing, presentation software, poster production, etc).
Instruction
Information literacy skills need to be integrated into the academic curriculum. A for-credit library course would be desirable in some ways, but this is unlikely to be accepted by the University as librarians do not have faculty status. A better approach may be to work with academic departments to get information literacy objectives written into course outcomes. Although librarians across campuses have been fairly successful in collaborating with individual faculty members, faculty and librarian turnover make these partnerships tenuous. Programmatic collaboration provides a more stable platform for continuity in library instruction. Librarians need to advocate with department chairs and other key stakeholders to get information literacy standards integrated into course curriculums.
Academic Senate
If librarians want a voice in the in the academic senate, they will need to fight for faculty status.
Campus Consultants
Librarians need to be willing to act as research consultants for other units on campus. This means that we may have to say yes when asked to be involved in some projects that we previously would not have accepted. Ann Frenkel (AUL - UCR) gave two examples from her campus. (1)An academic committee at UCR asked for librarian assistance using ISI for impact factor/citation analysis. Their librarians wrote searches for citation information in response to this request. (2)The photography museum approached the library with a request to catalog images and place them in the library collection. Though this request was not feasible, Ann saw this as a great opportunity. Opportunities like these exist on all campuses, particularly with the Office of Research (impact factor questions can lead to opportunities to inform about other research metrics) and the Office of Development (research on potential donors).
Talking Points for the Library
Librarians need to be equipped with talking points about the library to effectively communicate with faculty and other key stakeholders about libraries services/resources/initiatives.
Publish outside the Library Literature
Publishing outside the library literature and attending conferences in other disciplines has the potential to make library services more visible to campus stakeholders. For example, Josephine Tan UCSF librarian recently published an article in an academic medical journal with several UCSF faculty members.* We are aware that some social science librarians have also published outside of the library literature, but these efforts need to be encouraged and expanded.
Communicate the Message “Use It or Lose It”
We need to send the message that library resources are costly to acquire and maintain. None of the resources that students and faculty use on a routine basis would be available without librarian expertise. Instruction librarians should deliver this message during instruction sessions to help raise awareness of all the behind-the-scenes work done by librarians. As an additional awareness raising event, the group proposed a “day without resources” when access to library resources would be completely turned off. Along with restricted access, users would receive a message about the cost of the resources.
*Chen HC, Tan JPG, O’Sullivan P, Boscardin C, Li A, Muller J. Impact of an Information Retrieval and Management Curriculum on Medical Student Citations. Acad Med 2009 84 (10 Supp): S38-S41.
Discussion group 6: Library buildings
1. Does remote access to info make academic libraries irrelevant as a place?
1. Well, yes (thank you very much)
2. Not necessarily
What we know is that “Academic libraries are not ends in themselves.” (to quote Lorcan Dempsey)
2. What are the best uses of library space –
1. Open,
2. well lighted …
3. welcoming with comfortable spaces …
4. few draconian rules …
5. A place with areas for quiet study segregated off …
6. but many more areas where group study and meaningful conversation about life and / or research can occur.
7. A place with classrooms – to maximize the integration of the university mission … to have the teaching embedded within our facilities.
8. Many group study rooms.
3. Print collections …
1. For most of us print collections will be … smaller.
2. Not to be overly superficial but possibly
1. “fresher” … with research items (infrequently used) in shared print storage collection & or massive uc google book shared online / print collection off site ...)
3. We will prune our collections (monographs journals) aggressively
4. We will have a shared collection hub (regional hubs like the regional library facilities) …
5. We will come up with a reasonable method of sharing all the older items.
6. Print on demand may be prominent.
4. Library Service Desks
1. The service desk will be open, without barriers to the greatest extent possible …
2. We will be available … on call … available via text message request or chat or email or whatever …
3. But the desk will be a shared work space with the user.
4. We will be flexible – will be movable (perhaps) –
5. We will bring our service desk to you, if you prefer. If you're on the fourth floor there may be a space we can share to talk about the research.
6. The fewer barriers, the fewer the formal desks and barriers the better.
5. Group study
1. Huge emphasis on group study.
2. It is how we work as a civilization, a society – we work together in teams.
6. Social gathering places – we are.
1. We must be places that are w/out rules for rules sake.... We must be welcoming and comfortable with the type of furniture that makes much of the library space an effective, comfortable social gathering place / study lounge / library …
2.
What really happened:
So we begin our conversation on library buildings discussing timelines of all things.
When do we build the library of the future ? Five years, ten years down the road? Things are changing. It may be wise to wait for the shared collection idea to be fleshed out more fully before building the bookless library :)
So yes, students want to be here (the library) but what makes a building a library?
Some libraries are losing space to other academic disciplines.
Conversation migrates to shifting low use materials to the NRLF and SRLF.
Part of the question, someone says, is what is the future trend.
Print material , leaving special collections aside, added content will be digital. That material that is in print will be in some shared environment.
A space for library collections at UCSF had a floor taken over by the School of Medicine – sort of a UL partnering issue with School of Medicine.
KG UCSD : Brings up the example of ucmerced – how they have a large building … that is largely empty of books but has many classrooms etc.
Classrooms are important elements in future library bldgs.
So why in the library ? How do we define what value we bring to this
Is it a library bldg simply because we are there , librarians, as facilitators.?
Strong impetus to move to
New bldg at UCSC – Classroom space … there will be a cafe (food) … A real cafe area that will not be inside the actualo library space.
The new bldg at UCSC has a couple of academic departments inside the bldg. But there is a separation from the collections space and faculty office space. There are of course access issues and the different access rules for faculty in bldg versus library visitors.
So we are migrating away from print toward remote storage facilities etc.
Sit in conversation …. How the budget has impacted our hours service etc.
There have been studies to try to determine higher use moments. And yet there is a problem with limiting library hours.
Think of merced where there are 75 laptops …
print on demand.
Collections.
1. Well, yes (thank you very much)
2. Not necessarily
What we know is that “Academic libraries are not ends in themselves.” (to quote Lorcan Dempsey)
2. What are the best uses of library space –
1. Open,
2. well lighted …
3. welcoming with comfortable spaces …
4. few draconian rules …
5. A place with areas for quiet study segregated off …
6. but many more areas where group study and meaningful conversation about life and / or research can occur.
7. A place with classrooms – to maximize the integration of the university mission … to have the teaching embedded within our facilities.
8. Many group study rooms.
3. Print collections …
1. For most of us print collections will be … smaller.
2. Not to be overly superficial but possibly
1. “fresher” … with research items (infrequently used) in shared print storage collection & or massive uc google book shared online / print collection off site ...)
3. We will prune our collections (monographs journals) aggressively
4. We will have a shared collection hub (regional hubs like the regional library facilities) …
5. We will come up with a reasonable method of sharing all the older items.
6. Print on demand may be prominent.
4. Library Service Desks
1. The service desk will be open, without barriers to the greatest extent possible …
2. We will be available … on call … available via text message request or chat or email or whatever …
3. But the desk will be a shared work space with the user.
4. We will be flexible – will be movable (perhaps) –
5. We will bring our service desk to you, if you prefer. If you're on the fourth floor there may be a space we can share to talk about the research.
6. The fewer barriers, the fewer the formal desks and barriers the better.
5. Group study
1. Huge emphasis on group study.
2. It is how we work as a civilization, a society – we work together in teams.
6. Social gathering places – we are.
1. We must be places that are w/out rules for rules sake.... We must be welcoming and comfortable with the type of furniture that makes much of the library space an effective, comfortable social gathering place / study lounge / library …
2.
What really happened:
So we begin our conversation on library buildings discussing timelines of all things.
When do we build the library of the future ? Five years, ten years down the road? Things are changing. It may be wise to wait for the shared collection idea to be fleshed out more fully before building the bookless library :)
So yes, students want to be here (the library) but what makes a building a library?
Some libraries are losing space to other academic disciplines.
Conversation migrates to shifting low use materials to the NRLF and SRLF.
Part of the question, someone says, is what is the future trend.
Print material , leaving special collections aside, added content will be digital. That material that is in print will be in some shared environment.
A space for library collections at UCSF had a floor taken over by the School of Medicine – sort of a UL partnering issue with School of Medicine.
KG UCSD : Brings up the example of ucmerced – how they have a large building … that is largely empty of books but has many classrooms etc.
Classrooms are important elements in future library bldgs.
So why in the library ? How do we define what value we bring to this
Is it a library bldg simply because we are there , librarians, as facilitators.?
Strong impetus to move to
New bldg at UCSC – Classroom space … there will be a cafe (food) … A real cafe area that will not be inside the actualo library space.
The new bldg at UCSC has a couple of academic departments inside the bldg. But there is a separation from the collections space and faculty office space. There are of course access issues and the different access rules for faculty in bldg versus library visitors.
So we are migrating away from print toward remote storage facilities etc.
Sit in conversation …. How the budget has impacted our hours service etc.
There have been studies to try to determine higher use moments. And yet there is a problem with limiting library hours.
Think of merced where there are 75 laptops …
print on demand.
Collections.
Discussion group 5: collections
For at least 100 reasons
1. It’s premature to take the “s” off collection and we already do act as if there is no “s” as much as we can.
2. Perhaps the whole university will have to re-think the way it does business before we can even seriously think collection in the singular.
3. Shared print with local patron-driven collecting is possible as lon as no restrictions are placed on what campuses can do.
4. We should think about CDL negotiating consortial ebook licenses.
5. The UCs must cooperate with each other whenever possible—and then some.
6. It was really dumb to cut CDL funding during a time when cooperative action is so crucial.
1. It’s premature to take the “s” off collection and we already do act as if there is no “s” as much as we can.
2. Perhaps the whole university will have to re-think the way it does business before we can even seriously think collection in the singular.
3. Shared print with local patron-driven collecting is possible as lon as no restrictions are placed on what campuses can do.
4. We should think about CDL negotiating consortial ebook licenses.
5. The UCs must cooperate with each other whenever possible—and then some.
6. It was really dumb to cut CDL funding during a time when cooperative action is so crucial.
Discussion Group 4: Technology
Recorder: Phoebe Ayers, psayers@ucdavis.edu
Group members: Amy Chatfield, Rebecca Hyde, Phoebe Ayers, Lucia Orlando
Notes:
• Areas of technology:
o Making technology a separate area of discussion is problematic, because it affects every area of our jobs, and every topic of discussion -- from public computers in the building, to the way we access our information resources, to how we help patrons, etc. Technology is a major driver that bears on every one of the topics discussed.
• Adopting technologies to provide:
o just because a technology is new and shiny -- do we have to adopt it? should we adopt it? (do people really search databases from their iphones on the bus? maybe!)
o for instance, are online books really preferable? Many (most) people seem to still prefer physical books
• Information product interfaces:
o how do you get technology to give people the best results?
o how do we work with database interfaces, google, etc., to help patrons get the best results? Should we work more on information design?
o our own websites (mobile interfaces)
• How far do we want to go to meet people in the library with technologies they use?
o for instance, why don't we have unlocked public computers? (this varies between campuses)
o library facebook, twitter? do people actually want/need this?
• Front end and back end technologies
o technology means both the front end that the patron sees (the website and the back end that we work with, e.g. sfx
o should we concentrate on making the back end better, as well as our sites?
• Instruction
o should we team up with campus systems to teach classes about technologies (word, excel, etc)?
o one barrier to offering nice computers and software to the campus population are expectations of support -- we might have to train people/ support it
o library technology bootcamp? could we offer focussed, serious programs? (like ICSPR bootcamp for social science grad students)
o but we also need to teach basic library skills -- how to use a catalog
o we make a lot of assumptions that students know how to use computers, and tech because they are young, but that might not be true at all
• Technology programs
o for something like e-science -- it's a big, expensive problem; we could help make connections between people
o should something like escience be something that should be worked on centrally, like the CDL; we don't have money, resources, expertise -- but people like local technology programs for the prestige, like local data archives
o something like the ICSPR -- they store datasets and articles based on the data; institution based out of michigan
Group members: Amy Chatfield, Rebecca Hyde, Phoebe Ayers, Lucia Orlando
Notes:
• Areas of technology:
o Making technology a separate area of discussion is problematic, because it affects every area of our jobs, and every topic of discussion -- from public computers in the building, to the way we access our information resources, to how we help patrons, etc. Technology is a major driver that bears on every one of the topics discussed.
• Adopting technologies to provide:
o just because a technology is new and shiny -- do we have to adopt it? should we adopt it? (do people really search databases from their iphones on the bus? maybe!)
o for instance, are online books really preferable? Many (most) people seem to still prefer physical books
• Information product interfaces:
o how do you get technology to give people the best results?
o how do we work with database interfaces, google, etc., to help patrons get the best results? Should we work more on information design?
o our own websites (mobile interfaces)
• How far do we want to go to meet people in the library with technologies they use?
o for instance, why don't we have unlocked public computers? (this varies between campuses)
o library facebook, twitter? do people actually want/need this?
• Front end and back end technologies
o technology means both the front end that the patron sees (the website and the back end that we work with, e.g. sfx
o should we concentrate on making the back end better, as well as our sites?
• Instruction
o should we team up with campus systems to teach classes about technologies (word, excel, etc)?
o one barrier to offering nice computers and software to the campus population are expectations of support -- we might have to train people/ support it
o library technology bootcamp? could we offer focussed, serious programs? (like ICSPR bootcamp for social science grad students)
o but we also need to teach basic library skills -- how to use a catalog
o we make a lot of assumptions that students know how to use computers, and tech because they are young, but that might not be true at all
• Technology programs
o for something like e-science -- it's a big, expensive problem; we could help make connections between people
o should something like escience be something that should be worked on centrally, like the CDL; we don't have money, resources, expertise -- but people like local technology programs for the prestige, like local data archives
o something like the ICSPR -- they store datasets and articles based on the data; institution based out of michigan
Group 3 discussion report: Library Personnel
- At UC, the status of the librarian series is under pressure on the one end from paraprofessionals whose work seems to overlap with ours (the Career Compass initiative at UCB is potentially spreading to other campuses) and at the other end from persons hired in the Analyst series who do similar work but are hired outside the librarian series so they can be paid higher salaries.
- Technical skills are essential for librarians but they are not the only skills we need. Management and interpersonal skills are equally essential.
- As a profession we need to promote ourselves as having these and other skill sets.
- Current librarians need the time to read, research, and be involved in professional issues; ideally more librarians would be hired to allow this. This is a professional issue and a retention issue.
- Librarians should reach out to library and information schools and let them know what skills and values we want future librarians to have.
- Should LAUC lead a discussion on what are the values and philosophies unique to librarians? When we digitize books, for example, we do so through the lens of promoting public access, preservation, standards of quality, and the needs of present and future scholars and readers. Google may share some of these values – what distinguishes us?
Corliss Lee, UCB (recorder)
Dana Peterman, UCI
Dean Rowan, UCB
Socrates Silva, UCLA
Jill Woolums, UCB
Michael Yonezawa, UCR
Group 2 discussion: Relationship to Information Providers
Recorder name and email: Lucia Diamond
How can universities and faculty influence providers? Librarians don’t have the clout except through consortial arrangements and CDL, for example, has been successful in some negotiations.
We should do more to get control over what the university (i.e., the faculty produces and make better use of and provide more access to this material for the student users, who are faced with increasing textbook costs. Need to look to some models of compensation for the creator of the product (as opposed to the publishers who only do marketing and distribution). Lecture notes could become content that publishers might purchase and distribute. Don’t want every user to have to pay individually for what they need. Want to be able to borrow e-books as we do print.
Multiple models of providing information, peer-reviewed e-publishing, working papers, etc.
How can universities and faculty influence providers? Librarians don’t have the clout except through consortial arrangements and CDL, for example, has been successful in some negotiations.
We should do more to get control over what the university (i.e., the faculty produces and make better use of and provide more access to this material for the student users, who are faced with increasing textbook costs. Need to look to some models of compensation for the creator of the product (as opposed to the publishers who only do marketing and distribution). Lecture notes could become content that publishers might purchase and distribute. Don’t want every user to have to pay individually for what they need. Want to be able to borrow e-books as we do print.
Multiple models of providing information, peer-reviewed e-publishing, working papers, etc.
Group 1 discussion: Reference
Participants: Kathryn Wayne (Berkeley); Miki Goral (UCLA); Penny Coppernoll-Blach (San Diego); Teal Smith (Merced); Gayatri Singh (San Diego); Ken Furuta (Riverside).
Note – I’ve rearranged these notes along topics instead of chronological.
What do we know about the current students?
Perhaps not as much as we think we do. We make assumptions about how they like to communicate, etc. But how valid are those assumptions? We should conduct a more formal study of current students.
Future of the physical reference desk
Physical reference desk statistics have been dropping. However, these was no consensus on the future of the physical reference desk.
Many thought personal contact was very important. However, Merced doesn’t have a physical desk. At Merced, students at the service desk are the first contact. Patrons are referred to librarians if more depth is needed.
Some libraries, such as the San Diego and the UCLA Biomed Libraries, have altered staffing. San Diego implemented on-call scheduling; UCLA merged the desk with circulation. Other libraries have instituted “roving” students who, wearing “uniforms,” circulate through out the library and contact others needing assistance. That led to a brief discussion as to whether an MLS was necessary to staff the reference desk. Again, there is no consensus.
Given the above, we wondered if we are entering an era where we are more general approach in reference where we do a little of everything. This may especially hold for the larger campuses with numerous branch libraries.
[As the reporter (Ken) I’d like to drop in a comment. I’m struck by the variety of approaches different UC Libraries have adopted. For me, this diversity can be a strength if we can learn from each other’s solutions and assessments of the results.]
Text & Chat
All of the participants staff chat reference. There was consensus that the current capabilities of QuestionPoint for chat reference could be improved. It should be more reliable and upgraded to include other options. We also agreed that it has served as a “gateway” to other avenues of contact with the student. An example is the complex question where the best answer is to visit the physical reference desk.
One comment was that “we need more intuitive library websites.” [Reporters comment again. Various librarians through out the system have been interested in using chat reference results to improve their websites. The librarians staffing it are “expert” users in a sense. There hasn’t been anything formal on this that I know, however.]
Web 2.0
UC Libraries have been exploring Facebook and Twitter. Riverside has a presence on both. Three libraries at San Diego are on Twitter.
[Ken’s comments again: In conclusion, it’s not surprising that we didn’t reach consensus on most of the topics. The group is in the brainstorming phase at the very beginning of the conversation. However, we were able to lay a foundation for continued discussion.]
Note – I’ve rearranged these notes along topics instead of chronological.
What do we know about the current students?
Perhaps not as much as we think we do. We make assumptions about how they like to communicate, etc. But how valid are those assumptions? We should conduct a more formal study of current students.
Future of the physical reference desk
Physical reference desk statistics have been dropping. However, these was no consensus on the future of the physical reference desk.
Many thought personal contact was very important. However, Merced doesn’t have a physical desk. At Merced, students at the service desk are the first contact. Patrons are referred to librarians if more depth is needed.
Some libraries, such as the San Diego and the UCLA Biomed Libraries, have altered staffing. San Diego implemented on-call scheduling; UCLA merged the desk with circulation. Other libraries have instituted “roving” students who, wearing “uniforms,” circulate through out the library and contact others needing assistance. That led to a brief discussion as to whether an MLS was necessary to staff the reference desk. Again, there is no consensus.
Given the above, we wondered if we are entering an era where we are more general approach in reference where we do a little of everything. This may especially hold for the larger campuses with numerous branch libraries.
[As the reporter (Ken) I’d like to drop in a comment. I’m struck by the variety of approaches different UC Libraries have adopted. For me, this diversity can be a strength if we can learn from each other’s solutions and assessments of the results.]
Text & Chat
All of the participants staff chat reference. There was consensus that the current capabilities of QuestionPoint for chat reference could be improved. It should be more reliable and upgraded to include other options. We also agreed that it has served as a “gateway” to other avenues of contact with the student. An example is the complex question where the best answer is to visit the physical reference desk.
One comment was that “we need more intuitive library websites.” [Reporters comment again. Various librarians through out the system have been interested in using chat reference results to improve their websites. The librarians staffing it are “expert” users in a sense. There hasn’t been anything formal on this that I know, however.]
Web 2.0
UC Libraries have been exploring Facebook and Twitter. Riverside has a presence on both. Three libraries at San Diego are on Twitter.
[Ken’s comments again: In conclusion, it’s not surprising that we didn’t reach consensus on most of the topics. The group is in the brainstorming phase at the very beginning of the conversation. However, we were able to lay a foundation for continued discussion.]
discussion reports
The next nine posts are the results of the discussion that was held at the last LAUC annual discussion, led by the professional governance committee. Feel free to comment!
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