Occupy Wall Street Library

For the past month or so, I've been following news about the Occupy Wall Street Library The existence of the library fascinates me because of the way the OWS library exemplifies the model of libraries adapting to serve the needs of their specific community while existing in a non-traditional setting outside many people's expectations. Most people think of libraries as buildings; this library shows you don't need one.  While in Zuccotti park, the library contained over 5,000 books, with a reference section and an exchange section.  This included a number of books on economic and political theory, important resources for protesters.  The library had laptops for members to use.  It's even started to become a maker's space. 

As many of you know, most of the OWS library was destroyed last week, including most of the books and all of the laptops.  The destruction of the library's materials is tragic and heinous.  But the library has already started rebuilding.  The Occupy Library can be taken as an example of libraries' resilience in the face of adversity.

Week 10

Last week two public librarians, Eli Neiburger and Meg Backus, spoke to our class.  Hearing about what's currently going on in their libraries and what they think about the future of public libraries was extremely informative.

Two things that Eli said have stuck with me this week.  The first was that the libraries "can't be all things for all people but have to be something for everybody."  Public libraries are facing diminishing resources and budgets so it's important to apply this sort of utilitarian approach to decision making.  The other thing that stuck with me was the idea that librarians need to create unique value to stay relevant.  An example of this was gaming in libraries.  It's not enough to provide video games for library members to check out.  The social experience of playing games and competing with other people is something that libraries can add.  This got me thinking about other ways librarians can bring things of unique value to the community.  Meg Backus's idea of having people check out her therapy dog for twenty minutes is a good example.  Learning Commons are another way of providing unique value, particularly in academic libraries.  Providing spaces for students to meet and work is necessary.  A challenge for libraries will be to get members to recognize that the services and space that librarians provide are more valuable than the stuff.

Reference Librarian Interview

This week I interviewed Kelly Delevan at the Noreen Falcone Library at Le Moyne College for IST 605.  I've been lucky in both of my librarian interviews (the first for 511) to talk to people who love their jobs, are enthusiastic about the future, and who are encouraging in terms of getting the MLS degree.  I know not everyone has had great experiences with their interviews, but both have left me feeling pretty optimistic.

It was interesting to hear about what the library has done for outreach to get more students into the library.  This year, they started assigning every freshman a librarian.  During orientation, freshmen met with their librarians, who told them about the library's services and taught them to use the library website.  The librarians are still contacts for students if they need anything during the school year.  According to Kelly, the use of the school's reference services has increased significantly since this program started.  I think this is a really great idea to get students more comfortable with using the library.  When I was at college, I didn't use the reference services much because I knew very little about them.  If I had had an assigned librarian, I would have used more of the services rather than trying to figure things out by myself.  I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement the program at larger schools (Le Moyne has about 2400 undergraduate students, which I imagine makes things easier), but outreach can make a difference for academic libraries.

Week 8

This week we took a tour of Bird Library and visited the preservation lab and special collections.  This was interesting for me since I'm interested in preservation, and my inner English major always geeks out at old, rare books.  Preserving the circulating collection involves gluing loose pages, fixing bindings, and even shrink wrapping books that aren't used often.  Shrink wrapping books is a good example of something the library does to keep its budget balanced.  The books that are shrink wrapped are "low-use" books (one hadn't been checked out in over twenty years).  Because they are used so rarely, it is not worth it for the library to replace or fully repair them.  Shrink wrapping the books keeps their quality from degenerating and allows them to remain in the collection if they do need to be used.  Preserving the special collections is more painstaking and complicated.  It was interesting to see the differences in techniques for the new circulating books and the older books in the special collections.  It was also great to see the special collection itself (or parts of it, anyway).  I was interested in the ways that the items in the special collection are evaluated.  History is looked at; for example, the writing on the papyrus scripts wasn't as significant as the fact that the paper was 2000 years old.  The special collections curators also look at association (who previously owned an item), edition, and rarity.  Some books are considered works of art not just because of content because of how they are made, like the holocaust diaries with plaster arms and the book with gems in the cover.

Communities

This week in class we discussed communities, and the way librarians should adjust their services to best serve their own communities.  This topic is really interesting to me because I used to work at a public library that acts as a good example of responding to the community's wants and needs.  When I started working, the library was pretty small, and space was becoming an issue.  There wasn't enough shelf space for the expanding collection, and there wasn't enough community space for the amount of programs desired and the number of people who wanted to attend those programs.  Because of this, the librarians started working on plans for a renovation.  In order to get the renovation approved, the library had to get enough signatures to put an addendum to the county budget up for a vote, which then had to be voted on by the majority of the voters in the county during the county election.  While collecting signatures, we gave out a lot of surveys to find out what people wanted from the library- whether that be more books, more spaces for reading and studying, more community spaces, or even a cafe.  Eventually the budget did get approved (our timing was lucky, as the vote happened before the recession really hit).  The library is now twice as big as it used to be with expanded services.

I think that the surveys helped get the renovation plans approved.  By finding out what the community wanted, the librarians made people feel more invested in the library's development.  Library members were more likely to vote in favor of the budget increase because they knew that what they wanted was being taken into account.  The results of the survey are definitely reflected in the changes to the library.  During renovation, larger community spaces were added and programming has increased a lot.  The children's space is more interactive, and more quiet areas and computers have been added.

QR code madness

This week in IST 605 we learned about QR codes and talked about how they might be applied in libraries.  My favorite suggestion was putting QR codes that could link to suggestions for other books.  Using QR codes in libraries to give members information is a really cool idea.  I think the biggest issue is access.  To read QR codes, you need a smartphone, which not everyone has.  This will probably be less of an issue as smartphones become more prevalent.  Yet it's important for librarians to consider their communities:  If a significant portion of your members can't access a service, does it make sense to provide that service?  I think it helps to look at the mission:  "The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities."*  QR codes could be part of facilitating knowledge creation by pointing members to pathfinders or other information resources.  I think it comes down to community.  Librarians need to evaluate whether or not QR codes are right for their library members and make sure that members without access to smartphones can get information through other sources.

*Lankes, R. (2011). The atlas of new librarianship. MIT Press.

Libraries and Books

One of the things I found interesting in Eli Nieburger's video, "Why Libraries are Screwed" was the idea that libraries are marketed and identified as book places.  We had a similar discussion in my 605 class after a few students attended an un-conference at which one panelist suggested that librarians should stay focused on books.  His argument was that without books, people won't be able to identify libraries.

Personal anecdote time: A friend of mine recently moved and posted a picture of her new city's impressive library on my facebook.

Awesome aquarium is awesome.

It wasn't long before someone commented, saying "But where are the books?"

And therein lies the problem.  As library students, we've read and talked all about how there's more to libraries than books.  However most people still associate libraries with physical books, which is going to be a problem if physical books become outmoded by ebooks.  So we've established in class that libraries don't need books to survive.  The next challenge is to convince everyone else.  I'm not actually sure what the best way to do that is.  Advertising and PR departments may be able to do this, but it will probably take more than that.  It's important that people stop seeing libraries as book repositories if libraries are going to survive. 

Libraries and Communities

Today my mom pointed me to this article: http://www.parade.com/news/2011/09/25-little-library-that-could.html. I found parts of it really encouraging, and other parts a little disheartening.  It's also an interesting look at the future of libraries.

First, the disheartening: when this library's budget was cut, the full-time staff was cut in half.  From what I've read this isn't an uncommon occurrence.

The encouraging:  "Contrary to what many predicted, the digital age has not rendered the nation’s 16,671 public libraries obsolete. Instead, it’s brought a pulsing new energy as patrons use the free computers and Internet access to research term papers, look for jobs, update Facebook pages, and more."  I will probably cite this quote (and the accompanying statistics) the next time someone asks me if libraries are even going to exist in another ten years.  I was also encouraged by the stories about how much the community rallied in support of the library after the budget was cut.  The library's problems aren't solved completely, but having community support is an important part of keeping things together.

Which brings me to my next point: the importance of libraries to communities and communities to libraries.  Dr. Lankes said that an empty room with a librarian is a library.  I think I'd say that an empty room with a librarian and another person (hopefully there's people, but since this is hypothetical I'm going to say one is enough) is a library.  We've talked in class about how libraries are more than just the artifacts inside, and I think this article really highlights that.  This article also demonstrates the importance, particularly in public libraries, of community involvement.  Libraries are participatory in nature, and I think community involvement is vital for the development and survival of public libraries.

-Molly

Types of Libraries or: So many choices!

This week we discussed types of libraries which brought up one of the big questions: What do I want to do once I graduate?  More specifically, what kind of library do I want to work in?

One option is public libraries.  I used to work in a public library and loved it.  I like the idea of working with people from different age groups and backgrounds.  Youth Services in public libraries interest me a lot.  And I love the mission (or at least what I perceive to be the mission) of public libraries: provide information for free to whoever wants it.  There's also academic libraries.  I really like college and university settings.  I love helping people with academic research (I know I could do that at most libraries, but anecdotes indicate that it's more present in academic libraries). 

I'm also interested in preservation and archives.  I'm interested in rare books and special collections, and I like the idea of doing work that's hands on.  I did my librarian interview with someone who works in conservation which made me even more interested in archives (and I got to shrink wrap a book).  However, this is where things get slightly more complicated in terms of the degree program.  SU offers a Certificate of Advanced Study in Cultural Heritage Preservation.  The certificate program is one of the things that drew me to Syracuse.  The certificate offers an amazing learning opportunity, and it would probably open up a lot of job opportunities when I graduate.  It would also limit or perhaps eliminate my ability to take other electives.  I'm worried that if I do the certificate I'll miss out on classes where I could learn about public or academic libraries.  The fact that this is a two year program makes things even more pressing.  In undergrad there was plenty of time to pick a major.  I feel like this a decision I need to make soon.

The truth is that I can see myself being happy working in any of the above options, which is probably a good problem to have.

Biblioteksinspirerade

This week in class we were introduced to the term "biblioteksinspirerade."  This is a Swedish word which I will likely never be able to pronounce and which means either to be inspired by libraries or to inspire libraries.  Our discussion of the term made me think about how libraries have inspired me.

I've always loved libraries.  When I was younger this was my favorite scene in any movie, ever.  My parents took me to the library frequently.  I looked forward the the public library's summer programs, which I would later work at.  Libraries helped form an early love of reading.

The library at my undergrad college was inspiring in the ways that the librarians there managed to meet students' needs despite having a relatively small collection and despite the limitations inherent in a small institution.  If a necessary source of information was not in the library, the librarians could always locate and get it quickly through Interlibrary loans.  

In my sophomore year of college, I was lucky enough to go to London.  While there I visited the British Library's main building, which is inspiring in the amount of information available there.  This library had an interesting combination of things traditionally associated with libraries (books, special collections) and with the new ways librarians facilitate access to information.  While there, I was able to see what is believed to be one of the original copies of the Magna Carta (with a handy computerized translation underneath) and listen to speeches given by Winston Churchill and Joe Strummer in the library's multimedia section.

Now that I've started at SU it's time for me, along with my fellow students, to inspire libraries.  We've all gotten the "you need a degree for that?" question, but the question that I find far more obnoxious is: "You want to be a librarian?  Are libraries even going to exist in fifteen years?"  I'm confident that libraries will never become obsolete; in fact I will fight (with my words) anyone who tries to say otherwise.  However, the world is changing, and libraries will have to change with it.  That's going to require inspiration.

Introductions

I just started the MS program in Library and Information Science at SU.  I'm starting this blog for IST 511- to reflect and comment on discussions we have in class.  But I hope it's also going to document my time at SU and hopefully help me sort out my ideas and goals when it comes to librarianship, which is still new to me.  I come from an English Lit background, but I chose to become a librarian because of my love of information and knowledge.  In some ways, I chose librarianship because it felt like the closest I could get to studying everything.  The public service aspect appeals to me too. I think providing communities with access to information is a vital part of improving society, but I should probably save those thoughts for another entry.

This is the first blog I've written since the short-lived livejournal account I had when I was fourteen (and which seems to have been obligatory for the Misunderstood Teenagers of my generation).  So bear with me, all two of you who are reading this, as I get the hang of things.