WHERE IS THE LINE?

Here is an interesting article on legal reference and not giving legal advice:

Where is the Line? Legal Reference Service and the Unauthorized Practice
of Law (UPL)


--Andrea

School for Scanning

The A-Z of Creating Digital Collections

From May 1-3 Greg and I had the privilege of attending the Northeast Document Conservation Center’s School for Scanning in Minneapolis. This training was co-sponsored by the Midwest Art Conservation Center and had participants and presenters from libraries and cultural and corporate institutions throughout the U.S. including the Anchorage Municipal Libraries, Harvard University, the Atomic Testing Museum, U of M, and more. Over the three day period we attended many interesting sessions including The Future of Digitization, Digitizing Text, Digitizing Photos, Planning Digital Projects, Funding Digital Projects, Copyright Issues, and Digital Preservation.

One session Greg and I felt that was especially useful was Outsourcing and Vendor Relations . In this class we learned about the distinct advantages and disadvantages of doing scanning in-house and outsourcing scanning projects. An interesting point was that all scanning projects have in-house components as staff always needs to be part of the process in order to set standards and make decisions. Outsourcing part or even most of a scanning project isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it lets you more effectively manage your time and resources by letting others help. You need to know what you’re getting into before your run out to buy a scanner. We also learned about how to work around the challenges of outsourcing, how to work with vendors, and how to evaluate your scanning project.

Here are some additional interesting and important points from other sessions we attended:

1) Everything starts with the audience, both current and future. Get to know your users. What do they want to see? What do we want users to be able to do with our digital content? How do we accomplish this? What sort of context, interpretation, and services will we provide with this digital content? How will we measure success?

2) The best digitization projects start with the conviction that they will be worthwhile. Know your institutional capabilities. Have a plan for sustaining the project after the grant is completed. Grants don’t sustain projects.

3) Planning is essential. Plan before you budget. Be detailed and clear. Review your plan, you may need to revise. Keep checking it throughout the project.

4) Scanning advice: Do it once, do it right. Scan materials at the highest resolution you can, depending on the items’ priority, funding available, etc. Capture as much metadata (descriptive material) as you can. Save unedited masters in several places and ways. Avoid making decisions based on current technology, think of the future and try to have materials which can be refigured for future/new audiences.

5) Be aware of long term trends affecting the users of archival materials and monitor the health of suppliers. Sometimes we have no control over the technology we use and institutions may have to change for economic, environmental, or financial reasons (the company is not making enough money to sustain the production of film or video tapes, etc.). The conservation community is not large enough to sustain producing certain materials.

6) Selection criteria for materials for digitization: Should materials be digitized (is there sufficient content value and viewer demand, how do they relate to the collection policy and other digital resources), may they be digitized (who owns the legal rights), can they be digitized (is there the necessary infrastructure, what is the physical nature of the materials, is there the technical expertise, do the items have enough organization, description, and arrangement)


--Erin

We Get By With a Little Help from our Friends

How Participation and Contribution from Patrons and Staff Enhances One Public Library’s Website and Builds Community

Presented by Marilyn Turner from the Hennepin Public Library System at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

I found this to be the most exciting workshop that I attended that day. Hennepin County Public Libraries really focus on providing quality reader’s advisory services. They took this value and added it to their website. First in 2001, the staff began adding the booklists that they create to the website. Currently there are about 100 staff members who create and maintain about 250 booklists as part of their job responsibilities. Also in 2001, kids were able to submit online book reviews from the HCPL website. Online reviews for adult materials began in 2002.

Staff found that the booklists were helpful for themselves and also started creating subject guides with links to the catalog, events, websites, etc. The subject guides allow staff to really focus in one area while allowing other staff members to keep up on the subject easily. A couple of factors that add to the success of the website is that the staff rely on each other for the information and to give feedback, the subject guides and booklists are high priority for the library system, staff have time to work on them, and staff have tools on the intranet for submitting the information.

In 2007 the HCPL embraced Web 2.0 on its website and began allowing comments on any title in the catalog. The public now enriches the site by adding comments and participating in the discussions about items in the catalog. So far there have been over 5700 comments added to the catalog. These go up immediately and are viewed by staff as they come in. An email is sent automatically to a select few who check the content of the review. Users are also able to create their own booklists to share with others. Over 200 costumer booklists have been contributed so far.

The HCPL website also has RSS feeds for upcoming releases by certain authors or for individual searches so that patrons can be notified of new items of interest in the catalog or on the website.

It was really exciting to hear about the website and to see the results. I think that libraries can do so much more in terms of supporting the online expectations of library users and this website is an example of good web 2.0 uses for libraries. It takes commitment from the library as a system, the staff contributors, and public participation. And a lot of trust is required from everyone.


--Katrina

Minnesota Reflections: the Digitization Project of the Minnesota Digital Library

Presented by Keith Ewing from Saint Cloud State University at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

Minnesota Digital Library Project is a collaboration of the University of Minnesota libraries, Minitex, and the Minnesota Historical Society which brings together historic images from museums, libraries, and historical societies from around the state to create the image database, Minnesota Reflections. Minitex oversees the management of the project, while the U of M provides the scanner and server space. The local organization keeps the image and provides the metadata for indexing. This database of images includes 32 historical societies, 12 academic libraries, 10 special libraries, and 3 public libraries so far. SPPL has just begun collaborating on this project and materials from the St. Paul collection are being considered for the digital collection.


--Katrina

Go Local to Reliable Health Information and Health Services in Minnesota

Presented by Karla Block from the U of M Health Sciences Library at the Enhancing Quality Staff Symposium May 2007

My Health Minnesota – Go Local is a collaborative project of the U of M Health Sciences Library and the National Library of Medicine. The project utilizes the health information in MedlinePlus and links to local health care services. For instance, someone looking for information on Parkinson’s disease on Medline Plus will also see an option to find local services relating to that health issue. Some of the services represented in Go Local include hospitals, clinics, physicians, nursing homes, support groups, health departments, health screening, pharmacies, alternative therapies, and more. It will also link back to Medline Plus for more information. The database will be launched in July 2007.


--Katrina

Best from the Web

Over the last month, the Dupage College has had a webcast available from their website of a webinar that was offered in April. While I was unable to watch the entire webinar - "Best from the Web", one thing struck me that should be passed along to all of our reference staff. The Dupage staff has started a wiki of recommended websites, some of which were new to me, and I hope they will be helpful to others. Please take a look...I promise it will be well worth your time!
The URL is:
http://soaring.pbwiki.com
Happy hunting!
Doris

Customer Service on the Spot: Techniques for Tough Situations

Stevie Ray is a consultant, actor, writer, and more who uses his experiences and study of humor to advise others on how to be more effective communicators. At Tuesday’s session (5/8) he recommended “whole brain” activities as way to keep all areas of one’s mind working, not just those that perform the functions we’re used to performing. This can help people be alert and ready to deal with new and unpredictable situations. We exercised our whole brains by doing a variety of activities including “throwing” words to each other and having the other person respond with the first word they thought of. We practiced trying to explain things to someone who has a different point of reference by pretending that one person was from Colonial times and the other was from modern times and trying to explain what a “car” or “airplane” was for.

Some important and interesting points from the presentation are:

1) Communication is visual as well as verbal. Try to look confident when you speak. Try to believe that you can help so that this belief is reflected in your body language and tone of voice and expressiveness when you talk. Ask someone to watch you when you talk to others and give you feedback on how you look and sound.

2) Trying to keep things light can be helpful. Laughter improves comprehension.

3) People respond to emotion more than facts. Anger comes out of fear and frustration. Sometimes an angry person coming into the library just wants to be heard and agreed with. Recognizing and acknowledging their feelings and telling them, if appropriate, you’re sorry they have to deal with this frustrating situation and you want to help them through it can be a way to defuse their tension.

4) Many times we talk to people and say “Yes..but (or however, etc.)”. This negates anything positive we’ve said or anything they are trying to contribute. People who say “no” to everything are perceived negatively. Mr. Ray suggested saying “Yes, and..(or if, so)” and then explaining the conditions which must exist to make this happen. He also said that saying “We tried that once already and it didn’t work” wasn’t a very helpful thing to say. Mr. Ray suggests saying “We tried this and it didn’t work. Tell us about your idea and we’ll see how it might work”.

5) If people don’t understand, try to explain it another way. Follow the follower-that is find out what the other person wants to know, make sure you’re answering the question. “Not to understand another man’s thinking, doesn’t make him confused.”

6) Try to think metaphorically (blending ideas, building off what someone already knows in order to connect them to the thing you’re trying to explain) not definitively (“yes” vs. “no”). Building off what someone knows helps build understanding and prevents alienating the customer by making him/her feel he/she doesn’t know anything.


Erin

Are Reference Desks Dying Out?

Have a look at this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education April 20, 2007. While not specifically relevant to what we are doing here, it does ring lots of familiar bells.
(courtesy of the Reference Librarian Blog):


Are Reference Desks Dying Out?

Librarians struggle to redefine — and in some cases eliminate — the venerable institution

At the University of California at Merced's library, there is no reference desk and there never has been. The way reference services are delivered there would intrigue some and disturb others.

Consider this example: On a recent weekend, a student asked Michelle Jacobs, one of Merced's librarians, how to get journal articles about child obesity for a political-science paper. Ms. Jacobs gave the student the information he wanted right away. For any reference librarian, this is business as usual — except that the student asked his reference question through a text message.

And Ms. Jacobs answered the question from her cellphone.

And when Ms. Jacobs answered the question, she was at a library conference in Baltimore, almost 3,000 miles from Merced. In fact, Ms. Jacobs regularly answers reference questions from her phone — she handled three that weekend in Baltimore.

It's all in a day's work for Ms. Jacobs. She fields questions through e-mail and instant messaging, and she has even reached out to students through Facebook, where she has her own page. She sat at the reference desk at other colleges before coming to Merced. She doesn't miss it.

"Doing things the way I'm doing them now, I have reached almost twice as many students as when I sat on a reference desk," she says. "I've had time to explore new and innovative things and get a grasp on what makes the latest generation work. They like this technology, and who am I to tell them that this is not the best way to communicate?"

With more librarians like Ms. Jacobs using mobile technologies, the reference desk certainly isn't what it used to be. In fact, some librarians are wondering whether reference desks are needed at all.

Since the advent of the Internet, traffic at reference desks has dropped off considerably, as much as 48 percent since 1991, according to the Association of Research Libraries. Questions that were the stock in trade of reference librarians decades ago — like, "How can I find information about the population and GDP of Uzbekistan?" — can now be answered through a simple Google search. These days, reference librarians are more often responding to banal questions like "How do I look up a book?" and "Where's the bathroom?"

"More and more front-line librarians are finding that what they thought would be reference work is turning out not to be reference work," says Steven Bell, associate university librarian for research and instructional services at Temple University. In a recent forum at Columbia University, he argued that the reference desk would disappear by 2012. "With all of the demands that we have in trying to remain relevant, what is the value of having a highly skilled subject specialist sitting at a desk?"


Adapt or Die

In library circles, questions about the future of reference have lingered for years, and proposals to get rid of the reference desk go back as far as the mid-1980s. Jerry D. Campbell, a former library dean at the University of Southern California who is now president of the Claremont School of Theology, has repeatedly called for reference librarians to adopt technology and let go of the traditional reference desk. "Why didn't you fill a reference vacancy with an engineer and work together to build Ask Jeeves?" he wrote to his peers in the journal Reference and User Services Quarterly in 2000. "If I can't persuade the reference community to reconceive its methods, perhaps I can hire its expertise to help shape a better search engine in a commercial venture."

Reference librarians — painted as stubbornly traditional and backward in Mr. Campbell's article — have over the years tried various technologies to expand reference services. Earlier this decade, many libraries purchased Web-based tools that allowed "co-browsing," in which a reference librarian could take control of the Web browser on a patron's home computer and guide him or her to various Web sites or resources.

However, co-browsing was deemed clunky and cumbersome because it required patrons to download special software. People want librarians to come to them using common communication tools, says Brian Mathews, a reference librarian at the Georgia Institute of Technology who runs a blog called the Ubiquitous Librarian.

"The big trend is using social-networking tools to move beyond the reference desk," he says. "By putting ourselves in blogs and social networks, it opens up a door" to patrons.

High-tech tools could also change the way reference librarians interact with people in their own buildings. At Santa Rosa Junior College, in California, librarians are using wireless paging devices, which can transmit voice communications from pager to pager and also receive transfers from phone calls.

Efforts to get away from the reference desk and enter the world of students aren't purely high-tech. Eric Frierson, a young librarian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, uses instant messaging, e-mail, blogs, and Facebook for reference services, but he also participates in a service called "Librarian With a Latte." With a laptop and a wireless connection, he sets aside time to sit at a table at a popular Ann Arbor coffee shop and invites students to drop by for help. Dozens of students showed up for one of his recent sessions.

"'Going to where students are' seems to be a theme in social-networking discussions, and they mean virtually," he says. "It's equally important to go where they are physically." The coffee-shop sessions help establish relationships with students that become online interactions later.
Students can get a lot out of online reference services, he says, but face-to-face consultations are easier. "An interaction that would take half an hour online takes five minutes in person," he says.


At the Heart

Within the academic library, the reference desk is traditionally seen as the heart of the institution.

Pulling librarians off the reference desk and making them available by referral or appointment — as some libraries have done — is no trivial move.

Library administrators who are mulling this move have to consider basic trends in reference: Not only are the number of reference questions falling at some libraries, but the bulk of those questions could also be answered by students or staff members with minimal training. For example, at Temple University during the 2005-6 school year, reference-desk questions were down 15 percent from the year before, and they may be on track for another decline this year. In September, one of the busiest months, the reference desk fielded just over 4,400 questions. Of those, 243 involved extensive interaction and research, about 2,300 were simpler reference questions, and more than 1,800 were deemed "directional" — that is, pointing to the stacks, the computers, or the nearest toilet.

At Colorado State University, Catherine Murray-Rust, the library dean, decided to pull the reference librarians off the desk in January and replace them with trained clerical staff. For complicated questions, patrons are referred to the librarians in their offices. Some 190 referrals were made in January, Ms. Murray-Rust says.

But the change was controversial, occurring only after months of heated discussions, and it has led some librarians to retire early. Reference librarians at the college are reluctant to speak on the record, but they say privately that they feel disconnected from students and wonder whether students are getting the best service.

Reference librarians, they explain, have a term of art to describe what they do: the "reference interview." A patron might come to a reference desk with a question about a particular topic, and through gentle prodding and years of expertise, a librarian will discover that the patron is really searching for something completely different and may not even know it.


2 Views

The diverging visions for reference services — face to face versus virtual, and desk versus no desk — were strikingly, even uncomfortably, apparent at an Association of College & Research Libraries conference session on reference in Baltimore last month.

The message from the panel, which included Mr. Campbell and Mr. Mathews, was direct and clear: Reference services need to get online, get away from the desk, and scale up.

During the session's question-and-answer portion, Kathy DeMey, a reference librarian from Calvin College, stood up and described a poll that her library had done with some 350 English 101 students. The library asked the students what method they preferred when seeking help from a reference librarian — e-mail reference, telephone, online chat or instant messaging, or face to face? Almost 85 percent of the students said they preferred face-to-face interactions with librarians.

When Ms. DeMey mentioned the results, the librarians on the panel ridiculed her, saying that she had probably misread them. Helping students with tough problems can be an ego booster, the panel said, and Ms. DeMey was very likely sentimentalizing her experiences at the reference desk. Others who stood up and extolled the virtues of face-to-face reference interactions got similar dismissive responses.

Mr. Frierson, from the University of Michigan, was sitting next to Ms. DeMey during the meeting.

"I left the session angry," Mr. Frierson says. "They underplayed the value of face to face."


The Reality

But are ego moments and warm fuzzies really the main thing librarians value in a reference desk? And how, exactly, does one scale up the reference experience when the needs of patrons are so individual?

On a recent Tuesday evening at Temple University, the art of the reference interview was on display, as David Murray fielded in-depth questions from whoever happened to walk by.
A young man approached the desk, clearly exasperated. He was writing a term paper about the Battle of Veracruz, in the Mexican-American War. He needed to figure out who owns the battleground now and how it is being maintained. Searches on Google, Wikipedia, and the library catalog had yielded almost nothing.

But he was in luck. Mr. Murray studied Latin American history in graduate school and speaks Spanish. He helped the student locate some war diaries and other resources that might provide a start. He also gave the student his business card and that of one of his colleagues, and told him that he could help track down resources as the paper took shape. The student left looking relieved and grateful.

But earlier in the day, traffic at the desk seemed slower and less gratifying. When one of the desk staplers seized up for the umpteenth time, Derik Badman, a reference librarian, made a wry crack as he fixed it: "I went to graduate school to learn how to unjam staplers."
Gregory McKinney, who worked the reference-desk shift before Mr. Badman that day, and who has spent years cultivating expertise in anthropology, geography, and sociology, was even gloomier about his profession as he sat at the desk.

"I think we get the lazy students that don't want to do anything, and the students who aren't very good," he says.

While he's talking, a student approaches the desk. "Can you load more paper into the printer?" he asks. Mr. McKinney reaches into a cupboard and hands the student a ream of paper.

Recently, he met a brilliant student after teaching a class on library use who talked eloquently about his studies and shook up Mr. McKinney's impressions of the average undergraduate. "He was so intelligent," he says admiringly. "But I'm guessing that students like him never come to the desk because they can more or less do everything for themselves."

But for those who can't, he's still there. A young woman approaches the desk and asks how to find a copy of George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan. Without conveying any weariness, Mr. McKinney pulls up a chair to the computer and begins introducing her to that most basic library tool, the online catalog.

http://chronicle.comSection: Information TechnologyVolume 53, Issue 33, Page A37

Doris M Wahl

CREATIVITY BOOKLIST

Cultivating Creativity
Aha!: 10 ways to free your creative spirit and find your great ideas by Jordan Ayan
The artist's way: a spiritual path to higher creativity by Julia Cameron
Make your creative dreams real: a plan for procrastinators, perfectionists, busy people, avoiders, and people who would really rather sleep all day by Sark
The creative habit: learn it and use it for life: a practical guide by Twyla Tharp
Spilling Open; the art of becoming yourself by Sabrina Ward Harrison

Creatively Crafty
Ready Made; How to Make (Almost) Everything by Shoshana Berger
Fabulous Jewelry from Found Objects by Marthe Le Van
Sew Easy by Linda Lee
Generation T 108 ways to transform a T-shirt by Megan Nicolay
Knitprovisation by Cilla Ramnek

Creative between the Covers
Artists' journals and sketchbooks: exploring and creating personal pages by Lynne Perrella
How to Make a Journal of Your Life by d. price
More making books by hand: exploring miniature books, alternative structures, and found objects written and illustrated Peter and Donna Thomas
The Altered Book Scrapbook by Susan Ure

Creative Folk
Raw creation: outsider art and beyond by John Maisels
Self-made worlds: visionary folk art environments by Roger Manley
52 Projects by Jeffrey Yamaguchi

Creative at Work
Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence G. Boldt
Creating a life worth living by Carol Lloyd
Idea revolution: guidelines and prompts for brainstorming alone, in groups or with clients by Clare Warmke

Creative with Friends
I like you : hospitality under the influence by Amy Sedaris
Simply Green Parties by Danny Seo
Fete accompli! : the ultimate guide to creative entertaining by Lara Shriftman

Creative with Kids
Playing smart : the family guide to enriching, offbeat learning activities for ages 4-14 by Susan K. Perry

Creative at Home
Vintage Fabric Style by Lucinda Ganderton and Rose Hammick
Makeover magic: stylish ideas to transform your home on a budget by Andrea Maflin
Dollar store decor: 101 projects for lush living that won't break the bank by Mark Montano

Writing ’round the Block
No Plot? No Problem! A low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days by Chris Baty
The writer's idea book by Jack Heffron
Will write for food: the complete guide to writing cookbooks, restaurant reviews, articles, memoir, fiction, and more… by Dianne Jacob
The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood

Creatively Fictitious
The Weather in Berlin by Ward Just
This is Not a Novel by David Markson

We are All Creative Creatures
Elephants can paint too! by Katya Arnold
Why cats paint: a theory of feline aesthetics by Heather Busch

Creativity Book Chat
April 25, 2007
Saint Paul Public Library

--Katrina & Laura

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON LIBRARIES AND THE HOMELESS

Here is an interesting article on libraries and the homeless from the former assistant director of the Salt Lake City Public Library:


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-ward1apr01,1,7317412.story



--Andrea

Saint Paul Public Library Paperback and Video Sale

Saint Paul Public Library will hold a large paperback book and VHS video sale at the Central Library on Saturday, April 21 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday, April 22 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Several hundred paperbacks, and 1,000 videos, both donated and ex-library material, will be available for purchase.

The average item sale price will be $1.00, with some items priced higher.

Money used from this sale is used to purchase new books, movies and music for the Saint Paul Public Library system.

JOURNAL SEARCH DATABASE

Want to find out which database has which journal without looking at each of them separately? Want to know if it's full-text or just a citation? From the Librarian in Black blog comes a recommendation for the CUFTS Journal Search, created by a Canadian library consortium. I have it on my del.icio.us account for easy access.


--Andrea

Taking a long car trip soon? Need something good to listen to en route? Consider taking along Rings, Swords and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature - a wonderful Modern Scholar course. The fantasy genre seemed a huge gap in my life of reading, but I found I've read more fantasy than I realized and . . . I want to read more! You can choose specific lectures or listen to the whole course.

Barb S.

HISTORY DAY RESOURCES WEBINAR

Every year secondary students do projects for National History Day. There is no limit as to country or time period, but each year there is a theme. This year's theme is "Triumph & Tragedy". Primary sources are an important part of National History Day projects. Thanks to the Internet, more primary sources are accessible than ever before. The official National History Day web site has a Research Central section which lists primary source web sites.

The online database Discovering Collection contains 500+ primary source documents, including images, audio & video clips. Searches can be limited to "primary documents". Masterfile Premiere has 88,000 primary documents. One tip with Masterfile is to sort a long list of items by relevance rather than the default setting by date, since currency is less important with historical research. Students may want to try Masterfile's "Visual Search" option as an alternative search method. Categories are represented by circles and articles by rectangles. It does not allow limiting to primary sources, however.

The Minnesota Digital Library now contains 11,500 objects, including documents as well as images, from 65 Minnesota institutions. It includes advanced search options and a teacher's guide.

The University of Minnesota has its own Research Guide and encourages class visits as long as preliminary search in MNCAT is done first. One new source is Remembering the Holocaust, the world's largest archive of visual histories of the Holocaust.

For students who don't know where to start, MINITEX & MNLink have come up with the Research Project Calculator, which breaks the process down into steps. The student types in the class, format (essay, Powerpoint, or video) and due date.

For further information, there is a handout in the "FYI" basket.

--Andrea

LIBRARY 2.0 TRAINING OPPORTUNITY

Want to know more about Web 2.0 and social networking web sites, but don't have time for long classes? Try Library 2.0 in 15 Minutes a Day, from the Library Instruction Wiki.


Found via The Shifted Librarian



--Andrea

Minnesota Book Awards New Readers' Choice Award!

New this year is the opportunity for all Minnesota readers to vote for the Readers' Choice Award. From March 1st to April 15th, you can cast your ballot for Minnesota's top book. Look over the Minnesota Book Awards finalists and cast your ballot at this Pioneer Press website.




--Barb S.

FILM EVENT AT CENTRAL

Edward Scissorhands
Sunday, April 1, 2PM
Central Library

The film screening will be followed by a discussion led by Jamie Rocco, Ordway Center's Vice President of Programming and Producing Artistic Director. Mr. Rocco will also share interview clips of Matthew Bourne--the creative powerhouse behind the stage sensation.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

Interested in learning more about Web 2.0 and social networking software? Meredith Farkas has made webcasts and podcasts from her online class, Five Weeks to a Social Library, available online so that even those not enrolled can benefit.


--Andrea

Exciting resources!

I've been taking an information policy class and I've found out about a lot of great resources. Most of them have a strong focus on policy, so many people probably aren't interested in them. BUT here are a couple that could be helpful to our patrons:

http://www.opendemocracy.net This is a news site for global current affairs. You can look for articles, editorials, and forums on a particular region or topic. I really like that it has overviews of issues as well as more in-depth research, on the Iraq conflict for example.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_Audio_Books_Project Project Gutenberg, the public domain digitizing giant, is working with some organizations to provide downloadable audio books. I'm more familiar with librivox.org, but the three projects combined can provide a lot of titles--for free. How exciting! And they are looking for volunteer readers to make more books available, if you're looking for something to do.

-Katrina

Next Generation Leadership: Where Do We Go from Here?

Rachel Singer Gordon, author of “NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide” and webmaster of LISjobs.com (among other accomplishments) talked about the difficulties inherent in managing and (on the flip side) being managed by people outside your own generation.
Understanding the problem, and how it can affect both the supervisors and supervisees was the easy part. Everyone working in the profession today is aware of the “graying” of the profession, and that we need to both attract and retain younger librarians to continue the profession into the 21st century. The difficulty comes when you start to map out what you can do that will effect that.
The exploration of generational issues was particularly well handled, but the part which dealt with managing nextgen librarians was (I thought) rather ineffective. Many of the suggestions made came from other articles which Rachel Gordon has written for LJ or other professional reading, and were less about intergenerational management than about good management in general.
Her main focus seems to be that if we don’t talk about the potential conflicts, we will fail to take advantage of the strengths of everyone on the team. We cannot ignore such all encompassing social issues (which affect so many people so deeply), and we need to examine what our own prejudices about each generation might be, so we may be better able to see how to change some of these beliefs. No one likes to be defined by an artificial stereotype, whether they are baby boomers, millennial generation or nextgen.
Many of the remedies mentioned are already being tried here at SPPL, i.e. vertical teams of employees working together on committees, collaboration across age lines, and attempting to instill a certain autonomy in the workplace.
The one thing I will carry away from this webinar is a new word (new to me, at least). The term is “neotony” and it means carrying youthful characteristics into adulthood. What a delightful concept! Let us hope that the characteristics being carried into adulthood are positive ones.


Doris