Bobst, move to the head of the class!

The Access Services Advisory Council was fortunate enough to be able to attend Metro's 13th Annual Library Assistant's Day. The Conference was held at the beautiful Flushing Branch of Queen's Library. Despite appearances it is not a complex, mall or an art museum. It is a beautiful four story mecca for book enthusiasts. Not to mention the impressive international section with books in Bengali, Chinese, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. Whew!

The event opened with an inspiring call to action from speaker and Deputy Chief Librarian at the Bronx, Community College, LaRoi Lawton. His excitement, drive and personal story of his rise to the top from shelving books at the local library to a tenured professor and librarian at BCC, alone was worth the long subway ride.

It was encouraging to meet individuals that do much of the same kinds of work that we as staff members do everyday. It was also interesting to note just how far ahead we are and how much we do here at Bobst. For example, one presenter kindly pointed out how a very innovative University in California was allowing students to text in their questions to the librarians. It was exhilarating to be able to speak out and say that we do that as well and yes I think we did hear a few "awes."

Software developers can bring librarians to tears (of joy)!

I recently attended the 2010 ILLiad International Conference in Virginia Beach. There were ILL people a-plenty, and it felt good to talk about ILL-specific things with a crowd who could relate. Kind of made me feel like I'm not alone in my struggles to always improve our ILL functionality and services.

The conference was hosted by Atlas Systems, the company that makes our ILL software, ILLiad, in partnership with OCLC, the library cooperative that provides WorldCat (the largest online library catlog). At the conference, there were a host of sessions to attend. I attended several session on ILLiad version 8, the next update of our software. We are planning an upgrade in the summer and I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Of course there was a bit of mingling, networking, and socializing too. This is where most of the communication happens, where the exchange of ideas can resonate down a big hotel corridor or around a lunch table and where people's passion and commitment to their work really shine. At this year's conference, the buzz was particularly acute due to one thing: ILLiad 8.

During the last day of the conference, we all gathered in a large room to hear an update from Atlas Systems. This is where they share their latest attempts to assuage our complaints about ILLiad functionality. This year, though, they took it to the next level: not only did they listen and fix things, but they actually made a whole new ILLiad that surpassed every ILL librarian's wildest dreams.

The progress and innovation that Atlas has demonstrated in creating a functional piece of library software gives me hope for the future as librarians and software developers continue to collaborate on creating and changing systems to meet our needs.

It was also encouraging to see a number of systems administrators, library web developers, and other Systems/Client Services-type people from other libraries at the ILLiad Conference. They have a different level of engagement with ILLiad, but it is nonetheless valuable (and necessary). Their involvement with the conference (leading sessions, talking with librarians) will aid collaboration within libraries themselves.

In all, it was a breath of fresh air to attend the conference and bring the good news back to Bobst Library, especially after The Great Aleph Crisis of 2009.

The Interlibrary Loan Department will be upgrading to ILLiad Version 8 this summer. Once we're up and running, we will be glad to share with everyone the power and potential it has for helping Access Services as a whole achieve its service goals.

Fill the room with your intelligence!

The IVY Plus Access Services Conference at Harvard this year featured a Keynote speech by John Palfrey (not pictured), Vice Dean for the Harvard Law Library. His speech focused on the Law Library’s recent radical organizational re-design. These changes were deemed necessary because departments were not communicating well between each other, staff were afraid or discouraged to offer opinions, information did not flow well from the top down, people were unsure of who was responsible for what areas and duties, and patrons were often shuffled from one place to another.

Vice Dean Palfrey was committed to transparency in the re-organization process, and he commissioned a group that included librarians, administrators, and union staff to re-imagine the organizational chart of the library personnel. He asked that the re-organization be based on functionality of jobs, not merely titles and descriptions, and that the new jobs become more permeable.

This diverse group:
· Created an organizational chart in which everyone was responsible to everyone else, not just managers.
· Devised a plan (based on the Google method) by which staff would spend 80% of their week on their jobs, and 20% on a personal or pet project within the library. They did not want to presume that staff could do, or were interested in doing, just one job.
· Determined that the library needed a Project Manager position, rather than forcing the various Department Managers to be the default project planners and developers. They believed that a library-wide Project Manager allowed for multiple departments and personnel to be involved in the projects that directly affect them.
· Concluded that patrons should be able to stop at just one location, and have any question or problem resolved behind the scenes, without the patron being shuttled about the library.

Once this committee had determined its re-organization plan, it was brought back to the entire library staff for feedback; and they adjusted it based on their suggestions.

The re-organization began by asking people what jobs they wanted, and to write their own job descriptions. Vice Dean Palfrey concludes that about 90% of the personnel were able to get the jobs they asked for. There was a month and half transition period where people worked their old job, while learning their new one. After six months, they had a review period where they fixed any problems with their original re-organization and job descriptions.

The cultural change of this re-organization has demonstrated itself in that people are now more engaged in their jobs, their ideas are not stifled, and they communicate better as a group to resolve patron and library issues. Vice Dean Palfrey admits that this is still a Work in Progress, and not everyone is comfortable with the changes, but he is committed to finding progressive solutions that will satisfy patrons and personnel equally.

First " Other Works" Then "Memories", Bridging Personal Life With Work Life

Art, art and more art, is there anything else to life? I absolutely love art. You probably would not have guessed that by looking at me. As a young kid I was obsessed with being a cartoonist. As a teen I played Classical, Latin and Jazz saxophone. In my twenties and thirties my thing was filmmaking and photography. Now, I prefer painting as a form of expression. It is quite clear to me that I have been an artist all my life.

Two years ago I had the absolute pleasure of working with an unbelievably talented team of library employees; Paula De Stepfano, Melitte Buchman, Gary Speziale,and Dan Lega,on the first library wide art show “Other Works.” Together we identified and gathered some very talented creative folks working in this organization. Had it not been for the art show we probably would have never known that there are so many artists amongst us. Access services were well represented in “Other Works.” Dan Lega, Maria Moraitis, Gary Speziale and I all participated in the show. One of the art pieces from the show created by Melissa Gasparotto is still on display in the stairwell on LL2. Take a look at this slide show from the opening reception: http://tinyurl.com/yh25ly8

One aspect of the strategic plan has to do with community building and staff morale. The Art Show embraced both of those aspects. Basically, our first art show was an outstanding event and it made the entire library proud.

The second library art show “Memories” is now being curated and once again we have an outstanding team on board. Melitte Buchman, Kristin deNeeve, Heidi Frank, Gary Speziale, and yours truly are doing absolutely great work and having a lot of fun doing it. It’s almost like lightening has struck twice in the same place and for me it is very exciting being part of this endeavor. Creative artists working for the library are coming forward and committing themselves to exhibiting their work in the show.

We are excited to have a guest curator, Professor Ann Chwatsky, coordinator of the Art and Media program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Department of Art and Art Professions. Ann is an internationally recognized photographer who curates the gallery space at the Wagner Graduate school of Public Service at NYU. We have also expanded the show this time to include performance art and the spoken word. If you are not yet in the show and you wish to be, there is still a little time left. Contact Ted Lawton at tl1@nyu.edu.

Mark your calendars folks. This years’ art show opens May 26th 2010. A reception will be held in the Tracy/Barry Gallery. Bobst - Fales library - 3rd floor.

A few Random Thoughts from Vacation

Yes, it's my first day of "vacation." I'm taking off a few days to move, and as it turns out, today isn't one of them. I came into the office this morning to tie up a few loose ends and make sure I didn't return to my usual disaster-area of a desk. Here it is the early afternoon, and I still have 2 things on my to do list.

I'm glad I was here, though, because Gary just popped his head in my office to ask if it was OK to waive $250 in fines. The user's mother got in touch with us to take care of these fines. The user is on a medical leave from school. I'm assuming the mom didn't show a doctor's note, which is why Gary ran this by me. What I loved about this was that Gary said, "I have no reason not to believe her." Right on, Gary. Waive those fines!

On a sad note, yesterday Moxa closed. The business was subject to a large rent increase and although Dave and Georgia tried to negotiate with the landlord, it didn't work out. They decided it wouldn't make business sense to stay in that location. They are looking for another location in the neighborhood, but until they find one, I'll need to find a new coffee place. Someplace with good decaf (usually it's cold in this city) that gives a discount for reusable mugs. You all are the coffee shop experts now. Any suggestions?

Got Class?

This past week some of us in Access Services had the opportunity to take a Microsoft Access class taught by an excellent instructor from SCPS. There were attendees from a number of departments including Stacks, Circulation, Reserve, and Library Privileges. And, despite the need for some of us on the late shift having to adjust to the early morning start time, everyone learned something from the four days of classes.

With the instructor catering to both novices and advanced users everyone received personal attention and assistance during the hands on course. Some people did not know if this particular software program would be helpful for their work while others left with a good foundation of skills that they can use daily. One thing, however, is true for everyone: finding new solutions to existing problems is a challenge we all face every day and learning new skills and technologies are vital to future success.

Professional development courses are something that NYU encourages employees to take advantage of but many people find it difficult with busy work and home life schedules. This particular course was taught right here in Bobst Library making it easy for people to participate. With the good turn out and positive feedback the outlook for future opportunities like this is bright.



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Access Service Excellence and Freedom of Information

For the last seven or eight years, I have spent most of my winter holidays in Eastern Europe. The countries of Eastern Europe are interesting and beautiful for their ancient pasts and natural features, and also for their more recent history as former communist countries.

I don't want to get into my own politics here, but I will say that regardless of my feelings towards Communism in theory, I - like most people - do have a problem with how it has been applied in practice in most places so far, where corruption has run rampant, and people have been forced into nominal equality through fear and through the governments' limiting of access to knowledge and information.

This winter, I visited the Baltic States. One of the places I saw was Grūtas Park, in southern Lithuania. Here is a picture I took of the small "Library" display inside one of the Park's indoor museum areas:



I've seen a lot of libraries, but this "representational" library, with its propaganda and purposefully limited selection, made me think a lot about how the Soviets were so successful in the sciences, and in the technical arts, but did not allow for much individual expression, and blocked any studies that might have a negative affect on peoples' view of the State. This included all sorts of arts and literature, as well as things like sociology, psychology, you name it. And how can any culture truly be deemed successful, or at least advancing apace, when it does not have those things?

So, what does all of this have to do with Access Services? Everything!
Something so fundamental to our work, but that is nonetheless easy to forget in our day-to-day working activities, is that we are professionally responsible for facilitating access to knowledge and information.

In 2010, we tend to take free access for granted. We have the internet, we have a vast network of libraries; we have among our patrons undergraduate students who had not yet been born when the Soviet Union was dissolved!

Now that we all feel very old (ahem!), we should think about what this means for us, especially in terms of Service Excellence. As we serve our patrons, helping them get the materials that they need, we should always keep in the back of our minds the idea that this freedom - both the patrons' freedom to seek knowledge, and the library workers' freedom to help grant access to that knowledge - was not always thus, and in some parts of the world remains elusive still.

So, that's my two cents. Now, where will I go next year....