A Forum for sharing thoughts on trends, initiatives, professional development, experiences, technology, committee work, and decisions related to Bobst Library Access Services.
"Even small academic libraries can be confusing for students. Miller Library developed this graphic novel guide to our library resources in an effort to connect with students in an interesting and unique way."
Thus begins The Library of the Living Dead, from the Miller Library of McPherson College in Kansas. (They also have a pretty cool blog.)
We, too, are always looking for ways to engage with our library users, and to help them learn how to use the library. Maybe we should, ahem, take a page from the folks at McPherson!
On Thursday I attended a training session called "Conquering Coworker Conflict." Although the content seemed to be more directed at strategies for dealing with challenging users, there were some gems that would be helpful in any situation of conflict. In fact, I had an opportunity to test out some of these strategies this weekend, when I had a little argument with my sister (ok, I thought it was little, she was threatening to pack up and leave which indicates that to her, it was rather big):
Avoid justifying your right to be upset. This makes sense to me because every time you think about your justification, you are talking yourself into continuing to be upset! It was actually by not following this one that I started the argument in the first place. My first instinct was to keep my mouth shut, then some little gremlin in my head screamed, "This isn't FAIR! I have a right to be upset!" That's when the trouble started.
If things get in a stalemate, call on someone else to try another way of communicating. This could be a colleague or a supervisor. In my case, it was my Mom, who, by talking with my sister, was able to identify exactly what I had said that had touched a nerve, and calm my sister down so she could listen to my apology. In a situation with a library user, referring to a colleague might just give the "refresh" that's needed to solve the problem.
In any situation, you have the power to make things better. You also have the power to make things worse. First I made things worse. Then I made things better.
Put yourself in the other person's shoes. My sister had been up throughout the night with a sick toddler, then the thing I criticized her about was probably something she was already feeling kind of bad about. Once I realized this it wasn't so hard to create a way we could both save face.
Create an opportunity for the other person to save face. In any kind of conflict, rather than trying to "win" by continually zinging the other person, if you create an "easy out" for the other person, the conflict can be solved. This is how I made things better.
The library is trying to bring this session back so that many more staff can attend. I'll be sure it's scheduled at a time when the majority of Access Services staff can make it.
And, my sister and I have patched things up. We've been through worse blow-ups and we'll get through this, too. It's probably not the last conflict we'll face but at least I feel I have a few new tools to conquer conflict!
As many people know Bobst Library has a pair of red-tailed hawks nesting on a 12th floor window ledge. I have been checking their web page (http://www.nyu.edu/sustainability/hawks/) for a look at the hatchlings since Kimberly told us about them. To date, I have only seen one hawk sitting on the nest barely moving.
Until tonight. Tonight I got to see a changing of the guard.
In seconds another hawk (Bobby or Violet I have no idea which) landed on the ledge, nudged the sitting hawk to move, took a moment to move the eggs around, and settled down to take its turn sitting.
This topic seems to come up for discussion at every meeting I attend. Technology has taken over the world and will continue to play a larger and larger role in the future of libraries. But does this really mean fewer books, librarians and other staff who work in different areas of the library? Can this be entirely true? Hopefully, I will be alive to see this what this kind of a library looks like for myself! While I must admit that I do spend more time on the computer, searching for information when I am writing a paper, I still want to do research the old fashioned way…..FINDING A BOOK AND READING IT!
When I am in class, professors strongly suggest that we get most of our citations from either the library’s electronic databases or Google. This surprised me because I believed that books are the best source of information. Nowadays, such may not be the case. I guess it may be time to throw out my 1980 Britannica Encyclopedia Set. SIGHHHHH.
I am not saying that I’m too old for this new technology movement, but I never thought it would completely change the way a library operates. I may not be too old, but I am not that young either. Anyway, this is a neat clip on YouTube that explains and shows what modern library looks like.
Maybe I'm cheating by just redirecting you to another blog, but it's worth it: A tablet ap that assists with shelf-reading, including a video of how it works:
While on the Path train the other day it occurred to me that I have served on several library working groups as well as several committees. Some of them I distinctly remember volunteering for but the others your guess is as good as mine. I suspect that Kimberly had something to do with my “Volunteering.” Whether I volunteered or not is moot, the only real point is that I participated in the groups. My role on the committees have been varied, on some I was the leader and for others I was just one of the members playing whatever part/role that made sense. I lead the access services open house working group (some of you might remember that) and I headed the two library art show committees, I do hope that you remember the Art shows. I am one of the founding members of the University sustainability advocates group and also a founding member of the library sustainability committee and still an active member. I am also currently on the quality of life and the rewards and recognition committees.
My thoughts regarding the committee work are all positive: all of the experiences have help me grow as a manager, I have had and continue to meet and work with many wonderful and talented co-workers and colleagues some of whom I otherwise would have probably only known in passing. There is a diversity of talent in this organization which I find absolutely fascinating and I realize that it is because of the committee work that I have gotten exposure to this community. While committee work stretches you a little thinner and adds one more thing to your already packed daily schedule, I cannot help but argue that the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Not everyone has had the opportunity to be a part of or work on a committee or working group but I encourage you to embrace the opportunity when it arises - take the leap because the experience is very rewarding. You will meet great people; learn a lot about what is happening in the library and you will have the opportunity to make your contributions to the growth of this organization. There is no doubt that all of us have something to contribute and there is undoubtedly a place at the committee table for everyone. That includes "YOU."
Recently, I came across this video of a presentation by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell, given at D.I.C.E. 2010.
Schell spends the first part of the talk discussing the surprising success of certain technology and games over the past year, and trying to explain that success, but then he spends the last part projecting a near-future world which will emerge from this "Facebook Games" era in which we find ourselves. He argues that all aspects of our lives could soon be governed by (primarily) corporate technology that will monitor quite literally everything we do, in order that we may earn various points and rewards.
You can find the entire talk posted on various websites, but this excerpt contains the scariest part:
At the 7:11 minute mark, he brings up something that hits especially close to home - the tracking of our reading habits. Here is a transcript:
"You sit down with your new Kindle 3.0, which, of course, has the eye-tracking sensor in it that can tell what you've read and how much you've read of the book. And it's important to read the whole book because, then, if you leave a review on Amazon, you'll get super bonus points if it knows you read the whole book through. As you finish the book [...] you get an achievement unlocked. This thing has been tracking you for 20 Years. You finished 500 novels, this is like a big achievement. You are thinking, "I'm really embarrassed that my 500th novel was this dumb Star Trek novel that I'm reading, because, like, I'm going to remember that forever". And then you start thinking about all these achievements and points and things and realizing that, you know, you have no idea what books your grandparents read or where they went on their daily basis. But these sensors that we're going to have on us and all around us and everywhere are going to be tracking, watching what we're doing forever. Our grandchildren will know every book that we read. That legacy will be there, will be remembered. And you get to thinking about how, wow, is it possible maybe that -- since all this stuff is being watched and measured and judged, that maybe I should change my behavior a little bit and be a little better than I would have been? So it could be that these systems are all crass commercialization and it's terrible. But it's possible that they will inspire us to be better people [...]"
So here's what I thought when I heard this, in approximate order:
1) What is wrong with Star Trek novels?! 2) Dude is actually saying that this will cause us to self-consciously police our own reading lists and this is a good thing?! 3) Didn't librarians win acclaim for, you know, not revealing users' reading histories when faced with the Patriot Act? Why on earth would people entrust their reading histories with corporations instead? 4) OMG, I have a Kindle. Big Brother is watching me right now...
Setting aside the fact that it would indeed be interesting to know what our grandparents read, it is a little bit narcissistic to assume that our grandchildren will wish the same about us. (Personally, I would be thrilled to discover that my grandmother was reading Star Trek novels!) And setting aside that concern about narcissism, I must admit that it's still a boon to anthropologists of the future that we are leaving behind such a huge amount of information about ourselves already.
But! And this is a really big BUT. I fail to see how reading, not reading, or secretly reading particular kinds of books is an accurate measure of a person's worth, intellectual or otherwise. And I also fail to see how any corporate interests collecting our reading histories would always use their powers for good.
Technology, books, privacy and libraries - this is far too much to unpack in a simple blog post. But after seeing Schell's presentation, I am even happier to be part of a profession that helps people to read whatever they want, without fear of commercial enterprise, or the Thought Police.
