Last work-related road trip of the year (I think!)

Penn State Harrisburg Library
Originally uploaded by courtly

I was asked to attend a meeting on December 10 to discuss virtual reference services across the University Libraries. Sixteen librarians and staff from nine of the twenty-four Penn State campuses attended. In the morning we had breakout sessions where we discussed how we offer reference services at Penn State and to identify the top five priorities/features for virtual reference. During the afternoon breakout session, we considered all the results from the morning sessions along with three questions: how do we assess user needs, how do we get questions to the right people, and what are the next steps particularly for administration to consider? It was a productive first step.

This meeting was also the perfect opportunity for me to show our library intern another Penn State campus and library. Sarah is currently in the LIS program at the University of Pittsburgh and participating in a Pitt coordinated internship program at our library. Since she does not have classes this semester on Thursdays and Fridays, she was able to easily fit the road trip into her schedule. We drove east to Harrisburg the afternoon of December 9 and stayed overnight in one of the scholars apartments. It was a two bedroom apartment with a living room, dining table, and full kitchen.

While I was in the virtual reference services meeting all day, Sarah met with two librarians on campus and did other work. We were fortunate that Glenn McGuigan was available to give Sarah a building tour and talk about his role as the coordinator of reference services and business reference librarian. Glenn is also a Pitt graduate, so he enjoyed an opportunity to meet with a student from his program. Sarah also met with Heidi Abbey and learned about the special collections in the library.


Sarah and I had a successful road trip. We had great weather for driving, great music, and great conversation. There was a fair amount of laughter which is a must when I'm involved. I think it was useful for Sarah to see the similarities and differences between Penn State locations. Hopefully by the end of her experience with us she'll have a better perspective on the "one university geographically dispersed" concept. It was also beneficial for Sarah to interact with other Penn State librarians. Of course, Rachel and I think she's not doing too shabby with the two of us on a weekly basis.

Cue the Mötley Crüe

Cue the Mötley Crüe
Originally uploaded by courtly

The past month we've had problems with someone smoking in our library building. This is a new experience for me. In all my years of working in libraries (and this goes back to my first job as a shelver at a branch of the St. Louis Public Library), I've never encountered a patron smoking in the library.

This is another example of why you never say never, especially in libraries.

Anyway, my staff have been alerting me to the smell of smoke in our stairwell and in the ladies room. I consulted with Police Services and suggested installing smoke detectors in the bathrooms and the hallway. The smoke detectors were installed sometime this week. This morning our reference librarian, Rachel, asked me if I'd seen the sign in the ladies room. After she told me about the sign, I did what any reasonable person would. I grabbed my camera and went to take a picture of "the sign". Despite my urge to change "Whoever" to "Whomever", I am glad to see the community announcing their displeasure with our female smoker. I'm also happy students are taking ownership of their library. It will allow me to be more effective in my role as the head librarian.

I couldn't have said it any better.

WebJunction Conference: Serving the 21st Century Patron

Wednesday and Thursday afternoon (for those on the east coast) featured WebJunction's Serving the 21st Century Patron online conference. This free conference (thanks WJ!) "focused on the changing needs, approaches, challenges and opportunities related to customer service in your 21st-century library."

I was able to attend most of the sessions. While all the content was good, the session I found most thought-provoking and motivating was Pat Wagner's "Staying Committed to Great Customer Service When Your Library is in Chaos". Her session was focused on how library employees can provide great customer service when your library is in chaos. Pat encouraged us to take notes during her session. Here are mine.

Priorities
- plans take the drama out of work
- let people who work with you and for you know what to do; instill them with decision making confidence

Focus on details of your own behavior

Customer Service
- welcome: smile, nod, say hello and goodbye
- play fair: no exceptions for folks you like
- stay consistently positive
- manners are rituals of respect
- competent follow-through

Learned optimism

Hire for attitude, train for skill

Six steps to build momentum:
1. create momentum
2. establish vision
3. know current status
4. develop priorities
5. focus on aligning
6. track and share progress

The other highlight was Battledecks! It was highly entertaining thanks to the the audience commentary on the slides. Definitely check it out!

"Changing Reference Services to Meet Patron Expectations" was another useful discussion I took notes.
- engage committees to assess their needs
- learning new skills
- changing delivery modes for reference services
- role of coaching: consider your abilities and limitations
- information services as customer development

need present -> define need -> assess customer -> provide assistance -> follow-up -> repeat

I spent more time listening to "Morale Issues in your Library" than taking notes. I did jot down a few items that were key for me.
- improve communication to improve morale
- sometimes it is not about you
- develop your skills
- leave work stress at work
- leave home stress at home
- find joy in other parts of your life
- find success and motivation in other parts of your life

"2-1-1 and Library Partnerships" was a session featuring a service that was completely new to me: 2-1-1. It is a one stop shop for social services referrals. It is supported by the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems and the United Way. 211 provides
- basic human needs
- physical and mental health
- employment support
- support for senior citizens
- children and families
- volunteers and donors
- advocacy and legal services
- emergency and disaster services
2-1-1 is not available in this part of Pennsylvania.

Other blog posts on the conference:
21st Century Library Ideas

Georgia Wednesday Webinars

One of the many great things about my Georgia COMO trip was meeting new people and expanding my professional network. Thanks to fostering new relationships, two free webinars hosted by the Georgia Library Association and the Georgia Public Library Service were on my radar: "Open Source Software in Georgia Libraries" by Jason Puckett and "How Ebooks, File Types and DRM Affect your Library" by Brian Hulsey.

Jason gave a great overview of open source software types and how they are useful for libraries. I was fortunate enough to ask him which resources we should be teaching students and faculty to use. Jason's first recommendation was Zotero, the open-source reference manager. He's also writing a book on Zotero to be published in the spring by ACRL. Other suggestions include LibX, Audacity, and OpenOffice.

Brian's presentation is was on a very timely topic. Unfortunately, I was interrupted several times so I did not view the content for the entire session. I do know questions were asked regarding support for multiple device platforms and challenges for lending. Good stuff!

Library instruction my way

Over the past two weeks my reference librarian, Rachel, and I have been talking a lot about library instruction. Last week I observed her teach two classes, and this week she observed me teach two classes. All the classes were the general English composition course, English 015. Her teaching had not been observed by a librarian. After teaching her first session Rachel was eager to get my feedback. It was funny because suddenly I was the one being put on the spot! It was great how enthusiastic she was for my feedback. It was a rewarding piece of my new job I had not thought about.

With regard to content covered, she'd mentioned several times before my observation and then after how she felt a little pressured to cover as much about the library as possible. Reading this post today reminded me a bit of that part of our conversation. I completely understand where my reference librarian and other librarians are coming from. I've been there. Earlier in my career I felt like I had to tell people as much about the library as possible. This was my one and only chance to wow them with why the library was so awesome that they would keep coming back. Information overload and point of need? Totally lost on me, and frankly on many of us providing library instruction during that time. Fortunately several somethings happened. I attended a series of teaching workshops on campus, I participated in ACRL Immersion, and I built up a clientele of repeat faculty to work with on fine-tuning my lesson planning. I decided to try different things. Oh, and I took my ego out of it and reconceptualized my worth to the class in a different way. By this mean I mean I stopped worrying if students were playing solitaire/completing online tax forms/sleeping and focused on being a guest faculty member as a regular component of the course well versed in their assignment and offering thoughtful strategies. My value and the libraries' value would be evident.

Rachel was really interested in how I actually taught based on our conversations. I found that after she observed my first class I too was interested in feedback. She pointed out a number of things I do that she liked. Funny thing is they're so automatic now after 13 years of teaching I don't necessarily realize I'm doing them. One thing she mentioned was how much she liked my use of the word "we" when brainstorming or doing sample searches. To her this meant I emphasize that the students must take an active role in the research process and have responsibility for developing the topic, identifying the resources, and evaluating the information. The way I accomplish this is probably very different, but it's information literacy. I think I'm in line with the blog post mentioned earlier.

She also asked a great question about how I tell users to get to a few of our resources. Our redesigned website launched shortly before this semester began and I honestly was not sure how I would teach classes in this new look. Before observing her class I told her I was very interested in how she was going to teach from the site because I was not sure where to begin. Between the two instruction sessions my approach to getting to our online catalog changed. I guess that I learned and adjusted quickly between the two classes how I wanted to teach from our site. We agreed after talking it though that the reason I accessed the catalog in the way I did was driven by the goals of the assignment. It took me a while to articulate that, but after talking it through it made sense to both of us why I did it.

I have an awesome job.

One night in happy valley

The last work-related trip I had scheduled for the year is for the Penn State Commonwealth Campus Libraries fall meeting. We met November 9-10 at the University Park campus, where I worked for about fifteen months.

For many this was their first opportunity to meet our new dean, Barbara Dewey, in person. I had the pleasure of meeting her back in August during my interview. Highlights from the agenda included an update on the Google Books Project a lightning round presentation on Source Evaluation and Citation Feedback, and an update from the Collections Mobility Task Force. For the Source Evaluation and Citation Feedback, Jennifer Gilley (head librarian, New Kensington) evaluated the proposed works cited pages for students in two courses. She provided feedback on the sources selected and the MLA citation style. She's found this process to be useful in understanding how undergraduates in certain courses select their references. She adjusted her approach to providing library instruction for these courses based on the types of sources the students use. I learned a lot from her project. It also reminded me it's important and okay to try new things and take risks.

I was also introduced as the new head librarian at Greater Allegheny. It was really humbling to hear the enthusiastic applause of my colleagues and be congratulated over and over.

Something a little different was the Digital Libraries Technologies and Information Technologies Open House. We were able to tour their space in Paterno Library. They also had party favors, pictured below. As they were handing out the drives, the first thing I thought of was this libraryman photo. It inspired mine.

Collection assessment and diversity published

My article with Matthew Ciszek has been published in the latest issue of Collection
Building. "This paper aims to examine the methods of diversity-related collection assessment useful for large academic libraries." It's based on a task force I chaired at Penn State in 2007-2008 and presentation at the KLA/SELA/ARL Diversity In Libraries Conference, "Measuring Diversity in Collection Development: Strategies for the New Millennium".

Matthew P. Ciszek and Courtney L. Young, (2010) "Diversity Collection Assessment in Large Academic Libraries", Collection Building, Vol. 29 Iss: 4, pp.154 - 161.