Wild Dancing at the Library!

In the context of researching how to deal with some library customers' challenging behaviours, a work colleague sent me an extract from the State Library of Queensland's Client Access Policy. It outlines unacceptable behaviour:

"Conduct that could be reasonably construed as annoying or disruptive or that puts at risk the property of the State Library.

This includes but is not limited to:

Interfering with other people’s property or State Library materials in use by another person.
Making unacceptable noise, including conducting discussions in designated Quiet Zones ..."

All very sensible, until you get to this section (emphasis added):

"Behaviour that would be reasonably considered inappropriate in the context of a library (such as wild dancing or making frightening gestures)"

Wild dancing?? Of all the examples they could have chosen, I'm consumed by curiosity as to what actual experience compelled the author/s to choose wild dancing, of all things!! And what constitutes wild, as opposed to, say, calm dancing? Would ballet be acceptable? How about a waltz?

Personally, I think wild dancing should be encouraged in libraries...

Brisbane Square Library - World Class!

I have just looked at my blog for the first time in a month - I'm thrilled and gratified that I have so many warm comments from colleagues - surely the blogger's delight - in the glow of good feelings, I resolve to leave more comments on others' blogs myself! Oh, and I think blogger has mucked up my email address (in reply to one of the commentors), so if you want to reach me please email to realpubliclibrarian@yahoo.com.

It's not so much lack of time (although that is a factor) but rather the nature of my new job, that prevents me from blogging a lot at the moment. Suddenly finding myself in charge of a quite large library system (going from serving a population of 30,000 to 103,000; staffing numbers tripled), has been a wonderful learning time and thankfully I'm feeling more energized than tired. However, most of the things I'm doing as an incoming "change" manager are, let's face it, pretty confidential. Hopefully if it all works out, I'll be able to blog about the successes in general terms.

However, I finally did something neutral that I can happily blog about, and that was visit Brisbane Square Library. Was I impressed? Was I ever...

I was in Brisbane to attend the State Library's launch of it's new position paper for Queensland public libraries, "Expanding Horizons". We also work-shopped some of the themes with visiting guest Chris Batt, who was indeed a very quiet yet powerfully confident and seasoned UK library colleague, who ably shared his experiences of leading UK libraries to successful outcomes. His central message was that in order to attract attention and funding, public libraries benefit from appearing to be "all reading from the same page", selling the same message over and over to the politicians and decision makers with a unified voice, instead of disjointedly doing our own thing. Seemed reasonable to me.

After the workshop, I walked from the State Library on the Southside of the Brisbane River, over the bridge to Brisbane City Council's flagship new library, "Brisbane Square Library" (so named because it is in a town square, not because it's square shaped!). It strikes me as funny, that the (also new) State Library and the new Brisbane Council Library literally face each other off across the River! That's a lot of public investment in libraries for the good and lucky citizens of Brisbane (and I've heard not a few rumblings from non-Brisbane colleagues about the South-East corner sucking up funds yet again, to the detriment of regional services). That aside, in contrast to the cool sophistication of the State Library decor (minimalist concrete and white furniture), Brisbane Square Library offers a riot of colour.

The external architecture is stunning, with windows designed to look like slanting book spines. From the outside you can also just see enticing flecks of neon colour - lighting effects inside are amazing with neon signs, and bayend panels in perspex backlit with warmly glowing bright colours of pink, yellow, green etc. The entry through the ground floor takes you past the RFID returns chutes (automatically discharging all items, and I understand a sort of intelligent conveyor belt shunts them them into category bins to make shelving easier - ah the wonders of RFID), self-checkout counters, self serve reserves collection point, and an amazing perspex and chrome "new releases available for loan now" display. Escalators to the two floors above provide a constant background hum to the muted sounds of contented human activity.

On the ground floor I asked a security guard if I could take photos with my camera phone (talk about honest!). He thought not, but suggested I ask at the desk. The circ staff member couldn't say either, but rang through to someone in authority (when you set up a chain of embarrassing events like this, don't you wish you'd never asked!!) . A very young (I'm feeling my age) Librarian eventually emerged from somewhere to tell me, no, I couldn't take photographs! However she did advise me that there are lots of photos on Flickr for example this one is pretty good (obviously not everyone has the same scruples, or are as scared of security guards, as me.) It's also disappointing that, as I found out, Brisbane City's own library website has such a paucity of images of it's flagship facility - it really should be selling itself it bit better as one of the most outstanding libraries in the world, I think. But anyway I had a bit of a conversation with the supervising librarian about Internet use (only members can use the Internet, although getting membership is incredibly liberal, as you will see below); funnily enough, visitors and short term tourists are referred across the River to the State Library, where internet use is available and free for anyone walking in off the street. I thanked her for her time, and hopped on the escalator to the main parts of the library.

Beneath all the glitz it is still a functioning ordinary library (albeit with about 100 more Internet computers than normal). Book stock was adequate (I wouldn't say I was blown away by the quality or the quantity), the shelves were expectedly messy with many many trollies lined up for shelving. The young adult section with a couple of xboxes installed in the wall, and a very small collection of books, was not actually occupied exclusively by young people - there were a couple guys in their fifties playing (I'm pretty sure they weren't anybody's Dad!); similarly, no children in the forest fantasy themed children's section, just lots of twenty something's (mainly Asian) lounging in the kid's chairs (despite the signs saying something like "This area is for the use of parents and children.") Having a children's library in the middle of a big city CBD might be a bit ambitious, and I guess it was about 5.30 in the afternoon so that would be another factor in the lack of kids.

Having wandered around for a while (and saying a cheery hello to my original security guard, quite guiltless in the knowledge that I had not given in to temptation and sneaked a couple of photos), I resolved to speak to some staff members. The staff are spread around on small service desks throughout the floors. One male staff member I noted was casually dressed in the corporate polo shirt, shorts and runners - I thought that was kind of nice, given the informal feel of the whole place. One of the things that I'm most interested in at the moment is the split up of duties between librarians and library assistants - of course, you can't tell which are which except you might guess that the people shelving are library assistants - the station I zeroed in on had a couple of library staff of about my age who looked approachable. However, as they were currently busy with customers, I resolved to unobtrusively "lurk" near them, pretending to read a book (actually I managed to productively skim through one I was really interested in) whilst ensconced in one of the hundreds of comfy and funky chairs provided for relaxing and browsing.

The ladies at this station, for the half hour or so I observed, were exclusively engaged in signing up a stream of new borrowers (I hope they were library assistants, as I feel this would be a terrible waste of professional expertise if they were librarians). All bar one were overseas visitors (how did I know this? Because they all proferred their passports as part of the ID process). As long as those applying for membership can furnish one piece of photo ID (the passport), and one piece of addressed correspondence or card (like a bank statement) with a Brisbane address, they can apparently join up. And I would guess that the motivation for the majority of sign-ups were for the use of the Internet, in which case it seems like a lot of trouble to go to to offer free Internet. Anyway only two people were knocked back out of about 10 who signed up, due to not having anything with proof of a Brisbane address.

The signing up process was quite long, because most of the applicants did not appear to be very fluent in spoken English, being mostly of Asian (Chinese?) origin. Another staff member arrived to help, and took the people in the queue aside to explain the joining and membership rules in slow and staccato English. (I wonder why they don't just have brochures in different languages? Or ideally, Chinese speaking staff?) Unfortunately, I didn't ever get to speak to the staff - they were just too flat out! But they might remember that strange woman who stared at them over the top of her book for half an hour...

Anyway, if you are associated with Brisbane Square Library and are displeased with the implicit and explicit criticisms, please forgive me, and I accept that ignorance may well have led me to make quite stupid statements. Please feel free to correct and offend me in turn (I have a thick skin).

On a positive note, Brisbane Square Library is an utterly outstanding public library, and I recommend that everyone go out of thier way to visit it.

The Gold Watch - Reflections on 20 Years as a Real Public Librarian

Last week our local government was abolished - amalgamated with four other local councils. Essentially I Lost My Job. Long standing staff members were presented with gifts usually reserved for retirement - and, yes, it was the "gold watch" moment (literally - it's a very nice watch) for me and nearly 20 other council colleagues. An opportunity to reflect on the 20 very happy years I had spent serving my adopted community.

I have told and retold the "potted" history of how I ended up being a Public Librarian in this lovely part of the world. During my teens, I had always vaguely thought I would like to work in a library someday. After leaving high school and attending university full-time for ONE WEEK (I couldn't wait another 3 years to start earning money), I took a job in a huge bank branch in central Brisbane. I stuck out one year of cheque batching and counting money, before loathing for the job luckily motivated me to apply for a job (any job) at the State Library of Queensland. After weeks of not hearing anything I was called in for an interview, and employed soon after as a Library Assistant for the Public Libraries Service. My first boss was the indefatigable Desi Lyons, a tiny little woman who walked flawlessly in the highest of heels, was always impeccably dressed, coiffed and made up, and who never stopped smiling. My love affair with libraries had begun.

My first jobs included checking for requested items in the vast card catalog; and pulling them off the shelves; as well as preparing bulk loans for the eighty or so small libraries throughout Queensland that were supplied directly by the State Library of Queensland. I also did overtime on the weekends on the Reference desk of the regular State Library - practically every weekend for 8 or 9 years. After an excruciatingly boring but very useful stint in cataloguing (I was part of the team that marked up all of the old catalog cards into Marc format for conversion to the automated system), I took on the post of "Senior Field Officer" (by this time I was qualified via part-time study) which entailed driving all over Queensland to advise local councils about improvements to their library services, and in many cases project managing those improvements, which I did for about 2 years. About a quarter of my life at that time was spent literally on the road.

Around 1984 I think, 2 things happened that sort of converged into one thing. One was that I attended an inter-university sports function with my husband in Rockhampton. We stayed for a few days at the nearby resort town of Yeppoon, which I remember thinking back then would be a pretty nice place to live in. The other was an invitation from the Mayor of Livingstone Shire Council (of which Yeppoon is the main town) to the State Library to "send someone" to suggest improvements to its library services after some complaints had been received about it. Thus I had several more opportunities to suss out Yeppoon as a potential "sea change". Then one weekend my husband and I drove up to Yeppoon with the express purpose of going around the real estate agents. Pretty soon after that we bought a block of nearly beachside land for the eye watering sum of $28,000 - all of which we had to borrow at, wait for it, 18% interest! So now the hunt was on in earnest for a job in either Yeppoon or the larger city of Rockhampton, which is about 40 minutes' drive away.

That job came along in the form of the College Librarian at the local technical college (TAFE) where I worked for 2 years. At first I didn't much like it, but towards the end a motivating principal of the college had given me a bit more prestige and hope for the future. I knew that the librarian at Livingstone was due to retire, but I wasn't actively looking for a job elsewhere. Imagine my surprise, when at 10 past 5 on a Friday afternoon (I officially should have knocked off at 5), the Livingstone Librarian phones me to inform me that the Shire Clerk was wondering why I hadn't applied for her job (she was retiring). I replied blithely that I was quite happy at the College and wouldn't be applying. Well anyway, she said, applications close this Monday. Thanks, I answered.

I'm ashamed to say that what made me reconsider the job was the commuting time - the College was 40 minutes' drive each way, the job at Yeppoon was 5 minutes from home! For the same wage, that's a big lifestyle gain! So I dragged out my old CV, hand wrote the last 2 years' worth of experience on it, and dropped it directly into the Council letterbox on Monday morning, before heading off to work. At approximately 9.30 am the same day the Shire Clerk phoned me for an interview, and the rest is history - 20 years of history to be exact!

I must also admit that the first day I started at Yeppoon Library, which was in a pokey little room in the front of the Town Hall, I was silently repeating to myself the panic mantra "what have I done what have I done!". I had gone from the prestige of College Librarian, on the College Executive, to a weird little backwater library with furniture out of the ark, a hierarchy where the library was firmly at the bottom (after roads, rates and rubbish), and a card catalog. To compensate however, the staff were fantastic (and still are) - I had 2 full-time and one part time library assistants, who were cheerful and eager - and the customers, who were on the whole loyal and appreciative. I really had a dream run, even the most ordinary improvements I made were seen to be hugely innovative, because we were starting from such a low base. The Council literally never denied a request for new furniture, lighting, air conditioning, and automation, and a coincidental change in the State Library's formula for funding independent libraries resulted in a windfall increase in subsidy for improving the collection quickly and decisively. So of course the customers thought I was pretty good.

Over the years my job title has changed a few times: from Chief Librarian (sounds quaint now doesn't it?), to Manager of Cultural Services, and lastly to Co-ordinator of Library and Arts Services. My pay and prestige didn't actually move all that much in 20 years, but I have to say that is by choice - I passed up potential opportunities for advancement both within the organisation (to more generalist management positions) and within the profession, which would have required me to move away from my discovered "paradise" where I live and work 5 minutes from the most beautiful and clean beaches...but I digress. But the job has paid me handsomely in terms of non-financial rewards. Here are some of the highlights of being a Public Librarian for 20 years:

• High recognition and expressed appreciation from my own community
• Wonderful fun times with work colleagues - laughing every day
• A stable job, close to home, that allowed me to have a family and an enviable lifestyle without any interruption to my working life
• An environment in which I have been able to achieve and grow professionally
• Many many opportunities for professional learning and fellowship by attending conferences and workshops - do not underestimate the regenerative (dare I say "holiday like") powers of the stimulating conference! (My most recent Director called me the "Conference Queen"). I also completed a highly useful Grad Dip in Local Government Management.

Two trips really stand out for me - in 1995 I was part of a Rotary Group Study Exchange to Oklahoma (it's a long story), where I visited an amazingly diverse range of US libraries; and in 2004 a bus trip with colleagues visiting New Zealand libraries with John Stanley was very motivational.

And most recently, recognition for an innovation I can truly claim a substantial stake in, the Youth Library/Youth Lounge model verbYL (let's hope that one doesn't come back to bite me!)

So, I Lost My Job. So did a lot of other Public Librarians in amalgamating councils. And in deference to all those in the same situation, I'm actually feeling a bit guilty that I got another one - straight away. I've been appointed as Manager Library Services for the new amalgamated Council. But it's an interim and temporary position until the newly elected Council decides what it wants to do. As long as I can meet the challenge with honesty and integrity, I'm happy, even if in the long run I don't retain this position. But I'm optimistic - our family has reached the point where a change of locale would not be catastrophic - it could even be a welcome change - so whatever happens, it's all good.

Je ne regrette rien.

Library Sit In

We've just had the carpets replaced throughout at our main library (now that's an experience!), and during the reshuffling we took the opportunity to widen the aisles to 1.2 metres of actual open space from edge of shelf to edge of shelf - mainly to comply with wheelchair accessibility - but it has had some wonderful unintended consequences! One of the downsides of course to widening the aisles is less room for "stuff" mainly book stacks, which has created a bit of a problem - however, I am starting to think that the greatly increased amenity for humans far outways this problematic consequence! We (the staff) have been struck by the good feeling we get from walking into and working in what appears to be a more spacious library (it's not of course, it's the same square metreage as before), and this has been mirrored by the significant number of spontaneous favourable customer comments.

But one unforeseen consequence of bigger aisles (and brand new bouncy carpet no doubt) is the immediately noticed propensity for people to sit on the floor in the aisles while they go through the bottom two shelves of books in the non-fiction section (obviously looking for something specific or just thoroughly browsing their favourite section). Now is this a bad thing or a good thing? Doesn't it obstruct other borrowers or potentially even, those wheelchair users that we widened the aisles for in the first place? And yet, if only I could adequately describe the impression of people relaxing, enjoying this simple act (often in pairs, mainly the under 50s age demographic) - owning the space, feeling right at home - but also being very polite and moving out of the way if necessary (there's still generally enough room for people to walk past those sitting on the floor) - after all, human bodies are not immovable objects, especially when they are attached to polite individuals who more than happily make way for other people (and wheelchairs) - well I would have to say that the sheer feeling of delight that this simple new rearrangement has created is well worth the loss of room for books...(What to do about that is another issue, it's weighing up the tradeoff between creating room and weeding, but that's a debate for another time...) While there is the aspiration in libraries to "do away" with bottom shelves (ah the luxury of that much room!!! who has actually achieved this, and actually stuck with it beyond a year into opening day??), maybe building in luxurious floor space for sitting on is a legitimate design consideration? (Not in the large print section, obviously!)

"Library Anxiety"- Buying vs Borrowing Books

I was having a conversation with my sister the other day about books, and she told me she has just started re-using libraries to save money on buying books (though she still buys a heap.) In discussing the pros and cons of buying vs borrowing, she professed to a kind of stress or anxiety around books borrowed rather than books bought - ie there is pressure to read a borrowed library book, even if you're "not in the mood" for it within the loan period; and the threat of fines is a real bummer. When I suggested the possibility of "unlimited" loans - even worse! The more library books borrowed, apparently, the greater the stress! Now as a librarian it distressed me to hear that library users feel actual or potential stress when borrowing books (well OK a sample of 1, but I have heard this sentiment expressed by my own borrowers, especially when they have to pay fines). Is there some way of eliminating this stress? Or is this just the cost of having the benefit of free books to read?

Now the DVD loans industry has thought up a pretty nifty way of eliminating at least the stress of fines - eg Telstra's home delivered DVD service lets you keep them as long as you like, no threat of fines, but no new ones until the old ones are returned - but of course they charge a monthly fee so it's in the borrower's best interests to exchange items at a fast rate; and also they can cheaply reproduce popular titles on demand (something libraries can't do - we have to buy extra copies at full commercial cost) - so this model doesn't offer much for libraries...or does it?

I would speculate that 80% of stock on a public library's shelf is stuff that could go out for a much longer loan period and no-one would be terribly disadvantaged (in fact it would be a kind of de facto storage - just in people's houses instead of on library shelves) - it's the 20% of new/popular stuff that we need to keep circulating in its (say) first 2 years of acquisition - so what if we could limit the loan period only on this 20%, but let the rest go out for as long as the borrower wanted it for without having to renew (since we don't have the tool of price, we would have to apply a reasonable limit say 6 months - and borrowers would have to commit to returning consequently reserved items) - the only proviso being that they could only have, say, 10 of these "unlimited" loans at a time. Thus people who were fine averse could happily restrict themselves to these, let's call them, "freedom" loans!! Well I haven't worked out the operational details of how the system could allocate these different loan types to individual items (based on a algorithm of age/usage and reserves pending maybe?) and how we would easily and without frustration indicate the different types to customers...minor details (!??!!) - but I still think this is a cool idea. What a boon for nervous borrowers like my sister, who in all liklihood would continue to self-supply for new and popular titles that she just can't wait for, but who would also like the stress-free freedom of borrowing a wider range of materials without deadlines and fines. (Just eliminate fines, perhaps, like many libraries? But don't you then lose the opportunity for new items to circulate frequently before their popularity expires if there's no incentive to bring them back quickly??) What do you think??

Youth Librarian's Blog - No Shushing Here!

Worthy of its own post, Christine the Youth Librarian has started a blog as a promotion tool for the library side of things at verbYL. Check it out at http://www.verbylog.blogspot.com.

Reaction to "The Librarians"and stumbling around in Second Life (again)

Well, what a treat the ABC's new comedy "The Librarians" was! My favourite line: (Fran, the Head Librarian, to a library customer): "I'm sorry, I don't make the rules" (Staff member passing by) "Yes you do Fran!". Ouch! I may make the rules, but like Fran I don't always like to own up to them! And what a delight also is the show's homepage - we (the staff) pored over all the clever in-jokes. ALIA also has a blog about the show. Highly recommended. I also tried (in vain) to join the discussion on Second Life, but not having used my Second Life persona for a while, when I tried to log on I was told I had to download the new version, which took ages, which meant I was running late for the meeting; then when I finally did teleport into the environs of the ABC Amphitheatre, I didn't have any pants on (no, I don't know why!!) so my son had to help me put some on; THEN the lag was so huge I couldn't actually control my movements, I could fly but not walk, and WHY are all the signs in Second Life so fuzzy?? Alright it's to give you the illusion of distance, but when you are not in full control of your own limbs it's just annoying, especially when you are trying to find out which way to go.., I can't see things properly in first life any more without my glasses I certainly don't want to be similarly afflicted in Second Life, that's a level of virtual reality I can do without...Finally I did stumble on the meeting JUST AS IT WAS FINISHING, so sat there looking like a complete idiot, eavesdropping on people's farewells. I really must get more practice on Second Life, and probably need to download it onto my son's game playing computer (not the laptop) as the lag is a really huge impediment to any meaningful interaction in Second Life. My son is, off course, dead against this , for obvious reasons.

verbYL Youth Worker Blog

If you would like to check out the new blog of verbYL's Youth Worker (life in a youth lounge from the other side of the youth services/library services partnership), check it out here (warning - first sentence includes slightly offensive language. For our American readers - "arse" is equivalent to "ass".) Enjoy!