REAL PUBLIC LIBRARIAN

Long lost blog!

2011-01-31T15:33:00.002+10:00

Aaaaah my long lost blog - I had almost forgotten about you. Maybe I'll start posting again...Library statistics. That's a biggie for me right now. Of course, now they're called "library metrics". Why? I'm guessing, to signal a new way of representing library value. This was the topic at the latest QPLA Conference. What did I learn? I learned that the presenters didnt' have a magic bullet for adequately describing library value either (sigh). But with falling lending stats being an international phenomenon, librarians really really have to find some credible measures of value or face irrelevancy/redundancy. One presenter suggested "more participation stories", eg the guy who borrowed a book, and found a bit of information that he turned into a business idea and now he's a multimillionaire. How do you put a measure on, or even tells stories about, pleasure? Or fulfillment? Or insight? Yes, it's a toughie.

What do scouts, feminists and libraries have in common?

2008-11-11T19:16:00.002+10:00

A: They all have a passion for preserving their little corner of history! Which I have found out as a participant of the National Library's Community Heritage Grants workshops, here in Canberra. Albeit an unlikely participant, even an accidental participant - but a grateful one! When our Council got a grant to do a significance assessment on the strength of the execellent application of our local studies librarian; and he left the organisation (to take on the management of another local library - well done!), and I couldn't twist the arm of any other staff members to go to Canberra for the workshop component - well, I just couldn't let it going begging, even though the timing couldn't be worse with the new library opening in 2 weeks - well here I am, and after the first day, I must say I am very pleased to have come. Given my new responsibilities in overseeing the operations of a significant local studies archives and collection, I have had today alone a quantum leap in understanding and appreciation (thanks to the excellent program put together by the National Library). But it's meeting the other grantees that has been so uplifting. Librarians are actually in the minority - only 3 of us - and in comparison to the other participants, we are a bit predictable. How to compare with the passion of the gentleman from the Barossa Festival, who is keen to preserve the 60 year history of the festival? Or the feminist from Adelaide who has an archive of performances and recordings of feminist plays from the 70s and 80s (including early performances by Robyn Archer, who she actually bumped into at the Library today and was thrilled to know they were available!) Or the scout leader from Sydney who wants to do something worthwhile with the hsitoric documents, films and costumes from the Scout movement? Or the lady from Hobart wanting to digitize the national unpublished play script collection? Or the young woman looking after the Tennis Museum? And I shared a taxi with what has to be one of the few actual working paleontologists in Australia from the Dinosaur centre in Winton - absolutely passionate about her growing collection of one of the most impressive collection of dinosaur bones in the world. All very mind boggling, very humbling, and very uplifting.

The opportunities to travel, learn and meet amazing people in the profession I wisely chose when I was 17, continues to delight me. May it continue thus...

Youth Library voted "The Best" project

2008-09-07T10:56:00.004+10:00

I nearly titled this blog "Best of the Best of the Best..." but that just sounded too pretentious. Yes, my (somewhat imperfect) presentation on verbYL (youth library/youth lounge) to the delegates attending the satellite public library event to the ALIA main conference, "Library Stars: Best of the Best 2008" was voted the best of the three projects (narrowly I'm sure as the other 2 projects were awesome). Little did I know that, in addition to several "big name" public librarians from Australia who I have admired, and many fellow "real public librarians" from cities and towns who are plugging away in their own corners of the world much like myself, my audience also consisted of keynote speakers and library luminaries of international fame , namely Stephen Abram, Vice President Innovations of SirsiDynix and a well-known "futurist" of the library world; (I commented to him that I recognized his voice from the many introductions to the SirsiDynix Institute's live and podcast PD events which I highly, highly recommend); Inga Lunden, City Librarian, Stockholm; and Claudia Lux, DG of the Foundation Central and Regional Library Berlin, Germany, and President of IFLA. Unlike the main conference, the "Library Stars" presentations had a more relaxed, workshop feel and a little bit of luxury with regards the tempo of the delivery of papers. I didn't read from my "paper", rather I took a chance by ad libbing to the powerpoint presentation, letting the many natural and unstaged photos of young people using verbYL (and a short video taken completely candidly one afternoon by the youth worker assistant, starting with a young man doing some impromptu rap dancing (wouldn't be allowed at the State Library, see earlier posts for the joke) and panning around to young people engaged in various activities from reading, playing cards, using the Internet, and just generally having a great time, to tell its own story more eloquently than I could ever express in words (unfortunately we didn't ever get permission of the young people depicted in the video to allow public airing via eg Youtube)). I got some wonderfully encouraging comments from colleagues afterwards, which is always nice.

I think it was Claudia who asked me, after the presentation(I was a bit nervous you understand - hopefully the transcripts will be published and show who asked what), what was next? What was the developmental outcome? I'm afraid I stuffed that answer up by mumbling something I had written in my APLIS paper about "having struck a winning formula, we just build on that." However, thinking about it later (as you do think about the things you should have said over and over in your mind at 2 in the morning), I realized I should have said: even after 2 1/2 years of operation, we are still working on making this model work - fulfill it's full potential. As Inga commented in her presentation about the youth library in Stockholm, there is about a 9 month generation for youth library users - waves of new users present constant challenges (although in our experience, we still have a strong group of young people who have been with us from day 1). And local governments have to be brave to support agencies that support the truly disengaged sectors of society - and youth suffer doubly from negative stereotyping. Perhaps it is not so much development that we should be concentrating on, but celebrating survival.

I also got to thinking, that since I have been touting verbYL as a model of service and as a living experiment of the model in practice, via conferences (we were an exhibitor at the Queensland Public Librarians Association in 2006 I think it was and awarded a special recognition for innovation in library services there), exposure to the local government sector as winners of the
2006 Youth Engagement Award of DOTARS and subsequent Leading Practice Seminar "Investing in youth" presented to youth workers and agencies in Mt Gambier South Australia in 2007, publication of articles in APLIS and Incite in 2007 and 2008, presentation to Queensland children's and youth services and school librarians in Queensland by Youth Librarian Christine May, including in the audience recognized youth library services guru Patrick Jones, who said nice things about verbYL via a personal email for the "Library Stars" submission; and coming up, Christine will present her outstanding perspective on "The most unusual library job in the world" with delegates at the New Grads conference in December; despite ALL THIS, the ONE measure of success that I have not had the pleasure of getting is someone saying "Because I heard you/read bout verbYL/visited verbYL, I have....." It wouldn't have to be "We started a facility just like verbYL", because that depends on so many factors. I would love to hear, we adapted your model by doing....(eg talking to our community services department, partnering more closely with youth agencies, reinventing our youth services culture, employing a youth worker) Only THEN will I be truly, professionally, satisfied.

PS now being on a high from this conference, very keen to conference elsewhere...call me!
PPS why didn't we have a blogger's meet up at the conference? Geez you only think of these things after the event...

Life since amalgamation

2008-08-21T20:26:00.002+10:00

August already and I haven't posted since June! Well, life post amalgamation has certainly been interesting. I've had to amalgamate 3 budgets (very challenging); amalgamate fees and charges (so now operating with an amalgum of common fees but differing lending policies - also challenging); attempted to come to grips with the differing procedures and cultures of the 3 previous Councils (well really 4 Councils but almost uniquely in Australia one of our Councils had never offered a library service before - the citizens of that former area now have access to free library services for the first time in history!), have tried to amalgamate as many processes as possible prior to library system conversion (yes, three different brands of LMS!) and tentatively started discussion around our new united strategic direction. I must say it is very nice to go from 2 professional colleagues to share ideas with to 10! And also, by a process of adoption rather than birth, I have become involved in the tail end of a major new library construction (I'd previously been involved in the concept design phase with an architect on a project in my former role, but this is like being time warped forward without any memory of the middle bit). I'm on the fast track to learning about the argy bargy that goes on between architects, builders and our own engineers around the innumerable and mildly titled "requests for information" which in reality are a cut throat game of claim and counterclaim, sifting and interpreting the fine print in specifications, drawings and contracts, and requiring nerves of steel and skills similar to those of a top chess player (or possibly it's closer to poker). Scary but fascinating, and luckily I'm playing with people on my side who have played before. And my own hardhat and steel capped boots for site inspections! Glamorous!

Also this week had the pleasure of hosting actress Diane Cilento at the library for a chat about her life; and a delightful Children's Book Week event organised by a colleague on the successful model developed by her for the former city library, now significantly broadened to cover our whole region - a competition inviting the general citizenry to submit a children's book written and illustrated by the entrant, with various age ranges from under 5s, lower and upper primary, secondary and adult - with the winners invited along for a presentation of their prizes by the Mayor and a very wonderful talk by a former Australian Book Council judge Lindelle Lutton about the history of the Book Council's awards, and a discussion of this year's winners. Amazingly successful with around 60 in attendance - lots of kids and their parents to collect their certificates and get their photo taken with the Mayor - impressed the Mayor too I think. I had great fun judging the secondary students' category - some real talents there.

Next week off to Alice Springs - perhaps I'll go back to my old habits and live blog from the conference? I'll try. Then the "Interim" phase ends and I'll have to apply for a "real" job. Having had a taste of the big picture, I must admit to being pretty keen to retain the role. Wish me luck!

verbYL wins again!! Off to Alice Springs...

2008-06-26T17:42:00.004+10:00

Yes, it can now be announced - verbYL is the winner in the "Meeting Place" category of the Australian Library and Information Association's "Library Stars: Best of the Best" satellite event. So I'm off to Alice Springs in the first week of September, and will hang around for the main ALIA conference (might as well, it's a long way to go for just a one day gig); I have just realized that, despite being the "conference queen", this is the first ALIA conference I have EVER been to. Why is it so? I guess because for the first 20 years or so of my career I just didn't belong to ALIA; for the last 10 years I've looked through the conference program and gotten the impression it was heavily weighted towards academic libraries. The local state conference or specific public library conferences were just more attractive. However, I really can't complain about this year's program as the public library stream is excellent. There is nothing quite so indulgent as 4 solid days of library dreaming, visioning and scheming, to give a boost to the psyche and morale. Better than a spa (whatever that is). And I just might do a bit of conference blogging...

There are now many written sources of info available about verbYL, although not all of them can be accessed unless you have subscription or membership. The most comprehensive is the article in the Australian Public Library and Information Services journal, if you have access to Ebsco Australian and New Zealand Database you will find it here....(it's also listed on Amazon for purchase as a single article!) There's also an article in ALIA's Incite March 2008 issue, which you can access if you are a member. One open Internet source is the paper from the presentation I made at the Limestone Coast Area Consultative Committee's "Investing in Youth" conference. If you would like copies of the other articles but can't get to them, please email me at realpubliclibrarian@yahoo.com, and I'll be happy to send them to you.

Of course, I love to traipse around the country extolling the virtues of this unique concept, and accept the accolades, but it must be recognized that it's my colleagues who make verbYL the award winning model that it is - the indefatigable Christine, the Youth Librarian (who incidentally has a speaking gig at this year's New Grads Conference in Melbourne); the Youth Workers and other youth and library staff; my present and past managers; Council; and my wise management counterpart who co-manages verbYL for the Community Development half of the partnership.

So what will I be talking about at the Conference? Hmm, well, I think I'll start with the spiel about how it started etc, but at this stage of the maturity of verbYL, I think I'll be brave enough to honestly tackle the challenges that running a youth-centric space throws up for both youth and library services. Because verbYL is a unique partnership between Youth and Library services, there are also the challenges of articulating, negotiating and aligning the expectations and wanted outcomes of the two services on a continuing basis - to date I'm pleased to report with very positive outcomes. There are also the extraordinary benefits of partnering with youth services - I plan to outline the lessons learned by being exposed to and adopting youth service values and philosophies. Should give the listeners plenty to chew on (I hope).

In the meantime I continue in the very exciting role of Manager of Library Services for the newly amalgamated councils. Talk about a steep learning curve! But highly stimulating, and I must admit that after 3 months in the role the best thing I've got out of it so far is a great rush of confidence in my own competence as a professional library manager - something that wasn't really tested in my previous role. I would find it hard, I think, to go back to my former role, even though it was pretty cruisy - however, another challenge is on the horizon as restructuring is just around the corner, and in all likelihood I will have to apply for whatever position the restructure throws up - no matter, I can always do with the interviewing practice! In the meantime, with staff very geographically dispersed, and me still located in my old office, I am practicing "management by email" and "virtual leadership" which is in itself another interesting skill!

Wild Dancing at the Library!

2008-05-19T18:14:00.002+10:00

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!

2008-04-19T08:46:00.005+10:00

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

2008-03-22T09:00:00.002+10:00

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

2008-02-22T06:33:00.003+10:00

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

2008-02-16T09:44:00.003+10:00

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!

2007-11-02T14:24:00.001+10:00

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)

2007-11-02T13:56:00.000+10:00

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

2007-10-25T16:17:00.000+10:00

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!

The Elder Cafe - Library Services for Boomers?

2007-10-19T14:09:00.001+10:00

Just flicking through a new book "It's payback time: how to be rich and happy in your post-working life", where the author, Morris Kaplan, speculates as follows (p. 209):

"As baby boomers redefine the traditional retirement years, they'll also challenge the institutions set up to serve them to change. The traditional 'senior' centre is one such institution that's likely to undergo big changes in approach, marketing and services. After all, boomers may not flock to something called a 'senior centre', but they will still need a place to get the services and networking opportunities they're looking for as they plan the next chapters of their lives.

The future senior centre may well look more like a mix of internet cafe and travel agency than a place where retired people go to pass away the time of day, perhaps 'The Elder Cafe'? It will most likely be a place to sip a latte while searching for paid or volunteer work that provides service to the community, visiting a career coach, attending life planning workshops, finding out more about caring for ageing parents, exploring adventure travel opportunities, signing up for continuing education classes, attending cultural events, and comparing notes with other boomers entering the same stage of thier lives.

'The Elder Cafe' concept centre recognizes that when adults enter a new stage of life that no longer requires them to go to a workplace every day, they'll want somewhere that's appealing, hip and active; a place that keeps them connected to their peers and to the wider community and therefore better off in the end."

Hmmm sounds a bit like a library doesn't it...

Read for your Life!

2007-09-29T15:10:00.000+10:00

"Read for your Life" was the inspiration, and it just seems like the right time to do something for the "baby boomer" customers who it seems to me have the time and the inclination to read, but maybe because of constant work or study, have become disconnected from reading for personal pleasure (that happened to me when I was studying.) Here's my first attempt at defining the program:

Do you want to:

Get meaning and purpose from your reading?

Reconnect with reading?

Develop a reading plan?

Then join Livingstone Shire Librarian Debra Burn for a series of seminars that will inspire or re-ignite your love of reading. Three sessions will include:

1. How you will benefit from reading personally. By the end of this session you will be inspired to make reading a more rewarding part of your life!

2. How do you decide what to read? You’ll explore a number of tools and techniques for finding what to read, whether you like to read non-fiction, biographies, literature or in any other field of interest.

3. Putting it into practice. Tools and techniques for developing a reading plan, keeping track and enhancing the reading experience.

Debra is a qualified librarian with over 30 years experience of helping people find “a good read”.

When: TBA

Where: Yeppoon Library

Cost: Free!

...well, that's the first draft of the flyer. If anyone has done or knows of a similar program elsewhere, I'd appreciate any leads!

Statistics

2007-09-26T14:50:00.000+10:00

It's that time of year again- annual statistical returns are due. While we are collecting and collating statistics all the time - for the quarterly reports to Council in particular but also just to collect stats about things we are just monitoring or curious about - it's quite an exercise to massage the figures for an outside third party (in my case, the State Library). (Actually that sounds a bit shifty, I'm not implying that I'm falsifying the stats in any way, it's just that the State Library wants stats in a slightly different format to how we collect them internally for our own information.) A lot hangs on how easy it is to extract the appropriate stats from your LMS - and from the emails I see on the Spydus list I think I can say that we all suffer the same anxieties - is our system really giving us reliable stats? Especially if your stats have fallen mysteriously, as many on the list have been noting. Or is it so mysterious? Are we actually (horrors) just lending fewer items? Well, that seems to be true for us. After what seems like decades of steady increases year to year (varying between 2-12% with a population increase of between 2 and 6%), I think the trend is definately establishing itself in the downward direction, despite steady population increases. It seems to be a state/national/international trend. So for instance, our total loans* for the last few years have looked like this:

03/04: 335,618; 04/05: 342,491; 05/06: 333,360; 06/07: 321,19

*Not including renewals. Although the State Library likes us to report on total loans INCLUDING renewals, for my own purposes I obstinately stick to "first loan" figures only. I just feel it's cheating to count renewals, since they are pretty much done automatically or increasingly by the borrowers themselves. And the figures with renewals will differ from library to library depending on loan period and how many renewals are allowed - this is just my little foible. No-one else cares.

Not so dramatic changes, and probably statistically insignificant at this stage, but still it was nice in the past to be able to point to consistently rising loan statistics (but of course now we point to rising Internet usage and attendances at library programs).

One of the interesting parts of the stats was collating the "Collection Performance" figures. Here's some interesting comparisons:

The top 7 collections ranked by absolute usage were:

1. Adult Fiction 33% of total loans
2.Adult non fiction 17%
3. Junior fiction 12%
4. Magazines 11%
5. Large print 9%
6. Music CDs 6%
7 DVDs 4%

That means that Adult Fiction and Adult Non-Fiction still accounted for 50% of total lending activity; print accounted for 86% of total loan activity, and av/audio/video accounted for 14% of total lending.

Here's some of the performance of our "minor" collections:

Adult Fiction Romance - 1.8% of total loans
Adult Sci Fi - 1.9%
Westerns - a whopping 2.4%! (Still lots of gentlemen who devour this genre, though logic tells us with the aging demographic this figure must surely be starting to drop!)
Graphic Novels - 1.7%
Young Adult - 1.6%
Junior Non-Fiction (a disappointing but not unexpected - hardly any kids need JNF for "assignments" any more, most JNF loans are for extracurricula interests) - 2.1%

The "hardest working" collection was the DVDs, with each item averaging 10.8 loans within the 12 months; closely followed by the Westerns (!?!!) (6.8); the music CDs (5.8); and a new entry from the fairly new graphic novel collection with 734 items being borrowed 4067 times averaging 5.5 loans each (and a lot more being read in house without being charged at verbYL).

So in summary, print is still a massively important part of our current business; with quality AV and electronic resources an important complement to our offering.

Libraries as 3rd Places- learn from China!

2007-09-22T14:03:00.000+10:00

As we're hearing at various conferences lately, public libraries as third places (after work and home) is the new paradigm for service, but it seems someone has beaten us to it - with a for-profit library in China! "The Bookworm Chengdu comprises a library of 5000 (and growing) books in English, European Languages and Chinese, a full European restaurant , and a fully stocked bar with barmen trained in the arts of superlative coffee and cocktail making." Wow! AND a full program of poetry and book readings, scrabble competitions, free wireless Internet access, children's story times, as well as jazz and wine nights! How I wish I had one of THOSE libraries in MY neighbourhood! And I'm sure if I was a westerner working for any length of time in China, I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to borrow English language books, even if the collection was a little haphazard (I gather, mainly the result of Westerners donating stuff when they are leaving). How I came to hear about this is that my nephew, after several years of teaching English and working in hotels in various places in China, has just been offered a job there. I really encourage you to check out the web site - despite it being developed as a little cultural sanctuary for westerners working in China, I really think it has a lot of ideas to offer for our own (free) libraries, if we are serious about becoming this third space...third space as cultural sanctuary ...I'm rather jealous actually...

New libraries and other dreams

2007-09-17T14:00:00.000+10:00

Here is a picture of the proposed new library for Yeppoon. This is the "concept" plan, basically the lovechild of myself and a wonderfully visionary architect Ian Brewster from Brewster Hjorth, based in Sydney, with some excellent NSW libraries under his belt, but more recently having won gigs in Queensland as well (including the new Cooroy Library I believe). This was all systems go until the big A - Amalgamation. So sadly (for me at least!) I may never see my "pet" project come to fruition - It's up to the new citizens (and their political representatives) of Rocktopia! - but the Mayor is doing his utmost to secure last ditch funding before our local authority disappears for good into the annals of history, to make it more attractive to the new administration, for which I am delighted and grateful. But in any case I shouldn't be sad - it's quite a career achievement to get it this far. The experience won't go astray. And the design does feature a never-been-done before library innovation that is wholly and solely my own idea - sorry. I'm not quite prepared to reveal it yet! I may yet get to incorporate it into this or another library, and I egotistically want to be the first!! Ever!! Que sera...

Gay teen fiction in libraries

2007-09-10T15:23:00.000+10:00

Where to start when a young adult member requests gay YA fiction? Not that difficult. We already had copies of the series "Rainbow boys" which young people had discovered already. A quick Google search provided excellent lists: Great Gay Teen Books on the Alex Sanchez site; a very informative article in (where else?) Wikipedia; and for a foundation collection, Amazon.com's Top 5 Gay Teen-Life Novels. We actually had a few of the titles already, and put them into our regular YA collection in the main library where they have enjoyed the popularity expected of any new YA novel. You have to look pretty hard to note that the book is a "teen gay novel" - take for example, "Geography Club" - absolutely nowhere on the cover or blurb are the words "gay" or similar used. But the blurb outlines the story subtly. Does it matter if a teenage reader is somehow "ambushed" into reading a gay novel because it isn't emblazened on the cover? The novels are sensitive, well written, not at all sexual, and are only going to offend those who have perhaps a religious objection. The themes of love, fitting in, coming of age and understanding will be valid for straight and gay readers alike. Are we "condoning" a particular lifestyle by providing these books to young people? Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is no longer legal, so regardless of our personal opinion, there is really no good reason to take this stance. It is again up to parents to guide their offspring's reading.

BTW the specific request actually came from the Youth Library via a support group supported by the Youth Worker which demonstrates again the utility of our unique partnership between Youth Services and Library Services.

Get Staffed!

2007-08-13T14:37:00.000+10:00

Further reports from the Public Libraries Australia Conference. These sessions on the workforce were particularly informative - the first by an "outsider", Julie Sloan of Julie Sloan Management Pty Ltd talking about Workforce Planning, which she claims is a wholly different discipline to traditional Human Resources Management. Julie pointed out what we all know by now - a looming crisis in recruitment and retention of library and local government staff. Julie points out that the HR approach is likely to jump to (possibly ineffectual) strategies before any actual research into causes and effects has been done. Julie suggests we should be finding out first:

- Who will be retiring/leaving soon?
- What would make these people stay? (retention strategies)
- Identify supply source of new recruits
- Identify competition for supply (in librarianship, is it IT? How do you make a job in libraries attractive to an IT type?)
- Job re-design. Pull it apart, call it something different.

Julie had a couple of very apt examples from her own practice. Apparently there is a shortage of plumbers in Australia, and a huge shortage of wannabe apprentice plumbers. Julie was commissioned by the plumbing sector to research why this should be. She questionnaired lots of apprentice plumbers and boys at high school, and found that many were turned off because "they didn't like to dig holes" and "they didn't like to get their hands dirty." Pretty fundamental to the job, you might think. But no, maybe there are opportunities to pull the trade of plumbing apart - give hole digging to the currently disengaged workers, and hand over skilled "finishing off" to the tradey.

Two other speakers coincidentally touched on the topic of libraries not necessarily being populated by librarians - Rivkah Sass inherited a library system that was top heavy with librarians checking out books; and Christine McKenzie from Yarra Plenty champions RFID and librarians getting around in the stacks helping customers (sounds pretty common sense these days doesn't it?), and also controversially promoted a library tech to branch manager over librarian candidates. Seems there might be parallels to the plumbers' plight for library workers too.

Julie reminded us as a sector to be on the lookout for people going through 2nd or 3rd career changes, and tailoring pre-retirement jobs to pre-retirement aspirations eg part-time work, more time off, long periods of leave etc. She tells of an Australian bank's successful strategy of luring nurses with good people skills away from medical jobs.

Julie also identified some reasons (based on research) of why people leave jobs:

- Bullying
- Fatigue (note: NOT due to age)
- Ageism

The next speaker was Moira Deslandes from Volunteering South Australia. She pointed out that we use the terminology "use" volunteers, and this was all wrong - as Julie said before her, volunteers should be seen as a legitimate part of the library work force - and treated that way. Not that they should replace paid workers - but rather recognize that they require an investment of time and money to recruit, retain and reward, much the same as the paid workforce. Interestingly, research shows that only 5% of volunteers have been recruited due to paid media advertising - most volunteer because they have personal contact with another volunteer. Research shows that volunteers' main reasons for volunteering include: Help others; Personal satisfaction; and Something worthwhile. Apart from the traditional volunteer-ers, Moira pointed to a couple of potential non-traditional sources of volunteers: the grey nomads - sure they're only in your area for a short while, but they could still be a great resource (in my area we experience the annual migration for around 2-3 months each year of probably a couple of thousand "grey nomads" from cold old Vic to sunny Queensland - definitely potential there!!); and the rising phenomenon of the "corporates" - businesses who let their staff go off and volunteer for a few hours on work time, to show what good corporate citizens they are, and to give their staff extra skills and motivation. I'm trying to rack my brain as to what local businesses I could target, and to do what? in the library ...there must be something...

Libraries in 3rd Place!

2007-08-10T11:56:00.000+10:00

Third place is not such a bad thing, as you will see in the second part of this post! This is another post about papers delivered at the Public Libraries Australia conference, and not about Council amalgamations (don't worry my blatherings on THE BIG A will surely follow soon enough!). The first speaker (Graham Sansom from the UTS Centre for Local Government) gave a great overview of trends affecting local government as a whole, and thus by direct association, public libraries. This session really reawakened my fundamental interest in all things governmental and political (having been a government major in my first degree and more recently completing a Grad Dip in Local Govt Management) and reminded me that I should build on my post grad studies by keeping up with this overview stuff. Graham pointed out the now obvious shift from "government" to "governance" - a recognition that decision making is more diverse. Good governance (who would advocate for bad governance?) displays the now familiar attributes (or at least rhetoric) of transparency, partnerships, community engagement, informed decision making, and social capital. This is in contrast to the now maligned "managerialist" approach which implied that there was always a best answer to be found in the disinterested and logical assessment applied by bureaucrats (pretty much the approach my first degree lauded 30+ years ago!) (in which case we wouldn't actually need elected representatives - but of course, no-one actually thinks we can do without them, even though at times it would be easier to just get on with things without them!) Graham also pointed out the very obvious "infrastructure backlog" hanging over the heads of local authorities in Australia - amounting to $6.3 billion in NSW alone, I assume he means things like the aging pipes, run down road networks, creaky bridges etc (and old libraries?) that eventually will hit the governments and presumably tax payers of the near future with a nasty thud. He stated that there were 3 possible responses to this situation:

1. Minimalist - the back to basics approach of roads, rates and rubbish
2. Optimalist - try to maintain services but delivered via partnerships and contracting out
3. Maximalist - continue to expand functions and services, while expanding the revenue base - bluntly, in the absence of higher level government largesse, putting up rates by 25% + (NSW would need to put up rates by 23% just to cover the infrastructure backlog)

There followed an interesting discussion about the rightness of putting up rates - anathema to local politicians who often campaign on the basis of lowering rates! And thus the importance of citizens and their political representatives being enabled to make decisions based on judgement rather than "public opinion" as a driver of policy. (And the role of libraries in assisting citizens to arrive at good judgements...)

If Councils adopt a "back to basics" approach, Graham's advice to libraries was to vigorously redefine what is "basic" in a 21st century economy and society. And remind local governments that libraries are a vital plank in the "quadruple" bottom line - the fourth pillar of sustainability being culture.

Which segues nicely into the following session presented by Kate Meyrick of the Hornery Institute titled "Public Libraries as the 3rd Place". I have had the privilege of meeting and working with Kate when she took an interest in our little library redevelopment back in 2005. Kate was an associate of the architecture firm Hassell who she had worked with to develop the highly innovative and successful North Lakes Library on the outskirts of Brisbane. Hassell assisted Council to develop the master plan for its proposed new cultural precinct including the new main branch library as the flagship facility (alas with amalgamation I don't know if it will ever see the light of day, but that's another story...). Without any false humility, I believe Dennis from Hassell recognized in me a librarian who doesn't think in straight lines, and linked me up with Kate who was sufficiently impressed to offer a rare "freebie" consultancy (under the aegis of the Hornery Institute). Kate conducted a number of workshops with young people in Yeppoon basically asking them what the ideal library would look like, resulting in the document "Yeppoon Living Library." To cut a long story short, this lead to the development of our award winning library for young people, verbYL. So at this conference in my particular case, Kate was pretty much spruiking to the converted. Nonetheless, her motor-mouth and high energy presentation was still electrifying. Here's the main points:

Definition of 3rd place: “An informal public place where the main activity is conversation.” (Ramon Oldenburg). People come to 3rd places to reconnect with life, community – (particularly important for baby boomer retirees.)

Practical ways of achieving libraries being recognized as 3rd places:

*Create a brand with an open invitation
*Respond to community identity
*Allow for planned and chance encounters
*Lead with programming
*Don’t dumb down the vision due to lack of funds – doing nothing may be better
*Aggregate and cluster eg parks, playgrounds, barbies etc
*Make a cluster of streets a destination eg cultural precinct
*Energetically support creativity
*Encourage discovery
*Always open and always on – high rhythm of activity sustained over time
*Fantastic design, fabulous people
*If nothing else, have the best coffee in town!

Phew! Sentiments taken to heart and largely achieved with our youth library verbYL (demonstrably a 3rd place for a large number of regulars who practically live there!), and aspirational for our current and future mainstream libraries.

Pushing Towards Greatness...

2007-08-09T17:00:00.000+10:00

...was the title of the keynote address at the Public Libraries Australia Conference just held in Adelaide this week. Rivkah Sass is currently director of the Omaha Public Library, and also (US?) Librarian of the Year in 2006. If you would like to read a very good article see here for a summary of her career (I'm lazy - it's the first hit if you Google her name). And a very good and funny speaker she was too, just right for opening the conference, which attracted a very respectable 300+ delegates (of whom I was 1 of only about 10 delegates from Queensland - and I didn't manage to meet even one of them!! ie my fellow Queenslanders. But I did meet a very friendly and interesting bunch of people from Victoria and South Australia).

Some of the things I took away from Rivkah's talk:

"Money allows you to innovate with things; not having money allows you to innovate with ideas." How true. We do heaps of programs on shoestring budgets - and we are in the main very proud of them. Not that we don't seek/accept real money - but it's true, it tends to be for purchasing things - refurbs, computers etc that don't necessarily return a very innovative result.

One of her greatest challenges is tackling 'community ennui' - you know, books are obsolete, we have Google - she does this on a very personal level, beating a path to every local group or opinion maker, selling the idea and excitement of libraries at every opportunity. Has encouraged me to lift my game in this area too.

"Retool, rethink, reorganize" - as the article points out, Rivkah inherited a bit of a dinosaur library with too many librarians doing low level work, and too much old crap on the shelves (yes she uses the word crap liberally - ah a librarian after my own heart). I could relate to a sister weeder, I am a very heavy weeder, in fact I don't necessarily think that a library's collection needs to keep getting bigger over time - it's OK for a collection to remain in stasis as far as size goes (removes the pressure for ever more expensive library space) as long as the collection is changing, dynamic, turning over. And as long as there's at least one archiving library that you can freely borrow from (the role of the State Libraries/National Library I think.)

"Make it easier, make it better". A practical difficulty for Rivkah was the plethora of different and hard to remember opening times across all the branches - I found it extremely interesting that they found that this impacted negatively on library patrons' use of the library - I can relate to this - I have experienced as a borrower a library system that had different hours every day of the week, including being closed some mornings (of course you can never remember which mornings) - this actually discouraged me from going to the library "in case" it was shut and I had made a wasted trip. One of the first things I did (20 years ago!) was to simplify our hours - they are basically 9-5 + extended hours at some branches on a predicable pattern eg Wednesday nites to 8 pm.

Rivkah also emphasised leading with programming, which I think we do pretty well in the main in Australia. She pointed out that sometimes the outcome is building a relationship (especially with youth programming), and not always the expected resources-related outcome, that's important.

I was able to have a quick one-on-one chat with Rivkah at the airport (poor woman couldn't escape librarians even after an exhausting conference and visiting program!) and I found her to be every bit as engaging and sincere as she appeared on the podium. Of course I couldn't help but do a little infomercial about our own library services. As Rivkah pointed out, it's the similarities between Australian and American libraries, and the concerns of its librarians that is remarkable, not the differences.

More insights from the PLA Conference to follow...

Position...still...Vacant!

2007-07-10T18:42:00.001+10:00

Is it coincidence that this month's Incite has a summary of the age distribution of Australian librarians, which gives the somewhat worrying picture that as well as most of them being over 46 (nothing wrong with 46, 46 is nice!), 32% of librarians are planning to retire in the next 10 years? The apparent shortage of librarians has hit home after being unable to attract a successful applicant for a general library job at our library recently. Despite advertising via ALIA, we had 3 applicants in total - 1 withdrew before interview, 1 accepted another job closer to home, and 1 was a mature new graduate who obtained employment at a neighbouring local authority. Woe is us!!! So the next person who walks in the door with a library qualification...

However, the next job vacancy might be my own! Not that I'm thinking of retiring (far from it, still got a good 20 years left), but because our local government is staring down the biggest calamity in its 100+ year history - yes, forced amalgamation. I am personally convinced that we will in fact be amalgamating with our neighbouring area, Rockhampton. Not that I'm against it in principle. And knitting together 2 or more library systems could be quite interesting. For someone else. Sitting through endless committee meetings nutting over the detail is not my thing (been there done that). I prefer the instant gratification of having a good idea in the morning, implementing it in the afternoon. So...while I love living in paradise, and intend to return to DIE here (with a longish retirement first!) there are hopefully 20 or so years that I could be...somewhere else for a while.

Scary but also strangely liberating...like being 20 again. Will I upgrade to a Masters degree? Will I study something completely different? Will I step into a similar job elsewhere (in which case I hope there really IS a shortage of librarians out there!)? Or try a different sector? Or career? Looking forward with anticipation...

First In-blog interview - Youth Librarian

2007-07-10T18:38:00.000+10:00

For a very interesting interview of my colleague, verbYL youth librarian, See here (because it was a draft I started ages ago, I didn't realize that Blogger would leave it at the original date!)

Position Vacant!!!

2007-04-26T18:15:00.000+10:00

IF you would like to work in "paradise" here is your chance - due to the wonderful Lucy leaving us (not because she didn't like us, she assures me, but needed to be closer to family. Not to mention landing a very cushy job with her own BIG OFFICE not that I'm jealous or anything but as a Real Public Librarian I have a typical real public librarian office - full of "special materials" and librarian reference, the puppets for storytime, the filing cabinets, the big books - you get the idea), we have a vacancy for a Librarian to join our small but fun loving team. If you're interested here's the link. Don't hesitate to contact me if you would like more information.

Sex in Libraries

2007-04-13T06:53:00.000+10:00

Carrying on from the previous post about graphic novels, for anyone who may be interested, the graphic novels in question were the "Crying Freeman" series. Now I should point out that these are perfectly legitimate and respected examples of the genre (I actually found them to be quite good reads myself), and on reflection I probably wimped out big time by removing them from the collection. To be perfectly honest, if it had been a written book, or a movie, I would not have had any problem with it, it's just the immediacy of images and the possibility of some sensitive person or child innocently being exposed to it in my library that was the clincher. Perhaps libraries in Japan don't have this dilemma, given how widely accepted explicit manga are there. I guess I could have made them "kept at desk" material, for adults only, but - where would it stop? Then I got to reflecting on the place of public libraries in providing sexually explicit resources in general.

Let's make one thing perfectly clear - I am not here to arbitrate on the morals or sex lives of my customers! Consenting adults and all that ! As an older human being, I am more than aware of the increasing "sexualization" of society, and I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing (compared for instance to the repression and shock horror attitudes that I remember from my not too distant youth). In so far as libraries deal in resources of popular culture (books, movies, music), we can't be expected to hold back the tide. And a lot of sexually explicit/erotic materials are very very popular with library customers!!

Here are a few anecdotal examples:

Some years ago I bought an American book called "Gay Blades", a novel about the gay ice skating scene. While cataloging this book I was a bit surprised to find several very graphic scenes of joyful, rollicking, going for it gay sex, which frankly, at the time, was quite personally educational (as it was for all of the library staff at the time)! I wondered how this would go over with the customers, and whether it would generate any complaints. Well that book has been out many many times to many many of our regular (adult) customers both male and female, young and mature, without one murmur of complaint! The staff tell me that another novel, "It's my f___ing birthday" has also been a big hit.

It's no secret that Mills and Boon novels and the associated genre, historical "bodice rippers" (with titles like "I was kidnapped by a pirate" and "What's that under your kilt, Dougal ?" -sorry I just made them up but you get the idea) are becoming raunchier in response to popular tastes. Even I was surprised, when, flicking through a recent Mills and Boon title to the end where the lovers, all misunderstandings now swept aside, are preparing for a blissful future together, and having a bit of a kiss and a cuddle, when the man pauses momentarily "to roll on a condom'!!!! - I'm glad to see even Mills and Boon are promoting safe sex.

After the success of Linda Jaivin's literary erotica in the 90s, customers (interestingly mainly female) started to ask for "any more books like that." So we tentatively started experimenting with the purchse of novels frankly badged as "erotica". We didn't put them into their own section or anything like that, just in with the rest of the adult fiction, but it became frustrating (pardon the pun!) to both us and customers seeking that kind of material. We use genre stickers for other stuff like historical, humour etc to help customers identify material, so why not a genre sticker for these as well? But what symbol to use (the imagination runs riot). Our most mature staff member came up with the perfect solution - the universally recognized 'X' discreetly affixed with the spine label. Please note, the primary function of the X is a guide, NOT a warning!

Recently a customer did complain about some sexually explicit material - not because he didn't approve of it, but because he was concerned that young adults should not be unknowingly exposed to it. The offending material was the scifi/fantasy novels by John Ringo. I read the passages involved, and, I had to agree. What was involved here was not erotica, it was sadistic violent non-consensual degrading and graphically described sex. But it could be argued that this is perfectly legitimate in the context of the storyline. This is not the first time I had come across personally offensive material in this genre - I read the first book in the wildly popular "Wheel of time" series by Robert Jordan and I dearly wish I had not. There was a scene of such mysogynistic violence in that book that it has haunted me for many years. As a discerning adult, I can put that into perspective and choose not to read any more Robert Jordan, while not denying the enjoyment of clearly millions of adults who love Robert Jordan. As for objections about young people reading this material, I could say: It's catalogued in the adult section. Parents are responsible for the monitoring of their child's reading. However, given the undeniable reality and acceptance that young adults freely access the adult section, and in particular, the SCIFI /Fantasy section, I do feel there is a compromise position - perhaps we can assist parents with that duty. Not by affixing our beloved X - remember we decided it's a guide not a warning. To confuse the two would no doubt be confusing to our customers. So after discussion amongst the staff, we think we might affix a label on the inside of the book along the lines of "This book may contain material not suitable for younger readers. Parental review is recommended" or some such. It's a funny irony isn't it that there's a national classification system for movies, but for books we have to think up something ourselves?

So what's next. If our customers start to ask for (real) X rated materials and porn, should we comply? It would be undeniably popular, and we might reach a new audience of non-users! Of course, the answer (currently) is no. But as a parting irony, take the case of the recently published novel "Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel." A recent reviewer for the Australian made the point that if it was a movie, it would be x rated, but in respectable book format, it passes as literature. Now I have that book beside me as I type, and I've also liberally dipped into it (for professional purposes only - NOT!) and it is very very steamy. Not something I could continue to read at work and expect to get any productive work done afterwards, if you get my drift. It involves erotica of a kind some people would find very offensive. But it's had good reviews as a piece of storytelling, and I'm betting it's going to be very very popular...

I've been cited...

2007-04-10T18:46:00.000+10:00

Jaw on the ground. I have just been flicking through the most recent issue of Incite ("The news magazine of the Australian Library and Information Association" ) and there, in a little item about graphic novels, on page 9, I've been cited as if I'm someone!! It says "In the blogosphere, Real Public Librarian had at least one post in 2006 about graphic novels see [May 05 post]." Now this is very flattering, but also very embarrassing as, re-reading my post, it is (as are all my posts) very off the cuff and lacking in any sort of academic or statistical rigour (that's blogging for you). It has also made me feel guilty for not really keeping up with my blog of late - though I now admit I'm feeling more motivated to pick up the ball again!!

The article is entitled "As more graphic novels appear in US libraries, so do challenges", about parents who object to the presence of graphic novels aimed at young adults being attractive to children.

To some extent we have overcome this difficulty by wielding that very powerful library weapon that even bookshops envy us for - Cataloging! We catalog our graphic novels as: Junior - suitable for anyone, but particularly suitable attractive for children up to 12 years old. This would include, for instance, the Disney Witch series or Astro Boy. Then there's Young Adult graphic novels - sort of PG rated (parental guidance recommended for young people under the age of 15) - with mild violence and sexual references, and possibly (probably) strong language - this covers the bulk of our graphic novel collection. Then there are the Adult Only graphic novels - they contain explicit sexual or violent content that one would only expect an adult to be mature enough to handle. We have very few of these - and they're shelved in the adult fiction section, of course. So far we have had ZERO complaints - from anybody. (Although as a matter of interest, after much angst, we did in fact reject a title that our supplier sent us - it left nothing of the sexual act to the imagination including genital closeups and just for good measure threw in liberal amounts of sexual sadism - while there are many NOVELS with just as vivid descriptions of sex and sadomasochism in our collection (particularly in the science fiction/fantasy genre) the visuals of a graphic novel are infinitely more confronting - more unavoidable perhaps? Whereas you can STOP reading something that offends you. )

Graphic novels have been a great success at both our mainstream library and at our youth library. Despite the slight chance of objections, I think, if shelved in the appropriate place, and with public education about the genre, they are legitimate cultural resources in our public libraries.

Libraries and Community Development

2007-04-04T11:06:00.000+10:00

Like many public libraries, particularly in smaller local authorities, our library services are bundled up in a Community Services department. During a meeting with my counterparts from the Community Development section, I expounded that public libraries are increasingly seeing themselves as playing an important role in community development. I said this with some trepidation, as I'm aware that it could sound like libraries are "trespassing" on the traditional territory of community development specialists. I gave as a recent example of community development the library's facilitation of a small group interested in Bonsai to increase thier knowledge and meet monthly. It happened like this:

Female local resident has just started a small business from her hobby, bonsai plants for sale. Is selling them door to door - and one of the doors in the neighbourhood is the library! Library staff buy some bonsai, then invite seller to give a talk about bonsai "because lots of people are probably interested in this topic" (nb librarians' intuition - a very valuable resource). Low key advertising, flyers, leads to a very successful session of people who are either already into bonsai or who want to get started. They enjoy themselves so much they decide to meet informally monthly, bringing along their bonsai plants, so the more experienced bonsai-ists can help the noobs, and also exhibit bonsais they are particularly proud of. Could they continue to meet at the library? No problem!! Grassroots community development in action.

Our ongoing "Armchair Traveller" sessions are a bit like that too. A regular group is coming to these info nights, are now on nodding acquaintance with each other, and travel tips are often swapped over supper after the formal presentations.

I believe there is a measure of community capacity that says that the number of "links" individuals have to one another in a local community correlates to feelings of satisfaction and happiness (or something like that). So obviously when libraries undertake these sorts of activities we are contributing to community wellbeing.

I got to thinking, is it a special sort of community development that libraries do? Does it have a particular context? For instance, will librarians be helping groups lobby for handicapped facilities at the beach? Will librarians be starting support groups for recent migrants? I think not!! It's pretty obvious when you think about it, what we are doing (intuitively) is facilitating opportunities for information exchange based not on print, or electronic information, but on that other fabulous source of knowledge - community knowledge. Sometimes an outcome of this strategy is the formation of groups or looser connections around a community of interest. Maybe if we could define/articulate this better (has anyone?) we would be more comfortable with our role in community development, and the community development specialists would be less concerned or defensive when we seem to be making incursions into their area.

What does it take to be a Youth Librarian?

2007-02-27T19:27:00.000+10:00

Here it is - my first in-blog interview!! And it's with colleague Christine May who is our Youth Librarian, looking after the 13-25 age group at verbYL. Christine is aged 27, she is a new(ish) graduate and this is her first professional posting.
Q: What made you decide on librarianship as a career in the first place?

I finished my arts degree and took a year off, then thought about what I was good at - and came up with "people" and "books" - so librarianship seemed a good choice.

Q. And what attracted you to this job (ie at Livingstone)?

Primarily it was open and accepting of new graduates. I had had trouble finding a position in Melbourne - everyone seemed to be looking for someone with experience. And also it sounded different to other youth librarian positions.

Q. Now that you've been in the job for more than a year, what would you say have been your biggest achievements?

Developing a rapport with young people. That was definitely a challenge. But beyond that, developing programs such as the Reader's Lounge, Study Group, 18+ Club, and getting the website and ezine up and running (stumbling).

Professional development opportunities have been fantastic - I am especially proud of my presentation about verbYL at the Patrick Jones seminar at the State Library of Queensland; yesterday I did a presentation to regional school library staff and teachers and this was well received. We continue to get enquiries and visits from librarians and community development staff who are interested in this unique model of service to young people. I love showing off my library.

Q. And the greatest challenges?

Similar to the achievements really!

Q.What qualities would you say a Youth Librarian would need to succeed in an environment like verbYL?

They would need to really like young people. This is something you cannot fake. You need to be willing to handle challenging behaviour, and not to hold "grudges". Applying the rules (like "no drinks in the computer room" )can make you occasionally unpopular. You have to take each young person on each day "fresh" if you can, and maintaining your sense of humour is essential. And a good knowledge of youth culture - what they're interested in.

Well that's my first in-blog interview! If you would like to contact Christine, please feel free to email on c.may@livingstone.qld.gov.au

Men's Memorabilia

2007-02-22T17:06:00.000+10:00

In the interest of randomly delighting our members, we try to lay on a variety of quirky displays or exhibitions (despite the general lack of space or purpose built display area - if we let that stop us we would never do anything). One source of display materials is the Queensland Museum, and taking pot luck with what sounded sort of interesting, we ordered the "Men's Memorabilia" kit. This kit gets a lot of use at seniors' villages etc. and is an interesting collection of smoking and shaving paraphenalia, long johns and woolen singlets from the 40s, and even a "naturist" magazine from 1937 (there is a nudity warning!). We'll wait with interest to see what reactions it evokes.

Youth Space Comparison Oz & US

2007-02-21T10:44:00.000+10:00

Thanks to contact with Katherine Gould via this blog, I have discovered another Youth Library very similar to verbYL but not quite the same, in the Palos Verdes Library District in California. Check out this fab facility ("The Annex") at Kathy's blog. Man if we had that sort of space...jealousy aside, the point of interest for me is the sharing of the facility with a non-profit youth services organisation - ie the library staff operate the Annex at certain times, and quite separately the youth services operate at different times. (verbYL operates library and youth services concurrently - I have yet to see another example of this anywhere). I note also that session times are set aside for specific age groups (see here for Annex hours) and this is something we have also been experimenting with. Our challenge is to meet our state government's definition of "youth" as 12-25 - a huge range. For some time we have instituted an 18+ only (in Australia 18 is the legal adult age) night on Thursday nights with little success - the main problem being having to turf out the under 18's after 7 pm (don't they grumble!) and just not very many over 18s turning up - for various reasons. Although the few that do come are very protective of their exclusive time. So at the Youth Worker's suggestion we're going with a different night (not previously open so no need to physically turf out the young ones cos they wouldn't normally be there) and rebranding as a uni student/young worker Internet cafe deal. See how that goes.

With the new school year just started in Australia, a whole batch of 12/13 year olds new to High School have become eligible for membership. So far mainly the younger siblings of current users are joining up, but I was worried that parents of families completely new to verbYL would be a bit ikey about letting them mix with the established, "older" crowd. So we've established a "newbies" session just for new members in grades 8 & 9 (roughly 12-14 year olds). "Old" members in this category are allowed to come to this session IF they bring new members!! So far we planned to let this run for a couple of months with a view that the younger ones would then be ready to be "unleashed" into the general crowd. Personally I think there may be merit in maintaining an younger age specific session indefinitely as we certainly have had some negative feedback from parents about mixing up the ages. It's yet to be promoted effectively but I have high hopes of its success.

Study Group kicked off the new year with a great attendance (16 students) and Reader's Lounge is slowly taking off, so optimism there too.

Next month I'm off to Adelaide for the "Learning Futures: Public Libraries for the New Generations" conference organized by the tireless library advocate Dr Alan Bundy. The program is excellent! including US speaker Patrick Jones who I hear is very inspirational. I will of course, as is my habit, be blogging from the Conference!

Bizarre beginning in Second Life

2007-02-11T14:59:00.000+10:00

After reading the post in LINT about the Australian Library building in Second Life (for the uninitiated you might like to read wikipedia article about SL here), thought I'd better give it a go. Signed up (SL name "Joy Raymaker") and off I teleported to Cyrbrary Island without the benefit (?) of doing the orientation - no worries, my 10 year old knew what to do! Had me flying in no time! Trouble was, Cybrary Island was deserted at the time I was there. And getting around was a bit haphazard, with the jerky lag on my laptop not very conducive to smooth locomotion! Not to worry, I did a bit of dancing at the party spot on my own. Very groovy (not to mention incredibly athletic) moves. If I could reproduce those in real life I'd be pretty happy.

Then trouble. My 10 year old takes forcable control of the keyboard and takes off all my clothes! Appears it's such a commonly required feature in SL that it has its own drop down button! Thank God the place is deserted! What if my library colleagues were to see me dancing naked? Trouble is, there's no "undo" or even "put my clothes back on!" button; so I hurriedly logged off (before 10 year old demon could do any more harm), hoping that next time I logged back on my clothes would magically reappear.

No such luck. Still starkers. Laborious reading of the on -line help, while, thank God, I still haven't met anyone. Finally, after lots of experimentation and not really knowing what the hell I'm doing, I end up with some suitably modest attire, and have a look around the rest of the Island, including the Australian Libraries Building. Finally, I see a figure approaching in the distance, at first I think it's a woman in an elegant flowing dress, but as the figure approaches I see that it is in fact a rather hefty man with a beard - in an elegant flowing dress! And a most peculiar feeling of acute embarrassment comes over me - what should I do? I end up rudely following this dude around while I try to figure out what buttons to push etc, but he/she finally saves me by typing "Hello" - I type "hi" - and it seems this is the end of our exchange, as "Spenser" (I forget his surname) rapidly moves away from me. Oh well.

I will read VLINT (the Second Life offshoot of LINT) to try and glean some clues as to how to make SL a worthwhile professional development experience - must work out how to turn up to events (without 10 year old).

In the meantime, I'm thinking about whether/how I might introduce SL to my customers here in real public library land. It would be kinda fun to introduce the older generation to it - I've gobsmacked some of them with the world of blogs and podcasts during previous presentations and training - even if they never become "residents", it's nice for older folk to know what the hell people are talking about! But oh dear, nude dancing! (and worse) - and then there's the other end of the scale, what real applications might it have for our youth library verbYL?

The mind is boggling...

"Wikipedia make homework go BOOM!"

2007-02-02T13:27:00.000+10:00

...thus spake my 15 year old son upon completing his set assignment ("find out some info about artist Man Ray for tomorrow's lesson") in about 5 minutes flat - for those not familiar with youth speak this roughly translates as "Wikipedia made my search for this topic extremely easy and supplied just the right amount of information for my level of education".
Ironically, 3 of his fellow students came into the (my) library yesterday afternoon and asked the library staff to help them find exactly the same information - which we did quite efficiently using BOOKS. But methinks - how much longer will we be called on to do so? The winds of change...

On holidays!

2007-01-25T11:59:00.000+10:00

...and assiduously attempting to ignore work or anything worklike (including this blog!) Have so far managed to keep 1 new year's resolution - joining the Outrigger Club and turning up for 2 (extremely arduous) training sessions every week (including a 5.30 am session!) Hope I can keep it up when I return to work this coming Monday. In contrast, a whirl on the Blaster Boats and a swirl on the waterslides at the local water park with youngest son and husband during a work social club outing was a very laid back affair. Off to see another local wonder this weekend - the "Bat Cleft" tour at Mt Etna near Rockhampton - "Experience the rush of thousands of tiny bats flashing past you at dusk. Little bent wing bats fly out from their roost in Bat Cleft to feed, providing a spectacular natural show." Another New Year's resolution - we truly live in (a) paradise, and I'm gonna take the time to appreciate it! (work being but a short and pleasant diversion from the resort lifestyle that we enjoy.)

If any colleagues happen to be passing by in the year ahead, why not make a detour to our little neck of the woods - we can always throw a mattress on the floor for you!

On the fall of the "big reader"

2007-01-06T06:50:00.000+10:00

Have been back at work now for a week, and ruminating about the year (and years) to come. It's Council policy to give all its employees an enforced break between Christmas and New Year; in previous years I have been able to argue that the Libraries should stay open, but this is not very popular with library staff (being a small library we don't have so many casual staff that want to work through either, although two brave staff volunteered to clear the chute and shelve on one of the closed days, good on ya guys), so this year we closed all the libraries between Christmas and New Year (and I must admit, being one of the people who usually works the New Year shift, it was a welcome break). With Chirstmas falling on a Monday it was a particularly long break as we closed at midday on Friday. So I was looking forward to the throng of customers ready to break down our door come reopening day Jan 2 - well Tuesday came and went, and, while we were moderately busy, it was no big deal...ditto Wednesday...and indeed ditto every day this week! I remember past years after holidays (particularly the Easter weekend of years gone by) when there literally was a throng of borrowers waiting for the doors to open. I also remember customers who would almost need a truck to carry off their reading matter - we still have those, but they are now a minority and not the norm as in years past. And, yes, after a 20 year pattern of steadily increasing borrowing statistics of around 2-3% per year (12% in 1996 when we relocated the main branch library), last year showed a decline of around 2% - and this despite an increase in population of around 3%. And I have finally admitted to myself that this is probably the start of an inevitable trend.

Better minds than mine have speculated on the cause for this almost universal decline in library lending, but here's my take based on 20 years of observing the same community's library-using habits:

1. The obvious - reading takes time. There are so many competing priorities for people's time that the act of sustained recreational reading is almost a luxury. The people who still value reading are tending to be more picky about what they read - quality over quantity.

2. Another obvious one - competing formats - 20 years ago television was almost our only competitor, and it was pretty bad. Now we have pay TV and video/DVD rental and of course, the Internet and Google. And with more affluence people can self-supply by buying books.

3. Changing demographics - the older folk whose habit it was to read voluminously are - how can I put this delicately - passing on. The baby boomers who might have taken their place have lots of alternative activities to occupy as in points 1 and 2 above and are not likely to take up the mantle. Though they will still be a major support base for libraries - emphasis again on the quality vs quantity.

4. Families - the number of children in our community, while having grown in absolute terms, is static in comparative terms. 10-15 years ago we were kept very busy indeed with school assignments. Now a request for assistance with school assignments is almost a rarity. Use of picture books is still high; but over a 20 year period the loans of junior fiction and non-fiction have slowed to almost a trickle (again, kids demand quality over quantity and we are keen to comply - no dusty old crap for these customers!). As for teenage readers, we still have our heart-gladdening bookworms, but they are in a definite minority. Not surprisingly, loans of games, DVDs and Cds outnumber book loans 20 to 1 for this age group.

Having admitted the inevitable, but still wanting to passionately champion the value of libraries, my mind turns now to how to measure this value - it was sure easy measuring quantity, but how do we measure quality? And how to impress on our "new" breed customers that we care about quality too? (changing perceptions about the dusty old book barn they associate with libraries of the past - partly achieved through borrowing retail techniques for marketing and display which works with a great deal of success, I can say from experience).

Sorry I have to leave it hanging there as I realize I have a bit of research to do...

Still grinning!and, a nice sojourn in Canberra

2006-12-19T15:33:00.000+10:00

Here I am in Canberra at Old Parliament House accepting the DOTARS national award for Local Government in Youth Engagement for verbYL. That's Dr Jeff Harmer, Secretary, Department of Families, Community Services & Indigenous Affairs on the left- this is the Department that sponsors the Youth Engagement category, and our very proud Mayor Councillor Bill Ludwig on my right. We didn't win the biggie (overall awards for Local Gov.), but nevertheless... a national award...can't complain. And it gave me a chance to enjoy one of the perks of the job - a nice few hours wandering around the National Art Gallery and the new National Museum, a very nice dinner at Old Parliament House, plus a few pleasant hours spent in the air between Rocky and Canberra.

verbYL has been going now for exactly one year last Saturday. Might be time for a deep and meaningful review - what have we achieved library wise using this model of service? yeah, maybe after the holidays...

For those who are interested, I haven't been blogging for a while due to being really really busy...I also haven't read any blogs or blog related emails for a couple of months I'm guessing my bloglines has gone ballistic...apologies to anyone trying to communicate with me...busy doing what, you may ask...well, one thing I did was close (yes close) 6 libraries...not as horrible as it sounds as they all only opened 3 hours a week each - but still, there was some pain involved for the communities affected and some protracted arguments in Council (with me the strongest supporter - of closure, that is). On the bright side, Council is speaking more positively about our new library, and we're getting an immediate stop-gap extension to our current building to tide us over the next few years. We're also looking forward to starting with Yourtutor next year, and have just signed up for Linksplus to (hopefully) enhance our members' catalog experience. (We already have enhanced content supplied by Syndetics.) We're also committed to spiffing up our OPAC next year (currently unchanged from when we bought it off the shelf) to more accurately and expressively reflect our service ethos. Plus getting our verbYL website up...lot's to do.

Winners are grinners...Again!

2006-10-01T09:21:00.000+10:00

Firstly thanks to all who read, and particurlarly those who commented, on my previous Post re youth in libraries. I've had a little holiday from blogging for various reasons, one of which is sheer busy-ness. Also access to the home PC with one out of action and 3 guys heavily into MMOGS (I have given my "permission" to spend family funds on a u-beaut gaming- dedicated computer so now also suffering from endess discussions which I can't follow about the best video cards, monitors etc). I happened to be passing by the computer room this morning and unusually, no-one else is monopolizing the machine, so I have jumped on...

It is with great pride but also trepidation that I can announce that verbYL (the name of our Youth Space/Youth Library) has recieved a NATIONAL (wow!!%%!!@) Award from the Department of Transport and Regional Services (or DOTARS) in its category of "Youth Engagement". Now DOTARS sounds very boring and institutional doesn't it but it's actually a very important federal government department that distributes lots of Commonwealth funds (indirectly through the States) to Local Government. This is the 20th year of the awards that DOTARS has for a whole range of local government activities ( there isn't a category for public libraries which is odd given that libraries are one of the most enduring services that local governments deliver maybe ALIA should sponsor one of the awards? specifically for libraries but libraries could fit some of the categories - for more info see DOTARS web site) . Oh, and did I mention that we are the CATEGORY WINNERS - oh, yes I said that already.

So the deal is, while we have been announced as absolute winners of the category (in our population range - there was also an award for local govts with pops under 15,000), there is a chance of being announced as "the best of the best" project in local government, so to this purpose all category winners were invited to do a 1/4 hour presentation + 1/4 hour questions to a panel of judges in Canberra this Tuesday/Wednesday just past. So 3 weeks spent in preparing a powerpoint presentation (what else?), luckily we have tons of candid pics of verbYL activities, nicely spiffed up by the graphic artist who designed the logo (something we can use again and again); rehearsing with an outstanding young man (Chris) who was on the Youth Council when verbYL was being planned and who graciously offered his time to come to Canberra to support our presentation; and a fantastic 60 sec video shot totally candidly with a hand held camera which perfectly captures the mood of verbYL on a typical afternoon (provided by our multitalented youth worker trainee Sarah); 8 hours in airports or planes of ridiculous variety from jet to mosquito-sized propeller plane to get to and from Canberra; a quick walk up to Parliament on arrival (it's all very relaxed for a national capital); a very pleasant night spent at the Canberra Hyatt, and dinner meeting up with the other category winners from (relatively) nearby Sarina (go Queensland!) , who luckily had 4 young people in their party so Chris didn't feel too pained being stuck with a middle aged librarian for the whole evening...Then come Wednesday morning, our 1/2 hour of fame! Which I think we did very well. And also a videoed interview which will be edited up with pictures from our project for use on the Awards dinner night in November, when the "winners" (remember, we already won so anything extra is just a bonus) will be announced.

How did we come to enter this award? Here I can claim absolutely NO responsibility. Rather, Council's Community Liaison Officer, the tireless Debbi, thought it would be a good idea to enter, and worked slavishly up to the entry deadline rehashing and massaging a report done by Molly the previous youth worker on the first 6 months of verbYL, and my entry for the QPLA Library of the Year, and other miscellaneous info, into the award winning entry. It was my pessimistic belief that verbYL had not been going for long enough to have "proved" its innovativeness, but how wrong can I be!! Obviously it was just the right project at the right time as far as the judges were concerned.

And while it was me with the honour of shooting off to Canberra for the presentation, I felt a bit guilty that all of the people who got verbYL off the ground couldn't have come too - including many officers who have actually left the employ of Council - it really was a big team effort. But I'm the one still at Council with a good corporate memory of the whole process, so there really wasn't anyone as best placed as myself to do the job. The things I can actually claim credit for, though, are getting the library involved in the space in the first place (it could easily have been a youth space on its own without library involvement) and at the end of the day, and without playing down the importance of the youth services component, it's just a fact that it's the library involvement that's the unique aspect of the service at this time. And I can also claim credit for pushing the branding - and I acknowledge again the great work that John Stanley has done to lift libraries' game in marketing. So while I felt intensely guilty to be getting all the glory at this time, to some extent I have to acknowledge that I do deserve some of it.

The teenage MMOGGER has arisen from his slumber and is now breathing down my neck for access to the computer...I'm off to fill in my Sunday with gardening, mosaic making, reading, napping...

Youth in libraries - are you really ready to welcome them in?

2006-08-17T19:46:00.000+10:00

This is a post a long time coming because I have been pondering the issue very deeply over the last few weeks. It's about the challenges and opportunities of offering a totally inclusive youth library.
I have heard and read a lot of librarians say that their ideal youth/young adult/teen space would be a place where young people are welcome to "just hang out". In many cases attention is focussed on the resources needed in existing and new libraries to attract youth - funky furniture, some electronic resources, the Internet, maybe some music listening posts - these are thought to be some of the necessary ingredients for a successful "hang out" space within the library. Let's just say that these things are achieved - and you throw your doors open to all young people. And they come in their droves. Wonderful! Even lots of kids who never used the library before (in fact wouldn't be caught dead in one). And they DO hang out. For hours. And hours. In fact they hate to leave. They hang around outside after you close, making a nuisance of themselves (haven't they got homes to go to?) and they are there next day half an hour before opening time, hanging around in the street waiting for you to open, even banging on the doors begging you to let them in early. They are noisy on the street and swear and jostle and make adults who are passing by quite uncomfortable.

When you are open, there are lots of young people in the space, and they are in high spirits. Everything is new and wonderful and interesting. They are boisterous and noisy, loud and often use "expressive" language, and are sometimes a bit careless about the equipment and the furniture, but basically everyone is happy. Uh oh. Some young people are not happy. Some young people are intimidated by all this noise and rowdiness. Some young people just seem to be unhappy with the world in general. Some young people arrive sad, or anxious, or depressed, or scared, or angry, or intoxicated. Some young people are aggressive and obnoxious. Some young people's behaviour is so poor at the time, you have to ask them to leave.

Over time a pattern emerges. A core group of young people are hanging out at your library for very long periods of time. They are not content to play computer or console games or read or talk quietly for hours (indeed, they may have trouble concentrating on any activity for longer than a quarter hour). Most of the activities offered in the library are of a cerebral nature, and they have physical energy to burn. There is a lot of running and jostling, mock and quasi-mock taunting of friends and other young people that they don't even know. There may be incidents of petty and not so petty stealing and bullying, even physical fighting.

Who are these young people?

They can be variously described as the "disengaged", or "disadvantaged", or "at risk". They typically will be from dysfunctional family backgrouds, or have made some poor choices in the past with ongoing consequences. They may be younger than 15, but not going to school - because they have been expelled, or their parents don't care, or they have simply made a choice to stay away from school. They may have few models of successful relationships in their lives. If they are older than 15 they will probably be un- or under-employed, typically with little academic success and few employment prospects. They may suffer from mental illnesses or substance abuse. They are at risk of offending or have offended, typically for stealing, assault, or illicit drug use. If they are girls, they have a higher than average chance of early (and single) motherhood. They may be estranged from their parents and may be in precarious situations with regards to accommodation. Some of these young people show little regard for adults or authority. Some of these young people are downright scary. In fact, the complete opposite to the traditional teenage user of the library that you are accustomed to, ie the "good" ones.

If you get to this point, you are at a crossroads.

A. Do you decide that certain behaviours cannot be tolerated, and those displaying those behaviours will be excluded/discouraged from entering your very desirable space? (But you said all young people were welcome...)

B. Or do you decide that the young people displaying these behaviours have an even greater need for the care and understanding of their communities, of which the library is one part? Perhaps they hang out for so long because they have few alternatives?

I would suggest, if you go for A. , that's OK. Just be honest with yourself and young people about it. If you go with A, you will be giving a very good service to young people who would be inclined to be your customers anyway, and just needed that extra push to attract them. Feel free to enforce strict behaviour rules such as no rowdiness and no swearing. The "undesirables" will soon get the message and exclude themselves, the "good" kids will get to enjoy the facilities in peace without harrassment. And parents will approve too.

If you go with B, however, you will need some pretty stiff convictions. You will need to really believe that all young people have a right to equal opportunities to access information and cultural product of importance to them (like books, Internet games, music); that librarians can encourage and nurture all young peoples' literacy and information literacy skills (not just the bookish ones) ; and that librarians have a real role to play as significant adults in the life of the youth of our community, with positive personal and social outcomes.

What about the very real situation where the "good" kids are too intimidated by the "at risk" youth to share the same space with them? What good is a space inhabited only by "problem" youth? If they do not see and experience models of "acceptable" behaviour, will they not be in danger of disengaging even further from their communities, of more anti-social behaviour? Community disapproval may also be high, if parents and other adults perceive that "bad" kids are somehow getting a bonus that "good" kids are missing out on.

So the ideal is to maintain a critical proportion of "mainstream" kids to "at risk" kids who are using the space...

So you need to be fighting on two fronts - tempering the behaviour of the "at risk" youth, while at the same time fostering understanding, tolerance and resilience by the broader youth community and encouraging them to keep coming. You may have to face the harsh reality that some mainstream kids will not feel sufficiently safe or resilient enough to want to use the space under any circumstances. At this point you have to ask yourself, do the "good kids" have alternatives? Can they use other parts of the library or the main library for instance? Do they have access to cultural product at home or information at school? How critical is your service to them?

How can we help the "at risk" youth? After all, we (as librarians) are not social workers. Nor should we be. I stated in a previous post that youth work is not an amateur activity. That's why you should really be clear about whether you are really ready to welcome all youth. That means all youth with all their problems and manifestations. If you want to go with model B, you need the serious help and commitment of human service professionals working with you. In fact it takes the efforts of the whole community to help these youth, and there are incredible opportunities for librarians to make a significant contribution.

While this post has been very hypothetical (partly of necessity to protect privacy), I hope to bring some illustrative anecdotes on future posts about the strategies, policies, tactics, insights and experiences we have had in offering a truly inclusive library service for youth. And I would love to hear from colleagues who have had similar experiences.

2006-07-18T20:33:00.000+10:00

Yes thankyou Anon it was Walt Crawford's piece in Google Librarian's Newsletter that I was remembering. "Good libraries aren't just local libraries. They're places that serve their communities in that regard. Good libraries build and preserve communities. “Cybercommunities” can be fascinating—but the physical community continues to be vital." On re-reading this article, I'm struck by the brilliance of the Google strategy of opening a dialogue with librarians - effectively flattering and recruiting the librarians of the world to promote their product and help train and guide their users, even help them with the trickier searches. A role many of us have taken on willingly - I wonder, is there a downside to this?(I can't think of any but then again I'm not that sharp on this sort of thing). Or is it all win win? What if Google ever goes "bad"?
Anyway, Andrew's summing up comment to my last post is particularly affirming -Giving an example of the personalized service given by some libraries - "Let's see Google beat THAT!. "

.For anyone curious as to why I haven't blogged in a while, I've been particularly busy with family life viz picking up and dropping off kids, entertaining and cooking for kids and their friends staying over, and occasionally husband (he's vegetarian so often prepares his own meals if I'm feeling like meat), attending Lano and Woodley's last show, going to French and sculpture lessons, gardening, washing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, working, watching telly, reading, listening to homework reading, helping teenage son with assignments, walking the dog, falling into bed satisfied but exhausted to start all over again the next day...I am after all a "real" public librarian!!

The importance of belonging

2006-07-06T18:07:00.000+10:00

I have been reading a book,"Well and good: how we feel and why it matters" byAustralian health researcher Richard Eckersley, and his discussion of the correlation between positive feelings of "belonging" and happiness/wellbeing. This started the chain of thought about how "connected" I felt when I attended our local arts festival this weekend, as a volunteer and as a participant. Here we were, this little community of a couple of thousand people who had decided to join together in this artificial "village" for three days in an atmosphere of mutual fun but also of respect and goodwill - when I was on the gate on the Saturday night nearly everyone was leaving with a smile and a word of how great the day had been/how great they felt. Then I got to thinking about how you could replicate that feeling of belonging in the "library" community. And I got to realizing that we have a natural head start - by definition library members "belong" to the library - so it's about investing that word with more - how could I phrase this without sounding like a hippy (I did eat a lot of Hare Krishna food and listen to a lot of Indian spiritual music over the weekend so the effects may still be lingering) - "spirit"? "being there"? "authenticity"?. And then I was reminded of something I think I read on one of the blogs (buggered if I can remember where I heard it actually) that more or less said that the local library has nothing to fear from Google because of just that - the local library is local in a way that Google can never be. Which is why I and the staff get such a kick out of helping a library member find/discover/locate/ that special personalized book/novel/website/bit of information that can never be replicated by a machine (well not in my lifetime anyway). There must be such huge potential to build on our community's need for belonging...

And BTW, I felt moved to thank the Hare Krishna guys for nourishing me all weekend (their food is so good I couldn't be tempted away by any other food stalls), and they thanked me (I felt sincerely) for my presence. Not that I'm at all religious, and not even a vegetarian, but that is a group of people who really understand the meaning of being authentic as per the "Fish" principle I posted about from the Conference - "Have fun, Make their day, Be there, Choose your attitude".

Can I recommend a good weed, I mean, read?

2006-06-12T14:39:00.000+10:00

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that the only thing worse than bad publicity was no publicity(or something like that). So for what it's worth Queensland libraries are receiving a lot of publicity about carrying books about cannabis, marijuana, etc. By chance it all started in my own neck of the woods (how ironic is it that the Library of the Year just announced is also where this whole thing started! I bet the media will be making something of that!) and I only learned about it from my local newspaper when I was reading the week's worth I missed cos I was at the conference. The gist of it is, that a man got off the charge of possessing illegal drug books by presenting to the judge the photocopied covers of similar publications from his local library. Following up on the story, the Brisbane papers had reporters checking their own locals, and lo and behold, many libraries were carrying similar materials. Seems some of them may be illegal depending on how "helpful" they are - ie if it describes how to grow and use the products, then they are (understandably) illegal in this State. Someone should let the booksellers know, as a Google search on "cannabis books libraries" zeroes in on the very helpful title "Cannabis breeder's bible" from the "Buy Australian"website. (Possibly it's only illegal in Queensland.)

At my library, at least twice a year we turn away borrowers who want us to help them find information on how to build a still. We tell them it's illegal to distill liquor in Queensland without a licence so we're not going to assist. But if someone asked for info on cannabis, I'm not sure we would have been quite so unhelpful (prior to this incident of course) - how would we know what the borrower was needing the information for?? Intellectual freedom and all... Although I guess if the borrower wanted to know how to construct a bong we would have drawn the line. Makes me realize how rusty my library ethics are. If, as Doug suggested in his talk at the Conference, it's our professional ethics that make the difference, this is an urgent wake up call to me to review my own convictions. There but for the grace of God go I etc...

Anyway for those of you interested in the story from where it started, here's an extract from the original article:
Library lends weight to drug defence07.06.2006
WHY was Rockhampton’s Graham Manson Holden charged for having books on how to grow cannabis when they are readily available from the city’s library?
That was the argument the 65-year-old used in court yesterday — and it worked.
Magistrate Bronwyn Springer discharged Holden on the May 22 charge of possessing two illegal books, which he had pleaded guilty to.
After noting Holden had no criminal history, Magistrate Springer did not impose a fine nor record a conviction.
In court, Holden said the books had been left in a granny flat of his.
He said he did not know it was illegal to have them.
He produced photocopies of the covers of eight books of the same type which he said he found at the city library last week.
The photocopies were tendered to the court and viewed by Magistrate Springer.
Yesterday The Morning Bulletin borrowed a book titled Cannabis, by Jonathon Green, from the Southside Library.
It included detailed information on how to grow, cultivate and harvest cannabis.
It also had "useful techniques’’ for how to roll a joint and make a bong.
Furthermore, it gave three "classic cannabis recipes’’ including hash brownies (cakes), bhang lassi (potent drink) and cannabis ghee (clarified butter).
Last month, Rockhampton’s Michael Wickenden was fined $300 for possessing an illegal book after he bought The Secret Life of Weed for $25 at a Sexpo in Western Australia.

Conference Pictures (Sorry about the same silly grin)

2006-06-11T14:02:00.000+10:00

Thanks all of those who have found my conference coverage interesting, and especially to Doug for leaving a comment and thus PROVING my brush with fame was not a figment of my imagination!! Also Ivan and CW - I really value your ongoing interest - also to a lurker I discovered at the State Library workshop, who revealed he had been reading my conference diary - Warren from Thuringowa Library - last year's QPLA Library of the Year winners. Warren writes a great IT/Library column for the Townsville Bulletin - here's an example.

Setting up the booth at the Innovations Showcase - generated lots of conversations!

A more nervous grin - just before the dive onto the outer Reef. Magic!

barely aLIVE! from the conference 3

2006-06-07T11:10:00.000+10:00

Well it's the last day of the conference, and feeling a bit seedy after the Conference Dinner at Tjapukai Aboriginal cultural centre - which was a lot of fun, and it was great to continue the conversation with our Singapore visitors. And also - not the winner of the QPLA Library of the Year, but a very credible runner up with a Special Certificate of Recognition for our Youth Library - very nice to be acknowledged. And anyway the winner was a neighbouring library (Rockhampton City) - I suggested to Cheryl that we do a joint press release (the same daily newspaper serves both towns).

The speakers today were very interesting - a firm of architects (did I mention I love architects?) who have done incredible things with existing buildings to turn them into fantastic libraries. Picked up some more random architect speak that may come in handy: "fenestration" = windows; data reticulation = wires (or wireless more likely).

Followed by Alan Butters who is a technology consultant, again with some very sanguine advice about returns automation - a very commonsense graph showing that there is a point beyond which the costs associated with sophisticated solutions can't be justified by the productivity gains, based mainly on the size of the library. (I wonder how relevant these physical returns processes will be when ebooks become the dominant format??) During this talk I had a flash of inspiration on how to develop a staged technology plan for our library service...

This afternoon we are off on the bus to look at some libraries around Cairns. Later I hope to inspect some bookshops too as I have this killer idea to explore for the new library...Tomorrow will attend the State Library's visioning workshop, and on Friday I'm off to snorkel on the Reef before going home on Saturday. It's a tough life...

Live! from the Conference 2 - Degrees of separation?

2006-06-06T12:56:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I met people who know people I've met in the blogosphere...well person actually. When Doug Johnson visited my "booth" and asked whether I had seen what Singapore does for its young people, I replied that, actually, I was an active blogger and had contact with The Rambling Librarian who had directed me to some info about Jurong. Well blow me down if he wasn't also a fan of Rambling. So this is the first case for me of the global equivalent of "you're from x, do you happen to be acquainted with y?" - would that be a second degree of separation? And then seeing that Veronica Boudville from Singapore National Library was speaking at the Conference, I strategically positioned myself to sit next to her and let her know that I had learned a lot of things about Singapore libraries from reading The Rambling Librarian, who of course she knows well, and we had a little chat about blogging. However, I think I remain in the very minority of bloggers at this Conference - if they're about they're lying very low...still stunned/politely disinterested or pained looks when I mention blogging...Maybe I could do a paper at the the next conference??

Veronica's presentation on "The virtual library 2010" was info packed and quite mindblowing. Perhaps the biggest point of interest (if I understood her a-right) was the experiment with the "DIY enabled" service points which do away with library staff altogether and just have a "concierge" who looks after security, and a "cybrarian" for contact - either screen based or telephone based. (?How do the books get reshelved - I just thought of that.) Very scary stuff for library staff!! But apparently a necessary response in a climate where the government has told you that you will not get extra staff but you still have to provide a service. And does it meet people's needs well? Maybe it does for convenience. Although Veronica did say that they were thinking of reintroducing some staff to these libraries. It's obvious that Singapore libraries are thinking very hard about what they want to achieve for their society and how this can be achieved in different ways from the traditional - imagine lending/vending machines at the airport for instance, or book pick ups at Macdonalds!! And the imponderable opportunities when ebooks really take hold...

The next speaker had some very sanguine things to say about adopting RFID especially how to choose a vendor. Always keeping in mind what YOU want to achieve, not what the vendor wants to achieve. He gave some very good advice and we'll be seeing him again tomorrow when he'll talk specifically about self-serve loan technologies. Something I'm hoping to implement in stages starting with our Youth Library, and certainly this will be integral in the design of our new main library, so this is very timely for me.

And finally the traditional "hype em up, make em feel good" motivational speaker who demonstrated the trademarked "FISH!" program for customer service. "Have fun, Make their day, Be there, Choose your attitude". I am a sucker for these presentations, no matter how many times I hear this sort of presentation I get fired up..I'm a pushover.

Yet another enormous conference lunch awaits...

LIVE! - from the QPLA Conference

2006-06-05T14:18:00.000+10:00

Well here I am in Cairns, having arrived yesterday and set up my "booth" in the innovations area promoting the Youth Library. Already done my "spiel" to lots of colleagues and very chuffed at their interest and reactions.

As usual the speakers give me more ideas than I can poke a stick at - I just realized that the staff probably have a horror of my returning from conferences as I fire all kinds of crazy half baked ideas at them!

The first speaker was Timothy Hyde who encouraged us to "think like a magician" - here are some conference "bites" of his ideas -

Innovation = Excitement and enthusiasm; knowledge is down on the list of necessary ingredients

Note to self - ensure staff have time together to brainstorm innovative ideas.

Our next speaker was Doug Johnson from the US. His said something very affirming - that in most libraries it's the 2 or 3 new things you do each year that make the difference, not necessarily the big flash program. He had a lot to say about e-books and I concur, they are inevitable. But librarians will still have a role (?) in brokering community deals for access. To be boring and do nothing will lead to failure. New paradigm = "The riskiest thing you can do is the safest".
We are being called back to the next session so more "live action" to follow later...

I Love Architects!

2006-06-01T18:06:00.000+10:00

No, not a Monty Python sketch, but a much anticipated day "locked up" with an architect to discuss the preliminary brief for the new main library. It was challenging, exhausting, exhiliarating, stimulating, exciting...and that was just the first hour!!! It's wonderful to be able to describe an outcome that you envision in words and feelings and have the architect translate that into a tangible space - even if it is only notes and sketches so far. Also the pleasure and pride of showing your visitor around your town - looking at the familiar architecture through a discerning set of eyes. And imagining the new library all built and new on the selected site.

"My" architect is no pussycat - he pushed and challenged, and perhaps a less self-assured soul than myself would be a bit intimidated by this approach - but after thinking about this project for so many years, being confident in my knowledge of the community (both gut and documented, ie numerous community audits and surveys), I found the challenges warranted, stimulating and ultimately productive. Confident too that I've kept up my knowledge of trends and can speak on an equal footing about examples from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore etc., cutting and pasting the bits that could be translated to our own community - in fact I like to think that a knack for synthesis - blending existing ideas to create something new - is one of my strong points. So all those skills and interests were validated today. Which spells job satisfaction.

Let's hope the euphoria is maintained after we take our preliminary concept to the Director tomorrow.

Architects truly do have beautiful minds...

The partially-sighted leading the blind - my first how to blog session for library members

2006-05-24T20:47:00.000+10:00

Well, it's Library and Information Week and my professional colleagues and I (now officially numbering 3 altogether - for the first time meeting State Library of Qld's guidelines for ratio of qualified librarians to population!!) are ambitiously offering a series of workshops on:Blogging (that's mine); how to use the Web OPAC; and how to access the State Library's free databases (Newsbank, ANZ Ref Centre etc.) I kicked off with a guest lecture to about 50 people at the u3A last Friday on "Blogs, Pods and Wikis" which went over very well, and tonight 3 people from that group came along to join 2 others from the general library membership to "Learn How to Blog" in one hour! (Not a bad turnout for "State of Origin*" night).

The hour went like this:

1. Quick explanation of what blogs are, blog statistics etc. (very quick).
2. Here's one I prepared earlier - let's look at the library bookgroupblog and see what a blog looks like, check out general layout and features and leave a comment (navigate the word verification thingie).
3. Now let's find Blogger via Google. Let's randomly click on some of the blogs that scroll through the blogger homepage and practice a little voyeurism. Leave a comment if you're game.
4. Now let's proceed straight to creating your own blog. (General help with navigating the 3 steps)
5. Voila everyone has own blog, and feeling they have really achieved something. Now keen to find out heaps more about blogs. Luckily hour is over, as "teacher's" knowledge of blogs just about exhausted.

Comments were along the lines of "I knew nothing about blogs now I have a clue"; "Do you expect me to sleep after this?" and "Gee you packed alot into one hour".

Sometimes you can get away with being only a page ahead of the "students" to offer something of value...

Thanks to commenters to previous post - will follow up your leads with thanks.

*For the benefit of non-Queensland/New South Wales readers, the most anticipated and watched rugby league football match of the season - much bigger than the NRL grand finals.

Graphic Novels Made Easy

2006-05-18T20:20:00.000+10:00

Our library service has been buying graphic novels seriously for about a year. But none of the library staff are familiar with graphic novels (not even the Youth Librarian - but she's set herself the task of getting to know them so that she can commune more effectively with our youth customers). Where to begin??? And how do you keep track of all those horrid series?
To the rescue, a very special library supplier that only deals in graphic novels. Apparently a couple of graphic novel nuts calling themselves Sealight Books (including a librarian) who decide to use their passion and set up a business where they can indulge their passion ad infinitum and probably make a living from home. Their site is a good source of graphic novel news and reviews, and they even have a blog.

How it works for us is: An initial order for a foundation collection. I just gave them a basic profile of our expected audience, any censorship provisions (I understand they themselves apply some self-censorship for really unsavoury items in terms of really gross violence or sex) which in our case are minimal, then a standing order to add new materials to our collection monthly, keeping track of where we are up to with all those pesky series. They may not give as big a discount as our regular suppliers, but as far as I'm concerned, that's far outweighed by the value they add through the service they offer. And they seem to know their stuff. In a review of articles in both the Britannica and Wikipedia under "Graphic Novel", (an interesting exercise in itself) , even I , a complete graphic novel neophyte, recognize the names and covers of many of the classic titles (eg by Neil Gaiman for instance) which have been supplied by Sealight. So our collection has creds with any self-respecting graphic novel buff, and we're exposing new readers to the "classics" of the genre, and also leaving it to the Sealight people's excellent judgement to discover what's hot and supply new stuff. And of course now we have our customers making recommendations too which we pass onto Sealight as specific orders.

I'll leave it to another post to analyse the borrowing/reading trends of our graphic novels...

Book Group Blog Experiment

2006-05-18T19:36:00.000+10:00

As a possible application of blogging for libraries (as opposed to for librarians), I have started a library-based blog, primarily for members of our 3 book groups, but with the potential to morph into a general library/reader advisory book blog in the future. The blog at the moment is pretty much just a showpiece, as only the book group members have been told about it. As I guess many of the book group members are not particularly interested in blogging, or indeed, the Internet, there's not much traffic yet, however it's worth the time as a pilot just to see how much effort it takes to maintain a blog for the library. I am quite pleased with the look of it so far.

Tomorrow am giving a talk to the local U3A group (University of the Third Age) on "Blogs, Pods and Wikis" and will be giving the group the address of the bookblog as an example. Also conducting public sessions on "How to blog" for Library and Information Week next week (a couple of people have signed up so far!!). Just an intro to Blogger really as that's all I'm familiar with. Puts me in mind of my brother-in-law, a high school teacher, who arrived from the US and almost immediately was given the task of teaching Australian history. He was literally just a chapter ahead of his students. But it was enough. Let's hope I'm at least a page ahead of my students! If not, no worries, they can probably teach me (and each other) something!

Exploding Youth Services

2006-05-06T15:13:00.000+10:00

I had an interesting discussion with my colleague, C., the Youth Librarian, today. C. is a new graduate who has made the brave decision to travel several thousand miles to take up this challenging position, even more so in that I am asking her to be the guinea pig in what is probably an almost unique youth library service in Australia if not the world (if you know of something similar please leave a comment as we could really use your experience...). But maybe being fresh is advantageous when you're working in a very innovative environment...

Anyhoo, back to the interesting conversation. (Just a quick re-cap - we have started a dedicated Youth Library in a shopfront on the main street of a small coastal town completely separate from the main library... see this post and others for more details. ) We were discussing the weekly dedicated session that C. has with the 20 or so students from the "alternative" campus of the High School - youth who in the main have been excluded from mainstream schooling due to behaviour problems. A significant number of these students have literacy problems or are actively hostile to reading because it is associated with "education". After a few weeks of just letting the kids "chill" in the very desirably cool space with quiet activities such as playing the Internet, flicking through magazines, sketching or watching videos (playing the game consoles is not allowed in this session as it is felt it would dominate and not leave room for other activities, however the literacy benefits of gaming are the subject of hot debate amongst librarians and educators), the teacher has asked C. to introduce some "literacy" activities. C. is acutely aware of the delicate state of these kids - anything that smacks of teaching, nerdiness or school will immediately break the bond she has been able to build up. So we discussed a few strategies. Are there any such thing as literacy games suitable for teenagers? a two hour search on Google failed to reveal any. Could we invent our own? Could we base something more structured on the magazines, which most of the kids seem to flick through? Could we base a quiz game on the contents of one of the most popular magazines? (Which happens to be a mag called "Explode". It's a barely legal combination of gross "Believe it or not" pictures (and I mean GROSS), girls in bikinis and game reviews which I actually ordered by mistake. But it has been such a bit hit we are thinking of congratulating the publishers on their contribution to teenage literacy!) .

Then I remembered an article I had read several months ago about a similar project in the UK called YouthBoox. The major difference was that the literacy program took place in youth centres but it was pretty revolutionary in that it involved librarians in settings that "at-risk" youth actually use rather than in libraries as such. A major finding of the project was that the combination of librarians and youth workers is a uniquely powerful one - and from the (admittedly limited) 5 month experience of our youth library operations, I can categorically state - guys, we can't do it alone. We are not social workers nor should we pretend we can somehow appropriate their skills and try to run youth programs with real bite without calling on their expertise. Youth work is not for amateurs, and neither is library work. It just makes sense to combine. (This is not to say libraries can't run any programs for youth on our own - but be realistic, we are running them for youth who have a natural tendency to be our customers anyway - still valuable, but different to capturing core non-users.)

In addition, the Youthboox experience pointed to the almost exruciatingly slow progress that one has to make with youth who have disengaged from education and reading. Just having young people glance at print after weeks/months of surly disdain should be counted as a significant triumph. And basically after reflection on the Youthboox experience, C. and I realized that we have been using exactly the right approach - almost sneakily leaving print around and surruptitiously getting kids to talks about what they're reading (even if it is Explode!). C. has had a minor win - a student at risk of exclusion from school who attends study group (another session that is run after school on Tuesdays) who has just read a book. It's hard to express the significance of this in print...

So forget the book talks if you're dealing with "non-traditional library clients". It really has to be softly softly, and only when they are ready. And success has to be measured differently too. It's very challenging, but very rewarding.

A satisfying day

2006-04-11T19:01:00.000+10:00

Today I had a very satisfying day. I finished off a quite impressive "Request for Quotation" for library consultancy services/architectural services for the proposed new main branch (actual construction still 5 years + away so still a long slog. But still, nice to be making some progress). Have decided to nominate the Youth Library for the Queensland Public Library Association's "Library of the Year" - not that I think it can possibly win, but it's worth drawing attention to. Started working on my nomination. Also looking forward to presenting the Youth Library at the "Innovations Showcase" at the QPLA Conference in Cairns in June.(Also looking forward to taking a day or two extra to go snorkelling on the outer reef - did it a few years ago and loved it). In between - did a survey on blogs in libraries, being researched by IT/Librarian wiz kid Kate Watson. Also a survey on graphic novels in libraries for a thesis by Kate (?) Snowball from Edith Cowan (?)U. Extracted the March statistics for the Youth Library - up to 450+ members (should we give a prize for the 500th sign up? Must discuss with C., the Youth Librarian, tomorrow). And to top it off, was offered higher duties for a few months while taking on some extra duties (ie beyond the library) due to the recent axing of the Exec Director. Yes, not a bad day.

Towers of Terror, or, CD storage using Disc Stakka

2006-04-09T13:49:00.000+10:00

K. kindly poses in front of our Stakkas. There is a general purpose PC tucked in between the Stakkas (behind K.) that runs the software. In the youth library and the small branch, the circ PC holds the software for the Stakkas. The Stakka software is minimized and is activated either by presenting a disc into the slot (when returning) or maximizing the window (for retrieving

In answer to a comment on the previous post (thanks kit for taking the time) I have decided to pontificate on something rather mundane but which might be of interest to someone - our experiences with storing those pesky music CDs that our customers love so much.

Firstly, a bit of philosophizing. Why do we buy music CDs anyway? Since when and why did libraries become major lenders of music?? I remember the far distant days when the State Library started supplying cassettes as part of the bulk loans to our country libraries. They were a hit, especially the country and western cassettes! But oh dear, weren't they delicate. They didn't last very long in the hot and dusty (and at that time, largely non-airconditioned environments) that we sent them out to. I'm not sure what the specific rationale was back then, but I suspect that it was around the theory that if we supplied stuff that maybe non-readers liked, they might also notice our print materials, and if not, they would at least support the library - so basically, a "bait" and/or PR value was placed on these "non core" items.

When I became the manager of a small library service, cassettes were on the wane, in favour of the new disc format that was supposed to be indestructible (hah!). So I held off for a few years, and we started buying music CDs seriously about 5 years ago. At first I had the same rationale - bait or PR - but lately I have revised that to recognize the innate value of providing music via the library. Now it's more along the lines of "providing opportunities for extended cultural experiences" or something like that (I've yet to re-write the collection development policy to encompass this new philosophy so I haven't worked this through yet). Let's face it, music CDs are expensive, so library users have the benefit of a much wider exposure to music than if they had to buy all of it - our limit is 10 CDs on loan at any one time per borrower, there aren't too many people in the general population who could afford to buy 10 CDs every fortnight. Some borrowers have stated that they use the service as a "try before I decide to buy" strategy. Some borrowers couldn't afford to buy any of course, so either way we've achieved our goal of broadening the range of listening experiences of our customers. In the adult collection, there's a heavy emphasis on world music and classical music, with less emphasis on popular music which can be heard readily on the radio (remember we are trying to extend experiences not just replicate them); however, we have significantly adjusted this thinking with the youth library coming on stream; in this case, it's important for young people to have access to a good range of music that is relevant to their culture; the library is an equalizer between young people with the means to listen to a wide range of music (by purchase or via the Internet), and young people without the financial means to do this. And I guess by extension this may also apply to adults so I might have to rethink our collection policy on that score...

Anyway, once having committed to buying CDs, you need a way to circulate them. Unfortunately, a combination of their desirability, their expense, and their size, make them highly susceptible to theft. Our library does not yet have a security system for its print items (hard to believe, but truly, theft has been almost negligible to date), so locking cases were not an option, and at first we resorted to making up a plastic sleeve for every CD and keeping them behind the desk, only displaying the empty case. As you can imagine, as our collection grew to several hundred titles, finding and filing CDs became a major pain. Especially with the human error factor - CDs filed in the wrong sleeves or matched to the wrong cases. You get the picture.

So when I saw an ad for the Disc Stakka I thought my prayers had been answered. I bought 5 units for the youth library and they have been in operation there for around 4 months. They were working pretty well, so I lashed out and bought another 25 (yes that's twenty five) to store the collections at the main branch library and at one of our other branches. (I wonder if that qualifies us as "early adopters" of a new technology?)

So have they been the answer to my prayers? Well not quite...

You see, storing CDs in a library environment is not the primary purpose of these units - so I'm assuming - and as such, the software is not ideal to this purpose. Specifically, the human/machine interface is fraught with many opportunities for buggering up - press the wrong key and your CD is gobbled up by the Stakka never to be seen again - well, you can eventually retrieve it, but only after a lengthy database verification process. And with a linked stack of 15 units, it really is lengthy requiring the system to (slowly) spit out each CD while you eyeball each one and confirm it's the one it's supposed to be. And it doesn't have an automatic return function - when returning a disc, you have to scroll down the list to find its name (in our case, its barcode number), highlight it, and then tell it OK. Nothing like a simple Control F function is available - lose your concentration and click on the wrong number - see database verification process (again) as above. Also they don't interface with our circ system - they are really only a flashier version of our behind the desk slip storage system. And when we do finally get our security system they may become obsolete in favour of locking cases...

These issues aside, and assuming perfect human accuracy, it is a great place to store CDs. And very impressive looking. And quite cheap - each unit retails for around $200. Maybe as "early adopters" from the library market we can influence the manufacturers (and by the way I believe it is an all Aussie invention) to tweak the software to make it more useful and friendly. We'll certainly be trying.

Coming up for air

2006-03-29T09:06:00.000+10:00

Have been off the air (blogging wise) for a few weeks - but I guess as this is a "web log" so I can legitimately record the following:

Finally found and employed new young adult librarian for YL (Yay!!). New grad all the way from Melbourne. Brave woman. Also refreshingly gung ho for libraries - just what we need.
Farewelled a valued staff member. Time to philosophize about the dynamics of a library team - comings and goings are inevitable, and are like small seismic shifts - it all settles down into a new pattern eventually - different, but still a beautiful thing.
In the upper echelons, lost our exec. manager. BIG seismic shift. Waiting for the dust to settle...
Looking forward to welcoming back other librarian from maternity leave. 3 librarians employed at same time (an historic event) plus fantastic team of library assistants - looking good for library services in near future.
On the boil - supporting 3 book groups, meet the teachers night at YL (tonight), adult event "Armchair Traveller" (also tonight), downhill run for YL e-zine project, recruiting a group of young people to undergo training in Dreamweaver and publish the zine, installing new "Stakka" units for CDs, preparing Library's case for Service Level Review, budget review. + working on circ, answering queries, troubleshooting computers etc etc

The many and varied duties of a real public librarian...

Cutting up books! In the library! And it's OK!

2006-03-05T18:01:00.000+10:00

1. N's altered book.

2. My altered book.

Most of the time the sound of scissors cutting paper is enough to send shivers of apprehension down the spines of library staff - so holding the "altered book" workshop in the library was a kind of pleasurable naughtiness for all concerned, especially me, the librarian, the preserver and keeper of books!

"Altered books" is a growing artform that sort of extended out of artists' books. The idea is that you take a book and alter it into something else - generally using arty tools like paint, collage etc. A great way to make a further use of those taxpayer-funded weeded ex-library books. Our teacher, Wolfie, actually managed to change a Mills and Boon romance into a fruit bat (inspired by the astonishing spectacle of thousands rising almost as one from the mangroves at dusk - a local attraction). My own effort was less ambitious but amazingly relaxing -I turned a children's story into a sort of inspirational piece of poetry by blacking out most of the words and just leaving a few enigmatic phrases on the page.

I thoroughly recommend it as a great extension activity for the library. It's a kind of devotional to books, honouring them and rebirthing them into something new.

Working up close and personal with youth...

2006-02-20T19:00:00.000+10:00

Well I survived my shift at YL last Friday...very draining, with noise, general boisterousness etc. but generally it's nice to hang out (legitimately) with young people for a while.

The tensions between "is it a library/is it a youth centre" however, have risen to the fore with many young people coming to hang out but not necessarily interact actively with the space/resources. We sort of predicted this would happen. We maintain that "hanging out" is OK, but, victims of our own success, we just can't cope with the numbers. And with so many people hanging out without purposeful activity, there is the potential (and the actuality) of mischief and - and the attraction for a minority of young people who are keen to pursue basically antisocial behaviour (graffitiing, abusive language, bullying). Hmmm a dilemma. The challenge as always is to find that balance. Intense discussions between library staff and youth services staff are definitely on the agenda!

I've also been hanging out with young people in a more structured environment - as the gopher while we run Animation workshops at YL. It's nice to be able to form actual relationships (first name basis) with young people (rather than in the full-on atmosphere of YL during opening hours where you're mainly telling kids to get their feet off the wall/furniture/kid next to them!). We have run 3 x6 hour workshops for up to 8 kids (most sessions have a couple of no-shows so averaging around 7 per session) with visiting Animation artist "Pixelmorph". (Needless to say, all the horrible things I thought could go wrong didn't actually eventuate - the artist arrived on time, the trial versions of Flash worked fine for the workshops, the workshops were all full and everyone was happy etc etc).

Sometimes I feel so good about this job...

Quick posting to show still alive (but only just)

2006-02-16T06:28:00.000+10:00

Blogging has had to take a back seat with life too full already. This fortnight especially many commitments both work and other. For example: Tuesday night - first Art Book group meeting. Wednesday morning: sculpture. Wednesday night: worked. Thursday night: French conversation class. Friday: visiting artist arriving to conduct workshops in Flash animation on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday and altered books workshop on Sunday - I have to sit in on all sessions as the gopher (worry: will Flash be loaded in time to avoid total stuff up? Do we have enough bookings for workshops? How will I rustle up takers for last few places? Will they be total flops or will everyone be happy?) . Friday night: working at the Youth Space/Library (am I scared? You bet I am! wonderful news: Young Adult Librarian starting Tuesday fortnight - all the way from Melbourne!!). Luckily my presentation to Council about the "potential of libraries" which was due today has been postponed to next month. Time to polish it up a bit. Need to do staff rosters for the next two weeks . Next week: no respite in sight, management meeting to prepare for on Wednesday. Sunday and Monday night next week: (in a private capacity) Guest judge for local"Youth of the Year" program. Just another fortnight in the life of a "real public librarian". Looking at my schedule to see if there is a week free in the near future to take a holiday!!

Loud and Proud about Libraries

2006-02-04T07:51:00.000+10:00

Sometimes I have the pleasant duty of addressing a local club or organisation as their "guest speaker" which gives me free rein to shamelessly promote any aspect of library service I happen to be enthusiastic about at the time. I tend to speak to the local Probus Club once a year - Probus stands for "Professional/Business" and they're an offshoot of the Rotary Club, only for their older, less active (all male) members who are no longer involved with the fund raising aspects of Rotary but want to continue to meet socially. Since I saw them last year and talked about what our new library might look like, I had to pick a different topic - so I thought I'd regale them with the wonders of podcasting and blogs and loosely discuss how that might impact on our library services, and indeed on our society, in the future. I also introduced them to the concept of our new youth space/youth library - it's really important to get the support of influential citizens and keep a positive buzz going about new services, even if they'll never be direct users (their grandchildren might be, though). Of course, many of the attendees are already computer savvy and an interesting debate about the power of the Internet to influence politics (broadcasting vs narrowcasting) developed. It was lovely talking to these older men (some of quite advanced years - I would guess average age around 70-75). I'm pretty sure that for the majority this was the first time they'd heard of blogs, and they latched onto the idea pretty quickly - I'm sure the computer savvy ones will be trying it out. Ditto podcasting - when I mentioned that Radio Australia now podcasts a lot of its programs their ears pricked up, as I guess they would be typical of Radio Australia's intelligent listening audience.
The thanking spokesman jokingly suggested that the library run courses for old guys like him so that he could understand what the hell I was talking about, but regardless of that, he noted that I obviously "had a huge enthusiasm for your job." There's no higher compliment than that, is there?

Sometimes this job gets me down

2006-01-30T20:23:00.000+10:00

Basically I'm a very optimistic enthusiastic person. But every so often I commit a complete stuff up and feel pretty depressed as a result. In this case I engaged mouth before brain and deeply offended a customer (a case of honestly mistaken identity but even so, a serious lapse of judgement). Tomorrow I'll do the right thing and apologize. But now it's time to wallow in guilt and shame for a few hours and quite probably lose some sleep, not only on behalf of the wronged customer, but also in anticipation of the reaction of my manager. It's times like these I wish I drank, or had some valium in the house...

But keeping things in perspective...

I still have to feed the kids, be civil to the husband, and walk the dog.

I'm still healthy (I may be a bit tired tomorrow morning after the tossing and the turning).

Nobody I know or love has died.

I generally only manage to do something that makes me feel this low once or twice a year.

98% of the time I smooth over trouble, rather than add to it.

A few hours of beating myself up should be sufficient.

What price fame?

2006-01-20T07:48:00.000+10:00

I have achieved perhaps every blogger's dream - a Google search using certain obvious keywords brings me up on the first page! This is due to the unusual name of the Youth Library. However, I have broken one of the cardinal rules of safe blogging - anonymity. Not that I'm worried about fellow librarians figuring out who I am - far from it - sharing real info and experiences is pretty much the point of this blog -but - well - how should I put this - there are other potential readers who I can't mention who may not have a very enlightened attitude to blogging. And so I am going to expunge the offending keyword from all of my posts as of tonight. I'm still happy for Google to find me - but just not so easily!!

This place is f#%@ing great!, or, Swearing in the library

2006-01-19T06:28:00.000+10:00

Some colleagues may be surprised to learn that we have adopted a policy that tolerates swearing in our new youth space/youth library ( *YL see earlier posts for more info.) Yes even the f word - possibly even the c word - as long as it is not used in a threatening or harrassing way. We adopted this policy in consultation with our youth reference group who felt that a) it was a part of youth culture and b) you're not going to be able to prevent it without alienating a large proportion of the youth population by creating a "goody two shoes" atmosphere. And in general it's working well. OK we had to put a stop to one gentleman loudly proclaiming his arrival by announcing "S#&* my *%##!", and that's where having the space as an equal partnership between Youth Services and Library Services comes in handy - the youth worker is able to form a close relationship with young people with issues that are not strictly library staff business (although the resources of the library may eventually play a role in helping such young people).

Picking up on a post by Connecting Librarian, I can tell you a little about the resources in the space. We have a games room where individuals and small groups can play console games (we have all three platforms available); a computer room with 6 computers - we loaded up Runescape and Messaging on all - and we take suggestions all the time about other loads - also Cybersitter which so far has worked fantastically well (I was originally a skeptic of filtering software but I've been converted). This is of course in constant use. We also have a big plasma screen TV with a subscription to pay TV channel Austar - South Park, Family Guy and the music channels are the most popular viewing. The only restriction we have is on playing or viewing MA15+ programs in the space - although DVDs and console games with this rating are available for loan to over 14s - because we cater for 13+ and legally we are not allowed to expose under 15s to MA+ material. And for kids waiting for a turn on the computers or the consoles, we have portable Nintendo DS games which they can hire out (for use in the space only). Oh, or they can also browse magazines, or read from our great collection of graphic novels - and you'll be pleased to hear, they do!! Down the track we will offer more structured activities eg games nights, events, workshops, homework help, career advice....In fact, for Australia Day we are having a Singstar Dance Party and karaoke but more on that later...
Needless to say young people think this place is great and sometimes they express this colourfully. But one thing that I've come to realize is that what we offer, being media based, is all fairly cerebral - and there are young people who aren't necessarily interested in or capable of extended cerebral activities - and these are potentially our "problem" customers. One of the most consistent requests we have had is for the installation of a pool table. Unfortunately space is so limited that this is pretty much impossible at this time. This is where the debate between "is/should it be a library/ is/should it be a youth space" gets interesting.

And the other challenge is encouraging the cross over from youth space/library to main library, especially if your youth library services are provided in a physical location remote from the main library, so the connection isn't obvious. I need time to ruminate about that one so I'll leave it for another post.

Speaking of policies, we realized that we neglected to specify a dress policy, after one customer came in shirtless (he actually came in shirtless specifically that day so that he could wear the *YL T-Shirt we were giving away). I have suggested that our dress policy be "You must be dressed - nudity will not be tolerated." Do we really care if they're wearing shoes?

Thighs of steel, or, This job is crippling me...

2006-01-05T11:49:00.000+10:00

Ever made a new year's resolution to take more exercise? Well, if you work in a public library on the first working day of the year (after a Christmas closedown), acting on your resolution is pretty much a given. And the exercise of choice - squats. Millions of them. First squatting to collect the avalanche of books off the floor under the returns chute. Then shelving the buggers, plus the several thousand returns brought in person to the library that day, including the innumerable squats needed to shelve stuff on the bottom shelf. I am hoping that after the pain (bending my legs today for anything - sitting, walking - is torture) will be the gain - svelte, firm thighs. If it doesn't kill me first.

I know, my degree didn't prepare me for this - but this is real life in a real public library. On the plus side, no need for expensive gym fees - the exercise is free.

Any excuse to dress up

2005-12-17T17:55:00.000+10:00

Queen Victoria and her ladies in waiting?? Close. Today we launched our new pictorial history of the shire (local government area) and I thought it would be a good idea to subject my fellow staff to yet another episode of fun (humiliation?), by suggesting that we all dress up f0r the occasion. We certainly puzzled the customers! One three year old asked his mother "Why is that lady wearing that funny dress?" and the mum replied, "She's playing dress-ups". Come to think of it, I have been playing dress-ups more or less continuously for most of my career as a public librarian - I've done cats, witches, Rapunzel, pyjama girl, mad professor, Wally (of Where's Wally fame), wizardess (for a Harry Potter theme night) and a Christmas tree. I've actually done Queen Victoria twice - the last time I wore this exact costume was for the 100 year centenary of our main library service in 1997. Who said Librarians were introverts?

Youth Library opens at last!

2005-12-16T08:14:00.000+10:00

Here I am looking very tired (very tired) on the day of the grand opening of *YL, our new combined Youth Library/Youth Lounge. (Because this blog is unofficial I can only bring you private pictures - ie ones without other staff members and members of the public - when the more exciting public ones are uploaded I'll make a link. If you'd like to know more please feel free to email me). We opened the doors at 3 pm yesterday and a joyous "crowd" of around 50 young people surged into the new space. While we were initially worried about controlling numbers (this is after all only a "boutique" size area), the numbers were pretty much self regulating with people coming and going and about 50 people in the space at any one time creating a comfortable buzz. Numbers swelled with "oldies" for about half an hour at 5.30 while the Mayor and local invited dignitaries did the official opening, followed by free pizza and softdrinks. Everyone is very impressed with the funky decor, great furnishings, fantastic colour scheme. Free giveaways (hats, t-shirts, pens, bags) to get the "brand" out there worked like a charm. If I were allowed to show you pictures, a snapshot of the space would include: happy friendly teenagers and younger 20s sharing the Playstation and Xbox games with minimal intervention; congenial and self regulating usage of the Internet room; at one point a group of about 8 young people in the big comfy black and orange chairs absolutely absorbed in reading (graphic novels and magazines); girls in party costume looking great, chatting, flicking thru mags and glancing at the big Plasma screen showing continuous music channel (did I mention we have continuous surround sound!). Meanwhile the 2 library staff were furiously signing people up (I just hovered in the background to answer technical questions- I also chatted to a few kids and parents that I knew). By the time I left at 7 pm we had signed up 80 something new borrowers - I'm hoping to hear this morning that we cracked 100 by 9 pm closing time. Not bad for a small community - as a comparison in normal main branch trading we sign up about 100 people a month. Also a brisk trade in DVDs, music CDs and console games going out on loan. It will be interesting to extract the statistics. And we do it all again tonight and Saturday...

Hopefully I will get around to blogging further about reader advisory, I'm also planning a considered blog on book groups, and a much belated blog about my trip around New Zealand last year viewing cutting edge libraries there with John Stanley and Fiona Emberton...but at the moment I'm just so freakin' tired...

Rewarding Reading - Reader Advisory Training

2005-12-09T06:33:00.000+10:00

Just taking a few minutes to blog about the Reader Advisory training that our library team is doing at the moment. This much waited for event - the luxury of 3 days of dedicated, get away from it all training in this important area of library service - is being conducted for (nearly) our whole library team of 9 (4 of our number have had to maintain a skeleton crew to keep the libraries open, including calling in our semi-retired stand-by, and a staff member especially released from another department because she used to work in the library!) by "Libraries Alive!" a two person library consultancy. For a course overview see their website.

I might blog about this in more depth later, but at the 2 day point od the course these are the off the cuff insights I've gained so far:

1. We know that libraries are all about information. We're pretty skilled up around answering reference queries. But public library users and borrowers, by a far and away huge majority, use their library for something other than information - reading for "pleasure". While I was dimly aware of Reader Advisory as a defined service, now I know it too has a philosophy, practice and structure. And knowing about these things in more depth can help us perform it better.

2. And it's OK to be loud and proud about it! "Reading for pleasure" is not second best to reading for information. It's another highly valuable service that has repercussions for our cultural, social, mental and personal wellbeing. It is just as important to fund the library because of this function, as it is for supplying information. There are heaps of people out there (I invariably meet them at social functions when I mention I'm a librarian) who say "I don't read" and sneer (sometimes literally) at the thought of reading for pleasure. We have to advocate for the equally large number of people who DO value reading.

3. It's a whole of team thing. In a small public library like ours everyone does reader advisory. You don't have to have read everything in the universe to be a great reader's advisor. By pooling and sharing our knowledge we can build on each other's strengths. For the gaps (hey, let's face it we have a bit of a gender imbalance as currently we don't have any male staff!) we can call on the prodigious sources of RA info and tools on the net and developed by other libraries (that's today's session!). And harness perhaps our best resource - our own customers.

4. Being non-judgmental. As an example - you all know them - the fanatical romance readers. The ones who consume Mills and Boons and complain bitterly when you run out of new titles (they only publish 24 a month, give us a break!!), the ones who suggest for purchase whole series of "bodice rippers" with titles like "The Laird returns" , "The Prince's slave" etc etc. I asked one of these ladies the other day (nicely I hope) "But aren't they all the same?" and she replied most passionately that no, they were all unique and fantastic, different authors had different styles, she recommended different ones to her friends and they talked about them amongst themselves etc etc. Well that's her reality, who am I to argue. And she must be right, because every one of the books I have bought on her recommendation have been wildly popular. So rather than being snobby about it (which I admit was my first impulse) now I'm thinking that I could ask this lady to prepare a recommendation list! Or maybe even start a romance discussion group! (I think this has been done in Singapore...)

Anyway that's a start, I have to get ready for work now or else I'll miss the start of the next session...

Gratuitous dawn shot

2005-11-23T11:28:00.000+10:00

Just another picture from Paradise that you could see every morning if you worked here...

Long time no blog - blame it on the dog!

2005-11-23T10:46:00.000+10:00

One of the reasons that I have not been blogging is seen above - my personal trainer Monty who must be taken for a walk on the beach daily! Lots of things have been happening in my little neck of the woods, and I have been too busy to do justice to it thru this blog! However, blogging is an easy habit to acquire, and also to lose - if you don't use it you lose it - so against my impulse to produce the "perfect" posting I am going for the theory that any posting is better than none.

To summarize: After much fiddle faddling we have finally advertised our Youth Librarian position . Essentially this is equivalent to a full-time professional job, time and salary wise. The reason it is temporary is because it is a new position, to be reviewed for the 05/06 budget. Obviously we would like it to continue but there are of course no guarantees. So think about it, particularly new grads. Six months in paradise in one of the friendliest towns IN THE WORLD couldn't be so bad!! Fresh air, clean water, great fresh food from the farmers' markets, reasonably cheap cost of living, beaches, national parks, big regional town 1/2 hour away, easy access by air (also usually cheap) to Brisbane...great bunch of staff to work with...fantastic experience in an innovative environment...If you're interested follow up the ALIA listing, contact Council direct, or email me here. Closes 28 November.

Changing habits - one habit at a time

2005-10-27T14:46:00.000+10:00

Author visits are something that we do as part of our credo of bringing people and information together. For a small public library we have been pretty brave in inviting well-known personalities such as Jackie French and Sandra Cabot to visit our very small neck of the woods. Generally these authors will waive their normal speaking fee, or curtail it significantly, and we only have to foot the bill for their travel and accommodation.

Normally it goes something like this - we may be contemplating a particular theme - one of the staff members suggests a few names - we search for their contacts on the web - we email the author explaining who we are and what we want to achieve - we are surprised and delighted at an early and positive response - we negotiate a date - we do our lead in promos (flyers, press releases, community notices, advertising - some days I feel my job is exclusively about marketing), pick the celebrity up at the airport, trundle them around to our various activities (typically wine and cheese nights and/or straight out lecture style talks); put them up overnight and if possible show them around a bit; take celebrity back to airport; breathe sigh of relief that all has gone well.

We have just had another author visit us and she, too, was a delight to have. She is perhaps a bit lesser known than our previous guests - Cyndi O'Meara is a nutritionist who has written a book called "Changing habits changing lives" which has been a reasonable solid seller for Penguin. One of the staff members saw her being interviewed on TV, and ... well, the tried and true strategy kicked into action. During her 24 hour visit she called in at our local retirement village, giving a talk to a small but enthusiastic "crowd" of 6 ladies; a public lecture at the library drawing a very respectable turnout of 32 people; and as she had to stay overnight and catch a mid morning flight, we organised a healthy walk at 6 am followed by an over breakfast talk al fresco with the idyllic setting of the marina as backdrop from 7 - 8 am. For this we charged $20 a head ($15 of which went to the restaurant who supplied a healthy brekky based on Cyndi's recipes). Now I don't want to brag, but with all this talk about "virtual" services , how many other libraries out there are really going beyond their physical walls to deliver services to their customers? There are now 25 people who can now talk about the wonderful experience their library provided to them whilst possibly motivating them towards a life changing healthier lifestyle!! And even the pre- and post-publicity works to draw attention to both the message and the library for a wider audience than the actual attendees.

So what goals did we achieve with all this effort?

Promoted the library as a source of information about health and lifestyle
Brought seekers of knowledge about health and lifestyle into direct contact with an accredited information source
Promoted a healthier community
Brought people with similar interests within the community into contact with each other
Made people happy, laugh, and have fun, and some even got some exercise!

In addition, even some of the library staff changed their habits for the better! In fact a funny thing happened at the supermarket on the evening after Cyndi's visit - another member of staff, C, and I bumped into each other when we were both starting our shopping. We met each other again about 5 aisles on, and each of us surreptitiously checked out each others' purchases so far - I saw that C, like myself, only had about 5 lonely items rattling around in the bottom of the trolley, when usually by aisle 5 the trolley would have been full! We had both been carefully analysing product labels based on Cyndi's healthy message and rejected nearly everything! We didn't need to say anything, we just burst out laughing uncontrollably right there in the middle of the supermarket! And as a postscript, C and I both greeted each other early the next morning at the farmers' market where we were stocking up on all the fresh produce we could lay our hands on, along with many of the public who had attended Cyndi's events...

Borrow a person

2005-09-24T08:42:00.000+10:00

Great idea blogged on One New Thing - from Malmoe in Sweden via ABC News Online - the idea of "lending" out a person for a conversation. Sticking this one to the staff room notice board right away!

To view or not to view - the legalities of DVDs and games in libraries

2005-09-22T19:41:00.000+10:00

I have been putting off blogging for a little while because I haven't had a finished topic to blog about - you know, a well constructed and satisfying blog article about something significant with a clever conclusion. But as nearly everything I'm involved in at the moment is in a state of half-finishedness (which is pretty normal in a small public library situation), if I'm to keep up the momentum of this blog I'll just have to ramble.

Unresolved legal issues around the showing and lending of DVDs and console games are an example of the half-finished stuff hanging around at the moment. This is particularly in the context of the Youth Library where these resources will have a big emphasis. After combing the copyright law and interpretations re showing DVDs in the library, I emailed Roadshow who handle the distribution of about 80% of DVDs in Australia, and while their response was not exactly what we wanted to hear, at least it was definitive. Libraries (no matter how teeny as is the case with the Youth Library) are considered to be public places, and therefore even if you own the DVD and even if you are not charging for entry, you MUST seek prior approval via Roadshow before screening a DVD; and then if you do receive approval, you must remit to Roadshow the sum of $55 (including GST) for each screening. Looks like movie night might only be once a month!

This lead us to read the fine print re playing console games like Playstation and XBox in the library - this is an area not so well covered/understood in the library world so I emailed Sony direct to see what their response might be - a somewhat dangerous strategy as it now means I have drawn attention to our operations. Coincidentally our library supplier has sought legal advice re lending, and after chatting with him today, he will extend that to the legalities of playing games in the library. But so far no answer from Sony. I did try to impress on them in my email that we actually promote their product; and would they take into account the communtity benefit resulting in young people accessing their product in the wholesome environment of a public library? (implication: playing Sony games keeps kids off the street - surely a marketing gift showing what good corporate citizens they are?). Somehow I'm expecting a negative, legalistic response. So things are looking a bit grim for our brand spanking new huge $9,000 plasma screen which has pride of place in the Youth Library....

One little ray of hope to the potentially blank plasma screen dilemma has been the great response from our local pay TV provider Austar. Their deal is remarkably affordable - $200 installation and around $80 a month subscription to a good selection of youth oriented channels including 2 music channels (well 3 if you count the country music channel, which I don't), The Comedy Channel, and Nikelodeon. And no worries about screening in a public place. Voila, moving wallpaper for the Youth Library, ensuring a constant background of colour and noise.

Speaking of half-finished stuff, the Youth Library is due to open in early November and we still haven't advertised for staff yet...

Oh well, you can only deal with one thing at a time - pity you can worry about everything at once though!

Bucket O' Poetry

2005-09-10T17:54:00.000+10:00

Bucketful of Poems Take a poem to celebrate National Poetry Week 2005!

It's National Poetry Week and we have a simple but effective promotion happening. Patrons are encouraged to select a poem from our "bucket of poems" in celebration of Poetry Week. We started today and have had a great reception! The idea sprang from the creative mind of one of our staff members who has more than a passing interest in poetry - she's an up and coming published poet herself! Thanks K for that fab idea.

Here's library borrower L and staff member P getting into the spirit. (Both gave me permission to put them on my blog).

The poetry bucket is a combination lucky dip/horoscope - the poem you pick at random may well be the universe giving you a special message. There were separate buckets for adults and kids. Unfortunately we started out by mixing them up (didn't read the instructions left by K adequately) but the adults didn't seem to mind.
Encouraging adults to participate without feeling silly takes a certain confident and positive attitude - like, "please take a poem to celebrate National Poetry Week!". Only one gentleman refused - said he'd had enough of poetry at school. Even so I asked him what poetry he had learned at school - and he reeled off all the classic names - Ancient Mariner, Keats, Wordsworth - without hesitation. Most were absolutely tickled pink with their poem. Great that we could make a perhaps mundane library visit a little bit special.
Those wanting to try the idea in their library be warned - many patrons were moved to read their poems right there and then (aloud! with feeling!) which caused lots of merriment for borrowers and staff at the circulation desk on the busy Saturday shift!

So...tired...must...blog...

2005-09-08T20:30:00.000+10:00

Every so often I have one of those 50 hours+ weeks and man am I knackered. But I am compelled to keep up my blog. It's become a matter of pride not to be a slacker.

Work proceeds nicely on the Youth Library, whose name can now be revealed - wait for it - "Verbyl". Yes I know it rhymes with "furball" or ''gerbil". However our panel of young people chose this out of 118 submissions . Close contenders were "Youth Lounge" and "Youth Booth" but Verbyl was just more "out there". Number one, anything mispelled is just cool. (This is the young people talking, not me). Number two, being verbal means being free to speak and be heard - also a nice counterpoint to the stereotype of libraries where silence is golden. And number three, verb "is a doing word" implying action and participation. The YL on the end is also a subliminal acronym for Youth Library. Trust me! We have hired a professional graphic artist to produce a logo for the space based on the name and the young people had a chance to meet with her today and discuss her rough drafts. We're thinking black or silver library membership cards with the lime green/orange logo.

Our E-Zine launch was more like a limp but not to worry hopefully things will look up. This is a very difficult demographic and rather than whipping ourselves for things that don't work we should be congratulating ourselves for giving it a go. Live and learn from our mistakes.

Australian Library and Info Association shows enlightened attitude to Blogging

2005-08-27T14:17:00.000+10:00

As an ALIA member, I have joined the ALIA's Professional Development scheme which encourages members to commit to a self-devised program of professional development. For various activities (eg formal study, attending conferences, professional reading etc) you accumulate points; if you accumulate the required number of points over a three year period you have in theory shown that you are developing professionally and can use Certified Practitioner (CP) after your post-nominals.

When I was off work the other day with a sick child, I sat down for the long overdue task of recording my "points" for the CPD scheme; and I idly got to wondering whether blogging would count. I sent an email to the CPD coordinator, and was very pleased with her reply:

"Yes, 'blogs' certainly do qualify as a PD activity ... a couple actually. Professional Reading 1 point per hour, 10 points maximum per year when you read the 'blog'. Personal Study Project 2 points per hour, 20 points maximum per year if you are responsible for the co-ordination and content of the 'blog' ; or possibily Publications category 1 point per hour, 10 points max per year if you prepare say a non-referred article to be published in electronic form."

So there you go! Officially sanctioned! Blogging as a recognized professional development activity!

Gamers and Boomers

2005-08-19T11:06:00.000+10:00

Have just read "Staying in the game: How to create environments for Boomers and Gamers in your library" which was brought to my attention by Anna from State Library (thanks Anna for your work over the years in sending these great info pointers to public librarians in Queensland). An American sociologist called John Beck is probably amongst the first to state the bleeding obvious - to quote, "he is convinced that video games are not an insignificant pastime played by spike-haired nerds but a generation-shaping activity that, over time, will reshape behavior patterns, beliefs, arts, business, institutions—the entire culture. His book, Got Game, which he co-authored with colleague Mitchell Wade, explains the impact the Gamer generation will have on society."

Man, can I relate to this. Not only am I a boomer myself, but having had kids relatively late in life, I also co-habit with a real live product of the gamer generation in the form of my teenage son. Just as my generation were "babysat" by the TV, my son first learned to manipulate a mouse at the age of two and the computer became his constant companion. One day when he was 5 we decided to conduct a little experiment - let him play on the computer as long as he wanted. He went for 8 hours without a break. By age 7, he was learning to read by my narrating "Final Fantasy" to him as he played it on the Playstation. School held little interest for him (still barely does) as it rarely intersects with his gaming world. He now regularly spends around 30 hours per week playing, making, or talking about games with flesh-and-blood friends and with "virtual" friends on on-line forums. He thinks nothing of communicating globally with other gamers, and considers many of them to be actual "friends" even though he doesn't even know their real names. He webcams with another teenager in Hong Kong, and he has been "friends" with a 16 year old in the US for two years. He also reads - if we don't have a book in the house for him to read he roams the house like a hungry animal - so the argument about kids being spoiled for reading by gaming is not proven in his case. His teachers, many being boomers themselves, find it hard to understand his obsession and are largely dismissive of it as a waste of time or distracting from his studies. His ambition is to become a game developer. But maybe the job market in this field will be a bit crowded by the time he comes along - what other job could his profound knowledge of gaming prepare him for? The article does offer up some hope for a worried parent, but only time will tell.

As for pulic libraries, again the answers offered are becoming common sense - eg create zones, cater to the differing cultures etc. Not rocket science. And because it is relatively easy and we are doing it, there is a great chance that libraries will continue to be relevant to all the generations.

Youth E-zine and other stuff on the "to do" list

2005-08-16T17:52:00.000+10:00

Thanks to the generosity of the State Library of Queensland through its innovative new funding project "Queensland Stories" we are preparing to offer local youth aged 13-25 a chance to publish their words, poetry, digital art and photography in a Youth Library E-Zine. On offer too are free workshops for small groups (10-15) to learn skills in these areas, plus website design and editorial skills. Scary at first when faced with the enormity of the task - but then presenters are booked, press releases and flyers come together and excitement builds.

Other great projects coming up in the next twelve months include a reprise of the "Armchair Traveller" series; a workshop on "Altered Book Art" (after all, we have plenty of raw materials in the form of our weeded stock!); and an art appreciation course for adults. Our pilot book group will be expanding to two offerings - "The Classics" (doesn't everyone resolve to read/reread the classics one day when they retire?), and "Contemporary Australian." AND for those who can't physically come to the library, a "virtual" book group based on a dedicated blog (now that I know how easy that is to do!). And an idea we "stole" from another library, with a great acronym - "GOAL" - Grade Ones At the Library - the goal for us is to increase circulation at our second branch library by establishing a relationship with all the grade ones from the local school. Every class will be invited to visit the library, and library staff will visit the school from time to time too. Hopefully we will reach the families/siblings this way as well.

As if we weren't already bursting with ideas aplenty, we are all looking forward to some staff training being offered by Libraries Alive! - a three day course on reader advisory - sure to load us up with some more fantastic ideas.

A bit of a scary task on my list is developing the detailed brief for the new main branch library. We will be tendering for the most innovative/exciting consultants to help us develop a unique paradigm for our library service.

Our Youth Library is still being decorated - incredibly funky, I must post pictures when it's done - but a shortage of trades people is severely holding us up (our community is still in the grip of the "sea change" building boom). Most of the furniture (including comfy funky chairs in black and orange) and library fittings (not a single metal shelf - all specially commisioned "slatwall" gondolas in black and silver reflective with perspex face-out only shelving) and the various game consoles/huge plasma TV are in storage until the interior is finished. WE HAVE A NAME - 118 young people submitted suggestions for our "space" and a team of young people decided on the final one - it is BRILLIANT and you would not be able to guess it in a million years - but not officially sanctioned yet so must keep hush hush (also until we buy the domain name so nobody else steals it!)

All in all, a year to look forward to...

Blog ...now with pictures!

2005-08-04T19:29:00.000+10:00

Library staff ham it up on a Vespa during the Italian Night of the Armchair Travel Program.

Life/Library Balance

2005-08-03T13:32:00.000+10:00

Being a "real" public librarian, I also have a life away from the library. Or I try to - there is a temptation to put in many extra hours (well, I give my employer a few freebies but only because I choose to do things that I enjoy that are not strictly speaking part of my job description eg opening the boxes of new books after hours to see what's come in!) and/or continue to read/blog library stuff at home (guilty there too). However, ever conscious of the importance of the work/life balance to personal productivity, I have taken up sculpture as a non-work related hobby. By working the late shift on Wednesdays, I can attend classes on Wednesday mornings.

Generally for the first hour of the class I suffer from non-specific anxiety because I should be at the library and what if they need me and what if the manager calls with something urgent and what if something terrible happens and what if...But around about the hour mark the "flow" kicks in and I spend the next 2 hours working on my sculpture with a quiet mind and usually finish up feeling remarkably refreshed.

The classes are given in a studio atmosphere in a peaceful rural setting. There are the occasional outbursts of despair and cursing when something goes wrong or falls off, but the teacher (herself a skilled artisan) just reassures us that everything is resolvable or repairable. It's also nice to observe and reflect on the "studio" model of skill sharing - no one is pressured, everyone learns at their own pace on projects that interest them, and we all observe each others' work and share each others' frustrations, techniques, and triumphs.

At the risk of sounding sugary sweet, what a wonderful model for a workplace (such as a library, for instance). Just not sure about library customers in the equation, how could we imbue them with calm too...

MAGic access for borrowers with print disabilities

2005-07-28T17:23:00.000+10:00

We installed some pretty nifty software last week, to enhance access for borrowers with print disabilities (I hope that's still the politically correct term). Not a big deal for a big library, I'm sure, but hey, for us small fry it's pretty revolutionary.

The first bit of wonder software is called JAWS which I believe stands for "Job Access With Speech" but that is never used now, the product is only known by its acronym (a bit like KFC I guess). JAWS is designed for totally blind individuals. When switched on, JAWS will read everything on the screen including web pages. Blind people who are trained in the many shortcut keystrokes can navigate around a web page just as quickly and efficiently as a sighted person. After practice, they usually prefer to speed up the speech to levels that sighted people can't comprehend. Linked to a scanner, JAWS can read text from library books. It can also assist blind people to write (say, to send emails) by "speaking" either letters, words or sentences as preferred as the writer types their message. And of course, it also lets blind people check the library catalog - books are no longer "off limits".

The second bit of software is called MAGic and basically it magnifies the screen for partially sighted individuals. It has a nifty feature called "smoothing" that smooths out the big pixelation you would usually expect when magnifying the screen. Coupled with the stick-on large print labels for the keyboard (that are available from the Blind Society for about $30 a sheet) this extends access to Internet for many seniors with sight impairments - who seem to especially love to keep in touch with family and friends by email.

The third bit of software is called WYNN and is strictly speaking literacy software which enhances reading and writing for people with reading difficulties and learning English as a second language. It also reads the page aloud at varying speeds; can set a page of text to different fonts or background colours (sometimes helpful for people with dyslexia); and has literacy tools such as in-built simple and harder dictionaries and writing aids.

Our first customer learned to use JAWS at TAFE. He is very active in the community and lobbies and advocates for several causes so he was pretty keen. He has booked in for several sessions to reacquaint himself with the program.

Our second potential customer was a lady with failing sight who wanted to see if the MAGic program could help her. She tried it and it did! She was thrilled, and rushed off to buy her own copy for home (we should get a commission!)

The whole suite of software, supplied by US firm Freedom Scientific and sold under licence in Australia by Quantum Technology, cost around $5,000.

Our next challenge is promoting it. We had the launch during Disability Action Week and got good media coverage. We have links to the Low Vision Group. I wonder what else we could do...

Armchair Travel

2005-07-19T17:19:00.000+10:00

This is not a new idea for a library activity, but we're pretty proud about how our series of "Armchair Travel" sessions went in our small community.

The idea is simple - ask some community members who have travelled somewhere interesting or who have connections with another country to share thier experiences. Sorta like an old fashioned slide night. Finding them is easy - so many of our borrowers are just busting to tell library staff about their trip. So much great stuff to share, but in our modern impersonal society they can't exactly invite 50 strangers over to their house to look at their holiday snaps - so the library "facilitates" the sharing in a safe and neutral environment.

Some of our presenters went to extraordinary lengths to prepare their Powerpoint presentations with heaps of photos, info and travel tips - if they didn't have those technical skills library staff scanned and captioned their photos. Add food especially prepared for each event (library staff again excelled themselves in the out of hours effort they contributed in cooking and preparing) and in some cases music and dancing and we had a magic library event.

We value added by issuing "passports" which were stamped with a special rubber stamp prepared for each country, which was then given to the presenter as a gift. We also had an Armchair Traveller newsletter that expanded on topics covered in the formal presentations, and that went out to participants each month for the 6 months of the program (it's great when you have a journalist on staff).

The program had 360 attendances in total over 6 evenings, of which 36 were "regular" travellers. In response to our evaluation questionnaire, 100% of respondents "enjoyed" the program, 90% of respondents made additional community connections (ie they met other people!); 100% gained knowledge; and 97% rated the program as value for (Council) money. (Although the event was free to participants, in staff time and materials each event cost around $400 to stage. I let the participants know this so that they could make some judgment about cost/benefit of library $).

We visited Vanuatu (complete with dancers, singers and traditional food), Italy (with a couple, one of whom is an Italian chef who demonstrated how to cook real pizza)- they had heaps of excellent travel tips; China with a young couple who just spent 6 months teaching English there; India with a lady who spent 20 years in ashrams and is a practicing Hindu nun; South Africa with a family of expats who had just recently made a return visit; and Galapagos with fantastic wildlife shots from recent travellers. Every presenter spoke with passion about their experiences and unique perspectives.

Here are some of the comments from attendees (only the good ones of course!):

- "Great to meet people from different countries, wonderful way to enhance views/understanding of other peoples/ways of life. Also wonderful that free activity..."

- "I look forward to the continuation of this event and will use the information when planning my overseas itinerary, much better than the recommendations given by even the best travel agent..."

- "Best PR out to involve community in library activities"

- "What a wonderful way to showcase the knowledge, experience and brilliance of members of our community."

And of course the ones we really like:

- "The library staff did a great job."

In a way we are also doing our bit for international understanding. Branding it as a "travel" experience rather than a "multiculturalism" experience perhaps drew in conservative people who would shy away from events that they perceive as preaching a certain point of view.

All in all a great result. Will we do it again? Yes, but after a breather which is needed for the staff and also to keep the program fresh. People tend to take an ongoing program for granted, but if they know there is a finite number in the series, say 6 evenings over 6 months, they may think that they'd better make the effort to come or they miss out. I wonder where we'll being going next time...

"Knowledge sharing" at the source - trainees teach the trainers

2005-06-23T07:16:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I witnessed something truly wonderful in the library.

First a bit of background information. We have been "using" trainee library assistants for five years to bolster our (tiny) staff numbers. They come to us for one year, work and learn on the job, and leave us with a basic certificate qualification. It is really awful when it is time to turn over the trainees - in most cases, they have become valued members of the team and it seems pretty heartless to unceremoniously replace them each year (they often induct their own replacements!). However, the good news is that we have been able to retain most of our trainees as support staff. However I digress.

Three of our permanent library assistants are also pursuing higher certificate courses. Two of these are near the end of the course and are completing a module on "multi media". One of their tasks is to produce a simple Powerpoint presentation about some aspect of the library service. Neither of these seasoned staffers have ever used Powerpoint. And this is what I saw that so affected me:

As I was wandering through the cataloguing room I saw one of the trainees and one of the library assistants hunched over a computer. The trainee, a mature aged lady who knows how Powerpoint works because she previously worked in a school environment (my 8 year old has just completed a Powerpoint project but I digress again), was guiding the permanent staff member through the steps. They were so intense in this task that they barely noticed me going by.

I continued on into my office which I had given over to the other library assistant so that she could use my computer (did I mention our library is really small?) and there the scene was repeated with another trainee, this time a 16 year old fresh out of high school, teaching our longest serving staff member how to do Powerpoint. And I thought (later) that this was an excellent example of spontaneous, non-hierarchical "knowledge sharing" which could be an analogy for how libraries do/could/should facilitate the sharing of knowledge in their communities.

A colleague from another section once asked whether we trained our trainees or exploited them. I replied without hesitation "both". But I hope we exploit them in the nicest way.

Youth Space/Youth Library - can it work?

2005-06-17T08:34:00.000+10:00

In our quiet coastal town, a potentially revolutionary experiment is about to take place - the creation of a combined Youth Centre/Youth Library. Not a youth centre with a library corner or a bulk collection, but a TRULY integrated service with the Library Service and Youth Service as full and equal partners. Not attached to the main library which is several streets away. But in a highly visible shopfront location in "Main Street". With hours that suit young people (as surveyed, after school/evenings/weekends). And staffed by youth workers AND library staff who will either have or acquire cross disciplinary skills. And I'm as excited/frightened as hell. Can it work? Can it attain both the wanted outcomes of the youth workers and the library service? What are the similarities/where do the tensions lie? These are all being worked out and will continue to be learned and modified as the experiment progresses.

The youth/human service workers are challenging our (ie librarians) assertions that libraries are truly inclusive. And certainly challenging our skills in managing challenging behaviours. Their perspectives are confronting at first and evoke defensive reactions (Of course we're inclusive! Everyone is welcome! And it's a library, people know how to behave in a library, if they don't they're asked to leave! If they cause trouble we call the police!) But as they quite correctly point out, a proportion of the population don't relate to libraries at all. (What a timely post - thanks Ivan http://ramblinglibrarian.blogspot.com/ for blogging this: http://librarydust.typepad.com/library_dust/2005/06/moving_librarie.html

To cater for this we have decided very consciously not to call the space a library. Maybe by using this strategy we will reach those young people who will be using a library service without being conscious of it. And once it's not called a library, a lot of the built-in expectations that are carried in that word go out the window. Even more daunting, when you designate a space that is especially for 12 -25 year olds, you have to have a whole raft of "risk management" strategies in place that are significantly different or at least more intense than those needed in the institution we know of as "the library".

The youth workers are exceptionally concerned that young people already on the edge of the mainstream and suffering from disengagement from society are not tempted into the space with all its goodies (music cds, DVDs, computers and console games, premium bookstock and magazines), only to be told they are not "acceptable" in terms of their ID for a membership card, family status, or testing behaviour. It would be very easy to turn them away and boost our statistics with "mainstream" kids who we know will come anyway. The inherent tensions will either be resolved with mutual benefit or will split the services apart to go their own ways once more. I think public librarians everywhere may be interested in the outcome.

Eventually young people grow up. Part of the long term success will be whether the "non-traditional library users" make the transition to our main library services. Or maybe our main library services will never be a good fit for everyone. If the experiment is wildly successful, the logical next step would be to cover other age groups. Should we lose the moniker of "library" and integrate with community centres? Would our identity as librarians be too threatened by this?

How about the youth/human service workers? Will they be challenged and confronted too? I think they will. I think they are having to change their perceptions that libraries/librarians are rule-bound disciplinarians only catering to the middle class. And that books and even electronic media are all we're interested in. I try to explain that libraries are interested and actively promote person to person communication - or peer to peer information sharing if you like. It means shifting the definition of library that legitimates young people just "hanging out" without necessarily interacting with any library resources. And extension activities like workshops, art displays, etc etc. which of course we already engage young people with. And maybe, just maybe, switching young people onto libraries as essential parts of their lifestyle/survival mechanisms.

Will keep you posted.

Interesting speeches continued...

2005-06-03T15:24:00.000+10:00

The next speaker for the evening was Sue Hutley who is Manager of the University of Queensland Ipswich Campus Library. She spoke about the general characteristics of the different generations who use libraries and who work in libraries. "Baby Boomers" for instance are said to value variety, freedom, cooperation, achievement, etc. (who doesn't?); Gen x and yers are supposed to value lifestyle, fun, self discovery, unstructured, interactive, creative work places (again, who doesn't?). Maybe because I'm on the younger side of Baby Booming I take issue with these stereotypes. Isn't it just possible that as you get older, rather than remaining frozen solid in the culture you happened to inherit due to your age, you actually filter and absorb a whole lot of other cultures including the culture of your parents and of the younger generations? I enjoy Triple J music just as much as I still like the stuff I listened to in the 70s 80s and 90s (well, some stuff I liked in the 70s I really hate now) as well as the music that my 13 year old is switching me on to. And he is being introduced to the classic heavy metal that my husband enjoyed (and continues to enjoy) and he loves that as well. And I'm sure some of my 60,70+ library users value creativity, freedom, and unstructuredness just as much as the Gen xers are supposed to. So maybe there are indeed people who prefer different styles of leisure, learning and work but I think there is a certain amount of homogenisation going on, rather than banding strictly according to age. To market according strictly to age stereotypes is maybe a mistake for libraries (or indeed any other sort of business or service). That's not to say all libraries should be one flavour, one size fits all (which we know doesn't work), but just not to get hung up on the age thing. It's more about communities of interest that could involve lots of different agegroups. And as agencies for building social capital maybe it's public libraries who could consider ways of bringing the generations together, rather than separating them.

Finally we had a speech from Central Queensland University lecturer Greg Whymark who posed the question "Is Knowledge Management an Oxymoron?", which is a topic much debated. He posited that librarians are a subset of "knowledge workers" - people who: find existing knowledge, and/or create new knowledge, and/or package existing knowledge, and/or apply knowledge to a process or problem. His speech was quite witty and entertaining so I didn't take many notes. However the Big News is that the CQU is introducing a Masters Degree in Knowledge Management which, while not exclusively aimed at librarians, will be accredited by ALIA. This is great news for me as I have been considering a Masters Degree for some time and this one seems spot on for my interests.

After that exercise I have learned something about blogging. It is a great way to consolidate and add value to a professional development experience.

Summary of ALIA President's talk on Professional Development

2005-06-02T15:47:00.000+10:00

As promised (to self) here is a summary of the speech given by Gilliam Hallam to Central Queensland librarians during her visit to celebrate Library and Information Week: (this is how I heard/interpreted it, any errors or omissions are purely mine)

The fact that a couple of major library schools in Oz have closed down is maybe a warning signal to the profession (ie the Uni of NSW is no longer offering the Masters degree and the University of Canberra is closing down the undergrad degree which is particularly worrying given that Canberra as the seat of the National Library has a relatively large librarian population). Major impacts on our profession include ICT and the demographic changes in our users. Questions which the Association are asking are: What are the required skillsets for librarians in the future? How do we as a profession attract the right people? Employers have indicated that they want employees who are ready to hit the ground running, combining discipline knowledge with generic/transferable knowledge like how to work effectively in an organisation. A perception survey of Queensland University of Technology library school students found that the number 1 motivator for taking the course was to get a job. The number 2 motivator was an interest in ICT. Much further down the list were an interest in books etc. The attrition rate amongst QUT library students is a concern to the institution, showing a mismatch in expectations. Interestingly Charles Sturt University, which offers the post grad diploma externally, currently has around 700 students. There is a worry however that if there are only a few universities offering library courses then there will be little diversity in the profession, resulting in only a limited "flavour" of graduates in Australia. Another interesting conundrum is the degree course for library technicians being offered by Edith Cowan University - how do they become librarians? Is there a danger of "credential creep?"

It has also been calculated that 60% of Australian librarians are eligible for retirement in the next 10 years. Where will the new grads come from? And where will the academics come from to train them?

Lots of interesting stuff to consider.

I am now being bugged by my 13 year old who must get on to join one of his gaming forums (to play against guys in the US and Canada). Timing is all important. But I mustn't complain as he gives me lots of info that is extremely relevant to do with our youth library. So more on the interesting speeches in following blogs.

So much to blog about, so little time...

2005-06-01T20:43:00.000+10:00

Phew! Blogging is hard work! After fighting off an 8 year old and a 13 year old for use of the computer, reading all the other great blogs, watching the time because the dog demands to be taken for a walk at 5 am (yes, that's pre-dawn in this part of the world), there's precious little time to post one's own blog. I really admire those prolific bloggers who craft such well thought out posts.

Last Thursday night I attended a function organised by the ALIA new grads as an activity for Library and Information Week at Central Queensland University. It was the first local ALIA function held in Central Queensland for around 10 years and it was great to see and catch up with the 30 or so uni, special and public librarians for some very interesting and erudite speeches by visiting ALIA exec members and also the rather tough but entertaining library trivia contest put together by Rockhampton public librarian Cheryl. It was professionally stimulating and I intend to blog about it (I really do) but right now I have to read "The Twits" to my son. So goodnight.

Book Love

2005-05-25T16:38:00.000+10:00

When going through my mother's old things on the weekend, came across an old book of wise sayings and quotations (published 1923). Book fell open at this quotation:

Book love, my friends, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for his creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will make your hours pleasant as long as you live. - Anthony Trollope.

Ah, the good old days.

In praise of library assistants

2005-05-18T18:25:00.000+10:00

This week is a big one at the main branch - we had the "Sillies" (Silly story time) today; it's the Babies tomorrow (Lap club for under 12 months) and then the Armchair Traveller for adults tomorrow night (we're off to the Galapogos Islands with a community member who has just visited there.) And all of this conceived and achieved not by the professionals in our library service (numbering a grand total of 2 I should point out), but by our wonderful library assistants. My role is simply to offer encouragement, and an environment where the innate and very considerable abilities of the non-professional staff can flourish. I recall an episode of Dilbert when he leaves his dysfunctional company and joins a utopian firm. He meets the "Vice President in Charge of Immediately Implementing Good Ideas" - that's the position (sub)title I aspire to.

It is a matter of some pride also that all of the library assistants in the main branches now have some form of paraprofessional qualification or are working towards one - even our casual staff (who we like to call "support staff" as a more accurate reflection of their value to the library) all have Certificate level qualifications. And they are also actively involved in planning and participating in the library's activities.

I remember some years ago (all of the people involved have moved on so I think it is safe to blog this) the State Library was conducting a review of our library service, when I was the only Librarian employed. They were impressed by our complete lack of a cataloguing backlog (it's simple really - we don't have room for one so therefore there isn't one). One of the librarians conducting the review expressed admiration for my skills as a cataloguer , to achieve all of my other functions AND do all of the cataloguing. "Oh God, I don't do the cataloguing!" I blurted out. Guess who got a bad report for allowing non-professionals to do professional work. Luckily attitudes have changed a lot since then.

Nurturing the relationship between library assistants/paraprofessionals and librarians would have to be one of the most important elements in the success of a public library service, and yet I don't recall seeing any academic papers about it.

Library assistants in public libraries everywhere, you are wonderful.

The simple pleasures

2005-05-16T20:05:00.000+10:00

While working this Saturday, I had time to reflect on the things I really enjoy in public library work. Saturdays are the days I generally avoid "managerial" work (the rest of the Council are off for the weekend so there's no urgency to do that stuff anyway - it can wait til Monday) and I can just enjoy working on the circ desk doing the mundane things like talking to customers and helping them find stuff. In the afternoon when it's not busy I indulge in tackling the tricky requests put on my "spike" - the ones that the other staff haven't been able to find or the ones that need decisions about purchase or ILL. Some of these are great for exercising my skills of detection, (like, the new Matthew Reilly book "Schofield" - I've never read Matthew Reilly but a quick search of the Internet reveals that this is a character in three of his books, which, of course, we have.) I wonder if the staff at the book suppliers are impressed that I manage to send in an order for 20 or so reader requests on a Saturday afternoon? Probably not as the whole process is automated. Then maybe produce a new flyer for our upcoming Library and Information Week activity - free subscription database training for the public - and rearrange the posters in the foyer to make room to display them. All round a nice relaxing day. Back to the bureaucratic part of my job on Monday - rosters, budgets, reports. But I relish the simple pleasures of being a "real" public librarian on Saturdays.

Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: April 2005

2005-05-09T07:14:00.000+10:00

Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: April 2005: " 'Libraries have a strong association with storytelling and folktales, or more precisely, the communication of ideas and thoughts through words, sounds, and pictures.'"

That's a neat rationalization for hosting an adult storytelling group at the library.

Surfing the blogs/Youth Library Names?

2005-05-08T13:11:00.000+10:00

Since discovering blogs exactly 2 days ago, I have spent many hours surfing blogs looking for like-minded librarian blogs, and have not been disappointed. Particularly like "Rambling Librarian" from Singapore. He really seems to share my philosophy of the public library's role of connecting people to people and people to ideas. I'm sure there are many more in the blogosphere. I have found a couple of youth/YA/teen librarian blogs I'll be keeping an eye on as our library is about to embark on a stand alone, main street Youth Library. (Our main challenge at the moment is nailing a name - as the facility is a collaboration between the Council's Youth Services and Library Services we have agreed not to use the word "library" in the title as it is thought this might turn some young people off. However, to young people who know and love libraries, they will obviously see that it is indeed a library, albeit very different from the main library. The name is critical to our branding and interior decoration.We are canvassing young people for a suitable name so have high hopes of something soon.)
Will keep surfing the blogs til I get the hang of them...figuring out how to post comments, atract readers and link to blogs I like...

in the teen zone

2005-05-06T22:10:00.000+10:00

in the teen zone This is the site of the Pawtucket Librarian who reviews young adult titles entertainingly. The Blog is also connected to the Library website. Also the site of my first blog comment!

Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: Youth blog site - eGen.org.sg (or, the case for NLB libraries to get blogging)

2005-05-06T21:45:00.000+10:00

Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: Youth blog site - eGen.org.sg (or, the case for NLB libraries to get blogging). Note to self - Something to consider - getting into blogging/ maybe training in getting into blogging? Young people teach other young people about blogging? As we have received funding to produce an "E-Zine" to "tell young peoples' stories" I wonder if blogging has potential in relation to the e-zine?

Exploring Blogging

2005-05-05T19:56:00.000+10:00

I'm a librarian in a small public library trying to discover the potential of blogging by using it. I am also trying to discover a stupendously radical new paradigm for public libraries. Or maybe I'll be content with a few great ideas for a better library service.