Next Gen panel
The keynote on the last morning was Stephen Abram interviewing three teenagers. This is more directly relevant for public, school, and academic librarians, but remember that this cohort will be in the workplace in a few years.
They use Google, of course, but they also appreciate the quality information they get from school and library databases. One of them said he trusts sites more if he has to log in with a password. Another said she trusted peer-reviewed literature, though she didn’t know the term.
Selling Tech to Power
Danis Kreimeier, director of Napa City-County Library, said she asks her staff:
- What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
- Whose problem is it?
- Is it sustainable?
- Where does it fit with the library’s mission?
Another way of saying this: Will it show? Can it grow? Does it flow?
She highly recommends Communicating Your Strategy: A Script [Word doc.]
The assistant city manager of Monterey said: There’s no such thing as a tech project, just a business project. Challenging times require new ways of doing things. It’s really about marketing. The community’s interests come first. Consider context within the broader organization (i.e., make alliances with other departments).
Web Archiving
Tracy Seneca of the California Digital Library talked about the work her organization is doing archiving state and local government Web sites. Collections available at webarchives.cdlib.org. Tools are available at was.cdlib.org
Persuasion, influencing, etc.
These presentations are at http://www.slideshare.net/nic221/presentations
Naysayers don’t see what’s in it for them.
Made to Stick recommends telling stories. Avoid abstraction. Don’t boil everything down to bullet points.
Weird Ideas That Work Lots of ideas -> fewer prototypes -> fewer products.
Best Buy managers tried letting their workers go without schedules, collected stats on how it worked, then told their superiors about it.
Art of Woo
Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It
MIT Libraries has a beta page. It’s easy to start something and put it there, but harder to get it to graduate to the main site. An idea has to be up at least one semester, has to have statistics, and has to meet users’ needs.
Influencing:
Have to see ourselves as influencers, be clear on what we want to see happen, learn new approaches.
Passionate, well-informed, well-connected: talkers.
Influence without Authority Model (Cohen-Bradford)
Get to know people, build trust, use the “hidden org. chart.”
Close the sale! Librarians don’t do this enough. “Is there any reason we can’t do this?” (Reminds me of the salesman who says, “What can I do to put in you in a brand new Buick?” Most librarians don’t want to be that guy, but sometimes we have to be.)
Clarity, competence, relationships. (I must say the two presenters, Rebecca Jones and Nicole Hennig, were practically oozing clarity and competence!)
Marketing on the Cheap
Louise Alcorn of West Des Moines Public Library talked about programming for communities going through hard times. She recommends OCLC’s report, From Awareness to Funding.
Aspen Walker of Douglas County (Colo.) Library talked about her efforts, but we were sworn to secrecy about it! Send her 3-4 words about why you became an info pro at aspenwalker @ twitter.
Marcy Phelps of Phelps Research talked about marketing. Her presentation is at PhelpsResearch.com.
Marketing is “Getting someone, who has a need, to know, like, and trust you” (Duct Tape Marketing).
You need a plan, you need to commit time and resources, and have realistic goals.
She recommends Stephen Abrams’ Blogging as a Special Librarian.
Retooling Technical Services
Brad Eden of UC Santa Barbara points out that skill sets haven’t changed:
- Attention to detail
- Ability to organize detail
- Knowledge of standards and current practice
There are lot of other catalysts for change, however:
- The economy and state support for education
- Google’s digitization (they are digitizing our collections and selling them back to us, like “another Elsevier” ouch!)
- Social networking
- Space (people, collections)
- Shifting resources to unique local collections (several speakers at the conference recommended this)
- Network-level collaboration on metadata
- Move toward open access and scholarly communication, institutional repositories
- Mobile, media literacy
- 3D information visualization
“Lean into your discomfort.” (A great idea and worth remembering, but not always easy to do.)
“Work to live, not the other way around.”
What matters is your response, positive or negative.
Administrators are looking for people to step outside their boxes. He talked about having to merge serials and book acquisitions and about technical services people having to work on the public service desks occasionally. Library staff need to be flexible.
Do your own professional development. Keep an open mind.
Learn non-MARC metadata (such as TEI).
Learn scanning and digitization.
Then he showed this short video, which is full of interesting facts about the world, online and otherwise, but some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, IMHO.
Helen Heinrich and her colleagues from CSU Northridge talked about their efforts to streamline technical services. “Good enough is the new perfect.” Low turnover leads to a time capsule effect (i.e., everybody’s been doing things the same way for a long time).
They have an article in Searcher, July/August 2009. (You can probably get it through your library’s databases.)
Final Keynote
Mobile gadget quiz a la “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” Those who wanted to participate could give a note to the moderator or send a tweet.
Library 101
Michael Porter, David Lee King, and other active folks put together a video project called Library 101.
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