Wow! I’m back!

Hey everyone!

You thought I was dead, or perhaps dismembered? Why would you think that? Weirdo…

Anyway, I want to start posting again! So, you can rejoice 🙂

Let me at least catch you up on what’s been happening with me in terms of librarianism since my last post. In my defense, I’ve been VERY busy 🙂

1. I was elected the President the NJLA Reference Section and served almost a year term by now.  We did a number of cool things with me as president. Also, for much of the time I mostly served without a VP, Secretary or editor of the newsletter, which is much of the organizational structure. I organized the NJLA Adult Services Forum, which had 9 different presentations/workshops, had a featured speakers, breakfast and lunch, and some display tables and such. It was a really good event and we got over 100 librarians to attend. While very stressful, also very rewarding 🙂
2. Also as President of the Reference Section: 1) I co-organized a meeting/day of programs with the History/Preservation Section which included a presentation on doing genealogy research. 2) I organized a tour of the Monroe Public Library’s makerspace as part of one of our Ref Section meetings. 3) I’m now working on putting together a meeting of Ref Section that will also include a panel discussion on “Furthering Your Librarian Career” – this will include an all-star panel of librarians, which is awesome. Looking forward to it. I might need to bake something for attendees 🙂
3. I COMPLETED the library’s contract negotiations and signed a contract after a 4 year struggle to get this done! We, well, gave up a good number of things in my opinion, but preserved some important things and at least created some important assured structure for the workers. It was a HUGE relief to get this done after so long and so many meetings and so much work. I, well, ATTEMPTED to resign my post as union rep after this. Epilogue: no one came forward to take over my position and in that time, the board, well, contested something in the contract so…back to it. This REALLY frustrated me as I was attempting to move onto different professional endeavors.
4. I had 2 job offers and another very good interview for a dream job. I almost took one of the positions, but turned it down at the last moment because I sensed lots of instability in the offering library. Turns out I was right to turn this down. Though, this didn’t necessarily get me additional respect at my current position…
5. I wrote and WON a grant to build a MAKERSPACE at my library! I also got additional funding from my library board. This is a HUGE project that I am largely undertaking by myself, because, well, my library is disorganized. However, this is going to be a very sweet thing and I”ve already made many plans, ordered all the equipment and started training, staff training, advertisements, program planning, etc, etc. We will have the following things:

– 3D printer and scanner
– photography creation station – SLR camera, tripod, green screen, lighting, Adobe Creative Suite, high end Dell laptop, printer, etc.
– music recording station – midi keyboard, Garageband, Macbook Pro, mixer, microphones, headphones, etc.
– Aduino kits
– Makey Makey kits
– robotics kit
– LEGO educational kits

1. Spoke the other day on a panel discussing creating Makerspaces at your library for the BCCLS Tech Committee. Probably had 75 people in attendance. I was on a panel with some SERIOUS librarians who all have functioning makerspaces. I was the only one who didn’t have it up and running yet. I still killed it though (note: that last statement came after 4 Founders Centennial Beers :))
2. I’m close to creating the largest Comics and Manga collection the BCCLS system (75 libraries) – I WILL create the biggest collection soon!
3. I”ve held LOTS of cool events as part of our DIY series and many more since I last posted. Last month I held a Beer Brewing and Tasting Event with a local brewing club. 55 people showed up, and many of the 20s/30s crowd that we are looking to attract. We had a cool history display of the history of beer in Hoboken, lots of snacks, book display on brewing/tasting books, and more. We brought in the dudes from 902 Brewing from Hoboken, who were GREAT. “Tastings” ended up being full 12 oz pours! Haha, totally fine by me. I might have had several myself 🙂 http://902brewing.com/

Also, my work has undergone some series personnel changes. My colleague reference librarian and friend moved onto a position in another state. She seems to be doing really well and liking her new location. I miss her lots but wish her all the best in her new location 🙂 We also brought in a librarian as full time who has been working part time for a while now. She is also AWESOME and I’m definitely looking forward to working with her and doing fun and cool projects together. There is also a “dude” (haha)  – ok, a new LIBRARIAN in the YA department who is part time but HOPEFULLY will be full time very soon. He has lots of good ideas and should also be sweet to work with. So despite some, uh, administrative roadblocks, I’m very excited to work with both of these young and enthusiastic librarians. Cool things await 🙂

There’s plenty more too. Been brewing beer again and want to start all grain brewing. Built a Wort Chiller and am attempting to build a Mash Tun. Brewed a partial Mash Oatmeal Stout the other day. So…yunno, beer!

Finally, I ran for NJLA Executive Committee this year as a Member-at-Large. The official results are not out yet, so I can’t say yet…. 🙂

That’s all for now! More to come soon I hope.

Today’s post has been fueled by:

FELA KUTI

 

 

 

 

 

 

Founders Centennial IPA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! See you soon 🙂

Pushing the Limits of Library Programming and Free Speech

Hey everyone! It’s been too long since my last post, so, well, here is a brand new post 🙂

Today I wanted to just write a quick piece on a program I recently held at my library that caused me to have some decidedly opposing emotions. On one hand, I felt the program was one of the best we have yet done at my library and I am proud of the results and implication of the program. On the other hand, I thought perhaps that I would be fired the next day as a result 🙂 So what was this program?? Well, let’s take a look here.

So for the past 3 years I have put on programs to celebrate LGBT Pride month along with a passionate LGBT colleague. The programs have ranged from LGBT author visits to original film screenings to musical performances and poetry. This year we arranged for 2 programs to be held at the library: 1) a musical performance by members of a local LGBT themed open-mic group 2) LGBT themed-comedy arranged by a local comedian/producer. I thought that these would be good programs to celebrate LGBT culture and provide a place for the community to explore and interact with this culture. Indeed, we have done programs like this in the past as well. In fact the open-mic program we have done in the past with the same group. However, the addition of the comedy event was one in which I felt we might push things slightly further with what one might expect at a public library, and perhaps, what one thinks is appropriate at a public library.

My perspective:  I personally believe that libraries should be extremely wary of any kind of censorship. This relates not only to materials in the collection, but also in terms of programming and the exploration of different topics and subjects. The only caveat to this is that libraries should also seek to provide quality and verified information in materials and programs. Obviously, this can sometimes lead to conflicts where librarians have to make decisions as to what is good information and what is bad information: often much harder than it seems. Long story short: I believe that public libraries can and should provide opportunities to the community to explore important and perhaps controversial topics. I often try to do this in my management of collections and in the programs I select for my library.

A little extra context: One of the biggest challenges facing my library is space, in that we have very little of it. As a result, there are basically two rooms that I have available to hold programs. There is a smaller programming room available in a back area that can hold up to a maximum of 20 people. The other room is the main reading room on the 2nd floor, which is the main space for people to read and study. This room is NOT closed off from other parts of the library – the entrances to the room are open and connect immediately to the stairs to all floors and the main reference section with public computers. Basically, any program that is held in this room will carry sound throughout the building and also be exposed to anyone passing by.

Ok, now that we have the context, here is the program: LGBT Comedy at the Library to Celebrate Pride Month.

In this program, I worked with a local comedian and producer who helped arrange for 7 different comedians to do short sets at the library for the event.  The producer himself, Rich Kiamco, is an accomplished comedian along with appearances on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the Howard Stern Show. Rich hosted the event and provided a little comedy as well. The other performers all had significant resumes. Check it:

1. Jodie Wasserman – Comedy Central, BET, Last Comic Standing
2. David Smithyman – NBC’s Stand Up for Diversity
3. Adam Sank – Last Comic Standing, Here-TV, VH1, Sirius XM
4. Alison Forns – SNL contributing writer
5. Veronica Elizabeth – LA ComedyFest
6. Chris Douchette – Comedy360’s Comedy to Watch
7. Jeff Lawrence – MTV, Grammy Awards

So as you can see, when Rich came back to me with the lineup for the event, I was pretty excited!

So the event was set for these comedians and this format, which again made me excited for the event. As this month I was extremely busy (various programs, wrapping up a HUGE book fair the library held, and running contract negotiations as union representative) I didn’t put too much more thought into the program until we got closer to the event.

Back to the original purpose of this article: this program made me both proud and nervous. So in my planning of this event, I was perhaps not forceful enough in emphasizing to Rich that this would be a program at a library and thus the material should be appropriate for that setting. This was the request of the management of my library and thus I put the issue forth. However, what does this even mean? What do you label ‘appropriate’ for a public library? On what criteria is this based: specific ‘language’ that can’t be used? certain topics that shouldn’t be discussed? certain cultural aspects that shouldn’t be touched upon? These are difficult questions for a library or indeed any public institution. However, I indeed do feel like the library should refrain from censorship at all costs, so I tried to make the touch light on how I emphasized any limitation of material to Rich.

I know this post has been too long already, so I will just describe the program now. The comedians basically came with the normal materials they might perform in a comedy club, with the only difference being that the comics would focus on the theme of Pride Month. Also, each of the comedians was LGBT as well. So basically, there ended up being NO LIMITS to the language and topics brought by the comedians. Indeed, it was like being at a comedy show in a club in NYC. However, the comedians really focused on the theme of LGBT and the experience, condition and perspective of being an LGBT person in America.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, certain important local politicians and library administration members were in attendance for the event…so at first, YIKES!

Long story short, the politicians and administration enjoyed the event, so I think I am good to go 🙂 The comedy itself was first rate and the style which I personally enjoy. The comedians also really brought the experience, condition and culture of the LGBT community to the spotlight, which I thought was a great thing for the community and for the library to present.  The question of was this appropriate for a public library remains though. My answer: Yes it was, however I would in the future make sure that an event like this was in a separate space where anyone not participating in the event will not hear the event. Also, I would make sure the promotions for the event clearly spell out the adult audience aspect of the event and the subject matter. However, beyond that I think that this event was not only appropriate, but one of the events I feel best about having arranged for my library.

The LGBT comedy event brought the following positives:

1. Gave voice and substance to the LGBT culture without censor with the support of a public library
2. Provided a fun and REAL event for adult patrons to enjoy
3. Attracted an audience that were largely new to the library

In the end I am proud of this event and what it did, despite any ramifications to myself 🙂

NJLA and Reference Question of the Day

So, first of all yesterday I completed my first presentation at the New Jersey Library Association Conference in Atlantic City. I gave a talk along with Kate Vasilik of the Piscataway Public Library on “The Do’s and Don’t’s of Programming for 20/30 Year Olds”. Note: Kate Vasilik is totally awesome and I didn’t even realize at the time that she had basically just won the NJLA President’s Award before doing the program with me 🙂 So, many thanks to Kate!

Anyway, the program went pretty sweet despite some definite nerves issues before hand – had nearly 100 people at the program, which was standing room only. So that was pretty sweet! We didn’t have nearly enough time to get through everything that we wanted to, but we got some great feedback from people after the program, which was great. Hopefully I can use this experience and my new role as President of the NJLA Reference Section to propel myself ‘onward and upward’ (professionally) as they say.

And now for something completely different…

For some reason I thought I would make a really short post about 2 reference questions I received today. Now, normally the questions I receive are largely tech assistance questions for people using the library’s computers and a few random categories of questions after that: genealogy, “where can I find books on _____ subject”, resume and job seeking assistance, SOME student questions, etc. Today I got a unique two questions – one that is within the normal questions I get, and one that was a little different. I am mixed about how I was able to answer them.

Question #1 –  “Do you have any books about police officers or corrections officers?” – well, after a very brief “reference interview” I determined that in fact the civil service test books for police office and corrections officer was what she was looking for – got her 3 different test books. This is certainly within the realm of normal question.

Question #2 – This was not a straight forward question, so I’ll give you the ‘post reference interview’ questions: Patron needed books on English/Croatian phrases – specifically, he is a Croatian speaker and needed translations for phrases into English along with some English learning skills. He then asked if we had any books or DVDs on the planets or the solar system (really, generally astronomy) – got him 2 books and  DVD. However, the Croatian question was much tougher and unfortunately, I did not get him a very good answer I must admit. The BCCLS system (of which I am a part) had several English/Croatian dictionaries and then a few other materials on learning Croatian (sort of the reverse of what I needed). There were some audio books on learning English for Croatian speakers, but he really needed the written word, not audio. I tried our online database Mango, but unfortunately discovered that while there is a ‘learning Croatian for English speakers’ portal, there is not the reverse. In the end, I got him some references for a few websites that I could find and then showed him how he might look for more resources on Croatian language websites. At this point he transitioned to the astronomy question and was happy with those materials at least.

I probably should have at least done the following: 1) looked for learning centers or other opportunities in the area where he might go to get personal help, 2) tried the State-wide lending service, 3) double-checked BCCLS libraries to see if they had special Croatian language collections and then called them up. So…yeah, sometimes a Reference Librarian doesn’t always make a perfect answer, and here was an example of one of those times. I can say that at the time I was alone at the desk, was juggling multiple questions/tech assistance, and have been under a bunch of pressure to get some tasks done for a huge Book Festival the library is holding in 2 days. However, still shouldn’t have done a little more probably.

Library Music Collections –

Well, it’s the day before my talk at the annual NJLA Conference in Atlantic City – should I nervously get extremely drunk and then fumble my way to the convention (by ‘fumble’ I mean drive 3 hours) half-dressed and dropping speaking notes all over the place?? It might make for a good sitcom episode, or perhaps more darkly a semi-depressing indie film about middle class life drama and mundane struggle.  Well, as it happens I will probably just go for a 5k run at about 9pm tonight (I get off work at 8pm) and then get up at 5am to make my way to the conference 3 hours away. I’ll save the beer for AFTER my talk 🙂

Anywho, I thought I would write about something that came to mind the other day while working with one of the collections I manage at my library. For the past 4 years I have managed the music collection at my library, taking pride in instituting a ‘long-tail’ style methodology for my collection development strategy. In other words, I’ve tried to develop a variety of different genres of music in the collection and make sure that each contained classic examples, indie and lesser known examples, and contemporary and popular examples from each genre. I focused on some collections that I had some personal interest and experience in:  punk, metal, jazz, funk, classic rock, jam, etc. The population of where my library is located is generally young, affluent and has high educational attainment. As such, I thought a long-tail approach might work well for this population – provide them with a robust collection with classic and lesser-known albums and artists to pair with the new popular music. I also focused a good amount of attention on titles reviewed and recommended by the music website Pitchfork, believing (largely correctly) that the local population would be interested in the type of music recommended from them.

So, after a few years we started to build up a pretty good collection and had been receiving positive feedback from the patrons along with higher circulation. However, no sooner did the collection make headway, did we come up against new problems. Our main and really primary problem is that of physical space – we don’t have any. For a while I was able to purchase some different display units to house more CDs in the same space, however this only delayed the inevitable. I lobbied to have the collection moved to another part of the library, which not the best of solutions anyway. This also did not bear fruit. So, at one point I came up to the point of having to begin weeding down the collection and removing titles. For a while I  was able to eliminate items that did not circulate much or damaged materials. This also only bought me a little bit of time. For the past year or so I have been in the situation of essentially having to weed materials out of the collection every time I want to add something new. As contemporary, popular  music also circulates the most, I’ve had to continue to add the new stuff and widdle down the ‘long-tail’ materials I felt made the collection unique. I try my best to keep certain titles in the collection and maintain depth, but certainly over the past year the collection has diminished in quality. I’ve tried to weed on the following, flawed, parameters:

• items that are damaged, do not circulate often or duplicates (mostly already weeded at this point)
• items by bands that were essentially one-hit wonders (guessing game, as I’m talking about bands from less than 4 years from present)
• lesser known items in less popular genres among our library patrons
• random bands that I believe to either be of waning popularity or guess will not do too much in the future (very dubious methodology here!)

So, as you can see, this is a very flawed method. Given the state of the collection at my library, I’ve been thinking about the future of music collections in public libraries. First of all, let’s reveal the very open secret about library music collections: a high percentage of the people who borrow CDs at libraries are going home and ripping them to their computers. Full disclosure, years ago I partially became interested in working in libraries because of my local library’s music collection…which I was ripping to my computer. Without that fact, I would be skeptical of how library music collections would exist today. So there’s that.

Moving forward with advancing technology and the use of various devices (tablets, smartphones, etc.) to consume media, even this may be something that goes by the wayside in the near future. As such, how about the possibility of digital music collections available for patrons to borrow? Well, there are a few existent options right now for digital music collections in libraries, however they are currently fraught with problems. There are likely more options than this, but the ones I am aware of are as follows:

1. Freegal
2. Hoopla
3. Overdrive Music
4. Naxos

Freegal – a service that offers users to download 3 songs per week in MP3 format. These songs are then the users to KEEP and do not expire. They offer reasonable access to popular songs and artists, though largely artists signed to the Sony label as this is their main source. Even still, there catalog is limited for new materials and very limited when it comes to classic songs/albums and lesser known stuff.

Hoopla – songs expire after 1 week,  20 titles per month, also includes streaming movies and television.  While this sounds decent enough, the collections seem to be very limited (extremely for the TV and movies). The licensing is just not there.

Overdrive – similar to Hoopla, with less popular music items and no streaming video. Downloads expire and there are limits to amounts that can be borrowed. Again, extremely limited collection with mostly classical titles and some ‘classic’ jazz.

Naxos – streaming music collections of almost entirely classical music. Decent collection of classical music, but not much beyond that.

So, right now you can see that the options are very limited with some serious problems of realistic collections and access to a wide array of music options. Beyond this, there exists a similar problem that is currently running through the eBook/library world: ownership vs licensing. These are all independent services that libraries pay to give their patrons access to. However, this payment does not give the libraries ownership over any of the content, simply access to the database. This poses big problems for the future of this option for libraries as has been seen in the eBook world, libraries would be susceptible to increases in fees and pricing, restrictions in access and even denial of access if the provider’s terms aren’t met. While this is a big problem, as it currently stands even the services offering these products do not offer attractive solutions. In the eBook world, some libraries (Douglas County Library – http://douglascountylibraries.org/content/ebooks-and-DCL) have taken upon themselves to negotiate with publishers and create their own servers of eBook content. This is a bold new strategy, but one that seems very precarious and very limited in its scope for other libraries to attempt (costs, negotiating abilities, technical ability, etc.). However, in the realm of digital music, it would seem the terms would be much more difficult to undertake and implement, not to mention that there does not exist a groundswell for this kind of thing.

Sooo…where does that leave libraries moving forward?

• Will there  continue to be physical music collections?
• If the transition is made to digital collections, will there be an ownership model or a licensing model?
• Will digital library music collections not be feasible and music phased out of library collections all together?
• Will libraries create a new option by creating their own servers and licenses with music producers?

Let me know your thoughts!

My Experience as Contract Negotiator for the Library Workers

I wanted to write a post about my experience as the Contract Negotiator and union representative for the library workers at my library. However, I don’t really want to go into specifics – especially as these are ongoing. I wanted to write a post about this to give a perspective to others on libraries and local politics, aspects of representing fellow workers and public sentiment/national politics and public libraries. However, this experience has been one of the most potent of my time as a professional librarian and in my current position (almost 5 years).  Unfortunately, it has been one of the most decidedly negative, draining and confidence crushing experiences of my professional and personal life. So in other words, this post is starting out very positive! In fact, it might be a good idea to play Sunshine, Lollypops and Rainbows while reading this post 🙂

Let’s go back to the beginning here so you can get a better idea of my experience. I have been the union representative for the library workers for roughly 3 years now. At the time the library had recently split off from being part of the City government and thus became an independent public entity. The library workers were part of a local municipal union. However, as their employer technically changed (City —> Library Board), they now needed to form a new union. This new union was worked out to be a sub-set of the larger local municipal union, who would have their own contract. As the library was splitting off the larger union informed us that we would need to elect a representative to start taking things over in this capacity. This is where I (foolishly) stepped in.

I initially started as union representative because I thought that this was an important thing for the library to undertake. Further, no other worker was really stepping up and showing an interest in this role. At the same time there were a lot of issues that had been festering that needed the attention of a union or worker representative to start addressing. Finally, I thought it might be a good thing for my professional career and gain helpful experience in regard to leadership, local politics, contracts, etc. All of these reasons were why I stepped into this position. It is important to note, though, that at the beginning I did not believe that I would be assuming a union ‘presidency’ type role, but rather simply a shop steward for the library worker portion of the larger union.

Now from here out there are far too many details to go into. However, I want to touch on some major points as I think they are important to understanding how I believe this experience has actually been detrimental to my professional experience.  At first I held meetings with the larger union representation and the legal representative team for the union. It was at these initial meetings that I learned that my position would not be shop steward, but rather rather a presidency type role where I would be responsible for forming the new sub-union, addressing all complaints and grievances, and  negotiating a new contract with the library board.  So, coming to terms with my new found workload I spent the first year trying to figure out what the structure of the union would look like, address some important staff complaints that had been waiting for years, and fix some basic paperwork issues related to the union.

My experience, background and work as a librarian brought me to approach this new work with the tools I know about: research, number crunching, and drafting logical arguments to solutions. Therefore, this is what I did and have been doing for my time as union representative. On a variety of issues and problems that have come up, I have probably a good 100+ pages of reports, memos and other documents. However, not too long after I began work in this capacity I realized just how little power our union has and what even smaller portion of power I have as union representative. First, as the previous contract had expired some time ago and as we had changed employers, our ability to challenge current work related issues was dubious. This was extremely problematic when facing a mountain of issues that needed some honest solutions, but essentially I was now impotent to do anything about any of the issues. Understandably, this was frustrating to the workers and issues remained unresolved. This was painful strike one.

The library board sought to begin contracts roughly 2 years ago, at first moving slowly. At this point I’ll remind you I can’t go into details, but I feel this is perhaps the most important part of the experience. First, these negotiations demonstrated to me that my ‘librarian-style’ methods of good research and sound arguments would not be enough (or perhaps not factor at all) during the negotiations. I put a compelling 17 page report detailing worker achievements, production levels, pay levels, cost of living, etc, etc. to no effect at all.

Since they began and especially after having ramping up in frequency, I have worried in a near constant state about the outcome of these negotiations, with most of the responsibility falling on my shoulders. I have put a negotiating team of several staff members and we have a lawyer representing us, but the heavy lifting of drafting proposals, making the negotiations, organizing and holding union meetings and doing research falls almost solely on me. Worse was that in this process as well I came up against an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Both the union and myself seemed powerless to make any positive progress, and certainly my librarian instinct for organization and logical reports had a near non-existent effect. This transferred itself into an acute guilt and sense of failed leadership that I felt both in my responsibility to the union and to myself and a person.  In other words, this did not have a rosy effect on my professional confidence.

Paralleling my experiences was a national debate on the role and future of unions, with flashpoints of this debate occurring in Wisconsin and Ohio in recent years and “Right to Work” legislation being pushed forward. I find this somewhat odd considering that as of 2012 only 11.3% of workers are unionized in America, with 6.6% of the private sector and 36% of the public sector being unionized. Somehow, 11.3% of the population was supposedly holding hostage the rest of the country, and certainly all taxpayers (minus the ones who are in unions of course). Public budgets have been slashed repeatedly over the past 5 years and an aggressive anti-union campaign being undertaken by right leaning interest groups and representatives. This national debate and anti-union and anti-public worker (lazy, wasting tax dollars, too much job security, etc.) has certainly played no small part in the proceedings in which I’ve had this experience.

In the end my principals still hold the same: I enjoy my work and believe in the public sector and public libraries to do common good in communities and nationally. I also believe in the importance of unions and the need counter-balance the power of private ownership and administrative power. However, the reality of my experiences has put the most negative possible face to local politics. Moreover, this experience has shown me what is it to struggle in a powerless situation and the effect that has on a person’s confidence. I have felt that while I have done my best and put countless hours of work into this effort, I have very little, if not nothing, to show for it. As such, I feel that having engaged in this endeavor has actually hurt me professionally:  in the time I spent working on this I could have been – 1) learning new technical skills 2) writing articles and speaking at conferences 3) participating in professional organizations 4) acquiring other professional skills, etc. Anything I’ve learned in the way of navigating local politics has been negated by the time lost to powerless endeavors that bore no fruit. I’m looking forward to focusing on professional development, building skills and participating in professional organizations in the future.

How about you, reader? Any experiences of a similar nature? Have you come up against currently seemingly negative sentiment toward unions and public workers?Post your thoughts!

P.S. – Here is a funny picture to bring your back up from that post 🙂

It’s Alive! – also, interesting Reference Questions

Hello to the millions and mil….nevermind.

So clearly I have neglected to update this blog in well, some time. However, in my absence I have only been busy with a “veritable plethora” (- Q, TNG, Encounter at Farpoint)  of library related things. The quick breakdown:

• I am going to be speaking at NJLA with librarian Kate Vasilik of the Piscataway Public Library on “Do’s and Don’t of Programming for 20/30 Year Olds”.  We will be speaking on Wednesday, June 5th in the 10:10 – 11:00am slot. It should be sweet!
• I will also be taking over as President of the NJLA Reference Section in June as well. Big thanks to current President Nick Van Dorn for putting up for President!
• Launched a Staff Picks blog at my library and have contributions from many different staff members – so far its going very well! Thanks to all the other librarians who have contributed 🙂 Here’s the link: http://hobokenlibrary.wordpress.com/
• The seemingly ever present march of contract negotiations has continued with me as lead negotiator – we MIGHT be coming to a resolution soon, for better or worse
• researched Makerspace ideas for my library and implementation possibilities
• about to launch a Pinterest for my library along with two other staff members, who will be largely running the Pinterest after this
• and yunno, other things

So I thought today that I will simply start things out with some interesting reference questions that I have received. As you probably know, Reference and the questions you receive are a pretty different place from 20 or even 10 years ago. Now, my particular reference department is located on the 2nd floor and is separate from the general collections area. As such, this probably limits what questions I receive and greatly limits reader’s advisory that I get. In fact, I receive basically no fiction related reader’s advisory. The ‘reader’s advisory’ questions are ones that non-fiction related: students doing research, questions on ‘where can I find ____ subject books’, etc. The majority of the questions I get relate to use of the library’s computers and copier, which are located next to the reference desk: how to I attach a file to my email? how do I print? how do I make a double-sided copy? how do I use the scanner? etc. So basically, these are most of the categories of questions I routinely receive:

1. Tech assistance questions
2. students doing research
3. local history/genealogy
4. questions on how to use the eBook download service
5. questions loan periods/renewing books
6. small number of random subject questions
7. **crazy person questions

So that last category probably doesn’t seem to fit with the rest, and indeed, they don’t. However, most public librarians would probably relate to the occasional (or regular) odd or bizarre question. Here are just a few ones that I found particularly memorable:

1. Had more than one person in the past 2 weeks who, in the course of asking their question, related to me that they were worried that the government was spying on them. This was why they justified either moving from one public computer to another, or wanted to use a print resource rather than an online one.  The one patron wanted contact information for various government officials around the world, but insisted that he could not use a computer to find this information because of the spying government. As such, the best thing that our library had in house was the The Stateman’s Yearbook 2013. That same patron later came to the library with a homemade baseball hat that read as follows, vertically from top to bottom: Hell   /   (American flag with a big X through it)     /   Hell    /    Obama
2. Perhaps my favorite odd question of all time came from a patron I now refer to as the Time Traveling Adventurer. This patron came to the desk and asked for books that might help them…construct a time machine. This patron is a regular and while odd, I did not think this was serious so I almost began to chuckle. However, I quickly realized he was serious.In fact, the time machine itself was not the goal for this person, rather it was his plan for using the time machine. This plan was remarkable similar to the plot of Back to the Future II, in which Biff bets on sports games he learns the outcomes of while visiting the future. My answer: I gave him A Brief History of Time and a collection of Einstein writings.
3. While this is the template example of a question that should be given discretion and professionalism, which I did, I still think its worth mentioning: I once received a question on where to find books on Penises – no other details than that. Needless to say, conducting a traditional reference interview posed certain difficulties.
4. I once helped a patron to write letters to their government representatives. I did not look at the letters themselves, just rather helped them on using Microsoft Word, finding contact information online, etc. After several months of this off an on, the patron asked me to review one letter he was sending as it was going to President Obama and he wanted it to be good. As it turns out, this was around the time when the stimulus package was being discussed and passed through Congress. In his letter the patron claimed he knew how to create 500,000 new jobs in every state and that all he would need was $250-$500 billion to get this off the ground.  That’s all.
5. I once had a patron ask me to help show them how to download pornography from the Internet onto their flash drive.

 

Well, those are the ones I can think of right now. I’m sure I’ll have more later and post them. But those alone should give you some insight into the world of a urban public library 🙂

Quick Post (I Promise) – Updates and Staff Safety in Public Libraries

Hello minions…er, readers,

I’m going to make this short and sweet. Some quick updates and one quick topic for you to digest.

First, updates:

1. I’ll be giving a presentation at the upcoming June New Jersey Library Association Conference in Atlantic City. I’ll be giving a presentation with another librarian, Kate Vasilik of the Piscataway Public Library, who has been doing some pretty sweet programming and projects over there! Our talk will be “Programming for the 20s/30s Crowd”, which is an elusive patron group for public libraries.  I’ve got lots of ideas and I think a pretty good amount of experience in this field. More details coming soon, which I’ll post as I put things together. I can give you at least one tip right now that will be included: food and food based programs AND/OR alcohol = young people attending.
2. It looks like I’ve agreed to become the Vice President for the NJLA Reference Section. This also means that by default I will become the President on the Reference Section next year – yerp! Mostly, I think it involves planning the Adult Services Forum event as well as sponsoring programs for the NJLA conference. Could be a bit of lifting, but also a good opportunity. Special thanks to the current President Nick Van Dorn for offering this opportunity for me 🙂
3. The long march of contract negotiations continue with no end in sight….
4. I’m about to launch a staff recommendations blog for my library. Several staff members are involved in the project and we’ll be posting weekly entries on different genres and materials that can be found in library and the BCCLS (Bergen County Cooperative Library System), of which HPL is a member. I’d like to have the blog focus on unique items and genres that people may not normally know about. I put together a quick, simple blog on WordPress, which I think works just fine. I also created policies for use and guidelines for staff concerning social media and the blog – YAWN…are you still awake after that last sentence?? While it hasn’t officially launched yet, here’s a quick sneak peak at the initial article I wrote for the blog. Also, while its not posted yet, one of my awesome colleagues at work wrote a sweet article on various films. Totally looking forward to seeing what she has to write in the future! 🙂

http://hobokenlibrary.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/september-comics-pick-the-boys-by-garth-ennis/

Ok! Updates out of the way. Now, here’s Bill Murray on the cover of GQ recently!

Also, Grateful Dead live in England 1972 Cumberland Blues – Nice! Go listen to it now!

Finally, I’m reading Planetary from Warren Ellis right now, who’s  created/written for some other series comic series like Transmetropolitan and Hellblazer.

 

Moving forward. Today’s brief topic: Safety in libraries.

This is certainly something that I feel is a big topic that does not get almost any mention in library journals and publications. Most people have a few of a library as a quaint, quiet place of study, reading and reflection. If you are forward thinking, you might also see the library as an education and community center with tools, classes, programs and a variety of technological resources.  However, if you frequent a local library that’s located in a urban area, you also might think of a library as place where quite a variety of people frequent, which includes people who are homeless, suffer from mental illness, suffer from addiction, or people who are overly aggressive or violent. This is an unfortunate, but true reality of urban public libraries. Now, this topic certainly deserves a much bigger and researched post, which I will probably do in the near future.

There have been a few very good articles written on this subject in the past by librarians, but unfortunately too infrequently and with no follow-up, community wide research taking place. In public libraries we are often confronted with all of the aforementioned groups of people. At first you want to try and help, as any decent person should want to do I would think. However, you quickly realize that all around you nationally and locally there is a very broken system concerning mental health, poverty and drug rehabilitation. Any local agencies or charities you reach out too inform you that they are doing the best the can (and often are), but that funding and manpower is just not there to tackle such an immense problem. So even if you want to partner with local assistance organizations and/or bring them into the library, often this is simply not possible or only effective in a small way – the group can be present in the library, but there are still many barriers for those who need help actually receiving it or asking for it.

However, there are other aspects to this than simply trying to offer help to those who need it. Unfortunately, you also quickly run into issues where certain patrons can cause other patrons to be disturbed and not be able to enjoy the library. Further, often there are encounters with patrons that range from annoying to very disruptive to downright threatening/violent. Here’s just a few things I encountered/witnessed at my library:

• staff being followed outside of work by aggressive patrons
• patrons screaming at staff (or other patrons) and threatening them
• Variety of intoxicated patrons stumbling, sleeping, yelling, arguing, getting sick, etc, etc.
• public masturbation and viewing pornography on library computers

The list goes on.

We’ve had a very prolonged ‘battle’ so to speak as to how to deal with situations like this. Much of the time the library tried to ignore the problem and basically hope that it would go away and incidents would be isolated. Of course, this is not the case. After months and even years of arguing and serious incidents I spearheaded an effort to at least create new policies with actual consequences for patrons who violated our rules – which could include permanent banning from the library. A few years ago I might have tried to avoid all out bans for patrons, but now I fully supported and proposed this provision. I feel like there needs to be actual consequences for patrons as short term bans or even calling the police can have varied and largely ineffectual results. Even this solution is really not a solution, just an attempt to provide at least some modicum of protection for staff and other patrons.

I don’t have an answer to this one. I need to do some research, talk to some other librarians, etc. I feel like with what seems like a rise in random violence in public places, libraries could be especially vulnerable targets. We have some security in the building, but really its limited as its basically a couple of people who have t-shirts that say security but nothing else and no real authority. I’m also of a mindset that arming people in libraries (or any public place, or well, anywhere) is not really a solution and will cause more problems. That’s another debate though.

With a systemic broken system for mental health and poverty I don’t know if there can really be a solution without fixing those two things. If that’s the case, then none of the causes of the problem can really be addressed by libraries. So what to do – best strategies for providing the best possible safety and minimization of problematic situations? Sounds good – just what exactly ARE those best practices?? Turns out- there’s a webinar from ALA on library safety. Perhaps either my colleague or myself can attend. Will they have some solutions? Maybe. But perhaps most important for right now – librarians and library publications should be TALKING about this subject. I can tell you that working with the NJ Ref section I will push for at least a discussion of this topic.

Public Librarian Skills, MLIS Programs and the Future of Our Profession

Hello everyone the “millions and millions” of you out there, right?

(Note: Thanks Rock!)

The Rock

Anyway, its been quite a while since I last posted…again. As always, I’ve been immersed in the hall of wonders that is public librarianship. Since I last posted, many a thing has happened. Here’s a quick breakdown of my professional activities:

• I joined and attended meetings for the NJLA Reference Section where I proposed a lecture topic for the upcoming NJLA annual conference
• I have since found out that the selection committee gave me the go-ahead to give my presentation at NJLA this year! I’ll be speaking on “Programming for 20/30 Year Olds” and will be speaking with a co-presenter Kate Vasilik, librarian at the Piscataway Public Library (Thanks Kate!) – http://www.piscatawaylibrary.org/
• I spoke on a panel and tabled at the BCCLS Technology Boot Camp Event – topic: Technology in Library Programming
• I setup a several month series of programs with both SCORE (small business seminars) and Seelaus (personal finance workshops) – all free to the library
• Held the first DIY workshop partnering with Hoboken’s Makerbar – a local tech based Makerspace. We held a program where people learned how to use soldering irons and created their own ‘Joule Thief’ – an LED flashlight that runs on dead batteries! Looking to setup regular programming with this group and work on the beginnings of a ‘Makerspace’ at my library
• Will be giving a presentation to my library staff on possible Makerspace implementation ideas for our library along with the launching of a library staff recommendations blog (already done, just needs approval) via WordPress.
• Got in a bunch of new equipment (SLR digital photo/video camera, new audio equipment, Vegas Video software, etc.)  and will be drafting a tech/social media plan to utilize this equipment in order to create the following: videos of library events on a YoutTube Channel for the library, screencasting of library computer/career workshops, creation of library Pininterest, expansion of social media, etc.
• New developments on contract negotiations which I am leading – unfortunately not good developments, but that’s a whole other blog post….

Personal Developments since my last post

• drank wine
• drank beer
• watched football
• HOCKEY has started (thank God!) – go Devils!
• the Governor (my cat)
• visited Virgin Gorda!
• …probably drank more beer

So yeah…that stuff doesn’t need much elaboration. Here’s some stuff though:

Then there’s the best product advertisement ever:

Alright, I digress.

Today’s topic is really about how I feel that there is a disconnect between what MLIS programs are teaching/what skills students learn vs. what is actually required in actual PUBLIC librarianship. As this is not a research paper I want to submit for a journal (though, perhaps later…) I will just stick to some anecdotal examples from my personal experience working at an urban library and getting my MLIS from Rutgers University , the fightin’ Scarlett Knights! I came up with a list of different skills and professional abilities that I think effective public librarians need right now and will need moving forward. I contrasted this with the education I received at Rutgers University’s MLIS program as well as reviewing their current course offerings – I got my degree about 4 years ago already…gulp! …and by ‘gulp’ I mean I’m drinking wine, 2011 Filon Spanish Garnacha to be exact.

My overall thought is that MLIS programs are our of sync with what public librarians should be learning, with perhaps too much focus on more ‘traditional’ librarian skills (which are somewhat less important today in my eyes) while only providing a peripheral and theoretical understanding of important contemporary technologies and skills. This gap creates a situation where newly minted librarians enter the field either lacking in significant areas or having to simply possess the needed skills independently of their MLIS program. In addition, I feel like this fuels the ever present issue of professional staff vs. support staff: there is a resentment from support staff in that they feel they possess or can possess the skills the professional staff exhibits. Now, while I find significant faults with the general MLIS program, I do feel that if nothing else obtaining the degree signifies that you at least have the following skills and abilities:

• Ability to learn and adapt to new ideas, technologies, etc.
• Personal management and organizational skills
• Library specific skills that would otherwise take years to learn ‘on the job’ – like the reference interview, knowledge of resources, critical thinking/research skills, cataloging skills

I’m leaving out things to be sure, but I feel that its not guaranteed that you will learn many of the other skills I find important for the contemporary public librarian.

Anyway, let’s progress then to the skills I feel are the most important for the public librarian now and moving in the future, based on my own experience. I’ll split this list up into two different sections: Required Skills and Recommended Skills

Required Skills

1. Awareness/Knowledge of social services, aid services – basically, referring patrons to the correct service/organization or helpful resources based upon their need.
2. Knowledge of the local community, including: Community leaders, local politics, local government, schools, local geography, local history, local natural history, local historical resources
3. Technical assistance and knowledge – general computer troubleshooting, general knowledge of variety of standard and widely used software and online platforms (Microsoft Office, various email, standard video, photo and music editing software, etc).
4. Social networking platform awareness, usage and skill – currently Facebook, Twitter, Youtube at least and then possibly things like Pinterest, Tumblr, etc, etc. This will change over time and skills will need to be adjusted and maintained.
5. Upkeep and awareness of new technological and professional platforms and skills – this is a general requirement for any professional I think, but especially important for librarians and information retrieval, navigation and creation.
6. Critical thinking/research skills – includes reference interview, knowledge of changing resources, valid resources, citation analysis, etc.
7. Marketing and advertising knowledge and skills – strategies / content creation / Internet marketing and social media marketing
8. Teaching Skills – ability to teach basic computer / bibliographic classes / awareness of general learning theory / presentation and speaking skills / material creation
9. Community Organizing / Building Social Capital – this is very important in terms of positioning the library as a local pillar / future of public libraries likely involves partnerships, collaboration and joint projects / library future also probably involves a re-branding as an education and community center, more than a place for materials / ability to network, organize and navigate local politics, non-profit networks, etc.
10. Professional Development and Trend Awareness – general working professional stuff
11. Catalog Usage and understanding and advanced searching / expertise in various library cataloging software platforms
12. Management skills – time, budget, and employee management skills / more than just theory – practical skills and problem solving abilities and knowledge
13. Budgeting
14. Fund Raising – grant writing / community fund raising / awareness of non-profit legal status and structure / etc.
15. Needs Assessment / Community Assessment / Statistics / Surveys / etc. – ability to perform basic community needs assessments, polling and statistical data anaylsis
16. Event planning and organization – everything from community networking to promotion to refreshments to strategies and goals.
17. Leadership – this is especially needed at the administrative level – ties in with an understanding of management theory and skills and how to motivate and direct staff energy.
18. Unique knowledge – unique knowledge in a particular genre, field or media type – especially in relevance to reader’s advisory, but also in the unique skills that can be brought to reference, library programming and strategic planning.

Now about some skills that may not be totally necessary, but probably recommended for at least a few of these skills:

1. Database design and creation – especially including the technical skills to create a functional database
2. Website design and creation – includes skills in variety of software, platforms and knowledge of at least basic coding

Whew! That seems like a lot – well, as it should be probably. We ARE professionals with master’s degrees, it stands to reason we should be significantly skilled. As I feel public libraries will function more as community and education centers in the future (in contrast to primarily places to borrow items of various sorts) I think many of these skills will be important for future public librarians to possess.

Many traditional librarian skills I’ve somewhat left out all together. Some of those skills not mentioned I feel are either only somewhat functional or altogether unnecessary  I’m going to review the Rutgers MLIS current catalog of classes to make an analysis. However, from just my experience getting my MLIS (again, roughly 4 years ago) I can think of at least taking classes in the following areas that were either excessive or unnecessary:

• “Information Technology” – this class involved learned Microsoft Office programs and Access. For my money, it should be a prerequisite for entry into the MLIS program that you already have these skills. I mean…come on man.  
• Cataloging – I know I’ll catch a bit of flak here, but I felt like I received far more training in cataloging that is going to be necessary for the average public librarian. If you specialize in cataloging, well that’s something different. However, with most librarians linking and processing materials already cataloged by OCLC or a central cataloging unit in your consortium/county system/main branch/etc., how much full cataloging is the average public librarian going to actually do? I have personally never written a MARC record and probably never will. Again, specialization is another issue. Certainly a librarian needs a knowledge of cataloging theory and premise, but perhaps more than one class is not necessary for the average public librarian.

There were other classes that had the right subject and premise, but I felt fell down in terms of execution and actual, practical value. Perhaps many of my classes were too separated in terms of theory from practical application. Mind you, this observation is coming from a person who studied Sociology and Philosophy as an undergraduate, so I love theory! Perhaps a little more of applying theory to practical situations would be ideal.

Let me know take a look at the Rutgers course offerings for this year – Winter/Spring 2013 and see how they stack up against what I feel are some of the most important skills for the future public librarian.

http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/component/cur,610/option,com_courses/sch,17/task,listing/

So in just taking a look at the general course listings page for the MLIS program at Rutgers I’ve come up with a few conclusions as well as a few questions. First, I’ll say that my original pessimism didn’t completely stand up, but it also didn’t totally fall down either. In the way of database design and a variety of technical skills the program does seem to be offering a variety of courses:

• Designing User-Centered Information Services
• Information Visualization
• Digital Libraries
• Multimedia Production
• Digital Library Technologies
• Interface Design
• Metadata
• Information Retrieval
• Database Design and Management

There are certainly a number of classes here that seem to deal with database design and the creation of some original library content – media, image, etc. Some of these courses offer the specific skills I was looking for – training in current software, coding, etc. However, they certainly do not all offer this specificity and several of them seem to stay within the realm of theory and design rather than actually building the database/content/etc. Still others offer some specific training and experience in a specific software, however the choice of software seems counter to forward thinking. For instance, while Database Design and Management seems to be the real deal (SQL, DBMS, etc.), though the Interface Design class seems to have students prototyping using Dreamweaver and Microsoft Powerpoint – not exactly the primary tools of web and/or database design. PP is simply not relevant and Dreamweaver seems to be fast slipping against a variety of online alternatives and total content management systems. Database design and creation seems to have a more robust offering of practical classes, though probably could have more. However, in regard to web design the descriptions of the classes still leave me wanting more in regard to obtaining experience and skills in specific and new web design/management tools or actually writing code. 

My other categories didn’t fair as well:

Library/Staff Management – seems like there is one class offering. This focuses largely on management theory and learning from a few select books either pulled from the business field (not totally applicable) or from a very few books written in our field on that subject. Having taken this course, I can say that there is ample amounts of theory given, but looking back I feel that there again is a lack of practical knowledge in problem solving, employee management, generating staff morale, etc. However, this might be the result of my personal apprehension for anything that smacks of business/conference/motivational speaker/Meyers Briggs rhetoric. 🙂

My other categories (budgets, education theory, leadership, fundraising, community engagement/programming) ended up with roughly 1-2 classes offered in each subject with varying degrees of practical skill/knowledge.

• Community and Programming – 2 related classes – Planning Outreach and Interpersonal Communication (really more for inter-staff communication)
• Education – 1 class – Learning Theory
• Budgets and Fundraising – 2 classes, both budgeting – Collection Development and Management (related topic) and Financial Management of Libraries
• Social media – 2 classes – Understanding and Building Social Media and Social Media Seminar
• Needs Analysis/Statistics – 1 class – well, its not listed for this semester, but I know there is a statistics and analysis class offered

The community related programs touch on a outside basis to the things I’ve mentioned as important skills, but I feel that the offerings fail to address the future importance of programming/community collaboration/social capital. Also, there are many skills (navigating local politics, navigating non-profit organizations, creating community initiatives/partnerships, programming, innovative programming, program/event planning, etc.) that are not fully addressed by the single class offered. I feel that at least 1 – 2 classes on programming, designing library educational classes, and community collaboration/partnerships should be offered.

Education – while this single class that is offered is excellent (took it when I was in enrolled 🙂 ), its probably not enough.

Budgets – a couple of classes learning budgeting probably covers it. However, no grant writing classes (I remember one section being offered in the Summer/Winter sessions when I was there, which was difficult to get), no advanced community fundraising, no creating foundations/non-profit structure, etc. This is a very important issue for the future and more classes should be offered in this topic.

Social media – 1 class + a special seminar. Perhaps more should be invested here – special topics for social media: Social Media, Programming and Fostering Community Interaction / Social Media Advertising and Promotion, etc.

Advertising – other than being small portions of a variety of classes, I didn’t see a class that specifically focused on advertising in libraries – from content creation to strategies to online marketing tools/skills. This is certainly an area where more should be offered.

Conclusions:

I found that the Rutgers MLIS course offerings have more than I thought in a few areas (database design, web design to an extent). However, I also found that in some areas there is room for improvement (library management, social media applications, web design, education theory, content management software). Finally, a few areas were in big need of improvement – fund raising, community/social capital, library programming, and advertising. This picture isn’t a whole lot different than when I was there 4 years ago, which is probably not a good thing. While in some areas they are on the right track, there are several areas that are in big need of improvements. With trends putting more emphasis on following technological trends more energy will be put into those areas. However, from my general perception of research and publications within our field, I don’t see enough emphasis on the need for more education on things like programming and community skills, advertising, teaching abilities, and management skills to be hopeful about future curriculum. Even with technology skills, only part of the courses offered actually provide hands-on experience in new software, CMS, and other platforms. Overhaul of our MLIS programs and the directions of those programs are in need of some retooling in the future.

I know this has gone on foreverrrrrr….sorry about that! I will finish with some bullet list suggestions. Right after this:

Alright, now you’re back! Time for the big finish!

Suggestions:

• MLIS programs could have more classes that involve internships and training at actual libraries working on structured projects and partnered with librarians. I found that some of the best skills and information I received was through my internships at a public library working in its reference department as well as teaching bibliographic instruction (whoops, did I use the wrong term there :)) at a community college library. This could help gain practical skills and actual experience built around structured projects and bolstered with class instruction. Another benefit could be the creation of some unique and useful partnerships between MLIS programs and libraries – both could benefit (labor, skills, research, etc.). This could also open the door to more public library/university collaboration, which might also hopefully lead to more library field research focusing on PUBLIC libraries rather than academic!
• Tougher prerequisites for our MLIS programs. For instance – eliminating the need for an Information Technologies class by making that a prerequisite!
• Improved curriculum strategies and paths – there are a number of useful classes that are already available, but the guidelines for recommended course paths for the desired field (academic, public, school library, etc.) may need to be re-thought to emphasize these new aforementioned skills.
• Offer unique programs regularly – this may be a Rutgers specific issue, but I feel it would be helpful to offer those unique courses (social media, grant writing, statistics/research, etc.) that are currently offered every semester to make it easier for students to access
• Practical skills and experience should be emphasized in courses – experience in specific software (web design, database construction) or maybe internships to gain skills in community building, programming, management, etc.

In the end, librarians are going to have be a sort of jack-of-all-trade professionals and our MLIS programs should reflect that.

That’s it! You made it (or did you – you still here??). I’ll try to post more often from now – and with shorter posts!

Hurricanes, Comic Books, Theater and the Public Library!!

Hello readers! …there are readers for this blog? 🙂 Its been a while since I posted. I just wanted to post something quick so that everyone knows I am still here! My library is in Hoboken, NJ, which you may know had some inclement weather last month; AKA Hurricane Sandy. I won’t go into the specifics of all the challenges that were faced by our library, but here’s a quick breakdown:

• the town was flooded with several feet of water/storm surge, which includes the library basement
• most of the town was without power for 1-2 weeks – the library was down for about a week and a half
• the National Guard and FEMA were present in town, there was a curfew for over a week, mass transportation was not functioning for a significant period of time, etc, etc.
• in short for the library: no power for a week and a half, flooding damaged the boiler and were closed as a result for another week, our elevator is still out of order

So, there was a bit to get through resulting from the storm, including significant confusion among staff given the power outages and loss of communications (no cell phones, landlines, etc.). Also, here’s a boat I found on the bike/walk path that I take to work everyday. A boat….

As such, I have not been really able to post anything to my blog recently. I’ve had to re-schedule a ton of programming (basically the whole month of November) and have been busy getting the library back up and functioning. There are two quick things I do want to say with this post:

1. One additional consequence of Hurricane Sandy on library programming
2. Theater programs at a public library – partnerships with local schools

Consequences of Hurricane Sandy on library programming: Of course, there were many big problems associated with Hurricane Sandy, which I won’t try to compare to library programming in terms of importance. However, being that this blog is mine and I mostly do library programming, well, I’m going to discuss it (thrilling, right?!). Here’s something to bring your back to attention before I continue:

Brisco County Jr. – aliens, time travel, cowboys and Bruce Campbell – how is this not still on today??

Moving on: In the month of October the library had its busiest month of adult programming with some me putting some specific effort on comic book based programming for adults. We also had one of our biggest and most time consuming (planning, setup, promotion, booking, etc) programs of the year: Senior Day also in October. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Senior Day (65 attendees) – 3rd annual (started by me) – we bring in about 60-70 senior citizens in Hoboken to the library for a 3 hour event. We start out with staff offering tours of the library along with a station where people can sign up for library cards. We also have coffee and tea setup for them to start. After everyone is seated I then gave a 15-20 minute Powerpoint Presentation on library services and answered questions (really the whole point of the event haha). After that we had lunch (catering from the local Shop Rite) with sandwiches, cookies, etc. We had a live musician to play music while they are eating lunch. The final hour of the event is a trivia contest/Powerpoint that I created and give where we give out gifts for correct prizes – crossword puzzle books, gift certificates to local businesses, etc. Leading up to the event I put all of the aforementioned stuff together as well as doing outreach/promo events at the local Senior Center. That part is like shooting fish in a barrel: I go to the senior center just before Bingo starts (tons of them there), I bring free dunkin donuts munchkins and then I tell them that there is going to be a free event with free food and prizes that they can go to – 50 people signed up right there.
• 
• 
• Comic Book related: DIY Comic Book Drawing and Writing – two-part hands-on workshop (about 10-12 attendees each)

• 

  Local GN artist Jake Cohen teaching drawing methods.

• 

  Samples of Jake Cohen works on display at the event.

• Video Game Tournament and Comic Book Trivia event (25+ attendees) – had a tournament of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on a 10ft projector screen + free pizza + a gift certificate to Game Stop for the winner of the tournament + one-shot comic prizes for answering questions in the trivia contest – it was pretty sweet!

• 

  10ft screen sucka!

• Jack Kirby Presentation + Original Artwork/Materials – Jack Kirby Museum – RESCHEDULED due to the hurricane

The reason I did so much comic book related (and video game) programs is two fold: First, I just finished re-cataloging the entire comic book/graphic novel/manga collections at the library (I develop those collections and for the most part started a serious collection of these at my library). Instead of all being a variation of 741.5 (yikes!) they are now separated into Comics, Manga, Graphic Novels Fiction and Graphic Novels Non-fiction. We also started a new video game collection at the library (Wii, PS3, XBOX360). I wanted to promote all these new awesome things so I designed these programs. All the programs were pretty successful and got new patrons. I also got to chat with some patrons who are comic book enthusiasts and really talk up the collection and such. I also put out feelers for starting a comic book club at the library, which I got a positive response.

ANYWHO….the whole point? – Hurricane Sandy totally interrupted all the momentum I created for comics, video games and the library. Guess all I can do is more comic book based programs and video game tournaments 🙂

Theater program

Just wanted to quick mention a program I held today at the library. I had a one-woman live theatrical performance of a piece called “Tea For Three” (http://www.teaforthree.com) starring Elaine Bromka – the mother in Uncle Buck!!! 🙂 I have done 3 theater programs at my library – one each year in November. I have brought in a performer (twice for Elaine Bromka, and once for Chinese Opera – http://www.chinesetheatreworks.org) to do a live performance each time. Also for each time I partnered with the local high school to arrange for the drama class to attend the event. A local charter school has also sent over some students. In the past 2 times (including today) the teacher included the performance in her lesson plans for the students. This has been a pretty nice partnership and I’ve gotten about 50 students for each performance + some residents, mostly seniors as I have to the program during the day to get the students.

This partnership has pretty much come up organically – first time I booked the program I thought maybe I could get a high school drama class to come to fill seats haha. While this is the 3rd year of this arrangement its still somewhat informal. I think that I should make it more formal with the school and put a plan together for incorporating it in lesson plans and working together to select the type of performance. I think this could be an example of the type of community engagement and educational partnerships that I think will be important to the future of the public library. So, we’ll see where this goes! 🙂 Only one problem: I’m not suppose to be the young adult librarian as well 🙂 opps.

Some shots from the Chinese Theater from last year…

 

 

 

 

That’s all for now. A more substantial post to come shortly!

P.S. I seem to listen to a lot of afrobeat when typing out these posts. Today, Antibalas:

Comic Con – New Ideas or Same Challenges?

Today’s post: NY Comic Con reactions.

Bruce Campbell – new Evil Dead movie coming soon!

Yes, Comic Con – an event where librarians salivate almost as much as fanboys. Comics, graphic novels, manga…oh my! The librarian thinks (or the template librarian oft displayed in Library Journal and other library popular publications/conferences) “these mediums will finally connect us with youth and label the library as cool!” At least, this is how this message seems to come off when discussed in library publications and conferences. This may be a little old news at this point even for that though. Currently, our new fixation is various digital content and “makerspaces”. While various trends in the library field do yield some positive results for our field, as I believe a modified version of Makerspaces will do, others receive a level of over-hyping that never quite pans out. Example: “Everyone will be on 2nd Life in 2 years!” – I remember hearing that in library school 5 years ago….

Anyway, following that brief rant let me quickly break down my experience at the Thursday professional day at NYCC. I attended 3 workshops:

1. Surviving the Public
2. The Possibilities of the Cape and Mask – How to Incorporate Superheroes into Library Programming
3. Foolproof Graphic Novel Collection Development

So to briefly summarize, I had some positives and negatives about all three workshops. Overall, I’d say that they indeed yielded some interesting ideas and showcased passionate librarians working hard to provide unique things in their field. With that said, here’s a breakdown:

Surviving the Public:

• I don’t really have much to say about this workshop. This was presented by the creators of “Unshelved” (http://www.unshelved.com/), comics about life in the public library. The workshop was funny and largely featured the creators displaying strips from various comics they created that were related to various situations the one creator encountered while working as a public librarian. While amusing, I don’t think anything of particular value actually came from this in terms of providing real solutions for librarian based customer service. Really, this workshop was simply affable dudes presenting funny anecdotes (and comics) relating to the daily interactions of a librarian. Amusing, charming, but lacking in actual solutions or plans.

Superheroes in Library Programming

• This workshop featured two enthusiastic, young librarians working in NJ public libraries who had some very inventive and fun ideas for using comics in library programming. Many of the ideas are ones that are not unheard of, but executed well. Others were a little more out-of-the-box. Here’s a few of the ideas presented:
  • Create an Anime Club, which would include book discussions, films, games, hang out time, materials, etc.
  • Anti-Prom for Anime/Manga fans. Costumes, various ‘anti-prom’ activities, etc. Seemed pretty unique.
  • Mini-Con event at your library – check out the Monmouth Library’s “KAPOW” comic event – seemed to go off pretty awesomely and may be the most inspiring thing I saw a local library doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsgszadP9hc&feature=plcp
  • D&D at the library…what? I’ve been wanting to do this for, well, forever. I can DM the games!
  • Create your own comics – either drawing using templates or using online software and tools.

There were some more ideas as well and a few that I thought of while listening to them. So overall you might think that this was a successful workshop for me with all the interesting ideas. However, there was just one setback: all the librarians and all the programs were all geared toward TEENS and KIDS. Unfortunately, this is problematic for me considering I am an ADULT services librarian looking to do programming for ADULTS. So, all the models, ways of promoting, and structures were based on teens or kids as the base audience.

Teens and kids as your target audience creates a VERY different scenario when looking to promote and get attendance. Many of the strategies the librarians suggested here was to work with schools, afterschool programs and parents groups. The programs were structured very much for a teen/children audience: story times and basic arts and crafts, well, don’t hold much interest for adults.

So overall the ideas were good and the librarians very enthusiastic. However, again I find that Comic Con librarian panels are focused on Young Adult librarians and Teen programming.

As an adult services librarian, I can’t help but seen Teens as a variation of this picture.

Graphic Novel Collection Development

• I’ll make this pretty quick, considering I’ve been to like 5 different GN Collection development workshops/panels. This was another useful panel with ideas for new materials, authors and trends that I may or may not have known about.
• This program actually had as good or better ideas for programs related to comics that might be applicable for adults. Again, some ideas that are obvious and some unique others:
  • graphic novel swap
  • comic/anime clubs
  • movie tie-in events: comic book discussion + show the movie
  • artist/author visits
  • Comic design contests
  • I added costume contest to this list…
• This also had some ideas and sources on digital comic collections for libraries. This was helpful as I’ve been trying to put together a graphic novel iPad that could be borrowed for my library.

Overall: all the workshops were decent to good, but pretty much centered on teens and kids. Certainly programming structure is different for teens/kids than adults. Perhaps as important though, is that there is also a huge difference in how you promote and get attendance for those events. Networking with the schools and parents are a huge gateway to kids and those structures are often already pretty solid. Further, libraries now have, like it or not, a daycare type element to them. Library programs allow parents (and nannies) to have children occupied during busy days. For teens parents enjoy library programs as it gives teens something to do after school that is positive. Again, there is some existent structure that helps for getting teens to library programs. NOTE: I do NOT mean to say that this is easy or that this is always true. I only say it to draw a distinct different between programming for teen/kids vs adults.

With all that said, I continually struggle to get adults into library programs. In my previous post you’ll see a whole breakdown of my thoughts on what are good and bad practices and what I need to plan to do in the future. As such, I won’t repeat all that here. However, I will say that I’ve put together some programs related to comics for this month which are all pretty interesting  However, I’ve had lots of trouble getting people into the programs. In the end, I believe the solution is to focus on a few programs that are recurring on a weekly/monthly basis and have buy-in and partnerships from specific local organizations that can guarantee attendance and/or cross promotion.

I planned comics/video game programming as I recently finished re-cataloging the entire graphic novel collection to make it easier to browse, we started a video game collection (Wii, Xbox360 and PS3) and NYCC was happening and I thought would provide a good tie-in. Here’s what I’ve planned:

1. DIY hands-on workshops on Drawing and Writing your own comics taught by a local comic artist. There will be 2 sessions and both will be hands on.
2. Video Game Tournament AND Comic Book Trivia Event – playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 with the winner getting a Gamestop Gift Certificate. Comic book trivia questions will accompany the event with prizes for each question answered correctly. Free pizza and soda to boot.
3. Lecture, presentation and art display on the life and work of Jack Kirby by trustee of the local Jack Kirby Museum.

To promote these events I did a few things. First, I contacted and promoted the event to students groups at the local college (Stevens Tech) – both the Video Game Club and Anime Club distributed information to their members. Both seemed enthusiastic and said their members should be interested. I also did some tabling at the library during lunchtime at Stevens Tech in partnership with the awesome librarians there :). I brought samples of both collections and could sign up people for library cards and for the events. While I signed up over 10 students for cards in just about 1 1/2 hours, I couldn’t get any signups on the tournament or other events. We also promote all programs in the following ways:

• monthly ad in local newspaper
• Facebook/Twitter/Eventbrite
• library website
• flyers in and out of the library
• email/print newsletter
• ads in online local newspapers

Right now its looking like I will have low attendance for all of these programs, which, well, sucks. I have generally been doing well on adult programs in the last 2 years, but over the past few months the programs have just not been hitting. This month appears to not be an exception to that trend. Again, I think the solution is to focus on a few recurring programs that have buy-in from local organizations. I’m going to try and keep pushing the social networking, online promotions and contact more local groups to try and get more people. We will see what I can come up with. Right now though, it seems I’ve fallen into the classic adult library programming trap: cool ideas for programs with embarrassingly low attendance.

Again, I’ve had a pretty excellent track record in the past, but recently I’ve been swinging and missing. Time for a restructuring I think!

Thanks for reading. Again, post any thoughts you have – especially suggestions!