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 🙂