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 🙂

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:

Long Term Community Partnerships Vs. Diverse Programming

Hey! Its another post…oh boy! This time I’ve decided to start out with a funny picture rather than end with one. Try this out for size:

Schmenge Brothers

Now here is something I saw LIVE last week, which basically ruled:

Einstein on the Beach

And now for something completely different, what I’m drinking while writing this post:

Founders Breakfast Stout

And what I’m listening to while writing this post:

Fela

Ok, now that you have some cognitive context, let’s proceed with the post.

Today I thought I would write a bit about, well, library programming again. Are you still awake? Well, one of my main duties where I work and passions as a librarian is adult community programming. Over the past 3+ years I have worked hard to create diverse and unique adult programming at my library. Over this time I have generally focused on creating different and unique programming every month, with 2-4 special programs every month. These special programs are in addition to regular monthly programming that we hold. Here is a snapshot of programming I have coming up this month at my library to give you an idea. This month happens to be one of the busiest of the year and I’ve decided to do a special Comic Book focus as I just recently finished re-cataloging and expanding the entire manga/comics/graphic novels collection. All programs are organized, run, taught or otherwise put managed by myself other than the following: writers group and art gallery opening.

Special Programs:

1. Senior Day – one of the biggest programs of the year, 50-80 senior citizens from the community. We have tours of the library, library card signups, a quick presentation on library services for seniors (the point of the event?), catered lunch, live music during lunch and then a trivia contest hosted by me with prizes. And let me to you, those seniors aren’t kidding when it comes to competing for free things!
2. Video Game Tournament and Comic Book Trivia – this is the first video game tournament I’ll be running (what, how is that possible?). I’m targeting local college students and I’m working with the SC Williams Library (Stevens Tech) and the fantastic library Valerie who is the Communications and New Media Strategies Librarian. Hmm, one’s professional title can be an important thing…what, my official title of “Librarian” isn’t helping me? Anyway, we’ll be playing Tekken Tag Team Tournament 2 on a 10ft projector screen with pizza and drinks. Gamestop gift certificate is the prize. Comic book trivia while the gaming is happening – one-shot comics as prizes for each question. Anyway, hope this works out. Working with a colleague of mine who runs game time for teens and loves video games. Also, we are starting a video game collection at the library launching this month – Xbox 360, Wii and PS3. Should be sweet.
3. A Lecture from a founding member of the local Jack Kirby Museum – “The Life and Times of Jack Kirby”
4. A monthly ‘special’ series I hold is the Hoboken Do-It-Yourself series, where I bring in local businesses/individuals/etc. to teach unique, often hands-on classes. This month I have a local artist giving a two part hands-on series on writing and drawing comics.
5. Park Bench Open-mic – our final monthly open-mic series event of the year. Learn more in my “Programs That Have Worked” section of this blog. An openmic we hold in a local park next to the library. We have an hour long live musical performance followed by an openmic poetry, music, comedy, etc.

Recurring Series Programs:

1. Monthly computer classes:
   1. Microsoft Excel Part 1
   2. Microsoft Excel Part 2
   3. Internet Basics 1
   4. Internet Basics 2
2. Monthly Career workshop series – Cover Letter Workshop
3. Monthly Film Screening – Army of Darkness (yes!)
4. Writer’s Critique Group
5. Spanish Language Internet Basics Class

Whew! So yeah, pretty much the busiest month of the year. I always jam pack in programs September – November.

Anyway, this snapshot shows you that while there are a number of recurring monthly programs (largely classes and such I teach), the rest of the programs are kind of out of the box and often change each month. I originally thought that this would be beneficial to do; to have diverse and different programming every month rather than having long lasting programming. The decision to do this was also influenced by the fact that my administration instructed me that they didn’t like programming that brought in the same programmer repeatedly and instead wanted to spread out our programming. As a result, diversity was the name of the game. Anyway, I DID still think this strategy could yield benefits for the following reasons:

• The community in which I work is a diverse community with an array of needs
• A major demographic in our community is 20s/30s and affluent – the library is very interested in attracting this group to the library. I thought that a broad range of programming focusing on hands-on activities and topics that would appeal to this group – cooking, food, arts and crafts, DIY skills, etc. As such, often changing activities and programs could appeal to this group
• We have diverse audience targets that we hope to attract to the library: young/affluent, job seekers, seniors, Spanish speakers, underprivileged, etc.
• I thought that diverse programming would allow me to network with all kinds of groups in town which would build social capital, strengthen library ties in the community and raise awareness of our services

3 years later I have a few thoughts on how this strategy has turned out. 

Benefits:

Over the past 3 years I’ve definitely been able to create a bunch of very unique programs that I’m proud of. These programs have indeed reached out and attracted many new faces to the library and built some awareness of our efforts in town. This includes the elusive 20/30s crowd. Some examples of programs I thought were especially cool:

1. DIY Home Beer Brewing Workshop and Homebrew Tasting – taught by the Jersey City Home Brew Club
2. Senior Day (3rd year running)
3. DIY Layer Cake Making
4.  African History Month – African Food Sampling, Live Music and Cultural Celebration Event
5. Haiti Roundtable Discussion featuring reporters, professors and other Haiti experts
6. LGBT Yearly Pride Month Programming – 3 special programs every June
7. Live theater – one-woman “Tea for Three” with Elaine Bromka (the mother from Uncle Buck!) and Chinese Peking Opera – partnered with the local high school to have classes sent over for the performances. Going to be doing this for a 3rd year in a row too.
8. Local author roundtable – a dozen authors talking about the writing process and getting published
9. Chick-Lit Night – 2 local Chick-lit authors presenting their new books along with cupcakes, coffee and tea
10. Open-mic series
11. Housing Fair – over a dozen nonprofits, gov’t groups, etc., and over 100 attendees

Throughout these programs, and especially with the DIY monthly series, I’ve certainly been able to reach out to many different businesses and groups in town. We’ve also reached out to local gov’t, schools, nonprofits, etc., through out outreach efforts and also through our community needs assessment and strategic planning initiatives. During these community analysis projects we did a lot of gatekeepers interviews and did a lot of surveys/polling among the community. Indeed, these efforts led largely to energies being put into the creation of the computer classes to meet the needs identified in the senior citizen and job seeker demographics. However, it has not all been sunshine and lollypops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9riCK5ivhis

Drawbacks:

Despite the success we’ve had, I feel that both the positives have not gone far enough and that our efforts to really integrate ourselves with other groups in town have not really come to fruition. Here are some of my thoughts on drawbacks:

• While we have initiated many partnerships with many groups in town, most of have been on a limited basis because of the limited nature of the programming. As a result, the relationships with these groups generally lack maintenance and continual contact. So while the door has been opened to these groups, any new initiative or effort needs to partially restart the wheel.
• Patrons are often interested in follow-up programs for their favorite events. Because of our policies and focus, follow-up programs have either not happened or occurred so far in advance that we have lost some of the audience.
• Patrons may be enticed by a unique program that interests them, I’ve found many of the other programs I’ve chosen may not interest them (though they might for others). As a result, new patrons who have come to a few programs may eventually lose contact as the programs do not necessarily reflect their interests for that month.
• Advertising and outreach can be difficult as our potential target audience often shifts based on the difference in programming
• Simply coming up with several unique programs every month and maintaining quality of the program, advertising, outreach AND maintaining community relationships for each program is nearly impossible.

Conclusions:

I think that I need to learn some lessons from past experiences on this, so…here are some thoughts on what I might try moving forward:

• I’d like to select a VERY FEW focuses for programs and series I want to develop – maybe 2 – 3. I need to select a target audience or community need, select a program to meet this need and partner with specific organizations on this. While I’ve done this all before, I would like to have the programs be repeating on a regular basis – once a month, bi-monthly, etc. My upcoming project into the creation of a Makerspace (of sorts) at my library should be a good place to start. I have a few ideas already (see my last post). I’d like to have a space open at least weekly that could serve a particular need and work with specific groups. A ‘pie-in’the-sky’ idea I had was for the library to have a computer lab (which we already have) with all the necessary software and resources for learning to write code. We could then partner with the in-town university (Stevens Tech) to perhaps get students/professors to teach writing code and programming to local underprivileged high school students. Stevens students could get college credit and so could the high schoolers. Great idea, LOTS of work. We’ll see…
• Design a strategy to maintain the contact and interaction between the library and partnered organizations. Perhaps assign certain staff to work on these relationships – which would require a little work on staff allocation. Another challenge is that we are basically is small to medium sized library attempting to grow fast and expand services with a staff that remains the same. My thought is that we are generally, with a few exceptions, working at capacity as it is. This will require some re-configuring of staff goals and objectives with a reallocation of staff time and resources. However, I believe I can find the room and believe maintaining these relationships is KEY to the future of the library:
  • becoming an integral contributor and player in local educational efforts or governmental initiatives can be very important to solidifying the library’s imagine and role in the local community (and in the mind’s of taxpayers at the polls)
  • collaboration and partnerships are key to building social capital and raising the awareness of the library’s local community role
  • partnerships and collaborations are ALSO key to obtaining grants and funding
• Scale back on unique programming to make way for the recurring programs.
• Review the monthly programming to make sure they are all streamlined, attracting audiences and providing value effectively. If they are not, trim the fat.
• Maintain a more modest level of diverse programming. This strategy indeed still has value and should be continued for many reasons. However, I might make better effort to obtain feedback (which I do) and have programming reflect the interests of those patrons. Perhaps a redesign of feedback forms?
• Better communication with targeted patrons. We have an email newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, Eventbrite and lots of promotions in the local paper/online news resources. Perhaps I can create a social media group specifically for the DIY series to keep people informed and encourage an online discussion? Hmm…

Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. The diverse programming has definitely given the library lots of benefits. However, I would like to scale of that back to make room for long-lasting community relationships and partnerships on programming. Striking the balancing will be the key, especially with staff and space limitations.

Once again, any thoughts are much encouraged!

P.S. – by the end of my post I was listening to this on Spotify:

 

Also, 3 Founders Breakfast Stouts were consumed… 🙂

Makerspace Invasion!

Today I decided to write a little on the beginning of a project I am undertaking at my library. I’ll try to post updates as I go along and work things out, hopefully with the idea of following learning from my mistakes, successes, etc.

Over the past almost 4 years (yikes!) I’ve been immersed in many different projects and aspects of the library I oversee.  If any of you are public librarians working at a small to mid-sized library (generally understaffed, etc.), you’ll recognize this picture of juggling many different hats. Here’s a few of things I’ve really focused on:

• Unique adult programming to reach all audiences – at least 2-4 special programs every month + DIY monthly program series + 4 computer classes + 1 career workshop + 1 film screening + 1 book discussion (not run by me) + writers group (also not run by me) + art gallery opening (again, not run by me). I’ve spent much of my time creating unique programs as I believe free adult education, technology training and community driven programming is a huge component of the future of public libraries. See my old posts about the DIY series I started or the list of programs that have worked section of this blog for a better idea of the programs I’m doing. Or see my library’s eventbrite page for what’s happening now: http://hobokenpubliclibrary.eventbrite.com/
• Creation, teaching and maintaining of weekly computer skill training classes – about 2 dozen classes this point
• Creation, teach and maintaining of monthly career workshop series – 7 classes right now (just taught the first Intro to Linkedin class last night)
• The development of unique and in-depth music and graphic novel/comics/manga collections: ones that focused on having examples of some of the best albums from many different genres, including punk, metal, rap, etc. The same goes for the graphic novels/manga/comics – all the new stuff, examples of some of the best runs of many titles…and lots of Vertigo titles! Also. full runs of series whenever possible. And certainly no censorship of any kind!
• Creation and operation of the library’s social media: Facebook, Twitter, Eventbrite with updates most days

I’ve also done a lot of work on strategic planning, community needs assessments, union representation/contract negotiation, etc. – and all from the public service desk!

Ok, I’m just tooting my own horn here – sorry about that! Mostly I just feel that there are a bunch of public librarians out there who will understand about doing way too many things at once!

Anywho, NOW I’m looking to head into some new projects – ones that mirror much of what is being discussed in today’s library journals, conferences, etc. New project: investigate and implement a Makerspace into my library.

Yes,the 3-D printer is the hot topic everyone is thinking about these days. The new savior of libraries, right?

I’m going to assume you have all heard of Makerspaces from, well, basically any library literature that you pick up today, so I won’t waste your time. In the city that our library serves, there are currently at least 2 different groups that are looking into creating at least some sort of Makerspace and/or Technology Workshop Space. Our library has been approached about participating and of course, we were interested in doing something like this anyway. So, I’ve volunteered to begin looking into this for the library.

Here are some important relevant details:

• There are at least 3 groups trying to do something similar in the city – so we do not want to duplicate efforts AND we would like to partner whenever possible
• Our library has limited space available – really only a small (20 person) programming room that is used for other programs too
• I don’t want to try and do something that A) other groups are already doing in town B) is out of our staff/time constraint ability
• The budget for this is currently unknown, but one benefit our library has is that we likely have ample funding for this kind of project
• The City government wants to create a space in town, but has invited the library to participate. Therefore, I need to come up with BOTH ideas for a Makerspace inside the library AND remote location possibilities
• One of groups already working on these projects has a Makerspace of sorts up an running – it is mostly based on metalworking, soldering iron projects, creating robots, and other fun projects like that.

I have come up with some ideas for both in library and remote location possibilities, factoring in duplication and what other groups are already doing. Here are some of the ideas – anybody have any thoughts on these? Leave a comment and let me know!

In Library:

• *3-D Printer, training and open creation times. This would be IF no other group is going to do this in town with free access
• separate computer stations specifically for webchatting. Stations would have webcams, microphones, headsets and various webchatting software and web services
• photography stations – computers with high end photo editing software along with high end printers and photo paper. Local photographers would be employed to come in and offering training on a regular basis and then there will be open times for people to use the workstations.
• Open resume and cover letter creation time + job search/applications – we will have laptops setup, lots of print and online resources available, and staff available to assist. I already teach career workshops, so this would simply be an open time for people to cover whatever topic.
• Open-tech time – staff on hand with computers setup for people to come in and ask whatever questions they may have regarding general computer/Internet tech. Likely meant for lower skilled users.
• Partner with Stevens Institute of Technology (in town) as well as the local high school to have students/professors from Stevens teach classes on writing code to high school kids utilizing our computer lab.
• Video blogging stations and open creation times. Classes will be taught regularly on how to use the various tools, including video editing software and recording, to create your own video blog or other film project. We would also have quality video cameras and webcams available along with video editing software. Users would be able to come in, get training, and then have opentime to work on their video projects with staff present to help when possible.
• Work with the other group in town (Makerbar) to offer classes to kids to create basic robots with fun, easy and safe materials

Off Site Options – this is a little harder as I’m not sure what resources will be available at this remote site. Mostly this might involve bringing what I would be doing in house to a remote location.

• Resume/job skills open workshop OR teaching the career workshops remotely instead of in house
• Open-tech time
• Take some of the other mobile “stations” mentioned above – webchatting, video editing, photo editing, etc.
• teach computer training classes that I already teach at the library

Anyway, those are some of the ideas I have for this. My next step is to come up with a real plan for IN LIBRARY possibilities. I’ll need to pick things that would be feasible for our budget/staff availability/space and time constraints. I will also want to select activities that would in fact be something of interest to the community (oh yeah, that). Detailed plans for budgeting, staff training, collaborations, implementation, success measurement, etc., will be forthcoming.

Anyone have any thoughts? Has anyone created a makerspace before in their library? How about specifically in a small-medium sized public library?? Any thoughts, suggestions or straight up insults are welcome!

Oh, and here’s a funny picture:

Sometimes I feel like this at the public service desk.

Reality Check

Just a quick thought today: employees at the library today discovered a ‘unique’ Craigslist post that involved the library. I’ve seen quite a lot while working at the public library in my day: dozens of people watching pornography, drunk/intoxicated people, real questions about building a time machine, physical fighting and screaming, and much, much more. This is of course the side of working in a public library that is rarely mentioned, but is likely one of the two popular perspectives of what public libraries are today for people who are casual to non-users:

Perspective #1: public libraries are daytime homeless shelters

Perspective #2 – public libraries have books and are basically stuck in a 1980s level of technology, collections, etc.

I think that it would be good if library schools and our profession engage issue of public perception (related to #1) and the REAL issues that can occur while working in a public library. This would be good for preparing future professionals, creating a better public perspective game plan and attempting to craft real solutions to real problems. Anyway, more on this later.

For now…here’s the today’s story:

A person posted an advertisement on Craigslist explicitly laying out his offer of sexual solicitation to be performed inside the library. Specifically, you would be able to find him the “adult non-fiction section” and that you would know him by the “purple thong” that he would be wearing. And indeed, a very, uh, detailed picture accompanied this post.

So yeah, a good mix of somewhat hilarious, somewhat depressing, somewhat scary. Welcome to the public library!

Here’s just a few articles that the general public might consume about public libraries:

http://gothamist.com/2011/04/20/brooklyn_public_library.php

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/04/25/135707937/pornography-is-protected-speech-at-new-york-public-libraries

 

Then there’s some ALA perspectives:

http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/policymanual/updatedpolicymanual/section2/61svctopoor

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/outreachtounderservedpopulations/servicespoor

Oh and just to remind you, this exists: