Say Farewell to the Roaming Librarian

 This will be the last entry in my series on the Roaming Librarian. The project will be closed out at the end of this semester. My feelings about this are mixed. 


First, the reasons for the change.  There have been just a few meetings of the librarians who participated in the Roaming project, and the feedback we've given each other is for the most part negative. I've mentioned the drawbacks already, such as librarians being by temperament more inclined to introversion. This means it takes a lot more social energy for us to initiate a reference interview with a patron, than having them come to us. 

There was an even more significant negative. We have comment cards, like most libraries, where patrons can tell us what they think. From the comment cards, we got the understanding that students felt that the librarians were monitoring students' behavior; a few commenters even used the word 'spying'. Obviously this is not the impression we were hoping to make. 

Advertising for this project was all but non-existent, so the students did not know ahead of time why we were walking around and looking at what we were doing. I had a sign that I hung on the tablet computer that gave an invitation to ask me questions, but in retrospect, I could have worded it more clearly; something like "Roaming Librarians - on the spot assistance. We'll come to you."  Anyway, the sign was fun but it could have been better. 

Our student workers were asked to get student feedback in a survey, and to do so were walking through the library with a clipboard and randomly asking students questions. All of the workers that I spoke to expressed great distress with having to take this approach. They felt as though they were intruding upon the patrons, and many said the patrons let them know they didn't like the intrusion. 

Many days while I was Roaming around, I found it uncommon for students who were seated and going about their work to even make eye contact with me. If they're not looking up or looking around, they are probably intent enough on their work that I would be an unpleasant intrusion. I chat with student workers at our service points, which is all good. This has had an unexpected side effect - I have become the librarian of choice when the student workers have to transfer a phone question. Because I've taken just a few minutes twice a week to stop and chat with them, we've developed a relationship, and so they think of me as someone who, as advertised, "knows stuff". 

While the Roaming Librarian is coming to an end, I'll still be here, taking phone calls, emails, chats and even questions in person. It is sometimes difficult to accept the essentially passive nature of our profession. Maybe there are ways to be more active, but it seems that Roaming wasn't it. Well, librarians are an adaptable lot; if this didn't work out, we'll surely find something else that will.

I'll be back, folks.

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Tales of the Roaming Librarian - September edition

Some times it's not easy being a Roaming Librarian. It is an unhappy truth that even when we make ourselves on-the-spot available and advertise who we are and what we're doing, the students still have to decide that they want to ask us for help.

September is apparently Art month here in the library. While I've been out Roaming I've encountered:

A student in on of our group study rooms writing on the walls. It's OK, the walls are basically dry erase boards, so that students have plenty of room to make notes and such. This student was drawing clothing designs. There were four or five near-life-size female figures on the walls, all in some kind of modern dress design. The Roaming Librarian does not know women's fashion, he only knows how to do research about it. 

A student with an architect's rule, sitting on the landing of one of our open staircases. He said that from there he had the best vantage point to draw our lobby and main service desk. I spotted several more architectural tools in the area at the bottom of the staircase. 

A student in one of the Learning Commons areas, with her sketch pad spread across the table, making some revisions to a drawing of a statue. I asked her a few questions about her class, and about technique, and learned about the different markings on pencils, which indicate the hardness of the graphite. The harder the graphite, the lighter shade of gray it will produce on paper. Nifty.

Other notable interactions of late:

• helping a student find books on inter-cultural marriage
• recommending a few books on Orthodox Christianity to a student
• discussing a nursing exam on the menstrual cycle with nursing majors
• locating commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles for a student

A student actually came looking for me this week. I had spoken in his Criminal Justice class, and he sought me out for help. He was having trouble finding the kind of research he wanted on the phenomena of 'tunnel vision'. The databases were giving him info on glaucoma, not the psychological condition in which fear or adrenaline cause you to over-focus on one point, and miss all the visual data around you. 

Stay away from the light!

Before long we had located an alternative term, "perceptual distortion" from an article indexed by the NCJRS, National Criminal Justice Reference Service. From there his research got back on track, as he now had a more technically accurate term to search on.

Oh and for bonus points, I saw a lizard in the garden outside. 

This book is REALLY overdue!

Part of my job at our library is handling all of the book donations. One of my colleagues who was helping me sort out a recently donated collection discovered these two cards tucked into one of the books.

The card below the notice is an actual catalog card. Don't see those around much anymore.

This book was at one time part of the collection of the Jones Memorial Library, a separate library institution from the Lynchburg Public library. The Jones Memorial specializes in central Virginia history and genealogy. I contacted the Jones Memorial and inquired whether the book was something they would want back. Apparently the book (which clearly was never returned) was excised from their catalog at some point.

It's probably a good thing, too. $0.02 per day is not a lot of money, but over 82 years it does add up. By our math, the patron who borrowed this book in 1932 would now owe the Jones Memorial nearly $600.

Remember, gentle readers, RETURN YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS!

Seriously. Don't make her come and get it from you.

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Tales of the Roaming Librarian - Fall Semester Kickoff Tour

The fall semester has begun! There are students in the library again, I'm so excited!  
I've got a new, improved version of my sign from last semester, courtesy of our graphics specialist:

How cool is that?!?

 
I've already chatted with several students, and some visitors touring the library. One young lady was so excited that I helped her find Paradise Lost and some lit crit to go with it that she forgot to take the primary text with her. I had to track her down in the reading room to deliver the Milton.


OK, so this is not the result of Roaming Reference, but I wanted to mention it. A student contacted me by email, saying he was having trouble looking up county ordinances for a county in a Central/Midwest state. I do not know if this student comes from that county or not, but for his own educational purposes, he wanted to know about this county's ordinances. He searched the county website and did not find what he wanted, so he inquired of me if the library had a database of county ordinances that we could search.

We don't. So I looked over the county website as well, and lo and behold, there was the name and telephone number of the deputy county clerk. Well, there's someone who should know about county ordinances. So I rang her up, stated the problem and she was quite happy to have the student contact her with his question.

Now, why mention this?  Because the myth that "everything is on the Internet" apparently is still going strong. No, no it isn't people. Probably not going to be any time soon, as every KB of data loaded onto an Internet server means someone had to spend time and likely money to put it there. Not to mention all of the stuff that's accessible only by subscription - like most of the academic journals our library pays big bucks for, to give the students access.

And one more thing: I want one of these, but the I can't get the campus print shop to make them for us.

Gorramit, we want those overdue books back!

Oh well, maybe next year. Roaming on . . .

How to Weed your Library While Looking Like Idiots

“Oh boy”, I thought as I read the headline. “Another library has gone and started another mass weeding project, and ended with egg on its face”.

Really, people? Why is this still happening? Haven’t we learned our lesson on this yet?

photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7883660@N05/466221141/in/photostream/

The Annoyed Librarian over at Library Journal shared this news report from the Boston Globe about the Boston Public Library system making itself look stupid while going about a perfectly normal, process of library collection management. The really frustrating thing about this is that they didn’t have to. Look stupid, I mean.

Libraries weed books. Just because we acquire a book does not mean we are contractually obligated to keep it on the shelf until it disintegrates into a pile of paper dust. Books come off of our shelves for many reasons, such as:

· It has been damaged
· The information has been rendered obsolete
· The book has a recorded history of not being used
· Duplicates exist where there is no demand for multiple copies
· A newer edition has been added to the collection
· The patronage of the library has changed such that the book is no longer relevant

And some times, we just run out of space. Patrons have this unquenchable desire for new books, you see. “Have you got anything new?” is a normal question. Especially in academic libraries, having access to the current scholarship and research is absolutely essential. So we move things around, and try to fit the new stuff in.

Until someone invents a bookshelf that can get around basic laws of physics (two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time) we are faced with the limit of not enough space to put all of our stuff. You know, like your house. When we run out of space at the library, we either build a bigger library (slow and expensive) or remove tables & chairs to make room for more books (unpopular) or remove some existing books from the shelves (deeply unpopular).

The Annoyed Librarian makes a good point about that last option, though. AL says “people don’t care about the weeding. What they care about is noticing the weeding”. An irrational distinction, but true none the less.

If the BPL had to weed its shelves on the scale it did, fine, I’ll accept that they had good reason to want to cut back that much. Obviously, it would be very hard to do a weed on that scale without someone noticing. With that in mind, they should have tried harder to make sure the people who did notice were not upset by it.

The Globe article quotes a person who said “I can’t begin to imagine what their thinking is in this wholesale removal of books,”. This person was a member of the Friends of the Library group! Hello, what? They should have been the first people the library explained the project to.

A few humble suggestions:

Planning is good. Let the key people – like the Friends of the Library - know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Talk about parts of the collection that want to expand. Talk about making room for new books. Once you have them on your side, they can help spread the message you want to spread. Expect that the local news will get wind of it - so beat them to the punch, and send them a press release, which says what you want to say, not what they think will sell copy.

Get them to see that it is not destructive, but constructive. The Globe article mentions, in journalist passive voice, that the BPL adds 100,000+ books every year. That should have been headliner stuff: “We’ve got lots of new stuff coming in, and we’re trying to make room for it”.

It also helps to have the staff on board with the project. The Globe article made it sound like the BPL staff was unenthusiastic at best about the weeding project. They should have had some media statements ready for when the reporters came asking, to project ‘team effort’ and again, pushing the positive message you want to push.

Take it slowly. If noticing the weeding is what bothers people, then go slowly so it is less obvious. The shelves’ composition changes all the time – but whole shelves do not disappear at once. Avoid doing that by have shelving assistants come along behind the weeders, to shift and spread the books out so you are not left with barren shelves that scream “Help! Books are Being Thrown Out Here!”

Know your collection. Know what people want, and what they don’t want. Emphasize the positive – we’re giving you more of what you want. Americans love the new thing, so showcase the new stuff that’s going on the shelves – line up some weeding candidates (the oldest, nastiest books you can find) alongside the new stuff and show the patrons exactly what they’re getting from the exchange.

Never forget libraries are for readers. Even in the 21st century, people still want books. The idea of books not being available is a scary one to many people. Reassure them; don’t try to buy them off with coffee shops, media walls or colorful mosaics. They want books, first and foremost.

For the more devious minded, you could plant a few books in the weeding pile so that you can publicly put them back, to remind the public that you do listen to them. 

Really, people, we are smarter than this. My little blog post is far from original in mentioning ways to get this thing done without looking like whacking great idiots. Do some research. Here, I’ll get you started.

Articles on how to weed without PR disasters:

 

Soma, Amy K., and Lisa M. Sjoberg. "More than just low-hanging fruit: a collaborative approach to weeding in academic libraries." Collection Management 36, no. 1 (2010): 17-28.

 

Cascio, Keri. "Culling Your Collection: The Fine Art of Weeding." (2011).

 

 Metz, Paul, and Caryl Gray. 2005. "PERSPECTIVES ON … : Public Relations and Library Weeding." Journal Of Academic Librarianship 31, no. 3: 273-279. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed August 19, 2014).

 

Wajda, Carrie Netzer. 2006. "Selection, deaccessioning, and the public image of information professionals: Learning from the mistakes of the past." Library Student Journal 1, no. 2: 1-9. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed August 19, 2014).

 

Roy, L. 1990. "Weeding without tears: objective and subjective criteria used in identifying books to be weeded in public library collections." Collection Management 12, no. 1/2: 83-94. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed August 19, 2014).