2016 ALA Midwinter Meeting: Day 1 Highlights

I generally travel to both the ALA Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference on Thursdays so that I can attend the Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Interest Group, otherwise known as Big Heads. They meet on Friday mornings from 8:30-11:30, and they usually have a fairly full agenda. This meeting was no exception, although as both the friend with whom I was sitting and I both noted, their agenda was particularly and surprisingly in the weeds. Here's a quick summary of the agenda and discussion.

Big Heads

The future of physical processing and the disposition of materials in relation to shared print repositories. This was a surprisingly detailed discussion about what physical processing is still done by the members' respective libraries. Member representatives shared whether their libraries continued to label, stamp, security strip, and barcode library materials. Obviously an issue that continues to resonate, but not something I expected to be discussed at this meeting.

Off-site Technical Services. Many member libraries are establishing technical services units outside of their main libraries and sometimes off campus. Member representatives discussed the challenges involved, including the shipment of materials back and forth, staff participation in library events, managers needs to go back and forth for meetings, transportation, the loss of ease in consulting with each other, and parking.

How are we sharing data in a new, distributed, collaborative environment? This item related to the metadata we're creating and maintaining in silos, as in our institutional repositories. We have the tradition of maintaining tradition metadata as MARC records in OCLC WorldCat. How are we going to pull all of the other disparate metadata together? (My suggestion: Google).

What are the impacts on technical services of collaborative collection development? As we enter into collaborative collection development agreements, how do we ensure that we can meet the terms of the agreements, e.g., the cataloging of the items in a timely manner or retention agreements. Do libraries consistently use the 583 field to record retention decisions? Do library staff look at the 583 field before they withdraw materials?

Staff Morale and Structure of Technical Services Work. This was brought up by the Stanford member representative who found that many library staff left for other jobs when Stanford made staff salaries public and library staff learned that comparable jobs outside the libraries earned much higher pay. A discussion ensued about how to retain library staff: flex-time, more cross-training, etc.

A sustainable/consistent model for vendor records. Vendor records, again! We maintain high standards for some vendors, while with others we'll take anything (just to have something). Do we need to maintain consistency. General consensus: this ship has sailed.

BIBFRAME update and Linked Data for Production grant. Several of the libraries shared their work on a variety of BF projects. Better summarized elsewhere.

Update on the CIC Cooperative Cataloging Pilot. The University of Chicago has been a leader in a CIC project to share cataloging expertise across institutions. Their final report has been completed but not distributed pending a discussion by the CIC library directors group in May. 

ALCTS Executive Board I

As ALCTS News Editor I'm an ex-officio member of four ALCTS committees, including the Executive Board which meets for a total of 8 1/2 hours during each conference: four hours on Friday afternoon and 4 1/2 hours on Monday afternoon. This is where much of the business of the Division takes place. The Board votes on a consent agenda, meaning the they ratify in person all the votes taken electronically as well as documents that are submitted by key committee chairs. They include budget documents from Budget and Finance, the LRTS Editor report, the 2016 election slate, and more.

We had a visit from the ALA Treasurer candidate, Susan Hildreth, (the only candidate as the other one withdrew). The ALCTS past-president, president, president-elect, and ALA Councilor all give brief reports. This was followed by discussion items, which is generally the real meat of the agenda. This time the discussion items included the Program Coordinating Committee report and plans to maintain a database of ALCTS programming activity; a review of progress on the strategic plan; a suggestion to form an ALCTS mentoring program; and plans to conduct a membership survey. For the first time in my experience with the ALCTS Board, we ended a little early, getting out by 4:15 or so.

Exhibits Opening

The Midwinter Meeting exhibits opened at 5:30, with hordes of librarians surging down the aisles looking for freebies, advance reading copies, tote bags, snacks, and free drinks. I visited some of my favorite publishers, including HarperCollins, where I got a copy of Louise Erdrich's LaRose. This was especially exciting because I just read her Tracks in December and brought along The Antelope Wife for this trip. I also got Sunil Yapa's Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, which has been getting a lot of pre-pub attention. After about 15-20 minutes of the exhibits I had a bag full of books and I decided to leave before I started on another bag!
 

 

Letting Go of Legacy Services, edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong

I just reviewed Letting Go of Legacy Services: Library Case Studies, edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong. My review's going to be published in the Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship v.27, no. 3, so I won't repeat the review here. I will say that the book raises some interesting questions about "planned abandonment." Some of the case studies address the abandonment of services that are considered core by most libraries. For example, the University of Arizona has abandoned both print and electronic reserves. After more than a decade of evaluating both services, they found that print was used very little, but took up a lot of staff time. Electronic reserves were incorporated into the university's course management system.

I think this book has a lot to offer library managers who are trying to offer new services while maintaining traditional services. It's clear from these case studies that it's valuable to periodically review and evaluate services offered. Whether services are abandoned or simply modified, a thoughtful approach to what we do and why is always useful.

Letting Go of Legacy Services: Library Case Studies. Edited by Mary Evangeliste and Katherine Furlong. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2014. 159 pages. ISBN 9780838912201.

ELUNA 2015

The 2015 Ex Libris Users Group of North America (ELUNA) conference was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 5-8. It included four full days of programming about all of the Ex Libris (EL) products presented by a variety of practitioners as well as Ex Libris staff. The first morning was devoted primarily to a keynote and presentations by ELUNA leadership and Ex Libris staff. One of the things that I noted during the morning presentations was that Ex Libris considers libraries that migrate to Alma between 2015 and 2020 to be "early adopters." Meaning that we could migrate five years from now and still be considered to be in the forefront!

The program tracks were devoted to specific product lines: Aleph, Alma, Voyager, SFX, Primo, Verde, Metalib, Digitool, Rosetta. Ex Libris presentations generally demonstrated the latest developments in each of their products. Practitioner presentations address a wide variety of issues. Three of us attended from UAlbany, and we informally split up the sessions. I tended to go to sessions about migrating to Alma. The breakout sessions that I attended were:

• Keep calm and Alma on: implementing Alma in six months (at the University of Tennessee)
• Choice and diversity in acquisitions methods (Alma) (this was an Ex Libris session)
• Alma product update (also an EL session)
• Alma product working group meeting (led by Betsy Friesen, University of Minnesota)
• Planning and completing a full catalog RDA enrichment project in Alma (at the University of Minnesota)
• Alma Demo: Acquisitions (an EL session)
• What to expect when things are unexpected: how we went live in Alma and quickly practiced thinking on our feet, accepting change and letting things go (at the University of Minnesota)
• A collaborative review of Ex Libris Support (an EL session)
• 57 to 1: What are the odds? (presented by SUNY Office of Library and Information Services staff: about the One Bib merged bibliographic records project)
• Building a province-wide private research cloud for Ontario's academic libraries (this was unrelated to EL products, but of interest to academic libraries)

Presentations by the practitioners were very interesting. The keynote presentation on the first day of the conference was by Nancy Sims (University of Minnesota) and was called "User Stalking for Fun and Profit." While tongue in cheek, Ms. Sims demonstrated that it's almost impossible to make data anonymous. Even when you try to anonymize data, it can be de-anonymized easily with just one or two other data points, such as gender and zip code. It was very sobering, especially as libraries are looking at using student data to demonstrate the impact libraries have on the success of their students.

Presentations from the 2015 ELUNA Conference are posted here.

Minneapolis was a good venue for this conference, although it would be nice if everyone could fit into one hotel. Next year the conference will be in Oklahoma City.

ARL Membership Meeting, Spring 2015

I recently attended the spring 2015 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) membership meeting, held at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, CA, April 28-30, 2015. It's been a while since I attended an ARL meeting as a member of the ARL Research Libraries Leadership Fellows Program in 2007-2008. While I was in that program I attended ARL meetings in St. Louis, Coral Gables, and Washington, D.C. The Coral Gables meeting included a memorable dinner at the home of Donna Shalala, President of the University of Miami. This time I was looking forward to participating as an official delegate (filling in for my boss, Mary Casserly), and also to meeting the current group of leadership fellows, some of whom I know from ALA or past positions.

The first day of the membership meeting was mostly dedicated to the work of the Association. ARL had in recent years undertaken a strategic planning initiative, which resulted in a report that charted their new direction: Report of the Association of Research Libraries Strategic Thinking and Design Initiative. Discussion revolved around future directions including a focus on leadership development, collections, innovation, libraries that learn, and libraries as scholarly communication engines. Committees will be smaller and include Advocacy and Public Policy, Assessment; Diversity; and Membership Engagement and Outreach.

Highlights of the meeting for me were the invited speakers and panelists. William C. Kirby (Harvard University) gave a presentation on "A Chinese Century? The World of Universities and Information in the 21st Century." Brian Nosek (University of Virginia, and Executive Director, Center for Open Science) presented on his efforts to support open scholarship as well as common practices regarding transparency, accuracy, sharing, reproducibility, and more. Panels addressed both copyright and shared print repositories. Finally, ARL and SPARC staff provided a series of updates on their advocacy and policy efforts. I had to catch my flight home so I unfortunately missed the last panel, which was on data science and supporting new research methods.

Aside from these substantive programs and panels, ARL membership meetings include introductions of new member delegates and tributes to retiring delegates. UCs Berkeley and Davis hosted a reception at the Morrison Library the first evening, and there was another reception held at the Claremont on the second evening. Overall, I found the meeting to be very stimulating and I have pages of notes that I want to follow up on later.

NOTSL 2015 Spring Meeting

I recently gave the keynote presentation at the Northern Ohio Technical Services Librarians (NOTSL) Spring 2015 Meeting. NOTSL meets twice a year and this meeting was held on April 24 at the Cuyahoga County Public Library Parma-Snow Branch Auditorium. I was asked to speak about using assessment to advocate for technical services. I appreciated the opportunity to talk about this aspect of assessment because I usually talk about technical services assessment in the context of improving services or processes. There was a lot of interest in using assessment to advocate for funding, positions, or changes to procedures or policies. You can access my presentation here, published in the University at Albany's institutional repository, Scholars Archive.

Other speakers were Anthony McMullen (Systems Librarian, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania) and Robin Buser (Supervisor of Technical Services, Columbus State Community College). Robin has recently co-authored the book Project Management for Libraries: A Practical Approach (along with Bruce E. Massis and Miriam Pollack). She spoke briefly about "Assessing Projects: Before, During and After."

The Spring 2015 NOTSL meeting was very well organized and attended by more than 60 people, including a mix of public and academic librarians. The venue was very nice, close to restaurants, and easy to get to. NOTSL is not a fee-based organization; everyone who attends a NOTSL meeting is considered a member. You can learn about their past programs here.

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin

With Linchpin: Are You Indispensable, author Seth Godin makes the case that we need to stand out from the crowd and be indispensable to be successful. While I appreciate this concept and believe that it's true to a certain point, Mr. Godin did not make a very strong case for it in this book, which is repetitive and unorganized.

The book begins by stating that we are all cogs in a giant machine, too timid to stand out from the crowd and be noticed. In fact, one of the early headings in an early chapter reads "We are Surrounded by Bureaucrats, Note Takers, Literalists, Manual Readers, TGIF Laborers, Map Followers, and Fearful Employees." While I agree that some people are 9-to-5ers, just doing what it takes to get by, I have a hard time believing that the majority of people are like that, although I admit that my perspective might be skewed by having worked in higher education for 30 years, as opposed to the corporate world that Mr. Godin is clearly referring to.

Another concept that I had trouble with is Mr. Godin's idea of art. He constantly refers to the goal of becoming artists, no matter what our job. A Starbucks barista is an artist when he goes above and beyond his responsibilities by making customers feel welcome, etc. I don't think this analogy was necessary, and strained his argument somewhat. Mr. Godin's main point is that people need to stand out, put more effort in, challenge the rules, offer edgy solutions, etc. to make others (i.e., management) notice them. If their solutions or creativity aren't rewarded, they should leave and find a company that recognizes what they can offer.

Mr. Godin devotes a chapter to what he calls The Resistance. This refers to our basic animal nature, the lizard part of the brain that is full of fear and afraid to do anything worthwhile. I also found this completely unconvincing. Admittedly, we all have some anxiety about taking risks in the workplace, but his indictment of people's reasoning and rationalization for inaction was overblown and overstated.

Finally, I found the book to be poorly organized. I read it over the course of three days, including a plane ride from Minneapolis to Albany, and over a weekend. It felt like I was reading a brain dump of overgeneralizations that were grouped together somewhat by chapters. It was repetitive and filled with anecdotes that weren't very convincing. It could have used the skills of an editor, although Mr. Godin does provide a long list of people in his acknowledgments, all of whom presumably read it and gave feedback. I really wanted to like this book, but in the end, it's not a strong contribution to the business self-improvement or management literature.

Seth Godin. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2011. 244 pages. ISBN 9781591844099.

27 Powers of Persuasion, by Chris St. Hilaire

Whether in work or in one's personal life, most people have to persuade others at some point. 27 Powers of Persuasion: Simple Strategies to Seduce Audiences & Win Allies will help you develop the skills to make persuasive arguments. Although "seduce" might be overstating the case, this book does provide a lot of tips on how to get others to think about things in a different way and open them up to your viewpoints.

Author Chris St. Hilaire starts out by advising readers to focus on the goal. It's too easy to be distracted by details and positions when discussing options, and it's important to remind everyone involved to think about the end goal. That ensures that everyone's on the same page; it's less about how we get there and more about finding the best solution to achieve our goals. Each chapter in this book is numbered Power #1, Power #2, etc. They include helpful discussions about evaluating the egos in the room; using the first five minutes to make people feel safe; framing the discussion in terms of choice, fairness, and accountability; and using (just a few) statistics to bolster your case.

I found this book helpful in making me think about how I frame new ideas or approaches to work situations. Some of Mr. St. Hilaire's examples, especially those from the political sphere, seemed a little manipulative to me, but most examples were useful and could be applied to many situations. This book would be a good (and very quick) read for any manager. I read it in just a few hours on a flight from Albany to Minneapolis.

Chris St. Hilaire with Lynette Padwa. 27 Powers of Persuasion: Simple Strategies to Seduce Audiences & Win Allies. New York: Prentice Hall Press, 2010. 204 pages. ISBN 9780735204591.

Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, by Adam Grant

According to author Adam Grant, everyone is either a giver, taker, or matcher, both at work and in their personal lives. The meanings of these labels are obvious. Givers like to give more than they get from others. They give feedback, mentor others, review others' work for accuracy, and provide help any time they're asked. Takers, on the other hand, like to get more than they receive from others. They will ask for help, but they aren't there when others need help in return. They will take what they can get and then dump you. Most common are the matchers, and we see them often in the workplace. Matchers often help others, expecting help in return when they need it. They keep a subconscious tally to keep track of the relationship, expecting to keep the effort on both sides even.

Mr. Grant's research addresses which of these three personalities is the most successful at work. As an example he uses Abraham Lincoln's early political career in which he sacrifices an early race for senate to help a colleague; what might have seemed like a mistake at the time came around to help him far more in the end. In chapter 2 the author discusses the differences between how takers and givers build networks. Subsequent chapters address the ripple effect of giving, identifying givers and their potential, and how communication styles differ between givers and takers.

Whereas early chapters of Give and Take discuss how giving personalities tend to be more successful in the long run, the second half of the book addresses some of the pitfalls of giving and how to avoid them. Chapter 6 discusses the potential for burnout and how to avoid it (hint: the trick is to become more engaged but in different ways). Chapter 7 addresses how giving personalities can avoid becoming a doormat for others who ask for too much and take you for granted. In chapter 8 the author discusses how a culture of giving can be encouraged and uses as one of his examples the online service Freecycle. Finally, Mr. Grant provides 10 action items that will help readers develop their giving tendencies and create stronger networks.

Give and Take is an excellent exploration of how the tendency to help (or not) can make a huge impact on your life and career. Backed by a lot of research, cited in a fairly lengthy references section, Grant provides a lot of fodder for thought and discussion. Filled with anecdotes to support his research, Give and Take is well-written and fun to read. This would be an excellent book to use for a reading group or a workplace discussion.

Adam Grant. Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. New York: Viking, 2013. 305 pages. ISBN 9780670026555.

How to Write a Lot, by Paul J. Silvia

This slim volume has lots of good advice for academics who want to write more. In a concise and humorous manner, author Paul Silvia manages to give practical advice that (if followed) is guaranteed to help readers write more.

Mr. Silvia begins by debunking all of the excuses that people have for not writing:

• There's not enough time
• I need to read more articles before I begin
• I need a new computer, a better printer, etc.
• I'm waiting for inspiration

He tells us that the only way to ensure that you write more is to write according to a schedule, such as two hours every morning. He then discusses tools to help writers set goals, set priorities, and monitor progress. He denies the existence of writer's block for academic writers: "Writer's block is nothing more than the behavior of not writing" (p. 46).

Mr. Silvia goes on to suggest setting up a writers' group and describes his experiences with such a group at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he works. In subsequent chapters he tackles writing style and the art of writing journal articles and books. His discussions on handling reviews and rejection are especially helpful. He concludes by stressing that you don't need special qualities to write; you just need to keep to your writing schedule. If you do that, you're guaranteed to write more.

How to Write a Lot includes an index as well as a list of recommended books for further reading.

Paul J. Silvia. How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2007. 149 pages. ISBN 9781591477433.

RDA and Cartographic Resources

RDA and Cartographic Resources is a well-written and timely overview of the instructions found in Resource Description and Access (RDA) for cataloging print maps, globes, atlases, and maps in electronic form. Organized into five chapters and seven appendixes, it includes a short history of cataloging rules for cartographic materials, descriptions of the changes between AACR2 and RDA, an introduction to FRBR concepts, and field by field instructions for cataloging. 

The book is strengthened by many illustrations and examples including MARC records and fields;  and side-by-side RDA and AACR2 examples that readers will find very helpful. The book is well-written and will reassure catalogers as they build confidence in applying RDA to their cataloging. It is a strong addition to the growing field of publications addressing RDA and its application to a variety of formats. I recommend RDA and Cartographic Resources for personal and professional libraries where there is need and interest.

Paige G. Andrew, Susan M. Moore, and Mary Lynette Larsgaard. RDA and Cartographic Resources. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2015. 144 p. $62.00. ISBN 9780838911310.

 

The Evolving Scholarly Record, an OCLC Research Report

A recent OCLC Research report, The Evolving Scholarly Record, attempts to frame both the content of the scholarly record as well as its stakeholders. Authored by Brian Lavoie, Eric Childress, Ricky Erway, Ixchel Faniel, Constance Malpas, Jennifer Schaffner, and Titia van de Werf, this report is a thoughtful exploration of what the scholarly record is, and how libraries can approach its curation.

The report begins by stating that the scholarly record is "the curated account of past scholarly endeavor" (p. 6), but then goes on to explain the difficulty in pinning the definition down. One of the problems is in setting boundaries about what is meant by "record." Does this mean only published materials, or does it include data sets, models, blog postings, and more? Another difficulty comes when we try to define "scholarly." To address some of these challenges, the authors developed a model that describes what constitutes the scholarly record (p. 10). At the center are the outcomes of research: publications such as books or journal articles. Contributing to the process of research are methods, evidence collected, and discussion prior to publication. Post-publication there is reuse, revision, and further discussion. They go on to provide examples of each of these elements of the scholarly record (p. 14). For example, a blog that is established at the same time as a monograph is published, which is intended to provide a forum for discussion of the book, could rightly be considered part of the scholarly record.

The authors go on to describe the "Stakeholder Ecosystem" (p. 16). They include roles that create scholarly output (researchers), "fix" it (publishers), collect it (libraries), and use it (other researchers). Traditional print scholarship goes through a cycle of create, fix, collect, and use (p. 18). E-resources may go through a cycle of create, fix, and use, bypassing the collection role (p. 19). Social media and storage may go through an even simpler process of create and use, bypassing the publisher and library role (p. 20).

The report concludes with some issues that merit further consideration. They include acknowledging a distinction between the scholarly and cultural record; understanding the dynamics of the scholarly record; supporting discovery, access, and use; selection of the permanent scholarly record; and stewardship models going forward.

While I don't think the models of the scholarly record presented in this report adds much to what is commonly understood about it, the issues presented in the conclusion include some important points. Of them, the most important are issues related to discovery, access, and use; selection; and stewardship. Libraries and other organizations need to develop a systematic way to collect and provide access to these resources for future researchers.

NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Library Edition

The New Media Consortium (NMC) has collaborated with other organizations to create an annual review of trends in higher education, academic and research libraries, and other sectors. The reports are created by consulting a panel of experts using the Delphi Method. Its 2014 Library Edition covers trends, challenges, and important directions in technology. Each of these three sections includes six topics.

The trends include research data management; mobile delivery of content; evolution of the scholarly record; accessibility of research content; progress in technology, standards, and infrastructure; and the rise of new forms of multidisciplinary research.

The challenges listed are embedding libraries in the curriculum; rethinking roles and skills of librarians; capturing digital content as research material; competition from alternate discovery methods; embracing the need for radical change; and maintaining ongoing projects.

Important developments in technology include electronic publishing, mobile apps, bibliometrics, open content, the Internet of Things, and the semantic web and linked data.

None of these trends, challenges, or developments should be a surprise to anyone who is following developments in academic and research libraries. I did find it gratifying to see linked data (and a mention of BIBFRAME) in the list of important developments. As we follow BIBFRAME and the multitude of programs presented at ALA conferences on linked data, the question on my mind has been how long it will take for us to get there. The timeline suggested in this report for widespread adoption of linked data was four to five years.

Each trend, challenge, and development was presented in a two-page format: an introduction; overview; implications for policy, leadership, or practice; and a further reading section. This report and series would be very useful to anyone interested in where academic and research libraries are going.

The Academic Library Landscape: Two Reports

Two recent reports provide some insight into the academic library landscape:

In October 2014 the Taylor & Francis Group published a white paper on the Use of Social Media by the Library: Current Practices and Future Opportunities. Their research consisted of several approaches, including focus groups in the UK, US, and India; ten telephone interviews with library thought-leaders; a "Twitter party;" an online survey; and desk research. Unsurprisingly, they found that more than 70 percent of libraries use social media tools, with facebook and twitter being the most popular. Their use was primarily for purposes of promotion: marketing library events, collections, and services, although there was also some use for collection management, outreach, teaching, and learning. A large majority (88 percent) believed that social media would become more important in the future, although it is difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of libraries' efforts in this realm. These are just a few of their findings; the whole report is well worth reading for more insights.

In The Changing Landscape of Library and Information Services: What Presidents, Provosts, and Finance Officers Need to Know, authors Richard Holmgren and Gene Spencer describe how college and university IT environments are changing and how library and information technology services can evolve to address future challenges. This report was sponsored by the Council on Library and Information Resources Chief Information Officers (CIOs) group, and based on a workshop that took place in December 2013. This group includes the CIOs of small, private, residential colleges" (p. 1) in which the IT and Library functions have been consolidated under one CIO. The report discusses the major changes of the past 10 years, challenges within higher education, the concept of library and information technology services as a utility, the opportunity to leverage investments, the library as place, and new roles for information services organizations. In their discussion of LITS as a utility, they define utility as "any unit within a college that delivers infrastructure required to support the core mission of fostering student learning" (p. 4). Overall, an interesting read, especially in light of the 2014 Survey of Chief Information Officers that I reviewed on December 31, 2014.

The Higher Education Landscape: Two Reports

Two recent reports provide some insight into the higher education landscape:

The 2014 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology reported on the results of a survey of 2,799 faculty members and 288 campus technology administrators about online education. Among the findings are that only 9 percent of faculty members strongly believe that online education can be equivalent to in-person courses. The value of MOOCs appears to be questionable, and there's some doubt about the usefulness of digital humanities. There was no mention of the role or impact of the library on online education. Nevertheless, a very interesting report.

The Leadership Board for CIOs has conducted an annual survey of CIOs for the past several years. The 2014 Survey of Chief Information Officers provides a complete picture of technology in higher education institutions. The survey was sent to nearly 1,000 CIOs in April and May, 2014, and the response rate was 23%. Sixty percent of the respondents were from public institutions; 37 percent from private, non-profits; and 2 percent from for-profit institutions. Information collected in the survey included institutional and CIO characteristics; financial and budget planning; IT organization and governance; consumerization of IT; administrative computing: academic technologies, MOOCs, and innovation; infrastructure, networking and security; cloud computing and big data; institutional standards; and new and emerging technologies. One item of interest was how few higher education institutions are relying on open source products for administrative computing needs (0 percent). As the report states, "[m]ost institutions prefer [enterprise resource planning] vendor-provided systems that are tightly integrated and under the control of their institution, as opposed to outsourced solutions" (p. 18). Libraries were mentioned twice. Centralized management of library services takes place in 17 percent of responding institutions, and 38 percent of them reported some library applications that were cloud-based.

"Using GTD to Get Things Done at Your Library," by Robin Hastings

Robin Hastings. "Using GTD to Get Things Done at Your Library." Computers in Libraries 31:8 (2011): 23-26.

I recommend reading this article to give you an introduction to David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (GTD). Originally published in 2001, GTD has remained a bible of sorts for productivity junkies. Allen offers reams of helpful advice about how to get and stay organized and keep on top of all the things you have to do at work and in any other part of your life. Hastings provides a nice intro to this book and applies the lessons learned to our particular library environment. I haven't had a chance to review GTD on this blog yet (it's on the list!), but in short, I agree completely with Hastings assessment of the high value of GTD when applied at work.

The Value and Impact of Data Sharing and Curation, by Neil Beagrie and John Houghton

Neil Beagrie and John Houghton. The Value and Impact of Data Sharing and Curation: A Synthesis of Three Recent Studies of UK Research Data Centres. (Jisc, 2014).

This was a very interesting study of three data centers to determine their value and impact in relation to their cost. The authors identified data centers in three disciplines: the humanities, social sciences and science. They were the Economic and Social Data Service, the Archaeology Data Service, and the British Atmospheric Data Centre. Key findings include that use of the data centers resulted in a significant increase in research, teaching, and studying efficiency; the value of the data centers exceeded the investments made in them; and the data centers increase the measurable returns on investment.

Their recommendations include (p. 23):

• Continue support for the data centers
• Develop the methods used to study them further
• Promote the standardization of usage statistics
• Study the value and impact of other aspects of the research data curation infrastructure
• Conduct more granular analysis
• Track changes longitudinally
• Study the broader value and impact of data collections

 This study will be of interest to any organization looking to establish a data management service, in particular to universities that are looking to provide justification for funding requests. A link to the report can be found here. 

"Five Years of Empirical Research in the Area of Technical Services," by Natalia Gelber

Natalia Gelber. "Five Years of Empirical Research in the Area of Technical Services: An Examination of Selected Peer-Reviewed Journals, 2007-2011." Technical Services Quarterly 30:2 (2013): 166-186.

Author Gelber analyzed 256 articles from 21 peer reviewed journals to determine the type of empirical research conducted, the subjects of the research, and whether the topic influenced the type of research methods used. The top four journals represented in the study were Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, Library Resources & Technical Services, Technical Services Quarterly, Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, Serials Librarian, Library Collections Acquisitions and Technical Services, and Serials Review, ranging from 17 to 65 articles. The remainder of the 21 journals had fewer than 10 articles each.

Findings revealed that 53.5 percent of articles were sole-authored, 28.5 percent had two authors, 11.7 percent had three authors, and 4.3 percent had four authors. Only a tiny portion had more than four authors. The great majority of the authors were practitioners (94.5 percent); only 3.1 percent were academics. U.S. authors predominated, representing over 85.5 percent of the total, and 70.7 percent of the research settings were in academic libraries. Only 3.1 percent of the research incorporated end-users into the research.

The most commonly used type of research was the case study, with 61.7 percent of the total. Another 21.9 percent of the research consisted of surveys. Qualitative data analysis was more common that quantitative (54.7 percent vs. 27.3 percent), and only 18 percent was mixed qualitative and quantitative. The top topics were electronic resources management, discovery of materials in the online catalog, cataloging policies and practices, and acquisitions. (Collection development as a topic was eliminated from this study.) The third research question was not able to be answered because there weren't enough examples of all of the research methods to make it statistically significant.

I find it interesting but not surprising that the two most common types of research are the case study and the survey. (Literature reviews and historical reviews were eliminated from this study.) As the researchers are most likely to be practitioners, it seems to me that the most meaningful research they conduct and share with others is 1) how we did something and what we learned from it, and 2) how is everyone else doing this and what can I learn from their experiences? In fact, whenever I'm faced with a new challenge at work and I want to read up on the issue, I do a literature review to see what others have done and how it worked for them.

I found Ms. Gelber's research very interesting. I was surprised at some of the journal titles that ended up on her list (see the article, p. 173, for the full list). I had to look up one of the research methods that she listed: the Delphi Method, which consists of two or more rounds of experts responding to questionnaires. After each round the summaries of the questionnaires are shared with them to see if their own responses change; after several rounds, the conclusions are expected to be more reliable. It's used more in business forecasting, although I can see that it would be interesting to apply to technical services or more general library futures forecasting.

Stylish Academic Writing, by Helen Sword

Helen Sword. Stylish Academic Writing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. 220 pages. ISBN 9780674064485.

Author Helen Sword read and analyzed 1,000 articles published in academic journals in 10 disciplines to determine what constitutes stylish academic writing. She also studied 100 recently-published style guides to see where they agreed and differed on points of academic writing style. In Stylish Academic Writing she shares what she's learned about what makes a good article. In fourteen chapters she discusses voice, sentence construction, titles, hooks, jargon, article structure, citation style, creative academic writing, and more.

Two of the chapters speak most to me: the one on voice, and the other on citation style. They both speak to pet peeves of mine. The first is when an author has to mangle their writing to avoid using the first person. Much of the writing in library science is reporting on a project or case study, in which the author is simply telling a story about how a project was launched, carried out or successfully completed. It makes no sense to not be able to use the first person when telling this story. But if you look at much of the library science literature, you'll see many of these stories told in a way that puts a distance between the reader and what's being shared. This makes the article harder to read, and less interesting. Articles should be written in a way that conveys all of the important information that the author is trying to share, but in a way that will increase readership. Writing in the first person can help with that goal. Sword advocates for the use of the first person when possible.

My second pet peeve has to do with citation styles that require the author to put names, dates, and sometimes page numbers in parentheses right in the text. When I read an article that has a lot of citations, I sometimes find it difficult to follow the threads of a sentence or paragraph through all of these parenthetical citations. The simple use of endnotes, identified with a superscripted number, avoids this problem. Sentences and paragraphs with the simple numbered indication of an endnote are much easier to read and comprehend than one with the citations in parentheses interrupting the flow. Again, the goal is to share information and increase the readership of each article, and a simpler citation style does that. Sword supports the use of simpler citation styles that don't interrupt the flow of the article.

While I'm only highlighting two issues in this review, Sword's book is full of good advice. She illustrates all of her chapters with both good and bad examples so readers can understand what makes good writing, and what hinders comprehension. I believe this book would be useful to all academics who want to improve their writing.

"The 'Just Do It' Approach to Customer Service Development," by Erika L. Gavillet

Erika L. Gavillet. "The 'Just Do It' Approach to Customer Service Development: A Case Study." College & Research Libraries News 72:4 (2011): 229-236.

Author Erika Gavillet presents a new approach to surveying library patrons in this short case study. She points out that academic libraries in particular are evaluating customer service in order to make improvements or offer new services to their users. In an effort to avoid "survey fatigue," they developed a light approach to gathering user feedback. Her unit, the Customer Services Group (CSG) at Newcastle University Library, decided to conduct a quick survey of students by asking three questions (p. 230):

• What five activities do you do most in the library? (with a list of services with tick boxes)
• What else do you use in the library? (with a list of services with tick boxes)
• If money were no object, what single change would improve your library experience the most?

They were able to gather 1,000 responses to the survey. These responses identified a number of things that the students would like to have changed: more textbooks, PCs, and study space; longer opening hours; less noise and fewer distractions.

In response to the survey, the CSG came up with a plan to implement during the examination period in May. All library staff would participate in this plan which included regular sweeps of each floor of the library. Staff checked for "noise, trailing wires from laptops, litter and unattended belongings" (p. 230). It would be promoted as a partnership with the students to keep the library quiet and tidy. They conducted 558 sweeps over the next month, leaving calling cards on unattended belongings warning of theft and asking students to be quiet and remove any trailing wires.

A follow-up survey was conducted afterwards in which students reported that it was worthwhile and positive, but that they still found too much litter accumulating and didn't like the calling cards the library staff left on their unattended belongings.

This article shows that it's possible to gather feedback and implement changes in a relatively short period of time. The library staff and students both found the activity worthwhile. One question that I have is how the students' other concerns were addressed. They originally asked for more textbooks, PCs, and study space along with longer opening hours and less noise. It seems from the article that the only major concern that was addressed by the libraries examination period campaign was the noise issue. How they plan to address the other issues was not explained in the article.

Nevertheless, what I like about this article is that it demonstrates that every library survey or study doesn't have to be statistically meaningful or significant to be useful. Much of library research is about improving services or managing better. Surveys can be used to gather feedback and collect information that can help us run the library in a more effective and efficient manner, providing better services to our users. In this case study, a short survey got a lot of responses which helped library managers develop better services during a hectic time of the year.

"Marketing Mindset," by Karen Wallace

Karen Wallace. "Marketing Mindset: Focusing on the Customer, from Technical Services to Circulation." Feliciter 3 (2007): 126-129.

In this short newsletter article, Karen Wallace makes the point that all library staff should think about their work in terms of the user and how the users' experience is affected by what they do. She states "All library employees, including those who typically have little contact with external patrons, need to understand basic marketing concepts and how what they do on a day-to-day basis affects user satisfaction. These "back-shop" folks, who may erroneously be overlooked in marketing efforts, play a key role in developing library collections and service that can meet user needs and even exceed their expectations" (p. 126).

According to Ms. Wallace, library staff need to understand their users by conducting what in the business world would be called "market research." Information gleaned from customer interactions is one source of this information, and she encourages technical services staff to participate in activities that bring them into contact with their users, including working on the reference desk and volunteering to help with library programs.

Armed with knowledge of users' needs, library staff can begin to anticipate their needs and tailor their work and services to meet those needs. For example, they can prioritize their work to meet user demands; enhance their cataloging by adding local subject headings; customize their OPACs to provide a better interface; and create canned searches for heavily-used materials.

I agree with Ms. Wallace's points about focusing on the user. We need to look at all of our processes with the user in mind. We need to evaluate what we do based on whether we're meeting those needs, and make decisions based on what's best for them. Our goal is to provide faculty, staff, and students with the resources they need in support of the teaching and research mission of the university. Timely processing of materials is part of that equation and should be balanced with providing quality access.

"IT Service Climate," by Ronnie Jia and Blaize Horner Reich

Ronnie Jia and Blaize Horner Reich. "IT Service Climate: An Essential Managerial Tool to Improve Client Satisfaction with IT Service Quality." Information Systems Management 28:2 (2011): 174-179.

Authors Jia and Reich take an interesting approach to service quality assessment. Making the point that the climate of an organization can affect the quality of services that are offered to customers, they take it one step further and maintain that an organization's internal climate can predict customers' perceptions of quality service. To investigate this further, they developed a 10 question instrument that can be used to assess the internal organizational climate. Their study showed that "service climate may be much more important than technical competence from the clients' point of view" (p. 174).

The authors begin by defining IT service climate as "shared perceptions of the practices and behaviors in their workplace that support the provision of IT service to business customers" (p. 174). They differentiate between climate and culture, which is described as deeper and based on core values and assumptions. Climate is more about perceptions and is an expression of culture.

The authors identify three dimensions to the IT service climate: service leadership, service vision, and service evaluation. Service leadership is about setting and communicating service goals. Service vision is about IT employees seeing themselves as having a role in meeting customer needs. Service evaluation is about evaluating employees on how they met their customer service goals. Of the three, the authors identify service leadership as being the most important.

The authors' research consisted of asking IT staff in four organizations 10 questions, and comparing their responses to the responses of their respective customers to the IT-SERVQUAL instrument. They found that, in fact, the impressions of IT staff about their own climate correlated with the impressions of their customers about quality of service. This relationship indicates that managers who work to positively affect climate will have the result of improving costomer perceptions about service quality. This can be very empowering for managers who can take action to improve the bottom line.

The authors recommend incorporating their 10 questions into internal employee satisfaction surveys, examining the findings carefully, and deploying the survey on a regular basis.

I found this to be an interesting look at how an organization's climate can affect and predict the perceptions of customers. While my own research is less about climate and more about the services we provide to each other as internal service providers and customers, it's clear that our service vision is affected by climate. Although this article was specifically about IT services, the lessons learned could be applied to other types of services. The concepts of service leadership, service vision, and service evaluation are things we can all apply in our daily work.

"Employees as Customers Judging Quality," by John B. Harer

I've taken a short hiatus from writing this blog, but am getting ready to ramp it up again. My new research project is going to address the use of internal customer service assessment surveys to gauge customer satisfaction with services provided by technical services and library systems and to identify potential areas for process improvement. I'm planning to use this blog to document my literature review. The first article I'm reviewing is:

John B. Harer. "Employees as Customers Judging Quality: Enhancing Employee Assessment." New Library World 109:78 (2008): 307-320.

Harer used an interesting approach to this topic. First he makes the point that many libraries follow the business world in implementing various management techniques, such as Continuous Quality Improvement and Total Quality Management. There is a focus on continually improving processes and output, and assessment is an important aspect of evaluating their success in doing so. Harer mentions that many libraries are using tools such as the LibQual surveys to assess quality, and makes the point that extending such assessment tools to library employees is a logical next step.

What's interesting to me is that instead of simply asking libraries whether they survey their employees on their views on quality, Harer looks at existing employee satisfaction survey instruments at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions and analyzes whether they ask questions that get at the employees' opinions about quality. It seems like a roundabout approach to get at this information. Nevertheless, Harer solicits participating in his study from the 96 U.S. ARL academic library members, and receives responses from 30 of them. His responses include one employee satisfaction survey, four organizational climate surveys, eight exit interview surveys, 11 employee self-assessment evaluations, and three administrator evaluation surveys. Thirteen libraries responded that they did not have or use such instruments.

From this point forward in the article, Harer limited the discussion to the four organizational climate surveys that were submitted, and found that only one of them specifically asked employees for the opinions regarding quality, although the two example questions provided addressed the needs of the user.

As I mentioned before, I think this is an interesting approach. I'm interested in another angle: employees' satisfaction with the services they offer each other. Obviously, the end user benefits from our output, whether that's in items processed or services offered. But our more immediate customers in libraries are each other, especially for technical services and library systems units. For example, bibliographers are customers of acquisitions departments. Bibliographers put their requests in to acquisitions staff, which are then responsible for carrying out those requests. Circulation staff might ask for an item to be rush-processed, so they are customers of cataloging staff. Even within a single department we are dependent on each other. When we ask for help on a tricky problem, does it get answered in a timely fashion, or did it sit on someone's desk for a month? These are all ways that we are dependent on each other. Our personal assessment can demonstrate overall satisfaction with the services that we provide to each other and identify areas in which we can improve. Improving services to each other will by extension provide better service to our users: the faculty, staff, and students who rely on our services for their teaching and research needs.

I agree that employees can provide important feedback regarding quality, but I think a more direct route is preferable. Internal customer services assessment is one more tool that we can use to improve our work and services.