Beware the Zombie Hoardes: Or, Know your escape plan.....

 One of my colleagues shared this great bib guide today from McPherson College Library: Library of the Living Dead: Your guide to Miller Library at McPherson College  It's a well done introduction to library orientation using a zombie attack story to get the reader engaged in the physical location of materials in the library. I'm a firm believer in bringing information to your community in their own language. This serves that purpose and helps to affirm value for libraries to a pop-culture generation.

I'm in the midst of an environmental scan for in-kind gifts policies. At risk of sounding ageist, I would love to see a graphical articulation of our own gift-in-kind acceptance policy. I think we're a long way off from this at present. Certainly I have the resources in small press / independent writers and publishers via connections with my spouse. Perhaps I can distill the information at a later date and share it graphically.

Shaking the Bedrock of Academic Libraries

This morning a colleague shared an editorial written by Rick Anderson in The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The article from the July 2011 issue is titled "The Crisis in Research Librarianship."

Rick is someone I love to hear talk at conference. He is articulate and bold in his statements, the insights he provides bring to the conversation context for thinking about who librarians are as a profession and what libraries will be as institutions. In this commentary, Rick had me at "Perception matters more than reality." The older I've gotten the more I have found this to be an universal truth. Perceptions are so important to any human interaction or assessment.

Rick brought his assertion about the crisis to bear through three points:

1. Perception matters more than reality;
2. Patrons genuinely do not need librarians as much as they once did;
3. Value that is not valued is not valuable.

Media and mastery, or at least functionally literate use of the media has brought more awareness of information to the masses. Finding value, determining what our value or the value of libraries is really becomes the key to success. I'm thankful for my own library education, and I don't mean my MLS. I was an early bloomer with research in libraries thanks to Mrs. Fleischer, my grade school librarian. We had bibliographic instruction from grade three through the end of middle school. My high school librarian, Mrs. Wolf, continued the education. Once I was off to my undergraduate experience, I was chagrined to find that the reference desk was no longer the welcoming place it had been for the ten years prior. I felt as though I was facing an Oracle each time I needed assistance to jump start my research. This was less than comforting, and it took some time to shift to meet the needs demanded by those librarians. I was determined to complete my research, so I plowed through.





Apparently most students are confident they can find the resources needed, and that confidence is a good thing--it signals they do know where to locate information. When it comes to identifying the value we bring to the table, there is opportunity. Opportunity to provide access. Perhaps the access we can provide is exposing our content and making it relevant and findable in a sea of vague search results. Opportunity to bring the library as concept to the researcher. Outreach is a term that I've found overused lately, probably because I'm not always clear what is meant by the term. So many ways exist for librarians to reach out to our communities.


I've been talking with a colleague at a community college lately about reading I've been doing on poverty and its effect on our society's access to a range of things, including education and health services (Payne, Ruby). The question of relevance for libraries may well be related to matters of privilege and entitlement. The very fact that the patrons we serve are enrolled in a research library program signals the likelihood of a privilege background. Rick made the point in his commentary that university students prefer comfort over resources. The media exposure, life-long focus on education and near ubiquitous access to technology these students have had brings to bear an entirely different perspective on their research needs, even from what I experienced as an undergrad not so long ago.

As these students become graduates and faculty themselves, the academic research library will need to flex and bend to meet the next generation's perceived needs. I've studied change management, and the first principle I hold to be true is that you cannot change others, change comes from within. The only change you can control is your own. How do we as librarians change our understanding of the value we provide to this generation of researchers?

Happy July 5th! I was off on the holiday enjoying some down time and 'stuff around the house' time. I live in a small town and enjoyed walking to our park for the fireworks display. My husband and I watched from the elementary school parking lot.

Most of my friends and colleagues have expressed a whole run of emotion about returning to work today after a long holiday weekend. My day began with a dental appointment--drill and refill old fillings. I don't have the dread of the dentist that I once had. I don't mind going to see my current dentist who is quite aware of my aversion to pain. Cleanings are a no-brainer--maintenance and upkeep, and no pain. The purpose of my appointment today was not cleaning: Rather the dentist was refreshing the material that is keeping my teeth from any additional decay. The appointment went well, no surprises and I was out the door a little over an hour after my appointment began. Before leaving for work I had to drop some things in the mailbox at the post office, and then I'd be on my way.

The post office boxes are on the street behind my town's public library. On my way to my appointment I'd passed by this way and seen the cleaning staff emptying the trashcans outside. A young boy in tow with his mother, helping her steady the bag as she replaced full with empty. I thought about what a great helper he was.

When I went past the same entrance to the library door, my clock in the car said 8:56. There were three teenagers waiting outside the door for the library to open. It was a great sight to behold. Had the kids been volunteer pages or employees, they would have been let into the library without waiting. Here, though, in front of the entrance, were three kids not sleeping in, and waiting to get to the Internet workstations, the book shelves, the video collection or some other service that the library offers on the day immediately following the holiday. They were not sleeping in after a long day of parade and picnicking, or a late night of watching fireworks explode over the park and golf course. They wanted access. They wanted information. They wanted to fill up their minds, or empty them through social networking or other online services.

I'm proud of our public library and its services. Since coming to our town in 1997 I have participated as a volunteer. I have advocated for our services and funding. I have shared thoughts with our library board and director. The board members aspire that the library will remain a center for our community. To do so we must continue to grow to meet the articulated and unstated needs for our users. We must anticipate where we as a community might need to go next. There is excitement as the board and director search for a new integrated library system. They are on the verge of selection and hope to bring a system with push technology to keep patrons informed of accounts and access within the library.

Regardless of where we are today, we do need to be cognizant of regular renewal. We cannot fix and forget, or implement and be done for always. We must continue to evaluate our services and be willing to remove anything that is past its usefulness. Indeed, taking things apart and rebuilding or restoring can help libraries preserve and extend information to users for generations to come.