If Wishes were Fishes...

Oh, how I wish that Overdrive's delivery element wasn't so clunky!  Wait.  Let me rephrase...

Oh, how I wish Overdrive's delivery method was more streamlined!  That's better.  More streamlined...  as in a single computer-resident software application that accommodates both audio- and e- books. 

• Or an application that would allow WMAs to work on a Mac (What? They work with iTunes...).  

• Or an iDevice app that tells you to log in before you do anything else.  

OH!  How I wish their help file was navigable!  (I also wish patrons would actually look at it.)

I really wish the publishers would pick a single DAMN industry-standard format for audiobooks and ebooks and make it so we all can access the titles we want, whether we borrow them from the library or buy them from Amazon. And use them on any device we happen to own.  (And I thought the recording industry was bad!)  Jeeze!

I wish our patrons would take advantage of the great stuff we provide for them.  We have free music downloads!  That you can keep!!  Why aren't you downloading constantly?  Do you prefer to steal the music off our CDs?

I wish the reference staff would go to Credo first rather than Wikipedia. I also wish they'd learn how to do a basic search in Westlaw.  It ain't that hard.

I really wish I ruled the world.

Marketing Reference

Marketing Reference is a BIG THING these days -- and with good reason.  Our patrons have discovered that they can actually find information on the internet!  Consequently, we don't answer as many reference questions.  Horrors!!

We like to think that our citizens can't find "good" information on their own -- that they wallow around in wikipedia citing half-baked articles in term papers and quoting misinformation to their friends.  Would that this were the case.  Wake up, Librarians!  Patrons have learned to find useful info without us.  We've spent several years teaching them how and they are definitely catching on.  I regularly talk to patrons who have already used the resources I want to direct them to.  They know about databases and how to use them.  They tell me about good sites to include in libguides.  What's a reference librarian to do?  Sit back and wait for my job to be cut?  Not on your life!  I'm getting out there and telling those hapless suckers who haven't visited a library in years all about our reference services.

Yes, indeed.  I'm going to market reference to the Great Uninformed.

Sometimes it actually works.  Several years ago we started attending the local business expo.  We barked at the front of the booth like doormen on Bourbon Street.  We grabbed stragglers by the elbow ("What's your line of business?") and steered them  to the computer for a magical demonstration of the next cool thing -- databases!  ("All you need is a library card.  And it's FREE!").  The guys from the Geek Squad  actually got excited about Safari Tech Books and I got a love note from a young guy who made cold calls for his firm.  I showed him Reference USA.

Marketing reference is harder now.  It's more about marketing the library than it is about marketing information services.  At my library I've started an outreach program that will provide computer classes to folks in assisted living.  So far, we've visited 4 sites.  They all want us to come back.  Is this marketing reference?  Sort of -- reference provides computer education in our system.  But it's really marketing a library service.  I was on TV twice this month, talking about our newest databases:  Freegal, Opera in Video and Music Online.  Marketing reference?  Not really.  But reference is the place to find out how to use these databases. 

Our most popular LibGuides (created and maintained by reference folks) are more successful as reference marketing tools.  Here we can actually point to resources.  YAY!!  But the most popular guides are Great Reads for Teens (RA for fiction) and Music, DVDs and Movies.  Not exactly reference guides.  Fortunately, our Arts & Culture, People Connection and Baton Rouge Room guides are also well used, so I can consider LibGuides as a successful reference marketing tool.

I hear a lot about how reference has changed and might be in danger of becoming obsolete.  Reference as an information function has changed since I started out 17 years ago -- we aren't researchers so much anymore.  But one thing that hasn't changed about reference work and never will...  Patrons look to us for answers:  how to cope with technology; where to find cheap/free entertainment options; how to find job opportunities or social support.  It doesn't matter that they can more easily find things on their own.  They will always need help; we will always be there to provide it. 

After the ebook Summit

I attended the Library Journal ebook summit the other day -- Libraries at the Tipping Point.  I find the title of the summit an interesting one.  The title implies that ebooks could be the thing that tips the balance for libraries.  The image it conjures for me is one of the library balanced on a fulcrum of patron expectation.

In late 2010, public libraries are negotiating a delicate landscape of serving two groups with very divergent expectations: patrons who expect a traditional library experience and view digital materials and services with indifference, if not skepticism, and patrons who are technologically engaged and expect more and more digital services and materials.  Will ebooks shift the balance of patron expectation?  Nope. The shift has already taken place.  

Today, even the most technologically backward patron expects us to provide instant answers via the internet, whether we find the answer quickly online or merely deliver it to them that way.  They want us to teach them how to use digital technology, no matter that they don’t own a personal computer or digital device.  Everyone (pretty much) uses email.  Technology has become part of the traditional library experience.  The tipping point is not the digital product – it’s the delivery.

Which brings me back to the ebook summit…  Delivery, or the lack of it, was a common theme.    We’ve gotten pretty good at delivering services and adapting to changes in how services can be delivered.  Materials – ebooks, audiobooks, video, music – are another matter.  How do we deliver the digital goods? Part of the problem is out of our hands; platforms and formats are in a state of flux that will have to be waited out.   But compounding the problem -- patrons use a thousand different devices to access our stuff.   Remember when the iPod wouldn't play an Overdrive audio?  Or when Netlibrary only worked with 2 obscure players?  Patrons don't get it when their XYZ mp3 player can't play WMA files or their Kindle can't read every ebook out there.  We look like chumps where delivery is concerned.

But we'd look like bigger chumps if we didn't offer what so many patrons want.

I didn't get any answers at the ebook summit.  But I did find out that I'm not alone in my frustration with digital delivery and in my concern that the  content and formats I've been buying could easily go the way of the betamax.  So I take what comfort I can in the realization that books on CD replaced books on tape and the world didn't end.  And that downloadable books will slowly eclipse physical ones.  Life is change; and change in Library Land is kind of slow, but it's inevitable nonetheless.   We'll deal.