Reference Catch-22

Tonight I was directed to Library Journal to read Jean Costello's unsettling blog post about her experience with local reference services, Why I Don't Use Libraries for Reference Anymore.  I try to remain upbeat about the future of reference, but this post kind of did me in.  I was going to respond to her, but decided to post my response here instead:

As the head of a reference division in a public library, I cringed as I read your post.  And I live in fear that one day, a patron just like you will visit my staff and have a similar experience.  But one point your post brought home to me was one I've been concerned about for awhile and am not sure how to address. 

Back in the day, when we used books (almost exclusively) to answer reference questions, we were answering more questions just like yours.  The staff was familiar with that kind of question and was better armed to answer it -- not because our resources were deeper then, but because the staff's experience was.  As I look over the questions we are asked today, I find very few that require the kind of knowledge of resources that yours did.  In fact, I'm not sure how many of my staff would even know look for poetry explication sources to answer your question.  I know that some of them would, but the younger/newer ones might not think of looking for an explication resource unless they had been lit majors.  They may not even know the term to start looking for it.

This isn't entirely a matter of poor training -- if it were, I wouldn't be as worried about it.  It's a matter of using knowledge of resources plus acquiring more knowledge over time -- and that's just something that isn't happening like it used to.  I can train staff to use databases and books, but if they rarely have the need to use them after training, they lose what they learned.  (Reference work ain't like riding a bicycle.)  I can also send out a tough weekly reference question as a training tool, but even that is only putting a tiny band-aid on an ever-growing sore.  If our reference staffs don't get constant reinforcement and regular challenges (the kind that can only be had by assisting patrons like you on a regular basis), they won't grow into knowledgeable critical thinkers, and reference service will slowly atrophy into the the kind of service described in your post -- a source of pleasant conversation and general information.

The LibGuides Conundrum

Why don't more public libraries use LibGuides?  I don't get it.  They aren't expensive.  You can make as many of them as you want.  (You could base your entire library website on them.)  They're really easy to create. 

I can understand that small libraries with no budget might find them cost prohibitive, but if you have just a tiny bit of money to spend and you need to show a return on your reference/database/popular title/CD/audiobook, etc investment, it seems to me that you NEED LibGuides.  They are a quick and easy way to promote your resources and collections -- and patrons use them!   Our Great Reads for Teens guide averages over 700 hits a month and it gets no promotion.  Sights & Sounds (CDs, DVDs,  music etc) averages over 500 hits/month. We do a little promo via our blog, but generally our patrons manage to find the guides that they need and they seem to keep coming back to them.

LibGuides can take a couple of hours to put together.  (Big Whoop!)  But once you get one made you can update it in no time.  Plus, you can reuse content by copying or linking -- so you don't have to recreate the wheel every time you need the wheel.  Graphics are easy to add; YouTube videos are easy to embed.  There are cool features like mouseover bubbles that make your library look  like it's a tech savvy place.  Each guide has a separate URL, so you can promote an individual guide easily.  What's not to love?

If you're unfamiliar with LibGuides, check out our guides:  EBRPL Research Guides
If you want more info visit their social networking site:  The Springshare Lounge

LibGuides are worth looking into.  Check them out.

Addendum:  this librarian said it better than I did...

Where is the Single Sign-On Library Website?

There are many frustrations in the library world, but for me, the biggest one is the login. 

Our patrons do nothing but login to stuff.  They log in to access their accounts. They login to place a hold.  They login to to use the databases, to read an ebook, to download an audiobook.  We've had automated catalogs and electronic, authenticated resources for YEARS now.  Why are our patrons still logging in multiple times to use them???

The concept of the truly single sign-on is a mystery to just about everyone I talk to. For some reason nobody seems to grasp the idea of having patrons log in on the home page to get access to all our resources -- with NO MORE LOGINS!  Whenever I broach the subject, the person I'm speaking to asks, "You mean your patrons have to login to each database individually?"  Or, "Don't you have a database page?" 

People, am I speaking Swahili in America? 

Our patrons should be able to log in one time -- on our home pages -- and have seamless access to our resources from that point forward. 

Think about it...  How many websites do you use that require a login?  About a million.  After you login to one of these sites, do you have to keep doing it to access the content?  No.  So why do you have to keep doing it on the Library website?

Now, I'm not stupid.  I know very well that the content on library websites is comprised of very disparate elements provided an infinite number of vendors.  The catalog/ILS is one thing (that often doesn't communicate well with itself); databases are another thing; ebooks are their own thing; and downloadable content is a horse of a different color altogether.  Big Whoop.  Just because we get this stuff from different vendors who, in some cases, don't acknowledge the existence of the others, doesn't mean that we can't figure out a way to create seamless access.

I WANT EASY!! 

When I go home, I want to go to my library site, create an account that consists of my username (whatever I want it to be), a password and my library card number.  Once I create that account, I want to log in with my username and password and NEVER LOGIN AGAIN while I'm on the site.  I want to click on the databases link and go straight to the database list.  I want to click on a database link in a LibGuide (did I ever say how much I love LibGuides?) and go straight to that database to start my search.  I want to click on a link that says Renew My Books and renew my books.  Right then.  I want to access the content of an ebook straight from the catalog.  I DO NOT want to login to Overdrive separately.

Isn't integrated access to all our resources something we should be demanding?  Isn't the single sign-on the only thing that really makes sense if we want to see a real return on our resource investment? 

I am Picard.  Make it so.

Post-Internet Librarian

Sitting in the airport waiting to go back home is probably the best place to write a reflective blog post about the Internet Librarian conference.  I'm certainly not distracted by anything... Unless boredom can be a distraction.

The ILC was not as great as I'd hoped it would be.  Which is not to say I got nothing out of it.  I did.  I got plenty of validation.  I found out that my library does a pretty good job of managing our online presence.  We make sure we brand everything with our logo.  We try to keep the same color palette on our various sites. And we've done our best to use consistent naming for our accounts, although, our reference name, eref, is too generic.  Oh well. It's been around long enough now that our patrons know it.

I also found out that I have a better idea about how to strategize a strategic plan that I thought I did.  That was a comfort, to be sure.  I had recently been in a meeting about our technology plan and was poo-poo'd by the group concerning a suggestion I made.  Found out my suggestion was accepted practice.  (told you so). I also found out a whole lot more about developing a strategic plan.  This was a very good thing since I plan on doing one in the very near future.  Internet Librarian really helped me prepare for that task.

And I learned about failure at IL.  Not that there's a lot to learn about it -- we have all failed at one time or another.  Anyone remember thin clients?? 

I attended a couple of programs that dealt with library fails.  I was surprised at some of them.  Reference in 2nd Life?  Has anyone had true success with that? Granted i heard only a brief synopsis of this library's SL adventure, but it sounded to me like part of the fail was that they didn't want to answer the kinds of questions they got.  People wanted to know how to put on clothes. That's a legit SL question. It's also a public library-type question.  I mean, we'd answer it -- and count it in our stats for the day.  I guess the academic library that was presenting this particular fail didn't realize the SL is a community, not a campus?   It took me awhile to figure out how to dress that avatar when I first joined SL.  Too bad we weren't doing SL reference then.  I could have been the Naked Librarian!

I don't think I'll be bucking to go back to Internet Librarian anytime in the near future.  I'm glad I got to go this time and I'm sure I'll find a reason to go again, but I think I'll stick to ALA for the time being.