Acquisitions and budgets
2012 Study of Subscription Prices for Scholarly Society Journals (pdf) is out from Allen Press. "[T]he average increase in 2012 dropped, more than a full percentage point below the average, to less than 6%." (The Consumer Price Index, according to the same figure, was less than 4%.) Much more detail, analysis and discussion is at the source (pdf).
The Librarian in Black writes I'm breaking up with eBooks (and you can too) on the poor deal that current models of ebook provision are for libraries and, by extension, our customers.
Marketing
Alison Wallbutton in #brandlibraries ponders what branding is, how libraries are branded, and whether we want to reposition that branding. She argues that libraries are successfully branded - as "books"; it's in the very word. But of course (segue to my own thoughts) we as librarians get twitchy about wanting to make sure that users know we're not just books, so we reject that outright - often without having put any thought into what we're going to replace that branding with. Which leaves us in a position where we can't effectively promote ourselves because we don't have any image to put out there.
Impact factors
Nixon, J.M. (2012). Core Journals in Library and Information Science: Developing a Methodology for Ranking LIS Journals. C&RL. Advance online publication.
--Outlines a methodology and resulting list of three tiers into which they've divided LIS journals according to "influence". Uses a mix of expert opinions, impact factors, circulation rate, and acceptance rate and, unsurprisingly, comes up with a similar list as those derived from expert opinions or from impact factors.
Probably a good measure of influence; it doesn't claim that quality follows. Which is good because Sick of Impact Factors which concludes that "if you use impact factors you are statistically illiterate" and has been so widely retweeted and commented on that the author has posted a followup summarising the long comment thread in sections: useful links; concerns about metrics; alternative metrics; and actions to take.
Just for fun
Library Shenanigans reports on The Stapler Obituaries - a mini-exhibition of dead staplers at an academic library.
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Links of interest: ebooks, leadership, and change
eBooks
In the Library With the Lead Pipe publishes a provocative and persuasive essay on the eBook Cargo Cult, beginning
Ellyssa Kroski has gathered her three posts on How To Compare e-Book Platforms (points to consider include technical requirements; content; functionality; and sales/pricing model) along with her presentation providing a background to these criteria.
Leadership
Two very insightful posts: the Librarian in Black posts 7 Lessons Learned While Being The Man; the Free Range Librarian responds with her own perspective in I am The Man — and you can, too!
Change
Jenica (Attempting Elegance) posts an 8-part blog version of her presentation on Killing Fear:
In the Library With the Lead Pipe publishes a provocative and persuasive essay on the eBook Cargo Cult, beginning
"Libraries created the present crisis in scholarly publishing, and we are creating a similar crisis now with our approach to ebooks."A brief history of how libraries have handled (or given outsiders power over us by paying them to handle) the indexing of serials and how we're doing the same with ebooks is followed by an overview of alternative models for ebook management - several great ones I'm familiar with including Unglue.It and Library License, and several more that are new to me.
Ellyssa Kroski has gathered her three posts on How To Compare e-Book Platforms (points to consider include technical requirements; content; functionality; and sales/pricing model) along with her presentation providing a background to these criteria.
Leadership
Two very insightful posts: the Librarian in Black posts 7 Lessons Learned While Being The Man; the Free Range Librarian responds with her own perspective in I am The Man — and you can, too!
Change
Jenica (Attempting Elegance) posts an 8-part blog version of her presentation on Killing Fear:
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
19: My first library job #blogjune
(It's called "Blog for many of the days of June, right?)
My first paying library job was, I think, when I was 19. A couple of years before that I had a week's work experience in a library.
But my first library job I don't even remember. I assume I had one because I was going through some old stuff from high school a while back and came across a "Library" pin. I don't think they handed those out just for borrowing lots of books. I guess I shelved? I can almost remember shelving -- or possibly browsing, but I think it might have been shelving. I may or may not have checked out books.
I do remember, with a friend, working out that if you held two books together in a certain way you could cancel out the security strips and get them both through the security gates. (Should I be saying this online? Ehhh, it was a long time ago, surely they've fixed that problem by now.... Also I don't think we got it to work every time.)
I also remember my first introduction to an indexing database. I used it to look for articles about Star Trek: The Next Generation and interloan a particularly interesting magazine article. (Previously my geeky scrapbook had contained only the snippets I could find from the Press and the Listener -- I had whole seasons' worth of the little plot summaries from the TV schedules and was always excited when they published a photo of one of the characters to go with it.)
My first paying library job was, I think, when I was 19. A couple of years before that I had a week's work experience in a library.
But my first library job I don't even remember. I assume I had one because I was going through some old stuff from high school a while back and came across a "Library" pin. I don't think they handed those out just for borrowing lots of books. I guess I shelved? I can almost remember shelving -- or possibly browsing, but I think it might have been shelving. I may or may not have checked out books.
I do remember, with a friend, working out that if you held two books together in a certain way you could cancel out the security strips and get them both through the security gates. (Should I be saying this online? Ehhh, it was a long time ago, surely they've fixed that problem by now.... Also I don't think we got it to work every time.)
I also remember my first introduction to an indexing database. I used it to look for articles about Star Trek: The Next Generation and interloan a particularly interesting magazine article. (Previously my geeky scrapbook had contained only the snippets I could find from the Press and the Listener -- I had whole seasons' worth of the little plot summaries from the TV schedules and was always excited when they published a photo of one of the characters to go with it.)
Friday, 8 June 2012
8: accurate reference service #blogjune
[I have no idea why this didn't post yesterday as it was meant to.]
The "55 percent rule" - that unobtrusive studies tend to show a 55% success rate of librarians answering reference queries fully and accurately - seems to have been written about most in the mid/late-1980s so my quick-and-dirty Google Scholar search isn't bringing up much handy full-text to link to. (Some, but closed access and gigantic files that freeze my computer for a minute so needn't be inflicted on anyone else. Who decided to scan black-and-white Library Journal articles in as colour???) Anyway, my quick-and-dirty impression of the literature thus surveyed is that the number was so shocking that it prompted vast flurries of a) studies to try and replicate/refute the results, and b) studies to say that users don't care about full and accurate answers anyway.
I have a different response, inspired by today's date, which is: If the reference service we're providing is so incomplete and inaccurate, why not save our time/salaries and just hand users a Magic 8-Ball instead?
[NB: This post is not guaranteed to be more than 55% indicative of the actual definition of the rule nor the state of the literature, but it is at least 55% flippant. What I actually think is that we should be developing clever chatbots to staff our virtual reference service. Or at least 55% of it.]
The "55 percent rule" - that unobtrusive studies tend to show a 55% success rate of librarians answering reference queries fully and accurately - seems to have been written about most in the mid/late-1980s so my quick-and-dirty Google Scholar search isn't bringing up much handy full-text to link to. (Some, but closed access and gigantic files that freeze my computer for a minute so needn't be inflicted on anyone else. Who decided to scan black-and-white Library Journal articles in as colour???) Anyway, my quick-and-dirty impression of the literature thus surveyed is that the number was so shocking that it prompted vast flurries of a) studies to try and replicate/refute the results, and b) studies to say that users don't care about full and accurate answers anyway.
I have a different response, inspired by today's date, which is: If the reference service we're providing is so incomplete and inaccurate, why not save our time/salaries and just hand users a Magic 8-Ball instead?
[NB: This post is not guaranteed to be more than 55% indicative of the actual definition of the rule nor the state of the literature, but it is at least 55% flippant. What I actually think is that we should be developing clever chatbots to staff our virtual reference service. Or at least 55% of it.]
Thursday, 7 June 2012
7: colour and technology #blogjune
Isaac Newton claimed there were seven colours in the rainbow. Personally I count six - there's barely room for blue and purple, let alone indigo and violet, and Newton only went for seven because it's a nice mystical number. But the association's there.
I long felt that our catalogues should allow users to search by the colour of a book. After all, that's one of the major pieces of metadata they remember. "Hi, I want to borrow the green thermodynamics book," they'll say. I've never quite understood why we painstakingly catalogue
Some years back I saw a prototype of a library catalogue that did allow searching by colour; if I recall correctly, it took the cover images from [some source] and averaged the hex values. I don't recall whether it let you search by picking a spot on a colour wheel or if that part was just my invention and it only let you choose from a list of colours.
In any case, this never got picked up on. At the time I saw two reasons, but I think now there are three:
I long felt that our catalogues should allow users to search by the colour of a book. After all, that's one of the major pieces of metadata they remember. "Hi, I want to borrow the green thermodynamics book," they'll say. I've never quite understood why we painstakingly catalogue
ix, 165 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. and don't add #0033cc to the end. (Or, for that matter, why size and number of pages and presence/absence of illustrations aren't searchable fields: it'd be handy to be able to search for a book on geraniums with more than 200 pages and col. ill.)Some years back I saw a prototype of a library catalogue that did allow searching by colour; if I recall correctly, it took the cover images from [some source] and averaged the hex values. I don't recall whether it let you search by picking a spot on a colour wheel or if that part was just my invention and it only let you choose from a list of colours.
In any case, this never got picked up on. At the time I saw two reasons, but I think now there are three:
- Technology hadn't advanced far enough: That is, while it was technically possible it wasn't technically easy. Most libraries at the time didn't have cover images in their catalogues. Vast amounts of metadata would have had to be added, and custom code would have had to be integrated into at least the public search interface of the library management system.
- The customer isn't always right: As often as not, "the orange risk management book" turns out to be black. Even when new editions and rebinding battered copies isn't in play.
- Technology has advanced too far: Who on earth is going to remember what colour their ebook cover is? Well, some and sometimes, but colour is a much less pertinent detail in the electronic context. And there are a lot of other ways to search now too, from all those "refine" options to full-text searching (a boon for all those "I photocopied this page and now I can't remember where it's from" questions).
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
6: gamification #blogjune
Today's free association generator goes 6 > dice > gaming > gamification.
I'm simultaneously enthusiastic about and sceptical of gamification.
On the one hand, it works: offer people the chance to earn points, even if the points are absolutely meaningless, and many (not, mind you, all) will be keen to amass them. Add in team spirit and/or actual prizes and many more (though still not all) will jump on the bandwagon. If you want to get people to do something, then telling them it's a game is a great way to do it, with a pedigree no doubt much longer than the obvious fictional example.
On the other hand, is it our job to get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise want to do, or is it our job to help them do things they do want to do? If every reader should have their book according to their own needs (and not the ones they don't need), surely every library user should get the services and skills they need rather than having to accrue them all in order to compete with the Joneses?
And on the gripping hand, wouldn't it be a lot more productive to gamify proofreading of our OCR'd digitisation projects (as does the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program) instead of gamifying checking in to the reference department?
I suppose like everything it depends on the user group, the skills, and the game in question. So I'm particularly curious to hear from readers on this one: do you know of some examples of gamification in libraries (whether an extended thing like Lemontree, or a one-off like a treasure hunt or some other competition) that have been demonstrably useful not just to the library's statistics sheets but also to the users' lives?
I'm simultaneously enthusiastic about and sceptical of gamification.
On the one hand, it works: offer people the chance to earn points, even if the points are absolutely meaningless, and many (not, mind you, all) will be keen to amass them. Add in team spirit and/or actual prizes and many more (though still not all) will jump on the bandwagon. If you want to get people to do something, then telling them it's a game is a great way to do it, with a pedigree no doubt much longer than the obvious fictional example.
On the other hand, is it our job to get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise want to do, or is it our job to help them do things they do want to do? If every reader should have their book according to their own needs (and not the ones they don't need), surely every library user should get the services and skills they need rather than having to accrue them all in order to compete with the Joneses?
And on the gripping hand, wouldn't it be a lot more productive to gamify proofreading of our OCR'd digitisation projects (as does the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program) instead of gamifying checking in to the reference department?
I suppose like everything it depends on the user group, the skills, and the game in question. So I'm particularly curious to hear from readers on this one: do you know of some examples of gamification in libraries (whether an extended thing like Lemontree, or a one-off like a treasure hunt or some other competition) that have been demonstrably useful not just to the library's statistics sheets but also to the users' lives?
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
5 #blogjune
Obviously 5 stands for Ranganathan's five laws of library science. A while back, the Library Society of the World was doing its thing and making stuff and having conversations and I got inspired to pull together the results of some of all this into a wee poster of the Five Laws as told by Lolcat (in, of course, Comic Sans). Ever since then, I've never been able to find it when I want it [now have found it again but Blogger won't let me upload it; will edit this parenthetical with a link once I'm home with more tools], but I do have a printout on my pinboard, right above my Cult of Done Manifesto. (The other day -- our office walls are made of glass -- I caught a student looking in and reading it. "Gee," I thought in amusement, "that makes me look professional." I left it there of course, but haven't quite brought myself to add next to it my entry to the LSW colouring contest.) Anyway, "Every book its reader" has been giving me thinky thoughts of late regarding, in particular, books written in languages other than English. We do teach other languages of course, and have students from other countries, so sometimes such books are useful in our collection. But sometimes we get offered donations which I think are more useful on our disposals table for students to just take away (and luckily often the donator agrees) and sometimes there are books that (if it weren't for multiple complicating factors) rather than move them to storage I'd love to be able to send them to a library whose users all read the appropriate language and the books would be made far better use of than they can ever be here.
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