Librarian, Yoga Teacher, Maker
I read a lot each week, and I would like to share the non-library posts I find most inspiring for my work in libraries. I hope this will be a regular series that gives librarians an opportunity to expand their thought circles about how to tackle our toughest issues.
Four Questions Worth Answering from Seth Godin: Answer these questions, then determine what new service to add.
Why Jargon Feeds on Lazy Minds: Someone finally put into words why I hate jargon. We don’t need it.
Five Habits of Highly Effective Communicators: Almost more of a management article, this should be required reading for new MLIS holders (particularly those with little to no experience) who are supervising long-time employees.
(Shameless self promotion) My recap of a recent Girl Geek Dinners event here in Philadelphia. The theme of this talk was “Growing a passion into a biz + maintaining a 9-5 work-life balance.” Great tips for anyone trying to balance work, a side project or school, family, cats, and sanity.
Personal branding, the buzzword that won’t go away.
Karen Schneider touts the benefits of personal branding for librarians in this month’s American Libraries. Personal branding, she writes, is valuable, and can help new librarians find jobs and a place in the professional arena. Most of the article focuses on the value toward this group, the newly and unemployed who are selling themselves to employers on a daily basis.
However, this common perception of personal branding as a job search strategy is severely limiting. Librarians need to think about how we can benefit professionally from this concept.
The reality is that all of us have personal brands. The questions are actually whether we know what that brand is and how we use it.
Let’s look at two librarians I know who have strong brands:
1. Ancil, a research and instructional services librarian at my university. Everyone knows Ancil.
Ancil does not have a website; he isn’t pushing his services through social media. But he is popular enough that a reference desk shift can quickly turn into an hour as Ancil’s answering service. Students know him, and students want to meet with him.
2. Miss Jill, a friend who works in the children’s department at the public library. Much like Ancil, Miss Jill is well-loved by her audience. Children ask for her and get excited to see her, both in and outside of the library. Her biggest fans aren’t even old enough to know what a blog is, much less read it.
Both Ancil and Jill are using their personal brands as an outreach strategy. This is part of how they build lasting relationships with library users. It’s nothing more than being awesome at what you do — and being amazing at working and connecting with your users.
That’s not to say a personal brand can’t help with a job search. It can. Job searchers absolutely need to know what potential employers can perceive about them online. And your personal brand might involve social media, a web presence, bookmarks, anything that connects you to your users.
Personal branding can benefit all types of librarians by helping them build and sustain relationships with their users. This is the audience we really need to reach — let’s use our skills to do that.
One of my favorite nights out is UX Book Club Philly, where I am usually the lone librarian and one of a handful of higher ed employees. Usually our discussions get me excited about the future of library websites and findability, but the most recent book — Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter (excerpt: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/personality-in-design/) — had me back on solid ground.
Walter writes that not only should websites be functional and usable, but they should have an impact on users. In many of his examples, the sites adopted playful tones and designs, intended to bring about smiles during even mundane tasks. Other sites, such as online banking or healthcare sites, may not benefit from such treatment, but can still be designed in a way that still affects the user’s mental state.
In our meeting, Walter said via Skype that the crux of emotional design is the answer to this question: “What’s the emotional state of my audience and how do I bring that around to a better place?”
Libraries have been doing this to an extent in our service model design — using emotional engagement to create lasting impressions with users — but how much have we considered emotion in designing physical spaces and virtual tools? How can our learning spaces help students be in the best mental state to study, research, and write?
We recently opened a new space called the Education Commons, a bookless yet library-operated area stocked with group study rooms and collaborative study space.
The design outpaces the novelty value of the nontraditional library space. The Education Commons has huge windows that pour in natural light. Light blue and white paint that soothe. A few beanbag-like cushions mixed with comfy chairs and couches, modular furniture, and booths perfect for studying with friends. (Also for library staff to dreamily state how they would be back with a laptop someday.)
But even more impressive is the comments students leave on their way out — how much the space has helped them study and how perfect it is for their needs. One space down, many more to go.
Next on my reading list: Emotional Design — Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Don Norman (Here’s a summary: http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/12/building-emotion-into-your-websites/) and Blending The Physical And Virtual For One Much Better Library Experience from the Designing Better Libraries blog.
Additional resources:
How Do We Want Students to Feel About the Library? by Brian Mathews: http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2012/03/29/how-do-we-want-them-to-feel-about-the-library/
Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester: http://hdl.handle.net/1802/7520
I had the opportunity to participate in this year’s RITA Reader Challenge over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and I loved it.
These were the first fiction books I have reviewed since middle school! I forgot how difficult it is to review truly great books — you can’t just write “This book is awesome!” over and over.
Thanks to Sarah for the opportunity. SBTB is a fantastic community, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.
I’m over on the Drexel SCALA blog today with some thoughts for library school students.
Students are not going to stop using Facebook in the library. The end.
(This blog will mostly focus on academic library issues, but as I am also an avid public library user, I have a great interest in how trends in public libraries affect my life.)
Comments on articles like The Next Time Someone Says the Internet Killed Reading Books, Show Them This Chart make me cringe. And then they take me back to the great 1980s Library Journal debate on collection management — how much of our collections should be what they want versus what we think they should want.
I have a confession to make: I am a librarian at a major research university (and have a slew of other academic credentials, if that one doesn’t work for you), and I read romance novels. It’s not all I read (my last five books are one mystery, one romance, one writing, one sports, and one web design — all but one of these books came from the public library), but I do read them, and I enjoy them. It’s not that I can’t or won’t read the “good stuff” — I can and I do — but that’s not always what I feel like reading, and that is OK.
I am a reader. I read a lot, both in quantity and variety. And it’s not fiscally possible for me to buy everything I read. And so, I look to the libraries in my life to fill this need and expect them to own a large percentage of the books I wish to read.
My academic library maintains a small collection of books primarily for recreational reading and collects many of the more popular works for our permanent collection. (Little makes me happier than seeing our full collection of Jennifer Weiner novels in the stacks.) I don’t expect us to have everything, and the public library collection is often the perfect complement for those of us looking for more variety. It is there I find books on sports, technology trends, and freelance writing, plus most of my fiction reading (romance and otherwise).
Like bestsellers (my most intense hold lists have been Mockingjay and The Marriage Plot), these books circulate. They get people reading. People on the train, people on the subway, people you wouldn’t expect to see break out a book, and it’s because the library has made it possible for them to read something they ENJOY — whether it is so-called fine literature or not. That is serving one’s community.
It’s the most cliché answer: I got into librarianship for the books. My illusion of a long life of children’s books and story hours soon gave way to a love for information, fostered by my background in journalism and the love for learning that comes from reporting. I am now active in the worlds of journalism, public relations and marketing, libraries and technology, and loving every minute of it.
I currently work as a courseware support librarian at a major research university. My professional interests include usability, user experience design, educational technology, social media, and the ongoing evolution of learning management systems. I often look to other fields, particularly technology and business, for inspiration in the workplace.
With so many big issues facing today’s libraries, I find myself with far too many deep thoughts in my head. Writing gives me the opportunity to truly synthesize research, opinions and reality to help move libraries and information organizations forward through these challenging times. Please come back soon, and we’ll start the conversation.
Catherine Odson 