13 Mar 2013

#irelibchat summary - Publishing & Presenting Research in LIS - 12th March 2013

Don't be afraid to share your work! (Photo by Rusavia)
Many thanks to all who participated in a *very* busy #irelibchat with several hundred tweets on the night. It seems that there is real interest in undertaking and sharing research in LIS, so hopefully we will see more librarians in Ireland blogging, publishing and presenting their work in the near future.

Below is a quick round-up of some of the main threads of discussion that emerged:

There was a mix of participants from all sectors and locations (including New Zealand, Vermont and the UK - thanks guys :)) including some current library postgrad students. Several participants recommended that students should consider trying to publish their theses and capstone projects when finished as it is a great opportunity to get your work to a wider audience.

Whilst many stated that they are interested in researching and publishing, a number of challenges were raised. For instance, there was some discussion about whether LIS and other 3rd level qualifications sufficiently prepare LIS professionals to undertake research in the field. This was just one of the barriers mentioned, along with time pressures, a lack of confidence in research skills, and uncertainty as to whether people would be interested in reading your work (i.e. the feeling of "do I have anything worth researching?").

There was a lot of discussion about what kind of research LIS professionals should be publishing and where they can publish, and most agreed that blogs, newsletters, case studies and other less formal formats can be a great way of starting to share your work and ideas. The importance of conferences was also highlighted:  "Different publication types have different outcomes (often). Conferences are sometimes the best/quickest way to get your msg [message] out" - @acarbery. Indeed, the growth in live tweeting and blogging from conferences now has increased their potential impact significantly:  "The immediacy of conferences is astounding, especially if tweeted and blogged - and leads to a lot of interesting work" - @AnneMurphyAnne. Book reviews were also mentioned as a useful gateway into publishing (@ajwillemse91)

Several advantages of publishing were discussed also. Aside from sharing information and improving service delivery, it can be valuable for opening up career opportunities, and "can go a long way to building credibility with faculty". There was also discussion about whether we should be publishing exclusively in Open Access publications, as it seems many still publish in subscription journals. This raised the issue of creating a new Irish OA LIS journal - a great idea, and one worth considering. In fact a number of people also expressed a desire to see more Irish-based research published: "I would love to see more Irish-centric research published. So hard to find Irish examples in the literature"- @JenbearDublin). The journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice joined in and said "we love the Irish here at EBLIP! Send us more of your work!"

So the message is clear, get out there and share your work with others - publish, present, blog!

 Three "librarians as authors" - including myself - will be speaking at next month's LAI HSLG conference in Dublin (#hslg2013) conference in Dublin - a great opportunity to hear more about how you can publish your work in peer-reviewed journals.

Some useful resources mentioned by participants included Helen Fallon's (NUIM) excellent blog, Academic Writing Librarian and A Library Writer's Blog.

We always welcome guest blog posts (on any LIS-related topic of your choice!) here at Libfocus - simply drop us an email at libfocusguestpost [at] gmail.com.

Taking Libraries to Wikipedia / Wikipedia to Libraries

Guest Post by Gerard Gregory 

 Wikipedia is very open about its lack of credibility as an authoritative source. Libraries sing from the same hymn sheet, but in doing so often seem to unnecessarily distance themselves from or appear antagonistic towards the resource. The reality is that libraries and Wikipedia share very similar goals around providing public access to content. Wikipedia presents real opportunities for Irish libraries, and new developments in the world of Wikipedia could potentially increase the level of public engagement with library collections. They could also help improve basic research skills and even provide professional development prospects for unemployed graduates who might be locked in the unforgiving cycle of being unable to get a job without relevant experience.

John Mark Ockerbloom, a digital library architect and planner at the University of Pennsylvania. has developed an experimental service for Wikipedia pages called Forward to Libraries that allows you to click from a Wikipedia article to related resources on a library catalogue. The “Resources in your library” links will perform a keyword or an author search of the library catalogue of your choice using authority-controlled headings. Users can register their preferred library (which will set a cookie in their browser recording that choice), or select it for each individual search. The documentation for the Library resources box template is online. From a user’s perspective the registration feature would benefit if it was more like the Library Links option in Google Scholar which personalises your Scholar results much more seamlessly and links to up to five library collections, but on the whole this addition to Wikipedia is a really innovative way of connecting the hundreds of millions of people who consult Wikipedia every month to libraries. It might still be in an experimental stage but the opportunities for Irish libraries are quite clear. Once a library is registered people in the locality will be able to link to the library catalogue from a Wikipedia page of interest. Onsite or on-campus browsers could pre-install the cookie and default to the library when a user follows one of the links.

The Forward to Libraries project is not the only project that connects Wikipedia with libraries. The GLAM-WIKI project introduced the idea of the Wikipedian in Residence. GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums but the project also incorporates other cultural institutions such as theatres, zoos, botanical gardens, public broadcasters etc. A Wikipedian in Residence is a person who dedicates time to working in-house at an organisation and, amongst other things, facilitates content improvement in partnership with the organisation and the Wikipedia communities. In their profile of the work undertaken by Liam Wyatt, the Wikipedian in Residence at the British Museum in 2010, The New York Times wrote that “in today’s Wikipedia there is renewed value in old-fashioned expertise, whether to provide obscure details to articles that have already been carefully edited or to find worthy topics that haven’t been written about yet”. Librarians are well positioned to offer such expertise.

A very original example of work done by Wikipedians in Residence is the VIAFbot project coordinated by the OCLC Research Wikipedian in Residence Max Klein and the British Library Wikipedian in Residence Andrew Gray. The VIAFbot linked authority file records to biographies on Wikipedia. You can see the VIAFbot at work and watch Max Klein discuss the project here. You may have already seen the Authority Control links paced at the bottom of Wikipedia articles by the VIAFbot over the last few months.

Wikipedian residencies need not be as technical as the VIAFbot project. A project could involve creating Wikipedia content to include articles on topics or items from a collection that so far have not been contributed to Wikipedia or it could involve putting Forward to Libraries links into high profile articles using either library activity data or Wikipedia statistics as a guide. You could also use the case studies from completed projects available on Wikipedia for direction. To my knowledge there have been no Wikipedians in Residence in Ireland. This means that there could be opportunities for recent graduates here to proactively develop a residency idea and try to work as interns or volunteers in any type of GLAM organisation. The British Museum residency, the very first of its kind, was self-initiated. The level of engagement with Wikipedia by high-profile organisations ought to get Irish organisations curious at least.

If traditionally the problem with Wikipedia has been its amateurism and unreliability then the inroads made by the likes of the VIAFbot project in applying authority control and the Forward to Libraries project in bringing library catalogues into articles mean that the scepticism of some librarians towards Wikipedia is becoming increasingly harder to defend. Libraries need to be where people will use them and these types of projects are really great ways of doing that.

*Guest blog posts represent the personal views of the poster and do not represent the official opinions or commentary of libfocus.com

Posted on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 | Categories:

11 Mar 2013

Public library trends – USA vs. Ireland

Back in January the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported its findings on Americans' attitudes and expectations for public libraries (2,252 Americans aged 16 and above were surveyed in Oct/Nov 2012).

In short, people still very much value and appreciate the traditional format of public library services (i.e. provider of books and periodicals as well as ancillary support services): 80% feel that borrowing books and access to reference librarians is “very important”. However, it comes as no surprise that access to desktop computers and the Web are also regarded as indispensable features that make up a modern public library service.


The table to the right provides an overview of what people generally expect from a public library these days.

One particularly interesting revelation of this research was that despite the general rise of e-reading device ownership/use in the US and a related decline of printed-book readership (down from 72% to 67% over the last 12 months), 36% of surveyed people feel that libraries should "definitely not” change by moving printed books out of public library spaces (Zickuhr et al., 2013, p. 4).



That’s the view from across the Atlantic. But what’s the score in Ireland when it comes to public libraries and peoples’ use and expectations? The picture here is essentially very similar according to an Ipsos MORI survey about the attitude to and use of public libraries in Ireland for the Carnegie UK Trust (1000 Irish people aged 15 and above were surveyed in Aug-Oct 2011).


People also view a broad offering of reading materials and high-quality information services as the core responsibility of public libraries toward their patrons. 79% of people feel that public libraries are "very important" or "essential" for communities. Interestingly, two thirds of non-users regard the public library as an important service. 

Even though digital service offers are increasingly in demand, my bottom line interpretation is that personalised information services still very much determine a healthily functioning public library right across the geographic divide.

7 Mar 2013

Academic library services in the digital age

The Education Advisory Board produced a persuasive piece of research back in 2011, ‘Redefining the Academic Library: Managing the Migration to Digital Information Services’. The sorts of trends highlighted in the report do not represent a bolt out of the blue. They simply provide an empirically grounded overview of what we already know intuitively. And I very much like the way this was put together. It’s easy on the eye and communicates the core message very powerfully, which is (1) being aware of how patrons’ behaviours, needs and expectations are shaped by digital technologies, (2) how library services will (by default) adapt and (3) how traditional roles and competencies of staff are shifting. The research provokes and challenges people to be mindful of what’s happening in the digital world.

attemptingelegance.com
Firstly, the report looks at the transformational changes happening right now. Apart from unsustainable operational costs, patrons’ expectations and information behaviours are dismantling traditional academic library operations.

Libraries are morphing into providers and managers of scholarly materials, rather than remaining static hoarders and owners. Particularly interesting is the juxtaposition of publishers’ and libraries’ arguments in their dialogue over how access should be optimally provided (open access vs. costly subscription models). Google Books is busy with realising its commercial mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful whilst operations such as the HATHI TRUST are trying to compete. It’s established that distribution models are drifting towards the cloud and that media (music, video, books) are converging.

From an information behaviour point of view, students and faculty typically start their search for information on the Web (see p.17 in the report) and circulation and reference requests are down right across the board (see p.18 in the report).

The research also suggests that the role of library services will become even more specialised and multi-faceted in the realms of Web Services, Research Support and Instructional Support (i.e. the teaching librarian). At the same time, academic libraries are starting to embrace the idea of offering quality collaborative, social learning spaces to their patrons.

Another interesting facet looks at how the dynamics of collections building and management is making steady headway from the current just-in-case model towards just-in-time services (see for example the Orbis Cascade Alliance and related interview), whereby the preferred scenario is to provide a significantly bigger amount of resource choice to patrons at the time of individual need (see p.25 in the report).

Notable is also the fact that this research not only looked at unavoidable digital library trends, but also at the considerable challenges that come with them, including vendor defined access restrictions to e-book services and copyright barriers, as well as resistance-to-change from powerful interest groups (such as faculty and also students) that are plainly unhappy with rapid switching from analogue to digital.

Challenging times ahead...

5 Mar 2013

Library Student Day in the Life - The Irish Chapter

As a blogger myself I am always delighted to see others giving it a go. Many of the current cohort of UCD SILS MLIS students maintain blogs as part of their coursework, and their posts make particularly interesting reading this week as it is Library Student Day in the Life (#HLSDITL).

Below are just some of the blogs I have come across - hopefully it is the start of more librarians blogging, writing and publishing:

Sarah Kennedy - http://sarahkennedy3.wordpress.com/


3 Mar 2013

New Professionals Day Ireland...

NPD Ireland originated after three Irish UCD MLIS students attended the CILIP New Professionals Day in London in May 2012. As a group we were so inspired by not only the presentations and workshops that we attended, but by our colleagues both within and outside the profession that we met. 

 So on the journey back to Stanstead, we devised a rough plan of our inaugural day that we wished to put on here in Ireland. 

A small group of like-minded former classmates met regularly brainstorming ideas and coming up with a mission statement, a logo and a rough plan. This then evolved into setting up a Twitter account, Facebook page and a blog as well as producing some business cards with our logo and all our contact details included. We had devised the day, so next we set about finalising the venue and the catering. As we are a small team but with big ideas, we decided to maintain the first event on a smaller scale than we had initially envisaged. We required a free venue as we had decided to be self-financing and unaffiliated. After conducting some research we booked Pearse Street Library - this would provide us with one large conference room space and a break out area for refreshments and networking opportunities. Whilst we had initially devised quite a complex and diverse day with multiple workshops and presentations akin to the NPD at CILIP, we then had to scale back our programme to suit our venue. It also afforded us the opportunity to trial whether this type of event would be welcomed in Ireland.

Next we set about fine tuning what aspects of the Information Profession we thought would most appeal to our intended audience. We are all fans of Twitter and the information it affords us professionally, however, we are aware that Irish librarians/info pros are not as engaged with it as they possibly should. Who better to address the needs of the Twitter-novices than Michelle Dalton - Irish Twitter advocate; co-founder of Libfocus.com as well as co-operator of #irelibchat. We decided to call this session and workshop 'Tweet your heart out'.

Next on the agenda came IT/Web skills, we all have a keen interest in web and technological developments that can assist us in our roles and careers. However, not all info pros - even the younger members of the community can experience tech-phobia - are as au fait with the newer aspects of technology that can assist and enhance our own and our patrons use. We decided to name the next session 'Getting ahead in the cloud'. Whilst we thought we could manage to conduct this session ourselves having a wide experience of various OS platforms and software between us, we wanted this session to have the authority of a practising professional. David Hughes Systems Librarian at Dublin Business School came on board and provided us with a brilliant interpretation of our initial idea.

One aspect of our MLIS that had always proved to be a bit of a stumbling block for us all had been the networking at LIS events. Although we're all Irish and so naturally predisposed to talk to others, especially complete strangers... put us in a room with proper real live working information professionals and we can't articulate coherent sentences. So we decided to incorporate networking tips within the day itself. The whole ethos of our inaugural event was for the current new crop of students and early career info pros to develop their 'own professional network' so we incorporated a session on networking. The host for this was a no-brainer for us, Daniel Duffy is a great personal and professional networker and as one of our initial founding members we thought he would be ideal. Daniel is also responsible for the catchy titles to our all sessions and we knew he could provide our attendees with an engaging, fun and friendly segue into 'How do you do? Networking'.

Our keynote speaker was pretty much decided from day one on the coach back to Stanstead, as students we had all been impressed by Jane Burns and her advocacy for the profession. She always made us feel inspired, energised and enthused about the profession that we were on the cusp of entering. So we wanted to incorporate all of those facets of Jane's personality and professional capability into our inaugural event. Approaching Jane was not hard, as she is so welcoming and encouraging to all new LIS professionals, as expected she was enthusiastic from the get-go and happy to be involved in our new initiative for New Professionals in Ireland. Our idea was that Jane's session would complete the day's activities with a presentation on her career and alerting the attendees on how they too could develop as an Information Professional. 

With all of our hosts and keynote on board we set about advertising on all of our available platforms - building up interest and involvement via Twitter, Facebook and our blog from December 2012 onwards. Encouraging engagement and interaction by focusing on updating across all platforms simultaneously. We also ensured that our blog was kept focused and provided insightful and hopefully encouraging blog posts on what was in store for those currently in the MLIS/MSc. We had great assistance in spreading our message to the current students at UCD SILS via the wonderful Claire Nolan, Claire McGuinness, Maria Souden and Norman Makoto Su. DBS MSc were contacted via David Hughes who is based at DBS and our net spread even further via Twitter incorporating AberILS and Ulster University ILS students. This really was becoming as originally intended a day for the whole island of Ireland. We had built up the day prior to launch and engaged our intended audience via flyers, business cards and online information. We then met the students in person - introducing ourselves and the ideas behind the day. The next step was to release the event for booking which went live at 9am on the 15th February 2013 and was fully booked with a reservation list before 5pm on the same day.



We've encountered and benefited from huge support across the information profession both here in Ireland and further afield with our colleagues in the UK and even those in New Zealand. New Professionals Days are happening across the globe - this is a growing community who are taking hold of their own cpd and evolving it to suit the changing dynamic of the LIS profession. We wanted to share with the community the process behind our first day - we've been asked time and again who are our sponsors and who are we affiliated to. We are our own sponsors, we have gained so much in our short time within the profession here in Ireland, so we are giving something back to our new colleagues. We hope that they have benefited from attending the day and that they have realised that the profession is a welcoming, encouraging and effective one in which we all can evolve and engage and develop. A huge vote of thanks to everyone who has been involved with the planning, preparation, organisation and operation on the day.


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