Technology Leadership Institute

Posted on October 21, 2006 by pat

I attended an extremely invigorating seminar yesterday! The Monroe County Library System presented it’s Technology Leadership Institute in downtown Rochester. The presenters — Stephen Abram, Michael Stephens, and Ed Vielmetti — were excellent. It was a great opportunity to hear about what others are doing to take advantage of new technology to provide better library service. And it was also nice to have some of my own ideas validated. : )

Stephen Abram is very knowledgeable on all sorts of technology topics, and he’s also funny and irreverent. His talk was delightful. Two key points he brought up early on were that libraries need to shift marketing toward what patrons need, not what we have (they already know we have books), and also that we need to think about how our users Feel in our library. We need to provide a positive, comfortable experience.

Michael Stephens echoed this idea as he talked about “stories.” What are the stories our libraries are telling? Are we a welcoming place? Or do we have too many barriers that keep patrons from having a rich user experience? Michael provided specific examples of services we can provide — easily and cheaply — to positively impact the user experience. I’ll talk about these more when I’ve had a chance to look through my notes.

Ed Vielmetti, the Superpatron, provided a nice balance to the seminar by talking about library service from the patron’s point of view.

And during the break I drew up some sketches for a website prototype! This was an incredibly productive day for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ll be writing more, like I said, when I’ve had a chance to go over my notes and digest it all.

It’s a Library Thing

Posted on October 18, 2006 by pat

A co-worker just turned me on to librarything.com, a great website for anyone who loves books. As stated on the site, LibraryThing is a place to “Enter what you’re reading or your whole library—it’s an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things.”

It’s a great way to keep track of titles you’ve read, or to list titles that you haven’t gotten to yet.

Signing up at this free site is easy, and once you’ve logged in you can type a title or author into a search box (and it’s very forgiving if you don’t remember exact name) and select your book from the list that comes up. The book is added to your library and you can rate it, write a review and add tags to decide for yourself how to categorize it.

The fun thing is that you can then find other users who have read the same book and look at their libraries, or find other books that are tagged similarly to your own.

I highly recommend creating an account and exploring. It’s fun and it’s easy! For years we’ve had patrons at our library asking for a way to keep a list of what they’ve already read. Now they have it. And for the books I haven’t gotten to yet, but which I want to keep track of and get to eventually, I’m going to tag as “unread.”

My Logic Model

Posted on October 4, 2006 by pat

My logic model began with me at my desk with a few sheets of blank paper and a handout from the Logic Modeling workshop I’d attended. There were times when I wanted to just read over the handout and move on; some of the questions were not easy to answer. I had to push myself to really think this through and come up with real answers before moving on.

Here’s a recap of what I had in front of me:

Situation: What is the problem or issue? Why is this a problem and what causes it? For whom does the problem exist? Who was a stake in it’s resolution?

In my case, the problem was a poorly designed website that is not easy to use. This is a problem because information is not accessible if it cannot be found. We currently have an ok website, but much of the information is hidden under meaningless tags, and there is some library jargon that needs to be changed. This is a problem for experienced internet users, but moreso for those with little or no computer or internet experience. If information cannot be found, this is a source of frustration for both library staff and the public.

Priorities: What is the purpose/goal of our website?

We’d like to have structure based on function. (We currently have our structure based on age level of intended audience, for some reason. We also have structure based on random topics that for one reason or another rose to the top of the hierarchy, but the reasoning behind it cannot be defined.) We’d like strong content and visual appeal. While these sound very nebulous, as an overarching goal of the website, I think this works.

Goals I’ve defined are as follows:

1. To facilitate access to information resources
2. To provide awareness of library programs
3. To encourage interest in library materials

Inputs: What do we invest in the project?

In our case, our investments are staff time (the biggie), which includes research time and production time. Our other investments are money (minimal), software, and equipment (which we already have.)

Outputs: What are the activities, services, events and products that reach people?

Outputs lead to specific outcomes.
What we do: provide information, provide education, provide recreation
Who we reach: library users, non-users, all demographic groups

Outcomes: What are the expected outcomes?

Short-term impact: Website is easy to use, information is found
Mid-term impact: Number of users is increased
Long-term impact: Interactive environment, users return due to ease of locating information/fun, a virtual community is established

Assumptions: What are the “givens” here?

Web standards lead to ease of use: Don’t reinvent the website concept, take advantage of users’ current expertise.
Usability testing uncovers flaws: No matter how much you think you know about web design, you need to test it on your users to uncover any problems they encounter.

External Factors: What are the external issues that will affect your project?

Access to internet: economic barriers to use, server downtime
Ability: how to meet the needs of the disabled or elderly

Critique Your Site

Posted on October 2, 2006 by pat

If you already have your website up and running, and are working on a redesign, take the time to do an objective critique of your site.

Don’t just say, “This site is not working. I need to redesign it.” Without having a clear idea in your mind of what is wrong with the current site, the next release will end up being just as bad. Maybe for different reasons (which you still haven’t defined), but bad nonetheless. You need to take the time to do this step.

Keep in mind that “critique” is not a negative word. I once took writing workshop led by Nancy Kress (who writes a column for Writer’s Digest, along with numerous novels, short stories and books about writing) and she made it very clear that a critique contains three parts: What’s working, What needs work, and a Conclusion. Nothing is all bad or all good. So look at your website and determine what it’s strengths and weaknesses are.

Here’s a condensed version of the critique I wrote for my website.

What Works
We use our home page to highlight special programs or services. The basic site is the same, but the main screen on the home page changes frequently to point out upcoming events and to keep people coming back to see what’s new. Pages are uncluttered — white background, lots of white space — making reading and navigating easy. Hours, location (complete address) and phone number are all included in the heading, so it’s at the top of every page. Also, I’ve put a “freshness date” at the bottom of each page. Some of our links provide clear identification of the content: My Library Account, Catalog, Ask a Librarian, etc.

What Needs Work
Vague links: Friends (does this mean anything to anyone who doesn’t work in a library?), Kids, Teens, Adults (what do these labels mean to the public?), Resources (what is underneath this link? Could be anything.) Our subdirectory structure is confusing. I have no help pages, privacy statement or site map.

Conclusions
Age-specific link headings need to be changed. It may make sense to separate out a section for kids or for teens, but not for adults. Navigation needs to be clarified. Resources page needs a complete overhaul.

Without going into the nitty-gritty details of my site’s critique, this should serve as a base from which to start your own site critique. Be specific and put it in writing. Sometimes it helps to set it aside for a day or two and then look at it again.

Logic Modeling

Posted on October 1, 2006 by pat

As we work toward redesigning our library’s website, a recurring issue keeps pushing itself to the forefront of our discussions:

What is the purpose of our website?

In the past, this question has come up but we never arrived at a solid answer. I dove into building our website without a real sense of where I was going, or why. This has been a difficult question to answer, in terms of a library website. We are not trying to earn a profit, which is the category many of my other web projects have fallen into. We are not serving a core demographic — library service is for everyone, isn’t it? We are not using a corporate model, are we?

What are we trying to do?

This is a tough question to answer. I found a way to focus my thoughts around this after attending a seminar on Logic Modeling last summer. A logic model is essentially a roadmap for problem solving and is a method for pinpointing exactly what it is you are trying to accomplish. You have to answer the tough questions, like it or not, and the results help you to focus in on specific steps you need to take to reach the goals you have set.

A great place to get started on understanding the concept of logic modeling is this slide show on the University of Wisconsin’s website:

Enhancing Performance with Logic Models

Module 1 explains the concept in excruciating detail, while Module 2 gives a real-life example on using a logic model to create a community nutrition education plan.

Although I attended the seminar last summer on this topic, the UoW site helped me put all the pieces together and got me started on my redesign.

Self-Checkout

Posted on September 15, 2006 by pat

I recently went to a demo on self-checkout presented by Library Automation Technologies.

Here’s the particular machine I saw last week:

http://www.latcorp.com/latsite/fs907.htm

It looks like it will be very simple for patrons to use and easy to maintain.

Lots of nice features: handicap accessible, multi-language availability, works as both barcode and rfid reader (also will scan barcode and write rfid tags for the item associated with that particular barcode), customizable screens that can be changed from any networked pc you give permissions to. Cost is about $12K, which is roughly half the price of a similar 3M model. It uses thermal paper – I don’t know how that compares to cheap paper plus ink, cost-wise, but there is no ink ribbon to deal with. One less thing to maintain.

The salesman (Steve) also talked about an IMM machine, which is also on their website. It’s a repository for CDs or DVDs that works kind of like a jukebox. Staff checks in the item, puts the item into the IMM and puts the empty case on the shelf. Patron picks up empty case from shelf, takes it to IMM, scans library card and scans case, and the item comes out of the IMM for patron to put into case and take home. This removes the need for traps and also helps reduce repetitive stress injury for staff. Also, the item cannot be retrieved without a library card, so theft of these items is virtually eliminated. These are a lot pricier than self-checkout: I think he said they start at $37,500 and hold 500 DVDs.

Others who attended the demo said they could see no difference between the LAT model and the 3M model, other than the price, and that they were inclined to go with LAT. They also mentioned they’ll be switching over to rfid in the near future, thus taking advantage of the seamless transition offered through LAT.

In my opinion, it couldn’t be any easier to operate, from a patron’s perspective. And the low maintenance and cost is very appealing, from my end.

libraryTechie

Posted on August 30, 2006 by pat

Being the “techie” person in a library has it’s own unique challenges. Some of us are support staff and some of us are librarians, and all of us have an interest in technology that may or may not be shared with our co-workers. In fact, many of us are in an environment where we are quite isolated. Nobody “gets” us. Sure, they’ll come and get us when they need something, but they don’t understand what we do.

Fortunately for me, my direct supervisor is also a techie. I have someone I can bounce ideas around with or work through technical problems with. That may not be the case for many library tech people, so this blog is intended to communicate with others who are dealing with the same issues in the library world.

One of the projects I’m working on now is a complete redesign of our website. I’ll be blogging about that as I go through the process of figuring out who our customers are (everybody?) and what our products are (information? books?) and how best to market what we have to offer.

I’m also working on a database to better track our equipment, with plenty of bumps along the way as I learn MySQL and PHP. I’ll be discussing those from time to time, as well as network issues when they arise.

And trends. I like to talk about trends. I’ll restrict it to library trends here, but will likely put up another site to explore non-library trends in technology. I’m sure there will be some overlap.

Keep in mind that this is an invitation to open dialog. I would love to know what others are working on so please feel free to add comments or bring up any library-related tech ideas for discussion.

LibraryTechie

Technology Trends and Library Services