Stop Blaming the User
This blog post by Jenica Rogers is a perfect example of the way more libraries ought to be thinking.
Money quote (emphasis mine):
The user is not broken in that our job is to fulfill the user’s needs, and the user’s needs are, while not always well-defined, possible to meet, or understood by either side, valid — so accusing the user of Doing It Wrong is counterproductive to our goals and needs, and should be avoided. This applies to space usage, reference inquiries, customer service, and use of our online tools.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Libraries need to pay a lot more attention to how our patrons behave and start adapting our systems to the way our patrons expect search to behave. Our seemingly in-built desire to force patrons to search for things our way is counterproductive and ultimately damaging to our credibility and our profession.
If there’s one point that I’d like to add to hers, it’s that a big part of the problem is that very few libraries actually take real responsibility for the software that’s used to build their site. By relying on external vendors and not having in-house coders who can improve the system, many libraries pretend that any deficiencies in it are minor and/or not their responsibility. But everything that happens under your logo — whether it’s on your website, at the Reference Desk or how you organize your stacks — is ultimately your responsibility. That means that, like it or not, it’s your job to make things as easy and intuitive for your patrons as you can. As Jenica so wonderfully puts it:
We can sit back, all of us, in libraries and outside of them, and with smug self-satisfaction explain why our tools, websites, spaces, and services are just brilliantly perfect… or we can thoughtfully observe our environment, acknowledge that the user has needs and is showing us what they are, and adapt.
♦ Posted on Thursday, 15 December 2011 at 5:05 pm and filed under Customer Service • Reference • Search.
Libraries Need More Coders
When you pay someone to provide you with the software you need, you enter into an agreement with them. “If you install this software and provide us with tech support,” you say, “we will pay you for the software and for a support contract.”
However, those agreements also come with baggage. When you buy a solution, you’re lashing yourself to the vendor’s development cycle and you’re trusting that the software they provide you (both in the short term and over the length of the contract) will meet your patrons’ needs. You’re also betting that when you need to add a new product or service to your repertoire, that piece of software will either do what you need or will integrate well with another piece of software that does what you need.
Relying on vendors for your software is a decent short-term strategy, since it lets you get up and running quickly and provides a dedicated support channel when things go wrong. Over the long term, though, it causes stagnation: if your patrons want or need something new, you can’t provide it to them without waiting on your vendor, shelling out more money for another product… or both. And if your vendor discontinues a product or even just decides that what your patrons need isn’t in their interests, you’re left out in the cold.
For example, I know of a library whose content management system is not only no longer developed by the vendor, but hasn’t even been supported by them for several years. That library hasn’t upgraded or switched to a new platform, because doing so would require them to negotiate a new contract with a new vendor. With money so tight these days, many libraries (including my own employer) are seeing dramatic reductions in funding; as a result, that library system is stuck with a dead-end content management system for the foreseeable future.
Libraries need more coders. I’m not talking about “that guy in the office who knows HTML”, but real, honest-to-goodness coders, who can build a custom solution for your library from scratch. There’s no reason your library can’t have a search system that includes your research databases or build its own app for the iPad. Building your own solution means you can innovate at your own pace and you can meet your patrons’ specific needs.
In fact, programming should really be a track in library school, because programming skills allow people to build their own solutions, which is a big part of what libraries need to stay relevant in the age of the iPhone. Lots of Library Science programs teach students HTML (a nice start and certainly better than nothing), but librarians are supposed to be experts at dealing with information, so why aren’t library school students being taught to do interesting and useful things with that information in a digital setting? Why aren’t library school students being taught how to write a web app in Rails, how to do version control with Git and how to get an open-source project off the ground?
The emergence in the last few years of the mobile information market has been staggering. Ever since the iPhone, iPad and Android revolutionized the way we view our mobile devices, there’s been a tsunami of development in this market. Everyone’s rushing to build apps and mobile-friendly versions of their websites. Libraries are a natural fit for this world, since we curate large amounts of quality info and we are seen as trustworthy by the public at large.
Libraries can’t wait a year or two for their vendor to deliver an iPhone app or a mobile website. The future is here – right now – and any library that isn’t trying to deliver its services to patrons wherever they are (especially on their mobiles) is merely contributing to the view that they are merely relics of a bygone era.
♦ Posted on Tuesday, 8 November 2011 at 3:59 pm and filed under Programming.
Save Chicago Public Library!
In case you haven’t heard, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to slash funding for Chicago Public Library. And, as two of Chicago’s aldermen noted at a budget hearing two weeks ago, the mayor is looking to take this huge cut out of a city department that accounts for 3% of Chicago’s annual budget and is comprised of people who are not paid handsomely for their work. An astute observation, because of the more than 700 layoffs Mayor Emanuel is proposing, more than 500 are from Chicago Public Library.
If Mr. Emanuel thought that this cut would sail through unopposed, though, he was wrong.
The people of Chicago have responded brilliantly, thanks to a campaign by CPL staff that has been supported by numerous aldermen and the public in general. The petition to fully fund Chicago Public Library has drawn more than 5000 signatures and the Library and its supporters have been keeping the pressure on the City Council. I was even surprised to see a (very bad) picture of myself in the Chicago Tribune:
I’ve heard that I was shown on TV, too, but I haven’t seen that, so I’m assuming that I look equally terrible, there.
Anyway, after several weeks of fighting hard, we’ve managed to move the Mayor, but only a bit. He’s offered to restore $3 million of the original $11 million that he wanted to cut from CPL, but to be honest, that’s really nothing more than an attempt to placate the aldermen and make the backlash go away.
This is a make-or-break moment for Chicago Public Library and that’s not just because my job is at risk, but because the services we provide are now in serious jeopardy.
Worst of all among these cuts, the Mayor wants to lay off all of CPL’s library pages. They shelve the books and they’re the lowest-paid employees at CPL. In truth, though, they’re probably our most important employees, because a librarian who spends all of her time shelving is a librarian who isn’t able to spend time teaching computer classes, hosting a children’s story time or helping an unemployed patron write a résumé.
I have written a letter to my alderman, which I am posting here. You are free to re-use as much or as little of this letter as you like, but if you live in Chicago, please sign our petition and write or call your alderman – today – and tell them to fully fund Chicago Public Library.
Alderman Pawar:
As one of your constituents, I would like to express my opposition to the cuts proposed to the Chicago Public Library in Mayor Emanuel’s 2012 budget, as well as to Mr. Emanuel’s offer to restore a small (and in my opinion, inadequate) portion of the cut funding. I would like to voice my support for full funding of the Chicago Public Library in 2012.
Chicago Public Library is a valuable resource, serving all Chicagoans without regard to race, gender, religion, political affiliation or income level. Any Chicagoan, from the poorest to the wealthiest, can go to their local library and avail themselves of its many resources. Those resources would be be dramatically affected by the loss of so much money from this system and despite what Mayor Emanuel has said, I believe that laying off one-third of Chicago Public Library’s workforce would result in severe disruptions to the quality and variety of its service.
More and more services are going “online only” every year (just ask anyone who’s searching for a job in this economy), but there are still many people in Chicago who cannot afford a computer or home Internet service. I have many friends who bring their young children to the library for “story time” or who participate in programs like One Book, One Chicago as a means of broadening their horizons.
Regardless of whether we are talking about $11 million or $8 million, these cuts are unreasonably severe and punish people and services upon whom many Chicagoans depend, thereby unreasonably punishing those very same Chicagoans in turn.
You are fond of saying that “all response is local”. I would like to ask you to consider a question in reply:
Can our city truly be improved when its ability to respond to its citizens (locally, quickly, efficiently or even at all) is diminished?
Yours,
Robert Dumas
♦ Posted on Friday, 4 November 2011 at 3:20 pm and filed under Funding.
My Desktop, Ten Years Ago
Submitted under “found art”:
My desktop, almost 10 years ago. I was reading a lot of Jhonen Vasquez and William Gibson, kind of wanted to be living in the Matrix and thought I was driving a pretty pimp desktop.
♦ Posted on Sunday, 9 October 2011 at 12:56 am and filed under Uncategorized.
Netflix, Qwikster and Hollywood
Note: This post has been updated. See below for details.
Netflix is splitting its DVD and streaming businesses into two companies and people are hopping mad about it. I’m not surprised, though, because the root cause of all this trouble is something we’ve seen before.
Let’s start with an assertion that we can all agree on: Netflix wants to deliver movies and TV shows over the Internet. That’s the future and we all know it. However, their contracts are coming up for renewal and the studios are demanding massive increases in licensing fees. To top it off, Starz announced that they’re not renewing their re-licensing deal with Netflix.
Netflix is stuck: they’ve built this amazing infrastructure that can pump out huge amounts of video over the Internet, but “Big Content” won’t agree to let Netflix stream their content… unless, of course, Netflix agrees to the same odious terms that Big Content tries to foist upon everyone: tiered pricing, a cut of Netflix’s revenue and pay-per-view.
In short, Big Content is doing to Netflix what they did to iTunes a few years ago: shaking them down for better terms by threatening to poison the well if they don’t get their way.
This really shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. Big Content’s own ideas of digital distribution systems have always had several characteristics in common: complicated licensing models, tiered pricing and pay-per-view. (You may read all of these things as “lots of different entertainment lawyers sticking their fingers in the pot”.) Consumers, on the other hand, want the opposite: simple licensing models, flat pricing and “all you can eat” viewing. Big Content has historically ignored the concerns of music and movie lovers and the result has been digital distribution platforms (e.g., Pressplay and MusicNet?) more labyrinthine than a Thomas Pynchon novel.
We’re locked into a strange cycle: everyone (Hollywood, Netflix and consumers) wants to pay for content on demand, but Big Content’s own efforts are terrible. Along comes a new player like Netflix (or, several years ago, iTunes) and introduces a system with a simple pricing and licensing model. The market flourishes and sucks energy out of piracy – why go to the trouble of pirating when you can just watch it right now for a reasonable price? – but when the contracts run out, Big Content tightens the noose and insists on tiered pricing, a cut of revenues and pay-per-view exclusives.
If you keep your eyes on Netflix over the next couple of years, you’re going to see most or all of this happen.
What has all of this to do with their DVD business? Well, it’s still a good moneymaker, but it’s clearly a secondary choice for subscribers. (Raise your hand if you’ve had a Netflix DVD sitting on your coffee table for more than a month.) So Reed Hastings is splitting the two businesses to insulate the revenues of the DVD business from Hollywood. There’s no way in hell he wants to do this, but if Hollywood can get a toehold into Netflix’s DVD business, they can dictate terms to them on DVDs, too.
If Hollywood were smart, they’d find a way to force all copyright-holders to follow a common licensing scheme so that they could build a decent digital distribution system. If they did, though, they’d find themselves skewered on their own knives in the same way a few years later.
Update, 10 October: It looks like after major customer outcry, Netflix is keeping their DVD business.
♦ Posted on Monday, 19 September 2011 at 12:12 pm and filed under Media • Movies.
Nutritional Info for the Moon
If the Moon were made of Swiss cheese, this is what its nutritional label would look like.
By the way, since the usual serving size for cheese listed on a US nutrition label is 1 ounce, that translates to 2.5912 × 10^24 one-ounce servings, which means you’re going to need a heck of a lot of crackers for that particular cocktail party.
(Found via @TomHut and @WolframAlpha via the #WolframB2S hashtag.)
♦ Posted on Tuesday, 13 September 2011 at 2:29 pm and filed under Trivia.
Ten Years Ago.
Ten years ago, I was 24 years old and working part-time at a bookstore when the world changed.
♦ Posted on Sunday, 11 September 2011 at 9:57 am and filed under Uncategorized.
In Praise of Browsability and Serendipity
The University of Chicago is about to open their newest library, the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, which stores all of its items in a fully-automated underground vault. Library users can request a book online and the system will automatically fetch the appropriate container, from which library staff can retrieve it.
It’s all very cool, but I find myself wondering about the implications of a library where users can’t browse the collection. At [my own library][Woodson], we have a [research collection][Harsh] whose stacks are closed to the public. While this means that material can be preserved – there are some extremely rare, valuable and fragile works in the collection – the opportunity cost of such a setup means that patrons can’t browse the collection and discover things they didn’t know they wanted.
♦ Posted on Thursday, 12 May 2011 at 11:42 am and filed under Reference • Search • Web Design.
Fun with Iron-on Letters
Iron-on letters can make any t-shirt into something awesome!
♦ Posted on Sunday, 6 March 2011 at 4:51 pm and filed under Uncategorized.