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Scooped by Karen du Toit onto The Information Professional |
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"Teaching tech in isolation never works. When a reluctant tech user learns how to do something with a project about which they're personally passionate, they're gonna be instantly engaged, work hard at it, and feel super exultant when it works!"
1. Make it personal
2. Show and tell
3. Small steps, etc"
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Sara Wingate Gray, Department of Information Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom. Email: uczcswi@ucl.ac.ukAbstract
‘Librarian identity’ is a contested arena, seemingly caught up in a values-war between traditional principles of ‘citizenship’ and late 20th century’s shift to a democracy of consumerists. New professionals may be wary of associating with established systems of their own professional hierarchies when professional associations may be perceived as not having paid enough attention to how this shift in values has been effected, yet this is the key question to address: how has this shift towards ‘information management/consumption’; the library member now as ‘customer’; and new models of library provision by private or social enterprises, impacted on the profession’s identity as a whole?..."
Full text: http://ifl.sagepub.com/content/39/1/37.full Full text (pdf): http://ifl.sagepub.com/content/39/1/37.full.pdf+html
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Full text article in IFLA journal! Delete the scoop?
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Inna K(o)uper: CLIR blog has recently posted a piece on re-skilling for librarians by Christa Williford, focusing on digital humanities librarianship. What kind of skills do librarians need in order to be relevant in contemporary research environments? The list can be pretty long, moreover, there might be multiple lists. Another list was proposed in a report that Christa mentioned, “Re-skilling for research” by Research Libraries UK (RLUK). The report contains results of a series of studies that aimed to map the needs of researchers onto tasks to be undertaken by subject librarians. The report is long, but the message is the same over and over: librarians’ roles and skills are quite limited and traditional; they do not match the needs. Subject librarians are not involved at the early stages of research that involve conceptualization and planning. Most of the services are still offered in the areas of literature search and information management (how to store and organize everything). Services that are related to data collection, management, analysis and preservation are in their infancy at best.
Karen du Toit's insight:
Thoughts on the re-skilling of librarians! Interesting! 
NELLCO's curator insight,
January 18, 9:41 AM
A new (to me) verb: re-skilling. Need to mull this one over. Not sure if it's perfect or ridiculous. Delete the scoop?
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By Nancy Bellafante: The Chronicle’s recent article on plagiarism accusations in Coursera courses kicked off my exploration into MOOCs and the role librarians can play. A recent RUSA post on Chasing Reference points to the lack of research assignments in MOOCs and the need for embedded librarians. Even though students enrolled in a MOOC do not typically have access to the parent institution’s fee-based library resources, information literacy and research skills can still be taught and are an important component in courses that ask students to explore complex issues and social problems. Simply providing students with a reading list is not going to teach them to be savvy information consumers who can effectively find authoritative information and critically evaluate sources. So, what’s our first step? Librarians should  join a  MOOC.
Read more: http://www.library.drexel.edu/blogs/technologies/tag/edx/
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Free online classes the future of education > with a direct impact on librarians! Delete the scoop?
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"[...]there are more than a few ways to kill a library. For example: √ Stop believing in the libraries mission. Do we really believe in the freedom to read, learn and discover? √ Spend less time with the board. The ideal public library board would meet 4 times per year and agrees with everything the CEO recommended. √ Stop talking to your customers. What do they know any way? And on the same topic, stop consulting staff. It is a huge time waster. √ Don’t worry about the future and how you will get there. Sustainability is not an issue with which libraries need to be concerned. After all, we’ve have survived for hundreds of years. √ Stop telling the library story. Everyone has heard our story. √ Accept that the library building is old and you don’t need to keep renovating, painting, and updating it. It is what it is. √ Accept that just like instant coffee killed the coffee bean, the e-book will kill the printed book. √ Stop promoting the product; everyone knows about literacy and lifelong learning. √ Stop empowering staff, and stop training them. They should come to us fully trained. √ Stop all this talk about innovation. It just makes for more work. √ And, for heaven’s sake, stop changing the rules and our traditions. It’s annoying!" Delete the scoop?
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"This is a report from the LAS Membership committee on a survey held in Feb 2012 and the summation of points rasied during the discussion held in Apr 2012 (When Librarians Meet on Friday the 13th)."
"Survey of SLS participants During Feb 2012 this year, a survey was sent out to active participants of the Special Libraries Section of LAS - a total of 27 responses were received (amongst which 5 were from non-LAS members). The key reason that the participants cited for joining LAS was “to take advantage of networking with colleagues in Singapore and beyond.” Other suggestions received were for more continuing education opportunities, conferences, workshops, sponsorship for education, programs (social and professional). There was a suggestion for the association to be more inclusive (accept members whom are interested in libraries and not just associated with one). There was also a request for LAS to become a voice for the profession to defend industry values and beliefs in situation where it is obvious administrators make policies that endangers such values and beliefs. There was a call for the importance of stewardship and mentorship, such that it would help new and young librarians develop professionalism."
The Editor suggests that the threats be seen as opportunities:
"Threats – Perception of librarians –> not a professional career; anyone can do; devalues the work we do; shrinking, Relevance of library, Low regards for the profession, Lack of understanding of what a librarian does, Not being recognized as a professional job, Lazy impatient users used by bad education foundation, Rising costs of academic quality information may drive away potential users leading to the rise of ‘non-quality’ information, Online knowledge bases or automated self-help databases/systems has reduced need for librarians “deep” expertise, Increasing costs of electronic resources, Library will behave more like IT centre, “Mental block” on status quo e.g. not leveraging on technology; withdrawal in the face of disruptive technology, Lack of involvement in political decision making, Ignorance of roles by outsiders –> displacement of importance, User behavior, Good enough info (not authoritative), Users want things fast, Informal channels e.g. getting from professional networking, Pay per view, Digital natives, Social media e.g. facebook, People are getting/sharing info through social media, Google, Direct delivery of content to users by vendors, Shrinking physical library, Increasing cost of content, Operating cost, Perception that librarians are relatively unimportant compared to other areas like economic issues or core functions of the organisation that a library resides (e.g. a library within a stat board)." Delete the scoop?
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by Cindy Shamel : "As librarians and information professionals, we have an excellent track record for adapting to the ever-changing industry landscape. Despite ongoing discussions of obsolescence, the profession carries on. With the advent of microfilm in the 1930s, one college library committee posited that the book would become as obsolete as the horse and buggy. We adapted by becoming experts in microfilm technology and the opportunities it offered. Librarians sounded the alarm in the 1960s when the telephone came to the reference desk, concerned that users would simply call in their questions and never come to the library again. People still came to libraries, and info pros adapted by increasing levels of services so that now we include phone, email, online chat, and text messages. Today, when end users freely search the medical literature through PubMed, legal cases with FindLaw, and the internet via Google, our role again seems threatened. The professional discussion remains robust, as illustrated by a Dialog search of what I broadly defined as library literature (ERIC, INSPEC, NTIS, Social SciSearch, Dissertation Abstracts Online, Gale Group Magazine Database, British Education Index, Gale Group Trade & Industry Database, and Library Literature & Information Science). Using the terms librarian? and google ANDed with synonyms for competition, with results ranked by year, a steady increase from one hit in 1997 to about 80 per year over the last 6 years appears. So, what’s the info pro to do? How can we thrive in the environment of the empowered user? PROQUEST ASSEMBLES A PANELAt the 2012 SLA conference, ProQuest brought together a powerful panel of information industry practitioners and thought leaders to discuss the issues. Panelists included Mary Ellen Bates, president and founder of Bates Info Services, Inc. and an expert in customized information research; Blanca Chou, associate director of the Information Resource Center at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc.; Betty Edwards, senior research analyst in information resources and management at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.; and Roger Summit, founder of Dialog, who foresaw the paradigm shift that would be created by the development of online information services. Libby Trudell, a longtime member of the Dialog, and now ProQuest, management team, moderated the panel. Trudell led the discussion, posing questions related to how information professionals can redefine their service offering and their value proposition, whether the industry is on the right track with discovery tools, and where the gaps or opportunities lie today. Panelists drew from their work experience and industry knowledge to offer wisdom and strategies for thriving in the age of empowered users, revealing several common threads and a few unique insights."
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"Your worldview dictates what is possible and often without even knowing it. Presentation at the Library 2.012 conference. Describes the rising view within librarinship focused on knowledge and community."
Via Fe Angela M. Verzosa Delete the scoop?
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Submitted by Sally Gore, Head, Research & Scholarly Communications Services, Lamar Soutter Library, UMass Medical School and Chair-Elect for NAHSL] Thank you to the Professional Development Co...
"I believe, we’re seeing what I’ve come to call the Postmodern Age of Librarianship. In other words, those things that once defined us and our reality are shifting. They are being deconstructed and put back together in ways that are deeply dependent upon the resources available to us in our particular institutions. Similarly, they are being shaped by the environments in which our libraries sit. The priorities, budgets, faculty, researchers and administrators of our respective institutions drive what we do. To some extent, this has always been the case, but the pressure seems at a higher level today than in years past. We talk a lot about “emerging roles” in health sciences librarianship. One thing I’ve noticed is that in our discussions, we often focus on some area, one or two specific new roles, like data management planning in eScience or knowledge management in hospital libraries. I’m not arguing that examining, proposing, and training librarians for these areas isn’t warranted, but I do worry, based up what I observed at MLA, that a top-down approach to defining our services might not work in the future. Heck, it might not be working now! What I saw at MLA is that the most successful programs and services are those that are sprouting from the ground up; those that develop from the melding of the interests, skills and expertise of a library’s staff with the needs of its patrons." Via Miguel Mimoso Correia Delete the scoop?
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A series of presentations and lectures on participatory and new librarianship. Via Buffy J. Hamilton, Dennis T OConnor Delete the scoop?
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Submitted by George Eberhart on Tue, 06/26/2012 - 13:50
Michelle Poris, quant savant at the market research and strategic consulting firm Smarty Pants, revealed that, of several hundred young people who participated in her study on digital activity, 68% agreed that “grownups need to do a better job of finding out what’s important to kids.” She particularly wanted librarians to be aware that 50%–60% of young teens feel stress daily, as they face pressure to juggle multiple tasks even as they’re prompted to begin preparing for college in middle school. They see this message online as well as hear it in school, and their stress is compounded by packed schedules in which homework and organized sports crowd out relaxation time." Delete the scoop?
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Shirley (http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/libraryintelligencer/author/shirley/)
"As e-books and the emerging digital library occupy today’s headlines, there appears to be a tacit consensus emerging from the discourse among academics, journalists, and librarians about the future of the book. That vision of the future, as portrayed in the trade literature and popular press, consigns this centuries-old technology to obsolescence, as if it were merely another information format.
Document here: http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/value/scenarios2012.pdf
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by Todd Bishop: "Craig Simmons, our latest Geek of the Week, didn’t originally plan to pursue a career in technology. Back in the 1990s, he was studying for his PhD, focusing on 18th Century and Early Modern British literature, when he realized that something needed to be done to make the rare books and manuscripts he was working with more widely accessible. Delete the scoop?
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Jill Hurst-Wahl: New librarians are entering the job market fresh from receiving their master's degree (MLIS). The months and years spent in the classroom are behind them and they are anxious for the next chapter of their lives to begin.
[...]This is the time for librarians!" Via nickcarman Delete the scoop?
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By Steve Coffman:
Today's librarians face two futures and two questions. Will we live in an all-digital environment? Can we succeed in a digital future, whether all digital or hybrid? ... SUPPLEMENTAL CONTENT - The Doomsday Scenario (RT @glambert: So Now What?
Karen du Toit's insight:
Great argument for the sustainability of the roles of future librarians! Delete the scoop?
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This article is by Scott Redick, director of strategy at Heat, an independent advertising agency. Things change pretty quickly in the marketing industry. [...]
7. Content Archivist Competitive and legal pressure will require more demands for storing, indexing and retrieving the vast amount of content that brands produce. A content archivist will be the person everyone turns to when the CEO asks, “What was that one tweet we sent about that thing five years ago?”
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Future job titles of librarians/archivists! Delete the scoop?
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You're all alone—with thousands of other information professionals—pursuing a library job in a down economy. If not for sheer stubbornness and hard-won self-respect, you might consider a career in the fast food industry.
Karen du Toit's insight:
"David Connolly, who compiles ALA’s JobLIST, a resource for career advice and job search information. The market is back to pre-2008, he said. “We may be treading water, but at least, it’s not getting worse.” In fact, according to Connolly, experienced librarians can anticipate a relatively strong job market because the first wave of baby boomers is retiring from such top-level library positions as director and department head. This trend should peak between 2015 and 2019. “There will be a trickle-down effect favoring promotions,” said Connolly, “although some libraries are not filling entry-level positions due to budgetary problems.” So the advice for job searchers is compromise—in salary, work environment, and/or geographic location. For instance, consider academic library positions in the Midwest, where there is less competition because of fewer sought-after locations and subject-expert applicants." Delete the scoop?
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>> Very short Prezi on the future of librarianship. Although done in April 2011, it is still valid!
"[...]The Gate. I’ve been thinking the role of the librarian as gatekeeper is completely dead – but it hasn’t occurred to me till today that in effect we’ll be manning (and womanning) the other side of the gate. The gate used to have a certain status, a certain gravitas to it – we, the librarian, hold the key to knowledge; come to us and we will let you through (probably). Now the gate is open and people can go through as they please to a large extent – no need to apply to us for permission to enter, just help yourself online. But in future as information perpetuates to such an extent that the diamonds are almost impossible to find in the avalanche of rough, perhaps the old gate will be dusted off and rehung on its hinges. And this time we librarians will be trying to hold back the flood of information, and just letting the legitimate and valued resources leak through to the people on the other side of the gate." -thewikiman Via Learning Lrnr Delete the scoop?
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by Cindy Shamel : "The 16th annual Internet Librarian conference recently concluded in Monterey, Calif. More than a thousand registrants and 215 speakers tackled the topic Transformational Power of Internet Librarians. While the sessions ranged from accessibility of digital content to web analytics, two themes took center stage: the future role of libraries and the reality of ebooks. As it turns out, some would assert that the future role of libraries depends upon the ultimate impact of ebooks. Depending upon whom you ask, libraries should serve as a platform for networking, return to their core competency as the keeper of print books, or launch new products and services as the enabler of content creation. In the opening keynote address, David Weinberger advocated for the library as a platform for people, ideas, and works delivered through tools and services. Weinberger is senior researcher, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, co-director, Harvard Innovation Lab, and author of Too Big to Know. He says, rather than attempting to collect knowledge in the form of published works, librarians can advance knowledge through public learning, generous sharing, and the power of iteration. Weinberger used the experience of software developers as an example of fast, efficient, and effective learning as they collaborate through tutorials, versioning, and social connections to tweak and improve programs. He posited that libraries can serve as a networking platform that “provides the resources that let others create and flourish.” Delete the scoop?
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BY SCOTT MCLEOD: "October apparently was ‘Library Month’ for me. I was the keynote speaker for the Minnesota MEMO conference and did a breakout session for the Iowa Library Association (ILA) conference. I also brought Dr. Mike Eisenberg to Iowa for three days to talk with school administrators about technology and information literacy. As a result, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on books, reading, and the future of libraries and librarians…" "Random questions What constitutes a “book” these days? When books become electronic and thus become searchable, hyperlinkable, more accessible to readers with disabilities, and able to embed audio, video, and interactive maps and graphics, at what point do they stop becoming “books” and start becoming something else?"... Delete the scoop?
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by Courtney E. Jacobs: "Informed Librarian Online is a current awareness web site and newsletter for all librarians and information professionals covering all of the librarians' professional reading."
Building a Better Librarian: "Why Your Work as a Librarian Begins LONG Before Your Graduate Program by Courtney E. Jacobs, is directed to those aspiring librarians seeking advice on the perilous journey ahead, as well as to colleagues, supervisors, and mentors of aspiring librarians who seek to offer the same assistance we have all benefited from in the past."
"Succeeding at networking and professional portfolio building takes far longer than the one or two years it requires to complete an MLS, so a well-prepared student will begin practicing them long before matriculation. Going beyond what is required by your LIS program will help you be seen as a valuable member of your field, not just another newbie librarian.
Read more here: http://www.informedlibrarian.com/guestForum.cfm?FILE=gf1208.html Via Fe Angela M. Verzosa Delete the scoop?
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Mathews is one of the most creative administrators in higher education today. He is the author of the popular Ubiquitous Librarian blog, part of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Blog Network, and the 2009 book “Marketing Today’s Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students”. Recently, Brian gained international attention for his work “Think Like A Startup: a white paper to inspire library entrepreneurialism” intended to inspire transformative thinking in higher education using insight into startup culture and innovation methodologies."
White paper here: http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/18649 Via Trudy Raymakers Delete the scoop?
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Amid ever-evolving trends in technology, the question has come to me: Is there a future for the public library? And if so, what will that library look like?
"The need to access information will only escalate and methods for interacting with the information will continue to evolve. Traditional library resources, dare I say print, are becoming more and more a medium of the past. The challenge for libraries – and librarians – is how (and in what format) to access and acquire information that can eventually be directed and channelled to its users. The library of the future may not be the physical storehouse it was in the past, but it can remain the vehicle for accessing information. It can still be that powerful entity around which communities rally, and which gives credence to the concept of social hub or even community hub. And so, I remain confident that its future is bright, engaged and vital, enhancing all aspects of community life. Julie-Anne Cardellais a professional librarian, the director of the Westmount Public Library and past president of l’Association des bibliothécaires du Québec/Quebec Library Association."
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By Elise (Yi-Ling) Wong: "There’s no question that the art of cataloging and the role of its practitioners are evolving. Where specialization is preferred, catalogers remain steadfastly the guardians of library catalogs to ensure their accuracy, currency, comprehensiveness, and user-friendliness. But catalogers are also mediators between libraries and other information organizations (e.g., museums and archives), as they are charged with understanding the interoperability between the MARC standard and the different non-MARC metadata systems. The notion of catalogers “just” being catalogers is gradually being replaced by a philosophy that all library staff be cross-trained and have hands-on experience working directly with library users. At SMCL, all librarians (including catalogers) take at least one reference shift. In collection development, we are subject selectors allocated funds to purchase materials in our subject areas. In addition, selectors are responsible for maintaining their subject pages on the library website. In library instruction sessions, we collaborate with faculty members in their teaching and research." Delete the scoop?
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The Southern African Online Information Meeting with the theme: "Innovation in an Age of Limits"
By Phillipa Mitchell "The SAOIM conference 2012 was a wonderful place for someone on the other end of the book spectrum – that of bookselling as opposed to being a librarian – to immerse themselves."
More chronicles here: http://saoug.org.za/category/saoim2012/ Delete the scoop?
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RT @trisaratop: Berkman Center for Internet & Society talks about the Future of Libraries (audio available): http://t.co/UrdYsybD...
"The technological advancements of the past twenty years have rendered the future of the library as a physical space, at least, as uncertain as it has ever been. The information that libraries were once built to house in the form of books and manuscripts can now be accessed in the purely digital realm, as evidenced by initiatives like the Digital Public Library of America, which convenes for the second time this Friday in San Francisco. But libraries still have profound cultural significance, indicating that even if they are no longer necessary for storing books they will continue to exist in some altered form. Radio Berkman host David Weinberger postulated in his book Too Big To Know that the book itself is no longer an appropriate knowledge container – it has been supplanted by the sprawling knowledge networks of the internet. The book’s subtitle is "Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room." Inspired by the work of Harvard Graduate School of Design students in Biblioteca 2: Library Test Kitchen – who spent the semester inventing and building library innovations ranging from nap carrels to curated collections displayed on book trucks to digital welcome mats – we turned the microphone around and had library expert Matthew Battles ask David, "When the smartest person in the room is the room, how do we design the room?" Matthew Battles is the Managing Editor and Curatorial Practice Fellow at the Harvard metaLAB. He wrote Library: an Unquiet History and a biography of Harvard’s Widener Library." Delete the scoop?
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