Everything you need to know about technology to work in libraries

I've given a couple of talks on technology in libraries recently. Here's roughly what I said. (Or, more accurately, roughly what I intended to say, :) ) In modern librarianship you can do so many jobs, such a diverse array of roles which are salaried by the library; actually very few threads run through all of them. Over the course of the two New Professionals Information Days we've had more than 150 delegates through the door, and there's very little in common between ALL the roles we do or aspire to do. Certainly not books.

'Problem solving' is probably a thread which runs through most roles, 'people' is another. But really technology is the only thing that unites pretty much all the jobs we Information Professionals do. So, it's incredibly important to be comfortable with it. By technology I do mean hardware (PCs, scanners, iPads etc), but to a greater extent I mean software, platforms, social media, the internet and all that it entails.

Technology, when used well, is at the heart of the revolution libraries are currently under-going. Already well under way is the change from libraries as 'book wharehouse' to libraries as something much more dynamic and fluid, led by the information-seeking needs of our users. As New Professionals, we will soon become custodians of that change: we need to be ready.

If you think about a timeline of the world, and a timeline of libraries, the two have not been changing at the same rate. Libraries have been bobbing along in a very similar fashion for quite a long time, with not much in the way of drastic change between the library of Alexandria, and the libraries of 30 years ago. Suddenly, however, they're changing more in the last 30 years than arguably in the whole of the rest of their history put together. And of course, that seismic shift has its heart in technology.

Let's imagine a library has stood on this spot since the 1890s. Imagine a 30 year old man, like me, goes into this library in 1890 - he can expect a certain look, a certain feel, certain types of resource. If you took that man and forced him to travel though time, and placed him in the 1920s, he'd be all at sea. The world, and society, would be almost unrecognisably different. A World War would have been and gone, there'd be telephones revolutionising communication, cars all over the roads, JAZZ happening in clubs! Along with much else that would be almost unimaginable to our 1890s 30 year old. But this library - this library would probably look and feel much the same. Jump forward another 30 years - society has leaped again. The Roaring Twenties have been replaced by the Stepford Wives era, the straight-laced 50s. Technology has moved forward. Another World War has devastated much of Europe. Once again, our 30 year old's head would spin with all the changes. But this library is mostly unchanged - the types of resources are much the same. Fast forward another 30 years, to the 1980s. Society is permissive and developed in a way which would shock our 30 year old. Technology has moved on so much that not only has man landed on the Moon, but he's become indifferent to the idea of bothering to do so again. The Cold War hangs over the world. Computers are becoming common. A 30 year old from the 1950s would find the 80s a culture shock, to be sure. Yet he'd have little or no trouble using this library; the resources would look mostly familiar.

Finally, jump forward the final 30 years to now. Of course, the world is very different. But - and perhaps I'm being naive here - I think the 1980s 30 year old could slot into society without too much difficulty - it's not a cosmic leap forward in many respects. Similarly, as 30 year old now I could slip back into 1980 and not be totally lost. But the library would be completely unrecognisable! Suddenly the flat line of library development has shot upwards and gone off the chart. Technology has moved on dramatically in all areas of society - but much of the day-to-day effects of this are to do with how we access information. With how much we value information. With how we live now in an information economy. The internet has changed everything, including the library. Technology rules the library, it has shoved books to one side. People have always needed to access information, and libraries have always strived to provide access - but now the vessels for that information are changing. Librarians are increasingly becoming early adopters of new tools, platforms, and skills. Public perception, however, has quite understandably been unable to keep up with this change. It lingers behind, envisaging the library much as it was in the 50s, the 20s, or the 1890s.

So it is our job as the information professionals to equip ourselves with as much knowledge of the new as we can, whilst respecting what our predecessors have achieved. Because we newer professionals may not have that long to wait until we start actively start shaping the future of the profession. In fact, it's already happening.

It used to be said that what you learn in your Library Masters would last you five years before the information became outmoded. Now it's said to be just two years; this profession changes fast. Similarly the technology is evolving all the time - all this presentation can do is provide a snapshot of what is used in 2010 (and how we use it). I spoke to loads of my peers to crowd-source the information contained in this presentation, and they all stressed how they go to conferences, read blogs, subscribe to mailing lists and read professional publications, in order to keep up with what is going on. No one ever reaches a plateau of technological know-how in libraries, that they can afford to remain at indefinitely. As glib as it sounds, professional development never really stops.

All roads lead to technology eventually. All ROLES need technology eventually. If the job you want next doesn't require any technological expertise, chances are the one after that will. But even if your dream job doesn't use technology, it's actually very hard to get far enough up the pay-grades to get that job without going for some tech-related jobs. You can't afford to lose out to other more tech-minded people, because so many of the new roles and positions that are being created in libraries relate to the research, implementation, evaluation and development of various technologies.

As I've said before, it's more of a careers climbing wall than a careers ladder in this profession - there aren't always hand-holds directly above you. Those sideways or diagonal excersions often involve technology. For example if you need management experience, a great way to get that is from a project. Projects are often externally funded. External funders love to invest in the newest, most exciting things. The newest, most exciting things often involve technology.

Another point my peers repeatedly stressed when I was researching this, was how important interpersonal skills are. So much of what libraries do is collaborative these days - you have to be able to get on, to get on. Raw technical skill is not enough on its own - you need to be able to communicate effectively too. The TV stereotype of the computer whizz-kid who sits in the basement of an organisation, anti-social and belligerent, but kept on because HE'S JUST SO DAMN GOOD, would never happen in the library. He'd get to the end of his 6 months probation and his line-manager would say, I'm sorry, you're out. It doesn't matter how good your ideas are if you can't communicate them to your peers effectively.

A final word on technology. If you're scared of people, it'll be very difficult to sustain a career in libraries. You may be better off getting out now. If you're scared of technology, that's okay. We can help you! You need to immerse yourself in it - because the fear comes from unfamiliarity. Take away the unfamiliarity and you'll take away the fear. Just use different types of library related technology all the time, until you become comfortable with it. Learn to use social media platforms or presentation software even if you don't need to use it right now. Go on a course on one of the Office suite. Read the manual of your camera and start doing more sophisticated things with it. Just throw yourself into it.

Eventually, you get to a state where you're comfortable enough with technology generally that you're not afraid to take on ANYTHING new that might come up. And this is necessary because, as we've said, change happens fast in this industry. You need to get to a state where you're unphased by the idea of taking on some new platform or direction. It's all very well learning how to use one piece of kit - that's like learning directions from here to the railway station. Much better than that would be to learn where the railway station is, then you can get to it from anywhere...

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The above was from the last New Professionals Information Day for this year (and with MSU closing, who knows when there will be another one) so I can make my presentation materials properly available.

I used Prezi again, but in a different way this time. The canvas became an interactive map – I asked the delegates whereabouts in the library they’d like to work, then navigated to that part of the map and zoomed in on the desk in that ‘room’ to read all about the relevant technology. I designed it very much as an online object, able to stand-alone and be used without me wittering on in the background, so check it out below – just click on a part of the library you want to know about.

As ever, Prezis work better on full-screen. Feel free to embed this wherever you’d like – it’s available under Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons licences. And if you have any corrections or suggestions to make, let me have them!

Everything you need to know about technology and working in libraries on Prezi

The famous comedian, the library, and the thoroughly modern echo chamber success story!

It's not all bad news and problems in the world of the echo chamber, sometimes things work out really well. One such success story had escaped my notice until today (apologies if you already know about this and it's old hat). Frank Skinner is a comedian and broadcaster. He wrote an article for the Times entitled Sorry, the demise of the library is well overdue. I am militantly anti-the-Murdoch-empire, and the article is behind the Times paywall, so I don't want to encourage anyone to give any funds to the evil cabal (who knows, they may well find their way into Fox News's coffers) - so why not read this response to the article, in the Guardian, instead? Anyhow, the response in the library community was typified by Phil Bradley's piece - sniffy of Skinner's worth as a cultural commentator and dismissive of his views. I can understand that. My personal reaction was different, however - I really like Frank Skinner,and I listen to his Absolute Radio show (in podcast form) every week. Moreover, I know from having read both his books that he is a: extremely intelligent (I think people assume his qualifications are honourary ones bestowed on a famous person - but no, he did an MA in English Literature, he used to be a teacher, and his is very articulate) and b: a really, really good writer.

Like Seth Godin's before him, Frank's piece was worrying for two reasons - firstly the factual inaccuracies (he said books probably carry diseases - this is a column to order in the Times, remember..) and secondly the fact that his views were probably representative of many (libraries have no role in the modern world). It's not enough just to say he's wrong (which, regardless of my personal appreciation for him, I can see that he was) - we have to address the fact that he speaks for a lot of people.

I tried to do something about it, as an advocate of the #echolib approach to responding to attacks on libraries (ie don't just talk to other librarians about how awful it is). My efforts were, admittedly, pretty lame, but I tried. I emailed Frank via the radio show and explained that his views of libraries were one-dimensional and out-of-touch with reality. I provided an analogy with people's views of him - because he did laddish comedy in the 90s and wrote Three Lions, many people think he is a lad with only blokey, basic humour to offer. He can do that, but he's got a lot more to him than many give him credit for. That, I said, is like libraries - we're known for books, and we DO do books, but we also do a lot more than the causal observer would realise. With that parallel in mind, I said in the email, perhaps you could visit a library this week, see what they're really like, and talk about it on air?

Anyhow, no doubt the show's producers weeded out the email long before it ever reached Frank Skinner, as it's hardly primte-time Saturday morning entertainment fare to read out on air. Elsewhere in the library world, someone did something a lot better - someone wrote Frank a letter. There's some details here - a Westminster resident called Don Mackenzie wrote to Frank, explained why he thought Frank's views on libraries were misinformed, and then invited him to Church Street Library to see for himself. And Frank accepted! This isn't even a librarian taking action, it's a library-user - library champions really are worth their weight in gold.

The best bit of this story is what happens next. Frank Skinner wrote another piece about libraries for the Times, this time entitled: Why I’m on a new page with local libraries – it was my ideas that were dog-eared, not the places themselves. #WIN! In the piece, Skinner describes his fears about accepting the invitation because he was worried he'd be proved wrong, and then his eagerness to actually BE proved wrong when he reached the library. He goes on to basically be converted to the cause. Here's a quote:

The library had loads of computers. The general feel of the place was a cross between a clean, efficient secondary school and a cybercafé. No one was whispering. With the staff’s encouragement, I actually joined the library, and proceeded to choose a book. I wanted Tony Blair’s memoirs but that had already been stolen so I opted to reread Nineteen Eighty-Four. At last, George Orwell fans can reclaim the Big Brother franchise.

The smiling lady on the front desk pointed towards a machine on the wall. I put my newly issued card in a slot, scanned the book and got a slip showing the return date, which doubled as a perfect bookmark. I’m already seeing that date as a target. I work better with a deadline. Incidentally, I can return the book to any library in the borough and, you guessed it, renew it online.

I'd urge you to read the whole thing - and you can, because he's put the whole thing on his website. Yes that's right, it's not exclusively behind the Times paywall. The original piece was, mind you, but the retraction was not. How cool is that? Not only has this achieved the key echo chamber escape (that eluded us with Godin, Newsnight, KPMG et al) of the same audience reading the good stuff about libraries which originally read the bad stuff, but a BIGGER audience has read the good stuff because Skinner thought it important enough to put in the News section of his own web-page. Not only that, but I think a converted library skeptic is actually better news for the profession, overall, than if he'd never written the original article!

I really can't tell you how happy this whole thing has made me. :) Skinner has justified my faith in him, libraries have enjoyed a positive media narrative because of the whole incident, and many of our strategies for escaping the echo chamber have been shown to work wonderfully well!

w000000000t! That's all I can say. This also relates to the point that I keep harping on about whenever I'm given a platform - all we need to do is ensure that people can make an informed decision as to whether or not to use their libary. Not everyone needs libraries, that's fine. As long as people know what we do and can make up their own mind. Frank Skinner's opinion was based on a lack of understanding of modern libraries - when he obtained that understanding, his opinion changed. We need to do this, again and again, with everyone.

The Echo Chamber problem IS one we can all solve!

- thewikiman

Echo Chamber Presentation: Director's Cut (Slides Edition)

Laura and I did a version of our Echo Chamber presentation at an event in Newcastle a couple of weeks back. We had a shorter time than usual to do it in, so we took the opportunity to make a slide-deck rather than using the Prezi; it isn't as long, and as far as I'm concerned the more potential this presentation has for dissemination, the better. If we make it available in more ways, that's good - particularly in as embedable a medium as a Slideshare presentation; feel free to take this and put it wherever you like (it's on an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence). Laura has also uploaded this to her Slideshare account, and it's featured on Slideshare's Homepage! Woot.

Marketing Libraries Outside the Echo Chamber

View more presentations from Ned Potter.

We had a great time in Newcastle - thanks to Biddy Casseldon and her team for putting us on! Unlike at the other events we've presented at, the vast majority of the audience weren't familiar with who we were or what we were going to talk about, via Twitter or blogs, beforehand. We were escaping from our own echo chamber to a certain extent, and starting with a clean slate, having to win over a fresh audience as to the importance of what we were talking about. It was really gratifying to see people nodding emphatically - you really got the sense that people were having exactly the same "oh we really DO do that stuff, and it really DOES matter, and we really CAN try and fix it!" type revelations we had when we first started discussing the echolib thing 12 months ago. We were preaching to the unconverted, and I think we converted a lot of them. :)

-thewikiman

Escaping the Echo Chamber (but not, sadly, the traffic) with SLA Europe

Last night Geraldine Clement-Stoneham and the rest of her SLA Europe team hosted an event, at the City Business Library in London, all about escaping the echo chamber. It's about a year since Laura and I started talking about echolib and trying to raise awareness of the issue, so to go from a speculative tweet to a fully fledged event aimed at addressing the problem, in 12 months or so, is fantastic. Cheers so much to Geraldine for putting this on! We roped Voices for the Library in to present also - the idea was that we'd explain the echo chamber phenomenon, and then they'd show what can be done when you escape it. However...

VftL had to go on first, because I was late. No just a bit late, but arriving an hour and 20 minutes after the event had started, late. I'd set off from my house in York at 8am, with baby and wife. The idea was to get to Brighton by around 2pm, get the train up to London, have a meeting about something really exciting, then head to the City Business Library for 5:30pm. Due to a series of road-based disasters (stationary traffic for 7 miles on the M1, and the A1 closed you say? Good news!) I was still driving ELEVEN HOURS LATER, having abandoned going to Brighton entirely, trying to get to a car park near the library. My wife described this whole thing as the most stressful day of her life (keep in mind she gave birth less than 4 months ago...) and I have to say, I was absolutely frantic for most of the day. We were acutely aware that it didn't REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things (by which I mean, we could have been in the accidents that caused the delays, so it's all relative) but it did seem, as we inched forward 200 yards every hour and a half, desperate for the loo most of the time, the whole car smelling of burned clutch, fighting with other London drivers during rush-hour as we took the final 6 miles of our journey in a mere 3 hours, like the end of the world was nigh. Emily, the baby, was just incredible - by far the best behaved of all of us. She was so patient, so smiley, and hardly cried at all. When we got to London, I ran off to try and take part in the event, while Emily and my wife were met by my in-laws, who'd incredibly kindly come up from Brighton to help ease the stress, and they all got the train back down to Brighton. This is a library blog so I don't want to spend too much time harping on about family - but Robert, Susan, Alice, and especially Emily - thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. :)

Thank you also to Bethan and JoBo for changing the order and going on first, and for Laura for taking over and doing a lot of the presentation solo. By all accounts, Laura was ace at the bits she doesn't normally do, despite having no script or notes to work from, and no time to prepare! I got there in time to do two of the parts I normally do, which I enjoyed, but I really really wished I'd been there from the start. I'd so been looking forward to this event, it was so important to me to do it well, and there were so many people going I wanted to meet. So once again, to everyone who attended, thank you so much for your patience!

Although I was slightly distracted by not knowing what had been said already, and felt I couldn't get into a proper ranty stride regarding Seth Godin etc, I think it still went well and lots of people said positive things. The networking afterwards was my favourite networking experience ever. The previous day in Newcastle at the New Professionals Information Day I'd felt uncharacteristically unconfident and uncomfortable for some reason, so this was a really nice antidote to that. I met so many people for the first time (either having interacted with them previously on Twitter or not having any previous knowledge of them) and they were all absolutely lovely. I had a great time. But, I also had the travel-cot etc in my car, so sadly I have to make the drive back to Brighton earlier than I'd wanted to. However, the pain of this was mitigated by giving Neil Infield a lift home! He navigated superbly (it was great to see some parts of London a second time :) ) and we had a great chat, about libraries of course, in the car...

Anyway, here is the Prezi from last night - it's a re-configured, updated and improved version of the previous one. As with all embeded content it will change on here as we change it on Prezi, so have a look now, before we start mucking about with it to change it for the Libraries@Cambridge event in January.

Escaping the echo-chamber on Prezi

Final thing - thanks so much to everyone who came. A friend of mine who has lived in London, likens trying to get Londoners to come back into the middle of London for something in the evening, to asking Frodo Baggins to go through all he goes through in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and then when he finally makes it back to the safety of the Shire, asking him if he fancies a pint at Mount Doom.

So, cheers for coming along folks!

-thewikiman

Profile of an Echo Chamber Escapologist

In the build-up to the two Echo Chamber presentations Laura Woods and I will be doing later this month, I've asked Lauren Smith (aka @Walkyouhome) to write the first ever guest post on thewikimanblog. She is the arch echo-chamber escapologist, is making a genuine difference ON HER OWN (and in collaboration with others), and at least part of her activities were catalysed by seeing a previous Echo Chamber presentation in Leeds! That's very important, for me, because it reaffirms the point that although library advocacy itself has to take part outside the echo chamber, the debate about how this can be achieved can still take place within it and be productive. NB: If you've just stumbled on this post and are wondering what the echo chamber problem is, this Slidedeck gives a brief overview. So, without further ado, here's Lauren. :)

Ned and Laura gave a fab presentation about escaping the echo chamber at the CILIP Yorkshire & Humberside Members’ Day in Leeds back in July. It came at just the right time for me, because I’d suddenly found myself helping to run a local campaign in Doncaster to prevent the destruction of their public library service. As well as the event in general giving me the opportunity to plug the campaign (aherm: Save Doncaster Libraries), the Echo Chamber presentation really helped to consolidate all the issues and ideas surrounding it, which heretofore had been pretty massive and intangible. Armed with a bit of inspiration and a feeling that I had no excuse not to Do Something, I went and Did Some Things and Learnt Some Stuff…

From the experience I’ve had in the last few months, here are some Top Tips for Echo-Chamber-Bustin’:

1.    Ask for stuff. The worst thing that can happen is they’ll say no. Inspired by Ian Clark’s success with Comment is Free, I sent an email to the Guardian asking if I could write about the situation in Doncaster with some nationwide context. They said yes! My article was Editor’s Pick of the Day! Hurrah. This really helped to get the word out there about what’s going on with public library cuts. Similarly, I really wanted to go to the Public Library Authority Conference but couldn’t afford it, so sent an email to one of the sponsors. They said yes, I got to go and have a nosy and talk to people about what I’m up to. Jammy. It’s not a full-on break from the echo chamber, because most of the people I spoke to were librarians, but CILIP kindly allowed me to distribute Voices for the Library flyers, which I hope some of the sponsors, councillors and other non-librarian folk picked up.

2.    Make yourself available. Make it clear that you’re happy for people to get in touch about things, and what you’d like to talk about. Since the Voices for the Library campaign launched, a few journalists and news sites have been in touch asking for our thoughts on public library-related topics like closures, spending cuts, ebooks and modernisation. My phone number’s on the website, as are different email addresses for different things (media@ for media enquiries, stories@ for submissions from the public/library staff, contact@ for other…). People do use them, and (so far!) only for legitimate reasons. Obviously only give as much personal information as you feel comfortable/safe with, but like I say, it’s been fine for me so far. I think having my phone number up there makes a difference, because journalists are busy and if they want a sound bite quickly I imagine they’d rather call. It doesn’t take a lot of time – the other day I got a phone call from a North London journalist, asking me about Lewisham libraries and why libraries are important in communities. I popped out of the office, rambled for a couple of minutes and hopefully gave her something useful. The more you do, the better at it you get, I guess!

3.    Make the most of as many opportunities as you can. My Guardian piece was, semi-coincidentally, published at a key time for libraries – the KPMG horror had just been published, and then the DCMS report popped up. This meant that when the media wanted spokespeople, they’d got my name – and wanted to speak to me. In the space of a week or so I’d given interviews for BBC Radio 5 Live and local radio.

The Save Doncaster Libraries campaign had also organised a Read-In (think of it as a peaceful, booky protest with some singing and dancing) towards the end of August. The BBC picked up on this and David Sillito came and filmed the whole thing, which was great. My face made it onto BBC Breakfast News and BBC News 24, talking about what libraries are for and how important they are. Although most of what I said didn’t make the final cut, it hopefully gave David some food for thought, and it was a brilliant opportunity for a librarian to get out there and at least try to set the record straight.

I’ve been fortunate in that a lot of the opportunities have come to me, and it’d be daft to say no. It takes a bit of schedule-shuffling and a lot of time, but you’re doing it ‘cos it’s important and you love it, right?

4.    Keep remembering that It’s Important and You Love It! Sometimes it’s actually really useful to sink into the echo chamber for a little bit, if you need a bit of a reminder about the reasons you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing outside of the echo chamber. I tend to have a good scroll through my list of LIS-folk on Twitter (not exhaustive – for that I’d recommend Phil Bradley’s!) and things like libraryland on Tumblr, for the odd inspirational quote and pretty pictures of awesome libraries and whatnot.

5.    Be as confident as you can. I’m not that experienced and I’m not the greatest writer or public speaker, but I’ve found it very helpful to pretend you’re confident until you realise that for the most part, people are really supportive and agree with you that libraries and librarians are great, so they’re not looking to pick holes in what you’re saying. Realising that really helps build your confidence, and lets you get on with advocating without being self-conscious.

6.    Get some feedback. The first talk I did about cuts to library services was to a room of community forum members, and I pitched it slightly wrong. I went on a bit too long about the social value of libraries, which was interesting, but what they really wanted to know about was what they could do to help. I only know this because a very kind gentleman sensitively gave me some great feedback. He knew it was my first attempt, gave me some tips from his own experience and suggested I film myself talking some time (no way!) - The things he said really helped, and I’m very grateful. I’m not brilliant at asking for feedback, but it’s probably a good thing to do. I know my ability to take criticism has developed hugely over the last year, and a lot of that is because of (constructive) feedback about my writing, speaking and presentation skills.

7.    Ask for help. Nobody could possibly know all there is to know about libraries, publicity, advocacy, marketing etc., but if I ask Twitter, someone else usually knows or can point me in the right direction! Use your networks – places like the LIS New Professionals Network and Twitter are great. A wonderful character trait of all the librarians and info pros I know is that they’re generous with their time, skills and knowledge and will help where they can.

8.    Related to this, get together. I’m now working with info pros and librarians from across the country to run the Voices for the Library campaign. There are lots of benefits to this, including the obvious ten heads are better than one. More ideas + more skills + more people to advocate = more impact! We’re focusing on public libraries, but they’re not the only sector under threat. A group of school librarians have set up Heart of the School, for example. If it looks like your sector’s next, maybe you should find out if there’s already an advocacy group or campaign going. If not – could you set one up?