How to build 5 libraries in 2 weeks

Last week I gave a 20:20, or Pecha Kucha, presentation. Basically this means 20 slides, set to run automatically for 20 seconds each - it makes for quick and punchy presentations with none of the filler that can make PowerPoint sessions drag on. We use them at York to keep each other up to date within the Information Directorate (our converged Library and IT service) with what's going on and what we're interested in. I really recommend this, it's a great way to bring people together across an organisation and communicate ideas. Anyway, normally I'd choose something more relevant to my work but this time I decided to do something different, and present on the Buy India a Library Project, which ran at the start of this year. Here are the slides:

How to build 5 libraries in 2 weeks

View more presentations from Ned Potter

It was really fun to revisit this, and reflect on what an extraordinary thing it was that Buyalib was able to crowd-source nearly $4000 from librarians, in two weeks, for a charitable cause! Everyone who donated or spread the word - you are amazing. We have literally created something out of nothing.

I had a letter from GoodGifts the other day, saying that work had started on building the library in India and would likely be completed by April next year. Justin, Jan, Andromeda and I were invited to the opening but, frankly, if we had enough cash knocking around to afford those air-fares, we wouldn't have needed to crowd-source the cash to begin with. :)

For people who think Twitter is 'just people talking about what they had for lunch', this kind of project - which would have been all but impossible to achieve pre-Twitter, certainly in that amount of time - is the ultimate riposte, I think. If you're new to this story, you can catch up via the Buyalib blog.

Cheers!

- thewikiman

p.s Did I mention that 5 libraries now exist or are being created in impoverished areas with no other access to books - libraries which otherwise wouldn't have existed? That's absolutely amazing!

Skip to the end! Library futures, now...

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I was reading Bohyun Kim's latest blog post this morning, in which she says this:

For a long time, libraries have been banning food and drinks inside the library. For librarians, books and food/drinks were not compatible. For users, they were the same kind of activity. You eat and drink while studying. So libraries eventually came to change the policies. That was a good decision for both libraries and users.

This really brought home to me the fact that libraries enforced a particular point of policy (no food and drink) for probably 99.9% of their history, and have changed it for the most recent 0.1%, and that really it's been fine. The fears that informed the original policy - that the food and drink would damage the books - are sound, but modern publishing methods mean the book isn't such a sacrosanct object anymore, plus (perhaps more importantly) even if some books do get damaged there is an overall gain in user satisfaction because a lot of them have been wanting to bring food and drink in for years. It's a hit worth taking, in other words. Silence is another rule long those lines - libraries are getting noisier, with quiet zones dotted around in many of them, so again it's a rule we've tried to enforce for all but the last 0.1% of library history, and now we're finally changing to suit a new majority of users (in academic libraries particular).

So that got me to thinking, what else are currently trying to hold back, that we will inevitably have to allow in the end - and should we just skip straight to the part where we let it go? If users want to use us in a certain way, should we just let them and be done with it? Of course some people will be upset, but you demonstrably can't please all of the people, all of the time, and we're really not at a stage where we can afford to be elitist in terms of which group of users we satisfy.

I asked twitter what we will be doing in the future but don't do now - here are some of the suggestions:

• Lisa Hutchins said "Smaller borrowing limits for unlimited time periods along lines of DVD rental?" This is one I had in mind, too. Let people have stuff for longer, sanction them less or not at all if they don't bring it back on time. LOVEFiLM and the like are built around the concept of no late fees. You don't send the DVD back, you don't get a new one - but you don't accrue fines either. Could this work in libraries? More to the point, will we eventually have to find a way to make it work in libraries, in which case should we just do it now? . Cons are that people could use the opportunity to effectively steal the books, that books in great demand would be unavailable to people, that libraries would have less money to spend on books if fines are actually a revenue stream for them (even though that isn't their intended purpose). But I can imagine ways round those - you could have a no fines policy that is a bit like mobile phone companies' unlimited use policy, ie there's a little asterisk and it says 'within reasonable limits'. I have 'unlimited' browsing on my iPhone but if I left Google Maps on for a month I'd certainly hear about it from Orange, and get charged. You could move the more popular books into a 'high demand' section which ran along more traditional lines, e.g with 2 week borrowing limits and fines - but put the majority of the collection in the LOVEFiLM model. . Would that work? The big pro would be: people would find libraries more accessible, approachable, and usable. They'd be attracted by the relaxing of the rules.Lisa also pointed out that you couldn't return books to other library branches back in the day, but you often can now. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about - we resisted that change for years, with very good supporting arguments against it I'm sure, but now we've been forced to make it work and we have. .
• Sarah Maule suggested: "opening hours changing dramatically? i.e. open on a sunday being normal?" I can completely see this becoming the norm in thriving libraries, and the reverse being true of struggling ones. I can see in 5 or 10 years time that many libraries will be run by volunteers and will only open 3 afternoons a week, while the bigger ones with more traffic will open long hours 7 days a week (and academic libraries will open 24hrs as a matter of course). Obviously it costs more to staff and open libraries longer, but the counter to this would be that - again - they become more friendly, accessible, and usable, thus making them more likely to become part of people's daily lives, thus getting more use, thus being of more value and so worth funding. .
• Rachel P pointed out: "Mobile phones/devices will be (even more) heavily used (we still ban talking on them here, but in theory only...)" Yes, let's skip to the end of this one, too. We're going to allow them. Mobile phones will be the devices from which humans basically run their lives before the decade is out - banning them will be completely out of the question. The majority of their use won't be for talking on anyway. Just allow them, and tell people to go into stairwells and otherwise talk on them responsibly and with courtesy to others. .
• LibraryWeb said: "can only speculate - but think frontline staff will become much more highly skilled - not just a shelving job nowadays" and added "you should be able to ask any manager (& also the odd talented lib assistant :) the same question and get an answer" I completely agree with this - it doesn't seem to such an issue in public libraries (although I may be wrong) but in academic libraries there's a real culture of passing the customer from desk to desk - oh, you can't do that here / I can't help you with that, you need to go and speak to X or ask at Y. We need to be able to just answer stuff and help people. Would love to skip to the end with that one. .
• Mylee Joseph speculated that we'd offer "musical performances, tai chi classes before opening, cooking demonstrations, DIY broadcasting" This feeds into the whole idea of the library as an evolving space, offering things to the community which the community will value, irrespective if they fall under the 'literacy' umbrella that is our primary purpose. I think mission creep can be a great thing in libraries! .

Any more you can think of?

- thewikiman

How to turn your blog into an app for iPhone

Wow! Less than an hour ago I saw this tweet:

... and 50 minutes later I have an app for this blog! Amazing.

The low-down

www.bloapp.com is a new site which allows you to create an iPhone app out of your blog. The crucial things to know are:

• it's free
• it's incredibly straightforward
• you retain your intellectual property
• it works .

Get my app!

The way Bloapp works is that you download the Bloapp app, and then subscribe to blogs within it that have been 'apped'. (That's not a real word, I just invented it; I mean registered with bloapp, basically). A bit like the Stitcher radio app works. So, you can download the Bloapp app from iTunes here, and then you can subscribe to this blog either by searching for thewikiman or, more excitingly, scanning this QR code within the app itself! (By the way, if you scan this QR code outside of the app itself, it just takes you to the normal mobile version of this blog).

The details

You register for the site, and give the URL of your feed, name of your blog etc. Then you get to some very good customisation options - firstly you choose a visual theme. Here's one I didn't go with in the end:

Then you get to tweak it - the header appears at the top of the page, and the logo appears within the Bloapp app when you're choosing which blog you want to read:

As you can see, it previews the header on the right so you know how it looks. You can then edit the fonts (both style and size) and the background image.

Once you've sorted all that, you need to add a meta-tag to your blog's html. (It supports wordpress, blogger, tumblr, posterous and the rest, incidentally.) Then that's it, your blog is registered and available via the app. You're given the QR code with which to publicise it.

When you then go into the app on your iPhone and scan the QR code within the app it looks like this:

...and once you've done that, it goes into your bookmarked blogs, and that's when the logo comes in to play, like this:

The home-screen of the blog displays your 3 most recent posts, and the posts once you go into them look great:

You can tweet links from within the app too, which is nice. And you get statistics from your Bloapp dashboard as to how many people have bookmarked your blog in the app.

Use in libraries

Making an app is incredibly expensive and / or incredibly expensive. I looked into it once before, and found a site that looked great and was known for being good value. I was excited right up until the bit that said 'packages are available from just $250 a month!'. Wow. So this, if it continues past the beta stage, is a fabulous opportunity for libraries to get on-board with new technology at no cost or really any hassle at all. My advice is to go to www.bloapp.com and set your library's blog app up (and your own blog, of course) - if you're worried about the fact that it's beta, you don't have to publicise it yet.

People are reading more and more on phones. You know all the stats already (all phones will be smart phones by the end of the decade; we'll access the internet more on phones than on PCs by the end of next year; people are preferring to read on apps than on mobile sites more and more, etc etc) so this has come along at a great time. Unlike the standard iphone widget you can install on wordpress.org blogs, this retains something of your blog's visual identity, too.

Do it! And when you've done it, let me know so I can subscribe. :)

- thewikiman

Bravery based librarianship is the (only) future

 

In recent months I've been fortunate to meet a few people  I admire. Stephen Abram, Terry Kendrick, Andy Woodworth, and Jim Neal* are all people whose ideas about librarianship I've been inspired by.

I'm really interested in a common theme, one which the SLA2011 conference really hammered home for me. All of them have talked about the need for for a little chaos. They've all talked about the need to build in the potential for chaos into the fabric of librarianship and the libraries we work in - to deal with what Stephen calls the "asynchronous, asymmetrical threats" libraries are facing. He believes the only way to deal with this is through pattern disruption (and incidentally, points out that pattern disruption is a lot easier to achieve with people than it is with buildings or books).  In other words, mixing things up. Not just plodding along the same old route.

I think that chaos - deliberate, sanctioned chaos - is very, very hard to engineer. The whole thought of engineered chaos is almost oxymoronic anyway. You can only build in the potential for chaos but you can't be completely sure you'll be able to decide what that chaos will be. So you have to be really brave.

I think that bravery based librarianship is the only future we have. At some point, we have to disrupt the patterns and set a new path. Many libraries are doing this already - our profession is, of course, much more responsive to change than most people realise. But fear-based librarianship, or at least caution-based, still seems prevalent. Many a decision is made in order not to upset the minority, rather than to potentially please a whole new majority. In many cases, this approach is taken with good reason. But we're talking about the survival of our profession, here.

But what strikes me is how often I hear about bravery-based librarianship that goes well. There were loads of these at SLA2011. So many times when libraries take the plunge on some decision or other, the outcomes are positive. I know failure is less likely to make it into the public eye, but even so enough people are trying interesting things and discovering that - hey, guess what - the world DIDN'T end and the earth DIDN'T swallow them up, and in fact everything carried on, but slightly better. So we should learn from them.

So many great ideas get bottlenecked by trying not to upset people. We are at a time when we need to inspire people, not protect their delicate sensibilities. Merely not failing is no longer enough. We have to succeed in such a way that the odd failure happens too - otherwise we're not speculating enough to accumulate sufficiently. And I'm not talking about whole libraries, I'm talking about the ideas which drive them. Can we get ourselves into a collective mindset where we don't fear chaos?

If you have an example of bravery-based librarianship, either succeeded or failing, I'd love to hear it in the comments.

Andy Priestner, another librarian for whom I have much admiration, is a good example of someone who has reached a senior position and still innovates, forward-thinks, and generally terrorises the establishment. (He's even employed a Special Projects Officer who has the freedom to make chaos happen, in a good way, because they're not tied in to the daily grind of the library. This is, thus far, the only clear example I've seen of what Jim Neal advocates - to build in to your organisation at least one position with real freedom to innovate, react with agility, focus on new ideas and so on.) What Andy does at Cambridge works!  Bravery-based librarianship really can be done.

- thewikiman

* I didn't actually meet Jim Neal in the end. He did a talk at my previous institution, and it was amazing - I queued to meet him but ahead of me in the queue were all the really senior people in the organisation, including my boss and the librarian etc. So I thought they'd think I was out of place, and he probably wouldn't want to be bothered, so wussed out and left. Later, I found out he knew who I was because of the Movers and Shakers thing, and wanted to meet me. Moral of the story - if you get the chance to meet someone inspirational, just take that chance and filter out all the things which might cause you to leave instead! Don't let caution get the better of you; bravery FTW. :)

Why I’d quite happily never read another comparison between Google and Libraries ever again

I’m a huge fan of Phil Bradley, and a recent very eloquently written post of his added to the canon of information professionals who have compared Google unfavourably with What We Do. However, I’d really be very happy not to read any more such comparisons hereafter. Here’s five reasons off the top of my head

1. It’s not a fight we will ever win. Ever. Unwinnable fight = this.
2. However valid our arguments are for libraries or librarians being ‘better’ than Google, we are not powerful or loud enough for them to stick. It’d be like a minor royal saying he’d be better on the throne than the Queen – that may well be, but no one is listening and in any case, it’s the frigging Queen. She is literally bolted down onto the throne.
3. It’s really hard to become popular by slagging something else off. You have to be really likeable to make this approach work; it reminds people too much of politicians who only ever talk about how bad the opposition party is. From a marketing point of view, librarians saying Google is bad is a disaster, because everyone loves Google – it’d be like goldfish trying to make a comeback as a popular pet with a ‘Kittens are bastards’ campaign.
4. It’s hypocritical. Lots of librarians love Google. I love it – I use it every single day almost a bajillion times. I use it for work, in my library. I know some people don't love it and use Bing etc, but really there isn't a web user in the world who doesn't get some kind of good use out of search engines.
5. See number 1, again. .

All we can do is help people to use it better, and emphasise that we provide access to information which Google cannot find. To step up to Google and try and compete for the same market is a waste of energy.

-   thewikiman