From Hectic Pace, an ALA blog by Andrew Pace. Enjoy!
Archive for December, 2006
A wise technology person advised me that this would be a good week for parking at FSU. It’s true, though I haven’t slowed down long enough to appreciate just how quiet it is. It’s also not quiet for those of us thinking about the Aleph 18 roll-out, or juggling several digital library projects, or just about anything else. It’s also not quiet for the construction crews busily tweaking the campus commons between semesters. But those quiet tables, so busy last week, remind me that now it is quiet for some.
We really do mean to provide WordPress for you folks in FSU LibraryLand. We’re going to do a roll-out, probably of WordPress MU, in early 2007 . We still don’t have policies or procedures or stylesheets or training or or or… But it’s a blog, for heaven’s sake, not a space shuttle launch, and it should be fairly easy to roll out. I’ve done WordPress installations. It’s just clearing enough stuff off our plates to make it happen!
Today I visited the medical library, or really, the analog avatar for the medical library, as the actual collection is nearly all digital. The library is less than ten years old, and is a truly “born-digital” facility–ebooks and journals and other yummy things–with just a nominal patina of real (but little-used) books that take up space and gather dust.
In talking to the library workers about their environment, one thing became quickly clear. They aren’t just “post-book,” as I jokingly refer to myself (as an avid essay reader and writer who does not think or work in longer forms). They are post-ILS. The discovery tools for this library are its own website, plus Webfeat, and such other tools as come available. In fact, if this library has a catalog at all, it may be Webfeat–which means its catalog is a flexible, full-text search engine.
O people: lead me to full-text discovery for all our users!
P.s. and thanks for the (delightfully analog) bagel!
I’m actually in Palo Alto today, as I am “walking” in a graduation ceremony tomorrow at the University of San Francisco, where I will be awarded a fiscally unremunerative but personally satisfying MFA in Writing.
So with absolutely no transition whatsoever, and far too much preliminary verbage, I’ll leap into today’s thought. I think it was about my second day at MPOW (My Place Of Work) when someone asked if we should do X, where X was a small, friendly thing for another organization. I replied yes, and added that I was changing my middle name from Gertrude to Collaboration.
Karen Collaboration Schneider… it has a ring to it. In any event, it’s hard for a name not to be an upgrade from “Gertrude.” But if every manager has a theme or trope they’d like to be remembered for, at least as I see it today, mine will be twofold: Collaboration and Last Mile. The Last Mile issues will be another post.
Collaboration is a pain. Really it is. It’s so much easier in the short run to do your own thing. Collaboration means meetings and compromise and engagement and endless discussion… it also means waiting.
I hate to wait. I like to do things right now, and I usually believe my approach is the right one (which is why I appreciate the people I have worked with who are very good at telling me when I’m wrong about being right). I mean, why not do it my way (can you tell I’m the older sister)?
But collaboration is about having enough humility to serve the project, not your own needs. Even the older sister is a member of a larger family, just as every technology project serves the mission of the institution.
Collaboration also means planning. If you’re going to do stuff all by your lonesome, you don’t need to plan ahead for the discussions and hiccups and do-overs that collaboration requires. You just “do it,” then cue in folks later. But if you’re going for buy-in and a broader approach, you need to think far ahead.
Collaboration also requires a certain amount of strategery. There’s a fine line between soliciting buy-in and allowing a project to sink from the weight of the endless discussion cycle. There’s another fine line–the woof, perhaps–between being open to a collaborative creative process and getting nibbled to death by ducks.
So to sum up the rules for collaboration:
1. Start early. Build in enough time for planning, discussion, iteration, final roll-out, and the post-project tweaking stage. Then add 15 percent more time for the unknown factors.
2. Be prepared. Never just throw out ideas; for example, if you’re asking for input on a library website, go in with two or three alternate views and a list of questions.
3. Keep your eyes on the prize. Don’t let the project get stuck in the pencil-sharpening stage. Set goals and timelines. Focus on the objectives, not the personalities. And try to glean a little joy from it all.
That’s still a concept, not a reality, but it’s what I think about every time I walk through the basement. I know we should be telling students not to snake their laptop cords across the floor, but I don’t have the heart to do this–yet. Maybe if I trip over a cord I’ll get more hard-hearted.
This news is flying out by official channels, but it’s possible you read it here first: to our relief, the university laptop plan for Fall 2007 has been deferred.
I heard a story on NPR a week or so ago about an academic library that had experienced significant loss of foot traffic and was exploring new ways to attract users… and I thought, where IS this place? We have so many students in Strozier–poring over desktops, hunched over laptops, chins in fists as they lean into books at tables–that I could body-surf from the entrance to my office door a long walk and a flight down below the main entrance without ever once touching the carpet.
If you think we have a lot of bodies in the library, you should see how many bits are flying back and forth across the Internet’s tubes. We already experience periods when wifi access slows down unacceptably, and we also know there are blank spots where we can’t get access, either for public use or for our mundane but extremely important tasks, such as inventory. (A Clean database is a Happy Database.) Just imagine the wifi access problem tenfold, and you’ll understand why I’m so relieved the laptop plan isn’t going into effect for Fall 2007.
That said, we will continue to get more traffic and–even though it means we need to find a way to support it–that is a Very Good Thing. I almost have to catch my breath at the number of people using the library every day. What I like best is to imagine the library user who long after graduation is still using and supporting libraries because here at FSU we reinforced the message that libraries are a public good.
I was writing a rather philosophical post about OBT–being Overcome By Technology–when WordPress ate the entire post: gulp, smack, belch.
After learning that a webcast we had hoped to broadcast today in the Screening Room would not be available due to technical difficulties, I had been saying that sometimes technology lets us down, or isn’t enough, or is irrelevant. Furthermore, sometimes it’s just plain mean!
But sometimes–as with our icemaker at home, a magical and new (to us) device that allows us to get ice cubes without opening the refrigerator–it pleases, and delights, and serves us well.
Mason Hall is new to our unit (though by the end of next week he’ll be the third-newest hire, after me and a new systems person). Here he is featured on a poster at the University showcase. Woohoo Mason!
We got a first peek at an early draft of the statewide union catalog, which sports a new interface that, when it is completed, will be similar to the NCSU catalog that has been the talk of LibraryLand. It’s exciting to think that users will be able to search a catalog that feels and functions like (or really better than) a good search engine.
Discussion and input from the FCLA community has been fast and voluminous. I’m of the camp that any catalog we provide to anyone–library workers, end-users, or both–needs at least some quick-and-dirty usability testing before we roll it out. Usability testing needs to be built into the planning cycle of everything we offer–because if it’s not usable, what’s the point?
q.v. 
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