Yippee--finally a session none of the other bloggers has blogged! Maybe bloggers are night owls? This was an 8:30 session on Friday.
Speaker: Keith Fiels, Executive Director, American Library Association
He’s been a librarian for 40 years in a variety of capacities, including former director of the Mass. Board of Library Commissioners.
Keith’s talk gave us personal, informal reflections on what he believes are the five great challenges facing us as librarians (and technology is NOT one of them, for a change). Then he provided his suggestions for meeting these challenges.
He had a couple of great handouts:
The first was a draft of a new ALA page, due to launch in June (but not there yet!) at
http://www.ilovelibraries.org/
The page will include library-related news in the center, “Book Lover” information on the right, and Take Action/Find Your Library/Love Your Library/Ask a Librarian/Get Informed/Get Involved buttons on the left. It looks great; I think getting the public to find and *look* at it will be the challenge.
The second handouts were a set of bookmarks on cybersafety produced by the Illinois Library Association and MySpace. They’re great—just the right amount of text and information, good choice of format, and they suggest you “visit your local library” for more information. If I wasn’t so backed up in reading my RSS feeds I’d already have seen them; if *you* haven’t, you can download/order/read all about them here:
http://www.ila.org/netsafe
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2007/april2007/ilamyspace.cfm
Keith’s challenges for us:
Challenge #1: Can we really do anything about library funding?
In highlighting some of the negative stories (e.g. Salinas), we sometimes obscure the positive things that are happening with library funding. Not all the news is bad.
In September, ALA will have a 2-person office for library advocacy, to help support local advocacy goals.
It is important to track library funding and its effect on users—ALA is looking to get real-time info on what happens with changes in library funding (a research effort led by Denise Davis).
We need to reassert the importance of our role in education.
We need to emphasize the data showing that school libraries are important for student achievement. Data for public libraries show the same thing.
See the 2006 research paper School Libraries Work! from Scholastic.
He referenced a study from the state of Florida showing the dollar value of library services:
Taxpayer Return on Investment in Florida Public Libraries: Summary Report September 2004 (7.18MB PDF)
http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/roi/finalreport.cfm
The Florida study also showed that educational uses of the public library equals the amount of recreational use (which is not what many people assume), and that remote internet use is larger than people expect (1/4 of all library use). Online users also “visited” the library more often: they visit about 15 times/year vs. 5 times a year for physical visits.
Bottom line: We need to turn all this information into sound bites for the public.
Challenge #2: What can we do to improve library services *other* than increased funding?
We need to keep up the quality of staff, and make our current librarians *better* librarians (i.e., more training). He mentioned ALA’s Emerging Leaders program and some other ALA initiatives. We also need more training for our paraprofessionals. Library materials should be made as widely available as possible, so that everything is available to everyone (e.g., ILL, remote databases, etc.)—Massachusetts does a good job in this.
We should recognize and identify *good* practices, but also identify *bad* practices, so they can be corrected.
Challenge #3: Can we ever improve the salaries of library workers?
We have to do more than just “whine about it.” We need to get the data to make the case; the battle needs to be fought one library at a time. Trustees and library directors need to make the case. There’s no easy solution for this one.
Challenge #4: What can we do to make a difference?
We must continue to serve all, and lead the way in diversity to better serve our communities. Preservation of our First Amendment rights (CIPA, Patriot Act, DOPA). Libraries have done so much to use social networking to expand in the community that arguments for restricting use of these tools in public libraries and schools will no longer work. We need to fight to preserve access to government information (e.g. EPA’s dismantling of libraries).
We can lead the world! Library use is declining in England and France, but not here in the U.S. We should to reach out to the rest of the world, and share what we can do best.
Challenge #5: Can libraries even survive?
Some still say the library is no longer needed because we have the internet—but our libraries are busier than ever. People come to the library for more than a computer can provide: for social interaction, for inspiration, to get help and advice. People in an electronic environment value face-to-face interaction more than ever.
Nothing ever comes easy—people have worked really hard to get us the libraries we have today—the future is in our hands.
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2007
Extreme Makeover: Library Website Edition
Elizabeth Thomsen & Kevin Grocki
NOBLE (North of Boston Library Exchange)
The full slide presentation (with links and examples of some old/new/in progress NOBLE websites) is on the web.
I’ve heard Elizabeth Thomsen before and she’s great—enthusiastic and very funny. Her main point was that websites are like gardens or laws or houses or relationships—they need regular tending. Even a website with great content will become a “lava lamp land” of old looks and dead links if it is not evaluated and redesigned regularly.
Planning a website is like planning a new building—how will people enter, move around, and find what they need? But mistakes are less costly and can be changed more easily than in the physical world. So planning is good, but don’t get stuck there.
Writing for the web needs to be short and simple--“talk like a human being.” Use newspaper style, i.e., put the most important facts first or you’ll miss your audience (nobody reads to the end). Choose headings and links carefully, and avoid the “click here” syndrome (that highlights the *least* important information):
Think about your users—who are they and what do they want to know?--and make sure basics (hours, address, phone number) are easy to find. Put a catalog search box directly on the page if possible (save the time of the user). How did users get to your site (look at search logs)? When they get there, do they know where they are (not everyone comes in through the front door)?
Try to have just one link for databases, not “home” and “in library” (we need to change that one on *my* library’s website).
Add visual interest, but lose the old, bad clip art, and most animated graphics. The best images to use are photographs, book covers, book displays, and art by children & teens.
E.g., the website for Butler University Libraries has a right hand banner with an “Ask a Librarian” box, linking to a “how to contact us” page, and showing different librarian photos.
Keep the digital camera handy and take pictures of everything, and enlist patrons as volunteer photographers. Libraries should have a discussion about privacy rights and signed releases. Be careful about copyright.
Many photographs in Flickr have a creative commons license and can be used with attribution (e.g. flowers for a gardening booklist, etc.). Sort photo results by “interestingness.”
Try to have some dynamic content (content that changes, by JavaScript, an RSS feed, etc.), and get creative.
Then she got more technical, so for more complete notes, see the presentation slides.
Elizabeth and Kevin spent a LONG time after the presentation with me and another librarian answering some technical questions, which was much appreciated. We pretty much closed down the conference (all the cars were gone when I left). I came away with a lot of good ideas to implement for our website.
NOBLE (North of Boston Library Exchange)
The full slide presentation (with links and examples of some old/new/in progress NOBLE websites) is on the web.
I’ve heard Elizabeth Thomsen before and she’s great—enthusiastic and very funny. Her main point was that websites are like gardens or laws or houses or relationships—they need regular tending. Even a website with great content will become a “lava lamp land” of old looks and dead links if it is not evaluated and redesigned regularly.
Planning a website is like planning a new building—how will people enter, move around, and find what they need? But mistakes are less costly and can be changed more easily than in the physical world. So planning is good, but don’t get stuck there.
Writing for the web needs to be short and simple--“talk like a human being.” Use newspaper style, i.e., put the most important facts first or you’ll miss your audience (nobody reads to the end). Choose headings and links carefully, and avoid the “click here” syndrome (that highlights the *least* important information):
Think about your users—who are they and what do they want to know?--and make sure basics (hours, address, phone number) are easy to find. Put a catalog search box directly on the page if possible (save the time of the user). How did users get to your site (look at search logs)? When they get there, do they know where they are (not everyone comes in through the front door)?
Try to have just one link for databases, not “home” and “in library” (we need to change that one on *my* library’s website).
Add visual interest, but lose the old, bad clip art, and most animated graphics. The best images to use are photographs, book covers, book displays, and art by children & teens.
E.g., the website for Butler University Libraries has a right hand banner with an “Ask a Librarian” box, linking to a “how to contact us” page, and showing different librarian photos.
Keep the digital camera handy and take pictures of everything, and enlist patrons as volunteer photographers. Libraries should have a discussion about privacy rights and signed releases. Be careful about copyright.
Many photographs in Flickr have a creative commons license and can be used with attribution (e.g. flowers for a gardening booklist, etc.). Sort photo results by “interestingness.”
Try to have some dynamic content (content that changes, by JavaScript, an RSS feed, etc.), and get creative.
Then she got more technical, so for more complete notes, see the presentation slides.
Elizabeth and Kevin spent a LONG time after the presentation with me and another librarian answering some technical questions, which was much appreciated. We pretty much closed down the conference (all the cars were gone when I left). I came away with a lot of good ideas to implement for our website.
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