What I Did on My Winter Blogcation or All I Needed to Know About Libraries I Learned from Social Media Part Two

P.S. Here’s some of what I’ve learned about social media:  it’s free, but nothing is really free. Free brings its own baggage.  It’s easy but lots of things that are easy (gaining weight, accumulating debt) are not necessarily advisable. It can provide its own rewards. Like watching a film or listening to music, it can be seen as wasting time or as valuable, meaningful engagement. It provides opportunities to “meet” and connect with people one would not otherwise be able to  engage with due to time restrictions or physical/geographical limitations.. This can be tremendously positive but also has the potential to provide more than our share of unwanted opportunities.

Social media is a lot more complex than I had imagined. By its very nature, it seems to imply that it is simple and straightforward.  It is, but deceptively so. Just because something is easy does not mean that it should be done at all and/or done by everyone. Thought should be involved.

Social capital is very real, potentially powerful and likely not utilized or acknowledged in the library world.

Social media is truly democratic, it gives almost anyone a voice, a chance to participate in the conversation. However, this means more care should be taken. The responsibilities are greater.

The democratic nature of social media also means that there is not a universally accepted standard of quality. Thus there is a lot of potential for content that is inflammatory, inferior, misleading or downright correct.

Social media is FUN.

However, it requires time management skills. Even if the homework is enjoyable, the temptation to spend LOTs of time on it is hard to resist. Discipline and focus are required. Goals are needed. This applies to professional use in the context of library work. No other way to learn that lesson than by actually diving in.  Just need to learn to swim and not drown.

Twitter can teach us how to focus, to bring our thoughts to a direct point.

Twitter is a great way to learn about happenings in the library world. By following a variety of librarians, I feel connected in a complex way that is difficult to explain. A great mixture of experience, wisdom and insight, gossip, opinion, jokes, personal asides and overall, a very real and encouraging enthusiasm about their jobs/careers.

Pinterest is addictive.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I think the tension between the potential and the actual is very much like television – the potential is vast but ultimately commercial/entertainment values overpower educational purposes. I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where  Springfield experience Prohibition. It is eventually repealed. Homer raises a glass with the triumphant toast, “Here’s to alcohol – the cause and solution to all our problems!” Social media is a little bit like the alcohol.

I have learned a lot not only from my professor and the guest author/speaker, but from my classmate as well. Social media as a subject lends itself to sharing, to collaboration and cooperation. Also, to conversation. One of the biggest benefits of social media is its flexibility. Individuals and institutions personalize the manner in which they utilize social media. I am impressed by the variety and creativity of my fellow classmates. So many ideas!

I am grateful for the opportunity to explore social media for libraries in the context of this course. I would recommend this for all students in the online program.

The future of social media? I don’t know. But I do believe it definitely has a future.

What I Did on My Winter Blogcation or All I Needed to Know About Libraries I Learned from Social Media Part One

Just as you can’t always judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a blog post by its title. Especially this one, because while not entirely true, it is somewhat misleading. Such is the nature of social media – clever, catchy and probably not worth your time. That would be the conventional wisdom speaking. Social media is ephemeral, shallow and not very serious. It takes a lot of time with producing measurable results. It is a fad, it’s fleeting. It’s for the young or anyone with too much time on their hands. It is a mythical place, a dangerous terrain peopled with trolls and fraught with uncertainty. Best stay away and spend more time worrying about how to deal with Kindles, i-Pads and e-books.

But wait. Maybe social media is just the opposite. It may actually contain the key that will unlock all of the doors. The doors to success. Patrons will come rushing through those doors straight to your open, loving arms. Budgets will be restored, staff will increase, resources will be in abundance. Professional dignity will be salvaged. Lives will be saved. All welcome the new Messiah – Social Media!

It’s hard to know what to think. Books and articles are written expounding upon each viewpoint. It’s confusing. Social media is commonplace and familiar, yet in the context of libraries, still quite new. The present of social media is uncertain and the future is equally unpredictable. Libraries tend to view social media with a combination of fear and excitement, almost like a wild, funny friend who could be the life of the party or end up causing your neighbors to call the cops. Is social media fun and accessible or is it too unruly and susceptible to factors out of our control? Where is the truth to be found?

I would say somewhere in the middle. Social media has tremendous potential to transform the library landscape. Platforms like Pinterest and Instagram have successfully tapped into our reliance on visual information as a new way of documenting who we are and Facebook has virtually become the outline for creating a sense of self, a personal branding, as it were. Technology has made access to social media immediate, easily accessible and perhaps addictive. What does this mean for libraries?

It’s not a cop out to say that no one knows for sure. Social media in general is likely here to stay for some. The staying power of the various forms are less certain (anyone remember MySpace?) I sense that some libraries view any new technology as potentially threatening, as somehow working toward putting themselves out of business. Which is why librarians must master the technology. Not only that, librarians need to become creators of new technology. What if librarians had created Facebook? Would it have flourished or died out? Will social media somehow, someday be incorporated or integrated into library instruction? Will the distinction between social media and specialized databases be blurred, or will they be successfully merged into a seamless whole? One thing is certain – social media in the library world raises more questions than can possibly be answered, at least in a unified voice.

And who is better equipped to answer questions? Librarians! It’s really in our hands.

Q&A: Why Library School? Why a Librarian? And What Do You Actually DO anyway?

Anyone who pursues Library Science as a career deals with the question of  “Why Library Science?”  It’s actually several questions (“Why do you need a Master’s Degree?”  “Doesn’t the Internet make your job obsolete?” “Anyway, don’t you just sit around and read books all day?”) but for convenience sake, I will distill them into one simple query: WHY? It’s easy to say that we could just reply, “Well, why not?” and go back to reading our book (or Kindle as the case may be) leaving the questioner to end the conversation with the usual jokes about the Dewey Decimal System and shushing. Sigh. Stereotypes haunt every profession but there are some particularly strong-willed ,old-fashioned spirits that refuse to be exorcised, no matter how many articles about hipster librarians are written (like this one:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) or how books and reading are marketed as cool (sites like this: http://bookriot.com/) or how much technology continues to change how libraries provide service and how those services evolve: (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/04/future.library.technology/)

Suffice to say, that even though the public at large may be aware that libraries are much more than books, they are not necessarily in tune with what it is librarians do and why it is so important. Then there’s the question of why would anyone want to do it for a living? Can you actually make enough money to live on? Not to mention going into debt obtaining a Masters that is so specialized and yet so ephemeral. And isn’t everyone that works in a library a librarian?

As a life-long, enthusiastic user of public and school libraries, an avid reader and a dedicated collector of trivia and odd facts, it would seem that Library Science would be the way to go. My sister and had mastered the ins and outs of our local public library branch by the 2^nd grade (she also works in the library field)  In high school, I started organizing and categorizing my vast and ever-growing collection of books and records. I read voraciously and vigorously researched any subject that captured my interest. In the days before the Internet, I was the person in my circle of family, friends and acquaintances that would receive phonecalls at home asking, “Who was that actor in that movie?” or  “What band sings that song?”  If I didn’t know an answer, I would find it.

It may come as no surprise that I ended up working in libraries or that I am pursuing a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science. The only remaining question might be: what took you so long? After 20 years working as a support staff in 2 different academic libraries (and a few years of other job experiences in between), why commit to librarianship as a career? Isn’t it on the downswing? Wouldn’t it be better to just find something else?

The answer is not so simple. Librarianship is indeed a career. In fact, it is much more than that. Not just a profession, librarianship is more akin to a vocation or calling.  At first, I saw it merely as an interesting job with some potential. In the early days of working in a college library, I mostly did Cataloging and Technical Services work. The majority of it being the retrospective conversion of catalog records in anticipation of bringing an OPAC to life. The painstaking detail and meticulous nature of cataloging work appealed to me at the time, and there was some additional service in Circulation. I eventually was asked to assist the Audio-Visual librarian as well, which brought a much needed element of directly assisting actual human beings (Sadly, I found out that MARC was not a person though I felt like I spent more time with “him” than with some of my friends)  Though I never thought I had an interest or ability in being a teacher, I started to realize that much of the work that happens in libraries is just that – educating people. There is a process of discovery that takes place when researching a subject or answering a question that provides very valuable, very palpable teaching moments. I remember one of these and it was one of many moments that led to my eventually embracing library science as a choice not simply a comfortable default. It was one of the ways of finding out how to answer those questions of Why? and What?

I was working at the Circulation Desk one evening and chatting with some student workers whom I supervised. One of the students was looking through her Art History text in preparation for an exam. She stopped on a page that showed a painting of Napoleon. Her co-worker began imitating the infamous gesture associated with Napoleon, that of his hand being tucked into the front of his coat. We all laughed, but a discussion ensued. Questions were asked: Why did he do that?  Co-workers joined in, everyone was speculating. Being that this was taking place in a library, someone was dispatched to fetch an encyclopedia for the answer (this was pre-easy answer internet days) Three different sources came up short (pun intended) so there was only a fading interest in getting an actual answer. Except from me. I checked biographies, history and art books. While not getting a definitive authoritative answer, I did discover that it was believed Napoleon’s pose was a common gesture in the portraiture of that time period, especially many paintings that were done in a neo-classical style. This idealized pose originated in art of Greek and Roman antiquity; it seems that having a hand outside one’s toga while speaking was considered rude. There is also speculation that this gesture symbolized wealth, power and privilege (i.e. the elite would not need to have both hands free since they were not common laborers who relied on both hands for their livelihood) I also discovered a plethora of theories that were not believed to be true (but were just as fascinating): a stomach ulcer, an deformed hand, a symbolic Masonic sign even the idea that painters disliked painting hands. Regardless of the answer, I realized I had greatly enjoyed the process.

I was surprised at my co-workers lack of interest in answering the question. This was the sort of thing I always did on my own, for its own sake. Whether it was hunting down a rare import album not sold in local record stores or digging for information on an obscure art film I had seen that was not listed in any film books I could find, I was always searching, always looking. It was always an enjoyable journey. I can’t say though that I always understood exactly what an MLS entailed or how valuable it was not just professionally but personally.

Technology has altered the information landscape drastically. As times change, information grows by leaps and bounds. The territory is no longer as easily manageable as before. While I have had an affinity for this type of work and some experience, I know there were many skills I had to learn (there still are) and these skills require the appropriate framework. The Master’s is that framework.  It provides context. And answers.

Answers like:  A Master’s degree prepares me to utilize existing as well as emerging forms of technology. It provides a background in education.  It teaches theory and puts it into practice.

Information in all of its forms becomes accessible and manageable. A library becomes more than just a building, more than just books. The MLS is the key to open the door to that new concept of library. A librarian is the caretaker, communicator and creator of that new and exciting environment. I will be one of those jack of all trades. I look forward to living up to all that the title of librarian implies. And I hope to see you soon, whether it be in person or in virtual form. I hope you will have questions.

Librarians Behaving Badly - Codes of Conduct or Free Speech Handcuffs?

At the end of 2013, the Twitterverse was all alight, just like a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, but for some in the Library world, all was not so jolly. What would seem to be a much-needed and long overdue gift by some, was looked at by some as a huge lump of coal by others. The role of the head Grinch here was played by Will Manley, noted columnist for both Booklist and American Libraries. In his blog, Manly suggested that the Code was vague and ambiguous and basically a threat to free speech.  He even name-checked the likes of button-pushing comedians like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor,  Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman, suggesting that the Code of Conduct would ensure that those who speak freely (if not politically correct) were sure to end up behind bars.

Twitter erupted with a barrage of angry blasts (one hesitates to use the charming moniker of “tweet” for such strongly worded language) Most of it was against Manley, though he did have his supporters. His blog was inundated with protests and was eventually shut down (though Manley insists it was for other reasons) Such is the power of Twitter. And of librarians!

This Scrooge-like shadow cast upon our profession in the form of a new and “controversial” Code of Conduct Policy (You can read the entire Statement of Appropriate Conduct at ALA Conferences here:   http://alamw14.ala.org/statement-of-appropriate-conduct) – was it really the roadblock Manley was making it out to be? Essentially, the Code aims to address “harassment in regard to race, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, appearance,  or other group status.”  Pretty standard stuff right? One would ask why there was not a specific policy like this already in place. Perhaps there was no need for it. Librarianship is not a profession tainted by the sort of behavior addressed in this policy, is it? We are all educated, enlightened, open-minded and kind-hearted souls seeking to help not harm, are we not?

Apparently not. Unfortunately, harassment exists just about anywhere people gather in groups. Some librarians, who had either experienced harassment or knew others who did , decided to collaborate on a document that was eventually adopted as The Code of Conduct. It’s a matter of common sense, of common decency. In the words of Andromeda Yelton (one of those librarians and a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2013) “ it’s better to have and not to need than to need and not to have.”  I wholeheartedly agree and cannot imagine any sensitive, intelligent person who does not. I am not saying that Will Manley is neither sensitive nor intelligent, but I do question his motives and the tone of his protestations (his blog was taken down/made private but you can read his thoughts here:  (https://www.evernote.com/shard/s20/sh/23dba21b-528d-4846-86a9-e227c706b5e8/66204c262403224ad1487c24089627ab) But I do have this to say to Mr. Manley:

By all means: Confront.  Challenge. Court Controversy, Inspire Skepticism, Invite Debate.  Those are all practices that exist at the heart of critical thinking, modes of being that form the foundation of education.  Looking for answers, researching, questioning, going back to look again through someone else’s eyes. It’s what librarians do. But isn’t it preferable to do so in a more positive manner? Start with the idea that the Code of Conduct is addressing behavior you have been fortunate enough to have never been the victim of. Give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt. Do you really think information professionals are looking to shackle themselves, shout down dissent and inhibit freedom of thought and expression? Quite the contrary. Librarians are our best (but hopefully not the last) hope for maintaining and sustaining intellectual freedom. That’s another thing librarians do – create an environment that is a comfortable place for thoughts and ideas. A place where they can not only exist, but flourish and thrive. A place where they can find new homes and new lives in the hearts and minds of first-time readers and life-long learners. Libraries are stable and enduring symbols that stand against ignorance. Let us endeavor to keep them close, to make them even stronger, to bring them to a higher place in the eyes of the citizens who may take them for granted. Let us allow librarians and library staff to work, study, publish, discuss and otherwise engage with each other and the communities to which they serve. Let us continue to create spaces that are safe, healthy and open to all. In regard to freedom of speech – no Code of Conduct could hinder impede or silence that speech. After all, that is what a library is – a singular voice that speaks for all of the thoughts, ideas, philosophies, customs and cultures that have ever existed. A unique voice that encompasses all of the literature and art and science. A voice that speaks in every language. A truly universal voice.

So, Mr. Manley, I ask that you consider the experiences of those who may be quite different from you. See things from their point of view. Value their perspectives, honor their stories.

It’s what librarians do, right?