Tui Smith's article

I have been interested in the various posting to the NZ Libs listserv about Tui Smith's article. I read the original article and was quite surprised at her findings and wondered about her sample. I come from a science background where everything has to be peer-reviewed and there is a lot of concern about achieving unbiased results but hadn't really considered whether the articles in the LIANZA journal were peer-reviewed or not. As a general rule, I think letters debating issues raised in articles should be published and that, where possible, articles should be peer-reviewed. However, this article was written by a student and should be judged on that basis. When it comes to assignments, one is restricted by the parameters set by the tutors. If a research study is required this is usually fairly limited in scope. Students usually don't have the knowledge, resources and time to set up large, comprehensive studies. As a student myself, I can imagine how I would feel if one of my assignments, that I wrote using the best of my knowledge and ability, was published and then was the subject of letters of criticism.
Obviously this article was published because it won a prize so I am concerned about the awarding of a prize to an article that seems to rely on a flawed methodology for the study. Maybe it was the best article that met the criteria of the prize but the terms of the prize state "The winning paper may be published in an appropriate LIANZA publication" (emphasis added). Perhaps this article shouldn't have been published.

Small task - relationships with IT staff

The IT staff in our library have a good and close working relationship with all the other staff. I think this is important as both groups see something from slightly different angles. Whilst the IT staff know the ICTs we are working with, the frontline staff know how it will be used and what the customers want. This collaboration can be achieved by having open lines of communication, IT staff attending library staff meetings, IT staff giving updates on projects and offering staff training on new ICTs, focus groups and opportunities for feedback.
At our library there are currently a number of ICT projects underway and I think these are being managed very collaboratively. IT staff have kept everyone updated, provided machines so staff can trial the changes, encouraged feedback and provided training on the new features.

Small Task - IT Skills

I have:
Knowledge of and experience with, current computer technologies
Experience with a wide range of electronic information sources
Experience with multimedia hardware/software applications and automated library systems
Experience with online search services, CD-Rom and interactive technologies
Knowledge of how information is organised within a database
Use of telecommunications software
Ability to provide training to staff on access sing, evaluating and utilising resources via the Internet
Familiarity with web 2.0 applications
An International Computer Drivers License
What else might I need?
At the moment my skills are sufficient for the job I am doing but no doubt there will be new ICTs developed in the coming years which I will need to get up to speed with. There is a requirement for all staff members to have an International Computer Drivers License. I already had one when I started so my boss was at a bit of a loss what to offer/suggest in the way of ongoing IT training. I have done 23Things but am not sure what else is available or useful.

Small task - Knowledge Management

1. The aim of knowledge management is to use all knowledge, both tacit and explicit, to benefit an organisation.
2. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that has been recognised and recorded in some way, tacit knowledge is knowledge held by people that often cannot be easily codified.
3. TCL does well in some of the areas listed but not others. I think there is good communication within the organisation. Each team had a weekly meeting, there are monthly whole staff meetings and also monthly meetings for the larger teams. There are regular report-back sessions from people who have attended training or outside events or simply to update people on new developments. Feedback is sought on new initiatives. Information Technology is used well to share information. As well as email, there is an intranet and a blog. Feedback is always sought from attendees at any special events that are run, requests for book purchases are generally acted on and general feedback is also welcomed. I don't know of any process to capture the knowledge of people leaving the organisation or to distill learning from past experiences although documents are certainly archived. I don't know what is on the strategic list so can't comment whether funding reflects these priorities. Funding is controlled by the council so doesn't always reflect the priorities of the library mangers.
4. According to Broadbent's definition (1998) I am a knowledge worker. I have skill and expertise and my work is not routine. It focuses on the acquisition of knowledge.
5. Knowledge Management involves techniques to acquire, record, disseminate and use organisational knowledge of all types to ensure the success of the organisation.

Google Books Again

The issue of the GoogleBooks settlement has been attracting a lot of postings to the NZ Libs listserv recently. The principle concerns seem to be: the potential loss of material should Google cease to exist, the inadequacy of one free terminal for libraries to access GoogleBooks, the possibility of Google acting as censor and no guarantee that the price for libraries to access the database will remain reasonable. The latest development is that libraries that allow Google to digitise their books will be able to protest if they think the price that Google is charging is too high (Helft, 2009).

More on job titles

Andy W (2009) has been thinking about the issue of job titles and came up with Information Concierge. I quite like it but to me an Information Concierge doesn't sound like a professional, doesn't sound like someone with a degree.

Kindle and Copyright

Jessamyn West (2009) has posted on the issue with Kindle and copyright. Apparently Kindle is under some pressure from authors to deactivate the text-to-speech function (TTS) - "standard publishing contracts with most major trade publishers do not permit publishers to sell e-books bundled with audio rights." (The Authors' Guild, 2009) Although there are some ways around this for the print-disabled, what about those who bought a Kindle and subsequently find some of its functionality has been disabled? It's as if authors were allowed to come into our homes and rip pages out of a book they had written. Meredith Filak (2009) makes the point that listening to TTS is very different from listening to a professionally produced audiobook. Whilst I can understand authors not wanting to lose rights I think they have overreacted here.

Small task for Librarians

In principle I agree with St Clair. Librarians do have an image problem and that may be related to the fact that we don't have a very informative job title. My title is 'Information Librarian'. I think it is OK - certainly better than 'Reference Librarian'. I decided to look at some alternative terms and came across this fascinating page in the Websters On-line dictionary but none of the synonyms were any use. Information needs to stay in the title but perhaps the librarian could be replaced with something else - expert, manager, facilitator, broker - nothing seems quite right. I came across an article by Gillian Davis on this subject and she suggested Information Specialist and Information Architect. I like Information Specialist. But, unfortunately, changing our titles would probably be a fairly pointless exercise - we have always been called librarians (since 1781 anyway (Parker, 2009)) and that is what people will continue to call us no matter what our name badges may say. I can imagine meeting someone - "What do you do?" "I'm an Information Specialist" "Where do you work?" "At the library" "Oh, so you're a librarian".

Online catalogues

Following a link from one of the blogs I read I came across the OCLC report -
Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want (2009). It was very timely. Our IT team are currently seeking feedback on a new online catalogue. I sent them some fairly detailed comments after having a look at it on Tuesday and have now forwarded them the link for this report. It was interesting (but not particularly surprising) to see that users and librarians wanted different things from the catalogue. The most popular addition with users was for online links whereas librarians wanted duplicate records merged.

Other Issues

Information Literacy - I was talking to one of my colleagues today and she mentioned that often when she is dealing with students wanting material for their assignments they can't explain what it is they want. They can tell her what the assignment is on but if she is not familiar with any of the terms - they can't elaborate. They have managed the first step of information literacy - recognising an information need - but don't have much hope of progressing further if they don't fully understand the assignment.

Biculturalism - we are very lucky to have a Maori services librarian who speaks Te Reo. We also have the support of 2 Maori services council staff and access to kaumatua and kuia when we have powhiri and poroporoaki. I am not aware of any bicultural issues.

Misinformation - I am not aware of this being an issue in our library

Freedom of information - this is sometimes an issue in the Children's and Young Persons' section. Occasionally parents will object to a book. This has only happened a couple of times in the last 5 years and in both cases the book was retained in the library although it was placed in the parent resource section rather than being freely available. This is a form of censorship.
A couple of months ago we were alerted by one of our patrons that someone in the learning centre was looking at pretty hardcore porn and taking photos of the screen with his mobile phone. One of the librarians went in and told him he wasn't allowed to access such sites and he left. We have an agreement that patrons have to agree to before accessing the Internet that lists the type of item that should not be accessed - pornography is one of them.

Copyright Continued

I have continued to follow the NZ-Libs postings on copyright along with the course readings on copyright and have come to the conclusion that it is just too complicated. Ignorance of the law is no defense but sometimes you would need to be a lawyer to be confident that what you were doing was not breaching copyright. Last year I was subscribed to the school library listserv and I remember there was a long discussion on whether displaying copies of book covers infringed copyright. Unfortunately that listserv doesn't appear to have an archive so I can't check back on the conversation bit I am sure that in the end someone (who seemed to be acknowledged as an expert in the area) said that it did breach copyright. Apparently there is separate copyright for the cover than for the book as a whole. Recently at work a staff member was scanning book covers for uploading onto our website. I asked her about the copyright issue and she wasn't aware of any problem and said that most were freely available on LibraryThing. I'm still wondering about this. When I scanned a book cover to put on my LibraryThing page I wondered if I was breaching copyright.
I think the only solution is to throw the whole thing out and start again with international experts drawing up laws that everyone can understand and agree to. Not much chance of that happening I'm afraid!

Small task - Intellectual property

1. Intellectual property means the right of ownership of, and the ability to profit from, one's intellectual work.
2. Copyright issues of concern to information professionals include:
Being held liable for patron's copyright breaches whilst on library premises.
Knowing what constitutes "reasonable use'" when copying items
Knowing who the copyright holder is when dealing with archival items
Being unable to copy from a copy
Making copyright works available on the Internet
Knowing whether information on the Internet is copyrighted
3. The Internet complicates the issues because it makes it so much easier to copy works and there is no loss of quality in the copy. Because the Internet is a global phenomenon and copyright laws vary from country to country it can be hard to know which laws apply in each particular case.

Small task - information overload

1. Information overload is the feeling that you are in a quicksand of information - there is so much that you feel as though you are slowly sinking in it. It is threatening to overwhelm you and sometimes you can't find the piece you want.
2. Mostly I don't suffer from information overload but sometimes when I'm researching for my assignments I have trouble knowing when to stop. I start following citation trails and find more and more information. Then I have trouble getting my word count down to the recommended range because I want to put all the information I found, in my assignment.
3. The Internet has contributed massively to information overload because it has made it so much easier to generate and to find information. Look at all the people who have blogs now. Before the Internet they may have kept diaries (I didn't) but that information wasn't readily available. Think of all the funny stories, urban legends, virus warnings, special offers that land in your email in box on a daily basis. Nobody would have bothered to send a letter just to pass these on.
4. Filters on search engines (especially those searching databases) can help you narrow your search considerably so you don't need to wade through heaps of straw to find the few grains of wheat. Email filters can sort your email for you and direct it into suitable folders - including the 'junk mail' folder. You can set up personalised news filters so you only see the stories you are interested in. I have set up an iGoogle page with tabs for the various areas I am interested in. Each tab has feeds from relevant and interesting blogs or websites. I can look at this when I have time and easily see which feeds are new. If I don't have time to check it for a while some of the new posts will have dropped off without me seeing them but that's OK - if I can't see what I have missed reading then I don't worry about it. I subscribe to a couple of list servs and have signed up for the digest version as I find that more manageable than constantly receiving emails through the day.