Usability testing for libraries - possible research topic?

Moira Fraser Says: June 19, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I like this idea. Another idea that I have advocated to public libraries before is the use of usability testing which is also commonly used for websites. At the core – you create 10 common tasks that people come to the Library for – things like find a book about …; read today’s newspaper from another main centre etc. and then you measure whether they can complete the task satisfactorily. You also observe them undertaking the task and ask some open-ended questions at the end to understand more about their experiences. It’s very useful at uncovering the things that we don’t notice because we are familiar and comfortable in libraries, but which cause library users real difficulties.
from http://diligentroom.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/what-would-rodney%e2%80%99s-mum-think/

Disaster plan

I raised the subject of the Library disaster plan at the staff meeting this morning. Apparently one was drawn up at the time the library was being reorganised (in 2006) but nobody knew quite where it was (apart from the copy that one staff member kept off-site) and it was due for updating. As a result of me raising the issue, a copy was printed off to be kept in the Reference Desk Procedures manual and I was asked to be part of the team to update it.

Small task - disaster plans

The only plans I was able to find were the Library Pandemic Plan (reviewed 29/4/09), Bomb Threat Plan and Emergency Evacuation Plan. I knew about the last 2 because they had been covered during various training sessions but I didn't know about the Pandemic Plan. Obviously, if I didn't know about them, other staff probably don't either. They weren't particularly easy to find - I tracked them down in the document management programme. I'm sure the council has other disaster plans which would also apply to the library but I wasn't sure where to look. The Pandemic Plan specifies that it is in addition to the council pandemic plan. The plan seems both comprehensive and feasible.

Small task - outsourcing

1. We have just initiated a 3-month trial to outsource up to 90% of our cataloguing. This would see a supplier of materials to the library undertake some cataloguing duties with no incremental cost to the library. This is expected to reduce costs by 2 FTE. However we have taken IT support back in house due to problems with using the firm providing council IT support.
2. With the necessity for the library to cover more of its budget, one way to help achieve this is to cut costs so outsourcing other operations is a possibility if this can be done at a cost-advantage. I would be very hesitant to outsource book selection as I have read of other libraries having problems with this. It would be difficult to replace the detailed patron knowledge that has been built up over the years by the acquisition staff. Outsourcing of the website maintenance is more palatable but that is unlikely to happen in the near future since we have only just brought it in-house. When considering outsourcing total costs must be compared as there may be a cost of ceasing doing the task in-house e.g. redundancy, and there will be a cost to supervising the contract.

Finance

Bad news from the council meeting last week - the councillors are requiring the library to raise 10% of its total budget in 2010 with this target increasing by 2% each year till it reaches 20%. The library managers already have a plan for implementing this for next year but we don't know what this is yet. Some councillors think we should charge for all fiction books (except children's) rather than just the Top Titles. One thing is for sure - we won't be offering free Internet any time soon - this brings in too much revenue. Whilst reading Librarians and the claiming of new roles: How can we try to make a difference? (Fourie, 2004, p. 67-68 ) some ideas occurred to me. We don't want to increase the charges to the general public, so what about developing some new services for business that we can charge for? Some possibilities mentioned in the article are: offering training in information retrieval, offering an advice service on issues to do with copyright and intellectual property, archiving company websites and offering a current awareness service.

Small Task – Economic Value of Libraries

1. It is hard to measure the economic value of a library because so many of the benefits a library confers on a community are intangible ones and so are impossible to measure. How do you measure the benefit to children and their families from attending Toddler Time, or the benefit of a teenager being able to access the Internet free-of-charge to do their homework or the benefit of a blind person being able to access books on CD or someone being able to learn about vegetable gardening? You may be able to make approximate calculations on the amount of money individual customers save by getting books from the library rather than buying them but that is not the sum total of the benefit derived from libraries.
2. Some people believe that once everyone has access to the Internet they will be able to find online all the information they need so libraries will no longer have any value.
3. I had never considered that libraries might have a value for non-users. It seems that nonusers value the library for its possible future benefits for themselves and its benefits for others whilst library users value the library for the tangible benefits it is providing to them.
4. There are a number of purposes to performance evaluation:
a. Identification of superior and inferior achievers
b. Rewarding good performance
c. Improving employees performance
d. Improving organisational performance
e. Salary allocation
f. Decision making re promotion, disciplinary actions etc.
5. Performance evaluation can cause stress among staff members and may result in a decreased effectiveness and decreased morale. If team members are ranked this can have an adverse effect on the team as a whole. Staff members are unlikely to be honest about any problems they may be having if they think they will be penalised for this,
6. I have had 2 end-of-year performance appraisals and each year there have been several informal meetings to identify any issues and look at how I am going towards meeting my goals. I have found it to be a positive experience. My manager has been very complimentary about my work and I haven’t had any issues with the work or other staff members. Every staff member is treated as an individual – there is no ranking. I think I would feel differently if we were being ranked.

Small task - future roles

1. My job title is Information Librarian and I am reasonably happy with it. Information Specialist might be better but, although there is an argument to be made against naming a profession after the building they work in, the public know what librarians are and they would probably continue to call us librarians regardless of what our name tag said.
2. Are the days of traditional libraries numbered? It depends what you mean by 'traditional'. It seems to me that libraries have never been static but have changed with the times. After all, we no longer chain our books to the desks! Libraries will continue to change and develop but, in Harris, Hannah and Harris' (1998) terms I am a 'reformer'. I believe that, for the foreseeable future, there will be a place for books and digital information and as long as libraries continue to have books they will need to be public places where people can come and browse the collection. Many people have predicted the demise of the book but more books are being published now than ever.
3. My library has:

• an integrated library management system
• a website where people can access the catalogue and other useful information including digitised photos from our collection and a number of electronic databases. They can also submit questions to library staff
• OPACs for patrons to access the catalogue
• email communication with patrons, suppliers and other libraries
• blogs and wikis for staff communication and to provide information to patrons
• online interloan system
• RFID tagging of its books
• a Beebo site

Currently we don't have any ebooks and we don't use IM or Twitter. The majority (about 90%) of our requests for information result in a book being found for a patron.

Small task - professional development

For my on-going professional development I have done the following:
taken Polytech papers
attended courses/seminars
attended staff report-back meetings
read listservs
read blogs
read books
read on-line articles
watched on-line presentations
tried out new ICTs
attended a LIANZA weekend school
talked to colleagues
read the LIANZA journal