oh what a tangled web we weave

On this very snowy morning/afternoon/evening, I continue to multi-task as I usually do. Half of me is working on all the work I can't get done during the week because of my day job - that could include anything from photography, music, web design, tonic interviews or web page updates, or in today's case, blogging/thinking/sorting/purging/writing/thinking/laundry/cleaning/thinking/writing - and the other half continues to clean up a mess I inherited from the last project manager. Talk about a great case for hiring based on experience versus a degree; you won't find a better example of why experience matters more than what I'm looking at. But I digress....sorta......

Anyway....I wanna talk about Web 2.0 - the somewhat misnomer that's mostly about social internet activity, application based, collaborative cool! (How's that for a description?) The 2.0 suggests a better version of what's come before. In the case of Web 2.0, as with Library 2.0, the advance is not so much in the technology as in the way the technology is being used. It has become more user-centered and user-controlled, less server fueled and more application/client fueled, it is interactive and dynamic, riddled with multimedia experiences.

As evidenced by some of the recent blog action here, UK Libraries has undertaken an adventuresome task to get staff and faculty up-to-date with the many ways today's Web, or Web 2.0, can enhance not only their personal experience but the service they provide to our patrons. An IMLS study released just last week found that libraries and museums are actually thriving in the new internet environment. They found that patrons trust information from libraries and museums more than perhaps any other internet source. And, instead of realizing long-standing fears that the internet will/is driving users away, evidence suggests it's actually ushering patrons to the libraries! The quick and easy access to information is basically fueling people's desire to learn more. There are several key assets Web 2.0 offers which is helping to create this kind of behavior. RSS, Wikis, Blogs-MySpace-Facebook and other avenues also known as "social networks", mash-ups, and virtual spaces like Second Life.

RSS (really simple syndication) gives one the ability to receive posts from the internet automatically. It's often called a feed. So, for instance, you could subscribe to this blog and every time I make an entry, notice of that entry arrives automatically to your reader (a reader is simply a collector of your RSS feeds such as Google Reader or Bloglines). RSS uses xml syntax and allows you to keep up with certain areas of interest without wasting time trolling to each web page for the information. In the case of a library, for example, one might subscribe to vendor feeds, publisher feeds, other library or librarian blogs that are a wealth of information. I've recently found two such blogs that are proving invaluable professionally: The Shifted Librarian and LISNews. Both fill my Google Reader with helpful information about advances in the field and what others think on any given professional topic that I can access quickly then move on with my day.

Wiki. I can't say enough about this technology. If you're about sharing your knowledge, work in an organization that's desperate to share knowledge within it's ranks or with colleagues abroad, if you're looking for others who share an interest in something with that you'd like to contribute to, wikis are the Mt. Everest of cool. Wikis are perhaps the ultimate collaborative tool. The name "Wiki" was coined by Ward Cunningham in 1995 based on his wikiwikiweb development and comes from the Hawaiian term wiki wiki which means quick. As the name implies, this tool can be easily altered (edited) by any number of people, the underlying language being HTML. Of course the most famous of these collaboratives is Wikipedia. For all the wonderful things it presents to the world is also presents a challenge to educators and researchers in that not everything is factual. By virtue of collaboration, it is prone to being wrong. But I've found, as many students have also, that sometimes it provides just enough "right" to set you looking in the proper direction and, for that, it's worth a lot. We use a wiki in my department for damn near everything we do and it's a HUGE time saver. It may take a little while to implement and, of course, it takes care and feeding, but it ultimately saves tons of time digging through stacks of papers/files, or bugging your co-workers with the same questions you've asked a billion times. It's not out of the question that some portions could be opened to external collaboratives by colleagues with similar interests. I'm of the opinion that every library or library department should institute a wiki if for no other reason than to document their policies and procedures for posterity. I think we tend to think that as long as we know, everything is okay, not taking into account that we will someday retire and our treasures may become someone else's nightmares if they don't know why we did some of things we do now. essentially, you save yourself time and you really will save your next generation a lot of heartache. (this would definitely fall under "good-management" practices!)

Social Networking - I'm not much on MySpace and Facebook though, clearly, millions are. Maybe it's because I have my own domain and can do what I want so, I don't need them as much. Too, I just don't like the whole login/logout BS - my days and nights are far too busy to be bothered. The one "social" technology I've fully embraced is blogging. I resisted for years, played a bit with it on MySpace, but I'm just too damn busy to be bothered. However, participating in Blue 2.0 has completely changed my attitude toward blogging. And not just the act of doing it myself but tapping into other's blags as well. As I mentioned before, The Shifted Librarian and LISNews are regulars in my reader and I am grateful for them. They are learning tools and, in many ways, that's exactly what blogging is supposed to be. Maybe you learn about yourself based on what you write but you can really learn a lot about the world by tapping other blogs. MySpace and Facebook are good for things like individuals and bands that don't have server space or the skills to build a comprehensive website but, never the less, have a real need for an internet presence. In that regard, libraries, too, have a need for an internet presence. MySpace and Facebook provide a way to go to where the people are if you can't get them to come to you. So many younger people are using the two social spheres that it only makes sense they should be accustomed to approaching anyone in the arena - including libraries. What a great place to put your virtual reference desk! And, hey, let's not forget Flickr (which I almost just did). And, just tonight as I continue to think and write (I'm tired of cleaning) I discovered LibraryThing! This is one of those things that I've heard classmates talk about but, because I actually work in a library and take classes, I don't have a lot of time to pla, as it were. Now that I do - WOW! This is pretty cool. OMG - when setting up your profile it asks what other networks your associated with, like MySpace or YouTube - then it gives you a drop down menu. Holy Smokes - there's got to be more than 60-70 social networks listed!!!

One of the most important aspects not to be overlooked about all these incredible social networking avenues is tagging and folksonomies. Again, going back to the idea that Web 2.0 is user controlled, you, the user, can add tags that you think are relevant. What word might you use to find a particular item? Add it as a tag - you'll remember because it is your language, your "folk"sonomy. The bigger aspect of this is the corralling of a common language by the people, taking the taxonomy out of the hands of professionals and putting it in the hands of people who want to easily access the goods. I think this will be a VERY interesting field of study in the the not-too-distant future. After all, language is a fluid beast - it's constantly changing, what one day is slang ends up in the dictionary next day and so it has been for hundreds of years. Tagging is yet another step in this evolution me thinks.

The last two things I mentioned are virtual spaces like Second Life and mashups. Maybe I'll write on them tomorrow but, for now, I have discovered LibraryThing and I'm gonna go have some fun!

so...strategic planning doesn't exist in project management, huh?

Strategic planning is basically all about long term plans, from 3-20 years, developed by executive chiefs of an organization, or, to quote someone else, "it's analogous to top-level, long-range planning". They go on to say succinctly, "[it is] ... fundamental decisions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future."

If you know anything about digital technology in a library setting then you know the development of a digital library or digital collections are rarely supported by hard-wired funds, that means soft money, that means projects, that means you better plan for it and it better be a long term plan. Even the slowest administrators have now realized that this stuff doesn't keep indefinitely. Which is to say, you better get a money stream flowing and keep the gate open.

Guess what? You want a digital project? You better f-ing plan for it, and I don't mean conventional planning where you just go by what's right in front of you and hope for the best, waiting around until something breaks. Shooting from the hip won't get you very far. And if you think for a second it's only "top-level" managers who make these kinds of decisions, well, they might but it's highly doubtful that - unless they've come up through the ranks on the digital train - they're going to know enough about serious digital preservation to even know where to begin. Which is to say, get a clue - it's your lower-level/mid-level managers that do the stuff day in and day out that actually know enough to make a long term plan. Sorry but there are some projects that do not allow living in an ivory tower and watching the river roll by and, in this age of technology, it's digital projects that demand every manager get on board and plan accordingly. Oh, sure, your top level people can make all the decisions but it's a bad, bad, bad idea. Okay, admittedly, I'm pissed at bad managers and even worse educators playing at being managers (I thought that's what theater was for).

I know, I know, the textbooks would have us believe that "strategic planning" is meant to drive a larger organization's planning efforts, such as a whole library system or a university. Take Lee Todd's business plan that's meant to guide the entire university toward top 20 status (best I can tell even that's just about money and little else), THAT took strategic planning. UK's libraries and how they're organizing themselves to meet such a challenge - THAT is strategic planning. I'm not arguing that such is not strategic planning, it is, what I would argue is that even smaller steps require "strategic planning" in the truest sense of the term. It is the one year, three year, five year plans that matter every bit as much if not more - a 20 year plan won't do you any good if you don't know what you're doing right now. "Organization" means involving everyone, not just the top level managers, unless you just want fail then, be my guest. Real life good management means listening and communicating with everyone in the system, deciding where you collectively are at this moment, where you want to go, what you need to get you there, how you're going to get what you need to get you there, and what it's going to take. Then it is a matter of making it happen in a pro-active manner (SWOT and PEST and all that mumbo jumbo).

So, for instance, let's say you want to build a digital library that has a ton of collections that includes all kinds and media and is respected nationwide. Right now, all you have is a flat bed scanner from Wal-Mart, yourself, and a student workforce of 2 kids at less than 20 hours a week each, and an archivist colleague screaming that everything they have is equally as important as everything else they have and it all needs to be digitized right now because you have a computer, a flat-bed, and a job and the internet is free. What do you do?

1. Don't shoot yourself (though it may feel like the best thing to do at the time)
2. Don't shoot your colleague (though they may deserve it on some meta-physical level)
3. Decide what's most important to get your colleague to shut up (like coffee and relaxed conversation for starters)
4. Make a dream list of what your perfect digital library would look like and how it would function. Now, start working backwards from that point....

5. How many people do you see it taking to make that perfect library? Why start with people? Because the technology is the easy part - finding smart, creative, affordable experts (this is especially true at UK and other bureaucracies that have "fixed" pay scales) is actually the hard part...you'll see....
6. What kind of gear do you have?
7. What kind of collections do you have? Audio? Video? Live streaming? Images? Are they search-able? Why or why not? What's your interface like? Does the same interface serve all of your collections or are you using more than one application and/or interface to search and serve your goods? Remember, part of this is in anticipation of what technological advances will be in place by the time you actually get to this point (which is damn near impossible to figure but - try)
8. Work backwards - who's the last person you hire? What's the last piece of gear you add to your arsenal?

Get the picture? Keep working backward until you reach today, right now. You've got no budget, a flat-bed, yourself, 2 students, and a pissed off colleague that has NO idea what's involved in digital collections. What do you do? Work with them to decide what's really most important that you can reasonably digitize on a flat-bed scanner in x amount of time.

Good. You scan it. First project over. That worked out. Now what are you going to do with it? Where's it going to be stored? How's it going to be accessed? Who's going to do that work? Aha - perhaps you should have answered these questions before the pissed off colleague showed up, eh? Maybe, maybe not. For all the "strategic planning" in the world I guarantee life will find a way to throw a wrench in your system and you'll be lucky if it's ever something this simple. It's actually more along the lines of the sky falling and you doing your best Chicken Little imitation. Impressive how how your pitch can go!

Anyway, you get the point, you have to visualize what you want and start with what you have right now to "strategically plan" how to get there. And it is never, ever, ever just a one-person show. Oh sure, one person may end up taking all the credit, and that's fine - somebody has to - but it's never just one person.

or·gan·i·za·tion (ôr'gə-nĭ-zā'shən) Pronunciation Key n. noun
1.	a group of people who work together

boss hog, sheriff rosco p. coltrane, and deputies enus and cletus

Let's talk about staffing for a bit, shall we? Have the times changed or what? It used to be you only needed a high school education to get a decent job. Then it was a bachelor's degree - writer Luis Jorge Borges was once assistant librarian in a Buenes Aires library eventually becoming the director for the National Library in Buenes Aires with just the equivalent to a bachelor's degree though it was not library related. But that was the 1930's and 50's respectively. Today, even a master's degree can be lacking depending on the job.

In libraries, however, after several decades of some amount of professional stability, things are topsy turvy to say the least. What with the para-professional movement challenging degreed librarians coupled with increasing patron demands for technological prowess versus an aging workforce (the first official baby boomer was eligible for retirement just last year) who are mostly lacking in know-how and "want-to" technology skills, the library "profession", and thus the library staff itself, could change dramatically in coming years. To be sure, staffing a library has never been a cut and dried affair. Even before librarians organized themselves into a recognized and celebrated "profession" there were, and continue to be, other extenuating circumstances that shaped staffing priorities. That likely won't change no matter the direction.

To staff a library, there are several qualities to look for in a candidate. First, of course, one has to have some organizational sense. That could be organization skills in terms of cataloging, staff supervision, accounting, digitization, information retrieval, specialized collection knowledge, etc. etc. Regardless, a prime candidate is someone who can consistently maintain one or several of the aforementioned tasks depending on the size and kind of library they're hired into. These skills may be very difficult to quantify at an initial interview, say via phone or in person. To overcome this, in an academic library setting, faculty candidates, for example, are typically required to give a presentation on a topic determined by the hiring committee. This topic is generally geared to a current topic of interest wherein the presentation itself lends some relevant clue to the candidate's knowledge base and problem solving skills. Anybody can shelve a book but, in today's technological environment, how a candidate uses that technology, talks about that technology, shows examples of how that technology can be harnessed and used to the betterment of the patron and library - that's the kind of qualities that will get attention in today's academic library.

There is much, much more to consider beside technology, however. One must be considerate of one's quantity of patronage and thus staff accordingly. Understaffed or overstaffed libraries can lead to problems, both internally and externally, not to mention significant budgetary woes. One would not hire a staff of 300 for a small town public library but it might be necessary for a large university library. Just how specialized those positions are depend a great deal on who the patrons are or who the library may be attracting (or wanting to attract) - in the case of an academic library it could be a bigger freshman class or maybe more specialized researchers.

To that end, patrons will likely be more comfortable dealing with librarians who reflect their own image, such as race or gender. When selecting a new hire, these issues can be mighty factors depending on one's patron demographic(s). Take, for instance, a university library in the heart of the Hispanic community whose student body is comprised of 75% Hispanic students. It might be wise to consider Hispanic staff if the library wants to truly reach out tot the majority of it's student population by way of identification and comfort. Of course, this sort of affirmative action staffing is apt to change as the cultural and socio-economic environment of the patrons change. It's very important to understand that staffing is a very fluid event. people come and go regularly, especially in larger organizations like large academic libraries. So, too, do the patrons change in all manner of ways and, so, staffing to fill, the voids and address changing patron categories must always be a consideration.

As mentioned earlier, the current para-professional movement could greatly impact staffing in the future as their skill sets rise to the level of professional librarians. In these scary budgetary times, nothing looks better to an accountant, budget officer, or HR librarian than someone with all the skills at half the price. This may be especially true in academic libraries where the institution of tenure is coming into question more and more these days. Working, well trained para-professionals stand to play a deciding role in that future debate.

Then there are those issues as mandated by law such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963. the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and again in 1991 wherein rights were granted to women and minorities to sue for punitive damages if discrimination can be proven in the workplace, The Age Discrimination Act of 1967 (freaky to be at an age where that personally matters), and the very important Family Medical Leave Act of 1993. These and other laws have a great impact on staffing. The University of Kentucky, for example, is an Equal Opportunity Employer brought about in part by the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action to ensure that no one is denied employment or education because of their race or gender. Diversity is a very important factor in staffing recently at the University of Kentucky Libraries. The student body is becoming more diverse, the libraries must reflect that same tone if it is to successfully reach incoming students of differing backgrounds. Likewise, younger patrons are more technologically savvy and, thus, the library staff must raise it's own technological expertise if it is to administer to the student body all the advantages a University environment is to offer.

And let's not forget that, at least at UK, a great deal of the day to day work is done by a student workforce. We would come to a screeching halt without them! 'Nuff said.

That's it - I'm sick of writing now.................

fayol and aristotle? 2 men, 2 much time on their hands

okay, so socrates is more at home with management functions than aristotle. Never the less, his take on logic was enough to drive me nuts as an undergrad - that one has the time to dissect an argument to such a degree that a whole new field of study can be built around it tells me somebody wasn't stopping the smell the flowers nearly enough....and lo these many centuries later, we're all paying for it and lawyers are getting rich because of it. But I digress....

Henri Fayol, like aristotle and the great navel gazing scheme he championed, spent a good deal of his life running a mining facility only to up and decide that the world would somehow be a better place if he could break down what it was that he was doing as a manager in a mining facility. (I guess therapy wasn't available at the turn of the century) Thus was born 14 redundant functions of management. Thank God clearer heads prevailed over time and beat down 14 into a mere 5 functions: staffing, controlling, planning, organizing, and fainting, I mean, leading (and if you give them to Prof. Carrigan out of order, as I just did, shame on you - if they're in the book one way, they must be regurgitated exactly the same way - there's no room for individuality or free-thought in management, dammit). Forget that even these 5 functions are redundant in some fashion....but then, newer gurus on the scene heard my cries of boredom and have thus decided only 4 functions should do. Whatever. I'll start listening when we're down to the only function that matters: common sense. But I digress again.......

Of course, it's not enough to have five functions, no, we must also have roles! Enter another man with too much time on his hands - Mintzberg. Actually, it was the 1970's - he probably needed a dissertation topic more than the navel gazing of yore. Anyway, he picks 10 roles then, being the brilliant mind he is/was, breaks those down even further into three friggin categories: interpersonal, informational, and desicional. Now, don't you feel like a better manager already? More than the 5 traditional functions, these roles really got tongues wagging - lo and behold, they're like some sick vin diagram with overlapping roles, lions, and tigers, and bears, OH MY!

Where are my damn ruby slippers, Toto? Take me back to Kansas...there is no intelligent life here. Or maybe it's just me that needs to smell a few more flowers.

WTF?

Would somebody please explain to me how a library school can believe there's no strategic planning in project management? Top level managers don't have anything to do with it? Like some project is just decided on willy nilly and let the chips fall where they may, as in "conventional planning", with no thought what so ever to how it will impact future projects, the department, or even staff and staffing issues? Please - somebody - explain it to me cuz it's just inexcusable to think it doesn't exist.

That's my rant for the day.......glad I got that off my chest

gaming = information literacy for some

Historically, libraries have used the more traditional means to increase information literacy among their patrons, such as hosting literacy programs for both children and adults, and supporting collection development that enabled equal access, whether that be to those patrons with English as a second language, various disabilities, or differing age groups. As technology has increased, so, too, have the avenues by which literacy learning can be administered.

Libraries and librarians have found it necessary to expand their horizons, as it were, to include new technologies like audio/video outlets, multimedia devices, and the internet in order to keep up with, and reverse the growing trend of, literacy decline. To this end, libraries across the country are harnessing the power of gaming as one way to increase information literacy among their patrons. One of the more innovative ideas is using fantasy football as a way to teach information literacy. Though fantasy football isn't necessarily "gaming", in the sense that one has an external device, it is a game just the same. And just like board games can often subliminally teach positive group dynamics like working within a team structure, problem solving, and management, fantasy gaming can gather and refocus one's "common sense" skills into a means of understanding accurate, reliable information for any number of other literacy applications.

Paul Waelchli's article in C&RL News from Jan 2008 talks about instructing students on finding quality, reliable, accurate information concerning their fantasy football players/team then applying those same skills for their homework. Having asked a series of questions before and after the instruction, Waelchli juxtaposed the answers and, it was clear that, through this simple exercise students learned that much of their information gathering skills already exist, they just needed to understand that the same skills apply to their more formal research. This particular exercise was performed at a research library but fantasy football's popularity does not discriminate based on age, gender, race, or language per se. This same tool could be applied to other literacy programs in public libraries large and small and to any number of patron groups with similar results.

Other great gaming examples are appearing, too. A public library is using "Patron Appreciation Day" as a way to allow patrons to waive fines by playing "Dance Dance Revolution" against a librarian; the equivalent of "washing the dishes to pay for your dinner". University of Notre Dame has its take on "geocaching" called "Caching in at the Libraries", and the list goes on. Gaming approaches may prove inadequate for an aging American population who aren't as interested in this kind of interactive tool or who don't want to learn this method of information gathering, however. How, then, does a library deal with these patrons who are equally important though less open to new technologies?

Unlike generations of yore, the baby boomer generation, those 50 and over that are nearing retirement, lead more active, social lives well past the time their fathers and forefathers did. They may actually be more open to new ways of learning, such as gaming, but they're also not without tradition. Services that have proven well in the past can't be ignored just because of new technologies - collection development still plays a great role in servicing literacy and information literacy to aging adult patrons. Large print books, specialty topics geared toward older interests such as personal finance, medical, and retirement books, and even simple access to the internet with large screens for better "large print" viewing can provide extraordinary learning.

Libraries, while serving their younger patron's technological prowess, can also shore up older patrons by establishing and maintaining long-term literacy programs and other courses that geared toward interests they may want to learn about, such as computer and internet skills like San Fransisco's "Seniornet"; an online network developed for older adults who who wants to learn computer skills. Even having older "senior" adults volunteer in a library, whether that be as a greeter or on a planning committee or even as a representative that goes out into the "senior" community, can raise the comfort level such that seniors feel as if they are not being left out of the technological revolution and more likely to want to learn.

that's it - I'm sick of thinking now............