Funny Library Love Notes

Just a note can brighten your day!

Last February, my library had a great campaign called I ❤ the UL (university library). They had set up a poster board with a prompt that asked students and other patrons to write on post-it notes about what they loved about the UL and what changes they wanted to see. The latest project that I have been working on is cleaning up some of those post it notes. Some are totally hilarious and crack me up and some are genuinely very nice. I think this campaign did a good job of reaching out to the students and getting a good understanding of what they want and what they love about the library.

Here’s a sampling of what some people said they loved about the UL:

• Single and ready to mingle (phone number)
• Itchy eyes? Itchy eyes.
• Library, I think you are sexy.
• I ❤ the UL
• Free Stuff!
• Any type of book of course! Yay intellectual freedom. ←(probably a SLIS student)
• It’s cozy in there and it looks like there are enough comps. I love couches? <3<3<3
• I come to you when I have no one else.
• It’s my part-time house (UL)
• The library is awesome! More people should use it.
• Library, I am continually impressed with your generous helping attitude. I do wish to continue our mutual relationship. -Student

I hope that they do this campaign again next year, because I am getting a kick out of reading all these notes. I also want to add that many people wrote that they LOVE BOOKS (the paper kind!). Old habits die hard.

What do you love about your library? Anyone else have a similar marketing campaign?

 

What makes a school a degree mill?

I should be doing my metadata final right now but I have this BURNING question in my head, that I want to have clarified. In light of reading Will Manley’s post about the value of the MLIS, I have to ask myself, what schools are the “degree mills”? I have found a paradox of people not trying to rip on the online schools, but then complaining about “degree mills”. Is every school a degree mill in this case? Is it every school with lax admission practices? Probably. I had even posed this question to my fellow HackLibSchool editors and while we are all familiar with the term, they weren’t sure what actual schools are considered a degree mill. I am curious to hear what others have to say about this.

I am also reposting my comment on Will’s blog here. He really set up a great conversation, just by asking reader’s questions.

My Response: 

I am going to jump off librabbie’s comment here because I am at the other IU campus and from what I read, our programs are very different. We technically have the same degree but my campus is very focused on practical experience, but some of us would like more of the information science classes that Bloomington offers.
Anyway, LIS education is a topic that is very dear to me, and as a current student, I have put a lot of thought into what kind of program I wanted. On to the questions!

#1: Should graduate library schools make an effort to restrict their enrollment to the prevailing job market?

Yes I think it would really help to have standards for good applicants. I had considered one program, but all they asked for was $50, filling out an application, and maybe your transcripts. No letters of recommendation, no personal statement…how exactly were they going to determine if you were a good fit? That application process alone told me that this would not be a good school for me. It made me pre-judge the quality of the program because if they don’t care who joins the program, why do they care about what they teach? Of course, now that I look back, I see that I could have been wrong, maybe the school produces strong graduates.

Context #2: Are graduate library schools distancing themselves from the public library market by becoming too ivory towered in their approach to training future practitioners?

At IU, the core classes are very traditional and geared towards the traditional library roles. We all have to take reference and library management. Like some of the other commenters mentioned, most students have a lot of electives so they can gear their courses towards what area of librarianship they want to go into. I have a few friends interested in public libraries and youth services, so they have signed up for courses that reflect those interest. I am lucky because my program does offer classes that cater to academic, public, and school libraries.

Context #3: Why have graduate library schools not forged closer ties with working libraries and focused their research on projects that can actually have practical value for libraries?

Again, I feel fortunate that my school is located downtown, near many great libraries who welcome SLIS students. Almost every semester I have at least one class that has us talk to professionals in the field, or shadow them to get an idea of what a librarian does day to day. This is actually very valuable to someone like me who has limited practical experience. I also think that seeking out mentors in the field is another valuable way for someone to supplement their degree.

What disheartens me is reading comments from professionals in forums like this, who say that taking on volunteers or mentors takes up too much work and they simply don’t have the time. If you look around, you’ll see plenty of people complaining about the state of LIS education, of the divide between the practical and theoretical, but what will YOU do to change that? It’s easy to sit around and say “This degree is useless.” If people really feel that way, then we all need to do something about it. (Disclaimer: I write over at HackLibSchool and these are very important issues to us)

Context #4: Because on-line education is now the dominant delivery approach for graduate library school is too much emphasis being placed on the library as an on-line data center accessed from the homes of patrons?

I think the physical space is still important. I know that I see lots of people using computers at the public library, not everyone has access to the online data center. Of course, if your school is online…that’s another story.

Does graduate library school have any real value anymore other than as a place that issues union cards?

In a way, I would say yes, it’s like a union card but I honestly feel like my MLS is so much more than that. It has put me in contact with librarians and library students across the country. I have gotten some really great practical experience from my program and I have made a great group of friends/future colleagues. I truly believe that library school is what you make of it. I know people who skirt by with the minimum and those who are obsessive. It’s really up to you what you want out of this degree. I most likely wouldn’t have been able to even get my foot in the door in terms of jobs at a library without this degree, and when I step in, I know I will be thoroughly prepared. I think it’s just as important to learn the theory, as it is to learn the practical.

It’s Been Awhile

Blogging can be a lonely endeavor, you just type out all your thoughts into this huge void and there it just sits. However, I really enjoy putting my thoughts down somewhere because it helps me work out ideas and issues that I’m having. I had really tried to update my blog about once a week for awhile there, but I started taking a summer class and my poor blog has been neglected. I hope this will change soon.

My life lately has been a weird mix of feeling absolutely burnt out on library school, and yet still being very immersed in it. I’ve really tried to devote most of my time to my class, but I still have other library-related things to work on. For example, the ALA Convention  is next week! Holy cow! There were so many things I wanted to do to prepare myself. Some things, I had slowly worked on, like making cards, trying to update my Linked In, re-doing my resume, etc. but there wasn’t enough time to get it all where I wanted it to be. That is life!

If anyone is reading this and is going, I would like to meet you at some point. I’m a first timer, so I’m sure it will be an eye opening experience. Time for me to stop being afraid of strangers and welcome them into my life for a few days! I’ve gotten some really good advice from other bloggers on what to do at conferences, not to mention the awesome ALA HackLibSchool themed week. Check out conference advice from  The Library Adventure of Kiyomi and Archiving Desk to Desk for additional tips.

Hey, that reminds me, if you ARE going, please come to the HackLibSchool Meet Up (this is the facebook event page)! Hope to see some people there!

To learn programming or not? That is the question.

Last night I attended this Geek Speed Dating Night (minus the dating part) event, put together by a group called Refresh Indy. They describe themselves as “Promoting design, technology and usability, Refresh Indy is a part of the Refreshing Cities movement.” Sounds pretty cool and applicable to libraries right? I should probably back it up and explain how this Geek Night works. I got there with my library school friend (who writes at Red Lipstick Librarian) and my boyfriend (who was a web developer in a previous life). There were several round tables set up and other web developers, programmers and designers milling about. Then we all had 30 minutes at any given table to talk about topics like social media and marketing, iOS development, web design and development with these experts. It was a very low-key informal event that allowed for casual conversation on these topics.

I went into this hoping to learn about what’s going on in the web development world and wanted to see if I could bring some of what I learned into the library field. I have to say, it’s different when you work for a non-profit agency and you’re listening to marketing skills for someone with a personal business. Additionally, the only web skills I have are html and css. The first person we spoke to develops apps for iOS and I was in over my head, not to mention many of the experts leading the discussions had background knowledge in programming. I do not know how to program, I have a super basic knowledge of how it works, so at times I felt lost.

However, it was actually pretty awesome to get outside of the LIS field and see what others do. These are people who are creating web apps, building websites, they’re on the forefront of technology. There was a difference and a wake up call for me, coming from the library field. How many times have you heard the words social media and marketing or web development in the library world? I’ve heard it tossed around many times, but if you take those ideas outside of LIS, there are different trends that are emerging that libraries SHOULD be paying attention to. For example, someone was talking about how businesses don’t use social media correctly, that we have not utilized its full potential. Businesses try to tailor everything to the user based on what websites they’ve looked at, try to sell them products based on past user trends; but the users are actually using social media differently. People are more apt to purchase something if their friends recommend it, and where the real magic happens is the interaction between the people, not the business dictating what you should buy. In education, that’s called active learning, where peers are engaging with each other, exchanging information and learning in a proactive way, as opposed to passive learning. Can libraries implement this in their own marketing techniques or in other ways? Yes! I don’t have all the answers, but I just want to point out that the internet is a very helpful forum that allows for active learning to happen.

At the end of the night, I had to ask myself “is programming something that librarians should know?” My boyfriend mentioned that librarians shouldn’t have to know how to do these things but rather, work with programmers to develop the tools that we need for our own crowd. Having a familiarity with programming languages would definitely be a plus, also it would help to focus what you want out of whatever project you are working on. I think it’s quite normal for libraries to outsource this work to the IT departments, since many librarians do not have these skills. In light of people thinking that libraries should be hiring more IT professionals instead of MLIS librarians, it might be a good idea for library/ information professionals to learn about programming and web development. I’m interested in digital libraries, so this may be something I should become familiar with; whether I use it in my future profession or not.

Take On The World

Not going to lie, these past few weeks have been really stressful. I’ve been trying to finish up final projects, work, start a new volunteer position and plan for the next year. Before I started grad school, I had taken about two years off to just work and prep myself. Um, I forgot how stressful school can be. It’s amazing the different levels of stress a human being can handle and I’m lucky that I don’t have any personal life issues. In fact, I’ve been so busy that I don’t even have time to feel sorry for myself; but that’s probably a good thing. As my good friend told me, self-hatred is a symptom of living. Kidding!

The thought that ALWAYS nags at the back of my mind is “what is all this worth if you don’t use it?”. I’m always worried about the job market and from this focus group that I was part of yesterday, I’m not the only one. That being said, I think self-assessment is key to our education and lifelong learning. More about that later.

Anyway, this song pretty much sums up how I feel. I apologize for the lax nature of this post, my brain is fried at this point.

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture

Arbuthnot Anthology of Children's Literature

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at the St. Louis Public Library. The guest lecturer was Lois Lowry, author of famous YA titles like The Giver and Number the Stars. The lecture that she gave was really awesome. She was asked to make it “scholarly”, and she was able to do so with it being obvious or dry. It was like listening to someone tell a story about her writing career, what experiences and literature influenced her writing, and many anecdotes all wrapped up to make a speech. It’s hard to explain the way that she beautifully crafted her speech, but it was great, just take my word for it.

At the library, they were selling all of her books titles, and as I looked over them, I realized that I had forgotten how many of her books I had read as a kid. I loved the Anastasia Series and I remember going to the YA section of my library to find those books to devour. As I sat and listened to Lowry speak, I began to remember all of these wonderful memories of my childhood public library and my love of reading. I never thought that those experiences would lead me to where I am now, a student in library school; or a patron, sitting and listening to one of my favorite childhood authors speak. I think for many librarians and library school students, these sorts of memories have guided our paths to where we are now.

One of the most memorable quotes from Lowry’s lecture was “Libraries are the repository for our cultural heritage.” She told us a story about her granddaughter having a friend from Germany visiting her, and tell her that libraries were the best thing in America. It always delights me when authors advocate for the library. I know people can buy books anywhere, the internet, bookstore, garage sale, whatever; but when the authors take the time to say “Hey libraries are awesome!!” I just want to give that person a hug. We need advocates from many different arenas and authors have a very powerful voice.

She's signing books!

I do want to note that I am not really interested in being a children’s librarian or a public librarian. Why did I go? Not only was it a fun road trip for me and my library school friends, but I think going to extra events like this help make someone a well-rounded librarian. We’re usually not just librarians, we are patrons too. I also truly believe that children’s literacy is very important, and getting kids interested in reading at an early age is an investment in our future. This ties into the idea of Big Tent Librarianship, we’re really more connected than we think. Overall, this experience was great, I got a signed copy of The Giver and later saw Lois Lowry at the hotel bar, hanging out with her friends.

Volunteering and Developing Skills

It was my hope that I would be able to secure an internship this summer, so I could get experience working in a different setting. I really like my current job, but working in the technical services office can cut you off from the rest of the library. I had applied at an art museum and for a metadata internship. Both places rejected me, but that’s okay! My classmate had mentioned to me that she volunteered at the State Library on digital projects and that they always needed volunteers, so I decided to check it out. Just today, I met with the digital collections librarian about volunteering there once a week. It’s not going to be as intensive as an internship, but I am going to be getting hands on experience with stuff that I actually want to learn about.

Volunteering is a great way to get experience in the field, especially if you don’t have any. The skills you learn while volunteering can potentially get you a job later down the line. While some MLIS students have experienced the limiting aspects of volunteering, others have gained experience that could take the place of a library school course. For me, this volunteer experience is going to help fill in gaps of skills that I haven’t been able to develop yet. What really helped me going into this is knowing what I wanted out of it. I know that I want to work with digital libraries when I graduate, so I want more experience with content management and metadata. After I explained what my interests were, the digital collections librarian suggested that I might also be interested in working with their cataloger to make the digital collections searchable in the database. I didn’t even know that they had that kind of opportunity, so it was really good that I flat out told them what I was interested in doing.

The opportunity at the State Library seems perfectly suited for me because they have many different projects going on at once, so I can probably find one to work on that fits what I want to do. I have heard about students who go into libraries as volunteers and seeing that they aren’t getting  much experience out of it, and that is a big risk as a volunteer. I’ve learned that by laying out what you want to learn from volunteering at the very beginning, you can work with the coordinator to see how your experience there can fit those needs. They understand that you are investing your time and are doing them a favor by helping out, so usually they are flexible with setting you up with projects or tasks that will make you want to continue to volunteer (at least in an ideal world).

The volunteer coordinator gave me a tour of the library, which was really cool. It was built in the 1930’s and some of the reading rooms are so beautiful. She also told me that many of the volunteers there were able to get jobs once they graduated. Because they let volunteers work on projects that interest them, the volunteers get to develop job skills that they are interested in, and the library benefits from the work that they put in. It’s a pretty balanced relationship. I’m looking forward to volunteering there.

New Cards!

So in my preparation for going to the ALA conference in New Orleans, I decided it was time for me to get some business cards. I’m not really a “business person”, but I know it’s important to network at conferences. I really had no clue what to put on my card, so I tried to keep it simple. Here it is:

I ordered them from Moo but I’m sure there are a ton of places to order cards.

Joint Research Conference Recap

I recently attended a joint research conference with the university library and the school of library information science here at IUPUI. The conference mascot was the titmouse, a bird that was known for being able to survive because of it’s information sharing nature. It was really great to hear what library faculty and SLIS (School of Library Information Science) students were doing their research on, as well as their methodology. In our program, taking a research class is a core requirement, which is really good because as library and information professionals, we all deal with research one way or another, whether it’s helping a patron or conducting your own.

There were so many great ideas that I took from this conference, and the keynote speaker, Steven Bell, had a very provocative presentation on “Putting the Science back in Library Science”. He talked about the difference in how other disciplines approach research and how the librarians could try to incorporate those techniques into their own research. Here are some highlights from his presentation:

• Doing research is good for the profession and should be good for the end user, the patrons. Don’t do research just to have something to put on your c.v., make sure it means something and can produce results for your library.
• Get out from behind the desk and design studies that involve people. I know I have filled out my fair share of list-serv surveys and polls. Through reading academic articles, we’ve seen the bulk of library research is done is through this sort of passive means. Instead, we could look at how social science fields approach studies and experiments.
• Library schools should incorporate design thinking into the curriculum. This point really stood out to me but I need to follow up on what he meant by this. He showed a brief clip of a interdisciplinary think tank who used creative techniques to solve problems. Perhaps, as LIS students, we need to learn how to think more creatively about our research approach and problem solving. A little more info this can be found here.
• Reading from outside the LIS discipline helps us keep up with current trends. Then you can invigorate your own research by incorporating an interdisciplinary approach. It’s easy to stay within the same circle, but your information can get stale.

I was also very impressed with the students who went up to present their research. They all agreed that it wasn’t too difficult to get up and talk to all of us about what they have been working on. One presentation was a collaboration between a librarian and a SLIS student. It’s hard for students to take the initiative to do their own research because it might seem intimidating, so I thought it was wonderful that a librarian would be willing to find a student to work with, as opposed to another faculty member.

In general, I have found there to be a disconnect between the university librarians and the students in the program. I’d be interested to hear if other library school programs have a similar problem or if the university library and the library school program are more connected. Anyway, this research conference is an effort to bridge that gap. It was pretty awesome to see the SLIS professor who teaches an Intro to Research course ask one of the presenting librarians about her research methodology. Just from hearing their exchange, I saw the difference in academic culture, what the professor (who holds a PhD) thought about case studies and the librarian who is doing her first research project for publication. We’re all in the same building but it doesn’t mean we interact with each other on a regular basis, which was why this conference was so great.

After the conference, I thought about what a great opportunity this was for students to get the ball rolling on presenting. I had never been to a library conference before, so now I have an idea of what sort of things to expect . The professors are already encouraging students to think about doing our own research and presenting it next year. It would be a good way for students to develop their own professional interests, network and work with faculty members, and get experience talking in front of a lot of people.

Are we ready for this?

Disclaimer: You probably won’t understand what I’m talking about unless you’ve seen the video.

Recently, I watched a YouTube video made by a UCLA student who went on a tirade against the Asian population on campus, and in the library. You can find the original video through the article I linked. Her basic point was that she was irritated because Asian people are always on their cellphones in the library. Her video blew up on YouTube, garnering responses as hateful and ignorant as the initial video. It’s obvious that her perspective was ignorant and racist, and while this blog post is in part a response to that, it’s also a response to the YouTube rebuttals, and to the likelihood of a similar outburst happening in the library setting itself.

This video really irked me for a few different reasons, some personal. First, I am an Asian American, studying in the library and information science field. You won’t see me talking on my cellphone in the library, unless I’m in the break room. Lack of manners has little to do with race, and a lot more to do with a person’s upbringing. My mom, an immigrant from Vietnam, took me to plenty of libraries as a child, which ingrained me in the library culture. This is how I learned how to behave in the library setting. Second, UCLA is a very diverse campus, so you would think that the students would be more culturally aware there. However, in diverse settings, tensions can actually be heightened due to a lack of cultural awareness. Third, the biggest revelation about this whole ordeal is a general inability to understand different cultures, not only by the initial YouTuber, but also by the people who responded to her. What frustrates me is not just the assumptions she makes about Asians (like all non-whites aren’t American), but also the assumptions that people have made about her. I watched a few YouTube videos that responded to hers and they just made up stereotypes about blond, white women. Yes, I get that people are angry, and throwing insults back is an easy go to response, but I’m not satisfied with that.

More immediately, my response was: how would a librarian handle this? I imagined a hypothetical situation with an irate patron spouting inflammatory insults at another patron based on similar stereotyping. What if something like this happened in my library? As future or current information professionals, we have the potential to spread understanding of cultural diversity, but I wonder if we are equipped to deal with these kinds of elevated situations. Are we prepped with enough training in how to handle diverse populations? I had to reflect on my own experiences in library school and whether issues of diversity have ever been discussed.

My program is not diverse and the same goes for my workplace. Not surprisingly, I have occasionally seen a lack of understanding of other cultures, comments that seemed ignorant.  As someone who stands outside the majority, I’m prone to seeing this lack of awareness. Does our education really prepare us for these situations? Probably not. I know some schools might have required courses on diversity but mine isn’t one of them. Honestly, I don’t think you can teach that sort of awareness in the classroom, it has to be learned through interaction with different kinds of people in the real world. I was fortunate enough to have lived in diverse cities growing up, which helped shaped my understanding.

I realize that not everyone is going to have the same exposure to different cultures, as seen by the attitude of this UCLA student. Instead, we can start a dialog within our communities, within the LIS community, and talk about the ways in which we approach cultural differences. Audre Lorde once wrote, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” We can’t change these issues of ignorance by throwing stereotypes and racial slurs in response. Instead, we need to look further at the root of the issue. It’s not just about skin color or superficial differences, but trying to understand various cultural backgrounds and being aware of them.

Other LIS students and bloggers have already reflected on the issue of diversity in LIS. By putting our thoughts out there and engaging with others we have gotten the discussion going, and hopefully raised some awareness. My favorite part about this is the varying viewpoints everyone brings to the table, because the term “diversity” applies, most importantly, to the uniqueness of the person. There are times when I feel helpless, but when I look at the work of my peers, I know that others are thinking about the same issues. It’s easy for a single voice to be drowned out, but as a collective we have more agency for change.

Link to other blog posts on diversity in LIS:

Julia’s Research Blog – Diversity in LIS Education

Hack Library School – Diversity in LIS – From My Perspective

The Melody Party – Diversity in LIS

anthroarchivist – thoughts on diversity