Reimagining Libraries - ALA 2013

I had a wonderful conference experience at ALA and attended a lot of valuable sessions for which I have included my notes.  However, my very favorite moment in Chicago was the unexpected discovery of this plaque on the wall of the Chicago Cultural Center.  Jean Baptiste Beaubien is my great-great-great-great-grandfather although I am his descendant through his second wife Man-na-ben-nah-quah. (And, I will be eternally grateful that it is his granddaughter/my great-great-grandmother’s name, Julia, that carried down the line and not Mah-na-ben-nah-quah!) 

 How a Book is Saved: Challenges and How to Fight Them

University of Illinois professor Emily Knox shared information about the reasons that people challenge library materials.  It is helpful for libraries to try to identify the reason behind the challenge.  It’s not to really stop access to the item as books or others materials can always be obtained somewhere--It is a matter of power:  This falls into three different themes:

• Theme 1: Society, Parenting, and Childhood
• Society: This occurs when the challenger sees themselves as the defender of the fragile backbone of the society that is in decline, the embattled minority engaged in spiritual warfare. 
• Parenting:  This occurs when the challenger sees themselves as setting boundaries, that other parents aren’t as good as they are and that they are helping parent other people’s children.
• Childhood:  This occurs when the challenger believes that the innocence of childhood must be protected
• Theme 2: Public Institutions and Procedures
• The challenger sees libraries as symbols of community, the face of the community, the embodiment of their 1st Amendment rights.
• The challenger believes that library procedures are inadequate (because they don’t understand the process)
• The challenger wants to challenge the library’s “power” to make selections.
• The challenge is about labeling as the issue is more about location than it is about the book itself.
• Theme 3: Reading Practices and Interpretive Strategies
• The challenger fears that if someone reads about something in a book they will do it themselves.
• The challenger fears that the short and long term effect on reader is a “slippery slope” – once they have read this material it will lead to worse and more corruptive things.

Train all staff to be ready for book challenges.  The first person to talk to the customer sets the tone and affects where the challenge will lead.  Be neutral and just listen.  Don’t argue.  Try and understand their concerns and perspective.  Do not quote policy or the bill of rights.  Try to listen for what it is that they are saying that they want. 

If the challenge goes to a library board or commission, ask your board to read the book themselves.  Challengers will usually ask the deciding body “have you read this book?” and it slows them down if the answer is yes.

When challenges do occur, be prepared to handle the situation as it moves up the chain and into the public eye: 

1. Have an up-to-date selection policy that has been reviewed by legal counsel.
2. Educate your commission or board of trustees
3. Train staff to understand and support library policies
4. Train everyone in how to respond
5. Parents have the right to guide their own children. Libraries can’t be parents. 
6. Educate customers about how we select when you have the opportunity.
7. Have a good relationship with the media and always be prepared in case you need to meet with them.
8. Be calm and in control.  Tell the truth.

Developing NextGen Leaders in Your Library and the Profession: Grow Your Own

• This session was primarily about millennials working in the library and not really about developing leaders.
• The presenters shared some statistics about millennials gathered from research that they did.  Millennials have MLIS degrees at the same rate as the rest of the population, but they are also typically a functional specialist in some other subject who could market their skills outside of the organization. 
• Research showed that millennial librarians are given a large number of the technical tasks in the library and reported dissatisfaction about that.  Millenials become librarians because they 1) like an academic environment, 2) like a tech-related field, and 3) believe it is socially responsible.  They still value print and a visible collection.
• Millenials believe that libraries have unrealistic expectations of their technical skills (just because they are young doesn’t mean they can program a computer).  They want well-rounded librarian experience.  They want to be heard and believe that they are given a disproportionate amount of work because they are young.  They don’t believe that experience should give others the right to make decisions.
• Suggestions for management:  Include millennials in decision-making. Learn their skills; break down barriers between older and younger staff members.  Be aware that a good work-life balance is important to them and don’t assume that they want to be mentored by you.

Project Management: A Skill Set Every Leader Needs

• The concept of “project management” originated in the field of civil engineering.  It is an approach/process/tool to effectively and efficiently make progress toward a goal.
• To succeed there needs to be a clear understanding of the vision, goals, and priorities; a commitment from administration and other leadership; a defined process; and a trained group of people.
• Define the project: What and why, timeline, parameters, constraints, resources
• Plan the project:
• Major components
• Define tasks
• Establish timeline
• Identify dependencies (what has to be done in what order)
• Assign task owners
• Establish test, and revise the baseline schedule.
• Risk management: 
• Identify and assess potential threats.
• Develop a risk management plan.
• Identify critical stakeholders and develop a communication plan with all affected in the project.
• Obtain administrative support
• Execution phase:
• Project manager monitors progress and works with teams to resolve issues or problems
• Timeline or resources may need adjustment
• Communication with stakeholders frequent and clear.
• Completion and handoff
• Project team needs to verify completion of work with administrative owners
• Assess success and develop a hand-off process.  Assess ongoing responsibilities
• Closeout and recognition
• Formally handoff any ongoing activities
• Formal closeout with owner
• Pitfalls:  vague definition, inadequate planning, “expert” as project manager, failure to communicate, organizational commitment lacking

Storytelling Mojo: Creating the 21st Centry Library Narrative

Presenter Michael Margolis
www.getstoried.com (his website)
http://www.bit.ly/CAStoryMap (project he did for CA state library)

He talked about reframing the library story as people don’t realize why libraries still matter.  “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs are by elevators.” – Stephen Fry
“Those who tell the stories rule the world” – Hopi proverb

Everybody is a storyteller; everybody has a story to tell.  Librarians are trained to be objective, not to influence people what to think.  First you have to find your voice – to tell your story you have to have a point of view. 

Participants in the class paired up and each person had a limited amount of time to discuss a topic that answered some or all of the following questions and to talk about something that mattered:

What role does your library aspire to play?  How is your library evolving?  Coming from?  Going to?  Are you a repository or a creator?  What’s the new emerging story?
He asked us to identify what it was that made the other person “light up” as that is where the energy is.  Storytelling reveals the invisible lines of connection between us and the listener. We are naturally hard-wired to try to find ourselves in each other’s stories.

Why innovation fails:

• No common story or competing stories
• Change framed as judgment of the past
• People can’t find themselves in the story
• Self-validation overshadows authenticity
• Culture identity and emotions are underestimated
• Big promises aren’t made real and tangible
• The story is lost in translation.

Things to consider:

1. Motivation – why are you telling this story?  Are you trying to sell something or do you care?
2. Audience – who are they?  You need to KNOW.  Don’t think of your audience as an abstract.  Create a persona with a back story to tell your story to.
3. Stakes – What are the stakes?  Why to care?  This is a unique moment in time, convergence of unique forces – this is important
4. Trust – How can they believe you?  Create Trust
5. Emotion- Does it feel good?  Does the story make me feel good?
6. Resonance – Do I belong in this story?

Reimagining Libraries: United for Libraries President’s Program

Anthink transformation of the Rangeview Public Library

• G.A.S.P.  The graphics, ambiance, style, and presentation should be cohesive so that you know where you are.
• They had a visioning process so everyone could help create the description of what the library would be.
• They used a service model based on Relationship, Value, and Experience.  They call roving “Fluffinrovin” --You fluff (straighten, re-shelve, tidy up) while you rove.
• They had displays that included a “how-to” do something:  ribbons and a mirror with instructions for how to tie scarves.  Customers could stand at the display and learn how to do something such as tie a tie, origami, fold napkins, etc.
• They changed summer reading to “My Summer: Read, Think, Do”
• Their mission statement is “We open doors for curious minds”

Everything is BETA: Building an Innovative Culture and Library Practice

Steve Laughlin

There are two kinds of innovation: Incremental innovation (tweak what you are already doing) and disruptive innovation (cross industry impact)
Where do you find innovation? 

• Watch your technology customers and what they are doing.
• Look for the “point of puzzlement” in your library.  Where do customers stop and appear puzzled?
• Surveys, existing data, focus groups, interviews, comments and complaints, your observations

There are three kinds of customers who you can innovate for:

• Undershot customers – They like something you are doing and want to take it further.  They want more.
• Overshot customers – They want the basics to be easier and quicker. 
• Non-consumers – They are using Amazon or borrowing someone else’s books

Employees want three things: Choice, Challenge, and Chums.

Mary Anne Hodel of Orange County Library System.
She shared Marissa Mayer’s 9 Principles of Innovation:

1. Innovation, not instant perfection.
2. Ideas come from everywhere.
3. A license to pursue your dreams.
4. Morph projects, don’t kill them.
5. Share as much information as you can.
6. Users, Users, Users.
7. Data is apolitical.
8. Creativity loves constraints.
9. You’re brilliant? We’re hiring.

Don’t think resistance – think that someone is at an earlier stage or level of change.  She recommended the book Managing Transitions by William Bridges.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – the Future of Leaning?

http://bit.ly/moocFuture

The first MOOC was offered in 2008 at the University of Manitoba.  Massive – more than 2000 signed up (24 from the U of Manitoba, 2200 from around the world), Open to the outside, Online conveyance of information.

Three years later, in 2011, a MOOC on artificial intelligence had a sign up of 160,000.

In 2012 there were three primary providers: 

• Udacity – Founded by Stanford professors, offers primarily math and science
• Coursera – Founded Stanford computer science professors, 378 courses in 25 categories, 81 partners
• edX – Founded in 2012 by MIT and Harvard, 27 partners and 55 courses

MOOC aggregators provide the ability to search all available MOOCs at one time.  They include coursebuffet.com and class-central.com

There are two types of MOOCs:  xMOOCs and cMOOCs

• xMOOCs – traditional format, online quizzes, linear path
• cMOOCs – Knowledge creation, social networked learning, path evolves from student input, crowd sourced learning through peer interaction.

Funding:  MOOCs are expensive – 100-300 hours of preparation, instructor dedicates 8-10 hours a week during the class, $15,000 to $50,000 in production costs.  Providers also have to cover the costs of servers and advertisements.

Udacity (15 million) and Coursera (16 million) are funded by venture capital.  edX is a non-profit funded by grants  (60 million).
San Jose State University partnered with Udacity to offer remedial courses for credit for students not prepared to start college.
Georgia Teach and AT&T partnered with Udacity to offer a CS Master’s degree.  The classes are free but students must pay if they want credit.  Projected cost for the degree is less than $7000.

Coursera is licensing courses for blended learning.  They offer verified certificates that are not college credit, but may be valuable for professional development. 
edX wants to become self-sufficient by offering certifications and in-person contact with professors.

So, how are these going to make money?  It’s all about the data.  There is a lot of information about the people taking the classes.  Just like Facebook, they can gather data and when there is enough volume they can sell it. 

Other issues to consider are copyright, ownership of student work, equal access to materials since students may be in different countries.

The advantages of MOOCs are:

• Low cost
• Personal interest
• Convenience
• Access to experts and global participation

The disadvantages of MOOCs are:

• Lack of assessment
• Accreditation and quality assurance
• Future of academic careers
• Isolated learning