Library directors can get obsessed with the numbers

I was reading an article that has been circulating through the library world, Hartford Public Library: a study in bad behavior. The article describes the various illegal acts that have been occurring in the library with total disregard from the library administration.

A troubling discovery is that the library director removed the security gates simply because they did not go with the new layout of the library. The gates were also not working properly, but that is no excuse to remove them completely. Furthermore, illegal acts have been routinely ignored. In fact, the article seems to indicate the library director encourages people to avoid calling the police. In the end she justifies her decisions based on the numbers. The library is getting heavy use, isn't that what we all want?

There are many statistical tricks for library directors to boost their numbers. One of them is to remove restrictions: removing barriers such as fines, security gates, and not having or not enforcing behavior guidelines in the library. No need to upset anyone and make your library look bad or provide someone with a bad experience at the cost of looking unfriendly. However, the long term costs are dramatic. People will not want to come into the library as they would perceive it as dangerous and out of control. Furthermore, books and materials that state "in" on the catalog are in fact not really there, leading to further frustration and lowered use. They say they have it, but they really don't. Nothing good is ever in, again, leading to a decline in usage. I've even worked in a library that didn't require ID in order to obtain a library card. You can imagine the non-return rates.

What troubles me the most is the lack of a behavior policy and the amount of illegal activity nobody does anything about. Library staff shouldn't have to engage with someone who is committing a criminal act. They shouldn't have to deal with overwhelming situations which they alone have to handle on a regular basis. It leads to low morale, and in worse situations, bodily harm. Police officers are trained to deal with these situations. If a situation suddenly changes, then a staff member must find a way to minimize the situation until the police arrive. Of course, they must do something. There is an obligation for staff to be proactive in preventing and stopping these types of issues, but not on their own, and not if the situation is overwhelming.

Stats go up because of good service, good collections, and fully functioning computers. That, plus marketing, will lead to an increase. It is not necesssary to remove all restrictions and rules to increase usage. We can't have an unsafe environment in which patrons and staff are afraid. We cannot hemorrhage money through lost collections. In the end, the short term gain only leads to a long term loss.

Librarians and Directors need to utilize their own services

It is difficult to be objective when looking at the services your own library provides. In any industry, an organization must look at their services and see it from the outsider's perspective. Is it easy to use? Does the service make sense?

For libraries, a problem that I see is the public computer stations. Do librarians actually sit down at one of these stations and try to do what they would do normally on them? Can you check your email? How fast does it go? Don't just rely on a speed test that the computer tells you. Sit down at the computer and try to do what you would normally do at home. Can you do them? Why not? Is it slow?

When we had computer slow-downs at my library I did a simple search on Google. The page itself took 30 seconds to load. At that point I realized we had a problem. The library only offers an hour to the patrons per day. In the study, we found that most patrons could barely check their email before their time was up due to the bandwidth strain. Thanks to e-rate funds, we were able to upgrade the service from 1.5 mbps to 6mbps. It's funny, on the first day of the new bandwidth, I could noticeably hear the clicking of mice (mouses?) and noticed that it was unusually fast. Blazing even. Many people will suffer through bad services since they have nowhere else to turn, but it shouldn't be so painfully poor. I read this post today and it made me laugh:

Tales from the "Liberry" 2.0: Gene FINALLY Poops: "Back when I had dial up at home, it used to be that going to work was my great escape from the slow speed at home. Now that I have amazingly reliable Verizon DSL at home, however, going to work is like sliding into a nice pool of tepid tar."

I think this is the next big issue for public libraries, bandwidth assurance. We need to start budgeting and paying for network upgrades for our t-1 lines. It is great that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave us computers in 2001, then replaced them in 2005, and they even upgrade libraries from dial-up to broadband. However, the next big push needs to be in sufficient bandwidth. The average library doesn't have enough pipe to make the service acceptable. The result is the post from above, it's terrible.

How healthy is your organization? | Information Wants To Be Free

There is a great post by Meredith Farkas about healthy workplaces. This, in part, was inspired by a recent post over at Library Garden about why people leave?

There are several categories in the Library Garden post that discuss why people leave their jobs:

Pay-

Vacation and/or Holidays-

Hours and/or Nights-

Professional Investment-
Advancement-

To which I commented:
Pay
The system should be performing an annual compensation and classification study. This will ensure that pay is equitable. If you are not doing that, you can't complain that people are leaving for better pay. I had someone leave from a part-time to a full time in another county. That one is tough because it wasn't in the comp and class realm, but most of the people who work for me get the same pay as any other library in Arizona. Librarians make 41K same as Chandler, Arizona, Mariciopa County, etc.

Hours
This is a common complaint and the burden of nights and weekends should be shared. How can one say one should do more than another? In some systems, everybody wants to work a night or a weekend and it works better for everyone. If one is unfairly taxed, that is a reason to leave, but if you do it along with everyone else, there is not much to say about that. If everyone is committing equally and there are problems, it may need a review of hours of operation.

Professional investment
Every library should have a training budget. It should allow as many library staff as possible to go to training, explore their interests, and pay for their trips to conferences etc. Most libraries can only afford to send a few people, and then only higher up, if it can be opened up to everyone, the results are interesting.

Advancement
This one is the toughest. Most libraries are fairly flat institutions. They allow pay increases and there is some room for advancement, but not substatial. This has been an issue for me in the last three months. I lost a library assistant to a bigger system with more pay, I lost a librarian to become a library director in a neighboring town, and a I lost a senior library assistant who became a youth librarian in another neighboring city. There is no room for advancement at my small one library system. The only choice is to go to neighboring communities. It will change, but slowly. In the meantime, I will bleed because of it.


Meredith poses several questions from the book First, Break All the Rules. She repeats 12 questions from the book. I replied to them in her comments and am re-posting it here:

“1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

Yes because we issue job duties not job descriptions. It breaks all duties down and details percentage of time. There is flexibility, but it provides the general idea.

2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

I always leave extra cash in the budget plus I ask staff what they need around budget time. I also have a Friends wish list that staff contribute to.

3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

Job positions are not static. One person cannot do the same as another and it is better to mold that position towards the person’s desire. If they like providing programming instead of cataloging, I would configure it as much as I can to make it work. Sometimes there is flexibility, sometimes not.

4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?

I always do a manager walk around and complement staff on a job well done. I need to do more of that. Previously, I provided an employee of the month program so that staff would be recognized for good work and what they did that was so good. It has taken a brief hiatus. I will find an alternative.

5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

Personal time is very important to me. If someone is going through something personally, they won’t be very happy at their jobs. It is better to extend as much leeway as possible so that they can resolve an issue. I once had a staff member needing to take three weeks off in a few days to go see their dying mother. I let them take it and use it as sick time. This was a total violation of policy, but the person was able to get there before their mother died. A few days later, she wouldn’t have made it.

6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

I hope I provide enough encouragement for training and professional development. It is difficult because most of the training is in the valley, a 30 mile drive, so many are reluctant to go on their own. I put out a training program so that they can request any training they want and attend any conferences they want regardless of their status.

7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
Meetings are usually feedback meetings. What is going on and what do we need to do about it? Do we need to adjust anything. Front line staff opinion is critical. If they aren’t providing honest feedback, I can’t make good decisions.

8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?

My library has a strategic plan and each staff members role is molded around providing active parts of the plan or support parts. I came up with a graph that represents each staff members role and displayed it.

9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

This wasn’t always the case, but with some training and some people leaving, everyone works more as a team.

10. Do I have a best friend at work?

I think that is established through after work programs. Some staff members set-up bowling after work or other events. Outside of work events help with this.

11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?

Everybody gets a review from their supervisor. However, it is important that there is a constant discussion about expectations and mission. If you are just doing a review every six months, you may be missing the day to day stuff. It also minimizes surprises at the review bad or good. No one should be surprised if I think they are doing a good job.

12. At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?”

This goes back to providing training opportunities both inside and outside of work. The library provides regular training and elective training. Staff are allowed to attend conferences and programs. Most of them can only go in state right now. Some can go to national conferences. It is tough to afford anything out of state.

Finally, I will point something I read on Tom Peters blog about morale:

Top 50 Have yous?
SNIP
Have you thanked a front-line employee for a small act of helpfulness ... in the last three days?
Have you thanked a front-line employee for a small act of helpfulness ... in the last three hours?
Have you thanked a frontline employee for carrying around a great attitude ... today?
END SNIP

I would say the solution to all of these posts are the simple words thank you. I am surprised that in other organizations, people get so gaga over thank you. It shouldn't be this way. people should know they are doing a good job. There is a great point over at Slow Leadership about this issue:

SNIP

Gratitude isn’t just a pleasant trait, it’s also a very powerful one.

Thanking others and recognizing how much we all depend on support and co-operation makes it far more likely that help will be there when you need it. Those who help others most freely are most likely to be helped in their turn—provided that gratitude as recognized for what it is: a major constituent in the glue that holds together groups of all sizes, from a few friends to society as a whole.

END SNIP

I would say if you want to improve morale, the best thing to do is to say thank you. It is a rare commodity these days.

Libraries: Good, Cheap, but not Fast

There is a saying that often adorns many business desks:
Services can be good, cheap, or fast, pick two:
If good and fast, it cannot be cheap.
If fast and cheap, it cannot be good.
If good and cheap, it cannot be fast

The latter is a model most libraries have chosen. However, it's interesting to note how often I hear patrons would be willing to pay for better services. This sentiment is often not shown through taxes. They seem to want to pay more, but when the time comes, that support doesn't materialize.

Often libraries will attempt to offer the fast service for a price. This decision must be weighed carefully as the attempt can lead to the fast and cheap model, losing the good. This is a major reason decisions and service levels change more slowly, again better to be good than fast.

Interestingly enough, this request for fast service, or convenience, comes from non-users. This makes the decision even more difficult as one risks losing the existing users to go after non-users. Nothing miffs patrons more than the dismantling of an existing and popular service. This is magnified if the dismantling comes at the behest of a perceived "progress". I ran into this when I made the decision between more space for computers, and less space for paperbacks. (Read more here or here.) I was successful, but I ran into a great deal of resistance. However, I was justified because I had more demand on computers than I did not paperback books.

Furthermore, it may be no amount of trying will satisfy anyone, let alone create new users. The question of "Why Try?" comes all to easy.

I do often get frustrated reading librarian bloggers lament about how their local libraries should do A, B, and C. This complaint often goes out on his or her blog instead of trying to create the change locally. I am a big believer of "Think Globally, Act Locally", so when I see a blog post about it, my first thought is, what did this person do to try to create that change. This is very frustrating for someone like me. I would rather you told me, "THIS SUCKS", than complain to the world about how much I suck. This is more directed at the library patron.

Many libraries do what they do according to a strategic plan. (If your library doesn't have one, or doesn't do it, that really needs to change, nothing inspires the public as much as having a say in how their library should serve them.) If you are looking to create change in your local library, this is something to review to see if you and the library are on the same wavelength.

However, you are at a disadvantage if you are just starting to use the local public library. Existing patrons beat you. They have already made the library their own. If you haven't been using us already, you are in the minority. In my community, we have 38,000 people, 24,000 have library cards. It can take a few months before services can begin to shifted towards what you want. If the public wants more mysteries or Christian fiction, and you like Science Fiction, it will take a while to push us to get more science fiction, but you need to ask. Not only that, you need to ask and USE IT! Nothing is more annoying than a patron who comes in to demand a service or a book, then when we do it, no one shows up to the program and no one checks out the book (the patron just thought we should have it). Libraries don't have endless resources, they need the constant push to get them to do what you want AND you have to use it. Otherwise, we look like we are wasting our time.

For librarians trying to create change, if your idea gets shot down, you can't give up on it as fast as the administration did. You have to keep trying, changing, repacking, and pushing. It's knowing what to do in what situation in order to get what you want. One of my favorite all-time shows was the Prisoner (aired before my time, but watched the whole thing on the Sci-Fi channel hosted by Harlan Ellison, one of my all-time favorite authors). This show has some of my favorite quotes:

“He has revolted. Resisted. Fought. Held fast. Maintained. Destroyed resistance. Overcome coercion. The right to be a person, someone or individual. We applaud his private war, and concede that despite materialistic efforts, he has survived intact and secure!”

Fight for change, listen for change, keep the conversation going, keep the brain working, and it keeps you ready to move forward. One needs to push, one needs to listen, one needs to implement. Expect the process to be slow, but it will be better.

Tough Road for library funding

Some library funding stories from the past few weeks around the nation:

Town library will get funding, Plainfield leader saysBy JESSICA DURKIN Norwich Bulletin
April 4, 2007 (Norwich, CT)
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/NEWS01/704040317/1002
SNIP
PLAINFIELD -- First Selectman Kevin Cunningham said Tuesday selectmen will continue funding the Plainfield Public Library in next year's budget.
Six members of the library board and the librarian attended a Board of Finance meeting Tuesday, upset selectmen eliminated the library's funding for next year, which threatened closure.

Library officials asked the money be put back into the selectmen's proposed budget.
"I'm sure many people would be very angry to find out the town will have no library," Librarian Nancy Wilcox told the board.
END SNIP

Yes I would imagine people would be unhappy that one day they have a library and one day they don't without any public input. Its amazing how flippant city officials can be with the library budget and operations.


Library funding approved, tax rates same as last yearBy Anita J. Firebaugh
Craig County, Virginia April 21, 2007
http://mainstreetnewspapers.com/articles/2007/04/11/new_castle/news/news01.txt

SNIP
The county has also put $13,850 in the regional library line item and allotted $6,000 for tourism.Prior to the budget hearing, Marjorie Hodge, president of the Friends of the Library, told the supervisors the library is a necessary service to citizens and that use numbers continue to increase.She asked the supervisors to include funding for a part-time paid library employee in the upcoming budget.The county had to give back $5,176 in state funding to the Library of Virginia because the local library had failed to meet its obligations. One of those obligations is a paid staff member.
END SNIP

Its too bad that local governments don't understand the value of libraries and too often they are found on the chopping block. I like that many state libraries provide a punitive incentive to fund libraries. The availability of books and library services should be as commonplace as the streets one drives on.

Cap to library funding considered
By NAOMI SMOOT / Journal Staff Writer
http://www.journal-news.net/news/articles.asp?articleID=8445
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Berkely County, West Virginia
SNIP
During the meeting, commissioners told delegates that they would also be interested in finding a way to cap the amount of money that they put toward libraries. In the past five years, the county’s library funding allocation has increased from $289,000 to more than $500,000, Overington said. Commissioners agreed that the increase had been sizable, and questioned whether their budget could continue to accommodate this expansive growth in the library’s funding requests.“Everybody else comes to petition before the County Commission,” Commissioner Bill Stubblefield said. “We can’t afford this continual escalation.”Commissioner Ron Collins agreed, noting that he was beginning to question the amount of funding that the county is being asked to put towards libraries each year. He said it was time to consider a cap on the amount of money that they would allocate for the library. Stubblefield said he would be interested in seeing a cap placed on the library’s funding, perhaps at the 2007 budget level.At present, the library has a $1.5 million budget, $540,000 of which comes from educational funding.
END SNIP

Goodness, you mean that the people who want library services and have asked for an increase in library services shouldn't get it? Why is that? Why should there be a cap on library services, is there a cap on other government services? I also have a difficult time in the complaint about the rise of library funding a mere $200,000 in five years, that's only $40,000 a year! How cheap can you get! I always find it surprising how governments want to squeeze libraries instead of putting a general squeeze on all services. I am also surprised how much service these libraries can provide in the midst of these trying situations.


Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks' battle with Central Library
Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Feb 23, 2007 by Tara E. Buck
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4180/is_20070223/ai_n18638906
Poll: Readers split on Internet policy, APril 20, 2007
http://www.rbj.net/fullarticle.cfm?sdid=66185
Rochesther (Monroe County), New York

SNIP
RBJ Daily Report readers are divided sharply on Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks’ threat to withdraw all county funding of the Central Library unless it acts immediately to “halt the public viewing of pornography and other graphic materials” on computers at the library.
END SNIP

To filter or not to filter can be discussed in a reasonable matter. Libraries must comply with federal law unless the local municipality should choose to refuse federal grant money. Libraries are cash strapped as it is, so its difficult to get such an extreme reaction from a funding source. To say "Filter or I will close your library" seems extraordinarily extreme, especially since computer and internet access is just ONE of many services the library provides.

Times can be very tough for libraries. All I know is that the more the financial decision makers use libraries, the more they understand their use, the more funding that usually follows.

That first impression

The saying, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" is held even truer for libraries. I don't know if some people already come in with a feeling that they don't want to use the library or expect that it won't have what they want. We seem to need blow them away before they give us a first chance, let alone a second. I know that our library made the most dramatic increase in general usage when we renovated the library and doubled the computer capacity and had brand new sleek looking dells.

Too many people for too long saw the library as dirty, with slow clunky computers, and only bums there to greet you. Furthermore, the collection was in shambles. We were in a dos based catalog system that was difficult to use, it wasn't web-based, and no collection development reports were EVER run.

We removed the distractions that were immediate deterrents to library use. We upgraded our catalog, upgraded the computers, renovated the building. However, no matter how many changes we made, it still boils down to every reader his/her book. If they can't find their book, the most important book in the whole world, then this library is not for them.

Two cases in point. A high school student comes in for a particular book assigned by her class. We should have materials that meet every interest. She doesn't find the book. Well the we are just crap. How dare we call ourselves a library when you don't have the most important book in the world? We should be reported to the Library of Congress! She ended up doing something better, she blogged about it. It was a two part blog post, OUCH! The worst part was that she was a reader and would have probably been a die-hard patron, but we weren't the library for her.

Another one is with library donations. When a patron donates their prized possessions to the library, their books, they expect us to fall over in amazement. "Wonderful, this is just the book I have been looking for, the 1931 complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica! How did you know?" Its sad since these people have the best intentions. They would rather donate their mold covered attic-imprisoned books to the library rather than throw them away. Its either they can't bear to throw a book out, or they think we are so poor we would take it. Again, every book his/her reader. When they donate their book and we don't need it, it affects patrons deeply.

Lastly, a patron comes in looking for an audio version of the bible. This item has been a long standing for our library because not all vendors have the entire bible, and if they do, its a mess to process and catalog. We have received many complaints before about not having one. We finally were able to order it. However, when this woman wanted it, we only had one copy of the NIV New Testament, but an entire copy of the King James version. It turns out she was in the middle of reading the King James version and it was exactly what she was looking for...SCORE! That is when you look like a genius and the patron feels like this library is for them.

Collection development can be very much like a democracy. You order what the people want and they vote with their library card. To the patron who can't find their items it is much like living in a red state when you vote blue. It is isolating. It is like telling the patron your interests aren't welcome here. That is very tough to say when we offer so much to everyone else, just not for you.

However, that feeling seems too much dependant on that first impression. How can we get patrons to trust us and to use our many services? If the high school student had waited a moment, she would have found that she could have requested the library purchase the book, or request an Interlibrary loan. If that patron worked with our system, she could have helped build the collection that interested her. It would take some time, but it would have developed.

It seems that everyone expects to have exactly what they want NOW! A government funded library cannot keep up and patrons have to learn to become more patient. I don't know what the answer is, I just wish they would not be quite so angry we didn't have their book.

IT illiteracy undermines productivity

It seems that one place where staff is just as underfunded as libraries is in IT support. How many times have you witnessed the "centralization" of IT and how it is more cost effecient? Well its not very effecient if there is not enough of them to provide basic support and maintenance, nor is it effecient if your staff know very little about computers and are required to work with them every day.

In a recent report in IT Week:

SNIP

IT illiteracy undermines productivity
Firms are finally facing up to the shortage of tech-savvy amongst their workforce
James Murray, IT Week 19 Mar 2007

"A survey last year of over 74,000 employers from the Learning and Skills Council found that 13 percent of applicants across all vacancies where firms have identified skills shortages lack general IT user skills. Meanwhile, a recent study from government and employer-backed IT skills development body e-skills UK found that UK employers felt they needed to improve the IT skills of 7.6 million employees out of an IT-using workforce of 21.5 million.
"It is a major problem," said Martin Harvey director of IT user skills at e-skills UK. "We have evidence that those with the right IT skills for their role can save 40 minutes a day compared to those who are less adept. It may not sound a lot but when you add it up that means a huge amount of productivity is being lost.""

END SNIP

So what you gain in less IT staff you lose in an unskilled workforce struggling with just the basics of their computers.

I set up a Library Technology Handbook for my staff. I train them to solve 90% of the problems in the library. It's not IT's fault that they have to set things up and go, they get as much support as we do.

Anyway, if your library needs help, I have a stripped copy available here.

Have fun!

Your library visit is over

Dealing with problem patrons is never easy. Depending on the situation, you can appear too lax on your policies or too restrictive where people don't want to use the library at all. (You know the whole shushing thing :)

Some people need the cop called on them and others just need a firm talking to. Going up to teens and making up some reason to ban them will deter other teens from using the library. Some people might say, "Well good then". Those people are wrong.There has to be a balance between just kicking someone out for being loud and dealing with behavior that requires police action. Not every teen is some criminal.

We had the same problem that every library across the country all seem to have, too many after school teens and too much noise. We ended up having a police officer come over and talk to us on how to handle everything from too loud patrons to potentially violent ones. After studying the issue and looking at other libraries, we realized that our problems were not so bad. We came up with a soft approach strategy, in which, problem patrons had their pins reset so they couldn't use the internet.

Why was this the key issue? The internet is the biggest carrot of library services. Theprocess did several things:

1.The process was non-confrontational. A problem patron was pointed out, he or she was warned, then documented, and finally their pin reset. Staff only had to give one warning.

2. The process engaged the problem patron. They were forced to talk to the library manager in order to have their pin reset. The patron's record was reviewed when they came to see the manager, much like going to the principal's office. We let them know the consequences if the problems continued.

3. The process empowered staff. They did not have to call me in order to do this. They identified the problem and took action. The staff are so smart about this. They know the problem and are empowered to act, the best of both worlds.

4. The process weeded out problem people without having to even argue the issue. Most of the real problem patrons were not using their own card. When they came to reset the pin, and the person who was obviously over 18 and male had a juvenile card with a female name, they fess up pretty quick. We don't allow people to use other patron's cards.

5. The process weeded out the leaders. In a group, one person can set the tone. If they are roudy, so is the group.

6. We had to rely on the police less. Calling the cops on teenagers that are too loud just seems wrong. What message does that tell them, being a teenager is a crime?

I can't say whether this approach works best, but its working so far. Problem patrons either leave or shape up. Its better than their library visit being over before it begins.

Cough it up or Library fines are good for you

See the wonders of the public library

The library wants you to use their services. We try very hard to get patrons' attention, to get them to read, to use our resources, after all, it is free (and good for you). You have free access to an education, to a new job, a better life, and free entertainment, all at your public library. However, there is a price to free, you have to share. Unfortunately, some people do not like to share or are otherwise inconsiderate. In order to encourage these users to share, libraries have fines. Libraries would prefer not to do this, as previously stated, we would prefer you to use our services and high fines block patrons from doing that. Furthermore, when surveys go out to non-library users (as we scratch our heads as to why they wouldn't use a FREE service) the top two reasons are they didn't know about us, or they had fines:

From librarian.net
"Surveying non-users, Sarah Houghton-Jan points to a library who is trying to figure out who is NOT using their library. I did a little bit of this during National Library week. I set up a library card sign-up table outside of Wal-Mart and met a LOT of non-library users. The main reason people didn’t go back to the library? Fines, especially for younger patrons. "

Many patrons rack up fines, or realize their materials are so overdue that returning them would cost the same as keeping them. This can often happen when the patron is younger and the parents couldn't get the items back on time, so they never returned. Then, several years later, the child returns, very sheepish, assuming that we are going to smack their wrists with a ruler for having fines. Then they realize we have no record of their activity since its been five years. They happily get a new card and go about their way. Often, these people just don't make the effort to come back and that is a tragedy for that person.

Play nice, or it will cost you

Then there is the flip side of that. The fiduciary responsibilities libraries have to their taxpayers. A good post this week by the PVLD Director's blog, states about their struggle with fines.

"At this morning's meeting someone asked "Why don't we charge a fee for placing holds on items that are on the shelf rather than a fee for uncollected holds?" This is an interesting question as it really relates to customer service philosophy."

The director further discusses the differences between a fee and a fine. A library charging a fee for placing a hold is different than a library creating a fine for not picking one up. In the first case, the patron is paying for extra services, and in the other they are penalized for causing extra work. In my opinion, as far as fees go, there should never be an impediment or fee to access materials. A fee on holds creates a tiered system whereas a person with $2 will get the book faster, the others may not get it at all.

There is a line between creating fines to encourage users to bring back their items and punishing them for making mistakes. We all want patrons to use the library. If there were unlimited resources we could just say, "Keep all those books, we'll just get more." Of course with the tight budget of libraries, it just doesn't work that way.

However, whether we collect fines or fees, over time both become a fee to use our services. Even the best patrons will have fines from time to time and have a running total on their account. We can tweak the fines and fees system to encourage more use, but trying to find a balance is not easy.

Our Plan: The Tiered System

We found that we had user drop-off from fines. We had a threshold of $10 before we stopped allowing patrons to check-out. What ended up happening was that people would rack up $9.99 on their account, check out four videos, realize that they kept them too long, and with the fine they racked up then, they would never return. What that fine threshold becomes is the fee to use our services. In order to combat this, we decided to lower the threshold, but provided a little give.

After $5, patrons were restricted to only two items and now audiovisual materials. Not providing audiovisual means no movies (which carry a heft fine of $1 per day as opposed to $.10 for all other materials). The idea behind this was that patrons would be able to continue to use the services longer since they would more readily provide $5 over $10.

Even though it seems we were punishing them, we were not, we were trying to keep them in good graces longer so that they will continue to use the services. There is nothing like going to do some PR at a major event or at a Walmart (as Jessamyn did) with your bookmobile advertising the library's services with the reply, "Oh I think I have fines". They will also remember trying to get out of the fine to continue to use the library, but the library (dedicated to its fiduciary responsibility) said no way. So we shouldn't be surprised when they give us the same cold shoulder.

As a way to further help patrons remain in our good graces is to provide Food for Fines. Patrons can bring in one non-perishable item and we count it towards $1 on their fine (which is a great deal since you can buy Top Ramen 10 for $1. It seems like a rip-off toward the library, but the food banks love it. You can't always find a can opener, but you can always find water and a microwave somewhere.)

So did lowering the fine threshold work? Circulation went up during 2005 when we first implemented the system. From 2004-2006 here are the collection rates of the library:

2004, $64,000 in charges, $32,000 recovered (50%)
2005, $62,44 in charges, $58,000 recovered (92%) (woo!)
2006, $126,596 in charges, $46,000 recovered (25%) (What?)

What happened? It seemed like it was working right away. However, instead of people saying, "Great only $5 and I get full services back." they simply adjusted to the lower fine rate, but did the same procedure. In fact, we ended up fining people more and they paid less. Part of this was a result of an increase in DVD selection and circulation, resulting in higher fines because of the $1 per day late charge. So the theory didn't work. I think it has its benefits for the good library users, but the same users that had problems at $10, ended up having the same problem at $5. Worse, most of the time this threshold didn't matter since they racked up $25 from a lost book right off the bat, making the whole process negligible.

Going to Collections

After the dismal performance last year, we had no choice but to with a collection agency to recover our materials (they just ding your credit). I know we need to keep our users, but when they flagrantly keep our stuff, that goodwill ends. We never had a problem with theft (people walking out the door with our stuff), but we have always had a problem with people checking out our items and not returning them. In a way, it is the same problem.

So far, the collection agency has worked. We began the service last month. In January 2007, we had $12,000 in charges and $4,000 in payments, this month we have $$4800 in charges and $2800 in payments. So far, it seems to have knocked down people accruing fines, people are bringing back their books instead of keeping them, and people are paying what they owe. It is a drastic step to go with a collection agency, but if gone with the right company. It can be very effective.

We want patrons to use our library and we can do that by trying to help them keep their fines low. A tiered system works somewhat, but not well enough on its own. The collection agency puts the message into many patrons' heads that they need to respect and value the library if they want to continue to use it. The realization that they can get into trouble for not returning materials makes them more honest and keeps them using the library (plus it makes it so they can't get away :) I guess it is a form of tough love. By making patrons pay their fines we are keeping them using the library, and that is good for them, even though it doesn't seem so when they cough up the money.

Why Arizona struggles with education

Every person deserves an opportunity to excel. In 1968, the Bilingual Education Act was passed. If you are an intelligent person, but don't speak English, opportunities were provided in that language. Opportunities also existed for that person to acquire English. This ends up producing a strong workforce since you are taking someone who is very intelligent and adding them to the workforce in the United States simply by giving them an opportunity to learn more in their native language and then acquire English as well. I would consider that a win for the local economic development, and a win for that individual.

On the flip side, when those opportunities are not given, and people are given jobs with little or no training and have no opportunity to learn the language you have higher accidents rates as seen here,Hispanic workers suffer during boom (The Arizona Republic Feb. 13, 2007). Even ignoring the fact that the person in this article has been hurt, or that many others have been hurt because instructions were not properly relayed, this hurts business. Any perceived profit from underpaying this population goes away if there are high accident rates or poorly performed work due to poor instruction.

However, many people do not see it that way. They would prefer to have as many deterrents as possible to prevent someone from coming into this country, and then for those who are already in this country to make it hard for them to stay. This strategy doesn't work. If people are determined to come here for opportunities, they will come regardless of how many fences built, programs thrown at them, and opportunities denied them and for one simple reason, a job. If there is a job opportunity, they will go for it to feed their family. Hopefully, they will be able to get better jobs and provide more opportunities for their family, a sustainable future. Most people in this country would prefer for them to not have this opportunity. When blocks are created to keep these people down, that is where they will stay, however, that doesn't mean they will leave, or that it helps the economy.

What ends up happening when doors are shut to this immigrant population is that they are kept in that same place much like slave. They will come to the area for the job, live in substandard housing, and take their paycheck to send home to their family or try to use it to get their family here. However, when they cannot get the education or have the opportunity to learn the language, they will stay in that situation forever. Instead of becoming part of a healthy workforce in that community, they end up becoming a drain. They are kept poor and uneducated and not because they are not intelligent, but because they are blocked from learning English. This doesn't make them leave, partially because they become too poor for mobility, but mostly because it is still better than where they were. They will stay here and send their children to school here and use the medical facilities here, and use the many resources available to them here. They won't be able to pay back what they used because they don't make enough, and if they are not given the opportunity to make more to give back to the system, the drain gets bigger, until you get a system wide, or even a state-wide problem, both in schools and hospitals.

In a recent article, Arizona was last education-wise of all 50 states, and the chances for an Arizona student succeeding are dim. Why? Is it because public education is underfunded, that the cost of education is skyrocketing, or is it because this state believes in English only education?

Of course it is all of the above, but let's look at the last reason. Arizona is now the fastest growing state in the nation. Much of that comes from immigration, mostly Spanish speaking. A great deal of money is spent on helping Spanish Speakers learn English, but the process is wrong and often humiliating. Often, employers will send Spanish speakers to programs for them to learn English. After six weeks, they think they should be able to understand English. Realistically, they are no closer than they were six weeks ago. It take seven years to learn a new language, SEVEN YEARS and some people think it can be done in six weeks, or that English can be learned by osmosis, but this simply isn't true. This misunderstanding of how language is acquired hurts not just immigrants, it hurts everyone.

Perfectly intelligent students immigrate to this country for its opportunities, but don't know the language before entering. In school, they are given English immersion and not assisted in learning the material or subject. A student could be brilliant in math, science, or literature, but if they don't know the language, they may as well be a dunce. We used to have bi-lingual education, but with English immersion, no child left Behind, and prop 300, we have ensured that we will never tap into this intelligence and use it, and we are just wasting it. Proposition 300 will ensure that this population never gets an education, but that doesn't mean they won't stay here and it doesn't mean they won't come here. It just means that they will stay poor here and until opportunities for them are re-instated, you will feel that in overwhelmed schools, hospitals, and general services because this population cannot pull themselves up when everyone is pushing them down. However in the end, we all fall down by doing this.

Fix-it Fridays: Management Fads and inspiring staff

We recently had an in-service day about customer service. This was a pre-FISH type of program (I just did not tell them it was fish, I don't want to look like this It really doesn't matter that it is a fad. I know that if you tell staff what it is, they will immediately be resistant. Most of the time staff are resistant to change out of fear of more work, or worse, more work with no reward.

In the end these techniques are attempts to motivate employees and help them enjoy their jobs. I prefer people to be happy at their jobs, but it is difficult to keep them that way with the type of people they have to deal with. FISH is an attempt to have employees own their jobs and have fun at work. The more fun you have, the better the mood of everyone else (including our patrons). However, it is difficult to sustain this type of environment. All you need is one grump that is resilient in his or her grumpiness and the thing can fall apart. In the FISH book series, the first two books demonstrate how to create a FISH environment and successful FISH environments. The third of the FISH books is called FISH Sticks, which documents the trouble in maintaining this type of mindset of enjoying your work.

I remember a few months back on publib where everyone was up in arms about these types of management fads and how they were all smoke and mirrors, the best post by the infamous Joe Schallan This is an enjoyable read about management fads. He trashes everything from Total Quality Management to Planning for Results.

"The purpose of a management fad isn't to effect improvements;
the purpose of a management fad is to reassure managers about
their role."

That is a very jaded statement, but it seems that comes with management trying all these techniques and not sticking with it themselves. The constant turnover of new things that don't work will frustrate staff.

Getting staff motivated is always a challenge. When you have a more experienced staff member that is thoroughly jaded and uncooperative, it stymies that progress. I am someone who is an optimist and one thing has always driven my management decisions. It is based on this story, abbreviated here (known as the Hawthorne Studies:

"The first experiments were with illumination - lighting in the factory. It was thought that workers might work better when there was more light, but light was very expensive, so they needed to find the optimum level to satisfy both requirements.

They assigned workers making induction coils to 2 groups: test and control. Both started with same amount of light. Then the Test group was given more light. Productivity went up. But, unfortunately, it also went up in the control group. So then they increased the light in the Test group again. Once again, productivity went up or stayed the same in both groups. Again they raised the light level, and again the same result.

So then they reduced the lighting in the Test group way down, below the level in control group. Productivity soared in the Test group, and continued to go up in the control group. They reduced light some more: same result. They finally got down to a level of light equivalent to a moonlit night, and found that productivity was still the same or higher. This really confused the researchers. As one of the researchers put it at the time, they were "knocked galley-west" by the results.

They finally took two workers and put them in a closet with no light at all -- just the crack under the door. Productivity was just fine."

And further they found:

"By separating people into groups and then making lots of changes in working conditions, the researchers inadvertently did two things:

1. Made workers feel like management actually cared about them. They felt important and special. This is a problem with the experimental design.
2. They created bonds among people in the test and control groups -- in effect turning them into true groups as described above. People work better when they are part of a clear social structure."

So in the end good managers will use these management techniques to help their staff. I value my staff and I want them to know that. Trying to convince them of that is always an uphill battle. I am always reminded of this story and make sure I let staff know I value them by asking their input, making it ok to voice their opinion, and thanking them for their good work. The organization operates better that way, working as a team.

Successful Saturday: Bursting at the seams or do we need to start bouncing people

I have a suggestion box at the circulation desk. It allows people to write suggestions for improvements, complain, or complement. They have ranged from wanting the bathrooms to be unlocked, to requests for particular collections. The ones I have received the most lately are these:

"You need more computers"

"You need more books"

"You need to be open longer"

"It is too noisy in here"

These are what I would deem to be good complaints. All of our usage in the last year has received double digit increases and because of that increased use, there is not enough to go around. We have doubled computer access, but it is not enough. We have used impact fees to increase the collection, but it is not enough and not fast enough. (We don't even have enough room for all of our holds on our hold shelf.) We have not increased hours, but the walk-in business has increased intensely. We will have 1000 people in the building each day, as compared to a year ago where 750 was busy.

What I have come to realize is that you can continue to provide great services and get bigger and better, but it is never enough. Once you increase that level of service, there are more people using that service. I always love the "too noisy" complaint. Ever have 100 or 1000 people in a room at the same time, you try to keep it quiet. I always love the complaint about not enough computers, "Is there anywhere else I can go to get access?" No, we are the only game in town.

What I love about a community really using their library and embracing it is how it helps that community exponentially. The residents are more intelligent, curiosity is satisfied, and the public is entertained. I especially love storytime. Every week these parents come out with their children and overrun the place. Kids are grabbing their weekly books and movies and will come back next week to do the same thing. It is just immeasurable the good libraries do for their communities. The more you tell people, the more people you have passionate about libraries, and the community only gets better.

I prefer the libraries no one uses

The article Washington Post Article Hello, Grisham -- So Long, Hemingway? With Shelf Space Prized, Fairfax Libraries Cull Collections, brings up some interesting points:

"So librarians are making hard decisions and struggling with a new issue: whether the data-driven library of the future should cater to popular tastes or set a cultural standard, even as the demand for the classics wanes."

Oh no! We are getting rid of classic books that are freely available online and copyright free that no one reads unless they are MADE TO! Every so often someone gets all bent out of shape that someone weeds books out of a library. Libraries need to stay relevant as cultural centers, and that means CURRENT cultural centers, not ones found in the 19th century. They should reflect the current culture and more particularly, the current culture of their town. Every library is different because every town and city is different, with different cultures. The only people reading Hemmingway anymore are the Hemmingway fanatics and students who are FORCED to.

Then follows the predictable opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal Checked Out A Washington-area library tosses out the classics.

"And now the bell may toll for Hemingway. A software program developed by SirsiDynix, an Alabama-based library-technology company, informs librarians of which books are circulating and which ones aren't. If titles remain untouched for two years, they may be discarded--permanently. "We're being very ruthless," boasts library director Sam Clay."

I love that some new software is now weeding books, as if libraries never weeded books before. Now this technology is butchering our books, let's just cut all the funding for libraries since they don't carry Hemmingway! We are just Blockbusters and Barnes and Noble anyway. We just have another conservative author wanting to cut funding for "frivolous things" like libraries.

The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece is concerning. It is concerning how people would prefer not to have libraries at all for some simple reason. That libraries should be dusty old tomes, shushing librarians, and dead silence. If you ask most people, they would STAY AWAY from libraries that looked and acted like that.

The true value is in offering information, reading material, and access. We WANT Americans to read more.

They become more informed which benefits them and our democracy.

If you have a business in town and can't hire workers that can comprehend instructions, you have poor production and accidents on the job. Lower literacy means less competent workers. This deters businesses and hurts the entire community.

The simple act of reading increases intelligence: Reading At Risk:
A Survey of Literary Reading in America Research Division Report #46 :

"Reading is not a timeless, universal capability. Advanced literacy is a specific intellectual skill and social habit that depends on a great many educational, cultural, and economic factors. As more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, active, and independent-minded. These are not qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to lose."

We need to use whatever techniques we can to encourage people to read. Reading at all is more important than reading the classics. The classics are important, but most people will be exposed to them through formal education. The fact that 58% of Americans do not read after high school is a problem. If it means getting rid of Hemmingway over Grisham, then that is what it takes to keep their attention and keep them reading. That is why libraries are important and why they are free.

Management is broken?

It seems that the end of the year has brought several management is broken posts. Librarian in Black, Meredith Farkas at Information Wants to Be Free, and Walt Crawford at Cites and Insights all have some good tips about library management and how we can generally improve library services. I particularly liked Walt's comments as it aptly identified most managers problems. You can't do everything:

"What Do Patrons Want?
That question comes up repeatedly in blogs and elsewhere. There are no easy answers, given the basic confounding factors:
Ø The patrons of each community are unique.
Ø Very few patron communities are homogeneous; different patrons have different wants and needs.
Ø Patron desires and needs change over time, and those needs they believe the library should fulfill are influenced by previous experience with this library and other libraries.
Ø There are no ways to gain complete pictures of patron wants and needs. Feedback mechanisms providing more than anecdotal evidence are expensive and clumsy—and they need to be continual, since the makeup of the community and tools available to the library continue to change.
None of these says it’s hopeless or that librarians shouldn't keep as much in touch with patrons as possible. They do, I believe, argue against knee-jerk “whatever patrons want” reactions."

Knee-jerk reactions are plenty. I once had someone suggest we go back to stamping due dates on books. "We have a receipt for that", "Yes, but I always lose my receipt, stamping the book is so much easier." "You should have a magazine rack for the magazines that are discarded." "Where can we put it, there isn't the space?" "Well, I am not leaving here until you do it!" and my recent favorite "You should have a light box for artist hanging out in the library making sketches" "These are quite expensive and not really where we want to spend our money."

I find myself waffling on decisions between how I can improve library services, but without causing too much strain on staff. Just because a patron wants it, doesn't mean we should do it.

However, going too far one way or another is bad. Let's look at Walmart, their model is to totally focus on the customer. Provide the lowest prices, even a $1 cheaper and you will make more money. They can slash their prices at the cost of their employees to point of people who work there hate it. If I try to create great services for patrons, the strain on staff can result in losing good staff. Sure Meebo is great, it is easy, it is simple, who will man it? If I add an extra piece that looks great, but its fluff, staff are not exactly happy.

If I go too far on the other end with staff saying no drinks, no cell phones, no this, no that, services suffer. As in Meredith Farkas' post:

"The second time, I dragged my husband there. We browsed the stacks for a little while and found again that there really was not much for us there (and I have pretty diverse tastes in reading). Then my cell phone rang and I got shot a nasty look from one of the women at the desk (and I don’t even have a loud annoying ring tone — mine just rings). So I sprinted out of the library and that was the last time I’ve been in there. It’s rare that I go into a library feeling like a little kid in a store full of glass figurines, who doesn’t belong there and is afraid of doing something wrong, but some libraries still do that to me. And geez, if they do that to a librarian, imagine how members of the community feel."

No cell phones, no this no that signs are unwelcoming to patrons. However, the signs are there because someone made a reason for it. How many times have you been in a library where there was an annoying cell phone ring, or someone who shouted their inappropriate conversations? A recent Unshelved cartoon (with a full discussion on LiveJournal demonstrates a definite annoyance at that. It is difficult to manage a group of people with different tastes, opinions, and perceptions of how a library should be.

Libraries try to provide the best service to a unique group of people. Patrons' opinions are just as abundant as staff members' opinions. Who is correct, and what is the best choice is the difference between good managers and bad managers. There are a million great ideas, but only a few will be really effective for your community. We can create a bookstore model with great displays and effect no change in circulation or usage, it just looks nice. We can complain to our budgetary authority that we can make no more changes unless we get more funding, which is usually a guarantee that you won't get your funding.

Sometimes, no one is happy, which is why I have a Fix-it Friday section, and sometimes everyone is happy, which is why I have a Successful Saturdays section. You will never really know if you are a successful manager or not since everyone has a new great idea that you are not doing. I always think the fable of The Stonecutter It is easier to be the person chipping away at the mountain of administration to get what you want rather than to be the mountain that is chipped away at.

I think the top reason people start blogs is to find an outlet to complain about the world around them. Most of the library blogs I read talk about how this or that can be improved. That is great, but I wonder how much of that is going to the right people. If that was channeled into changing the thing you wanted to change, such as at your library, it might be better to go that direction than to post it on a blog.

It is also best if you don't like something to tell administration about it or effect the change you want to see in your library or in your own organization. You don't have to be in administration to make the changes you want to see. If something is broken, anyone can fix it if they take the time and have the will to do it.

Fix-it-Friday: Three Librarians equals Seven Opinions

Most people do not realize that the major problem with the field of library science is one of making a decision. A friend of mine once said, "If you put three librarians in a room, you will get seven different opinions."

Librarians, library staff, and library directors often have problems making decisions mostly because of the nature of our profession. Every reader his/her book is a daunting task. This is what makes the digital future like in the Long Tail so amazing. If you could offer everything, then you would not have to decide on purchasing one book over another, you can just make everything available and then everyone will get their individual book, song, or movie.

However, we are bit off from libraries providing that. In the mean time, we are stuck in committees trying to make decisions over minor matters and making big deals out of it. What should the Marc number be, should we put the CD that came with the book inside the book, or separate, what happens if we let patrons in and they destroy all of the books? It becomes analysis paralysis.

As a manager, it is important to keep staff on task and not bogged down with such decisions. Sometimes committees can be formed, but that is a sure way to slow down a process. I find it best to gather all the information, create a document, then let staff adjust it so they can give input. Otherwise, you will spend hours, days, weeks, months, even years creating a document and getting things done.

1. Identify the problem (is it REALLY a problem?)
2. Determine its severity (is this a crisis, or a back burner project?)
3. Gather information (first person information is very valuable, it lends weight to your final decision and more importantly, allows you to make a better decision)
4. Talk to other people (your staff, patrons, your vendor, other libraries, what are they doing?)
5. Make a decision as to the action plan
6. Create a procedure (update procedures)
7. Put people in charge of it (sometimes that is you)
8. Set its priority
9. Monitor the progress of the project
10. Adjust as you go.

Procedure manuals are always good things, just remind your staff to use good judgment, and talk to them afterward when they do. Reward them if they did a good job, with a thank you to start, provide explanation if they didn't. Don't criticize them if it was something unexpected that they could not handle. You can always coach them to think more critically about a situation.

Fix-it Friday: Too Much Success

There is such a thing as too much success. It typically comes when all of your plans have succeeded. You did your strategic plan. It worked! You are getting all these new people getting library cards, checking out materials, using computers, using the library, and talking about how great it is!

Unlike a business, a public library, or any government entity, will experience a gap in service, between the success and the money. You realize that you are really successful, but then you realize you don't have the space, the computers, the collections, or the staff to sustain it.

You must trust that your library will receive the rewards of the success. Hit all of your budgetary authority, general public, and key figures with everything you have measuring the great success, especially when that success is in an area dear to some of those stakeholders. It will not always happen. When it does, it is great! When it doesn't, it makes staff very frustrated. Trust the system, because by denying a successful library, they are denying what their community wants. I have read it over and over again, about communities with no libraries, who demand it. One can see it in areas like Johnson Ranch, Goodyear, El Mirage, and Mesa, Arizona. There will always be a demand for library services, but never enough to go around. Things will turn around; one must always be vigilant to stand one's ground, to get what the community wants.

Here are some tips to make your library a priority in your community:

1. Find out what your budgetary authority prioritizes (Whether that authority is City Council, County Supervisor, Dean, whomever.) Anything they could possibly prioritize is an aspect of library services: education, economic development, workforce development, small business assistance, literacy, technology, fiscal responsibility, can all be demonstrated library impacts.

2. Create a Strategic Plan to help you find out not only the budgetary authority's priorities, but the community's priorities. You find that most of the priorities are the same. The more people you get, the more voice the library will have in the community.

3. Get advocates- sure you need more money, space, staff, and resources, but you it will always be you who asks. You need to get other people to ask as well. A request from the President of the Chamber of Commerce will go father than yours in many cases. (Plus the budget authority will see that person more often, making it harder to say no to them.)

4. Demonstrate impact in any which way you can. Typically, you need to send in reports, or demonstrate some sort of progress on library services. This may be the only time you can demonstrate the impact of library services. Make it clear, clean, and precise. Try to use as little data as possible. (Of course I don't always follow that, but the eyes of non-library people will glaze over if you don't.) The human impact is more powerful than data alone.

5. Advocate- Indoctrinate patrons, your staff, anyone who will stand still for five minutes. Every conversation is a segway to a conversation on the need of library services, even with those who have a complaint (especially a complaint).

6. Be flexible with your services. When we did our strategic plan, we didn't get any new staff or resources, but we were able to prioritize services and re-allocate staff to those needs. With some staff training, you can create adult literacy programs, teen programs, lifelong learning, and technology programs.

7. Find the need and make it public. When you see a huge need that you are servicing, make sure everybody knows about it. Contact the local newspaper, other new organizations, talk to community leaders, important people, and make sure no one turns around in your community without seeing it.

8. Market your library services, create email lists, rss feeds, podcasts, a running library news section in your local newspaper, magazine, and anything else that will reproduce print or talk to your audience. If something new happens at the library, EVERYONE should know about it. When our library broke 20,000 circulations in one month for the first time, we found the person who checked out the 20,000th book, gave her a goodie bag of library items, called the local newspaper photographer, and the picture was in the paper.

9. Engage the community- Put your services in your patrons' hands. Electronically or physically, they need a reminder that you are there and to know where they can find you. Outreach programs, books by mail, bookmobile, just get out and about and let them know you are there. They can perform their genealogy research from home by going to your website. They can repair their vehicles with the library's help, or learn a new language. Find services that will blow their minds. I will always remember something David Keeber, Director of the Sedona Public Library, told me, "People need to wake up and see the library like Mecca. How do we connect today?"

10. Thank them for their patronage. Our community passed a bond and we thanked them in the library's weekly news bulletin, in the newspaper, via email, and the website. The best signs I have seen are for the Chandler High School Bond. They placed signs advertising "Vote Yes" for the bond, and then when the bond passed, they placed a thank you sign on all of those signs. That makes you feel warm and fuzzy. It feels more personal.

Fix-it Friday: There's NOWHERE TO SIT or all dressed up and nowhere to grow

This Fix-It Friday will focus on the library's lack of space.

Once upon a time there was a little town. The women of this town decided that their community needed a library, so they built one with their own hands out of stones they found in the desert. When the library opened it had dozens of books for the community and the townspeople were happy.

As time went on, the little library was too little for the community. The little town founded by a train station did not have enough room for books.

“To the rescue!” the local boy scout group cried. “We will donate our small building for the library.” And so the town expanded its little library to three times its former size! Now there were more books for the community, and the townspeople were happy.

As time went on, the little library was too little for the community. The little town founded by a train station did not have enough room for books.

“Build us a building!” the townspeople cried. So the town did. They built a new library from scratch and a new city hall and a new police station. It was great! The library now had space for more books, places to sit, and many new things and the townspeople were happy.

“We are out of space!” the townspeople cried. The library again was too small for the townspeople need to learn and to read, but the town had no money. “What are we to do?” the town leaders said. We need to find a way to make space for our community. “I have an idea!”, a library director said, “We can play musical buildings.” The High School was moving out of the school and over to a new facility, the city hall building could move to the old high school, the library could move to the old city hall, and the senior center could move to the old library. It's perfect! “It will cost a lot of money.” some people said, but the town needed the space and so they played the game.

The townspeople were not happy. “The library does not have more space, yes we are using a bigger building, but there is less space for books, what are we to do?” The library had to get rid of books to fit into a bigger building. No one knew how it could have happened and did not understand why. “We need more space”, the townspeople cried, but the town leaders wanted a new police station, and a fire station and other things. A library would just have to wait, the town leaders said.

No we need a new library! There is no room for books that I like, there is no space to sit and to think, the people are poor and they need the help, don't put our needs down the sink.

So the town leaders said, if you want a new library you will have to tax yourselves, you will need to vote on a question that determine the fate of your library. Will you vote to build your library? Will you spend your hard earned dollar, like you have done in the past, to build a new library or two that will last? The question is posed to you on election day, don't let the library go astray, one question is the one you can trust, to vote for a new library or bust.

Technology Nobody Uses: Are you buying it just to be cutting edge?

In the last week I have read three different analyses about online digital materials. My library is at the cusp of jumping into this format. However, these items give me pause (along with many other library user interfaces that are not popular and don’t meet user needs).

From Techdirt we find that most music listeners are not really downloading their songs from online music stores. Most of the users are just burning them from CDs so they can avoid Digital Rights Management problems. Your library comes in when they offer music CDs for check-out as opposed to online content. It is easier for someone to come in, burn a music cd from your collection than to download it from your website (or ANYBODIES website). How big is the market of downloadable music? Not as big as you think. I know Itunes is a loss leader but FIVE PERCENT?!!

The article:
iTunes May Not Be That Popular, But It Serves Its Purpose A new analyst report says that just 5 percent of the tracks on the average iPod are bought from iTunes -- a figure that really shouldn't be all that surprising, given that Apple intended it to be a loss leader to sell more iPods. People are still buying music on CD, and they're still using file-sharing networks, illustrating two realities: first, that the mere existence of digital distribution doesn't mean people will overlook its shortcomings and flock to it in droves; second, that despite the availability of free music, people are still paying for it. Digital music sales offer some benefits over buying CDs or other physical media, but for many consumers, the lack of playback restrictions on music ripped from CDs and the benefit of owning something tangible outweigh the convenience and minor price savings legal downloads offer. (end of snipped piece, read more at the link above.)

Here is another article on online audio content. Again, online audiobooks show steady increase, up a whopping 3% in two years!

APA Surveys: Audio Growth Continues

by Shannon Maughan
The Audio Publishers Association has released findings from two new surveys on audio sales and audio consumers that shows another gain in sales in 2005 and the increasing popularity of the digital audio format.
According to the sales survey, total spending on spokenword audio rose 4.7% in 2005, to an estimated $871 million. As expected, sales of downloadable audio are showing steady gains. Downloads represented 9% of total audio sales last year, up from 6% in 2004. Another obvious trend is the continuing decline of sales in the audiocassette format. Cassettes comprised only 16% of total sales last year, down sharply from 30% in 2004, indicating the inevitable fade of this technology. Additionally, member publishers indicated that they produced fewer titles in the cassette format in 2005. (end of snipped article)
Of course on both of these above issues, no library online audiobook/music vendor has provided a downloadable format that works for all music players. If all the music works for windows and is in mp3 format, and everyone has an ipod, who is going to use it, especially if you cannot hack it?
Another issue is e-books. No one has agreed to a standard e-book player. There are a dozen different format and no player in which you could read the item without hurting your eyes. Even then you would have to pay $500 to get it.
Another article from the Washington Times about the non-use of e-books and the problems that have arisen with it:
E-books unplugged
Start of snipped piece:

“Ms. Schroeder says that a few years ago, publishers were anticipating a surge in e-book sales. "We built it, and they didn't come," she says, speaking of consumers.
Part of the reason for consumers' hesitancy is the difficulty in finding an appropriate reading device. Mr. Bogaty refers to new e-book reading devices, such as the Sony Reader or IRex Technologies E-Reader but says the preferred platform in the United States is a personal digital assistant (PDA). In the future, he speculates, cell phones and PDAs will combine features in one electronic device with a larger screen and better resolution, which would be more conducive for e-book reading.” (end of snipped piece)

Start of another snipped piece, same article:

“Before e-books can truly hold up in the mass market, however, the industry has to agree on standards regarding digital rights management, known as DRM, for consumers to get full use and accessibility from their e-books.
Jonathan Smith, a graduate student at Catholic University who works as the electronic resources assistant at the university's library while he pursues his degree in library science, recently confronted one of the problems caused by the lack of open standards in the e-book industry.
After purchasing and downloading an electronic textbook to his computer, Mr. Smith realized that his e-book couldn't be transferred to another, more accessible reading device such as his Palm Pilot.
"DRM is the largest barrier," Mr. Smith says, referring to the lack of e-book popularity. "Open standards would help across all [reading] devices."”

(End of snipped piece)

I thought that because I worked for a semi-rural library that we were behind the curve in offering these services to the public, but the market isn’t here yet. I would see these items as services bigger systems are providing through their central library, but it seems like this market is still pretty small. Digital Rights Management seems to be the biggest problem and for libraries to provide this information, it would require heavier than usually since it expires after so much time and most of the vendors do not provide services compatible to all formats.

I guess we will see what happens, but I feel better about not being able to offer these services yet.

Fix-it Fridays: Ahhhhtomation or press 0 to get angry

Today’s Fix-it Friday will discuss automating your services and the problems they create.

The use of technology in a library has many advantages to save your library staff time, stress, and deal with the lack of staff to meet user demand. It is typically a reactive program instead of a proactive program. As demand goes up and you can’t keep up, buy some technology and have the users serve themselves just like the grocery store. Check-out your own groceries, your books, renew your own books, go online and user our services. These work great for people in a hurry or are technology savvy. In most urban environments, it is not a problem. However, in a small or semi-rural community, people can’t figure it out, and then they get very angry at you.

In the August edition of American Libraries, the latest Will’s World column derides the use of automation as a way to solve problems. He would rather speak with a person. Well, wouldn’t anyone?! The problem is that when you do a cost analysis, it is much cheaper to buy a piece of technology and have IT come fix it when it breaks rather than employing a person to make everything friendlier and easier. No one looks at automation and thinks this would be great customer service. What the library is trying to accomplish it to push simple tasks to the users so that staff have more time to handle the more advanced tasks. However, simple is a very, very relative term.

About a year ago, the library employed a phone tree, an automated phone notification system (telephony), a self-check machine, and a little before that put up our catalog page which further allowed automation. Of all of this technology, it was the phone system that caused the most problems. We simply could not afford to call every patron for their hold or overdue book. We hold books for seven days, but by the time we were able to contact the patron, they only had three days to pick up the book! So our policy had to be changed to three days even though in the system it gave them seven days. We also could not pick up the phone because our philosophy is to serve the patron in front of you first. So patrons were leaving angry messages left and right with much of the time, they just wanted to know when we were open, or where we were. The first thing we did was implement a phone tree.

The gigantic revolt from the phone tree was heard around the world. People complained to the city manager, constant messages were left on phones complaining about the system. To this day there are still complaints, but we have no choice in the matter. It is either they can get a phone tree and get quick information through the phone tree, or leave a message and wait for someone to call them back sometime next year. As a result of the revolt, we were forced to make 0 the first option so that patrons knew they could press 0 to talk to someone. This of course did not alleviate anyone’s problem. We still can’t answer the phones unless I hire a secretary or remove someone from the front desk when we have a 20% increase in walk-in business every month. We stuck with the phone tree. We further exacerbated our patrons by changing all of the city’s phone extensions. We just added a zero on the end of the extensions. However, patrons used to working the phone tree ended up dialing three numbers instead of four. For some reason, it always took them to our Spanish language prompt. They did not appreciate that. (However, on a side note, it does let them know how difficult it is to navigate in this country if you cannot speak the language. I mentioned this in a previous post how it is vital for our economic development for employers to get monolingual Spanish speakers bi-lingual.) We ended up having to bounce the calls to increase our pick-up chances. When someone dials “0” they get the circulation desk, when they cannot pick-up, they get the reference desk, when they can’t pick up it goes to me. The thought process here is that someone should be able to pick up after that, and if I even can’t then they know who to complain to when they leave a message. This didn’t solve the problem, but I could usually smooth things over with the patron by the time they got to me or my voice mail. Of course, we made the problem worse with our telephony system.

Our telephony system makes outbound calls with an automated voice. It tells the patron it is the library and they have books on hold or overdue and to pick them up. People hated this as well. They of course wanted a warm voice on the other end telling them that they have a book on hold. A personalized service, just like Cheers where everyone knows your name and what you read. So of course, they hated that as well. “I don’t want to talk to a machine I want to talk to a person!” Again, we can’t afford the time for staff to call people to pick-up holds. It took 4 days to get to call the person and that left them 3 days to pick up the book instead of 7. No one had enough time to pick up their books. Again, there was a revolt, but they got used to it. Until I can get more staff, I can’t afford not to automate. However, automation causes you to push your staff costs onto IT. Staff time is never really saved unless the technology never breaks. Don’t we wish it wouldn’t? Customer service is lost with patron talking to machines instead of people. No new revenue for the city means any new staff for me, usually not the highest priority anyway. Until I can hire another person just to do this or reduce face to face time with increased telephone coverage, there is not much I can do. I don’t think anyone sees automation as a solution; it is just a way to get by with what you have. Some things works, like our time management system for our public access computers, but like I have said in the past, self-service only works when the patron really, really, wants to use that service. If not, it is simply a barrier and a reason NOT to use the service.

Successful Saturdays: Cracking the Code or a Fix-it Friday Fix

I did not post my weekly Fix-it Friday yesterday and not because I have run out of problems, far from it. I was just not feeling well so I didn't post. So today you just get me bragging about myself with the absence of putting myself down. If I do that too often my ego may get out of hand.

Anyway, last week I spoke about problems with my library's ILS. I had problems writing code into the system because there was complicated code to learn on top of proprietary code that I did not understand. To resolve this problem I went to a larger county system that had the same ILS and asked their advice. They provided it, but recommended that I do not touch any of the systems unless I have a training server. That way if I screw something up, I am not putting it out there live and breaking something. Right now, we are in the process of purchasing and installing one. After playing with the technology and having some good results and some bad results, I was going to take his advice and not try anything.

However, one of our server's crashed while we were in the process of creating a back-up server. So now we just have the server that replaced it with no hopes of getting a real live back-up for a little while. I decided that instead of waiting for the new installation, I would try a few new things I was playing with. The fun thing about technology these days is that to solve a problem, all you just have to do is to search for a solution on the Internet and people have already posted their free code solution. If I couldn't create code to do what I wanted, I could embed the code of others to get what I wanted.

So I made three significant changes right away. I changed the theme of the page to a modern theme. This is one of the easy features in the ILS, just pick one of five themes and you can make your page different from the others. I had made a change a few months ago just so my page would not look so generic, but it still did not help. The modern theme I chose this time was very plain, just white with very little color, but it worked well if I was going to make changes and it matched with our city webpage. The next thing I changed was placing the library's name on our catalog (no we could not do that before!). We were able to manipulate the system by creating a new image, then saving and naming that image the same as file that already exists. That way, I was able to change the vendor's label on my page to the library's name, plus I added a little background for color. As long as the pictures size was similar in size, it works great.

The change to white and the image change had an immediate effect. It made the site cleaner and we finally owned the site. The next steps were to put a calendar of events and possibly a photo slideshow on the site. I had been playing with Google Calendar for some time and created an account just for the library. I set up a Gmail account with the library's name, then created the calendar. The new features in Gmail are great and you can set up a calendar, excel spreadsheets, and put other files online so that you can share them with others. I set up a calendar and placed all of the library's events in the calendar, plus included all third party programs that were not library endorsed, but were held at the library. Originally, I had thought of just creating a link to the site on the library's catalog page. The problem with that is that it would take users away from the page instead of searching for books. However, Google Calendar has an embed feature when you go to the manage calendars feature. I just went to my calendar, clicked on manage calendars, clicked on my calendar, and then clicked on calendar address for html. This would have created a link to the calendar site. However, I also so a configuration tool in which it would provide a embed code you can place on your website. I copied the code and then pasted it in the portal page. IT WORKED! I was able to see the library's entire calendar of events on the catalog page. I also copied this in the events page. The training from the county library helped me find what file to place it in.
The calendar of events was a big problem for us for many reasons. One, many library staff did not have access to a live calendar because we are on different systems. They could see the calendar on the library's city webpage, but it is difficult to navigate (mostly because we can't control the content that much, but that is changing). We had to provide a paper copy and then they posted it downstairs to see it. Now, they can go online like everyone else and see the calendar in real time. They can even print it out!

After cracking the placement code, I was able to do even more with the page. I added a Flickr slideshow. I used this code here to embed a flickr slideshow on the portal page. It is really neat because it has the same functionality as going to flickr and playing a slideshow. It does all the same things, plus it does not say flickr on it. It just has the show. This works particularly well when you get into trouble placing company names on your site. It also does not link to your flickr, but keeps you on the webpage. Now we have a nice library tour on the portal page. I will probably add this to our events section and show all the library events in the loop. You can point to a particular set in flickr for your loop. Very neat!

Lastly, what is the library's catalog portal without books? One of the problems we had with the portal was the rotating book image. It was a nice feature, but we had absolutely no control over it. The problem was that is showed images from BookSense's bestsellers, but it showed hardcover, paperback, and mass market paperback. Since it just does an ISBN search, we could have that book, just not in paperback and it would not reveal that we had the book simply because we did not have that edition! This caused many problems as patrons sending in requests for books we already had. So we had to create our own links using another trick borrowed from the county library.

Our library subscribes to Syndetics Solutions enhanced content, which provides book images, book reviews, and many other items that searchers find useful when selecting material. Very nice! We found that we could manipulate the data that was in the catalog code for the book image. When you go to the catalog, you can right click on the book image, this will give you the image location and by adding a src img= (insert syndetics tag here) and then place html for the search for the book around the image, you can get the image with it tagged so when you click on it, you search the catalog for that book. So we could control the book image! Each week we put out a top ten list in the local paper. This week was top ten mystery and we could place the image for each book in a row at the top of the page. I was very boisterous so I added a row for top ten fiction, juvenile fiction, young adult, and more. I tried to do DVDs, but many of the catalog records don't have images for the DVD records. Even stealing the images from other sites would not yield an image in the system. It must be tied just to their code. I will probably figure that out and I am very excited about the prospects of controlling the site. Think of all the possibilities, we could now link a webcast, podcast, even sample music from the site! Now that we have control and I have cracked the code, there are a million things I could think of doing to the site now, it is only a matter of time, how exciting!