Wow! This guy gets some really interesting questions!
Swiss Army Librarian had a customer who found a plaque made of stone in the woods with characters painted onto it. He went online and found Omniglot.com and, by looking at the alphabets there, decided they must be Runic characters. In front of the plaque was a little container which he didn’t open, but he photographed the whole area and....
See Brian Herzog's post for the rest of the story...and check out Omniglot.com.
Mike
An exchange of teasing comments and email with our library system's training coordinator resulted from the previous post. This in turn led me to revisit some of the basic issues around which this blog revolves.
I first addressed this in "Customer service for curmudgeons":
I'm one of those introverted people whose temperament is most suited to solitary intellectual and creative pursuits, or to interesting conversation and recreation with a few close friends.
Probably library schools have a real challenge now when it comes to discerning which people, with which temperaments, would make good 21st century library professionals.
Back in my century [haha] it generally worked okay for introverted people to become librarians. The core concerns of the field were organizing information and being able to recover it. The skills of dealing with human beings weren't so central.
Now the whole field has shifted its focus from information to the customer's need for information. The very use of the term "customer" [ugh] underscores this reality.
As a 20th century curmudgeon, I personally regret this shift. To me it reflects a disturbing shift in what our culture values. Away from valuing the proactive processes involved in learning and doing critical thinking. Toward valuing the reactive processes of consumerism, because-we-can "innovation" and the marketplace.
However, the realities of institutional funding demand that libraries become "businesses" serving "consumers," giving priority to what they believe they want, rather than to what we know might be useful.
And this reality, in turn, demands that we become even better at doing what we used to call the reference interview. Because we do know what might be useful, and they don't (necessarily) know what they want. And if we can translate from their "want" to our "know," we can win them as customers.
Another way of looking at this—a way of shifting the focus back to the proactive role of librarianship—is to push against the tide of consumerism in a deliberate and professional manner. "You think you want that, but, look, wouldn't this be much more useful/rewarding/entertaining/informative to you?"
What a challenge!
Mike
There's no use pretending. I HATE science project questions!!!
Aside from the usual issues, like it's the kid's Mom doing the research, while the kid is (a) not there (b) playing on the computers (c) playing one of those hand held idiot boxes (d) staring off into space (e) all of the above,...
...and like the fact that teachers who assign these projects don't seem to do any preparatory instruction about (a) what a science project is (b) how to pick a doable topic (c) what constitutes useable research literature (d) how to go about finding it (e) whether the public library has anything on the topic to begin with (f) all of the above,...
...my main gripe is that the customers ALWAYS start at the wrong end.
The voice on the phone says: "My daughter is doing a science project on daikon radishes. We need five books on daikon radishes."
*biting my tongue*
"I suppose you need books on growing daikon, not cookbooks?"
"Yes."
"Well, I know we won't have books just on daikon, but let me do a catalog search."
daikon ---> no results
daikon and gardening ---> no results
chinese cabbage and gardening ---> no results
chinese vegetables and gardening ---> 2 books at another branch, both checked out
"As I suspected, I'm not finding you useful sources with this search. Tell me a bit more about the project topic."
"Well, she's doing something on organic versus inorganic fertilizer."
AHA! Now I know that the actual science project is (of course) a comparison of different methods of growing daikon. It doesn't matter if we find anything at all on daikon.
*grrr!*
This is one of the points I wish teachers would explain to their students:
A science project is a matter of comparing different processes, methods, variables. The supporting literature you need has to do with what is already known about those variables, not about your particular combination of variables.
"Okay, let me try a subject search on 'organic fertilizers'."
Below are the results of a Browse Search based on your topic: "organic fertilizer"
ORGANIC FERTILIZERS 1 title
See related headings for: ORGANIC FERTILIZERS
COMPOST
MANURES
NIGHT SOIL
*Rats!*
"Okay, Ma'am. Maybe you can use full text articles from our online science databases. I'll tell you how you can get to those through our website. But first, I'm going to try 'organic gardening'."
Ah! That gets several dozen hits. I tell her.
"Do they have those at my local branch?"
"Let me see [limiting search by SU organic gardening and branch name]. Yes, they have at least 13 titles there."
"Can I use the databases there?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'd recommend you go in and ask a librarian to help you find materials on 'organic gardening'."
"Okay. Thank you very much."
I mutter to myself: "They should have had a course on 'science project questions' in library school!"
Of course, the real point here is that science project questions are among the greatest challenges with regard to doing a really effective...here comes that horrible phrase...reference interview.
When I listen to all the whining in the media about "the end of librarianship," I know that it's ridiculous. To me, the primary characteristic of trained librarians is that we are Professional Searchers.
And the key to being a professional searcher is being able to help the customer figure out what she actually wants.
So...I should stop complaining already. When someone comes to me with a science project question, I should welcome it as the best sort of challenge for me as a professional. Right?
Naaaaaaaaa....
Mike
Yesterday, Brian Herzog published a very interesting post on Swiss Army Librarian.
He had set out to represent graphically the complexity of flow in the library services hierarchy. Here's what he came up with:
I'll let him speak for himself:
I was thinking about library services, and why some good ideas get implemented while others don’t, and why libraries offer some things that seem to be of no use to anyone. This started me down the path of getting to the root of “why” and “how,” which I came to refer to as “What is Necessary” and “What is Possible.”
Check out his blog post.
Mike
Since Samhain (aka Hallowe'en), things have been way too busy to keep up with blogging, what with the election, the imminent rollout of an expanded Ask a Librarian live chat reference service for Jacksonville Public library—not to mention the annual it's-November-and-all-the-overlapping-multitasking-library-projects-are-coming-due-at-the-same-time-stress-induced throat and chest cold...hackhackhack....
So...here's a mushed together list of very interesting blog posts, not in any particular order, but worth checking out.
How's that for a post full of info and links...and NO original material? (Unless you count the it's-November...etc....)
Mike
Wow! This guy gets some really interesting questions!
Now the whole field has shifted its focus from information to the customer's need for information. The very use of the term "customer" [ugh] underscores this reality.