first thoughts on OCLC/Ohiolink study

OCLC and Ohiolink collaborated on a major study. Here's the report:

http://bit.ly/ohiolinkreport

I get excited when I see a big study like this done, because I think library staff are way too certain that they know what's going on in the library (in terms of collection use, patron wants/needs, etc). Better to try to find out a few facts, rather than compile a long list of things that we "know" (correct or otherwise), especially if you have to answer to a larger institution or community about what value they get in return for the money you're spending.

First thing I wanted to mention is on page 10:

"This study is limited to books, including manuscripts, as these materials typically circulate and circulation is the most significant quantifiable element in evaluating book collections."

This is a lame circular argument, which doesn't answer the question that came to my mind, "Why limit to books and manuscripts?" It is asserted that books typically circulate (true) and that circulation is the most significant quantifiable element in evaluating book collections (true, or at least arguably so). You're telling us why you chose the method you did to evaluate the things you evaluated. You're not telling us why you didn't evaluate other things. It would be worthwhile to explicitly say "we couldn't get decent data on non-book things," or "we don't see a big role for electronic resources in consortial collection building," or "we didn't have enough money and time to slog through all the various usage statistics available for non-book formats and try to normalize them." Ultimately, in 2011, I don't think librarians should be producing a huge report like this and ignoring electronic and other non-book formats. It makes me think of a big ship with iceberg-spotters on one side of the boat, yelling out that we're all clear on that side, and nobody looking the other way. (I don't want to be too negative here, but I see this
as a trap that we in libraries have fallen into before.)

Ok, so on to page 11.

"OCLC's work-set algorithm (Hickey and Toves 2005) was employed to identify works permitting FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) analysis at the work, manifestation, and item levels (IFLA 2009, 17- 24)."

Are we excluding works that don't permit FRBR analysis? (Further down the page, we're explicitly excluding works that don't have standard numbers.)

Pg. 22 - they mention North American Title Count, which I'd never heard of before. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, on reaching the bottom of the report, it seems like all the most interesting stuff is in the data itself (no surprise there). I'm downloading it now, and I suspect I'll have more to say once I see it.

Free online courses from Stanford - databases, machine learning and AI

Just heard about this.  Stanford is doing some work on distributed learning, with some interesting classes:

Introduction to databases - http://bit.ly/StanfordMLclass

Machine Learning - http://bit.ly/StanfordMachineLearning

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - http://bit.ly/StanfordAIclass

Of note - the AI class says that they're going to run two tracks, a basic level for everyone, and an advanced track that "aspires to be of Stanford difficulty. You do homework assignments and take exams."

Books mentioned at CIL2010

by Lee Rainie:

 Up for Grabs: The Future of the Internet, Volume 1


 Hopes and Fears: The Future of the Internet, Volume 2

Rainie also mentioned:

 The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society (Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies)

 Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

When one library is in trouble, ALL libraries are in trouble

"When one library is in trouble, ALL libraries are in trouble."

Lori Reed spoke about Charlotte-Mecklenberg's libraries this morning at Computers in Libraries 2010. They are facing a 50% cut in budget and more than 50% staff. Her presentation was passionate, moving, and upsetting, and I wish she had been invited as a keynote speaker, because EVERYONE at CIL2010 should have had the opportunity to listen to her.

Lori works at a five star library with 6 LJ movers and shakers on staff. People at her library created 23 things as a way to learn, years ago, and there are still packed conference halls of libraries asking about it. They have an innovative program called "Library by mail" for patrons to get materials without coming to the library, and they run another program called "Connections that Count," presented in Spanish, to prepare children from birth to age 5 so they'll be ready to go to school.

Lori Reed recently had to offer training for her coworkers on how to apply for unemployment benefits. Think about your colleagues, at your library. Some of them are aggravating, some of them are indifferent, some of them are your real friends. Do you want to train them in how to apply for unemployment? Would it be better if they were training you instead?
~~~

First they made cuts to the small public libraries. They must have been ignoring their users, or not innovative enough. They weren't closing down, just cutting hours and programs. I couldn't really do anything anyway. (Sure, I got laid off*, but I got another job.)

Then they cut the community college libraries. But let's face it, why does someone getting a two-year degree really need the resources that a library provides? They think that everything's on Google and so do most of their professors.

Then they cut the staff at major, Ivy League schools. But they were probably overstaffed already, right?

Then they started closing branches. But a branch is only a part of a library, so closing one doesn't mean the same as closing the whole library. People could still go to the library - as long as they have time for longer drives, or more likely walks or subway rides, and as long as they can get to the remaining branches during the remaining hours of operation.

Now they want to cut the budget at Charlotte-Mecklenberg by 50%.

What's the next thing?

This is the next thing. Please get involved. I'm going to try to help, too.

http://savelibraries.org

~~~


*This is a fact of my career, and I was lucky to get another position quickly. And to have been laid off early enough that I wasn't competing in a job market like today's. (The rest of this part of my post is intended in a very sad way...tone is hard to convey, so to be clear, I'm not being funny or snarky and I'm not comparing it to Nazi Germany and I don't think that I'm providing some deep meaning here. It's just the way my thoughts came to me this morning.)

Subject Browse @American University of Rome Library Blog:

The American University of Rome Library Blog: New Subject Browse Implemented

American Univ. of Rome has created a way for people to browse a listing of the subjects in their catalog. This is a fabulous example of Tim Berners-Lee's comments about putting data out there for people - while this might not be the simplest data to parse, it's easier than trying to crawl the catalog for it.

Good enough is the new perfect

Heyhey,

Being perfect takes too long. I'm sure this applies in all sorts of other areas, but in libraries, it's something that we forget (all too often) at our own peril.

NGC4LIB is a listserv for discussing Next Generation Catalogs, but it creeps into all sorts of unruly topics like the future of libraries. One of the perennial issues discussed there is the idea of doing things right vs. just doing them. Libraries have to take notice of these things because our patrons (read "our only friends in a cold world, our raisins d'etc") are living them.

Patrons (known outside of the library world as "people") are regularly doing things without demanding that they are perfect. Exhibit A: "Inept and Satisfied, redux," an article about users of medical libraries (known [you hope!] as "your doctors") often don't find everything they are searching for but report being satisfied with their search results anyway.

There are at least 10 Reasons why the Internet is no replacement for a library (more on this in another post), but that doesn't seem to be stopping people from using the internet.

The internet is broken in many many ways. The one libraries usually jump up and down about is that it doesn't provide authoritative, structured points of access. That's what libraries do with their materials. It's also what we tried to do with the internet, but it got away from us and seems to be coming along just fine without us.

We're busy trying to be the gatekeepers to information, because that's what librarians have been. We've been the ones who could buy more books than you, and we could make you get a little card and charge you 10 cents if you didn't return the book on time.

I'm not a business person at all, but I think our business model is broken. We depend on funding from above (supporting institution or some level of gov't). We offer services that aren't available in other ways. But somehow we feel that offering those services - especially the ones that are most authoritative and structured - exempts us from competition with other services. They're not authoritative or structured enough, so who would want them?

Everyone wants them. Everyone's using them. We better figure out why anyone needs us in this climate.

Who did what for how many cookies?

There are so many good things going on in the library world (and at least as many bad things). I'll talk about both kinds.

This blog's little sister is http://yourlibrarydata.blogger.com. That site will be the home of some (you guessed it) library data. Let's see where this all goes, ok?

"Who did what for how many cookies?" is something I heard from a friend once. Who knows what it means or where the phrase originated?

Joe M.