Monthly Archives: March 2006

It’s about customer service, folks [Updated]

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[Update: I forgot, dumb me, to link to the original post. Fixed.]

In a Slashdot posting read this a.m., entitled “Why Everyone Loves Apple,” I found some words that I think are very relevant to libraries, technology, debates about Library 2.0, Web 2.0, you name it. Here is the particular sentence I found to be so “right on the mark”:

“It’s regrettably amusing that Apple competitors are working hastily to develop iPod clones to reap in success, but what many of them fail to comprehend is that it’s not necessarily the iPod that makes Apple successful, but rather its customer service.”

Moving this into the library realm, what this basically is saying is, It’s all about customer service, folks! We can (and I think we should) investigate and implement relevant new technologies in libraries as much as possible. But if these new technologies or technology services don’t really enhance customer service, then we are deluding ourselves. Sure, it is cool and hip to have iPods available for checkout, or to encourage gaming, or to develop RSS feeds for everything. But are those things really, truly enhancing customer service? In many cases, I’m sure the answer is, Yes. But not in all cases. Library users aren’t all dissatisfied and turned off about technological backwardness, poor OPACs, or whatever. Don’t forget the users who use libraries for, um, books. Print books. Print journals. Print newspapers.

Let’s not forget that while the energy and excitement currently displayed in the biblioblogosphere (boy, I hate that word) over new technologies is generally very positive, it needs to be critically assessed in light of local library user needs.

Oh, and by the way, there are many people who don’t like Apple. And Apple has not done everything right; they’ve made many big mistakes. But I think libraries can learn from the Apple lesson that libraries are largely about the user experience, and that the single most important factor in user satisfaction is the perceived level of service they receive.

Notes on another presentation about tagging

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I’ve pointed several times to the You’re It! blog because there is a lot of useful information to be found there about tagging in a context that is much broader than the library world.  (In fact, I have yet to see or recall any mention of libraries so far in what has been written there.)

Today there is another interesting post, this time, containing notes on a presentation given by Rashmi Sinha entitled "Sorting, Tagging and Social Information Architecture or The Missing Chapter in the Polar Bear Book."  I highly recommend that library folks who might be interested in tagging vis-à-vis cataloging take a look and digest some of the points contained in this report.  Sinha compares tagging to taxonomy (akin to library cataloging).

Just one of the many interesting things mentioned was the following table comparing the two:

Sorting Tagging
higher cognitive cost lower
richer data less rich data
harder to aggregate socially easy to aggregate socially

The author also describes the ways in which Sinha describes tagging as useful, and includes a statement — made by himself or by Sinha, I’m not sure — to the effect that "Categorization is going to make a comeback."

UKSG to offer conference blog at this year’s conference and exhibition

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UKSG, sister organization of (and somewhat of a foster parent to) NASIG, announced today that they are adding something new to the mix for their upcoming conference and exhibition:  LiveSerials, a blog which will provide up-to-the-minute reports from conference sessions.  This year’s UKSG conference and exhibition will be held next week, April 3-5, at the University of Warwick.  Sounds like a great idea to me.  Maybe NASIG should follow suit?

Winners of NASIG 2006 election

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Today, the winners of this year’s NASIG election were announced:

Vice-President/President-Elect (3 year term)
Char Simser-Kansas State Univ

Secretary (3 year term)
Joyce Tenney-Univ of MD, Baltimore County

Members at Large (2 year term)-in alpha order by first name)
Alison Roth-Swets Information Services
Bob Schatz-Coutts Information Services
Rick Anderson-Univ of Nevada, Reno

Congratulations to the winners! What makes this election unique, I think, is that one of the winners (Rick Anderson) may be the first petition candidate to win office. 

I must be a ‘lametard’

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What is a  ‘lametard’? Not sure, but I must be one. I was reading a  posting about MySpace just now and the blogger’s thesis was that if you don’t "get" MySpace, then you are missing something big.  Something bigger than the blogosphere, even.  ‘Course I’ve heard of MySpace, but right now I’m in the head scratching phase of, well, of what use is it for libraries in general, or for me, in particular?

Thoughts on reports from conferences

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I was thinking today, after reading through the many different reports about the recently concluded Computers in Libraries conference, that after having read all of them, I feel as if I did not miss much by not attending.  This is something new, I think.  Lorcan Dempsey phrases the phenomenon in a much more cerebral way than I can.  He wonders whether this is "some inflection point in the libary [sic] communications ecosystem" but I think we’re talking about the same thing.  I got tired of some of the same, repetitive stuff being presented (how many times are we going to read about Roy Tennant’s gospel about what’s wrong with OPACS and who the "good ‘uns" are??); like Walt Crawford, who made some comments about reports on his blog, I think that some of the new and cool stuff doesn’t live up to the hype.  And I particularly got tired of the "fangirly" comments about — gush — actually being able to — gush — speak face-to-face with the Library Gods (a.k.a. aforementioned Mr. Dempsey, among others).  Yes, I’m being sarcastic.  However in spite of these distractions, the reporting was really, really good overall.  Link that together with the photos already on Flickr under the tag "cil2006" and you get a more well rounded sense of what went on, who was there, and so forth.  And then there are the umpteen links to the presentation material itself, readily available to download, look at, and digest over time. 

I think this phenomenon is important, because a.) conferences are really expensive and time-consuming to attend; and b.) oftentimes they are a waste of the time and expense that you put into them.  In many ways I’d much rather read about it (and peruse other media about it, such as photos) than take the trouble to go only to be frustrated for the low return on investment.  Yes, ALA, I’m pointing the finger at you in particular.

Anyway, because I choose to not attend many conferences because I don’t want to be away from my family, I hope for more of the same in terms of blog reports from conferences that I have missed.  Many thanks to those who provided their insights from Computers in Libraries 2006.

Dealing with criticism

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I was reading Meredith Farkas’s report from the Computers in Libraries conference and spotted a criticism of MPOW.  She writes:

"Other vendors send salespeople to conferences who don’t know their products. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Question: would I dislike [MPOW] any less if they had someone cool going out and speaking at conferences? Answer: Probably not."

What can I say?  Do I take this criticism personally?  No, not really.  Does this criticism bother me?  Yes, to an extent.  It bothers me because things could be different, but due to choices and decisions and priorities waaaaay beyond my control, they aren’t.  I guess what bothers me is feeling to some extent like I represent, and therefore somehow need to defend, the indefensible, by working for a vendor.  It makes me feel, as I’ve so often felt throughout my career, like "neither fish nor fowl."  I’m a librarian first and foremost, and I’m in no way ashamed of that.  But I need to fit in to an environment in which many do not seem to share a passion for libraries, a passion for serving users, a passion for service, period.

On the other hand, such criticism bothers me because so often, as I’ve pointed out before, some of it is undeserved or flat out wrong.  There are at least two sides to every story.

So where does that leave me?  Feeling a bit weird, a feeling I’m used to.

A slow Saturday

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So far, nothing of any note has occured today. Most of the time that is the way I like it because I feel the need for down time from a hectic work week. Today, however, I’m feeling rather antsy and, as usual, so are Michele, Keegan, and the other kids. Rather than just sit around letting the general mess and confusion get on my nerves, I think we need to go somewhere and do something. Trouble is, go where? and do what?

While I try to find an answer to those questions, let me point out that being a parent requires the patience (and capability to forgive) of a saint. Case in point: This a.m. my attention was caught by several large, deep scratches on the front of the dishwasher, inflicted by Cohen. Did I mention that we don’t own this appliance?! Then there was the lovely bracelet that Michele spent hours creating using beadwork, only to have Cohen get ahold of it and break it in a few minutes. Let’s see, what else? Some of my most valuable and cherished books, which I purposely put up on the highest shelves, were found the other day with pages and covers ripped off. A while back I discovered deep scratch marks on the screen of our iMac. Seems that Brinley and Cohen thought it’d be fun to carve up the screen using a handy letter opener. A few months ago, Keegan, for some odd reason, decided to sit on the sink counter in the bathroom downstairs and managed to break the entire counter. And I don’t know how many times we’ve scrubbed the walls to remove crayon, pen, and pencil marks. It’s a losing battle. Why is it that little (and big) children are so good at destroying anything of sentimental or actual value that we possess?

Mobber, a new Web 2.0 service with some library uses

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Via the Mashable! blog comes word of yet another new Web 2.0 application, called Mobber. The idea for this is to enable you to see who is on a particular webpage, and to chat with that person or persons in real time. Could this kind of service be used in libraries to more directly engage those many anonymous library users who increasingly visit the library only via the library’s website? Just take one example: this would be a huge improvement over simply sticking in a link or graphic to a typical Ask-A-Librarian chat/email service.

The catalog is the library: a perspective

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Today I found an interesting post via Pubsub, written by an ex-librarian, discussing the role of the online catalog for libraries in the (near) future. Basically he posits that the online catalog IS the library, and goes on to describe ways in which that promise or ideal can be reached. These include combining tags, facets, and flexible hierarchies, as well as combining book lending with book buying. It’s a somewhat provocative proposal but one of the things I find interesting about it is that the writer is obviously not at all in the mainstream of current library discussions; in fact, he seems to be in an entirely different arena. Yet his proposals are akin to what others have already been proposing in the library world. E.g. Paul Miller of Talis just wrote the other day about the idea of bookstores combining with libraries.