Category Archives: nasig

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

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Almost every post Meredith Farkas writes provides plentiful food for thought.  She has a real talent for expressing her views and thoughts and for digging deeper into “big issues” than many others.  Recently she wrote about all of the success she has already had professionally and identifies some of the factors that have helped her in her career thus far.  One of the main factors, she writes, is the willingness to take risks.

I agree with her on this.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  When I look back on the past sixteen years of being a professional librarian and on what events or involvements I am most proud of, they all involved taking a risk.  I well remember how nervous I was when taking on a fairly major management position after only about three years of being a serials cataloger (which was my first full-time job, ever).  I literally lay awake at night worrying myself sick, wondering, what on earth had I gotten myself into?!  It was definitely a trial by fire.  There were significant conflicts and problems needing to be effectively dealt with literally from day one.  One of the mandates I was given was to completely revamp workflow so that my unit would not only be able to keep up with current receipts (i.e. no adding to backlogs), but to also reduce and get rid of longstanding backlogs, and do all of this with fewer staff than my predecessor.  Because of the quality of the people with whom I worked, these goals were met and a lot of progress was made.  But there was not one day that went by that I didn’t feel nervous or worried about my responsibilities.  It was all worth it, though.  I grew personally and professionally by leaps and bounds.

Then there was the opportunity to lead a major professional library organization, which I’ve talked about a bit in the past.  I had never dreamed it would be possible to be nominated, let alone elected.  Yet I went ahead and agreed to be put on the ballot, anyway, in spite of others whom I respect telling me that I shouldn’t expect to get elected given the caliber of the person I was running against.  I thought, why not?  If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, well, it would be good experience either way.  To my delight and shock, I won.  I was the youngest elected president in NASIG’s history (I think I still hold that particular record); I had no prior Board experience; everyone else with whom I would be working was deeply experienced and significantly older than I was at the time.  I think the Board member (Carol Diedrichs, now Dean of Libraries at Kentucky) who was nearest to me in age was ten years my senior.  This is not a bragging session but rather a way to make clear just how big of a risk this was for me.  I was delighted, yes, but completely, utterly terrified as well.  It was one of those situations where you need to be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

A third milestone event involving a big risk on my part was agreeing to teach a class in the distance education curriculum at my alma mater, UIUC GSLIS.  This class had been taught before but I basically had to start from scratch to create the course.  Again (and honestly, this is no exaggeration) I was terrified.  I can’t tell you how many times I mentally kicked myself, saying to myself, “Why oh why did you ever agree to do this!”  The fear of failure was so all-consuming.  I lost countless hours of sleep.  I couldn’t eat sometimes, I felt so nervous.  And that was just before the class started.  When I had to do the class every week, each time was like the first time and I was nervous, self-doubting, and upset every time.  I would get home from work and after Michele and the children were in bed, I’d go and work on the class until two or three a.m.  I managed to survive for about five weeks of this, and then I became really, really sick with meningitis and ended up in the hospital, twice.  Because of the love and kindness of others who stepped in and helped me out, I was able to get better and finish the course.  I felt that I had done a terrible job but at least I had done it.  I went on to teach that course two more times.  It got a little easier with time but it still felt like a huge risk.

I have to say that there were other risks I took where there was significant failure on my part.  For example, one of my best library friends asked me to co-author a book with her, and I agreed.  Yet instead of fulfilling my responsibilities, I largely left her in the lurch.  I’m still trying to get over the guilt of that experience and it happened years ago.  Sadly, that isn’t the only example of failure.

Aside from this blog, I have largely withdrawn from direct, active participation in the profession.  My choice.  But I want to point out that risk-taking didn’t end there.

A tumultuous and highly risky decision I made in the early 90s was to leave the Christian fellowship in which I had been raised since I was a baby.  Repercussions of this decision exist even today and probably will bother me all of my life.  I completely left the society and “comfort zone” that I had known and functioned within all of my life.

There was more change to come a few years later.  Probably the riskiest thing I ever did in my whole life was to ask Michele if she’d go out on a date with me and then, within a short time after that first date, I asked her to marry me.  Incredibly, Michele (and Keegan, whose permission I asked for) said Yes.  As a result, in one fell swoop I took on the role of husband AND father, two things I had never done before.  These roles have dominated my life since, and I have no regrets at all.  Each additional child we were blessed with was yet another step into the unknown in so many ways.  Moving several times, taking new and different jobs, were all involved in the risks I’ve taken in recent years.

How grateful I am to have even had these opportunities!  Many of them were presented to me, but also, many of them were opportunities I actively pursued.

It’s not all been successful.  I have failed miserably more times than I can count.  But I have also enjoyed success (although I’d define “success” in a much more well-rounded way than some).  I have experienced things I would never experience if I hadn’t stepped out in faith and told myself, Give it a try!

NASIG Site Selection Survey results published

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This afternoon, Kathryn Wesley, NASIG Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, announced the availability of results of a site selection survey of NASIG members.  Check it out here.

Some initial thoughts:

  • I am happy to see a lot of interest in having NASIG return to Vancouver as a conference site.  The last time NASIG was in Vancouver was in the mid-1990s and it was one of the best conference venues, ever.
  • I am shocked that so many people apparently would be ok with doing away with most of the group meals.  Put me on the side of those who absolutely want to see all or most conference meals continue to be a “group thing” rather than a “do it on your own thing.”
  • 48% of respondents are ok with spending $120-140 per night for a hotel room.  Again, I am rather surprised.  I can say that I am not ok with spending that much money, even if at the same time, I recognize that the likelihood of the organization finding rooms for less $$ is very slim
  • I had to laugh when I read that one of the oft repeated comments by responders regarding meals at conferences was “Too much chicken”!

The power and peril of blogs

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I have been a little bemused by the many posts and comments on library-related blogs in the past week that mention NASIG. Great exposure, right? Right, except that most of them seem to have focused on one person’s informal writeup of one particular session that discussed the role of columnists in library journals in a world increasingly dominated by blogs. Anna Creech (Eclectic Librarian) provides a bit more perspective of what was said, which is good, especially since she was there. I mention bemusement because frankly a lot of what has been written seems to me to be a little too quick to judge and especially, a little too quick to assume an “us (bloggers, the good people) vs. them (those evil, skulking column people who are fearful of bloggers)” perspective. Behold, the power — and peril — of blogs.

Let me make it clear, first of all, that I wasn’t there for the presentation. I wish I had been. What I write here is simply the result of reading various posts about “the incident.” For those who don’t know to what I refer, “the incident” involved a presentation at this year’s NASIG conference that apparently had some negative (and perhaps unfair) comparisons to make between columns in print library literature and information derived from blogs.

Second, my general point here is, calm down folks and try to get some perspective! T. Scott Plutchak writes about this in his blog and combines this perspective with discussion of another controversial blog post by Michael Gorman. T. Scott’s tone is welcome. He also makes the following point:

“We are really still at the very beginnings of figuring out the best ways to engage in discourse using all of these new tools.”

I think this is true, but one could imply from that statement that what we are experiencing in the blogging world is radically different than what we have long experienced in other forms of discourse. (Also, T. Scott seems to question — and I think rightly so — the prevalence of written responses to Gorman’s post that attack him personally. This isn’t new; a few years ago the same thing happened in response to another Gorman statement, and it also happened in a discussion about Indiana’s library school dean.) I don’t think that the struggle to figure out “the best ways to engage in discourse” is something new to blogging. One only has to attend a few scholarly conferences to put the blogging discourse into perspective. It is not uncommon to see faculty presenting papers with opposing viewpoints devolve into very thinly veiled personal attacks as the papers are discussed. I saw a few such scholarly conference exchanges firsthand when at The University of Chicago. It was entertaining at times, but also disconcerting.

One thing that is a little different, though, is the speed and the ease with which such discourse can be articulated, disseminated, interpreted, and reacted to in the world of blogs. And then reworded, or re-articulated, or re-interpreted, or re-reacted to (bad English, I know), again and again until the discourse peters out.

Here is a list of the various blog postings I’ve read about “the incident” just for the record. And be sure to also look at comments for all of them:

Eat-Your-Vegetables librarianship alive and well (metaProjects)

Out of Context or Being a Hypocrite (A Wandering Eyre)

Authority, Formality, Reality, Hypocrisy (Walt at Random)

since when did this become a column? (Eclectic Librarian)

Still in the incunabula stage (T. Scott)

If I’ve missed any others, please add a comment to this post letting me know.

More blog changes

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You know how some people seem to enjoy periodically rearranging furniture in their homes? (Jeff, one of my older brothers, used to do this a lot with his bedroom. My brother Dan and I shared a room at the time, and we even let him rearrange ours once in a while just for the fun of it.) Well, I seem to do the same thing with this blog every once in a while. Here are the latest changes:

  • Added an About page (this used to be a sidebar widget)
  • Added a Contact page (this also used to be a sidebar widget) that includes an email form and now a Meebo Me widget as well
  • Added a more prominent link to my photos
  • Added a Publications page

The Publications page is the biggest change. I decided that it might be a good idea to track down everything I’ve had a hand in publishing and maintain it in Zotero. Once I did that, I thought, Why not just present it on a page in WordPress? Then once I did that, I thought, Hey, here’s a great way to use COinS! So I have COinS-ized that page. The list of my publications is a lot longer than I thought and looks a bit more impressive than it really should. It actually includes writeups of several NASIG presentations I gave plus some short pathfinders I compiled while a grad student in the Latin American library at UIUC. That was a long time ago!

Additional thoughts and comments from NASIG 2007

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Below is a smattering of additional thoughts and comments from NASIG 2007:

Karen Schneider‘s paranoia and negativity about things like Google, EPA library closings, survival of small press publishers. Her purpose as a vision speaker was to stimulate debate and thought and I think she succeeded in that. I may not agree with her overall philosophy or approach to these issues but I think it is very healthy to step back and question some of the broader trends in librarianship and ask the hard questions about where they are leading us.

Brainstorming session intended to provide a forum for discussing the problem of reluctance on the part of members to run for office. I wish more people other than “old timers” had spoken up and that there had been more focus on concrete answers to the questions raised by the moderator (Katy Ginanni) and less on generalizations about “trust me, it is really, really good to serve on the Board.”

Dan Chudnov‘s emphasis on the need for simplicity in resource access and discovery. His reliance on iTunes as the standard for judging simplicity has many some flaws even if his general point is well taken. I especially liked his point about trying something out and tweaking it a little. That little tweak may pay off in huge dividends in terms of successful adoption of a new technology. I also think he has a great idea by proposing that libraries insert themselves into the realm of what he terms “service links.” These are available in just about every major media outlet on the web and commonly include links to Technorati, del.icio.us, and other social networking services.

Yet more assumptions about fellow librarians having or sharing the same — liberal — political approach and philosophy. E.g. several negative references to the current (Bush) administration, wearing t-shirt supporting a Democrat’s presidential candidacy, etc. Noticed Dan Chudnov’s reference in his speech to “liberal” vs. “right wing” — perhaps an unconscious but notable inflection of wording.

Importance of networking. I am not a social butterfly at all. In fact, lots of social interaction leaves me exhausted. (By contrast, others like my friend Beverley Geer get their energy from social interaction.) In spite of my natural shyness — some people tell me I come across as aloof — I keep trying to hone my skills and break down the barriers that hold me back from meeting new people. At NASIG this is easier for me to do than in some other situations. I enjoyed sitting next to people at the dine-arounds who were total strangers to me, conversing with them about their work, their interests, and issues of mutual concern. In this way I found out some really interesting details, such as the fact that one longtime NASIG member is an accomplished piano (and flute) player, with two Steinway grands. I learned a lot of interesting facts about the city of Houston from someone else, such as the fact that it had no zoning laws of any kind until relatively recently. Yet another conversation filled me in on what it is like as a foreign national to live in Johannesburg, South Africa (like living in a prison).

Discussion with a librarian from a university in the Southwest about what it’s like to have a non-librarian as library director and the drastic — good — changes brought about so that the library is once more popular with students as a destination.

Several mentions of “work / life balance.”

General recognition (I think) that ERMS are not working out well for many, at least not yet. I likened them to a solution in search of a problem in one open mic comment at a session and described my library’s very recent decision to get out of the vendor-supplied ERMS game altogether. There was some interest in open source solutions.

NASIG 2007 photos

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Just discovered that friend Char Simser, new president of NASIG, posted her photos from the conference in Louisville last week to Flickr. Look carefully and you might see me in one of her photos! I brought my camera with me to the conference but took only a few photos; I don’t know why I didn’t take more and wish I had. Char also points to the Technorati tag for NASIG, which is a good idea and will help those who are interested to track down individual posts about the conference or other things related to the organization that have been published in the blogosphere.

The "dark side" discussion [Updated]

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The main reason I was able to go to NASIG this year was that Anne McKee, program officer for the Greater Western Library Alliance (apparently known as GWLA, pronounced “Gwilla”), kindly invited me to participate in a panel discussion about alternative library careers for serialists. I jumped at the chance to present with friends and colleagues including Anne, Christine Stamison, Beverley Geer, Mike Markwith, and Bob Schatz. Anne represented consortia (the aformentioned GWLA), Christine brought the perspective of working for a subscription agent (Swets), Beverley with a journal publisher (Sage), Mike had a subscription agent (WT Cox) as well as PAMS1 background (TDNet), Bob represented book vendors (Coutts), and I came with a background working for a ILS vendor (Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., now Ex Libris Group) and in a corporate library.

Each of us limited our remarks to 7-8 minutes at Anne’s request in order to maximize the question and answer time with the audience, which numbered around 150 people. That isn’t much time to both describe our backgrounds, why we made the career decisions that we did, and offer pertinent advice as to what it takes to work in an alternative library career.

If you’ve been in the world of libraries for any length of time you will know quite well that there are persistent stereotypes and divisions between various forms of librarianship. For instance, cataloging people and acquisitions people are always supposedly against each other, public services conflicts with technical services, professional librarians and paraprofessionals, and on and on. One of the deepest rooted of these is the continual reference to the “dark side” — meaning, working in the for profit sector. There are many people in this profession who feel that theirs is a higher, better calling if they work in a public or academic library, i.e. a non profit environment. Often there is a lack of respect shown to those who “dare” to look for better wages and sometimes more challenging work in the business world. (Thus the reference to the “dark side.”)

This session, then, was an opportunity to highlight some of the many positives, and negatives, about working for a vendor and in other alternative situations.

One of the things that came up during everyone’s presentations as well as during the Q&A session afterward, was this issue of the “dark side.” I think the highlight of the entire session was when Eve Davis, who works for EBSCO, stated: “We joke about the divide, yet we seem to be perpetuating that very thing by mentioning it so often. Why don’t we stop using terms like ‘the dark side’ even in jest?”

[Updated June 11, 2007: I realized after I had posted this that my narrative just ended without going into any further detail about the session's content, so what follows is what I meant to write originally.]

Here are some of the impressions or things I especially recall from what other presenters had to say:

  • Several mentions by those on the panel of having a sense of impatience with the status quo. I thought this was interesting and noteworthy. Christine Stamison, for instance, talked about the process of implementing a new serials check-in form via a committee at The University of Chicago Library, and how that discussion took six months to come to a resolution. If I recall, she made some quip about how difficult it was to “turn the Queen Mary around.” I worked with Christine in the same environment and I can attest to the truthfulness of this observation. Sometimes things change too quickly in the for profit world, but it seems like all of the presenters preferred a faster pace of change and fewer meetings.
  • Anne, Christine, Beverley, Mike, and Bob all spoke about the supposed glamour of travel, how it really wasn’t that glamorous after all. Mike illustrated this by mentioning the number of times he warmed his McDonald’s hamburger on top of his hotel room’s TV set. Christine mentioned the fact that this kind of work life can be really lonely, and that you have to have a strong sense of self, that you have to really like who you are. Bob mentioned how much he regrets that travel takes away from time with his family.
  • MLS as union card. Beverley made this point, that in her view, the library degree is nothing more than a union card. That doesn’t mean it has no value (Anne also made this point); on the contrary, it establishes important common ground with clients. All of us agreed that we are librarians first and foremost. Anne mentioned, for example, filling out paperwork for her children’s school where she was asked to state her profession, and that she always answers the question with ‘librarian.’
  • It was funny to learn that Bob’s first job out of library school was at a taco shack of some sort in Oregon (his home state).
  • Support for professional involvement. Everyone on the panel agreed that they receive strong support for professional involvement from their employers. In some cases (and this has been my personal experience), such support is often stronger than what we would have received in an academic or public library. Christine mentioned that she requires everyone who reports to her to become NASIG members and to attend the conference each year.

Some of the points that I tried to make in my portion of the session:

  • Be sure to build a record of accomplishment. Then be willing and able to articulate what you’ve done and how it benefits you in various situations. What I was thinking of here, but failed to say explicitly, was the need for project management skills. That is huge. In every job I’ve ever held, the ability to plan and execute projects has been critical.
  • It’s not all about money. Yes, the grass is almost always greener on the for profit side of the fence. I pointed out that this was a motivating factor for seeking a job on “the dark side” (and I think this is true of the other panelists as well) but that it was far more important for me to have work that is challenging, fulfilling, and where I learn new things every day.
  • It is really important to be a quick study, meaning, be willing to learn and learn quickly. I pointed out that many of the jobs I’ve held were ones for which I had no prior background, but that I was able to succeed in them because of working hard to learn all necessary skills.
  • Have specific career goals in mind. Review them regularly, and understand that they may change over time. The example I gave was the difference in my career made by becoming a husband and father. When I was single, I devoted 95% of my time and energy to my career. Now that I have a family, they take precedence.

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1 PAMS refers to Publication Access Management System, a class of vendor-supplied services that helps libraries manage the e-content to which they provide access.

Proposal for e-resources management course

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One of the things that came up in conversation a few times when I was at NASIG this past weekend was that last year I made a proposal to UIUC GSLIS for a new, advanced course on electronic resources management. My intent in proposing this new course was that an existing course that I taught, Technical Services Functions, would be a prerequisite as would perhaps one or two other existing courses. More than that, however, my goal with this course is to get GSLIS students some much-needed focused exposure to the increasing dominance of e-resources (especially serial e-resources) in libraries of all types. Such a course is, in my view, long overdue. And the students themselves are clamoring for it.

Several people I spoke with at NASIG showed interest in what I had proposed so I have dug the following draft syllabus outline out of my email (thanks, Gmail, for making it so easy). If you have a moment and are interested in this topic, let me know what you think about it, either by commenting on this post or sending me an email.

Electronic Resources Management: A Suggested Course Outline
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I. Definitions and Distinctions
a. What is an e-resource?
b. How does it differ from and how is it similar to other, more traditional library materials?
b. Overlap with integrated library systems work, serials management, acquisitions, collection development, etc.
II. Conceptual Framework
a. Access vs. ownership for libraries
b. Effect of living in an Amazon/Google/iTunes worlds
c. Relevance and authority issues for e-resources vs. other library material
d. Virtual vs. in-person library service
III. Types of E-Resources
a. E-journals
b. Websites
c. E-books
d. Databases
e. Other
IV. Management Challenges
a. Diversity of selection and workflow processes
b. Explosive growth in availability
c. Preservation issues
d. Issues for intellectual access (e.g. website lists or links vs. traditional cataloging vs. other methods for organization)
e. Licensing and copyright
f. Fiscal resources
g. Balancing “traditional” vs. e-content
h. Rapid change and high user demand
i. Evaluation of use vs. cost and other metrics
V. System Tools for Managing E-Resources
a. Locally developed
b. Commercial tools
c. Classes or categories of tools (e.g. OpenURL resolvers vs. ILSs vs. ERMS vs. Other)

Some NASIG conference impressions

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It’s no secret that NASIG is my favorite professional organization and that I enjoy NASIG conferences more than any other. Why? One reason is that there is nowhere I feel more at home than at NASIG. People are friendly, warm, supportive, thought-provoking, and do very interesting things both in their personal lives and professionally. The NASIG organization is all about relationships. Funny, that is exactly what serials are like, too. I remember my former professor and mentor, Kathryn Luther Henderson, writing about serials in a Serials Librarian article a long time ago and comparing serials to families.1

Aside from the many warm hugs I received from longstanding friends, here is a smattering of what I remember most about this year’s conference, in no particular order of importance:

  • My friend and fellow “way past it” NASIG president, Susan Davis, jokingly remarking that I had peaked early (referring to when I was NASIG president eight years ago) and it was all downhill from there.
  • My friend and another “way past it” NASIG president, Anne McKee, mistakenly using the word obituary when referring to me in her introduction of a session I took part in.
  • Listening in amusement (and sometimes, amazement) at the open mic session Saturday night as various attendees stood up in front of a supportive audience to tell funny stories, read poetry, or sing acapella. I laughed ’til I cried at the story told by friend Gail Patrick of Depauw University that involved a motorcycle trip, snakes, and a visit to a place known as “The Garden of Eden.” Then there was a hilarious story from one woman that involved her mother’s false teeth. One first-time attendee worked up the courage to sing a solo. The whole event was great!
  • Wonderful food and great conversations at the dine-arounds Friday and Saturday evenings. Saturday night especially featured fantastic food at a restaurant in downtown Louisville named Saffron that featured simple yet elegant Persian-inspired food. I had an incredible rack of lamb on a bed of basmati rice, accompanied by a wonderful old vine Zinfandel whose name I can’t recall. I also remember one morning when we sat down with someone I had known for many years who is a cataloger at a state institution in the Washington, D.C. area. She was there with her husband and in the course of conversing with them I was floored to learn that they are avid thoroughbred horse-racing buffs and that they own several racehorses! Even more amazing was the fact that her husband knew of someone with whom I grew up in east central Illinois who is now a highly successful trainer based at Arlington Racetrack. His comment about my classmate, whose name is Chris Block, was simply “Money in the bank; money in the bank.” I told them how much I was fascinated with thoroughbred horse-racing when I was growing up and how Chris planned to grow up to be a trainer and I was going to be his jockey. He has reached his dream but somehow I grew out of any jockey aspirations :-) They even invited me to go with them to one of the nearby stables where they were going to check on the status of one of the brood mares they own. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that because I needed to leave for home immediately after the conference.
  • Many stimulating conversations on personal and professional topics with Mark Lindner, who shared the car trip and conference hotel room with me. I really enjoyed getting to know him and was glad to spend time with him. One of his many strengths is that he is unabashedly open and frank about what he thinks and about his life.
  • Talking with Sanjeet-Singh Mann, a student grant award winner from UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, about the importance of values and ethics in librarianship, among other things.
  • Meeting and talking with Steve Black from the College of St. Rose about the serials course he teaches at SUNY Albany, and also learning about a podcast program he founded for his institution called Periodical Radio, which focuses on interviewing editors and publishers of magazines and periodicals. Steve is also the author of a recently published book on serials management from Libraries Unlimited entitled Serials in Libraries: Issues and Practices.

There was of course much more to the three days. I haven’t even mentioned anything about the sessions I attended. I’ll try to mention some things about that in a different post.

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    1Henderson, Kathryn Luther. “Personalities of Their Own: Some Informal Thoughts on Serials and Teaching About How to Catalog Them.” Serials Librarian 22, no. 1/2 (1992): 3-16.