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Month: January 2007

An Argument Against Library Greeters

Published by Iris on Monday, January 8th, 2007

A while ago Laura blogged about her idea of putting WalMart-like greeters in the library. When I read it I remember thinking that this might work for some people. I imagined someone (other than myself) feeling all warm and fuzzy that somebody had bothered to smile and say “hi.”

Then I imagined me… I’d be trying to figure out if there was a back entrance or an open window I could use to get in without having to walk past a greeter. Then I’d have all my routes mapped out in the library in such a way that I’d be able to avoid all eye-contact with that poor greeter. On the up side (from a library statistics point of view), once I was in the building I’d be loathe to leave because I’d have to pass through the dreaded front entrance if I wanted to check out any materials. I imagined myself timing my departure to be on the far edge of a group of other people, buffers between me and certain greeting. This could be a devious strategy for increasing the length of time patrons spend in the library.

But now I’ve just heard another argument against implementing this idea at our library. My student worker was just in a discussion with some of his friends about WalMart greeters and how it’s obvious that they’re only there to keep people from running out of the doors without paying for their merchandise. “Why else would they pay somebody to stand there all day? They obviously don’t trust anyone,” was the comment one student made a couple of times. This was seconded by the group in general.

So it’s not the strongest evidence, but since I have a pathological aversion to greeting people who are paid to smile and say “hi,” I’ll take whatever falls in my lap. “No,” I affirm to myself as I twist this conversation to fit my ends, “I don’t want to seem distrustful. I don’t want my students to think that I only see them as book thieves. And heaven help me, I really, really don’t want to have to sneak in and out of my own library.”

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SirsiDynix and Vista Equity Partners are an Item

Published by Iris on Monday, January 8th, 2007

During that dead week between Christmas and New Years, almost as if hoping that nobody would see the announcement, Vista Equity Partners bought SirsiDynix. I haven’t blogged about it for three reasons:

  • I don’t normally blog news just for the sake of blogging news (though I have done so in the past on occasion just because I felt like it… nobody ever claimed I was consistent).
  • I’ve been busy.
  • But most importantly, I’m not sure what this means or if it means anything. I’m just plain ignorant, and I know so little that I’m having trouble even having an opinion. Believe me, this is rare.

So what does this mean? Will things change? Will SirsiDynix be able to keep doing what they do? Wouldn’t it be nice if investment companies started to each want their very own ILS to promote and sell? But would this kill the (admittedly slow) innovation of ILS vendors, or would it spur them to change in order to see the value of their stocks go up? Somebody please help me have an opinion.

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One of Those Weeks

Published by Iris on Sunday, January 7th, 2007

Last week and next week both qualify for that title. Last week classes started. There was no “ramping up,” there was no sense that things would get busy soon. Things just got busy. Period.

What was even more depressing was that I spent most of Wednesday simply entering things into my calendar. Meetings got scheduled, reference shifts got scheduled, students started making appointments to see me, and little by little my whole Google Calendar turned blue (my chosen “busy” color). That was one of those days when I could have used an assistant to schedule things, reschedule things, answer my email, and generally free up my time so that I could do all the things that I consider to be fundamentally part of my job, like plan the very challenging class I’m teaching on Monday, or find the answers to the in-depth questions a couple of people sent my way.

To top it all off, a couple of us (me included) spent most of Thursday and Friday redrafting the document we’ve come to call our “White Page.” This page started off as a white paper on The State of Research at Carleton, which was to be handed over to the campus’ curriculum review committee. Then the Dean of the College asked that we please condense our paper into a one-page document, hence the “White Page” moniker. I’m lucky to work with people who are willing to write collaboratively, but the process is quite laborious and by the end of each day we wandered around like zombies, completely fried by hour upon hour of collaborative writing. Friday we were so lifeless that we could hardly get up the energy to leave work. We just stood around, staring at walls, and wondering why we weren’t leaving.

Meanwhile, I didn’t get to finish planning for that class I’m teaching TOMORROW… so guess who’s spent most of her Sunday afternoon and evening at the office.

Next week promises to be much worse. We have consultants coming to do workflow analysis as part of our project to explore cooperative collection development with St. Olaf. I have classes and appointments and only 4 unscheduled hours all week. And my parents are coming to visit for my birthday. The parents-coming-to-visit thing is WONDERFUL, but I wish I didn’t have to be so busy while they were here.

It’s a good thing I’m addicted to my job. That’s all I can say.

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Licenses, e-Access… Are They Diminishing Information Distribution?

Published by Iris on Saturday, January 6th, 2007

Just before the new year, I was talking to one of the people on our copyright committee and he brought up a very interesting question. Is it possible that we will run into an information shortage as we move toward more and more e-access for everything from music to journal articles to books? Here is his reasoning.

First there’s the problem of disappearing fair use. E-access comes with license agreements which trump fair use, and it immediately flips the switch from copyright/fair use to DMCA, which radically reduces user rights. So what happens if a larger and larger portion of our collections are ebooks, ejournals, emusic, etc.? Will our faculty be able to employ these works in their instruction to the same extent? This is largely dependent on the licenses we sign, so as more and more of our collection is electronic we will have to be more and more careful what rights we sign away.

Secondly, what happens if the major, larger, richer libraries stop receiving print versions of books and journals and instead subscribe to e-access for those things? And what if their license agreements restrict those libraries’ abilities to lend via interlibrary loan? The smaller libraries that have benefited from interlibrary loan arrangements may not have access at all any more.

I’d never thought of this before. I love e-access to information, and it would be hard to serve our students without it (and we don’t even have a traditional distance education program, so I can’t imagine what a boon e-access is for those libraries). But I think we’ll have to be careful when balancing growing collections with static amounts of available space, or when we’re eager to give 24/7 access to patrons near and far. If we aren’t careful we may end up like stranded sailors dying of thirst in the middle of an ocean of water. We may end up having access to only our own subscription resources while wading through a flood of information flowing all around us, but denied to us.

It’s a thought to give me pause, and it reinforces that while libraries “aren’t just about books any more” we still need to be about books. It also reinforces that laws and license agreements need to change to the point that we can make use of e-versions of information in the same way that we can make use of analog versions.

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