PUSHING LIBRARIANS INTO PUBLIC AWARENESS
by Marylaine Block
A distinction commonly made on the web is between passive information, that sits on a web site and waits for people to discover it, and pushed information, which uses every available format -- weblogs, RSS feeds, e-mail, listserves, etc. -- to reach targeted audiences with known interest in the topic. It seems to me that if librarians truly want to be the go-to people for information, they need to do both: create passive information treasure troves serving the interests of all their users, and pushed information that serves the needs of specific interest groups among their users.
Libraries have generally operated on the passive information model -- we sit at the information desk, in the children's room, in the government documents collection, and wait for people to ask us questions. Yes, of course, we've publicized our services, and the web has allowed us to create pages for Frequently Asked Questions and Hot Topics and Homework Help and Subject Directories. Unfortunately, in the age of Google, our good work still hasn't made libraries the first resource people think of when they need to find investment advice, a guide to basic plumbing, a good children's book about late bloomers, or passenger lists from 19th century ships. If we want people to know how much we know, and how many resources we make available to them for free, we have to spend lots more time telling them.
When I started Neat New Stuff <http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html>, it was part of the web site I created for St. Ambrose University's library, Best Information on the Net <http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/>. NeatNew was simply my means for telling faculty and students about interesting new sites I'd recently added to the page.
This was back in 1995, and truth be told, I didn't quite understand the way web users seize on anything that fills a vacant niche. Neat New Stuff became the most frequently visited page on the entire St. Ambrose web site, routinely visited and linked by librarians, teachers and researchers all over the world. As a result, its users began to understand its underlying message: librarians are information-savvy, and really get the possibilities of the web. If I was still producing NeatNew on St. Ambrose's behalf, I'd make it available by e-mail and RSS feed as well, to reinforce that basic message and the reputation of my library.
Weblogs, e-mail and RSS have made it remarkably easy for every library to offer specialized services to targeted populations. It's my belief that every page on a library web site should be available as an RSS feed, so that those who use those pages can automatically learn about new resources you've added. I believe every subject specialist who maintains a web page should also maintain a weblog to point its users to news, articles, reports and other interesting developments in the field, and make that blog available to subscribers, as, for instance, the Kansas City (MO) Public Library does <http://www.kclibrary.org/guides/>.
We could carry that one step further, and offer the subscriptions to our local newspapers, shoppers, radio and TV stations, and teachers -- influential people, who need the information librarians have to offer, but don't always realize librarians can supply it. Better yet, we could provide an e-mail service for local business and community leaders, providing news and resources for community issues they're currently struggling with.
Thanks to Amanda Etches-Johnson's work in compiling links to Blogging Libraries <http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/?page_id=94>, I've had the opportunity to explore all the interesting things librarians are already doing with their weblogs -- and when I say weblog, I also mean the RSS and e-mail versions many of them offer. I urge everybody to click their way through the list to see the different purposes librarians have used their public weblogs for.
Not surprisingly, reader services are prominent in library weblogs. I'm a long-time fan of Waterboro (ME) Public Library's h20boro lib blog, <http://www.waterborolibrary.org/blog.htm>, a great site for readers. Molly Williams, the volunteer who created it and many of the other specialized reading resources on the web page, routinely links in book reviews, interviews with authors, announcements of forthcoming books, book club resources -- basically anything book-related. On the Shelf, <http://www.noblenet.org/danvers/weblog/blog.htm>, from the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, MA, does something similar, linking to book reviews and articles about books, authors, bookstores, and reading.
Chicago Ridge Public Library uses its blog simply to announce newly arrived titles <http://www.crpl.blogspot.com/ and provide a link to the catalog entry for availability and title request. ICARUS, the Santa Fe Public Library Blog <http://santafelibrary.blogspot.com/>, is devoted to "library news, book chats, events, websites, and more." In the midst of their chatty accounts of newly ordered books and book-related web sites, they sneak in a bit of education for their users on available library databases and search tricks they can use. St. Joseph County (IN) Public Library, where Michael Stephens is the resident technology guru, offers SJCPL Lifeline: All the News That's Fit To Blog! <http://lishost.org/~sjcpl/>, which is full of information on new books and movies ("Reserve Your Summer Fiction"), best sellers, lists of recommended sf and fantasy, etc.
Many libraries use their weblogs to update people on library news -- upcoming programs and exhibits and such. But it's also a great place to keep users updated on all the changes during a relocation or building project. The Urbana (IL) Free Library has a Construction Updates blog <http://urbanafreelibrary.org/bldgblog.html>, where they've shared accounts and pictures of the ongoing construction, information about the resulting closures, parking problems and other inconveniences, news about the dedication ceremony and the new features people could expect to see in the newly renovated building. A brand new library in a brand new library district in Arizona went one step further with the construction diary on its web site, adding a wish list, complete with prices, for costly amenities that they would welcome from people who wished to donate.
Blogs are a particularly good way to communicate with kids and young adults, who like the breezy informality that the blog format lends itself to. The Dynamically Styled Framingham (MA) Public Library Teen Blogmatic <http://fplya.blogspot.com/> is a good example. Of course half the fun of blogs is that they allow readers to contribute or talk back. The Blogger Book Club, from Youth Services, Roselle (IL) Public Library <http://www.roselle.lib.il.us/YouthServices/BookClub/Bloggerbookclub.htm> is "open to kids in grades 4 – 6 who have a valid Library card at any libary." Once they've signed up, they can post their views on the books currently being discussed.
Academic libraries are using blogs as well, as a great way to let faculty know about what's new at the library. What's New at Auburn Libraries <http://www.lib.auburn.edu/whatsnew/>, for example, talks about new library resources, exhibits, events, and special services the library provides (the income tax page, for instance). Binghamton University Library provides the Science Library Blog <http://library.lib.binghamton.edu/mt/science/>, which announces newly received books, and interesting new web sites, journals, and databases. Drexel University Libraries offers specialized weblogs for Bioscience, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics. At Georgia State University Library News and Subject Blogs <http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/>, users can subscribe to RSS feeds on a variety of topics: African-American Studies, Books and Libraries, Issues in Scholarly Communication, Sociology, etc. (How has this worked for them? Read the preprint of an article they wrote about the blogging experience, at http://www.library.gsu.edu/scholarship/articles/vogel-2004-11-IRSQ-blog.pdf.)
UNC Charlotte's Distance Education Library Services uses a weblog to tell the library users who may be hardest of all to reach about new services and resources available to them and how to use them <http://distanceedlibrarian.blogspot.com/>.
Going beyond just doing its own blogging, the University of Minnesota Library has extended the opportunity to blog to the entire campus with its blog-hosting UThink ssevice <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/>, which is available for free to faculty, staff and students. Their FAQ explains why they're doing it, the advantages of a centralized, university-provided blog site, and the educational value they think it will provide.
One distressing thing I noticed, though, as I clicked my way through the different weblogs, is how many of them haven't been updated since 2004. Perhaps these were failed experiments, or one-person projects whose originator left the job. Other weblogs continue to be updated, but very sporadically.
If a weblog is to work for you as a communications and public relations mechanism, it has to operate by the unstated rules of blogging:
It must be frequently and routinely updated, with interesting content, insightful observations, and useful links, all chosen to meet the needs of a specific and clearly understood audience, whether that audience is teens, chemistry professors, parents, distance learners, whoever.
The creators of the blog must establish and maintain their credibility. (Side benefit: people prefer to ask questions of people they have come to trust.)
They need to write well enough to make the time spent reading the blog's content worthwhile.
I really think weblogs are too valuable a tool for libraries NOT to use them. But library directors need to understand that a weblog is a commitment to the user group it serves. It's not a frill, to be done on the fly when a librarian happens to have a spare moment -- that guarantees that blogs will updated shortly after hell freezes over or librarians finish reading all the professional journals that have been routed to them, which ever happens first. Don't start a blog unless you're willing to make maintaining it an important part of librarians' job descriptions and evaluations.
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COOL QUOTE:
The economic or rational assumption that a manager will seek out a colleague as an information source because he or she values the individual's level of knowledge is not always the correct assumption. The results support that relationship, more than knowledge, is the reason an individual is sought as an information source. A plausible explanation for such an insight is that seeking information under pressure is an uncomfortable behaviour for managers; they prefer to be the source, solution, and providers of information. Also, because of perceptions defining their role, managers are expected to have answers on demand. Therefore, when a manager must reach out, a trusting relationship is preferred despite the apparent opportunity cost. Managers prefer to seek out individuals they know, like or trust more often than individuals who are the foremost subject matter experts.
Maureen L. McKenzie. "Managers Look to the Social Network To Seek Information." Information Research, 10 #2, January, 2005, http://informationr.net/ir/10-2/paper216.html
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