The Ubiquitous Librarian (Brian Mathews)

A plea to the ACRL 2011 planners

It’s time to dust off this blog again. I have lots to share, but no time to write--- so this will be a quick one. I’ll hopefully have some interesting (or at least new) content in the upcoming weeks—deep into the planning process right now.

I have to say that I would be extremely displeased with ACRL if they brought in Mark Bauerlein. If you are going that direction why not go all the way and bring in Glen Beck, Limbaugh, or someone else from that “hate economy”? Actually, what would be really cool is having Colbert debate Bauerlein. Seriously though, negativity is not the way to go, especially in a horrendous economy. I suggest someone with a positive upbeat message that is actually practical. A person who can talk about heading into the future instead of someone stuck in the past.

Van Jones perhaps? I’m totally digging his Green Collar book. 

Or Wired columnist Clive Thompson who frequently writes about web culture. His current piece The New Literacy is very intriguing and flips Bauerlein on his head. Clive talks about a study done by Dr. Andrea Lunsford (Stanford) who says, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization.” And Clive adds, “The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it.”

This is more of what I would expect from an ACRL speaker. I am not sure what the conference theme is yet, but unless it is nostalgia related I say skip Bauerlein.

A bit of this and that: some updates

Wedded
The “I do’s” are done. Another librarian/librarian union is formed. We had a nice honeymoon in Charleston.

Book
My book is done too—or I should say, the manuscript is finished and it is in ALA’s hands now. I expect there to be a round of editing. Hopefully it will be out Spring 2009.

Apparently there is a Title Committee and they have named it:

Marketing Today’s Academic Library: A Bold New Approach

I have some issues with the word “bold” but it is one of those choose-your-battles moments. I think I’ll let this one go. My title was:
Communicating with College Students: marketing strategies for academic libraries.

ACRL 2009
I usually get burned by ACRL, but this time around it worked out. Steven Bell is a good luck charm. Looking forward to my first trip to the great Northwest.

• “Mapping Your Path to the Mountaintop: Planning Where You Want To Be In Your Career” w/ Steven Bell (Temple), John Shank (Penn State), & Lauren Pressley (Wake)

• “If fish markets can do it so can we: designing memorable library experiences for students and faculty.” w/ Steven Bell (Temple) & Valeda Dent (Rutgers)

RIP GIL Express
Sad news for scholars in the poor state of Georgia – as of next week out inter-borrowing program GIL Express is being suspended. This was a terrific service! Unfortunately it feels like the state is taking a step back with this decision. But hey, there is no gas at the pumps in Atlanta, so I guess we have bigger problems to deal with than borrowing books. Both of the presidential candidates are hyping up change, so either way things will get better, right?

Punk & Zen - a talk at ALA

Ok, so I told myself I didn’t want to use this blog to promote my talks or articles—it’s designed for something different, a glimpse at my ideas, observations, experiments, and fantasies, but hey, rules were made to be broken, so let’s do it:

ALA
Washington, D.C.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
10:30 am till lunch
The Hilton Washington Hotel — Military room

ACRL – New Members Group (academic librarians)

Myself and Mr Crit Stuart

It’s going to be Punk & Zen.

He’s holistic and Buddhist (not 100% sure about that) and part of ARL.
I’m “allegedly” controversial and irreverent and bring it like this.

We’re building around a theme:
“Too Shy or Too Shameless: Finding a Balance in Personal PR”

Crit will probably talk about networking, influencing people, reputation, the art of conversation, finding yourself/your identity/your voice, domestication of space, and dialectics.

Here is my potential set list:

• The ALA Bureaucracy & Social Agenda
• Walt Crawford’s Book – first have something to say (Read It!)
• Getting Published: style vs. content
• The Secret Code Words for getting conference presentations accepted
• Your Alter Ego – talking/writing publicly
• Does everyone just want to be famous? (how blogs have leveled the field)
• Layers of secrets – workflow in academic libraries  - cliques & alienation
• Planting Seeds – getting buy in – mediocrity – getting shot down, rebounding
• Watch Out! People will steal your ideas!
• What libraries & librarians are supposed to be; the problem with 2.0
• Reference Librarians are elitist; don’t forget about circulation
• Strategic Planning = copy & paste, repeat, repeat, repeat
• Social Software Storefronts = bad idea (just being there is not enough)
• Advancement @ your Library; Advancement in the Profession
• Why Most Library Advertising is Lame
• Motivation & Inspiration & Transformation & Innovation
• Self-hype vs. the buddy system
• Impressing people with creativity = they have no idea what you’re talking about
• The Librarian Zombie mindset

(Note: not all of these topics will be covered.)

So there you have it. This program is geared toward newer librarians, ideally those with less than three years of professional experience, and current MLS grad students are even better. If you’re a library science student at U Maryland or Catholic (or elsewhere) and are not attending ALA for some reason, come on out to this session as my personal guest. I’ll get you through the door, just don’t tell ALA. For an organization that preaches open access you’d think that our conference papers would be free, but not so... Rettig, do something about that, please.

Anyway, it should be a good session. Crit and I will each talk briefly and then lead (co-lead?) group discussions and whatnot. For those who are new or entering the profession, you’ll get a good blend of perspective and experiences. I think we can all learn a lot from each other. Crit green-lighted several of my projects so you’ll hear how we worked together in the roles of administration vs. frontline staff. We’re both a bit outside of mainstream librarianship, so it makes sense that they put is in the “military” room—because we’re battling tradition.

And those of you out there who have been in the profession for some time… I’m sure there will be some other fascinating session on information literary, a workshop on wikis, or something like that. I don’t want to discourage you from attending, but this is for “new” members of ACRL.

Oh and if you’re looking for something to do Sunday night of ALA, try the Black Cat.
Straylight Run, Sparta, and lovedrug are decent indie-rock bands, not bad for a $15 show.

Reference Desk Backlash

Wow, just like Crime Mob, my ACRL Panel group is being Hated On Mostly. Apparently our talk left people feeling “ridiculed” and “angry”—which is better than bored and complacent, but I don’t really like being a catalyst of negativity.

The Chronicle provides some details, but this link will expire in a few days: "Are Reference Desks Dying Out?"

Anyway, I apologize to Kathy DeMey and Eric Frierson if they were offended by anything I said. Our objective was to think critically about the function and future of the Reference Desk, but I guess some people took it personal.

UPDATE:
I consider myself an explorer—not a policy maker. I’ll leave it up to others to do the research, establish best practices and write the official ACRL social networking guidelines. I evaded questions at the conference because I don’t have the answers. I can’t tell people what will work at their library. There is no nice model to follow. No path. I simply try and fail and try and fail and every so often find gold. I help more patrons via social networking, course management placement, IM, and other outreach methods than I do at the Ref desk. So I’ll keep doing it. Sorry to disappoint everyone.

ACRL Award and a Missed Opportunity

I’m definitely not suited for PR. PR is all about patting yourself on the back and saying “look at how great we are.” I’m much more interested in a conversation that goes “what do you need, oh yeah? Well check this out.”

I’ll never be a library director because I cringe at pageantry. We had our official ACRL Library of the Year presentation today. It just wasn’t my thing. We went carnival style with the marching band, hotdogs, soda, and lots of speeches. But what I really like is that at the same time we offered alternative programming in another location.  We had two students present research, one on the student/faculty relationship via FaceBook, the other on the changing face of television with respect to gender and sexual identity.

Right now our admin team is having a “dignitaries” lunch with all the important people on campus. What we missed out on was a chance to interact with students more directly. I think you can spread the word to the masses with a free hotdog and the school mascot jumping around, but we should have pulled together a second lunch for student connectors. (I hate using Gladwell’s term.) Something like this:

Get someone from SGA, someone from the campus radio and tv stations, the president of the Chinese Student Group, someone from the photography, BBQ, and Dance organzations, a few members from Greek community, a leader from the environmental group, the human rights group, the college republicans, and so on. Get 30 or so diverse personalities that are active around campus and treat them to a decent lunch and say something like: “Ok, so we won this award. Right now our Director is meeting with the President, Provosts, Deans, and Donors. They’re basically trying to get more money. You guys are important because you’re the ones who are going to help us spend it. And so on…” Start with a basic focus group, lay out future plans and ideas, but what I really want to dig into is who these people are. How do their groups function? What types of influence do they have? How can we package our message differently (relevantly) to each? How are their needs unique and similar? Where do they succeed and where do they struggle? Use this lunch to nurture relationships with influential students and promote overall good-will for the library.

Back in the 20th century it was all about location, location, location. Now it’s all about segmentation, segmentation, segmentation.

Anyway, I’m off to Orlando for the week. My brother’s getting married. He’s the one with a wife, a nice car, and the free trip to Europe when he graduated from high school. Hmmm, maybe I’m bitter?

behind the scenes @ ACRL

Baltimore is a cool city. I like it better than Atlanta actually. I dig Greektown and Little Italy. I never go to any offical receptions or that stuff, instead I like to explore the little neighborhoods. Anyway, here are some pics from behind the scenes at the conference.

This is the green room for presenters. A nice place to practice, eat, chill, talk, use the web, etc. Endless cookies, sodas, and fruit!

I was on a panel with Jim Rettig, Jerry Campbell, Bill Miller. All big timers. We had over 500+ people come to our talk. Thanks everyone. Then we turned around and did a virtual version. It was hard to sustain that energy after the live performance. Anyway, this is us in the secret webcast location. Hope got us hooked up.

ACRL 2007 – what might have been

ACRL 2007 – what might have been

Oh Baltimore , what could have been. Apparently ACRL isn't feeling the Ubiquitous Librarian either. 0-2 so far with proposals for the 2007 conference. Maybe the Annoyed Librarian can provide some advice about how to get proposals accepted? Unlock the door for the rest of us! I guess I should have tried to work the terms information literacy, scholarly communication, effective practices, usability, curriculum focused instruction, or professor-librarian collaboration into the title—those seem to be the same old regurgitated themes that ACRL loves.

Here's a look at what might have been:

#1 The Reference Question--Where has Reference Been? Where is Reference Going?

Short Abstract: Fifteen years ago technological innovation challenged librarians to “rethink reference.” What has driven change—strategic decisions made by librarians, external forces, or some combination of the two? How must reference change to thrive during the next fifteen years?

Panel:

• James Rettig, University of Richmond
• Jerry D. Campbell, University of Southern California
• William Miller, Florida Atlantic University
• Cheryl LaGuardia, Harvard University
• Brian Mathews, Georgia Tech

I was really looking forward to meeting this panel, especially Jerry Campbell. I'm hoping we might find a new outlet for this talk, even if we do it via phone/skype and release it as a podcast. Talis , interested?

#2 The Intuitive Reference Approach: interacting with students through blogs

Short Abstract: While reference transactions are in steady decline, students still require assistance with research. This session introduces a proactive approach toward reaching students through their personal blogs.

This was based upon the white paper I wrote: Intuitive Revelations: The Ubiquitous Reference Model . It was actually the start of the whole ‘ubiquitous' librarian approach. Hmmm, maybe this session could fit in somewhere like the Blended Librarian ?

My suggestion/lesson for ACRL 2009: submit 10 proposals!