The Ubiquitous Librarian

Student Reviews of LibGuides & SubjectsPlus

We are in the pre-planning process of transitioning over to a new subject guide system. Two of the products that we are seriously considering are LibGuides and SubjectsPlus. (A big thanks to the taskforce for all their work.)

I asked a few students to provide some quick feedback looking at another school’s guide for their discipline—here’s what I got back.

LibGuides

Student #1
hard to scan text, too wordy, not enough differentiation between title
and description of databases. not enough focus on the main content -
it is battling for the reader's attention with 2 sidebars. the site
design is repulsive, rounded corners make it look like they're trying
to go web 2.0 but failing miserably and it doesn't work well with the
homepage which is more grid/linear oriented than rounded corners
and modules.

Student #2
- there's too much red
- it's hard to read
- the search bar was hard to find
- the "meebo" feature looks pretty cool... is there a way to guarantee
that my questions would be answered? is there a program where i would
get the answer if i went offline?
- there should be an outline or description about the tabs because the
name of the tabs were really unclear...

Student #3
Libguides doesn't seem very helpful at all.  I just look for a list of the
journals/databases that GT has access to & I check those out.   

SubjectsPlus

Student #1
good, accessible navigation. headings in blue blocks clearly separate
different portions of the site that serve different tasks. interesting
use of icons to depict extra metadata about the databases visually.
descriptions have good line-height and are not too verbose to be
unhelpful. wouldn't hurt to wrap text in the main content area
earlier.. 15+ words per line is on the edge of being annoying to read.
main content is a bit too long, perhaps use domtab to load different
areas of text via JS. sidebar is helpful and spaced out well, albeit
the lower elements are too wordy for the area.

Student #2
- i like the "try these first" box that pops up
- the red/green padlocks that appear to show what i can/cannot use is
really helpful
- the Research by Subject: Business--Industry Information section at the
top should stand out more. it doesn't really look important when actually
it saves a lot of time scrolling...
- the main horizontal bar is amazing! drop down lists that bring you to
specific pages is a great feature
- the option to hide or show the key is GREAT!
- a picture of the librarian is also helpful

Student #3
really dislike the popup that you would have to X out of every time.
It's useful to have the most common journals on top, but the popup makes
me feel like I'm being assaulted by advertisements. But I like how the layout
takes up the entire browser window. I don't really understand the 'lock' symbols
next to the journal titles. 

Personally I prefer LibGuides—it feels more modern and the features offer a lot of possibilities… but that’s librarian thinking. Students, at least these three, seemed to prefer the simpler of the two. I hope to get a few more responses back—if so I’ll post them here, but we’re on the verge of finals and they have better things to do than review subject guides.

Summary: It’s easy to get caught up with the flashy new toy, but I guess we just need to keep asking ourselves— who are these guides for: us or them?

The anatomy of an all-nighter

The transparent technologies of flickr and twitter offer tremendous assessment possibilities. We hear about students pulling all-nighters, but this is documented evidence.

4:56 PM
paper + pres due in 22 hours. tick tock. group members unite

6:51 PM
if I have to pull an allnighter to finish this proj I'll likely have to skip the gatech awards banquet luncheon thing and get my award later

7:55 PM
I just talked about epistemological connections in this CS paper. Do I get my cookie now or later?

09:23 PM
trying to explain color wars in this paper as a way of community-driven convention for subgroups. prof is going to think twitter is crazy.

10:17 PM
GT Parking is heartless.. giving parking tickets to students parked at the library this late. @flashmob needs to do something about it

11:15 PM
cramped between @jarryd and @hd_phones in the library near the collaborative computing section.

12:24 AM
@vending_machine: let me start a tab! you know I'm good for it. i need this caffeine. don't make @jarryd and i tilt you. you know we can.

2:10 AM
paper update: 7,400 words and probably 5 pages or so left. then lots of proof reading, bibliography, and then making a presentation. x_x

3:28 AM
just got a call from my connect. coffee is on the way. @ 8,100 words

5:30 AM
now at 8,700 words. just me and @jarryd in the library.

6:11 AM
~9,100 words and we haven't started on the presentation yet =/

3:04 PM
just got done presenting my twitter research paper. relaxing would be nice but alas i have more projects to do.

5:12 PM
back from rocky mtn pizza with @jarryd and @gomeler. now to regain the sleep I didn't get from crashing on the library floor this morning

Donuts for Design

Our administration distributed donuts to each department/unit as an anniversary of our ACRL Award.  So the User Experience Group—consisting of myself and a multimedia designer—took our dozen and gave them out to students… with the catch that they had to give us feedback on a renovation that is currently in the pre-planning stages.

This pre-planning stage has consumed me the past few months. (I’ll post about that in a few weeks once everything is done and we move to the next phase.) So after hours of observation, focus groups, interviews, and U of Rochester type techniques—we’ve developed four layout prototypes—all based on user feedback. In fact, two of the designs were drawn by students themselves. We’ve been testing these concepts over the last two weeks and our little donut excursion re-enforced everything that we’ve been hearing. You know that you’ve got the right design when everyone shares the same vision.

WHAT GETS VIEWED? An exploratory study of large IR collections

In my work circle there has been a lot of talk about growing our institutional repository. There is a big push to add meaningful content. The thing that I always get hung up on though is usage. I’m very interested in what people find useful, and my feeling is that if I’m going to pitch this service to my faculty, then I need to prove to them that the stuff is actually being seen, rather than simply offering them a theoretical argument about why open access is good and big publishers are evil.

So I decided to do a mini study. I wanted to see what the top items viewed were across several universities. I used ROAR to identify DSpace collections in the US, and then sent emails to the libraries with the 10 largest collections. One library never responded, another (MIT) shot me down with ““I'm sorry to report that our staff is unable to provide that data at this time”—but all the others provided me with a list of their top 20 most viewed items. (Thanks!)
I should note that Georgia Tech and U of Oregon were the only organizations in this sample that allowed open access to their statistics.

The results were very eclectic, as expected, however there were definite themes that emerged. For example, the U of Rochester included many musical scores, U of Michigan was heavy with engineering technical reports, Ohio State had numerous articles from The Ohio Journal of Science, U Oregon featured NewBreed Librarian articles as well as classic texts from Shakespeare, Milton and others, while Oregon State included several environmental topics. U Maryland had the most diverse materials and is unquestionably the heaviest used collection within this sample.

Someone should publish a scholarly article about this and perform a detailed synthesis on these collections, but in the mean time, here are the top viewed items from each of the collections:

• Delivery of DNA and Recombinant Infectious Bursal Disease Virus Vaccines in Ovo (dissertation), 34,768 hits, U of Maryland

• How Do I Do This in ArcGIS/Manifold?: Illustrating Classic GIS Tasks, 18,636 hits, Cornell

• Relaxation studies in the muscular discriminations required for touch, agility and expression in pianoforte playing, 8,764 hits, U of Rochester

• A study of the role of carbon in temper-embrittlement and the effect of temper-embrittlement on the fatigue properties of a 3140 steel, 7,155 hits, U of Michigan

• Dragonflies Taken in a Week, 6,650 hits, Ohio State

• Measurement of delignification diversity within kraft pulping (dissertation), 5,517 hits, Georgia Tech (current year only)

• NewBreed Librarian ; Vol. 2, No. 4, 2,093 hits, U of Oregon

• Estimating the weight of plywood, 500 hits, Oregon State

There is definitely a lot of long-tail action going on too. Most of the repositories featured one or two heavily used items, but then dropped off drastically.

Some questions:

• Why is the U of Maryland IR used so heavily? Their top 3 items blow away everyone else (34,768 hits; 32,916 hits; and 32,214 hits respectively)
• How are people finding this stuff? Google? Native Searches? Catalog Searches? Direct Links? We need to run an analytics program.
• How many of these hits are from web crawlers or related software?
• Why the long-tail? What makes those top few items so popular? And just how long is the tail? Could you say something like 90% of everything in our IR was viewed at least once over the past two years?
• If you place your IR within your metasearch tool, will it pad your results?
• Is there a big difference between views and downloads?
• Why does the DSpace interface still look so mid-1990’s?
• How are items obtained? Is it piecemeal or more systematic? Are we building collections or is it random take-what-we-can-get?
• What is the percentage of dissertations? (or, take away dissertations and what have you got left?)
• What non-text items are collected (mp3, videos, jpg, etc)?
• Leaving the  big vision rhetoric aside, what is the goal of each IR?
• How do you measure the success of an IR? Is it volume or downloads or something else?

(If this is your area and you want to work on something together, let me know. I'm devoted to ALA Editions right now, but I'd like to continue this project into 2008.)

And the most “satisfying” library is…

I’m working on a mega-LibQUAL+ project, essentially dumping all the data from large universities into an Excel file. This allows for benchmarking: 1) it lets me see who the top libraries are with specific questions (comfortable space, website, etc), and 2.) it let’s me comparatively track my library’s progress over time.

So far I have the undergraduate data for 75 libraries (mostly ARL with a few notable exceptions) and about half the faculty data. I am pulling from 2003 – 2007, entering the most current numbers available. Excel’s “paste special --–> transpose” is great and so is LibQUAL+ Analytics Tool.

LibQUAL+ is not a perfect measurement, but it’s all we’ve got in terms of national benchmarking. And user satisfaction is far more valuable than collection size. (No disrespect to the HYP.) What I like about my satisfaction tool is that it equalizes everything. It goes beyond simply comparing my perceptions against your perceptions, and instead takes all the data points into account.  It asks the more global question: “how full is your glass?” (How satisfied are your patrons?)

If you look through your LibQUAL+ results PDF, you’ll find barometer charts, like this:

Your goal is for that orange line to fill as much of that gray box as possible; the more the better.

And so, looking at all the undergraduate data, which library ranks highest? The home team: Texas A&M. They invented the tool and run it every year, so I have to discredit them, sorry Colleen.

So who is number two? Georgia Tech. I was shocked and had to triple check all the data. But indeed, in terms of pure satisfaction, our participants responded most favorably across the 22 questions collectively. In all sincerity, we got lucky. We conducted our survey just as we finished a major renovation and benefited from good buzz. By comparison, our pre-renovation numbers would have placed us 25 out of 75 libraries.

I’ll be writing more on this once the faculty and graduate student numbers are collected, but here are a few findings:

Overall Customer Service: Cornell
Overall Library as Place: U of Kansas (really it was Texas A&M, but like I said, home team)
Comfortable & Inviting Location: U of Washington
Website: Clemson

Shifting My Focus – the user experience

As of yesterday I have a new title: User Experience Librarian. This seems to be a natural evolution for me with an emphasis on assessment and communications in the widest terms imaginable.

Essentially, my job now is to study users and to make recommendations to library admin and department heads. I'll also work with others to develop targeted communication strategies and to do a little brand-work. The biggest challenge will be getting all departments/units to trust me—you say the word assessment and people freak out.

That being said, we'll be looking for a new librarian soon to fill my former position. Atlanta is nice, seriously it is. GT is a top five engineering school, and a top 10 public university. The Library has a third building “in the works,” is a member of ARL, and recently received ACRL's Excellence Award. We're well suited for ambitious entrepreneurial types because we're given a lot of freedom to experiment. We also have competitive Athletics programs. Something to think about.

When do they become patrons? (also I'm an anti-hip librarian)

In the premiere issue of the Journal of Web Librarianship, Michael Whang poses an interesting concept urging us to “think of every website visitor as a potential customer” and suggests using banner ads to communicate services and to measure conversation rates. 

This got me thinking about the larger question: at what point does someone become a patron?

If someone walks through our door are they automatically a patron? It gets reported as such in our gate count, but are patrons defined by what they do or simply by their location?

If someone comes in to buy a coffee and then leaves, are they a library patron? (We get zero profit from our café.) If they sit on a couch and read a personal copy of Harry Potter, are they a patron? If they look for a book that is missing from our shelves and so then leave, are they a patron? If they come in to check email and do nothing else, are they a patron?

I don’t think there is an answer—it’s just kind of interesting. With the advertising mindset, I’ve been observing what people do—really trying to define our patrons and their use of the library.

We’re finally getting some interesting stats from our IT folks. We can track unique log-ins. During the fall semester we had 11,949 unique log-ins – not bad for an 18,000 student campus. So that means that 66% of the entire student body logged in at least once during the Fall semester. Our graduate student population is around 6,000 and many of them have their own labs or offices, so I would estimate that the bulk of those who logged in were undergraduates—so I’d safely estimate that about 80% of all undergraduates used our computers at least once. Of course, they’re probably using it for FaceBook, but still, that gives us a better sense of use instead of just a pure gate count. I’m hopeful that in the future we can refine our metrics a little more.

Anti-HIP
Oh, and Kara Jesella set librarians back about 10 years… she’s living back in the roaring 90’s when the web was new and cool. Her article about hip librarians will do more damage than good. For me, changing the stereotype is done through actions, not through fashion. At the next ALA they’ll probably have hip librarian body wash, hip librarian hair spray, hip librarian lip gloss, hip librarian temporary tattoos, a mixed cd for Next Gen Librarians, the official “hip librarian” t-shirt, and so on. No thanks. The “hip librarian” is such a ready-made cliché -- it’s fitting for New York City where style is more important than substance.

Librarian as Quality Assurance Agent

We have a presentation rehearsal studio that gets a lot of use. In the Fall 2006 semester it was booked for 853 hours and we could have doubled that if we had more rooms to offer. The rehearsal studio is designed for groups to practice presentations using the same technology (computer, software, projectors) that are available in the classrooms. Students can also video capture themselves for later review.

Many libraries offer something similar, but what I noticed is that about 25% of all sessions were for Biology or BioMed courses and that women typically made the room reservations, with around 70% for the month of March. We’ve kicked around some theories and the suspicion is that females might be more of the social catalysts that pull the group together. Our total population is only 30% female so this is interesting, but I believe that females tend to use libraries more anyway. (we’ll save that for another day)

I choose 10 random people who had booked the room in March and after a friendly intro, asked them three questions: (paraphrasing)
1. How’d they hear about the room?
2. If we were to build a second room, what would they like to see different?
3. Is there anything specifically they’d like to see different with the rest of the Library?

Seven of them responded and they were all very polite and enthusiastic to share their opinions.

Most had heard about the room from friends or professors, with one saying he saw an ad on our web site. They all wanted more rooms for rehearsal and group study. They also wanted the scheduling of the room to be easier and the ability to checkout supplies, such as laser pointers and USB remotes for class.

The real richness though was in the final question. Everything from not feeling safe on the upper (empty) floors late at night, wanting healthier food in the cafe, enforcement of no talking zones, more power outlets, quick print computers, and fax/photocopying linked to their weekly print quota (they get 50 free pages each week but have to pay for copier and fax services).

We've heard all this stuff before through LibQUAL, focus groups, feedback forms, and just people you talk to. However I really like this direct email method. I responded to each of them addressing their ideas. Next time I am going to ask how their overall Library Experience has been semester and if there was anything notably good or bad. And maybe a second group aiming at their entire academic experience too. This method also provides names of potential students to include in future focus groups or library projects. I was aiming to play the role of quality assurance agent, making sure everything was ok and looking for how we might improve and maintain our success. They seemed to appreciate it because it was directly connected to them and their actual use, rather than just another random survey. It’s like we care or something…

As for advertising, we really don’t need to. Unfortunately we have to turn people way. But we could pull together an inventory of courses with presentation assignments (we can grab this from their sign-up info) and make sure those professors are aware of the rehearsal studio and encourage them to share with their students. We could even give the professors flyers to distribute to the class and sneak in some other library info too.

Jill is probably the only one who will appreciate this, but it could be fun to craft a message that shows a professor handing out an assignment and students forming groups and a female using her laptop to book the room. Building on the theme of plan ahead, reserve your spot now. Of course the female should be someone known around campus, like this. Or maybe feature a group that does a horrible job with their presentation and the message is something like, don't let this be you.

Ah, if only libraries valued advertising.

Questions about UK Libraries - how do they measure up with us?

I just finished a LibQUAL+ project comparing the Georgia Consortium libraries with other systems: OhioLINK, Network of Alabama Academic Libraries (NAAL), and the Wisconsin System. When looking undergraduates the numbers are pretty similar. There were some small differences here and there, but overall very marginal. However, the thing that was shocking was when I compared the US libraries with SCONUL, which is sort of like the ACRL of the UK.

I can’t post any numbers or graphics because ARL is touchy about that, but here is the gist.

The 2006 SCONUL results featured 20 academic libraries, including biggies like Cambridge and Leeds, and over 11,000 undergraduate responses.

Compared with the US they claim to use their libraries more often. When asked about using resources in the library, 86% indicate daily or weekly use, while the US is around 50%. When asked about using library web resources they were at 77% daily/weekly, while US was between 40-50%. So they use their libraries more frequently, but is that because of study halls or something? (I can’t think of UK libraries beyond Harry Potter, sorry.)

So far so good, I was hoping to use SCONUL has a benchmark of excellence—something for us to strive toward, but… that’s not the case. When you look at collections there is considerable difference between the level of satisfaction of US and UK libraries. With printed materials and journals the US consortiums all had a moderate level of satisfaction—not very high, but not too low either. The UK was just barely adequate, barely.

The physical space results are similar too. Looking at quiet space as well as group space, the US consortiums were consistently solid, whereas the UK undergraduates were much less satisfied. “Inspiring” space was also solid within the US, but was a negative in the UK.

How can this be? I’ve always assumed their libraries were superior to ours, at least in architecture and collections. Do they have closed stacks? Do they enforce the shhhh rule? Have they jumped on the café trend? Do they have as many databases and e-journal subscriptions as us? What ILL like? Just about everyone is in the library weekly, so what’s wrong? Why go if they don’t like it? Is it forced upon them?  Are the UK libraries too high-brow and unresponsive to the shift in patron perceptions?

When comparing public service, overall they did much better than with space and collections, but they are still a noticeably lower than the US groups.

I looked at a few of their websites and the vibe I got was one of tradition and convention. Cambridge’s strategic plan emphasizes remaining a world-class library which they seem to define by collections. Buried in the middle is “improve understanding of the needs of the user community” so they are at least recognizing patron perceptions. On the Glasgow University Library site they state: as a result of staffing shortages the Reading Room will close at 18.30 (Monday-Thursday only) from Monday 8 January until further notice-- that doesn’t seem too good.

And the University of Westminster as some interesting “code of behaviours” including: headphones are allowed in some libraries (Not all?) but there must be no leakage of sounds, quiet is to be observed in the library at all times, readers may normally borrow up to 15 items at a time (just 15?), there is a period of grace of ONE DAY ONLY during which you may return or renew overdue items without penalty and after you return overdue loans you will not be able to borrow or renew or request other items for the same number of days that your loans were overdue. For example, if you return a book five days late you won't be able to borrow, request or renew anything for the next five days. Harsh!

I guess I can understand why the undergraduates might be dissatisfied with their libraries. If anyone has experience or insight with UK libraries I would like to know more. Their results are fascinating to me. Different cultures.

GT Documentary Group – Spring 2007

I had an excellent talk last Friday with a several freshmen who created a documentary about the Library as a class project. They were in an English course together over the Fall semester with the theme of “space analysis” (physical space not outer space). During the first part of the course they learned the vocabulary and philosophy of design, and their final project was about sacred spaces. So this class of 17 students worked together on a 20 minute documentary that explores and examines our recently renovated area that we call the East Commons. The film chronicles how the Library transformed from a quiet sacred space into a more dynamic environment. (I’ll post a link once it’s online.)

 

An interesting facet for them was that the Library had always been what it is; they had never seen as it was before. They were investigating something they had never experienced first hand. They also had no precedent, no experience with any other University libraries, so this space didn’t seem innovative to them, it was simply what an academic library was and should be.

         

What was fascinating was their level of sophistication and analytical ability when talking about the Library. This project made them more aware of the space and they recognized the different moods at different times as well as unusual furniture arrangements. They were constantly evaluating the space and how they and others used it. One of the students even mentioned that she text messaged some group members when we moved couches into our café and they were also amused by the Mario installation. Their awareness was not only limited to our main floor, but extended widely throughout the entire building. I would bet that they had more familiarity with the library than most of the people that work in it.

    

Some of the insights they shared with me:
   

• They suggested that during campus tours, the guides take students throughout the entire first floor of the Library in order to expose them to the full space. While they had used the Library during the first month of the semester, it was limited to the main computer cluster. They had not yet discovered the rest of the building. This reinforces the theory of offering a wide mix of social programs, which they agreed would make students more aware of the space. So speed dating, ninja tag, pirate poker (I’m working on that one) and other activities serve to offer a positive social experience, promote the Library, and ultimately can lead to increased long-term usage. In fact, I think we should be doing more “fun” stuff than we already are.

• They said that they didn’t know how the space worked. What were the rules? What was the protocol? The etiquette? They had to learn that they controlled the space, but it was not obvious. This is the transition from our space to their space that we’re working on.

• Being in the Commons made homework feel like less of a chore. In fact, sometimes the Commons is a bad place to study because it was too distracting, however it is great to have the option of other areas for solitude. They said that as they learned more about the Library, they stayed for longer periods of time, several hours each week in fact, and that it has continued into the current semester. I know that this was overarching goal, to create spaces that students actually want to study in.

• They liked the Commons for the social learning experience, but encouraged us to keep the rest of the library ugly. They liked the old fashioned furniture, even though it was uncomfortable, because it inspired them. It transported them back into the past, into a different world, into a different state of mind. The other floors were not about relaxation, but about focus and hard work.

• While in theory the East Commons was designed to be manipulated by students, there are some limitations, such as the inability to adjust lighting or to move the walls around themselves. They also said that tables and chairs could get very crowded and create a mess.

• They stressed the need to have more electrical outlets and plugs dangling from the ceiling on other floors. One student said she even started bringing her own extension cord so that she could plug her laptop in.
• They love the big monitors and ample desk space to spread out materials. This was a large part of the appeal.
• They said that we are weak in providing quick access to computers and printers. Sometimes they just wanted to get in and get out, but had to wait a long time for a computer to open. I touched on this before with the need to adjust furniture throughout the day to satisfy different needs.

• They wanted more bean bags, we currently have four, because this could instantly create sitting space when before there was only just floor.

It was insightful and inspiring to hear patrons talk intelligently about the Library instead of just saying we need more computers. I am going to communicate with them regularly throughout the next four years to see how they grow into the space and how their perceptions of the Library and campus evolve. They have become my own personal Up Series project.      

      
Interesting though, none of them mentioned resources: will that change in time? Do freshman primarily just need space to study and complete assignments? Should that influence our advertising around campus? Will they still spend as much time in the Library as they become seniors? What equipment do they check out? What software do they use? Do they encounter the reference desk? What do they think about our website? Do they attend any of our classes, workshops, or social/cultural events? And what do they tell their friends about the Library?      

       

I am creating a tag (GTStudentDocGroup) in order to chronicle the experiment.

Update:

View the video here.