:The Young Librarian Series

Adam Girard is a 28 year old Audio-Visual Librarian at a public library in Illinois. You can check out his website at: http://adamgirard.net/ and contact him with questions at: adamgirard[dot]mail[at sign]gmail[dot]com.

As a young librarian one of the greatest boons that I have to offer to librarianship is a fresh and unique perspective. I have not worked in this profession for decades, nor have I made any hard and fast decisions about many of the key issues that we face. Being “flexible” and open to new influences can also be a challenge. In a sometimes bureaucratic and dogmatic profession, flexibility is often idealized but seldom easy to implement.

With that caveat out of the way, one part of librarianship that is infinitely fascinating to me is the intersection between a patron’s understanding of information management and the usefulness they derive from the library’s imposed organization and conventions. The relation between these inputs is something that often gets overshadowed by various interests. Despite the inherently theoretical nature of this comparison, it does serve a valuable purpose. The strength of this conceptual framework is the opportunity to apply it to any library-specific issue, while the weakness is its lack of specificity. Using this juxtaposition as a frame to think about library specific issues can help to provide a more patron-centric perspective. Once it has been applied to a well defined issue, quantifiable measurements for “a patron’s understanding of information management” and “the usefulness patrons derive from the library’s imposed organization and conventions” may be assigned.

A perfect example of the place where patron experience and the value they derive from that experience meet is the OPAC. Online Public Access Catalogs have been in use for more than fifteen years. These tools are of interest because they are often the primary point of interaction between patrons and the information that they seek. It seems that patrons make frequent use of OPACs, but relatively few of them ask a librarian for assistance whether their searches are successful or not. As OPACs have improved, precision and recall for electronic catalogs has improved, so has the success of patron searches.

A lot of work is needed for OPACs to catch up to their “commercial competitors”. This statement is slightly misleading because the purpose of commercial bibliographic searches and library OPACs are quite different. For that reason the comparison is one that should be made with careful consideration of the differences between the products. Not having formal training on the intricacies of bibliographic search techniques, patrons can be expected to compare OPACs to the commercial software that they are familiar with. This means that patrons often compare OPACs with other “book searches” despite their differences.

I have noticed a high degree of patron dissatisfaction with a wide array of OPAC products over time. I have also had valuable opportunities to provide patrons with instruction that ultimately leads to satisfaction and successful experiences with OPACs. There are many possible solutions to the issue of patron success with OPACs. None of the solutions are appropriate in every setting. The goal of this commentary is not to bash or celebrate electronic library catalogs, but rather to provide a motivation to reconsider the patron’s understanding of this information seeking “tool” and the usefulness derived from it.

Do you have a concept you would like to be featured on the Young Librarian Series?  Send an email with your idea to: younglibrarianseries@gmail.com or visit the SUBMISSIONS page for more details! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!

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Kit Ward-Crixell is a 40 year old technical services/teen librarian in New Braunfels, Texas. You can contact her with questions at: kwardcrixell[atsign]nbpl[dot]lib[dot]tx[dot]us or read her forthcoming blog which will be located at: www.librarypopcorn.wordpress.com.

When I started planning teen summer reading, I had one rule: The Clown Isn’t Coming Back. I privately imagined Bonzo the Fire-Farting Clown, packing the library with teens mesmerized by his flatulent abilities. (Don’t deny it; you know this would happen at your library too.) But I also knew however popular he was, if his show didn’t connect youth to the staff, to the collection, or to each other, they wouldn’t be coming back.

I wanted to create a teen summer reading program that was participatory, that turned teens into library creators instead of just library consumers. Some days this worked better than others. Here are some of the lessons I learned along the way.

1.) Eli Neiburger is Always Right (And That’s OK)

Eli says that when you create new programs, you get new kids. At first I didn’t believe him. I thought our regular teen patrons, the ones who volunteer or who drop by and say hi at the desk every week, would come once a month for “teen summer reading” no matter what the program was. Then we had our first program, a video game workshop, and the room was packed with kids I had never seen before in my life. None of my regulars showed.

Little kids will come to storytime no matter what the craft or the song is, but we don’t expect adults to come to the knitting group just because they like the bilingual computer class. The more our teen programming really addresses teen interests, the more their attendance will follow the adult pattern.

2.) If You Build It, They Will Improve It

Having visible nuts and bolts in a program encourages participants to tinker around with it. I’m sure the teens knew I was flying by the seat of my pants at several points; nothing says crash and burn like a highly publicized photography contest with a professional judge and zero entries. But at least that meant I was able to change things when the kids came up with their own programming ideas. I never would have thought that a teen writing group would be popular, but when they organized it on their own with no help from me, it turned out to be a hit.

3.) Fresher is Better

It skeeved me out when I explained my concept to a performer and they responded with a photocopied list of five programs I could pick from. You can’t impart a love of libraries by taking a canned performance and sticking “by the way, read books!” on the end. On the other hand, the great people who did help with our programming came through heroically for us. In many cases, they were trying something that was completely new for them, and it was clear from their energy and enthusiasm that they were looking at the teens as partners in their enterprise rather than just as an audience.

4.) Know Their Names

This needs no explanation, but it does come with a story. Back when I was doing youth ministry on the west coast, there was a legendary youth minister who we all wanted to be like. Once, while he was giving a talk at a church, a grouchy older lady berated him about the fact that the youth stopped coming to church once they turned thirteen. “What are their names?” he asked. Grouchy lady sputtered, “Well… well… I don’t know their names!” The youth minister came back, building to a crescendo, “If I’d been going to the same church for thirteen years and nobody knew my name, I’D LEAVE TOO!”

After this summer I’m more convinced than ever that it’s time to make youth programming more participatory. I started with the idea that having teens participate in content creation would bring them to the library; I ended up realizing that it would also result in some seriously excellent new ideas. Now you can see teens sitting in our redecorated youth area under a collage they made, writing their novels and drawing their manga. We’ve still got a way to go, but it sure looks like 2.0 to me.

Do you have an essay you would like to be featured on the Young Librarian Series?  Send an email with your idea to: younglibrarianseries@gmail.com or visit the SUBMISSIONS page for more details! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!

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Mandy Knapp is 26 years old and has spent seven years working in libraries, the last two as a librarian at Worthington Libraries.  Inquiries, suggestions or comments on the Saveohiolibraries.com project can be directed to saveohiolibraries[at sign]yahoo[dot]com.

Young librarian Series Podcast by younglibrarianseries

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