The Late Night Librarian

Well, let me just blow the dust off this here blog, and poof! Shiny as ever.

A lot of things have changed from my last entry, but the main things to know are as follows:

• I graduated library school (yay!!) after spending a fantastic year working part-time as a reference librarian at the public library where I did my internship and then moved out west to Oregon for my husband's work. 
• I was super fortunate to find immediately that the community college he got hired at was hiring part-time librarians as well, and they hired me. 
• Since my husband's new job is as the Residence Life Coordinator for the new residence hall they just built on campus, we live at the residence hall in a lovely staff apartment. 

All of these things led me to where I am going with this blog post. How convenient would it be, I thought, since I live in the res hall, if I could start doing research help as a librarian in the hall during the evening when students are working hardest on their assignments? How many times in undergrad was I up until 2am looking for just one more source for my paper due the next day? Sure, the library is open until 10pm, but frantic students don't have time to walk over there, much less think of it. They're already in their lounge clothes, they've been working on this paper for hours, they have had nothing but Red Bull and Skittles to eat since their rushed dinner at 4:30pm before their last class of the day. I know, I remember that. 

So really, how hard would it be for me to spend an hour or two in the res hall in the evening once a week? I know it's not exactly the on-call librarian dream for students, but at least maybe it can help a few students who are working right then. I call it the "Late Night Librarian." 

My idea is to spend from 9-10pm in the front lobby of the res hall with a big sign and some candy (necessary) on Wednesday nights. I'm there for help with that last source, the "I'm supposed to cite this in APA but I have no idea what that even means," as a sounding board for topics, and even just the oddball question. 

I don't expect that I will have a mad rush for help, but if I can help a struggling student or two a week to be more successful, I'm happy with that. 

With all that said, the library director has given me her enthusiastic blessing to begin such a program! After looking over my proposal, she sent me a few links to some resources that were really tuseful for me! Mostly this blog post started as a place to comment on certain bits of these articles (once a student, always a student, I guess). 

The Live-In Librarian RUSQ Blog

This was a rather lengthy blog post, but I really found most of it very useful. I pulled out some snippets that I thought were particularly meaningful or that I wanted to comment on below.

“The entire foundation of outpost librarianship rests on the supposition that in a digitally dominated environment, there is still inherent value in the personal encounter.”

I loved this statement, and I think it is so incredibly true! So much of academic library work in particular can be done online, but the basis of library outreach, and this outreach in particular, is that people still need people! 

“For outpost librarians reconnoitering the residence hall, this most personal of campus spaces requires a very delicate intervention. Promoting information literacy in the lobby of a public university building like the student union is one thing, but proselytizing on the students’ very doorstep is another.”

I'm pretty lucky in that right now I feel welcome and at home in the res hall (since, remember, I live there). Also, I'm not exactly the shrinking violet type. I boldly go where no librarian has gone! And I ain't even scared. 

An extensive body of research indicates that students benefit both personally and academically from on-campus living. Thus many colleges and universities have developed on-campus housing with the specific goal of supporting the educational mission. This approach to residence hall design accepts the two assumptions that Riker and DeCoster articulated in 1971: (1) environment influences behavior, and (2) learning is a total process.

If you're interested in the sources the blog mentioned, they're available from the link above. Being married to a student affairs professional with most of his experience being in housing, I am now well-aware of the housing community's goal of supporting academic success, instead of just acting as a place to stay for the students. It's integral to their college experience, and the more of their life that can be tailored for success, the better. I love that "learning is a total process" bit. It definitely reminds me of many class discussions we had in library school. 

Promoting scholarship being central to the mission of college and university housing programs, residence hall administrators are “always open to partnerships with other campus units that will build up academic programming within the context of student housing”—natural teammates, it would seem, for librarians who are likewise interested in creating a more academically thriving student body.

This is so true! Maybe it's just that I'm married to one of those residence hall administrators and so I really feel like the library and the res hall are natural partners. Bring the library to where the users are! 

When Research Rescue moved into the dormitory, the dynamic changed. First, the physical environment of the dormitory social lounge was much more conducive to the program’s success, both more comfortably furnished and much less crowded than the student union. The new setting allowed Antell to offer refreshments, which contributed to a more relaxed and welcoming feeling. Of course, her existing relationship with the residents helped: any anxiety students may have felt over asking for library assistance under more formal circumstances did not seem to extend to a chat with their neighbor and her librarian colleagues. The venue gave Antell a new ally that the previous locations had lacked, the Resident Assistants (RAs), who helped her to market the event. Finally, upon moving into the dormitories, Research Rescue sessions began to be held in the evenings rather than the afternoons, as Antell suspected (correctly) that this would be a better time to find students in their dormitories and in “homework mode.” Cumulatively, those differences made the program both considerably better attended than it had been in its original locations and more enjoyable for students and librarians alike.

I don't think I can say anything more than this says right here. Helps students feel more comfortable asking for help, talking to the librarian, etc. Because research shows that "library anxiety" is real! And I promise we're not scary. 

The knowledge she had gained and relationships she had built continued to help her and her reference colleagues connect with the students and staff in campus housing—a place that, before Antell’s FIR stint, had seemed alien and completely separate from the academic life of the university.

So cool to see that even after the live-in librarian left, both the library and the res hall continued the program. It has value! I feel validated! 

But for librarians whose outreach mission prioritizes undergraduates, it is a mistake to neglect the residence halls. Students spend a great deal of their time and do much of their academic work in their dormitories. In addition, residence halls often offer ideal conditions for library outreach: comfortable collaborative learning spaces, suitable technology (including wireless Internet access), and, perhaps most important, a network of staff members and student leaders whose job it is to bring academic opportunities to the dormitories and who generally are delighted to join forces with librarians in their outreach efforts.

So true. I can't wait to start this new endeavor!


Embedded in the Residence Halls

This was a second, much shorter blog post that also had some great takeaways. I liked their big, simple poster advertising the session. I liked their variety of hours offered, and I noted that Sunday was their busiest day (surprise!). I'd consider Sunday evenings, but I am scheduled for the reference desk all day Saturdays and... well, I'd like to see my husband sometime. Sorry, students. 

Internship Post #1

I started my summer internship a few weeks ago, and so far I think it's going well. It's not exactly a perfect fit, because it is a Youth Services internship, and I am not intending on becoming a children's librarian necessarily, though I do think that it's important that I learn about all the different possibilities.

I'm working for the Chelsea District Library, a local library in a small town nearby. It's a beautiful library, and the community is very small, but very supportive of their library and proud of their town. Overall, it's a lovely environment. The programs that they put on for kids and adults alike are really interesting and innovative, with things like reading to library dogs (which they've been doing for several years now, already!), bringing in kids' authors to do writing workshops with kids at the schools, ballerina storytime where they brought in real ballerinas for the kids, and so much more! For adults they do "Smarty Pants Trivia Smackdown" every other Tuesday night at the local brewery, and it sounds like people have really gotten into it! People from the town have formed teams, and some include families, some are couples teams where actually the wives compete against the husbands! It sounds great, I can't wait to check that out.

Of course, what is coming up in the next few weeks is every library's largest program. I'm talking about the Summer Reading Program. Chelsea has a great theme this year, it's the national theme, Fizz, Boom, READ! and is science themed. To help combat the dreaded "summer slide," the Summer Reading Program encourages kids to read, but at Chelsea we'll also be doing fun math and science activities all summer long.

So of course what Chelsea is doing is great and awesome and I am excited to be a part of it. My first few weeks as an intern have been... somewhat less than exciting, however. Of course, I am still learning the ropes, and they are training me, and don't necessarily know what my abilities and skills are, and then combined with the fact that my supervisor has been gone this week on vacation means that the other librarians don't really know what to do with me. So far I've mostly been shadowing people on the reference desk, which is important because it's good to see what kinds of questions come up at those desks, and how to use the system to answer them, but I'm a pretty quick study so I feel like I could be on my own by now. And then the other things I've been doing are the "intern" jobs, meaning the jobs that need to get done but that no one else either has time for or wants to do. I don't want to complain, because I really am excited and grateful for this opportunity, but it has been a lot of work that the teen volunteers can do. I have spent a lot of time copying, and cutting, and counting. And of course, these are all things that need to happen for the Summer Reading Program to be a success, and I understand that and am happy to help. It's just been a frustrating week. I am hopeful that once my supervisor returns next week that she will supplement those necessary activities with some other educational experiences for me.

With that said, I was very happy to be able to contribute a few ideas for science activities that the kids can do at the kick-off party! We're going to be having little activity stations set up around the lawn outside the library, and I imagine that there will be kids everywhere. It should be fun! Hopefully it isn't either a. too hot or b. too rainy. I'm pretty pleased with my ideas, although, of course, they aren't really my own ideas. Both of these were activities that we did as kids at my best friend's house. Her mother was a math teacher, and so educational activities always happened there. Anyway, a few times they hosted neighborhood "science fair pool parties" for us kids, and these are a few of the activities I remember from that. (Could this be why I'm such a nerd? Quite possibly. Whatever, these parties were awesome.) Anyway, one is a chromatology experiment, which is super easy but should be really fun and surprising for the kids. Basically, you draw a little line on some paper towel using a black marker, and then dip an end into some shallow water. As the water travels up, the colors in the ink separate! It's neat. Then the second is the classic Tornado in a Bottle experiment. I'm just going to make maybe three of the bottle contraptions, then the kids can come, give it a couple whirls, then scurry off when they get bored. Easy peasy, fun, and educational!

But in a brief change of topics, I want to talk about working at the U of M libraries today. It's been a nice change of pace to go from cutting paper to sitting at the reference desk again today, and my career choice has once again been validated! Someone from the Ypsilanti public library called the reference desk here, asking after the American Indian Civil Rights Handbook. I took a quick look and yes, we have it! Not only that, but we had it available to be ordered through the Espresso Book Machine, which is a super awesome machine we have which will print your book and bind it in a matter of minutes. So, the woman was extremely excited and she and her family drove down to meet me here at the reference desk. She said she'd been looking for this book for over two years now(!). She talked to me all about tribal law, and how because the tribes are "sovereign" (but not really sovereign; they can't print their own money or anything like that), American constitutional rights don't apply. She and her family had somehow been denied their rights through the tribal courts because she had charges against her, but wasn't allowed any representation, witnesses to speak on her behalf, or even the ability to speak for herself! Anyway, she was very upset about the whole thing. She was adamant that although she only ever wanted to be a mother and a grandmother, she has had to learn all about Indian tribal law and civil rights because lawyers don't know a lick about Indian law (which apparently doesn't even exist. They don't have set "laws" to follow so much as whims, and at least according to this woman the tribes are corrupt). Anyway, she was a full-blooded Chippewa woman from Manistique, and we were able to find another book on the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 that was also able to be printed on demand via the Espresso Book Machine! She was just thrilled. And I loved learning all about it, and being able to help her find the information that she had been searching high and low for! It wasn't necessarily a challenging interaction, but it was a good one, and it felt great to help her.

Anyway, what that did for me today was to help me realize that I don't think it matters so much where I end up; public or academic library, as long as I can be a librarian and get the chance to make a difference to someone in need, I think I will be happy.

Readings: Week 14? 15?

For this week our readings focused on professional development. How can teachers (and librarians!) become better at what they do? Of course not every person can be strong in every skill area, and teachers are no exception. This week we looked at some really interesting ways that teachers can work together to learn from one another on improving areas of weakness. In the Semadeni reading, the example is a program run by the district that allows teachers to take time out of their day, maybe just an hour, to sit in on another teacher's class to study that teacher's strong suit. It's a great way for teachers to collaborate, and to promote respect and collegiality within the school as well. It's nice to be singled out as someone who does X very well, and who another teacher can learn from. And it's a great way for teachers to be able to ask their colleagues, "Why did you do that?" and get a real answer. I'm not sure if every school district would be able to implement this strategy, but it sounds pretty reasonable!

We also got to read Kristin's short piece on a PD tool that she enacted in her school as a librarian, which was a self-paced technology "exploration." I think this idea is pretty neat, because the teachers could do it on their own time, with minimal instruction or oversight, and just play around with a bunch of new educational websites and resources. They then had to write up a short blog post about it (something seems familiar here...) and submit it for their PD credit. I thought it seemed like a good way for teachers, who are so busy, to take their time going as slowly or as quickly as they like through new tools and resources. I think they're more likely to gain the benefit from this style of PD than they would if they sat in a computer lab for a half day and had someone "teaching" them to use all these new resources. So much of that information goes in one ear and out the other in sessions like that.

Well friends, this is my last "official" blog post! I must say, I really love blogging, and I think it's been really helpful to think through my learning and reflect on my classes. I am going to try to keep this blog up and running, hopefully with weekly blog posts related to my adventures in library school, or soon here, my internship. I think I get a lot out of it, even if it's just a cathartic release. And it's really been very surprising how many people are interested in what I have to say. I started posting this blog on my Facebook from the very first blog post, thinking, "Well, I wrote it, and probably no one will be interested in it, but I guess if someone really has nothing to do, they could read it." And I must say, I post the link to this blog every time, and almost every time, someone outside of SI even has something really great and interesting to say about what I've written. From teachers who have their own classrooms and have taught me more about what the readings said (for better or worse), to computer programmers discussing privacy concerns or ethical issues, to friends just agreeing with a few lines that resonated with them. So, thanks, everyone, for reading my ramblings on a class you may not even be in!

Week 13: Class Reflection -- Webinars

This week for class we prepared webinars in groups to present to the class. Having never seen a webinar before last week (last week? two weeks ago? ten years ago? I have no idea how time functions at this point in the semester), it seemed like a really daunting task. First there is the fact that you have to talk about something for a half hour at a time. Then you have to come up with a powerpoint to go with your talk that will engage people on the other side of a screen, because it's really easy to tune out people who are not physically in front of you. Then there is figuring out how to use the software needed to broadcast a webinar, which is no small feat and plenty of us had "technical difficulties" today. Finally, it's important to rehearse and maybe even write down what you're going to say, because it's really easy to get messed up. Oh, and did I mention that while you're giving your presentation, there is an active chat happening on the side?

tl;dr: Webinars are hard.

But that didn't stop us! No, we forged on ahead, and although no one's webinar went off without a hitch, I'll say that they went pretty well, despite whatever difficulties.

Actually, I really liked my group's webinar topic and had a lot of fun exploring the topic. We chose to present on how to attract pre-baby, post-college Millennials (a group that is kind of "forgotten" usually by library services) to the library. We titled it "Millennials: Get in my library!" which I feel was apt. Anyway, we decided to have fun with the topic and I think it really showed in our presentation. The focus of our presentation was really on the kinds of fun events and services which really cater to the wants and needs of the millennial crowd. These included the Smarty-Pants Trivia Smack Down hosted at the Chelsea Alehouse by the Chelsea District Library, or the 21+ themed Halloween party that my own hometown library throws as a fundraiser, which features drinks, dancing, costume contests, fortune tellers, palm readers, silent auction, a raffle, and a tour of the library's (allegedly) haunted spots. That last bit is actually really cool because a few years ago we had "ghost hunters" come in and they verified the hauntings and whatnot, so it's pretty cool, but it's up to you whether you think it's haunted or not. So the tours go through the areas which the ghost hunters said were haunted in the dark and it's all kinds of creepy. The library shuts down early that day for service and they clear off the circ desk to make room for the bar, and they decorate the whole inside. It's a great party. It mostly works, though, because the building looks like a castle. Not that it couldn't be done in a building that does not look like a castle (re: most libraries), but it's just particularly suitable for this library. See the picture below! 

Hoyt Library - Wikipedia.org

Some other ideas we had for programming we book-themed speed dating events, where singles would be paired up based on their tastes in books. This could just be done as a way to meet new friends, too, especially in an area that sees a lot of new people moving in. We also thought of hosting open mic nights, either at the library or a local coffee shop or brewery/bar, where people with talent want to get up and share their songs, poetry, comedy act, you name it. The last example we had was based on an event that the Ann Arbor District Library is hosting with the A2 Nerd Nite organization, which is a Sega gaming night. That easily translates into just any library offering a throwback gaming night, either with old school video games or board games. 

So the intended message of our presentation was: "Hey, look at all these great things you can do to attract millennials into your library!" But according to our evaluations, what people actually came away with was our final slide on marketing! Admittedly, we put a lot of thought into that marketing slide, because honestly, you can create all the great programs you want and still only have four people show up if no one knows about them. As I was working on that slide, I actually had a lot of fun thinking of ways that we could market the library, and the biggest thing I could think of was that you need to be advertising where your users are. And where are millennials? What do they like? We came up with what I thought were some pretty great ideas, like advertising events on Pandora or the sidebar on Facebook, or in the bathroom stalls of a popular bar. 

I think we were all really surprised, though, that in our evaluations, everyone said they loved the marketing tips! Well, I'm glad that they came away with something useful! Actually, what I get out of that, though, was that I had a lot of fun coming up with those ideas, and I had been toying with the idea of finding a Marketing for Non-Profits course to take as a cognate. Now I think I definitely will! 

Our webinar was not flawless, though, this is true. It's a weird medium to get used to, that's for sure. At one point we had turned off the chat feature because the icon looks like a little whiteboard, and we didn't want people drawing all over our slides in a repeat of Kristin's in-class demonstration. And something weird happened with the polling feature; I think I clicked the show responses option too soon, thinking it would update as people filled it out, and that was not the case. And at one point I got lost in my own notes as I was going along, and couldn't find my place again, so I had an awkward pause and a bit of fumbling. But overall, I would still say that despite these hiccups, it went pretty well. 

We may have been a little heavy-handed with the alcoholic beverage theme, but I don't think that makes it any less true. Go where the users are!

Week 12: Class Reflection

Alright, I will admit that I am lagging behind on this reflection post. It is now Monday evening, and class was Thursday, and I can barely remember what happened. Lots of talk about Twitter and Webinars.

Twitter. As I said in my last post, Twitter was quite the experience. But from our discussion in class on Thursday and reading through some of my classmates' blog posts on the subject, it seems like I was not the only one struggling with the platform, and I hated it less than others. I intend to keep my Twitter account and check on it from time to time, but I have to admit that I'm already failing at that, too. I haven't touched it since Thursday at least, I'm sure. I actually had a bit of a moment with another classmate while I was complaining about how it seems like everyone just posts links to articles, and how can I possibly read through even the ones that interest me when they are flying in at light speed? She admitted that she sometimes just retweets a link based on the title or headline without actually reading it. I have to really wonder how often that happens all over the web, but especially on Twitter. It just doesn't seem conducive to actual absorption of information. Speaking of that, NPR played a great April Fool's Day prank which illustrates that point exactly.

Webinars. Yes, this is coming back to me, now. Kristin walked us all through what the webinar platform we will be using looks like (Blackboard) and how to use it. It took quite a while for everyone to get on board, and the class was apparently quite slap happy (I guess being so near to the end of the semester turns stressed out grad students into children) because we spent an awful lot of time drawing on the slides with the interactive tools, and sending silly "private messages" which the moderator can see. Joking aside, though, it was a good to see a full-scale tutorial of the technology we'll be using to conduct our own webinars. Now I just have to practice it with my group a few hundred times before I can feel comfortable actually doing it.

Week 12: Twitter Activity

This week in Adventures of SI643, instead of readings, we were assigned the task to create a Twitter handle if we didn't already have one (I'm what one might call a "laggard," and therefore did not have one. You can follow me @EmilyKrueger89 if you really want.), and to follow professionals in the library field, and tweet at least 5 times to #si643.

Sounds simple enough. I've heard about Twitter enough to have a pretty good working knowledge of the platform. You tweet messages in 140 characters, you employ the use of hashtags (Let me tell you about my theory of the beauty of hashtags. No really.) to categorize postings. It's kind of neat because celebrities and CEOs and politicians are on Twitter and they will respond to you personally, and you can retweet things you want to share. Ok, good, I got it.

ERRR!! WRONG! I have no idea how to use Twitter!

Joining Twitter has been an extremely confusing activity. I don't know what's appropriate to post on Twitter and what's not, I don't know if I should be posting personal thoughts or if I should only be posting links to content. I don't like that people post photos but they're links you have to click on to see the photo. I wanted to retweet tweets(?) from people I'm following to #si643, but I can't alter the text of a retweet to put the hashtag there. The fact that I'm following almost exclusively professionals in my field makes me extremely wary of posting anything for fear of being unprofessional, and then the idea of gaining more personal contacts on Twitter doubles that fear. How come when I use the hashtag, sometimes my tweet shows up when I click on the hashtag link, and other times it doesn't? I'm not sure how to attribute other people in a tweet, so I have resorted to saying "From @______:" because the retweet option isn't what I want, and I don't know the proper way to do it! I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Also, Barack Obama has been spamming my feed(?) all day about the success of ACA. I mean, every two minutes. Literally. Is this normal? I just completely don't understand the norms of Twitter and it's freaking me out! I think I need someone to sit with me like I'm 75 and talk me through it. Man, life is going to be hard when I'm actually old and have a hard time learning new things!

What I do like is that it's apparently totally normal to follow people you have never met, and so growing a professional network is much easier on Twitter than Facebook. In fact, it was kind of exciting when I posted something by someone I follow (using my make-shift "From:" attribution tag), and they retweeted it! That was neat. And then since I saw that person later give a shout out wishing all the #nightlibrarian 's a good night, I had to respond to that, since I'm on the desk currently. That was fun. I might be slowly getting the hang of some small aspect of this Twitter thing, after all.

Side-note on the pervasiveness of the hashtag, when I was in Alaska visiting my friend, one of her students had hashtagged the title of his/her essay, as well as the MLA heading. Handwritten. On paper. Example:

#English10
#MsWaldrup
#3rdhour

#The Conch in The Lord of the Flies

Just saying. 

Class Reflection: Week 11

In class on Thursday, we had a lot to talk about. We spent a long time discussing a recent local controversy surrounding the proposal of a park next to the public library. It sounds nice; it would be great to be able to take your kids out on some playground equipment after leaving the library, or to see small musical acts or stage performances put on by local artists in the community in a proposed staging area. How nice! How idyllic! What's the problem?

The article is here, and it brings up some excellent points. The reason the proposed park is controversial is actually because the director of the public library as well as the the board came out against the construction of this park. They already see a large amount of substance abuse within the walls of the library on such a regular basis that they feel making a park next door would further exacerbate the problem.

As you can see in the article, some of the city council did not feel that the claims made by the library director were true. I think a big part of the problem is that in this kind of community, people either aren't aware or turn a blind eye to problems. This is a wealthy community. This is a clean city. The public library is well-funded, it's a beautiful space with enormous collections and excellent, innovative programming. We do not have drug users in our community, and they certainly wouldn't be found in the library. But it is true. A public library in any community attracts the homeless, and the drug users (who are not always the same people, by the way). Even on the island of Kodiak, Alaska, I heard rumors that the city's homeless gathered there. I was more surprised that the island had homeless people than that they chose the library as their preferred haunt.

But in her interview, the director of the library explained that the drug abuse is such a problem in the space of the library walls that they have had to remove ceiling tiles in the bathrooms to prevent people from stashing their drugs there. The library has quietly been dealing with this major community problem on its own for many years. They are only now being vocal about it because they can see that adding outdoor space just outside the walls of the library would invite more miscreant behavior. They have concerns about the safety of the space both next door and inside their walls. The director paints a vivid picture of someone having to clean up the syringes every morning in the proposed space. Who takes care of that? Since the library is next door, will they be in charge of monitoring activity in this public space? A shocking figure reported is that the library spends $250,000 annually on security personnel. That is a very large amount of money to be spending, and I am sure that the library would not spend nearly so much if they did not have the need for it.

I guess what our conversation boiled down to was that so many in this community, and other similar communities, see this as a library problem, when it is really a community problem. There are no homeless shelters in the area (so I'm told). Heroin is cheap and popular. What I really thought was admirable was that in her interview, the director doesn't place blame, but she doesn't shy away from talking about the problem either. Hopefully this controversy sparks more than just angry words about whether or not a park should be built. Maybe someone will start to consider what else could be done.