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Moving to management 2010 February 19

Before I moved to my current position as Head of Library Technology, I was the systems department at my previous job. That meant I had to do almost everything when it came to library-specific technology and applications. It was rewarding and allowed me to do a lot of things the way I thought best. Now that I run a department, albeit a small one, that is no longer the case. I need to let the people in my department have the freedom to do their job (which luckily for me, they are excellent at). This creates a bit of a sense of loss of control. I don’t have time to micro-manage everything to make sure everything is done my way. As long as things are getting done in a timely manner that serves the goals and mission of the Libraries, than all is good. This seems logical but when I first moved into this role and was doing more managerial tasks than before I felt a bit lost, I missed doing everything my way. While I am not a Vice President and I still do plenty of hands on stuff because of the size of my department, I related to the blog post on Insider Higher Ed by Kent Barnds. In his blog post, Making the To-Be List, Brands makes 6 recommendations for those moving to an administrative role. They are:

1. Do not mourn and dwell upon the loss of control
2. Redefine “doing”
3. Embrace delayed gratification
4. Serve as a real mentor
5. Listen actively
6. Applaud others’ successes

I think he offers some good advice and I would recommend anyone thinking about moving or who has recently moved into a more managerial or administrative role to read the post.

On Libraries and the Public Spehere 2010 February 12

One of the major reasons I became interested enough in the concept of Libraries and Democracy (well, besides being a librarian and a fan of democracy), is the work of John Buschman. In particular, his book “Dismantling the Public Sphere Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy.” While I am sure that I will use that book as one of my sources for the paper I’m presenting at the Networking Democracy? New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics symposium, for those who are interesting in a short introduction into Buschman’s work in this area, should read his article, On Libraries and the Public Sphere, that appeared in Library Philosophy and Practice Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 2005).

On Libraries and the Public Sphere is the text of an address that Buschman gave at Rider University and does a good job of introducing the role that Libraries can, and should, play in public discourse. One thing I think that should stand out to librarians from this address is:

If information and its related sets of critical skills are as important to economic and political participation as we keep insisting, then what information we produce, how we keep it, what we keep, and how it is absorbed or not are crucial questions in our culture – and libraries are important (if undervalued) institutions in this.

I think most people will recognized that in order to have a strong democracy, the electorate needs to be informed. Libraries can, and have in the past, played an important role in this. After all, we are in an information economy so information organizations should be seen as important. For those not familiar with the concept of the public sphere, Buschman explains it in terms of the philosopher Jurgen Habermas’s work. Habermas asked how and why democratic governments come out of closed political systems that were based on the divine rights of kings. Buschman explains that Habermas’s answer is that a a “sphere if non-governmental opinion making” developed from the marcantile economies of northern Europe. As people gathered in new urban places such as coffee houses political conversations took place. These were assisted, or informed, by the intellectual press of the day. This caused two crucial things happened:

1. Opinion became communicated and recorded outside of a small group of family and friends.
2. The principle that in order for (governmental) power to become legitimate, its proceedings need to be made public.

Buschman then goes on to relate how libraries are a part of Habermas’s definition of the public sphere:

• Libraries house and further rational discourse through the organization of collections coupled with the principle of unfettered information access.
• The field enacts the principle of critique and rational argumentation through the commitment to balanced collections, preserving them over time, and furthering inclusion through active attempts to make collections and resources reflect historical and current intellectual diversity.
• By their very existence libraries potentially verify (or refute) claims to authority in making current and retrospective organized resources available to check the bases of a thesis, law, book, article, policy etc. continuing the process of debate which lies at the heart of the public sphere and democracy.
• By policy and practice, [librarianship] has sought to reach out to those not served – or sometimes not wishing to be served! – to make access to information and education more widely and universally available.

Thus, Buschman believes that libraries have a fundamental connection to the needs of democracy and “when we debate information and communication and the future of libraries, we’re debating democracy by other means.” Librarians should keep this democratic role in mind when making decisions involving the procurement and preservation of materials. By competing with big box bookstores, libraries risk evacuating their historical polices of public purpose, broad representation, and fairness in exchange for an immediate payoff for the institution.

Buschhman says that truly informed debate “remains the essence of both education and democracy and libraries play a pivotal role in both.” Librarians and the people who run the parent organizations of libraries such as local governments and universities would do well to keep this in mind when making decisions regarding libraries. Society can afford the public mission and the democratic good that libraries can offer and we need to ensure that potential is preserved

Open Societies Need Open Systems 2010 February 3

The BBC News Web site had an interesting column by Bill Thompson yesterday titled “Open Societies need open systems.” The subtitle, “Openness, like democracy, must be constantly defended, says Bill Thompson” basically acts as a partial abstract as well. In this article he looks at Amazon’s disagreement with Macmillan that resulted in Amazon briefly de-listing all Macmillan stock and removing it from its indexes and the Apple/Adobe keruffle of Flash on the iPhone and soon to be released iPad.

I’m not quite sure how the Amazon/Macmillian dispute effects Democracy, or Openness for that matter, but it does go to show that highly successful retailers such as Amazon and Walmart can make it more or less difficult for a producer of a product to get it in the hands of consumer. Amazon, no doubt, felt that by trying to prevent different pricing for e-books it was helping the consumer (and thus it’s self) but obviously authors like Charlie Stross quoted in the article as saying “Amazon [has] screwed me, and I tend to take that personally, because they didn’t need to do that” saw it differently.

The Apple and Adobe situation I see differently, and while I do believe that while Apple is looking out for its own corporate interests, Apple also does want more Openness on the Web. As a company with a minority operating system share, the more open the Web is the better chance they have to compete. Adobe, on the other hand wants to, as Thompson puts it, “close off the web to non-Flash content.” While Apple, with its stance on DRM and other issues, has not always been a strong supporter of Openness, I believe in this case they are squarely on the side of Openness by support HTML5 and H.264 over continuing to enable the proprietary Adobe Flash format to be the de facto standard for video on the Web. Thus I find it a bit odd that Thompson appears to be supporting Adobe on this issue. Thompson says:

Just as we must work to retain our democratic forms of government in the face of adversity, so we must constantly be alert for those who would remove open systems in the name of efficiency and effectiveness.

He may be right that not installing Flash on the iPhone and iPad is in Apple’s best interest but I don’t see it as anti-Openness. Sometimes Openness and corporate interests can align, and I believe in this particular case Apple is on the side of Openness and Adobe is on the side of a closed, proprietary Web. At the very least, even if Apple is not a friend of Openness, neither is Adobe. Proprietary technologies and formats as de facto Web standards are a much greater threat to Openness than devices that don’t support them.

In looking at this issue from a Democracy 2.0 and access to information situation, libraries need to be aware of potential problems with proprietary formats and what devices can and will support them. If librarians believe that access to information is important for democracy, we need to make sure when we acquire (via licensing or purchasing) that the content is in a format that will be accessible to out patrons now and into the future.

Balancing Innovation and Focus: A Non Sequitur 2010 February 2

Note: This is post is a modified version of a comment I originally posted on Carl Grant’s blog. If you already read it, move on. Nothing new to see here.

Carl Grant recently made a post about Balancing innovation and focus that had a huge bent towards the question of investing in Open Source Software (OSS)

I agree with Carl that many libraries could use more focus when implementing new technology but I strongly disagree that this is any different when it comes to OSS versus proprietary applications. None of his critique is specific to OSS and signally out of OSS to me is a bit of a non sequitur. Many proprietary applications, including some of Ex Libris’ offerings, need a great deal of customization and often just as much, if not more, staff to implement and maintain as Open Source. I was talking to a proprietary ILS administrator from another University last year and they have twice as many systems people working on their ILS then Georgia Pines had to original develop Evergreen. Another example about three years ago a University had four new job advertisements to help them implement a new proprietary discovery layer. People like David Walker have put into a lot of work implementing a custom interface on top of Metalib. Are these wasted, redundant efforts? Why is this different then focusing efforts on OSS? It’s not any different. Or if it is, one could argue that at least a library would have the software to change and modify like University of Rochester did with Dspace in creating IR+ which they couldn’t do if they put all their previous efforts into a proprietary product that ended up not suiting their needs. This is not an OSS issue, it is a technology issue and a management issue. It is just as easy to say that Ex Libris building Primo Central (or whatever product you want to name) is “redundant and poorly coordinated investments” considering other vendors are in this space.

Carl’s underlying point “that librarianship is in need of a clear definition of the future of the profession and to examine how technology (open source or proprietary) will move that definition to fruition and, at the same time, leverage librarianship” is well taking and I agree. Libraries should evaluate each technology acquisition carefully considering need, budget, skill level, mission, etc. This evaluation may or may not lead to an existing OSS or propitiatory solution, developing a new OSS or home-grown solution, partnering with a vendor on a new product (such as the URM development partners are doing with Ex Libris), or not implementing anything at all. But dividing the world between Open Source and proprietary applications only serves in muddying the water and weakening this message.

That’s a lot of text for a non sequitur, no?

Technology Free Zones 2010 February 1

In a campus IT meeting during a discussion about strategic planning one of the faculty members brought up the idea of a technology-free zone. Apparently he heard about some other college implementing such a thing. The committee decided to think about it and discuss it at a future meeting. I did think a campus-wide technology planning committee coming up with the idea of a technology-free zone a bit ironic. Anyway, I posted a brief tweet about this irony on facebook, twitter, and identi.ca and I got some good responses aboiut why this might be a good or bad idea. Dan Scott did point out we better “[g]et the level of technology right for those zones; otherwise, no clothes.” With that warning, lets look at technology-free zones when technolgy is defined to not include clothing.

After reading some comments (mostly on Facebook), I am thinking about this more. I did a quick Google search and when limited to .edu domains, it appears not many universities have such an area (I’m sure more than the few I found do, but they probably call it something different). I think if a campus is going to do this, a library makes a logical choice. Setting up such a zone shouldn’t cost too much money. Mostly some furniture: maybe with some comfy chairs and plants like the UW-Parkside Teaching and Learning Center? I think the bigger issues are 1) Space, and 2) Will they use it.

Space: I don’t know many libraries that have too much space. So, with limited space, is a technology-free zone a good use of space. That obviously would vary library-by-library and campus-by-campus.

Will they use it: On facebook I mentioned that none is forcing people to use technology and most libraries have quiet study areas. So, why make a technology-free zone? A former colleague mentioned that in most quiet areas there is still “residual noise” such as music from ear bugs and keyboard chatter. So really, a technology-free zone does offer something that a quiet study does not. That still doesn’t mean people would use it though.

Personally, I think if a library has a space it would be worth trying, or at least worth surveying students to see if they were interested. What’s the worse that can happen? No one comes, so after a year you re-purpose the space as a quiet study or group study or anything else. However, I’m not sure it would be worth trying this if it meant eliminating other spaces (such as quiet-study) or services. I say this mostly because with so much of of the information libraries are providing require technology to access, it could cause issues. Does anyone work in a library that has or had a technology-free zone? I’d love to hear how it worked.