Oh no NOT another Survey!

In this world of polls and surveys it seems that nothing gets done unless the polls show a high favorability rating. Politicians flip-flop on issues because one poll shows strong support for one direction and a week later a new poll favors the opposite direction. If your direction is decided by the whims of many, varied and ever-changing public opinions you will sail in a sea of chaos. Businesses often face this type of dilemma and must often go back to their basic business plans for guidance: why are we in business, what is it we do, and where or how should we expand our services. Sticking to the plan without considering changes or modernizations isn't an optimal way to go either. Consider the coach and buggy companies of the 1800s, a thriving business in their day. Not too much need for buggies these days, as a speciality for a specific market yes, but not as a Fortune 500 performer. Many of the coach and buggy industries changed to designing the interiors and bodies of various automobiles. They evaluated their business and changed with the times. So how does a business or service maintain optimal user satisfaction while not going in ten different directions all headed for failure?

Some basic guidelines to consider:
Know your history - why do libraries exist? What are the basic services they have provided over the years?
How have these services changed through the years? New formats? Emphasis on collections? Audiences? When fiction books were first introduced into public library collections a hue and cry went up - librarians felt they had a moral obligation to provide educational materials, not sleazy fiction!! Was the cry any less loud when DVDs, and contemporary music CDs were introduced into the collections!? And now computer games - WHAT gaming in libraries - NO!! Oh yeah, gaming in libraries - bring that and more into our world!
What relevant services should we be offering our public? Some librarians still want to produce buggies and some want to branch out adding coffee shops, while others wouldn't mind becoming a local WAWA - get your books and gas up at the same time! Or even worse let's pretend we are bookstores and totally negate the information organization and retrieval principles and values that we have refined over the years.

How did you answer the earlier Question: What is our basic service?
In my opinion libraries open the doors of possibilities and life long learning to the world of people we serve. We do it within dwindling budget constraints and with competing industries that also provide what used to be our own little niche of knowledge.

Survey time!

• How would you define a modern library?
• List the top five services we should provide for our customers.
• How should technology impact and change the services we provide?
• Describe an innovative way libraries could capitalize on new technologies
• What advertising and marketing campaign would move us from the libraries of old to being the hot new APP in town? Imagine having a AD campaign with the astronauts using their mobile library APP to research sun spot data while in space!! Libraries to infinity and beyond !!

Basic questions with no easy answers, but questions we must ask.  What makes us more valuable than bookstores and what makes us more complete than simply being a search engine on a computer? Until we can provide answers to these questions we will be floundering and irrelevant to the world of ideas and knowledge.

And remember ideas without actions are useless.  Individual librarians will be the catalyst of change.  As more librarians add their voices to OUR future and the future of all libraries we will improve as a profession.  To remain silent is to cease to exist.  OUR choice.

Instant Messaging - IM and Libraries

Why should libraries use IM?

• The statistics show that 53 million adults are using IM in their daily lives -- if we want to reach customers and be relevant to them, we need to take into consideration their technology usage and deliver the information they want in a technology format they use -- IM is statistically an appropriate tool to use to reach those customers who use it.
• In the Breeding article, Instant messaging: it's not just for kids anymore the following quote is quite relevant to the question: "the pervasive presence of instant messaging will be ignored only by organizations willing to risk irrelevancy"

How is IM different than traditional communication channels?

• After reading the articles the idea of "presence awareness" was one of the differences that stuck in my mind as an appeal factor for IM. The immediacy of the conversation and communication with another person was important. Email has lag time that IMers simply don't want to put up with. Also, IM is available on PDAs and cell phones, so it is a take with you technology you can use anytime.

How many of the IM population are our customers and why should we care?

• Probably lots! Of the 53 million adults who use IM, I would think the odds are that quite a few could already be our current customers waiting for us to initiate relevant information exchanges. Librarian IM: "Hello, is anyone out there???" IM Response: "YES!!! Where have you been? I need..............."
• Reaching teens is one of our top priorities, they are our future if we stay relevant to their needs. The Pew article on Teens and Technology stated that 45% have cell phones and that 33% use texting. That's a big chunk of customers we could draw IF we provide services that can answer their information needs.

Why should we care?

• Let's start with professional pride. Librarians open up information to individuals, we always have. The IM me article spoke of the IM process: "in the process, librarians can truly be their users' personal guide through the information ocean." We bring information to light.
• We have always helped customers who have come through our doors find the information that they need. We have even provided telephone reference and email services. Bravo! We can still continue those services... However,
• It is time to expand our services to help customers who still need the information we can provide, but choose to request it via IM, the option that best suits their busy lives.
• If we want to be relevant to information seekers who use IM as well as other emerging technologies we need to provide the information they need in whatever mode that can reach them successfully.
• Libraries and librarians have so much to offer information seekers -- lets keep pace with the technology that will allow us to deliver that information to them.

IM
Instant Messaging
libraries
Library 2.0