It's Academic

It’s about 8 pm, and the usual complement of patrons is in our library. Two students are having a study session at the big table in the middle of the stacks area. Several other students are using computers—some doing homework, some watching YouTube videos. Another student is making photocopies of a homework assignment from one of the textbooks we have on our Reserve shelf. There is a student worker manning the Circulation desk, waiting for someone to return something (or check something out)—while doing his homework. As the librarian on duty, I am at my desk, logged into our Chat Reference program and monitoring my email account—that’s where the Text Reference questions appear—while I work on various projects and tasks such as finding an article in full-text at another library for one of our students.

Around 9 pm, the students start to trickle out, returning to their rooms to watch Netflix or play the Xbox game they just checked out from us. By 10, there are usually 1 or 2 people left, contentedly working away with their headphones on, enjoying the quiet that settles over the library at night. Some nights—especially in the colder months—it is only me and the student worker after 10 pm. Our various Reference-question channels are quiet most nights, and generally no one comes up to the desk with questions any more complicated than, “Can you show me how to use the copier?”

Although it is nice to have mainly peace and quiet for my work environment, that atmosphere does raise certain questions. We know our students need help with things such as searching databases for useful articles and creating correct APA citations. Are they not aware of our various options for contacting the library at night? Do they even know we’re open at night, until 11 pm Monday through Thursday? Do they not realize all the questions we can answer for them, all the help we’re waiting and hoping to provide?

Perhaps our students do much of their work during the day—or on the weekends. However, I fear some of the silence stems not from our students already knowing what they’re doing, but from them: a) believing they know what they’re doing (although they don’t) and/or b) not caring whether their answers are correct or whether their papers have useful arguments from evidence found in the wonderful articles, books, and e-books to which the library gives them access. I wonder if some of the students’ attitudes come from a generation so accustomed to asking Google for everything that they haven’t yet realized that quality college work requires answers that not even Google can provide.

What are evenings like in your library? Are they bustling with students working hard, asking questions, looking for resources? Or are they mostly quiet, with a few scattered patrons submitting “something” (anything[?]) to Blackboard so they can go hang out with their friends?  I’m hoping that with the weather improving, our library will find itself used by more of our students.  We’re going to continue thinking of creative ways to spread the word about librarians being available–and interested–in helping students improve their grades–and their minds.

The 2015 PaLA Conference Program Committee is now accepting conference session proposals for the 2015 PaLA Conference, PA Libraries: Engage, Educate, Enrich. The conference will take place October 4 – 7, 2015 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel in State College, Pennsylvania. If you are, or know someone that is, an expert on a topic that you feel will be of interest to librarians, we invite you to submit a session proposal.

The Program Committee is particularly interested in receiving proposals on topics suggested by previous PaLA conference attendees: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/pala.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/2015_Conference/2014FutureProgramSuggestions.pdf

All proposals should be submitted via the online program proposal link. For a working copy of the form, or to view the questions in advance of submission, a PDF of the form is available for download. The link to both the online form and PDF are available on the 2015 Conference Information Page of the PaLA website. (Accessed by clicking on the “Annual Conference” button in the right-hand menu of the PaLA homepage)

The deadline for submission of proposals is Friday, April 17, 2015. The program committee will notify all submitters regarding the acceptance of their proposal(s) in early May. Poster session proposals will be solicited in mid-April through mid-May.

Thank you in advance to all that submit proposals, we appreciate your dedication to PaLA and to Pennsylvania’s libraries!

As metadata wrinkles are ironed out and e-content providers get a better view over Google’s shoulder as to best practices in user interface/HCI, Federated Search agents or Web-Scale Discovery Services (WSDS) are becoming an ever more prevalent resource in our collective toolkits. These ubiquitous interfaces offer the informed user an unprecedented level of access and discovery and bring the full breadth and depth of both a locally and remotely hosted collection to the uninitiated user’s fingertips.

Or so the brochures all say :)

In my own experience, WSDSs aren’t always as successful as the designers (or users) would hope once the wrapper comes off and the research begins. There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, and choosing the right WSDS for your user base and teaching them to wield it deftly can be both inspirational and Sisyphean. As with most technologies, success in application depends upon selection of the right tool and its proper introduction to the intended user base. Here are just a few best-practices and considerations that have been useful in my capacity as both an evaluative potential buyer and a research guide:
Shopping

• Metadata & local collection integration – When evaluating different systems be sure you take a hard look at what WILL and WILL NOT be crawled in the new federated space. Will you be asking users to visit one space for the local catalog and another for database collections? Will on-campus users AND remote users have the same access experience, or will there be an additional authentication process?
• Round out your evaluative team – once your trial period with a product begins be sure you include colleagues with expertise and a mind toward differing service areas for a better-rounded product evaluation (Bibliographic/Metadata, Cataloging, Web Services, Circulation etc.)
• Usability testing – Test, test and retest. Use every moment of a negotiated BETA rollout to have your information professionals and a select group of student users put the platform through its paces. At the very least you may end up getting a jump start on your own user guides—and at most you may be able to identify issues before final contracts are signed. Whatever method you choose, be sure you collect all relevant feedback in a tangible manner and be prepared to call on it when defending (or criticizing) the system. Hit the system with queries it doesn’t expect and note how it responds. Think of every way you’ve seen a user misuse a system and try it; sooner or later, someone will anyway, and it’s better to find out the system can’t handle exceptions smoothly before you’ve paid for it.

Engaging

• Read the literature – Some of the bigger and better WSDS platforms are built by very familiar content providers (*cough* EBSCO *cough*), but don’t assume that the best and brightest of the interface you knew still represents what’s possible in the new federated environment. Take the tours. Watch the videos. Be ready to recommend any and all facets of the interface to users so that your implementation team has a realistic and well-rounded data set—and to build your own knowledge base of how useful (or not) these features are.
• Put it on Market & Front Streets – make sure you advertise this new service widely through the university to both students and faculty alike—you’ll want their feedback and will need the usage data. Also, be sure to include some indicator of the limits of the search “…locates MOST but not all of the items in our collection. If you aren’t able to find what you are looking for please see a librarian…” so that any query-based frustrations can be vetted as to whether the new interface played a part.
• Get feedback post-implementation – whether through a direct feedback agent such as a linked or embedded survey, platform-provided metrics, or through casual user interactions at the Reference and Circulation desks, stay informed as to what is and isn’t working. What is being used? Ignored? Why?
• Power in Subject Term searching for new users – Given the improvements in UI shaped by commercial giants in artifact discovery, intermediate or advanced searchers will most likely adapt to the new platform as long as the navigation and filters approximate what they had been used to. New users, on the other hand, will meet a deceptively simple basic search interface and then be buried under the crush of results from every corner of your collection. Teach them to look for and use the subject indices and terms as filters to quickly get them into the right “ballpark”.