Muddy Waters, can you help me get my mojo working?

I have a problem. Several months ago I realized I’d lost my librarian mojo and since that time I’ve been struggling to reclaim it. Being the person that I am, I have been hyper-analyzing my mojo loss. I have been disenchanted at work, feeling weary and dissatisfied, and yet, it feels like it’s all out of my control. This (perhaps self-indulgent) post is a reflection on my personal struggle to understand what IS my librarian mojo, and what can I do to keep it going and get it back when it appears to have gone missing.

First, let me take a moment to describe what I mean by librarian mojo. Mojo is pretty, clear, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary online as:

“Magical power, voodoo, the art of casting spells; a charm or talisman used in casting such spells. More generally, esp. in recent use: a power, force, or influence of any kind (often with sexual connotations). Freq. attrib. and in to have (also get) one’s mojo working (chiefly fig. and allusive).” (accessed 6/21/10. Thanks, Multnomah County Library!)

Thanks to popular culture we might immediately think of Austin Powers when we think of mojo, or maybe the book by Marshall Goldsmith that was published last year. (I heard it was decent, though haven’t had a chance to read it yet.) And of course there is an entry in the Urban Dictionary for mojo.

But what does mojo have to do with being a librarian? Think about it. Librarians have bags of tricks or spells that we cast about. A trick might be our ability to find that book, in the way we are able to perform a reference interview, in the charm of checking out books to people and sharing information. We have the power to arm people with information and do so easily and quickly. We know how to think critically. We know how to teach, we are expert searchers, we have resilience and passion. So what happened that made me feel like I didn’t have my mojo, any more? I still had the same skills the same training, education and experience, but what had happened? There had been a course of events, some of which were beyond my control, that led to my dissatisfaction, frustration, and burnout at work. This loss of mojo was pretty startling for me. I am 30 years old and I have only held my MLS for 3 years.

If you do any research on the topic you will find a plethora of work written on burnout in libraries and job satisfaction. There’s also a wealth of work written about failure, mistakes, and job satisfaction outside our small world of libraries. I can’t tackle all the knowledge out there, but you’ll find some some articles listed below as further reading. Just know that they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

Systems Failure and Mojo

We are dependent on systems. We depend on systems as simple as work schedules to those as complicated as databases and other high-tech implementations. As technologies evolve our subsequent dependence on those technologies grows. Our dependence on systems makes us more vulnerable to systems failure that is beyond our control and a potential subsequent loss of mojo.

When I first started working at my current place of employ I was hired to work on a project called Oregon Health Go Local. I’d spent two years working on this project when the project sponsor, the National Library of Medicine, announced it would be phasing out all Go Local projects. (You may recall that part of this work inspired a previous post of mine about Outreach.) This is a great example of a systems or tool failure. The fact that Go Local databases would no longer exist is the loss of a countless hours of work by libraries and librarians all over the United States. It was not that the NLM made a bad decision. In fact, the NLM made the right decision based on their extensive analysis of Go Local projects (IMHO), but it was a decision that affected me and numerous other individuals. A project to which I had dedicated a lot of work and energy failed. But projects end and I was surprisingly okay with the discontinuation of Oregon Health Go Local. Even though I was okay with the end of the project, it still called into question my librarian mojo.

Power outages are another good example of a systems failure. Without power you have no online tools, no lights to even read the red books (LCSH Subject Headings in print) or your call number cheat sheet, and maybe, as Guy Robertson (2004) points out in his article “Lights Out! Dealing with Power Outages in Your Library,” the library emergency flashlight might have been misplaced. What librarian mojo do we have when we rely on technologies, even if it is the lights?

Think about this in a different context. Who are librarians and what power do librarians have to help a patron find print material without the catalog? Say I had a patron who was looking for a book about diabetic foot problems. Without walking through the stacks, one aisle at a time, I would be at a loss to find this kind of item. Why? Because I rely on the electronic catalog to help me navigate subject headings. I rely on the tools of our profession to practice my librarian mojo. My charm is that I understand how to find out that books on diabetes are shelved with the other WK835 books, not that I KNOW that books on diabetes are shelved there. I rely on tools that operate beyond my immediate control, to practice that librarian mojo. A lot of my mojo relies on the tools I use every day. (And what does this say about our librarian identities?) While a power outage or catalog downtime is certainly not the be all end all problem, I think it points to technology and tool dependence that can negatively effect librarian mojo.

The fact is, my librarian mojo has come to be dependent on the tools I use, not the skills I have. It’s a lot harder to wield my mighty skills set without the tools. And when these tools fail, I feel like I’ve failed, and, my librarian mojo suffers. It’s not that every time a little problem occurs I experience a complete loss of mojo. Librarians, by nature, are great problem solvers and find great work-arounds. It’s that all of the little failures and mistakes can build up, and after a time it can start affecting us negatively, if we let it.

Library and librarian tools that enable me to use my mojo are mostly proprietary. At work I rely on commercial software developers and commercial vendor products. I find it incredibly frustrating, that using proprietary tools like an ILS, a collection development tool, or a research database can put my mojo out of my hands. Try contacting a database vendor to ask why something is broken and to get it fixed? When it’s not working I can’t wield my mighty mojo to help patrons find that article or do that search, and my librarian mojo doesn’t allow me to fix the database myself or have a colleague do it. I think it would help if we were able to be some of these providers ourselves. We need to have library programmers on library staff to assist in being less dependent on commercial products that can hinder our librarian mojo. (Brett wrote about this a while back.)

We see this commercial dependence even more in collection development, purchasing and licensing. What happens to the mojo of librarians when libraries can no longer pay the rising costs of journal subscriptions and are possibly falling victim to unethical library vendors? For example, the University of California  is having trouble with the pricing of Nature Publishing Group publications. Due to these issues the university may conduct a boycott of the publisher, thereby not providing access to highly used titles. What’s going to happen to librarian mojo when libraries no longer have the money to buy the tools that enable us to do our jobs?

Meredith Farkas makes the distinction that via consortia we might be able to fight for more ethical practices from our vendors. But I wonder if relying on vendors is really the end solution. Can we not be tool creators and providers at the same time? Certainly not with budgets that allocate for collections and tools over personnel. We need programmers and technologies that we don’t have.

What excites me about librarianship is to advocate for people and groups who need advocates. I want to provide and make accessible as much information as possible, and commercial and tool dependence hinder me from doing as much as I want. Because of libraries’ commercial dependence and shrinking budgets I can’t do as much I would like. I feel frustrated and disheartened by the behemoth issues that face libraries and that hinder me from doing my best. I didn’t become a librarian to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers, I became a librarian to help people.

Despite all of these possible systems failures, personal frustrations, and mojo-loss inducing situations, failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Andy Burkhardt thinks we’re experts at it. From failure we can learn to improve. In his recent article Being Wrong and Learning from “Partial Success” Walt Crawford (2010) discusses failure. He points out that we hate to talk about them and admit to our failures. But talking about and studying failure is necessary.

Lisa German (2009) suggests in her piece about project management No One Plans to Fail, They Fail to Plan, that if you fail it’s because you didn’t plan well enough. I disagree. Mostly. (BP’s recent gulf oil dilemma certainly points to a failure to plan.) I agree more with Daniel Chudnov (2008), who, in his article Failure is Always an Option, argues that failure is normal and should be embraced. Moreover, he stresses that we should PLAN on failing. For example, I could keep a call number cheat sheet at the reference desk for those times when the catalog is down or the power is out. I could download a flashlight app or WorldCat app to my phone. I could also work on recognizing when my mojo is being affected and try to reign it back to the positive side.

At some point we will make mistakes and we will fail at something. But when do we need to have contingency plans? That’s the whole concept behind disaster planning. But do we do it as much for our tools as we do for our buildings and physical materials? Where I work we have a group that’s looking at contingency planning for access to e-resources in the event of a disaster. Another example of small systems failure is when an e-book isn’t accessible. Just this morning I assisted a patron in requesting a print copy of an e-book that wasn’t working via our library consortium. If this had failed I would have helped the patron fill out an interlibrary loan request. Small failures like this are easy to work around. When we can problem solve and when we can have contingency plans in place we can diminish the blow of the failure. Still, when added up small everyday systems failures can have great impact on our librarian mojo.

That Inner Mojo and Getting it Back (Or, a lot of it is in your head.)

Most of the time systems failure is out of our control, but how we react to those failures and our general inner mojo is not. A while back Ellie wrote a terrific review of the book How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. In it she provides examples about Lehrer’s insights regarding the balance between emotion and rationality. Essentially, how we think about failure can have a lot to do with our mojo.

In my case it wasn’t just the end of one project or one system failure that resulted in my mojo loss. As is often the case it was a number of things happening all at once. Things at work were frustrating. I wasn’t liking my day to day work, I didn’t feel that any of my idealism about libraries and librarianship were being tapped or utilized. I didn’t feel like I was learning or affecting my community positively, the major project on which I had spent close to 2 years of my professional life had ended in failure, and this all culminated into a ball of the work blahs. I had lost my mojo.

Part of my blahs had to do with the disillusionment about libraries and professional work life in general. When I started working I was ready, fresh-faced, young, naive, excited, and full of ideas. After a few years of too many meetings, too much university bureaucracy, budget cuts, unstable temporary employment, and Oregon Health Go Local’s phase out I felt burned out and mojo-less. Basically, I let it get to me. And come to find out Anitra Steele (2009) mentions that “New librarians are perhaps at a higher risk of burnout than veteran coworkers. One article states this is because idealistic expectations and practice do not often coincide.”

But I love being a librarian and I don’t want to stop being one. I love that I have the education and skills that I mentioned at the beginning of this post (critical thinking, etc.). I just want my mojo back. And no one’s going to give it to me, so I’ve got to take ownership of my librarian mojo. I’ve got to start thinking differently. I’ve got to find pro-active solutions.

So what have I done to attempt to reclaim it? First, I went on ALA Connect’s Mentor Connect (a portal within ALA Connect that lets mentors and mentees find each other) and requested some mentorship and advice. My mentor helped me think about what I want from librarianship, what kind of librarian I want to be, and helped me think about what actions I could take to work toward that goal. When I expressed an interest to pursue academic library work at a more general university or at a community college rather than at a health sciences institution, my mentor encouraged me to seek out professional development opportunities that would fulfill my professional needs in this area and make me an attractive job candidate for future opportunities. In this vein I decided to remain active in ALA and cut back on my involvement in health sciences by not renewing memberships in health sciences library organizations when they are due.

I’ve also been going through a subconscious ritual of daily affirmations at work. (I’m being serious.) I have taped to my computer monitor at work a note from a co-worker (written to me in a meeting when she knew I was losing my mojo). It says,

“Don’t worry–it’s not just you. We know how good you are!”

I went on vacation during which I read books for pleasure, spent time with friends and my partner, and was even out of cell phone and e-mail range.

I went to ALA Annual where I got inspired about librarianship by talking to inspiring people and gaining a more whole library perspective than my niche in a medical school setting. I was able to chat with librarians who work in public libraries, community college libraries, small private college libraries, and this year’s class of Emerging Leaders. I attended programs that were of interest to me such as the Google Book Search Settlement Panel, and the Open Access Debate. I attended Library Advocacy Day and met with my state representatives to talk about issues facing libraries. These experiences re-energized me and reminded me why I became a librarian.

And the biggest thing of all is that just the other day, (July 1st), I started a new job description and dropped my work hours to half-time. Instead of working as a Reference Librarian, I am now Scholarly Communication Librarian. I’ll be working with the research faculty and students to provide education about the NIH Public Access Policy, issues in open access, publishing, and author rights. These new duties will enable me to be more involved with why I wanted to be a librarian in the first place: to advocate for something about which I’m passionate– equitable and open access to information.

I am lucky to have this luxury– to be able to afford to work half-time– and the leadership in my library supports this change. Working half-time will enable me to re-discover hobbies like riding my bike, gardening, cooking, and learning book arts. It will enable me to come to work refreshed and be able to HAVE that mojo that I need to do a good job. Feeling like a whole person has a lot to do with my librarian mojo and this is going to be the best solution for me to get my mojo working again.

My mojo’s not all the way back, but what I’m going to do from here on out is really celebrate my accomplishments like Robert Moran (2009) suggests in What a Great Place to Work!. I will find the things that I find fulfilling about library work and concentrate on them. I’m going to frame my degrees and hang in them in my office at work to remind myself why I’m a librarian, and aim to work towards being what I want to be. I’m going to read books like How We Decide, and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and learn about Peter Drucker’s work (whom Kim mentioned a while back) to try to learn how to keep failures from affecting my mojo. Finally, I’m going to concentrate on that feeling described by one of my pals as “the moment when you remember what it’s like to be you when you’re happy again.”

So, dear readers. Have you ever lost your librarian mojo? Have you experienced burnout? What caused it and how did you handle it?

Extra special thanks to Laura Zeigen, Ellie Collier, and Miriam Rigby for providing thoughtful feedback on this post.

Citations and Further Readings:

Chudnov, D. (2008). Failure is Always an Option. Computers in Libraries 28(10), 20-22.

Crawford, W. (2010). Being Wrong and Learning from “Partial Success.” Online 34(3), 57-59.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

German, L. (2009). No One Plans to Fail, They Fail to Plan: The importance of structured project planning. Technicalities 29(3), 6-9.

Lehrer, J. (2009). How we decide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Leysen, J. & Boydston, J. (2009). Job Satisfaction among Academic Cataloger Librarians. College & Research Libraries 70(3), 273-97.

Moran, R. (2009). What a Great Place to Work! Library Leadership and Management 23(1), 47-48.

Reiter, M., & Goldsmith, M. (2009). Mojo: How to get it, how to keep it, how to get it back if you lose it. New York: Hyperion.

Robertson. G. (2004). Lights out! Dealing with Power Outages in Your Library. Feliciter 50(4), 156-158.

Steele, A. (2009). Flying with the Phoenixes: Avoiding job burnout as a librarian and manager. Children’s Librarianship 7(3), 51-52.

Image from the National Archives and Records Administration Archival Research Catalog

Have you ever found yourself thinking: “I know I said yes to this, but now I wish I’d said no. That’s what I wanted to say in the first place”? Chances are you said yes because you were afraid to say no or you didn’t know how, or you don’t like saying no. If you were afraid to say no maybe you felt that you would be looked on as being difficult to work with, or that you would receive a poor job performance review. Maybe you feel that if you say no now, you won’t be asked again. Maybe you even feel guilty because if you can’t do a project then your co-worker will have to do it; or the project doesn’t get done at all. How do you say no? How can we frame “no” in a way that avoids negative consequences and enables us to be effective and healthy librarians?

Maintaining the right work/life balance can be tricky. For example, if your partner or child has an important event that conflicts with a meeting, what will you choose to attend? Some people might go to their meeting or show up late to her child’s piano recital or her partner’s awards ceremony. I have heard the phrase “rotating neglect” to describe these kinds of conflicts within work and personal lives. Essentially, we make choices to either neglect work or neglect ourselves and family. One of the ways we can counteract this is to begin by saying no to opportunities for service or projects that will upset the work/life balance we have.

The ability to say no to taking on a new project at work or another committee appointment is directly related to mental wellness and a healthy work/life balance. Many of us have a hard time saying no and can accumulate too much work and responsibility. The quandary remains that if you’re good at what you do you’ll be asked to take on projects and commitments. As a result the quality of our work and personal lives can suffer. In order to remain happy at work and in our personal lives, it is crucial that we find balance between them so that we feel mentally able to handle the tasks handed us at work, as well as the extracurricular activities in which we choose to engage. Service on national or local committees can be demanding and time intensive; frequently on time that is your own, and not our employer’s. In order to maintain balance, we need to learn how to say no. Say no when we cannot take on another commitment because our wellness is at stake. And that takes a tremendous amount of emotional intelligence, leadership, and let’s face it, guts.

William Ury’s The Power of a Positive No argues that a positive “no” is one that first affirms your values, then clearly says “no” to the current request, but ends with a possible yes to future positive work together. The construct Ury uses for this positive no is: “Yes! No. Yes?” For example, if you’re saying no to a colleague who asked if you would switch your late night reference shift, chances are you are saying “yes!” to spending time with your family, keeping your tickets to the big game, or your valued personal time. Following the “yes!” you must clearly communicate “no.” “No, John, I cannot take your shift.” The final “yes?” is a yes that is a proposition to an alternative to which you can both agree. An example of this might be, “I am spending tonight with my family. No, I cannot take your shift. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to.” While my example certainly does not do Ury’s book justice, it shows the construction of a positive no. A positive no is one that is intentional and thoughtful, and in the end, carries more meaning and demands more respect than a reactive “no” or a meek “yes.” Sometimes we just say yes because we fear the consequences, but if we can frame our “nos” positively as Ury suggests, we will find many of these fears ill-founded, and we will say no without feelings of guilt. Saying no in this positive way will feel good.

I recently remembered an act of self-advocacy displayed at a former job. When I was working as an elementary school library assistant, the principal asked if I would be interested in planning and hosting an after school book discussion group with students. My response is paraphrased as follows. “What a great idea. I think the kids could really benefit from something like this. I would not be able to do this on my free time. Can we work it out so that I may work more hours and be paid to do this?” You can see that my response follows the positive no construction. First, I say “yes!” affirming that I think the kids at the school could benefit from the program and I would enjoy doing it. Then I say “no” to doing the work as a volunteer. Finally, I say “yes?” to working on the project provided I get financially compensated. The principal and I were able to come to agreement and I started an after school book club for 4th and 5th graders.

“’There are moments when people have to say No…and that No needs to be said with the same sincerity, the same honesty, and in the same tone of voice that people say Yes.”” Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as quoted by Ury, p. 132

Just as the quote above indicates, “nos” and “yeses” that are communicated without thought will be ineffective. Before you can effectively say no you have to know yourself. You have to know your values and strengths, and you have to know your professional and personal goals. You have to be a leader. How? Discover your values first. Try using Elizabeth Burnette’s outline that answers “How can you tap into your full leadership potential?” from a workshop she conducted at the NCSU libraries called Personal Leadership & Balancing Competing Priorities.

Personal Leadership & Balancing Competing Priorities
by Elizabeth S. Burnette

How can you tap into your full leadership potential?

1. Determine your values, personal vision, and leadership vision:

• Identify your values,
• Determine what’s incongruent between what you believe, what you say, and what you do,
• Accommodate changes to your values over time – they do change, and
• Address conflicts between values, career, and life.

2. Understand your leadership ability.

• This is the sum of your skills, energy, time, and focus at a point in time.
• Influence can impact your ability to lead well in the present.
• Present roles can impact your ability to lead in future roles.

3. Consider how leadership fits into your world:

• Periodically assess your goals and aspirations,
• Review your personal and professional agendas, and
• Analyze past leadership roles for lessons learned.

4. Strive for balance between leadership and the other parts of your life.

• Balance is not about perfection.
• Changing demands can create imbalances in your life.
• Be fluid and look to minimize clashes between life and leadership.

Mary Pergander discussed another technique last October in American Libraries. Take a mini-retreat to reflect on your priorities and values. (October 2008). Make an outline and while on your retreat reflect on what is important to you.

Some examples from the field

Because I was so curious about this topic I decided to informally ask my colleagues and peers how they approach saying no. I e-mailed librarians who I know and posed the following questions:

• How do you decide to say “yes” to a project/committee appointment, etc when you are asked to take on a task?
• Have you ever said “no” to taking on a project at work? If so, how did you decide to say no, and what were the key components of that decision?
• When you have said no at work, how have you communicated the “no”?
• Have you ever felt that saying “no” at work has resulted in negative outcomes? Please explain the nature of those outcomes (as you are comfortable).
• Have you ever wanted to say no but didn’t feel that you were able due to its ramifications? If so, please explain the situation (as you are comfortable) and its outcomes.

A total of 16 people responded. My favorite response is quoted below in its entirety.

“I apologize for not replying sooner. These past few weeks have been very busy for me both at work and at home. I’ve given your request some thought and I am sorry to say that I cannot participate in your informal information gathering. I know that lots of other librarians will be happy to share their experiences with you, and I hope you will think of me the next time something like this comes up.”

In addition to making my day, this is a thoughtful and well executed no. In the style of Ury’s positive “no” it affirms the “yes!” that his time is precious. It clearly states that the answer is no, and it opens the “yes?” to working together in the future.

Perhaps the most telling result of asking for this feedback was that of the 16 respondents, two (12.5%) pointed to their mental health having been compromised as a result of having said yes, when they really should have said no. Two people (12.5%) also point to having a career or job changed based on their decisions to say no. One said “no” to overwork and stress by deciding to change jobs. The other person’s no (to working on a new project) resulted in a poor performance review and later a hostile work environment when the person who originally asked for help became her boss! This eventually led to her finding a new job and in the long run, ended positively.

Another theme that appears in respondents’ answers is that saying yes or no depends on who is doing the asking. Several people noted that they can’t say no to their boss or the library director. Others noted that if the person who asks is someone they respect and admire they are more likely to say yes, noting that personal requests garner more attention. Sometimes you just aren’t able to say no without jeopardizing your job or your performance review.

What was surprising to me, although it shouldn’t be, is that several people mentioned difficulty with saying no in their first “librarian” job. “I learned through my experience at that first librarian job that you have to start saying no early on because once you’ve shown you can do the work, no one is going to take work away from you…When I came to my new job, I immediately started setting boundaries.”

Saying no can be political. For professionals who are in a position where they must attempt to get tenure, it can mean hindering their ability to either continue employment or attain tenure status. In these instances we are trapped in “not having a choice” to say no. It’s not a “yes” because you can’t resist the opportunity, but you fear the consequences of a “no.”

In his book Ury similarly discusses tough situations and advises you that you must always have a Plan B. A Plan B is not a compromise, rather it is a plan with which you feel comfortable and are able to execute if your “no” is not accepted. If your Plan B is to find a new job or even quit your current one, you must be prepared to take that step.

The final theme I noted is that there are major differences between saying no at work and saying no to joining another ALA committee (or something similar). One of my colleagues said precisely because ALA commitments are not part of her job expectations, she is very picky about what she does do. In order to say yes to an appointment she must feel passionately about that particular service or task.

Let’s talk praxis. How do you do it?

“Saying No is essential in life. Every living cell has a membrane that allows certain needed nutrients to pass through and repels others. Every living organism needs such boundaries to protect itself. To survive and thrive, every human being and every organization need to be able to say No to anything that threatens their safety, dignity, and integrity.” The Power of a Positive No p. 125

So what are some tactics that we can use to decide if we’re going to give a yes or no answer? The following are synthesized suggestions by respondents; and even some of their direct suggestions.

• Review your workload with your supervisor and come upon mutual agreement to whether your answer will be a “yes” or “no” can be helpful both in the way you frame your response, but also in alleviating any political ramifications or consequences your “no” may cause.
• Think about whether the project is of value to you, your job, or your patrons. Also consider whether it’s a task about which you are passionate, something that will be a lot of fun to do, or add to your skills set.
• Consider who is doing the asking. Think about whether the person asking is asking for a favor or a personal request.
• Always weigh whether or not you have the time. One respondent offered a calculation you could use to figure your time commitment at work. “…keeping a calculation of your standard work week responsibilities in time-consumption (i.e. weeding=2hours/per/week, desk time=15 hours/per/week, etc.) Once you have that worked out, you’ll know if you can afford another X-amount of hours to dedicate to the project.”
• Decide whether you think you will have something to contribute to the project/committee.
• Weigh the consequences. If you are going to say “yes” to this project you might have to say “no” to something else. Figure out which is more important to you.
• Discuss the issue with your friends, partner and family. If your commitments will affect them you should consult them. Chances are you will get some good advice.
• If saying no, always recommend someone else who might be good at that position or would have interest in serving. (Share the love!)

Let’s face it, sometimes even after answering all of these questions we have to say no. But if we’ve thoughtfully examined our values and the situation at hand, chances are we can communicate our “no” positively, intentionally, and with respect. Several respondents forwarded examples of how to say no. See the one quoted below (names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Hi Sue,

Seeing that you have a nice group of interested people and feeling like I’ve jumped on a few too many projects for this spring, I’d like to respectfully bow out of the Second Life group. You’re welcome to keep me on the email list for input, but I’d rather not commit to regular meetings and additional training.

Thanks,
Sam

It’s not just a positive “no,” it’s also an intentional and thoughtful “yes.”

Image from the National Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion Archival Research Catalog

As I end this article I want to stress that while I have concentrated on the “no,” by learning to frame and understand our “nos,” we are also learning how to understand and frame our “yes.” We should approach situations, opportunities and the whole of our work with thoughtfulness and intent. Thoughtful yeses and thoughtful nos will be more respected by your colleagues and carry more meaning. Moreover, you will feel better in your work and personal life when you can strike the balance, and say your “nos” without fear and guilt, but with a positive affirmation of your values.

If we can start balancing our work and personal lives and integrate positive “nos” when we need them, we’ll be healthier and happier librarians

Now it’s time to hear from readers. How do decide on your yes and on your no? How do you say it? Have you had to say no to preserve your wellness?

Further Reading

• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
• Hernon, P., & Rossiter, N. (2006). Emotional intelligence: Which traits are most prized? College & Research Libraries, 67(3), 260-275.
• Kreitz, P. (2009). Leadership and emotional intelligence: A study of university library directors and their senior management teams. College & Research Libraries, 70(6), 531-554.
• MacMillan, K. (2005). Generating goodwill: Turning no into yes. American Libraries, 36(10), 48-49.
• Pergander, M. (2008). Retreat! retreat! American Libraries, 39(9), 69.
• Promis, P. (2008). Are employers asking for the right competencies? A case for emotional intelligence. Library Administration & Management, 22(1), 24-30.
• Richter, L. (2006). Emotional intelligence at work: An interview with Daniel Goleman.(1), 24-28.
• Schachter, D. (2005). Work and personal life balance. Information Outlook, 9(10), 10-11.
• Schachter, D. (2009). Developing and applying emotional intelligence. Information Outlook, 13(5), 49-50.
• Ury, W. (2007). The power of a positive no: How to say no and still get to yes. New York: Bantam Books.

Thank Yous

A heartfelt thank you to Elizabeth Burnette and Katherine O’Clair for providing thoughtful feedback on this post. Additional thanks to my colleague Laura Zeigen and Lead Pipers Ellie Collier, Derik Badman, Brett Bonfield, and Hilary Davis for their editorial comments.

Outreach is dead. It’s time we put its body in a coffin, say our collective prayers and move on.
You see, for most of the summer I undertook a long series of “outreach” trips to promote and educate the public at large about a grant-funded project I’d been working on for the past year. I drove all over the state of Oregon, to the desert in the East, the rolling mountains in the South, up and down the rocky coast, and through the farm and ranch land in Western and Central Oregon. During these long trips (imagine expanses of high desert for 200 miles before you hit a rest stop or gas station) I had a lingering feeling that what I was doing was definitely NOT outreach. Instead, I was promoting and marketing a service and tool that, for the past year, I had been helping to build at my place of employ.

What IS outreach in libraries today? It became my mission to discover a succinct working definition of what we do that so many of us consider outreach, yet my conclusion remained embedded in that same violent phrase: outreach is dead. When this thought first occurred to me my brain immediately began singing the lyrics to Bauhaus’s hit Goth Rock song Bela Lugosi’s Dead. (“…Bela Lugosi’s dead/ undead undead undead/Oh, Bela/Bela’s undead…)

We need to lay rest to outreach’s physical body–that separate entity that comprises library departments and ancillary programs. As well we need to lay to rest the word “outreach,” whose separate existence inhibits and deters us from doing what we as libraries, librarians, and information professionals should be doing. Instead of integrating library promotion, advocacy, and community-specific targeted services, we have left “outreach” outside of the inclusive library whole to be an afterthought, a department more likely to get cut, or work function of only a few, such as your subject librarians. If we kill this notion, if we consider the word and the separate entity of outreach as dead, we are more likely to be able to embrace and participate in activities formerly known as outreach and incorporate this essential part of our jobs into our daily work routine.

Definitions

Before I came to the conclusion that outreach is dead, I attempted to re-define outreach as such: Outreach is marketing. If the people who you’re attempting to reach seek services from you (rather than you reaching them) it is not outreach. The agenda behind library outreach should be to offer services without monetary gain, and to identify and fill service voids for people who are not looking for them. Unsatisfied with my definition I asked my dad. His response was “I let the NSF [National Science Foundation] define that for me.” (My dad is an organic chemistry professor.) I was not convinced that a funding agency should have the ultimate say in what “outreach” activities should be or include; particularly in libraries. It was then that I decided to turn to my colleagues and professional literature to seek a good definition.

Scott Pointon (Public Libraries, 2009) refers to the following definition: “Draw a circle around the central or main library building–every library service, program, or library-related endeavor taking place outside that circle is outreach.” (5-6).  Likewise, in her introduction to the Extraordinary Outreach section of Public Libraries last winter, Nann Hilyard points to the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary definition of outreach, “noun: the act of extending community services to a wider section of the population. Transitive Verb: to reach beyond, exceed” (20). Unsatisfied with both of these definitions I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online (thanks, Multnomah County Library, for my remote access to this!) I found:

Outreach. Noun.  b. spec. The activity of an organization in making contact and fostering relations with people unconnected with it, esp. for the purpose of support or education and for increasing awareness of the organization’s aims or message; the fact or extent of this activity.

None of these definitions are satisfactory to me. And none of us define outreach in the same way. Pointon’s definition is great, but it pulls into play the struggle libraries are having with “library as place,” an issue recently addressed in The Journal of Academic Librarianship by Sennyey et al., 2009. Current library services transcend the physical boundaries of a library building. Many collections and services offered by public and academic libraries are used remotely. Users access library services from home, in their offices, and even via mobile devices. “…the bond between users and the physical library will change and if poorly managed the “library as place” will become just another campus building” (Sennyey, et al., 2009). In this way, defining outreach by physical boundaries (a body) does not reflect the wealth of services that libraries provide and undermine our community-centered work.

The OED definition is great, but to me this definition gets back to my first instinct: this is marketing, not outreach. In fact, I looked at the OED definition of marketing, and felt that the two, for our intent, are almost interchangeable.

Marketing  b. The action or business of bringing or sending a product or commodity to market; (now chiefly, Business) the action, business, or process of promoting and selling a product, etc., including market research, advertising, and distribution.

Our product is our service. To many librarians marketing can be a dirty word and outreach almost saintly. But in so many articles about outreach authors seem to refer to library service promotion as marketing anyway.  (see  Dawn Bussey’s Getting the Word Out, Eugene Jeffers’s Electronic Outreach and Our Internet Patrons, and Rebecca Donnelly’s The Misguided Relationship.) I think we should embrace marketing for what it is, and let outreach diffuse into our daily routine. Moreover, the first use of the word outreach in this way was over 100 years ago, in 1899 according to the OED. Since libraries have changed so much over the past 100 years isn’t it time we find a new way to express and incorporate community-centered work? The OED definition reminds me of a picture I snapped while on my outreach excursions.

The paint is peeling. Obviously its current physical manifestation could use some help. Likewise, when we use the term “outreach” we typically refer to an older and more traditional notion of what the word means. For us to move beyond this idea, we just might have to start using different words and detach current assumptions about “outreach” to discuss our “outreach” activities.

Differences Between Academic and Public Libraries

In academic libraries outreach seems to mean one of a few things. First, you have to reach your constituents. Some libraries have a Facebook page and some libraries tweet. You might also provide orientations to new student cohorts or you might offer satellite library services in a different building such as a dorm or a student center. Other examples could be creating relationships with faculty to provide services that support teaching as well as to their students to support course-specific learning. These examples seem to encompass much of what academic “outreach” focused activities include. To me, all of these services should not be contained within a separate body, department, or undertaken by just the “Outreach Librarian.” Instead, they are part in parcel what we do. As professionals we should all be talking about the library in our communities and fostering relationships. We should be offering satellite services and, yes, we should all have down pat our 30 second “why the library is important” elevator speech. These are essential aspects of a library and of any librarian’s job. They are not separate nor should they be contained in a different or a sole unit or entity.

Unlike academic libraries, Public library outreach programs seem much more identified by space and place. Bookmobile services, library services provided to those in jail, services at senior centers and in schools are all examples of what would fall under the “outreach” umbrella. Dawn Bussey discusses the various things that the Glen Ellyn Public Library has done in their community and outside the library’s walls (Public Libraries, 2009). But let’s face it, these services and the community-based nature of public libraries are essential to what today’s library is. It is not extra, it is mandatory and we should all be engaged and providing targeted, community-based services to our constituents.

Community Engagement and Marketing are Essential

The nature of libraries has changed enormously. The physical building is less important. Books are less important. Due to these changes libraries will become obsolete in today’s current market where information needs are created and fulfilled by (my favorite “frenemies”) Google and Facebook. People purchase books from Amazon, they read blogs, wikis and other online commercial (and non-commercial) information sources. But libraries have what they don’t and we need to let our users know this. We have the ability to be in our communities, to engage them and offer specific targeted services. Our engagement with our communities can be the defining aspect of what a library is to any given community—and that sounds a whole lot like what one “outreach librarian” was doing or one “outreach department” does in the old “outreach” paradigm. I am not trying to undermine the importance of marketing, advocacy, or library services. Traditional “outreach” services should be an integrated part of what we do, not an aside, a tacked on item.

Problems We Face in Death

Just because libraries need to change and have changed does not mean that the politics of our respective institutions and governing bodies have. Many institutions, such as my own, have “outreach” outlined in their missions. Institutions might use “outreach” to exemplify their worth for grant or other funding sources, which frequently require “outreach” activities be incorporated into funded projects. (Much like my dad’s example and my recent travel around the state of Oregon.)  We need for our city governments and our library and university administrations to advocate for libraries and library services in the manner I have described.  When crucial administrative decisions get made, for example to open a new campus, build a new building, or to add a new degree program at a college or university, libraries and their services need to be represented. If we have successfully advocated for our constituents by providing them with quality targeted, community-centered services, they will advocate for us. In the end, we might be able to provide those essential library services without being restricted by traditional “outreach” departments or initiatives.

Another issue facing libraries and library staff is training. How are we going to train library staff to provide those 30 second elevator speeches? Who will take the lead to ensure that circulation staff, reference staff, and others know how to engage in the services we’ve been calling outreach? If we expect everyone to engage in this work, staff need to have the skills and knowledge to be able to do so.

Finally, outreach is usually considered a separate department, when marketing and promotion of outreach activities within institutions get delegated to separate “marketing,” “communications,” or “public relations” departments. Wouldn’t it be best if the two were integrated? These departments often produce and distribute printed and written materials such as press releases, brochures and flyers, or craft an organizational mission statement. This kind of community engagement remains essential. We must learn to embrace marketing and collaborate with our marketing and communications departments for our community-centered services to achieve their potential.

The Undead

Kill your notion of outreach. We should demolish the body of outreach, but keep outreach activities alive. We should disallow outreach a separate body, but fold its spirit into our daily work and activities, for it is this spirit of work that is the very kernel of what makes a library. Let’s use different words to talk about what we do. (Please, if you have a suggestion on a new term to replace “outreach” leave a comment!) Let’s work to engage our administrators and our institutions in changing the attitude and political structure surrounding “outreach.” Let’s bridge the divide by collaborating with community and institutional partners to create and promote services. Let’s make sure library staff has the training to be able to give an elevator speech about why the library is important to community. Finally, let’s reshape our attitude and view community-based library services as essential; as the core of what keeps libraries strong and relevant to our communities.

Thanks to Gail Kouame for providing her thoughtful feedback to this post. Also thanks to Lead Pipe Colleagues Derik Badman, Ellie Collier, and Hilary Davis for their edits and feedback. Additionally, thanks to my office-mate, Andrew Hamilton, who is a great springboard for ideas.

References and Further Reading

Adams, T. M., & Sean Evans, R. (2004). Educating the educators: Outreach to the college of education distance faculty and native american students. Journal of Library Administration, 41(1), 3-18.

Aguilar, P., & Keating, K. (2009). Satellite outreach services program to under-represented students: Being in their space, not on MySpace. The Reference Librarian, 50(1), 14-28.

Bussey, D. (2009). Getting the word out. Public Libraries, 48(1), 20-21.

Connell, R. S. (2009). Academic libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and student outreach: A survey of student opinion. Portal: Libraries & the Academy, 9(1), 25-36.

Donnelly, R. (2009). The misguided relationship: Learning from outreach experiences. Public Libraries, 48(1), 24-25.

Hilyard, N. B. (2009). Cultivating support for library advocacy. Public Libraries, 48(3), 16-19.

Jeffers, E. J. (2009). Electronic outreach and our internet patrons. Public Libraries, 48(1), 21-23.

Pointon, S. E. (2009). Library outreach is the future! Public Libraries, 48(2), 2-5, 24.

Sennyey, P., Ross, L., & Mills, C. (2009). Exploring the future of academic libraries: A definitional approach. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35(3), 252-259.

ALAConnect's Home Page © ALA

So ALA has joined the ranks of two point oh. Last month it rolled out ALAConnect, a service influenced by Ning, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Docs, and other online networking platforms and shared work spaces. Despite the hoopla about the system I hadn’t even heard of it until one of my working groups was asked to use it. Being an online networking junkie I was intrigued and decided to log in and, consequently, to write this post. After my first look around the site I was a bit pessimistic, but after taking a deeper look, I have come to hope that ALAConnect will be able to reach individuals who haven’t been able to attend conferences and engage with their colleagues about ALA-centric issues. If ALAConnect can draw this constituency to use it, then the tool might mean some real changes for ALA.

Currently, ALAConnect, which aims “…to engage in ALA business and network with other members around issues and interests relevant to the profession” (ALA, 2009) is in Phase 1 of its launch. This means that not all functionality has been implemented and future enhancements are planned for the site by the end of 2009. These include an advanced search for members and a mentoring network. (Check out the ALAConnect Roadmap for more details.)

At first glance the system seems to have tools that we librarians have been using for a while from many different places and systems. It offers the ability to create and modify shared documents, host chats, and sponsor polls and votes all in one space! In many ways this fills a very real need for ALA committees that have been struggling to work virtually. Instead of chatting in a Meebo room, on Gchat in your Gmail, AIM, and using Google Docs or e-mailing documents back and forth, these groups now have the opportunity to conduct work in one community space.

Before I begin to discuss the social context and implications ALAConnect has on ALA politics and the organization’s evolution, I’d like to discuss some of the more apparent and concrete issues surrounding this technological implementation.

Usability

As with any system, some basic usability problems are apparent in ALAConnect. Most of the issues I point out have something to do with the structure of the system in place, in this case, Drupal. Some of these issues will be fixed in time with future Drupal releases, but right now they pose some usability issues.

One of the first things I attempted to do in ALAConnect was build my social network. I quickly discovered that it takes too many clicks to add a new friend. After you have found a friend to add and successfully add that friend, the system returns you to your profile instead of the “My Network” page.

Next, I tried to do some searches to find relevant communities to join. Being the librarian I am, I clicked on “advanced search” but was confused that this did not take me directly to the advanced search interface. Instead, I had to click a few more times to get there.

Another seemingly simple usability issue that I noticed is that in the left navigation toolbar, the drop-down arrow next to menu items isn’t functional. While it does tell you that there are more items to view under that navigational category, it does not work to drop down the structure. Instead, you have to physically click on the link and load a new page to see the sub-navigation levels.

Again, these problems will likely be addressed as ALA gets more feedback or as Drupal’s developers make further improvements to the software. Either way, these are basic usability issues that, in the future, might be improved.

Privacy

Privacy seems to be another issue with the system. In fact, Jessamyn West was one of the first to comment on it. (You’ll notice from the comments in that blog post that ALA staff was quick to respond and fix the issue!) I get the feeling that they are getting a lot of privacy based questions because of the existence of the Privacy FAQ page and the many posts in the forum related to privacy. There are some pretty robust features for privacy in ALAConnect, but it’s hard to figure out what’s what without doing your research. You can choose to keep your membership in communities private, but your official ALA work will display to members. You also have options to control your privacy for each community you join. See the FAQ for more information about these details.

The first thing I saw on my profile, shockingly, was my (personal) phone number. Why? Well, the answer is simple. First, my personal phone number is the phone number with which I joined ALA. (Being an unemployed librarian at that point it was the only number I could give and I haven’t yet updated my information with ALA.) Second, this piece of contact information was imported with other membership information when creating ALAConnect. (Why we need a phone number to display in an online social networking tool is beyond me.) Upon further investigation I discovered that phone numbers display only to people you call contacts, but this overlooks two simple questions: Who is going to call me when they could shoot me an email, and why was this piece of data even imported into ALAConnect?

ALAConnect's Online Now Box ©ALA

More disconcerting to me, however is that ALAConnect displays who recently logged in on its homepage, even to the public. At first I thought I had the ability to opt out of this, but it turns out I don’t.

Going into my profile I disabled the ability for people see my online status in my user preferences, but this status only relates to IM and chat gadgets embedded in your profile, not the entire portal.

While displaying whether I’m online might be inconsequential, it still gives me the heebie jeebies to know that anyone can find out that I’m at a computer logged in to ALAConnect. Furthermore, what utility does this function add? How will the information that I’m online be used by other members? There is no internal IM function (except for chats in member communities and groups) to which it can link. I’d be more forgiving if there were some utility to this part of the interface, but there doesn’t appear to be any.

ALAConnect Privacy Options for IM © ALA

Functionality

Unlike usability, functionality is one of those things that is harder to change after a system has been implemented. While I think the functionality of ALAConnect is quite rich, I did have some basic questions and frustrations about it. For instance, when creating my profile I wanted to include all of my schooling, not just one school.

ALAConnect Profile Education Display ©ALA

I would also like to be able to show that I have two master’s degrees, and I know there are many many people out there who are in the same boat. Moreover, I would like to be able to connect with people who are alums of my same college, which seems to be a logical way to network. For example, I belong to a group on Facebook called Reedie Librarians, which is a way for me to connect with Reed College graduates who are also in the library profession. (This functionality has been marked in the ALAConnect Roadmap as a future improvement.)

There are some additional items in ALAConnect that might prove to be useful. Using tagging and being able to “favorite” a post or group is really helpful, if you use this functionality. Though if you’re anything like me, you might never look at your favorites again. ALAConnect also boasts the ability to create RSS feeds to read content of interest. (I did not try to create an RSS feed so I cannot say if this is easy to do.) Additionally, the system embraces some other, but not all, social networking sites such as Flickr and Delicious. These sites will show up as gadgets on your profile if you include them. The following image is of Aaron Dobbs’s public profile.

User Profile on ALAConnect with Flickr and Delicious Gadgets ©ALA

Even though users can embed some gadgets in their profiles, some might want better interoperability between ALAConnect and their other networking tools. ItLwtLP blogger Derik says,

“My big issue is that I want interoperability with my other social networks. If ALA Connect would connect up with Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc., maybe I could see a use. That interoperability is where we get into OpenSocial, Facebook Connect, and Google Friend Connect, all different ongoing projects to make the social network portable.”

I have a feeling that many people agree with Derik. Why would I join another networking site if isn’t interoperable with the other things that I’ve been using for online networking and work? The problem here is that ALAConnect is not supposed to be a social networking site. Rather, it is intended to be a professional networking site. This is an important distinction to note, but I wonder if it is a distinction that users will make.

Finally, one of the best features and functional pieces of ALAConnect is its ability to host user-generated content. Users can create groups, join groups, post comments, etc. This kind of content is one that I feel has been lacking within the ALA structure, and creating this functionality may open the doors to increased organizational participation and meaningful online discourse about professional issues.

I’m sure there are other functional things within ALAConnect that I haven’t yet been able to explore. If you know of any, please comment on this blog post!

The Social Context

I’d like to move from the concrete portion of this review to looking at the social context of ALAConnect. As was ingrained in my brain in graduate school, no technological implementation exists in a vacuum. In fact, the social context surrounding a technological implementation will most likely determine how well the system is adopted and used. (See Kling, Rosenbaum, and Sawyer’s 2005 book, Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics for an easy to read summary.)

ALAConnect might be able to offer ALA members the networking and virtual space to engage in discourse and other community-based activity that has been taking place in other virtual spaces. There is no doubt that online networking and use of webapps are part of a computerization movement which is particularly useful for information professionals and librarians. (For more about computerization movements, read a piece by Susan Iacono and Rob Kling in Yates and Van Maanen’s 2001 book, Information Technology and Organizational Transformation.) The question is: for ALA members who feel disenfranchised and disenchanted, can ALAConnect be a democratizing factor? Can a social movement form in this virtual space to give ALA members what they need from the organization? I think it’s possible, but whether this happens will be determined by the system’s users.

Browsing ALAConnect ©ALA

There are a few things in the ALAConnect interface and system that show its surrounding social context. You will notice that ALAConnect’s structure is based on ALA’s scary, unwieldy, and seemingly unnavigable political structure. Notice in the following screenshot that to browse ALAConnect you immediately have to understand the structure of ALA. This is not all that helpful to those who don’t quite understand it. One the one hand, this system must reflect that structure. On the other hand, this could prevent many users from joining and using the system, simply based on its parent structure.

I tried to look at how to create a group (see the screenshot below), and was left wondering what the “ALAConnect” subject headings had to do with the group I was going to create. For instance, we are asked right away to place our user-generated content into an organizational hierarchy (ALA’s) that is hard to use. However, like any classification, this function will help to make groups more findable. You can also request to add a new subject heading, which is a great service.  (See the Member Chair FAQ for more details.) This model isn’t ideal, but it seems to address the issue of how different users might find the groups they’re looking for.

Creating a Group on ALAConnect ©ALA

It is impossible for a system like ALAConnect to be devoid of social context. The real issue here is the tension between the “networking” part of the system and the part that is tied to offcial ALA committees and structure.

The Verdict

Despite some of the criticisms I’ve discussed in this article, I think it is a tremendous resource with great potential. Content, including communities and discussions, can be user-generated. Structures and conversations can center around an issue, not around a division, something that ALA desperately needs in order to be able to involve a larger community, to make the ALA structure more open, and to make the association’s work more relevant to today’s librarians. The fact that the system is part of the ALA structure may dissuade some users, but there is a growing online community of non-ALA members who have created ALAConnect accounts and are using the resource.

ALAConnect offers everyone in libraryland (not just ALA members) a way to get involved in professional discourse, to engage in professional networking, and to create their own professional communities online. What we need to do is to join ALAConnect en masse, create groups, engage in communities, and make ALA what we need it to be. ALAConnect is just a starting point, but I honestly think that if we start there, the sky is the limit. It’s up to us to make sure we use the system in a way that is meaningful to us.

Thanks to Flickr user gynti_46 for use of the photo.

Since October something has been weighing on my professional mind: my abusive relationship with Google. I love Google, I don’t ever want to leave my Gmail, my Gchat, my GoogleDocs, my web searches, my Google Reader, but right now I wish I weren’t so dependent on it.

The weight to which I am referring is the proposed Google Book Search Settlement Agreement. Google knows with whom I e-mail and chat, for what I search, what blogs I read, and on and on. With the proposed settlement Google will take a further step in controlling my (and libraries’) information use and seeking behavior. Google will know what books I read, what pages I read, how long I read them, what pages I print, and what passages I copy and paste. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should stop reading immediately and read the 2-Page Super Simple Summary on the Google Book Search settlement agreement produced by the ALA Office of Information Technology Policy (OITP). Then, and only then, continue here at ItLWtLP.)

For those of you who aren’t going to go read this document, here’s my simple recap: The American Association of Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild filed a class action lawsuit against Google Book Search for copyright infringement. Instead of going to trial, the parties have agreed to settle out-of-court. Google has agreed to fund a rightsholder database called the Book Rights Registry, which will be run by the rightsholders (authors and publishers). Google will sell books to individual consumers, but rightsholders will have financial stakes in the product. Libraries will be able to subscribe to gain full-text access to books via the Google Book Search Project, mimicking the same model as many other library products. The proposed settlement has far-reaching implications for use of digitized materials in libraries, the role of fair use, and the future digital market. Unfortunately, many of the agreement’s facets are antithetical to the mission and purpose of libraries. In fact, some libraries, such as  Harvard, immediately pulled out of participation with the Google Book Search Project.

I won’t provide you with a more in depth analysis of the suit in this blog post. As I mentioned in my first sentence, this abusive relationship has been eating at my brain for many months and it’s just now beginning to solidify. What I do want to share is what I think we in the library community can do about the settlement. The stakes of the settlement are enormous, and neither the rightholders or Google represent libraries in this process. But we, librarians and the library community at large, are an ornery bunch. Aren’t we the community that took to court over the PATRIOT Act? Aren’t we the community that instigated a public outcry when Michael Moore’s publisher pulled Stupid White Men for being too critical of former President Bush? Aren’t we “radical” and “militant?”

Because I don’t want libraries, information advocates, patrons, or anyone else to be trapped in an abusive relationship with Google I would like to offer the following suggestions for what individuals and the professional community can do to protect and salvage what remains of our relationship with “the big G.” (And maybe even make this Google Book Settlement Agreement a bit more reasonable.)

Individuals

Educate yourself.

Knowledge is empowerment. Read through blog posts, documents, and news articles about the proposed settlement agreement. The ALA Washington Office is tracking most everything that’s out there and has made a nice little portal web site for you to use. Particularly useful is also the Guide to the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement. This longer document provides a broader view than the 2-page document. You might even consider checking out what Google has to say about the “groundbreaking agreement.”

Because the settlement is so intrinsically tied to copyright law and fair use, this is an ideal time to refresh yourself on the basics. Re-read Kenny Crews’s Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators and Carrie Russell’s Complete Copyright. Subscribe to blogs that deal with copyright such as librarycopyright.net or Karen Coyle’s blog.

Ruminate.

Ask yourself and think about the tough questions. During the Google Book Settlement: What’s in it for Libraries? panel at ALA Midwinter, Karen Coyle posed the following questions: Does the product serve my users? What will the collection be? What is the quality of the product? Panelist Laura Quilter pushed the panel participants and audience to consider the privacy issues presented by the proposed model for accessing digital materials through Google Books. As librarians we have a responsibility to protect our users. Mold and define your personal and professional values for privacy. This will be incredibly useful if you are put in a place to consider purchasing and implementing this subscription product in your library.

Be an advocate in your community.

Let’s face it. There are so many issues to follow in our profession, that chances are many of your colleagues might not know anything about this proposed settlement agreement. Talk with your colleagues and share with them what you have learned. Push your administrators to find out if any pre-emptive discussions regarding this product have occurred. What is the institutional stance on the settlement agreement and Google Books in general? By asking the hard questions of our supervisors and administrators, we are often able to generate institutional discourse.

The Community

Ask and discuss.

ALA has very bright and informed people working to understand the Google Book Settlement Agreement. Librarians who specialize in information policy, entire offices and committees that deal with legislation and lobbying for ALA interests. But this 300+ page legal document that is the agreement is confusing and still not fully understood by the library community. At the aforementioned Midwinter panel discussion, many things came to light that we (or at least I) did not previously know about the settlement. For example, the settlement will not allow for a subscriber library’s users to login via remote access and access their library’s subscription to the Google Books database. Users who are community members of a subscribing institution will only be able to access the resource “on campus.” Another fine example is how Google will serve public libraries with this product. Google will allow public libraries one access station to the product. Only one.

We need more fora in which to engage to find out exactly what the settlement agreement means to us and our users. Professional organizations, ALA, SLA, PLA, ARL and others should consider hosting more web-hosted seminars for their members on the subject. Moreover, hosting other kinds of discussion fora to ask questions and commiserate within the library community such as BBS or wikis or even blogs will be helpful to those of use who struggle to understand the issues inherent with the settlement.

It is also of import to note that during the panel at Midwinter Dan Clancy, Engineering Director for the Google Book Search Project, said he would like to be able to be available to the library community for more discussion. State libraries, consortia, or other large groups should consider contacting Dan and schedule a telecon about concerns.

Educate Google.

I would like to give Google the benefit of the doubt. However, the fact remains that Google is a business and will not implement policy or procedure based upon it being “the right things to do.” Rather, Google will make policy, and change procedure, as it is beneficial to business and the deep Google pocketbook. That being said, I think Google would attempt to take more responsibility for “doing the right thing” if the company were to realize that the proposed settlement model is not one upon which libraries will willingly spend their money. Just because Google will have a monopoly on the digitized books, does not mean that we should lower our standards for offering resources to patrons that are easy to use and ethically implemented. We, as a community, need to share with Google the ethical principles and best practices that we have worked so hard to develop—of particular relevance, the Principles for Digital Content, and the Principles for a Networked World.

Develop position statements, draft and pass resolutions, or take other governmental action.

A unified voice of librarians can be a powerful thing. Moreover, if professional organizations such as ALA, whose membership is purported to be 65,000 (according to the ALA Annual Report), use their position as the good stewards of knowledge and information, we have the ability to put up a good fight that might yield some positive results. Currently the Washington Office is working to gather ALA membership input so that it can issue a position statement or take other action on the settlement. (I don’t even know the proper channels to let ALA where I stand on this issues. To this end, ALA should consider creating a system that enables soliciting and gaining membership comment when warranted.)

ALA Council should also consider passing a resolution regarding the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement. It is not out of the question that this kind of political activity will help the organization to retain its integrity and ethics regarding privacy, information policy, and what best serves libraries and patrons.

ALA and other library organizations should consider future legal action. It seems to me that libraries would have a good case to bring forth their own class action lawsuit. This might be a last case resort, but I do not think we should not sit idly by if a large market-driven product were to threaten the library community’s ability to best serve the public.

Create support materials and documents for libraries to use.

Shortly after the court “okays” the Google Books Settlement agreement, libraries will face a “purchase or not to purchase” question for the Google Books subscription product. Navigating the ins and outs of the legalese in the settlement will be daunting for any library system, consortium, or lone library that chooses to buy the product. Having FAQs handy or even an ALA Toolkit on best implementation practices for Google Books would be a great service.

It doesn’t have to be a waiting game.

If we work now to understand what we can about the proposed settlement, if we start to evaluate the effect purchasing this product will have on our libraries and patrons, if we create a unified voice and foster discourse, then we will better be able to keep fires under control and perhaps keep our brains in our heads. Google is a powerful company, but powerful, too, is the voice of libraries and librarians. I firmly believe that if we continue to put our efforts toward understanding everything encompassed by the Google Book settlement issue, then we will better be able to serve our communities, and perhaps inform positive changes that will let us sit in better peace with our friend and enemy. This is my call to you, colleagues, to engage, think, debate, and defend library values. Take control and save yourself from this abusive relationship. Google can be a reference librarian’s best friend, but right now, with the proposed settlement, it is looking as if we are subject to continued abuse.

Thanks to Inju on Flickr for this image. (Exercising in National Library Singapore)

Librarians are great at taking care of their patrons. We will conduct searches for our patrons and provide them with the resources they need, we contribute to the public good and offer ongoing educational opportunities, and we provide community space in the name of discourse and community building. We also testify in and lobby Congress in support of legislation that affects our work—all in the name of taking care of our patrons. But to what extent do we take care of ourselves?

I’m talking about workplace wellness. This is an issue that seems largely ignored in library land, an issue that may cause eye-rolling and cause some of our Lead Pipe readers to stop right here and move along to the next post in their feed reader.  But workplace wellness is an issue that seems to be largely ignored by libraries, librarians, and library organizations. Literature searches in library and information science databases return very few relevant articles on the subject. Why?

Before I attempt to answer this question I’d like to propose a working definition of workplace wellness.  Wellness in the workplace refers to an employee’s mental and physical health. Many businesses and organizations have implemented workplace wellness. Examples include the facilitation of lunchtime walking groups, providing on site massage appointments, and offering classes and lectures regarding wellness. Also included would be programs supporting employee health; providing free flu shots and health screenings, providing ergonomic work stations, having healthy snacks available, or even allowing workers flexible schedules to take care of their physical and emotional health as needed. According to this loose working definition it’s likely that every library has some sort of wellness program, but it seems to me individual and organizational buy-in aren’t that widespread in the library community.

I assume that the reason workplace wellness hasn’t caught on in libraries is a combination of the following reasons. First, wellness programs that do exist usually happen within a broader institutional context. Since most libraries are part of an academic institution, county or city government, or some other larger bureaucratic model, wellness initiatives seem to occur at a higher institutional level, and, as such they haven’t become top priorities for many libraries. Second, librarians are hard working dedicated people, who may not feel they have the time or even the desire to participate in a wellness initiative. Third, wellness programs haven’t been heavily marketed to libraries and librarians, either by their institutions or by profession-wide initiatives. Fourth, wellness programs cost, and most libraries are already run on tight budgets. Finally, wellness may not be part of a library’s organizational culture, or it might not even been an organizational value. It is this fifth factor that is perhaps the most prohibitive to the overall wellness of library employees.

A healthy and well library staff will provide better services to its patrons. Providing for and assisting employees in this regard will mean that they can work more efficiently and effectively. Of concern to many administrators should be the fact that wellness initiatives will save the institution money in health care costs when workers have fewer physical and mental health problems. One of the best examples that support this is ergonomics.

Wellness in the workplace constitutes a web of factors that can determine the status quo level of health and wellness experienced by employees at your library. Many of these factors may seem irrelevant when considered on their own; however, when placed in conjunction with others, they work collectively to either create or hinder employees’ well being.

The first two factors affecting workplace wellness are simple—your library’s physical space and physical location. How the inside of your workplace is designed affects how much you move at work. (E.g. is there an elevator, how far do you have to walk to place something in the recycling?) The library’s physical location can also affect workplace wellness. (Is there a tempting restaurant nearby or are you close to a park with walking trails?)

The third factor isn’t as cut and dry—organizational culture and values. These can greatly impact wellness at work. For example, many librarians work hard and long hours, which can lead to skipping breaks, even skipping lunch or eating at our desks in front of a project. These habits do not contribute to having a healthy workplace. For one, it reinforces the sedentary nature of library work, and second, it doesn’t allow an individual the mental break that one needs to best achieve work efficiently.

Food is also a large part of culture at many libraries. At one library where I used to work, there was a “chocolate drawer” behind the reference desk. Whenever we had a particularly trying interaction with a patron we would medicate ourselves with chocolate. Other libraries might have a tradition of pastries at department meetings, or social events, which usually include food.

However, changing an organization’s culture is not an easy thing. And if there’s anything that organizations are not quick to do, changing the culture and our values are it. So how are we to tackle this issue? How do we even frame an argument for starting wellness initiatives within our workplaces? First, we have to work to create wellness as a value within the workplace. At institutions where a wellness program already exists, but is not culturally adopted by the library, how do you get the library to do so?

I’d like to offer some suggestions as to how we can begin to tackle the organizational culture and values regarding wellness issue in the places of our employ.

• Conduct an informal evaluation of your workplace to find supporting factors and hindrances to a healthy work place.
• Ask for institutional support based upon your informal evaluation or observations. Paired with the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, this might be a convincing argument that your supervisor can send up the management chain.
• Start a wellness committee and task yourself with developing a wellness plan for your library.

But what if your place of work/administration is not understanding of your plight?

• Be aware of your habits at work. Wear a pedometer; take a walk during your lunch break (and invite your colleagues to join you), consider ergonomics, etc.
• Investigate whether your larger organization (city, county, institution) has a wellness program and participate in that as an individual. Then try to market it to your fellow staff.
• If you create community programs in your library or conduct outreach work, try to plan and implement programming about health and wellness.

There are some resources and initiatives that do exist regarding wellness in libraries. Most notably, ALA Past President Loriene Roy created the Circle of Wellness as one of her presidential initiatives. This web site offers resources for individuals to use to assess wellness attitudes in their library, as well as track their personal wellness goals. These resources offer a good starting place for you if you are interested in investigating wellness at your library.

The healthiest work places already have an organizational culture of wellness and value health as an institution. If this is not the case in your library, establishing a culture of wellness will happen very slowly. It takes quite a bit of energy and work to change and shape organizational values and change begins with the action of one or two motivated and dedicated individuals. It’s time we take care of ourselves and take the steps to create healthier work places. In the long run, our health and wellness serves our well-being and also our ability to provide the best services to our patrons.

Many thanks to Phil Eskew (one of the best instructors I had in library school), and Miriam Rigby for offering feedback on this post. Thanks also go to fellow Lead Piper Derik for reading this prior to posting.

All Gizah Pyramids. Image from liber's photo stream.

“…i [sic] only renew [my ALA membership] out of a sense of professional obligation, and also because of the fear that i’ll [sic] put it on my resume and get busted as not being a member.” –c-dog

Membership in the American Library Association means professionals are bound together by the tenets of librarianship. Technically, this means we commit to these tenets in the form of dues payable to ALA. Being a recent library school graduate I am new to ALA membership as well as organizational involvement. However, I find that the previous statement points to perils inherent within ALA that could, if not addressed, lead to the organization’s downfall.

This is not a problem that has gone unnoticed by many within the organization. This year, I was part of the ALA Emerging Leaders program–a program intended to create more active ALA members and participants. In this program six Emerging Leaders projects centered around membership recruitment and retention issues within ALA and its various divisions. Other membership and participation initiatives include current ALA president Jim Rettig’s member participation initiative, not to mention the New Members Round Table (NMRT). Drawing on my Emerging Leaders experience, I would like to further examine ALA membership structures and provide suggestions that will help to topple this perceived “professional obligation” of ALA membership. We need to create an inspired and invested community of librarians and professionals who will feel proud to be an ALA member and to serve their organization.

In order to understand my suggestions, it’s important I provide some background on the current ALA climate and membership. There seem to be three general categories of ALA members, in the form of a pyramid. The base level, level 1, consists of those who pay dues and who have minimal investment in ALA as a professional organization; the middle and smaller group of individuals, level 2, consists of those who pay dues, attend conferences and are nominally to marginally involved in the organization; and the tip of the pyramid, level 3, consists of those who pay dues, belong to divisions and serve on committees. As I understand it, the shape includes the largest amount of members in level 1 and the fewest amount of members in level 3.

The basic problem with current membership and participation initiatives is that they do not target the largest population of ALA members, level 1. Members in level 1 are those who are most apt to say they are “professionally obligated” to pay their dues. Instead of bringing the movement to members, initiatives like the Emerging Leaders program, Jim Rettig’s “Craigslist of opportunities for members to get involved in ALA”  and the NMRT are initiatives that pro-active, motivated individuals will seek out. If we were able to mobilize level 1 ALA members by bringing community and participation to them, we could create a larger sense of community investment as a whole and dispel those attitudes of membership as “professional obligation.” Over time, this model of community investment would lead to a flattening of the ALA membership pyramid—changing the shape of ALA membership into one that is a globe of overlapping and active communities. In order to create this membership model, ALA, its members and leadership should investigate how to involve level 1 members in association activities and thereby create an organization comprised of a richer and more diverse professional community.

The financial membership model of ALA creates a certain attitude among members. Their investment in the organization is only as important as the amount of their check. Instead, ALA might consider adopting another membership model that incorporates service to the organization as a stipulation of membership. This is the model of both the National Honor Society and Beta Club. Requiring members to serve their professional community can only create a stronger community that better represents its largest constituent base. Examples of this service might be acting as a guest editor for a portion of American Libraries or other journals published by ALA divisions, writing op-eds for journals, or otherwise serving ALA in capacities, as they are able. Changing the parameters of ALA membership is something toward which we need to strive. While this service model may not be feasible to adopt for a good many years, there are other issues that we can address more directly.

Cost is a major deterrent for the increased involvement of many level 1 and level 2 members. Paying membership dues to ALA and its numerous divisions can be quite expensive. This deters individuals from serving on committees (one must be a member of a division to serve on a committee of that division) and contributing to ALA’s general body of work (one must also pay conference registration and travel to serve on committees). New librarians struggle with student loan debt and as a result do not have room in their budgets for personal memberships. They may also work for libraries affected by slashed budgets and national policy decisions and funding practices. In response to these conditions many libraries are no longer able to support their employees’ professional membership costs. This means that individuals must use their personal funds to pay for membership in ALA and its divisions. Coupled with travel costs to conferences, it is simply financially unfeasible for library professionals to participate on a higher level than they do (even before recent economic collapse).

A simple way to make conference attendance and professional development easier for those who cannot afford to travel is to create webcasts of conferences and workshops. We are in the age of virtual conferences and seminars, and they have proven successful. It should plain and simple be the standard that ALA conference programs be made accessible virtually. If pricing is an issue, ALA might consider creating a price structure for “virtual” attendance to ALA conferences. Members and their employers would be better able to afford this model of conference attendance and involvement. If ALA were truly committed to including level 1 members, then it would create and implement ways for individuals to engage virtually by using a combination of videocasting, chat programs, message boards, and other participatory and collaborative applications. Because of their ability to participate in professional programs and conference activities, virtual participants will feel as if they have more stake in ALA than they did before. Consequently, we will see these members begin to actively seek other avenues of participation with ALA.

The level 1 ALA constituent is not the only constituent that ALA should reach and better utilize to create an organization that reflects a community beyond “professional obligation.” There are level 2 participants who attend conferences. The next logical step would be for these members to engage in service opportunities such as sitting on a committee or hosting and presenting at professional programs. One way for ALA to show its commitment to these level 2 members would be to mandate a seat on every ALA committee for a new member or conference attendee. Soliciting member service via ALA governance and policy will show that the organization as a whole is committed to the needs of new members, member recruitment and member retention.

However, once a member begins to serve ALA as a committee member cost can still be an object. For level 2 members to become more engaged and sit on committees this object must be addressed. Most ALA committees require members to attend two conferences each year. Instead of mandating in-person attendance for committee members at both Midwinter and Annual Conferences, shouldn’t we be encouraging the use of those collaborative tools and technologies (chat, wikis, web sharing applications, online conferences, etc.) that we as professionals tout? If ALA were to move to a model of mandatory in-person committee participation at one conference a year, costs would be cut in half for committee members, thereby enabling more new professionals to better afford conference attendance and committee participation.

Conferences themselves need to adopt new models to attract greater participation. In addition to the mix of meetings, presentations and workshops that comprise ALA Midwinter and Annual meetings, hands-on professional service opportunities would enhance conference goers’ experiences. Instead of passively sitting in a conference session, librarians and conference attendees could engage in service learning workshops or service challenges. A group of professionals would be tasked to create a body of work to serve the organization or create a professional development tool in one day. The service could be the creation of a new resource guide, a new web portal, or a new best practice statement. Whatever the participants created, it would be a piece of professional work as well as enable professionals to network with others in their areas of interest. Producing a body of work will be more professionally satisfying to some conference goers, and will give a diversity of participation and service opportunities that will appeal to a larger audience.

New members will not be recruited nor will members remain active within ALA unless the organization as a whole engages in dialog about how to remain a viable, interesting, and diverse professional community. We need to advocate for and attempt to implement membership model and policy changes within ALA. These changes will encourage greater member investments in their organization and help to reshape the ALA pyramid into a globally shaped membership that is dedicated to ALA’s success. This will make our association a more diverse and stimulating organization of which we can all be proud.

We need to think creatively and to create programs and workshops that embrace virtual participation. We need to break the mold of traditional ALA membership. The next time you attend a conference or a committee meeting, bring up these issues and ask questions. Propose and implement pilot service projects at a conference and publish your successes and challenges. Help to create new models of participation and share them with your professional community. The more experimenting we do at a grassroots level the more we are able to best find the models of participation, service, and governance for a sustainable and successful ALA. By continuing to adopt these changes in ALA, the membership pyramid will eventually flatten and the globally shaped ALA membership can form.