The organization of work has changed a lot over the years. We have moved in most enterprises from hierarchical-, organization-chart-, job-description-driven environments, where work was handed down from on high, to one where it’s often based on teamwork, collaboration, and consultation. I am not sure in my travels that enough libraries have adopted these management and organizational trends to the same extent that I see in other government and for-profit entities.

I do see some progress in many areas. Library management teams seem to be the norm now. I also see quite a few cross-functional teams in the planning and implementation of new processes and procedures. There’s much creativity at the consortia- and system-wide levels. I’ve seen new ILS or ILL systems implemented very effectively by teams that have representation from many aspects of the library organization. The days of these kinds of transformational technologies being imposed on an organization by fiat from a single, homogenous group are, hopefully, ending.

The management team should be working as a team and consulting with staff to ensure progress on the organization’s goals. Technical service and catalogers have been working in teams for years, since no one person can hold all the knowledge necessary to organize information well. Systems folks long ago not only learned how to work as a team, but also that their team, like cataloging, extends well beyond the walls of the building. They depend on a Web-based network of vendors and colleagues to do their work. However, many, though not all, reference librarians are still pigeonholed into narrow jobs, tied to desks, and still working the mantra to answer the questions of all comers.

In the Web 2.0 world we are encountering today, we are at a tipping point. As we move from the era where we were building and stabilizing the foundation for digital libraries and virtual services, to one where the folks on the front lines actually interact with users for most of their contact hours, we are forced into an imperative where we need to reconstruct the user experience. This moves the strategic emphasis from the backroom to the customer-facing parts of the library organization. We now need to focus on:

·         Meeting the needs of users who don’t darken our doors, but use our services virtually

·         Aligning our technologies with those our users are encountering in their work, play, and learning environments

·         Ensuring that our frontline service people (ILL, Reference, Circulation, et al) are prepared for this world and empowered to act

·         Capturing the knowledge of a generation of librarians, who will soon retire but hold a wealth of information, knowledge, and tricks that need to be passed on to their successors

So this month’s column is about the six simplest things you can do to start to make progress on this front. Many of these strategies are already well in hand at a number of libraries in all sectors. But the real diffusion isn’t past the yawning chasm in Geoffrey Moore’s adoption curve (http://www.testing.com/writings/reviews/moore-chasm.html). Some are not fully ready for primetime, but they are ready for internal use as a test bed for future end-user implementations. So, here are my top six:

1. Putting the “Personal” into Reference

How do you market your services? Do you market the service brand? What are you called? Is it clear, understood, and engaging? Do you market your staff and colleagues, or just the collections? Is there a personal touch? As professionals, do you market yourself and your services in a manner similar to that of other professionals? Check out Web sites for private practice lawyers, accountants, nutritionists, etc. Ask yourself how do you “rate” on the following questions:

·         Can users see pictures of the reference staff on the Web site? Is there a personal connection?

·         Are reference staff profiles available on the Web site or Intranet, or linked to special personal Web pages or Facebook/MySpace profiles?

·         Can users easily contact the library reference services in the mode of their choice (IM, email, phone, VR, Skype, mail, fax, etc.)? Do you have virtual “hours” or 24/7 service?

·         Can these contacts be made from every page and within e-learning lessons, or is it just a homepage feature?

·         Can users quickly determine who has special expertise in a specific topic area (local history, homework, etc.) or a special skill (genealogy) or talent (storytelling, dissertation support, etc.)? Are all other staff prepared to step in for low-level questions like address, directions, hours, etc., that seem to show up regularly, even in virtual reference environments?

·         Is your identity clear and your Web site’s look and feel, library signage, name badges, etc. fresh – and are they consistently applied and noticeable so that your end user positioning is readily recognized by your users?

The goal is to place the librarian back into the center of service. With the majority of your questions happening in the virtual space, the data and information need to be balanced with full service; and then personal touch. In most library services today, this is not nearly in balance. It needs to be. In my opinion, information services without librarians are just not true libraries, but warehouses.

2. Blogging

Blogging is about conversations. Frontline library service folks are about conversations too. From the circulation desk through the reference desks and research support staff, libraries are, in many ways, a series of quality conversations. This is much of the unheralded community and social glue that libraries provide for neighborhoods and schools. Blogs allow you to tell your story and promote your programs. Conversations are dialogues – both ways – and as many of the community’s conversations move to virtual spaces, libraries need to be there.

Reference work is a program too – it’s just more one on one than others. Reference staffs are also the folks who deliver many of the most highly valued programs like research skills training, information fluency programs, genealogy courses, database training, and more. Blogs are a way to engage your users before and after the training and/or the reference transaction in an ongoing conversation that delivers high value. You can promote your research courses and services through regular blogging on your personal blog or on your personal Web site. Another option is to aggregate a group of reference blogs into your primary Web site.

As an alternative, you can also create a collaborative blog where the reference (or user-experience) team blogs together. The best part of the blogging technology is that it can encourage comments from users. It can be very safe, especially if comments are moderated, but not censored. Some libraries are very successfully creating specific blogs for special target groups like teens, gamers, or local genealogists. Some are creating photo blogs of local sites of interest and contributing as a partner to the local tourism, chamber of commerce, or economic development Web sites. Blogs can do two things brilliantly for reference staff – it can connect them with their users through threaded discussions, as well as provide the opportunity to highlight the complex range of skills and services they offer.

Here are a few to review:

Blogger

http://www.blogger.com

Technorati

http://www.technorati.com

Six Apart Movable Type

http://www.movabletype.org/

WordPress

http://wordpress.org/

Vox

http://www.vox.com/

3. Tagging

Collecting and bringing together a wide range of disparate content to serve a specific user’s need is among the primary objectives of librarians. Tagging lets you build a set of links that remains updateable and discoverable for a long time. The two simplest tagging methods are those known to us through the Web sites del.icio.us and Flickr for tagging Web links (sites, pages, and blog postings) and photos. Tagging lets you organize and rediscover the wealth of sites that you have found without a mess of bookmarks in your browser tied to a specific computer. More importantly, you can share tagging names, and individuals can work as a team (knowing each other’s personally or not) and build a corpus of links on specific ideas, events, or topics. For example, it is common to share a tag when blogging or photographing a library conference.

Many reference teams have tried, with inconsistent success, to share information in Rolodexes™, browser bookmarks, URLs in the OPAC, and Web sites of link lists. Tagging offers the best chance so far to move shared linking and bookmarks to the program, subject, institution, or community level. It is simpler and more collaborative than anything we’ve seen to date. It also offers a good opportunity to migrate those old reference tips files and lists into collaborative linking environments, and offers a better chance to make the information and linking knowledge sustainable and to transcend people and geography.

Here are some tagging systems to review:

General Tagging:

Bag of URLs   http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/eye/bag/

Blogmarks  http://www.blogmarks.net

Del.icio.us  http://del.icio.us/

Feed Me Links  http://feedmelinks.com/portal

Linkfilter http://linkfilter.net/

Livemarks   http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/livemarks/

StumbleUpon  http://www.stumbleupon.com/

Wists  http://www.wists.com/

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/

FURL http://www.furl.net/

Spurl http://www.spurl.net/          

Scholarly Tagging

Connotea http://www.connotea.org/

Unalog http://unalog.com/

CiteULike http://www.citeulike.org/

Simpy  http://www.simpy.com/

ArXiv  http://arxiv.org/

Merlot  http://taste.merlot.org/

4. Wikis

Wikis are older than blogs, but have a tortoise and hare feel about them. As the twenty-first century information environment emerges, however, it’s likely that wikis will be just as valuable and important as blogs. The most famous wiki, Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), is based on the MediaWiki software. Wikipedia has been joined by competition recently such as Citizendium (www.citizendium.org ) and a bunch of election year political wikis. It’s breaking out. Just for fun, review your organization’s Wikipedia entry and see what you find. You might want to clean it up!

I have used PBwiki (Peanut Butter Wiki) to collaboratively organize and market a conference. I am amazed at the power of this simple software to allow for the sharing and organization and re-organization of huge amounts of disparate content. Many reference departments are finding wiki software to be the perfect collaborative tool to share their knowledge and create that old Rolodex on steroids! When the whole team joins in, you find the knowledge of the eminence grises and the new folks combining in interesting ways. Everyone learns and knowledge is stored, curated, organized, and passed throughout the team and beyond. Wikis can be built in one place and shared collaboratively, or you can build a personal wiki and allow comments and permission changes. Either way, the whole team improves and learns.

Here are two to review:

PBwiki, http://pbwiki.com/

MediaWiki, http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

5. Instant Messaging

Why are so many librarians in reference resistant to IM? I find this so often to be the case. Some even say, “I am so glad I retire in five years so I don’t have to learn this stuff”!! Since the learning curve for IM is about 10 minutes, I am shocked. Something else must be afoot. Also, since it’s the communication medium of choice for users under 30, it is an unwise move on the part of management to disengage with this major market. One can’t simply wait for retirements to occur to adapt to change.

It’s also essential to adopt this technology as a team since individual adoption cannot be integrated into overall service policies and user engagement strategies. One strategy is to just start with IM between the reference team of library staff members. Then they can learn IM in a safe environment before being unleashed on end users. They can even add the advanced features early like sound, pushing video, and Web site links, etc. You can set up your teams into groups. For example, all reference librarians in all branches could be one group and broadcast questions to the group or known experts. Ideally the knowledge and expertise of all information professionals is available to all users! As comfort increases, the IM accounts can be offered as service points to virtual users and phased in. Some libraries are already seeing the majority of their use by teens and students coming in by IM.

Here are a few of the technologies to play with and keep track of:

Cha Cha (use with a guide)

http://www.chacha.com/

MSN Windows Live Messenger

http://get.live.com/messenger/overview

Yahoo Messenger

http://messenger.yahoo.com/

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

http://www.aim.com/

IRC

http://www.mirc.com/

ICQ

http://www.icq.com/

Meebo

http://www25.meebo.com/index-en.html

Trillian

http://www.download.com/3000-2150-10047473.html

GAIM

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php

6. Virtual Reference

Overall, there needs to be a new model of virtual reference that isn’t just about the question, but is tied to the full range of the user experience. I am not talking here about just the good virtual reference software, like SirsiDynix’s Docutek VRLplus that allows for co-browsing, user interaction, and education. I am talking about an environment in which all of the Library 2.0 tools are served up in an integrated way in the service of the end-user. This requires us to focus primarily on the end user’s needs – not just the implementation issues inside the library walls and with library staff. Your portal and virtual reference services can include the best results from your collaboratively created wikis, blogs, and tagged collections of content links and bookmarks. These can be accessed through co-browsing and linking from the IM or VR encounter. With the predicted increase in virtual use, and the presence of librarians and other information professionals in the virtual space, we must prepare now quickly for a world of intense connectivity.

A not inconsequential consequence of integrating these customer-facing environments and technologies is that we will be able to make visible a great deal of our customer experiences and improve them as a team. The transcripts created as a consequence of IM and virtual reference encounters can be mined in aggregate to discover what these users need, and to gain insights to create services to delight them, including improved information literacy training. Mature reference staff with great team leaders will select sample transactions and review them as a team to improve as a team and move to new plateaus of competencies. Reference desk work needs not to be so solitary any longer.

Another view is that this user experience can be educational rather than transactional. When I was in New Zealand in October, I got the chance to discuss the Docutek VRLplus implementation there. This is an unusual case where it is aimed at all K-12 students in the country. The goal is not to answer the question first, but to transfer information literacy skills during the question moment – a true teachable moment in the best meaning of that term, since it is a real issue for the student and learning locks down more quickly when they are experiencing a real question.

In an ideal world, you have designed your user experience whereby both the users benefit and your staff teams are growing exponentially too. This is a win/win situation for both the reference team and our audiences.

Docutek VRLplus

http://www.docutek.com/products/vrlplus/index.html

Second Life

http://secondlife.com/

Teen Second Life

http://teen.secondlife.com/

InfoIsland Second Life Library 2.0

http://infoisland.org/

http://infoisland.org/drupal/

Conclusion

There it is - a simple half-dozen technology ideas that can transform your reference department and lay the foundation for a 21st century operation and the teamwork environment to succeed in a virtual world. There are only six, so you can rest on the seventh day.

We are entering an era when usage of our virtual branches is outpacing our physical branches. That’s not bad – both serve different clientele and program purposes. Adapting to these environments will take a high level of experimentation, consultation, and collaboration, and all of this must occur in teams and between teams across our organizations. We see library virtual spaces happening in Second Life Library 2.0 and Active Worlds. They’re almost attempting Library 3.0! It is an exciting time. So we have to, as a sector, take a few more steps to grow and discover the opportunities in our future. Then we have to try some new organizational modes to manage the transition.

Stephen Abram, MLS, is vice president, Innovation, for SirsiDynix. He is the chief strategist for the SirsiDynix Institute (http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/ ). He is an SLA Fellow, president-elect of SLA, and the past president of the Ontario Library Association and the Canadian Library Association. Stephen would love to hear from you at stephen.abram@sirsidynix.com.