The Future of Reference: Going, Going, Still Here

Traditional reference is dead. Or dying. Or dormant. It depends on who you ask.

It seems every other day I read something new about how "reference as we know it" is changing forever, or even more dramatically, already gone. In a recent staff meeting at my library we had a discussion about the future of reference, which began the hamster wheels in my head turning.

Locally, traditional reference is evolving (which is just a fancy way of saying changing without actually saying changing.) As a large, centralized downtown library with no branches, the library is facing a reference crossroads. The library has even been able to graph and study in various ways these demographic shifts thanks to the great work done by Civic Technologies, Inc. Civic Techonolgies, Inc. performed a large GIS study for the library and provided a detailed report on our current library users and just as important, our non-users. In addition to the report, Civic Technologies, Inc. is working on a website that will allow staff to mine the data they collected and process and create customized reports and maps to analyze specific service or program specific questions.

In terms of reference, these reports support anecdotal evidence that traditional reference service in the library is decreasing.  Traditional reference questions have been supplanted by questions which better fall under the broad category "reader's advisory." "Do you have the book _____?," "I need a movie with _____ .," are beginning to be the primary questions at our public services points. 

Ditto

In the comments section of a recent Annoyed Librarian post on library professionalism, a commenter, "Gruel" wrote:

"I keep wondering what it is you self-identified librarian "clerks" do all day, if you keep wondering what it is to be professional. The reason why doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc..., are seen as professional is because they aren't insecure about themselves. They don't question whether they are or not, they just are. If you saw a dentist that appeared to be having an identity crisis about his "professionalism" you wouldn't let them treat you, would you? Same thing goes for a lawyer, astronaut or car mechanic. The reason you trust them is because they trust themselves to do the best job possible.


Confidence is 9/10ths of the job interview. The problem with librarians is that many of them flounder about and do not understand what value they give to the community. If you see yourself as just a clerk who helps people find books and answers trivia questions, then that's what you are. If, instead, you see yourself as contributing to your community by supporting their needs, like providing resume classes, e-government services, and literacy tutoring, then that's what you are.


The librarian profession is unique in that our job is defined by the needs of our patrons more so than any other profession. When the economy turns for the worse, we can respond directly to the crisis. Whether or not a library chooses to do so determines its success as an institution that has the confidence and trust of the people. So, if a librarian feels that they are just a clerk, then the value of the library itself comes into question - especially in times like these when the budget is on the line. It's too bad that library schools do such a poor job at defining librarian identity and value, because it seems so many of the fold simply do not have an inkling of purpose to measure success or failure."

I could not think of a better way to re-write this, therefore, cut, paste, post.

Week 7: Microblogging

And so it has come to this: the dreaded Twitter.

It seems that all negative or semi-negative blog posts on Twitter need an "anti-Luddite" statement, so here is mine.
I am pretty tech savvy and I fall somewhere between the categories of  "Connector" and "Productivity Enhancers" on the Pew's typology. I use technology (1.0 and 2.0) every day at work and home and I am always eager to learn about something new and shiny.

I have avoided any and all things to do with Twitter since its inception. To be fair, I have tried to tweet, but I just can not understand the appeal of receiving what amounts to dozens of Facebook-like status updates.  I find it neither helpful, interesting, nor necessary. I would not go so far as the Annoyed Librarian has in pouncing on Twitter, but I have always enjoyed this post she wrote on Twitter.

However, I understand that others find Twitter useful and I also believe that any tool that can help promote the library or help patrons use library services is worth investigating.  Therefore, when the 23 Things Kansas program focused this week on Twitter, I decided to dive right in and see what elements could be useful to the library profession.

Week Six: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

As you can tell from this week's title, 23 Things Kansas is tackling the issue of social bookmarking, particularly Delicious.  Ah Delicious, my old friend, we have come full circle.  After years of being separated, fate has brought us together.  Have you changed? Will I try you, only to abandon you again? Did you miss me? Oh cruel fate, why do we do this to each other?

I tried Delicious when it first came out in 2003 and at the time it was useful.  Aggregators, RSS readers, call them what you will, where not that popular or prevalent at the time and having an online site to hold all your bookmarks came in handy.  However, once RSS became popular and achieved ubiquity, I lost interest in Delicious.  Delicious was replaced with Bloglines, which was replaced with Google Reader, which was replaced with Firefox add-ons and Microsoft Outlook's RSS component.

I also found that I no longer have the need for hoarding bookmarks.  Over the years I have whittled the internet down into two manageable chunks.  Those websites I look at consistently are bookmarked and those I read occasionally go to Google Reader via RSS.  Bookmarks are then further divided into "Work" and "Home" and rarely do the two meet.  Therefore, keeping a list of both "Work" and "Home" bookmarks online has little appeal or practical use. After spending around four hours each day in front of a computer at the reference desk for the past nine years, I finally hit the end of the internet.

Picasa, Featuring Cat Boy

Every President's Day, my Library closes to the public and holds a Staff Development Day (SDD)--a time for an all-staff continuing education event, with various activities and staff camaraderie.  During this year's SDD I attended a session on Picasa, Google's free photograph editing software.

The plan is for the Library to install Picasa on all public computers to give patrons the ability to manipulate photographs.  Therefore public service staff will need to have a working knowledge of the software.

If you are looking for a streamlined, fairly intuitive photograph editing software, that most patrons will be able to learn quickly, than Picasa fits the bill. However, for staff who need something more robust, but which has a steeper learning curve, I think Paint.Net still works better.

(Check out week four's blog post for the 23 Things Kansas program, for more on Paint. Net and photograph sharing tools.)

Week Five: RSS Feeds and Feed Readers

This week's 23 Things Kansas lesson focuses on the numerous ways to recieve, read, and deliver RSS feeds (if you don't know about RSS feeds, here is a nice little article with all the basics.)  As a former Blogliner, and current Google Reader, I am familiar with RSS feeds and various readers. 

Today I examined Feed My Inbox (FMI), a service that allows you to send website RSS feeds to your email, rather than through a secondary reader.  I also added a Feed My Inbox form on Egads!' side nagivation menu for you to try.  Simply input your email and you should start recieving my RSS feed in your inbox!

Getting RSS feeds via email seems like a good idea--I actually prefer Microsoft Outlook's built in RSS feed reader, but in some ways FMI seems to be a step back; filling up my Inbox with information that I do not need right now. Outlook provides a separate area for RSS feeds, thus adding a division between important information, my incoming emails, and RSS feeds, which I can view later.   This subtle division within the Outlook interface actually translates into a huge time savor, as I recieve dozens of emails an hour without adding RSS feeds into the mix.

Zotero Might be my Hero

Anyone who has done complex research knows that keeping track of your sources is a necessary, and time consuming, process.  Zotero, a relatively new Firefox add-on, could revolutionize the way students, scholars, and other professionals keep track of their online references.

Zotero's mission, as stated on it's website, is to: "help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources".  A couple clicks of the mouse and your online search is easily captured, cited, and stored for later use.  Here is a nice highlight video of Zotero's functionality.





As you can see there is great potential for students and scholars, but I immediately began to think of its application to a public library professional, who does not do the same intensive research of an academic or specialty librarian. Therefore I decided to see if Zotero could help with my daily environmental scanning.

I am currently researching--casually--different management ideas, concepts, and styles.  I decided to use Zotero to capture the online artifacts that I find. 

With only a couple of days of testing as anecdotal evidence, so far my experience has been positive.  Zotero has:

• Eliminated keeping track of websites via a Bookmarks folder (my old method)
• Captured PDF and other articles for later reading (no more printing and stuffing in folders)
• Allowed me to make notes for each item as to why I found it interesting
  --this is a particularly subtly, but wonderful feature

I'll keep everyone updated as I continue to experiment, but I can already tell that Zotero has application beyond large-scale research projects.

Anyone tried Zotero?  What do you use it for, besides research?

Week Four: Photograph Sharing

Four weeks into the 23 Things Kansas program and I am still going strong...whoops, just jinxed myself. I better run around the Library backwards while singing "Sanitarium" by Metallica.  Then a quick nap, and the jinx is gone.

This week, as the post aptly states, is online photograph sharing.  I have been using Flickr for online photograph sharing for years, so this week's challenge is rather effortless. 

To accomplish this week's task, I added my Flickr photostream feed to this blog. 

Also check out some other examples of libraries and other institutions using Flickr accounts:

• Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library Flickr feed
• Lester Public Library (Two Rivers, WI) Flickr feed
• Library of Congress Flick feed 
• National Museum of American History Flickr feed

Now I am off to try Photobucket and see how it stacks up to Flickr.  From the little I have perused, it seems that Photobucket is more of a storage site, while Flickr combines storage with social networking.

How would you compare Flickr and Photobucket?