Volunteers running libraries

Can volunteers really run public libraries?

Whilst this has been knocking around in the library world for a while, volunteers running libraries seems to be the hot top in the media at the moment.  It would seem that, for some, volunteers present the magic bullet that can prevent library closures and ensure communities have the library provision that they deserve.  However, whilst volunteers play an important role in supporting the delivery of public library services (including advocacy which is vital), they are not a viable alternative to trained, paid staff.  Keeping a library open is only marginally better than having no library at all if the service is solely provided voluntarily.

One of the prime issues with volunteers running services is the lack of skills amongst those that would be in a position to volunteer.  Working in a library now requires a high degree of IT literacy.  You are working with computers all day.  You are expected to be able to employ appropriate search techniques on various Internet search engines (yes, ‘appropriate’ – searching is not about ‘bunging in a few words’, it is a skill to get the right results).  Searching the Internet requires skill.  A skill that, as I have mentioned on here before, even some journalists fail to grasp….naming no names (look it up!).

But it’s not just the point about searching the Internet that is cause for concern, other aspects of the library service require a degree of knowledge that volunteers are simply unable to provide.  Take for example local studies materials.  When I worked in a public library, we had a huge number of local studies materials.  Maps, photographs, newspaper cuttings, countless items of interest to local history researchers and the community.  The biggest problem I found with these materials was a way of making it easy for the public to find the materials they wanted.  For example, we trialled different ways of making the huge number of maps we have searchable.  The system that was employed at the time involved a long list of the various maps that were held.  Yes, they were organised appropriately on the list to ease use, but it wasn’t the easiest way to find what you were looking for and I believed that there were alternative options worth exploring.

I decided to try out some different tools that were available on the Internet to make it easier for staff to locate materials.  One of the first things I tried was a Zoho Wiki.  The plan was that just by putting in simple search terms, staff would be able to locate all the materials linked to a particular area of the local community – this would make it quicker and easier for the public.  Unfortunately, I never got to complete my plan (I left to start a new job elsewhere), but I think it could have worked with some tweaking.

Now, I don’t want to tar all those in the voluntary sector with the same brush, but how many volunteers are there who have the knowledge to be able to establish a wiki and adapt it for the purposes outlined?  Sure, I bet there are a few people able to volunteer who could do it (like I said, I don’t want to tar all volunteers with the same brush), but are there enough to staff and man the number of libraries that are being lined up for closure across the UK unless local communities step in?  Of course not.  Is there a large, ready supply of tech savvy people out of work who are happy to volunteer their services to keep their library open?  No.  Are there dedicated members of the community frightened at the prospect of their local library closing and are prepared to do whatever they can to keep it open?  Yes.  But they shouldn’t be forced into keeping libraries open on the back of fear and bullying from local councils.  Surely this is the Big Society being proposed not the Bullied Society?

But this isn’t about being ‘anti-volunteers’.  This is the reality for community libraries:

Four years ago, Buckinghamshire County Council closed eight of its libraries. Two of these, including Little Chalfont, have kept going as volunteer-run community libraries, offering a comprehensive library service. Last November, a further 14 were told that they must become community libraries or face closure, leaving only 9 council-run libraries in the county.

Now LCCL is being held up around the country as the model of the future of our libraries, which places Brooks at the eye of the storm. Librarians from all over the country are beating a path to his door, wanting to know how this small community managed to save their library.

But be under no illusion. This was not simply a matter of a few volunteers taking over the jobs previously done by professional library staff. The original terms from Bucks County Council were that the library had to be provided at NO COST to the Council. The community had to raise enough money to pay for the rent of the existing building, charges for IT equipment, supplies such as bar codes, and a management fee to the Council. They also had to choose whether to pay the council an annual fee (£7k to rent existing stock, or to create their own stock from scratch through donations. (They chose the latter path.)

In all, their running costs amount to some £20k pa – money which is raised from a mixture of public donations, grants, library revenues (i.e. fines), and letting out the building to other community groups.

The volunteer staff, between them, have to provide not only basic librarian skills but Financial Management, Health and Safety, Staff Management, Stock Procurement, Building Maintenance, Data Protection, and a host of other managerial functions.

Jim Brooks, Chairman of the Friends of Little Chalfont Community Library, is angry that Councils are holding LCCL up as the blueprint to be used, willy nilly, elsewhere. He strongly believes that a check list of key criteria must be met in order for a community library such as theirs to be viable.

“Where communities meet these criteria, we are happy to give them all the help we can. But where they don’t, councils must understand, it’s a non-starter.”

Volunteer run libraries are not the answer to a long-term, sustainable library service.  They are a stay of execution and nothing more.  If a council near you is threatening to close your library unless the community has the volunteers and the will to do so, fight them all the way.  This is their responsibility, not yours.  The danger is that if councils force this to happen, we will result in a two tier library system.  One for those in large urban areas run by paid professionals and one for those in small rural areas staffed by untrained volunteers.  Now tell me, is this what David Cameron means when he calls for a ‘fairer society’?

Plodding Along, Singing a Song, Walking in a Aber Wonderland

Well, as I have said before, studying has been a bit hard going since the birth of our daughter six months ago (the fastest six months of my life!).  I have found it particularly hard to strike the right balance between studying for my course, and fulfilling my responsibilities as a parent.  This has become increasingly difficult over recent weeks as my daughter has started to slip into a regular sleeping pattern.  Until recently, she usually went to sleep quite late and would normally be awake to greet me when I got in from work.  Just recently, however, she has started going to bed much earlier and there have been many occasions when I don’t see her at all when I get in from work.  As a result of this, I tend to try and spend as much time as possible with her on my days off.  Unfortunately, these were the days that I used to do the large bulk of my studying.  I find it quite hard to study in the evening when I get in from work, it’s very hard to concentrate on studying after a busy day in the library.  I try to do at least an hour in the evening whenever I can, but it is not the same as dedicating a day to some serious study.

Due to the studying I need to do, and the decreased time in which to do it, I have had to cut some things out of my personal life for the short-term.  For example, I used to play football every Tuesday night without fail for the best part of 16 years.  I have temporarily stopped going now whilst I use the extra time this gives me to catch up on my studies and get some serious work done.  Sadly this has had an impact on my rapidly expanding waistline…by the time I get back to playing football I could well be subject to ‘who ate all the pies?’ type chants.  Not good for the old self-esteem!  Depressing though this is (it’s amazing what kicking a ball around can do for your stress levels!), it was a necessary move to give me just a little more time.

My progress has not been helped by the two modules I have been working on: Collection Management and Research in the Profession.  Yep, I thought Information Retrieval was a tricky module to plough through.  I think I can safely file these on the shelf marked ‘irksome’ (there’s an underused word!).  To be fair, I don’t know if that is down to the content of the modules, or just my state of mind whilst trying to complete them.  In fact I should find the Collection Management module very interesting as I have been doing a lot of work related to this module in recent months.  Maybe it is my state of mind. Anyway, I think the end of the tunnel may be within sight.  After some fairly arduous drafting (I’m sure it wasn’t this difficult on previous assignments!), I think I am almost at a point where I can stuff my assignment in an envelope and pass it onto the Royal Mail.  Here’s hoping anyway.

Once the Collection Management module has been sent off, I just have the Research in the Profession module to complete before moving on to the optional modules.  Easier said than done, but I aim to get both complete by the end of the month.  I’ve just got to the point now where maybe it won’t hurt to send-off a couple of duff assignments.  After all, I understand that getting good marks in the coursework is not as important as getting a good mark on the dissertation so maybe that should be my priority.  I am fortunate enough to be in quite a good position at the moment in terms of marks so surely a few sub-60s aren’t going to hurt are they??  I think I have been saddled with this ‘must maintain good scores’ mentality when what I should really be doing is getting the assignments done and focus my energies on researching for a good, solid dissertation.  It all seems so easy when you written down.  If only putting that into practice was as easy!

User-based tagging – creating chaos or a new order?

User-based tagging is not exactly a recent phenomenon.  Over the past few years it seems that practically every Web 2.0 innovation allows users to apply tags to items to add retrieval.  This has (somewhat predictably) caused a few in the library profession to throw their arms up in despair and claim that this ‘chaos’ will be the end of organised information retrieval as we know it.  This egalitarian system of organising information was always likely to upset the more elitist members of the library fraternity.  After all, what do they know about the subject matter of a particular source of information?  No, it is best left to the ‘professionals’.  But to what extent is this an accurate reflection of the use of tags by the general public?

There are a certain amount of limitations regarding the use of tags to index an item.  For example, there is a certain amount of inconsistency regarding the application of tags.  Take a typical set of tags on Delicious for example.  An article on the Library of Congress may be tagged in several ways:

• LOC
• Library_of_Congress
• libraryofcongress

Whilst all these tags may be appropriate for the individual, the lack of consistency does cause problems for other users.  A user searching for items on any one of these terms will miss any items tagged with any of the other terms.  Clearly with the possibility of such a high degree of ‘misses’, it cannot be described as a foolproof system by any means.

There are also problems when it comes to homonyms.  Take, for example, the word ‘bow’.  This can be used to refer to the implement used to fire arrows, as well as a decoration on a present.  Sticking with Delicious, should the user tap in ‘bow’ as a search term, they would be presented with list of links related to either medieval weaponry or decoration – two very different subjects with very different audiences! However, using Delicious, it should be possible to select an additional tag that will narrow the search down, although this is still likely to miss out relevant materials.

Although there are some issues with consistency, when tagging habits are analysed the picture isn’t nearly as chaotic as one would expect.  I have recently spent some time looking at such habits, and was interested to discover that there is a high level of  commonality between users tags.  Take an article by Peter Merholz entitled ‘Metadata for the masses’.  At time of analysing tagging habits related to this item, it was bookmarked by 56 members. Despite there being 61 different tags applied to the item, there was a high level of agreement between users regarding the ‘aboutness’ of the article.  As you can see from the chart below, after the first three most popular tags there is a big drop-off in numbers.

In fact, should the third and fourth tags be combined (the latter is the plural form of the former) there is an even bigger drop-off.  Furthermore, it appears that the first three tags (four if ‘folksonomies’ was incorporated) were applied by around 50% of those that tagged the item.  This suggests that, despite popular conception, agreement can be reached regarding the ‘aboutness’ of a document without the guidance of an all knowing professional.

Delicious tags for 'Metadata for the masses'

In his article, Merholz explains why he believes user-based tagging could be beneficial for organising information:

The potential benefits of free tagging should encourage practitioners to address such shortcomings [caused by inconsistencies in tagging]. In looking for a real-world analog, I thought of the foot-worn paths that appear in a landscape over time. Called “desire lines,” these trails demonstrate how a landscape’s users choose to move, which is often not on the paved paths. A smart landscape designer will let wanderers create paths through use, and then pave the emerging walkways, ensuring optimal utility.

I think this is exactly why user-based tagging could become a useful tool.  Allowing users to freely create ‘paths’ to information would ensure that eventually a commonality will emerge.  Once this commonality has emerged it should be easier to develop a controlled language that is truly in the words of the user (rather than in the remote terminology of the ‘information professional’), making information more accessible to the average user.  Although user-based tagging does have its limitations, there is great potential there to organise large amounts of information – particularly in terms of the internet.  Ultimately our greatest concern should be making information easily accessible for the average user.  By dispensing with terminology that we are in control of and handing over a degree of control to the ‘masses’, the potential is there to attain this goal and ensure that a system that is user-friendly and relevant to the end-user emerges.

Time To Up The Pace

Well, here I am, the wrong side of Christmas and the realisation hits me that I need to up my pace pretty radically.  I have been working on the same module since the middle of September and it feels like I am never going to get it finished.  Although I have pretty much maintained the same pace as last year, it is really not fast enough.  To attend the study school in April I needed to complete three modules (only needed to get two done last year) and I haven’t even done two yet.  This further complicated by the fact that I am going to be a father in April, so I won’t be going to the study school in April anyway.  Unfortunately, this has had the psychological impact of making me think I have more time than I really have and meaning I have taken my foot off the peddle a bit. Problem is I need to get those three modules done by June if I am to go to study school in September, which is an absolute necessity.  With a baby due in April, the next few months are going to be very stressful.

But I guess I am not alone and, so long as I spend as much time as possible on my studies, I should be ok.  The main problem is the fact that I have ‘the fear’.  The fear of sending off those assignments when they aren’t quite right yet.  The fear of sending off those assignments and failing.  The fear that I will be found out.  The fear that I am not really cut out for this librarian malarky.  But I guess the fear is just that.  Fear.  Sometimes you need to bite the bullet, face down your fears and get those assignments sent off.  I mean, they can’t really be that bad, can they?

 

Anyways, here’s a little ditty on Web 2.0 and the iPhone.  Enjoy.

 

Days of Study

I am fortunate enough to get one day of study leave every fortnight whilst completing my course.  This is a really big help as trying to balance a full-time job and studying an MSc is no easy task.  Initially I thought I would prefer to have my fees covered by my employer, but over time I have to admit I actually prefer to get the time instead.  As well as studying throughout the week, it is a massive help to have a whole day with which I can focus on my studies.  It has certainly has paid off as I have been fortunate enough to have received marks for my assignments that I never would have expected.  I certainly believe that these study days have played an important role in my achievements on the course so far.

Having said that, sometimes study days can be a bit of a drag.  I tend to start and end my day as if I was at work, so I start at 9am and finish at 5pm (although recently I have been working right through to 6pm – glutton for punishment or what!?).  The entire day is spent indoors ploughing through the module pack or doing research for assignments.  It can get a little draining.  I keep telling myself that I should break my day up into little chunks to make the workload more manageable (this would seem to be a very sound idea when studying Information Retrieval!).  But, despite my better judgement, I end up having very few breaks throughout the day, mainly for fear that my mind will wonder and never return (there are just too many distractions out there – particularly when your course revolves around the internet, perhaps the biggest distraction ever invented). 

Despite the hard slog, I do tend to break for lunch and tea breaks across the day.  During one of these breaks I tend to take a short walk to my local shop to buy my newspaper and a few supplies.  I say supplies, they normally consist of a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch (prefer the Flamin’ Hot ones personally, but hey), a bar of chocolate and, the brain food to end all brain foods, a Pot Noodle (curry flavour).  There is nothing better to get the mind going than a good old fashioned Pot Noodle.  I know some people say it is best to eat healthy when studying as the vitamins and minerals help the mind to conentrate.  Well, for me, it’s a Pot Noodle every time (although sometimes tea and crumpets is a big help!).  Having bought my supplies I settle back into the routine and make time for a break later in the day.

Despite my best laid plans, every now and then you just have a bad day studying.  Take today for example.  I spent the best part of the morning thinking of ways to approach my assignment.  The real bugger was that the opening I had come up with was exactly the same as an article I had found.  Try as I might, I couldn’t get it out of my head.  And I knew I had to as, well, the author of said article just so happens to be the very person to mark it.  Plagiarism is frowned on at the best of times, let alone when you have plagiarised the person who is marking your work.  Very poor form.

So anyway, I wrote one draft.  Stopped.  Paced around my house reading through other articles that I had found.  Started writing again.  Stopped.  This was getting me nowhere.  Don’t you just hate first drafts?  Whenever you read them back, they always cause you to think you are losing it.  Did I really write that?  But it’s so bad.  Am I a fraud?  Will I get found out?  Will someone turn around and say that I have been rumbled and I never had the capability in the first place?  So many doubts.  So many worries.  So few words written on the page.  Don’t you just hate writer’s block?  Not even a curry Pot Noodle can help me now.

And then, after hours of ‘freewriting’, tearing out hair and chowing down on some comfort food, you get that ‘eureka!’ moment.  Suddenly, you find an article that really hits the spot.  Inspires you.  Urges you on.  Suddenly you feel energised.  Determined.  You’re back in the game.  You don’t want to stop.  It feels so good you just want to keep typing and typing until you get that first draft finished.  Then you have something to play with.  Then you have something to mould.  Then you have…….something.  And boy does that feel good.  And then you look up and see that it is 6pm and you have to be somewhere.  Just when you thought it was going to be the longest study day of your life, it’s over.  Study days eh?  Where would I be without them?  A lot more stressed but about a stone lighter.  It’s amazing what those Pot Noodles do to your waistline you know.

Closure

I always hate that spell between sending off my coursework and receiving my marks.  For some reason I just cannot get closure.  I spend the weeks and, in this case, months, worrying about whether I did enough to get a pass on my last assignment.  Until I get those marks, everything I read seems to enter through my eyes before getting lost somewhere in my head.  Of course, what doesn’t help is studying information retrieval whilst you are waiting!  There is a module guaranteed to make your head spin!

Anyway, I am writing this because, finally, I have received my marks for the Sources and Services module.  Closure at last!  Thankfully, after all my fretting, I received good marks (better than I expected) so I can finally put the module behind me and concentrate on the next batch of assignments.  If only it wasn’t Information Retrieval……

Study Fatigue

Brought about by a day of reading the Information Retrieval module pack.  Much as I am grateful for one days study leave a fortnight, it does have its downside from time to time.  I need to rest my brain.