Passion, Persuasion and Persistence

Last Tuesday I went to an 'intensive session' organised by the CILIP East of England branch on the subject of word-of-mouth marketing in libraries.  Annie has already written-up a summary of the day, so I'll restrict myself here to a few thoughts about some of the issues raised.

The one sentence that stuck with me the most came from Jenny Salisbury's introduction to her presentation 'Frontline advocacy: making it happen':

It's not all about how the customer fits into our services but rather about what the customer needs and how we meet those needs.

Like much good advice, this statement seems at first glance to be almost redundantly self-evident.  But when you start to think about your day-to-day working life, can you honestly say that this is an attitude that's always maintained (another theme from the afternoon session was the difficulty of evaluating customer service levels: people might say, and indeed think, that they're giving excellent service, but that's not always how an objective observer might see it)?  When new staff join a service, does their induction focus mainly on *what* you do, or does it look at *why* you do it like that and what it is that users/readers/customers/members use you for?  How often to do hear someone expressing mild annoyance at a customer request that's above and beyond the standard service you offer, rather than view it as an opportunity to modify the service to include this sort of request?

'death metal monkeys' by brum d on Flickr

This isn't intended as a criticism of any person or service in particular, but as an illustration of what hard work it is to keep service levels high.  To prevent the development and spread of bad habits, everyone needs to understand the reasons for the required standards of service, and new staff need to be thoroughly trained.

We also need to keep re-evaluating what it is that our customers need.  In academic libraries (certainly in Cambridge Colleges) it's easy to slip into mindset that we know what we're there for, and therefore not to think about developing new services, or new ways of delivering traditional services.  It's also tempting to think that 'they (the readers) should know/be able to work out how to do that', whether 'that' is using the catalogue/the photocopier/the printers, or finding a book on the shelf, or searching Jstor, or whatever.  This is an obviously silly attitude, and, while it's not always easy (or flattering), the best way to improve everyone's experience is to try to work out *why* they find it difficult, and then try to make it easier.

The main thread of the day is that people are naturally inclined to tell others about bad service much more readily, and that we need to make sure that we're giving them fuel for good word-of-mouth publicity.  This is clearly a laudible aim.  There was a subtext that this would also help as an advocacy, not just marketing, tool.  It's not necessarily the case that good customer service will make our customers into advocates for our service, although focussing service on the most important statekholders can at least raise the profile of the library, and may help make an impression on Those Who Make The Decisions.

Thing 23: "If we shadows have offended"

I came to Cam23 expecting it to be a pleasant summer diversion, a feather for my Chartership cap, a chance to have a tinker with a few Zeitgeist-y toys. I come away from it better connected, better informed, excited about the future and (though I know not how to measure it) more professional.

'23' by sarah sosiak on Flickr

Then

Before the programme started I was already an occasional personal user of some social media, including Facebook and Flickr, but I had been reluctant to really engage with the 'social', preferring to keep myself to myself. I was well aware that ‘the future’ was having an ever-greater impact on library work, but felt intimidated by talk of e-libraries, m-libraries, mash-ups and the like. The Libraries@Cambridge conferences I’d attended had shown me that things were changing, and I could see, intellectually, that this was both true and worth investigating further, but I had stubbornly been refusing to do anything more than feel somewhat bewildered and overwhelmed by the idea of change in a profession I had only recently joined.

I'd heard of most of the Cambridge Things, though I had no idea what Doodle, Zotero and Mendeley were going to turn out to do. I was pretty confident that I'd be able to figure out how to use the tools - I was hoping during the course to learn why, and not just how, to put them to work, and to develop a coherent idea of what libraries are actually doing (as opposed to what technology advocates might suggest they should do).

Now

None of the Things (pace Tim Spalding) completely phased me, either technically or in terms of purpose, although I definitely prefer some of them over others. LinkedIn is the only Thing that I’m not sure I’ll revisit (although apparently there’s a strong CILIP presence there), and several have made it into my everyday life. I’ve not been as good as some at sticking to library use; this table shows that some tools have found a place in my heart outside work.

Everyday life (professional)	iGoogle (which I use as a portal to gmail), RSS feeds, Twitter, Delicious, Blogging
Everyday life (personal)	iGoogle (which I use as a portal to Google calendar), RSS feeds, Google calendar (which I use specifically for marking the dates of exhibitions I want to see), Flickr (which I already used), Delicious, Podcasts (which I already used)
When necessary (professional)	Doodle, Slideshare, Google Docs, Podcasts, Wikis
When necessary (personal)	LibraryThing (to maintain lists of books to read and those read from libraries), Facebook, Zotero and Mendeley, Google Docs
Need more convincing	LinkedIn

Trying out the Things, reading round them, and growing a list of library blogs to read has helped me to face up to the monster of ‘the future’, and I’m now much more confident to engage with, rather than flee from, the technological age. In my current role there isn’t tremendous scope for developing a social media marketing strategy, but I can imagine a future in which I use Delicious or maybe Zotero to compile and make accessible resources and reading lists, or I cultivate a community of interested readers near and far via a blog and Flickr. Or maybe I’ll re-imagine myself as a tweeting reference librarian answering the world’s questions, with the answers feeding into an ‘Ask the Library’ Facebook group. Or something.

'23 skiddo' by Darwin Bell on Flickr

A Surprise

What I wasn’t expecting from Cam23 was the affect on my own professional development. I’d long had a feeling that I was missing out on the stuff that was surely going on ‘out there’, and now I feel like I’m actually a part of it. Finally sorting out an RSS feed reader means that library news is coming to me, and becoming an active Tweeter has given me a sense of what the big issues, and the active librarians are. Articles in the CILIP magazines now make more sense, as I’ve often already heard about the events they report. I’m much better informed, and now have an idea whom I might ask for advice and tips if I’m thinking of trying out something new.

Concrete outcomes

One very obvious product of Cam23 is the forthcoming TeachMeet, the organisers of which might never otherwise all have met, let alone shared any useful ideas, let alone said, ‘right, let’s do it!’.

Future plans

As I said in my marketing post, I’m keen to investigate library Web 2.0 use outside techie circles. (Not that things like the University of Huddersfield Library's OPAC aren’t great, but Old Things really are my first love.) So I’m trying to find archivists and specials collections librarians to follow on Twitter, and am collecting relevant blogs to read, comment on and evaluate (reading the UL’s Sassoon Project blog has already put me in touch with those organising the UL’s fledging schools outreach work). Maybe, when I’ve located it, I’ll also throw myself into the front line of social media special collections.

I also plan to keep on blogging: topics already in the to-day list include Open Libraries, the cilipfuture report, and thoughts about exhibitions in libraries and elsewhere.

Acknowledgements

A very big thank you to the Cam23 team, who have clearly put in vast quantities of time, thought and effort into the programme. And a thank you to all the other participants - it would have been pretty dull doing this alone!

The post that wouldn't die, or Thoughts on communication in Cambridge

A post by Andy Priestner written to sum-up the Cam23 course stirred up quite some debate earlier this week and the ensuing discussion has been quite illuminating. Some of those who commented took exception to what they felt was the implication that everyone could get on OK by just working things out for themselves rather than expecting everything to be provided by the UL. Andy has made it clear that this was not what he was trying to say, and some UL staff have pointed out that of course they don't have life particularly easy. Indeed, many people in all sorts of libraries seem to feel that they're working flat-out, with little time for introducing extras, or consulting with others as much as they'd like to.

'Just do it yourself!'
I have no doubt that most people are doing the best that they can, wherever they're working, whether that's a small college or department library or the UL. But the thing is that 'the best that you can' is not a fixed amount. With a supportive environment a person or organisation will feel much more confident, and will be able to achieve much more than if they feel as though they are struggling along on their own, or against the tide. 'Support' can mean the provision of courses, or it can be softer: the provision of an environment in which new ideas are actively welcomed, and people have the time and freedom to try out new ideas. From what I've read across Cam23 posts, it sounds like the Judge Business School Library is a great place to work. People have reported how they've been able to try out new Web 2.0 ideas for improving the library service, and they've clearly had both the time and support necessary to do this. In an unsupportive or isolated environment, trying out the same new ideas might not actually be intrinsically any more difficult, but being, or feeling, isolated, especially in combination with the general malaise of too much work and not enough time, creates a sense of inertia which makes it hard to pursue professional development work or to take risks on new ideas.

'Communication' by elycefeliz on Flickr

'Can anybody hear me?'
The debate chez Andy has recognised that the sense of aggrievement is in many respects borne out of poor communication and ingrained perceptions of hierarchy and privilege across the Cambridge library system. Communication has been an ongoing theme across Cam23 - there are, I think, more than a few people who feel that it could be improved (and I'm certainly one of them). Of course, it's not entirely clear how this can best be achieved, although a good first step would be to acknowledge that however hard people feel that they're trying to communicate, if some in the libraries feel like messages aren't getting through then there's probably still a problem. This needn't be taken as an accusation against anyone; when people feel like they're running just to stay still, and are implementing fixes and features in a hurry in response to urgent demands, it's surely very difficult to stand back and take a clear view of the overall situation.

Poor communication, whether about particular issues such as service developments*, or more generally a sense of just not knowing what's going on, of course contributes to a sense of isolation and disconnection particularly for those who work in small libraries, are lower-down the library hierarchy, and/or are new: all groups of people who will have smaller available networks of other library staff from whom to learn what's what. Cam23 has been great for making connections, but it shouldn't take a CPD programme like this for people suddenly to feel like they're connected.

At this point, I'm sure that you might be thinking that there are already lots of ways for Cambridge library staff to get in touch with each other, and that adding some other way is only going to make matters more confusing. You're right - there are already the Cambridge College Libraries Forum (which has, for example, monthly networking lunches), the brown-bag discussion lunches (not sure who's in charge of organising those), the ucam-lib-discuss email list, CamTools groups for Cambridge_Librarians and the CCLF, and the annual conference. When we look outside the University there's also the Cambridge Library Group, the CILIP East of England branch, the CILIP Career Development Group East of England division, and probably much more that I've not heard of.

So why am I complaining? Well, for one, it's hard to find out about these - I've been in Cambridge libraries for 4 years now, and I only found out about ucam-lib-discuss in June (thanks Aidan!). And neither the email list, nor the nice Web 2.0 groups available (such as the CamTools sites mentioned above), nor CILIP East of England seem to be a hub of activity (this may only be an impression given by their web presences, of course).  The perception that there's not much going on causes people not to bother to using them - a vicious cycle indeed.

There's now talk over at Andy's post that a wiki, or, even better, a concerted effort to use, improve, and market the Cambridge_Librarians CamTools group might be a way to improve matters.  I really hope that this does happen; it will need a critical mass of users and use for CamToos to become a regular port of call for library staff, but I think that this is something that could be achieved.  If we manage that, then we'll only have to worry about Libby's very good point that communication isn't just telling people things, it's allowing for the different ways in which people will understand them.  Food for a different post there, I think.

ETA: Andy has posted about this on the main Cam23 blog, and has set up a Doodle poll to try and organise an open meeting to discuss this further.

Further ETA:  The meeting happened, and a wiki detailing communication channels has been compiled on the Cambridge_Librarians CamTools group. Membership of the group is open to anyone working in any Cambridge Library.

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*which, until the advent of the Service Developments blog, were announced only via an email list serving only senior staff who are supposed, but often do not, the forward the messages to their junior staff.

Thing 13: "Her silver visage in the watery glass"

Celine has already said so much of what I've been thinking about while reflecting, that it's hard to know what to write here without just repeating her points.  And the first repeated thing: I have a habit of trying to read everyone else's posts and then finding that everything good has been said, several things I disagree with have also been said, and my post has to grow to enormous lengths to cover everything I wish to comment upon (or, it has to fall short of what I'd really like to say). An obvious solution to this is to post before I read, but when my opinion's going to be public I like it to be considered, and the other cam23 posts are giving so much food for consideration. I shall try to be more selective when thinking about future posts.  It's difficult to write a full evaluation and not so useful for other cam23-ers - I'm most interested by the posts that respond to particular points about or features of each Thing.

At the start of 23 Things I wrote: "I hope to learn lots of practical skills, but also to have a much better idea about which gadgets are best for what." I've definitely learnt how to do new things, including embedding widgets into websites and combining RSS feeds, and I've seen what a number of tools I'd not used before actually do.  But more thatn learning which gadget does what, I've been thinking about the ways in which different sites are increasingly linked together (and being frustrated when some of them won't easily), and what this might mean for library service provision in The Future (I haven't worked it out yet).  So cam23 has helped me think critically about what skills I might need in the future as a professional, and what in which ways users might reasonably expect library services to be integrated into other online activites.

As for confidence, I was fairly confident that I would be able to figure out how to use the Things in the course, but I wouldn't have necessarily tried these new things without some reason greater than curiosity. So having a structure that encourages (I was going to say 'forces', but that's unfair) me to look at something each week has been really beneficial (I agree with Aidan on Blutmetry about the value of the look-try-think-comment structure of the programme).  Once I've made the first step into trying something out I'll keep tinkering away with it without further encouragement, so I don't need instructions any more detailed than those given.  The nature of the instructions - some written, some screenshots, some video tutorials - has made me think about the ways in which instruction can be given. I'll try in the future to think more carefully about which tool is best, and not to reject videos and other embedded widgets just for being flashy and modern!  Equally, the cam23 posts have shown the value of a simple list of things to do - it's a question of picking the right tool for the job.

Trying out the different Things has certainly increased my confidence to comment and contribute instead of being a passive absorber of content. I've really enjoyed diving in and taking part instead of sitting on the sidelines watching things fly past my nose.  I've signed up to the LIS New Professionals Network, and talked to @theREALwikiman about difficulties with editing my profile there.  I've looked at some documents put on line by Tony Hirst (@psychemedia) and talked to someone who had commented on them.  I now feel much more connected and involved with what's going on in the world of libraries (and aren't we cursed with living in interesting library times?). Discussion of Web 2.0, social media and the future of libraries at recent Libraries@Cambridge conferences (why isn't this link findable by navigating from the Libraries@Cambridge homepage, especially as the slideshows are now available? Am I missing it somewhere?) left me wanting to bury my head in the sand, but now I've dared to get involved with some of the Things, I find that I'm actually quite interested in some of the issues that were being discussed. Watching what other people are talking about makes me feel more confident to make my own judgements about what's good, bad, or indifferent, and about where things might be headed. Having gained this confidence, I'll continue to try to write some of these thoughts down and maybe engender a little discussion of my own.

This increase in communication has applied as well within the real world of Cambridge, and not just online. There is no shortage of communication means in Cambridge libraries (as discussed last month on Blurtmetry), but I'd previously felt a little 'out of the loop'.  Now I feel like I've got much more idea what's going on, and have even met up with some people face-to-face (with more of that to come in the future!).  This speaks, I think, to the value of the immediacy of many social media.  If someone writes a blog post, or tweets something, then the default assumption is that they're open to, and maybe hoping for, quick comments from other people.  With traditional forms of communication, if someone sends, say, an email bulletin it seems less appropriate to reply with something simple like 'yes, I found that too', or 'have you tried this...', so connections between people are less frequently made.  Or maybe I just feel less shy with the my cam23 guide to hide behind.

What else have I learnt? Over the last few weeks it has become unavoidably clear (though, in truth, I knew it already) that I am an inveterate tinkerer.  Nothing is safe when I'm around - it will be fiddled with until I have it just so (and not just computery things, either, you should feel sorry for the things I knit, and unravel, and knit, and unravel, and knit...).  This means that I need to set myself time limits and constraints when working on any kind of project, otherwise the time spent will balloon as I 'just test out one more feature' or 'try it laid out the other way round'.  This applies as much to blog layouts as setting up exhibitions, writing reports, or even cataloguing papers.  It has been useful to have this trait made so plain to see, so I can more consciously try to curb it when necessary in the future.

There's has been no Thing that I could see no point in at all, so I will bear them all in mind for particular scenarios and recommend them to others as they seem appropriate.  Scary though it might be to look into the future, I'd also recommend keeping an eye on early-adopters and 'web guru' types like Tony Hirst and Phil Bradley to see what they're talking about.  There's no need to try everything out right away, perhaps, but it's useful to keep an ear to the ground as to what might be coming round the corner.  Personally, setting up an RSS feed reader (Google as it happens, but I hear others are good, too) has been the biggest gain.  Now the internet comes to me (and isn't there a lot of it!) and I spend much less time cycling through my favourite sites to see if there's anything new.

What I would like to change about my approach for the rest of the Things is to pay more attention to the further reading suggestions.  I often find myself wanting to know more, and wondering where to look for it, when there's a perfectly good link or three waiting to be clicked on the cam23 page.  Truth be told, I'm sometimes just a bit lazy to read what I'm told to.  I've started as I mean to go on with this goal, and have revised this post in light of what I've learnt from reading B.A. Sen's article.

One last thing... On the day that Thing 13 was posted (aeons ago in Web 2.0 time), this blog post of resources for librarian bloggers was posted by thewikiman. It's based on a presentation at the CILIP CDG New Professionals Conference 2010 and is well worth a look!