The Liminal Librarian

I was catching up on email this week and saw yet another mention of a focus on the “survival” of libraries. Although the actual document they’re talking about is proactive and positive in talking about ways to transform and move forward, it re-emphasized how often we use words like “survival” and “endangered” and “uncertain” when talking about libraries and the future of our profession. When we come at it from that angle, it really does sound like we’re scrambling from survival, and not working from a position of strength. Reframing our language and our approach might help us come at these challenges from a different angle.

It also made me think about just how much perception is key, in anything. For instance: I run a resume posting service over at LISjobs.com, for which I charge $10.00 for the first six months. (The only area of the site, btw, that incurs any fees.) Reactions to there being a fee at all generally run the gamut from:

• HOW DARE YOU GOUGE POOR JOB SEEKERS?

to

• Is it really only $10.00? That’s so reasonable. Thank you so much for this site.

to

• You didn’t tell me there was a fee?!

(This last, apparently, from the non-reading type of librarian.)

Same service, same fee, but incredibly different reactions. Now, I’m wondering if there’s a way to tweak the language on the page so that I get a lot more of reaction number 2 — and a lot less of reaction number one (which, I’ll admit, is more rare). I already tweaked it a while back to avoid number 3, but this oddly hasn’t worked so well.

It’s been an honor and a privilege to work with a number of ITI authors, but I was never so intimidated as when editing Kathy Dempsey’s The Accidental Library Marketer — given that she edited some of my own earliest work over at Computers in Libraries magazine. Be that as it may, her due-out-any-day-now book, quite simply, rocks. Get it. Now. In tough economic times her succinct and down-to-earth advice is more important than ever.

Also, if you’re headed to ALA next weekend, be sure to stop by Kathy’s book signing at the annual Swap & Shop on Sunday July 12. Swap & Shop runs from 11-1:30 in the special events area in the exhibit hall — so you can go even if, like me, you’re only springing for the exhibits pass! And check out her new site at LibrariesAreEssential.com — the URL sums it up right there.

So. Who here is still writing for Elsevier? And how much do you pay for their journals and textbooks, again?

Elsevier officials said Monday that it was a mistake for the publishing giant’s marketing division to offer $25 Amazon gift cards to anyone who would give a new textbook five stars in a review posted on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. While those popular Web sites’ customer reviews have long been known to be something less than scientific, and prone to manipulation if an author has friends write on behalf of a new work, the idea that a major academic publisher would attempt to pay for good reviews angered some professors who received the e-mail pitch.Here’s what the e-mail — sent to contributors to the textbook — said:

“Congratulations and thank you for your contribution to Clinical Psychology. Now that the book is published, we need your help to get some 5 star reviews posted to both Amazon and Barnes & Noble to help support and promote it. As you know, these online reviews are extremely persuasive when customers are considering a purchase. For your time, we would like to compensate you with a copy of the book under review as well as a $25 Amazon gift card. If you have colleagues or students who would be willing to post positive reviews, please feel free to forward this e-mail to them to participate. We share the common goal of wanting Clinical Psychology to sell and succeed. The tactics defined above have proven to dramatically increase exposure and boost sales. I hope we can work together to make a strong and profitable impact through our online bookselling channels.”

Hmm. I wonder how much they’d pay me to not post a negative review? As if the Merck fake journal thing weren’t bad enough. Ooh, wait! I wonder how much the going rate in Amazon gift certificates is for five-star reviews of fake peer reviewed journals?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the “anything to make a buck” mentality, but I must be naive. Idonotgeekelseviertoday.

Igeekthatgeekisnotaverb! I also like to.put.spaces.between.words. But maybe I’m old. I think I don’t get this site. Or don’t geek this site. But it’s so shiny and pretty…

I do GROK the library. Ooh! the domain’s available: grokthelibrary.org. Dear Bill and Melinda Gates: Please give me millions of dollars to develop a marketing site there. Or hundreds of thousands. I’m flexible.

Apparently, the raincheck thing? Not working out so well, people everywhere getting turned away. Isn’t it odd, Oprah tells people to go get free chicken, and they actually try to do it…

I’ve been meaning to post more lately, but it all wants to come out crotchety. (Maybe I should roll with it so LJ could hire me back as the “Even-more-annoyed-librarian” — but who can sustain that, really.) Besides, LJ itself is annoying me with its new “BookSmack” business, but maybe that’s because I don’t read enough “Books for Dudes.”

But, I guess this is the way we’re going. Not only did LJ revamp itself, but The Chicago Tribune launched its own redesign a couple of weeks ago. In addition to lots o’ pictures, less actual content, and hardly any margins, it now features sections called “Smart” (ya THINK?), and “Rides” (AKA, the automotive section). Maybe I’m not the target audience, but I’m almost ready to jump on that “dumbing down of America” bandwagon. It’ll be interesting to see if the cost savings and change in focus will help or hurt both LJ and the Trib.

Anyway. I’ve been working on the long-neglected LISjobs.com redesign, and plan to launch, if all goes well, on Friday. I’ll keep you all posted, and hopefully the changes won’t be as… well… annoying!

So what is it with public libraries lately? Most have never been good at marketing per se, but now it seems that every week brings us a new story about a public library doing something incredibly stupid and patron-alienating, usually having to do with kids. It’s not enough to kick out the knitting girls, now we’re carding and turning away students who want to walk across the street from their high school to use the library on their lunch hour. (Wow, would I have loved to have a library across the street from my high school! But I digress…)

It’s one thing not to market yourself, it’s another thing entirely to create your own bad publicity — especially in an age where a negative story about one library’s actions spreads to tarnish public libraries in general, and the social web encourages others to share their negative experiences as well. Every time one of these stories breaks, you can expect the comments: “I’m not surprised — because, get what my library did to me…”

Let’s try really hard not give any more ammunition to the “librarians are mean; libraries are irrelevant” meme, OK?

This should officially close the negative reviews theme. At least for a while..

I’ve had Brian Kenney’s An Open and Shut Case sitting around in a browser tab for days now, and its appearance today on LISNews prompts me to finally post about it. In a nutshell, he writes:

This is all, of course, very ironic. After all, librarians are the most vocal advocates for open access to journal content—except, apparently, when it’s their own publications. I suspect this is because of ALA’s outdated, carrot-on-the-end-of-the-stick, publishing model: keep the publications locked away as the supreme benefit of membership.

Well, yeah. For how many of you reading this right now has American Libraries been the swing vote in your decision to retain membership in ALA? OK, maybe a bad example… but, what divisions or roundtables have you joined largely for their literature? I’m surely guilty of this: I joined LAMA for a while mainly because I liked reading Library Administration & Management so much, but, no more.

The real question here becomes: What can associations offer us so that their publications become a bonus, rather than a sine qua non?

(Psst — want some free LIS-related reading material? Check out today’s Info Career Trends for a bunch of articles on nontraditional careers.)

… or for taken Aback. My daily online reading turned up some real gems this morning. First, let’s talk about this interview with Terry Goodkind. (Yes, it’s old, but if you didn’t see it in 2003 either, it’s new to you!) My personal favorite quotes here include these:

Because most fantasy is about world-building and magic, a lot of it is plotless and has no story. My primary interest is in telling stories that are fun to read and make people think. That puts my books in a genre all their own….

Kansas City, KS: What made you choose to leave out other common races(dwarves, elves, etc) from your books?

Terry Goodkind: Please refer to the previous answer, in which I explain that I’m not writing fantasy … My purpose is not weirdo cultural diversity. I repeat: I am writing stories about important human beings….

There’s actually very little to read today because more and more books center around characters who are either unremarkable, pathetic or reprehensible. I don’t like authors who choose to tell stories about these kinds of people. I like stories about individuals who can show the nobility of mankind.

I never did like his work, but perhaps this is because as a fantasy reader I prefer things that are “plotless and have no story.” Although “weirdo cultural diversity” has a certain ring to it as well…

Moving on to Arrogant (or Aback) example number two, today both Tame the Web and Librarian’s Rant pointed to this charming little story about a children’s knitting group getting kicked out of a library. Why?

Pamela Haley, manager of library services for the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, said the ban on crafts was put on place because the municipality is revamping its 18 library branches in an effort to attract more people and needs to be more literacy-focused to achieve that end.

However, riddle me this!

She said the library’s new fall lineup includes teen book clubs and Scrabble nights. The library will also be holding some events not focused on literacy, such as video game nights, to attract a younger crowd.

But under the new plan, there will no longer be a space for Kingston Currie and the other girls, aged six to 10, who used to sit around a table teasing yarn into organized patterns and items with crochet hooks and pairs of needles.

I’m all for video game nights, but kicking out the knitting girls and keeping the gaming seems somewhat — well, the most polite word that comes to mind is shortsighted. Way to market, guys! (Perhaps they’re just concerned about “weirdo programming diversity?”)