Death to Book Logos for Public Libraries!

Survey the websites for public libraries in the United States, and how many do you think feature some kind of book as their logo? It’s got to be well over 50% of them.

Some of my own favorite library systems use book logos. Take a look:

Oak Park Public Library in Oak Park, Illinois
Mid-Continent Public Library in Missouri
Garfield County Libraries in Colorado

These are fantastic libraries that do great work in their communities. I follow their work avidly. But seriously—what’s with the book logos?

I’ve developed an almost visceral aversion to seeing book logos on library websites. Why?

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Book Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice book cover
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Orbit Books, 2013
Cover art by John Harris

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie has been on my “To Read” list since it swept all of the major SF awards last year. I enjoyed it tremendously.

This is old-fashioned space opera, reminiscent of the classics of the Golden Age. Unlike a lot of modern space opera (which I adore, for the record) Ms. Leckie is less concerned with the technology that makes galaxy- and time-spanning civilization possible and offers us a story focused on character and plot.

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Serendipitous Discovery: A Critical Perspective

Given my passion for serendipitous discovery in libraries, I was delighted to read this paper by Patrick L. Carr:

Serendipity in the Stacks: Libraries, Information Architecture, and the Problems of Accidental Discovery (PDF)

It had never occurred to me to consider serendipitous discovery from this angle before. Serendipity can be construed as a failure of a user-centered information environment to properly meet the needs of a user. Perhaps serendipitous discovery isn’t a benefit so much as it’s a compensation mechanism for the failures of our search systems.

This suggests interesting avenues for inquiry and development. I think it’s a beneficial perspective. Serendipity isn’t all good and librarians should approach it strategically.

I’m particularly struck by this passage on page 18:

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When Protecting Creativity Stifles Creativity…

Our culture suffers. This is a problem.

Georgia Tech Research Finds Copyright Confusion has ‘Chilling Effects’ in Online Creative Publishing (posted by InfoDocket on December 15, 2014)

As libraries retool themselves into community hubs of content creation, patrons will need reliable information on copyright, Creative Commons, and other intellectual property rights structures.

Given the complexity and politicization of these rights in our society today, providing such guidance is a monumental task. But this study emphasizes that it would be an essential and useful service.

I’d love to see intellectual property rights librarians in every library!

Book Reviews in the Age of Goodreads

A few weeks ago, I read Reza Aslan’s book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth and I loved it. I went to my Goodreads account and posted a glowing review.

I recommended this book to some historians I know and they both read it. I’ve been speaking to them about it and I was surprised to learn that they’re far more critical of the work than I am. Not because of their religious beliefs but because they don’t think it’s very good history.

Both of them have advanced degrees in history. One of them works as an administrator in higher education. They’ve both been trained in the work of history and both have expectations molded by the standards of academic work.

They see significant flaws in Dr. Aslan’s book. If someone expects to challenge the orthodox historical consensus on a subject (as Dr. Aslan does) there are standards that must be met, the work must uphold a certain level of academic rigor.

Zealot fails to meet these standards. As my friend suggested—he can’t believe that this work would ever survive peer review.

After hearing what my friends had to say about the work I decided to do what a good librarian should do and find out more about Dr. Aslan’s qualifications, his authority to speak on this matter, and the critical reception his work has received from professional historians in the field.

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Checking My Privilege

Last year, I vowed to be more aware of how my life is very different from the lives of many in the community I serve through my library work.

I recently read the book, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, and it opened my eyes to yet another way that I’m really quite privileged compared to many.

When I completed my Master’s degree and began my job search, my top priority was to get my wife back home. She’d spent several years living away from her family and wanted to be near them again.

Everyone I spoke to for job search advice, every article I read, they all told me that I had to be willing to go where the work was, wherever that happened to be. Librarianship is a highly mobile profession. When I restricted my job search right out of the gate to a fairly narrow region of the country, it went against common wisdom. Some people told me I was making a mistake, narrowing my options too soon. Indeed, I passed over many professional opportunities because they were in the wrong part of the country.

But family was my first priority. Getting my wife back home was the most important thing. Luckily, I found a great job at a great public library, right where we wanted to be.

When I tell people why I did what I did—that I chose to put family first despite the potential risk to my career—many people praise me. For much of my life, there has been a sense that families suffer for our culture’s obsessive focus on work and career. Many people tell me how refreshing it is to see someone living with different values.

Now consider a young man very like Robert Peace:

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Teaching Digital Literacy

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over these past few weeks thinking about digital literacy. I try to compare it to reading and language literacy.

The comparison is illustrative.

Consider language literacy:

  • It takes years to learn and master a language.
  • Immersion is universally recognized as the best way to learn a language.
  • The more words and phrases you’re exposed to, the more you’ll learn.
  • You have to start simple and work your way up to the complicated stuff over time.

Consider reading literacy:

  • It takes years to learn how to read.
  • Constant exposure to reading is the best way to learn—being read to, reading on your own.
  • The more you see other people in your daily life reading, the more likely you are to make reading a habit for yourself and the greater your comfort level with reading will be.
  • You have to start simple and work your way up to the complicated stuff over time.

“Years to learn,” “immersion,” “exposure,” “work your way up”—developing literacy is a long process that needs to be a part of your daily life. Literacy involves more than just the mechanical tasks of speaking and reading—it requires habit and a level of comfort.

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Thoughts On Automated Recommendation Services for Libraries – A Correction

Re-reading my post from last month, Thoughts On Automated Recommendation Services for Libraries, I realize that I’m somewhat wrong about the role of locality in automated recommendation systems. Amazon and Netflix can (and I think they do) integrate user location data in their recommendation algorithm. They can skew results based on strong trends that appear among proximate user groups.

I’m also somewhat wrong about how recommendations work in BiblioCommons—ratings and reviews for individual titles are aggregated from multiple libraries, as well as user-created reading lists. Reviews from local library staff are prioritized over others, but I don’t know if local library user-created reading lists are prioritized. Regardless, these are individually curated pieces of content, these sections aren’t automated in the same way that Netflix is. This content is related to an individual item in the catalog and doesn’t generate lists of recommendations as one typically expects from Readers’ Advisory services.

The “Similar Titles” type of content in the sidebar in BiblioCommons is what I think of when I look for reading recommendations, and this content is also the most directly analogous to Netflix / Amazon. However, this content doesn’t get generated by BiblioCommons at all—these titles come from third party services like NoveList.

So locality can be a meaningful factor in automated recommendation systems—such systems are smart enough to recognize that local trends are important, even if they aren’t yet intelligent enough to know what local trends mean.

But libraries still don’t have enough data to make such algorithms work. We still rely on curation and the personal touch to create real value for our patrons.

The Unnatural Phenomenon of Using a Mouse

My first real encounter with a usability challenge in a digital environment happened when I worked as a file clerk in a medical records office. We converted our office from paper records to electronic and had to learn a whole new computer-based record keeping system. One of the women who worked in the file room had never used a computer before. It was my job to teach her this new electronic system.

I’ve told this story before…

The biggest challenge for me was that I failed to comprehend the depth and breadth of my coworker’s digital illiteracy.

She didn’t know how to use a mouse. How do you teach someone to use a data system which functions through a GUI when they don’t know how to use a mouse?

Before I could even begin to teach her the new record keeping system, I had to teach her how to use computer peripherals.

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