culture clash

The differences in expectations between Gen X, Gen Y, and the Boomers have been discussed quite a bit in various forums. For example, Stephen Abram of SirsiDynix has talked a lot about the information seeking behaviors of the millenials differs from those of us who are a bit older than them.

One aspect of particular note to information organizations is the difference in work behaviors among the various generations. In a survey conducted by CareerBuilder and Harris Interactive, these striking differences are pointed out in findings that clearly indicate Gen Y workers have a communicative style that greatly favors technology when compared to the communication styles of either Gen Xers or Boomers. In addition, the vast majority (87%) of the HR professionals surveyed indicated that Gen Y employees expect much more in terms of benefits, career advancement, and compensation than do Gen Xers or Boomers. These greater expectations include work schedules will be flexible, promotions which come early and often, vacation time that is very generous, and on-the-job technology that is state-of-the-art. On the other side of the coin, over half of the HR people surveyed who were aged 35 or greater thought that Gen Y workers do not respond well to authority and often have a difficult time following directions.

As Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources for CareerBuilder.com explains, these workers “grew up in a technology-driven world where standards and norms have changed and [they] often operate under different perspectives than older co-workers. As companies' cultures evolve with each generation, you see all workers benefiting from a variety of viewpoints and work styles.”

Consequently, library and information agency workplaces need to seriously consider how they will adapt if we want to bring in, and keep, younger staff members. For these younger workers, the status quo will not suffice. Some of the changes that will be required will undoubtedly include more flexible work schedules, better technology that is kept up to date, increased recognition programs, as well as competitive salaries and (perhaps) bonuses.

oh, what can we learn from this?

It starts out with this, "I threw away my dictionary. Tossed it. Considered my cluttered desk and decided it was time to take a critical look at what was crowding this valuable real estate." From there, Michelle Manafy discusses with us how the ubiquitous nature of Google, Wikipedia, and dictionary.com has changed her life. As the editor of a magazine (EContent) geared toward the information industry, Manafy talks about how the tools she used to use are no longer necessary given the changing nature of how (what some of us would call "ready reference") information is distributed today. For example, while she discusses the joy of thumbing through a thesaurus, the reality is that a printed dictionary isn't a required tool anymore because it's easier to look up words on the web while you are writing rather than thumbing through the printed dictionary. While this article doesn't really contain any surprises, this "slice of life" article vividly reminds us how much the world has changed, even in traditional areas such as journal editing.

the power of "influencer"

Many books in the management sector are of dubious value given that they are filled with anecdotal information that has no real evidence to back up the findings. Thankfully, Influencer by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, and Switzler doesn't fall into that category. Although laden with stories, their book is based on actual research into how people successfully influence situations. In our organizations, we'd do well to put into practice some of the advice in this book such as

1. focus on the critical behaviors we want to change and not try to change everything at once,
2. use experience to change thoughts and actions, and
3. use multiple sources of influence to create an environment where change must occur.

Although much of the information in the book might fall into what many would call "common sense," it sometimes help to have that gathered up into a nice neat package that reminds of what we should "commonly" know.

taking a cue from "IT Doesn't Matter"

Several years ago, Nicolas Carr made quite a stir with his article in the Harvard Business Review entitled "IT Doesn't Matter." His main argument was (and still is) that while IT is essential it is not strategic. According to Carr, companies can't gain strategic advantage from their systems because everyone is running the same systems. Over the last several years, many have either endorsed or refuted Carr's views.

Until recently, it hadn't occurred to me how this might relate to libraries, but after reading an article by Paul Ingevaldson, it seems to me that libraries are facing the same issues that IT does. Almost all libraries run the same systems, often with little or no customization other than changing the colors of the web pages to match the organization identity. Librarians haven't traditionally thought about how what they do contributes to what the corporate sector calls "strategic advantage" - that is, aligning the outcomes of the library to the outcomes of the larger organization they are part of. We often see our libraries as entities unto themselves.

This kind of thinking has to change. To be successful, libraries have to differentiate their services from what can be obtained elsewhere. As has been the case in IT, a lot of the benefits traditional services provided are now commodity items that are moving to self-service models because they're so automated they do not require the high level of expertise they did in the past. This is happening whether we like it or not.

What savvy IT departments do today is develop custom services and applications that work directly with the unique strategy of the organization. Libraries need to take a cue from this and do the same for their organizations as well.

refocusing our attention in the world of institutional repositories

Dorothea Salo's recent post in Caveat Lector is just the latest thing to remind us what we've known for some time now - that the successful institutional repositories (IRs) are those where the library has been proactive in soliciting content and has actively taken responsibility for doing all the work to get the content into the IR. Even so, success in IRs must be thought of in terms of modest acquisitions since no IR has truly taken off the way their planners had hoped. Part of this seems to be related to the work libraries have to do to convince faculty that an institutional repository is a worthwhile endeavor. This reluctance to engage with an IR effort seems to be mainly because the incentives to faculty just aren't obvious to most of them. In general, faculty don't see longevity as an issue for their published material, whether that's reflective of reality or not. The biggest gains that have been documented in relationship to gathering faculty contributions have been in grey literature.

What I found somewhat discouraging about Salo's post is the apparent ambivalence toward student contributions. We tend to forget that a lot of the emergent research in our institutions is conducted by students. This is reflected in the reality of most IRs where the majority of contributions are, in fact, from students in one form or another. McDowell's article in the latest issue of D-Lib is just the latest study to document this.

Perhaps, if we focus on what is meaningful to faculty and students, rather than what is of interest to us as librarians, we might be more successful in getting participation in our IRs.

reenvisioning our processes

A recent article in Computerworld documented the unexpected problems a bank experienced after installing a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Basically, the problem was that the bank was too focused on fulfilling its own information needs at the expense of its customers. Although the context in most libraries is quite different from that of the bank, much can be learned from this example. For instance, how often do we ask for more information than is truly necessary "just to make sure." A perfect example here is the typical interlibrary loan form where we ask for so much information it makes it appear we are actually trying to discourage people from using the service. By asking too many questions, the bank started losing people in droves. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Are we doing the same thing in our libraries?"

on being more adaptable

A recent article in CIO Insight magazine talked about IT's Bad Reputation. What is interesting about this article is that the same issues the author identifies as stifling innovation in information technology services are the same issues we face that contribute to a lack of innovation in information agencies and libraries in general.

If we are going to move forward in ways that are meaningful to our publics we have to change some things:
1) Decision making needs to be pushed down in the organization to the most appropriate level - the "trenches" as it were,
2) Even non-managerial employees must know how to make business decisions and not simply focus on the good of their local department or area of specialty, and
3) We have to make sure our colleagues understand how developments, such as Web 2.0, are disrupting the way organizations operate.

on Dewey and complexity

The recent uproar (by librarians) following the decision of the Gilbert, AZ public library to abandon Dewey as the primary means of locating materials on the shelves demonstrates how we do (or do not) adapt to complexity.

The basic jist of the problem is summed up nicely in a Wall Street Journal article. In discussing the controversy, the author states that "it feeds into a broader, increasingly urgent discussion about libraries, where a growing number of patrons, used to Google and Yahoo, simply don't look for books and information the way they used to." As was the case with web design, in a complex system we must gather our information and adapt based on the environment.

As Bowker and Star pointed out in their book, Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences, classification works best when it is invisible. When classification starts to become visible you have a good indication that the classification system isn't performing its job. That's the problem here, Dewey (in this case, but it really could be any classification system common in libraries) doesn't work for the average person because it doesn't conform to our current mental models. It requires too much, "What does that mean?" or "Why is that?" processing to be viable for many uses. For example, why is computer science classified in the 004-006 range instead of the 500's (sciences) where it really belongs? Why when I perform a subject heading search for "Social network research" do I find books scattered throughout the library in spots as disparate as 658.472 G562c, 305.80072 M297, and 300.72 A244?

Adaptation is one of the ways we continue to make systems work in a changing environment. An example of this is the organization of books at Northwestern University. Here we use Dewey (which is odd for an academic library to begin with) but we do not have books arranged in strict call numeric order. The Dewey ranges are combined based on very high-level topic areas (humanities, hard science, natural science, social science, etc.) in an effort to bring disparate areas in the classification system together to make more sense of the order for our patrons. Is it perfect? No, but it is does make discovery easier in many areas that have been "broken up" due to anomalies of Dewey.

Rather than castigating the folks in Gilbert, we should be trying to learn from their approach. It's too bad the naysayers don't get that.

complexity, libraries, and web design

At Computers in Libraries a couple of weeks ago, Ellyssa Kroski gave a talk about Information Design for the New Web. What I found particularly interesting, in addition to the design tips, was how this presentation demonstrated so vividly the point that libraries exist within a complex system. While complexity in the sense of a complex system was never mentioned in her presentation, the clear dependency of our library environment on the external world was demonstrated in the fact that all of the examples on how libraries need to be designing their services were drawn from outside of libraryland.

The message from this isn't particularly new, but it is clear: we must take our clues and directions from our environment. Libraries do not exist in an isolated or rarified world and our environment is being determined within a larger context that is not under our direct control. Even in the most traditional environments, the world expects differ things for us today. If we do not meet the expectations of the environment, the other systems with which we interact, such as our patron populations, will adapt and meet their needs in ways that are better suited to their needs. If that doesn't include us, it's not going to be a big concern for them, so it better be for us.