January 2010

I know it’s cliche to note how we live in a global society. Still, it never hurts to revisit from time to time. Lately I’ve been working on putting more and more collections online. It can be a lot of work, and there is no small amount of faith in the belief that our small library collection will have some relevance for other individuals. That’s why, from time to time, I try to revisit the ways I’ve seen libraries contribute globally.

Collections

This one is the easiest to recognize. We digitize some material, slap on some metadata and put it online. We know it’s being used because we see the hits, but how it is being used is more of a mystery.

So in addition, to my librarian-ness, I also play the banjo. As such, I spend plenty of time geeking out with my fellow fringe musicians at http://www.banjohangout.org/. The style of banjo I play is called clawhammer. And clawhammer banjoists mostly play a style of music called Old Time which has seen a recent revival from the film O Brother Where Art Thou. So being a tradition steeped in old music, there is a small obsession with field recordings and old masters.

Enter the Digital Library of Appalachia. This is an incredible digital collection that contains photos, music, essays and other tidbits from Appalachia. This collection is so important to members of this community, that when it was offline for only one day it caused a slight panic.

However, that’s not even my favorite anecdote about the digital library. I’ve been working on a song recently called Put Your Hand on The Plow. I found out about the song from a Japanese banjo player who heard the recording of a fiddle player from, that’s right the Digital Library of Appalachia. As far as I can tell, there are no other recorded versions of this song anywhere. So here’s a breakdown:

1. A song is recorded deep in Appalachia
2. Years later it is put online in a digital library
3. A Japanese man hears it. Loves it. Makes a banjo version
4. A guy in Wisconsin listens to it (along with almost 600 other people) and learns it himself.

That’s not a bad life for a song that might have disappeared forever.

Reference

We tend to not think of reference on a large scale. Often we think of reference as a service for our most immediate patron base whether that’s the town, the campus, or the department. Still it’s growing as an international institution. There is not a week that goes by where I do not answer at least one water related request at the Department of Limnology from someone in South America or Africa or Europe. Still, my favorite interaction is with a man from Germany.

I received a question via chat from a man in Germany. He was researching the roots of his family and found a reference via Google Books to their Turkish village in an obscure census that somehow ended up in our library. I was able to find the census book and send him the little bits of information I could find. If I recall, it was something along the lines of this: Population 123 women and 136 men. Taxes XXX. Location in state Y. However, even this little information thrilled the man.

We tend to think of services as local and and resources as global. After all, resources only involve passive interaction with patrons; we put it online, they look at it. Services require active assistance; we interact directly with patrons. But that’s going to change as information about our collections goes online even if the actual collections do not.

Publications

Librarians are, hopefully, fierce defenders of open access. And we try to convince faculty to sign on, but it’s hard. Most are busy enough and don’t have any extra time to spend submitting papers to yet another repository. Still, we need to communicate the importance not just to the readers of the articles, but also the ways Open Access can benefit the authors.

I’m constantly showing this image to members of the CFL:

This image was published in Science February 2009. Here’s the full citation: Science 20 February 2009:Vol. 323. no. 5917, p. 1025 DOI: 10.1126/science.1154562

What it shows is the increase in citations for Open Access articles in the poorest countries. Note how in South America, the Middle East, the former Soviet countries all use OA articles much more. And not just use them, they cite them. So by making publications Open Access, scholars themselves benefit. Their articles will be read by more individuals, will be used in more decisions, will be cited more in further research. Their publications will have impact. And in a place where monetary gains are few, it’s nice to have some positive feedback.

Share

So tell me, what are some of your stories of libraries with a global impact. Share below.

: photo credits:

banjo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usonian/18067964/sizes/m/

village: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lapidim/43503396/sizes/m/

I studied philosophy as an undergraduate, so I’m fond of the big questions. Why are we here? What is truth? What is the good life? I enjoyed it because there’s really nothing more basic than questions like these. So it is with your website.

I’m going to continue to write on analyzing library websites, but before we can do that, it’s important to figure out the point of your site. As analytics guru Avishash Kaushik would say, “Why do you have a website?” If you can’t answer this basic question than you all data you gather is fairly useless.

Now, it seems like this is a no-brainer for libraries. But it’s a question that’s really more subtle than we’d think. Library websites can go a couple of ways. The two most basic things they can do is point to digital collections or point to physical services. Now that is highly reductive. There are a range of other things websites do, they provide reference, they give staff information, they provide entertainment for summer reading programs and so on. But I think in the end these two basic needs are primary. So let’s parse those a little more.

Websites as Pointers to Digital Collections

So, if this is the point of our website (this is the case for academic libraries), what are some smaller goals. Here are a few a library might focus on:

• Users find library catalog (seems simple)
• Users outside of the local area find and use digital collections (of photographs or open source documents)
• Users can easily access databases
• Users can find email/virtual reference links

Websites as Pointers to Physical Collections

Again, this seems intuitive, but this goal can also be broken down further

• Users sign up for event updates
• Users can quickly find hours and locations for branches
• Users can place holds on items in the collection
• Users can find textbook reserves for their class

These are just a few different examples of things a user might want to do on a webpage. The point, though, is not the specifics. The point is that a few clear goals are understood. Quickly, think too of what should not be included. Notice there are no goals about users finding the history of the building, or statement of building policies. This information might be important to include, but don’t make it a priority. The more items that clutter up a clear agenda for a website, the more likely the website will become cluttered and useless.