Librarians´ ethics

Well, do you sometimes think: ´What for a silly question?´ - and then you have to remind yourself: There are no silly questions. What about ethics in librarianship? (Ethics is the scientific concentration of human's attitude and behaviour) Is it an important topic? Or is it already implied in todays librarians´ attitude?
In my opinion it is a crucial thing in reaching success in reference services. But its the very heart of the first law of a reference librarian: offering openness.

- my new (professional) situation -

It has been several weeks since the last posting. But other things were more important ;) My life changed insofar that I am now situated as a reference librarian at the ULB Münster :)


Besides my job in the information unit I am involved in the optimization of LOTSE (an online tutorial).

So this position equates to my wishes and goals (being in direct touch with the customers and bettering services) ;)
The good thing is I get new insights and can offer practical experiences (of the challenging reality) in this blog. The bad thing: I may have less time to write postings :(

Libraries as places

- Uh, it's been a while since the last posting. I was just to busy with applying for jobs. -

The place "library" remains important although everything's is going to be digital and electronic services become more and more relevant. Libraries serve as a "third place" which was discussed mostly among American librarians.
Jin Tan remarked:

"Libraries are changing as we tell often enough. But we speak rather less about how the library should change to get the patrons coming into the library."

It's the goal of the new project "Zukunftswerkstatt" of the EKZ. It's interesting to see that the image at the project's page is from a former project which shows the envisioned new Brabant library.

What counts is not the architecture or the setting its important that the patrons feel good there. Yes, libraries are about feelings.

Beautiful Libraries in the World

View more presentations from Paulo Izidoro. (tags: libraries library)

Libraries as "One-stop-shops" ?

A few years ago there was the common opinion that libraries have to be "one-stop-shops". Recently there is a tide against it: Ojala is one of the detractors who is saying that the disciplines are too specialized to be covered by one global search (e.g. vascoda for specific/ technical information). Furthermore you only can develop a meta-search with search functions that are included in each of the databaeses, catalogs and/ or search engines.
In Germany there is one meta-search example in the field of LIS: b2i.

These are a few of the problems that one is facing while developing an optimized service to customers. But nevertheless the library portal has to become a "service oriented architecture": Everyone knows the information architecture that is connected with or part of a library portal:
No wonder that a customer gets confused! Even a librarian does not know all these online services.
That's why the library portal has to be changed into an intuitive and easy-to-use portal. In my opinion this is a major task of librarians.

Reaching out far beyond the traditional library clients

As I found out at WebJunction there is an interesting projekt to bring cyclists into the libraries: As cyclists rolled over all or parts of the Underground Railroad Bycicle Route (URBR) they cross many libraries on their way. They are able to recognize them because Ginny Sullivan, Adventure Cycling’s instigator of the route, had the foresight to include library locations on the detailed maps available to participants. As a result, the travelers found the local libraries along the way and found a treasure trove of resources: pointers to good restaurants, grocery stores, Laundromats, bike shops. They could use clean bathrooms and even charge their cell phones. Most significant for the URBR experience, they found libraries as the keepers of community history, often in partnership with local historical societies.
-What a good idea: to highlight the libraries on a tourist map! But in doing this libraries have to offer specialized services for tourists (e.g. exhibitions about the region).

As Betha Gutchie highlights

"libraries serve as way stations and the library staff as conductors".

This is really a nice image.
Furthermore Public Libraries have to address to other community groups, too. This also counts for Academic Libraries but in a different way: Academic Libraries have to address their services to local organizations of economy, research and politics, and -of course- to the local citizens. To strenghten the university in competing with other universities they have to support efforts to establish a central repository with all the relevant information, sources and primary data relevant to both, faculty members and sponsors.
With respect to the aforementioned project I am even more intensely thinking about:
Which innovative projects and/ or tailored services are imaginable for Academic libraries?

Universities's Intellectual Property

In Kopenhagen the first conference on Universities' Intellectual Property took place: COPENMIND (1. - 3. September 2008). The organizer Muldow said in "University Journal" that universities worldwide are inadequately communicating their innovations to the industry. Therefore he has founded the conference as a kind of marketplace for building of close university-industry relationships that holds many unexploited opportunities. This is important for efforts that should result in a commercial product or service. But what about libraries: is such a conference of interest for libraries?
Depends on the participating organizations, one could say. The truth is: Libraries need to be in contact with other organizations from other fields. Why bnot cooperating with companies like Oracle: Such a company could create the technical infrastructure, whereas librarians are responsible for the contents.
Besides libraries have to strengthen their position in their environment. For instance, researchers have to recognize the academic library through their services. Libraries have to offer the right services to establish the library as a brand so that faculty members are saying: "Yes, I am a fan of the 'LIBRARY' !"
If libraries want to be the central information provider they have to offer services that justifies it. (This is one of the things I highlighted in my final dissertation.)

The problem of inadequatly communication is existing in the LIS-environment, too. Moreover, academic libraries are challenged more than ever:

1. there is a fast and easy access to information via the Internet


2. there is a rising number of information providers


3. statistics and studies show that libraries' users and/or visits are in a decrease


4. the library has to provide a better information supply while budgets are in a decrease.

The article "Libraries in the Converging Worlds of Open Data, E-Research, and Web 2.0" presents some of the key technologies, tools, and organizations within the open data movement and conclude that these have the potential to not only increase possibilities of knowledge transfer, but ultimately generate new knowledge.

The efforts that libraries take to better their services lead to a more positive image of the library (which would be good for all stakeholders).

The library of the McMaster University is providing the "2.0 toolbox" to their faculty and staff members

That's what I have found a few minutes ago:

The library of the McMaster University hosts blogs and wikis for their staff and faculty members. Their reasons for hosting blogs and wikis are these:

"It’s the library’s core mission to provide and manage access to the university’s academic resources and scholarly information. In a world where web technologies are changing the face of scholarly communication and the creation of the scholarly artifact, we feel that providing a platform for faculty to harness new technologies to facilitate their teaching & research makes a lot of sense for the library. It allows us to continue our role as stewards of that scholarly content. In addition, we see our provision of these tools as an extension of our role in upholding and advocating for intellectual and academic freedom."

That sounds good. Especially because its the first noncommercial and nonprofit hoster that I heard of. To develop services for the specific needs of the library's users should be the major goal of all libraries.

The McMaster library acts as a real service provider for if a blog or wiki does not have a feature that staff or faculuty members need, or if the blog or wiki is not behaving in a way that works for them, they can tell the library staff about it!

In future the library wants to add other tools to the 2.0 Toolbox. At the moment, we’re looking into possibly adding a social bookmarking tool. The faculty and staff members are asked to mention other specific technologies that they would like to have.
- Well, in this case the library is a service provider in a new way: putting up 2.0-tools for their faculty members.

Voting search results at Google in near future

In near future users can vote search results at Google: Users vote search results up or down - a down vote makes it dissapear with a “poof,” an up vote moves the result to the first page.
Google is also testing comments, with linked user names, and others can vote those comments up and down. In effect, this bucket test shows a Google that combines their search algorithm with every important feature of Digg.

Google was working nearly a year on these new features. For further information see "Is this the future search?" on Techchrunch.


This manipulation of search results leaves lots of thoughts:
Will this manipulation work out in negative way so that businesses manipulate their own sites' range? (Probably) If so, will it influence the search results more than other manipulation tools?

What is also worrying me: If you leave your footprints there by voting other can see your profile. - Another step to a surveillance society?