Libraries in the e-Society
AZLA Annual Conference
November, 2013
Keynote speaker: Change that matters, Jamie Larue, Director, Douglas County Library, CO
Libraries/Librarians staying relevant in the e-society
 As a cost center, Circulation department in public libraries are dead, self- checkout has replaced
it ... New jobs for former circulation employees: build displays, connect with the community
(i.e., local bookstores) … new jobs are transforming the shape of the library … exhibits built to be
eye-catching have increased book circulation by 30%.

Public library reference librarians nervous: 15% of questions in public library require a reference
librarian, rest done by paraprofessionals … Need for reference librarians in public libraries?
Librarians can use their facilitation skills to engage with civic or community leaders, attend
business meetings … get out into the community & demonstrate their value with ‘search’.
Create PPT presentations & present research findings on topics of interest to the business and
civic community that add value and library credibility … Douglas County librarians made towns
more successful because library stay informed about the business of the county … when
librarians leave the building, paraprofessionals staff the desks.

Scan the community. See where librarians can get involved, become active, not imbedded …
look for way to add value … reference librarians can help solve problems in the community and
civic groups, identify what is needed and share skills (communications) … get with leaders in
communities and improve and solve other people’s problems.

Academic libraries have community to reach out to and work on other people’s agendas … look
at local high school graduation rates … Not about us anymore to make library look good … our
job is to make others look good! Get down to state or local governing bodies, legislatures … the
most powerful advocates for libraries are not librarians, but civic leaders … demonstrate our
value first and recruit others to explain just what we did.

Douglas County library sent out teams of librarians to interview leaders: Education, civic, faithbased and asked 3 questions: 1.) What are the issues that affect your constituents over the next
few years? 2.) What decisions will you be making and what information do you need to make
decisions? and, 3.) Who else should I talk to?

By getting out into the community, librarians connect with civic leaders and figure out the
questions to add value to … needed their help to make it easier to connect with a community …
created the equivalent of a ‘dating service': these are the things you are interested in and here
are the people you should connect with.
E-books
 The new Inquisition - With e-books: on Amazon, author can make $7 on a $9.99 book vs. $4 on a
$40 book with print publisher.

Overdrive for e-books: Libraries gave up ownership … library spends more on e-books yet, very
few small or indie press books are at libraries … 2/3rds of what is published is not in our libraries
… We hand over user experience to vendors
1|Page

Essential to build our own content system, create alternatives. Douglas County built
http://evoke.cvlsites.org/ for libraries to learn how to manage several emerging channels of
digital content in Colorado … website has tools and aids developed to help themselves, like
visiting children's presses, moving faster, doing e-pub from directly from children's independent
book publishers (these kids books are now integrating html with sound) … or using
Smashwords.com to self- publish … this is where public libraries are going but no libraries are
going there now.

Get patrons to find books … market books by creating mobile apps … there are not big
marketing campaigns for new books, so need mobile displays or mobile apps … Train the trainer:
find those familiar with e-devices and mobile apps and train each other.

Write book reviews: 3-sentence review of a book … find authors who want to display with each
other of same genre … Odilo, a Spanish company, hosts workshops for author incubators ...
Find writers’ groups, copy editors to help sell in our library via website and displays … have
authors practice selling their books by writing and reading together.

Douglascountylibraries.org ... Oral histories for loading ... Joseph Sanchez at Douglas County
Library ... Hire former newspaper journalists to re-work the library websites and create
newsletters.

Anything is possible: Make change fun! For the better – ‘you are really going to enjoy this.’
Encourage a culture of risk and risk –taking ...watch You Tube video “The Fun Theory.com” from
Stockholm - how to change people’s behavior by making it fun to use stairs vs. escalator: they
built a piano and sound into the stairway: 66% of people now use the stairs instead of escalator
… change the mindset, read Kathryn Shultz’ Being Wrong … Dissatisfaction X Vision X First steps
>= Overcoming Resistance.

Frederick Nietzsche believed: “Man reaches maturity when he has regained the seriousness that
he had as a child at play”.
Presentations
1. Guide on the Side aka GOS – (UA) Grew out of declining budget; librarians created this online
learning after getting same questions for course assignments over & over @ at Ref … they
created GOS as a model for e-learning incorporating active learning in addition to screen-casted
tutorials. How they did it:

Collaborated with IT programming staff to refine GOS, then made a Creator Interface in
2010 to ease programmers’ load: any skill level can use it, involves interactivity and
learning, authenticity, practice with real problems

Research finds that readers only read 20% of any webpage, so kept GOS text to a minimum
... Used various question types: multiple choice, etc. … GOS lets students figure out correct
answers.

Drexel and other universities now using Guide on Side as their tutorials ... guides frequently
updated to mirror changing database interfaces (Google “Guide on Side schools” to see
which schools using it) … UA librarians have student workers seek and find changes to a
database and communicate how a tutorial must be changed.

GOS technical details: Download it (open source) and install using GOS URL ... Need a shell
account on UNIX server and Apache ... Create, back up, restore, using MYSQL software …
2|Page
Documentation and user guide created for the portal with functionality ... Style guide
availability ... Sample tutorial available ... Can request a user demo account- fill out the
contact form ... Demo tutorials are cleaned off periodically from the UA server.

Working on increased hosting so can other AZ schools can host GOTS on their websites …
piloting with Tucson HS, Pima CC, marketing it to AZ K-14 schools.

UA has an online research lab: 1 credit for undergrads, grads; info literacy research
strategies geared to grad students ... UA main library open 24 hrs. for students, students
staff it overnight, not librarians.
UA library re-thinking the 1-credit course ... Considering enhancements; now creating
'roadmap' for accessibility for ADA, and more.
Open access: Best practices @ ASU

Librarians host events during Open Access Week (October) … Visit www.openaccessweek.org for
ideas also, www.Openeducationweek.org - Open Education Week held in March at ASU

URL and QR codes on library homepage help drive access to the websites … ASU library held
meetings and hosted small groups talking about options for open educational resources … Met
with faculty about where they can post their open courses or papers : Coursera, MIT, Merlot,
other clearing houses of open access information.

Everyday OA – videos hosted on ASU’s Library Channel website, pushed to those who subscribe
via RSS ... promote Scholars without Borders – an intro to concept of open access and how to
find free scholarly articles ... visit ASU.edu/Extension > Continuing Education link to see the
resources for international students to access once they return home and no longer have access
to ASU online resources (Created via a Fulbright grant)

Library research workshops geared to ASU’s substantial international students and mid-career
professionals in the Cronkite School of Journalism (used Fulbright grant monies) … created a
Year of intensive learning training.

ASU Librarians Assembly - Passed an open access resolution supporting open access for the
university ... created a Libguide to promote Open Access called Scholarly Communication

Use videos, social media, webinars, library channel (ASU’s Library Minute), also conference
presentations in the humanities, engineering conferences, etc. and note when faculty are
publishing in open access.

ASU has institutional membership and pre-pays memberships to open access for faculty, i.e.,
Biomed Central, covers publishing processing fees, see http://repository.asu.edu

Promote Www.doaj.org – a directory of open access journals (8,300 journals; 92,000 articles)
from all over the world, most in English ... www.Doabooks.org is a Directory of open access
books – 1,500 academic text books ... Others: Biomed central, Arxiv.org (Cornell) ... Open DoAR
... Www.roar.eprints.org ... Deep Blue ... inspired by Open access Manifesto created by Aaron
Schwartz , who hacked MIT’s JSTOR and was prosecuted: http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.18994
3|Page
Running a Digital library: University of Phoenix

Two governing bodies for the online library: 1) University of Phoenix’s Library Review Council,
comprised of librarians, faculty and Program Managers; 2) Library Review Board made up of
Deans.

Procurement and accounting dept. does the legal and database, resources negotiations for
procurement, getting best cost, etc. ... Weeding/de-selection based on: Is info being used?
Redundancies? U of P starts 6 mos. out to get best value proposition from their vendors

Info literacy: Round table meeting a few years ago discussed how to imbed into courses, how to
offer webinars online … Team of 13 people, 5 part-time, that meet needs of faculty ... Word
spread ... Challenges: hard to create info literacy and instruction value in a Google-ruled world:
hard to require students click a few times to get to subscription resources and databases.

Proprietary tip sheets and library-related content – Any student-facing information has to be
approved by faculty at University of Phoenix ... no library presence on FB or Twitter ... Univ. of
Phoenix has corporate presence, but not library ... 35,000 faculty on ground or online or both ...
E-mail overload issues, communications are made short, concise and to-the- point ... Reach out
to academic advisors, students and faculty using banners on student portals

Successes: Started writing and publishing internally, training, writing columns on websites,
internal social media and newsletters internal for faculty ... Multiple subject guides and a
repository to house them ... Video training ... Customized training session relevant to course
assignment ... Only reflect resources relevant to the subject ... Volunteer for anything and
everything ... visit faculty meetings and late night classes with faculty that librarians don’t see
very often ... Keep library advocates close.

Monthly webinar team are seasoned professionals that coordinate the sessions and post them
... Instructional development team works with librarians ... Train the trainer (students) ... Mini
library workshops 15 mins. long at student resource centers … Study rooms and computers at
all campuses ... Student success centers at various campuses ... Students have to sign up for Live
instruction sessions … training faculty.

Assess everything – anything that is measurable, even more ..

ASK A Librarian service started in1994 with mitigated search via telephone ... Completely
asynchronous inquiry now handles reference requests …. Back in the day, librarians worked at
night due to cheaper Dialog dial-up rates (before internet)

A customized platform from a vendor for Ask a Librarian service ... University connects on
internal social media platform ... Entire digital reference, 24 hrs. a day with night owl guy who
works 2 a.m.- 7:00 a.m. … 37,000 inquiries a year, averages 1.5 hr. turnaround time... Key to
online reference: Reading between lines from vague inquiries, need to get something back to
the student fast ... Have an online repository for students to search that contains pre- formatted
responses to commonly-asked questions.

Librarians track topic trends ... Track responses per hour and turnaround and completion times
and when peak times are needed.
4|Page

Tech services librarian – does doc delivery, ILL, 275 a month orders ... Touched by humans ...
55% fulfillment of requests ... 99% of requests are articles to fulfill 9- week classes ... API
(application powered interface) eliminated time spent in fulfillment ... Very few book loan
requests (mostly advanced learners, very small amount of learners request books). Have to
order the books from original library, mostly an unused service.

Electronic reserves: Provide links to Program Managers with searches after getting topics to a
course to help students reach their learning goal ... 34 requests a month ... Digital pages, have to
constantly change the pages when links are updated.

Tech services: Not student- facing – they manage electronic resources, authentication via EZ
proxy for offsite students to reach a resource ... Support other Univ. of Phoenix schools’
resources ... do branding of University of Phoenix library pages ... Tests everything monthly on a
page to avoid students calling in with access issues ... Maintain, review links - 97,000 links on
the website for technicians to maintain and make fixes to.

Tech services also does: Usage stats – Pulling everything by hand, takes 2-4 days ... Looks at fulltext access, incl. white papers ... Takes full text info and figures cost per use, used for
negotiations with vendors ... Library supplies info for procurement people ... manages the look
and feel of the library page … Manages access to logins, access problems (forgetting passwords)
and institutional reporting and accrediting ... takes the raw data and creates formatted reports
to help increase s value to stakeholders.

External IT department: Reports bugs with the site, vendors manage their own fixes ... Tests
features and functionality … Builds website to suit library requirements ... Higher level technical
support ... Students manage basic library info and search and contacts IT to report links down or
non-working, get reserves info or find deleted folders in Outlook .

Future challenges: Barriers to access … Repository of info, need to get content to students ...
Always have a library space, but how to get it to the student space? Work now is intuitive,
recommending content to each other … how can library demonstrate value and worth? Offer to
help solve student, faculty or admin problems.
Electrify, Ngage, Collaboration tools
 Padlet.com free tool ... Upload docs and websites, photos text boxes ... Create a wall and upload
to a libguide ...

Murally: Online collaboration. Great tool for teaching copyright, mindmapping, Timelines post.
Notes, documents, connect to Google drive and Evernote, free, register to use... Presentation
tool like Prezi ,,, can drag and drop... Sticky notes ... Shapes stickers, layouts, backgrounds ...
Post URLs, images and iTunes, titles, move the images, add comments ... Invite people to be
collaborators in real time, can invite via e-mail

TimeToast to create timelines ... CTL Center for teaching and learning has tips.

Diigo to track and bookmark those to follow for tech issues.
Sonoran Desert Tales
 Children’s book author, Conrad Storad- Writes with place in mind (Arizona)… His book narrator
is an animal - an elf owl (Eduardo Elf XXIII) ... 50 different species of scorpions in AZ so chose a
scorpion for his character, Harriet, who is afraid of her own stinger & was bullied by flying insect
5|Page
... Tutti, tarantula has just one fang, so is teased - together they overpower the flying insect
who wants to kill Tutti and use her carcass to lay eggs.
Essential Apps for Connected Librarians
 Key: Making sure the apps are a seamless operation, secure, and supported.

Evernote - replaces the note function on the iPad, flawlessly. Can organize into notebooks or
tags, translates into Word ... Navigates to the notes ... Synchs to the web

Chrome browser- Customizable, fast. Runs Java script, smoother than other browsers. .. Clean
on a smartphone, accesses all bookmarks ... Takes place of De.lic.ious … Firefox now has
bookmarks ... Google Drive: now loads your docs to the cloud like Dropbox.

Wordpress: Creates simple, flexible websites, search engine optimized so Google finds them;
expandable with plug-ins ... Tumblr easier than WordPress ... Looks good on a mobile device,
cleaner for screen size and smaller phones ...

Feedly – Replacement for Google Reader (RSS feed) Easy to import feeds ... Social integration,
easy to share on FB or Twitter ...

Spotify - Free or subscription music service like Pandora ... Takes a look at music you own on a
device and matches with theirs, and shares the music onto other devices ... Facebook
integration

Dropbox. Hard drive in the cloud, get 3g in the cloud, easy to upload images, etc.

Tips: Have lots of copies in various locations, to keep stuff safe: copies in Google. Music backed
up in Dropbox and Google cloud ... Always examine the privacy policies of your apps

Subscribe to Gizmodo for updated tech info and new apps ... MCLC Tech Talk technology
interest group for librarians in Maricopa county.
Library sustainability

Speaker shared what she learned in a Library Juice Academy course about the sustainability
movement on campus; forming a library action plan for campus engagement ... Greening of
libraries (author, Monika Antonelli) ... UA librarian formed a green team at the library Poetry
Library Center ... more info @ Bepress.com/ charney_madeleine

The 'little libraries' movement is a sustainable concept, built in an inexpensive way to reuse
materials again ... Pima County Public Library has a seed- sharing program ... Community
gardens are competitive ... have exhibits highlighting interest in sustainability ... Children
explaining sustainability to parents or teachers ... Mad Tattoo shop in the valley added a koi
pond inside … Holocaust museum database …
6|Page