A short one here – but just to let you know if you missed out listening to me (and the weasel) talk about life, librarianship, creative writing and…well anything that came into the weasel’s head on the radio this week… then you can listen again here: http://digg.com/u1D6ay

Open to any and all offers for future media outings!

And the next post will be back to more of the lengthy diatribes!

While the heated debate about CILIP’s latest highway robbery continues below, I’ve been thinking about something else.  Identity.  It helps that I’ve been reading a lot of Philip K Dick of late – since his work is all about identity, memory and self.  Not to mention very readable.

Identity is a hot topic out here in Web 2.0 cloud computing social networking land.  Indeed you’ll quite often see a comment from some dismisser of the whole social web environment that people who hide behind aliases have opinions that are in some way of lesser value than those who have a readily provided soap box funded by others.  No wait, hang on – I wasn’t going to talk about CILIP this time.

I use an alias for most of my online interactions in the social web space, but as a gamer the idea of an online or even RL handle is as natural in breathing.  If you’re any kind of librarian it should take you all of 5 seconds to work out what my birth name is, I just prefer to use the handle since this online incarnation of me – heck it’s not what I’m actually like in real life.

I talk quicker than I type for one!

But what I have been thinking about is the whole “Should I have one ID for work social net and one for real life?”.  I know some folks who, and let’s take twitter here as the media darling example here, have two twitter accounts.  One for their friends and one for sunday best.  I can see why some might go down that route, and thanks to good software like tweetdeck or twhirl maintaining multiple IDs isn’t a big problem.  I started off down this route with my llordllama ID as very much work with a bit of social, and another account for play.  Quickly I realised it helped my interactions and debate with other Web 2.0 types if I just used the same account for both.

Why?  Well for one because life is analogue not digital; it’s shades of grey – there’s no clear dividing line where my work social networking interaction ends and my real-lifebegins.  They are all part and parcel of the same wacky crazy/vibrant and thrilling world we live in.  Because services like twitter and blogs exist out here in the cloud as well, there’s a certain level of dissociation from the workaday entity who sits in an office all day pushing digital packets around and occasionally organising a meeting (if you’ll ’scuse the sarcasm).  This means the worries I’ve heard from some senior staff (and I include people I work with here) that somehow someone will take what I say as the Llaird of all Llamas as the official position of my organisation.

No really?  Is anyone that stupid?  Well outside of politics where anything you say any time seems to be fair game to be twisted and used against you I couldn’t and wouldn’t say that’s true.  I’ve spared online with academics I know, on a friendly but forthright level.  Would I be like this face to face with them in a departmental meeting?  Hell no, because that’s a different environment and calls for a different level of engagement.  In a sense I’m a different identity there.

And for me, as I said wearing different identities is fine.  Work is a role I play just as much as the rest of my life.  But what the social web lets me do is build up what one of my friends would call “my personal brand identity” – that is Llordllama plc if you will; the professional and social entity, the core of my intellectual and emotional being.  It allows me to bear (or weasel) my true self to the world and engage in far more honest debates than those I might have within the confines of the mundane world.

And it’s not quite the same as my work face, it’s not the same identity and so it needs a name all of its own.  Hi I’m llordllama, nice to meet you – mine’s a pint of positrons…

It might have escaped your notice, but in the latest Gazette from CILIP the 2010 subscription fees have been announced and once again they’re on the rise.  Given the lack of inflation we’re currently enjoying in the UK (and with the knock on pay freezes, reductions or token increases) that most of us will be receiving this year, I think that once again we’ll be seeing the annual conniptions and debates over paying the fee or not.

CILIP’s flat rate for anyone earring more than £17.5k in 2009 was £177, and proposed for 2010 £184 (that’s a 4% increase if you’re counting).  By any accounts this is a whacking great big fee.  Many academic professional societies are less than £100, and even the British Computer Society is only at £135 for chartered members (fellows pay a little less than CILIP’s top rate).  In the past CILIP have defended their stonking charges by explaining the member benefits they offer, not to mention the need to maintain their London HQ and core staff.  But given that governmental and other public sector bodies are now moving out of London this argument holds less water than ever.  Capping the fees itself was brought in to keep more top flight librarians (managers and the like) on side, but I’d be hard pressed to day to name more than a handful of heads of service who remain members, and I imagine over time their numbers will dwindle.  After all, SCONUL neatly takes care of their professional body needs and that doesn’t personally cost them anything.

And let’s unpick some of those member benefits.  Most CILIP events (which in themselves are priced on the high side of affordable) take place…in London.  Their new careers workshops and evening drop in sessions take place…in London.  Indeed if you are a librarian in London you’re able to take ready advantage of a vast range of low priced and frequent events.  For those of us lucky enough not to live in the cramped capital, we face the massive UK rail fees and a substantial period out of the office (at least a day) to make even an event lasting a couple of hours.

It seems to me that there is a distinct inequality of membership benefits.  Those of us outside London are in effect subsiding a system that benefits by and large librarians in London far and above the ordinary membership.  What can be done about it?  Well I see three options.

The London  weighting – members in London pay the full fees, those of us who live outside the capital can access less so we should pay less.  However, CILIP might argue that with their perilous financial situation (let’s leave aside the reasons for that here) they can’t take a reduction in payments.  Which brings us to…

Option 2 – the London premium.  Outside the capital we keep paying the large rates, while those in the capital pay a premium for their ease of access to facilities, events and face to face support.  This way CILIP will actually be able to increase their coffers and maybe their services to all.  Otherwise there’s

Option 3 – the way they’re doing it now, where most junior and newly appointed staff are not likely to be able to afford membership.  When I was a fresh faced professional I was on about this kind of wage and given my repayments for my scholastic loans, setting up in a new job and the like barely could make ends meet.  Nearly 200 quid extra paid out for something I could ill afford (and being based in the North of England) could not easily access would have been cut from my budget without a second thought.

Despite all this I think I’ll probably be renewing my membership for one more year, but I expect real change to be demonstrated at CILIP HQ.  When I consider that more and more of my networking and professional development needs are met outside of CILIP, come Spring 2011 unless CILIP has made some real strides to address their spiralling costs, I can see this being the last year I fork out for membership.

Professor Weasel Goes on a Mandate

While I was taking a stroll around the park this lunchtime, and as usual checking up on my twitter feed a post caught my eye.  It was an interchange about the experts database that my institution provides and the question asked was “Why are no librarians on this?”.  I can’t say I was surprised.  While I’ve not tried here, at previous places of employ I have asked to be included on such a resource.  My enquiries have been met with a mixture of outright negativity in some cases, and in others bafflement.  “What”, the database maintainers asked, “Would a librarian have to offer?  These databases are for corporations and the media to track down people of interest!”

It’s dismissive, disinterested and disingenuous attitudes like this that result in a feeling for many librarians that they are simply an add on to an institution.  They’re just as, if not more so in some cases, qualified and experienced as the people they work alongside.  Their work ethic is often second to none, given the increasingly need to show a return on investment placed on them.  In most cases they serve on course and project committees across the institutions and are the life blood of the channels of cross departmental communications.  Quite frankly without them the institutions would find their operations arguably significantly compromised.  But is the sweat of their brow returned with a belief that librarians are at the heart of the research and education support agenda?

No.  So it is perhaps no surprise that this interplay on twitter reminded me of some thoughts I’d been having about loyalty – loyalty that is to one’s employer or organisation.  You chat to many (though not all) academics and what you hear is a fervent belief in the institutions or units that they work within.  They might not see eye-to-eye with every policy decision enacted by the organisation governance, and some policies might rankle but on the whole they speak with great affection and loyalty about their institutional homes.  For librarians in my experience this is not the same experience.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many aspects about the organisations I have worked with over the years that I have enjoyed and even respected on occasion.  I’ve had the opportunity to work with some wonderful students and staff.  But do I feel any loyalty to anywhere I’ve been employed?  No.  Not in the slightest.  What I do is a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.  It might sound a little mercenary, but I guess that’s the only way to respond to the environment within which I work.  It’s work for hire, nothing more.  Pay me and I’ll sell your brand and beliefs far and wide, just don’t expect me to be espousing them when I’m off the clock; I’ve better things to do with my time.

Is loyalty important, since librarians are doing their jobs ok?  Yes it is.  Loyal staff are more likely to work harder, stay in post longer and go that extra mile that they might otherwise feel disinclined to.  Everybody – institution and individuals – benefit from this.

Could institutions do better and are there institutions out there who do clasp librarians and other academic support staff more closely to their bosoms?  I’m sure of it, though I’ve yet to find myself in that happy circumstance.  Perhaps what is lacking is a culture not so much of belief in what librarians do by the other staff, but of understanding and appreciation.  Librarianship is at times an occupation that deals with some terribly monotonous work; but we do it and do it well so that others can be enabled and even enhanced in their own (arguably) more crucial work.

Maybe, just maybe, what might engender a little more loyalty in your library staff is if these academics once in a while just said “Thanks” to their librarians, because I know when someone says that to me – it just makes my day.

In my last post I advocated not rushing head forth into technological change merely for the sake of it.  Let’s flip this on its head and consider the situation which I’m sure many of you are familiar with.  You’re looking to introduce a new change, technology or process into the library world – and let’s say this one really beats every prior milk bottle out there okay!  It’s ready to go, or heck even already rolled out – there’s just one problem.  The holdouts.

We’ve all got them, know them, or heck are them.  In the latter case you have my sympathy, but for the former too well then I feel for you even more.  Whilst I was working full time in open access I spent a lot of time dealing with hold outs in the UK and Europe, and it’s a skill that continues to serve me well to this day.  If you ever attended one of my workshops or training sessions on effective advocacy you know that my twin principles of win are the logical appeal (this will work because it is practical) and the emotive appeal (this will work because it will be good for you).  That’s simplifying it a lot, but it is the essence.

But that’s all well and good when you’re working on bringing a group of people on side.  Groups of people, librarians, academics, customers etc can be largely looked at as being one of five groups. 

1. The early adopters (I think that’s me) – those ready to throw out the milk bottle for the milk cube and embrace the new. 
2. The cautious engagers – those willing to give something new a try, just so long as they don’t have to be at the forefront.  A lot of uni libraries can be like this.
3. The mass in the middle, for whom the new event or technology is relevant but whom won’t be rushing to engage nor disengage with it anytime soon. 
4. The skeptics – they’ve seen it all before and aren’t that impressed.  With a lot of effort they can be flipped over to real engagers, but you really have to be able to push their buttons.
5. And on the far side the hold outs.  Who move for no man (or woman).

In the open access world I’ve been very familiar with this idea of button-holing people roughly into these groups in my heads.  I could spend all the time in the world on my hold-outs, expound the benefits to them and the world of open access and they’d still find some reason to dislike the concept.  My old boss always advocated ignoring them and focussing on the first three groups, using the principles of if the main mass moves most of the rest will follow.

Although there will always be others who just hold out no matter what.

It’s true.  Just look at email. At one place I once worked email was the de facto communication tool.  The university regulations specif iced you HAD to use it and that all official communications would come via it. And yet a certain head of department refused to even have a computer on his desk.  He was a group 5 hold out and then some.

However, leaving aside those in other departments or sections what about those hold outs who we work with on a daily basis.  Those team members we have to bring along during a period of change, or even more tricky our colleagues we work alongside; out peers.  How do we get them to embrace change?  I don’t think it’s viable nor healthy to simply think as my old boss put it ”Forget about them, they’ll find themselves outmoded and replaced”.

In my limited experience, the only way I’ve ever found to bring change to the practically unchangeable hold-outs is to spend more time with them.  Find out their reasoning for disliking a new system or approach.  And then work with them to show them how the new resource can make their working life easier, more enjoyable or rewarding.  it doesn’t always work as some people will remain bloody minded to the end (and I’m thinking of certain members of my family here and less thankfully people I work with).  But at least you can be happy you’ve explored the possibilities and made the effort.

And this effort won’t have gone to waster as all the arguments and considerations you’ve made with your holdout – well just apply them to any other members of staff you’re trying to bring along.  Chances are they’ll be more easily convinced!

It came to me last night in a dream.

Okay, not the greatest of hooklines, but the subject of today’s post very much came to me last night. I was delivering a lecture to a group of bored post-graduate education students on the importance of using technology in their studies and research, but not just any technology – the most appropriate. I talked them through the development of the journal citation indexes from study, to paper, to online resource and then even dipped into the world of online citation, bibliometrics and repository hit counts that are begining to have importance today.

By now you’re saying to yourself “Thankfully my dreams are less dull oh Llaird of Llamas” and you’re probably right.  But what I really remember from this dream was the example of the glass milk bottle (and for some reason carrots, but I think that was a bit of the dream that went off at a tangent!).

Consider the milk bottle.  It’s been around for well over a hundred years.  In form it has subtly changed, gaining a foil top in place of a stopper.   But in function remaining very much the same.  Certainly you might today more commonly pick up a plastic flagon of cow juice from the supermarket, but the glass milk bottle can still be found on many door steps, milk floats and petrol stations.  Why?  Because it’s a design classic, eminently fit for purpose, more readily recyclable (and reusable as an arguably attractive vase) and in terms of technology a most appropriate design.

This was the point I was trying to get across to my illusionary students, and in this post.  In a Web 2.0 world it’s all too easy to try and jump on the band waggon of the most exciting or media savvy bit of new technology.  But we have to remember that just because something is new, doesn’t automatically make it better.  I hear people talking about all kinds of developments they want to see their libraries take on, but rarely do I hear people talking about evaluating what they’ve already got against it.  Newer is better continues to be the mantra for many.

I’m aware in many cases user and public perception can be the driver.  “If we don’t introduce user reviews on the catalogue like amazon, our users will perceive the library to be behind the times.  If we’re behind the times then the Powers That Be will reduce our funding, thus we must do new for the sake of novelty and not efficacy” seems to be the thought process.

So next time you’re in a position to introduce a novel technology, step back for a moment, pause and think of the milk bottle.  Consider.  Reflect.  Heck, run a SWOT analysis on the current situation and see just how many Weaknesses, Opportunities or Threats the new implementation will answer (or indeed create) to your service.  Will the new technology replace something that works, and works well, for the pure sake of novelty and appearance; or will it really offer a superior service.  Try it, and you might just be surprised by how little would be changed by most endeavours.

Now if you’ll excuse me, all this talk of milk has brought on a craving for tea.