Public Library Work - Thoughts?

          I start working tomorrow at a Public Library (details and writing will come in the future); I am making a transition from technical services to patron services. This will involve fewer interactions with varied software (just used in a different way) and increased interactions with people.

          I am curious what people really think about their respective public library jobs? This question is not meant to cover ALL the experiences nor thoughts people have, nor every task that is part of daily needs at each person's respective branch.

          One dire facet of contemporary life in public libraries has been the way budget cuts and the economy in the late 2000s has affected services, hours of operation and libraries' ability to acquire new materials across formats. My job in part has come about, I believe, because of the library system's ability to expand hours and thus increase the number of staff possible -  an event for which I am rather grateful. So, I am interested in answers to my query that reflect the changing state of your respective public libraries and what you think about your jobs relative to the affects of the economic struggles of late. These changes I know alter who is in charge, what can be offered and other factors. And sometimes these changes can be positive.

          Anyway, please do say what you think. You can reply here or @ Twitter.

          Thank you.

Aboutness and Data-about-Data

     In another post, the idea was brought up that there is a disconnect between information that humans make, produce or understand (think) and information (data) that computers are structured to use as they communicate with other parts of the machine (or between machines). This might have as much to do with tagging posts in a blog, adding labels to items posted publication platforms such as Google's Blogger or writing descriptions while cataloging items in Millennium or Ex Libris Voyager. These last two software options are interacted with via a library's search catalog in their OPAC or publicly available URL. The previous interfaces are different.

     There are some similarities between each of these. But basically, the similarities revolve around code built into the systems because these are assumed to be how knowledge is categorized. The above article highlighted as "tagging" suggests platforms such as Wordpress  have categories and tags. The blend of these features create a general "box" for the knowledge in said post while the tags allow for a little nuance added that supposedly helps "aboutness" to be more clear for readers. The fact of this knowledge organization structure is assumed with the use of the technology and there is no more available to the user of the technology at any give time except for what the designers have assumed as more correct (or justified) at the time. Every piece of machinery has this arrangement, but the ubiquitous quality of these technologies' use currently means that these set modes of knowledge organization are hoisted upon more and more people.

     

    






     Millennium and Ex Libris Voyager have their own set of built-in assumptions about knowledge organization and own ways of applying metadata to items - in this case surrogate records for items that are not the record itself. The distinction between the post and the surrogate record means that even though there are still many machine-specific assumptions in every technology mentioned thus far, the surrogate is STILL a very different interaction because it is not necessarily read for its own sake in most cases. Both of these technologies have certain set fields within their interfaces that cannot be changed - even if they can be fine-tuned to a much far greater degree than any of the web-publishing technologies mentioned above. 

     Today, however, I was in a conversation with a polyglot cataloger of serials in many languages (currently working with a collection of items from Harry Houdini's library donated to special collections) with the Library of Congress. The conversation was specifically on data-about-data (metadata) and the ways in which technologies do and do not accomplish certain jobs which they could accomplish if certain arrangements were different. She told us that even with the code-style used with cataloging (MARC - Machine-Readable Cataloging), all the detailed set of rules for each field and sub-field (including the formatting of those sub-fields) and all the facets of information able to be added to the surrogate record made in the cataloging module, the technology is still quite limited. By this she meant at least one important point - that even though there are so many methods within this technology to describe artifacts, the human mind understands and is frustrated by the singular method offered to accomplish the cataloger's goals.

     The same conversation included a man, also from the Library of Congress, but from the Preservation Directorate - Re-formatting Division, who has written on the modes of expression possible in describing any given work that are not used due to who has already decided what kinds of information counts as data. There are a great number of factors in these decisions, but much of them have to do with socio-economics. These decisions do not revolve around issues about people or writing. Rather, they are also tied to "truths" about physical and mathematical sciences from positions of power. For a good read on this topic, I heartily recommend "Cataloging Theory in Search of Graph Theory and Other Ivory Towers," a paper that has this post's topic as one facet. The paper is available in a pre-print format from American Library Association here. And again, both of these library minded people recognize that even though computers and IT-minded groups/companies have done a lot in the world, they may not have set the world up for a multitude of knowledge organization structures even though most technologies in use today are capable of so much more than what is being taken advantage of at the present time.  Machines do certain things really well. But they only do what they do. Humans do the rest (and built those machines).

Thank you.

As always, dialogue is welcome here or @ Twitter.
    

Thomas Jefferson's Green Library

     Fairfax County Public Library system has built a useful, award-winning Eco-friendly library in the Arlington Blvd. Thomas Jefferson neighborhood branch.  It features red bricks on three sides and a wall of open glass on the Rt. 50 side - facing the main road and service street.

     I have three pictures snapped and collected @ Twitter - collocated under the hashtag: #jltaglichtjfcpl - of the external. Future potential for internal images. I simply want to quickly describe the building's design features - attributes which are new in ideology and yet traditional in design thinking in library buildings. The first of these is the ease of access to the reference desk. It sits in the very middle of the floor where it acts simultaneously as point-of-service and Panopticon over the stacks and nearby computer terminals.

     The green-friendly wall of glass on the northern wall allows so much natural light in. I have written in the letting in of natural light to libraries before. This simple solution saves money on lighting (energy use itself is also theoretically reduced). But it also changes the texture of the light from fluorescent to something altogether different. Of course, it's not as if light has not always played in a part in library design. Traditionally, light has been a part of libraries as representative of the light of knowledge and truth. But in this building's case, much of the used and useful light comes from outside the library. I might suggest the "truth" here is that one form of truth (s) is dependent on other types of truth (s).

     This branch is not the biggest in the Fairfax County Public Library system, but it certainly is nearly the newest. It's emphasis on open space, light and green-compatibility marks it as representative of current thinking in architecture and use-design. These features are not, however, the building's only interesting elements.  It also features rent-able rooms and shelves for free community-oriented reading outside of the view of the stacks and the reference desk. I find this quite interesting because even though many libraries have rooms for community events set aside in his square footage, this building seems to turn locate the community stuff connected via the entrance of the building (all connected through the foyer) and yet NOT the stacks themselves. There could surely be more written more on this topic of design and the peoples' use.

     Hmmm, as a library user of some regularity, I heartily recommend getting or renewing your Fairfax County Library Card and becoming a regular patron of this branch if it's convenient. If not, at least take a visit (maybe via bicycle since it has access by a service road and has racks for many bikes by the front door) and see what you think.

     As always, dialogue is welcome.

     Thank you.