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Triaging Technologies

I manage digital services and resources at a small academic library with minimal financial and human resources available. For almost a year, I served as solo librarian for fixing and optimizing the library website, library services platform, electronic resources, workflows, documentation, and other elements of technology management vital to back-end operations and front-end services. Coping with practical limitations and a vast array of responsibilities, I resorted to triage. In triage management, the primary consideration is return on investment (ROI) – how stakeholder benefits measure against time and resources expended to realize those benefits. Condition Black: The technology must be replaced or phased out because it is dysfunctional and impossible to fix. Into this category fell our website, built with the clunky and unusable Microsoft SharePoint; our laptops running Windows XP and too old to upgrade to a more current operating system; and our technology lending service, for which we had no funds to upgrade the dated technologies on offer. Down the…

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Negotiate!

I’m going to say it: Librarians are rarely effective negotiators. Way too often we pay full prices for mediocre resources without demur. Why? First of all, most librarians are introverts and/or peaceable sorts who dislike confrontation. Second, we are unlikely to get bonuses or promotions when we save our organizations money, so there goes most of the extrinsic motivation for driving a hard bargain with vendors. Third and most importantly, we go into the library business because libraries aren’t a business. Most of us deliver government-funded public services, so we have zero profit motive, and our non-business mentality is almost a professional value in itself. But this failure to negotiate weakens our value to the communities we serve. Libraries pay providers over a billion dollars a year for digital services and resources, only to get overpriced subscriptions and comparatively shoddy products. When did you last meet a librarian who loved…

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Tips for Managing Electronic Resources

Last fall, I unexpectedly took on the electronic resources management (ERM) role at my university. Consequently, I had to teach myself–on the fly–how to manage 130+ electronic resources, along with a budget of several hundred thousand dollars. My initial six months focused on finances, licensing, and workflows rather than access, discoverability, or other key issues. So here are some life-saving tips for all you new e-librarians, because I know you didn’t learn this in library school! Let’s start, as always, with the users. Evaluate user needs. Are you new at your job? Then begin by conducting a needs assessments, formal or informal. Check the programs and course offerings to make sure they still align with the e-resources for which you pay. Seek out faculty, colleagues, and students to get a sense of what resources they assign, use, or see used. Pull usage statistics from each database–and be sure to cross-reference this vendor data with…

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Job Opening: LITA Executive Director

The Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association, seeks a dynamic, entrepreneurial, forward-thinking Executive Director. This is a fulfilling and challenging job that affords national impact on library technologists. As the successful candidate, you will be not only organized, financially savvy, and responsive, but also comfortable with technological change, project management, community management, and organizational change. Interested in applying? For a full description and requirements, visit http://bit.ly/LITA_ED Search Timeline We will advertise for the position in April, conduct phone interviews in early May, and conduct in-person interviews with the top candidates at ALA Headquarters in Chicago, mid to late May. Ideally, the candidate would start in June (perhaps just before ALA Annual Conference), and there would be a one-month overlap with current Executive Director Mary Taylor, who retires July 31. Search Committee Mary Ghikas, ALA Senior Associate Executive Director Dan Hoppe, ALA Director of Human Resources Keri Cascio, ALCTS Executive Director…

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Making LibGuides Into Library Websites

Welcome to Part 2 of my two-part series introducing LibGuides CMS for use as a website. Read Part 1 (with comments from Springshare!). This companion piece was released March 27. Why LibGuides? We can design surprisingly good websites with LibGuides 2.0 CMS. WordPress and Drupal are free and open source, but Springshare, the maker of LibGuides, also delivers reliable hosting and support for two grand a year. Moreover, even folks clueless about coding can quickly learn to maintain a LibGuides-based website because (1) the interface is drop-and-drag, fill-in-the-box intuitive, and (2) many academic librarians create research guides as part of their liaison duties and are already familiar with the system. Most importantly, libraries can customize LibGuides-based websites as extensively or minimally as available talent and time permits, without sacrificing visual appeal or usability–or control of the library’s own site. LibGuides-Based Websites There are some great LibGuides-based websites out there. Springshare has compiled exemplars across various library sectors here and here. Below are screenshots showing what you can do. The Albuquerque…

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Librarians: We Open Access

In his February 11 post, my fellow LITA blogger Bryan Brown interrogated the definitions of librarianship. He concluded that librarianship amounts to a “set of shared values and duties to our communities,” nicely summarized in the ALA’s Core Values of Librarianship. These core values are access, confidentiality / privacy, democracy, diversity, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, preservation, the public good, professionalism, service, and social responsibility. But the greatest of these is access, without which we would revert to our roots as monastic scriptoriums and subscription libraries for the literate elite. Bryan experienced some existential angst given that he is a web developer and not a “librarian” in the sense of job title or traditional responsibilities–the ancient triad of collection development, cataloging, and reference. In contrast, I never felt troubled about my job, as my title is e-learning librarian (got that buzzword going for me, which is nice) and as I do a lot of mainstream librarian-esque things, especially camping…

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To Infinity (Well, LibGuides 2.0) And Beyond

Part 1 of my two-part series introducing LibGuides CMS for use as a library website. Also read Part 2: Making LibGuides Into Library Websites (March 27). LibGuides is a content management system distributed by Springshare and used by approximately 4800 libraries worldwide to curate and annotate resources online. Generally librarians use it to compile subject guides, but more and more libraries are also using it to build their websites. In 2014, Springshare went public with a new and improved version called LibGuides 2.0. When my small university library upgraded to LibGuides 2.0, we went the whole hog. After migrating our original LibGuides to version 2, I redid the entire library website using LibGuides, integrating all our content into one unified, flexible content management system (CMS). Today’s post considers my library’s migration to LibGuides 2.0 as well as assessing the product. My next post will look at how we turned a bunch of subject guides into a high-performing website. Decision According to the LibGuides Community…

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Are QR Codes Dead Yet?

Flipping through a recent issue of a tech-centric trade publication that shall not be named, I was startled to see that ads on the inside flap and the back cover both featured big QR codes. Why was I startled? Because techies, including many librarians, have been proclaiming the death of the QR code for years. Yet QR codes cling to life, insinuating themselves even into magazines on information technology. In short, QR codes are not dead. But they probably ought to be. Not everywhere or all at once, no. I did once see this one librarian at this one conference poster session use his smartphone to scan a giant QR code. That was the only time in five years I have ever seen anyone take advantage of a QR code. When reading a print magazine, I just want to roll with the print experience. I don’t want to grab my phone, type the 4-digit passcode, pull up the app, and hold the camera steady. I want to read….

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Free Web Tools for Top-Notch Presentations

Visually appealing and energizing slideshows are the lifeblood of conference presentations. But using animated PowerPoints or zooming Prezis to dizzy audiences delivers little more appeal than packing slides with text on a low-contrast background. Key to winning hearts and minds are visual flair AND minimalism, humor, and innovative use of technology. Memes Delightfully whimsical, memes  are a fantastic ice-breaker and laugh-inducer. My last two library conference presentations used variants of the crowdpleasing “One does not simply…” Boromir meme above, which never fails to generate laughter and praise. Memes.com offers great selections, is free of annoying popup ads, and is less likely than other meme generators to be blocked by your workplace’s Internet filters for being “tasteless.” (Yes, I speak from personal experience…) Keep Calm-o-matic  Do you want your audience to chuckle and identify with you? Everyone who’s ever panicked or worked under a deadline will appreciate the Keep Calm-o-matic. As with memes, variations are almost infinite. Recite This Planning to include…

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Doing Web Accessibility

Physical library spaces are designed to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), hence the wide aisles, low checkout stations, and ramps. In contrast, alt tag awareness is low and web accessibility not a priority for most librarians. Yet for visually or otherwise impaired users, an improperly coded website can be like wandering into a maze and hitting a brick wall of frustration. With accessibility in mind, I’ve been teaching myself to assess and retrofit webpages, aligning my library’s website with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the U.S. Rehabilitation Act’s Section 508, and this WebAIM Infographic aimed at accessible design as well as code. For best practices, these are your first stops. Design for Users Crucially, designing with accessibility in mind makes for websites that are more usable for everyone, not just for disabled users. Questioning trendy design elements can pay off too. Do image-heavy carousels and page-spanning images really enhance UX enough to justify the space they fill and the accessibility problems they may engender?…