Notes from the Printz Awards and Final Thoughts

Hi there, the Printz awards were fantastic. I always enjoy hearing speeches by some great YA authors. Writers, well, know how to write, and rarely give a bad talk. The Printz honor books are Nation by Terry Pratchett, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor the Nation volume 2 The Kingdom of the Waves by M.T. Anderson, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart, and Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. The Printz award went to Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. My favorite speech was that by M.T. Anderson in which he stressed the importance of writing intelligently for young people. He said that the one "taboo" that was not completely accepted by parents was that of intelligence which earned both laughs and murmurs of agreement. Unfortunately, I was sitting pretty far in the back so while I took pictures none of them came out very well. Oh well. It was great to just sit there and absorb what they had to say. I also had Jellicoe Road to read on the plane. (and saw one of my fellow passengers reading it in the waiting area. I asked her, "You weren't just at ALA by any chance?") Right now the speeches are only available on the members only site of ALA/YALSA but I'm sure they'll be available soon.
Other Final Thoughts

• Got to talk with Linda Braun, the incoming president of YALSA and a former professor of mine from Simmons. She's a great library advocate and I was so pleased that she remembered me. (she came up to me). I think she'll make a wonderful president for YALSA. If you ever have a chance to take a workshop with her, I highly recommend it.
• I missed the Bookcart Drill Team competition this year, but apparently NPR did a story on it. There is also a video of the winning team on the NPR site. It's pretty funny. I don't know where the librarians come up with this stuff.
  
• I found out yesterday that Hugh Hefner's daughter and former CEO of Playboy, Christie, spoke at the opening session of the conference. Again, thanks to Library Journal for that. They've been very informative about the goings on at the conference.
• Talked with a library science professor from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro at the Printz awards last night.
• I decided not to attend the Cokie Roberts talk as I figured it would be too crowded. I found out later that there were plenty of seats. Next time, I won't make that mistake.
• Two thoughts about the plane: I had a tag inside my checked luggage that security had selected my bag to open and search. Why does that always happen you come home from a trip and therefore have dirty laundry in your suitcase? Also, have you ever noticed that when flight attendants get on the loudspeaker, they address the passengers as "ladies and gentlemen" but the pilot addresses everyone as "folks" Notice that next time you fly.

The conference was a great experience. I highly encourage you all to go to a national conference if you have the chance. It can get pricey but it's worth it. Next year ALA is in Washington DC so it's not too far. Also, ALA Midwinter is coming to Boston in January. While the meetings are designed for ALA Committee members, look into getting a pass for the exhibit hall. If you work with a vendor you may even be able to get one from them.

Someday my Printz Will Come

Some thoughts while waiting to go out to attend the Printz awards. (The Printz award is the medal given annually to the most outstanding Young Adult book the previous year. The winner is announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting)

• Saw a college friend of mine who's a college librarian receive an award yesterday. It's for a project involved digitizing posters from World War II.
• Went to the ALA store, today. Bought some READ baseball hats for some friends' kids, as well as a coffee mug that had the Dewey Decimal numbers for Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows. I also bought a pack of READ Wonder Woman bookmarks for a friend of mine.
• Ran into Sunny from Metrowest, as well as Maureen, the YS Consultant from CMRLS.
  
• Did a few touristy things. Last night I had dinner near Wrigleyville and walked by Wrigley Field. A game was going on so there was quite a crowd. We took our picture near the Harry Cary statue. I also went to the Sears Tower with a fellow librarian from Woburn. (It's now called the Willis Tower, but no-one calls it that). We were in line for a long time but it was worth it. I also stood on the glass botton ledge which was cool but not as frightening as I was afraid it was going to be.
• My dinner last night was with a librarian friend from Malden as well as some of her friends, including a music librarian from NYU and a librarian from the Brooklyn Public Library. They're all very involved in ALA, so it was interesting to hear about the history of the organization from those who've been there. I also always enjoy hearing about other librarians' jobs.

It's Not the Internet: It's a Window on the World (Digital Divide for Seniors)

This is a topic that was true to my heart as I feel very strongly that the digital divide is expanding. I remember a few years ago when Medicare Plan D came into being and seniors were told that all of the information was online. It was hard to help these patrons effectively.
This talk consisted of a librarian from the Evanston, Illinois, Lesley Williams as well as two employees from a product called Generations Online, an online training program for seniors. The price for libraries to partake in this program is $350 lifetime and includes opportunities for seniors to get e-mail addresses. The product is non-profit, although those who use it can only check their e-mail accounts at locations that subscribe to the service.
Evanston, Illinois has mixed income and education levels and there was definitely a digital divide. Classes for seniors at the library include mouse training, e-mail, introduction to the Internet, and practice drop ins on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. The drop ins are designed for former class members to get one on one help on the computers, so that they don't take up spots in the class from new members. Lesley was able to recruit volunteers to help with these sessions by placing ads on free volunteer matching services. She also touted an online mouse tutorial for the mouse class from the Palm Beach County Library which she said was excellent.

Illuminating New Instruction Research

This workshop consisted of a librarian from a community college librarian, a four year college library, and a library science professor debating the merits of various studies regarding libraries. They were framed in a hypothetical situation in which a student from the community college was transferring to the four year college.
I was especially interested in the discussion regarding the article "Latino Students and the Library: A case study" (Haras, Lopez, and Ferry). The practical implications of the article, according to the workshop, were as follows, "Findings provide documentation to support the importance of teaching information literacy and the research process throughout K-12, the value of middle school and high school teachers and librarians collaborating to prepare students for research expected in college, and the need for both high school and college libraries to better articulate information literacy curricula, especially with language-minority of Latino students."
While the point of this workshop was to debate the merits of the research (The library science professor, for example, wondered if the survey was included with the article and also mentioned that information literacy and using the library are not necessarily the same), I really did like the discussion regarding the body of the article. I would like to know more about this as I believe the public library can also play a role in this, especially in Waltham.

Reference Research Forum

This was a panel of three different groups who conducted research regarding work at reference desks. I really enjoyed this panel a lot and made me wish that research was more of a commonality at public libraries.

• What WOREP Results Say about Reference Service, Patron Satisfaction, and Success, Julie Gedeon and Carolyn Radcliff from Kent State University
  

(WOREP, by the way, stands for Wisconsin Ohio Reference Evaluation Program. According to the WOREP website :

"WOREP is designed to assess the outcome of the reference transaction and to identify factors related to success or lack of success. Its key features are:

demonstrates validity--items actually measure what is indicated;
demonstrates reliability--it is possible to replicate results;
uses the natural reference center setting;
includes sufficient factors to suggest cause and effect relationships;
provides for comparability of data." (c. 2009, retrieved July 12, 2009)
What the study at Kent State showed was the level of success based on reference transactions at its library from 1984-1996 and then from 2000-2008, in other words pre-Internet reserach versus the age of high Internet use. Their results did, in fact, demonstrate a change over time. For instance, staff and patrons work together more often, now when conducting a reference transaction. The staff appears to be less busy to the patrons (interesting!), however the time spent with each patron has increased. (interesting!) The staff rated the questions the same during the two time periods, though, in other words from easy to medium. worep.library.kent.edu

• Measuring the Effectiveness of Online Tutorials (Cindy Craig from Wichita State and Curt G. Friehs from the Kansas City Public Library). This study researched whether or not library patrons (or students in the case of the study) learned better from written online tutorials or from streaming video tutorials about online datbases. The tutorials were created by librarians and were more effective than tutorials created by the database companies. The first study reviewed results after teaching 140 finance students how to use the ValueLine database. The second study surveyed biology students upon using a biology database. The students in the biology study were given a feedback form and a quiz upon completing the online tutorial. The students who used the video tutorial scored higher on the quiz questions.

• Teachable Instants in Instant Message Reference: Taking the Opportunity or Taking a Pass. (Megan Oakleaf from Syracuse University and Amy VanScoy from North Carolina State University) This study measured whether or not librarians who used instant messaging reference used the tool as an opportunity to teach patrons about library tools. Those that did were "taking the opportunity" those that didn't were "taking a pass". They surveyed 1500 IM transcripts from one academic year and used eight major coding categories. They determined tha 40% of librarians "took a pass" and found information without using the opportunity as a teachable moment. Some of the suggestions the two had for teaching during IM reference was to think aloud (important to know to share failures), show don't tell (show images for conducting the search), chunk it up (divide transaction into chunks of time), letting patrons make the decisions. The two speakers concluded with the phrase, "If the reference service mission is aligned with institutional mission (in the case of an academic library) of teaching and learning then reference transactions are instructional." And this applies to Instant Messaging.

I found these studies very interesting and how they could be relevant to us, especially the last study, since we would like to use IM reference at some point. I wish more research would be done regarding public libraries and was encouraged at that level. I was glad to see that a public librarian had participated in one of the studies. I will definitely attend the research forum the next time I attend ALA.

Inspring Young Citizens: The Library as a Forum for Engagement

I was interested in this topic because I believe, strongly that the library's function as a community center requires it to be a place of civic engagement. I liked the idea of using the library to encourage young people to become more actively minded.
The panel consisted of three authors, Anne Sibley O'Brien, Phillip Hoose, and Lita Judge, as well Kelley McDaniel, a school librarian from Maine, and Kirsten Cappy, a children's literature advocate also from Maine. Each author wrote about activism in some sort of form, and all were engaged in citizenship projects related to the books. In the case of O'Brien and Hoose, McDaniel and Cappy were involved.
Lita Judge wrote Pennies for Elephants (true story of children who raised money to get elephants for the Franklin Park Zoo in 1914) and One Thousand Tracings (the true story of her grandmother who sent food, clothing, etc. to European families after World War II). Projects included getting children to have penny drives to support a cause in which they support, writing letters to local newspaper to explain the cause, and to become interested in the news.
Phillip Hoose wrote two books about young activism, including It's Our World, Too: Young People Who are Making a Difference and Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice (the true story of a 15 year old African American girl in Montgomery, Alabama who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger almost a year before Rosa Parks did the same. She later helped take the case to the Supreme Court as a plaintiff in Browder vs. Gayle). The citizenship project for the book on Claudette Colvin included students at Kelley McDaniel's school creating "ads" for a city bus in Portland, Maine telling Colvin's story. This took much effort by Kirsten Cappy who enlisted the help of the NAACP, the Maine College of Art, as well as the local bus service. The students created ad size posters for the entire bus which came to the school and which was viewed by Claudette Colvin herself. The pictures were amazing!
Anne Sibley O'Brien wrote, along with her son, After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance. Her son, Perry, had no experience writing for young people and so wanted to know the audience. Anne and Perry met with some students from Kelley's library who called themselves Gandhi Publishing and gave input on the book, including helping to come up with another individual to be named based on their own research.
In addition, Kelley also has started an intergenerational study group based on concepts in Rushworth Kidder's Moral Courage in which students and adults mentor one another and read, among other titles, After Gandhi.
In order to create engagement in the library, Kelley recommended the following guidelines:

• Be informed.
• Be inspired
• Seek out new ideas
• "Develop a bias for 'yes"'

Recommende website: civilrightsteaching.org

Library Journal article

I've been reading about the ALA conference on the Library Journal website. It's interesting to read about the conference live from another perspective. Apparently, there have been a couple of controversies, as well.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670396.html?industryid=49047
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670397.html?nid=3604

Odds and Ends on Saturday

• Just spent a wonderful evening with two friends of mine who live about an hour away. We hung out in Millenium Park and watched the fountains. They also pointed out to me the many aspects of the Chicago Tribune building. There are several pieces of artifacts from all over the world on the facade of the building, including a brick from Yale University, a rock from Yellowstone, a piece from the House of Commons, a piece of the Taj Mahal (hidden by tents for an art festival), a piece from the Petrified Forest, and the Great Pyramid.
• I had lunch today with our Ingram rep., Cathy along with some other librarians from Massachusetts, including a Somerville librarian, the director of the Ipswich Library, and the directors of CLAMS and CWMars (two library networks). We all had talks about the differences between our places of work.
• I met a librarian from the Cleveland Public Library, today. She's a branch manager (and from my mother's hometown I later found out!). She and her staff don't have any off desk time. We talked a lot about what we do, and she really seemed to enjoy her library. I liked talking with her very much.
• My hotel room was still not made up when I returned at 5:15 which I thought was odd (and not relevant to anything). In better news, the Red Sox are now two games ahead of the Yankees.
  

Exhibit Hall

Here are the highlights from today's trip to the exhibit hall. I went with a friend of mine who is an academic librarian.

• Met Lauren Myracle, the author of the very popular TTYL series. She signed her latest book, Love Ya Bunches. She was perfectly charming and seemed very nice. She was excited to hear that her series was so popular at our library. She also gave out a a silk rose to everyone.
• Stopped at the Morningstar booth. We just finished a trial for their online product which I liked.
• Picked up a few catalogs from the Baker and Taylor booth.
• I had a long talk with the representative from LibGuides. It provides a great way of providing resource guides for patrons. I've seen it on several academic libraries' websites and also heard about it in action at MLA. Public libraries do use it and I was shown an example from New Jersey. I really like the idea of them but would take a bit of work to implement. Something to think very strongly about, though.
• Talked with a woman from a company that digitizes collections.
• Picked up a brochure from Tutor.com. I'll stop by there tomorrow for more information. Kate and I had a demonstration from them a small while ago.
• Picked up a brochure from the ALA Office for Research and Statistics, regarding "Serving Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries". Most of the details can be found in the office's 2007 report regarding library demographics.
• Stopped by the Diversity and Outreach Fair which highlighed libraries' programs for underserved populations. Tables I stopped at included the Birmingham Public Library highlighting its adult literacy program; Multnomah County Library in Portland Oregon highlighting its adult reading programs for speakers of other languages, and the Greensboro Public Library for its poetry program for seniors.
  

Effective Safety and Security Practices in Today's Public Library

Despite my joking about missing the program on baseball, I found this program to be excellent and am very glad I didn't miss it. Safety is a concern in all public places, including the library and the panelists offered great tips and anecdotes regarding safety in the library. This is obviously a topic that hit close to home as it was extremely packed. (Audience members were sitting on the floor) Panelists included Bryan Oliver, a former police officer and FBI Agent who now works as the manager of safety and security at a public library; Karen Danczak-Lyons, deputy commissioner at the Chicago Public Library; and Andrew Sanderbeck who runs the People Connect Institute and consults public libraries. Another panelist was unable to come, but she was going to speak about her experience in which she was held at gunpoint while leaving her job at the library and forced to drive two patrons around before the police caught up to them. This was a sobering way to start this session, I agree, however it also got the point across that we need to be more aware of the need for security practices at the library.
Here are the highlights from the session (I also have some handouts)

Bryan Oliver

• He highlighted the types of problem behavior, such as loitering, sleeping in the library, talking/socializing, verbal altercations, and physical altercations

• Staff often has to work alone, which heightens the risk. This is a risk even in small libraries where the public service desks are close to one another.
• Public service obligations versus dealing with some of the problem behavior. However, it's also good public service for the patrons who are not causing a disturbance to deal with the problem at hand.
• Don't judge patrons based on appearance.
• Libraries should have a code of conduct. If a library already has one, be sure to review it. Make sure it's not too specific.
• General guidelines when dealing with this situation include remaining calm, don't lower yourself to their level, don't debate with the patron, don't fight with the patron (in fact, let those who are trained to fight do that, such as the police or your library security guard, don't let patron follow you into a dead end stack.
• Remember the acronym R.A.C.E. R (recognize as in recognize the signs of danger); A (Alert the staff, security, and/or law enforcement. Ways to do this can be by using voice, pulling the closest fire alarm, calling 911 (don't wait for a higher up if you feel the situation calls for it), public address system; C (cover and conceal yourself from danger); E (escape).
• Solutions include hiring library security, prominently display staff IDs; staff training; and creating phrases.

Karen Danczak-Lyons

• The Chicago Public Library has 79 branches and they strive to train the staff as much as possible. The staff practices fire drills and evacuations on a routine basis. The staff's goals include providing a safer environment as well as better lighting. Security cameras have also been installed, recently.
• The library hires security guards from a private firm who are unarmed.
  
• Supervision is key and security is a team effort. If a staff member notices something bad is happening, he/she is encouraged to call the police.
• The Chicago Police teach an Internet safety class to the staff and public.
• Staff should be aware and make eye contact with patrons. Have visible control of surroundings.
• Encourage staff to use a code phrase which translates into, "Call the police!"
• Trust gut instinct.
• When the library has problems with younger patrons such as children and young adults, the library will occasionally involve the schools and the parents.
  
• Ms. Lyons shared some incident reports from her library and asked the audience for suggestions on how to deal with them.
• Incident #1: Man had his shirt off and was holding onto his pants yelling, "There's a snake in my pants" and proceeded to remove his pants.
• Incident #2: A reference librarian had her hand licked by a patron who said he wanted to be her dog and bite her.
• Incident #3: Patron had issue when librarians said a certain phrase because it triggered a bacteria in his brain.

Andrew Sanderbeck

• Violence in the workplace is increasing. We don't know who we get on an everyday basis.
• The Virginia Beach Library created a code of conduct policy and guidelines for the staff on behavior policy.
• Stay in control. Remember E + R = O (E events, look at it intellectually, R response, we are creatures of reaction, O outcome.) Anger causes physical change, nobody wins a power struggle.

A lot to think about.
Read here for the PLA blogger's take on this program.

Waiting for Program

Hello there, I'm at the McCormick Place West Conference Center in Chicago waiting for the start of "Effective Safety and Security Practices in Today's Public Library". To illustrate that I have professional priorities, I am attending this instead of "Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience". That's a program on baseball. I want you all to remember that. In all seriousness, that program does sound very interesting. It highlights several authors on the African-American baseball experience, including Jackie Robinson's daughter, Sharon. It also highlights a traveling exhibit on the history of African-Americans in baseball, including the Negro Leagues, the integration of major league baseball and their roles today. (Does our library want to be a stop on the tour?) There is a large display in the lobby which I took pictures of and did not do justice. And standing near me while I was taking pictures was none other than Sharon Robinson herself. I admit I got a tear in my eye. This woman's father was a hero to so many and here she was standing so close to me and the shy part of me came out and said nothing.
I just helped a very nice librarian with an issue on her laptop. It took a bit and we were both stumped but doing some searches on google helped to solve her problem. And we didn't even have to call our computer librarian!
In other news, I saw two men dressed up as the Blues Brothers walk by me in the hallway. (This is in Chicago). I'm curious what that was about, but a security guard gave them a funny look and started following them so apparently they're not part of the decor, here. I wonder if they're ALA attendees. If so, those seem like fun librarians.

More Blogs to Read

By the way, I am completely disoriented as to what city this is. For some reason, I have it ingrained in my head that I'm in Washington DC. I'm guessing that this is because a) the last ALA Conference I attended was in DC b) I was just in DC a few weeks ago and c) The Special Libraries Association, of which I'm a member, just had their annual conference in DC and I've been reading about it. Plus, there are a lot of Obama souvenirs, here, since he was a senator from Illinois and of course there were many in Washington. I think I've finally figured out that I am in fact, in Chicago.
Anyway, here are more blogs from ALA to peruse if you get bored with our library's staff conference blog:
Public Library Association Blog
Library and Information Technology Association Blog
There is also a conference wiki.
Off to enjoy the day, and so glad to see that the Red Sox are back in first place and the Yankees are in second. All is right with the world.

Greetings from Chicago

Congratulations to Jonathan Sanchez of the San Francisco Giants for just throwing a no-hitter!
Greetings from the Windy City, where it rained a good part of the day. I understand that it's lovely in Boston which goes to show that apparently I or anyone who flew into Chicago from Boston today has taken the bad weather with us. I flew in this morning on a very early morning flight in order to make the most out of the day. There were a few librarians I recognized on my flight (including a fellow Minuteman librarian), and a friend of mine originally on my flight got bumped to a later flight. Ah, the joys of flying. My shuttle from the airport was full of librarians, which was exciting. One of the librarians is an adult services librarian from North Carolina. Her library has summer reading programs for adults, teens, and children, and their kickoff party was attended by 4500 people! They also have several computers throughout the building, including fifteen that are exclusively for young adults. (10 desktops and 5 laptops). Another librarian on the shuttle bus works at the Department of Defense, which was interesting contrast to all of the public librarians riding. I enjoyed talking with her and hearing about her job, as well as the different professional associations of which she's a member.
Like any good former YA and children's librarian, I visited the Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry. I really enjoyed it, although the souvenirs were a little pricey for my liking. I also saw a little of Millennium Park and drove by Soldier Field (home of the Chicago Bears).
I spent the day with my conference roommate, a friend of mine who is a PhD Student in Illinois, and a former co-worker of mine from a different library. We also hung out a bit with one of my baseball fan librarian friends, who used to work for Morningstar but now runs her own Research Business and works as a reference librarian at a public library. I enjoyed listening to some of the work her clients ask of her, as well as exchanging stories and annecdotes from the public library. Her library also runs an adult summer reading program and this year's theme is books made into movies.
I'm getting tired. The early flight and the one hour time difference is finally getting to me. Tomorrow the fun begins.

Library of Congress

Before I start posting from my adventures at ALA, I just wanted to write quickly about my first trip to the Library of Congress when visiting Washington DC with my community band a few weeks ago. Did you know that anyone can get a reader card to the Library of Congress, that there is a copy of the Gutenberg bible, and some Stradivarious violins, as well as Thomas Jefferson's original library? Enjoy some of the pictures from the visit. (P.S. As you can see, I'm not the only librarian in the group! The picture in the cemetery is the grave of a historical researcher who simply wrote "Look it Up" on her tombstone)