Musings of an Academic Librarian

Some of the jobs I have applied for: Liaison librarian/subject librarian, assistant librarian (law library), junior research specialist (special library), media librarian, customer services librarian, library assistant (law firm), law librarian, library training specialist, research publications officer, subscriptions librarian, information services librarian, assistant librarian (learning support services), librarian (sole charge), resources and access assistant, librarian (public library) Jobs I've thought about applying for: Team leader (campus library), resources librarian, secondary school librarian The job I got most excited about was subject librarian for Classics at the University of Auckland.  I have a BA in Classics and I have always had an interest in the subject.  It was a one year secondment and I even knew the guy who had the job from my TELSIG group.  I wrote a very good, passionate cover letter but I did not get an interview.  Why the hell n...

A job interview I had a few months ago that went terribly badly was for a very junior internal position that I really only applied for because some of my colleagues had encouraged me to go for it.  It got off to a bad start with the first question: why do you think you're the best person for this role?  That threw me - how could I honestly say I was the best person?  What I wanted to be asked was: why are you interested in this role?   Then I was asked to describe when I had used a technology at work.  This threw me as well - it was such a basic question.  Where would I even begin?  Here I am writing about technology in a blog!  Further very simple questions followed which I stumbled over as I was not expecting them.  I had expected a more relaxed, conversational style interview about the job and why I wanted it.  But it became clear that the interviewers were pretending that they did not know me, that I had not worked in the libr...

I've been really enjoying using my Kindle, especially when I go on holiday since it's a lot more convenient than taking a bundle of paperbacks with me.  I think its best feature is its built in LED's to illuminate the screen (it is not backlit).  Here is an explanation of how it works.  The illumination is adjustable and it is handy for reading in low light.  Also the battery life is very good and it is easier to hold than a book.  All in all the reading experience is excellent. Will I buy any more print books?  Yes I will, but I buy mostly kindle books these days.  Do I feel a little guilty about this - supporting a corporate giant like amazon rather than local bookshops?  Yes but the technology is so good now and it's so convenient to purchase books with the WiFi.  Also amazon has such a huge range of titles and they are cheaper than buying print.

Two librarians who have been inspiring me lately are Justin Hoenke and Ned Potter .  I have been reading their blogs and watching their keynotes at LIANZA's Shout 15.  What impresses me about them is how free they are.  They know who they are and what they want.  They aren't afraid to express themselves and they believe they have something to offer the world.  And they are both confident public speakers - something I would like to become.  It all makes me feel like I have some catching up to do, being a few years older than them but a long way behind with my personal and professional development.

Since I finished my last liaison librarian secondment in September 2013 I have been looking for jobs.  I have applied for nearly 40 jobs and had 14 job interviews.  I have applied for many subject librarian roles and also for jobs in corporate and specialist libraries.  There have been many other jobs that I could have applied for too.  It has been a nerve wracking, time consuming, frustrating and disappointing process.  I am still not there, but I am getting there (thanks to the help and support of colleagues, friends and a professional).  I am now clearer about what I want.  Here is what I want: I want to be challenged I want to work with people I want to do different things I want to develop lots of skills, e.g. people skills, collection management, IT, public speaking, teaching I want to do presentations I want to try managing people I want to find out what my values are I want to earn more money In short, I want a career.  I want ...

At the moment I'm getting used to Sierra, and it's a far superior system to Voyager in lots of different ways.  For example I like how you have to close a patron's record after issuing something before you can print the slip - this ensures their record isn't left open.  One thing I am missing however is the library catalogue.  I know it's now quite obsolete but it was handy when you wanted to look up a specific book title.  With Encore, our new discovery layer, you have to do an advanced search which is not nearly as precise as the old catalogue search.  Take for example a title search for "Ethics: the heart of healthcare."  The first result is "Ethics priorities..." which is a journal article and the item in question is further down the results page.  Why is it not bringing back only the title searched for I wonder?  Another example is searching for a journal - with the catalogue you could do a journal search.  With Encore you have to do a t...

Are subject terms still of any use to anyone when they are searching online resources?  I know that controlled vocabulary like MESH have their place but I have found the subject terms in a discovery layer like Summon quite useless.  Let's say you are searching for resources on attachment theory.   If you run this search in Summon the subject terms it provides are so broad they are useless, e.g. article, psychology, social sciences, electronic books, education, studies, teaching, research.  Some of them, e.g. article , are not even what you could call subject terms.  The other problem is you cannot "explode" these terms to find sub topics.  So there is no use in using them to refine your search - there are far better ways of doing this like using Boolean's. Subject terms in other databases can be more useful.  Let's look at ABI/INFORM as an example.  I ran the same search again and had a look at the subject terms offered.  While non of them ...

Friendly and helpful with patrons Communication skills: very articulate, excellent writer Good reference interview skills Team player - enjoy a bit of humour, support my team mates well, flexible Knowledgeable, e.g. bibliometrics, document supply, digital libraries, scholarly publishing, collection management, APA 6th, Boolean search, Google Scholar, EndNote, ILS Committed to my professional and personal development Use my initiative Inquiring mind - I read a lot and I like to learn from my more experienced colleagues

The scenario An OT student comes to the desk and says she can't find enough relevant articles on her topic.  She's searched several databases already.  She shows me her search terms: "sensory modulation" AND anxiety. Ideas on how to respond What does sensory modulation mean?  Google it to get a quick understanding or ask the student.  Ask the student if they have used any other synonyms in their search. Go to Ebsco Health Databases (covers CINAHL and MEDLINE). Do the student's search "sensory modulation" AND anxiety or just "sensory modulation." Have a look for key terms in the results for synonyms like "sensation disorders," "affective disorders," "sensory over-responsivity." Re-run the search adding in the synonyms you've found, e.g. "sensory disorders" OR "sensory modulation" AND anxiety. This gives 339 results, far more than the original search. P.S. You could leave ...

PROS: PDA model is cost efficient for the library as opposed to the old model of purchasing monographs in print for "just in case." PDA model makes many more titles available to the patron as opposed to a print-only library collection.  Ordering an eBook from acquisitions is far quicker than ordering a print book. Take up no shelf space, a big plus when shelf space is scarce. Cannot be lost, damaged or stolen - this is a big cost to the library. Patrons can have instant access to the book, especially helpful for distance students. CONS: Cannot interloan eBooks (except chapters if they can be downloaded as a PDF). Patrons often prefer print books - using print has obvious advantages, e.g. don't need to read off a computer screen, easy to photocopy chapters. DRM restrictions on printing a chapter, sharing the book, etc. Licensing restrictions, e.g. only 3 day loan, single user access. Library doesn't own the book, it only has access to it - this raises i...

PROS: Provides citations in APA for each record and exports to EndNote. Provides full text links to articles in journals/databases that user's library subscribes to. Indexes grey literature and open source documents not always found in subscription based academic databases. Not only shows "cited by" for articles in GS but also provides link to citing articles in Web of Science. CONS Sometimes makes parsing errors, e.g. confuses author name with article title. Indexes material that is not considered scholarly, e.g. PPT presentations. Limited advance search options, e.g. cannot do an author search by affiliation. Cannot refine results by subject headings, document type, affiliation, etc. Cannot click on an author in a record to see what else they have written (the exception is when an author has set up a profile in My Citations). Is not very transparent, e.g. how it defines what it considers “scholarly,” what journals/databases are crawled and what metadat...

It seems to me that every library feels like they need to jump on the social media bandwagon.  I wonder though how effective social media is at connecting libraries with patrons and of course marketing the library and all the other wonderful things it is supposed to do for an organization? My library has a twitter account but it has a mere 212 followers and a lot of them are not students.  The library Facebook page only has a few hundred "likes" and "visits."  We have an Instagram account and this currently has 386 followers.  Then there's our YouTube channel.  What are we really trying to achieve here?  Compare the popularity of our social media channels with that of our online subject guides.  For example our subject guide for APA referencing has had 196,720 views so far this year and the law guide 19,749 views.  I know that having a social media presence can be really useful at times.  One example is when there is an IT outage and stud...

My partner tells me how stressful it can be working at a bank and what a competitive world banking is.  She works in business banking and looks after small business owners.  Some of her clients' businesses are doing well, others not so well and they have to resort to laying off staff. It made me realize what a cushy, sheltered world it is working at a university library.  None of us are ever in danger of being made redundant (although my manager was restructured a few years ago).  We don't need to reach targets of any kind.  We don't need to make a profit, in fact we are a loss making enterprise considering all the books that are stolen, never returned or damaged.  We receive money from fines but I'm told the university receives it, not the library. The library gets its share of the university's budget which comes from student fees and money from the government.  I don't know what the library's budget is but last year our total expenditure was $16,...

I need to stop calling it the OPAC - it's an anachronism according to Roy Tennant.   I'll call it the catalogue from now on. Why is there an option to see the MARC view of each item record?  Who's gonna ever look at that? Why doesn't the catalogue provide APA citations for items like Search (Summon) does? The link to Google Books on each item record is a useful feature, so is the "browse this shelf" feature. How useful are subject headings?  Does anyone ever use them?  I rarely do. Couldn't the interface be a little more user-friendly and interactive (e.g. patrons can rate books) like Amazon's homepage?

Most academic databases, catalogues and search engines offer Boolean search, i.e. AND, OR, NOT.  However  I have found that the Boolean operator AND has become mostly redundant as most databases automatically put AND between search terms in the same search field.  Google Search and Scholar have always done this.  Other resources that also do it include Summon Discovery Service, Web of Science, Scopus, Te Puna Search, WorldCat, Index New Zealand, and NZResearch.org

Usually when I am showing a student how to cite something in APA 6th I look the article up in Summon (our discovery layer) and use the RefWorks tool to format it to APA.  I then of course tell them to check the reference for errors.  Today I was on Twitter and someone was suggesting using Google Scholar to cite sources instead.  How does GS compare to Summon as a citation tool I wondered? I used the article Obesity epidemic hits New Zealand as an example.  GS cites it like this:  Kent, H. (2003). Obesity epidemic hits New Zealand. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 169(7), 702-702.   Summon cites it like this:   Heather Kent. (2003). Obesity epidemic hits new zealand. Canadian Medical Association. Journal, 169(7), 702-702.  Both citations have left out the DOI but the GS citation has less errors in it. I tried another example: The neurobiology of attachment.  GS cites it like this: Insel, T. R., & Young, L. J. (2001). The neurob...

Anyone who is familiar with Google Scholar (GS) will know that it often provides higher citation counts of articles than Scopus (or other citation databases such as Web of Science).  There are many reasons for this, such as including citations that may not be considered scholarly such as PPT presentations, grey literature not indexed by Scopus and because of indexing errors by GS that lead to duplicate citations. I did a little experiment to see how big a disparity it can be.  I used this article as an example: Internet search tactics by Smith, A. G., one of my old lecturers for the MLIS.  GS said that it was cited by 7 while Scopus said it was cited by just 1 author.  I looked at the extra 6 citations in GS.  They included a university thesis, a research article, a dissertation and 3 things in a foreign language: a research article, a citation for something and a link to a Google book.  So why hadn't Scopus included these citations?  Clearly it does...

I used Delicious a few years ago when I was doing my library masters.  Me and my classmates used it to bookmark resources we found for a wiki we were going to create together as part of an assignment.  It was all the rage at the time and worked well for our needs. And then suddenly around 2010 no one seemed to be using it anymore.  Social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Tumblr, StumbleUpon and Digg fell out of favour.  People started flocking to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter which allowed for more social interaction.  Instead of tagging, using Facebook's "Like" button became a popular way to bookmark content. I decided to revisit Delicious.  The website is still there but it looks woeful.  The homepage is covered in ads and click bait.  Why is it still even there?  It's kind of sad seeing a once good service go into terminal decline.  It's now ranked a dismal 1,235 on the Alexa Rank.  (In contrast Pinterest...

I was discussing Google Glass with a bunch of librarians recently and we got talking about how much Google has changed over the years.  It made me have a look at Google's homepage to see what exactly has changed.  There are less products in the homepage navigation bar and drop down menu than there used to be.  I guess Google is trying to streamline things and get rid of services that aren't popular. Google Labs has gone - an interesting feature where you could see new products they were testing.  So has Google Buzz, a social networking tool designed to compete with Facebook which never took off.  Google Dashboard disappeared a few years ago.  This was a personalized home page that you could customize with various widgets for Facebook, Gmail, eBay, news feeds, etc.  I quite enjoyed playing around with it but I suppose mobile apps replaced the need for it.  Google Reader (for RSS feeds) has been discontinued.  RSS readers have been overtaken ...

I've been a library assistant (in lending and document supply) at a university library for quite a long time, along with a couple of secondments as a liaison librarian in between.  As I look at ways to develop my career, writing in this issue of Library Life has been a good opportunity to reflect on my journey in this job. Working as a client services assistant (as we are now called) has its fair share of repetitive tasks such as discharging returned items, shelf checking, shelving high demand items, processing library fines and so on.  Thankfully more services are becoming self-service such as collecting and issuing holds and we have been encouraging students to use the self check-out machines and place requests themselves.  One service our library still desperately needs however is an online payment system for fines. What I have found most rewarding has been my interactions with patrons.  Helping them find what they need and seeing a smile of appreciation gi...

I read with a tinge of sadness in the news recently that the Whitcoulls flagship store in Queen St, Auckland is closing down.  It's not a big surprise - Queen Street rents are astronomical and Whitcoulls have struggled in recent years just like other book chains with the rise of Amazon and buying online.  I worked at this store for a number of years as a shop assistant.  I enjoyed the excitement of working in a big store and being around books as well as magazines, DVDs and luxury pens.  I remember the buzz of a new Harry Potter release, politicians and All Blacks coming in for book signings and how we sold Dan Brown by the truckload one Christmas.  The staff there were great to work with and passionate about their jobs.  Now that building will become a Farmers.  What will happen to all those staff I wondered, some of whom have worked at that store for many years? I've noticed (sadly) how over the years Whitcoulls have become less and ...

Completely new, improved, more user-centric library website Increasing trend towards purchasing eBooks over print and using PDA (Patron Driven Acquisition) Bibliographic services team has been whittled down, with staff who have left not being replaced New liaison librarian positions created  Research Publications Officer role created (to guide students with submitting their theses online) Lending staff taking on bib services jobs, e.g. mending and spine label replacement  More and more services have become self-service, e.g. requesting interloans, checking out holds and there has been a big push to get patrons using the self check-out machines More study spaces created Integration of the research help desk and lending desk into one service desk covered by lending staff Introduction of "roving" library assistants during busy hours No more fines for overdue main collection items (only for recalled books and overdue course reserve items) 2 hour course reserve items c...

I tried doing another MBTI test recently but I quickly gave up.  I don't have a simple yes or no for most of the questions; for some I do, for others it's maybe or sometimes yes, or that I'm changing from yes to no, or I simply don't know.  Here are some questions I looked at so you can see what I mean. Do you feel at ease in a crowd? That depends on so many levels, so yes and no. You are almost never late for your appointments . I can at least say a firm yes to this question. You are more interested in a general idea than in the details of its realization . I just don't know, depends on how much I like the idea I guess. You trust reason rather than feelings.  This is a dumb question, everybody needs to use both, e.g. you can't just "reason" whether you should marry someone. You are more inclined to experiment than to follow familiar approaches. What context? Probably not in the past but I want to experiment more now. You are always ...

Customer service  Report writing Research help Information literacy teaching APA referencing  EndNote Collection management Document supply

Recently my library integrated the reference help desk and lending desk into one service point where library assistants deal with both lending and simple research queries.  Here are the pros and cons of this change. Pros It allows library assistants to develop their research skills It frees up liaison librarians (LLs) so that they have more time in the day to do other more specialized tasks At times the desk is very quiet, especially in the evenings and early mornings and so it is a waste of staff resources manning a separate reference desk Cons LLs are unable to "keep their finger on the pulse" by being on the help desk and seeing what sort of inquiries are coming in from students and faculty Students may not get the same quality of service with their research inquiries that they would with an LL (although they can be referred to an LL if the query is complex) Answering reference queries adds to the workload of library assistants who may already have a full wor...