No More Library Workshops!

Does your library experience low attendance rate to your library workshops? As a librarian instructor, you have worked so hard to get people to attend your workshops, but still  not much improvement. Does that mean your patrons do not need the information? Does that mean library workshops have no value to your library community? Librarians all know that is not the case. Here is an innovative way to make some changes: No more workshops in the library! One-on-one and on demand instructional sessions instead.

I look at this as a patron driven change and another level of providing library instruction. I can certainly see some of the advantages of one-on-one or on demand sessions:

• Fit into the patron's schedule
• Deliver content based on individual's needs or at the point of need
• Provide a conformable environment to ask questions -- patrons
• Reduce the tense of speaking in public -- librarians

I believe it's time to make a change for better or worse depending on what you think and what content you want to deliver. It might be more effective to turn those workshops that have hands on components into one-on-one sessions. 

Want to Start an iPad Program for a Library?

Yesterday I attended the ALA Webinar, Integrating iPads and Tablets Computers into Library Services (1). I  think the presenters did a great job. I hope MLA hosts a similar webcast to show successful iPad programs in health sciences libraries. At least one thing I learned from the webinar was that librarians need to ask questions before setting up a tablet program for their library:

• What's it for? Is it for staff development, in-house use such as in class, or for circulating them to library patrons?
• What content are you going to load on the device? Content would include apps and tools related to patron needs.
• Do you have technical support for the program? 
• How are you going to train library staff to provide frontline support for the program?

If you already have a tablet program in your library, what's your thought so far? 

Taking Photos Using an iPhone

Want to take good pictures using an iPhone? Here is my experience:

1. Composition: You are not taking a photo, you are creating one! -- Creative!
2. Light: Make full use of natural light as iPhone doesn't provide any supplemental light - Critical! 
3. Focus: Tab the object, zoom, focus, and shot - Sharp! 
4. Stillness: Hold a deep breath and be as still as possible when pushing the photo button 
5. Some of my photos taken with an iPhone: 

Content Creators: Be Creative!

Are you a librarian or a medical librarian? Do you use Twitter? Does your library has a twitter account or a Facebook page? As one of the content contributors to our Reference Department's twitter account, library's blog, Flickr, and Facebook page, I constantly felt it is challenging and time consuming to keep the contents in these accounts rolling effectively and feeding it with relevant information quickly. Ideally, I wish our contents were updated while I'm sleeping...

A recent conversation with a librarian friend about feeding twitter account with RSS feeds on some desired topics. "Well, don't depend on those automatically feeds only. This is why you are here and you are the content creator." What he said really got me thinking. Yes, librarians are well known for being content creators in many ways including Web sites, subject guides, pathfinders, instructional materials, and library tutorials. Now content creators has evolved to include twittering, blogging, facebooking, and more. Librarians becoming digital content creators are the result of digital technology and digital reference services. The difference is digital content creators have to come up with contents in a quick and effective way.

If you are the person behind the scene, how do you manage your library's social media accounts to keep them fresh and relevant?

Make it Easy for them

There is an interesting article, Don't make it easy for them, set me thinking. Yes, students need to learn library research skills. What about faculty members? My point is make it easy for them. Yes, make it easy for them! We call it support faculty teaching, research, and clinical education.

The library outreach programs have provided lots of opportunities for librarians to connect with academic faculties. Years of liaison experience told me faculty members like helpful, personalized, and convenient library services delivered to their desktops. I found myself really enjoy working with them by providing these services. I questioned myself a while ago, "Am I spoiling them by doing so?" One of my librarian friend said, "No, this is called another level of customer service." So, here they are:

• Set up automatic email alerts for each faculty on their research topics with My NCBI. This personalized service includes knowing and understanding each faculty member's research interests or topics, constructing a good search for each topic, creating My NCBI account for each faculty, and writing up instructions on how to manage the alerts.
• Conduct literature searches for faculty members. This involves not only expert search using related databases, but delivering the search results in the format of their preferences. Sometimes it goes further than that such as organizing citations and retrieving full text articles for them.
• Scan articles from the library's print collection to PDFs and send to them via emails. The challenge is basically time especially when I have a busy schedule and when the faculty are rush to need the articles.
• Deliver one-on-one library workshop sessions to faculty's offices. This is especially in demand for hands-on workshops. What makes this service welcoming is the focus of individualization. This requires me to get very familiar with the workshop contents and alter the teaching method based on each individual faculty's characteristics and needs.
• There are some very basic things we, librarians, expect our users to do them themselves while faculty members expect librarians to do those basic things for them. My liaison philosophy is don't ask, just do it. For example, could you get the full text of this article for me (I know we have online access to the article and she can download it from her desktop.); do we have this book in the library ( I know we do. A catalog search will tell her.); I need this article via interlibrary loan, could you request for me? (I know she can do it online by logging onto her library account.); Could you pull these articles for me from the library stack? I will come and pick up after work (I know the library doesn't offer this service. She can come to the library and do it herself.)

Concern and worry was if I got lots of requests, it might be difficult to handle and it would greatly increase my workload. I took it as a challenge. Reference service hasn't change a lot, we just need to do it in different ways: make it easy for them, but might mean make it difficult for us. This brings to the core of my job -- providing excellent customer service!