Participatory library services have come a long way over the past six years. You don’t have to look far to see libraries participating in social media outlets, interacting with their community through blogs and SMS, and polling their users with online surveying tools. Entire industries have grown up around the idea of the participatory library, just take a look at Springshare.

We see many great examples of public libraries using services like Facebook to reach out to, and engage, their community. The New York Public Library has almost 42,000 Facebook fans, Hennepin almost 6,000. Many other libraries around the world have created a presence on Facebook.

But in those two examples, as in so many other library Facebook pages, you see some interaction between the library and the individual library user, but most of what you see is one-way. Most library Facebook pages are used for announcements and events notification, not true communication.

Yet this is just one example. Take a look at the Blogging Libraries Wiki and click through to a few library blogs. Many of them are no longer active. Others are gone and the URL simply redirects to the library’s homepage. And when was the last time your local library sent you a survey link that asked you for your ideas? For many of you, the answer is either “never” or “not for a few years”.

Over the past six years we’ve seen and heard a lot of push-back regarding the use of new social tools in the library. One quote that comes to mind is from 2007, “Right now people are enamored of blogs and wikis and Facebook and this sort of thing.  But that’s this year’s set of technology.  Five years from now we’ll be talking about a whole different set of things.”

Ironically, the world still uses those same tools today. The only difference is that in late 2007 there were 50 million active Facebook users, today there are over 800 million.

So with this huge audience available to us, why haven’t we made greater use of the tools at hand? Why haven’t we moved beyond the idea of just talking to our community to actually engaging them? Or, to quote Tim O’Reilly, “How do we get beyond the idea that participation means “public input” (shaking the vending machine to get more or better services out of it), and over to the idea that it means government building frameworks that enable people to build new services of their own?”

The participatory library is open and transparent, and it communicates with its community through many mechanisms. The participatory library engages and queries its entire community and seeks to integrate them into the structure of change. The community should be involved in the brainstorming for new ideas and services, they should play a role in planning for those services, and they should definitely be involved in the evaluation and review process.

These are not new ideas. I put them to paper in my 2007 book. Some critics of that book argued that libraries have been doing these things for ages. I wish I could say I agree.

The economic downturn has created very difficult times for libraries in this country. We’ve seen many public libraries struggling to stay open and remain relevant in their community. Many libraries have had to reduce hours and lay-off staff. Some have reached out to their communities, not only for short-term help in raising badly needed cash, but also for long-term help with planning.

The importance of this participation cannot be overstated, especially in these difficult economic times. Taxpayers are more and more reluctant to part with any percentage of their diminishing paychecks. Getting them to participate, at any level, will go a long way towards gaining their buy-in.

With limited resources, public libraries need to struggle for every dollar, and with limited tax revenue, funding agencies will part reluctantly with every dollar. It’s up to the library to be heard, to get its community of supporters to be heard. When faced with the question of who to cut, those funding agencies must know that a cut to the local public library can not be done quietly Public libraries are a core and critical resource in the community, and public library supporters are vocal and they vote.

Take a look around your library. Is there someone in charge of your social networking presence? Better yet, do you have a group of librarians charged with reaching out on Facebook and Twitter and, soon perhaps , Google+? You take reference questions over the phone and via text, why not through those other social outlets? And how are you involving those Facebook fans in your library’s planning process? Are you asking them to participate?

Your library’s blog may be shuttered for good reason — maybe your Facebook page has far more readers. Or, perhaps your blog went dormant simply because you didn’t assign someone (or some group) with the responsibility to keep it going. Whatever the case, spend a little bit of time reexamining all of the ways you’re reaching out to your community and reallocate resources in order to most efficiently talk to, and talk with, that community.

There are far more tools available to us today than there were in 2005. And our communities have grown over these past six years. Kids and adults of all ages are now far more involved and engaged through social networking outlets. The ideas of participation and transparency are no longer new — many in our community now expect these things as a standard part of organizational operations. By taking advantage of those available tools you may find that renewed efforts by your library are met with much greater success today than ever before.

It’s far from the end for public libraries. It’s easy, in these tough times, to only listen to the naysayers and prognosticators of doom, to only hear those in our community calling for the elimination of libraries. But limited tax revenues, the Internet, and eBooks are not burying the public library. Limited tax revenues will force us to become more efficient, the Internet is part of our future, and eBooks are simply another delivery vehicle. We control this future, and we can make it a successful one by making full use of the tools at hand.

Special Thanks to the Salzburg Global Seminar  and IMLS for the invitation to participate in this event.

QR Code, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

]]> http://tametheweb.com/2011/05/07/qr-code-shirt-njla11/feed/ 2 http://tametheweb.com/2011/05/04/the-transparent-lis-program/ http://tametheweb.com/2011/05/04/the-transparent-lis-program/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 11:27:26 +0000 Michael http://tametheweb.com/2011/05/04/the-transparent-lis-program/ Hey LIS students & recent grads: how would you rate transparency of your school & program? Were you involved in decisions? Always informed?

I writing a bit for my next “Office Hours” and I am interested in thoughts from the student side. Also, professors and administrators – how have you fostered transparency?

NRAL Article!, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

]]> http://tametheweb.com/2011/04/26/nral-article-in-print/feed/ 0 http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/23/your-%e2%80%9clibrary%e2%80%9d-doesn%e2%80%99t-participate-in-social-media-but-your-people-do-a-ttw-guest-post-by-dr-troy-swanson/ http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/23/your-%e2%80%9clibrary%e2%80%9d-doesn%e2%80%99t-participate-in-social-media-but-your-people-do-a-ttw-guest-post-by-dr-troy-swanson/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:20:12 +0000 Michael http://tametheweb.com/?p=7168 Much discussion has been made about librarians reaching out through social media to our communities and our patrons and rightly so. But, we often overlook the role that social media offers for us internally as a means to strengthen our organizations.

One thing to remember is that libraries really do not participate in social networks. [...]]]> Much discussion has been made about librarians reaching out through social media to our communities and our patrons and rightly so. But, we often overlook the role that social media offers for us internally as a means to strengthen our organizations.

One thing to remember is that libraries really do not participate in social networks. People do.

In fact, your “library” doesn’t exist. You may have a building. You may have items on your shelves. You may have people who show up to do work. But, there is no “library.” Often, we speak of our libraries as if they are these living entities outside of the people who make them up.

“The library prohibits the use of cell phones in all public areas.”

Actually, the library doesn’t prohibit anything. Only people can prohibit.

Our libraries are groups of people who come together to do a job. Together, we make rules, systems, policies, and procedures in order to coordinate our work. We need to understand how the individuals fit together to get a job done. We need some predictability. If we had to remake the rules everyday, we’d never accomplish anything.

There are two important challenges that come from this. First, it is easy to fall into a rut and make things so predictable that nothing ever changes. There are many people who talk about breaking out of ruts, so I am will not focus on this in this post.

The second challenge, which is my focus, is much more interesting. This is that it is impossible to create rules for most situations. Most of the time, when faced with a decision, organizational members take their understanding (based on past experience) and apply it as best as possible to the task at hand. Sometimes this is a very rote task, and other times, this is a once-in-a-career opportunity.  It can take months or years of working in an organization to really understand the unwritten participation rules. Empowering people to act can be even trickier.

In an ideal, magical world, all of our organizational members would know about all of the actions ever taken by our colleagues. We would build up our knowledge and have that in our heads. Then, when faced with a decision, we would have the ultimate point of reference to use in acting.

But, as we know, that’s not how the real world works. In the real world, we are always making and remaking meaning within our organizations. Each person has limited knowledge and imperfect information. We react to our environment, observe results, and decide if our actions worked. Importantly, we decide together. Sometimes this takes the form of formal policies, evaluations, or procedures. Sometimes, this happens more informally through friendships, gossip, and frowning faces. In all cases, organizational members are bumping around, making sense of the world. Together, we make meaning through doing work. Talking to someone about working is never the same as actually working with that person.

My library is open seven days a week, day and night. Our staff members are never all together at one time. There are many staff members who will never meet each other. Yet, we hope that our staff members will make similar decisions when presented with similar situations. But, there is no way we can capture every rule, every practice, or every approach. There is no handbook that will ever be complete. There is no workshop that will ever be long enough.

But, with social media, we can connect. We can share our days via Twitter or Facebook. We can document via shared wikis. We can demonstrate via YouTube. Of course, social media will not solve all problems, but they offer an affordable way to overcome space and time limitations. They are one more tool in our tool box. Most importantly, it offers an avenue to work together, which is the most powerful way to build meaning.

The question becomes how? First, those with knowledge must contribute. Some of the most vital organizational information will come from managers, so they must commit to using these tools. Simply put, organizational members will follow their organizational managers. If they put needed information and direction in these tools, then staff members will need to access these tools to do their jobs. Second, organizational members must understand how the tools are used and what they can do. Most importantly, they must understand how they should contribute and how their contribution will forward the goals of the organization. Finally, participation must become part of everyday work. It cannot be seen as an optional fun activity, but as actual work.

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College. You can follow him on Twitter at @t_swanson.

Challenge, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

]]> http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/22/challenge/feed/ 1 http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/18/policies-don%e2%80%99t-do-work-a-ttw-guest-post-by-dr-troy-swanson/ http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/18/policies-don%e2%80%99t-do-work-a-ttw-guest-post-by-dr-troy-swanson/#comments Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:17:55 +0000 Michael http://tametheweb.com/?p=7166 Many technology policies are created out of fear. They are created to protect the organization from its own members. They present a laundry list of illegal activities from copyright infringement, to libel, to harassment, to intellectual property theft, etc. They “protect” the library from lawbreakers and heart breakers.

Of course, policies have never done an [...]]]> Many technology policies are created out of fear. They are created to protect the organization from its own members. They present a laundry list of illegal activities from copyright infringement, to libel, to harassment, to intellectual property theft, etc. They “protect” the library from lawbreakers and heart breakers.

Of course, policies have never done an hour’s worth of work…ever. Policies don’t do anything. People do things, and the best policies should offer guidance to the actions of organizational members. The goal of all policies should be to prevent problems before they occur, not act like “red light cameras” taking photos of you running a red ligth after the fact.

Policies that offer guidance should emphasize use. All policies will have gray areas, but when policies focus on use, they start to build a context for the organization. They should connect technology to the values and goals of the organization by defining ways the technology could be used.

So, how do we use policies to actually impact what we do? First and foremost, policies must arise from a collaborative process. Groups of people should work together to craft policies. This process should connect organizational values to the developing process. It should capture ideas, challenge organizational members to interact, and create meaning. Striving for true participation can be inefficient and even painful, but this is an important mechanism for making change through policy.

Once policies are in place, it takes leadership to not only keep them front and center, but to connect them to practice. There is a range of ways to do this. Leaders can bring staff together to workshop policies and run scenarios with staff to create shared meanings. Leaders can also highlight real-world successes by staff members who enact the policies. Social networking tools can be utilized to call attention to enacted policies highlighting success.

In any case, leaders must grant a degree of trust to organizational members. All situations are unique, and individuals must use their judgment to apply past practice and stated policy to a situation. Technology policies that focus on use, that have been developed collaboratively, and that are actively reviewed are policies that will offer guidance and actually impact decisions.

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College. You can follow him on Twitter at @t_swanson.

Turkish Library Week Presentations, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

]]> http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/14/turkish-library-week-presentations/feed/ 1 http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/13/the-impact-and-effect-of-learning-2-0-programs-in-australian-academic-libraries/ http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/13/the-impact-and-effect-of-learning-2-0-programs-in-australian-academic-libraries/#comments Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:30:09 +0000 Michael http://tametheweb.com/2011/03/13/the-impact-and-effect-of-learning-2-0-programs-in-australian-academic-libraries/ Just got the proof from our article in NRAL! Very excited about [...]]]> .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

THE IMPACT AND EFFECT OF LEARNING 2.0 PROGRAMS IN AUSTRALIAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Just got the proof from our article in NRAL! Very excited about this piece.