ALA Annual Conference 2009, e-participation snapshot

The following data was provided by Jenny Levine in ALA's IT operation. It seems electronic participation - of the kind ALA didn't generate solely - was quite a hit at the conference.

The numbers:

· 4,011 Flickr pictures (http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ala2009&w=all)

· A Google Blogsearch says there are about 14,000 posts using the tag ala2009, but that’s not really right (http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=ala2009&btnG=Search+Blogs) because it includes the Flickr pictures, comments on blogs, etc. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to get an exact count. If I had to guess, I’d say that most of the posts are recaps of someone’s conference experience, followed closely by summaries of sessions, and links to presentation materials (in that order). Some samples:

o ALA 2009: A Perspective - http://yolaleah.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/ala-2009-a-perspective/

o ALA 2009 Wrap-Up (Warning: It’s LONG) - http://bedtimebooktalks.blogspot.com/2009/07/ala-2009-wrap-up-warning-its-long.html

o Displaced at ALA Annual - http://wpmuhosting.com/displaced-at-ala-annual

o ALA lesson #2: The Power of Teh Intarwebs - http://notemilybookblog.tumblr.com/post/146623422/ala-lesson-2-the-power-of-teh-intarwebs

· 10,362 tweets using the #ala2009 tag by 1,321 authors (including the ALA Annual account and other ALA units)

o Specific statistics for Twitter:

§ tweets before: 765

§ tweets thu: 680

§ tweets fri: 1380

§ tweets sat: 2390

§ tweets sun: 2250

§ tweets mon: 1725

§ tweets tue: 589

§ tweets after: 583 (7/15-24, although tweets continue to appear so this number will still increase a little)

§ by tag:

· #ala2009 – 8517 (this was the main hashtag that we asked people to use)

· #ala09 - 415

· #alacouncil - 82

· #membership - 39

· #totebag – 265 (an unofficial snark channel)

· #unala2009 – 450 (the unconference)

· #acrl101 - 22

· #ala09_is – 8 (ACRL Instruction Section)

· #ala2prom – 26 (Library 2.0 session)

· #lib2.0 – 118 (Library 2.0 session)

· #ttt2009 – 35 (LITA’s Top Tech Trends)

· #toptech – 43 (LITA’s Top Tech Trends)

· #bigwig2009 – 13

· #clene09 - 10

· #clenets09 - 6

· #godort09 - 3

· #mobile_lib – 50 (WO panel)

· #rusaht – 6 (RUSA Hot Topics session)

o The reason I can give you such specific stats about the tweets is that ALA member Heather Devine offered to create an online Flickr/Twitter tracker for the conference a couple of weeks before the event. She finished it just a couple of days before Annual started, having done most of the work while she was on vacation. You can see it still running at http://www.flexyourinfo.com/projects/ALA2009/, and she’s going to give us the code and database so that we can 1) archive it, and 2) implement this for other conferences in the future. I can’t begin to describe how lucky we are that Heather did this, because there’s no good way to archive tweets right now, and we don’t have the resources to create this ourselves. The site got a lot of notice and a lot of hits during Annual, with Roy Tennant in particular noting it at http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/1090000309/post/1110046911.html. I’d like to request that ALA to send Heather a letter of thanks if possible for this herculean and incredibly valuable effort.

o LJ very smartly did a daily recap of what they considered to be the “best” tweets of the day. Reading through them gives an excellent overview of the conference.

§ Saturday - http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670399.html

§ Sunday - http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670525.html

§ Monday - http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6670879.html

§ Eric Hellman did an analysis of the ala2009 hashtag - http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2009/07/twittering-librarians-confront.html

§ Then there was the interesting, but relatively harmless, appearance of the anonymous alasecrets (http://twitter.com/alasecrets) and alasecrets2009 (http://twitter.com/alasecrets2009) accounts on Twitter. While they were discussed, retweeted, and linked to online, those tweets didn’t spill over very much into the mainstream hashtag, and in fact, it allowed the really nasty stuff to stay out of the ala2009 space, which was good for us. One media blog picked up on it and noted it at http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/07/13/library-conference-secret-twitter-feed-proves-librarians-sexy-stern/, but that was about it. Someone shut down the original alasecrets account when it devolved into sex talk, but others had saved the tweets and posted them at http://www.scribd.com/doc/17344326/Library, and the alasecrets2009 account took over where the other one left off. LJ did an interview with the anonymous originator of both accounts at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6671858.html.

· According to Boopsie, more than 1500 people downloaded their ALA2009 application (http://boopsieinc.blogspot.com/2009/07/thank-you-ala-2009.html). I’m unclear if this figure includes people like me who accessed it on the web (Deidre, maybe you can get some clarification on that?) It garnered a lot of praise online, with a couple of people tweeting that it helped them find a session when they didn’t know where it was.

· There are also a ton of great videos on YouTube from the conference, including several of the book cart drill teams and a wonderful fake fight between Neil Gaiman and James Kennedy for the Newbery Award (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAvkmkFIf24).

ALA Annual Conference 2009, e-participation snapshot

Google Voice

There was some buzz recently about the introduction of Google Voice, a service providing a single number that can manage all your calling and SMS needs. One needs an invitation to get a Google Voice number and I finally received mine yesterday. I would list the number here but since I don't normally share my number with people I don't know, if you want to know the number, just ask me.

I've been playing with it yesterday and today. All seems good so far. Calls are free (well, as long as your cell plan has sufficient minutes or if you have an unlimited plan) within the US and the service provides low international rates (which I haven't yet tried because I'm not sure how this will work with the cell pone charges). So far, I have calls routed to home and cell. I have not yet had the calls routed to my office.

Of course, there is seamless integration with your Google contacts, so if you have telephone numbers there, you can place calls directly from your computer. You will get a telephone call, then be connected to the person with whom you'd like to speak. If the person has caller ID, your Google Voice number is the one that will be displayed for them. Very cool.

GV provides a voicemail transcription service. Voicemail transcription isn't the best, but to be fair, I didn't ask folks in my greeting to s-p-e-a-k c-l-e-a-r-l-y when leaving a message. As with any voice recognition program, there isn't 100% accuracy, but in the test messages I received, there was greater than 80, perhaps 85% accuracy in the transcription. Not bad, I would say.

I'm not sure how many of you will remember MCI One (which I had, I dunno, about 15 years ago). This service would provide you with one number that would ring wherever you wanted it to - home, cell, office, pager. I thought this was so great at the time (it was!) and if MCI didn't have such horrible customer services practices at the time they would certainly have kept me as a customer.

I'll give the Google Voice a chance to convince me that this is the only number I should give to folks when I'm sharing a telephone number.

Try it!

Google Voice

ALA: Stacks Management

Innovations in Library Stacks Management: See presentations in ALA Connect

Nancy Kress, UNLV
Shelve more with less - with Lean

Started the Lean concepts at U. Chicago, but works with large or small libraries.
Problem: Books circulate and are returned at the very same time when students are unavailable to shelve them. YOu can introduce rolling due dates and take other measures, but it is the user that detemines our processes.

Lean (pioneered by Toyota) to create efficiency and add value for the customer.
Value is defined as anything the customer is willing to pay for.

Do more with less, but less what? Less:
correction: any form of mistakes or errors
waiting: work process has stopped (i.e. email messages piling up while we're here)
inventory: again email example.
excessive motion: excess people
transportation: excess supplies.

How is lean applicable to libraries. See the supermarket analogy. Just-in-time marketing. What are all the steps involved in getting the watermelon to you from the time the seed was planted? But what is important to you as the customer is that the

Lean:

• Specify value by specific service or product. Service provided for which the customer is willing to pay. Product - book. Right time: now, on the shelf where the catalog says it is: Right Price: Free.
  Wasteful Shelving Activities: correction (checking for errors). Shelve it right the first time. Spend more energy shelving the item up front. and sample the items to see if they are shelved correctly.
  
• Identify value stream: activities required to provide the product or service. use process mapping to identify all the steps in the process.
  Wasteful shelving activity: Sorting the books. These don't help get the books to the shelves in order. UNLV cut shelving time by 20 hours
  Wasteful shelving activity:
  
• make value flow: completion of tasks along the value stream with no delays or stoppage. Objective is to get the book back to the shelf. As the book travels to truck to sorting, etc., it goes to places where there is no oversight.
  Wasteful shelving activity: moving carts. Get an assembly line. Is the department laid out in such a way that they can get from return to shelf with minimal traffic. Do a spaghetti map: use a string to see how long that distance is. How can you shorten the distance?
  
• Let customer pull value: The customer identifies the product or service they need and gets it when they need it. Don't produce something until the customer asks for it. Customer is the trigger for movement (when they ask for the book you get it, as is reserve, paging, remote storage - move away from browsing)
  Wasteful Shelving Activity: inventory - any form of batch processing. A full book cart is considered a batch. Determine how many items can be shelved in an hour and only put that many items on the cart. Reduce doubling efforts as books won't have to be returned to "sorting"
  
• Perfection: the complete elimination of any activity along the value stream that don't add value.

Simple, yet counter-intuitive (to libraries) ideas can help save a lot of time. Started only with a stop-watch. Did five runs to test process and saw changes to be made immediately.


Donna Resetar, Valparaiso University
Automatic Storage and Stack Arrangement at Valparaiso University
Largest university chapel in the country?

Students wanted periodicals shelved together. Christopher Center opened in 1997.
300,000 volumes in the ASRS; 300,000 volumes in open stacks.
ASRS server links barcode with bin number. Item can go back to differnet bin when returned.
Bound periodicals prior to 2003 are in ASRS; serial sets, census publications, older reference sets.
Keep monographs on open shelves.
Doubled capacity with relatively same footprint as older building.
Current and bound periodicals on the shelves together in call number order.
Now half-height shelving in reference; photos of liaison librarian in the relevant section of the reference collection.
ASRS items reshelved once overnight.


Johnny Weyand, Widener Library, Harvard University
Wayfinding Assessment

Wayfinding should includePleasant interactions, be efficient, natural, and empowering.

Maps are good, but not enough. Neither are signs.

Signs should be:
concise
clear: full sentences take longer to process; use simple language and avoid jargon
color: naturally captivating
consistent: use similar patterns everywhere
current: change at least annually
contrasting: font size will help process information
cost-effective

design matters: get feedback. someone with empathy should be involved in the design process.

Listen to feedback.
Watch patrons navigate, especially at major decision points.
ask patrons questions.

ALA: Stacks Management

ALA Diversity Town Hall Meeting

Diversity Town Hall Meeting at ALA.
Friday, 10 June 2009

All attendees were asked to introduce themselves and say a bit about why they are here at the meeting. Some of the reasons include:

• wanting information about recruitment, leadership, staffing both to the profession and to library schools
• serve as a voice for the silent and traditionally underrepresented groups
• promote diversity to youth and prospective librarians
• recruitment to specific areas of the profession (music, academic, medical librarianship)
• how to apply diversity to work as a librarian
• how to enhance programming and services for new populations
• outreach efforts to traditionally underrepresented groups
• what are library schools doing to recruit native language speakers
• interest in serving people with disabilities
• Librarians for America's Neighborhoods (Urban Libraries Council). Assessment and evaluation tool that will be useful for others.
  
• define and discuss cultural competences
• diversity fatigue
• create diverse collections
• glbt diversity issues are not working at cross purposes with other diversity issues
• residency programs interest
• attracting underrepresented groups to particular areas
• recruitment at levels below college; if students don't see value in a BA, they won't see value in an MLS
• incorporate diversity into the curriculum, particularly in an online environment
• we need a national diversity agenda
• accessibility in library systems and websites
• matching library school students to jobs
  

During the introductions, attendees gave more details about their interests than is represented above.

Diversity in library education

• Change the way we think about what we do
• Roberto Ibarra - Contextual Diversity
• Curriculum education: it is the responsibility of all faculty to discuss diversity, not just the course on diversity or not just the diversity officer
• Theory should inform practice: role theory, general systems theory
• Recruitment: what can LIS do to recruit to the profession. Alumni and currently enrolled students are a good resource; start recruiting at an early age; target student workers and support staff; hold social events for staff to inform and educate
• Be transparent to and inclusive of your students
• Psychic pay: what librarians work for

Among all thew people of the world, there are more similarities than there are differences.


Time did not permit me to record the rest of the discussion that took place.

ALA Diversity Town Hall Meeting