Columbia Reference Symposium Report Back

On Friday I attended the "Beyond the Desk" themed 6th Annual Reference Services Symposium at Columbia University.

These are my notes.

Keynote

• I've seen keynote speaker Joe Janes present before, and have found him to be entertaining and perceptive, doing a great job of naming librarians strengths--and weaknesses.
• He quoted from Margaret Hutchins's Introduction to Reference Work, which he seems to like to do, showing that a lot of what she wrote 60+ years ago is still true. Note to self: check out one of Columbia's copies of her book.
• The average person spends 11 minutes searching Google?!? To which he said more or less, "If I spend more than 45 seconds I feel like a complete failure." Word.
• Google's Book project changes them into content providers for the first time.
• So we should make sure people know that even if they can find results, we are better and faster Googlers than they are.
• Librarians should exploit and advertise the above and these other strengths:
  • service orientation
  • ability to determine needs and understand the context of a research problem
  • multiple modes of searching
  • critical evaluation of resources
  • knowing when to stop searching (I'm not sure I agree with him on that one, especially since he himself admits to having once chased a patron out of the library with Statistical Abstracts.)
  • education about the processes (That's what my notes say, although misspelled. Not sure what I/he meant.)
  • tool making
• I personally feel like playing up our service orientation is one of the most important thigns we can do. It seems like everyone on campus reveres and respects IT departments, and yet they probably also feel bullied, patronized, and ignored by them, as well. Generally speaking, we listen better and synthesize the content of questions and comments better than everyone on campus. And they should know that they can get good help from us and that we won't make them feel dumb or obnoxious for asking.
• There was quite the furor in the 1920s about offering telephone reference, as documented in Wilson Bulletin.
• We should be the information expert on campus, not IT
• We "make humanity more human," and it is the rare profession that does that. (I agree!)
• At one point he mentioned how back in the day they used the term "reader" for those whom many of us now call "patrons" or "users" or whom those evil business minded librarians call "customers." (Editorializing commentary mine.) I first heard "reader" at Barnard and am a big fan. I use it now whenever I think of it and will try to remember more often. I think much information consumption can/should be called "reading."

Contributed Papers

• First up was "The Accidental Producer: Using Hidden Talents to Extend Reference via Podcasts." Slides. Presented by Cornell librarians Kaila Bussert, Michael O. Engle, and Susette Newberry.
  • I'm kind of uninterested in podcasting, so my notes here are a little spare.
  • They feed their podcasts via iTunes.
  • Their library audio tour was a big hit with the alumni.
  • Their "Research Minutes" are 90 seconds maximum long.
  • They took some visual inspiration from a 1920s Cornell animation project "Library Limbo."
• They were followed by Kelly Barrick and Hannah Bennett from Yale, whose talk was ""Implementing the IM-possible: Yale University Librarians Welcome Meebo."
  • Participants are allowed to telecommute their IM shifts.
  • They determined their success measures before they began their pilot.
  • Participating librarians use a wiki to store stock responses and other info. I wish the Columbia AskUs had a more accessible interface like theirs.
  • They use a home grown tool called Reference Tracking to track their usage stats.
  • There's a Firefox extension that makes your tab blink when you get a Meebo chat (so you don't have to rely on the audio cue).
  • They said "polychronic work environment." Heh.
  • Their experience with free Meebo seems to be superior to what they had with the pay service QuestionPoint. So I asked them if they thought Cornell would consider spending say half of what they paid for QuestionPoint on either a donation to Meebo or on local labor to develop feature they wish Meebo had. They were sympathetic to the question but admitted that they'd have to frame the request appropriately to get Cornell to cough up the dough. At least that's how I interpreted their reaction. I hope they'll tell me if I got it wrong!
• The last paper--and it was already lunch time, so attentions might have been waning--was "Get Out There, But Don’t Close the Desk Yet: Librarians in the Classroom, on Campus, on the Street, and, Yes, Even in the Library," presented by Laura Farwell Blake and Elizabeth McKeigue from Harvard.
  • Like Joe Janes, they quoted Samuel Swett Green from the first issue of >Library Journal.
  • They are interested in ways of embedding librarians in campus life, e.g. by serving as a house adviser and doing casual reference at dinner in the house dining hall, by auditing courses, by attending campus events, throwing receptions in the library. They also suggest reading the campus paper every day. (I'd extend that to campus blogs, too, not that I keep up with Barnard and Columbia publications very well myself.)
  • They have fancy, multimedia subject guides, that I think were built at least partially on LibGuides (that you pay for). (To me that sounds more like outsourcing than community, but I haven't really done the research to say that publicly, even though by blogging it I essentially am.)
  • They try to attend first classes of the semester so they can be introduced to students, which I think is a fine idea.

"Energy and Experience" panel of librarians from different generations

• Moderator Jennifer Rutner's slides
• To me this panel highlighted the librarians' individuality, rather than the characteristics they shared with their contemporaries. I think this is a good thing.
• Same as if the panel were one divided by job description (e.g. administrators and front lines librarians), race, gender or class. I would be interested in the differences between members of many different groups, but I also like to be reminded that people, though informed by this and that, are ultimately themselves. Does that make sense or am I just digging myself a hole here?
• Regardless, I enjoyed this discussion more than I thought I would and was glad to be introduced to the work of the librarians on the panel that I didn't know and better educated about those I did. They really all seem to be thoughtful and committed to librarianship. Moderator Jen Rutner, too.