(no subject)

[owlectomy]

Happy fun times: answering ref questions on my smartphone because all the computers are offline.

Curse you, tiny keyboard and slow slow internet!

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Are there more or less the same number of patrons doing walk-up? I imagine that the folks who feel comfortable Googling might be too shy; while the folks who are comfy with F2F won't Google.

Please! Destroy my stereotypes.

[owlectomy]

Hm. It's hard to compare because there's a mass exodus when our computers are down. I do think the patrons who are more comfortable Googling probably got a little scared off by my conspicuous frazzled state. ;) We have a lot of people who need the F2F service because they're not computer literate, or they have accessibility issues with computers, or they can't really navigate all the steps of figuring out the right search term to put into the catalog, figuring out if a relevant book is at the branch, and figuring out where the item actually is based on the call number.

I have a very ingrained preference for looking up things myself instead of asking people for help, and it didn't occur to me until I was already in library school that the same wasn't true of everybody. I wonder how many people have those really strong preferences one way or the other.

[laughingrat]

We get competent Googlers who still approach us for help because hey, we're the professionals! :)

[jesse_the_k]

And besides, you have THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT ICON! Seriously, print up some of those and you could mint money at the ALA.

[laughingrat]

I *should* go to ALA, to subvertinate. *is a ninja* I think Iconomicon made the icon, alas. But isn't it FAB?

[owlectomy]

Sadly, we don't get the same results here; 2/3 of the librarians I work with aren't even competent Googlers.

[laughingrat]

Daaaaamn. 0_o

[owlectomy]

Yes, that IS the curse word I use when I'm the one who has to run off GED applications and tax forms because I'm the one who knows how to find them on the web!

[laughingrat]

That is...not okay. Wow. I mean, by the standards of, say, Sedge, I would not be a competent Googler (not that she'd ever say it, because she is delightful, but she also has Mad Gugl Skillz), but criminy, I can find tax forms.

[jesse_the_k]

Holy moly! That really surprises me. I assumed you've had electronic catalogs for a decade or so; wouldn't learning how to Google just follow on from a) surrounded by terminals and b) interested in stuff with culture on them?

[owlectomy]

Isn't it pretty to think so?

[jesse_the_k]

It's certainly the case that going from "Nice book I saw on TV" to "Book in hand" is a much different journey today than it was 30 or more years ago. When our system opened up a dial-in hold service (not on the net, yet; basically the main branch was hosting a 10-line BBS to put books on hold) circulation skyrocketed. Who knew there was so much pent-up demand?

Huh, I share that "do it myself" preference, mostly because there's so much interesting stuff I stumble over on the way to my answer. (Yes, I do miss card catalogs, kinda.)

Are there people who want to interact F2F, that is, argue about what information they're looking for?

[owlectomy]

I think there are the people who value the human contact for its own sake, and there are people who can't quite formulate what they're looking for except by negotiating it with somebody else, and there are the people who don't feel confident in their own information seeking except by getting it validated by somebody else -- I've had reference questions where essentially all I had to say was "yup" as the patron pursued their train of thought to the end. Which I'm not going to argue with, since it's more successful than feeling TOO confident in one's own information seeking.

[jesse_the_k]

An awesome array of things you learn as a librarian .... have you ever thought of writing a novel? :,)

[laughingrat]

Sorry to keep butting in on y'all's conversation...but yeah, there's a school of thought that a significant part of librarianship is social work, whether face to face (reference interviews) or behind the scenes (collection development, website accessibility, etc.).

Sorry, I just <3 librarianship. :D

[jesse_the_k]

This might be why I adored librarians — not only were they guiding me to the wonders of independent reading and research, they often seemed to listen to me with a carefully tuned ear.

One of my top ten regrets is not having done librarianship.

[laughingrat]

Damn, my co-workers were right--gadgets really DO make you a better librarian! ;)

[owlectomy]

I did think of this type of situation, actually, when you posted about iPad guy. Because it's worth spending an outlandish amount of money for the two days of the year the internet goes on the fritz!

[laughingrat]

*laughs* Well seriously, though, it's cool that you had it available. And while I will get on my back legs and pound my chest and bellow if someone suggests that libraries don't need reference desks, I am intrigued by the idea of staff being issued smartphones (or preferably tablets, so it's not so tiny that older/vision impaired staff have trouble) so that we can ping each other when we're in the stacks and need backup, or do a quick access of the staffside catalog when in the stacks, that sort of thing.

[jesse_the_k]

No pings! No noise in the library! Shhhhhhhh.

I know, I know.

Texting would be better anyway. Wow — and intranet Twitter would work swell, although the explosive hilarity might turn some patrons' heads.

[laughingrat]

Well, in my library utopia, I would insist we muted them. ;) But yeah, actually, a brief text would be effective: "LINE AT DESK" or some such. All one would need to know, reely.

Also, you should see people's faces when I'm all, "Yeah, can you please mute that? Yeah, you. Yes, you, the one whose phone is going BOOP BOOP BOOP every time you hit a key and WHOOSH every time you get a text. Yes, I will stand here in a determined but slightly gormless fashion until you are so embarrassed that you actually mute it. You muted it? Thank you." *snort*

[jesse_the_k]

I was in a lovely workshop at Think Galacticon 3, led by Adrienne Marie Brown. She's the best facilitator I've ever seen. We were in the murky transition between "waiting to start gobble gobble" and "starting now."

She walked up to, and then knelt to eye level with, the loudest turkey. She then said, "Can you model not talking for us?"
Somehow she was calling this person to be a leader and shushing her simultaneously. Wonder if you could try that with the cell-phone booper. Somebody's cell in my library made a high-hat sound. Kept think the (metal) roof was falling in.

[laughingrat]

BRB LOLLING FOREVER

Seriously, that was a pretty awesome facilitator trick.