Tag Archives: embedded librarianship

Don’t Fence Me In

11 Sep

I just returned from the bookstore where I bought myself a few Tootsie Rolls (yes, my tooth is much better, thanks), my reward for sitting through a 90-minute webinar. This isn’t to say that the webinar wasn’t interesting, but more that I believe in positive reinforcement and extrinsic motivators. Walking to the store, I was thinking about the question that comes up so much in classes, presentations, talks, and webinars on the topic of emerging roles for librarians today, i.e. “How to talk to researchers about ___.” You fill in the blank. Most of the time lately, it’s “How do we talk to researchers about their data?” All three presenters during the webinar that I listened to today mentioned it and/or gave advice on the subject, and so I was thinking about it as I was on the hunt for my well-deserved, afternoon treat.

Our bookstore always has a cart or two outside of it with books that are marked way down. Passing it, the title, The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure, by Catherine Blyth, caught my eye. “Funny,” I thought to myself, considering what I’d just been thinking about.

In Chapter 2, “Small Talk, Big Deal,” Blyth gives us these five principles to follow when engaging in small talk:

  • Put others at ease
  • Put yourself at ease
  • Weave in all parties
  • Establish shared interests
  • Actively pursue your own

She then offers several rules as a strategy to follow. One is to “approach small talk like a treasure hunt.” “The most productive spirit is pioneering: sincere, curious, light, humorous,” she writes. The other rule is, “Start in neutral.” By this, she means that one of the best ways to be prepared to talk to people is to have a mind filled with a whole host of interesting thoughts and ideas; news items, books you’ve read, music you enjoy, fashion tid bits, and cultural affairs. In other words, be well-versed in a whole host of relatively safe, non-controversial topics. “Keep it light: an observation, question, a thread to weave to something new.”

Now, you might think that these rules are all fine and good for the next cocktail party, but I advocate that they are also EXCELLENT tenets to apply when asking the question, “How do I talk to researchers (clinicians, docs, students, etc.) about data?” About anything. Here’s why… despite the fact that we all live in a harried, time-sensitive, pressure cooker of a working world, most everyone still enjoys an expression of kindness and friendliness. Such expressions accomplish the first two principles – they put both you and the person that you’re talking to at ease. With that in place, everything else that follows becomes a whole lot easier.

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Complementary Colors

Similarly, small talk allows you to be inclusive of everyone. It lets you discover those things, sometimes completely unrelated to work (but sometimes not) that allow you to build a conversation that, ultimately, puts you in the best place to achieve your goal(s).

Which brings me to the bigger point – the one that I was thinking about before I picked up this book. When we go into a meeting or a conversation with an agenda, i.e. “I’d like to talk with you about your data management needs,” we’ve already eliminated about 7/8 of the services that we might be able to offer this patron. I agree that it’s good to have a few things in mind when you approach the person that you wish to pitch your services to, but go in with too tight of an agenda and you’ll likely miss a bunch of opportunities to do things and to meet needs that are being unmet. You want to provide data services, but maybe the researcher really needs help with disseminating his/her research findings in more creative ways. When you engage in some small talk, when you “start in neutral,” you’re much less likely to get hung up when the person says, “that’s interesting, but…”

Ladies and gentlemen once kept commonplace books, magpie hoards containing scraps of literature, historical facts, bon mots – any bauble that snagged the owner’s fancy – that were consulted and memorized before engagements, lest opportunity arose to flourish them and impress the company. (The Art of Conversation, Catherine Blyth, p. 51)

Consider your work, your toolbox of skills and knowledge, to be your “magpie hoards.” (I’d never heard this expression before, but I love it.) Review those things that you do and that you know, often. Take stock of yourself. Then, when someone is telling you about his/her research project, your much more likely to be prepared to know just when, where, and how you can insert yourself and your skills into the process. If it’s what you may have initially intended, great. If it’s something else, that’s great, too. Bottom line, you found the way to integrate yourself into the work of the person you wish to help. You’ve experienced success.

You might recall that a few posts back I mentioned that I have a new boss. After answering questions about this project and that project and the many iterations of “What do you do?” that a new supervisor needs to ask her team members, I finally sat down last Friday afternoon and wrote out a list of all of the projects I’m currently working on, along with any relevant documentation that explains my role(s) on each, and emailed it to her. I also wrote down the teams that I serve on in the Library and the Med School at large, professional organizations I serve, places that I’ve been invited to speak, classes that I’ve been invited to teach. It was a good list and when I finished I couldn’t help but notice the extent of it. I don’t say this as a way of saying, “Look at all of that stuff I have to do!” but more, “Look at all of the things that I do!” It was a really varied and interesting list and for me, that’s pretty important. I like to do a lot of different things. I like to be involved in a lot of different projects. It makes my job a lot more enjoyable.

And I think that this is key when it comes to finding success in the role of an informationist or embedded librarian (likely in a whole bunch of professions). The art of conversation involves being interesting and interested – the more, the better. So go ahead and have your goals and agenda, but keep them on the back burner the next time you’re tasked with talking to a potential patron. Instead, engage them in conversation – even a little small talk – about something(s) you like or know or think they could relate to. Ask them questions about themselves and their work. Ask them if they play a musical instrument or what they think about the scraggly beards that the Red Sox players are partial to this year or if they saw that article in Science News about caffeine and its effect on brain growth in mice (this would be a good one while waiting in line for coffee). You absolutely have no idea where these topics can lead you or the value that they can bring to what you’re trying to accomplish. My bet is that you’ll have better results and if not, you’ll have had the chance to enjoy the “neglected pleasure” of chatting with another interesting person who shares your world.

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Ch-ch-ch-changes

23 Aug

Changes“The only thing in life that is permanent is change.” Someone said that. I’m not sure who, but I surely know that I didn’t think it up on my own. Regardless of who first uttered the truism, its truth remains unchanged, change after change after change. The only thing that we can ever really count on staying the same is the fact that things will always change.

I write this not because the summer season is coming to a close and new students are arriving at my university, but because new chapters are beginning here in the library where I work. I went on vacation a few weeks back aware that some restructuring would happen during my time away. I returned to learn the details – at least as many as we know so far – of the reorganization of services, roles, missions, and personnel. It’s not really a very easy time here at work right now. I’d be less than truthful if I said differently. The restructure means the loss of jobs for some, changing roles for others, and a very different way of thinking about the library for those of us still here. As my library director, Elaine Martin, stated in her presentation to the staff, we are now in a time where we will focus on 4 Rs:

  • Reject outdated notions and ideas of what libraries are.
  • Rethink how we do things – EVERYthing, if need be.
  • Redo our modes of operation, focusing on those areas that are now our priorities.
  • Rejuvenate our careers, our mission, and our professional goals as we move forward into a very new world.

If you’ve been a follower of this blog over the past year, you know that my thoughts and beliefs about my profession and the work that we do fall pretty much in line with these “Rs” that my director is calling the staff to focus on now. I’ve been saying for a long time that I believe our ways of doing many things in the library have left us outdated and irrelevant. We need to change and, as was noted by my director, not in small ways. We’ve been tweaking for years. We’ve been cutting out nickels and dimes as needed. But now… now we need to do something much bigger, much more radical, and much more progressive. And for all of the talk that I’ve talked over the years, when the change really hits, it’s not always so easy.

How did we get to this place? Anyone who works in academic and/or health sciences libraries surely knows the answer to this question. At my own institution, we’re facing a $20 million deficit that results in 5% across the board cuts to all departments. The sequestration at the Federal level affects us via major cuts to NIH-funded research. We’ve also lost money from the state government. Our clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care, faces their own financial crisis and this, of course, has repercussions on us. Couple these revenue losses with unceasing (and way too often, unfounded) astronomical increases in journal subscription costs and key clinical resources and… well, this is where we are. It’s where many of us are.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that people use libraries very differently than they once did. In our setting, students, faculty, researchers, and clinicians do not need/want to check out materials. The resources that they need most are available to them online and if not, they pressure us to make them available that way. Fewer people come to the library needing library assistance. Note that this doesn’t mean that our gate count is down and/or that we’re a quiet, deserted enclave on campus. We are an incredibly busy place, but the reason that our patrons come here is not necessarily related to the fact that librarians and/or library staff are here. By and large, they come to use the non-human resources that we provide. Yes, THAT is a frightening thought when you’re a human resource. And yes, it is a driving factor in the changes we’re now making.

For a number of years, library administrators have been able to refine and retune services, dropping many things that were at one time standard operations in favor of more efficient and less costly alternatives. However, there comes a point when there is nothing left to cut in these areas. There’s very little left to “stop doing” so that we can focus on new things. There comes the time when some really big changes have to happen. There comes that time when the cost of fixing your old car just doesn’t beat out buying a new one. Here in my Library,  we reached this point. We’re trading in our old model for something new.

In short, a half-dozen colleagues that I have worked with for many years now, will not have jobs at the end of next week. To say that these are difficult decisions and that this is a difficult time in the library is an understatement. Neatly stated, the work is no longer there – circulation, cataloging, binding, interlibrary loan, and even ready reference – to financially justify employing full-time staff to manage it. It is really difficult to make an argument against these facts. But neat and tidy justifications are never such when people are involved. Despite the number of times that it is said, truthfully, that the decisions are not personal, they are. People are losing their jobs. This cannot not be personal. Everyone recognizes this.

I’m not sure what all of these changes will mean for me directly. Fact of the matter is, no one really knows. Not here in my library, nor in our profession as a whole. We’re a work in progress, this profession, and no one is quite sure how all of the new ideas and roles and work will play out. Still, I believe that more often than not, it’s a lack of risk taking that does a person – or an institution – in. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Another good quote from someone other than me.

There are an awful lot of BIG questions facing health sciences libraries today. Our changes highlight this fact. I have to say that the one question that keeps milling around in my head during this particular time is this – Does a librarian really need a library any more? While it’s pretty clear that our patrons certainly need library resources, do they still need the human resources of the library when they come here? I like my cubicle as a place to sit and work, but does it need to be here in the library? With a heightened emphasis and dedication upon embedding librarians in research projects and teams, in curriculum and classrooms, and in physical sites outside the library itself, are librarians themselves now another library resource that can be divorced from the library? I know that my library isn’t the first one to experiment with embedded models and thus it’s unlikely that I’m the first librarian to ever think about this question, but right now, it’s what I’m wondering. For me, it’s the biggest question that I wait to see answered in the coming months and years as we explore new ways of doing things here at my library.

Time will give me the answer to this question, as well as to others I have. And in the meantime, I’m remembering to tell myself that the changing day-to-day aspects of work that may cause some bumps and bruises and slight headaches along the way, these are but that – bumps, bruises and headaches, and simply part of my job. In times of change, it’s good time to remember to keep all things in perspective. (Note: I’m speaking only for myself and not minimizing the much bigger unknowns that some of my colleagues face. To do otherwise would be a very callous thing to do.) 

Elaine Martin has graciously offered to make her presentation available for readers to view, in hopes that it provides clarification and further detail as to the changes made, as well as a reference for others in similar positions at this time. Additionally, in next week’s post, I will describe the new programs and models that we are launching during this transition, along with a presentation from Elaine on that topic. Stay tuned.

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Someday is TODAY!

1 Jul
A Tiger by the Tail! (Photo: Kimberly Brown-Azzarello, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kb-a/)

Grab a Tiger by the Tail! (Photo: Kimberly Brown-Azzarello, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kb-a/)

Several years ago, I was invited to be a part of a journal club that discussed topics related to exercise physiology. It was here at the Med School where we have no such formal program and/or research taking place, but there was still a group of researchers and doctoral students with an interest in what happens to the body when it exercises. Not that surprising, they were mostly cyclists. I’ve often found cyclists to be among the most curious group when it comes to ex phys. They’re completely absorbed in the whole lactate threshold thing.

The first day that I attended the group, I was greeted with, “Oh good, Sally is here! Sally is the expert. She’s the one with the degree.” At the time, this said a lot to me in terms of how researchers view one another. You know what you’ve studied and you’re an expert in the discipline that you know best.

I’ve gotten a lot of traction out of this story since that day. I’ve often used it when asking my colleagues how often, if ever, they’ve been invited to a research meeting and called out as the information expert. Sadly, it doesn’t happen nearly enough. I’ve often wondered if that day would ever arrive when I was seen as the expert from the Library.

I wondered it until today. TODAY I was invited to a meeting by a group of folks considering a grant application and several times during the meeting, people said that I was there because I was the expert in the areas that they knew nothing about, e.g. information management, information architecture, website design, and all sorts of other things related to technology. They used the word over and over, “Sally is the expert.” The others were experts in nutrition and public health and mindfulness. I was the expert in information collection, presentation, dissemination, and the technology necessary for this to happen.

Walking back across campus afterward, I remembered the journal club story and couldn’t help but think how far I’ve been able to reach into the research community, in a relatively short period of time, simply by getting out and meeting people, working with them, building a small portfolio of projects and deliverables, and building a small list of names that I can drop for effect. To me, more than anything, this is the goal of the informationist program. The specific skills and their associated value that we can bring to research teams is recognized from the very beginning. In fact, this particular team was stuck with writing part of their grant ~ even deciding whether or not to pursue it ~ without consulting an informationist. Down the line, if necessary, we can talk about the nuts and bolts of how I could be included in the team, but really I already feel a part of it. They needed my expertise now and knew to include me.

Someday has arrived and I’m convinced that our professional future is wide open for these type of experiences to happen more and more often. Let’s grab them!

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