Re-positioning libraries as safe spaces for answering career-related queries

I came across this news article about a young engineer who got two job offers (McGregor, 2015). He took to Quora, an online question-and-answer website, to ask for advice about which company's offer to accept. Representatives from both companies responded with one rescinding the job offer.

This caused me to reflect on my first publication (Scale, 2008) that compared how libraries matched up to Facebook as a "social search engine". While I will not go into a detailed summary of the journal article, I just wanted to make a few points about how this young engineer's problem highlight a missed opportunity for the positioning of libraries and highlight what I think libraries can do to change this.

Let me begin by mentioning that "social search" can be defined as the use of online platforms for locating individuals with the expertise to answer one's query (people search) or for locating information from search results informed by a community of users that input data into the online platform (human intermediary search) (Scale, 2008). Social search comes as a development of the Social Web or Web 2.0 era, where search engines and algorithms no longer dominate how users find relevant information online. Instead, human beings are now connecting online to retrieve information from online personal sources rather than documents.

This brings me to the points I wish to make in this post. How do libraries position themselves in this era?

1. Libraries need to position themselves as social search engines which preserve privacy, contain little to no advertising and maintain the confidentiality of queries.

2. Learn from Apple's Siri for i-Phone & i-Pad. Promote and provide a listing of the types of questions that we librarians can answer or are good at answering. 

Point 1

Librarians need to promote to library users the benefits of getting their answers from us as opposed to the online competition. Sure enough, online sources can get an individual quicker access to people sources and information, but online also leaves a trail and the Internet does not forget. Librarians though will forget.

We could even make this optional where users can be taken into a closed room, read a confidential non-disclosure agreement form to be signed by both the librarian and the library user, before the individual divulges their query.

This brings me to a concern about virtual reference, which keeps a virtual memory of queries and does not forget. Luckily, virtual reference services can do so with the removal of personal identifying information. Nonetheless, I find it on the side of caution that such system by requiring authentic users to login can still keep track of where queries are coming from. So I am still kind of wondering about this and need to research this some more.

Nonetheless, I would advocate for librarians to be selective of which technology or technical solutions are used for the purposes of virtual reference. Even when we use online platforms, ours must be distinctive from our competitors that collect personal information and maintain a public record of such information.

Point 2
I refer here to the experience of using Apple's Siri for i-Phone and i-Pad. Sometimes after using Siri, Apple's artificial intelligent virtual agent, I find that she presents a listing of some of the questions that she can answer and some of the information that she can provide.

How do library users know what questions to bring to the library reference desk? In my experience, as a library user, users coming to the reference desk get varied levels of service and do not know with certainty if a competent staff member will be on hand to handle their queries. One unhelpful experience is sufficient to prevent a user from being a return client.

Hence, it is necessary to reduce the chances of this uneven service delivery from happening in the first instance by highlighting what we are competent at answering. We must provide a way of assuring our patrons or users about the types of questions we can answer or provide information for and what they can expect us to answer or find answers for.

Even if we do not have the sources to answer all our users query, we should be able know where we can refer users and provide a list of questions for which we can refer users if we do not have the answers. That is, librarians should also know what areas we can competently advise users so that even if we do not have the answers in our library, we can advise users about where to go next and explain the pros and cons of getting the answers from the sources we refer them to. (In a way, this points to a need for deep subject expertise).

Some of the challenges

I do acknowledge that one of the challenges of doing this type of reference work is reduced library budgets and problematic staff shortages. In some libraries, the staff does not have the time to walk the users through a long decision-making process but stop short at just pointing them to the sources. This process makes the library little different from Google or original Web search that just directs users to the highest ranked or used sources that possess possible answers. This forces users to still have the work to determine the relevance and pros and cons of the sources retrieved. This is why I like the special library environment where librarians can provide a framework for extracting relevant and useful information and coming to a decision about which sources to use.

A possible way forward
For me, the young engineer's question could be viewed as a missed opportunity to re-position libraries to the wider public as safe spaces to ask questions and conduct inquiry, especially about career and entrepreneurial information. I for one believe that a dedicated career information resource librarian should be in every public library. This person would specialize in helping users answer career related queries and help them locate career-related information for all stages of an individual's career journey. These librarians should be dedicated to answering reference queries related to career, business or entrepreneurship questions ad questions about choosing educational programs.

Nonetheless, every public library should know its users and the questions that users are most likely to need answers for and provide a dedicated subject librarian to address those questions. Again I realize that this is an ideal in the present time of austerity and economic uncertainty. As such, I lament that we need greater advocacy to let politicians, economists and other authorities that make funding decisions know that the quality of library services depend on the type of deep expertise that we provide in areas that are important to communities. For example, seeing that current authorities are interested in job creation, we can advocate that libraries can provide value to the labour market and the economy if given sufficient funding and staff to provide a dedicated librarian for career and business related questions. Of course, I realize that this means focusing on priorities that fit into the neo-liberal paradigm in which libraries are now working.


Reference:

McGregor, J. (2015, May 7). A young engineer asked for career advice online. Big mistake. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2015/05/07/a-young-engineer-asked-for-career-advice-online-big-mistake/?wprss=rss_business

Scale, M. (2008). Facebook as a social search engine and the implications for libraries in the twenty-first century. Library Hi Tech, 26, (4), p. 540-56.

What my lived experience teach about how academic libraries can support post-secondary student entrepreneurs?

I have held very negative views about business for much of my youth, even at one time gravitating towards Marxism. However, my university years helped to bring me in touch with realities. After almost completing my Bachelors in Political Science, I started to be more conscious of the fact that I needed to be job ready. Further, I was not willing to walk into politics, which I had a new distaste for after encountering university student politics. It was only then within my university years, that I awakened to the possibility of being my own boss and starting my own company.

For throughout my education, I could not recalled being encouraged by teachers to pursue entrepreneurship. Career guidance was biased towards becoming professionals or getting jobs. I find that even children books published are biased towards getting children to think about traditional careers. This for me is why our librarians need to step into the gap and demand that our children publishers not only produce books for children on traditional careers, but also books on the life of entrepreneurs and consultants.

All this said, it is only within years of my transition from undergraduate to my Masters that I began to consider and even study entrepreneurship for myself. This led to my Master thesis and eventually my first book (Scale, 2012). Yet, the greater good that came out of this experience is that I realised by doing my Masters in Library and Information Science, how libraries could have played a more important role in shaping young persons into realizing the option of entrepreneurship as an alternative to career seeking and job search.

Well, it is with this new understanding, that I have resumed studies as a PhD student. And as such, I now attempt to operate as a potential student entrepreneur, interrogating the academic library system to see how it could support me in this endeavour. As such, I just want to share briefly some of my own findings/observations (which may or may not be peculiar to the university system that I am within:

1. Most of the resources for entrepreneurship and career development are located within the business library.

This is problematic, as the business libraries in both universities that I study at are usually separated from the general library collection that social science, science and even humanity students access. Hence, unless they actively browse the library catalogue for such resources, there is little way of serendipitously discovering these resources.

2. Only business students get adequate training in using and accessing business databases.

This is problematic because, only business students will have the competence of knowing when to check a business database to find information, the strength and weakness of each and knowledge of which database to search for particular information. 

To some extent, select library students are introduced to these databases (especially if they are undertaking a business resource course). Nonetheless, all the rest of university students are excluded from this insider knowledge that could help inform their business planning and research.

Conclusion:  The way that the business library resources are separated from other disciplines, excludes students from other disciplines that do not take business courses from exposure to business resources and even the knowledge in how to use these resources to assist them in researching and planning businesses. 

Alternately, there are business incubators on campus. However, in my experience, business incubators and librarians operate separately, and not in partnership.

Recommendations:

1. Academic librarians must do something to reduce this unequal access and exposure to business resources. We cannot just leave all business resources within the business faculty, and not permit other students from other disciplines to not gain exposure to these resources.
2. Academic librarians must also approach business incubators with a partnership to train student entrepreneurs in business resources and the use of the library resources to support their business research.

When we have done this, we as librarians would ensure equal opportunities for all post-secondary students to not just seek jobs, but also to become entrepreneurs.

Reference: 

Scale, M. (2011). Written information and planning in Jamaican small businesses: A usability approach. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing
https://www.lap-publishing.com/catalog/details/store/gb/book/978-3-8433-5946-7/written-information-and-planning-in-jamaican-small-businesses
or

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Written_Information_and_Planning_in_Jama.html?id=y25IYgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Library helps homeless "bum" to earn from Web technologies

In a previous post, I gave my unsubstantiated opinion on the role for libraries in the economic sphere. Well, in this post, I just want to substantiate my viewpoint using a story published in the Publishers Weekly. Hanagarne (2013), in an article published by Publishers Weekly details the story of a friendly homeless gentleman, called "Scott", who was a patron of the Salt Lake City Public Library at which Hanagarne is employed. This regular patron of the library would often rent a laptop computer. One day he asked the librarian for advice, and Hanagarne was sent to help him. In this encounter, Hanagarne learned that the homeless gentleman has all these years of renting the laptop, been using it to work on building his own game. In the words of Hanagarne:

[Scott] explained to me that he’d been dividing his time between the Salt Lake City Public Library and the University Library up the street, teaching himself computer programming languages. Each time I’d seen him with a game on his computer, it wasn’t a game he was playing; it was apparently a game he was building.

“What gave you the idea to do this?” I said.

 

It was like he had stepped out of a library advocacy brochure. “Just decided that I didn’t want to be a bum anymore,” he said. “Got sober and decided to try to learn how to be around people again, so hopefully I can learn how to be useful. This city’s got services I can use, and it’s nice to have a shelter for sleeping and showering, but education’s how you get off the bottom.” He spread his arms and gestured around the building. “And this is the education I can get. And I’m trying to teach what I’ve learned to some of the other homeless so they can have a little dignity again.”

 

“So you feel like the library can give you dignity?” I said.

“I don’t feel like it can,” he said, “I feel like it does, no matter what, no matter who you are. If you’ve never been in a situation like mine, you might not be able to need this place in the same way I need it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need it just as much, in a different way, you know what I’m saying?”  

After hearing Scott's story, the librarian took the opportunity to suggest means whereby Scott could earn from his website and eventually the homeless gentleman started to profit from ad clicks. This lovely true story illustrates that the library is indeed an institution positioned to play a role in improving the economic opportunities of those who are impoverished. In fact, Hanagarne provides evidence that it was even the printout, from the library’s website, of the Salt Lake City Public Library’s mission statement that helped to inspire this homeless man to educate and teach himself. I quote:

The City Library is a dynamic civic resource that promotes free and open access to information, materials and services to all members of the community to advance knowledge, foster creativity, encourage the exchange of ideas, build community and enhance the quality of life

Pay attention to these last words "enhance the quality of life". While improving people's quality of life is not our only purpose, it is and should be a purpose of all public and even academic libraries. At the end of the day, our patrons, through using our resources should be able to impact their economic well-being and thereby improve the quality of their lives, of which Scott's testimony should remind us all.



References:

Hanagarne, J. (2013, Apr 26). How becoming a librarian saved me. Publishers Weekly Retrieved from
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/56971-how-becoming-a-librarian-saved-me.html

Public library services to small businesses: A dream for the Anglo-Caribbean?

Just had to post about the Bradely Collins'  American Libraries article on public library services to small businesses (Collins, 2012). It is an important article that captures my dream and vision for the island public libraries of the Caribbean. After reading the article, I have itemised the services, resources and other ways that libraries can facilitate the development of small and medium businesses. You can read the entire article for yourself via the referenced URL at the end. In the mean time, I provide you with a summary of the most salient points.

 Business library services to include are, but are not limited to

• business resource workshops or seminars (outside resource personnel can be invited to present)
• librarian attending business functions and connecting with business interest groups in order to identify needs and how the library can partner with them to meet the needs
• market research assistance
• business networking opportunities

Resources would include, but are not limited to:

• online business databases
• pathfinders for business resources 
• pathfinders outlining steps involved in business start-up
• business and career collections - dedicated section to these
• access to trade journals that fit local demographic
• computer access
• books and multimedia on creating and running a business
• sample business plans and other business templates
• databases on community demographic information and industry trends

Facilities would include, but are not limited to:

• fax and copier services
• computers with Internet access
• providing meeting places for business interest groups
• spaces for meeting and training

With respect to the English speaking Caribbean region, I perhaps should undertake an Anglo-Caribbean study or survey some time in the future to see how many if any public libraries are actually offering any of these business library services to their populations. It would be useful to discover how well Caribbean public public libraries fare in this area. On a more personal note, I am dreaming to see the day when a Caribbean public library will develop a section or department specific towards Business, Science and Technological Innovation, with the mission of developing and managing specialised collections for business development and scientific and technological innovation.


Reference:

Collins, B. (2012, July/August). How public libraries are a boon to small business. American Libraries
vol. 43, 28-31. Retrieved August 23, 2012 from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/08132012/how-public-libraries-are-boon-small-business