Delve into library history: the Library History Buff Blog

The Library History Buff blog is a great deal of fun and well worth a look if you’re interested in the history of libraries. It appears to be focused mainly on the history of American libraries but within that niche, there is great variety. You can see historical library post cards, a visual history of the Boston Public Library, library history highlights of 2009,and photos and discussions of US Presidential libraries. As much as I focus on the future of the library as an insitution and services that will be provided by librarians, I think it is also important and refreshing to consider the history of libraries and librarians. My graduate work in history focused on the development of the Manchester Public Library and its impact on English life, so I know a fair bit about the history of libraries but there is still plenty to learn.

The X Prize Foundation: using prizes to solve problems

Space Ship One, the world's first privately built and operated space ship, was built to win the X Prize. Can libraries learn from this?

As I was cooking yesterday, I listened to Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize foundation, describe his project to get launch the commercial space travel industry through prizes on the Big Ideas program. Diamandis is part of a larger history of organizations providing awards to solve important problems. The most famous example of this is the longtitude prize offered by the British Admiralty in the 1700s (the story is told in entertaining detail in Dava Sobel’s book Longitude). The general idea behind prizes is that it encourages many people to solve a problem from all over and goes beyond simply recruiting the usual suspects.  The effort and money expended by applicants often far exceeds the prize money. The original focus on the X Prize foundation was focused on space travel but they are now interested in a range of problems including energy and life sciences.

This project has me thinking about applying the prize ethic to the library world. There are some prizes out there already that tend to recognize outstanding individuals but these kind of awards do not appear to have the same effects as the X Foundation. The missing ingredient is encouraging people to focus on a big, challenging problem and then go from there. So, let’s say there was a million dollar prize available to people that solved pressing library problems, what could we get solved? One challenge: how can we turn  public libraries into a Third Place? In the academic context, how can we make the process of using research databases more seamless? In a special library context, the challenge could involve something like how to we get librarians into boardrooms and executive teams? I have also been thinking a bit about library architecture and design of library spaces; are there better ways to do that? After coming up with challenges, the next step is figuring out who will fund the prize. Why should engineering and technology get all the entrepreneurial energy?

Lessons from the New York Public Library

Every library should produce a video like this. You have interviews with the library’s leadership and regular people who use it.

The science of motivation presents an opportunity for librarians

Last week, I finished reading Daniel Pink’s latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” which was was released in December. Last year, I read one of Pink’s other books, A Whole New Mind, a stimulating read itself. I previously written about Pink’s observation that storytelling and narrative are important 21st century skills; he also discusses other skills such as empathy and symphony (i.e. synthesis of ideas and knowledge, but hey, symphony is a much more elegant way of describing) in the book. For those concerned about losing jobs due to computers or outsourcing, Pink’s books are recommended, highly accessible reading (with a detailed bibliography for those who want to look up and read all the studies he refers to – I appreciate that!).

Drive seeks to apply findings from psychological research to business. As Pink repeats at several points in the book, “when it comes to motivation, there’s a gap between what science knows and what business does.” Pink discusses that modern tasks that require creative thinking to solve problems are best motivated by encouraging mastery, autonomy and purpose. However, many organizations are operating in ignorance of these insights. As Pink puts it:

Too many organizations – not just companies, but governments and nonprofits as well – still operate from assumptions about human potential and individual performance that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science. They continue to pursue practices such as short-term incentive plans and pay-for-performance schemes in the face of mounting evidence that such measures usually don’t work and often do harm. (9)

In thinking through the book’s arguments, I tried to think how librarians could make sense of these insights about motivation. I think the greatest opportunity lies in support the mastery factor. Mastery, in Pink’s definition, is a complex concept that involves the concept of flow of proposed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (here’s a TED video from 2004 of him explaining the concept of flow) of being totally absorbed in a task and losing track of everything else. In my view, mastery can only be achieved on a firm foundation of knowledge and education and this is where librarians come in. This is a delicate task that requires a deep understanding of what people do and what resources would best help them. This kind of deep support that enables mastery is a high touch kind of operation that simply can’t be done by a search engine.

If you want a further taste of what Pink’s arguments about the science of motivation, check out this great TED speech that he made in July 2009:

What do you think? How else can Pink’s synthesis of the science of motivation help you in the workplace and beyond?

What Bookish Charities Serving Developing Countries Can Teach Us

Recently a friend commented on the blog about the British charity Book Aid International and I decided to look into it a bit further. It is similar in some ways to Room To Read which I blogged about last month. The main differences I can see is that BAI focuses on Africa while Room To Read operates all over the world. I like BAI’s concept of the ‘reverse book club’ where the donor pays a few pounds a month and a book gets sent out. That strikes me as a bit more accessible than the model Room To Read has adopted. I finished reading a book about Room To Read  (Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Woods) today and I was struck by the emphasis placed on fundraising from the rich, venture capitalists and investment bankers.BAI, on the other hand, is something that strikes me as more accessible financially speaking. I also wonder if BAI gains something through its focus on Africa specifically. I haven’t examined these organizations in great detail but I find them interesting.

It appears that these organizations both do better marketing and operations than library foundations in the developed world. Many public and academic libraries engage in fundraising activities but I wonder what happens to the funds. One of my alma maters, Trinity College at the University of Toronto, routinely raises $100,000 in its annual book sale but where does it go? I gather that some of it goes to collections and various other projects. But, as a donor, I struggle to connect the dots and outcomes. I don’t mean to pick on Trinity – the same could be said for many other organizations around North America, Europe and elsewhere. Based on reading John Wood’s book, I suspect the problem may lie in having an excessively lean overhead. Without staff to plan the programs and communicate  how a donation purchases a concrete change or improvement, it appears that it just doesn’t happen. Another possibility is that library organizations in developed countries don’t seem to have the same potential to make dramatic strides in improving literacy and implementing radical socio-economic improvements. Maybe fundraising organizations for libraries in developed countries DO make that kind of impact but I don’t know about it.

What do you think? Do you know of any library/literacy organizations that are making a major impact in Canada? The United States? The UK? And, for bonus points, does that organization clearly communicate its impact to donors? If so, please share it in the comments.

85 Reasons to be Thankful for Librarians – inspiring!

I came across this great blog post – 85 reasons to be thankful for librarians on the Zen College Life blog – on one of the email lists I subscribe to today. It specifically takes the student perspective on librarians and there is plenty of good material there, serious and light hearted. There’s everything from Reason18 Studies have shown libraries and librarians improve student test scores (I gather that these studies are mainly done at the K-12 level, but I would bet it is also true at the post-secondary level), reason 31: A library is much MUCH more well cataloged and organized than the Internet, and the surprisingly insightful reason 51: They are also less likely to be manipulated by individuals, like search engine optimizers. Go have a look!

Room To Read

In reading the ebook, What Matters Now (a series of thought provoking 200 word essays on life and business edited by Seth Godin), I came across the organization Room to Read. It is an organization to builds libraries, schools and otherwise supports literacy and education in developing countries. Everything I have seen so far about the organization leads me to think that it is a good organization. I also note with interest that the organization specifically provides scholarships to girls who wish to study and learn. The scholarships for girls priority of the organization is in keeping with a broader trend in development; that investing in girls and women is more effective at ending poverty than putting the same resources into men (i.e. Grameen Bank, famous for microloans, lends mainly to women who have a very high repayment rate). Since I’m curious, I also bought a copy of John Wood’s (the founder of Room to Read) memoir, Leaving Microsoft To Change The World to learn more about the origins of Room To Read and Wood’s efforts in this regard.

Access to education and libraries has been one of the most important reasons for my success and happiness in life. When buying books was not an option as a teenager, the library was always there. When I wanted a place to study, there was the library. The thought of growing up without such an institution at hand is distressing and so I’ve made a donation to Room To Read this year. There is so much need and poverty in the world that I am sometimes overwhelmed with where to start but here is one small way where I can make a difference. I can’t help but be curious if all the libraries Room To Read has established also have librarians staffing them. Based on what I know of rebuilding libraries in Afghanistan, I would suspect that professional librarians are also in very short supply.

The Dare To Ask Challenge

Today, students from the Faculty of Information will hold a “Dare To Ask” challenge where they will answer questions to all who come to them. There are two objectives to the event; 1) raising money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation (a charitable organization that focuses on the AIDS crisis in Africa) and 2) “to raise awareness about the role of information workers (librarians, archivists, museum workers, journalists, writers) in their communities. The students believe that a key role of information workers is to be socially active members of the communities they serve.” It is an interesting idea and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like it before.

The issue of library/information philanthropy is something I’ve been thinking about lately. There are plenty of options for those interested in pursuing this route – donating money to literacy campaigns run by public libraries, helping academic libraries expand their services or you can even sponsor a book in need of preservation at the British Library and more. These are all worthy goals and should not be discounted. I do wonder if library/information philanthropy of that type is a bit too backward looking. Charitable activity is a competitive space with all kinds of good causes vying for attention. What kind of program would best distinguish information services from other causes? I would speculate that a focus on services may work better over the long run than a focus on collections or buildings.

Think of the nobility of libraries and librarianship

The Philadelphia Free Library system is broke, and they’re shutting it down, including cancelling “all branch and regional library programs, programs for children and teens, after school programs, computer classes, and programs for adults” and “all children programs, programs to support small businesses and job seekers, computer classes and after school programs” and “all library visits to schools, day care centers, senior centers and other community centers” and “all community meetings” and “all GED, ABE and ESL program.”

Just look at that list of all the things libraries do for our communities, all the ways they help the least among us, the vulnerable, the children, the elderly. Think of every wonderful thing that happened to you among the shelves of a library. Think of the millions of lifelong love-affairs with literacy sparked in the collections of those libraries. Think of every person whose life was forever changed for the better in those buildings.

Think of the nobility of libraries and librarianship, the great scar that the Burning of Alexandria gouged in human history. Think of the archivists who barricaded themselves in the Hermitage during the Siege of Leningrad, slowly starving and freezing to death but refusing to desert their posts for fear that the collections they guarded would become firewood…

Read the whole entry by Cory Doctorow over at Boint Boing: Philadelphia Free Library System is shutting down. On further reading, I gather that the Library system may not actually shutdown, if the political brinkmanship gets resolved but it is highly possible.

Reading this post by one of my favourite science fiction authors (and major proponents of Creative Commons) was a great inspiration. Sometimes we focus so much on our tools and methods that we lose sight of the broader picture. Thanks for reminding us, Cory!

Inspiring Quote For a Monday

In order to be really good as a librarian, everything counts towards your work, every play you go see, every concert you hear, every trip you take, everything you read, everything you know. I don’t know of another occupation like that. The more you know, the better you’re going to be. – Allen Smith, PhD

Via In Forming Thoughts (which got it from the Bilingual Librarian).