Adventures in Library School

Video Games and Libraries

2008-06-20T13:15:00.001-04:00

Working in a library where video games are already regularly circulated, I found all of the controversy that arose in our class discussion board about whether or not libraries should be in the business of loaning video games strange. Libraries already loan or rent out movies (and not all of them non-fiction or educational!) on DVD, VHS, or even as digital downloads. How are video games any different? Video games may just be quite a natural next step for the library after the introduction of movies, as it seems the same arguments that were used for the introduction of movies on videotape into libraries are now being used for bring video games into the library collection.

According to a recent press release from the American Library Association, the professional organization is planning a “gaming pavilion” at this year’s conference to promote video games and gaming in libraries.[1] The pavilion will feature, in addition to video games such as “Wii Fit,” “Big Brain Academy,” and “Brain Age 2,” board games and DVD games. Their argument is that video games and gaming can help to create an image among the public of the library being a “family destination,” as gaming is an activity that families can do together. Also, according to the authors, ¾ of patrons who come to the library for a gaming event later return to the library.

The move does have its dissenters, however. One author, David Gibson, wrote in an article titled “Our Public Libraries are Being Turned into Video Game Arcades” that the introduction of video games into libraries was contributing to a dumbing-down of the American Public.[2] He wrote that:

I suppose that literary classics, poetry, geography, and great American novels are no longer “relevant: to teenagers. Unfortunately, it appears that this country’s librarians have decided to their part in the dumbing-down of America. What has happened to this country?...All of the librarians I have known were in love with the written word and truly enjoyed opening the door to their world to young people. Perhaps, today’s crop of young librarians would be better served answering their calling as arcade attendants and movie theatre managers.

Little does he know that even the Library of Congress is showing an interest in video games, having introduced a digital preservation project to collect and preserve, among other works of creative arts, video games.[3]

Some have even painted video games as the new “gateway drug to the library.” Games, it is argued, will serve as the motive for teens to come into the library, and once there they will be able to learn about all of the other things the library has to offer that they may not have previously known about. Jason Reed wrote an article about his experiences as the unofficial video game librarian in a small-town library:

There is no more innovative service to offer teens than video gaming. By enticing teens into the library with video games, librarians are able to expose these teens to other library services.[4]

This argument is not unlike those professed by librarians wanting to offer VHS tapes in their libraries in the 1980’s. One library in New York state wanted to offer VHS tapes to its patrons. However, much like the arguments for videogames today saying that the games included should be of an educational nature, this library wanted to focus on educational videos because individuals could very easily get “Hollywood films on video” at the local video store. Their main argument for the inclusion of video into the library was the same as that being expressed today regarding video games. A 1985 article in library journal stated that “video is bringing many people into the nation’s libraries for the first time,” and that was not and is not a bad thing. Getting individuals into the library is perhaps half of the battle.[5] As we know, video recordings (movies or educational films) in the library have not contributed to the downfall of the library, and neither is it likely that video games would.

[1] “ALA Conference Gaming Pavilion to Showcase Latest Trends in Gaming.” American Library Association, 17 June 2008. (http://ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/june2008/AC08gamingpavilion.cfm).

[2] Dave Gibson. “Our Public Libraries are Being Turned into Video Game Arcades.” NewsByUs. 22 Jan 2008. (http://newsbyus.com/more.php?id=10899_0_1_0_M).

[3] Library of Congress. “Digital Preservation Program Makes Awards to Preserve Creative America.” Library Today. 7 August 2007. (http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-156.html).

[4] Jason Reed. “Young Adults, Video Games, and Libraries.” Bookmobile and Outreach Services 11(1), 2008: 63-78.

[5] Karl Nyun. “Video Selection at Onondaga Public Library.” Library Journal 110(19), 15 Nov 1985: 20.

The Library of the Future

2008-06-17T20:42:00.001-04:00

In the article “Visions: The Academic Library in 2012,” James Marcum outlined the results of an essay contest conducted in 2002 to encourage librarians to predict what the academic library would be like in 2008.[1] Marcum outlined, for comparison, the changes that had occurred to libraries already in the preceding 10 years. These changes included dot matrix to laser printers, a shift in study spaces from quiet areas to group study areas, access to OPAC’s on computers in the library and in the stacks versus the remote and wireless access to the catalog today, and an increase in web based databases in addition to traditional print materials. While these changes were important in the way libraries operate, they were not that fantastical. The essay respondents, however, seemed to have been overzealous in considering what the future held for their libraries.
The first few examples of essays submitted were those by Stuart Silverstone and Bill Kennedy. The library of the not-too-distant future these men described were reminiscent of the holodeck so often seen in the Star Trek television series. Marcum describes Kennedy’s proposal in this article, stating that the library would be “No longer a room with a host, the library of 2012 will be experienced as a virtual reality with a ‘zoom atlas’ to whisk the learner to other places, with time travel to jump back into history or forward into the future, and with enacted dialogue to allow ‘conversations’ with people from other times and places.” Another essayist (the winner of the essay contest, in fact) predicted there would be “cybrarians” rather than librarians who would communicate with patrons through virtual reality helmets.
The predictions made by these authors seem to be very optimistic. While it is possible that the technology will be available by 2012, or even ten years from now (2018) with the increasing development of second life and other virtual realities, a bigger question remains. How will libraries pay for such sophisticated technologies? Some of the authors featured predicted that libraries will be using Internet3 technologies, but today, only 4 years away from that date, only a handful of universities are using Internet2. It seems a little counterintuitive to believe that traditional library materials will be completely replaced by these technologies when in 2002 the Association of College & Research libraries reported funding as one of the top problems facing libraries.[2] In addition, the emphasized the importance of maintaining traditional print collections in addition to the new technologies that may emerge. While digitizing all of the library’s materials may be an exciting prospect, it is most likely more costly and time consuming than it is worth.

[1] James W. Marcum. Visions: The Academic Library in 2012. D-Lib Magazine 9(5), 2003.
[2] W. Lee Hisle. Top Issues Facing Academic Libraries: A Report of the Focus on the Future Task Force. C&RL News 63(10), 2002. (available online at http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2002/novmonth/topissuesfacing.cfm).

Future Scholars

2008-06-13T16:37:00.001-04:00

In chapter 9, Richard Rubin quotes Abby Smith extensively. In particular, when discussing preservation and conservation, he quotes Smith as saying “two things can be said definitely about future library collections: not all recorded information will survive, and we will never be able to predict accurately which information will be in demand by scholars in the future.”[1] While I will not argue with the first of these, that not all recorded information will survive (and admit that it probably is not necessary for all recorded information to survive. For example, why would we need to keep the receipt from the bottle of Coke I bought yesterday?), I will argue with her assertion that librarians will “never” be able to accurately predict which materials will be in demand by future scholars in the academic library. Because it is going to become increasingly necessary to at least attempt this sort of prediction, I think that it is important that librarians consider techniques for doing so.

Archivists perform this “impossibility” on a daily basis. Part of the job of the archivist, aside from preserving and arranging materials is to select those materials of enduring value to be preserved. They do this by weeding collections as they process them, disposing of, for example, duplicates. They determine which materials to accession and to retain by trying to make an educated guess about which materials will be useful in the future. For example, diaries are often full of useful information. As are letters.

Would it not be possible for librarians to similarly make an educated guess as to which materials will be useful to future scholars by examining trends in research in the various subject areas and trying to predict from these trends where the future is heading? While their predictions may not be correct all of the time, chances are that they will be correct at least partially. Weeding of collections is necessary, and so, like it or not, academic librarians and all other kinds of librarians will need to necessarily select items for preservation and others for disposal.

[1] Richard E. Rubin. Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2004. 405.

Male Librarians

2008-06-12T15:31:00.001-04:00

In his chapter 10 of his book, titled "Librarianship: An Evolving Profession," Richard Rubin discussed the traits of a librarian.[1] These traits were those stereotypically associated with librarians, and also tended to be those traditionally associated with females. One of the studies cited suggested that both male and female librarians exhibited, for example, deference, passivity, nonassertive, and self-abasing behavior. While I have never thought of the job of a librarian as particularly male or female, it fits in with what I have read previously regarding the separate spheres and duties in which males and females were supposed to operate around the time of the creation of librarianship as a profession. The thought that these sentiments remain in place was surprising.

Rubin wrote that in comparison to female librarians

Male librarians experience additional concerns. They believe they are seen as anomalous, part of a 'woman's profession,' and therefore ineffectual or effeminate. This fear is great enough that men are less likely than their female counterparts to admit that they are librarians. They tend to refer to themselves more in terms that sound less feminine, for example, they are more likely to identify themselves as information scientists rather than librarians.[2]

More recent studies have been conducted than those cited by Rubin into the stereotypes and traits attributed to male librarians.[3] Contrary to the findings of Rubin and the various sources he cited, this study found male librarians to be much more comfortable with their profession than those conducted over 10 years earlier.[4] In 2001, Piper and Collamer surveyed male academic and public librarians who were listed in the American Library Association’s membership directory. They found that the majority of respondents did not consider the library as a “woman’s field,” nor did they feel uncomfortable working in an environment dominated by females. They did however tend to feel pressured into traditionally “male” jobs within the library, such as administration, heavy lifting, and computer related tasks, despite their aptitude for these duties. Some did recognize that a negative stereotype might exist in the minds of outsiders about their chosen profession (perhaps something like that of male nurses), however those surveyed felt this too was changing as “information services” jobs become much more common.

What has been working over the past ten years to change the stereotypes once so commonly experienced by male librarians, who were believed to be working in a “female” profession? Is simply the increase in information service jobs, as the librarians surveyed believed to be the case? Or perhaps are people today becoming more accepting of crossing traditional gender roles, with women working in what could have at one time been considered “men’s” work and men working in “women’s” jobs?

[1] Richard E. Rubin. Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers, 2004. 473-486.

[2] Rubin, 472.

[3] Rubin cited, for example J. Locke Morrisey and Donald O. Case. "There Goes My Image." The perception of Male Librarians by Colleague, Student, and Self." College and Research Libraries 49(September 1988). 453-464.

[4] Paul S. Piper and Barbara E. Collamer. “Male Librarians: Men in a Feminized Profession.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 27(5), 2001. 406-411.

The Web and the Library Collection

2008-06-03T20:11:00.000-04:00

According to our textbook’s author, Richard E. Rubin, the internet and electronic resources represent an issue to be faced in redefining the future library. Not only is the library itself and the profession of the librarian shifting to adapt to these changes, but Rubin also suggests that the definition of a library’s “collection” must also be rewritten. Some electronic resources, such as programs or documents on CD-ROM, DVDs, and electronic databases have already been accepted as part of the library’s collection. However, Rubin also proposes to include information from the Web as part of the library collection. He writes that “Given that information on the Web is available for consultation and downloading at the local library, then this information becomes, for all extents and purposes, part of the library collection.”[1] The Web, however, contains practically every type of information imaginable. If the whole Web is to be included as part of the library collection, what then are the limits of what a library would consider part of the “collection?”
Traditionally, it seems that what was considered the library’s “collection” was defined by physical possession. According to Rubin, “the library collection was the group of physical objects either available for consultation by staff and patrons inside the library or available for circulation outside the library.” He also writes that “From time to time one might borrow materials on interlibrary loan, but interlibrary loan represented a very tiny proportion of the library’s service and was not enough to confound the basic notion of what the collection was.”[2] Even the addition of electronic databases of periodicals and CD-ROM materials fit well into this definition. These items were either physical objects or access that the library could acquire (or, perhaps, purchase?) and make available for its patrons. Much of the time, these items that the library provided access to were materials that patron’s were unlikely to be able to or willing to obtain on their own (for example, the price of access to an electronic database does not make it practical for an individual to have their own access to EBSCO or JSTOR).
The Web, however, only partially fits Rubin’s definition of what the traditional library collection is, in that it is generally available for use by staff and patrons from inside the library. However, is providing access to an information source alone enough to make it be considered a part of the library’s collection? Or does the library need to exert some source of ownership over the information being accessed through the web in order for it to be considered a part of the library collection? For example, the library’s OPAC and website, which are available to patrons through the Web both within the library and outside, could easily be argued to be part of the library’s collection. The library took the initiative (and likely produced the funds) to have a someone create a website for it and the OPAC is unique to the library or the library system, being a description of the items within the library collection. However, patrons can also access a number of other websites using the internet access provided at the library. For example, someone researching the history of their own house in Philadelphia might be directed to look at PhillyHistory.org to find historic pictures of it. However, accessing this site from the library does not make it a part of its collection. Responsibility for maintaining the site and ownership of it falls to the City of Philadelphia Department of Records City Archives, who also maintains the collection of photographs in their hard copy form (various negatives and prints).
The physical ownership definition does not fit well when Web resources are considered. It is probably not correct to consider the entire Web a part of the library’s collection simply because patrons can access it through the library. This would be akin to saying that all the books in America are part of a single library’s collection because they can be accessed through interlibrary loan. However, the question of how to define the limits of a library’s collection is an important one and one that deserves more consideration than just deciding to include all of cyberspace as part of a single library’s “collection.”

[1] Richard E. Rubin. Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2004: 109.
[2] Rubin, 106.

Is the Bookstore Better?

2008-05-31T11:48:00.000-04:00

The Free Library of Philadelphia recently opened a café within its Central branch, called HOMEPage. What is fabulous about this café is that it is run in cooperation with project home, a Philadelphia area organization working to solve the problem of homelessness in this city. Those working in the café are either formerly homeless individuals or teens in a youth entrepreneurship program with project home. However, it is also food service within a library, seemingly an incarnation of the “bookstore model” I have heard so much about lately being lauded as the answer to all of the library’s problems.

Perhaps I am old fashioned, but modeling a library on a bookstore just does not make much sense to me. It seems like a confusion of purpose. The bookstore exists to make a profit. It sells books. And in mega-stores like Borders or Barnes and Noble, it sells coffee and snacks too. People buy their books there, not temporarily borrowing them to fulfill an information need. When you are buying the books anyway, it does not much matter if you get chocolate smudging up the pages, because it is your book and it does not have to be left in a good condition for the next user. Libraries, on the other hand, are there to help people find the information they need. They are not (generally, anyway) out to make a profit from the people, they are simply fulfilling a public service. However, selling lattes and bagels distracts from the information focus. Sure, more people may be coming in for the cookies and the coffee, but are they really increasing circulation? Should the library really be becoming little more than a public living room?

The thought that libraries might also head toward organizing their books in a “bookstore” fashion is also somewhat disturbing. What seems, on the face, to be a simpler method of organizing books (placing them under big signs for very general subjects such as American History and having no further sub-organization) seems like it would be taking a step backward it most libraries. For the smallest of libraries or for certain specialized libraries it could be a good solution, however for larger collections it just seems that such an organizational method would make things more difficult to find. Not only that, but it seems to reduce the need for a librarian at all. Sure, a patron will need even more help finding what they need in this more disorganized system. However, why even catalog if there is not going to be a sophisticated organizational system in place. Users may even think they prefer this simplified method of organization, but perhaps it is because they have not been taught anything else. Perhaps it could be an interesting topic of research to find out not only what kinds of information organization schemes/ ambiance the patron wants in his or her library, but why they want that particular scheme.

References:

Promisloff, Sarah and Sandra Horrocks. “There’s No Place like the H.O.M.E. Page Café: Project H.O.M.E., Free Library of Philadelphia, Bank of America, Open Internet Café with a Social Mission.” Project H.O.M.E. 16 April 2008. [Press Release].

Libraries, Social Control, and the 19th Century

2008-05-27T21:28:00.001-04:00

In chapter seven of Foundations of Library and Information Science, Rubin wages an argument against the assertions of Michael Harris, who argued that libraries were used as a form of social control. Rather than being the happy abodes of equality as most library historians (according to Rubin's assertions) would like to have it, in Harris' argument "the public library, libraries, and librarians are seen as agents of authority and social control, implementing restrictive rules, and generally unfriendly to hoi polloi…Further…the public library collection was not designed for the common person, but catered to the educated and upper classes," and that this trend continues today.[1] Rubin argues against this claim using the argument of Dian, who essentially claims that being created by elites is not evidence that the first public libraries did not serve the other classes as well.

It is not a far stretch to imagine that libraries would be agents of social control when the first public libraries, including the Boston Public Library being discussed in Rubin, emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In a time when social control was seemingly ingrained in every part of life would the library be any different. At this time, it was seen as the obligation of the elite (as well as and especially women) to be the moral guardians of society.[2] An example of this can be seen in Steven Ross' Working Class Hollywood, where he argues that movies were used as a means of social control, both on the side of the workers and on the side of the elite bosses.[3] The movies, like the library and reading, were a way for working class individuals to spend their newly found leisure hours (the eight hour workday was not put into law until the early 20^th century, but many labor disputes in the late 19^th century dealt with this issue, with unions demanding better working conditions and "Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will"). Union organizers created movies that pushed these points, while the elite upper classes either discouraged workers (employees) from going to these movies or they created movies of their own to argue the other side.

In addition, even with the eight or ten hour work day for the working class, it is likely that books catered more to elite, upper class tastes as Harris argued. While the working class may have been gradually increasing their rates of literacy, it is likely that the elite still had much more time to devote to reading and many more were capable of doing so than their counterparts in the lower classes. They selected those materials for inclusion in the library that they felt were appropriate, much as can be argued about selection practices today, especially when debates over censorship and banned books are considered.

[1] Richard E. Rubin. Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2004: 289.

[2] For example, see Martin J. Wiener. Review: [Untitled]. Journal of Social History, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Winter 1978), 314-321.

[3] Steven J. Ross. Working Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Chapter 1: What is a librarian?

2008-05-23T14:31:00.002-04:00

The theme of today’s readings seemed to be focused on defining a “librarian” or “librarianship.” All of the fuss seemed somewhat odd to me, as if you say to a person that you are a librarian, they will have generally have an idea of what you do. At the least, they will know that you are the person who sits at the desk and checks in and out books and is can help you find information when you cannot find it on your own. It is a much different from the “Huh?” response one often gets when telling a person that you are an archivist. When this happens you have to figure out how to distill the idea of your being a person who selects and arranges materials of enduring value, preserving them for the use of future generations without resorting to the easy “I organize old papers” definition.

If, however, the definition of librarian is “someone who organizes and helps retrieve information,” it would seem to follow that a “library” is a place (whether physical or virtual) that a person would go to find the information that has been organized. Is this the full definition? It seems that lately people have come to consider the library more than just a place to go to get information (whether that is through books, electronic resources, classes, etc.) Along this line, more and more libraries have been adding cafés to their buildings, allowing food and drink through the doors, providing packages of toiletries to the homeless, etc. I do not yet know whether I agree with these changes or with the idea that the library is a “community center” and not just a place one goes for information. It seems to me that allowing food in is not a good idea, but I will have to keep watching this trend to see how successful or unsuccessful it is and the kinds of problems it presents.

Inspired by Chapter 6

2008-05-20T15:02:00.002-04:00

In Chapter 6 of his book, Foundations of Library and Information Science, Richard Rubin wrote that the “Effective organization of knowledge…is extremely difficult to accomplish: the organizing principles must be relatively easy to apply, and easy to understand by both information professionals and users, and they must reflect, to the greatest extent possible, the way that people ordinarily seek out information.” It is on this statement that I have been reflecting since having read the chapter. Do current organizing principles within the library really reflect the “way that people ordinarily seek out information?” This topic is especially important to consider the more schools discontinue their literacy training courses (a thought that my inner 8-year-old screams “No!” to, the weekly trip to the library was my favorites of our “specials,” which also included music, art, and gym classes). To test this idea, I tried searching in the way I would ordinarily think to look for information at the library using the Free Library of Philadelphia’s website, and found that their catalog does not seem to reflect the way that people would normally search for information.

For purposes of this journal, I am trying to find one of my all-time favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle. Supposing a person knows the title of the book, it could be assumed that the title is the first thing they would think of to use to search for the book. However, searching for “A Wrinkle in Time” in the search box on the Free Library’s website comes up with zero results. It does bring up a word cloud of “associated terms” on the left side, but none of these really fits what this book is about. If you remove the stopword “a” from the title, the results do come up, but I’m not sure if a person looking for the book would know to remove that word as similarly, might be done with a “the” at the beginning of a title. It is possible to do an advanced search from the simple search page by typing, for example, “title: a wrinkle in time” and getting results, but this is not apparent unless one looks at the help document. I think that perhaps different types of searching should be made readily visible on the website when a search returns no results.

As a contrast, I also tried the search on Temple University’s “Diamond,” the library’s catalog. Typing in the title just as before, “A Wrinkle in Time,” retrieved a result the first time. Additionally, unlike the Free Library’s site, this catalog includes a drop down box next to the search box with options such as keyword, title, subject, or call number that a user can select to narrow the search. This catalog is an example of one that is extremely user friendly.

I agree with Rubin’s statement that the organization of information should reflect the way that a person would ordinarily look for information. However, I think it is just as important to create a catalog or other searching tool that both represents this organization and will allow a user to search within that organization easily and having the various options for searching readily available (ex. the user should not have to navigate away from the page stating that there were zero results to try to locate the advanced search option). I would be interested in the future also to see what new discoveries have been made in research into integrating free-text searching into library catalogs that the ordinary user is likely to employ, especially now in an age of being able to “Google” something in that fashion to find needed information.

References:

L'Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962.

Rubin, Richard E. Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2004.

Another blog!

2008-05-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

I have another blog...hurrah! Only this time, instead of writing about the cool old photographs at work or about weird things I've discovered in the past however-long-its-been-since-I-last-wrote (like the Play-Doh scented perfume I learned of a few weeks ago and still am a little weirded out by ;-)), this is the place where I get to write about things I've read for school. Yippee!