One of the long term projects I’ve been involved with at work was quietly unveiled this week, the Edgewood History Collection.

The project is a collaboration between myself and several other members of the library staff. My responsibility involved designing and developing the collection’s Home and About pages, as well as the page templates for the digital collection management software (the pages that actually display the items in the collection). The software we’re using is a hosted version of ContentDM.

Some of the things in the Edgewood History Collection I found interesting include:

Effigy Mounds at Edgewood. It’s fascinating to think about the ancient peoples that lived on the land the college now occupies.

From part 1 of the History of Edgewood College narrative: “[In 1881] Former Governor Washburn decides to give away his Madison estate. Accounts maintain that he offers it to the Sisters only after being turned down by the University, the city of Madison, and the State, all of whom supposedly claim it is too remote, being two miles from town.”

I’ll bet the University would love to have this “remote” location now…

Sacred Heart Academy, which cost $36,719 to build in 1894.

Summer Concert on the Lawn (from the mid-1950′s). Those hot summers must have been uncomfortable for the sisters in their long black habits.

An aerial view of the Edgewood Campus, circa 1960.

Finally, a picture of the Library which I took on a beautiful spring day a few years ago.

The Edgewood History Collection is the first digital collection from the Edgewood College Archives (which is part of the Library). We hope to unveil other digital collections in the future. Stay tuned.

Why I Became a Librarian

About a year and a half after I got my bachelor’s degree in business administration, I was struggling to find decent employment and my place in the working world. A very wise man suggested to me that I seek out the services of a career counselor, which I did. After a battery of personality assessment tests, my career counselor went over the results with me. Librarian was one of the top occupations on the list. As surprising as it was to see the word “Librarian” there, the more I thought about it, the more I believed I would enjoy the career. So off to graduate school I went.

After working with the career counselor, I wondered… where was this kind of information and assistance when I was in high school, or early in my college career? Shouldn’t every student be given this kind of help?

Why I am Still a Librarian

After working almost 10 years as a Librarian in a busy and understaffed public library, I was experiencing the signs of job burnout. Following my passion for working on the web, I took some classes and earned a Certificate of WebMastery, with the intent of seeking employment building websites. Right about the time I earned my certificate, the dot-com bubble burst and my prospects of getting paid to work on the web were severely diminished. Over the next several years I did some freelance web work, applied for some full-time web jobs, and even had a few interviews. But the competition from other more experienced web developers was just too great.

Then in 2004 I discovered a job opening for a Web Services Librarian at an academic library, which had responsibilities that would give me the best of both worlds. I applied, interviewed, and got the job. Looking back on it all, I am grateful to have found my niche.

As an aside for anyone considering the field, Librarian is on the U.S. News’ best careers of 2008 list.

It’s been an interesting experience providing online reference help. When I first started, it was a little unnerving and overwhelming (much like the first few times I was working at the reference desk in the real world). But just like that other reference situation, those feelings fade with experience.

What can be a little frustrating is the comparatively lengthy amount of time it takes to answer an online chat question. If someone stops by the reference desk for help on a search strategy, it’s a pretty straight-forward process to show them how they can proceed. It can be much more complicated via online chat. While the QuestionPoint software does allow co-browsing (where both the librarian and the patron can see what each other is doing in their browsing window), it only is available when both the librarian and patron are using Internet Explorer. And even then it can be problematic. Yes, that means I have to use Internet Explorer when I’m providing virtual reference (boo! hiss!).

Truth be told, the co-browsing feature of the chat software could still use some work. To be fair, the folks at QuestionPoint do continue to improve the software (they are even promising it will soon work with any modern browser).

But since I tend to avoid using co-browse when I’m being a virtual librarian, I invariably end up typing instructions to the patron, instead of just showing them what to do. For example:

From this page: www.example.com
Click “Articles” at the top
Do you see the link for the database?
Click that
In the search box enter the search terms
Check the box that says scholarly sources
Etc.

It can be a drawn out process compared to answering the same question in-person, or even over the telephone. But there have been studies in the library world that have found some students studying in libraries would not be caught dead asking for help at the nearby reference desk, but they will happily seek help online. In addition, allowing library patrons 24/7 access to help from a real librarian, makes the decision to provide the service an easy one.

One unique aspect about providing virtual reference is you can see the question before you decide to answer it — a luxury you do not have at the real world reference desk. During the times I have been online, there are usually 25-30 librarians throughout the country serving the same question queues I am. So if a question comes up I don’t feel real comfortable answering (such as the one I saw the other day about euclidean geometry), I can let a more knowledgeable librarian answer it. That also can be a bad thing however — you can get a little gun shy and just pass on every question.

Whenever I connect with a patron, the first thing I invariably do is open up their home library’s website. It gives me a good idea of what the student has access to, and if I can point them to a resource through their home library, so much the better.

I must say that finding information on some of those library websites has been a… challenging experience. Sometimes I find myself hunting around and clicking layers deep into the site for basic things. Things I think should be immediately visible to anyone visiting the site for the first time. But as the saying goes, “If you can’t say anything nice…”

At my previous job, I was probably spending 70-75% of my time at the reference desk, working with the public. That was way too much. By the time I resigned, I was pretty much at the point of being burned out. Consequently, after I finished the Web Master Certificate program at Marquette University several years ago, I considered a career in web development. In fact, I applied (and even interviewed) for a few jobs in that field. Quiet times like this week at the College make me glad I didn’t get those jobs.

While school is in session, the time I spend at the reference desk (helping students, faculty and staff) and in various classes demonstrating library resources, probably amounts to about 40% of my working hours. I very much enjoy the mix of working with patrons out in the public, and having time to work on things like the library’s web presence at my desk in the back.

We all need balance in our lives. Too much of a good thing can spoil it. Not enough of a good thing… well, I guess that’s obvious. If you can find that balance point, your psyche will be all the better for it. This week I came to realize what good balance I have in my work life, and I am grateful for that.

Visually, I designed the new catalog to have an appearance that compliments the look of the library’s web site (with a similar header and footer on each page). Marketing types would probably use the word “branding” here somewhere. Some new features have also been unveiled along with the catalog’s new look. Check out the news blurb from the library web site for details.

As far as what’s going on “under the hood” of the new catalog, this project was probably the most challenging assignment for me in my web career so far. Challenging for a couple of reasons. First, the design had to wrap around the library’s catalog software, which is produced by Innovative Interfaces. That involved learning all of the options, setup files, and quirks of their software. Second, as one who strives to use web standards while developing for the web, Innovative’s use of non-standards code was a bit frustrating. To those of you not familiar with web standards, having non-compliant code can cause browsers to display your pages in unexpected ways. To their credit, the folks at Innovative do recognize the importance of web standards and are making improvements as new versions are released.

A great deal of the design of the site was inspired by architectural elements of the library building. I created the header logo to mimic the window and roof lines of the building facade and the graphic at the footer on each page was inspired by the shape of the building. The official Edgewood colors were used (red and black) along with some shades of gray.

As for the technical aspects of the site, the markup was done in XHTML (version 1.0, strict) and I used some of the most advanced Cascading Style Sheets I’ve ever used on a website. I am a big advocate for web standards and I stayed true to that philosophy when creating this site.

I also incorporated some ASP scripting into the website, which was a first for me. While I didn’t write the actual scripts used, I was fortunate to find some useful scripts which I altered (one with the help of Edgewood’s Network Administrator) and got to work well with the site. I’m looking forward to learning more ASP and incorporating more dynamically driven pages into the site in the future.

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the library’s copier. I am sorry I was not able to provide you with the copier’s model number, however I am familiar with your techniques which result in unsuspecting victims being sent unwanted, outrageously priced copy supplies they had never ordered.

When I asked you why you needed the model number and you told me your company wanted to send us the new rate change, I did not think it was an unreasonable request to ask what exactly you meant by rate change. I’m sure you can understand why I was confused when you responded “it’s kind of like the introduction to a book on the information we’re sending.”

You see, I’m a librarian. We know about things like books. Although I suppose it is possible I may have missed the “Comparisons Between Bibliographic Introductions and Photocopier Rate Changes” class while I was in library school. Was that an elective?

When I told you I still did not understand what the term rate change meant and you responded by telling me you weren’t a dictionary, I was relieved. Imagine the strange looks on my coworkers faces if I would have told them I talked to a dictionary on the phone. I am grateful you were able to at least clarify that for me.

In closing, I am curious about one more thing. When your head hits the pillow at night, how do you fall asleep knowing you earn a living deceiving people?

Sincerely yours,
Jonathan

At the public library, I tended to do a lot of quick reference (new books are over there, videos can be checked out for a week, sorry all copies of The DaVinci Code are checked out, etc.). Sure, once in a while I had an involved question, but usually I had to take care of the person in a “quick and dirty” manner, because someone else was waiting for help. In general, questions I’ve been getting from college students can be much more involved and challenging. This is a good thing. Challenging questions make the job a lot more interesting. Most of the time, I’m able to have the satisfaction of sticking with the student until I know they found the information needed.

College students I’ve helped also seem to be a lot more appreciative than the patrons at my former public library. Perhaps that’s because I am able to spend more time with the college students. However, I also believe many of them know the value of having a librarian around to help them. My public library experience was that you often had to educate the public (or should I say taxpayers) as to how important libraries and librarians are.

So remember to thank your librarian. But please don’t give them any of your corny pickup lines.

In other news (if everything goes as planned) I should be permanently living in Madison by the end of next week. Speaking of which, I was browsing through some moving and packing websites the other day and found out how to pack hippos (from the US Postal Service, no less). Does anyone have a 1000 gallon tank I can borrow?

Last week I had interviewed for the position of Web Services Librarian at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. After the interview I felt pretty good about the whole thing and was very excited about the possibilities of working there. The position’s responsibilities are an interesting combination of website development and librarian duties.

Yesterday, I spoke to the library director who offered me the position! I’m really looking forward to the challenges this new job will have in store. Of course it also means I’ll be moving to the Madison area. It will certainly be a lot of changes for me, but I am looking forward to it all. Okay, I might not be that enthusiastic about the packing and moving hassles (does anyone have some empty boxes?), but I am definitely looking forward to everything else.