Transcript How Do I Make Them Understand? Advocacy in Today’s World Carol Pitts Diedrichs

How Do I Make Them
Understand?
Advocacy in Today’s World
Carol Pitts Diedrichs
Dean of Libraries
University of Kentucky
May 4, 2007
Advocacy for Technical Services Librarians
 Library
context
 Basic principles of
advocacy
 Technical services in
particular
Have you heard any of these things?
Everything is online
 Students don’t come to the library any more
 Everything is on Google
 Why do you need so much staff?
 Reference and circulation stats are down?
 Why do you need so much space?
 Why do you need a storage facility, can’t you just
get rid of some of that stuff?

Centrality of the library
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Librarians take this as a
given
Those who fund us do not
Facing increasing questions
about the relevance of
libraries in the new digital
age
Must be able to anticipate
and address these questions
in a compelling and powerful
way
Common failings of our advocacy efforts
It’s all about us
 Marketing materials describe library services
 Marketing materials fail to convey the
importance of libraries
 Communicating what we are doing rather than
why it matters
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It’s not about you
My Perspective

Spent 22 years as a serials cataloger, head of
acquisitions and assistant director for technical
services and collections
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Key role was advocacy for technical services and
collections within the libraries
But always also understanding the big picture of what
the library was trying to achieve, its mission and
vision
Had the luxury of focusing on what
technical services and collections
needed to be successful
July 1, 2003 to present

New position as Dean of Libraries at the
University of Kentucky
What is Advocacy?
Advocacy is a planned, deliberate, sustained
effort to raise awareness of an issue.
 Ongoing process in which support and
understanding are built incrementally over an
extended period of time and using a wide variety
of marketing and public relations tools.
 Saying to decision-makers, potential partners,
funders, any stakeholder, "Your agenda will be
greatly assisted by what we have to offer."

http://www.cla.ca/divisions/capl/advocacy/index.htm
ALA’s Advocacy Resource Center
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The best way to influence those
who control the policies and the
purse strings is for those who use
and value library services to speak
out.
Educate Users
The average user of the library
and your services has no idea
what it costs to run a library or
how funding works. Thus, they
may be unsympathetic to your
budget challenges, regardless of
how well you treat them.
Constant communication is the
best remedy. Use your active
users to help you form a powerful
constituency and become your
greatest allies.
http://www.ala.org/ala/issues/issuesadvocacy.htm
Who’s Your Audience?
Identify your target audience
 Then describe your services/expertise in terms
that the audience will be interested in
 Who is the target audience for technical
services?

Know your audience
Director of public bus service making a
presentation to the local Rotary Club
 What he could have talked about
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Timely schedules
Clean buses
Low cost rides
Friendly service
Know your audience
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What he did talk about
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Painted a picture of what life would
be like for the audience without
good, effective bus service
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How many more cars would be on
the road
Additional parking lots and their
costs
Increase in traffic cops if more
drivers hit the roads
Increased emissions and
environmental impact of more cars
He talked about how public bus
service mattered to his
audience
Why Does it Matter?
Why does everything need to be fully cataloged?
 Why do all of those MARC fields matter? And
ask yourself – do they really?
 What do you contribute that is indispensable?
 How would your absence affect the library?
 How does what you do make a difference?
 Why is what you need or request more
important, essential, critical than other needs
within the libraries?
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Developing your message
Message must be responsive to the priorities of
those who control funding
 What are the goals of your campus?
 What is the strategic plan of the university and
your library?
 Politically effective message must show how the
library is a critical component of the success of
these quests
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Mom and Apple Pie Messages
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A Generic Message will, at best, get you generic
results
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Those that reiterate the intrinsic value of libraries
What we have relied on in the past
Not very political—not very powerful
Political power—today it’s a
necessary ingredient for library
survival. In our rapidly changing
environment we must position
libraries so they are seen as the
central entity for providing access to
the full spectrum of information,
knowledge, ideas, programs, and
services that support individual
learning and intellectual growth
Sally Gardner Reed
OCLC’s Making the Case for Libraries
To raise the visibility and highlight the viability of
libraries to their funding bodies
 Series of national print ads and similar posters
that can be downloaded and customized by
libraries
 Their goal for academic libraries -- Remind
administrative budget decision-makers that
libraries are more relevant than ever, thanks to
new technology and the new role it lets them
play. Librarians now serve students and faculty
both inside and outside the library.

http://www.oclc.org/advocacy/default.htm
Association
of Higher
Education
Facilities
Officers
study
More than half the students
surveyed ranked the condition of a
university’s libraries near the top
of their list of reasons for choosing
a college
Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver
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Take a hard, self-appraising look at what
services you offer
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Do they still matter to anyone but the librarians?
Do you offer a rush service in acquisitions but only
deliver on your promise most of the time?
Do you offer to be the metadata specialist but can’t
find the time to get the project done?
Seize Public Speaking Opportunities

Do you realize that you speak in public forums every
day?
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You attend managerial meetings and present reports.
You lead staff meetings.
You participate in professional workshops.
You conduct online research training classes.
You represent your department at institution-wide meetings.
You go to a job interview.
You are involved in community activities and speak out on
local concerns or preside at meetings.
You participate in conference calls with other librarians
Detailed preparation may not be needed for all of these
situations, but each requires clear thinking and clear
speaking.
Elevator Pitch or Speech
Brief overview of an idea for a
product, service, or project
 Can be delivered in the time
span of an elevator ride
 Commonly used to get your
point across quickly
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Why Do You Need an Elevator Pitch?
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People are busy
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Your director/dean is constantly sifting through lots of
great ideas/needs/wants to determine what is a
priority
You are an expert
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You’re more interested in your
area of expertise than most people
You are also more knowledgeable
Characteristics of an Effective Elevator Pitch
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Concise
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Clear
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15 seconds to 2 minutes
250 words max
Understandable by your grandparents,
spouse and children (try it out on them!)
Conceptual
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High level, overview, 30,000 feet
Do not deluge them with faces and details
Characteristics, con’t
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Compelling
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Consistent
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Tailored to the interest of the audience
Everyone should hear the same basic message
Credible
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Can’t sound too good to be true
Final thoughts on elevator pitches
Memorize it and
rehearse it
 Listen to your
audience
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What is the first
question they ask?
Refine your pitch
www.thebusinessmakers.com/2006/12/23/episode-81-rice-alliance-elevator-pitches/
http://www.yourelevatorpitch.com/
From Steven Cohen at www.librarystuff.net
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“I love the concept behind an elevator pitch.
Many times, we try to describe what we do, as
libraries and librarians, and we get too involved
in laborious characteristics about ourselves and
our jobs. If you were on an elevator with a
stranger and had 30 seconds to describe what
you do and/or where you work, what would you
say? Remember, only 30 seconds. Go!”
Advocacy for Technical Services
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Environmental scan
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What’s new in your library and on your campus?
What’s in the strategic plan and what can I do to make that a
reality?
Looking for opportunities to help the library achieve its goals
Anticipate change and decide how to handle it
Consider possible futures
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What % of information resources will be available electronically
five, ten, twenty years from now?
What is the impact on technical services?
Where would technical services like to go and what does it need
to do to get there?
Trends and New Roles for T.S.
 Future
of the library catalog
 Mass digitization
 Rise of special collections and digital
access to them
 New ways of doing business
The Decline of the
Catalog
• Users taking the bypass
– 89% of college students say they begin with
search engines vs 2% with library Web pages
• One piece of a fragmented
library information landscape
(and hard to use!)
– Principle of Least Effort
– Metasearch in trouble
• Cataloging tradition
unsustainable
– “Just how much do we need to continue to
spend on carefully constructed catalogs?”—
Deanna Marcum, LC Associate Librarian
Challenges Facing Cataloging
Affordability and
Scalability
Expense of cataloging
Rapid growth of Web resources and
digital assets
Need more than descriptive metadata
Interoperability issues
Competition for
Resources to Develop
New Library Services
Shrinking tech services departments
Streamlining tech services workflows
Increasing use of external sources of
data; automated cataloging methods
Changes in InformationSeeking Behavior
Preference for online information
Reliance on simple keyword search
Decline of subject searching
Expectation of seamless linking
Karen Calhoun, Cornell University
1, Continued:
Challenges Facing
Challenges FacingTable
Cataloging,
Continued
Availability of Catalog
Librarians
Traditional Cataloging
LIS grads not choosing cataloging
Graying of the library profession
(demographics)
Significance of the Catalog
Catalog is one part of a much larger
infosphere
Many new types of scholarly information
objects not covered by catalog
Future of Individual Library
Catalogs
Less emphasis on one catalog per library
Shift toward multiple catalogs appearing
as one catalog; shared catalogs; catalogs
interwoven into the Web (Open WorldCat,
RedLightGreen)
Critical Mass
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“Now that we are starting to see, in libraries, fulltext showing up online, I think we are very
shortly going to cross a sort of critical mass
boundary where those publications that are not
instantly available in full-text will become kind of
second-rate in a sense, not because their quality
is low, but just because people will prefer the
accessibility of things they can get right away.
They will become much less visible to the reader
community.”
Clifford Lynch, EDUCOM Review, 1997
Engineers and the Library
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Engineering students are the least likely to use the
literature of their field
Typically value accessibility over quality when choosing
information sources
Engineers rely on informal sources of information such as
peers and trade journals rather than the formal journal
literature
Quickest feasible solution is more often used than the
most appropriate
Engineering faculty prefer using the library remotely
Engineering faculty view desktop delivery as a high priority
amongst library services
Matthews, Brian S. The Role of Industry Standards: An Overview of the Top
Engineering Schools’ Libraries. Issues in Science and Technology
Librarianship, Spring 2006. www.istl.org/06-spring/refereed.html
Study at UC-San Diego
Observing users at work
 Two windows open
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Library catalog
Amazon
Using Amazon to “search inside the book” to see
if they wanted to go get it off the shelf
 Then using library catalog to locate call number
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Reported by Dan Greenstein at Michigan mass digitization
conference, March 2006
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MARC21 format
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Over 2,000 fields and subfields
Research team evaluated 56 million record
WorldCat database
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Bill Moen at U of North Texas library school
Discovered only 10 fields and 20 subfields were
commonly used
 Why have such a complex metadata scheme?
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http://www.mcdu.unt.edu/?p=30
What To Do About It
Revitalize:
1. Develop new uses for catalog
data
2. Find new users for the existing
product
3. Find new uses and new users
Innovations and Cost
Reductions
• Much better linkages: ingest, convert, extract,
transfer
• Interoperate
• Simplify & exploit all sources of catalog data
• Eliminate custom practices
• Automate and streamline workflows
• Explore automatic classification, subject analysis;
abandon LCSH
• Mine catalog data for new uses; experiment with
FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic
Records)
LEAD
EXPAND
EXTEND
Mass
collections
& catalogs
Digitize
Open access
Participate in the
substitute industry
“Thirty-two Options &
Three Strategies”—
A Radical Abridgement
Invest in shared catalogs
Link pools of scholarly data
Seek partners
Improve the user’s experience
Greatly enhance delivery (fast!)
Standards development/compliance
Recycle and reuse catalog data
Innovate and reduce costs
Future of the Catalog
Open WorldCat
 Google Scholar
 WorldCat Local
 New interfaces for
catalog
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Find It on Google,
Get It from My Library
Open WorldCat
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Integrates library content with web search engines,
internet booksellers etc.
Web searchers discover library resources in their results
lists and move from the Web to the local library
Makes libraries more visible where many people start
their searches
Seamless links drive traffic to the local OPAC to get shelf
status and place holds
But only a small subset of the database is used by
partners such as Yahoo, Google, etc.
WorldCat Local
Pilot builds on WorldCat.org
 Locally branded interface
 Ability to search the entire WorldCat database
and present results beginning with items most
accessible to the patron
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collections from the home library
collections shared in a consortium
open access collections
Features of WorldCat Local
Single search box
 Relevancy ranking of search results
 Result sets that bring multiple versions of a work
together under one record
 Faceted browse capability
 Citation formatting options
 Cover art and additional evaluative content
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III
WorldCat Local
interoperates with locally
maintained services like circulation,
resource sharing and resolution to
full text to create a seamless
experience for the end user
…. allows users to place requests,
gain online access, or request an
interlibrary loan within
WorldCat.org
User-Contributed Content Pilot
New OCLC WorldCat
feature
 Debuted October 9, 2005
 Users can add their own
content to WorldCat
records
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http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/usercontent/default.htm
Unconventional uses of the library catalog
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Created a MARC record for fundraising event
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“An Evening with Carl Hiaasen”
Listed all his titles in 505 field
Contained link that led to web page to purchase
tickets online
Unconventional uses of the library catalog
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Created MARC record for Live Homework Help
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Two records – one in Spanish, one in English
Record had lots of subject headings with school
subjects such as Math
Used subject tracings for Math as well as
Mathematics
856 link to database
Unconventional uses of the library catalog
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2,000 language-learning print and audio bib
records
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Added 856 link with this option – “want to learn right
NOW? Start here with Rosetta Stone!”
Link took them directly to the Rosetta Stone database
Career books
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Added link to Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center
Bost, Wendi and Jamie Conklin. “Creating a
One-Stop Shop: Using the Catalog to Market
Collections and Services.” Florida Libraries
49, no. 2, Fall 2006, p. 5-7
Unconventional uses of the library catalog
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Oprah’s New Pick
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Created before next pick was
announced
Listed all previous selections
856 link to her web site
Allowed users to reserve the
book before it was
announced
Discovery must translate to Fulfillment
Integration of search, find and obtain
 Discovery is not enough
 Must be converted to fulfillment
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Mass Digitization
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What are the implications for collection
development and technical services if all books
are available in electronic form?
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Google Book Search
Espresso Book Machine
Internet Archive Bookmobile
What Can I do Once I’ve Found a Book I Like?
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Buy this book – links you to online booksellers directly to the page
where you can buy the book
Search again – find more results for your original search terms in
others parts of the book or try a new search within the book
Find reviews – Choose “about this book” then click “Web Search for
reviews” to find online reviews of the book
Find related information – choose “about this book” and click on
“other web pages related to …” to find other websites that mention
the book
Learn about the publisher – click through to the publisher’s website
Find it in a library – if this book is a library book, you can find a local
library that has it by clicking “find in a library” and entering your zip
code
Espresso Book Machine
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Prints entire books in mere
minutes
Currently being tested at the
World Bank Bookstore in
Washington DC
NYPL and Bibliotheca
Alexandrina are each getting
one this fall
Current model
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Prints the text of a 300-page
book in just 3 minutes
With a color paperback cover
Binds it
For only 1 penny a page
Machine retails for less than
$100,000
http://www.archive.org/texts/bookmobile.php
Where are Today’s Backlogs?
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1998 ARL survey
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1/3rd of holdings of archival repositories were
unprocessed
www.arl.org/rtl/speccoll/spcolltf/status0706.shtml
"it is better to provide some level of access to all
materials, than to provide comprehensive access to
some materials and no access at all to others."
2005 Publication by Greene and Meissner
http://www.midwestarchives.org/2006_Fall/readi
ngs/AA68.2.GreeneMeissner.pdf
 Seminal study of archival backlogs
 Problem is widespread’60% of repositories had
more than 1/3rd of holdings unprocessed
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New Dialog and Energy in Archival Community
Get legacy finding aids up as EAD
 Process each collections each at least minimally
 Make at least collection level descriptions
available online
 Use appraisal techniques to determine which
collections deserve more detailed treatment
 Track most heavily used collections and use
data to make sensible decisions about which
collections to process in more detailed manner
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The Era of Special Collections
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Rise of special, unique collections
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In past, archival materials suffered
from two limitations
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Available in only 1 location
Difficult to find and use
Digital technology offers a
solution to both of those
What is each institution’s
contribution to the core?
What can t.s. do to enhance
accessibility?
PennTags
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Social bookmarking tool for locating, organizing, and
sharing your favorite online resources
Members of the Penn Community can collect and
maintain URLs, links to journal articles, and records in
Franklin, our online catalog and VCat, our online video
catalog
Can also be used collaboratively, because it acts as a
repository of the varied interests and academic pursuits
of the Penn community, and can help you find topics and
users related to your own favorite online resources
Developed by librarians at the University of Pennsylvania
http://tags.library.upenn.edu/help/
Selected Resources
Reed, Sally Gardner. Making the Case for Your
Library: A How-To-Do-It Manual. NY: NealSchuman Publishers, 2001
 Karp, Rashelle S. Powerful Public Relations: A
How-To Guide for Libraries. Chicago: ALA, 2002.
 Kies, Cosette. Marketing and Public Relations
for Libraries. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2003.
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Selected Resources
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Elliott de Saez,
Eileen. Marketing
Concepts for
Libraries and
Information
Services, 2nd Ed.
London: Facet
Publishing, 2002.