Crafting the user centered library Cliff Landis
its not enough to shove your bad services into a new space, we know our opacs suck so why are we cramming them into myspace and facebook
why do you use emerging technologies in your library, not just bc everyone else is, doing it for service and outreach, get away from creating things for user and look for things created by the user
how do we approach new ideas
planning – find out in the end of a lot of work whether is succeeds or fails
committee approach – take an idea and kill it
youtube video – association professionals thru the ages
lets try to assess and reflect as we go along – don’t need to drag process out
action steps
- try
- be fast – try to do it within 3 months
- be human – be patient with yourself, you dot have to get it right the first time,
- don’t over plan
- do you like me – yes or no, maybe? Assess our relationship with our users
- you cant measure progress without out measuring, write assessment into your plans
- reflect – sometimes your users just want a book,
- be willing to fail – if you’re gonna fail, fail spectacularly
think back to your most amazing user experiences – what made is special? Always remember best and worst dinning experiences, ask users what they remember about your lib, they will tell you either their best or worst experience
how to gather the tools
- surveys – surveymonkey, limesurvey, polldaddy
- focus groups – can be tricky dot need a lot of ppl and dot need a lot of questions
- user observations – camtasia, captivate, clickheat – set up user on pc ask them to use the libraries websites, find out where they tripped up
- conversations – are the most powerful tool beyond these tools, if you are the ref desk close your email, talk to your users, ask them questions, what do they like the most, what do they like the least
gathering your volunteers
have something to offer as compensation for their time
get out of the library – talk to ppl who never come to the library, find out why they aren’t coming
everyone loves to give their opinion – ask them they will tell you
embrace the power of selling out – you can get freebies by offering additional advertising
grab swag from conferences then give it as prizes
implementation – something will always go wrong
getting the boss’ buy in
- get stories, get numbers, gather data driven results
- make it publishable
the practice of social research by earl r babbie – for processing data
go ahead and do it half-assed, dot wait until everything is perfect and everything is planned,
you can always refine and redo later –
be user centric
be willing to be the work – dot expect others to do your work for you, if you have an idea be willing to do the work
evolution will take care of the bad ideas – failure often will not be a giant explosion, but will just peter off, dot beat a dead horse
create a culture of innovation, dot be a naysayer, dot let other ppl be a naysayers
questions –
how do you set up a structure for evaluating user feedback?
Reference meeting, faculty meetings, make sure its vertical, get wide experience, wide age range
how do you deal with haters? Let the haters hate, it cant be unicorns and candy everyday, let it run off your back
how do you deal with the librarian who is still working in the library from 20 years ago, you cant change other ppl, all you can do is expose them to new ideas, you cant make every person get excited, audience suggestion – pair them up with a new person
Librarian by Day 