Table Talk
Internet access & MORENet
This was pretty much worth the cost of admission, right here. I got an uninterrupted 15 minutes with Randy from MORENet to discuss *exactly* what our library needs to do to comply with MORENet’s requirements for offering Internet access wirelessly. I also got a great tip about how to do it properly (and freely) and will be putting that into place very, very soon! Yippee!!!
A Squee Moment In The Middle Of My Day
Borrowing a term from Christopher Gould of MOBIUS, I had a squee moment as I was checking my email today. The conference that I went to last month (National Association of Government Webmasters) sent out the compiled evaluations to presenters. They put them all neatly in a spreadsheet, gave averages for each 1-5 rating and included the comments on the same row as the rating scores. I felt that, according to the number of drinks purchased for me the night after my presentation and the number of people who commented favorably on it as I was imbibing those drinks, the presentation had gone well. I had no idea *how* well, however.
My average scores, on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) were all above 4.2 – most were in the 4.5 or 4.6 range. The “average of my averages” was 4.5 out of the 36 people who turned in evaluations. That’s a lot of 5’s!! The comments, though, were truly wonderful. I did have some constructive criticism (one person felt that my visuals needed more color) and I LOVE getting those – they help make the next presentation better – but much of the commentary was positively blushworthy.
Stuff like, “Very interesting subject. Great presenter.” and “Perfect balance between technical and non-technical info. Engaging presenter. Would love to hear from her again!” and “Great content. Well done. Thanks Robin” were enough to make me giddy. You better bet they are going on my “raves and reviews” page!
Meeting Without Meeting In Person
Tom Peters
Tom came to MLA to discuss the different kinds of meetings we hold in library-land, the number of meeting we hold and how to make them easier, cheaper and better. He identified 5 types of meetings:
* Face-to-Face
* Conference Call
* Video Conference
* Web-Based
* Virtual World-Based
and identified how often we meet. In a series of mathematical calculations (described in more detail in his slides he calculated that librarians convene 25 million meetings a year – and that the vast majority of them were face-to-face, with a few (23% or so) conference calls and less than 1% of each of the others. He also described doing some quick calculations during a face-to-face meeting that was dragging on about the expenditure of a couple of thousand dollars and concluded that the staff salaries alone made the meeting more expensive than whatever it was they were arguing over. His proposal was to move more meetings into the virtual space (and not by using conference calls, either, which he hates) so that people can multi-task, share rich information (documents, etc.) and be productive while meeting. He mentioned the use of social networking sites as a way to keep in touch in between meetings as well, a topic close to my heart, as you all know…
Check out his slides – they are packed with information and ideas on how to evaluate your current meetings and make ’em better. Also, check out his upcoming ALA Tech Source Tech Report for information on using virtual worlds as meeting “places”.
Three Low-Cost Usability Evaluation Methods For Library Website Redesign
Kim Thompson, Hsin-Liang Chen & Sanda Erdelez
This session went through 3 ways that the University of Missouri-Columbia folks conduct first-round usability testing on websites. The first method, Information Horizons, was one that they came up with themselves and was explained by Dr. Erdelez. The idea behind this method was to get users into a room with some paper and markers and have them draw out a mind-map sort of thing with themselves in the middle and the sources they would turn to for a particular information need branching out. Each successive “layer” of info sources would be in a different color. If your website doesn’t come up in the session naturally, you would bring it up yourself to see if they *ever* think of your site as an information provider. After discussing that, we went into paper prototyping (which I’ve discussed on this blog before and, since I have no Internet and I’m typing this up in Notepad, will ask you to search for because I can’t look up the URL of *where* I’d mentioned it before…) and Dr. Chen discussed his method that he uses to interactively create paper prototypes. He encourages his testing subjects to use paper “widgets” to lay out the page as they would like to see it, with their own labels and their own drawings if a widget isn’t available that suits them. Finally, Dr. Thompson discussed the idea of cognitive walk-throughs. This would happen before you bring in users to test out your paper prototypes – you envision a user, envision the steps that they would take to find the information and then use the prototype to see if there are any issues that come up during the execution of the task.
All 3 methods were interesting, pretty much free, and they looked quite useful!
During this year’s MLA conference, I presented on Collaborating In The Cloud, a reprise of the session I first did in Jamaica in June. It seemed to go pretty well, with a lot of questions afterward and a lot of nodding and “a-ha” moments from the crowd. Bobbi was kind enough to snap a few pics of me in action during the presentation, so I’ll let you all check out the wiki and a quickly posted blog post of my presentation from an attendee and leave you with the pics…
Personal Safety for Librarians
Fred Vogt
This session started with a plug (that worked – I went out and bought it right after the session…) for Fred’s book, See Sally Kick Ass. This book, and his presentations, are designed to increase women’s safety in public places, including libraries. What I really enjoyed about the presentation were the *concrete* examples he gave.
The first thing he talked about was on crime statistics. St. Louis, where we are for the MLA conference, has a violent crime rate that is 4 times the national average. Makes me far less likely to go wandering around after dark outside of my hotel… He then talked about having a safety policy in place and what should be included in that policy. After that, he got specific and discussed librarian safety! The big takeaway, for me, from that section of the talk was to assume that patrons will comply with our – nonagressively phrased – orders and to walk away after we deliver them. This tied in nicely with the Customer Service workshop this morning into a cohesive set of instructions for, say, asking a patron to lower their voice. Don’t use “Your” or “You” right off the bat – say “please lower your voice” instead of “You need to lower your voice” – less aggressive and nicer – then walk away from the patron like you fully expect them to comply. That both provides a customer service orientation to the order and a safety component in that you aren’t there for them to argue with you and potentially become violent.
This was all followed by the four A’s of personal safety – Attitude (stand tall, walk confidently), Awareness (know what is going on in your environment), Avoidance (run away, run away…) and Action (fight back). Part of the “attitude” section dealt with how we stand when in confrontations. Standing with your right foot out about a foot and your right knee slightly bent makes you much harder to shove and makes you look more aggressive and able to fight. Also, part of the stance is to not stand directly in front of a potentially violent person. Stand 45 or 90 degrees off to their side so that they can’t just run at you in a straight line. All really good, practical, tips to use in any situation!
He finished up with some moves designed to break any kind of hold that a “bad guy” might get you into – either grabbing your arm(s), neck or from behind. We practiced those – my partner was Natasha, who is pregnant, so I didn’t practice very hard…. I’m not beating up a pregnant chick!
After the session, he was in the trade show area, selling and signing his book, so I got a signed copy for myself because I really did want to watch Sally kick some ass – and be prepared to do so myself if it becomes necessary!
Kim Flores & Mel Davis from Springfield Green library
Video – A Guy Walks Into A Library from Pike’s Peak Library (on VHS…)
“Every business chooses the kind of customer service they want to provide”
* Place
* Product
* Process
* People
* Promotion
* Personal Service
* Public Relations
Consistency in all the “P’s” is very important – training is VERY important
Employee empowerment is key – they need to feel like they have the power to make customers/patrons happy
We assume patrons will not have the correct information and it can show in our service.
Reputation of unfriendliness is PR – just not good PR…
(from brainstorming activity)
17 bad examples, 4 good examples – it’s so much easier to remember the bad than the good.
What can you change? – training, publicity
how does it affect patrons? – inconsistent application of policy, not being able to help patrons find/discover our resources
Quotes from real patron comment cards and discussion of how to fix the issues.
* wear identification to show you work there
* ask how their experience was
Customer Service Standards for SGCL (Springfield-Greene County Libraries)
* develop list of cs priorities
* combined from each branch and adopted library-wide
* basic expectations
* Acknowledge each customer in a pleasant manner and create an open, welcoming environment
(we can’t verbally do this in the PCC, but we could work on smiling at patrons as they enter and thanking them for waiting when we get busy)
* Maintain an awareness of customers in the building or service area – safety and CS – give customers your full attention as they approach a service desk
(take your hand from the mouse as you ask if you can help them – give them your full attention)
* Assess the level of need for assistance in locating materials or using the facility – approach customers and ask them if they need help
(make customers feel special – even if you are working on 15 things at once)
* Appear approachable
(limit personal conversations in public areas – practice interrupted sentences, invite customers to return, smile)
* Ask questions to determine specific needs of the customer
(ask to put someone on hold, thank them for holding)
* Respond positively & find ways to say YES
(options…)
* Eliminate jargon
* Clearly communicate expectations the customer may have
(underpromise and overperform)
* Deliver service that exceeds the customer’s expectations
* Become well-versed in library policies, procedures, programs, etc.
(morning meetings to get everyone aware of what is going on in the library that day)
* Possess broad knowledge of resources & services
* Support your co-workers
* Provide services in a consistent manner
* Communicate (and understand) why you follow the policies that are in place
* Monitor customer behavior & enforce policies to create an atmosphere conducive to library functions
What about patrons who insist on dictating the library atmosphere? – talk to the patron and keep a file on discussions and maybe ban ’em. Many stories about patrons going wild in the library
What about No?
3-step process
* explain the reason
* show empathy
* let the customer know what you can do
Avoid “you have, you are” – change it to “please lower your voice” or “there is a balance on your card”
No debating. Inform them of what you want them to do (don’t ask) and walk away.
Lunch was sandwiches, pasta salads, chicken soup and apple turnovers (for me at least, they always have a great selection of food…), the next session after lunch was:
Adobe Photoshop for the Web
Jim Maivald from Adobe
Started with discussion of the upcoming CS4 suite – just that it’s coming out and will be a “free” upgrade if you buy CS3 within 60 days of purchasing it. Also offered free day of training if your order is 50K or more. Not really in my league…
Next he opened up Photoshop CS3 – immediately opened a photo and started showing how to use the levels palette to adjust colors, both simply by adjusting black and white and by using the 3 eye droppers (white and black) to tell PS how to identify those colors.
He opened the curves palette next. He showed us how to preserve the rest of the image by putting anchors on the curve line while messing with pixels in other parts of the images.
Shadows/Highlights pallette followed. He demonstrated using this palette to do some sharpening of the picture without *actual* sharpening.
New selection tool – magic selection has become even more magical! Click & drag to select – make sure the “target” icon is in the area you want to keep. He then showed how to change pixels after you’ve selected them without being destructive using the adjustment layers (allows you to add make limited changes that are applied in a layer without changing/destroying the original pixels).
Smart Objects – a photo that is captured and stored somewhere secret that will allow you to make changes in any way, but will keep all the pixel info of the original in the smart object – (right click on layer and convert image to smart object) – do your work, any filters used will be smart filters – double-click on the filter in the layers palette and make changes to the filter properties, add filters to the smart object, make all kinds of changes without it being permanent!
Showed photo merge with new layer automerge capability – each image becomes a layer that can be merged several different ways. Showed really cool technique where several pictures with different people looking off to the distance were taken and merged them, then masked the top layer over the faces that were facing off camera and bring up the face where they “were” looking at the camera.
Rubber stamp tool – I’ve played with it before. He discussed cloning with perspective, which is somewhat difficult. He showed us vanishing point, a tool that lets you define an area with perspective taken into account.
Black & white conversion was next – lots of ways to see what your photo will look like in B&W.
At this point, he’s talking so fast that I can’t keep up… I’m doing a terrible job with the note-taking, but I’ll keep trying!!
Umm, I lied – check out the Zoomify stuff in CS3 – that is cool, lets you put a zoomable pic on your site with code that is created start to finish in Photoshop. Nifty!
Mentioned Device Central (lets you see your images as a cell phone screen would show it) and went into a bit of a disscussion on how people in a few years *won’t* be accessing your sites via the web on a computer, they will be accessing it via their phone, tv, refrigerator… and that’s why XML (which is the “big daddy” of RDF, XHTML, RSS, etc.) is so important. A direct corrollation to my previous session!!
Finished with a discussion of animation in Photoshop (while talking to his computer – which cracked me up, since I do that *all* the time!)
Next is vendor time and possibly nap time, then the Pinnacle awards banquet time!
Wow. I was way more nervous than I thought I would be – first time doing this one, you know. This means that I practiced and re-thought the presentation a lot!! It seemed to have paid off. The presentation was very well attended with lots of people paying pretty close attention to a LOT of information thrown at them in the space of about an hour. I talked for a bit over an hour, then we had a really, really good discussion for the next 20 minutes or so. There were a lot of people who were really thinking while I presented and had some great comments and observations. I’ve already made changes to my wiki in response to the discussions from the end of the session!
The wiki was well received as well – lots of people commented that they really liked the idea. It’s something I’ve been doing for EVERY presentation I do these days. Something else I did, this idea came from my co-presenter for the Becoming 2.0 class, is to get a label for my cards with the wiki’s address and slapped it onto a bunch of them for take-homes. They went pretty quickly, too!
All-in-all it went very, very well. I’ve been talking RDF and XML with folks all afternoon – and it’s been fun!
Again, I’ve already posted my observations about the opening talk, breakfast and both sessions, so I won’t go into that here. This is all about tonight! I made reservations for 7:30 at the Harvest restaurant, and wandered over that way for dinner. 
I started dinner with the Amuse-Bouche trio, which was described in the menu as:
Starting with grilled baby Portabello Mushroom stuffed with creole crabmeat glazed with hollandaise
Accompanied by seared smoked duck with pancetta root vegetables, caramelized onions and goat cheese
Finishing with crayfish etouffee topped with asiago crust
Yeah, it was that good. I also had a glass of Monterey, CA Reisling (I can’t remember the vinyard now) to go with the meal and had with it a Thai curry marinated Halibut on a bed of wilted spinach served with wasabi/fennell mashed potatoes with carrots and asparagus sticking out of it (this is from memory – it’s not on the menu posted on the website…). That was all covered with a tamarind sauce and had caramelized onions and on it as well. 
It was all seriously yummy! Now I’m back in my room and will go over my presentation *one more time* before I hit the sack and get ready for my turn to speak tomorrow!
