Krafty Librarian

Yesterday I posted, “The Well is Dry, What Can We Do?” to try to get librarians to stop lamenting over things we can never change like companies (for profit and non-profit) charging more and more for library resources and try to get us to start looking at things we can change like finding alternative funding, increasing institutional partnerships, or friending the hospital CEO.  (I don’t mean friending as in Facebook, I mean actually talking to him/her and getting your case heard.)   But apparently I was totally wrong, there is no money crisis.  Wow I do I have egg on my face.

I want to thank @re_johns for opening my eyes and directing me to “Uninformed, Unhinged, and Unfair — The Monbiot Rant,” a post by Kent Anderson, the CEO Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, responding to an article in the Guardian, “Academic Publishers Make Murdoch Look Like a Socialist.”     

Anderson says,

“But Monbiot seems ignorant of these economic realities — that scholarly articles are available at rock-bottom prices for the specialists who need them, the very core audience who Murdoch would charge the most. He even goes so far as to insinuate that astronomical journal prices account for tuition increases, when in fact the net expenditures of libraries have moved at a fraction of the pace of tuition hikes.”

“The fact is that librarians are intelligent players in the scholarly space who, working with publishers, have secured excellent, sustainable deals for their constituencies to resources that are almost all online now”

Well damn. I guess I was totally wrong when I said that many libraries face flat or reduced budgets. My bad. I guess being faced with reduced budget means I totally can afford each vendor’s price increase and not cut anything.  Whoa I feel so much better.  Once I am done with the library budget I will move to D.C. I hear they have some budgety type problems too. 

I don’t think everything librarians say about publishers and vendors is fair, and I think there are some publishers and vendors that understand our dollars are shrinking.  However, Anderson’s post really makes me feel like there are still some publishers that don’t freaking get it, we don’t have any more money!  A journal may be the best thing in the world but if a library can’t afford it, they can’t afford it.  The mere fact that a journal (or anybody’s product) is perceived as so uber essential that it is a basic need puts librarians even more in a bind because to us it feels like we’re making a choice between paying the gas bill or the electric bill.  We have long since done away with creature comforts, we are down to basic needs and some of us can’t pay for our basic needs.

Anderson’s post also makes it quite obvious that library vendors are not going to stop raising prices so we best stop ranting and start figuring out what we can do for ourselves. If the well is dry then we either have to dig deeper or find water elsewhere.

These past few years libraries have either had their budgets held flat or had them cut every year.  It is sad to say that the “lucky” libraries are the ones that have had their budgets held flat.   Yet, library resources continue to increase in number and price.  I am sure it isn’t a news flash or secret to the sales people (although it seems like it when we see the invoice) but libraries have no more money.  We have trimmed all of our fat.  We are skin, bones and a little bit of sinew holding us together.  All superfluous resources were cut years ago.  We are now making hard cuts, getting rid of journals, packages, databases, that we would have never imagined cutting.  We are slicing our book budget (ebook and regular) to nothing.   Yet prices continue to rise. It is sometimes frustrating and depressing to see demos of new products because you can no longer focus on the product and its potential when all you can think about is the price and what you might have to cut.  There is no budget room for new products, we are cutting things we have and don’t want to cut.

I am not going to get into a whole thing about which companies are making a huge profit at the expense of libraries.  Companies make money, that is life.  That is the way it is with Nike, Apple, banks, etc.  Why do you think Nike and Apple make a lot of their products outside of the United States?  Because it is cheaper and it can help boost their profit.  That is life with companies, they make a profit and they squeeze as much profit out of things as possible.  Companies selling to libraries are no different just because what they sell is for the “greater good” or they sell it to predominantly non-profits.  You don’t see medical supply companies cutting hospitals a break because what they sell is for the “greater good.”  You certainly don’t see drug companies doing that.  For profit companies and non-profit companies all want to make money, the details are in the tax codes and what is considered “profit.”  Rest assured they both want to make money.  Why should we expect anything different from library companies? 

Libraries have no more money, they cut to survive.  A library company that has diversified may have originally reduced their risk but now that libraries are robbing Peter to pay Paul, these companies may be shooting themselves in the foot.  If they increase prices on items, we have to make cuts on something in the library.  The more things a company owns/produces increases likelihood we are probably going to cut their stuff in our library.  It isn’t out of malice, they just happen to be large provider of many library things.  

For example AT&T used to be the sole provider of my household’s link to the outside world.  They were our Internet provider, our TV programming, our home phone, and our cell phones.  I was sending close to $400/month to AT&T.  As much as AT&T gets dogged, I actually liked their products and their service.  The Internet worked fine, U-Verse was great I loved its DVR capabilities, and I still get a dreamy look in my eyes thinking of my iPhone.  But, AT&T was quickly growing out my budget.  Despite loving all of those things and thinking of them as necessary, we dumped U-Verse and the iPhones.  We kept AT&T Internet and the home phone went to a 300 minutes monthly package (similar to cell phone talk plans).  We don’t get cable. We get digital TV through an antenna and Netflix through our X-Box.  Instead of $400/month I spend roughly $125/month for TV, Internet, home phone and two smart phones.  AT&T used to get all of the $400, now they get $50.  Like I said, I loved their service for all of their products, but the constant increases in costs and my own flat budget led me to cut things completely. I wasn’t willing to find extra money through a second job or elsewhere to increase my family budget. I am saving a nice amount of money, but it was a huge pain in the butt to do the research and make the cuts. If they had kept their prices I wouldn’t have bothered to cut them. 

Librarians don’t like making the cuts, we have long since past the easy things to cut.  Now the cuts take time, require more and more research, and are frustrating.  However expecting the library vendors not to try and make a profit while we are making cuts is a little bit like me expecting AT&T to give me Internet, U-Verse, home phone and my iPhones for around $125/month….It just isn’t going to freaking happen.  So what can libraries do?

Most libraries are have already dumped a lot and are now down to the bare bones.  So while the idea of cutting is still an option it is getting more and more drastic.  We are probably now at the point of finding a “second job”.  We need to start looking for more funding.  Grants and awards are a good start but they are usually only temporary.  Perhaps endowments are an option, but those take time to grow.  Charging for services, as bitter of a pill that is to swallow, might be something to consider.  However, funding from administration is still going to be a key source of money for most of us. How can we increase our funding from administration in a down economy? Perhaps we need to be thought of as department considered necessary to prevent further loss of money, kind of like the legal department.  

How can this be done? Again I am not sure,  I would love to hear from people with ideas.  One idea that bounces around in my head is that I remember one vendor talking about how their product reduced length of stay thereby reducing costs.  I sure wish they said something like “Institutions that had their product in their LIBRARIES reduced length of stay.”  It would be nice and helpful if there were library vendors that commissioned studies on the impact of libraries and library resources on a hospital’s profit, quality of care, etc.   (It could be designed where there were no conflict of interest.) But that is relying on a third party to help with our situation.  What can we do to prove our worth to administration? Maybe we need to get a “head hunter” for that “second job.” In multi person libraries do we need create a position for somebody to secure funds and to talk money with administration?  Do we need a buisness evangelist on our staff?   Some might say that is the head librarian’s job (or in the case of solos the only librarian’s job).  But when you are sick there are times when you must leave the care of a general practitioner for a specialist.   Are libraries that sick that we need to hire specialists?  I guess it depends on each library.

The MidContinental Blog posted a quick blurb about MoSHI (Mobile School Health Information Initiative) as a Library Success.  The staff at Becker Medical Library Washington University School of Medicine created the MoSHI program to connect K-12 librarians in the St. Louis metropolitan area with credible health information. 

Their goals were foster interdisciplinary curriculum collaboration between teachers and school librarians through the use and promotion of credible health information on the web, and to better serve students, administrators, and parents health information needs by improving their health literacy.  MoSHI trained 93 participants, most of which served either elementary or high school students.  Participants shared information learned with classes, teachers, and parents. 

Originally MoSHI was funded by the MidContinental Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine through the Continuity of Health Information Award.  Thanks to the Family Resource Center, project staff and Becker Medical Library, MoSHI sessions will continue. 

Cool idea and a great example of an academic medical library partnering with others in the community to improve health information literacy.  For those of you who are interested in a program like this, go to the Mobile School Health Information Initiative (MoSHI) page on the Library Success Wiki.  On that site you can see read about the curriculum collaborators, lessons learned, and contact information.

Inside Higher Ed’s article, “What Students Don’t Know,” is hitting the web big time since I first read it.  Dare I say it has become viral?  It is now on Mashable and USAToday among other places.  I have been kind of reading the comments on the article from Inside Higher Ed and other places.  As with all comments on blogs and news articles some are helpful, some are not.  However, the 8th comment down on the Inside Higher Ed site, “What happened to K-12 education? Standards?” Posted by JMH was intriguing.  JMH says that “if we really want to see a change, we need to influence current K-12 educators by providing free online research workshops that address some of these skills.  If those teaching K-12 students and university students are not aware of their own lacking in online research skills, how can we change things for the better?”

I have a K-12 child.  My oldest child is just entering the 3rd grade. Last year in 2nd grade he had several projects where he had to do research.  I remember the projects very well because a lot of whining and crying was involved (not just my son but me too).  As vivid as those projects were, I don’t remember the teachers ever making an issue about finding the information, doing the research.  Nothing was sent home about how they were teaching the kids about research or finding information on the Internet, just information on what facts we were supposed to find for the report.  For example for a poster on Dwight Eisenhower we had to have what number President he was, birth and death dates, family members, where he was born, and one interesting fact about him. 

During the Eisenhower poster I fought with my son about using the top Google listing for information.  While I am sure the information in Wikipedia was correct and fine for a 2nd grade poster, I didn’t want him to get used to using it.  I had to explain to him that the White House’s site might have better information since he was a President.  I had the same problem with an endangered species report.  Again I had to explain to him that Kids National Geographic was probably a better site to find information and pictures than some of the other sites that popped up. 

For both of these projects I don’t remember ever seeing anything from his teacher or school librarian that they discussed how to search for information or how they would like us to search for information for the reports.  I’m sure other non-librarian parents went on Google and didn’t make as much of a fuss about the source of information as I did.  Shouldn’t the teacher or the school librarian have taught the students something about this?  By all rights they may have, and it went in one ear and out the other of my 8 year old. If they taught them shouldn’t a flier be attached to the project assignment reminding the kids (and informing the parents) about finding information? 

Oh I forgot to mention this is at a school that was a National Blue Ribbon recipient and is rated Excellent in Ohio.

If they don’t get the foundations in school, do you think they are going to have a good research skills in their medical careers?  Remember Anna Kushnir’s hatred for PubMed. She was never instructed on how to use it and scoffed at the idea of database instruction. “I don’t think I should have to be, or enlist the services of, a medical librarian in order to do a simple search on a literature search engine. PubMed should be an intuitive search engine such as Google, or others.”  According to the “What Students Don’t Know”  report students can’t even Google well, so Google is even too hard. Poor research can even lead to the death of otherwise healthy people as we unfortunately discovered from the death of Ellen Roche, a healthy, 24-year-old volunteer in an asthma study at Johns Hopkins University.  If the average undergraduate isn’t using the library nor considers the librarian to be anything more than a breathing sign pointing to the bathroom, what do you think those same students think as they become medical students then doctors? 

What do you think?  Is college too late to address some of these things?  Should we start by having a more proactive and integrated approach in grade school?  Should we as librarians be a more cohesive group and start at looking solving this problem together from the bottom up?

Really if it weren’t so sad or scary this could be the perfect plot for a Monty Python skit or the very least Colbert’s The Word.

The Inside Higher Ed’s article, “What Students Don’t Know,” provides an alarming look at students and libraries and research.  Not surprisingly, students show an appalling lack of knowledge about their own university’s library resources and how to do competent research (they even stink at Google searching).  What is surprising is how little we librarians know about what little they know.  Equally sad and frustrating is how little professors (the first person students go to if they seek help on research projects) know about the library and librarians. 

The article is long but it is an excellent look at students, professors, and librarians and how broken the research system is. 

The students:

First, students don’t go to the library and they don’t use library resources.  Google was mentioned as the search tool used more than twice as many times as any other database. Second, they overestimate their ability to do research and evaluate resources.  Ony 7 of 30 students conducted reasonably well executed searches.  Even their Google searches were poor. Third, if they searched something other than Google, they didn’t know how to search it (using a Google type search), and they often searched databases that would not be recommended for their topic. “Students regularly used JSTOR to try and find current research on a topic, not realizing that JSTOR does not provide access to the most recently published articles.”  Finally, they don’t go to the librarian for help with research, they go to their professor.  Librarians don’t even register on their radar. “Students showed an almost complete lack of interest in seeking assistance from librarians during the search process. Of all the students they observed — many of whom struggled to find good sources, to the point of despair — not one asked a librarian for help.”  Yet, they know to ask us if they can’t find the bathroom.

The professors:

First, faculty have low expectations for librarians. Libraries are seen as a purchasing agent.  They think librarians know how to search for sources, but “don’t know how to do research.” Second, faculty assume students have a much higher level of research skills and knowledge than they in reality. They believe students will just be able to pick the skills up on their own or from a one-time search class that they may or may not have had.  “For example, a professor might tell students to find “scholarly sources” without considering that students do not actually know what a “scholarly source is.” Third professors ideals are out of sync with students.  Students are more pragmatic while professors wished students would spend more time in “contemplations and discovery” during the research process. Students (like many people in life) do just enough to get by.  “If they aren’t told to use [specific library] databases, they won’t,” hence they Google it.  Most student aren’t interested in learning how to do research they just want what they need to solve the current problem.  Yet professors (and librarians) think they should learn how to do research as a life long skill.  The article mentions giving a person a fish vs teaching them to fish. However, not everyone is going to be fisherman nor do they want to be a master angler, yet we (professors and librarians) are expecting that of them.   

Librarians:

Perception is our biggest problem; people’s perception of us and our perception of students.  If we even register on the radar of students and professors, their perception of us is not good nor is it conducive to helping with research.  “The idea of a librarian as an academic expert who is available to talk about assignments and hold their hands through the research process is, in fact, foreign to most students. Those who even have the word “librarian” in their vocabularies often think library staff are only good for pointing to different sections of the stacks.” Since most students go to the professors for help when doing research, librarians need professors to help re-direct the students back to library for research help.  Yet, “faculty may have low expectations for librarians, and consequently students may not be connected to librarians or see why working with librarians may be helpful.” 

We are just as guilty as professors of expecting more from students. Researchers “were surprised by the extent to which students appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school. Even students who were high achievers in high school suffered from these deficiencies.”  Students are NOT digital natives despite growing up in the information age. 

UGH…..

Now how does that article correlate with the medical students on your campus?  How about the residents? 

At one of my previous librarian jobs, I noticed that third year medical students were rotating to the hospital without any training or classes in searching Medline.  Yet they were expected to find articles and write papers on cases they had seen.  They were searching on Google or doing Google searches on PubMed.  Only through questioning the students (the ones I saw doing crummy searches) did I learn that they were NEVER taught how to find articles or use Medline.  The librarians at the medical school didn’t teach them because they didn’t need to know that stuff in their first 2 years of medical school.  BUT nobody taught them before their 3rd year when they definitely needed to know and were based in the hospitals.  Only through persistence was I able to work with the CORE to get a 3 part class added into their schedule where they came to the hospital library and I taught them how to use PubMed.  Almost all of the students told me that this was stuff they wish they had learned earlier in their medical school career because it helped them out immensely and saved them time.

Residents leaving our hospital must always “check out” with the library making sure they don’t have any outstanding books or fees.  Yet every year there are some who come to the library with the sign-out sheet in hand telling me they have never used the library before but they still need our stamp.  Sure enough, they only have an HR skeleton record in our OPAC meaning they never used our resources from home, ordered an article, nor checked out a book.  I hope they at least used our electronic resources while on campus, but all I can think is, “How sad, that is another one we didn’t reach.”

So, enough of the depressing stuff.  How we can do better?  What can we do to get perceptions changed?  Clearly there is a lot for us to do.  What should we be doing to to extend the library services and to get librarians thought of more?  What are you or your library doing?