done!

Yesterday was my last day at the Waltz Library, which is kind of a bummer, as I was just getting used to going there twice a week. In any case, I am wrapping up my paper, which I will be putting up in little segments here. I also will be continuing to groom it into something publishable with Laurie's help.

Waltz Reference Model

Issues:

-Heavy dependence on student workers/work study

Only 1/3 of students are graduate students with a class in music library resources.

-Understaffed on reference staff

Coverage only during “business” hours.

-No referral system in place from student workers to reference staff

Especially for undergraduate workers, define a point where the referral happens. This is complicated by the fact that many “directional” questions turn into “reference” questions.

Reference staff will jump in on questions fielded by circulation, especially “research” sounding ones, but more so the questions where people can’t find items and start to say that something can’t be found.

-Layout: circulation computers closest to webPACs

Part of the difficulty I see with this layout is the fact that so many searches by students do not begin with asking the reference staff for help, but begin with interactions with computers, be it searching the internet, databases or the library catalog. Since the closest people to the computers are the circulation staff, they seem like logical people to go to for help. Even with signage, the fact that there is such flexibility on the desk adds to the confusion of the different roles and their particular locations at the desk. So even though some users will go around to the reference staff anyway, especially if all of the circulation staff is busy, more often than not, I personally have seen people just wait there. The fact that reference staff also feels the need to jump in on queries goes to this point as well.

-Small/homemade signage

-No identification of people behind desk as to their positions

Physical Solutions:

-Position Tags

Without resorting to a lot of signage, tags give to staff identifying their position (reference or circulation) will help clear up some confusion at the desk, given the fact that there is a lot of crossover and cooperative activity on the desk. The biggest issue with these is that students might not know the difference between the two anyway. It might encourage them to go to one place or the other, but the matter of the fact is that they will more than likely approach whoever they feel most comfortable with (find footnote on personal characteristics or approachability) or they will go to whoever is closest, either reference or circulation.

The layout of the library somewhat aggravates this problem, because it is literally backwards from a “traditional” layout, where the circulation desk is closest to the door, and the reference desk is further in, or closer to either the reference collection, or better yet at a good “zone of intervention” where questions are more likely to arise.(Need footnote) Seeing that many of the users of the Waltz library are students or faculty, and are more likely to come back many times in the course of their time at CU, it makes more sense that they will learn the library fairly well. As a result, it makes more sense to move reference staff further into the library, especially near the computers, where a lot of search activity begins (higher ed. footnote).

-Update Signage

More visable signage always helps, but it’s obviously more expensive that tags. It also has the same two issues as using tags, namely the confusion about the roles of reference and circulation, as well as the fact that signage only goes so far in differentiating the two, as people will normally go for approachability based of proximity or personal criteria.

-Switch desk places

This arrangement has a faster turnaround for circulation things, especially dropoffs, but might cause congestion at the entrance, might allow for direct access to reference staff directly from the computers. Also, it would incur considerable costs for switching everything around (internet drops, more cables, drilling and patching holes). This is a workable solution to the issue, but in reality, it will be costly, and there are other possibilities that involve less of a cost but will achieve the same effect of putting the reference staff closer to the patrons. (see “person out on the floor”)

-Eliminate reference computer

This is probably a bad idea, as it takes out a computer that is already being used. The best thing about it is that it might help clear up some confusion for students and staff, because there is only one place on the desk that would have any staff at any time, making referrals, as well as collaboration between staff much easier.Some studies suggest that collaboration between staff as being either useful to the patron as well as being productive for the staff (another footnote). Part of this arrangement that allows for collaboration would help in the training of student workers, and it would also make referrals much easier.

-Put a person out on the floor at a computer

This was largely a staff suggestion, and a good one. Much like the trend of getting rid of reference desks and letting the staff be out among the patrons, this would put a reference librarian right in the middle of where many questions are generated. Hopefully this would keep students or others with questions from going straight to the circulation staff. It also has the advantage of being a somewhat lower-cost solution than many of the others.

-Build separate desks “door-circ-computers-reference-stacks” order

In a convoluted way, I’m suggesting that if there were the possibility of having separate desks, to put a new reference desk on the far side of the computers from the current one. Once again, there is separation, but it is still dependent on making sure students, etc. know the difference between reference and circulation.

Training Solutions:

-Expand reference training for student workers

-Develop guidelines for referrals

Both of these are pretty self-explanatory, but they require some investment of time, first to determine what needs to be taught, or exactly when or with what kind of question needs to be referred, as well as putting in the time to train and then reinforce it.

-Roving for reference staff

Roving requires little training, and a lot of the time it sounds like reference staff inadvertently rove when they answer a question by the computers and then stay out there to answer others that arise I their presence. To a certain extent, this reinforces the argument for placing a reference staff member at a patron computer as well. In either case, the emphasis on instruction sometimes forces staff out into the computers anyway. Granted, the amount of time spent walking back and forth between the desk and the computers probably isn’t that great, but less waiting is always nice, especially since it seems like so much is happening around the computers anyway.

To the best of my personal experience, roving will increase the numbers of questions you get, just for asking a student in the stacks if they need a hand. In a couple of articles, it seems like a lot of people think of roving as an invasive thing, comparable to annoying retail clerks who won’t leave you alone. Still, it also generates more questions, because some students who are afraid to approach the desk might be more comfortable asking for help in the stacks.

Other comments/Items of note:

-Reference staff gets pulled out to the computers, get multiple questions in a row.

-“Instructional” bent will force reference staff out onto the floor/computers in either case.

-Despite liquidity on desk, reference staff will often hand off circulation tasks to return to reference desk.

-Cordless phones?

-Emphasis on taking notes, to be dealt with later

-Reference staff will move out to circulation desks if need be.

Further Reading:

Tiered Service/Information Desks:

Virginia Massey-Burizo. From the other side of the reference desk: A focus group study. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 24, Number 3, pages 208-215

Virginia Massey-Burizo. Reference encounters of a different kind: A Symposium

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 18, Number 5, pages 276-286

William L. Whitson. Differentiated Service: A new reference model. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 21, Number 2, pages 103-110

Lori Goetsch ... [et al.]. Information desks in academic research libraries. Washington, DC : Office of Management Services, Association of Research Libraries, 1995.

Roving/Floating:

Victoria Nozero and Priscilla Finley. Research and Information Services at Lied Library: Restructured, revitalized and planning for the future. Library Hi-Tech, Volume 23, Number 1, pages 66-74

Scott Carlson. Are Reference Desks Dying Out? The Chronicle of Higher Education,
Volume 53, Issue 33, Page A37, accessed from: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i33/33a03701.htm

Second to last week,,,,

For the last two weeks, I have been chugging away at the comparative paper on reference services between Penrose and Waltz. However, I really only hit my stride this week, especially becuse of some articles on the research habits of musicians that I missed the first time out on my searches of LIS databases. The paper really focuses on the impact of the community each serves on the delivery of reference services, especially the reference interview. To me, part of why the setting of the library is so important is because it answers a lot of the taboo question "why do you need this information?"

The reference interview (of which I am a certified practioner of the Effective Reference Performance program at Jefferson County) is an extremely useful tool, but a large part of its' focus is on finding a thing. Also, they tend to emphasize the librarian's knowledge over the patron's/student's/whomever's. A lot of the "alternative" therories of reference do have somewhat of a touchy-feelyness about them, but I appreciate their attemps to make the reference interview more of a "meeting of the minds." Another part of what draws my interest is the fact that they get away from the flowcharting of human behavior and decision-making, and focus more on broader theories that can be applied more liberally, and run into fewer exceptions.

There is something Aristotalian about using flowcharts to describe the way that people seek information, with branches coming off of branches as new information is processed, as the search moves forward. Instead, some of the alternative theories of reference help guide the librarian in understanding the user without trying to impose a specific model on them.

Paper Outline!

Here is the outline for my paper comparing reference services and the potential uses/impacts of reference theory at the Penrose and Waltz libraries:

Introduction:

-Setting of the Penrose Library

-Setting of the Waltz Library

Reference theory:

-Traditional reference model (Bopp/Smith, Katz)

-Reference by the numbers (Saxton/Richardson)

-Reference narrative(hermeneutics)/dialogue (Doherty, Murphy)

-“reference/instruction dichotomy”-cross purposes, different tools.

Discussion of Libqual+ (CU & DU Libqual+ surveys)

-Which questions are notable?

-Library expectations always higher than results.

Trends:

General Trends

-Decline in frequency of questions (DU research, IU IC, anecdotal)

-Increase in length of interactions

-More online sources

-Increased use of the internet first (ACRL? OCLC environmental scan?)

-Millennials/User self-sufficiency

-Emphasis on instruction

-Humanities (browsing) vs. Sciences (searching) (Survey of History Professors, Mann)

Contributions to Trends:

Penrose

-Non-subject specialized, can be more reliant on traditional reference techniques

-Instruction

-Deep integration of web resources

-Library user groups (sciences, business) need currency (Libqual+)

Waltz

-Subject specialization, takes the mystery out of “what,” emphasis on why. (Doherty, Murphy)

-Performance vs. Research-uses and users

-Need for speed

-Course reserves (Anecdotal)

-Library user groups (professors, TA’s, students) (Libqual+, Student Stats)

Conclusion

-“Reference interview” as a tool, not as a theory

-Failings of functionalism/”Stat Life” (Doherty, Murphy, Barzun)

-Importance of the “why” question. (B/S 56, Murphy)

-Reference as art.

shifting around

Since I am not able to make the MLA-Mountains-Plains meeting, I will be submitting my comparison between Penrose and Waltz as a paper. I think that I have finally come to a clear exposition on the subject. My stated goal was to write a paper that compares the way reference is provided at a general reference desk as opposed to a subject-specific one.

I started my research looking at the specifics of the reference interview, mostly because I feel that there is a shift away from it, especially in academic libraries. This doesn't stem as much from the fact that I don't think it is worthwhile. I fully stand behind using open-ended and "neutral" questions to help understand a searcher's needs. Instead, I think this is valuable as a technique, but not as a central part of reference. As we use more electronic resources, which have a much greater breadth of availability, there has been a shift away from reference towards instruction. The reference interview does not give any way to take into account the idea that searchers either want to or are more self-sufficient.

If you couple this with the trend in reference services evaluation that user satisfaction is more important than the results of a librarian-assisted searches(reference transactions), it seems that an interview practice that is dependent on the librarian's ability of find stuff as an end result is somewhat off the mark. Once again, not advocating for the "give 'em instruction and cut 'em loose" approach, but I'm weary of the model currently being taught.

Really this is a jumping off point for the paper, which also tries to assess how patrons, students, etc. ask their questions, how the enviorment effects the questions they ask, and how the respective reference staffs handle them.

Thoughts on the reference interview.

There is a lot of buzz around getting rid of the reference desk, and I think that the best I've read so far on the subject is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (4/20/07) by Scott Carlson titled "Are Reference Desks Dying Out?"

Part of his discussion surrounds the fact that students are becoming more self-directed, which I see as a result of an increasing emphasis on instruction. Not a bad thing at all, really. The new types of "reference" he points towards are basically research consultation/instruction, in a number of settings. This is likely an extension of the whole everything 2.0 whatnot, which focuses on putting the user/patron/student in charge of their research.

Part of what has been getting to me about the reference interview, as it is presented in LIS textbooks by Katz, or Bopp/Smith is the fact that it has largely gone unexamined in light of the fact that more and more libraries and library users are becoming self-directed. Basic functions of the library are easy to figure out, and what people seem to need help with is in the area of instruction and research. First of all, naming the whole thing a "reference interview" is unhelpful, because the strategy of asking people what they need is as easily applied to determining what instruction would be helpful, not only for "reference" questions.

Secondly, no matter how hard we may try, our interviews will always color the search. End of story. Our knowledge of the subject and of it's attached sources will never match the searcher's, nor the person (teacher/professor/absent student) who designs any imposed queries. To cop some ideas from Peter Morris (author of Ambient Findability), a straight interview, conducted at a desk, lowers the findability of library resources, because the librarian is supposed to channel them and select the right one(s), which takes away from the uniqueness of the search, of the searcher's conceptions, and their results.

I think that a person's final product is very much a result of their searches for information, and too much coloring of the searches' results (I would also argue that we as librarians oversimplify complex searches to fit our sources as well) results in much less unique and personal research. There is an imperative by reference librarians to make our users conform to the tools at hand, and while this may raise the general quality of research being done, it also locks searches into preconceived notions of how information is organized, and detrimentally, how it is to be used.

scary reference!

Some reference interactions:

Asked to get "black angels" by a "disc" numer, which are LP's, patron wanted CD, so I found one handily.

Had to find 3 Stravinsky ballets on LP's for duplication because the CD they were on is a reserve item.

Finally got the bejesus scared out of me by a question. The student was looking for a finished version of Hugo Wolf's "Mailied" with words by Holty, not by Goethe. The complete works only give a fragment and the bibliography of Wolf did the same. According to the student's professor, there is a "finished version" out there. Being somewhat flustered, I suggested he check back with the professor for more information. Then I knowcked around on Google Scholar, which pointed me towards a score done by the Internationale Hugo Wolf-Gesellschaft, which has the "Mailied" in it, but it didn't specify the version, although one article claimed it was based on the Wolf fragment.

There was also an email from a researcher in Italy, who was trying to get into an ebook that had a score in it, but was confusting that subscription service with the library's Digital Sheet Music Collection, which is free.

in conversation with a reference librarian.

In a conversation with one of the reference staffers, I got a pretty good glimpse as to their concerns about the provision of reference work at the Waltz Library. He basically said that there really were only to kinds of questions that they get. Either a person looking for a specific piece of material (score, book, sound recording) or a subject based question ("do you have any materials on..."). In both cases he noticed that there were fewer and fewer questions being asked at the reference desk, although the ones he gets are becoming much more intense in scope and depth. I have seen this play out at the Penrose Library as well as in the literature. One that comes to mind was written about the Information Commons at the University of Indiana Bloomington, by Dallis and Walters (Reference Services Review, 34(2), 2006).

There are a number of explanations for this kind of shift in behavior, although the first that came up in conversation centered around the course reserves, both online and in hard copy, including sound recording. Part of the supposition is that because there are more and more items being put on reserve, undergraduates, particularly the underclassmen, spend less time looking for materials, and more time working with them. The hypothetical result being that students know the material better, but know the library less. All said and done, this might not be an all bad thing, whether you're a fan of "save the time of the reader" or "user-centered design." Interesting how these things never go away. Even if Raganathan was a a fan of open stacks and the course reserves are "closed," they have the same spirit behind them: convenience. Since I'm name dropping, both speak to Mann's "principle of least effort". It seems like more of the questions are coming from upperclassmen and graduate students, whose research is a little less structured.

The other thing that I noticed is that because of the desk layout, the computer terminals for the students are right next to the circulation side of the desk, which is normally staffed by student workers (although sometimes librarians will step in) as opposed to the side that the reference desk is located on (which is at the entrance). I suppose that the underlying logic of the physical arrangement is that people who come in with a question will go to the reference desk, but it seems like more questions are being generated when people interact with the library's resources, all of which are past it, with the circulation side of the desk in between them. Unfortunately, the obvious solution to the problem of switching the sides is prohibited by the physical arrangement of internet jacks, printers, space, and wiring issues. I wonder if less differentiation between the desks and more between the actual workers would be a solution.

Another aspect has to do with the timing of the academic cycle. Since CU is on semesters, there are only a few weeks left, so most of the major research has been done already. According to the staffer, there might be a little pick-up in reference as the semester closes, when last-minute research and clarifications are being followed through. It seems as though there is a similar lull at Penrose, where the cycles are shorter because of the quarter schedule.

In talking with Laurie, she mentioned how many papers she had written in library school, while I think more so than papers, I have given presentations for most classes. I wonder if presentations (and group work) are somewhat of a standard at DU. To a certain extent, that concerns me. I agree with Thomas Mann's assertion that higher levels of information can only be achieved by sustained study and attention, which the process of writing papers provides. Irony isn't escaping me on this one, as I type into my blog.

Speaking of Blogs:

My class on interent sources went pretty well, despite my running late and running into traffic on 36. It really made me resepect professors. I was feeling a bit tired, and I think that because of that the class suffered somewhat, thanks to my sedated delivery. That being said, it was nice to see how interesting topics came from unexpected places. The section on online repositories of digital sheet music brought out a discussion on copyright, and the section on music resource pages illustrated the importance of website style and currency (see IU's music web resources list), from the section on evaluating web resources (see Cornell University's page on evaluating web resources). It really made me think about how important it is for function to be directly related to style, because in the age of web 2.0, static webpages look much worse for the wear, to the point that even good resources are easily overlooked. I think that some of the problem falls under the "judging a book by its' cover," but some of it also comes from failure of good design. Here's a good blog post which summarizes the issue from the infotangle blog. A more extensive discussion can be found in books like Peter Moreville's Ambient Findability.

Here's the text of the handout for that class:

Using the World Wide Web for Music Research
Music 5708

Evaluating Web Resources:
Cornell Library’s Evaluating Web Resources
http://www.library.cornell.edu/t/help/res_strategy/evaluating/evaluate.html

Web-based Reference Tools:
New Grove Online
Music Index
RILM Abstracts
IIMP

Digital Content Sites:

CU Digital Sheet Music Collection

http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/music/smp/index.html

MLA Listing of Sheet Music Collections

http://www.lib.duke.edu/music/sheetmusic/collections.html

LC’s American Memory

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem

Public Domain Music

http://www.pdinfo.com

Choral Public Domain Library

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Gramofile

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/

WWW Directories for Music:

Indiana University Music Library’s Worldwide Internet Music Resources

http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources

Harvard’s Internet Resources for Music Scholars

http://www-hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/music/resources/

Library of Congress. Internet Resources for Music, Theater and Dance. http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/new.internet.resources.html

Duke University’s DW3 Classical Music Resources

http://www.lib.duke.edu/music/resources/classical_index.html

Yahoo! Music

http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Music

Search Engines:

Google

http://www.google.com

Ask

http://www.ask.com

Dog Pile

http://www.dogpile.com

Clusty

http://clusty.com/

Kartoo

http://www.kartoo.com/

Staying Current:

Search Engine Watch

http://www.searchenginewatch.com

Search Engine Showdown

http://www.searchengineshowdown.com

Blogs:

Blog Search Engines

Technorati

http://technorati.com

Google Blog Search

http://blogsearch.google.com

Blog Software

Typepad

http://www.typepad.com

Blogger

http://www.blogger.com

Feedster

http://www.feedster.com

Various Examples

Chicago Classical Music

http://www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

Opera Today

http://www.operatoday.com

David Byrne

http://journal.davidbyrne.com

Alex Ross

http://www.therestisnoise.com

M is for Musicology

http://www.mmusicology.com

Myspace

Myspace

http://www.myspace.com

Eric Whitacre

http://www.myspace.com/ericwhitacre

Junyan Liu

http://www.myspace.com/junyanliu

Kronos Quartet

http://www.myspace.com/kronosquartet

the less creative title: day six

I spent the morning doing research for a class I will be teaching on the 18th, on interenet resources. I'm very excited to teach this class because it has a nice "something old/something new" component to it. The older material is older not becuase it is dayed, but because they are in an older format, namely as static web pages in HTML. The new stuff are things like blogs, wikis, and social software sites, along with blog search engines, tagging sites, and blog making sites. I was suprised, but probably shouldn't have been both at the quality and managability of classical and academic music blogs, etc. I feel that there are times and places for both in instruction, and I'm glad Laurie let me take a crack at them.

The second part of the morning was spent preparing for a consultation on music education sources, specifically arguements in support of it.

I spent the afternoon working with Anita, who pulls double duty as a cataloger and as a reference staffer. Because she's skilled at both, she has a great perspective on how well the catalog and cataloging functions for the user. Currently, III millenium does not let the generic logins for ref/circ look at the authority records, which not only provide the cross referencing, but often have a narrative explaination of why certain headings are used, which is invaluable for learing how to search a catalog. There was also some discussion on copy-cataloging, along with discussions on modifying copy, and the pitfalls of library vendor cataloging. The more I work with cataloging, the more interesting it sounds. I also feel like I am learing a lot about it, which is nice, and seems to be the case withg hands-on(ish) work in libraries.

Reference Questions

Monday was a good day for reference questions. The first involved determining the copyright status of "Home on the range." I always thought it was a traditional cowboy song, but it actually has a lyricist and a composer, who co-wrote it in the 1890's. It is also now the state song of Kansas. I told the man I suspected it was out of copyright, which now falls on 1923, but the best place to ask might be a law library.

This question stuck out in my mind because it is one of those that asking followup questions to seems kind of silly. It seems like a lot of questions in the music library are of this type, relating to the possession of by someone, a piece of music, etc.

The second question that stuck out in my mind involved finding materials on the history of cabarets in France and Germany. I began to ask "is there anything in particular you need to know about the history of cabarets in France and Germany?" but thankfully I stopped myself. The only real thing that needed definition was the kinds of materials the student needed, so I asked about that instead. At a public library, I probably would have asked my first question, but because of the setting, I didn't. The resulting session involved some keyword and subject searching in Chinook, and the same sorts of things in RILM, along with some other databases and GoldRush. On the whole it was a successful interview.

All in all, I think that these two questions are illustrative of the very directed questions you get in a specialized library.

teaching a class, interview presentations, & cataloging as it applies to reference

So yesterday was the first class that I taught, along with the questions on the worksheet that I revised. I was lucky to have a class that was receptive and curious, even asking questions that I didn't have the answer for (regarding the updating of musical directories). Despite a pretty good performance overall, I still have things to work on, especially using my notes less, and also taking more time to demonstrate searches, especially for online materials. For the most part, I feel pretty comfortable in front of a classroom. I think that I need to focus more on preparing and being a little less off the cuff.

I think that hardest thing about instruction, and the most important, is getting across the "why" question. This was doubly hard due to my topic, which was music directories. Granted, directories are nice, but the logical question that follows is: can't this be found online? The short answer is yes, but sometimes it's easy to forget that people will curtail what information they share in different media. Additionally, the way that directories are organized allow for more of a browsing type of searching, with information already co-located, as opposed to keyword searching, which has less underlying logic to it. While i think that this seems somewhat straightforward, my hope is that I can make the point without seeming either condescending or preachy.

It must have been the day for instruction, because I was asked to attend a presentation that was being made for a candidate for CU's head of reference postition. There was an emphasis on the growing importance of instruction in academic libraries, but at one point the question was raised about the fact that it was passe and not wirth the while, that people should get point-of-need instruction through online tutorials and help menus. The point was raised that students are increasingly into self-directed study, and fewer are using the old bricks and mortar.

While that seems to be the case, I would say that that argument overlooks the fact that not everyone likes the format of online tutorials, because they are not particularly interactive, not in the same way an actual person is. They do have their place, but I do not think that they replace a person. Also, they are not always hands on in allowing for instruction that is tailored to a specific information need the way that a class can be adjusted to cover a particular subject area or resource. I agree with the candidate that instruction is becoming increasingly part of the reference librarian's job, either in a classroom or on the reference desk. I think you can make some exceptions, however, for public libraries, or for specific inquiries, which is the crux of this practicum. To some extent, specific inquiries ought to be left as they are presented to the librarian. While there might be cases where a person is asking for the wrong thing, or is going about it the wrong way, it is often the case that the searcher learns more from the experience, or that the searcher in a specialized library really only needs help finding the physical object they seek. So an open question inquiry becomes a prime violation of Raganathan's old adage, "save the time of the researcher."

Finally, I got an in-depth session with one of the catalogers on reference work, which was enlightening. It taught me a lot about using keyword searches for pieces of music, as well as the importance of gaming LC subject headings when searching for music. in general, specificity combined with completeness of information given is key.

Pre-labeled books, local cataloging, thomas mann, classes, and the special library

I was just made aware, in a discussion with Laurie Sampsel yesterday, that CU was beginning to use vendor-provided, pre-labeled books at Norlin. The idea seemed to be somewhat upsetting, especially considering the delicate nature of local cataloging at the Waltz library, relating to uniform titles and scores, amongst other things. Today, in speaking with Chris Brown about the same project, I got a different angle on it. He pointed out that five schools are doing this as a way to work as a consortia through prospector, and save money on regular ordering of books, especially if certain titles fit some libraries better than others.

This came in the wake of the announcement that Google will be doing some form of cataloging automation for the LOC, which was interesting. I think that this speaks a necessary (and healthy) divide between different types of libraries. Large ones and generalized, like the LOC or Penrose and Co. benefit from automation because of the time it takes to process and catalog books. To a certain extent, it reflects on the fact that books are coming out in higher volumes than ever before, and as librarians, we don't need to buy or keep them all. By the same token, libraries like Waltz, which is more particular about its' collection development and its' cataloging can continue to function in their own way to best suit their needs, while Norlin can experiment with vendor-labeled books as it pleases.

In other news, looking over the syllabus for the graduate research class, I realized how much of debt I owe to Thomas Mann's Oxford Guide to Library Research without realizing it, especially with the breakdown of research by determining what type of reference sources to begin a search with. While I prep a class session on music directories. What surprised me most about the directories is how clumsy they are in hiding their own usefulness. Some would make great resources for researching major contributors to a field, or for scoping out a potential city you are relocating to (especially if you are looking at how saturated a market is for your area, academic or performing as a music person). It seems like an overlooked source for this type of information includes websites like facebook or myspace, where more and more musicians and groups from different genres, including classical and jazz, are networking and getting the word out about themselves. I would not advocate to use them exclusively, but it might be worth considering.

Circulation and Cataloging

Today I got further into the circulation end of things, mostly because there is a shared circulation/reference desk at the Waltz Library. I think that there are a lot of benefits to having this kind of arrangement. First of all, it provides one point of contact for the public. As a result, the staff have to be somewhat cross-trained, which in my case, gave me a more complete picture of how the library operates. I feel this is lacking at DU, where my separation leaves me at a disadvantage, or having to refer people to circulation when I can't answer their question. Economies of scale play a role in this, but it certainly underscores the logic of information commons and the like.

The second benefit derives from the first. It is that students and faculty don't have to walk around a particular library to get all of the information that they need. The Waltz Library naturally benefits from this already, with the exception of the audio/video materials, which are housed in a closed stacks arrangement. I'd suppose Raganathan would have a fit, but as far as the preservation of the materials (especially LP's) it makes a lot of sense to do it this way.

I was also given a lesson in cataloging, which I had been looking forward to, especially the importance of the uniform title in music cataloging. It seems that more so than any other genre, music has the most issues with publishing, be it with scores or sound recordings. It might be he fact that music is so widely distributed, over such a long period of time, that the composer sometimes loses authoritative control and works tend to take on lives (and titles) of their own. This is aggravated by the fact that so many composers and publishers use the form (sonata, trio, etc.), an accession number (i.e. opus 41, number 5) , and/or instrumentation to name a work. Makes for an exciting time, certainly.

That being said, I think that cataloging is somewhat underrated. It's importance is central to librarianship. The cataloger I spoke with described it as solving a puzzle, and when it is solved, you have a complete thing that people can use to actually find what they are looking for.

First Day!

So begins the first day. Aside from taking a few moments for setting this little blog up, I'm getting some training here at the Waltz Library for circulation, since it is a shared desk, as well as editing the questions for an in-class assignment for the 4th.

Since I'm pretty adept, with Innovative, I'm hoping the circulation work goes smoothly. However, it has been a while since I've used music directories, so I am spending some time today going over them, as well as revising some of the questions for the assignment. There's not a whole lot of complexity to music directories, but it's still somewhat easy to get lost in the weeds unless you have a process to go through. I also caught myself when I was having some trouble searching the Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, until I realized the initial question only works for the online edition.

In any case, I'm editing the questions for the in class assignment, which is pretty exciting.