Ireland’s new National Public Library Catalogue

I would like to begin this post on an optimistic note because I want to give some thoughts on the concept of Ireland’s national catalogue in our public libraries without focusing on the inevitable teething problems that occur with any monumental change in direction that a service undergoes. So, let’s assume that the new national catalogue in Ireland works exactly how it is supposed to. Let’s take that as our starting point. Let’s forget about problems with the actual catalogue. Let’s also forget about SIERRA’s awful search engine that all too often returns unexpected and very inaccurate search results when trying to find a common title. Let’s not worry for now about the fact that paging (item request) lists cannot be trusted or that the system often refuses to clear or move along requests. Let’s not worry too much about barcodes not matching the barcodes on actual items, or the duplication of item records. Let’s not trouble ourselves with the fact that SIERRA was never designed to understand things like text messages, or fines in the public library service. Let’s forget about it’s love of connecting to printers and its complete disregard for the environment. Let us put all that aside and be positive and from there take a look at the idea of our new national catalogue from a conceptual and slightly philosophical perspective.

So what is the idea really? Well, that every public library in the country is connected, sharing items and services. A patron can search the catalogue, find an item anywhere in the country and can have that item delivered to their local library in 3 to 5 days. In many ways it reminds me of the EU. Who did not love the idea of the freedom of movement of both people and goods across the continent? Like all ideas, it was perfect in its idealogical state. But putting an idea into practice requires a measure of control and regulation. And the moment you try to regulate freedom, well, you destroy it. Library members express their surprise and excitement at the new national catalogue because, in truth, it is a brilliant idea that makes more information more accessible to more people. However, what is it like in practice? How well thought out has the idea been? How well has it been executed? And what are the future implications of this new departure for our public library service?

Cost of transportation and the environment

After expressing their joy at such a service, the next questions patrons ask are: ‘how much will that cost?’ and ‘whose going to pay for it?’ The figures will likely never be released by the LGMA as they have a penchant for secrecy at the best of times, but from what I understand the cost of transporting one item stands at around .75 cents. A request list in my local library, small and rural, is usually 20-30 items long. Not only this, but it is the library that has to send the item out that incurs the cost. I work in a smaller county that has spent a lot of its budget in recent years developing excellent stock. Because it is a smaller county it has a smaller budget. The worry is that now this budget is going to be swallowed up by the cost of transporting its excellent stock all around the country. Of course, on the upside it does mean that borrowers in libraries that are poorly stocked will now have a much better range of items to borrow. However, does transporting books around the country really make sense? Rather than sending a book out to a library ten times a year, would it not be better to spend that money on buying an extra copy in the county? Not to mention it being kinder on the environment too. What will happen to library stock in the long term? If book buying budgets are smaller due to the cost of book transportation then won’t that simply increase the demand for requests in the future because individual libraries will be buying less books every year? So while right now you can get books quicker, in the future the queues may get much longer if the service is not properly supported with generous budgets.

It is interesting to consider how wasteful this new system might be. A scenario could arise in which I send a book off to Donegal from Laois. A few hours later a patron comes into the library in Laois and requests the book I just posted to Donegal. I go onto the catalogue and place another request. The system grabs another copy of the same book from Kerry and transports it to Laois. Is this not a wasteful system? In work on Saturday I sent books from Laois to Clare, Sligo, Mayo, Dublin, Wicklow, Limerick and Cork. I checked the LMS to see where other copies of those books were available. The book I sent to Limerick was also available in Clare, which is obviously much closer to Limerick than Laois. The LMS does not understand geography. It will search the home county first, but after that it will simply take the next available copy it finds irrespective of where that copy is located. This means that every book that leaves a county is potentially leaking efficiency. The Limerick copy could have saved 150kms of distance, which will cost less money and less CO2 emissions. And anyone who works in a public library will know that a lot of items that are requested are never actually picked up in time by patrons. I wonder how much money is wasted transporting items to libraries around the country only for the item to never be collected and read? It seems like it is a system that is very wasteful and inefficient.

What ever happened to e-books/ e-resources?

Libraries elsewhere have been pumping money into e-reading services. Why? Well, because it is extremely efficient and location is not really a barrier to reading. Would it not be wiser to allow libraries to develop their own stock and for the money to be put into e-reading services nationally? In fact, we do have some great e-resources available through public libraries (including books and magazine), but currently the e-books service is not actually connected to the national catalogue so when a patron searches for a book it only gives them the option of physical items and ignores the fact that we do actually have a few thousand e-books as well. If every university catalogue can be connected to electronic resources, why can’t the public library catalogue?

My search for the National Geographic magazine returned the following result on Libraries Ireland:

The results do not give me an option of an electronic copy despite the fact that I know one is available online through Zinio Magazine Collection and Laois Libraries website.

Searching for ‘My Husband’s Wife’ using the e-books filter returns the following result:

This book is actually available to library members through Bolinda e-books services, again available through your local library’s website. Maybe spending some money connecting our already existing e-services into the national catalogue might actually prevent transportation wastage on physical items? Of course, the defence will be that it is not yet a finished product. But how much money is going to be wasted in the meantime while the LGMA work on finishing what they have started? Would it not be better to put the infrastructure in place first before rolling out a service? It certainly calls into the question the ability of the LGMA and the government to deliver an adequate and effective library service. Reading a review of a bicycle recently, a reviewer commented, “when you buy quality, it only hurts once”. Proper planning in this sense is a lot less painful in the long run, and the LGMA seem incapable of thorough research and planning.

Let’s digress: using an academic library LMS in public libraries

I worked in the UK at the University of Surrey last year. We used an academic LMS called ALMA. It is important to question why the choice was taken to use SIERRA as the LMS of choice for this new national catalogue. SIERRA was first used in Ireland by Trinity College and UCC. These are naturally two academic libraries. In fact, SIERRA is a system designed for academic libraries. I noted earlier that it does not understand geography very well. It has an option when requesting books to ‘hold copy returned soonest’. In an academic library, that may only have four library buildings (at most) in close proximity to each other then holding the next copy returned is sensible, especially because if there is more than one library in a university they will be stocked by subject anyway. The books don’t have to be transported from one location to the next. In the public library service, we have more than 300 library branches so holding the next copy returned means a book could be travelling 300kms from one branch to another. SIERRA has no understanding of geography; in an academic library it does not need to. Of course, it will search the local authority first and then default to the next copy outside of the county if none are available in county. However, by my estimation, this only actually happens about 80% of the time. I have received copies of items requested by members of my library arrive from outside the county when I know there to be a copy sitting on the shelf just a few feet away. Of course, you can alternatively find a copy of an item and make a specific item request. However, many items that were lost on HORIZON transferred over to SIERRA as ‘on shelf’ and so the item you request may never actually arrive. SIERRA does not understand time either. If a copy is due back the next day into the authority where it has been requested, it does not stall the request and wait for that copy to return. Instead, it goes outside of the county and pulls a copy from elsewhere. There does not seem to be any pattern or logic to how or where it pulls items from. It is hugely wasteful of resources and is not a system that understands public library processes or procedures.

Also in an academic library, you have a small team of cataloguers all working to the same standards. At the University of Surrey, we worked to British Library standards. With the previous LMS HORIZON cataloguing was a problem, but it was manageable. You see, some of the people cataloguing started out card cataloguing and in the last 30 years have never updated their understanding of cataloguing. When we moved over to electronic cataloguing and to AACR2, there were huge gaps in knowledge and new cataloguing standards were not followed consistently. And I imagine very few cataloguers today in the authorities really understand RDA/MARC21 because they are simply too busy to continuously up skill. In the past these inconsistencies were limited because even though the cataloguing standards may not have been the best, they were at least somewhat consistent within each authority. We now have a catalogue that has 15 million items and god only knows how many people are adding records on a daily basis in the individual branches. The catalogue is currently a huge problem. I frequently have to go back into HORIZON in order to find what I am looking for. I have seen items with mis-spellings in the author’s name. All item records should be attached to the same bib record so that when requests are place a nice orderly queue is formed. However, I saw one item with multiple bib records. The first had 6 items attached and there were more than 40 requests on the record. The second record actually had 60 items attached but with no requests on it. It was the same book, but the bib record had been duplicated. The main benefit of a national catalogue is the request system and the ability to share information, but the actual catalogue as it is is making the request system very inefficient and ineffective at times.

I could go on and on about the catalogue and the inaccessibility it creates. However, it is important to question why SIERRA and Innovative were chosen? The LMS is simply not fit for purpose because it is an academic library system being used in a drastically different public library setting.

The scenic route to ‘National Procurement’

Of course, national procurement is coming down the line as part of the national catalogue in which all libraries’ stock will be purchased centrally. The current national catalogue is impressively diverse. But this diversity will diminish with national procurement. Eventually, will all libraries in the country simply have the same stock anyways, thereby alleviating the need for a courier system? If every library has the same books and are equally stocked in terms of quantity, then there will be no need to borrow from around the country. Why not just do this now and save us all the hassle and expense? Or better still, develop e-book services instead?

My Open Library, ethics, surveillance, democracy, diversity and the future of public libraries

There are other questions of course. Like how does the national library catalogue tie in to the Open Library plans? Surely these two systems have been considered by the LGMA together? Surely they are part of the same long term vision. The National Catalogue certainly seems to suggest that users will have a better service if they go online and order items that they want and then drop in to pick them up at the branch. The national library catalogue does seem to be pushing people more towards online services and may well diminish the services for those who are not capable or inclined to visit their library online. This is because stock in libraries looks like it’s about to be negatively affected by the cost of the national catalogue. So, is the national catalogue simply a prelude or set up to the open library agenda?

Philosophically, there is a tendency to consider all authorities as the same in this strategy. There are fundamental problems with this. Not only in terms of reducing the diversity of library stock, but also in terms of failing to understand the diverse needs of library users which varies greatly from county to county. There is a bigger issue of controlling information rather than freeing up information. National procurement, coupled to a national catalogue, coupled to an open library results in greater control of library members and of library stock. It leads to greater surveillance in libraries (a fundamental principle that libraries are at odds with), but also greater control of information that people have access to. The cynics amongst us might suggest that what is really happening is that the government is exerting greater control over our freedoms. A national catalogue creates a national database of civilians whose personal information and reading habits are now accessible to government when before they were localised. A librarian in any branch in the country has access to a huge national database of phone numbers, emails and personal addresses, and while we cannot see reading history, we can see what anyone in the country is currently reading. I wonder how members of the public feel about this from a privacy and security perspective. National procurement threatens to centralise the control of information and people’s access to it, as well as exerting greater control over what information the public have access to freely through their libraries. And finally, add to this an Open Library system in which members of the public are no longer able to enter a public building without being video recorded and personally identified and you have the destruction of a key pillar of freedom in a democratic society. In fact, libraries could be the last truly free space left in our society and the national catalogue, for all of its promise, should not be viewed separately from other government initiatives.

Networking as Critical Disengagement: Crisis in the Information Profession

 

The move from study to practice is no doubt the most difficult step in anyone’s career development. It is difficult because the bridge that takes us from study to practice actually does not exist. You only notice of course once you have finished library school. You may have your qualification, but the bridge, you will have to build yourself. The raw materials you will use will include your education and experience, your commitment and motivation, along with a whole range of skills you have developed. But often, in this profession, this simply will not be enough. You will also need to do a little thing called networking.

In many ways, networking is a process of getting other library professionals to help you put the bridge together. This is because by networking you are learning from those professionals, but more importantly, you are making connections and demonstrating your teamwork and collaboration skills by showing that you can get along with people. In the library profession, we are very good at networking and it is a very important skill to acquire, so much so that those who network generally tend to be more successful than those who do not.

However, it has been my experience in this profession that in order to become a successful networker, you also, often, have to critically disengage from your profession. This presentation will explore the possibility that our over-emphasis on networking skills and the critical disengagement that follows may well lead to a bigger crisis for the profession and its future.

The MLIS perhaps best prepares students for the world of networking because it uses non-traditional teaching methods through group work and then assesses students using a traditional model by telling them, everyone in the group will get the same score. In this scenario, it is much easier to critically disengage, to conform to the majority, to encourage than it is to question. This is networking training because you will be running into your classmates at events like this, as well as in the jobs market and to cause friction at that stage could result in a negative reputation among your peers.

So, the problem with networking is that it is destructive of critical thinking skills and this destruction quite worryingly begins in higher education. It is not just me that thinks this, by the way. There is a whole school of thought that believes the education system is destroying critical thinking. Education advocate Ken Robinson compares schools and universities to production line factories that output students as replicas of each other – at least if they are all same they will all get along with each other.

So in order to network successfully you need to take a step back and critically disengage. And that’s a shame, because critical thinking is the space where innovation happens. In fact, one of the key attributes of innovators is that they are usually non-conformists. You see, critical thinkers like to explore ideas, probing them and poking them to see if they hold up. They usually are very good at identifying problems and then offering up solutions to these problems. But networking normally requires us to conform, to encourage, to support and ultimately to agree with our more knowledgeable and senior library professionals.

Moving into a professional networking environment then, is it better to conform or to question in order develop your career? I recently attended an LAI event in which the guest speaker gave an interesting talk on cataloguing and metadata. I wanted to ask some questions about the problems caused by biases and limitations with controlled vocabularies in metadata tags. I knew my question, coming from a linguistics perspective might cause problems for the expert speaker. On hearing other questions being asked, which were very complimentary, I decided to take my critical engagement hat off and put on my networking hat. This was a guest speaker and I did not want to embarrass the organizing committee by asking a difficult question.

I recently decided to try and demonstrate my critical thinking skills in a job interview. I needed to try and over come previous rejection excuses of not being experienced enough. So I decided to show how valuable I am by giving a presentation highlighting some of the problems the institution was facing before going on to give some solutions to those problems. A senior library professional later told me I made a fatal mistake. That by highlighting mistakes I was actually being critical of staff in that institution and that I was demonstrating that I would not fit in to the team there. Naturally, I did not get the job. I am not sure why critical engagement is not seen as a necessary skill in teamwork. After all, you are trying to help that team make things better by identifying and solving problems.

While preparing this presentation I decided to find some examples of how librarians network to see if my thesis was correct. On twitter, I saw a lot of this sort of thing. And it is not that I think being supportive and encouraging is wrong, in fact, I think it is great. But shouldn’t this amazing networking lead to a space where library professionals can critically engage in an open respectful way? Well apparently, it doesn’t.

Libfocus is an incredible resource. Some of the most well researched and interesting library content is on there. This is a perfect space for librarians to critically engage. They have 3200 twitter followers and more than 3000 blog followers. But there are no comments on their blog posts. There is a comments function, but no comments. That is, no critical engagement. Perhaps this is because we are afraid that critical engagement will be interpreted in our networking world as being less than supportive and encouraging?

So what if we had an issue in librarianship that was so huge that it could change the very landscape of the profession for better or possibly worse. In this case, do you think we could find examples of critical engagement?

Well, it turns out there is such an example unfolding right now. The open library controversy provides an adequate example. The LGMA and government quietly unrolled the scheme. A community group objected claiming the reports were incomplete and misleading. The LGMA and government got offended, accused the community group of being naysayer and repeated the line ‘this is a good thing’. They refused to engage in a debate on the issue. But more interestingly, the LAI have been silent on this issue. They are tasked with nurturing the profession and here we have an issue that could damage the profession and yet they have been silent on this. Could this be because the LAI are simply a networking platform? Could this be because the very people on the LGMA who are accused of damaging the profession, also sit in senior council positions on the LAI and the LAI do not want to upset these members? To be honest, I can empathise with that because in order for that conversation to take place some difficult questions are going to have to be asked and answered.

So, to conclude. I have tried to suggest that we have an over-reliance on networking in our profession. And this contributes to a critical disengagement, perhaps because we are concerned about harming our career and professional development by non-conforming to collegiate, supporting and encouraging networking standards. But if we critically disengage then it becomes easier to de-value our profession. In fact, by doing so we are devaluing ourselves as professionals. The irony is that while we are networking in order to develop our careers, in this time of increasing automation this critical disengagement, this de-valuing of ourselves, this networking, may well result in many of us not working. Thank you.

Over-qualified & Under-experienced

Intro Slide

The above slide best sums up my first year seeking employment as a new Information Professional. While I have made it to a few interviews for Assistant Librarian roles, I have failed to secure these posts due to not having enough direct experience in these roles. This means I need to find an entry level Library Assistant role in order to build experience However, I have found it much more difficult to get interviews at entry level Library Assistant roles. I am told that I am over-qualified for these by experienced librarians I have spoken to about this problem.

Slide 1

So what makes me overqualified and under-experience. I have 12 years experience in Teaching and Education. I have taught Secondary English and worked as an Examiner for the Leaving Certificate Mock Exams; I have worked as an Assistant Lecturer in English Literature at Maynooth University; I have taught English Language, Technical English and Academic English in university and private companies in three countries, including UCD her in Ireland; I have taught Academic Writing, Research Skills and Information Literacy at third level also.

Since graduating, from my MLIS at UCD, I have worked for 1 year as a Library Assistant in the University of Surrey in the UK because I could not find a job here in Ireland. For the past three months, I have been working as a Library Assistant in Laois Libraries on a temporary contract that could end at any moment. I also have two postgraduate degrees.

Slide 2

In 2016, I applied for Library Assistant jobs in 6 County Libraries and 5 Academic Libraries, but was only invited to one interview in Laois thus far. In the county, there are more than 17 Library Assistants, but I am the only one with a library qualification. I finished 10th on that panel, out of which 5 people were hired on full-time permanent contracts. 1 of the 5 had meaningful library experience and none had a qualification. I am happy for anyone who finds a job, but the numbers in public libraries are too heavily weighted towards those without library qualifications, suggesting the qualification is not valued for these positions. I personally do not have an objection to libraries hiring Assistants that have no qualification because I understand their need to have security and continuity in their staff as many Library Assistant are not interested in being upwardly mobile – unlike most MLIS graduates. Also, the people I work with at the University of Surrey and Laois Libraries are excellent at their jobs and I learn from them every day. My experience illustrates just how challenging it is for new professionals to land that first position in the current market.

Slide 3

So how can you maximise your opportunities? You need to work hard on your cv, creating a new cv for every job. I delete my CV every time I apply for a job because it forces me to create a new one for each application, in which I use the job description in order to guide how I describe my experience. The Library Association of Ireland is also an amazing community of professionals who you can learn from and build in-person and online networks. They do provide many CPD opportunities. This is something I need to work on more myself. Using your new cv and networking powers, you can land that first job. But from there you need make that job work for you. Rather than sitting at the information desk at the University of Surrey, I got involved in Teaching & Learning projects, I shadowed Subject Librarians, and took on Cataloguing projects when I heard Cataloguing were very busy. I travelled outside of my own job description in order to develop experience that strengthens my employment opportunities. So long as you are doing your primary job well, then your Line Manager will likely be open to supporting your development. In my current role, I catalogue donated items rather than sending them back to Library HQ; I get involved in collection development and weeding; I am currently organising workshops for Leaving Certificate students in the area; and am planning to run basic computer and web design courses in the library in the near future.

Slide 4

However, while there is a vibrant, helpful library community in this country, we do have to balance our view by considering that there is also a political and economic reality at work. Many librarians who act within the community and through the LAI are also going back into their daily professional posts and are failing to act upon the needs of new professionals in their hiring policies. They create CPD opportunities in the LAI but fail to realise that in order to really allow for career development to happen, more opportunities to apply these skills in a professional role need to be created. So by all means work hard on your CV, and doubly so on networking. But don’t forget to remind those senior librarians that you meet at CPD events, that the obligation they have to nurture the profession does not stop once they leave their LAI committee meetings. And that they need to carry that sentiment back out into the real professional environments, to their hiring committees and interview panels, so that we can be afforded the opportunity they themselves were once given. Thank you.

Slide 5

Part 6: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Do libraries only provide access to information?

Libraries are some of the world’s oldest institutions. Their primary function has always been to provide access to information. However, in recent years libraries have been transformed into being community spaces. Patrons enter into the library to find information that they need, but once the information is found they can use the facilities to turn that information into action. They can research, electronically communicate, educate themselves and connect with community groups to put the information to use. The library is a platform from which people can take meaningful action in order to improve their lives. Are you currently out of work? Then why not go online in the library and do a web design course that will help you get back to work? Are you going on holidays? Then why not learn a language through the library resources and then attend a language group to practice your new skills? Do you want your kids to receive the inspiration to read and to learn new skills? Then why not bring them into the library to take part in a treasure hunt or reading group, or to do a computer skills or coder dojo class?

I am a qualified Librarian who has also worked for 13 years as a Teacher. I am the Library Assistant in your local library also. Any library that knows and understands the service has been investing in three key areas over the past ten years. These are: the library as community, education in the library, and electronic resources and remote access to them. I am all in favour of using technology to our advantage and I do wish that public libraries in Ireland made better use of the technology that is available to us. However, libraries are very human places. People read, learn, play, and socialise in the library. Whether it is doing a course, attending a group, reading the paper, surfing the net, or having a conversation and a cup of tea, our libraries are unique community spaces. Open libraries, if not planned and used properly have the potential to dehumanise our community spaces. We need to take an honest look at the way in which this government, through their cost cutting policies and their deceit, have been dehumanising our society. When will our children, the elderly, the the unemployed, the disabled and disenfranchised human beings in this country be given precedence over fiscal and economic policy? These blog posts have posed a lot of questions, but this one is perhaps the most important question of all.

Norwich Library’s ‘Love Your Library’ Campaign

Part 5: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Is the open library initiative simply another cost-cutting Fine Gael policy and do you trust your local and national political representatives?

There is always a right way or a wrong way to do things in any endeavour. Given that open libraries in their current guise of 4/5 hours extra opening are not cost effective, we have to question whether or not the government are telling us the truth about their future intentions for libraries in Ireland? Given that the designated users are better served with remote access to electronic resources, we further have to question the level of research and thoughtfulness that has gone into this government plan? Given that open libraries  exclude children, the elderly and adults who are not computer literature, and  also fail to provide as much access to information as staffed libraries, we must question why so much public money is being invested in the open library initiative? Given that the government has not considered the more practical problems and implications on service level and the additional cost of these problems, we have to question the level of planning as well as the lack of professional and public consultation that has been undertaken in rolling out these open libraries? As well as these considerations, we also need to examine some more questions about how the government have co-ordinated the open library initiative.

Why are there contradictions in the report?

In relation to instances of anti-social behaviour, the government report contains the following three sentences: “there were no anti-social or other incidents in any of the three branches and all users complied with the terms and conditions”; “very few anti-social incidents have occurred and those that have were of a minor nature”; and, “no incidents of note”. So, clearly the report is not objective. What exactly were these instances of anti-social behaviour and what impact did they have on the library service and the patrons using it? How did the libraries in question deal with these incidents and what safeguards were put in place to ensure they were not repeated in the future? And more importantly, how did the CCTV system/ technology and procedures work in highlighting the incidents, and what, if any, changes were made to library policy in light of the incidents? Were the incidents reported to the Gardai and was anyone prosecuted?

Can we really trust a report that attempts to gloss over such problems? And why would the report do this? Are there other such contradictions or omissions of information from the report? Does the report further suggest that there is a bigger political agenda at play, one that extends beyond the interests of serving the community?

Why is access to library development funds conditional on establishing an open library?

It emerged this week that libraries will only be allocated access to a 2 million euro fund to upgrade services on the condition that they agree to set up open library facilities in the process. So, if a library is run down and in desperate need of upscaling, this can only happen if the library is transformed into an open library, meaning that the money will not be spent where the service needs it, but on technology for the open library. This takes the control of library development out of the hands of librarians who know their communities best and places it into the hands of a national scheme. In many ways, it is similar to what has been happening to our hospitals and post offices. The government, then, seem to be bribing county, executive and branch librarians who desperately want to upgrade their buildings and services. These exceptional people seem to have little choice – go along with open libraries or be starved of funding. Could this be the reason why some librarians are not speaking up against the initiative?

If the open library pilot was successful in Sligo, why are they facing closures due to staff cuts?

The government report indicates that open libraries are a valuable additional service to the community and that open libraries will not force staff cuts and library closures. However, in the Irish Times, it was reported that ‘Sligo libraries face closures due to staff cuts’. The government, as well as Sligo County Council need to clarify exactly what is the relationship between open libraries and the current threat of staff cuts and library closures? Could it be that so much was spent on setting up and servicing the open library that the council has run out of money and cannot afford to pay staff or provide services to the community? This is not such a far-fetched claim when one considers what has happened to libraries in the UK that have faced closures and cuts after open libraries were introduced. One such example can be found in Norwich in which staff protested the open library initiative when it resulted in the problems Sligo now appears to be facing.

Did the government take an honest look at similar initiatives in Europe and what impact they have had on the communities involved? Why not survey the public on the issue more completely? And this means not just asking people if they want the library to be open for longer hours, as they did in Dun Laoghaire. But rather asking them if they agree with open and unstaffed libraries and whether they would be happy to have open libraries only in the future?

These are again, just some of the issues relating to a lack of transparency by the government. When Sean Fleming raised the matter in the Dail, he was ridiculed by Fine Gael’s Damien English. But if the initiative is genuinely attempting to serve the community, why ridicule the opposition rather than having an intelligent debate?

Part 4: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

What are some of the more practical problems with open libraries?

The answer to this question depends on how good the technology in the library is, but here are some potential issues that can arise. None of them are unsolvable, but are still problems:

Ani-social behaviour

The report released by the government from which they have chosen to implement open libraries, as incomplete as it is, does suggest there were instances of ant-social behaviour in the piloted libraries, but does not go into detail. I worked in a 24/7 academic library in the UK and did experience some anti-social behaviour in the library. It was technically an open library but with two security guards on duty at night. However, given the size of the library, security could only respond to problems that were reported by other library users.

Users there did bring alcohol into the library at night. There were some instances of arguing, (but no physical fighting) in the library. Groups of students used the library as a social space at night also, which meant that students who wanted to study were often disturbed. Users frequently broke the ‘no hot food’ rule at night time in the library. There were many problems with coffee and alcohol spills, food stains and smells, vomit and general rubbish in the library. What this does is run down the library environment and adds to cleaning and maintenance costs. Chairs and tables were frequently broken from misuse, as were computers and other technology. Again, there was no violence in the library owing to the fact that security guards were on duty. The library in the UK that I worked in did also have a problem with homeless people sleeping in the library at night. Some students did also damage books.

Tailgating

Anti-social behaviour is added to when people tail-gate into the library, which basically means they sneak in behind members. You can certainly have people in the library who cannot be identified if they engage in anti-social behaviour. This is a problem because it makes people feel uncomfortable in the library space. It means if stealing or damage occurs, we may not necessarily be able to identify the culprits. In the university library I worked in, students could actually get a guest pass for their friends. However, most still preferred to tailgate.

Theft/ Damage to items

Damage to items is inevitable in a library. But if the security systems are not adequate then  theft will increase. All libraries have a missing items list that they maintain through their information management system. I would like to know whether or not this list has gotten longer in the piloted libraries and how much that has cost the libraries involved. If the security gates in the library are not full length, then it is very easy to throw a book over the gates and exit out of the library with it. RFID tagging of books nowadays does it make it more difficult to tear security tags out of books and walk through the gates, but a lot of stock in our public libraries is old and does not necessarily have that technology. In fact, in one public library I worked in people used to frequently and accidentally walk through the gates holding unchecked library items and the security alarms at the gates were not activated. Also, in the university I worked at, sometimes the self-check machines would experience technical problems. The machines do have a back-up, offline mode when this occurs. However, in this library the back up mode would sometimes allow students to take reference books out of the library. These books are normally expensive and valuable and are also library only-copies, which means if they go missing they are expensive to replace. What this demonstrates is the fallibility of these systems and the need to get it right from the start by researching the most appropriate technology and being prepared to pay top dollar for it.

Technology Problems

I wonder if the people planning opening libraries have analysed their chosen company’s customer service and problem solving records. Problems with the technology are inevitable. One library I worked in had chosen the wrong entrance gates. The gates would, on a daily basis, not allow entry to some users. The company responsible for the gates did not fix the problem even after 12 months of complaints by the library. With no staff to open the gates in an open library, people could be refused entry. If the self-service machines go down, how long will it take to fix them, especially if you have one company responsible for all the open libraries in the country? These kinds of problems are inevitable, so questions need to be asked about ongoing costs and time scales when problems arise.

Circulation

In all of the libraries I have worked in, one of the most frequent problems we encounter when working at the desk relates to lost or missing items. In a library that is understaffed, doing the request items list can be a nightmare. This is because patrons drag items all around the library, taking a book off of one shelf and putting it back somewhere else. There are always missing items and unfulfilled requests. Open libraries have less or sometimes no staff at all. And if patrons are using the library for many hours without assistance, and if the shelves are not maintained consistently, then circulation is affected. Items go back out on the shelves slower with open libraries because re-shelving only happens once per day as opposed to the constant shelving and tidying that happens in a staffed library. Circulation, sortation and shelving are the most important tasks because they mean that when a patron goes to the shelf, their book is in place. Libraries with poor sortation and shelving result in inadequate circulation and a frustrating experience for users with no staff to help them.

The problems mentioned above are not unsolvable, but I have not seen any meaningful  acknowledgement of these issues in the government report. Of course, if there was consultation with librarians then many of these issues could be resolved more easily. The above list is far from exhaustive and I welcome my library colleagues to add to this this list using the comments below.

Part 3: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Will the open library provide more or less access to information for all people within the community?

I initially started this article by suggesting that open libraries could provide greater access to information and that this could potentially be a good thing. They provide greater access to information simply because the library is open for longer periods of time. However, does an open library provide greater access to information than a less technologically enabled staffed library?

If the user is computer literate then the staffed library and open library provide the same access to information. However, if the user is not computer literate then the open library provides less access to information. This is because many people do rely on the librarians to help them use the IT facilities in the library. Many users do not know how to search the catalogue in order to find the books they are looking for; others do not know how to log on to a computer let alone search a digital database effectively; most users cannot use the photocopying and scanning facilities without help; and in libraries when there are self-service machines, most users come to the desk with their items anyway preferring the human interaction and service they get from the staff. Open libraries exclude all of these people. So, if it is cheaper to staff a library than to set it up for open access, and if open access excludes users, then is it not true that staffed libraries provide greater a access to information than open libraries given that a staffed library service in the evening provides access to more people and for longer periods of time? The simple truth is that librarians are as much a part of the access infrastructure of a library as computers are.

Part 2: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

Who are the designated end users and does the Open Library truly serve them?

The designated community of an open library are users that are computer liberate and technologically enabled. Many people who attend the library during the day are excluded because they do not know how to use the technology in the library. If the open library scheme is targeting those people that are working during the day then that is fine. It is acceptable to target these users if the library is open to everyone else throughout the day. However, if the end user is someone in full-time employment/ education and is already technologically enabled, is the open library the best solution for their needs?

The bottom line is that the library now provides more electronic resources than it does physical copies. You can borrow e-books and e-magazines through the library website, you can take courses through University Class and you can learn languages also. True open access for a technologically enabled user actually means ‘remote access’. That user can access electronic resources from home, work, while on the train or their lunch break. That user already has a broadband or 3G connection and is already connected to the information they need. Does it make sense that we are investing millions countrywide to set up individual open libraries to service people who are already connected to the internet and who are online? Does it not make more sense to invest this money in electronic and digital resources that can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere and by anyone that has an internet connection? This is also important because one countrywide electronic resources license actually serves the entire country. The open library initiative is setting up single, individual libraries in every county to provide greater access to information. It is like choosing to pay for hundreds of Windows licences when one will cover the entire country at a lower cost.

So, if the actually information can be provided electronically, whey else would someone need an open library? Of course, people will use it not just for the information it holds, but also for the facilities, ie. copying, computing and studying. Again, the designated or targeted user likely already has a computer and printer in their home, or alternatively, will use printing and photocopying services at work. So if the open library will only be open in the evening and the people using it will already be technologically enabled, is it worth the investment to open the library as a study space for professionals and students? There is no doubt that it would be useful for people to study and hold meetings in the library, but do we really need all of the additional security and technology to provide people with a desk, a chair, or a group meeting room? And will people feel safe and comfortable enough to use it anyway?

It appears that the reasons behind the open library are misguided. The attempt to appease disgruntled librarians and patrons by arguing that the open library will only be open for a few hours in the evenings and on Sundays simply does not add up or make sense from a financial or end user perspective.

Part 1: Assessing Ireland’s Open Library Initiative

This is the first of a 6 part series on Ireland’s current Open Library Initiative….

In principle, I am not necessarily against having open libraries in our communities. We live in a very diverse society in which people have all kinds of different lifestyle patterns and needs. Having our libraries open 24/7 in this context can only be a good thing. The core function of a library is to provide access to information and if open libraries provide greater access to information then they may not be all doom and gloom. However, a serious and considered examination needs to be undertaken in order to assess whether the current open library initiative in Ireland is a  positive or negative move by the government. In order to achieve this, some questions need to be asked and answered.

Is the open library initiative cost effective in its current guise?

The current plans are to open the library for additional 4/5 hours each evening. In order to do this, libraries will need a serious upgrade to its facilities. Considering the current outdated technology currently in our public libraries, this will be an expensive venture. Security gates need to be full-length from ceiling to floor to prevent people stealing items. All computer access, photocopying/ scanning, check in/outs, entry/ exit gates, and also item returns will ideally need to be automated. CCTV in the libraries will need to updated also. Added to this, will be the ongoing servicing and maintenance costs of operating the service. This operation will not be taken over by IT Departments already working in County Councils, but will be carried out by the company supplying the technology. What all of this amounts to a very expensive venture. And if money is not spent wisely by choosing technology that is fit for purpose and reliable, along with a servicing contract that allows for efficient problem solving and technical support, then the cost of this will run into tens of thousands of euros per year per library.

So, the question is, is it really worth the cost in order to open the library for an additional 4/5 hours in the evening? And besides, if you have the technology in place, why close the library at all when 10pm comes? Why not open it all night? I will return to this question a little later.  The cost question is very important. A Library Assistant at the beginning of their contract, earns 21,500 euros per year full-time and works on a salary scale that reaches 37,000 euros. If the end goal here is to simply open the library for a few extra hours in the evening, why not create a job for someone like myself who is currently surviving on the scraps of temporary part-time work?

Why spend all of this money when access to the information in the library can be provided so cheaply by creating a job for a young newly qualified librarian? This calls into question the real motives of the government with this initiative. The bottom line is that this project in its current guise of 4/5 hours extra opening is simply not cost effective. And worryingly, the only way to make it cost effective is to reduce staff and have an Open Library all of the time. So when librarians express concern for the future of the profession, they are being realistic about where the open library initiative is heading.

Nice new self-service machine at Sligo Library, although why is everyone wearing coats? Perhaps the money would be better spent on heating?

Solutions to Controlled Vocabularies Part Two……

Structuralism can be understood as a normative science in which a classification system would begin with the norm and afterwards, if necessary, treat of any exceptions. This, in many ways, goes a long way towards explaining how some of the solutions to classification biases are conceptualised. Both Olson and Mai have basically inserted into the old systems a new way to deal with any exceptions to the norm. They both imply an understanding and incorporation of difference into their models, but only once the normative system has been first applied. However, in Poststructuralism, there emerges a more appropriate definition of difference, and not as an exception of ‘limit’ to the ‘core’, but as a regulating principal that functions to define the core of a subject. As James Williams (2104) demonstrates, in poststructuralism “the limit is not compared with the core, or balanced with it […]the limit is the core”. Poststructuralism sees dualism as a problematic approach to understanding language, and even more problematic with the dualist approach of classification theorists is that they imbalance the dualism between sameness and difference, lending more significance to sameness than difference. Perhaps it is better to explain the principle of ‘core’ and ‘limit’ through an example. Defining something like ‘Irishness’ is traditionally understood through what is at its core, that is, being born in a certain place, time, to certain parents, being a certain skin colour, speaking a certain language, etc. This understanding of Irishness is what regulates our political system and society as a whole. The ‘limit’ in this example would be the problems that arise with the definition once we factor in ethnic minorities who become naturalised with their own set of cultures and histories. But in a traditional, structuralist understanding, these minorities are the exception, and while the Irish government may legislate to create better conditions for ethnic minorities, there will always be discrimination because the limit does not change the core. However, poststructuralism, in James’ (2014) words, would argue that “The truth of a population is where it is changing. A nation is defined at its borders”, that is, at the point of difference because everything that happens at the borders of a country changes how the core is defined. It is the ‘difference’ of ethnic minorities that is most representative of a where a nation is going to in the future and so the ‘limit’ for poststructuralism is the most meaningful way that a nation, or a text, or indeed a classification system can be defined. In terms of vocabulary control then, what defines how a text is classified should not be a biased and static system. Texts should be classified by emphasising how those texts are being, or could be used in ‘different’ ways, by different disciplines. A book like ‘Words of Power’, that would be classified under LCSH and DDC as Philosophy: Logic, would no longer be limited to such static systems. This book could also be used by feminist scholars, by those working in ethics, or anthropology, sociology, psychology, gender studies, linguistics, and so on. Defining the book under strict controlled vocabularies denies access to ‘exceptional’ groups which results in a lack of real innovation and creativity in academia. In this sense, there are lessons to be learned form poststructuralist theorist Deleuze who argues for the power of openness in creativity.

To reassert, then, poststructuralism denies the traditional approach to classification through controlled vocabularies and aims to positively disrupt traditional classification systems in order to achieve greater autonomy for texts and their users. The problem with the solutions is that they are developed from the point of view that it is too disruptive to completely change our classification systems. But here disruption is seen negatively rather than positively. The seriousness of this ultimately limiting attitude and of the reliance on outmoded classifications can best be understood by applying the work of Jacques Derrida to the topic. Derrida’s (1976) ‘textual positivism’ would not ask ‘what is this book about?’, but rather, ‘what does this book do?’ This question radically changes the way we would categorise texts because it places an emphasis on multiplicity of use rather than the singularity of meaning as defined by ‘specialists’. Derrida’s approach distinctly adopts anthropocentrism and sees the classification system as onto-theological. Derrida’s ‘origin’ is constantly being affected by a texts ‘presence’, thats is, what a text is doing in the moment. It is this ‘presence’ that leads to both the future and the past, that essentially pulls the ‘origin’ into ever-evolving new contexts. A ‘sign’ then for Derrida is nothing more than a ‘trace’ of that change, a trace that can be followed to a point of difference so long as we understand that once we reach the trace, we have too altered its origin which has moved off beyond our grasp. It is this point of difference that allows for creativity to emerge in what Derrida defines as ‘play’. In this sense, and applied to classification systems, the moment at which a reader reads ‘Words of Power’ in relation to psychoanalytical studies, is the moment that changes the origin indefinitely, opening up that text to new contexts in the future and the past, and thereby changing how that text should be defined in a classification system.

This essay will argue then, that classification systems should take ‘difference’ as a key underlying principle in the way we organise information. To do otherwise is to consciously do ‘violence’ by excluding individuals or groups from our knowledge economy. As Derrida (1976, 140) writes “There is no ethics without the presence of the other but also, and consequently, without absence, dissimulation, detour, differance, writing”. This is because traditional classification systems and the solutions outlined in this paper, try to regulate the past, present and future of information in order to make it more accessible. However, the adoption of a classical scientific approach only makes it possible to categories if texts, if language, are seen as static. But Derrida (1976, 67) teaches us that “The concepts of present, past, and future, everything in the concepts of time and history that assumes their classical evidence – the general metaphysical concepts of time – cannot describe the structure of the trace adequately”. This constitutes a denial that there is no ‘final’ past, present or future of a text. Derrida (1976, 69) would argue that what is really happening in controlled vocabularies is a violence and unethical act of control which is borne out of a fear and misunderstanding of ‘death’. “Spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becoming-unconsious of the subject. By the movement of its drift/ derivation the emancipation of the sign constitutes in return the desire of the presence. That becoming – or that drift/ derivation – does not befall the subject which would choose it or would passively let itself be drawn along by it. As the subject’s relationship with its own death, this becoming is the constitution of subjectivity.” Death in this sense is seen as continuity from one context to the next rather than a final end. In many ways, traditional classification systems are a kind of death sentence in the traditional sense in that they render entire texts and disciplines static and irrelevant as new contexts emerge and are classified in inadequate ways. Perhaps the point is best represented by Williams (2014) who claims “The demand for clarity is dangerous because clarity justifies violent judgements and exclusions on the basis of a promise of a world of understanding and togetherness.”

What is happening then in our classification systems is that subject specialists are attempting to create greater accessibility to information by categorising information under specific and specialist subject headings in order to create a sense of clarity when one is searching for that information. Texts are gathered together based around a principle of sameness and difference in which things that are similar are classified under the same subject headings. The reality is that this system, based on controlled vocabularies is extremely biased and fails to account for real difference, heterogeneity and multiplicity in our information world. There have been attempts to create new systems that, for example, are more appropriate for those interested in feminist studies, but these systems simply shift the control from one universal group to another smaller prioritisation. They do highlight a very important politics and injustice, for example, in the way texts are classified, but they do so by reverting to an equally biased system. It is at the point of difference that real innovation and creativity occurs. Our universities are set up as places in which creativity and independent thinking is supposed to lead to new innovations, while our public libraries are moving more and more towards providing creative spaces for communities to grow and develop. Yet, the way in which we search for information is limited and contradictory, and no longer fit for purpose. The argument that ‘difference’ should be prevalent in classification systems is not absurd or contradictory, but would require a complete overhaul of the way in which we understand and categorise information. Perhaps there is already a working model existent in the way in which internet search engines like Google operate. Websites on Google are presented to us in a way that can promote difference as a classifying principle. This is because those websites that have the most links to other active sites are presented as being more prevalent and relevant. What would happen if a similar approach was adopted by libraries? That when we search for information under a certain topic, that we are presented with a list of texts that are organised based around the number of connections the texts have to other texts and thus other disciplines? This would perhaps provide a classification system that would celebrate multiplicity, ranking texts according to the many possible ways they can be used and interpreted. In the field of literature, I remember my PhD supervisor suggesting to me that I include some comparative work between John Banville and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in my thesis because the postcolonial contexts of Ireland and Colombia bare many similarities. As a researcher, in all the hours spent searching for information on Banville and postcolonialism, I was never presented with any texts that implied real difference or multiplicity. Searches were singular and restrictive, never indicating that any different approach was possible. The classification system would provide no new spark of creativity for young researchers to pursue. In fact, using Boolean logic, I found that the more search terms I entered in different searches, the more relevant the results that were presented. If difference was to become an organising principle, then information would be retrieved that prioritised multiplicity and that would lead to greater inclusion and thus innovation. The problem at the moment is that the way we search the digital databases is dictated by the way in which information is placed on stacks. The stacks or the numbers on the books do not have to change. Where the information is located in the library is irrelevant because rarely nowadays do we search the stacks anyway. What needs to change is the way information is classified on the digital databases. There is nothing stopping us from radically changing this digital system to one that is more inclusive of difference and that contains less ‘violent’ vocabularies.

Bibliography

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Bowker, G.C. and Star, S.L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. MIT Press, Boston, MA.

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Mai, Jens-Erik (2010). Classification in a social world: bias and trust. Journal of Documentation, Vol. 66 Issue 5, pp. 627-642.

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Williams, James (2014). Understanding Poststructuralism. Routledge: London.