2. Lia Friedman, Head of Public Services
Instruction & Outreach Librarian
University of California, San Diego
@piebrarian
#MLIB12
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/4642
3. UCSD: Numbers
– UCSD includes six undergraduate colleges, five academic
divisions and five graduate and professional schools
– UCSD Libraries consist of 8 libraries, with more than 7,300
people streaming through the libraries each day.*
– Library website resources are accessed more than 87,500
times daily
– Fairly large student population:
• 23,000 undergraduates
• 4,200 graduates
– 26,000 faculty and staff
* At the time of this project
Source: http://www.ucsd.edu/explore/about/facts.html, http://libraries.ucsd.edu/about
4. UCSD Library: How Things Get Done
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5278999437/
8. Simplify
• Form a Single Super Committee
• 4 representatives from User Services Groups
• Facilitator
• Web Technical Manager
• Agile-based project management
• Open Communication Channels
15. What Went Right
We’re all in this together.
Building the notion that IT works with and not for User
Services.
Each group is ultimately only as effective as the other.
Transparency is key.
17. UC San Diego Libraries Home Page
SSHL Home Page
BML Home Page
Library Hours
Databases A-Z
S&E Home Page
Remote Access: Proxy Server
Mobile Website Home Page
Arts Library Home Page
Tools: Find Articles
18. How Could You Implement This?
Support from administration to try something new.
o Give project group decision-making power and freedom to
choose projects.
o Flatten reporting lines.
o Promise faster results, less ‘death by committee’.
Let everyone do what they are good at.
o Public Services staff know the front-line user requirements.
o IT staff know what requirements can and cannot be realized.
Open and frank reality checks.
19. But, Really, How Could You Do This?
Find a pilot project to establish or reexamine small
projects
Change up the process.
Cherry-pick your team.
Find common ground.
Good morning, my name is liafriedman, thank you for being here. Impiebrarian on twitter, and thehashtag for the conference, as you know is mlib12.
This talk is an extension of a paper that was published in the code4lib journal a while back. The address is here, and I’ll have it again on the last slide.Im going to talk about the mobile libraries site that we created at UCSD libraries last year, the methodology that we used in implementing it and how you might do the same at your institution or organization.
Just a bit of information about my university, and the audience we were addressing.
A couple of years ago now we completed a Non mobile website redesign in order to keep in line with the campus-wide website look and feel.This project involved forming several committees with representatives from each of the then 10 libraries, as well as various other stakeholder groups (interlibrary loan, reserves, IT, administration, etc). This entire process spanned many many months, and near the end of the project additional groups were formed to provide feedback and discuss ongoing issues. Just one of these ancillary groups was made up of the Web Managing Editor, the libraries’ Director of Communications, a public services Member-at-Large, a representative from Bibliographers’ Council, an instruction representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, an outreach representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, a representative from the Reference & Information Services Committee and a representative from the Document Delivery Service /Inter-Library Loan committee. So while the outcome and response to this project was positive, a project of this scope and scale required a long timeline and a huge number of people..
A couple of years ago now we completed a Non mobile website redesign in order to keep in line with the campus-wide website look and feel.This project involved forming several committees with representatives from each of the then 10 libraries, as well as various other stakeholder groups (interlibrary loan, reserves, IT, administration, etc). This entire process spanned many many months, and near the end of the project additional groups were formed to provide feedback and discuss ongoing issues. Just one of these ancillary groups was made up of the Web Managing Editor, the libraries’ Director of Communications, a public services Member-at-Large, a representative from Bibliographers’ Council, an instruction representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, an outreach representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, a representative from the Reference & Information Services Committee and a representative from the Document Delivery Service /Inter-Library Loan committee. So while the outcome and response to this project was positive, a project of this scope and scale required a long timeline and a huge number of people..
A couple of years ago now we completed a Non mobile website redesign in order to keep in line with the campus-wide website look and feel.This project involved forming several committees with representatives from each of the then 10 libraries, as well as various other stakeholder groups (interlibrary loan, reserves, IT, administration, etc). This entire process spanned many many months, and near the end of the project additional groups were formed to provide feedback and discuss ongoing issues. Just one of these ancillary groups was made up of the Web Managing Editor, the libraries’ Director of Communications, a public services Member-at-Large, a representative from Bibliographers’ Council, an instruction representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, an outreach representative from the Instruction & Outreach Committee, a representative from the Reference & Information Services Committee and a representative from the Document Delivery Service /Inter-Library Loan committee. So while the outcome and response to this project was positive, a project of this scope and scale required a long timeline and a huge number of people..
So you see how crazy this can get! Simplify!
Simplify the process, using many of the ideas involved in agile implementation.We used short, iterative development cycles with an emphasis on in-person communication between library web developers and user services representatives.
Of course, being librarians,We began with an environmental scan of what library mobile websites currently offer, examining around 25 sites for content and useabilityWe know and you know, that the continuing dramatic rise of smartphones, with a 2010 Pew study showing that nine out of ten 18 to 29 year olds own a cellphoneand that 65% of them access the internet using these devicesillustrated the need for us to act quickly. And that word quickly actually means something here, as I’ll get to in a bit in a bit.
Left, we have what our site looks like normally, and on the right our goal for a mobile site. We discussed the things that we felt would be important to have represented, choosing, hours, catalog, ask a librarian, research tools, maps and directions and contacts.
And then we got into the nitty gritty of how to do this.So again, using basic tenets of agile development we set the parameters of short, iterative development cycles with an emphasis on in-person communication between library web developers and user services representatives.We then employed 3 two-week cycles Week 1, Monday-Friday: Web Development team creates a website section, using initialsuggestions from the mobile advisory group and distributes the changes to the group.Week 2, Monday-Wednesday: The 4-person Mobile Advisory Group tests for functionality and accuracy, and submits changes using the project wiki.That same week, Week 2, Thursday-Friday: Development team incorporates feedback, and releases the section to production.Week 3, Monday: Advisory Group meets with the Development team to discuss the next upcoming cycle. As with the kickoff meeting we met in person- a good opportunity to set mutual work expectations and reinforce the short timeline. It also made sure that everyone was at the table bothfigureatively and literally, since it’s a challenge to hide or not provide feedback or not be involved, if you are physically at the table with four other people. Also, really important, It also allows the developers to communicate any technical challenges that would be out of scope for the next cycle.Weeks 3-6: Two additional cycles are completed.So first week, develop-test –review
So, testing..this might be an example of something outside of the scope of feasability…We would all use different devices. Luckily IT was able to get a couple of devices for us to play with, but we also wanted to test on our own devices as well.
We used a simple wiki to keep track of changes throughout each cycle, device used, fuctionality and useability were all looked at and evaluated.
It was incredibly important to have open communication throughout this process, we had to be willing to propose things we werent sure would work, be creative, and most importantly we had to be unafraid of looking foolish. This was a group of technical people and public services people, and as you know each speaks a language which certainly overlaps, but isn’t the same. We wanted people to feel comfortable proposing things and asking any question, as well as being able to be free to tell the tech side that while beautiful or seemingly sensible, something that they proposed wasn’t logical from a user services standpoint and vice versa.
This worked for us. We finished in the time allotted and were very happy with the result, but we did learn a few things.Its obvious that we are all in this together, but sometimes we can get comfortable in our own roles and sections in the library, and we forget about the work being done in different departments, and how we each intersect and work together knowingly or not.
This is a graph of our mobile site use over time, beginning with october of 2010, up to july of 2012, and you can see it has risen steadily.
Just for the month of July of 2012. the main non mobile page of our site got just under sixty one thousand hits, and towards the bottom, if you see the pink slice, that’s the mobile site home page, with over three thousand hits, about 1 and ½ percent.
