Serving the DIY Patron

May 16, 2013
Serving the DIY Patron: Library
Instruction at the Point of Need
Meredith Farkas, Portland State University
Tuesday, May 7, 13

What is DIY?
✤ Self-sufﬁciency
✤ Personalization/customization
✤ Frugality/rejection of consumerism
✤ Developing skills for creation, reconnection with hands-on activities
✤ A rejection of the mediated/expert model
✤ Doing things outside of traditional hierarchies/boundaries
✤ Satisfaction from building things yourself
Tuesday, May 7, 13

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/g7ahn/8369950576/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/seven_resist/5428142486/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/pzed/4279771767/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/joshb/99851205/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/taedc/8670412388/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/asieo/3109001969/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/spcummings/2087666493/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/shifted/8555568803/
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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/juggernautco/6084899576/
Tuesday, May 7, 13

The DIY generation
✤ Respect for locally-made, hand-made
✤ Desire for more control, personalization (hacker ethos)
✤ Grassroots politics, leaderless movements (Occupy, Wikileaks)
✤ Growth in communities for the “expert amateur” to make things
✤ Why be DIY? (Kuznetsov & Paulos, “Rise of the Expert Amateur: DIY
Projects, Communities, and Cultures.” NordiCHI, 2010)
✤ “Express myself/be creative” (97%)
✤ “Learn new skills” (91%)
✤ “Solve problems/challenge myself” (88%)
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Do people like this seek out help
from experts?
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Help-seeking in libraries: a history
✤ Then
✤ Closed stacks
✤ Mediated searching
✤ Information scarcity
✤ Now
✤ Open stacks
✤ Search tools designed for the end-user
✤ Self-checkout, patron-driven acquisitions, unmediated ILL, etc.
Tuesday, May 7, 13

At the same time...
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/7537238368/
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Plus, most millennials think
they’re research...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/osakajock/121838967/
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Information = Abundant
Time = Scarce
Attention = scarce
____________________
Do the traditional models still
work when information isn’t
scarce?
Tuesday, May 7, 13

What has this meant for
reference?
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Reference usage has declined
✤ “According to Association of Research Library (ARL)
statistics, the number of reference transactions
taking place in ARL libraries has declined by
more than half since 1995. Control that statistic for
enrollment and the decline is greater: in 1995, ARL libraries
provided an average of 10.1 reference transactions per
student FTE; in 2009 the number was 3.6, a decline of
over 60%.”
Anderson, Rick. (2011). “The Crisis in Research Librarianship” Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 37(4).
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Reference transactions in U.S.
academic libraries Source: NCES
0
750,000
1,500,000
2,250,000
3,000,000
1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Reference Transactions
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Reference transactions in public
libraries Source: NCES
0
0.375
0.75
1.125
1.5
1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Reference Transactions per capita
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Reference transactions in CA
public libraries Source: NCES
0
0.35
0.7
1.05
1.4
1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Reference Transactions per capita
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Why would they ask us?
✤ College students overwhelmingly (83%) begin their
information searches using search engines, though at lower
rates than in 2005 (92%). As in 2005, no student surveyed
started on the library Web site. College students feel that search
engines trump libraries for speed, convenience, reliability and ease of use.
Libraries trump search engines for trustworthiness and accuracy.
Substantially more students in 2010 (43%) indicated
that information from library sources is more
trustworthy than from search engines (31% in 2005).
✤ Source: OCLC Perceptions of Libraries 2010 study
Tuesday, May 7, 13

And yet
✤ Source: OCLC Perceptions of Libraries 2010 study
Tuesday, May 7, 13

The DIY patron
✤ Wants to ﬁgure it out themselves
✤ Is accustomed to using Google and other web services
✤ Is accustomed to using quick help sites like WikiAnswers, Yahoo!
Answers, etc.
✤ Wants things to be intuitive
✤ Looks for pointers about how things work
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Other reasons they might not ask
for help
✤ Library anxiety
✤ Low academic self-efﬁcacy - asking for help means admitting they
lack ability.
✤ Gender - girls “lose their voice” during adolescence
✤ Lack of understanding of the role of the librarian (marketing
problem?)
Tuesday, May 7, 13

“We desperately need to invest serious thought
and effort into ways that we will not only provide
access to information, but also maintain the
connections between the wired user and the
information expert to demonstrate that the added
value that we provide users in this information-
saturated environment is far greater than the
mere convenience of ‘getting it all online.’”
Brette Barclay Barron, “Distant and Distributed Learners Are Two Sides of
the Same Coin,” Computers in Libraries 22 (Jan. 2002): 24–28.
Tuesday, May 7, 13

The answer then for reference
instruction
✤ Disintermediate whenever possible
✤ Develop instructional content that mimics answer services on the
web like Yahoo! Answers (small, speciﬁc bits of content)
✤ Make that content available and easily ﬁndable at their points of
need 24/7
✤ For academic/K12 librarians: Embed instructional content into the
fabric of classes
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Online learning objects
Tuesday, May 7, 13

LEARNING
OBJECTS
INSTRUCTION REFERENCE
Tuesday, May 7, 13

INSTRUCTION REFERENCE
LEARNING
OBJECTS TO
SUPPORT A
COURSE
LEARNING
OBJECTS FOR
POINT OF
NEED
INSTRUCTION
Tuesday, May 7, 13

These are two different things
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Do students come looking for
this?
Tuesday, May 7, 13

So what about these?
✤ Great when assigned
✤ Useless when not part of a class
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Focused on specific needs
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Discovering needs
✤ Reference transactions
✤ Web statistics
✤ Usability testing
✤ Ethnographic research
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Reference transactions
✤ Collect questions asked at the desk
✤ Reference stats
✤ Virtual reference transcripts
✤ Don’t collect? Talk to colleagues who frequently work the reference
desk
✤ Or sample!
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Web analytics
✤ What pages do they visit the most?
✤ What databases do they visit the most?
✤ Where do patrons get frustrated and leave?
✤ Where do they spend a lot of time that doesn’t make sense?
✤ Time on site
✤ Bounce rate
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Usability testing
✤ Giving patrons tasks and watch them use your website to complete
them
✤ Watch students do authentic research
✤ Always surprising
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Ethnographic research
✤ Observing students using the library
✤ Focus groups and individual interviews
✤ Photo diary studies
✤ Research journals
✤ Research narratives
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Models that support DIY patrons
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Library DIY @ Portland State
✤ Reference librarian in a box
✤ Small pieces of instructional content
✤ Based on questions we get at the reference desk
✤ Each one answers just one question
✤ If in-depth help needed, link out
✤ Information architecture gets students to just the info they’re looking
for
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Next steps
✤ Finish content development
✤ User testing over the summer
✤ Placement and marketing to make it visible at students’ points of
need
✤ On the library website
✤ In the library
✤ On campus
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Making content findable at points
of need
Tuesday, May 7, 13

And how findable is this?
✤ Links to tutorials
✤ Under research resources/start your research
✤ Under help/research help
✤ Under Services
✤ Under Library Services --> Instruction
✤ Within LibGuides
✤ Unﬁndable from some library websites
Tuesday, May 7, 13

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/yogendra174/5980718184
Get in their flow
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Where might patrons look for/
need help on your library website?
✤ Ask a Librarian page
✤ Any help type of pages
✤ Research guides
✤ Databases page (and inside databases)
✤ Catalog
✤ Webpages for speciﬁc services (ILL, gov docs, etc.)
Tuesday, May 7, 13

“The library needs to be in the
user environment and not expect
the user to find their way to the
library environment”
-Lorcan Dempsey http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/
000688.html
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Go where your users are
✤ in the Learning Management System (LMS)
✤ on an Intranet
✤ in any local social networks or relevant community websites
✤ on Facebook
✤ on mobile devices
✤ in computer labs (on the desktop)
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Digital research help in the
physical world
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Link patrons to library instructional
content where they need it
✤ In the library
✤ In the stacks, places people get lost
✤ By collections patrons have trouble using
✤ Machines patrons have issues with
✤ Other places people have information needs
✤ Buses, business support organizations, daycare centers, community
centers, high schools, academic department ofﬁces, residence halls,
computer labs, etc.
Tuesday, May 7, 13

QR Codes
✤ Short for Quick Response
✤ Originally developed for
inventory control
✤ Need a QR code reader
to read
✤ Scan a QR code to access
info or take action
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Hicks,A., & Sinkinson, C. (2011). Situated
Questions and Answers. Reference & User
Services Quarterly, 51(1), 60–69.
✤ Placed posters with QR codes in the library in places where patrons
encountered difficulties
✤ For the journals area: Poster says “How do I...
✤ find older issues of the journal?
✤ find the call number for the journal I need?
✤ find a scanner?
✤ find a copy machine?
✤ get more help?
Tuesday, May 7, 13

QR Codes are a stopgap
✤ Near Field Communications
✤ A way for devices to receive
information at close range
✤ RFID is an example
✤ User no longer has to take the
initiative to scan
✤ In the meantime
✤ Use QR codes with shortened URLs
(bit.ly, goo.gl, tinyURL, etc.)
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Another way to reach DIY
students
✤ Embed information literacy instruction seamlessly into the DNA of
classes
✤ Create learning objects, activities, and self-paced tutorials that
faculty can easily integrate into their courses
✤ Embed library instruction meaningfully into classes (beyond the
one-shot)
✤ Requires a tremendous amount of relationship-building with
faculty + time
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Questions? Comments?
Find me at
http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress
mgfarkas (at) gmail.com
twitter: librarianmer
facebook: meredithfarkas
Slides and links at
meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com
Tuesday, May 7, 13

Serving the DIY Patron

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