TSLAC insider on IMLS funding and impacts.

 I have a contact with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) and I have been in conversation with them about the latest headlines regarding the slashing of funding at the (Federal) Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and its implication for Texas Public Libraries.

I'm keeping my source anonymous but this is what I have learned so far:

"We will be scheduling an Office Hour session for early next week as we catch up on things here and monitor IMLS news.  I did notify Library Directors yesterday that the agency received notice from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) that IMLS staff are no longer available to respond to questions about the availability of federal funds used to support TSLAC programs for libraries, including the annual Interlibrary Loan Lending Reimbursement Program. Without information on the status of these funds, we have notified libraries that we do not anticipate awarding ILL lending reimbursement grants for SFY 25.  

The current contract for statewide SHAREit access is paid through December 2025. We will certainly keep libraries apprised of any other updates related to federal funding."


I was curious about TSLAC's previous contractual arrangement with OCLC for access to Navigator Resource Engine (NRE) and OCLC Worldshare for Texas Public Libraries which they subsidized.  I wanted to know if these came from allocations from the Texas Legislature or from IMLS?  This was the answer I got:

"Yes, TSLAC’s previous contracts with OCLC for NRE and WorldShare ILL subscriptions were paid for fully with IMLS funds.  Federal funds support all of TSLAC’s library assistance programs in Texas to some extent, including interlibrary loan, training for small community library managers, statewide summer reading programs, competitive grants, databases, and technology assistance to libraries.

Let me know if I can provide additional information."

The Rule of 5 (Interlibrary Loan)

 So I recently purchased and skimmed this book;  it's in its 3rd edition, circa 2011 and badly in need of an update, at least as an ebook if not a printed professional work.  The technology section made me blush because it is so laughably out of date.

 

 The most useful section of the book is the discussion of the intersection of ILL with U.S. Copyright Law, specifically the Rule of Five guideline.

To steer clear of violations of Copyright law, it is advised that a library request no more than Five (5) Articles from the same journal that was published within the last Five (5) calendar years.  Any more than that and the library should either decline the article request made by the patron or charge the patron the going market rate to obtain the article from the publisher/aggregator, etc.  Going above this limit is regarded by Copyright law as attempting to circumvent a valid paid subscription and exposes a library to legal liability.  If the library is getting overwhelmed by article requests from the same scholarly journal the library should strongly consider adding the journal to its own collection, arduous a task as that may be.

It is an issue of concern mainly for public and private Academic Libraries.  I can say with confidence that my public library system has never come close to violating the Rule of Five, not even once, not even close.  I'm mindful of it and do keep an eye out for it, but to date it's never come up.  Copying requests are few and far between in the public library space; it is a much more common feature for ILL librarians & staff in the Academic lending space, for obvious reasons, situated as they are as a nexus for scholarly communication.

 

Old Familiar Feeling (COVID memories)

 So, the Internet and our library OPAC has been down since Monday morning; an entire week of listlessness unable to perform all but the most basic of tasks, everything in a holding pattern pending service restoration.  It's been a franky depressing way to spend time at work....do what I can but then I'm reduced to listening to podcasts, watching TikTok, watching YouTube, reposting the best of TikTok to Ex-Twitter, etc.  Not quite doom scrolling but not not that either.  Interacting with fellow weebs on Threads for awhile is diverting and fun.

I reflected that my anxious, depressed mood reminds me so much of how I felt during the lockdown phase of the early pandemic.  How directionless I felt, how my sense of self-worth took a major hit.  I wanted to get back in the office doing my job serving the public and couldn't.  The not knowing was the worst part then as now.  Having to take on faith things will be restored to (mostly) normal eventually, which is exceedingly difficult for one naturally inclined to personal pessimism.  

I know we'll be back eventually but the unknown makes it hard to get up in the morning.  I recognize that I'm a bit of a workaholic and like any junkie, going cold turkey like this is really rough.  I realized I actually feel GUILTY listening to podcast content if I'm not also actively doing something productive whether working with my hands affixing ILL book straps, printing and managing paperwork, etc, or even just commuting in my car or eating lunch.  It's hard to feel okay to just sit there and listen to a podcast without having something else to work on while I do.  I know it's all in my head but it's what my head has grown accustomed to and shifting that mindset isn't done on a dime.

I'm okay watching short-form TikToks or AMVs on YouTube but would feel wrong/naughty watching entire anime episodes, etc.  Which again is dumb and no one cares but...just can't shake those feelings.

I did flip through a graphic novel history book that I ordered, based on oral histories of the First Black Marines in WW2.  Interesting mix of visual storytelling and written narrative.  Look forward to processing this ILL and actually checking it out and bringing it home.  The book piles grow and grow in separate corners of my workspace, each pile awaiting the day services are fully restored to be processed, checked in, and properly routed as needed.

I know a handful will have to be sent back & re-requested because the original loans will have expired and renewal will not be possible in all cases.  Interlibrary Loans are always time-sensitive so this is excruciating for me.

Network Down Blues

 So the system is down at my Library system....the catalog, the internet, basically nearly everything, with no estimate when it will be back yet.  Apparently the fault of a malicious cyber attack; rumor has it some dunderhead in maintenance opened and email attachment they shouldn't have and....blam, hostile virus took everything down.  We literally just had cybersecurity training that drilled into our heads NOT to do this, but I guess some people have trouble transferring sample lesson into real life or whatever.

Only as strong as our weakest (dumbest) link, I guess.

Anyway, my options are extremely limited as far as workday activity.    I receive the incoming courier deliveries and open and sort them but I can't actually receive them in the ShareIt system because ShareIt is unable to communicate with the OPAC because it is down and thus it can't properly create temporary bibs, can't trigger automated holds, etc.  I also can't properly check-in returned materials yet, so those go in another pile. 

I did apply a lot of goo gone & elbow grease to remove a lot of sticky adhesive from many of the TAE courier delivery bags, and I do that with some of the incoming stock as well.

I can't even properly print TAE bag labels since they require the internet to produce a unique QR code before you can actually print them.  Can't check email, can't even work on existing patron requests because with the OPAC down, NCIP cannot verify patron eligibility at this time.

I did need to return a handful of non-ILL items accidentally returned to our library but needing to be returned to the actual owners, e.g. other area libraries nearby.  The bulk of which being from a neighboring county and a neighboring metropolis.  I tried to see if I could print directly from my phone (I could not)  and if I could use my phone as a "hotspot" to connect my work PC to the Internet via cellular data but this was also a #fail.   

I then happened to remember the Fax Zero web service.  I looked on our telephone list and saw that our business office upstairs has a fax number that's not an eFax; they have an old fashioned actual fax machine there.  I was able to generate a PDF file of the desired shipping labels and messaged a friend of mine in Seattle, Washington a link to Fax Zero and then a copy of the desired PDF and gave her the fax number of the business office.  Asked my friend to kindly fax the PDF back to me via the business office with a coversheet addressed to me in Interlibrary Loan.

And it worked!  I retrieved the fax printout from upstairs, used the paper cutter to properly size the TAE address labels and put them in the correct sized purple courier bags for tomorrow morning.  Crazy work around but that's my autistic specialty at work.

Got a friendly call from TSLAC inquiring about our status and I was able to tell them about our internet woes and that we're down for the immediate future.  The expressed their sympathies and asked if they could help.  I said I'd let them know and thanked for their concern.  They agreed roping in my PNW friend to help out via Fax was praiseworthy as an outside the box solution.  Low tech fix FTW!

I'm asking my boss if I can get some training on how to do "offline circulation" for regular FBCL materials and if I can shadow some circ people while they work while ILL is basically on hold for now.
She said she'd think about it and we can discuss the next workday.  I just wanna help out and not just be surfing TikTok all day.  

I was also able to do some ILL returns of already checked-in material by logging on to ShareIt via my Phone and processing three returns like that.  I will have to manually delete the hold record from each of these patron's accounts when the system is restored.  Luckily most of the items on my return shelf aren't due back until next month.

I really do hope we get the system restored by next week.  It will be disastrous for ILL and the library system as a whole if we're down for several weeks in a row.  Most of my borrowing requests are going to expire because they're very time sensitive and that is distressing. 
 

 

On being autistic in the Library Profession as pertains to Interlibrary Loan, some observations.

 So TSLAC offers online "Office Hours" over Zoom for Interlibrary loan professionals at Texas libraries on tips and tricks and troubleshooting covering the ShareIt platform by Autographics, Inc.  I do my best to attend these religiously because they're always insightful and helpful.  Librarians are able to exchange ideas, ask questions of our TSLAC hosts, report problems, commiserate over shared frustrations, etc.

One of the things I've learned out of these discussions is that Libraries do some weird damn things that make no sense to me as an autistic person.  Specifically because the ShareIt platform is uniquely integrated with participating libraries OPACs in real time, often through the NCIP protocol, what you see in ShareIt is an accurate reflection of their actual holdings in real time.  In contrast, apparently the search results in OCLC Worldshare and WorldCat are NOT as reliable and more often represent historical data that is not always up to date & current.

You would think as a logical person that as part of any cataloging department's book withdrawal procedure commonly called "weeding", which is a natural part of a book's life cycle, especially in public libraries where the collection must be refreshed yearly to stay relevant to the public, that deleting one's holdings from OCLC Worldshare/WorldCat would be the final step in the process.  Makes sense, right?  And to their credit most public libraries do include this as a final step in the weeding process.  But when it comes to the big academic lenders with the big legacy collections that change less often because of their bigger shelf real estate and because of the nature of academic research in general, this final step is often skipped.

Why?  Because those big collection numbers are a point of PRIDE for these academic lenders and they don't want to subtract from that number if they don't have to.  Even though it leads to increasingly inaccurate representations of holdings in WorldCat, which is very frustrating for us working in ILL who need accuracy in collection holdings when making borrowing requests.  Conversely, when I worked for TWU, I was slightly appalled at the number of works that were cataloged incompletely and seemingly on the fly and did NOT show up in OCLC Worldshare/Worldcat/Connexion.  One of my pet projects was recataloging such works to give them more robust cataloging in the OPAC on campus but also to increase the visibility of TWU's holdings in OCLC WorldCat, letting the world know that yes in fact we do own this work and can lend it to you via ILL if you need it.  Unfortunately my boss did not agree with my prioritizing this task over other responsibilities and I was ultimately made to resign which is a story for another time.

It's just a personal pet peeve of me that Academic libraries let such foolish considerations as PRIDE and bragging rights to get in the way of accuracy of their holdings information in OCLC Worldcat.  They would rather have big numbers even if some of that is fictional rather than a lower number that is based in factual reality.  Maybe they figure it all evens out in the wash since there are books on the shelves that aren't represented in OCLC Worldshare/WorldCat but if we don't remove holdings from books we've weeded those can stand in for the other and it's all good, right?  In the aggregate maybe but as an Interlibrary Loan professional it annoys me to no end this kind of lazy thinking and lazy collection management practice.

You would think that being autistic would be less of a hinderance in cataloging but office politics makes things complicated, especially if you're made head cataloger supervising two copy catalogers and reporting to the head Acquisitions Librarian.  If you're the one calling the shots then you can only use your best judgement in the end and that can be questioned by those higher up and if you can't explain yourself adequately or play the office politics game and read the room, pick up on unwritten rules, etc, you're walking into a mine field.  I failed as a cataloger because I never had a senior cataloger (outside of my practicum) willing to mentor me properly and show me the ropes, etc.  I was always on point as head cataloger, straight out of library school...which is insane but I was desperate to land ANY  professional position and took positions at TAMUG and TWU that were, let's say, less than ideal for my particular yet then undiagnosed neuroptype.  I had colleagues who were all smiles to my face yet positively LOATHED me behind my back in was that were utterly shocking to me when these antipathies surfaced openly near the end of my work periods at these institutions. 

I do tell myself that my Cataloger experience makes me that much better an Interlibrary Loan professional and I do still believe that is true.  It was probably even a good move to make because I was raised on AACR2r2 and MARC21 but RDA confused the shit out of me and I am just so far out of the cataloging game by this point there's no going back.  We no longer speak the same language.  I wouldn't even have the confidence to do copy-cataloging anymore....wild that it was originally part of my job responsibilities when I began to work for my present employer way back in 2010.  When my tyrannical bully of a manager had me within a week or so of firing me is when I reluctantly, against my will, disclosed my ASD diagnosis and ultimately saved my job, taking a demotion from Paraprofessional to Clerk II.  It took me a long, LONG time to claw my way back to Paraprofessional rank, too.  And I've always been turned down each and every time I applied for a Librarian I job within the system, so much and so often I eventually gave up trying and settled into my rut as an Interlibrary Loan professional, the job I know best.  I just wish my existing position could be upgraded to Librarian I.

Thank god for Decentralization (in ILL borrowing)!

 Texas recently shifted from an OCLC product called Navigator Resource Engine (NRE) to a new ILL request & management platform called ShareIt, a product of the firm Autographics, Inc.  It was a change implemented by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.  I was initially very concerned about this structural change because TSLAC positioned itself as the "borrower of last resort" for the entire State of Texas, creating effectively a chokepoint for information in ways that alarmed me.  While it certainly made my job measurably easier for a time, the thing is TSLAC eventually realized relatively quickly that they had shouldered a task far too monumental for a single agency in Austin to manage effectively.  In operational terms, TSLAC allowed the OCLC contract to expire, which effectively terminated a subsidy that allowed all Texas public libraries to access OCLC WorldShare at affordable prices.  Texas public libraries are at liberty to subscribe to OCLC Worldshare independently but it is cost prohibitive.  TSLAC in effect became the only state agency responsible for (public) libraries with unfettered access to OCLC Worldshare.  Texas academic lenders (read: college & university libraries), because they deal more often with out-of-state lending, all chose to maintain their OCLC Worldshare access uninterrupted.

TSLAC, realizing they were overwhelmed in their new role as borrower of last resort worked with AutoGraphics, Inc. to come up with a plan on how to devolve the borrowing process back to each individual public library and wash their hands of the responsibility of being that borrower of last resort.  Because of ongoing intransigence of Texas academic lenders to get on board with ShareIt, even in-state requests from public libraries to academic lenders had to run through TSLAC, adding to their burden and probably leading to the decision for devolution back to individual libraries.

It was a bit of a painful process and necessitated us local ILL librarians to learn a bit of coding in building up our lender strings by hand.  There's a specific protocol we had to learn when completing the Blank ILL Request form online in ShareIt.  Potential lenders have to be entered line by line, carriage return after each entry, etc.  There's an official spreadsheet and between free WorldCat access or in my case using our cataloger's ongoing access to OCLC FirstSearch, and lots of cutting and pasting between tabs, between the spreadsheet and the blank request form, I've improved my efficiency and building lender strings for new requests in circumstances where there's little to zero chance of a request being able to be filled using ShareIt alone.  But the most important part is that the responsibility for borrowing falls to each individual library; TSLAC has stepped back from that role as borrower of last resort and thus can't be targeted by malignant actors who might seek to control statewide access to information.  That control has been diffused back to the status quo ante, back into the hands of individual librarians at individual libraries answerable directly to their municipal our county-level authorities.  This decentralization lets me sleep better at night in these trying times.

So many spinning plates

 So our Interlibrary Loan operations these days is a one man show, for better or worse (it's worse)....it really is a job for 2 people, has been for a long time in a system our size.  There's so much to do just to keep daily operations running that it's exceedingly hard to find time to do more thoughtful maintenance work and tweaks on the system that would keep it in tip top shape.  Some days it feels like everything is held together with metaphorical duct tape and bailing wire.

I do what I can, but I know stuff slips through the cracks.

I faced a real Catch-22 when my former co-worker suddenly quit out of the blue and I applied for and had to fight to actually get her position.  My Director asked me point blank if I could keep operations running solo and I said YES.  In the short term I can keep daily operations running, no doubt.  It's not ideal but I can do that much.  If I had said NO, they would've hired someone from outside to be technically over me and I would've been required to train them.  So I said YES and got the promotion but the library steadfastly refuses to hire me a Clerk II to replace the position I vacated to accept the job as ILL Paraprofessional held by my former co-worker. (Sigh)

I love my job and yes, it's a long overdue promotion and STILL not a Librarian I position.  I should be a Librarian I for the massive responsibility I've been asked to shoulder.  Everyone I tell this to at the library agrees.  And yet it does not happen.  I'm still just a paraprofessional.  I call myself a librarian anyway because I have my ALA-accredited MLS degree and have been a professional Academic librarian earlier in my career.  I think my former cataloging experience makes me a superior ILL professional, actually, because I have a more intimate understanding of databases and searching.

It seems like Interlibrary Loan is very seldomly a professional position (Librarian) anymore.  It may be supervised by a Librarian, but the grunt work isn't done by one (and it should be).  In my system technically my manager is responsible for Cataloging and Processing as her primary role and on paper is responsible for ILL and I work for her department, Support Services (sometimes called by the older term Technical Services in other library systems), named thus to avoid any confusion with our actual technology (IT) folks.  But could she step into my role and process patron requests in my absence?  She could not.  I do need to retrain her in how to process requests in ShareIt but neither of us have the time at the moment and it sucks.  I need an assistant because I'm not getting any younger and though my  aim is to work at the library as long as I'm physically able, until they MAKE me retire, someone has to be waiting in the wings to take over Interlibrary Loan operations when that day finally comes.  I need a good circulation person in their 20s, say.  Somebody to at least help out with the lending side of things and maybe help with some of the filing of paperwork while I focus on the borrowing side and returns.  I've managed to do both for some time but it runs me ragged.  It is helpful to coordinate returns with out going lending whenever possible via TAE courier and I suppose one person doing both jobs can stay on top of that easier than two people but...my former co-worker and I did manage it at least some.  Even when it was two of us, she did lending AND returns too.  My focus then as now was on borrowing and processing the incoming stuff, and keeping up with renewals and the like.

I'm usually kept busy and active most days.  Very little down time, there's always something to do.  It does make the day go by faster but it keeps things tense and can get stressful at times, too.  We tried assigning me a summer intern but the poor girl couldn't alphabetize to save her life so we had to reassign her because she was creating more work for me not less and made things worse not better.  I learned that young people apparently aren't really taught how to alphabetize anything anymore since most computers do that for them.  Gah!  What a skills deficit!  Makes you crazy to contemplate.  Do they not sing the ABC song in school anymore, the one that goes to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?  Because I still sing that in my head at work when I'm filing paperwork.

His first time in office I was a little more subtle.



This time, I'll just come out and say it.

#antifascism #antifa #FreedomToRead #Librarians #Activism 

 

(Don't) Notice Me, Senpai...

 While I've often complained that Interlibrary Loan is the oft neglected, red-headed step-child of Library Services, in our new uncertain times I'm coming to accept that may have a silver lining.

A library director in a county I won't name but that lies some distance north of where I live was recently dismissed by their County Judge (e.g. county executive--Texas is weird, ya'll) because she apparently either slow-walked or balked at implementing his directive to censor LGBT+ material in the library.

Those plans are being (shamefully) implemented, apparently.

I'm just hoping the fascist junta there are just as neglectful of ILL as they always were and that their ILL personnel can fly under the radar.  

To quote from one of my favorite SciFi movies, Serenity....as Mr. Universe says "You Can't Stop The Signal."

Renewals should be automatic if your shit arrives late

 Renewals should be automatic and unquestioned if your material arrives late to my library and vice versa.  It's neither library's fault the courier or USPS somehow delayed the delivery, and the patron should not suffer because of it.  Don't be a jerk and refuse to renew just because the item now has a hold back home.  The book does nobody any good in transit between libraries, either coming or going.  If you couldn't spare your copy and holds build up, you shouldn't have lent it in the first place.

I'm only asking for a renewal as a courtesy.  If you stiff me, screw you.  I have the book and you don't.  It's here now and by god it's gonna circulate one way or another, whether you like it or not.  If you invoice me, fine.  But my patron is going to get a normal circ out of the title you sent.  We don't pay overdue fines, only replacement costs.  If you don't like that, don't do business with us.  Answer my renewal requests promptly and don't waste my user's time.  If you dilly-dally, I'm taking matters into my own hands and circulating the material for a month no matter what you say.  If you come back belatedly and want to give MORE time than that, great, I'll take it.  But the material doesn't do anyone any good sitting on my desk over multiple days waiting on you to get around to answering my renewal request.

If we're both in the TAE courier system but I marked delivery method "postal" it's because there are also non-Texas or non-TAE Texas libraries also further down the lender string.  I leave it to your best judgement to use the courier or not.  Just seems obvious to me you'd use the courier, why would you bother calling to confirm?  Just pop it in a purple bag and get it out the door.  End of ILL rant.

Deprofessionalization STILL SUCKS

 So subsequent to and concurrent with my petition to have my position upgraded formally to that of Librarian I, I have since encountered job postings for Interlibrary Loan managerial type positions in two separate Academic Libraries, one in Texas, one out of state, and both positions list the educational requirement as Bachelor's Degree, and decidedly NOT an American Library Association accredited Master of Library Science (or Information Science, what have you).

This is very depressing because I feel like this kind of work requires a myriad set of skills that one does indeed sometimes pick up in Library School, especially cataloging courses and database design.  You can learn to ILL on the job, for sure, but Library School is an actual help here.

If you are in charge of an entire Document Delivery Unit or Interlibrary Loan staff then you should be a Librarian I.  Period.  It's clearly a managerial role if you have underlings, and regardless it is a very demanding and multifaceted job that deserves compensation on par with other Librarian professionals.

I deplore and lament the merciless march of deprofessionalization according to neoliberal economic logic that eats away at the heart of our profession like a corrosive acid.

We deserve fair pay not hyper-explotation.

Yeah, if I'm not getting extra help imma need some extra pay.

So had a open and honest discussion with my Support Services manager just before lunch today and she let it be known that it looks as though instead of filling the Clerk II position that I vacated to fill the Paraprofessional position I currently hold after my workplace partner abruptly quit instead of taking ordered medical leave and time off to retool and de-stress and come back ready to work would not be filled after all but eliminated.

Since I'm able to run all of ILL operations so efficiently by myself at present there's no need to hire a Clerk II that can even do ILL just part time to help me out.

Reminder that I have an ALA-accredited Master of Library Science from the University of North Texas (2004) and have work experience as a professional librarian, too.

I told my boss that as complex and multi-layered a job it is running ILL operations for the ENTIRE library system BY MYSELF, I should at least be promoted to Librarian I if no additional help is forthcoming, if I am to be denied a formal cross-trained back-up person as my assistant.  I would be a lot more flexible as a Salaried librarian than an hourly Paraprofessional.  I could stay past 5pm, I could come in on weekends, all kinds of stuff to get caught up than an hourly worker cannot.

I was fine being the Paraprofessional running everything in ILL as a temporary thing, with the promise of future help arriving sometime.  But no future help?  No, I'm gonna need another promotion to feel right about that.

Also, according to our library's Public Information Office, we had to make our email signatures uniform system wide.  And according to their own requirements, Interlibrary Loan Department is where I work.  And in a Library, a Department Head should be led by at least a Librarian I; it only stands to reason.
I don't think this is an unreasonable ask.

They will probably resist / deny, and not like I have any leverage on them, but I wanted to make the affirmative moral case that if they don't promote me, they're engaging in immoral exploitation.  I'm going above and beyond what a simple 8-5 library staffer should reasonably be expected to do.  I'm doing professional work.  I was and remain a superior searcher to my predecessor & former partner, who eventually just permanently switched primary functions with me.  I was originally the primary Lending person while my work partner was the Borrowing Paraprofessional.  As someone with an actual library education, I was far better skilled at Borrowing & Requesting and thus she pushed all of that work off onto me while taking on the less skilled Lending job full time.  My former work partner was good at understanding ILL from a top down systems level better than me, perhaps, but I was good at focusing on keeping current operations running at peak efficiency.  

Anyway, my work partner suddenly quit and much to her surprise no doubt the heavens did not fall and ILL kept on chugging away under my direction.  The irony is she felt like ILL should be its own department and SHE should run it, but as someone without an MLS, that was never in the cards for her.  The ultimate irony will be if ILL becomes its own thing but I'm the one in charge as the actual librarian.

I'm middle aged now and feel embarrassed to still be an hourly employee.  I would like to retire as an actual Librarian with Librarian in my job title, even if I only ever make Librarian I.

The special mission of Interlibrary Loan in a time of crisis.

 We Interlibrary Loan Librarians have a special mission in a time of crisis, especially the one faced by us librarians in Republican-dominated States in the present era.  Capital F Fascism is a genuine threat to Western liberal democracy at home and abroad.  Whatever can be said for library neutrality as a virtue, in the present time merely asserting a Freedom To Read IS NOT NEUTRAL.  It never has been.  And that's OKAY.  We are unabashedly small d-democratic civic institutions.  We oppose authoritarian rule EVERYWHERE as contrary to the library's mission.

(Pictured above:  Freedom to Read t-shirt sold by the Chicago Public Library, featuring the artwork of Art Spiegelman of the series MAUS, recently banned in some schools).

It is our civic duty to provide reading materials to our patrons, especially in cases where such books have been challenged and (temporarily or permanently) removed from our shelves locally....as Mister Universe stated in the movie Serenity, you can't stop the signal.  We have a duty to provide such material on the down low via Interlibrary Loan whenever and wherever possible to #resist.   Our opponents are brutes but they're also quite stupid and just as likely to forget ILL exists as an option to patrons.  Hell, I even obtain the craziest right-wing dreck and religious drivel for my patrons.  They love me for it.  I may privately deplore them for wanting such material but I still work hard to get it for them nonetheless.  Benefit of the doubt, maybe they're doing Op-O research... Probably not but I'm in no position to judge that particular question.  A freedom to read means a freedom to read even that garbage.  But it also means I will obtain whatever LGBT+ material my patrons want, regardless of local collection policy.

I definitely salute the Brooklyn Public Library for making its ebook collection accessible all teens nationwide in an effort to fight #censorship and make materials available virtually and remotely what local tyrants are trying to stamp out locally, from so-called "CRT" (e.g. any material providing an open and honest account of historic and systemic racism in the United States) to LGBT+ material,  They are doing heroic work and are worthy of our support.  The Brooklyn Public Library has a webstore where you can support their library system directly and land yourself some dope-ass swag like this:

(Brooklyn Public Library t-shirt)

It might seem trivial, it might not seem like very much at all, but let me assure you, this too is a form of #antifascism and it matters.  I renewed my American Library Association Membership and Texas Library Association Membership on my birthday this past year because it matters to me that much.  It matters for me to bolster civic institutions like this as a move to defend small-d democracy in the United States.  I support the one political party left in the United States that actually cares about democracy but that alone is not enough.  Direct action and bolstering of civil institutions vital to the lifeblood of democracy also matter very much.

Publicly reaffirming The Freedom To Read as an American Value is vitally important at this time.  Libraries as institutions cannot wade into the political discourse directly but we can make it known we do stand for democracy against authoritarianism.  We stand for FREEDOM versus autocracy, we stand against narrow bigotry and for pluralism.  This we must do as Librarians and dedicated professionals.

I love my job and the part I play in sustaining the democratic discourse in a free society. 

Could we stop valorizing Patron ignorance as any kind of guide?

 Recent discussion on a thread about my Alma Mater's campus library, one contributor noting how she spoke to librarians who said "our newest users don't know Dewey or how to use a card catalog, they use iPads and smart phones...."

I replied with a brief caveat:  "Academic Libraries use Library of Congress Classification, not Dewey.  Dewey is for public libraries."

More to the point, we still have to use Dewey or LC Classification if we want to have a coherent way to organize physical books in our physical library.  Each has its shortcomings, sure, but while patrons may proudly profess their ignorance of our classification schema, it's absolutely necessary for library staff to have a working knowledge of it and organize the collection accordingly.

A more experienced patron will at least learn the rudimentary outline of our classification system(s) so they know where to find more books on their specific area of interest.  My Russian history professor at Texas A&M told us where to look for Russian History books in Evans Library (6th floor, as I recall).  This kind of thing matters, it still matters today.  There is no binary "either/or" when it comes to physical books vs. digital media...it's not one or the other, it's how to utilize both to meet patron's information needs and also make the most efficient use of precious library shelving real-estate.  Large, unwieldy reference works used mostly for looking up discrete bits of information can definitely go all-digital...are probably improved by doing so, since search-ability can be enhanced that way.  

Deep dive monographs on the other hand will be with us as long as we have libraries.  Proudly ignorant dismissals of Dewey or LC because of some techno-utopia just around the corner is so late 90s and I wish folks would just STAHP already.  It wasn't true then, it's not true now.

It behooves the average Public Library user to at least learn the top level distinctions for DDC...000s, 100s, 200s, etc.  The more fine grain distinctions are less important for everyday users and mostly of concern to cataloging staffers.  Every library puts their own spin on things, too.  There are local cataloging practices in place if DDC allows books to be placed in multiple locations; the head cataloger will make a firm decision and keep all books of this general type within that chosen call number range, even if valid points can be made to shelve the book elsewhere.  This tweak is in keeping with one of Ranganathan's Laws of Library Science....save the time of the user! It's not just a fun intellectual exercise for the individual cataloger; it's a matter of institutional policy to facilitate ease of access for the end user.

Another quick & dirty secret of YA & Juvenile cataloging of "controversial" subjects while working in a conservative community is to classify these books as adult materials and shelve them with other adult material, but to let YA & Juvenile users where to find them all the same.  It's a low key way to avoid unnecessary confrontations while still providing access to marginalized youth.

Similarly the dumb trend in search interfaces to offer only a single search box.  I'm glad some catalog systems allow more experienced users to use more fine grain searching.  I can live with the single box as the default setting "because that's what most users want/expect" but I don't see any point in hobbling and making life difficult for smarter users who actually know what they're doing and need more refined searching capability.  For the experienced library user, it's often as much about excluding irrelevant info as it is gathering available info.  Another example of "both and..." that's a win-win for everyone.

Sure, we need to "meet users where they are", but we also are, as librarians, also teachers and mentors.  We need to help our users become more informed and capable, so they can eventually reach a point of self-directed searching that is fruitful for them without intervention from us.

Goofing off on Social Media is Library Work.

 Not only is goofing off on Facebook and Twitter fun, it's fun to do at work on the clock.  And it is NOT a "waste of taxpayer money", either.   How else are librarians and library workers supposed to stay on top of the cultural zeitgeist and keep their fingers on the pulse of the community they serve?  Do it on their own time off the clock?  That's unpaid labor.  Screw that.  Besides, I got anime to watch, manga to read, etc. in my leisure time off the clock.  Twitter happens in real time, and so long as "normal" library services are not disrupted or hindered, it should be normalized and okay to keep a tab open with Twitter running in the background.   Ditto Facebook, for similar reasons.

Look, we all freakin' do it, alright?  If you're an Gen Xer or younger you know you do it on the sly.  We should be okay with doing it out in the open, without fear of reprisal or disciplinary action.  It should be a normalized part of regular library work, not this hush hush taboo thing we do on the down low.  When left to individual departments you get uneven and unfair enforcement.  Some library staff get away with watching MOVIES at their desk while others get griped at just for looking at Facebook for a few minutes.

I'm honestly at my happiest when I'm doing some low-level necessary but repetitive mindless work like barcoding new books for the catalogers while I can do a deep dive listen on podcasts I love.  I feel too guilty to sit at my desk ONLY listening to podcasts if I'm not actively doing library ILL work also.  I refrain from it until the work picks back up in intensity.  My daily routines with ILL are often feast or famine....either we're REALLY busy, crunch time, etc, or else it's dead as a doornail.  The barcoding tasks are awesome but sometimes there just aren't any new books on trucks that need my attention, so we just kind of do other low-level maintenance work but even that only goes so far.  That kind of down time is ripe for hopping on social media....scrolling Facebook & Twitter, interacting with other users, etc, or maybe even writing a brief post on Tumblr about an anime I watched recently.  

Sidebar, our IT department recently eliminated all physical fax machines in the library system and replaced them with an all-digital fax system accessible from our desktops.  I was even given a personalized fax number for ILL work.  Since it's a tool in my box, I do actually use it.  If a library lists a Fax number in their contact info, I will fax them when I need a book renewal, etc.  Emails can be ignored but a fax usually has to be attended to.  I'm sure other libraries might find it weird or unorthodox but hey, if my people give me this tool, I'm gonna put it to good use.  It's kinda retro but also kinda cool at the same time.  The only downside is our system-wide fax utility is tied to our email server in some way, so if email goes down, so do our fax capabilities...stinks but that's how it is with the software we use.  We found this out the hard way when our email system had to be taken offline for an entire week for a major upgrade/repair job.  We simply had to stop accepting new ILLs completely.  It made for some very long work days.  We could contend with existing requests but that was all.  And so yes, I made covert use of Facebook & Twitter during those lulls in workflow, too.  Even if I don't use a particular social media platform, I also read news articles online from reputable sources.  The "pocket" widget on Firefox is helpful for that, as is the default news settings in Microsoft Edge.  Again, I just feel as though it's a librarian's duty to keep informed about current events, even on the clock--perhaps especially on the clock.  It's not a bad thing and it should be encouraged, not discouraged, so long as it is used responsibly and ethically.   We should be active participants in the wider culture, promoting literacy and good informative books & authoritative resources.  We should bolster small "d" democracy, agitate for accountability in government and from corporations, and we should do our part to dismantle racism and remove barriers to access to vetted & reliable information.  Using social media "on the clock" are a means to those noble ends, for real.  It's detrimental to democracy to pretend otherwise.

I still can't believe my colleagues able to watch entire movies on the clock though...that's WHACK.  But whatever.  Not what I'm asking for.  Just want the ability to participate in Facebook groups and follow Twitter users whose subjects of interests align with my own, whether it's music, art, anime, whatever.  I want to be able to do all that without having to look over my shoulder or get the stink eye from some co-workers who might threaten to narc me out over some personal beef with me.  That'd be real nice.

Courier Services vs. USPS in ILL work

 I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about the use of contracted Courier Services in Interlibrary Loan work.  It's usually an annual membership and can be a potential money saver on postage expenses your institution would otherwise incur with USPS.  Combined with the Navigator (NRE) interface for ILL, it encourages in-state lending within Texas, Texans helping other Texans.  For the most part I have no major complaints with Trans-Amigos Express (TAE) that we utilize here.  Our service level gives us 5 days of delivery and pick-up and constitutes the bulk of our ILL business on a daily basis.  Where there have been issues have been with our partnership agreements with other library courier consortia like Kansas Library Express and the Missouri based MALA and MOBIUS consortia.  On the one hand, it's great to have access to their networks of library and we are happy to lend our materials to them in the heartland.  The problem crops up in the hand-off between them and TAE, which seems to cause sometimes intolerable delays to the point that mailing such items USPS would've been faster and less inconvenient....though with Postmaster DeJoy's apparent ongoing sabotage, who can say for sure.  The sooner that man is fired the better.  The governing board of USPS seems to finally slowly be acting in that direction and I'm eager to see DeJoy get the boot for a whole host of reasons, not just Library ILL work.

The pandemic for the most part has caused libraries to be more generous with each other in their loan terms, etc., and I'm heartened to see it.  I'm less than thrilled with lenders that don't take into account the courier-to-courier delays and refuse reasonable renewal requests to account for these delays that are out of either library's control.  We shouldn't punish each other or our patrons for something that was not our faults.   We can't directly fix the couriers, that's up to Amigos Library Services...but we can be more reasonable with each other, more generous, more accommodating.  Because that's what's best for the users.  Let's not break Ranganathan's 4th Law of Library Science if we can help it:

"Save the time of the reader".

Amen.

Renewing TLA and ALA memberships is bolstering public democratic institutions.

 In light of recent political events I felt strongly motivated to pony up and renew two long dormant professional memberships that I let expire because I didn't feel like they gave me much personal benefit.

In the current climate, it's about more than myself.  I renewed my membership both in the national American Library Association as well as my state-level Texas Library Association membership.  For reasons mainly personal, aesthetic and symbolic I also renewed my membership in the Progressive Librarians Guild that I was more active in when I was in library school in the early 2000s.  Yearly membership in PLG is cheap so tossing them a few bucks is no skin off my back.

No, where I really dug deeper is renewing those aforementioned ALA and TLA memberships and associated round-tables tailored to my current role in Inter-library Loan work.  I feel like it is important to bolster these civic institutions in a time of rising authoritarianism and outright white nationalist fascism on the American political right.  It's about more than myself and how these professional associations may or may not personally benefit my career aspirations.  I want them to remain strong advocates for intellectual freedom, the right to read, etc.  It's also because I lack imagination as to what else to do other than keep voting the way I do in every election (e.g. for Democratic Party candidates and against every Republican candidate).  But it was something I could do so I did it.  If you're still working in the library profession and have let your ALA and state-level library association membership lapse, maybe let the spirit of the season move you to generously revive your memberships and participation in these professional associations.  We need all hands on deck in the defense of small-d democracy and intellectual freedom and civil rights.

Why a Cataloging Background helps in ILL

 So while this post can be fairly accused of being entirely self-serving, I did want to weigh in on why I think a Cataloging background makes one a better Interlibrary Loan staffer.  The simplest reason being that your primary tool is OCLC/Worldcat which is the worldwide database used by libraries to report their holdings to all other libraries, with a heavy emphasis on the Anglo-American, English-speaking parts of the world.  I don't have experience with ILLiad or other ILL interfaces.  Our main interface in Texas is called NRE, or simply "Navigator".  And while it is possible to use Navigator to search OCLC/Worldcat indirectly, we've found in actual practice it pays to subscribe to both NRE *and* OCLC/WorldCat for maximum coverage.  There are different things each interface does better than the other.

But the basis of all records in NRE and OCLC/WorldCat is the bibliographic record.  A cataloger understands from experience how these are constructed, why they're constructed the way they are, etc.  We have an almost intuitive understanding of how search functions work, why books are cataloged the way they are, and also that duplicate records exist sometimes and it can be fruitful to pull from multiple sources.  There are ways to "tweak" ILL requests for maximum coverage if you understand these nuances and improve the chances of your patron actually getting the book that they want and getting it to them in a timely manner.

For academic journal requests we nearly always use OCLC/WorldCat as the preferred search interface.  It is easier to facilitate a request using Article Exchange on that platform.  Moreover, I usually try to select the digital ISSN whenever possible.  While it is technically possible to scan hard-copy as a PDF and send out that way, I prefer not to put that burden on potential lenders if I can help it.  I do plenty of that myself and know what a pain it can be.  If I can download and send an article completely digitally then I certainly want to do that in favor of manually creating a scanned PDF.

It is an experienced cataloger that knows about ISSN's and will search relentlessly to track them down.  I am damn good at this and that's why my ILL partner nearly always defers to me for these kinds of searches.  An ISSN is a more precise search than a clumsy title search, and avoids the difficulty of journal name changes, etc.  

It's hard to articulate in a comprehensive way why ex-catalogers are good at ILL, just that it shapes your approach to and understanding of bibliographic information in ways that non-catalogers don't have naturally.  The job conditions you to be aware of these finer points of bibliographic record construction and dissemination.  It makes a good fall-back position for anyone deciding to leave the realm of library cataloging and change directions.

Thank you for your donation {is what i'm obliged to say but...}

 Oh, lordy the useless things people donate to public libraries...like old encyclopedia sets.  Very VERY rarely is something donated which we can/will actually catalog and put on the shelf to circulate.  We have an acquisitions budget for actually useful material, thank goodness.

During the pandemic's worst phases we have to suspend donations entirely in the interest of protecting public health.

Most of the donations are passed on to our Friends of the Library organization, who store the donations in their own space in the basement and organize a fraction of these for (re)sale back to the public at periodic book sales which raise money for the library's general funds.  When I was young and foolish I avidly attended library book sales, both collegiate and public and collected many an interesting book.

It's fine if you want to donate to the public library and if you're doing it as a tax write off, hey, go for it.  But more often than not you'd be better off selling off stuff at Half-Price Books...at least you get a few bucks to either keep & save or spend on something new (to you) for a cheaper price.  And there are some books so useless you might as well dump them in paper recycling than burden the staff of Half-Price Books OR the local library.  Not every book needs to be archived, and Public Libraries are decidedly NOT archives.

It's above my pay grade to crunch the numbers to know if the donations we take in and house (and the space we allocate to store them) are "worth" the funds raised through book sales; and I suppose there's the intangible value of people feeling like they're helping a social institution (even when they may not actually be in dollars and cents).  Luckily the Friends members are volunteers, so it's not as if much staff time & pay go into managing the donation vault.  Weeding is always painful but a necessary part of growing and modernizing and keeping a library collection useful and relevant to its community.  The weeded materials get thrown in with the donated (but not usable) material, too, all for re-sale to raise money.  Circulation stats drive a lot of the decision-making in weeding.  No matter how prestigious a book may be nationally or internationally, if it just collects dust on your shelf it's doing nobody any good.  But as my old boss used to say, "a circ is a circ" whether it's in-system or Interlibrary Loaned.  If a book isn't popular in your home community but is often borrowed by neighboring systems, you should probably retain the book, because the circulation stats still justify keeping it.  I just wish people were better informed what kinds of book donations ARE actually maximally useful (extra copies of high demand recent best sellers, etc) and which are not.  Yes, we'll take your donation and yes, thank you, and we'll maintain a polite smile as we accept it, but inwardly we may be rolling our eyes just a bit.

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt...

 

"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." 

--Heinrich Heine, German Romantic Poet.

(Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.)