Patterns of Culture

1. Patterns of Culture Re-aligning Library Culture to Meet User Needs CNI Fall 2008 Task Force Meeting, Washington, DC

2. Introduction • Context • Research Questions • Methods (include observation) • Findings, Thoughts, Observations

3. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation • S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication • Syracuse University Library

4. Research Team • Co-Principal Investigator and Project Manager • Nancy Turner, Librarian • Research Team Members • Ilka Datig, Graduate Assistant • John Olson, Librarian, Maps & GIS • Bonnie Ryan, Librarian, Social Sciences • Ann Skiold, Librarian, Art

5. Advisory • Library Suzanne Thorin, Dean of Libraries and Co-Principal Investigator Michael Pasqualoni, Communications Librarian • Newhouse Amy Faulkner, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Rosanna Grassi, Associate Dean for Student Affairs Johanna Keller, Director, Goldring Arts Journalism Program Robert Kucharavy Newhouse Faculty Library Liaison Carla Llyod, Associate Dean for Creative and Scholarly Activity David Rubin, Dean Soo Yeon Hong, Student Advisory Committee • University Michael Freedman, Faculty Member, Anthropology Department

6. Initial questions • Is ethnography a feasible method for learning about our users? • Can ethnographic data be used as a framework for looking at our own organization’s culture? • Can we compare library and academic “cultures” in a meaningful way? • Do we share a common understanding with our users as to what the “library” means?

7. Process • Training • Interviews • Observation • Co-Listening • Shared Coding • Analysis Project team meeting

8. Interview protocol • Tell me about a recent article or piece of information that you read • How did you find it? • What did you do to prepare for your most recent class? • When you started work in your office today, what was the first thing you did? Bonnie interviews student

9. Coded transcript from Atlas.ti

10. Manual organization

12. Barriers we face • Finding, Accessing and Evaluating Information • Managing Resources: Space, Time, Technology • Communication • Relationships , Teaching and Collaboration

13. Finding information “A lot of these websites are easy to access over again compared to when I search for a journal article, sometimes it is hard to search and find that journal article again.” – Faculty Member “Sometimes it is a hassle to phrase your search right.” -- Student

14. Finding information “Almost all of us really like those kind of questions, it is a challenge, it is a scavenger hunt, it is one of those little puzzles that you have to figure out.”– Librarian

15. “Librarians like to search, everyone else likes to find.” Roy Tennant in “Digital Libraries”, Library Journal, 2001

16. Accessing information “We could sit at our library and access it, but if I were trying to access it off campus, you would be met with ‘username’ and ‘password’ and you would have to pay hundreds of dollars for access to these things” ---Student “I’ll run into permission errors, or odd blackout days, or I’ll log in and the way the internal database site is administered won't let me do some things” – Faculty Member

17. “I really like studying in here because I like the chairs first of all because they are really comfortable, and I also like that fact that people are kind of talking, but they are not talking really loud.” -- Student Study space, Tully Humanities Building

18. Newhouse Computer Lab “Don’t get me wrong, but I get this kind of soulless feeling whenever I am in there.” -- Student

19. Learning new technologies Students struggle with learning technology and usage Faculty struggle with technology in classroom and keeping up with what they need to know. Student Time Management

20. “I’m teaching Flash, I’m teaching Macromedia Studio, Photoshop, After Effects... I don't do any research except to prepare myself to teach them and I sometimes have to dive into a book and discover how to find out how to do something I don't know how to yet. ... I'm a week ahead of them in the book. Do I use library resources? No. The resources I have are online -- help desks, discussion groups, forums.“ – Faculty Member

21. Communication technologies Faculty • Social networks (real, not virtual), Blackboard, E-mail Librarians • E-mail, Wikis, Listservs Students • Cell phones, Facebook, Blackboard, E-mail Things I carry with me

22. What does faculty/student interaction look like in and outside the classroom? What technologies are in use? Food.com

23. Connecting with students “I learn from my students. I listen very carefully to what their lives are about.” – Faculty Member “I think of professors sometimes, what they do is put on a show. You write the script and you think of how you will visualize it, then you create the special effects. And then you have to be the performer.” – Faculty Member

24. “I am sort of one of those people that feels that, I don’t sort of trust myself to remember everything I need to talk about, so I basically write out a script for the whole class.” -- Librarian

25. Breaking down barriers for faculty • Improved support for access troubleshooting • More collaboration on web tools • Understanding essential information networks outside the library

26. Breaking down barriers for students • Technology space that provides appropriate support • Communication using tools already at work • More interactive approach to instruction

27. Collaboration with students from the School of Visual and Performing Arts • Draw your “Dream Library” interviews with students • Faculty interviews • How do you make reserve materials available to students? • How do locate, access and use sound recordings?

28. Re-aligning library culture Thoughts and Observations

29. Questions, Feedback? Please contact us: Nancy Turner, nbturner@syr.edu Bonnie Ryan, bcryan@syr.edu