bottle of Justin cabernet half full

Need a new world wine made in an old world style that is drinkable now? Look no further than this wonderfully complex cabernet. Cherry, spice, and dried flowers on the nose. A silky, medium body, with oak and bright berries, finishing off with cherries and watermelon candy. You can feel this one all over the palate. I think the use of 25% American oak gives it a much subtler taste. I would buy a few bottles of these to just have on hand.

The end of the year tends to bring some of the most interesting writing. And so my tbr list of articles is already longer than Santa’s list. Here’s what I’ve enjoyed reading so far this week.

On regulating AI

“We need trustworthy AI. AI whose behavior, limitations, and training are understood. AI whose biases are understood, and corrected for. AI whose goals are understood. That won’t secretly betray your trust to someone else. The market will not provide this on its own.” 

“AI and trust” by Bruce Schneier

On web analytics

“Lots of likes is an okay-ish signal. Lots of comments is a clearer signal. A small handful of comments or private replies from people saying they’ve never felt so seen or understood by a piece of writing—that’s the kind of thing I’m trying to discern and quantify here.” 

“Measuring what matters” by Rob Hardy

On privacy and college students

“Few institutions collect as much data about the people inside of them as colleges and universities do. Residential campuses, in particular, mean students not only interact with their schools for academics, but for housing, home internet, dining, health care, fitness, and socialization. Still, whether living on campus or off, taking classes in person or remotely, students simply cannot opt out of most data collection and still pursue a degree.” 

“He wanted privacy. His college gave him none” by Tara García Mathewson

On libraries and platforms

“After all, we’re the libraries. We have plenty of experience with corporate entities that don’t reflect our values. We deal with the journal publishers who practice a business model that hoards the world’s knowledge and maximizes profit from the research that our university’s scholars conduct. When it comes to the academic publishing system, institutions of higher learning have made a deal with the devil, and we, the libraries, are the campus units who pay the bill.” 

Why we’re dropping Basecamp” by Duke University Libraries

On social media trends

“In 2024, strategic organizations will push back against unjustified expectations to be on every platform. They’ll unlock their top-performing channels based on ROI, and focus their attention on those—and only those. If they’re really confident (and brave), they might even abandon one or two altogether.”

Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2024

On attention

“The platforms that control search were conceived in sin. Their business model auctions off our most precious and limited cognitive resource: attention. […] Critical ignoring is the ability to choose what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attentional capacities. Critical ignoring is more than just not paying attention – it’s about practising mindful and healthy habits in the face of information overabundance.”

When critical thinking isn’t enough: to beat information overload, we need to learn ‘critical ignoring’” by Hertwig, Kozyreva, Wineburg, and Lewandowsky

After all, we’re the libraries. We have plenty of experience with corporate entities that don’t reflect our values. We deal with the journal publishers who practice a business model that hoards the world’s knowledge and maximizes profit from the research that our university’s scholars conduct. When it comes to the academic publishing system, institutions of higher learning have made a deal with the devil, and we, the libraries, are the campus units who pay the bill. We do it every year, often facing steep price increases with flat budgets.

Why We’re Dropping Basecamp” by Duke University Libraries

library annual report and fliers from recent events

I’ve been thinking about something I heard at the LMCC 2023 conference: “Marketing should drive usage which in turn creates impact” (source: Cordelia Anderson). 

I often forget that middle piece when developing outreach strategies for my library. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’m extending Anderson’s use of the word “marketing” to the entire outreach enterprise. For sure, there are programs and initiatives the directly impact usage: a recent campaign to promote our streaming video collection, the curation of recommended reading lists, and the annual open house. However, there are some programs that skip right over usage to create the end-goal of impact: our storytelling programming, our faculty speaker series, and our haunted library. These latter programs directly impact our students by creating a sense of belonging and bringing together our community through the celebration of its creative works, but that impact isn’t achieved via the library’s services and collections. 

I would consider creating impact via the library’s services and collections to be a traditional approach to library outreach, one often taken by teams where outreach work is embedded within reference and instruction departments. This is where you find info lit workshops, custom bibliographies, instructional handouts, e-resources campaigns, video tutorials, etc. For teams like the one I manage (we are our own “outreach and engagement” department separate from our colleagues who focus on teaching and collections building) we go straight to the impact: feel good events, mental health programs, community building, productivity support, and service learning opportunities. The motivations for our work come unfiltered straight from either the library’s broader mission or the university’s strategic goals. 

I’m not suggesting one type of outreach is better than the other. Having both is important, but finding the optimal balance between the two is a conversation for every individual, team, library, and organization to determine on their own terms. 

wall mural of Kurt Vonnegut

“Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules— and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.”

(Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan, epigraph, 1959)

Last week, I attended the 2023 Library Marketing and Communications Conference in Indianapolis. This is one of my favorite conferences to attend. It’s relatively small, relatively affordable (with meals included!), and attended by people who get me. Regardless of whether we work in academic libraries, public libraries, as librarians or as professional staff, we all speak the same language. We understand that not everything can go on the website. We know that fliers are a net waste of everyone’s time. We know that creating social media content is a specialized skill that few people actually do well. We realize that more promotion does not equal more awareness. We understand the power of storytelling. We value having a consistent brand. And yes, we all spend too much times on our phones, but secretly (or not) we enjoy it. 

So here are a few of my takeaways from this year’s conference.

Burnout is real

Libraries cycle through outreach and communications folks like trends on Instagram. Constantly developing new ways to connect with users takes a toll on all of us. A number of sessions this year spoke to the necessity of setting up guardrails, taking time to step away, and the need to find ways to reconnect with your creative spark. Sadly, there wasn’t much talk about burnout being a systemic and organizational problem that needs to be solved at the management level, but that might be a result of there being so many new professionals in attendance.

Email is king, Instagram is queen, and existential dread

Everyone is looking for an excuse to get off X/Twitter. No one is interested in Threads. TikTok is banned in many states and the rest of us are reluctant to jump on. But email… email is king. Email offers a stronger analytics story, a closer connection to users, and a more dependable way to reach out. And it’s what our users want! A number of presenters confirmed what I’ve discovered at my own library: users prefer to be contacted by email. Instagram is a close second, but only as a vibe check. If email is for sharing information, Instagram is for sharing feels. 

Social takes way more time than people assume

If it wasn’t apparent from my opening, one of the best aspects of LMCC is the collective kvetching. One strong theme this year was how many of our colleagues misunderstand the complexity of our work, most notably the time it takes to develop content. A 10-second Instagram post may only take an hour to film, edit, and post, but what you don’t see are the countless hours searching for inspiration: finding the right music, twisting the arms of the right colleagues, waiting for the right time of day to film, coordinating with all the other communications going out that day. We spend far more time consuming content than creating it, but that’s necessary for understanding how our work fits in with the ecosystem of any given platform.

What I’m reading

How I’ve Changed My Thinking About Burnout by Anne Helen Peterson

“I am doing less. I am lowering the bar. I am loosening my schedule. But I also have a fuller life, with so many places to direct my attention and time. It’s both less busy (with work) and more busy (with other life) than ever before.”

Nobody Wants Their Job to Rule Their Lives Anymore by Eloise Henry

“If I had a shorter work week and a dignified salary then they’d get a well-rested, enthusiastic and switched-on employee. Instead, they’re getting a poor and exhausted worker.” 

Adopting the Perennial Mindset by Tara McMullin

“Quality-of-life guarantees could help people make life transitions—at any age—with more ease. And while these guarantees do benefit individuals directly, they also benefit our society. Fewer people scraping by, falling behind, or burning out because of unreasonable expectations is an overall cultural and economic good.”

Garden update 

Until next year, friend! For about 6 weeks, this lovely orb weaver rebuilt her web between the top of my dwarf orange tree and the power cables running to our house. Each evening before sunset, she would meticulously reweave her web, which by midnight would already be full of flies and the occasional honey bee. I haven’t seen her for a few days so my guess is she either returned to being strictly nocturnal or, more likely, she mated, produced her offspring, and died. It was comforting to greet her each day when I came home from work. 

Links to the past

  • 1 year ago: Notes from the 2022 Library Marketing and Communications Conference Day 1 and Day 2
  • 6 years ago: One of the best photos I ever took 
  • 10 years ago: I still need to find out the answer to this mystery

Overheard online

Protip: browsing and borrowing from your local library can satisfy the shop therapy part of your brain without costing you money

ami_angelwings on Mastodon (h/t Dense Discovery)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these (see also: 2017, 2015). For folks considering working in academic libraries, or shifting to outreach and/or library managerial work, I hope this glimpse into the day of one librarian is helpful!

8:30a: Arrive at work. The first thing I did this morning was sign a stack of thank you cards for our campus partners on the latest library event. Sent a message to my employee who is coordinating the distribution of these to let them know they were ready to be delivered.

stack of thank you cards and a pen

9:00a: I’m trying to develop a meta-analysis project so I spent a good portion of the morning reading through different models, methodologies, and critical appraisals. There is a lovely faculty-only space in our library where I like to go when I need uninterrupted time to work on my research.

stack of research journal articles next to a laptop

10:30a: Spent 30 minutes processing email.

11:00a: I serve on the ACRL University Libraries Section’s Academic Outreach Committee. This year, we are toying with the idea of building a directory of academic library outreach folks. Another committee member and I have been assigned the task of developing a plan, so we met on Zoom to hash out our initial ideas.

12:00p: A couple years ago, I decided my health was more important than anything my job could possibly throw at me, so I schedule walks, yoga classes, and/or gym time throughout the week into my Outlook calendar. Today, I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical during my lunch break.

me walking with a towel over my shoulder

1:30p: Had my weekly 1:1 with one of my direct reports.

2:30p: Posted some content to the library’s Instagram account and updated the graphics on the library’s homepage to promote our upcoming events. Edited a short reflection piece written by a student about a past event, reviewed and uploaded a recording of that event to our YouTube page, and combined the two to create a news post for the library website.

4:00p: More managerial work. I sent reimbursement information to other campus units, drafted a follow-up from an earlier meeting, delegated tasks to my student workers for when I’m out of town next week, and reviewed the details of an upcoming report deadline I need to work on when I get back. Had to double-check the construction of a Qualtrics survey that was currently collecting respondent data (it was fine). Caught up on a few open loops with one of my employees before they left for the day.

5:30p: Cleaned up and locked up so I could go pick up my kids from their after-school program. 

Indiana Statehouse at night

Next week, I’m heading to Indianapolis for the annual Library Marketing and Communications Conference, a gathering of library folks involved in marketing, communications, public relations, social media, and outreach in academic, public, and special libraries. This year, I served on the program planning committee that helped to select the speaker line-up. There are some presentations I’m really excited to see! Here’s my schedule:

Tuesday, November 7

  • 9a: Keynote by Kim Crowder
  • 10a: Strengthen Your Marketing During Challenging Times by Cordelia Anderson
  • 11:15a: The Power of Empathy-Centered Storytelling by Deborah Hakes
  • 12p: Swag swap
  • 1:30p: Let the Numbers Lead You: Using Data to Market Your Library by Natalie Browning and Sarah Reynolds
  • 3p: Try a Little Tenderness: Communication and Marketing Inspired by the Trauma-Informed Framework by Rebecca Tolley

Wednesday, November 8

  • 9a: Keynote by Keith Keller
  • 10a: More than Clicks and Likes: Really Measuring Social Media Impact on Event Attendance by Charles Samuels, Chris Vitiello, and Mattison Domke-Latz
  • 11:15a: Open for All: Real-World Ideas for Incorporating Accessibility and DEI Into Your Library Marketing by Kathryn (Katie) Bulloff, Stephanie Cargill, June Kucalaba, and Angela Hursh
  • 1:30p: I Can’t Even with Content Anymore: How to Work Through Content Creation Burnout by Meghan Kowalski
  • 3:00p: The Ties That Bind: How Libraries Can Use Email Marketing to Bring Their Communities Together by Leigh Gaddy, Kim Burean, and Melissa Beck

I have most of Monday free, so my plan (flight arrival permitting) is to go to the Vonnegut Museum in the AM and then to the Eiteljorg Museum in the PM.