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Waiting for the next hit

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Or, how I learned to stop worrying and embrace the fact that I'm an info-floozy

Fiona Bradley posting at Libraries Interact has a good post about cutting down on information overload, which brought in mind to me the draft post I've had sitting on my desktop for, oh, the last few months.

See, I have a problem with information overload. A real bad, no good, terrible problem. Now, I'll happily be the first one to admit it. I love information - thrive off it - and the wonderful glut of information on the available in these heady days of web 2.0 is a godsend to me. I'll happily lap up all of that wonderful zeitgeist coming at me through the interwebs at the moment. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't taking it's toll. And I know that it's taking it's toll on a lot of you too.

But what to do about it?

Google Reader tells me that, as of this moment, I'm subscribed to 540 blogs. Now, I know what you're thinking (I can hear the horrified gasps from here). And it is, I know. I struggle with trying to keep up with them, and manage somewhere between not too badly, and appallingly, depending on how much time I have on my hands. Now, I don't read all of them everyday (I couldn't possibly), and a lot of them update irregularly, or are dead (it's such a hassle weeding out things like that, and I really can't be bothered - it's not a problem having them there if they don't update and don't get in my way). And I do read in a lot of different subject areas - my main folders cover libraries (2 folders of those), cooking (more than I care to mention), comics, web stuff, geekery, tech, law, KM, productivity, career stuff, music, shopping, people, job hunting, and a temp folder for things that I think I want to delete, but haven't quite summoned up the courage to actually delete yet. And I know this is too much. Everyday I look at it and pale at the sight of so many unread items. It's a daunting prospect.

But then again, so is the idea of deleting them. As I said, I'm a sucker for information, and this is feeding my habit. I know I don't really need to know all of these things, but oh! they're so good to know! I get to read about beautiful new things, exciting new projects, risque politics, shiny new games, and lots of yummy things to make, lots of music to listen to, and... I don't want to be without them. I love being on the crest of the wave. I love knowing what will be coming out soon, what the new trends are, what the new tools and startups are. And I love hearing what people are saying about them - what everyone of the individual people in my reading list is saying.

And yet, I do need to cut back. And I have.

There are a lot of ways to cope with information overload like this - Fiona points out a few goods tips in her post, mostly relying on the idea of cutting shamelessly and ruthlessly and not stopping until you have the number of feeds you're subscribed to down to a manageable number. Which is all well and good, and definitely a good start, but I have a few points to add:

• Think about how you read your blogs - I don't mind being subbed into a large number of cooking blogs and webcomics, cause essentially they're just a greatbig scroll of pretty pictures. These blogs bring me joy and give me a way of relaxing. Reading blogs doesn't just have to be about work and information - it can be about getting small bits of happy sent straight to your feedreader


• Think about when you read - using the same example, as much as I love my sprawling mass of pretty pictures, it's not mission critical if I don't read them, or ifI only look at them a few times a week. And as long as you don't feel compelled to read things that you don't have time to read, then it's not really a problem


• Think about what you'd lose if you unsubscribe - This is a bit of a two-edged sword - think about what you'll be losing both in the good and bad context. One good post a month probably isn't worth ten bad ones, but at the same time, if someone is only posting once a month, but it's an amazing post, it's probably a keeper


• Don't think you have to unsubscribe to get it under control. If nothing else, I use my reader as an ersatz bookmarking service (as much as I love del.icio.us, things get lost there and are never seen again). Rather than unsubscribing straight away, I move subscriptions to my interim folder, and graze through it every now and then, to see what's in there. I wouldn't have subscribed to them in the first place if they weren't interesting enough to keep an eye on, but you don't have to be looking at them every day.


• And, as a last ditch, but awfully effective method, just stop reading. Just don't do it. Don't open your reader. When you do, don't be afraid to mark whole folders'as read' before you even take a peek. Have a folder for the most vitally important, must read, top ten or twenty feeds in your list, and only look at those. (This is my strategy at the moment - I just don't have the time to be reading as much as I used to, and as such, I only read a tiny percentage of what I'm subbed to)

It's very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information available and think that you can't escape from the mire of interesting and terribly important things that need reading. It is possible to get it under control though. Does anyone else have any tried and tested methods for keeping their subscriptions under control?

Mob Rules

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I've just had a fantastic article brought to my attention, courtesy of Ben at 200ok.  It was the closing keynote at the Web Directions South conference that was on in Sydney last week.

Mark Pesce gave a session titled Mob Rules (The Law of Fives).   It speaks of networks, and how the mob uses them, and how networks change because of the mob.  It speaks of change, the destruction of hierachies and the future of networks.

It's written with a focus towards web developers, but there is so much that can be taken from it and applied to libraries. Especially when he speaks of the mob making things that they want happen.

Mark points out the five rules of the mob.  Rule two: The mob is faster, smarter and stronger than you are really stuck out to me.   He's talking of web sites but swap web site for library, and see where it takes you.

You can’t push a mob any more than you can push a rope; you can pull them, lure them, and, if you’re very lucky, dazzle them for a moment or two, but then, inevitably, they’ll move along. That’s bad news for anyone building web sites. The world of mob rules isn’t about sites; it’s about services, things that the street uses and permutes indefinitely. The idea of web sites dates from a time before the network ate hierarchy; sites are places where you go and follow the rules laid down by some information architect. Well, there’s no way to enforce those rules. The first Google Maps mashup didn’t come from Google. Or the second. Or the third. Or the hundredth. Google resisted the mashup. Claimed mashups violated their terms of use. Mashups come from the mob, the street finding its own use for things. The mob pushed on through; Google bowed down and obeyed. The most powerful institution of the Internet era, pushed around like a child’s toy. Ponder that.

It's definitely something to ponder.  Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 is a starting point. We're starting to think in terms of services.  This is the next step forward - moving toward an attitude that is no longer focused on how we want users to use us, but focused on providing the services that the mob wants, how they want it.  Otherwise they'll move on and find a way to get what they want without us.

Information ALLA Carte: Part the First

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As promised here is the first of a series of posts about my recent sojourn in Sydney attending the Information ALLA Carte conference. I'm going to write 3 parts, one for each day of the conference.

Wednesday was filled with preconference events. I attended at lunch held by publishers Justis, at an amazing bar right on Darling Harbour. I went on a tour of the library at the Australian Securities and Investments Comission (ASIC). The tour was only 1 of 8 that I could have attended but I decided on just the one and chose the one that was least like what I was familiar with. From there I went to the welcome drinks and got to catch up with a few familiar faces, as well as getting to know a lot of new people.

This first social day was good as it meant that I got to meet a lot of people in a social setting and didn't feel so lost when I got to the actual conference. It also meant I had people to sit with, which is always an important consideration!

Three things for a monday

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Firstly, a thankyouthankyouthankyou to whoever nominated us as one of their favourite library blogs in Meredith Farkas' favourite blogs survey! We are thrilled and delighted to have been mentioned – there may even have been some surreptitious squealing :)

Secondly, apologies are in order for our paltry posting regime of late – I have no decent excuse, begging lack of time and an overabundance of trainees, but happily Davina has returned from her jaunt to the Australian Law Librarians Conference in Sydney, and will soon be posting tales of her adventures there and of the interesting things she saw and heard from the librarians back home.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Jessamyn alerted us to the fact that it's Banned Book Week this week! So go out and read yourselves a book that someone, somewhere has considered to dangerous to read. Davina will be reading And Tango Makes Three (a heartwarming tale of gay penguin love) and I'll be rereading my favourite bits of Ulysses, with which I was tortured at university, but have since grown to love. Go, read, enjoy, challenge :)

Graduating: or, how I got inspired about my career

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As of today, I am officially a graduate of the Masters of Information Management degree at Queensland University of Technology.

It feels a little anti-climactic though as the ceremony was in Brisbane, and seeing I'm here in London I couldn't attend. And I'd even forgotten it was happening until one of my coworkers reminded me! I handed the last piece of assessment in in July, so I've felt finished for a couple of months now.

The last semester of study was one of the best I've done. It was that semester that got me inspired about my choice of career and made me want to get involved. It was part of the impetus for starting this blog and for getting more involved in the professional associations that exist in London. Even though I was studying externally I still felt like I was a part of something bigger and that I needed to give back to that.

The first steps of my career have been taken and I think they're heading in the right direction.

Link'o'rama

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I started using Google Reader recently, mostly to see what everyone was talking about, but also because Bloglines had started to become too annoying to use.  And I think I'm converted.  What I'm really loving is the Star feature as it means I don't have to leave all the good posts marked as unread and I can see everything in the same place.

There's been a lot of fantastic posts lately which are in my Starred items folder that I really want to share.

To start with is a post by Scott Vine over at Information Overlord that I think needs to be read by CEO's and managing partners everywhere. It's called Wasting Time - Facebook and other Fallacies.  Scott highlights some pretty relevant stuff about wasting time that all these so called 'studies' on Facebook seem to ignore.

Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter wrote a good post on power in Library 2.0 called What’s new about Library 2.0? Shift in power.  She raises a good point about the 2.0 movement about the whole '2.0 is about being user-centred'.  She then goes on to outline where she feels the power has shifted.

So, if being user centred is not new, and Library 2.0 isn’t only about new tools, what is new about it? Why should we lift our heads from the stuff we are already doing and take notice of it? To me, the new element that Library 2.0 brings to our libraries is a shift in power balance - between us, our users, suppliers, software vendors, non-users.

On the topic of 2.0, The Other Librarian wrote a fantastic post titled Under the Hood of Web 2.0 : the top ten programming concepts for librarians to understand. Definitely a useful post to read if you're into the whole web 2.0 thing and want to know more about how it's all actually working.

There's been a lot of talk about the OEDB list of top 25 library bloggers. I definitely agree with the comments many made that their methodology needs a little bit of work. However, as a response, Meredith Farkas has started a survey - the Top Three Library-Related Blogs Survey. The survey is open until September 29 so head on over and fill out your three favourite library blogs.

New ways of seeing

So. We've been planning this for a while, but it's taken a while to get sorted. We have decided to relaunch the site - pack up our things and move to wordpress, our own shiny new domain and out of the mire of pseudonymous blogging, and start writing as ourselves at the all new and improved Enquiring Minds Want to Know.

Please feel free to peruse our new about us page that will give you some insight into the crazy minds behind this whole shindig.

It would be wonderful if you could all click on the link below to resubscribe to the new feed, or go here to check it out first, and tell us what you think of the redesign. There is also, should you be so inclined, a new link to subscribe by email, if you're into that kind of thing (check out the sidebar).

We will be running both blogs simultaneously for a while to give everyone a chance to move over - however, the feed on this one will be littered with notices reminding you to change your subscription or update your bookmarks, so it might be best just to do it straight away and save yourself the hassle :)

No flip flops in the office: or, why business casual just don't work in a law firm

Recently Librarian in Black had an interesting post regarding honesty and blogging about work. She came to the conclusion that there was no happy medium - honest blogging is both career suicide and honest sharing at the same time. And I rather agree with her.

This isn't an issue we talk about a lot, but it has been coming up more and more recently. There has been some critique of the bibiloblogosphere, saying that we're not critical enough, and that we don't deal enough with contentious issues. There isn't enough dissent and there isn't enough discussion of what actually goes on in the workplace. And I think that this is an interesting issue to address.

I can't help but think that this is (or should be) more of an issue with library blogs - we are, inherently blogging about work (you may be a librarian by vocation, but it is still ultimately a job), but everyone is still too scared to talk about the specifics of what we do. There is, as LiB said, too much of a fear of reprisal. It is, however, this fear of reprisal (and the reprisal itself) that I find disappointing and strange.

We're not, by and large, a cantankerous or troll-y bunch. I can count the kerfuffles I've seen in the bibiloblogosphere nearly on one hand, nothing like the average of most internet communities (and even when there are slight dramas, they are very rarely on the scale of internet warfare seen elsewhere). We're not likely to say things that are massively detrimental to the workplaces in which we work, or the people whom we work with. At worst, I expect we may be slightly snarky, and there may be a slight workplace politics hiccup following a potentially 'difficult' post, if there were any at all. And, essentially, we are librarians blogging for other librarians. Where we work within institutions, our non-library colleagues are very unlikely to see what we have written, even if we are well known within the library-blogging fold. And our library colleagues and peers are likely to be sympathetic to the workplace troubles and frustrations that we all share.

But, sadly, our workplaces tend to be unsupportive of this honesty and sharing. It is uncomfortable, and unfamiliar, and they don't know what to do with it. They may approve of, or at least accept, blogging as an academic medium, in which we can wax lyrical about the state of the information profession, and where the industry may be heading, or as a forum for letting more interested people find out about interesting new tools and services. But they are uncomfortable with what I think of as business casual - the ability to be professional, and take your work seriously, whilst still being a separate person, with ideas and opinions that may not always align with what is best for the company. I see my role in this blog as a business casual role - this is something I do for myself; I love the reading, writing, and conversations that I get to participate in from being part of it, and I would be (and was) blogging in some other capacity if I didn't have this blog. But this is also a professional venture - this is a way of meeting other professionals in my field, expanding on my knowledge of the sector, improving my skills, and, ultimately, being better at my job, and any future jobs I will hold.

It is this business casual idea that makes me understand why in other professions it doesn't put you at a disadvantage to have a blog. In industries where it's ok to wear business casual to work, it's probably ok to be writing business casual as well - think advertising, design, consultancy, and other types of web work and bleeding-edge millenium industries.

And this is where I think the frustration lies. We are web-workers - we are sharing in the zeitgeist of new technology. We know what the most engaged minds of our generation are thinking and doing. We are using the tools that they are using, and sharing the thoughts that they are thinking. We engage in the same communities, and participate in the same practices. But we are not them. They work from without, while we work from within. They work in industries where free-thinking and opinions and open-ness are valued, whilst we still, by and large, work within large dinosaurs of organisations, unable to keep up with the changes, even when they would like to.

I can't help but think that it's somewhat unreasonable to expect bloggers to never hold, or at least express, a negative opinion about their workplace, but would indeed, if I were employer, rather than employee, relish and appreciate the honesty and personality of my employees being able to express such an opinion. But, at the same time, I know that it's hard for our lumbering dinosaurs of organisations to keep up with the nimble leaps and jumps that modern webworkers make.

And I don't know what the answer to this is. If we challenge the system we will get knocked back (note: my shocking absence on Twitter and Facebook during the working day at the moment). But if we don't challenge the system we won't change anything. Personally, I believe in pushing the rules as far as they will let me go and to hell with the consquences! What do you think?

UK library blogs - why all the tumbleweeds?

Last week Fiona Bradley asked what I thought was a very pertinent question on Twitter - where are all the blogging UK librarians?

Since moving from Australia in 2006, I have seen the Australian library blogger population flourish, with many exciting bloggers and events. There has been the West Australia Lib 2.0 Unconference, Information Online 2007, and New Librarian 2006.

There is the upcoming State Library of Queensland Unconference, Australian Blogging Conference, Information Online 2009, VALA 2008 and IFLA 2010 has been announced for Brisbane (all of which I would love to be able to attend! why did I move to the UK again?)

There are wonderful blogs such as the aforementioned Blisspix, Kathryn Greenhill, Exploded Library and Connecting Librarian, amongst others.

(I focus on Australia, because obviously the US contingent has been kicking it hardcore for a very long while *g*)

But here in the UK, there is not so much...

There are the few of us legal library bloggers (all, you know, six or seven of us). And there's Phil Bradley and Karen Blakeman. And quite a few universities and public libraries have institutional blogs. And whilst institutional blogs are both great and very important, they're not quite the same as personal library blogs. They cover different issues and are not, generally, so much a place for discussion and community.

Where is the discussion, the barcamps, the unconferences, the passion? There's Internet Librarian 2007, but quite frankly, the program is just not that exciting, dealing with a lot of issues that are a bit, well, 2005 (e-learning, portals and wikis at work, virtual libraries - these are not new and challenging concepts). I envy all of you Australian and US bloggers, with your exciting conferences to attend and projects to get involved in. It just doesn't seem to have caught on here yet, and I'm not sure why. Are we too caught up in tradition and the old ways of doing things? Too resistant to change? Too scared to make a fuss or get into trouble for blogging our opinions? I'm not sure...

Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are lots of UK library blogs and events going on that I just can't seem to find. Some secret underground community of subversive UK librarians, maybe? (and if there are, please let me know!)

Podcasts from Sweet & Maxwell

I was on the Sweet & Maxwell website today and noticed that they now have a podcast section. They have a number available on topics such as Employment Law, IP Law and Family Law.

I'm not a podcast person, and I don't know if any of my lawyers are, but they look like useful things to link to on the intranet in case there is anyone interested.

What I'd really like to know is how many hits they're getting on them? Are there actually lawyers using them?

Biblioblogosphere Survey 2007

Meredith Farkas has put up some preliminary results of her Biblioblogosphere Survey, and there's some interesting stuff there.

The figures for the percentage of bloggers being academic v public are interesting as it makes me wonder what the other 37% do.

2. Back in 2005, only 19% of bloggers were public librarians while 44% were academic librarians. In 2007, that gap is closing. Now, 33.6% of all library bloggers work in academic libraries and 29.3% are public librarians.

Also, this quote made me smile:

6. Want to be happy? Well, you may want to become a school librarian, work in a law library or work for a consortium or library system, because those three got the highest scores for job satisfaction.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the final results of the survey!

Blog action day!

We're going to be participating in Blog Action Day on October the 15th - a day comitted to a global effort discussing environmental issues. There are currently over 3000 blogs committed to post for it, reaching an audience of over 3 million, which I think is pretty spiffing.

We don't touch much on the environmental impact of libraries and how we operate - this is a good time to reflect on the impact we make on the world around us.

Watch out for the posts come October 15!

Information ALLA Carte

In September I will be attending my first conference. I've been given the opportunity to go the Australian Law Librarian Association conference in Sydney. I'm incredibly excited, and looking forward to both the sessions on offer, and the networking opportunities. And of course seeing Sydney. I was only 13 the last time I was there, so I'm looking forward to looking at it with new eyes.

The sessions being offered all look good, though I'm especially looking forward to the sessions on training. They'll come a bit late for this years batch of new trainees, but hopefully I can pick up some tips for the next batch. There's also some good sessions on intranets and marketing.

Personally, there's also a session being given by the course convenor of my Masters degree about legal research courses at universities. As I was a student in one of her classes on legal research I'm really looking forward to seeing what she has to say.

I am going to look into obtaining a laptop to take with me, so hopefully I can liveblog, and be on twitter whilst I'm there. And I will of course be posting reviews here.

The Economist Audio Edition

I received an email today from The Economist informing me of a new service they have - the Economist Audio Edition. I'm not a podcast person, I tend to tune out when I'm listening, but I can see this being a good way to keep up with the magazine, especially at the moment when the postal strikes mean that it often comes three or four days late.

You can download the audio of the entire issue, or section by section. At the moment though the only way to subscribe to it is via an email alert, but it's definitely a step in the right direction!

Information Overload - your librarian can help!

I opened up this weeks Legal Week yesterday afternoon, and upon flicking through I found an article titled 'Information Overload'. Upon reading it, I couldn't believe that there was no mention anywhere about the library or information centre!

The first paragraph:

Information overload is a problem for all of us: too many emails, too much data, too many magazine articles to read. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is a major challenge. And if lawyers are to focus on the right information, a lot of the sorting has to be done for them. How can firms approach this challenge?

could easily be answered by getting your library/information department involved. That's what we're here to do!

I wouldn't want the article to be all about the library, but a small mention would be nice.

Some thoughts on productivity

I have something to admit. It's not a big secret, but it's not something I'm terribly proud of. I'm a procrastinator. Through and through. Give me a task that needs to be done today, and I'll think of some way to put it off til the last possible minute. If it needs doing by tomorrow, then chances are I won't do it today. And worse than that, I have no attention span either. Something has to be hugely engaging to keep my attention, otherwise I'll be wanting to do something else, be given new, different stimulus.

Now, this has always been a problem for me, and it's something that's only gotten worse over the last few years. I've always found the internet distracting (in the most glorious and wonderful of ways) and the slew of information available now sends me into such a tizzy of over-stimulation and attention deficit that I scarecely know where to look.

I want to fix this. I really do. It annoys me ever so much that I can scarcely focus on a task without wanting to quickly check my email or my rss feeds or twitter or a news site or whatever or whatever (the list of things that I can find distracting is near endless). But it's hard. There's so much out there to be distracted by, and I'm an information seeker by nature - I want to know all the new things that are happening in the world. But I need to be able to keep it in check, particularly when I have work to be doing. And sometimes it's hard to find the willpower on my own.

In an attempt to deal with this, I've just started using the Leechblock extension for Firefox at work.

Now, I'm not meant to use Firefox at work, but I really do find it far easier to be productive with Firefox. There are so many extensions that make my browsing life easier and more productive, that being without them just makes my day far more frustrating than it needs to be. And tabbed browsing is a blessing when you're looking at lots of articles and cases at once. (Actually, there was a whole good post in the Wall Street Journal last month about tips for getting around backwards IT policies to make your work day just a bit easier, but it wasn't me that sent you if your IT department comes knocking).

But anyway. Leechblock is fabulous - you can give it a list of sites that you don't want to be able to access (I go with the basic timewasters - Facebook, Bloglines, Flickr, stats sites), and give it exceptions for one's that you do, and a list of times, and that's it! You won't be going there. You can even turn off the ability to access the edit screen during the times you've set, to remove that extra piece of temptation. There is also the option to set up multiple profiles, so you could have different settings for different situations.

This is a bit of a hardline approach (I have no willpower, I know!), and does rely on me pretending that IE isn't on my desktop (but that's ok, I don't want to use IE anyway), but it does seem to help in putting a bit of a barrier between me and my procrastination.

Does anyone else have any good tricks for keeping the internet timewasters at bay when you have work to get done? I can't be the only one fighting off the lure of the internets :)

Professions don't stand still.

Michael Stephens over at Tame the Web has posted a fantastic post titled 'Professions Do Not Stand Still'. I particularly liked the first paragraph he quoted from Blog About Libraries:

Have you ever met a plumber who doesn't work with PVC? An electrician who only uses knob and tube wiring? A firefighter who thinks those new fangled breathing masks are just too complicated? No, professionals who don't keep up with the technologies that affect their work go out of business. Librarianship is not immune to that.

That is such a true statement. In a law library, it's not as pressing an issue, but as times goes on, there are going to be expectations that the services provided by the library are current and making the best use of the technologies available. Technology is not the be all and end all of the profession, but it's important that we know how and why to use it.

David Lee King has been making a number of posts on just that topic lately, starting with his 'Am I a 2.0 Librarian and the Library 2.0 Spectrum' post. After focusing on the technology aspects of Library 2.0 in that post, he followed up with a post 'Library 2.0 - Is it Techie Or Not?' about how important technology is to the provision of a library 2.0 service. And really, library 2.0 isn't about the technology - it's about taking the technology that's there, and providing a fantastic service for your users. And ultimately, that means keeping up with what's available. It's a continuous process. Technology is constantly changing, and so too will the services that we can provide.

There will always be the early adopters, those who are constantly picking up new technology. And within the library sector, or even the legal library sector, it's important that the ones on the edge are sharing their knowledge with others. As a knowledge sharing profession, we need to all be involved in keeping each other up to date. That's what I love so much about the 'biblioblogosphere' - we're all out there, sharing, discussing and learning from each other. It's an amazing thing to be a part of.

Opinion matters - ours and theirs

Following on from my earlier post about image and perception, I've been thinking a lot about how we perceive ourselves in the profession, and how others perceive us from outside it.

But first, an anecdote. Last week I went to the dentist and it set me to thinking. I have a good dentist, professional and skilled, and snarky, in the way that the best dentists seemed to be. And he was oh so very cranky at me for not looking after my teeth as well as he thought I should - amazed and annoyed that I wouldn't spend the time to floss three times a day. And it occurred to me that, being so embedded in his profession, so caught up in what he does everyday, that he had forgotten what it was like to be on the other side. It wouldn't occur to him that his patients might value their time differently, and not want to dedicate a half hour a day to their teeth, or that they might not know the best and most effective ways of brushing and flossing. As a professional in his field, dealing with these issues every day, they are of the utmost importance to him, and he couldn't imagine anyone else feeling otherwise.

I can't help but think that in the library profession, particularly within law firms, that we tend to be blinkered in the same way. Dealing with our work everyday, we can't help but value it very highly. And we should value it - we're providing a professional service to the users in our firms. But I just don't think our users value it as much as we do. And not just in the general, 'oh those silly lawyers, they don't know half the work we do for them' kind of way, but in a more tangible way, I don't think that our work is as immediately important as we would like to think it is. So much of what we provide, particularly in the way of raw data, needs to be filtered and refined in some way - usually by an overworked PSL or trainee - into something more relevant for the fee-earners. Whilst we have the skills to find the information, and provide somewhat of a refined product, we generally don't have the skills to interpret it, nor the place within fee-earning departments to have the knowledge of exactly what is needed and when. What we provide is important, yes, but it's often a raw product, and not the end in itself.

I think that much of our frustrations within firms stems from this - it's not that the lawyers don't value what we do for them, but that they often don't know what we do for them. Our research and work feeds into many aspects of the firms information flows, but the source of this information is rarely acknowledged. Our information arrives in their inboxes or on their desks seamlessly or silently, and they, understandably, don't really know the work that went into getting it there. And most lawyers, unless they have had a lot of experience with a good librarian, won't know what we can offer and what skills we have. They will hold faint memories of librarians from their university days, or maybe from their days as a trainee, not knowing that we can give them much more. They don't know, and they wouldn't even think to ask - it's just not within their sphere of interest. They feel that they need to know the details of what we do as much as they need to know exactly what their finance or IT or HR departments do.

Buried in our work, and knowing it's value so completely ourselves, we complain that people don't value us, but don't spend a lot of time thinking about why that might be. We need to step into the minds of our users and think about how they gain their perception of the library. What do we do for them that they can see? That they can't see? Where does the information that we provide flow throughout the organisation? What can we do to make our presence more visible and more valued? What can we do to educate people in the services that we provide? When do we need to step back and realise that what we're providing isn't as important or valued as we think? And what are we going to do about it?

How do you all feel about this? Do you think that we are placing an unrealistic expectation on our users to value us? Or do you think that your firm or organisation values your service as much as you would like?

Biblioblogosphere survey

Meridith Farkas of Information Wants To Be Free, and Social Software in Libraries, is conducting another survey of the biblioblogosphere (the results from the 2005 survey are here), which you can participate in here. I think the results will give interesting insight into the biblioblogosphere and the way that it has been changing and growing. It'll be nice to have a bit more of a presence from UK and legal library bloggers as well - I think we've grown a lot in the last year, and it would be good to see how much.

Go forth and participate!