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April 29, 2007
Library Journal Blog - Comments on my Autism Reviews
Nice complement (I will take what I can get).
This is from Library Journal's In the Bookroom blog.
I have been writing reviews on autism books for Library Journal since 2002 and have loved every moment of it. Heather McCormack, my editor there, had a nice entry about the reviews and articles I have done on the subject. Even though I am in the business world now, I am still doing the reviews for LJ. Of all the things I have written, I think the most number of people have read these. Kinda funny, I guess.
This entry was posted in the following categories: Biographical StuffPosted by cseeman at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2007
My Philosophy, Part I
This is my stab at a philosophy.
I thought I would add some information about my library philosophy. I’ve had a fairly wide diversity of positions in the library field and think that each one has added something unique to the mix. I think that my current philosophy can be summed up by these four simple statements (I will try to do better next time):
• Hear it
• Balance it
• Try it
• Learn From it
With “Hear it”, I am saying that we need to listen to the people who we serve. There are many schools of thought to see if we, as academic librarians, have an academic or service mission. We have both. But were it not for the students, I do not think that many of us would have a job. So, especially in my current job, I want to listen very careful to what my patrons (dare I even suggest customers) are asking for. The simplest thing they teach you in Business School is to know your customer. You get to know them by listening and taking into consideration the things they ask for. We have recently, expanded our instruction program and our library hours because students asked and made compelling cases for both. We are now better poised to serve the library and the Ross School.
With “Balance it,” I am saying that we need to balance between the needs of the people who we serve and the resources that we have at hand. So in many regards this is the biggest challenge of management. In the library environment, much of this comes in the form of resources and what we have. We have long questioned many of the requests that we have received for new books, periodicals, and electronic resources. We have balanced these with the ones that we are identifying. And none of us, even Michigan, has a budget that goes on forever. Additionally, we have to consider our ability to meet the needs of our customers/patrons from the people who work in the library. If we encourage people to contact us and submit questions, will we have the capacity to answer them? From a philosophical point of view, I am very adamant that we do not place filters on our customer’s ability to submit requests based on an expected ability for our staff or resources budget to meet the needs. We can never grow an operation if we do not have a period where our demand exceeds our ability to supply.
With “Try it”, I am saying that we need to put things out there. This is where my time as a trainer with Innovative really comes into play. I have never been a proponent of the thought that everything needs to be perfect upon launch. If we attempt for perfection, we will destroy productivity. And while I feel strongly about this, there is a clear balancing act that can be done by the library. We naturally will not launch a product that is known to be crappy or one that only works 20% of the time. But if we are 95% sure it will work, that is really enough to launch. The trick is what we do once the service or resource is launched. I have had few experiences where something is launched and no one offers suggestions or new directions. So the pursuit of perfection on a new service or resource only delays the timetable. I have used the term “reasonable readiness” in my own deliberations.
Another important element about “Try it” is the notion that it might not be good. We had been asked for years about being open to 2am in the library. For years, the library said no. By shifting the staffing schedule a little bit, we were able to get a 1am close for the library starting in March and we are poised to get to a 2am close for next academic year. But this is all launched as a pilot. If it does not work…we change it. We do not need to be right all the time, but we certainly need to check the conditions on the ground. Our president foolishly criticizes those who would move to meet the whims of the people or put their finger in the wind. Doesn’t it make sense that we would want to continually assess what the conditions are and move accordingly? Also, some ideas are good and some are not so good. We will never really know until we put them in play.
This leads to “Learn from it.” With this, I am saying that each new activity, each change in a program, and each assessment of an ongoing activity is a learning exercise. Every new program, resource or service can provide us with valuable information that can apply to the next situation or request. We recently expanded our course pack offerings to allow for a no-cost course pack. This would be for faculty who are using their own produced items so there are no copyright costs. Faculty were loading these on CTools (our course management system) and students were downloading them and printing them off. Or, they were handing them out in class. We used the excellent system we had for distribution and expanded it to this service. We hope to expand this further in the fall. We surveyed the students and learned a great deal about what they wanted and it allowed us to further fine tune our program. And certainly we learn from our mistakes as well.
These are some of the things that I am thinking about in my role as director. Just thought I would jot it all down!
Corey
Posted by cseeman at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)
Biographical Statement
Had to come up with this recently....so here I am.
Corey Seeman is the Director of the Kresge Business Administration Library of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Corey started at Michigan in November 2005 as the Associate Director, assumed the role of Interim Director in May 2006 and became the Permanent Director in October 2006. Prior to this position, Corey's jobs included: Associate Dean for Resource and Systems Management at the University of Toledo (Ohio) (May 2001 to November 2005); Library Training Consultant, Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (January 1999 to April 2001); and Manager of Technical Services, National Baseball Library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. in Cooperstown (November 1996 to November 1998). He started his career as an archivist at the Chicago Historical Society and Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, but with every successive position, moved more into library systems and technical services. He has a M.A.L.S. (1992) from Dominican University (with an emphasis in Cataloging and Archival Management) and a A.B. (Bachelor Degree, 1986) from the University of Chicago (with a major in European History).
He has written articles primarily in the areas such as library systems, cataloging (especially in the context of special library collections) and on collection development issues associated with autism. He also serves as one of the autism book reviewers for Library Journal. Now as a director, he will be focusing his writing on change management in the library and special collection needs management in an academic library. He has been very active in the Innovative Users Group (IUG) and is the Chair for the organization this year (through their annual meeting in San Jose, May 14-17, 2007). For a full vita, please visit: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cseeman/Files/cv_seeman.html or http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cseeman/
About the Library: The Kresge Business Administration Library (http://www.bus.umich.edu/kresgelibrary/) is an independent library at the University of Michigan and we report to the administration of the Ross School of Business. While it is not part of the University Library system, Kresge works closely with the main library to collaborate on the purchases of electronic resources for the whole U of M system. We have an library materials budget of just over $1 million a year and the bulk of that goes to electronic resources.
Posted by cseeman at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)