| Chapter 1: A Work Flow Fairy Tale | |
| Michelle Boule | |
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| Abstract |
“We have tools that make connecting and working with others easier, cheaper, and faster than ever.” — “Changing the Way We Work,” Library Technology Reports 44:1, Chapter 2 The way of work in the Information Age continues to be commuted by the Internet. The interconnected, collaborative functionality the World Wide Web provides, when implemented and utilized, can help individuals, as well as working groups, achieve greater flexibility and productivity, reports Michelle Boule, the author of the first issue of Library Technology Reports in 2008. A social sciences librarian and technology trainer, Michelle Boule (Univ. of Houston) examines how technology—which in Boule's report is defined as “any tool that can be used to communicate and collaborate over the Internet”—can and has impacted libraries in her issue “Changing the Way We Work.” The Future of Library Work Committees, task forces, and small working groups—all common ways to assign projects, divide work, and produce results in libraries—can benefit from “technology-enhanced work.” In her issue of Library Technology Reports, Boule reports on technology-enhanced work from several library or library-related projects, including:
In addition, Boule looks at the other technology-enhanced work projects/software: Material Digital Libraries Pathway (MatDL); MyHamilton; and Scriblio. This issue of Library Technology Reports also delineates technology-enhanced tools, such as Web conferencing, instant messaging, and project-management tools, and it lists specific tools and “widgets” in widespread use (AOL Instant Messager [AIM], Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Meebo, Trillian, etc.) In “Changing the Way We Work,” Boule also provides best practice tips for working in a virtual team environment as well as a list of selected references that provide additional research and analysis about technology-enhanced work in libraries. About the Author Michelle Boule's love of information and libraries started at a very young age. After she received a B.A. in English with minors in women's studies and anthropology from Texas A&M in 2001, her love of reading eventually led her to the library profession. Michelle completed her master's in library science at Texas Woman's University. It was in graduate school that a fascination with technology and information-seeking behaviors took hold. Michelle is a social sciences librarian at the University of Houston. During her day job, she maintains the Ethnic Studies collections, teaches classes, answers questions, does technology training, and works with students and faculty. Though technology is not a formal part of her job, she lives much of her life online. Michelle is very involved with LITA, the Library Information Technology Association; serves on BIGWIG, the IG that maintains LITA Blog (http://litablog.org); was part of the ALA Emerging Leader Program in 2007; and is always looking for ways to do new and innovative things within ALA. Michelle was a part of planning team of the very successful Five Weeks to a Social Library program (www.sociallibraries.com/course), a free, grassroots course that allows librarians to learn about social software and libraries. She writes and speaks about technology and education in libraries. Michelle can be found online in various places and maintains her own writing space at A Wandering Eyre (http://wanderingeyre.com). She has been an online gamer and all-around geek librarian for a very long time. Michelle believes that e-learning and Web 2.0 tools are the way of the future and that libraries can survive only by adapting to an online environment. |
In most libraries, when a work group, team, or task force is created, the work flow goes something like this:
Once Upon a Time, a task force was created with the charge to produce a work product. The group met for the first time to discuss their charge. They brainstormed some ideas about the question they were asked to answer. Each member was assigned an aspect of the problem, and they went their separate ways. Individually, they conducted research, and they each sent the team an e-mail with their findings. During this research period, e-mails were flying around with attachments and links to documents, Web pages, articles, PowerPoint presentations, forwards from listservs, and anything else team members thought was important. These items, if the committee was lucky, got filed in a folder titled with the committee's name, but they were ordered by date, which was not very helpful.
Eventually, the group had enough documentation, and they scheduled another meeting to discuss their findings. They discussed. They debated. If this group lived in a healthy organization, the conversation was open and honest. The group decided to continue the debate over e-mail. The e-mails soon became disjointed. Members who did not constantly check their e-mail were likely to be left behind. Soon, members on opposite sides of the debate were e-mailing only each other, and sneaky uses of Cc: and Bcc: started occurring. E-mail made the debate worse, and the group again met in person.
An outside moderator, in the form of a goblin (this is a fairy tale, after all), was called in, and the group aired their grievances. The goblin sorted out the problems, and the group reaffirmed their goals and were set again on the right path. With a renewed sense of purpose and with some of their dysfunction solved through the f2f mediation, the group assigned different parts of the report to different members. Soon, multiple versions of the same report were floating around. Merging the document was a pain, but it was completed through some hard work and a lot of time on the committee leader's part. The task force met one more time to review the document. One of the members made some final changes, and the report was presented to the Library Board. Everyone was exhausted, but had no time to dwell on that; there was work to do!
The End
Our task force could have had many fewer headaches, spent less time in f2f (face-to-face) meetings, used less e-mail, and been more productive if they had properly used the technology available to them. When chosen and implemented well, technology can enhance almost every aspect of the work environment. In fact, limiting workers to only traditional models of work can be harmful to a library, because the employees will not be able to benefit from and participate in the pool of global expertise.1 The task force in the story needed lessons in virtual team management and in the tools that could have made their committee work feel fun again.
Note
| 1. | Arvind Malhorta and Ann Majchrzak, “Virtual Workspace Technologies,” MIT Sloan Management Review 46, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 11–14. |
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