Casey Bisson
Information Architect, Plymouth State University
Do things. Experiment, fail, and try again. Don’t wait for permission, consensus, or even a complete idea. Do it and learn from it, then do it all over again.
How do you describe what you do as a librarian to your family or to people at a party?
I usually describe myself as a programmer that develops software for libraries. The conversation either dies there or turns to “isn’t Google killing libraries?”
What special projects or initiatives have you been involved in? How did you first got involved?
My first library project was to integrate our library systems with our campus portal in 2001. That’s when I began to look at how users interact with our systems, and how our systems were failing them. Scriblio is simply an extension of that, a framework that allows me (or anybody who installs it) to experiment with different means of interacting with library data.
What advice would you give to up and coming librarians?
Do things. Experiment, fail, and try again. Don’t wait for permission, consensus, or even a complete idea. Do it and learn from it, then do it all over again.
What do you think are the top three issues facing librarianship (positive or negative) that could change the course of things? If we should try to change that course, how should we go about it?
The relationship between traditional publishers, libraries, and readers is experiencing great shift. At the same moment that the web gives publishers better tools to deliver content directly to readers, it also gives readers access to authors outside the traditional publishing system (and not found in libraries). Formats, too, are problematic. While some libraries have become store-fronts for commercial e-book formats, those e-books rarely take live in our collections and DRM schemes block those who would collect them. At the other end of the spectrum, we have yet to figure out what role informal publication formats like blogs and wikis have in our collections. With the aid of consumer electronics giants, publishers are increasingly limiting our ability to copy electronic media from one device to another. Paper-bound books won’t go away, but their role in our society will diminish as we become increasingly accustomed to consuming our media electronically. What role will libraries have then?
As institutions, libraries are largely reactionary. It’s in our DNA. We didn’t invent scrolls, books, or any other technology used to preserve or transfer knowledge, but those who came to use those tools built libraries because they believed it was in the public or institutional good to collect that knowledge and make it available to others. We’ve never been asked to innovate — even though the application of information management in other fields has lead to innovations — so it might be forgiven that none of our statistics related to libraries report money spent of research or development, but this shouldn’t excuse our complacency in the matter. Even now, as a number of commercial and open-source efforts to invent the “next generation catalog” are blooming, however, we see little discussion about how the very shape of information and role of libraries is changing.
How do you recognize contributions of others in your library and in your community?
I try to blog about them. Attention is a valuable gift, and links are the currency of the web.
Who do you think is a library leader?
Every librarian with a blog. Really.
What or who influenced you to become a librarian?
As noted above, I don’t really claim to be a librarian. I fell into library work because it was assigned to me, but I’m in it now because I enjoy the challenges.
If you could do anything in your career differently, what would that be and why?
The list of things I’d like to do keeps getting longer. At some point I’ll have to give up on a current project and move on, but I can’t think of anything that I would like to do differently if given the chance.
What are the top three things they don’t teach you in library school (or did not teach you in LS) that you think are critical?
I’ve not been to library school, so my answer is probably a throw away, but… Netflix is offering a US$1Million reward to anybody who can improve their recommendation system. Can you name a librarian that’s participating in the contest?