Organization Monkey

my library has a wiki where library staff can report problems with databases or other technical issues; it’s my job to respond to and resolve the problems. i’d seen enough wiki entries that went something like this: “patron called to say he can’t access databases from home. swears he’s a current student” to know that we needed to establish a troubleshooting workflow for this issue.  from the wiki entry i can’t tell what our staff did to troubleshoot the problem or how to get in touch with the patron to do any follow-up.

i started a conversation via email with our head of access and the systems librarian because i knew they were somehow involved in checking whether a patron is active in our system.  i asked how they usually heard about issues like this and what they usually did when they got reports.  while i waited for a response i interviewed some of our reference librarians to find out how they usually get reports of access problems and how they responded to the patron, wrote down what they said, probed for more information on certain points.  i read the whole scenario back to them at that point and noted any further comments that they made.  i got an email response from both the head of access and the systems librarian and they reported how they were involved in the process and what information they needed to troubleshoot.

from this wealth of responses i put together a workflow that addressed the salient points from the perspective of our head of access, systems librarian, and reference librarians.  in the workflow i assigned certain steps to particular roles, so that it was clear what information they need to gather and to whom they need to direct that data.  i sent the workflow to them via email and requested feedback.  based on that feedback i asked a couple follow-up questions and tweaked the workflow.  at the last iteration everyone involved agreed that the new workflow would serve us all well.  at the end of the process we now have a troubleshooting workflow that everyone understands and is holistic rather than silo-ish.

as i reflected over the approach i used to gather information for this workflow it occurred to me that i had done an extended reference interview with each of the participants.  with them i was able to diagnose the problem, probe for more information, clarify, provide a possible solution, and confirm.  the last step will be as we use the workflow and evaluate if there are any further tweaks that need to be made.

here’s a link to a simple description of the steps of a reference interview on liswiki: http://liswiki.org/wiki/Reference_interview

here’s the workflow we’ve settled on as our first attempt:

i prefer old fashioned pencils. i like the feel of the wood and the weight of the pencil, which is lost with the mechanical versions. for general office use i prefer the 2b grade, which is a plain old, standard pencil. there’s a nice image on wikipedia that demonstrates the grading and classification of pencils: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil.

so. i like a regular old pencil, but it has to have a SHARP point. i get grumpy when they’re dull; what’s more depressing than pulling a pencil out of the pencil holder to discover the sharp is worn down to a nub? well, lots of things are more depressing, actually, but i’ve got this sharp point problem licked. here’s how:

1. sharpen a bunch of pencils
2. insert into cup on desk with the pointy tips facing up
3. after using one, return to cup with now dull tip facing down
4. when there are no more pencils with pointy tips facing up, it’s time to sharpen all of them

this way i am guaranteed to always choose a pencil with a sharp point.  woohoo!

The Research Methods and Analytics group on Linkedin mentioned the free online text, StatSoft Electronic Statistics Textbook, as a good introduction to an array of stats topics. Bookmark it, it’s a good resource! There’s also a printed version, if you’re more comfortable using a paper copy.

direct link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oiLfTnrC40
Dan Reboussin, you rock!

A while back I posted about the launch of data.gov.  Now there’s a site to get government data from that aggregates the data.gov data, along with others sets: “We aggregate sources from: data.gov, data.dc.gov, utah.gov, datasf.org, texas.gov, texastransparency.gov, and the Sunlight Foundation and its partners.”  Cool.

The National Data Catalog is an open platform for government data sets and APIs. It makes it easy to find datasets by and about government, across all levels (federal, state, and local) and across all branches (executive, legislative, and judicial). The data here is imported from multiple sources and curated by our staff.

National Data Catalog

here’s a thought for us to nibble on:

To pursue bright spots is to ask the question “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, in the real world, this obvious question is almost never asked. Instead, the question we ask is more problem focused: “What’s broken, and how do we fix it?”

from Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard