Here comes the sun

here-come-sun2

Certain things are wonderful because they are unique. Artwork, musical performances, memories, the important people in our lives. In these cases, we treasure differences.

That is not true, however, for software development. While a service or a feature may perform a very specialized task, the background infrastructure isn’t helped by inconsistencies. Every time you add a different piece of hardware, operating system, software platform or process, you multiply the number of ways you’ll need to maintain your code, impacting quality and driving costs up.

In the technology realm, these inconsistencies are referred to as “snowflakes.” I like to refer to the process of eliminating these inconsistencies as melting snowflakes. Because, just like in real life, snowflakes may be interesting, but they’re not great for software development—they often make you slow down or slip up when you want to move quickly.

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Local action for national impact: some closing thoughts on “Geek the Library”

Geek the Library event

I recently came across an excerpt from John Palfrey’s book, BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google, in which he made passing reference to Geek the Library as a “clever online campaign.” Although the shout-out was certainly nice to read, the description gave me pause. The online piece of the campaign was only one small facet of the project. Truly, the vast majority of the activity and the outcomes happened at the grass roots, in nearly 1,800 communities across 48 US states.

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The intelligence trap

2016-03-29 Tammi intelligence trap

Being smart is important. But it’s almost never the most vital quality for success at work. And in the library profession—which emphasizes intelligence even more than most—this focus can lead us to undervalue other essential traits.

Think back to a time in your work life that you remember very fondly. To a successful project or a team you truly enjoyed working with. To a story about your job you love to tell. Really. Take a moment and conjure up that situation, because I’m going to make a prediction:

Your memory has nothing to do with highly developed professional skills or intellect.

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The future of FirstSearch and WorldCat Discovery

2016-03-24 Showalter discovery

Member-driven product development

A little more than two years ago, OCLC introduced WorldCat Discovery. The goal was to combine the “best of both worlds” into one discovery service—to deliver a single service that would deliver full discovery of library collections and enable library staff and library users to continue searching the one-of-a-kind WorldCat database.

It was a good plan, and reflected a lot of input from our members at a variety of levels. One of the things that makes OCLC very different is our commitment to member involvement. Not just in terms of tactical, feature-focused feedback, but overall direction and strategy.

Like any plan, however, you often find out more in the execution than you do in the initial development stages.

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The power of participation

2016-03-17 Hoffman participation

I just got back from the OCLC EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Regional Council meeting in Madrid, Spain. It was a great conference with more than 300 attendees from 31 countries. The theme of the event was “The Selfie Generation,” and you can see a ton of fun selfies and other pictures that our members, staff and guests took throughout the week.

At this meeting, OCLC members connected with each other and learned how library users’ needs and expectations are changing. We also had a chance to discuss OCLC services and research work and share what’s going on in members’ libraries and within their communities. This type of engagement stimulates lots of new ideas, encourages future-thinking and allows us to explore solutions together.

At OCLC Regional Council meetings like these, we also get to talk about something that’s unique to OCLC: member representation and voting—the power that OCLC members have to shape the future of the world’s largest library cooperative.

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