Social networking ... online

Facebook? Bebo? Twitter?
Decaynne? Orkut? Foursquare?
Nexopia? Studivz? Myspace? Friendster?
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Which social networking tool should a library use?

There are so many options which a library could choose from but
Facebook certainly seems to be the most popular (for now).

Perhaps the main question one should ask is --
should a library use a social networking tool at all?
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As a service provided by a local council we already have space on the
council's website. Library members, new residents, ratepayers and
interested parties can all gain access to information about the library
and it's catalog. The IT person at our library and community
information staff already contribute and manage this data in what
can be quite a time consuming activity.

AS one of the busiest library services in NSW do we really need to have a facebook page too?
___________________________________________________

The answer is No and Yes. No, for just some of the reasons already
listed but also Yes for just some of the following reasons:

* To make users of social networking tools (in this case facebook) who are not part of the local community area aware of the library and to provide access (a link) to the library's (and council's) website. [ADVERTISE]

--> Some of the information provided on this facebook page could be just snippets of what is already found on the library page of the council's website or it could be an extension of what is already there.

Examples could include:

1. Pictures and embedded videos of recent events at the library - e.g. children's school holiday programs

2. Pictures and embedded videos of historical events involving the library - e.g. the original library's demolition through to it's rebirth in 2011 as part of the concourse developement

*To allow library member's to interact and choose what information they want to receive and when. [CLIENT INTERACTION]

Examples of this interaction could include:

1. Allowing library members to suggest items for purchase, vote on their favourite books and write reviews on them.

2. Providing library members with the ability to sign up for the library newsletter, notification of the author talks and other council events e.g. bushwalks or the Spring Festival

* To provide other means of communication between libraries and other related organisations [NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES]

---> We could be "friends" with not only our neighbouring libraries but also with those around Australia and the world.

Photo: "Blue Marble (Planet Earth)" by Woodleywonderworks found on Flickr, courtesy of NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center.

So many online apps, so little time ..

I couldn't resisit adding the document I created using Google Docs. The Heart template was created by Frank Skibby Jensen. The text was my own.



The main winners once again with online applications in a library environment is the community Information and the Childrens/Young Adults departments.

However, three applications which can also be of great use to other staff members include:

1. Zamzar

No more "please send again in ___ format" as we are unable to view this attachment" reply emails need to be sent. Zamzar easily converts even the most obscure file into commonly used ones.

2. Senduit / YouSendIt

No more " You have reached you're email account limit. Please reduce your account" emails popping up and delaying you from sending another important email.

3. JOTT

This application using your mobile phone is great for people (aka me) who have fingeritis when it comes to creating text messages. Now you can use your voice to enter the message and have JOTT transcribe it and email it back to you. Fans of the handheld voice recorder rejoice. Good technology never dies it simply mutates!

One does wonder though just how accurate it is. Will I be receiving emails talking about the latest must read book "Porn" instead of prawn?

Mish, mash mashups!

Mashups would be of great use for all design projects involving:

Children and young adult arts and crafts activities - custom tailored images organised at the click of a computer button.

Jigsaws and fun badges and passes

Promotional posters, flyers, etc - inhouse design with a little extra pizazz at minimal cost.

Special promotional items - e.g. calenders

For 1. Home Library Service patrons,

For 2. Commerating historical library events - e.g. old library to new with photos taken of the demolition of the old to the creation of the new.

To podcast or not to podcast?

Our library could offer podcasts on in-house library produced events such as:

* Selected children's storytime sessions - Easter and Christmas stories

* HSC talks - "Minimising stress in the leadup to the HSC" or "Developing time management skills"

Positives: These have already been prepared by library staff

* Oral histories - Recordings on local people of interest, e.g. past mayors.

Positives: A number of histories already exist recorded onto cassette. These could simply be re-recorded into an mp3 format.

Special events and functions involving external non-library staff could also be offered.

Examples of this could include: author talks and special ceremonies such as the opening of branches.

General "negotiable" factors to consider would include:

1. Time - When would these sessions be recorded? How long would it actually take to record?

2. Location - Where would sessions be recorded? Our current library setup does not offer any quiet areas to record audio in. External noise from members of the public and music from the shopping centre would constantly interfere.

3. Staff - Who would be involved? Would we need to hire any external assistance at any stage?

4. IT restrictions - These would need to be relaxed to allow actual access to these podcasts in the library. At present, we are unable to listen to anything audio as there are no headphones on the internet computers and the speakers have been disabled. Only people outside of the library would be able to listen...

5. Prior permission from all participants - Not so hard to organise if only a few people involved but imagine a special function involving a number of speakers with only 1 person declining permission, then possibly the entire recording could not be used (depending on when they were involved).

Question? When all of these factors are considered, is it really something that a library could offer? If pictures of events are already available on flicker and news about the events are already publicised in the library's newsletters and website or in the local paper, do we really need to?

Answer Boards or bored questioners?

As another way of providing access to reference information an answer board service on your library's website could be useful. However, this would need to be managed very carefully and with clear guidelines as to:

1. What questions could be asked and
2. When they would be answered.

These guidelines are very important as I believe that most libraries work with very tight budgets with increasing demands on their services.

In the introductory section explaining about the service you could have examples of the type of questions that could be asked. Links to FAQs could also be included directing people to other pages on the Library's website which would answer questions regarding library membership terms and conditions, borrowing amounts, renewals, overdue fees, etc.

The benefits of an answer board service to library members would need to be weighed up against the real life financial and practical considerations in operating it. For instance,

* What staff would be required to provide it? Would it be just the Reference Librarian or all members of staff?

* When would the service be available? Would it be offered 24/7 or between certain hours Monday to Friday?

************

In our library, although we do not offer an "Ask the Librarian type online service", we do take reference enquiries at the Information Desk. Many of these can be fulfilled at the time with more complicated questions involving extended research passed on to the Reference Librarian.

As it is a face to face service we are able to weed out any frivolous questions. Only people with serious questions with a real need for answers are assisted.

If we were to offer an anonymous online service I believe that the number of frivolous questions would increase with staff time wasted in responding. In addition, in my experience I have found that members of the public do not realise the amount of time it actually takes to assist them with many expecting "immediate" answers.

We have often received emails sent to the library's email address asking for information or assistance when we are closed only to find out when a reply email was sent (once we had reopened and were able to check our emails) that they had not waited for a reply and had not advised us that our assistance was no longer required. This has happened enough times that I now find myself having to check with the customer before attempting to assist as this saves a lot of wasted time and effort on my part.

I love Librarything!

Of all the online tools we have investigated, this is definetely the number 1 tool for me and I will most assuredly continue to use this long after all the L2.0 tasks are finished.

I simply loved the entire concept. After years of scribbling into notebooks, then transcribing into excel documents my own lists I am so very happy to have been shown this resource.

I loved the different "viewing options" of my collections and the ability to be able to create my own preferred view. I also loved that I could have multiple lists and was also able to add more as desired.

I also loved the librarything and member recommendations of other titles which I might like to read and the reviews. This connection between titles easily leads one to create even bigger lists of what "to read" in an extremely effortless way.

One very, very, deliciously, dangerous aspect of this site is the offer for members to read and review titles before they reach the shops. Although the majority seem to be in America, Canada and the UK there is still some Australian offers.

With so much to love, there has to be something bad surely? The only negative I can find is that I cannot seem to be able to sort my search results for series searches into series order. One seems to get a random list of series titles in no order whatsoever. However, I have only just started to explore this resource and have perhaps not found the right way to do this just yet...

Del.icio.us ways of keeping track

I like Del.icio.us very much. This can be extremely useful in preserving perpetual (as long as del.ici.ous exists) access to the websites regularly visited on communal staff library computers.

At present our information desk computers have a number of favourites saved for the internet. However, this is regularly cleaned out, as what one staff member considers relevant and important for quick access, another does not.

If we bookmarked Del.icio.us then we could still visit our own individual list of favourites which could be accessed from all computers.

Del.icio.us could also be saved as a favourite on the public access internet computers. The library could create an account with particular pages of regularly requested websites listed for quick access.

This would save staff time and decrease customer frustration as we would both no longer have to go through the multiple steps involved in locating the required information. A classic example involves trying to locate the practice driver knowledge tests on the RTA website (www.rta.nsw.gov.au).

A video screened in legomation..

In a previous post I mentioned a video I found when searching for "lego".

Here for the first time on my blog is that video. Enjoy!

Library videos

One interesting and pertinent (to my position) library related video that I found was on George Washington's overdue library books. This former American president apparently borrowed 2 books from the New York Society Library in 1789 and never returned them. Allowing for inflation his overdue fees currently owed (as at time of reporting) amounted to $300, 000!

This makes our 25c per day, per item overdue fees (capped at $12) look positively paltry. I wonder if I can use this as an argument to support how fair our fees are in comparison?

What could our library make a video about?

With our library temporarily located in a shopping centre, whilst our new premises are being built, as part of the Chatswood Concourse development project, we could make videos on:

* the progress of the reopening of the library e.g. from the bare building being furnished, to the staff moving in and to the library's opening ceremony and first day of operation.

Or perhaps

* a real life tour of the new library and facilities available.

Youtube vs Google video?

I've just visited the Youtube and Google video sites and have discovered the following videos from the fun, to the educational and informative:

When "Lego" was searched - I found a multitude of popular artists recreated in lego. I found music clips involving Michael Jackson to the band Queen's performance of Bohemian Rhapsody, television shows like Batman and Robin and video games like Pacman. [Fun]

When "Liverpool plains" was searched - Videos on the issues of mining were found [Educational]

When "Kogarah" was searched - Videos on local farmers showing you their land were found. [Informative]

Youtube vs Google video?

The main difference between the two seems to be in the content shown. If I was looking for a video which was from an authoritative source which would provide me with more information I would use Google video as this site directs you to the original source that the video was from. For instance, when one searches for a video on the crows nest of the Titanic (where the look outs first spotted the iceberg) one can be redirected to the Discovery Channel. Other videos on the Titanic can also be found here without having to look too far.

Searching on youtube for the same topic brings up a lot more results on videos added by people on things also on the titanic e.g. songs from the movie of the titanic but not actually on the requested topic. Google video indexes their videos in a way which is easier to search with more exact results located.

** So I would use Youtube to search for fun, interesting videos which I would be happy to browse through. However, I would use Google video if I was looking for educational and informative videos which could be located quickly with the use of keywords.

Wikis, wikis, wikis!

I've just visited

Mintwiki (Created by The Mint Museum Library, North Carolina, USA)
This wiki provides information on the permanent collections housed at the Museum. Examples of these include collections on African Art, Chinese court robes, performance masks of Mexico and platform shoes.

Wookiepedia

This wiki is for Star Wars fans everywhere. It is an extremely detailed online encyclopedia covering all aspects of the Star Wars Universe. Examples of entries include:

• The "Quote of the day"
  
  
• On this day - important events listed in chronological date order and


• Did you know? - brief snippets of information e.g. Did you know that hermit crabs existed in the galaxy?
  

Library success : a best practice wiki

This wiki provides up to date information on all things library related. The sections on training and developement for librarians and on technology would be of particular interest to anyone trying to keep their skills current.

What use could a wiki be to libraries?

Wikis would be a really good way to answer to that famous question "What could you recommend I read?"

You could have both library staff and library member suggestions. Books could be arranged in different categories e.g.

• Fiction - Genres such as: crime, fantasy, sci-fi, humor, romance, historical, world (different authors from or writing from a particular countries viewpoint)


• Non Fiction - Subjects from A to Z.
  

You could also have suggestions listed for different audience groups, for e.g, child, young adult, speakers of different languages, book clubs, etc.

Why do I like wikis?

Wikis are great in that they allow interested parties to contribute their own information, viewpoint, etc. at any point in time and from any place. They can be as simple or as complex as desired and can use all forms of media to provide the information.

A little something for the Acquisitions & Cataloguing teams

While searching the web for blogs with a library related theme I came across two, which might just interest the Acquisitions and Cataloguing teams of any library.

1. For the Acquisitions teams:

http://awfullibrarybooks.net/

This site contains a collection of books (many submitted by fellow library colleagues) which are still found in public libraries today and which are considered questionable as to their current relevance. Why haven't they been weeded?

Another section "Why libraries weed?" invites readers to share their thoughts on weeding and I know the Acquisitions Librarian at my workplace would probably enjoy reading this.

2. For the Cataloguing teams:

http://www.catalogingfutures.com/

This site looks at issues involving the future of cataloguing and metadata in libraries. Anyone currently working in or hoping to gain work in this field might be interested in looking at this site.

Although it does not offer feeds it does allow you to subscribe by providing your email.

** There are many more out there, some serious, some fun looking at all aspects of the library profession and across all levels from the student to the recently retired.

Following instructions does not always work..

I have just created my bloglines account and have attempted to add the 5 feeds to it by following the instructions given in the CommonCraft "RSS in plain english" youtube video.

Was it as easy as following the instructions step-by-step?

NO! Whenever I clicked on the RSS icon (which so many sites did not even have) there was no mention of saving it in bloglines or any other feed reader via the one click access method. There was also no page with code on it as mentioned.

I kept getting a window with the following message:

"You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content. When you subscribe to a feed, it is added to the Common Feed List. Updated information from the feed is automatically downloaded to your computer and can be viewed in Internet Explorer and other programs". Learn more about feeds. Subscribe to this feed

In one way this was great, as I could simply see it by clicking on my favourites tab and then selecting the feeds tab and clicking on the feed which I wanted to look at, but was also frustrating in that I was not able to actually use the feed reader of choice to save to.

At this point, I decided to look at the Top 1000 list in bloglines and thought I could easily just select from here. However, clicking on the RSS icon resulted in the same result as previously achieved. Alternatively, clicking on the Bloglines icon kept resulting in an "internal server error" message.

So, I went back to watch the video again and this time when I got the "You are viewing a feed ..." message I copied the URL that appeared for this page, went to bloglines and found the add button in my feeds tab and pasted it to the "blog or URL feed" search field which produced a list of feeds which i was then able to successfully subscribe to!

Note: Although following the exact steps as shown in the video, was not always that successful it did help to give me some guidence in order to play around and find my way to success.

Sharing images ...

Flickr

I have just looked at Flickr for the first time and this seems to be an easier way to view pictures from family and friends. One friend often sends me pictures attached to her emails and these take forever to save (so I can scan for viruses) and then open to look at.

Mosman Library appears to use flickr as a main form of advertisement for it's promotional events, new services and acquisitions. Sadly, when I typed in the name of my workplace there was very little there. However, there were some pictures of our old library's demolition uploaded by a work colleague.

There were even some pictures from members of the public. One picture "067" uploaded by Naku' on 26/10/09 comes with the comment:

"Study study study study
at the Chatswood Library
stuffy, hot, noisy".

Other interesting (and some scary) pictures were discovered when I typed in - dogs and wigs (or similar variations) when i was exploring non-library related pictures.

When looking at some flickr groups I came across a library related one called "Library interiors". One picture "Mortlock Library" which had been uploaded to the group pool that caught my eye was uploaded by dscreativ on 16th July 2010. It is of the Mortlock Library (one wing of the State Library of South Australia) and you can visit this by going to:

http://www.flickr.com/ and typing in groups. This opens up another search screen and if you click on the groups tab and then type in library interiors in the search field and then click on this group in the results list you can then type in Mortlock library to see these pictures.

I would have added a copy here but discovered just as I was about to that it was an "all rights reserved" picture. This is probably the easily forgotten detail about pictures on photo sharing sites like flickr. Anyone can see the pictures but unless you check out the fine print what you might assume anyone can copy could be wrong. For that reason I hesitate to use anything submitted by anyone else as the ramifications could be costly..

In fact after much searching there seems to be very few pictures that aren't "all rights reserved"!

Initial thoughts on being social ...

Learning 2.0 - my first steps towards exploring the online world that exists beyond searching the internet for information and sending emails.

As anyone with the ability to read, watch or listen to what's being printed, screened or talked about, I am aware that there is more out there. However, most of these new ways of communicating such as through twittering, youtube or via facebook only really seem to be a platform for advising the world what one was doing, seeing, wearing, etc.

Thoughts which once would have been kept private or only shared with a close circle of friends now seemed to be up for public consumption and broadcast to the world. Everyone from well-known public figures to the stranger in the street wanted you to know and know everything!

As a person who values their privacy and enjoys moments of quiet contemplation without someone else discussing and debating the ins and outs of such thoughts this was definitely not something I personally wanted to embrace.

So what did I expect to learn from the State Libraries NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0 program?

Well, after reading the course agenda I can see that there are other ways of using these social communication tools. Information which once would have only been available in a printed format such as instructions on how to use your new DVD recorder could now be accessed via youtube in an instructional video. This different manner of providing information enabled those who needed to know, to understand, what might not have been fully grasped previously. For that I am prepared to put aside my reservations over what I have already seen and think I know.

Learning 2.0's program provides a guided format in which to learn and helps one to explore the vast array of possible activities and the steps involved in easily digestible learning blocks. What seems so very overwhelming when first contemplated now appears achievable..