In a recent column, Rachel Singer Gordon combines two of my favorite topics, NextGen librarians and Library 2.0. An excerpt under my favorite subheading in the article, "Unblock the future."

What Will You Do Today?

"L2 recognizes that each library implements technology and services in ways appropriate to its community. We all start from different points and have different needs. Embrace this one-size-doesn't-fit-all approach. What better legacy could today's NextGens leave?

You may or may not personally identify with the superhero librarian meme, but we do talk a lot about the power of our profession. Libraries change lives. Libraries build communities. It's a powerful profession, and we as professionals must assume the responsibility to keep the field moving forward. As a NextGen librarian, what you do over the next few years will shape the future of this profession, both for the next generation of librarians and the next generation of users." [Library Journal]

I wouldn't have thought to call it The Google Gap, but John Berry gets it, too. I appreciate how he sees both sides and initiates discussions without alienating those who would like to participate in them.

Check out the Fall 2006 issue of LJ's netConnect, too, which is chock full of Library 2.0 articles.

Tangent: Like Rachel, I want (links plays video and audio). Must figure out a reason ALA needs one.... :-p

The list of ALA blogs continues to grow (more on this soon), but I'm particularly happy to point to District Dispatch from the ALA Washington Office. The template is a work in progress and pieces will be redesigned, but that's no reason you can't subscribe to the feed (finally, RSS for ALAWON!). Important stuff.

Wow, look at all of those aggregators....

Add to Any could be an interesting service to link to from your library's feeds page.

Check out the Iread Wiki started by Michele Leininger at the State Library of Iowa and Iowa librarians learning Web 2.0 tools. Better yet, contribute to it (the password is readers)! (Thanks, Roberta!)

I was going to update my previous post about displaying the Nashville Community High School Library and RSS with a link to this press release from NewsGator, but instead I feel the need to note a couple of things here. First, an excerpt from the press release.

NewsGator Partners With Directory Xpress to Help Schools Improve Communications to Parents and Students

"NewsGator Technologies, the leading RSS platform company, today announced a partnership with Directory Xpress, a company that provides schools with tools to help connect teachers and staff with parents and students through personalized information portals....

Directory Xpress' NewsGator-powered RSS system, called MyInfoPage, allows educators to create personalized information pages that are continually updated with school information such as classroom news, homework assignments, syllabi, closures, sports schedules, schedule changes and monthly lunch menus. NewsGator's Private Label Platform allows parents to create personalized spaces and subscribe to relevant information via RSS feeds from the schools' information pages....

Two schools in Jacksonville, Fla., Holy Family Catholic School and Hendricks Avenue Elementary School, debuted the technology at the start of the current school year. Ancillae-Assumpta Academy in Philadelphia, and several more schools will launch in the coming months. Parents have adapted quickly with more than 50 percent of parents at Holy Family using the school's system within two weeks of its implementation.

'It is an invaluable, easy-to-use system that doesn't require a steep learning curve,' said Dawn Huskey, media instructor at Holy Family Catholic School. 'MyInfoPage has enhanced communications between our families and our faculty making us a united force in the educational process for our students....'

'We see this quickly becoming a vital tool for busy parents who can now check up on their children's progress and communicate with teachers online rather than relying on their children to bring home slips of paper or waiting for parent-teacher conferences,' said Directory Xpress CEO Paul Kasinski...."

This is huge, and I wish it was going through the school libraries, but let's still recognize that this is how RSS goes mainstream and users' expectations for information flow change.

And it's not just our users, it's ourselves, too. Another NewsGator press release:

"The Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced today that it has partnered with NewsGator to launch an online service that delivers RSS feeds to the desktops of thousands of information professionals. This exclusive service is free only to members of SLA, and is available at www.sla.org as part of the SLA News Connections.

'Access to online content is nothing new to our community,' said Janice R. Lachance, Chief Executive Officer of SLA. 'Access to real-time RSS feeds, however, is new to the business world, and we saw this as an opportunity to expose our members to a practical solution through their SLA experience....'

SLA News Connections now includes access to open Web content driven by NewsGator’s reader. Members of SLA can access the content through the 'Resources' tab on the SLA home page...."

I'm a little bummed that SLA gets to do this first, because I was really hoping to do something similar for ALA members, but the early bird and all....

One point I want to make, though, is that while NewsGator is doing a phenomenal job of bringing RSS into the business world, you don't have to pay for an RSS solution for your employees or your users. There are plenty of good, free options we can use, and strategic use of OPML files can help with deployment and maintenance of feeds (that's a major piece I really want to investigate through ALA). Yes, NewsGator makes integration into Outlook/Exchange and maintenance of that integration very easy, but you can just as easily teach Bloglines (web-based), BlogBridge (desktop), or other solutions.

There are huge opportunities for libraries and librarians in the world of RSS - IF we want to seize them.

I am happy to report that this year's Internet Librarian conference was as great in person as it sounded on paper. It was great to see so much of the "new" stuff in the titles and descriptions of the sessions. As I noted in my welcome to the public libraries track, I went through the program and counted at least nine mentions of RSS, at least five mentions of podcasting/videocasting, at least seven of "social software," at least seven of "web 2.0," at least two of "Library 2.0," at least six of mashups, two of Flickr, and I lost track of the number for wikis.

Just as great were the several references to "user-centered planning," "user-centered experienced," and "user participation," and the sessions for all of these topics were generally pretty full. I was especially heartened to see so many sessions focusing on real-life examples of Library 2.0 as models for any type of library. It's great that we've gone from Michael Casey coining the term "Library 2.0" a little over a year ago to such practical examples in just one year. As Helene Blowers noted in her Learning 2.0 talk, life moves fast, but I continue to meet a lot of librarians who have embraced change (both internal and external to our profession), a "play" attitude, a willingness to try new tools, and an open mind.

Some highlights for me (excluding folks like Michael Stephens and Aaron Schmidt who I get to see present more often), in no particular order:

• David King's sessions. I really enjoyed both of David's talks that I saw, one on experience planning and one on videocasting. He has really stepped up his presentation style, incorporating multimedia and his great sense of humor. His examples were relevant and supported his points well. I am enamored of his videos.
• The Flickr session. Michael Porter did a wonderful job of presenting Flickr and why it's so great for libraries, plus he played audio and ran the slides for presentations from international speakers who couldn't be there in person. (I looooooove Picture Australia!) I am happy that Michael is doing his own Library 2.0 roadshow on the west coast and hope he gets to keep doing it, because he is also a great presenter with a wonderful sense of humor (and I'm not just saying that because he gave me a kiss). Michael Sauers did a nice job of rounding out the session by showing the really fun side of Flickr that addicts us all.
• Cliff Landis' talk about Facebook. Cliff is just like you'd think he is based on his blog, and I enjoyed hearing his thoughts about how to use social software in academic libraries. More humor, more practical advice, nice style.
• Helene Blowers talk about Learning 2.0. When Michael Casey couldn't make it to the conference, Michael Stephens and I could easily have filled the time ourselves, but instead we took advantage of the opportunity to ask Helene to talk about her wonderful initiative at her library. Judging by the buzz at the conference and on the blogs, we made the right choice! Helene is a great speaker (more of that great librarian humor) and her enthusiasm is contagious! Of course, I already knew this, having worked with her on the ALA L2 Bootcamp, but it was gratifying to hear how her staff responded to her L2 intiative.
• Tammy Allgood's demo of the Flecther Library's library instruction game. Well, her whole talk, really, but the demo was the icing on the cake. It looks deceptively simple, but Tammy did a great job of explaining how much work and planning is behind the endeavor. I look forward to hearing more about the project and getting to play it myself. ;-) Seeing what the librarians at ASU West have done in this area is inspiring, and I wish I'd known they were so far along, as I would have included them in my forthcoming issue of Library Technology Reports on gaming.
• Liz Lawley's closing keynote. Of course. Because it focused on gaming and, well, because it was Liz, who I want to be like when I grow up. I loved her comparison of gaming now with blogging a few years ago, and in the beating a dead horse category, she was really funny while making some pretty strong arguments in favor of the relevance of gaming to libraries. I thought she did a great job of summing things up, not just for the conference but for one particular moment in librarianship.

While I didn't encounter any new concepts, I learned something from almost every session I attended, and it's one of the few conferences I've been to lately where there weren't any real dead spots. There were a lot of other sessions I heard were great, and I wish I could have cloned myself to attend them all (hello, Second Life Library folks, Steven M. Cohen, Karen Coombs, and Gary Price, among so many others). So a big thank you to everyone that presented (especially in the public libraries track - you folks rocked!), and kudos to Information Today for putting on such a great show.

LISZEN: Library Blog Search Engine

"Wanting to find out what other librarians are saying about Library 2.0? Or perhaps you can’t remember who talked about 'Fighting the Stereotypes!' a few weeks ago. Welcome to the search engine for librarians!

I’ve been slaving away, taking links from LISWIKI and importing them to Google Co-op. The result is a custom search engine that sifts through 530 individual blogs." [Library Zen]

I plan to look at Google Co-op more closely thanks to John Chrastka and now Garrett (nice job, dude!). The whole thing is fascinating to watch, because many other companies got there first, but it's a great movement to see in the search world in general.

Check out these pages on the Nashville Community High School Library's website for a great use of RSS in any type of library.

• Library News - shows the bestseller list from the New York Times
• Local and World News - shows headlines from a variety of news sites

Librarian Katie Marsh totally "got" RSS and noted to me she is thrilled to be able to offer her patrons quick access to newspapers to which her Library doesn't subscribe. Katie rocks! :-)

The power of RSS.

Liz Lawley’s closing keynote for the conference

wanted to rename her presentation “Girls Just Want to Have Fun!”
then tried “All Work and No Play….”
ended up with “All the world’s a game… and all the men and women merely players”

has seen a lot at this conference about games, gaming, and fun
almost titled it “all the library’s a game” but doesn’t think we’re there yet

her hosting provider deleted the last week of her posts, but she was able to get them back from Bloglines

started four blogs (mamamusings, many 2 many, misbehaving.net, and terra nova)
could talk about her professional life, social software, or gender inequality in the technology world, but wants to focus on gaming (terra nova)
finds herself talking about gaming the way she used to talk about blogging – it’s important, pay attention

showed Jeff Trzeciak’s post wanting a gaming librarian

showed Galataea (Liz) in World of Warcraft (was mentioned in Newsweek article recently)

got pulled into WoW by the person who first commented on her blog

found herself playing WoW with colleagues she knew in the real world

plays with her 12–year old son
in the game, everyone looks like an adult
she started getting IMs from a venture capitalist in Japan telling her that her son was ninja-ing loot in a game

was invited to start playing with a group of researchers

showed Michael Stephens’ avatar
“one of the topics in the closing keynote was his tight jeans”

Jane McGonigal and Cory Ondrejka playing “oof!” at O’Reilly’s Foo Camp
a reverse scavenger hunt
your team is told to go gather 10 items in 10 minutes
then you get the list of the things you’re supposed to find
each time has to justify how each thing they got matches the list

of all the things she did at Foo Camp, the game was the most engaging and is what she remembers the most

games are a very powerful way to build an emotional connection between the people that play them and the place where they play them
this is relevant to libraries

showed the game Werewolf
each person around the table is given a card telling them if they are a werewolf, a villager, or a seer (there are 2 werewolfs and 1 seer)
everybody closes their eyes and goes to sleep
werewolves open their eyes and make visual contact with each other
then they pick somebody to kill (can’t make noise doing this)
closes their eyes and seer opens her eyes
guesses who are the werewolves and gamemaster answers yes or no
villagers than guess who the werewolves are

it’s such an engaging game that alpha geeks don’t pine for their computers

games: rules, structure, attempt to pursue a goal

showed Helene Blowers “Learning 2.0” initiative and asked how is this not a game?
rules, structure, pursuing a goal
gave staff motivation

it’s extraordinary what people will do for a free piece of Tupperware
motivation – think about this in the context of a library
what are the incentives for people?
what can you do to make it fun? to pull them in?

mentioned “I Love Bees” game (ubiquitous game – also known as an alternate reality game - for Halo)
how to reclaim public spaces that have fallen into disuse (libraries?!)

Jane McGonigal’s “Cruel 2 B Kind” game?
each person is given a weapon of kindness (“a game of benevolent assassination”)
each also has a weakness – one particular nice act will knock you out of the game
to kill someone with your serenade, you have to serenade everyone
in the process of killing people off, you’re doing nice things for everyone around you
what’s not nice about this?
how could we use something like this in libraries? how can we help people and make it a game?

Jane’s game “Tombstone Hold ‘Em Poker” about cemeteries
tombstones have four different kinds of tops (pointed, rounded, diamonds, decoration) plus a numbering system
all of a sudden, every tombstone is a unique card
have to be touching a tombstone at the same time in order for two to have the same card
people go to cemeteries to play this

Liz talked to Jane about how they could reclaim public schools (via gaming)
summer reading program is really a game for kids (rules, guidelines, goal, prize) and it’s a game that really works
it works for more than just kids

showed Stephen Abram – “context is king, not content,” “”it’s about unfettered experience,” “what’s the immersive experience we’re creating in public libraries”

remarkably similar to Jane McGonigal’s game development theory – http://www.42entertainment.com/see.html
this is a convergence

same URL – three types of gamers
– casual (they seek a guide to help them through an experience)
– active
– enthusiastic

librarians are guides!

http://www.macfound.org/education – Macarthur Foundation on Digital Media, Learning, & Education
expanded it by $50 million to focus on informal learning in games

big gaming in education community, but less so in libraries
huge opportunity for librarians to think about how games play a role in informal learning

the interesting and innovative stuff happening in libraries right now is in gaming
the more she poked around, the more heartened she became
wants to encourage everyone, including those that think they aren’t gamers or who think that gamers aren’t part of their audience
seven and a half million people play WoW – that’s a really big number

this is really, really big
this is going to change the way people use your tools and think about what they want in an information environment

audience question: comments about Second Life Library?
Liz: doesn’t believe that Second Life is a game but with that caveat, thinks Second Life is a really interesting starting point; absolutely applauds what they’re doing with the Library there, but it’s not the end point; has some big flaws (kids can’t get in), classes in SL that excludes 17–year old freshmen troubles her, requires a credit card even if they don’t charge you, which troubles her; thinks SL gets a pass on this stuff because they’re the only game in town; thinks SL is like AOL ten years ago, but won’t end up there; will be more distributed; she doesn’t find it particularly compelling, but her son loves the teen grid; feels like she spends too much time trying to figure out what’s going on, as opposed to WoW sandbox levels (the first five-minute experience); it’s a great experience for the first-time user in WoW, and too often we forget how hard/overwhelming it is to be a new user (used the example of University of Michigan Library as an example of being lost; eventually she was hired there, which gave her motivation and a prize – a paycheck – which changed her perspective)

audience question: familiar with Project Croquet?
Liz: not familiar with it

audience question: is there a researchers guild in Guild Wars?
Liz: doesn’t know, but is about to start a wiki about this

il2006

Syndication and Website Content: Suggestions for Blogs, RSS, and Internal Syndication by Walter Nelson

wanted a graphic of a hammer and a nail with a pistol to illustrate this topic
using blog-related tools in other ways

RSS - the "I don't get it" factor
very few customers understand RSS
you have to meet your customers where they areÖ
-not where you want them to be

simplifying RSS - everyone gets "web pages"

uses Movable Type for blogging and Feed2JS for parsing feeds

showed the "announcements" section in the RAND intranet displaying RSS feed from a blog
"library tips" section is also a feed

the blog creates a searchable archive
when click on title to go the full entry, doesnít look like a blog post because they've edited the template

using static feeds to maintain resource lists or menus

"only a fraction of empowered users use the power"

Using Blogs for Internal Communications by Karen Coombs

they have committee blogs, blogs for service points, and for working groups

committee blogs are used to make announcements, post minutes and other committee documents, and to gather feedback on what the committee is working on

unresolved issues
- feed subscription issues because the blogs are private for viewing
- how does this fit within their existing intranet? not sure
- integration with existing authentication and authorization systems (yet another password to remember right now)
- keeping up with changes to blog permissions

No One Cares that You Have a Blog ñ Aaron Schmidt

it isn't about the technology
it is about connecting
it's about what they can contribute to your website and what kind of relationship they can have with you on the web

showed:
WPopac by Casey Bisson at Plymouth State University
list of DVDs at Thomas Ford Memorial Library done as a blog; posts link to the DVD in the catalog, but it allows for comments
Western Springs History site - showed a reference transaction in the comments of one house

tips and tricks:
- use Flickr Uploader to send photos to your Flickr site
- use "blog this" from Flickr to show your pictures on your library's blog
- recommended libraries use Flickr badges to display pictures on their sites

showed Westmont Public Libraryís new books shelf in Flickr :-)

showed spell check in Firefox 2.0

mentioned Meebo Me widget for library blogs/sites

blog elsewhere
- get your content out into other pieces of the blogosphere and elsewhere
- contribute to blogs in your community, not just on your own blogs
- wants a nationwide project to spend even just a half-hour a week contributing to social websites under the login "library"; would be amazing PR for us

follow through
- a little bit of planning goes a long way for this

thinks libraries are at a sink or swim point with blogging
it's mainstream and there are many libraries are doing this

il2006

Learning Objects - Shu Liu

a learning object is an online tool that includes a learning objective, a learning process, and a means of assessment to help learns digest a specific piece of knowledge, or master how to complete a specific task

charactersistics of learning objects - digital, individual, interactive, reusable

teaching as a pyramid
courses on the bottom
units
lessons
learning activities
learning objects ó> objective, process, assessment circle

Wisc-Online (Wisconsin Online Resource Center) free repository of learning objects
showed her favorite exampleexample ñ ì12 cranial nervesî about the human brain
animated learning with a quiz at the end

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resrouce for Learning and Online Teaching)
a continually growing catalog of online learning materials to help faculty enhance instruction
showed example of ìphotography through the eyes of immigrantsî

Microsoft Office Online Training (would have shown example ìGet to know Excel: Enter formulas)

Apple Learning Interchange 2006

Game On! : Developing a Game for Library Instruction - Tammy Allgood

"Quarantined" game

discussed the numbers behind ìwhy gamesî

learning objectives for freshmen (who the university just started serving five years ago)
ñ library as a physical and virtual place
- liubrary srevices
ñ types of resources

started the project with a board games, even though they wanted to start with a video game
wanted to take a step back and do something they could do easily
the board game has become really, really popular
doing this was very successful and was a great way to start
introduced fall 2005
helped them with introducing gaming as an instructional tool

"Information Pursuit" is the name of the board game
lots of interactive, question squares, which ask about library resources or services
if you land at ASU, you have to spin ìthe wheel of fateî
ìbook wormholesî
experimented a lot with this game

student comments:
- "it was fun! I didnít fall asleep or anything"

professors liked it because the students were interacting with each other

tried to work assessment into it, but just used basic assessment "what did you learn from the game"
learned from this, too, though, so will try to measure more based on task

computer game development began spring 2006
group of five people
web development, flash development, databvase design, lower division instruction expertise, extensive research in gaming as an educational tool
had funding from library dean to hire an outside programmer
used flash as their platform because itís fairly universal with no extra downloads, no blocked ports

documentation
- project plan
ñ high concept document "Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design" book
- game treatment document
- game script

example game script at http://www.designersnotebook.com/Wanna-be/ctaylordesign.zip

timeline applications
- game play design, storyline decisions, documentation = 5 months
- design = 2 months
- character interactions = one month
- information retrieval = 2 weeks
- sound creation = 2 weeks
- animations = 2 weeks
- bug tracking and documentation = 1 month

make sure you get documentation from your programmer

finding programmers
- consulted with Game Design Instructor at the Art Institute International in Phoenix - possible student project? decided no
- posted on local Tech ListServ
- Flash Game Programming Wiki
- game creation websites

hiring programmers
- asked for portfolios from top 3 candidates
- chose candidate with the most edugaming experience
- top candidate was able to recommend game designer

deliverables
- game logo
- game design (map, isometric tiles, building interiors, characters, icons)
- game skeleton (character walking paths)
- character interactions
- information retrieval systems
- animations

story is that a virus is loose on Any State University (ASU) and the campus has been quarantined because of this
canít use any external resources/websites - only internal resources
"virus outbreak agents" who capture you moving around campus and put you in a holding cell
have to save your friend, a computer geek hacker; he has contracted the virus and he has 30 minutes to live
talked to the students and the violence didnít both them at all
administration wanted them to cut it down a little bit, but people do die in the game
interaction screens pop up when you need to talk to a character

essential sources
- "Games, Learning, and Society Conference" (JL - yay!)
- 3 other titles

http://www.west.asu.edu/libcontribgame/website/

words of wisdom:
- do your research
- think about starting small
- don't underestimate time needed for design
- keep the development group small
- project manager should have some understanding of game development
- follow document requirements found in Rollings and Adams on Game Design
- don't underestimate time needed for design
- hire a professional

game is still under development

to win the game, you have to get the right combination of three books, two articles, and a tissue sample from the dead mule at the dig on campus that you ultimately find out is causing the outbreak

can bribe VOA agents to get out of the holding cell with candy bars you can accumulate
get candy bars in the lunch room at the vending machine
will be able to walk up to terminals in the library to do your research

il2006

Paul Pival

all of the tools they will show today is freely available and usable by everyone

can use Javascript to route around not having access to your servers; just have to be able to sneak a snippet of code into your HTML pages

collected URLs on http://paulandmeredith.pbwiki.com/tools

started out with a dynamically generated teaser page of “library info”
– new books section is from an external source

what is wrong with traditional subject pages?
– not often updated
– not easy to add content to if you don’t know HTML
– no academic field is static, so perhaps a static web page isn’t the best tool for a subject guide

defined RSS and Javascript as terms

what sort of content might you want on a subject page?
– subject headings and other subject guidance
– useful databases
– useful journals
– useful books
– new books in that subject area
– new articles in that subject area
– useful web sites
– instructional materials
– subject-related news

gave some database examples you could use
sites that list journal feeds
social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us (San Mateo Library – DDC), blinklist, and furl
podcasts, screencasts, vidcasts

Meredith Farkas

syndicating RSS feeds onto a web page
showed how to use Feed2JS to display a feed on any web page
mentioned Grazr

can output your list of feeds into an OPML file

showed a page that is built dynamically using feeds from various places, noted where each one comes from

Paul showed RSS feeds in Blackboard

back to Meredith

mixing multiple feeds into one using KickRSS, RSS mix, feed blendr

noted you can also get RSS via email using sites like rmail (can put their widget on your site so they can subscribe)

creating feeds for sites that don’t have them – feed43, RSSxl, feedyes

calendars with RSS feeds – RSSCalendar, Calendar Hub

il2006

Aaron Schmidt

feels like Munch’s scream about MySpace and doesn’t have an account himself, but doesn’t think that means libraries shouldn’t be there
confusing interface, lots of ads

showed Thomas Ford ML MySpace account
Denver PL’s eVolver site – has a song, looks like a teen’s site
UIUC Undergraduate Library
Liberty Librarian – used to be a school MySpace account, but now all of the references to the school are gone

showed user-generated videos about MySpace
teaching each other the bad side of MySpace

– teach a “MySpace tips and tricks” class
– classes for parents, educate them about it and how to guide their kids
– historic figure/book character project as a MySpace page where the students add the content

make friends

bulletins are very effective marketing

tips:
– be authentic; let your teens be your voice
– give up control
– have fun
– consider who want to be
– include a song and video
– include a MeeboMe widget

MySpace in your library – is it banned in your institution?

statistics show you are in more danger at home than on MySpace
most horror stories are false reports

is it a fad? yes, but it’s part of a larger trend

showed MyOwnCafe from the Southeastern Massachussetts Library System

Cliff Vandis – Valdosta State University

YouTubed the audience

what are the questions we should be asking?
– what is the nature of this technology?
– how are my patrons using this technology?
– how can I use this technology to benefit my patrons? (traditional services, innovative services)
– how will this technology improve my service?
– how should we identify ourselves?

“Identity Performance” – profiles (dynamic and static)

Social networking – connections between individuals create a network (Vizster)
“she’s my friendster, but not my friend”

Groups and identity
– 4th Floor Odum Library Bathroom Users (active)
– Odum Library Is Only Good for One Thing and that Thing Is Facebook (group identity; he joined to see what they were saying about the library)
– I Like to Hang Out in the Library After Hours (failed group identity; only one person in the group, so it’s a failure)

some people join a group just to be identified with that group, not to be an active contributor

– image representation
– one-on-one communication (preferred over email for this group of people)
– communication in groups
– writing on walls (communicate with the whole community)
– sharing pictures
– linking to other social networks and websites

can buy “flyers” – ads along the side for marketing

reference
– consultations
– groups
marketing
instruction

innovative uses
– acquisitions (students letting the library know what books they’d like the library to buy – within facebook, where they already are)
– “ubiquitous librarianship” (using a student’s public information (blog) to meet their information needs (Brian Mathews)

how will facebook improve my service?
– the user-centric approach
 – Karen Schneider’s “The User Is Not Broken” (JL: yay!)

noted libraries that put themselves in facebook and had them taken down because they were institutional

started a global “ask-a-librarian” group
– folks will message him by the discussion board
– or they’ll write a question on the wall
system acts like a knowledge base, so can see answers to previous questions

how do we represent ourselves? especially as “the library”
– the living library (Kresge Library and Tisch Library have great descriptions of themselves)
– the librarian collective (UIUC Undergraduate Library)

recommends if you’re going to start now, do it as an individual, not your institution, since they are shutting down institutional accounts
it’s not a bad thing to be a human being; can bridge the librarian anxiety gap

what if your identity is chosen for you?
– “I be on my cell phone in the library” and “hide and seek in Odum Library” groups
– student who started a profile of Brown Library but isn’t affiliated with it

who “owns” the library?
– we think of it as “mine” since we work there
– university sees it as “mine” because is part of the institution
– students think of it as “mine” because designed for their use

take the compliment and work with the students to get the word out about the library

(JL: during the presentation I requested to be friends with Cliff in Facebook. When I logged in, I saw that David Free’s birthday is tomorrow, so I sent him a message within Facebook, and he responded during Cliff’s presentation.  :-)  )

audience question: how choose between the two?
Aaron: was based on age, although Facebook just opened up to everyone
Cliff: don’t have to choose just one, but we chose Facebook because we know it’s an audience we have

MySpace IM is broken a lot; they know a lot of people who use Meebo or other chat aggregation programs
can’t add things to Facebook like you can to MySpace
MySpace is highly editable, usually for the bad, whereas you can’t change anything about Facebook

audience question: confidentiality of patron questions in Facebook ask-a-librarian group?
Cliff: users are aware in that setting that their questions are open to the whole group

il2006

Michael Porter and Lluisa Nunez

(I missed blogging most of Michael’s presentation because I had to reboot my laptop, but he’s a great speaker!)

“conditional subject tags” in the description of the “Libraries and Librarians” pool (JL – what other group on earth would have a heading of “conditional subject tags?!”)

Lluisa talked via a recorded presentation about tagging for the group (it definitely doesn’t feel like “cataloging” or work) and starting the geobloggers map
showed Yahoo Flickr map

we are the authors, users, and librarians all at the same time in the group

Tony Boston from the National Library of Australia – PictureAustralia group (via recorded audio) http://www.pictureaustralia.org/

map Dublin Core elements to Flickr XML elements for metadata quality
encourage users to make good tags and titles

two aims:
– to increase the number of contemporary images inPicture Australia
– to engage with new audiences

Fiona Hooten from the NLA – PictureAustralia

marketed the project in broadcast and print media
43% increase in the number of pageviews
there are pictures of events that might otherwise not be there because of Flickr

– presents PA in the user environment through the use of emerging web and social tools
– creates structure for active user participation (which they seem to very much want)
– provides ability to view past and present history together
– engage with new audiences

Michael Porter again – groups, community, sharing, connections, resources, examples, inspiration

Fun with Flickr by Michael Sauers

fd’s flickr toys
librarianswithgiantcalculators tag
Springfield Public Library
Nancy Pearl Action Figure group
jail finds
librarian trading cards
color pickr
retrievr (drawing)
flickr leech (searching)
flickr graph (visualizing contacts)
clockr
spell with flickr

audience question: what if you flickr a picture your boss doesn’t like (especially signage)
Michael S: doesn’t flickr pictures from libraries he works at
Michael P: personality comes through in our flickr accounts, just as in our blogs, and you are in total control of your account

audience question: is it safe to assume anything you post on flickr is okay for public use?
Michael S: flickr does allow you to set creative commons licenses on your photos (default is all rights reserved), but that doesn’t really stop others from using it; can set your own license
Michael P: if you want to find pictures for your library to use, you can use tags to find them (which is why he is such a big advocate for it)

audience question: what about the simpsons images?
Michael S: nobody has sued us yet; somebody else created the tool; parody? I’m not a lawyer

il2006

Greg Schwartz

gave an ultra-quick overview of podcasting:
– uses RSS; not just putting audio up on the web
– allows end-users to subscribe to your content and get automatic downloads of the new stuff
– is about regularly updated audio content

have to figure out if this is right for *your* patrons
don’t just do it because he says to or because others are doing it (do learn why others are doing it, though)

time to plan, record, edit, publish, and promote it

could podcast:
– programming (get permission first)
– upcoming events and library news
– bibliographic instruction
– services for the visually impaired
– staff training/communication
– whatever your imagination holds

Nine easy steps to podcasting
1. determine content and format
2. assemble equipment and people
3. record
4. edit and export to mp3
5. listen!
6. upload file to server
7. generate your RSS feed (which is what makes it a podcast)
8. publish feed URL
9. promote. respond. repeat. (need to provide a way for people to give you feedback about it and then you need to respond)

http://sirsidynixinstitute.com/archive.php for a webinar guide Greg did

Video Podcasting @ INCOLSA by Jeff Humphrey

why they are doing it:
– because they can (already have video content)
– natural progression of existing services
– looking for a different delivery solution

they’re writing their RSS feed from scratch
partnered with IUPUI SLIS class

what they had in place:
– experience
 – video end
 – IT end
 – workshop end (they have a release form for using a workshop you do to help them promote their services)
– equipment
– space
 – physical
 – virtual
– content

what they need to do:
– find a better space for videos
– convert to a blog format
– continue production on a regular basis
– foster more partnerships (showcase what libraries are doing)

production tips:
– have a reason to include video
– invest in a good microphone
– frame shots properly
– enhance production with graphics
– have fun

Listen Up! : Podcasting @ GPC Decatur Library by David Free

started podcasting in February 2005
was one of, if not the, first libraries to podcast

Eight things he learned about podcasting:
1. make sure it feeds (via RSS)!
2. promote. then promote some more
3. keep it short
4. use music sparingly
5. multiple voices rock (talked to different people around the campus)
6. podcast your events
7. consider your web presence
8. listen to your listeners

under the hood:
– USB microphone
– Audacity software for recording
– 96 kBit/s MP3
– liberated syndication (for hosting; Odeo and OurMedia for free hosting)
– Feedburner (smarter feeds)

Off the Rack: Podcasts uses and content for broad educational process support by Shawn Cordes

– engagement (time issue; provide alternate forms of content)
– interaction (make it part of your own process; in shower, while jogging, etc.; lets users play with tools)
– reflection (lets users analyze sources and content in new ways – rewind, fast forward, skip around, etc. so they can make meaning of the content in their own way)

1. build a point of information
– chris kretz’s HigherEdBlogCon presentation – “Learning to speak: Creating a library podcast with a unique voice”
– iTunes U – build a podcast repository that integrates with your school

2. point to something someone else built
– Museum Podcast Directory – http://www.museumpodcs.com/id31.html
– Stanford (the model child) – http://itunes.stanford.edu/

non-classroom opportunities for podcasts
– build community on student experiences
– promote the library through podcasts
– podcasts as professional development tool

Introduction to Videoblogging by David King

http://davidleeking.com/etc/ – his videoblog
RocketBoom – http://rocketboom.com/

showed a Steve Garfield video

video aggregators – fireant, itunes, mefeedia
unlike audio, need multiple video players for the various formats

to create, need:
– computer
– video camera (miniDV is the current big standard)
– video editing software
– a blog
– formats

1. can store video yourself if you can handle the bandwidth
– going to need a server packed with memory
– possibly a media server – quicktime/WMV type thing

2. let someone else store your videos
– OurMedia
– blip.tv

libraries can:

1. traditional ideas
– book talks
– bibliographic instruction & tutorials
– film your events

2. more interesting ideas
– cultural memory project (video history rather than oral history)
– collaborative (PLCMC’sImaginOn, kids making videos)
– environmental (discuss environmental issues and nature (invite the zookeeper)
– behind the scenes (what goes on at the library)

3. slightly whacked-out ideas
– travel (videoblog local attractions, people going out of the country)
– political (invite local candidates in to discuss something)
– hobbies/lifestyles (patrons, staff, prominent citizens in a TV/magazine format)

il2006

Kathryn Deiss and Matt Gullett

new technologies are changing possibilities and roles for both IT and library cultures and for library customers
a fluid discussion

culture is a set of assumptions that a given group runs on because the assumptions have worked in the past and are considered valid by that group

“…the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration…” – Edgar Schein

easier to describe who “we” are by saying who “we” isn’t (IT says it’s not “us” and librarians say it’s not “us”)

what assumptions drive your organization’s culture?
– individual work vs. team work (libraries espouse teamwork, but the reward systems are built for individual work)
– deadline driven vs. all the time in the world

what three words would you use to define your culture?
can change the climate of a library easily, but not the culture (which is the set of assumptions everything is built on, according to Schein)

historic common ground between IT and library cultures:
– desire to do the right thing
– intention to create security and integrity of systems, catalogs, servers, and networks
– concern for the stability of systems and services created
– hard work to develop services for others

Myers-Briggs book “I’m Not Crazy, I’m Just Not You”

tension in the story:
– disruption is the norm
– customers create their own solutions (2.0); very new idea in the IT world, along with the idea of constant beta and constant change
– diverging cultures

tribal differences – Dunkin’ Donuts vs. Starbucks (paid DD folks to spend a week at Starbucks and vice versa)
– tell it to me straight (small, medium, large) vs. make me feel special (tall, grande)
– we are family vs. we are all unique
– we want to keep moving (why would I go to a coffee shop to sit on the couch, we don’t want to hang around) vs. we want a third place
– keep it simple (no music) vs. give us new stuff
– we’re earthlings (we’re part of this community) vs. we’re members of the universe (global feeling)

even though IT and libraries have some shared values, there are divergent behaviors and how some groups define themselves by what they’re not

our special peculiarities (differences)
– library cultures tend to be focused on process and discussion
– IT cultures tend to be closed in their approach to sharing information for specific reasons – not because of mal-intent or evil motive (who has to know what is vetted for security reasons)

a word about the customer:
– user = a descriptor signaling dependency
– customer = clear need/desire for a service
– patron = customer with admiration for what you are doing
– public = customers who understand they are paying for the services they receive

we perceive uniformity in service delivery as a good and definite need
does the long tail teach us anything about such a perception? is uniformity the way to go when you can sell your services in niche markets or smaller areas?

jitterbug phone vs. treo – is uniformity really so important?

the customer tribe
– boundary leaping
– authority appropriating
– learning-oriented
– inventors of their environments

any assumptions these cultures are running on that are based on uniformity as an essential good could be erroneous

learning is anxiety-producing but can lead to deeper understanding

Matt likes working with youth on opening these barriers up because that is where a lot of these issues are coming up

reflection and inquiry help you overcome your mental models
“why” is the most important you can ask if you do it respectfully

showed the Ladder of Inference
test your assumptions

if you really want synergy, Peter Senge says:
– jointly develop guiding ideas
– share theories, methods, and tools across cultures as much as possible
– develop an infrastructure that supports innovation

focus on commonalities and on differences
have compassion for the other culture, as well as for your own
your culture has been around since long before you came into it because it worked

audience question: if your IT people are stonewalling you, what you should do?
Kathryn: ask them a question, e.g. what would work for them; try to figure out what is behind their answer; try to get to their inferential ladder, e.g. ask what they are assuming will happen if we do this

audience question: do you see a role for leadership/administration in this area?
Kathryn: need to develop leaders throughout the organization, not just department heads; they have to be able to allow and facilitate discussion/dialogue; need training to have a dialogue; leaders need to facilitate conversation-building
Matt: sometimes administration leaves decisions to those they feel know more about it, but they need to take a role; usually it’s a lack of resources
Kathryn: sometimes it’s just putting the elephant in the room on the table; it’s a process that needs investment

il2006

Creating Synergy between your Website and Catalog – Glenn Peterson

OPAC developments: 2006
– “ILS Customer Bill of Rights” and “patREST,” both from John Blyberg (blyberg.net)
– NCSU/Endeca catalog
– NGC4LIB
– catalog searches everywhere
 – Amazon, Google, MySpace

showed:
–  Hennepin County Greasemonkey script in Amazon that shows the library owns the title and how many copies; can also click on that link to go right to the catalog (can get code at userscripts.org)
– a personalized Google page with HCL headlines and a search box for the catalog
– library catalog search box on the Library’s MySpace page; can also give that code to MySpace users who can add it to their page, too

how can we make our websites and catalogs work together to add value to the user’s experience and save the time of the user (Ranganathan’s Fourth Law)

two approaches:
1 – vendors are offering portal products
2 – integrate the catalog as one of many web-based resources

showed Fort Collins PL page and catalog, Ann Arbor site and catalog, and Phoenix PL’s site, all of which use the same navigation on the website and catalog (same template)

opportunities:
– links to titles for booklists (Indianapolis Marion County PL; increase in use of booklists at HCL when they added live links), newsletters, new book alerts, events listings
– links to catalog searches for pre-selected searches from subject guides, pathfinders, reader’s advisory
– make your links “smarter”
 – keeping your patrons logged in as they move around your site, included as they navigate your catalog (HCL sets profile based on user’s IP address and logs in the user)
– single login for viewing your items, commenting in the catalog, etc.

takeaways:
– learn how to link from your website into your catalog and look for opportunities
– explore ways to keep your patrons logged in as they move across your sites
– “mobilize” your catalog via RSS/email, Google gadgets, and MySpace

Nanette Donohue

LSTA grant for new website

first step – user survey
– asked features of website
– types of enhancements they would like to see

survey results
– most patrons said they came to site to use the online catalog and that they ONLY used the online catalog
– many said the catalog was unattractive and difficult to use

second step – setting goals
– integrate website into catalog, a la Hennepin County Library
– wanted spotlighted items, recommendations systems, etc.

third step – planning
– studied what other libraries have done in this area
– talked to the people that administered their catalog to see what could be done on their end without affecting other libraries’ use of the catalog (they’re part of a consortial catalog)
– investigated third-party solutions like Aquabrowser, Endeca, etc. (main drawback was cost)

as part of the planning process, they:
– considered what they liked and didn’t like about other libraries’ “improved” catalogs (resulted in a 30–page document!)
– considered the opinions of public service staff throughout the library, since they are closest to the user’s perspective of the catalog
– kept in touch with the consortium’s automation staff
– prioritized features into “must have” and “can wait for phase two” since they were under significant time constraints due to LSTA budget requirements

finally, they dreamed big because it was the best possible opportunity to make the catalog as usable as possible; didn’t want to dismiss any enhancements without making absolutely certain that they were NOT feasible; essential brainstorming with no negativity – threw it all out on the table

implementation: roadblocks (this is where things went downhill pretty fast)
– upcoming (major) ILS upgrades
– vendor unwilling to provide API
– consortial concerns
– time concerns (ultimately determined they couldn’t pull it off in the LSTA time frame)

Online Catalog 2.0 : where do we go from here?

what libraries can do?
– need to hire programmers if we’re going to embrace Library 2.0 (or grow your own)
– support vendors who are willing to release the API for their software and support third-party development of enhancements – or go open source! (even Microsoft is releasing its API these days!)
– insist on features that our “power users” want – because these are the features that the average user will want two years from now

what ILS vendors can do:
– anticipate user’s needs, and develop innovative products
– look at what libraries are doing with your products. implement some of their innovations as standard in the next version
– understand that no company can do it all and do it well. releasing your API and opening your software is a good thing

what catalogers should do:
– recognize we are competing with Google, Amazin, etc. – a little competition is a good thing. it can save us from complacency and inspire us to modernize our practices
– try to understand that user tagging is not the end of controlled vocabularies. can exist in tandem; helps provide user access at a different level, addresses deficiencies in subject access
– provide adequate subject access for all types of materials in all formats – regardless of whether you feel that the materials have “lasting value”

too often we catalog for cataloging’s sake

until we change the way materials are cataloged, any enhancements to an online catalog are tantamount to spraying pefrume on a skunk

we’re still working with rules that were applied for the card catalog

audience question: which scripting language to use?
Glenn: they went with coldfusion because it was available at the time and is very easy to adapt; can also go open source with PHP or Perl

audience question: any vendors that do share their APIs
Nanette: not sure, but their vendor said sure we’ll share it, but then wouldn’t
Glenn: uses same vendor, who says API is available, but it’s not what we would think of as an API

audience question: do you track users who download the Greasemonkey script for Amazon? seems to negate the “make it easy for me” concept
Glenn: haven’t tracked this; hopefully will be easier in future versions of Firefox because is clunky right now

audience question: looks like you’re saving user information to browser, are you encrypting it?
Glenn: using https if they want to connect using that; problems with vendor means they can’t do https on the vendor sign; don’t pass the user pin as part of the URL; use session number to go back and forth, which dies after the user session

audience question: keeping user profile on user IP address – what does that mean?
Glenn: it’s not the user’s IP, but if it’s internal or external

audience question: do you have anything on your site that goes back to the bookstores
Glenn: if there are no local comments for a title in the catalog, they’ll show Amazon reviews, with a link back to Amazon

il2006

David Lee King

showed examples of bad experiences on the web – ContentDM, flash/html choice library home page, zero results page in a catalog, being blocked for accessing del.icio.us too quickly,

then showed how flickr turned downtime message into a contest and how users had fun with it – they turned something negative into a fun, positive experience

wants to introduce us to the concept of experience planning – user-experience design and the experience economy model (staging experiences for the user)
mesh them together for the library website

Jesse James Garrett’s “The Elements of User Experience” (free version at http://www.jjg.com/)

five elements, corporate version:
1. strategy – user needs and site objectives; gather information about users (e.g., a usability study of your current site)
2. scope – focus on content requirements (what is needed on the site) and the functionality of what the site must include
3. structure – interaction design (application flows for user tasks with visio or mind manager) and then the information architecture of the site
4. skeleton – wireframing; where you start creating the site, but less worried about visuals and more about where pieces appear on the page; can start doing usability testing when it’s ready
5. surface – visual design of the site; hopefully by then everything is usable and is working correctly

library version:
1. strategy – planning
2. scope – figuring out what’s needed and who will do the work
3. structure – fill in the details
4. skeleton – an outline of the site
5. surface – visual design

don’t take 1–2 years to implement this model – still need to resdesign quickly

“The Experience Economy” by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore
“Priceless” by Diana LaSalle and Terry A. Britton
“The Ten Faces of Innovation” by Tom Kelley

Cold Stone Creamery – “celebrates the ice cream event” not selling ice cream

Build-A-Bear – you don’t pay, you “continue the experience”

types of experience:
– memorable
– choreographed
– positive
– invisible (how our websites are supposed to work – should just work well)
– negative
– ordinary

showed realms of experience (which can be mixed)

guidelines:

how?
– ask (what are the negative experiences your users are encountering?)
– save extra steps (cut down on the steps/barriers)
– trigger points (beds and alarm clocks for hotels)
– improve the dinosaurs (find something that hasn’t changed in a long time and improve it)
– map a journey (understand a customer’s mindset and where they’re coming from)
– merit badging (an actual emerging lifestyle – people are collecting experiences; e.g. instead of giving things to people, take them somewhere; visiting all the locations of a particular business)
– focused design (being seamless and focused in your design considerations)

applying this to library websites:

– ask your customers what they want (showed Superpatron Ed Vielmetti!); can also do usability studies with focus groups
 – when user fills out a form, take the neutral “thank you” page and do something with it; e.g., give them a library card number on the screen (Monterey Public Library does this!); link to the catalog, show some new books or videos, etc.; keep website visitors browsing on your site (stickiness)
– ask your staff what they’d like to see changed, what they’d like to do, etc.
– what extra steps exist on your website? (“Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug); do you *really* need all of that information you’re asking for in your forms?
 – library card applications
 – ILL forms
 – catalog searching
– trigger points
 – ask
 – figure out how to improve
 – are your databases easy to find online? can users login to their catalog accounts directly from your home page?
– find stuff that hasn’t changed (“We’ve always done it that way…”); e.g., DDS signage
– does the customer’s journey start at the door of your library? at the main page of your website? probably not; used taxes as an example; create a story for personas and then figure out how to fill their needs
– look for merit badge opportunities – how can your website be part of that process
– focused design; no hiccups, remove distractions, consistent look and feel; they just want your website to work

where to start:
– read the books mentioned and start thinking
– incorporate one thing at a time
– some is better than none

pretend you’re a patron! try to forget everything about your website, try to find something, and count clicks to find it

il2006

Sarah Houghton-Jan
will post her slides on her blog at http://librarianinblack.net/

where your users are online might not be where the library down the streets’ users are online

can’t pay lip service to online outreach – must devote staff time to it

your users are out there – where the heck are you?
arrogance of the worst kind to expect them to come to us
online, everyone’s patrons are your patrons
we need to put ourselves out where they already are
otherwise we lose and libraries become quaint mockeries of our former glory

everything in today’s presentation is free, although do have to devote staff time on an ongoing basis

1. make sure you are findable in the major search engines
search for variations and misspellings of your library name in Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, AOLsearch
are you the first hit? why not? figure out why and fix it; ask the engines to crawl your site (have they not crawled it lately because you haven’t updated your content lately?)
then expand to more minor or metasearch engines
has found that 20somethings use Dogpile a lot as a backup for Google

2. make sure you’re listed in library directories like LibDex, MapMuse, Libraries411, PublicLibraries.com, and Libraries on the Web
make sure your information is accurate!
do this on a 2–3 year rotation

3. list your library in Wikipedia on the appropriate town or county entries
put how great your library is – it’s Wikipedia – if someone doesn’t like that, they can change it  :-p
do it on non-English Wikipedias, too
mention if you have free wifi

4. make sure you’re in Wikimapia – http://wikimapia.org/

5. list your library events and services in local community websites and calendars
artsopolis.com, upcoming.org, eventful, craigslist
these sites will get much more traffic than your library site will so you can reach new users
look for other local calendars where you can add your events
don’t advertise events that are already at capacity – that’s bad customer service; might need to add more times for that event if you still want to advertise it

6. ensure that your library has a presence on local government, school, and community websites
if they don’t want to link to you, find out why
don’t tell them to just link to your home page – have them link to useful pages or services you offer for their audience
find out what existing listings say about your library, and if they’re not the image you want to put forth, talk to the site’s webmaster
ask for link love – it’s ok (it’s not prostitution!)

7. monitor local blogs, technology boards, continuing education boards, and other forums
not just about the library, but about what’s going on in your community as well
get a sense of what your community cares about
offer your expert research advice and assistance wherever appropriate (job hunting, etc.)
don’t intrude, but be available

8. create a profile for your library in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook
MySpace gets more hits each day than Google does
create a swanky profile on MySpace (public libraries) or Facebook (academic libraries)
be sincere and schmaltz-free; have a voice that’s authentic and avoid the techno-jargon of libraries
use informal voice and say “we” instead of “the library” (JL: yay!)
act as a positive influence in this space, as a model in your community

9. offer assistance (reference and circulation help) via instant messaging
email is for talking to old people – apparently the phone is for talking to dead people :-p
for many users, not being available via IM is like not having a phone
huge ROI

10. list your library in free wifi directories if you offer this service
wififreespot, wifihotspotlist, wifi411, etc.
advertising your wifi on little tent cards within your library just isn’t going to cut it

11. check reviews of your library on social review sites
decide up front if you want to participate and reply, and how
citysearch, insiderpages, judysbook, yelp (most popular)
when people take time to comment, it’s probably because of something negative, so be prepared
it’s important to address those complaints and to not be defensive
get on the forum with your individual voice and be there in a positive way

12. list your library’s blog on geographic blog search engines
people look for blogs based on their region
frappr, feedmap, blogwise, gfeedmap

13. are your items listed in WorldCat?
because of what OCLC is doing with WorldCat, it’s important to have your current holdings in there
have to update your holdings if they’re in there; otherwise it’s a bad customer experience

14. make sure you’re listed in Google Local
search for “yourlibrary, yourcity, yourstate”
school and public libraries are poorly represented in GL

15. push newsletters out via email and RSS feeds
harvest users’ email addresses from your ILS if you can (per the terms of your library card agreement) and start sending email newsletters
make the same newsletter available in HTML with an RSS feed
*push the information out to them*

16. consider being present in Second Life and other online game environments
mentioned Second Life Library 2.0 on Info Island (yay!)
get some experience with this because in 15–20 years, we’re all going to be working to serve these virtual users
we have to be ready to serve each others’ users and have to change our attitudes about this

17. list your staff as experts in various free expert-finding tools
allexperts.com, ziki, illumio, qunu, faqqly (ask questions of your network of friends), otavo (where users create a “quest” and other users suggest resources that will help)

18. make your audio and video content findable
it’s getting easier and easier to do this now
upload videos to youtube, Google Video, blinkx, singingfish (get indexed there – submit your pages there whenever you post something new)
upload to sites like yahoo podcasts, podcast.net, podcast alley, digital podcast, podscope, itunes, odeo, singingfish
transcribe your audio content in podzinger

19. make sure your library blog is listed in blog search engines
feed submitter, robin good’s list of where to submit your blog and feed, and RSS specifications list of where to submit your feed

20. subscribe to feeds to find discussions/content about your library
google news, yahoo news, ice rocket, technorati, feedster, bloglines
search for variations of your library’s name, too
to find videos taken in/of your library – youtube (http://youtube.com/rssls/)
subscribe to feed of your library’s name in flickr

instead of asking them to come to us, let’s put ourselves out there where they are

audience question: how sell administration on serving other libraries’ users
Sarah: we’re already doing this some areas, like in virtual reference; this is where things are going; there are no political or jurisdictional boundaries online, so we can decide to serve everyone or no one; not being online is not an attractive alternative

audience: recommendation for IM software
Sarah: Trillian for AIM, Yahoo, and MSN; could also use GAIM

audience: if our holdings are in WorldCat, does that imply that we’re willing to ILL with any library
Sarah: not necessarily, but putting your information out there you’re letting people know you own it; what message does it send, though, when you won’t lend that book out?

audience: rural libraries can’t do IM and MySpace because of filters
Sarah: why are you filtering? the amount of money get out of erate is not as much as they put into it for mainintaing the software, staff time, etc.; it’s no longer a responsible thing to do because it’s bad service; if you’re stuck with it, need to talk to people about IM being another communication mechanism; blocking it is blocking out an entire audience, which is inappropriate

audience: how much additional staff time is needed for IM reference for a population of 100,000
Sarah: depends if you staff it from the reference desk or the back room; can do either; if you do it from the desk, probably only get one or two questions per hour and it shouldn’t be overwhelming

audience: concerns about comments made to librarians via IM?
Sarah: came up with scripts for someone who is suicidal; can block a user if they are repetitively abusive; only blocked about 10 people over 3 years, but don’t let staff take abuse

il2006

Stephen Abram

has research that shows users are not coming in for books, even though that’s what they say
it’s about adding on, like to your house; L1 is still there, L2 is about adding on to that
talk about the family room and what you do there, not the tools that build it

I want to feel differently in this space; how should people feel in your space
sending out a brochure that you have books and databases won’t tell them how they’ll feel in your space

*context* is king, not content
it’s about unfettered experience, not about free
what’s the immersive experience we’re creating in public libraries?

five contexts about the library:
– learning
– research
– community and neighborhoods (virtual or not, all ages – knitters)
– workplace
– entertainment and culture (example of a library in an African-American community that took every item by an African-American author and put it at the front of the library – satisfaction went up and circulation went up 300%)

you don’t just pick one – you work on all of them

can make anyone click a button by making it bigger and flashier – that’s not making it usable

sides of a triangle of the library world – personas, usability tests, normative data

his project put their normative data through the same software used by the department of homeland security
can find peoples’ behaviors through their stories
led to seven specific personas

discussed millennials and their characteristics – format-agnostic, respect intelligence, high expectations, experiential, more liberal, entrepreneurial, achievement-oriented

discussed eye-tracking studies – A pattern for boomers, F pattern for millennials

grade 4 and younger don’t look below the fold; need to design web pages for these kids differently; start to go below the fold at grade 6

80% of learners are not text-based learners, yet librarians design text-heavy websites

five personality dimensions for searching (I missed the URL for reading further about this)
– extraversion was related to informal information retrieval as well as preference for thought provoking documents over documents which confirmed previous ideas
– openness to experience was related to broad information seeking, incidental information acqusition, ciritcal information judgement…
– competitiveness was related to lack of time being a barrier to information retrieval, problems with relevance judgment and competence in critical analysis of information. low levels of agreeableness forms a base for skeptical and critical thinking
– conscientiousness was related to preference for thought provoking documents instead of documents that confirmed previous ideas and use of effort in information seeking

project objective – understand and meet the expectations of public library users for services, content, and virtual interaction (interviewed 15,000 people, plus interviewed 5,000 libraries at ALA, PLA, and CLA)

a boomer would pick a topic to research, do the research, and forge ahead in a linear fashion
a millennial would pick several topics, do research on all of them, and then prune off the topics one by one until they are left with a final one

“Computers in Libraries” issue about University of Toronto personas

themes from the narratives from the project – interaction was at the top, followed by technology, efficiency, and money
wanted community, learning, quality, efficiency, money/risk from their library; not books or reading

talked about good citizenship (collaboration, encourage creativity, good use of our money, kids feel safe, nurturing, opportunities), other patrons creeped them out a little bit
imagine how powerful a brochure with the above words would be, as opposed to one about books and databases

inquisitive power user, disengaged seeker, ultimate tour guide, out-of-date IT, something-for-everyone resources

values – community, learning, quality, efficiency, money/risk

archetype of satisfied user is one that wants self-learning (cuts down searching, too many features)
two distinct groups – one that wants help, one that doesn’t; genealogists get too much help from librarians

content – library material types (frustrated patron is archetype)

service – quality librarian services (equal access, ease of use and efficiency, meeting customer needs)

7 SirsiDynix personas – discovery dan, haley high school, jennifer, mommy marcie, rick researcher, senior sally, tasha learner

example of using data – offer your internet research classes at the same time as your storyhours

il2006

Michael Stephens

users think of us as books
technology is just a tool

let’s expand the brand (from the “OCLC Perceptions” report):
– need to market ourselves, our profession, ourselves (be a sponge!)
– need to tell the stories of what happens in our libraries
– need to be transparent (experiences users have, not just numbers)
– break down barriers; think about the stories that your library is telling, especially in terms of signage
– go where the users are (Karen Schneider’s “The User Is Not Broken”) via things like instant messaging, adding user comments to the catalog,
– adopt a 2.0 philosophy; plan for physical and online experience
– learn from the gamers
– create a culture of trust, with patrons and with staff
– 5 phrases he never wants to hear in libraries again
 – we’ve always done it this way
 – he or she is a roadblock to anything new
 – the IT department won’t let us
 – I don’t have time for _________________
 – our director doesn’t like technology

plan, dream, & innovate
– emerging technologies committee
– have good meetings
– don’t be afraid to try

Helene Blowers

thought of herself as a “scout” at Computers in Libraries last year
found Michael Stephens and Michael Casey at the conference and for the cost of two staff coming to a conference, she brought them to her library for the whole staff to hear

loves “e’s” – empowering, expanding, evolving

Why L2?
life comes out you fast; showed Fabio with gray hair :-p

does training automatically mean learning? no!
getting out of your box

wanted to:
– encourage staff to take responsibility for their own learning
– reward staff for taking the initiative to complete 23 self-discovery exercises

how many in the room are at libraries with summer reading program? (all the hands went up)
this staff training program was the “summer reading program” for staff
– spread out over weeks
– self-paced
– reward the readers

have to do all of these things with your staff, too

“it’s not a training program – it’s a learning program”
they did no workshops, no tutorial sessions, no handouts or cheat sheets
just dangled the carrot, made suggestions via the exercises, and encouraged them to jump in the pool and play

gave MP3 players to everyone who completed the “23 things”
are having an additional drawing for a laptop
program was based on Stephen Abrams’ article about “43 things” you could to for self-learning about new tools

have 352 of 500+ staff signed up
24–branch library system, program was open to all levels of staff
has already given out 141 MP3 players

resulting in changing

blogging, photos & images, RSS & newsreaders, play week, tagging & folksonomies, wikis, online applications & tools, podcasts videos & downloadable audio; plus a month of extra exploration time
believes less than 2% were comfortable with downloadable audio, and yet they’re investing thousands of dollars in it each year; needed to put tools in their staffs’ hands that
each participant blogs their experiences to share with each other

staff are having a lot of fun creating their own images, etc.; created their own avatars, which wasn’t part of the program
built the program on completely free sites – didn’t have to pay for any of it
her library’s web services team didn’t have to set up a single thing

Three most important exercises in her mind:
1. review/self-reflection – using blogging to review habits of lifelong learning; it’s in their mission statement, it should apply to the staff, too
2. looked at OCLC NextSpace report – 5 perspectives on Library 2.0 – had participants pick one and reflect on it; our communities are changing, not just physical spaces – we need to be out there
3.

staff relied on each other & gained self-confidence in their own skills

Yarra Plenty Library across the country has started its own “ Web 2.0Bullent Train” Learning 2.0 program

lessons learned:
– build a program for late bloomers
– allow participants to blog anonymously
– communicate weekly using 1.0 methods
– focus on discovery & encourage challenges
– encourage staff to use each other & work together
– remember that it’s not about acceptance or *doing it right* – it’s about exposure & getting outside of our boxes
– & continually encourage staff to play!!!

audience question: did most of the staff use personal or staff time to do this?
Helene: it varied from branch to branch, although administration encouraged them to do it on staff time; some staff had so much fun and enjoyed it so much that it spilled over into their own time

il2006

We have a slight line-up change for Monday's Public Libraries track at the Internet Librarian conference. While we will dearly miss Michael Casey in the first session, we are thrilled to announce that Helene Blowers will be stepping in for him to talk about her Learning 2.0 initiative at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. You don't want to miss her discuss this successful program, so get a seat early for the 10:15 a.m. start!

Catching up on my "Colbert Reports," I was thrilled to see the pointer to what is now my favorite new wiki, Wikiality. I really hope someone uses this as the Internet Librarian conference this week.

We've gone a little wiki crazy at ALA, and I have two more to create today. In the near future, I will talk more about these, including an update on answers to my permissions questions about MediaWiki, but for the moment, I want to note that the Midwinter Wiki is officially open for contributions. The conference is in Seattle this year, and I'll be there blogging and Flickring, which I have duly noted on the Blogging Midwinter page. You can, too, if you will be attending. I am especially looking forward to OCLC's Midwinter Institute (which unfortunately I can't find a link for at the moment).

If you're doing a Learning 2.0 initiative, implementing an emerging technologies committee, or just trying to help your colleagues keep up, check out this article by Connie Crosby about Flickr, which includes this excerpt from an interview with Michael Porter.

Flickr is the Web Photo Tool Preferred by Superheroes and Librarians

"The ability to easily comment on and discuss images, put them in subject specific groups and have discussion threads within those groups makes Flickr much, much more than simply photo sharing. It actually helps deliver some of that 'promise of the Internet' we’ve always wanted more of. Understanding Flickr and all of its features (like groups, mapping, commenting, setting friends, tagging, etc) is also one of the very best ways to get a grasp on all of the “2.0” business that seems to be all the rage in library (and other) circles now. There is a reason you hear that '2.0' term all the time at conferences and in professional publications and 'getting' Flickr can be an amazingly fun, practical, engaging and psychologically rewarding 'Library 2.0' learning experience."[LLRX.com]

– Greg Notess

information landscape:
one constant is change
very noticeable in the area of search engines
showed how Google experiments with its search results (subsets within one result and suggested search terms after first three results)

commercial databases seem to change interface once a year
content changes are sometimes daily

The Internet Librarian: What are We?

Reinventing Ourselves?
– new skills vs. old skills

New(er) Technologies?
don’t want to lose the skills we already have

video
Sony ebook reader

Using all these?

Libarians as:
sponge (could have gone “black hole” but just sucks everything in and doesn’t share) – can be constant sponges for new information

what is our future?
– blogs, wikis, etc. only? no and yes

reinvention does not need to:
– ignore our strengths
– forget our skills
– or ignore our strengths

collection:
– print and online
– more to buy than ever before
- experiment with new offerings

organize:
– increasingly complex
– e-collections in catalog
 – or separate database
– OpenURL, CrossRef
– much still to solve

talked about using screencasting as a potential way to push instruction out

number of reference questions goes up when systems fail

potential and pitfall:
– blog
 – quick website
 – showed msu symposium blog – story about Lorcan Dempsey seeing a private post about him that didn’t get marked “private”
– “can’t find anything worthwhile” – asked how many people have said this about some blogs; from his perspective, it’s crucial to understand what a blog can potentially do, understand what it can’t do, and what happens when it fails

– RSS
 – alerts
 – news feeds
– showed Engineering Village’s RSS feeds and “blog this” button; none of his doctoral engineering students use aggregators or knew what RSS is

– Wiki Wake-up
 – shared editing
 – user contributions
 – conference wikis
  – issue of empty wikis; only the people interested in social software and wikis go to these and use them
– forums?

hype meter suggestion:
– how self centered are the discussions or the content?
 – blogs about blogging; goes mainstream when blogs stop talking about blogging; that’s when it becomes useful
 – Diggs about Digg; 10% of top Diggs are about Digg itself, although that means 90% are valid Diggs
 – wikis about wikis; see less of this there
– beware closed conversations

Web 2.0 Reality
– embedding content, in particular video
 – showed his library’s chat/reference statistics that are hosted on a different site (iRows) but are embedded in his intranet
– shared editing
 – showed Zoho online office suite; uses the planner, but couldn’t get his colleagues to register for the site to use it

Implementation Matters
– can we out-Google Google?
– Sirsi Catalog (absence of speed)
 – include cover screen shots
 – table of contents
 – summaries

Audience Matters
– can we out-Amazon Amazon?
– WorldCat
 – user contributed reviews
 – does WorldCat audience want this ability? kudos to OCLC for experimenting with this, but isn’t sure it’s going to work

New Technologies
– worthwhile to try
 – good tech PR if nothing else
 – find the winners
 – test with your audience, make sure it’s a good match

The Internet Librarian
– old skills and sources
 – side by side with the new
– continual learning
 – soak up new knowledge (conferences, reading, etc.)
– experiment and share

audience question: which Web 2.0 technologies have been most successful with students?
Greg: online chat, but no real traction with anything they’ve looked at up to this point; possible exceptions would be Facebook, MySpace; has yet to see one that’s a direct connection with the students at this point

audience question: takes point of triviality and ephemeral nature of blogs, but what our profession shows us is what is ephemeral today is not ephemeral tomorrow; today is a big day for blogging in the U.K.
Greg: agrees; gave example of older concept of “guestbooks,” which were precursors to comments today; much is ephemeral, much is fascinating

Tags: ILI2006

As a result of questions that came up in the preconference Michael Stephens and I did yesterday at the Internet Librarian International Conference, I've started a new section on the LibSuccess wiki for examples of library catalogs that offer live RSS feeds. I've organized it by vendor, so hopefully you can see what is going on in this area with yours. If nothing is going on, talk to your vendor!!

While I think it's important to get a snapshot of which libraries are offering this service, I think it would be even more valuable if we could also collect links to those libraries that are actually displaying RSS feeds from their catalogs, either on their own websites or on others', so please help fill in this section.

Although I know of several libraries offering feeds from their OPACs, I don't know what software version they are running, so all of the entries for this section are currently empty. This is not a space to list a vendor whose product offers feeds; rather it should be a list of libraries with a live and viewable implementation.

Hopefully it will grow and allow us to talk to each other to implement these services to help disprove the notion that RSS from the catalog is "just hype."

Graham Spooner & Gillian Wood, The College of Nursing

Graham showed a comic he made with the Comic Strip Generator :-)  http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

“Clinical Information Access” Project (CIAP)

showed a second comic strip he generated! :-)

it’s clear librarians are no longer the only ones in charge of these types of projects
most can be in our core business area
are we in the car or hitch-hiking along?

“information keystones”

have tried to add other resources onto CIAP; integrating them into existing brand

advocated for evidence-based practice; interesting division between being an early adopter (L2) and using EBIP
have to move out of our comfort zone a little
keep the things that work

they looked at the end goal and didn’t get bogged down in the turf wars
act as mediators
lots of patience and humour

Barbara Peacock, Nedbank (South Africa)

Centralised Information

millions of users who have never had a bank account before
microlearning

can’t look up information about football in 2010 (valid research) because it’s blocked by the bank’s filters
have one computer that is on dial-up and is off the network so they can do this kind of research

concentrated on making the interface as easy to use as possible because only 3 million of 45 million people have internet access
won’t admit they don’t know how something works

Andrew Lewis, The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (UK)

Shock, Horror, Computer Games are good for public libraries

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/onlinelibrary.htm

games they have made, not bought

“creating digital citizenship” – basically means using government services the government created that they don’t think anyone is using

data processing and manipulation is built into them
deliverable using existing information channels

showed three pilots of games

using cartoon trailers to advertise reading schemes

multi-lib program

no budget, very low-fi approach

1. reading challenge (annual event)
see 1,000 accesses of their games each month
it’s an ad for their reading program that everyone sees before getting to the games
games that develop mouse skills but “are mostly just fun”
“libraries – all the books you can eat”

2. talking customer comment form for young children
speaks each letter you type in the form, too, to help early readers

3. “Big Bad World” – a game about information literacy
goal is to find a lost pet, records your actions and decisions

immerse them in activities where they have to make choices about information

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/library_policies.htm

Tags: ILI2006

Graham Spooner & Gillian Wood, The College of Nursing

Graham showed a comic he made with the Comic Strip Generator :-)  http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/

“Clinical Information Access” Project (CIAP)

showed a second comic strip he generated! :-)

it’s clear librarians are no longer the only ones in charge of these types of projects
most can be in our core business area
are we in the car or hitch-hiking along?

“information keystones”

have tried to add other resources onto CIAP; integrating them into existing brand

advocated for evidence-based practice; interesting division between being an early adopter (L2) and using EBIP
have to move out of our comfort zone a little
keep the things that work

they looked at the end goal and didn’t get bogged down in the turf wars
act as mediators
lots of patience and humour

Barbara Peacock, Nedbank (South Africa)

Centralised Information

millions of users who have never had a bank account before
microlearning

can’t look up information about football in 2010 (valid research) because it’s blocked by the bank’s filters
have one computer that is on dial-up and is off the network so they can do this kind of research

concentrated on making the interface as easy to use as possible because only 3 million of 45 million people have internet access
won’t admit they don’t know how something works

Andrew Lewis, The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (UK)

Shock, Horror, Computer Games are good for public libraries

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/onlinelibrary.htm

games they have made, not bought

“creating digital citizenship” – basically means using government services the government created that they don’t think anyone is using

data processing and manipulation is built into them
deliverable using existing information channels

showed three pilots of games

using cartoon trailers to advertise reading schemes

multi-lib program

no budget, very low-fi approach

1. reading challenge (annual event)
see 1,000 accesses of their games each month
it’s an ad for their reading program that everyone sees before getting to the games
games that develop mouse skills but “are mostly just fun”
“libraries – all the books you can eat”

2. talking customer comment form for young children
speaks each letter you type in the form, too, to help early readers

3. “Big Bad World” – a game about information literacy
goal is to find a lost pet, records your actions and decisions

immerse them in activities where they have to make choices about information

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/library_policies.htm

Tags: ILI2006

Quality and Multitude: in the Digital Music Supply from Danish Public Libraries – Susanne Buus-Pedersen, Copenhagen City Library (Denmark)

a collaboration between Danish public libraries and Mymusic.dk/DIGIDI (Digital Internet Distribution)

financial support in the first project year came from the Danish National Library Authority
in 2003, Danish Minister of Culture announced a four-year plan to support the Danish music scene (2003–2007)
– legal digital music distribution
– popular music scene
– classical music education

netmusik.dk – a national onlien distribution platform for licensed music
for all Danish patrons
digital files of Danish music can be downloaded from database for a limited time

musikbibliotek.dk – a national library internet portal focusing on music in all its forms, including netmusik.dk

two sites support each other

top level is Danish libraries, represented by Library Consortium; enters into contracts with music publishers
files are distributed through Phonofile, which the music shops already use
files go to State Library, local libraries, and musikbibliotek

completely free of charge to the user

– limited free access to digital material in public libraries
– influence on library selections from publishing houses

free access is seen by Danes as a birthright, but this is changing in the digital world because of restrictions

debating the idea of offering local and other noncommercial music
should the libraries be acquiring local content for dissemination through DiGiDi?

proposed model
– musicians upload their music to netmusik and add metadata
– files go to Phonofile
– files then are filtered for library selections by a group of moderators
– files go back through system and are available through netmusik
– most become available for sale, but subset becomes available for library users

Tags: ILI2006

Wiki or Won’t He? The highs and lows of establishing a public sector wiki – Marieke Guy (UKOLN)

2.0 = an attitude, not a technology
things are changing for us, in the public sector
can we walk the tightrope of limited resources in this world?

a lot of people in the audience are using wikis (yay!)

one-page wikis like Writely and Stikipad versus multi-page wikis like MediaWiki, Twiki, Kwiki, Moin Moin, Instiki

Qwika – wiki search engine

public sector wikis:
government – Dowire.org, e-innovations, Bristol wireless, Flu wiki, Taskforce
could not find any U.K. libraries using wikis externally
higher education – DigiRepWiki, CETIS, Osswatch, h2g2, BBC intranet

general wiki issues:
– vandalism
– spam
– wiki etiquette
– searching (more tagging needed), archiving (ephemeral), organization of pages (no hierarchy)
– mark up (no standardisation)
– stopping your wiki from becoming an unmaintained storehouse of out-of-date information

organisational wiki issues
– organisational culture (freedom to move away from usual design, protocols, habits)
– liability, accountability, and copyright
– AUP
…more

IF Community Wiki
– using MediaWiki
– set up a knowledge base and a discussion base for peer group for how to use MW as a CMS for event

The Highs and Lows
what worked
– small group working – parallel session groups – changes are immediate, open access, great collaboration tool
– intranet discussion area
– once established techincal support isminimal
what didn’t work
– CMS discussion area didn’t take off, no champion for the wiki; need three people to launch a wiki – a midwife to launch it, a champion to get them to use it, and then someone to monitor it
– getting people to use it, SPAM

tie the wiki in more with the Institutional Web Management Community and related events
want to add more 2.0 ideas – syndication, tagging

ideas for your library
– book reviews
– comments section, suggestion box
– FAQs
– commonly asked questions (reference or general library)
– local history, personal stories
– course collaboration, e-portfolios
– library project work, input for research work

conclusion
– make sure people understand why it makes sense to share
– if your target group couldn’t converse offline then they probably won’t online
– important to reduce the barriers to participation by supporting the core group
– encourage accountability and group cohesion
– allow users to create their own pages
– guide new users
– be flexible
– be ready to try out an implement (or two)
– be patient

How many wiki people does it take to change a light bulb?
One, but anyone can change it back.

Brian Kelly
Reflections on Personal Experiences in Using Wikis

showed an early Wikalong wiki he used

showed spam in the wiki

encouraged librarians to add information to Wikipedia

then tried Twiki

warning tale about the wiki company not renewing their domain, so his wiki became filled with pornographic content; was fixed fairly quickly, though
this is not a reason to *not* use third-party services; everyone has the Google Toolbar but we don't worry about what will happen if they go away or get hacked

Tags: ILI2006

Phil Bradley

wants things to make his life and his job easier
doesn’t care what you call it

RSS is your friend

Watching pages

Searching with MSN (put search results in front of users)

Incorporate these things into your work, on your own website

Encourages libraries to have blogs because it makes it easier to put what you want users to see out there for them to see
– 2.0 makes it easier to share data back and forth

Showed his browser bookmarks and how messy they are, then noted del.icio.us, diigo, and raw sugar

Other options: Furl, Spurl, Squidoo

Talking to users:
– face to face (excellent, but limited)
– telephone (good, but limited)
– Email

Consider using instant messaging – always on, always available, can demonstrate online search with Messenger

Web 2.0 is about communities – easy to start or create community pages
– no longer lists of places to go – your start page does it all for you
– these can then be made available for other people, too

Share photographs with Flickr – library tours, events, new resources; also a superb information resource

Create your own search engine – don’t rely on Google, etc. – using Rollyo, Eurekster Swicki
for general or specific subjects

Create your own wiki – PBwiki

Podcasting and video

in summary:
– it’s about outreach
– it’s about users becoming partners
– librarians as publishers
– librarians become facilitators

you can, should, and must take control

Paul Miller – Bringing Libraries to Searchers

– open the library; ensuring all of the value and stuff in the library (and in librarians’ heads) gets out to where the users are
– push the library everywhere
– engage with actual and potential user communities

doing library stuff isn’t a task – doing research for your dissertation is a task, looking up cinema times is a task

showed Blyberg’s Google gadget winning entry for the Talis Mashup contest & runner-up Second Life Library

showed Innovation Directory on Talis site

What makes Library 2.0 possible?
– falling cost of storage
– falling cost of computer power
– growing connectivity, increasing prevalence of broadband
– camera 2.0 on mobile phones
– commoditisation; don’t have to anticipate demand in advance because can always slot in new pieces of equipment or bandwidth whatever to cope

The Three “O’s”
– open source
– open data (have to be able to let go)
– open APIs (let them build their services; no longer about centrally-controlled services offered up by the library or the state or anyone else)

Essence of Library 2.0 – architecture of participation
blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc. are expressions of this participation

librarians are doing an awful lot of this – are the vendors?
do they blog? do they have open APIs? they do they have open networks?

data mobility – share, move around freely; “lipstick on a silo?”

Project Cenote – “how do I get involved?”

need to liberate the data we have because we’re sitting on a goldmine
instead, we’re padlocking it and hiding it
our users have other ways to find information that isn’t as good but they will go there instead
need to get the data to the user and not force them to come to us
requires an open mindset and shared innovation

Brian Kelly – Web 2.0 and Library 2.0: Addressing Institutional Barriers

come to these conferences and hear great things, but go back to institution and IT says no so doesn’t go anywhere

organizational barriers:
– technology is immature
– it’s too costly
– user comments are scary, legal risks (copyright)
– infringements of guidelines (contradicts our policy)
– institutional inertia

why aren’t we doing these things?
Takeup of New Technologies – The Gartner Curve

IT services:
– don’t understand learning and teaching
– have no interest in what the users want
– we know what the users want and we’ll give it to you
– tend to work in silos

Beware the IT Funadmentalists
need to avoid simplistic solutions to the complexities
– open standards fundamentalists
– open source fundamentalists
– vendor fundamentalists
– accessibility fundamentalists
– user fundamentalists
– legal fundamentalists
– Web 2.0 fundamentalists

Librarian Fundamentalists
– think they know better than the user
– think users should be forced to learn Boolean
– don’t want the users to search for themselves
– still want to classify the entire web
– want services to be perfect before they release them

– many users are conservative and won’t care
– many will feel threatened
– many won’t like WiFi in libraries, lecture theatres, students chatting on IRC, Googling answers
– many will soon ask for WiFi to be removed, blocked from lecture theatres (including areas where it’s not yet available)

issues to think about – not just about technologies
cultural issues

addressing the barriers:
– a change in culture
– being more open
– revisit AUPs
– develop more sophisticated models for standards, accessibility, open source,…
– information literacy; staff development…
– safe experimentation

need to change catchphrase from “computer says no” to “yer, but, no, but, yer”
should be a dialogue because it’s not a one-dimensional world

implement an open approach
– Creative Commons licenses
– Acceptable Use Policies (should be meant to work on behalf of an organization, not as a control mechanism)
– risk management

encourage enthusiasts – University of Bath Library Science News, a wiki to engage users for planning deployment of their podcast (on WetPaint)

audience question: do these tools work in a way that lets you share information within organization but restricted to certain users?
Paul Miller: basically yes
Brian Kelly: many organizations using wikis for intranets
Phil Bradley: point of Web 2.0 is community, but that doesn’t have to mean the whole world

question: why isn’t the library world building its own tools and offering them to the world?
Brian Kelly: some libraries are doing this (Fedora, Dspace, etc.)
Phil Bradley: librarians are focused on their jobs and what they already do; “you might have time for this, but I’m too busy doing my job”
Paul Miller: libraries have a depressing proclivity to keep building things ourselves; if there isn’t an existing thing in the outside world, *then* build it yourself; something built in the library for the library’s users only reaches those users that are already there

Tags: ILI2006

I talk about Flickr a lot in my presentations, because it shows libraries in a different way than we normally present ourselves online. It's where you actually see the vibrancy, humanity, and just plain busyness that we all know happens in our buildings, but that we have such a difficult time translating online (opening up comments on your blog posts is the other high-impact, low-cost way to do this ).

More Flickr proof in the pudding from Kelli Staley at the Lansing (IL) Public Library regarding their celebrity READ posters.

Flickr - Photos on Fire!

"Added bonus: The local newspaper, The Times, saw the photos on Flickr, and ended up doing an article, and reprinted mini copies of the posters in the paper! A few people not included in the original batch of posters contacted us because they wanted to be included! A local school librarian requested copies of the posters of the Superintendent, Library Director, and Police & Fire Chiefs to hang in the school library.

We've also uploaded pics from events, then simply emailed the newspaper, letting them know we posted some new photos from a recent event. Then they choose which ones they want to use. They used some of our photos from Flickr in articles about the summer reading program.

The youth & teen department has been handing out small pieces of paper with the link to our flickr account whenever they have an event when they take photos. The recent Rex Checks Out library card promotion event featured a dinosaur cutout where people put their faces in and posed for pictures. Parents who didn't bring their own cameras can just download their own copy of the photo, or email the link to friends and family!

We just got a comment to a pic I posted of a display of red books in our Adult Services Dept. (Our display has been up a few weeks, before Bono & Oprah made red such a hot color!) A library in Florida was inspired to put together a display of orange books, and posted their photo, and a link back to our red display! The librarian in Florida probably wouldn't visit a Chicago suburb to see our book displays, but through Flickr, we're able to share ideas! You can find other library book display photos in this Flickr group." ['Brary Web Diva]

I wish I could join in the official grand opening of the Second Life Library today, but I'm headed to Internet Librarian International. Follow the events at Info Island tonight. Congrats to Lori Bell, the Alliance Library System, and all of the dedicated volunteers making all of this happen!

My plan is to start holding virtual office hours in a skypod on Info Island in a few weeks, so feel free to visit me there in about a month.

• You can now sign up to be one of 40 participants for the Five Weeks to a Social Library course (or you can follow along as a lurker) devoted to "teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries." From the announcement:

  "The course was developed to provide a free, comprehensive, and social online learning opportunity for librarians who do not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education and who would benefit greatly from learning about social software.

  "The course will be taught using a variety of social software tools so that the participants acquire experience using the tools while they are taking part in the class. The course will make use of synchronous online communication, with one or two weekly Webcasts and many IM or Skype chat sessions made available to students each week. By the end of the course, each student will develop a proposal for implementing a specific social software tool in their library.

  If you are interested in learning how to use and implement social software tools at your library, please consider applying for the course. The course will cover the following topics:

  • Blogs
  • RSS
  • Wikis
  • Social Networking Software and SecondLife
  • Flickr
  • Social Bookmarking Software
  • Selling Social Software @ Your Library

  If you are interested in becoming a participant in the course, please visit the Application for Participants.

  For a preliminary listing of some of the social software experts who will be presenting during the course, please visit the Preliminary Program.

  For more about the organizers of the course, please visit the About Us page."



• "The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. The sixth annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2007 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead. The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2006.

  You can use the online form at http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6358087.html [warning: print out
  a copy before you submit, in case your submission fails and everything you wrote vanishes]. Or, if you prefer, print out the PDF http://www.libraryjournal.com/contents/pdf/LJMoveShakeForm.pdf and return it to Ann Kim at LJ, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010, or fax to 646-746-6734."

From internal email today, I learned that I work for an organization whose birthday is today. Yes, ALA is 130 today!

"During the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, 103 librarians responded to a call for a 'Convention of Librarians' to be held October 4-6 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the end of the meeting, according to Ed Holley in is essay 'ALA at 100,' 'the register was passed around for all to sign who wished to become charter members.'

In attendance were 90 men and 13 women, among them Justin Winsor (Boston Public, Harvard), Willaim Frederick Poole (Chicago Public, Newberry), Charles Ammi Cutter (Boston Athenaeum), Melvil Dewey, and Richard Rogers Bowker.

The aim of the Association, in that resolution, was 'to enable librarians to do their present work more easily and at less expense.' "

Thanks to Karen Muller and Mary Ellen Davis for the info! I think it's pretty cool I work for an organization that is that old, although, sometimes you definitely feel 130-year old bureaucracy! On the plus side, two quotes from Mary Ghikas from my orientation day.

• "To fight the Justice Department, you have to keep your nose clean" (which is why we have to be careful about politicking on our websites).
• "We're older than the Internal Revenue Service."

In honor of the Day Against DRM, a long rant:

For my old job, I drove a half hour each way and listened to music and podcasts on my Archos jukebox. It was an MP3 player that also did video long before Apple came out with the iPod. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very easy to get video in the right format, so I rarely took the time to mess with video files. It doesn’t matter anyway now, because it recently died.

With the new job, I take the train and a bus for an hour-long commute each way, so my digital world of entertainment has really opened up since I can now add video to the list. I figured I’d finally take the plunge and take the iPod test to see if it’s really as great as everyone says it is. I bought one of the new iPods, purchased a couple of TV shows from the iTunes store, ripped a DVD of a movie I’d recorded off my cable movies subscription, and downloaded a couple of video podcasts. My hope was to combine music, podcasts, audiobooks (obviously from my personal library, not my local public one since I can’t check out audio ebooks for my iPod from my public library), and video in one device. A thousand digital flowers would bloom for me on my commute, and the most difficult part was going to be deciding what to consume each day (in addition to reading books and magazines).

You know, of course, that reality does not resemble this. The music works, although the fact that I can’t just drag and drop folders of music I’ve created during the last eight years (especially as playlists) is incredibly frustrating. If you don’t start out as an iTunes user, the iTunes experience is not a very satisfying one. Don’t even get me started on how I have to scroll through every single artist….

No, the problem is the video. I’m trying to be legal and buy video through iTunes (although I did also grab a couple of TV episodes they are offering for free), but the legal video won’t play. My ripped DVD is fine, as are the video podcasts. It’s only the stuff I’ve paid for that displays a black screen and no video.

Long time readers will remember that it’s around this time of year that I usually find myself in DRM hell for one reason or another (2002 was a particularly bad year), but this one really takes the cake. The hardware is fine, and I have no other way to get legally purchased video onto the iPod because of Apple’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) software.

In fact, I think the DRM software is exactly the problem. My iTunes software was originally associated with someone else’s iPod, so my theory is that for whatever reason, iTunes won’t recognize my new iPod as being mine, associate it with the content I’ve purchased, and transfer it properly so it will actually play. I’ve checked the knowledebase but it’s been no help. I’ve tried deauthorizing my laptop, restoring the iPod to its defaults, and reauthorizing my laptop, but nothing works. I’ve been to the Apple store twice, only to be told that they can’t do anything and I need to call AppleCare. Which I get to do once. After that, they will charge me for support to fix the various video files I bought from them that won’t work on their device that I bought. Yes, I’m limited to one phone call, like a prisoner in a jail cell. Alternatively, I could pay $59 a year to call multiple times to resolve this and any other problems that come up.

There’s also no way to create a new account, associate the iPod with it, and transfer my purchased content to it. Apple just doesn’t have a provision for this. I guess everything is just supposed to work the first time.

I can’t blame all of my DRM hell on Apple, though, because I’m also spending time in a special circle of Windows DRM hell. Dante had nothing on modern entertainment. I’ve also had to shift my media habits at work. I now have proof that I am less productive when I don’t have a TV or music on in the background. I’ve become one of those “partial attention” people who needs a background distraction in order to concentrate on a foreground task. I was lucky enough to get a laptop at work (since the departments I work for are on different floors), but the docking station for it does not have an audio jack. I didn’t know such a thing was possible, but it turns out I was wrong about that, too. It’s like there is no soundtrack to my life, and I find it very distracting. So when I’m sitting at my desk, I have the choice of being ergonomically correct (using a monitor, keyboard, and mouse) or listening to music. Goodbye Pandora, which I was really starting to enjoy. (Of course, it’s not just music. I can only watch but not hear content such as this 24–minute video about the future of publishing, which is actually applicable to my job… I think – I can’t be sure until I can hear it.)

So in order to be more productive at work, I decided to try Rhapsody’s “portable” subscription service Rhapsody-to-Go, which means I can transfer music at will to a Windows-based device and take it with me as long as I stay subscribed to the service. Of course, it doesn’t work on an iPod because the DRM is based on Windows Media Player, and the 2GB SD card in my Treo just isn’t big enough for my voracious music appetite. So I bought a refurbished, 5GB iRiver H10 just for this purpose. Yes, it’s crazy that I should have to do this, but there is a lot of music I would like to listen to but not necessarily purchase/own, especially at Apple’s or Rhapsody’s prices. (I do buy some stuff from All of MP3 and eMusic, but the selection just isn’t wide enough at either service.) I figured I could now also download audio ebooks from my public library since it subscribes to ListenIllinois and offers netLibrary and OverDrive titles (which are Windows DRM-based files).

So in order to partake of the digital entertainment feast and feed my media habits, I now have two players, plus my Treo. It’s divergence, not convergence. But, I’ll always have something new to listen to, so that’s a big draw for me.

So I waited not-so-patiently for my iRiver to arrive, ripped it open when it appeared on the doorstep, upgraded my Rhapsody subscription, installed the iRiver, started picking out music, and transferred it all over to the device.

Except, of course, it didn’t transfer. It took me four hours with three different techs on two phone calls and an email exchange to finally fix the Windows DRM on my laptop enough to transfer the music over. At first, Rhapsody kept telling me that it needed to upgrade a Windows DRM component, which it would then say it successfully did, except the error message kept popping up when I tried to transfer music and I got caught in a loop.

Eventually, though, Rhapsody’s tech support did solve the problems with instructions for upgrading various pieces of software on my laptop and on the iRiver (even though I thought I had already done some of these things), and I was able to load a couple dozen albums for my listening pleasure at work. I was a halfway happy camper, waiting for the right time to call AppleCare and not waste my one phone call. I went to load some more albums on the iRiver a few days ago, though, and all of the transfers failed. I didn’t have the energy to deal with it until last night. I’m not sure why it suddenly stopped working, but I started getting an error message that said the license for the music had expired, and it wouldn’t play. With this service, you have to connect your player to the Rhapsody server once every 30 days in order to maintain the license for the music on your player or it expires. I haven’t even had the iRiver for 30 days, and yet someone how music files were expired, and it wouldn’t renew the license. The answer was to reinstall the firmware on the device but naturally this reformatted it, which means all of the music I had already loaded was erased, and I had to start from scratch to add it all again.

So Rhapsody-to-Go is finally working (I’m lighting candles it will stay that way), but my quest to be legal (especially with video) is still completely stalled and I have the equivalent of a 3rd generation iPod because I can’t get the video to work properly on it. Sadly, all of this would probably go much faster and free up my time if I just downloaded unprotected music and video off the internet and transferred the files to my iPod or iRiver. It shouldn’t be this difficult, and I have to wonder how often the average user just gives up when faced with these DRM nightmares.

When I have further time, I’m going to write up my adventure moving to HDTV (to complement Karen Schneider’s). It’s tough being a media consumer these days.

If you've done extensive work playing with MediaWiki's permissions for user groups, could you please contact me? Or if you know of an easy way to let non-techies manage user groups and rights in MW, I'd love to hear from you. We need some advice at work for implementing varying levels of permissions for posting (and no, this doesn't mean ALA is locking down all of its wikis).

Catch me at jlevine@ala.org or on AIM at cybrarygal.

Thanks!

Excerpt from a comment on Jeff Trzeciak's post I Want a Gaming Librarian

"I am a millennial librarian. I just graduated with my MLS and would love to be the gaming librarian at a library. The only condition would be that I be given the chance to implement new programs, strategies, and fundamental philosophy. That my friend takes more than hiring someone to “take care” of that demographic. While I have insight into the online environments because I game and I know an amateur game designer, nothing can replace a staff who is willing to not be the experts on a topic, and open up the opportunity to allow community members to step up to be leaders. While I will continue to advocate services that support gamers as well as advocate to gamers that they give libraries one more chance to provide them with quality service, it will take more than just a gamer librarian at every library to make a difference. I want a gamer director, or a gamer on the library board, or even a gamer ALA president." [Jami Schwarzwalder]

I wish I could watch this, but I'll be at the ISLMA conference giving a presentation on November 9. Check out the stellar line-up for ACRL's Virtual Institute on The User at the Center:

• Jeffrey Trzeciak, McMaster University - "framing" featured speaker (I think this essentially means virtual keynote?)
• Meredith Farkas, Norwich University - Building Collaboration with Wikis
• David Free, Georgia Perimeter College - Podcasting: A Primer for Libraries
• David Lee King, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library - Introduction to Videoblogging
• Kathryn Miller, National Louis University - Teaching Faculty to Thrive in an Electronic Library Environment
• Kristin Partlo, Carleton College - Developing Collectibles: Increasing Visibility with Trading Cards
• Tom Peters, TAP Information Services - Academic Libraries and Second Life
• Mark Puterbaugh, Eastern University - The VBI Project: A Virtual Social World
• Alane Wilson, OCLC - Their Perceptions, Our Reality: College Students, Libraries, Information Resources and the Library Brand
• Raymond Yee, University of California, Berkeley - A Practical Guide to Remixing the Library

Wowsa. Session descriptions here, register here (October 26 is the deadline for advance registration).