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]