Social networking & Web 2.0

Go With the Flow: Selling Social Networking

 

Do your peers run the other way when you mention blogs and wikis? These talking points can help turn the tide.

 

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6610498.html

The 23rd Thing

Well, here we are at the end of 23 Things. The time has really flown by, and as I look back over my blog posts I am amazed at how much we covered (and discovered). To keep this one simple and organized, I am going to use libraryjoy’s prompts:

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

• RSS (once I got the hang of it)
• Google docs – I am using these like crazy now
• CML’s Power Tools
• Twitter (a surprise favorite – I didn’t think I’d be interested in it at all!)

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

• The program has served to remind me that exploring new technologies and trends is, in fact, work-related and is certainly a large part of the daily on-the-job learning I do. It has also made me realize that lifelong goals can be quite small and simple (ie. exploring twitter or leaving a post or comment on a blog). I think the exercises in this program have also enabled me to see learning/discovery opportunities more readily and encouraged me to apply these to what we at the library do or to what I myself do in my daily work.

3. Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

• Yes – that I actually like blogging! Before beginning Learn & Play I had never considered that I might have anything to post on a blog. But, it’s amazing all the things you come up with once you get started.
• I also feel I’ve gotten to know some of CML’s staff better (through blogging and twitter).

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

• Hmmm, it was really done quite well! The Learn & Play team listened to staff when we said we needed more time. The right balance was struck in offering staff encouragement/reminders/updates without overkill or making us feel bombarded.
• Maybe next time there could be more “featured participants”. This seems to have become a trend over the last week or two, and I really like it. In the future, maybe that can be incorporated throughout the entire program. The videos that the Learn & Play team have done with various participants have enabled me to check out some of the many staff blogs with the bonus of being able to put a face to the post.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you participate?

• Yes, I would definitely participate in something like this again.

Podcasting: Thing #21

I particularly like the idea of podcasts for news, social commentary, and interviews. I subscribed to a couple of podcasts with my Bloglines account. Starting out w/just a couple to see how I like them: The Mr. Nice Guy Show and The Amateur Traveler Podcast.

I had a hard time with the podcast directories. For example, when I looked at the “Storytelling” category on Podfeed, the podcasts were actually about legal matters (which is actually quite ironic!). However, I did better with PodcastAlley. I searched both “library” and “libraries” and found quite a few library systems who podcast in order to stay connected with their communities. One podcast that looks to have interesting info is the TeenLibrarian Podcast. I think I’ll subscribe to it also.

As far as suggestions for what CML could do with podcasting, I think it would be really cool to podcast our author visits. This seems like a great way to share conversations between authors, readers, and library staff. If podcasting is as easy as it appears, this extra feature could deliver something very unique to our customers without too much expended effort on our part.

You Tube

I did some exploring and searching on You Tube today and encountered a couple interesting videos that I can relate to work or libraries, or something other than the random wackiness that most of the vidoes fall under.

Since I was just scrolling around and not looking for anything in particular, I noticed some things I hadn’t before, like the links to “most viewed”, “most discussed”, and “top favorited”. If CML does eventually embrace more Web 2.0 technologies on our website, like tagging and sharing, I could see these also being fun to incorporate. Here are a couple examples:

• Looking for a good book? Log on to CML’s catalog and take a look at the top favorited books of CML customers and staff.
• Need a title for your book discussion group? Check out the most discussed books in CML’s catalog.

So, that’s my take on You Tube for libraries. (Aside from the obvious, and already ’standard’ practice of using You Tube to connect with teens, virtual library users, or those who have not yet discovered CML.)

And, I even took on libraryjoy’s challenge and embedded a video below! This video was the first result when I searched ‘Columbus library’, and I think it’s a cool video/pop-up book commercial for the Columbus Library (Columbus, NE, that is)!

Power Tools

I was scrolling through the Power Tools page looking for something to blog about for Thing #19, and I noticed that OCLC’s World Cat is promoted here. Good! World Cat makes such great information available and I think it’s an often-overlooked resource.

A couple of posts back I wrote about the new ways that OCLC plans on incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into their database. Things like tagging, reviews, list creation and list sharing to name a few. These are definitely “power tools” because they are giving over some of the power to the user, and with that power the user is able to put these web sites to work for himself.

I’d like to see CML apply some of these power tools and widgets in the near future. Customers (and staff) would certainly make use of tagging, reviews, and lists. Having a “currently checked-out” widget would be fun as well as useful–sort of an extra reminder of what materials you have checked out!

Anyway, since World Cat wasn’t a new discovery for me, I am exploring TechCrunch for Thing #19. Wow, there are blog posts about a ton of tech things that I am not familiar with! But, I think I will start subscribing to its blog feeds. I could learn more about Web 2.0, and I like the humor within the posts. Like this one, about the top Google searches during the Presidential Debates. Or, this one, which uses twitter feeds to illustrate the destruction of Bloglines!

2.0

I enjoyed the OCLC article about implications and associations of Library 2.0. The gist of it, as I see it, is to follow the digital trend towards openness, participation and socialization in developing new and revamping old library services. I think it’s quite interesting. The key words that helped me to understand Library 2.0 are:

• programmable
• self-service
• user-centered
• collective intelligence
• shared network space
• user participation

I was impressed by OCLC’s current and future plans for incorporating this new digital environment. They are launching an open (no authentication required) cataloging cooperative that will “harness the collective intelligence” by offering features like tagging, reviews, list creation/list sharing, personal cataloging and more. It sounds like a mashup between OCLC, amazon.com, and librarything!

Michael Stephens’ characteristics of a Librarian 2.0 echo the points he made during his presentation at CML. In this arena, I think CML has made more progress to date. We already use an IM interface w/our customers via Know It Now; we have various locations and divisions utilizing wikis for their staff; and it has always been our goal to break down barriers for our customers so that they can have access to the information they need.

So, in a nutshell, I am excited and energized by the concept of Library 2.0, and looking forward to seeing CML embrace this open environment even more.

Wikis

I’ve checked out a few library-related wikis so that I have something to compare to wikipedia (the only wiki I was already familiar with). I like them. SJCPL has a really useful wiki set up for staff that contains important info and links. For example, I clicked on “Cooking”. That took me to a page with staff tips, one of which recommended resources for looking up ingredient substitutions and equivalents. The page also listed the hours, location, and link to the local farmers’ markets.

It seems that wikis are laid out in a very simple fashion, and that you wouldn’t run into the problem of creating too many pages that are embedded within each other. The ones that I browsed seemed logical and organized and more intuitive than some web sites.

The InfoLine/Rover Team is creating a wiki to store all kinds of useful info that we may need either out in the branches or while answering the phones. This wiki is supposed to be revealed next week! I am looking forward to it seeing it and getting some further informal training on it.