Author: dwakimoto

Search Widgets adn Gadgets for Libraries: IL 2008

/ dwakimoto

Search Widgets and Gadgets for Libraries

Jason Clark and Tim Donahue

Wiki.sla.org= able to do 23 things learn web 2.0 technologies in 15 minutes a day

Networked research environment and search-push technologies

New technologies, widget, gadget, and Flash animated finding tools

Where are Users are: personal-learning environment (PLE), users in all types of areas on the web, work in flickr, facebook, blogs

How to do research through: iGoogle, and other portals

Want users to use our resources, stuff moves quickly, technology moves quickly

What do we do/play?
“broadcast our signals” more widely, need to work in distributed environments

OpenSearch browser plugins–widgets
Google Gadgets–JavaScript applications, can link into library resources/catalog
Hook people and bring back to library resources

Montana State University: has page that has widget page to promote them to users

Examples:
Widget to enter library catalog through the browser, very cool application, don’t have to come into the library catalog, can do it for databases too, very easy to set up, very small XML file to create this widget

Google Gadgets: can build, quick search functionality, allow people to search in their own environment, users can drop this gadget into iGoogle page, Google has text editors (Google Gadget Editor) and can copy and paste code so not difficult to do, gives you the embed code after you make the gadget

Google Gadgets: there is the ability to have tabbed widgets–how cool is that?

All is done to allow users access to library resources through the environment they are comfortable with

Multiple Endpoints:
Facebook, MySpace, web portals, etc.
Can have library widgets that work in many different environments

What’s  next?
Promotion of the widgets and gadgets through education, videos, marketing
Figure out more opportunities–go where the users are instead of forcing one size fits all way of searching the library

Interplay between physical and digital resources/services in libraries

Apply new technology to books

Flash–animate the web! J
Example: library map, animate a map, mouse over the stacks to see what subjects/call number ranges in the stacks

Simplicity is key in visual design

Flash works through frames: drawing, animating through time and space, way to get around doing coding (ex. Took about 200 hours to create the example map)

Trying to integrate the map into the catalog, nice idea ex. Search catalog, find record, click link to see where it is in the library through the map

Flash is scalable so it is possible to work it into a widget, you don’t use resolution and can maximize widget/gadget to see larger version of the map

Arizona State University and Montana State University moving towards Google Application platform, have students use iGoogle pages as home portal and access resources through there

Take home message:
Widgets and Gadgets have the ability to bring the library to the users’ environment and push people to the library’s online resources/services, great ideas!

Digital Marketing: IL 2008

/ dwakimoto

Digital Marketing: Session 2

Sarah Houghtan-Jan & Aaron Schmidt

Links will be on the blogs: librarianinblack.com

Digital outreach–connecting users with library services, connecting users with librarians
OCLC study: number 1 thing people care about is transforming lives, need to connect users with librarians

Ex. Librarian Trading cards

What is online outreach:
Tons of ways to outreach

Online: no barriers (I would disagree with this on a basic access level) but we are serving global audience now

What are we marketing?

Have to have an interact library website! Web 2.0 interaction

Must have good content online, must have quality, be relevant

Everything in this presentation is free!

Library directory listing: check if the library listing is correct: LibDex, MapMuse, Libraries411, PublicLibraries.com, Libraries on the Web

Blog search engines: submit rss feeds to search engines, Feed Submitter site–goes to 15 different sites, great way to get out the word, easy marketing

Blog geo-search engines: frapper, feedmap, blogwise, gFeedMap–lots of people use these

Wikimapia–like wikipedia but a map–cool! Draw a box around where your library is on the map–put in information and a link

Search Enging Findability: search for variations of your library’s name, expand beyond Google, can buy AdWorks from Google–could use for special programming or hire a search engine optimizer (SEO)

Wifi–people expect it, and they expect it to work, list your library in wifi directories: wififreespot, wifi411, wifinder, jwire, wi-fi zone, wifihotspotlist gets people in the door

Community websites: American towns.com, canadaeventscalendar, booksalescout.com, artsopolia, eventful, librarythinglocal–take ownership of your library’s listings

Google: link: URL and you will know who is linking to the library website, blog, etc. see who is talking about your library

Social Review Websites: yelp, city search, etc. use the flattering comments in your marketing material (how cool is that!), can also see problems and work to change it

Directory Information: look online for phone numbers, addresses, make sure listed correctly, Google Maps, yahoo!local, ask city, can claim your library, upload photos, etc.

A/V content Findable: you tube, google video, blip.tv, blinkx, singing fish, yahoo pod casts, pod cast.net, podcast alley, get some subscribers

Social networking Sites: can create a profile for your library, ex. MySpace, Facebook, flickr, ning (note: some studies show students do not like libraries in their social networking space, other studies show the opposite, just an FYI)

Find Local Blogs: by city, lodger local, metro logging, feedmap, interact with local blogs, be available, find appropriate blogs, have authentic interactions, don’t be heavy handed, be friendly, takes time to be integrated into a community and have street cred

Blogs and Forums: tech boards, continuing education boards

Get out what you put in!

BookSpace (Huntington Library Minnesota): place to talk about books online, online community space, news, lists, etc. great design and space, get all information about books from disparate ploaces into one social networking site, no barriers to contributing to BookSpace

Expert Sites: list our staff on these sites: all experts.com, ziki, illumio, qunu, yedda, FAQQLY, Otavo, yahoo! Answers, SLAM the Boards (on the 10th of every month), identify themselves at the end that they are librarians

Ask Meta site: jump in and answer questions

Push the information out: have subscription services, rss/email updates (you can use feed burner), newsletter software, etc., don’t spam the inbox!

Make sure you are in Wikipedia! List on your city, create an entry

IM: free, easy, primary form of communication for many

Text messaging: send out notifications via SMS

Text a Librarian: combines IM and text messaging into one web-based platform, soon will have queue feature so many people can monitor one screen-name

Twitter: quick updates, be clear about what you will be sending so people know what they are subscribing to

SecondLife: time-sink, lots of time to set up for the investment, needs to mature

People are using this stuff. So no excuse to not do this! Be user centered!

Take home message:
Get out there and market online! It is well-worth it!

Designing the Digital Experience

/ dwakimoto

Hi, All. This is the first presentation session of the day that I am going to an Internet Librarian and we are trying blogging while in the conference. So we’ll see how it goes. I even got a cool little ribbon on my nametag that says blogger! How cool is that?!

This session’s speaker is David King.

We are having massive wifi problems here, so if it goes wonky during this post you know why.

Talk version of King’s book: Designing the Digital Experinece:

First defining:

Experiences Economy: tangible goods as props and untangible services as the way of providing an experience–example of restaurants: differences between Hard Rock Cafe versus McDonalds

Experience Design: Nathan Shedroff–“an approach to creating successful experiences for people in any medium”

Creating more than a service or goods–experience is more important now. people want great service, goods and an experience

3 paths to experience:

Structural Path: create a better experience by improving website easy of use, easy navigate site, well designed experience should stay out of the users’ way–focus on user not on cool features of the website:
1. Jesse James Garett Elements of User Experience book method–structure, usability testing, surface=visual design, focus on user experience always
2. Experience Map: uncover–customer needs, define–experience brief=story about what the user should get out of it, ideate–get the feel of the place, build/design–visual phase
3. 37signals, Getting Real (ebook, free at the website)–different way of designing, just start building, focus on experience brief for directional document, simplify features (ex. Google docs versus Word–not a lot of bells and whistles), being passionate about what you build! If you are passionate it will show (I completely agree)

Look at websites with critical eyes, remove what confuses people, figure out goals, big goal=making it easy for the user so not distracted

Community Path
providing memorable experience through experiencing community
Example: town hall meeting lots of discussions
Digital version: Amazon customer reviews, more reviews are powerful, community-driven experience
Types:
Real Conversation: commenting on blogs, IM, Twitter, online forum Goal: connect with you and with others, think about reviews of books in catalog!
Connecting with Others: social networking sites, friending, connections lead to conversation, lead to community building
Invitation: active invitation-ask a question, post on a blog and ask for response; passive invitation: allowing for comments, rss feeds
Participation: very important! Web2.0 need participation for community, comments goal is to participate, ex. comment box,
Sense of Familiarity: know about a person through flickr, subscribe to a blog= ways to get to know people a bit
Telling our Stories: people want to know about you (ie social networks), people want to participate in your story, want to continue the story, example: sharing stories about Katrina, clean-up, volunteering, etc

Twitter: great example of community

Customer Path: ex. Hotels focusing on beds in the last couple of years, then other hotels followed,
Ex. sports clip–haircutting place for men, experience
Digital version: Harley Davidson experience, Webkinz world: whole social world for kids, Starbucks website–figure out your coffee flavor, etc. working to extend physical presences into online world, having a pre/post-show

Library post-show: discussion of book on web after reading, extend book club

People want to connect to people, that is the point! Create connection through website

Site is not about the product, about the Experience! Share about your product, libraries need to do this. Provide great costomer experience

Improve through:
Customer Journey Mapping: mapping touchpoints of an interaction/experience, try to improve each touchpoint (each time a user is interacting with a company) can be used within the library
1. insight into user needs, how they feel
2. provide user-focus, center of organization should be user (ie patron for libraries)

Improve the Ordinary: figure out what ordinary means for your site–major features, services, resources and then improve them, compare your site with other websites in other industries–get outside of library land, look at what people are using (ex. facebook, amazon), match the feel/experience (such a great tip!)

What Do we Do with This?
1. Connect the user to the organization, the product, try to connect more library patrons to products other than the books–get out of the stereotypes of the library
2. Connect the user to other users–commenting, forums, etc.
3. Create an Experience Stage–think about experience that you want people to have, storyboard it, every part of customer contact is like performing a show–you are an actor, figure it out before taking the show on the road, connect with people, learn how to interact on the web–need to train for that

Work on Conversations
What is old is new–it is all about the art of conversation–you need to connect in order to be able to improve your services, resources and experiences

take home message:
It is all about the Experience and change in is the air!

Packing, Goal Setting and YouTube

/ dwakimoto

Okay, so it is Friday and we all need a little something fun and some tips to help us through the day as the weekend is fast approaching.

First the really awesome YouTube video from CSU Long Beach. CSULB had students give a tour of the reference services at the library–it is a great video. Again, marketing is so much better if students get in on it. I think my library should start a YouTube station. It definitely solves the problem with hosting streaming videos and with Overstream, we can even close caption the videos. Just a thought. Enjoy this video, I did!

Now from one of my favorite technology blogs, Lifehacker, here is an article on “Goal Setting for Skeptics”. I think goal setting is important, whether you write down your goals or not. I fine setting goals helps me from becoming bogged down in the day-to-day chores that have to get done and allow me to focus on longer-term projects, both at work and at home. But then, I’m the kind of person who also keeps journals to track project progress, keeps books of inspiring quotations and am always looking to learn. I know people that hate writing down goals and they get things accomplished just fine. I’m just saying, give the article a chance and see if it works for you. Who knows, maybe you could make one of your goals to adapt a Web 2.0 application to use in your library!

And last tip for the day, check out Wired’s article, Pack Light for Geek Travel. Great article to read for those of us who travel with a lot of tech gear and are getting ready to head out to conferences.

Speaking of conferences, I’ll be at the Internet Librarian Conference this coming week. So if you are going to be there, say hi.

Chris Crutcher

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

I love, love, love this reply that Chris Crutcher wrote to a man who is trying to get Crutcher’s books banned at a school. Sheer eloquence and never once does Crutcher resort to nastiness. He just lays out his argument and, as my mother would say, takes Mark off at the knees but in a Miss Manners-like way so he had no clue until way after the fact.

Check out the article here on Stonewall News.

Oh, and this post is also a shout-out to Mary Boutet, a huge Chris Crutcher fan and future librarian and her mother, Nancy, who is one of the coolest librarians ever.

It's Blog Action Day!

/ dwakimoto

That’s right, today is Blog Action Day 2008 and everyone who has joined is writing to raise awareness in the fight to end world poverty. How can you not get behind a day that is trying to get people off their comfy office chairs to end poverty?

I can tell you that I believe librarians are in a great position to help raise awareness and combat poverty. We provide information and resources for free, to everyone! We help people become educated and we all know that education, especially of women, can raise a person, a family and even a country above poverty. Education is a method, albeit with slower results than food drops, to combat poverty. We can give of ourselves and pledge our libraries to fighting poverty in our communities and around the world. Whether we are working in academic, special, school or public libraries, we can all do something. Librarians rock, we are smart and we can come together.

What small things could we do? We could have a food drive, a coat drive, make banners that let people know the facts about poverty and what they can do to help. We can support student organizations in their events that sponsor local community food banks and support services. We can give books and resources to organizations that distribute them to communities that need the materials.

What can we do that is so small and doesn’t even require getting out of the office? Go to Free Rice and play the vocabulary game. Improve your vocabulary and donate rice at the same time.

Libraries are so important, people who care enough to teach and help children and adults learn are so important and your contributions to changing the world for the better are so important. Remember, you can make a difference. Rock on librarians and everyone who is supporting Blog Action Day!

Reality Bites & How You can Change it

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

First off today, I have to give props out to Tom H. who has been awesome in commenting on this blog. Thank you! I am so glad someone is reading and enjoying the posts.

Now to the main topic today: reality bites. That sounds a little pessimistic, doesn’t it? Well, some parts of reality really do bite–like povery, global warming, students cheating, librarians thinking that they can be outsourced and the fact that I haven’t been able to find veggie gyoza at Trader Joe’s for the last 3 weeks.

But parts of reality rock–like Jim Butcher having two new books coming out, people helping out because it is the right thing to do, librarians helping to Rock the Vote, and autumn weather that is warm during the day but perfect for a quilt at night.

So what specifically made me write this type of post today? Two things, actually.

First this YouTube video on cheating that has been going around the Internet. I found out through Tame the Web blog and you can see it here. Did she even think about the consequences of posting this video on YouTube? I mean, it is scary that students are posting videos about how to cheat and the comments to these videos are even scarier. I really dislike the “but everyone else is doing it” defense. No, they are not and cheating is just plain wrong. I am going to show this to my Information Literacy class so we can discuss the implications of the video. But I’m not completely disheartened by this because I still believe that most students are honest and hard-working when they are doing their school work.

Anyone read the latest Backtalk column in Library Journal (October 1, 2008 edition)? Another person who is pessimistic about the future of librarianship–believing that we have caused ourselves to become obsolete through our increased reliance on technology. While I agree that the human touch is very important in what we do as librarians, I don’t believe that technology can be considered the downfall of the profession or libraries in general. Though, I may be a little biased in this as I am an Online Literacy librarian. I think technology, if anything, has made our role as librarians even more important for the efficient finding, analyzing and evaluating of information. I don’t feel obsolete and I am proud of my work as a librarian. What do you think?

I think that our perceptions truly become our reality. If we think we are obsolete, we will fulfill that thought. But if we truly believe that librarians are important, than our thoughts and subsequent actions will make it so. Yes, it is annoying to answer the tenth question in an hour about the location of the bathroom. But we also help people with so many important questions and concerns. We also design websites that are accessible, have events that gather together communities and help students find information that is personally relevant to them. And through these actions, we change reality into something better.

And to end on a somewhat positive note, the Wednesday post of this blog will be in support of Blog Action Day 2008 where bloggers around the world are going to be posting only about poverty for one day in order to raise awareness and hopefully get people to help end world-wide poverty. We can all do something to better ourselves, our communities, our libraries and our world, if we only work together.

Podcasts and Zombies

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday!

So the big news today is that the podcast of the first Technology Brown Bag is now available. Just check out the Tech Brown Bags page of this blog for the podcast. Its runtime is just under 40minutes. And I am sorry in advance for the poor quality. My only excuse is that it is my first podcast and I am still learning Audacity. I promise the next one will be better, but at least you will be able to get the information, along with the handouts, now.

For fun, check out this article on the Zombie Tag craze that is sweeping colleges and universities. I love the fact that both classrooms and libraries are safe spaces! This is a good example of having fun without any technology. I wonder if it will come to CSUEB.

Have a great weekend!

Reference Desk and Basic Tech

/ dwakimoto / 2 Comments

I just got my Fall issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly and there is an article that I think everyone should check out. Written by LIS student, Marcella Knibbe-Haanstra, the article is titled “Reference Desk Dilemmas: The Impact of New Demands on Librarianship.” The article reiterates literature on stereotypes of librarians and stress caused by technology and it is a very nice synthesis of the literature on stress management, user expectations, changing technology and shifting roles of the reference librarian. I think it is a great starting point for a conversation on how we can handle our increased workloads and technical competencies that we need in our jobs today. Way to go to publish while in library school too, Marcella!

Now, something practical to help with the technology stress. Here is a great post from Pogue’s Posts hosted by The New York Times. Listed are tech tips and tricks for basic computer use. The comments expand on this post and there are some great tips. I even discovered some shortcuts I didn’t know about, which is super cool. Share the tips with your friends and patrons so we all can use the computer a little more efficiently.

Enjoy the rest of the day and remember–computers are stupid, it is the person who uses the computer that makes them perform great feats!

Digital Libraries

/ dwakimoto

What is better on a Monday than talking about the latest paper to be causing a stir in the library world?

By now, you’ve probably heard about the “Free Our Libraries!” white paper by Richard K. Johnson commissioned by the Boston Library Consortium. Lots of valid points are raised in the paper, but if ideas had been presented more clearly we probably could have avoided some of the confusion the paper has created. So I’ll put in my 2 cents on this Monday morning.

First, no, it’s not the libraries fault that everything is not available online and I do not think that Johnson is blaming the libraries for upholding copyright. Many people agree that copyright is broken. It takes so long for anything to come into the public domain that creativity is hindered instead of expanded and inspired as was one of the original goals of copyright. And yes, in this litigious society, there are many threats to the public domain and fair use. Simply check out Chilling Effects to learn more about challenges to fair use in the online environment.

Second, Johnson’s paper would have been much stronger had it compared anything to the Google Book Project. The Open Content Alliance is the most well-known competitor with the Google Book Project. Google is not the first and last word on digitization, yet.

Third, and this is the omission that always annoys me, there was no mention of archives and archivists. Honestly, do librarians think they are the only ones grappling with these issues? Really, we cannot afford to be that insular. Archivists are creating digital archives and digital libraries as well, and archives know all about preservation and preservation metadata. Do you know what a PDF/A is? Do you know why it is important? An archivist can tell you. We can do so much more if we collaborate and share our knowledge instead of reinventing the wheel in our own small part of the world. It annoys me to no end that archivists and librarians do not collaborate more often and there seems to be little understanding on either side of how the other could help.

Finally, to end on an upbeat note: check out Brewster Kahle’s talk on TED about digital libraries. It is possible to have digital libraries, respect copyright, and still have access. Let’s start working on it.