Web 2.0 & Libraries, Part 2: Trends and Technologies

Library Technology Reports, September/October 2007 vol. 43/no. 5 issue revisits Web 2.0 & Libraries. It is edited by Michael Stephens, Ph.D at the Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science in River Forest, Illinois.

Issues, trends and technologies are explored in the nine chapters of this journal. I'll be highlighting topics from each of the chapters over the next few weeks - if you haven't experimented with blogs, wikis or flickr, it's not too late.

Keep this quotation in mind as we look at Web 2.0 & Libraries: "Society has determined what the library of the past has been, and it is society that will determine what the library of the future shall be." Jesse Hauk Shera, The Foundations of Education for Librarianship (John Wiley & Sons, 1972), p. 135. Prophetic?

Chapter 1 - The Ongoing Web Revolution
"The Web has changed. It's rebooted and become more engaging, interactive, and participatory. We're still in the midst of that change...." Are libraries and librarians participating? Do you have ideas for making our new library catalog more interactive? Are you reading the blogs fellow staff are posting and making comments? Are you keeping up with the new trends in technology that our patrons are asking about?

Examples of LCPL blogs:
http://hobartlibrary.blogspot.com/
http://businesslines.blogspot.com/
http://regionroots.blogspot.com/
http://lcplweb.blogspot.com/

Take a look at what other libraries are doing:
Hennepin County Library's BookSpace - www.hclib.org/pub/bookspace
Foto Fun
http://plcmc.org/fotofun/default.asp

If you need more information, I have a list of Web 2.0 Resources. cs

Back to the Future: Phone Reference

NOW IS THE TIME TO PROMOTE PHONE REFERENCE SERVICES!!! to quote Gerry McKiernan of Iowa State University: "Another Radical (but Conventional) Idea for OnCall, OnDemand, On Site Reference Service. Publicize the Library Hip Reference Phone Number...via Library newsletter/Blog/Liaisons/Table Tents...Why Chat When You Can Really Chat (:-)"

Marie L. Radford, professor at Rutgers University in Information and Library Studies, posted comments on this idea at the Library Garden Blogspot (http://librarygarden.blogspot.com) recently saying that with a phone in everyone's hands it is a no brainer that libraries should be marketing this underused service.

What are your thoughts on this? What type of publicity could we generate? Do we want to be on our patrons' speed dial or listed in their Fave 5's?

ALA Washington, D.C. - Program 4

The final program that I want to tell you about is one that my Public Libraries Committee sponsored on electronic database training. It developed out of a discussion forum titled, "Print or Plastic: Which format do you prefer?" From the discussion I found out that our library was unique in providing formal training on electronic databases - most librarians complained that they were just given a login and told to learn it on their own.

Since 150 librarians from academic, public and state libraries attended the program, it was a topic that many wanted to learn more about. Below is a summary of the program and training samples that the speakers shared with the attendees.

ELECTRONIC DATABASES: TRAINING THAT WORKS

“As libraries offer more and more online databases to their patrons, how do we insure that librarians are trained to use and instruct patrons in their use? Speakers described their training programs and Swap & Shop table offered samples of attendees’ libraries’ training."

Facilitator: Carolyn Strickland, Lake County Public Library, chair of MARS Public Libraries Committee
Speakers:
Michelle Roubal, Adult Services Coordinator, Aurora Public Library, Aurora, Illinois
Marty Onieal, Adult Services Coordinator, Broward County Library, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Margaret Mohundro, Director of INSPIRE, INCOLSA, Indiana

Training that Works:
-Drop-In Training: informal
-Tapping into Online Training: use remote technology
-Vendor-Produced Online Training: make use of this vender service
-Book a Librarian (librarian appointments): staff and patrons alike

-Multiple branches? Develop traveling classes
-Assessment of staff knowledge of a database: pretests?
-Develop a training outline for all classes: post on in-house server
-Various methods: Tuesday Track, Train the Trainer, Vendor Training, Regional & State Training Opportunities, Borrow training from other libraries.
-INSPIRE Training: Website, access, interfaces, federated searches & vendor-provided training, as well as on site training sessions around the state.

Do you have any training tips that you would like to share? Please feel free to make comments or ask questions.

ALA Washington, D.C. - Program 3

HARNESSING THE HIVE: SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LIBRARIES

Speakers:
Matthew Bejune, Digital Reference Services Coordinator, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Meredith Farkas, Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont
Tim Spaulding, Founder & Developer, LibraryThing, Portland, Minnesota

Social networking such as YouTube, Facebook, flickr, cell texting, and podcasting are second nature to youth, who integrate these technologies into daily life in unexpected ways. Panelists discussed this rapidly growing phenomenon and presented examples of innovative outreach and reference services that utilize social software such as tagging, blogging and wikis to reach online users.

-Wikis: most famous Wikipedia defines it as “A wiki (sometimes wiki wiki) is a web application designed to allow multiple authors to add, remove, and edit content.

To learn more about Wikis in Libraries consult:
-the upcoming article in the September 2007 issue of Information Technology and Libraries: Bejune, Matthew M. (2007) “Wikis in Libraries.” Information Technology and Libraries, 26(3), 27-39.
-http://librarywikis.pbwiki.com/
-Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/ maintained by Meredith Farkas, Queen of Wikis.
- Look at her blog at Information Wants to Be Free http://meredith.wolfwater.com/

LibraryThing, developed by Tim Spalding, is an online service to help people catalog their books. You can edit your information, search and sort it, “tag” books with your own subjects, or use the Library of Congress and Dewey systems to organize your collection. http://www.librarything.com/

LCPL Reference has developed the following:
BLOGS-
http://referencetoday.blogspot.com/
http://businesslines.blogspot.com/
http://regionroots.blogspot.com/

flickr-
http://www.flickr.com/

WIKIS-
lcplref wiki coming soon!

Take a look at some of the links and let me know what you think. Even the national political race is being affected by social networks. Did any of you watch CNN's YouTube Questions for the Democratic Candidates last week?

ALA Washington, D.C. - Program 2

Art and Science of Staffing...

This program was packed - I guess a lot of administrators are losing sleep at night!

Look at the speakers' scenario listed below and their ideas for change.

What do you think of their goals and tips for success? Is the picture this bleak? Do you have ideas for change that you'd like to share?

Art and Science of Staffing, Structure and Organizational Design in an Age of Permanent Change
Speakers:
Paula Singer, Principal Consultant, The Singer Group, Inc.
Gail Griffith, Deputy Director, Carroll County (MD) Public Library


“Changing demographics. Changing customer expectations. Half the staff is retiring in five years. You’re answering fewer reference questions. You wake up in the middle of the night and say, “What would happen if….?”

Goals:
1. Implement a strategic plan
2. Use qualitative and quantitative data
3. Staff for results

Tips for success:
1. Finite about of money to run the library, cannot do everything for everybody – look at strategic plan

2. Ask the right questions when analyzing data – don’t ask, “how many children came into the library last year,” but ask, “what’s the percentage of children in the population who came into the library, and how can we reach the others?”

3. Involve staff in change management processes – ask them what they would change.

Implementation:
1. Communicate the case for change. Create of sense of urgency.

2. Assess what the Library must do differently and better to carry out the strategic plan successfully.

3. Be clear and articulate the results you are looking for.

4. Outline how you expect to get those results.

5. Reward people for making changes and producing results.

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate!

ALA - Washington, D.C.

By all accounts the Annual Conference in Washinton, D. C. was a huge success. Over 28,000 librarians and venders attended this conference and set an attendance record for ALA.

The social networking theme permeated many programs and discussion forums. Are libraries ready to have online discussions with their patrons? Are patrons, especially young patrons, ready to communicate with librarians online? Do they want libraries in their social spaces? These are all questions that librarians are trying to answer.

To join the discussion you must look at and become familiar with a few of the online tools that are being used today. I have set up this blog to send out my notes from programs that I attended in Washington, D. C. I'll post a program a week. Please feel free to comment on or ask questions about any of the programs.

Transforming Your Services: Your customer has been transformed, so where is your library?

Speakers:
Karen Hyman, Chair, South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative
George Needham, OCLC
Joan Frye Williams, Information Technology Consultant

“What do people want and where is your library in that picture? What are the high impact new services that could reinvent your library today?”
Some interesting ideas:
1. Rethink reference: today’s librarians train and coach the user to do online research, they keep up with the hot topics in technology, they are extreme “googlers”, and they should promote their learning specialties to target audiences, and they should take appointments.
2. “Dispatched” Service: information desk to direct patrons
- librarians work on call
- tech staff work on call
3. Leverage the book brand
- order books that reflect patrons lifestyle
- books should be clean and displayed in bright locations
- programming: literary and entertaining
- “stop making it (the library) feel like church” – patron
4. “Information is everywhere – convenience will top quality any day.” Our job is to make quality convenient for our patrons.