How to use this Page

The concept of “Library 2.0″ has been around long enough now that we’ve gone through all the stages and argued it to death, as noticed by Andy Woodworth in a post titled Deconstructing Library 2.0. That’s a good thing, and you should go read his thoughts on the subject.

No matter which side you of the debate you come down on, you can probably prove your case. Me? I agree with Andrew Burkhardt when he notes, “The time has come for libraries to be social on the web. Social is the new normal. It has become mainstream and people expect it. Library 2.0 is not dead, it has just become boring and commonplace. And to quote Clay Shirky, ‘Tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.’ ”

In his paper Participatory Networks: The Library As Conversation, Dave Lankes said that “libraries should focus on the phenomena made possible by the technology,” not the technology itself, which I think is a pretty good way of thinking about “Library 2.0.” Maybe that’s where we are now, which would be a great way to continue the discussion, hopefully without the moniker. I think several of us thought that’s what we were doing, but it didn’t come across that way.

The hard part, though, is that Library 2.0 doesn’t really replace anything. Like so many library services, the opportunities these new tools afford us are in addition to everything we’re already doing, which causes problems, because we don’t get additional resources to implement them. To serve as many of your users as possible, you have to be in as many of the places where they are as possible. That principle has been the philosophy behind this site from day one, eight years ago. That means being out in your community physically and digitally, and that’s one of the pieces of L2 that I think was never adequately explained.

We’re already pretty good at getting out from behind the physical reference desk. We know how to do it, and we know how we could do it better given more resources. I worry that this is less true in the online world, and that’s where I always hoped L2 would help. As much as I support, love, and advocate for user-centered planning and design, my big regret about the whole “movement” is that it hasn’t focused more on how L2 helps staff.

So that’s what I tend to concentrate my own presentations on — the practical ways in which these new tools can help you. I’ve been a big promoter of RSS since 2002, and I still don’t understand why libraries don’t use it more. Yes, one of the benefits of syndicating content is that your users can subscribe to it, but equally important for me is that it allows me as an organization to get my content off my website so that it’s more visible where my users are. Most importantly, it automates that process so that I don’t have to spend precious resources manually updating a multitude of sites, inevitably forgetting about one of them. The fact that I can syndicate lists of new materials from my OPAC anywhere without human intervention? Priceless.

Why should your library have a blog? There are many benefits, but my biggest reason is because it gets your current news and announcements in a syndicated format, the display of which you can automate anywhere. You can easily recycle your content to Twitter, Facebook, elsewhere on your website, and more. Talk about a great way to get out into your community — how about displaying your current news on the village, park district, school, or a department website without any ongoing effort on your part? That’s a huge win-win in my book. And as someone who manually generated archives for daily posts before there were “blogs,” let me just sing the praises of automatic

Banking 2.0
Originally uploaded by The Shifted Librarian

I love that my bank is making it easier for me to do business with them by no longer requiring me to put deposits in envelopes. I can just imagine the committee meetings for this one:

• But we’ve never done that before.
• But it will mean more work for our staff.
• But we don’t know what crazy thing might happen.
• And on and on

This makes my user experience easier and more convenient, which I really appreciate. And of course, those who still want to use envelopes can do so.

What small things can your library do to make your services (both in your building and online) easier and more convenient for your users?

Last week, I highlighted Ed Vielmetti’s thoughts about adding covers to the list of overdue books you have checked out, as well as the ability to text the location of an item to your cell phone. Both of these are enhancements that I, as Patron 2.0, would very much appreciate my library providing.

In the comments on that post, Jason from the Iowa City Public Library gave us a working example (working in an Innovative catalog, at least). I tried it out and sure enough, a few seconds after entering my cell phone number, up popped a text message with the location of the item.Very slick, and very useful.

Even better, Ed came back into the comments on that post and pointed at the script that runs this service. It was originally written by Adam from Bryn Mawr more than a year ago, where it’s still in place today. Not only is it freely available online, but there are very clear directions for sending SMS from a III catalog (thanks, Adam!).

If you have a programmer on staff or someone who knows just enough to be dangerous, now you, too, can implement this service at no cost to your library to make your catalog that much more useful.

The personal detour

I’m back from giving the closing talk at SOLINET’s annual membership meeting, where I was well-pampered by all involved. I also rented a Prius for the trip, and it was quite difficult to return this lovely car to Avis. I had wondered how I would like driving a Prius, and the answer is “OMG ponies!” Smooth ride, the joy of watching myself save fuel, and pride of (temporary) ownership of a green vehicle… ’sall good.

I didn’t sleep well for two nights running (no fault to anyone except my over-active brain working on issues completely unrelated to SOLINET, speeches, or cars), so during my talk I felt under my game. I can always feel the difference between “they liked my talk” and “I shot them over the moon with numinous insights.” I’ll make a point of sleeping better before I teach “Writing for the Web” at TBLC next month.

The when-ness of tagging

Now I make a sharp right turn to discuss tagging in workflow context. Over on Thingology, Tim Spalding discusses user tagging of Godless, Ann Coulter’s latest screed book, pointing out that on Amazon the shouting match is unrelated to book ownership:

But while, on LibraryThing, where you have to have a book to tag it, Godless has a fairly unremarkable tag cloud, touching on its subject matter and point of view, on Amazon, the tagging has devolved into a shouting match.

For some time I’ve been pondering tagging in the context of a user’s workflow. Tagging in library catalogs hasn’t worked yet for a number of reasons, such as these rather obvious points:

• John Blyberg has noted that without critical mass, tagging is useless. I’d go farther and say without critical mass, tagging could backfire, because only the most determined cranks and pranksters might actually use it. A local library catalog is not beefy enough to build critical mass on its own; I don’t know how big or how heavily-used a catalog needs to be, but “a lot” is my guess. (Then there is the issue with the silo-like design of most library software, which keeps social data imprisoned behind proprietary walls.) That is yet another reason I like “LibraryThing for Libraries“: it’s an enrichment service to salt a catalog with an initial mass of high-quality tags built by passionate readers (and also provides that spookily-marvelous if-you-liked-this functionality).
• Some systems that claim to offer tagging make it so high-pain to tag that it works against adoption. I am thinking of the system where to merely SEE the tags a user must log in, and where tags are only searchable in “Advanced Search.” (Carl Grant, if you’re reading this, I owe you a citation on people-don’t-use-advanced-search… you have been very patient.)
• Also, on several occasions I have observed conversations about tagging between vendors and customers where the first words out of a customer’s mouth are “How can I control tagging?” and the vendor then responds in kind. If your primary objective is to “control” tagging, rather than make it work (that is, at minimum, to encourage users to provide quality tags), then the system design, to borrow youthful jargon, will be a FAIL.

But I have also pondered tagging in workflow context and feel this has not received adequate discussion. I’m guessing (based on Tim’s comments) that Librarything users are predominantly tagging when they add books or when they return to their collection for maintenance/grooming activities, such as cleaning up entries, fiddling with their default display, or examining the community discussion around books. Tim is also suggesting that on Amazon tagging appears to be less related to activities related to the workflow of book acquisition and ownership.

So I again mull over the library catalog and tagging workflow. Most catalogs are designed to help users find books or book-like items — known items, or items found through discovery. (Well, that is the claim, anyway.) You don’t return books through a library catalog (at least not yet). So when would tagging happen?

My guess is the best tagging would happen when the users returns the catalog to find more items. I say this because in some respects, a library catalog appears to be remarkably similar to Netflix in workflow, where I (again, out on this limb!) presume user reviewing (similar to tagging?) happens when a user logs in to refresh his or her queue with yummy new titles or simply get a reminder of what’s in the queue (in my family’s case, this happens after we receive some bizarre movie that sorta-looked-good that stealthily crept up to be #1 in one of our queues).

If I’m not going to tag when I find a book (why would I, if I haven’t read it, Amazon notwithstanding), and I’m not going to tag when I check out a book (an unrelated physical activity), and I’m not going to tag after I read a book (because that would mean the sole reason I’m returning to the catalog is to tag an item, which feels low-gain), and I’m not going to tag when I return a book (can you see me at the circ desk, reciting tags I want added to an item — or perhaps shouting tags into a book drop? Or I guess I could write them on a p-slip)…

Seems to me that tagging workflow in a catalog should be “gamed” so that the next time I visit the catalog to find something, the catalog entices me to tag. That would also be when I’m motivated to tag the book in a way that describes it well for my own bibliographic reuse, and also for others. (It could lead to opinion-tagging, though maybe that is always inevitable.)

Then again, what if at the beginning of a new discovery session the catalog recommended books? Prompted me to add reviews? Suggested I queue items? But I get ahead of myself…

All I’m really saying is that the very primitive tagging workflows I’ve seen so far in library catalogs aren’t designed to encourage tagging. (I am not referring at all to LibraryThing for Libraries, which at this point is a one-way enrichment service.) In fact, I don’t see much attention to tagging workflow, period. It feels very random and first-gen — a tacked-on service to allow a vendor to say “Yes, we offer tagging.” If you care at all about engaging users in catalogs and building user-contributed data, or for that matter leveraging social data period, that is simply not good enough.

Thoughts on tagging? Do I have this all wrong, or is there a nubbin of sensicalness here? Have I missed or misinterpreted/misrepresented some tagging behavior?

Bookmark to:

It is very early Wednesday morning, and I’m feeling some small beads of sweat on my neck. I’m looking for inspiration any way I can get it — from my brain, from divine sources, and of course, from you, gentle reader.

This Friday morning I’m giving at talk to SOLINET about how to market, get buy-in, and otherwise feed and water your library’s blog. I think I agreed to this last summer, when many very nice people were finding me gigs to keep food on the table.

In any event, when I was reminded in November of this commitment, I said to myself, self, I said, that’s February — no problem!

Then in January, I said, pish tosh — that’s over a month away!

Then last week I said, I have the whole weekend! But then I had that icky muscle-thingy happen, and I was so heavily medicated my doctor warned me against not just driving, but using kitchen appliances with moving parts. So I decided PowerPoint was a kitchen appliance (it chops text, right?), and lay on the couch, reading.

Cut to Wednesday morning. I’m still dorking around with my slides, and though I had brilliant thoughts in the shower, they got toweled away. I have a few ideas, but am struggling.

(I’m talking about blogs affiliated with libraries and library organizations and oriented toward library users… not the free range type, like this one, and not otherwise excellent “industry” blogs, such as Library Garden and It’s All Good.)

My go-to blog of choice is Icarus – a lovely blog where many posts have a voice and a focus on “you, library user” — and the AADL’s blog, but surely the well can’t run dry there.

I’m not limiting myself to library blogs — because the point is not “how can I have a blog as good as the best in LibraryLand,” but how can I have the very best blog possible — unfortunately, not quite the same question. But I want to give honor where honor is due.

Bookmark to:

In my previous job, one of my tasks was to create authentication scripts for remote access to databases for my libraries. This was something I proactively pursued because most of my libraries didn’t have a programmer on staff who knew how to create these scripts, let alone a server to run them on. Now that I’m not there anymore, those scripts are no longer available, and it’s upsetting to think that those libraries can no longer offer that service to their patrons.

But some vendors are starting to understand that helping libraries increase usage of the databases they’re purchasing is not just a good thing to do but is good business, as well. RSS is a great step in that direction, so I’ve been more than happy to highlight ProQuest’s and EBSCO’s efforts, and I was gratified to learn recently that OCLC is working on providing RSS from WorldCat and FirstSearch (via a message in Facebook).

Another promising step in this direction is the new ProQuest Search Widget creator, a tool that gives subscribers the code to add search boxes to any web page. You can specify a database to be searched, include your proxy server’s address, add specific terms to the search for automatic “and” functionality, and even change the color and border of the box.

When the user enters a search term, if they’re within an authenticated IP range or using your proxy server (if you have one), they’ll get right to the search results. If not, they’ll be prompted to log in.

Tip: If you know a little HTML, you can include the ProQuest logo in the code by default and then change it to be your own logo afterwards if you want to add the search box to non-library pages.

Speaking of where you could put this widget, ProQuest gives you some ideas and even provides some mock-ups as suggestions, but the general idea is to put it anywhere and everywhere your users may be. In some of the example screenshots, you can see how nicely the search box complements an RSS feed of new, subject-specific items from the database. The examples are all for an academic library, but this works just as well for school libraries (classroom project pages), public libraries (municipality sites, park district pages, parent network pages), and even special libraries (intranets). Add in your library’s logo, and you have a fairly simple, yet powerful, way to get your services off your site and into the intertubes your users are using.

Sidenote: After almost three years of promises, ProQuest is finally scheduled to roll out RSS in April. Finally, but hooray!

I’ve been waiting for Michael Wesch, the Kansas State professor who created the viral The Machine Is Us/ing Us and A Vision of Students Today videos, to do one that more directly addresses libraries. Last week he did just that. Hopefully it will help spread David Weinberger’s message from Everything Is Miscellaneous (which you need to read if you haven’t already). Is your library part of this new r/evolution, or are you still facing the future with only a 20th century service orientation?

Information R/evolution.

Bonus link via Paul Pival: Jon Udell on Remixing the Library
. Can your patrons remix your library?

I put the slides on Google after two uploads to slideshare.net failed abysmally.  (My talk was also greatly enriched by two slides I stole, one from Andrew Pace and the other from Darlene Fichter. Thanks ;-)  )

This was a great experience. I haven’t done a pure “2.0″ talk in over a year, which meant I was forced to rethink the whole topic, and part of the pleasure of this talk was that the library wasn’t at a cold start; they have a blog, Blogging for a Good Book, that is an impressive effort (and a good read, too!). That allowed me to spend more time talking about tying services into strategic plans, sustainability, marketing, new services, measurement, and new technologies that might or might not catch on. One phrase I repeated as often as I could came from Jeremy Frumkin: “one click to find, one click to get.”

I broke my 2.0 technologies into 2.0 Classic, Catalog 2.0, 2.0 Nouveau, and 2.0 Dubious. Some highlights of my talk included the del.icio.us collection by the Assumption College for Sisters (go, sisters, go!); the 30-second QandANJ commercial (one of the very few library videos on YouTube focused on users); TwitterLit, Debra Hamel’s book-focused Twitter feed; Kankakee Public Library’s front-page-linked blogs and feeds; and the display of the Williamsburg network on Facebook (part of my “find your users and learn more about them” discussion, which also featured Technorati, Feedburner, and Google Blog Search).

For a demonstration of virtual reference with Meebo-Me, Skokie Public Library came through magnificently. The crowd was visibly impressed, and the live interaction made my talk much fresher. Thanks, Toby and team!

(I became controversial while showing Danbury’s catalog, when I said LibraryThing for Libraries “kicked Novelist’s butt” — I didn’t know several librarians there contribute to Novelist. That was a fun couple of minutes! My take on Novelist is that it was a great thing once upon a time — at least if you exclusively read fiction — but it has been OBT’d, that is, Overcome By Technology. Still, I encouraged the people who felt differently to write about Novelist versus LibraryThing. A thoughtful, spirited comparison of the two services would be useful.)

The structure of the event was interesting. I spoke for an hour, then the staff broke into small groups and designed 2.0 services, then I skimmed the reports, discussed common themes, and spoke again. I finished early, and that puzzled me; much later I realized I rushed through the staff service designs because I was worried about time… yet we really had plenty of time to discuss them, especially if I had ginned up the presence of mind to turn my laptop into an ad-hoc smartboard and key in some take-aways from the worksheets. I’d do this again, but find a way to get the suggestions “informated” — perhaps have each session have a “secretary” who keyed ideas into a wiki so we could review and discuss them collectively.

I was such a pampered speaker… Genevieve, my “handler” (and one-time Wonewok roommate) took time from her manic staff-day-prep schedule and scooped me up from the Richmond airport, drove me along lovely canopy backroads, squired me through the libraries in her system, indulged me with wonderful seafood (best she-crab soup I’ve ever had, and she made sure the waiter offered me sherry), put me up in a nice, quiet hotel, ensured that the technology was exactly what I needed, let me relax in a bookstore for an hour, treated me to a pile of magazines, and got me back to the airport safe and sound. Thanks, WRL!

Bookmark to:

From a recent interaction:

Feedback: 2 b : the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source

Freedback: b : the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source when done openly and transparently using public input and output mechanisms, e.g. blogs with open comments instead of one-way, non-interactive, email-based forms

And from a different conversation, TADD: Technology ADD.

If you’re attending the Illinois Library Association Conference, I highly recommend this program. I’ve seen the slides and read the narrative, and I think it’s going to be great (and very practical). Should be a lot of interesting discussion, too.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007, 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Room B-7
Prairie Capital Convention Center

“How can you make Library 2.0 a reality? To realize change, we must shift management strategies at the speed of Library 2.0. This panel explores how middle managers can use their positions to foster a culture of learning and collaboration to realize Library 2.0 change.”

And of course you’re already going to see Michael Stephens opening keynote at 11:00 a.m. that day, right? Of course you are. Have fun, Michael!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007 beginning at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 1:00 Central, noon Mountain, 11:00 a.m. Pacific, and 6:00 p.m. GMT:

Interview with David Weinberger, Author of Everything is Miscellaneous

(I cribbed this copy from another blog and then had to laugh, since it refers to me in the third person:)

David Weinberger will be discussing his new book, Everything is Miscellaneous, in which he explores how the new principles of disorder are remaking society, culture, education, business, media, politics, and–perhaps most importantly–libraries. This is the book that Karen Schneider described in the ALA TechSource Blog as “…dangerous. [It] takes all the precious ideas we are taught as librarians and throws them out the window.” The dedication of the book, by the way, is “To the librarians.” Weinberger, one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, is a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and holds a doctorate in philosophy. Sponsor: TAP Information Services

Bookmark to:

As I just posted over at Pop Goes the Library, The Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative has issued the CJRLC Tech Challenge for "anyone who works in a CJRLC member library". Full details are here.

I work for a CJRLC member library; and I'm taking the challenge! Let's see what I still have "to do."

The short version of the challenge:

1. Start a blog relating to your library interests; post once a month, including photos! Done!

2. Start a Flickr photo account. Done!

3. Subscribe to an aggregator like bloglines and set up RSS feeds from blogs or websites. I subscribe to Bloglines (and that's how I read most of my blogs.)

4. Read about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0; post some comments on your blog. I'm going to have to check over at Pop to see if I have ever posted on either of these topics; in the meanwhile, I have a great idea for a post about Web 2.0 for this site, so stay tuned!

5. Learn to use at least one of the following: LibraryThing, Google Maps; De.licio.us; or Squidoo.
Being an over achiever, I'd like to learn how to use all of them. In the meanwhile, I did start accounts with both De.licio.us and Squidoo, I just have to make better use of them both.

6. Teach someone else how to use one of the technologies described above! Done: I've done formal workshops for places like CJRLC and MPOW and also informal one on one sessions.

The deadline is May 24, 2007. How to enter, etc. is also all at the CJRLC website. To support its members, the CJRLC is offering training.*

Even if you aren't a member library of the CJRLC -- take the challenge!

The Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative has issued the CJRLC Tech Challenge for "anyone who works in a CJRLC member library". Full details are here.

The short version of the challenge:

1. Start a blog relating to your library interests; post once a month, including photos!

2. Start a Flickr photo account.

3. Subscribe to an aggregator like bloglines and set up RSS feeds from blogs or websites.

4. Read about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0; post some comments on your blog.

5. Learn to use at least one of the following: LibraryThing, Google Maps; De.licio.us; or Squidoo.

6. Teach someone else how to use one of the technologies described above!

The deadline is May 24, 2007. How to enter, etc. is also all at the CJRLC website. To support its members, the CJRLC is offering training.*

Even if you aren't a member library of the CJRLC -- take the challenge!

*Full disclaimer: I work for a CJRLC member library, and I do workshops for the CJRLC.

John Blyberg talks about the social tools built into the new Social OPAC (SOPAC!) he’s rolled out — and released the source code for — at AADL.