Reference Services

There's a short article in the Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus about a professor at Pennsylvania State University - University Park encouraging students to use Twitter to pass notes during class. His theory is "that the second layer of conversation will disrupt the old classroom model and allow new kinds of teaching in which students play a greater role and information is pulled in from outside the classroom walls." This stimulates a very active and interactive environment for learning and discussion and the learning process becomes more communal in nature.

I see this occurring in webinars as well. When presenters turn on and encourage the chat room mechanism of web presentations you start to see a flurry of activity coming from the sidelines. There are some great conversations and questions asked captured from that avenue. For some in the webinar environment, I see their interaction happening in the chat room where they would not, for whatever reason, also participate in the voice discussion. It's just another way of inviting in discussion that may be more comfortable for some.

This layered effect to the traditional classroom or webinar environment brings in a new richness to the learning process. It is multilearning!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Great article from Chronicle of Higher Ed reviewing the 2009 Horizon Report:

'Horizon Report' Names Top Technology Trends to Watch in Education

More services will be running on cellphones or handheld computers, and more devices will be able to broadcast their location to others, says a new report from Educause's Learning Initiative and the New Media Consortium.

The "2009 Horizon Report," the latest edition of the annual list of technology trends to watch in education, is compiled based on news reports, research studies, and interviews with experts.

Topping the list of hot technologies are smart phones and other mobile devices. The authors noted that smart phones can now run third-party applications, which could revolutionize how such devices are used in education by consolidating numerous teaching, learning, and administrative tools into devices that fit into the palms of students' hands.

Another top trend identified in the report is cloud computing, which refers to Web-based applications and services. Such services, many of which are free, will allow campus users to access more tools and information at a lower cost - although it may make users increasingly dependent on their hosts, the report says.

The prevalence of electronics that have "geo-locators" - that is, that are capable of knowing where they are - could have important applications for field research, specifically with regard to tracking the movement of animal populations or mapping data sets to study weather, migration, or urban development patterns, the report says. Similarly, "smart" objects - which are aware not only of their locations but of themselves and their environment - are already used in some libraries for tracking and tagging materials and may have analogous applications across a number of academic disciplines.

Though the Internet has proved to be a helpful resource for many students and professors, the sheer volume of its content can make finding relevant information a tedious chore at times. According to the report, the personal Web - i.e., widgets and services that help connect individual users to the Web-based information relevant to them - will allow students, professors, and administrators to use the Web more efficiently.

In a similar vein, semantic-aware applications will emerge to allow students to use one of the Internet's more popular features - Web search - more efficiently, the authors predict. Semantic-aware applications refer to technology designed to analyze the meaning of phrases typed into search boxes, rather than just the keywords. Beyond search technology, the report says that semantic-aware applications may eventually help researchers organize and present their findings in ways that more easily describe conceptual relationships among collected data. --Steve Kolowich

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Virtual Library Notes: Web 2.0 Success Story.

This is such a great story about using user-generated tagging to find a book for a patron based only on what the book was about. It shows the ingenuity of a resourceful librarian and how social networking tools can be encorporated into daily reference work.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please note that Friday, February 15th is the last day to register to participate in the 23 Things on a Stick: A Library Learning 2.0 program. If you are already one of our 600 registered participants, who are happily exploring the 23 web 2.0 tools (Things) in the program, good for you! Keep posting your progress, pleasant surprises, and “aha” moments in your 23 Things blog. Play and Learn to Fear Less!

Join us now at http://23thingsonastick.blogspot.com

Live & Learn with Web 2.0,

Minnesota’s Multicounty, Multitype Library Systems

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More interesting MN blogging discussion about the XO laptop and the Digital Divide. This time from Erica M at Metroblogging Minneapolis:

While reading MNspeak response to the MPR story on the University of Minnesota Institute on Race & Poverty's report "Digital Justice: Progress towards Digital Inclusion in Minnesota," I had this thought:

Isn't it as much about access to the hardware as it is about access to the internet connection? Is $30/month for your broadband connection really more difficult to come by than a chunk of change on the order of $400-$1200 for a computer?

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Minnesota blogger, Aaron Landry, just got an XO Laptop from the One Laptop per Child program and gives an excellent write-up about his experience on his personal blog.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you will be at ALA Midwinter in January there is a session on Saturday, Jan. 12 I highly encourage you to rearrange your schedules to attend. The speaker, Aaron Swartz, is leading the Open Library project, which is something I wrote about in a previous post (see July 17) and in Reference Notes. From what I've read about Swartz his presentation at Midwinter should be a notable highlight.

Evaluating Emerging Technologies
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Philadelphia Convention Center (PCC), Room 108A
1:30-3:30 p.m.

As librarians, we need to keep pace with the innovations that are transforming how we reach and serve our customers. But with the vast number of competing technologies, how can you be confident that you are selecting the best solution for your customers? How are you certain that you are not squandering your limited finances and resources on fads and faulty solutions?

Aaron Swartz, co-author of RSS, co-creator of the Open Library project, co-founder of Reddit, and former adviser to Creative Commons, will be sharing his strategies on how to analyze competing technologies. His insights will help us invest in the resources that will best meet our customers' needs.

This is an opportunity to listen to a leader in the field and to engage in a dialog with him. Come explore this discussion on emerging technologies. You can't afford to miss it!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Very interesting post from E-Strategy.com: Social Bookmarking Demographics. This is extremely interesting and may find useful to see who is using the different types of bookmarking sites and what can be promoted to different audience groups.

In an article about social bookmarking in the Winter 07/08 issue of Search Marketing Standard, Joe Whyte cites Quantcast demographic data for some of the top bookmarking sites. This data is hard to come by, so it is valuable in helping to understand the respective services' audiences.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VirtualHosting.com just released its Top 100 Social Media and Social Networking Blogs list for 2007. Yes, we are already seeing the "best of 07" lists coming out and there is still a month to go!

Interesting sites on the list:
#2 SMogger Social Media Blog: SMogger addresses the “ethical use of social media for business and regular folks.”
#6 Social Media Club - the go-to blog for anyone interested in developing or learning about social media standards, trends, and communities.
#15 SociableBlog - a great site for librians interested in learning how to best leverage use of sites such as FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube and other social sites to reach out to and connect to people.
#34 Everything 2.0 - researches social media and Web 2.0 trends and posts helpful reviews of the latest products and downloads.
#65 SocialNetworkingNews - get all the latest information about online communities and tools. Great place to go for new ideas to connect with users!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a great slideshow posted by eWeek.com about wikis that I highly suggest reviewing if you work with or involved with wiki in anyway: 25 Tips for a Better Wiki Deployment. Setting the right tone administering wikis allows for better interaction and and group knowledge. Very useful and straightforward information.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was circulated via a listserv at the U of M that I thought you all might find interesting:

What could be more important to librarians than increased access to
information? That's exactly what the High Speed MN bill proposes to do by
calling for 1GigB to each Minnesota home by 2015. More info at www.gigggroup.org

The Minnesota House of Representatives Telecomm Division of the Commerce
Committee is going to hold an important field hearing at Eagan City Hall on
Wednesday, October 17, from 4-6 p.m.

The topic is high speed broadband, and the committee particularly wants to
hear from businesses and any Minnesota residents who do not feel they have
sufficient Internet speeds or competitive choices. A High Speed MN bill
urges the state to have a formal broadband policy and speed goal. It is
open to the public. Any resident of Minnesota is invited to participate.

HIGH SPEED Minnesota Bill

One GigaBit. That's the speed called for in a policy that the State of
Minnesota should adopt. In order for Minnesota to maintain and enhance its
leadership position in high technology business growth, we'll need the
speed. The goal is by 2015. Studies show that economic development is
greatly enhanced by having a high speed infrastrucutre in place. This
public policy has gone forward on two fonts: First, Rep Sandy Masin (DFL-
Eagan) has introduced legislation to create a statewide broadband policy and
to set a goal (1GBit to each home by 2015). She will be holding field
hearings in Eagan on Oct 17. Second, proponents of the bill are working
with the Commerce Department, the agency charged by the Governor's Office to
support not only the broadband policy but to create some pilot projects.

There is way too much to say about this in a short post. Go to the web site
www.giggroup.org to learn more about the benefits of such a policy to all of
us. This is an important issue for libraries & information centers and each
of us as citizens. Come out and support the creation of the statewide policy.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't believe this eluded me until now but Meredith Farkas has published her findings on a survey she conducted earlier this summer about the blogoshpere: 2007 Survey of the Biblioblogosphere: Blog Demographics.

It's quite interesting to see how many librarians are blogging, what they're blogging about and why they use blogging as a means of communication. It was also really exciting to see that the number of blogs being created has not slowed down. Yes! Keep it growing. I don't think there is such a thing as "deluge" on the web. Everyone chooses what they do and don't want to read on the web and there is infinite amount of room for everyone to have a voice, especially if that voice is directed at a specific community and not just to the whole of the internet.

One interesting point that Meredith points out in the survey is that while you may not tell people at work that you have a personal blog that doesn't mean they don't know about it. She was surprised to find people commenting on her blog from work that she didn't realize knew about it. Also, 45% of bloggers responded that they have never published anything, blogging was their only "formal" form of writing to a public. I think that this is a great example of how blogs can be used to strengthen writing and communication skills of librarians as well as being used for outreach and connection. Also, it can lead to more opportunities to blog, write, present...

Check out the survey and start batting around the idea of how you and your community can benefit from blogging.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a few good articles floating around in the ether that have been getting some discussion. I found them to be fairly good and informative for online research and models for outreach:

The latest edition of Webology, an OPEN ACCESS journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, is
available ONLINE now.
Webology: Volume 4, Number 2, 2007 TOC: http://www.webology.ir/2007/v4n2/toc.html
A couple articles that I found of particular interest were Web 2.0 as a Social Movement by William F. Birdsall, http://www.webology.ir/2007/v4n2/a40.html and Folksonomies: Why do we need controlled vocabulary? by Alireza Noruzi, http://www.webology.ir/2007/v4n2/editorial12.html.

From First Monday, I also suggest Beyond Google: How do students conduct academic research? by Alison J. Head, http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/head/index.html

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a great video that talks about what a wiki is and how it can be used by a group from David Erickson with e-strategyblog.com:

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

3 speakers:
Matthew Bejune, Purdue University Libraries
url: LibraryWikis
-examples of library wikis are here
-librarians are encouraged to contribute library wikis they know of that aren’t listed here (password: LWcontrib)

Meredith Farkas, Queen of Wikis, maintains Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, blogs at Information Wants to be Free
url: meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com - presentation slides and resources can be found here

Tim Spalding web developer and publisher, founder of LibraryThing

This conversation about this presentation will continue at the Talking Reference &… - RUSA blog - look under the category of Social Networking

Matthew B.:
Libraries & Wikis
Collected examples – 35 total – research from 1-2 yrs ago – many more blogs since then

Identified 4 types of library wikis:
1.) Collaboration between libraries – 45.7%
-ex. ALA wiki where librarians from anywhere can contribute
2.) Collaboration between staff – 31.4%
-internal communications
3.) Collaboration between library staff & patrons – 14.3%
-ex. St. Joseph County PL
4.) Collaboration between patrons – 8.6%

Questions to ponder (he doesn’t have the answers):
-where are the wikis used in categories 3 & 4?
-how might we allow users to build/modify library info? – control factor – open the door to let patrons add info/contribute
-in what ways will libraries next utilize wikis & other social networking technologies?
-how long before your library implements some form of a wiki?

Meredith F:
She’s all about Knowledge Management (KM)
-all orgs. Want to make the best use of institutional knowledge
-all libs. Have different areas of interest & expertise
-our patrons have lots of knowledge that would be useful to other patrons
-we usually are pretty terrible at collecting this knowledge

Info Sharing is great but how do we capture/keep all that info?
-one-on-one conversations
-staff meetings
-IM, Twitter, etc…
-scraps of paper at the ref. desk
-email
-blogs

Blogs are great – for short term info

How are we collecting out knowledge for the long term?
ex. Aadl.org (get link)
-allowing patrons to tag things in the catalog
-“users who checked out this book also checked out” – taken straight from amazon – don’t be afraid of this – technology is good enough to strip away private info so we can capture and use this info – don’t have to hide this
ex. HCL’s bookspage (get link)
-best reader’s advisory site (in the whole wide world!)
-letting our user’s doing their reader’s advisory for us
-allowing comments in the catalog and is being heavily used
ex. RocWiki (get link) Rochester Wiki
-guide to Rochester community – anyone can contribute
-people can ask questions and other members answer
-very similar to a community board
-good ex. For a library to base off of – team up w community
ex. BizWiki (get link)
-guides to different types of research
-grt site because of the collaborative nature – having faculty and students add to the resources
-search option
-assign catefories to each page to make it easier to browse
ex. PennTags (get link)
-social bookmarking site for campus community
-create tags
-organize your own research
-see what others have done
-results show up in catalog
-letting your users do your work for you (in a sense – we get to learn from them too!)

Wiki as Intranet
-share procedures & policies
-share basic info
-share knowledge about ref. resources – assignments students are coming to desk about – ref. sources in subject expertise (that you may have little knowledge of)

*it can take time to build KM behavior into the organizational workflow
-takes formal training
-working it into the daily workflow

Tim S:
Founder of LibraryThing
-it’s like MySpace for books & book lovers
-sharing books w people and groups
-connected to people thru this site
-get to use high quality metadata and tags
-they call it “social cataloging” (room laughs)
-knowledge is a conversation – don’t just say what you know – how to thesis
-libraries very much like the web
-catalog as conversation
-users add info/images/pieces to pages in LT

isbnThing – connecting isbn’s, relating books and editions and formats

“it shouldn’t work, like wikipedia shouldn’t work but it does” – people keep it going
-chick lit tag used as an ex. – not in LCSH (later corrected by someone in the audience that it was added to LCSH in 2006 – he points back that LCSH doesn’t back add so a lot of the books, the critical books that made that term, are not even associated with it)
-people use cooking as a tag, LCSH uses cookery
-cyberpunk – related to… subjects – tag neuromancer – largest tag cyberpunk has, this is what it means to people

book: Tales of the city
-compares the LC online catalog to the LT tags
-tags get at the identity and what it means – LCSH can’t do this

Problems of tagging:
-too many for one book – ex. Diary of Anne Frank – some tags: historyish, in Belgium
-bad tags wash out statistically – not used by that many people
-complexity/hierarchy better in LCSH that’s harder to get in tags
ex. Leather – mismatch of tag meanings
-problems w who’s makikng tags up

New/Coming to LT:
TagMash
-combining tags together
ex. France, wwii, non-fiction
ex. Magic, -fiction (minus fiction)
ex. Chick lit, Greece

LT starting to offer in library catalogs – read more at librarything.com/forlibraries
-works in any opac
-brings up things only in that libs. Catalog

LT doesn’t handle non-book formats very well but they’re working on this.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, final post for the day/workshop. btw, you can see more posts about this workshop at librarianlikeme.wordpress.com.
Panel Discussion:

KC: bring value to what your doing - is it of value to your users

DK: don't think, "I don't have enough time to blog", think " Where does my library want to be in 2 years? Does it involve having an active online community?" Then figure out how your going to get there.

MS: look at what you're doing and what little things can you change

KC: they're organization is currently going through a "Flush Campaign" - see what needs to go and have admin say that will go away.

DK: on commenting on blogs - if no one is commenting then it's just a talking head. Ask your audience a question and invite them to comment. Respond quickly. Other ways of inviting participation - market - i.e. toddler time: post info about it at the day care center - leave the bldg to market/advertise your library/events

KC: make it meaningful or it's not worth the reader's time

DF: I'm not a techy, I'm a reference/instruction librarian. If I can do the things I need to do w blogs and podcasts so can everyone in this room!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Library Web Chic, Karen Coombs gave the final presentation of today's all-day workshop (whew!).

Coombs talked about Social Software for Reference Services (mainly blogs).
Why use blogs:
-easy to edit
-can allow many staff and users to contribute
-space for feedback from users
-can create content for all parts of library info

Ways to use blogs:
-Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) has great blog webstie - good job of integrating blog into homepage - posts are tagged
-news & info - keep users up to date w what's going on
-internal communications - communicate news/announcements to staff - record latest questions being asked - highlight new resources
-University of Houston Libraries has staff/internal blog - any staff member who works the ref desk can add info - helps to distribute info
-reader's advisory - timeliness - ability of multiple comments
-Lansing Library (IL)'s Reader's Reviews links to books in the catalog - can see if the librarian is online - link back to the library website - ability to search for other materials
-another idea - link books to open worldcat - servicing your users & beyond - anyone coming on your site will be able to find the books you're talking about in a library near them
-subject oriented blogs - include contact info & (personal) desk hours - highlight digital collection - incorporate media
-promote library events - let people know what is going on - allow users to subscribe to specific content (pick and choose) - create categories for different events

Do's & Dont's (not very new, but...)
-do have an rss or atom feed
-do update your blog regularly
-do allow your readers to comment
-do use tags and/or categories to organize your posts
-don't hide your rss feed (use the orange button - it's recognizable)
-don't post frivilous content - have rich, purposeful content
-don't forget to moderate comments
-don't separate your lirbary blog from the library website - this one (I think) is "iffy" because if libraries are struggling to get the support for a blog in the first place, I say go ahead and create one on one of those free sites like blogger, typepad, or wordpress.com (personal fav.) just to get it started (as a prototype) so you can show your folks in charge "Hey! Look what I can do!" (personal editorial)
-if your library wants to go gung-ho and establish institution-wide blogs for all staff (and beyond) it's best to go with a "install it yourself" software such as moveable type or wordpress.org.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David King gave the second half of the afternoon presentation with David Free (hey, they're blogging about the conference too!).

King's presentation talked about vlogging/videoblogging/vlog/video podcast/vodcast/videocast....
Vlog (I'll use this term) is, plane and simple, a video on a blog. The point is to have content - purposeful, rich content.
Examples of vlogs:
-SteveGarfield.com
-MichaelVerdi.com
-Jay Dedman
-Rocketboom.com
-mnstories.com -ok, King didn't have this in his presentation, but it's my favorite and I'm slipping it in.

Where to look for vlogs?
-search engines - bloglines, google, blinkx
-vlog directories - vlogdir, mefeedia, and iTunes - one site he didn't mention which is one I use regularly is Technorati (personal fav.)
-search some video sites - YouTube is outrageously popular and it's only 2 years old - also, it's not a vlog. It's a social networking website that houses other people's videos. and blip.tv
-new site - clipblast.com - it spider's the web for videos.

Creating a vlog:
-to create - script, make, edit
-need a computer - firewire, external hard drive
-need a video camera - mini-DV camcorders, cheapie web cam and mic, mobile phone
-need video editing software - some free stuff: Apple's iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Avid Free DV, Quicktime Pro - Pricey & Powerful: Adobe's Video Suite, Final Cut Pro
-need a blog - best to have enclosures for rss 2.0 feed like feedburner

Storage
-can be an issue - store yourself but make sure you have the bandwidth to handle
-plenty of free sites to store - Ourmedia.org, blip.tv, Internet Archive, Google Video, YouTube

What can libraries do??
King's library, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's vlog: PaperCuts bringing library news, reviews and events in vlog format.
-try to come up with interesting ideas that will capture people's attention
Traditional ideas:
-book talk
-bibliographic instruction (any academic libraries out there? try this?)
-pr for the library
-showing off exhibits
-interviews (with anyone, celebs, pominent local citizens, politicians...)
-film your events
-tutorials
More interesting ideas:
-cultural memory project - video history rather than oral history
-local news - happy news from around your branch
-collaborative - PLCMC's ImaginOn - kids making videos
-environmental - discuss environmental issues and nature
-behind the scenes - what goes on at the library?
and on and on and on...

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I mentioned in a previous post. I was going to talk about LibraryThing. LibraryThing is a (another) social site designed to let people share information about the books they love! You can add books to your list that your reading, read, want to read, look for suggestions and upcoming publications. You can make any and every part of your list public and view by anyone or just a select list of people. You can create book groups to meet and talk about books and view other talks to find out more information about specific books and authors.

Also, you can write your own reviews and make the accessible only on LibraryThing, allow LibraryThing to give your review to non-commercial entities (mosty libraries) or to both non-commercial and commercial entities (such as booksellers, publishers, authors, street gangs).

Who doesn't keep their own book list? I do and it has gotten a bit unwieldy as of late. So now I've just loaded it up on LibraryThing and manage it from there. Another neat factor: you can choose from 78 different sources to search from, most of which being libraries. I just searched the University of Chicago's catalog on LibraryThing for Charles Bukowski and found a new book published in Germany about him I had never heard of before, "The Germans love me for some reason - " : Charles Bukowski und Deutschland by Horst Schmidt. What a find!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you tag "stuff"? Do you have tags in many different places such as Del.icio.us, Flickr, Gmail, Squirl, LibraryThing and Connotea? Who doesn't! Which reminds me, I haven't written about LibraryThing yet. I'll have to do a little write up on that next.

Anyway, TagsAhoy! "lets you search all your tags, across different sites, from one location". Sweet! They plan to add more sites to the list soon as well.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

David Weinberger will be speaking with librarians online today at 1 pm (cdt). Don't miss this opportunity to find out what this author has to say about the future of libraries and express your own opinions!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Poster is the latest evolution in social bookmarking. It's very easy to use also. Go to the Social Poster website and add the Social Poster button to your bookmarks toolbar by clicking and dragging, there's nothing to download. Then visit any site you wish to bookmark. Highlight some text and click on the Social Poster button. You'll come to a new page with your highlighted text, URL, and title of the page you were just at in the top right. All information there can be edited before posting. Social Poster will even create tags based on the content of the page.

Also, on the page are 34 social sites including, Digg, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, and Technorati. You can submit the site to all or any of these sites by clicking the Post button. However, you do need to have an account with each of these social sites to post. For those that are sending lots of links of sites to friends and social sites this will definitely save you a lot of time and some wear and tear on your clicking finger!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I mentioned David Weinberger's book Everything is Miscellaneous before. Librarians may find Weinberger's ideas complete ANARCHY. To think content on the web is growing and being organized in a miscellaneous manner with no authority may make you think that librarianship and library science is destined for the abyss like strawberry phosphates and candy cigarettes. That's not what Weinberger gets at in a recent Google Tech Talk he gave May 10th.

On the web, we now develop and own the tools to organize content on the web. It is no longer controled by an authoritative voice. We are not viewing this content in terms of Melvel Dewey but is terms of clusters of information and how they relate to us on a personal level. He talked about faceted classification Which allows you to browse in a tree-like fashion except you get to pick what's the root and what's the branch. For example, you can start out a search for 20th Century, then author's country of birth, then by gender, then change it all. In other words, you get to construct the tree. He also talked about how tagging has taken off. It's popular because we get to create our own categories. The reader decides what the content is about, what is means to them, how it relates to them.

Another concept he talked about was in comparing old world categories and new web categories. With old world categories information was excluded based on physical space. There was just not enough room to include everything. In the new web world, you can include everything because there is no space requirement. If something is not needed right now, postpone taxonomy until the user uses it. You can't know what people's interests are or will be so include everything.

Wikipedia: Something I found interesting is the statement that because Wikipedia is willing to admit their lack of credibility makes them more credible. Wikipedia is a good example of how we are building a rich layer of meaning that we can draw upon. We're doing this for ourselves and will be doing it for generations to come.

Very interesting talk. If you have the time (57 minutes) I would suggest taking a look at it. If anything, it will spark your interest in how librarians will grow and work with the web in the years to come.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you ever dugg an article, blog or profile before? Digg is a social networking site that allows users (you, me and everyone we know) to submit and "digg" a story - vote on it's popularity or bury it based on a yay/nay, like/dislike attitude. If a story gets enough diggs it get promoted to the front page showing the number of diggs (votes) next to the title. Stories can also be posted to a user's blog as soon as they digg it. If you blog or write stories online (for your library or for personal enjoyment or necessity) posting your story to Digg will help give your site and writing more exposure and bring more traffic to your site.

Why do I care? You may ask. Well, as one librarian, the Connecting Librarian states,

For [stories] to get a lot of diggs, either the people posting the stories have to know a lot of people who they encourage to digg their entry, or it is an entry of great interest to a wide variety of people. Either way, its something that's of interest to a lot of people and therefore I think that I, as a public librarian, should be aware of.

Digg is not the only site out there that does this kind of thing. Another site that works on the same concept, stumbleupon actually has more registered users than (the popular) Digg. However, stumbleupon not only uses categories (mediated source) to separate and organize stories, like Digg, they also use tags (social networking) to organize stories. This form of filtering actually gives stumbleupon a leg up on Digg as far as user contributed content control.

Again, you may say, what do I care? You should, because as librarians, as organizers of content, we need to be looking at how users of the world wide web are not only categorizing and organizing content on the web, but also, how they perceive the information - important/not important. That's what these types of user-driven social content ranking sites are doing. They are letting us know what information people deem important and popular. Our role as filter for finding/suggesting best sources comes into play here as well as a good scrutinizing eye.

btw, if you would like more info about these sites and others like them, TechCrunch has a good article with summaries of major players.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now available on the MINITEX Webinars Training page are 3 new online tutorials relating to Web 2.0. These are quick and easy tutorials designed to introduce librarians to social networking tools, how to get started with them and apply them to your library setting and services.

The 3 new tutorials include Blogs, Wikis, and Del.icio.us. They run about 10-20 minutes in length and nothing is needed to download to view them.

Look for other new tutorials coming soon!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pew Internet & American Life Project have released a new study called “Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks: How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace”. It gives an eye-openning look at how teens use and view the internet. Most teens limit and alter the information they post about themselves to retain privacy. First name and a photo are common but beyond that is limited, false, or restricted. When possible, they also shield personal information to invited persons only. Teens also have a realization that although they may withhold information or post false information about themselves if someone what's to track them down via the internet they probably will be able to. Another finding was that parents have more restrictions on the use of the internet than other media in the household.

It's an interesting read and gives a good look at teen behavior on the internet as well as the difference between boys and girls and the information they provide. Libraries will want to offer classes on Internet Safety or provide some type of guidelines for teen use and the internet and this report will help immensely in understanding teen behavior.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Book Burro is a very simple and easy to install tool that will sense when you are viewing or searching for a book. A "Book Burro" tab will appear and when you click on it, it will queary for lowest book prices on other sites. It is synced up with WorldCat.org so it can also indicate library locations nearest your IP address. Very cool.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an interesting blog entry from Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian. She gives a good run down of the latest stats of how many people are on the internet and who they are, what they're doing out there and the issues facing libraries today in this new ever-evolving webby world.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a great article from ComputerWeekly.com: Social Software is Improving Collaboration. It's not focused on libraries but it does have some good ideas about what an organization should look at if they plan on implementing any social software. At the end of the article they give a succinct checklist for implementation:

• Governance is critical. If your organisation is not ready for informal, community-centric practices to improve communication, information sharing and collaboration, social software will likely fail in a general sense (it may still succeed if applied around specific applications)


• Include groups involved in organisational development and human capital management


• Expect a short lifecycle for any investment


• Continue to monitor the market and the maturity of the technology


• Do not standardise too quickly on a single supplier


• Investigate and document both project success and failure

Source: Burton Group

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been talking about this in my Library 2.0 webinar but have not yet mentioned it here. 23 Things is part of the Learning 2.0 project headed by The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County and is open to any and all librarians and library staff interested in expanding their knowledge and skills with new technologies.

I like this site because they encourage the exploration and curiosity of discovering what new technologies are out there, playing around with them on your own or with your staff, and seeing how they can be applied to your library. They do this through the 23 Things and they reward those for going through this process and completing all the exercises. Many libraries have participated and gone through all 23 Things exercises and have even blogged about it. There are more links to other libraries from the Learning 2.0 site you can read up on as well. It helps to read about other librarians and libraries experiences going through something like this to know that technology isn't all that scary and you can enhance your library's website and outreach to your community easily and on the cheap!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lately, I've been looking at the sites LibX.org and Conduit.com. They offer FREE! tools that allow you to create an ever-present toolbar for your digital reference service. You can also use it for other services such as your catalog. Patrons can download the toolbar onto their own browser (I've found that it works best with Firefox) and connect to a librarian (when the service is available) at any given whim. Ask a question without even going to the library's website. What a great way to promote your service!

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you heard of Del.icio.us? When I was going through the Library 2.0 webinar recently, I asked people if they had used that site. I hadn't included the information about it in the webinar thinking that it was an external source that really isn't something libraries can use or promote to patrons. I changed my mind. Actually, it's a great way to get librarians and library staff involved in social networking.

If you have ever bookmarked a website then you want to know about this great resource. Del.icio.us is a site that allows users (you, me, anyone on the internet) to create an account and start bookmarking any and all pages you use or come across that you want to retain. It is like the bookmark function on your browser but it is web-based and there is more to it than just that.

When you create a Del.icio.us account you are able to begin bookmarking webpages that you commonly use and visit as well as other pages you may run across and want to refer to later. Not only have those pages been bookmarked but they accessible from any location. When you use a browser to bookmark pages, they are specific to that computer. With Del.icio.us bookmarks, you can log in from any computer to access your bookmarks. You may have a computer at work with a set of bookmarks and a computer at home with another set of bookmarks. Del.icio.us can combine them in one account. Also, by adding the Del.icio.us button and TAG button to your browser window you are automatically logged into your account and bookmarking pages becomes a one click process.

If you would like to know more about Del.icio.us you can read the full article in February's issue of MINITEX Reference Notes. When you start a free account with Del.icio.us you have the option of downloading the toolbar on your browser. My suggestion would be to download the toolbar so that you can add pages as easily as bookmarking them and have quick access to all your tagged pages.

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is really cool. Something we've been passing around here at MINITEX and I thought I would pass on to you:

Posted by Carla Pfahl at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)