Thursday, May 14, 2009
Great Books - Baltimore County
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Computers in Libraries, March 2009
I, too, attended two days of Computers in Libraries in Crystal City at the end of March. It’s always an educational experience, a place both to pick up practical tips and to begin to understand our digital future.
For inspiration, I recommend you hear Paul Holdengraber, the public program director for NYPL, anywhere and everywhere you can. He's urbane and funny, and he'll remind you of why you're working in a library. Here's a tiny bit of Tuesday morning's keynote.
Another heartening thing about our profession is the degree to which librarians and associated tech folks create tools and share them. Firefox is a better browser than IE because programmers everywhere can contribute to its development and its usefulness. Similarly, the library community is creating software that can be extended, expanded, and customized. I see open-source in our future. If not immediately, eventually; if not locally, statewide. See examples of one open-source product.
I have already had an opportunity to use some of what I've learned on MCPL's web presence. In moving Teensite to its LibGuides platform, we had to find another way to have people fill out online forms and get the content to the staff member who needed them. I learned about Uni-Form and Zoho Creator, both of which would probably do this, and implemented a solution in Google Docs. See Teensite's Recommend a Book, for example.
Because I work with chat reference, I was more than thrilled to hear about Texter, free software that allows you to create shortcut strings for phrases that you type frequently. If I were really a programmer, it would be useful for that too!
Having heard a web redesign committee described as 9 colorblind people who can't agree on anything, I figure that Color Wizard will come in handy down the line. (You might want to try it to find split-complimentary colors if you're doing some interior or exterior painting.) I also liked the tool that showed you what colorblind people see when looking at your webpages.
I learned that Facebook users absolutely HATE Facebook Apps. (Maybe you Facebook folks out there can tell me why?) I also learned that the new DCPL Digital Initiatives Librarian, Aaron Schmidt, created an iPhone App we can adapt. I was eager to ask him to come talk with us at MCPL until I found out that he lives in Portland, OR. Now that's telecommuting!
On the exhibits floor, Serials Solutions was talking up Summon. Also, having purchased WebFeat, the company will likely be discontinuing that product in favor of 360 Search, probably sometime this year. I recommend that everybody take a look at these catalog front-end products, called discovery layers, and note the features that should be indispensable as MCPL tries to make its catalog more usable for patrons.
Please, share your ideas for improving our digital presence with #LIB.virtualservices. We learn from one another as well as from attending conferences!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Great Books 2009
Great Books is predicated on a book discussion group format. There are no presenters, only facilitators. There are three hour long groups for each participant, one each for picture books, Juvenile literature (my session happened to be all fiction, but non-fiction is eligible, too) and one for YA.
After the discussion groups our closing speaker was Jacqueline Woodson, funny, insightful, real and humble. She tied together her writings, her childhood and her experiences as a mother, a writer and a human being in a way that makes me want to jump right into her backlist.
The thing that surprised me the most about the book discussion sessions, and pleased me, was the openness and non-judgemental atmosphere present while people also expressed how the really felt about the books. There was no checklist for participation, no single member dominating the discussion but a remarkable congruity of opinion (at least in the groups where I was present).
All of the organisers were library staff from EPFL, BCPL, Howard, Harford or Anne Arundel counties - central Maryland. And most of the attendees were from those counties, too. The suggestion was that other counties/locations should take the Great Books model and run with it.
I agree, and would suggest a half-day format with only one type of literature to discuss. In other words, a half-day on Picture books, another on YA, etc.
Personally, my cup is overflowing right now. Who wants to pick up the sceptre?
Jan
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES CONFERENCE
It was exciting to follow the various themes that were evident throughout the three-day conference in Crystal City.They included Open Source as an alternative to proprietary ILS, increased interest in consortia, a desire to integrate the multiple systems we use for circulation, collection development, acquisitions, online catalog, and interlibrary loan to address the gaps in functionality, and the question of how libraries stay relevant in the age of mobile, instant communication and social networking. (Did you know that people are getting so impatient with the "lengthy" Tweets of Twitter that they have now created "Flutter" with a 26 character limit?)
Here are synopses on the keynote session that opened the conference, and on one of the sessions I attended.
COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES CONFERENCE: OPENING KEYNOTE
FRIENDING LIBRARIES: THE NODES IN PEOPLE’S SOCIAL NETWORKS
Lee Rainie
Director, Pew internet & American Life Project
March 30, 2009
How do libraries stay relevant in the age of mobile, instant communication and social networking?
The volume and variety of information flowing into our lives has increased dramatically; we experience media anytime and anyplace with our IPods, and are constantly scanning the environment for new information
According to Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet Project, and keynote speaker at the opening of the Computers in Libraries Conference on March 30,2009, we have become a different “species” (Homo Connectus!) with a difference set of expectations about how we access information.
In 2000, 46% of adults used the internet, compared to 75% in 2008. In 2000, only 5% had broadband at home, 50% owned a cell phone, 0% connected to the internet wirelessly, and fewer than 10% used “cloud”. In 2008, 57% had broadband at home, 82% owned a cell phone, 62% connected to the internet wirelessly, and more than 53% used cloud. We are demanding fast, mobile connectivity and we want as much dynamic social networking as possible. (Or so it seems-but wait!)
A recent Pew Internet Project survey (The Mobile Difference) surveyed 3300 Americans. Rainie provided data from the survey to demonstrate that 61% of Americans are still tied to stationary media while 39% are motivated by mobility!
The study identified five groups, defined tech lifestyle attributes to them, provided demographics for each group, and made suggestions on how libraries can “be a node in their network”-in other words, how libraries can be relevant to groups motivated by mobility, or to those of the stationary media majority.
Take a look at Lee Rainie’s presentation to see whether you belong to one of these groups that are motivated by mobility: http://www.infotoday.com/cil2009/program.asp
Digital Collaborator (8% of the population)
Ambivalent Networker (7% of the population)
Media Mover (7% of the population)
Roving Node (9% of the population)
Mobile Newbies (8% of the population)
Perhaps you’re part of the stationary majority defined as:
1. Desktop Veterans (13% of the population)
2. Drifting Surfers (14% of the population)
3. Information Encumbered (10% of the population)
4. Tech Indifferent (10% of the population)
5. Off the Net (14% of the population)
Lee Rainie suggests that in order to be relevant, libraries must become a node in people’s social networks- a “friend” – that will help them:
*access the internet
*collaborate and share
*navigate the information overload
*as a sanctuary (a place where they can go offline)
*with technological access and support
*understand the new etiquette of social networking
Libraries have always helped people with problem-solving information and provided resources for personal enrichment and entertainment. Now they can also be a conduit – a node in the social networks connecting people, media and institutions.
Here is a synopsis of a session on website redesign:
WEBSITE REDESIGN PITFALLS
Tips for a Successful Site Redesign
Jeff Wisniewski
University of Pittsburgh Web Services Librarian
Computers in Libraries Conference
March 30, 2009
There are good reasons for redesigning a website ( the navigation is dysfunctional, the site doesn’t scale, it’s hard to update, if it’s coded to different standards, and if it has poor useability.) When the site is not performing according to the goals and objectives of the site, it’s time to redesign.
But, redesigns are a major disruption for a library system and users dislike them. For this reason, according to Jeff Wisniewski,Web Services Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh, when considering a redesign, it’s wise to ask whether the site needs an entirely new look, or simply needs to improve.
Wisniewski suggests:
1. Take the time to do a usability study. Identify the most important web content of your library and focus on that. Use Google Analytics to check where users are and are not going. Find and document your current page rank (where is your site in Google search results?)
2.Invest time getting consensus from the library director, IT, and others. (Show them cool sites or data suggesting that the site is not functional.) Avoid committees, and use data-based evidence to foster the redesign.
3. Define your constituencies and include them in the planning process.(Think about using non-traditional platforms like blogs and wikis.)
4. Don’t look only at other library websites for ideas (people are spending the vast majority of their time on sites other than libraries)!
5. Define the primary function of your website and design around these tasks. (Is connecting to materials the most important function?) See Queens Library website.
6. Spend time and money on content and engagement tools. Have remarkable content! Include course-based guides, next generation opac and federated search, ejournal finds, photo taggers, assignment calculators.
7. Rewrite content; don’t cut and paste!
8.. Design for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Use simple URLS.
9.. Submit the site map to Google after your redesign and ask Google to remove the old content from its index.
10. Develop a strategy to maintain the site.
Some suggested sites to review when considering a redesign include:
http://www.surl.org/
http://www.useit.com/
http://www.u.e.com/
Cook Library Website Redesign Blog
Suzanne Carbone
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Computers In Libraries 2009 (Ann Geht)
I attended Computers In Libraries 2009 in Arlington, VA (March 30 - April 1). Highlights of the conference included getting the chance to explore SirsiDynix's Symphony ILS, which we will be upgrading to this year, Mary Ellen Bate's "Super Searcher" presentation on new search websites (see below for a detailed list of recommended websites), attending a session that compared OPAC overlays for ILS's (sidenote: iBistro looked positively clunky in comparison, & I am completely enamoured with Encore by Innovative Interfaces which works with just about any ILS, including Sirsi, and includes an excellent "Did you mean..." feature and Web 2.0 features such as tagging and customer reviews), an, lastly, an excellent session that compared free Content Management Systems for public librarians such as Drupal (which I knew of), and Joomla, ModX, and Plone (which I had not).
