ASU LibraryChannels and 4Cs - brief critique

What can be said of Arizona State University (ASU) Libraries' use of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter in terms of collaboration, conversation, community, content creation?

Content Creation

The ‘Library Minute’ videos share information with fast fun. They meet Farkas’ (2012) adjectives: vibrant, engaging, real personality (the librarian is named, smiles constantly and most of her jokes are funny). Importantly, the videos are accurately captioned; and their descriptions are concise but thorough and hyperlink relevantly.

Anali Perry in the "Holy Grail" scene of
ASU LibraryChannel's video of
 "The Library Minute: Academic Articles

Designed to give information to a small audience, it is perhaps no surprise they do not generate conversation or viral viewing.

Conversation

Consistent with recommended practice (eg: Schrier, 2011), ASU Libraries monitor and respond to (at least some*) local Twitter mentions of the library. Help 2-3 hours later (perhaps from the roundabout search/feed) might be a little slow for the print-woed and lost, but might bring students back if they’d given up.

They do jovial, light responses, but miss opportunities to move into conversation. For example:

Rather than "we'll visit", to a scholar's tweet about their work in the collection a librarian could:

• Retrieve, optimise findability, and link to its record (and start a chat about permalinks scholars can use to promote their own work?);
• Tweet a currently relevant synopsis;
• Or pursue conversation--ask whether the writer continued exploring the same field etc?  Maybe segue into digitisation parameters in their repository?

Facebook facilitates faster (3 minutes) response:

Good answer (maps) provided in a friendly tone. But it was a closed response--could encouraging that game idea have led to spontaneous co-creation?

Community

Comparing to enrolment numbers**, Nicole showed that students have not yet flocked to ASU Libraries’ Twitter stream. However Facebook’s public display of likes and “talking about” are for the past seven days (Menousek, 2011) rather than over all time and so do not indicate a page’s community size. If their Youtube videos are embedded in orientation materials, the number of views and subscribers Youtube reports may not reflect the videos’ total audience.

Collaboration

None seen nor appears to have been sought, would the streams be more popular if they did involve students?

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*I did not check for actual mentions. --^--

**Conveniently teaching me how to find enrolment figures for US universities (Thanks Nicole).--^--

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This has been a response to the fourth optional OLJ Task (Module 3): A critical evaluation of ASU Libraries' use of Youtube (viewing five of ASU's collection of The Library Minute videos ) and two other "web 2.0" platforms (used as part of the ASU Library Channel suite at http://lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/) "to achieve the 4Cs of social media" (in no more than 350 words).

For brevity, questions about whether the 4Cs are constructive for library goals had to be left out.

References

Farkas, M. (2012, July 23). Behavior vs. belief and changing culture. Information Wants To Be Free. Retrieved from http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2012/07/23/behavior-vs-belief-and-changing-culture/

Menousek, B. (2011, October 20). What does it mean when Facebook says ‘n number of people are talking about this’? Quora. Retrieved from http://www.quora.com/permalink/px9aFgmKR

Schrier, R. (2011). Digital librarianship & social media: The digital library as conversation facilitator. D-Lib Magazine, 17(7/8). Retrieved from http://dlib.org/dlib/july11/schrier/07schrier.html

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 09/01/2021 in republication of my 5 October 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it achieved 52 views.

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"Ask me about pins"*

*Does anyone else think of Apprentice Postman Stanley* when they hear "Pinterest"?

Pinterest is visually appealing and as Sequeria (2011) pointed out it taps the fundamental human desires to collect and flaunt the collection. However, I wondered how likely is it that Pinterest would serve library goals of collaboration or engagement with users, and how one might evaluate its effectiveness for those goals.

Collaboration

My idea of "collaboration" is as Freed (2012, ¶ 6) defines succinctly: "Two or more people working together towards shared goals". Cooperating and sharing the same space are not the same as collaboration.

Luckily a fellow student was also curious and had friends willing to contribute to shared boards.  We quickly discovered major limitations to be worked around for collaborative use.

• No direct method to ask to join a board.
• No direct communication with contributors other than through pin comments.
• No way to remove or suspend an irrelevant pin - Even if the 'shared goal' is clearly defined in the board description, when pinning content only the board labels are displayed in a pinners' list, so it is easy for irrelevant content to be posted accidentally or through misunderstanding.

Effective Library Pinning

Of the many library boards I explored, I noticed very few showing evidence (as measurable in number of likes, repins or comments) of engagement with or appeal to their community. [... original post had form inviting contributors]

For the many others (with some interesting ones pinned at Library Pinning), perhaps sharing book covers and event photos achieves the purported value of Pinterest for driving traffic (Bullas, 2012) ** -- if so, I hope some begin writing about it

Seed a game

Simply setting a fun topic can engage users but do need workarounds to kick off. For example:

New York Public Library (NYPL)(n.d) identified pets as a popular Pinterest topic and rallies users around a theme of their signature lions. NYPL picks up relevant pins if they're tagged #NYPLLittleLion.

In Kansas City Public Library's contest *** , members created their own "Perfect Library" board, emailing in the URL (Harper, 2012).  Following this example, Pinterest might be used among other tools to brainstorm with the community prior to a redevelopment.

I wonder if workarounds increase the barriers and reduce the number of participants?
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This has been a response to the first optional OLJ Task (Module 2); evaluating my use of Pinterest as a social bookmarking tool, critically evaluating the effectiveness of different features and/or functions; and briefly stating different ways an information organisation may be able to use Pinterest to support information services, learning and/or collaboration of users and/or employees. The switch from Delicious to Pinterest approved by Lyn Hay in the Facebook group on July 25, 2012.

* Until you've read Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, nevermind. --^--

**Thanks Dale. --^--

*** Thanks librarygal. --^--

References

Bullas, J. (2012, February 8). Pinterest drives more traffic than LinkedIn and GooglePlus. jeffbullas.com. Retrieved from http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/02/08/pinterest-drives-more-traffic-than-linkedin-and-google-plus/

Harper, J. (2012, April 9). Pin your perfect library Pinterest contest. Kansas City Public Library Blog. Retrieved from http://www.kclibrary.org/blog/kc-unbound/pin-your-perfect-library-pinterest-contest

New York Public Library. (n.d.). Little Lions. Pinterest. Retrieved September 27, 2012, from http://pinterest.com/nypl/little-lions/?timeline=1

Sequeira, N. (2011, December 11). [Answer to:] What’s special about Pinterest? Why do some people find the site maddeningly addictive? Quora. Retrieved July 25, 2012, from http://www.quora.com/permalink/Ojxauw7Hm

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 10 Jan 2021 in republication of my 27 September 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it achieved 23 views.

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Learning ubiquitous reference ... 01

This may become a series:

Having taken Andy Burkhardt's suggestion and set up a few feeds from Twitter searches, I've seen local tweets about books, reading, study etc ....

And so I wonder (because I am not yet a reference or social librarian): if a social librarian were to pick up messages like these, what would be a suitable reply?  Ah. That, I guess, will derive from the strategy which would have preceded (and been reviewed perhaps after) the listening stage :-P

To...

(@simbera (Ben Lever) at 2:07 AM on Aug 15, 2012: "...Barely an hour into Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me I'm Lying" and I'm already blown away. You need to read it. Yes, you. ...")

... might s/he (the librarian that is) tweet jovially about finding it at the library with the permalink to the item in the catalogue? (assuming there was one,).

This sounds like a fun game.

CC by Ian Sane via Compfight

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 14 June 2021 in republication of my 15 August 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it ticked up 13 views and 0 comments.

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Picks of the tweets … 001

Today (or maybe everyday, this is a first so who knows) I found and enjoyed:

Philosophy

(Collin Van Uden) tweeted: @stilgherrian No, *it's* factual. "Everything" is SATISfactual. And here I thought you were a fan of good research.

While we're on a philosophy kick, how about a round of

What's 'the most important thing?'

At that moment, in that conversation it was for

(rob harris) : @marcmcgowan84 But your readers read him in your paper before they heard from him elsewhere. That's the most important thing.

CC2.0 Hartwig HKD via Compfight & Flickr

These tweets were found because I set up some librarianesque social media monitoring following examples by Andy Burkhardt.

I also found a new way to enter images by using the Compfight WordPress plugin which searches CC licensed images at Flickr and then inserts with a button.  It is not yet perfect, but it might beat what I was doing before. Nevertheless, for the record, downsides:

• the thumbnails are too small to see whether I really want that image;
• when I want to use an image both in the post and featured I have to repeat the steps;
• I haven't worked out how to get it to caption satisfactorily.

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post transferred Jan-Feb 2021 in republication of my 14 August 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress.

Ubiquitous reference

Plucky! by Steampunk Family the von Hedwigs (2010) via Flickr CC-BY

I want another word for that... for the way this idea is like hunting people to serve.  I can see a comedic Monty Python skit with librarians in deerstalkers or pith helmets carrying tablets and nets, stalking tweeters in the wild to answer questions they didn't even realise they had made :-)

Target searching and responding to tweeters

For example, even though Andy Burkhardt's suggestions preceded Twitter's removal of RSS, [UPDATE: 10 July 2013 after twitter changed from APIv1.0 to 1.1 this hack no longer works] there are hacks described by Piers Dillon Scott at Sociable which boil down to:

• start with http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=
• add keyword
• precede that with %23 after the = if you want a # tag
• follow either with %20geocode:latitude%2Clongitude
  pick up a geocode from brenz.net: copy and paste the latitude and longitude and put %2C between them
• and add a radius, say %2C25km

[UPDATE: Because keyword from twitter alerts are so interesting I will be looking into the strategies Aaron Tay blogged using IFTTT & Google script and/or Zapier & Mention.]

From that (with a keyword of book) I found in my local area:

@Strauchanside grab yourself a copy of his book "Practical Ethics". Kick arse read! — Glen (@glen_muller) August 13, 2012

Now if either was a student at UB I could link to the ebook in the catalogue;

or mention that the Ballarat Library (sorry Central Highlands library) could get a copy via SWIFT. (Unfortunately no permalink through SWIFT).

Dave the Plinth by Dave McGowan (2009) Flickr CC:BY-NC-ND/2.0

Similarly UB have books on the shelf that non-students may read which could help with:

@Liznvinny Cool. Maybe I can get advice on how to get my work read? — Angelina Car (@car0car) August 12, 2012

But, if reference was my job in either place, would that be appropriate? I think it would be fantastic marketing, but if not, why not?

Target searching and responding to bloggers

A similar suggestion made back in 2006 has kept a part of my brain buzzed about ubiquitous reference ever since. Brian Mathews described [pdf] following 40 blogs of people who had identified themselves as students of his institution and searching them for specific keywords.

 article, assignment, book, group, help, journal, library, librarian, paper, project, professor, research, reserve, and test

Moyobamba butterfly hunters by Geoff Gallice (2012) on Flickr CC:BY

He gave examples of help he gave that students appreciated. An important discovery he made in the process that students objected to official "librarian" contact but welcomed responses under his name (he had librarian in his profile). Brian concluded that

such a service provides "timely, meaningful, and intuitive assistance ... creates a personal connection ... [and] allows them to see us as allies".

Target searching

Now, just so that I can finally close the tab that has been open since I was researching RSS uses; a quick synopsis of what Elyssa Kroski had to say in April about monitoring social media.

• She proposed and describes using the start page tool protopage.  (I am enjoying Google Reader, it lets stuff disappear when you've skimmed it).
• She lists how to find search feeds on a variety of tools: blogging services Google, WordPress and IceRocket; the search tools naturally Bing and Google Alerts; a few aggregators and LinkedIn and Facebook - although I think that one is already out of date.

Leave the bubble

Monitoring for public comment is one reason to search for mentions of the library - but it detects only those who are already aware of the library and service.  Searching the wider community for the keyword book or article , read or reading, or someone suggested "?" allows you to pop the bubble, even if it does risk getting wet.

Wet by H Koppdelaney (2010) via Flickr CC:BY-ND/2.0

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied January 2021 in republication of my 13 August 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress.

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I later pinged this original post in a post Closing the Chapter
12 August 2013 at 3:29 pm

[…] a new experiment, I found out how to build an RSS feed from a Twitter search string. With such techniques I have been following Mathews’ (2006), Burkhardt’s (2010), and […]

Seeking ten attributes of website design for participatory library – Part 2

Preface: Why am I scribbling notes in a blog post?

1. The schedule says to read + I cannot read without questioning what I read + we are apparently to show we have "engaged" with the modules;
2. It is somewhat like the posts by bloggers at a conference; except that
3. Even if I am not completely synthesising as I go (because that will come later and there is an earlier assignment to complete) the prospect of publishing makes me tidy and organise my notes as I go... a pre-synthesis of sorts.
4. Because I like to finish what I started (in Part 1).

(notings)

Lazaris (2009)

Ah, lovely: an easy to read organised article.

Aside from the assertions made as if fact without indicating why the author believes it, eg:

Bright colors will easily capture and hold a child’s attention for long periods of time. ... colors make a big impression on children’s young minds.

And, aside from the apparently illogical argument: That because [apparently self-evident] not many websites aimed at adult audiences would succeed with the color combinations used in the screenshots he has captured (of sites designed for kids), we should when designing a site for kids, "use bright, vivid colors that will visually stimulate in an unforgettable way".

In the end, Lazaris offers a neat summary of his points. None of them address the social networking theme of this subject, even if at least one example (Club Penguin) has social aspects to my knowledge.  I have no young children to hand with whom to test any of the arguments, which apparently rest on the fact that the big companies making the websites will have (because they can afford it) extensively user tested with children.

Oh, the article is not as interesting as a few of the comments it received:

•  BTP (2010), described results of their actual testing, and made the point I thought while reading: that the "kids" range is so broad.  While they argue that it would not be possible to design for 2-3 year olds the same as for 8-9 year olds; as an unschooler I note that differences are less noticeable between ages than between interests and cognitive style.  Reading ability might factor in depending on the context; but the content will be most vital. Do read that comment, it is longer than I would quote but not too long :-). It also links to Jakob Nielsen's 2010 Alertbox on usability in designing for children. One of the children in Jakob's study appears to disagree with my view that age is less of an issue, except that it is based on the child's language:
  

  Children are acutely aware of age differences: at one website, a 6-year-old said, "This website is for babies, maybe 4 or 5 years old. You can tell because of the cartoons and trains." (Although you might view both 5- and 6-year olds as "little kids," in the mind of a 6-year-old, the difference between them is vast.)

  whereas I have observed that children of the same age vary in opinion about what is "baby"ish often influenced by who is around them at the time.

• MKH (2009) says that cross-language/culture comparisons could be interesting

MKH Commenting on Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and Best Practices | Smashing Magazine via kwout

• Box (2009), on "constraints when designing educational kids websites" to be used in schools: quality of hardware, supported software (eg Flash, Java), and connection speeds, apply equally to libraries.
• Sandy (2011) also reported from actual investigation with children: that they object to being patronised.  Sandy links to the Victorian (Australia) Education Department's three separate target ranges. The pages appear to be directories to other sites, rather than material created by the department.  Potential use as start page perhaps.
• p33p (2011) pointed out that Flash content is not served by mobile devices (whether Android or ipad).  (is that so? I thought it was just my Xoom?).
• But it is only when Daniel (2011) (who works on Behind the News, according to an earlier comment) pipes in that the topic of interpersonal interactivity as experienced in social networking technologies (rather than just hyperlink interactivity) comes close to arising.

daniel commenting at Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and Best Practices | Smashing Magazine via kwout

So, finally a reference to one social networking technology and one sociable self-publishing technology (Youtube).  However there is no analysis about whether any non-social website can be enhanced or improved by retro-fitting social features.  I suspect this OLJ activity is a red herring, or colluding in a delusion.

Purpose & 'social'

For libraries considering designing websites for children, the first question is the intended purpose of the website. If it is to serve as a directory to "safe" or "educational" web resources for children to use in the library (sure why not invent another wheel) or to provide library-original content - then the 'best practices' the above article lists (if you can believe it) may be useful - for a limited period. 

Interesting questions: How many visits does it take before a child is bored by the library's website?  OR: Which library's children's website is enjoyed by children the longest over repeated visits?

Otherwise, one would need to look elsewhere for ideas:

• For libraries serious about being 'participatory' on the web with their community of children - what kinds of web-based participation are they open to, and if their young patrons are interested in that kind of interaction what would incline them to do so at the library website instead of the world-wide spaces designed specially for it? (Calls to mind a quote I have somewhere from Montaigne, about his willingness to make public (through his books) things he would not tell an individual man - is the local library too intimate an audience?)
• Back to the directories:
  • Would there be a way to socialise this directory?  To reveal how often each link is used and enable children and their parents to express like/dislike (Vote) and leave comments.
  • Would a good catalogue be able to both capture and serve the links, images, descriptions and user-contributed data?  Do any libraries use their catalogues to store and serve website recommendations?
  • Is that a pointless line of enquiry because the success of social sites rests on their having many participants.  If I am looking at local and university libraries, perhaps their community of interested participants would be too small?  Unless we start talking about consortia efforts.

McBurnie (2007)

Libraries and MySpace

This article is very dated.  It is also weak. As evidence that a university is communicating "organically" rather than the "old" one-way style it points to its MySpace page having followers.  Nothing about conversation. The 'friends of friends' of those followers who represented a fraction of the university's student body was described as "a wide audience" that the university would allegedly reach "by simply ensuring that the content on their page is current and useful".  No evidence that followers read the university's content.

Great then we get into the 'can's and 'should's with no evidence of positive impact. EG: Don't be tourists...don't dress up tired messages ... be purposeful and "push users towards resources such as online libraries or catalogues". "Libraries can help users by making more information rich profiles their 'top friends' and hence more prominent."  Oh and this is good:j " libraries should treat personal messages via MySpace as they would emails" - respond in up to 4-7 days?

Governor, Hinchcliffe & Nickull (2009)

So far I've only made a skim read. Not seeing anything particularly new, or anything directly relevant to the task, the only takeaway I have for now is the summary in Chapter 4.1.5 of "five great ways to harness collective intelligence from your users:"

1. Be the hub of a data source that is hard to recreate
   ... such as Wikipedia ... and eBay ... Digg ... and Delicious ...
2. Gather existing collective intelligence
   ... the Google approach. ...
3. Trigger large-scale network effects
   ...Katrinalist ... CivicSpace ... Mix2r
4. Provide a folksonomy
   ...Let users tag the data they contribute or find ... make those tags available to others so they can discover and access resources in dynamically evolving categorization schemes ...
5. Create a reverse intelligence filter
   ...Memeorandum ...

Hyperlinking: Manners, engagement, voting

Readers might note that I did not link to the final articles.  They're listed below if you want to read it for yourself. The final one was a book with no online source not behind a paywall of which I am aware.

My view on hyperlinking is generally to link as much as is relevant and potentially useful either to me reading back or a reader who falls here.  I also love it when someone who has discovered that I have linked to them, visits to see what I wrote and says something constructive. Therefore I will hyperlink even in cases of disagreement, when the prospect of discussion might be fruitful.

However, I also see the "voting" factor of a hyperlink. Search engines use them to give a target more 'likedness' as a relevance indicator.   In this case my reading was externally required. Writing about it was not required, but on the off-chance another student reads here, it is another opportunity for discussion--within that limited circle.

References

Spreading my wings: a double-barrel experiment

For the next few months most (if not all) of my blogging will be at my latest experiment.

A self-hosted, Wordpress, blog in my own name: 

www.micameerbach.com

How I feel about it (in pictures):

and a little fragile?:

Seeking ten attributes of website design for participatory library – Part 1

(notings)

aside:Self-discipline

...self-discipline. Glen Edelson (2010). CC:BY/2.0 at Flickr.

Do we need to look at the basics of effective website design in every subject?  Who is not in more need of realistic practical team-based application than theory? Ah, to answer my own question even mental pathways need to be marked out by repeated treading.  Even so, couldn't we focus on the subject? Sighs.

aside: Starting point

My starting point would be from most recent studies on the fundamental goals of information architecture: findability and usability - and principles such as those outlined by Brown (2010) [pdf])

Reading agenda: 'participatory' attributes

This website section of module 3 begins "Imagine ten thousand members of the general public outside the entrance to your library...this is what your web and online presence is all about."  This may be the ambition, but it is not likely to be true. "General public" implies the larger pool of community members who might not already be members and might not think about their library from day to day.  Given the size of the internet, your community members are as likely to be at the other side of the country or the world.  Bringing the community to the "door" (your website) requires (if you can resolve the relevance question) effort in all four of offline community presence, broader online presence, website information architecture and design.

Next it declares "How we engage our users and potential users with collections, research and online resources is all about web site design and social media presence. "  I think it is all about whether--and if so how--community members *want* to (or would want to if they could) engage with library collections, collecting, and [fill-in-applicable] services. Are library goals and individuals' goals aligned?

Audience Participation. amanda farrah (2008) CC:BY-NC-ND/2.0 at Flickr
How would this translate to community participation in library collecting?

Will this set of reading offer ME something new and reliable? Considering the topic of the module: "participatory library services" I will look to identify specific mention or demonstration of website attributes that seem likely to entice me to collaborate, converse, commune and/or create content.  AND/OR I will see how highlighted libraries incorporate social media within their websites.

For this to be useful for my final OLJ I would expect to find either:

• ten that are new to me, or which I understand better now as a result of rereading in this subject.
• ways that ahem "web2.0" technologies make a website more effective.

Perhaps if I am lucky
I might find examples
of excellent social media practice
to reference in the second assignment.

The task specifies four particular works, but I also have notes from David King's presentation, do any of those speak to the library being "participatory"?

King (2011)

(worth noting that Topeka&Shawnee County Library's (TSCPL) website (I think) and catalog have changed since David made that presentation--kudos on the catalog improvement TSCPL)

... convenience

• for libraries to continue to appeal to community members they must address convenience
• (compares to use of laptops with wireless internet, & DVD rental booths at McDonalds)
• - [I agree AND believe this is doubly important if I am expected to feel inclined to 'participate']

... listening

• first step in designing the experience:
  • search for mentions of the library in social networks... [I believe Aaron Tay, the ubiquitous librarian and the swiss army librarian have all explored more extensive network search strategies (for example how can you discover what people want when they're not talking about the library?) - and a compendium of such strategies would be very handy.]
  • ask focus groups [Ask them what? if we're aiming for 'participatory'. ]
  • examine your website usage stats & hit-trails [I'd love to get a look at some of these]
  • observations - well this is fundamental IA (but if you're not already 'participatory' what kind of observations would lead you to discover how to become so? )

... improving touchpoints

• stickers on bananas - [triggered a line of thought about making it easy for library members to lifestream their library experiences. Applied to the website, it suggests having tweet/like-worthy content--or more than that: what would be the equivalent of members putting a sticker on their forehead and smiling?]
• what do attractive children's areas suggest?... marketing: having images that convey how desirable the library is as destination - meh; more on destination later
• long lines - what is irritating about the website - FIX IT
• consistency & wayfinding
• don't show "your process" - [not sure how that applies yet.]

... Going where people gather

• mall - [does this necessarily equate to Facebook (etc) presence? or is it more:]
• ensure you have a good mobile site. [will those 'participatory' elements function via mobile?]

... Its a destination

• In terms of the website, is it just about showing what happens at the branches or
• [is the website a destination or a doorway - should (?digital branch) show online library member activity (by library members)]

... Interaction

• is key (I think, from his encouragement to bring staff photos and names forward, that he means between people)
• "Foursquare, Go, Flickr, Facebook, yelp, twitter, youtube" [ and I know that TSCPL has buttons to follow them on Facebook and Twitter.  While most people might only want to follow, their site does not really make it super easy to lifestream about the library's services - such as getting a personalised reading list: wouldn't that be something some people would lifestream (I would)?]
• "your staff" should be highlighted - [ I agree.  I'd like to know who I'd be dealing with if I go into the library, for that matter I wouldn't mind seeing who will be handling my requests. Not so many people appear on TSCPL's home website now, but faces (of leaders) are visible at "Contact us"... are these the people I would see if I walk in the door?  What does that say about 'belonging'? And some of the blogs show who authors the blogs.  Although the capacity to comment is available on blogposts, I do not see many enticing discussion - and I could not see any indicators of open discussions to browse in case I felt like chatting. But would I?  Is it not possible that the social web lets us chat with people all across the world because/when we do not want to talk to people in the neighbourhood?]

Digression - Pinterest

Last time I had visited TSCPL's website was to the digital branch blog: reading their post about exploring Pinterest.  They also had a "follow our Pinterest" button in the footer then, and are the pins new this week?  Browsing their pins again, this one...

Library Lounge via kwout

... made me wonder "would it be great to be able to pin from a catalogue" (one that has book covers obviously)--ooh and to see in the catalogue how people have pinned an item?  It'd also be nice to add from my local library catalogue to My Library Thing "read not owned" category with a "@TSCPL" tag (actually it would be the initials of my own local library or the consortium from whom I borrow: @SWIFT). It would be good to offer an auto tag and the option to change / add others.  All of that (if it was used) sounds like a lot more work for the catalog - all of which I guess would cost the library more?

Would libraries fear too many draws upon their server by sharing the book covers? Does Pinterest draw from the original source every single time it shows an image?

But back to the point of my digression: David was talking about interaction - the big thing discussed about all of the social tools of the last decade is that success depends on what is in it for the individual.

What do tweeters want?

Something interesting & easy to tweet.

What do Facers want?

Something interesting to share in their timeline, or something worth commenting on in yours.

Mathews (2009)

I disagree about how much you can tell about a library from their website - if it is great it might just mean they lucked upon a great designer; or that library leadership values its website face - not necessarily all of the community.  For evidence look at all the lovely/slick websites whose catalogues remain crap, and who cannot promise an information response in under 48 hours (or a week).

... Promotion (participatory)

• hm, not finding this very practical, yes you want to promote a lot, keep it refreshed so people have reasons to come back?
  • [I don't go back to the library website until I'm looking for another book.
    
  • I want to receive an email notice when new exhibits or types of programs are planned, with the option to sign up to receive reminders of particular types of programs (eg author visits, but not children's storytime, or advanced rather than beginner technology sessions). Sure I follow the local library on twitter but who sees every tweet?
    
  • On the other hand, when I become aware of an interest event I want to be able to share the event through different streams.
    
  • When I attend I want to be able to snap a picture of something remarkable to then share ]
  • When I visit the website I want to see what others have been saying/pinning/liking about the library or what contributions have been made from the community to local collections.
• Orange County were used as an example (although that was 3 years ago, has it changed since?)

  

  Not necessarily striking, but what I would want (Account links) is easy to get to.

  • All the things I regularly want to do are in one spot (if not top left where I would expect). Request a Title! that is participatory - but not enhanced with social media technology (ie no indication of how many requests the library has filled, or its response speed). While I happened to be doing that I would browse current events. It doesn't look participatory in an online sense, in that I cannot see what anyone else in the community is saying at/about/through the library.  From the home page, if you scroll down bottom left, you can link to facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads, Youtube etc.  Great to see stories being told in video --no captions :-( -- and that the storytelling video collection (and I think events & databases etc) has share buttons; but there are no invitations to comment.
  • I would not care about those awards
  • I hate it when a menu link takes me to a different layout - to me pages that use different layouts should be set apart somehow - and the top navigation space should never change except to show when one is logged in.

... Segmentation

• Different sites for young children and teenagers. [Okay, but so few libraries do it appealingly.  How many manage to appeal to a broad range of teens?
  

  

  The Orange County Library System's Teen website is colourful. But the important thing is how teens feel about it. I see no sharing buttons.

• Oddly, Brian highlighted academic libraries, neither of which demonstrates his point well.  Orange County on the other hand, did.  Has anyone seen any examples of libraries successfully providing (at their websites) participation opportunities for different patron groups (let alone any patron groups)?  Local issues FORUMS anyone? (It would be pointless to provide subject forums because the wider world is better at that)   ]

... visual cues

• use icons to break up lots of text [yes but: I think this has been shown to be insufficient - more important to trim the fat, chunk information carefully and work more on better navigation menus - it is certainly not evident at his example any more]

... inspiring photos

• use wisely, showcase distinctive features. [but beware download burdens]

... always accessible search box

• "Embed a search box on every page, maybe in the header or in the navigation bar, so patrons can perform a search wherever and whenever they want." - I agree: when I do happen to browse my local library's website I get very annoyed at the stinky menu system trying to get back to the catalogue. Beautiful example of search box at University of Virginia Library
  

  

  Its responsive! Marvellous. Great search box. My account at top right- YAY. Socia media buttons below the fold. More notes at Flickr

• "offer a tabbed, federated search box" - it does sound attractive doesn't it... but I haven't seen very many achieve it well. Except Colorado State University Libraries:
  

  

  Love it. Clean, uncluttered, straight to the point, and easy to find everything else.

• okay that was fun, but how relevant to participation is the placement & design of the search box? Essential perhaps: content is still the most important thing the library has to offer - but not quite the aspect on which I am supposed to be concentrating.

Mobile-Friendly Pages

• As a library user - I want this, or an App
• His example is a "reported attack page"... so I could look for other examples, but my questions will be - does the library's mobile website or app facilitate participation? (which is a different question than whether libraries facilitate participation by taking advantage of the proliferation and the lifestyle of people with mobile/smart phones & tablets?)

Feedback

• " Dedicate a section on your site to posting user feedback along with the library's official response." [I have always believed this would be a good idea, but Brian's example only offers answers to "Frequently asked questions" and a variety of forms for different kinds of questions. David Lee King once spoke about TSCPL's engagement with community through blogs, which is not really the same thing.  Any examples? ]

Redundancy

• Dan Brown calls this the principle of multiple pathways.  Not expecting website users to all use the same links.  [In participatory service terms this would mean sharing buttons on every page anyone might want to share--anything else?]

Analytics

•  No argument they're vital in general. And equally for evaluating efforts to become a 'participatory library'.  Combine analytics with A/B testing perhaps to find the best place for social media buttons (or more participatory invitations/displays if I ever find any)]
• While I'm here... oh, I might have mentioned in my posts on delicious how it can be difficult (?impossible?) to detect usage of embedded content.

Easy Way To Ask for Help

• Drat I saw a great example of this recently and didn't screenshot it.  ? partici... - ah not really in the public-social context. Would there be a way to make it easy for happy helpees "Like"/tweet their content with help received?  I'd tweet it.

Enough note-taking and thinking for the night

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands by Patricia van Casteren. (2008). CC: BY-NC-ND/2.0 at Flickr

Readings:

King, D. (2011, September 30). Creating customer experience: On the web, in the library, in the community. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/davidleeking/creating-customer-experience-on-the-web-in-the-library-in-the-community-9493673

Mathews, B. (2009). Web design matters. Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6634712.html?industryid=47126

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 31/12/2020 in republication of my 9 August 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it achieved 217 views.

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Limbering up with LinkedIn

Thanks to Dale Smith (2012) I received Tim Tyrell-Smith's (2012) guide against being lazy on LinkedIn.

On pondering Tim's advice, I wonder whether there are some people (like me perhaps) for whom such sites are not the best place to promote oneself. For example: suppose one is aiming for a career change - where they have worked in the past could be a distraction; Or suppose one has been out of the workforce raising children for many years? Or working at positions below one's ability during those child-free years because they are the only ones with child-friendly hours?

If I were to convert Tim's warning signs into a to-do list, re-ordering for the limited position LinkedIn has in my humble ambitions:

1. Keep profile updated:
   Thankfully, LinkedIn sends out notices fairly regularly, so when someone else updated their profile recently I let it prompt me into updating mine.
2. Come up with an appealing headline
   Particularly difficult for humble people - could you point to some good ones?
   (Update August 8: Michael Keleman recommends precise (unpuffy) clarity)
3. Improve summary without just copying resume
   
4. Find a few more connections.
   Eek, I'm not keen on quantifying my connections, so I'll not let Tim's "at least 100" factor in at all. (Except cousins: I still take childish pleasure in having lots of cousins (>50)).
5. Complete profile
   If I did, I would run out of things to update it with?
6. Keep personalising connection requests
   - yes, of course, would anyone send a generic request except to someone they know very, very well?
7. Keep seeking constructive groups
   Two of the ones I joined are more often spammed than constructive
8. Find new ways to contribute constructively to groups
9. Provide true, specific recommendations for others
   It is the only kind I would, but for whom would my recommendation be desirable?
10. Recommendations? Does anyone take them seriously?
    Even Tim admits they don't carry a lot of weight. Maybe he just wanted to round out his "10" signs? How useful are they if you're not sure what kind of work you're seeking? Might they be counter-productive the more generic they are, or if they are more relevant to past than future ambitions?

What would you advise?

Image credit: Tamayo, T. (2008). Monkey swing. CC:BY-NC/2.0 from Flickr

References

Keleman, M. (2010, January). LinkedIn Taglines. Retrieved August 9, 2012, from http://recruitinganimal.typepad.com/ch/2010/01/linkedin-taglines.html

Smith, D. (2012, July 28). RT @WayneMansfield: 10 Signs You Are Being Lazy On LinkedIn [...] #inf2506. @das013. microblog. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/das013/status/229111276884865024

Tyrell-Smith, T. (2012, July 26). 10 Signs you are being lazy on LinkedIn. Retrieved from http://fixbuildanddrive.com/10-signs-you-are-being-lazy-on-linkedin

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post transferred Jan-Feb 2021 in republication of my 29 July 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress.

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The original post resulted in 1 conversation of 3 comments:

Tim Tyrell-Smith said:
06 August 2012 at 4:10 pm

Hi Mica –

Thanks for sharing that post and I love the way you broke it down and put your own views to it. The truth is that we need to manage our online profiles – if nothing else to be found in a positive light.

Regarding a few of your comments:

#2 – Appealing headlines help people find you, are full of relevant keywords (not just your current job title) and describe your larger value for people who are learning about you for the first time. And if you are out of work, “looking for work” is not an appropriate headline.

#6 – 9 of 10 connection requests I get are from complete strangers and almost all are generic (not personalized) :-(

#10 – As I said, better to have them then not have them. It shows at least a minor commitment from your network to stand up for you – and the more specific the better!

Cheers and thanks again!

In response to which I replied:
09 August 2012 at 3:55 pm

Thanks Tim,
#2 – I will personally need to think a lot more about a headline/tagline. It might not just be humility – my inbetween status makes it difficult to make clear headline statements… and clarity is the recommendation of recruiter Michael Keleman.

To which Tim replied:
09 August 2012 at 6:22 pm

@animal knows his stuff for sure. :-

I, Closing the chapter | Mica Meerbach, later Pinged this post
07 October 2012 at 5:07 pm

[…] student, (Smith, 2012). Similarly, I take Tim Tyrell-Smith’s (2012) thoughtful appreciation of my own take on his advice as validation of my conversational […]

Something useful: “A deployment strategy for maximising the impact of institutional use of web2.0”

Chess set at Ryde Library. Photo taken 10 July 2012 during ALIA2012 tour

Are books likely to be useful for INF206?

The book publishing process is so slow compared with the rate of change in the world of social media technologies that I do not figure finding much of current practical value from books. However some information specialists suggest that books published some time after an event can offer depth, expansion, detail and analysis (University of Illinois Library, 2010). With such hope I focussed my search on books published as recently as possible.

-"book review"

As diplomacy is so time-consuming, I shall refrain from whole-book reviews in the course of this subject--unless I stumble upon something startling. If I comment at all on a book in this 'learning journal', it will be on stuff I find useful - ready to be applied.

This I can use - concerns and how to manage them

From the notes I took, Kelly's (2010) chapter "A deployment strategy for maximising the impact of institutional use of web2.0" jumped out at me as being specific and practical. Kelly listed eight IT department concerns (p. 105); succinctly described six risk management approaches (p. 110); provided a risk assessment toolkit (p. 116) and a risk/opportunity management framework (p. 117).

Fresh in my mind were lessons from the introduction of Open leadership. Within the example of Red Cross and Hurricane Katrina, Charlene Li (2010, p. ix) identified the importance of persistently and patiently addressing executive fears and concerns.  I want to get back to see if I can get specifics on any that might differ from IT concerns, and check whether they require different management approaches.

Because pictures are more interesting...

I have been trying to find an image that conveys deployment strategy without competitive/destructive overtones... any suggestions?

A TV top battlefield: Toy soldiers deployed around an overturned jeep. By Darcy (2007)

References

Kelly, B. (2010). A Deployment strategy for maximising the institutional use of web2.0. In D. Parkes and G. Walton (Eds.), Web 2.0 and libraries: impacts, technologies and trends (pp. 95–122). Oxford: Chandos.

Li, C. (2010). Open leadership : How social technology can transform the way you lead. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons.

University of Illinois Library. (2010, March 3). The information cycle. Retrieved July 21, 2012, from http://www.library.illinois.edu/ugl/howdoi/informationcycle.html

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[Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 01/07/2017 in republication of my 18/07/2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress]

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Preparing for conference

#ALIA2012 is my first librarianship conference.

How different will it be to gather with a collection of librarians instead of a bevy of breastfeeding counsellors?

ABA conferences inspire

I found conferences with the Australian Breastfeeding Association warm, friendly and encouraging. Could that be because members are nurtured in welcoming skills (by example, inclusion and training) from their first contact?  Perhaps it was also because we all shared a purpose, and identity - having reached at least a specific stage of training in order to be there. 
 
Of course my own attitude played a huge part too: I was eager and determined to learn all I could to make my own volunteer work more successful. I expected to enjoy an ABA conference because everyone who had been to one spoke positively and excitedly about them.  Even that would have been shared though, because going at all was an additional voluntary opportunity.

Discovering ALIA conferences

So why do I feel a little differently about going to ALIA2012?

• The association is different: ALIA is more heterogenous, sure we share an interest in library and/or information services but that is a very broad field. My evening work hours prevent me attending ALIAVic events so there are few inter-personal relationships involved in my membership. There is no patterned (personal) welcoming behaviour in ALIA.  I wonder whether warmer 'welcoming' is something ALIA groups could arrange for members to learn from ABA?
• My position is different.  With 18 months of study and unschooling to go, and with a casual and subordinate work-role the distance feels much greater between what I might learn in session and any opportunity to apply it.
• I expect that the content will be drier (no pun intended). Frequently after (other LIS) conferences bloggers bemoan a general lack of vibrancy in presentations.

Orienting myself

Nevertheless, having thought back to my ABA experience, I see ways to uplift my attitude and I realise I have been applying some already:

• Signing up for first-timer mentoring;
• Booked to attend the first-timer breakfast and all the social events;
• Paying attention to ongoing discussion around the conference - through ALIABiennial (blog), @ALIAbiennial and #ALIA2012;
• Pre-reading all information on sessions (the program now links to papers) and presenters - I've even browsed online sources about (or discussions of/by) speakers to get a sense of their direction: Keynotes: Alex Byrne, Michael Kirby, Tom Chatfield, Ingrid Parent, Mitchell Whitelaw, Anita Heiss, Matthew Reilly, Richard Glover.
• Discussing the conference with people at work;
• Reminding myself it is okay to be curious and to ask.

Re-reading advice saved earlier (with Delicious/Diigo)

Do you just love it when you can use sites you found earlier?  Although I had remembered most of the advice, it was still reassuring to refresh and double-check my readiness against:

• 6 tips to prepare for a conference from Kristy Bolsinger;
• David Bentley's Top 10 ways to get the most out of conference;
• Joeyanne Librarianne also offered 10 tips post-LILAC2010 ;
• Chris Brogan recommended 27 things to do before a conference.  

Sorting out the technology

• With my Xoom (so I can Skype home, and continue testing its relative handiness):
• its charger and the cable in case I need to re-enable Screenshot It
• New apps Evernote Hello, Blogger, WordPress;
• Games (currently Random Mahjong or Backgammon),
• My Toshiba laptop (for writing up in the evenings (and in case the Xoom dies))
•  its charger and a headset in case I need to dictate instead of type.
• with Evernote, Dropbox, Firefox and plugins (Diigo, Zotero, kwout, echofon) updated.
• Mobile phone (although it seems to be dying, will I have time to look for a smartphone?) and of course its charger
• Paper, pens and printouts of schedules - because electronics can die or disappear.

 I wonder what I forgot?

Image Credit: Laura Geared Up by Edward Liu, CC at Flickr

Who would like to meet up at #ALIA2012?

Tell me if I can look for you? 

Positive I am not the only introvert in libraries, would anyone else enjoy trying to put an internet handle to a face at the ALIA2012 conference? 

I will be there on Tuesday for one of the tours, at first-timer's breakfast, staying at the Hilton, at each social event.  I am bringing Evernote Hello on my Xoom and hope to encounter other social librarians, information specialists, Xoomers (or other droids), gamers, introverts, students, parents ...

Coming soon

Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 14 June 2021 in republication of my 13 July 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it received 8 views and no comments.

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Shall we call it play, experimentation, fiddling, tinkering...?

Going on past experiences, this won't be the first time I'm blogging late at night, beyond the time of clear thinking but desperate to get scattered thoughts *down*.

Lists

- love them hate them, but at times like these its the best I can do.

Changes

I want a responsive theme, but how can I add more persona
lity, life, colour to this one without losing simplicity?

"Online learning journal"

In the coming semester I will be taking INF206 "Social networking for information professionals" at Charles Sturt University.  Will its content meet my need?

LIS Conference first-timer's experience

Blogging about preparing for a conference is not really new, yet I'm of a mind to synthesise my own preparations, questions and reflections.  The process includes as much of setting a frame of mind as remembering maternal admonitions against negativity.

Information architecture methods

Usability.net have a nifty little table organising, and linking to their articles on a variety of methods used in the process of developing usable websites. Thank you kwout:

UsabilityNet: Methods table via kwout

Will I like my Xoom?

I do hope so... it cost enough - and will cost more over my two year data plan! It was time to bite the bullet: the only way I could properly explore the mobile/handheld experience would be to try it. Too many options and none of them, by reviews, perfect for all that I wanted one to do.

I want *one* mobile device - not 3 or 4.

New functions desired

• let me read and annotate digital papers and books in bed
• capture voice notes
• easily sync the above and much of the following with my PC for those functions (extended typing) for which a PC is more comfortable.
• capture and interpret QR codes
• do all the wonderful things librarians anticipate people will do with mobile devices (which are?)

To replace my phone it would, ideally:

• ? let me send text to someone else's mobile device
• ? let me make a call -- I'm told this may be possible through Google Talk or Skype?
• :-( let me receive text messages (even if to gmail) -- apparently it can't
• :-( let me receive phone call -- apparently it can't
• ? provide easy to set, loud remindering

To replace my camera it would, ideally:

• take good photographs
• upload easily to the places I use photos: Flickr, Blogger

So now I have a Xoom, although I'm still miffed it doesn't have mobile phone service after all, only mobile data. After worrying about the security-risks of tying it in to my email address; and an excess of legalistic Terms of Service (what are tricks are being pulled in all that legalese?)... I wonder what to try first?

Okay, *after* taking photos with front and back cameras, getting frustrated at how long it took me to discover how to remove a widget from the desktop, wondering what image to place as background, adjusting the time settings, trying the built-in alarm sounds, unsuccessfully looking for my cotton gloves and using my cotton poncho instead to prevent finger prints...

What do I do next?

Update: Have downloaded Dropbox and Evernote apps.

Sharra sells her first book, am I her first interviewer?

Sharra Veltheer, who describes herself as "just your average girl from Australia who likes to write" has been refining her writing skills since she was 10 and now at 19 has sold her first e-book: Sketchbook Girl.

Smashwords — Sketchbook Girl — A book by Sharra Veltheer via kwout

Upon hearing the news in one of my rare visits to Facebook, I began peppering Sharra with questions:

So Sharra, you mentioned on Facebook that you'd sold a copy of one of your e-books, that is very exciting... am I your first interviewer, now that you're a published and selling author?

It is really exciting, and yes, since self publishing and actually selling you are my first interview ^_^

You have two books available (Lucy and Sketchbook Girl) at the moment, which is your favourite - and how do you see the difference between them?

It is hard to pick favourites between things I have written; different moods and different outside sources affect which it is at different times.

Sketchbook Girl was written at a difficult time if my life: In the middle of high school and bullied. Sketchbook Girl somewhat reflected my own life at the time, though to more extremes and Elliot received her happy ending a lot sooner than I. Lucy has a darker theme to it and was inspired by a band called Skillet who's song "Lucy" stirred deep emotions when I first hear it. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried when I heard it, and I cried while writing Lucy several times. Killing a character feels a lot like losing a friend, even if they're imaginary.

As for my favourite, it would have to be Sketchbook Girl, not because it has sold, but because it was my first serious writing project that I took the time and effort to complete and re-write before making available for purchase.

I've enjoyed the tasters for Sketchbook Girl on your Wordpress blog - what proportion of the story is told on your website?

Well it would depend on where you're looking, I have made the first 12 pages available to read on my Smashwords profile, but only the first 3 parts on my blog so far.

On that note, it was later declared by a reader that the preview was irresistable, he *had* to learn how the story would turn out:

Sharra, I have writer friends who are focussed on the traditional routes to publishing - What motivated you to publish your books through Smashwords?

My ultimate goal is to have my work published in book format, but it also occurred to me that it may not be possible for my first endeavors to be realised through traditional means since publishers are swamped by work. There just isn't enough money in the book publishing industry to get everyone's work out there anymore. Smashwords was introduced to me by a friend on Kametsu Forums, she was researching for her own benefits and shared with us the ability to self publish ebooks online.

As yes, I recall you've been with the Kametsu forums for a long time and have become a moderator there... what do you find most enjoyable or valuable about participating in the forums?

I enjoy the sense of community within the forum, the feedback on writing work as well as the rich diversity of people. Through Kametsu I have made friends all over the world, including Serbia, India and Spain. The admin Koby, has been very supportive of creative work, and participates in many of the competitions around the forum as well. I have many members on the forums as friends on Facebook as well, just in case something happens to the forum. Not long ago we were down for
two weeks because we kept crashing the server we were using through overloading and Koby kept us updated through facebook to inform us what was going on and everyone was very understanding about the technicians not getting back to him about what was going on.

You mention feedback on writing: do you get constructive critique there?

Since the people gather for one specific common reason, which is games and anime, a lot of the forum tends to be focused on that however a lot of members have a passion for writing and out Literature section has exploded with wonderful and interesting stories, since everyone has different tastes in stories, it is sometimes difficult to get constructive critique, and for many of the users English is their
second language so their understanding is sometimes a little skewed when using long descriptions and words grabbed from the thesaurus, but the feedback on stories there is always well received.
You also have Lucy available through Amazon - why both distribution points?

Since they are only distributors and I still retain the rights over my work, I found it best to give people options as to where they purchase my works, as well as giving me the ability to reach a wider market since some people don't go to Amazon they have to option to buy through Smashwords, while other will only purchase ebooks through Amazon.

Amazon.com: Sharra Veltheer: Kindle Store via kwout

I'm curious about how the selling/paying/receiving funds works, and what kind of information you get about your customers...

Smashwords I believe is paid through paypal, and I am not informed who buys my work, only that the purchase has been made. Amazon sends the Author a check every month if they're profits reach over $10 for that month, I have not sod anything through Amazon yet so I don't know what I am told about the customer there.

In my surfing, I've read the occasional criticism about self-published e-books - that they tend not to be adequately proofread - what are your thoughts on that kind of criticism? ... have you *bought* self-published works?

I have sampled a few of the self published works on Smashwords, and some of them do tend to have spelling errors and other various typos. Criticizing the lack of professional editing however I find is unfair to an author, no authors work is going to be perfect first time round, this is why we have editors. Someone who cannot hire a professional rely on close friends and relatives to proofread their work, which while not always reliable, is often the only means they can afford.

DISCLOSURE: Sharra, the author interviewed, is my son's girlfriend.

Image credits:
Top: Of Sharra and a cat, used with permission of subject and photographer, Sharra's mum Vic Barton.
Middle: My snip of Facebook comment, used with permission of Anthony Hearn, commenter.
Bottom: Of Sharra and Josh, used with permission of subjects and photographer (Josh).