Second Life Bookstacks, LibraryThing and SLISonline

Thinking about CVL's catalogue, I wondered whether Library Thing might be useful. At LibraryThing's dormant Second Life group, Athanasius Skytower offered copies of his LTcatalogue-displaying bookshelf. Given that other LibraryThingers are also Second Life residents, next was to discover the Library Thing group in SL - I wonder if it is active?

A 2009 message about events at a place called Bookstacks (SLURL) made me curious, and in-world I discovered that it is a Pub apparently popular with writers.

Back at LT, there were many current talk results in the search for "Second Life" and of those there were many labelled with the curious codes "SLIS-Indy" and "Fiesta". As SLIS is a typical acronym for schools of library and information science, I was pleased to find the Indy part falling into place with Indy referring to Indiana or Indianapolis (or both). Bravo SLIS-Indy for learning and sharing publicly. From them I've now learned more than a thing or two. Thanks to Sara PorterI now have two new SLURLs to check out. Sean Robinson's comments about his library's patrons writing reviews with Library Thing for Libraries was a pleasure to read, I hope to one day work in a library that socialises their catalogue.

(in a gesture of reciprocation I ask: how strongly do other forum/discussion_board users feel about such matters as "subject-ness" of subject lines for posts; and one-topic-per-post-liness?)

Do I need THIS device?

Ceccy once explained the "plot device" to me.  I didn't imagine anything like this. (Discovered via Storm Bear, and his comment "Kids these days and their digital gear…")

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Community Virtual Library in Second Life

Facing off the library pigeon by moonflowerdragon, on Flickr


Since my last assignment for the year was submitted, I've had more time for Second Life. Over the years I've regularly checked LIS literature and the biblioblogosphere to keep up with LIS and educational activity in Second Life, and observed broader opinions expressed through twitter. While I have not tallied or coded the variety of articles (and only recently began collecting some with Zotero), my general impression was that many, while positively justifying their experiments, appeared to conclude that technical barriers and initial learning curve limited its overall usefulness for ongoing purposes. However some reports within the last couple of years claimed to be continuing and abundant higher education sims still exist so I intend to discover, if possible, what kinds of programs continue.

Naturally I checked out the changes at Community Virtual Library. It was looking strong and healthy, but I was curious how librarians were thinking about the future of CVL and coincidentally a meeting was planned to discuss where CVL would go from here. Abbey Zenith's prelude to the meeting, published in the aforelinked Rez Libris, included comments that have me curious:

"Perhaps we have not yet realized the potential we envisioned" I can't remember how the original vision was framed.

Abbey reports that reference, exhibits, collections, programs all continue to be successful as services to Second Life residents - so I was curious about statistics, how it is determined who is using CVL and what counts as successful. Abbey's concern was for a loss of "momentum we had in providing professional development opportunities to librarians, library staff, and students". What does Second Life, let alone CVL, offer librarians, library staff and students? Has it changed since Kathryn Greenhill's (2007) 10 reasons? Have librarians moved to other virtual worlds or is the role of information professionals in virtual worlds not so much of the 'librari'ness? Are libraries in virtual worlds role play sims? If so, I don't mind the RP.

Unfortunately the meeting was on at 4am Eastern Daylight Time, and it was one of my late nights so when my alarm rang I was asleep again a few minutes later. Thankfully the meeting was logged so I could catch up the next day.

It appears that aside from the normal imperative to look forward and continuously evaluate, part of the reason to ponder the future is that in 15 (or now 14.5) months the tier fee payments will see a dramatic increase because the initial non-profit arrangement no longer exists. Ah, fundraising discussions :-) that brings back memories from my days in the Australian Breastfeeding Association. So I need to keep my eyes and ears open for: grants, donations, visitor-attraction (no-one mentioned Hunts - they don't *all* focus on shops - I've been on two that didn't - and I'm not a shopper) and the visitor attraction thread raised some interesting ideas - sounds like fun ahead.

It is really hard to glean the key points of meetings from a conversation log - I wonder whether anyone has used an interactive web screen at such a meeting to track brainstorming and keep agenda/minutes?

The University-feel when studying online

Information Commons - The University of Sheffield via kwout

Online study lacks the community-feeling one might experience in tutorials or group study sessions. Efforts to replicate that through discussion forums and group assignments are unlikely to completely succeed until technologies get a whole lot smoother for more people. Even when they do (get smoother) the asynchronous advantage of online study can still lack the belonging feeling of synchronous interaction.

So, today while I learned from something Sheila Webber was sharing, I clicked over to a view of Sheffield University's Information Commons. The images sent me on a tangent of wondering whether a background image of a University space or group scene would enhance feelings of belonging and participation when in a forum screen?

Perhaps a warmer image from Wake Forest University:

new study space | by Lauren Pressley @ Flickr via kwout

Or to emphasise the study feel too perhaps a lecture theatre?

That Huge Lecture Theatre! | teddy rised @ Flickr via kwout

Hm, I'd like to lay a forum screen over such images to give an idea of what I'm thinking, but it would take too much time to desensitise personal details when I should be studying. If someone else gets what I mean and has the time to sketch something up, could you link it in comments?

In some software (Interact?) there is a separate issue of dissociation presented by separation of study discussion forum from the LMS unit module, but that is enough complaining for now.

When Google+ is open for organisations...

Are libraries geared to leap in?

So many lessons have been learned through experimentation with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc - are we ready to roll out our circles when the big one is opened for organisations?

David Lee King asked two questions in one: "Google Plus - Should you and your Library be there?" Separate feedback was received at his blog and his pluspost.

Google+ David Lee King via kwout

Whether "you" should be there is a personal and professional decision - a separate question.  Although, if your job at all involves for the library: marketing, community outreach, public relations, then I'm guessing it would make sense to be exploring Google+ right along with all of the other top social  media.  Even if your job is technology or reference services.

As to the Library: Well, the circle is not yet open. But when it is, will your library be ready? I must get back to study, so I'm going to jot down a few guesses about things I'd have to consider if it were my job; and then wait to see the advice roll in on the next question. David, *how* should your library be there (when Google+ lets it in)? Actually, I think the answers are in DLK's blog posts of the last few years, but I'll be interested to see whether any of the suggestions he has made over the years would be varied for Google+).

• People - the library will need people who've been playing and working with social media for a while, and preferably have been playing with Google+ personally (to be able to implement the features productively and the relationships positively). 
• Culture - Now, guessing from the word on the blogs, those people will need a library culture that supports experimentation with social media. This includes things like: 
• mistake tolerance - being able to respond (not react) constructively and humanly when mistakes happen; 
• playtime
• transparency - being willing for procedures and disputes to be aired publicly.
• Audience - DLK identified one of the mistakes libraries made in the early days, of "friending" other libraries and librarians rather than their target audience; and then he gave solutions - examples of the "friends" that the library needs. (He referred then to Facebook, but I'll bet the same applies to Google+)
• Conversation - now this one is a big challenge.  There is a theme amongst many opinions (links later perhaps) that the important thing in social media is connections, and conversations, which takes time (although time might be inversely proportional to skill/talent) and therefore money.  The assumed promise is that open conversation increases familiarity, trust, positive feelings and attention, which is hoped to translate into word-of-mouth marketing.
• There is sometimes a disdain for "Push" uses of social media technology. I can see the latter applying in Google+.  Will libraries post everything publicly and risk losing listeners for whom most of the push is not relevant, or selectively disseminate through circles and risk missing others who might like to hear but wouldn't.
• Hangouts - focus groups? library-sponsored clubs? community outreach meetings? reference? I haven't tried a hangout yet.
• Appearance - Sean Percival has shared an idea of how google+ business profiles *might* look, and features businesses might find useful. 

Amazing serendipity (and decision to catch up on Twitter before studying (thanks flexnib, sallyheroes)):

Schrier, R. A. (2011). Digital librarianship @ social media: the digital library as conversation facilitator. D-Lib Magazine, 17(7/8). doi:10.1045/july2011-schrier

Under five principles (listening, participation, transparency, policy, and strategy), Schrier gives "concrete strategies for successfully integrating social media into a digital library's overall strategic plan", including Google Alerts, social media searching, interaction advice.

The rest of my thoughts have faded away, could you add your thoughts? 

How to cite a Google Plus post or comment in APA style - a guess

Mind this is a guess, I'm sure APA will come out with guidance if it becomes a big issue, as they've touched on Twitter and Facebook already, and this follows the same principles.

Cirque Dreams Holidaze (U.S. Air Force photo by/ Senior Airman Jonathon Steffen)| CC/BY-NC from Flickr via kwout

At the time of writing it will have to work differently for a google+ post than a comment to a g+ post because only the time of a post provides a permalink.

For a google+ post:

Author, I. (year, Month, day). [Constructed title, perhaps "Google+ post about..." or the first few words of the post...]. Retrieved day month year from >permalink from timecode<

Meerbach, M. (2011, July 13). [Google+ post: "Uses for empty circles. 1. Bookmarks. / {kwout in google+ test}..."]. Retrieved 13 July 2011 from https://plus.google.com/107965671267142239949/posts/TSP196dhgmi

Challenges to citing a comment to a google+ post are: the comment doesn't have a permalink (yet?); that neither have titles; no globally reliable way to easily locate one comment if it is amongst potentially hundreds/thousands. I'm guessing that the "time" google shows me for any post or comment will be different to the time it shows someone in a different timezone.

Still, perhaps this would work:

Baltzell, J. (2011, July 12). [Comment: "You're a member of every circle you create..."]. To [Google+ post by Jenniffer Baltzell: "Using the bejeebers out of my "Read Later" circle"]. Retrieved 13 July 2011 from https://plus.google.com/103854478178815355356/posts/BxpnMgu9WUN

Which is the closest I can get to this particular comment:

"Reader Later" circle from +Jenniffer Baltzell via kwout

And that is a title composed completely by the kwout tool - I wonder where they got the "Reader Later" bit?

Caveats:

• This would only work with public posts
• As posts can be deleted, if continued access to the material you cite is important, it might be worth taking a screenshot and archiving the image.
• Dates will be relative to the viewer, but as the variance will only be within a day it is still more useful than not giving a day at all.
• If those permalinks get really long, perhaps your readers would appreciate a shortened link

In-text citation issues:

• location: 
• not necessary in short posts? 
• use para or ¶ in longer posts

Pseudonyms:

• Use the name as given.
• Quite early on disputes have arisen about the use of pseudonyms with Google+ with at least one account (that to me appears to have been for a valid online identity) suspended. While I hope that the policy is changed, not all such accounts have been removed, and the author would be however they identify themselves.

Zotero does more than I thought...

What have I been missing?

I've used Zotero for several assignments so far, gathering citations into sub-collections and creating bibliographies (grumbling at how many times I have to fix the title field).
! But fancy, I had not picked up that I could Shift+drag to create an intext-citation!

I've even created notes, although I don't remember whether I've looked back at them. It just occurred to me: if I could somehow Show in the middle ONLY my notes - that might help somehow, but AFAIK not yet possible.

But notes! there's more:
Standalone notes - I guess I could create some for questions, keywords yet to search, passing thoughts to pursue later ... How do YOU use them?

Annotating

When I heard "annotation" before I assumed this meant either editing the Abstract field or creating notes - but no, those snapshots I've been ignoring can be highlighted and sticky-noted. Now this might be useful IF I can export such annotations for mixing, how?

Hm, for a sub-collection I think I might like to export reference + abstract + my Notes + sticky notes + "highlighted bits". Why? Well, until I get a super large monitor or interactive projection or interactive table display upon which I can spread my individual notes to physically shift and shuffle, probably to print for that process.

What about reports? No, neither highlights nor annotations appear in reports.

Please tell me: How / does Zotero's highlighting and sticky notes work into your study process?

But ... reports with the excess stuff excluded by Jason Priem's fix; offers a way for me to gather notes to print and shuffle perhaps. Unfortunately, I can't work out why the author sorting wouldn't work.

Other filetypes like images

getting_stuff_into_your_library [Zotero Documentation] via kwout

Aside from snapshots and pdfs that don't come with good metadata (I really want to learn more precisely how metadata storage and grabbing works with pdfs) - I haven't stored anything in Zotero. The above makes me wonder whether the option has productive value? For example, I'm thinking IF my research involved obtaining/using images + IF I attached it to metadata = could I then drag both image and metadata over to my document with Zotero styling the metadata as caption the way APA likes?

If nothing so fancy, it doesn't seem worthwhile, afterall Dropbox offers more storage for free. It now occurs to me that this "automatic snapshot" is what has filled my free Zotero storage - even while I haven't been using the darn things. If I switch that off, would I remember to take a snapshot when it would be useful to do so?

Tags?

I'm finding the automatic tags a real nuisance. They can be hidden. Even so, I haven't been using tags ... @Zotero users: how do tags help with your study processes?

Sorting! Ta Da: Research Diary!

Wow, Finally I discovered what I can do with

finding_and_sorting [Zotero Documentation] via kwout

Sort by Date Added and include Standalone Notes and we could have something on the road to a research diary.

Saved Searches

Thanks to people sharing their libraries like Paolo Cardullo, I got the word from Lincoln Mullin on how Saved Searches (and Tags) in Zotero can help with research workflow. (He also mentioned the value of Collections, but I thought that'd be obvious).