Web 2.0 and Its Technologies for Collaborative Library Communication
First–I must apologize for being away from “the Garden” for so long, at least from the posting aspect, as I have been following it when I could. So many personal and professional wildfire this fine fall semester, some of my own doing–some definitely not–but I guess that’s life. Thanks to all who have checked in on me from time to time, by the way.
Well, before I went missing, I was talking about social networking sites and Web 2.0–I know…those phrases again, especially Web 2.0. It is called by many other names, too: “social, participatory Web,” “user-initiated Web,” even “live Web.” In my very recent short introductory article in MultiMedia & Internet at Schools magazine, sent off before I went missing and published a few weeks ago, I mentioned how Web 2.0 is so widely interpreted.
As I mention in my article, the “definitions are many, and this can be distracting. But if, instead, you look at all of this as a new opportunity, a possible way to better communicate, interact, share, create, and publish information online–to connect with those we are already serving and to those we wish to serve in the near future–then it gets exciting! Librarians and other educators everywhere are now using these Web 2.0 technologies in practical and worthwhile applications. Don’t you want to as well?”
I must say that I find it a bit humorous when I conduct or attend workshops or seminars on some of these technologies that some people start tearing them down before they have even seen what others are doing with them, much less even tried them. A lot of people did not like email when it first emerged either. In my article conclusion, I mention that “nobody is saying that you have to change everything you do, or jump into every technology or public relations idea that comes your way. However, we all know that we need to continue to reach out to our students and patrons and get them interested in what amazing things we can do for them.” I, then, one last time, ask the readers to “browse the listed references and recommended readings. Try setting up a library blog with Blogger, or start receiving library- or special topic-related RSS feeds via Bloglines. Build a subject-guide wiki with PBwiki, or start bookmarking, tagging, and sharing with del.icio.us.”
Stephen Abram just wrote a short post yesterday entitled “Bloglines” at his Stephen’s Lighthouse blog. He states that “Many are unaware of the role that RSS aggregators play in making it MUCH easier to keep track of your favourite blogs.” And he further encourages us in “library land” to not worry if “this seems common knowledge” because there are more “folks heading up these learning curves every day. Those who’ve trod the path before need to share the tricks and tips.” I agree wholeheartedly!
I truly do believe that if librarians and other educators would learn and play with some of these technologies and tools that they would get excited as well. It was from talking with and watching three people in particular in our Garden State work with these social Web tools that really got me interested, and I mention them in the article: Pete Bromberg, Janie Hermann, and Sophie Brookover. They are amazing librarians, making amazing connections for those they serve–these are my “local” librarians that I talk about in my seminars, and I am proud to know them and happy to have them challenge me to make better connections myself. I am glad that they continue to “trod the path” and so willingly share their “tricks and tips.”
Anyway, enjoy the article, and feel free to share it if you find it useful for someone thinking about entering into the Web 2.0 domain. The full text of the article is available via EBSCO Academic Search Premier (although many of the links need to be fixed here!) and other library databases, via the MultiMedia & Internet at Schools magazine site (with free registration), and weeks ago in a RedOrbit NEWS Technology blog!
Technorati Tags: web 2.0, collaboration, library communication, technologies
Making Sure the Policy Meets Its Purpose
A friend of mine works in a library that is having trouble with a specific group of teens. They were coming in, getting on the computers and causing a ruckus (I love that word) by looking at inappropriate sites, shouting to each other and making the atmosphere uncomfortable for other patrons in general. This went on for about two weeks and showed no signs of slowing down. Obviously, something had to be done. The supervisors decided to take charge of the situation and put forth a policy which they felt would end teen shenanigans once and for all…
Any patrons under 18 must present a school ID or have a library card in order to use a computer.
And the result?
A local private school does not use photo IDs, therefore some of these students cannot use the computers. As with most communities, there is a group of children who are unable to get cards because of their parents accumulating large fines, they are now unable to use the computers. Teens who are “in transition”, have neglecting or abusive parents, homeless, or unable to get their parents signature for whatever are all banned from using the computers in the library as well.
So, does the policy meet its purpose? Even taking the most utilitarian positions on this policy would tell you that a lot more people are negatively affected than helped by its implementation. Ultimately, the result of this policy is simply less teens on the computers and the only way the policy could be considered successful from this is by assuming that all teens are the problem, not just the aforementioned troublemakers.
Speaking of which; if anyone is wondering how the unruly teens are dealing with this policy, not to worry… They all have school IDs and are still having a good time.
Angry Librarian from You Tube
Thanks to John V. Richardson and Ward Smith from UCLA who drew my attention to this “Angry Librarian” post from The Quattlebaum comedy troupe. How many “customer service” or service excellence mistakes does this librarian make?
Direct URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XvAakX__cQ
Fried brain potpourri
The past few weeks have been post-free for me for a number of reasons: A week on Caribbean cruise (unspoiled by any sun, mind you) a week of catch-up (2 days just to revive my email which was almost fatally wounded by the avalanche of spam that built up in my absence) and a week, prior to the cruise, dealing with health issues (my own and the cat’s.— we’re both much improved thank you.)
Suffice it to say that I have:
1) A bit of fried brain
2) A lot of bits and pieces of possible posts lying around in draft.
Here then, be the bits and pieces for your piecing and, uh, biting pleasure.
- Reading and enjoying Danny Meyer’s book, Setting the Table. I particularly like Meyer’s distinction between customer service and hospitality–something I never thought about before. Meyer writes, “ Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions –for and to express it all.”
- I love this piece from Seth’s Godin’s Blog: “Here’s the short version: If you try to teach a customer a lesson, you’ve just done two things: a. failed at teaching a lesson and b. lost a customer” Amen! If the customer receives ‘service’ but feels like it’s being given as a favor, or worse, with reluctance or a with punitive spirit, then the customer might take their bidness elsewhere.
- A Customer Service Shout Out to Comcast. I dumped Verizon DSL last year after years of service because my Internet went out one day and they didn’t care. And that is the mercifully short version! I promptly ordered Comcast Internet and have been enjoying their speedy connection ever since. Until my Internet slowed to near halt a few days ago and my cable tv went on the fritz at the same time.
I called Comcast and quickly got through to a live human being (my favorite kind, mind you.) They said they could be out the next morning, but that wasn’t good for me, so we scheduled the morning after. Not only did the nice Comcast man show up 1/2 hour early, he was pleasant, professional, communicative, quick, and ended his visit by saying, “of course there will no charge today.” Of course!
I don’t know if it’s just that my expectations have been so severely lowered by so many terrible interactions (with Verizon, with banks, with my oil company, etc., etc.) but boy did I feel good about Comcast. Even better than I did before my Internet and TV fritzed out. It’s almost a bit cliche, but how true nonetheless – every service problem is an opportunity to strengthen the connection with the customer.
- From “Dont Coddle Me at Work” courtesy of the Chief Happiness Officer: “Before people can be happy at work, the thinking goes, they must be shielded
from all manner of ills: angry customers, unrealistic deadlines, unfair decisions, overwork, boring meetings, stress, annoying co-workers, insecurity, diffiult situations, hard choices – you name it. Wrong. The best and happiest workplaces in the world haven’t become so by shielding their people from problems, but by giving their people the skills, the energy and the freedom to deal constructively with problems.” Hey, that sounds just like Nordstrom. Don’t set rules designed to deal with every possible worst case scenario; give your employees the power to deal with problems if and when they occur. Like Robert Spector writes in Lessons From the Nordstrom Way, “Dump the Rules!” Each one is a barrier between you and your customer.
- Lovin the Elf! Library Elf, that is. I signed up for Library Elf last week after attending an informative presentation by Ralph Bingham of the Gloucester County Library System. GCLS has been actively promoting Library Elf to the delight of their customers. I didn’t think I would be able to participate since my library is a Triple I shop, but lo and behold the good people at Library Elf set me right up. I mentioned this to an administrator at my local library who was happy to hear the news. A recent customer survey had just revealed that “underdue” notices were greatly desired. This is the kind of simple convenient service that can have a great impact on customer satisfaction and also raise employee morale by reducing staff contacts with grumpy customers complaining about fines.
- Just throwing this out there… Is it time to move Library Garden from Blogger to Typepad? Blogger, oh blogger. You seduced me with your simplicity. Those come hither eyes. So easy. So cheap. You’ll still respect yourself in the morning you whispered. But you’ve changed. Were you always this freaking tempermental? And your dirty code! Oh, is it dirty… I can write a post in 10 minutes but then you ask me to spend the next four hours trying to get my font sizes right. You don’t let me spice up our posts with photos anymore. I don’t know Blogger, maybe it’s me. Maybe I’ve grown. Let’s face it, we’ve grown apart. I need a software that’s more stable, more predictable. Someone I can grow old with… (I haven’t discussed this with my fellow Gardeners, but maybe it’s time to go with something a little more professional. What do you think guys?? Do I spend my December vacation time tranferring us to Typepad?)
NJ Libraries on Flickr
Kudos to Nancy Dowd, Director of Marketing at the NJ State Library, and Blogger-in-Chief over at The M Word, for creating a new Flickr group for New Jersey library events.
[PS I’m posting this with Windows Live Writer, which I’d read some good things about. So far I like it! Let’s see how this looks on the other end…]
Advice from a Spin Doctor for Librarians
I just read Librarians ‘Should be Sexier’ on thisislondon.co.uk and I actually had to read it twice to be certain that this was a serious article. Yes, it would now appear that it has been decided by a “senior spin doctor” that the word librarian should be banned because it connotates too many negative images. Oh, and apparently the way that we can ensure the health and vitality of libraries is to hire based upon appearance — we need to make sure we staff our libraries only with beautiful people. The article does mention that librarians in Britain are disgusted with this suggestion, but I can’t believe that anyone even had the gall to suggest it in the first place. Maybe we need to ban the word politican because of the negative connotations or the word lawyer… just my quick two cents for the day.
Broken signage
I’ve been away from the blog for what feels like a while–but for a good reason! My wife and I met up with some friends that came from the west coast and we did a seven day cruise to the western Caribbean. Lots of rain, no sun, but a good time was still had by all. We swam with dolphins, played with monkeys, ate, slept, read. Who needs the sun anyway?
I never had any desire to vacation on a cruise ship, and while the service and food was generally excellent (with a few notable exceptions), the cruise ship experience is probably just not my bag.
Anyhoo, I’ll get around to getting the monkey and dolphin pics up on flickr, but in the meantime I thought this picture was worth sharing. Yup, that’s the emergency exit door on deck 1 of the Carnival Valor. What message does this sign send to the passengers? I think it should be subtitled, “In case of emergency, good luck suckers!” Hey Carnival, let’s barter: You give me a free seven day cruise and I’ll give you a kick-ass signage audit. 🙂
The flickr Fifteen
This morning I taught our first official flickr class in the technology center. We asked for registration, but somehow this beautiful flier designed by our PR department left off that detail and I missed it during proofreading. The funny thing is that even though we only had 9 people register with 7 of them actually showing up, we still ended up with an overflow crowd of 15 thanks to this poster. It was my fault for not catching this sooner and so I did my best to accomodate 15 students in our 12 seat lab.
Everyone was willing to share a computer so that no one had to leave. Next week several people will bring their own laptops and use our wireless connection so that we will have enough computers to go around. I will also have one of my tech assistants help me teach so that we can be more hands on. Problem solved.
What really amazed me about the participants was how savvy they already were with photo sharing. Out of the 15 students only 2 had never done any online photo sharing before. Most had used 1.0 photo sites and 1 even had already set up their flickr account. Also, only 3 people needed to set up Yahoo! accounts.
Next week is the second class and I hope that all of my flickr 15 return for more flickr fun.
Where are the 2.0 Classes in Public Libraries?
I often visit the web sites of libraries of all sizes to see what they are currently offering for computer classes and other technology training sessions. Over the last several weeks I have looked at 30+ class calendars posted on library web sites and of those only a handful were offering classes on a regular basis that touched upon Web 2.0 technologies.
I looked at the training calendars of 4 very large library systems and did not see any indication that they were teaching 2.0 and (in fact) they were still mainly teaching classes such as “Meet the Mouse” and “Intro to Email”. I know these classes are still needed by many and I am in no way advocating that they be replaced nor implying that they are obsolete. Courses for beginners are still crucial, but they do need to be supplemented to meet the needs of the more advanced computer user. Class offerings need to be kept current to keep training programs fresh.
My question of the day is: Where are the 2.0 classes?
I am optimistic that libraries are busy writing up lesson plans and planning to launch new classes soon. Many libraries that integrate blogs, wikis, RSS and flickr as part of their services and web sites have not yet made the important leap to educating their customers about these technologies in the same way that we taught them about OPACs when we ditched our card catalogs and about email and the Web when we started offering Internet access. Perhaps they plan to do this in the near future?
I sincerely hope that the replies to this post will indicate that there are many, many more libraries out there teaching courses on blogging, flickr, RSS and other new technologies than I am currently finding on my informal and somewhat happenstance survey method. Nothing would make me happier than to get a flood of replies to this post that proves me wrong — that 2.0 technologies are being taught.
It seems to me that a lot of the smaller libraries are moving forward with offering 2.0 classes before their larger counterparts. Princeton Public Library (aka MPOW) is currently teaching four 2.o courses — Become a Blogger, Fun with Flickr, What’s the Fuss about RSS, and Fantastic Freebies (which is a round-up of 2.0 sites) — as well as courses such as Digital Camera Test Drive, Downloading eAudiobooks and Sharing Photos Online. We will soon offer a course on bloglines and one on tagging/folksonomy. Here is a quick sampling of some other libraries that I found who are teaching 2.o:
Lansing Public Library in Illinois is offering classes on how to use bloglines, how to establish a blog and how to use Juice to create a custom radio station using podcasts.
Johnson County Public Library has a course called Cyber Six-Pack: Six Online Gadgets That Are Fun, Free and Easy to Use that is similar to the Fantastic Freebies we teach here at PPL.
Providence Public Library has a good assortment of classes including a 90 minute introduction to blogging.
Darien Public Library is currently offering classes on podcasting and blogging this fall and has a good selection of courses for advanced users (a good example of a library taking their training beyond the basics).
I know that in the past Reading Public Library has tried do some classes on flickr (but according to the cached copy I found using Google it had to be cancelled) and I see that Skokie Public Library has also offered at least one flickr class.
This post has been several weeks in the making (I just never got around to finishing it) and in the mean time I did notice that this was a topic at Internet Librarian 2006 in a session called Technology Training in a Library 2.0 World (a good summary can be found at Library Web Chic), so I know I am not the only thinking about this and how we can encourage others to jump on the “Teaching 2.o Bandwagon”. Let me know what you are doing or hope to do soon, I love learning about what others are up to with their technology training.
Pimp My Bookcart Contest
Just as quickly as the authors of Unshelved had finished their comic sequence, Pimp my bookcart, fans started sending them emails telling them how they were going to actually do the program at their library. They thought it was such a great idea, there is now an official “Pimp My Bookcart Contest” on the Overdue Media website.
The contest lends itself to the perfect programming opportunity for Young Adult Librarians. It’s a chance for their teens to take a piece of library equipment and really have some fun with it. In the end, not only does the YA have their very own bookcart, but they also have a chance at winning $250 worth of merchandise from the Overdue Media Store as well. All entries will be posted on their site.
Exactly how many shirts of this Pimp My Bookcart logo t-shirt (left) could I wear in a week!?
Library Garden 
