Connecting Librarian

Been a bit quiet on this blog, because there has been way too much happening at home. However, I have had a couple of emails recently that caught my interest.

The first was from someone asking me to allow them to guest post on my website. I know other bloggers do, but I hadn’t even considered the idea until someone asked. My immediate response was almost childish - along the lines of “its mine, you can’t have it”.  I got over that and thought about it with more consideration and still ended up deciding against it, for a number of reasons.  These included, not knowing the person making the request, either professionally or personally and having a feeling of responsibility to people who read this blog and not wanting to damage the trust which you have entrusted to me.  So I politely declined, however I referred them to another blog I post to, which does take guest posts, leaving it to them as to whether they would take up the offer.

This was followed a day or so later by a request to write a post, about a post written on another blog.  Again, this was the first time I had ever received such a request.  As I had already gone through the thought process with the first request, this was more straightforward.  I checked out the blog post to see what it was about and then again decided against it and emailed them back to let them know.

I have come out of this with a few thoughts. Have I made the right decision?  I still think I have, for the reasons I outlined above and because there are other avenues for these people to pursue.  The next thought was wow, my blog is important enough that people think they will get attention by having their content published through it, or alternatively they are trying with everybody they can and I was just one on a long list.  Either way, I am still going to happily blog whenever I get the inspiration to do so, whether that is several times a week, or once a month.

Hope you’re OK with that too.

I have been thinking about this subject for weeks, longer probably and I’m not the only one. There’s been a lot of discussion about what social software people are using, people stopping blogging and some restarting and more. In the light of this, I thought it was about time I sorted out all the myriad of thoughts and ideas that are going around my head and totally confuse you about it too.

I have been exploring lots of social software online in the past 3 years or so and I think I am finally settling into a few selected ones that I am enjoying. The places I spend at least a little time everyday are Twitter (feel free to follow me - tango2), Facebook and a gaming site Gold Token, besides the several email addresses I monitor for myself, my work, hubby’s business and my church. I also believe in this blog still, although I am not posting as often, probably for a couple of reasons, which I will go into later.

http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2007/11/

I tried Library 2.0 on Ning, but there’s only so much you can do online and I find that most of the people I want to be in contact with are on Facebook. I never registered for Linked In, never felt the need because of my Facebook connections. And Facebook has great word games, although I could do without the vampires, zombies, knights etc. I use IM mainly at work, but not much at home, probably because I don’t have many addresses yet, so that could change. I love del.icio.us, but at home I am using it more as ‘I want to know where these websites are when I need them’ account. At work however, I am having a ball, using it for our Olympic Games links. And don’t get me started on podcasts and RSS feeds (both of which I love).

I want to do more with my Library Thing account, maybe integrating it more with my blog, like I have with Twitter, the same with my Flickr account and I haven’t gotten into YouTube or any equivalent yet, except as a regular viewer. We’ll see what happens though. Still that’s a lot to be using and trying to keep up with on a regular basis.

I have a feed from my blog going into my Facebook and I have integrated my Twitter feed into my Facebook and my blog because I don’t want to be concentrated in one spot. I like the idea of being able to be seen and heard in a number of places. Exhibitionist maybe, or maybe just a librarian to the core, making it as easy as possible to find that information. Dispersing my twitter feeds means that have to open them up, which for some people is a legitimate privacy concern, but I can live with that. Again, I guess its the librarian in me that just wants as many access points as possible. On the otherhand, it means that I can’t discuss everything that I may want to (ie. the odd rant), as it would viewable by all, including those about whom I am ranting, but that’s the price you pay.

So why 2008 in the title? Because all this will change. Two years ago I just had the blog, email and a bit of IM. Delicious was something new on the radar for me then too. Its only in the last year that I have really got immersed in Twitter and Facebook. So who knows how the landscape and how I choose to use it, will change in the next year.

So I guess I’m saying, that I plan to be found online in these places: my blog, facebook, twitter, delicious, flickr, library thing (getting there anyway) and that’s enough for now. I like being in all those diverse places, but I also like my content coming together in one place, to give a big picture view, so that’s where this blog will still play a big part.

The blog as I said earlier has been quieter, for a number of reasons. Firstly, because I am spending time in the other places I have mentioned, secondly because I have been doing some presentations, writing papers and have just finished a couple of articles (waiting to hear if they will be published). Thirdly, the big changes that seemed to be happening and happening fast with Web 2.0, seem to be slowing down a bit. Comes from being on the cutting edge I guess, we are now just waiting for everyone else to catch up a bit before we move onto to the next big thing - or maybe we’re just waiting for the next big thing to appear? Or is it just me?

So how do I manage to keep up with all this. I don’t know really. But Clay Shirky, author of “Here comes everybody“, has some thoughts on that. I really recommend you take the time to watch this video, where he explains where the time comes from. Its worth the 15 minute investment (and I really must get the book and stick it on Library Thing).

Anyway, so now you know where to find me. And wherever you go looking for me, you can be guaranteed that you’ll be able to find out what I’m up to. Whether or not you want to, is entirely up to you!

Alan Butters - Sybis
“New RFID technologies & standards: what does it all mean for your library”
handouts available from Alan’s website

Two ISO standards in common use - ISO 15693, ISO 18000-3 (newest).
Tag Data model and privacy and data security mechanisms are not prescribed in these standards.
Implications: no interoperability between systems, have to reprogram tags when changing vendors, difficult to mix and match equipment.
Standards work on the communication between the tag and the reader.  ISO working group is working on an international standard of data models on the tag - some debate over the format, been going on for over a year.  Compromise position adopted at a third meeting.

ISO 28560 to be structured in three parts: (standard aimed at libraries, but could be adapted to other organisation types)
1. General requirements and data elements ie. item identifier, call no, instituitional ID, title etc - approximately 25 items thus far.
2. Encoding based on ISO/IEC 15962 (as proposed by Standards Australia) - only item ID is mandatory, the rest is optional
3. Fixed length encoding - variation on fixed models already in place

Ultra High Frequency (UHF) RFID in libraries:
RFID operates at multiple frequencies, usually use Band 19 - high end of the frequency.
Frequency selected to match the application - read speed, distance and other performance criteria

Why differ? advantages for libraries - faster read rates, greater read distance, cheaper tags and readers, greater immunity to tag masking, compatability with supply chain initiatives. ie. Walmart.

UHF FAQ: HF is more mature and capable and can deliver to libraries.  UHF is still very new in libraries, limited suppliers.
Why not UHF? More info is needed on UHF libraries - works on mobile phones range of the spectrum.  Mostly used in warehouses, what are the implications for office type environments with people not just objects.  How long will they last?   Mainly used for short term use in warehousing.  Lose anything going to UHF? Less control, narrower product range, not interoperable with HF systems, suppliers are not library experienced.  Can’t mix HF and UHF.  Future is unknown, don’t know which will come out on top - might coexist or something new may come out.  RFID systems on the market now can deliver the benefits that libraries are seeking.

www.sybis.com.au - “RFID for Libraries: a comparison of HF and UHF options” - white paper

Kathryn Greenhill - Murdoch Uni, Constance Wiebrands - Curtin Uni
“Libraries Interact: collaboration and community in the Australian library blogosphere”

LINT is one of only two group library blogs in Australia.  Encourages contributions from anyone, as long as they are on-topic. Not aligned with any formal body.

200 hits per day and have 550 subscribers.  22680 hits in December 2007 - includes a lot of spam.  Visitors - 1/6 from Australian, most from US, also readers from Egypt, Netherlands, Canada, UK and Europe.

THALI - this helps all libraries interact - Indian dish with many different tastes.  Spread across the country and across the world.

Platform - self hosted Wordpress - $100 per year.  Plugins to control Spam, for editing, statistics, to apply metadata, backup.  Feedburner is used for RSS feeds and gives an email subscription option.  Tools for collaboration - 90% done using Google groups, PB Wiki for documentation. Social bookmarking using Connotea and CiteULike.

Tools for Australian libraries, based on the blog: Australian Library blogs list, Australian Library blogs search using Google custom search. Surveys. VLINT - Virtual libraries interact.  Frappr map of LINT’s readers.  Thali tags - hot issues in the Australian blogosphere - takes thali blog posts, sends them through a Yahoo pipe and generates a tag cloud. Professional reading room - a page on the blog, where we can put out a list of articles which we think Australian librarians should read - with an RSS feed.

Went live on 8th July 2006 - discussed for a month or so.  Established over the course of a weekend.  Jan 26 2008 - 313 posts, 557 comments.  Very informal group, not written principles.  LINT is a growing, evolving project.  An idea will work only if someone has time to do it, but everyone is available to bounce around ideas - fantastic professional support network.  No single person is in charge - can be a slight disadvantage, but all have a sense of responsibility for LINT.  No formal decision making process, done by informal negotiation and discussion - consensus is accepted by the group.  Assess situations and deal with them as they arise and we don’t create pre-emptive rules.  Highest return for lowest effort.

Community of practice - learning is not a separate activity, it comes from participation in daily life. (citation in paper - Lave and Venga).  Engagement in shared activity facilitates shared learning.  About: LINT is an ongoing process - its about a shared activity, continually negotiated by its members.  All tools we have used have improved our coding, writing and communication skills.  Function: social nature of LINT keeps us focussed, but adds an element of interest and fun to the process, no real difficulty in keeping motivated.  Capability: tangible aspect is the blog, plus the tools that have been created, but the intangibles are almost more important - development of the community, not just the technical community but a support network, which is extremely valuable.  Physical meeting of group members just confirmed the relationships that had been established online.

Survey Monkey was used in September 2007 to survey other group library blogs. 63 responses: uses - professional and was part of their job and was required - learning skills including writing, community - contributing to the profession, and other personal reasons.

Get involved - librariesinteract.info - read, subscribe, comment and write a post to contribute to the blog.

Future: we have a new look but the rest is in planning.

Ellen Forsyth - State Library of NSW
“Fancy walkie talkies: Star Trek communicators or roving reference? (2006 Travel Scholar)”

Travel Scholarship investigated roving reference using walkie talkies, wireless bluetooth, shelf end OPACs and more.  Roving reference in these instances also have a desk, although desks are changing also. Taking the services away from the desk involves changes to the service. Consideration needs to be taken of technology to help the librarian to help the user.

Low tech - OPACs at the extremities of the library, so its on hand when you are in shelves.

Vocera voice command system on a badge hung around the neck, used by some public libraries to assist with staff communication as well as reference.  Needs a good wireless network and was used mainly in very big libraries.  Most libraries have 50 devices, keyed into individuals and all had licences for more, mainly reference staff.  Staff are encouraged to stay logged in all day, but can put them on hold when you don’t want to be disturbed.  Very easy to use, library staff commented on ease of implementation and training.  System was trained in 5 minutes to understand your accent in relation to commands.  Incoming phone calls can be transferred to someone with a badge. Can call individuals, a group or all staff, for emergencies, or help required etc. Telephone reference is being redirected straight to the Vocera badges, instead of ringing a phone, it goes to the rostered reference librarian.  Reference desks are being rebuilt as smaller and less daunting.

Walkie talkies and headsets with earpieces are also being used at some libraries. Radio means you hear every single message, but it worked well at those libraries.

Whilst I catch up on quite a bit of reading and get my head around my next planned post, whilst also getting my children ready for school (with my son starting Grade Prep) I thought I would point out a great resource.

Many of you would already have seen at least some of these, but they are all well worth a look. The videos are all quite short (3 to 4 minutes generally) and do a good job of explaining the topic at hand in layman’s terms. Kind of like a video dummies guide.

From Common Craft - “We produce short videos that make complex subjects easier to understand.” The Common Craft Show is a series of free videos on social media topics, which also help them to showcase their work.

Anyway, the ones most of interest to me and I will assume will be of some interest to you are:
Video: Google Docs in Plain English
Video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
Video: Blogs in Plain English
Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Video: Wikis in Plain English
RSS in Plain English

I would also recommend them as ones to show others who may be struggling with the particular idea being discussed. They are brief, easy to understand, user friendly and even a little bit of fun. Take some time to check them out and enjoy!

It was wishful thinking I know. I so wanted my changeover of blog location to be painful only to me and not to my subscribers, but unfortunately it’s not to be.

If you want to continue subscribing to Connecting Librarian, can you please change your feed to http://www.feedburner.com/ConnectingLibrarian. The RSS button at top right of this blog has the right address too, as does the icon on the address bar.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I sincerely hope you make the move with me and continue with me as I keep finding those connections!

Thanks,

Michelle

I was surprised, but not so surprised to realise that I hadn’t blogged for over a month. That was for two reasons I suppose - one was that I have just been so busy and secondly I didn’t have the heart to post. Then tonight, I was just sitting at my computer, having had a day of overbooked commitments for the first time in over a week and I was ready again. I actually have a lot in my mind that I will get around to blogging about, but this topic is pre-eminent at the moment, so here goes….

This cartoon is one of a series from Unshelved, using the PC/Mac ad premise. They are well worth checking out, as is the series in general. Good for a laugh and sometimes very close to home as well.

That’s one thing that got me thinking about library websites. We are about to redo our library website. Its been 3 years since the last restructure and we haven’t done much with it. Not saying its static or anything - we have added new content, deleted old stuff, kept things current etc and we have even added 2 blogs in that time - a general behind the scenes blog and recently a local history blog as well as adding Google Maps for our branch locations and bookmobile sites. We even have a Flickr account with a small collection of photos from one of our branches - due mainly to its recent renovation and relaunch. That puts us a bit ahead of the curve in our state, as there are only 4 public library services (out of 45) that are blogging at present.

I’m not happy though, because I want more.

I want our website to be more than an online brochure and I would love it if the treasure that is available there was used more. Our catalogue is getting great use since our change of library system earlier this year and more importantly the elimination of reserve charges. Our catalogue is shared with a consortia of 9 public library services, so not only can our patrons place holds on our items for free, but for almost anything from any of the 8 other library services in the consortia also.

Most of our patrons come to our website to get to our catalogue. Totally understandable, its our stock in trade. Even with the improvements in our catalogue through having a new system, with the blogs, the google maps and more, we still have a mainly brochure type website. If we are to engage our users and attract new users, who may only visit us virtually, we need to do more.

And they are there to engage. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been releasing statistics from the 2006 census. In our last census in 2001, our 2 local council areas had home PC ownership at about 21%, which was significantly below the state average. This census the question changed to home internet access and both our council areas were pretty much on the state average of 62%! And that is just home access, not access through school, work, the library or other locations. I am pretty sure that the percentage of our population with any sort of internet access that they use regularly is a lot higher than 62%.

We do have plans however. We plan to have a website which integrates the catalogue into the front end, not as a link to a separate location. We want more blogs. We plan to offer more RSS feeds, not only from our blogs, but also to new titles added to the catalogue etc. We want to post polls to get more feedback from our users. We need more Flickr photos and I am playing with what potentially could be our first podcast.

I would love to get the Library Thing tags on our catalogue, do podcasts and vodcasts of in-house seminars and maybe go out and do things too. And there’s a lot of potential in SMS or IM services also. Then there’s profiles on Facebook and/or MySpace, videos on YouTube, etc, etc. I could also go on about patron tagging and reviews etc, but this post is already long enough as it is.

But I feel like these things are all add ons to what is still essentially at its core, an online brochure at present. Whether our new website form will change that, I don’t yet know. I know we need the static information about branches and services, but is there another way we could be doing it? Can we change what a library website is at its core? If we can, how do we that and what does it look like when we do?

And who does it? I am only one person, working part-time. At present its me and my manager who do the website and there is never enough time in the day to keep current, let alone get ahead. Even two of us can’t make all this happen.

However, on this point I am happy to report that help is at hand. As a result of the State Library of Victoria coordinating the Victorian Public Libraries Learning 2.0 program for public library staff statewide, we have taken several steps in what I think is the right direction for our virtual services. Our local history librarian is now blogging local history and is doing a great job - after only a few weeks she has an armload of posts, with dozens more in reserve. A couple of our other staff are going to show a YouTube video as part of a teen Christmas wrap workshop they are running. Both great ideas and just the tip of the iceberg. We have more staff enthused and ready to go - waiting I guess for us to tell them how. (I must really get onto to that and soon…)

We had 44 staff enrolled in the program, which has just officially finished, with a third having completed it. If we are coming out with these ideas already, how many more might we expect, as others complete it in their own time, or as we get the other 42 staff to do it sometime in the next year.

So when I started this post, I was feeling a little frustrated, but now that I have had my rant and seen the positives that are happening, I am feeling a bit better. My biggest concern now is how to make our plans come to fruition. However, if we can get more of our staff as enthused as just a few of ones who have completed the program are, start tapping into their enthusiasm, ideas and skills more - we might just have enough people to be able to pull it off. This and more.

So thanks for sitting through my rant. If you or your staff haven’t done the Learning 2.0 program, I highly recommend it. Its hard work and can be time consuming, but its inspiring, challenging and fun! If you have any solutions for my brochure dilemma, I’d love to hear them. If you think I’m full of it, impatient etc - please let me know that too (but nicely). I won’t necessarily agree with you, after all, we have to have dreams and we have to aim high, but I would be interested in the feedback. Anyway, I’m back and have a lot to say it seems (just from the length of this post).

If you would like to read more on library web presences, besides the Unshelved cartoons, the following posts contributed to my thought processes - I recommend you check them out.
Technology Storm - Michael Casey and Michael Stephens (Library Journal)
Website or presence? - Kathryn Greenhill (Librarians Matter)
Ignoring our digital community - David Lee King

Stay tuned - I’m keen to waffle on more on other topics and won’t take a month to do so next time.

I am the honoured host of the Carnival of the InfoSciences #72, which will be posted on Monday 28th May. For those who don’t know the Carnival, it’s a travelling weblog post that endeavours to show the best of the information science blogosphere. Its hosted fortnightly by a different library blogger and well coordinated by Chadwick Seagraves of InfoSciPhi.

So your help is now needed. Please send me your links to include in the carnival, either to one of your own blog posts or any other post you found interesting and would like to share with other bloggers. That is the nature of the Carnival. Send your posts as per the submission guidelines or email me and I will be sure to include it.

There’s lots of fun things going on in the biblioblogosphere at present, so please get your contributions in. See you at the Carnival!

Infotoday now has the Presentations from Computers in Libraries 2007 on their website. So if you are interested you can check out the presentations from pretty much all the sessions at CIL, including the slides (with my speaker notes) and references from my paper “Libraries building community and Library 2.o initiatives in Australia”.

I am amazed and honoured to see that my paper was blogged about by Connie Crosby (great gal who I had a lot of fun spending time with) and my interactions, both at CIL and at other times have been blogged about all over the biblioblogosphere.

Which leaves me with my final dilemma for which I need your help. I actually wrote the full text of the paper on which the slides and final presentation were based. I would like to also make that available for anyone who is interested, along with anything of relevance I can dig up from my past or produce in future. Do I put them on a specially created page on my husband’s business’s website, do I create a wiki for my professional dealings and put them there? This is all very new to me and I’m not sure which way to go with it. Any thoughts, suggestions, etc on how I can resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated.

I am hoping my trip has helped me to see what my library will look like in the next year, but what will it look like further down the track?

With Australian Library and Information Week fast approaching, my friends and co-bloggers at Libraries Interact are asking for your vision of what the library will look like 2010. So head on over to Libraries Interact, read Get Creative for May and be inspired, before putting fingers to keyboard and telling us all about your vision. You could win an autographed copy of Meredith Farkas‘ new book “Social Software in Libraries” which is currently winging its way to our shores, fresh from her own supply.

Entries close on May 20th, so start dreaming and get those entries in! I can’t wait to see where you think libraries will be in 2010 (not too far away now!).

Wow, my last visit and I spent a lovely day at Thomas Ford Memorial Library (TFML) in the outer Chicago suburbs. Thomas Ford is a single branch service with 7 librarians plus support staff. However, besides the number of branches and staff, our respective library services have a lot in common - more on that soon.

Thomas Ford’s ILS is part of the 81 (correction, it should be 96) library SWAN consortia which shares the same ILS and has reciprocal borrowing rights. They are looking to try a new module on their ILS which has more of an Amazon-like interface, which will incorporate reviews etc.

They offer downloadable audio for iPods, with content from iTunes. They also used to get MP3 content from a statewide consortia, but wasn’t getting the use. Their iPod content started well, tailed off but use is picking up again, with classics and scifi moving better than bestsellers. Process is manually intensive, so is usually done at the reference. Only limits are 3 week loan periods and 1 simultaneous user - most they have ever downloaded for a user is 4 titles (they offer 67 titles).

Their website was created 3 years ago (correction, it was 2002 - current iteration is from 2005) , by Aaron Schmidt (Walking Paper blogger - now Director at Northern Plains Public Library) using Moveable Type. Their site is hosted at LIS News. It runs the website, with some blog content and fixed template content, as well as a staff blog where they share notes, news and more. Comments are not enabled due to overwhelming spam. The blog entries can feed to different pages on the website. Very nice. Have a slight problem with uploading files, as Movable Type disallows the upload of large files, including images.

They are about to do a redesign of the website, keeping Movable Type for blogs and use another form for the rest of the website, using Dreamweaver as their editor. They want the website to do more to promote the services and collections of the library - at present this content is down too deep in the site and is rarely accessed.

They would like to have the public contributing book reviews via a public blog and will invite some early contributions so that they launch it with some content already available. They will use a Google Co-op facility to search their reviews (cool!). In the new website they want more staff collaboration, to make it easier for staff to contribute, have more community involvement, and be interactive. It will be interesting to watch it all develop over the coming months.

Their Staff exchange blog for staff news is supplemented by their new staff intranet, which uses Media Wiki and is well populated with great content. Its very comprehensive and more content is added nearly daily. They also have a Flickr page and MySpace and Facebook profiles.

They have some “listen to a story” podcasts and are looking to do some screencasting at some stage. They have created a blog, using Word Press for their Big Read 2007 program which involved 8 public libraries in the area. They would like to do more with their patron picks, staff picks and blurbs about new stock.

I felt really at home here, because like my work, we have no programmers on staff and our website is hosted offsite. Yet Thomas Ford have done some marvellous things with mainly the desire to learn and try new things. Very motivational for me, showing that its possible, even when you don’t have many technical resources available to you.

Their local history wiki came out of inspiration at the 2004 PLA Conference. It is blog based and came out of grant money which was used to pay Aaron to set up the website and Nancy, other TFML staffer, to do the digitisation and metadata. They already had a high quality scanner/copier for their central printing and for digitisation of the historic photos. At the time, a blog was the easiest option - the content has been duplicated at the Illinois Digital Archive, but took a year to get it uploaded.

The Western Springs History blog, using Word Press, has over 100 photos of local houses with accompanying info. It was supposed to be a starting point, but has not developed much beyond that at this stage. However, they are meeting with the Western Springs Historical Society in the next month to investigate further collaboration efforts.

Wow, such cool, achievable stuff. Thanks to Rick and Kristin for taking time out to share their achievements and future plans and to Thomas Ford Memorial Library for making me welcome, I really appreciate it.