Connecting Librarian

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I was fortunate to be able to attend the 3rd annual Emerging Technology Forum 2011 in Geelong, which is a collaboration between Deakin University, Geelong Regional Libraries and the Gordon Institute of TAFE on Tuesday 17th May. A long way to go, but well worth the travel.

Stephen Abram – The future: Frankenbooks, social collaboration and learning on steroids

We have right on our side, we know that  learning matters.

Sweet Mona Lisa smile with bubble saying Moron – over the heads of people who say that libraries are no longer needed. If you confuse having libraries with having know-how then you are mistaken. Know how counts, not know that. Its the know how that matters, the professional skills. As content becomes more accessible, we are drowning people in know that.

We all start with Google, because it does a great job at who, what, where, when. It sucks at how and why. Drug info online is provided by drug companies – if even its not their website.  Should we be happy with only that information being acceptable?

We are not a scalable solution for small questions. Google answers more questions in one day than all the librarians do in 25 years.

We only get so many once in a lifetime chances to do great things. Internet and we did. Mobile and social are our opportunities.  Biggest negotiations are in copyright – worldwide, telling us what we can do with information and taking away rights that we already have.

Is it the end of libraries as we know them? Hope so, at least the public perception of us as big warehouses. Google adjusts their results if it comes through a campus (geo-tagging), so the results reach that lucrative market. How much money do we make out of our searching?

We need to be defending the right to read, not the book. Defending toxic glue, human cells etc – its the memory that it evokes, not the smell itself. Can’t defend libraries over librarians, should be about the community spaces.

What will the roles be for libraries and librarians?

Has been a lot of change in the early part of the century, in the 20s and 30s. We had an infrastructure shift in the last 20 years, but it wasn’t a major change, that is coming.

As we move forward, we don’t know what the right answer is. We don’t know what learning is going to do, but we know that humans will be involved and the best way is to PLAY. Watching just doesn’t work. For those librarians who don’t connect on social networks, you are missing out on what is happening with your major market. Libraries are social institutions are should be on social networks. By not being there, we are not connecting with our clients, we are choosing to be transactional rather than transformational.

So what is changing – everything! We are connected to the world. We have to be smarter, nimble and more connected. The tools available now can make this happen.

Librarians are being the glue in communities of practice in very innovative areas including health and technology. Feeding in information as it is needed. We need to be in the spaces and being the glue – delivering the content at point of need.

School libraries are the best improver of school test scores, apart from parents reading to their child.  (25%) School/public library partnerships increase score by 5%+.  Libraries and information content and technology leadership are critical to Higher Ed.

Its not about what you find, librarians are about understanding what you find when you search.

Communities with libraries as an investment receive very high ROI – average 650%.

Most library content is organised like grocery stores – both in our physical and virtual spaces. How do libraries package our content in ways that our users want. Its getting harder to separate out content and making it easily findable for those who want it.

Librarians play a vital role in building the critical connections between information, knowledge and learning. There are 7 different learning styles – we need to be presenting our content in those different styles. We are text based, which isn’t even the most common learning style.

The elephant in the room is how do we deal with the depth of people and their styles. Do our collections support how they take in content.

Need to be collaborating across institutions, not competing against them.

Strategy is a choice. Emboldened librarians are the key – try things out with little projects.

The Internet and technology have now progressed to their infancy – they are toddlers.  We need to find our voice.

Should we be letting our technology dictate what we can or can’t access via our devices? We are about freedom to read – but that should mean freedom to read whatever we want!

We should be talking to the people we are uncomfortable with in our communities – its from them that we will learn the most. We are very comfortable talking to people who are similar to us. You may find that these are your best market.
If we want to serve all, its not just about reading, we need to support the culture, the people and their learning styles, not just their reading habits alone.

People are changing – IQ is up overall, increased educational attainment, playing video games improves brain development, device proliferation, sectors are very tech dominated, reading is up, library use up particularly due to e-books, ebook sales higher than print.

Need to be aware of eye movements- millennials are O frame, gen Xers are F frame. Need to ensure that our services are meeting the needs of our users, not our own needs.

Can libraries keep up with change? Formats have died before and we can deal with the death of books as we have survived the death of other formats.

Re-intermediation – how do we put librarians back into the space. Trust yourself to make a difference and have an impact. Don’t roll over and play dead – challenge false assumptions.

Two kinds of librarians – those who just watch and those who get involved. If we are to survive, we need to be the latter. We need to talk about our value, communicate better, advocate for ourselves and our users, market better.

The power of libraries is not information, it’s clarification. It is the value we deliver.

Have great library projects, but then we take the personality out of it – Inside a dog is an exception.
(only librarians will argue over spine labels rather than the content of a book)

Questions:
We need social connections which are both deep and superficial, to make changes in our communities.  So we need things like both Twitter and Facebook.

Social media @ Deakin – Kat Clancy
The key to using Twitter is following the right people. @sabram is a good person to follow. There are plenty of librarians to follow and many more people depending on your interests.

Yammer – has been used by Deakin for the last 2 years, but only seeing good results in the last few months, with a big take-up by library staff. Yammer is for private communication within an organisation or between pre-designated groups. Its Enterprise social software which enables communities – allows external groups to connect as well, if  you choose.

Similar to a forum, but easier to use. Can tag topics, include attachments, social bookmarking, integrates with Twitter or reply using email or SMS and apps on various devices, can be customised and has security features.
Deakin using Yammer to share info within work groups – between different areas of university – between students and alumni, problem solving, having questions answered, networking, events, polls, staff focus.

Deakin has Facebook page rather than group, more functionality, better promotion and more public. Got more likes when advertised on their website. Have users posting to their page.

Dealing with social media – you will receive negative feedback – deal with them as you would normally, you may have to deal with inappropriate comments and engage. Don’t have to be formal, works better if you are casual.

Dos and Don’ts for social media:

• Do be informative – tell what you are about
• Don’t be a parrot – will lose followers doing this
• Do make a tradition – eg. follow Friday, Wednesday resource of the week
• Don’t neglect replies – engage with your users, don’t be there just to be there
• Do call for action – use ‘like this status” – it gets you great feedback
• Don’t rely on text alone – photos are a great tool
• Do have a crisis plan – be ready for negative and inappropriate comments
• Don’t be impolite – commonsense, same as dealing with user in person or on phone

www.facebook.com/deakinlibrary
@deakinlibrary

Questions:
How much time do you spend monitoring and answering questions?
Kat checking twitter when checking her own account. Facebook is getting checked first in the morning, then 2 – 3 times during the day. Working on getting people who can answer the questions, there on social networks, so that it becomes part of their workflow. Are working on a social media policy at present. Getting a question a day during peak times, around 3 a week other times.

Aggregation services?
They monitor mentions of Deakin Library as twitterers won’t always put the @ tag in their tweets. Tweet Deck is the aggregator she uses.  It enables her to check tweets, mentions, direct messages and searches in one screen. Hoot Suite is an aggregator which includes both Facebook and Twitter.

How often do you tweet?
Most often post things which link to a news item.  Have put up fun things, like Old Spice ad library adaptation and some things about the University too. Uni has presences now, but is very formal. Need to put personality into what you do in social media.

Deakin’s e-book device loan trial – Sarah Sherman
E-books were useful for their users because they were available immediately, 24/7 access, portable. For the library, immediate access, less space, cheaper etc. Big growth in e-book content in the last 8 years.  Now have 125,127 e-books.

Expect tipping point from print to e will be in the next year or so.

Acquiring e-books via patron driven purchasing model (EBL), subscription to packages, publisher packages, individual title purchases, gratis (mainly government publications).

e works for Deakin, as it allows equity of access and flexible learning, have great support and they can trial new resources.  But more could be done…..

2010 – what did they know about students mobile technology use?  No iPads, netbooks and smart phones increasingly popular.

Educause study of undergraduate students and information technology 2010. Laptop is already highest percentage, with Internet capable handheld device more popular than desktop computers.

Kept all this in mind when looking at which e-reader to buy. Pre-iPad, so considering their requirements, including price, existing market share, content available (free and paid), connectivity, battery life and general usability.

Originally tried Iliad, Eco reader and Kindle.  FIrst has gone out of business now, Eco not large market share, so Kindle was chosen.

Project brief – considered: content, how many, size, security, promotion and license issues.  Bought 15 devices of varying sizes, split between 4 campuses. Bought cases from store and placed 3 fiction and 3 non-fiction titles on each.  Included conditions of use, FAQ, removed charging cord. Amazon approved use, as long as individual content was bought for each device.

Benefits of pilot – gaterhing information on the scholarly application of it, raise awareness of e-reader technology, promote the library as a leader in new technology/change/ideas, provide information to the Uni community on these devices.

Mostly positive response to the trial. Some issues included: not including cable so users couldn’t download more content, no holds allowed on the devices, unfulfilled fear that users would register the devices to their own Amazon account – didn’t happen.

General feedback – more textbooks – just weren’t available, choice of content – wanted more – can now email their team once they have the Kindle and suggest for purchase, colour – e-Ink is easier on eyes for sustained reading, so not available, touch screen – all want to pinch, drag and drop.

Issues with lending technology included: laptops or net books are possible, check your applications (some licences restrict it so cant lend device with software loaded on it), they can be useful even if you can”t lend them – testing, tech zone for play. What are the devices offering – tools, content, portability, productivity, iPads for mobile/roving reference, iPad touch for shelvers who work night shifts – for quick ref help, provide flexibility and choice for our users.
Other things to think about? Who will look after the devices – charging batteries, setting up  wireless etc. Who will – pay for apps and connectivity, administer authentication and subscription logins, manage content. Who provides training, instructions in best use, repair and replace and the list goes on.

Amazon sold more ebooks than print in 2010. Publishers ebook policies will affect use – loans between devices, loans from libraries etc are all in flux.

Have tried some more devices – Cybook (loaned from vendor) wouldn’t sync with their laptops and wouldn’t bookmark or highlight. Also looking at Kobo, which is slow and doesn’t have a dictionary.Now looking at tablet devices including the Handii tablet – heated up too much and short battery life, hard to read, Samsung Galaxy Tab (runs on Android) – limited apps and no e-Ink, iPad – no eInk and have to buy the quality eBook apps and just a bit too big. (want something between iPad and Galaxy Tab). More new devices coming out – Cisco Cius, BeBook Neo, Microsoft may be working on something, Kno. Didn’t try out Nook.

Ideal e-device:

• not locked to a single source
• able to handle multiple formats
• multi-functional
• web-enabled
• wireless
• run multiple programs
• colour and touch screen
• long battery life
• lightweight

Til that happens its about the Apps. There are apps for Kobo, Kindle, Sony, Nook, Martview, Borders and Stanza.
They may still go down the Netbook/Laptop path in the meantime.

Showed the PushPopPress ebook demo that has been getting a lot of attention lately: check it out at http://www.pushpoppress.com/

Future long term: ebooks in the cloud.
Showed Google e-books promo -http://youtu.be/ZKEaypYJbb4. Business model not out yet, but will be using HTML 5 enalbing them to use video. They have already signed up top 400,000 publishers worldwide.

Questions:
iDevices used by staff ARE heavily secured so that they have the same standard operating environment – no customising by library staff allowed.

Each device has its own Kindle account. Content is purchased using a university credit card for the Kindle and purchase orders for the iPad.

Came across a few geographic restrictions on the Kindle.

e-Paper, print disappears in temperatures under 30 degrees. (Steve Abram)

Exploring ways to spread OSS through public libraries – Open Source Workshop – Camilo Jorquera
Camilo was wanting to make open source more accessible to the public . Ideas included: software kiosk, preloaded USB sticks (which could be plugged into and run on any computer), online links to resources – eg forums, support networks etc, using it!, having Linux computers and having OSS installed.

Ask yourself – seems strange that libarires access to and don’t provide these free tools to the public. By not doing so, it contributes to the digital divide, so access, distribution and educating the public on quality and freely available software.

OSS is less about programming and more a philosophical approach to community driven and supported software.

Obstacles to use are restrictions put in place by IT departments, in trying to establish a Standard Operating Environment (SOE). Great for IT, not for a public requirements point of view. What should our focus be?
Support of software is an issue – IT depts know infrastructure well, but not software specialists. It really isn’t an IT issue, so expertise is not generally easily available.

A new approach – a better way. Camilo created a USB of open source portable content containing a wide range of excellent tools. They don’t affect the SOE as they are running off the USB.

He then handed out a USB drive with that software for us to try out and then keep! Device does an auto open and uses Portable Apps (portableapps.com) to access the menu. Some of the apps were added by Camilo, but many are available as is from Portable Apps. These are designed for PC, not portable devices – its the software thats portable.

Simon Goodrich – Portable – Future trends in technology
Much of Simon’s talk was the same as was given at the Yarra Plenty unconference – check out my report from that event.

Games applications can influence companies. Australian government is looking to get game developers to work with businesses on interactivity – ISIS project (http://cci.edu.au/post/the-interactive-skills-integration-scheme-isis)

Half of Australians now access the mobile internet.

SMS was initially only used to get a message to someone when they weren’t answering their phone.

Color – new service – take pictures together – has apps for iPhone and Android etc. Demo at http://www.color.com/

60% of Australians have smart phones – the other 40% might be our clients wanting to learn about these technologies.

Fast growing apps:
Instagram – growing faster than Facebook – share photos
Foodspotting – food guide, not a restaurant guide
Sound tracking – what are you listening to
They all use geo-location.

5 Pillars of social media

1. Innovation is key
2. Brand web literacy
3. Increased engagement
4. Next generation audience of fans, followers and subscribers in social media
5. Mobile is here

Practical ideas right now:
Install recording booths in library for users to come and record their recollections of the local area and/or times and events.

Scanning parties at the library – come in and scan your photos – build a local history of the area – geotag it.

Book reviews – encourage users to contribute to your reviews – using the “do you want fries with that” concept.

I can’t believe its been3 weeks since VALA 2010 finished.  But it has been and in the wake of all my notes from the conference and inspired by some excellent summary blog and twitter posts from fellow conference attendees, here are my key reflections from VALA 2010.

1. Discovery layers

It doesn’t matter what vendor you use these days, a discovery layer will sit over pretty much every library system and open your content to your users in a new and exciting way. Academic and State Libraries have already implemented this software and public libraries are starting to. And it sits on top of your website to give the integration between the website and catalogue that our users expect and that librarians have been seeking.

I never realised the range of offerings available until I chaired the Vendor session which demonstrated a wide range of the offerings available from different companies. If you don’t already have a discovery layer in place or in process, you need to be looking at them now.

2. Metadata

I have heard talk about metadata for well over a decade.  Til now, I thought it was the domain of repositories, archives and the like. After VALA2010 I can finally see its relevance for my own library’s web content, which is neither archival nor relating to repositories in any form.

So add another thing to the list of things to do.

3. Semantic Web

Linked data and the whole concept of the semantic web is moving from a concept to a reality in small ways.  Its fascinating to watch this evolution, from concept to working tools. Its early days yet, but there will be a lot more interesting developments in these areas in coming years, which I will be watching for with continued interest.

4. Mashups and APIs

I always thought that APIs really belonged to the realm of programmers or those with some programming knowledge/skill, of which I have a minuscule amount.  After listening to Paul Hagon at the L-Plate Series at VALA, that misconception has been corrected. I have already been planning with APIs without realising it (its only Google Maps, but hey, its still an API) and Paul pointed out some great tools to help us get into some more serious stuff. It’s time to play!  Thanks Paul.

5. Trove

This new service from the National Library of Australia is very cool and I look forward to learning more about it and seeing how we can better utilise it and promote it to our users.  There was several papers on Trove, so check them out to find out more about how it was created and exactly what it can do.

6. Open source

Is more widespread than I had ever thought about. But when I did, realised that we are using so much open source software already – it runs our Internet servers and our browsers, as well as much of our communications.  Is it that big a step for us then to start using open source software for other purposes? It’s already proven its worth in those areas listed.

7. Twitter and Blogging

Twitter was the new kid on the block at the last VALA conference.  This year, it made its presence felt big time.  It was a great back channel to what was going on in other sessions, a guide to what was worth checking out and a great way to network with other librarians, both at the conference and following along from outside.

Much to our delight, the hash tag #vala2010 was in the top 5 twitter tags in Australia the week of the conference, hitting number 1 on the Thursday – the last day.  It was also a great delight to finally meet all those twitterers I had only known online before then and to meet and start following twitterers that I met there. I think that I have started following at least another 20 people since the start of the conference.

Keep up  the good work all – you make working on computers all day all the more interesting and what you share is  entertaining, informative and useful in turn.

Twitter probably outdid blogging in terms of content sharing this VALA, but it still had its place for the detail on content. Being a conference blogger myself, I really appreciate the depth that I can get from a blogger’s reports. They are also a great teaser for the papers that I may want to go and read in full. The papers BTW are freely available from the VALA website – well worth checking out.

8. Networking

It was the best conference ever, for just spending time with other like-minded library staff.  The social events were great for this, but it was even happening whilst waiting for sessions to start, or during the breaks. It was wonderful sharing thoughts, ideas, feedback and what you’re up to, with other enthusiastic librarians (and others), who speak the same language.

9. Presenting

I was fortunate enough to present two papers, and get away with it, lol.  Both my papers, presented with two different co-authors were well received much to my amazement and relief. I have had several people follow me up with questions on both papers since, much to my delight.

Writing a paper is a difficult enough process to begin with, but then trying to present that paper in a snapshot presentation is even more so. I learnt a lot from other presenters at VALA about how to engage the audience and even how to present so that you retain their interest.

10. VALA Conference Committee

I was a member of the conference program committee this year, but the role we played was so small, compared to all the work put in by the VALA committee in general. These guys all have regular jobs and real lives, yet put everything into getting this conference off the ground, running as well as it did and responding to issues quickly and efficiently as they arose.

Alyson Kosina, the backbone of VALA is an amazing lady, who you should take a moment to meet and chat with. You will walk away enriched. David Feighan and Bart Rutherford, the Conference Chair and VALA president respectively, were endlessly everywhere, managing, listening, participating, anticipating and in Bart’s case, presenting one paper when the speakers couldn’t get here in time. Dedication personified.

I really enjoyed working with them in the small role I played and learnt a lot. I very much look forward to more opportunities to be involved with VALA.

And amazingly, this blog posts has ended up with 10 reflections. That was not my intention, it just developed that way.

Thanks to all my co-conference attendees for helping to make it the best conference I have ever attended.  Bring on #VALA2012!

McKenzie Wark – Eugene Lang College and the New School for Social Research New York – The Networked Book

Developed his book Gamer Theory with interaction with kids, teens, parents, librarians and professionals in the gaming industry. Many books are being developed this way, using the power of Web 2.0, but it is not appropriate for every title.

Have lots of tools around for different types of knowledge, but he couldn’t really find one that was appropriate for encouraging critical thinking. So they built their own. They made the paragraph the unit of thought on which people could think and comment. The comments are then placed alongside the paragraph. Its now available as a Word Press plugin (Comment Press). Navigation was resolved by displaying them like index cards, in a group of five.

He put up a pre-polished version of the book, so the majority of the work was done. However, it was an implied contract that he would read all the comments and would take them under consideration. It resulted in the whole start of the book being changed.  After consideration and feedback the book was put up again for comment. Not many comments were made this time, because it was pretty much the final product and all feedback already received had been considered.  Third copy was the final version.

He suggested that they offered it free online, to encourage sales. Publishers said yes – tried everything else which hadn’t worked, so lets try this! Pre-sales were over 1600 copies which was considered an overwhelming success. Third copy incorporates the comments, was better edited and looks good.

Built some stuff that didn’t work. Built a reputation index, which slid comments up a scale etc – spent tons of money on it but wasn’t used, so is no longer on the site.

(check it out at: http://www.futureofthebook.org/mckenziewark/gamertheory3.0/textarc)

Wanted to explore visualisation to explore the three dimensional space of text – gives a three dimensional paper of words that have any value in the book – working around in an arc. The start of how we could visually organise the text, from the view of the creator.

People are losing the capability of reading long non-fiction texts. Visualisation and user interaction could be two tools which could help people to re-engage with this full length of this sort of content.

Showed a video using machinima (MMOPRG world), used to illustrate a talk-show voiceover where Ken was interviewed about the Networked book. Very cool!

Never did anything in Second Life – he hated it and is glad to see its time has past.  Suggested that Twitter may be the next Second Life. (ooo)

Had a real problem trying to get elements. Can deal with the text readily enough, but the use of images and music is much more complicated and expensive – overly strict copyright rules.

Media culture is broken when lawyers are trying to sue people from their own companies who are just doing things to market their products. eg. Giving products away to encourage purchases.

To get around all the restrictions imposed on images, he employed a graphic artist to create in mimic, similar images to those he was interested in using. These were licensed under Creative Commons and went along with the book.

Ironic – that people are writing books about the fact that books are disappearing and then those books disappear.

Are there boundaries between libraries and publishers and do they need to be there? The technological barriers have gone, why else are there barriers. Main barrier is the boundary between the gift economy and the commodity economy. Where the boundary lies is not really understood.
Where is the space where we can interact?  Authors and publishers are bemoaning the future, but librarians are a lot more optimistic, talking rewiring and keeping people reading.

The important thing is the continuing democracy of knowledge.

Privacy concerns in social networks and online communities – Amirhossein Mohtaswebi – Extol Corp Malaysia and Parnian Borazjani – Univerity Technology Malaysia – presented by Bart Rutherford.

Degrees of trust: with social networks you lose control over 2nd degree onwards, when you have 130 friends in the first degree and those friends have 130 friends and so on.

Privacy settings on Facebook for example, are hard to configure and confusing lack familiarity an there is a loosely set default policy.

Research was carried out at Malaysia Universities, with a good range of ethnicities and gender. They were working in an environment of open access – no blocked sites or good firewalls.  Their objectives were to find threat awareness levels in social networks and to run a threat model – can they find contact details, photos, personal information etc.

Blind in the sense that they sought participants through publicity around campus. Gained some information initially through the process of selecting participants.

Results – 52% did not accept a friendship request from an unknown person. However, 42% would, most (21%) if there was a friend in common. No significant difference in gender.

Vulnerability vs education – more educated students are less vulnerable to social attacks – no correlation with gender or age.

Privacy statements – 48% never read them, 14% didn’t know what they were and only a small percentage opted out of joining because of a networks privacy statement.

38% never set who can see their personal information among the rest.

New friendship requests – 70% accept without investigation. High percentages shared personal pictures and email addresses. Much lower percentages for non-personal pictures, phone numbers etc.

Mined the data from their Facebook profile to search Google, where they were able to get more information about the person. Could have serious implications for under1 18s.

Interesting: received friendship requests from unknown people to their fake Facebook profile.

Fiona Salisbury and Sandi Monaghan – La Trobe University – Finding a new voice: keys to building successful online communities

Why encourage participation? More user centred focus by offering where the users are as well as encouraging participation between users themselves.

ANZ – 68% of university libraries use at least one Web 2.0 tool. Internationally its over 70%.

Lessons learned from putting these tools in place (particularly relates to their blogs): regular posting and updating required to retain audience interest, informal friendly language is more engaging, timely replies show the value of their comments and usability is essential.

They promoted interaction not just by putting the technology in place – it doesn’t work. To get comments, they posted content that prompts a response or comment, such as opinion posts, user services suggestions, posts with multimedia, students interacting.

Library discussion threads in LMS; open communication which promotes discussion and cooperation amongst students related to library research.
Lots of questions came through, ranging from notices and information seeking, to deep referenc questions. The discussion boards also involved the students talking with each other.

Choose the appropriate technology for your environment, convey enthusiasm in your communications, chosen platform must be easy to use, use open and relaxed language, exerient analyse and review often.

Ellen Forsyth – SLNSW – Wiki ecosystems: the development and growth of online communities of practice.

Wikis are always under development.

Ellen works with NSW public library staff to encourage collaboration. Can get a maximum of 300 or so people in face to face meetings in a workforce of 2300. They use multiple blogs, wikis and a twitter account to help communicate and collaborate with each other.

Readers advisory wiki – created by the NSW Readers Advisory Working Group, using Wetpaint. It is self-managed, no oversight. People have self-assigned roles on the wiki – tagging, grammar checking, content contribution. Most interest in the 2010 Reading Challenge on their wiki.

How is the community working – they check for reading lists and meetings – both details and minutes. Most visit are daily or weekly (¾).

Ref-ex Wiki – based on Ohio Excellence Project. Offers training modules on reference service. It uses Media Wiki.  Lower visits than readers advisory wiki, but fits the purpose of the site.

75% of users said that they felt part of the wiki community, 25% said they weren’t sure for the Ref-ex wiki. Lower figures for readers advisory, but most who didn’t feel engaged felt that it was their own fault.

No one communication tools suits everyone, so they offer multiple tools to meet diverse needs. No community is going to fulfill everyone the same way either.  For some it is too quiet, for some its too busy. Although they get emails about updates, staff have said that they would appreciate updates via Twitter or Facebook.

Readers Advisory Wiki is like a rainforest – wild and ever growing well in the wet season (which is now). Ref-ex like a semi formal garden – still growing, but more planned. Both wikis are still growing and developing.

http://readersadvisory.wetpaint.com

http://wiki.libraries.nsw.gov.au/index.php/Reference_excellence

The first presentation for this session was my paper, presented with my co-author Paul Mercieca. Our presentation Evaluating Web 2.0: user experiences with public library blogs is available at Slideshare.

The impact and benefits of Learning 2.0 programs in Australian Libraries: Michael Stephens – Dominican University, Richard Sayers – CAVAL and Warren Cheetham – City Libraries Townsville

Methodology – lit review, web survey of program administrators, national survey of Library 2.0 participants and case study at City Libraries Townsville.

National survey was conducted in June 2009 and garnered 385 responses, across all sectors, but particularly from the public and academic sectors. Most did it at work (61%), nearly ¼ through a consortial ie. State Library of Victoria and the rest on their own by joining in on another program. 85% completed the program. For those who didn’t finish it, 3/4s reported no time or too busy, 25% too hard, didn’t like it, not comfortable.  Reasons included program too fast, other demands on time, sites blocked and personal privacy concerns.

Open question: After finishing Learning 2.0. I feel comfortable using new technologies – agreed and strongly agree – up around 80%. I like to explore technology on my own dropped a bit. Team/committee structures have improved because of this training – only 40% strongly agreed.  Personal impact seems to be much stronger than institutional impact.

Impact on your libraries after Learning 2.0 has been completed: better awareness of these tools 30%, more use 21%, no change 20%.

Success =  Support plus Time allowed – perceived usefulness.
Support = Admin plus coworkers plus programme leaders plus IT support

Its not bringing broad sweeping changes to libraries, but is changing how individual staff perceive technology and how they work with it.

Find out more at: http://research.tametheweb.com/.

From library automation to Library 2.0: exploring Web 2.0 tools,while reflecting on our traditional values as we move towards Library 2.0 and beyond – Paul Sutherland – Christchurch City Libraries.

Thinks he was born digital, using technology from a very young age. Threw in a convicts comment (cross Tasman rivalry). Lots of Facebook users, not many Friends of VALA – MUST FIX THIS.

Don’t be afraid of being afraid.

What are your top trends?

Libraries have never been about books – they have been about ideas and creating new things from those ideas.

Let go and see what happens, stop acting like librarians (twitter comment).

Connections, content and conversation. Books we can see, data we can’t see, it just whizzes about us. Learning 2.0 is more about learning to adapt and adopt.

What is a blog? Its really a conversation, but also directing users back to the library.

Libraries need a presence in library thing. We should own and manage our presence in these spaces.

Used Flickr to engage their users – asked for and scanned their photos in Flickr about the ordinary day things happening in their city. People want to share their content with the world and where better than the library as a channel for that. People want to tell us things. Stop using ‘user-generated content’ as a term, use local experts. Librarians don’t know everything, we should know however, where to find it.

Very bad at recording our own history.  Need to get better at that.  Every library should have a Wikipedia presence. Check how many incoming links come to your wikipedia entry (when you get it).

Embed your catalogue – make it easy for your users – eg LibX toolbar.

How do you try out a new tool, with really committing to it or feeling foolish when you don’t go through with it. Running a competition solves this problem.

Check out Open Library.

History of Melbourne on Wikipedia only has 12 references.  We are in a position to fix this for our local communities’ entries.

Where is the memory space for things like Black Saturday.  We need to be collecting the things of now, because they will be important in future – including things as simple as shopping catalogues.

Christchurch is piloting Kete – trying to use it as a place to store their stories – not about accuracy.

Impressed with what libraries are doing with open access to data.

DigitalNZ – GLAM plus more – check the website. Want to find stuff for our users and be able to deliver it to our users with our brands.

Roy Tennant was joined by Bart Rutherford, Heather Crosby, Carol Tenopir, Teula Morgan, Jane Burke and Ingrid Mason to discuss the future of published content.

Implications of ebooks and other online content for libraries? Continuation of process at libraries,which are becoming more digitised, The main difference is that our books are not coming to us bound. Libraries need to jump in with ebooks – its not going backwards. Its a replacement of reading behaviour, digital rather than print. Its the next natural way to read a book.

What is the impact on AV when that is the format most used by the younger generations?

What is the impact of this content coming through non-traditional channels? How does this impact our collection development processes? Is our publication medium going to become more television like and what is the impact on storage and management?

A lot of multimedia content is being produced, but no-one is trying to catalogue and manage this, to move beyond the streaming and/or immediate use. Something that need libraries really need to be thinking about.

‘The book is dead, long live the book.’ Is abstracting and indexing dead? Still a need as not everything is available in full text, so there is still value. There is a definite decline however, but its still fulfilling a niche market. If you are just trying to make money with that alone, its no longer enough. Still need the indexing work, because it supports good search.

As discovery layers are coming pre-populated with content such as abstracting and indexing, libraries are asking if they can stop subscribing to it separately. If they do however, then there will be no A and I to access at all.

What is the future of ebooks? Single purpose ebook readers are not dead – as Roy has been noted for saying in the past, the popularity of Kindles and other devices illustrates that. Real challenges for libraries providing ebook content, with DRM issues. Technology is not necessarily a long term issue, as it is constantly changing. Commitments will have to be made on a much shorter basis. Don’t get too caught up in technology restraining you as it will be changing.

Are libraries going to be more about delivering online audio-visual content and what will that mean for current library practices?

There is a role for libraries to help to upskill our users to help them produce content. ALIA will be having discussions with ABC Open. There is  definite potential for libraries partnership with media organisations to produce such content.  Same debates are happening in the media market – metadata and curating content. No parallel in the US that we now of.

What is the core role of public libraries in the world of ebooks? Aggregator, publisher, curator, collector?  Where is this puppy going? Trove could be the way of the future for public libraries. Digitisation of local content is only a niche, small community need. Still have to serve all the broader needs of our local communities, whatever their needs are.

Collaboration is very difficult. Easier to do it within the library world, but still has it challenges even there. Always looking for more Australian content. Potential to collaborate with publishers to get our concern online, the downside is that it is not freely available to all, only subscribers.  Should libraries be Bit Torrent sites. The time to lobby about more content is now – lots of agreements in process between publishers and ebook resellers.

If we can’t get content for our users, they will go and get the content elsewhere. Is it time then to consider whether we are relevant anymore anyway – if they can get it elsewhere, why do they need us?  Should we close our doors and move into other industries.

Agreement is being developed between the National Library of Australia, the National Archive and the National Sound and Vision Archive.  Well worth watching. Discussions will also be happening in the whole Government 2.0 movement.

One wish – simplified DRM and Copyright. Remember that even if the changes that are happening seem overwhelming, we do have power – move with it, adapt and make the most of it.  That libraries are the central point for information needs, to deposit their content, that they couldn’t exist with the products and services – a lot about PR but also about the choices that libraries make. That libraries can change more quickly delivering services our users want – not irrevelant but will be if we continue doing the old stuff after our users have moved on. That we could find tools to automatically generate high quality metadata a lot faster with a lot less effort. That we have more speed, but not to the point of wobbling – more unique material online with great descriptions – we can lead in this endeavour.

Top Trends Panel – Tom Tague, Roy Tennant, ? ,Marshall Breeding and Karen Calhoun – moderated by Anne Beaumont.

Anne began with an example to start the conversation. It started with a photo, with information provided by the library, which conflicted with what a user offered, who dated it between 1870 and 1876, due to the type of features included or lacking in the image. How do you check the authority of it when things are coming in so fast.

What do you do? Suggested that we add it like a kind of letter to the editor, so that its a chance to share the information, without needing to worry about authority.  If its wrong then the community of users will correct it amongst themselves. Need to acknowledge the difference and separation between library generated content and user generated content.

Powerhouse Museum has this problem all the time, but not often that they get something that needs the curators to go away and fact check, but when they do, it is well worth the effort. Powerhouse allows uses to add and delete tags, both their own and other peoples. We would be lucky to get tags, so we shouldn’t be putting barriers in place to discourage this. Flickr is a social environment with people who are used to tagging and where you don’t have ultimately responsibility for what people add.

NLA adds their user generated content as a layer to the content. It can look as if it is integrated but it isn’t, but the difference is made clear. UGC is not moderated. Need to be able to hear from them. Can blend these things in useful ways. Sometimes our users know more about a subject than we do, so we should make the most of their knowledge when they contribute it.

Starting point for user contributed content – using the alphabetic descriptors that match particular Dewey numbers. It gives people a stepping off point.