Connecting Librarian

Big Stuff - Library Challenges - Stephen Abram - Sirsi-Dynix Institute

We need to tell good stories - tell each other about the good things that happen, not the bad, which is what we usually do.

Stephen said that our stuff is awesome, we are in good standing amongst the libraries of the world. We need to let go of the nostalgia. Change has been really slow relatively speaking, especially compared to the baby busters. Big changes coming, which will be fun if you like riding a roller coaster.

What are we going to do to get good results for our users - how can we negate the skewed results of search engine optimisation - where anyone can make sure their content, true or not, lists high in results.

Some people have 40 year careers. Ensure it is 40 years of incrementally better years, not just the same thing year after year. Choose to make the difference. You need to put your meat in the game = professionals commit.

Libraries matter - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grants is just one example. Stephen gave a long list of examples where librarians are making a real difference, doing things that get people connected to the net and to the information they need, saving money, saving lives, saving our culture and our history and so much more. We need to tell our government about the competitive edge that libraries give Australia. Who do you think built Yahoo - librarians were pulled in to make it work.

What is the competitive advantage we have in our environment? The difference between us the internet is us - sensitive, intelligent, helpful - we are not a list. Put ourselves out there, with photo and social networking profile. Show who we are as well as what we can do.

DREAM BIG - start small, but dream big.

We dont know every little moment of truth that happens in the library. We can be the human touch for people. We may never know the difference we make to each individual.

Democracies persist because of libraries. Its not coincidence that libraries are often the first casualty of war. Librarians protect freedom of information, giving access to all, regardless of what our opinion of it is - we are truly bipartisan.

We have to learn the things that are making a difference, improving service to our users. If you dont want to learn, then get out of the profession.

We are a global profession, a bottomless network. Every librarian has hundreds of moments of truth, where we fight for our freedom, save lives, cure disease, challenge poverty and ignorance. Not dreaming 08, but dreaming big. Say yes every chance you get, encourage others and dont get discouraged. Those who say it cant be done, get out of the way of those who are already doing the impossible.

We are about books, we dont have to advertise that, what we do need to advertise is that we have people who can help you with just about anything. Show who we are and what we can do.

Web 2.0 is about things you can do and people you know. When you go online do you see people you know. You need to be where your users are, otherwise you are on a march to irrelevance.

Stuff will change faster now - by 2020, all content ever created will fit on an iPod. Video games outsell most content combined, ringtones are huge! Pocket size devices will dominate, the devices coming out are about having ubiquitous access on your person.

New? Semantic web, the cloud, no choice search engines, GIS oriented search, virtually unlimited fulltext books, streaming media and spoken word search, personalisation 3.0, microblogging, registries and so much more.

Normal now is RSS, blogs, YouTube, social networks tagging, wikis, SEO and GIS. If libraries arent involved in that, then they are behind. Resist the library culture of poverty, victimisation, risk aversion and passive resistance. We have to pass the chasm of early adopters and into the space of early majority. We have a technology lifecycle, we have to get on the curve early and stay there.

If we dont get into social networking, then we are going to miss it when they progress to the next stage - this is just the tip of the iceberg.

So what should libraries be paying attention to? The user-centred universe, be more open to users paths. A few things to do right away - the time is now! Need to play, pilot, trial, experiment. Mobile is important, confirm your presence, be where your users are, how your presence appear - personal,, professional; get good at the cloud (where users are going), play at e-books, get serious at literacy (dont use that term for users) and check out XML, get serious about e-learning, care about our cultures, just expand, know that most physical objects are dead, get real about influence, the next generation content.

Humans are our competitive edge. Be open to lifelong learning, our careers have seasons, need to have reciprocal mentoring - peers, be important, we can invent the future and make a difference. Just have some fun! Dream big!

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!

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!

I subscribe to the RSS feed from Digg. For those of you unaware of Digg, here’s what they say about themselves on their website:

“Digg is a user driven social content website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on digg is submitted by the digg user community (that would be you). After you submit content, other digg users read your submission and digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of digg visitors to see.”

Now I am a very slack Digg user, I only subscribe to the RSS feed, which delivers the top stories from the Digg homepage. I have yet to join up or submit anything, I guess I haven’t found anything worthy of submission, so haven’t felt the need and I don’t have the time to troll the stories and digg the ones I like, I leave that job to dedicated others. I am a fan though and it took great restraint for me not to use “I dig Digg” as the title of this blog entry.

I read a Digg post today that celebrated a milestone -

Digg Hits One Million Story Submissions!

That’s a lot of story submissions, a very small proportion of which, if ever gets the diggs needed to get it to the front page. Not bad for just over 2 years of existence.

I get anywhere between 50 and 100 posts each day from Digg, most of which I delete because they are generally of little or no interest to me. Many are plain fun, some are fascinating, some are very weird and others very informative.

So what do I get out of Digg? For me personally, of the posts I do check out, I get a lot of laughter, some great information and an awareness of what’s going on in the world. Some news I read on Digg, before I hear it elsewhere. Others I never hear about anywhere else other than Digg, especially US focussed stories, as I am in Australia. For example, the recent case of James Kim - CNet editor.

Digg also gives me an insight into popular culture. Stories only get onto the front page and then I get the RSS feed, if they get a lot of diggs. For them to get a lot of diggs, either the people posting the stories have to know a lot of people who they encourage to digg their entry, or it is an entry of great interest to a wide variety of people. Either way, its something that’s of interest to a lot of people and therefore I think that I, as a public librarian, should be aware of.

Its also one of the few RSS feeds that I get that is not library related and therefore helps to keep me in touch with life outside of the LIS profession.

If you want to know more about Digg, check out their website or the the blog entry “Beginner’s guide to Digg” from ProNet Advertising.

So thanks to Digg and all their members who post and digg those entries for me to reap the benefits. Here’s looking to the next million story posts. Long may you digg!