Connecting Librarian

Here’s the last part of my notes from the ProBlogger training day I attended Tuesday. I know its hard to get something out of someone else’s notes, so if you need to ask a question – please do!

Blog Workshop – Chris Garrett
Handed out a mind map to give some tips on how your blog could be improved. He then offered to critique some of the attendees blogs. The following is the feedback he gave.

goodlife zen.com – good start having a dot.com address. Fresh look, nice clean layout. Eyes are drawn to the photo – personalises it and connects with people. Layout is good to the content – content must be first. Subscribe options should be at the top and be as simple as possible – top right is usually best – above the fold. Make it work at 800 by 600 but make it look good at 1024 and above.
Subscribe could conjure payment ideals – try to work free/join into it. Tell them how and why to subscribe to your blog at the end of EVERY SINGLE POST. Chris added his email signup up box into his theme, so it appears automatically at the bottom of each post. Add related posts links to get people interested in more content.  RSS footer – type plugins available for Word Press (and others?), usually used for copyright but can put your email form in. Good also to put into the content, but gets tired if you do it all the time. Do it before the comments – regular readers will just scroll past it.

Have a call to action for your comments – edit your theme so it says, leave a comment now, no. of comments – add yours now. DISQUS – helps to organise comments into threads, can help make your comments viral – they then can be posted to social networking sites. Reply to  comments – not just the key ones – its a relationship builder. Have a public comment policy – gives you basis on which to edit or delete comments – my house, my rules.

blog.iqmatrix.com – having a blog separate to your main domain could be good if you are security conscious, but if you link to the main site, then www.domain.com/blog would be better as this is where both search engines and users would expect it to be. Need to be aware of floating footers – may link to ads or original coder – be wary. Floating bubbles can be annoying – but will work better if you use a short delay before it comes up. Can get popups when you scroll over heading, such as comments. Image was great but needed some context – never overestimate the intelligence of your readers. Be careful of how you use the term blog – Latest Blog Articles may be better as Latest Articles.

Open Panel with Darren, Chris, Yaro, Collis and Pip.
Darren has a subscribe page – RSS, email to RSS and newsletter(s) with a short explanation of each.

Introduced a forum when they had 1000 daily visitors. (Darren)
There are personality based niche blogs and then niche information blogs. (Yaro)

Multiple blogs – have an editor for each one – they keep track of direction and management etc, under broader guidelines. (Collis)

Personality, authenticity, sincerity can drive a non-profit blog – you can’t buy that. (Pip)

Persuasive selling techniques not incorporated deliberately into sales pages – more passive than subjective, more natural as it comes from him personally as he learns from other examples. You can utilise both, as long as you are not compromising your personal standards and still meets the demands of your brand. (Yaro)

So that’s the day’s labours but not the day’s results. I will be looking at incorporating many of the things I learnt here in any or all the blogs I am involved in, including this one, so stay tuned!

As so it continues. Here is Part Two of my notes from the ProBlogger training day I attended yesterday.  Just to save your eyes and my fingers, there will be a third post, for the last of my notes. In the meantime – enjoy!

Building Community on your blog – Darren Rowse

Building community is about good relationships, using skills which can be transferred from the real world.

Why build community on your blog? Blogs can be about providing information, but they can take on a life of their own and communities do form.  Community makes your site:

• more useful (comments add to the content and these can be used create their own content based on this, but located elsewhere);
• social proof makes it easier to promote your blog (comments, members, subscribers etc);
• increased page views (in community areas rather than blog areas); makes it more valuable to sell;
• more attractive to advertisers;
• your community becomes an advocate (for you);
• user generated content.

How to build community:

• be the community you want to have – readers will take your lead;
• invite interaction – they respond to invitations and questions – run polls, surveys etc – if no comments, answer yourself or get someone you know to answer;
• start with your comments section, build an off-blog community elsewhere (eg. Flickr, Facebook etc);
• add a community area (forum);
• use social media to reinforce and build community, write in a personal and engaging tone;
• use personal mediums (photos/video), use ‘you’ and we – write to people – direct language – we = our site;
• reader centred posts – start with the reader;
• offer additional ways to join or become a member;
• social proof – highlight interaction/community/numbers to your community;
• identify natural leaders – give jobs, train them, pay them;
• give people space to play (off topic interactions);
• teach the wisdom of the crowd to your community;
• invite reader generated content;
• set homework/projects – send them away to do something on their own and then report back;
• give readers a chance to show off;
• involve readers in decisions and change – can work for you or against you (survey, features they want etc);
• be accessible.

Dealing with trolls: think about policies and standards before you need them; model good community; reward good behaviour; outline roles of moderators carefully and talk about policies, values and procedures; marginalise trolls; allow community to help you police; be firm, polite and calm with trouble makers.

How to get more comments: use your own comments section, followup commenters, ask questions, be open ended, invite questions, discussion posts, controversy/debate, highlight hot conversations make space for self promotion, ask for advice/opinions/examples/stories. (use a more button to take them to full post and comments, rather than hoping they will go to comments)

Interview with Pip from Meet me at Mike’s (craft/lifestyle blog)

Blogs are a healthy tool to help you document your interests or just your life. It’s OK to write about the human aspect, your good stuff as well as when you muck it up. Run projects through the blog, which are to benefit your community or the wider community. Retain your core values throughout. Interact on lots of different platforms – so that you can reach people and make it easier for people to reach you – don’t talk about just your own stuff, also talk about what they are interested in. Its about them as well as about you.

What she would have done differently? Label your posts properly, categorise them clearly so they readers can find them; use comment moderation or comments systems like DISQUS to protect yourself from nasty comments.

Blog monetization – Yaro Starak
It is not just about making money directly from your blog, but also because of it. 20% effort can achieve 80% results.  Yaro told us how he turned his blog  – Entrepreneurs Journey, into bucks.

Aim to get a lot of results from the least effort – 80/20 rule in general, but to begin with, blogs take a lot of effort to establish.

Ways to make money directly from blogs: advertising income, affiliate income and selling products.

Yaro sold his own advertising, as AdSense didn’t work for him. He charged a monthly rate, used a Paypal account and had different options for advertising. Uses OpenX to manage his banners and they are rotated through. Its all automated.

Affiliate income – wrote a review on a book about Google AdWords. Didn’t work initially, but then managed a sale and now earns a large part of his income through reviews. His most important move was to add an email newsletter to his blog – this made the biggest difference to his income stream. Combine email with blog posts to make the most money.

Blog Mastermind – his first online course product.  Wrote a paper on the topic, which he gave away as a free sample as a lead in to the product and has increased his readership dramatically.

All this helps you to create solid, multiple income streams and establishes you as an authority in blogging and money making. Get a product out as soon as you can.

Did some private coaching recently, only because it gave him an opportunity to investigate his market and to get some case studies. It breaks his 80/20 rule, but it gave him insight he couldn’t otherwise get. He enjoys it, but it is not the best way to leverage his time.

Panel: Yaro, Darren and Chris (Chrisg.com)
Yaro gave a rough estimate of $1 income per unique individual page view per day. Can also vary your prices according to demand. Darren said that he has negotiated with advertisers, based on what they were wanting to spend. Can also be involved in a banner networks and start with getting what the market will pay, then when you have proven performance, you can negotiate a higher price.

90% of geeks will use AdBlock, but they aren’t a big issue outside the geeks.

Email subscriptions going down? Need to have your subscribers waiting in anticipation of what’s in the email, so that they will be waiting for it. Use a commercial product for newsletter creation and subscription means. Options are AWeber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact and others. Can get content from RSS feed or encode the content yourself.

Affiliate products – different for every industry. Yaro focuses on the ones he needs to use in this day and time.  He uses it and then does his review and recommendations – need to have some negatives otherwise people don’t quite believe it.  Use Clip Bank to get help on finding programs.  If there is not an affiliate program, you can approach the producers to establish one or something similar. Amazon runs an affiliate program and there are many more out there. Do a search on cost per action or lead generation. Be honest about making money – people will appreciate that. Legally required in US, but not in Oz yet – should disclose, because you want to honour the trust that has been place in you by your readers. Reciprocity works here too.

AIDA – attraction, interest, desire, action. Provide proof, answer objections. Think about where your traffic is coming from and then target an offer towards them (specificity). Not just about conversion rates, you need to see the action all the way through. What is the refund rate etc.

Collis Ta-eed – Case Study

Blogging industry been around 6 or 7 years, but there are still a lot of opportunities. How do you identify them? Wrote a post about freelancing, which gave him more hits than the rest of his blog posts combined. Started http://freelanceswitch.com/ – within 2 weeks he had 3000 readers – 10 times what he had on his previous blog. Had written a series of tutorials on PhotoShop which he published on a blog, which also took off and has now spun off into a new series of blogs which also provide tutorials on different topics. Another blog came out of a post which ended up on top of the Google search results for Mac Apps.

Not all opportunities are the same. Not everything they did worked. Freelance Switch worked but Work which aimed at office workers is just trudging alone. PSD/Net great success but Audio has been growing Ok and not the runaway success that its inspiration was. Mac Apps spawned Web Apps which hasn’t really moved, iyet Phone Apps which came later has worked much better in a shorter time.

Some blogs rush straight off the ground. Others are a hard slog, traffic, revenue, audience etc. No difference in the inputs, so need to figure out how to get it right.

Techniques to get it right:

• Variations on popular – imitate but with a twist, can be successful if you get in early-ish, are good and have a sufficiently different angle;
• Using empirical results – search rankings, popularity of posts (not just on your own blog), Adsense testing, any method where you gauge the popularity of a niche in an analytical way;
• problems & passion – doing what you love Or solving your own problem, assumes that there are others out there like you (and there probably are);
• using trends – pick where the market is going and bet on it, great example – Twitip! Great for technology but applicable for other areas too.

Is it really an opportunity? Not always. To find out, try some competitive analysis, empirical analysis, test the waters.

Capitalising on opportunities: Move quickly – web moves first and it takes time to gain momentum so you need to start sooner rather than later. Don’t be afraid to change – you have to give something a good solid go and back yourself but if its  not working then sometimes you have to pull the plug and concentrate on a different opportunity.

Opportunity is only the beginning: you still need to execute well, you need to create good content, you need to be consistent, you have to be better than your competitors.

So that’s it until about mid afternoon on Monday. I will post the last of my notes in a third blog post tomorrow.

I was so fortunate to be able to attend the ProBlogger training day held in Melbourne today. If you don’t know ProBlogger (Darren Rowse) – check him out. He is one of the foremost authorities on blogging and an Aussie as well and he gathered together a great group of blogging colleagues to present a well-rounded day of information and insights. People came from as far as Brisbane to attend this one day event!

Although parts of the day were focused on the money making side of blogging and I was surrounded by business focused bloggers, I still got a lot out of it, even from those monetizing sections. I ended up taking 7 pages of notes, so instead of inflicting them all on you in one go, I will break them up into parts.

Creating Killer Content – Chris Garrett

Worked on Problogger book with Darren Rowse. In from UK. What brings them together is content.

Its one of the pillars of blogging, but it is also the key pillar. If you don’t have content, you don’t have anything to blog with.

It’s not about making cash, it’s about long term value – to have this you have to have killer content.

First: common sense is seldom, common practice. Are you doing this? Are your peers? Could you do better at this? Keep your edge or catch up by doing this.

What is killer content?  Leads to attraction, retention, conversion and referral. Many stop at the attention grabbing. Attention is only the first step and its a cycle. Blog can plateau. Need to keep existing people happy, whilst also getting new people in.

You are only as good as your last article. Even if you have consistently done great content. If you have killer content it becomes viral. Word of mouth is the best advertisement you can get.

Why create it? It puts your blog on the map – a must-have resource. Must be something that they subscribe to. You establish yourself as the go to person in your niche.

Do you know your prospect? Do you know your niche? Do you know your positioning?  Have to stand out and for a good reason. What are you giving to people that nobody else does. You have to be different, but with value.

Success factors: be remarkable (people talk about it), more useful, in more depth, better researched, attractively presented, magnetic headlines, easy to grasp, friendly URL, WIIFM (whats in it for me – for your reader), minimum hype, prominent placement – being where people are going to be and no barriers – don’t make them jump through hoops, just give them the content and explain how they can share it (ie. Creative Commons badges etc). Never say you’re an expert, let others say that for you – if you say it, all the barriers go up.

Compelling content types: your biggest tips, big vision, guides/how to/tutorials, FAQs, Story with a message, research and results, jargon buster, product database, case studies, resource round-up.

Generating Ideas: Yahoo Answers etc – find out what questions people are asking and answer them. Once you get some followers, people will ask questions. Get their permission to answer the question on your blog.

Blog this! Write about what you know or your journey about learning what you want to know. But it also has to intersect with what people want to know (rather than what they need). If it doesn’t, you won’t find an audience. Add proof that you know people want to know it. Back up that you know what you are talking about with your proof – statistics and social verification.

Emotional motivators – towards or away from people – towards is goal oriented, away is worry etc – need to know your audience and blog accordingly. Past, present, future; they live on these clocks – understand where they are coming from.  What if, how to…..; information…. action – people need results from your information.

Headlines – need to get people to read your information. Need to look at the reason they are looking – risk or reward. Need to have keywords that people are seeking.
10 proven formulas for blog posts:

• DO you make these mistakes?
• The secrets of ………..?
• What …….. can teach us about ……….?
• Everything you know about is ………. wrong.
• How ………… made ……….. and you can too.
• If you …………. you can …………..
• Finally, no more ………….
• At last! …………….
• Learn how millions of…..
• How to get more/better/cheaper………….

Borrow Authority – if you don’t know the information yourself, ask an authority and get permission to re-use the content. It gives you more authority because you know people who are recognised authorities.

Jedi Mind tricks (marketing) – audience, relationships, authority, proof, story, conversation, reciprocity, polarity, commitment, consistency.

Multimedia is very persuasive and easy to get out – can make it easy to go viral. It makes you stand out (most bloggers go with text) and is easy to share.

Re-purpose your content – bundle it into a container, make videos around it, take the audio and make it into a podcast, create an e-book from the multimedia you create. Leverage it to get more traction from it. You can even outsource the re-purposing.

Case Study – Chrisg.com – 41 blog success tips —– includes benefit and proof. Has an image that catches the eye. Problogger – becoming a problogger – rags to riches story – underlying message is that you can too.  Copyblogger – on dying, mothers and fighting for your ideas – story with a message.

Mistakes in creating content: – writing purely for search – filler content (just to fill a space) – recycling ideas (update, not copy and paste or link) – Echo chamber (we all agree) – Poking the Hornets nest.

Finding Readers – Darren Rowse
What was your biggest day of traffic and how did it happen? (go and check it out for your blog – can learn so much from this alone)

Which Readers? What type of people do you want to read your blog? Knowing who, informs your content strategy, your promotional strategy, community strategy and monetisation strategy.

Develop reader profiles: create a typical scenario of who would read your site – demographics, dreams, why they would read your blog, needs, challenges, how they use the web, financial situation – all completely made up – but it gives you a starting point. Profiles will evolve and need to be updated. They inform your content and how you promote your site. If you don’t know who reads your blog then how can you find them? If you have a profile in mind, it helps you to personalise the content to that particular profile.

Principles of finding readers:

• choose popular topics for your blog and posts (google trends, market samurai);
• build something worth being found;
• get off your blog – build a home base – then interact on outposts on the web – outposts depend on who your readers are – eg Twitter, Flickr
• build anticipation – give readers a reason to subscribe – a reason to stick around;
• start with the readers you have – you can potentially reach more through the ones you have;
• build a sticky blog – engross them so much that they don’t want to leave (sneeze pages – gets people deeper into your blog, into the things that interest them);
• content event (results of surveys or polls and more, seasonal stuff etc) – look at what your peers are doing, social bookmarking and networking are talking about in your niche and make the most of it;
• use familiar technologies for subscribing – email;
• persist – momentum does grow and it does get easier;
• promote…… but not too much. Survey your readers – find out what they want to know about and what other sites they use.

Lifehacker – suggest a link/topic. Get them to write about something you think their readers should know about.

Blog posts on themes or greatest hits……

Techniques for finding readers:

• guest posting, social media sites, you tube, seo, forums,
• pitch other bloggers,
• leverage other online and offline presences
• participate in other memes and projects of others,
• blogging/web communities, competitions and awards,
• speaking at events and workshops online/offline.
• Blogging alliances,
• present workshops,
• develop reports/whitepapers,
• incentivise subscriptions,
• interview someone/be interviewed,
• comment on others blogs (make an impression),
• comment on readers blogs,
• promote posts or landing pages – not just your blog,
• advertise,
• submit stories to media/press releases,
• anticipate big events,
• press releases.

Forums still have value, particularly in finding readers – you can help those there with your expertise, build your reputation and gain exposure for your blog.

Find a community that helps you to promote and improve your own blog.

Check your public library for training opportunities on things like public speaking, choosing cameras etc.

Getting readers to subscribers – depends on your readers – add a subscribe link to end of each post and if not used too much, in content links.  Sidebar links don’t work that well.

That took us to morning tea – will post the next stage in Part Two – coming soon!

I have not been online in a social/professional manner much since I started as Acting Branch Manager in late May, but its only lately that I have really started to feel a loss. Much of my day to day work still involves computers, but it is so all over the place. One moment it is filling out a maintenance request, then its doing payroll, checking email, writing a report and then a quick bit of web editing, etc, etc.  Because of this wandering computer use, I am finding it hard to remember to get on Twitter and post on a regular basis and Facebook has been relegated to one check a day, unless I get notification of a comment.

Uploaded to Flickr on January 18, 2005 by loufi, Attribution 2.0 Generic

I was managing to live with that to a certain extent, as I was still communicating with my online friends in a lot of instances via email. But now I am experiencing problems there. I don’t know if people are just as busy as I am and havent’ been able to answer, or whether emails are disappearing into the ether, but I am only getting limited email now and I am beginning to feel digital isolation.

What do I mean by digital isolation? Feeling out of touch with my online friends. Being able to see what is going on with them in the odd times that I do get onto Twitter, but not being involved in the ongoing conversations that are happening there and so feeling more like a spectator than a participant. Have you felt the same way in the digital world? What was your situation and if you dealt with it, how did you? For me, I am going to work out if my email really is an issue at present and be more proactive and thought-filled about my online interactions – work harder at making it work for me. I guess it is like any relationship, it takes work. And BTW, its Happy Blogiversary to me. On the 29th July 2005, Connecting Librarian was born. When I first started this blog, Facebook and Twitter weren’t around and email was the only way to communicate with my online peeps. Thank goodness things have changed!

Its Day 26 of 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge, making it long past time for a story. So here we go.

Once upon a time, there was a twittering, blogging, librarian mum, who was up early on a Saturday morning, pondering those things that twittering, blogging, librarian mums ponder when they have had not had a full night’s sleep and the house is still quiet.

She was pondering how being online has changed a particular aspect of her life. In particular how most of her venting seems to happen on twitter or on her blog, more than in her physical life. How she usually listens to other people vent in her physical life and seemingly as a result, there never seems to be time or opportunity for her to vent there. That the online gives her an opportunity to vent and release frustrations etc, without expecting any response in return. (And how a very few sometimes, she secretly wishes there was a response.)

Time moves along and the pondering is put on hold as the children arise and although its Saturday, there are places to be and now. As she watches her children at Auskick, in particular her son, who occasionally sulks after being slightly hurt or if things don’t go the way he wants (although nowhere near as much as he used to), she sighs in mild frustration. How can she help him to pull himself out of those moods?

Cue harp music and wavy picture as we hark back to earlier in the week, when her daughter hurt her foot at school and was ‘woe is me’ for a time. There were no physical symptoms of the hurt, although twittering, blogging, librarian mum was sure it did hurt, but the symptoms seem to continue longer than they should. Who knew that a foot spa could be beneficial both psychologically as well as physically, to children as well as adults?

Return to present time and all three are in the car, heading home after Auskick and discussing son’s behaviour. The twittering, blogging, librarian mum gives her most sage advice for the day. “You just have to get over it.” Son agrees, daughter pipes up that it applies to her and her foot too.

And at that point, twittering, blogging, librarian mum realises it also applies to her, with her morning’s pondering about venting. And admits as much to her children.

Life lessons learned in the car with children. Brought to you by a twittering, blogging, librarian mum.

The End.

Its Day 7 of the 30 blog posts in 30 days challenge, the start of another week and I almost couldn’t think of anything to blog today.

So thanks to Kathryn over at Librarians Matter who posted about what she is doing with Facebook in her post Why I didn’t quit Facebook …but could still be a dummy. It reminded me that I have been meaning to talk about what I’m doing there.

When Facebook made its changes, opening up user accounts even more, there was a huge outcry right across the Net. I saw it in blog posts, articles, on the news and particularly on Twitter and if nothing else it stopped and made me think.

How do I use Facebook. Do I use it at all? What for?

In the past I had my Twitter feed going to Facebook, but in the lead up to all the controversy, in cleaning up my Facebook account, I mistakenly deleted this feed and couldn’t get it working again immediately.

I didn’t think too much about it until I had a few online/real-world friends saying that there were missing me on Facebook.  (that was very sweet)  I also found that the people I am connected with on Facebook are very different to those I connect with on Twitter. Twitter is very much a library related network for me.

So I’m still on Facebook, because it gives me the means of keeping in touch with what is happening in the lives of non-library related people I know personally  – kind of like a daily update and gives me the opportunity to provide my own daily update to those same people.

I only check Facebook once a day, unless I need to reply to a comment, but I find that its enough for me. I have locked down my privacy settings as tight as I can without actually leaving Facebook. Minimal apps, photos and feeds coming from my other presences, rather than any concerted effort to add content there.  Still, I like being able to peek through that window to the world of my non-library friends.

And I’ve fixed that Twitter feed issue, so I still only have to say what I’m doing once.

I can fully sympathise with those who have pulled out of Facebook. Its not working for them, so they got out – good on them. But its working for me, even if only in a minimally interactive way, so I’m staying – for now at least.

I had the wonderful, exhausting and exhilarating job of presenting a two day Libraries 2.0 Masterclass this week, with the delightful Kathryn Greenhill.  Glad to say, it was an all round success, with wonderful feedback and responses from our 19 attendees.

Kathryn has covered the days with our tweets, through a Cover It Live session at Librarians Matter. It is well worth checking out. So instead, I will go over what we covered in the two day workshop and outline what I got out of it, as a presenter and on the side participant.

Day 1 was Kathryn doing all the hard work. We began with a few introductions and then some get to know you exercises, which gave us and all participants information on their sector, their library size and the openness of their IT systems. It was useful information for us, but also for attendees as straight away they knew they were learning alongside people who came from pretty much the same sort of environment they were working in.

Here’s the fast forward bit. Kathryn did presentations on Web 2.0, Shift in power and Library 2.0 and after morning tea I presented on Web 2.0 tools. Which means to say we had a list of 36 types of tools which we had participants research and present back to the group. They had to explain what it was and why libraries should care, with me filling in the gaps.

Most of the way through lunch, I did a quick Twitter clinic, showing how to sigh up etc.

After lunch it was Kathryn again with eBooks, the library in the cloud and opening up the library. We finished with some futures dreaming exercises. Kathryn and I finished our day with a lovely relaxing dinner at Lygon Street.

Day 2 was me carrying most of the load, although I’m still convinced I had an easier time of it than Kathryn. We began with a recap and an indication of things that attendees would like covered (which I think we did).  We then gave them some time to think about three projects they would like to undertake when they got back to work.

I then presented on Library 2.0 and users and Learning 2.0 before Kathryn took us on a fun journey on Creating media. The end of lunch was filled with an informal Sharepoint sharing session for quite a few attendees and Kathryn and I did quick demos of both Word Press and Drupal as content management systems.

After lunch, I did overviews on Creating Social media policies and let them explore some online, then on Marketing and Library 2.0, Creating an online community of practice and by the time I got to Building a strong foundation, was pretty much exhausted.

Fortunately, after afternoon tea, we got participants to plan out an action plan for one project they were going to undertake once they got back to work (chosen from the three they had written down earlier), using the worksheet provided. They then had to practice an elevator pitch with the attendees at their table, giving them immediate practice at explaining their plans.

It was an exhausting, but ultimately very satisfying two days, mainly because:

• I worked with Kathryn to create and run this program. If you have to do something like this with anyone, Kathryn is your person.
• Passion takes you a long way. I was getting very tired by the 2nd half of the second day and had a sore throat as well, but my passion for the topic and helping others to see the value in these tools, carried me through and them along with me.
• Our attendees were a great group of people who were passionate in their own way. Passionate about their libraries and enthusiastic about the possibilities that could be opened up to them through using these tools. I really loved seeing them think of ways to get around restrictions imposed on them by their workplaces.
• The collaboration that happened between the attendees with similar interests or situations. Whenever we weren’t presenting to them or they were using their workbooks, they were sharing ideas, possibilities and more about their work environments. I think it was very encouraging for them to be able to spend that time with colleagues in similar circumstances and it was wonderful for us to see that collaboration happen.

As for what I got out of it:

• Felt lucky that I work with a fairly open IT environment, especially compared to pretty much all of our attendees
• Encouraged to create more media, particularly since discovering how easy it is to do so using Windows Movie Maker  (which I must get started on and soon – thanks Kathryn)
• A desire to find some more opportunities to collaborate with Kathryn and to investigate more options for professional development presentation content – either presenting or printed, with other colleagues – online or in my workplace (offers gratefully considered, lol)
• Inspiration to think outside of the box, which came as a result of our futures dreaming session and from hearing of our enthusiastic attendees plans for projects in their workplace.
• A need for rest. Fortunately, Easter started a day later.

I’m back at work this week and this whole event already seems like a long time ago.  But it has helped to fire me up further with possibilities and plans of my own, which makes me even happier to know that it was more of a two way process than I realised.

Check out more photos at Flickr.

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

Here are my notes from the L-Plate series at VALA 2010 conference.  I am just cutting and pasting from what I took at the time, so I apologise for spelling and grammar, no time to do anything else at this stage.

Hope you get something out of it. I got plenty.

Open Source Software – Kathryn Greenhill
Imperfect analogy – spaghetti sauce – buy it in jar or make it yourself.
Flexibility and control.  Open Source requires particular skills, still has a price, but involves community effort and altruism.

Proprietary software: license, user restricted, no source code
Open Source: free redistribution, source code accessible, derived works, integrity of code, no discrimination, not specific to purpse, device, works with other software

There are checks and balances before any new code goes into the code base.

Key ideas of Open Source – release early – release often, many eyes make bugs shallow, peer review, developer-user relationship.

Koha – open source library management system.
Check http://www.ohloh.net for cot comparisons between proprietary and open source over time.

We already use open source software – linux, apache, mysql, php, firefox.
Who else uses os? Denmark using Open Office by 2011, Trove at NLA, White House uses Drupal, for their website, North  East Kansas Libraries for their LMS.

Examples of open source software: Open Office, Word Press, Drupal, Mediawiki, Gimp, Dimdim, Zimbra, Pidgin, Audacity, VLC media player.

Open source LMS – Evergreen, Koha, OLE project

Discovery layers – Scriblio, Sopac2 and more

Digital resources management – Kete, Omeka

Whats stopping us from using Open Source?  Skills. We need to know about relational databases, SML,  indexing and programming
Cost – of change
Perceived accountability
Centralised IT
Maturity of the products
Consortial impacts
Monopolies – marketing
What users have at home
Cloud computing and Software as a Service (Saas)
Closed hardware

What we can gain by using open source software?
Skills, flexibility, control, nimbleness, accountability, budgetary control.

However, software needs to fit the purpose and the organisation.

Library Mashups and APIs – Paul Hagon
RSS is a common API (application programming interface)
Can be used to interact with other services – application on iphone for eg.
API is used to put javascript showing marker on a Google map.
Don’t have to do the hard work, that is all done for you.

Can use APIs to adapt URLs to change what you are getting out of a site ie. Google calendar display on our website.
Can be used with our website – but they can be fragile, as they can break if you change your website.
Can use microformats – ie. Vcards for phones and internet.

Mashups using more than one data source to make something new – may be totally disparate. One of earliest was chicagocrime. org – Google maps and crime reports.
Libraries are using mashups involving Google maps and Flickr, Picture Australia has an open search interface – can add search to your browser options, Picture Australia with Google maps and geotagging, along with your location giving you photos of local area.

Code alert – a lot of  mashups involve XML. Jquery and YUI can help ease you into the process.

Where to start: Your library catalogue can help – check your RSS feeds – play with the XML and see what you can do.
data.australia.gov.au – data licensed for re-use under Creative Commons.

delicious.com/paulhagon/vala2010-lplate – links to all the resources and demos used.

Tools available to help – Yahoo Developer Network – YQL, use common language to extract XML. Yahoo Pipes, Firebug – plugin for Firefox.

Why? – Our community not just consumers, also producers once data is made available. Some of ours could be creating these sorts of things, if only the data is available – let our geeks loose on our data.

Semantic Web – Tom Tague

Check out stuff on semantic web on Wikipedia – good foundation.

Variety of interpretations: web 3.0, near religious standard, set of technical standards and capabilities we can use – very hard to define

Standards and Capabilities: RDF (resource description framework – form of XML – ugly but it is the standard), RDFS/OWL/Other ontology standards – great debate about these, Linked data, Automated semantic information generation.

OpenCalais – Thomas Reuters initiative to connect world’s business content, free service that brings new efficiencies and productivity to publishers and content creators, fastest easiest way to categorize your contentand tag the entities, facts and events therein; 30,000s of users, 4-8 million transactions daily.

Issues: attaching metadata to content is expensive – both in time and money.

Metadata generation – feed content into their extraction engine, categorizes the stories and returns the metadata to you, also returns links.

Linked data – standard for publishing data on the web – uses RDF -  add data as well as links to other relevant linked data (not webpages, actual data). Standard is exploding, but there is no governance – ‘geeks playing in highway’ – librarians can add a lot of value to this as well as using the data generated.

There are alternatives to Open Calais – Yahoo and more.

Use it to:  add metadata to cotent, content enhancement via linked data, build your own linked data could, but don’t just think source content (commentary, user submitted content)

Think about collections: repositories, trend analysis, harmonization across data sets, federated search.

Cloud Computing – Bart Rutherford
Geek and poke cartoons.

No standard definition of cloud computing – consistently about the internet however.

Charting –  input/processor/output, corporate computing – people with money had these systems (banking, transport).

Progress of clients – fat clients, thin clients, desktop computer as client, browser as client.

How things have changed: mobile as client, internet, cheap storage, broadband, wifi, 3G and LTE, Open source and Linux, Ipv6

Lots of different types of clouds – public eg Facebook, private – Intranet, hybrid. Joined by VPNs and virtualization (servers with sub-servers within it)

Saas, Iaas, Paas
Software as a service – vendor provides hardware and infrastructure, user interacts through PC – eg. Webmail, facebook, twitter, Apples App, Google Docs, BitTorrent, DropBox and so  much more.
Infrastructure as a service – Amazon, Microsoft Azure.
Platform as a service – software and development tools hosted on the providers infrastructure, access and delivery (API) – Google Apps, Yahoo Pipes, Google Maps, Sugar CRM, Finance eg. Paypal.

Complexity runs from low to high – moves from consumer to developer.

Services are based on buy as you use – like utility bills. Scalable – to meet your needs, cost effective – PAYG and low tech input, secure and automated, mobility.

Warnings – no network connection – no cloud, no local storage – no local data,  slow connections no good, what to do if provider is destroyed?

Global outlook – EASE – Everything as a service, everywhere!  Won’t matter where your data is, just need the power and network connection to get to it.

Discovery Layer Interfaces – Marshall Breeding
Crowded landscape of information providers on the web – lots of non-library destinations, ie. Google Search and Scholar, Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask.com.

Digital natives are more experienced than us in web stuff, so when they come to our websites and catalogues, they are way underwhelmed. Don’t want to lose relevancy to this audience who have been raised on those listed above.

Evolution of library collection discovery tools: bound handwritten catalogues, card catalogues, OPACs – many libraries have stagnated here, discovery interfaces, web-scale discovery services.

Not just about books on shelves, but about all our subscription content, digital items and more.

Don’t want a computerised card catalogue, although that is generally what we still have.  Amazon is our competition in terms of user interfaces and information presented.  They make it as transparent to the user as they can.  It has a complex layered structure, but with a simple user interface.

Have a lot of great content and services, but have too many barriers to our users accessing them.

Disjointed approach to delivery: silos prevail – catalogue, databases, website and more and each one has to be accessed individually.

Simple vision – single point of entry to all the content and services offered by the library, but wth precision, nuanced sophistication and multiple dimensions. Doesn’t preclude advanced searching options and ability to hone in on particular services or collections as alternative options.

Modernized interface – single search box, query tools (did you mean, type ahead), relevance ranked results, faceted navigation, enhanced visual displays – covers and summaries/reviews, recommendation services. Must be visually pleasing, give more than a single record and helps users find more.

Can have any front end almost regardless of what back end you use.

Deep indexing – metadata is no longer enough, increasing opportunities to search full content, commercial providers already doing so.

Current phase of discovery tools now focused on pre-populated indexes that aim to deliver Web-scale delivery eg. Summon, WorldCat  Local, EBSCO Discovery, Primo Central, Encore with Article Intergration.

Products available will index the vast majority of content that libraries have in their collections.

Beyond local discovery – eg. NCSU – Summon, Phoenix Public – Endeca (very Amazon like interface), Queens Public Library – Aquabrowser.

Need to make our search compelling, but not overwhelm our users with the guff about what and where they are searching.

Being social: apps for libraries – Kim Tairi
@haikugirloz

Social media conversion scale – image from – darmano.typepad.com

Social apps about conversations, marketing and communications with our users.

She follows High Country Public Library on Twitter – they talk about the library and things that are happening in their broader community as well.

Amongst top 10 tools for libraries – niche networks – eg, NING, built by users, focus on particular interest, UX – User experience, want to create good ones – starts at design and works through testing, evaluating and decision making.

More visual infographics – designing messages so they are clear, short, sharp. eg. The story (so far) of Twitter (image). Move to make visual communication more widespread.

Twitter can enhance your experience – back channel is interesting and adds to the experience. Librarians are sharing. Kim’s presentation was based a lot on the feedback she got from people on Twitter. It gives you a sense of community and helps to build a community. It is self-selecting, creates conversation, can be used for public note-taking and it’s interactive. Great as a personal learning network, both with workmates and colleagues at other libraries. Can get followed by bots or social media gurus, but can control it by blocking them or making your tweets private.

Mobile interfaces for catalogues and websites. Deakin Uni has done this. NYPL has an iPhone app. Can get into mobile interfaces, apps, info literacy, tours and QR codes (see Powerhouse Museu who are doing great things with these).

Technology petting zoos – letting users play with the new technology, as well as staff.

Social apps and networks have taken off since VALA2008 – need to get into it. Australia has now 7.9 million active Facebook users, there over 400 million worldwide.

eBooks – Bart Rutherford

File formats for ebooks include text, html, pdf, mobipocket, DjVu – magazine specific, EPUB – Kindle uses azw which is a modified mobipocket. Some locked in DRM, some not.

Can read ebook content on desktops, mobile phones etc – software includes Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Adobe Reader (pdf) and Calibre (open source read and convert).

EPUB – open publication structure – open XHTML, open packaging format – SML, OEBPS Container format – bundled ZIP file. Many readers that originally came out with proprietary formats are now opening up to EPUB. Keep watch out for EPUB and the devices that will read it.

DRM – Digital Rights Management (Bart’s boss calls it Don’t Read Me). PID Personal identification number – can restrict to one user, unlike print copy,  Access levels include print, copy, paste and now lending, depending on device and content.

Content – Amazon: Fiction to Kindle, Dymocks – using eBook library growing fiction, Gutenberg Project, Read Cloud, EBL – nonfiction, academic learning model using Adobe reader.

Should not have to worry about how the content gets on the device, it should just happen.

Publisher rights are still a problem, so a lot of content that could be available, is not because of these issues.

E-Paper technologies: Elerophoretic technology used by eInk, iRex, Sony Reader, Kindle, Plastic Logic Que. Use glass back pane, but they don’t flex so can break.

Cholesteric technology – Modified LCD, being used by Fujitsu FLEPia. Need to have a colour display which doesn’t require a backlight and doesn’t use as much power.

Combination of eInk and LCD – eg. Nook. LCD gets turned off when reading the ebook.

Electrowetting – controlled water/oil interface, then Electrofluidic technology which uses the former.  Deals with the issue of slow display and these devices will be able to show video.

Interferometric – wavelengths of light etc, uses reflective natural light, low power usage, which can also show video eg. mirasol

Growing market – lots of options and many more on the way. Be sure the one you choose does EPUB.

News Limited is launching the Skiff interface – from publishing to reading, including payment process and their own software.

Publishers will hopefully start putting material out in a wider range of formats so that multiple readers can access them.

The Dream for DRM – Desktop reading, when called away, you pick up where you left off on your e-reader, then the same again with your phone.  As you can with a book.

I began the afternoon session with a presentation on Web 2.0 and Marketing in Libraries.

Unfortunately for the organising commitment, they had a second last minute cancellation, but were fortunate enough to have a couple of people step up and show what they were doing at their library.  Danny was first.

Darebin Libraries Website – Danny

Their website redevelopment began about 18 months ago. Advice for anyone who has a website – take your website content, print it out as pages, put them on the floor and see if you can navigate between them easily.

Its all about content, content, content. It needs to be coherent, accessible, and minimal.

Everything on Darebin website has been developed in HTML or XML.  No plugins required.  You need to be sure that anyone can access your site, without needing the latest software versions etc.  See W3C guidelines.

Firefox has a HTML validator plug-in which will validate your code, against the W3C guidelines. If there are HTML or CSS errors in your website, then Google will drop you down in search results.

Need HTML fonts that anyone can read and contrasting background colours.

Social networking will only work for you if you have a great, well working website.  The social networking aims to bring users back to the library website, so you have to get that right first.

They use a content management system for their website,  Convoy CMS produced by Roadhouse, customised for Darebin.  Roadhouse also developed the new PLEASED website for public libraries on disability topics.

Vision Australia has a free toolbar to validate your website.

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Fiona was the second step-in speaker.

Yarra Plenty Libraries Website Redevelopment – Fiona.

Their redevelopment is going live in March 2010. They are going with the  Biblio Commons Discovery layer to bring the catalogue into the website.  Keep the branding and the menus consistent with the website, even when it moves into the catalogue on doing a search.

You can create collections, mark for later and create lists, which can be public or private.  You are able to share and bookmark using a wide variety of Web 2.0 tools.

You can send messages to other users through Bibliocommons, follow them etc.  Can also block them.

It all looks very interesting.  The Bibliocommons website takes you to customer websites to check out.

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Pam Saunders and Elwyn Murray -  Talking about my generation – giving perspective on what their generation is interested in.

Pam Saunders  is gen X  and she has 10 library cards – a library junkie.  No one library gives her what she needs.  She lives in the city and the country.  She carries these cards in a wallet which also contains reviews, notes, recommended books, etc that she wants to get from her library.  She looks to which library can get it and which will get it to her the quickest.

Her first point of contact will be the library website.  Her impressions of library services, their reputations, will come from this. The best websites will be presented the same way that a house for sale is.  Pruned down, uncluttered.  Some libraries have other features that she is not aware of, because they havent sent them to her or she hasnt seen them on the library website.

Facebook – you can overload people with information that is not always relevant, so be careful about how much you dish out.  Don’t make her have too many user names and passwords.  Can find out interesting statistics about your Facebook users from Facebook itself.

Doesn’t like a big sign saying that you can pay your overdue fines online – not as a first thing. Put the positive things online, the not so delightful things should be tucked away – not unfindable, but not in your face.

Gen Y – Elwyn – uses the power of the Net to drive personal interest. Used Facebook to promote an event and got an unexpectedly good response.

Elwyn agreed with Leith’s earlier assertions, when you engage with people, you also engage with their networks. People attend events because they have an interest, because they know someone who is in it or because they know someone who is going.

You need to be personal in your approach, even if its in a broadcast medium like Facebook. Viral marketing plays a big role in promotion.

Things he is addicted to include: FFFFound – image bookmarking and Future Shipwreck – he also links to post things to Tumblr (microblogging tool).

Tends to shy away from institutions on the internet – wants to hear individuals’ opinions, not the company line.

Does a lot of buying online, reads a lot of blogs, doesn’t listen to the radio anymore.

Is he a library member?
Yes.

Why did they publish a hard copy of their book, rather than just online?
Easy to digitally curate things, but there is a different status level to a printed copy.  If you can buy it, it is a way of showing appreciation and a way to own the content, which is different to the online. Had a grant to do it.

So that was the day.  It finished with the LibMark Marketing awards – one of which was one by my library, for our teen blog  Quicksand. Woohoo!

Thanks to the LibMark Committee for an insightful and interesting day.  I will chasing up more than a few things for my library.