Connecting Librarian

Steve Jobs 2010 – analogy to cars – we have had PCs for 30 years, but now our needs are being fulfilled by other devices – pads and smart phones for example.

 Once upon a time………… there was a princess, the princess loved books, but the princess also loved computers – enamoured with the digital, loves media on all sorts of computers. Her media is everywhere and goes with her everywhere she goes. She doesn’t understand what “we don’t have it” means. She didn’t understand videotapes and the requirement to rewind before watching, it was broken technology to her.

 Our users expect our services to reflect the experiences they are getting from external services, such as Amazon and Netflix.

 No surprise that smart phones outnumber computers. It is a bit of a surprise that it is the same worldwide.

 Linux is less common, than even iOS, which is on the iPad. Australia has over 100% cell phone penetration and nearly ½ of the population have smart phones. The access this gives these people is transformative. In the US, penetration is over 100%, but smart phones is 35%. Mobile phones are the fastest spreading communication technology in the world.

 84% of Australian online adults who have mobile phones use them for more than voice. Not just SMS either.

He works at the University of Tennessee – Chattanooga – has 10,000 students. A good representation of a mid-sized school in the US. 82% of students access their resources online – the other 18% in person. Gate count – 428,032. Website – 1,973,612. Think about how many people are serving in your buildings and then how many are serving your website.

 They can measure on campus use. 18.25% using Macs, 39.32& using Windows devices and 39.31% using mobile devices. 2.89% using games consoles and the remaining mostly Linux. So what are the most common mobile operating systems. These includes 5 Nooks, 41 Kindles, 69 Kindle Fires, over 1000 Androids, 770 iPod Touches, 839 iPads and 2173 iPhones.

 Of the Australian smart phone users, over 50% are using iPhones.

 What are the campus users doing on their devices? 36.5% Netflix. 17.8% Flash video over Http. 11.2% Http – standard web traffic. 11.1% http – media stream. 65.4% – of all traffic is streaming video. How much is coming from the library? People aren’t coming to us for this stuff anymore.

They have this as Chattanooga has the fastest Internet in the US and its cheap. $300 per month for a Gig of bandwidth. This is coming everywhere though. Media streaming is just the beginning.

 What does a post PC world look like? Not just talking about mobile. Its about everything that connected to the Internet. The Internet of things that talk to each other is coming.

 In ten years, we went from iMac to iPhone, from 2000 to 2010. Moore’s Law gets us this – every 18 months get twice as fast and half as expensive. This is what 10 years of Moore’s Law looks like.

 We have single-purpose devices – the Kindle is a great example – it is great at reading books, but terrible at everything else. We have multi-purpose devices – such as the iPad or Kindle Fire. They become anything you want them to become. Harder to understand how we deliver content to these devices because they are infinitely flexible. 55.28 million iPads sold in the three years since its launch. In 2008, Apple sold more iPhones than in 2007. In 2009, 2010 and then again 2011, they sold more than in all previous years combined. In 2011, Apple has sold 315 million devices running iOS. This is the platform we need to pay attention to, because this is what they are buying.

 PC is an example of a mediated interface – you interact with it via a keyboard or a mouse. With a touch screen, there is a direct interaction. Touch is something that everyone understands as a means of interface. What have we done for our library that uses touch as the interface. Its the easy one.

Microsoft Surface Table 2 is out now and that’s another big change coming.

 Xbox Kinect is another change coming. It controls via gesture. People are building it into laptops and will be coming to tablets. It will be commonplace within the next three years. We should be paying attention to this.

 Voice control was envisioned by Apple in the late 1980s and is now happening with smart phones. Another area to be watching.

 Jawbone bracelet monitors your daily movement and links to your phone to provide a daily report. It is becoming more widespread because the cost of sensors is dropping, making it much easier. Twine is a small ambient sensor which started as a Kickstart project – it can be left somewhere to sense changes and then contact you. eg. Lets you know when washing machine stops, if your aquarium leaks, if someone raids the pantry – its a generic device. It could text you, tweet you, when your programmed event happens. We could have them on our shelves, to record when someone moves a book! They can be bought right now, but are probably 3-5 years away from being robust.

 “Predictions are hard – particularly when they are about the future” – Yogi Bera.

 Showed Arthur C Clarke video about the difficulties of predicting the future. If what he says sounds ridiculous, its more likely to be true.

 Showed video on flip scanning from University of Tokyo – just flip through the pages and it is digitised. Can scan a 200 page book in about one minute, uses lasers to de-skew and uses a usual camera and a infra-red camera. The professor in charge sees this eventually in mobile phones. What happens when a user can just walk in with their phone and walk out with everything we own. Samsung Transparent Smart Window – light transmissive, unless you want it to be. Coming out later this year – already in mass production. 3D printing – Maker Bot already has a depository online of things to print – can buy one for $1750 in the US. This is an awesome opportunity for libraries to get into, before they become affordable to the average consumer.

 “Rainbows end” by Vernor Vinge is a MUST read – he describes an academic library after the human race is rendered super-human.

 There are heads up displays in goggles and glasses already available. LEDs on contact lenses are already in development.

 We are experiencing temporary INCOHERENT RAGE – Please stand by!

 We need to be thinking long term – Moore’s Law makes everything cheap eventually. They get so cheap that they end up being disposable. We need to be ready for when that happens.

 We need to be looking outside ourselves. Our issues are not unique and there are solutions out there that can work for us as well. Others are doing better than we are.

 We need to be thinking about mobile first and not fourth or fifth. “Adaptive web design” by Aaron Gustafson. Need better metrics and prepare for the data flood – its not about circulation or gate count. There are other things that are much more important.

 Roger’s adoption curve for adoption of new technology. Not all libraries need to be on the cutting edge. We need to be where our users are. If our patrons are late majority, we need to be early majority. Knowing where our users are, should drive where we our library is.

 Douglas Adams – anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things – unfortunately this is the group that most librarians are in – we need to change this.

 Clay Shirkey – tools dont get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

 Henry Ford – if I’d asked them what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

 Steve Jobs – It isn’t the consumer’s job to know what they want.

 The best way for us to predict the future is to create it. Libraries need to be involved in this. The future needs us.

 griffey@gmail.com

jasongriffey.net

 Questions:

 We are needed? Please elaborate.

Patrons bypass us for resources. But they don’t use the web well – they need us to help them to discover and assess appropriate online resources. We also have a local role – not just community centre, but cultural memory – about the objects for which the community cares.

 Experiences cause expectations. How do you manage your undergrads who are early adopters and academics who are laggards?

We serve populations as best we can by segmenting them. Different services for different users. “but those people are going to die” – plan for the future, which means not planning for those who won’t be around for it.

 Are staff ready and willing for the post PC world?

Fortunate to work in a change oriented library – even if have had times where people have been dragged kicking and screaming. However, if they won’t change, then maybe they need to be elsewhere. Cant let the contrarians keep us from the future.

 Breakdown of remote to on campus students?

About 1200 remote – but large growth in off campus users, which will continue.

 NBN impact besides video?

Communication, learning etc. Skype is a trivial example but most relevant. Streaming media ranges widely between learning through classes to watching cat videos on YouTube.

 Concern about social control issue and privacy?

Should get over it because its almost about to go ahead away. Privacy is something we need to frame differently – users should have control over it themselves. Dont yet have a culturally good way to express the changes brought about by ‘things like CCTV, biometrics, social networking and more – much of which will have to be controlled legally. Going to have a hard time with personal privacy over the next ten years.

 When our free broadband is no longer required – where does our careful training go?

Our careful training will be used elsewhere – collection development – human filtered is still better than machine filtered.

 

 

Was very happy to be able Friday 23rd September’s seminar in Melbourne with David Lee King from Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, fresh from his appearance at NLS #5 in Perth and Hamish Curry from the State Library of Victoria – presented by VALA: Libraries, Technology & the Future Inc. (thanks guys for organising this awesome afternoon’s presentation).

Freak out, geek out or seek out: trends, transformations & change in libraries – David Lee King

New book coming out next year – Face to Face – connecting with users online.

Was at NLS #5, lots of energy and enthusiasm. Saw lots of good ideas there.  Also had lots of staff telling him that they take their ideas back to their libraries and get told NO. Got told a few times that their IT guys are Evil!

Mentioned Grove Library and Community Centre – doing sustainability type things underground. Have movable, comfortable furniture. Don’t have a ref desk, but have staff workstations located around the library as the staff are circulating. They moved shelving and furniture to make room for the community.

Can be a bad place to be freaking out – not good for anybody. Should we be geeking out – as soon as it hits market? No, should be testing out for our users. We need to be seeking out.

Personal technology has changed dramatically in the last twenty years. In libraries, we have online resources, new technologies, new collections and new user expectations, online resources. Gone the way of the past: floppy disks, typewriters, film cameras and watches seem to be on the way out, at least for some.

One big change is we now have competition. Thirty years ago, the only place to get answers or borrow books was the library. Book stores have gotten big and offer many of the same services – they do storytimes, read books, enjoy coffee. Breaks down in the reference question department. If you want something fast – Amazon. They are a big competitor for us.

Not so much competition, but a change that has messed with libraries, is that newspapers are disappearing from print. In US, 120 newspapers have already changed from print to digital. On the Newspaper extinction timeline – it is expected that Australia will no longer have any print newspapers by 2022.

In US, they have rent DVDs from a vending machines on the street. But they don’t have the older titles. Competition for us. E-books, are the same. Overdrive now offers Kindle compatible ebooks now for libraries which maybe helps ease the pressure if we offer it.

Tablets, notebooks and laptops are taking over from desktops. Google has taken over from the ready reference collection. The positive is that it frees us up to answer the deeper questions, that’s if they know to come to us to ask. And then there’s the smart phone – which does everything!  Including making phone calls!

Tech changes in libraries – in the past included fiction, electricity, phone reference, copiers and then in the 1970′s we got our online catalogues and in the 1980′s the PC took off, the 1990′s the internet appears and in 2004 it was Web 2.0. The three biggest destination sights now are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which were created in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Emerging web has changed dramatically and has nothing to do with technology – it is about connecting people. It is real time, decentralised (can visit library on the web, without going to the website), its multimedia (line between newspaper and TV websites are blurring). Every company is a media company – we write articles, create content, pushing out our wares. Emerging web is very mobile – the web is in my pocket – but it should also be that the library is in my pocket. Mobile websites for libraries are a valuable tool – want it to be useful for people who want to do a task quickly – renew, ask a question etc. Emerging web is social, its two way, public with global reach, so need to be careful about what you say – if you can’t say it in person, don’t say it online.

David is Digital Branch Manager, he has a department – IT and a concept – Digital branch. He is a community manager, he scans the horizon, he is executive editor, long range planner, manager, evangelist and he answers the tough questions.

His 3 realities:
1. all services will be physical and digital – not so easy to achieve eg. storytimes
2. we’ll use the web to build unique stuff
3. to some, the digital branch will be their only branch – can place holds and pay to have them mailed out

Content – digital branch has to have things for people to see, do, read etc when they visit. They have catalogue searches on their website as well as their Facebook page. You can subscribe to their blogs by RSS or email. Blogs have photos and info about their blog contributors, so you can focus on the content you enjoy most. Photos they have on Flickr and YouTube are also reposted on their website in their blogs etc.

Community – how do you do community in a digital branch? They have instant messaging reference (using Meebo) and get an answer (if the library is open) – on both their website and embedded in their catalogue. Need to have a front door – that’s dramatic, but every page on the website is a front door, as well as Google, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter are also front doors. We have many digital borders.

Conversation – lots of discussions going on, between staff and users and between users. Conversations on the digital branch include the instant messaging widget, email reference, comments on the blogs (good and bad – which provides opinions and can help you continue the conversation), Facebook comments, Flickr comments, Twitter. Will follow their customers that follow them on Twitter, because they want to focus on their local community. Will celebrate achievements – they sent out a T-shirt to their 1000th follower.

Can have vanity searches for your library, town, postcodes and things like reading etc. Find out what the community is talking about. It gives you an opportunity to step in if you see they’re talking about you, but not talking to you.

Tackle change – ideas to get started thinking about it. A lot of libraries are not seen as relevant in our communities. They go to everyone else, before they come to us and only if they remember. We need to be first. How?
Model the way – you better be doing it first if you expect your staff to be doing it, everyone needs to be on the bus (Jim Collins book – “Good to great” – if you don’t have the right people on the bus, get the wrong ones off and get the right ones on) .

Our websites, our buildings, our services need to be as easy as a light switch to use – so that they don’t have to think about what’s going on – libraries have to stay out of their users way, unless they want to deal with you
Know your patrons – know what they are doing in your buildings, on your PCs, on your website – it can help you with designs and redesigns. It also helps you to know who doesn’t use your library. Find out where your non-users are and then market to them.
Online services have to reflect physical – no “will answer your email within two business days” on your online reference.

If we don’t change, we will die and some libraries in the US are already closing.

As print books slowly disappear and ebooks come to the fore, we will still need libraries, we will still have jobs – our patrons will lead us to where they want us to go.

Finding time – “what do you want me to drop, so that I can do that”. Its not about that, its about changing focus – what is the priority of your library and concentrate on that first, then if there’s time left, you can do other staff. If you can’t, the other stuff will fall to wayside and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Its about the user ultimately and they are online – so we need to be there.

Question: Improvement in catalogue, that negates the need to have instant messaging in catalogue. They are getting a new OPAC, which will meet that. There are overlays, and plugins that can be used to improve catalogue response.

Tablets and roving reference experience. Staff are answering a lot of questions when they are roving around, working well.

New website – can we get immediate content on there. Yes, it is possible, consult with your website provider (small library – Council IT).

Sustainability – what are you doing? Measure use against work input. Have service – personalised reading lists – fill in a form and a librarian will compile a personalised reading list for you, to meet your needs. Wasn’t getting a lot of use, so they re-jigged the form and marketed it and already the response has been good. If it doesn’t improve, they will stop the service.

What is the one next big thing?  Fun – thinks he will be wrong. Google + – just gone public in the last few days. No organisational pages yet, but that will come. Very different to both Twitter and Facebook, so there is definite potential there. Very closely tied to Google Apps, which is potentially a huge change – brings together Facebook, Microsoft and wiki-like content.

His current book: Designing the digital experience.  Website: www.davidleeking.com

Putting IT back in reality – Hamish Curry, Application and Online Learning Manager – State Library of Victoria

Mash-up idea – take photos and put them on top of each, as you rub the them on your  iPhone, you rub down through the years and see the space/place as it was going backwards through time.

Contact: hcurry@slv.vic.gov.au @hamishcurry  slideshare.net/hcurry

Statements heard from people he has spoken to about the SLV: ebooks must be killing libraries, this digital stuff must be making your job hard, guess no-one wants to go the library any more, bet your numbers are down.

Reality – the worst game ever! IT can help augment the experience. Smart phones, tablets are helping to do this. Extend the experience – after this you will look further, online of course. Enhance the engagement – you may tweet your own thoughts and ideas which enhances things.

What breaks assumptions over expectations? How can we get people to come in physically or online, to see for themselves. Seeing is believing, but you have to not only market, but be able to back it up in reality, to participate. They have to also have a social connection, not with the building, but with the people in the building – with people in the library who they believe are more honest and authentic.

Instead, you can offer surprises – offer them something they don’t expect. You need to do things that make your users curious. Give them a chance to discover – so that they end up owning it – even if we miss out on getting the credit. Let them make connections, both to people and to the place.  Learn – check out Happy Planet Index: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/ – number five is learning. So very important to ensure people keep learning. All this will keep people coming back.

Do something unexpected and make it cool, both in the physical and online environments. (I geek the library).

Always offer silence, trustworthiness, answers, quality and Wi-Fi. Quality, means finding the balance between doing it right and do it quickly.

From the community section on SLV website – helps embed them back in with their users.

Digital is not so scary – we are still trying to make the worlds information accessible in our pockets – but has moved from a miniature library in a matchbox, to online – the only difference is that we use mobile devices to access it and the content has been outsourced.

Technology has really shaped learning and literacy. We can talk to anyone at any time. We can work together from anywhere at any time. We can connect with people anywhere, any time. The curriculum has had to change too, but teachers are struggling to keep up with these phenomenal changes, so that they can lead young minds. They are getting on board and librarians have to do so too.

Information has changed, but even though trusted sources are always the best, they are not the first two results on a Google search, where people think they are trusted sources. There is so much learning now available on the web, not just content, but ways of providing learning – eg. Video conferencing. Information scarcity has changed to information complexity. Clay Shirky – “Its not information overload. Its filter failure.” This is what librarians are great at and we need to be able teach everyone.

Khan Academy – www.khanacademy.org – 2500 videos to teach you just about everything. Some good, some bad.

We are answer rich, but question poor. (Susan Greenfield – “Quest for identity in the 21st century.”) Hamish has great admiration for reference librarians who deal with people who have done the search but cant navigate what they found, or find the answer they seek.

University of Sydney has created a great range of engaging resources to help people to search and filter. SLV has done the same with ERGO (http://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/). Designed for students, but stats showing that teachers are finding it very valuable.

Hoddle Waddle (http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/explore/student-teacher-resources/hoddle-waddle-education-kit) – program to help students navigate 50 sites in the CBD in a day. Not taken up initially, but once they made most of the content Freemium, bookings have improved and all the resources are being much better used. Teachers are now presenting on the program at conferences. They are now considering offering it as a public program, for cultural visitors to use it. Improvements in progress including mobile contributions using Broadcastr. ARIS is another app which does something similar. As augmented reality becomes more mainstream, there will be even more opportunities to put IT back into reality.

Change involving technology, needs not only the tech, but also a cultural change.

Interaction with inanimate. SLV playing with QR codes – used it in a gallery to see how people
use it. There are also Google Goggles, i-nigma, Red Laser, Photosynth – a 360 degree mapping app.

Risk: Partners and programs – risk is not a dirty word, being risk adverse – makes you slow and inflexible – wont do anything because we could get it wrong, it requires trust of the organisation in their staff, motivation, relationship – always remembering that shift will happen.

If you don’t step in and do it, someone else will – and they not present what you think should be.

Some tools to do this: RSS, Twitter, Google +, Facebook, Yammer. Half of SLV is now on Yammer, after starting with 5 a year ago.

Networks are always changing – online mimics what nature does – new networks develop and old ones die and drop away.

“Use the force, Luke”. – Obi Wan Kenobi. We need to harness the world around us. We want to be able to pull people on site and push them online. Don’t create your own social space, go to where your users are already. Need to occupy multiple spaces to access different audiences.

Sometimes you need to prepackage content and bring it to the fore, to make it easier for people to access and to bring our collections alive.

“The more you learn, the more acutely aware you become of your ignorance.” (Peter Senge – “Fifth discipline”) SLV programs: TedX Melbourne and now happening around the world, but it pulls people in and engaging with you, Personal Learning Network with SLAV teaching teachers and teacher librarians about the online world.

Its not so much I Communication T, but change as the C in ICT. We need libraries to be FUN – not just the physical, but the online as well. Need to know what the drivers are, have to be prepared to play and technology has a role. (Night at the Mitchell Library video).

Video games are changing how things work. They have play, replay and experimentation, they involve risk and reward, they can be integrated experiences and augmented experiences. The only difference between chess and video games is a shift in format – the skills and experience are very similar.

International initiatives – Find the Library at NYPL, National Gaming Day in US Libraries, Freeplay at SLV.

Merge and mirror programs – a fusion between what they experience in one space and are further enhanced in another. Transmedia – can stand alone (eg. Facebook), but can also be linked to draw people to other spaces. Hacks and Library Apps can also be used to enhance experiences.

Data is becoming sexy as people are presenting it differently. eg. Infographics, Library Hack, Open Government Data.
“But problem solving , however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results. ” (Peter Drucker – “The Effective Executive”)

“When people in motion, meet a library in motion, anything is possible” – Director Stockholm Public Library.

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!

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.

There have been a lot of stories going around the last few months, about the future of newspapers and how they are in jeopardy because of the Net. (great links and summary of key articles at Rosen’s Flying Seminar in the Future of News) I’ll refer to some of those, whilst giving a personal perspective and some insight from working with our users and those resources.

I guess my thoughts began even before I saw the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press report from December 2008. The Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Outlet released survey findings that showed the Internet bypassed all other forms of media, excepting TV, as a source for both national and international news.

Since then, there have been many big stories from the US mainly, about newspapers closing down or downsizing, as their sales slide down.  That’s not to say that people aren’t interested in news, they are just finding it in different ways.

During the February 09 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, I was on the Herald-Sun newspaper website several times a day, looking for the latest information and images from the disaster.  That was also the place I went to when we experienced two earth tremors within a few weeks of each in March 09.  I found that besides Twitter (which by the way, the Herald-Sun was also monitoring), that this was the quickest source to pick up the news.

Great for the paper, that people are turning to them online to read that up-to-date content, now they just have to try and make money out of it, so that they can keep providing that content.  What model they will take up is unknown as yet, but it will have to be one that doesn’t scare people aware from using their content, ala New York Times with their paid subs.

Interestingly though, there is a definite interest in the physical act of reading a newspaper, but in an online environment.  A number of years ago, my library subscribed to an online database that enabled the reader to read the newspaper online looking like the actual paper itself. So when you get the newspaper on screen, it looks exactly like the paper copy.  You click on the bottom corner and can turn the page and can continue doing so, from front to back and to front again.  Alternatively, you can skip to particular pages or sections as you like.

We subscribed to that database initially to give our users access to international newspapers, so that local residents could read their home country newspaper, in the language of its origin.  No waiting for airmail deliveries etc, you could read it within a day of its publication (allowing for time differences of course). What has happened in the last year, is that our users are using it to access our major daily newspapers and reading them online as they would physically.  Use of that database has increased exponentially in that time and the vast majority of that use is around the major dailies.

On the otherhand, use of the databases that indexes the same newspapers, the one that students use a lot for assignments etc, has remained fairly static in comparison.

Which brings us to the local level. Our local newspapers have had online presences for a while, but no archive to speak of.  One of our local newspaper chains is now available through a newspaper database, but only beginning this year.  After nearly 10 years of archives of our major dailies, this is long overdue.  But with the disappearance of local papers in the US, I wonder how long our local papers will remain with us and whether this is too little too late.

And if it is, what will happen to local news.  Again the US gives some idea of direction with new Web start-ups looking to fill that gap. Hyperlocal web sites deliver news without newspapers ironically appears in the New York Times.  Go check it out and then think about where your local news will come from if the newspapers themselves disappear.  Is this a gap that the public library can step into and if so, how?

Interestingly, I do still sometimes read the physical newspaper, but only if it happens to be in front of me, I don’t go to seek it out.  With the major dailies, its usually to acquaint myself with the important (or on slow news days, not so important) topics of current interest, but more importantly, to catch up on the comics and the sports I am interested in.   I also read my local papers (we get 3), mainly for things of personal interest or that of my family, or that relate to my local area or promote the library.

Do you still read the physical newspaper, local, major daily or national,  or do you prefer to do all your news seeking online?  Is the format you use dependent on whether you browse or particularly seek, like me?  Would love to hear your habits and thoughts as we all might have to change them in coming years.

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 am a borderline Gen Xer.  Depending on which study you look at, I am sometimes listed as a Baby Boomer.  Labels don’t matter all that much, but I have always felt more affinity to Gen Xers and it always made me feel a little bit younger to label myself as such too.

But recently I have been feeling like I’m not much of a Gen X-er either, especially in relation to what others of my generation seemed to be focussed on.  Quite often I feel more of a digital native like my kids, I am soooo comfortable with most technology.   I game like they do, although my regular gaming is more online board games (which is definitely in line with my demographic), although I do get with the kids and play X-Box or Nintendo DS on the odd occasion.

I guess I am a bit like the person who migrates to a new country and just goes overboard in embracing their new home.  They learn the national anthem, try to live like a person in that country does, picks up the lingo etc – they basically begin a love affair with their new home and I guess that is what I have been like with Web 2.0.  And that has helped me to feel more like a digital native than an immigrant.

So what’s the problem?  I think its that the shine is going off the relationship a bit.  Probably for a few different reasons.

Firstly, the development of Web 2.0 tools seems to have slowed down.  Twitter, which I love is probably the last big thing I jumped on board with.  I signed up to Friend Feed, but for an organised person such as myself, I just find it to chaotic to work through.  Everything else considered Web 2.0 has been around for a while, some like blogs have been around for over 10 years!  Where’s the next big thing to catch my interest again?

Secondly, even though I am well entrenched in Web 2.0, most of my workmates, friends and family aren’t and I get so frustrated with this.  They don’t see these tools and their potential the way that I do and I can’t find the way to help them to do so.  I spoke to a new staff member whose former workplace didn’t even have a website!  Everyone still seems a long way behind and I feel like I’ve been in those space for a long time too.  When is it all going to catch up?

Maybe I’m just tired, maybe I need a holiday (coming up in 4 weeks, yay!) or maybe its all just in my head.  Would love to hear what you guys have to say on the topic, are you experiencing the same types of things?

I have been so busy with changes at work and with my study tour coming up in 2 weeks, that I haven’t had time to blog. As per usual, everything that I want to write about comes up at the same time, so I’ll start with a “you should read this” post.

Helene Blowers at Library Bytes, points to a post by Joyce Valenza giving a short list of 2.0 rules to live by. Very useful hints.

Jenny Levine at Shifted Librarian points out the importance of virtual worlds, such as Second Life and gives compelling reasons why librarians should be at least exploring them.

Karen Schneider from Free Range Librarian posts an open letter to the Library of Congress on ALA TechSource, in response to a public meeting they called. She makes some very interesting points about “bibliographic control” and libraries.

Michael Stephens at Tame the Web blogs his 10 Tech Trends for Librarians in 2007. If you want to know what to be looking into, this article must be your first stop.

Finally, there is a lot of buzz going around the blogosphere about Twitter, a communications gateway. I’ll let you read more about it through the various pro and con posts doing the rounds. These include: Lifehacker, blyberg.net, David Lee King and BlogCritics. What’s my verdict? Don’t know yet, but I figure it could be useful for my study tour and even if not, its worth playing with, just to know what’s out there and being used, so I’m joining up right now!