Connecting Librarian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Had a great day at Hennepin County Public Library (HCPL) on the outskirts of Minneapolis, Minnesota. HCPL has a great team managing their web services. They have 4 librarians working on web development (all former adult, teens or childrens librarians), 2 programmers who are also librarians, an intranet staffer, a support staffer and an Office products trainer. All ILS and PC management are handled by their network services department, which is large to enable to manage all their PCs at their 26 branches.

Sharon McGlinn, manages their new Book Space, the adult reading area. It comprises booklists, forthcoming books (hugely popular), new materials, book club information, find a good book advisories. Sharon worked with 5 adult services librarians to develop the goals for Book Space, then worked with their graphic designer to produce the look and then with Glenn Peterson, one of their developers to get the required functionality.

Their webpages are mostly dynamic, database driven. They have one blog for the Book Space page, but their categorisation determines which genre page the feed will go to. Glenn has developed staff templates to simplify the adding the adding of blog content. Sharon keeps the site current by sending reminders out to staff, including suggestions for contributions - they need to keep the content dynamic. The challenge is to find people who will be passionate about the website and contribute to it.

Glenn Peterson developed a booklists admin function with their ILS, to simplify the generation of booklists. It uses the bibliographic numbers from the catalogue, cover images from Syndetics and a preview facility to see how it looks before going live. Book Space also includes topselling lists, book club info and user created booklists - only need a username and password to add one. Each staff generated booklist includes more the of the same type authors, related lists, awards lists, Syndetics content and live links to the catalogue. User generated lists pulls content from the catalogue, they can add comments and make it public or keep it private. Sharon then chooses appropriate user generated booklists to be rotated through the Book Space homepage as a highlighted list.

Where forms aren’t in use, they use Dreamweaver for webpage editing. Their website gets over 140,000 requests per week, with 12-15,000 individual visitors each month. They have submission guidelines for user created booklists, which now number more than 200 (in less than 2 months). They are now looking at their options as to how to manage these booklists, as it has turned out to be wildly popular.

Book Space also contains their audio book information, both linking to their audio CD collection and their downloadable audio - which they get through NetLibrary and Overdrive, so only for MP3 formats, not iPods. Their research books and authors sections links to relevant databases and websites. Book Clubs list needs to be further developed, Sharon is looking to get the book clubs themselves to contribute content. The book clubs can reserve the kits online, by title, by date of availability and more (another script from Glenn).

Christine Clifford took me through Reference services. They use Tutor.com’s “Ask a Librarian” software. It runs 24/7 – they contract Tutor.com to answer questions during the hours that HCPL staff are not available. Have offered this service since 2001 and has been 24/7 since 2002. They get between 350 and 600 questions a month, depending on time of year – email reference gets about 25 a day. They had 10 million visits to their website last year.

Librarians throughout the service are scheduled to monitor the service, with 55 currently on the list to provide the service, mostly one at a time, but two librarians at peak time, with backups as required. The schedule is posted on the Intranet.

They are trialing IM in house at present, using Microsoft Office Communicator between their Reference Work Group and Web Services Team, mainly chosen because it works with Outlook. They are testing Trillian for use with their future IM Reference service and are also looking at the Meebo widget – working through some issues with this at present.

Their Research and Reference page contains their subject guides. Each topic shows the most popular databases and websites for that topic first, then other content, which is automatically generated. To avoid the generalist databases coming on top with for all sub-topics, they skew the criteria so that only the most relevant content appears there. Topics are further broken down into sub-topics. A librarian is in charge of each topic and their image appears on the page with tips on information seeking on that topic or events etc, which are changed regularly. 42 librarians contribute to the 29 topics in this section.

The sidebar on each page contains pre-packaged catalogue searches, e-books links, news headlines, available classes, events, the facility to change topics or subjects via a drop down menu and more. They are looking to upgrade the 2 year old pages, with the recent purchase of a federated search tool. They are considering changing the librarians’ snippets to a blog, which will be easier to manage and enable archiving of the content.

HCPL has a number of web tools available to all staff, which have been developed in-house to make contributing content fast and easy, they don’t need to have any coding or HTML type skills.

Marilyn Turner, head of Web Services shared her experiences with getting their web services going and how they keep up the momentum. The Web Services department is located close to the ILS and Network staff. They have to work closely with them – systems need to be accessible, upgrades and backups need to be carefully scheduled (an issue when they first went 24/7 on Ask a Librarian). The Web Services Team also works as a bridge between IT and branch staff, whom they work closely with on content.

She recommends reporting on what can be done and to pick things that will make an impact with the staffing you have available. Take it on the road to decision makers to show the great things you are doing – eg. Online memberships, they now get 500 applications and amendments each month. Public libraries are there to serve all in their area, not just the people who come in the door. Need to have your web services staff at the table – have a representative on all teams, as web services covers all branch provided services. They have expanded ownership of the website by having librarians contribute content to booklists, subject guides etc and the simple web tools they use make it easy for them to do so. They have noticed a changed culture as a result of this, with librarians sharing ideas, content and inspiration. This is of huge benefit to library users, as shown in their increasing stats. Over 100 mostly librarians are contributing content to the website (150 librarians out of 500 staff at HCPL). Get started with new, enthusiastic people as contributors.

Internally, each department has its own blog – 5 divisions and the Directors office. Some sub divisions also have their own blogs, others just use the administration blog. They have found it to be a better communication tool than email, because it doesn’t have to be kept where it clogs up the email client, the posts are searchable and archived. They are also looking at using wikis for some of their manuals, rather than putting them up through their CMS.

Web Services is about providing the tools to make contributing easy. The focus is the content, not the technology. End of part one - that was all just until lunch. More in next post, so stay tuned.

Couldn’t get to a power or get my laptop out in this crowded session, so had to use treeware and now is the first chance to type this up. This session was Monday morning, so sorry for the delay.

Karen Huffman spoke of her experiences at National Geographic (NG). Web 2.0 is what we are already in, it’s where our users are and where our desktops are going. Adapt, adopt or die. We envision Web 2.0 in different ways, but are all still figuring it out and have different ways of applying the same solutions.

NG has RSS and podcasting hosted externally. Started with RSS feeds posted on a simple web page, then using Magpie RSS and php, they started streaming RSS to the homepage. Started with current content and recorded it as podcasts, then educated their users. Relaunched podcasts into iTunes and NG is now rated at No. 8. Have a staff news area which includes RSS feeds from NG blogs.

They use Newsgator for intranet news feeds instead of the external Bloglines. Newsgator can give mobile access to feeds which staff can access via their Blackberrys.

They are investigating Google gadgets to enhance their website. One gadget they are using on the their intranet is a Word Press plugin which shows a thumbnail image of the commenter on their blog comments. Simplified wiki page creation with a widget that gives them a “Create a new project” button. Also investigating Mind mapping software, including Gliffy and Mind Manager. They are also using Google Maps and Google Earth mashups in their Women Explorers wiki and BioBlitz projects as well as mapping out recipients of NG grants.

Lessons learned:

• need the right people on board
• work in the white spaces
• collaboration
• understand organic culture
• prototype ideas, keep it simple
• communicate
• adapt if the strategy doesn’t match needs

Derek Willis from Washington.com spoke on creating browsable data with Django.

Information gap includes:

• what doesn’t make it into the news
• the data you don’t use
• what you can do about it

Can search it and searching is fun, but what happens when you don’t have a clear search term - are your users good searchers?

Django users a python web framework, takes data and puts it on the web. It is open source and automated as much as possible. More info and software available at http://www.djangoproject.com/ Presently django is used to run chicagocrime.org - a database of crime reported in Chicago and several Washington Post projects including the congressional votes database, Faces of the fallen and Recipe Finder. It is mainly browsable, although it can be free text searched or browsed/searched by category.

Need the Python script language on a web server, a database such as MySql. It runs on all operating systems and is free. Advantages include control over your data, using your data is easier, has built in admin interface, plus it supports syndication, generic views, authorisation, forms, file uploads and is used for about 15 smaller newspapers around the US.

Things to do to make it happen:

• become or find a geek
• scavenge for hardware
• think about your data

Give your users the value in the information you already have.

Chad’s voice is Library Voice, check it out.

What this presentation is about is wikis, blogs, podcasts, screencasts, surveys, polls, and other tools.

Learning occurs everywhere, not just in the classroom. Librarians teach one shot instruction sessions, often attempting to squeeze too many learning objectives into the one session.

Pre-class preparation - alternatives to handouts which are often left behind - blogs and wikis. Chad uses these tools and sometimes teaches straight off the blog or wiki, especially for students at libraries that don’t have the same resources as the main library. ie. Biz Wiki. Can walk into any class and be ready to teach those students, because the resources are all there to access. The students just need the address, there is no handout to lose.

He got the professors to put the assignments onto the wiki and then Chad would link to the relevant resources under each question, rather than having all 80 students coming to see him the day before its due. Pre-class Prep tools, include Media or pbwiki and internally or externally hosted Word Press.

In Class Feedback tools can be proprietary and expensive, so better to use Polls and IM. In your locally hosted version of Word Press, there is a plug in - WP Polls that you can use to create internal polls. Can use the results, which are visible to the survey participants, to drive the discussion. Still have the problem of having the right questions. He did a live demo of how this worked on his blog - created a quick poll and blog entry. Can lock it down so each student can only respond once. Chad uses the meebo widget to allow them to ask questions in class, without having to put their hands up publicly. It can alleviate student boredom, allows students to have partial ownership of the class and helps develop instructor skills.

Post class tools. Survey linked from a blog post. phpESP, data lives on your server, more functions for the price, including great statistics. Alternatives include Survey Monkey, but free version is limited and the data doesn’t rest on your site.

Additional instruction maybe supplementary or complementary to the class. They are using podcasts in multiple languages for a library tour. From Sep 06 - Jan 07 it was downloaded 700 times - hence saving staff time. They used Audacity to create it - showed us how to do it, very simple. Once its posted to the blog or iTunes it automatically has an RSS feed.

Screencasting using Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ - not open source but its free. Allows you to do screen captures and record voice over it. You can scroll down the pages whilst your talking, click on links and so much more. Automatically saves it as a htm file, can upload it and more. Chad demoed it here and is is sooooo easy too! We could use it straight away and move to the paid software later.

Videos - record video with a camcorder, capture screen video with CamStudio - records AVI format (open source) - again he demoed it - again very easy to do. Can also convert it flash, but its still a linear recording process. camstudio.org

Audio and video can have a bit of a learning curve, initial experiences can be very time consuming, but he end product is well worth the investment, it adds a human element to what your are doing.

Typical follow up support includes IM, email and blog and wiki. Can also use del.icio.us with tags as to how the resources may be used. Also Facebook or MySpace, linked from the blog, wiki etc, where students can read the RSS feed from your blog, you can answer questions through your inbox etc.

Online FAQs and online scheduler. Knowledge Publisher is an open source FAQ generator, which includes comments and rating facilities. They can also ask a question through it and the answers can then be posted to the FAQ. PHP Scheduler where students can book time, at Ohio they are using it to book study rooms. Can also use it to book time to meet with librarians etc.

Closing thoughts:
- don’t be afraid to get under the hood
- learn from failures and successes
- try new things and get momentum to get buy in
- try looking at other tools with an eye for potential library uses

After a beautiful lunch of soup and salad, it was back to talking with Janie Hermann, one of the Library Garden bloggers, who is also presenting at CIL 2007. Princeton Library runs a Databytes program, where twice a month, a librarian gives a session on a technology topic. That day, Romina - who coordinated my program, did a comparison between Wikipedia and Britannica, with about a dozen people in attendance. The Databytes program came out of their staff training program. Each librarian had to become expert in one of their database and then train staff in it. After a few months, it was rotated around. The training was done in their Technology Center and they used to get the public wandering in, so they ended up making it available to all. They get about half staff and half public, with the benefit of having staff expertise in the room to help the public when needed.

Princeton is using Flickr for library photos but is careful with what they upload as they don’t have permissions from the public. This is an area which Janie says has generated much discussion in library circles, but no resolution at this stage. Their website design was outsourced and is also hosted externally, although they are hoping to bring it back in house with only the design being outsourced in future.

Their Booklovers Wwiki, using pbwiki will not be repeated, as they will be using features from their Innovative ILS. They used pbwiki as they did not have not the time or the money to use Media Wiki on their own server, which was their preferred option. They experienced some difficulties with pbwiki at the time, as it needed basic coding, not having the WYSIWIG interface that it has now. As a lead up, they did Databytes sessions on wikis and the Book Lovers Wiki. Even with this, most participants in the program emailed their reviews in to the library, where teen volunteers coded and uploaded them. It also lacked relational linking, so they could only post under either author, title, category etc. However, Janie said it was a great experiment which helped develop staff awareness and skills and that will look at using wikis for their staff handbook and reference procedures using their own server and Media Wiki. They are also considering doing a public technology help wiki.

I then spoke with Evan Kimple about their podcasting. They are using a laptop, a standard USB mike and free online service Audacity to create the podcasts and then are using archive.org to host them online. Evan showed me what was involved and it is very straightforward. They are doing podcasts of poets reading their original works and of authors reading selections from their works. They have the blog for these on a hosted Word Press blog, which is where the MP3s are placed and can be subscribed to. They are also podcasting special events, like their upcoming Teen Book Bash. Eventually they would love to podcast their guest speakers, but at the moment, they are time poor and there is also the issue of permissions.

Bob Keith, who is just about to graduate as a MLS, took me through some more techie stuff, in particular how he set up the Library’s OPAC computers so that they can only access the catalogue and related content, not the internet in general. He is using Firefox’s Kiosk mode with a few other enhancements to get the PCs just the way he wants them. As we are having a similar issue now with our new ILS in place at MPOW, it is a solution that I think we can use and he was kind enough to give me all the documentation and files to do so.

To finish, I had the honour of meeting with Library Director and ALA President Leslie Burger, who was generous in allowing me to take up both her valuable time and that of her staff. To Leslie and the staff at Princeton Library, many thanks for sharing your time, your expertise and your insights, they have all been very much appreciated.

Evan

I am very aware of wikis and think they are a great tool. I first came across wikis a few years back on a gaming website that I inhabit regularly. It was sooooo easy to use and I didn’t realise at first what it was. When I did realise, I was even more impressed.

Now having covered wikis in Learning 2.0 and having heard much about wikis at conferences, on blogs and in the professional literature, I am keen to get going. At my library, a few of us who are involved in getting ideas together for our website redesign, have started a private wiki as a place to share those ideas. Fortunately for me, PLCMC used the same wiki as we chose, PBWiki. It was very useful to watch the short tutorials that PBWiki have on some of the basic functions. (reminder to self, go add some new pages and a sidebar!)

Two of the libraries I am visiting on my study tour, were recommended for their wikis - St Joseph and their wiki based subject guides and Princeton for their book lovers wiki - which are the main points of interest for me at those two libraries. (not long to go now)

So what do I want to use a wiki for at my work - my first wish list item is to get our Information Services manual onto a wiki. That way staff can access it from any computer in any branch, it will be searchable, easy to update and add to and will save a lot of trees! Big advantage will be that it won’t be left to me and another who know html, to edit it! Will be a interesting to see how staff cope with it, in both the new format and in editing. After the manual, I am open to suggestions, but I do know that wikis will have a definite place in my library service.

Dr Damian Conway, a futurist from Monash Uni spoke on Disruptive Technologies and Digital Convergence. What? I’ll explain. We had quite a few people talking about libraries in the short term, Damian was looking further, 10 to 20 years.

Spoke about the insatiable need for information in our society, which places libraries and librarians in an ideal position - in a parallel to the drug scene, people in our society are information junkies and we are their dealers. We are Infovores, addicted to consuming vast amounts of information.

According to Damian, the most disruptive technology has been Info Tech - in general. IT changes what we do, not just how we do it and who does it. Writing was the area of the clergy, until others could write, printing was the aristocracy until the Gutenberg press, most recent disruption is the public library, giving power to all!

Damian’s title for this presentation was Four funerals and a wedding. The four funerals are for:
Ignorance - ubiquitous computing and ambient knowledge will mean that everyone will be able to access all information, anywhere, anytime. The disruptive technology here is ultra storage, for example, the entire Library of Congress on one small memory device.

Publishing - new model is now e-books, Gutenberg, Google’s Book search etc. There is the potential for an unlimited catalogue and theory of unlimited print distribution and duration with print on demand etc. The disruptive technology here is the rpint on demand machines (Espresso at NYPL), Sony Book Reader which is very paperlike.

Dewey - proven, extensible and out of date. Disruptive technology? Been replaced by IPv6, the newest version of numerical URLS (IPv4). Instead of having 3 ranges of 3 number, IPv6 will have 8 ranges of 8 numbers, with a maximum of 340 billion, trillion, quadrillion unique addresses. Which means every word, in every copy of every edition of every title published, could have its own address. Every word could be cross-referenced. Add to this that in 10 years, RFID tags will be the size of a full stop and you will be able to make ink with them, which can then be read by a reader. Whoa!

Media Barons was the last funeral - print is declining and online is not making up the difference. Disruptive technology here is hyperlinks that link the knowledge. What happens when meta knowledge is created by everyone all the time?

The wedding is a world that is suffused with ambient information. But it needs navigators, teachers, guides, architects, conservators, reviews, critics, police - a skill set which librarians have been developing for centuries.

So what will librarians do in the coming information economy - everything that matters!

Peter Blake from Australian Catholic University then spoke on using wikis in Information Services. They converted their Reference Desk Manual into wiki format. His advice included: working out the wikis purpose, decide on features, database, community and scope and decide on how much structure it will have. Wiki features include images, attached documents and RSS feeds. If it is included as part of an intranet, it means one login gives you access to everything. Their structure is a loose hierarchy of topics, cross linked to the maximum depth with a welcome screen and help text. From their evaluation they found that they were missing features they really needed and that there was confusion as to whether or not to link to their intranet. The intranet is only at one campus at present as they have been unable to do training and rollout to others because of other IT rollouts.

Sue Grey Smith and Luke Padgett from Curtin University spoke of some of the initiatives that have been introduced there using Open Source software. They are using Miranda IM to provide their Ask Online chat reference service. Its free, customisable under open source and has a number of install options. No IT support, but has a great support Forum. Can receive messages from different IM clients. Students can login directly via Curtin’s IM system or via any IM client. It has been marketed as a general point of contact, so queries can be technical, reference or lending based. Answers are immediate and although statistics are not availabe in the software, it has been very successful and saved money.

Using Open source PHP - Pirate Source from East Carolina Uni, they are able to provide subject guides on the fly. 46 guides are provided, the old format was static and linked to via divisional directories. Programmers at Curtin had to make some changes to the software, but as a result, they now have 2 click, customised subject guides.

Podcasts have been created using Audacity, a laptop, microphone, quiet place and script. Mixed using Audacity and Creative Commons music from CCMixtr. They generated RSS feeds for them using online tools and created a web page to host the podcasts and feeds. They now have 30+ podcasts covering info literacy and book reviews, with 9379 downloads made from Feb to Nov 06.

They use b2evolution as their blog software - its free open source, which allows mutiple blogs, categorisation and has anti-spam features. It is resilient, needs little support and is easy to maintain. The use MediaWiki, a server based package for their internal documentation. They are considering using it for their public FAQ page. Open Source has made all these things possible. Some IT support is needed.

Gerard Egan from the ATO spoke on podcasting from a non-techie view. He highly recommended Michael Abulencia’s (RMIT) guide on podcasting. What to podcast? News, tours, information literacy, storytimes, workplace training, 5 minutes on important topics. Podcasts give personality and a voice to your organisation. You can find them using Podcast Directory or Loomia search engine. Podzinger lets you search within podcasts. Reverse podcasts are being used in education - the students listen first then come and discuss it in class. To convert text to MP# you can use Natural Reader, 2nd Speech Centre etc.

That was it for Day 2 - Session 4 was dedicated to exploring the Exhibitors Hall. I spent some time with old friends at Thomson Gale, OCLC Pica and Sirsi-Dynix and picked up the odd bit of information elsewhere. Didn’t win any of the prize drawers unfortunately.

Kate Wilson and Chelsea Harper then reported on their study of the Blog and Wiki landscape in Australia as of June 2006. Limited literature available on this topic, so most of their info came from a study run from Apr - Jun 06.

Blogs and wikis are being used for reference database/manuals, public resource guides, managing teams/project knowledge, marketing and communication with clients, current awareness and professional development.

Results - 18% of libraries had a blog, 11% had a wiki. Blogs - 47% public library, 45% special library, 22% university library. Wikis, the figures were 33%, 45%, 11%. Most blogs were external, most wikis were not. Blogs were mainly used for client communications, wikis for internal workflows. Other purposes were marketing, organisation of events, professional development, reference services and other.

Most organisations don’t have a blog or wiki policy. The main reasons for not blogging or using wikis were time, finances and technical knowledge or support. Can check out more on the report at: http;//www.seedwiki.com/wiki/libraryblogswikis/

Leona Jennings from Gold Coast City Council took us through the implementation of RFID at Gold Coast’s 14 libraries and 2 mobiles.

Timeline - Expression of interest Dec 04. Business case approved May 05. RFT Nov 05. Contract Mar 06. Main tagging commenced May 06. Aug 06 - first library live. Oct 06 - main rollout. Jan 07 - last library went live.

Didn’t want the complications of running 2 systems at the same time, especially with floating collections, so wanted it to be instituted in as short a time as possible. Done over 12 months, but over 2 financial years to spread the cost.

Why RFID - for staff efficiencies, to allow staff to spend more time with the users and on public programs. Efficiencies gained through self serve checkouts. Aim to get 35% of loans through self-checkout.

Benefits: efficiency gains, OH&S benefits, greater accountability of assets, increased customer satisfaction (due to shorter queues, more services etc).

Challenges: to tag with minimal disruptions, enthuse staff and stakeholders, review and revise circulation and collection policies, to install, over 7 months.

Recruited a team of 12 from their casual pool to work as tagging teams - minimal impact on branch operations. Worked in teams of 3, rotating tasks and monitoring each other - worked well.

Bought a tagging station for acquisitions, hired 4 others for retrospective tagging in the branches. Changed security case type on AV at the same time. Took 5 months to tag.

Problems: - overachievement, teams were competitive and completed the job too quickly which meant they had to go back and do all the returned, non-tagged items. Tagging alone came out of the first year’s budget. Rest came out of 2nd years.

Concerns about job losses were alleviated, some questions but no great concern about privacy. At this stage, no tags on membership cards and no self checkin. Involved staff in demos and once 3M contracted, all staff saw a demo were continually updated with visits and an intranet page, which had FAQs, updates, progress chart and user guides hightlighting the self-serve aspects. All reviewed circ and collection policies were in place before going live.

Each branch had one day of hardware installation. Next day was staff training and as soon as they were trained, went live. Exception was the self-serve units which remained for staff access and training until the 3rd day. Of 14 libraries, 8 have self serve units, more units to go in this year. Some libraries will have 2, smaller branches and mobiles none.

Too early for full impact, initial feedback is that checkin is happening more quickly, getting back on shelf quicker and queues are shorter. As of 31st Dec, 28% of loans went through self-serve. Staff are able to spend better quality time with patrons and they now have more time to stop and think and be proactive. Expect to be able to do more staff training, provide more customer services and now focus some time and effort on their website.

Colin Bates and Bernie Lingham from Deakin spoke about Electronic Information Literacy using multiple technologies. They began with a video of a session, showing us what they were talking about - always helpful.

Bernie spoke first on Ellimuniate Live - a trial synchronous web conferencing package, which enables librarians to run information literacy sessions for distance and other students who can’t make it into the library for the in-house sessions. The package uses software, which Deakin provides to students, microphones and headphones/speakers to enable moderators to communicate with up to 10 students at a time, whilst delivering a class. No formal evaluations were taken on the classes, however informal feedback from students has been very positive. They felt confident to do the tasks themselves afterwards and enjoyed having the training delivered in a form and at a time that was convenient for them. Only concern from the moderators side was the low participation rates, with sometimes only 1/2 the booked students, attending the session. The only technical problem was the need for JavaStart and firewall issues, which were the reasons for some non-attendance.

Colin then spoke on how the library was using Deakin’s portal to push library service to students and faculty. All need to sign into the portal to access their email and includes 30 tabs linking to different resources. The uni sought more library content available via RSS which could be presented on the portal. The Library channel has a quick catalogue search, but focuses mainly on online journal content through RSS feeds. It aims to supplement the library webpage and draw attention to the library’s online journals. Content was selected on the basis of likely interest, historical use, user requests and availability of RSS with topics including news, current affairs, general interest and news journals etc. Why RSS in the portal? Already authenticated, simple for the naive user and value adding. User response? 13-35% increase in subscriptions from Oct-Dec 2006.

My boss thought of a great theme for our last blog post for the year, based loosely at the Christmas season, on the 12 days of Christmas. So here’s my personal Library 2.0 achievements for 2006.

1. Got involved in contributing to a second blog (besides my first) - the VALA blog
2. Celebrated my first year of this personal blog
3. Got a blog started on my library’s website, with management support and co-contributing to it
4. Invited to join the team at libraries interact - so cool and gives me the opportunity to learn and work with some awesome people across library sectors and across Australia. Thanks!
5. Applied for and got a study scholarship to go to the US and study successful Library 2.0 initiatives (going April 07)
6. Started training in our new whiz bang library system (coming early 2007)
7. As a result of 6., started plotting other new ways we can serve our patrons
8. Talked about starting a Flickr account (or more than one) for various purposes
9. Started the review process of our website, by looking at what else is out there
10. Started using a wiki for number 9.0
11. Started using Meebo for IM
12. Getting my personal library onto Library Thing

And that’s just off the top of my head. Its been a great year, a very progressive year in terms of Library 2.0 and 2007 is going to be even better.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you have all had an equally successful 2006!