Tag: Public library

ER&L 2013: Lightning Talks

“¡Rayos!” by José Eugenio Gómez Rodríguez

Speaker: Emily Guhde, NCLIVE
“We’ve Got Your Number: Making Usage Data Matter” is the project they are working on. What is a good target cost per use for their member libraries? They are organizing this by peer groups. How can the member libraries improve usage? They are hoping that other libraries will be able to replicated this in the future.

Speaker: Francis Kayiwa, UIC
He is a server administrator with library training, and wanted to be here to understand what it is his folks are coming back and asking him to do. Cross-pollinate conferences — try to integrate other kinds of conferences happening nearby.

Speaker: Annette Bailey, Virginia Tech
Co-developed LibX with her husband, now working on a new project to visualize what users are clicking on after they get a search result in Summon. This is a live, real-time visualization, pulled from the Summon API.

Speaker: Angie Rathnel, University of Kansas
Have been using a SAS called Callisto to track and claim eresources. It tracks access to entitlements daily/weekly, and can check to make sure proxy configurations are set up correctly.

Speaker: Cindy Boeke, Southern Methodist University
Why aren’t digital library collections included with other library eresources on lists and such (like the ubiquitous databases A-Z page)?

Speaker: Rick Burke, SCELC
SIPX to manage copyright in a consortial environment. Something something users buying access to stuff we already own. I’m guessing this is more for off-campus access?

Speaker: Margy Avery, MIT Press
Thinking about rich/enhanced digital publications. Want to work with libraries to make this happen, and preservation is a big issue. How do we catalog/classify this kind of resource?

Speaker: Jason Price, Claremont Colleges
Disgruntled with OpenURL and the dependency on our KB for article-level access. It is challenging to keep our lists (KBs) updated and accurate — there has to be a better way. We need to be working with the disgrundterati who are creating startups to address this problem. Pubget was one of the first, and since then there is Dublin Six, Readcube, SIPX, and Callisto. If you get excited about these things, contact the startups and tell them.

Speaker: Wilhelmina Ranke, St. Mary’s University
Collecting mostly born digital collections, or at least collections that are digitized already, in the repository: student newspaper, video projects, and items digitized for classroom use that have no copyright restrictions. Doesn’t save time on indexing, but it does save time on digitizing.

Speaker: Bonnie Tijerina, Harvard
The #ideadrop house was created to be a space for librar* to come together to talk about librar* stuff. They had a little free library box for physical books, and also a collection of wireless boxes with free digital content anyone could download. They streamed conversations from the living room 5-7 times a day.

Speaker: Rachel Frick
Digital Public Library of America focuses on content that is free to all to create a more informed citizenry. They want to go beyond just being a portal for content. They want to be a platform for community involvement and conversations.

IL 2012: The Next Big Thing

Moving on
“Moving on” by Craig Allen

Speaker: Dave Hesse & Brian Pichman

They used a Lazer Tag like system to set up “Hunger Games” nights in the library. They also used a bunch of interactive tech toys for different kinds of game nights.

They’re mounting tables as shelf labels that show the range in sleep mode, but when activated will display reviews and other information about books in the range, as well as other interactive multimedia.

Speaker: Sarah Houghton

Cutting stuff. Cutting lots of things out of the budget, services, etc. All of these things we learn about take time and money, and we can’t do all of them. She’s making everyone in her library earn their pet program. It has to show some sort of ROI (not specifically financial). Make business decisions about what we do and why.

Q: What did you cut that you didn’t want to?
A: Magnatune deal — really wanted to do it, but didn’t have the staff time and a negative amount of money to dedicate to anything.

Speaker: Ben Bizzle

We are doing a really poor job of marketing ourselves to our communities, and we’re wasting money on old methods and tools to do it. There are more cost-effective ways to do this, particularly for public libraries. Facebook is a really cost-effective way to market to your community over and over again, and running ads to get people in your community to like your Facebook page has been shown to be very effective. Be part of the stream without being disruptive. Facebook events invitations are disruptive and ineffective.

Next big things from the audience:

  • Would like to have a better way to provide remote authentication for users from anywhere, regardless of the speed of the connection (i.e. 3G mobile phone or a hotel wireless connection).
  • Focusing on programming that brings the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking communities together.
  • Integrating local self-published creators’ content within the rest of the library’s electronic content.
  • Trying to find better metrics to measure success for ROI.
  • Developing community investors from FOL and active volunteers.
  • Giving up paper flyers/posters and moving to digital.
  • Moving social media effort to marketing department.
  • Looking at duplicate efforts and winnowing them down.
  • Learning how to code.
  • Hiring part-time and hiring non-librarians.
  • FRBR. RDA. Say no more.
  • Advocacy. Facetime with politicians and other sources of funding.
  • Would like to hear more from public libraries on ‘bring your own device’ initiatives that could be applied in the academic library setting.
  • Gamification of library resources and services.
  • Wikipedia – we should be creating more content there.
  • Better relationships with publishers.
  • The next level of life-long learning like Coursera and making the library a hub for it.
  • Downloadble database of music by local musicians.
  • Copyright, curations, folksonomies, and other issues of creating communities.
  • Podcasting.
  • Digitization projects that engage specific communities.
  • Keeping my head above water. Migrating to a more self-service model while maintaining a high level of service.
  • Moving to a new ILS. Proprietary or open source?
  • Reaching out to atypical non-users. Running ads in local for sale magazines.
  • Lock-in gaming nights.

NASIG 2012: Mobile Websites and APP’s in Academic Libraries Harmony on a Small Scale

Speaker: Kathryn Johns-Masten, State University of New York Oswego

About half of American adults have smart phones now. Readers of e-books tend to read more frequently than others. They may not be reading more academic material, but they are out there reading.

SUNY Oswego hasn’t implemented a mobile site, but the library really wanted one, so they’ve created their own using the iWebKit from MIT.

Once they began the process of creating the site, they had many conversations about who they were targeting and what they expected to be used in a mobile setting. They were very selective about which resources were included, and considered how functional each tool was in that setting. They ended up with library hours, contact, mobile databases, catalog, ILL article retrieval (ILLiad), ask a librarian, Facebook, and Twitter (in that order).

When developing a mobile site, start small and enhance as you see the need. Test functionality (pull together users of all types of devices at the same time, because one fix might break another), review your usage statistics, and talk to your users. Tell your users that it’s there!

Tools for designing your mobile site: MobiReady, Squeezer, Google Mobile Site Builder, Springshare Mobile Site Builder, Boopsie, Zinadoo, iWebKit, etc.

Other things related to library mobile access… Foursquare! The library has a cheat sheet for answers to the things freshman are required to find on campus, so maybe they could use Foursquare to help with this. Tula Rosa Public Library used a screen capture of Google Maps to help users find their new location. QR codes could link to ask a librarian, book displays linked to reviews, social media, events, scavenger hunts, etc. Could use them to link sheet music to streaming recordings.

Mobile websites and APP’s in academic libraries: Harmony on a small scale

ER&L: Toward the Digital Public Library of America

Speaker: Amanda French

Korea has a national digital library that recently opened a physical space in Seoul. It is not small or inexpensive, and contains a large collection. They are digitizing books, and have more than what is available in Netlibrary. The equipment in the building is high tech and varied, with multiple purposes in use. You can see photos of this on Flickr.

This is not about the wow factor. This is about providing information and resources to the citizens of Korea. They changed laws to allow the di-brarians to collect as much as they can from everywhere.

There is some talk of building a national digital library in the US, but only in a virtual sense. It started from a classical/Jeffersonian perspective, but public librarians have gotten involved, and the scope has widened.

The library is a public good and should be municipally supported, but this concept is relatively new in US history. However, recent financial woes have caused these entities to reduce or remove funding. In one town, the public checked out every book in the building to protest the closing of the library.

The biggest barrier to creating a national digital library in the Us is copyright laws. Korea was willing to change laws, but is our government? Do we have the funding to pay for enough lobbyists?

The text of this talk is available on her blog. This is just my paraphrase of the points she made.

thing 15: library/web 2.0

Librarians should be on the forefront of providing information services to users, but for some reason, we have a sizable contingent who seem to think that the innovations of the 70s and 80s are good enough for now. They’re the ones most often reacting negatively to anyone who mentions anything Library 2.0.

Anytime someone mentions some new web tool or gadget, and you think or say, “We don’t need that in our library!” or “What would you want to use that for?” stop for a moment. Do you use a computer in your daily library work? Do you use email to communicate with your colleagues and users? Have you talked to someone on the phone recently? These are all technologies that at some point in time, someone(s) didn’t think were needed in a library. They were wrong.

Maybe you don’t need to be on Twitter or Facebook to reach your users. (In fact, there have been many informal studies that indicate that students don’t want us in their social spaces.) But, you can use online social networking tools to expand your professional network, learn about what your colleagues are doing to improve services in their libraries, and share the things you are doing in your own library. Surely those are things that benefit the profession?

These things that people talk about as Web 2.0 are simply tools. You can choose how and when you will use them.

Library 2.0 has been used to describe a mindset that is open to exploring these tools and using them to enhance library services, but I think that has been a part of our profession for a long time. Library 2.0 was there when we began moving from card catalogs to online public access terminals. Library 2.0 was there when we opened up the stacks and allowed users to browse the shelves. Library 2.0 was there when we created free, circulating libraries that allowed anyone to access the knowledge they contained.

The philosophy of Library 2.0 isn’t anything new, we’re just using different words to describe what we already do best — exploring innovative ways to connect users with the information they are seeking.

CiL 2008: Going Local in the Library

Speaker: Charles Lyons

[Speakers for track C will all be introduced in haiku form.]

Local community information has been slower to move online than more global information provided by sources such as search engines and directories, but that is changing. Google can provide directory information, but they can’t tell you which of the barbers listed near you, for example, are good ones. They’re trying, but it’s much harder to gather and index that information. “In ur community, inforimin ur localz.” The local web can be something deeper, hyper, semantic.

Local information can sound boring if it doesn’t effect you directly. For example, information about street repairs can be important if it is happening along the routes you drive regularly. The local web connects the real world and the virtual world. The local web is bringing a sense of place to the Internet.

Libraries provide access to local information such as genealogy, local history, local government info, etc.

Local search engines started off as digital phone books, but now they are becoming more integrated with additional information such as maps and users reviews. Ask.com provides walking directions as well as driving directions, which I did not know but plan to make use of in the future. By using tools like Google Custom Search, libraries are creating local search engines, rather than just having a page of local links. MyCommunityInfo.ca is a popular search engine for residents of London, Ontario.

Local blogs also provide information about communities, so creating a local blog directory might be useful. Be sure to add them to your local search engine. Local news sites blend user-generated information with traditionally published sources. Useful news sites will allow users to personalize them and add content. Libraries are involved in creating local online communities (see Hamilton Public Library in Ontario).

Local data is being aggregated by sites like EveryBlock, which pulls information from the deep web. It’s currently available in three cities (Chicago, New York, & San Francisco) with plans for expansion, and once the grant ends, the code will be opened to anyone.

Wikipedia is a start for providing local information, and a few libraries are using wiki technology to gather more detailed local information.

Metadata such as geotagging allows more automation for gathering locally relevant information. Flickr provides geographic feeds, which can be streamed on local information sites.

Libraries are using Google Maps mashups to indicate their locations, but could be doing more with it. Libraries could create maps of historical locations and link them to relevant information sites.

No successful revenue generation has been formulated for local information sites. Most local sites are generated by passionate individuals. Libraries, which are not revenue generating sources anyway, are better poised to take on the responsibility of aggregating and generating local information. Particularly since we’re already in the role of information provision.

Libraries can be the lense into local information.

CiL 2008 Keynote: Libraries Solve Problems!

Speaker: Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project

[Prez of InfoToday, in his introduction, announced that 2202 attendees are registered for this conference with 49 states (no one from Wyoming), Puerto Rico, D.C., and 18 countries (7 Canadian provinces) represented. 186 speakers and moderators this year!]

[House-keeping note from Jane Dysart: The men’s restroom on the ballroom level is now a women’s restroom, so the guys will have to go up to the exhibit level. There was much rejoicing.]

Rainie began by apologizing for not originally including librarians as stakeholders in the work of PIALP. This year, his new grant proposal lists librarians at the top, which was well received by the audience. He thanked librarians for their active involvement with the Pew project.

Bloggers were thanked for raising awareness of the Pew project, and for praising Rainie’s past presentations. Yay, bloggers! New media rocks. “Blogging is about community and connection as much as it is about publishing.”

In 2000, studies showed that most Internet connections were via dial-up, and no one was using wireless. In 2007, more than 50% of Americans now access the Internet via broadband, and 62% connect via wireless, both through computers or through cell phones. Wireless connectivity is decreasing the digital divide, and it also responsible for the resurgence of the value of email. “The reports of the death of email are premature.”

Information and communication technology tools are now so interconnected that it’s changing the way we think about information storage and retrieval. The Internet is becoming our storage device, which we access through various portals such as cell phones, TiVo, and yes, computers.

39% of online teens share their creative content through sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. 33% of college students blog, and 54% read them. However, many are blogging through social networking tools or course management tools and they don’t necessarily identify them as blogs. Avatars are now considered to be creative content, which is something I hadn’t thought about before.

A recent grant research with funding from IMLS and in partnership with IUC, PIALP looked at how folks get information from government sources to solve problems. 79.5% of the adults surveyed had, in the past two years, had an information need that could have been satisfied by information from government agencies. Gen Y (18-30) were the most likely to have visited a library in their search for information (62%), followed closely by Gen X (31-42) at 58%. (Psst… 60% of online teens use the Internet at libraries, up from 36% in 2000!)

Don’t listen to the naysayers who claim that the Internet is killing libraries. Public library users are more likely to be Internet users. Those who are information seekers are more likely to be adventurous in exploring information sources. Broadband users are also more likely to use a public library, and there is no difference in the patronage of libraries based on ethnicity. Young adults are more likely to visit a library to solve a problem than any other age group!

Users talked to library staff to solve their information needs slightly more than using the technology provided by the library, which were the top two ways that they found solutions to their problems. Gen Y users are generationally most likely to return to a library. Rainie thinks that because Gen Y users have been forced to use libraries through school projects, and they have seen how libraries have grown and changed over the years to meet their needs, so they have a good feeling about libraries as a source for solving their problems.

Rainie’s take-away message is that libraries need to do more publicity about how they can solve problems. “The people who know you best are the ones that keep coming back.” Let’s tell our success stories to more than just each other, which we already do a pretty good job of. Give our fans the tools to evangelize and provide feedback, and they can have a significant impact on raising awareness of libraries. Create a comfortable environment for “un-patrons” so that they aren’t afraid to ask questions and learn the technology. Become a node in social networks. (For example, Facebook apps for searching library resources or communicating with reference librarians may not be as unwanted as we might think they are.)

Rainie is an engaging speaker that I look forward to hearing from him in the future.

nasig day 1 & 2

This is my first attempt at a conference blog, but I couldn’t come to NASIG this year with my brand new wi-fi enabled laptop and not blog something while here. I hope to blog again tomorrow, but that will depend on whether or not I manage to get away for an hour or so. It’s a lengthy entry.

This is my first attempt at a conference blog, but I couldn’t come to NASIG this year with my brand new wi-fi enabled laptop and not blog something while here. I hope to blog again tomorrow, but that will depend on whether or not I manage to get away for an hour or so. It’s a lengthy entry.

Continue reading “nasig day 1 & 2”

dark enough for you?

I received this amusing forward in my email this morning: NEW YORK (Aug. 14) – A huge power blackout hit U.S. cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada Thursday afternoon. In New York City, the blackout had a significant effect on the public library. None of the Internet terminals … Continue reading “dark enough for you?”

I received this amusing forward in my email this morning:

NEW YORK (Aug. 14) – A huge power blackout hit U.S. cities spreading from New York to Cleveland and Detroit and north into Canada Thursday afternoon. In New York City, the blackout had a significant effect on the public library. None of the Internet terminals or other computers in the New York Library system were functioning, but the novels and non-fiction books somehow remained operational, according to patrons on the scene. Older reference librarians were able to switch to print sources in order to maintain services, preventing any disruption. Seekers of pornography crowded the reference desks asking for help and were referred to a list of bawdy novels and assorted men’s magazines.

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