Social Software in the Library

The last few days I have been looking at other library sites and reading articles on how to best use social software in libraries.  I have to admit that it was overwhelming goinf through the different ideas and how I could make it happen here at RWU.  At this university we have a tool called MyRWU which allows the students to add feeds, get announcements, link to sites and access email.  Unfortunately there is not a library presence on this site.  However, our access librarian has created a feed which the students could add to their personalized Myrwu site which provides links to Books, videos, articles and new resources.  This is useful but I think we need to have current information and announcements available.  As an experiment, I started a blog for my department and found I could add it as a feed to my own MyRWU site.  The blog address is http://rwuserials.wordpress.com/.   On this blog I list new acquisitions, journal articles of interest and announcements of new databases.  My intention is to promote our existing collections and increase use of them. 

The challenge would be to get students to add this to their site.  I think that could be accomplished if the library as a whole got together to identify different applications we could offer the community and how can we make the process of adding our link simple.  Another concern is who do we get the platform to carry this project out.  Although we have a good working relationship with our IT department, the MyRWU site is administered by the Marketing/PR department.  There are also committees that need to be consulted before things like this can be published.  I agree that control is important to have on what gets posted but also can see how the different layers slow things down. 

For reasons such as I outlined above, it is essential for the library to take a leading position in the introduction of projects such as this.  With careful consideration of the goals and and effective presentation of the concept the library can succeed in its mission.

Facebook

I signed up recently for a facebook account and found it to be an entertaining social site. I am on the University’s recycling committee which is student run and they have a group on facebook which I joined. I also found some interesting library applications. I found a link to the worldcat Application for facebook which I think would be very useful to have on a page. The link is http://apps.facebook.com/worldcat/
People have been suggesting that the future of the public face of our catalogs may be Worldcat. It really works nicely.
There is a great article by Cliff Landis called Social Networking Sites (College & Research Libraries News; Dec2007, Vol. 68 Issue 11, p709-712, 4p) which discusses myspace, facebook etc being used by libraries.
I also saw the link to UIUC Library Search which is a federated search. I wish we would have federated searching at my library as it would be very beneficial for our users. I would imagine that these applications being in facebook meet the patrons where they are. In the case of many students, facebook seems to be an on-line community where the library can reach out to people.  Facebook does give students an easy link to the library homepage.
Still I need some practice to get accustomed to the site. I find the many invitations to quizzes and mini feeds distracting.   

Must read article on library web sites

I just wanted alert people of a very good article in College & Research Libraries, titled “Engaging Users: the Future of Academic Library Web Sites” by Shu Liu (v.69, no.1,January 2008, p. 6-27).  It not only discusses topics we have been discussing such as Web 2.0,feeds, blogs, etc, but also gives examples on innovative web sites at 111 academic libraries. 

Implementation of Social Software

I think our library is ready to implement social software.  The hurdles will be how and when.  We are very interested in having a feed with updates on the library.  At this point that utility is being used so students can gain easy access to our library website and there is reluctance to change the information on this feed.  When placed on a patron’s webpage, they will have direct links to our search tools for books, journal articles and videos.  I guess you could say the hurdle here is what is the main purpose for this feed.  Also, since all the public terminals on campus default to a University webpage, I think it would be better to place news on the library in a general news feed.  Why segregate the library from the rest of the campus?  If you want to be the central meeting place of an institution, you need to be part of it to begin with.

Resistance to change as we have read is always an obstacle.  Librarians need to be conscious on how to approach change and difficult situations if they want to be successful in the profession.  When we first introduced a blog for the library staff it met with resistance.  I myself was not clear why we were going to create the blog.  Since it was centered in reference, those of us in technical services felt uninvolved in the concept.  Also the fact that it was another site we would have to sign into to read did not encourage use.  Involvement during the development of the blog would have resulted in better buy in.  After learning what I have in this course, I have made a link to it on my igoogle page and using google reader, it is much more attractive to look at.  I can easily see what new postings there are there and access the information quickly.  This is an internal blog only yet the information here would be useful to all.  This brings us to a point made in the “Technology Trends for a 2.0 World” article.  Openness, sharing and transparency are the new guiding concepts we need to follow.  Why keep information on what resources a class will  need for their assignments on an internal blog?  The goal is for the student to complete his assignment and less on how to use the library so access to this information makes sense.

The library is preparing to unveil our new Encore interface for our III Opac.  I think it will be very interesting as there will be tag clouds and social tagging.  Belonging to a consortium, I notice librarians at some other libraries are wary of this idea.  I’m glad to say we are approaching the project in a very positive manner. 

Social Bookmarking and tagging

Del.icio.us allows social bookmarking or informal tagging of bookmarks.  This site is useful in that it allows you to access your bookmarks from other computers.  It is also handy in seeing what other people are tagging the site to gauge its popularity.  For instance, if you want to find a site on audio books, by finding a site which is popular, you could make the assumption that the site is useful.  It still lacks the authority control but savvy researchers will know that. 

Library Thing does much the same thing for books that del.icio.us does for bookmarks.  What I found very interesting about this site was that books can be entered with a scanner which is available on the site for low cost.  It also provides Library of Congress information as well as descriptions from popular sites such as Amazon.  You can choose to share your collections or keep them private.  I wish Librarything would allow the input of other formats such as DVDs and cds.  I presently use Amazon’s social bookmarking service as it allows different formats.  If Librarything were to accept different formats, I see I could upload my holding in Amazon to Librarything.  I would do so since I like the functionality of Librarything.

Flickr – This service allows one to store and publish their photos on the web.  This seems perfect for sharing photos with friends and family as well as the public at large.  It also allows images to be accessed from different computers and is useful in linking to other web applications such as Facebook and Youtube in order to add graphics.  Being able to create your own tags is useful and also provides insight about others perceptions.  This is evidenced by the collaboration of Flickr and the Library of Congress in their pilot project called the Commons.  Users are asked to provide tags to images from the Library of Congress to expand description of the images and promote the collection.

 

All three sites allow discovery through terms that may not have traditionally used to describe them.  If you are searching for a friend’s bookmarks, photos or books, if they used their name as tag you would find their materials easily.  These tags would also lead you to other tags that may be relevant but not apparent to you at first.

 

I love the organization aspects of the three products.  There are so many pieces of information and resources now; it is easy to forget what you already possess.  In fact del.icio.us can even check for duplicate sites before you add the bookmark.  Being able to build on my previous research and information gathering is a real time saver.  This is also true in the workplace with the added benefit of enabling promotion of resources and discussion of ideas.  Libraries can use these technologies to encourage their role as a social hub.  That  is what social bookmarking strives to do, share information and promote interaction among people. 

RSS Feeds

Rss feeds are not only informative but I can see how entertaining they are.  What a time saver too when you don’t have to go to a site to see updates or remember to do so.  I chose to use Google Reader and like it very much.  I did have a few problems to get certain links to add so I cut and pasted the URL for the feeds and it worked fine.  Editing the feeds was very simple. 

I compared Libworm and Google Blog Search.  Obviously Libworm brought up fewer hits and was more accurate for my needs.  Google brought in 196,956 more hits than Libworm which made me appreciate libworm’s filter.  Google was easier to manage I thought but that is probably because I am more familiar with their interface.

I guess what really excites me about RSS feeds would be the library’s ability to post timely information.  I am currently editing our newsletter and by the time our publications department publishes the newsletter, the news is outdated.  A RSS feed would get tjhe information out more timely and maybe we would want to replace the newsletter in print completely with a blog and RSS feed.

I would also find a feed useful in announcing our acquisitions and events.  As the serials librarian, I am always looking for ways to promote the collection.  What a great idea it would be to announce articles in periodicals to the promote use and maybe even discussion. 

Library 2.0

I felt “11 reasons why Library 2.0″ hit closest for home too me.  For sometime we have been talking at our library about the need to meet the students where they live.  This has meant blogs and IM tools.  We were very successful with the IM utility but the Blog technology has not been used as effectively.  Interdepartmental integration was discussed in the article.  We have seen this in action.  We have recently brought IT over to the library and had to “knock down some walls”.  While we all see this as beneficial and are enthusiastic, we also have discovered what big differences there are in our customer service ideas. 

L2’s impact on the authority debate has always concerned me.  I guess we just need to educate our users.  It was easier before when we could control the authority by not adding materials from suspect organizations.  Maybe the time we save concentrating on our print collections can  be spent producing tutorials and educating our users.  What do you think?

First Post

Welcome to my new Blog.  The catalyst for the development of this blog is a course I am taking called The Read/Write web.  Hopefully I will become skilled enough to make this worth your time.  First of all, something about myself.  My name is John Fobert and I live in Cranston, RI.  I work at Roger Williams University as the Serials / Government Documents Librarian.  Here is the link to our library webpage,  http://library.rwu.edu.  I also have a personal faculty page at http://faculty.rwu.edu/jfobert/.

As I mentioned before, I am enrolled in the Read/Write Web course.  They reason I signed up was to learn more about the social interaction opportunities now available.  The students make use of things such as facebook and blogs that were not part of my “traditional” training.  I was a member of the DOS generation.  If I can sharpen my skills, I will be able to meet the students at their own level.