Non-English blog roundup #3

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Via betabib (Swedish), RSS4Lib has a list of library web pages that list experimental, beta, or trial web tools and services.

Thomas on Vagabondages (French) discusses CollegeDegree’s “25 social networking tools”; I was particularly interested by Daft Doggy, of which Thomas says “If I’ve understood correctly, Daft Doggy is an application which lets you record a session in a web-browswer and then… replay the [web-surfing] visit, modify it, and add commentary.”
Thomas also quotes Fred Cavassa who says, “Have you noticed that the term ‘web 2.0’ is no longer fashionable? […] Now we speak of social media.“

Dominique, bibl. prof. (French) links to her presentation from the ASTED/CBPQ colloquium about profession wikis in libraries: the example of the University of Quebec network (powerpoint).

Via Deakialli, Desde los Zancos 2.0 interviews Dídac Margaix Arnal (Spanish). To a question about promoting collaborative library 2.0 technologies faced with hesitant managers, Dídac suggests talking about:

  1. personal experience – how web 2.0 tools have helped you professionally;
  2. experiences of other libraries;
  3. the fact that the tools are free; and especially
  4. “we have to assume that Web 2.0 is the form in which digital natives communicate, relate to each other, inform themselves, compare information, etc. If we want to converse with them, we’ll have to use these tools […]”

Bibliobsession 2.0 (French) talks about the idea of using Cover Flow for catalogue displays. There are tools for creating coverflow displays: “for the English-speaking library geeks, this post on The Corkboard presents other technical possibilities to do the same thing, and there also exists Protoflow to do the same thing.”

Marlène’s Corner (French) reports the launch of Hypothèses.org, “a blog platform destined to lodge journal blogs […] As for the journals, the blogs will be subjected to a selection process […]” The posts aren’t intended to replace articles, but to accompany and facilitate the publishing process.

Linking away from the library

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David Lee King’s notes from a session by David Weinberger, specifically “a blogger that links to other places tells people to ‘go away.’ The hope is that readers will find that valuable enough to come back to you.” reminded me of something I’d been thinking about yesterday.

There’s a bit of resistance to library pages linking outwards to other sites and services. The reasoning goes that “If students wanted to search on Google Scholar they’d go there, not our databases page” and “If students wanted to search on Amazon they’d go there, not our catalogue.”

Which is true and in the past I’ve had no answer for it. But these days there are so many different places to go to and search, who wants to check each one individually? That’s why we have rss readers, and federated searching, and Meebo, and social aggregators.

These days, where (to pick numbers at random for illustration purposes) you might have a dozen sites each with an average 40% chance of finding what you’re looking for, you don’t go to the site which has a whopping 50% chance. You go to the site which makes it easy to go to the other sites and ramp up your chances to 90%.

So if Google Scholar searches 80% of the library databases, and the library databases search 80% of what Scholar gets, but Scholar has the “Full Text @ My Library” link and the library has no link to Scholar — then where are students going to go?

And if Amazon searches a bazillion books that will require extortionate shipping costs and weeks to reach New Zealand at all, and the library catalogue has a million books that are actually here for free, but you can get your LibX plugin to link from Amazon to the library catalogue, whereas the library catalogue stops with “Sorry, could not find anything matching [your title], the end, have a nice day” — then where are students going to go?

Okay, it’s not quite that simple, if only because most students haven’t actually heard of Google Scholar or LibX so they’re actually going to be searching sites that don’t link back to the library at all. But the principle of the thing remains. Just because a resource or service is outside of the library doesn’t mean we shouldn’t link to it. Libraries are meant to be all about the added value, aren’t we? Well, linking outward adds value — the sort of value that makes it worth the while of our customers to spend their valuable time using our service.

Non-English blog roundup #2

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Deakialli DokuMental (Spanish) writes about navigation and filtering with tags – also discusses facets. “What is the problem? That description and navigation are different concepts.” This post made me think about searching using social bookmarking sites. I use Diigo which only has an AND search – as far as I can tell (and I hunted a bit) there’s no way to do even an NOT or OR search. Del.icio.us has a few advanced search options, but still no truncation search. As far as I know, there’s no reason this couldn’t be done, and it would make a search for “blog OR blogs OR blogging” much easier.

Documentalistes (Catalan) briefly evaluates Google Image Ripper, a site where you can type in your image search and it brings up the full-size images instead of the thumbnails. I note that it doesn’t solve the duplication problem: it would be Really Cool if a search for “madame de lafayette” didn’t include both images #1 and #5 which are identical. (Literally: Answers.com took it straight off Wikimedia. Some kind of pixel-by-pixel matching algorithm? Yes, yes, strain on the server and would slow down the results. Still.)

DosPuntoCero (Spanish) talks about some surveys described in the book “Libraries and the Mega-Internet Sites” (ISBN: 1-57440-096-7) The blog has pretty bar graphs for

  • librarians’ attitude to Wikipedia (untrustworthy, use with care, as good as print encyclopaedias)
  • whether libraries have a YouTube account (yes, no, planned for the next year)
  • whether libraries have published photos on Flickr (yes, no)

The bars are blue for public libraries, red for university libraries, green for special libraries. My executive summary: public libraries are more liberal towards all these things than university libraries; special libraries are between the two on Wikipedia and Flickr but way down there on YouTube.

Biblog (Danish) links to Intute, “a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners.” (quote from Intute’s page) I definitely need to explore this more. My colleague reminded me that Intute also created The Internet Detective which teaches students how to work out whether internet pages are trustworthy or not.

And just for fun, betabib (Swedish) links to an (English) interview with a helpdesk operative on the Death Star. If I weren’t hungry for my lunch I’d work out how to be web2.0pian and embed it here, but my cheese and pineapple sandwiches are calling to me.

Library on Location

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Last year a colleague and I took a laptop and some borrowable material out of the library to a couple of places by student cafes to see what kind of interest we’d get. (We originally planned to call the service “Laptop Librarians”, but some of our other colleagues have very dodgy minds, so we ended up calling it “Library on Location” instead.) We ran six trial sessions, then Christmas and various other projects intervened, but we eventually wrote up our Library on Location report (pdf, 166kB).

Short version: it was fun, feedback was positive, staffing is not always easy.

We felt it was definitely worth further investigation, so we’re now running a second trial with a fixed time and place to see if having a regular service increases usage through familiarity. One of the things we’re doing for that is getting our wonderfully cooperative colleagues to collect desk statistics back at our respective home branches to see how statistics “on location” at the same time compare.

Non-English blog roundup

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I’ve always liked learning other languages (three in high school, a couple more at university, two more when I travelled to their respective countries, medieval Danish when I started writing a fantasy book set in medieval Denmark…) and a while ago it occurred to me that not only are there library blogs written in languages other than English, but it’d be nice to make some of what they’re saying accessible to the English-speaking world.

I read two posts this morning that inspired me to start today. Note that my grasp of the Scandinavian languages remains patchy, but hopefully my translations aren’t too misleading.

  • Daniel Forsman on Betabib (Swedish) reports that “Inspired by Penn State’s work I’ve just built an ‘HTML | iGoogle gadget generator’ for our direct search function.” You can see the resulting widget on the Jönköping Högskolebiblioteket homepage under “Direktsökning” – the dropdown menu allows searching in various databases, and the “+Google” button allows users to add the search to their iGoogle page.
  • Erik Høy on Biblog (Danish) points to Mellop, a website which gives you a free email address that lasts for 15 minutes. Why would you want an email address that you can’t use for longer than that? Well, a lot of web services require you to give an email address when registering, which they send your password or confirmation to. Maybe you don’t trust them to not keep spamming you, so give them a Mellop temporary address, receive the email with the password/confirmation, and throw away the Mellop address. Warning: if you later forget your password for the web service, you’ll have a hard time convincing them to give it to you again now your Mellop email address no longer works.

LibWorld has a great round-up of blogs in various countries, which I’ll have to look through properly at some time(s). Does anyone know of any other non-English library blogs I should be following? I can probably get more or less sense out of French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. I probably couldn’t get much out of Korean, but it’d be fun trying.

Computers in Libraries 2008 (LONG!)

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I wasn’t at this conference (obviously, for those who know me) but I’ve been attempting to keep up via blogs and wanted to make some notes for myself about some of the cool things I’ve been reading. So what follows is a screed of super-brief notes gathered from various people who were there, in many cases blatantly plagiarised sans attribution from their blogs. Sorry about that, folks…

Programme at InfoToday

Keynote – Pew Internet… (powerpoint at Pew Internet)Lee Rainie

  • 60% of teens use the library in 2008 compared to 36% in 2000
  • Lack of awareness is an inhibitor

Fast & Easy Site Tune-Ups
Jeff Wisniewski

  • use code to keep copyright / last-updated dates fresh
  • contact info -> hCards
  • add labels to forms, checkboxes etc for accessibility

Widgets, tools and doodads for library webmasters (presentation at slideshare)
Darlene Fichter, Frank Cervone

User-Generated Content
Roy Tennant

  • more content is better, more access is better
  • plugged Kete
  • WorldCat going social; LoC using Flickr…
  • Are you set up appropriately to meet your goals?
  • user engagement is a good thing

Library Web Presence: Engaging the Audience
lots of people including Ellysa Stern Cahoy

  • widgets!
  • LibGuides subject guides – still need marketing but usage more than doubled in first month
  • Research Jumpstart at Penn for freshman – stripped down to basics
  • faculty and grad students like being able to build their own page with feeds and widgets

Hi Tech & Hi Touch (pdf at the Shifted Librarian)
Jenny Levine

  • Patrons don’t care whether they’re being reached by high or low technology; they just want high touch. (eg new books list – not just titles and authors, but blurbs and/or covers which give more info)
  • Link to ILL with “We don’t own this, but we will get it for you.”
  • Idea to present a database of the week via SlideShare
  • MeeboMe widget, email link, library hours etc on the null-search page in the catalogue

Innovation Starts with “I” (Slides at LibraryBytes)
Helene Blowers and Tony Tallent

  • Creativity is thinking up new things; innovation is doing new things.
  • involves creativity, strategy, implementation, profitability
  • Don’t ask for permission – ask for support!
  • Sell your vision multiple ways – on paper, face-to-face, presentation. Tell a story about how it could change life for a user.
  • “book bundles” that they bind up with yarn, ready for patron to “grab and go”

Innovative Marketing Using Web 2.0. (Slides at Digitisation 101)
Helene Blowers and Michael Porter

  • library brand is books and community – not logo
  • consumers impact the branding – let them promote you
  • use web 2.0 to tell stories
  • make the branding portable
  • Hennepin their community to submit a photo of reading Harry Potter to the website and Flickr

Mashups for Non-Techies: Yahoo! Pipes (powerpoint, links, more at CIL2008 wiki
Jody Fagan

  • no programming involved – just plug in information

Keynote: Innovative & Inspiring
Delft guys Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, and Geert van den Boogaard

  • made documentary re libraries, travelling around US
  • video they made available here
  • “The book is one of the best technologies ever invented, but it is a technology.”

Transparency, Planning & Change: See-Through Libraries (pdf at Tame the Web)
Michael Casey and Michael Stephens

  • Don’t ask staff for input if you’re not going to use it.

Drupal in Libraries slidecast at OEDB
Ellyssa Kroski

  • Ann Arbor District Library has module to integrate OPAC into website – new website gave 40% increase in traffic
  • also used in classes, for intranets, for planning, workshop sign-ups…
  • being used to empower staff to be able to contribute content to the website directly without the filter of a webmaster
  • library specific modules eg MARC and Z39.50
  • many conferences, resources, mailing lists etc for support

Libraries A-Twitter & Using del.icio.us (Dutch writeup here)
lots of people including Michael Sauers

  • Systems are using twitter for event publicity and reference
  • used del.icio.us to create on the fly pathfinders, catalogue in-house and web resources and other uses – bookmarks here

Facebook Apps & Libraries’ Friendly Future (slideshare)
Laurie Bridges and Cliff Landis

  • sticky site: average user spends 20 minutes on the site
  • library apps exist but little used because not social
  • people WANT to interact, but they can’t find out how on a library site
  • It is never a mistake to give users more options.
  • *you* initiating friending with students or patrons can make you seem like Uncle Creepy, so it’s best to let them initiate it.

Harnessing New Data Visualization Tools (slides at slideshare)
Darlene Fichter

  • data is free but in a raw state that is not yet usable by most people

Catalog Effectiveness: Google Analytics & OPAC 2.0
Rebekah Kilzer, Cathy Weng and Jia Mi

  • use of Google Analytics to understand how its OPAC is used

From Woepac to Wowpac (writeup in Dutch)
lots of people including Karen G. Schneider

    (Me: I love this title)

  • Interoperability is essential: like using APIs
  • Blyberg: The fact that we can’t put together a quality OPAC isn’t because it’s hard to do, but rather that it is systemic and representative of the greater libraryworld problems
  • blogger: Putting a pretty face on a lousy ILS doesn’t get us where our patrons need us to be.

IM service, making it successful (writeup in Dutch)
Super Searcher
Mary Ellen Bates

Libraries as Laboratories for Innovation
Matt Gullett and Greg Schwartz

  • Need: Talent; Time and space; Support from admin
  • Play background music to help control volume in area

Leading Technology in Libraries
Gina Millsap and David Lee King

  • Library Director 2.0 – less hierarchy, involve all staff
  • Library Director 2.1 – customer service is job #1; do pilot projects; treat staff as customers
  • Job descriptions for all staff now say they will participate in the digital branch through blogging (NB based on talking to staff)

Pecha Kucha (podcasting powerpoint at Openstacks | IM slides at slideshare)
6 people with 6min40s to talk each

  • blogger: What if we were all challenged to do a high quality presentation in 6 minutes?
  • IM: 75% of online teens use to communicate; get happy with Meebo widgets for point-of-need help
  • podcasting: audience growing
  • wikis: like barnraising. Easy creation and *searchability*.
  • videocasting: use your users to staff your videos
  • facebook: “Myspace might kill you, but Facebook won’t.” Facebook highlights the user.
  • sceptic: If 2.0 is the solution, what was the problem?

Keynote: libraries as happiness engines (writeup in Dutch
Liz Lawley

  • happiness: satisfying work, experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like, chance to be part of something bigger
  • concept of “productive play”
  • games include collecting, points, feedback, exchanges, customization – can we build these into learning tasks?
  • Seriosity game to reduce emails sent

Technology Training for Library Staff: Creativity Works (pdf at Librarian in Black)
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Maurice and Annette

  • why train? confidence, saves money, serves users better, etc.
  • work with staff to brainstorm, plan
  • task-based
  • incentives
  • technology competencies and training material
  • Technology Petting Zoo project

Tech Tools for Effectively Managing Information (list at cil2008 wiki)
Roger Skalbeck and Barbara Fullerton

    Learning From Gaming
    Chad Boeninger

    • borrow ideas from successful social sites
    • how can we encourage more exploration in libraries?

    Gaming for Adults
    Martin House and Mark Engelbrecht

    • promoting in community worked better than on web
    • Users who have experienced the gaming events tend to gravitate toward the staff who run the gaming events afterwards when they are in the library for another need or reason.
    • The attendees come to the library more after the gaming events. They also use reference materials as their primary activity in coming to the library.

    Online Outreach for Libraries: Successful Digital Marketing (pdf at Librarian in Black)
    Sarah Houghton-Jan

    • place teasers where the users are; bring them to the library
    • list and links at the Utopian Library
    • from the floor: Sending people to a poorly designed website is worse than not being there at all.

    Findability: Information Not Location (powerpoint at rss4lib | writeup in Dutch)
    Mike Creech and Ken Varnum at U Michigan

    • multiple websites for multiple branches – rationalising content and form
    • focus groups, online survey, and one-question survey randomly on pages: either “What did you come to this page to do?” or “Why do you come to the library’s website?” Conversations with stakeholders, used Google Analytics
    • MTagger on all pages including catalogue – after 1 month 1000 tags by 300 taggers
    • anything searchable is an RSS feed. open APIs]
    • now choosing open-source search tool and CMS

    Google
    Greg Notess

    • most people don’t click things at top so integrating image results etc into main search results
    • Google Scholar: added elsevier titles, most frequent authors list.
    • Zero Phrase Search: Google change – they’re working on changing results – sometimes it will say No results found and will just search for the phrase without quotes – sometimes it won’t tell you no results found.

    What’s Hot in RSS & Social Software (links on speaker’s wiki | writeup in Dutch)
    Steven Cohen

      Kete
      Eric Atkinson

      • implementing Kete at Orange County Library System

      The New Generation of Library Interfaces
      Marshall Breeding

      • You want to make it so easy that users aren’t thinking about the interface but rather are thinking about the content.
      • enriched content
      • Can the library community bear the cost of this new OPAC? Can we afford to not do it or do it so slowly that we become irrelevant?

      Going Local in the Library: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Local 2.0
      Charles Lyons

      • Wikinorthia library-created local wiki (Meredith Farkas’ idea to create a university wiki, where the library could gather information from all different groups on campus to create a truly helpful resource for new students)

      Virtual Reference: Endless Possibilites
      Dan Sich and Derik Badman

      Collaborating with YouTubers to Enhance Library Instruction

      • involving students a good idea

      InfoTubey Awards

      5 thoughts on blog statistics

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      I haven’t yet worried about stats for this blog, but for our (academic) library blog I keep a fairly close eye on what websites/websearches our readers are coming from and what they’re doing once they get here.

      My favourite tool for blog statistics is StatCounter.com – it gives you huge detail on the latest 500 hits for free, and it’s invisible. A few random things I’ve discovered as a result:

      1. A google search for the name of our blog, or for the name of our library plus the word ‘blog’, brings us up at the top of the results – and people are finding us that way.
      2. A really effective way to get hits is to post information on the blog on how to research the first assignment of the first year of university for a class of 700 students, and get the lecturer to put the link up on Blackboard for them. We were getting well over 100 hits a day while that assignment ran – in the high two-digit figures of distinct visitors – about 10 times as many people as usual. And a month after the assignment was due, we’re still getting people coming from that link.
      3. Another good way to get hits is to give a tutorial, then post a summary of the tutorial afterwards, and send the link out to them. Okay, if all this did was get hits it’d be worthless – might as well just send them the summary directly – but some of the people do browse around some of the other categories, and may even return another day…
      4. Our statistics are slowly growing. We usually get 10+ hits a day now, even though I’ve weeded out as many library staff as I can identify as staff, when it used to be less than 10 a day even including staff. Sometimes it’s even 10+ people a day….
      5. The stats showed that someone had put a perfectly reasonable search term into the blog search box. I looked to see what results they’d have got and discovered it was just a dead end “0 results” results page, which didn’t seem very helpful, especially since I knew there was bound to be information about the topic somewhere on the main library website. So I wrote a hopeful email to our wonderful IT people, who wonderfully obliged me with this modification (note the “library website” link automatically brings up results for whatever search the user tried on the blog. AskLive is our virtual reference, now running on a Meebo chatroom).

      A bit of colour

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      My not-so-secret desire is to add cover colour as an official MARC field and allow users worldwide to search the library catalogue by colour. (See the New England School of Law and University of Huddersfield mockups.) It’d be brilliant: you could go to the advanced search screen and select:

      • title: Mechanics of Materials
      • location: Restricted Loan
      • colour: oh, about there on the colour circle
      Green Eggs and Ham

      In the meantime, I’m working up to total World Catalogue Domination by subtle steps. The other day I forwarded “Getting Books to Move” from Stephen’s Lighthouse to a colleague, who came up with this display.

      Click through to see it on Flickr – we had fun adding notes linking each book through to its catalogue record. (Not the sort of thing I’d want to do for a weekly display unless there was a definite market for it – but lots of fun.)