Libraries and Social Media

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What does the future of social media and libraries look like?  I really think it's about continuing to develop an online presence no matter what medium is being used.  In a few years, Twitter or Facebook may have stepped aside and a new social media giant will have taken their place.  I don't think that will matter to librarians because they will constantly learn new technologies and use them to reach out to their patrons or potential patrons.

The future is about staying current and not getting frustrated or overwhelmed by new technology.  It's about trying new things and engaging your patrons in new environments as well.  It's about book clubs using Skype, librarians teaching patrons how to use the OPAC through webinars, it's about e-books and libraries as a place in not just a physical space.  It's about creating virtual libraries and helping others find them, use them, love them. 

Book Trailers

YouTube is a great place to find book trailers.  They are usually short book descriptions and images set to music that are made by the book's author or publisher to help promote the book.  Sometimes fans of the book create book trailers as show their love for a novel.  In this post, I embedded the book trailer for Hate List, a YA novel by Jennifer Brown.  Enjoy!

RWU Welcome Video from YouTube

This is a video created by the staff at Roger Williams University.  They did a wonderful job of creating a video that is a fun and educational way to introduce the library to the student population. 

Facebook in Libraries

Logo from blogs.rti.org

I just finished reading Balancing Outreach and Privacy in Facebook in which the author, Peter Fernandez, makes some very interesting points.

Point#1: It's all about the tone. I think this is an important point when discussing all social media. How do you create posts with an informal, yet professional tone?

Point#2: Regulating speech. Fernandez makes an excellent point when discussing the need for each library staff to set up policies and procedures regarding hate speech or false information posted onto the library's Facebook page. Once again, this point is essential when discussing all social media.

Point#3: Keep open privacy settings. You want to protect the library and it's patrons, but not at the expense of no one finding you online.

Point#4: Maintenance. Just with blogging and tweeting, it's so important for libraries to have a schedule of posts and someone in charge of posting.

Those were some of the ideas I gleaned from the article. How about you? What did you think of this article? Did I miss anything?

Fernandez, Peter, "Balancing Outreach and Privacy in Facebook: Five Guiding Decisions Points" (2009). Library Publications and
Other Works. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_libfpubs/11

Features That I Love on Next Generation Catalogs

1. The "Google"-like search bar: Making things easier for a quick keyword search, most catalogs have a single search bar that makes the interface easier for librarian and patron alike.

2. Advanced Search option: When you have plenty of information and want stellar results, advanced search is the way to go.

3. Facets: Ahhh, facet navigation is the butter to the catalog's bread. Easily limit your search parameters by location, language, or subject term.

4. "Did you mean...?": For the patron (or librarian!) who is not sure how to spell a specific term or author's name, there is a solution (though sometimes not the best help).

5. Subject Headings: The ability for patrons and librarians to find more resources through the use of subject heading links at the bottom of the individual item records makes subject browsing easier.

Those are just a few qualities that I like regarding Next-Generation Catalogs. What do you like?

Why I chose Twitter for my Book Review

Image from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

For my book review, I chose Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Blink is about the brain's ability to 'thin slice', taking meaning from small portions of important information. I chose Twitter to communicate my book review because it is the social media that is a constant stream of thin slices, 140 characters to get your point across, 140 characters in which to get the gist of what someone is trying to communicate. This is thin slicing at it's core and hopefully I will be able to communicate through these thin slices the main idea of this book.

Check out my book review at #blinkreview!!

How I used Del.icio.us to solve a problem

Logo from digitaltrends.com

I learned about del.icio.us last year when I completed a paper on the use of natural language tagging in academic libraries. I opened an account and explored the uses of social bookmarking but couldn't figure out a way to incorporate it into my work environment.

Until one day, we decided to work on decreasing the amount of paper used in the department. Part of my job in the Acquisitions Department is to sort through and file publisher catalogs. The catalogs are available for librarians and faculty to examine and request items for the library to purchase. It's an overwhelming job because there are so many catalogs and they need to constantly be sorted and weeded. To make life easier, we bookmarked all the publisher sites as favorites on one of the computers in the department. That way when a faculty member or librarian wanted to look at catalogs all they had to do was sit at the computer and peruse the publisher websites.

This worked great until the computer crashed and we couldn't recover the 250 publisher websites that we had saved as favorites. Instead of looking them up and saving them to one computer again, I opened a del.icio.us account for the department and bookmarked all the publisher websites within our account. I also added tags to denote what disciplines the publisher covered to help for easy searching. Faculty can also use the del.icio.us account in the comfort of their own office or home. They just need to call the department and get the log in information. Then they are free to look at the websites and email the department with recommendations.

So that's my story on del.icio.us. How about you? How do you use del.icio.us??

Professional Twitter Feeds

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Here are some of the twitter feeds I recommend:

1. Library of Congress @librarycongress

2. American Library Association @ ALALibrary

3. atyourlibrary@AtYourLibrary

4. ACRL @ALA_ACRL

5. Library Journal @LibraryJournal

Who do you recommend??

Love, Love, Love These Tweets!!

Photo from lovisawilliams.wordpress.com

Top 5 Twitter Feeds That I Enjoy On a Daily Basis (in no particular order):

1. Entertainment Weekly @ew: I was already a big fan of the website, so following them on Twitter was a no brainer. I was made aware of this very funny video of the cul-de-sac crew of Cougartown playing a celebrity wine tasting game. Very funny, see the video here.

2. Women's Health Mag @ womens health mag: Great articles and information on exercising and health issues. Some of the best healthy recipes, like this.

3. Epicurious @ epicurious: I am semi-obsessed with food. I absolutely love to eat and cook. Epicurious tweets amazing recipes like this one. I haven't attempted it yet, but definitely will someday!!

4. Time.com @ time: I am following a variety of news outlets via Twitter, but I enjoy the Time tweets because I find this fun on my lunch break.

5. Jimmy Fallon @jimmyfallon: Love his show, but faithfully go to bed by 10pm. So when I saw this tweet -- Slow Jam the News with Brian Williams tonight!! #springsteenonfallon -- I knew to run over to Hulu to see my favorite newsman slow jam with The Roots.

So that is my top 5 for now. It seems to change day to day as the list of people and places I follow grows. Who do you have Twitter love for??

Favorite Mobile App

Photo from http://www.mapmyrun.com/

I know that are a few runners in our class and being that this week's topic is mobile devices, I wanted to tell everyone about a free app called iMapMyRun.

iMapMyRun is a mobile app that allows runners to keep track of different routes through the GPS function. The app also determines the length of the route and records the overall run time, minutes per mile and calories burned. From the app you can tweet or post to Facebook your run stats.

For more info, go to: http://www.mapmyrun.com/.

What is your favorite app?

Tagging?

When reading Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent conductivity, I came across this quote:

"Libraries have experimented with socializing services, inviting tagging, reviews and other contributions. The library may not be the best level for this as they may not have appropriate volumes of use, or users may not perceive the incentives that motivate participation in other environments."

In the academic library that I work at, the ability to tag is available through the Encore catalog. However, it is not used by students and faculty or marketed by library and staff. I have read articles about tagging working in public library catalogs where the librarians have marketed the service and tagging is an essential part of online reading catalogs like LibraryThing.

Do you think tagging should be considered an important tool in the academic library environment?

Dempsey, L. (2009). Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity. Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2291/2070

I'm on Twitter!

Photo of Ben from listenupdenver.com

Hi Everyone!

I signed up for a Twitter account. Please follow me by searching JessicaDziedzic. I have not tweeted yet but I did begin by following a variety of entertainment shows and publications. Oh, and my favorite musician -- Ben Folds!

Changing the Librarian Image

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I found this on the Government Documents Listserv. Thought it was such a great way to change the perception of what a librarian looks like. Enjoy!!

This is What a Librarian Looks Like

Wonderful World of Wikis

Graphic from icc-annual-conference-2009.pbworks.com

How can a wiki help a library? I think there are many ways in which a library can benefit from a wiki. For example, the policies and procedures of a library can be stored on a wiki for instant access. Also, the wiki is collaborative in nature so staff members would be able to easily revise the policy and procedures as changes are needed.

A wiki could be a great use in academic or school library settings. Librarians and teachers could collaboratively add information to wikis for students regarding research and resources to help them with papers and projects.

Another great way to use a wiki would be for quick reference of frequently asked questions. Library staff can continue to add and revise questions and answers within the wiki, so that patron questions are answered in a consistent fashion.

These were just a few of the ways I can envision using a wiki. Can you think of anymore?

Information Literacy and Crap Detection

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While I was reading the crap detection article, I was struck by an observation made in a information literacy class I recently attended. During the class (which mainly consisted of freshmen), the librarian was asking students to complete research for a specific search term using three specific library databases (that were all very nicely gathered for them by the librarian and available on the class libguide). During one part of the class, the librarian asked that students find a newspaper article in a major publication such as the New York Times using a specific database. One of the students was 'caught' using Google instead. When the librarian asked him why he was using Google, he answered that Google was a 'short-cut'. But was it really?

Library databases allow students to find reliable and pre-vetted information so that students do not need to use the 'crap detection' technique when researching for a paper or project. Yet, students seem determined to use the 'easy' search engine instead of one that is going to give them better results. Why is this? How do we as librarians combat this?

Information literacy is so important at every level of education. Students need to learn how to successfully search for topics using search engines and databases. They also need to learn how to determine if the information is valid or not both in educational and everyday situations.

Social Grooming, Friends Structure, and Privacy

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I watched the video twice because it is just chocked full of information. I picked up on a variety of keywords and ideas that I would like to flesh out here on my blog. Let's start first with social grooming. Social grooming, via Wikipedia (I know, it's bad!!), is the act of animals grooming one another in order to build relationships. Social grooming in the context of the web, means saying nice things about one another to build or showcase relationships. If you think of social networking sites, like Facebook, you find people saying hello, saying nice things to each other and about each other -- social grooming. Though I am not in the population discussed in the video, I am able to see social grooming on my own Facebook pages as friends say hello and reinstate their friendship or husbands and wives posting words or images of love for their spouse.

I found the 'friends structure' portion of the video very interesting. When I first started my Facebook page, I hated friend requests from high school acquaintances. But as time went on and I opened up my social network on Facebook, many individuals from high school become part of my friends structure. They became part of my audience, they are the people I write to and for. Having a friend's structure that concentrates on individuals that are similar in some way (students, tuba enthusiasts) creates an audience of people with common interests or themes, gives us a new community to be a part of and socialize with.

The portion of the video on the definition of privacy for young people was fascinating. I especially found the use of pronouns an interesting tactic that students use to promote privacy in very public venues. I never even considered that the born digital generation would consider the idea of privacy in a very different way from other generations. The idea of being so open so that people think there is nothing you keep private, but it's really just a shield of openness to deflect from the really important things that teens want to keep private.

Just a really interesting video. Did you pick up on the same keywords and themes that I did? Did you feel the presenter did an adequate job explaining the use of social media and young adults to an audience of administrators and faculty? Were you concerned when she began discussing the dismal skills of current high school and middle school students?

Pros and Cons

In the beginning of the article, Experts Weigh Pros and Cons of Social Media, Ordonez writes about ways that social media can help journalists. Many of these reasons can also be applied to libraries and their patrons. For example, social media can create communication between patrons and librarians through comments on blogs or Facebook. Social media can also be a great way to market your library brand. At the library I work at, the staff is currently working on creating a brand and marketing it to the university community. There has been a lot of discussion of using social media because it is a platform that resonates with the student population.

Ordonez also mentions that social media lets journalists, "stay updated on new developments". This can also be applied to libraries because the use of social media can keep patrons up-to-date on library events and news. Many libraries use blogs to advertise library news and Twitter to spread library news to tech savvy patrons. The last point that really coincides with libraries is the use of multiple platforms to get your message out. Possibly some patrons use Facebook, but don't read blogs, or maybe only some patrons have a Twitter account. By maintaining a variety of social media accounts, you can get the word out to a wider audience.

But with all these accounts and updates, it could become time consuming and confusing. Do the pros outweigh the cons? If you can get the word out to a population that doesn't frequent the library or a student who is too intimidated to step into the library, isn't it all worth it?

Ordonez, S. (2010, August 16). MediaShift . Experts Weigh Pros and Cons of Social Media | PBS. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved February 03, 2012, from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/08/experts-weigh-pros-and-cons-of-social-media228.html

Political YouTube

"The State Department is also using the Internet, and Youtube specifically, to reach out directly to citizens of other countries every time Obama or Hillary Clinton travel abroad. They record video messages to citizens of other countries, which are distributed in multiple languages. Call it YouTube diplomacy."

From Erick Schonfeld's article, 'Can Open Government Be Gamed'. Read the entire article at http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/30/can-open-government-be-gamed/.

Blog Success

In Dhiman and Sharma's article, they mention four important qualities of successful blogs. The first mentioned was a 'clear scope'. Why are you (or your library) creating a blog? What is it's purpose? Whether the scope is to market the library programs or to create buzz over new acquisitions, the blogger needs to be aware of what the blog's main purpose is. If you look at the Seekonk Public Library, their blog has a very clear scope -- to market library programs. All the posts discuss up coming adult and children programs within the library. The next quality was a 'well defined audience'. Who are you blogging to? Pick a demographic within your patrons that you want to talk to or get into the library. Once again, the SPL blog is geared towards adult patrons, especially parents. The third important quality is a 'professional look'. Blogs should have a clean and polished look that engages the audience. The SPL blog has a similar design scheme that compliments the public library's main website, very polished and professional. The last quality of a successful blog is 'regular maintenance'. A successful blog needs consistent updates and posts. Your audience wants to read interesting and current information.

What do you think? Do Dhiman and Sharma make a good point concerning the qualities of a good blog? Should we also be concerned with how the content is written in regards to tone and language?

New Semester, New Class, New Blog

Hi Everyone!!

Welcome to my blog for LSC 597. I had a terrible time coming up with a name for my blog. So (for now) LibSocNet will have to do. Truthfully, my last blog had a terrible name as well, Barney's Book Blog (I don't even know a Barney). Anyway, I am looking forward to exploring everyone's blogs and reading all of your posts.

Have a great weekend,

Jess