No real content here – just a test! Apparently, the email version of my feed has been acting up. So, I’m testing it out, making sure everything is working!
Can you do me a favor? If you read my blog via email, can a couple of you visit this blog post and leave a comment, letting me know everything’s working ok? I’d appreciate it!
I also appreciate all you readers! You guys are truly awesome. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!
I’m headed to BEA next week (I’m on the conference advisory board for the BEA Bloggers part of the conference), and will have a good three days of listening to publishers talk about ebooks (and hopefully libraries).
So I thought it would be a good idea to see where we stand right now with ebooks, the Big Six, and some of our current ebook vendors.
Here’s a list of the major ebook vendors, and what they offer in relation to the Big Six publishers:
3M, Baker & Taylor Axis 360:
OverDrive:
What does each publisher offer?
So – at this point, we have all Big Six publishers willing and able to sell [at least some] ebooks to [at least some] libraries. With wildly varying models and price points:
Pic by pazca
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on responsive design lately (because my library is headed towards that), and that made me think. When designing websites, we tend to design for devices. That’s what responsive design is all about – it’s coding in such a way that your website “responds” appropriately to different screen sizes (i.e., desktops, tablets, smartphones). We design for things: for a desktop; for a screen; for a browser; for a tablet or smartphone.
Nothing wrong with that – a modern website has to work on all those devices, right?
But I also think we need to shift our focus a bit, to where it really counts. And that focus is not on the screen.
We need to design for people.
What’s that change?
We still need to do all the usual stuff – i.e., use great css, work on making our websites responsive, think about screensizes, readability, contrasting colors, etc.
But let’s also focus on people:
Simply put – put people first.
pic by Nicola Albertini
I just saw some great reviews for my new book Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections, and wanted to share.
The first one comes from College & Research Libraries. The review was written by John Repplinger. Here are some highlights:
“David Lee King, the author of Face2Face, has put together a wonderful resource for those just beginning to investigate social media as tools to deepen their connections with customers and patrons. Essentially, this book is about how to transition in-person communication to the Internet. It is geared to reach a broad audience, and most of the examples are equally applicable to businesses, organizations, and libraries both large and small.”
and
“He takes his own advice and writes casually in a second-person perspective to readers, and this is largely what makes this book so engaging and refreshing.”
Read the whole book review here.
The second one comes from HispanicBusiness.com, written by Cheryl Terisi. Here are some highlights (read the whole review here):
“I brought Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections to bed with me, mistakenly thinking an explanation of how social media tools can help create customer service is just what I needed to lull me to sleep. Ha! Once I started to read this very common sense book, I could not put it down.”
and
“Face2Face is invaluable for organizations that currently use social media or those who want to improve their image. There are abundant examples as well as in-depth information to help you become more comfortable and relaxed, letting your customer know you care about them by showing the real face of your organization.”
and (my favorite):
“This book isn’t written like a text, but reads more like a mystery. By the time you reach the end, you don’t find out who did it but rather how to do it!”
Thanks John and Cheryl for the reviews!
Oh – and don’t forget. Face2face is on sale this summer. It’s a good time to get it if you haven’t yet 
Has your library ever really thought about the experience around becoming a library card holder, or worked to improve it?
At most libraries, when someone gets a library card for the first time, here’s what we do: we give the person their library card. We might also hand them a printed list of either “stuff you can do” or “stuff you can’t do ” (i.e., rules, regulations and circulation policies).
Are balloons released? Does anyone celebrate? Does it usher our new customer into some cool, “members-only” club? Do we follow-up with the customer after 3 months or so to see how it’s going? Nope. For most of us, nothing else happens.
What happens with other types of membership cards?
Now back to libraries. Is there something else we can do with a library card to make it more “membership” friendly? Reword that brochure we give out? Check back with our customers after 3 months to see how they’re doing (remember, we have their email address and snail mail address)?
How about give perks for use? For example, if they check out five books, they get that 3-day express movie for a week?
What do you think? Anyone do something special for library card holders that isn’t just “here’s your card, now go check stuff out?”
Image by Leo Reynolds
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