Yahoo! Mail RSS Reader

This is extremely cool - RSS is now integrated into Yahoo! Mail and Alerts (from TechCrunch).
Think about that for a sec - how many of your users have a Yahoo! email account? And how many of them use web-based email services? And how many of those users might now be willing to learn about the [...]

Marketing Digital Audiobooks

One good way is to get an article on the front page of the Kansas City Star!
Good article (Saturday edition), did I mention FRONT PAGE, good marketing.

Random Thought #2

Another thought, probably originating from listening to Abram:
Our next big set of customers are kids and teens right now. I could even stretch that out a bit to include 20-somethings. Are we really marketing to them?
Right now, most public library websites have a page or so devoted to kids, and the same for teens. Then [...]

Random Thought #1

[Update: not so random after all - I probably heard Stephen Abram say this at Internet Librarian]
As I’m starting to re-write our website plan, I’m having some random thoughts… they don’t necessarily go in the plan, but might be useful nonetheless. So I’m posting them as they come.
Random Thought #1: Go where your customers already [...]

Messy Desk (a videoblog post)

Yes, another video (third one, actually - here are links to my first [warning: "just testing" silliness] and second [warning: big file], for those extremely interested sorts). My library recently purchased a digital camcorder and video editing software with the ultimate of recording events, area attractions, etc (that is, if we actually have TIME to [...]

Tagging, Linking and Commenting as Marketing Tools

Jenny Levine is so cool. She just gave me a nifty idea that I’m going to share with you.
Short version - she added a tag to a flickr image of mine, and left a comment.
Long version:

I wrote this blog post
I created a flickr image to go with the post
Jenny added a tag to the flickr [...]

“The point of a scholarly text”

From the Wall Street Journal, quoting Gorman:
“The point of a scholarly text is they are written to be read sequentially from beginning to end, making an argument and engaging you in dialogue.”
Come on. I went to college. I (and probably many other students) didn’t read the full text - we scanned for the good bits [...]

Music Access and Libraries - Still a Long Way to Go!

I just got off the phone with a rep at Real.com’s Rhapsody music service. What an interesting conversation! First off, here’s what I told the rep we (and probably other libraries) wanted in a digital music service:

digital music for library patrons
ability to listen in the library
ability to listen at home, using the library’s authentication
ability to [...]

Future of Libraries post

Go - read infommuner’s post titled The Future of Public Libraries. Then discuss.
I loved it - first off, telling a long story that delivered a message rather than the usual powerpoint with pictures of people doing techie stuff - that’s so cool!
But even better - his story really DOES illustrate what’s going on in libraries [...]

College and Research Libraries Journal is going Open Access

C&RL is going open access! They plan on placing articles online six months after publication of the print version, which is a fine place to start. Good for them.
And for kicks - here’s an extremely old article of mine, from 1998: Library Home Page Design: A Comparison of Page Layouts for Front-ends of ARL Library [...]

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