Social Networking

Ryan Deschamps at The Other Librarian recently posted about Facebook and libraries. It’s a thought-provoking article - go read it! Here are some tidbits from the article:

“So let me start with the Facebook library search application. It is
fine, but my opinion is that few people besides librarians are going to
add the applications to their profiles. The technology is Web 2.0, but
the strategy is still Library 1.0.”

and

“… the model is still, “I am librarian. I can help. Come to me (ie. my
Facebook page) and I will serve.” The applications, though offering
marginally better service for little cost, are not taking advantage of
what Facebook offers its clients.”

Then Ryan goes on to discuss his thoughts on what might work for libraries in Facebook. I agree with him - sticking the same ole library 1.0 stuff (in this case, a bad ILS search interface) into a 2.0 tool (i.e., Facebook) doesn’t make one hip, cool, or popular. Another example? Putting excruciating bibliographic instruction seminars on the intricacies of database searching on YouTube. I’ve seen some of those. They aren’t watched.

But if putting the traditional library into 2.0 tools doesn’t work, well then… what does? From Ryan again: “A Facebook application should be something your average person wants to show their friends.” He goes on: “In the end, the reason students will say they do not want to see
librarians and educators on Facebook is that the culture of Libraries
clashes with the culture of Facebook … If we can establish rapport with the Facebook community, we will matter
to them.” Ryan then provides thoughts on the Facebook culture.

So… how do you learn a new tool’s culture? By PLAYING with it. Experiencing it. Using it. Play with Facebook. Gather 100 friends and see what happens. Connect to some Facebook apps, join some Facebook groups. Poke people. Browse - see who’s using Facebook in your neck of the woods. Then figure out what you can add that those people (your customers, after all) might find interesting or useful.

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I’m knee-deep in wading through a bunch of articles and books on various aspects of experience design for the book I’m writing on digital experience planning, and I just had an epiphany today: I’m insane!

(No, wait - that’s not it…)

Ok - so I’ve been thinking about experience lately, both for my book and for the library website my library is currently redesigning. And we’ve been talking a lot about “experience.”

So what was my epiphany (hee - I just used the word “epiphany” twice in one blog post)? The type of experience a library website delivers. Because there’s more than one type of experience that can be delivered via the web.

Here’s what I mean. Go take a peek at the website for the newest Harry Potter movie (just promise to come back here!). That site clearly presents a type of experience - it’s all about fun, entertainment, projecting a theme through sound and cloudy, dark images, etc - it’s all about the experience of entertainment.

That’s a great digital experience - but that’s not what I want on my library’s website. No, that’s the wrong type of experience. So I continued thinking about digital experience and presentation for a library website (or any content-rich site, for that matter) - what type of experience should we be creating?

And then it dawned on me (yes, this is when the heavens opened and I had my epiphany (ha - did it again): the movie site is mimicking the actual movie… so a library site should mimic the actual library. And what type of experience happens in a library?

One of community. And conversation. And participation.

Those things happen here at the library EVERY SINGLE DAY. There’s an amazing amount of interaction between the library staff and our patrons - ideas being shared, information being found, meetings being held, and questions being asked and answered.

And that - that - is the experience I think libraries need to work on creating in a digital environment, be that in Second Life, in MySpace or FaceBook, or on the library’s website. Look at CNN and USAToday’s recent redesigns - they focus on community. Why? Because those newspapers exist to inform their user communities. And why not interact with those communities? That only makes sense.

It makes ok sense for a newspaper. But for a library? Community is our lifeblood. Our goals, as I see them, in the emerging digital age are to:

• create a sense of community in our digital spaces
• create and nurture conversations in our digital spaces
• allow participation in our digital spaces

Do these things, and your digital doors will swing just as wide as your physical doors do now.

library2.0, web2.0, experience economy, participation

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Always good to try out new networks… http://pownce.com/davidleeking/

If you try Pownce, friend me!

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Click To Play

Yesterday, I participated in the LITA BIGWIG Social Software Showcase. It was very cool! The Showcase had more of an “unconference” feel, which was nice. So rather than doing a formal presentation with a brief Q and A at the end, I created a screencast of my presentation (linked above) about cool Twitter add-ons, and then at the Showcase David Free and I sat at a table and had good conversations with interested attendees. We talked about a range of things, from Twitter to Facebook to other techie topics.

I think ALA could use some more of these… my guess is the interest groups and poster sessions are supposed to cover this type of ground, but I’m not sure they’re achieving that. The Showcase DID achieve it. So let’s definitely have more!

ala2007
twitter
bigwigshowcase07

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(update - the BIGWIG sites seem to be down, but there are updated links to both twitter presentations. Enjoy!)

I was asked to participate in the first ever BIGWIG Social Software Showcase “unconference.” (site seems to be down). What is the Showcase, you ask? From the LITA blog: “LITA BIGWIG (Blogs, Wikis, and Social Software IG) is pleased to present the first ever online, unconference at ALA Annual 2007. The Social Software Showcase will be occuring around and during Annual. We have gathered eleven librarians and leaders in the field to present on cutting edge technology and social software. Regardless of where you are in the world, you will have the opportunity to view and discuss the presentations on the official Social Software Showcase Wiki.”

For my part, I added a screencast about Twitter add-ons, meant to be a part 2 to David Free’s Twitter, Part One (updated links to each presentation).

So - go read about the Showcase, watch/listen/read all the presentations as they get added to the Showcase wiki, and participate!

bigwigshowcase07, twitter

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Tim Spalding, LibraryThing

Showing LibraryThing - features, social aspects, etc

Showed a graphical timeline on what you’ve read (not yet released)

Regular people care about book data more than you would think

Claims his product is the only one that works with z39.50 and MARC

Showed a great example of tagging vs LoC subject headings. Used the book Neuromancer as an example - tagged cyberpunk… but that word isn’t mentioned in the usual LoC subject headings…

LibraryThing for Libraries:
added stuff - tags, other editions, etc - all LibraryThing data
(He used Seattle Public Library’s catalog as an example)
Find other books tagged a certain word, then shows all tags from that book and all related tags - great for browsing

Hmm… if you enable tagging just for a single library, and use only tags that that library’s customers entered… you’re not going to get great browsability

There needs to be an OCLC for user generated data

cil2007

librarything

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Glenn Peterson, Hennepin County Library

Case Study

Comments are:
mini reviews
any title in the catalog
a “blog for every book” - cool way to think about it!

Gave brief history about their comments project:
started taking book reviews by kids and teens
then they thought - hey, adults might like to do this (not too successful)
mentioned that they custom-created this - Sirsi doesn’t support it

Gave a demo of it

It’s a mash-up
bibliographic info
enriched content
patron comments
audio reviews - podcasts can be added in - cool! Quick 2-3 minute booktalk
amazon reviews are pulled in
has an rss feed for each title

Uses Amazon’s API to pull in recent amazon reviews on books

They have More Titles About section

Has an RSS feed for all customer comments

How’s it going?
most heavily used feature on their site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Especially popular with teens
5700 comments, 3000 users over the first 11 months

Maintenance:
pre-screened for language - smart
the “naughty word filter” - it’s an automated script
Title comes up most often in the filter (because of “tit”le)
batched every four hours and sent as an email message - 6-7 web services staff get those
click a link to hide a comment - within the email - to catch bad stuff
They remove the vowels in bad words with a note that says “edited for publication”

Our to-do list:
ratings
avatars
user profiles
tag cloud

Related developments
WPopac
SOPAC
Millennium (from Innovative)
LibraryThing for Libraries

cil2007

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Andy Carvin, National Public Radio

Dang, it just dawned on me who this guy is - he’s a videoblogger!

andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt

Traditional Media production:
until recently, to produce content for a large audience you needed to be a … publisher, broadcaster, billboard owner, etc…

Enter stage left: web 1.0 - most people read the net instead of producing for it, because producers needed: html coding skills, programming skills, graphic design skills, etc

Today: web 2.0 - the new stuff has come out

social software and the democratization of content… flickr, youtube - awesome - he mentioned blip.tv and videoblogging

common thread: online communities where people are actively encouraged to use and share each other’s original content

content production: all the cool kids are doing it:
48 million americans have posted content online
1 in 12 internet users publish a blog
1 in 4 have shared original content
young people more likely to post content
race, income, education less of a factor
latinos, african americans slightly more likely to post online content than whites
(from Pew Internet & AMerican Life Project)

Most famous example - blogs - talked a little about them - said blogging is “fill-out-a-form publishing” - that’s a great way to describe it

why are media outlets embracing web 2.0?
improving journalistic transparency
creating a public dialogue
tapping into public knowledge and creativity
new collaborative opportunities with affiliates
maybe it’s profitable, too?

Open Piloting - something NPR is doing
inviting the public to help create new broadcast programming
sharing rough drafts of shows before they’re ready for prime time
a focus group, but everyone’s welcome
gave examples of Rough Cuts and Bryant Park

Radio Open Source radioopensource.org…
a blog with a radio show…
invites users to submit, debate program ideas
users recommend guests, questions
ask users to participate on-air

bbc have your say (another show)
centralized forum for discussing news
They allow people to rate other’s comments - that’s cool
Then, BBC uses those comments elsewhere on the site - they pepper their official stories with the highly rated user comments

CNN iPreport
partnered with blip.tv
citizen journalism - asks users to submit photos, video for specific stories
very best clips included on air
other highlights archived in an online gallery
published early video from VT shooting - via a cell phone video

hmm… can public libraries do this? Ask customers to take photos and video of local newsish events, and publish them somewhere on the library’s website? And then pepper that with books and videos that customers can check out… that’s related to the customer stories? That’d be pretty neat.

USA Today
embedded social networking across site
not balkanized to a special section
users can comment on any story
comments featured on homepage, elsewhere
syndicating blogs from around the internet

OhmyNews - Korean online news service
publishes in korean, english, and japanese
dedicates 20% of its space to citizen journalists
invites public to submit content as volunteers
ones that submit consistently get paid

Global Voices - example of alternative to mainstream media that the mainstream media is now using

VoteGuide
Berkeley journalism students created blog and aggregator for California’s 11th congressional district
pilot project for larger national project

Minnesota E-Debate
candidates submitted text, video, voicemail
public rated responses, posted comments
users uploaded content about it and tagged it
result - dozens of podcasts, 100 videos, hundreds of photos, text comments
could be replicated nationally in 2008

NewAssignment.net
provide a platform for pro and amateur journalists to collaborate on stories together
collaborating with Wired news
developing endowment to pay pro journalists, cover expenses of amateur journalists

cil2007

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Alane Wilson, OCLC

The network is community.

Harris Interactive conducted the research for them on this project…

Played a video made from ALA Midwinter’s OCLC preconference meeting

Data snippets:

How many years have you been using the internet? Librarians far exceed everyone else’s use. We started with things like gopher, Mosaic, etc - most users haven’t

The culture of paper…
Librarians have a different culture of reading - we read way more than the general population

Librarian’s reading has increased more than the general population.

Do you have a current library card?
Partly a cultural thing - US has more library card holders than in France or Germany

Librarians do all the librarian stuff more - ILL, read, check out, etc… we do it much more than our general populations. So possibly we are designing spaces that WE like, rather than what our users would actually like. Hmm…

Librarians use chat rooms, IM less than the general populations

We read blogs more

Younger librarians do IM more than older librarians… (she has actual data to support that, rather than just guessing)

Our needs for privacy haven’t caught up with technology.

Privacy also means anonymity.

We want privacy when it affects us - not so much when it affects others.

When buying stuff online, we give away personal info - librarians do this moreso. In a retail environment, librarians are comfortable giving away personal info.

But in social networking groups, we are not very comfortable doing this. Japanese (people in general? just librarians? Not sure here) NEVER tell some info (religious or sexual preferences were mentioned).

We don’t like to share what we have checked out.

Hmm… she urged all libraries to display the library bill of rights prominently, so patrons know what we do with their data. I’m not sure I agree with that - I do think patrons probably want to know we don’t do bad things with their information… but I also don’t think patrons would read the Library Bill of Rights if it were prominently displayed - to me, that sounds more like a “librarianish” thing to do, much like posting the Dewey subject headings… patrons really don’t care about that, and don’t understand if we DO post that type of thing.

cil2007

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