Helpdesk Ticket Tracking Software – what are your options?

by David Lee King on February 14, 2013

IT helpdesk ticket tracking software – my library uses it. Right now, we use Track-It by BMC. But it’s clunky, hard to use, and isn’t quite meeting our needs anymore. So it’s time to start exploring our options!

Guess what? There are a TON of options out there. But first, what would we want in an IT helpdesk software package? Here are some features you should think about:

  • incident management – basic “track that IT problem” function
  • Searchable knowledgebase – document the fixes and answers … and create a powerful database of “what to do when”
  • Reporting – for managers like me. You need to keep track of # of tickets, # of closed tickets, # of still-open tickets, who worked on the problem, who had the problem (for potential follow-up with training if needed), etc.
  • Windows software, server-based, or web/cloud based?
  • Other functions that might be useful, depending on your setup, include LDAP/Active Directory integration, asset and contract management, email integration, and scheduling.

These hosted services seem to be all the rage right now, and I have to admit – they look pretty good (at least, compared to what we currently have in place):

I also recently asked for recommendations, and what other organizations are currently using, via Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what some of you mentioned:

So there’s a good list to get you started. Anyone have experience with any of these? Like or dislike them? Sound off in the comments!

pic by michaeljzealot

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Four Mobile Options for Libraries

by David Lee King on February 6, 2013

I just read Your 4 Mobile Options by Paul Boag. Good stuff! In the article, Paul suggests that there are basically four options when it comes to having a mobile presence (taken from Paul’s article – you should go read the whole thing!):

  1. Responsive website: A responsive website is one that adapts to whatever device it is being viewed on. Whether that is a desktop computer, tablet or mobile device, the same website will display the same content using a visual design most suited to that device.
  2. Native application: Native apps are applications that run physically on the mobile device and are coded specifically for the operating system of that device. These are the applications you typically find in either the Google Play or iOS App Store.
  3. Web application: A web application shares characteristics with both a native application and a responsive website. As with a responsive website a web application is built using HTML, CSS and Javascript and lives entirely online.
  4. Hybrid application: A hybrid application is essentially a native application built with HTML, CSS and Javascript. By building it with web technology it is quicker to develop and easier to publish to multiple platforms (e.g. iOS or Android). The downsides are that performance tends not to be as good and they lack the design style of each platform.

Which one of these options should libraries use? Paul says this as a general rule of thumb: “A good starting point is to ask whether users are primarily completing a task or accessing information.”

I’d agree – that’s a good starting point. I’d go a bit farther, and say this – figure out what your mobile users are doing, and how they do it, and more importantly – WHAT they want to do. Then figure out the right flavor of mobile accessibility that best meets those needs. Also, figure out what you can do. For example, when my library was still on Horizon for our library catalog, we chose Boopsie because they could create a mobile version of our catalog (something our vendor hadn’t yet figured out). So we went with an app-driven mobile catalog.

We’re on Polaris now, and it comes with a web-based catalog that works great. Will we stay with our Boopsie app? Not necessarily, since the mobile version of Polaris works well. More on that later this year!

One other thing – if you haven’t yet started to think about the mobile web … why not? Pick something – anything – and start. Your smartphone-loving public is waiting!

Pic of Paul Boag from boagworld.com

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Greatest Hits from Pew Internet’s Library Research – from ALAMW13

by David Lee King on February 4, 2013

One more set of sketchy notes from ALAMW13 – this time from Lee Rainie, director, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project @lrainie, libraries.pewinternet.org

Pew has done three phases of research on libraries:

  • econtent
  • library services
  • library user segmentation typology - essentially market research for libraries. Nice.

Phase 1: econtent

  • Ebooks are being read more. 16% in 2011, 23% in 2012. At the same time, reading of printed books is declining a bit – 72% in 2011, 67% in 2012.
  • 40% of Americans have either a tablet or an ebook reader. 31% have a tablet, 26% have an ebook reader
  • Readers of ebooks: currently under age 50, college educated, making 50k+, and love reading. They buy their ebooks.
  • Approximately 50% of American adults own smartphones.
  • Ebook borrowing – late 2012, a whopping 5% of Americans 16+ have borrowed ebooks from libraries in the last year.
  • Growing awareness of this service – 31% of the public
  • Yet, 57% don’t know whether this is a service they can use, including many library users.
  • Problems with borrowing process include:
    • not compatible with an ereader
    • there was a waiting list
  • Over 50% are open to library coaching/tech support with ebooks.

Phase 2: library services

  • Mega takeaway #1: people love their libraries even more for what they say about their communities than for how libraries meet personal needs
    • 91% say libraries are important to their communities
    • 6% say libraries are important to them and their families
    • People appreciate their librarians
  • Mega takeaway #2: libraries have rebranded themselves as tech hubs
    • 77% say free access to computers and the Internet is a very important service
  • Mega takeaway #3: the public wants everything equally, so library leadership will matter in setting priorities
    • African-Americans and Latinos are especially enthusiastic about library services.
  • Mega takeaway #4: the public invites you to be more Engard in knotty problems.
    • Things like involvement in iocal schools, literacy in the community, comfortable spaces, move most library services online, etc. cool.
    • Lib services online – 42% should definitely do, 34% should maybe do. Wow. That’s 76% of people wanting the library to do a whole lot more online. As in most library services. Think about that for a minute… Definitely a blog post here!
  • Mega takeaway #5: libraries have a PR problem / opportunity.
  • Mega takeaway #6 – target audiences for engagement outreach are not hard to ID
    • And there’s a large chunk of the population that simply doesn’t use the library or read books.

image by Elon University

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ALA, Ebooks & Libraries: Where do we Stand & Where are we Going?

by David Lee King on January 30, 2013

This was a presentation/panel discussion I attended at ALA Midwinter 2013 (#alamw13). Interesting stuff! Here are some notes (not comprehensive):

Panelists included:

  • Jamie LaRue, Douglas County Libraries
  • Alan Inouye, ALA OITP
  • Matt Tempelis, 3M
  • Robert Wolven
  • George Coe, Baker & Taylor
  • Sari Feldman

First, there was a short presentation on the status of ALA’s initiatives around ebooks:

ALA has been reaching out directly to publishers by holding a couple of meetings with publishers, distributors, and author reps.

ALA has created a couple of ebook-related documents, including:

  • Business models for ebooks - Mainly working on business models for public libraries
  • Business model scorecard
    • Mechanism for evaluating publisher models
    • Describes aspects like price, accessibility, available content, limited circulation
    • Scale for ranking each aspect
    • Different weighting of aspects by libraries
    • They’re also looking at models for school libraries and accessibility needs

Business models: what’s next?

  • Testing the scorecard – weighting features
  • Reports on school libraries, accessibility
  • Critique of pry-per-use models
  • Beyond the big 6: mid size, independents, self publishing

Further out

  • Impact of new consumer models
  • Other formats – video, music, news
  • New forms of publications – serial, integrative, dynamic

Thinking about future directions

  • Outside the library community
  • looking at better licensing terms for the big publishers and distributors
  • also improved technical specs and operational systems
  • Smaller and mid sized publishers – pursue aggressively how to get widespread library ebook access
  • self publishing – how to engage libraries
  • cutting edge tech more generally – how could/should libraries engage in the context of ebooks (ie, maker spaces, etc)

Within the library community

  • Systems to enable libraries to manage ebooks directly
  • Libraries as publishers or distributors
  • Re-invisioning the role of book lending in the digital era

Who will do all this?

  • who are the players
  • Strengths and weaknesses of the players
  • Who should do what and by when
  • Who will pay for it
  • Where is ala best situated

And now the panel: Jamie LaRue, Matt Tempelis, George Coe

George Coe – thinks a one book, simultaneous access model simply won’t work. I’d disagree with that

thinks we’ll see rental models

Jamie – go directly to authors, instead of through the distributor or the publisher

Matt at 3M says they don’t have a good working model yet that they feel comfortable with.

They want 3-4 models …

Jamie disagrees. Because the fundamental distribution model is wrong.

Self published and emerging stories – dont show up in libraries, even though they are best sellers

Moving from a consumer community to a content creator community. How do you discover this, sample this, collect and share it, etc. how do we get to the heart of that and participate

What should libraries be doing more of

Jamie – less talking more action

Where does local news come form if there’s no newspaper? It could be the library…

Find new ways to add value

Jamie – how do you display digital content? Because displaying books moves books

Ownership?

Jamie. – yes, we need ownership.

Leasing model -ok with high-traffic items. So you don’t have too keep 100 copies forever, because we can’t sell these ebooks on secondary markets after the fact

Matt – says if we had a ton of money,  someone needs to prove that libraries help well books. Um, I think pew and others have already proved that. He didn’t think they proved it enough…

Jamie – recommends creating your own infrastructure. Maybe we can put that million dollars to work at an organization who can do this for us. Rather than having individual libraries creating their own system.

Need some sort of acquisition system. Another infrastructure thing needs to be built for this.

Q & A time:

Jamie’s catalog has a button that says “do you want to be a writer” with resources, and an ask for the book at the end. It’s a way to help authors and get local content

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I Was Hacked!

by David Lee King on January 29, 2013

On Wednesday night, I was hacked.

OK, more appropriately, I received a weird text message with a web link, and I apparently clicked that link, not really thinking about it.

And that somehow opened the door to my gmail account, which then started sending out hundreds of emails to all my contacts.

Well that’s embarrassing.

What did I do? Well, first, I received a few quick tweets and texts, saying “oh oh, I think you’ve been hacked!” (thanks guys for being so fast!). Then I wasted no time in accessing my email account and changing my password. Then deleting all those emails, answering a bunch of emails (i.e., “yes, I was hacked. Don’t click that link. Sorry!”), etc.

Blake over at LISHost (my web hosted) even shut down my website for a few minutes once he saw that I had been hacked – Blake and LISHost is awesome, as always!

Moral of the story?

  • Don’t click weird text message links :-)
  • Or – pay attention. I wasn’t.
  • Don’t click those “what were you doing in this video” messages that you probably get in Twitter.
  • If you get a wierd email from me or from someone else with a web link in it, don’t click it!

On my phone, I also set up Google Authenticator. It’s an app from Google that works with Google’s 2-step verification, and provides an additional layer of security when signing in. And prevents stuff like what I did last night.

Because, well, you know … it happened to me, it can happen to you, too.

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