23 posts tagged “library2.0”

There are days when I wonder if my profession as a whole has a death wish. Not only do outsiders rail on and on about how libraries need to be closed, how they will "evolve" into new spaces (that have nothing to do with the mission of an actual library), or how no one really needs them, but librarians and library professionals insist on deprofessionalizing their own profession, taking the library apart piece by piece, turn it into an arcade or entertainment center, and pretty much go for the lowest common denominator. Of course, if you mention any of this, and you put your name on it as I am doing now, you risk the ire of your professional brethren who will label you as someone who "does not get it." I am not quite sure what to make of the whole mess. Sure, I have my opinions, but I just don't feel like writing a whole post about it.

I have seen a good number of items that have given me food for thought, so here they go in my notes. Maybe some writing will come out of it, maybe not. But I cannot help but wonder why do my professional brethren insist of self-destruction?

• Two members of ACRL debate about the future of academic libraries, and from the looks of it, take a mild common ground where they toss the ball and say, "who knows what will happen." Not exactly something to inspire confidence. The event is reported by Inside Higher Ed in "Bookless Libraries?" 
• Campus Technology looks at the 21st century library as "A Space to Collaborate." Mostly highlights of a new very elegant digital library in Calgary and a few other places. In other words, an example of what gets done when you have a lot of funding to do it and people who think that electronic will overtake everything else. 
• Here is the Effing Librarian on "The Future of the Library Cafe." He has a way of using jokes and satire to make serious points that I like because often makes issues very accessible to others. This is definitely worth a look. He also has a new advocacy poster to help keep libraries open.
  
• Then again, we need reassurance that "librarians still have vital role in the Web 2.0 era." Good to know that librarians are not headed for the scrap heap and have to start taking Geritol just yet. The article found via Resource Shelf.
  
• And via Inside Higher Ed, here we have another college administrator speaking on "Libraries of the Future" where "the university library of the future will be sparsely staffed, highly decentralized, and have a physical plant consisting of little more than special collections and study areas." Funny how administrators who would never dream of doing our front line work with students are the first ones who want to outsource our librarians and library resources.
  
• Stephen Abrams points to an article in the journal New Review of Academic Librarianship. I have to check to see if we carry the journal, then see if I get around to read it. For now, I am using this note to remind myself. Apparently the issue Abrams mentions deals with the ever present topic of the future of the academic library. 
• And speaking of the short-sighted who want to close libraries, there are these folks in Omaha. Found via LISNews, where they have some comments.
  
• And in the quest to make unlibraries (to borrow Effing Librarian's term), the Annoyed Librarian tells us that "Something's Gotta Give." AL also tells us that "the future is now" in the context of school libraries getting rid of book collections for e-books or other online access rental.
  
• Jessamyn West has some thoughts on the Cushing Academy (aka as the school library that got rid of its book collection). A lot of comments over there. Another response on the topic at PhiloBiblos blog.
  

There are other things out there in the librarian sector of the blogosphere, but I can only take so much at one time. I may keep adding more as I get back in the mood.
 

The chi.mp service, which describes itself as a content hub and identity management platform, just has a very long way to go before it becomes a good content hub and identity management platform. I got an account back when their beta was closed, and after a few months of toying with it, it just could not meet my needs. Here are some of the problems I found:

• A limited number of services available. It has a a very small list of services you can bring in: Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and rss feeds (which can allow you to bring in your blog, for instance), Delicious, and one or two other things. Given the many services out there, they need to expand this list.
  
• The service "does not play well" with Facebook. From the beginning, the chi.mp folks claimed that you could connect your Facebook status to their service. This never worked, and as of today, when I finally made the decision to hit the delete button, it was not working. I saw some notes on their forums that Facebook apparently was giving them difficulties with importing photos into the service. Now, I don't use Facebook for photos much. I use Facebook for photos for the FB library's page, but not for personal use. So, this was not a big issue, but the status and feed integration was definitely a desired feature, and I saw no indication it would get fixed any time soon.
  
• Feeds. I pulled in the feeds from my blogs and my delicious account. I noticed that updating the feed over on chi.mp from the blog was not very expeditious. I made a post this morning earlier, and chi.mp had not picked it up yet. There was no option to refresh the feed when logged in, and no note or indication in their help about how long it could take for a feed to update. A content hub does not work very well if it does not update in a timely matter.
  
• Their help forums. While there is an e-mail for questions and support, most of the help is routed to their forums. For the forums, which are powered by some third party, you have to register (again). This was very off putting for me. I already registered for your service, and you are going to make me jump another hurdle so I can send you feedback, feedback which you claim to welcome? No, thanks.
  

Overall, it was a good experiment. I got some ideas of things I would like to accomplish in terms of social networking and 2.0. The idea of putting all (or a lot of) my content online in one place is very appealing. That you can control and create personas (public, private, so on) and have your visitors see just what you indicate sounds very good. But at this point in time, the service was simply too limited, and to be honest, it does not do anything that I cannot do on Facebook or even here on Vox. So, not seeing any real point, I finally made the decision to delete the account. Maybe if the service improves substantially, I would be willing to give it another try. For now, it did not work for me, and on the basis of my experience I would not recommend it.

I am still interested in something that can centralize my social network profiles, so I will continue searching. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know.
 

Roy Tennant wrote a list of "The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology." What caught my eye on this were the items dealing more with people. Maybe it is because I am not a "techie" librarian like a lot of the celebrity libloggers are. Or maybe because I tend to think that your technology is only as good as the people you have running it. The idea of good people managing your library's technology has been on my mind lately, and if I was passing this on to my boss, I would especially highlight the following items from the list:

• "Maximize the effectiveness of your most costly technology investment -- your people." Mr. Tennant makes a good point about making sure you have good resources for your people. Don't bog them down with cheap or less than the best equipment. But I will also say to turn that equation around. Don't go around skimping on good people either. You need to hire good people to manage your technology. Just like library administrators have a specific skill set, which may or not include technological prowess, tech people also have a unique skill set, and it is one not all librarians or library staff have or desire to have (and I say this in terms of temperament, not unwillingness to learn). If you know you are going to need a good systems analyst or similar, hire one. Don't try to skimp by tossing the responsibility to another overworked professional in your library who may not have the full range of skills or the temperament to do it. And don't say "they can learn it" when you define "learning it" as just hand them a folder and hop to it. That's not right.
  
• "A major part of good technology implementation is good project management." Indeed. Again, this goes to the idea that everyone has different skills. It also goes back to the idea that you need good planning, and that you need to be proactive, not reactive. In other words, plan ahead and don't wait for the crisis to happen.
  
• "The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature." I think what Mr. Tennant wrote here pretty much speaks for itself. To administrators, he asks: "Are you willing to throw your political support behind it? Are you willing to invest the resources required to make it a success? Will you marshall the entire organization to support, promote, and use this new site or service? If not, simply don't bother." As I always say, put your money where your mouth is, otherwise, shut up. 

Anyhow, my quick two cents. I may add to this later, or probably just add it along to another post with a few other things about library managers.

I published my article note on libraries using Facebook today. I had written it a couple of days ago or so, and in that time a couple other things on the same topic showed up in the librarian sector of the blogosphere along with some other items I had clipped earlier. So, I am just jotting them down here for reference purposes, and I will then add this as an update over there so I have the reference handy.

• Bietila and Edwards did a presentation on identifying outreach opportunities for Facebook. A lot of the literature they cite is material I have read or seen before. What they did was check what the literature says against what the students actually do. Often, things don't match, but now and then you get some matching. A bit of the obvious, but a nice summary if you have not been exposed to the topic. Found via Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services. 
• Mike RIchwalsky, in a guest post at Brian Kelly's UK Web Focus, looks at "Facebook Usage by US Colleges and Universities." 
• danah boyd at Apophenia asks "when teachers and students connect outside school." I did leave a comment over there, but I wanted at some point to write out a reflective reply. I have not gotten around to that yet, but I think the post does pose a good point of discussion.
  
• I like this idea on "social web promotion" that Tame the Web points to. I think we could do something like that in our library.
  
• Stephen Abram posts a list of links for a list of "social media marketing reading." 
• James Grimmelmann, of New York Law School, has a paper on "Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy." This is one I yet have to read, but privacy is also a consideration when it comes to using Facebook. Found via librarian.net. 

The Tame the Web blog points to a presentation from ACRL Conference on "Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians." There is some really good food for thought there; there are some things I have been trying to say at my workplaces, but often met with lukewarm reception, and definitely some stuff applicable to instruction. I just looked over the slides, and while I would like to further ponder some of the ideas, as usual, time is tight. So for now I am just making a note that the slides exist, and I hope to look them over again later for further reflection. I think there are some ideas in the set I can use, but I need some reflection time, and that is lacking at this moment. 

I have been seeing a good number of items online on FB, social networks, and social networking literacy. A lot has to do with how to handle the public and private aspects of these online tools and knowing where to draw the line. Personally, the issue of how much to present of myself online is something I always think about. These is a sampling of some things I have seen recently:

• Alex Golub writes on "The Flaws of Facebook" for Inside Higher Ed. While mostly geared to campus faculty, the article has a thing or two to say to academic librarians as well.
  
• The Irascible Professor has a guest post by Felice Prager on "Social Networking for Dummies." This one is more tongue-in-cheek, but it is worth a read.
  
• From the AllFacebook blog, "10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know." FB is notorious for making it difficult for users to set privacy parameters, often making it hard to find just where exactly one goes to set particular privacy limits. This list should help. 
• danah boyd announced that she finally finished her dissertation. The topic: "Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Network Publics" (warning, big PDF file). This is certainly worth a look for librarians. Do read her post, which gives some highlights and provides the abstract, then feel free to look over the document itself. 
• Fred Stutzman points to an article out of portal:Libraries and the Academy on "Academic Libraries, Facebook, MySpace and Student Outreach." I am not linking to the article itself, since it is on Project Muse and likely requires subscription, but for academic librarians, they need to be reading it. It is on my pile of articles to read soon. In the same post, he also points to another article on virtual reference.
  
• David Spark, writing for Mashable, has an article on "12 Great Tales of Defriending." I include it on this list because sometimes, when it comes to social networks, you have the face the possibility of having to purge your friends' list for a variety of reasons. The article has a humourous tone, but it does consider serious issues. 
• Kate Sheehan, writing for ALA TechSource blog, has a piece on "Making Friends" that deals with friending on social networks. 
• Scientific American magazine has an article asking "Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy?"  The article was published in August 2008, and the author is Daniel J. Solove. 

To some who say that librarians may be obsolete some day, as long as there is a need to teach a little social networking literacy and common sense to the younger generations, we'll still have some work.

Citation for the article:

Birdsall, William F. "The Chiasmus of Librarianship and Collaborative Research for Evidence Based Practice." Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 3.2 (2008): 65-75.

Read online (this is an open access journal. Article link opens as a PDF file. Journal homepage here).

This is just another article that I have not that much to say, but I still wanted to make a note in it someplace. In essence, the article is saying that we may be moving back to a more heterogeneous era in librarianship, somewhat similar to the previous century. By this, the author means going back to the notions of the library being maintained on the basis of local needs as opposed to the more homogeneous era we have now based on standards and bureaucracy set (in stone it seems) by the professional organization. A lot of this movement is being propelled by the 2.0 movement. Author also suggests considering local forms of knowledge, reviewing the literature on native forms of knowledge.

Citation for the article:

Luo, Lili. "Chat Reference Evaluation: A Framework of Perspectives and Measures." Reference Services Review 36.1 (2008): 71-85.

Read via Emerald.

I just wanted to make a note of this article, but I don't have anything substantial enough for the main blog. It provides a review of procedures for evaluating chat reference services. It basically goes through the literature, and it summarizes the various approaches available for evaluating chat reference. Overall, a decent overview. 

Meredith Farkas recently delivered a talk on the topic of 2.0 and academic libraries, and she put up her presentation's slides. On the one hand, I tend to dislike looking at slides when people post them up like that because there is no context; I have no idea very often what people said to go with the slides. On the other hand, I happen to like this presentation because it has a lot of examples of things other libraries are doing. There are a few things I see that I would not mind trying. At the moment, what is stopping me is time and possible buy-in from others. Anyhow, for now, just wanted to keep track of this.

And by the way, I really need to consider how to use Slideshare. Seems like a nice little tool that could be useful.

Other items, while I am making notes:

• "100 Free Library 2.0 Webinars and Tutorials."
  
• Sarah Houghton-Jan's presentation on "Online Marketing for Academic Libraries." (link goes to her blog, where she links the presentation as a PDF). Some possible ideas here as well. She also did an "Online Marketing for Libraries" (link to her blog for various viewing options) webcast for OPAL. I have to take some time to watch it (assuming I can get it to work on my non-admininstrative privileged computer. I am still not happy over the fact I was not able to make some SirsiDynix webinar work here at MPOW because of that paranoid nonsense they got here on my campus).
  

This is just some random set of thoughts, which is why I am just scratching it here on this blog. I may consider adding a tag to this blog labeled "stuff the boss makes me read." Kind of like when Keith Olbermann does his celebrity segments and claims his producers force him to cover X or Y celebrity. While the boss did not put a gun on my head to read it, she did chase me down to put it in my hands. Now that I have time to think about it, it reminds me of that old cartoon where Daffy Duck is trying to evade the little man from the draft board. Anyhow, the boss gave us the copy of the article. In fact, she even included her notes in the photocopy, which I found myself sort of answering or probing as I read. So, first, the article citation:

Waters, John K. "The Library Morphs." Campus Technology April 2008: 52-58.

Read via: my boss bringing it over (she probably got it online at www.campustechnology.com here.)

This is the type of thing that I know would have fallen on my aggregator sooner or later. Heck, it may be there now since I am a bit behind on my feed reading. Work has been busy around here, what can I say? Anyways, the piece is basically an overview of Ohio State's plan to renovate their big library at the cost of $109 million dollars. I wish I had that problem,so to speak. But snark aside, there are some things to consider, which I am guessing is why my boss picked it up. That she just got back from some conference out East dealing with library spaces may also have something to do with it. Anyways, we are digressing.

The essence of the article is the idea, which is becoming somewhat old by now given all the hype it has gotten in the L2 circles, that libraries are becoming flexible learning spaces. It is the same idea that goes along reducing book and materials collections to make more spaces for students. This does sound like a great thing, but the skeptic in me always wonders at what price. What are we losing in the process? I just think that a sense of balance is being lost.

Some of the notes then:

• At Ohio State, their ten-year renovation is nearing completion. One of the things they did was reduce their materials, specifically books. They did not necessarily get rid of them. They used a combination of compact shelving and off-site storage. However, they did reduce their volume count from 2 million to 1.25 million. Ohio State is still doing collection development, and they have an "influx" of books. Influx is not a problem here. And my boss helpfully jotted down that we reduced our own volume count from 215,000 to 180, 000. Our volume count will probably be further reduced as we move with some aggressive weeding to make some more learning spaces. Which is fine except that a lot of materials are not going to be replaced. Given that the collection is pretty much at close to zero growth already, I personally have my concerns. The boss knows about it; I am not saying anything new here.
  
• The guy at Ohio State also points out that one needs to recognize "the growing amount of quality resources available online, and the impracticality of shelving an endless influx of books" (54). First, those quality resources that are available online are often not free. Not only are they not free, but they cost a lot, and the cost keeps rising. In our case, since the materials budget is frozen in time, every time the cost of those online resources goes up, it means we cut even more away from the other types of materials. I will leave the two readers of this blog to take that to a logical conclusion. Second, as for the impractical influx, that is what selective collection development is for. It is what a librarian is trained for: to make decisions as to what goes in the collection and what does not. I get the slight impression that remark is made by someone who does not have to worry (as much) about a materials budget and can pretty much get anything his heart desires.
  
• At Ohio State, "there's a very robust wireless infrastructure and lots of places to plug in a laptop" (54). We lack the first one, and we are trying to address the second one. If we give our boss credit for something, it is a healthy enthusiasm, "can do" attitude. I think we can get some more plugs in for those laptops students bring in. I am not so sure about getting the infrastructure to be more robust. Money can do a lot of things, but you have to have it.
  
• This definitely caught my attention. In part, it is something I have known: that often the spaces students use for their studying are places that are out of the way. "[Scott Bennett, a library design consultant] says that his own surveys show that some of the most productive learning spaces on campus are among the most disregarded: empty classrooms or 'accidents of architecture' filled with cast-off furniture and yet crowded with students. Computer labs, he says, don't rate highly on these surveys" (54).
  
• In their renovation, Ohio State has two instruction rooms (56). My boss wrote in the margin that we need instruction space. She won't get a disagreement from me there. She also wrote that we need to improve our individual and group study rooms. She won't get disagreement from me there either. Here's my take: how do we actually do it? More importantly, do it, not just implement some short term band-aid? Seeing my instruction librarian linger between an inadequate meeting room in the library for doing instruction or having to walk all over campus to use someone else's computer lab or electronic classroom is something I find sad to say the least. As someone who had to work without instruction space for a few months during a renovation, I certainly feel some of her pain. I could say more on this topic, but that would be another story for another time.
  
• One other thing I found problematic is the observation by Lynn Scott Cochrane, of Denison U. in Ohio, that students don't distinguish between books, media, and computer software, that it is all one thing to them (58). This statement is used to justify taking more resources online. But I think it is also indicative of another serious problem: the lack of good information literacy skills. One of the early discoveries we are making in our recent usability testing is that students are not as knowledgeable in this regard. They have difficulties interpreting a citation in order to locate an article. They cannot tell the catalog (which you use to find books) from an article database. I don't think that should be a point of pride nor something to brag about. It should not be a promo point either to simply surrender to the electronic waves. This is something I have considered as I read some other items in the literature: here, here, here, and here for instance. But what do I know? I am just a reference and instruction librarian in the trenches.
  

Anyways, there are my two cents. If my boss asks at some point if I read the article, I may just send her this link. I am not sure yet. I don't want to sound negative. I think we do need to offer better spaces for students to take control of their learning. I believe our role as librarians, one of the roles at least, should be that of facilitators. But I also think that in order to facilitate, you have to have resources to offer. And not everything is online. A lot of it is, but not everything. While Google Books may let you search for a lot of content, you are not going to get everything from it; eventually, Google will prompt you to buy the book and very "helpfully" point you to Amazon or a similar vendor. Same thing with Google Scholar, though we can often make that work with our databases. You may get better search interface with Google Scholar, but you still have to pay for the premium content somehow. Contrary to some trendy people's thinking, the future is not necessarily free. It costs, and it costs a lot. Add to it that electronic sources are not owned, but merely rented, and one should at least show some concern. Can we reduce our print materials? Sure, and we should do so, but we should do so with good judgment and thinking. And we should keep some print items and offer them as well. It's a matter of balance. Then again, what do I know? I am just a mere librarian in the trenches.