This could be a long post but worth the read!
First up LibraryThing is launching a new product called
Library Anywhere this could be something that becomes interesting in the future especially as mobile applications move into the 21st century. LibraryThing recently announced that Library Anywhere will be launching in the next few weeks.
It is a mobile catalogue for any library, up and running in minutes. It includes the following features:
Mobile web and apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Android.
- Cheaper than you'd guess.
- Search, place holds, and more.
- Showcase hours, branches, and events.
- No installation process.
- Works with 90% of current OPACs.
- Comes with an "accessible” version.
I have also been recieving a lot of emails from Lis-Web2 that I subscribe to so I'll add the emails in order of reading so you can just read down the page (lots of reading so make sure you ahve time). It's very useful for us at the moment and gives you insight as to what other Libraries are trying to achive:
Email 1Like many public library authorities, we in Lancashire have for some time been considering the development of library services using social networking and Web 2.0. There are many arguments and much circumstantial evidence to support this usage (why do the BBC put such store in blogs and RSS feeds, for instance?) but the difficulty for us remains in establishing links, other than anecdotal ones, between the levels of activity, time and effort put into maintaining the Library 2.0 presence, and practical effects on resultant service take-up.
I would be very interested to know if any public libraries have carried out actual formal (or informal research) into the effectiveness of using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, blogs and other similar vehicles by the library service? Is this something that we can really measure, or is the overwhelming evidence of its status in society and communications now so extensive that the need for such quantitative measurement can be overlooked?
RESPONSES- We are in the process of running a series of workshops looking at Web 2.0 and social web for libraries (and museums and archives). Measuring impact is a tricky one but we have heard much anecdotal evidence to suggest there are real tangible benefits.
Some of the case studies that have presented might be useful.
e.g.
The Twitter Experience at Chelmsford
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/social-web-chelmsford-2010/socialweb-casestudy-ppt2000-html/
Twittering at Sheffield library:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/social-web-sheffield-2010/socialweb-casestudy-ppt2000-html/
Birmingham libraries use of Web 2.0
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/social-web-birmingham-2010/socialweb-casestudy-ppt2000-html/
You might also want to have a look at some of the case studies/guest blog posts on our Cultural heritage blog:
http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/category/guest-blog/
I'd also recommend the Libraries and Web 2.0 wiki which has a long list of examples:
http://librariesandweb2.wetpaint.com/page/Web+2.0+Examples - You've asked a sensible question - from a Web 1.0 perspective. Let me try and explain what I mean. When using tools in the past they were going to cost a lot of money, so you had to make sure that you got the right tool for the right job - not only did the thing have to work, you'd then need to train staff on how to use the thing. If you got it wrong, it was a really big deal and bad error. Moreover, the expectation was that not only would you get things right, you'd get them right the first time around.
Web 2.0 resources are generally free or so cheap as to be free, and they're designed to be simple to use. Very importantly these tools are designed to fit together in a variety of different ways. Consequently it's possible to look at these resources in a rather different way. In my experience (having written about and used Web 2.0 tools for the last eight years) the best thing to do is to actually just try them out. No-one expects you to get things right first time; part of the Web 2.0 'experience' is exploring what's out there.
Don't focus on the tools. The tools are in fact the least important element - unlike the Web 1.0 world. There are multiple tools, all of can be expected to do pretty much the same job. What I'd suggest that you want to do is look at the question from another angle. What do you want to achieve with your library service that you're not currently doing? What are you doing poorly, and want to do better? For example, if you want to reach out to people that don't currently use the services you offer, you need to seek them out, and this means exploring Facebook, finding if there's a local group, introducing yourselves, adding to the conversations and so on. If you offer a printed newsletter, you may feel that it's really not as current or responsive as you'd like, in which case you want to consider if something like a blog would work. Maybe you want to update your website more quickly and effectively, in which case I'd suggest using a microblogging service like Twitter.
Measurement is of course important; but in many respects measurement will only work within the confines of the resource you're looking at.
How many people read your blog? How many more people look at a page on your website by following a link from Twitter? How many people join your fan page on Facebook? Think of it in promotional terms - if you're a company selling a product you can't simply view the success of an advert in terms of the increased number of cans you sell, you have to also take into account people becoming familiar with the brand over time.
You're only going to get the answers to a lot of these questions by trial and error, and this is where I would say that evaluation (rather more than measurement) is certainly worth doing. Which home/start page works best for you, your staff and clients? Is it Pageflakes or is it Netvibes for example. You'll only get the answer by using both and seeing which works best in your circumstances. If a tool doesn't do what you want - throw it away. The activity is important, the tool - not so much. Now, for this to work you're going to expend time and energy playing around with these things and seeing how you can use them in combination with each other - your Twitter 'tweets' can get posted to your blog and to your webpage. Your blog entries can get posted to your Twitter feed and your site. You'll need to play around
- there's no right or wrong answers here.
People are probably sick of it by now, but Web 2.0 is not tools, it's a state of mind - looking at information flows differently, considering different ways of interacting with your public. If you need examples of Web 2.0 tools that work well within a library setting I'd encourage you to take a look at my categorised and annotated listing of over 1,100 at http://www.philb.com/iwantto.htm and there's also a link there to my Web 2.0 applications weblog as well. Finally, at the risk of self promotion (but I'm a consultant, it's a necessary part of the job), I also run training courses on Web 2.0 tools and can advise further if necessary. - Thank you for your timely advice and for putting a different perspective onto my question. You rightly emphasising the change of attitude that's required with Web 2.0. However, the task of convincing managers and staff that the substantial amount of time and effort required for Library 2.0 - or rather the redirection of this time and effort into using different tools - is always easier when you can show that it is possible to evaluate it in other ways than merely counting your followers on Twitter and Facebook.
- These are important points: the key measurement should be of the effectiveness of the communications or delivery strategies/programmes/projects and not of the individual tools employed, especially when the tools themselves interact in complex and unpredictable ways (the video you post on YouTube could appear on someone’s blog, and/or prompt somebody to share on Facebook, which could provoke a Tweet from someone else…etc., etc.)
- I would also add that the assertion that "If a tool doesn't do what you want - throw it away" is fine as long as managers and users also exist in a Web 2.0 world. Which isn't the case. None of the decision-makers, few of our colleagues and (probably) not a lot of our users are digital natives. So we have to make the case for a new "tool" to managers, and persuade colleagues to use it and share it with users - if we then (for however good a reason) throw it away and start over with another one, we lose credibility and goodwill and provide fuel for critics of social networking who claim that, "It's all just a flash in the pan".
I was impelled to say this because I have just received a notice of a briefing on customer services for our own, very senior, managers entitled, "Getting it right first time!" - Yes, I think that you've neatly hit the nail on the head. One of the major criteria of Web 2.0 applications is that data is now portable.
Someone may choose to visit my blog to read it, or they could use a newsreader to look at the RSS feed, or they could pick it up from my website, or indeed it's quite possible that the content has been embedded elsewhere - I see my posts popping up (with attribution) in various places. Consequently I've got very little idea of the exact impact that my weblogs have. This is the case for many Web 2.0 tools.
Measurement and evaluation has to be linked more to the activity than anything else. For example - can the content on a webpage be changed by a librarian (for the sake of argument) inside a minute? The answer is probably not. If it is felt desirable, then creating a mirror of a twitter feed on a webpage, or an RSS feed from a blog will allow this to happen. This is easily measured and evaluated. Equally one could argue that it's difficult to evaluate a webpage or website. Of course, you can roughly measure the number of people who visit it, but that's a very crude indicator of the value of a page, since one person may well ignore the content, and another could find it very useful. That does not stop us having webpages or websites however.
I do fully appreciate that The Powers That Be want more than this, but it's not always going to be possible to achieve this. I think it's worth identifying specific libraries that are using different tools and asking for their opinions, but I still contend that the best way of finding out is to use different tools and make your own judgement call. - Hope you don't mind me coming back to you on this, but I think there's an important point here. Web 2.0 doesn't exist. It's not a thing that you can point at. It's not a resource that comes in a box. Web 2.0 is really a concept as much as anything else. If you or your managers get bogged down in a discussion on definitions of Web 2.0 you really won't get anywhere. Consequently Web 2.0 can't be 'banned' - because there is nothing *to* ban.
You can ban access to individual sites, such as Facebook or YouTube, but that's all you can do. My advice would be to move away from this as swiftly as possible, and as I've already said, focus on the activity. Decide on activities you want to do, or to improve upon, and move the discussion around to deciding which of all of those has priority, rather than the tool to use.
If you look at specific tools, you've lost already. It's not a situation where you decide on a single piece of software to do a job, and it's one that you have to stick to. There are multiple tools that I can use. If I wanted to create a word cloud for example I could use Wordle, but there are another 7 or 8 that work just as well - it's the outcome which is important.
There are of course longer term projects, such as taking delivery of news feeds via RSS. You may choose to use Bloglines or Google Reader or something else. It really doesn't matter which one you choose - it's the activity that's important. If 6 months down the line you don't like that software, you can easily switch to another, taking all your subscriptions with you.
Now, to take on a couple of points that Heather made. To talk of Web 2 as a flash in the pan is a nonsense statement (Heather - I know it's not you making it!), because Web 2 is simply a development of resources and applications, into areas such as blogging, newsfeeds and so on. These are nothing special - they're just part of the internet now. For managers to say that they're a flash in the pan simply shows the level of understanding of the internet that they have, and in many instances this is a view that's a good 5 years out of date.
Part of the job of the information professional (IMO) is that of informing and educating - not just clients but other colleagues, including those higher up in the organization, to ensure that they have a broad and current understanding of the internet. Without that, decisions will be made that are inpractical, incorrect and damaging to the organization.
Lhan
