May 15th, 2012
Steven Anderson offers a quick tutorial for to How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School. Each of these seven steps walks you through the process of creating effective guidelines for your organization including great resource lists and questions for reflection along the way. Here are the first five steps in the process:
- 1. Examine Your School Culture
- 2. Organize a Team
- 3. Research Phase
- 4. Draft Your Document and Incorporate Feedback
- 5. Make Sure the School Attorney and School Board See the Draft
Posted in Policies, Social Software | No Comments »
May 15th, 2012
Ed Oswald at Extreme Tech writes an elucidating article Demystifying Semantic Search. If you’ve been wondering about this new trend in search technology but aren’t certain exactly what it is, you’ll want to check out this article which discusses Google, Bing, and Wolfram Alpha.
“Web searchers these days are a sophisticated bunch. We expect more from our search results, and sometimes a list of links just doesn’t cut it. Plus, who wants to muddle around those results trying to find precisely what you’re looking for? Shouldn’t a search engine know what you want? That’s why search engines, including heavy hitters such as Google and Bing, are beginning to look for ways to get you the information you want more quickly.
The latest attempt to make search results more relevant is by peering into the meaning of your search query itself. This is called semantic search.”
Posted in Search, Semantic Web | No Comments »
May 11th, 2012
Ann Smarty at the Social Media Examiner has outlined 5 Steps to Hosting Successful Twitter Chats: Your Ultimate Guide. If you’ve ever thought about hosting a Twitter chat for your library or event, you won’t want to miss this post. Here are the first 3 steps discussed:
- #1: Understand How it Works
- #2: Form Your Plan
- #3: Announce and Promote Your Twitter Chat
Posted in Libraries, Library 2.0, Library Services, Microblogging | No Comments »
May 11th, 2012
Joe Brockmeier at ReadWriteCloud puts together an excellent list of The 7 Best Open Government Sites. These are each third-party websites which provide different collections of information about the U.S. government. I can’t wait to check these out, here are the first five reviewed:
- POPVOX: Bridging the Public and Congress
- OpenCongress
- Poligraft
- Follow the Money
- OpenSecrets.org
Posted in Government Docs, Open Access | No Comments »
May 10th, 2012
Posted in E-Books, ERM, Libraries, Library 2.0, Library Services, Marketing, Mobile, Preservation, QR Codes, Social Networking, Social Software, Technology | No Comments »
May 9th, 2012
Darren Steele, Strategic Director of Mindspace, and co-author of the gamification book, “I’ll Eat this Cricket for a Cricket Badge.” blogs at Mashable and offers 4 Tips For Gamifying Your Marketing Plan. This useful post discusses each of these recommendations:
- 1. Decide on the Right Opacity
- 2. Break Up Information Into Smaller Pieces
- 3. Do Something With Likes and Followers
- 4. Match Incentives With Engagement
Posted in Gaming, Marketing | No Comments »
May 9th, 2012
Debbie Hemley at the Social Media Examiner offers 26 Tips for Success With Location-Based Marketing. These excellent recommendations for leveraging social, local, and mobile into your marketing strategy form an A-Z guide for location-based marketing. Here are the first five tips discussed:
- #1: Analytics
- #2: Blog
- #3: Coupons and Location-Based Mobile Apps
- #4: Directories
- #5: Engagement
Posted in Location-Based Services, Marketing | No Comments »
May 8th, 2012
This is another topic that I give a 3-hour workshop on, and since I’ve had positive feedback on the other two series of posts on Card Sorting and Personal Digital Archiving, I figured this might be worth sharing as well. To start off, here’s the workshop description:
Whether you’re considering purchasing an ILS or a shared calendar program, choosing a technology solution which suits the needs of your library presents many challenges. This session will explain the process of creating and executing a project plan which will lead to an informed selection. Avoid the familiar traps of choosing a technology because it is; the highest-rated, most expensive, cheapest, comes recommended by a colleague, or they have snazzy marketing copy. Learn how to find the perfect fit for the unique needs of your library. Discover how to gain market intelligence, gather business, functional, and technical requirements, evaluate competing vendors, get buy-in from staff and colleagues, create an RFP and make your final selection. Common pitfalls of choosing free software solutions will also be discussed. Learn how to avoid the instant-gratification snare with these programs that could cost you in the long run.
Five Pitfalls of Choosing a Technology Solution
Making a technology decision on behalf of your library is a complex decision which should take into account your unique infrastructure, current technology needs, and available resources including staff time and experience as well as finances. What’s right for one library or organization may not necessarily be a good fit for you. Here are some common reasons people choose a new technology, but taken individually, they should not be the basis of an educated technology decision:
- The boss heard about it at a conference
- A friend told them it was awesome
!!!!
- It’s the most expensive, it’s the cheapest, or it’s free
- The IT department has been working with that technology for the past 10 years and are reluctant to try anything new
- The company has great marketing copy
Costs of Making the Wrong Choice
Choosing the wrong technology solution can set back an organization significantly in long-term resource costs in time and energy to:
- Retrain staff on another product
- Recreate data
- Overcome bad feelings developed about the technology
When to Use this Process
- When your library has a need or “requirement” for a technology solution
– If you can’t write the requirements, you don’t have a need yet!
When Not to Use this Process
- Just dipping your toe in the water
- You want to try a technology because everyone else is using it.
Next: Develop the Project Plan
Posted in Planning, Technology | No Comments »
May 7th, 2012
Gwyneth Anne Bronwynne Jones at The Daring Librarian has updated and improved her QR Code Quest Scavenger Hunt lesson from last year and has given us all the fantastic details – including worksheets and lesson plans – in QR Code Quest Scavenger Hunt- Part Deux! What’s new in this iteration? QR codes that talk!!
Posted in QR Codes, School Library | No Comments »
May 7th, 2012
Marcus Sheridan at the Social Media Examiner recommends 19 Ways to Build Relationships With Blog Comments. This excellent article discusses strategies for building a sense of community as well as personal relationships with your readers by responding to their comments on your blog. Here are the first five suggestions:
- #1: Write in a Personal Voice
- #2: Invite Reader Response by Asking Questions
- #3: Don’t be a Know-it-All
- #4: Admit You May be Wrong
- #5: Utilize an Author Bio and Photo
Posted in Best Practices, Blogs | No Comments »
May 5th, 2012
Julie Greller at A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet asks Do Your Students Know How to Cite a Tweet? Since none of the available MLA citation guides seem to include tweets, she put together this quick guide to how it should be done.
Posted in Microblogging | No Comments »
May 4th, 2012
The iLibrarian Card Sorting from A–Z series of posts was based on a 3-hour hands-on workshop I give on the topic. Here’s a wrap up of all 9 articles.
Posted in Guides, Usability | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2012
Jill Harness at Mental Floss gathers a set of 15 Vintage Photos of Librarians. There are both single and group images of librarians as well as photos of Notable Librarians such as the Librarians of Congress.
Posted in Libraries, Media | No Comments »
May 3rd, 2012
Mike Ashenfelder writes for the Library Of Congress’ The Signal: Digital Preservation blog about Archiving Cell Phone Text Messages. If you’ve wondered how you can backup and preserve your SMS messages from your cell phone, you’ll want to check out this helpful article.
“Saving text messages is more difficult for basic phones. You have to open the phone, remove its SIM card and display the card’s contents through a SIM card reader. A reader is an inexpensive device into which you pop the SIM card, plug the reader into the USB port on your computer, display the SIM card contents and copy the text messages over. The “Text” format of the text messages is one of the least complex of all the computer file formats, so you can display the contents of a text message file with a basic text editor. You can even display it with a browser; text files get along well with several different programs.”
Posted in Preservation, SMS | No Comments »
May 2nd, 2012
Posted in Guides, Usability | No Comments »
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