Archive for the ‘Library 2.0’ Category

Illustration by Max Scratchmann

Anastasia Goodstein offers some pretty sound advice for attracting today’s tech-savvy, multi-tasking teens to the library in her article What Would Madison Avenue Do? Marketing to Teens: To attract today’s teens, think like a marketing pro in the May 1st issue of School Library Journal. From her experience studying young people’s online habits Goodstein shares the following lessons for dealing with the Millenial generation:

• Teens are multitaskers.
• Teens prefer byte-sized entertainment.
• Teens expect content on demand.
• Teens want to participate.
• Enlist teens to manage your social media.
• Don’t try too hard to be cool.
• Know your audience.
• Don’t sweat the design.
• Support causes that kids care about.
• Use text messaging and IM appropriately.
• Teens love making mixtapes… online.
• Tweens like to break virtual worlds’ rules.
• It’s not just about MySpace and Facebook.
• Beware of anonymous gossip sites and applications.
• Dance videos are all the rage.
• Miley’s YouTube channel.

A Scandinavian event called the Living Library which lets patrons borrow human “books” is making its way around the UK according to the Times Online. During these special events, library readers are able to check out a person for up to 30 minutes for a one-on-one chat which will offer them the opportunity to learn about a different lifestyle, culture, ethnicity, etc. The books cataloged for the events include a wide variety of stereotypes including Gay Man, Police Officer, Person with Mental Health Difficulties, Muslim, Vegan, and Ex Gang Member.

Mike Eisenberg writes about The Parallel Information Universe: What’s out there and what it means for libraries in the May 1, 2008 issue of Library Journal. In his article, Eisenberg discusses several different 2.0 technology types and conducts a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis for each, as well as provides some advice for taking those next steps.

“The major lesson for librarians from all this is that “it’s an information world out there!” More and more, it’s not about the technology; it’s about information—finding, using, creating, combining, sharing, and evaluating it. There is an underlying information base to every aspect of life and a need for information institutions in society—that is, libraries. Libraries must continue to play our traditional role, but we also need to assume responsibility for being the information institutions in our communities and organizations.”

The U.K.’s Guardian, in association with the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc), has published a special supplement titled Libraries Unleashed featuring 18 articles on libraries and technology. They have categorized the articles into the following topic areas:

• Colleges, universities and the digital challenge
• Learning spaces
• Library 2.0
• New business models
• Digitisation
• The new user
• Librarians

The London Journal of The New York Times covers the controversy having to do with the British Library’s new generation of researchers, and the philosophical debate over who should be allowed access to the national library. Four years ago the esteemed library opened its reading rooms to anyone with “a relevant research need” - including undergraduate students. These new researchers chat with one another, listen to iPods, log onto Facebook, and answer their cell phones, much to the dismay of the Library’s traditional researchers.

“The library has changed and evolved, and people use it in different ways,” said the spokeswoman, who asked that, in accordance with library policy, her name not be used. “They have a different way of doing their research. They are using their computers and checking things on the Web, not just taking notes on notepads.”

Will the Library of Congress experience the same culture clash between this new more “interactive” generation of library users and traditional researchers? They announced last week that they are now opening their main reading room to researchers age 16 and older.

I just finished reading Jenny Levine’s excellent Library Technology Report - Gaming & Libraries Update: Broadening the Intersections. It’s chock-full of interesting case studies of real library implementations of gaming programs as well as recommended resources. The report covers tabletop (board) games, big games such as LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing), as well as video games. Readers can pick up plenty of game recommendations throughout, but I will be checking further into some of the board games suggested at the end as I noticed a couple of my favorites were listed including Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.

Ryan Deschamps, at The Other Librarian, blogs about Sustainability and Libraries: Is Anyone Challenging Our Assumptions about Digitization? He talks about taking a look at the TBL - triple bottom line - with regard to libraries which involves looking at economic, environmental and social criteria for measuring success. To be leaders in this area, Ryan suggests that libraries need:

• Research
• Benchmarks
• Innovation
• Partnerships

The New York Times covers local public libraries which are offering downloadable e-books, audiobooks, and video to patrons in their article What’s New at the E-Library. Area libraries are contracting with services such as Overdrive, Recorded Books, and TumbleBooks to offer these new services. And over 100 of these libraries subscribe to a service called Next Reads which sends personalized book recommendations to patrons’ email inboxes.

“Technology is not something we’re afraid of, it’s something we’ve embraced and our patrons have embraced,” Ms. Lapsley said. “Technology is a steppingstone — we don’t know what else is coming down the pike, but we do know that everything we use will allow us to build on that technology and have our patrons build on that knowledge.”

The ALA has published the 2008 State of America’s Libraries report. Here are their key findings:

• Americans check out over 2 billion items annually from public libraries.
• The average user checks out over 7 books/year.
• The average taxpayer bill for public library services - $31/year.
• Public libraries are engines of economic growth, contributing to local development through programming in early literacy, employment services and small-business development.
• Libraries provide excellent ROI, positively impact the local economy, and contribute to neighborhood quality of life.
• School library media centers help students learn more and score higher on standardized tests, but their funding continues to lag.
• Teens are regular users of public library services.
• Almost all of the nation’s public libraries offer YA programs & over half employ at least one full-time staff equivalent in this area.
• Computer and on-line games have become part of the mix at many public libraries, and some use gaming to attract new patrons.
• Spanish is the top-priority language to which libraries devote non-English language services and programs.
• Most libraries serving non-English speakers are in communities with fewer than 100,000 residents.
• Ebooks continued to emerge as a regular feature of libraries of all types.
• Library supporters won an important victory in 2007 when the Environmental Protection Agency was ordered to re-open many of the libraries it had closed in the past year.
• College and research libraries continue to find innovative new ways to meet the rapidly evolving needs of the academy.
• Libraries and librarians of all stripes continue to stand up for the First Amendment rights of all Americans, responding in public discourse and in court to unconstitutional snooping and aspiring book-banners. The right to read — freely and in private — remains a core value of the profession.

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

The latest issue of Educause Review has an article by Peter Brantley entitled Architectures for Collaboration: Roles and Expectations for Digital Libraries in which he discusses the need for change within today’s libraries. In the article he asserts a set of “library mantras” which he feels are key to this change, including:

• Libraries Must Be Available Everywhere.
• Libraries Must Be Designed to Get Better through Use.
• Libraries Must Be Portable.
• Libraries Must Know Where They Are.
• Libraries Must Tell Stories.
• Libraries Must Help People Learn.
• Libraries Must Be Tools of Change.
• Libraries Must Offer Paths for Exploration.
• Libraries Must Help Forge Memory.
• Libraries Must Speak for People.
• Libraries Must Study the Art of War.

“The success of libraries is not to be counted by the number of books, either digital or paper, held by libraries or the number of pretty pictures that libraries can put online. Libraries are successful to the extent that they can bridge communities and can leverage the diversity of the quest, the research, and the discovery. Libraries are successful when they offer new services and when they help others discover services provided by others. By building bridges among these various sectors, libraries will be able to define themselves in the next generation. They will become the architects of collaboration.”

This year’s conference was jam-packed with informative and entertaining sessions. Here are a few links to presentation slides, but be sure and keep an eye on Slideshare for more:

Libraries Solve Problems (Keynote) - Lee Rainie

Online Outreach for Libraries: Successful Digital Marketing - Sarah Houghton-Jan

Transparency, Planning & Change: See-Through Libraries - Michael Stephens and Michael Casey

Pecha Kucha 2.0 Podcasting Edition - Greg Schwartz

Technology Training for Library Staff: Creativity Works! - Sarah Houghton-Jan

Podcasting & Videocasting Bootcamp - David Lee King and David Free

Innovation Starts with “I” - Helene Blowers and Tony Tallent

From Avatars to Advocacy: Innovation through Un-marketing - Helene Blowers and Michael Porter

Harnessing New Data Visualization Tools - Darlene Fichter

Mashups for Non-Techies: Yahoo! Pipes - Jody Fagan

and the InfoTubey award winners

Today at the Computers in Libraries 2008 conference, I presented on the open source content management system Drupal and how it’s being used by libraries and librarians. For those of you who weren’t able to make the conference but are still interested, I’ve created a Slidecast of my talk which is a combination of my PowerPoint presentation and an audio track. You can also just download the presentation and check out the speaker notes if you’d rather.

Sara de Freitas writes a chapter for Volume 3 of the Becta research report, Emerging Technologies for Learning, discussing educational trends, issues, and potential uses of virtual worlds. Other interesting research from this volume includes:

• Growing up with Google - what it means to education, Diana Oblinger, EDUCAUSE
• Mobile, wireless, connected - information clouds and learning, by Mark van’t Hooft, Kent State University
• Location-based and context-aware education - prospects and perils by Adam Greenfield, NYU
• ‘If it quacks like a duck…’ - developments in search technologies by Emma Tonkin, UKOLN
• Interactive displays and next generation interfaces by Michael Haller, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences

John K. Waters writes about the learning commons in his article The Library Morphs in the latest issue of Campus Technology. He concentrates on Ohio State University’s Thompson Library renovation which aims to transform the library into “a library for the 21st century”.

“When people describe what they are going to do with a learning commons,” Bennett observes, “they often talk about integrating the services delivered by librarians and information technologists. Sometimes, they even bring in student tutoring services. The result can be a useful space that integrates these services, but it’s still a space in which the service providers call the shots. We’re very slow to break away from that model and admit that what these spaces should be about is the students taking responsibility for their own educations.”

Also in this issue: Wikis, Blogs & More, Oh My! discusses the adoption of new Web technologies by colleges and universities.

The Public Library Association had its annual conference March 25-28, here are a few links to presentations and conference coverage.

Conference Presentations
Scary Things & Great Opportunities: Web 2.0 & Libraries 2008
Michael Stephens

Keen on 2.0: The Amateurs are Coming!
John Blyberg

Why Do We Dewey?: Redesigning Libraries By Learning from Retail
Marie Pyko, Lissa Staley, Renee Patzer & Thad Hartman
Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

PLA
PLA Handouts Page

Blog Coverage
The Public Library Association blogged throughout the conference at:
PLA Blog

WebJunction’s blog has extensive coverage of the conference at:
BlogJunction

David Lee King has blogged the conference with this series of posts:
PLA 2008 Day 1: Dewey or Don’t We?

PLA 2008 Day 1: Take Your Online Services to the Next Level: Audio, Video and More!

PLA 2008 Day 1: You’re Fired! When the Ideal Candidate Becomes the Problem Employee

PLA 2008 Day 1: What Does it Take to be Good at Reference in the Age of Google?

PLA 2008, Day 2: Think Outside the Book: Online Services as Outreach

PLA 2008, Day 2: The Cutting Edge: The Latest Information on Web 2.0

PLA 2008, Day 3: It Ain’t Necessarily So: Challenging the Assumptions of Legacy Librarianship