Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

There have been quite a few library technology stories since my last roundup in late February. Here are 30 stories/articles/blog posts that you won’t want to miss!! And please list any other recent library tech stories in the comments.

Social Media

1. 3 Ways College Libraries Are Exploring Pinterest
2. 5 Educational YouTube Channels for Librarians
3. 10 Resources for Using Pinterest in Your Library
4. NYPL’s Movie Trailer-Style Library Video
5. 20 Great Ways Libraries Are Using Pinterest

Mobile

6. 10 Kindle Cases That Look Like Books
7. Libraries Loaning iPads
8. Reinvent the Book Club: How To Host Your Own Audiobook Gathering

e-Books

9. Evaluating e-Books in Law Libraries
10. Ebooks 101: DRM (Digital Rights Management)
11. Should Libraries Get Out of the eBook Business?

QR Codes

12. QR Codes Extend Library Programming
13. What are some uses for QR codes in public and academic libraries?
14. QR Code Quest Scavenger Hunt- Part Deux!

Library Marketing

15. 21 Resources for Library Marketing with Social Media
16. Stop Branding Your Library!!
17. How to Use Webinars to Create Great Relationships with Library Patrons
18. Create Your Own Library Social Media Monitoring Dashboard

Preservation

19. Archiving Cell Phone Text Messages
20. Pinterest and the New Meaning of Curation

ERM

21. Implementing an ERM System in Your Library
22. Managing Electronic Resources

Misc

23. Ten Things I Didn’t Learn in Library School
24. 20 Everyday Ways To Escape The Library Echo Chamber
25. Alternative Uses for the Pesky eBook Budget
26. Poll Results: What Technologies will impact libraries in 2-5 years?
27. Card Sorting from A–Z iLibrarian Series
28. 7 Stellar Library Conference Presentations
29. 7 Things You Should Know About™ the Evolution of the Textbook
30. Vintage Photos of Librarians

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

There were an amazing 395 responses to last week’s poll question: Which new technology(ies) do you think will have the most impact on libraries over the next 2-5 years? e-Books, mobile, and cloud computing technologies dominated the responses. Here are the results:

e-Books: 79 votes, 20%
Mobile Apps: 68 votes, 17.22%
Cloud Computing: 60 votes, 15.19%
Semantic Web: 31 votes, 7.85%
Social Publishing Applications (blogs, wikis, Twitter, YouTube): 30 votes, 7.59%
RFID: 25 votes, 6.33%
Social Networking Applications (Facebook): 23 votes, 5.82%
Augmented Reality Apps: 19 votes, 4.81%
QR Codes: 18 votes, 4.56%
Social Bookmarking (Pinterest): 18 votes, 4.56%
Location-Aware Technology (Foursquare): 12 votes, 3.04%
Other: 12 votes, 3.04%

And here are the results of the “Other” category

• Discovery Services
• HTML5 as an app platform
• Book scanners for ILL and photocopier replacement
• GIS
• iPad
• Mobile devices
• moble web
• large screen, gesture-based info exploration
• linked data
• None of the above

Barry Friedman, a professor at the New York University School of Law and the author of “The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution”, writes about Privacy, Technology and Law for the New York Times Sunday Review Opinion section. This thought-provoking article raises questions we all need to consider in this digital age.

“EVERY day, those of us who live in the digital world give little bits of ourselves away. On Facebook and LinkedIn. To servers that store our e-mail, Google searches, online banking and shopping records. Does the fact that so many of us live our lives online mean we have given the government wide-open access to all that information? “

In her latest “Technology in Practice” column titled Providing the Tools, Meredith Farkas writes about “bringing digital creation technologies to libraries”. I love the idea of libraries providing patrons with access to expensive video editing software like Final Cut Pro. Not only would this enable people to be creative and produce videos, but this is a valuable skill to have for people who are in the job market!! Here’s the first paragraph of the article, be sure and click in for more.

“In the 1990s, libraries were pioneers in providing access to the internet in their communities. Even today, libraries are the only place some community members can get online. Over the past few years, libraries have begun positioning themselves as the go-to place for digital creation technologies, providing hardware and software that most people wouldn’t have at home. By providing these creative tools to their patrons, libraries fill a valuable niche in the community, a niche consistent with their historical commitment to bridging gaps in technology access.”

While I was at LegalTech on Monday, I had a chance to attend a session titled “Talking Tech to Lawyers” which could have easily been titled “Talking Tech to Faculty” or “Talking Tech to Library Decision Makers”. The panel was made up of three CIO’s at law firms who gave some pretty solid advice on ways to build relationships for support of IT initiatives. Bob Dolinsky of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, Terry Pressley of Leonard Street and Deinard, and C. Kirk Scruggs from Bracewell & Giuliani LLP offered the following advice.

“You can’t build support sitting in your office”.

1. Have a service attitude.
2. Talk in terms of their businesses rather than the technology, in other words how will the technology help them solve their problems.
3. Express what’s involved in a technology rollout so that they are aware of how much needs to be coordinated in an initiative.
4. Don’t use technology terms.
5. Don’t argue with the attorneys.
6. Realize that the younger, more tech savvy attorneys will want to know more about the technology and it’s okay to talk with them about it.
7. Make yourself visible through periodic user group meetings, committee meetings, etc.
8. Be your own marketing department spinning positive accomplishments and letting people know what’s going on.
9. Start early in your communications if you have a rollout approaching, don’t catch people by surprise.
10. Always be prepared to answer these two questions…Why should they? and What’s in it for them?
11. Be knowledgeable about what other firms are doing with tech.
12. Be sure to align your initiatives with the firm’s core values.
13. Never say no to decision makers, always give them options.
14. Realize that early training is very important prior to a major implementation.
15. Have a decision maker, such as a managing partner send out the email announcement about a new tech rollout so that it won’t be ignored.
16. Manage expectations of decision makers, let them know what you’re doing, what the key steps are, the main issues or concerns, and when everything will happen.
17. Make your email communications visually appealing, succinct, and understandable with tech language in layman’s terms.
18. Work one on one with attorneys to build relationships.
19. Find out what decision makers’ pain points are and try to fix them.
20. Keep educated about what’s going on in your tech community by attending conferences, reading white papers, etc.

2011 was quite a year here at iLibrarian! As usual, it’s been a great experience. I’ve been taking a look back at what was particularly popular in terms of posts this past year and I’ve rounded up the top 30 which were the most well-received. I’d love to hear suggestions for future content you’d like to see here at iLibrarian, and I also welcome guest posts! So please go ahead and leave some suggestions in the comments section.

QR Codes

1. A Quick Guide to Creating Library QR Codes
2. QR Code Roundup: 10 Resources for Librarians and Educators

Archiving & Preservation

3. Personal Digital Archiving: An Overview
4. Personal Digital Archiving: Part One – Strategy
5. Personal Digital Archiving: Part Two – Storage Options
6. Personal Digital Archiving: Part Three – File Formats

Mobile & Apps

7. 7 Tools to Create a Mobile Library Website (without Technical Knowledge!)
8. Top 30 Library iPhone Apps – Part 1
9. Top 30 Library iPhone Apps – Part 2
10. Top 30 Library iPhone Apps – Part 3
11. 16 Awesome Instagram Apps & Services- Part I
12. 16 Awesome Instagram Apps & Services- Part II
13. 20 iPad Apps Librarians Should Download – Part 1
14. 20 iPad Apps Librarians Should Download – Part 2
15. 12 Mobile Check-in Applications

Personal Branding & Job Seekers

16. 5 Ways to Set Up A Free Personal Landing Page in 5 Minutes
17. 13 Resources & Tips for Library Job Seekers
18. 7 More Strategies for Library Job Seekers
19. A Librarian’s Guide to the Elevator Pitch
20. 17 Tips to Improve Your Online Presence

Open Access

21. 50 Open Access Resources for Librarians – Part 1
22. 50 Open Access Resources for Librarians – Part 2

Data Visualization Tools

23. 5 Free Online Tools to Create Your Own Infographics
24. 5 Amazing Free Data Visualization Tools

All the Rest

25. 25+ Resources to Create Library Videos
26. 5 e-Book Collections with Over 100,000 Free e-Books
27. 21 Useful Cloud Computing Resources for Librarians
28. 18 Usability Resources for Librarians
29. 450+ Tweeting Librarians List
30. A Quick Guide to Getting Started with Quora