Librarian's blog, star date July 2010, subject - reflection

(Cue Music) Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to boldly go where no librarian has been before................

Back in May, a new force was gathering on the horizon - Cam23things, whose remit was to guide librarians through the Web 2.0 world and allow us to explore new technologies that may have an impact on our library world. 

by Tiger Lilly

I for one had heard of Web 2.0, and was aware of lots of librarians engaging in certain web based activities, trying to see what all the hype was about.  After starting on the course, it soon became clear that it wasn't just about adding a shiny button to the library page!

Half way through, look how far we've come. We've looked at RSS feeds, various Google applications, tagging, bookmarking, slideshare, Doodle, Calendars, using images and Twitter.  Some of which I found better than others.  I can definitely see a value for libraries in Google reader, RSS feeds and Twitter, for keeping up to date with current awareness and bookmarking for remote access to websites you've found and want to subsequently use in an assignment.  I can also see that tagging has a role to play for our users, as they may want to organise the information we provide in a different way that's more accessible for them.  However I'm still finding it hard to see a use for Doodle, calendaring, Flickr and slideshare.  I'm still of the belief that, if your not a fan of a technology, don't use it, as it won't come across well with your users.

I think the most scary thing for me about this program was The Blog. Worrying about what to write, putting all these new technologies into perspective and evaluating their possible use in libraries.  Never mind the design and look of creating your blogging space.  Today's Twitter comments regarding some of our merry little band's, "Library Thing" blogs, have actually made me think more about the blog and whether I still want to participate in blogging about our further things.  To me the idea of blogging about these technologies as part of Cam23, should be as reflective practice, this is a learning environment after all.  We all have our own ideas, opinions and that's how we learn by discussing ideas and seeing how we can improve our services, based on best practice and other people's experience.  I'm not sure that I really want to cause controversy and be reprimanded by the originator of a Web 2.0 technology by publicly saying "I don't like it" or I'm not sure how to use it in a library context which is what this is about.

Anyway, onwards and upwards, to the next things....on the Web 2.0 journey.  I found this cartoon which I think sums up, my stance so far.

Its life Jim but not as we know it!

Delicious

I was extremely sceptical about Delicious, when I started exploring it.  How different was it to bookmarks and links that you put on your library page?  Initially I thought it wasn't that user friendly in its searching ability and wasn't keen on the layout.  However I did like being able to access websites easily.

After viewing the Green Library Delicious page at Stanford University, I also had different views to LibrarianGoddess and couldn't understand her excitement about it; this was initially due to the security warning message, because clicking on yes brought up the page to the right. Here you were unable to click on the tags or search bookmarks, so I was completely confused....

....that is until manic clicking produced a tag cloud (pictured left), which I couldn't return to, after choosing one of the options! From then on my views changed.  The Green Library Delicious tag cloud, is user friendly, if a little overwhelming, with all the words.  I liked the visual searching aspect, which allowed for easy access to information.

As LibrarianGoddess says, the main advantage of Delicious, is being able to access bookmarks anywhere, which is especially useful if you need to login to the library or university website first to see the library links and have forgotten your password or the web site is down! So I love this remote access aspect of retrieving useful websites, which a lot of students may struggle with, for many reasons.

In conclusion, I liked being able to search for bookmarks via keywords, sorry tags! and thought that once you had got used to how it worked, it was definitely better than searching google, as you could add new tags into your search to narrow down results.  If used through the library, it does allow you to have a certain control aspect over choosing suitable sites to bookmark, as well as providing a tag list to bundle similar sites together.

So slide over here, and give me a moment....

In principle Slideshare is a good thing, allowing people to share their powerpoint presentations, and especially brilliant for those who hate powerpoint and don't want to create their own.  However this is where I feel the first downfall of Slideshare comes. For example, if  you want to re-use a presenation that you've found, (obviously referencing the creator, as the work isn't yours), yes ok you have the slides, but this is only good if you know the subject matter of the presentation. Slideshare in my view just gives an overview of the presentation but doesn't enable you to see the content, if your unfamiliar with the topic, ie. no lecture notes.

The ones I found most useful are those which have an audio track with the presentation, aka screencasts, although these were few and far between in my extensive searching.  Screencasts are good as they allow you to see both the presentation and hear the commentary that went with it.

I actually found it difficult to find presentations that could be recycled, as a presentation does tend to be unique to a particular person.  I have however included a couple that I like.  The second one also contains a link to a you-tube video in German with English subtitles!:

Information Literacy and the future of learning

View more presentations from SLA.

Time For A Library Shift

View more presentations from Tony Hirst.

Where I think Slideshare can be useful, is enabling people to view presentations that they missed, say at a training event, or a conference, especially if you have the handouts and lecture notes to hand.

In a library context, it could be useful to store presentations, that we are all expected to give, for example, inductions.  The students will be able to have a consistent approach, with all Cambridge librarians saying the same thing, however don't we already have Camtools for this.


As for using Slideshare for uploading your own presentations for other to use or view. The main problem to my mind is, whether sharing presentations that you created whilst working at a particular organisation is against the copyright of the organisation.  This is becuase most things you create at work are not owned by you but the organisation.

In conclusion, unlike the INXS lyrics, I'm not convinced I need you tonight!

Image surfing!

What an enjoyable way to spend a few moments whilst on the Cam23 trail of Web 2.0 technologies.  Flickr seems very easy to use and allows you to see lots of lovely images.  I think my main concern with it flickr is can you use the images? What about copyright?  There goes my little "Jiminy Cricket" library persona.  The "creative commons" section of flickr does come in useful for that aspect of image use.

Having a quick search of flickr did bring up my egyptian wedding cake, which I found interesting, especially as lots of other cake decorators have commented on it being so unusal.  I've used one of my own pics in this post however, as it included our little figures of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft!

I also found alot of other interesting pictures on my hobby of machine embroidery.  Very useful to be able to compare and contrast other people's style and use of the medium (right) with my own (below).

However on the photo sharing front, I agree with most other Cam23ers, that I use Facebook to share my photo's with friends and family. The big question being... do I really want everyone to see my personal photo's or pictures? I think that really comes down to question of choice. Perhaps if I want to sell more of my pictures, I should actually use Flickr, like Cake in Chester to promote my work and make it more widely available.

In light of libraries using Flickr, its good to be able to have a store of images, but I'm not convinced that its any better than the images which can be downloaded from Google images.  As we have a large art collection at College, we are in the process of using an image storage system ourselves, which will allow us to put our library photo's in there.  This wouldn't allow them to be freely available though. 

In conclusion, no matter where we get the images from, they are useful in libraries, to promote, explain and show users what we do and the services, we provide.

Tagging, classifcation with another name?

After reading Clay Shirky's article on "Ontology is overrated", I feel slightly bemused by his discussion and ideas. On the one hand, he's right that we can't fit everything into the perfect system, because new information and ideas appear all the time, which then need adding into our system.  I'm the first to admit that Dewey is in desperate need of updating.  If we classified the world now, we would have a completely different system and hierarichal structure. However I'm none the wiser about his reasons for deciding that classification is wrong, because he seems to advocate tagging.

So, the first point to my mind is... tagging versus classification - aren't they the same thing? Maybe that is a very "Librarian" thing to say, but surely the idea is to enable people to find the items they want, and whatever helps them do that, is good.  Whether the information concerned is online or on a bookshelf.

If you are tagging a blog post or a web page, surely you're allowing other people to search and find it under a specific term, similar to classification, even if its not from a pre-defined hierarchy and is seen to be "free-form labelling".  Okay these labels may not be specific subject headings like Library of Congress or Dewey, but they are words refering to objects/items, even if the words are different depending on the person. 

To me tags and tag clouds are just another way of accessing online information, but far more visual. Using keywords and classification hasn't died, its just been modernised.

Titter ye not! (To quote Frankie Howerd) I've been converted to Twitter

There's been lots of musings about Twitter and whether it has any any value.  Is it just a social networking site where people post what they are doing and keep in touch with friends, similar to Facebook, or something more?

I used to think it had no value at all, why would you want to "follow people" on twitter.  It sounded slightly stalker-ish but with the difference of the cyperspace medium.  A place where you could legitimately "stalk" your favourite celebrities, such as Stephen Fry, Lilly Allen, Demi Moore, etc, to name but a few.  However I couldn't quite grasp the concept, that I would want to be interested in what Lilly Allen was up to, or know what Stephen Fry ate for breakfast that morning!  I feel the same about Facebook status updates, even though I'm a Facebook fan.

So before the advent of Cam23, I decided I should see what Twitter was all about, even if only for my Continued Professional Development, and possibly to say ok, been there, looked and didn't buy the T-Shirt, as it were.  After attending the University Libraries course on Twitter, I thought maybe I should give it a go, even though I thought I would de-activate my account within a month.  Trying to use Twitter, I found "tweeting" quite hard at first, as I still couldn't grasp its "reason to be". The language and posting was very confusing in the first instant, ie. "tweet", "re-tweet", the mystifying "tweeple", "following", and the incessant use of # and @

symbols.  I have to say, I still find it confusing but perseverance seems to be paying off.

So what makes people use twitter?  Stephen Fry is quoted as saying, "It's not called social change or heavy debate, it's called twitter. I mean the clue is in the name." Which  leads me to believe he uses it for social networking.  This community aspect is obviously important to alot of people, for example, Demi Moore said, “...Don’t know how this community of positivity was created but I’m grateful to have found you and thrilled to be a part of this."

For me, it's this "community" idea that makes Twitter very useful and valuable.  Its great for intereacting with other people, especially other librarians, information providers, or organisations.  For my Continuing Professional Development, its becoming the key place I look for news, strategies, what other librarians are doing, networking, training courses via CILIP lists, asking advice, etc, where as Facebook I use for keeping in touch with friends. The more I personally used Twitter over the last 3 months, the more I find I'm coming around to using it for the library and the possibility of setting up a library Twitter account.  I certainly never thought I would say that about Twitter.  So watch this space.... 

Setting up a library account on Twitter would be another method of getting news and information out to the students, and retweeting useful messages from the UL and ebooks@cambridge will save me time, emailing them.  I did wonder about the need for having both Twitter and Facebook accounts in a library setting, and was reminded about what I said in my first blog post, that if people work in different ways and use different media, then we need to move with the times and be proactive at getting our information out to our users in the medium they find most accessibile.  In that case, all I need to do in future is find out how to link the library Facebook page and Twitter account together and bingo! just wait for them to be used. 

Calendar girl

I'm a Calendar Girl! No not one of the WI variety who pose naked for charity, although I do love sunflowers. More along the lines of the Neil Sedaka song, as to quote his lyrics "I love my calendar ..., each and every day of the year".

 

I'm a big fan of electronic calendars and find them extremely useful for organising my meetings and also for reminding me where I need to be at a particular time.  However why calendaring is seen as a Web 2.0 technology and included in 23 things I don't know.  I would have thought it was an essential piece of technology for one and all.

I have set up a Google Calendar for the purposes of Cam23 and thing 6, although I have to say will probably never use it.

This is because we use the Calendar provided with Mozilla Thunderbird in the library.  This allows us to all have our own personal calendars but also to have shared library and study room calendars. The advantage of this is we can see all appointments at one time, which is great for organising staff time and meetings.  The main disadvantage was not being able to view that from home or outside the library via a PWF machine.  Our "knight in shining armour" (aka our IT Manager) then entered stage left, giving us a useful answer.  Why not create a Library Wiki page which would allow access to both our own personal calendar and the library's calendar at once, along with providing a useful vehicle for other technological developments along the way.

Mozilla Thunderbird colour

coded calendar showing 

personal and library meetings

                        Wiki calendar can be accessed                          from home



I agree that a calendar on some websites can be extremely useful, providing information to students on opening times, events, training sessions, etc.  However this is something I may explorer in the Library Wiki, as we could also use that for storing library documents, guides and training handouts - a one stop shop for library information online.