Comments on: do library users care about our new initiatives?

By: ex libris

ex libris — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 15:50:18 +0000

library tech initiatives…

Both Jessamyn and Casey have written about this recent survey of Wisconsin public library users. Although I am uncertain how applicable it is beyond Wisconsin, it certainly should be required reading for anyone working in library tech. For me, the most…

By: Sally J.

Sally J. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:19:16 +0000

Age of respondents. I was just reading Rochelle’s blog [rochellejustrochelle.typepad.com] where readers have commented that (1) no one under 18 was surveyed, and (2) 48% of the sample was 45-64 years old.

In any case, I’m delighted my home state went to the trouble of doing the survey in the first place. Huzzah for Wisconsin librarians! And thanks for the heads up, Jessamyn.

By: The Technology Our Users Want « Life as I Know It

The Technology Our Users Want « Life as I Know It — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:45:28 +0000

[...] The Technology Our Users Want I’ve been pondering the question that Jessamyn West asked last week, do library users care about our new initiatives? There is quite a bit going on in this post – and in the survey done by the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium. Rochelle Hartman comments with Tech Apps in Libraries? WI users valuse them, but don’t use much - and Jeff Scott ponders The future of libraries or getting them what they want. Without doubt, trying to actually determine what our patrons want is quite a challenge. Trying to figure out if they care about technology initiatives, let alone 2.0 initiatives, is probably even more complicated. [...]

By: Casey Bisson

Casey Bisson — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:06:20 +0000

Challenges:

we’ve done so poorly leveraging current technology that our users can’t imagine us offering novel services online
so far, the new services we’ve offered — downloadable audiobooks and full text — have been presented so poorly, and our general web presence has been so weak that people just can’t imagine using traditional libraries online

Plan:

Let’s make sure our in-library services are outstanding. Invite teens in, reach out to the community, and generally do the things that many libraries are being recognized for
Let’s start small and make our library websites and catalogs as welcoming and easy to use as we want our physical services to be
Then… Perhaps we can add a reference blog to help answer questions before they get asked. Perhaps we can offer some copy/paste code to allow users to embed books from our catalogs in their blogs or MySpace pages (think of how easy YouTube makes it to link back to their stuff). But, whatever we do, we’ve gotta make our basic online services great first, then we’ll have the experience and knowledge (and user receptivity) to push new services online

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:11:28 +0000

A day before the biggest book publishing/selling event in the history of the world (I’m guessing) and Mr. Conwell suggests books are irrelevant? hmm.

By: George Conwell

George Conwell — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:56:01 +0000

We know a great deal about the library we have and the users we serve. The generation has been born that will not use books. Universities exist that have no books, only data bases. That is where public libraries must go. No more circulation department. Have access by internet to librarians 24/7 via IM (Knowitall.com). We can beat out Yahoo with more relevant information. We can hit them where they are weak, accuracy. (“Being right never went out of style”)It is great to know where we are, but essential to know where we are going.