librarian.net

For some reason, writing the talk about tech support in libraries has been making me think about libraries on social networks again. Maybe it’s the little push of friends I get on Facebook after I give a talk to a new group of people. Maybe it’s because I had to explain yet again that I think it’s worth powering through bad design and usability in order to have presence in a place where your users are or might be. Maybe it’s because social software seems like a free and easy way to give your library a human face on the larger Internet. Maybe it’s because after being at SXSW I just see social software as the default way to be on the web and so libraries that are moving forward with blogging and other web tools may as well expand into using social tools as well. This has nothing to do with 2.0 anything, although I guess you could see it that way.

So, to that end, I’m making a small list of ways that I think libraries and librarians can use thse tools to further the existing missions of their institutions. It’s nothing new, but I’ve been pondering it lately and I think specifics, and links to examples can he helpful. Feel free to add more in the comments.

• Get your library a Flickr account. These accounts are now nearly free through a collaboration between Flickr and TechSoup. TechSoup has an article about how nonprofits can use Flickr. My advice: free image hosting and easy image uploading for staff. Consider uploading some historical photos that you can share with the people in you community. Check out what the Library of Congress has been doing and how much tagging and commenting is happening on their photos. It’s like a Letters to the Editor section for you archival photos. I use this photo quite a lot on my photoshop class, teaching people how to edit pictures.
• Anyone can get an account on Facebook. Facebook now has the ability for businesses and organizations to create “pages” (as opposed to profiles) where you can put information about your organization. You can see a few library pages here: NASA Glenn Technical Library, Iowa City Public Library, The National Library of Scotland. You can click here to create your own organization page. For people who are already on Facebook, which includes a huge percentage of high school and college age people, they can become “fan” of your organization which means they will get your updates. If you already have a blog, you can set your Facebook page to automatically read and republish your RSS feed inside Facebook. I do this with my personal blog so people who are my friends on Facebook can read my blog updates. The same way Google really let us get information out of the web, people are searching their networks on Facebook sometimes before Google.
• If you’re a librarian, think about getting on Twitter. You can read this post for background information about Twitter or this Library Journal article for more information about messaging services generally. This is not so much, as I see it, to communicate with patrons but to do two things. 1. create a short pithy easy to update RSS feed of news or information or links that you can repurpose to put on your blog, website, Facebook profile or elsewhere. 2. communicate with librarians who are on twitter in droves. When I was creating my talk I asked a question, literally hurled it out there into the aether, and got back seven or either useful responses within about an hour. That’s ready reference.
• Added later: think about a 23 Things type project. Vermont is doing this. It’s an easy way to give staff a casual fun exposture to a lot of social tools and let them see for themselves what they’re good for. Offer continuing ed credits or other fun incentives. The set-up costs and investments are nearly nothing and the ongoing investment is mostly time. One of the things I hear all the time is that staff are interested in new technologies generally but lack the time to explore and so get technostressed because they feel that they’re jumping in to some very public online activities without feeling competent in what they’re doing or what they’re there for. a 23 Things project can help that immensely.

The reason I think it’s important to show good examples and best paractices is because we’re still dealing with libraries like Mishawaka Library which thinks that blocking social software sites in their library because they can’t manage unruly teens is some sort of solution to a problem. I’m not saying there aren’t problems surrounding public computer and internet use in libraries generally, maybe there are even sometimes problems with teens, but really responding to the problem by blocking wide swaths of the Internet is not really going to help anyone understand the problem better. It just makes libraries look hostile and librarians look reactive. I’m sure there’s a larger post here about dealing with teens + comptuers + internet + understaffing + the fear factor of unknown online socializing, but I feel that it’s all of our responsbility as online community members of various stripes, to provide positive examples of social software online. This is mine.

Before I even came home from SXSW, the library folks on Twitter were talking about SWIFT. Since I’m not going to Computers in Libraries (I was previously engaged, I’ll be sad to miss it) I missed out on all the initial reports, but did notice that I can sign up for SWIFT via Facebook so I did. It’s in beta, so all or some of the things I am talking about may have been fixed by now. Here are my initial impressions.

In short SWIFT is supposed to be a 2.0 conference manager tool, nominally “social.” I signed up via Facebook and was a little chagrined to realize that my Facebook profile photo was imported into SWIFT without any specific assent on my part. The Edit link doesn’t work in the MySwift section of the site, so I guess I’m stuck with it. SWIFT also seems to know who my “friends” are which I’m assuming is information Facebook gave them. I have since blocked the application from Facebook — and let’s be clear, the application has no utility that I can discern on Facebook, it just mines Facebook data to deliver to its own site — and still my friend relationships are all over SWIFT. Not surprising, but still. I set up another non-Facebook-linked account and can’t edit that profile either.

I’m currently viewing “podcasts” (screencasts? vodcasts?) about how to use the tool. I went to the About page to see if I could figure out exactly what SWIFT is for, and the first paragraph is all marketingspeak

While conferences and trade shows remain highly lucrative and successful businesses, it is increasingly expensive and inefficient to capture and retain attendees. Today’s marketing investments do not take advantage of new social networks and peer influence in buying decisions. Exhibitors also face diminishing returns on their investments as they compete for buyer attention on the show floor.

Not super helpful. Do you know what this tool does yet? People seem to be indicating that the usefulness of the “platform” as the Computers in Libraries team calls it will become more apparent once there is actual content on the site. Others point out that the whole point of 2.0 technologies is more openness, not hiding content behind passwords and locking it up in your own silos. A few more comments in this direction are over at the CiL wiki.

There’s a beta testers’ group over at Google Groups which is closed to new users without admin approval. When I joined a support/testers group for the Twitter client Spaz, I just signed up. This is a choice someone made, the approval requirement. I’m getting a chunk of this information from the as-yet-unpublished FAQ which I received over email. It has photos of some of our favorite library celebs, at least one two of whom had no idea their photo was being published in SWIFT documentation. The FAQ also references the location of CIL2007 “media assets” which are in this directory, go look (note: now fixed). As near as I can tell, that’s all the recorded talks from last year’s CiL, just hanging out there on the open web. Mine’s D102 if you want to hear about Firefox.

I’m also a little confused by what I see as an essential conflict between the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy. Both of them are your standard “we own the stuff you put online here” boilerplate, but the ToS specifically says “You further understand and agree that the Services may include certain communications from Company (such as administrative messages and certain newsletters), and that these communications are considered part of the Service and you may not be able to opt out of receiving them.” while the Privacy Policy says “Users who do not wish to receive email notifications or email newsletters may opt out at any time by following the links contained within the emails to Unsubscribe.” I’m not super surprised that “opt out” is a confusing topic for people new to the social software game, but I’d love to know what the skinny on this is.

Questions about the SWIFT privacy policy are referred to the Otter Group website without the benefit of a hyperlink to get you there. You may remember the Otter Group as the people who brought you ALA Bootcamp. Read their announcement about SWIFT which they call “a podcast directory for conference organizers.” A few buzzphrases about SWIFT make me pretty leery about the assertion that this creates any value at all for conference attendees.

• Otter: “Publishers can also use Swift to dynamically insert advertising messages from conference sponsors or other advertisers.
• Otter: “Users can also register with Swift (providing lead generation to organizers) in order to add their own content”
• SWIFT about: “As users join your community and add content to your pages, your natural search results improve.”

SWIFT apparently makes use of social software sites’ APIs but doesn’t really have one of its own as near as I can tell. It has RSS feeds for “subsets of information inside Swift.” but I’m not sure what that means specifically and I don’t see them yet. Maybe someone going to CiL can explain? I also notice that they have a blog but that the blog itself is at a different URL from the rest of the site. Nitpicky detail perhaps, but there is a certain trust that people give to companies that “eat their own dog food” so to speak and I’m not feeling it here. The blog itself runs on Wordpress. Being logged in to the imswift website does not actually log you in to comment on the blog. Too bad, I was going to tell tham that their link is broken in this post. Also, since I now know they’re using WP, how about nice URLs with words not numbers? Better for SEO, at the very least.

I was googling for some more information about what the Otter Group is doing with SWIFT and found this blog. Its URL seems to imply that it’s an Otter Group product, but while it’s in a SWIFT template, none of the links are live. You may notice that instead of the “252 people are attending 2 conferences in 2 states” line in the header, you see “32,834 people are attending 97 conferences in 23 states this month” It also says I’m logged in as Kathleen (I’m not really). Oh my. I assume this is an alpha site design which previously served some purpose. It probably needs to go away or needs a big disclaimer.

Upshot: At first glance, I’m not impressed. However, as with most social tools, utility really is the proving ground for these applications. A quick scan of the user interface and the policies leaves me scratching my head. While I’m happy that they’re integrating popular tools like Twitter, del.icio.us, Flickr and the like, my question remains: why do we need an aggregator for these tools, tools that we’re already using and already aggregating? I like the idea of librarians and information worker people having their own social tools, but we’ve seen them doing great things with the tools that already exist, tools that are well-designed and serve purposes. Tools that solve problems. I’m not convinced that this is anything other than a marketing tool shined up to look like a social tool to end users. I hope I’m proven wrong.

Yesterday I was down in Lakeville Massachusetts talking about social software in libraries. It was a longish timeslot and I split it up into a small talk about software, some examples of what New England libraries have been doing and less time than I would have wanted, discussing the difference between tools and brands in the social software world.

What I mean is, a wiki is a tool. Mediawiki is a brand or type of wiki. Wikipedia is an example of a Mediawiki wiki. I decided that part of really getting the idea of social software or technology generally is that many people confuse tools and brands and examples and I think people will feel more in charge of technology if they know how to explain it. From working with novice users, I know they use turns of phrases like “My Yahoo s broken” and don’t even realize that they’re not really speaking sensically to someone who understands the terms. On the other hand, I can understand how the idea of “a browser” can be pretty transparent and ethereal to someone who only knows that you click the blue E and you get the Internet. I had an Internet before web browsing, many people haven’t.

In any case, I met a lot of neat librarians, had less time than I wanted to — a perpetual problem for me and one that I work on constantly — and made some useful handouts and slides that you should feel free to adapt to your needs. They are here

• Social Software in Libraries is the main page
• Social Software in Libraries: Creative Applications & Privacy Awareness are the slides
• Anatomy of a “social”- ite a list of the social sites I actually use along with the Tools vs. Brands handout (fixed link!)

I only have screenshots for the examples page but they are linked from the main page. I live in fear that I’ll set up a lot of excellent links and then I’ll have no Internet access to show them off so I try to prepare a zillion different ways. I think this can sometimes lead to a less-than-awesome experience because part of what’s great about social software is the sheer aliveness of it “Oh look, my friend is doing that right now” “Hey I can add this tag and see who else has used it right now” but hopefully I gave people enough to chew on and an enthusiasm to seek out more.

If the title sounds familiar, it’s because it is. I’ve been trying to combine more of my public speaking trips which means more weird weeks like this one and that one, but it works out a lot better on my end. After I got back to Massachusetts from Access, I drove over to NELA and gave three talks there. I really enjoy NELA but there were some complications this time around mostly involving iffy wireless (and hotel staff who were just repeating what their outsourced IT told them which the IT-librarians knew was a little fishy-sounding, but I digress) which means I wasn’t doing much blogging and had a period of radio silence here and on Flickr and on Scrabulous, etc.

I got home today and I’ve uploaded the latest talks. One was all new, one was a modified version of an earlier talk and one was a talk I gave earlier, but with twice as much time. All of them went really well but I have a sore throat and will be heading to bed as soon as they’re linked here so that I can be bright and bushytailed for work which starts tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who made my trip easier, more pleasant, and fun.

• Social Software & Intellectual Freedom
• Pimp My Firefox
• Web 2.0 Library 2.0 Librarian 2.0 - updated!

South by Southwest is a big conference thing in Austin Texas in March. It’s made of music, movies and something they call “interactive” which is basically Internet. It’s an interesting conference that I went to once in 2000 and it changed my life pretty much forever. I met a bunch of early bloggers in the flesh and we became friends and the rest is pretty well trod-upon history. During SXSW since then I was often petsitting for my blogger friends while they went to Texas. This year I may be going. There is a panel called Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting! put together by Annalee Newitz who is all sorts of excellent. There is a good chance I will be speaking on that panel in my role as moderator of MetaFilter. IF… if the panel gets chosen. Fortunately, SXSW is a pseudo-democracy so you can vote for panels you’d like to see. And I say pseudo because you can also implore your friends to vote for you and/or your panel and it’s all kosher. So, if you’re picking up what I’m laying down here, please consider voting for my panel, or any number of interesting panels you’d like to see, whether you’re going or not. And the title of the panel? Pure coincidence.

I decided to do something for the BIGWIG Social Software showcase even though I wasn’t going to be at ALA. I think I missed out on most of the awesome parts of this excellent idea/event, but I was still happy to put a little something together. Then I went to NYC for a long weekend, and ALA happend in DC and I sort of forgot about it until now.

I have to say, a wiki with the exhortation “Please note that all contributions to Social Software Showcase may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you don’t want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then don’t submit it here.” (as all mediawiki wikis have) seems like an odd place to put presentations that you’d sort of hope wouldn’t be mercilessly edited, but that’s a small gripe in an otherwise enjoyable exercise. My presentation is called Socially Portable and is a short and hopefully amusing look at portable applications (for Mac and Windows) for people interested in having identities that are not just flexible but actually mobile. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks very much to Michelle, Jason and Karen for putting this together.

I did a short tour of some New Hampshire libraries over the past few days. I did a little talk called MyWhat? Decoding social technologies.. It’s only about five slides but most of it was doing a tour of some of the more popular social networks [Facebook, MySpace, Flickr] and showing how they worked, how kids were using them and what parents and librarians should know.

Remember that a lot of the digital divide that we deal with now isn’t that people don’t have computers per se, it’s that they’re not in networks and groups of people that understand them and can answer complex questions about them. The library is often an integral link in this equation. A lot of my time at these talks is spent answering questions about how these social tools work, how I use them, how librarians might use them, and how kids and teens can use them safely and effectively. A lot of the print materials I’ve come across err on the side of caution which is not a bad idea but often there’s no “Hey you really SHOULD try this” couterpoint. I hope I was able to offer that somewhat.

Jenny points out the UIUC library search which is a widget that can be put on any user’s facebook page so they can search the library catalog right from Facebook.

Facebook recently opened up their site to other applications and there has been a huge explosion in what people are sharing on their profile pages. From my own subjective perspective, it seems like these applications are getting more people to Facebook and keeping them there, doing stuff. In my 2.0 talks I have often talked about how libraries could create “presence” using social tools and I’ve pointed to Facebook groups like Awesome Resources which is a group of 30+ librarians doing what librarians do best: sharing resources and helping each other find things.

When I went to Ann Arbor this week, I connected with Ed “Superpatron” Vielmetti on Facebook and it’s one of the fastest and best ways to get ahold of a small subset of my friends. When I was at the Berkman Center event last week listening to them talk about Digital Natives (versus tired old “digital immigrants” like myself) a professor mentioned that they did a show of hands survey of their incoming class to Harvard this year and asked who had a Facebook page. The answer wasn’t “most of them” but every single one of them. Granted Harvard skews in some ways towards the clueful and plugged in, but what an opportunity, knowing the one place that all of your students go online. I’m not totally sure if we know what to there once we get there, and I share the same privacy concerns as others about how much information we’re aggregating and personally identifying there, but I also feel that the UIUC search box is a little breakthrough application, sort of the way LibX was for Firefox. Exciting times, no?

It’s been a busy week this week. I had eight people come to computer drop-in time on Tuesday which was a tech frenzy of PayPal and email and inserting graphics and Yahoo mail address books. I’ve had a few of these links hanging around for a while waiting to find time to write proper posts, but I figured I’ll drop them in here. I see a lot of blogging as playing hot potato with a bunch of web content. You find it, you pass it on, the next person passes it on. The more content you shift, the easier it is to quickly ascertain which things you need to save for longer perusal and which need to just get passed on for the next person. I’ve read and absorbed these and thought you might like them.

• The Hollywood Librarian movie is premiering at ALA in DC this Summer on June 22nd. Ann Seidl has a clip available on YouTube, and one of my signs is in it. [thanks jacqui]
• Big congrats to Amanda for the launch of the Endeca powered catalog at her place of work. Look how fancy!
• Casey posts some stats about Wikipedia from what Pew is telling us(pdf). You can ban it or block it but people are using it. So what do we do?
• One of the most favorited posts from MetaFilter this week is the Things Found In Books post
• T. Scott is one of the many folks who have been reflecting on the idea that younger librarians have some time period of “dues paying” they must go through before getting their ideas heard and possibly implemented. This was the main thing that kept me from seriously considering running for Council again. Good long post and some great comments as well.
• Don Wood’s Library 2.0 blog is consistently a good read. This is a slightly older post about a great partnership. MySpace is teaming up with the Illinois Library Association to promote online safety. What a good idea.

With the shift in power in Congress, DOPA looks like it’s done.

the final nail in DOPA’s coffin came with the switch of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Legislation that doesn’t get signed into law by the end of a congressional term has to start from scratch during the next term. In January, the Democrats will be in charge of both houses of Congress, and there’s no sign that they’re going to rush and re-introduce DOPA. Key DOPA critics in the House and Senate, including Reps Ed Markey, John Dingell and Sen. Patrick Leahy, will soon be in leadership positions. With the Republican losses in November, it will be harder for their caucus members to re-introduce DOPA, especially since Fitzpatrick is gone and they lacked Democrat co-sponsors in the first place.

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