After more than seven years working as the technology consultant for SEMLS, I am leaving on February 1 to start a new adventure as the Project Coordinator to assist three Massachusetts library networks - C/W MARS, MVLC, and NOBLE - in the development and implementation of the open-source Evergreen Intergrated Library System.
This position will be an exciting and challenging opportunity to help a large group of Massachusetts libraries move to a system that was built to meet the unique needs of library consortia and can be further developed around the requirements of our own libraries in Massachusetts. For several years, I have believed open-source systems offer the potential for libraries to take control of their systems and offer improved services to users in a cost effective manner. I worked with MassCat as it moved to the Koha system a little more than a year ago, and I am excited to participate in the next big open-source project to come to Massachusetts.
I have been fortunate to work with a wonderful group of library staff during my years at SEMLS. I valued those moments when I could bring new ideas for implementing technology to our libraries and help them solve their technology problems. I especially enjoyed working with member libraries and others on the SEMLS staff as we built a dynamic library teen Web site with My OwnCafe. I've found the staff at SEMLS libraries to be open to new learning opportunities and willing to take risks to try something new in the hopes of improving service to users. It truly has been a pleasure to work with all of you over these past few years.
After I leave, member libraries should continue to contact SEMLS for help with the databases by using the helpdesk@semls.org address. MassCat members who have technical questions about using MassCat can contact Nora Blake directly at the MassCat office. Those who have questions about their MassCat membership can contact Cindy Roach at the SEMLS office.
We have a full schedule of technology classes planned for the winter CE session, and I am working to find instructors to take over the classes I was planning to teach this session. The region plans to continue technology programming for the spring CE session by bringing in outside instructors. By the time the spring session wraps up, we will be moving into a new fiscal year with a new regional structure.
Thanks to everyone for making my time at SEMLS so stimulating and fun. I hope to continue to see many of you at conferences and other meetings around the state. Happy New Year!
Below are the links we'll be using for the December 10, 2009 What's New in Search workshop.
Bing - http://www.bing.com - This new decision engine from Microsoft is better than any other search engine Microsoft has developed. But is it too little, too late in its attempt to chip away at Google's market share? Check out the video search,visual search, travel, and maps.
WolframAlpha - http://www.wolframalpha.com/ - a computational knowledge engine. WolframAlpha isn't really a search tool, but a tool that calculates and answers questions. A great tool for mathematical equations, statistics, and historical facts. Data is often returned using graphical displays. Visit the examples page to see the categories currently covered by WolframAlpha. This video provides some great ideas on what you can use WolframAlpha for.
Real-time search - Twitter search, Bing Twitter search, Google is starting to embed real-time results under "latest results" on the search results page. Check out search results page for Tiger Woods. It includes news sources as well as Twitter and other social networking results.
What's New with Google - Click the "show options" link on your search results page to find ways to refine your search results. Try the Wonder Wheel and Timeline options.
Update 12/10/09 - Also discussed during the class was the Mass Trial Court Law Libraries site, a great resource for answering reference questions related to the law. If you have trouble finding what you need, you can alway chat with a law librarian to get assistance.
You can do a fair amount of customization for your Facebook fan page by installing apps on the page. For this morning's SEMLS workshop, Creating a Facebook Page for Your Library, I bookmarked a handful of Facebook apps that I recommend for a library fan page. Most of these apps pull in content created on other sites, like a blog, Twitter, or Flickr. I also included the FBML app, which allows you to add any information to your page using HTML code. I recommend using this app to embed your library catalog's search box on your Facebook page.
If you've never installed an app on your Fan Page, follow these steps:
Click the "Edit Page" link under the photo/logo for your Fan Page.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and clicking "Browse More" under "More Applications.
Search for the application you want to add using the search box in the upper left corner.
Click on the title for the application you want to add.
Under the logo for the application, click on the "Add to my Page" link.
In the Popup Box, find your Page and click the "Add to Page" button.
Go back to your page and click the "Edit Page" link again.
The installed application should now appear among your list of apps.
Click the "Edit" link under the app to customize the app with your information.
Click the "Application Settings" link under the app to choose whether you want the app to display on your Wall/Boxes tab or whether it should display on its own separate tab.
What kind of apps have you installed on your Fan Page?
When SEMLS offers its Basic Library Techniques (BLT) Administration class for directors of small public libraries, our Assistant Administrator for Continuing Education and Consulting, Cheryl Bryan, asks that I prepare a presentation on major technology trends that are impacting our users and/or should be incorporated into public library service.
I often attend workshops and read articles about new technologies being implemented at large academic institutions or other technologies that are in the distant future. However, the trends I'm highlighting when I pull this list together are ones that are already making major inroads with our user populations. These are trends to which libraries should be paying attention now, not in some far distant future.
In fact, the list doesn't just highlight technology. In some cases, the trends I identified were really shifts in the way libraries are delivering service. Technology is just a root cause of this change.
Mobility Now - We've been talking about handheld devices for years, but we've reached the point where we need to stop talking about mobile devices and start providing services to users of these devices. The use of smartphones and other mobile devices has led to dramatic changes in user expectations for the way they access and use information. The July 2009 Wireless Internet Use report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that one-third of Americans has used a cellphone or smartphone to access the Internet, up one-third since December 2007. For some, the use of a mobile device is the primary means of accessing the Internet.
How are libraries responding to this shift? Some, like Falmouth Public Library and Memorial Hall Library in Andover, are providing text reference services. Others are building mobile-friendly Web sites and developing library apps for smartphones. You can learn more about mobile library services at the upcoming SEMLS workshop, the Mobile Library. SEMLS is also planning to do a group registration for the Handheld Librarian Online Conference II. More details will be available in the forthcoming SEMLS CE calendar.
Meeting the Customer on Their Turf - We can no longer expect library users to meet us in our space. Most users will only visit your Web site when they have a need to use library services. They may not visit at the time you are promoting that great new program they may be interested in. Online, we need to reach out to these users in their spaces, using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In the physical world, we can set up lockers in convenient locations where users can pick up and drop off their library materials. Maybe we can start delivering materials to their doorsteps as well.
Year of the e-Reader - After many stabs at introducing devices to support e-Books, the market is finally offering devices that people are using. In addition to the Kindle, we have current and forthcoming e-Readers from Sony, Barnes and Noble, and Asus. Libraries should be trying out this new technology and offering readers for their patrons to borrow. It not only gives staff and patrons an opportunity to try a new technology, but it can also be a means to providing a book that may not be on the shelf at the time a patron needs it. Give staff the authority to purchase and download those books at the point of request.
Cloud computing - Cloud computing is the practice of taking tasks that were traditionally done on a desktop computer or server and doing them with a Web-based service instead. Cloud computing can relieve staff time that is used to install and maintain these programs locally. It also allows users to access their information from any computer, not just the one computer where the program is installed. Some ways you can use cloud computing is to start backing up your data to mozy.com, backblaze.com or carbonite.com. You can also use a site like Delicious to save your bookmarks. For writing and sharing documents, use Google Docs or Zoho. No software installation is required, and those documents are accessible from any computer with Internet access.
Technology Competencies - Technology competencies are the core technology skills and knowledge library staff need to provide effective library service in 2009. Technology is not something that staff just needs to learn once so that they can get back to the work of providing library service. It is an ongoing learning process that needs to be part of the daily work culture of your library. The California Library Association has developed a list of technology core competencies for California library workers. Use this list as a checklist with library staff to see if they are meeting the minimum technology skills that are required in a modern library. SEMLS provides On the Road workshops that can address those areas where staff skills are weak.
These competencies from California are already four years old, and if staff are still struggling with these skills, they will not be able to deal with the new skills that are required to work with the other trends in this list. The longer it takes to bring staff up to speed with these technology skills, the further your library will fall behind in providing relevant services to your users.
What a Difference Three Years Makes
The last time I identified technology trends for the BLT Administration class was in November 2005. The trends I identified at that time were:
Wireless networks
RFID
Gadgets (mobile devices, eBooks and flash drives)
Making Your Web Site the Electronic Branch of Your Library
RSS
New Ways of Communication (IM, text messaging, VOIP)
Upon reaching Facebook week in a recent Learning 2.0 class, one of my students was perplexed by the idea that somebody would want to connect with their library on a platform they use to socialize with friends and family. I tried to point to my own experience on Facebook as I explained why users would become a fan of a library page.
I am an avid Facebook user who has not only fanned every library Facebook page in Southeastern Massachusetts, but has also fanned pages to show my support for various musicians, sports teams, organizations and even Snuffleupagus. There are plenty of people who choose not to become fans of Facebook pages, but there are also those who love to support businesses and organizations on Facebook. It never seemed like a big leap to assume that library users would want to connect with their library on Facebook. And once they became fans, their Facebook friends will be notified and may become fans too.
However, I started rethinking this idea around the same time I saw an advertisement encouraging Facebook users to become a fan of the laundry detergent, Tide. Sure, I have used Tide in my life, but I cannot fathom why anyone could be so excited by their laundry detergent that they would become a Facebook fan. It just seemed like an opportunity to open yourself up to more advertising.
I'm not saying libraries are the same as laundry detergent, but if we don't give some thought to why a person should fan our Facebook page or become a Twitter follower, we're in danger of only reaching those users who are already actively engaged with the library. If our only reason for maintaining a social networking presence is to push out news about our library events, then Facebook users may just see it as another form of advertising. Why would a person want to open themselves up to more advertising?
However, if we use our presence on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. to ask questions of our users, to give them a place to share recommendations and interact with each other, we can successfully use these sites as a way to extend the community we have built in our physical spaces. But for every library that limits opportunities for conversation on their social networking spaces, I also know of libraries that have tried to engage users in conversation only to be met with silence.
So how can we create these conversations online? Below are some recommendations from successes I have seen. Although most of the examples are from Facebook, they can also be replicated on Twitter, MySpace or other social networking spaces.
Friend Your Community
David Lee King wrote a series of blog posts on organization-based friending in social networks. He offers great tips for building up your networks on social networking sites. The series starts with Don't Friend Me, and links to the other blogs posts are listed at the end of the article. Follow these tips. Build your network. Interact with your users; don't just push information out to them.
Quick Response Time
Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't alert you if somebody responds to your post on a Facebook page. You need to make sure you watch you page for comments so that you can respond quickly to your users.
Take a look at this example from the Falmouth Public Library. Staff asked that fans share their picks for science and nature titles, but instead received a complaint that libraries are boring.
Notice how Falmouth responded about a half-hour after the initial user post? If they had waited a week before returning to their Facebook page, they would have missed an opportunity to have a conversation with this user.
Invite Quick Recommendations, Not Reviews
Many librarians have left my blogging class with the idea of using blogs to get people to share book recommendations and reviews. However, most libraries I work with have not been successful with this type of blog. Why? Some people thought it was because they did not publicize it well enough, and others thought users were not comfortable with the blogging format. However, I suspect the problem is it just takes too much work to write a book review. Talking about a book through informal conversation at a circ desk is an entirely different matter than writing a review.
However, there are fun ways to encourage your users to share recommendations through social networking sites. I am a Facebook Fan of TiVo, and they often ask for fans' opinions of their favorite romance flicks or their favorite TV show of the year. The first time I noticed their posts, I thought, "these are the types of questions libraries should be asking!" The questions give users some direction and are also easy to answer in 30 second or less. And people really enjoy sharing their opinions!
There are other ways to get users interacting on your page. I have a Facebook friend who posted quotes from banned books during the most recent Banned Books Week. Her friends then guessed from which books she was quoting. What a wonderful idea for a library Facebook Page, Twitter account or MySpace page! In our own region, the Lakeville Public Library has started focusing on engaging users on their page. The library is on a set schedule to update users about library events, share interesting tidbits, and, on Saturdays, to post book-related trivia questions. The trivia questions get the most response from users.
Once your audience is interacting in these social networking spaces, you can then start asking larger questions, such as how you can provide relevant services for this audience.
Create Space on Your Wall
One of my favorite Facebook pages is for the Massachusetts Outdoors. Many of the Wall posts are from fans who want to share a great outdoor location they just visited or post an interesting photo. Encourage your fans to share your Wall space.
There are a couple of technical considerations to address first. When you set up your Page, make sure you allow fans to post. Don't restrict posting just because you are afraid of what people will say. Develop social networking policies to set guidelines for acceptable posts and remove posts that do not follow these guidelines.
Also, the default for a Facebook page is to show just the posts from your library when a person views your Wall. A separate click is required to see posts from fans. Change this setting so that posts from the fans are intermingled with posts from the library on the Wall.
Beyond the technical considerations, fans are not just going to start posting without some encouragement from the library. Think of what kind of information you want your fans to post and then let them know. Post it to your Wall, tell them in face-to-face conversations, write an article in your newsletter. Maybe you'll need to hold a contest to get people started. Once users start to see the posts from other fans, they will then feel comfortable to do their own posts.
Go To Them, Don't Make Them Come To You
This last recommendation won't work well with a Facebook Page, where you have limited contact with your fans, but is a "must do" for those who have a MySpace page or Twitter account or who friend users through a personal Facebook account. I have seen so many libraries with a Twitter account that do not follow the people who are following them. By tracking your users' status updates and Twitter posts, you have an opportunity to be a librarian for them when they don't even know they need a librarian.
Lichen from the Remaining Relevant blog posts about Being Friends with people in the community, not just those who are existing library users. She then looks for opportunities to answer their questions. She says, "To me, this is a way to begin to get embedded in the fabric of your community and isn’t that the ultimate goal?"
What Are Your Ideas?
These are just some suggestions for getting started on promoting interaction in your social networking spaces. Is there anything you've had success with? Or have you seen examples from other library or non-library sites that you would like to replicate in your own library? Let me know!
Windows 7 is here and Tech Soup is offering an extra donation cycle for purchases of Windows 7 or Windows Vista, which is required for the Windows 7 upgrade. Typically, libraries can only purchase Microsoft products through Tech Soup once each year, but Microsoft is allowing an extra purchase for the operating systems as long as you buy them by January 31.
Should your library upgrade to Windows 7? If you are already using Vista, you will definitely want to explore an upgrade as early reports have been positive. However, it always is a good idea to hold off on the purchase of a new operating system until you hear how it works with actual end users. Vista had great early reviews too. Tech Soup has a nice Should You Upgrade? guide you should read before making the decision.
Back in July, I received an e-mail from a SEMLS director asking how other public libraries in the region are managing their public access computers? Do they all keep separate computers for children and adults or do all patrons access the Internet from a central location? Are libraries filtering access to the Internet? These questions are ones I would have felt comfortable answering a few years ago when CIPA was passed and I was frequently talking to libraries about filtering and age restrictions for Internet access. However, I no longer had a good handle on how our libraries are handling public access to the Internet. My response was to put out a survey to hear directly from members. Here are some key points from the survey results:
55 public library responded to the survey. Only 11 of those libraries (20%) provide one central location for adults and children to access the Internet. The remaining libraries have separate spaces for children and adults to access the Internet.
The majority of responding libraries (nearly 62%) do not filter content on any Interent access workstations. Ten libraries (18.2%) filter content on all public access workstations and nine libraries (16.4%) only filter content on the children's workstations.
Of the 44 libraries that provide separate workstations based on age, 24 libraries (52.2%) allow children to use the adult worksations without any preconditions. Another 11 libraries say that children can use an adult workstation only if they are with a parent or guardian, 4 libraries allow children to use those workstations if they have written permission from a parent,and seven libraries do not allow children to use adult workstations.
When looking just at the results of the nine libraries that filter children's workstations, only three allowed children to use the adult workstations without preconditions. The rest allowed children to use those workstations in the presence of a parent or with written permission from a parent.
When looking a the libraries that provide a central location for users of all ages to access the Internet, only one library filters content on those workstations.
Of the 55 libraries responding to the survey, 11 said they are also providing laptops for use by their patrons.
If your library is at a point where you are revisiting issues related to filters, Acceptable Use Policies, or Internet access workstations, SEMLS will be holding a Virtual Roundtable at 10 a.m. Wednesday, December 2 to discuss this issue.
By now, I expect every librarian in Massachusetts has already read this morning's Boston Globe article, A library without the books, and commented on it via Facebook, Twitter, various listservs, and this afternoon's chat with Headmaster James Tracy (transcript.) If you've spent the day away from the computer and other librarians, perhaps in the stacks enjoying the smell and feel of the "outdated technology" sitting on your shelves, it tells of the Cushing Academy (Ashburnham) library, which is discarding almost all of its print books and will instead offer laptop-friendly study carrels, big-screen TVs, 15 e-readers (Kindle and Sony), and a coffee shop with cappuccino machine. It also will no longer be called a library; "learning center" is one of the names being considered.
Rather than simply reacting to the changes made at Cushing Academy, we can use this case as a launching point for a discussion of what libraries might look like in the future, what we need to do to get there, and how we can best transition to that future.
At the outset, I want to put on the record that I think this decision was a drastic response to the perceived problem of underused library resources . Perhaps the school could have cut back a large part of the collection while devoting more time, energy, and space to electronic options. An e-reader doesn't take up a lot of space, and you do not need to remove your entire book collection to make room for 15 devices.
However, I'm also going to play devil's advocate here. Does this decision mean Cushing Academy will graduate students with subpar research skills and zero love for literature? Not necessarily. It really depends on the school library media specialist and other educators in this school. If they just set the students off to do their research without any instruction or guidance, then, yes, this could be a disastrous decision. In that case, though, I'm guessing these students are already in a lot of trouble with their research skills. However, if this "learning center" includes a team of media specialists and educators who know how to engage the students, will continually work with them to build information literacy skills, and will find creative ways to share their enthusiasm for literature, the absence of print books may not detract from the students' educational experience. It really comes down to the people, not the technology.
And let's talk about the technology. I object to the headline of the article, "Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books." I've seen several references to the "bookless library". It is not a bookless library. The library may be lacking in a technology that is commonly referred to as a book, but a book is still a book even if it's read on a PC screen, Kindle, Sony reader, or iPhone. And just because people in my generation and older generations prefer the print format, this preference doesn't necessarily mean the digital format is inferior. My hope is that the school will build large electronic collections on those devices and available for download. If there are not enough e-readers to meet student needs, I hope the school will purchase more to keep up with growing demand.
There are also a lot of unanswered questions, making it difficult to judge the forethought that went into this decision. Did anyone talk to the students to find out why they are not checking books out of the library? Are they all buying print books instead of borrowing them from the library? Are they reading them on their electronic devices? Or are they just not reading them at all? Is there a strong relationship among the teachers and school library media specialist that reinforces the library as a place to support learning? Do the students feel welcome in their library? If not, will replacing the books with a learning center really fix that problem? Was the collection out-of-date and irrelevant? Did it need to be weeded and replenished? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I hope the administration explored them before addressing the perceived problem of low use.
And I also wonder how low the use was. When I originally read the article, I thought it said only 48 books, 30 of which were children's books, had been checked out for the entire year. As I reread the article, I realized those 48 checkouts were for one day in the spring. Which day was it? Was it the week before school ended or when all of the students were working on research papers? Did they measure use at other times of the year?
When imagining what libraries might look like in the future, we need to concede the high probability that many libraries will not carry print books forever, that they will eventually do what Cushing Academy is doing right now. As we advocate for keeping those print books today, it's counterproductive to talk about how we love the feel and smell of print books. Those who believe books are "outdated technology" will just think nostalgia is behind this allegiance to books. As Linda Braun noted in her post on the YALSA blog, we run the risk of sounding like "a group of whining traditionalists." Arguments about what to do when the power goes out don't hold water; it's much easier to read a book in the dark on my iPod Touch than it is to do so in print format.
For many libraries, the nostalgia factor is a real issue. If your users prefer the feel of a print book, then an all-electronic collection will not meet their needs. There are also access issues. Not everyone has a home PC to download electronic texts. In the case of Cushing Academy, though, all the users are younger and less likely to feel that allegiance to print. They also all have their own laptops.
If we brush aside the nostalgia arguments, what is stopping libraries from discarding print and relying entirely on electronic? There are many technical and ownership issues that need to be resolved before libraries can really succeed with an all-electronic model. Many titles are still not available in digital format or are only available for certain devices. During this afternoon's chat, I asked Headmaster James Tracy about this problem. His response: "
It can hardly be said that we provided exhaustive collections with 20,000 printed books. With this transition, we are actually increasing the collection available to the school community dramatically." That may be true, but it still ties the hands of librarians trying to build a collection that may include authors who just refuse to go electronic. Tracy went on to say that in those cases they would purchase the print version.
The big barrier to electronic collections is the limited ability for libraries to share those books in the format preferred by each of their users. It's nice that the library is providing titles on the Kindle and Sony reader, but if the students weren't going to the library to check out print books, what will make them go to the library to check out a Kindle. What I would love to see at Cushing and other libraries is a model where one student downloads a title to their Kindle while another is able to use that same title on their iPhone. They don't need to go to the library to get the device, they just read the content on the device of their choice. It requires that all devices use a standard format and that e-book publishers allow libraries to transfer those titles to the devices of their users. Libraries are not able to provide this service at this time. We may never be able to provide this service if we don't keep pushing vendors, publishers, etc. to make this happen.
When and if the technical requirements come together, how can libraries best make an eventual transition to a "library without (print) books?" To start, the transition needs to be gradual. Many libraries are highly interested in the potential offered by the Kindle and other e-readers. There are a few public and school libraries in our region that are experimenting with Kindle loans. But they are just trying them out and will measure their success before using them to replace even a small number of their print titles. There are also many libraries that have cut back on print collections to create space for an Information Commons. These Information Commons may eventually overtake the rest of the print collections, but only after several years of faculty, student and library staff success with the Commons model.
That success is what ultimately creates the buy-in that is also necessary for this transition. I question whether that buy-in is present in the Cushing Academy case. As I read the comments from Headmaster Tracy during the Boston Globe chat, I found very little with which to disagree. He sounds as if he has some great ideas for creating a space where students and educators can work together. He talked about teaching students to select and evaluate the information they find through the school's augmented collection of online resources.
However, to make this happen, he needs buy-in from faculty and particularly from the school library media specialist. When reading a newspaper article, it is difficult to know if quotes are a true reflection of the interview or simply the spin of the reporter. But it sounds like librarian Liz Vezina is not overjoyed with this decision. In order for this model to be successful for Cushing students, it requires that the media specialist was actively involved in the planning process and is enthusiastic about working with faculty to teach information literacy and foster a love for reading within this new environment. Let's hope Headmaster Tracy has created that buy-in and built the teamwork required to make this plan a success.
Five ways to keep laptop thieves from jacking your data - Ars Technica has some good suggestions for software libraries can use if they are lending laptops and are concerned that patrons may "forget" to return them. However, software like LoJack for Laptops will not necessarily protect your data if you use a laptop for work. The other tips will in the article will help you secure your data in case your work or personal laptop is picked up by someone else.
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