Social Software in the Library

I just facilitated our library's participation in WebJunction's online conference, Marking Sense of Social Software in the Library. [I'm thinking the information will be available, asynchronously, from WebJunction. When/if I find it, I'll post it here.] I was thrilled to have around 20 staff and faculty members attend. It's so exciting that people are excited about this type of software- I hope to work with many of them to implement such initiatives here.

I thought the presentation quite good, overall… although the format of web-lecture and audio takes some getting used to. You'd think that grown-ups could follow simple instructions to mute their phones. Or, at the very least, not make noise when attending any type of lecture, but I guess it wasn't too much of a distraction.

Here are some notes from the presentation (thanks for the help, Judy):

Steven Abram: “Make the Library Discoverable” as the idea that the library's role in the community is evoloving- if we are no longer the center of the community physically, make it the center visually.

[LR's comment: AMEN to that... Go to where they already are, in other words. They're already on 'pop' chat programs, meet them there. They're already using Flickr, meet them there. They're using blogs, become part of it! Also, I think there's lots of value to being familiar with these popular tools, simply so you can retain some credibility in your users eyes. If you don't know what something so ubiquitous is when they mention it, why should they believe that the obscure information you provide for their senior thesis is accurate?]

Blogging libraries - they mentioned Library Weblogs, and I know of blogwithoutalibrary and The Blog.

Library Success Wiki (this didn't work for me, but I'm posting it in case the server's just misbehaving or something, if someone finds that I have the address wrong, please comment and I'll fix it.)

Open WorldCat WorldCat holdings revealed! Yay OCLC for making us discoverable!

First presenter was Regan Robinson from the Stevens County Rural Library. I was impressed that they seemed to be so well aware of their users and how to meet their needs. I guess this is easier in small public libraries since they're right in your face… me? I never interact with our users. Their most popular database? Auto Repair. And I thought we had all the databases dialed in in academia, I want the auto repair site… wonder if they do motorcycles?

Second presenter was Aaron Schmidt from [ouch, I forgot- will fill in]. His presentation is called Weblogs and Community and is available online. He recommended Blogger for a start up blog… I started with livejournal. (Obvious?)

Good Quote: “Blogs give a voice to the library's web presence.”

My favorite thing about it was the WesternSpringsHistory blog. It is a brilliant combination of blog, archives/historical society information, and metadata. It shows certain houses in a community with known data on them- but then invites people to comment, free form! So people who lived in them can comment and talk about the house, the changes they made, whatever… neat, right? He pointed pointedly (tee hee) to 4232 Hampton and 4380 Woodland. SO NEAT!

Third presenter was Andrea Mercado from Reading Public Library in MA (Go Sox!). She was invited after she wrote an article for WebJunction. She discussed Flickr and the way their library is using it. Her presentation is available online. It was nice to hear about Flickr from a users point of view rather than as a spectator as I've always used it before… that is, until I get my digital camera for Christmas (are you listening, mom?). She touched a bit on library specific concerns like that you CAN lock down your photos in Flickr to prevent download- hello copyright concerns… or should I say goodbye?

Another cool outcome of this program was finding out a bit more about my colleagues, one of the them has a strong Flickr presence. Even a really nice shot outside our library.

All of this puts me in mind of a project I did for school last year looking at the Portsmouth Atheneum's collection with an eye on creating a digital library. (They are a OLD member library, sort of a reading room- club kind of situation, so very New England. And they don't even have a website.) Of course, one of their concerns with creating a digital library was the expense as well as retaining ownership over their artifacts. Her example was that they didn't want someone to put Celia Thaxter in a scanty swimsuit. But with these tools and a teeeny bit of effort, they could easily mount an online exhibit. Maybe not brilliant from a preservation POV, but at least it would give them an idea if there's an audience for it. Ooo, it would be so neat. Maybe they should hire me, with all my free time.

They didn't discuss wikis so much, but mentioned their use as online subject guides, which I really liked. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that changes can be set to require approval, or at least be notified when a new one is posted, so librarians could check them out for credibility - but what a powerful tool for all! Easy on librarians, they get to see what resources speak to users- plus the users are creating the content (read: doing the hard stuff) and they get to act as editors instead of gatekeepers.

In conclusion, to all my colleagues (why can I never spell that word), I'm just learning about this stuff too. I can't really get it on my own - let's learn together and work together to see how it could help our community and ourselves!