Category Archives: Library 2.0

May 16

Sweet Librarian has run its course!

I still really like the moniker Sweet Librarian.

But I’ve outgrown it. It was a silly attempt to marry my temporary position as a cake decorator with my aspirations of librarianship.

I still like WordPress in terms of usability and customization.

But the audience-building tools are not here. There is very little in the way of facilitating social interaction or conversation. Meta tags and SEO are an ineffective method to share in a world where followers and reblog buttons reign.

I still like blogging about my passion and the experience I have gained as a librarian.

And I don’t intend to stop. I’m just moving to a place where the conversations instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I am dropping the ‘Sweet’, migrating to Tumblr (I will hang my hat on that medium in the belief that it will continue growing and thriving as it has been since its launch in 2007), and taking up a new moniker.

I am Kaylin Nicole Boehme (Bo-heem? Bo-emm? Bome? ah screw it!) and you can find me at www.kaylinnic.com (or on Twitter @kaylinnic) blogging about librarianship, books, writing, technology and a fair amount of random fun things too. I hope you’ll join me there!

Mar 15

The Importance of Being Backwards-Compatible

This week, Prefab by Influx has taken the library blogosphere by storm, and I love the idea. I’m a fan of Amanda Etches’ work, and I want to be on board. However, my criticism is for the lack of backwards-compatibility in the promotional site. Observe:prefab

Granted, I’m using a web browser that’s older than dirt and this website is probably very pretty and professional when viewed on a “modern browser”. But it makes me nervous because librarians should understand better than most just how many legacy browsers and older machines a library website will need to cater to. If the sales page isn’t compatible, I don’t hold out much hope for Prefab itself. I’m unimpressed at the moment, but with some tweaking there’s great potential for this idea!

Mar 5

Stellar Librarian Blogs

I realized the other day while cleaning up my RSS feed that I’m no longer floundering about in the sea of librarians. When I was in graduate school, and during my job hunt, I wanted to follow the current events and discussions of my fellow librarians and so I picked some blogs – or rather, I subscribed to every RSS feed I could find! I read some, got bored with others, continually sifted through the ones that stopped updating, and never really got a foothold on the whole process.

Now that I’m actually working in a library, it’s been much easier to narrow down my interests, focus on blogs that speak to them, and actually connect with them. I find for the first time that I’m actually aware of the “big names” in library science, I know what my colleagues in the ether are doing, and I have carved out a little community who I am interested in (even if most of the don’t know me).

I’ve given up on Tumblr as anything more than a social, fun-times site, and I’m still not sold on Twitter, but my RSS feeds and I are inseparable. Here’s my list of favorites, who generally cover topics of interest to newbrarians, techies and academics:

  • Attempting Elegance - Jenica Rogers is a library director who writes about aspects of library administration; most recently earned her 15 minutes in the ACS subscription debacle
  • Boss Lady Writes - I just found this blog last week and I can’t wait for more posts about the trials and triumphs of being a new academic library director
  • Hack Library School - reading this is kind of like being a senior and marveling at the youthful optimism and energy of the freshmen, talking about how they’re going to change a world they haven’t even entered – it’s not bad, it’s just… interesting
  • Hey Jude - one of the first library blogs I ever found, Judy O’Connell talks a lot about technology in the school library
  • Justin the Librarian - an innovative teen librarian, Justin Hoenke is someone to keep an eye on in the profession
  • Letters to a Young Librarian - Jessica Olin uses her years of experience in the field to speak to “newbrarians” and offer geniune wisdom
  • Librarian Problems - come on, it’s just hysterical
  • Librarian Wardrobe - it’s fun to get work attire inspiration from stylish librarians and to put faces to names
  • Library Scenester - Erin Dorney is wise beyond her years and another one I bet is destined for great librarianship things
  • Screwy Decimal - Rita Meade is another blogger librarian who just cannot post often enough to keep me satisfied – she’s funny and smart and ever-relevant
  • Stephen’s Lighthouse - one of the most prolific library blogs out there, it’s a great place to watch trends and hear about library-world news
  • Swiss Army Librarian - Brian Herzog is a public library reference librarian and I love his Reference Question of the Week posts
  • Virtual Dave, Real Blog - R. David Lankes is no doubt a great mind in librarianship right now

And there you have it, my blogging-librarian idols!

Feb 10

We’re credible, we SWEAR!

healtheconomics

Just something I stumbled on today… if your byline includes the word ‘credible’, and if a link encouraging advertising is your first menu item, and if a huge banner ad is the first thing that pops up below the navigation, there’s a good chance you may not be a credible source! If only it were always this blatant, it would be a lot easier to help students differentiate credible resources.

Jan 25

Conversation Trumps Content

I’ve been hearing for months and maybe even years that the blog is dead (I won’t even link to a specific article – there are so many people espousing the death of the blog that a Google search will prove my point). Why is it dead?

Because anyone can create one.
Because a lot of people have.
Because there are now so many opinions on any one subject that they are no longer worth reading.
Because commenting on individual articles has become archaic and pointless.
Because people want to participate in a conversation rather than reading one side of it.
Because interactivity is key and blogs don’t readily allow for it.
Because personal blogs represent the words of one person in a sea of loud and clamorous voices.

Blogs are quickly losing ground to places like Twitter and Tumblr, where content is often less important than conversation. Tweet and retweet, blog and reblog – a small amount of content is created and then shared by a huge audience, which results in high visibility and (hopefully) the creation of a dialog about the content. On even the most successful of personal blogs, the most conversation that can be had is in the comment section among regular readers and those who serendipitously stumble on the blog thanks to questionably effective keywords and tags. In any case, unless a reader links to the blog or writes about the topic themselves, the conversation is entirely contained within the post itself and there it dies.

HOWEVER, there is still something to be said for quality. I began my own experiment on Tumblr about two months ago, have gained close to 100 followers and received interactions, likes, reblogs and comments on almost everything I have posted (compared to this blog which I have been updating, tagging and lightly promoting for almost a year, which averages less than 40 views a day and receives almost zero interactions). This would be an encouragement for bloggers to migrate to Tumblr but for the fact that nearly everything I post to Tumblr is regurgitive, quick, and image-based. That is the language of the Tumblarians, and it’s okay. A blog, on the other hand, is a place to ponder, do some research, and put forth a well-spoken argument. A big block of text on Tumblr would fall on deaf ears.

I’ve been rolling an idea around my mind for a few weeks now about what the hybrid of a contemplative, intellectual blog space and a social-centric Tumblr space would look like. I don’t have it just yet, but it has the potential to transform the web from its current factions of individual thought and group regurtitation into a real conversation.

Oct 10

Why can’t libraries be libraries?

In the face of nearly universal budget cuts and online information accessibility like never before, libraries need to evolve. I get that. I’m totally behind that. But at what point do we “evolve” our way out of the title of librarian?

First let me say I am not tied to that title. I just graduated in 2010 and landed my first job by that name last month so I’d like to keep it a while (I rather like it) but “information specialist” has a nice ring too, and a bit better connotation:

librarian: a person who administers or assists in a library.

Somewhat limiting.

information specialist: provides expertise in acquiring, evaluating, and searching information resources in all formats.

That sounds a lot more valuable. (Both definitions via Google) but in the quest to demonstrate our value, how far is too far? When does the library stop providing tech services we exist to provide and start to become a completely different entity?

These days I see stories about maker spaces, robotic battle arenas, little free libraries, bike rental… and I wonder what happened to the Information Commons?

I heard that term about a million times in grad school, and then it dropped off the radar, replaced by all these “community center” type ideas and programs, and my problem with them is that they seem to yell at would-be patrons, “hey, don’t forget about me, your friendly local library! I’m still here, I’m still relevant! Come use me, pleeeeeease! I’ll do whatever you want!”

(Again let me qualify my statements by saying if your library has patrons clambering for a bike rental program, go nuts my friend. Every library is unique and its services are dictated by the needs of its patrons. I speak here broadly about libraries in general.)

Rather than promising patrons whatever we think will get them in the door, why don’t we focus on the reason we exist and make sure we’re doing a kick-ass job of delivering information to patrons in ways they can use? We can still be innovative, we can offer services that are outside the box, we can engage the community and get involved in the participative culture while maintaining the image that the library is all about information – locating, decoding, processing, and using information.

Even if we limit ourselves to such a purpose, there are still millions of ways to achieve that goal – without worrying about the space requirements of the local robot battle hobbyists. That’s the beauty of the information commons – it’s a tabula rosa in which to find and engage with information.

NO moderately sized organization could succeed as a jack of all trades – to do everything mediocre is to do nothing well, and if the end game of library programming is to get people using the services we provide and to continue to support the library, it’s not a good strategy. When the levies come around (and they always do), will your patrons and community vote for a library that invested its financial resources in well-versed librarians and a rich collection, or one that offers bike rental?

Sep 30

Totally Sweet Library Websites

Web design and libraries are my two biggest passions, and today I wanted to showcase a few library websites that I think are smashing.

Category 1: Overall Sheer Awesomeness

Library websites that offer the total package are visually awe-inspiring, contain all the relevant information (and no more!) in the appropriate places, and are accessible and enjoyable for patrons from all different levels of computer literacy.

The City Library (Utah) – beautifully minimal with excellent graphics, helpful descriptions throughout the navigation bar, and a daily events calendar

EJ Pratt Library (University of Toronto) – another excellent minimalist landing page, with just an events banner, navigation bar (each page has a different splash of color), quick links, and location/contact information. No room for fluff no one needs!

Aurora Public Library (Indiana) – focus on catalog, databases, finding aids and other resources, with links to library programs, contact information and social networking below the fold. Again, no fluff!

Syracuse University Library – colorful wallpaper is actually part of the digital collection, includes ‘Today’s Hours’ widget, central Summon search bar for all resources, and recommended databases (love it when they encourage database use!)

Washoe County Library (Nevada) – events calendar, database quick-search bar (see my comment above), and separate spaces for seniors, teens and kids (all with their own unique branding, but central elements like the footer remain constant to aid with navigation)

William F. Laman Public Library (Arkansas) – denim-y textured and modern with a large header containing important things like account access, catalog search bar and hours, with the page content visually separated

Iowa City Public Library – cute textured website (with too much footer space) with a weekly events calendar, very little fluff, easily navigable with designated spaces for kids and teens

category 2: Navigating Greatness

These sites may not have the total package, but they’ve done some pretty noteworthy things, especially in regards to their navigation systems.

MIT LIbraries – search every type of material in their collection individually with advanced search options and without ever having to leave the header. This is amazing, I wish every library had the resources to do this, and in comparison, Summon can eat it.

Scottsdale Public Library (Arizona) – each link on the navigation bar is its own mini web page with relevant info, subcategories, an event calendar, catalog search bar, and more… leaving the rest of the home page for all that fluff

Osceola Library (Florida) – every link on the website is contained within a slider in the header, graphically appealing and crisp. My only complaint is that many of the links open new web pages rather than being nested below the header

So those are some of my current favorite library websites. Which ones do you like? What should be added to the list?

Sep 10

Bing It On, Indeed!

Bing thinks everyone uses Google out of habit and not because it’s a better product, so they decided to conduct a 1000-participant blind study to determine which search engine people really prefer. All branding and identifying features were removed from both search engines, and participants evaluated 10 searches side-by-side on their monitors, then chose Google, Bing, or Draw for each.

And the results?

People chose Bing web search results over Google nearly 2:1 in the blind comparison tests. Specifically, of the nearly 1000 participants: 57.4% chose Bing more often, 30.2% chose Google more often; 12.4 % resulted in a draw. (Source)

With these numbers, Bing felt sufficiently confident to make the study public in the form of a challenge – go to BingItOn.com, perform five searches, and see if Bing doesn’t return better results than Google. This is a great marketing technique for a search engine trying to overcome the gargantuan bias people have for Google – everyone loves a challenge (especially one you can share to Facebook, Twitter, and comically, Google+).

Does it work, though?

I performed two searches – one with keywords only, and one with every advanced search technique I could think of. Then I had my fiance do the challenge, asked Facebook friends to do it and report back with results, and did a search on Twitter for #BingItOn. Here’s my tally:

Google – 27
Bing – 4
Draw – 7

Yikes, you go, Google!

When I read in the study that the participant demographic were those 18 years and older who “have used a major search engine in the past month”, I suspected simple keyword searching and a willingness to accept less than 100% relevant results would tip the scales toward either Draw or Bing for the average (read: non-librarian) searcher. I guessed that my advanced queries would expose weaknesses and widen the gap between the results, and that my librarian friends would have a similar experience.

Surprisingly, Google and Bing produced similar results for my advanced queries (with the caveat that they use different operators, for example NOT versus -, so the results were somewhat skewed), and it was in the keyword searches that Bing showed its inferiority. Google’s results were more relevant and pulled from more reliable sources on average.

So, who is really better?

My fiance brought up a good point after I forced him to do the challenge and watched like a hawk and questioned his choices – for the average user, especially someone who may not know precisely what they’re looking for and would like to click around a bit, isn’t user-friendliness more important than being technically correct? Bing’s more logical operators, value-added results, and inviting homepage are all easier to use than Google’s stark white page and obscure syntax.

So while it will be difficult, if not impossible, to change the minds of veteran searchers posing complex queries, Bing probably will earn itself a few new converts for the effort. And the biggest advantage to running this clever marketing campaign?

BING-O.

Aug 15

Separation of Libraries and the Web

In the July/August 2012 issue of American Libraries, Karen Coyle writes about the role of libraries on the semantic web, predicting two ways they will play a part. One, library services will “move to the cloud” and allow search engines to list library resources, and two, by intelligently linking data across documents in order to create searchable fields that convey the meaning of information.

In regards to the latter, I am intrigued – XML tags and HTML5 standards will go a long way toward labeling information logically (Coyle gives the example of being able to search for webpages by author), and should produce much faster and more accurate search results.

Regarding the former, I’m not so sure. The article states:

Through the Semantic Web, library data will link to select other data sources in order to provide more value and services for users. Conversely, other users and resources will be able to link to library data, thus making library data discoverable from a variety of points in web space. As information creation moves to the cloud, so will library services, not because libraries create their own cloud but because there will be no separation between libraries and the web.

The evolution toward electronic resources is clear – eBooks are rapidly increasing in popularity, many traditional print resources are offering online versions or converting entirely, and the newest generation of information seekers are digital natives. It is and will be the librarian’s role to accommodate these new electronic information needs, and as such the physical library space will become less prominent than the online services we offer, but I don’t foresee the walls falling away as Coyle suggests.

Historically, libraries have been quite insistent on participating in technological innovation whether the need exists or not. For example, the New York Public Library Facebook page is a perfectly legitimate use of social media in the library. The library has over 65,000 likes and posts interesting or important information that patrons actually respond to. I won’t name any names, but I’m sure most librarians can think of quite a few other libraries which have jumped on the social media bandwagon to very limited success.

The desire to include library results in a Google search seems like much the same issue – librarians want to be innovative and creative and prove the library’s worth (I would personally love it if the databases and periodicals we pay so much for got more use via search engine results), and they forget to think about whether the service being provided is something patrons want. I imagine a Google search including library results would be structured like one with news results:

Would the average searcher see a section labeled ‘Library Results’ and do anything other than skip over it? If the library-related materials were not lumped together, the likelihood of them being used, or indexed high enough on the results list to be visible, are even lower. The question of user-generated links to library resources opens debate for a long list of logistical and legal questions similar to the eBook publishers vs. libraries struggle.

And of course none of this addresses the issue of whether a company like Google would even agree to feature library results, which would be in direct competition with the slew of information services they offer, the most obvious of which being Google Books and Google Scholar.

Aug 10

iPads in the Academic Library

The college I work for recently started equipping faculty and new students with iPads. The library got one to play with as well, and the tech geek side of me is totally pumped at the opportunity to play with a new expensive gadget, as well as the potential it holds for the library. Here are some cool examples of libraries integrating iPads into their services:

Roaming reference librarians, OPAC-on-the-go, and live eBook demonstrations
Literacy instruction tools, iPad newsstands loaded with periodicals, self-checkouts, and interactive library displays/signage
QR code walking library tour
Digitizing research and rare book collections into apps
Library Books app tracks your checked out items and holds across multiple library accounts
Virtual chat to flag down a roaming reference librarian