Tag: cil11

eBooks Vendor pitch & Community Tagging sessions

Dick Kaser, VP Info Today (moderator)

1. Ken Breen, Director, eBook Products, EBSCO Publishing

NetLibrary

eBook in 1997. on CD-ROM. system requirements are a hoot (25Mz processor)!!

124 pg print book explained how to use the ebook.

In July, NetLibrary will be completely under EBSCO.

Purchase plans.

This tweet sums up the presentation. Vendor sales pitch.

2. Leslie Less, VP of Content Development, eBrary

another sales pitch. Walked out after it was over and switched to Community Tagging.

(Overdrive rep was on the panel later; tweets from the session on his time looked interesting)

Overdrive Tweet 1 Overdrive Tweet 2 Overdrive Tweet 3

Community Tagging session.

SOPAC at Darien Library

Tagging Solves an Access Need.

Student Assignment assisted through tagging. Beats searching and gets hundreds of results

Staff Participation. Guide the students (and teachers) to the tag.

“Meet us on main street” book talks on the street. Then staff tag what they talked about so it’s easily findable.

“User Generated Tags” Go from longform handwriting book lists (or initials in books?? — it happens!) to lists and tags in different ways.

Working with users to promote tagging

Kids and tagging:

  • tagging what they want to read and what they have read using this in conjunction with summer reading
  • kids feel empowered by using the tagging and contributing

Inappropriate tagging question: Gretchen hasn’t seen bad tagging ever (and systems that allow tagging, can be moderated).

Bad reviews allowed: Gives patron buy-in; many of the bad reviews are hilarious (especially from kids). [Comment: these do give you feedback on your collection.]

What about adults tagging at Darien? Some users in the community are engaging, especially comments and reviews.

[The tagging session gave me some food for thought to bring back to NEKLS for NExpress as we try to get more use out of the tagging features in our Koha system (OPAC here).]

Performance Measures: Illustrating Value to Your Community

Rebecca Jones, Managing Partner, Dysart and Jones Associates

  • Can we talk? How’s your value measuring up?
  • Measures begin and end with conversations
  • Measure new things in new ways
    • Listen
    • Context
    • Define your success
  • Listen, then learn to convey

Meaningful measures:

  • those that matter to you and to your stakeholders
  • Demonstrate that the library makes a difference
  • Focus attention on what is being donne and what is most important for the organization.
  • Measures are for decision-making
  • Are critical for managing, planning and decision-making
  • Are organization-dependent and must be connected from strategic directives to employees
  • they focus on what you are doing.

From a morning session: if what you’re doing isn’t getting results, why do you continue to do it?

Underlying assumptions

  • Joe Matthews (Measuring for Results book)
  • We don’t have a culture of assessment
    • difficult and complex
    • most measures indicate past performance
    • no cause-and-effect relationship between measures
    • Performance measures quantitative, but library outcomes are largely quantitative
  • Identifying and illustrating depends on conversations (first conversation shouldn’t be when measures are presented) — go when you want something, not bringing them something)

Measures: are, by definition, based on a “beginning” or monitors results against an agreed-to objective or value

Clarity.

The fewer stats you try to convey the better you will be listened to.

What difference did the library make?

Successful organizations:

  • clarity of purpose
  • understand their culture
  • performance measurement
  • system that fits that culture

An effective measurement system:

  • Gauges how well your strategies are progressing
  • Focuses on what matters most to library’s success (Understanding what’s being accomplished rather than on what’s being performed) NOT stats sheet; picture that you tell a story; a paragraph that tells the impact on various segments of comunity.
  • Uses a common language with staff and ecision-makers
  • Specifies owner
  • Is valid

There’s more to value than just the bottom line (marketing from Harrah’s casinos): tangible values; soft tangible values; intangible values.

Informal survey

  • What measures demonstrate the library’s value to its users, students/faculty, university, community or clients?
  • How do you identify the measures?
  • Have you changed them in the past 2-5 years?

Medical Library Association (Federal Libraries Section of the Medical Library Association study coming out).

Studies have replaced statistics in importance.

Stories eat stats for breakfast.

Increasingly, stories have replaced stats:

  • Measures agreed to &/or aligned with decision-maker measures
  • Follow-up debriefs with a few people for impact or “difference made” discussions
  • Time saved + costs avoided: Possibly ideas generated.
  • Internal monitoring vs. decision-maker value
  • Decreasing

Usage stats —

  • looking at them through different binoculars.
  • Who has been using what?
  • Customer satisfaction

Balanced scorecard : connection between strategies and measures (Goals and Measures for each of these)

  • Customer Perspective: how do we look to our clients?
  • Innovation Perspective:  how can we improve and create value?
  • Internal Perspective: how do we look to our funders or stakeholders
  • Financial Perspective: what must we excel at?

Benefits of Scorecard

  • “a very clear understanding of what drives value within your area and what doesn’t”
  • “greater insight into senior management’s (larger organization) strategic plans”
  • “and a better knowledge not only of the strategic role you play within the organization but how you can enhance that role and sit at the decision-making table”

[Missed a good bit of the rest of the session. the stories eat stats comment got me thinking about Kan-ed situation, HB2390 in Kansas, and the Kan-ed impact stories.]

Interpret the data — take it outside the library for others to look at and interpret.

Communicate the results

Focus on the few critical solutions

Measures matter: what we do matters

Studies to link to later:

  • OCLC study
  • ARL study
  • Free Library of Philadelphia CBA

In Pursuit of Library Elegance

John Blyberg, Darien Library

Erica Reynolds, Johnson County Public Library, Johnson County, KS

Based on book “In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas have something missing” Matthew May.

The book spoke to Erica about how design could be done better.

Overall thought: Elegance & excellent solutions: when design works really well, you never notice it. Precious little resources left to libraries; we’d love to stomp all over our problems. If anything, we should subtract, take away. Author, Matthew May is a Toyota consultant.

 

What is elegant?

1. symmetry: simple rules create effective order.

  • Look @ nature
  • math: the more complex a solution, the more easier it is to be wrong.
  • Circ rules??
  • Jackson Pollock painting; Richard Taylor analyzed Pollock paintings, realized he was painting fractals, which aren’t discovered until 1975. This is nature. It’s not random. That’s why Pollock’s are so appealing.

2. seduction: by limiting information, it creates intrigue

  • people that love libraries — that curiosity, that ever-searching need for information.
  • How can libraries building upon curiosity?
  • Build system that plays on people’s curiosity

3. Subtraction: by subtracting we create value and have more impact

  • E vs. not full E
  • restraint and removal can increase impact and value
  • using people’s minds by restraining
  • What can be done to library spaces?
  • people who come in are smart and want to use their brains
  • why put up signs everywhere!
  • Quote: “Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub. It is the centre hole….”

4. Sustainability: is it sustainable over time?

  • What can be repeated over time and be successful?
  • limited resources spark creativity and innovation
  • clay pot innovation story

The creative tension at the center of elegance: achieving the maximum effect with the minimum effort. We should relax.

 

Example equation: XI + I = X WRONG (how many moves to make correct?)

X + I = XI OR IX + I=X (1 move) OR turn upside down (no moves)

We don’t turn things upside down. We immediately start wanting to mess with it. What is possible, optimal.

Maybe instead: Do Nothing.

Relaxing your mind. Letting the solutions come to you.

Ideas that came while relaxing

  • Archimedes’ discovered volume displacement during a bath.
  • Einstein’s theory of pseical relativity came to him while daydreaming
  • Philo Farnsworth was plowing in a field when the rows and lines gave him the idea for the first TV
  • Richard Feynman was watching someone throw a plate when his theory of quantum electrodynamics was sparked
  • JK Rowling — Harry Potter character came to her on a train.

The path to elegance:

  • Reist the urge to act or add
  • Observe
  • Ensure a diversity of opinions and expertise are heard when you are considering what’s possible and how to get there.
  • Carve out time to think and time not to think
  • Get away from your devices
  • Get some sleep
  • Get outside

Do these things

  • Don’t feel guilty about stepping away.
  • Run on a beach
  • Go fishing
  • Play in the sand
  • Jump in mud puddles and scream your head off
  • Contemplate a fountain

Take away

  1. Read this book.
  2. Get out of the office.
  3. Play with kids.

Presentation from John Blyberg (Just pulling snippets of thoughts from his)

  • The quiet stir of thought (what the computer can’t do) from 1969
  • Libraries about curating experiences, not just materials
  • Mortar front for our networks
  • Redirecting resources from backroom to frontline staff (automated delivery services)
  • Shouldn’t do everything for everyone
  • iPhone comes without a manual. people freaked out, and yet survived
  • Signs: if you see signs everywhere when you walk into the library, there’s a problem
  • Signs are a bandaid
  • Idea: Touchscreen — interactive signs; give them the intrigue to discover something
  • Instant gratification; mobile.
  • Empowering you. How can libraries empower their patrons?
  • Different platforms for exploration. Microsoft Surface table. No explanation put out for what it was. Kids were curious and explored. Users governed how it worked.
  • Art gallery. playing chess. video game party (video games, set of rules, framework, discovery, solving problems)
  • occasionally people come into the library to study
  • users bring in own equipment; providing space for them.

Promoting with Web 2.0

Speaker: Curt Tagtmeier

Adult Services Librarian

Fremont Public Library (the library Facebook page); Library Website

Mundelein, IL

Highlights of his presentation can be found in the September issue of Computers in Libraries magazine.

Free Services such as:

  • YouTube
  • iLike.com
  • Twitter
  • Mobile Joomla
  • Meebo
  • Blogger/Dapper

But Stop…

  • how can patrons enjoy the benefits of these services without always being asked for a password?
  • how do we keep the patrons in one place sponsored by the library?
  • Is there one service?

Facebook!

Why? Because that’s where the people are at.

Grandparents are on to see their kids’ photos. Everybody uses Facebook.

Stats about Facebook….

  • 111 million in the US (30% of Facebook; 50% log in on a daily basis.
  • Average user has 130 friends on Facebook (if HS were like this, it wouldn’t have been quite so miserable 🙂 -speaker; lots of laughs )
  • Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.

Flexibility….

  • best of many social networking sites in one
  • post photos
  • status updates
  • videos
  • Instant Message
  • private messages

Libraries should be on Facebook because of its ever expanding mobile potential

  • convenience
  • viewing updates & creating updates from almost anywhere

Mobile Site for the Library Website

  • doing it ourselves can cause a great number of headaches when compared with the ease of Facebook
  • doing it ourselves allowed us to do a few things we couldn’t on Facebook
  • Nobody used the site & they continued to receive feedback on the Facebook page
  • In the end, too little results for too little payoff
  • Now it is just a static information tool.
  • Library size & budget — further development not worth it.

Secrets of our Facebook success

  • be unique (some libraries reduplicate their library website) [Facebook was created by people who hated traditional websites]
  • be practical
  • be innovate
  • be fun (always key) — show that library has some personality; give them something they couldn’t get on their website.
  • Try to think outside the box; what are others doing, try to take it a step further, and integrate apps into your Facebook page.
  • Make the information crucial and important to them.
  • Facebook Marketing for Dummies mentioned as a good resource.

Things Fremont Public Library does with Facebook

  • RSS feed into your library’s Facebook page, adding new updates from your library website (KLOW sites have RSS, Kansas libraries; I actually prefer using the Networked Blogs app to bring in the posts to the NEKLS Facebook page)
  • You can create customized links at the side of your page utilizing Facebook Markup Language (Widgets, basically)
  • Admins can now browse Facebook as a page and interact with other pages.
  • Apps can now be easily added as links to your Facebook page
  • Video playlists: New DVDs promotion
    • movie studios are now pushing their trailers to YouTube
    • once a month the library shares a video playlist of their new dvds and their official trailes
    • You can’t play the video playlist inside Facebook, only single videos
  • New Music and iLike.com
    • iLike is a social music discovery service and app
    • social networking for music
    • the library creates streaming playlists of highlighting new music recently purchased by the library
    • sometimes the songs are 30 seconds and sometimes the full clip
    • we publish technology training podcasts through iLike.com
    • How certain technologies work — a separate tab on their Facebook page houses all of these podcasts
  • Dapper.net
    • a free web-based service that allows you to extract info from any web site by using data mapping
    • options include RSS feeds; Google gadgets; widgets; xml; more
    • currently using Dapper to highlight current news as a Google Gadget
    • not using this much right now but will in the future.
    • (Wonder if you can use Dapper in a WordPress blog as a widget or text widget…)
    • Envisionware apparently (new version) can embed RSS; library not done this yet
  • Using FB as a reference services tool
    • instant messaging convenience — Meebo used on regular website
    • with the help of FBML, we were able to embed Meebo into our Facebook page (no stats)
  • Using FB as a searching tool
    • we added a widget for our catalog, so Facebook users could search for library materials
  • Communication tool
    • allows you to message your fans directly
    • don’t overuse this feature.
  • Walls have become the new discussion boards
    • library has tried to use the wall as a book discussion; hasn’t really worked so far.

Advice

  • Some things work
  • Some things don’t work
  • Have to evaluate the services and how their being used

Twitter

  • Twitter is active communication; Facebook is passive communication (you are asking for a reaction)
  • Twitter is a large wedding reception where you know 1 or 2 people; Facebook intimate dinner party

Questions

  • Future of library website and Facebook?
  • Will the two meeting somewhere in the middle? (Ning, example mentioned)