Jenny Levine makes a great case on The Shifted Librarian for adding a feature to your sites that allows users to easily share your content via social networks.  Not only will this offer a way for your users to help spread the work about services and activities that you offer, but it can help them keep track of information they find so that they can revisit it later.  This will be a benefit for users of mobile browsers, which are rapidly becoming a more significant portion of visitors to our web sites.

You may notice that I have followed her advice and have added the Add to Any service to this blog, visible at the bottom of every post (and checked to ensure it validates against XHTML and CSS standards, of course; a requirement I have for any add-on).

The Perfect Storm is a brief essay in the current issue of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) newsletter.  G. Sayeed Choudhury, the author of the essay, states that

“Universities have authentication and authorization systems to identify who you are and what you can use; they also have office software or course management systems to support collaboration.    How many passwords do you use within your university system? How easy is it to collaborate with people outside your university? Yet within and without our universities, many faculty, students, and staff collaborate daily using Google’s suite of tools.  This trend will almost certainly grow once Google Wave is launched later this year.  With its impressive integration of services and novel method for identity management, Google Wave may become a tsunami that washes away the office software suite—and perhaps even the course management system.”

I am not so sure that Google Wave will be the tipping point, but it is certainly another step in this direction.  How many of us have stepped outside of the boundaries of the traditional tools we use for our work and schooling?  It is humbling to recognize how much time and effort can be saved through the proper application of a new software program, or an online service, or even tapping into social networking to gain insight (it is interesting that e-mail lists are considered standard, while Facebook, Twitter and blogging still have the “Library 2.0″ label stuck on them… they are all different forms of social networking, with their accompanying strengths and weaknesses).

Choudhury adds:

Too often we fail to examine trends beyond our own institutional context; we are reluctant to embrace risk taking when developing services or infrastructure.  The choices that universities and libraries make regarding infrastructure in the next few years will have profound implications for the future.

I would take it a step further, and suggest that we not only don’t look beyond our own context, we fail to grasp the possibilities that exist with new technology and new applications of existing technology.  When the environment surrounding our libraries changes, the environment within our libraries changes as well – whether we incorporate these changes or remain passive.

In other words:  We ignore tools such as Google Wave, Open Source, Open Access, Wikis, Blogs, Social Networking, social library catalog tools, and everything else at our own peril.  These tools have changed our libraries, are currently changing our libraries, and will continue to change our libraries as far into the future as we can see.  If we want to remain relevant (in other words:  if we want to survive), we need to pay attention.  Libraries as they have existed in the past will continue to play a role, but that role will be viewed more as an archive than a dynamic library.

We have lost a lot of ground, but we have the ability and the resources to do this, and it starts with each and every one of us.  How can we do our job better?  Smarter?  Faster?  What tools can we use?  How can others help?  The libraries that pay attention to those questions, and strive to answer them effectively, will be the ones to thrive.

I challenge you to, within the next week, find one new tool, idea, or resource that makes you better at your job.  Repeat, ad infinitum – from here it appears that it is Turtles all the way down.

Odds and Ends:

Save Ohio Libraries is the rallying cry as well as the focus of this week’s activities.

The Save Ohio Libraries Facebook page is rapidly approaching 12,000 members (and has gone from 11,543 to 11,768 as I have written this post).  If you are a FB member, add to that number.  Also, become a fan of Governor Ted Strickland and post a message on his board.  As events around the world in recent months have shown, social networking has an impact, and one of the ways to have an impact is a large group of people all taking a step in the same direction.

Rallies are being planned in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Centerville, London, Portsmouth, and (just organized tonight) Columbus.  If you can add a few bodies to the gatherings, do so!

One additional thought to add to this:  this is growing beyond Ohio.  There are many people from other states who are watching this with concern and support.  The success or failure of these efforts (both the efforts to drastically reduce library funding to help balance the state’s budget, as well as our efforts to preserve library services) will make it easier/harder for other states to do the same.  Broadcasting the understanding that cutting library services only hurts recovery efforts by the states will not only benefit libraries across the country, but will also benefit the overall economy.

Make yourself heard!

Freecycle is a site which organizes regional groups of people and organizations around the idea of reusing items rather than throwing them away.  This idea is similar to the various discards listservs, as well as CraigsList’s free section.

When you sign up, you are actually joining a Yahoo Group in which people will post what they have for others to take and use, as well as post for wanted items.  I am surprised that this has not been tried on such a large scale before; it is a natural use for social networking.

found via Walt at Random

This is just one of my passing thoughts, which I suspect is understood by many, but not necessarily expressed this way:

Google’s PageRank is, for all practical purposes, a form of social networking applied to the concept of a particular html tag.  The ranking system is built upon the idea that someone, somewhere, decided that something on their web page was so associated with another web page that it needed to be wrapped in <a> </a> tags with the web page’s address referenced.  Thousands (millions!) of people finding it imperative to add these tags around their text, and thereby making it possible to judge the importance of specific web sites by aggregating these millions (billions!) of tags.  Will we look back at this and call it the beginning of social networking on the web?

the thought passed through my head while reading Stefano’s Linotype…

The Library Web Site of the Future, written by Steven J. Bell, is yet another essay about what is wrong with library web sites, and yet it is not just another essay…

It is a strong critique that touches upon many aspects of our web presence, and emphasizes that users, both students and faculty, are increasingly bypassing it and seeking information elsewhere.  Read it with a critical eye towards your library’s web site, but I suggest taking some of it with a grain of salt.

Bell’s conclusion is that libraries have erred in not following the lead of marketing design experts, that we are moribund because we don’t let our sites be transformed into an “advertiser of campus wares to those who would buy into the brand.”

I suspect the answer is that our web sites tend to be moribund because we let them be.  We tend to design by committee, attempting to force what should be a easily navigated collection of resources into a click-fest labyrinth.

Try having someone unfamiliar with your website navigate it with a general purpose in mind (“I want to find a full-text magazine article.”) and see what blind alleys they encounter.  This is about the simplest usability test you can create, and it can be telling.  But it is only the start.

Bell suggests that focusing on usability is a misstep, and that it is simply “rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic.”  I think that the problem is that usability is not a misstep, but only the first step in a different direction.

We need to make accessing our resources so straightforward, so open, and so universal that people will use them because it is the path of least resistance to the information they seek.

There are many elements to this, and Bell is right in many of his criticisms, but libraries need to be as universal as possible.  Keeping our resources in a silo, no matter how good the resources, does not generate traffic.  We need to open it up as much as we can, and continually push to open the rest.

In addition, we need to get our resources where our users are.  Do you use RSS to get information to users?  Do you use social networking to get information to users?  Your resources, if disseminated the right way, become your best marketing strategy.  Figure out where your potential users are, and then figure out how to connect your resources to wherever that is.

You don’t need to turn your site into a product to be marketed; you need to get your product to market.

found via LISNews

The 2008 ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research) survey has been released, and they have added a section on social networking (pdf version of chapter here).  Among the findings:

• Slightly over 85% of those surveyed use social networks, with Facebook and MySpace topping the list.
• Younger students (under 30) tended to use Facebook, while older ones tend towards MySpace.
• About 50% use social networking for discussing classwork with other students; only about 5% use it for discussing classwork with instructors.

The only one of these three that surprised me was the tendancy towards Facebook/MySpace by age.  I have thought of MySpace as appealing to younger users than Facebook.

Social networks are definitely here to stay.  In five years we may not be discussing Facebook or MySpace (because they might have been superceded by a yet un-created network), but people will be more interconnected, not less.

The third point is one that should make us take notice.  Half of the surveyed students have used social networks to discuss classwork; the main reason they haven’t discussed it with instructors (and by extension, the library folk) is that we view it as some sort of cyber malt shop, a place only for their peers.

If we make ourselves available on social networks, we aren’t going to find ourselves becoming an overnight sensation.  We will, however, give people one more way to view us as being there to assist them.

Whether we create OPAC search tools to embed (or even highlight the good ones that exist, like WorldCat and CiteMe in Facebook – also here), create an institutional identity, or just make ourselves more visible as individuals, there is much we can do to assist students and promote our services.

We can jump on board the trolley, or be left behind.  The choice is ours, both individually and collectively.  I am on Facebook and LinkedIn, btw… and you should be too.

found via Web4Lib — thanks Gerry McKiernan!

Visualizing the Bible is a project by Chris Harrison, a doctoral student at Carnegie-Mellon University.  It consists of visualization of biblical references and social networking.  Check out his other projects, as well, such as his Wikipedia Top 50 and Clusterball.

found via if:book

10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008—via Web 2.0 is a webinar being held next week that promises to be very informative.  The focus is on social networking and how libraries and library staff can approach new technologies for improving services.  They will be archiving the presentation, so those of us who aren’t available to view it live can have a chance to see it.

I will stress that Web 2.0 (and Library 2.0) is best approached piecemeal.  Pick and choose those elements that will work for you and your situation.  Do not be afraid to try something new, to experiment with that which is in place, and to abandon that which isn’t working for you.  In the end you will have learned quite a bit about your library, your patrons, and technology – and everyone will be better off for it!

However, some library people just don’t like the word Webinar….

from a post by Ed Rossman (the webinar presenter) on Web4Lib

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a report (Pdf here) that you should read. Really. It will likely challenge assumptions that we make regarding who uses libraries and why. Here are a few of their findings as examples:

Problem Solving Behavior (from Major Questions and Findings):

• 58% of those who had recently experienced one of those problems said they used the internet (at home, work, a public library or some other place) to get help.
• 53% said they turned to professionals such as doctors, lawyers or financial experts.
• 45% said they sought out friends and family members for advice and help.
• 36% said they consulted newspapers and magazines.
• 34% said they directly contacted a government office or agency.
• 16% said they consulted television and radio.
• 13% said they went to the public library.

Public Library Use, by Generation (from Chapter 3):

• After Work (age 72+) – 32%
• Matures (62-71) – 42%
• Leading Boomers (53-61) – 46%
• Trailing Boomers (43-52) – 57%
• Generation X (31-42) – 59%
• Generation Y (18-30) – 62%

Regarding the second set of statistics, this is a dramatic turnaround from a survey in 1996 (from Chapter 9) which showed 18-24 year olds being the “least supportive” of libraries.

Another interesting note is that those with broadband access to the internet are more likely to use a public library than those with lower or no access to the internet (from Chapter 3). This finding surprised me.

Read the report; there is a lot more there to catch your attention. What surprises you? What confirms your circumstances? What does it all mean?

We are in a time of great change for libraries. The internet, social networking, wireless access, and broad access to computers are all radical forces that are going to alter our jobs and environments in ways we still cannot fully imagine. Understanding and implementing Library 2.0 concepts is only a start (but a necessary one).

We need to understand that this is a revolution in information. Storing, seeking, accessing, using, and understanding information is going to be different. Different is not necessarily good. Different is not necessarily bad. It will simply be… different.

We in Libraryland need to be on top of this moving colossus, and to be doing our best to anticipate and understand where it is going. This is not only important for ourselves, but for the good we can do for society as a whole.

found on Search Engine Land