tally-ho two-point-two

(week 9) it's the end of the world as we know it...

2007-12-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

...and I feel fine.

For me the key to the successful use of Web 2.0 technologies is, as Kelly Gardiner so ably puts it, "adapting to users’ workflows, rather than forcing them to work around us".

In that vein, there's something that really puzzles me...

We know we constantly get questions about law and government resources, immigration, sheet music etc etc. We're frustrated because the public "only want to use the free internet", not our fabulous resources, (and we know that even when they want to use the resources, due to the vastness of the collections, appropriate sources can be hard to find). But while we produce helpful and detailed research guides for staff, for the most part we haven't made these available to the public.

Why?

Because we're afraid that they might not need us any more? Because, underneath it all, we don't really want the hoi polloi messing up our nicely ordered shelves? Because we've been afraid that we couldn't keep them updated? Apart from the last reason (which will hopefully be irrelevant after we are trained to upload and edit content ourselves), these excuses do not make sense to me.

I feel like that our role is to guide people in their search and advise them on the best/most appropriate resources to use. Surely online research guides are an obvious way to do this? I think that interactive, dynamic, easily update-able online guides would both promote our knowledge and help patrons immeasurably. They can only help to get people using the collections again. And when we've already got the content sitting on our disc drives, they would not be particularly difficult to create.

Another way that we could present information about the collections to users at their point of need would be to make more use of portlets or widgets, as I've mentioned previously. For example, we could produce a widget that presents a constantly updated/scrolling list of new books/ejournal articles about Australian history. Any interested webmaster could add this to their website (e.g. that of a historical society). Individuals interested in the topic could add the same widget to their iGoogle login page. Indeed, the same widget could be used on one of the aforementioned research guides as well. This would promote the use of these new acquisitions, not to mention impress potential patrons and encourage them to visit the library or use our online resources. It also prevents user having to wade through mountains of information that they don't need to know, or having to click through to our website to start their search.

On a lighter note, I'll end with 3 useful thoughts from library futurist Stephen Abram:

We musn’t be afraid to experiment and try new things - if we don't play with new technologies we don't learn quickly enough.

However...when we study things to death we forget that death was not our original goal! Sometimes we just need to jump in and try things .

There will be refuseniks. While we should listen to their concerns, and take into account their previous experiences, we should also remember this - in 1956 an article was published in an eminent library journal on why reference librarians shouldn't use the newfangled device called...the telephone.

Many thanks to Leanne & Lynette for all their toil and support and for SLV for such an interesting learning opportunity.

And it would be churlish not to also thank all of the developers who've created the wonders that are WYSIWYG widgets, wikis, weblogs et al. I can remember back in high school (not too many years ago!) having to labouriously write websites in HTML and I am constantly amazed at how far we've come in such a short amount of time. It really does seem that the possibilities are endless, and I'm looking forward immensely to seeing how these technologies can be adapted to best serve our patrons.

(week 8) p(l)odding along

2007-12-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

Tried out the Podcastalley.com search engine last week and was deeply impressed by the fact that all the results returned for my search were relevant. I've added one of my finds to the left-hand side of this blog. Now it's just a matter of finding the time to listen to them...

(week 8) a cornucopia of oddities

2007-12-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

I discovered this video on YouTube after our very own Lili Wilkinson played it at a presentation she made about new librarians and new technologies earlier this year. The video was created by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Kansas.

The Machine is Us/ing Us: "Web 2.0" in just under 5 minutes

I find the most interesting thing about this video to be its conclusion about the new permutations of the web and the way we us it in our lives - Wesch notes that we will have to "rethink a few things:

copyright
authorship
identity
ethics
aesthetics
rhetorics
governance
privacy
commerce
love
family
ourselves"

I couldn't agree with him more. In my own life I see how Web 2.0 is changing the way I communicate with and relate to my friends, how I obtain news and opinions, how I discover new music, and how "visible" my life is to anyone in the world who cares to look for me. (And I hate to think how many times I've broken copyright laws on this one little blog!)

Back to the various Tubes - thus far I've rarely used video my professional career; however, having examined it again in light of our Learning 2.0 programme (as opposed to in the light of "I'm completely obsessed with So&So's video clip and want to watch it again), I'm interested to see that it's being used to promote genealogy collections in libraries (this video is more professional but, while describing the collection, is mainly about the redevelopment of the collection building, while this one is dorkier but much more practical, guiding patrons on how to use the collection). Not to mention the myriad of other videos to be found.

In comparison, I found TeacherTube and Science Hack very uninspiring - while both may be good ideas, at this stage they have very little content (eg TeacherTube only returns one result for a search on WW1!). And as always, when someone has already created a near-perfect site/functionality already, I do wonder why people feel the need to re-invent the wheel and provide content via yet another portal which people will have to search separately?

(week 7) and the award goes to...

2007-11-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use.

Pandora used to be one of my favourite web 2.0 sites, and despite having been unable to use it for some time, I'm still certain that it's a worthy winner in the Web 2.0 awards.

Pandora works by allowing you to pick a favourite song/band/artist and then, drawing on the mind-boggling work of the Music Genome Project, presenting you with music that is similar in its "melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals and/or lyrics". It aims to introduce you to new music from both mainstream and independent artists. Ideally when you hear songs that you like, you purchase downloads/CDs of these people's music.

With a free (advertisement supported) subscription you can listen to songs in full but you can only skip a certain number of songs per hour. This restriction ensures that you explore the music properly (and hopefully, are tempted to buy it). Also to ensure that you give all songs a fair go, you are unable to rewind or repeat tracks on demand. When you do skip a track, or indicate that you like it, the interface feeds this in to its future selections for you and other users.

Unfortunately, due to recent copyright developments, Pandora is no longer accessible from Australia:

TIM WESTERGREN: It’s pretty simple. We pay a licensing fee for every song that we stream, which was determined by the Copyright Royalty Board. And the royalty board just voted to almost triple those fees within the next couple of years [retroactive back to January of 2006, with more money going to labels rather than the artists themselves]. So overnight, they’ve made webcast radio pretty much impossible. It’s impossible, at these new rates, to really operate a radio station online. (more here)

Big business wins again.

(week 7) redux

2007-11-28T19:36:00.001-08:00

Everything in Zoho Writer looks just peachy - but I wonder how it will cope if I:

link to a few things
put in a picture (which I can't seem to get words to wrap around - grrr)
add dot points

...and then try to publish this to my blog via the Zoho interface? Will all of these elements export correctly to my Blogger account? You be the judge...

[Or not - I can't get this function to work. I'm now trying logging out of my Blogger and Zoho accounts, clearing my cache, and logging back into my Zoho account. Nope, that doesn't work - it appears to be having a problem recognising my blog's title since I have a comma in it? I'll try removing the comma to see if that works. Success! Although the text not wrapping around the image makes for an ugly entry. But, not to be churlish, once you get this to work it's a nifty feature]

(Pic lovingly snitched from the amazing collections of the State Library of Victoria - find out more, order copies and see the full image here)

an aside

2007-11-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

This brings a whole new meaning to virtual reference (as does this, and this). A brave new world indeed.

(week 7) "anything technology related"

2007-11-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been investigating ways libraries are using the social networking site Facebook (FB) to promote their collections and services.

In particular I've been looking at the FB applications (widgets) libraries are developing so that FB users can add links to library services on their personal profile pages.

In my observation, very few libraries seem to be succeeding in this venture. When users have to choose to add an application to their profile page, a page which is a representation of their personality, their likes and dislikes, that's an extremely tough market to crack.

To be fair, it is early days for library applications, as libraries have only been able to create widgets since May. However, it has to be said that none of the library apps seem to have captured the imagination of FB users. Considering that Facebook has 43 million active users (including very high numbers of US university students), I think we can safely categorise their usage as low.

Here's a snapshot of some of the library-specific apps on offer (and their usage levels as of last month):

Mini Library
A basic search interface, which allows users to "search Europe's national libraries and find millions of resources across Europe", but which produces vast, unwieldy and inaccurate results.
13 daily active users

UIUC Library Search
"This handy widget searches the UIUC Library catalog, as well as some of our journal article databases, right from Facebook. It's convenient!"
3 daily active users

Ask a Librarian
"Get help from librarians all over Florida using this application of Ask a Librarian."
1 daily active user

LibGuides
"LibGuides enables you to access the content from your library in facebook. View guides related to your courses, chat with reference librarians, or search the library catalog."
3 daily active users

LibGuides Librarian
"LibGuides Librarian enables librarians who use LibGuides to display their Guides on the Facebook profile page. Visitors to the librarian's Facebook profile will be able to jump directly to any of their published Guides."
3 daily active users

Facebook Librarian, "gives users a number of user-influenced links for finding common information normally found in libraries. More importantly, it allows users to automatically ask questions to real librarians".
5 daily active users.

It is interesting and telling to contrast these low levels of use to the high use of a social, interactive tool which allows groups of friends to interact (as opposed to libraries' linear search tools - tools that represent the hard work of research, which few people would want to do in their free time, when they would be on Facebook)...

Visual Bookshelf
"Millions of books added! Catalog your books and reading list * See what your Friends are Reading, Write Reviews, and Recommend Books * Meet new People who are Reading your Favorite Book!"
25,041 daily active users.

Earlier this year Steve Abram spoke about being where people need us. He used the example of a library like SLV producing a catalogue widget that specifically searches the library's genealogy collections. This widget could then be made available to genealogy societies to add to their websites, enabling them to link their users to to our resources - resources relevant to them. Conversely, I do not believe that university students log in to Facebook to study - so why would they want an academic library's widget on their profile page?

Of course there are other potential uses of Facebook by libraries. Deloitte is "extending it's intranet onto Facebook, using its "groups" functions to facilitate communication and collaboration around the company".

And some university librarians are trying to connect with class groups on social networking sites, promoting services and resources relevant to their course. I feel this would be more useful than developing broad based applications that try to service everyone - but equally, I wonder if mailing lists or rss could do just as good a job.

I feel that until social networking sites deal with the issue of separation of people's corporate and private identities (enabling users to have different versions of their profile pages for work and play), I cannot see the above uses being widely adopted in the work environment.

Ad of course I haven't even mentioned the diturbing implications of logging your entire existence on a privately owned website...

(week 6) just like an old non-energy efficient lightbulb...

2007-11-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

...I'm Flickring.

Collage by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

I tried creating a librarian trading card in both IE and FF with no luck - I seem to remember the last round of 2.0ers having the same trouble - any tips folks? I get to the end of the process and all I get is a message saying "Using your previously selected photo: uploads/67f49a89239586101629de3d60324251"?

(week 5) collabularies

2007-11-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

To quote a well known author (me!), from my article 'Folksonomies and collabularies' in Digital Digest #8:

'[Tag searches work best as] ‘fuzzy’ searches (1). An initial, manageable set of search results will provide a starting point from which searchers navigate out to other items of interest. Therefore, one of the most valuable outcomes of social tagging is the way in which it helps reintroduce users to the joys of serendipitous discovery. It facilitates browsing; a valuable search technique which many online information collections fail to support. Encouraging this exploration is important, as ‘the question people ask often does not relate exactly to what they need to know. By facilitating the discovery process, folksonomies may help one find out what they need to know, rather than just what they asked for’(2).

(1) Richard Giles, “Top Ten Tech Trends,” (plenary session at VALA2006, Melbourne, 9 February 2006).

(2) Kroski, “The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging”, Infotangle (7 December 2005).

Come to think of it, when I was researching the above article I found many useful websites by looking for links other people had tagged on del.icio.us. Which could be called laziness...but I like to think of it as collaborative learning.

I have to admit that, much as I love the idea of del.icio.us I'm constantly forgetting to make use of the handy buttons that I've added to my Firefox toolbar. I find myself having to go back and transfer links from my bookmarks folder to my del.icio.us account. Which is probably a good thing, as I'm an inveterate bookmark hoarder, and I'd hate to think what my account would look like if my bookmarking trigger finger had free range there! (Scuse the mixed metaphor)

As far as the application of tags to our catalogue goes, I have mixed feelings. I do know that many useful resources are buried under layers of formal/longwinded nomenclature that make them almost impossible to locate (eg if you want to view a copy of someone's will from Victoria prior to the 90s, you must consult the Probate Index Victoria 1841-1992 - an interesting task for the beginner or indeed anyone using our catalogue, as the entry for this index does not mention the word "will" anywhere). By allowing catalogue users to apply their own descriptive language to such entries (in addition to the traditional catloguing taxonomy) we may enable our users to better find the resources they're after. Our users may also illuminate hidden sources (eg a book on a broad topic may included a detailed study of a particular topic or an in-depth statistical appendix, which would not be obvious to those reading the catalogue entry, but which users of the book could tag).

But...would tagging actually work that way? Would we have enough people tagging regularly for the process to endure and remain relevant? We are not a local library with a dedicated clientèle clamouring to share their thoughts like they would with the local book group.

What would be the cost of moderating such a system to ensure that offensive tags weren't being posted? In a study of del.icio.us HP labs found that ‘a stable tag pattern emerges after the first one hundred bookmarks are placed for a particular website’, with inappropriate tags hidden by the sheer volume of frequently used tags and useful tags. I seriously doubt that we would experience anywhere near that volume of use...

Hmmmm.

(week 4) so...RSS...we meet again

2007-11-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

I understand in principle how RSS can be a useful tool but every time I want to do something with it it doesn't seem to really...work. Not in a technical sense, but more in the sense of it just not seeming to be very efficient, or flexible. For example, a colleague recently asked me to help them set up a feed to inform them of newly repealed Acts. This would apparently save them days of work needed to track down these Acts, to keep our looseleaf versions up to date. But none of the legislation websites seem to offer feeds and I can't set up a feed using a Bloglines or even a Google search as the information is just too granular. Grrrr. Am I missing something obvious?

Other sites that I think "hmm, it would be useful to be able to read a brief summary of what they're posting on" inevitably send the full text of articles to my account - to which I say, "what's the point? I may as well visit the blog! It'd be just as efficient for me to keep a folder of bookmarks to visit periodically" (Because I'm congenitally contrary I signed up with Bloglines instead of Google Reader, but from what I've seen of the Google version it's not a difference in quality between the two which is causing me problems).

There just seems to be a major disconjunction (is that a word?) between my brain and RSS. I think I'm suddenly feeling what other people feel when faced with new technologies - a strange and unfamiliar sensation for one so used to picking up everything technological with relative ease...

For the moment I'm going to press on to the other activities and come back to this when I've calmed down a bit!

EDIT: Okay, a few deep breaths later and I'm back, facing up to my foe. Still not convinced that RSS is for me but I can see it having applications in libraries *if* the feeds provided are customisable and/or thoughtfully created - e.g. a feed of all new acquisitions by SLV is probably not of much interest to our patrons, but a feed of new acquisitions for specific collections like LaTrobe/Genealogy etc may be.

I concede that RSS will be useful for keeping track of those work-related blogs that I make New Years resolution-esque promises to return to but which can easily be forgotten. I still won't be using it visit my favourite music blogs though - those bloggers spend way to much time making their work visually scrumptious for me to strip all that formating away by using an RSS reader.

I've experimented with the EBSCO feeds (created one for the subject headings genealogy and family history) and while my feed wasn't particularly successful (as EBSCO doesn't include many genie-specific mags, so the articles it retrieved were too general to be of interest) I can see that this would be very handy for students and researchers.

And just to conclude my litany of complaints, I find having to log in to yet another account to view my feeds endlessly tedious. I would much prefer a feed reader that integrated with Firefox but those that I tested earlier on in the program barely functioned or were hard for a little ole beginner like me to get a handle on. Come on programmers - how hard is to make things user-friendly!

(week 3) wiki-tastic, dude

2007-10-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

Genealogical Records for Non-English Speaking Countries

A work in progress, as with everything else in my "to do" list! UPDATE: I've linked to this on the SLV Desk Wiki.

I find Zoho fairly clunky to use. It seems to have terrible trouble applying the font sizes I select - I can rarely get my changes to "stick". And I don't like that, when you "create a subpage", you're not given a chance to choose where the page will fit into the wiki's structure - it's just automatically shoved in wherever you are in the structure, and you have to go back to the site map to move it to where you want (which isn't made clear in any of their help pages).

Also, in the last round of Learning 2.0 experimentation, Zoe invited me to contribute to the desk wiki and we discovered that even though she'd given me "full" editing rights, as the creator of the wiki she had more rights than me (e.g. she could reorganise the structure of the wiki, but the drag and drop reorganisation feature on the site map was disabled at my end).

I'll catch up with RSSing when I get back from my hols...

EDIT: Didn't get a chance to finish this post due to the inevitable pre-holiday rush. What I've been wanting to do add is some comments about the usefulness of wikis in the library sphere. Of course they have obvious drawbacks - their inherent changeability leads to questions around the authority and reliability of their content, and as Gumleaf notes, they are heavily reliant on having a large and/or active community involved for them to remain accurate and up-to-date - but overall I'd much rather have them than not!

Like Oscar, the number of times I use Wikipedia to get me started on AskNow (to find useful links or to get a quick refresher on an obscure topic) more than justifies its usefulness.

I also quite like the idea of YourArchives, The National Archives' (UK) wiki "where people can share their knowledge of archival sources held by The National Archives and by other archives throughout the UK". The combined advice of those experienced with using these complex collections will be incredibly valuable. I also suspect that the level of technical and historical knowledge required to contribute discourages frivolous entries, cutting down the number of errors included. Once again, if I was researching Oscar Wilde and was unable to find anything in the TNA's excellent online research guides about him, I would much rather have a wiki entry (with potentially some errors in it) than nothing at all to start with...

flotsam & jetsom

2007-10-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, after sitting unused in the tide of effluvium that is the Internet for 2 weeks now, my blog finally makes its (not so) long awaited debut. At the very least I hope that it "makes sport for my neighbours"...

I have to admit that I've secretly been looking forward to Learning 2.0. I say secretly as round SLV I'm expected to be a bit of a boffin with new technologies - but there are actually quite a few Things on our list that I only know about in a theoretical sense, and have never got around to experimenting with (hello RSS).

That said, I can't claim total ignorance of Things 2.0, especially as this is the third blog that I've created with Blogger. It's interesting to come to back to the interface after my last forays - especially to see how how difficult it now is to locate the privacy settings, and how I can no longer quickly opt out of having my blog available to search engines, as was the case before Blogger was bought out by Google!