Wrapping it all up

Usually I am not one to put together lists, but the brain dead in me at the end of this semester has left me bereft of ideas, so here goes my list about what I thought about the course LIBR 246

1. How has your view of social software changed since starting the course?

I would say that the largest amount of change to the social software course has been what I actually included what would be in a course about social software.  I would have never thought of Delicious, or Wikipedia, or the RSS feeds as having anything to do with social software whatsoever.  I knew they were tools on the Internet but I never thought of them as social constructs.  This class has expanded my mind to what social software was and how it could be applied in unique and intriguing ways.

2. What technology did you find most interesting for your personal use? What technology did you think would be most useful professionally?
I believe that the blogging software would be something I would be likely to use in my personal life outside of the generic facebook or twitter.  It has applications as I am something of a writer and love to create and post work that I have done.  I think this gives me a forum that I can work with more personally and allow my creativity to flourish with it.  Professionally I think RSS feeds have a large ability to adapt themselves.  Of course the adaptations may be more complex and require a larger background in programming languages, but I believe information that is easily shared across many platforms has a large adaptation in the professional workplace.

3. What surprised you during the course?
I cannot say that I was exactly surprised by anything, as I have used a great deal of the social software tools before, either in my personal life or in another library science class.  What I can say is that I wouldn't have thought how all of these tools could be used or of their intrinsic benefits.  I wouldn't have thought that with something like delicious I could weave through a myriad of articles and be able to do research on a subject faster and more efficiently.

4. What suggestions do you have for improving the learning activities (exercises, assignments, blog posts, readings, examples, etc.)?
I am not sure what to add as we did a thorough amount of research across all different kinds of platforms.  While we did not really do anything integrative with MySpace or Facebook, I am not sure that is something that I would feel the need to do, as those platforms get a lot of users on them already and most people coming into the class probably already used or have used one or both of those platforms, making the activities in them unnecessary.


5. Looking back, how would you sum up your experience?
I would say that the experience broadened my horizons about ready made platforms and how the libraries can integrate themselves and market themselves with these technological tools.  I would have thought maybe a facebook page would have been enough, but now I think there are so many more possibilities and things to do in this rapidly expansive environment.  The future certainly is now.

My Proposal - Video Blogging by Anthony Dillehunt and David Elliott

Proposal: To maintain a current technological impact on the community that the Buena Park library system serves, we believe that designing a video blog would effectively promote library services as well as be an invaluable tool in training and outreach to the community.


Libraries, by many people, are considered antiquated institutions, unable to keep up with the current technological revolutions that are seemingly occurring on a daily basis. This is indeed a sad state of affairs if it were true. While libraries often have a resistance to change, as do many likeminded government agencies, libraries are one of the best institutions suited to adapt to the current technological and informational needs of the public. Computer usage and proliferation have been encouraged by the libraries, since their inception, as new tools to assist in cataloging, and maintaining large archives for the public to be able to use. From Microfiche to the current OPAC system, libraries have attempted to maintain up to date ways of information maintenance and retrieval. The current trend in information storage and retrieval is the World Wide Web. This vast collection of pages stores numerous amounts of information on any subject imaginable. The proliferation of this resource to meet the need of almost anyone in the general public has meant that anyone who does not currently utilize the internet has or will become hopelessly behind in this new "Information Age." It is with this view of the current state of affairs that we recommend development of a video blog.

Successful Implementations of the Technology

A well maintained video blog reaches out to vast amounts of people, extending the scope and reach of everything an operation does. There are many well maintained, successful video blogs. Here are but a few of them:

MedLibrary.org - http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Video_clip

This site uses video clips to be able to talk about services that they provide as well as up to date information about all things medicinal. This particular article discusses the use of video blogs for libraries and how video blogging is becoming a very popular means of communicating to a mass audience.

CNN Money.com - http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/05/01/8375939/

This article talks about the proliferation of videoblogs in today's society. There has been an exponential increase in the technology with the posting of videos since the recent Iphone boom. As the popularity of these blogs has increased there is now a market for such blogs on the net. One such company and their blog, Rocketboom, was able to generate a 40,000 dollar ad buy from people looking to put ads onto these sights. If advertisers see the possibilities of this medium and are willing to invest money in it, one would think the library should at least consider the possibility of using it.

Quilt Block Library Video Blog - http://www.quiltblocklibrary.tv/

This is a website/blog that it totally dedicated to designing quilts. As our interest is designing a blog where the primary method of communicating information is through videos, this blog succeeds in just that fashion. It informs, similarly to the way we view our tutorials page about library usage will inform, about how to do basic things with quilting. It does this instruction primarily through video feeds.

Otis Library - Maberry, S. (2009). Archiving 2.0: Problems, Possibilities, and the Expanding Role of Librarians. Art Documentation, 28(1), 40-3.

The Otis Library has been able to develop a video blogging system of a sort, being able to create video for the professors for their classes and being able to post them to a blog. The upside is the advent of this technology has enabled professors to more easily and cheaply produce videos that they can use for multiple classes. The downside of this technology is that it presented a problem when it came to actually archiving and cataloging the feeds that it created. I believe this may not be as large of a problem for us as our tutorial will be limited to services that the library provides. However, at some point there might be an archive problem with past tutorials as things change in the library. Hopefully, a good way can be developed down the road to successfully archive and retrieve the information that is generated.

The Wine Library Video Blog - http://tv.winelibrary.com/

These blogs on this site are developed to be able to give the users a lot of information about all things about wine, from tasting to different types of wines and vineyards. This is an effective method of instruction, however it may have something to be desired in the trying to organize the blog. It does divide up the blog by creating a listing of wines used in each episode but does not have any other method of categorization. I suppose that this may be all one needs for wine. The real question is whether, as with the Quilt Library blog, does blogging lend itself to be best categorized when there is a limited amount of subjects that can be discussed, as opposed to the library which has a much wider variety of information to store.

Rationale

While many of the video blogs developed on the net consist of operations whose only responsibility is to maintain contact with the public through their blog, the library is a pre-existing entity with responsibilities to the tangible public that they serve. Furthermore, these public libraries also have problems, in this economic state, with shrinking budgets and minimal staff to deal with their day to day responsibilities. Despite these facts, a library who is not able to maintain an effective presence on the Information Superhighway, may end up becoming the antiquated institution everyone fears that they are. If such a popular notion takes hold in the general public about the library, it may become defunded altogether, making libraries antiquated, and out of business. The technology then should not be a matter of whether, but a matter of when and how.

Aside from the obvious reasons for maintaining a presence on the Internet the Buena Park Library has many specific reasons for publishing a video blog as well. Our library has a limited capacity to be able to publicize things to the community at large. Frequently, items are publicized in the library but no one in the community actually knows about them. A recent Oprah episode commented about the fact that the library was a place to rent DVD’s for free, and the audience was surprised to find that out. We believe our library needs to have a better more modern way of outreach to the community. Furthermore, there is great utility in the use of a video blog. We feel that creating video links instructing patrons how to use library technology and services would be a more efficient way of having people access information about the library, alleviating pressure off of already overworked staff. This information would be stored and archived on the blogs server, making it always available and ready for whenever someone needed it.

Library Implementation

This need to be modern as well as the utility of the application makes video blogging something well worth its time and effort. In this vein we recommend the following for implementation of a video blogging site:

Technology: We propose to develop the blog pages in-house on the library’s web development server. The pages will be coded in HTML and we will integrate video content via YouTube.com’s embedding source code. Our proposed areas include the following: the teen spot; the adult book club; tutorials; and the children's corner. We would like to use screencast and other video technology through webcam and other means to record video segments to be able to train others as well as publicize certain events that the library has in any situation. We plan to use and open-source screen capturing solutions, such as Screentoaster, in addition to content recorded with more traditional hand held devices.

The Service: We are attempting to create a blog to promote the services in the library. The blog will be divided into sections to publicize things in the library separately. We decided to cover three specific parts of the library, which includes separate spaces for the adult, teen and children section. We did add a fourth section of the blog site, which will include tutorials. These tutorials will include things about learning library services.

Maintenance, Policy, and training: The maintenance of the website will be done by having one staff member develop the blog and the four areas the blog went into. The Children's Librarian, the Adult Librarian and the Teen Librarian would be responsible for developing videos that publicized their various programs in their sections. Tutorials would be developed through staff cooperation. The person in charge of the website maintenance will upload the feeds and edit the introductions to the videos on the screen.

Concerning policy about the site, it will be managed by the one employee responsible for putting information on the site. The Branch manager will be ultimately responsible for monitoring whatever information is put on the site and see that it conforms to existing Social Networking policy. Blogs will be monitored twice a day and any inappropriate comment added to the blog will be deleted at that time. There will be a link to appropriate methods for posting on the blog so that everyone will know what the library considers an acceptable use of commentary is. This will be monitored for a few months and evaluated to determine whether or not the ability to comment is being overly abused. If it is, the ability to comment on the blog postings will be eliminated.

With training on the website, there should be at least three people who are able to operate and upload things onto the website, in case two people are unable to be there for any apparent reason. Each person should spend a few hours on the website, and receive some light training in html, and understand what HTML and CSS are, and how they interoperate. Thankfully the website itself does not require a great deal of understanding in its programming so it will be more a matter of style than actual substance to the site. A person should also learn how to operate Screentoaster, which is an online service for creating videos while recording your screen. The blogs themselves are easy to operate so it should not be a large learning curve to operate the system.

Assessment: We will review everything at the end of a three month trial period. Provided there seems to be an "acceptable" amount of usage of the blog space (acceptable meaning at least 100 visits per month), the blog will continue being made. The blog will then be re-evaluated at the end of 6 months to see that the visits to the webpage continue and the appropriate use of the blog space and commenting are maintained. Provided that the blog maintains an "acceptable" or better use of the blog, the blog will be re-evaluated every six months for blog usage and evaluation of what things seem to be working and what things seem to be failing.

Possible Hurdles

We believe that the implementation of the video blog for the Buena Park Library or some other similar project is necessary. Despite the ease of the software technology and training to use it, there are some considerations about the technology that one must consider before initiating such a project. We believe the primary roadblock to such an undertaking is staff motivation. To be able to maintain a blog, there must be consistent use and monitoring of the site. Librarians and staff frequently have many different things on their plate that they need to accomplish. Things that staff deem to have a lower priority frequently gets put off, never being accomplished at all. To operate a blog, considering its need to be constantly updated, staff must believe that it is a vital part of a library’s operations. We believe the best way to maintain such an interest is to be able to develop and maintain a feedback system. Promotions of the blog via brochures at the library and posters need to be put up. There should be positive and negative feedback posted about the blog through the comments that people make to the blog on the site. Every month there should be several comments posted in the library, letting the staff know that not only is the system being used, but there are ways for refinement.

While staff motivation is the primary reason such a project can be derailed, there are other issues with the technology as well. While we plan to develop the blog pages in-house, the possibility may arise that this approach may prove to be too time consuming too continue. If this turns out to be true, we plan to use the blogging platform Wordpress as an alternative. Wordpress is one of the most highly used blogging platforms, and it is used by well-known and intellectually varied bloggers such as Perez Hilton or Michelle Malkin. While we may not be tied to the use of either in-house developed pages or Wordpress, there should be a discussion about library needs and what best suits the library, so that everyone understands why the Buena Park Library system is using a particular software solution. Balancing cost, man hours and ease of use will weigh critically on which solution the library ultimately decides to choose.

Finally Video Blogs using other people's blog technology creates an archival issue. As the library does not have access to the archives it does not control much of the information that it stores. Once it is uploaded it is left there without a sufficient means of archiving the information. While this may be a problem it is somewhat overblown as most blogs create date stamps. It is an archival method of its own. And as most information in promotion will be time sensitive, it may not be necessary to create a cataloging system of information. However, since the training section of the site will not be a time sensitive issue, but an information issue, there must be some way of organizing the information to retrieve that is not alphabetical. All of this could be eliminated if we were generating our own website, but this would create a time issue of its own. We recommend maintaining a copy of the videos on file at the library, organizing the training videos with some categorical scheme, either Library of Congress, or Dewey decimal. This is somewhat impractical and confusing on a website however.

Conclusion

The library cannot and must not become an entity of the past, holding on to previous ideas of acceptable information sources, and limiting its resources and time and energy to those things that are tangible. While books may not become a thing of the past, one has to consider all of the ways "books" may now be read. Likewise, promotion cannot be limited to posters and some bookmarks on the counter. The library must consider other promotional methods. We believe that the Video Blog for the Buena Park Library will fill both those concerns. It will move us in a forward looking direction, both technologically and promotionally. For the Library, both the past, and the future should all exist in the now.

The Technology Prototype URL: http://buenapark.lib.ca.us/development/layout.html

Library Social Tools Assessment

What can libraries do to assess themselves? How does a library assess itself when it has limited ability to do so as it has limited control of the software it uses to promote itself?

- The most obvious way for a library to assess itself is through usage. Every website should have information on visitors who have viewed the site.

- It would be good for a library to have the ability for its users to comment. A library can review all of the different meaningful assessments that have something to say about the social software used.

- Libraries can put out surveys for patrons who come to the library about usage on the social software sites. They can answer whether using the social site was a good experience, whether it was instrumental in whether or not they come for a library program.

- Libraries determine the ease of use of the software they are using by surveying the people responsible for using the social software.

- Libraries can monitor review sites to see whether they are getting positive or negative feedback on these review sites.

Lurkers: Behind the Veil

Online communities are developed among a bunch of people who are interested in communicating about a topic, or along a particular type of topic, as Slashdot is supposed to be people who are generating topics that "nerds" would be interested in, as the site lists that it is news for nerds. These communities are largely composed of articles posted by people who create names for themselves. After a while a person who would go to the site regularly might get to know what types of topics a person is interested in, as their postings might take on a certain theme, or they might post regularly about apple computers and you would get to know something about a person through their posts.

There are other people, who are interested in keeping some level of anonymity about themselves. While the Internet inherently provides some anonymity, these people do not even wish to be known by a screen name. They are called lurkers and jealously guide their identity, for their own reasons. Is lurking something that is understandable, or is it something where people are hysterical about protecting their identity.... or is it just laziness? Given my own participation in many things on the net, I would argue that it might be a bit of all three.

Certainly, with the advent of the Internet, and hearing about fishing schemes, and people out to steal your identity, one might determine that protecting one's identity at all costs might be a worthwhile effort. However, one does not have to share all types of information. I know many people who will lie about all sorts of things when they sign up for a site that they do not have to pay for. They will generate email accounts they do not use regularly, create fake numbers and addresses, all for the purpose of getting on a site. Their web names on a particular site are unique to the site.

By being a lurker, or even a anonymous poster to a website, a person refrains from developing any relationships with anyone over the net. If a person posts or comments on a particular topic, keeping ones self anonymous keeps one from having a real discussion about that topic. Also just by sitting back and not posting, or simply lurking, one keeps ones self at arms distance from any real connections that the website is supposed to offer. Its almost kind of counterproductive to the nature of the website in the first place.

Whether one agrees with lurking or not, for whatever reason, I believe the biggest reason for lurking, which is oft ignored is laziness. People tend to be very information focused on the Internet. They may find a topic that they are interested in and read about it, but never participate, not because they do not have anything to contribute, but because they are in a hurry and only came to get the information they are seeking. They do not post, not because they have nothing to say about a topic, but because they would actually have to take the time to formulate a thought about a topic that they would consider worthwhile for other people to hear, and they do not feel it is worth their time and effort.

While my instant reaction is to criticize the lurker, I must consider my own use of the Internet. I think it would be responsible to participate in all of the websites I use, not only because I am part of the community interested in the information, but because my participation encourages advertisers to be interested in that website and contribute money for the furtherance of the website, but I often do not because I am lazy and only seek information for my own personal use. Communities work because people participate in them, and somewhat actively. And real participation requires a level of vulnerability that would allow others to know who I am. The question of to lurk, or not to lurk, should not be a question at all. I should not lurk, and be...

Possible Failures for User Generated Systems

Its always interesting to speculate on what the reasons for why something does not work. I remember when we were trying to generate a blog at the library for interoffice use. After about three months the blog stopped being used by anyone in branch and was never heard from again. I have talked to a few people about the reasons for this after the fact. Most of them discuss the fact that it was not being used by anyone else and saw no reason why they should get on it anymore to check on it. Furthermore, we already had an email account to connect with people at the branch. Why should we have to use anything else?

All of the various reasons made sense, but I think the reasons go deeper than that. Part of the problem is that there was one person spearheading the effort, and she had mental and emotional turmoil going on after starting it about three months. She did not have the time or energy to use it. There was no second person responsible for maintaining the blog. As it was no one else's responsibility, it fell to neglect. And no one else took it up to keep it going. By the time the person in charge had righted the ship, she had other things on her mind and did not take it up again.

So when considering the reasons why something that would be user generated would fail, there are the obvious reasons, and then there are the reasons that you have to dig a little deeper to find. The most obvious reason for something user generated not working is a lack of user support. As with anything you have to be able to get multiple people involved in the process. It cannot be left up to one person or its not really a community effort to develop a platform. And actively involved does not mean to simply get on the site and see what other people have done. These people have to publish to the site and be come involved as part of the process.

While participation is an obvious reason for something not working there are many other possible reasons for failure. Aside from participation, language is often a barrier to a community working together for something. Everyone has to be able to have the same way of saying things. Something may have local appeal but not have an appeal nationally because the way people communicate change from society to society. Also, the platform that people have to comment on something can make something not work long term. There has to be a way to get feedback about what is being written and said. Also, someone who is overzealous in editing what is allowed on a site can make a collaborative effort fail. If someone deletes everything that is being written, than people will stop being interested in participating of the writing or commenting on the site.

Whatever the possible reasons there maybe, one thing I have found universally is that someone needs to be flexible in what they are creating in order for it to work. If someone is too rigid in what they want or expect, people will be turned off the the item and the process. Flexibility is a virtue that is vastly underrated.

Excercise 5 or The Tagging Process

To be perfectly honest, before working on this assignment I did not do a whole lot when it came to delicious. All that I did with delicious is find some web page that discussed what someone had to say about the topic and then add it to my list of topics. I was not sure of the long term value of bookmarking these pages. After working with all of the capabilities of delicious it has transformed my view of the nature of the social networking bookmarks and why it can be useful.

The usefulness of the bookmarking comes in where it comes to the connections with other people. I can see what everyone else is thinking when they are talking about another topic online. If I tag something tagged, I will know how many other people used that word tagged to tag something. I can also find the websites that those other people find interesting, or I can find the websites that they find interesting about the use of the word tagged. The searches can be endless. And you kind of get to know someone else's thought process as a result.

Despite the usefulness of such a tool, I do have to also say that there are some limitations to the whole idea. While I can find what other sites there are on the word tagged, or what someone else may be thinking about when they think the word tagged, I have learned through this and through Cataloging that coming up with a consistent term is the only way of being able to find anything when you are classifying. For example, I may look up tagging and thing that I am going to find all of the instances where someone is noting a word in a social tagging site. However, I know that others have used the term to mean someone who spray paints their insignia on a freeway or cable car or other item to denote that they have been there. I may look up tagging but its only as useful as however many others have the same idea about what the word tagged means. This does not even include what other English speaking countries may mean when they tag one word that has multiple meanings in the two different countries.

Tagging, I have discovered, can be a beautiful thing. Tagging has its limits.

What I actually learned this week about collaborative efforts...

When I began this week I was already familiar with some of the collaborative software that was already out there. I had already used Yahoo groups and Google Docs to be able to actively edit papers for different classes. I have used both Meebo and Skype with communicating with different people in the past and so was familiar with their software. I knew that all of these forums could be used to communicate effectively with one person, or with many people at the same time.

Despite this familiarity with the process of everything, I did come to a realization about the failures of communicating tools like this when given short notice about who you have to work with. Elluminate is great, if you have the time to set up a meeting in advance. If you have little time to work, it becomes next to impossible to accomplish. Also, I learned that collaborative efforts are difficult when one is trying to put together some amount of personal reflection on a particular item. If I am going to discuss what I learned this week, it is hard for someone to come along side to what I have written and piece together a group reflection about what I learned. I suppose we could have pieced one together about what we learned.

What I am excited about with all of these tools is the ability to find some tool that can be used in an effective way to develop a group project and presentation. I want to let nothing get in the way of imagination and innovation to develop something that will stand out. I hearken back to my first time working with Power Point, almost 13 years ago now. I remember what little I could accomplish and how much more I can accomplish using Power Point today. I hope that my experiences from the past and working with a partner will sharpen my skills and make my projects more streamlined this time.

Wikis and other things left unsaid

It was an interesting week perusing through Wikis and other various social bookmarking tools. What I found in Wikis included a cornucopia of information on various related topics. What I learned was that Wiki's have several interesting functions. Yes their primary function is to have groups communicating to inform others. But I now see the possibilities of Wikis as so much more. There was the library Wiki who decided to let the patrons get involved in the goal process of the library, allowing them to post concerns about the library and what they want to have changed in the process. While merely a list of stated desires of the library, it becomes almost a community bonding experience as I may agree that the children's library does not have enough windows in it, or that the reference department may want to include more books on a particular topic. I can see that I may not be alone in my view of the library, and know that the library is aware of my concerns.
Along with developing goals and running lists, Wikis can be a travel guide of sorts. The community of Rochester has links on the wiki about what to do in Rochester. It might not be an up to date guide, and certainly wouldn't use it for long term relevance, but it can give one an idea of what the people of the community consider interesting and valuable. And should I ever visit Rochester, I can have a place to start.
Then there are the Library Conference Wikis that become historical documents unto themselves. They have program listings and conference committees and all various forms of documents and things of interest about the conference. Once encapsulated together in this Wiki format they become a historical record of the time, the conference, and what was being said about the library at that point.
Ironically, I think I got caught up in the Wiki as place for debate the easiest. Maybe its because perversely some part of me likes to argue and wants to see discussion about a topic, not just postings edited by some vague and nefarious governing board. But I found historical documents and commentary about a debate in Davis over whether to uphold or reject a proposed boycott of goods and services of Israel. Whatever my position on such an event in a Coop far removed from me may be, it was interesting to not only see the historical documents (boycott proposal, boards rejection), but to see the arguments about the proposal rationally considered, and also a form of historical document as well. With all of these various ways that a Wiki can be used, I certainly have a greater appreciation for the Wiki format, outside of using it as a quick reference tool.

Marketing Critique

The Cerritos Library is nestled in the small community of just over 50,000 in Cerritos, tied to the greater Los Angeles area, on the South Eastern edge of Los Angeles County. It is attached to City Hall and the police station as far as access to the library goes. As you walk up to the library it is situated next to a fountain containing Coy Fish, and another fountain that is set to a timer with dolphin statues neatly nestled around it. This library stands as one of the more beautiful libraries in the area, costing just under 40 million dollars for the cost of the building, it stands as a work of art in the community. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerritos_Millennium_Library ) Their children's section has a story time room, an arts and crafts room as well as the general book room which has to scale mock space shuttle as well as dinosaur. Besides these wonders they have a giant aquarium that they have a diver go into once a week to clean out the tank. The library itself is divided into different themed sections ranging from modern art to rustic with lots of cherry wood furniture and a fireplace with chairs surrounding it. Alongside its general library duties the community has considered it a kind of resource center, with a large community room that they have on the third floor, and a few different high tech computer labs available for teaching classes out of. Both of those are income generators for the library, as well as the hefty fee for any non-resident to the community who wishes to use their services. Given the obvious planning and foresight that was considered when developing the building and the surrounding area for the Cerritos library, it is a wonder that so little consideration has gone into the marketing and placing of its items on the web.

I started my research into the building itself and visiting the library, seeing its marvelous structure and all of the programs they have for the community. I was then shocked when I began to research what was available about the Cerritos Library on the web. To begin my search I went to the webpage for the library. http://menu.ci.cerritos.ca.us/ ) (It was found easily enough by doing a Google Search of the library.) It immediately popped up. The general display of the website was pretty looking. It was filled with pictures of the building that would excite one about the general library. The links to the library were in a long column on the left hand side of the page. They tried to divide the links by the type of search what you were doing. The top part of the links had to do with library usage, checking out accounts and various things about the library itself as far as what was in the collection. They then would move down into programming in the library and what stuff they had going on including a calendar of events. When I got to the links about some of the pictures, however, I was disappointed to learn that some of the links had problems with them. I was unable to access some of the quicktime movies that would capture the look of the library. The comment section of the webpage was a minor disappointment in the fact that it had a place to comment but you could not read anyone else's comments about the library.

Following my exploration of the website I decided to research the presence of the library on MySpace and Facebook. While not all of the social networking sites, they are two of the most prominent on the net and I decided to look them up. I have profiles on both MySpace and Facebook and looked up the Cerritos Library on both of those sites, deciding to search for what they had on MySpace first. I began my search actually searching through Google and found one account that mentioned Cerritos but was unable to find anything that specifically had the Cerritos Library on it. I decided to then go onto MySpace through my own account and look up the Cerritos Library but was even more shocked when I got on there. There was a Cerritos Library MySpace page, but it was definitely not operated by anyone at the library as it had very little items listed on it and the one quote for the library mentioned them having a nice porn collection aside from their regular collection, which I suppose could be true but I doubt would be widely published on a social networking site. I would have thought maybe it was some other library except that they had a picture of the Cerritos Library on the front of the MySpace page. (http://www.myspace.com/2801355)

Despite my disappointment with what was on MySpace I hoped I would see something different when I opened up Facebook to look to see what was on this social networking site. I was pleased to find it looked like they had an operating Facebook account. And even if not run by a Cerritos Staff member it was at least run by someone who liked the library. They had a limited selection of pictures of the outside of the building. They also had a comments page but no one seemed to be commenting on it, either indicating the lack of interest of people in the library or a lack of desire of the Cerritos Staff to have people comment about their library. Given what they had on the website, I couldn't be sure of either. There was some commentary about a book in the library, but when I realized the person making the comment had the Cerritos Library building as their picture, I wondered more about whether it was a patron or staff run Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cerritos-CA/Cerritos-Library/246296406904?ref=search)

Following the social networking sites, I decided to research the blogs to see if I could find one that was run by the Cerritos Library. I checked www.blogspot.com to see if they had anything I could find on the Cerritos library, which I then ran through Google to inquire about blogs on the library. There was one blog that took in the ratings of the Cerritos Library, but nothing more. It seemed they had little interest in developing marketing outside of their own personal website, which would limit Cerritos to serving its own community and allow no outreach. I decided to read what was posted about the Library nonetheless as this place seemed to be the only place so far I had found commentary about the library. Most commented about the beauty of the library itself, and a wish that they had something like this when they were growing up. One comment said that it was a "fishbowl" making them feel like they were being observed constantly, rather than a place to work and research. What I found most instructive is that most of the comments were about the nature of the library itself, its structure, beauty, etc. There was very little to be found on the usefulness of the collection.

Given what little I found on any of the other major sites I was not surprised to find that Cerritos did not have a Twitter presence. (www.twitter.com) This would be something that would require a lot more effort than a blog and far more effort than would a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace. I was unable to find anything about the library on there. They seemed to want to do very little to engage the web in any meaningful way it would seem.

Considering the millions of dollars poured into the building and the collection it would seem reasonable that they would want to have a positive word of mouth about the library and its resources. I was not going to give up. Despite their lack of presence on the web, I determined that the potential of the library could be met through a large change in policy. Beginning with a presence on MySpace and Facebook, the library should make an effort to engage their public through having a space dedicated to them. While it may be time consuming and they might not be able to update it as regularly as they should, it's better to have one's own presence on the web then allow someone to think that pornography would comprise a large part of the Cerritos collection. Secondarily I would open up their web page discussion board to allow patrons to discuss the library on the web in a productive manner. This may require someone to review what is being posted but I believe will benefit the library long term. Finally I would begin a blog, advertising the libraries coming events. Yes they do have something on the web page, but it is too hard to sift through as a patron, and patrons might not have the patience to do that. But devoting a blog to coming events of the library someone can easily peruse what coming events they might find of interest.

The question I had was whether Cerritos had the will to make those changes. I decided to do some further investigation into the library as a result. What I found lined up with their presence on the web. They charged exorbitantly to get a library card if you did live or work in their city. They changed their policies about getting a card. Cerritos used to have "sister cities," not belonging to the Los Angeles County system that they did not charge to get a card at their branch. They now charge. The Library considered belonging to the Santiago Library System which would put them in a relationship with libraries from the greater Southern California region. They decided it was not in their best interest. Finally, the library itself is not directed by someone who got a masters in Library Sciences, and the "Librarians," while having a masters degree, do not necessarily have one in Library Sciences. It would seem the library not only wishes to be solely dedicated to its little community, but they wish to remain outside the greater library community, with entirely different goals. It seems sad the promise of such a great building and large collection is under management who does not wish to provide this information to the world at large. Given the grandeur of the name, "Cerritos Millennium Library," the Wikipedia website displayed the promise of the library. Given the execution of that promise, it may as well be called the Cerritos book store and borrowing collective: "all outsider's keep off the grass."

Should Libraries be posting on Facebook/Myspace?

I would have to say that I believe that Libraries should be actively marketing themselves where people are. Today's society requires that you must market yourself if you want to be considered relevant. Once people stop thinking of you, you will rapidly no longer be an asset to your community. And if libraries stop becoming assets in their communities, libraries will die.

All of that being said, where and when you should find yourself on the internet is an interesting question. Primarily a library should have a website of its own. A website is the one place where a library can have total control over what it presents to the public. Through this control one may present one's self in the best light possible. You can control what users have access to, what a user sees, etc. With other sites, you are limited by whatever someone may allow you to post up. You have little control over what someone else may post about you. Libraries need to be cautious about things under which they have no control.

As to the larger question of whether a library should join MySpace or Facebook, the situation grows even slightly more complicated. I suppose you could use the scatter shot approach to marketing and allow yourself to be marketed whenever and wherever you chose. But this would spread yourself thin over too many platforms. MySpace and Facebook are barely the tip of the iceberg in social networking websites. There is bebo, Friendster, Hi5, and many many other sites with which to visit. A library could hardly be expected to keep up with all of them. But, MySpace and Facebook are among the more popular sites of the day.

My knee jerk reaction would be to say to keep yourself listed on both of them and try to keep up with both. Certainly in my time at the library the initial popular one of the two sites was MySpace. So many web pages from libraries popped up on MySpace. But in a few short years the big behemoth in social networking software is Facebook. And one would be justified in thinking that another one will pop up to overtake them both in the future. But I think to keep up with both of them would be foolhardy. What I would do is put myself on Facebook now, due to its current and seemingly burgeoning popularity. I would keep updates on that and allow users to post commentary about the place as well as keeping people updated on events that may be going on. I would then make sure there was a link from my web page to whatever social networking site was the most popular of the day. This would enable people to get a direct link from the website, which would be the most important thing as I stated earlier.

I just think that trying to keep up with everything would be a fools errand in the rapidly changing Internet. But being adaptable and learning what is most widely used and then maintaining a presence there would be a priority among any library that is going to last. Let's just hope that libraries find themselves outlasting any social networking site that may be the current "in thing."

What I think of Twitter

Twitter is an interesting concept to me. I understand the usefulness in some fashion. It certainly gives one a greater opportunity to be creative and mass communicate with many people at the same time. Its an interesting way to keep up on any particular person or company if they have a running twitter account.
My problem with twitter comes when trying to understand its usefulness long term. I have a hard time keeping a running track of what I am doing all the time. And when someone isn't posting all the time, then I am not sure of the usefulness of twitter. But who wants to hear every couple of hours all day. from someone else. Who would have the ability to keep up with it all the time. Its not like a blog where you can kind of peruse through topics to find something of interest that someone you like has wrote. You have a running commentary of lots of different things with no specific subject topics. Also, how does a company keep the interest of what is going on. Or as a librarian, outside of some things specifically of interest at the branch, would you be able to keep messaging every couple of hours to keep your avid readers interested? And as a reader I am not sure I want to know what's going on at any moment, all the time.

Reflections on RSS

Thinking back to the first class of my school i LIBR 203 I remember being in there as they introduced the use of RSS feeds. Of course I had limited experience with programming, let alone some XML programming experience where I had a reasonable understand about what the capabilities of XML were. At that point in time it helped me connect with the school feeds so that I could get updates via RSS feed to find out what was going on at school.

Unfortunately, the understanding of the benefits of one at that point did not take. I just knew that I did not see the point in maintaining an RSS feed when I could get all of the info off of emails that came to me. What I failed to realize was the benefit of RSS when it came to the blogs. Not because I had never heard about blogs, but because I did not see the benefits of blogging in general. I did not understand their practical use, or how they could be used to mass communicate to loads of patrons one message.

While I do find now how it could be a very useful tool, getting patrons to see the same thing can be as difficult as anything. With teens it shouldn't be as hard because they have been growing up in a world where blogs are exploding. So seeing why you should have a feed to allow you to view all of your blogs in one place would be natural. But to an older generation, who blogs very little, who frequently make up the vast majority of the library population, this can be a struggle. And to market to an older population is not the usual branding of the marketplace. Almost all things now are marketed for people between the ages of 12 and 30. When the average age of the person entering the library is 40 + this is different. And then their reticence to getting into new technology also makes it more difficult.

Its going to be interesting to see how the library is going to reach out to these people, or are they merely going to wait and hope that future generations will want to use the library and their new technology.

Exercise 2

I admit that I started off this exercise with a great degree of skepticism. I know that there is value to the idea of blogging as a way of interconnecting both people and ideas. And that building bridges so that these ideas can be spread among different communities is of great importance. All of this made a great deal of sense from a theoretical perspective. I was interested in blogging and what made it such a fascinating medium. In fact, I suppose as I do find certain authors interesting in syndication, it is a form of blog that I appreciate. But trying to author my own blog and then to try to find what was useful about other librarians blogging was much something I questioned a great deal. What makes a good blog? Furthermore, what do I think makes a good blog? It is the architecture of the successful blog that I am interested in.

My research began with the addition of the five blogs that we were required to add for the assignment as well as the reading of the material in the book on blogging. It was certainly interesting to find that there were several different types of blogs. David Lee King could be placed as either a short article blogger or as a series blogger. Occasionally he would take the time to write a series of blogs on what he found important at that moment. Currently he was interested in getting his fellow librarians to see the desirability of maintaining a regular blog. He did report on other library topics as well.

In the Library with the Lead pipe was of great interest as it was a series of essays. Aside from the amusing obvious "Clue" reference, the person was interested in getting a whole lot of guest authors to discuss in long essays subjects of interest to them. There was no particular one theme, but I found all of the Long Article forms fascinating. I think it went well with my desire to read some long essays by some of my favorite syndicated columnists.

Librarian By Day was more interested in presenting links with small blurbs to be able to discuss areas of interest on particular topics in the library. They were not interested in writing much in the way of essays on anything. But rather, they were more interested in presenting articles that could be linked to and looked up on any various topics. Also the site occasionally posted lists of interesting places without actually linking the places up for the people reading their blog.

The Distant Librarian was either link blurb or link only. They presented links with a bare minimum of discussion about those links. From an aesthetic viewpoint it was not a very appealing place to visit. However, it may be something that I would want to skim through every now and then trying to pick up some tidbit of information through the links they posted on the topic that was being discussed in the blog.

The Librarians commute was a series of short article blogs about an academic library and what is going on in their area. I found these short articles interesting, although maybe not as interesting as the long article format from a person preference. However there were some areas of interest that I found in some of the articles from time to time. You might consider it a series blog as the sole goal is to discuss academic libraries, but I wouldn't call it that as its efforts in discussing the libraries seem broad and its application far exceeds that of merely an academic library.

Finally I went to view three other blogs that I subscribed to from the list of blogs that there were given. I chose primarily from the public library forum as I am currently working in a public library and wanted to see what they did with their blogs. As a result I chose the Brooklyn Book Talk blog and the Dover Public Library Blog. The first blog, as its title suggests is about books. I would imagine that this would be a very useful blog for setting up a book chat with people from the library. One could use this blog as a starting off point, to get ideas for discussion about the coming book that that is going to be had, or it could be used to carry on the discussion after the book chat on any particular area of interest. I believe if marketed properly, it would be a very useful tool for enhancing the program of the book chat at the library.

The Dover Public Library was a much more broad blogging tool. It was used to discuss all about the goings on in the community of Dover. It listed things from events that were going on at the library to different events in the community. Furthermore it did a good job of trying to tie back any personal reflections that were placed in the blog to items at the library. One such blog discussed the belief that the community was going through a very "twilight zone" moment, relating what was going on in the community to a particularly twilight episode. They then listed where the library held the episode so that people could do further research on the topic discussed.

Finally I went to one of the "successful" blogs to get an idea of what went into what was considered a successful blog. For this one I chose Librarian in Black. I must admit that a large fascination with literature and the fact that Librarian in Black could have multiple allusions. Either one could go with Men in Black the movie, or one could go with the Man in Black as a reference to Johnny Cash. There might be even further allusions in this one brief title, but it certainly was an auspicious beginning for an interesting blog. When I got there I was a bit surprised on what I found. While there were a very few long essays that covered interesting topics such as libraries and dealing with music and digital rights management issues, the vast majority of the blog is library recommends. And while they certainly had a large amount of links to peruse at my own time, the links did not seem to have any particular order or theme. So it wasn't like I could go and find a list with several links on a topic that I was interested in. I had to go through each reading and see if there was anything of interest to me today. I admit that I was a little disappointed.

I think the one thing that my blog searching has taught me through all of this is that when I begin my own blog, there should be an audience that I am seeking to present my items to, and I should have a consistent and ordered way of presenting my information such that someone who is interested in my blog may easily find the information that I would be presenting them. I also learned that there are multiple ways of blogging in a public library that would be useful to the library and the marketing of the things that the library does.

How Blogging Contributes to the class

I have started and stopped at blogging for quite some time. My first initial efforts at blogging came with my meager attempts to post some of my poetry to my facebook page. While not exactly a blog and certainly not enough space to post long rants onto a space it was the beginnings of learning how to carry on a running conversation with people. What I did not realize then was the usefullness of such a tool. And eventually my blogging days on facebook went by the wayside.

Later on I attempted to post blogs for my work. There were several of us trying to use a blog post at our work to communicate more globally with the people that were in our office. The problem with this blog posting was that no one really wanted to do it on a regular basis. Besides, trying to communicate with a local community that you are face to face with everyday seemed a little ridiculous when all you had to do was to walk 10 feet to tell the other person what you were thinking or what was going on. So our blog postings eventually fizzled.

With this class, however, I can see the usefulness of such a posting mechanism. While not constrained by the limits of any size posting, we can communicate more globally between people who are at quite a distance from one another. It is fascinating to be able to have a running conversation about different topics, especially ones that are of interest. Furthermore, with having each member of the class participate, you get the depth of experience from every member of the class on every topic discussed. And while I may not have anything to contribute to every discussion, it is worthwhile to be able to have the information at my fingertips to peruse through and use. I believe this kind of running conversation is worthwhile having and communicating in. Hopefully it will help me to establish this kind of communication with other members of the library community to discuss and contribute more globally as we are a more interconnected society, yet the libraries goals are primarily uniform: to provide free access to as much information, to as many people who are seeking it.

Excercise 1

I decided to use Target to analyze because I had worked for the company for a year while I was between jobs and was somewhat familiar with the organization. Its been more of interest to me of late because not only is it a place I continue to frequent but because the store model they use has changed greatly of late. When I was there a few years ago they would not allow produce in the store as a result of the fact that they would have to pay their employees a higher union wage. Somehow things have changed drastically recently, and I am certain that they are not paying their employees higher wages. Both Walmart and Target have taken to adding large produce and food sections in their stores and have not raised the wages of their staff. I was very curious to see what people were saying.
Primarily Target has used its own website to keep in contact with the people who are using the store. I started to do further research on the store to see if I could find their presence in other places. I did find a few blogs for people who were highly appreciative of Target though blogspot and other blogging sites. One was slavetotarget and yet another was target-addict. Their blogs were designed with not only giving Target a boost as they love the store but for avid shoppers who were interested in learning what a great weekly special might be. And as any good Target shopper knows, their best deals are not in the ad, but found on the back of the aisles in the clearance areas. Target stores release items for clearance simulataneously so if you cannot find an item on a clearance aisle at your local store there might be one farther away that has an incredible deal.
Target does maintain a facebook presence where they publish all of the in store sales that they have each week. They also have other various tabs set up in facebook including a facebook discussion tab for Target stores. What I did find in the tabs were a lot of people who were discussing topics back and forth with very little input from a Target representative. They did, however, discuss emails that they did receive back from Target to queries that they had.
One such complaint found on the discussion board had to do with Target's support of some Republican candidate for the Minnesota governor's race. While being largely diplomatic throughout the email response that this one person received, Target defended its decision to support a candidate by saying that they give equal money to both Democrats and Republicans. I found the answer fascinating as it was likely to please absolutely no one. If someone is displeased that you gave money or support to one side, saying that you gave money to their side too is unlikely to assuage their disappointment in your company.
I believe ultimately that while Target is on the social media sites of note, that their presence is more of a way to increase their advertising of their poduct and has very little to do with actually communicating with the people who use their products.

blogpostwk2

The libraries attempt to enter the virtual world has definitely been a work in progress. Given that I work in circulation my experience of what the library has done on the web has been minimal. But what I have seen has given me rise for concern in the libraries ability to effectively maintain a web presence. First of all, there is just a lot of bureaucracy involved in setting up anything. I work at a medium sized branch in a larger county system. We can and have set up blogs for some social contact with the outside world but have found it difficult to maintain. First of all there has been the problem of changing staff and maintaining the blog, second, in my short five years in the library the dominant social sites have varied greatly. There was myspace which was really hot for a while and has cooled down. We have now moved onto facebook, but even that could change with the advent of Google trying to enter the social networking fray.

Outside of the social networking sphere there has been the problem of merely the libraries presence on the web. While the individual site itself has remained fairly consistent, as we have had little turnover in the IT department, we have been linked with other county agencies in the short time I have been there. As a result, our web page has been plugged in more directly to the county site. The web address has changed, although people can still be able to access us through our old web page. Our county name has changed slightly as a result of linking up with other agencies. By doubling and quadrupling the bureaucracy, it has been hard to maintain a consistent and static presence, which is what one would need to build up a solid following on the web. It may be fairly easy now-a-days to be a "flash in the pan," as web videos have gone viral practically overnight. But to develop a following takes time and consistency, very little of what the library has had in the past five years.

blogpostwk1

To answer how had social networking tools affected my life would be an easy thing to answer. To find out how they haven't impacted my life would be harder to figure out. I actually met my wife through a dating site, which is a sort of social networking site. By the time facebook hit, I got back in touch with tons of friends and people I knew. It not only gives me an opportunity to get back into their lives but allows me to see a bit of the person they are now, in a way that is very different from how I knew them before. It lets me see who they were, are and will be, in many different ways.

Well... here is my intro to the class

Well, my name is David Elliott, and I have a wife and four year old daughter. I was an English major who taught for a few years but was burned out after a period of time. I still want to educate and still love kids from high school through early adult. I got into the library from my wife whose mother worked at a library and found that I really had a place that I could call home, so I began to get a masters degree in library sciences. I was looking forward to this class because of the social networking aspects of it, learning what all the benefits are and applying them to the library setting. It also goes well with my interest in computers and web design. I am just hoping to be a sponge in this class and learn as much as I can.