MySpace - Do it or Don't

As someone who dabbles in web design I will say right off the bat that I am probably biased in my opinions regarding social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Facebook has by far the better presentation though it seems to lack any great tools for individualizing your presence.

MySpace has been considered web design on training wheels since its inception and they have done little to change that. The templates are garish. The layout though somewhat customizable is not very user friendly. Frankly most Myspace pages look amateur at best and probably send a negative impression of your institution at worst.

That said there are some that are not horrible. The Denver Public Library (which is nationally renowned for their embrace of all things techy) does a decent job with their MySpace page. While I do not want to go picking at other libraries there are a couple in the list that are awful.

The Facebook and MySpace pages do create another platform to get the library “out there,” wherever that is. Some of the pages linked to their catalogs which is good. Some had links to online reference systems – great. Others focused on news and events.

I think one of the most important things here is that you look before you leap. If you like the technology and think that it can be good for your library that is great. But you have to stick with it or get rid of it. I think the worst thing you can do is let the site get out of date so that your current events covers last years Summer Reading program. This can be said for all Web 2.0 initiatives. Decide if you need it. A lot appropriate resource to doing it, even when it is free it still needs dedicated resources. Finally stick with it and evaluate its usefulness.

IM and you

I have been using IM for many years now. Though to be honest most this has been for fun. It seems only recently that people have been seeing IMing as a way to communicate for business needs. In fact my old workplace did not even allow IM clients on its machines until about two years ago. Overnight it went from never - ever use this at work to being expected to utilize it as a why to communicate with geographically dispersed coworkers without tearing them away from what they were doing.

The nice thing about IM is that it is a little more immediate than email. But not as intrusive as a phone call. The recipient can choose whether to acknowledge the message or not - and do so at there own pace.

In the library it is nice because you can answer questions semi-asynchronously. In addition you can send links and even files back through the IM client.

Final post for the semester

Well I am only about two weeks late in wrapping up but I would like to thank all of you have have both brought us Project Play and participated. When I started the semester I had two main goals in mind. First I thought it would be nice to put the technologies I already knew about into I library context. Second I thought it would be a good way to get to know some of my new coworkers. While there weren't any sudden moments of clarity I think that I did learn a lot about some of the technologies out there and how we can use them. Me chief problem is that whenever I see something new and shiny I want to use it immediately and worry about how and why later.

I think there are a lot of things that we can use in the library setting to maintain the relevance that many people think we are losing. I think libraries are very relevant and are not in danger any time soon. That said, I don't think those that believe we can function as a brick and mortar entity only are correct. There is give and take and we need to take the resources we have and figure out the best ways to utilize them in the near future. We also cannot be afraid to try something new, even if it fails. Sometimes you need to go back to the well a couple of times before it starts to produce water.

I really enjoyed hearing peoples thoughts on various sections and I think that this will create a great jump off point for libraries and the consortium to develop new features for their libraries. I look foreword to working with everyone that is continuing on next semester.

As far as the section that I found the most fascinating that would have to be tagging. I still worry that tagging can lead to a herd mentality but the reality is that the benefits seem to outweigh the risks. I think it would be a great way for patrons to share their interests without exposing their privacy.

Well that is it for now. I hope to "see" you all next semester.

Wikis

I started out this one by checking out Appleton on Wikipedia and seeing that our library link was already there. No surprise since I am running behind.

I have to say that I find Wikipedia interesting in how it is received by the academic world. Pretty much to a person the professors I have had will say do not use Wikipedia. I find this outright dismissal kind of elitist. I have found many well written articles on Wikipedia. There are some really bad ones as well but isn't part of the library science program being able to determine the good from the bad? Keep in mind that I am not suggesting that Wikipedia replaces scholarly journals or should even be used as a primary source but if you are looking for general background or even different points of view Wikipedia can be a good secondary source.

Now on to wikis in general. I had to admit I have not really used any of the wikis until starting at the library. When I did use the wiki I found it pretty straight forward and easy to use. The only thing that I can see as a possible problem is that if you have a large and active group you could lose focus and ending up with people running in all sorts of different directions. This, though can be taken care of by having specific ground rules on how things are going to be done.

The positive is having the ability to communicate asynchronously and still be able to maintain an active working group.

There is one other problem that may or may not ever rear its ugly head. That is the possibility that the host you are using will either switch to a pay scheme or simply go defunct. There is some risk to not having control over the files. The option here would be to move to an open source content management system. You may lose support if things change but you can still maintain and retrieve what you have already done. Some of the better CMS frameworks out there offer many if not all the features found on wikis. The chief drawback here is that you need to have some knowledge to get the sites up and running and to maintain them - though it should be noted that it is not as daunting as it may first appear. I have worked with Drupal and played around with Joomla! and both offer many features freely (for now anyway).

I guess the use and how long you plan to maintain the site would also have an impact on which way to go. Either way you go you have more opportunity for communication and interaction than most people would expect from a free tool.

Tagging and such

When it comes to tagging I am a torn. I like the idea and what it can do but at the same time I think that it can prevent people from discovering new things. More on that later.

First let me start off with the concerns of the information profession with uncontrolled vocabulary. I think that it is simply unrealistic to think that we can have a controlled Internet the way we try to control our libraries information. First off we do not have as much control in the library as we would like. It seems like people are constantly coming up with things that do not fit into the tidy boxes that we would like them to. Keep in mind that this is with collection that are tiny compared with the overwhelming amount of info on the Internet. The other problem is the amount of user generated content, this further removes that control we would like to have.

I think that it would be more realistic to develop a thesaurus that covers most tag terms and then is able to apply the controlled language that goes with it. Some work is being done in this direction by the folks working on semantic web research.

For retrieval of all the user generated content tagging is one of the best tools we have going. When you look at all of the blogging accounts out there and sites such as You-tube they rely on the user to add their own tags to the entries. That and the title are really all they have to go on when it comes to retrieve the queries you enter.

In the library we can use it to draw attention to various collections and even use it as a marketing tool to draw in patrons. The down side is that if you put too much focus on any particular item you run the risk of drawing complaints because you will not have enough copies to meet demand.

Like I mentioned earlier my only worry is that it could prevent some people from expanding their horizons. When tagging is used to create the "More like this" or "if you enjoyed XYZ click here..." This can be a great help to find things that you know you will enjoy but where is the motivation to go out and find something new? Maybe this isn't a problem because you know what you like and all you want to do is find more like it. But when it comes to things like politics I think it is good to look at the other end of the spectrum and challenge yourself to at least consider other view points, this doesn't happen if you are limiting yourself to those who already think the way you do.

The flip side is that there are some really good examples of tagging that can lead you to something new. The best one I can think of now is a site called Pandora.com. This is an online radio station that customizes the play list to the user. You start by entering some of your favorite songs or bands which at as tags to guide the play list. As each song comes up you can give it a thumbs up or down and the further refines your "station." What happens is that the program will throw in new artists from time to time that match the characteristics of the music you have already said you like. I have to say that it works pretty well if you are willing to work with it and I have actually found a couple of new bands this way.

So all that just to come back around and say that tagging can be an incredibly useful tool to us in the library and in the general public but you want to be mindful of how it is used.

Library Thing

I like the concept of Library Thing as a community building tool. I could see it being used for book clubs and even for library patrons to recommend books to other patrons. That said, as a beta product it still has a way to go.

Was anyone else annoyed that they had to keep redoing an author search to add multiple books by the same author. I can't speak for anyone else but when I happen upon an author that a like I usually end up steaming through their entire works. What Library Thing needs there is radio buttons that allow you to go down and select multiple items from a list. I know it is a picky point but one that slowed things down quite a lot versus who quickly I could have added items.

The other part that needed work was the suggest a book section. It was clear that the search was not very deep. When I did a search for I, Robot I got more books by Asimov and books with the word robot in the title. I imagine this may improve as the tags are added by users but again it is something that will need to be fleshed out to really take Library Thing to the next level.

The kids at the cabin near Park Falls

The kids at the cabin near Park Falls
Originally uploaded by bkopetsky