The Librarian's Nosegay

SimilarSiteSearch finds similar sites

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:01 GMT

I really like search engines that find sites based on information that you already have, so I'm very pleased to see SimilarSiteSearch which does exactly that. Simply type in a URL of a site that you want to find 'more of' as it were, and it'll pull up suggestions for you. I tried my site and it gave me other sites that were about Web 2.0, librarianship, internet search and so on. Very nice indeed.

Thriller writer John Grisham ends holdout on e-books [The Washington Post]

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

Presentations that ROCK!

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:05 GMT

Presentations that ROCK!, originally uploaded by _Marianne.

Take a look:

http://mlxperience.blogspot.com/2010/03/presentations-that-rock.html

I really appreciate the points about telling your story and gathering support. The best presentations synthesize current thinking and discourse shared via passionate, unique story.

Panoramio for location based images

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 03:35 GMT

Looking for a site that you can search in order to find images of a particular location? Then Panoramio may fit the bill. Simply pop in your location and up pops a Google map, with overlays of images that people have uploaded. Click on an image to see it full size. No facility for downloading the image, and nothing to state if it's creative commons or not. However, it's a useful site none the less. It has a third of a million users who have uploaded on average 3 photographs each.

Save NJ Libraries: reverse the cuts

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:51 GMT

Save NJ Libraries

My reasoning behind this design was to underline how important libraries are in New Jersey for people who otherwise don't get the opportunity to sit and listen to, or better yet interact with, a brilliant speaker, enjoy an amazing array of books, magazines, newspapers, and journals, do scholarly research in a vast set of rich databases, enjoy entertaining, informative, and beautiful audio/visual media, and maybe even just get a chance to hop on the internet. For the rest of us though, it means a cornerstone of society, community and culture being quickly and deliberately dissolved.

Please tell everyone that you know to tell everyone that they know that the cuts to libraries are a devastating blow to social progress and societal stability in New Jersey.

Save NJ Libraries! (librarygarden.net)

Save NJ Libraries!

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:51 GMT

You have probably heard the bad budget news for libraries in NJ.

Below is a message from Eileen Palmer about joining the advocacy groups that are already in place.

Please take a moment to join them if you haven't already, and please be sure to talk about this issue to your friends, family, colleagues and patrons and have them sign up too!

To our many readers outside of NJ: If you have friends/family in the Garden State, please share the links with them.

Watch for more information and actions coming soon!

(If you haven't heard the news, Nicole Engard did a nice post on it yesterday here.)

Good Morning,

As NJLA prepares its response to the drastic cuts to statewide library programs proposed by Gov. Christie, and a renewed attack on the minimum library funding represented by A2555, please take a moment to join one or both of the following initiatives:

1. Save NJ Libraries Facebook Group

2. NJ Library Champions http://www.ilovenjlibraries.org/

Please reach out to Friends, Boards and patrons to become part of these initiatives so that we can get the word out as quickly as possible in the coming days.

Thank you,

- Eileen

Eileen M. Palmer
Executive Director
Libraries of Middlesex Automation Consortium
empalmer@lmxac.org

Social Media Best Practices for Libraries: A TTW Guest Post

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:16 GMT

This post was written by Kasia Grabowska for last semester's LIS 768: Library 2.0 & Networking Technologies class. Kasia has allowed me to repost it here.

After doing brand monitoring research for the past few weeks, looking closely at Skokie Public Library (and not so closely at several other libraries), I decided to put together a list of “do’s and don’ts” for librarians on successfully utilizing social media.

This is what I learned from doing brand monitoring and what I personally would recommend to libraries that are getting started with social media.

Tip #1: Learn how to monitor your brand

Join the RIGHT conversations at the RIGHT time. In other words, stay on top of what people are saying about you and make sure to respond, to let people know that you are listening and willing to join the conversation.

Tools to utilize for brand monitoring include RSS feeds, Google Alerts, Technorati, and staying on top of your Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts. This is definitely the number 1 lesson I learned from this assignment.

Tip #2: Learn from your brand community

You’re already engaging in conversations, why not ask people for some feedback? There are plenty of quick and easy ways to get good information that will help you keep learning from what you’re doing and improving the process as you go along. Just make sure not to overdo it; remember to always engage in conversations as a person.

Tip #3: Have a game plan

Set goals, measure and iterate your social media efforts in order to continue to grow and improve your efforts. Make sure everyone who is involved in your social media strategy clearly understands the role and goals of this initiative. There’s nothing worse than joining a social network with no purpose, plan or a way to measure what you’re doing.

By using trackable links (like bit.ly or su.pr) to help track what your users are responding to, you will be able to measure your efforts and make improvements.

Tip #4: Promote, promote, promote

I noticed a lot of libraries who do wonderful things on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr yet they don’t include links to their social networks on their websites. Or libraries that use Twitter often but don’t follow anyone; that’s not a good way to start a conversation.

A library website should be an entry point to social media; you need to create awareness. People should not have to search for you on Facebook, or Twitter, you should reach out to every member of your community first.

Tip #5: Allow open, yet governed access for your employees

This is where a social media policy comes in. By making sure everyone who is involved in your efforts understands what to do (what they’re allowed to say, how they should respond in different situations, etc) you won’t have to monitor what each person does. Instead, you will be able to focus on making improvements.

One tip about your social media policy — make sure it’s succinct and to the point, otherwise no one will want to read it.

Tip #6: Stay relevant and be helpful

Use social media to build trust, credibility and awareness in your community. Instead of broadcasting information, try creating conversations. Remember, speaking doesn’t always result in being heard.

Be helpful, stay relevant and focus on your community’s needs. It’s also important to humanize your efforts; don’t hide behind your library’s logo, allow your users to get to know you as a person.

Tip #7: Give your community room to grow

Focus on small, consistent and ongoing change. Let your members decide how they want to use “their” online community. Listen to what they have to say and change your goals and objectives based on how your community wants to utilize social media.

Tip #8: Remember, you’re not alone

By building relationships with key people within your community who also utilize social media you can leverage your efforts and obtain better reach. People who are influencers, those who are natural communicators or leaders in your community can help your social media efforts immensely. Identify these people and ask for help. Word of mouth can be very powerful.

Tip #9: Go where your users are

Remember, you don’t have to be an early adopter. It is much better to wait for your community to start utilizing the technology before adding it to your social media arsenal. In short, go where your users are. It’s much easier for someone to join you on Facebook or Twitter if the person actually uses the technology.

Tip #10: Lead change

This is important, especially for libraries that can be very resistant to change at times: if you want to lead change, find one thing you said no to in the past and give it a try.

This is actually something I heard at a digital marketing conference I got a chance to attend last month, but I think it applies great to libraries and social media.

Kasia Grabowska is currently working on her MLIS at Dominican University. She is a website manager for Train Signal, Inc and the editor in cheif of www.trainsignaltraining.com a blog focusing on IT training and certification.

Online Education & Blogging

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:49 GMT

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/online_education_and_blogging

Joshua Kim writes:

The best preparation I received for blogging was teaching online. One of the most important elements for running a successful online course involves presence. The instructor must be “present” in the course discussion boards and blogs. Teaching online gave me tons of practice in writing rapid, hopefully thought provoking, discussion and blog posts around the curriculum and the student's work. Much has been written about how teaching online can improve on-ground teaching. I'd add comfort with blogging to the benefits online learning.

Is the ability to quickly produce prose that (at least sometimes) may interest a reader the sort of skill that we want to cultivate in our students? The importance of rapid, persuasive writing is growing as blogs and other social media displace other forms of communication. We all need to learn to make our case, to persuade, to make arguments based on evidence – and to do so in a limited attention economy. For all of us, both writes and readers, time is our scarcest commodity.

Perhaps participating in online courses provides students the same practice with rapid and persuasive writing as teaching an online course. The same behaviors that make for a good online instructor, namely the willingness to be active and engaged with the asynchronous communication tools, are also those behaviors of a successful online student. An online course is all about collaboration and interaction. The best students post persuasively, briefly, and often.

I would venture to say the best preparation I received for online teaching is blogging! Quick posts sharing links and commentary – something bibliobloggers have long been doing – translate perfectly to the way I interact with my online and hybrid classes. I also think the blogging activities have helped my students with their writing – just afeeling, no evidence yet, but it might be a good thing to study.

Future of Publishing

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:23 GMT

Lots of link and tweet love for this already but its cleverness is spot on. Watch the whole thing.

The Library Tweets

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:37 GMT

The Library Tweets, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Nice display at the State & University Library of Hamburg. Photo by Markus Trapp.

Thanks Bibliothekskongress!

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:27 GMT

day 3.15: @mstephens7 auf dem bibliothekskongress #bibtag10, originally uploaded by fabi_k.

I was honored to participate in the opening day of the Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek. Thanks to all who attended!

Here are the slides:

Hyperlinked Library – Kongress

View more presentations from Michael Stephens.

Shhhh…It’s the Library…

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:19 GMT

Via John Schumacher on Twitter comers this opinion piece from Oregon Live:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/shhh_its_a_library_not_the_cor.html

Ellen Hansen writes about her love of quiet and the lack of it in her library: (emphasis is mine)

No, my full wrath is reserved for library-quiet abusers. When did the library turn into the local coffee shop? One man comes into our library and sets up as if it's his own, private office space. That's fine, if you're reading, writing or even typing on your computer nonstop. But his work entails talking on the phone nonstop, for hours on end.

Others conduct education tutorials or hours-long business collaborations or gadget-comparing conferences at nearby tables. Even if not full-throated, the constant drone of nonstop voices rubs nerves raw.

Another fellow comes in, sits down at the table behind me, pins his ears back and tucks into a tub of cottage cheese, smacking his way through a tall can of pineapple slices as a side dish. He then slurps a half-gallon of orange juice to complete the performance. As choral accompaniment in this flu season, a symphony of sniffs and snorts, coughs and throat-clearings chimes in all around me.

A teacher walks through giving a gaggle of fifth-graders a library tour in full recess-volume voice … two friends carry on an excited and loud conversation in the stacks about a favorite author's recent tome … a grandfatherly fellow peruses magazines and shouts into his cell phone, “Where are you now? Still in the fiction section? No, I'm over in magazines.”

In fact, the periodicals section is often the loudest section of the library, despite two prominently displayed signs which read: “Quiet Reading Area, No [picture of a cell phone].” One woman plops herself down daily on one of the upholstered chairs, chattering away into her cell phone. When a fellow library patron finally points to the sign not 10 feet from the chatterbox's head, the woman nods, and keeps on talking.

Maybe it's my jetlag today, but it concerns me that Hansen has monitored these behaviors for “hours on end” to list out the offenses library patrons commit. No shushing librarians come to her rescue during these hours. I wonder what another patron might say about all the activity? That the library feels “alive?”

I hope a representative of her library responds with some thoughts about library use. I wonder if the building is of such size that mixing a quiet area and more general use spaces is difficult. Maybe the library is in transition now. Any readers have the rest of the story?

Take a look at the full piece and the comments. I'll be sharing this with my Intro to LIS class – maybe an exercise where we write a response.

Great Blog statistics

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:42 GMT

I found some great statistics from The State of the Blogosphere by Technorati via the Search Engine Journal * More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002 * 77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann * Two-thirds of Bloggers are male (c%u2019mon ladies, start Blogging!) * More than half are married and more than half are parents * 60% are 18-44 * 75% have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees * One in four has an annual household income of $100K * Around half of Bloggers are working on at least their second...

Using Social Media to Connect with Teens

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:47 GMT

It's easy for any library to have a social media presence these days. Translating that into success with serving a teen population? Well, that's another thing…

Be Yourself

The discussion of personal and professional profiles always comes up. I didn't want to have two profiles (done it before, hated it) so I had to make a decision: add teens to my own accounts or hide myself far, far away. I went with what some may consider to be the unpopular route. I added them to my own accounts. I feel like it has made a world of difference.

I am happy to share the real Justin with the teens that I serve. I have nothing bad to hide and all good to share. Letting them in on my “personal” life has actually allowed me to establish a deeper connection with them. For example, when one teen found that him and I shared an interest in The Mars Volta, he came running in the library one day in disbelief. He was excited that I was into the same music as him. He now comes in a few times each week and we spend a good fifteen minutes or so talking about music.

This is just one of countless examples of how opening up my personal social networking accounts to teens has made it easier for me to connect with them and provide them with quality service. In the end, it makes you more of a real person to them. They become your friend and they trust you. The upside to this? They're using the library…and they love it.

Stay Active

There's nothing that looks sadder than an abandoned profile. If you're going to have a public account, make sure you update it with the most relevant information. Don't just create the profile and let it fester and rot away. An up to date profile will show your public that you care about connecting with them. One of the golden rules I try to always stick to is replying to comments or posts. Even if it is a simple hello or a comment on a link, say something back! Conversation and interaction is one of the reasons why we're all using social media.

Educate Them

Myspace is dead. It lost its appeal when showing off how (badly) one could customize their page with videos, gifs, and pictures won out over connecting and sharing with others. We can learn something from this.

Media 21 is a project created by Buffy Hamilton, a school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, GA. The goal of the Media 21 Project is to “expand teens' information literacy skills by introducing them tools for constructing a personal learning network and to posit research as a real world activity for learning, not an isolated unit of study.”

The idea behind Media 21 blows my mind. Taking a moment or two each day to educate the teens using my library about social media allows me to better serve them as a librarian. They understand that social media is a real and credible way to interact, share and create. It helps me be the best librarian I can be for them. I know what they want, and they know I'm always here to listen.

Buffy further adds: “I wanted to them to learn how to use social media tools for constructing and sharing knowledge as well as to start thinking about ways social media can be an authoritative source of knowledge”

Right on, sister.

You can read more about the Media 21 project here

Many thanks to School Librarian extraordinaire Buffy Hamilton for her quotes and guidance.

Give Stuff Away

I love what they're doing over at the Darien Library with FourSquare. As a matter a fact, it got me thinking. With the tips feature, we're able to create our own little mini scavenger hunts for teens. I learned just how excited teens get whyen it comes to scavenger hunts when I hosted an all night teen lock in at my library last year. The scavenger hunt was one of the biggest events of the night. By offering daily scavenger hunts with rewards, teens will have more reason to come into the library, check in, and complete the daily tip. You've got them inside the library and they're actively participating in a library program. Win!

(On a related note, I highly suggest checking out this excellent post by David Lee King. “Personal Accounts, Work Accounts – What To Do?”)

Bing - same image, different sizes

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:43 GMT

Bing has introduced a very nice image feature which allows you to find different sizes of the same image. Find an image you want, mouseover it and chose the 'Find more sizes' option. You'll then get a page of results a little like this: You can then simply mouseover each title to see the image, and you've already got source, resolution, file size and type on the screen already. Great if you're looking for a particular image and don't want to have the hassle of trying to resize it. Also interesting to see if there are any copyright violations as...

The sad state of BBC search

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:29 GMT

I consider myself a pretty good internet searcher. If it's out there I can usually find it one way or another. However, there's one site in particular that always defeats me. I know the information is there, it's got a great reputation, it's jam packed full of newsy goodness, and it's also very poor. The BBC, for a world renowned news and information organisation is woeful when it comes to search. At the top of every page we've got a search option: That's good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far. No advanced search option. No...

Google - trying hard not to be evil

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:58 GMT

I know that I bang on quite a lot about Google, and what it does, both for good and ill. I'm particularly concerned about the 'ill' bit, which is one of the reasons why I like to find alternative search engines to it. Of course, this doesn't stop me using Google, just the same as everyone else, but let's discuss this basic flaw in another post. Any how, this is a great video, which I found via The Next Web. It's very clever and thought provoking.

The future of publishing

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:42 GMT

Found a genius video. It's from DorlingKindersley and they say of it "At DK we have been doing a lot of thinking recently about the future and about how we are at the tipping point of how people will read and access information. It's an exciting time and we have really enjoyed envisaging what our business may be like in 2020. From that thinking the marketing team created this short film with the help of Khaki, a video production company, that captured the way we are changing as a company and how we are really listening to the people who...

Five Tips for Successful Webinars

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:50 GMT

Posted by Peter Bromberg,

Hey, check out my new post at ALA Learning, Five Tips for Successful Webinars

Love Your Local Library

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:00 GMT

There are so many reasons why you should love your local library. Here are just a few.

Sency real time search engine

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:40 GMT

Sency - What's Going On?. This is a search engine that uses Twitter for its content. Simple and clear interface, with two trending options available on the home page - 'What's going on now' and 'What's going on lately'. There's also a listing of 'Today's Top Links'. Results are very clear on the page, with options to share on Facebook, Twitter or email. There's also a useful 'Today's popular links' which is a really good way to explore a subject in more detail. There's a 'Top 100' listing of most mentioned topics over the last few days. Useful information on...

In honor of Einstein’s birthday and Pi day, some life lessons

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:14 GMT

Albert Einstein

Yesterday (March 14th) was Pi day in Princeton, a celebration corresponding with Einstein's birthday, and I saw (a little bit too late, I'm afraid) a suggestion from Janie Hermann to repost a great article which I sent her on “10 amazing life lessons” that one could interpret from Einstein's quotes.

The article is at http://www.dumblittleman.com/2010/03/10-amazing-lessons-albert-einstein.html and the ideas from that article are listed in this illustration here.

In keeping with my visual posting plans for LG, I used Inkscape to make this image. I started with the famous Lucien Aigner image of Einstein at a chalkboard, and bitmap traced it in grayscale mode with 4 layers, which results in a posterized, if very recognizable image made out of points and lines. I extended the blackboard and using the calligraphy and gradient tools made a smooth transition between what's in the photo and a gray neutrality. Then, I took the content of the post and laid it out in the right side of the image.

Thanks Albert, for all you brought to our lives. Thanks Lucien for the great image. Thanks to Janie for the suggestion. Thanks to you for taking a moment to remember Einstein with me.

Happy Pi Day & Happy Birthday Albert Einstein [Moment of Geek] (buckdaddyblog.com)
Pi Day and Thinking About “Pi” (lockergnome.com)
Albert Einstein: birthday greetings (scienceblogs.com)

BBC News - The top 100 sites on the internet

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:57 GMT

This is a really interesting image map provided by the BBC, based on data from the Nielsen company and covers the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, US and Australia. The figures represent unique users for the month of January 2010. Thanks to Richard for this.

Worst promotional banner ever!

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:51 GMT

I've seen a few poorly written things in my time, but the welcome banner from a website called Paracalls really made me sit up. I quote: "Paracalls makes you to stay with real life people, keeps on share funs and rolls on professional spirit in your life'. The rest of the site is similar, and the 'about' and FAQ sections don't inspire confidence either.

Missing Mayors and Freeholders in our Libraries

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:56 GMT

This is less of a post and more of a request for comments.

I'm just curious how many of us have seen their mayors in the library recently? How many librarians have seen any state/city official in their library over the past year or so?

Is he/she a regular user?

For that matter, do you think he/she is aware of libraries increase of patrons, circulation and services?

Personally, I've generally thought that most city officials do not use their libraries ( I would love to be wrong about this).

A few years back, when I worked in Trenton and we were experiencing the first wave of a budget crunch, employees joked that they had not seen their Mayor at the library in years. While we felt he talked about libraries in a positive light we were not sure if he actually knew what problems and condition his city's libraries were in.

That said, I am happy to say that I now work in a library where we do see our Mayor. In fact, we see several of the administration and township employees on a regular basis. They are enthusiastic, supportive users and it clearly shows.

I would love to hear how other people view their elected officials and they feel their library is supported. Remember, you can always comment anonymously

Posted by Tyler Rousseau

Brandenburg Gate after my talk at the US Embassy

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:56 GMT

Brandenburg Gate after my talk at the US Embassy, originally uploaded by mstephens7.

Guten Abend nach Berlin! The talk at the US Embassy went well – what a great group! Tomorrow: StammTisch! See you there! Danke!

What is Web 2.0 to Digital Natives

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:30 GMT

Via the Librarian by Day:

One More Slide Deck for Next Week: Social Media Talking Points

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:52 GMT

Social Media Talking Points

View more presentations from Michael Stephens.

See You in Switzerland or Germany!

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:41 GMT

Here's a breakdown of the events and presentation/discussions I'll be doing over the next ten days or so in Switzerland and Germany. A big shout out to Nancy, Professor Hans-Christoph Hobohm and everyone at the embassies and U.N. Mission for making this trip happen.

Geneva:

March 8: Morning Tour of CERN

March 8: Two hour lunch discussion with members of AILIS, the Association of International Librarians and Information Specialists

Trends Tech 2010 for LibrariansView more presentations from Michael Stephens.

Due to security protocols, I cannot bring my Mac into the mission, so I will be working from PDFs stored on local laptops.

March 9, 2010: Tour of UN Library & program with senior librarians, followed by program at US Mission.

Trends & Tech in Social Media

View more presentations from Michael Stephens.

This program is for social media folks from the Geneva area – thus the slightly altered slides.

Evening flight to Hamburg

Hamburg

March 10 – 14:00-16:00 The Hyperlinked Community Library at the Hamburg State and University Library

Evening train to Berlin (I like the way that sounds)

Berlin:

March 11, 2010: Trends & Technologies for 2010 at the US Embassy (Slides above)

March 12: Stammtisch! Tour and meetup with librarians from http://zukunftswerkstatt.wordpress.com/ followed by an evening event: “a get-together with other librarians, social media specialist and cultural manager to exchange and discuss ideas at a nice location in a relaxed atmosphere.” FUN!

March 15: “The Hyperlinked Community Library – Trends, Tools & Transparency ,” 4th Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek, Leipzig, Germany.

If you are attending any of these events, please say Hi!

A Great World for Learning

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:53 GMT

This provides so much food for thought – school librarians please take a look – and really, everyone in LIS – how will can we provide them a world for learning?

The Librarian's Nosegay

SimilarSiteSearch finds similar sites

Thriller writer John Grisham ends holdout on e-books [The Washington Post]

Presentations that ROCK!

Panoramio for location based images

Save NJ Libraries: reverse the cuts

Related articles by Zemanta

Save NJ Libraries!

Social Media Best Practices for Libraries: A TTW Guest Post

Tip #1: Learn how to monitor your brand

Tip #2: Learn from your brand community

Tip #3: Have a game plan

Tip #4: Promote, promote, promote

Tip #5: Allow open, yet governed access for your employees

Tip #6: Stay relevant and be helpful

Tip #7: Give your community room to grow

Tip #8: Remember, you’re not alone

Tip #9: Go where your users are

Tip #10: Lead change

Online Education & Blogging

Future of Publishing

The Library Tweets

Thanks Bibliothekskongress!

Shhhh…It’s the Library…

Great Blog statistics

Using Social Media to Connect with Teens

Bing - same image, different sizes

The sad state of BBC search

Google - trying hard not to be evil

The future of publishing

Five Tips for Successful Webinars

Love Your Local Library

Sency real time search engine

In honor of Einstein’s birthday and Pi day, some life lessons

Related articles by Zemanta

BBC News - The top 100 sites on the internet

Worst promotional banner ever!

Missing Mayors and Freeholders in our Libraries

Brandenburg Gate after my talk at the US Embassy

What is Web 2.0 to Digital Natives

One More Slide Deck for Next Week: Social Media Talking Points

See You in Switzerland or Germany!

A Great World for Learning