Our resident Goblin in the Library, Josh Neff, was interviewed about Library Camp Kansas for LISNews. Listen to the podcast!
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It’s March 19th! I’m here in Manhattan, KS for our first Kansas Library UnConference, which we’re calling Library Camp Kansas. Approx 100 people signed-up and we’ve got a great mix of people… from academic libraries… from public libraries… from special libraries, too.
See the Flickr photos from the event!
Read blog posts from the event! A few posts about the event include:
We’ve been talking about social technologies like blogs, Flickr, Meebo, YouTube, and MySpace for quite a while. A friend recently pointed me to a website that lists over 1200 different social technology sites! Trying to use all of those technologies would be overwhelming (and kind of silly). How do you decide which ones are worth your time?
I don’t think there’s an exact science to determining which to explore. A few things that would encourage me to explore a particular technology might include:
- I know that it is a technology that is really, really, really popular with the general public (MySpace would be in this category with me - I had to know, what’s all the hype?)
- It fits a need I have heard expressed by our member libraries…. (blogs, Meebo, and Flickr would fall in this category for me).
- My friends and family keep sending me things from the site (… like all of the YouTube links people have sent me — library stuff like March of the Librarians and funny stuff like the OK Go video)
Beyond those reasons, a social software can “catch me” by appearing on my radar at just the right moment (when I’m at the right place to explore something) or if I keep seeing it referred to on the different library blogs I read. In the last week, I’ve joined two social software sites for that latter reason. Twitter and the Library 2.0 network Bill Drew started on Ning. I have spent a little bit of time playing with each of them. The dollar investment was $0.00 and the time investment was small, too. I’m not sure if either of them will become a part of my regular routine, but I do think it’s important to try a new thing now and then.
What’s on your social technology radar this week?
I’m at a workshop in Manhattan, KS today and the guest speaker is Jessamyn West of librarian.net fame. She’s talking about all kinds of library 2.0 topics and during her presentation she highlighted some Kansas sites and projects — including Tonganoxie Public Library’s website. If you haven’t seen it, take a look! Cool things are happening in this library (in a town with a population of approx 3500) - both in the building and also virtually. Instant messaging with patrons! Regularly updated content! Photos of people (not just buildings)!
Tonganoxie Public Library is one of the libraries participating in the statewide Kansas Libraries on the Web project (which uses Wordpress software, just like this blog). Some of the other sites include: Morrill Public Library in Hiawatha and Atchison Public Library. It’s exciting to see fresh content and connection to community happening in the world of library websites….
The staff at the Beaufort Public Library in South Carolina have pulled together some Web 2.0 resources. There are familiar sites here (MySpace, Meebo, Flickr…), but some new ones, too. Podcast Pickle anyone??
Here’s something that I have been reading about that some of you may find relevant….
If you want to learn more about
* Blogs
* RSS
* Wikis
* Social Networking Software and SecondLife
* Flickr
* Social Bookmarking Software
* Selling Social Software @ Your Library
then consider applying for an upcoming free course, offered entirely online: Five Weeks to a Social Library. This is the first time this has been offered, but I have a feeling this is going to be a course with a lot of impact. The creators of the course are currently some of the most exciting thinkers in the world of library technology use.
The class will be limited to 40 participants and the intended audience is “those librarians who have the most to gain from learning about social software and who would not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education.” The participant applications are due December 1st and you will find out by January 1st whether or not you have been selected to participate.
If any NEKLS library members apply and complete the course, I’d love to know, so I can hear all about it 
and also so I can interview you about the experience for a NEKLS newsletter article. Go for it!
Become a del.icio.us Power User at David Brunelle: Geek for Life
Some awesome tips on using Del.icio.us. Even I, longtime del.icio.us user learned something. 
Have you ever used a wiki? The NEKLS Tech Site is a wiki. They are a technology perfectly suited for online collaboration. Wikis are being used elsewhere in the library world, too. Library Success, for example, is a best practices wiki.
If you’re intrigued by this new-ish technology, consider attending the free SirsiDynix webinar that will be offered on July 13th. Meredith Farkas is the presenter and she’s a knowledgeable expert at the forefront of thinking about the use of wikis in libraries. I have attended other SirsiDynix webinars and have been impressed by the quality, so expect this to be well worth the time, too. It’s free, but you need to register.
Dayna Williams-Capone, director of the Parsons Public Library, recently interviewed Kansas state librarian Christie Brandau about Library 2.0. The interview is now available as a podcast.
Library 2.0 is a topic that is near and dear to Michael Stephen’s heart. He will be our NEKLS Tech Day 2006 speaker, so listening to Christie’s podcast will be a good warm-up for that presentation.
NEKLS Tech Day will be held Thursday, August 10th, on the Washburn University campus. Watch for more details and registration information… coming soon!
The internet filtering advocates are at it again… this time it’s not porn that’s the target… it’s social websites.
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 (DOPA) seeks to “require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.” That means that for kids under 18, those customer reviews of products on Amazon you like to read while shopping… gone. Their favorite hometown blog? Gone. Their Flickr photos? Can’t get ‘em in the library. The way filtering works now is that it’s always on until someone eligible (over 18) ASKS to have the filter removed. To me this has always seemed like a punishment for people wanting to look up sensitive information at the library. Imagine if, in order to look at your favorite blogs, you had to ask the librarian to turn off the filter. No one would come to the library to use the computers anymore. This can’t be good, and is clearly against our mission to provide information access to all.
Here’s an interesting article about the bill, and a link to the text of the bill itself.
If you disagree, or even agree, with this bill, be sure to contact your legislator with your opinion.
If you subscribe to the print version of Newsweek, you may have already scanned the article “The New Wisdom of the Web.” If not, check it out online. MySpace, Flickr, and other social technologies are explored and future possibilities are discussed. A lot of this will be review if you’re a regular reader of this blog, but this might be an interesting article to pass along to board members, patrons, and even staff members who are new to thinking about the implications of social technologies.
Mark your calendars! I’m excited to announce that NEKLS Tech Day 2006 will be held on Thursday, August 10th. Details are still, of course, being worked out, but our keynote speaker will be Michael Stephens, author of the Tame the Web blog. His presentation topic will be: “Toward Library 2.0 — Planning, People, and Participation”.
I must have MySpace on the brain lately — it just seems to be jumping out at me everywhere I look! Here’s a transcript from a talk delivered by Danah Boyd from the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science. It’s called “Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace” and I think it’s a fascinating discussion of the phenomenon that is MySpace.
Here’s a tech term that’s being bandied around in library circles a lot these days: Mashups. What does it mean? According to Wikipedia;
“A mashup is a website or web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript includes. The etymology of this term almost certainly derives from its similar use in pop music. Many people are experimenting with mashups using eBay, Amazon, Google, and Yahoos APIs.”
As it states, mashup is a term from the world of music – used to refer to a popular trend where kids take two songs and mash them together to make a new song.
This CNET article provides a pretty intro to mashups.
There are lots of mashups that include Google maps… so many that a blog has been started, which just talks about innovative uses of Google maps in mashups.
Stephen Abram from SirsiDynix blogs about library uses of mashups on his blog.
We missed Mashup Camp though… next year!
At NEKLS Tech Day 2005, Shifted Librarian Jenny Levine talked about the popularity of instant messaging (IM) and encouraged libraries to use it to communicate with patrons (especially teen patrons). I know that a lot of you are now doing that, which is awesome!
Another potential way to communicate with teens and other patrons “where they are at” is to sign your library up as a MySpace member. The Hennepin County Library in Minnesota has done this. Others have, too. It’s a fun and free way to get information out about the library and to be a part of a medium that is incredibly popular.
Interesting article for new and seasoned bloggers. A primer on how to start, maintain, and perpetuate a blog.
Whee!
del.icio.us, flickr, and many other online services use visitor created tags to classify information. Oh the alarm! Oh the humanity! It’s not a fixed system!
That’s ok, and he can tell you why:
adaptive path » metadata for the masses
Flock is a new Firefox browser that includes built-in social software features (like RSS, del.icio.us, Flickr, etc). I’m not ready to upgrade yet (let them work out the bugs), but will definitely be watching this one. It’s all about collaborative web browsing — connecting, communicating, and collaborating.
Have you heard about podcasting but you’re not really sure what it means? Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, has created an informative document (PDF) that provides an overview of what podcasting is and how it is being used.
Someone was asking about this at this year’s NEST conference in Valley Falls (a whopping good time, by the way). Its a tool that allows you to create dynamic content on your static website by pulling headlines from your blog using javascript and RSS.
This means, basically, that anytime you post on your blog, if you’ve inserted the code this tool will generate on your home page, the headlines you post on your blog will appear on that web page.
NEKLS is using this to put the headlines from our Currency Weblog on our home page.
Have you decided to allow instant messaging in the library, but you’re having trouble deciding which clients to download? Do some of your patrons use MSN, while others use AIM or Yahoo? Rather than having to download individual clients for each service, you can install Trillian, which supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. There’s a charge for Trillian Pro, but the basic version is free.
If you don’t want to install software, your patrons can still use IM via e-messenger. It is web-based and allows access to MSN, AOL, and Yahoo messenger.
Google Talk is new on the IM scene. With the popularity of all things Google, some suggest that it may change the IM playing field.
The Ann Arbor (MI) library website features seven blogs. There are book blogs and library news blogs. There is even a catalog blog! The library’s director, Josie Parker, was quoted in a recent issue of Library Hotline, “We wanted our web site to be interactive with the public, and chose blogs as the major form of communication.”
RSS4Lib is a blog devoted to highlighting innovative ways libraries are using RSS. Imagine the possibilities!