Why use emerging tech?

• It’s not enough to shove your bad services (such as our crappy OPACs) into new things.
• Don’t do it because everyone else is.
• For outreach.
• We don’t need things designed FOR the user, we need things designed BY the user.

Planning – it takes too long. Too man hoops to jump through, eventually good ideas can just fade away.

The committee approach – can take any good idea and destroy it. Exploits the negative aspects. To many times people ask “what if…” Cliff then showed us a funny YouTube video, Association Professionals Through the Ages, that illustrates how good ideas can be destroyed in such a manner.

The Evolving Library – this is where we’re headed. Rather than go through a million steps only to see it fail at the end, try assess reflect, try assess reflect, repeat.

• Try – Yoda was wrong when he said there is no try.
• Be fast – You can do a pilot project within three months, then you’ll have enough data to assess.
• Be human, be real, be patient. You aren’t going to get it right the first time.
• Don’t over plan. Librarians love to plan, don’t we?
• Assess – you can’t measure progress without actually measuring. Write assessment into your plans.
• Get user feedback (and use it).
• Reflect.
• Be willing to fail. If you’re going to fail, fail spectacularly. Not every idea will succeed.

Think back to your most amazing user experience. What made it special? Your users will usually remember their worst experience and their best. Use that information.

Gathering the Tools to Assess

• Surveys – Many cheap online options available.
• Focus goups – You only need a few people and a few questions. Get someone else to moderate.
• User observations – can be enlightening and disheartening, but well worth it. Again get someone else to moderate. Screen capture software (like Camtasia) can be great.
• Heat maps.
• Conversation. While data can be important, conversations with your users will be the most valuable.

Drawing Users In

• Have something to offer.
• Get OUT of the library. You want to reach users that don’t necessarily come to the library.
• Remember everyone loves to give their opinion.
• Swag-tastic! Is it shiny, Is it branded? Give them to your volunteers.

Implementation

• Something will go wrong.
• Get the boss’ buy-in. Data and stories are the most useful for this.
• Even if it’s a tiny pilot project, you will get valuable information for future projects.

Cliff recommended the book, “The Practice of Social Research” by Earl Babbie. He said it’s an excellent source for information on reliability, validity, methodology, etc.

Go ahead and do it half-assed. Don’t wait. You need the data. You can always refine and redo. Every time you do it, it’ll be a little bit better.

Final Thoughts

• Be user-centric.
• Be willing to do the work (don’t just come up with the idea).
• Evolution will take care of the bad ideas. Failure will usually not be a giant explosion. Most of the time ideas that don’t work will just fade out.
• Create a culture of innovation. Don’t be a naysayer, and don’t let others be naysayers.

As an aside, I thought this was an excellent, inspirational session. It was the best one I attended throughout the whole conference.

Web 2.0 Tools for Online CM Workflow and Intranets
presented by Patrick Griffis and Michael Yunkin (UNLV)

This presentation focused on democratizing a staff intranet by turning it into a wiki, and standardizing the format of the information.

The library staff at UNLV relied on a shared network drive for sharing documents which had grown unwieldy. College intranet was difficult – only one user at a time, limited editing, and no information architecture.

Staff decided to look at their needs, and examined various of content management systems. This was in 2004 (when wikis were still a bit unknown) and they decided to use a static web site. The big problem was only the web developers could update the site. During 2005-2006 they converted the site to a wiki format. Staff wanted a balance between democratizing the information, but keep it within a standardized format (naming conventions, categorizing entries, etc.).

Training

A training wiki was set up as a sandbox for experimentation. A training manual was created and placed on the staff wiki to serve as a learning aid. Training workshops were provided, which included hands-on editing exercises.

They found after the training sessions, there was a big jump in staff contributions to the intranet. Follow up training was done for advanced functions and new employees. For training, a wiki policy and FAQ pages were created.

No real problems after that, and the wiki is still functioning (two years later).

What They Did Right

• Started with come content – a blank slate is too intimidating.
• Got the key content in place before anyone sees it, so it’s useful from the start.
• Use a real world, practical training exercise, rather than just “Here’s how to make a bullet point…”

Lessons Learned

• Don’t be afraid of other people’s fear of technology.
• Allow the web developers to give up control.
• Don’t overwhelm the new editors with training.
• Provide enough basic training to install confidence in new editors so they can start editing.
• Specific training need can be identified by monitoring the wiki.

What’s Hot with RSS
presented by Steven Cohen

Steven LOVES RSS, has a fun presentation style, and he showed us a lot of great tools. They’re all posted on his What’s Hot with RSS presentation page. Here are a few I thought were interesting. While you don’t necessarily have to use the RSS features on these sites, they all include RSS.

• LibWorm – Library focused search engine. Searches library blogs, websites and other sites in the library profession. You can set up RSS feeds to be alerted to search terms.
• TwitterSearch – Search engine for Twitter. Find out who is posting tweets about your library or ?
• OpenCongress – Can see what representatives are up to, latest votes, any other updates. You can also search specific issues.
• Page2RSS – If the website you like doesn’t have an RSS feed, with this free service you can set up a feed to alert you the website has been updated.
• Invisible-Auctions.com – Get misspellings of eBay items. Enter a search term, and it will find all the items on eBay with that item misspelled. Then you can get it cheap because no one else knows about it.

One of the big things Steven uses RSS feeds for is to keep his clients/patrons up-to-date. He said you should know who your FOL (Friends of the Library) are. Set up feeds for yourself in their interested areas, and email them when you see an article they might be interested in. Who’s the hero? You are. The Librarian. The patron will also know you’re there to help with other things if needed, and they’ll be more likely to give you good support at budget time, etc.

Technical / Tangible / Social
presented by Elizabeth Lawley (Rochester Institute of Technology)

“Liz” started talking about social proprioception – the perception of one’s place and/or orientation in the social world. Many of the social networking websites (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) give us this sense of social proprioception.

With mobile devices getting smarter (like the iPhone, with geo-location, etc.) this kind of thing will become more and more important. While the technical is important, we shouldn’t forget the tangible. People want things they can touch, things that can connect the technical and social spheres.

Other gadgets are going to keep coming out (and we’ll probably have some serious technolust for them).

Chumby – “an interactive media player that streams your favorite parts of the internet in an always on, always fresh state.” (I’ve heard about these before, and I seriously want one.)

Mir:ror – an RFID tag reader with USB port, where you can tell it do things based on what the object sees. Company will sell this reader for cheap, and then sell the RFID tags,

Botanicals – sensors you plug into the soil of a plant. When it gets low it can call your phone, or post to Twitter “water me!”

Arduino – a USB circuit board that is open source, totally programmable, and a has big user forum.

The below two magazines are the Popular Mechanics of this century. Should be required for ANY library (public or academic).

• Make – technology stuff, links, etc.
• Craft – craft things but in a modern and cool way. Knitting can be a connection to a tangible thing, while still being engaged in other things. Not always true with technology.

Etsy – website that sells beautiful, handcrafted items, directly from the person who made it.

Moo.com – Customized cards you can create. Again – tangible stuff, connecting the technical and social worlds.

Lulu – Publish your own books.

These sites all allow you to make things, have a sense of ownership, customize gifts, etc.

Social Hardware – A small power strip that Karen Schneider wrote about. (I actually bought one of these when I read Karen’s post a few months ago, it’s small and compact, and oh so useful.)

People talk about online networking – libraries should also focus on public networking. At Liz’s library they removed a lot of the computer labs there, and set up space with power strips and WiFi (because students use laptops a lot more). The result was, many more students are using the library than when the huge banks of desktop workstations were there. Other libraries are setting up cafes inside the library, which makes the library the most popular place to meet. Liz then talked about the cafe, Java Wally’s which is inside the RIT library. That it’s “the place to be.” Faculty are scheduling office hours there, and as students are already in the library (are are very comfortable being there), they’re much more receptive to getting help from a librarian.

In order for libraries to succeed they need the technology, the tangible, and the social.

Liz set up links to everything in her talk on delicious.com.

I recently discovered a wonderful website for anyone interested in astronomy and space: NASA Images.

In addition to the huge collection of images and multimedia of the universe, our solar system, the Earth, aeronautics and astronauts, it’s also got a nice time line from the late 1950′s until the present day.

High resolution versions of the images are available for download.

via: Librarians’ Internet Index

Its musical focus was what first got me reading Rolling Stone — especially the music reviews. Over the years though, they’ve added more features on pop-culture things like fashion, television, and video games. Lately a good deal of their random notes section looks like it came from a sleazy tabloid. Often the music news in the bi-weekly magazine was not news to me. I had already heard about it online. I became less and less interested, and issues would pile up, unread. Over the past few years I wondered why I was paying for a subscription, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to stop.

This month however, I finally let my subscription expire. Just the other day, the post office delivered my last issue. I’m not ignoring Rolling Stone’s editorial content though, I’m reading it online. In my browser (or RSS reader), I can get Rolling Stone’s album reviews, music news and even read some of the current issue’s cover story. Of course, if I really want to read the whole thing I can go to the library, or access the full text from the library’s periodical databases.

In a lot of ways other websites have long ago replaced Rolling Stone as my favorite sources for music news and reviews. The folks at Glorious Noise do a great job. They’ve also got a nice section of message boards where I tend to be a bit of a lurker. The NPR Music site is another excellent source. While at the NPR site, be sure and check out All Songs Considered, a weekly program available via streaming audio, or podcast.

Muzzle of Bees is a great resource for local music news (covering Madison and Milwaukee), as is the music section of the Isthmus, Madison’s local alternative newspaper.

For music reviews, my favorites are below. If you read just one, check out Metacritic, which compiles reviews from a wide range of sources, often linking to the original review.

• Metacritic Music Reviews
• Pop Matters: Music
• Pitchfork Record Reviews

So while I’m a little sorry I let my Rolling Stone subscription expire, I’ve definitely moved on. Any other good music websites I’m missing?

Facebook in reality

• Joe Strummer – Solos, Soundtracks, & Rarities
• Van Morrison – Gypsy Soul (Studio Demos)
• Peter Tosh – Equal Rights Demos 1977
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – 1969-08-26 – Los Angeles
  (the earliest completely recorded CSNY concert)
• Talking Heads – CBS Demos (1975)
• U2 – Pulled The Covers (1979-2006)

The one minor downside of T.U.B.E. is the slightly complicated downloading process.

First you download a text file, which contains the links you need to get the music. Most of the files are available on the file sharing service, RapidShare, where you can download for free, but with limits. Those limits include waiting a few minutes to start the download, and you can only retrieve a certain number of megabytes per hour. I find that I max out the free access after about a disc’s worth of songs, and then I have to wait an hour or so to download more (which can be a little annoying if you’re trying to get a multiple disc bootleg). Traditionally bootlegs have always been something to share among music fans, so I suppose a little patience is a small price to pay for a free download. RapidShare does offer a premium account which can be purchased for unlimited downloads.

The files themselves are compacted in RAR format, so you must have a program that can un-compact RAR files in order get the actual MP3 files. I’m currently using the free program, IZArc, to do the job.

But once you go through all that, it usually is worth it. The files are well documented, and often include cover art. The bootlegs I’ve downloaded have been of very good quality. Every time I check out T.U.B.E., I’m just amazed at the variety and sheer number of bootlegs posted on the site.

I’ve had this cold for three weeks now, and boy am I getting sick of it (pun intended). That’s three weeks of coughing, blocked up sinuses, and a runny nose. Several other people I know have had the same virus (they’ve been sick for a long time too). When it got to be three weeks for me I contacted my doctor’s office, to ask if I should come in and get it checked out. After the on-call nurse assessed me, she didn’t think I needed to come in (no fever or any disgusting symptoms I’d rather not mention here). But the good part of the story is I decided to go online and email my doctor about it.

Yes, you read that right. Sometime last year, my health provider began a new service where I can access all of my health information online. I can see my medical history, review my past and future appointments, schedule new appointments, get lab results, and even email physicians I’ve seen. So I sent off a quick message to my doctor telling him what’s been going on, what the nurse told me, and asked if he wanted me to come it.

A few hours later I got his response. He said to just keep doing when I’m doing (drink a lot of liquids, get plenty of rest, etc.). The last part of his reply is the punch line for this story (as in sucker punch). “Hang in there… It should improve, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes another two weeks.”

First of all, isn’t it great I can communicate with my doctor without having to play telephone tag? Very web 2.0. Second of all, two more weeks? [sigh]

• Digital Photography School
• iDigital Photo
• Epic Edits Weblog
• Photojojo
• Andre Gunther Photography
• PhotoCritic
• Photodoto
• Visual~Voice
• JMG Galleries

“BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.”

Here are my five blogs — all recent discoveries.

• Dennis McCann: Travelin’ Man – Travel writer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who covers Wisconsin and Midwest destinations.
• Digital Photography School – Tips, techniques, and tricks for digital photographers.
• iLibrarian – News and resources on Library 2.0 and the information revolution. Written by Ellyssa Kroski.
• That Truncheon Thing – A music blog that includes reviews, links to free MP3′s, and my favorite posts, the classic bootleg series.
• And finally, The Generator Blog – Links to sites that let you generate all kinds of images, text, and other fun stuff.

1. I am a web geek.

   Way back in the fall of 2000, I bought this domain name so I could have some web space to play around with. About a year after that I installed some blogging software because blogging was becoming popular and I wanted to try it out. Blogging and messing around with my domain has been fun for me. I cringe when I look back and read a few of my older posts, but I’m still having fun with it.

2. To keep in contact with friends and family.

   Blogging is a way for me to keep my friends and family up-to-date with what’s been going on in my life.

3. For myself.

   I document life experiences on my blog. It helps me remember details about great concerts I’ve been to, beautiful natural areas I’ve visited, etc. Occasionally I also blog to clear my mind. Writing can help clarify your thoughts and let you focus on how you really feel. Sometimes I don’t actually post these kind of entries — they’re written just for me.

4. To share my passions with the world.

   When you’re passionate about things, you want other people to experience and enjoy them. I feel that way about music, the outdoors, photography, my work as a librarian, the world wide web, and other things I post.

I’m supposed to list five reasons, but the above pretty much covers it.

I’m also not tagging anyone else because I am a heartless killer of memes. Yes, I am guilty. I accept all responsibility and bad luck associated with the death of a meme.

RSS in Plain English

Found via the 9rules Design Community.