Drexel University Special Libraries Association (DUSLA)

Tim Spalding of LibraryThing started out with his talk entitled “The Fun OPAC”. Tim quotes Casey Bisson who said that the OPAC was broken in three ways: usability, findability and remixability. Tim argues that that is not enough - he also thinks it’s missing funability.

He gave us an example from Big (the movie) where Tom Hanks says that one of the toy ideas isn’t fun. Tim says that everyone is a toy company now. Users expect the web to fun and easy. If a site doesn’t change from visit to visit it’s boring - and our OPACs never change!!

Unlike other speakers on this topic, Tim thinks we need to bring the catalog out front and center. He says so used to hiding it behind our websites because we’re ashamed of it - and we can’t change it (which is very true).

So, how do we make it fun?

• Allow inbound links!
  links into our catalogs are always timed out when you find them in search results. People want to link into this information and they assume it will always be there. One way to solve this is to provide a permalink - like Google maps - but I’d argue that this isn’t enough either!!


• Allow links outwards
  The more you link outwards the more people will come to you. This includes links out of your catalog. Tim said that some libraries say no to this because they won’t link to commercial sites. Tim asks, why? Your patrons know about the bookstores! Good websites don’t work like malls, where all of the exits are hidden and they try to keep you inside.


• Link around
  LibraryThing links to 500 libraries around the world and makes everything clickable (the author, title, tag, subject heading). There is also a page for every author, tag, etc etc. Most catalogs do link subjects - but nothing else. You can also link to wikipedia (people are going to go there anyway).


• Dress up your OPAC
  Dress it up with covers from Syndetics (if you get them from Amazon you have to link to them).


• Get your data out there
  Stop thinking you’re the only people who can work with your data!! Wisdom of crowds!! There are bored techies out there who want to do fun things with your data. People will think of things to do with your data that you haven’t thought of yourself.


• Provide remixable content
  Users don’t want your data. They don’t want generic new book lists, they want their own content. RSS feeds for specific searches, authors, tags. They want a way to tell people what they’re reading with widgets. If the user freely consents to show what they’re reading to others, then there are no privacy issues to worry about

Next up - Roy Tennant!!!

Roy was worried that we were all there to see Tim, but everyone stayed to hear what he had to say (well, I left a tiny bit early to make a lunch meeting - but I really really really wanted to stay).

Roy started by telling us that he refused to use the “O” word. And then told us that catalogs have no future - you’ve gotta love him!

Roy does clarify that when he says catalog he is not referring to the ILS (which libraries still need for internal operations). He is no suggesting the death of the ILS just that we rework the finding tool which is the catalog.

He sees a future where there is no local catalog and in his future, all discovery will take place on the network level. If however it stays on the local level, few people will want to limit their search to just books - they’re going to want something that can pull together all of the info on a topic no matter what format it’s in.

This means that we need to look at new models of finding information.

In the new world order, discovery will be disaggregated from the ILS (Google, Open WorldCat, meta search, others). This makess sense because users typically want to find anything they can on a topic. Now we have to explain that you have to look in different places for articles. People don’t like pain so they want to search in one spot and if they can’t then they won’t use your tool.

Most ILS lack cool new features and fall behind our expectations and the market doesn’t look great that we’re going to see these things anytime soon.

Open WorldCat is offering some of the cool tools we want (facets, integrated article index, clean easy to read display) all for free. They also have WorldCat Identities tool which allows for every author to have a page. Maybe the answer is that WorldCat replaces our union catalogs. OCLC already has all of our data (I don’t quite follow this - not being a cataloger - but it sounds good to me). Another tool that they have is Fiction Finder (both this and Identities like the things Tim was talking about with LibraryThing).

These tools are great at exposing the richness of the records we’ve been painfully creating over the years (and this is true - i had a horrible time creating MARC records for one of my assignments).

At this point I had to leave for lunch - but it all makes sense to me and I’ll keep an eye out to see if Roy’s predictions come true!

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

Rob Cagna from University of Pennsylvania came to talk to us about PennTags. The last time I saw this it was a bit rough - it has grown up a lot since it’s birth!!

PennTags is like del.icio.us for members of the Penn community. They can save pages from anywhere on the web, from the catalog and from campus resources to PennTags and share it with the world. They can also keep their bookmarks private if they’d like. Penn has also released bookmarklets to allow people to tag things from their browser without logging into PennTags first (like with del.icio.us extension for firefox).

One neat feature of PennTags is that the users can make projects - which are files of different documents in a particular subject area. This way you can see just a new books list (http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/14404). Projects can also be made private if the user prefers - Rob doesn’t think that many people have done this.

If you look at this record in the UPenn catalog, you see an Add to PennTags link at the bottom and below that you’ll see the tags and annotations from PennTags - very very very cool!! This is done with Oracle and Perl - you can email Rob if you want the more techie details.

One way this has been used is as an on-demand subject guide. Reference librarians create a project and add links. They then send the project URL to the patron! Students can use these projects as bibliographies - or working bibliographies as they write their papers. And because every page has an RSS feed the patrons or students can subscribe and see new additions as they’re added!!

I am very impressed - and a bit jealous!!

If you like what you see, Rob is looking for partners to help work with the code and make it open source! Email them at: penntags@pobox.upenn.edu.

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments

David Lee King gave an amazing talk on handling change within our libraries. He started by asking a few questions and reading a few quotes. The first question was how many of us have had a hard time changing things in our libraries - lots of hands were raised. Then what kinds of change are hard - tech or other? Both! How many of us had to change ourselves while trying to implement change? A good number.

David, like a few others, recommended reading Stephen Abram’s article in OneSource on change within libraries.

He then read a quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins which basically said that spending time to motivate people is a waste of effort - the right people will be self-motivated - but the key is to not de-motivate them! What a great quote!! I don’t have the book, so I can’t write the exact quote, but the gist is right.

Change is gonna happen whether we like it or not - just take a look at librarian want ads these days - they’re all full of new (fun sounding) jobs.

So what is change? Change the old way:

• leaders simply ordered changes


• goal: getting the change accomplished


• when it failed the leaders would review change to see what went wrong

The problem is that they were looking in the wrong place (within their organizations) - because change is external. Transitions (reorientation people have to go through inside before the change can work) however, are internal. The reason most changes failed was because leaders focused on getting the change done instead of getting people through the transition.

So, what are the stages of transition?

1. Saying goodbye (letting go of the way things used to be)


2. Shifting into neutral (in between state - full of uncertainty and confusion)
   This is where you focus on the details. You have to want to change to get past this phase and unfortunately, some people get stuck here. These people don’t let go of the old ways. On the other end of things, some people get frightened and leave


3. Moving forward- requires people to begin behaving in a new way

Of course there is going to be resistance to change, in fact, “nearly 2/3 of changes in corporate environments fail”, but resistance isn’t the problem - management’s reaction to resistance is the problem - resistors aren’t seeing it as resistance - they see it as survival!

Three levels of resistance:

1. info based - not enough info with the new thing, don’t understand, disagree with the idea, confused


2. physiological & emotional - job threatened, future with organization threatened, respect of your peers at risk (loss of power - feelings of incompetence) - all in your head (but still real!)


3. bigger stuff - personal histories, significant disagreement over values, etc

So, how do we navigate through change?

Tips just for leaders & techies:

• remember that you’ve already come to terms with the change, but others still have their own stages to go through


• understand why people might not want to change


• understand that it’s the transitions, not the change, that’s causing waves

Steps to take in helping change run smoothly:

• describe the change succinctly (1 minute or less) change and why it must happen


• plan carefully


• help people let go (explain why they have to let go - why it’s a necessary change)


• constant communication


• create temporary solutions when needed (things to make the change move smoother)


• model new behavior - practice what you preach, don’t say we need a blog and then never contribute


• provide practice & training in new things)


• if you want staff to use web 2.0, you better have an RSS reader and you better be actively using it and reading blogs etc etc

David than reminded us not to do these things:

• don’t confuse novelty with innovation


• don’t confuse motion with action


• don’t keep something going if it still has a “few good years of life left”

More tips & reminders for techies:

• you might be able to change quickly


• there are areas where you don’t change quickly (it departments have to stop saying no first - think it through)


• always share too much… (and do too much training) it should feel this way to you - cause you’re not the user


• technojust(ification) - make sure it makes sense (the opposite of technolust)

After all of this if you still won’t change, you need to remember that refusing to change will lead to missed career opportunities and missed changes to expand your network and meet new people (like I do at conferences and through my blog). Most importantly, you’ll miss out on the possibility of shaping your new destiny and reality - don’t get me wrong, it will be shaped, the question is who do you want to do it - you or someone else?

Some final pointers from David:

• learn all there is to about change


• break old habits


• work on stress management strategies


• whine with purpose (constructive criticism is good)

What an awesome talk!!! I hope I did it justice in my summarization - and I hope you’re all motivated to change the way you handle change in your institutions.

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

Before even starting her talk, Helene Blowers posted her presentation information on her blog - check it out here.

Helene walked about the room using her new presentation remote (the same one I have) and talked to us about core competencies and learning 2.0 at her library. She told us a story of librarians in her library who would put an out of order sign on the printers if they were ever out of ink. When she asked why, people would say that it wasn’t their job - it was the IT staff’s job. That means that until IT gets into the library the patrons have to go without printing. By telling staff that they can’t do things like change ink, we’re telling them that technology is someone else’s responsibility -do we really want that? She didn’t so at her library they created some core competencies.

All librarians should know how to do some basic things such as saving documents, printing, entering timesheets online and basic troubleshooting. After that Helene’s library set up three more core levels. See all of the levels here. Other tools for coming up with core competencies can be found on Web Junction or in the newest Library Technology Report.

I like Helene’s definition of core competencies. Core competencies are developed to support changes that have already happened within our daily work lives. To address the future they decided to do Learning 2.0. This way they could make people familiar with the tools that are coming out now.

Before developing Learning 2.0, Helene tried tech talks - short talks on specific technologies. With these talks, she only reached 64 out of 540 employees and was only able to cover 2 topics - at that rate it would take 10.5 years to teach everyone everything she wanted.

Instead she started Learning 2.0 which was a 10 week program that introduced staff to 23 technologies - it was not a training program, it was a learning program and encouraged the staff to experiment with 2.0 tools. At the end of her program - 356 staff members had started a blog - a number that would have taken a lot longer than 10 weeks to achieve using the old way.

Towards the end, Helene asked us how many of us were encouraged to play at work - not many hands were raised!! Hopefully after this talk, people will go back to their libraries with ideas for change in the way technologies are taught!

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 6:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ve talked about others who have said it - but this topic bears repeating - over and over until it’s stuck in everyone’s head!! The way we design web pages needs to change - it’s changing all around us and it’s time to learn from others and use those new rules on our library sites. Today I got to see a test version of a new site for a public library (sometimes public libraries get to do the coolest things!) and it was amazing! I made notes and shared them with work (who are considering a redesign this year). Last week I wrote about user-centered design (an awesome topic). Today, I’m writing about Ellyssa Kroski’s talk on the new information design.

The fact is (if you hadn’t figured it out) the user experience with the web is changing. Users are changing the way they consumer information, the technology is different and most importantly the user’s expectations have changed. Today’s web design should be simple, social and provide alternative navigation structures.

Simple

Ellyssa included a quote from The Paradox of Choice: “The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better … there is a cost to having an overload of choice.” And then showed us a picture of MS Word with all of the toolbars turned on!! That is bad choice!

New web apps are just showing the user what’s necessary, there’s a lower learning curve this way. This is also known as the “less is more” philosophy - we’ve all heard it - now we just have to apply it to our web redesigns. Lastly, and we all know this (but most don’t do anything about it) users are expecting a DIY (do it yourself) service model!!

Today’s websites (mostly web 2.0 sites) have clean simple designs. Sites need to be designed with a purpose, just for design’s sake (no need for flash on that library homepage just cause you took a flash class last year). Some formatting choices we’re seeing often are:

• centered pages


• round edges (provides a casual feel)


• san serif fonts


• lowercase fonts


• large fonts for important concepts


• simple persistent navigation


• strong colors


• bold logos


• subtle 3D (like the site I saw a demo of) using reflections and shadows


• original simple icons (like our intranet)


• zen like feeling by using white space effectively (provides a fresh look)

Social

Just like every other talk at this Library 2.0 themed conference, Ellyssa reminds us that what used to be personal and singular is now shared (pictures, videos, etc). Users are expecting to interact socially with information on the web. This means commenting, ratings, send to a friend, subscribe via RSS, save for later and the ability to see all of that for the other users of the site.

Alternative navigation

Ellyssa showed us some need options for navigation (things librarians would never go for because they’re too chaotic). Some sites are trying to use a visual representation of what’s important on the site. Steve Krug writes in Don’t Make Me Think (great book by the way) that we don’t read pages, we skim them for important items - things that catch our eye. An example of an alternative method of navigation is a tag cloud. Others I’ve seen have included web like graphics linking pages together. Neither should be used as the main navigation - but the option can be there for users who like that sort of thing - it’s an easy addition.

Conclusions

Pretty simple! You have to evolve, be nimble and be willing to abandon bad ideas!! Doesn’t sound to hard - does it?

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments

So, Meredith Farkas started off her talk by telling the audience that I bite!! Yep, that’s right - I’m a biter I’m just kidding, Meredith (and me later today) was in the worst room for presenting. There are 2 pillars in the middle of the room that make it nearly impossible to see the screen. If you’re short and can see the screen you can’t see the bottom half unless you’re in the front row - I’m not a fan of this set-up so far.

But, back to Meredith. She presented on “Social Software: Building Collaboration, Communication & Community Online” - yep that’s the title of her book (which I’m ready to get signed!).

So what are the characteristics of Social Software according to Meredith?

• Easy content creation and sharing


• Online collaboration


• Conversations have changed! They’re distributed (blogs) and they’re in real time (IM)


• Capitalizing on the Wisdom of Crowds. Del.icio.us is a great example of this - we can see what others have found interesting. Wikis - conference wikis in particular are a great way to collect knowledge from many sources


• Transparency! If you’re a terrible professor (as Lee showed us) then everyone will know. On the flip side, you can make a human connection this way.


• Personalization - it’s everywhere and RSS helps you facilitate it


• Portability - everyone is using at least one portable device these days - once again RSS lets them take content with them

What can Social Software do for libraries?

Number one - it will help us disseminate information. We can use blogs for library news, research tips, new books, new librarian articles, things in the area news - so many options! Wikis can be used as subject guides. Dowling College Library is doing amazing things with podcasts. Next, we can get feedback from our patrons - like I wrote earlier, no one wants to bother with the comment box at your circ desk - but they’ll comment online. It also makes the patrons feel like a part of the library - like they’re making a difference.

It allows us to capitalize on the collective intelligence of colleagues and patrons! There is so much we can learn from the people who come into our libraries - why not give them a chance to contribute? Also, why not use a reference wiki and share with those around you - what are you afraid of??

What strategies can we use to implement these changes?

First - avoid technolust! Don’t make changes just cause they’re cool - do your homework - very similar to what David was saying. Think about whether patrons will use it - and I’d like to add that even if you think they won’t and it’s free and easy to set up - DO IT!! Why not give it a whirl, maybe you don’t know everything about your users.

Next, involve staff at all levels of planning - they also want to be involved. Help them play with the technologies and see what they’re about.

A great presentation overall - you can see the entire thing online - I love it when speakers get their info up nice and early!

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 6:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Next I heard David Lee King talk about Library 2.0 "Setting up the New Stuff". While I obviously have a feel for some of the basic technologies that David went over, I'm still glad that I attended this event so that I can share what I learned with you all.

David broke the talk into 3 parts. Part 1 - He answered some questions.

Why?

Just cause we can isn't a good enough reason (but it is a good reason in my opinion to play and experiment - if it's free and easy - why not?). We need to think about how these tools will meet the changing customer needs (Like Lee said in the keynote - web users want to participate on our library websites - they want our sites to act like the rest of the web), how it will help us stay culturally relevant and how we'll keep our digital spaces up to date.

What?

There are lots of options out there to choose from - once again think before jumping. Use your library's mission to help you pick tools that will help you meet those goals. Think about what you want the end result to be - do you want a place to share library news and have users comment? Then a blog might be your answer. David asked how many people had a comment box in their library - and only 2 hands were raised - but he made a good point, don't you think users would be more likely to leave a comment via a web form than that box sitting at the circ desk??

Who?

Specifically - who does the work? Both staff and patrons can do the work. Staff members should be chosen because of an interest in the topic - not because of the department they work in. Patrons can help by commenting, adding to wiki pages, and creating groups with a vested interest in the library and the library site.

How?

Always remember to include administrators and managers - you're going to need them (you never know when you might need to request to equipment). Consider how much staff time you're going to need - not just to start using the new tool - but to keep it going. Last and most importantly, ask yourselves - do we have willing participants, and if not, can we make them?

When?

To quote David "Like, yesterday". A lot of these tools have simple install files or sign up pages, it takes nearly no time at all - remember the Web 2.0 video (The Machine in Using Us)? Well, towards the end of that they create a blog in less than 10 seconds. That said, it does depend on whether you want to start big or small - if you want to use the predefined settings and templates or create your own.

So - that doesn't sound too scary does it?? Next David moved on to Part 2: Content, Container and Customer.

David asked us who had taken a writing for the web class - and not many people raised their hands - which is okay because it's not just about writing anymore - it's about video, voice, and so much more. You have to remember to keep a conversational tone when creating content for the web - this is a hard thing for some librarians because they were taught to be professional and proper at all times - well, that just ain't so anymore :) Once you get the hang of it it really does make it more fun to create for the web. He also showed us a few library blogs started in 2005 that haven't been posted on in as much time - you have to create often - if you can't don't try. If you think it looks unprofessional to write in a conversational tone, just imagine what it looks like to have a page that says "The newest news from our library" that was last updated in January of 2005.

Like I'm about to do with this summary - David says we don't have to write for just one place - we can re-use content all over. I post these summaries to at least 3 (sometimes 4) blogs. David uses blip.tv to upload his videos because they have a service that lets him send his content to a bunch of other places as well. How does this apply to your library? At Internet Librarian last year I attended a session on RSS & JavaScript. The gist was that you don't need to know how to code to get an RSS feed to print on your web page - you can use a blog and copy a bit of JavaScript and you're set. This is one of those ways where you care publishing in 2 places. You can write to the blog, but others can read the content on your library website, pathfinder, or links page.

I mentioned the inviting participation series of posts a while back - what a great time to bring them back to the forefront. There are 2 ways of inviting participation. One is passive and that is to write compelling content and allow comments. There is also an active way (that sounds like a great idea). On David's library's blog (Papercuts) they write a weekly post they ask a question (What's your favorite book? Who's your favorite author? etc) and that makes people feel like their participation is appreciated. This goes for both staff and patrons!

Next the container. Like I said before, do you want your page to use the default template or a fancy-schmancy one? This doesn't just go for you blog either - MySpace and other social networking sites offer you different design options. My recommendation is to play first and design later - make sure it's going to stick before you spend too much time on it.

Last (but not least in my book) the customers. One of the ways that social networking is "social" is that most of these tools have a friends or contacts list. These don't have to be your "real" friends, they can be your customers/patrons - by adding them as your friends they can easily subscribe to your content on Flickr, MySpace, etc etc. Allow your patrons to comment - this can't be stressed too much!! Our customers can also be creators, let them participate and let them contribute - it's what they want.

The last part was a list of the specifics for those I'll point you to Michael Sauers' summary (he was sitting next to me) - he did a great job of listing all of the specifics you'll have to think about - since it looks like I've rambled on enough already!!

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments

I got to hear Lee Rainie give the keynote at CIL last year - I have to say I'm glad that he gave a different talk this year - I was a bit worried that it wasn't going to be a new keynote.

Lee talked about Web 2.0 and what it means to libraries. He asked us bloggers to remember to note for everyone else that librarians are the people he loves the most! :)

After giving us the general web 2.0 definition that we've all see 100 times he showed us the Ask a Ninja Explains Podcasting YouTube video that he felt showed the grand meaning of Web 2.0. Unfortunately the sound wasn't that great for us - so I have no idea what the ninja said - I'll just have to watch it again later.

Lee says there are 6 hallmarks of Web 2.0 that matter to libraries. I guess 6 is the lucky Web 2.0 number because a lot of other speakers/writers have also come up with six.

Lee's six are:

1. The Internet has become the computer
   • The number of people who use computers and the number that use the Internet has become nearly indistinguishable
   • 70% of adults & 93% of teens use the Internet
   • Broadband and wireless access is growing
2. Tens of millions of Americans, especially the young, are creating and sharing content online
   • Young people in particular want to share their comments (and they want comments in return)
   • Blogs are an example of this - and blogs are not just what the media says, they contain important information on real life issues
3. Even more internet users are accessing content created by others
   • Reading blogs
   • Wikipedia
4. Many are sharing what they know and feel online
   • Ratemyprofessor.com - people are rating and ranking people and products
   • People are tagging content.
5. Tens of thousands are contributing their know how and processing power
6. Online Americans are customizing their content
   • My Yahoo!, My Google
   • RSS Feeds

I look at this list and 2 items strike me - #4 & 5 - the fact is that our users want to help us create content and yet as librarians we block them out - we treat our content as sacred - and it is - but I think there is a time when we have to let go of some control and see what happens. I'll go over this more in some of my later summaries because it was a re-occuring theme for me today. Lee shares my sentiments and says that users want to be able to do all of these things on our sites too!!

Less continued on to share with us five issues that libraries and all online participants must struggle to address.

1. Navigation - we're moving from linear to nonlinear (breadcrumbs to tag clouds)
2. Context - we need to learn to see connections in the dis-aggregated information
3. Focus - we need to practice reflection and deep thinking, right now we practice constant partial attention - we're always connected. This prevents us from being able to spend time contemplating (note from me - blogging does this for me - even though I am plugged in)
4. Skepticism - we need to learn to evaluate info (well not really we, but we need to teach others
5. Ethical behavior - understaning the rules of cyberspace.

Lee ended with the Web 2.0 video that I wrote about earlier. It was great sitting in a room of people who hadn't seen it and listening to their reactions - at the same time it's a bit shocking to me to see that so many people hadn't seen the video. I think that as bloggers we just assume that the majority of people know what we know - simply because we read about it on the biblioblogosphere - when in reality we are a pretty small population among librarians. I found this in later talks throughout the day - speakers would say "I'm sure you've heard of ..." and a lot of faces went blank.

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Posted by Nicole Engard at 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Library Connect event hosted by PALINET. The topic was “What’s Next? - Embracing Change” - the perfect topic for me!

In his introduction, John Tagler, VP of Customer Marketing, Academic & Gov’t Libraries at Elsevier said we’re all dealing with change and we have to “face it and embrace it or we’ll all fall behind” - what a great way to start the event and such a true statement.

The first speaker was Rush Miller, University Librarian at Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh. The title of his talk was: “The Library Director’s Perspective: Beyond Survival”. Rush is so passionate about change that he sometimes made me cringe! That said, he was an awesome speaker and the fact that he went off on tangents didn’t seem to bother the audience (or myself) one bit.

Rush started us off by talking about how librarians handle change. He told us this great story of how when he was given his first director job, the technical services librarians all brought him back to the storage room and said “Now if there is a fire, we all run in here and grab the shelf list”. Apparently, this shelf list was nothing to scoff at - big and heavy. Years later when electronic catalogs were available, people still kept their shelf lists because they didn’t trust the new technology. Rush asked a great question - did the librarians really think that if the library had a fire the administration was going to re-order every book that was on the shelves? For years, librarians fought change - it was technology that forced it on them.

He told a great story of how a friend gave him a disk years ago and said “here, you’ve got to try this, it’s a graphical interface for getting on the internet” - that disk had Mosaic on it - and Rush was unable to install it on his work computer because he didn’t have Windows. Why not? Cause his IT staff it took up too much space and was a passing fad! See - it’s not just librarians how fight change - we all do - we fight until we’re bruised and broken and then we have to give in - wouldn’t it be easier if we acknowledged that change is scary and that we’re terrified, but go with the flow anyway??

He talked about how he hated going golfing without a full group of friends because eventually someone was going to ask - “so what do you do” and he’d have to tell them he was a librarian. This would lead to a discussion on whether people actually use libraries anymore - if they’re really necessary and so on. The fact of the matter is - that if we don’t start making the right arguments - people are going to believe that they’re not necessary!! Here’s where Rush and I part ways a bit. Rush feels that it should all go digital - that books are on their way out - slowly - but on their way out. He mentioned that at Pitt they’re closing departmental libraries with no opposition from the departments - he said that book usage is going down (a stat that is the complete opposite of another I recently read).

That said - his next point is right on track - constantly claiming the value of libraries and making arguments is not going to get things done - we have to demonstrate to others how it works.

He then proceeded to give us 8 ideas for changes:

1. User-centric not user-focused
   Provide multiple channels for information delivery and rethink our processes and services. What’s important is what they think not what you think!
   


2. Re-think our mission
   It’s not about books anymore and it’s not about organizing information, it’s about connecting people to what they want to learn. In short - it’s about people!
   


3. Re-engineer our operations
   Stop worrying about the quality of the data in your catalog - it’s not the center of the universe
   
   
4. Re-think how space is used
   Allow cafes in the library - stop worrying about the stupid carpets! (I actually thought it was worries about the books that made us stop people from drinking in the library - but when we did our renovation it was also about the carpets - why???)
   


5. Collaborate and innovate
   


6. Communicate our message
   


7. Build expertise
   


8. Change the culture of our libraries
   Stop rewarding the people who won’t change in your library and start supporting those who will. Rewards should not be given on the basis of who’s been there the longest.

So, overall - a great presentation by Rush!! And lots of great info. I’ll provide a link to his presentation as soon as it’s available.

Posted by Nicole Engard at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments

Today I took some time to play with 8apps:

8apps is a suite of online applications that helps you to work better. At the center there is Handshake, a fully-featured social network for you to make new contacts, strengthen existing relationships and find like-minded entrepreneurs.

For those who don't have skilled programmers in house you might want to take a look at this application for collaborating with your colleagues. It has to do lists (which you can share), a project brainstorming app, and plan meetings with people where ever you are. So far, there are only 4 apps, but 4 more are in the works. 8apps is invite only, so if you want to try it out just drop me a comment or an email (remember to provide me with your email address) and I'll send you an invite.

So far, this is a pretty nifty all-in-one package for working with people who aren't sitting right next to you at work.

Want to see it in action? Check out the screencast: part 1 and part 2.

Labels: 8apps, productivity

Posted by Nicole Engard at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments