Links

Here is a set of random links...first in a while, but lets me clear a bunch of tabs...

• Knowing how to find out, Rory Litwin of Library Juice press has a great post about librarians and finding out.

• Facebook and privacy settings.

• Here is an interesting take from a school librarian for a Jewish school on various social media sites. (Oh, and it is a wiki rather than a blog...)

• Why Banning Social Media Often Backfires [need I say more?]

• Nice article from Boston.com about the new library director at Boston Public Library. Having grown up in Massachusetts, and spent time in Wisconsin (not far from Minneapolis/St. Paul), I can really identify with a lot of the comments on culture in this piece.

• Stephen Abram has a great chart on the role of libraries in life-long learning. He got it from Minitex, and was done by my friend Jennifer Hootman! Way to go, Hoot!

• Finally, an interesting take on teens and Twitter from mk Eagle [spelling from the blog] on the YALSA blog. Interesting perspective presented here.
  

Tweet, Tag, Connect: Using Social Networking in Your Public Library

Staff from the Terrebonne Parish Library did the presentation. Lauren Ledet and Tracy Guyan.

Much of the discussion is on the Facebook "Fan Page" and differences between the two.

As a library they have a profile page, and do not see much use. See a lot of spam, marketing from authors on the profile page. For the general public, most use the fan page. For events, you cannot "invite" people who are fans, even though you can invite those who are "friends" on the profile page.

The fan page is linked to their Twitter account. One disadvantages is that Twitter is limited to 140 characters. They use tinyurl.com for shortened links.

They have a MySpace account, but are finding that the volume of use is very much lower. Also feel like Facebook is "more professional."

As the administrator of their Facebook page, they can see demographics of users. In Terrebonne, Lauren is the only one who posts. Some libraries have multiple posters. In Terrebonne, Lauren does post at the request of other staff (like her director!).

Use Facebook for marketing of events, and Lauren showed several examples. She has "friended" all of the local reporters so that they get all the updates and tweets. Tries to post every day, takes about 30 - 60 minutes distributed over the day. Because it is for the whole parish system, she tries to be sure to post for each of the locations.

They do not promote at library card sign ups, but do promote it in newsletters and signature files for email. An excellent question about choosing between Twitter and Facebook. Lauren noted that she deals with more people on Facebook, and with more organizations on Twitter.

Ouachita Parish Library is using links to promote summer reading and expects that the use of the Facebook page will skyrocket.

Tracy mentioned that they do not have a policy on social networking. They monitor what is said, however.

Tracy talked about "Text a Librarian" service which costs them about $1600 per year [originally incorrectly posted as $16,000 per year -- Lauren corrected me]. Cost is based on how many people are available to answer a question. She demonstrated the service. For them, they use Meebo to integrate all of the chat and message services. There are set hours, and there is an auto-response for when they are closed. It does have templates to answer common questions (like hours). For the people answering there is also a toolbox of commonly used URLs. Not a high volume serve.

Some of the libraries represented in the audience have much higher use (1,800/month in one). Those libraries market directly to teens, and encourage them to save the number when they make the presentation.

Terrebonne has a Meebo widget on the web site. Meebo is answers questions only at the Reference Desk at the main library (the branches are small, and have very limited staff). They have a poll on their web site.

They have also posted some things to YouTube including how to use databases, Interlibrary Loan, how to use "Text-a-Librarian," and other events. They had a former staff member who had also been a film maker so the quality is good. They have a total of 19 videos posted.

The Reference Department also has a blog. They monitor what is posted. It reflects the color scheme of the library web site. Staff will post items relevant to the date, and they repeat some of the items from Facebook/Twitter.

They had a spike in users when the offered workshops on how to use social networking sites.

The Library Director noted that when they added Facebook, etc. on the Library's site, the schools were required to block the site.

Discussion continued, but I want to add this before the session ends.

January links - part 2

LibLime purchase what does it mean? Go to Hellman has an interesting take.

EBSCO exclusive contract comments the great Open Access advocate Dorothea Salvo has a great set of thoughts about the implications of the EBSCO contract

Getting older? An interesting post

A great post on Twitter and ALA is Everything I Needed to Know about Twitter I Learned at Midwinter on the YALSA blog

Heidi Blanton has an interesting post on managing conference information.

The Learning Commons is one of the hot topics in academia. I have a close personal friend who "coordinates" the Learning Commons for a Louisiana private university, so I hear a lot about it. Kim Leeder has an early January post on In the Library with the Lead Pipe (a great blog title, I think) with a very broad vision of what LC is all about. Read it here.

The New York Times is back-sliding! In the beginning of the web, their web site was free. Then they went to a pay site. Folks stopped reading it, and did not pay, so they went free. Now, they are going back to pay or at least "partial pay." Ars Technica has a good overview.

Facebook's privacy changes caught attention. Here is some of what I picked up:
Violating contract with users
Facebook developer says privacy is over
And then a comment about why the new policy is wrong

What the Internet and filters can do. A respected Canadian magazine has to change its name. Here is the story.

Will Manley is blogging at a new location. Here is his new blog. Even though we worked in Arizona at the same time, I never met him until he spoke at the Connecticut Library Association back in the late 80s or early 90s.

One of my nieces is working at the Olympics as part of an internship. She is blogging, and it should be interesting to read her experiences.

Agnostic, Maybe [Andy, in New Jersey]has a couple of interesting posts, the first is on the future of libraries, and the second is a reaction to another author's post called "Nothing is the future."

January links

I need to read and understand this better, but Char Booth has written an article in Library Journal about data visualization which I just can's seem to get my head around ... yet.

I found a new, interesting blog: Go To Hellman. It was brought to my attention in the discussion about ebooks. Here is the second post. And here is a third one.

The wonderful Jenny Levine wrote a great post about Twitter and policies (oh, and ALA). I am thinking I should find the time to consolidate all that I have learned into a new post.

In a really "library geek" vein, there is a post on ALA Techsource about RDA and FRBR -- which are supposed to replace AACR2. This post has some diagrams which help explain. (The bottom line for the non library geeks is that it should make our catalogs/access systems much more user friendly, and theoretically even better than Amazon or Google!)

And finally in this list, and to bring it back full circle, Ryan Deschamps has written about the future of the library and Seth Godin's comments. Read it here. [I have an issue with the title, it should not be "Neither Libraries Nor Information is Free" but "Neither Libraries Nor Information Are Free." Grammatically, both "libraries" and "information" are plural nouns, and the conjunction compounds the pluralness.]

Social Media Policies

A while back, I posted about Twitter policies. That piece got some great comments, so I suggest that you read the whole thing.

Since then, I have found several additional resources and thoughts on the topic:

• The CIO (Chief Information Officer) of a health care company [in central and northern Wisconsin] has posted a thoughtful compilation of his organizations thoughts and policies on his blog.
• The Ottawa Public Library (Ottawa, Canada) has posted its full social media policy (as a PDF file).
• The High Tech Dad blog has a great post on how to craft a policy. (Each point of the policy is short enough to be a Twitter post!)
• Ellyssa Kroski (who also blogs at iLibrarian) has written an article for School Library Journal (October 1, 2009) which is still applicable to public libraries. I recommend it.

A great deal is happening in this area, and happening quickly. I hope to find more policies before long.

Twitter Policies

At work, I received an interesting question "from the field." The question was about whether I could identify any libraries which had "policies" about a library tweeting. So I "tweeted" about it, and posted on my Facebook page. I did not get a lot of response. I did some searching and then sent queries to the two people whose name came up most often (at least on WebJunction): David Lee King and Michael Porter.

Here is one informal answer:

It really depends on the libs goals - do they want to focus on local peeps? Do they want to friend everyone? Etc.

That was from David Lee King (Topeka Kansas PL). He has a blog, and has posted some thoughts which you may find useful:
http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/07/21/how-not-to-tweet/

And in another blog I found this quote:

"With that said, here is my take at a corporate Twitter policy that has the extra added benefit of being itself twitterable: Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit "update."http://www.gruntledemployees.com/gruntled_employees/2009/03/a-tweetable-twitter-policy.html

I found this from a link somewhere, Missouri River Regional Library has a “MySpace Guidelines” but not one for Twitter. In them they say:

• Friends Friends are subject to approval by the administrator
• The Library reserves the right to approve or deny friends

Here is a link: http://www.mrrl.org/admin/sections.php?pid=Web%20Guidelines&sec=45

Finally, my friend Michael Porter (MP, Libraryman) who works at OCLC had this insightful thought:

I do though think that it would be wiser for a library to have a larger institutional communication policy rather than a policy specific to an individual tool like Twitter, facebook, freindfeed, etc. Those tools will wax and wane and have shifting levels of cultural relevancy, but a larger, carefully thought out staff communication policy would address the important issues that can come up on any of these tools. Granted it could be wise to have paragraphs, or subsections dealing with peculiarities of an individual tool, but really, I don't think making one for Twitter alone is the way to go.

So, that is a really long answer. I think that what MP suggests (an institutional communication policy like the one suggested on the Gruntled Employees blog) with "Procedures" or "Guidelines" which can be written, would be a good way to go. In my note back to MP, I said: As a Library Director, I always made the distinction that *policy* was adopted by the Board and should be fairly immutable. *Procedures* are about how staff implement the board approved policies…

Update

I found some more info thanks to the Librarian In Black. She pointed to a blog called "Lowrider Librarian" which has some good Twitter tips including:

Policy

The organization should have a clear policy that addresses:

• Appropriate language
• Appropriateness of links provided
• Non-political links and tweets

Tweet with the organizational mission in mind at all times

Individual vs. organizational Twitter® usage

The tweeters should understand they are representing the organization and that their personal viewpoints should never override information provided and should never dictate information shared or re-tweeted.

Assessment: How will the ROI be assessed? What will be considered successful? What are your benchmarks and how will you reach them?

Building community

Tweet organizational related material. Retweet information you know your network will appreciate. Do not argue, flame or use derogatory language when tweeting. Stay positive and friendly. Share, share, share. Be yourself and be genuine, but always remember you are a representative of the organization. Again, look for those who your organization can collaborate with and build off one another’s work. Cross—promotional opportunities abound in the world of Twitter® .

Thanks Sarah!

ALA Annual Round-up

I am back, safely, and with only one snafu (which will remain unnamed, since it was my own fault). And thanks to Aaron Dobbs who got me from the Convention Center to my hotel to O'Hare in time to catch my plane.

If you follow ALA "stuff" you may find this site interesting: ala2009 @ flexyourinfo

Heather Devine has created a site which tracks both the Twitter feeds with #ala2009 and the Flickr photos with a similar tag. So you can see the events and read the short messages about them also. Thanks Heather.

She also has a thoughtful post on her blog about the ALA Doctoral Options Fair.

My friend Jessamyn did not go, but captured several links to events.

Fellow Councilor-at-Large Jim Casey has been doing an excellent summary of his activities for many years. Each year it seems that he finishes it sooner and sooner. He posted it to the Council list, but John Chrastka posted it on the ALA Member Blog.