Web 2.0 Research

Understanding User Needs Who is our audience? What are they trying to accomplish? How can we help them? What are our goals? Do new technologies help us all achieve this? The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student by Susan Gibbons

General Principles of Library 2.0 Libraries engage in rapid change mobilized by assessment. Libraries give users a participatory role in developing services modeled on their information culture. Libraries look to Web 2.0 as a model for developing services and building applications. Libraries make collections available via open, personalized, interactive services that encourage content creation, editing, commenting, bookmarking, rating, tagging, etc. by users. Libraries construct online spaces managed by interoperable, scalable components, e.g., content management systems, APIs, Web services, widgets, mashups, blogs, wikis. Libraries embrace radical trust. Libraries give up some measure of control. Library applications are in perpetual beta. Librarians draw users to the library, and also take the library to users, especially in networked spaces. Librarians are knowledgeable about and utilize information tools favored by users. Librarians are flexible, skilled, highly tolerant of experimentation, and champions of change to meet users’ evolving needs. http://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/2007/03/action_plan_for_a_20_library.html

“Organization 2.0” Technology won’t address all of our users needs. What else could we be doing for them? Build a learning culture through in-house staff development. Develop a risk-tolerant environment. Manage our internal knowledge and skills more efficiently – internal transparency. Communication from Administration is key during times of change. Don’t reinvent the wheel – capitalize on our professional networks and colleagues expertise and experience. Good ideas can come from anyone, anywhere within the organization. Create mechanisms for communication and contribution from all levels of staff. Support the staff, recognize contributions, appreciate innovators. Examine change processes – does our committee structure help us? Who are the decision-makers? Involve stake-holders in planning for new technology. (Buy-in!) Avoid techno-lust! “Wikis are cool, we should have one.” Start with the need. Understand staff members’ needs and limitations. Change takes time and persistence . Invest in staff training. Staff time must be devoted to explore and implement new technologies. Make “keeping-up” a part of people’s job descriptions. Shows that the organization values innovation and new technologies. Is your organization (as it is currently structured) able to make all this happen? Can our organization do this and what do we need to do to make this happen? Meredith Farkas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_uOKFhoznI

Creating a Library 2.0 Culture 23 Things A library-wide initiative to get all staff motivated and involved with new technologies. Free, easy. Allows time for exploration, learning, discussion, and adoption. A more natural process. Led by the administration – shows the importance of the initiative. Builds a culture from the ground-up. Reward for staff who complete all 23 Things. http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/ “ If I just had 15 minutes each day” “ After using these tools and seeing examples of libraries using them, you should have a pretty good idea about which ones you think you might be useful in your setting.” “ One thing to remember: there are a lot of cool tools out there, but you should focus on what you think would actually be useful to you in your professional or personal life.” http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2007/04/26/if-i-just-had-15-minutes-each-day/

“ Five Weeks to a Social Library” Course The task-force (or whoever is responsible for implementing new technologies) should take this course. The course will cover the following topics: Blogs RSS Wikis Social Networking Software and SecondLife Flickr Social Bookmarking Software Selling Social Software @ Your Library http://sociallibraries.com/course/

Library Blogs Constant flow of communication to the users about library services, collections, and events. Exposes the breadth and depth of library services and collections. Interactive: comments! RSS can feed it out for other uses. Subscription model reduces email “spamming” from CUL staff. Different models: staff, UL or AULs, student bloggers. http://ksulib.typepad.com/talking/ http://wmusciinfo.blogspot.com/ http://www.lib.umich.edu/lib20/uberfeed.html

Library News Blogs RSS Feed RSS Feed RSS Feed Hm. Can’t find any that are exactly like ours. Oh well. We can build one.

Reference Blogs Clarifies and promotes reference services by making it more accessible and tangible. Creates a searchable knowledge base of reference questions. Different models for contribution can be considered. Embedding the Meebome widget would make even more sense, here. Hm. Can’t find the one that I liked that had a reference question posted every day, with the “answer” provided by the librarian. And, everyone can comment!

Library Suggestion Blog Library suggestions are accepted via the blog (simple web form), and are responded to by staff via the blog. Creates a knowledge-base-like searchable store of library Q&A. Engages users and staff in a constant, public dialogue about library services. http://blog.vcu.edu/libsuggest/

ratings, tagging, reviewing and getting help in the Catalog The “Ask Us” Meebome widget can live in lots of locations, not just the Ask Us reference page. Imbed it in the catalog! (Or at least a link.) Del.icio.us provides another way for users to track/collect/annotate/share their research. Rating resources helps users select which ones to start with. Reviews give insight into how useful a book was or what it contains. http://ksulib.typepad.com/talking/2008/02/fun-additions-t.html www.amazon.com http://tags.library.upenn.edu/

Catalog Platforms Next-Generation Library Catalogs by Marshall Breeding has been ordered for CUL. (I think this topic deserves more discussion from the entire group.) “ It’s a great introduction to the next generation catalogs that have come out in the past few years, including Endeca, Aquabrowser, Primo, Encore, Evergreen and Koha. It’s clear from this that the trend is definitely toward putting a search and discovery platform on top of an already existing ILS and, fortunately, it seems like most of the ones he highlights can go on top of any ILS. “ Meredith Farkas

Subject Guides 2.0 LibGuides Subject guides + tutorials, profiles, email alerts, tagging, RSS, chat, librarian profiles, widgets http:// www.springshare.com/libguides/features.html

More questions? For Management Committee? What is our view of Library 2.0 and its applicability to the University Libraries? What trends do we see regarding our users and their use of the Libraries that 2.0 concepts can address? What are we lacking in our vision and practices that 2.0 concepts might help us to achieve? What attracts us to 2.0 concepts and practices that might become goals? What commitments will the University Libraries make to implement these goals? What reordering of priorities are we willing to make? What lower-value tasks are we willing to set aside to make way for tasks that have higher value in a 2.0 environment? How can we reconfigure current positions to meet 2.0 goals? What 2.0-related knowledge and skills should we expect from academic and professional staff, and how will we bring this about? What do we want from new hires to help us reach our goals? What new types of positions do we want to create when the opportunities arise? http://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/2007/03/action_plan_for_a_20_library.html

Assessing 2.0? Nada. We could be the first! How do we build assessment into the planning stages of each web 2.0 initiative? (Not only from the user/development perspective, but post-implementation assessment of effectiveness?) Use vs. outcomes based evaluation?

Web 2.0 Research

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Web 2.0 Research