TBLC Library 2.0 Challenge

At Helene’s presentation on Jan. 17, we told you about a few things we are planning to give as Golden Tickets for your participation in the Library 2.0 Challenge.  Flash drives, MP3 players, a digital camera - what other things do you think would be great prizes?  Please let us know by posting a comment!

This morning, Helene Blowers presented “Jumping into the 2.0 Pool…without drowning’ at the TBLC Library 2.0 Challenge.     Ellen introduced Helene, who is quickly becoming the face of Library 2.0.    She is the Technology Director at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. The power point presentation is available at:  http://www.librarybytes.com/presentations/tblc.pdf and the links and sites she covered are at: http://del.icio.us/TampaBayLC.

Educating, enlightened, empowering, engaging, entertaining… what do these ‘e’ words have in common?  They are words to describe what libraries are to our users, according to Helene but they also have something else- they describe Web 2.0 as well.      In 2004, the term 2.0 was coined and in just one year- has graced the cover of Newsweek, Time, Business Week, Wired, and many other publications.   These user- generated sites are rocking the Internet; they are rocking every single type of business not just libraries.    Just like 10-13 years ago Web 1.0 changed us all. 

It has revolutionized news, when the Middle East conflict occurred in July.  Vodcasting from cell phones posted to YouTube was playing on CNN.    The first pictures of news- are coming from us! This encompasses Web 2.0 to me, the fact as Helene so poignantly laid out- we control the information age.    In Web 2.0, we are all publishers, editors and creators.  My vodcasts, my words, my opinions, can be as integral to the collective knowledge as anyone else’s on the Internet.   As Fast Company said it in June 2006, its all about the average person. 

Recently, the Washington Post and technorati partnered- so Washington Post readers read comments from blogs on relevant stories and USAToday is using DIGG or Crowdsourcing News to have readers rate stories, the more people who rate it interesting, the story is promoted up. Things are changing everywhere!

The central idea of Web 2.0 Technologies is harnessing collective intelligence – Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media.    Technologies in the heart – RSS and tagging.  

Tons of tools- lots of resources.  You don’t have to know them all – they are evolutionary.    The best will flush themselves out.  Time’s invention of the year:   YouTube!

Users are in the center- They are the key to all of these tools.   We need to be in the know about these resources.  Our scope of knowledge is changing fast- and we need to have a comfort level with some of this.  If you think we are panicking, look at the media industry – newspapers, TV news.  

Blogging

Web logs are easy to use publishing tools that are growing like crazy – Doubling in size every 5.5 months (WOW!). 

Several Cool Blogs are on the del.icio.us page.    Some things your library might blog about:  Patron Stories, Electronic Resources, news, events, programs, pictures of program events, poll your users…  At Ann Arbor Michigan, staff has an internal blog where EVERYONE on the staff can post from front line staff to the director. Other libraries use blogs to post internal communications and news.

• The Thomas Ford Memorial Library is a blog for their historical photography collection (Categories- are streets!) People can leave comments!  Users can help tell the story- people are adding value to the archives. How cool; the oral tradition for the electronic age. They use WordPress (free software). 
• Blogs can be password protected, internal only or opened to the world.
• Other examples of library blogs at:  www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links Don’t need to know HTML! There was a waste of a semester of library school.
• Other blogging ideas:  Students- create blogs to track their learning, create peer to Peer learning, monitor learning, create a community, mommy bloggers. Record the stories and pictures of life and share them!

Play for free! The point of the 2.0 challenge; therefore Helene recommends a site for each technology we covered. Play for Free Site; Try it out!  Use Blogger- free and easy to use.   All you need to do is create a user name and password. Demonstrated- in 45 seconds she created a blog!

Wikis

A Hawaiian word meaning quick A collaborative web space that anyone* can edit A useful tool for sharing library knowledge or engaging users Wikipedia allows everyone to participate (create, modify or add to an entry).  A few cool examples of wiki use in libraries.

• St Joseph Public Library (Any staff person can add anything to their subject guides practically on the fly. 
• Princeton Public Library – Book Lovers Wiki.   Anyone in community could add titles.
  Internal Planning.   – Can put behind a firewall. 
• Collaborative Space and keep everyone up to date on library projects.     Lets everyone know what everyone is doing.    Its been easy at PCMC to implement, and staff likes it.   People who never were involved can be active- from upper manangement to front line staff. 
• Everything in one place. http://www.libsuccess.org/ – Examples of successful ideas with wikis. Creating new pages, and adding to entries is easy.   Easy to collaborate. Can look at the history – and go back to any previous versions.   Can compare pages so its easy to track.

Play for Free Site:  PBWiki http://pbwiki.com/. Really simple syntax for creating and collaborating and sharing knowledge.   All together- not as much individual authors.   Owners- can be set-up for the page.  Control – and who has access- are all possible.  Can see who changed what- if you set up must have an account to up-to-date.

How do Web 2.0 sites support themselves? Advertising Hope to be purchased Premimum accounts and consulting cost are options at some sites.  90% of the usage of these sites are free users though

RSS
short for really simple syndication
an effective tool for keeping up news and trends
a great way to find out what people are saying about your library

Check it out:  YASLA – report on a month worth of good uses for social networking sites.   http://www.leonline.com/yalsa/positive_uses.pdf

RSS, is a great way to find out what people are saying about your library.
RSS (XML) is so not user –friendly in its native format. But it displays in a portal site- I can subscribe to any feed – and pull it to my portal page.   Blog software often comes with RSS.  My favorite portal is bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/). Yahoo, Google also have portals.

Interesting feeds:

• Hennepin County (includes Feeds from their catalog
• Library Elf. (create account, give library card number – and sends circ messages as RSS feed, email). !! http://www.libraryelf.com/
• Loudoun County – explains RSS for their patrons.  What does it mean?LibraryBytes – Helene’s blog.  As a long time reader, it is always relevant and interesting!
• 3 feeds every director should sign up for:  RSS searches so every time some one says something about your library, it comes to you at Technorati, Flickr, and YouTube.

Play for free site: Bloglines. http://www.bloglines.com/. Feeds from blogs and sites.  What’s new! Don’t have to remember to visit sites. Updates come to you.      Its web-based so its portable and has no installation. 

Podcasting

2005 word of the year An audio file that is available through RSS an effective way to engage youth and market library services.

Examples in Libraries:

• Lansing Public Library (series of podcasting)
• Audio Book Reviews from kids
• BookCast – Fairfax County Library System- author interviews.
• Library Director – recommended reading.
• More examples check out: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Podcasting

Play for Free: Odeo http://studio.odeo.com/create/home – record to the site, it hosts, and just cut and paste code to your site for your users to play! To post:  1- Create Account, 2- Need headphone with microphone, 3- Internet Connection! Click start- talk – click stop! Gives you an embedded player to insert in blog, and easy to share. Don’t need a streaming media server – this is provided for free.    One hour limit for podcasting for each recording for Odeo.

Can have library staff review books, patron submitted recordings! Programs, the ideas are endless.  Teens especially take to these. 

IM

Short for Instant Messaging A method of communication that has been around since the early 70s The most popular communication channel for the >30 crowd. St Joseph County Public Library- make sure use multiple providers if your using it as a service. You can use GAIM, Trillian, MEEBO or other aggregators so you just have 1 interface.  GAIM and Trillian – need to be installed but MEEBO web-based. NCSU – advertise your buddy name.   So add customers as buddies.  So users can see when your online.     Thomas Ford Memorial Library- Meebo widget- users don’t need an IM account.  Can chat right from their web site.  Ask a Librarian’s blog has a similar feature IM more personal.   Instant answers, communication for questions with users.  

Play for Free:  AIM Express- don’t need to install.

MySpace/Facebook

Most popular web site for anyone under 24
Gets the most hits every month. Surpassed Yahoo!
The reason for DOPA legislation. (which thankfully failed)

Examples of Libraries:

• Lansing, Denver PL, - embedded catalog link into MySpace page.
• PLCMC Teen Page- ‘The Loft at ImaginOn’ – podcast, program information, gaming tournament, meebo. Teens use as library web site.   PLCMC has 678 friends – all teens.   http://www.myspace.com/libraryloft
• Library facilitates, users create!
• Facebook – 94-95% penetration on college campuses.  Are you there?  Where else can you get to that many users at once.   Blogging built in feature with entries pushed to ‘friends’.

Play for Free:  Facebook and myspace- can add video blogs. Can aggregate everything. Videos.  Pictures, streaming music, polls for friends to take, live webcams.  Personal space to do whatever you want.

VBlog
Short for video blog A funway to promo library services The fastest growing communication channel on the web.
Often before the news- its on You Tube. 

Examples:

• Kenton County Library System – post 2 library videos about events a week.   
• Gail Borden – Video Extras – Book recommendations from all staff – even security.
• Denver PL – You Tube contest about “how I have fun at the library’  include Denver Public Library in name and tags.  And will feature videos on myspace account.    “Favorite Local Haunts” another contest idea.
• Arlington Heights Memorial Library – very creative.
• Broward County Library- Blues commercial. 
• TBLC library commericals.

You Tube - Gives you the code so you can embed this in your blogs and web site.

Play for Free: scenemaker (editing software) don’t even have to download software.   JumpCut   (edit a movie from upload or from You Tube), or can take pictures and make a film with words (import from Flickr or Facebook.  

Image Generators

Hosting Sites: An easy way to expand your storage space
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com
BubbleShare - add caption bubbles.Search TBLC on Flickr! Great pictures from resident photography Ben.  
Image Generators- add text to images; just search google for a list.  
Tombstones, signs, writing in the sand, book spines.  

Second Life Second Life 

School Library Journal.
Info Island Project.   
Do have to install software to a PC.
People are making serious money with linden dollars.
Harvard Law School, Coke, Amazon.com are there.  You can sell and buy in 2^nd Life. 
infoisland@ Second Life. – a library world. 
Authors come to speak.  Library of Congress
Concerts, House of Horrors.
Susan Vega.   Library Programs.  Faciliated Meetings.
VoIP available for a price.
Each aviatar is a real person. 
Architects- build it in 2nd life before- walk through virtually before built!

Find out more: 

• http://www.infoisland.org/for adult space
• http://Youthtech.info/eye4youalliance – teen space.   With teen grid- only adults, Linden Labs have background check can enter.   Teens can flag people as objectionable to get rid of problems.  Linden police all around. 
• SLurl – teleport directly to the library
• http://www.Secondlife.com/
• They just opened up their source code - so new development from the community is near. 855,000 logged in.  25,000 residents at one time. 

Conclusions Library 2.0

Web 2.0 – coming around.   Expanding communities, empowering individuals, to engage other users, encourage participation - everything libraries are about! We have so much in common, that the logical step is Library 2.0.   

Web 2.0– is user-centered change.  A step for better serving our users.   Improve our catalog, market our services, listen to our users.    Invite users to be part of our creation.   “library 2.0 meme map”  at http://flickr.com/photos/gbierens/178568449/ About open standards, perpetual beta – putting it out their ½ way done, and letting the users help create it – with their needs.  Remaining flexible.   Patron 2.0 – patrons creating content not just consuming. 

Einstein image generator: Library 2.0 = books n stuff
People
Radical trust
X participation

Deal with the exceptions – deal with them when they happen, don’t lock everything down anticipation

The cluetrain manifesto – book and a web site.   Marketing is all about conversation. Karen Schneider- Library Manifesto

• The User is Not broken everything you learned in library school will be dead one day.
• You fear loss of control, you already have
• Information flows down the path of least resistance.  
• If you block a tool the users want, they will go elsewhere to find it.
• Ignore the user, we will be tomorrow’s cobblers
• Ignorance will not protect you
• You can not change the user.

Micheal Stephens says Librarian 2.0:

• Plans for their users
• Embraces 2.0 tools
• Controls technolust (use it only if it benefits our users)
• Makes good, fast decisions (we can not wait around for committees, we need to get it out in beta)
• Is a trendspotter (we watch/listen to users/businesses and we see where we fit)
  Gets content (value not in the tools, but in the content – user added and harness).
• Listen to staff, users,, and tell the story. Play more with new things.

There is a Librarian 2.0 Manifesto You Tube video: By Laura Cohen someone grabbed her text and some guy in Denmark added music and photos in 24 hours to make a youtube.   Content moves with good tagging.

Users create tags for books in the catalog! A new move could this be the future, what do you think?

What can libraries do to continually keep up with changes?

• Get out of our boxes.
• TBLC 2.0 Blog and Challenge!
• Site: Five Weeks to a Social Library. (includes how to promote to your libraries) learn for free site.
• Learning 2.0 at PLCMC - 23 things.  Duplicated by numerous libraries.   Learn from own peer-to-peer network.
• Its about getting out head out of the sand.  We do not need to be experts, we just a little bit of knowledge on each- what benefits, what patrons, you could do.

Create Lifelong learning habits-

• Begin with the end in mind.
• Accept responsibility for your own learning – don’t wait, ask!
• View problems as challenges
• Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
• Create your own learning toolbox
• Use technology to your advantage (only a tool, its not the end with AH!)
• Teach and Mentor Others (show something cool, helps teach you)
• PLAY!!!! Give yourself and others time to play.  

I am pretty comfortable with Web 2.0, and I walked away with my head spinning! She had so many great ideas, and thoughts about the future.   What did you walk away with, what struck you the most???? Remember comments to this post will earn you a golden ticket!