Tame The Web

Gary Hamel notes: “The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy.” He offers a set of ideas that tomorrow’s employees will look for in progressive institutions:

•  All ideas compete on an equal footing.
  
• Contribution counts for more than credentials.
  
• Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
  
• Leaders serve rather than preside.
  
• Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
  
• Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
  
• Groups are self-defining and -organizing.

How does your library stack up?

Christine Rooney-Browne,  a PhD student based at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, wrote back in March about her experience at  The Mitchell Library in Glasgow “soaking up the atmosphere from the latest Aye Write Book Festival:”

I had thought it might be a good idea to tweet about the events I attended but when I tried to access Twitter on The Mitchell Library’s public access computers I was informed that Twitter was considered to be an ‘unacceptable website’. Surely not, I thought, so I tried again, on a different computer.  Same message again.   Made me wonder about what else would be blocked.  Attempted to login toFacebook and although the ‘unacceptable website’ message did not pop  up, a strange login screen did and when I attempted to type in my user name and password I realised that nothing was appearing on the screen. Seemed to be locked out of that one as well.  Tried MySpace, same thing! Okay, they’re blocking social networking websites I thought….but then something happened that made no sense whatsoever.  I was able to login to Bebo no problem.   I also tried to access Flickrand YouTube but they were inaccessible too.  Stranger still was what I found out later.   Glasgow City Council had been using Twitter to help promote the Aye Write festival, and there were buttons on the Aye Write website encouraging users to visit their profile on both Facebook and MySpace…  

Read the comments – it gets very interesting – including an exchange with the head of Marketing and Public Relations at Glasgow City Council. Christine wonders why Twitter is blocked when the GCC is using it for promotion:

We’re having a look at that just now.

You’re throwing up another interesting question for Local Government: Do you get back to the customer with what information you have, thus ensuring that you give a quick, although not full, response? Or do you wait ’till you have all the facts before getting back, thus ensuring a full, but slower, response?

You’ll see I tend towards the former.

One other thing: we have a customer contact system which logs enquiries, complaints etc, and the responses and response times. I don’t know whether we’ve ever logged the message trail following a blog posting in this system, so this could be a, small but significant, first.

Best - C

This really speaks to the next barrier libraries are running up against with social networking: governing bodies above the library. These are the folks we need to be talking to – library folk are doing pretty darn well these days. I’m intrigued to hear what’s happened since this post. Are the sites unblocked?

I was working last week on various writing projects and updating presentations when it struck me I should check in and see if my hometown library Mishawaka Penn Harris Public Library had relaxed the ban on Facebook and MySpace that I wrote about on TTW and that Michael and I covered in the our LJ column. I called the library and spoke with the public relations person. Through the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I had sent the column draft and links to all of the online discussions to the library adminstration last year just as an FYI. It turns out the administrators never received the email. The very same day I received this letter from Victoria Gutschenritter, Assistant Director at the library:

To: Michael Stephens
From: Victoria Gutschenritter
Re: Transparent Library column
Date: 3/20/09

Victoria Gutschenritter
Assistant Director
Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library

I am happy to get this news from Mishawaka and I hope the board quickly decides to get rid of the ban on Facebook. I pay yearly property taxes in the city and I hope my hometown library will see the importance of offering access to one of the most used social sites around. In the past few months, all the folks I knew at good ole Mishawaka High School have found their way to Facebook. It’s a shame many of us who still live in town couldn’t get to our profiles, walls, inboxes and apps at the library. I also use Facebook in my teaching – and shouldn’t resources used for education be available at the public library?

I would also invite the adminstrators, librarians and staff at MPHPL — and citizens of Mishawaka if they ever find this blog — to share their thoughts here or at the original TTW post. I’m very interested in what they have to say!

Comment away!

Do not miss this intriguing discussion that really speaks to the sea change were in.

Star here, with this post from Bob McKee, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP): (emphasis in bold mine)

http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/cesdesk/archive/2009/02/18/all-of-a-twitter.aspx

There’s some twittering at present about whether CILIP has (or should have) any “official” presence on various lists or micro blog sites.

The simple answer, of course, is no. In terms of “official” activity, cyber life is just like real like – if it happens in a CILIP-sanctioned space, it’s official; if it happens down the pub or in someone else’s space, it isn’t.

But there’s a deeper question to address. As everybody networks with everybody else in an increasingly informal and always-on way, how do organisations maintain a culture of inclusion and, at the same time, retain a methodical approach to work planning, managing, and decision-making? This is a critical issue for organisations like professional bodies or indeed academic institutions – any organisation where a rational approach to management is potentially conflicted by the emotional affiliation of members to their peer group: academics to their field of study rather than to their university; LIS specialists to their field of specialism rather than to their professional institute.

Then, head to Phil Bradley’s blog:

http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2009/02/cilip—epic-fail.html

… I like Bob – he’s a nice chap and very personable, but I can’t articulate enough how wrong he is on this issue, though I’ll try. He says ‘There’s some twittering at present about whether CILIP has (or should have) any “official” presence on various lists or micro blog sites. Sorry Bob, but we were discussing this on Twitter two weeks ago. The boat has long since left on this one and we’ve moved onto other things related to CILIP now. This in itself is worrying – if you’d actually looked at Twitter you would have known this, so clearly you’re being briefed and are blogging about it without any real understanding. That’s fair enough in a way, because no-one can be on top of everything, though if it’s important enough for you to blog, surely it’s important enough to research a little yourself.

The more important issue isn’t that, it’s the delay in a response. Two weeks is not only unacceptable, it’s insane. We don’t live in a world where people have the leisure to take their time crafting a response; we did back in the day when websites were the way to get a message out, but then we moved into a response time of hours with blogs, and now we’re at minutes with Twitter. As a rule of thumb, I’m finding that a mention of an organization or company on Twitter is getting me a response within a couple of hours now. And these are companies, both large and small, who feel that it’s important to respond to comments from individuals, both good and bad. Less than this is sending out a very poor message indeed. Now, I know that the answer here is going to be referred to lack of staff, limited facilities and so on, and that’s simply a cop out. An effective use of resources, monitoring blogs etc can be automated, take very little effort to set up or use and information can then be disseminated through the organization quickly. In my courses I teach librarians how to do this, and in most cases it’s just pointing them towards the right tools. If they can do it on a personal level, surely we can expect the professional body to do the same thing?

Phil’s points are golden – especially about monitoring the conversation and the automated options that make it doable. Frankly, there will is no “sanctioned space” any more for organizations or associations. If you believe that – there’s a problem. the conversation will go on long after everyone has decided to ignore your sacred, sanctioned space. That’s what the “Hyperlinked Library” is all about – transparency, listening, responding.

Into the mix come Jenny Levine, and her take on ALA’s use of Twitter:

http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2009/02/27/twitter-on-ala-and-some-advice.html

And wow did Twitter play a big part. Kenley Neufeld sums it up pretty well, and even notes how fun the experience was. If you had asked me, I wouldn’t have predicted that four councilors would tweet from the floor during council sessions, thereby providing an effective, real-time transcript of what was happening. Even beyond that, though, I got to participate in meetings I wasn’t physically at (from within other meetings), as did people who weren’t even in Denver. And good things came from all of it (including a helpful guide for what *not* to do).

So when we got back, I decided to do a presentation at the February ITTS Update meeting about Twitter on ALA. Not ALA on Twitter, but Twitter’s effect on the Association and the story of Midwinter that Twitter produced. Luckily, many of the people who tweet about us have a sense of humor, so there were some good laughs in the screenshots, especially about our content management system (Collage). So thank you to everyone who publicly tweeted about us in January, especially at Midwinter, because you helped me illustrate a moment in time when something changed forALA. I definitely think communication and conferences will never be the same for our organization, and I’m fascinated to see where this all leads.

Later:

As I was getting ready to hit the “publish” button, I saw Phil Bradley’s post about CILIP and Twitter (or lack thereof). It made me realize how far ALA has come, and how lucky I am to work in an environment where I’m allowed to experiment in these spaces and help integrate them into the Association. I live in a really special place right now, both professionally and personally, and I don’t take that for granted.

And Jenny linked to Peter Bromberg’s post about Twitter etiquette. Peter is one of my favorite bloggers. I appreciate his take:

http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/twitiquette-short-but-helpful-guide-to.html

We actually talked about this in class last night. With folks so connected and the opportunity to contribute to back channel chatter so easy these days, we should remind ourselves of the this simple rule: Play Nice. I’ve been disappointed of late seeing some of the snarky chatter and lack of respect for speakers and conference attendees at some events. Folks pay money for conferences and should have a civil, engaging experience free of in-jokes and snark. Constructive criticism is good if it contributes. As Peter points out, snark is NOT GOOD.

So..this rambling post leads to these points for all:

• Use Twitter and other tools in your library or organization in ways that makes sense and serve the mission/vision of what you are doing: to save time, to smooth a process, to communicate, to respond.
  
• Don’t dismiss the power of conversations happening OUTSIDE your space. They are probably just as important if not more.
  
• Play nice via the social tools. Respect people’s viewpoints and engage with them. Snark is cheap. Snark is easy.  Put yourself in the shoes of someone just discovering the Biblio-social-network-sphere or attending a conference for the first time on hard-earned money. What experience should they take away?

http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-libraries-can-learn-from-facebook.html

Peter Bromberg wirites:

But I also think that librarians, at times, can be too knee-jerk about privacy issues, and I wonder if while looking at one end of the Facebook dustup (big corporation trampling on privacy rights) we might be missing some important lessons on the other end (big corporation letting customers control their own information in exchange for a highly engaging experience. And Facebook DOES give customers a tremendous, leading edge, amount of control. See: “10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know.)

We all know that people (myself, and probably you included) will share personal information in exchange for a quality experience. We share personal renting and buying habits in exchange for Netflix and Amazon recommendations. We share personal reading habits on GoodReads and LibraryThing to connect with others who share our interests and tastes. We share our credit card numbers with many online vendors in exchange for the convenience of “one-click” ordering.

We know all this, and we personally experience the benefits, but librarians still seem generally loathe to let our customers share their personal information in exchange for anything. We don’t just protect customer privacy, we paternalistically protect it from the customers themselves, rendering them childlike. Our privacy philosophy often reduces down to, “We know better”, or “You can’t be trusted with that–you’ll hurt yourself.”

Well said, Peter! I am really counting on some of the emerging systems like Bibliocommons, the SOPAC and more to help us come to terms with users making connections within our spaces.

Take a look at the pre-print articles he has in the queue:

http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/jwl/socialeyes.aspx

I’m enjoying his original voice and insights – especially about the use of social tools by libraries. Take a look at the pre-prints. These pieces will surely be often-cited  as soon as they are published.

http://www.stuntdubl.com/2009/01/12/social-marketing-failure/

1. You Chose the Wrong Channels
2. You Used the Wrong People
3. Your Content Sucked
4. Your Team Didn’t Believe in the Project
5. You Didn’t Execute
6. No one Trusted You
7. You Forgot about Search

Great insights for library folk who might be working at marketing their libraries in new channels. Really speaks to buy in, putting the right people on the job and trust. Check it out.

(Corrected link! Thanks Raylynn)

If you have some time, don’t miss this engaging chat between two of my favorite innovators in the technology/education world. Their discussion centers around social networks, learning and the future of education.

http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/a-talk-with-howard-rheingold/

I’ve posted about this blog already but I have to come back to it. A Dominican University Journalism class is using a Blogspot blog to report news and more to the campus and beyond. Our Dean of Rosary College, Jeff Carlson, shared the URL with me and I subscribed immediately.

I was rather excited so I emailed the GSLIS Faculty and the Academic IT Committee:

It’s a journalism class – and the content just keeps coming! The voices are human, honest and engaging. I have learned so much about Dominican and student life from this blog – I’ve added it to my news portal. Created simply with Blogger, it seems to be generating many comments and feedback. I have pointed to it once on my blog but will be writing about it again and sharing it with my social tools colleagues.  Good stuff.

I truly believe this is the future of marketing and engagement – a perfect example of social media done right: sometimes messy, sometimes silly, sometimes thought-provoking…but very real.

I checked in today and found that the posts and comments continue, so here are five reasons I think this is a good thing for the University. This venue seems to be a useful way for students to learn and more:

They are learning journalism skills but also media and promotional skills. Check out the video embedded in this post about the blog’s promotion around campus. Images augment posts as well.

They are finding their voice. “Ya know what really grinds my gears?,” asked one poster. “Mandatory attendance at extracurricular academic activities.” Entering the conversation openly and honestly is important. Learning how to state one’s case fairly and evenly is even more important. A “grind my gears” post is a good way to express frustration and call for solutions. The act of writing it down helps the thinking process.

They are getting invaluable experience in new media. Blogging didn’t exist when i took journalism classes at IU. These skills are invaluable. And sure, blogging will fade away but the next online communication mechanism built on it will be just as important for our future leaders to understand. Imagine: the blogging undergrad of today might just be tomorrow’s library director.

They are interacting with University officials. The “Bullet found on Campus” story generated buzz and one young reporter found herself chatting with Dean Carlson not only about the story but about the journalism program. “After the 45 minute discussion Carlson and I shared, I left his office feeling fabulous about the possibilities DU can provide future journalists. I was enthusiastic to see how receptive, appreciative and understanding Carlson was in hearing what, why, when and how I think new courses would dramatically enhance the journalism curriculum…” Here’s another example of that interaction.

They are asking important questions. This post really interested me: within our MyDU Web site, photos are featured prominently, including some of students who did not know they were being photographed. “Perhaps the mystery photographer was trying to capture the “essence” of Dominican. I still don’t think it would have been ridiculous for the photographer to ask for permission, or at least make the students aware that Dominican was going to use the photos. What do you think about this? Would you care if this happened to you? Do you find it creepy, or not a big deal?” As we all deal with our online lives and “digital dossiers,” asking these questions about photos, privacy, student rights and the University are important in deciding how we might share ourselves. 

They are marketing Dominican University in a way that no PR campaign ever can. I really appreciated the varied voices, the honesty and the range of topics. As I said above, I’ve learned more about what’s up with our students and the way they see the University than any other online offering available. Google loves blogs and future students will find this blog and the voices and it may just help them decide to come to school here.

Well done, DominiNET!

Via Brett Kochendorfer

Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. This means means more people engaging more deeply with your website — and with each other. In this video, Google Product Marketing Manager Mendel Chuang gives a short introduction to Google Friend Connect.

Very interesting -especially the bit about ease of sign on via any number of services and adding the Friend Connect to your site takes no programming skills whatsoever. Looks like ratings, friends and comments can easily be integrated. Ways it might affect libraries:

• Folks will come to expect this type of functionality more and more. Sites that aren’t “friendly” might not be the most popular.
• Some libraries will experiment with this as an easy to configure “buy it now” (for free) social option for their sites.
• This could become a popular add on for many Biblioblogs.
• It certainly positions Google to have even more integration into what we do on the Web.

Take a look at the video. What other uses do you see? What misuses do you see?

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/9-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-social-media.html

Some of my favorites:

4. Integrity

Don’t be phony! Be yourself — it’s what your social network friends added you for. There are, of course, many ways to “game” just about every social media system, to get more diggs, to appear to have more followers, to get your posts Stumbled, and so on. But in the end, it’s an empty gain — people who follow you because you appear to be something you’re not will quickly un-follow you, people who end up at your site because you managed to get more votes on a post than you deserve will leave without reading, and all you’ll have is an empty number to show off.

5. Focus

Signing up for social networking sites and social news sites is easy, but unless you’re willing to put in some work, you won’t get much out of it. You need to keep your profile reasonably up-to-date, maintain at least a marginally active presence, and talk to other people now and again to make it work. If you have a hundred different profiles on a hundred different sites, you’ll soon get overwhelmed and none of them will get the attention they need to thrive. Pick a handful of services and sites to put a lot of energy into — or however many you have time to really commit to — and stay off the rest.

6. Diversify

That said, don’t participate in too few sites, either. First of all, if you slip up and damage your reputation at one, you’ll have to start from scratch somewhere else. But more importantly, different sites have different strengths. LinkedIn is best for professional advance, MySpace for broadcasting your interests and creative work; Digg is traditionally better suited to news, especially technology and weird stuff, StumbleUpon to smaller niches.

I can’t say enough about finding the right fit with whatever network you choose and utilizing that one with the tips included above. My favorite is still Flickr. The level of feedback, participation and discovery I have there works well for me. Twitter worked well during summer break as I played around with location aware services and shared silly happenings.

What would you add to the list?

http://www.cloudtrip.com

Again, via ALA Direct! Check out all the choices, including http://posterous.com/

http://rosellelibrary.ning.com/

I’m getting ready for upcoming presentations today and I realized I needed to give Roselle Public Library a big shout out for the Ning network created for patrons and staff. Take a look. I’m glad to see a library choose a social tool, put some time and effort into its upkeep, and see the community respond.

Lori Reed writes:

http://librarytrainer.com/2008/08/02/bill-to-ban-facebook-in-libraries/

What I am really here to say is that it’s important to educate children so that they can make smart decisions in any circumstance.

From USA Today:

Congress is considering a bill that would bar children who use computers in public libraries from accessing Facebook and other social networking websites without parental permission.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard recently.

First, how will we define “other social networking websites” when pretty much every site is becoming a social networking site? Has anyone in Congress heard of Web 2.0?

Second, how does this teach children to think for themselves and make smart choices? We cannot block every site where a predator could be lurking just as we cannot place children in a bubble when we send them out the door to school every day.

As librarians and library staff we have to advocate for educating our public officials, the media, parents, and children about the real dangers of the Internet – ignorance.

If you haven’t yet take a look at the ALA Libraries & the Internet Toolkit. Most of the content is dated 2003, but it is still relevant.

From the USA Today article:

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, the Illinois Republican who sponsored the measure, says the proposal would keep sexual predators from contacting minors who are using a library computer.

But the American Library Association says Kirk’s bill is yet another attempt by the federal government to interfere with library users’ privacy and free speech.

“If people in a community do not feel confident that their privacy will be protected, they cannot use the library as it was intended, for intellectual pursuit,” said Emily Sheketoff, who heads the association’s Washington office. “It will intimidate them.”

A few thoughts:

It makes me sad this this type of legislation comes from Illinois, one of the most progressive states for library innovation IMHO. Why are folks like Kirk not talking to librarians in the state to get a clearer picture of what this type of ban would mean to libraries and library users?

Why oh why do we always jump to “Ban this” and “Don’t Allow that?” – yes, libraries do it too!

I agree with Lori Reed; the key is education education education.

For more:

Banning Flickr

Thoughtful Advocates

I’m always happy to hear from former students. I just got a nice email from Mick Jacobsen. TTW readers may remember him from his info about LibGuides. He’s moved on to some cool stuff:

Our first gaming event is taking place later today (spearheaded by me).  We have a Wii and PS2 for DDR.  So far nearly 50 kids of signed up, luckily we also have lots of board games so no riots.  We will have an adult gaming event in the near future and I am working with the senior centers to bring the Wii to them.

The website is rolling along.  I added a new rating system to our blogs, 1-10 stars.  I am hoping it will bring more interaction and ownership of the website to the patrons.  http://www.franklinparklibrary.org

I created a Summer Reading Blog http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=blog/12.   The patrons can submit books using a form I built which emails me the submission and permission to post it on our blog.  I also check out our hand written entries and contact individuals with interesting, different reviews of items.  All the patrons seem pleased to see their reviews of items on the website (especially the elderly who normally don’t look at computers).  Our comments on these items are also stronger than the average blog entry.  I am wondering if I should continue the blog past the Summer Reading and make it just a patron recommendation blog.  I am not sure if the authorship would be there, but it would be a fun experiment. 

I had an article written about one of my projects in the local newspaper.  I am using Google maps to “map” Franklin Park.  I created an image and description Historical map and a modern Places of Note map.  I am in the midst of working on a map of all the road construction taking place in Franklin Park.   I embed the maps on our website and try to get  people involved.  

http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=node/292 for the Places of Note map
http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=node/291 of the Historical map

I am in the midst of a “Splash Page” experiment.  I know many are anti splash pages, but I think they could really work for public libraries and I am conducting a study to see if my hypothesis is correct.  It is not pure science, but does lead to some great conclusions.  

So I emailed Mick and asked if I could publish his update on TTW and would he answer this question:

What’s helped you be most successful with these projects?

His response says a lot about organizational culture, that important sense of play, self-motivation and the wealth of info available online:

In no particular order:

1.  An innate desire to try new things (why else go in to Library Science but to try new cool stuff).

2.  Complete confidence that I have the support from my management (top to bottom) to try new things.  How many libraries would let a new graduate (graduated in January) the freedom that I am given?  I got to redesign, reorganize, rethink an entire website in Drupal and much, much more (I have not told you about very important but not sexy stuff I have implemented e.g. email notices for nearly overdue items, pc reservation, print release, etc.).  Most of the time they have no idea what I am doing, simply trusting that I am doing something beneficial for the library.  It has become a sort of joke, “What have you added this week, haha.”  And I say, well this cool thing called LibX or rating stars or a suggestion form or a summer reading blog or an online sign up for programs, or Google translate, etc.  

3.  The willingness to fail in trying new things (these projects are not necessarily successes as of yet…).  And many grand ideas have failed and been buried, but not forgotten.  

4.  The joy in reading blog after blog ferreting out great info and trying to turn them to library uses.  

5.  Making the time to research, play with, and eventually (or not) implement new ideas.  

6.  Being able to enthusiastically bounce crazy ideas of coworkers without having them get annoyed.   

7.  Not being bogged down by bureaucracy.  

http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2008/07/27/counters-to-enterprise-20-objections/

John at Library Clips weighs in on 15 Objections to Using Social Learning:

Objection #5: How Do You Know it’s Accurate?

What if someone posts inaccurate information (unlike email it’s visible to a lot of people), and someone acts on it?

I actually mentioned this in a previous post as the garderns job, to go back to old posts and re-edit them or use comments to correct situations. But this is self-organised as well, the ecosystem may correct itself to an extent, people are quick to catch people out and correct things. The blogosphere is self-regulating in this way, you say something that is bad practice, and you are knocked down…in the enterprise I would hope that you don’t lose your credibillty (once bitten twice shy).

Actually, these occurrences are lessons learned we all witness in the open blogs, so we all learn from it as it happens, we experience it together…it sticks in our minds.

I almost like the idea that the openess and informalness of blogs can reveal bad practice. If you want to stamp out bad practices start some internal blogs, people’s inaccuracies will come to light, we can all evolve and correct behaviour. It’s like the wound healing itself.

Kevin shares a story where a manager didn’t like the idea of non-authoritative people posting for all to see for fear of inaccuracy and the consequences that may follow.

“Leaving the meeting she walked by some cubes where she overheard one person describing an HR policy to the other person that was completely incorrect. And the second person took it as gospel.”

She suddenly realized, 1) How many times does this happen and I don’t know about it? 2) If they asked this question using the tools we were talking about, more people would be able to respond and the right answer would surface

What a great story!

• Objection #15 – The Silent Yet Deadly
• Objection #14: Prove It!
• Objection #13: How Do You Measure ROI?
• Objection #12: How Will You Measure That It Is Working?
• Objection #11: Too Much Info
• Objection #10: Wasting Time
• Objection #9: They Aren’t Technical
• Objection #8: Out of Date Information
• Objection #7: The Information is Wrong!
• Objection #6: Mixing Things Up
• Objection #5: How Do You Know it’s Accurate?
• Objection #4: Posting Anything, Including Bonobos
• Objection #3: Control of Information
• Objection #2: What Does This Have To Do With Training?
• Objection #1: Socialize!

Brian Kenney writes:

Have you heard of 23 Things, the self-guided program for learning about 2.0 web technology? It was developed by Helene Blowers a couple of years ago at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and since then has been adopted across the country by public and school libraries, districts, and even entire states. It consists of a number of “things,” or small exercises, that you do online to expand your knowledge of the 2.0 web and social networking, from blogs and podcasts to wikis and Twitter.

For a while now (and prodded by our Technology Editor, Kathy Ishizuka) I’ve realized it would be a great idea if all of us here at SLJ went through a “23 Things” like experience. After all, we are always writing about different 2.0 applications, shouldn’t we experience them as well? Walk the walk, talk the talk, and all of that…So I resolved that we’d do it this summer.

So that’s what we are going to do. But Iwe’re not going it alone; we’ve asked 2.0 guru, Dominican faculty member, and season trainer Michael Stephens to join us for the ride. Beginning Monday, July 21, Michael will author a blog here on SLJ.com that will lead us through the different exercises, offer guidance, answer questions, and even provide a little hand-holding. We’re calling it “All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience.”

There’s no need to sign up–just show up. Again, we’ll begin on July 21 and wrap things up in early September. 

If you haven’t, what you find may surprise you.  That man you saw earlier today picking up his holds may be thinking about writing a review that mentions how much he likes dropping by the library to grab his books and go.  The fact is our patrons, both the satisfied and dissatisfied, are talking about us in their blogs on review sites like Yelp.  These sites enable our customers to reach larger audiences than ever before, and to share what they like and dislike about the service provided.  This is something libraries should be thinking about and preparing for.

Once you’re aware of these review sites the library has some questions to answer.   Should the library join these sites and add reviews or other content?  Should the library respond to negative reviews, correct inaccurate information, and so on?  Who’ll be responsible for periodically checking these sites and what guidelines should they be working with.

I’d encourage libraries to consider adding content to review sites, especially in cases where the library hasn’t yet been reviewed.  These first reviews represent an opportunity to share services the library offers such as Wi-Fi, and virtual reference service.  Be up front about identifying yourself as the library and keep it brief.   Be factual and focus on services, let your customers be the ones to offer praise.

Libraries should consider carefully how or if they’ll respond to reviews.    My advice would be to let the community police itself and to have faith that the good service you provide will balance out the occasional poor review.  Yelp offers some good advicefor business owners that also applies to libraries.

Read the whole post here:

http://downloadablelibrarian.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/compliments-complaints-and-conversations/

Thanks to Shanti at SJCPL for the link.

http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/42288438/loopt-sms-mess

I’ll give you a minute for that to sink in, because if you’re a connected person, you may want to ponder the consequences of unintentionally sending creepy bullshit to colleagues and business contacts who are too busy to care what you’re “geo-tagging” at a given time. I know, because I’m one of them. Hi.

I am still playing with Loopt but this post is food for thought. My updates (I’m at the corner of…. or I’m in Spider Lake…) go to trusted friends on Loopt but also to Facebook and Twitter. Hmmm…

Profiles have great potential, writes David Warlick:

I’ve mentioned this in some of my presentations, that I do not believe that we – educators older than 30 (arbitrarily chosen age) - truly understand social networks yet.  For instance, we’re trying to grow individual and independent social networks out of every discipline, school level, and just about any other probable community of educational interest.  I’ll bet I’ve been contaced by e-mail or phone call by no fewer than ten people over the past month, each wanting me to see their social network.  “This social network is going to revolutionize physical education!”

What strikes me is that our students make it work with just one.  The three main choices, as far as I know, are MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook, the later seeming to be the one of choice at present.  So why didn’t we figure out how to use Facebook as the social network for NECC.  I looked there for a group for NECC.  I probably won’t do that again :-/

So, anyway, I keep wondering about this.  What’s the point, beyond costing time, which I guess many of our students have more to spend.  It seems to me, that the true potential for all of this, and something that I don’t even think Facebook has truly captured yet, is the profile.  What bothers me about social networks is that they have walls.  It’s a weekness of Ning, in my opinion, that there do not seem to be easy and logical ways for us to connect to each other, based on common interests, regardless of the networks we’ve joined.  There are certainly security issues.  But for me to learn, to grow, to solve problems, and accomplish goals, I need to connect to people and resources that help me do that.

Creating one profile that extends to all of my networks – to all of my spaces intrigues me. Is this the next step? One place? One profile? Many extensions?

Will all of these eventually be one:

• Del.icio.us
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Last.fm
• LibraryThing
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube

David Pogue writes:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/

A few months ago, I blogged about my mixed feelings toward Facebook, LinkedIn and the like. I get about 15 invitations a day, from people I don’t know, asking to be friends. It’s flattering, of course, but there’s an etiquette problem: Do I accept them all, just to be friendly — but thereby defeat the purpose of building a true social network? Or do I reject or ignore them, hurting their feelings and making me seem like an ingrate?

Little did I know that I’m not alone — and that my affliction actually has a name. It’s Social Networking Anxiety Disorder (SNAD), as I discovered in this tongue-in-cheek, but dead-on, blog post.

  

A Year in the Life (via iTunes), originally uploaded by mstephens7.

When I do talks, I always try to relate changes in technology to how they can impact, enhance or chronicle people’s lives. I’ve been highlighting LastFM in The Hyperlinked Libraries and other presentations since 2006. I was pleased to discover a new site called lastgraph – which takes LastFM data and creates graphs and charts. 

Looking at the graph above, I can see major milestones in the last 12 months. It blows my mind how a “year in the life” can be represented by music tracks played, or by Flickr streams, by Facebook statuses, etc. I wonder what stories the graph will tell in ten years?

If you are so inclined to peruse my listening habits (including the huge Xanadu fixation last fall), here’s the full PDF of the graph: lastfmgraph

Via Michael Casey:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7325019.stm

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children.

Its statistics suggest that around 19% of all UK youngsters have a presence on a social networking site.

“Social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives,” said James Thickett, director of market research at Ofcom.