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 […]
Daily Archives: November 13, 2008
11 posts
http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20081113 Did the authors read my tweets about yesterday’s program? 🙂
LPL Flashdrives, originally uploaded by Lester Public Library. 512MB Thumb Drives, Friends of Lester Public Library Fundraiser, $15.00 each, comes in pink, black, green, red, and blue. Purchase at the circulation desk. Lester Public Library, Two Rivers, Wisconsin
Library Services Hierarchy, originally uploaded by herzogbr. Take a look: http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/11/13/what-is-necessary-what-is-possible Not that any of this is rocket science, or isn’t discernible by anyone else that works in a library. I think I did this as an exercise to illustrate patron-centricness. When it comes to library services, everything we offer should be addressing a need from “up the chain.” Offering services just because we can, or because it’s something being pushed on us from “below,” doesn’t justify that service. If a service doesn’t address a patron need, then should we really be offering it?
youtube contest for high school students, originally uploaded by pollyalida. Good example of generating interest and promotion about “Ask a Librarian.” Hey Tampa folks, you should have told me about this last week. I’ll add it to my talks.
Fascinating article in SLJ from David Loertscher: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6610496.html Last year, when I thought of revising my book Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program (Hi Willow, 2000), I realized that I had pushed the traditional model of school libraries about as far as it could go. We don’t need a revision. We need a reinvention. Experts say that the rank and file of any profession can’t re-create itself because it’s too enmeshed in the status quo. We’re more hopeful. What has to happen for school libraries to become relevant? If we want to connect with the latest generation of learners and teachers, […]
Don’t miss this article from Sarah Houghton-Jan and Aaron Schmidt: http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov08/Schmidt_Houghton-Jan.shtml While there are many quick, one-time things you can do to make your content findable, we’ll address those later. First, we have to make sure that there’s a reason to promote your library and its website. If you’re not offering relevant services or interesting content on your site, there’s really nothing to promote. The most important and effective thing you can do to make your content findable and to draw people back is the most difficult: Make a good website. Creating a website is ridiculously easy, and it takes […]
Kathryn Greenhill reports on Liz Wilkinson, University of Auckland, presenting at the LIANZA 2008 conference:  I was very impressed with an information literacy package she had helped to design. Te Punga uses online graphic novels and simulations to introduce students to the library catalogue. I was even more impressed with her philosophy behind the design – and I have tried to capture this in this movie, Information Literacy: Seven ways to think outside the box. She was very gracious about being filmed with no rehearsal time, and I’m very grateful to her and the University Of Auckland for allowing me to use her words […]
Great stuff: Tips to Make a University Student Blogging Program Successful You Can Never Have Enough Feedback The final step to a successful student blogging program is to constantly pursue feedback. Successful bloggers utilize user feedback to improve their writing and focus on topics that their readers would be interested in. Ask prospective students, current students, alumni, and staff to give their impressions of these blogs and suggestions of what they would like to see. Some of my best blog entries were inspired by e-mails from readers who asked what I had to say on a topic that interested them. […]
Via Andrew Finegan from Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, comes another example of taking the library to the users. The books are read and passed on to others – great idea. Is anyone doing this in the States? http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/wheelbarrow_library_service.html The vehicle As it takes its cargo of books to sunbathers, paddlers and beach walkers, our all terrain wheelbarrow skims along the sand like a jet powered hovercraft . It is orange and is decked out with flags, bells and a horn. You won’t be able to miss it! What’s on offer Beach goers of all persuasions are invited to rummage through our barrow […]