 |
CIL 2008 - Fast & Easy Site Tune-Ups |
|
Fast & Easy Site Tune-Ups - presented by Jeff Wisniewski
Technorati Tags: cil2008 |
|
|
Submitted by: RayAna Park, Web Developer
|
So you’re ready to redesign your website, and you want a complete renovation! Trust me, it can be daunting task. Consider making iterative changes to your website instead — you can still make a significant difference by applying these upgrades incrementally.
Comments (0)April 14, 2008
|
|
CIL 2008 - Web 2.0 Services for Smaller Libraries |
|
Overall, the conference was full of great speakers and interesting topics. As Lee Rainie had stated in his Keynote speech, this is the “era of user-generated content” - aka Web 2.0. People are beginning to take on this mindset that the internet is the computer and are storing things online such as documents (Google Docs), playlists, pictures (Flickr), etc. Keeping all the technology changes in mind, we ask ourselves where should a Library’s funds go? It should go to both Librarians and technology because people who go to libraries expect both to be top-notch. Web 2.0 for Services for Smaller, Underfunded Libraries - presented by Sarah Houghton-Jan
I’ll be posting more notes from the sessions I attended, so keep an eye out for those! Technorati Tags: cil2008 |
|
|
Submitted by: RayAna Park, Web Developer
|
I had the privilege to attend January 17, 2008
|
|
Never thought you’d be teaching? |
|
Everyone plays multiple “roles” in everyday life. What did Carla mean by this? Well as soon as you get up in the morning, you may “play the part” of a wife or husband, then a commuter or driver; even at work, you are a supervisor or colleague, a meeting attendee… It doesn’t mean you’re “pretending” to be someone you’re not. Certainly your demeanor as a raging driver doesn’t carry over into your attitude at work or I’m sure your gait and gesture commuting through the city is different from taking a stroll through Fairmount Park. Well, teaching is also a “role” that you take on and have the audience believe you are the teacher even though they may see you in other roles. As Carla continued her presentation, she didn’t miss a beat, and demonstrated how to handle bratty students. All of this was both funny, fun, and effective, not only in showing us what to do but also in keeping us awake. She also told us about the 3 different types of learners which helped us, as Jenkins’ staff, understand why our CLE classes are so well received. We appeal to all 3 learning types by: demonstrating each exercise on the projector screen, talking the students through the steps of the exercise, all while the students are actually going through the exercise on their own. Good to know and good to keep in mind when we are teaching! Some quick tips for public speaking:
Carla List-Handley, SUNY Distinguished Librarian Emerita and creator of “Performance Workshops“, was the guest speaker for TCLC’s workshop: Teaching as Performance at Rosemont College on January 9, 2008. Carla List-Handley received her B.A. in Theatre from the University of Wisconsin and her Master of Arts in Library of Science from the University of Iowa. |
|
|
Submitted by: RayAna Park, Web Developer
|
How many people, including myself as a Web Developer, predicted that they would ever have to stand in front of a classroom to teach? I never thought I would, and to most of the Librarians at the Tri-State College Library Cooperative’s (TCLC’s) “Teaching as Performance” workshop, the responsibility of teaching also came unexpectedly but with the territory. Not only did the workshop give good insight on how to speak effectively to an audience but through a live demonstration, we experienced how a good and bad public speaker can effect our learning. Without giving too much away, these are some of the highlights of Carla’s presentation that my colleagues and I have put together. If you would like to know more, I’d encourage you to April 19, 2007
|
|
The Future of the Catalog |
|
Tim Spalding of LibraryThing started out with his talk entitled “The Fun OPAC”. Tim quotes Casey Bisson who said that the OPAC was broken in three ways: usability, findability and remixability. Tim argues that that is not enough - he also thinks it’s missing funability. He gave us an example from Big (the movie) where Tom Hanks says that one of the toy ideas isn’t fun. Tim says that everyone is a toy company now. Users expect the web to fun and easy. If a site doesn’t change from visit to visit it’s boring - and our OPACs never change!! Unlike other speakers on this topic, Tim thinks we need to bring the catalog out front and center. He says so used to hiding it behind our websites because we’re ashamed of it - and we can’t change it (which is very true). So, how do we make it fun?
Next up - Roy Tennant!!! Roy was worried that we were all there to see Tim, but everyone stayed to hear what he had to say (well, I left a tiny bit early to make a lunch meeting - but I really really really wanted to stay). Roy started by telling us that he refused to use the “O” word. And then told us that catalogs have no future - you’ve gotta love him! Roy does clarify that when he says catalog he is not referring to the ILS (which libraries still need for internal operations). He is no suggesting the death of the ILS just that we rework the finding tool which is the catalog. He sees a future where there is no local catalog and in his future, all discovery will take place on the network level. If however it stays on the local level, few people will want to limit their search to just books - they’re going to want something that can pull together all of the info on a topic no matter what format it’s in. This means that we need to look at new models of finding information. In the new world order, discovery will be disaggregated from the ILS (Google, Open WorldCat, meta search, others). This makess sense because users typically want to find anything they can on a topic. Now we have to explain that you have to look in different places for articles. People don’t like pain so they want to search in one spot and if they can’t then they won’t use your tool. Most ILS lack cool new features and fall behind our expectations and the market doesn’t look great that we’re going to see these things anytime soon. Open WorldCat is offering some of the cool tools we want (facets, integrated article index, clean easy to read display) all for free. They also have WorldCat Identities tool which allows for every author to have a page. Maybe the answer is that WorldCat replaces our union catalogs. OCLC already has all of our data (I don’t quite follow this - not being a cataloger - but it sounds good to me). Another tool that they have is Fiction Finder (both this and Identities like the things Tim was talking about with LibraryThing). These tools are great at exposing the richness of the records we’ve been painfully creating over the years (and this is true - i had a horrible time creating MARC records for one of my assignments). At this point I had to leave for lunch - but it all makes sense to me and I’ll keep an eye out to see if Roy’s predictions come true! |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
PennTags Demo at CIL |
|
Rob Cagna from University of Pennsylvania came to talk to us about PennTags. The last time I saw this it was a bit rough - it has grown up a lot since it’s birth!! PennTags is like del.icio.us for members of the Penn community. They can save pages from anywhere on the web, from the catalog and from campus resources to PennTags and share it with the world. They can also keep their bookmarks private if they’d like. Penn has also released bookmarklets to allow people to tag things from their browser without logging into PennTags first (like with del.icio.us extension for firefox). One neat feature of PennTags is that the users can make projects - which are files of different documents in a particular subject area. This way you can see just a new books list (http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/14404). Projects can also be made private if the user prefers - Rob doesn’t think that many people have done this. If you look at this record in the UPenn catalog, you see an Add to PennTags link at the bottom and below that you’ll see the tags and annotations from PennTags - very very very cool!! This is done with Oracle and Perl - you can email Rob if you want the more techie details. One way this has been used is as an on-demand subject guide. Reference librarians create a project and add links. They then send the project URL to the patron! Students can use these projects as bibliographies - or working bibliographies as they write their papers. And because every page has an RSS feed the patrons or students can subscribe and see new additions as they’re added!! I am very impressed - and a bit jealous!! If you like what you see, Rob is looking for partners to help work with the code and make it open source! Email them at: penntags@pobox.upenn.edu. |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
Guiding Libraries and Info Pros Through Change |
|
David Lee King gave an amazing talk on handling change within our libraries. He started by asking a few questions and reading a few quotes. The first question was how many of us have had a hard time changing things in our libraries - lots of hands were raised. Then what kinds of change are hard - tech or other? Both! How many of us had to change ourselves while trying to implement change? A good number. David, like a few others, recommended reading Stephen Abram’s article in OneSource on change within libraries. He then read a quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins which basically said that spending time to motivate people is a waste of effort - the right people will be self-motivated - but the key is to not de-motivate them! What a great quote!! I don’t have the book, so I can’t write the exact quote, but the gist is right. Change is gonna happen whether we like it or not - just take a look at librarian want ads these days - they’re all full of new (fun sounding) jobs. So what is change? Change the old way:
The problem is that they were looking in the wrong place (within their organizations) - because change is external. Transitions (reorientation people have to go through inside before the change can work) however, are internal. The reason most changes failed was because leaders focused on getting the change done instead of getting people through the transition. So, what are the stages of transition?
Of course there is going to be resistance to change, in fact, “nearly 2/3 of changes in corporate environments fail”, but resistance isn’t the problem - management’s reaction to resistance is the problem - resistors aren’t seeing it as resistance - they see it as survival! Three levels of resistance:
So, how do we navigate through change? Tips just for leaders & techies:
Steps to take in helping change run smoothly:
David than reminded us not to do these things:
More tips & reminders for techies:
After all of this if you still won’t change, you need to remember that refusing to change will lead to missed career opportunities and missed changes to expand your network and meet new people (like I do at conferences and through my blog). Most importantly, you’ll miss out on the possibility of shaping your new destiny and reality - don’t get me wrong, it will be shaped, the question is who do you want to do it - you or someone else? Some final pointers from David:
What an awesome talk!!! I hope I did it justice in my summarization - and I hope you’re all motivated to change the way you handle change in your institutions. |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
Core Competencies & Learning 2.0 |
|
Before even starting her talk, Helene Blowers posted her presentation information on her blog - check it out here. Helene walked about the room using her new presentation remote (the same one I have) and talked to us about core competencies and learning 2.0 at her library. She told us a story of librarians in her library who would put an out of order sign on the printers if they were ever out of ink. When she asked why, people would say that it wasn’t their job - it was the IT staff’s job. That means that until IT gets into the library the patrons have to go without printing. By telling staff that they can’t do things like change ink, we’re telling them that technology is someone else’s responsibility -do we really want that? She didn’t so at her library they created some core competencies. All librarians should know how to do some basic things such as saving documents, printing, entering timesheets online and basic troubleshooting. After that Helene’s library set up three more core levels. See all of the levels here. Other tools for coming up with core competencies can be found on Web Junction or in the newest Library Technology Report. I like Helene’s definition of core competencies. Core competencies are developed to support changes that have already happened within our daily work lives. To address the future they decided to do Learning 2.0. This way they could make people familiar with the tools that are coming out now. Before developing Learning 2.0, Helene tried tech talks - short talks on specific technologies. With these talks, she only reached 64 out of 540 employees and was only able to cover 2 topics - at that rate it would take 10.5 years to teach everyone everything she wanted. Instead she started Learning 2.0 which was a 10 week program that introduced staff to 23 technologies - it was not a training program, it was a learning program and encouraged the staff to experiment with 2.0 tools. At the end of her program - 356 staff members had started a blog - a number that would have taken a lot longer than 10 weeks to achieve using the old way. Towards the end, Helene asked us how many of us were encouraged to play at work - not many hands were raised!! Hopefully after this talk, people will go back to their libraries with ideas for change in the way technologies are taught! Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07, learning 2.0 |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
The new information design |
|
I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ve talked about others who have said it - but this topic bears repeating - over and over until it’s stuck in everyone’s head!! The way we design web pages needs to change - it’s changing all around us and it’s time to learn from others and use those new rules on our library sites. Today I got to see a test version of a new site for a public library (sometimes public libraries get to do the coolest things!) and it was amazing! I made notes and shared them with work (who are considering a redesign this year). Last week I wrote about user-centered design (an awesome topic). Today, I’m writing about Ellyssa Kroski’s talk on the new information design. The fact is (if you hadn’t figured it out) the user experience with the web is changing. Users are changing the way they consumer information, the technology is different and most importantly the user’s expectations have changed. Today’s web design should be simple, social and provide alternative navigation structures. Simple Ellyssa included a quote from The Paradox of Choice: “The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better … there is a cost to having an overload of choice.” And then showed us a picture of MS Word with all of the toolbars turned on!! That is bad choice! New web apps are just showing the user what’s necessary, there’s a lower learning curve this way. This is also known as the “less is more” philosophy - we’ve all heard it - now we just have to apply it to our web redesigns. Lastly, and we all know this (but most don’t do anything about it) users are expecting a DIY (do it yourself) service model!! Today’s websites (mostly web 2.0 sites) have clean simple designs. Sites need to be designed with a purpose, just for design’s sake (no need for flash on that library homepage just cause you took a flash class last year). Some formatting choices we’re seeing often are:
Social Just like every other talk at this Library 2.0 themed conference, Ellyssa reminds us that what used to be personal and singular is now shared (pictures, videos, etc). Users are expecting to interact socially with information on the web. This means commenting, ratings, send to a friend, subscribe via RSS, save for later and the ability to see all of that for the other users of the site. Alternative navigation Ellyssa showed us some need options for navigation (things librarians would never go for because they’re too chaotic). Some sites are trying to use a visual representation of what’s important on the site. Steve Krug writes in Don’t Make Me Think (great book by the way) that we don’t read pages, we skim them for important items - things that catch our eye. An example of an alternative method of navigation is a tag cloud. Others I’ve seen have included web like graphics linking pages together. Neither should be used as the main navigation - but the option can be there for users who like that sort of thing - it’s an easy addition. Conclusions Pretty simple! You have to evolve, be nimble and be willing to abandon bad ideas!! Doesn’t sound to hard - does it? |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
Social Software: Building Collaboration, Communication & Community Online |
|
Meredith Farkas presented on “Social Software: Building Collaboration, Communication & Community Online” - yep that’s the title of her book (which I’m ready to get signed!). So what are the characteristics of Social Software according to Meredith?
What can Social Software do for libraries? Number one - it will help us disseminate information. We can use blogs for library news, research tips, new books, new librarian articles, things in the area news - so many options! Wikis can be used as subject guides. Dowling College Library is doing amazing things with podcasts. Next, we can get feedback from our patrons - like I wrote earlier, no one wants to bother with the comment box at your circ desk - but they’ll comment online. It also makes the patrons feel like a part of the library - like they’re making a difference. It allows us to capitalize on the collective intelligence of colleagues and patrons! There is so much we can learn from the people who come into our libraries - why not give them a chance to contribute? Also, why not use a reference wiki and share with those around you - what are you afraid of?? What strategies can we use to implement these changes? First - avoid technolust! Don’t make changes just cause they’re cool - do your homework - very similar to what David was saying. Think about whether patrons will use it - and I’d like to add that even if you think they won’t and it’s free and easy to set up - DO IT!! Why not give it a whirl, maybe you don’t know everything about your users. Next, involve staff at all levels of planning - they also want to be involved. Help them play with the technologies and see what they’re about. A great presentation overall - you can see the entire thing online - I love it when speakers get their info up nice and early! |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
|
|
Library 2.0: Setting up the New Stuff |
|
Next I heard David Lee King talk about Library 2.0 “Setting up the New Stuff”. While I obviously have a feel for some of the basic technologies that David went over, I’m still glad that I attended this event so that I can share what I learned with you all. David broke the talk into 3 parts. Part 1 - He answered some questions. Why? Just cause we can isn’t a good enough reason (but it is a good reason in my opinion to play and experiment - if it’s free and easy - why not?). We need to think about how these tools will meet the changing customer needs (Like Lee said in the keynote - web users want to participate on our library websites - they want our sites to act like the rest of the web), how it will help us stay culturally relevant and how we’ll keep our digital spaces up to date. What? There are lots of options out there to choose from - once again think before jumping. Use your library’s mission to help you pick tools that will help you meet those goals. Think about what you want the end result to be - do you want a place to share library news and have users comment? Then a blog might be your answer. David asked how many people had a comment box in their library - and only 2 hands were raised - but he made a good point, don’t you think users would be more likely to leave a comment via a web form than that box sitting at the circ desk?? Who? Specifically - who does the work? Both staff and patrons can do the work. Staff members should be chosen because of an interest in the topic - not because of the department they work in. Patrons can help by commenting, adding to wiki pages, and creating groups with a vested interest in the library and the library site. How? Always remember to include administrators and managers - you’re going to need them (you never know when you might need to request to equipment). Consider how much staff time you’re going to need - not just to start using the new tool - but to keep it going. Last and most importantly, ask yourselves - do we have willing participants, and if not, can we make them? When? To quote David “Like, yesterday”. A lot of these tools have simple install files or sign up pages, it takes nearly no time at all - remember the Web 2.0 video (The Machine in Using Us)? Well, towards the end of that they create a blog in less than 10 seconds. That said, it does depend on whether you want to start big or small - if you want to use the predefined settings and templates or create your own. So - that doesn’t sound too scary does it?? Next David moved on to Part 2: Content, Container and Customer. David asked us who had taken a writing for the web class - and not many people raised their hands - which is okay because it’s not just about writing anymore - it’s about video, voice, and so much more. You have to remember to keep a conversational tone when creating content for the web - this is a hard thing for some librarians because they were taught to be professional and proper at all times - well, that just ain’t so anymore. Once you get the hang of it it really does make it more fun to create for the web. He also showed us a few library blogs started in 2005 that haven’t been posted on in as much time - you have to create often - if you can’t don’t try. If you think it looks unprofessional to write in a conversational tone, just imagine what it looks like to have a page that says “The newest news from our library” that was last updated in January of 2005. Like I’m about to do with this summary - David says we don’t have to write for just one place - we can re-use content all over. I post these summaries to at least 3 (sometimes 4) blogs. David uses blip.tv to upload his videos because they have a service that lets him send his content to a bunch of other places as well. How does this apply to your library? At Internet Librarian last year I attended a session on RSS & JavaScript. The gist was that you don’t need to know how to code to get an RSS feed to print on your web page - you can use a blog and copy a bit of JavaScript and you’re set. This is one of those ways where you care publishing in 2 places. You can write to the blog, but others can read the content on your library website, pathfinder, or links page. I mentioned the inviting participation series of posts a while back - what a great time to bring them back to the forefront. There are 2 ways of inviting participation. One is passive and that is to write compelling content and allow comments. There is also an active way (that sounds like a great idea). On David’s library’s blog (Papercuts) they write a weekly post they ask a question (What’s your favorite book? Who’s your favorite author? etc) and that makes people feel like their participation is appreciated. This goes for both staff and patrons! Next the container. Like I said before, do you want your page to use the default template or a fancy-schmancy one? This doesn’t just go for you blog either - MySpace and other social networking sites offer you different design options. My recommendation is to play first and design later - make sure it’s going to stick before you spend too much time on it. Last (but not least in my book) the customers. One of the ways that social networking is “social” is that most of these tools have a friends or contacts list. These don’t have to be your “real” friends, they can be your customers/patrons - by adding them as your friends they can easily subscribe to your content on Flickr, MySpace, etc etc. Allow your patrons to comment - this can’t be stressed too much!! Our customers can also be creators, let them participate and let them contribute - it’s what they want. The last part was a list of the specifics for those I’ll point you to Michael Sauers’ summary (he was sitting next to me) - he did a great job of listing all of the specifics you’ll have to think about - since it looks like I’ve rambled on enough already!! |
|
|
Submitted by: Nicole Engard, Former Web Manager
|
RSS