“Next Generation” Technologies for the “Next Generation” Library User

OR: How to Get Students to Think that the Library is Cool

Kristen DeVoeElectronic Resources LibrarianCollege of Charlestondevoek@cofc.eduhttp://www.cofc.edu/~devoek

The “Millennials”

Born between 1982-2000 Have a positive view of technology Desire customization in all aspects of

their lives Are visual learners Easily multitask Get bored easily Extremely Tech Savvy

Putting Social Technology to Work for Your Library

Blogging RSS Feeds Wikis Video Podcasting Tagging/Social Bookmarking

Blogging

What’s a Blog? Academic Libraries with Blogs Blogging Glossary

Blogger Blogging Blogrolling Post

Blogging

Can be a successful way to promote library resources and services.

Easy to publish the content online Many blogging programs are free or

inexpensive.

Before You Blog

Who is your target audience? What is the purpose of the blog? What kinds of content will blog posts

include?

Before You Blog

Target Audience Who are they? Students, faculty, the outside

community? What are the typical readers like? What kinds of posts will target readers respond

best to? Short posts or longer detailed posts? Is a blog the best publication medium for your

audience? Is your target audience online in sufficient enough

numbers to make a blog worthwhile?

Before You Blog

Purpose & Content What are the key messages that you’re

trying to convey with your blog? What kinds of information will you include? Is your target audience interested in this

information? Will they read the blog?

Using Blogs in the Library

News and Events Blogs Book Review Blogs Promote Library Resources and Service

s Subject Specific Blogs

Choosing a Blog Platform

Local Software Installation or Remote Hosting? Factors to Consider

Archives Categories Search Comments Subscription Capabilities Syndication Design

Promoting Your Library Blog

Link on library homepage and secondary pages such as library events pages.

Catalog links-to and from the blog. Bibliographic Instruction Classes At the Reference Desk and Circulation Desk On college radio or tv stations and email lists. Courseware such as Blackboard or WebCT

Tips for a Successful Library Blog Regularly updated content – so that readers will

depend on and expect new daily content Good Content –Will your users follow a blog

that offers stories on schedule changes, new books, and policy reminders? Probably not. Give them ideas and information that keeps them coming back.

Can be maintained in 15-20 minutes daily. Blogs can involve considerable work. The last thing you want is spending any more than is necessary. With good content it can updated frequently.

RSS Feeds

What is RSS? Creating RSS Feeds Subscribing to RSS feeds

http://www.feedreader.com/ http://libraries.ou.edu/rss/

Why are RSS Feeds Useful?

RSS in the Academic Library

Announce the availability of new books and materials in a given subject area

Announce the availability of new electronic resources

Promote events organized in the library to faculty and students

Enhance Library Instruction for different courses by integrating appropriate resources

Announce availability of new research and learning opportunities in academic departments’ blogs

Promoting Library RSS Feeds

Bibliographic Instruction Classes Register your Feeds With Yahoo! RSS

Browse by Topic Directory http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/my/cgi_rss_submission

Hand out informative flyers & bookmarks introducing the feeds at orientation and on library tours.

Wikis

What is a wiki? Content Management System A website in which content can be created

and edited by a community of users. Wikipedia is a good example of a wiki Pages connected by hyperlinks The strength of a wiki as a resource is

often dependent on the strength of the contributing community.

Wiki Components

Pages that the wiki community users can add to or edit (example)

Discussion area on each page example

Lists changes made to a particular page List of changes made to entire website Search function (example)

Benefits of Wikis

Easy to use Web-based Simple syntax (don't need to know HTML)

Anyone can make changes – you don’t have to contact the webmaster or subject guide editor to make changes

Many free and open source options Flexible and extensible

Wikis in the Academic Library

Subject Guides as Wikis Discussion section where users can add

comments to the subject guide Users can easily subscribe to RSS feeds

for particular subjects and be updated on changes to the subject guide

St. Joseph County Public Library (Indiana)

Ohio University CommWiki

Wikis in the Academic Library

Multi-Disciplinary Subject Guides (ex. A guide on women’s studies/film studies)

Events Pages Courseware for BI classes (example) Popular Reference Questions (Internal

Use)

Wiki Platforms

Hosted Wikia JotSpot PBWiki SeedWiki WetPaint

Installed (hosted on your server) MediaWiki PMWiki TWiki PhpWiki

Compare Wikis at WikiMatrix

Wiki Tips

“Seeding” the Wiki Documentation Developing Content Security Guidelines

Video

Create a library presence where your users are on video sharing sites like YouTube and Blip.tv

Can be a lot of fun! Video Podcasts and “Vlogging”

http://www.ahml.info/vlog/121806.asp

Video Sharing Sites

Google Video (beta) Blip.tv (beta) YouTube

Hosts over 6 million videos with a growth rate of 20% a month

Uses of Video in the Academic Library Promote New Library Products and Services (

example) Serve as an “icebreaker” in bibliographic

instruction classes (example) Promote the library staff and services (example) Highlight Special Events etc. At the Library (

example) Instructional Videos and Tutorials (example) Student Involvement through Video Contests (

example)

Video Equipment

Video Camera Some Video Editing Programs

Windows Movie Maker iMovie Final Cut Pro

Podcasting

Simple means of distributing audio (or video) content using syndication feeds (such as RSS)

Users can subscribe to a feed of a podcast’s audio content and receive automatic downloads of new content as it is made available online.

Podcasting

Record an audio file Add your audio file to an RSS feed Market your podcasts!

Bibliographic Instruction Reference Desk School Paper Orientation and Library Tours

http://www.podcasting-tools.com/ List of libraries with podcasts

http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Podcasting

Podcasting

Library Tours (example) Interviews with faculty, students, writers, etc.

(example) Recordings of library events and speakers Description of new resources Bibliographic Instruction Add subject specific podcasts to subject guides

http://www.podcast.net/ http://podcasts.yahoo.com/ http://www.podcastdirectory.com/

Podcasting

Audio Podcasts http://www.gpc.edu/~declib/podcasts.htm

Video Podcasts (Vodcasts) http://www.asu.edu/lib/librarychannel/

Social Bookmarking

What is Social Bookmarking? System for internet users to store, classify,

share, and search internet bookmarks. Relies on user “tagging” to describe

resources.(example) Users can click on tags to find other

resources related to that tag.

Social Bookmarking

Advantages Semantically classified tags Access bookmarks from any computer

connected to the internet find which sites are related to a particular

site ("who ever bookmarked this, also bookmarked...")

Share bookmarks with friends & colleagues

Social Bookmarking

Disadvantages No standard set of keywords (controlled

vocabulary) Mistagging due to spelling error No standard for the structure of tags

(capital letters, punctuation) Multiple meanings for one tag No indication of hierarchical relationship

(ex. Cat and Siamese)

Social Bookmarking

Demonstration Del.icio.us Connotea

Automatically extract bibliographic information Identifiy articles by DOI Import and export references Narrower focus (scientific community)

CiteULike automatically extracts the citation details Import and export references specifically designed to work with academic papers

Links

Blogging Links http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/ind

ex.php?title=Academic_libraries www.blogger.com (free) www.livejournal.com (free) www.TypePad.com (fee) www.vox.com (free)

Links-RSS

Services that Generate RSS Feeds FeedXS Feedbuilder

http://www.feedxs.com/ RSS Headliner

http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/codegen/rss.shtml

Links-RSS

Programs that Generate RSS Feeds RSS Builder (free)

http://home.hetnet.nl/mr_2/43/bsoft/rssbuilder/

FeedForAll (39.95) http://www.feedforall.com/

Links-Wikis

Wiki Applications Seed Wiki (free) http://www.seedwiki.com/ Schtuff (free) http://www.schtuff.com/ Media Wiki http://

www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Instiki http://instiki.org/show/HomePage PmWiki http://www.pmwiki.org/

Example: https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/Staff/HomePage

Links-Video

YouTube http://www.youtube.com Blip http://www.blip.tv Google Video http://video.google.com/