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

1. “Next Generation” Technologies for the “Next Generation” Library User OR: How to Get Students to Think that the Library is Cool Kristen DeVoe Electronic Resources Librarian College of Charleston devoek@cofc.edu http://www.cofc.edu/~devoek

2. 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

3. Putting Social Technology to Work for Your Library • Blogging • RSS Feeds • Wikis • Video • Podcasting • Tagging/Social Bookmarking

4. Blogging • What’s a Blog? • Academic Libraries with Blogs • Blogging Glossary • Blogger • Blogging • Blogrolling • Post

5. 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.

6. Before You Blog • Who is your target audience? • What is the purpose of the blog? • What kinds of content will blog posts include?

7. 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?

8. 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?

9. Using Blogs in the Library • News and Events Blogs • Book Review Blogs • Promote Library Resources and Services • Subject Specific Blogs

10. Choosing a Blog Platform • Local Software Installation or Remote Hosting? • Factors to Consider • Archives • Categories • Search • Comments • Subscription Capabilities • Syndication • Design

11. 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

12. 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.

13. 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?

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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)

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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)

21. Hosted Wikia JotSpot PBWiki SeedWiki WetPaint Installed (hosted on your server) MediaWiki PMWiki TWiki PhpWiki Compare Wikis at WikiMatrix Wiki Platforms

22. Wiki Tips • “Seeding” the Wiki • Documentation • Developing Content • Security • Guidelines

23. 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

24. Video Sharing Sites • Google Video (beta) • Blip.tv (beta) • YouTube • Hosts over 6 million videos with a growth rate of 20% a month

25. 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)

26. Video Equipment • Video Camera • Some Video Editing Programs • Windows Movie Maker • iMovie • Final Cut Pro

27. 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.

28. 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

29. 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/

30. Podcasting • Audio Podcasts • http://www.gpc.edu/~declib/podcasts.htm • Video Podcasts (Vodcasts) • http://www.asu.edu/lib/librarychannel/

31. 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.

32. 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

33. 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)

34. 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

35. Links • Blogging Links • http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=Academic_libraries • www.blogger.com (free) • www.livejournal.com (free) • www.TypePad.com (fee) • www.vox.com (free)

36. Links-RSS • Services that Generate RSS Feeds • FeedXS Feedbuilder http://www.feedxs.com/ • RSS Headliner http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/codegen/rss.shtml

37. 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/

38. 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

39. Links-Video • YouTube http://www.youtube.com • Blip http://www.blip.tv • Google Video http://video.google.com/