ARTICLE FOUR

Using Blogs and Wikis to communicate with library clients

By Kate Watson and Chelsea Harper

Watson and Harper offer a concise article which gives a definition and differences between a blog and a wiki plus preparation steps / tips to creating a successful tool.

Blogs are referred to by Watson and Harper as an ‘electronic journal’, generally sorted in date format with contributions restricted but with anyone able to add comments. While wikis are described as an online collaboration medium of HTML pages that can be edited by anyone.

Watson and Harper advocate the use of such technology as they feel it will be a step towards
“ a new model of contemporary library service using converging technologies” – library 2.0.

This is backed up by Weaver (2003) who has said that:

“it is surprising that more libraries don’t use
[blogs] to keep customer informed as the format is perfect for the job”.

However, despite the positive attitude towards blogging that is evident in the literature, and the amount of librarians who keep their own personal blogs, Clyde (2005) notes that Libraries themselves appear to have been slow in creating weblogs as a tool for communication, publicity, promotion and information management.

Ficther (2006) notes from her research that librarians and information professionals have started to test the wiki waters and put wikis to use. The information architecture community established IAWiki (www.iawiki.net) as a place to create a collaborative knowledge base about information architecture.

The preparation steps.

The steps / tips that Watson and Harper have outlined provide anyone who is interested in implementing this technology a good guideline to follow.

Managing your communication tool

This step covers setting out a clear mission statement and plan for how the tool, either blog or wiki will be setup. It is recommended that a management team is constructed so that responsibility is shared. Watson and Harper also recommend that a set of policies and guideline be established for everyone.

Control Technolust

If you don’t need it, don’t use it is the simple premise behind this tip. If it doesn’t follow your action plan it is generally best not to include it. It is also best that any new functions be fully tested before it is implemented for public access.

Have an agreed upon, honest voice

Be genuine and truthful with what is posted.

Update Often

This tip is a warning not to neglect the blog or wiki. It may be best to arrange a rostering system within the management team of when the blog or wiki should be updated.

Enable comments, where appropriate, and respond

Provide users / readers with an avenue to send feedback. It is noted that feedback should be responded to where necessary or remove any inappropriate comments. This is where the codes of conduct / policies or procedures that were prepared would come in handy.

Use RSS feeds or other promotional avenues

The communication tools need to be promoted so that users know that they are available. Watson and Harper suggest the use of RSS feeds to keep users up to date with updates to the website.

Conclusion

As Watson and Harper point out, using blogs and wikis are a way of reaching out and communicating with customers, who are now used to online and interactive environment.

References

Clyde, L.A (2005), ‘School libraries and blogs’,
Synergy, Vol 3(1), pp. 39-49

Fichter, Darlene (2006), ‘UsingWikis to Support Online Collaboration in Libraries’
Informationoutlook, Vol. 10(1), pp. 30-31

Weaver, Belinda, (2003) ‘Weavers Web’,
InCite , September 2003, p.14

ARTICLE THREE

Emerging technologies changing our service delivery models

By Mary Ann Kajewski

Kajewski highlights new technologies that will allow libraries to provide a better service to users by offering ease of access to what they want when they need it, optimally 24/7.

The article provides positive examples of integrating technologies such as: blogs, wikis, RSS aggregators, podcasts, web conferencing and instant messaging into library services and programs.

Blogs or Weblogs

Kajewski looks at Blogs as having a few different functions in a library:

Blog as an information services
Promoting to clients changes and additions to collections. Also to let clients know news and current

Blog as a library service
Kajewski highlights listing new books, CD's or DVD's to collection. Adding links to reviews or allowing clients to add their own reviews or start a book discussion.

Blogs as a feedback tool
Allowing customers to add comments / feedbacks about library services or experiences.

Blog as a professional awareness tool
Using the blog as a tool to keep you update to date with new and upcoming technology and their impact on the library profession.

Blog Examples

Darien Library – Connecticut http://www.darienlibrary.org/blogs.php
Has different blogs for communicating with different users about different topics. For example a blog about their new Library building, what events are happening in the Library, a children’s and a teen blog. All aimed at a specific user group.

Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Victoria
http://yarraplentylibrary.blogspot.com/index.html
Have a Library blog detailing events, as well as describing materials available in the Library on different topics. They also have a local history blog, genealogy blog, and a book blog.

Bayside Library Service Library in Melbourne
http://www.baysideonlinelearning.blogspot.com/
Has a blog for staff to keep abreast of what is happening in the organisation.

Wikis

Wikis allow registered users to contribute or edit information to the site, regardless of whether they have programming or html experience, allowing for contributions from a wide audience.

Wikis for librarians Example

The CSU (Colarado State University) Libraries
http://lib.colostate.edu/publicwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Public Wiki hosts working space for staff at the CSU Libraries to use when collaborating with persons outside the CSU Libraries. It is intended to be useful for organizing, collaborating, and presenting information important to the group

Wikis for library users Example

Pierce County Library http://wiki.piercecountylibrary.org/?t=anon
The purpose of this wiki is to develop a guide about Books, Films, Music, Reading and more that reflects the knowledge of our diverse communities. Anyone with knowledge about these topics and would like to participate in open collaboration is encouraged to contribute to this wiki.

RSS Feeds and Aggregators

RSS is a format that allows users to receive notification of updates or changes. Kajewski identifies how this technology can be adapted to library usage as a syndicated feed. Registered users can subscribe to the library feed to keep them update with what is happening at the library without having to visit the website.

RSS feed Examples

State Library of Victoria RSS Feeds & Podcasts
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/about/site/feeds/
The State Library provides RSS feeds for a range of information, including latest news, media releases, events, podcasts, new jobs, lectures, talks and more.

To receive Library RSS feeds (including podcasts) you need a feed reader and must also subscribe to Library feeds.

Podcasts and Vodcasts

Kajewski identifies how podcasts can be used in a library such as:
• As a training tool
• Library tour tool
• Weekly updates about what is going on in the library and the community

Instant Messaging

Kajewski describes the use of instant messaging in libraries as an economical, though controversial way for a library to provide a virtual reference services.

Instant Messaging Example

University of Nevada Library http://www.library.unlv.edu/ask/chat.html
Allows users to use their Instant Messenger program to chat live with a UNLV librarian.

Kajewski also identifies some of the difficulties in providing such technology, such as privacy and staffing, especially having trained staff on hand.

ARTICLE TWO

Library 2.0: Service for the next-generation library

By Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk

Casey and Savastinuk feel that Library 2.0 could revitalise the libraries approach in service and communication with customers.

The focus of Library 2.0 is user-centered change. In very simple terms Library 2.0 means making a library’s space, both virtual and physical, more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs.

It is a model for library service that encourages constant and purposeful change, inviting user participation in the creation of both the physical and the virtual services they want. Through customer driven improvements, libraries attempt to reach new users, and better serve their current ones.

Library 2.0 components

The library 2.0 model gives library users a participatory role in the services libraries offer and they are used. Users can also tailor library services as best suits their needs, either physically or electronically.

Casey and Savastinuk offer a timely warning about considering customers privacy when implementing customisable virtual services.


Library 2.0 is about using the best tools and ideas to provide the best possible service to our users.

Chilma (2007, ¶6) provides a neat definition by Darlene Fichter is:

Library 2.0 = (books ‘n stuff + people + radical trust) x participation

What does it involve?

Chilma (2007, ¶7) describes the basic drive of Library 2.0 is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives… to make the library a destination and not an afterthought. There have never been so many alternatives to libraries as information providers as there is today online. These alternatives are usually far more convenient than the Library even though libraries usually provide better quality information.

Library 2.0 is not totally about technology, but technology is an important
component of it, with blogs, tags, user-created feedback and the like. It’s
about services and attitude and community. It is about being relevant. It’s what
Libraries and Librarians are (or should be) about – providing services that
users want and need. Chilma (2007, ¶13)

Casey and Savastinuk reassure librarians with limited technology funding that they can still work towards a Library 2.0 model. Making physical changes that will better serve the customers needs is one thing that Casey and Savastinuk suggest.

Casey and Savastinuk also point out that older traditional services can be Library 2.0 if criteria are met. They ask that you consider what services that the library already offers and how they, if they are combined with a framework for continual change and feedback from the customers integrated into the library’s operations and it will be one way to becoming a Library 2.0

With information and ideas flowing in both directions (from the library to the user and from the user to the library) library services have the ability to evolve and improve on a constant and rapid basis. The user is participant, co-creator, builder and consultant.

Implications for Libraries

Library customers are used to using interactive, participatory services on the internet such as Amazon, Google, MySpace and Facebook. They want to interact, to participate. Do library catalogues and web sites allow that? The Web is no longer an electronic brochure, instead it is a gathering place. Library 2.0 helps librarians let go of very outdated view of the Web and move forward in the adoption of newer technologies and services. (Chilma (2007, ¶7)

Libraries need to focus on the users and what they need. Not what as the Librarians need. Librarians should be looking for ways to make library web sites more efficient in delivering content, in promoting the library and in engaging our users.

According to Kathryn Greenhill (2007) Library 2.0 means starting from the users’ experience of the library, ditching what is there for our convenience, but is an obstacle to them, and taking on some non traditional things that fit into our core brief to connect information and people. In some ways Library2.0 is more about changing Librarians rather that Libraries.

References

Chilma, Sue [2007] What is Library 2.0?
www.alia.org.au/groups/topend/sue.chilma.what.doc (Accessed 01/09/2008)

Greenhill, Kathryn [2007] What’s new about Library 2.0?, http://librariansmatter.com/blog (Accessed 01/09/2008)

ARTICLE ONE

User collaboration in websites

By Judith Pearce

Pearce describes Web 2.0 as the next generation of the Internet as a platform. Pearce describes how the term first came into use by the publisher Tim O'Rielly to distinguish Web 2.0 sites from other websites, referring the term to websites that let people collaborate and share information in ways that they weren't able before.

Pearce defines some commonalities / characteristics between Web 2.0 sites such as:
• Data Repositories
• User participation to create and upload data
• Allowing relationships to be built between services using programmable interfaces.

Web 2.0 is built on technologies like Ajax, a web development approach based on JavaScript and the XML programming language. This mix of technologies allows pages to function more like desktop-based applications rather than as old-fashioned static content pages as we have been used to find on the Web. Goode (2005, ¶7)

Examples

Examples of websites given in the article that are proponents of Web 2.0 are:
• Amazon
• eBay
• Wikipedia
• Google with its components: Google Maps, Docs, Calendars, Gmail and Blogs
• Flickr and
• Wikipedia

The success of all are the continued contributions of users, who create and make available content – whether videos, audio files, photographs, reviews / opinion pieces and articles.

O’Rielly (2005) formulated a sense of meaning of the term:


Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick --> Google AdSense
Ofoto --> Flickr
Akamai --> BitTorrent
mp3.com --> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
Personal websites --> blogging
Evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB
Domain name speculation --> search engine optimization
Page views --> cost per click
Screen scraping --> web services
Publishing --> participation
Content management systems --> wikis
Directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy")
Stickiness --> syndication

O'Reilly (2005) provided examples of companies or products that embody these principles in his description of his four levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0 sites:

• Level-3 applications, the most "Web 2.0"-oriented, only exist on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. For Example eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and AdSense.
• Level-2 applications can operate offline but gain advantages from going online. O'Reilly cited Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
• Level-1 applications operate offline but gain features online. O'Reilly pointed to Writely (now Google Docs & Spreadsheets) and iTunes (because of its music-store portion).
• Level-0 applications work as well offline as online. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps (mapping-applications using contributions from users to advantage could rank as "level 2").

Pearce does concentrate on two aspects of Web 2.0 in particular, Wikipedia and the use of web–based photo management and sharing and their implications with her workplace the National Library of Australia. The inclusiveness and interactivity that users receive on these sites is something that the National Library had noted was missing from their services provided.

The National Library developed strategies, using Web 2.0 services to provide facilities that would allow a greater interaction and participation of users. These services include two projects as described by Pearce, using flickr photo sharing and a Wikipedia style information service.

The photo-sharing project had the goal of increasing the number of images in PictureAustralia and to engage with new audience. Flickr was the platform for users to upload their images and add them to one of the PictureAustralia groups.

The second project utilizes a Wikipedia ‘take part’ user program where users of the Australian Dancing can contribute information in accordance to certain conditions.

References

Good, Robin “Web 2.0 Examples: A Mini-Guide” (October 6 2005). Online.
Available: http://www.masternewmedia.org/web_2/web_2_examples/web2_examples_of_services_and_applications_20051006.htm (viewed 01-Sept-2008)

O’Rielly, Tim “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” (October 30 2005). Online
Available: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html (viewed 01-Sept-2008)