MATS Blogging the 2008 WAPL Conference

The 2008 WAPL Conference will be a great place to be, but I know not everyone can get away to Stevens Point on April 30th-May 2nd. Good news -- WLA Media and Technology Section (MATS) members Terry Dawson & Joy Schwarz will be posting their notes about conference programs & sessions here on the WLA blog. In addition, Tasha Saecker will be blogging about WAPL programs at Sites & Soundbytes, and Nichole Fromm will be posting her WAPL musings at nichole's auxiliary storage and photos at jumbledpile's photostream.

WLA 2007: The 411 on Mashups

Presented by Julie Fricke, Reference and Web Resource Librarian, Lawrence University.

Mashups are applications that use more than one source to create something new. Mapping mashups are about 32% of what's out there right now, but photo and news mashups are becoming more popular. Check the Programmable Web for more info.

Mashups are:

• easy to use
• easy to find
• easy to manipulate
• the future of web stuff

Examples:

• Facebook: The Visual Bookshelf
• Google Maps API
• Daily Mashup
• Newsmap
• Book Carousel
• Placeopedia
  
• USGS Earthquake Hazard
• Chicago Crime Statistics
• Housing Map
• SuprGlu (FrickeGlu)
  
• Frappr (blogginglibrarians)

How do I make one?

• add this app (point & click - like iGoogle's widgets, Facebook apps)
• clone (yahoo pipes is an example)
  
• program (server side - Google API for example)

Implications for libraries:

• Intellectual property: know when you can use the data or site, so you're not violating copyright; make sure you know when it's okay to remix
• Copyright: check for Creative Commons licenses
• Provenance: pay attention to the origin of the info and authority
  
• Scale and dependency: can you get support for using the mashup?
• Keeping up!

More info is available at wlamash on del.icio.us, the Programmable Web (link above), and mashups.com. Julie's presentation will be available online soon on the conference web site. Look at dapper and datamashups for help with creating quick and easy mashups. Can't wait to dabble!

WLA 2007: Taking the "Non" Out of Non-User

Presented by Jill S. Stover, Undergraduate Services Coordinator, Virginia Commonwealth University. Check out her blog at http://librarymarketing.blogspot.com/.

The first step is to decide what it is you want people to do. Examine and/or develop your:

• mission and value statement and objectives
• strategic plan
• goals
• behaviors (what you want to see)

Use SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).

See Hennepin County Library's Framework for the Future [pdf].

See Ansoff Growth Matrix. (She emphasized using this matrix, so be sure to take a look!)

After deciding what behaviors you want to see, decide who you want to reach. Look for holes in services provided in your community and target that market to fill the need.

Once you've decided who to target, watch people who are already doing the thing you want to promote. Talk to them to find out what their unmet needs are, so you can meet them and attract non-users. Have your users be ambassadors to your non-users to help bring them in.

AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) tips:

• Attention: be passionate, be different (find your niche), be relevant (people really want to be inspired, so try to be inspiring)
• Interest: benefits matter (stuff doesn't), people matter (keep up with changes/trends in values), connections matter (networking)
  
• Desire & Action: give out gold stars, think two steps ahead, make risk your friend, keep the door open, ask 2 questions: how did you find out about us? and would you recommend us to a friend? (can help you develop future strategies, helps you know what's working and what isn't)
  

Question from audience: I have no budget for marketing, what should I do?
Stover's answer: It's more about people and connections than needing money to do things. (This is the main thing I'll take away from this session! Focus on making connections.) Seek out other agencies or institutions to create partnerships and fill needs.

Question from audience: What's your one big idea for libraries?
Stover's answer: Finding ways to fill the current needs of people who want to create original content for the web. Can we become the place they come to create and post? Can we provide the equipment, software, and trainers?

Audience members mentioned doing things like writing a weekly or monthly column for their local newspaper to become known as a local expert. Another idea was sending out library info in their community's utility or cable bills (at no cost). Target groups by going to the agencies that support them.

Stover's PowerPoint slides are available online, and the final slide has a list of resources to explore. Be sure to take a look at what's listed there and add her blog (link above) to your RSS reader - she's an excellent resource on marketing in libraries!

WLA 2007: The New Media Ecology

Presented by Lee Rainie, Director of Pew Internet Project. This session is being heavily blogged, so I'm going to share things that stood out to me vs. a blow-by-blow of the presentation.

Some numbers:

• 93% of teens (ages 12-17) use the Internet
• 88% of college students (cs) own cell phones
• 81% of cs own digital cameras
• 63% of cs own MP3 players
• 55% of online teens have created social network profiles - 2/3 of them have taken steps to limit the kinds of information shared in their profiles
• 20% of online adults have social network profiles
• 39% of online teens share their own creations online (artwork, photos, stories or videos - twice the level of adults)
• 33% of online teens have created or worked on web pages or blogs for others (13% of online adults do this)
• 33% of college students blog and regularly post - 54% read blogs (for adults: 12% have a blog and 35% read them)
• about 1 in 5 YAs have created an avatar that interacts with others online (9% of adults have done this)

Use of social network profiles (for teens):

• 82% send private messages to a friend within the social networking system
• 33% wink, poke, or give kudos to friends
• 84% post messages to a friend's wall or page

It's becoming increasingly difficult to tell if you're on a website or a blog, so the numbers relating to blog use might actually be much higher.

Content creation and participation are important to young people! Youth might be surprised when their future employer or admissions counselor, etc. find the content they have created. Most employers are checking for online presence before hiring someone - what have they written, shared, and created and do we want what to hire them after viewing their content?

Different people use technology different ways. Look at the PEW Report on user typology. And take the quiz to see where you fit. Fascinating stuff! (Rainie mentioned that the data for the report on user typology was gathered through a phone survey, with special effort made to reach cell phone users. The online version was added after the fact to make it easier for additional people to take the quiz.)

Take a look at the Pew Report on Libraries and the Digital Divide.

Life changes in 10 important ways with new media:

• volume of info grows - "long tail" expands (easier to find obscure things)
  
• velocity of info increases - "smart mobs" emerge (we learn things more quickly)
  
• venues of intersecting info and people multiply
• venturing for info changes - changing search habits/strategies
  
• vigilance for info transforms - attention is truncated and elongated (age of amateur experts)
  
• valence (relevance) of info improves - "Daily Me" and "Daily Us" gets made
• vetting of info becomes more "social" - credibility tests change as people ping their social networks
• viewing of info is disaggregated and becomes more "horizontal" - new reading strategies emerge as coping mechanisms (Allen Renear, UI- Champaign-Urbana)
• voting on and ventilating about info proliferates (tagging, rating, commenting)
• inVention of info and the visibility or new creators is enabled - the read/write Web 2.0 world is about participation

Rainie's action items:

• think of yourself as a news node for information and interaction
• think of yourself as a possible social network node for people looking for "friendsters"
• think of yourself a an information hub - an aggregator and a linker to others who have useful, interesting material
• embrace multi-modal multi-plexity in media (channels of info feed each other, interact, and blur)
• listen to your youngest employees (the digital natives)
  
• experiment with Web 2.0
  
• monitor the pushback against technology as a time sink and interruption enabler - be participants!
• be confident in what you already know about how to meet people's reference and entertainment (enlightenment) needs
  

Hey, Rainie, this is for you: "A fast-paced, informative session from a knowledgeable and entertaining speaker! I feel like this was just the tip of the iceberg, like there's so much more we could learn from Mr. Rainie if we only had more time. Can't wait to hear him speak again some time." :)

Tasha explains Library 2.0 for you

• Menasha Public Library Director Tasha Saecker's Wednesday afternoon presentation, Library 2.0: The Movement Explained, was one of those lively, inspiring conference events that make you walk out thinking to yourself, "I'm sure glad I caught that one!"
  
  She was incredibly engaging and very persuasive in her promotion of this new, customer-oriented approach to library services. The term is a spinoff of Web 2.0, the subject of another breakout session at this conference and, as Tasha explains it, "simply means making your library space - both physical and virtual - more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs."
  
  Library 2.0 represents a dramatic departure from the way some of us have traditionally done library service, which explains why we may be reluctant to embrace it, she said. But ultimately, it offers perhaps the best opportunity for librarians to attract more users and make our libraries the community hubs they are meant to be.
  
  Simply defined, Library 2.0 is two-way communication between libraries and the communities they serve. "It's a way of inviting input from the public ... and a lot of us aren't all that used to doing that." It requires flexibility, transparency, openness, decentralized control and participation from all sectors. Common tools include blogs, wikis, instant messaging, email, mashups, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and interactive websites. But she stressed that Library 2.0 goes deeper than new technologies.
  
  "It's more about the theory and philosophy and approach that you take with your staff, your patrons and your community," she said. "You can do it even if you're not a techno-geek."
  
  You're still living in the Library 1.0 world if you:
• believe that rules rule (i.e. you find yourself saying "no" to patrons a lot)
• take pride in creating parameters for users (such as "no cell phones in the library")
• see librarians as the experts
• see the library as an "institution" rather than a provider of services
• use technology reluctantly and see it as anti-library
• assume that patrons know nothing

Essential elements of Library 2.0, on the other hand, include:

• User-centered, not library- or librarian-centered service


• Socially rich physical and virtual spaces.


• Communal approaches


• Egalitarian attitudes and behaviors


• More acceptance of non-textual content


• Trust between librarians and the public and between management and staff

She discussed the concept of radical trust, which she said forces acceptance and tolerance. She challenged us to reach out and try to "radically trust" our most irritating, cringe-inducing patrons, hard as that may be. Chances are those people will surprise us, and they may just have the most useful suggestions.

One way to encourage skeptical or reluctant library employees to embrace change is to provide them ample access to technology, and to provide time for them to play with it. Menasha Public Library employees are encouraged to blog and IM each other to communicate, and all are invited to publish on the library's website.

To those who say they just don't have time to experiment with Library 2.0 or learn new technological tools, Tasha says that's only acceptable if you don't care about serving your patrons. We have to meet them where they are, she said, and right now they are already all over the web, leaving some of us behind.

"We promote lifelong learning for our patrons, and we must embrace it as well."

After the session Ms. Seacker consented to a brief interview, which I've posted below. If the video doesn't work, that's either because Google Video's publishing time delay is still in place or (more likely) I missed a step in my uploading process.

Some of us need more time to play than others.

WLA 2007: Podcasting as a Library Tool

This session was presented by Keith Schroeder, Library Media Specialist for the Howard-Suamico School District. He has collected a wealth of links to sites about podcasting, including the PowerPoint from his presentation, so be sure to take a look at that, too.

What is a podcast? The speaker shared some basic podcast features:

• content - audio or video - created for an audience to listen to how and when they want
• multimedia files that are distributed over the Internet
• files that can be played on a computer or a portable device
• files that are distributed through an RSS feed
• podcasts are compatible for Mac or PC users

Why should we use podcasts?

• library news updates
• content learning
• distance learning
• interviewing
• self-paced learning
• lectures and teaching - playback

He shared several model library sites. Be sure to take a look at these sites, because these libraries are doing really cool things!

• Denver Public Library
• Lansing Public Library
• Sunnyvale Public Library
• Kankakee Public Library
• Seattle Public Library

Schroeder highlighted the need to educate staff and/or students about safety:

• use first names only when interviewing
• don't share addresses or meeting places
• Learn more at cybersmartcurriculum.org

Copyright issues also need to be considered. What is acceptable to use? Ask for permission to know for sure. See also: EFF Bloggers' FAQ. A good question came up: If we want to do podcasts of a storytime session, aren't there copyright issues to consider? Shroeder has had good luck contacting publishers for permission to record readings of books and recommends trying that. Nothing lost, nothing gained!

Equipment needed to create a podcast:

• good microphone
• computer
• editing software - Schroeder recommends using Audacity, a free audio recorder and editor available online at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. (Mac users can use Garageband, which is also very nice.)
  
• music (see music.podshow.com)
• recordable mp3 player/digital voice recorder
• online services to host your podcast - a blog (Schroeder likes Podomatic.)

How to make a podcast:

• record an audio file
• edit your audio and add music if you wish (see music.podshow.com)
• convert the file to an mp3 format
• upload the file to a web server
• create an RSS feed (FeedBurner, for example)
• listen to and share your podcast

Schroeder gave a demo of Audacity that truly proved how easy it is to use - made me want to download it right away and give it a go myself! There are tutorials available for Audacity if you want to learn more about how to use it.

This was a practical, how-to session - the speaker did a good job of showing how easy podcasts are to create. I would have liked more time to explore some of the library sites to see what's out there and get ideas for what to do, but it's easy enough to do that later, and it's no fault of the presenter that the wireless Internet connection was being problematic.

WLA 2007: Free shirts! But just one....

Rick Krumwiede, WLAF President, poses for a picture with the cool, and did I say FREE, t-shirts promoting the Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries. What I really want to know is... who was hogging the shirts and taking more than one?! :)

WAPL 2007: Have You Heard About...

"recent finds in new technology trends and services, in libraries and
beyond... easy, free ideas" from:

• Beth Carpenter, Web Services Manager, Outagamie Waupaca Library System
• Nichole Fromm, Library Technology Project Support Specialist, South Central Library System
• Tasha Saecker, Director, Menasha Public Library
• Joy Schwarz, Web Coordinator/ILL Librarian, Winnefox Library System

Finally, a presentation with its own business card! Beth, Nichole, Tasha & Joy created a coolly compact and comprehensive -- yet nerdy -- handout, by placing a stack of business cards with their del.icio.us URL in the back of the room.

The most important thing was immediately establishing that most of the people in the room knew how to go "Oo oo!" like Horschack (as in "Welcome Back, Kotter"). There were also many longer, drawn-out "ooooo"s & occasional "aaahh"s, indicating that the sophisticated, perceptive audience was both highly impressed and deeply moved.

Your mileage may vary, but it's definitely worthwhile to check out the del.icio.us site and play with some of the recommendations -- start with those noted as five star: *****

MATS Blogging the 2007 WAPL Conference

The 2007 WAPL Conference will be a great place to be, but not everyone can get away to Eau Claire May 2nd-4th. Good news; three WLA Media and Technology Section (MATS) members -- Nichole Fromm, Joy Schwarz & Terry Dawson -- will soon be posting their notes about conference programs & sessions, here on the WLA blog. And Stef Morrill will be blogging about WAPL programs over on her Ning blog too.