WLA 2007: Conference Wrap-Up

As a follow-up to MATS' blog coverage of the 2007 WLA Conference, presenters' handouts and PowerPoints are starting to show up at the WLA conference web site.

If more presentation materials are found elsewhere, we'll link to them here; if you know of some, please send us the links by adding a comment to this post.

We had a great time "blogging the con", and hope to round up more MATSians to blog the WAPL Conference next spring!

Thanks to Amanda, Nanette, Beth and Pete for all the bloggy goodness!

WLA 2007: What's Toxic in Your Neighborhood?

"It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands, when you have spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment." - Margaret Thatcher on the Falklands campaign, 1982

I work at a federal depository library with a collection of over 1.5 million technical reports of research funded by the EPA, DOD, DOE, DOT, NASA and other government agencies; I attended this session to learn how to better use our resources and serve our patrons. I also have a background in conservation biology, so this topic was right up my alley.

Michael Watkins, Head of Government Documents at UW-Oshkosh's Polk Library, did a great job of connecting what could be seen as 'dry data' to his own personal history as a child growing up in Oshkosh, as well as local, national and world history. He also shared a keen understanding of the many interacting and competing interests that come into play when addressing environmental issues, including jobs and economics, human and non-human health, property rights, recreation and tourism, and the future.

Historical context:

• 1959 - Wisconsin cranberry crop abandoned or seized, due to pesticide scare
• 1984 - Union Carbide in Bhopal India - 5,000 people killed from release of methyl isocyanate
• 1984 - Similar release at sister plant in West Virginia
• 1986 - "Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know" Act - requires reporting of presence of certain regulated chemicals, as well as accidental releases into the environment
• 1990 - Pollution Prevention Act - strengthened requirements
• 2007 - EPA budget shifts, half of EPA regional libraries closed, cutting back on programs like TRI

Websites:

• Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) main site - http://www.epa.gov/tri
• TRI Explorer - http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer (only one year of data)
• Environfacts - http://www.epa.gov/enviro
• National Library of Medicine Toxmap - http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/main/index.jsp (including mortality from cancer)
• European counterpart to TRI - http://eper.ec.europa.eu/eper

Watkins demonstrated using LandView 6 software to access online data sources, and search for data on air pollutants, hazardous waste sites, and toxic releases by geographic location (zip code or city/state) or company (current or defunct), down to city block level . LandView is the result of a cooperative effort by the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In Madison, the LandView 6 DVDs are held at the Madison Public Library's main downtown branch, or the Wisconsin Historical Society library. The software is in the public domain, so it "can be copied, used and distributed freely without the requirement for royalty payments or further permissions."

Watkins asks us to watch out for any changes in data access over time. In an era of EPA library closings and document losses, our legal "right to know" may do us little good, if the data just isn't there anymore.

WLA 2007: The 411 on Mashups

The 411 on Mashups
a presentation by Julie Fricke, Reference and Web Resource Librarian, Seeley G Mudd Library, Lawrence University

Julie's bookmarks that include links for her presentation: http://del.icio.us/wlamash

a mashup gets info from more than one source

the first mashups were primarily using maps
photo and social is where the most growth is happening in the last 6 months
http://programmableweb.com/

why are mashups a big deal?

• easy to use
• easy to find
• easy to manipulate
  

How do I make a mashup?

• add this app -- Facebook apps; iGoogle
• clone -- Yahoo Pipes
  
• program

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: Tracing Your Ancestors Through Genealogy Tips and Tricks

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Genealogy Tips and Tricks
a presentation by John Leonard Berg, Coordinator of Public Services, Karrmann Library, UW-Platteville

begin with some proof that you're in the right place, headed down the right family line
starting with an obituary to find clues

Why did people immigrate from Europe in the 1850's?

• religious freedom
• military service; "Sons of the Soil" were expected to serve in the military
• industrialization
• taxation
• economic stagnation
• population growth
• unstable political situations
• inheritance laws -- in some areas only the oldest son could inherit land, so siblings would need to marry into another family or live on as a kind of servant to the eldest; in some cases the land could not be "parceled out" to divide among the children
  
• "American letters"; people who emigrated to America wrote to those still in Europe; if someone had already made the journey it provided some motivation
  
• solicitation -- businesses needed manpower to work on railroads, in the factories & homestead land (the Homestead Act opened up prairies to become farmable land)
• boys and men might leave for the new land, and the girls and women might have stayed behind to care for parents

Those leaving Germany might have traveled overland (perhaps by train) to the river-side city of Bremen/Bremerhaven where they would board ships headed out on the North Sea

The Gallery of the Seven Million is endeavoring to collect the seven million stories of those who left from the port of Bremerhaven
"Bremerhaven's New Emigration Museum: A Look at Germany's Ellis Island" http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,369776,00.html

New Orleans in the 1850's was a better port of entry than New York, because you could stay on the water to continue traveling up the Mississippi to the Midwest (where land was opening up to farming and homesteading)

if you're having trouble tracking your ancestors in the years following their arrival in America, check the ship's passenger list to see if you can track other people who traveled from Germany with them (perhaps they settled in the same area as your ancestors)

WLA 2007: WisconsinEye.com

The first I learned of this new C-SPAN-like broadcasting network was from the WLA conference brochure's directory of exhibitors, two days ago: "WisconsinEye is a statewide public affairs network providing independent, nonpartisan coverage of community and civic life, beginning with gavel-to-gavel coverage of state government in Madison."

Then Thursday morning, Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg passed along an announcement of the partnership between WisconsinEye and BadgerNet, the state's network of "voice, data, and video services to state agencies, local governments, UW campuses, technical colleges, private colleges and universities, public and private K-12 schools, and libraries."

When I made it into the exhibit hall for the first time late Thursday afternoon, it was my intention to seek out the WisconsinEye booth and find out a bit more about this venture. I found Chris Long, President & CEO, ready to talk, with a back-drop of streaming news playing on both their website and a television, and maps of cable and BadgerNet coverage areas within the state.

Chris is a former C-SPAN staffer, who was pursuing a PhD in Mass Communications at the UW-Madison when the opportunity to lead WisconsinEye came up last year. The idea for the network originated over ten years ago, within state government. After some initial research into existing models, it was determined that such a network should properly be established as a non-profit, with no state funding or state-funded staff, unlike other systems across the country.

Anyone in the world can watch the fascinating machinations of the Wisconsin legislative, judicial, and executive branches at http://www.wiseye.org/. Cable subscribers can currently tune in for free to Channel 200 (Charter) or 163 (Time Warner), although the long-term financing plan is to sell broadcast rights to these companies - and they may need to hear your voice as a subscriber to be convinced of the value of WisconsinEye, so speak up and get involved, if you like what you see.

As a sample of their intended "civic life" coverage, you can also go to their website to catch recorded author talks from the Wisconsin Book Festival!

WLA 2007: Non-Profit Marketing: What I Should Know about Marketing That My Mother Wouldn't Tell Me

At every conference, I seek out those sessions related to assessment, quality improvement, and promotion, because I'm the marketing coordinator for my library, and I serve on the campus-wide library marketing committee for the UW-Madison. I've also been toying with the idea of pursuing an MBA at some point, with a focus on marketing. Sometimes, I come away thinking "I could have taught that," but this time I definitely came away with new concepts.

I love it when non-librarians are invited to present at library conferences, because we really can benefit from others' expertise and perspectives. "Non-Profit Marketing" was presented by Don McCartney, a Senior Lecturer of Business Administation at UW-Green Bay, who has some experience working with libraries on marketing issues.

"Marketing is manipulative... in a good way!"

McCartney started out by asking the question, "How many of you have seen an ad?" - of course, that meant everyone in the room. He followed with, "And how many of you have bought everything you've ever seen advertised?" - clearly, no one does this. His conclusion is that yes, advertising is manipulative, but clearly it doesn't force us to do things that we don't want to do. And if it facilitates something good, like using the library, then that's a good kind of manipulation!

In order to bring together libraries and their potential users, both the library and the user must be able to communicate - after all, you can't utilize a service to meet a need if you don't know that service exists, or if you don't know you can get that service from the library. That's where marketing comes in.

"So... what is the value of libraries?" Attendees replied:

• They're free (McCartney: yeah, but a lot of things are free and I may or may not value them)
• They provide access to information
• Librarians provide help to find/get information
• We provide programming to children and adults - for literacy, enrichment, education, pleasure, fun

McCartney pointed out that one danger of the "virtual library" is that without a social aspect, how much affinity can a user develop for you? I'd posit that one solution is to build social networking technologies into your online space, to allow for personalization to each user's interests, interactivity with library staff, and development of communities.

Discussing market segmentation, McCartney suggested that it's also possible to oversegment, which leads to redundancy and increased costs. And the #1 market segment that you should be concerned with, he said, are your internal clients - your employees.

Keep records of who uses which resources and services, and then *use that information.* The "80/20 rule" says that 80% of your time is spent on 20% of your users, and 80% of your 'profits' are derived from 20% of your users. With limited staff time and money, you should prioritize those market segments that are your primary users. This doesn't address the issue of expanding one's overall market - but Jill Stover's presentation on "Taking the Non out of Non-User" is a perfect complement to McCartney's session. I'm also not yet clear on how to translate 'profits' for a state university library which receives its collection funds from the overall UW-Madison budget, and its overhead funds (facilities, staff) from the College of Engineering.

A 1995 study published in the Journal of Marketing, concerning social identification and its correlation with museum membership, provided McCartney an opportunity to introduce a good number of important marketing terms, including: identification, social identity, self-concept, and organization. Other terms he helpfully defined: publics, awareness, latent readiness, and triggering.

This study provided a number of insights into why members felt a strong sense of "belonging" to a museum, that can help us to understand (mainly, public) library users:

• The perception of prestige (not the same as elitism)
• Tenure of membership (the longer you're a member, the closer you feel to the institution)
• Correlation between expectations of membership, and reality
• Frequency of contact (all kinds)

Participation in other, similar organizations, decreased the overall sense of identification. And, the more highly educated members were, the more organizations they tended to participate in. That was one piece of bad news.

McCartney suggested that library mission statements are an important means by which to promote the intangible values that are so important to a sense of belonging. These statements should be visible to staff on a daily basis, and also shared with users. Say, "This is why we exist, this is why we're here."

Another study concluded that only 7% of the population will ever become actively engaged in non-profit organizations - and so many organizations are competing for the same small group of members (and source of funds). This was another piece of bad news.

Knowledge of what's at stake without your members' support can build association with your organization. You need to remind your members why they got involved, tell them why they're important to you, and thank them. Because you want to be one of the organizations that they stick with over the years.

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: UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership

UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership
a presentation by Ed Van Gemert, Deputy Director, General Library System, UW-Madison; and Irene Zimmerman, Head, Cataloging Department and Google Project Manager, UW-Madison
http://www.library.wisc.edu/digitization/.

• What is Google Book Search (GBS)? http://books.google.com/
  
• Wisconsin's involvement

GBS allows you to search the full text of books, if the item is pre-1923

The books in GBS come primarily from 2 sources:

1. publishers
2. libraries

Once you've searched GBS and found a book, you can...

• browse books online under full view, limited preview, or snippet view (if item is post-1923; in copyright)
• search within the book
• find similar titles
• buy the book or request it through interlibrary loan
• download public-domain books

digitization of books is achieved through non-destructive scanning

online items are not preservation quality; it's all about discovery & access to materials

Wisconsin's involvement:

• UW-Madison initiated discussions in early 2006
• established partnership with the Wisconsin Historical Society
• contract agreement negotiations from May-Oct 2006
• developed "Statement on Principles and Values"
• the agreement stipulates a university digital copy of each file, including items that are still in copyright
• primary focus areas: Federal government documents, state government documents, historic documents, patent info
• additional books from the genealogy collection from Wisconsin Historical Society, and theses & dissertations
  
• the first shipment of books was sent to Google 3 Apr 2007; materials from several libraries are shipped to Google every 4 weeks
  

Google paid for all the costs of preparation, shipping, and digitization

shared digital repository among CIC libraries (Michigan, Indiana, et. al.)

Project Planning: a project management team was appointed, based on advice from a Google liaison

Determined criteria for inclusion based on size, format, and condition of book

the book's temporary location in MadCat indicates it's checked out

Upcoming issue --how to get links to the digitized book into the book's bibliographic record in MadCat

the more of a book a publisher shows, the more copies of books it sells

WLA 2007: The New Media Ecology

The New Media Ecology: How the Growth of the Internet and Cell Phones Have Changed the Way People Deal with Each Other, Receive Information, and Create and Share Media
a presentation by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Washington D.C. http://www.pewinternet.org/

Five hallmarks of the new digital ecosystem:

1. media and gadgets are ubiquitous in everyday life
2. the internet -- especially broadband --is at the center of the revolution
3. new gadgets allow people to enjoy media, gather info, and carry on communication anywhere; wireless; mobile devices; the Internet is part of everyday life; no sense of being "online"
   
4. ordinary citizens have a chance to be publishers, movie-makers, artists, song creators, and storytellers
5. different people use these technologies in different ways
   

MySpace and Facebook ="dashboards for social life"

19% of online young adults have created an avatar that interacts with others online
9% of all adult internet users have done this

A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/213/report_display.asp :

• omnivores - they have the most gadgets and services, which they use voraciously to participate and express themselves online, and do a range of Web 2.0 activities
• connectors - they connect to people and manage digital content using internet-connected technology
• lackluster veterans - they have all the gadgets, but they aren't nearly as happy with it as groups 1 and 2; more bothered about the number of interruptions in their life from being connected
• productivity enhancers - willing to use tech in their job, but not in the rest of their lives
• mobile centrics - have a decent array of gadgetry and fully embrace all that their phone can do; "absence presence"
  
• connected but hassled - they're connected, but they really don't like it; find connectivity intrusive and a burden
• inexperienced experimenters - occasionally take advantage of interactivity, the gadgets they have they really like; go with the flow
• light but satisfied - they have some tech, but it doesn't play a central role in their daily lives
• indifferents - proudly anti-technology; find technology annoying
• off the network - have neihter cell phones nor internet access; off the grid

Take the typology "Where Do I Fit?" quiz at http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/quiz.asp

large low-tech crowd - 49%
small technophile group - 8%

"this is the age of amateur experts"

what does all this connectivity do to us?

• it changes our relationship to information
• it changes our relationship to each other

Life changes in 10 important ways:

1. volume of information grows -- the "long tail" expands
2. velocity of information increases -- "smart mobs" emerge; people learn stuff more quickly through RSS, social networks; instantaneous conversation; word of mouth is a more powerful way to transmit information than mass media
3. venues of intersecting with information and people multiply -- place-shifting and time-shifting occurs; "absent presence" occurs
4. venturing for information changes -- search strategies and search expectations spread in the Google era; librarians get fewer queries that are much more complicated
   
5. vigilance for information transforms -- attention is truncated ("continuous partial attention") and elongated ("deep dives"); multi-tasking more crazily
   
6. valence (relevance) of information improves -- the "daily me" is the customized version of the daily newspaper (RSS feeds, iGoogle, email alerts, etc.); the "daily us" (Facebook groups)
7. vetting of info becomes more "social" -- credibility tests change as people ping their social networks
   
8. viewing of info is dis-aggregated and becomes more "horizontal" -- new reading strategies emerge as coping mechanisms; people scan the abstracts but don't do deep reading as much (a headline-reader)
9. voting on and ventilating about info proliferates -- tagging, rating, and commenting on material is enabled -- collective intelligence emerges
10. inVention of info and the visibility of new creators is enabled -- the read/write Web 2.0 is about participation

Action items:

• think of yourself and your library as a news node for information and interaction -- find a way to be a part of peoples' social networks
• think of yourself as an information hub -- an aggregator and a linker to others who have useful information
• embrace channels of information that feed each other, interact, and blur
• experiment with Web 2.0 applications
• listen to your youngest employees, the "digital natives" who can translate for and teach older "digital immigrants"
• monitor the pushback against technology as a time sink and interruption enabler; become participants in new conversations about etiquette and social norms in the digital age
• become confident in what you already know about how to meet people's reference and entertainment (enlightenment) needs
  
•