Web Design Journal: First Meeting with Client

Today I had my first meeting with my client, a small non-profit looking to establish an online presence which promotes transparency, establishes their authority and builds the confidence of their local (donating) community. It was an interesting experience because my primary contact for the web design project had obvious experience using the web for her own purposes, such as searching for products and surfing for general interests, but was inexperienced in the possibilities of exploiting the web to build relationships that would drive use of the proposed website.

One of our readings for class studied the various literacies young people have and use for various activities, most specifically to foster their social relationships through instant messaging. The reading made a point to distinguish between the deep, reflective reading that is taught and valued in academic environments, (which adults value), and the social literacy that young people adopt in the management of multiple social communication networks, often simultaneously. (Lewis & Fabos, 2005 ) This makes me wonder if my client is expressing her perspective of the use of the web onto her ideas for the use of the website.

For instance, I asked if she would be interested in allowing visitors to the site to upload their picture, to which she responded, "no." I didn't ask her for details for why she was opposed to the suggestion, but I made note to create a sample page of how allowing visitors to create content would be beneficial by showing examples of use of the organization's facilities or participation in the organization's events. However, she did show great openness to my needs as a student for my assignment and so I know I'll be able to create a social media rich site from which she can choose the elements her organization is interested in using.

Listening to ALA Midwinter Tech Trends

Over 900 "attendees" logged in today 10am Pacific time for the free, online Tech Wrapup from ALA Midwinter 2012 to listen to three panelists talk about the trends they were most impressed by. I joined in to learn about the following...

• Jason Griffey- noted two machines. One was a dock/bay for iPad checkout. At $25,000 and not including the iPads, many attendees response was ouch! Jason also showed us 3D printers and the idea that "Digital Becomes Physical." Read more at Jason's blog Pattern Recognition
• Marshal Breeding was highly interested in the small software. He saw trends leading to the launch of a new categorization of products (which he's calling "Library Services Platform") to support the "management of print, digital, and electronic resources" and "shared data models" (such as Resource Description and Access). His point is that many of these developments will not be supported by current library ILS, but more libraries are moving toward cloud based environments.
• Sue Polanka had a lot of information that was of interest to me. Quickly:
• EBSCO dropping additional ebook fees, libraries will now just pay for the items; 
• Ebrary launches iOS app to support download option to user's personal iPad app; 
• OverDrive talked about 2011 use data with the main point being that use has doubled. Look for the Library Journal Patron Profile for great data. Sue suggests looking at public library's ebook hold/check out ratios as compared to physical items hold/ check out ratios. 
• Was looking at Unglue.it- an open access ebooks crowdfunding model to encourage authors to release books via creative commons. 
• She ended with a few reference book items, including a lifetime achievement Darmouth award to the Statistical Abstract of the United States published by U.S. Census Bureau, which has lost funding for future publications. 
• Check out Sue's Blog No Shelf Required for more details about the above.

Very interesting, glad I read my email notification. #libday8

Web Design Journal: Linking Accounts and Getting Started

One thing my social media class will do for me is get me more active on my LinkedIn account, as well as using Twitter to make conversation. The first thing our professor had us do was embed our tweets in both the Facebook and the LinkedIn accounts, which I did with my original Twitter account. I'm not so keen having Twitter on Facebook as none of the people I hang out with on Facebook care about "information." However, I definitely see the advantage of syncing the tweets to LinkedIn as I want to use both to attest to my information expertise. (Update: I figured out how to direct my tweets to just a specific group of people on fb. And, I notice, it only displays my tweets, not the tweets of those I'm following.)

My original Twitter account is @superbrarian, but as my prof wants all of our pages to be consistently branded, and Facebook and LinkedIn both say (Lynnette) Angie Hernandez, I decided to create another username rather than change @superbrarian. Well that was a hassle. Two Twitter accounts cannot share the same email, so I then had to create a new email address. And then, because I didn't want to have to remember a whole new login and password (I already have one for work,one for school and two personal emails), I enabled my preferred email to access the new one. I also had to go into Twitter and revoke permissions for LinkedIn and Facebook, wait for those accounts to "realize" they no longer had access to the @superbrarian feed (which took a few hours), and then re-set up the Twitter app again for the new Twitter account. Phew! Lesson to take away: Decide first which accounts will talk to each other, then act.

Here's the kicker, though... Once this course is over, I'll want to revert to @superbrarian, as that's how I've branded my vanity URL. Argh!!!

Web Design Journal: First Impressions of Social Media

One of the assignments for my social media course is to design an interactive website which makes use of embedded social media. The first steps to figuring out what sort of social media I'll want to use in my site design is to first sign up for the major social media networks

• Twitter
• Facebook
• a blog service (this one)

to become familiar with the purpose, audience, uses, positives and negatives, and to also sign up for my choice of at least one major social media news source

• Mashable
• AllTop (a news feeder/aggregator)
• ReadWriteWeb

to remain current in what is happening with social media, the latest developments and so forth. The first thing that I'll have to say is that I'm going to have to be very mindful as to my purpose to going to these resources so that I stay on topic and within my allotted reading time. (Only so much time for so much news.)

I say this because I love to surf the web and these resources are really good at providing interesting links. For instance, instead of wanting to read about Google+'s search engine changes to retrieve stuff that is "personal", I read about the Open Sourced Star Wars parody. Both of which are social media related. So I'm becoming more aware of my habits and telling myself stay on target, deciding beforehand what sort of news to look for, then seek it, find it, read it and move on.

Info 621 First Assignment- Reflect on your Social Media Experiences

Our professor's first step in teaching us to be mindful social media users was to get us to reflect on our past and present social media behavior. I thought my first memories of social media were my use of it in college, but reflecting on it reminded me that my real first memories of the Internet are of my chat room junkie father when I was in high school. I remember this precisely because the week before high school graduation, in 1996, I was trying to call home for him to come pick me up because a dog had bit me and I needed to be stitched up, but the paramedics decided it didn't warrant an ambulance ride to the hospital. Repeated calls from the neighbor's land line ended in a busy signal and so I knew my dad was online. I spent commencement with a cast on hand and my arm in a sling, so you could say that my first memories of social media are not fond ones.

My current behavior toward social media is one of me, me, me. I consume content when I need/want it, but rarely do I contribute. No posts on people's blogs (certainly if I don't know the author), no comments in forums, retweet something I read on twitter? Never. And now I know why I don't have millions of followers (not that I want millions, or even ten followers :-) )! I've always said that I prefer to engage in real life instead of the virtual world (and I do volunteer, I am social), but now I know the real reason why: teenage angst. Tsk.

Introductory thoughts on Doing Social Media So It Matters

So, I've started the other book for class and of course have some thoughts even before completing the first chapter titled "Getting a (Better) Grip on Social Media." Basically the author is communicating the library's place (and not role) in social media, which is to engage in the conversation and not fall into the trap of using social media as a bullhorn to announce programs and promote itself.

My initial thoughts are that it is easy to fall into that trap. Engaging in conversations isn't hard so much as it is time consuming, however, it is a great way to build the online reputation of the library while showing interest in the needs of the (local) community. For example, start out by creating accounts in forums and participating community groups that resemble the library's target user groups. For example, if parents of young children are an existing user group, then join groups like BabyCenter.com, where in a conversation about kid's meal preferences, in which the parents are saying that jazzing up a meal is time intensive, the library could make a post saying, "if you are looking for fast and easy ways to jazz up a kid's meal or get them involved in helping in the kitchen, try this book," with a link to the catalog.

By engaging in online communities where our (potential) users already exist, libraries would be going where the users are. Other existing groups could be gaming forums, genealogy forums, public schools websites, university commons spaces, such as Student Council online spaces, teen music websites (try friending a local music group on MySpace and then posting comments about having their music cd at the library for checkout or arranging to have the group play at the library).

Once the community sees the library engaging repeatedly within their own spaces (with links back to the library website or own social media profiles), then the library's online reputation will be perceived as one which gives to the community instead of trying to get from the community.

Gearing Up for the Final Burn

January 9th begins my final quarter in grad school and in preparation I am, of course, reading the required texts ahead of time. These include

Casey, M., & Savastinuk, L., (2007). Library 2.0 A Guide to Participatory Library Service. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc.

Solomon, L. (2010). Doing social media so it matters : a librarian's guide. Chicago : American Library Association.

Haven't started the second book yet and am just in the middle part of the first, but I'm in the "Participatory Service and the Long Tail" section (finally!, ch. 5) and I've a few thoughts forming that I'd like to capture.

Casey & Savastinuk define Library 2.0 as a responsive library which purposively plans for change. (Chapter 1-4 prep libraries for being a purposive changer, but this isn't a review of the book.) In ch 5, they give an example about serving the long tail of user needs for unique, non-popular materials by purchasing a used book on Amazon instead of requesting it via ILL. They then turn to discussing addressing the long tail of information services and how it can be addressed through Library 2.0 and participatory service.


I've been thinking about services like PaperBack Swap and BookMooch which connect book owners who have book, but no longer need them to people looking for books. These two sites promote free lending, with the lender paying the postage costs and a requirement to lend books in order to receive books. What I think is great about these services is that it also connects people to materials which reside in the long tail and I can't help but picture a version of that with libraries and their local community. Where people's homes play the part of the storage of the materials and when someone requires a book, the book is returned and picked up at the library, only to reside in the new person's home until it is requested again. In this way, storage costs are spread out among the people in the library community and library service of materials becomes participatory in a different way.

Radical? possibly. A logistical nightmare? it seems to be working on the book lending networks. Taking control away from the library and putting it in the community's hands? Definitely.