This pretty much sums up library science in a nut shell...

PHEW!

Well this semester just whizzed by. I won't miss the break neck speed (although I did get really good at multi tasking while listening to podcasts) but I actually will miss the content. I feel a fewer steps closer to being an actual library technogeek and not just a wannabe. I can hang with the lingo and my eyes don't immediately start rolling backward when someone starts talking cloud computing, content management systems, or even digital whatchamacallits. Honestly, I think this should be a required class for MLIS students and not just an elective. Because if you don't know this stuff, you're going to be left in the dust...

Copy of sharp_gerblick final

Lisa Sharp

Katherine Gerblick

 

Successful Use of Web 2.0 Technologies in Libraries

 

              On Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 5:22 a.m. ET, the term “web 2.0” became the one-millionth word in the English Language (Sutter, 2009). This estimation was determined by the Global Language Monitor, which is a website that calculates the number of words created by using a mathematical formula (Sutter, 2009). According to the Global Language Monitor, “web 2.0” is defined as, “a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services,” which involves a more social generation of the Internet (Blair, 2009). Libraries worldwide have been increasingly using web 2.0 technologies to improve and expand the services they offer. This paper discusses in detail a few unique libraries that have successfully transformed web 2.0 technologies into those of library 2.0.

              The University of Montevallo, located in Alabama, is a public liberal arts college that was founded in 1896. With enrollment generally averaging 3,000 students, the college boasts a strong student/faculty ratio of 16 to 1. The school’s mission is to provide students with an “educational experience of high quality,” including programs designed for “intellectual and personal growth in the pursuit of meaningful employment and responsible, informed citizenship.” To help meet the goals of the school’s mission, the University of Montevallo’s library, the Carmichael Library, created its own mission statement, which involves “…providing and promoting a user-centered information gateway to the resources and services needed to support the University curriculum.” In addition, the library strives to, “identify, acquire, and organize resources to enhance access to information and…will create additional access points as delivery of information evolves.” Finally, the Carmichael Library pledges to, “…cultivate a level of service that effectively and efficiently meets the information needs of students, faculty, and staff” (University, 2009).   

              In order to meet the goals of its mission statement, the Carmichael Library uses a variety of web 2.0 technologies. One of the most impressive of its social technologies is the library’s Facebook account. The library’s Facebook page provides viewers with valuable information, such as library hours of operation and upcoming events. Jason Cooper, the Technology and Technical Services Librarian at the university, claims that the library director, Rosemary Arneson, began urging the exploration of Facebook in the fall of 2007. By then, almost 70% of library staff had their own personal Facebook accounts. In April of 2008, the library created its own institutional profile. This decision was based on the fact that other schools that the Carmichael Library was tracking, like Mississippi State University, had started to create Facebook accounts. Because most staff members at the library already had individual Facebook accounts by this time, they understood the importance of an institutional Facebook page and were enthusiastic about the idea (J. Cooper, personal communication, June 8, 2009).

              According to Facebook records, the Carmichael Library has 133 fans. Mr. Cooper feels that these patrons are mostly interested in the library’s Facebook page for its photos and notes, and only a few fans actually sign up for library programs via Facebook. Regardless, Mr. Cooper strongly recommends that more libraries, especially academic ones, should be active in Facebook, for it is a great way to meet users “where they are.” He also suggests that public libraries create a MySpace account as well, since MySpace “caters more to the at-large audience” (J. Cooper, personal communication, June 8, 2009).

              In the interview with Mr. Cooper, he greatly emphasized the importance of having a library director who was more than willing to support experimentation with social networking sites. In addition to providing chat reference, the Carmichael Library also has a Flickr account. New pictures are posted to the account nearly every month, which is popular among students. Since the launch of the library’s Flickr account in 2007, they have logged 4,098 photo views! Furthermore, the Carmichael Library just began to experiment with Twitter in March of 2009. Although Mr. Cooper was at first skeptical that the library’s Twitter account would have many followers, he was pleasantly surprised. The president of the University of Montevallo, Philip Williams, also recently created a Twitter account, and students at the school seem to be increasingly following both accounts. One of the university’s older web 2.0 technologies is its blog. The library’s blog was created in the spring of 2006 and has been updated 368 times since then (J. Cooper, personal communication, June 8, 2009)!

              The Carmichael Library can already boast having two custom RSS feeds, one for browsing popular titles and one for the reference collection, but a third RSS feed is currently under construction. This upcoming RSS feed will be for DVD acquisitions. Mr. Cooper states that the future of the Carmichael Library’s web 2.0 technologies will hopefully be a better integration between the 2.0 implementations and the website. In this ever-changing world of technology, there is always room for improvement (J. Cooper, personal communication, June 8, 2009)!

              In addition to Alabama’s Carmichael Library, libraries across Georgia have also been using unique web 2.0 technologies to enhance their services. For example, the PINES system was created by the Georgia Public Library Service to provide patrons with greater access to information.

              The mission statement of the Georgia Public Library Service is both uplifting and succinct: “Empowering libraries to improve the lives of Georgians.” A program of the Georgia Public Library Service, Georgia Library PINES (Public Information Network for Electronic Services) is the public library automation and lending network for more than 275 libraries and affiliated service outlets in almost 140 counties.  It creates a statewide "borderless library" that provides equal access to information for all Georgians.  Georgians with a PINES library card have access to materials beyond what is available at their primary branches and can reap the benefits of a shared collection of 9.6 million library materials that can be delivered to their home library branch free of charge (Georgia, 2009).  Tim Daniels, the Assistant State Librarian for Technology and Infrastructure for Georgia Public Library Service was gracious enough to provide an interview via email.  While the focus of the interview was on Evergreen, the open source Integrated Library System (ILS) upon which the statewide consortium PINES runs, we also discussed some of the other library 2.0 technologies that are currently used in the PINES system as well as some technology that Tim hopes to integrate in the future.     

                   The GPLS Strategic Plan adopted in December 2007 stated that one of the technology goals states that “the library community will have access to resources that enhance understanding and use of current and future technology.” Tim Daniels elaborates on this statement by stating that “One of the things we do here at GPLS is provide Wide Area Network (WAN) access to most of the public libraries in Georgia and even though the WAN is not very Web 2.0 it provides the pathways (or pipes) for all Web 2.0 technologies to travel.  So one of the things I have to think about is will this Web 2.0 technology (say YouTube for instance) take up a lot of the bandwidth (clog the web pipes).  So I try to take a look at most web 2.0 tech with that in mind.  Plus many of our libraries rely on us to help them understand the uses of web 2.0 tools” (T.  Daniels, personal communication, June 9, 2009).

                  In order to understand PINES’ Open Source ILS it is necessary to take a look at the course of events leading up to its conception.  Mr. Daniels explained that PINES came into existence for two main reasons.  First, several ILS vendors of the smaller Georgia libraries were not going to make their systems Y2K compliant which meant that as of January 1, 2000, these libraries would have no ILS.   At the same time, the state government was interested in creating a state-wide library card.  These two ideas helped build the foundation of PINES.   A proprietary ILS vendor was used for the state wide consortium but significant problems cropped up quickly.  The size and scope of PINES was too large for the Integrated Library Systems on the market and Evergreen was built in-house in order to fulfill the needs of the consortium. It was decided that the code would be open source and collaborative from the onset. There was significant staff involvement in the development of Evergreen and now that other library systems are using Evergreen the input has grown exponentially. With that sort of hands on involvement, the staff often feel more dedicated to their ILS than they would otherwise using a proprietary ILS.

                  Mr. Daniels noted that “Many of the other tools folks have associated with web 2.0 (tagging, comments, RSS) are not currently functional in Evergreen.” Drupal, an open source Content Management System, is used by GPLS to house multiple GPLS sites in addition to 15 Georgia public library system sites. Mr. Daniels also stated that although they do not currently follow a best practices model they are working on it for the near future.   

                   Mr. Daniels is very interested in following trends in library technology and technology in general.  He stated that he tracks around 100 blogs and reads many technology magazines and publications and is careful to pay attention to technology beyond libraries in order to assess what technology could possibly be applied in a library setting.  He correctly notes that “If you only track technology in library publications you will always be behind.” He also mentioned that this summer the technology team was going to experiment with Cloud Computing and stated that, “We are going to try to establish a server that feeds resources to a group of terminals.  By doing this we hope to give our libraries a resource that could double the life cycle of their public access computers.” They do not currently have a way to track usage statistics but will be conducting an “environmental scan of the technology in the public libraries in Georgia this summer.” In regards to justifying resources towards a virtual presence, Mr. Daniels sums up his outlook by quoting John Houser: “You should put as many resources in your virtual presence as you put in a branch of your library." Many patrons will visit an E-location but rarely do the go beyond their local branch.  The interview was concluded with a question regarding his thoughts on learning library 2.0 technologies and advice he might share with new librarians.  He summed it up by mentioning that, “the technology is the easy part.  The hard part is to stay curious and be willing to experiment with the technology and also be willing to let a 2.0 tool go if it is not serving the needs of your users not all technologies are applicable to all libraries.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

(2009). Georgia public library service. Retrieved June 10, 2009, Web site:

http://www.georgialibraries.org/public/pines.php

 

(2009). Univesity of montevallo. Retrieved June 10, 2009, Web site:

http://www.montevallo.edu/default.shtm

 

Blair, Maverick (2009). Global Language Monitor. Retrieved June 10, 2009, Web site:

http://www.languagemonitor.com/

 

Sutter, John (2009, June 9). English gets millionth word . Retrieved June 10, 2009, Web

site: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/10/million.words/

 

 

 

Assignment 4

Joining DSpace was very simple and I was immediately struck by how easy it was to navigate around the website. It took me a while to figure out where the metadata registry was but once found, it was easy to add a field. I chose to add a subject field because I actually understood what that field meant. After I emailed Larry requesting that he add the field, I decided on what sort of collections I should add and then picked out materials to upload. Adding a collection was very simple but my creative juices are flagging at this point in the Maymester so I was hard pressed to come up with information to add to the fields. Usually that's my favorite part of an assignment like this. Once I figured out what I was going to add, I started the process without many problems. Many of the fields didn't ring a bell for me so I just filled out the ones that were familiar.

The same was true for adding to the collections. I was unsure how all of the restrictions would actually pan out once I got started developing my collection so I chose all of them instead of trying to figure out how each one would work. I added a logo to my health collection (which didn't end up really being about health--I added a cookie recipe to the collection) and I thought it looked really nice. Again, the program is so user friendly and adding a logo was super easy. I appreciated the *lack* of choices with this program as compared to Wordpress which had so many choices that I never felt like I had my bearings. DSpace felt more like Blogger to me. All the choices were plainly written, easy to find and above all SIMPLE. My cataloging skills leave a lot to be desired so boning up on those and learning more about DC would be necessary in order to use this program sufficiently but I found the program itself to be pretty darn great. All of the advanced searching was equally easy to maneuver. I chose to search: MLIS, libraries, health and cookies (not all at the same time) and got succinct responses. Now our little community is mighty small so I don't know what the searches would look like with tons of information. Overall, I felt a lot more comfortable in this work environment than Wordpress and I feel like I learned a lot.
http://mlis.library.gatech.edu/handle/123456789/73
http://mlis.library.gatech.edu/handle/123456789/76
http://mlis.library.gatech.edu/handle/123456789/111

Care for a little social commentary with your technology?

Nervous about information sharing and Library 2.0 Technology?

Don't be.

Interview with Darin Givens from GPLS

I was fortunate to have an interview with Darin Givens, the Webmaster and Communications Specialist for the Georgia Public Library Service. Here is the transcript of our conversation.


• To begin with, can you please share a bit about your background and your job description? 

I have been working in Web design and development for 10 years. At GPLS, my position is Communications Specialist/Webmaster. I'm the administrator for the GPLS web server which houses our multiple GPLS sites plus those for 15 Georgia public library systems. I manage and designed: the main GPLS site, georgialibraries.org; Friends of Georgia Libraries, georgia-friends.org; our two intranets sites. I also developed and designed several other sites for GPLS-affiliated library organizations, with most of those sites being built on either the Drupal or Joomla content management systems.

Another part of my job is to provide help to the library systems of Georgia with their web services. I give them guidance for web redesign issues and content management strategies.


• How and where did  you hear about CMS? What were your motivations to adopt CMS for its current use (library website or any other purpose)? 

I can't remember my introduction to CMS. I assume I read about them in the web development blogs and sites I frequent. I originally attempted to build my own CMS using PHP for my GPLS projects, but realized that it was going to take more time than I could spend considering my other job duties. I tested installs of Joomla and Drupal on our web server to try them out and found them to be very flexible and able to meet the needs of several projects I've worked on in the last couple of years.

My main motivation for suggesting a CMS for a project is to allow web editors to provide site content without going through the learning curve  -- and purchase of -- software such as Dreamweaver. I do use that software myself for editing code and like it, but I recommend that novice content providers work within a CMS framework instead so that they don't have to learn to use FTP for uploading (Dreamweaver has a built-in FTP device).


• What was your decision making criteria? 

Number one was allowing multiple staff members in an organization to edit web content without needing to learn HTML editing and FTP software. I also wanted to have the ability to customize and easily maintain a stable template for the pages in a site.

Another main concern of mine is making sure that the HTML files as rendered in a browser comply with standards for web usability for people who use assistive browsing technology, such as the blind and visually impaired.

Drupal and Joomla, the two open-source CMS I use, both fit those criteria.

• What are the important benefits or advantages of the CMS that you are using now over the old system or another CMS that you've used in the past? How was the learning curve? 

The important advantage of Drupal and Joomla to me is the ability to add on many different optional devices to enhance the features of the CMS as befits a specific project. The learning curve has been steep for me as a web developer since I get into the details of the source code of these CMS to tailor them to fit my needs as specifically as possible.


• Do you have any additional comments or observations you'd like to share about your experiences with CMS? 

Using a CMS can provide a huge advantage to many web sites and I recommend that everyone building a site consider using one. Nonetheless, there are certainly situations where a CMS would not provide a considerable advantage to a site and may even be too cumbersome to implement. A small site with only a few pages that is maintained by a single person may very well be better off without a CMS.