Social Intelligence

To those trying to decide what role social media will play in your businesses and what sort of policy needs to be in place I recommend the readings for wk. 12 on http://lis9763.net/ as all of the readings added something to my understanding of the topic. None of the readings are too long and most can be read by utilizing their paragraph headings so that if you are in  a hurry you can get the overall gist of what you need to know.

Sharlyn Lauby has a no nonsense way of responding to this issue with her tips as well as the reasons she gives for and against writing a policy on social media. Before your institution starts the using your chosen media you must decide how you want to communicate with your coworkers and your clients.

David Lee King takes a great shot at those libraries who may send the wrong message to their patrons simply by using free software without thinking about the impact of the ads that these sites use to make money. His examples are entertaining and they get the point across. I mutter over the quantity of ads I am exposed to in the course of a day, but it was nice to be reminded of the issues around using social media from a professional prospective.

Jeremiah Owyang deals with the issue of assessing the effectiveness of any social media enterprise and selling this new media to those who may not feel it is a good use of company time. His list of questions and ideas are definitely worth considering before setting out on a corporate social media adventure. They will allow you to analysis the value of your project and make improvements as it grows and ages.

Have you ever thought about what it takes to hire someone for the job of building your library’s social presence online?  Choosing someone or a team of people within your library to maintain your library’s virtual presence in the various social media realms is important and can make the difference between a social media presence that draws people in and enlarges your library’s support system or one that repels potential patrons. Have you ever considered how your future employers could evaluate your social street credentials from what you post online, David Armano certainly has? I have always thought about the fact that what I post will live on well after I am not around anymore, but to realize that people will make decisions on whether I am qualified to work for them or take on a particular project is interesting to contemplate.

UT SouthWestern Library’s Social Media Policy was my favourite of the case studies we reviewed this week as it was positive in defining how their employees should interact with others over social media. The policy is to the point and easy to follow. It raises issues that anyone using social media should consider if they want to be professional and courteous in their use of the available media. The policy also has a flexibility which should stand the university and the library in good stead for the coming years. I also like the idea of adding a social media clause to an existing communications policy recognizing that this is just another new way for people to communicate with each other.

www.web2learning.net/wp-content/uploads/…/mashups-metro2010.pdf This pdf provides much food for thought with examples of mashups and information about what a mashup is.

http://library2.usask.ca/~fichter/mashups/ This is another list of resources and information about using mashups in libraries.

http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2006/09/13/mashing_winners.html No explanation necessary the Shifted Librarian has provided another great post for us to enjoy.

An interesting collection of reading for this week from computing clouds to mobile devices and how the changes in technology will affect libraries for the present and in the future. I am curious how many of you out there  would search the library catalogue from using your cell or iphone? I have a feeling that I am a bit of a dinosaur in this area in that I am only really using my phone for making the occasional call or sending text messages. I am happy to head into my local library and check for holds in person or pick them up if I get an email that they are available. I found that when I was getting text messages from an institution versus someone on my contact list I was getting severely charged for the priviledge so I will get out of my apartment, check my email, or my library account to keep on top of my holds and the books due back.

However, I may be part of a team looking after a library website at some point or communicating with providers of library software or online databases. I need to be aware of what my options are for making the library resources more searchable and accessible. I will be interested to see what direction mobile technology takes in the coming years and what people will be wanting in the way of accessible services.

QR codes and their uses caught my attention when Amanda shared the information about them in this week’s video post.  I went looking for more information about this topic and now I am going to share this post by The Proverbial LoneWolf Librarian’s blog. Thanks for providing us with more potential uses of this technology.

As to the augmented reality applications I find them slightly disturbing!!! Yet if you sent a tweet to someone tweeting about issues with research it might be a quiet way to help students, but they might consider it an invasion of their privacy.

I think that whether it is the decision to put part of your resources or all of your resources online on a third party site out in the cloud or to put the hours and technical time into designing applications for different mobile devices much research and thought must go into the implications of the decisions. Consultation is an important part of the equation. Why transfer the resources off site if your internet connectivity is not consistent enough to allow them to be accessed easily? Why take the time to design an application or a service if there is not a wide enough user base interested in utilizing it either within the library community or outside it? Are confidentiality and legal liability going to be concerns if certain files are stored off-site? Is it reasonable to store a portion of the libraries resources off-site and in the cloud so that your library is doublely covered in case of a technological or a nature disaster? Are some resources already located off-site because your library access them via a licensing agreement?

Another week is halfway done and I feel like I could continue my research and work on our group work project for many days to come because I love researching food writing and reading about other people’s literary and culinary adventures. The only problem with doing this sort of research is that it makes me hungry and as such when I climbed on the scale this morning it told me I had gained instead of lost weight. Can you gain weight just by reading about food and looking at pictures and videos online?

In helping to create a Facebook group about cooking and books with my band of merry maids I realized how little I truly utilized the power of all of Facebook’s many applications and options. I had previously been using it mostly to communicate with old friends and new acquaintances from around the country and the world. I had not done any extra exploring or participated in any groups online. I have my virtual zoo,  my email, and my time instant messaging people back  and forth. I may occasionally post a note on someone’s wall, but I am still very much a Facebook virgin.

I found that because I had not set up the network section of my profile online I could not access the first group that was created. The network issue is something I will have to straighten out at a later date. We decided that if I was having trouble and had spent some time online and with Facebook that the group structure needed to be more easily accessible to others, who might not have spent any time online or in a social networking environment such as Facebook.

I like the option presented by Matthew Williams and the other librarian, who use their personal profiles to communicate with their patrons as I find that I have enough trouble taking the time to properly check my various school and personal accounts in various software without adding further accounts to the list. I would prefer to use the time to look for interesting links to share and updating the blogs and accounts I already have on the go. My personal account has some character to it, but not anything that I would find professionally embarrassing as I figure that my digital footprint will likely outlive me by centuries.

After taking part in the UStream video and chat yesterday I see it having great potential for a variety of functions within the library environment from professional development to information literacy sessions with distance  students. The idea that you could share ideas and resources in a session and get relatively immediate feedback from your audience even if they could not get to your physical location is amazing. The idea that small libraries within a system could share programming responsibility for a book club or storytelling program. One week the librarian in one community could share her chosen story with discussion and or project with step by step instructions. The following week or month someone else in the system could share their part of the program. You can do a cooking demo and book discussion from your kitchen while still including your audience as long as they are comfortable signing  up and accessing the websites required, in our case Facebook and UStream.

I thought I should include links for our Facebook group, Cooking the Books and our group post that Dayna posted for us. I hope you all check out both links and enjoy the content.

Here are some interesting examples of people thinking in similiar ways about  social networking. An online comic artist draws comics live through UStream communicating with audience by writing chat responses in the comic.http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2008/04/19/penny-arcade-draws-comics-live-creativity-to-the-max/

Another interesting post I discovered this week was an A to Z of Social Networking for Libraries which appealed to me as a fan of alphabet and number books. I enjoyed many of the other posts on this blog, but felt that this would have been something fun to post on a professional bulletin board at work. I am thinking I will add it to my Facebook wall with a note as it is the best explanation I have come across for why I am spending hours online of late and will likely spend many more to come.