Meeting Users in Wikipedia

I written and spoken before about putting reference services in the flow of users - making the resources and services available to users at their point of need. One example of this could be adding references to library resources, especially digital collections, to Wikipedia articles.

I posted about this in the RISG blog after reading an article called Harnessing Social Networks to Connect with Audiences: If You Build it, Will They Come 2.0?

Here Comes the 3rd Idea: another post about Clay Shirky's book

In concuding my thoughts after reading Here Comes Everybody I wrote a post on the RISG blog posing the question: Is Web 2.0 a Revolution? The line of thought in this post goes along these lines.

If Web 2.0 and social networking become ubiquitous and hence everyone becomes not only information consumers but also content producers then any organisation that relies on managing information is going to be profoundly effected. I think we are already seeing a shift toward people trusting their personal networks for information over traditional institutions.

Libraries are an institution.

How are libraries responding to the shift and preparing themselves for the future?

What do Small World Networks and Kevin Bacon have in Common?

In a strange case of seredipity, while I was reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky I saw a fascinating documentary that used the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game to explain Small World networks. Shirky devoted a chapter of his book to networks (particularly how network theory helps explain social networks). It fascinated me and prompted a post called Six Degrees Makes for a Small World on the RISG blog.

Here Comes Everybody...

Clay Shirky's book, Here Comes Everybody, is a fascinating look at the way Web 2.0 and social networking is touching every aspect of society. I found it highly thought-provoking and encourage anyone who's interested in this stuff to have a read.

I talked about a couple of things that struck me from the book on the RISG blog. Here's one...

Beth Jefferson, Bibliocommons and the Next Generation Catalogue

This interview with Beth Jefferson, Founder of Bibliocommons, inspired a post on the RISG blog about the future of library web sites and catalogues. Go on, read it...

Sutherland Library Catalogue Google Gadget

I've created a catalogue gadget for Sutherland Shire Libraries (MPOW). It was reasonably easy to do - the hardest bit was getting the CSS to work in both IE and Firefox.

It's at the end of this post. You can also see it on the Sutherland Shire Libraries News blog.

I've written a bit about why I did it on the RISG New Technologies blog.

If for some bizarre reason you want to add it to your site feel free. It's available from the Google Gadget directory.

Here's a video of Clay Shirky's speech at the Web 2.0 Expo 2008. His recently published book, Here Comes Everybody, looks at the culture of participation that is growing around Web 2.0.

I know that most public libraries in NSW are thinking about using Web 2.0 tools to reach out to users. One of the questions many people have is why we should be doing it if our community doesn't currently use those tools? Indeed, we are struggling to get much in the way of comments on our blog from the members of our community at my place of work. Comments aren't really on fire on the RISG blogs either (c'mon people, share!). But it's only a matter of time. Clay Shirky puts that argument in an eloquent and entertaining way.

21st Century Library Management Systems

One of the things that Library Catalogues do really badly is ranking search results. In fact, I don't know of any out of the box ILS OPACs that even offer relevancy ranking as part of their search. Even the add-on discovery services like Innovative Interfaces Encore and Sirsi Dynix Enterprise that do offer relevancy ranking base it predominantly on how many times and where keywords appear in a record.

It seems to me that collecting data about which items in your collection get used most and the kind of 'he who used that also used this' data that powers sites like Amazon and LibraryThing could greatly improve the discovery environment of your library catalogue.

So I was interested enough in the report from the JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study to post about it on the RISG New Technologies blog.

Beyond 4 Walls: Imagining Reference Services in a 2.0 World

Beyond 4 Walls: Imagining Reference Services in a 2.0 World was presentation given at the Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar in May 2008. In the presentation I looked at a possible future for reference services and argued the case for starting to plan for that future now.

You can view a version of this presentation below.

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If you can't read the text view the presentation on Slideshare, where you can see it in full-screen.

The links mentioned in the presentation can be found on my del.icio.us bookmarks.

If you view this slideshow or saw me present then please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Why do Libraries Hire Librarians to do Tech Jobs?

Every time I see a job ad for a Systems Librarian where one of the essential criteria is library qualifications I wonder why? The predominant role of these positions is dealing with software and databases. I don't get it?

Anecdotally, it seems that systems librarians are the library workers who have an interest in computers somewhere in their past. Wouldn't libraries be better off with someone who has IT qualifications and experience running their software and databases?

My personal story is a similar one. While I'm not the systems librarian at MPOW I do manage our web presence - something I'm entirely unqualified for. I'm almost completely self-taught. I borrow bits of code and hack them together with my limited skill set. I often have ideas that I can't realise because I'm not a developer/programmer. I'm grateful for the opportunity that many Web 2.0 tools have given me because I can sometimes hack things together simply by filling out a web form and copy/pasting some code. But the possibilities are so much greater...

I explored these ideas a bit more on the RISG New Technologies blog.

Information 2.0

I wrote a post on the RISG New Technologies blog in response to an interesting piece I read titled A Revolution is Coming: Information 2.0 by Mark Lewis, President, EMC Content Management & Archiving Division.

The post addresses the possibilities that are opened up by making data available to the world so that it can be used in new ways and places.

The Hyperlinked Library

My response to a talk from Michael Stephens when he visited Australia in February 2008 titled The Hyperlinked Library posted on the RISG blog.

Skilling Up for the Next Generation

Skilling up for the next generation was a post I wrote for the RISG blog about the future skills that may be required by librarians. It was inspired by a post on the ReadWriteWeb called Sexy Librarians of the Future Will Help You Upload Your Videos to YouTube.