I came across an interesting post today on David Lee King’s blog discussing the use of LibraryH3lp in the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library website. LibraryH3lp is a chat and instant messaging platform that supports multiple users and message cues. It can also be integrated directly into the library website and/or catalog (as they did at the Topeka library), allowing access from any point where a library user may wish to ask a question. While Meebo widgets have become ubiquitous on library websites, this option appears to be more versatile, allowing live links to be sent to users and conversations to be sent or shared between multiple librarians. There is an excellent overview of the LibraryH3lp service from the Code{4}lib journal.
Bibliotechno
explorations in library blogging
Category Archives: Technology
Sharing RSS bundles with Google Reader
Google announced a new service today through Google Reader that allows users to bundle and share groups of RSS feeds with others. They make it very easy to create a bundle (the best instructions I found were from Lifehacker), but I’m not quite sold on their sharing options. Right now, users can email the bundle to friends, share the bundle as a link on a blog or website, or share as an OPML file. While I may be able to create a widget for the combined feed through a service like widgetbox or sproutbuilder, it seems Google would have built a simple widget that users could just embed where they needed it. Still, this could be an alternative to creating a Yahoo Pipe to combine various feeds–just right now, not a very versatile one.
Here is a link to the Google Reader bundle I created for library resource, blog, and job feeds.
If Oprah plugs Skype, will America swoon?
Anyone who has been watching Oprah lately may have noticed her increasing use of the synchronous communication tool, Skype, to connect with guests on her show. Yesterday she went a step further and devoted a whole show to the technology. Her “Where the Skype are you?” episode connected a host of people from scientists in Antarctica, to travelers on Virgin Airlines, to shoppers in Harrod’s department store in London.
Is Oprah doing this to save money by not having to fly guests to the show? Or is she possibly making some money through this endorsement? Maybe a little of both, but it appears this is yet another example of Oprah hyping up a new technology. Perhaps it will work. When Oprah exclaimed her love for Amazon’s Kindle, interest and sales spiked, and when Oprah joined Twitter last month, she had one million followers in 28 days with a jump in Twitter traffic by 43% in the period following that episode. Could the same happen for Skype?
I was only able to catch the last 10 minutes of the show, but watching Oprah taste wine with the owner of the Bonny Doon Winery proved less than exciting. When Oprah asked shoppers at Harrod’s if they had previously heard of Skype, all of them had. Will this show make them want to try it out? I also heard a lot of Skype hype before I ever used the service. After using it for the first time, I was very impressed with the clarity (at least with one on one conversations) and ease of the service. What was most interesting to me in watching Oprah on Skype was that none of the participants were using headsets, but the audio was still amazingly clear and free of feedback or echo. Is Oprah really using some sort of SuperSkype? Oprah also started a Skype webcast based around the book, “A New Earth: Get Ready to Be Awakened” by Eckhart Tolle. While there was extreme interest in the webcast, technical difficulties prevented it from getting very far on its first go-round. While any “Oprah effect” Skype serge may only be temporary, perhaps this is the beginning of a stronger interest in VOIP?
Final Project
For those of you who may be interested, here is a link to my final project. In the “About” section you will find my documentation of the highs and lows of the project. I decided to see if I could force the square peg of the San Francisco Public Library website into the round hole of WordPress. It is certainly possible, but better executed with more time. If I had to do it over again, there would probably be some changes, but for the most part, I am happy with it. Now I just have to force myself to let go, not look at it or touch anything else…. This may be a loosing battle.
Random Thoughts and Questions
So, I’ve already shared my love of the New York Public Library’s technology initiatives. Today, it is the Orange County Library’s turn. Wow. I previously admired the video they produced introducing their new iphone interface, but there is so much more going on in this library that is worth checking out. What most caught my eye this morning is their Steaming Video on demand service. They don’t have a lot of available titles, but they do include a number of movies and television shows as well as instructional videos on a number of topics. Does anyone know of any other libraries that are offering a streaming video service?
Another Video from OCLS that I enjoyed:
Another random question–is anyone else trying out Scriblio for their final project? I have loaded it semi-successfully, but this half-success isn’t working with my desire to overachieve. 100% success might be nice. If you are working with Scriblio, I would love to ask you a few questions to get this working correctly. Many thanks in advance.
UPDATE: Looks like the NYPL is offering streaming video and audio and my own San Francisco Public Library will begin to offer the service starting May 4th. Fantastic!
Library Jobs mashup
Here is my first successful mashup. I combined the LibGib jobs feed from Twitter with the LISjobs feed and some of the listings found on LibWorm jobs and extracted geolocation info to create a map of job locations. Clicking on the title should take you to the job listing.
**UPDATE**–it seems that WordPress no longer wishes to display this pipe (a 2.8 issue perhaps?), but you can find it here.
NYPL Labs
I’ve been following updates on the NYPL Labs page and am really intrigued with the changes they are discussing and implementing. Today’s post examined preconceptions librarians have about their users and what is popular in the library. Reviewing top search terms at the NYPL, librarians were suprised to discover “Tumblebooks” at the top of the list. I was suprised as well since I have never heard of them (if I was focused on children’s librarianship, I’m sure I would have).
It makes sense that people are so interested in Tumblebooks–it is a wonderful resource for children’s books, games, etc! They provide flash animated books, games and puzzles, audio books, and even a section for language learning (which is great for me because I can’t read anything more advanced than children’s french–and even it is difficult).
Another worthwhile announcement from the Labs blog is their development of an open source web usability survey (which they are calling Infomaki). They survey only asks users to answer one question at a time, instead of committing to a long 20- 50 question survey that can take up quite a bit of time. After a user has answered a question, they are asked if they want to answer another or get on with their business. Most choose to continue answering questions–in much larger numbers than other traditional suveys. The survey appears at the top of the library webpage and is simply designed and non-intrusive. This open source gem could also be used by other libraries in the future. Keep your eyes on the NYPL Labs blog. Some good ideas are originating there that may be a benefit to all libraries.
Synchronous communication
During my second semester in the SLIS program back in 2005, I took a class with Penny Peck that required us to meet in a Blackboard classroom to participate in a real time chat session. This was before Elluminate had been adopted by the school, so we were denied the use of an audio or visual component beyond simple text. With approximately 25 students involved in the chat, the conversation was a little hard to follow. This was my first experience using any sort of real-time chat and I wasn’t sure I liked it. I was used to being rather verbose—something that doesn’t work in a chat or IM session. I also had to get over my bad spelling and learn to type quickly and efficiently. The following semester I took 210-Reference and asked a reference question through both Question Point Virtual Reference and an IM service. I was starting to warm up to the use of synchronous communication—particularly for reference services.
This semester I have been an Elluminate assistant, teaching students and some professors how to use the synchronous communication devices found in Elluminate. Elluminate is a phenomenal tool, allowing for interaction via text, voice, and visuals. I assisted an Elluminate class Saturday morning for LIBR-210 Reference where the professor was able to demonstrate how to use various web pages and databases to aid students in their reference service. However, similar to the drawbacks described by Meredith Farkas with Virtual Reference service, there can be some technological hurdles to overcome with Elluminate. There is a reason we hold training sessions at the beginning of each semester—interactions in Elluminate are not completely intuitive and most users new to Elluminate could use a bit of guidance in the beginning. Still, I believe that the introduction of Elluminate in the SLIS program has helped bring all of us closer together in our classes and in this program. This is also one of the benefits synchronous communication provides between libraries and their patrons.
Another benefit is the instantaneous (or semi-instantaneous) nature of the interactions. IM seems to be the most popular of the synchronous tools with many libraries setting up AIM, MSN, Yahoo, or gTalk accounts. Meebo widgets make it extremely convenient for users to communicate with their library—particularly for patrons who do not have accounts with any of the major IM players. Whenever I have communicated with a library via IM, I have used their Meebo widget.
Skype is a relatively new tool for me, but I enjoyed it so much this week that I have been using it to call all of my relatives, whether they have Skype or not. Skype seems like it could be a fabulous tool for reference with its phone, video, and chat capabilities. But most of the population is not ready for it yet. There were only 3 libraries listed on the Library Success wiki as using Skype for reference. I contacted the Ohio University Libraries via Meebo on a Saturday night (when Skype service was not available) to ask how patrons used Skype to communicate with the library and approximately how many Skype reference requests they received on a given week. It seems that the Skype service has yet to catch on, with most users communicating through the chat capability instead of a phone or video call. Perhaps we will see Skype use go up in the future as more people spend increased time at a computer and feel more comfortable making calls from it (or if Skype is allowed to function on cellphones—such as their iphone).
I have already given my thoughts on library reference service and SMS. I was happy to see evidence of creative thinking this week with the use of text messaging in the OPAC at the Bryn Mawr library. While some people might be hesitant to text themselves the call number and book information from the catalog because of the cost, this sort of innovative thinking is where I see the use of SMS evolving in libraries.
Out of everything that we have talked about thus far in the semester, synchronous communication may be undergoing the quickest change. In five years, the playing field might be completely rewritten. I look forward to the innovations to come.
Texting comes to libraries
Libraries seem to be doing a great job getting themselves on the SMS train. Unfortunately, I fear that they may be riding in the caboose. While many libraries have been reaching out to the new wave of texting fanatics, their initiatives may be too little, too late.
I have to admit that I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to texting in libraries. My annoyance stems primarily from the repeated accolades scattered all over the web as well as commercials on tv advertising the wonders of text answering services such as ChaCha and kgb. These two services, in contrast to Google Text Search, use live people to answer ready reference type of questions–questions that could easily be answered by a librarian. Do librarians really want these type of ready reference questions anymore? Do they want them in the magnitude that they are flowing in? Maybe not. Some of these questions are the kind of questions someone might ask if they were drunk at the weekly pub quiz. Others are even more obscene. But many others are simple questions that require simple answers such as “Who won the Women’s NCAA division 1 basketball game?” and “What is the first day of spring?”. I know someone who swears by ChaCha after they helped guide her to the train station in Mumbai when she was lost. Librarians are much more interested in guiding users to the information they need rather than becoming an answering service, but there are some compelling reasons why, perhaps, libraries should have their foot in this market.
To begin with, these institutions are making a lot of money. Kgb (with a large following in Europe and a growing fan club here in the States) made a profit of $42 million last year. While most of their money probably comes from advertisers,the number of people using this service cannot be denied. Their competitor, ChaCha, reported that it has had 3.6 million users since January 2008. Obviously no one library could handle those numbers. A library consortium might be a bit strained by this level of demand as well, but it could be worth investigating. With the focus of most libraries on their institution or community, text services are being set up on an individual, institution by institution basis. Perhaps the reason ChaCha and kgb are so successful is because they are a one stop shop for the whole country (if not the whole world) and have recognizable and memorable text numbers. The creation of a consorial library focused text answer service seems destined to materialize only in my dreams.
It isn’t just the money, but loss of prestige that frustrates me when it comes to the growth of SMS reference among non-library organizations. Libraries are always going to be highly regarded, but they might not always be remembered as a resource in a user’s quest for information. I work at a college comprised of mostly 18-23 year olds who rarely consider the library as the first stop in their research process. Their first source, of course, is Google. For easy answers when not at a computer–they are turning to ChaCha. I want them to turn to libraries. Don’t we all.
Of course, after ranting on and on for four paragraphs now, I believe that this sort of text answering service has already crested and may diminish over the next few years. With the introduction of the iphone and similar smartphone devices, users can once again turn to Google for their answers when out on the town. Let’s hope libraries catch this wave of mobile use when the wave is still building. Luckily, some already are….
Library of Congress on YouTube
Early films from the Library of Congress vault
