RSS Feeds
Some of the best marketing strategies may be the most simple.  Many libraries create newsletters to advertise upcoming events.  These work well if you can convince your patrons to actually read them, parsing out the announcement for that book reading they have been eagerly anticipating.  But what may work better for some library users is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed of these announcements.  Events are then fed to patrons through an RSS reader (like Google Reader) as they are scheduled. A library can even set up separate RSS feeds for different types of events—for example, a feed for children’s storytime, another for adult literacy classes, and another for upcoming exhibitions.

Blogs
Blogs are another easy option for communicating library news and services.  Blogs can also be used to advertise collections in the library that may otherwise go unnoticed.  The San Francisco Public Library has a variety of blogs geared towards specific branches or departments, highlighting the best aspects of their collections.  The New York Public Library recently consolidated all of their department blogs to a main page, Blogging@NYPL.  If a reader would rather read the posts from a specific writer, however, they are able to subscribe via RSS to that writer’s posts.

One of the best aspects of blogging is the ability to connect with the public.  Jill Stover, in her article, “What’s Marketing Got to Do with it?”, points to the Hennepin County Library as an excellent example of libraries using blogs to discuss new initiatives in the library (2007).  The library recently posted information on the merger of the Hennepin County Library catalog with that of the former Minneapolis Public Library.  Library users were able to comment or ask questions concerning how the merger would affect them.  Responses by librarians to these questions ended up serving a dual purpose—they answered the patron’s question while leaving a public record of that answer, allowing answers to be visible to anyone else who may have a similar question.

But as Stover warns, it’s not enough for a library to simply write a blog. They must also invest time and effort reading and responding to other blogs–especially when these blogs are discussing your library. She encourages librarians to “do your own market research by searching for mentions of your library, librarians in general, or topics important to your patron base. You may be surprised by the contexts in which discussions about libraries take place and you’ll also learn a great deal about the lives of your patrons and their perceptions of libraries” (2007).  Commenting on other blogs also allows librarians to clarify information about the library or point users towards services they may not have previously been aware of.

Flickr
Libraries have been using Flickr for some time to post public photos of library programs, allowing the community to share in the library experience.  A number of great ideas for how to use Flickr can be found in P.F. Anderson’s article, “31 Flavors–Things to do with Flickr in Libraries” (2007).  Some ideas from the article include: creating a library photo tour, embedding photos from Flickr in the library website as a slideshow, and highlighting photos and items from rare collections (Anderson, 2007).  The Library of Congress has created “The Commons” on Flickr to share many of their images with the public.  Other libraries and museums have partnered with them in this venture and are creating a vibrant photo collection online as well as an example of the breadth of library collections.

Some libraries and library groups have found other creative ways to use Flickr, inviting the community to collaborate on photologs or projects.  One example is Library 101, the collaborative project between Michael Porter, David Lee King, and the library community to create a music video utilizing user-generated pictures involving the numbers 1 and 0.  As of today, over 500 pictures have been submitted for the project.  While most of the participants seem to be fellow librarians, a collaborative project such as this could be used in a public library setting to help build community among library patrons.

Gaming
Gaming is commonly seen as a way to get teens interested and involved in the library, but they have also started being used with seniors to promote activity and interaction.  Dale Lipschultz in, “Gaming@Your Library”, discussed an initiative at the Old Bridge Public Library to match up teen mentors with older adults, forging connections between the two groups while simultaneously teaching leadership skills to teens as they lead these older adults through various games.  By channeling this interest in gaming towards other aspects of the library (perhaps by supplying books or magazines with gaming references), libraries can capitalize on the increase in traffic that gaming brings in.

Video
Libraries are increasingly finding themselves in the role of video producer.  These videos are often either informative, showing off the various features of the library, or collaborative, involving library patrons (young and old) in their creation.  More often of late, these videos can be hugely entertaining.  I recently stumbled upon two creative examples, using video to announce upcoming events and/or library services.  The first, from the Collingswood Public Library, uses a silent movie theme to announce a fun run benefiting a library teen space.

The second video is from the Orange County Public Library.  In this video, G.I. Joe figurines are used as spokespeople, discussing the benefits of the library’s iPhone interface.  It is informative while showing off the library’s sense of humor and targets the younger demographic that is most likely to interact with the library using new technology.

But it is not enough to just create a video and stick it up on the library website, according to Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan in their article, “How to Drive Traffic to Your Website” (2008).  They suggest that libraries take advantage of free online video hosting services such as YouTube and Blip.tv.  Both of the videos shown here can also be found on YouTube.  The Orange County Public Library has even set up their own YouTube page, allowing library patrons to easily locate all of their videos.

Social Networking
Finally, Twitter and Facebook are a free and easy ways to broadcast important library information.  The Missouri River Regional Library is currently using an application called Twitterfeed to pull previously published information from their Flickr pages, blog, press releases, and events pages and publish them again on their Twitter account (n.a, 2007).  Libraries with Facebook accounts can advertise upcoming events, photos, and services to fans, showing up in individual’s news feed.

These are but a few ways libraries can leverage the power of Web 2.0 to reach out and connect with their patrons.  Most of these services are quick, easy, and often free. In a time of tight budgets, libraries need to utilize these cheap but effective marketing strategies.

References

Anderson, P.F. (2007).  31 Flavors–things to do with Flickr in libraries. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/450126?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true

Lipschultz, D. (2009). Gaming @ Your Library. American Libraries, v. 40 (1/2), 40-3. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

n.a. (2007). Twitter and the Missouri River Regional Library. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/449819?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true

Schmidt, A. & Houghton-Jan, S. (2008).  How to drive traffic to your website.  Information Today. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov08/Schmidt_Houghton-Jan.shtml.

Stover, J. (2007). What’s marketing got to do with it?. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/444514?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true.

In the article, Gaming @ Your Library, Dale Lipschultz states that, “using games to support learning is not a new idea; in fact, one might easily suggest that it is perhaps an instinctual impulse that we have been mistakenly repressing for too long.” She continues to point out how animals will mock hunt as youngsters as they learn to survive on their own and how children will often play house–role playing to learn what it is like to be an adult in the world. It almost seems as though our society banished gaming at some point because if kids are having too much fun, then it isn’t proper learning. Or something. I’m glad to finally see gaming re-accepted as a learning mechanism for children and adults alike.

Libraries have introduced games in a variety of formats. There are specific games that are meant to enhance learning. Carmen Santiago and the Oregon Trail are two classics mentioned by Merdith Farkas. Other games may have more questionable educational worth, yet still provide other physical or social benefits. Incorporating gaming in the library is also a great way to build community. Lipschultz describes a gaming program developed at the Old Bridge Public Library that uses teen mentors to teach older adults the wonders of gaming. This program allows older adults to congregate and forge connections with the younger people of the community while also teaching teens leadership skills as they mentor these older adults.

Much of the focus of gaming in libraries has been on teens. Teens are playing video games in large numbers yet are not visiting the library as often as many would like them to. Introducing games and game nights in libraries is a way to pull these teens into the library, introduce them to what the library has to offer, and hopefully entice them back in the future–either to play more games or possibly check out a book. Yet, Farkas asserts that bringing kids into the library for games does not necessarily translate into a check out of reading material. To entice them further, she suggests acquiring books on games and gaming.

There are some drawbacks to gaming primarily having to do with the cost and upkeep of various gaming systems. Gaming systems are constantly being updated with new versions of the Xbox, Playstation, and the Nintendo Wii all debuting in the last three years. These changes could be costly for libraries to keep up with. And that is just the gaming consoles. Games themselves are expensive and easily damaged if allowed to circulate. Some libraries, according to Farkas, are waiting to buy games until long after they have been released in order to buy them at a discount. She points out that this policy does have its drawbacks in that many players will no longer be interested in a game if it has been released for awhile.

As gaming becomes more and more a part of our culture, libraries, particularly public and school libraries, should try to incorporate them into their collection and library activities. These games may bring more teens and others into the library and help create community spirit built around game play.  Educators and librarians are beginning to understand that learning does not happen with books alone–games also play a vital role.

Farkas, M. (2007). Social software in libraries. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc.

Lipschultz, D. (2009). Gaming @ Your Library. American Libraries, 40(1/2), 40-3. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

I first played around with Second Life many years ago before companies and schools got involved. At that time, I felt that there was not much going on in Second Life, that it was a cyber desert and I just didn’t see the worth and value. There have been heated arguments for and against participation in Second Life. While I have generally fallen into the later category, after this re-exploration I am starting to see the possibilities for participation in virtual worlds and the role of libraries in them.

Defenders of Second Life often state that Second Life is the beginning stage of virtual spaces, that we should be learning and preparing ourselves for the innovations to come. I can buy into this argument–it is kind of like Pong for the virtual world. There are certainly some amazing creations in Second Life, but I was surprised how little innovation had occurred since I last visited, 3+ years ago. There are many features I feel could be improved upon in the future with further advances in technology. For example, the notecards feature feels very antiquated. It would be more engaging if, when an avatar clicks on an item, a small window pops up that shows a video or a website, instead of making you read a card or click on the card to have it pull up a website in your computer’s browser. It would be nice to be able to see longer distances. It can sometimes take quite awhile for buildings and other items to load. Most surprising on my return to Second Life was that they had not improved upon the quality of wall images–they often remain blurry unless your avatar gets very close to them. Even then, it takes awhile for many images on a wall to come into focus. These features have not been improved upon, of course, because the technology is not currently in place to make those changes, but I look forward to things ahead.

Since my first foray into Second Life was so long ago, many of the library sites either did not exist or I was not aware of them at the time. I was pleasantly surprised with most of what I discovered. While these sites cannot offer a lot, (because of restrictions with the technology), they make do with current features to bring as much information as possible to visitors to their libraries. Here is a run down of the libraries I visited in Second Life.

Alliance International Virtual Library–I was very impressed with the Alliance Library. They are obviously one of the biggest and best know library systems in Second Life–for good reason. They provide an abundance of information through various buildings and rooms dedicated to a variety of subjects. I jumped around to check out information on fashion, sports, and library science. From the library science room I was able to find information on libraries in Second Life, Library jobs, and Library 2.0. It took me awhile to find a librarian. On one of the evenings I was in Second Life, the librarian that was supposed to be on duty was not there, but another librarian was hanging out and was willing to answer my questions. She has been volunteering at the Alliance Library Reference desk for 1 1/2 years now for 2 hours per week. She said not a lot has changed in relation to the types of questions she receives while at the reference desk, but did say that there seemed to be less people asking how to make money in Second Life than there used to be. The number one question these days is how to stop dancing. This, of course, prompted me to ask “how do you start dancing?” I was quickly given a dance bracelet from another avatar and began to move. It was nice.

Mythica Library–On Imagination Island I wandered around the Mythica Library. Specializing in information on mythology, fairy tales, fables, etc., Mythica library is created to look like a medieval town.  The library itself was mostly comprised of mythical images instead of a lot of content, but they did provide some books with links to information on monsters and creatures, a terminal on the paranormal, information on ufos, and a room dedicated to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  The Tir na n’Og library is nearby (providing information on mythology and folklore from the British Isles and Ireland), as well as a Secret Garden surrounded by links to children’s books.

Kean University Library–their space was supposedly still under construction, but they had a few welcoming features including a free t-shirt and librarybot to welcome you when a live person was not available.  They had three terminals that connected visitors to the Kean University library website, but also had a rotating globe with information on universal human rights and a banner that connected visitors to Kean University Library 2.0 information. It looks like Kean library will soon offer podcasts in iTunes.  To offer more information on the upcoming podcasts, they provided a floating ipod that visitors could click on to get more information. Finally, there was a billboard near the library information desk that gave instructions on how users could activate their Kean library privileges.

Cleveland Public Library–Cleveland Public Library has a large presence on Second Life, so I thought I would explore their area a little more. I ended up being a little disappointed with what I found. One of the biggest buildings (pictured here) only contained displays of chess pieces–not a lot to interact with and not a lot of information given. In fact, most of the Cleveland Public Library space seemed focused on chess. I did stumble upon a building that showed pictures of old sheet music from Ohio, but there was not a lot of background information on the pictures or the sheet music.

I haven’t yet had the pleasure of attending a group or author event.  In Lori Bell’s article, The Universal Library in a Virtual Universe, she states that Second Life “programs and events are the lifeblood of the library”.  I will certainly be stopping by to check out these events in the future.  Overall, this second adventure in Second Life was much more fulfilling than my first attempt many years back.  I look forward to changes and advances that make virtual worlds like Second Life even more effective and engaging.

Since I was using a PC, I was able to use Camtasia.  The instructional videos produced by Camtasia are excellent (as they should be for a screencasting product). I particularly like that Camtasia provides links within sections to show you how to use particular tools (for example, the “voice narration” tool). I played around with the various features for awhile, until I decided which ones I wanted to use and how to best record my screencast.

I decided to record my screencast without sound and add my audio later. In retrospect, this was probably not the best choice and it might have been wise to follow Lynne’s advice on the wiki to record a second audio track and fade out the first track when needed. In a test run, I noticed that my microphone picked up a lot of surrounding sound—particularly my keystrokes and movement as I navigated the screens. I wanted to leave these sounds out as well as provide clear, clean audio. Recording the video first, I tried to allow myself enough time to talk about each section.   If the video moved too quickly, I knew that I could click on the “suspend video” button to talk more before the video moved on. This ended up being more complicated than I expected as I had to become very familiar with my video in order to get the timing down right. This required take, after take, after take, after take. There were moments when I had to quickly slow the video down to fit in all of my audio, and other moments where I needed to string out my audio to match the pacing of my video movements. The result is a mish-mash of fast-slow-fast that doesn’t work exceptionally well. I did try editing out slower portions of the video, but I wanted to stop and start the audio in the same way I did with Audacity.  I’m sure there is a way to do this, but perhaps it requires that I use multiple audio tracks?  It is definitely something I would like to learn more about before I move ahead with my next screencast.

Another problem I encountered was that Camtasia seemed to apply SmartFocus to my screencast automatically, requiring me to remove and/or adjust many of the zooms.  I still think I may have left too many in there.  While taking a closer look is certainly beneficial in a screencast, I have seen a few videos that left me dizzy as they zig-zagged across the screen.  I did consider adding a call-out and/or captions to my screencast, but with the zoom feature, I felt I did not need them.

I had additional problems when I went to export the file. While it worked perfectly on my computer, when I uploaded it to our server, the video would not play. It was there, I could see it, but it would just not play. So I “published” the file again. This time it seemed to work. All that being said, here it is finally….my screencast on bookmarking with diigo.

Image by Boltron

Welcome to my second podcast.  It seems I cannot escape background car noise.  Perhaps I need to find a cave to record in.

Image by Boltron

Voila, welcome to my first podcast.  In this podcast, I discuss marketing a podcast, commitment issues, and the death of podcasts.

Setting up my wiki with Mediawiki was complicated.  Nothing went wrong, everything worked as planned, but I don’t know that I could have set it up myself without detailed step-by-step instructions.  Modifying the wiki was also somewhat simple, but I did not attempt any complicated customization.  I still do not love the look of most wikis and the Mediawiki template was no exception.  I know that the template can be tweaked to produce something worth looking at, but I decided it was beyond me.  It was also beyond my current intelligence to change the navigation pane on the side.  I agree with Rodney (2.o or not 2.0…) that the navigation pane in Wetpaint was much more useful than the one in Mediawiki, but perhaps with a little tweaking, it could work.

Wetpaint was a much simpler experience.  Everything was easily understandable and creating a page was a breeze.   I especially liked their easy widgets which allowed me to insert both an RSS feed and a YouTube video.  I’m sure this is possible in Mediawiki, but seemed much more complex, so I did not attempt it.  The obvious problem with Wetpaint is that it is not hosted on a local server and is filled (REALLY filled) with advertisements.  It is hard to distinguish my page text from some of the advertisement text because the ads are so plentiful.  On the plus side, if you want people to add and contribute to the wiki, Wetpaint provides numerous ways to announce your site to others.  Since mine was just a basic template for this assignment, I chose not to pursue the announcement options.

I have used Google docs for a number of projects both personal and professional.  I find it extremely easy to use–perfect for the wiki newbie.  In fact, I never even thought about the fact that it was a wiki until recently.  I have had some problems with it, however.  When trying to export spreadsheet documents  I had problems with formatting and even lost some of my data.    I believe that Google has eliminated some of these issues, but I do worry about having important work on someone else’s server.  I was using Google Notebooks to save important notes and links for the future until I heard Notebooks would no longer be supported.  Google is still keeping Notebooks open for the moment, but who knows when it could disappear forever.

Still, even with my periodic complaints about wikis, I have realized over the course of this week that a wiki is a really wonderful tool for collaboration and a great possible resource for libraries.  Farkas discusses using a wiki as a subject reference guide and I have seen some good examples of these this week.   Boeninger talks at length about using a wiki to track interdepartmental policy decisions.  Instead of having policy materials in one person’s directory on their computer, why not make it available in a central location for all to find?  This would be a wonderful tool at my workplace, where we are divided geographically between two campuses.  Changes in policy often are disseminated to our department through emails or phone calls, leaving us searching our inbox for the correct procedure when certain questions come up.  However, I could never convince some people in our department to use this great resource because it would look to them like another technological hurdle they had to jump over.  This is one of the biggest challenges for the success of a wiki.  Another is keeping it going.  Much like a blog, users can loose interest over a period of time.  Resource Shelf linked to an article today that talks about the stagnation of Intellipedia (the US Intelligence Agency’s wiki).  Apparently, all of the people who were most likely to contribute to the wiki have done so.  Without others sharing and contributing their knowledge, the site will not grow and thrive.  This is a danger for all wikis and perhaps most Web 2.0 applications.

However, the one thing I’ve learned in my study of RSS this week is that many libraries are not using RSS at the level they should be.  This was particularly evident after examining the Oakland and San Francisco library websites–finding little to no RSS available.  As our information sphere grows larger and larger, RSS becomes an essential tool to manage information overload.  No longer do we have to remember to return to certain websites to find the information we want and need, but we can make that information come to us.  Using RSS in the library catalog or database searches is the advancement in research that many scholars have been wishing for.  RSS is also a great marketing tool.  If you can get people in the community to subscribe to a library events calendar or lists of new books, they may return to the library more often.  Both the Oakland and San Francisco Public Libraries only offer emailed newsletters for some of this information.  While some patrons may still prefer this, why not have both?  The Library of Congress does this, to great effect.  They offer multiple event subscriptions as well as blogs, news, hours of operation, and weekly lists, all by both email subscription and RSS.  If libraries wish to hold on to their position as centers of knowledge in our communities, adding RSS capabilities is a must.