Matts Social Media Blog: 2015

I have made several changes to the blog. The background colour of the blog is now black, and the main text is now white. The blog title and post titles are now red headings.

Investigative Exercise 11 Recommendations

In my last post I talked about how Sutherland Shire Library service currently uses web 2.0 technologies. In this post I am going to discuss some of the recommendations I would make to improve the usage of these technologies by examining other libraries and what they use and where these libraries could set the example for Sutherland shire libraries to follow.

St. Joseph County Public Library in the United States is a great example of a library that is maximising its use of web 2.0 tools to promote the libraries services to children and get them involved in the library and in reading. The library has an extensive YouTube channel which they use to post content ranging from story time sessions to promotion material as well as training materials. Copying this model for the Sutherland Shire service is one recommendation I would make as it involves children in reading and also allows them to comment on the videos saying what they liked and what they would like to see in future, data which the library can use to plan and organise their sessions for what the children want. The St Joseph County library site also runs a program for children to read more, where they create a log on the site saying what they have read and how long they have spent reading, with prizes based on their results. This is another fantastic way to engage children with reading from a young age.

St. Joseph County Public Library YouTube

St. Joseph County Public Library Homepage

St. Joseph County Public Library reading program for kids

For teenage and young adult members of the library, St Joseph County also uses a recommendation section where teens can list the recent books they have read and share their interests in book topics and general topics with others. There is also a section on the page for reviewing books so that teens can let others know what they thought of the book. The page works as its own form of social media with teens able to make a profile page, follow others, and message others all with the aim of sharing interests in reading and use of other library resources. The Hennepin county library in the United States also does a similar system however they use established social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to share and connect with their patrons, providing a space for them to share their reviews of books, films etc with others.

Hennepin County Library

St. Joseph County Public Library teen reviews

The Kansas City Library makes great use of web 2.0 in its promotion of it local studies areas on their website. The library uses a weekly RSS feed to update patrons with new information each week and which also serves as historical tool as it gives information and resources as to what was happening that particular week throughout the history of Kansas City. The library also makes use of a program called history pin, a variation of google maps which has ‘pins’ with various iconic buildings and their history. Similar to what Sutherland library already does, the Kansas City library interviews local community members for their records.

Kansas City Library “This week in history RSS”

Kansas City Library HistoryPin

By implementing these various tools into their web 2.0 then Sutherland library will be able to vastly improve its digital presence.

Investigative Exercise 10 Evaluation

The Sutherland Shire Library Service makes use of several web 2.0 technologies and websites. The library service has active social media pages, using Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to actively promote the library and its events to the public. The library service also uses RSS feeds to keep people up to date with events and as a Vimeo page where it posts videos of various library events and conferences such as author talks, training sessions and programs and other videos used to promote the library.

On the main page of the library website they also have a comment section, asking people to leave feedback about the library service in an attempt to involve the community in helping to further develop the library services by seeing what people have to say about the library and what areas people think can be improved.

Areas that the library makes use of other Web 2.0 technologies in the services it provides are:

Local Studies – The Library has uploaded a series of podcasts detailing interviews with long term residents of the Sutherland Shire.

These can be found here

Children’s Resources– The library has several learning games on its website to allow children to practice literature, spelling and mathematics.

Adult fiction – In the Library catalogue there are sections that allow people to submit their own reviews of items they have read/viewed and also allows people to create their own tags for books which other people can then use and add to in turn.

Investigative Exercise 9 Community Profiles

My local council area is the Sutherland Shire Council.

The Sutherland Shire is located in Sydney’s southern region. As of 2014 the estimated population of the Sutherland Shire is 225,070. Of this population approximately 78.8% were born in Australia. The other major backgrounds are English, New Zealander, Chinese and South African. The most common languages other than English that are spoken at home are: Greek, Arabic, Cantonese, Italian and Mandarin. The main areas of occupation are Professionals 23%, Clerical and Administrative Workers 18.4%, Managers 14.3% and Technicians/Trades Workers13.9%.The unemployment rate for the council area is 3.5%.

Sutherland Shire Library

Sutherland Shire Council

Investigative Exercise 8 - Current Awareness Post

Facebook Privacy & Identity - Exploring your digital self: Mario Rodriguez at TEDxStetsonU

The discussion about Facebook Privacy and Identiy by Mario Rodriguez was a fascinating video and talk to watch/listen to. With the rapid expansion of social media and sites like Facebook, people have taken to putting their whole lives onto these sites for everyone to see, every message/comment/post/photo is available for public display and as soon as it is placed on these sites it is no longer our property. The idea that we are monitored by our electronic footprint is fascinating, especially the early examples that were discussed about people being turned down jobs or being fired from their jobs for things they have posted onto Facebook or other social media sites. What you say and do online is not protected just because you are only sharing it with some of your friends and it is still interesting to see how this problem of digital privacy will evolve and be handled in the future.

Investigative Exercise 7 Podcasts

Loan of rare maps to the Library by Mr Kerry Stokes from Australian National Library

This podcast discusses the collection of rare Dutch navigational charts which have been loaned to the library by Kerry Stokes.

Investigative Exercise 6 Social Bookmarking

Community book reviews are a great and useful tool for libraries to use. They allow community members to be able to write their own opinions of an item, be it a book, a dvd or something else. This provides other users of the library to see what other people thought of the book, without having to go to another site to read reviews there. It is also useful for library staff as they can then see trends in what people seem to like or not like, what is getting the popular reviews and what is being ignored. This information could come in handy when it comes time to weed the collection or for other collection development purposes.

The only drawback with allowing community reviews is that by allowing anyone access to write what they want, ANYONE can then write what they want, meaning that problems could arise with unsafe material being written on book entries for anyone to see, so libraries need to be mindful of what is being posted onto the reviews.

My local service, Sutherland Shire Libraries already makes use of these social bookmarking tools. When you search a book or other item in the catalogue there are options to view community reviews and tags as well as options to create your own review and tags for the item you are looking at.

Investigative Exercise 5 Social Networking

Facebook, Myspace and other social media sites are greatly important for libraries. With the development of Web 2.0 technologies, people have flocked to these sites to be able to create, share and link content with other people. It is estimated that there are 1.44 billion Facebook users across the globe. That is just one social media site. Libraries need to tap into these websites in order to connect with their users in order to promote themselves and their events, not only to people who are already members and users of the library but to those who are not yet users or members, to be able to draw them in using Facebook or other social media and gain access to these other people through promotion from the library itself but also from library clients who promote the site just by subscribing or ‘liking’ it on their own pages.

Investigative Exercise 4. YouTube

In this video popular author and librarian Nancy Pearl discusses her experiences as a child in libraries and how good librarians should work and how libraries are important for young people.

Investigative Exercise 3. Photo sharing and Flickr

Sutherland Shire Libraries Flickr

Sutherland Shire libraries use Flickr to promote the library and its various community outreach programs.

An example of this is this photo showing the Taronga Zoomobile and the library inviting children to the library to learn about various Australian animals.

Taronga Zoomobile and Sutherland Library

Investigative Exercise 2. Blogs

The blog post I read was from Librarian in Black and the post itself was titled “Adobe Spies on eBook Readers, including Library Users”. The post talked about how the company Adobe was secretly collecting data on consumers of their product Adobe Digital Collections and how it is a possible breach of privacy to do this. What interested me about this post is how this can effect libraries and the fact that libraries and their users who have been subscribed to this program have been having their personal information collected by this company for so long without any of the larger library associations trying to stop it. I feel that this sort of privacy breach could be seen as a precedent for other data collection taking place without our knowledge or consent so this is a topic I will follow further.

Investigative Exercise 1. Library 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the second wave of Internet websites, applications and networks all of which are created with the purpose of developing user participation with the site. Websites from the first generation of Internet development were static pages with little to no interaction from the user, you went to a website and read the information displayed there. Web 2.0 on the other hand has created a generation of Internet users who can use these sites or Social Media, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to create and share their own content with the world.

So why does this matter for libraries?

The introduction of Web 2.0 programs allows libraries to actively involve their clients in the library catalogue, learning programs and much more. Library users can create their own tags for books that others can then see and follow to find books that are similar and likewise can leave their own reviews of books for other readers to see. This shared catalogue helps to develop the libraries collections and more and more people are able to add their ideas to the content and help create the catalogue and turn it into a shared community resource that they have contributed to.

What types of technologies do libraries use?

· Podcasts

· Flicker

· RSS feeds

All of these are types of Web 2.0 applications and websites that Libraries use.

Sources:

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

Wiki's Blogs and Web 2.0 Tecnology