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While I’ve enjoyed blogging on this blog for the past 4 years or so, I am cutting back and will only be posting on this blog occasionally. The main reason for this is that while I do love blogging and sharing with you about the new technologies and other web 2.0 properties and how they can help with libraries, my real passion is building my online home business and teaching other people how they too can become entrepreneurs and build successful home businesses. Now you may be surprised by that, especially since most librarians are not known for being entrepreneurs. However, it’s in my blood and I simply can’t ignore it. While yes I love being a librarian too, it’s still a job with a boss, a limited income and a fixed time schedule, and I much prefer to live life on my own terms and to do my own thing.
Furthermore, how many library jobs are there anyway? Not many, unless you have been living in a cave, you will know by now that unfortunately the job situation for librarians just gets worse every day and its not likely to get better anytime soon.
My own personal experience is that the only job I could get is part-time and well let’s face it with large student loans from going to library school and with all my goals and dreams its not nearly enough. So for me starting and growing my home business was the only solution.
So what about you? If things are not going the way you had hoped and you can’t get a library job, or you have only a part-time one or you are afraid you will be laid off from your library job and then you won’t be able to find another one, what are you going to do?
If you are motivated and you think a home business just might be right for you too, then let’s talk. I really would love to help you and I don’t believe in using hype or pressure. We will just talk heart to heart as librarians and friends. Complete the form below and I look forward to hearing from you.
Have you created any videos for your library? Watch this great one below and get your juices flowing. In fact, there seem to be so many videos popping up that are quite clever that it seems that video may just be the best way to promote your library online.
Do you need a guide for the social media marketing that you are doing or should be doing for your library? Library journal is here to rescue you. There is a new book that has been published called, Social Media Marketing GPS. It is being featured on the library journal website. I haven’t read it yet but it sure looks like a good one for all of us out there using social media to promote the library.
Have you seen the viral video, Librarian Goes Gaga? If not, you really need to see it. I am including it here but rather than just posting it for you to watch and admire, I want to include some additional information as food for thought. What lessons can you learn from this video about how to use social networking to promote and engage users of your library?
Here are a few things I’ve noticed and I would love to hear what you have to say:
1. Creating a clever and captivating video has a lot of power and you can grab a large audience for your library with it.
2. People like to be entertained so use video to do it.
3. Video is a powerful marketing tool.
4. People will share and spread videos they like with others so find ways to create these to help market your library.
Yea, how cool is this, this blog was chosen as one of the top 25 library blogs by Online Degrees. Curious what the others are? Click the link to figure out what they are.
Have you ever visited the open library? I never had. I didn’t even know it existed until this past week when one of the speakers at the Utah Library Association conference mentioned it. That said, I am certainly not an expert on it. What caught my attention the most is that it seems to be quite similar to Google Books and it also shares some of the features of other book sites such as Good Reads, Library Thing and Shelfari. The main difference though is that it is like a Google Books where the whole world can add, edit and make changes.
It’s created wiki style as well. I have to say at first glance I am quite impressed and I think everyone should check it out. I will be adding this site to my list of things to take a better look at later.
If you’ve used the open library what do you think of it?
Isn’t it ironic how sometimes librarians think alike? In any case, I was just thinking about writing this post about foursquare when I picked up the most recent copy of library journal and lo and behold what did I find, but this article about libraries and fourquare. So it seems I’m not the only one who has been thinking about this. In any case, here are some ideas I came up with as to how libraries can use foursquare.
1. Sign up on foursquare to offer something interesting or unique to anyone who checks in at the library.
2. Set up your account so that users can become a library worker and then offer them something special to do so.
3. Put information about your library on foursquare on your facebook fan page and encourage your fans to also check out the library on foursquare.
4. Run a contest of sorts with your patrons and require them to check in to the library on foursquare in order to enter.
5. Find other businesses who are willing to work with you to cross promote the library with their business on foursquare.
What other ideas do you have about using foursquare for libraries?
Have you tried using facebook in the college classroom? What about using facebook with your library literacy demonstrations? The ways in which you can use facebook in the classroom are in fact, unlimited. This article from online college on 101 ways to use facebook in the classroom, proves this.
So how can you use facebook to help spice up your library presentations?
Does library 2.0 really exist? We talk about it all the time and we work on putting libraries into social media platforms and on creating library 2.0, however, does the movement really exist? And are libraries really benefiting from it like we think they are? I found this interesting Google knol that addresses exactly this issue.
Here are some reasons why I think that Library 2.0 does exist-
1. Libraries are embracing social networking or web 2.0 technologies with facebook fan pages, twitter accounts, youtube channels and more.
2. Many patrons have interacted with or used library 2.0 properties in the past.
Here are some reasons why Library 2.0 does not exist-
1. Many if not most libraries are not getting what they need or expected to get from their social networking or library 2.0 activities.
2. Many libraries are behind the times on how to use library 2.0 effectively.
So what do you think is library 2.0 a myth, a legend or a fact?
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