If you are a college librarian, do your students know how to evaluate websites? If they are like most college students today, they need some help. While working on revamping my college’s library literacy course that we use with our ENG 101 students, I found three great ones. Enjoy! and laugh some as well.
Use these to teach your students or really even your patrons at a public library how to evaluate websites and they will not soon forget.
Have you seen the library comic strip unshelved? If not, you are really missing out. I had the chance this past week to hear the authors speak at the Utah Library Association Conference and it was something else. I have to say that they win the award for the most entertaining library related presentation I have ever heard. In fact, I was one of the lucky ones who got to pretend to be a drunken patron asking for the bathroom. For my trouble I got to take home a baseball camp that says “library” on the front and “unshelved” on the back.
These highly entertaining presenters- Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes shared with us how they got started creating unshelved and how they write new comics among other interesting facts. The presentation was complete with audience participation and a slideshow with comic strips.
It was just plain awesome. I subscribe to unshelved via my email and while I’ve read them for a few years now, I had no idea how they started writing them and where they get their ideas. The most hilarious one–the patron who put bacon inside a book and then had to pay for the ruined book. Lol! And yes in case you are wondering most of their comic strips are written based on real experiences that either Gene and Bill have encountered inside a library or that readers have submitted to them.
While I’m at it, would you like to create your own library cartoons or comic strips?
Here are some cool resources to do just that.
1. Stickman Cartoon Software
2. toondoon
3. Komixo
The book- Doing Social Media So It Matters: a Librarian’s Guide- is unlike any other book I have ever read. It focuses specifically on social media for libraries and how it is changing how libraries do business as well as why libraries must use it.
Here are a few of the key points from this book:
1. Social Media has changed how patrons interact with the library.
2. Social Media has given libraries new options for marketing their services.
3. Social Media can be used as an avenue for change for libraries.
4. Social Media can be used very effectively to advocate for libraries.
5. Not every library will benefit from the same social media tools. You need to experiment to see what works for your library.
This book also talks about how libraries can leverage social media to get more attendance at public classes and other events. Along with this part, there is a discussion about how constant promotion of the library’s collections and services is much less effective.
In short, if your library needs a social media makeover, then you undoubtedly need to check out this book.
When creating a library blog, you may want to use a library themed layout. Yet it can be challenging to find them. Searching for example, under themes on your wordpress dashboard won’t give many results and blogger doesn’t have as many custom templates in general. Here are seven great library or book related templates I found that look like great ones for any library related blog. The other option of course is to find one with a custom banner option and customize it like I did for this blog.
1. Law library wordpress theme. While this theme does not have anything that specifies that it must be used for a law library, it makes a great theme for any library blog.
2. This simple and colorful wordpress books theme has three columns and would make a great library or reading blog theme.
3. The library can be compared to an open book and with this wordpress theme it will be even more so. Basic colors and an open book in the banner make this a great library theme.
4. The easy reader wordpress theme features white background with blue highlights and a girl reading a book, another great library wordpress theme.
5. The library of the future will not look like our libraries now. Reach out and embrace the library of the future with these futuristic looking library wordpress theme.
6. Ah! Isn’t the library life great. Embrace it with the library life blogger template.
7. Do you have a book tree? or wish that you had one? Why not use this book tree blogger template?
Do you have other library themed blog templates you recommend? Please share them with us.
You have to be hiding in a cave to not know that the world of education and libraries is changing very quickly. That said, trying to imagine exactly what schools and libraries will be like in ten years can be tough. The Mind Shift Blog published recently a list of 21 things that will disappear from education in the next ten years.
While libraries as a whole are not schools, they are directly related to the education field and academic libraries are of course impacted even more. As a librarian at a two-year college, we are being asked right now to create our vision for the next ten years and then to extend that to what we believe the college classroom will look like in ten years.
As I look over this list, I’m not sure I agree with all the things on the list but it is interesting to say the least.
There are however five that really stood out to me, especially in the context of libraries and college libraries in particular.
Computers- Obviously as the list says, this is really a trick one since we all now that computers will not really disappear but rather desktop computers will disappear and be replaced by mobile computers such as the ipad. For libraries that could mean that we either no longer have computers, or that we have ipads or similar mobile computers, or maybe we just expect that we provide internet access and resources and our patrons bring their own mobile devices? What do you think?
Wikipedia- or the fear of Wikipedia- I just had to laugh when I read this one. As a librarian I remember learning in library school four years ago that Wikipedia is bad. I also know that most college professors will not allow their students to use it as a resource. That said Wikipedia is getting better and I can see some valid uses for it.
Paperbacks- Will paperback books really disappear? Recently Amazon announced that they are selling more kindle books than paperbacks so it’s true that the trend towards ebooks is increasing but I find it hard to imagine paperback books being totally gone.
Paper- Regardless of our best efforts and focusing on recycling and other technology, I know we still sure use a lot of paper in my library. I would guess that this is still true for most other libraries as well. The article suggests that we will rarely if ever use paper in 10 years. I can see cutting back, but will we really not use paper? What about all the posters, signs and brochures not to mention business cards and other paper items we use? Will they really be totally gone? I don’t know about that.
Comments? What do you think will disappear from education and from libraries in the next 10 years?
IT Departments
I have noticed throughout the past 4 years writing this blog as well as my own experience with social media at my academic library and from the experiences of other libraries, that most libraries are not really using social media in the best ways possible and that we are attempting to use social media in ways that are effective for businesses but not so much for libraries. For example, most facebook fan pages for libraries do not get great results. I’m not sure all the reasons why but I am guessing that most of our patrons are not on facebook to stay in touch with the library. The same can really be said of twitter as well. I find that more librarians use it to stay in touch and to network with each other than our patrons use it to learn about the library. So how then can libraries use social media to really reach their patrons?
Here are some ideas:
Use your facebook fan page and twitter account to promote a contest. This will more than likely get better results than your everyday posts and updates. Require your patrons to answer a question or do something on the page.
Encourage your patrons to install and use database and library related mobile applications. The University of North Carolina has a great library mobile website.
Use video. Video is one of the most effective marketing tools for businesses and it can work great for libraries too.
Consider having a live event and then broadcasting the event live over ustream or another live casting site and sharing it on your facebook page, blog or twitter account.
What other ideas do you have to make social media really work for libraries?
If you are anything like me, you have probably had enough of all the headaches and problems associated with libraries purchasing and checking out ebooks. It seems that the publishers either try to put too many limits on ebooks or there are too many decides and enough applications and programs to read ebooks to drive librarians crazy and if it’s driving us nuts what is it doing to our patrons? For what it’s worth, here are some ideas about how to solve the ebook problem once and for all.
1. Publishers could offer a library only ebook version that could be read on all platforms and that would cost more than a patron would pay. Each ebook would also be able to be read an unlimited amount of times by a specified number of patrons at once. For example, if the ebook costs $10 for a non-library to purchase, it would cost $30-$100 for a library to purchase depending upon the number of licenses acquired. Back in the days when we had video stores, they paid more for each video than a retail customer would because it was being purchased for rentals. Why can’t ebook publishers offer the same service to libraries?
2. There needs to be a device like overdrive available for academic libraries, or maybe even overdrive could release a version for academic libraries.
3. Ebook collections now available only in places such as ebrary and netlibrary which cannot currently be read on devices such as the kindle and the book need to be modified so that they can be read on portable devices. Not necessarily on the kindle and nook specifically but on portable devices or on an application that is downloadable to PCS, Macs and the ipad.
4. Ebook publishers need to license their ebooks for libraries in large batches such as 20, 50, 100 etc. Thus making it easier for libraries to buy a copy of an ebook and then have it available for a large number of patrons or students in the case of academic libraries. For example, say a college library has a book that is on a required reading list for a class. They should be able to purchase an ebook copy and have it available on all of the computers in the library at a reasonable cost and without hassle. In fact, many database providers that also sell ebooks already do this such as Gale and Ebsco. Why can’t Amazon, Barnes and Noble and any of the other ebook providers do this too?
5. Publishers need to stop being greedy and realize that working together with libraries can only benefit them in the long run.
What other ideas do you have about how to solve the ebooks in libraries problems that currently exist?
Do you need or want to take a library survey but you don’t want to spend a lot of money or end up with a bunch of papers laying around?
Here are 5 great online resources for creating and administering library surveys.
1. Polldaddy- this easy to use site lets you collect surveys via your blog, facebook, twitter, website and more. The basic plan is free whereas to collect a large number of surveys there is a small cost.
2. SurveyPopUps.com This website lets you create free surveys that pop up when someone leaves your website. You could use these for your library to collect stats and information about your patrons impressions of your library website.
3. FreeOnlineSurveys.com- Use this site to create free embedded surveys on your website or in email without extra software or programing. A simple and easy to use site.
4. Survey Monkey- Survey monkey is one of the most well known and while it can work well, there limits on free surveys make it on the best option for collecting a large number of surveys.
5. Wufoo.com- this site allows you to embed forms on websites and collection information as well as surveys. The features are a bit fancier however, the limits on a free account will probably not work for most libraries so you will probably need to pay.
Unless your head is in the sand you have probably heard of Google Voice as a Google application but did you know that you can also use it to offer text messaging for your library?
My academic library recently started doing this and so far it is working quite well. We aren’t yet getting the kind of usage we would like but for free it’s easy to use and convenient.
Here are the steps we took to implement it:
1. Created a Google email account for our library.
2. Created a Google Voice account for the same email.
3. Created labels inside the account for each library employee and for each major category that people may contact us about. These include things such as reference questions, library catalog, recommendations, item requests, database and computer problems, etc.
4. Developed a work flow procedure for determining who answers the texts we receive and when.
Have you used Google Voice for texting for your library? If so, how did it work? If not, have you considered it?
Where do you go to find free images you can use for your library marketing, for your patrons to use and more?
It can be a challenge if you don’t know where to look. Here are some great places.
1. Flickr- The commons. While I’m sure you already know about Flickr, did you know that flickr allows you to search for images that are marked for use without violating copyright?
2. Google Images- The advanced search for images that you can use anywhere. Do an advanced search and choose the option- licensed for commercial reuse.
3. Image Chef Use this awesome site to modify and create your own images.
4. Free Stock Links A large collection of several places to find free stock photos.
5. Web 2.0 Badges Find a whole bunch of web 2.0 and other badges.
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