When I first thought MySpace and Facebook, I could not see how libraries could use these networks to reach out to the community. Farkas emphasizes that most libraries do not represent themselves very well on these networks and that it is important to have a goal and provide a real use to their patrons. By just providing a profile of a library does not make it more visible and useful. There has to be a reason that someone on these sites will search for a library and or post a comment to the comment box or wall. By networking with these sites, the libraries are reaching out to a specific segment of the population who frequent these locations, namely teens and young people. It is logical that any outreach to these groups from libraries will be designed to attract their attention and this is apparent in sites such as the Morrisville College Library, the Hennepin County Library and the Denver Public Library sites. These sites are very busy, colourful, full of photos, graphics, (some animated) links, book covers, dialogue between users and YouTube videos. Personally I would find these sites just a little too busy and challenging to navigate..probably because I am not a teen or even close!
Farkas comments that many libraries are using blogs on MySpace as a one way communication tool and not utilising the comments and wall area effectively. However, the Ann Arbor District Library is encouraging feedback from their patrons who wish to comment as is Crosset Library at Bennington College who is asking for patron input on materials to buy for the library and is keeping the patrons aware of their buying timeline.
Robert Lackie is concerned about dismissing the stereotypical librarian and increasing the campus visibility by using social networking tools and letting students know what the library is really all about. However unless he has a goal, this appears to be just what Farkas was talking about above.
Helen Bowers in her article on MySpace dismissed something in passing which I found interesting. She said that we should not create public profile spaces for library patrons on the web, or use the information to let them hook up with other patrons who's circulation history points to common reading interests. Surely this has potential. There is probably a way around this in that patrons could make contact with other patrons and share reading lists of favorite authors, titles or topics. There may network groups on Facebook who have, for example, 'mystery books' or 'Greek architecture' as a commonality. If not, then there is potential for such a group to form.
It seems that as users of these sites, we are continually looking for ways to communicate, learn and and be aware of everything that interests us and can involve us more and more in staying current. I would hope that some of this interaction will result in real human type face to face interaction as otherwise we will lose the ability to communicate and form real time (not cyber space) relationships.
Showing posts with label Libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libraries. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Libraries and RSS Feeds
Hennepin County Library talks about subscribing to our 'free' RSS feeds which indicates that maybe sometime in the future there will be a charge for this. Or maybe user's expect to pay for this service already and the library is using the wording to encourage users to subscribe.
I set up a feed from this library's catalogue search page on 'cats' and received the whole page from my screen with both checked in and checked out books. I am not sure why I would want to see the checked in books, but I can understand the seeing when the checked out books were returned. The explanation says that the RSS feeds alerts the user to the books as soon as they become available in the library.. so why would I see those that are presently available.. maybe I am missing something. The subject guides are an impressive list and link to some interesting websites regardless of the RSS feeds.
The Kansas City Public Library also offers RSS feeds to 47 subject guides which are useful in keeping up to date with relevant information. I subscribed to one on new books about Women and there were only 3 items in the feed. It seems that if libraries are posting new books to these feeds then somewhere in the processing of the books, someone is categorizing it under one of the subject headings and new book listings. This is especially apparent for the Tacoma Public Library where I subscribed to the feed on biographies and received 124 items immediately. However, I returned to the feed to check them again and they had disappeared. So I am not sure where they went. This practice of posting new titles as an RSS feed must prove to be a lot of extra work for staff. The list for the new arrivals by category for Tacoma Public Library is very long and one needs to be very selective before subscribing to the RSS feeds. The library also makes this information available online for those who do not wish to use the feeds.
The North Harris Montgomery Community College has set up a series of RSS feeds for students to access journals and keep current on new articles of interest. I could not test this as it is only available to students of the college.
The University of Oklahoma offers RSS feeds for new books based on the library of congress classification subject headings. Users can chose more specific subjects within each broad category. This way of providing information about new books especialy in a university setting makes for a very efficient use of time for both students and staff who usually research only their topics and would waste too much time looking at the 'normal' new book lists where a lot of information would be of no interest to them.
As shown here all types of libraries are using social software more and more to bring information out to the community by setting up blogs with broad community information and also by using RSS feeds to include lists of subject guides and new books. In both cases the search for information must be initiated by the user. In the former on a continual basis by going to the library blog and in the latter only once to set up the feed which is then in control of the provider, the library.
Libraries will continue to be proactive in offering RSS feeds and it will be interesting to see how many users subscribe to receiving information in this format. As the technology increases, the number of users may decrease as they reach the satiation limit of more and more technology and an unwillingness to conquer yet another innovation.
I set up a feed from this library's catalogue search page on 'cats' and received the whole page from my screen with both checked in and checked out books. I am not sure why I would want to see the checked in books, but I can understand the seeing when the checked out books were returned. The explanation says that the RSS feeds alerts the user to the books as soon as they become available in the library.. so why would I see those that are presently available.. maybe I am missing something. The subject guides are an impressive list and link to some interesting websites regardless of the RSS feeds.
The Kansas City Public Library also offers RSS feeds to 47 subject guides which are useful in keeping up to date with relevant information. I subscribed to one on new books about Women and there were only 3 items in the feed. It seems that if libraries are posting new books to these feeds then somewhere in the processing of the books, someone is categorizing it under one of the subject headings and new book listings. This is especially apparent for the Tacoma Public Library where I subscribed to the feed on biographies and received 124 items immediately. However, I returned to the feed to check them again and they had disappeared. So I am not sure where they went. This practice of posting new titles as an RSS feed must prove to be a lot of extra work for staff. The list for the new arrivals by category for Tacoma Public Library is very long and one needs to be very selective before subscribing to the RSS feeds. The library also makes this information available online for those who do not wish to use the feeds.
The North Harris Montgomery Community College has set up a series of RSS feeds for students to access journals and keep current on new articles of interest. I could not test this as it is only available to students of the college.
The University of Oklahoma offers RSS feeds for new books based on the library of congress classification subject headings. Users can chose more specific subjects within each broad category. This way of providing information about new books especialy in a university setting makes for a very efficient use of time for both students and staff who usually research only their topics and would waste too much time looking at the 'normal' new book lists where a lot of information would be of no interest to them.
As shown here all types of libraries are using social software more and more to bring information out to the community by setting up blogs with broad community information and also by using RSS feeds to include lists of subject guides and new books. In both cases the search for information must be initiated by the user. In the former on a continual basis by going to the library blog and in the latter only once to set up the feed which is then in control of the provider, the library.
Libraries will continue to be proactive in offering RSS feeds and it will be interesting to see how many users subscribe to receiving information in this format. As the technology increases, the number of users may decrease as they reach the satiation limit of more and more technology and an unwillingness to conquer yet another innovation.
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