I read and hear over and over again that libraries need to be user-centered. I don’t really understand the constant reminder since my personal experience has always been positive – and wanting to provide excellent customer service within a library setting (preferably a rural library) is my motivation for pursuing an advanced degree.
But I do understand it if the statement is referring to the reluctance on the part of some libraries to recognize that the user of today is not the user of 20 years ago. To stay relevant, libraries must respond to their customers’ needs by providing the services they want.
This is a real challenge as budgets for materials are shrinking and staffing levels face reduction. However there are some new ways libraries and librarians can engage users that weren’t available in the past that may not be too expensive or too onerous on staff who, like everyone else, is being asked to do more with less.
Over the next five posts, I am going to explore four different technologies – blogs, adaptive technologies, radio frequency identification and podcasts – and how they might be used in the library. I will also select one that I think will most improve the library for librarians and one that I think will most improve the library experience for the user. Here we go…
Blogs
This definition of a blog comes from Technology for the Rest of Us, Chapter 6: “It is a web page that contains brief, frequently updated entries arranged in chronological order” (2005, p. 55).
Two of a blog’s defining characteristics, brief and frequent, are captured in that statement. The third, written in a distinctive voice that reflects the personality of the writer, is not necessarily found in every blog but is often what drives people to create and/or read them. The fourth, its interactive nature, is what sets it apart from other technologies.
There are several types of blogs:
· The personal blog is an on-going diary or commentary by an individual.
· The corporate or organizational blog can be used internally to enhance communication or externally for marketing and public relations. Club blogs fall into this category; they keep their members up-to-date on the latest activities.
· Genre blogs focusing on a specific subject.
Blogs were a natural outgrowth of early digital communications. A few milestones:
1994 - the earliest online diaries appear
December 17, 1997 - the term weblog is coined by Jorn Barger
April 1998 - Open Diary is launched by Bruce Abelson. It allowed readers to add comments to others’ blogs.
April/May 1999 - the term blog is used by Peter Merholz
August 1999 - Evan Williams of Pyra Labs uses the word blog as a noun and verb, and came up with the term blogger. Along with Meg Hourihan, he launches blogger.com, the template I am using to create my blog.
2002 - bloggers report on comments made by US Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott praising US Senator Strom Thurmond. Mainstream media picks up the story, ultimately forcing Senator Lott to step down. This is seen as the beginning of blogs as an important tool to enhance political discourse and as a legitimate form of journalism.
August 2002 - Julie Powell begins her blog chronicling her attempt to prepare all of the recipes found in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking over a year period. It is notable for its huge following that resulted in a bestselling novel and a movie starring Meryl Streep.
January 2005 - Fortune magazine lists 8 bloggers that business people cannot ignore.
2006 - Time magazine names YOU as Person of the Year referring to bloggers and other contributors of user-generated content.
February 16, 2011 - there are over 156 million public blogs in existence.
(Blog-Wikipedia, n.d.)
Blogs are used by libraries to bring fresh content to online visitors. Since the format is designed to encourage comment, libraries have used blogs for book discussions/reviews, evaluation, question/quiz/game/fact-of-the-day type activities, announcements, etc. Content can be recycled on Facebook and Twitter as well as submitted to other community entities to use in their digital newsletters and websites. It can also be reformatted and sent to local newspapers as a press release. Information is automatically archived, saving it for future reference.
The development of RSS technology means that people interested in a particular blog can receive regular updates to their e-mail and/or mobile device whenever new content has been added. Followers can be kept up-to-date automatically without having to remember to check a particular site. This feature can help build reader interest and loyalty.
Blogs can help users see that libraries are not confined to a particular building; that staff is engaging, responsive, welcoming and a part of the community. It can lead to a deeper connection between the library and the user, a win-win for everyone. And because one blog post can be used for multiple purposes, the librarian’s time can be utilized effectively and efficiently.
Check these out:
Hack Library School: By, for and about library school students.
Screwy Decimal: Tales from an urban librarian.
Forgotten Bookmarks: Statement by the author/creator: I am a used and rare bookseller. I buy books from people everyday. These are the personal, funny, heartbreaking and weird things I find in those books.
Citations
Blog – WikiHow, the how to manual that you can edit. (n.d.). How to start a blog. Retrieved from http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog
Blog – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (last modified 2011, November 3). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Carver, Blake. (2011, February 18). The LISNews blogs to read in 2011. Retrieved from http://lisnews.org/lisnews_blogs_read_2011
Casey, M. and Savastinuk, L. (2006, September). Library 2.0: Service for the next generation. Library Journal online. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html
Courtney, N. (Ed.). (2005). Blogs and RSS. Technology for the rest of us: A primer on computer technologies for the low-tech librarian. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Gunelius, S. (2011). Blogging. About.com Guide. Retrieved from http://weblogs.about.com/
Levine, J. (2010, February 24). Library 2.0: Not just for users. The Shifted Librarian. Retrieved from http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2010/02/24/library-2-0-not-just-for-users.html
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