social media | emerging trends | libraries
Sarah Long, Director of the North Suburban Library System, interviewed me a couple weeks ago about my book, Designing the Digital Experience: How to Use Experience Design Tools & Techniques to Build Websites Customers Love on her Longshots podcast series (part of the Library Beat blog).
Give it a listen!
Here’s the presentation I used in Spain, for those interested. The shorter version stopped at slide 26 – the rest is the longer version I gave at SEDIC.
Enjoy!
My library has a Facebook Page, and I’ve been experimenting with it lately. I have loosely broken down what I’ve done into three sections – Basic Info, Facebook Functionality, and Social Stuff:
Basic Info:
Facebook Functionality:
Social Stuff:
I also asked my twitter friends for input – what were they doing with Facebook Pages, and what other innovative library Facebook Pages have they found. Here’s what they said:
Another person said this, via a Facebook message: “One thing I would like to see happen here, is spreading out control of the page. I wish we had someone from each department who would post events and contribute to updating fans. Like, if reference has a new database, they can send out a notice that way … or if reader’s service has a cool new recommendation they can do the same. I would like to see that happen w/ our Myspace page as well. We have WAY more friends on Myspace than FB. We have a bunch of feeds sent to FB, but that only works if our fans are coming to our page.”
Things I still need to add:
What other ideas do you have? Are you doing something cool in Facebook or on a Facebook Page that’s not listed here? Please share!
[ad#dlks-sneaky-ad-unit]
My book has been reported in the wild! Someone told me via twitter that she’d received my book, Designing the Digital Experience: How to Use Experience Design Tools & Techniques to Build Websites Customers Love, from Amazon a few days ago – so that’s cool.
What else is cool? How about giving you chapter 1? Here’s a snippet:
Chapter 1: Welcome to the Experience Economy
“What’s my daughter playing on the computer this evening? Oh, she’s on the American Girl site, and she’s playing Kaya’s Catch of the Day. She also sent an American Girl ecard to her cousin and looked at this year’s new doll. We receive American Girl catalogs and magazines in the mail and check out the latest books from the library. We even visited American Girl Place in Chicago last winter as a birthday surprise (the girls and mom watched a musical, had ate a party, and shopped, while my son and I checked out the science museum and LEGO Store).
What’s going on here? Why is my daughter so into this stuff? Because American Girl is all about the experience. It focuses on the fun of exploring and living as a girl in America’s past. The American Girl people are engaging their market in creative ways - specifically targeting grade school and middle school girls. They know how to delight their customers. I know – I’ve seen my daughter’s smiles. As we continue to think about experience, let’s consider the experiences of a trip to an amusement park and the purchase of a computer.”
Want more? Here’s the rest of chapter 1!
What’s more ironic than Michael Gorman complaining about blogs and wikis on the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s blog? How about Library Journal’s recent decision to host the Annoyed Librarian’s anonymous blog?
Yep – that’s right. The same organization that publishes the Transparent Library column is now giving voice to … an anonymous blogger.
Library Journal claims to be “the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field.” I’ll ask – do you respect a publication that allows one of their writers to be anonymous, when that anonymity has been used in the past to attack other librarians and the work they do? Who also allows and encourages other librarians to anonymously say mean, hateful things in the comments of his/her anonymous blog? To me, that’s simply juvenile and irresponsible.
And now that same juvenile, irresponsible behavior has been paid, and has been given a voice … by “the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field.” Hmm… another irony noted.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for tearing down bad ideas, pointing out inconsistencies, sharing what I think … and have no problem when people do the same with me. That’s expected. But I also think it’s important to own one’s words … and you simply can’t do that when you’re anonymous. Maybe just me – but I think if you can’t say it when your name’s attached … maybe you shouldn’t say it at all.
So when a “respected” library publication starts writing with an anonymous voice, I get concerned.
Library Journal – As a 2008 Mover and Shaker, and as one who has been published in Library Journal publications in the past, I stand behind the words I write, and I expect you to do the same.
Readers – what do you think? I’d like to know.