David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Lee County Library System Presentation

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sanibel beachOn Monday, I spoke about Web 2.0 and emerging trends at the Lee County Library System’s staff day in Fort Myers, Florida. The day before, I worked extremely hard, as you can tell from the accompanying photo 🙂

Anyway… here’s the pdf of my presentation. And an FYI for those of you who are thinking “where have I heard of that library before?” You might have recently read about Lee County and their License to Play / learning 2.0 program in a couple of places.

Keep an eye on them!

Another Twittering Library

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From my comments on this post… try this on for a cool way to use Twitter. Here’s what the library is doing, to the best of my knowledge (Julie, correct me if I get it wrong, please!):

  • posting real-time reference questions to twitter.com/askusnow
  • using the Twitter feed to update “the ‘currently being asked’ section of our internal AskUsNow! staff website.”

Is that a cool use of twitter, or what? Going just a little further out from that, why not post those questions on the public website? They’d be anonymous, so that shouldn’t be an issue. But I’m thinking posting real-time questions in your library’s digital space is a great way to show real live conversations taking place. Those tweets might just start more conversation, etc etc.

Cool service – thanks Julie for mentioning it!

More on Community

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Nicole Engard (great blog, by the way – y’all should be reading it!) just left a comment on my post It’s About the Community. I was starting to reply to her comment when it dawned on me that my reply might work better as another post, so…

Nicole says: “David, I totally agree! But what about those public service librarians who are “too busy” to maintain these tools? I know that that is the case in many libraries – the staff who should be in charge of the project claims to be too busy (or are too busy) and then the maintenance is passed back to the IT staff – who probably are too busy – and then the whole thing falls apart … sometimes it’s not that the IT staff wants to control the technology – but that they were the last resort.”

Yep – that’s true! How can you deal with that sorta backwards philosophy?

Here are some suggestions (please add yours!):

  • The biggest challenge, in my mind, is getting staff over the fact that the new service resides on a computer. Think about it – Telephone reference is a great example. Does the library’s switchboard operator answer telephone reference questions? No – even though those questions come via phone. But there seems to be a disconnect with web-based interactions. Blogs, Social Networking tools, flickr accounts… those come from the computer, right? Wrong. You are interacting with real people, just like with telephone reference.
  • “I’m too busy” – this isn’t the fault of front-line staff. I think this excuse (that’s what it is, after all) falls squarely into management’s lap. Is a blog important to your library? Is the interaction and growth that can be had via a social network part of your library’s strategic plan? If not… you should talk about it. If so… you should be setting priorities and goals for front-line staff. Maybe the staff member needs to NOT be doing something, so they can focus more on the blog.
  • If participating in and supporting your library’s community via emerging online tools is important, why not add it to job descriptions? Why not include things like “post to the blog,” “respond to comments,” or “create a weekly videocast?” We do that with other important job duties – don’t just tack on an “oh yeah, do something with the web, too” line. Focus on strategic goals, and realign job duties to meet those goals.

Any thoughts?

It’s About the Community

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Do you read Robert Scoble’s blog? It can be very interesting! Here’s a post I suggest you read. It’s a good intro to Scoble and his blog, and he also makes a great point in this post, too.

Scoble says: “… eBay is NOT about the technology. It’s about the community…” (OK – so most of the rest of his post is a rant, really – but it’s a good rant!).

Think about that statement… then think about your library’s blogs. It’s Flickr account. The YouTube channel you’ve just started. Your teen MySpace page. Who have you put in charge of those library services? Is it public service staff who work with community? Or is it IT staff who work with technology? Who SHOULD be in charge of it?

I’m not saying IT is bad or public services staff are the only people who “get” community. But I am saying these things:

  1. Websites and web tools have changed from brochureware into digital communities. That is, if you allow them to change into that.
  2. People are “doing life” online – not just finding citations
  3. People are actively participating and creating online – not just surfing.
  4. Many libraries take what can be vibrant patron communities and ignore them, relegate them to a back office with one person acting as a mere “digital janitor,” and treat these potential communities as secondary and ephemeral at best.

When your library started adding community-based services to it’s website (blogs, commenting, myspace, etc…), you landed at Plymouth Rock (or started a new Sim City – take your pick). How are you growing your community?