David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

My Twitter Presentation – Part of the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase

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(update – the BIGWIG sites seem to be down, but there are updated links to both twitter presentations. Enjoy!)

I was asked to participate in the first ever BIGWIG Social Software Showcase “unconference.” (site seems to be down). What is the Showcase, you ask? From the LITA blog: “LITA BIGWIG (Blogs, Wikis, and Social Software IG) is pleased to present the first ever online, unconference at ALA Annual 2007. The Social Software Showcase will be occuring around and during Annual. We have gathered eleven librarians and leaders in the field to present on cutting edge technology and social software. Regardless of where you are in the world, you will have the opportunity to view and discuss the presentations on the official Social Software Showcase Wiki.”

For my part, I added a screencast about Twitter add-ons, meant to be a part 2 to David Free’s Twitter, Part One (updated links to each presentation).

So – go read about the Showcase, watch/listen/read all the presentations as they get added to the Showcase wiki, and participate!

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Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2: LibraryThing

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Tim Spalding, LibraryThing

Showing LibraryThing – features, social aspects, etc

Showed a graphical timeline on what you’ve read (not yet released)

Regular people care about book data more than you would think

Claims his product is the only one that works with z39.50 and MARC

Showed a great example of tagging vs LoC subject headings. Used the book Neuromancer as an example – tagged cyberpunk… but that word isn’t mentioned in the usual LoC subject headings…

LibraryThing for Libraries:
added stuff – tags, other editions, etc – all LibraryThing data
(He used Seattle Public Library’s catalog as an example)
Find other books tagged a certain word, then shows all tags from that book and all related tags – great for browsing

Hmm… if you enable tagging just for a single library, and use only tags that that library’s customers entered… you’re not going to get great browsability

There needs to be an OCLC for user generated data

Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2 – Comments in the Catalog: Community Interaction

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Glenn Peterson, Hennepin County Library

Case Study

Comments are:
mini reviews
any title in the catalog
a “blog for every book” – cool way to think about it!

Gave brief history about their comments project:
started taking book reviews by kids and teens
then they thought – hey, adults might like to do this (not too successful)
mentioned that they custom-created this – Sirsi doesn’t support it

Gave a demo of it

It’s a mash-up
bibliographic info
enriched content
patron comments
audio reviews – podcasts can be added in – cool! Quick 2-3 minute booktalk
amazon reviews are pulled in
has an rss feed for each title

Uses Amazon’s API to pull in recent amazon reviews on books

They have More Titles About section

Has an RSS feed for all customer comments

How’s it going?
most heavily used feature on their site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Especially popular with teens
5700 comments, 3000 users over the first 11 months

Maintenance:
pre-screened for language – smart
the “naughty word filter” – it’s an automated script
Title comes up most often in the filter (because of “tit”le)
batched every four hours and sent as an email message – 6-7 web services staff get those
click a link to hide a comment – within the email – to catch bad stuff
They remove the vowels in bad words with a note that says “edited for publication”

Our to-do list:
ratings
avatars
user profiles
tag cloud

Related developments
WPopac
SOPAC
Millennium (from Innovative)
LibraryThing for Libraries

Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 2 – Using Social Media for Community Engagement

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Andy Carvin, National Public Radio

Dang, it just dawned on me who this guy is – he’s a videoblogger!

andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt

Traditional Media production:
until recently, to produce content for a large audience you needed to be a … publisher, broadcaster, billboard owner, etc…

Enter stage left: web 1.0 – most people read the net instead of producing for it, because producers needed: html coding skills, programming skills, graphic design skills, etc

Today: web 2.0 – the new stuff has come out

social software and the democratization of content… flickr, youtube – awesome – he mentioned blip.tv and videoblogging

common thread: online communities where people are actively encouraged to use and share each other’s original content

content production: all the cool kids are doing it:
48 million americans have posted content online
1 in 12 internet users publish a blog
1 in 4 have shared original content
young people more likely to post content
race, income, education less of a factor
latinos, african americans slightly more likely to post online content than whites
(from Pew Internet & AMerican Life Project)

Most famous example – blogs – talked a little about them – said blogging is “fill-out-a-form publishing” – that’s a great way to describe it

why are media outlets embracing web 2.0?
improving journalistic transparency
creating a public dialogue
tapping into public knowledge and creativity
new collaborative opportunities with affiliates
maybe it’s profitable, too?

Open Piloting – something NPR is doing
inviting the public to help create new broadcast programming
sharing rough drafts of shows before they’re ready for prime time
a focus group, but everyone’s welcome
gave examples of Rough Cuts and Bryant Park

Radio Open Source radioopensource.org…
a blog with a radio show…
invites users to submit, debate program ideas
users recommend guests, questions
ask users to participate on-air

bbc have your say (another show)
centralized forum for discussing news
They allow people to rate other’s comments – that’s cool
Then, BBC uses those comments elsewhere on the site – they pepper their official stories with the highly rated user comments

CNN iPreport
partnered with blip.tv
citizen journalism – asks users to submit photos, video for specific stories
very best clips included on air
other highlights archived in an online gallery
published early video from VT shooting – via a cell phone video

hmm… can public libraries do this? Ask customers to take photos and video of local newsish events, and publish them somewhere on the library’s website? And then pepper that with books and videos that customers can check out… that’s related to the customer stories? That’d be pretty neat.

USA Today
embedded social networking across site
not balkanized to a special section
users can comment on any story
comments featured on homepage, elsewhere
syndicating blogs from around the internet

OhmyNews – Korean online news service
publishes in korean, english, and japanese
dedicates 20% of its space to citizen journalists
invites public to submit content as volunteers
ones that submit consistently get paid

Global Voices – example of alternative to mainstream media that the mainstream media is now using

VoteGuide
Berkeley journalism students created blog and aggregator for California’s 11th congressional district
pilot project for larger national project

Minnesota E-Debate
candidates submitted text, video, voicemail
public rated responses, posted comments
users uploaded content about it and tagged it
result – dozens of podcasts, 100 videos, hundreds of photos, text comments
could be replicated nationally in 2008

NewAssignment.net
provide a platform for pro and amateur journalists to collaborate on stories together
collaborating with Wired news
developing endowment to pay pro journalists, cover expenses of amateur journalists

Computers in Libraries 2007: Day 1 – Privacy, Security, Social Networking & Libraries: Me, MySpace, and Eye

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Alane Wilson, OCLC

The network is community.

Harris Interactive conducted the research for them on this project…

Played a video made from ALA Midwinter’s OCLC preconference meeting

Data snippets:

How many years have you been using the internet? Librarians far exceed everyone else’s use. We started with things like gopher, Mosaic, etc – most users haven’t

The culture of paper…
Librarians have a different culture of reading – we read way more than the general population

Librarian’s reading has increased more than the general population.

Do you have a current library card?
Partly a cultural thing – US has more library card holders than in France or Germany

Librarians do all the librarian stuff more – ILL, read, check out, etc… we do it much more than our general populations. So possibly we are designing spaces that WE like, rather than what our users would actually like. Hmm…

Librarians use chat rooms, IM less than the general populations

We read blogs more

Younger librarians do IM more than older librarians… (she has actual data to support that, rather than just guessing)

Our needs for privacy haven’t caught up with technology.

Privacy also means anonymity.

We want privacy when it affects us – not so much when it affects others.

When buying stuff online, we give away personal info – librarians do this moreso. In a retail environment, librarians are comfortable giving away personal info.

But in social networking groups, we are not very comfortable doing this. Japanese (people in general? just librarians? Not sure here) NEVER tell some info (religious or sexual preferences were mentioned).

We don’t like to share what we have checked out.

Hmm… she urged all libraries to display the library bill of rights prominently, so patrons know what we do with their data. I’m not sure I agree with that – I do think patrons probably want to know we don’t do bad things with their information… but I also don’t think patrons would read the Library Bill of Rights if it were prominently displayed – to me, that sounds more like a “librarianish” thing to do, much like posting the Dewey subject headings… patrons really don’t care about that, and don’t understand if we DO post that type of thing.