Getting books to customers is easy (well, easy if you don’t have global pandemic to deal with, anyway) – they visit the library or a bookmobile, and pick up their book.

How about using drones or robots to deliver books?Well … both are being done right now.

Drone book delivery

Google’s Wing has been testing drone delivery in a variety of ways. In Christiansburg, VA, they have partnered with FedEx and Walgreens to deliver products to people’s houses.

A local school district has recently partnered with Wing to deliver books to school kids over the summer! Very cool idea.

Here are a couple of articles about the drone delivery service in Christiansburg:

• Google’s Drone Delivery Service Drops Library Books to Kids
• Google-backed drones will drop library books so kids in Virginia can do their summer reading

Robot Book Delivery

A couple of libraries and university campuses are starting to use different types of robot delivery services to deliver books and other things to customers and students.

The robots are a bit pricey. And I’m not sure they work in all local settings. But still … pretty cool idea! The Starship delivery robots cost around $5500.

Here are some articles about robot book deliveries:

• The engineers behind Google’s Bookbot have launched a delivery robot startup
• Redwood City Library to make robot deliveries
• Thousands of autonomous delivery robots are about to descend on US college campuses (focused on general campus delivery)
• Why sidewalk delivery robots still need safety drivers

Here’s hoping for more projects like these in the near future!

Starship Robot image from The Verge article

Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2016 is out. As usual, there are some interesting stats.

Some highlights include:

• 68% of all US adults are Facebook users
• 28% use Instagram
• 26% use Pinterest
• 25% use LinkedIn
• 21% use Twitter

Other interesting tidbits:

• Facebook use is growing, probably because of older adults joining up. This shot up – people age 65 and older went up from 48% to 62%. That’s quite a lot!
• 76% of Americans who use Facebook visit it daily; 55% visit several times per day (guilty).
• Yes, younger people still use Facebook.
• Twitter use seems to have plateaued. But it’s still active.
• Pinterest still attracts more women than men.
• 72% of American adults are smartphone owners

Pew sorta-kinda included Snapchat in this survey, lumping it with messaging apps like Kik and WhatsApp. Pew says that 24% of smartphone owners use “messaging apps that automatically delete sent messages, such as Snapchat or Wickr.”

They also said that this type of app is really popular among younger adults. 56% of smartphone owners age 18-29 use auto-delta apps. So that’s a lot! Maybe next time include it in the social media section, perhaps?

Anyway – check out the full report here!

Image from Pew Research Center

I’ve been thinking a lot about video for libraries lately. For a recent video team meeting (yes, my library now has a way cool video team!), I introduced the topic by sharing a couple of statistics about online video.

I thought I’d share some of those stats here, too – some with comments by me after the statistic. Because online video is HUGE:

• 78% of people watch videos online every week
. DLK – that’s the majority of our customers/community. It’s a major way people choose to consume content.
• 55% of people watch videos every day.
• 85% of respondents who are already using video marketing found it fairly or extremely successful.
• Including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%
. DLK – “Conversion” – for a business, that meant he person clicks “buy now.” For a library, that could mean they click the Hold button, or use a database, or attend a program.
• In the US, YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than ANY broadcast or cable TV network, and YouTube does that on mobile alone. DLK – And YouTube is FREE. Which is amazingly cool, folks. We can use the same tools to reach those audiences.
• 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound. DLK – just amazing. And it means that your video needs to be interesting without any sound. No talking, no nothing. Just visual. That’s hard!
• 62% of consumers are more likely to have a negative perception of a brand that published a poor quality video! DLK – ok. Go watch some library-produced videos. Yes, we need to make videos. But we also need them to be good. So no more awkward synchronized bookcart dancing videos, please!
• Businesses using video grow company revenue 49% faster year over year than organizations without video. DLK – our “revenue” is community advocacy and perception. Grow it.
• By 2018, 69 percent of total Internet traffic will be video.
• According to a report published by Forrester, including video in an email leads to a whopping 200-300% increase in click-through rate.
 DLK – have an email newsletter? Then insert your videos, and see what happens.
• Forrester researcher Dr. James McQuivey estimates that one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words.
• According to Online Publishers Association, 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30 days.
• 46% of users take some sort of action after viewing a video ad, according to Online publishers association.
• 1/3 of all online activity is spent watching video.
• Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic.
• 65% of video viewers watch more than 3/4 of a video. DLK – make sure to front-load your main point, so it gets watched/heard.


Want to read the articles where I found these stats? Here you go:

• 29 Big Video Marketing Statistics for Media Brands http://tubularinsights.com/video-marketing-statistics-media-brands/#ixzz4KBI1hNyX
• http://www.pointsgroupllc.com/online-video-trends-2016/ – Online Video Trends 2015/2016 You Need to Read
• http://www.insivia.com/50-must-know-stats-about-video-marketing-2016/ –
• https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/9818/
• http://tubularinsights.com/video-marketing-statistics-media-brands/
• Online Video Trends 2015/2016 You Need to Read – http://www.doz.com/media/trends-in-online-video-2016 – explainer videos.

For my ALA/Librarian friends – I’m running for a LITA Director-at-Large, and I would love your vote!

Voting starts at 9:00 a.m. Central Time on March 16, 2011. Ballots close at 11:59 p.m. on April 22. Election results will be announced on April 29, 2011.

• Go here to vote – ok, that page just has info. And it says ALA members will get an email … but I certainly haven’t received one yet! Will update once I learn more …
• Here’s the list of candidates for the 2011 LITA Election

And here’s my statement on why I’m running: I love LITA, and I think LITA should be leading the pack in tackling technology change in libraries, and in running a modern organization using modern technology. I’m not convinced LITA is there yet, and I want to help make positive changes in LITA to help the organization grow and evolve … and more importantly, to help libraries and librarians with their technology needs.

So again – please consider voting for me! I’d appreciate it!

This came up recently in the comments on my Social Media Policies for Staff post, so thought I’d discuss it further. Please add your thoughts!

Here’s the issue: some people and organizations want very much to keep their personal profiles very separate from work stuff – that’s understandable. But to do that, they have created multiple accounts. Individuals create their normal personal profile, and then they also create a separate “worker dude” profile that they only use for official work-related business. Sorta like most of us have separate work and personal email accounts.

I know of at least one library that takes this a bit further, and creates “work-only” profiles for staff to use to administer their organization’s Facebook Page. Their thinking is that the organization owns the profiles, since the organization created them … so they’re not connected to an individual, and therefore ok.

Here’s the problem with that – Facebook really only acknowledges two types of accounts – personal profiles and organizational Pages. Period.

Facebook does allow something they call a “Business account.” What’s that? Here’s what Facebook says about them:

What is the difference between a business account and a user profile?
Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.

So a “business account” is really no more than a very limited-access personal profile for individuals that only want to use it to manage a Page. And even those have to be set up by individuals (not organizations).

Facebook spells that out even further here:

If I already have a user profile, can I create a business account?
Maintaining multiple accounts, regardless of the purpose, is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If you already have a personal account, then we cannot allow you to create business accounts for any reason. You can manage all the Pages and Socials Ads that you create on your personal account.

Where am I going with this? Just this – I know lots of organizations either already have or are wanting to create a Facebook presence. And I know some organizations and some individuals who are very leery of “showing themselves” on Facebook – using their personal profiles for work AND for personal stuff.

But here’s the rub – Facebook’s Terms of Service really only gives you two options – use your personal account for work, or don’t use Facebook. That third option – creating a fake “work-only” profile? Works great … until you get caught. Then your profile, and potentially your organization’s Page, might get deleted.

Thoughts?

pic by researchgirl