David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

A couple of Recent Articles – Video tips & Emerging Trends

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Update: Added a link to the Information Today article!

I keep track of my publications and presentations on my website. It’s fun to see those lists grow!

Here are three articles I’ve recently written/been interviewed for:

  1. Making Library Videos: Seven simple steps to visual marketing (American Libraries). This is a short article that provides 7 easy tips on how to start making videos for your library. Want more than the quick article? Check out my new Library Technology Report about Video in Libraries.
  2. Emerging Technology Trends for Libraries (IT lib: Informačné technológie a knižnice, a library publication from Slovakia). I share my thoughts on what emerging trends you should pay attention to and how I think those trends affect libraries.
  3. 10 Experts Talk Library Positivity (by Brandi Scardilli) in the November issue of Information Today. I was interviewed for this article (along with a bunch of other amazing people) and asked 3 questions: What’s something that has re-energized you or kept you excited about libraries in the past year; How do you see librarianship/libraries evolving in the next few years; and What makes you feel hopeful about the future of libraries? It’s a fun “looking forward” article. Not available online, but definitely worth a mention!

Hope you read the articles (and find something useful in them)!

Image from Pexels (handy place to find license-free photos!)

My Presentations for Internet Librarian 2018

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My presentations are up at the Internet Librarian 2018 site (yes, I was busy). Here are shortcuts to my slides:

Don’t stop at my slides – a LOT of the presenters slides, notes, etc can be found at the Internet Librarian 2018 website. Make sure to check them out!

Emerging Trends at NLA2018

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Last week, I gave a couple of talks at the Nebraska Library Association 2018 conference. Nicely-done conference! I gave a 3-hour preconference on Emerging Technology Trends for libraries (slides included in this post) and was on a panel focused on neutrality in libraries. No notes from that, but it seemed to go well, and there was a lot of great discussion, different viewpoints, etc.

Anyway – I promised I’d post my slides … so here they are!

Chatbots and Libraries

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This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend explores the world of Chatbots.

What’s a Chatbot? Chatbots are called many things besides just “chatbot.” You might also know them as conversational agents, intelligent chatbots, interactive agents, or talkbots.

Chatbots are pretty much apps that talk back to you (my definition). Here’s a better definition from Wordstream: “… software applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating a conversation or interaction with a real person.”

This interaction is mostly done via chat boxes on websites. But they can also be found in call centers. In a call center environment, chatbots take care of very low-level transactions, like changing a password, requesting an account balance, or scheduling an appointment without having to talk to a real person.

The same basic transactions can be handled with a text-based chatbot on a website.

Chatbots use Natural Language Processing, much like virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, or Apple Siri. They attempt to sound (or read) very “real,” so the transaction has a more human feel to it. Very different from a phone tree in a call center or typing answers to questions on a web-based form.

Examples of Chatbots include:

  • Health-based. Some chatbots are used in medical diagnoses, dementia patient monitoring, and basic information gathering.
  • Facebook Messenger and Twitter DMs – these are both good places to see chatbots in action.
  • Chatbots within mobile apps. My bank app has one (Erica in the Bank of America app). The Starbucks app has a chatbot that helps you order coffee. Lyft has one that works with Facebook Messenger and Amazon Echo. Fandango also has a app that works with Facebook Messenger.
  • eBay’s chatbot works with Google Assistant.

Chatbots in the library?

How about having a chatbot for the library? Chatbots answer basic, always-asked questions. A library chatbot could answer a variety of questions, like:

  • Questions about hours, locations, and upcoming events. Maybe it could even capture event registrations.
  • With a good API connection, a chatbot could tell a customer when their books are due, or take fine payment information.
  • Facebook Messenger chatbots. You could build your chatbots to operate within Facebook Messenger. If you get a lot of questions there, it’s definitely something to think about.
  • Chat-based reference. Have a chat-based reference service? It’s very possible your chatbot could answer basic questions, freeing up your staff’s time to answer harder questions or focus on other tasks.

Articles for more information about Chatbots:

Build your own chatbot! Here are a couple of chatbot builder tools to check out (all mostly built on the Facebook Messenger platform):

Does your library use chatbots? Please share!

 

Conversational Systems and Libraries

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This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend is all about conversational systems.

What is a Conversational System? For starters, there are a TON of names and related technology that goes along with them, including: smart speakers, voice assistants, personal assistants, voice computing, conversational systems, conversational platforms, and conversational interfaces.

There are different types of conversational systems. You have probably heard of smart speakers, like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, or the Apple HomePod. You probably have Google Assistant or Apple Siri on your phone. And I’ll guess that you have talked to a chatbot before. For example, I’ve been having problems with my AT&T uVerse DSL internet. So I called AT&T, and talked to a bot first, who wanted to know what the problem was, who I was, etc in order to direct me to the right department. Honestly, I just say “customer service” a bunch of times until the bot says “ok, it sounds like you want to talk to a person…” Works for me 🙂

Who owns Voice Assistants? Techcrunch recently shared some research about this – 32% of US consumers own a smart speaker. That’s up from 28% a year ago. According to the article, it’s predicted to hit about half of US consumers after Christmas.

How do people use Conversational Systems? Here are some popular tasks associated with voice assistants:

  • ask it to play music
  • get the weather forecast
  • ask questions
  • do an online search
  • check the news
  • make a phone call
  • ask for directions
  • get recent sports scores
  • use smart home commands (i.e., turn up the AC, turn off lights, etc)
  • send and answer text messages
  • do some shopping

How can libraries incorporate Conversational Systems?

Here are a few ideas. I’ll bet you have more (please share if you do)!

  • Learn it. Hey – it’s new technology. Figure it out so you can help customers with it.
  • Teach it. Show customers how to use their app-based voice assistants. Hold a class on setting up and using an Amazon Echo.
  • Make it. Some libraries are creating Amazon Alexa Skills and Google Assistant Actions. Why not see if you can do the same thing?

More reading:

Making Skills and Actions: