David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Managing Multiple Instagram Accounts just Got Easy

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Remember my post about Managing Multiple Instagram Accounts? Well, Instagram has just made this simple (at least, the logging in part).

Take a peek at the image in this post (a larger version is on Flickr). Instagram just added a multiple account login feature to their mobile apps.

Here’s how you set it up:

  • In your app, click the Accounts icon (on the right side of the menu bar at the bottom of the screen).
  • Then you have two choices:
    • Click the Settings icon (the “gear” icon). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and click Add Account. Then add your second account!
    • Or click your name up at the top of the screen. A menu drops down that includes Add Account as a choice. Then add that second account.

Once you’ve added a second account, you can toggle back and forth between accounts instead of having to completely log out, then log bak in each time you want to switch accounts.

It’s magic! Ok – not really. It’s a simple user experience improvement that many people have requested. Yay to Instagram for listening!

Interested in the Instagram accounts I play with? Find my Instagram account here, and my library’s Instagram account here. Enjoy!

Managing Multiple Instagram Accounts

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screenshot of fotogramme app on my iphoneI recently created an Instagram account for my library (and you can find my own Instagram account here, if you’re interested).

So far, we are having fun with it! I’m in the process of planning (i.e., gathering a team and setting up our first meeting), and we’ll be setting some goals for 2015. More on that later.

After creating the library’s account, I quickly noticed a problem. It’s sorta awkward managing multiple Instagram accounts on my iPhone. If I want to do something on the library’s Instagram account – post a photo or manage the account (i.e., follow people or respond to comments) – I have to log out of my own account and then log into the library’s account, and then back again.

Thankfully, there are some web and app-based tools to help manage multiple Instagram accounts:

  1. Fotogramme: Fotogramme is an Instagram management iPhone app with multiple account support. It allows me to view photos, post Likes and comments, manage followers, and Favorite users and hashtags for easier recall. It also sends alerts to my iPhone, so I know when there’s activity on the library’s Instagram account.
  2. iconosquare: Iconosquare is a web-based tool that lets you manage an Instagram account. It allows you to browse and comment or like photos, and manage your Instagram accounts comments. But the best part of Iconosquare are the statistics. It provides a variety of statistics and trends on your photos, followers, likes, and follower interaction.
  3. unfollowers: This is a handy tool to quickly manage followers. For both Twitter and Instagram, it shows you who’s following you, who unfollowed you, etc. It can help you figure out who to follow. I’m playing with the free version, which limits the activity you can do on a given day. But still – it’s easy to use, and cheap ($6.90 per month for one account) if we wanted to actually pay for it.

face2faceWhat’s missing from each of these tools? Actually taking photos. So yeah – I still have to take a photo, log out of my Instagram account, then log into the library’s account. And then back out again so I don’t post to the wrong account. But the management and statistics help is appreciated.

Here are a couple of articles that mention these and similar Instagram tools:

Have anything else that helps you manage your organization’s Instagram accounts? Please share!

Guidelines for our Makerspace

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The team of staff working on my library’s makerspace gave some good thought to policies, procedures, and more functional guidelines for use of the space and equipment.

For policies … well, we don’t have any. Other policies like our customer behavior policy and our computer use policy really cover everything we need. So we have a list of more functional “procedures” that can change as the space changes. Here’s what we have so far.

MakeIT Lab Procedures

Customers:

  • Normal customer behavioral guidelines apply
  • “Respect the space, respect the staff, respect the equipment, respect each other”
    • Hang this up in the room
    •  Refer to the customer conduct policy
  • Age limits:
    • Kids with supervision (under age 12)
    • Ages 12 and up without supervision

3D printer:

  • What can you print?
    • Whatever you can print in 3 hours
    • Stay with your print job
    • If the print has to finish after hours (i.e., customer started printing at 8pm, but print won’t finish until 11pm), staff will put finished print behind desk, and customer can pay the next day
  • How to print:
    • $5 per print
    • Pay using the checkout Kiosk, then get a receipt
    • Take receipt to Media Desk
    • Media Desk staff will set up the print job for customer

Room Procedures:

  • No prerequisites for room use
    • We will have tipsheets and some “getting started” videos, plus staff will know how to turn on the Mac, open up software, plug things in, etc.
    • If more help is needed, customer should schedule an appointment with a librarian
  • How many people in the room at the same time?
    • Up to 6 people in the room at a time
  • Checking out the room & time limits
    • 3 hours a day
    • Two door keys, with barcodes. We’ll technically check out the keys.
    • Customer will check out a key using Polaris (MakeIT Lab Key #1 and #2)
    • No reserves – first-come-first-serve basis
    • Staff will need to monitor the room to make sure customers aren’t going over 3 hours
    • Close when the library closes at 9pm

Reserving Media bags:

  • Use Polaris, like the other bags
  • 7-day check out
  • Customers can place it on hold
  • Pick up at the Reference desk

That’s what we have right now. Are some of your policies, procedures, or guidelines different than ours? Please share!

Guideline image from Make Magazine

IT is Not the Boss of Me

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More than once (ok, actually quite often), I’ve heard librarians say “IT won’t let me do that,” or “IT said no, so I figured out how to go around them,” or simply “IT won’t support that product.”

And I always respond by asking why they’re allowing IT to control decisions?

IT guys and gals, please remember – we are in the library to:

  • support whatever the library wants to do, to the best of our ability
  • find better ways of doing things when possible
  • make sure the technology is easy to use, helps meet the library’s needs, and stays as out-of-the-way and transparent as possible, so staff don’t have to think about the tech (unless they want to)
  • And make sure nothing crashes and burns, backups are in place, the website works, etc.

We are NOT there to dictate what library staff can and cannot do.

Sure, there will be staff computer use policies in place. Sure, there are budgets to consider.

But we don’t have to say “no.” Instead, work on saying “yes.” Here are some examples:

  • Yes.
  • Yes, but give me a month. We need to work on other priorities first.
  • Yes. It needs to come from your supervisor, so talk to them first and have them email me.
  • Great idea! We didn’t budget for that this year. Let’s get a discussion started and see if we want to do it next year.

These are all positive, and a version of “yes.” The last two sound a bit like “no” – but (and I know this sounds sorta passive, but it’s really not) it puts the decision-making back where it belongs, with the employee’s supervisor, or with a larger group looking at options. It’s not just IT saying “no.”

Does your IT department say no? What do you do about that? Please share!

image by Berkeley Lab

Helpdesk Ticket Tracking Software – what are your options?

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IT helpdesk ticket tracking software – my library uses it. Right now, we use Track-It by BMC. But it’s clunky, hard to use, and isn’t quite meeting our needs anymore. So it’s time to start exploring our options!

Guess what? There are a TON of options out there. But first, what would we want in an IT helpdesk software package? Here are some features you should think about:

  • incident management – basic “track that IT problem” function
  • Searchable knowledgebase – document the fixes and answers … and create a powerful database of “what to do when”
  • Reporting – for managers like me. You need to keep track of # of tickets, # of closed tickets, # of still-open tickets, who worked on the problem, who had the problem (for potential follow-up with training if needed), etc.
  • Windows software, server-based, or web/cloud based?
  • Other functions that might be useful, depending on your setup, include LDAP/Active Directory integration, asset and contract management, email integration, and scheduling.

These hosted services seem to be all the rage right now, and I have to admit – they look pretty good (at least, compared to what we currently have in place):

I also recently asked for recommendations, and what other organizations are currently using, via Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what some of you mentioned:

So there’s a good list to get you started. Anyone have experience with any of these? Like or dislike them? Sound off in the comments!

pic by michaeljzealot