Web 2.0 101: Week 3 - Social Networking

I've been using Facebook more and more lately--partly to investigate its possible role in libraries but mostly because some of my best friends are semi-addicted. But the homework for this class forced me to look at the broader landscape of social networking, and prompted me to look at what libraries are doing on this front.

It seems pretty clear that Facebook has a tremendous amount of appeal to a wide range of people, with customizability being the most attractive quality. I think my library and many other libraries should be using it to reinforce or create connections with users. I have strong hunch that very little information retrieval will take place(e.g., PubMed or online catalog searches) at least in terms of how librarians traditionally define it. But I have high hopes for the outreach potential of something like Facebook. As one example, for the newsletter our library targets towards our students, I wrote a piece about Gulf Coast Recovers, an public-service-oriented group that held an exhibition in one of the library's community rooms. Shortly after the newsletter piece was posted, I received an invitation to join the Gulf Coast Recovers Facebook group. Now I routinely receive invitations to socialize with this group of students. The group wisely blends fun with its serious events (e.g., screenings of movies relevant to public health, such as Sicko; dinners out at a New Orleans-style restaurant). So, I've started to think of this as a great test case for making librarian-student bonds stronger, even if it's mostly social interaction that's not at all related to libraries and info use. I'd like to see more of us make these connections even if this effort is as basic as helping put names to faces (and putting faces to libraries).

The tricky part, as I see it, is that the connection needs to be made OFF of Facebook, etc. The research seems pretty clear that the flow of contacts goes offline-to-online, not online-to-offline. In other words, it's still weird (probably rightfully so) to start a friendship online that progresses to more meaningful offline connections. It seems people like these social networking sites for reinforcing existing friendships. So, the challenge for libraries will be to make the most meaningful connections by interacting with students in the real world first, then strengthening the bond. That's what I'm reading, and that's been my experience so far.

Web 2.0 101: Week 2 - Wikis

My new Wiki - An instruction repository:
I created a wiki designed to collect, organize and share health-sciences-oriented library instruction materials. URL: http://hslteach.wetpaint.com/. There's a very similar (although far more general) wiki called Library Instruction wiki, which I very much enjoy (URL: http://instructionwiki.org/Main_Page). The library where I currently work, we have some shared teaching materials, but they are not as organized as they could be. The library where I last worked maintained a University-wide instruction repository that held many helpful documents that librarians used in their efforts to support the undergraduate writing program (there's great faculty-library collaboration at that institution).

Collaboration with a classmate:
I'm very interested in the journal-RSS-feed-collection work being done by my MLA classmate Bryan Nugent (URL: http://mlawikiclass.wetpaint.com/thread/1307773/RSS+Feed+Experiment%2FProject ) . I imagine it would fit nicely in with a class on current awareness and RSS feeds that I started teaching last autumn. My lesson plan is posted along with his excel spreadsheet of journal RSS feeds.

Blog vs. wiki
It is indeed crucial to think about the strengths and weaknesses of these various Web 2.0 technologies. Libraries certainly should be exploring and experimenting, doing our best to connect with (and help) users wherever they are. To me that means picking the right tool for the job (as with just about everything in life, I'm stubbornly learning). Blogs strike me as a slight variation on a very old theme: Dissemination of regularly updated, timely information. There are all sorts of added bits of stickiness connecting blogs with the bigger puzzle, but the essence of a blog is still not much different than a newsletter or a web forum. Their great for anything that is appropriately organized in reverse chronological order: event announcements, changes in services/goods, journal entries.

Wikis, in contrast, are great for collecting the collaborative efforts of a group. It's ideal for creating a readily accessible archive for any group project (library construction/ instruction repository/ any sort of knowledge base, eg. subject guides). My own not-so-unique-or-brilliant experience is that a wiki is only as good its contributions. There are very effective organizations with very smart and effective people who are simply not in the habit of sharing work in the way that a flourishing wiki demands. That's not the wiki's fault, but this is one more area where technology does not overpower organizational culture.

Web 2.0 101: Week 1

Although I got a late start with the Week 1 activities, they didn't really present any difficulties for me (especially after I skimmed through the back-and-forth about problems that arose for others)

Step 1: Create a blog.
As a funny coincidence, just last Thursday I set up a blog and wrote blog entries for a committee on which I serve. It was nice to get such quick reinforcement on how to do it.
Step 2: Set up an RSS reader.
I'm already making pretty frequent use of GoogleReader, for both personal and professional interests. (I had started experimenting with Bloglines and Newsgator last year, but pretty quickly found I used GoogleReader more because I always check my Gmail anyway. Saved me a few log-ins and a few clicks)
Step 3: Subscribe to 5 feeds.
I already have a bunch of feeds (and I'm adding more all the time), but I added a fresh PubMed search since that's something I do less often. The topic, one of my faves: handwashing in hospitals (http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/erss.cgi?rss_guid=079tg2h1oK0Kc4pfix63tcIHRdvogLJy7c_T9-wbFM5)
I also added another journal ToC alert (Arch Int Med). I use this sort of feed less often, too. (Preferring PubMed/MEDLINE alerts instead).

Step 4: Uses for RSS feeds in my library? How could patrons use RSS feeds?
RSS feeds could be very useful in my library. As a library that is preparing to undergo major construction later this year, we could use a Construction Update feed that would ideally keep our users up to date about changes in access and space (which have been and will be numerous and frequent!). On a more regular long-term basis, I could also foresee RSS feeds providing quick library/info tips or highlighting resources. Our monthly newsletter (currently posted on our website, the link distributed via e-mail) would be another logical choice for an RSS feed.

RSS feeds could have tremendous usefulness for our users. Many people in our community are already familiar with this phenomenon (search alerts / table-of-contents services / selective dissemination information), and for them RSS is merely the latest generation, technology-wise. (Of course, RSS has the added stickiness of helping organize both professional and personal information and news updates). Last year I wrote a class trying to cover both RSS feeds and these older, arguably more academic alert services. (Feel free to e-mail me for the handout: jo2203 [at] columbia.edu . I haven't posted it on the web yet, but I'm glad to share it).