BJORN THE LIBRARIAN

Prototyping New Library Services

I came across this quote from an older blog post by Helen Blowers. I love reading and applying quotes. Like pictures, quotes are truly powerful adds to your blog.

Helen writes, "In order for customers to be engaged in your development process, you need to provide them with something to react to. Focus groups are good, but prototyping feedback sessions are better!"

I support the idea of prototyping new library services. Let's face it, it's difficult to know what we want! It becomes easier once we have something solid to work with. Guy Kawasaki has a book called The Art of the Start. The premise: get your idea moving. Adapt as you go!

I've located some great quotes about getting things started. The following quotes are taken from The Cheap Revolution Blog by Skip Shuda:

1. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work - Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist


2. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary - Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur


3. The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning - to create a product or service to make the world a better place - Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur, investor, author


4. Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners - Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor


5. Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence - Lisa M. Amos


6. Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life - John F. Kennedy, U.S. President


7. The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities - Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur


8. An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he'll quickly learn how to chew it - Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries


9. The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer - Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's


10. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover - Mark Twain, author
    
    

 

Online Photo Sharing

One of my passions is online photo sharing. During my Fall 2007 internship with San Jose Public Library I developed and delivered a class on this topic. Brian Herzog (The Swiss Army Librarian) is an avid Flickr user. He is even one of my Flickr Contacts. Brian has posted an outline on the topic of online photo sharing. Click HERE to check it out!

This introductory video he uses caught my eye. Beginning a technology instruction session with a simple video is a good idea. Give it a play!

From: http://www.commoncraft.com/photosharing

 

LibGuide for Modern Libraries

The goal of Library 2.0 is to use Web 2.0 technology to learn, gather, combine and organize information to better serve customers. Library 2.0 is about distributing the library content and services beyond the library website, and connecting with customers wherever they are.

LibGuide understands the goals of Library 2.0! Using this subscription based service, librarians can create content-rich guides, share knowledge and information, and easily promote library resources. The interface is user-friendly and equiped with Web 2.0 features. Customers are able to directly interact and improve the guides by leaving comments. They can also see and interact with the page-creator (that's you).

The LibGuide widgets are COOL! These widgets (example below) allow your specific content-rich guides to be shared across social networks. They also allow the library catalog to be searched from anywhere. Place the widget in a blog, facebook, myspace, or any website.

Check out LibGuide. This company is on the right track...

 

Change Congress

"Professor Lawrence Lessig, renowned expert in intellectual property, has a new mission: to combat the influence of money in American democracy. Bolstered by the recent “Draft Lessig” movement that almost convinced him to run for Congress, Lessig will further his mission by launching a new “Change Congress” project in a Sunshine Week lecture sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation and Omidyar Network" (Sunlight Foundation).


My purpose for posting this is simple. As a librarian, I am a huge fan of Lawrence Lessig. Lawrence Lessig is a Law Professor and Director of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. His passionate message about intellectual property rings true. If you don't know about the FREE CULTURE movement watch this IMPORTANT VIDEO.


Lessig will be speaking from Washington D.C. about his CHANGE CONGRESS project at 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Thursday, March 20, 2008.


The event will also be Web cast: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/thepressclub-lessig-032008

 

Wordtracker Library Keywords

Wordtracker Results for "library"
Wordtracker is an online service designed to help businesses optimize their search engine ranking. The idea centers on strategically placing popular keywords in titles and content areas of your website. Knowing which keywords to use it crucial! If you are selling a product you need to know the specific words people are using to search for that product.

I jumped over to Wordtracker and conducted a quick five-minute search for terms relating to libraries. The "Count" column in this screenshot represents the number of times the term has been entered into search engines over the past 100 days. Check out a few additional results...

• librarian 338
  
• library2.0 6
• web 2.0 library 5
  
• Web 2.0 + libraries 17
• Web 2.0 libraries 15
• library marketing 5
  
• library 2.0 'rss feeds' 18
  

• flickr 7939
  
• social networking 492
  
• myspace 179136
• blog 1853
  
• blogs 1826
• Poddcasting 266
• Podcast 1050
• Podcasts 1030

Is online marketing important to public libraries? It should be!!! Finding out what library related keywords are being used can be helpful for building an online presence for libraries. Popular search terms should be used when librarians are posting to their library blogs or websites.

You can do your own Wordtracker search for FREE. A two hour trial is available if you have a name and email address... Go for it!

 

The Librarian Song

A song about the librarian 2.0 archetype... (check it out!)

 

Teen Tech Week

When: March 2-8th, 2008

What: Now in its second year, Teen Tech Week is a national initiative aimed at teens, their parents, educators and other concerned adults with a general theme of competence and ethical uses of technologies, especially those that are offered through libraries.

Why: This is your opportunity to recognize the teen customers and show them some love! YALSA’s Teen Tech Week committee has come up with a list of 25 things teens can do for Teen Tech Week... [click here to view]

YALSA's list of suggestions is not great, but can be a helpful starting point for generating ideas. I would also suggest:

1. Creating a book/video display related to the technology theme
2. Giving a brief presentation about creative commons
   
3. Presenting a hot Web 2.0 application
4. Engaging frequent conversation/questions about people's favorite technologies