Tuesday, April 30, 2013

THE NEW OVERDRIVE CATALOG


You may have noticed that the Overdrive catalog has a new look. It’s not just cosmetic - there are some major changes.

Each title has an icon of a book on the upper-right-hand corner of the cover. If it is black, the book is available. If it’s greyed-out, all copies are checked out. If you click on the bookmark on the lower left of the cover, the book is automatically added to your wish list.

When you search, filter options are available on the left side. You can filter by format, language, subject, publisher, grade level, device, or items available now.

There is also the new option “additional titles to recommend”. These are titles that SPPL does not own, but are available from Overdrive. Patrons can suggest that they be purchased. This include audiobooks, which we currently do not purchase from Overdrive.  

There are fewer steps to check out, especially for those who use Adobe Digital Editions. The catalog remembers your preferred check out period, so you don’t have to choose it every time. You can still change it for an individual book. Format (Kindle or EPUB) is chosen by radio button, which should reduce errors. There is a note warning that “Once you select a format, you may only be able to return the title via the software.” Some titles can now be returned early by logging in to the patron “account”, but not all.

One nice new feature for patrons  who read on their computer, or if they have other technical issues preventing use of apps or downloading, is “Read in your browser”. Patrons can move to a different chapter, search for words, and make bookmarks, just as they do in software or apps. This feature is publisher-dependent, so not all titles are available in this format. Patrons who use Internet Explorer may need to download the Google Chrome Frame Plug-in to use all the features.

Perhaps assuming that fewer patrons are new to the process or are using the Adobe Digital Editions software, there are fewer links to it. A link called “software” is at the very bottom left of every page between “help” and copyright information, but it can be easy to miss. There is also a “get software” link on the right in the patron account’s “bookshelf” view.

For more information, check out this page from Overdrive:



--Andrea @Central




Monday, April 29, 2013

NTC CONFERENCE NOTES




CTEP members and their supervisors were offered the opportunity to attend the NonProfit Technology Conference, a three day affair being held in Minneapolis, for free if they would volunteer a minimum of 3 hours throughout the conference. Needless to say, we jumped at the chance.
Many of the CTEPs did their volunteer hours prior to the start of the conference, stuffing conference bags with goodies and programs, etc. I acted as room monitor for several sessions on both Thursday and Friday. I’m glad I had the chance to participate, but after seeing what was on offer, it became obvious that this conference was mostly geared towards IT people and fundraisers. There were also tracks dedicated to leadership, communication and  connection  (whatever that means…here it appeared to refer to consultation and networking). And, there was a fair bit of stuff that made the privacy lovers among us shudder uncontrollably…but we’ll get to that.
Fittingly, the first session I attended was the First Timer session—an introduction to NTC. They told us about the website (to which I never did manage to connect) and the collaborative note-taking that was taking place via the web (also not fully realized due to lack of bandwidth). They spent a good deal of time explaining the tech end,  explaining that the program had been printed mid-month and that much of it had been changed. The only accurate program listing was online. And only a few of the truly tech savvy (or those blessed with much better equipment than the rest of us) were able to access it. Needless to say, mistakes were made, sessions were missed, and a certain amount of frustration that should have been avoided became the norm for this conference.
I then took part in the Social Media Police session, which was a lively look back at the hits and misses in marketing and advertising over the last year. The session was well done and well attended. The presenters chose to emulate one of their favorite TV shows, Fashion Police, in order to present the best and worst of marketing in 2012. One of the highlights mentioned was the way certain companies  reacted swiftly to the blackout during the Superbowl. One of the worst cases cited was the NRA’s response to Sandy Hook. Here’s the link to their slide deck:
The rest of the afternoon was spent touring the exhibits (what they referred to as the Science Fair), getting a look at some interesting new titles coming out soon  and talking to some vendors who have created some truly awesome volunteer  management software.
Friday, the Plenary speaker was Dan Pallotta, a name that was much in the news in the early part of this decade. His group, Pallotta TeamWorks,  was responsible for making the Susan G Komen 3 day walk and others such a resounding success in their  early years. His group was also very publicly fired when it came out that their “overhead” costs amounted to almost 40% of the money brought in on those walks.  His contention (in  a nutshell) is that if you don’t put the money into overhead, funding will never increase past a certain point and growth is effectively stymied by the rules that govern non-profits. He is starting up a new group which would act as a legal defense fund for charitable organizations.  Interesting, but suspect as to his motivations…given his past history. If you’re interested, here is a transcript of his talk:
and for a good critique of his newest title “ Uncharitable”, which gives a rather cogent and well reasoned response to his ideas:
The next session I attended was “Secrets of Content Marketing Sorcerers”, an intriguing mix of how to attract volunteers and engage them with how to hook contributors with relevant content in your publications (i.e. newsletters, circulars, ads, etc.)
One of the marketers for “VolunteerMatch”, a website  which connects volunteers to opportunities, while getting its funding from corporate America told of the dichotomy which comes from trying to find the right fit for the volunteer with enticing the corporations to foot the bill for this service. Their answer was to do niche marketing and tailor their content to each of their contributing corporations, while keeping their public website segmented to the volunteers only. Seems to be working for them…they are, hands down, one of the best volunteer match firms out there. NTEN’s advertising  guru brought up the old broccoli (what we want  them to know) and cheese (what they want to know) idea. How do you slip the broccoli in? By knowing what your readers consider to be cheese---look to analytics…which tell you what people are looking at and what subjects are causing people to click through to another page for more information. Once you know that, you know where you can put just enough broccoli to engage people with your cause. What becomes rather problematic for us as librarians is the way they collect their information. By using analytics that track what you are doing on your computer,  these marketers are getting an amazing (and somewhat scary) totality of information about their website visitors!  But the best part of this session came with Kivi Leroux Miller who has a new book out on this subject. Her contention is that you should be paying close attention to your website and marketing.  Break your content into evergreen, annual and perennial content:Evergreen Content:  that’s broccoli or cheese that you don’t have to update often. Directories, how-to’s, etc. Maybe you change twice a year.  Perennial Content: Appears year after year based on cycles like seasons. Often appears in e-newsletters. You will probably repurpose.  Annual Color: Appears mostly in social media. Has a very short life-span but can create a lot of interest in your work.
Her contention is that you need to find core topics that you want to be known for, and then strategize to figure out how to fill in different types of content related to these core areas. Basically, this  90 minutes was a crash course in effective (if intrusive) marketing technique on the web.
Unfortunately, the next session I attended “Is Success just in the Numbers?” on quantitative vs qualitative measurement of impact was far less successful. Let’s just say that the best line I took away from this session was “ If you can't draw a direct line from your metric to your mission, then you're measuring the wrong thing”.  
The last session of the day for me was called “The New Normal: Shifting Organization Resources to Thrive and Survive”, which turned out to be a primer for (in these cases) IT professionals within a charitable organization to learn to see what changes needed to be made and how to go about creating those changes.  The panel members were young, enthusiastic and not very well organized.  Notes from other attendees are here:


--Doris @Central





Monday, April 22, 2013

WTF?-RA RART Readers' Retreat, April 20, 2013, Roseville Library



I helped organize this wonderful Readers' Retreat as part of my work on MLA's RART Steering Committee.  We started the day with an icebreaker:  What is your favorite RA blog and why do you love it?  Mine was Detectives Beyond Borders "because murder is more fun away from home."  The others are listed in LeAnn and Anna's google site below.

Next up were LeAnn Suchy and Anna Haase Krueger, who talked about Social Media and Readers' Advisory.  They put together a google site, Readers' Advisory & Social Media, that lists all the sources they collected and consulted for their presentation.  It was heartening to see the way libraries are using social media to further the love of reading!  Some of the tools libraries are using are Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  (LeAnn and Anna urged libraries that use Pinterest to link to their library catalogs rather than to amazon or another book selling site.)

Before lunch, Carol Jackson of Ramsey County Public Library and I talked briefly about our experiences with Facebook Readers' Advisory.  Carol pointed out that the last time her team had a FB RA session, there was a reply function on each comment, which they used to--yes, that's right--reply.  This made their session much easier to manage.

After lunch, Jody Wurl talked about her experience as one of the 11 or 12 librarians who chose ALA's The Reading List, which highlights outstanding genre fiction based on these criteria:  •It is a pleasure to read.  •It embodies the standards of the genre, or conversely, it offers a new or unexpected take on those standards. •It is well conceived in terms of story line, character, setting, language, dialogue, tone, pace, detail, description, learning/experiencing, and narrative structure.  She showed us photos of the stacks of books in her house during the process, and the sight of those stacks made being a Minnesota Book Awards judge seem like a walk in the park!

Our final presenters were Peter Geye and Hans Weyandt, who talked about what makes an American classic.  Peter mentioned The Western Canon by Harold Bloom as the place to find the "classics."  Hans pointed out that if you look at the novels that have won the Pulitzer for the last 50 years, some have lost their luster. Peter and Hans each brought five books they consider "the people's classics" to the retreat, and here's that list:  Benediction by Kent Haruf, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, Empire Falls by Richard Russo, True Grit by Charles Portis, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee, The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin, Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro (this may not have been the collection Hans had in his hand, but it's her newest), The Turtle Catcher by Nicole Helget.All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.  I have only read In Cold Blood and lots of Alice Munro stories, so I've got my work cut out for me.

--Barb @Highland Park

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES





Webjunction has posted a list of free, online training opportunities for the month of April. These online events and classes include such topics as No Name Calling: Addressing Bullying through Books,   Changing Libraries - New Ways of Working, and People are talking about you…but do you know what they’re saying? For more information or to register for these training opportunities, visit Webjunction.org.
Additional webinars and training opportunities for the month of April can also be found at Library Webinars. This site was created by NEFLIN (the Northeast Florida Library Information Network) to provide Florida library staff with one location for information about webinars. Many of these webinars are free of charge and on topics of interest to library staff. While some of the webinars listed on Library Webinars are duplicates of webinars listed on the Webjunction site, others are offered by technology-oriented organizations such as NISO, Infopeople, O'Reilly and Lyrasis. An RSS feed is available.
Remember, if you participate in any of these webinars or training opportunities, please write a post for In the Loop and share what you learned with your coworkers!

 --Karen H. @RC