Enhancing Quality Staff 2009

Here are some notes from Enhancing Quality Staff 2009.

The keynote speaker was Eric Celeste, a technology consultant. He discussed some of the issues raised by the new “cloud computing” concept, where much of your personal data and documents are no longer kept on your own computer but stored in places such as Google Voice or Google Reader. This has the incredible advantage of allowing you access to your material from anywhere. For example, Google Voice allows you to have one telephone number which you can instantly transfer from device to device. Going to be staying at your parent’s house for a week—you can make it so that any time someone calls your telephone number, it rings at their house. No more juggling phone numbers or having people unable to contact you.

All of this connectivity comes at a price, however—privacy. Google gets a complete record of who you call. Other convenience services are even more intrusive. Mint.com, for example allows a person to access all of their financial information in one place. To do this you must give Mint.com all of your account names, passwords, and even security challenge question answers. This question, privacy versus convenience, is going to be popping up more and more.

Celeste also mentioned a new search engine to keep an eye on--Wolframalpha.com. It goes live sometime this month. It is a computational search engine and will be able to process data sourced from the web to answer questions, rather than just find answers already determined by others. You will be able to ask it, for example, to describe the weather for a week in 1865. Here is a link to Wolfram’s blog describing how it will work:

Another interesting speaker described using Google’s collaborative tools to co-author a book with two people in Europe. An earlier speaker had discussed using these tools (here is a link to his Google Docs slides), but listening as she described how she actually had used it was much more illustrative.

One final observation was that everyone was talking about RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) as the new way for libraries to keep in touch with their patrons. More and more people are using RSS to keep up with their favorite web sites. RSS feeds notify the patron when new material is added to a web site that has RSS enabled. Perhaps this is something we should think about. For an example of a library RSS implementation, visit the Hennepin County Library’s web site.

-Ron

TEACHING OLD SERVICES NEW TRICKS WITH WEB 2.0

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This webinar was given by Michelle Jacobs, emerging technology librarian at UCLA. She discussed the fact that technology is everywhere and more people are taking items that are like tiny computers (cell phones, ipods, flash drives) with them wherever they go. In a recent poll, 26% of cell phone users would rather lose their wallet than their cell phone. Libraries need to be where the patrons are so that they become more of need than a want.

For adding new technologies, a key concept is "RITE USE":

R -- take risks
I -- innovate
T -- technology
E -- education (of both staff and public, so staff can answer any question about the technology)
U-- user centered
S-- shared
E --excitement (staff have to be excited about the technology, and it must be marketed so the public knows about it).


Podcasting is cheap -- it just requires a microphone, a computer and the internet. Podcasts can be used for neighborhood tours, oral history, a "how to" for library resources, book reviews, and library events. Remember to put podcasts in places like iTunes where patrons will find them, not just on the library web site. Here is more info on podcasts.

The library can put videos on YouTube instead of hosting them on their own web site, using a cheap digicam or cell phone. This way, they have a chance to be more widely seen. It could be a video contest for teens or online tutorials on the library. Here are some examples:

Text Message a Librarian

Using the VPN

Sort of a tribute to students in the library

Wikipedia may not be good for citing in a college paper, but the library can use it to its advantage. Staff can edit a page on the library, adding links to special collections and photos that the public may not know about. Citations for non-digital items can also be added.

How do you keep up with all these trends? Jacobs recommends using Google Blog Search to search for certain tags (user-generated keywords) that you are interested in, then setting up an alert for whenever that tag comes up using RSS feeds. That way, you can just get the info you want

Google Calendar is a good resource for planning meetings and can even be used for library events. Patrons can subscribe to the calendar and view it on their cell phone.


The important things to take away from this webinar are: Do what you're comfortable with, partner, involve users, don't get involved in time sinks, and feel free to walk away if something doesn't work.

--Andrea

TOP TEN OBSCURE GOOGLE SEARCH TRICKS

We all know the basics of searching Google, but check out these advanced tips from the Lifehacker Blog.


Submitted by Lori L.