My experience with social software - podcasts

Reading my blog you'd think I had no life outside work, but I actually have a 5-year old girl and a 3-year old boy. I am fortunate that both like books, but my daughter is also proficient with Barbie.com and my son is a Star Wars addict (he knows the names of members of the jedi council beyond Yoda and Obi-One). When researching for my podcasting presentation, I came accross Book Talks. My daughter was very intrigued by the book reviews of children's books and I even suggested we go out and get a couple of the books reviewed. There are podcasts by Disney and others which honestly are really boring, but the book reviews were short, fun and the podcast graphic is a little mesmerizing. I actually think babies would watch the graphics.

My experience with social software - social tagging

Great tool. I have access to a lot of commercial business, legal and tax research tools and all of them have a "briefcase feature" which I use to manage research results. Even with all these expensive and top of the market tools, I still go to Google for more especially for private companies. Delicious is my Google briefcase and I thank this course for allowing me to discover it.

My experience with social software - instant messaging

I don't use ms instant messenger. I feel bad ignoring people and saying I'm busy and often set the status to show offline so no one will be insulted. At work however I am on a team of business researchers located all over North America and I've even been sametimed by a colleague in Japan. We are required to use the instant message software in lotus which is sametime and have it open for the entire working day. One feature which I find really useful in sametime is the ability to indicate more that just "I am away" you can state "back in 5minute" or "in a meeting till 4." This really helps coleagues who are often really time pressured and need to consult you. They know when you're going to be around and don't have to keep checking to see if your status has changed. The only trick is you have to keep updating your staus and putting in the details.

My experiences with social software - Blogs

I am a more private person and tend to shy away from communication on the internet which can be read by anyone except for my use of these tools for this course. However, I was involved in a project at work for delivering a course on tax research to junior and beginner tax professionals (working on getting CAs). Even for those whose careers are in tax, it can be a pretty dry subject. To elicit some class interaction as much of the material is self-study and online, I suggested using a blog for students to raise questions and issues they encountered during the course so we could address these in a series of seminars being held via webcast and face to face in some locations. No one contributed to the blog. I suppose it mught have been seen as exposing ignorance or lack of understanding and where this is a work setting not just a learning forum, employees might be even more sensitive to this. The blog was set up as an internet cafe with a blog post started on a number of topics which the students were invited to comment on. This structure might have made it too formal. I think people are used to using this kind of blog as a social space and have difficulty communicating in a work social space.

Does social software have a place in library service provision

I think social software can be used by libraries in a number of ways.

The blog is an excellent medium for organizing information on particular issues. Libraries often have a useful links page which has a simple list of sites where information can be found, but as new and interesting websites keep getting added to the internet daily this kind of list is not as useful anymore. Blogs can help organize the links into specific categories of interest. RSS feeds keep the content up to date and the posts and comments allow for interaction. Blogs are also great for libraries to use as electronic message boards.

Social tagging is a great way for libraries to improve internet searching and assist in finding information for library users. It can also serve like blogs as a means of organizing links to website into various categories for library users.

Instant messaging has a place in the library and can add to library services. It is very useful for pushing links to library users and to provide library users with an instant connection which leaving an e-mail request can't do.

Podcasting could be used to give voice to the library and to communicate in spoken conversation with library users on the internet. This could enhance library services.

Wikis can be a collaberative tool for libraries, but except for working on a resaerch project with a team or other internal team projects, I don't see the wiki as being that applicable to library services. I also don't see social networks contributing much to library services. I think they are useful for connecting to the greater library community and for library users to connect to each other.

Those are my initial thoughts. Will post more later

Case studies for week 12

The use of podcats by the Thomas Ford Memorial Library which provide teen reviews of books makes sense to me. Do teens really want to hear what they should read from a librarian who is at least ten years older than them? and can a librarian talk teen language enough to make a book sound interesting? I know I can't.

The libraries that use podcasting Dowling Public Library, ASU Libraries , and Lansing Public Library and the Thomas Ford Memorial Library all give some description of the podcast so that you don't download it without knowing what it's about and then have to delete it. I think this is important as it takes some effort and bandwidth to download.

I checked out some of the libraries on the list of Libraries using IM reference. I noticed that most of them were offline at 9:30pm on Monday night. As I indicated in my post reading from week 12 - instant messaging, for IM to be effective it really has to be available whenever users are likely to be online and that might not be 9-5.

I also checked out some of the libraries using flikr and found that a lot of them use flikr to post pictures of library events like book signings. This seems like a good way to build a community. I think libraries would have to careful to take pictures of lots of different people and not make the photos too cliquey.

Can podcasting be interactive?

The article 7 Things you should know about podcasting suggests that one of the downsides to podcasting is that it's not interactive. Ithink that podcasting has the ability to be interactive especially with new technologies such as Wildvoice and Yamji which allow users to leave audio comments in response to each other. I see this as a kind of audio blog and I think it could be very effective. I think that people tune into radio shows hosted by personalities because it makes one feel like you have a friend when you're sitting in a traffic jam and that you're part of a listening audience that is sharing an experience. I think the podcasts could provide the same kind of connection for listeners.

readings week 12 (IM)

The article U R the best: Community building through chat noted an interesting issue about instant messaging crank calls. One of the main problems that I see with instant messaging is being able to restrict access to people in the library community. If anyone anywhere can access the virtual librarian then how do you ensure that the community that funds you is being served.

The article IM me raised some interesting points about using IM for reference. One thing that bugs me about IM reference interviews is that you have to remember to create a record or transcript of the dialogue. When you're on the phone you write down notes and email creates the record, but IM is easy to close (doh!). I also find it really slow, way slower than just talking. At my office all business researchers have to have sametime (our im application) open when you're available. You have to change your status if your in a meeting on a conference call or too busy to be disturbed. IM is used to say "hi do you have a sec" or "can I call you." If anything with detail needs to be discussed we do it via e-mail or phone. One thing it is great for is sending links as mentione in the blog, Give Them What They Already Use - AOL Instant Messanger: A Case Study. I agree with Schmidt and Stevens, the authors of IM me that the library community is increasingly connecting to the library on the internet and offering virtual reference through im is one way to reach out to this community.

The SUNY Morrisville College Library mentioned in the blog Give Them What They Already Use - AOL Instant Messanger: A Case Study devote a lot of staff to manning their virtual reference. The blogger maintains that they are open 82 hours a week during fall and winter. While an academic library might be able to train and dedicate staff to virtual reference, I don't think that public libraries have those kind of resources.

week 10 readings

The wikipedia definition of Social Network reveals that social networking on the internet is still about people connecting to each other. However, traditional social network theory involves the connections of people from different social groups whereas social networking on the internet seems to be more about people within a social community connecting without geographic limitations. Facebook allows one to register not just as a University student or alumni with a University e-mail account, but also as an employee of a major company, or as a highschool student. These types of social networks are more about connecting to the people within your social community and can be somewhat exclusive.

The article "Identity Production in a networked culture: why youth heart myspace" is interesting. Personally I had enough of the drama and angst of highschool when I was at highschool and after reading this article plan to stay away from myspace. I'm sure that developing an online identity is part of developing personal identity and might assist teens to experiment somewhat, but what's so great about an online identity that seeks popularity and of what value is a social network where one has to constantly flatter those you want to keep as "friends." I'm sorry, but teenagers are not "running ragged without any time to simply chill amongst friends." If they were they certainly wouldn't be able to spend so much time instant messaging and keeping up their social network on myspace.

In the article Myspace and Facebook: What higher-ed can learn from social computing, the author suggests that students enthusiasm for Facebook and Myspace is a reflection of their need to connect and interact and that this should be brought into a University classroom which is too controlled and where content is dictated by the professors. Again, I find myself apologizing for being so conservative, but I didn't pay tuition to listen to what my classmates think I should be taught. I want a professor to provide me with his or her knowledge in a discipline or subject in which he or she is expert. I agree that class discussion assists in learning and a lot can be learned from other students and their opinions and thoughts are of great value in the learning process, but the teaching of a professor with years of experience is also valuable and shouldn't be dismissed because its not as exciting as what your buddy did last night.

The Deleting Online Predators Act reffered to in The Moral Panic Over Social Networking Sites is a bit extreme. It's too bad that children and teens whose only access to the internet is through federally funded schools and libraries may be denied access to a technology which wealthier peers are not. I don't fully appreciate the value of social networks like Facebook and Myspace, but they are an evolving form of communication and allow children and teens to develop communication skills in the electronic world. As the article Social Networking: A new tech tool and a new security concern for schools and teens and the blog post What DOPA means for education suggest, maybe schools, parents and legislators should be focussing on teaching children and teens about how to communicate in the electronic world safely instead of trying to protect them from the evils that are lurking in their social spaces.

case studies from week 7

The case studies for the libraries for week 7 seem to be using tags to keep their communities connected to information in the same way that we are using the lis757 tag. The use of a common tag by libraries presupposes that everyone in the community is interested in similar information which I don't believe is always the case. I think that tags need to be more specific to be of use to those who are seeking information on a topic. Even within our lis757 tag each of have varied interests and information needs which influence what we tag. I'm sure that most of the documents that I tag are completely irrelevant to anyone but me. Unless you're checking your RSS aggregator very regularly (which I'll be honest I only do a couple time a week) you miss many of the documents being tagged because there is just too much information to review it all just in case its relevant. I did go into the lis757 tag to search for articles on a research project for work that I was working on. Using del.icio.us to research for articles on the internet may turn up more results than google/yahoo/msn but searching through the quantity of information on a concept popularly tagged would be inefficient and possible endless.

readings - week 7

Many of this weeks' readings discuss the two competing purposes of tagging and bookmarking using software like del.icio.us. The first purpose is to manage one's personal information sources and the second is to share those sources with others. In The de.licio.us lesson, Joshua Porter argues that users tag and bookmark primarily for personal management and that the social aspect of tagging and bookmarking is secondary or even incidental. Porter suggests that bookmarking and tagging features in software should first and formost be of value to users individual needs. Using tags and bookmarks to personally manage information means that the tags used are more unique and individual than tags which are created to share information would be. As pointed out in the article Folksonomies - Cooperative Classification and Communication through Shared Metadata, the use of free-form tagging as opposed to a controlled vocabulary makes it more difficult to classify information into similar subject areas to facilitate the sharing of information. While del.icio.us suggests tags that other users have assigned, that list could be infinite. The aggregate list of information assigned to a specific tag could also be full of irrelevant information to an individual user looking for information on a topic. One way to get around this is for groups of users to agree on a controlled vocabulary as we have for this course by using lis757 to tag entries we think are related to the course content.