Online Communities

During my undergraduate years, I was introduced to online communities for the first time.  This was odd to many of my friends in college, but I did not find the need to join MySpace or Facebook even as a high school student.  When I arrived to college, I found that Facebook would help me stay in contact with my high school friends.  Once I joined Facebook, I joined several different groups to help me stay in contact with certain groups of people.  This included the education honor society, music honor society, drama club, and a high school group.  Later as I began working, it was required that I also join the group for our educational program and the Library of Congress.  Facebook has served me well over the years with keeping in contact with people and groups.  One of the sites mentioned above were not that great because they were not kept up to date causing it to be not useful for the members.  While in college, I was also asked to join a Yahoo Group for the music society which also did not work for the group because it was not kept up to date.  After trying the Yahoo Group, we decided to try a Wiki instead because we could share more items and we could keep it up to date more.  I was the one that created the group but it has been monitored by the current members who still use if to share specific items.  Lastly, I joined Second Life and Twitter when I came to San Jose State University as part of my classroom assignments.  I have not used these much, but have found that I do like Twitter because I can follow several of my friends, educational items, and celebrities.  Twitter has allowed me to stay more informed of what is going on in the same way that Facebook has.  The one other online community that I have knowledge about but have not created an account for is Flickr.  I have accessed Flickr for my work with the Library of Congress.  I may one day set up an account, but have not found the need.  Overall, I find that online communities are very important because they allow people the opportunity to stay connected and collaborate on certain things.  

Week 13: Training video

           For my training video, I looked at the Pekin Public Library’s page on YouTube.  On this page, I was able to find many videos which included story time, guest speakers, and instructional videos.  I decided to view a video called “Ebooks on the iPad app” located at http://youtu.be/CTvVfjhGpc8.  This video discussed the use of Overdrive Media Console app to access and read library books.  The librarian started the instruction on how to download the Overdrive Media Console app and ended with how read the book on the iPad.  She was very detailed in her instruction so that all patrons would understand how to use the iPad for ebooks.  The librarian also included the library’s phone number so that if any patron or viewer had any questions about the how to access ebooks on the iPad then they could call for further assistance.   

            Even though the librarian was very detailed in her instruction, the video in itself was not of great quality.  I could not actually read the iPad screen that she was sharing which made it difficult to see all of her step by step instructions.  This could have been easily fixed with some focusing of the camera or some editing software.  Another issue that I had with the video was the glare and random red dot.  Both of these can distract the viewer from the instructions. 

            Overall, I found that the library instructional video served its purpose of informing patrons of how to access ebooks with the use of an app.  I would suggest that in the future they took some time to edit the videos or had an assist video tapping so that the librarian can focus on teaching patrons the task only.  

Tagging

4.  What are some of the weaknesses of tagging for making content more findable? 

            I believe that the biggest weakness of tagging is the lack of structure or consistence especially with folksonomy tagging.  This type of tagging is based on what a specific person finds to be the most relevant term or terms to describe an item.  Since tagging through folksonomy is based on what a person thinks and not on a standardized system like taxonomies it can be harder to find an item of interest.  This means that to find specific content or an item a person searching would need to know the exact term(s) that one used while tagging their items.  Overall, tagging is not as reliable of a way to finding content as some people would think.

            Even though tagging is not as reliable as one may want, it is still a great tool to have because it does allow people to find some of the relevant information that they are looking to access.  One may not find every relevant item that they are looking for but they will have located some items that may help them learn more about a subject.  Thus, I believe that tagging is useful, but could be improved to help one find more of the content that they are looking for.

Exercise 5

For Exercise 5, I created a screencast of how to use the groups function of Facebook.  Enjoy: http://www.screenr.com/LUC8.

Social Media and Marketing

            I attended the presentation by Nicole Purviance titled “Social Media and Marketing.”  Nicole presented how social media is used as a marketing strategy.  Social Media tools can be used as communication devices and can provide an interactive way for business/companies can inform their customers.  The social media tools that Nicole discussed were Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin, Pinterest, Google +, and several others.  I found it interesting that the demographics of social media tools are females, youth, and Hispanic people.  I was surprised to see that more Hispanics use social media tools than other ethnic groups.  I also found the preferred social networks slide interesting because I thought that more than 6% of people would prefer Twitter.  I assumed that Facebook would be a high percentage, but I really thought that at least Twitter would be a little higher because of how many different people are using it to communicate. From this presentation, I learned about some new social media tools.  I had not previously heard of The Fancy or Yelp, but see how these are helpful for some businesses.  I have heard of Pinterest, but did not realize that it was becoming as popular and in such a short period of time.  I really liked the part about marketing strategies for Facebook because it provides detailed information about how one can use it to communicate with their customers.  I will save this presentation and use some of the strategies when I start to work in a library.  Specifically, I would use some of the marketing strategies to use Facebook in a way that will serve my patrons and attract new patrons.  I will also use the best practice slides to help set up any marketing that I do for a library, such as, creating an app or adding a link to other social media networks.  I really enjoyed this presentation on social media and marketing.      

Collaborative Tools

2.  What technologies do you find most promising in facilitating internal collaboration and why?

After looking at through the examples for collaborative tools, I found that several of them looked promising to be used in the library setting.  The first example that I liked was Google Docs.  I find that this tool is very helpful while working on collaborative items.  For example, my boss and I use the functions of Google Docs to keep track of the participants who want to take Teaching with Primary Source workshops from Quincy University.  This helps us keep track of who we have been in contact with through our website and email addresses.  I think that Google Docs would be a great tool in the library setting to keep track of classroom visits, book club dates, and free time to use the library.  I found that the four planning tools were all similar to each other, but I did not really like the setup of Bubbl.us.  I would prefer to use any of the other three tools to help develop plans for the library or lesson plans.  I personally have used Mindmeister in a previous class and found that it was very easy to use and helpful.  The usefulness of online communication tools is very helpful when you are trying to have a meeting with a group of people that are not within a reasonable driving distance.  The three online communication tools that I have heard about or have previously used are Meebo, DimDim, and Skype.  As a way of communicating with our workshop participants we have used DimDim and found that it works best in our situation because it is able to run through our broadband connections without any major problems. 

I think with all of these collaborative tools, librarians and others will be able to work in a more productive manner than before, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t draw backs to the technology.  Ones broadband connection can be a determining factor in what will work best in the office and at home.  There is also the idea of being in an online setting that others can see at all times of the day.  For example, if the library is using an instant message tool or using an email account set up to a chat box, it could be on even when one is not at the office.  This was stated as being an issue in Will Kelly’s article “Corporate Culture, Not Technology, Dives Online Collaboration.”  I have come across this on occasion when I am on vacation but still checking my work email.  I have found that if I do not change my chat window to say that I am busy, coworkers and students will contact me with their questions.  These are just some minor issues with collaborative online tools.  In the end the librarian or administration must choose whether or not to use these tools.    

Effective Wiki

1. Which of the library wiki examples did you consider most effective (you can pick more than one) and why?

            After reviewing the wiki examples, I found that I was more drawn to the pages that were more colorful and formatted in a way that encouraged patrons to use them.  I specifically liked three pages.  The first paged that I liked was the Plymouth Regional High School Library Research Pages.  I found that this page well organized and accessible for all students.  I liked how each class/teacher had a specific page for their content that they taught.  The pages didn’t look the best, but they contained plenty of information to help the students.  The second page that I liked was the The University of South Carolina Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library.  I found that this page not only contained all of the necessary information but was organized and formatted in a better way than the first wiki.  This libraries wiki mirrors that of an actual website making it not appear to be a wiki.  I think that students will be able to access this website without any problems.  The last wiki that I like is The Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki.  This wiki was very colorful and filled with many different functions.  The first thing that caught my eye was a welcome video that told patrons what they would find on the wiki and some helpful hints to finding the information needed.  There was also a message box allowing the patrons to ask questions in real time.  I found both of these helpful to patrons and welcoming.  The wiki also includes information on how to contact the librarian, more videos, and specific topic pages.  Overall, I found that each of these wikis served their purpose of informing their patrons of the libraries resources.