Sometimes, being a librarian equates to being a packrat. At least in the virtual world, I can collect as many links as I want and it doesn’t take up any room. However, to be useful, it does take organization.
For awhile now I’ve been bookmarking posts about free resources for clipart, photographs and other artwork. I use them for library publications, and also for my posts here. But just this week I got my act together and started transferring those links from my Bloglines account to my Delicious account, and thought I’d share them.
If you’re curious how to do this with Delicious, check out my how-two post for creating library subject guides.
And just for good measure, here are a few web design tools I had bookmarked, too:
Twitter has been around for a long time, so all the press it has gotten recently surprised me. Personally, I never really had much interest in it, so I just more or less ignored it.
Until a few months ago, that is, when I found a way to use it for the library.
The snowfall and storms this winter seemed particularly bad, and we had quite a few early closings or delayed openings. Whenever this happens, one of the ways we get the message out is to announce the change in hours prominently on our homepage.
However, it’s the library director who makes the decision to close the library, but she had no easy way to update the homepage from home. She hasn’t coded in html for years, and installing an editor and ftp program - and then her having to remember how to do everything - seemed like an unnecessary barrier. So, she asked me to find an easier way for her to update the homepage.
Ah-ha, I thought - I know libraries are displaying their Twitter feeds on their homepage, so why can’t we?
I signed up for a Twitter account, learned how to customize the feed display, and added it to the library’s homepage. I set the feed to only display one message, and after some trial and error figured out how to send a blank message (use the html code ). That way, after the storm passes, we could send a blank message to remove the announcement from the homepage.
Then, to make it as easy as possible for my director to update from home, I also created a Twittermail account. Using Twittermail, all she needs to do is send an email message to our account, and whatever she types into the subject line with then display on our website (centered on the very top of the page). Neat.
When I demo’ed it for her, it worked like a charm, and she was very happy. But of course, we haven’t had a snowstorm since.
And see, that’s the problem - I created this Twitter feed for a very specific purpose, and we haven’t had much of a need for it yet. However, since I created it, seven people have started following the library on Twitter.
We don’t promote it, so how’d they find it? They must have gone looking. If our patrons are expecting us to be on Twitter, and voluntarily pay attention to us, doesn’t it make sense that this is a tool we should be using? To me, it does.
So, in addition to storm closings, I’ve lately been trying to think of other “announcements” that deserve top billing on the library’s homepage - just so I don’t feel guilty about these Twitter followers not getting their library tweets.
This is very much a case of “if you build it, they will come.” Now I need to live up to the implied second half of that saying, “when they come, make sure it’s worth their while.”
The Mass.gov website has a lot of great information, and being a librarian in Massachusetts, I use it all the time. However, one thing it does very poorly is URLs.
The powers that be at Mass.gov recently launched a new section of the website, devoted to the Massachusetts Recovery and Reinvestment Plan for the state’s economy. What’s the URL, you ask? This:
A recent promotional email introduced the site’s resources, and listed the URL. My first thought was, wow, that pretty much guarantees it won’t get used. Perhaps it’s the Marketing degree in me, but if something doesn’t have a catch name, or at least a moderately decipherable one, it automatically has less chance of succeeding.
I’m sure whatever CMS software the state uses is to blame for the ugly URLs, but they certainly have the power to do better. To wit: about a week later, a second email went out saying the new URL for the website was Mass.gov/recovery - perfect.
I use redirects on the library’s website, and am glad that the state is too (and I’m sure it took more than my complaint email to do it).
But in addition to local redirects, URL shortening services like tinyURL.com, icanhaz.com and others can also help. Their popularity seems to have shot up with Twitter, but I use them in email instead of having monstrous URLs wrapping to multiple lines and thus not working. There are drawbacks tothese services, but now that custom URLs are possible, I feel a little more comfortable using them with patrons.
It’d be great if all domains offered these short URL redirect services, and were limited just to that domain. That way, anyone could turn one of the standard Mass.gov long URL into a nice and clean Mass.gov-based useful URL, while at the same time not redirect a Mass.gov short URL to a porn site. I checked around and didn’t see such software, but I’m going to keep looking.
The internet is endlessly innovative and entertaining. My current favorite phenomena is Single Serving Sites - websites that do only one thing.
In stark contrast to the “be everything to everyone” mentality, these one-off’ers are kind of refreshing. Most of them can’t even be called “websites,” because they consist of only one web page - but, for a fraction of a minute, they serve a purpose. Here’s a list of my favorites:
Once you start looking for these, it almost seems that they outnumber regular websites. Check out longer lists of single-serving sites here and here. Also, IsThisYourPaperOnSingleServingSites.com is worth reading - I hope he got an A.
Here are a couple reading suggestions website I came across recently that I liked:
The first is TheBookCalendar.com, which is simply a book-a-day online calendar. It shows the cover, a description (and sometimes author video), includes an Amazon link, and also has email and rss options. via lisnews.org
The second one might not be all that new, but I just learn about it a few weeks ago. ReadingTrails.com and provides a reading suggestions by linking related books into a chain.
Sound odd? I first heard of this form of readers advisory during an RA workshop in the SLIS program at Kent State University. The idea behind it is to identify one theme from the book that the reader likes, then find another book that contains the same theme. Next, pick something from that second book the reader likes and, based on that second criteria, link it to a third book that has that criteria, and on and on and on in a long chain of connected books.
An example: for someone who liked the magical aspect of the Narnia books, you might suggest they read Harry Potter. Then, since the Harry Potter series is based in England, you could link it to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Sort of like a six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for books. It’s a neat idea, but tough to do mentally - which is why it’s a perfect task for a database. Or, in this case, “an innovative new social network for book lovers.” They say:
Reading Trails is a wonderful way to discover books to read, meet new people, and most importantly, to share your reading experiences with friends by creating trails. In particular, Reading Trails is a great tool for book clubs….
Because a book can appear on more than one trail, trails intersect. The result is a network of trails that can be browsed to find unexpected reading pleasures.
I checked out the site, and it seemed typical of new and innovative ideas - it’s a great idea, and I got some useful information from it, but the site doesn’t always work the way I expect.
It can be used without signing into an account, which is good. And you can search for books or themes, and from there scroll up and down the “reading trail” of that book to find other reading suggestions. Great.
Other good things:
Fairly easy to use, and the trails are visual and useful and pretty cool
Lets people write reviews of the books
Provides links to Amazon to buy the book and WorldCat to find the book at a library
Provides widget code to embed into your website, like this:
A few technical glitches I noticed:
On the search results page, each book had a little checkbox next to it, and I couldn’t figure out what that was for
Each book also had an odd little box under it, which only becomes useful when you are logged in (if it’s not useful, it shouldn’t be shown)
For the searches I ran, the bottom of the screen would say something like “Viewing 1-7 of 7 matches” and yet there would be twelve books displayed. None of the searches I performed displayed a number of books that matched what was listed on the bottom of the page
Some of the trail themes I searched for did not exist (Vietnam, Iraq, poverty, aliens) but most others did
There doesn’t seem to be a way to view details of any book - just see where it falls in various trails
They don’t seem to explain why books are linked in a chain - I’d be curious to see what theme connects them
Most of these cons are probably due to the newness of the website, and will likely be improved as the site grows.
I don’t think I’ll use these much on a personal level (unlike LibraryThing), but I will keep both in mind for readers advisory at the reference desk.
Sometimes, being a librarian equates to being a packrat. At least in the virtual world, I can collect as many links as I want and it doesn’t take up any room. However, to be useful, it does take organization.
