May 4th, 2010 Brian Herzog
Seen in this week’s Post Secrets:
I’ve thought there was an unusually large number of checkout receipts left in books, and maybe this is why. Although I usually keep the things I find around the library, checkout receipts are one thing I always throw away.
But what if we did offer some sort of in-book messaging? Maybe a sticker with a link to the library’s record of the book on LibraryThing or Goodreads, telling people they could discuss it there and meet other people who liked it. Or better yet, remind them to write a review in the library’s catalog, along with an opt-in social feature (I wish we had that functionality, but maybe soon).
Tags: check out, circ, circulation, libraries, Library, patron, public, receipt, receipts, slip, slips, social, social networking See Also
Posted under Library, Random | 6 Comments »
November 11th, 2008 Brian Herzog
If you haven’t already, read David Lee King’s post about Web 2.0 and friending. It might be hard to swallow at first, but he’s absolutely right.
His main point:
When your organization decides, say, to create a Facebook page … who are you trying to connect with? Me? I don’t live in your neighborhood. Another library on the other side of the world? They’re not going to use your services.
He’s right in that libraries aren’t implementing Library 2.0 tools to connect with other libraries - we need to focus on connecting with our patrons. Any library service (be it a newsletter, a storytime, a flickr collection, or an rss feed) should be directed to the patrons. Those are the people (we hope) who will benefit from it.
Friending other libraries is safe and tempting, but is slightly counterproductive (we don’t want it to look like these are library-only tools). But I also agree with David (and commenters) in that it’s important to connect with other librarians professionally, and to keep up with what other libraries are doing - there are a lot of good ideas out there that we can adapt for our own libraries.
Hmm. I’m guilty of this myself, but I’m going to keep in mind moving forward.
Tags: 2.0, david lee king, davidleeking, friend, friending, friends, l2, libraries, Library, library2.0, network, networking, public, social, socialnetworking, web, web2.0 See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 1 Comment »
