August 24th, 2010 Brian Herzog
It looks like Alikewise.com has been around all year, but I only heard about it this weekend - it’s a dating website that matches people based on the books they like.
This is a great idea for a dating website - it seems a much better way to get at someone’s true nature than filling out a profile by guessing what will make you attractive. I checked around the site a bit (without creating a profile), and wonder if there’s a way to tie-in with sites like LibraryThing and Good Reads to capitalize on peoples’ full libraries. LibraryThing sort of already does this, with their You and None Other meme.
But here’s something funny: at my first library, we toyed with the idea of a “singles night” book group. We thought it’d be a perfect program for Friday nights, after work, to come and meet other single people interested in books. It never happened, but I always liked the idea. Maybe that’ll eventually manifest in Alikewise meetups.
And wouldn’t this be a heck of a social networking widget to add to a library catalog? “Like this book? Click here to meet other patrons that do, too.”
via Burlington Free Press (thanks, Carney) and more at NPR
Tags: alikewise, alikewise.com, date, dating, interests, matchi, matching, readers, readers advisory, reading, single, singles, tastes, website See Also
Posted under Books, Random, community | No Comments »
July 31st, 2010 Brian Herzog
This question wasn’t difficult at all, just surprising. One of our semi-regular patrons, an elderly woman, came over to the desk and asked for help at a computer.
When we got back to where she was working, she explained that she had moved from one end of her retirement complex to the other, and was on the Post Office’s website trying to change her address. She was stuck on the first step - the difference between a “permanent” move and a “temporary” move. She felt, at her age (86), she wanted to get a second opinion on how “permanent” I thought her move was. I know she has a good sense of humor, but I honestly couldn’t tell if she was kidding this time.
We got her through that step, and I went back to the desk. The whole process is only about five screens, but over the course of the next half-hour, she came back twice more to ask for help. It was a busy day so I wasn’t able to stay with her, and usually she’s very good on the computer.
However, the last question stumped us both: they required her type in her credit card number, and were going to charge her $1.00 to change her address.
Well, after a half an hour of frustration, that was the last straw. I know you can do change of addresses at the Post Office for free, so she said she was going to go right over to do it the old-fashioned way, and to give them a piece of her mind.
Initially, I thought this was another annoying example of an online place charging service fees or “internet surcharge” to use their website. I see this a lot buying tickets and things online, and to my mind, it seems like a pure scam - buying online should provide a discount, since it saves them effort.
After the patron left, I went back to the website to see if they mentioned this $1 fee earlier in the process. On the first page, I found a not-too-easy-to-read note at the bottom, saying a valid credit card was required - and that you have to change your address with the credit card company before you can change it with the Post Office. It reads:
Note: A valid credit card and a valid email address are required to complete the Online Change of Address process. For your security, the credit card billing address MUST match the address you are moving from or the address you are moving to (for business moves it must match the address you are moving from). If you are unable to use a credit card and a valid email address, you will have the option to print the Change of Address form and then mail or deliver the printed form to your local post office™.
From this, and from the page where you enter your credit card number, it seems like it’s more of a security feature, to deter random people from changing the address of other people. However, you can still do it for free with no questions asked using the paper form. There has to be a better way to handle things like this, so that security doesn’t impede convenience.
I’ve got to apply this logic the next time we revamp our library website.
See Also
Posted under Library, Reference Question | 3 Comments »
October 13th, 2009 Brian Herzog
An important function of the library is communicating our upcoming events to the community. There are lots of ways to do this, one of which is by having an online calendar.
Of course, there are also lots of software for online calendars and for patrons to reserve meeting rooms. My library just switched calendars, and so did the Blue Hill (ME) Public Library. Since we each evaluated a number of different calendar options, Rich Boulet and I combined our notes, in the hopes of saving other libraries a bit of legwork when looking at calendars.
There are more calendars than what is listed here (in no particular order), and our pro/con notes reflect the needs, requirements and situations of our individual libraries. If you have questions about how we made our decisions, you can contact me through my contact form, and Rich through Blue Hill Library’s staff page.
Library Insight (Rich, Brian)
- See Groton (MA) Public Library for example
- Patrons can submit room requests online
- Comes with 1200 images
- Marquee of upcoming available for index page
- SIP2 compliant
- Will not disclose how many clients use product, but says they are “in 20 states”
- $695/year plus $600 setup fee
- Contact: Steve Bolduc / 978-808-1089
- More info: http://libraryinsight.com/products/rmInsight.htm
Google Calendar (Rich)
Evanced (Rich, Brian)
- See Chelmsford (MA) Public Library and Blue Hill (ME) Public Library (calendar, room reservation) for examples
- Looks like most comprehensive product available
- Used by Maine State Library, Web Junction and many public libraries
- Allows user-initiated requests for room reservation
- Allows attendee registration and cancellation
- Somewhat pricey relative to others in market, but unlimited in number of listed events, and no module pricing (except credit card processing is extra)
- Allows some design customization, to make it look like your website
- Most powerful calendar search options
- Locally-hosted installation requires Microsoft IIS 4.0 or higher and has more up-front costs, plus 18%/year maintenance fees
- Remotely hosted solution carries ongoing subscription costs
- Seamless integration between web calendar and room reservation software allows users to click off on room policy
- Calendar allows events to be downloaded to Outlook
- Offers customizable rss feeds based n search criteria
- Can be used to track program stats
- Contact: Claudia Hackworth / 317-352-2188 x109
- More info & demos: http://evancedsolutions.com/demo.asp
Calandarix (Rich)
- See Rockport (ME) Public Library for example
- Very attractive and very affordable web calendar
- Does not apparently allow patron-initiated requesting of rooms
- Compatible with Apache or IIS
- No remote hosting option, requires local install
- Cost: Advanced edition is $50 for non-profits; also comes in a
free basic version
- More info: http://www.calendarix.com
Eventkeeper (Rich, Brian)
- See Hingham (MA) Public Library for example
- Seems to do everything that Evanced does, but in a very different style
- Pricing is generally less than Evanced, but is somewhat variable based on modules and number of events
- Can customize and brand calendar for additional one-time fee, integrate it more with the look and feel of the rest of your web site
- Also “EK Feed” can can be rss feed marquee of upcoming events for library’s homepage
- Only available as remotely hosted product, no local installation
- Currently have 1200 customers
- Exceptional customer support
- Can be used to track program statistics
- No maintenance fees (other than annual hosting)
- Eventkeeper: $275/year; EK Rooms: $250/year; EK Feed (marquee)
- Contact: Jim Stewart / 508-942-4209
- More info: http://www.eventkeeper.com
Meeting Room Manager (Rich)
ConnectDaily (Brian)
- See San Bruno (CA) Library for example
- Reasonably priced
- Remotely hosted with varying contract lengths
- Allows a great deal of design customization, to integrate with the look of your website
- Serves as both a calendar and meeting room reservation system
- A limitation is that it is designed as an “in-house” product (example, a school would use it for the teachers to reserve meeting rooms). It does have a public room reservation form, but take a little work to customize to be easy enough for the public to use
- Allows for multiple calendars (Childrens, Adult, Teen, etc) all to be fed up into one master calendar
- Events available in rss and iCal formats
- More info: http://www.mhsoftware.com/connectdaily.htm
Calcium (Brian)
Tags: calcium, calendar, calendars, calendrix, connect daily, evanced, event, eventkeeper, events, google, libraries, Library, library insight, meeting room manager, online, public, website See Also
Posted under Library, Service, Technology | 6 Comments »
May 19th, 2009 Brian Herzog
I’m a member of the IT section of the New England Library Association, and we’re holding a workshop on popular CMS software. If you’re thinking about redesigning or updating your website, or would are just curious about what CMS’ are and what they can do, then this workshop is for you.
CMS Day! Build a better website with Content Management Systems: Drupal, Joomla, Plone, & WordPress
Keynote by Jessamyn West
Date: Friday, June 12, 2009
Location: Portsmouth Public Library, Portsmouth, NH (directions)
Cost: NELA members - $50; Non-members - $60
Registration Fee includes lunch & a NELA USB hub!
To Register
Secure online registration & downloadable mail-in registration [pdf] are both available at http://www.nelib.org/its/conference. Registration Closes Monday June 8.
Program Schedule
10:00 a.m. - Registration & Coffee & Library Tours
10:30 a.m. - Keynote: CMS options - Jessamyn West
12 noon - Lunch (provided!) and Library Tours
12:45 p.m. - Librarians share their real-life CMS experiences:
–Drupal - Darien (CT) PL (darienlibrary.org) & Paige Eaton Davis, Minuteman Network
–Joomla - Randy Robertshaw, Tyngsborough PL (tynglib.org)
–Plone - Rick Levine & CMRLS Librarians
–WordPress - Theresa Maturevich, Beverly (MA) PL (beverlypubliclibrary.org)
3:30 p.m. -Wrap-Up!
Keynote by Jessamyn West
Jessamyn West is a community technology librarian. She lives in rural Vermont where assists tiny libraries with their technology planning and implementation. Her favorite color is orange. Jessamyn maintains an online presence at: librarian.net and jessamyn.info
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NELA Program Refund Policy: A full refund shall be granted provided that the registered attendee has contacted the authorized representative of ITS responsible for taking registrations, at least ten (10) business days in advance of the program. In the event that notice is given less than ten days, a refund is not granted, however, they may send a substitute to the program.
For more information, please contact Scott Kehoe at 978-762-4433 x16 / scott@nmrls.org
Tags: cms, content management, drupal, information technology, it, its, jessamyn, jessamynwest, joomla, jwest, libraries, Library, nela, nela-its, plome, program, Programs, public, tech, Technology, web design, website, Websites, wordpress, workshop, workshops See Also
Posted under Conferences, Library | 3 Comments »
April 14th, 2009 Brian Herzog
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.”
See Also
Posted under Library, Marketing, Technology, Websites | 6 Comments »
