Reference Question of the Week – 9/2/12

I only heard about this third-hand, but I still found it funny.

A patron walked up to one of our male circulation desk assistants with a copy of the library's event calendar in hand. She pointed to an event on one of the days and asked,

How does this gynecology program work? Does a doctor come in and give people free exams?

Confused (because we have never offered free gynecological exams [and I can't imagine a public library ever doing that]), he looked at the calendar and replied,

Oh, no, that's our Genealogy Group.

Not quite the same thing. A very simple misunderstanding, but I am easily amused.

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Visualizing the Flow of My Library’s Information Online

My library just launched our long-overdue Facebook page. In the course of preparing it, we had a discussion about why we needed a Facebook page, what we wanted to use it for, and how it related to everything else we were doing online.

This led to the realization that no one really understood exactly what all we were doing online. We have a website, Twitter account, blog, email newsletters, flickr account, and now Facebook, but no clear policy as to what gets posted where, when information is duplicated, how things are updated, etc.

To help understand how our various types of information are represented online, I created the diagram below - it's probably not 100% complete, but it does cover most of our bases:

On the left are our different types of information (MacKay is our branch library), and the arrows show how that information flows through different electronic tools. There isn't necessarily a hierarchy at work*, other than perhaps the automatic updates necessarily come after the manual updates. Otherwise, the boxes are laid out just so they all fit on the page.

After discussing this, we uncovered two philosophies at work:

1. use the different end tools - website, Facebook, Twitter - for unique content, so as not to duplicate things and essentially "spam" our patrons that use more than one service (for example, you can see above that no event information is posted to Facebook)
2. publish all of our content almost equally through all of our channels, so we're sure to reach all our patrons regardless of which tool they choose to use

I don't think they are mutually-exclusive, but it does take a lot of work and forethought to do it well. I also think that more of what we do could be automated, as cutting down on the manual postings would save staff time.

Do other libraries have similar online information relationships? I imagine things range from very structured to a free-for-all to orphan accounts galore, but I'm curious to hear what other libraries are doing, to get ideas on how to do it better at my library.

*Something to note on the diagram is our "secret" Twitter account. We have a primary Twitter account we encourage patrons to follow and we use for regular tweets. The secret account is one we use only to post messages directly to our homepage. The reason for two, and why I don't really want anyone following to the homepage updater one, is that clearing the message off the homepage requires sending a blank tweet - it's not the end of the world if anyone follows it, but the blank tweets do look odd. Besides, everything posted to it gets posted through our primary account anyway.

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LISEvents – Check It Out

In case you missed the announcement on other sites, a new great way to stay involved in libraryland is LISEvents.

The site is easy to use, both for finding events by date or location (including online-only), and for finding someone to come speak at your library or event.

The best part is that it is community-driven, and adding events is easy - I just added a posting for the NELA-ITS workshop on mobile devices and libraries (also here).

And for anyone wanting to get their name out, be sure to register yourself as a speaker. This portion of the site will be a great resource for event planners, and anyone who has something to share.

Thanks Blake for putting this together - the library world perpetually benefits from the tools you maintain.

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Upcoming Events of Note

Just a few quick blurbs on some upcoming events that caught my eye - the first two for Boston-area people, and the third for all of New England:

MobileCampBoston
I seem to be all about mobile technology lately - and MobileCampBoston is a day-long event devoted to it. The day looks organized into three tracks - Programming, Design, and Business/Marketing, so attendees can focus on their area of interest. Should be a great day of learning, and best of all, it's free.

• When: February 19, 2011, 9am - 5pm
• Where: MIT, Sloan E-51, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
• Register: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1147270517/

Boston Radical Reference: Volunteer at the Community Change Library
Members of Boston Radical Reference will be volunteering at the Community Change library, which houses some of the best sources of information on racism in the United States. The plan is to conduct a comprehensive inventory of the collection, going book by book, to catch errors in the catalog, determine subject areas in which to expand, and identify books that need repair.

• When: February 19 & 20, 2011, 10am - 6pm
• Where: Community Change, Inc., 14 Beacon Street, Rm 605, Boston, MA 02108
• For more information: [email protected]

NELA-ITS Spring Workshop
I'm part of the IT Section of the New England Library Association, and we're designing this year's Spring Workshop to address the intersection of mobile technology and libraries. We're still working out the details, but the overall plan is to devote the morning to a sort of "state of things/orientation" as far as libraries and mobile tech goes, then lunch, and then an afternoon panel of librarians demo'ing ways they're using mobile tech in their own libraries. If you've never been to an NELA-ITS workshop before, they're a good time, and very focused on practical information.

• When: June 17, 2011
• Where: Tower Hill Botanical Garden
• For more information: Watch http://nelib.org/its, and I'll post details here too

I'll be at all three of these events - if you see me, please say hi.

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Upcoming Book Conferences

For those in New England, the coming weeks have a few book-related conferences worth attending. I'll definitely be at the first two, but not sure about the third:

Boston Book Festival - Saturday, October 16th
The Boston Book Festival is a day-long event, filled with talks from authors and illustrators and others in the book field. All the events are around Copley Square in Boston, and everything is free. I'm going to try to see Chipp Kidd, Bill Bryson, Joyce Carol Oates, Jeff Kinney, and anyone else I can find - not to mention renew my library card at the BPL.

New England Library Association 2010 Annual Conference - Oct 17 - 19th
This year's NELA conference is in Boxborough, MA, and should be a good time (as always). Highlights (for me) are the talk on censorship by Joe Raiola (senior Editor of MAD magazine), seeing Ethan Zuckerman again, a talk on Open Source ILS' by Stephanie Chase and Pamela Soren Smith - and I'll be doing a poster session on library website mashups.

Why Books? - Oct 28 -29th
Hosted by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, "'Why Books?' probes the form and function of the book in a rapidly changing media ecology. Speakers from a variety of disciplines—literature and history to sociology and computer science—will discuss the public-policy implications of new media forms and will explore some of the major functions that we identify with books today: production and diffusion; storage and retrieval; and reception and use."

Busy busy busy. And if you're ever looking for a book-related event, remember to check out LibraryThing.com/local for events in your area - and also add your library's events there for more exposure.

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Library Events Calendar Roundup

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)

• See Lewiston Public Library for example
• Free
• Patrons cannot submit room requests, but can browse room availability
• More info: http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/about.html

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)

• See UCLA for example
• Ruled out for BHPL because requires login
• More info: http://www.netsimplicity.com/room-scheduling-software/ (login info provided on the page)

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)

• See Cuyahoga Community College (OH) Eastern Campus Library or list for examples
• Just events calendar (not room reservation)
• Fairly basic and very stable, handles all aspects of an events calendar well
• Easy to use
• Limited design customization to match your website
• Has three pricing options: free calendar (includes ads); locally-installed version (one-time price); remotely-hosted option (monthly fee)
• More info: http://www.brownbearsw.com/products.html

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