Thing #38 Use things to market your library

It was very interesting to think about marketing the library because from what I see being in an academic library, it's not exactly easy to get students or teachers to come to the library. Web 2.0 differs greatly from traditional marketing tools because it can change much more swiftly then previous tools could and it can be more interactive like if a library uses social media.

If I would have to pick one particular service to implement right away for the library it would have to be Twitter. From what I see every day there is not as much communication going on between students/teachers/the library as there could be. People are in the library on the computers all the time and doing this would allow the library to update people more frequently then the newsletter that we currently use. I believe that just doing more online would lead to better communication and being able to disperse new information much faster than we do now.

Twitter and screen casting would be a good combination of services to market this library. Doing this you could make announcements of when new screen casts of things like tutorials are up or just saying what things are already out there.

Overall using Web 2.0 services would be ideal for this library in its continuing endeavors to reach students and teachers to let them know that the library is not just there but there to help them.

Thing #37 Engaging your users with polls and surveys

Here is my survey,

Click here to take survey

I chose to use SurveyMonkey for my survey. Taking the surveys and polls was pretty simple and the tools like SurveyMonkey make it easy to make surveys of your own. I liked how customizable the survey was and the fact that it's free.

I think surveys and polls would be very beneficial but like everything else here we would probably need approval to set up a poll or survey. We still don't have a facebook or twitter for the library which would also be greatly beneficial. If we did have facebook, twitter and the ability to set up surveys or polls on our website I think it would greatly improve the library and our interactions with students/faculty and whoever else would use the library.

Thing #36 Flickr Revisited

Flickr is an easy to use site, I've known about it for a while but had never used it. Uploading the pictures was nice and easy not like the facebook way of uploading pictures that I'm used to.

Here's the link to my pictures, http://www.flickr.com/photos/49974717@N06/

Flickr would be a great tool to promote the library visually I would plan things like taking pictures of all the new or interesting covers of books. Another way since this is kind of the campus for art have a student/staff contest to see whose picture best represents the library.

Sadly though I could not do this anytime soon. It would probably take forever for this to be approved seeing as we are still waiting to see whether we can have a facebook page or not.

Thing #35 Wakoopa

I was going to participate in this one but there wasn't enought time since I looked at it on April 30th. I tried downloading the tracking part but it but it never took and my computer here at work doesn't have the easiest time downloading stuff and this was before we got newer computers put in.

The whole concept of it is a little iffy as to whether it would even be accepted by people who really like their privacy. Just the other day we had someone complain because she was checking her e-mail on a computer and later came back to the same computer and it remembered her password/she didn't have to log in again. People don't want others to know what they have been doing.

I personally don't like having to download something to track what I'm doing and if you use a program a lot you just know that you use it a lot, you don't really need a program to tell you that. The only way it might be useful is if you have to account for your time wherever you work. It might be beneficial for patron use of computers but I think you really should tell people that they are being tracked as to what they use the most.

Thing #34 Online Answer Sites

Online answer sites are appealing to many people. A couple of reasons for this appeal are probably the anonymity of asking a question when no one can know that it's you and the ease of just typing in whatever you are thinking. The questions I saw on the various sites were about a plethora of topics such as whether it's okay to lie to an employer and one about how to brush a dog's teeth.

I think these questions should be directed to a library if people will actually ask some of these questions at a library. Some of the questions may be strange or considered inappropriate even but it doesn't hurt to answer them at the library. I don't think any question should be outright ignored. For example someone called the library one night when I was working multiple times he wanted to know how to spell the name of a certain kind of marijuana because apparently, at least this is what he said anyway, he wanted to know how to spell it for a tattoo he was getting.

People most likely know about the library but then choose these answer sites because they are easy to get to and more accessible from home.

The slam the board events and what they do does look interesting and will educate people more about where answers are coming from. Another aspect of this is seeing the nature of the answer boards, anyone could still pretend to be a professional or librarian if they really wanted to. Overall though it's an interesting idea/might teach people something they need to know.

Online answer sites are going to always be used because they are anonymous and easy to use but knowing about them and encouraging patrons to ask questions could raise the visibilty of good information and that the library is here to help.

Thing #33: Screencasting

Screencasting is one of those things that I've seen and known about but never actually tried before. Making the screencasting was much easier then I thought it would be. If I would actually be using it at the library I would have to polish the way I presented it and probably write down a script of what I was going to say. The tool I chose to use was ScreenToaster. It was pretty easy to figure out all you have to do is register and then you go to start recording. After you press start recording it gives you the options like full screen and whether you want audio or webcam. To record just go to where you want to start recording and push alt and s. Then when recording you can pause it and stop it when you're done.

There could be definite applications for this in the library, Elkhorn actually does have some already available, and there will always be new things that are easier to explain/handy to have on the website so people can learn about it.

Overall I was very glad to learn about this and may indeed have to use screencasting in the future.

Capture your screen in seconds

Capture your screen in seconds

Thing #32 NetVibes

NetVibes is a great idea and would be benefical to probably any library in some capacity. At first it was a bit confusing as can be seen from my personal page but I figured out what I was doing on the public page. I really liked being able to import pictures, websites, rss feeds and all the diffent widgets easily into one place. Some of the past things I made a part of the page were rss feeds, google maps, facebook, and librarything. Overall a useful tool that I know would benefit the library where I work and likely many others.

Here's the link to my page, http://www.netvibes.com/geckyboz