image cc on Flickr via brunkfordbraun

You have a library website. People go there, learn about your library, get help, and access your resources. But that’s not the only place where people should be able to do those things. The library website should be thought of as a larger critter, with tentacles that stretch out in lot of different directions, trying to scoop in unsuspecting patrons.

What do I mean by tentacles? Tentacles are other places, spread out on the web, where people can connect with the library. This could mean customizing your library Facebook page, to add a chat widget or links to library resources. It could also mean having notes on pictures in Flickr that link to a catalog record. It could mean a lot of things:

• Library resources in your LMS (Angel, Blackboard, Moodle, etc)
• Creating search alerts in Twitter to snag patrons who didn’t even know the library could help
• Library blogs
• Library videos on Youtube or Vimeo

Your official library website should be a sort of home base where people can learn everything about your library and what you have to offer. But having tentacles can be very useful in showing the value of the library and catching users who may never go to your website.

An LMS is a good example of a tentacle. Some users (especially distance users) may never even think about the library. But if you have a section or page in an LMS then the library may become more visible and get additional use. The same goes with Twitter. Users may not be following you library account, but if you set up alerts for a few library related words, you can contact them and make them realize that they have access to a library and that it could be of value to them.

Get bits of your content out to numerous places on the web. Don’t think of these things as watered down versions of your website. Think of them as tentacles stretching out across the web, extending your services and resources to unexplored nooks and crannies.

Last Friday I went to the Drupal4Lib camp in Darien, CT.  It was a wonderful conference and I am very appreciative to the Darien Library for hosting it.

There were people in attendance from all over. I talked to one gentleman who was from Sweden. And the skill levels of everyone ran the gamut from expert Drupal hackers to newbies.  I was near that lower level, though I have played with Drupal a lot and have at least a basic knowledge.

Because of the range of skill levels there were a lot of breakout sessions where people could go to more advanced or more basic talks.  It was very relaxed and people could come and go as they pleased.

During one session I decided to go on a tour of the library, and I am glad I did.  I got to see their RFID-robo-book-sorter and their Microsoft “Surface.” The library was state of the art and beautiful. If it was my public library I would spend all my time there.

I got a few pretty good lessons and ideas out of the conference.  I realized that you can do just about anything you want with Drupal.  If you see something else on another website, there is a chance there is a module in Drupal that can simulate it.

In addition, Drupal has very fine grained user controls which would allow other staff members to edit the website and create and change content that is in their purview. I think this is a great benefit of using a CMS. It makes it easy for people with zero or minimal HTML knowledge to contribute to a common website.

I also liked an idea that John Blyberg discussed about using external websites like Flickr or Blip.tv as hosting sites. Instead of advertising that you are on Blip.tv you just use it to embed videos on your site without making a big deal about it.  I think that this idea could be very useful.  Often it is bypassing the social nature of these sites, but I can see the value of it.

I have also realized that I should not rush into getting a new website up and running. I want it to be everyone’s website, not just something that I put together. Other librarians have to use the website as well and their input and ideas are going to be crucial to its success.  I know that I have very strong opinions about the current website and a new website, but mine is not going to be the only opinion during a redesign.

I am getting excited about starting the redesign process and seeing the new site start taking shape. I know it will be a lot of work, but it will be a lot of fun too.

Photo by Bryan Veloso on Flickr

I have risen to a new level of geekdom. The other day, as I was putting together a Facebook page for the library I ran into some problems, so I had to learn some FBML.

We recently switched from Meebo to Digsby for our IM reference widget. I wanted to put that same Digsby widget into our Facebook page so students would be able to connect with the library there as well. There is already a “Digsby widget” application  available in Facebook, but unfortunately when I tried adding it to the library page it kept failing and instead added itself to my personal profile.

Then, I decided I could just find an app that just allowed me to copy and paste the HTML to embed the Digsby widget, but none of those worked correctly either. Finally, as I was about to give up, I found an FBML app in this blog post. I googled FBML and found the Facebook developer’s wiki. It was easy enough to map FBML to the HTML that I already knew.  So I wrote a few lines of FBML including the location for the Digsby widget, and lo and behold it showed up there on my Facebook page.

This was one of those moments similar to when I first started writing HTML or CSS, when you just take a step back and say, “oh wow; I actually just created something.”  What amazes me is that is that I could actually understand enough about HTML to hack together something that worked in FBML, a totally new language to me. It is just a little over two years since I started learning HTML. Ever since then my curiosity and interest in technology in technology has been piqued.

I realized that there must be some solution to my problem, and kept trying different approaches to solve it.  That is the part I really love about technology. You are constantly learning and solving problems.  If something doesn’t work you have to keep trying until you find something that does. And with every problem you have to learn a little bit more.

Yesterday I went to the Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam.  I did not go into the actual gym with the tables set up since I am not actively looking for a job, but I did attend two panel sessions that sounded interesting.

The first one was called “So you wanna build websites.” It was interesting to get a perspective on the field of web design today and where it will be going in the future.  The future clearly is mobile computing and handheld devices (cell phones, etc.). and the future is here. They gave excellent advice to students and career seekers.  First they told them to concentrate on designing to standards not browsers.  “The browsers will come around,” they said.  They also said that it was necessary to have a concentration.  You cannot be a Jack of all trades in the web-design world doing graphic design, web app programming, and actually designing the site. You need to find your place and hook up with a few other people who have complementary skills.  Web design is far to specialized now.

The second session I attended was “So You Wanna be an Internet Marketer.”  This session was mainly about Google Analytics making conversions.  It made me want to do some more reading about making sense of web traffic numbers.  The most important thing that was said in the session, in my opinion was to be open to play with technology.  Champlain professor Elaine Young and others noted how important it was to try out technologies instead of instantly deciding, “that’s not for me.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy.  I need to constantly do this for my career as an Emerging Technologies Librarian.  Playing with technology is the only way you will stay current with what is out there and what your users are doing.  I hope to foster this environment and idea of play at Champlain College, along with other colleagues who are already playing and enjoying it.

Overall this Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam seemed like a great event bring businesses and students from around the area together to fill mutual needs.  I look forward to it next year.

If you want to learn a new skill, the web could be an invaluable tool. I found the tutorial for this button at Free Adobe Photoshop Tutorials. But you can learn lots of other DIY stuff as well. The web as learning tool…I really like that.

First, I was going to cook a chicken in the new slow cooker I received for Christmas. I wanted to simply “set it and forget it.” I set it just fine but luckily I didn’t forget it. After starting it, I came back about 15 minutes later to check the temperature and the whole unit had shut off. Moreover, I could not get it to turn back on. I got it to beep really loud at me once, but that must have been its death knell because it refused to work after that. Now I have to fool around with getting a receipt and sending it back to the manufacturer.

Second, I was going to post earlier today, but I realized that I needed to upgrade to the new version of WordPress. I had an automatic updater plugin but I kept getting fatal errors when I tried to activate it. I might have to search around for a new, working plugin one of these days. So, instead of spending my morning “setting and forgetting,” and posting to the blog I had to screw around with the slow cooker trying to get it to work, and I also had to update WordPress. I always forget how to update WP and luckily they have excellent documentation. It was just more reading and work than I wanted to do this morning.

My Christams break was very nice though. I was able to avoid a lot of technological distractions. I let my RSS feeds pile up, my e-mail inboxes became rather crowded, and I did not realize there had been a WP update until today. Technology can be very useful, but I find it helpful to take time away from it, because it is also often very stressful.

We finally decided on using Meebo because it has a number of excellent advantages. First, it is a cross-platform service and interacts with all the major IM providers including AIM, MSN, and Yahoo. Next, it is web based so users do not have to download any client software if they do not want to. Finally, it offers “Meebo Me” widgets, which are basically windows embedded into a browser page where you can type and get answers.

It is not without its problems though. It does not provide enough of an alert for monitoring it at the reference desk, unless all the librarians download Firefox (which they should have already, being Information Tyrannosaurs) and then download the Meebo add-on.

We were stumped on what to do for this until we came across a great blog post by Chad Boeninger. It shows you how to hack Meebo together with Pidgin, a piece of IM client software. Pidgin is pretty customizable and adaptable to your needs. It also has excellent options for monitoring IM conversations, so it seemed like the best option for us.

After creating all the IM accounts, testing, and working out all the bugs I think we are at a point where we can actually begin implementing it and rolling out a pilot project. We have a reference meeting after Thanksgiving where Jonathan and I will demonstrating how it works. I am excited to see the staff’s reactions to it.

This is what took up a great deal of my time when I started to implement IM reference at Edgewood. If one thinks only about the new technology and how cool it is, the project will fall flat. Something will be overlooked and you’ll be scrambling to fix it, or you’ll quickly turn patrons or staff off of the new technology.

The first thing I did was a Google search for literature about IM in libraries. I found a number of good resources that got me thinking including: IM Me, How do you IM?, Library Success, and the RUSA Virtual Reference Guide. I always find it helpful reviewing literature or blogs on a topic, because a lot of other people have done this already and have had some of the same problems you will have. You might as well benefit from other people’s knowledge and experience on the subject to make your own life easier.

Next, Jonathan and I started playing with the technology. I find it is always helpful to simply jump into the technology and start playing with it. Once you get in and mess around it is a lot easier to understand.

After we had a better understanding of what we were dealing with we gave our proposal to the head of reference. It gave some reasons about why we should do it, backed up with statistics. Then it addressed how the service would work including: technolgy, staffing, policies, training, promotion, and evaluation.

I also wrote up a draft that had some preliminary policies and best practices when IMing. We will be having a reference meeting on December 5th, and Jonathan and I will demonstrate it to the staff. We’ll do some training over winter break and roll out the pilot project starting in the spring semester.