Libraries, The Universe, and Everything

I’ve started my own library related blog over at geekbrarian.wordpress.com.

Come check it out! 

As I look back on this semester in Library 2.0, I’m amazed at how much I have learned.  At the beginning of this course, I thought I had a fairly good handle on emerging technologies, and could figure out their use in a library situation.  I’m very glad that this course has not only affirmed that, but shown me new avenues and new technologies to use in my future library career.

I have to say, it was really good having Michael as a professor.  Not only is he knowledgeable about up and coming technology, but he knows that the technology shouldn’t be used for its own sake.  He is very much for a service mentality, and serving users of the library as best we can, using any means possible.  Aside from this (as if that weren’t enough), he is always genuinely excited about teaching and extremely supportive of his students, even the ones that don’t talk as much in class as we should.  I myself am one of those, usually preferring the written word over spoken.  Thank goodness for Twitter on the class backchannel, is what I say. 

I enjoyed hearing everyone’s viewpoints in class, especially when we had class face-to-face meetings.  I didn’t feel that having a majority of the class online hurt those relationships in any respect.  I have several more Facebook friends and many more Twitter followers now than I did at the beginning of the semester.

When it comes down to it, yes, part of this course was to learn about the new (and some not-so-new) flashy technologies that can help our libraries immensely.  But the larger part of this course, to me, was reaffirming that librarianship is all about service, no matter what venue and what technologies we use.  There could be holographic reference, roving robotic shelvers, and informational chips implanted in librarians’ heads in the year 2525, and librarianship will still be about serving the user in the best way possible.  (I call dibs on a chip.  )

My hope is that everyone who comes out of Dominican’s GSLIS, and especially everyone who chooses to take Library 2.0 (under its new name of Participatory Service & Emerging Technologies) would come away with this attitude toward our profession, and a profound new appreciation for what it is that we do.

From fandom to marketing, stormtroopers to knowing the worth of your library, my research paper intends to show how librarians and libraries can turn nonusers into users, and those users into fans.  The first part of the paper deals with the issues of fandom, particularly as they relate to the context book I read this semester, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins.  I discuss the first section of this book as a jumping off point.  After this, I discuss another article about fandom, that focusing on its cultural economy.  From there, it moves into how we can articulate the worth of libraries and library services to help create this kind of fandom in the library.  After this, the paper moves to using Library 2.0 tools to facilitate the creation and maintenance of a library fandom.   The financial and social aspects of positive library impact on a community are also discussed.  The paper ends up with a study of polls conducted on Twitter and Facebook, asking real-life library users (and nonusers) what kinds of events, programming, architecture, and other things could be used to transform them into library fans.  The responses were quite thought provoking.   It ends up with some reviews of what libraries are doing right now to encourage fandom.   All in all, this paper shows the possibilities of library fandom, and methods to get there.

If you wish to read my paper in its entirety, I have created a page for it here.
You can also access it at the top of my blog by clicking the tab marked “Research Paper”.

Happy Reading!!

I miss tweeting rapidly in class already, but hopefully the following will help alleviate the withdrawal symptoms.
This picture came up on my boyfriend’s Google Reader feed, and I had to share.

Enjoy! 

I decided to make two separate policies, one for employees and one for patrons of a general public library setting.  It’s very difficult to tell patrons what they can or cannot do on social networking, even in the library where there would be public computers.  The employee list is more stringent, yes, but I believe that it would not be difficult for a professional to follow.  Most of these guidelines follow one simple rule of social networking: USE COMMON SENSE!
The purpose of each is embedded in an explanatory paragraph preceding the guidelines.

For Employees:

The library is supportive of tech-savvy employees, and we encourage you to explore social media, social networking, and other 2.0 tools.  However, the library would like you to be aware of the following guidelines to participate in this ongoing online conversation in a manner that reflects well on you and on the library.

1. Please remember the library’s employee conduct guidelines.
2. Protect your privacy by being mindful of what you post.
3. Please try to make sure that your profile in social media is consistent with how you want to present yourself in a public forum.
4. If you are speaking about the library, add a disclaimer that your thoughts are your own, and not necessarily those of the library.
5. Do not provide confidential information about the library.
6. Please respect copyright in your use of materials.
7. Please respect other libraries and your audience.
8. Use your time at work wisely.  If a majority of your time is spent with social networking rather than your duties, this may reflect on you.

For patrons:

The library would like to ensure that all library users have a safe and productive experience with the technology available for use.  We would suggest that the following be kept in mind when using social networking technology on the library’s computers.

Use common sense for what you put up on social networking sites.  Be yourself, but be aware that what you put out there is public, and will be out there for a long time and possibly for anyone to access.

Please be courteous to other library users when using social media on library computers.  There are some things that are better accessed in private than in a public space such as the library.

Links used for inspiration:

http://candidcio.com/2009/08/12/social-media-policy-and-employee-guidance/

http://www.hightechdad.com/2009/05/11/crafting-your-companys-social-media-policy/

http://www.briansolis.com/2009/09/implement-social-media-guidelines-now/

I explored what I’m going to do for my paper here in this post.  In trying to search for support for my ideas, I came up with the following sources, as well as lining up a couple of interviews with real-life librarians, and conducting a Facebook poll.  (You do have to log in to Facebook to access the previous link.)  I think I may do an informal Twitter poll as well.
There’s not a whole lot of literature for a review, but I feel that will be fine, because most of my paper will be practical application and ideas to make library fans, applying in parts 2.0 technology.
It’s gotten ambitious.  But hopefully that will be okay.

I will be using the following sources, and may be adding some more as I go, dependent on what I find works:

Burger, L. I Love Libraries. American Libraries v. 38 no. 1 (January 2007) p. 6 (www.ilovelibraries.org)

Casey, M. E. and Laura Savastinuk.  (2009).  Library 2.0: A guide to participatory library service.  Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc.

Elliott, M. One Library’s Response to Harry Potter Fans. Public Libraries v. 46 no. 6 (November/December 2007) p. 27-8

Fiske, J.  (1992). The cultural economy of fandom.  In The adoring audience: Fan culture and popular media by Lisa A. Lewis.  Routledge. http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~njcarpen/3860_readings/fiske_cultural_economy.pdf

Jenkins, H.  (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. New York: NYU Press.

Kranich, N. C. Why libraries are more popular than ever. American Libraries v. 32 no. 4 (April 2001) p. 7

Matthews,  J. R.  (2007). The evaluation and measurement of library services. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Rapp, S. Get ahead by getting involved [consumer involvement marketing strategy]. Direct Marketing v. 53 (July 1990) p. 66-7

Rodger, E. J. What’s a Library Worth?. American Libraries v. 38 no. 8 (September 2007) p. 58-60

Sass, R. K.  “Marketing the Worth of Your Library.”  Library Journal, June 15, 2002.  http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA220888.html

Shamel, C. L.  “Building a Brand: Got Librarian?”  Searcher.  1.7 (July/Aug 2002).  http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul02/shamel.htm

Wickboldt, A.  LIS 770 Final Paper.  Volunteerism in the Public Library.

As always, any questions for me, feel free to comment!
(Feel free to comment too if you have any ideas for making library fans!  I will absolutely credit you in my paper if I use it, unless you would prefer to remain anonymous.  )

Photo from Flickr – Leaving the Newberry Library

For my brand monitoring assignment, I chose to take a look at a library that has always meant a lot to me; the Newberry Library right here in Chicago.  I followed the online conversation about this library for a period of about two and a half weeks, and was pleased by what I found.  I will be going about this post in sections, listing out the different social software I checked out, and what I gleaned from them about the library.

Facebook

I started off observing the chatter on the Newberry’s page on Facebook, of which I have been a fan for quite some time.  This is used mostly to make Facebook users aware of events that are going on at the Newberry, but is also a good place for fans to air their opinions about the library.  The page is updated by the Newberry at least once a week.  In the weeks that I observed the page closely, there weren’t very many posts by fans themselves, but many “likes” and comments on things that the library had posted.  I concluded that the Facebook page isn’t as active with participants, but many lurkers.

Flickr

I have to say I was surprised at the amount of photos I found on Flickr, though I don’t know why, because the Newberry is generally considered quite a photogenic building.  In my searches, I only found one account put out directly by the library itself, the Newberry Library Public Programs.  This account yielded some interesting pictures, but none had been uploaded since February of 2008.  When I searched the Creative Commons licensed content for “newberry library chicago”, I found 158 results.  For the volume of content on Flickr, this may not seem like that much, but the people who post pictures related to the library are passionate about it, as you may see in the screencaps below.

Google Blogs

There were many blogs that mentioned the Library in my time observing the stream, but not much coming out of the library itself.  Google blogs counted the Library’s home page as a blog, because it does have a news and events section that can be subscribed to as a feed.  The Newberry Library’s Genealogy News page is also brought up, which is updated more frequently.  This page was more understandable, because it was more in blog form.  In the past month, there were 163 blog posts that mentioned the Newberry in some way that Google Blogs could search.

Twitter

This was by far the most prolific of the sites that I looked at, as far as postings went.  The Newberry itself has an account, NewberryLibrary, with 17 posts in the last few weeks.  In a search for postings about the Newberry, using the searches “newberry library” and “newberry library chicago” and “#newberrylibrary”, I found that there are at least 2-6 tweets per day about the library and programming going on there.

Yelp

I never thought to look at this site for information and ratings of a library, even though I had used it before to look at restaurants.  I was very pleased to see that out of 32 reviews, the Library has 4 and a half stars.  It is useful to recognize that the Library can be used as a wedding venue, and this accounts for some of the reviews, but a lot of the reviews focus on the collections as well, and not just the space.  The most recent review was from January, so it wasn’t really during the time I was observing the other sites, but I still felt this was a useful site to include, since it focuses on users of the library reviewing it.

All in all, I feel like there could be more chatter about the Newberry Library, but considering its specialized purpose I am not surprised that it seems to be more of a niche concern than a widespread fandom.  I am hoping that will continue to change, and that more people will embrace this Chicago treasure.

After I completed my context book, I was struck by the ideas of fans.  In actuality, I was struck by the whole book, but I quickly realized that would make about a 60 page dissertation, rather than a 12 to 15 page research paper.  So, I’ve decided to focus my attention on the first part of the book, the section dealing with fans and their cultural production.

Mostly, I’m still stuck on the question that I brought up in my “one-minute book report” in class.  How do we create and keep fans that are as crazed about the library as people are about Star Wars?  How do we take the user and turn them into a fan?  How do we bring the user into the process of the library, so that they feel like they’re contributing?

It all comes down to the idea of the library as a service profession.  We should want to make the library a transforming experience for anyone who walks through the door (and even those that don’t), not just because it is our job, but we care about serving people.  I think that absorbing some of the strategies of fan culture and maintaining a fandom that are contained in Jenkins’ book would be a good thing for libraries to do.  Or, at least, that’s what I’ll try to prove in my paper. 

Any questions or wants for me to elaborate before my abstract is posted, please feel free to ask.

Yeah, my title kind of says it all, I think.

I wanted to run something by all of you…I think that my posts have been slightly more personal, and not as stuffily professional…does anyone mind that?  I can certainly rectify that if need be.

Anyway, on to the actual post, I suppose. 

I, like many people, joined Facebook in college, when it was simply a network for college students.  I believe I’ve been a member of Facebook since shortly after my college joined, which was in September 2005.  Yes, 2005.  So, Facebook has been a part of my life for almost five years now.

Good old FB has gone through a bunch of changes since I’ve joined, most notably opening up membership to anyone with an email address, instead of requiring a college email address, and changing their privacy policy about, oh, eleven billion times.  I think that to this, things like adding applications becomes a secondary change.  I didn’t really like it at first, but now I think it’s a good thing that people who weren’t on before that weren’t in college are able to be on now, and adapt to the social networking revolution.

Changes aside, I’ve stuck with Facebook because it is one of the best ways to keep in touch with friends, who now, after high school and college, are scattered all across the country.  I think that the seven points Michael brought up in the page about this post are very relevant.    I use Facebook for all of them.  If you don’t remember, they are:

• Identity
• Presence
• Relationships
• Conversations
• Groups
• Reputation
• Sharing

I found the Reputation point interesting.  I never realized that I was using Facebook this way, until I read about it.  I absolutely refuse to friend people I don’t already know, or know through another friend.  In a way, I was already questioning who was a “good citizen” of Facebook, and wondering who could be trusted.

My experience with Facebook, I have to say, has been on the whole a positive one.  I have been able to connect with friends, colleagues, and more, and keep in touch with people I wouldn’t necessarily remember to otherwise.

The other experience in Social Networking I wanted to touch on that is newer to me than Facebook is Shelfari.  I only started using Shelfari last semester, at the beginning of Reader’s Advisory.  However, it’s a social network that I have quickly become very fond of.  The best part about it is that I can post books I am currently reading, and find people who are reading the same book, or have read it, and get others’ opinions.  Also, the “I’m planning to read” section is good for me to keep track of books I hear about that would be good for me to read personally or professionally.

Anyway, time to play with iPod Touches. 
Questions?  Comments?  As always, feel free.

So, I’m not going to lie to you.  I picked this book up because it had a stormtrooper on the cover.
I could say I was intrigued by the subject, or thought it would make a good research paper topic, but those things came later.  The first thing that grabbed my attention was that stormtrooper.
Given the topic of the book, this now seems fraught with irony.  Picking up a book about fandoms because of one of my fandoms?  Priceless.

Henry Jenkins is an academic.  He is a distinguished Professor of Humanities and the Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT.  Henry Jenkins is also a fan.  Being a fan myself, I couldn’t help but be drawn to this book.  Unlike a lot of academics, Jenkins doesn’t make any apologies for being a fan.   In fact, this book is a collection of essays written between two of his other books, all three defending fan culture and the importance of validating participatory culture.

This work is divided into three sections.
First, “Inside Fandom”, a look at fans and their media production, taken through the lens of Star Trek and slash fiction.  Second, “Going Digital”, which, according to the author’s introduction, focuses on “the impact of digital media on our everyday lives.” (Jenkins 5)  Third, and last, “Columbine and Beyond”, which takes a look at the impact of popular culture on teens, especially in the form of video games, and the public policy debates which erupted after the Columbine shootings.

Using everything from a listserv about TV’s Twin Peaks, Star Trek, gay culture, slash fiction, online dating, blogs, talk shows, video games to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jenkins attempts to connect the fan community and the academic community, and open up a dialogue.  Basically, he is discouraging academics from taking “the high road”, so to speak, and encouraging an openness from both sides in studying how fan culture and participation in popular culture affect our lives.

So, how does all this relate to libraries, you may ask.

In a simple phrase, do not ignore your audience.
Fans are powerful things.  Can you imagine what would happen if librarians got half the people to be rabid fans of the library as there are rabid fans of Star Wars?  The possibilities are astounding.  We have a base of users at the library that love it there.  We can use some of the strategies Jenkins talks about in his book to adapt some of the ways popular culture cultivates fans to the library.  We have already jumped on the bandwagon as far as listservs, blogging, and things like that, but I believe that Library 2.0 can be extended even more.  As I talked about in my blog post on Transparency, the library needs to be accessible and open to users.  We can foster open discussion about what the library can do, get “fan” input and actually use it, make changes based on what patrons want…the list is endless.  The most important point becomes investment.  How many fans of libraries do we have?  And how can we listen to them to make the relationship between libraries and those fans better, while also growing new fans?

What do you think?

Source Cited:
Jenkins, H.  (2006)  Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture.  New York: New York University Press.