notes & thoughts from CIL2009

I had planned on writing up my notes from the Computers in Libraries 2009 conference I attended last week, until I discovered (via my RSS feed of the Librarian in Black blog) that other attendees had already written great summaries and posted them on their blogs.

In the spirit of Web 2.0, collaboration, sharing collective knowledge, etc., I decided it would be silly for me to re-write what had already been done so well. So I'm providing links to other bloggers' notes and including any additional comments or thoughts I have below those. I attended one day of the conference, on March 31st, and went to the following four sessions:

Best of the Web (from L.I.B. blog). Nothing to add.

Social Network Profile Management (from L.I.B. blog)

My comments and additional info:

In the Social Network Profile Management session, Greg Schwartz said "You don't own your online identity. You can influence it." Something for us to think about.

Amanda Clay Powers, the second presenter, emphasized that our place as librarians is to help educate people about these technologies (like facebook). She said we need to know how to help people; how to help them be "healthy" online. She asked, "who else can do this? We are in a perfect position." We can help them learn how to manage their "social metadata" online, educate them about privacy settings. Again, something to think about. What is our role in all of this regarding our patrons?

During the question and answer part of this session, the presenters shared their belief that it is not possible to keep our personal and professional identities separate online. They said that eventually, the identities start to merge together over time.

Web 2.x Training for Customers and Staff (from L.I.B. blog)

My comments and additional info:

Beth Tribe was the first presenter. She is a technology trainer for the Howard County Library in Maryland, who developed and presented Web 2.0 training for the public. She discovered that even though the public is using Web 2.0, they don't know what it is called. She developed a five-part series that included: overview, social networking, photo sharing, music sharing, and ? (missed the fifth!). The theme for this series was "you." You contribute. You connect. They used this in advertising the classes. In her classes, she saw a lot of confusion about tagging. She did exercises in which she showed a picture and had the class call out words that describe the picture. Then explained that these could be tags. Feedback from the classes indicated that people wanted more training! She is planning additional classes on facebook and Flickr.

In this session, the second presenter's job title is "Technology Innovation Librarian." I like it.

At the end of the session, Aaron Schmidt said something like, "Teaching library users how to participate on the web is essential to our democracy." Again, I like it.

Evaluating, Recommending and Justifying Web 2.0 Tools (from Library Trainer blog)

My comments and additional info:

Guidelines for evaluating social software, 2.0 technologies, are not really different from past evaluation criteria (for technology).

Why add social tools?

• Customer expectations
• Marketing yourself, your department
• Product promotion
• Transmitting information, sharing knowledge
• Learning others' expertise
• Reputation management
• Back channel at conferences, meetings

When recommending these tools to decision-makers...

• Position the library -- and information professionals -- as technology experts.
• This is an important opportunity for information professionals to extend their reach and influence with the organization.

Money Implications:

• Cost of purchase
• Cost to implement (even if free!)
• Time involved (DL says, you can't underestimate this!!!)
• Savings to company, ROI
• Non-monetary benefits

Measuring success:

• Marketing is essential.
• Measurement over time will determine whether should should continue with the new technologies.
• Keep your eyes open for the next new thing.

I have copies of all of her PowerPoint slides, which contain a bit more info about recommending these technologies, if anyone wants a look at those.

Deb's Thoughts Generated by Attending CIL2009

Even though I only attended one day, I noticed a recurring theme: that librarians should educate the public about how to use these social technologies and participate online. That we are in the perfect position to fill this need.

Based on Howard County's experience, I think we should consider offering classes in popular Web 2.0 tools for library members. Which brings me to the big question on my mind: how will we find time to do this?

I was already thinking about this before the conference, but I am even more convinced that we can't underestimate the amount of staff time involved in 1) identifying what tools to implement and 2) creating content for these tools or otherwise maintaining our presence in them. For example, if we have a presence on tools like facebook and twitter, we need to respond quickly to questions that come in via these tools. If we have a cool blog aimed at teens, we need to keep the content fresh and respond to comments promptly.

This line of thought leads me to a conclusion that may be unpopular with some: before we implement many (any?) more 2.0 tools, internal or external, we need some kind of realignment of staff responsibilities. I don't believe we can add so much additional work without taking away, or streamlining, some existing duties. I think we have plenty of staff; we just need to decide if we will use some of them in a different way.

Think about it before you get upset (yes, I can sense your getting upset). ;) At some locations (all?) it is hard to get adults to come to programs. Would it make sense to offer fewer adult programs and spend that time on creating reader's advisory podcasts or special book lists to distribute via RSS? I don't know. I'm just asking...