Personal Reflections (14)

Ah, the end of term, when a young student's thoughts turn to evaluation.

I think that overall this has been a fairly successful course. I've really enjoyed the blogging aspect of it-- not only maintaining my own snazzy blog, but also getting the chance to read everyone else's. This was my first distance education course ever, and, surprisingly, I found that I really missed the class discussion. I'm not Chatty McTalksALot, but I think that having an opportunity to hear how your classmates interpreted the various readings is pretty valuable. If we hadn't had the blogs to keep track of each other, this would have been a much, much different course. I have missed lectures a little (I know-- shocking). One of the great advantages of this program has been the that we have practicing librarians teaching us-- and I've missed that aspect of in-class courses.

... and now, the rundown of technologies:

What I Will Keep Using: del.icio.us facebook, wikis

I really like del.icio.us, which (for me, personally) seems to have a role very different from that of my favorites. I tend to use del.icio.us for interesting articles, rather than interesting sites. The social/public nature of it does make me a little uncomfortable, so I think anything particularly scandelous will still go in my favorites. I also really like that all I have to go is hit the little button my tool bar.

I still don't like Facebook. I still think that if you're the type of person to maintain meaningful connections, you'll maintain them with or without this kind of network. It makes me uncomfortable to find pictures of myself on my friend's pages, tagged off of pages of people I haven't spoken to in six years. It makes me feel sad and hurt if my friends' connections have erased me from our shared history (if they became “friends” through Facebook before I joined, even though they have absolutely nothing in common except me). But, uh, sadly, I will keep Facebook, because everyone has it. What? Is that a cliff ahead of me? Woo hoo!

I don't have a lot to say about wikis-- I think they're useful. I've half-built one for work. I'm glad I got to learn about them!

What I am on the Fence About: my blog

I have become quite fond of my little blog, and I am reluctant to abandon it. However, I don't know if I have the audience or focus needed to continue it. Most of the blogs which I read have a specific audience and are hooked into an online community of sorts (ie, blogs about books, blogs about politics). My book-reading, cheese-eating, nomadic ways are only interesting to a small number of people-- (hi Mom!)

What I Will Most Likely Not Use After This Course: RSS, Secondlife

RSS does not appeal to me, even though I can see the logic and convienence in it. And, if I'm not a gamer by now, I am unlikely to become one. Secondlife is pretty interesting, but it's just not for me.

Best Practices (13)

My biggest challenge in this course is trying to see things from the perspective of a librarian and not a user. I visit my public library maybe twice a week, and mainly for books. I'd put myself in the lower/middle range of the library school population spectrum for technological with-it-ness, but in terms of the general population, I'm much, much higher. And I don't subscribe to my library's RSS feed or cruise their del.ic.ious page.

For me, this discipline is all about connecting people with information: I get the connections with information literacy, and the importance of understanding the technological backdrops, but for me, the most important criteria has to be: does this improve the fundamental service we offer to our patrons?

My Preliminary and Very General List of Best Practices

1. Include the targeted community in the planning and development stages of implementing social software. Make sure that what you are planning is relevant and feasible for your users, and draw on their expertise. (For example, use high school students who need to volunteer for credit and know more than you do.)

2. Make sure your use of social software is consistent with your library's mission and values-- especially in terms of privacy

3. Be accessible. I'm somewhat wary of public libraries using applications like Facebook because, while it meets students where they are, its nature is to be closed and private. It plays to the in-group. If you're not on Facebook, you're excluded, and that seems to go against the accessible nature of libraries.

4. Target your audience-- keep your focus narrow and specific (ie: Harry Potter, not Children's Literature, or Community Historical Sites, not History).

5. Use social software to compliment your services, not to revolutionize them-- especially if you are a library with a diverse (in terms of age/ ablity/ access to technology) user group.

6. Do not use social software exclusively-- if you have a Harry Potter party at your library, don't just create a facebook event for it-- also have physical posters in your library, too. Don't exclude people because their unfamiliar with a specific technology.

7. Maintain consistency between your traditional methods and your digital methods, and between print resources and your electronic resources. For example, your del.ic.ious tags should not be fundamentally different from your library's general (overview) classification scheme.

8. Constantly evaluate whether or not your new-fangled services are doing what they are supposed to: are people commenting on your blog? Is your RSS feed being used? Has your wiki been overrun by a small minority?

9. Maintain (and update!) FAQs about new technologies.

10. Do not expect students to want to friend your library. :-)

And now off to review the case studies...