UGC Presentation

User Generated Content In Libraries from JuliaB23

This PowerPoint is shared using SlideShare. It was created to support my presentation to the Diploma class Extend Own Information Literacy Skills. The presentation was on User Generated Content In Libraries.
 

National Library Of Australia Facebook Evaluation

The Facebook page I've selected for my evaluation is from the National Library Of Australia. As this is a government organisation it is a highly authoritative site. The NLA uses it's site to provide information such as location and opening hours, to promote events and showcase it's collection. An example of this is the post about how historic knitting patterns are the most popular item searched for in one section of Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/71384389).

It is current (the last post was 22 hrs ago) and appears to be updated regularly. It has been liked 6,116 times and has 188 people  talking about it.  The variety of material available through this site makes it an interesting one to explore to learn about the National Library and some of it's treasures.

Facebook. 2013. National Library Of Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/National.Library.of.Australia [Accessed: 3 Sep 2013].

LOC Twitter Evaluation.

One of the libraries Twitter feeds that I chose to follow is the Library of Congress because it is an authoritative site with a breadth of information. For example information about the National Book Festival and the Ray Bradbury Exhibition. The site has 524,685 followers and there are several posts added a day. Some of the items are more technical and directed at people who would be working in/studying libraries and some are more general and aimed at the library's clients.

Twitter. 2013. Library Of Congress. [online] Available at: https://twitter.com/librarycongress [Accessed: 27 Aug 2013].

Twitter Discovery

Although I've previously been aware of a number of accounts I'd like to follow I've resisted joining up for Twitter as I can see the potential for this to be a bit of a 'time waster' instead of a useful tool. I found the process of joining, setting up my profile and exploring for people to follow mostly easy (with thanks for pointing me in the right direction to Andrew!). I have signed up to follow a number of library sites including the Library Of Congress and the National Library Of Australia as well as some of my favourite authors and actors from one of the few shows I watch.

Twitter is an easy way for libraries to let their clients know what's happening such as upcoming events or new books that have arrived. It also makes it easy for people to let their friends know about things they've seen on the site through re tweeting. It is a great way to keep up with new and specific  information on multiple sites at once and is easier to use than Delicious.

The downside is the limited number of characters so for more in depth information you need to research further.

Unleash The Users - You Tube Video Evaluation.

This You Tube video discusses 'unleashing' library users including the use of UGC and the idea of library staff and users working together to create things which is different from other items I've seen on this topic where the focus has been on how libraries deal with content created by users. I chose it because I liked the emphasis on getting clients actively participating in the direction of the library.

It is about the Aarhus Main Library in Denmark and was uploaded on 29th May 2009. Very little information was available on the poster of this video so it is less authoritative than what others might post on the topic. It's intended audience would be anyone interested in the issue of increasing client involvement in the activities of a library.

Kanal tilhørende transformationlab. 2013. Unleash The Users. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KsFrkxjtj8 [Accessed: 20th August 2013].

You Tube

You Tube is a useful tool for learning about a variety of topics especially practical ones as the demonstrations show you exactly how to do things. Teacher Tube focuses on resources for teachers. If wishing to use videos from either place for teaching purposes one needs to be aware of possible copyright restrictions.

The following video is my first ever attempt at uploading a video to YT. I found the process fairly straightforward and am sure with more time to explore editing options and help files any I post in the future will be much improved!! Taking it a step at a time...

Podcast

The podcast below is of Library of Congress staff  Michelle Springer and Helena Zinkham being interviewed about their organisation's project to begin using Flickr (a few years ago now). They discuss a wide range of issues relating to this including copyright, maintaining digital archives, cloud sourcing (content they want users to contribute based on what's been posted.).  As the Library Of Congress is probably the leading library in the world this is a highly authoritative podcast.Have a listen!



I found this on the Voices Of The Past website and that is the podcast I've subscribed to. The podcasts found here are not specifically library related but are about "helping people use the social web to effectively advocate for heritage resources." The audience would be people who wish to become savvy in combining their use of social media and their interest in heritage resources. Depending on what library you work in heritage resources may be something you're responsible for.

Guin, J. 2013. Library of Congress on partnering with Flickr and finding its voice in social media, Voices Of The Past. [podcast] 12 September 2010. Available at: http://www.voicesofthepast.org/2010/09/12/audio-podcast-library-of-congress/#wrap [Accessed: 13th August 2013].

LIS Wiki Evaluation

I looked at the LIS Wiki.

 LISWiki was established to give the library community a chance to explore the usefulness of Wikis. It is not intended to replace or detract from the Wikipedia library and information science articles (or those in the printed LIS encyclopedias for that matter), but exist as a niche encyclopedia covering library-related issues.  (LIS Wiki 2013)

It covered a wide range of topics from cell phones in libraries to Digitization. It gave no information about the background of the people posting and this means that as these are personal opinions it is not necessarily as authoritative as information provided by other sources. Unlike others I visited it had been updated relatively recently and it contains 1,406 pages (although a number of these were not finished).  The intended audience would be those interested in libraries,information management and technology.

LIS Wiki.2013. Home. [online] Available at: http://www.liswiki.org/wiki/Main_page [Accessed: 13 Aug 2013].

Wiki Exploration

Looking at the various wikis what I found interesting was how one topic could be expanded on in a variety of directions given the response of the person reading and what they wished to add. A number of people commented that this is a good way to organise information on a specific topic for a specific group in one place but what I liked was that the information provided could come from anywhere (in the world) and any category of person e.g. librarians, library clients.

I found that I dislike the heavily text based nature of Wikis but I do like the amount of related information that can be found in the one place for further exploration.

Delicious Exploration

This post is about the social bookmarking site Delicious. This is a site where a user can create and share a list of their favourite websites with others and find out about similar websites by viewing other user's bookmarks. This is a simple way for a user to expand their knowledge of useful websites. It relies heavily on people tagging (in an informal way) websites, posts and pictures to enable others to find them.

I was able to easily add the blogs of three classmates but had a frustrating time attempting to tag them as only one of the tags used was saved (after repeated attempts) and I cannot work out why. Suggestions anyone?

Although library staff are more experienced with content that is organised in a structured manner this tool could be used as a way of keeping track of what others working in similar libraries are doing, topics of client interest or sites relating to professional development. The E-Services Librarian at the Parliamentary Library specifically mentioned using  Delicious when we visited as an easy way of providing her clients with an updated list of websites on current topics of interest to them.

Web App For Flickr - Aviary

Mash ups are about adding two or more things together to create something 'new' and would be fun to explore for more creative types than myself. Instead after a brief look around I ended up experimenting with Flickr's simple editing tool the web app Aviary which can be used to enhance photos or add to them to create something newish.

Once you've uploaded your photo to Flickr to access the Aviary app you click on the three dots in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and select edit image with Aviary. This then allows you to undertake some simple editing such as enhancement,effects,frames,stickers,orientation, croping, reduce red eye. You choose what you want and then save it with the changes made.

For someone like me who is not confident with either the taking of photos or the subsequent editing of them this is a very handy and easy to use tool to improve photos for public viewing.

Practise makes...something!

In the spirit of library techs tenaciously pursuing the right answer here is what the photo was meant to look like. Is is not a photo but a screenshot.

Flickr

9448916852_0e8e1c4a31_m, a photo by JuliaB94 on Flickr.

Although hard to see (photography is SO not my thing) this is a picture of the book review section of TALIS. Posting a review there is creating user generated content. It was shared using the photo sharing site Flickr.

I find that Flickr is relatively simple to use with clear headings and uncluttered pages. It is important to read all headings and make sure you have entered all the data before uploading your photo (as I learnt today!).

Helpful Hint:  If you want to create tags in Flickr with more than one word you need to use double quotes although if you don't it sometimes accepts them anyway.

British Libraryn Benjamin Whiteä haastatellen

This is a picture uploaded to Flickr by Mace Ojala of him interviewing (by Skype) Benjamin White Intellectual Property Rights Manager from the British Library  about the role of libraries in relation to user generated content. Mr Ojala works for a library and blogs about libraries,digital culture and other matters. His comments here and on his blog are merely personal opinions so are not as authoritative as those from other sources. As well as being a picture about UGC this picture is also UGC itself!

Flickr. 2013. British Libraryn Benjamin Whiteä haastatellen. [online] http://www.flickr.com/photos/xmacex/2968276043/ available at:  [Accessed: 6 Aug 2013].

User Generated Content In Brief

Have you ever created a blog/uploaded a video/made a Facebook page/created or edited a Wiki/published a story online/posted a comment on a discussion board or uploaded photos? If the answer is yes then you have created some User Generated Content (UGC). In broad terms UGC is any content created by a user or users and available in some form on the world wide web.

UGC is a significant part of the whole Web 2.0 philosophy with users not wanting static information but to be able to interact with it (for example through editing or feedback) and to create material themselves to share with others. In a library context users might do this through creating a book review on TALIS (Tasmanian Automated Library Information System) or editing content on the Trove site.

Emarketer, an enterprise that prepares reports on digital marketing and ecommerce, has projected that, by 2014, about two-thirds of an estimated 165 million regular web users will frequently go to sites based on visitors' content contributions. (Tomaiuolo 2011, p. 18.)

The use of UGC in libraries raises a number of possible issues for library staff. These include ownership, access, privacy, controlling the information, finance and staff training.

So, that's a brief description of User Generated Content and what it means for libraries. Stay tuned to this blog for more.

Tomaiuolo, N. 2011. Library Uses for User-Generated Content. Searcher The Magazine For Database Professionals, 19 (8), p. 18.

RSS Feeds

This blog post is about the process involved in using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The purpose of using RSS is to enable a person to have updated content from their favourite websites available in their browser through a reader. Or to put it more simply the content comes to you instead of you having to look for it. This is a great way for a user to keep track of updated content on multiple sites without it consuming a lot of time.

The two steps involved are 1. Signing up for a RSS Reader.
                                        2. Subscribing to feeds from websites.

As I already have a Feedly account I signed in using Gmail. I found searching for feeds, adding and sorting them into a category to be a simple matter of clicking a few links. The only problem I had was that with some settings the icon or box to type into was a bit hard to see. I had already created a group for Library Information. Today  I  added more feeds to it by searching the site using the terms libraries, user generated content, library technicians and variations thereof.

 I think there are two main ways a library tech (or one in training!) could use RSS. The first is to keep track of sites relating to their professional development (such as ALIA) or more general library knowledge and trends (such as IFLA or the Library of Congress). The second is to keep track of information specifically related to the type of  library they work in (such as the APLA site for those working in parliamentary libraries). An RSS feed could also be provided on a library's website as a service to it's clients.

Blog About User Generated Content In Libraries.

Below is a link to the blog Libraries & User Generated Content. I am sure it will provide me with lots of ideas for my presentation. Maybe you'll learn something useful there too.
http://lis690group8.blogspot.com.au/

Website Evaluation

I chose the Pew Research Center's website to subscribe to as although it is an American website the library section contains observations that are also applicable in an Australian context about libraries and emerging technologies. This organisation is a non-partisan, not for profit think tank that conducts research on the impact of the internet on all aspects of a person's life. 

The Library section has content on a variety of topics such as e-books, accessing library services through mobile devices, library services in the digital age and using information searches to solve problems. As the website has been updated in the past few months the content is current and as the observations are supported by research it is fairly authoritative. The intended audience would be anyone working in a library and interested in emerging technologies. From here you can also access the Libraries In The Digital Age Blog. Check out the post about The science of "the smell of books".

Pew Internet & American Life Project. 2013. Pew Internet - Libraries. [online] Available at: http://libraries.pewinternet.com [Accessed: 30 Jul 2013].

Lauren's Library Blog

Had some difficulty finding a blog on my topic so here is one that is about libraries and technology more generally.  http://laurenpressley.com/library/

Lauren Pressley is the Associate Director for Research and Learning at Virginia Tech University Libraries and wrote So You Want To Be a Librarian and Wikis For Libraries. Her blog is about libraries, information and education but she examines these from more of a philosophical viewpoint than a practical one. Her Ideas section post about technology provides a good basic summary of why the use of technology in libraries is important. The Future of Libraries post is also interesting. The intended audience would be anyone working in a library environment.

Lauren's Library Blog. 2013. Home. [online] Available at: http://laurenpressley.com/library/

[Accessed: 23 Jul 2013].

*Edit: Her experience in this area means that this is an authoritative blog.