Well Wiki’d

Here we are, the final push for the summit and completion of 23 Things. And it’s wikis, possibly the Thing I have the most experience with (apart from blogging).

Earlier this year, we had a wiki within our department for staff to contribute ideas as part of a collaborative contribution to the UL’s strategic framework. We used the wiki in CamTools for this, which was easy to use and extremely effective for this form of collaborative working between almost 20 different people. It was much easier than attempting to do something by email or scheduling several meetings in person. This way, by the time we did all meet in person we had a body of work to discuss and refine together. I actually think that this wiki was better for collaborative working than using Google Docs, it was less slow and more stable. It also required no special login as we were registered on the CamTools site by our existing Raven user names and using our work emails. I would recommend the CamTools wiki function – the only problem I had was that it doesn’t seem to have a way of telling you when someone else is actively working in a document at the same time as you (or maybe I just haven’t figured this out, I can’t say I looked very hard) whereas Google Docs tells you very clearly who else is looking at the document (even though often this means they just had it open recently but are no longer actually active there).

Unlike some of the other wikis mentioned, CamTools had the advantage of being available to anyone invited (since we were all University staff) while remaining a private space, not indexed on Google or visible more publicly. A bit of privacy is sometimes a good idea when you’re working on drafts or brainstorming ideas that aren’t quite ready for public consumption yet.

logo by Girl in the Moon

Andy very kindly mentioned the TeachMeet – as one of the organisers of the Cambridge Librarians TeachMeet, I’ve looked at other pages on the general TeachMeet wiki pages as well as contributing to our own TeachMeet page. I’m very glad to hear other people reporting that they found it easy to use. It’s a good use for a wiki and we haven’t (as yet) had any issues with spam or malicious posting.

I looked at all the suggested links, there were some really interesting uses of wikis in the library workplace. If you haven’t read everything yet then it’s really worth taking the time to look at Antioch University’s wiki page on Staff Roles and Responsibilities or, “Rules the Man has come up with for you; the person sitting at the front desk right now”. Number 9 is “no knitting”. Not pandering to any librarian stereotypes there. And number 10 is something that one would like to this goes without saying, but obviously doesn’t.

I’ve come across the use of wikis for internal documentation before as I have a strange fascination for and interest in library documentation. I’m not sure this affliction has a name but I do like reading procedures and protocols for other libraries (and cataloguing/technical services departments in particular). It tends to be more usual for US libraries to make their intranet documentation publicly visible but I was pleased to find (via the Library Success Wiki) that Ireland are also more open with their documentation - University College Dublin has a Cataloguing wiki as do the Glucksman Library, University of Limerick (a different UL).

With a colleague, we have discussed the possible use of a wiki for our departmental documentation and we’re talking about what to do for the bigger TeachMeet we’re hoping to hold in 2011 (yep, that’s right, we’re already thinking about the next one!) and that might involve setting up our own wiki so there may well be more wikis in my professional future.

Marketing

I have been putting off writing about marketing (Thing 19) for a number of reasons. I have read some great posts on the topic over on other cam23 blogs and wanted to digest and maybe even respond to some of that. It’s a huge topic and I still feel that there is just too much to say, especially when I am aware that I’m falling behind and really, really want to complete all 23 Things in time for that voucher. The specific requirement on the Thing 19 instructions to blog “specifically about one tool or strategy you are going to adopt to promote your service as a result of your participation in Cam23″ makes this a difficult topic for someone like me, who is not in a position to make decisions about the use of social media for marketing in my place of work. There are many other people in the same situation, who have dealt with it in a variety of ways – Librarianintraining takes the opportunity to play “fantasy librarian” (and request a larger office), Birdbrain points out that “surely this kind of thing has to go through SMT” (bit of a UL in-joke, but very funny and almost certainly true).

The issue of marketing raises some related questions that I do also want to look at, even though they aren’t directly answering the question posed in the Thing 19 instructions.

The marketing opportunities offered by social media

Lots of people have already blogged about this very well. I think that social media do offer new avenues for marketing, especially if you see communication and visibility as important part of how a library markets itself to potential users. A Facebook page (setting aside my personal dislike), a Twitter account, a blog that users can subscribe to via rss feeds, audio podcasts – these are all communication methods that allow libraries to be more visible and to communicate in various media and in a number of online “locations” with users.

There is, as always, an issue of time as many have already pointed out. Many of the social media tools we’ve been looking at require a responsiveness and even an immediacy that does cost in terms of staff time and effort, even if the tool itself is free. A Twitter account is no good if nobody answers the questions that it inevitably will attract. I have found myself that it’s much easier and therefore more appealing to tweet a question to an institution than it is to track down an email address or phone number to ask that same question. Same goes for a Facebook page. If a library sets this up they need to be prepared to devote the staff time and energy in maintaining the content and responding to communication (not just using these as means to “push” publicity messages out to people).

This has all been covered in more detail and with prettier pictures. At the UL, there are already several initiatives on marketing the library using social media (blogs, rss feeds, videos, twitter). So, rather than repeat the same again (with less pretty pictures) or play fantasy librarian about “what I would do if I were in charge”, I’m going to say some other things that I want to say when thinking about marketing, social media and libraries.

Marketing the librarian rather than the library

One aspect of social media is an element of personalisation. Of moving things from a remote, impersonal institutional level (the Library website, the catalogue) to a more personal, immediate, conversational level (the Library twitter account is often a single person, the ability of blogs/Facebook to allow comments, interaction, response, images). I think it’s a good opportunity to think of marketing the librarian (or rather all members of library staff) as well as the library with its resources, databases, facilities, training. It’s the chance to become more visible, engage with people and demonstrate the added value that library staff can offer that way.

Every encounter, training session, question at a reference desk, query to a passing member of staff in the corridor is in essence a marketing opportunity. What social media does is moves this chance encounter, this passing conversation, friendly interaction outside of the library walls and into other arenas. Be where the users are, as everyone says. It’s what Miss Crail already recognised with her marvellous poster (I had to find a way to reproduce it here, I very much hope she doesn’t mind):

courtesy of the marvellous Miss Crail

I’m going to go a step further too. In a very large library like the UL, there is also an issue of internal marketing. Marketing to the rest of the 300+ members of staff who you are and what your work contributes to the library, what services you can offer in your particular role to the rest of the staff. This is much easier if you’re in a very senior position or in a very public-facing position, where you are carrying out training or inductions. It’s harder for other members of staff whose work is less visible (that includes a huge number of people in the UL, it has to be said). While taking part in 23 Things, I’m starting to see the opportunities social media can offer for this internal marketing and communication both within the library and within the wider Cambridge library system. It would have been almost impossible for the various people who have commented on Andy’s “blog post that wouldn’t die” over on Libreaction (it’s long but worth a read if you haven’t already seen it) to have had that discussion in any other media, there’s no email list or event that would allow it (maybe in a discussion at the libraries@cambridge conference but then there’d be people who couldn’t make it, or who were a bit intimidated about speaking up in person at a large event… you see what I mean).

Social media should be explored as a means of offering a personal presence for librarians, for marketing to the rest of the staff in their library (if it’s a large institution or if, like me, you work in a “backroom” kind of function), for marketing to other libraries and library staff in Cambridge and – just as importantly – for marketing the librarian (and thus the library) within the University  to academics and students, as a way of demonstrating what value librarians can add, by showing how librarians can contribute to research and teaching. A blog, a twitter account, whatever it takes.

Since I (reluctantly) joined Twitter, I’ve already answered several cataloguing questions of varying degrees of obscurity and also used it as a (surprising) forum for discussion on RDA cataloguing rules. I’ve been able to use the new contacts and communication methods to point people in the right direction if I can’t answer a question. This is something it can be very hard to do as a cataloguer. It’s good to be “visible” in this way and a huge number of benefits can come of it, both personally, professionally and for the wider library community. It gets us out of the “echo chamber” if we can do it right (or at least get cataloguers out of our own particular version of it, but that’s an idea for another time). It reminds me of the whole concept of “embedded librarians” which works well for subject librarians but not for cataloguing staff – social media offers the opportunity to try to become more “embedded” whenever possible.

Stopping for a breather

image by alan_cleaver2000

Yes, I know it’s “reflection week” rather than “sitting down for a bit and getting the sandwiches out week” but you know what they say, the best reflection takes place while sitting down. Preferably with cake. It’s virtually my family motto.

My overriding feeling from the first 12 Things is that I am always playing catch-up. Almost from the outset, I seem to be behind and trying frantically not to slip even further behind. I could have done with some catch-up weeks built into the schedule to help with my poor time management. I admit I’ve used this reflection week to get a few more Things blogged and ticked off my list. However, it’s not really cheating as I’ve been reflecting the whole way through. I reflect as I go. It’s true, I’ve been surprised by how much the 23 Things experience has made me think: about the Things, about how they could be applied in my work, about my professional development, about all kinds of things. It’s been quite invigorating.

Part of the problem, as I blogged about earlier, is that my approach is completist. I still try to read every post on every blog and every comment too. It’s by far the most enjoyable and instructive part of doing 23 Things. I have everything feeding into Google Reader and I check it throughout the day. The trouble with this approach is that, since I’m always behind, I read everyone else’s blog posts on a Thing before I get to writing my own. It’s great, because it gives me lots of ideas, different points of view, sparks off things that I want to say in reply. However, it also means I have a huge amount to say or I want to spend all my time referencing other people’s posts.

I’m sure reading all the other blogs first contributes to my other major problem – Hi, my name is Céline and I write too much. I cannot write a short blog post. I’ve tried. I just can’t do it. This is part of the reason why I get behind, each post takes ages to write, edit, annotate with links and images, edit again, post, edit again. Sigh. I wish I could be more concise.

Thirteen Things in and the biggest benefit to me so far is that taking part has forced me to be more sociable than I would normally be. I am really enjoying commenting on other people’s blogs, getting involved in discussions and conversations that way (and to a lesser extent, Twitter, which is obviously a challenge for someone as verbose as me).  In my first blog post I said:

I am particularly interested in seeing the new connections, friendships and working relationships that might be born out of the peer support and social networking that form an integral part of 23 Things.

I have high hopes that this will be one of the most lasting legacies of the programme for me. I still need to force myself to be more outgoing and build on these connections and relationships, but hopefully I’m on the right path to make that happen.

I was already fairly confident trying new things online and I could have tried these tools for myself. What 23 Things has done is given me a reason and an excuse to devote time to the various Things. It provided a structure – I’ve always been the kind of student who completes all her homework so I’ve made time even if it’s been difficult or if I’ve ended up getting behind in writing blog posts. Time is precious and it can be hard to carve out some space when there are so many other demands on your day so having 23 Things provides a useful focus.

The Things I’ve enjoyed most so far: Twitter (a bit of a revelation), Doodle (already recommended it to others and used in several different contexts), blogging (much to my surprise, despite the loss of my Batgirl disguise) and commenting on other blogs (I notice I’m more willing to participate by commenting even when not part of 23 Things). My own blog is very much specific to 23 Things so might not last beyond the end of the programme, so I don’t know if I’ll keep blogging in a personal capacity – and don’t know that I’d have much to say without the regular “homework” to write about – but I am enjoying it.  I absolutely LOVE rss feeds and Google Reader in particular, and would it recommend to anyone.

image by Camil Tulcan

As I pull my hiking boots back on and put my thermos away, I ask myself what I will do differently in the second half of this journey? I’m going to make a concerted effort to blog about a Thing within the week, not let them carry over past the next Monday. Even if it means shorter blog posts. There are some really interesting Things coming up and I don’t want to get totally bogged down in one or two and end up miles behind with no hope of catching up with everyone in time for tea and cake. I will have a List, a List of Things I Want To Look At Some More – starting with Delicious (set up my own account and use it), but adding any of the future Things that I want to investigate in more detail. It almost always requires more than a few days to look at a resource, try it out, get to know it and work out whether it is right for you (or for your library). So this is an ongoing process and doesn’t stop with the blog post.

Information overload, See Personal information management

I am starting to struggle a bit with information overload (“physician heal thyself” I hear you cry, or rather, “librarian manage thine own surfeit of information”). I have this drive to be completist, read every post in every Cam23 blog, every tweet and every link from a tweet or post. I’m just about managing this but it means I spend a lot of time thinking “ooh I read something about that… somewhere…” without being able to recall exactly where. I need to tag my thoughts.

Thing 8 is tagging. I need to declare an interest. I’m a cataloguer. My very first job as a graduate trainee was 50% cataloguing and that percentage has only gone up in my library career since then. Actually, I’ve found this Thing hardest to write about because it is so closely related to what I spend the majority of my time thinking about/doing.

The Clay Shirky article was interesting. I’ve read some of his stuff before (though obviously can’t actually recall very much about it due to lack of thought tags). I do think he’s setting up a false dichotomy though. He speaks about classification being related to the physical need for books to be located somewhere and there being restrictions on space. Yes. But classification isn’t the same as LCSH or the same as controlled vocabulary more generally. They do different things. The way in which he talks about what a “professional cataloguer” would think or feel is monumentally irritating (and inaccurate).

The simple answer is that tagging is great. It works brilliantly in Flickr or blog posts and, in a more complex form, what Shirky is describing is happening in Amazon’s “people who bought this, also bought…” recommendations and in Google searching. And we all know how successful these discovery tools have been. There is real power in crowdsourcing (if you have a big enough crowd). The Ann Arbor example shows how tags could work in a catalogue. But it’s not an either/or and I don’t know many cataloguers who think it is.

Twittering on (with added footnotes)

Ah Twitter.

Facebook was the start*. The start of the feeling that I was getting old. Twitter confirmed it. It’s the name I think, the whole vocabulary (tweeple, tweets, retweeting, hashtags). Suddenly I felt that maybe things were passing me by. I’m Generation X and Facebook and Twitter feel very much Gen Y or Z**.

So I tried to ignore Twitter at first. A few months ago, though, it became harder to ignore and I started looking and lurking. I realised how useful it is to follow conferences/seminars using hashtags when you can’t attend. Just this week, I’ve been reading tweets with the hashtag #exeter10*** to see what’s happening at the CoFHE/UC&R conference. Lots of other Cam23 bloggers have already described the value of Twitter for this kind of professional development and networking and I can only agree. If I had a smart phone, I would see the value even more. In terms of professional development for individual librarians, it has huge potential and the only problem is finding the time to keep up as things move so fast (again a smart phone would make a huge difference).

I know “it’s a conversation” and you should get involved, so I have tried tweeting and replying to people. However, I can’t say that I have found that gives me a huge amount more than I was getting from being a Twitter lurker**** to be honest.

On an institutional level, I remain to be convinced. Particularly for the smaller libraries, where there are always pressures of work and only limited amounts of time, I’m not sure that Twitter is worth it. This seems to be borne out by the experiences recounted by many of the Cam23 bloggers on this question. If, as a library, your users are primarily undergraduates then it seems that Twitter might not be something they use very much. Of course, this might change over time. I’m following quite a few libraries and related institutions now so it will be interesting to see if my feelings about this change with experience.

* More about this in a later Thing, I’m sure
** Where are the generations going after Z? Are my children Generation AA?
*** Figuring out how to type a # hash sign on my Mac required a desperate Google search when I first started actually tweeting
**** Doubtless called a “twurker” [shudder]

Operator error

or, A calendar is only as good as the person operating it.

Google calendar screenshot

Google calendar looks good, was very easy to set up and I like the variety of views you have as well as all the options to set up regularly repeating events. So far so good. I’ve done a screenshot with a month to view, mainly because I don’t have a huge number of events in a single week. I have it embedded in my iGoogle page too but it irritates me that I can’t quite see enough of the detail there so I tend to click through to the whole thing.

So there are all these lovely whizzy features and I can see real potential in Google calendar as a tool, especially when I only work part-time and often want to refer to my calendar while away from the library. I have a diary at work, another one I carry about (very tiny and even then I often fail to have it with me when I really need it) as well as a wall calendar at home with family things on it. An online calendar sounds ideal and Google calendar does so much. Marvellous. However, it was brought home to me this week that even the cleverest calendar cannot make up for operator error. I managed to miss the West of Cambridge Cam23 meet-up organised by @ange_fitzpatrick because I failed to put it in my calendar. Nothing can help me with that I fear. I need a to-do list that tells me to write things into my calendar. Sigh.

I was very interested in the reading for this Thing, on how Google calendar is used by institutions and libraries in particular. Other bloggers have shown how it works in their library for rotas and leave and various other layers of information. At first I couldn’t quite see the benefits over a calendar in any other format but then I found out about the way you can import other calendars into your own and various other features that would make it easier for library staff or library users to have information where they needed it. Assuming they remember to use their Google calendar, unlike me.

I can see the benefit though I still feel I would prefer not to have to create Google accounts for work. I looked at the calendar on CamTools and set some events up there too. It was easy to use though not as slick as Google calendar and I’m not sure if it has all the same features. I’d need to play around with a bit more but it seems more limited. However, I’d be more comfortable with the idea of staff being required to use CamTools than Google. That’s a feeling I can’t quite get rid of.

It’s a doddle, er, Doodle

Before I’d even had time to read the official blog post for Thing 5, I had already received 2 invitations to complete a Doodle poll. My social skills were clearly not up to speed. In fact, between 4 of us and 2 Doodle polls we didn’t actually manage to find a time that everyone could make but still, at least we tried.

The only minor flaw in the plan for Thing 5 was that it required knowing people’s email address. Since I only know the real identity of a handful of Cam23 participants and had already received a Doodle poll from most of those, I was a bit stumped. (The idea of putting an open poll on my blog didn’t occur to me until I saw other people doing it). I had found Doodle a good idea and very easy to use as a participant but hadn’t yet created my own poll.

Luckily for me, a friend emailed wanting to host a barbecue for a group of my old university friends and trying to find out what dates might work for everyone. Aha! I quickly created a Doodle poll and replied, sending everyone the link and Thing 5 was done(ish). Doodle worked brilliantly in this social situation (and had the added benefit of impressing a couple of my friends who had never heard of it before. Though another one mentioned that her mother-in-law was using Doodle to schedule her 80th birthday party.)

I agree with the majority of Cam23 participants – Doodle is straightforward, simple to use and has the enormous benefit of not requiring registration. I would definitely use this again for social scheduling or for arranging meetings for committees I’m on. I can see the usefulness in the workplace too – this is something of real use for library staff (though possibly less so for interactions between staff and library users).

I’m not even troubled by the name. For all those who hate the name, here’s the official explanation of why Doodle is called Doodle:

I personally don’t buy this explanation. I think they just wanted to be just as successful as Google and so picked something that sounded similar. Quite late in the development stages when the logo had already been designed, someone burst into the office and said “can you believe it, doodle is already a verb!” and they all put their heads in their hands, realising that Doodle wouldn’t be able to follow Google’s footsteps in coining a new verb. If only they had all chosen “Foofle” in the name-our-new-scheduling-service poll.

Keeping up with the pack

…. huffing and puffing as I arrive well behind the majority of the cam23 bloggers…  

I finally need to do my Thing 4 post and talk about iGoogle.  

I had set up an iGoogle page not long before the start of 23 Things, based on the recommendation Ange Fitzpatrick made over on the UL staff blog (I can’t link to the blog itself as it’s restricted access).  

However my iGoogle page looked more than a little unloved. I have to say, I like the idea of the personal start page but wasn’t comfortable with it in practice. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why but then the estimable Passion & The Fury described this discomfort (well, actually she calls it physical pain) as “having to log into Google to see my own front door“. I’ve seen others mention the same reluctance to use iGoogle and I’m glad I’m not the only who felt this way.  

To carry out Things 1 & 2, I spruced up my poor folorn-looking iGoogle page, added some useful tabs, some cute owls (different for each tab), the COPAC widget and some RSS feeds.  

My 23 Things tab on iGoogle

 

This was my 23 Things tab (I also have a Work and Home tab, though I’m not a pet hamster kind of a librarian).  By the way, I noticed lots of people blogging about problems getting images into the blog. That bit was fine, but I couldn’t do the cropping/tidying up of screenshots that I would normally do as I’m staying with family and using a computer that doesn’t have anything but Paint (which doesn’t seem to want to let me crop). 

You can see, I started adding useful RSS feeds here. However, as more and more blogs appeared on the Cambridge 23 Things blogroll, I realised my poor iGoogle tab wasn’t going to cope. It was already loading very slowly with just a handful in there. Thanks to the work done by Josh, LK and Girl in the Moon, I’ve been busily trying to get a complete list in various kinds of feed readers. More about that in another post.  

In conclusion  

So I don’t think that iGoogle is for me, though I continue to tinker with my tabs and pages still. I’m more impressed with Google Reader (which will come in a later post).  

I think a large part of the problem is that I’m not willing to leave myself permanently logged in to my Google account on my work computer, it just doesn’t feel right. I didn’t use my work email to set up my Google account – I already had one actually, from my Blogger days I think, and I try not to use my work email to register for things online unless they are directly work-related.  

I do feel a real need for something web-based as I’m now working part-time and so am sometimes scheduling things or replying to emails when I’m away from the library. It would be useful to be able to access some kind of ”work space” with information, links, feeds and a calendar (looking ahead to Thing 6) from my home computer. I’m going to investigate CamTools more seriously as it might be able to offer all the things I would want but without having to go through Google.  

I couldn’t have iGoogle as my startpage on the laptop at home as I share that. We have the BBC as our homepage (which has the option of some personalised settings too, but which is already causing a conflict about the choice of radio station as the default. Maybe I should set up a Doodle poll on preferences between Radio 4 and 5Live?).

A blog is born

Here it is, my 23 Things blog as part of the Cambridge 23 Things programme.

I have been really looking forward to taking part in 23 Things, as I’m hoping it will force me to find some time for exploring various Things. I used to think that I was fairly up to date with this kind of thing but I gradually realised that by “recently” I was basically meaning 4 or 5 years ago. Which is at least one generation in web terms, if not more. Without a specific project or immediate need to try some of these tools, then it’s difficult to make time and also devote some thought to them. So 23 Things will hopefully provide the opportunity and encouragement I need.

I’m very interested in social media and learning new skills and using new technologies. I have blogged in various guises since 2000, which is possibly before Web 2.0 existed – a quick search of Wikipedia reveals the term Web 2.0 was coined in 1999 but didn’t gain currency until 2004. I’ve contributed to collaborative blogs but never had a personal blog. I have worked on more than one blog in Blogger before, so I’m using this opportunity to learn more about WordPress.

At the launch party last week, Andy Priestner asked whether there was already a sense of community among Cambridge librarians. In my opinion, as someone who has worked in a number of Cambridge libraries, there is — and there isn’t. I am particularly interested in seeing the new connections, friendships and working relationships that might be born out of the peer support and social networking that form an integral part of 23 Things.