Monday 16 December 2013

IS10010 - You tube playlist created

I created a YouTube play list to gather the video's from YouTube that I used while lecturing. The play list can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nBWI1Wb_nCdJmbpAjUdtAFJ0lmX_tOo
Even though YouTube is now the second most used search engine,some of the topics we were covering proved to be challenging in relation to locating relevant video material to illustrate the point.
See more at http://socialmediatoday.com/socialbarrel/1650226/second-largest-search-engine-infographic  

Making the play list was easy.
I gathered the listings/ links from the reading list and the lectures.
I logged onto my Google Account (YouTube and Google are one log in now) and went to YouTube.
Next I clicked on new play list, entered the title, and made it public,
Then I entered the details and added the videos by url.
It took a while for the list to complete because of the number of videos added.

Finally I added art - made with Wordle and Adobe Firework. Positioning this correctly was the most challenging part of the process.


Friday 15 November 2013

Information Visualization



Information visualization is a great way of representing a lot of data quickly in context, and meaningfully. It can present information in a revolutionary way providing insights that could not be recognised if exampled in 'plain text'.


Here are some examples

1. 200 years of 200 countires - World Wide Health and Wealth Data in 4 minutes - Video


2. Created from library statistics for Library ITT Dublin



3. From Visual/ly

A Librarians Worth
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Friday 8 November 2013

Multilingual Controlled Vocabulary Thesaurus & Bartoc

EuroVoc is a multilingual, multidisciplinary thesaurus covering the activities of the EU, the European Parliament in particular. It contains terms in 23 EU languages (Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish), plus Serbian.
EuroVoc is managed by the Publications Office, which moved forward to ontology-based thesaurus management and semantic web technologies conformant to W3C recommendations as well as latest trends in thesaurus standards. 
EuroVoc users include the European Parliament, the Publications Office, national and regional parliaments in Europe, plus national governments and private users around the world.


The Basel Register of Thesauri, Ontologies and Classifications (BARTOC) collects metadata of controlled and structured vocabularies and provides a search interface in 20 languages. Metadata are enriched with DDC-numbers down to the third level and subject headings from Eurovoc, the EU's multilingual thesaurus (© European Union, 2013, http://eurovoc.europa.eu/). BARTOC currently contains about 600 items (Thesauri, Ontologies, Classifications, Controlled Vocabularies,
Taxonomies) in 65 languages and is still growing.

Thursday 12 September 2013

Starting Lecturing today - Information and Social Computing @ UCD

Looking forward to starting lecturing today, in Information and Social Computing. I am hoping to cover these topics, in a whirlwind tour of the area. Fingers crossed that it all goes according to plan. 

  • What is Information
  • What is Social ComputingHistory of Information
  • How humans deal with information
  • Information Design
  • Data, Metadata, Big data, Data Mining
  • Social Media and Networks
  • Machines and Humans
  • Futures
  • Information policy
  • Information Behaviour
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Information Seeking and Behaviour
  • Organization, groups, classification


Thursday 5 September 2013

SUMA > A Mobile Space Assessment Toolkit

I am very interested in trying this out, if I get the time - and a tablet at work!  

Overview from http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/spaceassesstool

Suma comprises a set of tools, including a mobile tablet-based (i.e. Apple iPad) data collection application, that will allow library staff to collect, aggregate, and interactively analyze real-time data about the usage of physical space and services. This tool will support the collection of more fine-grained data about physical space usage patterns by supporting the annotation of users with "activities." The data that this tool provides will allow the libraries to build on existing assessment practices by significantly improving our ability to analyze physical space usage trends against various milestones, as well as generating more dynamic and current data visualizations. As a result, this data can be both collected and utilized more frequently and at a much wider scope than before with relative ease.
This project is currently being used at NC State as a pilot project for a wider deployment. Examples of the current and planned uses for this toolkit include the collection and analysis of data relating to:
  • Building headcounts
  • Reference desk transactions
  • Experimental technology usage
  • Media production activities
  • Experimental furniture usage

IM use on library web sites - overview July 2013


7/24/2013AIM
We were seeking a free embedable chat widget, which does not require a log on and will alert staff to the existence of a chat message to replace the now defunct Meebo service. A survey of the Libraries of the top 100 universities and Irish Academic libraries was undertaken to establish if chat was available to patrons to establish what alternatives are available.

Method

The Top 100 Universities as listed by the Times Online at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/  were selected to be visited, along with the Universities and Institutes of Technology in the Republic of Ireland.  The library web site for each site was visited and any offering of Online chat / Virtual Reference was listed, including the service provider, and whether alternatives such as social media were offered. Non-english language sites were explored but it was difficult to establish if chat was available in the non-latin alphabet sites. Where evident alternatives were noted (links to social networks etc.) Each visit was cursory, as a measure of how obvious the chat service was, therefore it is possible that libraries identified as not offering this service do so, but were omitted as a result of this methodology.

General Results

Ireland

Of the 20 sites visited, 4 had chat / virtual reference offerings. 3 of these were identifiable as being provided by libraryh3lp. (UCD, NUIM and WIT). 1 was not identifiable (NUIG).  80% of Irish Academic Libraries do not offer online chat / virtual reference.

Top 100 Universities

Graph 1: Break down of chat provision by country.







US
38
UK
2
Australia
3
Belgium
0
Brazil
0
Canada
3
China
2
France
1
Germany
1
Hong Kong
2
Israel
0
Japan
1
Korea
1
Netherlands
3
Russia
0
Singapore
1
Sweden
1
Switzerland
0
Taiwan
0
Turkey
1



63% of the 100 library sites visited offered chat / virtual reference.  There was often more than 1 option offered. For example Chat, IM, SMS and an online form.
43% of the libraries were located in the US. Of these, 38 (88%) offered chat/virtual reference.
Excluding US based libraries 25 (44%) of the remaining libraries offer online chat/reference. However the trend is significantly different outside of North America.
23% offered links to social networks. These included Facebook, twitter, Google talk, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, LinkedIN and AOL.
IM was specifically offered by 8% of sites, but all of the services involved required account log ins for all participants.


Graph 2: Break down of percent of Universities offering chat by country



Europe has a much lower provision of online chat than North America.

Map 1: Geographical Spread.

Map from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/world_map1.htm visited 24 July 2013.  Red numbers are the Top 100 Universities by country, and the Green number is Ireland.


Table 3: Top 10 Universities – Library chat/ virtual reference provision
University
Chat / Virtual Reference Provision.
Harvard
NONE
MIT
LibGuides
University of Cambridge
NONE
Oxford University
Libraryh3lp
Berkeley
Question Point
Stanford
Libraryh3lp
Princeton
Libraryh3lp
UCLA
Question Point
Tokyo
NONE (note: only English language site visited)
Yale
NONE
40% do not provide chat, 30% use libraryh3lp, 20% Question Point and 10% Libguides.
Table 4: Top 100 Universities – Library chat services used
Service Used
Number of Sites Using
Libguides
2
Library Help
21
Question Point
21
Springshare
4 (Also Libguides)
Calis
1
Dotori on
1
Chatbot
2
Ask a librarian .org
1 (Florida State Initiative)
Facebook
1
Libanswers
1
Liveperson.net
1
Mycustomercloud.com
1

Secondary Observations

Alternatives to chat offered included online forms (Ask a librarian/ feedback etc (13)), e-mail links  (9)
Many chat services were limited in the time during which they were offered, additionally many were unavailable during the Summer.
It was difficult to establish who the service provider was – as the source code for the page had to be examined in most instances. This left some services unspecified.
23% of the libraries offered social media interactions. Of note is the UK, 2 sites offered chat, while 4 of the 7 that did not offered Social media connections.
Text / SMS services were offered by 5 % of the Top University Libraries.

Conclusion

  1. Libraries are not utilizing free chat services or widgets, their chat services are constituent parts of larger support services such as Springshare, Questionpoint.
  2. Library ITT Dublin, have very little uptake on the chat offered via Meebo previously.
  3. Trials of digsby, Trillian, etc., all proved unsatisfactory, failing to log on to social media sites, widgets failing to register on live web pages. Chatwing was the best of these, but did not offer an alert.
  4. Chat is only one part of virtual reference, other means of service provision can be explored.
  5. Social media can be utilized in the meanwhile. A trial of the embedded Facebook comment widget is currently in development. 

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Love Addthis.com

Inspired by a speaker at the IIUG last June, I finally got around to looking at the Senate House Catalogue and the social sharing buttons the integrated into the bibliographic records on their library opac.

Digging around in the source code pointed me towards addthis.com and a little while later, the bibliographic display now looks like this!
And the brief results list like this.


Cross browser display issues were solved by placing the add this code in a separate table, and using to to align the icons.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Great overview of the social media revolution

Glenn Mehta (#InfiniteRipple) showed us this video today, I think it gives a great overview of the state of Social Media's growth and direction. It explains a lot about why it's so dominant in peoples lives. 

2 new Facebook apps live

The Facebook apps I developed over the summer are now live on the Library's Facebook Page. There are two, one that embeds the catalogue search page, and one the embeds the exam paper search page. Both of these leverage our new responsive web design.
Two more are in development, but are reliant on services moving to providing https:// access. 

All I needed to do to make it live, was disable the sandbox and save the settings. 

Monday 2 September 2013

Inculsion of Search Boxes on Library Homepages - An Overview

When evaluating the library home page for a new design, I reviewed the inclusion and search targets of the search boxes on the library homepages of Libraries identified on Librarytechnology.org as having both Millennium and Summon, and Irish Academic Libraries irrespective of ILS or RDS. Where no box was immediately evident, but a link offered, this is noted in the table below.

Millennium is the library management software, and Summon is a resource discovery layer.  Both are used to provide search options to library web site users for locating print and electronic information.
Where another interface is offered instead this is noted. There is a clear trend to offer search on tabbed content or links, as opposed to search boxes on the homepage (14 sites)

Homepages were visited in July 2013.

Overview results

Institution

Library OPAC

Summon 

Other 

Comment

Brown University VuFind
Darlarna University * Summon only
Dartmouth College One Search Parsed records,
with three results columns:
Summon, Library
Catalogue, Library Web Site.
Fairfield Search options offered on tabs,
with addtional information on
mouse roll over 
Middlebury College Tabbed search option 
Murdoch University * Summon only
Queensland University of Technology * Customised with check
boxes for all, articles, etc.)
Temple University Search Tabs
University of Houston Lefthand menu - very clear
University of Miami Search Tabs
University of Nevada Popdown menu
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Search tabs including Google Scholar
includes options for articles and catalog
University of Tasmania Tick boxes  then databases, journals,
catalog (keyword & classic)
and help. Then explore more,
 includes, citation finder,
and ILL core tools.
Victoria University * * Search options listed, summon, book
and e-books, and journal articles
University College Cork Search Tabs
Trinity College Dublin Search Tabs
University of Limerick Search Tabs
NUI Galway One search box, with more options
Dublin City University Search tabs
NUI Maynooth Search tabs
GMIT * and Google custom search
AIT Search tabs
ITB * * via tick boxes
ITC *
CIT * *
IADT Search Tabs
DKIT *
LYIT *
LIT *
Sligo IT * Search tabs
ITT Dublin * search tabs Summon branded Find IT
ITTR * Link to summon
WIT * Link to summon
DIT * Link to summon




Wednesday 7 August 2013

FRAD - Functional Requirements for Authority Data A Conceptual Model - Now available via open access

Title details:
Functional Requirements for Authority Data 
A Conceptual Model 
IFLA Working Group on 
Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) 
Final Report 
December 2008 
Approved by the Standing Committees of the 
IFLA Cataloguing Section and IFLA Classification and Indexing Section 
March 2009
As amended and corrected through 
July 2013

IFLA cataloguing section newsletter published - FRBR updates included.

SCATNews
Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Cataloguing Section
Number 39 ISSN 1022-9841 June 2013
http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cataloguing/scatn/scat-news-39.pdf
  • Susan R. Morris - News from the Library of Congress
  • Gordon Dunsire  Update on cataloguing namespaces
  • Francois-Xavier Pelegrin - FRBR models and serials: release of version 0.1 of the PRESSoo model
  • Pat Riva  - FRBR Review Group, a retrospective and update
  • Mirna Willer  - ISBD: information on the activities so far, and the reasons for attending to it...

Monday 8 July 2013

IIUG Systems Pre-Conference 13/6/2013

The Systems Pre-conference, consisted of a Systems Librarians' meeting chaired by Margaret Waldron, Institute Librarian, at GMIT, and a series of presentations about systems projects undertaken to expand the capacity of the library system. (IIUG is the Irish Innovative Users Group who use the Millennium or Sierra systems. See more at http://irishinnovativeusersgroup.blogspot.ie/ )

Outcomes from the meeting included the setting up of a share wiki https://sites.google.com/site/iiugsystemslibrarians/  for the systems librarians, and the decision to approach HEANet for training re EDUGATE usage statistics. The share wiki is private and only available to users by invitation. All members are asked to share one systems related document. Details were posted to the IIUG Systems Librarians Google Group. https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!forum/iiugsystems
I have added our systems administration task list.

It is hoped to use Google hangout to exchange experience later in the year.

The afternoon as dedicated to presentations

Gary Cullen from LYIT spoke about their SMS texting solution

 for circulation notices. This solution was put in place following the observation that the students were not reading their notifications. It was decided o try SMSing them in addition to the e-mails automatically generated by the system. These notices were copied to a dedicated e-mail inbox and utilized by a custom script to populate data fields into the sms's to be sent. A second year computing student undertook the scripting work, working closely with the library. The selected SMS provider is an incubator business at LYIT, and costs significantly less than the III provider in the UK. c. 200 texts per month are sent. Students opt in at registration, for data protection purposes.


Elaine Doherty from DIT spoke about their OPAC refresh project in 2012. 

This was a very structured overview of the processes used and decision making processes employed. A fresh uncluttered look as implemented as a result of the project. The homepage looks simpler while offering more search options. A cross-browser design was implemented, using the firebug extension for Firefox. Useful resources included the Webpac WIKI and Sue Boggs IUG presentation.

Catherine Sanborn from UCC spoke about their implementation of Print Templates

, and resources that are available for implementing them locally and on the III web sites. The print template wiki was mentioned. Advice included starting with someone else's templates to see what they had done (TCD have loaded theirs onto the wiki). Notepad and iReport can be used to edit the templates, however it is important not to rename the files or they won't work. 

Friday 21 June 2013

Visit to Beautiful Ballyroan (Library) 21/6/2013

We visited Ballyroan Public Library today to look at their flooring, and their beautiful new library...

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Trust and Digital Preservation - RIA 4th June, 2013.

I attended the first day of the Trust and Digital Preservation workshop at the RIA on the 4th of June 2013. It was a very busy day with a lot of very specific information at the start. Eventually we got to examples of digital preservation projects, and trust certification routes. These are my headline notes from the day, and are not necessarily in chronological order. #DPTrust was used on the day. 

I decided to only attend day one, as I am new to the whole area. The high level of content on day one reinforced this decision.

Trust is one area of concern in relation to Digital repositories  the others are Sustainability, Usability and continued Access. 

Trust: can be certified. A certification of trustworthiness path is laid out, depending on the level of commitment, local expertise and import of the digital collection preserved different levels may suit different repositories. 

Activities in this area re being led by APARSEN 
APARSEn is finded from the EU's 7th Framework from 2011-4 and aims to unify diverse organisations and practices within the field encouraging coherence, cohesion and continuity. The Virtual Centre for Digital Preservation Excellence (VCOE) will provide online training.  A formal qualification is being considered. 

Digital Repository of Ireland focuses on contemporary historical, social and cultural data in Ireland. It is interactive and trusted. HEA PRTLI5 funds it until 2019. They have created a report - Digital Archiving in Ireland. The OAIS model is used (ISO 14721). Advice; Don't preserve everything - the organisation needs to decide strategically what should be preserved. (Also discussed were, OA to Metadata, DOI minting, PID's, file formats, IP/Copyright Issues)

Authenticity and Provenance of digital data is important. As a concept Trust has been used and abused, so be careful how you approach this topic. It is not blind or and act of faith. Depositors and End Users need to be able to trust the custodian/curator. Reliability is key. Core elements to trust are reputation, performance, competence and confidence which should be built into workflows and procedures. The level of trust required varies with the relative sensitivity of the nature of the materials. Librarians have good concepts and standards for this. (Also discussed InterPARES, CASPAR, SCIDIP-ES, PREMIS, ISO 15489 and ISO 16363 )

Ethical concerns were discussed as a barrier to the submission of data to repositories. The issue becomes how to protect and share this data, especially as the permission needed from participants in a research sample become more complicated over time. ON the other hand, not all data is sensitive. Anonymization has it's place (Levels of this were also discussed). Another issue is ethical committee mismatches to the research proposed. Informed consent V. invasion of Privacy. IQDA webpage was discussed. It was noted that solely digital storage is not reliable and that researchers should be encouraged to have three sources including one off site, and a paper copy. 

To encourage trust it should be mentioned explicitly in mission statements, indicating dedication, then the repository should do what it promises in this statement, building a reputation for trustworthiness, and be transparent, looking for peer-review and certification. 
There are standards of trust. See UK digital archive. These include the Data Seal of Approval. as the entry point for certification of trust. (Also mentions DANS, DIN,  NESTOR)
ISO  16363  and din 31644. Test auditing is due in 2013. 
ISO 16363 uses 100 metrics, the OAIS model and includes a full external audit by peers. 
Audit specification are still being finalized and training has yet to be undertaken by auditors. 
Data Seal of Approval was suggested as being sufficient for small repositories  while ISO/DIN would be appropriate for larger ones. RDA Group on Certification was mentioned in this context.

It was argued that trustworthiness is not an illusion. 

An overview of activities in this area since 2002 was given. ISO 16919 re auditing is in draft format. Also mentioned PTAB , CCSTS, RAC. Trusted Digital Repository EU


Any errors are my own please inform me of any and I will correct them! 

Friday 7 June 2013

Facebook Page Tab for the Library Catalogue!!!

Forgive me for getting excited about this, but I had a abortive attempt at creating a Facebook app for the library catalogue (several years ago). I also couldn't figure out how to get the Libx one working, so when I saw a post to an e-mail list about how easy it was with Facebook Page Tabs to do it for the Library Catalogue I couldn't wait to get dug in. While figuring it out I was intrigued to learn that Facebook are retiring their FB mark up languages, in favour of iFrames. This seems to have made my dive into Page Tabs easier than expected.

While it wasn't quite as easy as implied I did successfully pull it off inside of one morning.

Preparation: 

  • Sign up for Facebook Developers (You need to validate your account using a mobile phone number or credit card).
  • Decide on a name for your App 
  • Have a Facebook page to put your page tab on
  • Create a html page hosted elsewhere with the content you want to display in Facebook pre-populated. This page should be 810 px or 520 px wide. (I used a page from our library catalogue search interface) 
    • Know what the URL and secure URL for this page are.
  • Create or reuse an icon 111 x 74px to represent and link to your app from your Facebook Page. For Example, here's what I used. Please contact me if you want to use it. 

Here's what I did... (I'm not saying it will work for anyone else) 

Sign in to Facebook Developers
Click create new app
On the left hand menu under Settings, click on Basic
Enter as many details as you can.
I entered:

Basic Info

Display Name
Contact e-mail
Enabled sandbox

Select how your app integrates with Facebook 

Page Tab
Page Tab Name
Page Tab URL
Secure Page Tab URL
Uploaded a Page Tab Image that reads Library Catalogue
Selected the desired width (810 or 520)
Clicked save changes

Advanced settings were also visited and similar information entered.

Activating your Page Tab


Once complete I went to http://addpagetab.com and entered the number of my app. It takes a few minutes to appear.

Then I went back to Facebook developers and selected my testers

Next I visited my page and positioned my page tab icon (loaded above, reads Search Library Catalogue) by clicking on the icon, then selecting the pencil, and using the swop with instruction to move it into the desired place.

Testing

You have the option to test your app, which I really appreciate. So at the moment it's in testing as I know that the look and feel of our website will change in the next few weeks, and will probably remain in testing for the interim. But hopefully it will be live and kicking for the repeat exams. 
Here's how it looks on our Facebook Page

Here's how it looks in Facebook 


Wednesday 29 May 2013

LIR Social Media Lecture and Workshop - DIT Aungier St., 29/5/2013

I attended the LIR Social Media Lecture and Workshop - DIT Aungier St. this morning. The session was given by Glenn Mehta (see http://www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk/bookstore/author.aspx?authorid=303890). The following are my not so expert notes on the session, with a heavy bias on what I got out of the session. It was a very busy and informative session. Lots to think about now in relation to our retired library blog, and the possibilities for subject support. 

Main points: 

Focus of your social media activities should be engagement not follows/likes (although these are important to get the conversation started). Students have moved from being passive followers to active participants.
  • Socialnomics by Erik Qualman @equalman is a leading authority in this area. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM
  • Infinite Ripple by Glenn Mehta provides Irish Examples. http://www.infiniteripple.net/
  • Social Media includes (not comprehensive): 
    • Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Wikis, Blogs, Google+, VLE's, YouTube etc. 
    • and these create 
      • Real-time Information Streams
      • Discussions that can be reused to lighten customer service work loads
  • Ireland seems to be 8 months behind the global trend
  • Social Media has generated a fundamental shift in how we communicate, especially for the Millennial generations
    • Students want information in snippets, (snip-bits) and will follow a link to further information only if they think that it is relevant from the 140 character message that you post
      • Treat a post or tweet as a headline
  • OTT Messaging (What's App & Viber etc.) are replacing phone based testing
  • The move away from issuing students with institutional e-mail accounts, as they use social media to communicate, provides a cost saving
  • c. 96% of u30's in Europe and USA have a social media account. 
  • Smart phones will dominate by 2016
    • 4G networks will facilitate this. (16 months or so in Ireland to this being delivered)
  • Be conscious of what message you put up as it has the power to go global
    • Compliments go viral but so do complaints
      • Don't be afraid of negative statements, but make sure that they are responded to appropriately
    • Google ranks Facebook statements
    • Ask for opinions do not make instructional style statements 
      • This generation resists being told what to do
        • Instead use 'here's what's happening' and 'what do you think' type statements
  • 1/2 the Irish population have a Facebook account
  • Twitter and LinkedIn are growing fastest at the moment
    • Facebook fatigue is becoming an issue (55-65 currently biggest group joining Facebook)
      • Brands may disappear but social media is here to stay
  • Social Media supports our inbuilt herd mentality
  • Consider Subject Wiki's for collaborative learning, supports and gateways. 
  • Social Media users trust their circles (this is now things go viral) 

  • Strategic Uses: Remember your primary stakeholders are students 

    • Inform do not instruct
    • Enable your social media activities via increasing your Facebook page likes and your Twitter follows
    • Target your followers with RELEVANT INFORMATION, but don't bombard them
      • Think about why it is relevant to your students, and make it timely
        • For example students may not feel that information about writers is of relevance to them as their aims are to pass exams and gain employment
        • Use associated topics
          • Use ITUNES and other Libraries resources which are relevant to your students. (You don't have to generate all the content yourself)
        • Include images 
        • DON'T LEAVE MORE THAN 5 DAYS BETWEEN TWEETS/POSTS
    • Use tools like Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com) and HootSuite (hootsuite.com) to manage your dissipate accounts, including scheduling tweets/posts in advance
      • These apps display accounts on columns, and allow for quick browsing through content. (For example: on a pc you might see 4 columns: what you follow, when you are mentioned, messages to you, your content)
        • Connect to Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ etc. all in the one place
      • One person should be responsible, but more than one can generate tweets/posts
        • Do not leave your accounts idle for more than 2-3 weeks. 
        • Organize content for when you go on holiday in advance and schedule it to post
    • Regular updates - benefits: Likes, Comments and Shares influence the algorithms used by Facebook (appear in news feeds, leads to comments  improves positioning etc) , #hashtags can influence search engine rankings
    • Blog regularly, but use headline statements on twitter to inform followers, enclose a link to the full content
      • 400 words is too long for the current student cohort
      • Once posted, inform students of it's existence as follows
        • 1 > There's a blog post about x
        • 2 > Something relevant from the post (give them a reason to want to read it)
        • 3> Final reminder: This is why this content will benefit you
          • Do this over 2 weeks
      • Regularity improves your ranking
    • YouTube content is some of the most shared content out there
      • Utilize your institutions stream
    •  If you begin a conversation, leave it to the participants > monitor it (delete inappropriate and irrelevant content)
      • Respond politely if needed, but on their level even if you have to 'resort' to text speak and abbreviation
        • Too much formality is off putting especially for undergraduates, and could kill the thread. Let it grow organically
    • Show humor in posts and include media (pictures, videos etc.)

    • #Hashtags: use of a # allows you to follow comments as a group / community conversation 

      • #hashtags are not NORMALLY subject to copyright
        • Check for companies, and trademarks
          • If someone if using one already, consider using something unique
      • Can filter by country
      • Works cross platform 
      • Try hyper-linking your #hash-tags
      • re-tweet (RT) credits the origin
    • Make social media the main focus of you two-way communication
  • At the end of all this activity you will know if you have been successful if you have increased engagement as users do want you in their social spaces
    • Followers become users
  • To get started consider running a competition, with a small prize, load the recording of the draw onto YouTube. This will help determine if your students are willing to engage. 
  • For librarians LinkedIn should probably stay as a professional networking tool, and Facebook communication should be through a library Facebook page not a personal account. 
  • Use e-mail icons on all communications to promote your accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Blog)
  • Consider posting QR codes around the library routing to the library site
    • Make it easy for them 
  • You cannot control who likes a Facebook page
  • DKIT library:example of good practice
Glenn's book "Infinite Ripple"s website also includes teaching resources, podcast, and adobe connect materials (some coming soon). The resources on www.InfiniteRipple.net contain some material that is copyright free (lecture slides and later in the summer recordings of lectures), but the lecturer copies of the eBook are obviously not copyright free!