Musings about librarianship

Adding social & gamification to the library - Catalogues & Lemontree

2012-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

First a recep of the story so far.

Libraries first came online with webopacs and it was good. Then came the wave of next generation library catalogues (including Encore, Aquabrowser, Primo) and they were suppose to be better. How much better? They were supposed to be more "google like" (no more field searches and boolean!), they had faceted browsing, relevancy ranking, autocorrect and "did you mean" features? And above all they were SOCIAL, allowing users to tag, rate, add comments etc.

Now 5 years down the road, while some of the other features like faceted browsing and relevancy ranking seemed to have had some value (e.g. Facets are used more than advanced searches), social features seems to have mostly being a failure particularly at academic libraries (anyone disagree?).

The main reason seems (1) Users have no incentive to use social features leading to (2) lack of mass. Even Google with all their clout are laboring mightily to push their Google+ social network, would libraries on their own institution by institution stand a chance?

It's heartening to notice that ILS vendors seem to have finally grasped this point.

Innovative Interface's recent press release, Encore Release 5 brings social networking capabilities to discovery platform says this

" In Release 5 of Encore, users will be able to "like" all kinds of library content such as books, movies, and music. Sharing these finds on social networks will be easy, with the use of a standard set of sharing links that include Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. Encore Release 5 will also provide users with the ability to create and share their own home page with options to include a profile, reviews, reading lists they create, or items they have checked out or put on hold. What's more, library users will find more content created by their peers thanks to a pool of reviews and shared lists created by Encore users worldwide."

Under the heading the "right kind of social"

"The new capacities of Encore represent the right way to approach social features in libraries," says Encore Product Manager Alan Dyck. "We've formally surveyed librarians and found that an approach that connects with social activities, rather than recreating a social platform, will be most desirable for them and their communities. At many points, users will find options to share things to social networks patrons are already using, while also discovering the views and reviews of their peers in Encore."

Exactly right! No point creating a separate social platform if it does not connect to current dominant ones like Facebook. The idea of pooling content from all users of the system not just from one library is another good step, though one wonders if one could pool with only academic libraries etc. Another system that does the pooling user generated content trick across institutions is Bibliocommons and LibraryThing for libraries.

But these new features, brings the user who is already on library pages to user's social media world, but what about the reverse? Getting users who on social media platforms to the library?

Another press release SirsiDynix announces SirsiDynix Social Library, industry’s first native Facebook app

"Patrons of SirsiDynix Social Library can securely log in to their library via Facebook, just as they do today at their physical library using the same credentials. Among other capabilities, the SirsiDynix Social Library solution also enables library users to:
Search their local library catalog and place holds on materials of interest right from the library's Facebook page.
Access My Account features including checkouts, hold management and payment history.
Share and ‘like' library materials within the social environment where users worldwide currently spend more than 700 billion minutes each month."

Brunel University Library, Facebook app

Brunel University Library, Facebook app (check account)

Native facebook apps that allow logins (not just a search box) are not easy to do (I know of only 2 libraries that have done so), so this is a very amazing feature. With so many users already stuck on Facebook for them to be able to do all their library searching in Facebook would help tremendously

Next steps?

It seems to me that the next obvious thing to do is to include such social features into the latest "Discovery" or unified index products like Summon, Ebsco Discovery Service, etc, many of which currently do not have much.

After all if this works for books, it's probably even better for articles, particularly the "pooling" of all user generated content in the system across institutions feature which might suddenly become the fabled "Facebook for Scientist/Researchers" that people have being trying so hard for the last few years without success (many are dying off, Mendeley & ResearchGate seem to be around?).

Incidentally I am not sure why database platforms insist on trying to create private workspace type features that are supposed to serve as a way to manage one's research, are these really going to takeoff? The chances of me wanting to go learn this one interface to manage my research project is limited as it's a very closed and worse yet limited silo that can't easily pull in other articles from other sources.

Compare to Summon-like solutions which while not being close to 100% complete, are close enough to be worth using (though I imagine they should include ways to pull in papers not indexed if they really want to function as a place to manage research, though frankly my money is more on online citation managers finding winning the crown)

I can imagine though I am searching Summon etc and I find a couple of papers that might be of interest to my collaborators, one click and it goes off to a Facebook list of my research collaborators.

But I guess that's a longshot, as for that to succeed, a lot of other features have to be put in, beyond a posting of reviews to Facebook feature so my money is still on something like say Mendeley or citeulike or ResearcherID winning the crown for "Facebook for researchers"

The other stumbling block is that there is still some confusion over whether such unified index products can eventually take the place of webopacs etc, so will there ever be a Facebook app for say Summon or EDS that allows you to check your loan account in Facebook? (Note: some products are all-in-one)

Gamification

But the above is still pretty trivial and the library automation industry is typically a few years behind what is cutting edge in silicon valley etc, so all the announcements coming out last week from ALA MidWinter is still really playing catching up.

So what's currently hot? Gamification ! In my opinion in the lead among libraries now I believe is University of Huddersfield's implementation of Lemon Tree , current development blog

The idea here is obvious to use game and social based techniques to encourage increased usage of resources.

"You get points for doing all sorts of things in and around the library like; visiting it, borrowing items, doing things at specific hours, returning items in certain combinations and much more..." .

As you might expect there are achievements and badges, levels to gain etc.

Lemon Tree

As far as I understand it (you can't do much without having a library card), you associate your card to the system and it will keep track of all your activities and will give you points even if you don't interact with the Lemontree system from that point on. Though of course you can choose to comment, review, annotate.

It's a really interesting project , that has been live for only a few months with little promotion, and it already has 120 users, 44,585 points scored and 333 badges unlocked!

Here's the game in the words of the developers themselves

I also highly recommend downloading and watching the presentation by Andrew Walsh to get for a full view.

But here are some screenshots. You can see what is happening currently, and performance by schools

Lemontree page

Leaderboard

You can see a leaderboard, including by schools. Here's what you can see of the current top Lemon Tree player

It's curious how much of the data is open even to someone unregistered like me. When you register you can choose to hide the titles of books borrowed though.

But I guess this reflects perhaps the current trend of being open, after all users of LibraryThing, Goodreads, and traditional Social networks like Twitter are by default open. However, these are generally for non-academic uses, so it's unclear if students might be uneasy with letting other students see what they are reading particularly if it can be keyed to a course for competitive reasons.

Facebook app

It goes without saying Facebook apps are available and you can login to Lemon Tree using it. Roughly 50% of current Lemontree users use the app, selected achievements, activities like reviewing books are posted to Facebook.

Cool badges

Points for reviews, comments

Provides a reason for users to comment, review items. Currently points cannot be exchanged for anything tangible real world rewards currently, because developers want to focus on getting the game mechanics correct for people to play Lemontree for the game itself (ie incentive is the game itself)

View library with friends to gain more points - Shades of FourSquare checkins - specials?

It's by a company called Running in the halls who are very into libraries and who state that they want to

"Work with specialists to support more library systems and interoperate with other services. we’re obviously really keen on talking to Talis, Axiell and SirsiDynix as well as the people behind enrichment services such as librarything *which we love*..."

The project has a Twitter account and a Facebook page

The library people involved in the project are the fabulous Andrew Walsh and Dave Pattern. For more, I also recommend watching the video presentation.

This project is in very early phases, they are planning mobile, linking to their own in-house reading list software where users can perhaps get lemon tree points for clicking on links, adding comments etc..

I can imagine one could give points for all sorts of things from exploring the library portal, search for FAQs, using email or chat service to contact the librarian, contributing book reviews, recommending books for purchase etc, Points for scanning qrcodes on instructional material etc.. Pretty much anything you want to encourage. Really exciting.

One must consider I suppose the possibility that users might start gaming the system and even in the case of Lemon Tree where there are no tangible rewards (unlike say Foursquare Mayorship at Starbucks), there has already being one case of slightly "naughty" behavior.

Andrew Walsh in the presentation mentions they are pretty unique and the closest is perhaps Summer Game at AADL.

Summer Game at AADL badges

He also mentions this is a "Vanilla" basic build and that the company Running in the halls are planning other library themed games for other university libraries as well as other "favours" for Public Libraries..... which may even work better given the population size they serve.

Receiving the LAS Outstanding Newcomer award

2012-01-15T06:56:00.000-08:00

2011 has been an amazing year for me professionally, I got to attend my first overseas conference (ALA annual 2011), spoke overseas, contributed a few articles and a book chapter or two. More amazingly, I was named a LJ Mover & Shaker 2011 in March, voted best speaker at a LAS (Library of Association) Library seminar in April and my luck continued towards 2012, where I was voted one of several "NUS Libraries Shining Stars" by my colleagues and last week I was awarded the LAS award for outstanding newcomer and to top it off I was promoted to the rank of Senior Librarian!

The above sounds really boastful & self congratulatory but I am also humbled by all the accolades which makes me pause and think about what I can do to help the profession. The traditional 5 year period which marks one as a newcomer expires for me in Aug 2012, so very soon I can no longer hide behind the "I'm still a newbie" excuse.

To begin with I was asked to say a few words at the LAS event to encourage future and current librarians. I was somewhat surprised to have to do this, as I was under the impression all I had to do was to go up stage and shake hands. :)

This is what I came up with.

"Thank you all for the award, I am humbled to receive this award. I am sure you all read or heard much talk about the predicted demise of libraries with people talking about libraries becoming extinct. I remember even at my very first LAS conference a few years back, the guest of honour- a non-librarian said that he sensed gloom and doom from us and of course last year at this very event a similar sentiment was expressed.

But while I feel there is much to do and change in libraries, we are far from finished. Recently even Richard Watson, the futurist who placed libraries in the extinction timeline in 2020 recently said that he repents (so I guess he feels like the people in Aljunid now”) and that he got it “Totally wrong”.

The danger lies in us librarians admitting defeat and discouraging other bright new passionate minds from joining the profession and contributing the fresh ideas that we so very need. Believe it or not librarians-to-be look up to us and they want to be us. I experienced this first hand, as a newly minted librarian, where a few students would come up to me and say they wanted to be a librarian. How should one respond?

In my personal and professional life I have seen the difference been positive and believing and fighting for what you believe can do. I have won professional battles simply by believing something is possible and going for it.

But you can’t win all battles, and inevitably you will feel fustrated. But if there is one thing I have learnt is that being frustrated is normal.

Roy Tennant from OCLC perhaps said it best in An Open Letter to New Librarians

" Deeply committed and visionary people will also tend to be frustrated and impatient. But I’m here to tell you that with dedication and patience you will not only survive, but thrive. Our profession is counting on you to do so. Only the best and the brightest are frustrated. Everyone else is bored, or unengaged, or biding their time for retirement. You are the ones we simply cannot do without.”

Personally I have suffered setbacks that made me consider leaving the industry and it was only with the support of friends, family, peers from the library world, colleagues in particular my direct boss and the senior library leadership of NUS Libraries that did not happen.

I know this is just the beginning of my career and my speech sounds almost like I've won an oscar, but like most of you, libraries is my life and I am looking forward to working with you all to contribute towards the future of libraries

Thank you."

Okay, while that was what I planned to say, in actual fact I was so nervous I forgot what I wanted to say and pretty much messed it up. :) I did manage to get Roy Tennant's quote correctly and it draw applause (thanks Roy!)

While I am still fairly junior and still have a very long way to go myself, I pledge in 2012 to focus less on myself and focus more when I can on helping, encouraging and sharing my experiences with my bright, passionate & inevitably impatient and often frustrated juniors.

After all we need as many talented and passionate librarians working side by side to secure the future of libraries and we all have to play our part to ensure this.

Options for managing content across multiple devices - iPhone/iPad/Desktop

2011-12-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

Compared to a couple of years ago where most people had to manage files/information on at most two devices - Home + Work PC, today we have multiple devices. Some of these include

Work PC
Home PC
Laptops
Tablet PCs
Smartphones
Ebook readers

With so many devices to handle, the rise of the cloud is a big boon as it allows us to access services/data no matter what device we are on.

For context, I use a iPhone and an iPad, but don't have any dedicated ebook reader.

Managing files/links/contacts/schedules/tasks/photos etc across multiple devices

This is a biggie and there are dozens if not hundreds of services trying to help you do this. The options are often mindboggling. Some of the ones often mentioned are

1) Google services (Google docs, Gmail, Google calender etc)

2) Apple family (iCloud services) -

3) Browser syncing functions - Chrome. Firefox (built-in), Xmarks

4) Note taking + All in one services - Evernote , Microsoft's OneNote, Springpad etc

5) Traditional social bookmarking services - Delicious, Diigo , Pinboard& newer more visual ones like Pinterest

6) Readitlater services - Instapaper, Readitlater even the latest iOs device has a "Add to reading list" function.

7) File syncing services - Dropbox, Box, Goodreader, Minus, Microsoft Skydrive (new ios app)

8) All-in-one services - Trunk.ly (bought out by delicious), Greplin, Primadesk

Some of the above mentioned apps on iPhone

Honestly, this is a huge topic, and right now we are still in the infancy stage of things, so services are coming in and then dropping like flies as consolidation occurs.

There are many types of content, one wants to manage, from contacts to emails to photos to documents to links, but in this post I am just going to concentrate mostly on links and a little on files.

Say you are working on your desktop say creating a slidedeck, then leave for a meeting and you want or expect the slides to be available on your iPad as quickly as possible. What are your options?

(The reverse has to occur as well, you are showing something on your iPad, say you sketch something , or take minutes and expect it to be available on your other devices, but let's ignore that for now.)

See a interesting link on Twitter and want to save the link for future reading? Someone send you a link to a file/webpage you want to save and read later? See a page on your desktop computer and want to quickly see how it looks on your mobile phone? What are your options?

Via email

The simplest option in most cases is just email yourself the link. Then access the link via email on your mobile phone. But this solution only works short term. Another solution provided by almost every web2.0 service out there is to email the link or document to a "secret email address" and it will be automatically stored there. The picture below shows that you can setup a special secret email address to send links and it will be saved in delicious. Almost every other service listed above has this as well (though usually you can't choose the email address).

It is usually a good idea to setup a email contact as the email address is usually very long and random so it's hard to remember and even harder to type in on a phone!

Syncing bookmarks

Alternatively one could use Browser syncing functions - Chrome. Firefox (built-in) or cross platform, Xmarks .

Apps like Firefox home are interesting because they not only allow you to quickly access Firefox bookmarks on mobile but you can easy access tabs that are currently open on different PCs. Below shows some of the tabs I have open on other synced firefox.

Some tabs open on my Firefox on my laptop and work pcs

Leaving this option aside, if one is syncing bookmarks, the main problem here is that do you want to mess up all your browser bookmarks with every link you used to intend to read a while ago? Normally I store only the most often used links on my bookmarks.

In some cases you don't want a permanent bookmark but just want to quickly push a link to view from your desktop to your iPad. Solutions like Site to Phone, PasteFire make it easy after a one-time setup.

Go to PasteFire webpage and type the text in

Pastefire link pushed to iPhone

Site-to-phone chrome addon that will instantly send the page you are on in chrome (addons for firefox exist also) to your iphone the link

Site-to-phone , PasteFire are good options if you want to just temporarily view/transfer links to your mobile phone, but what if you want to store them as well as access them and don't want to fill up your browser bookmarks. Social bookmarking services seem to be the key right?

ReaditLater vs traditional bookmarking services

Besides the obvious functions like a app to quickly access on mobile/ipad and the ability to store links or resources by emailing to a secret email address, from what I can see you there seem to be three additional functions you might want

1) to keep track of documents/links that you intend to read "soon"

2) to find some link you remember been tweeted, or seen on facebook or someone sent you a while ago via email or otherwise stumbled upon.

3) To create notes, or "clip" some section of a website for later reading, add scanned document/receipts etc..

In theory (1) can be handled by a traditional bookmarking service, but there seems to be a market for handling the two differently with the rise of "read it later" services. (3) I don't quite do, but many people swear by Evernote and similar services, or are experimenting with curation type services like Scoop.it, curate.us and storify, those the later three are for public display and sharing then for private consumption.

For (1), I have gone between the use of Instapaper and Readitlater . I have eventually settled on Instapaper because it is better supported than Readitlater on other apps, though the free app of instapaper on iOS5 stores only 10 articles.

Instapaper app on iPhone

The main thing about Instapaper and its rivals is that it stores links you feed it, in a offline cache that you can read even without internet access. As a bonus it strips off access unnecessary graphics so all you see is the text and can concentrate on reading.

This article stored on Instapaper

From there, you can feed it to a classic social bookmarking service like Delicious or Diigo for longer term storage.

Are such services a necessity? I am not sure but I sure but use it anyway to avoid mixing it up with other links I store on classic bookmarking services which I consult only when I need to find some half remembered link.

The father of all Social bookmarking tools, Delicious still exists though Yahoo has recently sold it off after years of neglect. The changes the new owners have made have been even more unpopular and a lot of people I know have migrated their content to Diigo , Pinboard (particularly since it was free for librarians for a certain period in early 2011).

Of course since the rise of social bookmarking, mobile started to rise, so by now many of the traditional social bookmarking services like Diigo have apps that you can use or your iPhone or failing that a mobile site. You can search through all the links you saved in Diigo and then download the pages the links are to for offline reading (similar to Instapaper).

Searching via diigo iphone app

As I write now in Dec 2011, there is intense interest in tools like Pinterest , which have a more visual style (the new delicious is revamping to be similar)

Autofeeding links

But let's go back to (2)

2) to find some link you remember been tweeted, or seen on facebook or someone sent you a while ago via email or otherwise stumbled upon.

Most of us encounter new links via other services like facebook or Twitter, bookmarklets, "Secret email addresses", add-ons allow us to selectively send such links to social bookmarking services. But what about those of us who want *everything* ie every link you encountered on such services saved?

You can accomplish on a limited scale for pushing links shared on Twitter with delicious or diigo using http://packrati.us/ which allows links you fav, tweet or retweet to be automatically stored on various social bookmarking services, but really such services should be built-in and secondly it only solves the problem of links seen on twitterbut not via say Facebook.

But I think modern social bookmarking tools that autofeed links from various sources will need 1 more additional feature to make sense of the chaos. I feel...

(A) Autofeed links from other sources including Twitter/Facebook/Blogger/Tumbler/Quora/Instapaper as well as other social bookmarking tools such as delicious etc.

comes naturally with

(B) Save a cached copy of the links you feed it, this aids in finding the link you need.

Pinboard (annual payment required) and Trunk.ly are two such services. The idea here is to store every link you have ever come across regardless of the source and allow you to search across it. This help solves the "I vaguely recall this link I saw on the net, but can't find it problem"

Pinboard

Trunk.ly in particular comes closest to this, saving links automatically from

Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Blogger
Tumbler
Posterous
WordPress
Quora
Instapaper
Googlereader
Delicious
Any rss feed

Some sources you can auto-add links from in Trunk.ly

Add the traditional way of sharing via bookmarklet and sending to a secret email address, Trunk.ly and similar services gives you a way to build up a database of practically every link you have or will come across in your journeys across the net.

Tweet a link? It is automatically stored. Share a link on Facebook? Ditto? Post a blog post in blogger? Every link in there is stored.

Once you start adding practically every link you come across on the net, searching to find the link you saw a while ago can become difficult due to the mass, hence services like Trunk.ly and Pinboard actually cache a copy of the link with search matching it, so it increases the chance of finding what you bookmarked rather than just rely on matching the link description or tweet.

Unfortunately Trunk.ly has just been acquired by Delicious though this raises the hope that Delicious will start to include similar features.

Somewhat similar to Trunk.ly but even more ambitious is Greplin . Greplin is even more comprehensive then Trunk.ly since it does not restrict itself to handling just links. It does everything from status updates to document files ,contacts and yes links.

Some sources you can add greplin to

Greplin iPhone app

Greplin search on iPhone shows mails, events, messages & Links (not shown)

It's pretty much the ultimate personal search engine, pulling from almost every digital nook and cranny and storing it in one place, this including pulling from services like Evernote which were envisioned as all-in-one places.

It doesn't quite cache webpages behind links so it doesn't fully substitute Trunk.ly in that area. The other thing I noticed is it doesn't quite do photo sharing services like Picasa or flickr yet.

Somewhat similar is Primadesk , though this focuses on combining cloud services. Have dropbox, boxit, sugarsync, flickr, picasa, googledocs, gmail etc and want to combine them together? Use Primadesk! Another competitor in this area is Backupify

Some accounts you can add to Primadesk

Search primadesk

In many ways these services, in particular Trunk.ly reminds me of 2009ish lifestreaming aggregator services like friendfeed, Plaxo that attempted to pull everything into one place though in the case of Friendfeed it was designed more for consumption by others while Trunk.ly is designed more for personal use.

Currently I have a fairly complicated system

1) Links I tweet via Flipboard/Zite/ or anything via Twitter in fact are automatically pushed to Pinboard.

2) Occasionally there are links I want to save to read for later but don't tweet , perhaps on desktop, so I use instapaper on it. This is pushed to Pinboard as well.

3) I have setup contacts to send emails to Pinboard etc, bookmarklets for various services so for services that don't officially support what I use, I can open them in Safari on iPhone/iPad then use the bookmarklet or email myself the link. On desktop, I have setup similar bookmarklets as well as browser extensions (e.g Instachrome) if they exist both to quickly send links to services I use, and to quickly view stuff I added on Instapaper/Pinboard etc.

4) Trunk.ly, Greplin and Primadesk , aggregate everything together.

If I am just searching for links, I usually search via Pinboard or better yet Trunk.ly (I don't pay the annual fee for Pinboard caching). Greplin is pretty good as well , there is a free excellent iOS app for Greplin that one can use if one wants to go beyond links and find emails as well.

Conclusion

As usual I wrote this long geeky post more for myself to hear myself think.

I am still trying to figure things out, with all the bewildering options available and I don't use Evernote class options! Nor have I touched on cloud based services handing docs and files like Dropbox, Goodreader etc, syncing contacts/apps/emails/photos or iPad specific Apps like Fileboard, SlideShark (for showcasing powerpoints with animation).

What do you guys use?

Top 12 library blog posts I am proudest of

2011-12-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

My blog has existed for almost 3 years, and I have blogged over 130 blog posts, some of them I look back and laugh at how naive I was (subject of a future post), others I was proven completely wrong by subsequent events and yet a few that seem to have stood the test of time and makes me proud to have blogged them.

These are my top 12 favorites.

1. What are mobile friendly library sites offering? A survey. (April 2010)

Popularity does not always correlate with usefulness or significance, I have a few posts relating to social media that were retweeted upwards of a 100 times but in my opinion probably don't deserve the attention, but this one is both useful and popular. It was at the time (there are now a few surveys in academic journals) one of the first fairly comprehensive survey of mobile library sites features at a time libraries were wondering how to do mobile sites and is one of my most tweeted and by far most cited blog post (e.g OCLC Abstracts, ALA OITP report, NFAIS etc). In fact it was even mentioned by my nominator on my Mover & Shaker citation!

Does it deserve all the recognition? At the risk of sounding too boastful, I think yes. It was not a comprehensive survey in terms of listings of numbers but I am proud of the way I organized each section and the 3 styles and compared like to like... I followed it up later with one on mobile native apps and more recently mobile databases.

2. Twelve User points of need - where to place your services online (Oct 2010)

This is one blog post I still refer to sometimes. In many ways it's nothing special, I am hardly the first librarian to come across the concept of point of need, but in this post I systematically list possible points online and it seemed to be useful to other librarians. Whether it is a link to a faq or a chat point, it is a useful list of points you can consider placing your services.

I was amazed to see it was in the top 10 blog posts on the hugely popular iLibrarian blog!

3. Why libraries should proactively scan Twitter & the web for feedback - some examples (June 2010)

While I blogged about techniques to scan twitter before this, this was the first post, I actually shared the results and experiences (with kind permission from my superiors at my place of work). I have a lot more data now, see more recent presentation, but I can say very little to improve on what I wrote here. It was and still is I feel a powerful piece for advocating that libraries should use social media to connect with users.

4. Eight Articles about the future of libraries that made me think (May 2010)

I have generally refrained from blogging about weighty issues like future of libraries up to recently, going so far to even blog my unofficial thoughts on a short-lived posterous blog. This blog post which summaries eight provocative blog posts on future of libraries was written more for myself as a reminder to think of the big issues and not get too caught up in the details and the short view.

More recently it inspired Is librarianship in crisis and should we be talking about it? and
5 inspirational words of wisdom to librarians

5. Funniest library related movies made using Xtranormal (October 2010)

Library School: Hurts So Good

I can't remember what inspired me to do this, but I do remember spending hours searching Youtube with keywords Xtranormal and Youtube. I still find the 7 list of movies created using Xtranormal amusing, including a 8th one on FRBR & cataloguing that came out later.

6. Twelve good library videos that spoofs movies or tv (Aug 2010)

This is the predecessor of #5. I knew about Librarians Go Gaga: 9 Of The Funniest Library Videos even then but I really loved the two KU Libraries spoof of Lord of the Rings and Matrix which inspired me to go hunt down a list of other movies! To this day, I don't think any library video has topped those two.

7. Opensearch vs custom toolbar vs smart keyword vs bookmarklet (I) (April 2009)

In many ways , this is the blog spot that started it all. I had other older blog posts on the older blog, but I remember really getting in the groove with this one. In fact, this blog post was bursting to get out of me, and I knocked out the next few in the series over the weekend. In the early days of blogging, I had dozens of such blog posts flowing , a lot were crazy ideas describing ideas that probably weren't practical or were mentioned simply because it sounds cool (back then I had a poorer sense of what users would adopt), as a result most of my purely tech based posts suffer with the test of time, hence you don't find that many in the list here.

This one actually stands up quite well, talking about how libraries can extend usage of services even if they don't visit the library site. It even caught the attention of a "Googler" who called me a "Library scientist" :)

This was updated more recently for discovery tools in
6 ways to use Web Scale Discovery tools without visiting library sites

8. Official Library Twitter accounts- what factors are correlated with number of followers? (May 2009)

Back in 2009, libraries were then starting to go onto Twitter. I hadn't yet started ours, but I was starting research and I began a series of posts studying Libraries on Twitter. The "research" and "Analysis" here is laughable, but I think it does show that at that point in time there were and perhaps still are quite a few unanswered questions on library twitter policy, e.g. To follow or not to follow, expected response time etc.

9. Why you may need a "real" one-search box. More thoughts on a one-search box (April 2011)

Earlier this year, I began thinking about discovery tools. I noticed quite a few articles and examples of libraries that questioned this trend and did "bento" or segmented style presentations and put them all in one post. The jury is still out on this, but I think this has potential to be really interesting.

10. Five library related tasks I hope Siri can do (Oct 2011)

Steve Job had just passed away and I had just blogged one attempt to parody Steve Jobs keynote speech , and imaging what he would say if he reinvented the library catalogue. The next blog post was me imagining what Siri could do for libraries.

Back then,I was then thinking of getting a iPhone 4S or switching to Android. This blog post I believe was one of the reasons that led me to the former. Like many I wasn't too impressed with iPhone 4S but after this post, it was too hard to resist getting it just to try Siri! It's still too early to tell, but I suspect within 1-2 years some of the things I postulated here will be possible so you can do many library related tasks via voice input.

11. Subject guides on web 2.0 startup pages - 12 widgets (April 2009)

This was one of my first blog posts to achieve any level of popularity by being retweeted a few times. This was before I was using libguides but the widgets mentioned could be used on anything from netvibes to Libguides itself.

In later inspired a blog post on using dashboard for library service points.

12. Libraries and Google Calender (April 2010)

Back in 2009-2010, I was unwittingly doing my own Library 2.0, 23 things program by exploring free/cheap web 2.0 tools and considering library implications, for example I was studying users checkin of 4square library sites, playing with search widgets, studying RSS use for distributing library news, RSS for aggregating academic research, creating information dashboard for information desk duties, even experimenting with Bayesian filtering of rss feeds.

There were the "mobile experiments" after Dec 2009, from using cardstar to use a phone as a library card , checking library catalogue using mobile phone as barcoder scanner, posts on my workflow using iphone here and here.

But I was proud to notice that my blog post exploring google calenders and Libraries was in fact a recommended post for a UK Library 23 things programme. Almost similar is Crowdsourcing and libraries which is recommended reading for a few library courses.

Conclusion

So these are blog posts that I am proudest of. For long time readers, which of the blog posts I have written since 2009 were among your favourites? Which ones influenced you, entertained you, or otherwise impacted you the most? We bloggers write mostly for ourselves, but knowing that our blog posts have some effect on the real world is very encouraging as well.

Bonus

Top 15 viewed blogposts via googleanalytics (excluded those 12 selected)

Extracting metadata from pdfs - comparing EndNote,Mendeley,Zotero & WizFolioEndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, WizFolio - comparing import functions

QR codes for libraries - some thoughts

Library mobile apps vs web apps - Some analysis

iPhone apps for librarians

Adding your library catalogue results next to Google results using WebMynd

Zooming into presentations - Zoomit, Prezi & pptPlex
4 Successful social media campaigns for and by libraries

A few heretical thoughts about library tech trends

Adding ezproxy to the url - 5 different methods

The most "influential" Libraries on Twitter?

Customizable library portal pages

Using Blekko to search across thousands of library sites

Is librarianship in crisis and should we be talking about it?

How to check your library catalogue by using your IPhone as a free barcode scanner - ZBar & RedLaser

Top 10 viewed blogposts via feedburner (excluded those 10 selected)

Mobile options for libraries & thoughts on usability

New York Public Library - the most successful use of social media by a library in the world?

Why not Web Scale Discovery Tools?

6 ways to use Web Scale Discovery tools without visiting library sites
One search box to rule them all? Web Scale Discovery tools ?

Where do you get your library news? Evaluating library channels

How libraries communicate with users - some questions

What are mobile friendly library databases offering? A survey

Libraries & augmented reality, adding video reviews to books - Aurasma

Flipboard & personalized reading magazines for academic research

Unfinished blog posts (II) - which ones would you like to see?

2011-12-11T09:31:00.001-08:00

Roughly a year ago in Unfinished blog posts - which ones would you like to see? , I solicited feedback on which of my unfinished drafts that you would like to see. Since then I pretty much finished all of them off.

Here I am back again looking into my drafts and picking ones that have potential to be converted to a full blog post. As I mentioned last year, I have plenty of ideas but I am pretty poor on judging what interests people so would be good to ask.

Title : Library slogans and rallying calls
Status : Idea stage
Description : "Google can bring back a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one", "Cuts to libraries during a recession are like cuts to hospitals during a plague. Just plain silly!", "If we don't need librarians because we have the internet, then we don't need accountants because we have calculators." - These and others slogans and catch phrases have been making the rounds on the net. Who came up with these clever phrases, and how widespread are they? Have they managed to break out of the echo chamber?

Title : My information consumption habits or how having a iPad changed the way I work
Status : Half written?
Description : In Dec 2010, I wrote about my general information consumption habits and how owning a smartphone since Dec 2009 changed it . In that post, I shared the tools I generally used and displayed charts showing how distribution of tweets changed pre-smartphone and post smartphone. This is an update talking about what has changed since I acquired a iPad 2 in April 2011. Essentially, I have shifted to consuming most of my content in particular, Twitter feeds, Facebook via Flipboard and Zite enhances it further with a discovery aspect. iPad makes consuming of content even easier, has this affected my consumption of content such as videos in terms of quantity and frequency?

Title : Are our academic staff on science 2.0 social networking sites?
Status : Idea
Description : I have been curious about the takeup rate of academic staff of science 2.0 networks (e.g ResearcherGate, Citeulike). However, it has proven to be difficult for such services to take off and services have folded including 2Collab by Elsevier. Still additional network services like Google citations, Mendeley, ResearcherID and Microsoft Academic Search have appeared that focus on creating unique Researcher IDs but have social networking potential. How many users of my institution are on them now? Are they academic staff? Grad students? How active are they?

Title : Library vendors, databases and journals on Facebook & Twitter
Status : Idea
Description : Just as libraries have been reaching out to users using social media, it's fascinating to note that library vendors have been doing the same. Some have been targetting mostly librarians others have been handling all users whether librarians or not. On Twitter, some employ proactive scanning techniques to find tweets to respond to similar to what some libraries do. Interestingly enough I find for some databases, one of the best ways to know instantly if some journal or database (e.g JSTOR) is down globally is to check the appropriate Facebook and Twitter accounts and see if there are complaints! :) . I have also been inspired by this blog post about correlations between twitter followers and facebook likes and Impact factor. Other metrics that can be looked at includes Klout, which library vendor is the most influential ?

Title : Things to do with a webcam for your library
Status : Idea
Description : Just a listing of some wild ideas one could do with a webcam.

Title : Gamification & Libraries
Status : Idea
Description : Okay, a hot new buzz word people are looking at is "Gamification". I haven't really read many of the books or articles on it, though I gather basically the idea is to use techniques used by games to encourage people to do tasks they otherwise find boring. I have been collecting a list of such ideas done by libraries, and LemonTree by University Hudderfield tops the list!

Title : All my misses
Status : Idea
Description : I have almost 130 blog posts in the last 3 years. In that period, I have enthusiastically advocated new services as having potential to be the next big thing. How good or bad have my guesses been? Are there any tendencies or biases in what excites me that tend to lead me to go wrong? For sure, it seems I have or had a bias to assuming Google launched services have a good chance of making it, but today we know better, as Phil Bradley notes, in 2011 alone Google killed over 50 services and functions! So perhaps this explains my caution towards jumping into Google+ for the library despite the promise it shows...

So dear readers, are any of the proposed posts above even mildly interesting to you? Or are none of them interesting? To be candid, I have been finding it harder and harder to come up with new posts I have been satisfied with. Blogging quality posts consistently is difficult and I really take my hat off to those who have been blogging for years. Let me know in the comments.