Category: Reflection

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Reflection Week 12 – Online Applications

This is my last reflective activity for assignment 1 so I decided to do the following question:

“Discuss how libraries (or a professional setting of your choice) might make use of online applications and productivity tools, and what impact might they have on front-of-house services and behind-the-scenes work?  Talk about the benefits and potential risks”

[Mary Axford and Crystal Renfro]  For libraries to stay relevant in society and with the emergence of Web 2.0 applications, they have to change the way they interact with their clients.  Before Web 2.0, libraries only had to worry about books, papers, magazines and card catalogues.  The emergence of Web 2.0 has caused a wave of new online application and productivity tools so  that now libraries have a role in teaching lecturers, clients and students how they can use the new technologies in their everyday lives.  [Allen Alrich] With the changes in the way we interact with each other, universities and libraries need to move towards the mobile web using smartphones.

APPLICATIONS

Image Hosting & Photo Sharing: [Alan Henry]

Facebook; Flickr;  Photobucket; Picasa and SmugMug:

Benefits:

  • Great way for libraries to store historical photos for future reference
  • Allow photos to be mashup and place in libraries presentations and reports

Mobile To-Do-List Managers: [Alan Henry]

AnyDo; Astrid; Remember the Milk; Toodledo and Wunderlist

Benefits:

  • At meetings you have the list of items that your colleagues like you to ask
  • Your daily tasks are always with you wherever you are
  • Like a diary – will store all your tasks.  This would help you when you need to do a monthly report

Presentation  Creation Tools: [Jason Fitzpatrick]

Beamer; Google Presentations; PowerPoint and Press

Benefits

  • Information Literacy Programs
  • Library Information Slideshows

Real Time Video Chats: [Alan Henry]

AIM/AV by AIM; Google Talk; iChat; ooVoo and Skype

Benefits:

  • Communicate with external students
  • Keep in contact with clients who cannot come to the library
  • Communicate with colleagues in other States

Social Media Managers: [Jason Fitzpatrick]

Digsby; HootSuite; Seesmic; Socialite and TweetDeck

Benefits:

  • Way for a library to manage all their social media sites in one place

Mobile Web

[Alan Aldrich]  With the surge of mobile devices, especially the smartphone, libraries had to change in the way they present their services.  With Smartphones, the Mobile Web came of age.

Benefits:

  • Clients have access to a library catalogue anywhere and at any time.
  • Library staff can contact clients quickly and more efficiently for example, “the book you requested has arrived”

The following graph shows how the clients of the University of Cambridge Library use smartphones to get access to library services:

Note Taking Applications

[Mary Axford and Crystal Renfro]   The Internet is providing more information for clients and librarians than they can handle.  Therefore, note-taking applications were born:

  • Evernote
  • MS Onenote
  • Simplenote
  • Springpad notebooks

Benefits:

  • Able to store answers and question for other colleagues on the reference desk
  • Great way for staff to store information for their research projects
  • Recording information for future events for the Library e.g. journal articles, photos
  • Storing information for Conference presentations
  • You can store information that could be useful for libraries’ collection development

The following YouTube video talks about  Evernote and Libraries:

Risks

  • Security issues with personnel and professional information
  • If Libraries are depended upon computers what happens if the IT system goes down, we still need to have access to pen and paper and books
  • Clients would never personally use the library
  • Library networks are more susceptible to a virus
  • Potentially online applications give managers the ammunition to close libraries down to save money, for example, Campbell Newman has closed down a number of libraries since coming to office.

Online applications and productivity tools will have an impact in the way libraries provide services to their clients and the way library staff perform their duties.  Libraries do provide an important service to society and as Librarians; we have to ensure that online applications and productivity tools do not take away the role of libraries.

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Reflection Week 11 – Open Data

I decided to do this week’s reflection on the following question:

Open Data is the Future of the Web?

After I read the learning activity for week 11, I asked myself the following questions:

  • What is open data
  • Why is it important

In this reflection, I am going to answer both questions.

Open Data: 

[opendefinition.org] Open data is the content that is found on the Web for everyone to use and copyright does not apply.  [Glenn Tremblay] Another way to describe open data is the sharing of public record for example, government records over the Web in a way that promotes analysing and using the information.

I found the following YouTube video that is great way to start to understand what is open data.

I do believe that the future of the Web is to have access to open data, but the following issues need to be address:

  • Privacy of health records
  • Bank details
  • Copyright issues in regards to music and books

[Glenn Tremoblay]  Having data on the web open to the public would make governments more transparent and this would advance every ones lives.  [Open Knowledge Foundation]  Government records are a largely untapped resource and allowing it to become open date would provide economic and social value to everyone.  The values are:

 
  • Transparency:  allowing you to see how government are spending your money.  In addition, it can stop fraud in government organisations.  Another benefit is that you can see how active your member of parliament is.
  • Better decision making: you will have more information that would allow you make the right decision so that you can become more active in your community.  For example using your local Council website you can find were your local dog parks are.
  • Financial: open data can help households to save money for example on their energy bills for example on their energy bills  Educational institutions and libraries can save money by sharing resources with other people using resources like [Slideshare, Flickr and LibraryHack] to produce information literacy programs for students and users.
  • Efficiency: open data also provides value to governments themselves.  They highlight areas where they can increase efficiency.

Organisations, governments, libraries, and education institutions are starting to see the value of open data access for everyone.  Queensland University of Technology is leading the way with [ePrints].  To have a world were all data is universally accessible would be great but I cannot see that happening in my lifetime because of copyright and intellectual property legal rights.

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Reflection – Social Network Presences – WEEK 6

techextremity.com

I decided to reflect on the following:

                      BEST PRACTICE FOR LIBRARY SOCIAL NETWORK PRESENCES
 WHAT ARE THEY?

 

At the beginning of the week, I did not understand or know what “Best Practice for Libraries Social Network Presences” is so I started to do same research on the topic. Using  Google, I found a number of good sites that talk about “Best Practice” so I formulated them into a Bundlr.  (See bottom of the page)

BEST PRACTICES

[Michael Stephens]

  • ACCURATE – Information that is place on your social media sites must be accurate and with no spelling errors.
  • CONFIDENTIALITY – Make sure all personal information that is place on your social media sites is safe.
  • COPYRIGHT – Follow copyright laws.
  • FEED BACK – Allow your users and staff to give you feedback on any issues that affect your social media sites.
  • MARKETING – For people to use your social media sites you must promote them on your web site.
  • MONITORING – Your social media sites should be monitored every day to make sure that the conversations on your sites are appropriate to your brand.
  • PLANNING – Understand the needs of your users, before setting up any social media site.  As Zaana Howard stated in her interview with Kate Davis that is not worth setting up social media site for example “Second Life” if your users will not use it.
  • UPTO DATE – Do not set up any social media sites if you are not prepared to keep them up to date.
  • UNDERSTANDING – Make sure everyone who is involved understands your brand.
  • WELCOMING – Have the layout of your social media sites friendly and welcoming and always write in the first person. Make sure your social media sites  have personality.

Social Media is great way to get your community to interact with each other but do not forget to promoted your brand face to face with your users also.

 
“Social Media best practice for Libraries” on Bundlr

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Reflection – VoIP – Week 4

I have decided to reflect on the following:

Many libraries provide instant messaging and VoIP reference services, how would you feel about communicating with patrons this way? Do you think uses would have different service expectations when they use these tools?

[Skype] and instant messaging are a cheaper way for people to communicate with colleagues; loved ones and friends.  Using Skype is just like talking to each other face to face and I use it to keep in touch with friends and family who live interstate.

VoIP

[Wikipedia] Is the voice over Internet Protocol that allows communication over the Internet.

Instant Messaging in Libraries:

[Educause] Instant messages is the way people can communicate through personal computers or mobile computing devices.

[National Archives] IM allows people to

  • Exchange text messages
  • Respnd to messages
  • Block other users
  • Communicate with people who use the same software

[Top Windows Tutorials] The major Instant Messenger Providers are:

  • Google Talk [Google]
  • Skype
  • Yahoo Instant Messenger [Yahoo]

With the budgetary restraints and libraries having to justify themselves within an organization, the use of instant messaging and Skype would go long way to help them achieve this.  It would allow communication between branch libraries to go more smoothly.

Communicating with patrons using instant messaging and VoIP reference tools would be a bit confronting for me at first.  That is always the case when you learn to use new technologies in the work place for the first time. At first you always worry about being to slow or not providing the right information to the users.

If the user is not happy with the answer or the service provided they will not came back and use the service.  Unhappy users would not recommend the service to others and this in the long run would affect the Library service has a whole.

On the other hand I would realize the benefit of instant messaging and VoIP to provide a more compressive library service to everyone including:

  •  House bound
  • External users
  • Interstate and overseas users
  • Library Help Desk – to be able call for assistance.

I do not think that users have different expectation using VoIP reference services or instant messaging over face to face encounters.  All users expect great and prompt service from their Library and this will not change by using VoIP reference services and instant messaging  are just another way for Libraries to increase good quality services to users.

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Reflection – Blogs and Twitter – Week 3

I have decided to reflect on the following:

WHAT ROLE DO YOU THINK BLOGGING AND TWEETING WILL HAVE IN YOUR LEARNING, BOTH IN THIS UNIT & BEYOND IT?

Before I enrolled in this unit I did not realize that blogging and Twitter will have so much influence in my present and future learning. I am so out of my comfort zone but the benefits I will get at the end, out ways all my sleepless nights. [Susan Gunelius] Blogs and Twitter have became part of every ones life due to the popularity of the Internet.   The definitions of the main terms :

  • Blogging- The Physical act of writing a post
  • Blogger- Posts Author
  • Blogosphere – Online Community

In my research I found the following sites that were very helpful to me:

BLOGS

[Susan Gunelius] Blogs can also be called web log and are made up of different pages called posts.  Posts are were you can discuss issues that you are interested in and this encourages comment from your peers.  The following is a YouTube present to help you to understand about Blogs:

TWITTER:

[Lahle Wolfe] Twitter is a micro blogging tool that allows short messages to be sent over the Internet.  The short messages are called Tweets.  Twitter is great way for business  to communicate to a wider client base quickly. The following is a YouTube present to help you to understand about Twitter:

Blogging and tweeting will have a great role in my present and future learning and the reasons are:

  • I am an external student so at times I do feel isolated.  To have access to the unit blog to ask questions of my peers and lecturers is a great way to learn
  • It is also a great way for me to learn, as an external student, to have access to my peer’s blogs.  It is a way for me to see if I understand what I am reading by seeing what my peers are doing with their blogs
  • I also learn from my peers and lecturers when they leave comments on my blog
  • I am unable to support and encourage my peers face to face, but I can by using twitter, such by saying: “How you going”.
  • Blogging and tweeting are a great way for me to continue my professional learning in this course and following my lecturers such as @katiedatwork
CAN YOU SEE YOURSELF CONTINUING TO USE EITHER A BLOG OR TWITTER AFTER THIS SEMESTER?

Time is always an issue but I can see myself continuing to use Blogs and Twitter after this semester.  The reason for this are:

  • My friends in Brisbane and I can continue our book club using a blog,
  • Blogs and twitter are also good tools for me to continue my professional development.  On my blog I can link articles of interest, conferences I attended and copies of my assignments.  On Twitter I can follow other organizations such as:
    • @qutlibrary
    • @ALIANational
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