Reflections on the class

In spite of the discomfort of being  out of my comfort zone and the number of Tums I have ingested, I would take this class again (but not for a grade!) to really absorb all the knowledge we have been exposed to instead of woofing it down in large chunks.

While my wallet loved a class with no textbooks, my peace of mind did not.  A Joomla guide would be a good thing to have on hand.  We can always sell it back to our classmates who take this class next!

Lastly, many thanks to my group members Amy Ellison and Amy Willard.  You were joys to work with. A+ studies buddies and I encourage other classmates to get you on their teams.

Project 4 paper

Libraries 2.0: Technology and Connectivity in Four Libraries

Amy Ellison, Carol Waggoner-Angleton, & Amy Willard

Valdosta State University

Libraries 2.0: Technology and Connectivity in Four Libraries

As libraries move forward with technological changes, they must also move according to societal needs and demands. Emerging Web 2.0 technologies address both technical and social requirements, as connectivity requirements increase not only for hardware and software, but also for the realm of social networking. For this examination of libraries using both web and library 2.0 technologies, we interviewed four libraries: Ingram Library at the University of West Georgia, Forsyth County Public Library, Aiken Technical College and South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina. Overall, we found that while these libraries differ in approach, they all aspire to achieve connectivity for--and communication with--their patrons.

Ingram Library at the University of West Georgia employs blogging (including an RSS feed), Facebook, and Twitter feeds to reach their patrons. The library additionally offers a “Live Chat Help” component so that patrons might request instant virtual assistance. In some cases, such as Twitter and Facebook, the library did not require research since the popular demand for those social services was so apparent; similarly, blogging became another obvious social extension for the facility(Carol Goodson, personal communication, May 29, 2012). Goodson estimated that they have more than tripled the numbers of student involvement in scheduled library activities, simply as a result of using the technology of their patrons. “Live Chat Help” remains the most often used virtual program, with an average of 30-50 assistance requests per day, although this number greatly increases during the midterm and final weeks of the semester.

Academic libraries are not the only ones benefiting from social media sites, and Donna Fowler (personal communication, May 30, 2012), programming specialist for the Forsyth County Public Library (FCPL), knows firsthand about the impact of these services. Presenting programs and special events, as well as assisting with technological upgrades at the library, has helped her bridge the gap between understanding how patrons interact with the facility in a physical and virtual way. Since FCPL’s Facebook page was created in early 2012, patrons have mentioned how convenient it is being reminded of programs on the newsfeed of a site they frequently utilize rather than having to refer to an outside source. There are only 600 or so members of the library’s group on the social media site, but the numbers are growing as the page is regularly updated and increasingly includes links to popular and newsworthy articles. Fowler mentions that the facility’s blog, created just a few months ago in conjunction with the launch of the library’s new website, still seems to be a “work in progress” because the facility is still deciding what direction they want the blog to take. To improve, librarians are researching what other libraries offer their communities on their blogs, analyzing and incorporating patron feedback in relation to the service, and training staff to update the blog and keep the information current and appealing.       

Forsyth County is not alone; in fact, some academic libraries greatly struggle to employ web 2.0 to its fullest extent. South Carolina Political Collections, for example, does not use all of the social media outlets at its disposal. While policies allow Twitter and YouTube, SCPC solely posts information about upcoming events and collections developments through their blog site (http://library.sc.edu/communications/socialMedia.html, accessed May 29, 2012). Facebook alerts followers about new blog posts rather than duplicating content (Dorothy Walker, personal interview, May 31, 2012). Similarly, Aiken Technical College Library participates in social media technology with a Meebo Me widget that provides instant messaging service between the library and users. While ATC uses a blog, Facebook and Twitter to connect with students, and the library supports these efforts by the prominent placement of icons on its homepage, there is no indication that the library itself has plans to deploy these tools (Newkirk Barnes, personal interview May 31, 2012).

For strictly informational purposes, some libraries are creating collections of information for quick public access. Ingram Library elected to create closed staff-created LibGuides, but makes certain to involve subject-specific faculty and graduate students in building these resources. Since the website is powered by Springshare, a fairly user-friendly and extremely library-oriented Content Management System (CMS), publishing and reviewing the content takes very little effort. While there was a slight learning curve, the information was extremely simple to input and edit and the staff is encouraged to freely build resources and contribute to the guide (Goodson, 2012). Most staff members seem happy to use the website, and the library has received positive feedback from departments and individual students.

Earlier this year, Forsyth County Public Library launched a new website, which included a Content Management System aimed at increasing staff productivity and efficiency, as well as made the facility’s page more accessible and user-friendly for patrons. The CMS does not have a specific name because it was created by a committee composed of IT, programming, and administration participants to fit the facility’s needs, and therefore is not powered by an external site. Fowler (2012) mentioned there has been some confusion over maintenance responsibilities or material being accidentally deleted, but the positive aspects of the CMS decidedly outweigh any negative factors. The greatest benefit is that patrons can now self-register for programs online and librarians handling the events can maintain those records, streamlining a great deal of the necessary work. In addition, with more library employees controlling the website, strained IT staff now has a greater amount of time to focus on other endeavors.     

For other libraries, social networking represents their attempt to overcome information control issues and appear more technologically connected, and they have not yet attempted CMS or Wiki projects. SCPC began their blog in 2008 to obtain direct control of their outreach content and address difficulties in updating the webpage and avoiding a long chain of command in order to institute content changes on their webpage. Aiken Technical College Library deployed the Meebo Me widget after consultation between the Learning Resources Director and the Public Services Director. Although the widget has a more streamlined web appearance and a natural learning curve, staff constraints only allow the service to be live two hours a day.

However, the common theme between 2.0 libraries, no matter their level of usage, resides within their focus on outreach. Ingram Library employs 2.0 technology in order to better connect with the Millennial student population. They recognize the desire for instant research assistance and believe that students will more readily seek virtual assistance than in-person guidance due to library anxiety. Students appear more willing to ask for help online, and they are definitely more likely to attend an event if the details are accessible through social networking sites. The ability to connect to both students and faculty on the patrons’ terms far outweighs the resource expenditure, particularly since maintaining a virtual presence typically requires very little time.

Forsyth County Public Library also uses online outreach to draw in patrons, and Fowler (2012) attributes much of the success of in-library programs to their publicity on the facility’s Facebook page. Instead of children and teens simply reading a flier with a basic description of upcoming events, they can now view photos of recent programs, including images of peers participating and crafts that are created, and decide whether they want to sign up for the next session. These pictures greatly boosted the youths’ enjoyment as well as made parents more comfortable leaving their children at the library because they can actually see what each session entails. A single click on FCPL’s Facebook page can take patrons to the library website, where they can register online for any of these programs.

SCPC uses their blog as their primary outreach tool, posting news on upcoming events, collection development, donor acknowledgements and archival issues. Not only does the blog provide SCPC news to patrons, donors and the other University Libraries, it also allows staff to teach students the importance of public relations in archival management (Walker 2012). While Facebook is primarily used for the notification of blog content updates, it has the advantage of reaching a different demographic and eliciting discussion on items the SCPC brings to their followers. In the same light, the ATC Library looks at their Meebo Me widget as a way to be more approachable to students’ questions--especially their distance education students. They also feel that their demographic finds the Meebo widget friendlier than a “formal” email (Barnes 2012).

All four libraries attempt to meet their mission and vision statements by employing Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 technologies. While the wording of these statements differs, all outline the desire to provide a range of services to meet the increasingly diverse and technologically driven needs of their patrons. Ingram Library specifically attempts to become an important point of contact and resources for students, both on-campus and off, just as Forsyth County Public Library provides service on the patrons’ terms. Even emerging 2.0 libraries such as South Carolina Political Collections and Aiken Technical College Library also desire to be accessible to patrons, although they still work to discover how to best integrate such technologies into established librarianship. Each of these 2.0-oriented libraries recognizes, to some degree, the necessity of meeting the needs of their patrons through technology, interconnectivity, and both physical and virtual outreach.

Appendix

Group Interview Questions

1.      What kinds of virtual presence does your library maintain?

2.      What system do you find most integral to your library's mission?

3.      What was the motivation or rationale for starting this social media project?

4.      Was this a project intuitively started by an individual, designed by a committee or  assigned by a senior administrator?

5.      Did the library follow a hunch or conduct market research?

6.      Were several different tools for this service evaluated, or was this tool recommended by peers or colleagues?

7.      Is this a first-time project or a replacement for a project? If it is a replacement, why move to another service?

8.      Which departments receive the most benefit from this project?

9.      Who is your average user?

10.  Do you keep user statistics on the service? If so, what type of statistics do you collect?

11.  What services have been affected by these statistics?

12.  How do you assign workflow to keep the services updated?

13.  Why does this particular workflow best achieve the service or project?

Reflection on the interview

Reflection on the interview

This is a first in my experience.  A project which actually had access to an abundance of funds
Probably the most important thing learned from this experience; yes, read the marketing literature, yes read the professional literature, but nothing beats talking one-on one- with someone who has actually used the system.  I'd almost go so far to say, if you can't find someone to have this discussion with, take that product out of consideration.

Choosing a Content Management System: One Librarian’s Experience.

Choosing a Content Management System: One Librarian’s Experience.

Interview conducted with Deborah D. Tritt Instruction/Reference Librarian and Assistant Professor of Library Science Gregg-Graniteville Library University of South Carolina Aiken by Carol L. Waggoner-Angleton for MLIS 7505

Deborah will be speaking about the adoption of Content DM by her previous institution Nova Southeastern University where she was Reference/Subject Specialist Librarian for the Social Sciences, Alvin Sherman Library and Information Technology Center. Deborah received her MLIS from University of South Carolina in 2006 and her MIT from Nova Southeastern University in 2010

CWA: What previous experience did you have with content management systems (CMS) before implementing ContentDM at Nova Southeastern University (NSU)?

DDT: I had gained a lot of experience with content management systems while interning with the Digital Library of Georgia in the summer of 2006.  It was this experience, my knowledge of using CMS to manage digital collections which led me to be a point person for the implementation of ContentDM at NSU.

CWA: What were the motivations of NSU in adopting a CMS?

DDT: One of the prime motivators was the 50^th Anniversary of NSU.  The University had a rich archive about the history of the institution and they wanted to leverage this archive in celebration of the anniversary. Obviously, they looked first at mounting an anniversary exhibit through their existing website.  This was a perfectly viable option.  They had sufficient funding, a robust hardware infrastructure and a large University Systems Development department.  Additionally the Alvin Sherman Library and Information Technology Center, as the largest of the undergraduate library, had access to resources through the Library Computing Services department.  However, there were two drawbacks to using the existing website structure.  It could handle the ingest and management of metadata for individual items and we couldn’t set up browsing and searching features in a manner that was appropriate for user needs when searching archival collections.  Additionally, Systems Development believed that it would be less expensive to contract this project out to a vendor rather than undertaking it in-house.

CWA: How many CMS were considered for adoption?

DDT: Initially more than I can recall. The two candidates that made the cut were an open source CMS Omeka http://www.omeka.net/ offered by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship and ContentDM which is a commercial product offered by OCLC http://www.contentdm.org/.

CWA: Who conducted the evaluation of the CMS?

DDT: Initially, there was an informal committee for this project.  I think now it has morphed into something more permanent like Library Technology Committee for Digital Libraries.  However, the initial participants were the Vice-President for Information Services &University Librarian, the Executive Director of the Alvin Sherman Library and Information Technology Center, the Executive Director and University Librarian for Systems, the Director of Library Computer Services, the Director of Archives and myself.  My role was to educate the group on the benefits of a CMS system and to explain the advantages of open source systems versus the advantages of proprietary systems.  When we moved from the committee to the project stage, we also added a cataloger to the group.

CWA: What questions were used to compare the two systems features and to evaluate the pros and cons of open source versus proprietary?

DDT:  Well there were quite a lot of factors.  The committee wanted a system that was easy to use and that could be hosted, which at the time did cut Omeka out pretty early on.  I think it was the parameters of the project which guided the choice more than a list of questions. We had, amazingly, a surplus of funding for this project, but the end of year deadline to expend the funds was coming up really fast when we started our evaluation. Additionally the project had a pretty tight production deadline because of the 50^th anniversary, so I think the fact that we had funding and we didn’t have a lot of time to implement a system that wasn’t “straight out of the box”, so to speak, were the determining factors.  Additionally Omeka did not have the robust user community and support network it has now.  ContentDm, as an OCLC product, had a much higher comfort level associated with it.  ContentDM does have a great turn around on service and support.  That did make the learning curve less steep than it may have been with Omeka. Also we were able to implement ContentDM in phases.  First we were able to try out the free trial that’s offered and then, because of our partnership with another institution, we were able to implement it as a pilot project and then we went to final contracts for the service after we had been able to really put it through its paces.

CWA: How steep was the learning curve?

DDT: At the time I’d had some experience as a ContentDm user but the curve as an administrator was steeper.  There were a lot of steps to the upfront configuration and there was tweaking of the PHP code to handle data ingest and the user interface.  The project itself added to the learning curve to devise the workflows and to make sure we were complying with best practice.  We had instituted a fairly rigorous selection process for items that we included in the project so this had to be managed as well.

CWA: What features did you find most useful in ContentDM?

DDT: It was very easy to export metadata out to other functions.  You could also create your own controlled vocabulary for local items but you had access to all the standard vocabularies and thesauri right there at your fingertips. Also, if an image was ingested as a tiff file, the system would automatically create a jpg use file and add a watermark to the jpg file. If you ingested text, there was an OCR extension that made the file immediately OCR searchable.  These features were known as stewardship files.

CWA: The marketing literature stresses ContentDM support for Dublin Core metadata.  Is this the only metadata schema it will support?

DDT: No, the system will support any metadata schema you choose so you can use EAD, Premis or MODS, for example if you choose.

CWA: If you had to make a decision about implementing a CMS today, would you automatically choose ContentDM.

DDT: Well, I’d definitely put them in the line up after having such a good experience with them and I’m pleased to see that they are constantly reinventing themselves and have made the administration experience smoother, no more dabbling in source code.  But I’d doubt that money wouldn’t be an issue in a new implementation and the open source options are much more robust and have contracted with vendors in some cases to provide hosting and robust user support if it was needed.  I’m pretty sure I’d go through the whole evaluation process again.

Please give yea or nay opinions

Have been having discussion with various people.  I use LibGuides in my library to create subject guides and newsletters.  But I know other people who use it  make simple websites or search interfaces for archival collections.  So this says to me, LibGuides is a content management site. Especially when you can add widgets to do polls and search boxes and analyze hit data for pages.  But several folks are trying to convince me it is not a content management system.  What do you think?  Is it or isn't it a content management system

This is more pertinent to our subject matter.

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We're very concerned about this at ASU these days

Study: To Improve Student Engagement, Focus on Individual Programs and Student Services
This report commissioned by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario observes that student engagement surveys show clear patterns of engagement that vary dramatically by academic program. The study's authors say a program-specific engagement strategy is likely to be far more effective than a faculty-wide or institution-wide strategy based on benchmark goals. More...