Thing #43

Somehow or another the month of December zipped by and I never made time to complete Thing #43. I took a look at Patch and EveryBlock but I couldn't get very excited about them since they did not cover any locations in Nebraska. Next I moved on to Outside.in.

Outside.in really confused me at first. I’m not exactly sure how I did it but I ended on a page labeled: Nebraska Local News - Fort Wayne Fort Wayne Metro Indianan USA. The “Latest Headlines” on the page just added to my confusion. There were 10 stories listed, out of those 6 were clearly stories in the state of NE, 2 from IN, and 2 football related stories that I’m not sure where they belonged. It looks like Outside.in is also confused. At this point my curiosity got the best of me so I had to go look at a map of Fort Wayne and see that there is an area of town labeled Nebraska. There is: http://goo.gl/maps/cEaX

I tried to get back on track and this time used the link that Emily provided that took me to the list of neighborhoods in NE. I thought I’d start off looking at the info for the small town in NE where I grew up. Here again I was disappointed with the headlines. Out of the 6 headlines 3 of them were correct although they were all from August. The other 3 were for stories out of state with no connection to my home town. My experience did not improve when I tried some of the “Local Places” links on the left. Every option I tired was blank.

Next I moved on to Lincoln. The “Latest Headlines” were much better. I was also able to find information under the Local Places although I was disappointed there was no library news. I was even able to find information about the area in Lincoln where I live.

The other site I checked out was Placeblogger. I didn't spend much time on it simply because there wasn't much information that was update to see. The most recent item under “The latest from Lincoln” was dated November 23, 2010 from the Lincolnite blog. There’s obviously some problem between the site and blog because I know that blog has been active recently.

As you can tell my overall experience with these sites wasn't that great. I’m not sure if the communities in Nebraska are just too small for these type of sites to be useful or if none of these sites have really embraced Nebraska and tired to improve the listings for the state.

Thing #42

Thing #42 is all about Twitter. I created a Twitter account way back as part of Thing #13. I tried it for a bit but it's just not for me. That said however, I do follow a number of Twitter feeds including feeds from companies and libraries. I think it's a great tool for libraries to use to let their patrons know what's going on in the library.

The Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience site mentioned TwitPic so I thought I'd give it a try. I set my account up about a week ago but so far I've managed to post only one picture. There were a number of times during the week I saw something I wanted to take a picture of however I always used my regular camera instead of the camera on my phone. I did finally upload one of those pictures. It was really simple to do. I do find it odd however that I can make my Twitter feed private however I can not make my feed on TwitPic private.

It's too soon to tell if I'm going to embrace TwitPic or not. Now that I have my account set up at least I can play with it over the next few months and see how I like it.

Thing #41

As I was working on Thing #41 I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it. I really enjoyed looking at the “how to” sites but then again that is the problem. I've been working on this Thing on and odd for days. I spent hours last night looking at the different sites and found a lot of things I’d like to try and make.

Out of the sites listed I spent the most time on the Instructables site. I actually like the fact that not everything on the site is a video. I like to be able to quickly glance at the pictures and instruction instead of having to watch a video. That said however there are some things that a video would defiantly be better for. Here are just a few of the topics I explored:

• I hate to admit it but I was intrigued by the Duct Tape contest. The librarian in my thought about making a book cover but many people have already done that so I guess I need a new idea.
• Months ago I was looking at this lamp shade but have never been brave enough to try and make it. I actually wish these instructions included a video. I would really like to see how they make all of those pieces fist and stay together.
• In my looking I also ran across this String Art Necklace. I'm not sure a like having so many pieces together but I think one or two could make a nice pendent. They remind me of the old Spirograph I use to play with.
• I also just spent time I should have been using to type my blog to watch three videos on how to make Resin Jewelry Tutorial. I admired this type of jewelry at the farmer's market this year. I may have to head to the craft store for supplies and trying making one of these. They could make nice Christmas gifts.

I think I better stop looking at and finish my blog post. I could spend all night looking at these sites and finding projects I want to try. If you can't tell I really enjoy looking at these sites.

I think these types of “how to” sites are defiantly a great supplement to any print and/or video collection a library may have. Here are just a few reasons why:

• Easy of access – you may be at home working on something and need to know how to do something right now.
• People have many different learning styles and these sites offer a different option for those folks who may learn well from reading a book.
• There are a lot of creative folks in the world that may never have their projects or ideas published in a book. As we know anyone can put anything on the web and these sites give creative people a way to share their creative ideas.

Now that my blog post is done should I go to bed, explore more projects I'd like to try or make a string necklace?

Thing #39

I actually rarely search the web for myself. Whenever I do I am usually more interested in finding other people that have the exact same name as I do then I am in finding myself. Years ago I use to think I had a fairly unique name but the longer the web is around the more exact name matches I find. I already knew about the two others living in Nebraska and one in Marysville, KS but I was surprised to find another one in South Bend, IN.

When I searched Google most of the results returned were either me or from generic people search sites. I looked at the first three pages of results and excluding the generic results all but 3 results are for me. One problem I have with some of the people search sites is that they think my name is spelled wrong so they will also return results for Allan. The results from Bing and Yahoo were similar.

I already have a Google Profile, Facebook and LinkedIn account that all provide varying degrees of information about me. This gives me a bit of control on my identity.

As for tracking myself online I must admit that I have no desire to track myself online. It has no appeal at all.

Thing #38

I think libraries could embrace almost any 2.0 services and use it as a successful marketing tool. The article was good. I noticed that the article was however from 2007. I think it would be interesting to see if or how the author might update these strategies now that Web 2.0 is so common.

The first thing I would think about when making a plan is what are strengths of the librarian or staff. In order for the marketing plan to be successful it has to be maintained. It would be important to pick a service or services that folks would enjoy maintaining. As we all know we are more likely to do something in a timely manner if we enjoy doing it. My marketing plan would probably focus on Flicker to start with. I sleeted the topic of Flickr for Thing #36. I really think what Jeff Dawson from the Lester Public did was amazing.

It may be easy enough for the librarian and staff to take pictures of the library and put them up on Flickr but what if you ask the patrons to help. Getting the patrons involved will help create traffic on your site. Here's a few ideas that come to mind.

Ask the teens to help. Provide them with an easy to use digital camera and have them take pictures of the library both inside and out. Encourage them to take unique pictures.

• Let them take some books off the shelf and pile them up.
• Have them take a picture of someone's eyes as they look through the shelves.
• Most digital cameras can also record short videos that can be uploaded to Flickr. Provide them with some old books that they can set up like dominoes and record them falling down.

If there's a local camera club in town invite them to come to the library and take pictures. If the group is large it might be useful to schedule a time when the library is closed so they won't feel in the way of patrons. After the event ask them to provide you with some of their best photos and add them to your account. Don't forget to give them credit when you post their photo.

Throughout this process post pictures of events going on at the library. As you start posting photos to your account start promoting your Flickr account. Encourage the kids to show their parents the photos they took. Put a few photos in the newspaper and include a link to your Flickr account and invite folks to add their comment. You could even turn it into a competition and ask folks to leave a comment on their favorite photo. Continue to add items showing folks all of the great things going on in the library.

Thing #37 Part 2

Since the end of the month is here I thought I better take a few minutes and finish Thing #37. This month I used the free version of Polldaddy to create a simple 7 question branching survey about audio books. It’s been up for a week but only 2 people have taken the survey.

It was really easy to set up the survey but it did take a bit of thought to get the branching to work correctly. I probably should have read help but I just jumped right in and started setting up a branching survey. If you plan to create a branching survey with more than a few questions I’d strongly suggest writing/typing them out before you start. If I would have done that to start with I think the backend of my survey would have been a bit cleaner.

Here’s a brief example of my survey worked. I feel like I should have created a flowchart!

• My first question was Do you regularly listen to audio books? If the person answered yes they were jumped to page 2. If they said no they jumped to page 3. On both pages 2 and 3 I had additional questions.
• Depending on how the person answered question 2 they were either jumped to either page 6 or 7 depending on your answer.
• If the person answered question 3 as yes then they jumped to page 4. If they said no then they jumped to page 5.
• If question 4 was answered then they jumped to page 7.
• If question 5 was answered then they jumped to page 7.
• If you made it to page 6 then you got to answer the questions and automatically move on to page 7.
• Page 7 simply said thanks

As you can see it wasn’t extremely complex but it did take a bit of thought.

I think surveys would be a great took for libraries to use. It would be a simple way to gather a lot of information quickly. I think the hardest part may be getting people to complete the surveys however. It would also be important to limit the number of questions so the survey is not too long. Doing some quick brainstorming here are some examples of surveys I think a library could ask.

• Selecting the next book for a book group.
• Types of books the library is buying. Do patrons what more westerns or fewer westerns?
• What hours each day do they use the library? What days/times would they like the library open?
• Trivia questions about a popular book.
• Should your library buy Overdrive? Do your patrons own MP3 players or ereaders that would work with Overdrive?

If you haven’t experimented with any of the online survey tools you really should spend a few minutes with them. Who knows what kind of great data you may be able to collect. One last survey before you go.

Thing #37

For Thing #37 I needed to create a short survey. I used PollDaddy to create this short survey about audio books. Please take a moment and complete this survey.