• “I’m digging on Excel right now because I love turning lots of numbers into interesting little stories.”
• “My favorite thing ever may be how my iPhone gives me the Internet all the time, including Google Maps.”
• “Flickr cause I love sharing and viewing photos & it helps me recognize my online friends when I meet them in person.”
• “Plain simple email because I can carry on conversations of significant depth and over time.”
• “The book.  Still the most useful and efficient container for lengthy, complex and thought-filled content.”
• “GPS.  Truly the one thing I can’t imagine living without anymore.”
• “I love getting stats on # of clicks in tweets from bit.ly, and scheduling tweets using socialoomph (or hootsuite).”
• “Cassie time/print management software.  Simple, low cost, works very well.”
• “The book and Twitter.”
• “Google Reader. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen to downloading info directly into your brain, a la “The Matrix.” If I get a chance to check my feeds every day, chances are that I have at least a vague idea of what my patron/colleague/friends are talking about in current events.”
• “Usually used in the smaller libraries, I like DeepFreeze for very easy PC lockdown.”
• “VMWare or Virtual Box and LogMeIn.  Our web server is a virtualized machine, I can take a copy, run it on my desktop and test updates or whatever I want to try without worry.  LogMeIn lets me log onto my desktop from home.”
• “PC Anywhere.  We use it to connect to any staff machine.”
• “My Blackberry.  I can do so much with it and the one I have has wifi so I can check our wifi connections easier than I can with a laptop computer.”
• “Open source:  Drupal, Gimp, Inkscape…”
• “Digital cameras.  I had a Kodak Brownie when I was a kid and thought I was hot stuff (Now you know how ancient I am).  I love not having to go to the drugstore and pay for prints.”
• “My Crackberry…I mean Blackberry.  I can access email, Google, Facebook, Twitter and much more.  I almost don’t need an actual computer.”

The answers I received were a good combination from both line staff librarians and library techs. Some of the answers surprised me;  Some of the techs loved some relatively low-tech things, and vice-versa.

What does this mean to me, Laura?

• Obviously, technology was defined by the crowd in different ways.  I purposely left the parameters broad, and you can see the scope of what came back.  Answers ranged from the book to complex virtualization software, with all sorts of interesting things in between.  This is just a sampling of what might come back if we were to ask our library patrons what their favorite technology is.  Have you asked?  This might be a good question to pose via your library Facebook page or even through a simple paper-and-box voting system.  Engage your patrons!  The answers might surprise you.
• What could you do with those answers? People are fascinated with how others answer polls (we always like to see how others responded/rated/reviewed; thusly, the success of the Amazon model).  Post the results online and in your library.  Make a cool infographic or a Wordle that you can display to your patrons.  Set up a book/materials display around the results.  Link to related books or pathfinders on your web site.  Advertise upcoming programs on technology-related topics.
• Does engaging your patrons have to use technology topics?  Of course not.  This example, however, hopefully demonstrates how you can use crowdsourcing to more fully interact with patrons. After all, one of our goals as librarians is to connect people to the information that interests them.  Find out what interests them (and everyone else in your community) and connect them!  Polling and then doing interesting things so that polled patrons can interact with the results is a simple way to show your community that you care what they think and want to support their interests.

How else could you crowdsource and engage?

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The premise of Glue is that it “shows you things that you’ll like based on your personal tastes, what your friends like, and what’s most popular on Glue.” In essence, it’s a browser add-on that will allow you to rate certain kinds of things online and to share those likes/dislikes with people who subscribe (same as friend/follow) you.

I started experimenting with Glue several months ago as a beta participant.   However, I soon gave up on it for a variety of reasons (which I’ll detail in a bit).  Glue was released fully this month, and I decided to give it another go.  Alas, I was disappointed–again.  Here’s why:

• Glue is a browser add-on, which means you have to add it to every browser on every computer that you might use for surfing.
• It does not support every site on the net that might have books, movies, electronics, etc.  I found that Glue worked fine with Amazon, but did not support Thinkgeek.  The limited number of places on the web where Glue works was a deterrent for me.
• I wasn’t really sure what problem Glue was trying to solve.  I believe it was using the idea that referencing your friends’ tastes would be useful when picking out items, but in practice it didn’t bear out.  The issue comes down to critical mass; Glue doesn’t have it (at least, not yet).  Only 9 of my “friends” were on Glue, and none of us necessarily have compatible tastes.  The reality is that Glue, to work well, would likely need a community the size of Facebook to make it really useful.

Some of my other comments about this app:

• You can earn virtual “stickers” by continuing to favorite items. These icons show up on your Glue profile.  However, some stickers showed up on mine with no real explanation of what they were or how I earned them.  Additionally, marking just 10 movies gave me a sticker called “Movie Buff.”  Really?
• If you spend enough time using Glue, you can eventually become a “Guru.”  There is only one of these per category, so you will likely have to fight it out with other Glue users for the title.
• The idea that Glue was tracking what I was looking at and publicizing it made me a tad nervous.  The app does give you the ability to manually delete items from your profile, but that assumes you’ll remember to do that.  Granted, I’m not surfing porn, but what if I wasn’t looking to advertise my Betsy-Tacy habit?

What does this mean to me, Laura?

• Glue does not have the critical mass in users or supported sites to make this a truly useful application.  Lack of community is a real issue.
• A library could theoretically make use of this for readers advisory services but, frankly, expecting users to have to install a browser plug-in to follow the library is unrealistic.
• Overall, this app has a long ways to go, if it ever gets there.

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When Michael Jackson died on June 25, millions of people flooded onto Google News to find the latest information about what had happened. The spike in traffic was so massive that Google suspected a malware attack and began blocking anyone searching for “Michael Jackson.”  –Clive Thompson on How the Real-Time Web Is Leaving Google Behind

The world, seemingly, moves faster every day.  I can’t verify that the world is moving faster, but anecdotes like that, above, certainly show that people want news that moves faster.  More and more, the first stop for people to find out about what’s happening is the Internet.   People won’t wait for the “old” Internet any more; that typically means links that show up as relevant in Google.  Google cannot possibly index everything on the Web as it’s happening in real time.   People who want to know what’s happening as it’s happening know to look at trending topics on Twitter, or what their friends are linking to on Facebook.

Some new tools have popped up to help people interface more effectively with the real-time web.  Some of these include Tweetmeme, and OneRiot.  Both take very different approaches, but typically are pulling from the same data (Twitter).  Tweetmeme shows what’s hot on Twitter at any given moment, and is more of a browsing experience.  OneRiot provides an almost Google-like search bar for searching the real-time web.

What does this mean to me, Laura?

• Constant real-time news will likely create a culture where we are more conscious at a moment-to-moment level of what’s going on in the world (and our collective reactions to it).
• Users will increasingly be more engaged with information as it is available, especially with the exploding use of smartphones and mobile browsing.
• “Real-time information delivery will likely become ubiquitous, a requirement for almost any website or service.”  (source)
• It’s time to think about what it means to your library when the information it puts out online is only being updated infrequently.  Where is your library’s place in the evolving real-time web?

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In essence, here is her sad tale:

Her library had a MySpace account.  The librarian friended anyone who wanted to be MySpace friends, believing that the library is accessible to all.  It later turned out that some of the friends had some questionable content on their profiles.  The administration reacted by severely criticizing the librarian and shutting down the MySpace account.

Here’s my take on this:

• Why is the library “screening” patrons at its virtual door when no library does it at its physical one? Why is the library’s presence online only open to some and not all?
• Regardless of what is on someone’s profile, that reflects on that person, not necessarily on the connecting friends.  Unless the profile is somehow directly harming the library’s reputation, I just can’t see this argument.  I refuse to take responsibility for every silly picture or irresponsible thing that my friends do online.  Why should a library?
• Part of the administration’s overreaction was likely due to a misconception about how to approach social media.  Traditional marketing and reputation management are not applicable.  Libraries need to understand that successful social media has a human tone; market-speak and incessant self-promotion are a quick route to epic fail.  Being human means having human friends, not necessarily paragons of what we want our patrons to be.
• If one of these “questionable” MySpace friends came to the library in person, would the library refuse to help them?

Libraries need their patrons.  We don’t judge their information needs; why do we judge their lives outside of libraries?

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It’s a pain, but security is each user’s responsibility, not just the tech’s.–Bobbi Galvin, OPLIN

One of the most common misconceptions library staff typically have about their email accounts is that nobody would want to hack them.

WRONG.

Your email account is an extremely valuable commodity, especially to a spammer.  Check these stats out:

• The average PC user receives over 2,000 and counting spammed emails per year
• The average computer user receives about 10 spams per day
• About 28% of people answer spam emails
• About 90 BILLION spam mails are sent PER DAY

Spam is big business, and your email account is a potential accessory.  The problem lies in that library staff tend to think hackers want the actual emails in the account, when rather what they are likely after is the account access. Spammers want to use your account to send spam.

What does this mean to me, Laura?

A few things.  For instance, if your account is hacked, other problems can arise:

• Your account can be blacklisted or blocked because of spamming;
• The entire OPLIN mailserver IP can be blocked, because that’s where the spam is coming from;
• If your email account is blocked/blacklisted, your mail doesn’t get delivered;
• Your friends/families/coworkers/professional contacts start getting Viagra ads from your address.  Not good.

So what should I do?

• Start by using a strong password.  Try http://www.passwordmeter.com to check if it’s strong enough.
• Change your password often.  Yes, it’s a pain.  Do it anyway.
• Make sure that your computer is protected.  This means making sure you take care (or your tech takes care) of doing Microsoft updates in a timely manner and keeping your anti-virus software updated.  New viruses come out every day; is your virus software checking for new virus definitions frequently?

Email security is part of network security, and everyone is responsible for the health of the network.  Time for a check up!

Learn more about the Economics of Spam

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You walk into a casino and put some money in the slot machine.  You pull the handle.  Odds are, you aren’t going to get anything the first time.  Probably not the second, or the third.  But casinos know that there is a window of opportunity for them: if you don’t see something line up in front of you, if you don’t hear the ring of coins or chips dropping into the till within a certain span of time, you are going to walk away.  They set the odds, therefore, such that within that window of opportunity you probably will get a payout of some amount.

Probably not the Jackpot.

More than likely, not even as much as you have put in.

Still, you have to get some measure of satisfaction and gratification from it, or eventually even the Gambling Addicts are going to walk away–or at least try a different game.  The level of payout required is determined, not via any intellectual mathematics, but through a sort of emotional calculus that varies person-to-person.

The same theory applies to developing technology for the End-User: if the User starts using your tech and doesn’t get some sense of satisfaction from it fairly quickly, they will decide it is not worth their valuable time.  They will view it as “broken”, and they will describe it as such to others.  Given that word-of-mouth is still the most potent form of advertising, this can make or break you.

Microsoft learned this the hard way with Windows Vista.  They thought that people not only would not, but could not go back to XP.  They did, in droves.  Apple recognized this when they released Snow Leopard: while Snow Leopard contains some important stuff for the future of Macs, it’s all under the hood.  The average user isn’t going to see much of a “payout”, so they priced it really low: $29.

Now add the challenges of Assistive Technology.  Most Software Development (sadly) assumes the hypothetical “Normal Person” as the audience.  This person doesn’t really exist, of course.  We are too diverse.  Perhaps we need to reconsider that whole concept, but that is a post for another time, and probably another blog.

My audience is almost never going to fit the “Normal Person” characteristics.  The End-User may not use their eyes.  They may not use–or even have!–hands.  They may have a high level of intelligence yet have difficulty communicating with me effectively due to dysfunction in one part of their brain.  They may have a disability “just like” someone else’s, and yet live their lives and deal with the world in a totally different way.  It is my job to create technology that will give them a “payout” in their first hour using it.  Sometimes, I even succeed.

The moral of this story?  IT students should be sure to get a good liberal arts education.  OK, seriously: the code you write may look elegant, efficient, and useful–to another scripter.  How does it work for the End-User? If they don’t start getting some coins in their till pretty quickly, they are going to stop pulling the handle, and you wasted a lot of time on a work of modern art.

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What is social capital?

Take a look at the Wikipedia definition.  Essentially, social capital is connections to others.  Not just the number of connections (although many marketers would have one believe that), but the quality of those connections.  Numbers of friends/followers can be misleading.  If you have a small  number of connections and most of those consist of people who connect back and are active, you’re still better off than the company that just bought 1000 followers who don’t give a fig for the company.

Why do you need social capital?

When push comes to shove, it can allow your library to mobilize troops quickly.  The Save Ohio Libraries campaign demonstrated this clearly.  In less than 3 weeks, the associated Facebook group had more than 50,000 members; hundreds of tweets on Twitter used the #saveohiolibraries hashtag.  OLC reported that the legislature had never seen a response as fast and heavy from the public.  Is your library planning to go out for a levy?  It may be too late this year to really build enough social capital to spend, but it’s never too early to start for the next time.  Think of building social capital as building goodwill and direct connections.  Not just direct connections into your community, but connections to a wider community that can get the word out for you.

So how do you build social capital?

There are entire books devoted to this topic, and many tips to help you (and maybe I’ll write about some more another day).  I’m going to narrow all of it down to two basic things your library needs to do to get started.

1. Turn the bullhorn around:  Stop talking and start listening.*  Who do you want to be friends with–the person who listens to all your stories, or the person who only talks about themselves?  If your library is just promoting itself and not listening to its patrons, it will not build good relationships.
2. Social media is about conversations.  Start having them. This is really the corollary to #1.  Don’t always wait for someone else to ask or comment first.  Remember, people put this stuff out into the ether with the hope that someone will comment.  Give your library a human voice.  A sense of humor is critical.

What does this mean to me, Laura?

• Social media is a completely different way of doing PR.  The good news, however, is that most of us know how to be human and talk to others of our species.  It’s much less about promoting and much more about relating.
• Timing is important. When someone asks your library something or comments via a social network, it’s essential that a response be made–QUICKLY.  Remember that a lot of this stuff is happening in near real-time.  Make sure someone is monitoring your social media outlets constantly.  (Remember, real social media is real work.)
• Don’t overplan.  You don’t plan out every encounter you have with other people during the day; don’t do it with social media.

*From The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.

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_______________________

With acknowledgement to the article by Mari Smith

And another quick read to try

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“You might be asking yourself two questions right about now: What’s so bad about IE6? And why do so many people still use it? The answer to the first question is relatively simple: Internet Explorer 6 is outdated technology in a rapidly-changing Internet landscape. Imagine trying to use the social web, Microsoft Office, iTunes, IM, your video games, and all of your desktop apps…with a computer from 2001 (20 GB of space, 256 MB of RAM, anyone?). It’s the same thing: a great deal of new web technology is simply incompatible with IE6.”–Ben Parr,  “IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On.”

In other words, if you want to get the most out of the web, you can’t be using 8-year old technology; not when the web changes minute-to-minute.   As Parr points out in his post, not updating your browser is just as bad as not updating your virus software.  The results (especially in the case of IE6) are often about the same; it is much easier to end up with an infected or hijacked PC using old versions of browser software.  Newer versions of IE are geared to protect your computer from more types of viruses and attacks.  Patching security holes is a major reason for upgrading any software, and IE6 famously has holes you can drive an aircraft carrier through.

If that weren’t bad enough, keeping IE6 on your computer means that you’re not ready for the coming Web.  For the past 10 years, the standard for web markup has been CSS/XHTML (Sorry, not HTML 4.)  But HTML 5 is coming, and IE6 is flatly incapable of dealing with it.  Many larger sites have already been cutting back on or eliminating compatibility with IE6 for some time; even Facebook tells you to get another browser if it detects you using IE6.

You might be comfortable with IE6, but 1) it’s not very safe to have installed and 2) you are going to increasingly be unable to use much of the web, especially more of the large scale sites and social applications.  What are you waiting for?

UPDATE:  Talk about timing!  This article about a new movement to kill off IE6 just came out the day after I wrote this post.

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I started to create a tutorial, and got frustrated with Wordpress, trying to display code. So, I started looking around the Web, trying to see if I was just recreating the wheel. I found an awful lot, but perhaps the clearest jumping off point for beginners that I found was a series of video on (where else?) YouTube. Check this one out and then watch the whole series to get a step up on learning CSS from the ground up.

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