The Mayonnaise Jar and 2 Cups of Coffee
May 8th, 2008Communication Overtones - “When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.
Live Twitting
May 8th, 2008Live Twitting - “LiveTwitting is a new and easy way to cover conference sessions! Now your blog readers can follow your session coverages in real time, and its easy to format and republish.
Lawmakers Introduce New Net Neutrality Bil
May 8th, 2008New York Times: - “Two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would subject broadband providers to antitrust violations if they block or slow Internet traffic.”
Penguins in trouble
May 8th, 2008Jacket Copy - “This bit of news coincided with a book that arrived at our offices the other day. I can only imagine what opponents of “And Tango Makes Three” will think of Joel Derfner’s “Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever,” published this month by Broadway Books, if it makes it to their local libraries.”
FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional National Security Letter After ACLU and EFF Challenge
May 7th, 2008Electronic Frontier Foundation - “The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive’s founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand.”
Professor wants libraries to reflect cultural diversity
May 7th, 2008San Jose Mercury News: - “Clara M. Chu, Ph. D., is an expert not only on libraries but also on how they fit into the multicultural story of modern society.”
Distinguish yourself from the rest of the market:
May 7th, 2008Elisabeth Leonard on Libraries: “Rather than sound like medication, we need to find a message and a tone that are appealing — and that builds on our true competitive advantage.”
Ban ‘Second Life’ in schools and libraries, Republican congressman says
May 7th, 2008CNET News.com: - “A Republican congressman who has sponsored legislation banning access to social-networking Web sites in schools and libraries has found a new target of displeasure: Second Life.”
Remember, “Second Life is not a game, it is a multi-user virtual environment”
Tweet What You Read
May 4th, 2008bkkeepr - “Want to remember what you read? Want to share your dog-eared pages, and see what everyone else dog-eared? Love LibraryThing, but are always forgetting to add your books? bkkeepr helps you do it, wherever you are.” (via)
Oh, this is such a cool idea! Now, if only I had more time to read…
Friends May Be the Best Guide Through the Noise
May 3rd, 2008New York Times: “Search engines like Google, so effective for general information hunting, do a poor job of cutting through these thickets of user-generated material. For the Internet-addicted, the problem is further intensified by “lifecasting” services like Twitter and the Google-owned Jaiku, which let people use their cellphones to fire off Haiku-length text notices, both profound and mundane.”
Shush!?
May 3rd, 2008SPLAT: “If it is an old cliche, but we still shush people at our libraries, are we doing it as a joke, or do we really mean it? And even if we’re shushing people as a joke, do the customers think that? The customers do not want to be shushed, so maybe we should all stop our shushing?“
University libraries could sell outdated books under new bill
May 3rd, 2008Government Innovators Network: - “State statute makes selling outdated books and journals close to impossible, so Illinois university libraries decide to trash about 500,000 used books every year.”
Marketing. As Simple As….
April 25th, 2008My last post on marketing spurred some e-mails and comments, so I figured I would expand a bit. One question raised via e-mail was a general one with a simple answer.
How?
While the steps that I have taken over the years to market my abilities to attorneys is fine-tuned and a bit outside the box, there is one very simple thing that anyone can do to market their abilities to those served.
E-mail.
Huh?
Yup. E-mail.
Whether we want to expand our technologies via Twitter, txt, IM, or RSS, e-mail is the primary way that, at least in my world, people communicate. It’s always, “shoot me an e-mail” or “e-mail me that PDF” or e-mail me the schedule”. I get and send at least 100 e-mails a day.
So, even though I don’t use e-mail as my mode of kepping up, my clients do. So, I use RSS to keep up to date with mostly everything that I know they need (remember, the reference interview doesn’t end when the person walks out the door, hangs up the phone, or sends the initial question) and send them, via e-mail, what I read (and I read alot).
But that’s only half of it. Attorneys like to know that they are reading breaking news. They want to send this news to their clients as quickly as it comes in. Most partners who need to bring in more business to the firm are like this as it sets them apart from other attorneys who are trying to get the same clients.
Still with me? When I’m reading my reader, I’m looking at the most current stuff (news posted 2 minutes ago, or anm article published with the hour) and when I click that e-mail button on my reader and quickly dash off the link to the attorney within 2 seconds, I then feel the power of RSS. This is impossible to do, at the scale that I’m working on, via e-mail. RSS is a very powerful tool for marketing and I also use it to get new lawsuits filed against current and potential clients.
One of my points here, besides the ease of marketing via RSS, is that we shouldn’t assume that our clients are doing this stuff. It’s our jobs to make sure that we are doing it, so that they, in turn, will tell us that they appreciate the work, or (and this happens much less often), to stop sending new stuff.
Marketing. It’s a love of mine. Can you tell?
We can do it!
April 22nd, 2008To help clients keep current, I read alot. Whether it be e-mail alerts, RSS feeds, or text messages, I read everything I can get my hands on that could possibly have an effect on the work of the attorneys I work for. It’s a passion of mine and always has been, believing that if I care for the client’s work, my client will, in turn, care about me and my work, and in turn again, give me more work. It’s how I’ve done legal research for almost 10 years now. And it works.
So, I was thrilled to read this piece in AdAge today Take a look:
“How I wish I had an Insight & Information Department — a smart person (or a few) responsible for keeping me ahead of the curve. A person with access to research tools such as MRI, Simmons, Iconoculture, etc. At worst, it would save me the 15-20 hours a month I currently spend reading and synthesizing information. At best, it would give me ready access to research that will make the work we do more compelling and effective.”
Wait a minute. Librarians can do that! Here’s more:
“More importantly though, and in keeping with the spirit of this blog, smaller agencies need to have access to smart people and smart research. Whether it’s just the basics of someone actively scanning current marketing writings, magazines, books and blogs and making sense of it all for us, or a more robust option that includes the aforementioned research resources. Our world demands that we have access to and utilize compelling insights to keep our work and our clients’ brands relevant.”
Yes. Yes! Yes!! Pick me. Pick me!
Ladies and gents, this is why we need to get out of the “librarian circle” and read from other professions. Because they want and need us to fulfill something that they don’t have. In the corporate world, people want answers quick, and 2 different answers can mean the difference between getting a million dollar client and seeing your competitor get them.
Corporate librarians have the power, knowledge, foresight, and wholehearted ability to do this stuff. Go get ‘em! Market, Market, Market!
Twitter Thoughts
April 21st, 2008While Greg Schwartz re-examines his Twitterness, I’m finding that my Twitter groove is starting to flow again (maybe all of this stuff comes and goes in cycles). I’m figuring out the whole timing thing by not logging onto Twitter while researching. When I’m doing mindless tasks (like approving invoices, data entry), I’ll jump on to say hi, but as soon as I get a research request, off it goes. It seems to be working rather well.
I’m also in the process of denying most requests to follow me on Twitter. Before you call me pompous or narcissistic, hear me out. You see, I’m pretty new at this online social networking thing (I don’t do MySpace, Facebook, altghough I have been on Flickr for a while and my blog has been around for a bit too) and have just begun to understand the craziness at its core.
I’ve had some Twitter issues in the past where some followers didn’t understand me and accused me of being mean to them. What they didn’t get (and what everyone else did) was that I was joking, because that is what we librarians do in Twitter. You can’t hold a serious conversation with colleagues in 140 characters with all of your other Twitter followers “looking” on. It just doesn’t work that way.
So, I began the process of blocking those that found me “offensive” as well as those I thought might get “offended” about other stuff that I Tweet about in the future. I also made the choice to only accept Twitter follower requests of those that I have actually met in person at some point in my career or have had a few e-mail or phone conversations with.
The result is that for every 50 people I deny, I accept 1. What I’m finding is that this totally works for me. Not only do I feel a lot more comfortable in Twitter with my friends, but it cuts down on the possibility that I will be following too many people and get burnt out quicker. Win Win Win.
I’m going to do the same thing for my Flickr account, although I won’t be blocking anyone. I’m just going to mark followers as friends and/or family and work from there. Barbie has wanted me to do this for a while and it’s about time I did it.
I’ve learned more about friendship, collegial bantering, and online social networking choices in the past month, and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve also learned that if I am going to speak my mind and have an opinion outside of this blog, I’m still not going to hold back. I’m just going to make sure that certain people are listening.
Happy Passover
April 19th, 2008
We’re having a semi-restful weekend after one of the craziest weeks. Ever. Tomorrow, we are hosting our first Seder and then back to work on Monday.
Regular blogging should resume this week, but I’m thinking of a new format. We’ll see how that works….
Selling Twitter…Account
April 17th, 2008CNET has the ending of this unbelievable story.
Why I Sometimes Miss Conferences
April 17th, 2008The Prairie Spinner blogs about our fun conversation.
You know, my post-conference session on cool tools was one of the highlights of the show for me. I had so many great conversations with other librarians and we all learned from each other. How very social of us.
LA Times Gaming Piece
April 17th, 2008Did you catch the Los Angeles Times story on gaming? I was contacted by the journalist, but declined an e-mail interview because I always get misquoted. Well, while the piece did not misquote me, it does make me look like an old curmudgeon.
Oh well, no harm, no foul, right Tbone?
I like this quote:
“Sadly, like in the example of the older generation not being able to read when books first were invented, the same goes with Videogames when some people like this guy from the older generation somehow can’t be bothered in learning how to play “these darm” videogames.”
I’m officially old. And after today, I feel old.
Google News adds quotations
April 17th, 2008CNET News.com - “Google is extracting quotations for politicians and celebrities from news sources and featuring them at the top of the Google News results page for certain searches.”
Library puts bcpl.net on the shelf
April 16th, 2008Towson Times - “Once best-selling service overtaken by competitors”
No Longer Friends
April 16th, 2008Courthouse News Service - “The Clark County Library District and the Friends of Southern Nevada Libraries are no longer friends. The library system seeks an injunction to stop the nonprofit from taking its money elsewhere.”
Oregon: our laws are copyrighted and you can’t publish them
April 16th, 2008Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Alpha Twitter
April 16th, 2008Alpha Twitter - shows the top links pasted into Twitter. RSS Feed me please.
Twitter Ads
April 16th, 2008PDA: The Digital Content Blog - “So Twitter denied that there are ads on the system.”
How Egypt, U.S. got all a-Twitter over Cal student
April 16th, 2008San Jose Mercury News - “When Egyptian police scooped up University of California, Berkeley, graduate journalism student James Karl Buck, who was photographing a noisy demonstration, and dumped him in a jail cell last week, they didn’t count on Twitter.”
Sued by Harry Potter’s Creator, Lexicographer Breaks Down on the Stand
April 15th, 2008New York Times - “Shhh! The librarian at the heart of the Harry Potter copyright-infringement lawsuit stood up to J. K. Rowling on Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom, and then broke down sobbing.”
Oh NYT, can’t come up with a witty first line again?
We’re on Newstex
April 15th, 2008Newstex’s Blog notes that 4 ITI blogs are now being syndicated Newstex. Look out Lexis Nexis, here we come. ;-(
Google Reader vs. Bloglines
April 15th, 2008bibliosk8 does a bit of comparison…