Library Stuff

Got 27 minutes? If so, then grab a Snickers bar and take a listen to Greg Schwartz as he ventures out into the world of library podcasting.

Topics include an introduction to podcasts, a bit on what he does at his job, and a lengthy discussion on everyones favorite new topic, folksonomies.

All in all, a nice piece of work. I was able to read my aggregator while Greg was doing his thing. It could have been a bit shorter, but for his first Podcast, I’m impressed. It was like having Greg deliver a presentation directly to my laptop.

So, is Greg the first librarian to Podcast about librarianship? I don’t “do” podcasts, so I wouldn’t know. But I’ll make sure to listen to Greg whenever he records another one.

In my most recent Internet Spotlight column, I discuss how libraries can incorporate community-based readers advisory into the library catalog. My thought process was based upon using the patrons who take books (and other materials) out of your library to advise other patrons on the same. Who better to recommend books to patrons than other patrons (and librarians of course, but ny not both?) There’s a lot more in the column about implementation and other uses, but for purposes of this post, you get the gist of it.

Today, I came across Digg, which fits into the same theory base. From the FAQ:

“What is digg?
Digg is a technology news website that gives editorial control back to the community. Most technology websites allow users to suggest content by submitting links or stories to an editor. If the editor believes the story to be relevant to the masses, he or she moves the story to the homepage. With digg, users also submit links for review. But rather than allowing an editor to decide which links go on the homepage, the users do.

How does digg work?
Lets start off by looking at the diagram below. (1) The user submits a story to the “hardware” category. (2) The story is then filed into the “dig” area of hardware. (3) Users on the site see the story, and several of them click “dig this story” – giving the article +15 digs. (4) Due to its popularity, digg removes the story from the dig area, and promotes it to the home and category pages.”

So, think about this system in your catalog as it relates to community-based readers advisory. A book is located on the catalog. Next to the summary and a review from Library Journal or Kirkus, there is a link that says “Dig” (with an explanation, of course) which will lead the patron to reviews of the book (or just thumbs up or down) by community members and librarians. There would also be a populated list of the most “digs” within certain subject headings, genres, etc.

I’m more and more intrigued by adding a more community base to the library catalog. Jenny discussed social-bookmarking software at length the other day, and “Dig” could be yet another way to put it to use.

But would your patrons (heck, your administrators) “Dig it?” (link via Dan Ostermayer)

Forget the obvious irony, but if you want the other side of the folksonomy debate, take a look at the Antifolksonomy page on del.icio.us.

Steve Rubel reports that Metafilter has implemented a tagging schema for their posts.

I wonder why they didn’t implement RSS Feeds for these tags? Without them, I don’t think I’d use this new (albeit fun) service. Sigh.

I just ordered a copy of this book, which was just published last week. It’ll make for good train reading. Expect a review when I’ve finished it (maybe in a week or two). (link via Jolly Blogger)

Nearest Neighbor News Network is another web-based aggregator. From the site:

“NNNN collects articles from news sites and weblogs of your choosing and then displays them all together. It also displays other articles that it believes you would be interested in.”

I took it for a test run and liked its ease of use. Easy set-up, easy to add feeds, easy to delete feeds, easy to read feeds. Easy. I like that. The feed interface is well organized. Recommendations on the left, my personal feeds on the right. Easy. (link via del.icio.us)

My wife is into baby names. I mean REALLY into baby names. She spends more hours per day discussing them in online forums than I do reading my aggregator. So today, when Tara posted about Think Baby Names , I IM’d my wife the link. Tonight, she got back to me with her analysis. From our IM conversation:

“Think Baby Names is cool.. I was able to input my favorite names and it graphed out for me popular names have been since 1900…It has a few problems though…it gives the midwestern pronunciation of names (ie Eric is Air-ic)…also, it really doesn’t offer a complete list of names…For instance, I like the Hebrew name Lirit, and it says it doesn’t exist. It really only mentions common or popular names…but for the most part it’s good”

This is coming from an expert in baby names. I was talking to one of my editors at ALA midwinter about a book idea. It dealt with expertise and how librarians should look beyond research and utilize the social networks of our peers and colleagues to help answer reference questions. My wife is a perfect example of this in action. If I ever get a question about baby names, she’s my “go-to” person. Think of it like “Who wants to be a millionaire” when the contestant can call a friend or relative and ask for their help on a difficult question. If you are sitting at the reference desk and get a tough question, who would be your expert?

Regarding open tagging structures and folksonomies, Clay Shirky writes:

“What’s certain is that the explosion of content that makes folksonomies a forced move was a done deal a long time ago. The librarians are now in the same situation as the journalists: “What will happen when everyone can do what we do, without having to be professionally trained?” And the answer, as always, is “We’ll see.”

He makes an interesting point. Bloggers are forcing journalists to rethink their jobs and folksonomies might do the same for librarians. I say ‘might’ because if information professionals play this the right way, we can become (ironically) one of the key players of open tagging structures. The DDC and Cutter systems are very rigid and they work well. Library science was build on the ability to catalog books according to structure.

Yet, we are also flexible. If we don’t agree with the information assigned to a piece of work, we can change it to fit our needs. Libraries all over the country use different forms of cataloging schema in their buildings (for the betterment of their constituencies), but the basics are still there. The same goes with folksonomies. Even though it is an open system of tagging documents, the basic meanings are still there. We’re just doing it to fit our needs.

One of my mantras about keeping current in our field is that in order to keep our jobs fresh, exciting, and technologically sound, we should work as if we need to justify our existence everyday to our employer. This forces us to work harder (it has for me). Librarians can’t ignore open tagging systems: We can debate it, discuss it, and even implement it. But we can’t ignore it. Doing so could be detrimental to the future of our profession.

Some North Dakota senators are blogging. A great way to get their issues across to their constituencies. Not the first government officials to do this, but impressive nonetheless. Of course, these blogs come with RSS Feeds. An interesting quote from the article where I located this resource via Topix:

“Sen. Tom Trenbeath, R-Cavalier, discussed his former aversion to technology. “I am a reforming Luddite. Five years ago I would proudly have proclaimed that fact, and eschewed technology as a tool of the devil,” he wrote. “Now, I have three e-mail addresses and just enough knowledge of the Web to get myself in trouble.”

Knowledge = Power, but be careful with that knowledge, especially if you are a public figure.