Library Stuff

Half of the feeds having nothing to do with librarianship, but if examined closely, can be very useful. For example, today, The Attensa Blog mentioned the release of a new blog that they are sponsoring called Attensa Connect. From the post:

“Think of AttensaConnect as a central hub for tools, tips and techniques designed to help businesses get the most out of Web feeds at work. AttensaConnect combines dialogue with demonstration to give practical advice and access to RSS tools that can drive real innovation.”

Librarians interested in RSS and how they work at orgs should definitely subscribe to this one.

BTW, I’ve met a few of the Attensa folk in a past life at PubSub and they are a top notch organization, bringing RSS into the enterprise.

Bill Drew blogs:

“I have added javascript code to our ALEPH version 16 web OPAC to create a permanent link and a link to create a del.icio.us link. It works in the search results, full record display, and the holdings display. ALEPH allows the creation of permanent links. That was the basis for the javascript. It was modified by Nathan Fixler at the SUNY Office of Library and Information Services. I can read and sometimes even modifiy javascripts but this particlular code was beyond my skill level.”

Very slick and probably just the beginning of what can be done with Del.icio.us in library catalogs. Other ideas include:

+ Show me on the catalog who else has tagged a particular record.
+ Automatically fill in the title of the book and the author on the del.icio.us page.
+ Show me the latest items that were “del.icio.used” on the main catalog page.
+ Display items tagged by LC number.
+ Have a “other people tagged this book with” display and list the tags.

Thinking back to my previous post on niche social tools, I wonder if tagging a book on Library Thing rather than del.icio.us would be better? LT already has the userbase of book lovers, so that data might be more useful than del.ici.ous, which is very broad and general.

Honestly, I don’t know which would work best. Maybe both would. Maybe it’t not an either or thing, but that seems like a flimsy response. Ho Hum…

I must admit, I didn’t “get” wikis when I started playing with them 4 years ago. There was a lot of “huh?” and “this is dumb” comments coming from my mouth. But, like many other tools, wikis grew on me, but it wasn’t until I saw their value in some far off, but practical, examples did I understand the true nature of the “Wisdom of Crowds” principle that inhabits wiki thoery.

Take, for example The Muppet Wiki. I need to look at it further, but in theory, it should beat the pants off of any traditional muppet encyclopedia in terms of content because it is created by the masses (should we call them muppetheads?) Also, it should be more up to date, for obvious reasons. But is it more accurate? In theory, yes. If the Wisdom of the Crowds holds up, and I believe it does. I’ve seen many examples of wikis in the past and will see many more in the future, but it will be wikis like this that reinforce the notion that wikis work.

So, are narrow focused wikis the future in wikiville? I don’t know. Part of me thinks that Wikipedia is way too big, but part of me feels that the reason it is so popular is what makes it work (even though it has been proven that only a handful of wikipedia readers actually contribute to only a small portion of the articles). But there seems to me that more narrowed focus wikis separate from the “Big Wiki” will work better, bring in core users, and thus thrive. The Simpsons is the longest running cartoon on television not because it does well on the ratings (it doesn’t) but because of hardcore fans.

Narrow focused blogs also survive because of hardcore fans and readers, not because of popularity amongst a national audience. In the library world, “old school” blogs like librarian.net and LISNews have been around for a long time because of a following.

But then there’s the Googles and the MySpaces and the FaceBooks, which are extremely popular and aren’t going anywhere. But, just as popular are the niche social network sites (Dogster, etc) that focus on something specific. These, I believe, will be the ones that have more of an impact on those that are part of niche groups. If, for example, there was a MySpace specifically for the library community, I would be more likely to use that one than MySpace (I set up an account many moons ago and was quickly bored) or FaceBook (I don’t have an account).

So, to paraphrase Kermit:

Why are there so many social network services? I think it’s a niche thing. One in which Wikis and other Social Software tools are moving towards, which I love.

Oh, and you create a MySpace for librarians and libraries, I’ll join and “friend you”.

Check out what the SEC is doing to EDGAR:

“it will enable anyone to get real-time, streaming data using RSS feeds, ATOM, and other automated Web tools, which could automatically search for newly filed SEC disclosures and deliver the desired data directly to one’s desktop.”

Yay! No more third parties!

Lisa Harrington blogs:

“This semester, one of the courses I’m taking is Digital Information Services and Providers on Monday nights with Cynthia Cheng Correia, principal at Knowledge inForm. We’re focusing on the search industry as a whole as well as learning search techniques using search engines. Class discussion has been mostly about where librarians fit in the search industry and how search engines work as well as the differences between the various engines available. At first I was a little bit concerned that it would be very basic but I’m happy to say I’ve already learned quite a bit. Because of the class, I’ve been keeping on top of adding to my rss feeds and making more time to read articles regarding search and technology…something I enjoy anyway!”

Yahoo! (search pun intended). I’m hoping that more library schools are providing classes on how to use search engines to their fullest extent, how to keep up with the industry, and how to well, kick the engines’ tuchas.

I took a similar class in library school and I was terribly bored with it. We were taught basic search skills which really could have been taught at the YMCA to newbies. Sure, some needed a 101 course, but it should have also dealt with advanced search skills. Research librarians need to go beyond the basics of search engines or we will become irrelevant.