Links for “Implementing New Tech Tools,” DIRLEAD 2010

Social Media

• I won’t post my library’s Social Media Plan here, but if you email me (coral at uaa dot alaska dot edu), or comment with your email, I’ll get it to you. It discusses our implementation plan, some best practices, assessment, and marketing. You can also Google for other libraries’ plans; there are a ton of Slideshare presentations on how to build one.
• Consortium Library’s social media accounts:
  • http://twitter.com/ConsortiumLib
  • http://www.facebook.com/ConsortiumLibrary – Remind me to show you the assessment tools built into Facebook, too!
  • (We exist on LibraryThing, foursquare, Waymarking.com, and probably a bunch of other sites. Your library might, too.)
• Proactive Twitter reference:
  • http://search.twitter.com – Advanced Search, exportable as RSS feed
  • http://reader.google.com – free RSS reader
  • (I got the idea from Information Tyrannosaur.)
• Borrow things from other libraries. Seriously. Locally, we have looked at the UAS Egan Library and UAF Rasmuson Library for ideas, and sometimes we retweet/reshare things from APL’s Twitter feed or Facebook Page.
• Pay attention to what your friends/followers notice. People love our book spine haikus. UNM Libraries used to do “Trivia Tuesdays,” which worked for them, but nobody participated when we tried it.

Keeping up to date

• Intranet (for helping us all keep each other in the loop on projects, technology):
  • http://openatrium.com/ – open source Drupal-based intranet
  • http://www.wikispaces.com/ – $5/month for private wiki
  • http://www.blogger.com, http://www.wordpress.com – free for private blog
• Twenty Minute Trainings/”Brown Bags” – Staff members take turns presenting topics; at the CL we tend to hold them after the weekly Reference meeting, but during my previous life as a consultant, we had lunchtime meetings where everyone (except the presenter :)) would bring lunch and eat it while being trained on something. This list has been good for ideas. Some recent trainings: DropBox, persistent URLs in the catalog, how to use our BookEye scanner. Coming up: Movie Maker and Facebook privacy.
• My tools:
  • Twitter (I like browsing people’s “librarian” lists, and I follow a bunch of librarians with both my personal and professional accounts.)
  • Google Reader – I follow a bunch of library and tech blogs, some feeds related to my hobbies, some comics and humor blogs, and, of course, the Twitter search I built to do proactive reference. In addition, Reader’s social features help bring me news from my geeky, librarian, and library-geeky friends, which is invaluable.
• I’d recommend Reader for a library staff to communicate amongst themselves, too. If a bunch of librarians get accounts and follow blogs in their areas of interest/expertise, they can share posts of interest to the larger group, and people can comment back and forth. I’d love to set up something like this at the CL, but haven’t really brought it up as a possibility yet.

New (and old) projects

• QR Codes – maybe a video tour, or pointers to information about a given area of the library
  
• A geocache hidden in the library? The link goes to my LibGuide about what geocaching is and how to do it. Speaking of which…
• LibGuides, or as we call them at the CL, Research Guides – Great for making “how to” pages about using library resources, easy for techy and non-techy librarians alike
• IM Reference – We use LibraryH3lp, staffed by the librarians at the desk. I also worked in another library that used Meebo (which is free), staffed from librarians’ offices in 1-2 hour blocks. There are still some unresolved issues with our implementation—and that other library’s. I’m interested in discussing what any of you are doing and how it’s working, though.