Re:sources

On a more positive note (as we all cringe and wonder what a UK coalition government, that has to make savage cuts in public services, has planned for libraries) - I really enjoy rummaging among the resources at Box of Tricks, an exceptionally good educational web place...

Coalition - what does that mean for Frontline Public Services?
Online interview, May 19th - register to listen here

Mashups and other jargon

Although this blog got launched after an inspiring meeting about libraries and new technology, your humble scribe doesn't get to many events. He's not a professional librarian anyway, and not having reached anything higher than a humble Scale 3, doesn't get time off to attend conferences and all those other perks of management level working.

Having said that, the whole point of online working is that things can change. We can use teleconferencing, podcasts, wikis, etc.

Here's a wiki for events I can't attend. Mashed Up Libraries wiki. And the blog for 2010.

And in general terms of online presentation, this could prove an Interesting site for all UK Public Libraries.

They award Gold Stars to particularly attractive or interesting sites. I guess, as we have a working group at Cardiff re-assessing our website, we might aspire to one of those!

And finally...

...we have this late-breaking story that Cardiff Central Library has just joined Facebook.
You will find, in fact, two pages, one in English and one in Welsh, which will apparently run in parallel - making life just a little more complicated for the publishing team, but we wish them luck!

Cardiff Central Library on Facebook.

Llyfrgell Ganolog Caerdydd.



More and more library services seem to be extending themselves into the social networking field...

Social Networking ambiguity

This pseudonymous author had taken a break in the hills, got snowed in, but has now returned refreshed.

I felt pleased to see that Socitm decided to encourage the use of 'social networking' in businesses and organisations, rather than block staff from using these tools, and learning how to work them.

As an early-uptaker, it seems to me that blocking staff access to modern tools seems like refusing to let them use a phone, because they might spend time gossiping, or arranging their evening drinks... Apart from the patronising attitude (and lack of trust) to make phones completely unavailable as a 'solution to the problem' would render most library work virtually impossible.

So, the council now trendily uses Twitter to contact its customers, but prevents us workers from using it at all; the public can use Facebook, but staff are discouraged from using it during work time, etc.

I know we only have to patiently wait for the inevitable, but I have an impatient temperament.

Look at Manchester Libraries, with their Facebook Page, their Twitter connection and a blog - The Manchester Lit List.

Hey ho.

Social Networking ambiguity

Cardiff Council have apparently gone live with a Twitter service for citizens to get up-to-date news.

I say 'apparently' because the public can't actually look at Twitter in the public libraries, so it remains an imaginary service to me, right now. Oh wait! I can see it on the intranet, so will pass on examples as best I can, until the public get access. Sadly, links to other sites that Cardiff is 'following' (like Chapter Arts, for instance) remain blocked for now.

However, perhaps it will motivate the libraries to unblock the site for the public? Hard to tell, as Twitter by definition doesn't seem so much like something you need on your desktop, more something for mobiles...

However - watch this space for news of other social networking approaches to council (and particularly library) services.

Library Stream initiated a discussion on Twitter recently. Find them in my list of blogs in the column on the right.

Wave of the future

The hot news seems to involve Google's latest wonder - a totally integrated format of real-time communication called Google Wave. The implications for education (let alone entertainment) haven't really sunk in yet, but it seems ideally suited for remote learning.

A beta gets released to guinea-pigs later this month (a lottery) but later in the year it should emerge. Check out the preview

Although I can see uses for my e-learning tutor role, I suspect that if I get a beta account in the lottery I will use it for creative and collaborative interactions first. Me and my online 'gang' or 'posse' or whatever you call a tribe these days (we all seemed to call ourselves a 'reading group' when we met up in Berlin in July - sounds almost as tame as 'librarian' - heh heh [he cackles with eldritch rising organ music in the background]) well, we, ahem intend to test it to destruction, given half a chance.

As a motley crew with skills in various arts we do stretch and pull interactive processes in all directions. Currently we have a team blog, several individual blogs, a new Drupal forum and a couple of wikis running. Wave seems to have the possibility of integrating all these things seamlessly. The mind boggles.

Groups or Pages

I have started looking at Facebook in a little more depth - having originally joined purely to be able to assist users in the library (and to that end, joined under a non-de-plume, which I believe broke one of the first rules, but hey - half my friends in show-biz have stage names which they are often known by, in addition to their 'birth certificate/passport' name.  I think of it as a useless distinction.

I suspect they got vaguely worried about the MySpace tendency to invent satirical versions of Dubya and Tony Blair, (I found at least 80 God Profiles over there). Still, and all - ID theft for satirical purposes seems like a different threat from the emptying of one's bank account.  Um.  Tricky, that.

Anyway - it has led me to realize that in addition to thousands of Groups, from the serious to the trivial, you can find another level of Facebook - the Pages.

Pages can represent an individual, like Derren Brown, or an institution like Manchester Library and Information Services, who seem to have mastered the art.  Pages can acquire 'fans'.

Groups (open or closed to all except invited members) can form around silly and/or transient issues, or serious and on-going ones.  How about the paradoxical group "Let's All Leave Facebook" or a discussion group like "Libraries Using Facebook Pages"

Some discussion of the differences appear on Tim Davies's blog.

keep track of your government

Although the only social networking sites currently offered to the public on Cardiff Library's People's Network computers are Facebook, MySpace and YouTube - many others could prove relevant or useful.

If you want to follow the Government - Downing Street, the Foreign Office, etc you might want to use Twitter for breaking news.

Twitter, the micro-blogging site, remains blocked at Cardiff for the time being.

According to The Press Association, the Government offers a 20pp document The Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments. Download it here, as PDF.

You couldn't make this stuff up...Sir Humphrey must be twirling in his (virtual, fictional) grave.

U.K. government tells civil servants to use Twitter SF Business Times

The British government has told its civil servants that their departments should send messages on Twitter from twice to 10 times a day.

Twitter, the government says, “is experiencing a phenomenal adoption curve in the UK.” The service is being used by other governments and by many businesses, too.

This document describes why and how we intend to establish and manage a corporate presence on the microblogging social network Twitter.com,” says the British Cabinet Office’s “Twitter strategy” document, which is 20 pages long and has five appendices.


Twitter tools: Great for now, but will they last forever? Tech Republic

Check these tools, and perhaps you can Twit from your mobile, and not need the library to offer the service on their public access computers...

Social Networking in Libraries

I feel all too well aware how awful adults trying to 'get down with the kids' can seem - but I had some good teachers myself, and have spent some time teaching when I seemed to have some respect - so I don't want to generalize too much, too soon.

We (that's the royal 'we' meaning libraries) intend to look at social networking as part of our communications network. A lot of staff do already use (say) Facebook.

At the same time, I know a lot of people think libraries have no business intruding on young people's social spaces, like a school teacher or policeman (otherwise known as parents) at a party.

I guess the image of a library as something to do with 'school' and 'work' doesn't go away. For myself, I used to play truant and go to the library as a way of educating myself, and when poor and on the road I found libraries great places to hang out (admittedly as a loner). Now Cardiff Central Library (and some of the branches) offer free Wifi you can just bring your laptop, find a quiet corner, get a coffee from the machine, and chill out. That has a lot going for it. We don't insist you do 'sensible stuff' - or 'spend your time wisely'.

We have as much entertainment available (graphic novels, music, film and art books, biographies of celebrities, etc) as educational. We have a wide range of magazines and stuff to browse (and unlike the newsagent we don't gruffly ask "are you going to buy that, or what?")

So I hope this blog contributes to humanizing the local library...just a little...

Grassroots and Sprouts and young people's information resources

We are in a training session, looking at a website for local young people... The Sprout

The libraries are listed in Information Providers

I remember coming across another local listing site - My Village - there's a lot of it about, but keeping information up-to-date and interesting remains a challenge.

Maybe relevant?

Today's post from the Effing Librarian:

As I passed the computer area, two teen girls shared this conversation (verbatim, to the best of my memory):

Are you on MySpace?
Yeah. I think so.
How did you get there?
I don't know.
How are you spelling it?
I don't know!

MyFace and SpaceBook

We are slowly moving into the 21st Century - as Cardiff Council has begun implementing the use of Learning Pool (the public sector e-learning exchange) to roll out e-learning as an economic and efficient plan for increasing staff skills (never entirely replacing face-to-face learning, of course, more of a supplement).

We are even considering using Social Networking to promote library use, or raise the service's profile or whatever - so if anyone has experience of this, or relevant tips to adding an organisation, or forming an interest group, etc, please do add notes in the Comments section.

Learning Pool also has a forum where these kind of issues get discussed. e.g. Access Denied - where people mention the fact that Council workers often cannot access these very useful tools - for a variety of reasons (from security issues, to perhaps not trusting that staff won't 'waste time' using them).

They can 'waste time' networking and gossiping on the phone, or round the water cooler, instead. :-)

The Learning Pool blog has some interesting discussion of just this topic:

How Social Media makes your organisation better

The end of that discussion points to 50 Barriers to Open Government, a Wiki for discussion of Social Strategies - from Tim Davies at Practical Participation