TechEssence.info

We are ALL busy. Yesterday for example, I had a plan of what I was going to accomplish at work, but then I came in to an e-mail from a student asking for articles about the Second Anglo-Afghan War (for which we had next to nothing in the databases so I really had to hunt), and after that I found out about some dead links I needed to fix on a Web page, and then I got a call from a professor whom I needed to talk through some database searches, and then I had a reference shift all afternoon. So by the end of the day, I was shocked to find that I'd barely gotten any of the things I'd wanted to accomplish done. Imagine, if this is going on every day, how I, or anyone else in our profession, can actually make time for any sort of continuing education work?

It is amazing how portable and remixable our content is these days. Using RSS and JavaScript, I can take content that lives on one Website and have it show up on five different pages. I can even specify how much of the content I want to show up on the page and what I want it to look like. And when I update that content on the original Website, it is automatically updated everywhere else. Using an RSS mixer, I can mix content from 10 different sites and create an entirely new RSS feed that contains content from all of them. By the time I syndicate that content elsewhere, it probably won't look anything like it did before. It may not even be possible to tell where the individual pieces of content came from. The question is, is what I'm doing ok?

Our Content, Their Device: Three Uses of the iPod - Sarah G. Wenzel, Columbia University

The librarians at Columbia University have developed a variety of library content that can be used on an iPod.

They created a call number guide (visual) that can be downloaded on an iPod. They made downloadable map photos of the stacks available. To explain how to use it, they used documentation from the iPod Subway Guide to explain how to download the resources onto the iPod.

Using RSS to Promote Scholarly Publications - Ken Varnum, Tufts University

RSS stands for real simple syndication. It's an xml-based data format for syndicating content. Way to send a title, URL and abstract to aggregators, websites, etc.

Roy Tennant - Never the Same River: Libraries and Technological Change

The October Conference's theme this year is Cool Tools and New Technologies and there is quite an exciting roster of speakers discussing a variety of tech tools. I will be blogging as much of it as I can (other than my own talk!).

When I look at the really innovative things that some libraries are doing with technology (Casey Bisson’s WPOPAC, what the Hennepin County PL has done with its catalog, and the Ann Arbor District Library’s amazing Web site being just a few notable examples) I am thrilled to see that these libraries had the vision and forethought to hire individuals with serious coding skills. Sadly, not every library can afford to do so. With budgets stretched thin, some libraries have enough trouble trying to provide the same basic services they always have. Libraries often hire young librarians for blended librarian positions expecting that a librarian can somehow do nearly full-time public service work as well as the tech projects they feel will take them where they want to go. At my library, there are many things I would like to accomplish that I just don’t yet have the skills to do. However there is no one else at my library that can help me accomplish those things. I think this is a very common problem at libraries. We all want a usable and dynamic Web presence. We want to improve the usability of our OPAC. We want to make our Web site more “social.” But we don’t have staff with the tech knowledge to take us all the way there.

Over the past couple of years, a number of Web sites and initiatives have sprung up that can help bridge the tech gap. These offer the ability to ask questions and get help from people who are willing to share their expertise with others. Most of these “expert locator” sites are designed for all sorts of questions, but one of the following sites is designed specifically for librarians with IT issues:

On my other blog, Information Wants to Be Free, I recently wrote about what library school doesn’t (but should) teach students to prepare them for 21st century librarianship. One of the things I brought up was the importance of keeping up with new technologies and developments in our field and related fields.

A few days ago, Dorothea recommended some terrific books on information architecture and usable design. Usability basically means how easy and enjoyable it is to use a particular tool (which can be measured for anything from a computer to a rake to a building). If you find that your toaster oven is difficult to use, you can’t figure out which knobs do what, and you can never remember which setting makes your toast perfectly toasted, then it has poor usability. When libraries talk about usability, they are usually referring to the online interfaces our patrons utilize. Some of these interfaces are quite usable, but the majority are not. Many of our online databases and catalogs are not intuitive to use, do not contain sufficiently simple documentation to explain how to use them, and are not designed to match the user’s expectations based on the interfaces they use every day (Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, etc.). Jakob Nielsen, an expert on the subject of usability, has developed ten heuristics for evaluating user interfaces. They include a "match between system and real world," "error prevention," "recognition rather than recall," and "help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors." If your Web site, catalog, and online databases actually satisfy these ten heuristics, then you’re in great shape. Unfortunately, most online library resources don’t.

One thing that is too often ignored in all this talk about Web usability is the terminology librarians use without even thinking about it, both in our everyday speech and on our Web sites. Librarians speak their own antiquated little language and sometimes we forget that our patrons don’t. If patrons are confronted with terms they don’t know on your Web site, how likely is it that they will be successful in completing the task they came there for. And consequently, how likely is it that they’ll ever come back?

So you may be all gung-ho about a new technology you've read about and really want to implement in your library. You're sure it will benefit your patrons a great deal. However, it is likely that it's your staff who will be doing the heavy lifting of implementing the technology, marketing it and making it successful. And if they aren't as committed to this technology as you are, they likely will not be as committed to its successful implementation. The key to the success of any new technology is an enthusiastic and committed staff. As an administrator, it falls on your shoulders to build up that enthusiasm. Here are some tips that will help to ensure staff buy-in:

This post is meant to complement the TechEssence white paper on wikis.

Wikis are really hot right now. It seemed to be all people were talking about at Computers in Libraries this year. People are starting to use wikis in libraries to encourage staff collaboration and to encourage patron participation online. Many people often become skeptical of "hot technologies" because they can get to be so over-hyped. However, I can confirm from experience that, when used properly, wikis can harness the collective intelligence in unprecedented ways, and have tremendous potential for use in libraries.