Comments on: Social software in academic libraries: what’s most important?

By: Chadwick Seagraves

Chadwick Seagraves — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:50:24 +0000

I have to do two similar presentations on “Emerging Technologies” and “Integrating Technology into the Classroom” for a technology summit for our school’s faculty. I am facing the same decisions and have found this post and it’s related comments very helpful. Great stuff.

By: Rebecca Hedreen

Rebecca Hedreen — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:53:13 +0000

One thing you might consider is lumping blogs and wikis into “web publishing”. I’ve started doing that for some conversations, and it’s working pretty well. Blogs are chronologically based web publishing, wikis are multiple author web publishing (not that either is strictly one or the other, of course). The important thing is that web publishing is now really, really easy and you don’t need to know coding or server stuff to do it, or to have a web conversation about what you have published (which in turn leads to RSS, social networking, etc.)

Good luck with the presentation. (Please post notes!)

By: Meredith

Meredith — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:42:49 +0000

Thanks everyone for your terrific suggestions! I’ve decided (I think — I’ll have to see how long I go when I do a run-through) to do a slightly broader talk covering blogs, rss, wikis, IM and social networking software. Obviously I won’t be able to go into a ton of depth, but I’ll be able to cover the basics of each and give them something to take back to their libraries.

If it’s too long, wikis will probably be the thing to go since it’s hard to cover blogs without mentioning RSS and I was already pretty sold on talking about IM and social networking software. As much as I personally love wikis, I think the others might be more important to mention in this situation. There isn’t much virtual reference going on in our state and a lot of that has to do with money, so IM is a great option. Also, I think a lot of librarians only have a sketchy idea of what MySpace and Facebook are (at best), and I’ve gotten really excited seeing the ways libraries are building presence in these online social networking sites.

I’m really excited about the presentation!!! Thanks again for all your help!

By: Steve Thomas

Steve Thomas — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:26:12 +0000

I’m in a similar position — I have to present to our senior staff in the next week or so on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. I had a similar dilemma: broad or focussed? I’m opting for a broad coverage of topics, simply because most of them are way, way back in terms of understanding these things — I think most have heard of Amazon and one or two may have even used it.

So I guess it depends on how you see your audience. In my case, I see a need to bring them up to speed fast, and I also cannot resist the temptation to dazzle them with possibilities and even frighten the poor dears a little. I want to maximise the excitement. But if your audience is past that phase, then a more focussed presentation will probably have a more practical payoff.

Not sure of my top three. I think blogging — we should first and foremost let our users know what we’re thinking. We’re very bad at that right now. And I think tagging/folksonomy, because I think they excite (and I’m biased against LCSH.)

By: Jill Hurst-Wahl

Jill Hurst-Wahl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:19:27 +0000

I’m doing a presentation tomorrow for a local BOCES and am mentioning several social networking sites and other tools in order to build general awareness. Several screen shots. (I’m being followed by someone who will talk specifically about blogs.) So my vote is to cover whatever you are comfortable with, since you will be opening their eyes to a huge world that they may not know exists. I think talking about Facebook and MySpace could be important since they may have heard the negative side of these sites and don’t know any positives.

Whatever you do, it will be wonderful and appreciated!

By: dave

dave — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 23:28:21 +0000

I would vote for blog/RSS/IM if you’re talking to a fairly non-techie crowd. Those might be easiest to implement for libs that might not have a huge budget for tech stuff and most immediately useful. If you try to cover blogging and RSS in the same section and have 2 more topics be prepared for a lot of RSS questions that might throw the timing off. Of the 3 I find that RSS takes the most time to get across.

But whatever you cover it will be great.

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:49:49 +0000

Being an academic librarian and needing the easy fix to social software needs I would go with blogs, wikis, and RSS. These three are ones that do make a difference and most librarians are familiar with the social networking software and the others take too much time. I would touch on the other ones with a handout. Don’t overwhelm them.

Good Luck with the presentation.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 03:36:48 +0000

Two suggestions:
1. Contact the conference program chair and find out whether any other presentations will be addressing the same topics. If so, you might want to contact those other presenters and work out some way for each of you to present different aspects of the topic.
2. Focus on only 3 major examples; that’s really all you’ll have time for in an hour’s presentation. Direct your listeners to additional resources on some of the other topics, and leave them wanting to hear more from you…next year!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 21:37:58 +0000

I have a ten tech tips talk that I give which touches on a lot of topics and has links for people to find out more. I feel that some people may already know some of what I have to say [though that is less likely with your crowd] and some don't and most of them are coming in thinking "how can I use this to save time/money?" They will also want to know the MySpace/pedophile connection, so be prepared for that since it was all over the papers here and librarians I meet seem to be curious about MySpace since what the know they read in the paper. http://librarian.net/talks/njla/

By: Michael Sensiba

Michael Sensiba — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:07:19 +0000

One thing I’ve used for presentations recently is the personal start page (I used Netvibes). The nice thing is that it displays the characteristics of Web 2.0/Library 2.0 in an approachable way, and can be used to bring in other technologies (tagging, blogs, RSS feeds, etc.).

Mike Sensiba
Wayne State University