A Good Meeting
Yesterday, I was invited to speak to a group of middle managers in my library about possible planning for and implementation of 2.0 initiatives. We took a look at my Action Plan for a 2.0 Library as a point of reference. These are some of my notes.
As we began talking, I was especially impressed with the bottom-line point of view of these librarians: What would be best for our users? What is relevant to their academic lives? For example, I heard these remarks:
- Users aren't asking us for 2.0 types of things.
- RSS as a means of information updates is a problem because we're having issues with support. Lots of users don't know how to deal with feeds.
- Our students wouldn't blog if I didn't require them to contribute to my course blog.
- Facebook is what students care about now, not blogging or anything else, and I've heard that students don't even want us there.
While these kinds of remarks might come across as skepticism about 2.0, I saw them as reflecting something else on the part of these managers: an interest in serving users well, and in putting their always-limited time into things that matter.
These managers were interested in seeing examples of what might be done to improve our services to users. Are there 2.0 technologies that can help in this effort? If you approach things from this point of view, I think, doors can open. So I talked about the fact that important pages on our Web site are not used very much. Our annual usage statistics show this. Why not make these pages more compelling with imported RSS feeds that would turn them into current awareness tools? How about creating custom search tools to better direct student research? We talked about bookmarking on del.icio.us. One librarian wanted a better way for students to contact her, as the e-mail links on her Web site are never used; I suggested the Meebo widget. I also suggested that the Libraries host a blog to support the annual campus reading project, in which lectures and events are organized around a particular book.
These managers felt that decentralization was a good thing in allowing them to make independent decisions about which initiatives might be useful in their areas. They also felt that well-articulated library-wide priorities would be useful in helping them chart new directions. Makes sense to me! And happily, they were interested in reconceptualizing positions when openings come up and asking for new skill sets of the candidates.
I mentioned that we're in the very early years of figuring out best practices in using 2.0 tools. If something isn't quite working out right now, then experimentation with different strategies might bring about better results. Eventually, maybe something should be dropped - this is what experimentation is all about. I also talked about the challenge of educating students about the scholarly use of tools that they are more used to thinking about in recreational terms. This is where our role as educators comes in. As I was saying this, I found myself thinking about my last blog posting, in which I ruminated about the distinctive role that academic librarians can play in Library 2.0. This is the very point I've been thinking and writing about lately. It's cool when one's blog helps out in one's job!
All in all, a good meeting.
Comments
Laura-
You didn't really comment on the Facebook remark, so not sure what your stance is, but just thought I'd chime in my own $.02
The best way to think about this idea that students don't want teachers/other superiors on Facebook is definitely widespread. I was in college when Facebook had just took off, and still feel the same way. It's almost as if a teacher invited her class into the teacher's lounger. Besides that teacher feeling awkward once 30 students enter, there's all the other teachers there who want their privacy to sit and relax. Facebook evolved as a student's lounge, and given the sometimes personal information some people put on their profile, they don't want to worry about one of their teachers 'intruding' on them.
Now that Facebook is open to everyone and anyone, it's hard to regulate that kind of stuff, but I definitely see where those commenters are coming from.
Re: RSS feeds, they can be quite simple, I've taught people in my organization to use Google Reader in minutes. And blogs are journals in nature, you can't force someone to want to write what's on their mind all the time - unless of course you grade them on it :P
Posted by: Matt | September 6, 2007 01:26 PM
Matt, thanks. As for your Facebook comments, do you think it's an intrusion for libraries to create Facebook apps such as catalog/database search tools? I'm wondering if you might think this is OK, since students can choose to use or not to use them.
I can also see where students are coming from in not wanting faculty to approach them on Facebook, but there are also students who welcome and appreciate such contacts. The book I'm editing includes a chapter about Facebook outreach that tells the latter story. I think the jury is still out on this. It will be interesting to see how this issue evolves.
The RSS comment at yesterday's meeting turned out to be a misunderstanding. The librarian who mentioned it clarified things earlier today. It turns out that one of the ILLiad RSS feed types is broken due to a software bug. Problems with users were not an issue.
Posted by: Laura Cohen | September 6, 2007 02:34 PM
Good post Laura. I thought your approach to use skeptical remarks about web 2.0 as a jumping point for discussion, rather than just dismissing those people as Luddites is an excellent lesson.
Regarding Facebook... I'm sure that some students have the view that Facebook is THEIR space, and they don't want Librarians and Faculty there, but my experience has shown there are students that welcome our participation.
About a year and a half ago I signed on to Facebook just to see what it was about. Since that time I've been "friended" by some student workers and even one of our regular student patrons. Would they send me a friend request if they didn't think I should be there?
Posted by: Jonathan | September 7, 2007 10:38 AM
Jonathan, Thank you. I like your Facebook anecdote. It think it's difficult to generalize students' feelings about us being in "their" space since it makes sense that there will be individual responses to our presence. If you've developed good in-person relationships with students, it shouldn't be all that surprising that they like you enough to "friend" you. I hope that librarians won't be scared off by negative stories when we really are so early in the game.
Posted by: Laura Cohen | September 7, 2007 11:35 AM
Re: Facebook, I'd like to add the possibility that some students' perceptions of what Facebook is and is not for may be unreasonable and changeable based on the kinds of outreach they encounter.
For instance, I had a teenager tell me that I was too old for Facebook, even though I was closer to the college student experience than she ever was.
Like any outreach, engaging online communities does require developing a level of rapport with the target groups. The success, and even the ethical implementation, of the service will depend on how well libraries/librarians build that rapport.
Posted by: Ryan Deschamps | September 10, 2007 11:39 AM
Laura,
Thanks for the interesting meeting notes. We are just beginning to investigate social networking, Web 2.0 technologies and how truly beneficial they would be to our classes and library. I actually found your blog after searching for "delicious and academic library uses".
I too set up a Facebook account and saw that one of my students actually invited me to join their space.
If we end up using Facebook, it would be as a destination--I haven't gone far in my investigation yet, but I agree that it is important to have as many avenues as possible open to our students.
I look forward to hearing how you progress.
Posted by: Maryanne | September 21, 2007 02:01 PM