Presentation: Blogs as Content Management

When I installed WordPress blog software on the REFORMA Tucson server I only intended to use it for a news page. However, I quickly realized that the program was flexible enough to use for the whole website, and that it opened the door to a whole new approach to how members can contribute to our presence on the web.

My presentation about the new REFORMA Tucson Chapter blog and using blog software for website content management will be Thursday, March 8th at the University of Arizona Library's Info Commons computer classroom (ILC 112A). It will be in combination with the regular REFORMA meeting, so the meeting will be from 6:30-7:30pm and my presentation will be from 7:30-8:30pm. Free parking is available in the "Cherry Avenue" parking garage on the east side of Cherry. [Map of library location]

My presentation is intended to be a teaching session for REFORMA members who (we hope!) will be adding information to the website, but anyone interested in seeing powerful blog software in action is welcome.

First I will introduce the "back end" and show how easy it is for someone to contribute to the website or update information without the need for special software or knowledge of HTML. Then I will show how the blog software was easily installed, configured and customized on our server.

I hope there will also be time to discuss additional possibilities, because I believe that they go beyond blogging to uses for the creation of websites for personal portfolios, small organizations, and even management of projects in the classroom.

Free wikis for communities

BBC News is reporting that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is "launching a service offering free tools for people who want to build community websites." It is named Wikia.

There are, of course, some criteria and limitations: your wiki must "have a large potential audience and be likely to attract enough editors to maintain the wiki," and in most cases you are unable to be selective about who can contribute.

Interested? Information on starting a wikia community is provided here.

Making my list and checking it twice

I am having too much fun with a new list wiki that Amazon has created, and wondering how libraries could use it. They have named it UnSpun (beta).

The interface is smooth and pretty intuitive -- lots of Ajax so things fade nicely in and out as you write or save.

List sampling:
Most Powerful Character in the TV Show "Heroes," Favorite Quote from Your Mom, and the Best Things about Public Libraries.

Scratch your librarian/geek/listmaking itch and check it out. I am happy to say I created the first 3 lists for Tucson, AZ and one entitled "Best Book to Read a 3-Year-Old Child before Bedtime."

Powerpoint and audio of our "Library 2.0" Presentation

The PowerPoint slides, audio and handouts from our presentation "What is 'Library 2.0' and how practical is it for real-life libraries?" at the Arizona Library Association conference are now available on the web.

The talk is basically a snapshot of were we are as a Emerging Technologies committee, along with great advice on communication and planning from Jen Maney and Missy Martinez.

I'm really happy with the quality of the audio; it was brand-new equipment and it worked very well. We were a little worried that we didn't really have a lot of projects launched that would could talk about (not as many as we thought we would), but the talk was well-attended and the folks I spoke with thought it was useful.

LibraryThing and tags vs. subject headings

When I discovered LibraryThing last fall it was the beginning of a torrid love affair. The interface! The virtual library shelf! The community of readers! But most of all I fell in love with tagging. How empowering it feels to be able to develop my own access points to my book collection!

Pretty quickly I started wondering if this was something that could be applied to library catalogs -- for example, what if library members could create their own tags for their reading history. Yeah. Well I'm definitely not alone.

Abby at LibraryThing posted what promises to be the first of many blog entries where she compares tags generated by LibraryThing members with subject headings in the Library of Congress format. Take a look.

Public libraries as local image archives

I noticed something cool on the Ann Arbor Library website, and the more I think about it the more I like the idea. I would go so far as to say I had an "Aha!" moment.

What they've done is created their own photo gallery that community members can upload to, up to 10 photos per week.

What do they show? Street fair and parade pictures, Ann Arbor-related ephemera, old postcards, theatrical productions, etc.

They are using Gallery 2.o software, a free opensource gallery system that is housed on Ann Arbor's servers, though I can see several advantages to having a Flickr account instead.

I love this idea because it works on so many different levels:

• The library is *creating* content
• The content is unique to the community
• Uploaders and viewers are investing a bit of themselves in the library
• Historical, documentary value, not just entertainment

Link: Picture Ann Arbor

Managing change

I have been thinking of writing people blogging about web 2.0 and Library 2.0 and asking how they recommend that a library system manage technological change. I don't just mean buy-in by library staff and administration, I mean -- How do you decide what is worth focusing time and attention on? How do you do that and not get distracted by everything new? But how do you focus attention and still remain open to other new ideas that may be even better? You see, I'm suffering a bit from what Pete Cashmore calls 'startup fatigue,' but is just plain information overload.