Libraries and Librarians as New Producers, Markets and Tastemakers

I like definitions and appreciate how Anderson concisely explains: "A Long Tail is just culture unfiltered by economic scarcity" (p. 53). Thinking about how libraries and librarians fit into this made me think about both the differences and the similarities between libraries in the past and those of today. Whereas in the past, patrons came to the library hoping to find something they needed, nowadays they often come to use the computers and other technological resources for their own personal needs (writing their resumes, creating video games, etc.) This is one obvious way libraries now fit into the new production model. Librarians themselves also produce more today than they did back when they were merely "keepers of books" through blogging, podcasting and other informational-producing avenues.

Library collections have also been changing dramatically too with their increased emphasis on media and greater amount of digital resources, all of which exemplify the new market concept of the Long Tail in libraries. Our library just introduced a downloadable video collection called MyLibraryDV which is one of the clearest examples I've seen of this concept: why should library patrons have to wait for a copy of a dvd to be returned to the library when they can more conveniently just download it to their computers from the comfort of their own homes?

And collection development itself seems to be much more patron-focused and driven these days. Instead of asking if a library has an item, patrons today are more apt to ask for the library to "get" an item. As Anderson observes, we all are working "in an era of empowered customers" (p.99). These customers do view themselves as the "tastemakers" and want their libraries to get them the things they want (as opposed to in the past when they came and more or less chose what they "wanted" from what the library had available.)

These differences aside, however, I think that the role of librarians as "tastemakers" is one that has traditionally always been there. They have always served the essential task of filtering information which, as Anderson shows, is more crucial now in this "long-tail-onomics" world of "infinite choice" (p.52) than ever. Librarians serve as that "3rd force" and "help people find what they want in this superabundance of variety"(p.107).

My Online-MLIS Experience at SCILS

I was kind of at a loss when I first heard Steve say he wanted us to take pictures describing our experience at SCILS. The total mess my house has become was the first thought that came to mind, but I would never subject myself to the embarrassment of showing that disaster to the world. I thought about snapping a shot of the sorry state of my face (I'm prone to breaking out when I'm stressed and am prone to stressing out when I'm in school) but figured that was kind of gross. I also thought about photographing my newly found white hairs (which I'm probably just starting to get because I'm starting to get older, but it makes me feel so much better to blame them on grad school!)

While I have albums upon albums of pictures from my undergrad days (remember back in the 90's when people got pictures "developed" and put them in "photo albums"?) taking pictures of anything in my online graduate experience was something I never thought to do. It has been a wonderful educational experience and I have met and learned with and from an incredible bunch of people. I'm also thrilled about the exciting library career I have ahead of me. But, it has been a pretty tough and grueling experience. The lack of sleep has been the hardest part, I think.

To see other images about my experience, check out my "long, strange trip" set on flickr.

For a more interesting and varied look at what it's like being an MLIS grad student at SCILS, see our classmates' group pool at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/scils598f08-edexperience/pool/

Analyzing usage of my little ol' blog

I have to admit I was a little excited to see proof on Google Analytics that some people (other than myself!) have actually visited my blog. What a neat little tool this is! I can just imagine how interesting and useful it would be to use it on a real site.

IE was the most popular browser used to view my blog (59.42%), followed by Firefox (37.68%) then Safari (2.9%).

Cable was the most popular means of Internet connection (71.01%) followed by DSL (11.59%), TI (10.14%) and Dial-up (4.35%...is that you, my buddy, JeHa?).

I'm sure these figures are skewed somewhat by my own viewing (I'm an IE/Cable user.) I like how Flickr gives you viewing stats that exclude yourself. It would be nice if Google Analytics could likewise be set up to disregard the blog/site owner's visits for a more accurate analysis.

pbwiki vs. wetpaint

I peeked at wikispaces, wetpaint and wikidot when trying to choose another wiki service to use this week. I ended up choosing wetpaint for reasons more subjective than its features (I liked its look and was touched by the reason it was created: a group of friends had a friend with cancer and wanted a way to find and share information about all he was going through.)

I found it to be just as simple to set up a new wiki on as pbwiki is. There are also many pretty templates to choose from (which I felt made my site look more like a non-wiki-website, if that makes any sense.) The biggest downside with wetpaint is that it has those darn ads (which makes the site appear less professional I think than pbwiki.)

Two features of wetpaint that I liked (and have yet to find on pbwiki, though I might just not be looking hard enough) are the ability to email particular pages and the "To-Do" tool. "To-Do" lets users write a memo (to oneself and other users) about what needs to be done on the wiki. (It reminded me of the messages you sometimes see in Wikipedia saying that an article needs citations or something.) This is a good feature not only to encourage collaboration and input, but also to alert readers in a sense when a particular page or section is not yet complete. (I was thinking this feature could be especially useful when a wiki is being used for a group project or presentation to communicate what needs to be done among group members.)

Google Docs for class projects

I think online collaborative programs like Google docs and spresent are amazing tools whose worth is only beginning to be realized in the Education world. This was the first time I was actually assigned to use Google docs for a class (I've only puttered around with it in the past for "fun" stuff like making vacation and party lists with friends) and it made me see how it can be a much more powerful collaborative tool than I had originally realized. While I share some of the reservations Farkas mentioned new users often feel of not wanting to change "other people's work", I think the open source movement is creating a new world where sharing and collaborative creating/editing are going to become more commonplace and accepted.

Maybe I've been one of the lucky ones but, for the most part, I feel that I've had rather forward-thinking professors in SCILS who pride themselves in keeping up with the latest technology and learning methods. Because of this, I feel they would accept (and possibly even require) the use of programs such as these for group projects.

Sadly, though, I don't think these tools would be welcomed in most K-12 settings. I'm sure many teachers (and awesome school librarians!) would see the potential and learning benefits of using them, but their principals/superintendents/boards of ed. wouldn't allow their use (mostly out of fear that they are "web 2.0" applications that cannot be controlled.)

The Long Tail and Libraries

Wow, what an interesting read Anderson's The Long Tail has been so far! More than just explaining an economic phenomenon, his insights paint a vivid picture of what our cultural landscape has become in the 21st century.

I found it ironic to be reading this book now, when I've finally (after over a year) gotten the hang of weeding in our library. Until very recently, I absolutely hated the task, and wondered if I would make a better archivist than librarian since I preferred to keep books rather than discard them. Without even knowing what it was, I had "the long tail" in mind, thinking, "Someone might need or want to read this someday," each time I sentenced a book to the weeding cart. The public library where I work definitely espouses more of a "hit driven" collection development policy: acquiring 20+ copies of all the most recently released DVD's and bestselling books because they circulate.

With this in mind, when I first started Anderson's book earlier in the week, I initially felt that our library didn't quite "fit in" with the long tail concept. As I read more, however, I began to think otherwise. Perhaps re-reading Steve's question helped me broaden my vision. He asked about "the library world as a whole" which made me realize that our particular library serves the particular niche of our community in mostly satisfying their entertainment needs (and, as Anderson observes, ours is now a niche-driven culture.) Academic and school libraries serve other purposes for their users. Now more than ever, it seems important for libraries to have mission statements that define their purposes. I think all libraries could truly benefit from the long tail concept by doing this, and then working together with all the other different libraries in their state or consortium to ensure that all the various "niches" are filled.

Delicious as a class "Virtual Introduction"

I really like the idea of using Delicious as a "virtual introduction" process in other classes. The majority of my online classes had us write an introduction and, after several classes with most of the same people, this got a little trite at times. Having students pick 10-15 sites that currently best describe them would be a fun alternative. As others have blogged already, this exercise would be most effective if participants were required (or, at least, strongly encouraged) to write a description for each bookmarked site. I had initially held back from elaborating on my sites because I felt that since my descriptions would be out there "for the whole wide world to see", I should keep them generic. After seeing how much more interesting it was to read the bookmarks from my classmates who included more personal descriptions, however, I loosened up a bit and included my own. (Realizing that the vast majority of readers on the Web don't really give a hoot about what I'm writing anyway is kind of liberating!)

Brown & Duguid and education in the U.S.

B&D's clarification of the difference between "information" and "knowledge" in their chapter on learning points to many of the potential pitfalls and shortcomings of our education system today. Traditional methods of instruction where students passively receive information from teachers and books (and then throw it back in the form of a paper or test to show that they've "learned" it) are both outdated and ineffective in preparing students to succeed in today's world. I loved B&D's statement: "Knowledge's personal attributes suggest that the shift toward knowledge may (or should) represent a shift toward people" (p. 120). Likewise, to effectively educate our children, our schools need to become more student-centered and focus on making students active learners.

The "Re-education" chapter was very thought-provoking in its discussion of distance education. While I don't believe it will ever fully replace traditional, in-person high school and college programs, it's clear that online learning is a growing trend in education. Having (nearly) completed my entire degree online, I am an advocate of the concept, but think it's essential for educational institutions to carefully plan and develop their online programs in order to ensure they are effective. I think SCILS did a great job with grouping incoming classes to its online program into "cohorts". This helped tremendously in developing a feeling of community (which B&D also mention as being an important element in the learning process.) I think that as this trend in education continues to grow, it's important for us to be aware of the social software tools such as the ones we're learning about now (and those that have yet to be invented!) so that we can help people foster a greater sense of community in the online world. (Scils, for example, created an online student lounge with a cafe for us, but I'm still pining for a virtual pub!)

del.icio.us vs. ma.gnolia

Next to the obvious difference in appearance (ma.gnolia has a much "cleaner" look than del.icio.us) and some other features (ma.gnolia allows users to rate bookmarked sites and saves/displays a copy of each bookmarked webpage), I feel that the most pertinent difference between the two sites lies in their number of users. Delicious appears to have a substantially greater following in the social bookmarking arena. (Using my own bookmarks in the two sites as an example, 954 other people bookmarked the poetry site I marked in Delicious, while only 15 others did in Magnolia. 169 people marked the Scrabble site I marked in Delicious, while I was the ONLY one to do so in Magnolia.) This makes me feel that Delicious would be a better site to use for social bookmarking (no matter what it looks like and despite any other bells and whistles it may lack) because the power of social bookmarking in organizing the Web and allowing users to find sites of interest and relevance lies in its users. This really is an arena where there is "power in numbers".

Shelfari review

Setting up an account on Shelfari this past week was the first time I have ever used a social bookmarking "book" site. While the concept has always sounded intriguing to me, the idea of inputting all the books I own or have ever read always seemed a bit too overwhelming a task to undertake. I also never really understood the reasons (before this week, that is!) why people needed to advertise to the online world what books they were reading. But this week's assignment forced me to bite the bullet and jump on the book-bookmarking-bandwagon. I chose Shelfari because I hadn't heard people raving about it as much as I had in the past with goodreads and libraryThing: http://www.shelfari.com/o1518075727/shelf

I can see how people get addicted to this type of thing. Shelfari makes it very easy to add books to your "shelf" and displays them in a very visually pleasing manner (one even has the option to change the stain of the shelf's "wood".) Books can also be viewed in a "list view" as well. Your shelfari shelf is divided into three sections: "Books I've read," "Books I'm reading" and "Books I plan to read". I can see how this "plan to read" section might especially serve as a helpful reminder whenever one hears of a good book he or she would like to read in the future. Books read can be tagged and rated (and marked as favorites, owned or "wish list" titles.) People using shelfari can add friends and set up different "groups". A nice thing about the group option is that they can be private (which could allow the group to, more or less, discuss books together as they might in a book group.) All users can read (and write) book reviews in the public domain, and "shelves" can be displayed in one's blog or website. Like most other social bookmarking sites, reading users' reviews and searching for books by tags is a great way for people to find book recommendations.

While I found shelfari to be a very visually pleasing site, I also felt that the book information windows that pop-up whenever one rolls over a book's image were rather annoying (albeit necessary to the site's purpose.) If I were to continue using shelfari in the future, I'm sure I'd eventually end up abandoning the pretty "shelf" view of the books and opt to use the more efficient "list" view in order to avoid all the pop-ups. I also would love to spend more time reading the author features and clicking through the most popular books links when I have more time to spend. To me, shelfari seems to be more of a place for readers to have fun tagging, finding and reading about books online, than as a necessary tool for organizing one's personal library.

Is RSS part of the solution or part of the problem with regard to Information Overload?

Earlier in the week when I first recognized all the potential uses for RSS, I initially thought it definitely was a great way to combat information overload. The more I read and learned and thought about RSS, however, made me realize there really are two sides to the coin. Like Gabrielle mentioned in her blog, I was dumbfounded upon hearing that Meredith Farkas reads 170 blogs on a regular basis. (And, I believe, she mentioned in the podcast that she knows people who keep track of somewhere around 500!!!) This would be absolutely impossible without RSS. Because RSS makes it so simple to bring all the information people want to keep up with directly to them, people are trying to keep up with more and more. It all appears less overwhelming on the surface, but I think, somehow, it's ultimately going to lead to more overload.

another "new to me" social software site

I can't wait to get a chance to play around with the new site I just discovered for this week's "find a new site" assignment! It's called dabbleBoard and is an online, easy to use, easy to share, collaborative whiteboard application. You can check out a quick (3 1/2 minute) tour of the site to see how easy and fun it can be. Watching it reminded me of the UPS commercials that are on TV these days, with the guy effortlessly drawing images and diagrams and charts. DabbleBoard gives all of us similar tools, as charts/drawings can be created with simple clicks and movements of the mouse (and very limited visits to the toolbar.)

It is free and signing up is not required to use it. (Although, if you want to save your drawings to access at a later time, you must create a free account.) You choose whether to make your creations public or private. Another great feature is that you can email what you're working on to someone and both of you can edit/change it in real time.

Final Thoughts on Feed

Learning this week about the prevalence of RSS made me think that we actually are closer to the world of Anderson's Feed than I had originally imagined. I see many people in the library where I work (mostly senior citizens) who pride themselves on not having an email account and never having used a computer for anything. I'm sure there will come a time, however, when people will eventually be forced (like Violet's father in the book) "to connect" in order to fully function in society. And, once connected, we all do somehow become dependent on systems like Google in particular and the whole infrastructure of the Internet in general.

What bothers me most about the society in Feed is how the easier access to information oftentimes lessens people's ability (or even desire) to think for themselves. Our education systems are partly to blame with their emphasis on finding the "right" answer (and this is a realm where school librarians can really champion by helping teachers design better units of inquiry...but that's a whole other topic covered in a whole other class!) As in Feed, students can very easily find most of the "answers" to their homework questions (and, sadly, buy complete papers) online these days. While I love providing chat reference in our library and believe that it is an incredible and important service, I oftentimes feel that we "virtual librarians" are part of this "Feed" phenomenon. While I'll refuse to give students answers to their specific homework questions and continually try to redirect them to helpful sources, they will continually ask, again and again, for the "answer". The saddest (and scariest) thing is that, like Titus, many kids actually believe that typing a question and getting an answer online is not cheating, but thinking.