Here are the slides from my plenary session at the “Library of the Future” forum for the Learning Resources Network Services Network, hosted by Challenger TAFE here in Fremantle – Five Social Software Sites that Libraries Shouldn’t Ignore.
The presentation used a lot of pictures of monkeys to look at:
1. Why should libraries care about social software?
2. What is social software?
3. Massive content sharing sites
4. Five sites and:
- The “so what” of the site
- Usage
- Sites with a similar purpose
5. Sites covered:
6. Not in so much detail, but libraries should know about
7. Information storage and retrieval is via social elements, not controlled vocabulary
8. Social does not mean trivial
9. Social elements
Used Adventures of Superlibrarian clip on YouTube as an example
- Profiles
- Subscribing
- Friends/contacts
- Internal messages
- Groups
- Tagging
- Rating
- Favouriting
- Commenting
- Related items
- Responses
- Remixing
10. How libraries are using these sites – two examples of each, but extra slides with more examples at end of slideshow.
YouTube
- How we want to be seen – Story time from Calgary Public Library
- How they see us – Tasering in UCLA library
- for more, see my wiki youtubeandlibraries
Flickr
- Adding content – Picture Australia
- Sharing experience – 365 Library Days group
del.icio.us
- Subject guides (embedded into WebCT) – QUT Creative Industries
- Resource collection – Bremer TAFE
- Targeted announcements – $10 for 5000 flyers to a group – Tutt Library Colorado
- Offering search to embed in profiles – Hennepin County Public Library facebook application
11. Checklist for action
- Ensure reasonable public access to these sites in your library
- Ensure your staff know how to search content on these sites
- Check your library’s web presence
- Use social software to collaborate and have conversations……with other librarians about where libraries fit in this space
12. Finally, when considering social software and your library, remember that it’s not all about what suits US, but what suits our USERS.