Presentation for the Northern Ohio Region Chapter of the American Society for Information Science (NORASIST) Annual Meeting, Tuesday, October 24th, 2006.

1. Exploring Libraries
(...and our Users)
in the Web 2.0 Realm
Brian C. Gray
Librarian - Engineering, Math, & Statistics
Case Western Reserve University
bcg8@case.edu
NORASIST Annual Meeting
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006

2. Today
•What is Web 2.0
•Why should we care
•Library 2.0
•Our users

3. My Interest in Web 2.0
• Teach RSS workshop at KSL
• Contribute to 3 Case KSL blogs
• ALA Library 2.0 participant
• ALA LAMA Web Coordinator
– Blogs, RSS, Wiki, Communities
• Workshop proposal pending with
KSU SLIS
• Regular IM user
• Non-tech person that likes to “play”

4. Reasons Why You Must Care
• Online competition to libraries
• Alternative method of marketing
• Alternative method of communication
• Alternative publishing practices
• User awareness
• Efficiency
• “Buzz” word right now
• Users are unaware or are creating
alternatives to library resources

6. Coined by O'Reilly Media (2004)

7. What Is Web 2.0,
Design Patterns and Business Models for
the Next Generation of Software
Tim O'Reilly, 09/30/2005

8. WEB 2.0 Concepts (Mindset)
Key concepts or focus points:
– Collaboration
– Sharing
– Ownership
– Creation
– Web-based rather than software based
– Data/information
– Social
– Connections/relationships
– Trust

9. WEB 2.0 Concepts
– Enrichment
– Personal data
– Participation
– Decentralized
– User “tagged” or defined
– Experience
– Services
– Remixable
– Behavior

10. Library 2.0
• Coined by Michael Casey on his blog
LibraryCrunch
• Some library contributors:
– Stephen Abram
– John Blyberg
– Michael E. Casey
– Jenny Levine
– Paul Miller
– Michael Stephens

11. Library 2.0 Concepts
• Delivery
• Constant and purposeful change
• Adaptation
• User designed
• User created
• Participation
• User feedback
• 2-way information
• Reaching new users

12. Warnings (or Thoughts)
• What do users want?
• Investment in technology
and/or time
• What do users expect?
• What are users doing on their
own?
• How can users contribute?

14. Do you recognize RSS?

15. KSL RSS Feeds

17. RSS Changing Our Patrons
• Moving away from email & listservs
• Current Awareness
• “Pull” rather than “Push”
• Sharing everything
• Privacy?
• Speed
• Few years ago…”If not on the
Internet, it is not legitimate”
• Is RSS the next thing patrons use to
judge products & services?

18. Blog Considerations
• Purpose – Announcements and/or
discussion?
• Open or no commenting?
• Moderation?
• Tracking/pinging
• Spam prevention
• Single or multiple authors
• How often are entries added?
• Legal considerations (non-profit
status, advertising, organizational
policies, etc.)

19. 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging &
Blog Survey
American Management Association:
• 8% of organizations operate business
blogs
• 55% of business blogs ‘facing out’ for
customers and other third parties to read
• Less than 2% of organizations assign a
lawyer or other responsible party to review
employees’ entries
• Nearly 2% have fired workers for offensive
blog content - including posts on
employees’ personal home-based blogs

20. http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000432.html

23. ALA LAMA’s New Blog

32. Blog Based OPAC
• Casey Bisson
• WPopac: An OPAC 2.0 Testbed
• WordPress based, so already have
access to more programmers than
the ILS vendors combined

35. Patrons Blogging About Libraries

43. St. Joseph County Public Library

61. 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging &
Blog Survey
American Management Association:
• 35% of employees use IM at work
• Only 31% of organizations have IM policy
in place
• 13% retain IM business records
• 2% have dismissed workers for
inappropriate instant messenger (IM) chat
• 50% of workplace users downloading free
IM tools from the Internet - a dangerous
practice that 26% of employers aren’t even
aware of

63. Trillian, Meebo, etc.

67. Other Library 2.0
• Gwinnett County Public Library
(GCPL) in Lawrenceville, GA, has
launched a successful downloadable
music, video, and audio book service.
• GCPL held a very successful teen
band competition in 2005 as part of
its Year of the Teen.
• The Cecil County Public Library in
Elkton, MD, offers Teen Game Nights.

71. What is Web 2.0 and How Will Technical
Writers be Impacted
• Web 1.0
– “surfing”
– Content within a specific space
• Web 2.0:
– Decentralized
– Granular
– Syndication
– Web as a “platform”
“Long Tail”

72. Brian C. Gray
bcg8@case.edu
http://blog.case.edu/bcg8/
http://briangray.alablog.org/
THANK YOU!