2.Overload:

1
2.Overload

• Strategies for Managing and Integrating Web 2.0
  Technologies in Academic Libraries
• Nina McHale, Auraria Library
• Colorado Academic Library Summit
• June 1, 2007

2
Session Agenda

• Library 2.0 challenges and rationale
• Some strategies
• Evaluate the Current Situation
• Adopt a Library-wide Approach
• Solve Existing Problems
• Select 2.0 Products with Care
• Auraria 2.0 A Work in Progress
• Your Library 2.0

3
Library 2.0 Challenges

• Its not a single product, like
• An ILS
• An interlibrary loan system
• A reserves management system
• Its not a standard, like
• AACR2, DDC
• XHTMLCSS

4
Library 2.0 Challenges, ctd.

• Perpetual beta seems antithetical to
  traditional library mission
• Is it just hype?
• My own suggestions for librarians and other
  library peoplethinking about Library 2.0 Relax.
  Take a deep breath.
• -Walt Crawford, Cites Insights 6.2, 2006

5
Library 2.0 Rationale

• Focus is increased communications with and
  improved services to the user
• Keeping up with Web 2.0 helps anticipate user
  expectations
• Experimentation requires minimal initial
  investment of time and money

6
Some Strategies

• Evaluate the Current Situation
• Adopt a Library-wide Approach
• Solve Existing Problems
• Select 2.0 Products with Care

7
Evaluate the Current Situation

• What about our librarys online presence is
  already 2.0? (Review key principles)
• Who on our staff is currently using web 2.0
  tools, personally and/or professionally?
• How do we find out who they are?
• How can we enlist their help?
• How do we proceed in an organized fashion?

8
Adopt a Library-wide Approach

• Make a person/committee/task force accountable
  for Library 2.0 to include
• Investigating possibilities for 2.0 applications
• Evaluating/recommending specific products
• Providing training opportunities/information
  sessions (BCR, ACRL webcasts, etc.)
• All staffpotential 2.0 application users

9
Solve Existing Problems

• Dont blog for bloggings sake
• Integrating new technologies into staff members
  day-to-day workflow
• Does not create resistance to a new concept by
  adding to overflowing workloads
• Wins over skeptics at all levels by showing, not
  telling

10
Select 2.0 Products with Care

• Begin with free products to test application
  ideas with patrons/staff (i.e., Blogger, PBwiki)
• If a decision is made to implement open source
  software locally, ensure compatibility with
  existing systems

11
Select 2.0 Products With Care

• Open source options
• Hosted
• Local implementation
• Vendor products (OPAC add-ons)
• Innovatives Encore, ExLibris Primo, Endeca,
  Aquabrowser

12
Pros and Cons of Hosted Applications

• Pros
• No technical maintenance issues
• Good for sandboxing
• Trying out new ideas
• Training staff on new technologies
• Cons
• Sensitive information on third-party servers?
• Backups, archives, permanence?

13
Auraria 2.0 Evaluating the Current Situation

• Web site applications developed in open-source
  LAMP environment
• Wikis
• Web Advisory Committee
• Emerging Technology Committee
• Intranet Task Force
• Blogs (in addition to personal blogs)
• Hot Topics
• The Research Behind the News
• Institutional Repository

14
Auraria 2.0 Adopting a Library-wide Approach

• Accountable units
• Web Advisory Committee
• Emerging Technology Committee
• Web Librarian
• Ongoing training/information sessions
• ACRL, BCR presentations (followed by hands-on
  sessions)
• Open Forum sessions

15
Auraria 2.0 Solving Existing Problems

• Dependence on email in project development
• Lack of patron awareness of article databases
• Difficulty in finding subject appropriate, freely
  available images for use throughout the librarys
  web page
• Ineffective, rarely-used library intranet

16
Eliminating the Email Chain Blogger

• Web Services Librarian blog
• Used to collect lengthy discussions of
  web-related issues
• Feedback is stored outside of email folders
• A more permanent record of the decision-making
  process
• Allowed staff to practice blogging with a
  work-related blog

17
Increasing Awareness of Subscribed Content
Blogger

• The Research Behind the News blog
• Connects news stories about science and health in
  the popular media to the research published in
  refereed journals
• Future development subject-specific RSS feeds
  for faculty?

18
Improving Visual Web Site Content Flickr

• Problem reference/instruction librarians who
  create web content for general use and classes
  like to include subject-specific images English
  1020 guide
• Solution train library staff who create web
  content about accessing freely available images
  from Flickr
• Future development Have staff who create
  photographic content contribute to a library-wide
  Flickr account for web content

19
Improving the Intranet

• Cons of current intranet
• Used Microsoft Sharepoint, which was expensive
  and not fully implemented
• Setting file access difficult
• Required use of Microsoft FrontPage
• Proposed solution wiki environment
• Goal it will be easier to use, and therefore
  encourage more staff to post, creating a more
  robust and useful intranet

20
Auraria 2.0 Selecting 2.0 Products with Care

• Blogger
• Pros free, hosted, easy to customize
• Cons no sensitive info to be posted
• PBwiki
• Pros free, hosted
• Cons unattractive, user interface not 100
  WYSIWYG
• Vendor products Innovatives Encore?

21
Your Library 2.0

• What about your site is already 2.0?
• How have you ensured adoption of Library 2.0
  concepts and/or applications across your library?
• What problems have you solved with 2.0
  technologies/applications?
• Which products do you use, and why?

22
Questions?

• Contact information
• Nina McHale, Web Librarian
• nina.mchale_at_cudenver.edu
• Slides available at
• http//carbon.cudenver.edu/nmchale/2.Overload.ppt