CPL 2.0 Twitter

I found the various library Twitter accounts very interesting. Twitter does seem like a useful way for the Library to disseminate information quickly to followers. There were lots of posts about upcoming programs, a few about new titles going into the collection, and Country Hills even had a tweet that a GPS was currently in stock. Shawnessy's last tweet, however, was on March 26 -- which seems somewhat contrary to the spirit of Tweeter (which seems to be that followers will be interested in knowing when a celebrity blows his or nose).


I think the Library should post information about programs, especially those that need extra promotion and those aimed at customers like teens who are most likely to follow Twitter. Information about services, especially new services or changes to existing services (for instance, Sunday closures / openings, the number of renewals changing from 2 to 4, or the change to the limit on borrowing DVDs) should also be posted on Twitter. I can see SCFT posting Tweets about early and family literacy for its followers. The Cybrarian has posted about teen programs, the new teenzone web site, contests, etc. Perhaps Twitter could also be used to announce temporary branch closures due to electrical outages, etc (although the location itself wouldn't be able to post the message in the case of the electrical outage!)

I see a definite need for some system-wide objectives and guidelines about the Library's use of Twitter:

• What are we trying to achieve as a system using Twitter?
• Who will be responsible for posting what?
• Should all branches or public departments post Tweets?
• Who decides on the content of Tweets?
• Who does the actual input of the Tweet?
• What is the best way to get the general messages about system-wide events or services out to everyone? Presumably not all followers for a specific branches or department will necessarily also follow the general CPL site, yet it seems inefficient to have every branch/department using Twitter posting the same general messages.

I'd also recommend a style guide for Twitter posts -- even the names of the various Library accounts listed in the assignment are inconsistent in terms of capitalizing the branch name or not.

One thing I couldn't understand is how people sign up to become followers of these various CPL branches and departments? The only Twitter icon I could find on our website was in the new Teenzone (http://calgarypubliclibrary.com/teenscreate/).

CPL 2.0 Library Thing

I thought the site was user friendly and easy to navigate. I searched for a few titles that I had recently read and some old favorites and found them all.

It was interesting (to a point) to read the reviews and comments, but for some of the titles, the number of comments are overwhelming, and not very useful. I find that many of these social media sites contain contributions from many people who must have a surfeit of time on their hands, but not much to contribute. I know that sounds elitist, but I don't have time to wade through all the dross that is out there.

I can't see using this site at home -- I just don't have the time to sit on the computer that long. Now that I know more about it, I may be able to see some work applications at some point in the future.

CPL 2.0 Productivity Tools

I tried out Google docs. I don't see it replacing Word or other Microsoft Office products, since it is pretty basic. The automatic spell checker alone would drive me crazy, since it doesn't recognize contractions. I can see how Google docs would be useful for some people, who may be using a variety of different computers, or groups of people who want to access the documents (for example, students working together at university). I don't have a need to do that in my personal life, and if I want to do it at work, I use SharePoint.

Library customers might find it useful, but they may not want to use up their Internet time on documents when they could use productivity software and save their documents to a memory stick. I would be interested to know if customers would be able to upload documents they create in Word, PowerPoint or Excel into Google docs, but I suspect they can't. I tried to upload some of my documents on Central's I-drive into Google docs, but it didn't work, and I got was a "server error" message, which wasn't at all helpful. I also tried several times to copy and paste my test Google docs document into this blog, but that it wouldn't work either.

I might consider using Google calendar at home and syncing it with my Outlook calendar at work, but I find that sometimes these things are much more cumbersome and time consuming than just writing stuff in my daytimer. (And lately, Shaw's Internet service in my neighbourhood has been unavailable for several days at a stretch -- an Internet based calendar is not really useful when you can't access it!)

CPL 2.0 and Flickr, Youtube

This was the first time I'd visited the Flickr site, and I found it interesting and easy to search for photos. It's mind boggling how many photos are available. Some individuals appear to have all the time in the world to take pictures of their cat and post them on Flickr. It boggles the mind!

I've used Youtube before, for both work and personal reasons. It's also very easy to navigate. The quality of the videos really varies -- some are terrible, obviously shot on cell phones. However, there are a lot with very high quality production values and some that are really useful. I'm amazed by the number of "how to" videos on topics from knitting (and tatting, which I though only my Mum knew how to do!) to tap dancing to plumbing to French braiding hair. I think back to all the requests I used to get on French braiding at Fish Creek at this time of year (desperate mothers with kids in dance recitals) and how the one book we had in the system was always out, with lengthy hold lists. Now, customers can find a much more useful resource on the topic on Youtube. Unfortunately, there are sometimes also a lot of very bad videos to wade past to get to the gems.

CPL 2.0 and RSS Feeds

I was able to set up some RSS feeds, using both methods described in the CPL 2.0 blog. Since I was already logged into Bloglines, it probably made it easier to set up a feed from the actual web site, than it would have been had I not been logged in.

The process is pretty simple, the challenge will be selecting sites that give me information that is useful to me without swamping me with too much information. I can see that this service could be really useful (I was introduced to the concept during my pre-Internet library school years, but back then we called it SDI or selective dissemination of information), and I noticed that several of the sites on Bloglines 100 most popular list were book sites, or sites like Library Stuff and Librarian.net or book sites, which indicates to me that librarians like RSS feeds.

On the reading front, I've been reading alot of new children's fantasy during the past few weeks, and have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of what I've read. I hit three titles in a row that I've really enjoyed: Happenstance Found by P.W. Cantanese (first in the Books of Umber series), The Shifter by Janice Hardy (first in The Healing Wars series), and Bran Hambric: The Farfield curse by Kaleb Nation (it's likely to become a series, given the ending, but it lacks a series title at present). Bran Hambric has some echoes of Harry Potter, but the other two are quite original in their settings.