Summing up: The Good and the Bad

So much to talk about! Some of the libraries we’ve looked at in our case studies have done great things with social software that I think add real value to library services. Among the projects that seem the most useful are:

Social Bookmarking Software: I really think sites like library thing are great and look forward to seeing more public libraries that allow for users to create reviews and tags. In this case, I think it’s important for users to be able to create their own little libraries, otherwise there is not a lot of reward for them in tagging library books. Also, I think the sites like Citeulike that are created for and by academics have been really successful in providing a useful service – articles are quite searchable using the free language that users have tagged them with.

Blogs: Ann Arbor’s library did just about everything right, and that goes for blogs as well. Libraries do well to notify users of new resources and events, especially through RSS feeds from their blogs. Too many databases and other resources don’t get used, in both academic and public libraries. What's needed? A clear and concise style, relevant and regular updates.

RSS feeds: The academic libraries that created RSS feeds that distributed information about new resources according to subject heading were brilliant. What a great way to advertise new academic resources without cluttering up anyone’s inbox, or expecting students and faculty to click on “what’s new” links when they’ve already got more than enough to do on the library website.

Games: This is a great way to bring young people into the public library. They’re fun, they encourage involvement and leadership from youth, where librarians need them to explain what’s new and cool. Instructional games are okay, but the ones that I saw were lacking in comprehensiveness, and didn’t really give back an adequate amount of instruction for the time patrons put into playing them. Better than tutorials that they wouldn’t even try to read, I suppose. But I’d say a Camtasia tutorial, or a quick video would do the trick better.

Wiki’s: These are great if they aren’t too cluttered. There is a tendency to try to do too much with a wiki, and expect too much from user participation, so that a wiki might have a whole bunch of links that only lead to one or two other links or comments or related pieces of information. These are great for group projects, and other types of collaboration – for example, librarians sharing information about digitial initiatives or other projects, and they make great intranet-style tools, but for serving patrons, I haven’t seen any that did a really great job.

Social Networking: It’s good to have as many venues as possible to market the library –but I still don’t really think it is very fun to talk to institutions on social bookmarking sites. So far they seem underused – but we’ll see.

Videos/YouTube:Those quick instructional videos that Amanda included for some of our topics were great, concise, fun. This is a great resource for libraries to use, for instructional purposes, for recording events. Getting to see a reading or lecture given at a library by clicking on a video link on their website really helps to build the library’s image as a interactive, lively place.