Weeks 13 & 14: Best Practices & Evaluation

This course has provided a great overview of social software in all its forms and especially on how it can benefit libraries and help them to build their online presence in the community.  Social software is free and easy to use and there's a lot of potential out there for libraries as they gradually develop more advanced social software based services. While I had used social software such as blogs, RSS, and YouTube before starting the course, now I have a much better idea of the potential uses and pitfalls. The ease of using all this software makes it approachable for people with limited technical knowledge, allowing anyone to join in and share information online.  This makes it particularly useful for libraries to reach their diverse assortment of patrons. Although I still find the lack of privacy a little strange, this course has also increased my comfort level with exposing thoughts and opinions online. Overall, in this course I've learned a lot about a wide variety of uses for social software - it seems to have a great deal of potential and I'm quite impatient to see how libraries will adapt it for their use.  

The distance experience is very different from in-class learning. At first it was strange not to have lectures and hear the instructor's voice, but the readings were full of information and the course structure made it easy to follow along. The weekly blog posts and comments were a neat way of keeping everyone involved in the course discussion as well as ease us into blogging ourselves.

Blogs are useful tools that allow communication with many people across large distances. They provide insight into the thoughts of people from around the world and are a wonderful way of expanding understanding, keeping up with events, and growing as a person.  RSS feeds are becoming quite commonplace and, along with blogs, may be that first step that draws people into the world of social software. Among other benefits, this course has reminded me to organize and cut down on all my RSS feeds so that I have a selection of quality blogs to keep up with. Now all I need is for my local library to develop some RSS feeds so that I can feel more connected to what is going on there!

With its ability to share links online and access links from anywhere, del.icio.us has been one of my favourite discoveries. I have enjoyed learning about wikis, tagging and folksonomies the most, perhaps because I had less prior exposure here. I found it really interesting to think about how folksonomies compare to controlled classification and how this might develop in the future. Wikis were fun to work with in my final project and have a lot of potential, especially inside organizations, for collaborative sharing of information. I'm still uncertain about the value of virtual worlds like Second Life as they stand now, but I have hopes for the future. I can see how Second Life can make it easier for people separated geographically, perhaps with similar interests from around the world or from a library system that is quite spread out, to come together for discussions and events such as meetings and seminars.   I also think it is neat how different forms of social software can be combined for greater effect and it will be interesting to see how these different pieces evolve together.

Developing the online presence of the library helps improve the exchange of information between patrons and the library. When considering social software as part of the online services offered, it's important to find out what works best for what you want to achieve. This involves defining a clear purpose for the service and evaluating the social software according to this purpose and its capabilities. This purpose is also useful for promotion to library patrons and to achieve staff buy-in of the new technology. People need to know how this service will benefit them, so it's important to have a clear understanding of the target users and the reaction of the library staff. Once the service has been developed, it's equally important to continue to support and promote its use, as well as to evaluate potential improvements.  Libraries should continue to explore new uses of social software and keep up to date with the developing technology to provide increasingly sophisticated services to library patrons.