Transcript Five Weeks to a Social Library: Getting Up to Speed with Web Feeds

Web 2.0:
A Hands-On Introduction
for Library Staff
Instructor:
Michele Mizejewski
Electronic Services Librarian
Redwood City Library
[email protected]
An Infopeople Workshop
This Workshop Brought to You by the Infopeople Project

Infopeople is a federally-funded grant project supported by
the California State Library. It provides a wide variety of
training to California libraries. Infopeople workshops are
offered around the state and are open registration on a firstcome, first-served basis.

For a complete list of workshops, and for other information
about the project, go to the Infopeople website at
infopeople.org.
Agenda:
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What is Web 2.0?
Blogs
RSS feeds
Social bookmarking and tagging
Wikis
Selling social software at your library
Packet and Links
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Bookmark the class wiki:
web2workshop.pbwiki.com/
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Review packet contents
Introductions
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Your name?
Where do you work?
Position?
What is Web 2.0?
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Term coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004
"2.0" borrowed from the convention of
software versioning
Participation, creation, and commenting = The
Read/Write Web
Community building
Wisdom of crowds
Perpetual beta and continuous improvement
What is Library 2.0?
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Term coined by Michael Casey, 2005
Approach to library service that is increasingly
interactive, collaborative, and driven by user
needs and expectations
Constantly reexamining and improving
services and policies
Employ more user-friendly systems
Controversial
Blogging
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What is a blog?
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Features:
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Web log
Easy to edit website
Dated entries with newest at top
Keywords or descriptive “tags”
RSS feeds offered
Archive of past postings
Example: RCPL Staff Picks
Blogging Considerations
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What is the purpose?
How often to update?
Allow commenting?
Need to moderate?
Blogging Software
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Types:
 Hosted
 Run
on your server
 Some free, some cost money
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Today we are working with the free,
hosted version of Wordpress
Advantages: Blogs
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Easy to add content (post)
Great for disseminating news or other
frequently-updated information
Allows interactive commenting
Free software options available
Brainstorm: Blogging (5 min)
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Create a new post in your
blog titled “Blogging
Brainstorm”
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Brainstorm some ideas
on how you might use
blogs to improve service
at your library
RSS Feeds
What is RSS?
 Really Simple Syndication
 “A web feed is a data format used for serving
users frequently-updated content. Content
distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby
allowing users to subscribe to it.” --Wikipedia
What is RSS?
XML web feed
RSS
Atom
Icons
News Sites and Blogs
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Let’s look at a few examples . . .
How Do I Read Feeds?
Three types of feed readers or aggregators:
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Web-based - Typically must be online to log in to account, but can
read your content from any computer.
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Desktop Clients - Download application to your computer. Can only
read your content there.
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Integrated - Browsers, web portals, etc. are beginning to make it
easy to read feeds without a separate application.
Bloglines Demonstration
Basic features:
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Feeds column
Feed title and description
Posting title and summary with link to click
through to source site
Uses in Libraries
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News and events promotion
New materials or staff picks
Integrate resources into courseware
New materials
The information goes to the user, not the
other way around
Library RSS Examples
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Let’s look at some examples…
Finding Feeds
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Sites you already read regularly
Blogrolls or “word-of-mouth”
Specialized search engines
Subscription databases and journals
Specialized Blog/Feed Search
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Bloglines search tab
Google Blog Search
Libworm
Adding Feeds to Your Site
 Use
blogging software and link to the blog
 Add
a relevant feed from another site
 Use
various tools to generate or mix existing
feeds
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Feed shake
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Feed2JS
 Code
your own -- not for beginners
Advantages of Feeds
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Efficiency: monitor many sites in much
shorter time
Privacy: no email address required to
subscribe to a feed
No spam: only content you request
Easy to cancel: simply select a feed and
unsubscribe
Brainstorm: Feeds (5 min)
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Create a new post in
your blog called
“Feeds Brainstorm”
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Note some ideas on
how feeds could
improve service at
your library, directly
or indirectly
Social Bookmarking and Tagging
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What is social bookmarking?
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Web-based bookmarks/favorites
Public and searchable
Wisdom of communities
What is tagging?
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User-assigned descriptive keywords
Folksonomy
Image credit
Bookmarking and Tagging Tools
Options:
 General
 Scholarly
 Specific subject matter
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Photos
Video
Books
del.icio.us Demonstration
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Your bookmarks
Posting/bookmarking an item
Tags and cloud
Network
Subscriptions
RSS feeds
Searching
Library Examples
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Let’s look at some examples…
Advantages:
Social Bookmarking and Tagging
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Web-based
Searchable
Folksonomy
Resource discovery tool
Expert discovery tool
Brainstorm:
Social Bookmarking and Tagging (5 min)
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Create a new post in your
blog called “Social
Bookmarking and Tagging
Brainstorm”
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Note some ideas on how
you might use
bookmarking and/or
tagging at your library
Wikis
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What is a Wiki?
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Collaborative, easy-to-edit website
Wiki = quick (in Hawaiian)
Anyone with access to the site can add to or edit the
content
Wikipedia is most well-known example
Wiki Features
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Discussion area for each page
Ability to revert to older version
Collaborative editing
Can be used as a knowledgebase
When Not to Use a Wiki
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When complete control is important
When dealing with sensitive information
When ownership of content must be clear
Note: Wikis can be used by a select community rather than
being completely open, but there is still a collaborative
aspect
Wiki Examples
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Let’s look at some examples…
Blogs
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vs.
Posts displayed
chronologically
The poster = author
Only author can edit
Others may comment
Posts are finite
Best for sharing
info/starting a dialogue
Wikis
1. Information architecture
varies
2. Authorship is
collaborative
3. Anyone can edit the
content
4. Always a work in
progress
5. Best for collaborative
work or as a repository for
information
Wiki Software
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Types:
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Hosted
Run on your server
See handout
Today we’ll be working with the free,
hosted version of pbwiki
PBwiki Demonstration
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Add a new page
Edit content
Leave a comment
Share this wiki
Promote this wiki
Settings
Wiki Tips: Getting Started
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Start with a basic organizational scheme to
prevent chaos
Add some content to the major categories
before going live
Include documentation explaining what a wiki
is and the purpose of yours
Advantages: Wikis
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Web-based
Searchable
Easy to use
Collaborative and flexible
Free and open-source software options
Brainstorm: Wikis
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Create a new post in
your blog called “Wiki
Brainstorm”
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Note some ideas on
how you might
incorporate wikis at
your library
Group Discussion
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Do you anticipate any difficulty selling your
colleagues on the idea of adding some Web 2.0
tools at your workplace?
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What obstacles might you encounter and how
can you work around them?
Selling Social Software
 Avoid
technolust
 Tie to mission statement
 Have a plan
 Involve staff in planning
 Involve IT in planning
Implementing Social Software
 Offer
training in various forms
 Show enthusiasm
 Have patience
 Persevere
Summary
This workshop has been an introduction to
implementing Web 2.0 technologies in
libraries:
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Blogs
RSS feeds
Social bookmarking
Tagging
Wikis
Continued exploration and practice are
necessary!