Great post: saving time with social web tools

My friend Aaron Scmidt recently became the director at the North Plains Public Library, a very small public library in Oregon. On his blog, Walking Paper, Aaron writes about how he has used social tools to develop his library's Web presence because they were easy, free and made the most sense, not because they were "cool":

One thing that was great about the process of developing this small website is that it was not a case of thinking of a neat new way to make a library website. WordPress was just the tool that made the most sense (though of course it isn’t ideal). Another web technology found its way into the library’s work flow for the same reason. Using a Google Spreadsheet to organize the collaboration of multiple employees that are infrequently in the same room works so well. No longer do multiple staff members need to keep track of multiple documents that get revised monthly. It is all centralized for us to access at will. Ideally everyone would have their own google account, but for now staff are sharing the library’s main login. Simple.

I hope this mini case study of a time strapped library helps expose the “I don’t have time for social software” excuse to be just that: an excuse for not wanting to expand and learn.

I think this is a great example for folks at very small and/or rural libraries that don't have the budget, time or tech expertise to create something crazy-fancy, polished and high-tech. This stuff just works! :)