Week 5: Selling Social Software @ Your Library

Week of March 12th, 2007

• Introduction
• Presentations
• Activities
• Readings

Introduction

By the end of the week, you should have a better sense of

• how to sell new technologies to your colleagues and administrators
• how to work better with IT to implement technology solutions
• how to plan for the implementation of new technologies, including creating policies
• how to present new technologies to your patrons

Presentations

Screencast: A puppy with a new ball: Engaging library staff in social networking tools during the MULTA project (blip.tv click Full Screen for full view) - Kathryn Greenhill, Murdoch University Library

Screencast: Library 2.0? No, thank you! Obstacles to Creating a Social Library (PPT file with audio) - Kate Peterson, Reference and Instruction Librarian, St. Cloud State University; Plamen Miltenoff, Associate Professor, InforMedia Services, St. Cloud State University; and Melissa Prescott, Reference and Instruction Librarian, St. Cloud State University.

Screencast: Library Branding - Alane Wilson and Alice Sneary, OCLC

Presenter chats

Chats take place in the main Drupal chatroom.

• Kathryn Greenhill - Tuesday March 13th, 7pm ET, (6pm CT, 4pm PT ...and 9am Wed 14th for Western Australia )
• Alice Sneary and Alane Wilson - Wednesday March 14th, at 3pm ET
• Kate Peterson, Plamen Miltenoff and Melissa Prescott - Thursday, March 15th, 3 pm ET (2 pm CT, 12 pm PT)

Activities

Proposals

This week you all will be presenting your proposals for the social tool you would like to implement at your library. Instructions for this project can be found here. Proposals should be posted by the end of the day on Monday, March 12th so that we all can have time to read and comment.

We would like each of you to read all of the proposals of the people in your group as well as at least five others, and to comment on at least five proposals of your choice.

Reflections

Towards the end of the week, we'd like each of you to write a blog post reflecting on your experiences in the course. Please discuss the following in your blog post:

• What were your favorite experiences in the course?
• What technology did you find most interesting for your personal use? What technology did you think would be most useful professionally?
• Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
• If there is anything else you'd like to tell us about your experiences in this course, please feel free to do so.

Readings

Please read these as your interests dictate and as time allows. These are not strictly required, but will aid you in your understanding of the subject.

Meredith Farkas. "On getting staff members to buy into a new technology." TechEssence.
Tips on introducing a new technology at your library and getting staff on-board.

Karen Coombs. Helping Technology spurred change take." Library Web Chic.
Technological changes are often frustrating to staff and are strongly resisted in libraries. Here are some tips on how to make the transition less painful and more lasting.

Karen Coombs. "Building Trust With IT Staff." Library Web Chic.
Getting IT on-board is often crucial to the success of any technology initiative. Here are some tips on how to build trust with IT. And here is a great conference report on the topic that Karen refers to.

Michael Casey. "Your IT Department, Buy-In, and Team Work." LibraryCrunch.
Casey discusses his strategy for getting IT on-board early in the technology planning process.

Cathy Sierra. "Death by Risk Aversion." Creating Passionate Users.
This post talks about something many libraries face in creating new services, risk aversion. Cathy discusses the impact risk aversion can make on a company and how to combat this problem. This is a great blog in general and is a great addition to any RSS reader.

Michael Stephens. "Technoplans and Technolust." Library Journal.
Offers a lot of important advice on implementing technologies, such as choosing technologies tied to your mission and communicating with staff at all levels.

David Rothman. "Recap: My notes on RSS for Clinicians." davidrothman.net.
Interesting discussion of how to get patrons in a special library using RSS for current awareness.