LIBR 246-13 Building the Social Library Online

Second Life has definitely been in the news a lot over the past couple of years. Companies are marketing virtual representations of their brands in Second Life. Rock bands are having concerts in Second Life. Educational institutions (like SJSU!) are holding classes in Second Life. This week, Congress conducted a hearing on virtual worlds inside of Second Life.

I thought you all might enjoy this.  There is a conference this month on exactly what we have been talking about.

http://www.bcr.org/referencerenaissance/

I was most interested in the idea of texting the library for information.  I volunteer at a high school once a week, and at least one of the girls had texted over 2,000 messages last month.  That's a lot of texting.  She is very fast at it.  All this to say that I think texting (or some variant thereof) is going to be the preferred method of communication for people.  What is also interesting is that cell phone technology is constantly being improved.  More and more people are using their phones to conduct all kinds of business transactions, interact through in

Commercial reference services are great for many reasons.  One big one for libraries is that they will handle everything for you.  All the library has to do is subscribe to the service and all the hassles of setting up IM reference, staffing it, and worrying about the time constraints of reference librarians disappear.  This is certainly attractive to many libraries.  The service can then also be available 24 hours, something that is attractive to many users.  Libraries, even large university libraries, simply do not have the funds to be open 24 hours every day, but

I chose to ask “What is the Gross Domestic Product per capita of Bahrain?”

I used the question about homicides in my state (California), and I asked that question at AskNow, the California referece site and at a college library with a Meebo widget.  I began this exercise expecting to be impressed.  After reading about the experiences of some of the other class members, I assumed that the question would be answered quickly and easily.  I was a bit surprise at the real results.

Of things we read about this week, the one I'm most fascinated with is SMS. I think SMS reference is a great idea if only because it extends the library service to anyone with a cell phone--and that's just about everyone. I do wonder if SMS is a lasting tool or if it is just a stop-gap technology to be used until we all have IPhones and IPhone-like devices and we all have IM clients on our cellphones. But for now I do think texting will be around for a while.

This week I got a good look at the ways libraries are using virtual reference.  I haven't worked in a library that offers it, nor had I used it prior to this exercise.  It's great that libraries are reaching out in this way.  I can see how this benefits students, researchers, and even the person who just needs a quick answer to an everyday question.  Virtual reference is also a precious gift to people who don't have a library close for their use, or cannot access one for other reasons.  This is the piece that was missing from the bookmobile!  It makes outreach

This is the response I received from AskNow inquiring about murders in my state:

Hello, tonya kennon