Thoughts on next steps — for 1/31 meeting

I thought I’d put some ideas on how to proceed out for discussion this afternoon — just as a starting point.

Potentially, we are looking at two phases of action: outreach now, and maintenance in the future, since this kind of information is by its nature constantly changing. If we commit to ongoing updates, we need to consider who’ll take the responsibility and how it affects the rest of library workflow.  For each phase, we need to be able to decide on the information we want to transmit, and how forcefully we want to get it out to users.  We might want to do active outreach now, and passive later — or we might want to keep pushing updates.

One way to organize the first phase that could slim it down might be to make either a new, neater wiki, or simply an email (if we think our targets aren’t wiki-conscious yet), listing and linking our chosen tool areas and briefly explaining why we think each is important.  We could forward this to staff, or selected staff, of departments and ask them to decide which two or three they think they need more training in. We’d then set up our outreach sessions and choose staff based on their needs.

nbm

Google Chat for internal communication

In the interest of “slaying the e-mail dragon” (to borrow HR’s phrase), I thought it might be good to try using instant messaging instead of e-mail for certain types of internal communication. This came up at Monday’s Technology Development Committee Meeting, and several people in the group agreed to try it. Anyone who’s interested should join us.

We decided to use Google’s chat feature, since most of us have G-mail accounts anyway. If you don’t have a G-mail account, you need to sign up for one (to do that you need to have a text-messaging enabled cell phone, or be invited by someone who has a G-mail account. If you need an invite, I will invite you).

Once you have your G-mail account, you can chat in two ways: one is to have your G-mail account open all the time. Whenever anyone wants to chat with you, you’ll get a little pop-up message. The other method, which I recommend, is to download the Google Talk app, which puts a little bubble on your task bar which is always there. You don’t need to have your G-mail open. (I had no problem downloading it on my work computer.)

The last thing you need to do is enter your contacts. So far, here is the list of everyone who’s participating – you will need to add these to your chat contacts (I removed the @gmail.com extension so the spam bots wouldn’t get the addresses, but they do all end with @gmail.com obviously):

lipcan3
rfleming2175
john.lindaman
okramer74
erika.hauser
lisabeidel
askjennie
paranyuk
Instigatrix (Tavia)
watsor0 (Renee)
sixes.sevens (Ross)
koven.smith
vincelli.deborah
washington.angela
nbm327

If you’re not on this list and you want to participate, let me know and/or add your name to the list above.

Now we can cut back on clogging our inboxes with “Did you get that invoice?” or “Are we meeting for lunch?” or “I’m running late for our meeting!” Stuff like that.

Happy chatting.

Robyn

google docs update

Just a little update on Google Docs — improvements are always being made.  Lifehacker notes that you can now use Google Docs to open a Word doc received in gmail, and the commenters talk about additional uses (and some problems).   One commenter makes the Web 2.0 point:

rich web applications become far more useful when you don’t have to be constantly switching from desktop programs to the web. If you can keep it all on the web, it gets easier.

Lifehacker link here

Computers in Libraries 2007

I decided to contribute to CIL 2007 Wiki.

OK

Quo vadimus? *

As someone who has a conflicting obligation during next Wednesday’s Outreach 2.0 3 meeting that will keep me from attending, I suppose I should cash in my two cents now. With any luck some of the discussion’s groundwork might actually take place before the meeting. (What a concept!) Or else I can be SHOUTED down.

I was doing my accustomed Bloglining this morning when I came across a post showcasing a public library’s Web 2.0 public internet pages. My first reaction was part envy and part admiration. Even taking into account the differing audiences between a public library and a museum library, it seems to take a reasonable approach: concise, selective, engaging.

Has our Outreach emphasis so far been more on crafting presentations and less on documentation? In our defense there are the wikis, after all, which while still an in-house effort may yet come to stand in for an in-person presentation. I don’t believe we’ve investigated the interrelationship between these two enterprises. In contrast to traditional web publishing (the Inter- and Intranet), so far only the blog and wikis provide both open access and ready revision. Barring a change in Museum web protocol, the Intranet will continue to be decidedly less welcoming. And how ‘ready for prime time’ are the wiki entries? How will we link their url’s to other, more standard publicly accessible pages? And do we truly mean them to work as wikis?

If we need more traditional pages, should we be looking into more local (read “Watson Library”) hosting? While the notion of putting together a ‘favorites’ page is compelling, will we have the wherewithal to keep it fresh? Links to others more resourceful and diligent might not be such a bad idea — if we can locate them.

When all is said and done, Web 2.0 is only a small (if also imho the most fun) part of an overall Outreach effort — two sides of the same coin, as it were–, much of which is documented already. We should probably see to it that the overall presentation is coherent.

Nobody said my two cents would include any answers!

Ross

* Before you ask, I never took Latin. If my grammar is wrong, my apologies.

Surplus library furniture

S/He who hesitates …! They’re all gone now. Thanks to everyone for the interest.

The Goldwater Library is making space for additional stack shelving and has surplus library furniture it will be making available through the museum’s Surplus Furniture site next week.

We have 9 (nine) classic all birchwood chairs and a wood-and-polished-steel table, 36” w x 72” d x 29-1/2” h.

The standard surplus furniture rules will apply. Preference will go to those wishing to take the most chairs at one time.

Ross

What’s next?

Now that we’ve done our research, we need to plan our program to actually present this information.  I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a next meeting for us to discuss this, Wednesday January 31, 3:30-4:30 in Seminar Room 1.   Of course we can use the time for another topic if something comes up.

JL

Drum roll please…

From Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog comes a list of the “Best Web 2.0 Software of 2006″ broken down into the following categories:

Social Network
Start Pages
Social Bookmarking
Peer Production News
Social Media Sharing
Online Storage
Office 2.0 Suite

It’s a good source for (even more) Web 2.0 examples because the runners-up for each category are also listed. 

And the winners are… 

EH 

Web 2.0 Presentation Tomorrow

Hi all:

A reminder that we are meeting tomorrow for the second to last of the Web 2.0 Presentations in Seminar Room 1 from 3:30-4:30pm.   Deborah and Renée will present on the following topics: Next Generation OPACs, Google Scholar and Google Books. 

The last Web 2.0 Presentation will take place next Wednesday, January 17, in Seminar Room 1, 3:30–4:30pm.  The topic will be Google Tools.

See you there!

DV

some artblogs to check out

Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes (see blogroll) created a Top Ten Art Blogs list for the Walker Museum’s blog.  Find it (scroll down), and several other interesting Top lists: here: Walker Off Center.. The museum polled several staff members for lists — I note that Robert Polidori’s New Orleans photos book is on the book buyer’s Top Five Books list.
nbm