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Editor's Notes

1. November 13, 2009Internet Librarian 2009 Mobile and iGoogle Good morning!What you’re looking at is called a Wordle. This one represents keywords in the tweets that were sent during the Internet Librarian 2009 conference. This is really kind of just a tag cloud with the size of the word representing the number of times it was tweeted. In the few minutes I have I want to tell you about three items that caught my attention. Mobile devices, the way they’re going to change in the next few years; a mobile marketing campaign by the New Jersey State Library; and how a library is using iGoogle to connect with their customers.
2. The photo on the left is a screen capture from Ustream.TV from the opening keynote. The man on the left is Vint Cerf and on the right Paul Holdengrabher. Vint Cerf is known in some circles as the father of the Internet because he wrote the code that allows networks to communicate one another. Holdengrabher is the Director of Public Programs at the New York Public Library and is a tremendously interesting guy. Tuesday’s keynote featured Holdengrabher talking about how he came to work at New York Public Library, where he interviews luminaries such as Norman Mailer, John Updike, Miss Manners. Sometimes he brings together people with diametrically opposing views such as in 2007 when Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens the author of God is Not Great to discuss religion. You can find both the live @ NYPL programs on the web as well as the keynotes on the NYPL website and on UStream respectively. http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=2677
3. Mobile was a huge theme in this year’s conference. There were presentations on mobile website design, mobile gadgets, mobile marketing, SMS texting as library service and the implications of geolocation for privacy.Mobile website designBe realistic about what you can do and can’t do.People who visit mobile sites aren’t coming to browse your site so the text should be reduced to a minimumThis is a new interface for some, and whitespace is your friend—they called this accomodating the “fat thumb.
4. Many of the presenters see mobile as a important development for libraries because these devices are poised to become the tool that everyone will use to access information. Jason Griffey spoke about 4g. If you have an internet connected smart phone or iPod touch then you’re using what is known as 3g. These phones allow you to surf the web, watch video and so forth. The speeds for these devices is about to become insanely fast, and this is has big implications not only for libraries but for society in ways we can’t begin to anticipate.3g smartphone 5 Mbps watch YouTube, surf the web, email, Twitter . Even in an economy like this one, the smartphone market is continuing to expand.Home Internet 15 Mbps Super High Speed from home 50 MbpsSo what is 4G
5. Many of the presenters see mobile as a important development for libraries because these devices are poised to become the tool that everyone will use to access information. Jason Griffey spoke about 4g. If you have an internet connected smart phone or iPod touch then you’re using what is known as 3g. These phones allow you to surf the web, watch video and so forth. The speeds for these devices is about to become insanely fast, and this is has big implications not only for libraries but for society in ways we can’t begin to anticipate.3g smartphone 5 Mbps watch YouTube, surf the web, email, Twitter . Even in an economy like this one, the smartphone market is continuing to expand.Home Internet 15 Mbps Super High Speed from home 50 Mbps4g which is also known as LTE for Long Term Evolution will bring us speeds that are incredible.Predicting in the next 18 months to 2 years but perhaps as many as 5 years that speeds will be:Minimums100 Mbps download50 Mbps uploadMaximum300 MbpsAnd though it will be awhile before these types of speeds are widespread, Vancouver should have something like 4G speeds in February when the Winter Olympics are held there.What all this tells me is that we need to get serious about our thinking on how we’re going to incorporate mobile devices into our array of services.
6. Toby Greenwalt from Skokie Public Library and Nancy Dowd from the New Jersey State Library shared information about how they were using SMS text messages to reach customers. The stats there are some that I took from one of Nancy’s slides. As you can see the numbers are pretty compelling.Mobile Marketing highlights (Nancy Dowd) Pilot project with 10 librariesChose SMS because it was affordable less than $50.00 per month per site.Also wanted to reach the LCD everyone has a cell phone.Found that program was most successful at those libraries where there were people who liked to build relationships and communicate with customers.What they learnedThis was a slow to grow program.People need a strong compelling reason to sign up/provide lots of incentives.Sign up resistance—this program was aimed at teens and others. Some teens have sign up blocked so working with parents is necessary.Other promotional materials should include terms like, “for updates text 12345”Skokie Public Library PNS via SMS text messagesUsed a company called ShoutbombCustomers could sign up for notifications or request lists using commandsCommands:TEST – Tests your connection.HL – Request a list of items currently on hold.OL – Request a list of current overdue itemsCOURTESY – Toggles 2-day due date warnings on or off. Default setting is on.OVERDUE – Toggles overdue warnings on or off. Default setting is on.HOLDS – Toggles hold notices on or off. Default setting is on.RESEND – Sends last message.QUIT – Cancels text messaging service.They plan to use Facebook and Twitter for long term promotion of the service.And of course it was important to create an atmosphere in the library that was friendly to mobile devices. Took down all the unfriendly cell phone signs in the library and trained staff to monitor the behavior, not simply devices.
7. Toby Greenwalt from Skokie Public Library and Nancy Dowd from the New Jersey State Library shared information about how they were using SMS text messages to reach customers. The stats there are some that I took from one of Nancy’s slides. As you can see the numbers are pretty compelling.Mobile Marketing highlights (Nancy Dowd) Pilot project with 10 librariesChose SMS because it was affordable less than $50.00 per month per site.Also wanted to reach the LCD everyone has a cell phone.Found that program was most successful at those libraries where there were people who liked to build relationships and communicate with customers.What they learnedThis was a slow to grow program.People need a strong compelling reason to sign up/provide lots of incentives.Sign up resistance—this program was aimed at teens and others. Some teens have sign up blocked so working with parents is necessary.Other promotional materials should include terms like, “for updates text 12345”Skokie Public Library PNS via SMS text messagesUsed a company called ShoutbombCustomers could sign up for notifications or request lists using commandsCommands:TEST – Tests your connection.HL – Request a list of items currently on hold.OL – Request a list of current overdue itemsCOURTESY – Toggles 2-day due date warnings on or off. Default setting is on.OVERDUE – Toggles overdue warnings on or off. Default setting is on.HOLDS – Toggles hold notices on or off. Default setting is on.RESEND – Sends last message.QUIT – Cancels text messaging service.They plan to use Facebook and Twitter for long term promotion of the service.And of course it was important to create an atmosphere in the library that was friendly to mobile devices. Took down all the unfriendly cell phone signs in the library and trained staff to monitor the behavior, not simply devices.
8. This slide illustrates a presentation about Montana State University Libraries use of Google apps. At Montana State the primary email application for the university is Gmail. Rather than hosting an email client on a server, every student has a Gmail account. I’ll try to take us to the MSU Libraries page, as you can see the Google icon is prominently placed on the Library’s webpage. The library chose to place this prominently not only to help market the applications they’ve created but also to spotlight the ability of students to create a customizable dashboard using 9 applications.What I think is interesting here for Sno-Isle is how these gadgets enable the library to be where our users and potential users spend their time. A customer could easily add these to Google landing page and whenever they log in the library is there and available. The developers of these gadgets will share the code with us if we were interested in pursuing this.
9. I think many of the things I’ve shared here support the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan. Goal IIIObjective 2: Increase customer awareness of and access to materials representing a variety of subjectsby 50% by 2010.Goal V Objective 2: Provide customers with robust, seamless access to a variety of online resources including thelibrary catalog, materials and services, and licensed databases by 2011.Goal VIObjective 2: Expand and improve community engagement with the library through a comprehensivemarketing and communications program by 2009.If we were to move forward on these I would suggest that we’d want to create a page similar to this one at the DC Public Library. We would need a tool to market our tools, even beta testing applications. I think that we should be looking for ways to connect with people who use the library. Having an area where customers can try things out, give feedback, makes people have an emotional investment in the library. A lab could provide this type of opportunity.