LibGuides...what’s the big deal?

LibGuides...what’s the big deal?

I hate to admit this, but I’ve never really understood what LibGuides were or what I should do with them.  A few semesters ago in my MLIS program, I had to create a pathfinder in a class on reference services.  It was a fun project.  But some students opted to do use LibGuides for their project.  Feeling the need to focus on my own “PDF with columns!” approach to the project [and not willing to admit that maybe these students had some really cool--albeit mystifying--technology up their sleeve], I never went there...to LibGuides...to see what it was all about.  My brain was full.  I was too busy learning about learning to learn any more!

This semester, LibGuides are popping up again.  Marci Hunsaker, the librarian dedicated to our faculty, sent out a welcoming email a few weeks ago, introducing herself and the LIS LibGuides page.  I checked out the page.  It seemed nicely organized into discrete blocks of information--it was a really comprehensive subject guide to Library & Information Science!  There were tabs, tags, and tutorials; and the info I have wanted to get from the King Library at different points of my MLIS journey...it all seemed to be represented in this guide.  

FINALLY it was dawning on me what LibGuides made possible!  All the information I want in a subject guide in one place :)

By googling “why libguides are great”, I found an interesting discussion on the value of LibGuides which further entrenched my burgeoning appreciation for this aspect of Library 2.0.  Rick Mason, the blogger, suggested that some libraries will find the DIY approach to subject guide / blog / tutorials / ILL/DD / librarian info / catalog / database cross-search combo page preferrable.  And comments from Slaven Zivkovic, LibGuide creator, and Scott Pfitzinger, Reference Librarian, make excellent--and admirably gracious & enthusiastic--comments on why a LibGuides subscription would be a fine choice for many libraries.  After all, why spend resources on creating a knowledge management system when a good, social, customizable, perpetually updated system is a available for a nominal fee?  (Well, maybe the “nominal fee” part is the dealbreaker.) 

I like LibGuides, and I can now see why this product would be a good investment for any library.

 I’ve had a Twitter account for a couple years now, ever since my boss (who might be the coolest librarian in the world), encouraged me to plug in to the greater library world that way...and via Flock, a social browser which I loved until it was announced it would no longer be supported as of April 2011.  I admire cool librarians who have RSS feeds and Twitter accounts and library friends on Facebook and professional contacts on LinkedIn.  And I believe I read an article for LIBR 246 which encouraged young soon-to-be professionals to get an account set up with every social media outlet they can think of.  Start setting up your brand.  Make your name about YOU and what YOU stand for.  Influence and be influenced.  Aggregate and disseminate.  What can be easier than having information from your chosen information providers show up every day on your computer!  Ask and ye shall receive.  Seek and ye shall find.  

But getting information to flow your way is not the whole battle.  Honestly, I find it challenging to take the time at work to peruse the many tweets of the 136 Twitterers I follow.  I haven’t figured out a good way to do it.  After all, do I just scan the first page of the latest tweets?  Should I go back a ways and try to catch up?  Should I use TweetDeck to be instantaneously notified of the freshest news / opinion / personal thought?  In addition to tweets, I have 157 RSS feed subscriptions, and even though I have divided them up into daily and weekly categories, I still feel GUILTY taking time to go through these feeds.  After all, what am I really gleaning from them?  Is it worth using work time to read them?  Goodness knows that once I’m off the clock and at home, I spend as little time in front of computer as possible.  There’s lots of tweets and feeds I simply enjoy--but most of those do not pertain to “library and information science.”  Of those that do pertain to my field of study, many are excellent blogs & tweets--well-written, relevant, insightful, engaging...and varied.  At this point in my life, I feel as though I’m following too many people and too many ideas.  After all, I work full time in a specific library department, dealing with specific issues for specific patrons.  I’m taking two MLIS classes with clearly defined objectives.  And when I’m not immersed in the library world (some days this amounts to a scant few waking hours), I want to think my OWN thoughts, not absorb and process someone else’s.

So what do I think of Twitter?  The whole Twitterverse is a pretty cool way to have a conversation--or rather, multiple conversations--about anything of [fleeting / immediate] interest.  But for me, in my current, very focused, very time-sensitive world, I don’t have the resources to digest a wealth of information from many excellent info providers.  I don’t have the desire, and it’s simply not prudent at this juncture of my library career.  My tune may change when it comes time to develop my e-portfolio and suddenly I’m confronted with the need to articulate over-arching views of the facets of librarianship.  But for right now, I need to ignore most of my 136 Twitter friends and my 157 RSS feeds to simply get through the day.  In the future, I fully intended to prune my info providers down to my favorites--professionally and personally.  That’s a valuable skill we need as librarians, the ability to sort through the noise to the music.  But for now, I just want as much quiet as I can gather. 

P.S.  Despite wanting to limit my Twitter exposure right now, I REALLY want to read Goodnight Tweetheart

[a Love Story in 140 Characters or Less] by TeresaMedeiros, (Book - 2011).  Looks like a fun way to learn about the ins and outs of Twitter!

246 - Week 03 Blogging & Marketing - Exercise 2

246 - Week 03 Blogging & Marketing - Exercise 2 

1. What do you see as the differences between the five blogs I asked you to subscribe to in terms of the type of blog and type of post (genre, length, etc.).

Having to find difference between the 5 blogs written by people who work for and love libraries is a challenging task. Of course, as they all focus on issues in libraries and their own place within librarianship, they have much more to compare than to contrast.  “In the Library...” blog stood apart from the others due to its long, multi-authored, peer-reviewed essay posts.  This site uses blogging as an academic activity, which is certainly not the norm.  The other blogs are written in first person singular tense, are more personal and casual in tone, and reflect opinion and observation over fact and research.  Also, these blogs feature posts that could be read easily in a minute or two, and they feature information that is helpful or informative.

2. What types of posts do you find most appealing to read and why?

As a person who’s regularly paging through RSS feeds, I’ve learned to discriminate somewhat between blogs worth my time, and those that don’t make the cut.  As mentioned in my blog post on this week’s theme of blogging & marketing, if a blog/feed is not updated regularly, I delete it.  This is one of the easy ways for me to judge if blog is worth subscribing to. (I may change this criteria someday...considering I have 154 blog subscriptions, I may later decide that fewer posts better suits my ability to read them!)

I like well written blogs with pretty pictures, too.  Blogs that seem to be quick thoughts about something the author means to think about more but hasn’t had time so he’s just going to post his underdeveloped philosophy online...no thank you.  (And because I feel that’s how I come across when I blog, I do not blog...except when required to by class exercises. :)

When it comes to library blogs specifically, I have a hard time discriminating between feeds when they all seem to contain information that could help me learn and grow and understand librarianship better and help me in my current job.  But I have to.   Perhaps the best criteria for me currently is to choose blogs that I enjoy most, because I will be most likely to read well-written, funny, relevant and SHORT posts.  After all, I work full time in a library system and take 2 SLIS classes a semester.  That’s a lot of library information for me to percolate before you factor in RSS feeds.  Nevertheless, I don’t want to get so caught up in my perspective on the library world that I forget what the broader issues are.

3. What three library blogs did you subscribe to?
Please include a 1-3 sentence description of each one.

In addition to the 5 blogs given to us to subscribe to, I chose to add the following blogs to my collection:

The Ann Arbor District Library AXIS blog posts events and succinctly describes the event, along with the date, time and age group for the event.  I’ve read about Ann Arbor’s gaming initiatives in other classes, and I love reading about their programming in such a concise template!

The University of Victoria (UVic) Library has a “Featured Resources” blog which lets patrons know what’s new and noteworthy in the library.  I like seeing academic universities reach out/outreach to their clients via blogging because it certainly softens up the library’s image and makes it seems as if librarians care for their university community.  

And the SJSU Art Librarian blog caught my eye because it involves my current school, art, and librarianship, and I found that combo too tantalizing to pass up!  Although the blog hasn’t been updated since June 27, I think I might hang onto this blog with the hopes the librarian begins to post more regularly.  I like her posts on art books she’s reading and their subject headings!  She also captivated me with her talk on what to see in San Jose when you come to town for graduation.  That will be me next spring!  Maybe she’ll let me know what art shows to see next May!

4. Based on the blogs you chose, what are some of the characteristics that you think make a library blog successful?

I think good, concise, clever writing does a lot to hook me, and a good picture makes a blog on a relevant topic hard to resist.  Long blog posts are very much a turn-off, no matter how well written, because I feel that they take too much of my time...although I must take a closer look at the “In the Library with a Lead Pipe” blog as it seems to have a great premise--and it’s peer-reviewed.  Maybe I should make time for it!  Also, if blog posts on library topics are too short, they can’t be giving me much information I couldn’t come up with myself (I say to myself as I gloss over its entries).  So too short or too long or poorly written/constructed/presented/thought-out blogs....no thank you!  You’ll really keep my attention with pictures, medium-sized, regular posts with clever turns of phrase!

246 - Week 3 Blogging & Marketing - Blog Post


I've tried blogging personally a number of times, and have abandoned the sites after about a month, realizing I don't want to post my personal information online in a way that takes more than 30 seconds, as it does on Facebook.  I didn't really feel I had much of lasting value to share anyway, so why bother?  And honestly, I didn't feel that some of my friends blogs weren't worth reading either (but many were, surprisingly.  More on that later.) Blogs created by an organization or business are different.  Rather than blogging to an unknown audience without thought of consequences, organizations--like libraries--that begin a blog should be aware that their efforts can make a huge difference in their community's perception of them.  According to Dusty Anderson, the factors involved in a blog generating interest, RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, and blog commenters are "Focus, Passion, and Originality." 

My favourite blogs are those that give me information I find both interesting and helpful, and that are updated regularly.  If your blog--which I read in Google Reader--isn't updated at least once a month, I delete you.  (I may follow you on Twitter, but I rarely open Twitter since I'm currently following too many Tweeters and find it overwhelming to sift through all the tweets everyday.)  If your blog ends up repeating what you've already posted a lot, I delete you.  If you give too much info and I can't read your post in under a minute, often I'll delete you.  If you give the same information as another blog I like slightly better, I'll delete you.  If it seems like you think just stating facts will keep me interested, I'll delete you…because you're so dumb (and maybe not dumber than me, but I want to read, as Anderson says, focused, passionate, and unique blogs, not the ones that make me wonder why the blogger bothered).

So, in my opinion, if you write a blog that I feel that I could have written without caring about the subject, or by reiterating the news, or by sharing an uninformed opinion, I will delete you.  My favourite blogs are those that make me feel that I couldn't have written that post--but that I'd be proud to. 

(Tip: the InstantShift blog is a good one…it features a lot of lists…another element I love in a blog.  Break it down for me, Blogger!)

Anderson, D. (2010). "14 Traits of Successful Blogs." Instant Shift.

Tags = blogpostwk3, blogpostwk3n2

246 - How to Manage Your Library’s Brand

How to Manage Your Library’s Brand

Despite years of librarians considering themselves “information specialists,” libraries and their staff still endure the stereotype of being behind the times, all about “books,” and not so much about technology (see Dr. Matthew’s blog post on OCLC’s misrepresentation of the public’s perception of libraries).  If librarians hope to keep their organizations alive, they need to sell their product to stakeholders.  Stakeholders need to want to “buy” what librarians are “selling.”  Branding, marketing, and delivering are all part of a librarian’s job.  

New librarians are instructed to learn to sell themselves to potential employers and organizations by creating a “brand” which represents who they are and what they believe in.  After successfully landing a position as a librarian, one should consider the brand of the organization one works for.  Ideally, a librarian and library are well matched upon the librarian’s hiring...but even if it’s not a perfect fit, a librarian’s own personal brand can add to the unique flavor of the library and enhance public perception with personality and ingenuity.

So far as I know, creating and managing a library’s brand is not an exact science. But neither is it an undertaking for the uneducated.  Time should be invested in research, consultations with administration and staff, needs assessments, technology tools, and deciding who will do what.  Organizational mission and value statements will guide the discussion.  And looking at other “brands” who have what you want will inform the process, too.

From the readings I’ve done over the years, I’ve gleaned my own ideas of where to start in managing a brand.  I can’t attribute all the following points to the precise influences on my thinking, but I will attribute ownership where I can.

* Make a plan to “sell yourself” (i.e. your organization): decide what to say (here’s who we are and what we do), how to say it (tone, style), where to say it (online, print), and who to say it to (users, non-users).  With all the talk about online social media, we may forget traditional methods of making ourselves known--like having a face-to-face conversation in the actual library, or putting an ad in the paper.  These methods sometimes have the most impact because they are the most personal.

*  Involve staff in brand management.  They can provide good ideas, practical feedback, and ultimately, they are often the ones who make the biggest impact on users.

*  As mentioned in readings this week, make the effort to monitor comments about you and yours on the world wide web.  Monitor, and make responses quickly and tactfully.  People are watching how you respond.

*  Brands can’t be totally controlled--only managed, directed, and influenced (Bedbury).  There will always be people who don’t like, don’t care, won’t use, don’t know...and more important than their negatively or oppressive neutrality is your response to it.  If your library’s brand includes regular, relevant, sincere, positive personal posts, your following--and respect--will grow.


Matthews, S.  (2011). “OCLC Perceptions of Libraries 2010 Report : Good News? Not Hardly!”  21st Century Library Blog.  Retrieved from http://21stcenturylibrary.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/oclc-perceptions-of-libraries-2010-report/

Bedbury, S. (2002).  A new brand world: 8 principles for achieving brand leadership in the 21st century.  New York: Penguin Group. 

246 - Exercise 1 - Desigual's Social Media Efforts

For this assignment in LIBR 246, I was asked to look at the social media used to discuss and build the brand of a for-profit company.  I chose Spanish clothing company, Desigual.  

1. What are people saying about this organization online?

According to the collection of comments aggregated by SocialMention.com, comments about Desigual, an “atypical” and trendy Spanish clothing company, are largely factual and neutral--609 neutral comments, 59 positive, 2 negative.  In fact, most comments gathered were Tweets about the company’s product offerings, store openings, and special events.  

What tools are they using to talk about the organization?
HowSociable.com listed various sites involved in the Desigual discussion: Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Ning, YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Flickr, Ustream.  

2. Is the organization responding to these people through social media?
If so, how effective do you think they are?

With so few negative comments in the midst of the discussion, there is little for Desigual to feel they must address or counteract.  There are no absolutes in fashion, and it is hip to be edgy and to generate controversy.  The company tweets regularly, and has a blog with posts made multiple times a week about events, articles, and products.  Consumers of fashion like to be aware of the “latest fashions,” and Desigual.com’s RSS feed, in addition to Facebook posts and Twitter posts, will push the latest news into the customer’s info-sphere.

3. What social media tools is the organization using to proactively communicate with their user base (rather than just responding)?  How effective do you think they are in building relationships & engaging their customers online?

Desigual’s blog page (http://blog.desigual.com) features links to their Facebook page, Twitter account, Youtube videos, and Flickr pictures, as well as the aforementioned RSS feed.  Their site is colorful, well-designed, and obviously up-to-date, a reflection of their brand and their customers.  Blog posts have 0-4 comments from fans, and icons for social media make it easy for users to share website info with their networks.  According to the Facebook sidebar, Desigual has 342,182 fans, and if you like the brand, you can become a fan now, too, with the click of a button--and subsequently receive updates from the company via Facebook!  As a user and customer of the company, I like their visual website which features their products, the easy link to their blog, the design of their pages, the few links to the social media I use most, and the ability to add them to Google Reader.