Social Catalogue

A social cataloging application is a web application designed to help users to catalog things, books, CDs, etc.—owned or otherwise of interest to them. The phrase refers to two characteristics that generally arise from a multi-user cataloging environment:

• The ability to share catalogs and interact with others based upon shared items;
• The enrichment or improvement of cataloging description through either explicit cooperation in the production of cataloging metadata or through the analysis of implicit data (e.g., "People who like X also like Y").

Advantages of Social Cataloging

Social bookmarking has added a great deal to how information users share their online resources, however Library Thing has taken social bookmarking and networking to an entirely new level.LibraryThing at http://www.librarything.com// is a social network of bibliophiles. It is a Web site to help people catalog their own books, as well as connects people with the same books, and comes up with suggestions for what to read next. Its primary feature is the automatic cataloging of books by importing data from booksellers and libraries through Z39.50 (Z39.50 is a client server protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote computer databases).

Users (informally known as thingamabrarians) can catalog personal collections, keep reading lists, and meet other users who have the same books. While it is possible to keep a library catalog private, most people choose to make their catalogs public, which makes it possible to find others with similar tastes. Thingamabrarians can browse the entire database by searching titles, authors, or tags generated by users as they enter books into their libraries.

Users of Libaray Thing can import information from over 80 libraries including theLibrary of Congress, and the Canadian National Catalogue. Once the correct book and edition has been located, a simple click adds it to their own catalog. They can also add books from another member’s catalog or by searching onLibraryThing itself. Assuming the book is found (and most will be), each time a user adds a book, LibraryThing automatically posts an image of its front cover, its date of publication, its ISBN (International Standard Book Number), a list of other editions. It may even suggest where a person can buy new copies online. If the user desires, they can add other information, including tags, a star rating, a Dewey decimal number, the date they acquired the book, the day they started reading, and the date they finished reading it. Users can add comments to the database and even post reviews. If the correct book or edition is not available in the available databases, users can add it manually or edit the record later.

Although LibraryThing provides cataloging data from the Library of Congress, it encourages its users to tag the books included in their collective collections. LibraryThing, like many other folksonomy applications, incorporates a tag cloud into the “Social Information” page created for each book. The tag cloud enlarges the tags visually when they constitute a high percentage of use.

When a book is tagged, you can view when other users or books use that tag. “Members with your books” shows the 50 most similar libraries from other members. When viewing another member’s profile or library, the system shows how many (and which) books you share with that other member. If desired, you can leave a (public or private) comment on their profile. You can also add the member as a friend, to your private watch list, or as an interesting library.

The LibraryThing Web site does not use advertising, but receives referral fees from online bookstores that supply book cover images. Individual users can sign up for free and register up to 200 books. Beyond that limit and/or for commercial or group use, a subscription fee is charged. You can browse for free can post up to 200 books free of charge. You can also access your virtual library from my cell phone while standing in a bookshop by pointing your cell phone’s browser to <http://www.librarything.com/. Beyond that, you have to pay either $10 for a yearly membership or $25 for a lifetime account.

Danbury Public Library, Danbury, Connecticut was the first library to add theLibraryThing widgets to its catalog. The LibraryThing data is integrated almost seamlessly into the record display. Tags and the tag browsers bring the cataloging efforts of LibraryThing’s thousands of users into the local OPAC (online public access catalog). Users merely click on a tag associated with a book and the tag browser opens and provides a list of all the other books in the library with that same tag. The tag browser also provides a tag search engine, which has created an entirely new way to navigate our catalog.

Using LibraryThing.com, readers, authors, librarians, and researchers can now multiply their resources by sharing libraries and network with those with similar interests and information needs  .

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Promotion and Marketing - Web 2.0

 Libraries - and services within libraries - like reference services -need to constantly justify their existence and their allocation and expenditure of funds so more than ever, they are involved in the process of promoting and marketing their goods, services and facilities. This is a dynamic process which requires constant monitoring, modification, new concepts and ideas. Effective marketing activities and strategies of reference services ensures that services and products are made available that satisfy patrons and maintain the profile of the reference services section within the library.


Why Marketing?
Information professionals must understand that it is essential to actively market their services. Library marketing is critical for any information professional in order to spread the word about their library. It doesn’t matter what library type, it doesn’t matter how large or small the library is - you need to draw attention to your library, your services, your worth to your community, your administration, your staff, and your users.

Promotion:
Promotion is essentially the means of informing to users what you do and what you can do. The benefits for those who promote their library services include: increased usage, increased value in the organisation, education of users and changed perceptions.The promotional plan emerges from the marketing plan. It is to do with how to achieve the objectives that have been forecast. It involves: a description of the service requiring publicity; description of the audience at which publicity is targeted; details of the campaign method to be employed including type of publicity to be used and method(s) of distribution; execution of campaign; analysis of campaign performance. The setting of clear promotional objectives will also ensure that the success of the advertising campaign can be evaluated. From time to time it should be accepted that promotional activities have not met their objectives.

Social media , Libraries, and Web 2.0
According to Wikipedia social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense social media is a shift in how people discover, read, and share news, information and content. It s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue to dialogue and is a democratisation of information, transforming people from content reader to publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the on line world to form relationships for personal ans business.
Additionally web 2.0 refers to a perceived  second generation of web development and design that facilitates communication, secure information sharing , interoperability and collaboration on World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web- basedcommunities, hosted services, application such as social networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs,and folksonomies.In many cases the terms social media and Web 2.0 are interchangeable and are widely used to describe the same concepts related to on line communities and sharing on line information and resources. While the term Web 2.0 refers to the actual applications available to Internet users , the term social media refers more broadly to the concepts of how these applications are used and communities built on line.
The following are links to a variety of libraries using Facebook, Twitter and blogs. There are many more libraries using these tools to promote their services, this is just a brief selection for you to view.

Facebook
The Barr Smith Library http://www.facebook.com/barrsmithlibrary
State Library of South Australiahttp://www.facebook.com/pages/State-Library-of-South-Australia.Wellington City Libraries http://www.facebook.com/wellingtoncitylibraries
Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service, Australia http://www.facebook.com/YarraPlentyRegionalLibrary

Twitter
Blog post: The most "influential" Libraries on Twitter?The British Library http://twitter.com/#!/britishlibrary
Library of Congress http://twitter.com/#!/librarycongress
Sunshine Coast Library http://twitter.com/#!/SCLibraries

Library Blogs
Education Library Blog, University of Pretoria http://edulibpretoria.wordpress.com/
Mosman Library Blog http://blogs.mosman.nsw.gov.au/library/Swinburne Library Blog http://blogs.swinburne.edu.au/library/
University of Tasmania, Library Blog http://blogs.utas.edu.au/library/

Reference services and Web 2.0

Web 2.0 technologies have been used by libraries for reference services for a number of years.Susanne Bruhn, Director of Reader Services at the National Library of Australia (NLA) stated “The technology should not be an end in itself, but a means of providing the right service and we should use it to our advantage.” She also sees chat, IM and SMS as “one-to-one technologies that require immediate responses and are good for quick conversations ... [and] while they may be useful for some ready reference enquiries, they do not lend themselves to complex reference enquiries or reference interviews.” Bruhn sees these methods as being useful for initial communications between users and reference staff.

Social networking (Facebook and Twitter) and other user-generated content (blogs and wikis) provide opportunities for libraries to reach specialist interest groups with information about collections and services.

Online / virtual reference

Enquire instantly connects you to someone who is trained to help you find the answers to your questions. Enquire is a United Kingdom collaboration of over 80 public libraries throughout England and Scotland staffing the service Monday – Saturday 9am-5pm. After these hours, you will be connected to one of their partners in the USA.

RefTracker

RefTracker provides web-based tools for the operation of reference services. The system that RefTracker provides is variously called reference request management, virtual reference, and / or research tracking.

One of the special features of RefTracker, is a knowledge database is developed so when a question recurs, both the answer and the search strategies used are available for reuse. Email questions and responses, online chat and instant messaging are some of the communication methods available. 

Examples of libraries using RefTracker:

University of Technology Sydney Library

Charles Sturt University Library (New South Wales)

National Library of Australia through RefTracker.

LibAnswers

LibAnswers from Springshare is a reference (ask-a-librarian) platform with a built-in knowledge base. Web-based chat widgets can be embedded into LibAnswers and it provides an SMS module for text messaging access. An advertised feature is the Analytics module that provides real-time analytics for all reference transactions (in person, phone, IM, SMS).

Examples of libraries using LibAnswers:

Harvard Library, Graduate School of Education

Deakin University University

University of Massachusetts, Boston

Ask a Librarian

Many libraries operate virtual reference under the banner of “Ask a librarian”. Here are some Australian examples.

Murdoch University Library

Macquarie University Library

Victoria’s Virtual Library

Mobile Technologies and IM for reference services

Mobile technologies and instant messaging are additions to reference services and not a replacement. They also make reference services relevant to a new group of users, aligning them with a technology they are familiar with.

Meebo is just one example of a free application that provides an instant messaging service available for library use.  Examples of how mobile technologies are incorporated as a virtual library application are follows :

Using Meebo as a virtual reference tool

Using Meebo chat at your library

University of Technology Sydney reference service uses Meebo

There’s a librarian in my pocket (UTS).

Roving Reference

Roving Reference is reference conducted away from the reference desk. The philosophy behind roving reference is to remove the barriers between staff and clients, and to lend assistance where patrons need it rather than having them come to a desk.

 Here are some examples of the reference librarians or information specialists of the future.

Roving Reference

The reference librarian

Second Life Reference

Researcher of the future

What Web 2.0 technology you are interested in ?

I am interested in  RSS feed which is growing rapidly nowadays. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter.

RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favorite websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
I think having RSS feed in any library is a great idea. It is a convienient way to keep up with new content on your favorite website. Instead of having to click through various sections of library to see whats new, you have that you have that information published directly to your computer. Libraries can create RSS feed for new additions to the online catalogue, new programs and events posted on libaray website, libarays electronic newsletter, library closings including emergeancy closings , job openings etc.

RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop- based, or mobile-device-based. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interfaceto monitor and read the feeds. RSS allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.

Describe one of the Web 2.0 technologies, find and describe an example of a library using this technology.

Blog- Short for “weblog,” a blog is a type of shared online journal. It's written by an individual, published on a web page, and usually available to anyone with access to a web browser. It contains the blogger's thoughts, observations, recommendations, reflections, opinions, and feelings on whatever he or she wants to write about. And the entries are displayed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent posting at the top. Blogs can include photos, audio clips, and video, and they frequently contain links to other blogs or websites. Blogs can be publicly viewable, or tucked safely behind a company firewall. Both public-facing and “internal” company or organizational blogs are often focused on particular topics or issues.

 The very trend set by bloggers from  the fields like Journalism, Politics, Medicine Art & Culture also crept in the Libraries and Library Science  field. The professionals in this field are making use of blogs  for communicating  technical skills amongst professionals besides there is increasing use of  dispensing patrron services through library blogs.

An example I found  is British Libaray having  blogs  written by their curators and other staff. You can choose from the links on the right to read them, post comments and subscribe via RSS. The URL is given below-
http://www.bl.uk/blogs/

The growth of library blogs and use of these blogs aimed  to keep patrons up-to-date on

library events staff picks and news etc .Workshops , training courses are being conducted

wherein participants are being familiarized about blogging , RSS technology and their

use to promote library services8.

What new technologies have you been introduced to this week through the resources?

Following are some of technologies been introduced through the resources :

• Web 2.0 - Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTMLWeb pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based onserving Web applications to users.  

• Wikis -  Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. It serves many different purposes, such as knowledge management and co-operating. It’s a way of fast communication. 

• RSS- Feeds are generally known as RSS ('Really Simple Syndication') which are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.You can also access RSS feeds directly from pages on the site - the orange RSS icon will appear when a feed is available.

• BLOGS- A blog is also known as Weblog. It is a personal online diary or you can say journal which allows you to share your thoughts and ideas , you can add video, games, pictures, music, you can read comments visitor leave on your blog. you can do all these things without the need of any programming knowledge.Some websites are given below where you can make blogs very easily and quickly

• Twitter - is an online social networking  to connect to their interests, to share information, and find out what's happening in the world right now. Anyone can read, write and share messages of up to 140 characters on Twitter. These messages, or Tweets, are available to anyone interested in reading them, whether logged in or not. Your followers receive every one of your messages in their timeline - a feed of all the accounts they have subscribed to or followed on Twitter. This unique combination of open, public, and unfiltered Tweets delivered in a simple, standardized 140-character unit, allows Twitter users to share and discover what’s happening on any device in real time.

• Open-Source-  refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, 

• Mashup- A mashup combines web content( such as news articles, blogs, photos and videos) with some kind of other functionality, creating a hybrid service from two or more different sources.

• Podcast-Podcasts are audio content available on the internet that can be automatically delivered to a personal computer or MP3 player – simply put it, podcasts are audio on the web(Geoghegan and Klass, 2005). The podcasts have given the user an opportunity to listen to recorded intellectual outputs online without any additional software and to download for later use.

• Flickr-  Flickr is a powerful program that allows you to share pictures with friends and families and the world.

•   Google docs- is a free, Web-based office suite and data storage service. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs combines the features of Writely and Spreadsheets with a presentation programincorporating technology. Data storage of files up to 1 GB total in size

•     Library thing- is a social cataloging web application for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book metadata. This online service is to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone.

•      Youtube-YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos

•     Drop box- Dropbox is a cloud storage provider (sometimes referred to as an online backup service) that is frequently used as a file-sharing service.

• Machine is us/ing us-

• Evolution Web 1.0, 2.0,3.0

• Future Internet : Web 3.0

We have been also introduced to the  theory of Web 3.0 as well :