Cliff May 13th, 2008
As someone who speaks fairly regularly on social networking sites (MySpace & Facebook in particular), I’ve been struggling with the idea of whether to write library applications for these services. My short answer? No. At least not yet…
SNSes are by their very nature social- -people get on these sites to interact with other people that they know. Right now the only services I could push out would be our catalog and databases. Because they have no social interaction (users can’t share what they’re reading/researching), there’s no point in pushing the services into a social sphere. As Laurie Bridges points out, the services that actually get used are the ones with a high degree of social interactivity (no matter how silly they are…I’m looking at you Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Zombies vs. Werewolves people!).
I think it’s awesome that institutions are reaching out to their users by putting more of their services out on SNSes–this is user-centric service, to provide services where the users are. But I would rather wait until MPOW has a next-generation catalog and interactive databases that allow users to interact with data and each other. For now, I can spend my time on trying to get us that next-gen catalog, and interacting with students by being myself in Facebook!
Cliff May 12th, 2008
Last Friday, hours after I posted my review of Elsevier’s user services, I got a call while I was at Lowe’s picking up some mulch. A coworker had received a call on the Ref. Desk from an Elsevier person looking for me. She passed me his number and I called him back. Apparently someone at Elsevier keeps an eye on the blogosphere.
Now I do have to say that both times that I spoke to someone at Elsevier I had very pleasent customer service experiences (and anyone who knows me, knows how I rave if I get a good customer service experience). The folks that I talked to were prompt, polite, and were as helpful as they could manage (which wasn’t much, due to the agreement between the publisher and the vendor). I am pleased with their customer service, it’s just that my users can’t easily use the product that they are paying for. Which is bad.
Here’s my take on things. We pay over $600 for an institutional subscription to AJOG, which includes print and online access for that title. Somewhere between the publisher and Elseveier, someone made a decision that this title should be available by username & password only, and not by IP range. Which means that my library’s users have to jump through several more hoops (some of them aflame, it seems) just to get online access to a journal that they are paying for. This is bad.
Here are my options:
- I can rant about this (done!), and maybe Elsevier would even bend the rules just for my institution (because I’m a loud mouth). Those are high hopes in the contract-driven, litigious e-resource world we live in. But that wouldn’t change things for other institutions who have the same type of subscription, and whose users have to jump through the same stupid hoops just to get access.
- I can ask Elsevier to work closely with the publisher, libraries, and Elsevier’s customers (library users, not librarians!) to figure out the easiest way for users to get access to online content (done!).
- I can spend anywhere from minutes to hours trying to create a work-around that would give my users the username and password. Hopefully before they get to the login screen. If they notice it. If they write it down. If they don’t think they they have to pay for the article. If they don’t get so frustrated that they give up and move on. Maybe they’ll need help? Too bad, no way to put that in there… (not done, yet).
Needless to say, I think that all vendors should take a close look at how their users get access to the resources that they are paying for. Is it easy? Is it quick? Is it clear? Does it take twelve steps just to get to the full-text? Look I’m not asking for a price cut, I just want my users to get what they’re paying for.
Please. Think of the users.
Cliff May 9th, 2008
Greetings,
I am writing this email to complain about the horrible user services that are provided by Elsevier.
This morning I was trying to confirm full-text access to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology for my library’s users. When I contacted customer support, I was told that access is only provided via a username and password (and not by IP ranges).
This means that when users at my library access AJOG via our full-text index or the publisher’s website, they are confronted with a request for a username and password. I have no way to provide the user with that information from the time they begin their research to the time they get to the username/password prompt. So not only are they not given the username and password, they are also not informed of the correct person to contact at our library to get this information, and in fact will most likely give up their research at this point.
This is a shameful display of disregard for your own customers–the library’s users. You are making it difficult for your customers to access the very resources you provide. I strongly suggest working collaboratively with libraries and other vendors to provide your customers (again, the library’s users, not the libraries or librarians!) with the best experience possible, including quick and easy access to resources.
I expect a swift reply, and hopefully, a user-centered solution in the very near future.
Thanks,
Cliff
Cliff May 1st, 2008
Is this the way your library works?
Cliff April 30th, 2008
The best experiences you’ll ever have are the ones where you’re completely aware, if only for a moment. Look up. Look around. Look within. Be aware of it all.
The meme: Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
Cliff April 30th, 2008
- Pandora - Create and refine your own radio stations. Excellent for discovering new music.
- Midomi - Search by humming or singing into your microphone.
- Musicovery - Choose music based on time period, genre and mood.
- MuxTape - Create mp3 mixtapes.
- Project Playlist - Search for individual mp3s and create your own playlist.
- Mixwit - More mixtapes.
- MySong - Sing in a melody and get instant accompaniment.
Music worth trying, but NSFW:
Cliff April 30th, 2008
I had an awesome time presenting at the Connecticut Library Association conference on Monday. I presented It’s All About the User–I’m taking a clue from Michael’s Hyperlinked Library and serializing the presentation.
It was extremely well received (packed house!) and I got some great questions at the end. A big “thank you” to everyone for being kind and receptive–even when I spilled coffee all over the presentation table!
After the presentation I attended Lee Rainie’s session on Web 2.0, and learned a lot from his presentation on Pew’s data results. At one point someone brought up Twitter, and sure enough, I raised my cell phone, having just posted on the talk. It was a great session, and Lee was entertaining, warm and insightful–his anecdotes lent a real-world awareness to statistics that often feel far-removed for many librarians.
Presentations over, I had a working dinner over the phone and then headed to the Spa for a haircut and a massage–a rare treat! I crashed early since I was up at 3am to fly back the next morning.
Now it’s back to daily library work and catching up on emails!
Cliff April 24th, 2008
I was honored to be able to speak to the first class of PINNACLE, the year-long training program for Georgia’s up-and-coming library leaders. It was a great crowd of mentors and mentees, and I got to meet some amazing librarians. Over lunch we traded Reference Desk horror stories (a favorite past time of librarians), and was able to learn more about the PINNACLE program. So a big “Thank You!” to the PINNACLE organizers for inviting me!
I was lucky to get there, because the sign for the library is at ground level behind the parking spaces, which means that if any cars are parked along the street you can’t see the sign. So there I was, trying to find the library, peering into the windows looking to see if there were stacks of books (since there were no blue-and-white library signs along any of the roads). I guess you can find the library, as long as you’re the only one hoping to use it! And of course, inside was a hand-crafted “no cell phones” sign–the paper cell phone’s display has the word “NO” on it!
After the event, I wandered to a local art shop to peruse the beach scenes, and I was amused to find that one artist paints the copyright symbol next to his name when he’s signing the paintings. I knew better than to take a picture, but I just got a kick out of it. I’m not really sure that painting the symbol protects him more than if he just signs his work, but then again, I’m not aware of how someone could break his copyright–I mean, if they’re going to go to the trouble of mass-producing and selling his work, they’ll probably be able to remove the copyright notice, right?
Cliff April 23rd, 2008
Getting actual quantitative assessment of library instruction is something that most librarians hate to do–it often eats up our too-precious time with the students. And yet, I find myself dissatisfied with the “how’d I do?” opinion polls that we’ve used in the past.
So as part of our annual goals here at MPOW, we’ve created an online form for students to fill out as a pre- and post-test. The results write to a tab-delimited text file using ProcessForm 3.0.
By including a hidden date and timestamp, we’re able to separate classes as they are added to the text file, and then import them into a spreadsheet for analysis. Couple this with the students’ institutional ID number, and we can compare pre- and post-test scores while keeping the students’ anonymity intact.
With a little help (read: enforcement) from friendly professors, this test could be self-administered before and after the library instruction session to prevent eating into precious library instruction time. Additionally, the test could be performed pre- and post-library instruction, and then again at the end of the semester. Let’s see how much they really retain!
I welcome comments, criticism and suggestions! A big “thank you” to Andy and Sherrida for making this happen, and feel free to steal the code from the assessment form.
Cliff April 15th, 2008
I’m back at work. I had a blast at CIL2008, and took plenty of photos of the DC area and my friends.
Since I’m overloaded here with doing the Technology and Electronic Resources positions (and on the search committee for the ER person…and trying to prep for upcoming talks…and trying to prep for the graduate class I’m teaching this summer), I’ve been a little lax in blogging. I’m working on all sorts of cool stuff, and I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve actually completed some of the projects.
To be continued….
(muhahaha)
Oh, and just FYI, listening to Star Guitar on the Metro is teh awesome.
