NJLA 2016 Conference Talks

Beyond the CE: Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network

We live in a constantly changing world, and this does not stop at the library doors. There are more continuing education opportunities than ever ranging from Conferences and Unconferences to web sites, blogs, podcasts and social media. Everyone's personal learning network takes a different form, and this panel representing public, school and academic libraries will explore the broad landscape of professional development opportunities for librarians.

Presenters:

• Joyce Valenza, Ph.D., Rutgers University
• Robin Rockman, Youth Services Librarian, Oradell Free Public Library
• Valerie Forrestal, Web Services Librarian, College of Staten Island
• Alyssa Valenti, Electronic Resources & Web Services Librarian, Raritan Valley Community College
• Theresa Agostinelli, Moderator

Slides: http://tinyurl.com/beyondCE

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The Cats Are Herding Us: Neko Atsume and Mobile Usability*


Neko Atsume, a popular mobile app for smart phones and tablets, was an international hit despite the fact that gameplay was originally directed entirely in Japanese. This presentation assesses the usability of this app using Jakob Nielsen's "5 Aspects of Usability," as well as research on interface design for low-literacy users, in order to point out techniques for designing user-friendly mobile applications.

*part of the NJLA Ignite: Ideas that Inspire program organized by Allen McGinley

Slides: http://bit.ly/NAandUX

Spring cleaning your LibGuides

I'm in the process of revamping my library's LibGuides, and I've come across a few small changes you can make to your guides that make a world a difference for design and usability. First of all, as far as headers/banners go, I am NOT a graphic designer, so I kept it simple, with just the school logo, and "Library Research Guides" in our official font. I don't recommend random images and color-fading if you're not really, really good at it. Otherwise it looks like a page for your local pre-K, coded with Microsoft Word.

old design

new design

Second, take advantage of SpringShare's excellent documentation. As a company that markets guide-creation software, they really put their money where their mouth is. Seriously, they've created a guide for pretty much everything. Here are some I found particularly useful:

• Changing your banner/adding an image map to your banner
• Customizing LibGuides CSS
• Creating a database A-Z guide with the Serials Solutions importer
• Creating search boxes for your catalog/individual databases

As the library's LibGuides admin, I'm currently building a template that all librarians can start from when creating new guides. They are free to not use it if they don't want to, but if the majority of them do use it, this will ensure some consistency across guides. It also acts as a repository for all the custom search-boxes I've built, so other librarians can pick and choose which ones they want to add to their guides.

I've also created a hidden tab (hidden from public view, that is. It's visible to anyone signed in through the admin interface.) I'm using this tab to post instructions, screenshots, and tips for guide creators. I'm also using it as a content repository for boxes I want to be available, but that don't necessarily have a logical home in the template itself (more on this in a minute...)

I've recommended that users link to boxes in the template, rather than copying them, so the template can also act as a content hub, where changes can be made in one place and pushed to all guides linking to the content. This is also why it's a good idea to import your database A-Z list into LibGuides, even if you have one on your library website. If librarians link to links in the database A-Z guide, it will automatically pull the description (which can be hidden or changed if they want) and it will allow you to make changes to database links and names in one place, that, again, will be pushed to all guides that use those links.

I've also noticed that most libraries that use LibGuides just use the default homepage options, which include a list of guides (featured, popular or recent,) a random user profile, email sign-up and/or a tag cloud. But you can choose instead to display a box from elsewhere in the site, by just entering the box id. So, on my hidden template page, I created a box of popular links (I called them "quick links") and put that on the homepage. I also replaced one of the boxes with our "help" box, that contains our various methods of contact. A good example of a nice customized LibGuides homepage is Worcester Poly's site: http://libguides.wpi.edu/

I also like how Rutgers made their homepage a complete list of guides, listed alphabetically on one tab, and by discipline on another: http://libguides.rutgers.edu/home

This is still a work-in-progress, so if anyone has any other helpful hints, please leave them in the comments!

Open Access is easier than you think

I recently attended a talk by Jill Cirasella, a librarian at Brooklyn College, on open access publishing (check out the slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/cirasella/cuny-oa-ir-york). I kind of went as a professional courtesy to my colleague who set up the talk, because I honestly thought I was pretty well-informed on the topic. Turns out I was sadly mistaken on that count. I figured the talk would be about seeking out and publishing in open access journals, but what I didn't realize was that there are actually two types of open access publishing: gold and green.

Gold open access journals are ones that make their articles freely available to the public, and sometimes (often?) require their authors to pay a publishing fee. This funding model puts payment for access to scholarship at the beginning of the publishing process, or the time of submission, not at the end, or time of access. This is also what most of us think about when people talk about open access publishing. 

But it turns out this talk was focused on green open access publishing, or traditional journals that allow their authors to self-archive some version of their work, and make it openly available on the web. Some restrictions can include an enforced embargo period, or only allowing authors to make available the pre-print (article before any editor or peer review comments) or post-print (final version of the article, but not in the format published by the journal.)

Jill gave us some tools to easily find out the copyright rules for specific journals, including the SHERPA/RoMEO website, which allows you to search for a journal title, and view a summary of authors' rights. Turns out, the publisher of the two journals I've written articles for, Taylor & Francis, have a very lenient open access policy for library science journals. They allow you to self-archive the post-print of your article, with no embargo period. (Oh how I wish I knew that earlier! My articles have been languishing behind paywalls all this time!)

Once you find out if you can self-archive your article, (it turns out that 94% of the journals covered in RoMEO allow some form of it. Wow!) you need to find a repository to deposit your article in. You can, of course, self-archive on your own site, but large repositories are far more stable and vastly increase find-ability. (You do want to be cited, don't you?!) If your institution has an institutional repository, that's the best place to start. If it doesn't (as my school does not) you can check out this list of discipline-specific digital repositories: http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Disciplinary_repositories.

It turns out there are 2 pretty prominent library science repositories, E-LIS and DLIST. I plan on submitting my papers to both, but have only gotten around to submitting to E-LIS so far. 

submitted!

and... accepted!

So now you can access the final, peer-reviewed, full-text of my articles here: http://bit.ly/Y1uQZd. I'll keep you all posted on whether my citations go noticeably up or not, now that they are out from behind a paywall.

A pro-tip for you, so you can learn from my fail: KEEP SEPARATE COPIES OF ALL VERSIONS OF YOUR PAPER. I cannot stress this enough. When the editors sent me the first round of comments, I opened up the Microsoft Word document and made the changes (without enabling the track changes function.) So when I was told I was free to make my pre-print publicly available, I didn't HAVE a pre-print to make available. 

THEN, because I'm an IDIOT, I had the opposite problem with the post-print. The final round of edits are usually made directly in the publisher's online system, and I didn't bother going back to my word document to mirror the changes I had made in the system. So when they told me I could make the post-print freely available (but not their version of it) I didn't HAVE a post-print to make available. ::headdesk:: For you fine people, I actually went through the final pdf version of the document, copied and pasted it page by page into a text file to remove formatting, and then transferred the whole thing, plus images, back into a Word document. This was monotonous and cumbersome and I DON'T recommend you do it.

So, make sure you have a copy of the article that you originally submit, BEFORE you receive any comments from the editors or peer-reviewers, and make sure you have your own copy of the final version, with all the edits, and make sure they're clearly labelled _preprint and _postprint. You'll thank me later.

PS- Thanks, Jill, for a really enlightening presentation!!! :)
PPS- You can find a list of all the links from the talk (including a link to the slides) here: http://bitly.com/bundles/scwlibrary/5

Twitter RSS feed creation cheat sheet

Ok, so apparently Twitter is no longer supporting RSS?
I tried doing an advanced search, and, sure enough, the "Feed for this query" button was gone. Then, when I mentioned it on Twitter, @shelitwits said it was still there for her, and when I checked again, it was back...
So... Yes, perhaps I'm going crazy and I just imagined it went away, but now I'm nervous. For now, search feeds are still working for me, whether the button is there or not, so I created a quick cheat sheet for myself, should I need to create a feed from a Twitter search without the handy button. I figured I'd post it here, for my own, and your, handy reference, should you need it. (Obviously, replace the bold text in the search strings with your own search terms/parameters.)


Hashtag search: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23CiL2009


User mention search: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%40scwLibrary


Keyword search: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=research+paper (replace the "+" with OR for searches that return any of the keywords, as opposed to all the keywords.)


Location + keyword search: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?geocode=40.744544%2C-74.027593%2C5.0mi&q=+research+paper+near%3A%22hoboken%2C+nj%22+within%3A5mi


You can get the location code from location-tagged tweets in your search results, or from your profile page if you've enabled location-aware tagging on Twitter. You can also change the proximity parameter, set here to pick up tweets within 5 miles.


Also, I know it's redundant having the location & proximity twice, but this is how the feed generator creates the feed. I tried adding it to Google reader with only one or the other, and for me it worked with just the location code part intact, but did not work when I tried it just using the city and state part (which would have made life easier, since you could just plug that info in without having to look up a complicated location code, but hey, that figures, right?!)


Now, I realize that if Twitter completely stops supporting RSS, these feeds will probably no longer work, so let's just hope they don't do that. I tried using an RSS feed creator to make a feed out of the search results page (as recommended by @bibrarian,) but it didn't want to work for me (it said the page couldn't be found...)


I really hope Twitter rescinds its no-RSS stance, because I can't imagine administrating an institutional page without it. If I can't regularly monitor certain searches, that really cuts down on Twitter's usefulness as an outreach tool.

----------------------------------

UPDATE: Cynthia at LearningLibTech posted some additional details on creating an RSS feed from a specific user's timeline. Check it out here: http://cynng.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/twitter-search-rss-feed/ (and thanks to Desirae for sharing the link!)


UPDATE2: Thanks to ProfHacker for also linking to this post. I also hope my linking to posts that link to this post doesn't trigger infinite recursion and break the internet.


UPDATE3: the Sociable has created a feed generator for Twitter lists: http://sociable.co/2011/05/05/as-twitter-protects-its-ecosystem-heres-how-to-create-an-rss-feed-of-a-twitter-list/ (Thanks to Paul for sharing the link in the comments!)


UPDATE4: In response to a request by Twitter user @filip_struharik, I figured out how to combine user mention and user searches with hashtag searches. They work as follows:


User mention + hashtag: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%40val_forrestal+%23library
User + hashtag: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from%3Aval_forrestal+%23library


The difference between the two is that the first feed returns all results where the user @val_forrestal *and* the hashtag library appear. The second returns only results where the user @val_forrestal *uses* the hashtag library in one of her tweets (aka only tweets with the keyword "library" from that specific user's timeline.)


UPDATE5: Here's how to do searches that are restricted to a date or set of dates (or just since or up to a certain date).


http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23KEYWORD%20since%3A2012-01-24%20until%3A2012-01-25


...where KEYWORD = your hashtag, and the since/until are your start/end dates. You can leave out the "%23" before KEYWORD if you want it to be a simple keyword search, instead of a hashtag search.

Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated -or- Librarian shushes self

Just back from my lovely three day weekend, and I have to see this in my feeds? Really people? Here I am, sitting at my desk, just trying to do my job, and the internet is already on my back. Well, maybe not my back per se, but our backs, we humble librarians (or information scientists, or information professionals, or... whatever.) Outside of lawyers, whose salaries I consider balm for the irritation their mockery might cause them, are there any professions so abused as librarians? Ok, that's whiny, and probably not true, but still, I am very, very, very tired of justifying the existence of my profession. We still exist, so, society, there's your proof. And as long as my job is here for me, in the "real world" or the digital one (you have to read the article to get that one) I'm done justifying it. Seriously. Because we can't win. People say books are obsolete, so we learn all about new technology, and try make ourselves useful in that way. Then they say we should focus on books. But libraries are getting rid of books, oh no! Then we rally against librarian stereotypes, and there's backlash for that too (check out the comments if you want to know how people really see us, it will warm the cockles of your "plump, white [and] humorless" heart.)

So you know what? I give up. I'm just trying to do my job here people. I look for ways I can be useful to my community, and then try to go in that direction. I have tattoos, not to buck a stereotype, but because I want them. In fact, I got one in college, before I even thought of becoming a librarian, so there! I'm not so sure about this whole 'any press is good press' idea anymore, and I'm wondering if we should all just shut the frak up. Seriously. Stop giving interviews, stop writing fluff articles for the general press. Because no matter what we say, they're gonna pick on us. We can't win this one with words. You know how we can win? By just continuing to be useful. By assessing our communities and being what they need us to be, not what the press wants us to be. I know there are times when we need the press, like to rally support for libraries in need, but otherwise let's just lay low and be helpful. After all, we're not the only industry struggling with obsolescence, right? Maybe they're just trying to create a diversion...

(Oh, and as the assertion in the original article that all the content in paid databases will be available for free in a few years, I snickered at that. Better not tell Elsevier!)

Twitter for Libraries preso follow-up

Ok, I haven't listened to the recording yet (and am dreading it), but I have to say that presenting strictly in an online format at yesterday's Handheld Librarian conference definitely threw me off a little, so I'm sorry if I sounded super nervous (it always makes me uncomfortable when a presenter sounds nervous.) Anyway, I underestimated how much I rely on reading people's expressions to direct my talks (bored, confused, nodding in agreement...), and the radio silence (and relative chat silence) kind of left me flailing a bit. Because of that, I feel like there were some questions/issues I didn't fully address, so I just wanted to do a follow-up post to clarify and expand on some of those issues.

First of all, in case you missed it (it's ok if you were in Joe Murphy's SMS talk, he's teh awsum), here are the slides: http://www.slideshare.net/val_forrestal/twitter-for-libraries-handheld-librarian-709

One of the biggest concerns people had was: What should libraries be tweeting about? I tried to express that that really depends on your audience, and you have to cater to what you think they will find interesting/helpful/informative, but I understand that getting started can seem a little overwhelming, so here are some good posts that talk about how precisely libraries can use Twitter:

• http://www.kellyd.com/2009/07/29/how-your-library-may-not-be-using-twitter-but-should/
• http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2009/01/using-twitter-in-libraries.html
• http://andyburkhardt.com/2009/07/27/six-things-libraries-should-tweet/

Those pretty much cover the spectrum of what tweet from our library account (@scwLibrary). After the conference I was kicking myself for not just going to our page so I could show everyone what we tweet about (and that page is less controversial than my own Twitter feed, which I felt really guilty about showing everyone because of privacy issues for the people I follow - because some of their feeds are private/protected, and so I had to just show it super fast and then leave the page, which was probably dizzying for everyone, kind of like this sentence.)

Another thing that came up was finding the "correct" hashtag for a topic or event. I still maintain that the best way to do this is to a.) try searching some possible hashtags by guessing and seeing which is the most popular; or b.) just ask the twittersphere (ex. "hey does anyone know the official hashtag for the Handheld Librarian conference today?"). Your followers or people searching for the same event/topic by name will usually let you know the answer. However, there are places where you can "register" a hashtag, and it's possible that people do use these as hashtag directories, even if they are not widely adopted right now, so I'll mention a few:

• http://hashtags.org/
• http://tagal.us/
• http://www.hashdictionary.com/
  

(For some really good info on the history and usefulness of hashtags, see here.)

Speaking of hashtags, another thing I completely forgot to mention: there's a fairly new hashtag going around for recommending librarians to follow. This is an off-shoot of a popular trend called "follow friday", where people recommend their favorite people to follow every Friday. Anyway, if you're looking for librarians to follow to get you started, do a Twitter search for #followalibrarian (or just click on the handy link I made for you there, heh...)

Someone also asked for examples of how people are using Twitter in educational/classroom settings. I think this post has some great advice/links for how instructors can use the medium: http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/07/21/100-serious-twitter-tips-for-academics/

You can also follow KSU professor Michael Wesch's blog, Digital Ethnography (he often experiments with using social media in his classes), or @itsanno on Twitter (she mentioned recently that she will be using Twitter with the students in one of her upcoming classes.)

Ok, so this is a long post, so I'll wrap it up now. I think at some point I will do a follow-up to this follow-up, with some tips for more advanced users. With 200 people in a presentation, it's really hard to know how much time to spend on the basics (as I'm sure there were some beginners there) and the advanced tips (for you "power users"). Some future topics I'd like to cover:

• Twitter integration w/blogs, Facebook, websites, etc.
• Mashups (using social media aggregation sites like FriendFeed or Netvibes)
• Twitter mobile apps (which I really wish I had covered, seeing as this was a conference about mobile technology!)
• Twitter for reference

Is there anything I missed? Any lingering questions/comments/doubts? Let me know here in the comments, or on Twitter (@val_forrestal).

I don't want to be a reference and research services librarian anymore!

Well, I think I've done it. Given ridiculous restrictions on what words I could use in my new job title (web and digital are out, because we already have a 'web services librarian' and plan on hiring a 'digital initiatives librarian'), I think I've finally come up with a title that works. The thing is, I feel this new title actually helps me out in terms of focusing on what I really do here, what I am good at, and what I can bring my workplace that is unique and necessary. Ok, so here goes:

Communications and New Media Strategies Librarian.

There you have it. Wordy, sure, but aren't most library-related titles? I'd actually love it to be 'Communications and Digital Strategies', but as I mentioned before, I can't use the word digital so that it can be used in a title for a job that doesn't actually exist yet. But don't get me started on that, this is a positive post, dammit!

Aaaaanyway... The reason I'm mentioning this here at all (especially since I haven't actually pitched this to my boss yet, though she knows I want a new title, and is open to it) is that it really helped me rethink exactly what it is I do here. I feel like I play with technology all day, trying out new tools (read: web 2.0 crap) and sometimes I feel like it's not important or appreciated at all. But that's not really what it's all about... Technology is just a medium, not a message. Sure, I'm good at researching and using new media, and that's necessary for what I do, but the most important part is the message.

The message is that the library is not dying; that it's a vibrant and useful place, full of helpful people and services. So that's my job, that's what I love doing, and what I am good at: evangelizing on behalf of the library. Getting the word out to everyone in our community, however possible, about all the great things we can do for them, and that they can do with us. The technology just helps me do that, because you need to get your message out wherever you can, to reach people wherever they may be.

The funny part of this whole thing is that I feel like I've come full circle career-wise. I was a mass communications/advertising major as an undergrad, and got my first masters in media production, and those are areas that are intimately linked to what I do now, which is, in some form, marketing. So I feel like this new title and (semi-)new role really make sense for me. I know this stuff, and I've been using that education all along, I just didn't realize it at the time.

So yeah, this makes me very happy, and I hope my boss goes for it, because I really feel like I can be an asset to my library if given the go-ahead to move full-force in this direction.

Anyone have any suggestions/advice regarding how I can convince my boss this is a good idea, and that marketing, especially with social media, is vital for libraries at this point? I have some pretty good points worked out so far for the pitch, but I could use all the ammunition I can get!

Update: I totally forgot to mention the "you can't say no to this idea" phrase I will use in my pitch: building and engaging a community around your brand. Um, doesn't every organization need someone to do that? Oh, and that community will advocate for us. I think that pretty much hits all the buzzwords directors love to hear, no?

A snarky librarian by any other name is still a snarky librarian

So, yes, I've changed the name of the blog, how nice of you to notice! Honestly, I had grown tired of the whole "info babe" moniker (I think I thought it was cute at one point, but it just seems a bit silly now, and I don't really think of myself as a "babe"...) but I thought I was too entrenched in my little social networking world under that username, and I figured I would never get rid of it. But after a particularly good session on social network profile management at last week's Computers in Libraries conference (especially the talk by Greg Schwartz) I decided to make the move to use my real name for all my online identities (val_forrestal or vforrestal).

Another reason for this decision also stems from the conference. I was meeting in person people who I had only previously known through online connections, and I find it incredibly awkward to have to follow my introduction with "you might know me as the info babe?" Ick. And I'm really working on networking and presenting these days (how tacky of me to admit, I know. For shame!), so I'd like to be able to make a more professional impression. I guess I can also use that as a lead in to mention that I'll also now be blogging LISNews.org, so keep an eye out for me over there!

Oh, and if you're wondering where the new blog title came from, it's from the headline I gave my Shovers and Makers profile (which I think I mentioned in the last post, but if you feel so inclined and have not yet done so, you can find here.) I don't know where I came up with it, other than to say that for some reason I enjoy the word 'ubiquitous', and that the time I spend wandering around the vast realms of the internet is nothing short of ridiculous.