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Jamie Coniglio, George Mason University

- computers aren’t technology
- internet is better than tv
- doing is more important than knowing
- learning more closely resembles nintendo than logic
- multitasking is a way of life
- typing is preferred to handwriting
- staying connected is essential
- zero tolerance for delays
- consumer/creator are blurring

quick overview of social networking and different types of sites

at George Mason University, they’re playing with:
- wiki for internal communication
(showed Chad Boeninger’s business wiki as an example of a public wiki)
- Meebo widget chat box
- blogs, although they have fewer now than before because they were using them to route around the fact they didn’t have a CMS
- moving to a research portal that blends WordPress and the Internet Scout Toolkit
- have fooled around with MySpace, and they’ll respond, but not much going on for them there
- same thing with Facebook
- seriously looking at LibGuides; playing with it right now
- have discovered Zoho and are trying Zoho Show as a way to share materials among staff
- del.icio.us bookmark sets
- showed the UThink blogging project at the University of Minnesota
- virtual reality
- showed the browser Flock

marketing & social networks
- keep your content fresh
- provide reliable content
- know your market
- have good content

from an organizational point of view, where do we put the personnel for this

challenges
- declining visits/gate counts (at least in academia)
- fewer reference desk transactions
- fewer circulations of print materials
- competitors in the information environment
- disintermediation

- being where our users
- being useful where our users are
- realizing we aren’t in control (chaotic versus structured)
- silo-ing or personalization
- who’s on desk
- face time versus online
- privacy? her staff uses nom de plumes on Facebook to protect their email addresses and identities
- keeping up/”losing” skills
- getting/keeping good parapros
- riding the tsunami
- organizational structure/agility
free the bound periodicals? and more?
- discomfort (certainty versus uncertainty)

students aren’t using their GMU email addresses because they already have other personal ones

responses
- stay aware of “uber” environment to kee up
- pilot/try it out (if someone wants to try it, she says sure)
- student input/feedback/training us
- keep/move on/ can’t be wedded to “one way”
- avoid searching for a magic bullet; can’t emphasize flexibility enough
- departmental facility; take advantage of your staff’s expertise
- streamline aspects of “standard” job elements
- read special library “tactics”
- create zones of experimentation
- building a “knowledge practice;” start with the ones who will work with you
- closer alignment with curricular changes, emerging and redesign academic programs
- movement from “support service” toward collaboration and partnerships
- value risk-taking
- reorientation toward user-centered services; noted University of Rochester’s anthropological report published through ACRL

service transformation to
- visible
- trainer/learner
- collaborative
- informal
- visual

Karen Calhoun

metadata management bw (before the web) and aw (after htet web)
bw
- or finding library materials
- catalog records (well-understood)
- shared cooperative cataloging systems

aw
- for finding all kinds of things
- many types of records and sources
- loosely-coupled metadata management
- multiple batch creation and extract

metadata is now really cool stuff

recommends O’Reilly’s article “What is Web 2.0?” and David Weinberger’s book Everything Is Miscellaneous
“the third order of order” - make the biggest pile you can
“include and postpone” - can be organized over time, some of them will be grassroots (like LibraryThing), some will be official (taxonomies, etc.)
- need them both, but have to pay attention to the less formal ones

people are using metadata to interact and contribute, even though they may not know what it is

what would metadata 2.0 be like?
- not your father’s metadata
- remixing, reuse, mashups
- wth the necessary rights
- metadata syndication
- enabling a rich user experience
- global, group, and local metadata management
- long term vision
- things you can do right now at your library

Amazon relentlessly enhanced metadata and redefined it for the world of books

what is a “full record?”
showed the same record from Libraries Australia, WorldCat, and Amazon to show the differences between a “full record” for each
from a user perspective, which one is the “full record?” amazon
- the horse has left the barn

using metadata from multiple sources
all of this remixing has generated a high interest in copyright
Creative Commons licensing has proven to provide an alternative to full control - it’s a bridge between a world that controls every use (”all rights reserved”) and anarchy where content providers are exposed to exploitation
CC lets you protect your work while also allowing your content to be remixed

“intellectual property management” is one of the burning issues of Web 2.0

be where their eyes are; syndicate your metadata outwards
OCLC calls this getting libraries to “web scale” - getting collections to show up in as many places as possible through this kind of syndication

showed WorldCat Facebook widget
- showed how you can share a WC list with people in FB
makes library collections more visible and connects everyday users the ability to share books in new and exciting ways

overwhelmingly, users start with an internet search engine, not library resources
this doesn’t mean people are no longer using libraries or library resources, but it does mean they no longer begin with the library website
so we have to take our collections where the users are

catalog used to be our sun in the galaxy, but now it’s just a planet in the user’s galaxy
the story of the catalog is not over

one library working by itself is not going to make this happen, is not going to get to “web scale”
can’t command a huge amount of attention for just one library
she believes that to keep libraries strong and vibrant in their communities, we need to work together to command a much larger presence on the web for library collections

talked about Open WorldCat Partner Program
showed an example of driving traffic from the web to a library-owned title
chose a German title (since the internet and books aren’t just for English readers)

we can be connected: a new vision for metadata management
data can flow local <--> group <--> global

worldcat.org statistics
- number of libraries visible through WC and partner sites = more than 10,000
(ed. - see my Flickrstream for the rest of this slide)

everywhere, the library
anchors for neighborhoods and communities, just as they always have been
welcoming space in the community + great visibility of the collection on the web so that no matter where you start, you can end up at your library

long-term vision
no less than a new age in which an individual library catalog is one node on the web that is attached to many other nodes and the user can traverse those nodes easily and conveniently to their library’s collections
can retain your independence but be loosely connected in Web 2.0-fashion, the same way so many other things are today

what can you do right now?
- take libraries to a wider audience, eg surface your collections in as many places as you can on the web
- encourage a Web 2.0 “culture of participation” in your own communities; support digital citizenship
- partner with museums, historical societies, cultural organizations, eg to add new online content

pushing our data out, pulling users in: libraries and course management systems

in 2004, 40% of classes used course management systems; more now
good: embed a library presence in course sites
better: customize RSS feeds to course sites, links to course readings

American University has done some great work integrating conent into LMS courses using customized RSS feeds

public libraries in Canada created http://mycommunityinfo.ca/
working with the community to index locally-relevant sites
has a “life events” section (retirement, what to do if you lose your pet, going off to college, etc.)

public libraries in the UK created The People’s Network
was funded by the lottery
partnering with individuals and community groups to create content

question: if we spoonfeed the content into the LMS, does that give students less incentive to learn how to do it themselves
answer: if 2% are starting with the library website, 98% of them aren’t seeing this stuff anyway; doing this can drive users back to using your resources and services

question: what should catalogers be doing differently in terms of their work
answer: they should be embracing many sources of data, reuse it, get it done as quickly and as easily as you can; make sure your catalog is current - never have a backlog; revamp your skills and this kind of metadata management; learn how to interact with your user community; learn how to handle special collections

question: is there a way for me at my public library to find out how many links are coming back to my catalog from WorldCat?
answer: yes!

What if we are just a scrap of metafiction inside somebody's history book?  

Digital-era journalist extraordinaire John Tierney just published an essay that will undoubtedly float a million new science fiction stories and their hack movie versions.

He talks to a couple scientists who are floating a new twist on the "brain in a vat" theory of human consciousness, guessing that we are really living inside a super-advanced, futrististic computer program that future people are using to recreate or study the past. Run, don't walk, over to the New York Times to read all about it.

I know, I know, we've all heard these ideas before, but these playful theories are like jumping-jacks for your writing muscles. Go ahead and dream up a couple ways to impress these future historians with your own story.

Check out his blog post for hundreds of comments from readers about this mind-bender: 

"Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University ... concludes: 'If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal you should care less about others, live more for today, make your world look more likely to become rich, expect to and try more to participate in pivotal events, be more entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people around you happier and more interested in you.'"

(Thanks, SF Signal!)