Organization Monkey

made at stripgenerator.com

Pledge to download the newest version of Firefox, available on June 17 at: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/, and help Mozilla break a Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours.

there’s been a lot of emphasis lately on communicating with library patrons by using social technologies like blogs, wikis, and rss. i am all for exploring new communication styles with our patrons, especially if they employ technology (geek alert). one thing that has been gnawing at me, though, is wondering how to make sure all the staff at my library are competent in existing (read: old) technologies before moving forward with formal training on the newer tools. without a working knowledge of older technologies the implementation of the 2.0 kinds of tools will be uneven in its success.  knowing how to make a photocopy doesn’t have an obvious path to adding a note to a wiki, but i think there is a confidence gained from knowing one simple technology that allows somebody to be willing to explore a more difficult one.

i’ve gone back to some old notes and reminded myself that sarah houghton-jan has some very good insights on how to make sure all library staff are on the same page regarding technologies. she suggests that by having all of our library’s staff members get together to identify what tools and skills we need to do our jobs and then designing a training guide for ourselves, we should end up with a set of core competencies and a staff with improved confidence. when i saw her speak at the internet librarian conference a couple years ago she mentioned that the tools/skills don’t need to be difficult: how to answer the phone and transfer a call; how to buy a copy card and make a photocopy. she has written a technology report for ala on the topic [Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries, Library Technology Reports 43:2 (Mar/Apr 2007)].

Two very recent articles* mention card sorting as a technique for getting library web site users to determine categories of information. The process typically uses index cards that already have some information provided, and the user puts the cards into piles that make sense to them. Then the user gives piles headings. This is a technique for getting users to help you think about how to construct the categories of information on your website.

There’s a web tool for this, if your users prefer using the web to sorting physical index cards: WebSort (http://websort.net) (mentioned in Cassi Pretlow’s article, “10 web tools to create user-friendly sites,” Computers in Libraries, June 2008, 28(6):14.)

You may like to read more on ways to systematically gather data from your users. Consider reading this slim book for essential how-to information: Systematic Data Collection By Susan C. Weller, Antone Kimball Romney.

*

1. Peter Hepburn and Krystal M. Lewis. 2008. “What’s in a Name? Using Card Sorting to Evaluate Branding in an Academic Library’s Web Site.,” College & Research Libraries, 69(3).
2. 2008. “The secret to patron-centered web design: cheap, easy, and powerful usability techniques,” Computers in Libraries, 28(6):6.

to follow up on the blog post about becoming a manuscript reviewer for a journal i asked a couple of colleagues how they got to be reviewers: they volunteered!  granted, the people i asked are smartypants and have had their own articles published in popular journals, but they also took the steps to find a journal they liked and sought out the position of reviewer instead of waiting to be asked.

more cat pictures

when you search the image site flickr under the groups tab for ‘creative commons’ you will get a results set with a lot of group pools with a specific focus.

my quick search retrieved

• insects in creative commons
• flowers in creative commons
• nature in creative commons
• architecture in creative commons

why do you care?

at some point you’ve worked on a powerpoint presentation and have looked to insert some images to jazz it up. flickr may be a good resource for this. the images that are in the “creative commons” pools are put there by photographers that want you to use their images. by looking in the ‘flowers in creative commons’ pool, for example, you will only find pictures of flowers, and only pictures with creative commons licenses.

when you find an image you like, scroll to the bottom right of the page to look at the license. here’s a screen shot of what it looks like:

when you click your mouse on the ‘some rights reserved’ text you will be whisked to the creative commons website, which tells you what the restrictions on the image’s reuse are. in this case the photographer permits you to reuse the image as long as you credit him as the author. easy enough! please note that not all photographers permit you to reuse their images, and those images will have this text for their license:

experiment with this now so the next time you’re preparing a presentation you’ll already know what kinds of images are in the creative commons pools, making your preparation that much easier.