Social Software in Academic Libraries

Meredith Farkas

Wikis

What is a wiki?

•Content management system

•Allows people to collaboratively develop a website without any tech-savvy

•Wiki=quick (in Hawaiian)

•All community members can add to or edit the work of others

Wiki structure and syntax

•A tale of two wikis...

•Library Success Wiki

•Computers in Libraries 2008 Wiki

Wikis vs. Blogs

•No one owns content

•Anyone can edit other people’s work

•No specific organization (hyperlinks)

A person owns their post

Only author can edit their work (others can comment)

•Organized in reverse chronological order

•Perpetual work in progress

•Good for collaborative group work

•Posts are permanent

•Good for disseminating info/starting a dialog

Wikis vs. Blogs

Why wiki?

•Easy to use

•Web-based

•Anyone can make changes

•Version control

•Findability

•Many free and open-source options

Why not wiki?

•Too open (trust issues)

•Disorganized

•Vandalism and spam

Wikis aren’t for everyone. If control is a major issue with the site you’re developing, a wiki may not be the right tool for the job.

Community wikis•Roc Wiki (Rochester, NY)

•Davis Wiki (Davis, CA)

•Arbor Wiki (Ann Arbor, MI)

•A good start: Mac Library Experience

•A great start: Stevens County Rural Library District Wiki (WA)

Subject guides

•Ohio University Library’s Biz Wiki

•Norwich University Research Guides

Wiki is intranet for information

sharing•Most are behind the firewall or are

password protected.

•Albany County Public Library Staff Wiki

•Memphis Public Library Wiki

Collaboratively-developed manual

•Print manuals are really hard to update

•Antioch University New England Library Staff Training and Support Wiki

•North Metro Technical College Library

Wiki tips: Software

•Popular options for a wiki hosted on your server

•MediaWiki

• PmWiki

• Twiki

•DokuWiki

•DekiWiki

Wiki tips: Software (cont’d)

•Popular options for wikis hosted by the software company

• PBWiki

• WetPaint

• SeedWiki

• Wikispaces

• Wikia

•If you want control, no ads, etc., host the wiki on your own server

•If you don’t have server space, need the wiki for a small, time-limited project, or don’t want to maintain new tech, go with a hosted wiki

•Check out the WikiMatrix when thinking about which software to use

Wiki tips: Software (cont’d)

Wiki tips: Seeding the wiki

•No one wants to add to an empty wiki

•Also, people don’t know what to add

•Add some content to the major categories before going live

•Creating an organization scheme will prevent orphan links and chaos

Wiki tips: Education

•Wikis need lots of info for novice users

• What is a wiki

• What can you do with this wiki

• How to edit the wiki

• FAQ

• Whom to contact for more help

•Training is important

Wiki tips: Content development

• Do lots of marketing

• Focus on the functionality, not the tool

• If possible, offer trainings

• Partner with groups/people related to your mission

• Don’t do it all yourself!

• Give the wiki a grassroots feel, make it welcoming

Wiki tips: Management

•Security

• Should you require registration?

•Dealing with spam

• Bad Behavior plugin

• Monitor the wiki several times per day

• Get to know and love RSS

•Find lots of dedicated helpers!

How to deal with content you don’t

like•Guidelines

• Limit to on-topic posts

• Take a note from the

Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines or the Library Success Wiki

•Get a group of volunteers to patron a public open wiki

• If you need to delete something - use discussion area to explain why things were deleted

Let’s create a wiki!

RSS

Without RSS

•Visit every page separately

•Never know when a page will be updated

•Remember URLs for each page

What is RSS?

•Format for syndicating content on the web

•Makes the content portable so it can be syndicated

•Based on XML - content separated from presentation.

What is RSS?

•Often used for content that is updated

•RSS content is dynamically updated as soon as the content on the original page is updated.

Without RSS

With RSS

What types of content have RSS

feeds?

Ways to get RSS-enabled content

Personal homepage

Email

SMS

Syndicated on a website

RSS aggregator

•Application used for displaying multiple RSS feeds

•Two types

•Web-based aggregator

•Desktop aggregator

Why should librarians care

about RSS?•Allows patrons to receive our content how and when they want.

•Allows us to put the same content on multiple pages and have it updated dynamically.

•Allows us to put dynamically updated content from other providers on our site.

Ideas for using RSS in libraries

Pull content in

Syndicate outside content

Bring content to courseware

New book feeds

New book feeds

Creating a virtual reading room

Let’s mix and display some RSS feeds!

Social Bookmarking

What is Social Bookmarking

•Just like regular browser bookmarks, but web-based and using tags instead of folders

•Tag - descriptive metadata

•You can assign multiple tags to anything you bookmark

•Your bookmarks can be public or private

Social Bookmarking

Options•del.icio.us

•Furl

•Connotea

•CiteULike

•StumbleUpon

Libraries Using Social

Bookmarking•The College of New Jersey

•University of Michigan Health Sciences Library

•Springfield Technical and Community College

Let's get del.icio.us!

Custom Search

•Allows you to search multiple hand-chosen websites in a single search

•Examples:

•Google CSE

•Rollyo

Personalized Home Pages

•Like “portals” in the 1990s.

•Create customized “start pages” for different constituents

•Popular home pages

•Netvibes

•Pageflakes

•iGoogle

Widgets•Little gadget that offers some

functionality on the page

•Examples:

•MeeboMe

•LibraryThing widgets

•Widgets are portable

•Can go on start pages, in Facebook, on any website, etc.

Planning for Social Software

Choosing a Project

•Avoid technolust

•Know your population

•Weigh your options through play

•Understand the culture of each technology

Selling ideas

•Have plenty of hard data

•Have a prototype

•Encourage staff to “kick the tires”

•Offer training for staff

•Be patient

Selling ideas to IT•Involve IT in planning

•Know your stuff

•Build relationships and find champions

Maintenance•Do you need a policy?

•Do you need maintenance procedures?

Partnerships

•Partnering with organizations with common goals

•Learning Support/Writing Center

•Academic Computing

•Student Life

•Industry, media, etc.

Promotion•Marketing

•Website

•All over campus

•Local media

•Faculty – build into a course

•Focus on functionality

•Training

Assessment

•How do you assess?

•Usage statistics?

•Surveys

•Most libraries aren’t doing any assessment of social tools