Evaluative report
My work in 506 Social Networking for
Information Professionals has exposed me to a range of ideas and concepts
around the themes of social networking, social media, Librarian 2.0, Web 2.0,
basic information architecture and the role of librarians in the Web 2.0 world.
The online learning journal has been a great tool in recording and reflecting
upon the OLJ immersive tasks, and I’m sure it’s something I will refer to again
after the completion of the unit.
One of the early topics was about social
bookmarking using tools like Delicious. I also spoke about libraries using Pinterest as
a social bookmarking tool. I've been using Delicious in conduction with my
Twitter account for a while, and although I’d been shown this tool while participating
in a Web 2.0 training course for librarians, I hadn't really thought of its
potential in a library setting as a tool for librarians to share content with
library users or with each other.
I’m currently in the process of setting up a
learning program for the staff at my library that will introduce them to Library
2.0 topics as well as some new library technologies. Delicious is a platform I
can use to advantage sharing links with my staff and introducing new topics to
them. I have created a library account, and given each staff member the login
details so they too can log in and bookmark other links they have found while
exploring the topics we discuss. Other public librarians I know and the State
Library are also interested in this course, and having all the bookmarks on a
publicly accessible platform like Delicious makes it easy for me to share the
content with other librarians. As well as using Delicious for this teaching
program, other uses of social bookmarking in libraries could include:
· Collecting
and sharing a list of links to key sources in a topic area—a library
subject guide
· Collecting
and sharing resources relating to a local event or incident
· Illustrating
the use of a valuable resource to library patrons learning research skills
·
Providing a mechanism by which library patrons
can contribute resources to a topic area as well as tag (label) the content
areas ("Social
Bookmarking" n.d, para. 4)
Pinterest is another social bookmarking site
that currently enjoys popularity. It uses visual “pins” attaching web content
such as images or links to a virtual “Pinboard” with corresponding metadata. Libraries
are using Pinterest to showcase new book collections (or highlight existing
collections) as well as to promote activities and engage in collaborative
content creation. Cockburn Library’s Pinterest page is a successful
and practical example of Pinterest in use.
I believe social bookmarking tools have a
clear place in Library 2.0, and are a useful tool for curating and sharing
information between librarians and between librarians and their community of
users.
A later topic I addressed in my OLJ was the
definition of Librarian 2.0, and what sorts of skills and personal attributes
an information professional working in a Library 2.0 setting should have. There
has been a lot of discussion in the library world around the terms Library 2.0
and Librarian 2.0, and how the ideas behind these terms feed back into librarian
training degrees and content.
When I was watching the YouTube video of librarians being asked the question “What is Library 2.0?” (Gerts, 2014), it’s interesting to observe the interviewees' construction of their responses. Many extrapolate from a vague or partial understanding of Library 2.0 or Web 2.0 to a definition that fits their own experiences. Some older librarians declare that they are “too old” and so they can't answer the question. These interviews demonstrate the difficulty of capturing the essentials of a concept that relates to technologies and modes of communication that are themselves constantly in flux.
When I was watching the YouTube video of librarians being asked the question “What is Library 2.0?” (Gerts, 2014), it’s interesting to observe the interviewees' construction of their responses. Many extrapolate from a vague or partial understanding of Library 2.0 or Web 2.0 to a definition that fits their own experiences. Some older librarians declare that they are “too old” and so they can't answer the question. These interviews demonstrate the difficulty of capturing the essentials of a concept that relates to technologies and modes of communication that are themselves constantly in flux.
There are certain personal attributes that contribute to Librarian 2.0, such as curiosity, inquisitiveness, forward thinking, strategic thinking and good general technical skills. However, as technology is moving so fast, as are new ideas for the use of technology to collaborate with library users and other information professionals, there is no definitive list of technologies for an information professional working in Library 2.0. What’s important is to be open to new ideas, aware of what is out there, and what other libraries are doing: then to select the best and most achievable of these initiatives and adapt them to your own library. It's also important to be listening to your users, seeing how they use technology, and thinking about ways your library's services could be marketed to and used by your clients by means of communication platforms that they already use and trust.
The last topic I will discuss in this report
was discussed in Module 5, and related to the challenge of finding authentic
information online in a socially networked world. (Gerts, 2014) When anyone can
be a content creator online, how can we find out what information is authentic?
Is content from a service like Wikipedia, created and edited by many diverse
users, unreliable? (Garfinkel, 2008 p. 84) Or do such collaborative services
represent a new way of defining, qualifying and using information? How does all
this impact on librarians and our role? I found this module particularly
interesting as it highlights the role of librarians in this information age.
Kate Wittenberg’s 2007 article Credibility
of Content and the Future of Research, Learning, and Publishing in the Digital
Environment discusses how students at universities expect to find and use
information, and services that they often do not consider consulting a
librarian for reference help. She asks whether, if this is how today’s scholars
are finding and evaluating information—through social
media and Google—how are librarians
going to communicate with and educate students about information literacy and
the importance of credible information, especially in academic and scholarly
work. (Wittenberg, 2007. p.1).
When people claim, for example, that
“librarians are obsolete” because Google can find any information an interested
party might want, they are forgetting challenges in retrieving and qualifying
information. A search algorithm can find relevant information in relation to a
search term, and even determine a web page’s page rank, but one thing it cannot
do is help students determine what information they really want, by
constructing the right search terms and determining which results will lead to
the most credible and appropriate information. As Wittenberg says
Librarians have always been the curators and
cataloguers of information: our role in an information saturated world is to
educate and inform people, guiding and focusing the use of the myriad of
information tools now in existence. We now also have to use social media
networks to communicate and collaborate with our users. This module really
clarified this for me and has given me a focus for my own technology teaching
with library patrons in my workplace.
My development as a social networker as a
result of undertaking this unit has been substantial. The diverse and
interesting assignments have really helped me put into practice the module work,
and I now understand aspects such as the importance of a social media policy to
a librarian's use of social media networks. From the third assignment, in which
we had to create a social networking project to meet the needs of a group
people, I developed an online book club using Goodreads for my library
workplace. This book club had originally been created by another staff member,
but this had been done without any sort of strategy or planning. I created a
social media strategy as part of the assignment and after the changes that were
adopted the online book club is now thriving.
This unit has introduced me not only to new
kinds of social media and their application in libraries, but also to the
complex issues surrounding social media, the role of librarians in the
networked world, and to a large number of interesting resources concerning the
practices of other libraries and librarians in this area.
Fittingly, the unit itself has been taught
in the idioms of Web 2.0, by means of a range of online teaching tools and an
interactive Facebook page. The creation of an Online Learning Journal (OLJ) and
the immersive tasks in the unit have engaged me, and I believe I now have a
more advanced understanding of social information, social networking,
collaborative and curated content, and a better knowledge of related
technologies such as RSS, tagging and wikis.
I've also learned how these ideas and tools
tie into the nebulous terms Librarian 2.0 and Library 2.0, and how these
constitute an ever-changing role and set of ideas. Learning that you simply
can't just create a social media site or a webpage without thinking about how
your users need, use and trust information has been very illuminating for me,
and I'm now approaching online projects for my library in a different and more
strategic way.
The final modules about policy issues
surrounding social networking really clarified to me my role as an information
professional in a contemporary library. As I said when discussing this activity
in the OLJ, after completing the readings about false identities online and the
difficulties of selecting and evaluating credible content and information, I
saw how a librarian can engage and resolve this problem. Librarians are well
suited to teaching information literacy and to being the missing piece in the
information puzzle for their patrons. Much of the content I have read and
discussed in this unit I've been able to share with colleagues who never
undertook a unit like this during their own training in librarianship.
This unit has
made me think about my role, and how it is likely to change in the next five or
ten years. By then existing platforms such as Twitter, Delicious or Pinterest
may well be obsolete, or will have been replaced by other services. This unit
has helped me to think critically about online content, to be strategic, and to
carefully plan and implement new social media and online content projects. I
feel I've gained the confidence and skills to continue as a critically engaged
modern information professional, aware of the changing world and the changing
role of librarianship and libraries. I'm better prepared to meet some of these
challenges and to adapt to new contexts, working with diverse technologies to
bring an effective range of services to my current and future library
communities.
Bibliography
Social Bookmarking. (n.d). Retrieved from http://www.libsuccess.org/Social_Bookmarking
Garfinkel, S. (2008). Wikipedia and the
meaning of truth. Technology Review, 111(6), 84-86.
Gerts, C (2014) Social Networking for
Information Professionals [INF 506 Module 3.3] Retrieved May 2014, from Charles
Sturt Website: http://interact.csu.edu.au/portal/site/INF506_201430_W_D/page/97139774-d826-41e0-00a8-e68db97e0517
Gerts, C (2014) Social Networking for
Information Professionals [INF 506 Module 5] Retrieved from the Charles Sturt Website:
http://interact.csu.edu.au/portal/site/INF506_201430_W_D/page/97139774-d826-41e0-00a8-e68db97e0517
Wittenberg, K (2007) Credibility of
Content and the Future of Research, Learning, and Publishing in the Digital
Environment Journal
of Electronic Publishing 10(1). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0010.101
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