California Digital Library » social networking http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo The Official CDL Blog Thu, 14 May 2015 22:40:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 Do You Use Calisphere? Tell Your Story! http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2013/02/19/do-you-use-calisphere-tell-your-story/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2013/02/19/do-you-use-calisphere-tell-your-story/#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:01:37 +0000 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=12996 More...]]> CDL’s Calisphere Website is a finalist for an IMLS National Medal Award.  Calisphere will be featured on the IMLS Facebook page on February 22.  If you’ve used Calisphere in your teaching, reference work, or research and found value in it, please share your story!

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Making connections http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/09/13/connections/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/09/13/connections/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:27:53 +0000 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=7371 More...]]> The other morning, I rather crankily tweeted, “I’m trying to write about barriers to adoption, thinking about technology + new business practices. Not that pleasant of a way to start day.”

A day or two later, someone tweeted back, “I would be interested to hear from you on what you learn about technology adoption.”

Image courtesy of San Diego Historical Society

This is interesting to me in a couple of ways. First, I like (a lot) that it’s possible to have conversations across the network, even with people I haven’t met, about substantial topics. I can sometimes learn surprising things or make useful connections.

The other aspect I like is that the comment, coming a while after my quip, made me rethink what I’d said. It caused me to consider that, indeed, I might be on a path toward learning some new things, and not just facing a bunch of barriers.

This thinking about barriers has been in the context of working on a Next Generation Technical Services (NGTS) task force. I wrote about NGTS back in June when the Round Two groups were just getting started. These teams have been tasked with proposing transformational change, and they have just submitted their final reports.  For each of the recommendations, they were asked to consider and discuss benefits including cost savings and avoidances, barriers to adoption and or implementation, how current processes will change and how those changes will impact our users. As these discussions progressed, it became abundantly clear that not all the recommended changes would be technological. Many would be alterations to current workflows and/or business practices.

The teams doing these analyses understood their reports might encounter pushback. Indeed, as noted, they were expressly asked to identify barriers to adoption. In my view, the step of quantifying the cost savings and cost avoidances–actually putting a pricetag onto the recommended change is a very powerful tool in facing resistance.  With this information, everyone knows how much the pushback costs, what the cost is of not overcoming the barriers.

So, if we don’t learn about technology–or new business practice–adoption, as my tweeting partner is hoping I will do, but instead we learn about change resistance, we will know exactly what that is costing us. We will have our eyes wide open.

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Privacy matters http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/08/10/privacy-matters/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/08/10/privacy-matters/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:51:16 +0000 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=6814 More...]]> The [http://www.handheldlibrarian.org/program-2] conference held July 28 & 29 touched on privacy issues repeatedly, as might be expected for a conference dealing with topics such as geolocation and “augmented reality.” Lisa Carlucci Thomas in her keynote on “Risk, Reality, & the Mobile Revolution” suggested, “the mobile geo-social web may be the beginning of forgetting that privacy was ever an option.”

One version of the story I heard is that, increasingly, we are offering our identities, our real-time locations, and our shopping decisions in exchange for small prizes, fake titles, and new types of old fashioned coupons. In this scenario, the world has become some kind of giant gumball machine, where the coin of exchange is our privacy.

As a counterpoint, in the same week as the conference, First Monday published a new paper on Facebook privacy settings and the privacy practices of 18- and 19-year olds. Here, we learn that “far from being nonchalant and unconcerned about privacy matters, the majority of young adult users of Facebook are engaged with managing their privacy settings on the site at least to some extent” (italics added).

The paper concludes with a call for great care on the part of the private sector and government in the implementation of privacy controls: “it is imperative that companies and policy makers consider how default privacy settings and changes in these settings affect populations differently.”

I’m usually an optimistic person, but I have trouble feeling very hopeful about “companies and policy makers” taking this advice. It’s the kind of thing that demands a willingness to put 18- and 19-year olds (and everybody else as well) in front of the bottom line.

This is exactly why it’s important for stakeholders, developers and decision-makers in the library space to concern themselves with this issue.

It brings to mind a discussion we had here at CDL a little over a year ago when we were hashing out our organizational Values Statement. The part about privacy is fairly simple: “We safeguard the privacy of our users in their quest for information.”

Our Values Statement went through many drafts. Many. But every draft, from the very beginning, had a privacy statement in it. We knew from the beginning that this was something we all believed in. And, I suspect, you would find that this is the case in every library you might happen to visit.

Lisa Carlucci Thomas concluded her observations about privacy by suggesting that “Librarians, as advocates for freedom of information and privacy and promoting literacy skills in their communities should consider the opportunity of developing information programs about best practices for life in the mobile environment.” I think she’s right. We can also model how to release mobile applications that are respectful of personal privacy, and we can insist that our vendors and service providers adhere to the highest privacy standards.

What else do you think we should be doing?

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Practicing at communities of practice http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/04/05/practicing-at-communities-of-practice/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/04/05/practicing-at-communities-of-practice/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:58:59 +0000 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=3836 More...]]> I like the phrase “community of practice.” It captures togetherness and the idea that we are practising something. We might not have it down pat. The notion has continual appeal, too, as an approach to knowledge sharing. 

When you try to create a community of practice within a single (very) large organization, you can put certain infrastructural supports in place to promote the community, assuming you have the resources).  This article in the Harvard Business Review describes that classic corporate approach. But in the nonprofit, small business and educational sectors, communities of practise have a wild and woolier life, especially considering all the virtual ways of connecting. And there is extra pressure on many of us to try out these networks in lieu of attending actual meetings, workshops and conferences.

If you think back about eighteen months or so to the start of the great recession, you may remember lots of grief about the loss of face-to-face time that came with the cutbacks in many of our travel budgets. I think this gap in periodic face-to-face check-ins has dealt a real blow to many people’s capacity to participate in community.

Chicken and Eggs

What does this mean? We know that we have things in common and that we could gain something by sharing ideas and experiences. However, it takes effort to engage, and until you yourself need something, it’s hard to make that effort. Working teams often find a collaboration tool that at most of the members like, and because they need it to get their work done, there’s less of a problem with enticing participation. But without that built-in motivator, the single most compelling element is content. It’s a chicken and egg problem: you need people to create content, and you need content to draw people.

I’ve concluded that the solution is to bump it up to the network level. In other words, to access the ideas and participation of a much larger group of people, even though that means diluting the expertise and specialization we have when we are just talking within our own little world. So, I’ve been experimenting by participating in several network-level communities, including Twitter’s project management group (#pmot), and LinkedIn’s PM ToolBox and Digital Libraries groups. LinkedIn has, at my last count 2,211 project management groups, which makes picking the “right one” a bit tricky. Just paging through that many groups is onerous (you can’t search within the search results), so I admit to having given up after looking at a few hundred. Clearly the possible sources of PM community within LinkedIn are woefully fragmented.

The same might be said for Twitter, because it’s certainly the case that not all project managers know about the project management group, nor is there any kind of formal group structure, of course. But here is where the power of network-level operations comes in. Because there is such a large number of participants, once you do find out about the hashtag convention and “sign on” to use it, you tap into a real wealth of information exchange. It is by far the liveliest discussion arena about project management I’m participating in right now.

I’m not saying it’s the best ever or that it will last forever, but it’s an idea generator an a solution provider. That’s a great place to start practicing.

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CDL’s Twitter account, Part 2 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/02/22/cdls-twitter-account-part-2/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/02/22/cdls-twitter-account-part-2/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:19:30 +0000 http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=3470 More...]]> In an earlier post , I promised I’d cover our Twitter guidelines and also provide you with some information about how the account is performing. Before I get going, let me remind any readers unfamiliar with Twitter that “following” is a Twitter term for subscribing to the brief broadcasts of information, links, and so forth that Twitter users send, called “tweets.” 

First up: our guidelines. When we decided that CDL’s central account would follow CDL individuals, there was some concern that we would end up with content like “I’m taking out the trash” or “I just saw the most amazing [fill-in-the-blank]” in CDL’s Twitter stream.

So, we agreed that a very small number of guidelines would be useful. We read the LowriderLibrarian post about using Twitter for organizations, and we drew inspiration, if not detail, from it. We used a wiki to write down our ideas, comment on each other’s changes, and tweak (and re-tweak). In the end, here is what we came up with:

Group account:  When you are tweeting from a group account (e.g. eScholarship, Calisphere, Discovery & Delivery, CDL_WAS, etc.), remember that you are representing CDL and the University of California.
Individual account:  If you choose to be followed by the CDL as an individual tweeter, remember that your comments will reflect on CDL. Think of this as your professional persona; the viewpoints and topics you express should be primarily professional in nature. If you want to use Twitter primarily to express your personal views and discuss personal topics, maintain a separate personal account for this purpose. (Optional:  you may identify yourself as a CDL employee in your Twitter profile, i.e. in the bio or the username.) Note:  CDL reserves the right to stop following any individual account at any time.
In general:  remember that your tweets may be forwarded and shared by others in the Twitter community–in fact, we hope they will be!

At this point, only 6 individual CDL employees have chosen to be followed by the central CDL account, so it may be the case that the personal/professional guideline didn’t quite hit the mark. Stay tuned.

As for assessing the performance of CDL’s Twitter presence, I’ll organize this information in terms of how it addresses our original reasons for setting up the Twitter account.

Our first goal was to gain a new way to get our newsletter, CDLInfo, out into the world. To test whether or not this is succeeding, I’ve done a little comparison between the email list of subscribers to CDLInfo with the Twitter account’s followers and asked, “Is Twitter helping us to reach new people?”  The results of the comparison are that only 5% of the Twitter followers appear to be duplicates of the email list members, with another 8% having Twitter names that make them unidentifiable, so that the ratio could conceivably rise to as high as 13%.

Our second goal was to amplify the voices and messages of the accounts it follows. This is more true for some accounts than others. For the Twitter accounts with fewer followers than CDL–178 at the time of this writing–CDL’s reach absolutely makes a difference in getting the word out. I have also been tracking CDL’s performance using a tool called Twitalyzer over time, although Twitalyzer is normed against some very large “power users.” Twitalyzer has defined two metrics that have some relevance for this amplification notion: “Influence” and “Clout.” Influence, as they define it, is “measured by the number of times you are retweeted.” Retweeting takes place when another Twitter user forwards one of your tweets. Clout is “simply the number of references to you divided by the total number of possible references (as governed by the Twitter Search APIs).” To date, CDL’s measures against both of these metrics are very low.

Our third goal was to increase CDL’s visibility, in concert with our values of openness and sharing. In order to assess the account’s performance against this goal, we have two sources of information. On the one hand, we can look at the WordPress website statistics and ask whether or not Twitter, in general, and the CDL Twitter account specifically, is sending traffic to the CDLINFO page. In addition, we can ask whether or not the CDL Twitter account is gaining in popularity, thereby providing a net increase in the number of readers for CDLINFO.

For the past 30 days, Twitter.com is the top referrer to the CDLINFO page. Twitter.com/caldiglib is the 4th highest referrer for the same period. And, since its inception, in October, the CDL Twitter account has gained followers steadily, as the chart above shows. The distinction between Twitter.com and Twitter.com/caldiglib as referrers can be explained in this way: this is the difference between someone following a link from his or her own Twitter home page, which appears as http://twitter.com, or that same person visiting CDL’s Twitter home page, which appears as http://twitter.com/caldiglib.

To sum up, then, CDL’s Twitter account is getting the CDLInfo newsletter to new people and increasing CDL’s visibility generally.

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How CDL’s Twitter account was born http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/02/01/how-cdls-twitter-account-was-born/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2010/02/01/how-cdls-twitter-account-was-born/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:32:19 +0000 http://cdlib-prod.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=3212 More...]]> Last October, CDL launched its official Twitter presence with a central account that channels the content of the CDLInfo newsletter  and also additional content created by CDL programs and individuals that the CDL account follows. In today’s post, I’ll tell you the story of how that happened.

CDLTwitterIn early July, at a meeting of CDL project managers, we found ourselves talking about how Twitter was becoming an important  communication tool in certain domains. For example, Sherri Berger mentioned that many archivists and teachers were using Twitter, and so the Digital Special Collections Program was looking into setting up an account, as were several other CDL programs. As we talked, we realized that a central CDL account could serve a key coordinating and amplifying role. In return, Twitter appeared to offer an opportunity to get CDL’s news and ideas out to a wider audience.
We soon had an informal charge from Laine Farley, our Executive Director, to explore “the medium, identifying your individual program area’s goals for involvement, developing a proposal for sharing the ongoing support, and identifying a way to assess the impact.”

We formed a small group to take up the charge. By mid-September, we had decided upon a hub-and-spokes architecture, so that CDL itself would follow only CDL program accounts and individual accounts, but could be followed by anyone (except spammers). We picked this model because we saw that other institutions like the Library of Congress  were using it, and we thought it would let us keep the management of the main account simple. At the same time, we could allow for an unlimited level of complexity and granularity in the accounts that programs and services and individuals create.

We did some research and found a tool  (Tweethopper) that automates the conversion of the RSS feed of CDLInfo articles into tweets (those 140-character messages Twitter allows). The same tool also has a mechanism that allows us to grant followed accounts the power to convert tweeted messages into “re-tweets” by the main account using a Twitter-to-Twitter contact format called “direct messaging.” As an aside, the Tweethopper folks have recently granted us an in-kind donation of a lifetime subscription for a single account. (Thank you, Tweethopper!)

The bottom line: we don’t have to create new content for the CDL main account. From an administration standpoint, I spend a very small amount of time each week (minutes) blocking spam followers and also watching for incoming messages that may need a reply. But, aside from that, the account is maintenance free.

In a future posting, I’ll cover how the account is working so far (activity and performance) and also our Twitter Guidelines. Meanwhile, I’m curious about the approaches of other libraries and organizations, so I hope you will post your experiences and, of course, any questions. 

“See” you on Twitter!

@joan_starr

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CDL and CDLINFO are now on Twitter! http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2009/10/20/cdl-and-cdlinfo-are-now-on-twitter/ http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2009/10/20/cdl-and-cdlinfo-are-now-on-twitter/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:15:55 +0000 http://cdlib-dev.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/?p=1919 CDL has joined many of our colleague and partner institutions, like UC Riverside Libraries, UCSF Libraries, UC Press, Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, OCLC, and many others in creating a Twitter account.

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By Joan Starr, Manager, CDL Strategic and Project Planning

CDL has joined many of our colleague and partner institutions, like UC Riverside Libraries, UCSF Libraries, UC Press, Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, OCLC, and many others in creating a Twitter account.  We have done this for several reasons, including:

  • as an additional way to get CDLINFO out into the world;
  • as a way to amplify the voice and message of the accounts the main CDL account will follow. “Following” simply means to receive the other Twitter account’s updates, or “tweets;”
  • and as a way to promote our visibility, in keeping with our values of openness and sharing.

The CDL account is called CalDigLib (http://www.twitter.com/caldiglib) and we encourage you to follow it if you are a Twitter user.  Even if you are not a Twitter user, you can view it by simply going to the URL. You will find this content:

  • CDLINFO articles: the headline  with a link to the full article
  • Tweets from accounts followed by CalDigLib — accounts that feature CDL Program and Service news, announcements, resources, etc.

If you currently receive CDLINFO via RSS and you are a Twitter user, you may wish to consider following the new CDL Twitter account and receiving your CDL news in this manner.  If you currently receive CDLINFO via email, and have been looking for a reason to try Twitter, this might be a good time to take the leap!

The first CDL Program we will be following is the brand-new eScholarship account.  As time goes by, more Programs and Services will build Twitter into their marketing and communication plans.  Why? Because, as our friend Roy Tennant recently blogged, “Twitter is the new RSS” (http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/1090000309/post/290048229.html).  For some of our audiences, at least, this is increasingly the best way to connect.

We hope some of you will join us by following this new account.  Of course, we know some of you are already there! We look forward to a lively exchange as we all get to know this new channel for communication.

For any questions and more information, please contact Joan Starr (joan.starr@ucop.edu) or (@joan_starr on Twitter).

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