Mashups : Way too much fun

I had a lots of fun playing with the toys on Big Huge Labs.

Here's a poster showing our children's librarians doing great work, and a 'mashup' mosaic using pictures from flickr (taken by a friend Neil Fifer).

Although I loved every minute spent making these images, the only immediate library use I thought of was for quick and easy inhouse graphic design. And even then, anything we publish must come from the Library Service or Council's marketing team in order to meet our corporate guidelines. Oh well, still it was fun. Since writing that, I have used BigHugeLabs after all. I needed to thank a library volunteer and made a great thank you poster in just a few minutes, using digital camera, mashup, copier-printer and laminator.

I can see the ease and accessibility of mashups and their potential - especially the fact that you don't need to be an IT professional to create web content or to compose a mashup. Google Maps' map-making tool enables libraries to develop and share mashups to promote their services by adding a map showing branch locations. Morraine Valley Community College Library uses a Google map mashup on their website for quick and easy referrals. The map gives directions to key locations that their information service was regularly asked for.

I can see that a good use for a map mashup in our library service would be to show the Local Studies photographs, descriptions and locations of heritage sites with links back to the Local Studies pages on the website. This has already been done by some libraries in the U.S. I'm sure our overworked Local Studies Librarians will be thrilled to hear this!

Podcasts

This week I thought the Pierce County Library System's Postcast Blog was impressive (in an accessible, not too high-tech kind of way):
"Welcome to the Pierce County Library Podcast Blog. Here you’ll find a wide and ever-expanding range of both information and entertainment, including helpful parenting tips, regular book reviews, “Storytime for Grown-Ups” sessions, interviews with interesting people, and hints on accessing new library services and materials." Immediately I thought why doesn't our library do this? (I've done a lot of that since I started nswplLearning 2.0). But then I hit my usual stumbling block of 'why'? In this case, 'why' would anyone have so little else to do, that they'd check out podcasts on their library's website? It must be the long, cold winters in the USA that generates so much computer use, or is American TV still that bad?

Seriously, though, I can see the value of downloading a podcast of a favourite radio program that I've missed, with the added advantage of listening via MP3 while commuting! I notice that currently it's mostly public broadcasters that offer free programs via podcasts, no doubt podcasts with adverts will catch up soon.

In the meantime, I'll 'suggest' to our marketing team to get on with podcasting our author talks...

Answer Boards and Social Searching

The idea of Librarians jumping into the 'online ether' via answer boards is appealing. Until now I've been less than enthusiastic about libraries linking into web 2.0 tools, because I can't see why the Gen-y people who are into online communication would go to a library's website for their social networking. They're going to sites that their friends are using, and sadly so far, that's not library sites.

So librarians slamming the boards appeals, because it's taking the library message to where the questions are being asked. It shows that librarians are expert at answering questions; librarians give good answer based on facts; librarians even tell you where the answers came from; and it suggests even more - that librarians are techno-savvy and know what's going on. By 'slamming the boards' librarians invite people who would never think of their local library, to consider that libraries answer questions too.

With Yahoo! 7 Answers being an Australian site, there is the possibility of Aussie librarians doing their own 'slamming'. Perhaps it could be part of an existing campaign or LIW?

Not so sure about customers rating or reviewing items, ala Amazon or the Taste Website. Would we get the same enthusiasm at the local library catalogue level as these universal websites get? We've not had much success in getting book reviews or ratings when we ask for them for our newsletters (and yes, we did accept emailed reviews). I liked the idea of incorporating LibraryThing reviews using LibraryThing for Libraries.