Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

Hello Library People. As you all know we've been contributing book and movie reviews to CheckMeOut.blog in the hope that it will become a community blog. Unfortunately this is yet to happen with only one non-Library staff member applying to be a contributor and only the occassional comment.

That's the bad news.

The good and interesting news is that I've started sharing posts from Library News and CheckMeOut.blog on my Facebook wall . . . and my friends are actually commenting on them. Some have even added their own book recommendations. Even when they don't comment, this at least gets the word across. I recently had a friend tell me he was sad to see Ruth Park died (I did a blog about this a while ago) and that he always sees the blog updates on Facebook.

So what does this mean in the Web 2.0 world?
A number of thoughts spring to mind:

1. With share buttons we can now merge and overlap web 2.0 technologies. You can now share blog posts and web pages on Facebook, Twitter, Email, Google Buzz etc.
2. This will impact how we assess the effectiveness of web 2.0 for example at the moment there isn't much of a community building in the blog itself, but I seem to be getting some community/friend involvement on Facebook.
3. Whether you like it or loathe it (I have a love/hate relationship with it) Facebook is the 'in' thing at the moment. It's where it all happens so it's great that we'll be getting a Library Facebook Account soon. If you don't already have a Facebook Account, give it a go. It's the easiest Web 2.0 technology you can use. Your privacy should be ok if you just exercise basic common sense. Plus, you can share some awesome Library blog posts and reviews on your wall so all your friends can read them.

Now over to you?

Have you posted anything to Facebook? And did you get a response?
What are your thoughts on this?
How do you think we could use this to build a community of users?

It's been a long time coming but CheckMeOut.blog is ready to be released to the public. I've added some reviews already so it doesn't look completely deserted and I'll probably do a blog post on it early next week on the Library blog. In the meantime, I've sent contributor invitations to Menai, Caringbah and Miranda gmail addresses and Engadine, Cronulla and Sylvania ssc addresses so you can accept and start posting reviews directly to the blog. If anyone would like to be added as an individual contributor you can either send me an email with your gmail address or fill out the Sign up form on the blog. Becoming an individual contributor will mean that your name (or Google ID) will appear at the end of every post (as opposed to 'Menai Library Staff' for example). If you know anyone who might be interested in writing reviews then by all means tell them about the blog. We won't be promoting it within the Library or asking for written reviews as it is designed for the online community.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me. If you'd like to touch up your blogging skills try the 'Social Networking' training module in our Online Computer Training database; or have a look at Butterscotch blogger tutorials.

Social networking sites are becoming central forums for accessing and sharing information. Librarians are responding to this popularity by using social networking sites to interact with library customers. It is becoming increasingly obvious that librarians need to become more social networking literate to continue to provide services to many of their existing customers, to attract new customers and to maintain their role as information experts.

An example of what is happening......

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/library/

During the next months I will be posting a task for you to explore and respond to via this blog.
Responses may be individual or a group effort and can be as inventive as you like.

Your first task is to discuss what social newtworking sites you think that we should be using to connect with our customers?

Share your thoughts by 24th September.

In the words of Barack "Yes we can!"
It's simple and you don't need access to blogger.
Email your post to:
suthlib.staffnews@blogger.com
and it will publish to this blog.

I just came across a great post from Stephen Hale of the UK Foreign Office, summing up his evaluation of the foreign office blogs.  His findings show that blogs and blog posts work best if they are real, authentic and above all 2-way.

Our advice isn't the same for every blogger, but we are using our findings to encourage our bloggers to be personal (say things that only they could say), real time (if it takes days to draft or check the facts then it's probably not a blog), integrated (with other things they're doing on and offline), responsive (responding to comments), and targeted (writing about things that people are already talking about online).

If you've ever written, or wanted to write, a post for the staff blog or the public library blog I would encourage you to read through Stephen Hale's findings.  I like what he is saying.

In my opinion, if you keep a few simple principles in mind, you'll be writing great blog posts.

• Be authentic - by this I mean be real. Allow your personality to come through in your writing. Try not to write for a blog as if you were drafting a media release. Include your opinions. be thought provoking.
  **Obviously if you are writing for the public blog and you are discussing a potentially controversial topic, an increase in overdue fines for instance, you will want to run your article past a senior manager before publishing it.**
• Start a conversation - While there is space for announcements in the blogs, it's usually more interesting if the blog post is the start of the conversation, which goes on in the comments. Think of a blog post as a talk-back radio announcer encouraging the listeners to ring in with their thoughts about a story.  Can you phrase your post as a question?
• Be current - if you're blogging about something that happened two weeks ago the interest has probably dissipated.  Try to pick up on what's happening now. Can you relate your post to what's happening in the wider community or society?

With these few principles in mind it's time to start contributing.  Anyone is free to contribute to the staff blog. To get started simply email your post to suthlib.staffnews@blogger.com  If you want to post regularly and would like to use blogger's editor let me know and I'll send you an invite to become an author. 

If you want to write something for the public blog get your thoughts down and send them to your team coordinator.  If you would like to become a regular contributor let me (Angela or Jacinta) know.

When I started adding details of the closures to our web site I wondered whether our users would turn to our web site as an alternative. I had decided to try and add some updates about what was happening while we were closed - tell them why, what we were doing, show some pictures, etc. Would the web site show an increase in visitors? Are our users interested in what was going on?

My conclusion is yes. I've been having a look over the various blog posts, images on Flickr and so on and I found it interesting to see that RFID and the library closures have prompted more interaction from our users than most other content.

In the short period that they have been there the Flickr images have been viewed quite a lot compared with many others. Posts about RFID on the blog are at the top of the list for visits for the last week or so (understandable as most new posts were about RFID but they did out perform stuff about Overdrive, which I thought may interest people who use the Library web site). Even the short video about using self check machines has been viewed over 100 times!

Maybe most importantly, RFID has provoked more comments on the blog than any other topic. Not only are people interested in what we were doing - they were interested enough to take the time to tell us what they thought about it.

Most of the comments were positive. As expected, some were negative - "...this is just a way to sack some staff and pay less wages which equals more money for the greedy council..." - but the real value of the blog is that it gives us an opportunity to directly address the concerns of our users. People will have their views about our service and will continue to express them. By giving them a place to express them we firstly get to hear them, and secondly we get an opportunity to put forward our side of the story.

This is one of the fundamental ideas of what has been labeled Library 2.0 (whether you like the term or not). It's not just about technology. It's what Michael Stephens calls being transparent. Being open about the decisions the Library makes, communicating them to the users, finding out what your users think about your Library and adapting your services to meet your users needs and expectations.

In Part 1 of How to Write for the Library Blog I focussed on how the blog is different to other ways to communicate with our users and the importance of authenticity in the conversation between library users and staff. In this post I want to give a few more explicit things to think about when writing posts for the Library blog.

So, here are my tips for writing for the blog...

1. Specialise, be different
Each post of blog entry should be about a single thing. Don't lump 3 or 4 different events into a single post. If you do it is very hard to write a headline that encompasses all that you are about to discuss. The headline is the hook that gets readers to look at the first paragraph and the first paragraph is the hook that gets readers to keep reading and so on. It is much better to write 3 0r 4 short posts about the different things you want to mention. You can space them out over a week, giving our users reasons to keep coming back.

2. Pay attention to your post title
Further to point 1, generic headlines don't tell people about what they could find out if they read on. A good title for your post should tell people what is coming up in a way that entices them to read on. The Magnetic Headlines series from Copyblogger is a good place to get some headline writing inspiration. With any luck a good headline will get people to read your first paragraph.

3. Make your 1st sentence a good one
If you've written an enticing headline your first paragraph will give readers enough to decide whether they want to keep reading. Also, when a new post is added to the Library blog the first sentence (actually the first 20 words) are automatically displayed on the home page of the Library web site. This is where most of the traffic to the blog comes from. You have a title and 20 words to convince people to click on that link to read the whole post.

4. Be interesting
This is easier said than done! When it comes to writing for the web, conventional wisdom is that people scan rather than read text on web pages, which suggests you should keep it brief and use points, etc. The blog's role in developing a conversation with our users affords you the opportunity to use much longer prose than would otherwise be recommended. BUT you must give people a reason to read rather than scan - you must be interesting. Copyblogger has some suggestions for how to be interesting, but in most cases it comes down to you having a good knowledge of your subject and being passionate about it. Imagine you've put a lot of effort in to an activity or event and then you ask me to write about it on the blog. I'm certainly not going to have the same knowledge as you and more than likely won't have the same enthusiam. Anything I write is likely to be much less interesting than what you would write. Remember, we're after authenticity over perfection in this space - your voice will ring much truer than mine in such situations. (and you can always ask me and your colleagues for feedback on your post before you submit it)

5. Invite participation
What better way to start a conversation with our users than to ask them a question. Writing about an event in the Library? Ask people who were there to leave a comment about how they enjoyed it. David Lee King has a great series of posts on inviting participation on his blog.

6. Monitor comments on your posts
If you ask people to participate you have an obligation to listen to what they say. Having people comment on the blog gives you an easy way to find out what people think as well as an easy way to address any concerns they raise and you can build some good will by showing appreciation of our users when they say nice things. If people have a bad experience at the library they are going to bag us. At least if they do it on the blog we have an opportunity to put our side of the story along side theirs. If you are commenting on the blog, however, in the interests of authenticity always identify yourself as a library staff member.

7. A picture is worth a thousand words...
Adding a picture on a blog post can help set the tone of the article. Fortunately, Flickr's Creative Commons search is a great way of finding pictures that you can use without infringing copyright or the moral rights of the photographer.