Changing Information Environment Seminar 23 January 2008 Facilitators: Judy Reading, Jane Rawson and Eric Howard Outline of session: Overview of context Discussion in small groups Short group presentations Vere Harmsworth Library experience of Web 2.0 Summary and discussion

Context Dramatic speed of development and proliferation of tools and online resources available to librarians, researchers and students Changing attitudes to information and access Changing role of librarian Challenge and opportunities

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 = “an attitude not a technology?” (UKOLN presentation at OULS staff conference) COLLABORATION “The long tail” – many sites with low popularity = more popular than few sites with high popularity – PERSONALISATION Democratization of information? Web The Machine is Us/ing Us See the UKOLN website – esp briefing 92

Topics: Wikipedias and WIKIS for collaborative working Weblogs/Blogs especially Library blogs Social sites like Facebook Social tagging and Podcasts eg Youtube Virtual reality sites like Secondlife

For each topic: What is it? When was it invented/developed? How might it be used by both users and library staff? What are its pros and cons?

Wikipedias and Wikis Wikipedia – Also Citizendium Wikis allow collaborative content to be placed online – useful for projects and group work of all kinds eg

Wikipedia and wikis – use in libraries See Ariadne Issue Used more frequently in USA: below is an example from University of Bath:

Wikipedia and Wikis Issues Balance between quality of information and freedom of editing – who edits, why, how? Wikipedia’s ‘cleanup’/’stub’ policy, Citizendium –’expert Wikipedia’ Consensus/leadership? Currency – can become obsolete if not updated regularly

Blogs Weblog – again connected to Web 2.0 Online diary/advertisement for events Drawing together information from various sources into one place Angela Newton's Information Literacy blog, University of Leeds,

Issues relating to Web 2.0!

Social Networking Tools – for example, Interest groups Many examples – but all have similar features ‘Networks’ (geographical /work)

Social networking tools – uses? Open “Events” – training, inductions, etc? Generic library profile Invite students to join’ a library network? Schedule ‘live’ time where questions will be answered?

Social networking sites Advantages Embedded in many people’s lives ( members in Oxford) – users can do as much or as little as they want to their individual profiles Quick way to communicate with wide audience Requires little-technical know-how Disadvantages Many different social networking sites – monitoring popularity/deciding which site to use for library “Granny dancing at disco!” effect!! Scholarly literature Articles appear on CSA Illumina, for example: “My My Space Comment” – Woody Evans Library Journal Vol 132, Issue 3, P. 44. The results of a two-year evaluation of the effect of Facebook on faculty- student communications is available at

Social tagging. Allows users to classify information in the way they want Sharing their classification with others – Tag clouds:

De.lic.ious – tagging of documents on web See Pen Tags - / / Social tagging - use in libraries Tag cloud

Social tagging - advantages and disadvantages Collaboration with other library staff and users - online reading lists Tailored information to the needs of a particular user group (yourself and/or others!) – as opposed to ‘one size fits all’ Disadvantages Mutability of language – terms may become quickly outdated Preservation issues – fixed vs fluid organisation of information?

Podcasts Effective ‘shop front’’ to entice people into using your library service. One of the more well-known is “Ray of Light" St. Joseph County Public Library Version – see Web The Machine is Us/ing Us

Podcasts - issues Advantages Little technical know-how needed Appealing to ‘visual’ generation and different learning styles. Fun??? Disadvantages Credibility issues? Currency of podcasts – visual media may need updating more frequently?

Definitions See  Virtual world – interactions using avatars (virtual representations of the self)  members (21 st May 2007) Uses in library situations Alliance Library Systems – see TALIS review – see

Advantages Reaching out to many users simultaneously Opportunities for different forms of interactions (e.g. Renaissance Island – a educational ‘roleplay’ island’) Disadvantages “Most accounts are inactive” (Wikipedia)– out of 6,576,378 accounts, only 1,734,041 were used in the last 60 days - high time investment needed by users and library staff Backlash? – Is Secondlife a ‘sustainable’ web development (like RSS feeds) or a fad?

The Librarian fundamentalists Brian Kelly UKOLN – Think they know better than the user e.g. they don't like people using Google Scholar; they should use Web of Knowledge (who cares that users find it easier to use Google Scholar & finds references they need that way?) – Think that users should be forced to learn Boolean searching & other formal search techniques because this is good for them (despite Sheffield's study). – Don't want the users to search for themselves (cf folksonomies) because they won't get it right. – They still want to classify the entire Web - despite the fact that users don't use their lists of Web links. – Want services to be perfect before they release them to users. They are uneasy with the concept of 'forever beta' (they don't believe that users have the ability to figure things out themselves and work around the bugs).

Hope you found this interesting for any follow-up ideas to: