Being There is Not Enough: A Study of the Effectiveness of Web 2.0 Use in Academic Libraries Jia Mi Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian, The College of New Jersey VALE Conference, January 5, 2011

Web 2.0

1994: Mosaic Netscape 0.9 released 1995: Wikis were invented 1997: Blogs were invented (‘Weblog’ coined by Jorn Barger) 1998: Google opened in a garage 1999: RSS were invented 2001: Google bought Deja.com’s 500 million Usenet (established 1980) messages 2004: Flickr founded 2005: YouTube founded

What is Web 2.0 Coined in 2004 by Dale Dougherty, Tim O’Reilly and John Batelle of O’Reilly Media Participatory – ‘collective intelligence’ Interactive Instantaneous ‘From a medium to a platform’ From ‘read-only’ to ‘read-write’ Online collaboration Social Media ***users as a part of the content of the sites; they are creators and consumers of information

What is Web 2.0 With Web 2.0, “libraries become socialized institutions. Active participation on the part of users is seen as essential to the process of research and learning”—(Laura Cohen, 2007) “Web 2.0 is all about harnessing collective intelligence…” It is based on “managing, understanding, and responding to massive amounts of user generated data in real time.” — (O’Reilly, 2005)

Web 2.0 Enables users to engage the library in two-way communication and knowledge exchange Facilitates participation, communication, conversation, and collaboration

Library 2.0 A response to Web 2.0 Term coined in 2005 blog by Michael E. Casey ‘User-centric’ Technology driven

94.6% of students use university or library Website 90.3% use social networking 89.9% use course management systems Only 27.8% use social networking for academic use Smith, S.D., Salaway, G., and Caruso, J.B. (2009), The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, EDUCAUSE, Boulder, CO. Available at Appropriateness

Study: Adoption of Library 2.0 by Academic Libraries & Users (USA) Study: Adoption of Library 2.0 by Academic Libraries & Users (USA) Yong-Mi, K., & Abbas, J. (2010). Adoption of Library 2.0 Functionalities by Academic Libraries and Users: A Knowledge Management Perspective. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36(3),

Study: Adoption of Library 2.0 by Academic Libraries & Users (International landscape) Tripathi, M., & Kumar, S. (2010). Use of Web 2.0 tools in academic libraries: A reconnaissance of the international landscape. International Information & Library Review, 42(3),

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: IM

Promoting IM/Chat Reference Help on the spot

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: Blogs Most academic libraries using their blogs as bulletin boards, news and events, newsletters, list of new books, new databases and services, announcements about workshops and exhibitions, Library instructions, and subject guides Only one out of 17 blogs received comments on a regular basis In most cases, users are receiving library blogs in exactly the same way they once received paper newsletters: as passive consumers Most blogs are hidden, or deeply buried on their libraries’ websites At the time of sampling, 39% of the libraries’ blogs had not been updated within the last month

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: Blogs Course Assignment HelpUMDNJ Endnote Blog 83,555 hits since June 2008

Blog Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: Blogs

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: Facebook

Issues with Facebok Most academic libraries are using facebook to market themselves and their services and to make announcements Most include library /librarians information, photos of staff members and interesting aspects of the collections Still serves as a tool to push information to the users. No interactions from users According to 2006 survey conducted by Charnigo and Barnett-Ellis (2007) gathered responses from 126 academic librarians, most of the librarians felt that Facebook was a distraction and did not have much academic merit

Facebook: Starbucks Great videos, varied content, and has active engagement with the fans. Status updates--provide two-way communication between company and fan The content is varied, fun, and interesting ◦ share videos, blog posts about all aspects of coffee ◦ including how to grow coffee beans, articles about Starbucks and Starbucks employees. The quality status update content has led to a very engaged fan base, with every update receiving thousands of comments.

Facebook: Lands’ End 300,000 fans in May 2010, 506,324 in Dec Posts are from fans “outside story” let fans post photos and stories

Facebook: See’s Candies 76,000 fans in May 2010, 192,229 fans in Dec 2010 All posts are from See’s Good example of interactive communication

Facebook: JSTOR Searchable by Google 57,000 fans in May 2010, 76,174 in Dec 2010 Driven by user posts

Web 2.0 Use in New Jersey Academic Libraries: Twitter

Academic libraries are embracing the use of Twitter, but the majority seems to view the medium as simply another way to transmit library news items to the communities Used to tell users about events such as readings, lectures, and book sales, newly available resources, or changes in hours 5 out of the 9 libraries who adopted Twitter do not promote their Twitter accounts on their websites at all – There seems to be a disconnect in the realm of promoting or marketing this new technology itself

Twitter

Effective Use of Web 2.0 Academic libraries are not using Web 2.0 tools to their full potential or in ways that actively invite our undergraduates patrons to interact with us in these new spaces Libraries seem to recognize that Web 2.0 tools offer us new ways of reaching patrons, but we are using these tools in the same old ways

Effective use of Web 2.0 Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter invite interaction, personality, and innovation. Yet academic libraries persist in using them to post library hours, changes in service, and event times.

Effective Use of Web 2.0 Libraries are still focus on “implementing” a blog or “getting” a Facebook account, rather than enabling the changing forms of communication and collaboration Libraries will become increasingly disconnected from our patrons if we persist in adopting new technologies, only to repeatedly return to outdated modes and methods of communication

Stick to the Mission Libraries are vital institutions – but not to everyone, everyday Most of the information found on Google can NOT be found in the Library Most of the information found in the library can NOT be found on Google -- at least not now

Libraries are Different Libraries are institutional, not individuals Library information is selective, not exhaustive Libraries are NOT part of students’ social networks Libraries are NOT necessarily part of faculties’ academic networks Low use of social networking features initiated by libraries vs. high use of similar features in social networking, e.g., LibraryThing

Effective Use of Web 2.0 Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, RSS, social networking sites, should be used with well- defined purposes Libraries should create blogs in order to cater to the needs of specific groups of patrons Web 2.0 tools are community based learning applications. The support of participation of patrons is critical to the success of Web 2.0 tools. Students and faculty members should be taught to incorporate these tools in order to form an intellectual community

But If There Were Library III… User and service focused Uses technology Moves beyond its walls to take service to its clients Partners with others Access more important than ownership Leads rather than follows Finds a way to index and connect to all the new information that the Web enables us to acquire

Brainstorming Web Web 1.0 Web 2.0 DoubleClick  Google AdSense Ofoto  Flickr Akamai  BitTorrent mp3.com  Napster Britannica Online  Wikipedia personal websites  blogging evite  upcoming.org and EVDB domain name speculation  search engine optimization page views  cost per click screen scraping  web services publishing  participation content management systems  wikis directories (taxonomy)  tagging ("folksonomy") stickiness  syndication

Brainstorming Library III Library II Library III Proprietary OPACS  Open OPACS WorldCat  Google Search NetLibrary  Library publishing Google Books  Hathi Trust Text Scanning  ‘Smart’ digital texts ‘e-book readers’  Smart phones Independent OPACS  Linked, Active OPACS PDF  POD (print on demand) LC Subjects  Full-text Indexing Web Browsing  Web Archiving Stand-alone repositories  Linked and shared repositories Facebook links  Course Management Software links Popularity Stars  Citation links Call Numbers  Look-up Table, Descriptive Text

Jia Mi Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian, The College of New Jersey Or contact me on: Thank You !