For this blog I am supposed to express myself about some aspect of technology. I happen to be a grad student and for one of my classes I have to do summaries of journal articles on some aspect of library technology, so here is one that I did.
This weeks article is from the journal American Libraries titled “Your Stuff, Their Space” by Meredith Franks. The author wonders if a library has great technology and nobody uses it-is it really great? Libraries public, private and academic have spend a lot of money purchasing online databases that are not getting anywhere near the usage that they should. Part of the reason is the Internet and search options like Google and Yahoo!, students and the general public no longer think that they need a library. Even after a failed Internet search, few people are aware of the many subscription databases and other services that are available at their public or school library.
Many libraries list their research tools on their own websites, but if a potential user never logs on to the home page of the library’s website in the first place, then they will never know all of the wonderful information that is available. So Ms. Franks has proposes some unique marketing ideas such as using automation that is already in place “…we must start looking beyond these [library] sites and toward putting our content where our users are.” (Franks, 2007).
One of her ideas is using websites like Facebook (facebook.com), and MySpace (mySpace.com), after writing an article about this idea “… Facebook has opened up its platform to software developers, enabling people to create applications that will either pull content from places like Facebook or to search content already in Facebook.” (Franks, 2007). She goes on explaining that many libraries have used this type of website so people “…can add these tools to their profiles for easy access.” (Frank, 2007). The photo-sharing website Flicker (flicker.com) has been utilized by libraries like the North Carolina State University. The college has added historical and old photos of their collection on flicker, so that when a user finds these photos they can click over to the university library’s website and view other items in their collection.
Another cleaver use of technology comes from the library at the University of Washington. They have created links to their university library on specific Wikipedia articles that are about subjects that the library has relevant information on, “These links make the collections much more accessible to people who might never think to use a university library for research.” (Franks, 2007).
Ms. Frank’s point is libraries have to market themselves, and instead of tiring to bring people in to the library, the library must bring itself to the people. And the best way to so is to utilize technology to get their stuff on popular website spaces that people are using everyday.
Work Cited
Franks, Meredith. (2007). Your Stuff, Their Space. American Libraries, Vol. 38, Issue 11. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2008, from EBSCOhost MasterFile Premier.
1 comment:
Hi, Traci. I like the way your paper highlights the ways in which library services can be tied to web applications like Facebook and Flickr. I never would have thought of that. It is true that virtually all businesses and organizations need some form of web presence these days, but to extend that presence to popular sites is a truly great idea.
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