2014 Evolving Perspectives

2014 Three years has passed since I completed my librarianship studies at Charles Sturt University and my life has changed greatly in that time, both on a personal level and a professional level.
Since my graduation I have had some very good professional experiences working in secondary school libraries of private schools. This has given me insight into various styles of leadership, methods of  library management, school library practices and the issues faced in educational settings in information management.

As a graduate who did not have work in the field prior to studying the Teacher Librarianship course, I have found it more difficult than I had anticipated to gain on - going employment in the profession.
I was also a mature age student and it has been suggested to me that this may be a contributing factor.
I have had a number of short term contract / casual positions which have all been rewarding. My quest for employment has made me aware of the range of library positions and how greatly those roles can vary in different organisations and educational institutions. I think securing employment in the field is also a matter of finding the right position that matches your experience and skills at the right time. I know that my broad range of work experiences as teacher, sales & marketing consultant in the publishing industry and librarian have enabled me to develop a strong range of professional skills that would be valuable in many teacher librarian positions. My studies have given me the professional skills that are valuable in the evolving work environment of contemporary libraries.
I still believe that the everything will fall into place and the right position will come up in the near future.

Part 2 Evaluative Statement - References

References:
Abrams, Stephen (2007). Web 2.0, library 2.0 and librarian 2.0: Preparing for the 2.0 world. Retrieved from http://www.online- information.co.uk/online09/files/freedownloads.new_link1.1080622103251.pdf

Brookover, Sophie. (2007) “Why we blog” The only limits on what your blog covers are those imposed by your bloggers’ imaginations. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6497263.html

Casey, M. & Savastinuk, L. (2006). Service for the next-generation library. Library Journal, 1(9). Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

Chapman, Cameron. (2009). Social network design: Examples and best practices. In Smashing Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/13/social-network-design-examples-and-best-practices/

Farkas, M.G. (2007). What will work @your library. In Social software in libraries: building collaboration, communication and community online. p.237. Medford, N.J. : Information Today, Inc.

Krosky , Ellyssa. (2009) Should Your Library Have a Social Media Policy? School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6699104.html

Lauby, Sharyn. ( 2010) 10 Must- Haves for your Social Media Policy. In Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009.06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

Li, Charlene. 2009). The Impact of Social Media in Your Organization. Retrieved form http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2009/11/charlene-li-the-impact-of-social-media-in-your-organisation.php

Loudon & Hall. (2010). From triviality to business tool: The case of Twitter in library and information services delivery. Retrieved from http://bir.sagepub.com/content/27/4/236

Miller. P. (2005) Web 2.0; building the new library. Ariadne ( 45), JISC. Retrieved from http:// www.ariadne.ac.ul/issue45/miller

Myburgh, Sue. (2010) Education Directions for Information Professionals. Australian Library Journal. 52(3). Rretrieved from http://www.alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.3/full.text/myburgh.html

N.S.W. Department of Education. Social Media Policy. Retrieved from https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/technology/communication/PD20110418.shtml

Rancourt, L. (2009). Mashing up the library website. In N.C. Engard (Ed.), Library mashups: exploring new ways to deliver library data. (pp. 73 – 86). London: Facet.

O'Reilly, T., (2005) What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Smartcopying the official Guide to Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE. 2.8 Internet and Websites. Retrieved from http://smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/pid/680

State Government of Victoria. (2011). Acceptable Use Policy for Department Information, Communication and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/governance/spag/default.htm

Wee, Willis. (2010) Guide to Social Media Marketing landscape. In INFOGRAPHICS. CMO –Social Landscape-R5-pdf.

Part 2 B : Evaluative Report - Social networker ,Information professional

B) A reflective statement on my development as a social networker as a result of studying
INF 506 and the implications for my development as an information professional.
My first OLJ post describes social networking as the practice of using online software tools for social or professional interaction and sharing of contributions between participants. Participants’ join an online network of users, create their own personal profile and make contributions that will be published on the site. Social networking enables connectivity to an online local or global community and collaboration.
This subject has increased my familiarity with social networking tools of Twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, Delicious and Secondlife. I had not previously used these tools, however I have had more experience using Facebook and blogger. These immersive experiences have made me more aware of the immediacy of these mediums and the need to keep abreast of current professional news and events. Using Facebook for study purposes , and Twitter feeds from Mashable, heyjudeonline and lyn_hay Daily,and judithway gave me a greater sense of being connected and up to date with new technological developments. In addition, I had set up regular RRS feeds via outlook to a number of blogs, such as Bright ideas, MG Library Blog and Librarian in Black. To be honest, I found the task of trying to regularly use six social networking tools, to be overwhelming and very time consuming.
In 2010, Loudon and Hall’s conducted an investigation into the deployment of Twitter amongst librarians for the purposes information services and for collaboration with professional colleagues. Their investigation found that the respondents who were new users commented on the volume of irrelevant material that needed to be consumed in the course of identifying news and information of genuine value. Some thought that it was a distraction from other work. More experienced respondents commented that it is quick, current and easily disseminates information to users, which makes it ideal for use in library services. They note that respondents learning from the practice of others by strategic ‘follow relationships’ will have more ideas to contribute for enhanced services provision, in future. I rate myself in this less experienced category. I used Facebook more extensively for this subject, but I was reluctant to participate in online discussions on professional matters without checking my references to writings or blogs were correct.
As my OLJ reflections on the social bookmarking tool of Delicious indicate, this software is great for storing web links with annotations, which has significant potential for use by secondary school libraries. I intend to use it regularly in my library work in future. I created my professional profile on Linkedin and engaged with a professional colleague online. I found this software frustrating to use, I did not like the limit of three attributes and the rating system for them, so I had to delete them. I created my Avatar in Secondlife, but I must admit I was not inspired to spend much time there. I would prefer to refine my skill in the use of social media forms that school libraries are more likely to use such as blogs, wikis, Delicious and Flickr. According to Nielsen, in most communities 90% of participants don’t contribute, though they find value in what they read and observe. The next 9% add to existing discussions, with 1% creating most commentary and giving the community food for thought. During the course of this subject, I have reluctantly moved from the 90% to the 9% and I will aim to be more participative in future.
I am proud of my achievements, the creation of video uploaded to Slideshare and the collection of screenshots from school library websites. These experiences have given me insight into the potential value of ‘participatory library services’ through the use of social media tools to enrich user experiences. In 2006, Casey & Savastinuk, defined Library 2.0 as any service, physical or virtual, that successfully reaches users, is evaluated frequently, and makes use of customer input. Although this statement was written five years ago, my comparative study of current secondary school library web spaces, provided little evidence of student contributions, despite their use of social networking tools. For this reason, I think teacher librarians need to be mindful that the use of social networking, should provide opportunities for patrons to genuinely participate and collaborate, rather than just providing tools because they are popular. Their use needs to be monitored and modifications should be developed iteratively to meet patrons needs (Brookover, 2007, Li, 2009).
Sue Myburgh, (2010) wrote that today's graduates need to be fluent in information systems and technologies of all kinds. “In particular, they need to be aware that such technologies are not a surrogate for professional activities, but support and expand them.” At this point, I am conscious that the evolving technological landscape means that we will need to be lifelong learners, who work collaboratively within our professional networks to remain effective in the field of information management. These immersive experiences, with social networking tools, have given me the confidence, knowledge and skills that I will be able to apply to manage technological software applications in my future professional work.

Part 2 A : Evaluative Report -OLJ Experiences, Learning Objectives

1. The October OLJ entry entitled “Web 2.0: Trust, Copyright and Fair Use” provides evidence of my understanding of the range of issues that exist in a socially networked world. The creative experiences that are facilitated by Web 2.0 technology, places the onus on the user to take responsibility for citation, prevention of plagiarism, copyright and fair use of materials in a social network environment. The experience of creating a presentation on ‘Web Design Criteria for School library websites’ to share publicly was the motivation for me to become more immersed in the online environment and to explore social media tools, such as Flickr and Slideshare. In preparation for this task, I collated some quotes from the module readings on web design and usability, as well as some images, screenshots and a photo from Flickr. As I collected these resources for the content of my presentation, I became concerned about copyright. I wondered whether it was legally able to re-use them in a presentation that I intended to share publicly, as my creation. My OLJ reflections highlight my recognition of the need to locate official guidelines on copyright and fair use, for education purposes, and to check the source of each item for any restrictions.
Secondly, this experience demonstrates my ability to independently locate and, evaluate appropriate resources, environments and tools. I explored the websites of Google Docs Powerpoint, MS Office powerpoint, Flickr and Slideshare to compare their features and to decide which software was most suited to the task of creating a video presentation. I thought MS office was the best tool for this task. The features of Slideshare enabled me to publish a professional looking video for free and I could tag it for ‘education’, so I decided it was the best software for my target audience of professional colleagues. I reviewed the ‘terms of use’ in relation to copyright laws and fair use guidelines. Finally, I learned the correct way to cite online resources and images, in a video.


2. OLJ entry “Social Media Policy or AUP?” provides evidence of my understanding of information policy in a socially networked world.
Although social networking has opened up a world of opportunity for libraries, Krosky (2009) suggests that the social and extremely public nature of these services also brings potential hazards. As my OLJ indicates, library managers and school leaders may have concerns about inappropriate comments about the school, staff or other students being published on social networking tools that could have a negative impact on the school’s reputation. Secondly, schools need to exercise a duty of care for their staff and students, so they need to consider the personal impact that online bullying or criticism could have on individuals within their community. Krosky notes that “the distinction between personal and professional realms is fading, seemingly everyone has a Facebook or Twitter profile”. She contends that the creation of a social media policy is a useful way to set some ground rules for employees with regard to their online activities. As my OLJ entry indicates, the education departments of both NSW (DET) and Victoria (DEECD) have published policies which provide guidelines for the use of social networking tools by their employees, in all levels of education, this year.
I was able to collate a range of relevant resources for school libraries to consider, when creating a policy for employees / students’ use of social networking tools. These resources have been bookmarked in Delicious and collated in my stack entitled “Social Media or AUP?” for sharing with the ‘sissocialmedia’ group.
3. The October OLJ post entitled “ Flickr: A Comparative Study of Web 2.0 Library Spaces” provides evidence of my understanding of theory and practice of Library 2.0 and participatory library service. Tim O’Reilly’s meme map, 2005, and the writings of Miller, 2005, Casey & Savastinuk , 2006, emphasis the application of a web 2.0 tools in library portals should facilitate participatory services for the patrons. Stephen Abrams (2007) states that “ the emerging modern user needs the experience of the web, and not just content, to learn and succeed” He notes that Web 2.0 technology can shift the web experience to an academic learning and collaboration environment, rather than an information delivery portal. My reflections in this post, provide several examples how Flickr can be used to facilitate creative and collaborative projects and stimulate group discussions. Flickr provides examples of creative commons options for artistic works. This social media software can used to create an online identity for the library (Rancourt, 2009, Willis, 2010) on a school website and to engage teens with a visually appealing, call to action (Chapman, 2009). It could provide opportunities for teens to create and interact with other students and to share their own responses to literature or library events.

New Delicious?

As a new user of Delicious my first impressions of the old interface of this website was that it very busy and not so user- friendly. The software is great for storing web links with annotations, which has significant potential for use by secondary school libraries. The expansive range of websites that could be used for educational purposes, is a valuable resource that school libraries can effectively harness via Delicious. Websites can be critically evaluated by teacher librarians, relevant web links can be annotated and stored in delicious, for quick access by staff and students, on the library web portal. The tagging feature of delicious enables librarians to classify each link in a multiple categories so that users can locate it, via a keyword search, from a number of different access points. For example, it could be tagged with the curriculum topics (i.e.  ‘medieval castles’) and in the subject of ‘history’, and for ‘year seven’ students,  as well as  ‘humanities’. The librarian could also place the tags of ‘medieval castles’ and ‘history’  ina tag bundle for ‘year seven’ or for ‘humanities’. The tags make it easier to share links with other members of a group of colleagues, which has been great for my distance education studies. 

The new interface of the website is clearer and less cluttered.  Although it is not initially obvious how to save links, it is fairly intuitive for most internet users to go to their own link, on the top right hand corner of the web page.  However, I agree with Judy O’Connell’s comments that it would be good to still be able to use a tag cloud and RSS feeds on the new Delicious (2011, Heyjude). Librarians could now create a ‘stack’ of links on a particular topic with images that can be easily accessed by students when researching for an assignment. The ‘stacks’ video is more promotional than practical, it does not provide ‘how- to’ instructions. Despite this, when I began to create a ‘stack’ of my own, the prompts appeared to guide me through the process and the links and images uploaded quickly. The only shortcoming I found, with the stack creation process, was that it did not allow me to add my own image, which would be great for presentation purposes and could make it more appealing to users who would like to add their own personal touches. However, stacks provide a simple way to collate links, on one topic, to share with students. Richard Byrne notes that stacks provide a visual way for students to explore links and he suggests that they could create their own multi- media playlists of links. (2011, freetech4teachers.com).

The “beta status blog” has been set up so that users can ask questions or provide feedback during the transition to the new interface. I found it to be helpful to read others queries and to find out what improvements are being made in response to the initial teething problems. For example, since the new delicious was launched, I was initially experiencing the dropping out that was reported by other patrons, who are using Mozilla Firefox as their browser. The beta blog contains a status update and suggests steps to follow to rectify the problem, but it also encourages users continue to report any future problems that occur. For this reason I feel confident that the new delicious will continue to improve, knowing that it is a work in progress.

O’Connell, Judy. (Sept 28^th, 2011). Social Bookmarking not so Delicious. Heyjude. Retrieved from

http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/social-bookmarking-not-so-delicious-anymore/

  

 Byrne, Richard. (2011,Sept 27th). What’s delicious doing now? Making stacks. In freetech4teachers.com. Retrieved from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/whats-delicious-doing-now-making-stacks.html

Social Media Policy or Accepatble Use Policy (AUP)

The creation of a social media policy can enable a library to outline guidelines and standards for employees to deal with issues that can arise with the public sharing of information and opinions.  Many writers (Charlene, 2009, Krosky, 2009, & Laura, 2011) acknowledge that an issue for the management of organizations is the concern that patrons or employees may make critical comments online, when using social networking tools, that could have a negative impact on  the organization and its public image. The reality is that some employees and patrons are going to make complaints or critical comments either verbally or online and an organization cannot prevent this. 

In her podcast, Charlene Li (2009, The Impact of Social Media in Your Organization) contends that social media offers opportunities for organizations to change the way they interact with users.  Organizations can use social networking tools to monitor the responses of the community, iteratively develop and respond to these complaints, explain policies or take action to improve performance
(Krosky, 2009, and Lauby, 2010, Laura, 2011, p.22). Lauby and Krosky suggest that an organization can use a disclaimer to indicate that the views expressed online are not necessarily those of the library and the policy should encourage employees to state their real name and state that they are expressing a personal opinion in their posts. 

The SLAV website section on policy development provides a link to the National Library of Australia Social Media Policy (SMP). This SMP reads like an arbitrary set of rules that places the onus on employees to be aware of copyright and fair dealing guidelines, defamation and libel laws, when engaging in use of the NLA blog or the Trove forum. In my opinion, the negative tone of this document could discourage employees from participating in these social media forums.

In her blog, Sharyn Lauby (2010,” 10 must- haves for your social media policy”) makes the important point that the document can set a tone that encourages participation by the staff of an organization. Ellysa Krosky’s (2009) notes that a library policy does not need to be a lengthy document, however it should outline some guidelines on how to use the social networking tools wisely. Lauby and Krosky identify some other key points that should be included in a social media policy as: - a statement about the intended purpose and which social media tools are provided, identify the library as the provider and state the professional role of staff on posts. The policy should encourage employees to respect copyright and fair use laws, and not expose private or sensitive information about patrons or employees of the library.

In order to maximize my use of social networking tools, I chose to employ Delicious.com  to bookmark links to these articles, add annotations and then create my own ‘stack’ entitled  “Social Media Policy or AUP?” . The stack also contains links to some examples of social media policies and an "Acceptable Use Policy" which can be viewed from my own portal on this URL : http://delicious.com/stacks/view/OH6aiV

  

Krosky , Ellyssa. (2009) Should Your Library Have a Social Media Policy? School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6699104.html

Lauby, Sharyn. ( 2010) 10 Must- Haves for your Social Media Policy. In Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009.06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

Li, Charlene. 2009). The Impact of Social Media in Your Organization. Retrieved form http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2009/11/charlene-li-the-impact-of-social-media-in-your-organisation.php

Solomon, Laura. (2011). Doing Social Media So It Matters: A Librarian’s Guide. American library Association. U.S.A.

 

Flickr collection : A Comparative Study of Web 2.0 School Library Spaces

To present the findings of my comparative study of secondary school websites, I created a collection of screenshots and added comments, using Paint and then uploaded them in a set to the INF 506 photo pool. The collection uploaded without any problems, it can be viewed via my URL:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/w11j/6180747998/in/pool-1325758@N20/
I enjoyed using Flickr as a photo management and sharing tool and I think it has great potential for application in education and libraries. It provides a “Guide to get the most out of Flickr” that clearly explains how to upload and connect to your camera, cameraphone or your blog, and to share photos via email, Facebook, RSS feed or Atom feed. This software gives users the options of displaying their own photos privately or publicly, or creating a group photo pool, which could be used as a forum for discussion.Contributors can allow friends to add tags to their photos. These features make it a potentially great resource for teacher librarians to use for collaborative projects with staff or student groups.
It has a user- friendly interface and it offers step- by- step prompts to assist beginners to upload photos and tag them. Viewers can select popular tags to view photos from all over the world on a broad range of topics. Viewers can connect to a ‘photostream’ from NASA or the archives of the Library of Congress, The Smithonian and The Commons. Willis Wee (2010, INFOGRAPHICS) suggests that properly tagged photosets of a company (library) events can help customers to put a face on the team behind your brand. Users can create a strip of photos that can be used to ‘design a badge’, the code of the ‘badge’ can be cut, pasted, and uploaded to your blog template. Rancourt (2009, p.77-78) created the Flickr page for the Manchester City Library (U.K) to share photos that would capture some of the warmth, diversity, culture and social benefits of the library community and to provide some insight into the lives of community members and library staff. He encouraged library staff to upload a photo per day, then he used a strip of seven of the latest photos to create a unique ‘badge’ for the library blog.This could be a great way for a school library to connect with all sectors of a school community.

 Photos from Flickr can be copied and pasted into presentations, where creative commons allow. A designated section of this site displays photos where many users have chosen to offer their works under Creative commons license. Flickr provides photographic examples and explanations of the classifications of ‘attribution of copyrighted works’, ‘noncommercial’ and ‘no derivative works’ and ‘share alike’, which only allows distribution of derivative works under license. This section could be used to develop students understanding of these concepts and principles of digital citizenship. 

Rancourt, L. (2009). Mashing up the library website. In N.C. Engard (Ed.), Library mashups: exploring new ways to deliver library data. (pp. 73 – 86). London: Facet.

Wee, Willis. (2010) Guide to Social Media Marketing landscape. In INFOGRAPHICS. CMO –Social Landscape-R5-pdf.