I use data and technology to tell stories that facilitate personal and communal transformation.
This is a slightly more digested and polished presentation of the ideas I sketched out a while back in this post: iPad apps for Academic Technology Committee.
Direct link: http://www.haikudeck.com/p/ixpiL9TFvT/making-your-ipad-work-for-you
Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app
I’ve been thinking a bit about developing a plan and policy for the Brandel Library’s social media accounts. In the past, I’ve viewed this as an “important but not urgent” issue and I largely feel the same way now. However, I think that both for planning sake and direction I should invest some time and thought in researching other library’s policies and best practices to guide the Brandel Library’s social media in 2014.
By “policy” I mean a set of expectations that set the boundaries for acceptable conduct as well as some lofty goals for social media in the context of an academic library. I’ve started collecting some relevant policies and articles in this Zotero library and hope to keep updated that frequently.
Starting with the question of “Why?” leads me to connect our social media policy to the library’s general mission statement. Our current mission statement (as of 2012) is:
The Brandel Library supports the educational mission of the university by offering resources, services, and an environment to stimulate academic inquiry and intellectual, cultural and social exchange, while reflecting the Christian, urban, and multicultural vision of the university. This is accomplished through the acquisition, organization, and preservation of both physical and digital materials, and by facilitating their use (access) in a complex information environment through course and individual instruction. Creating awareness of and providing access to these collections are essential to our mission.
I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting certain phrases that I find particularly relevant to the library’s social media policy. Having not planned this – I’m actually relatively happy with how well library mission statement mapped to social policy. At the same time, I also see that our mission statement seems focused on our collections (and facilitating their use) and not on our our users (and meeting their needs). Something to consider long term, I guess.
Editorial confession – this draft has been pending for months. In that time, I went to the #ILEADUSA meeting and heard an inspiring talk from Beck Tench. The simplicity of her institutions social media policy has inspired me so much that I’m going to steal it directly and offer it as a first draft. Her policy is simply this:
If I recall correctly, this policy was given in a section of her talk focused on trusting people completely. I’m going to move forward with that confidence and revisit this when the need arrives.
Just wanted to jot down an idea and try to fill out in a semi-public space.
I’ve been thinking a bit about library instruction, social media, and creating a learning culture at North Park. One idea – based deeply on lifehacker posts “How I work” – is for North Park to try and create a “This is how I study” video series. I think it would be awesome for the following reasons:
That’s my emerging idea. Will run it by some people here at North Park to see what people think.
Edit: This idea is also very similar to the ACRL’s recurring post “Memeber of the Week”
Just wanted to post a little exchange on twitter that I think is a wonderful example of how simple gestures on social media can 
make a huge difference. I can really present it without too much comment:
Gamification, the application of game design and mechanics for user engagement, is a society-wide trend, and game-based learning has recently surfaced as a hot topic in higher education. This program will provide (a) an overview of what gamification means in the library context, (b) what the potential benefits and pitfalls of gamification are and (c) a lively discussion by a group of librarians with many examples of pioneering gamifacation projects at academic and public libraries.
This session had nine presenters that each offered reflections on their own experiences applying game principles to different library settings – from public libraries to academic. Here are my reflections and notes (in no particular order)
Game principles and habits and technologies are already in place all around us. So it’s not so much creating or recreating something as many already existing knowledge and patterns useful in a library context. A quick and incomplete list: foursquare, wikipedia, code academy, good reads, actual board games, and hundreds other places already use game principles.
One member of the panel expressed gamification as a voluntary, meaningful task that provides the user with some reward. He also talked about adding a “twist” – an arbitrary element that added difficulty to an event. Most of the presentations focused on digital games and/or online communities and in fact I would have appreciated hearing about an example of game principles being applied to an analog setting.
The potential benefits for the users are an improved library experience. One of my many cryptic and hastily written notes was “embarrassment and shame are barriers to flourishing.” I wish I had provided myself with more context, but I can surmise that one of the presenters was talking about how more traditional interactions – like coming to the reference desk – are difficult experiences for patrons and that often game principles would allow alternative paths to human flourishing. And that’s what library’s are about, right?
I think about the foursquare model – one of my favorite online and gamified social communities. If foursquare were run by libraries, you’d likely:
This, of course, is nothing like what foursquare is. It’s open and intuitive, you are free to search about your area and learn from fellow users (not just from experts), and there is no shame or embarrassment
The dichotomy I’m creating is, of course, totally false. I’m glad that experts and authoritative sources exist (maps, atlases, city guides, trip planners, etc.) but that’s not really the point. The question I will take from this presentation is what can libraries learn from game principles that will improve library services? How can libraries provide meaningful narrative and structure incentives to encourage human flourishing?
The panel and at least one audience member also addressed some pitfalls of gamification. Some were methodological and, though basic, are worth repeating. Make sure your game is fun and enjoyable! Translation: don’t build a bad game. Secondly, make sure that it is suitable to your intended purpose.
Another question – perhaps on a different scale – is whether or not gamification might detract from the basic reward/enjoyment of an action. For example, if you like to read for fun, would receiving a prize make you more or less likely to read in the future?
I guess my response to these concerns would come in several forms. First, I believe that all the games mentioned are voluntary – users have to “opt in” to play the game and I think that is important. Secondly, I believe that most of these games had a targeted audience – a particular group or demographic in mind. Again, the point is not to reward and/or trivialize everyone’s library experience, but is targeted to a particular group and a particular action.
Lastly, I believe my cryptic note provides an answer. Focus on human flourishing and emotional elements like shame/embarrassment and joy/friendship.
As always, I was thinking about ways I could apply these principles to my own context. At the end of the session, I jotted down a few notes that I thought I could build on.
Actually, upon further reflection, I don’t know if either one of my ideas reaches the point where it could properly be called a “game” because they seem to lack meaningful narrative. It’s really more of a way to incentive and/or reward positive behavior.
The presenters have put together a really solid guide to gamification in library contexts complete with their slides, links to other resources, and a full bibliography of other resources. Here is the link: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/gamification
Using a free augmented reality application, University of Houston-Downtown librarians have been working to create an engaging and memorable library orientation activity for students that will launch in Fall 2013. Come join us in this fun session to see how augmented reality is being used “in the wild” and brainstorm with us about ways this emerging technology could be used in libraries.
I’ve been interested in applications of augmented reality technologies and techniques for a little while now and I thought this presentation was a solid presentation about one school’s attempt to incorporate Augmented Reality into library instruction. As reported in this article, their project had four major goals:
Their presentation began with a basic overview of augmented reality applications in other settings (business, publications, museums, etc.) that was helpful for context but was not new for those already familiar with augmented reality technologies but still helpful to encourage library thinking!
The pitfalls and limitations of augmented reality have been chronicled elsewhere, but I’m an optimist and want to focus on the positive and exciting potential for augmented reality in libraries. Here is a short list – inspired by their talk and later dreaming:
Obviously, I think augmented reality technologies are great and have many potential applications in the library environment. I hope to be able to dedicate a bit more time to this in the future and keep learning about this emerging technology!
I just read this great article posted by Library Journal: here is a link to the article.
Here are two highlights and my reflections on them:
Focusing on the technologies rather than the outcomes changes the way we talk about these topics and the way we learn about them. When we aim for the outcomes, we’re more likely to think deeply about the problems we’re trying to solve and consider multiple strategies that speed us to our goals.
Let me be clear: I’m not downplaying the importance of technology in libraries or setting up a false dichotomy. As a profession, librarianship has developed many mechanisms to learn about technology and the web. This is important, and we need to keep learning about the broader world of resources that can help us efficiently deliver our services. But let’s shift our collective eye to learning about people first, so everything we know about technology can be put in service of supporting meaningful goals.
Yes! Too often I fall into the habit of thinking about technology as the end itself rather as a means to a greater end. I really shouldn’t care how many people like a particular post or follow us on twitter – I really should care about the online community that has gathered around the library and meeting their needs.
Our collective focus on technology also prevents technology from being as deeply integrated into our libraries as it should be. When we fetishize technology, we can only look at it shallowly. When we depend on emerging technology librarians to be the ambassadors for relevant technologies, we take the rest of the organization off the hook.
In fact, if we put the emphasis on people, library technology will become even more important. Currently, it is all too easy to implement tech solutions halfheartedly, check the box that the project is complete, and more or less be done with it.
Yes. I think this article is such a basic reminder that my excitement about libraries and technology is best understood in the broader context of meeting user needs. At least for me, there is a tensions between measuring quantifiable outputs (numbers of followers, number of circulations, etc.) and measuring qualitative outcomes (how patrons engage with the library online, how patrons use library resources, etc.) but that in the best possible world the assessment practices should be tied to both objective standards and to the broader goals.
I’m still thinking a lot about how libraries can better engage with patrons and have found an unlikely area to test and ponder: NHL Hockey.
North Park University is located in Chicago and the Chicago Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup (in thrilling fashion!). Knowing that the social media circles would be buzzing about this – I wondered if the library might be able to tap in and contribute to the conversation. So I decided to test the waters.
After a thrilling overtime victory (in triple overtime!) I tweeted a short, semi-library related tweet that got three responses. Two replies and one retweet isn’t exactly going viral – but I think it’s still pretty good for most small academic libraries!
After the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the library retweeted the official Blackhawks account that said:
I don’t know what I was expecting, but this update got no response. But, then again, it’s wasn’t exactly new knowledge (currently, nearly 20,000 people have retweeted that exact tweet), it wasn’t really that shareable, and it wasn’t unique to North Park patrons.
My co-worker actually created a wonderful book spine poem about the Stanley Cup and I published it later that day on both facebook and twitter.
That tweet has now been retweeted 5 times and is now one of our most “viral” tweets.
A similar post on facebook (link here) currently has 17 likes which is above average for us as well.
Despite the somewhat positive nature of these updates, I still have a few lingering questions:
For this past finals week, I had the idea to ask North Park University faculty and staff to write encouraging notes to students for finals week. The idea was quickly implemented and by the end of the week I had collected nearly 300 notes encouraging notes from a wide variety of faculty and staff. We placed these notes in a big bowl near the main entrance to the library and invited students to take a encouraging note from the bowl as a tangible reminder of the university’s encouragements.
Additionally, I selectively scanned a few dozen of the best and most creative cards and uploaded those images to our facebook page: here it the album of these encouraging notes! Some of my personal favorites are included below.
Overall, this project was a great success that really brought a boost to the library’s services as well as our social media accounts. It was great to be able respond to student’s frustrated tweets with links back to positive and encouraging words and the interplay between the print and digital was great as well. I will definitely think about doing something similar in the future!
Like the building itself, the library’s social media accounts get much busier toward the end of each semester. Like last spring, I thought I could use storify to help tell the story of the Brandel Library as expressed online. Here is a link to the story created from the tweets, updates, and photos of the North Park community.
Last spring, I thought storify could be used to both demonstrate the value of social media and provide some expression of thanks to their community. And, I think both still hold true today! People tweet some really amazing and uplifting things about the library; collecting them provides a way to demonstrate the important place the library has in campus life. For example:
I’d like to hear how many other campus building have students publicly confessing their love for the building!
Being on twitter allows the library to hear what people think about the library and listen to how people feel.