More Virtual Tours

The virtual tours are coming along.

The application we are using to generate the tours has taken some time to learn and the process of doing all the steps needed are more complicated that we originally planned.

We hope you can see that we are getting the kinks worked out.

Try these!

Pageonce

I found another great site yesterday as I was reading my favorite blogs. This site is called Pageonce. It is your personal Internet assistant. You can find all the websites that you visit on a regular basis and basically place them in one central location instead of having to visit each site individually. The sites are updated on a regular basis so there is no worry about not having the most up-to-date information. Some of the typically website categories include: financial, such as your bank accounts; shopping, such as your Amazon account; utilities, such as your power bill or cable bill; social, such as Facebook or MySpace; travel, such as airlines or hotel information; and email such as Gmail or Hotmail.

ScrnShots

For those of you who take a lot of screenshots I discovered a Web 2.0 app that will store all of your screenshots. It is called ScrnShots. I just discovered this afternoon from reading a favorite blog of mine. It looks like it would serve a good purpose. Instead of having all those screenshots all over the place you can store them in one central location.

Library Blog Entry: Libraries in Social Networking Software (BPL Mentioned)

Wow. I was reading this blog entry and was really digging the information when I noticed that BPL was listed at the bottom of her article as a library with a good MySpace profile. Aright, Melinda!

Libraries in Social Networking Software
By Meredith Farkas May 10, 2006


I’ve been listening and quietly taking in all of the talk about social networking software and the library’s place (if any) in that software. I’ve raised a few questions on e-mail lists about whether or not we are invading our patrons’ space by building presence in MySpace and Facebook (perhaps) and whether it is at all ok to ban the use of MySpace because it is not an “academic site” and “people are using it a lot” (ummmm… no). I’ve devoted a whole chapter in my book to social networking software and plan to speak about it at the Vermont Library Conference next week. But I didn’t realize until Friday, after discussing the subject with Casey Bisson, that I’d never actually discussed my thoughts on social networking software with other librarians. I guess I’m at the point where I’m forgetting what I’ve written for my book vs. for my blog. (Frankly, I’m lucky my brain still functions at all.)

I think I tend to ride the fence between unrelenting enthusiasm for technology and healthy cynicism. Anyone who knows me knows how excited I am by social software. I wish playing with social software and thinking about how to use it in libraries could be my full-time job. But at the same time, I’m really pragmatic about technology implementation in libraries. I hate the idea of implementing new things at libraries because they’re “cool” and not to serve a specific purpose. So I often question why librarians are doing the things they do with social software. So this is the orientation I am bringing to the discussion of MySpace and Facebook and where libraries should be in all this.

-snip-

In conclusion, I do not think that there is anything inherently “cool” or useful about having a profile on these sites. Just like any social software tool, it’s what you do with it that matters. And many libraries aren’t really doing anything with their profiles. Sorry this is so long! This is what you get when I’m forced to staff the reference desk at night in a nearly empty library during exam week when no one comes to the reference desk in THREE HOURS. Your reward for reading through this long post is a treasure trove of links to blog posts and other useful resources about the place of libraries in social networking software. I think these posts will offer you some really good food for thought. I would love to hear your thoughts on the role of libraries in MySpace and Facebook and appropriateness of the library building presence in these sites. My opinion of the place of libraries in social networking sites is constantly evolving, so I’m totally open to comments and criticisms.

Useful Resources on Libraries and Social Networking Software
Libraries with good profiles
Brooklyn College Library
Bennington College on Facebook (won’t be able to see unless you have an account and are added as a friend)
Denver Public Library eVolver
Hennepin County Public Library
UT Austin
Morrisville College Library
Birmingham Public Library

L2Crew Statistics May-June 2008

Twitter
June 47 followers (subscribers)

Cumulative statistics for podcasts:

May 2008
number of podcasts 25
number of downloads 749
number of items streamed 527
combined total 1282

June 2008
number of podcasts 25
number of downloads 861
number of items streamed 550
combined total 1419

Cumulative statistics for YouTube:

May 2008
videos 43
videos viewed cumulative 29209
subscribers 53
channel views 5293

June 2008
videos 43
videos viewed cumulative 31447
subscribers 57
channel views 5637

Cumulative statistics for blip.tv:

May 2008
Videos 8
videos viewed cumulative 1607

June 2008
Videos 8
videos viewed cumulative 1925

Cumulative statistics for Slideshare (PowerPoint presentations:)

May 2008
Number of slideshows 10
Number of views 4097

June 2008
Number of slideshows 10
Number of views 4834


Cumulative statistics for flickr:

May 2008
Total photos 1194
Total site views 34,349
photo views 84,562
photostream views 34,287
photo sets views 5803
combined view total 136292

June 2008
Total photos 1324
Total site views 36,993
photo views 93,552
photostream views 36,937
photo sets views 5803
combined view total 136,292

BPL News Blog:

May 2008
Average daily number of visitors 65
Average daily number of visits 73
Aggregate item views 583 views of 84 items
Email subscribers 61
RSS subscribers 42

June 2008
Average daily number of visitors 53
Average daily number of visits 60
Aggregate item views 399 views of 51 items
Email subscribers 61
RSS subscribers 37

Virtual Tours so Far

Hello, my friends,

We have been feverishly working on the virtual tours here at Central. They are not final yet, but we do have some pretty good first editions of the Central East buildings.

I hope everyone's having a great summer!

Here are the tours:

First floor: http://www.mapwing.com/explore/view_tour.php?t=UVUm4Vpp4nXn45V

Second floor: http://www.mapwing.com/explore/view_tour.php?t=IEI3BNYa3sLNwsE

Third floor: http://www.mapwing.com/explore/view_tour.php?t=IEI33YYsYLLNwsE

Fourth Floor http://www.mapwing.com/explore/view_tour.php?t=l0lJeTzeTTFuzT0

L2Crew Meeting

We will meet July 30 in the Boardroom at 9 a.m. Please let me know if you will be able to attend and if there is something you want added to the agenda. I look forward to meeting face-to-face with all of you again.

Melinda

Blog idea

Would someone like to blog about this? If so, add a note in the comments so we won't have duplicate effort. Thanks crew!

I wanted to let you know about some new developments with respect
to This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape, our online literary
map for the State of Alabama (http://www.alabamaliterarymap.org).
If you haven't looked at the home page recently, you should check it
out. We've added a feature we call "This Day in Alabama Literary
History." See what happened on today's date or select any other
month-day combination. (There are still a few blank dates, but we've got
events for over 85% of the calendar year.)
We've also added a video that we made this spring with author Peter
Huggins. Peter talks about the meaning of "place" and recites his
poem "An Airfield in Alabama."
(http://media.cla.auburn.edu/cla/podcasts/peterhuggins.html).
We've just created a blog for This Goodly Land( http://alabamaliterarymap.blogspot.com). We'll be using it to announce
new features (such as the above), new author profiles, upcoming promotional events, etc. We will also use it to call attention to aspects of the site that we feel deserve special notice. You can bookmark the blog site in your Web browser or get updates sent directly to your email address or your RSS feed reader.
We've got 134 author profiles now on the site (up from 60 when we launched in January 2007).

JCPLA Staff Development Day

At our January meeting, we discussed a panel from the L2 Crew presenting at the JCPLA Staff Development Day with the topic being "Marketing the library through Web 2.0."

Our L2 Crew panel is scheduled to share their insights on how these useful (and very cool) Web 2.0 web tools can help "your library" from 3:00 to 4:00 on August 1, 2008.

With this panel discussion being about a month away, we need to decide who will be panelists.

I have no idea as to who originally volunteered in January, so if you would like to help you can be a panelist.

I would be glad to participate in and/or do the introduction for the panel.

Any volunteers?