White Pine bookshelf test

Another ChiliFresh bookshelf test

Top Tech Trends

Dorothea Salo, Scholarly Research Services Librarian, University of Wisconsin-Madison;

• Internet rationing
• digital divide
• GoogleBooks
• flickrpro account being wiped out
• discovery layers

Roger Nevin, Teacher-Librarian, Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB;

• cloud computing
• portability

Aaron Schmidt, Principal, Influx Library User Experience;

• ubiquity and ease of use of digital content, e.g. NetFlix -- easier than what PLs are offering, not expensive
• in any case, easy trumps free
• eBook revolution
• PLs could never provide as much stuff as Amazon or Google
• challenges the notion that "Books are our Brand"
• PLs should think about designing places for learning, and places for experiences

Nicole Engard, Director of Open Source Education, Bywater Solutions

Discussion:

-Google's choke by spam presents a big opportunity for libraries

- challenge of homogenizing influences -- how do we find lost voices and ensure they are heard? Should libraries be publishers?

- Net Neutrality - no restrictions by Internet service providers (ISPs) and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication.

-Park County Library's Facebook and Privacy page -- a good thing

- design first for mobile -- then put that on big screens

Marketing Virtual Services

Friday February 4, 2011 2:10pm

Christy Giesler, Teen Services Librarian, Kitchener PL;

Cecile Farnum, Ryerson University;

Liz Dobson, Librarian, Centennial College

Pretty traditional approaches, generally, e.g. mandatory training of all staff, mention in publications, post in library, etc.

Ideas:

• barrier free library cards: give out cards on the spot. If old cards had fines, forgive the fines
• MP3 players to borrow and try
• booth with products at Word on the Street -- to promote download*Library

Contemporary marketing trends -- can these be used for virtual services

• embedded testimonials .e.g. on facebook
• importance of brand
• profiling of customers --> customized promotions
• dynamic pricing online -- based on profile of person coming in (used in airline flights)

Perceptions of Public Library Services - FOPL report

Friday February 4, 2011 9:05am

Carol French, Heather Angel, Market Probe

• qualifications/reservations re research --- landlines only, no interviews of non-English or non-French speakers. 4% could not conduct survey due to language barriers. Another 10% do not speak either English or French in the home.
• 68% said they had a library card, 66% said they visited a library in person in past year. 76% of 18-24 year olds have cards.
• Remote use of library has increased (but still only 12% of respondents had used web to access lib materials i.e. e-resources)
• Most common way to access PL is still in-person (37% use only this way)
• Internet and phone access are in addition to in-person, not a substitute
• 
  
• increase in number of people attending programs (23% took kids, 14% attended adult program) -- but way less than borrowed books (90%)
• could this be a trend? Are libraries offering more programs, YES (according to Min Culture Stats) or are people more interested?
• Number of cardholders, in-person visits, visits per person has not changed much in 10 years.
• 18-24 yr olds are biggest users, most likely to use Internet
• 
  
• 68% thought PL should provide technology training (though 17% of these couldn't think of any topics)
• ADVICE: consider convenience as key component of every value proposition.

Ministry of Tourism and Culture Public Libraries Update

Thursday Feb 2 2011 3:45pm

Stephen Davidson, Assistant Deputy Minister

$28mm ongoing annual grants -- of that $1.4MM goes to Virtual Reference Library, $4.4 million goes to OLS and OLA, $2 million to Pay Equity

Culture Strategic Investment Fund In 2009-10, over $1 million split among 49 cultural organizations (arts council, historical societies, dance, theatre, algoma university.)

Creative Communities Prosperity Fund $1.3million -- libraries eligible to compete with upper and lower tier municipalities, municipal enterprises, museums, heritage organizations.

Trillium Foundation

Museums and Technology Fund -- not open to libraries.

Mentioned the power of stories to influence politicians, and policies.

Evaluating Your Digital Core

Thursday February 3, 10:40 am

Heather Cunningham, Librarian, University of Toronto;

Peter Atkinson, E-Services Specialist, St Thomas PL;

Marian Doucette, Web Architect, Huron County PL

Heather:

• CrazyEgg.com is a commercial service which tracks where people click in your site -- generates a heat map for your site. Rates vary from $9 to $99 a month, depending on # visitors, # pages you can track at once.
• Used other measurement tools too, e.g. web analytics, in person Qs, stats from web guides.

Marian:

• go where your users are
• Pick social media which matches demographic of your users.
• Only 3% of social media users are 65+
• Average age of all social media = 37; of Twitter users = 39, Facebook = 38, LinkedIn = 44
• Be clear on your goal: e.g. is it
• to drive traffic to a database
• to bring in foot traffic
• to get feedback on a program or proposal

• That will determine what you measure

Basic Metrics…

• Unique users = # distinct people who visit site on given day = Awareness of your site
• Page views = # distinct pages viewed on given day = Stickiness of site / value of site’s content
• Bounce rate = % people who view 1 page & leave = Interest in site/content
• Time spent = Amount of time average user spends on site = Is site destination or pass-through

• www.pingdom.com - tool for measuring website performance (down time, response time, get email and twitter alerts $9.95 per month for five sites & 20 SMS alerts)
• Facebook has Insights: install piece of code on your website and then get metrics on who is using your site. Will shows number of impressions shown to users, # likes, etc.
• Huron County is using facebook to search catalogue -- used fbml (sort of like html) to create tabs and embed catalogue search box in Huron County Library facebook page
• Now using stat counter, Google analytics to see if social media is driving people to library catalogue website
• TwitterAnalyzer
• Tweet Effect
• Facebook ads -- type in city name to see how many users there are (LOTS for Elmira, quite a few for New Hamburg, Baden, fewer for Ayr. Ab0ut 15 for New Dundee. None for St. Clements, Linwood, Bloomingdale.)

Other guides:

Pew Internet reports , e.g. Who's Online - demographics of Internet users; Generations and their Gadgets . You can also subscribe to get regular updates from Pew Institute.

1. Focus your objectives.

2. Pick 2-3 relevant measures.

3. Pull data regularly.

4. Look for unexplained trends.

5. Analyze, test & fix.