Library clips

There are so many web 2.0 tools that are excellent but for some reason I don’t use all of them, part of this is setting aside some time to apply them as replacements or complementary to tools I already use…at the moment I’m short for time, and hesitant to change the routine and ritual of the tools I use (even if change is for the better).

How can I use web 2.0 in my daily library work

Firstly see my library 2.0 post, and km2.0 post, plus the excellent web 2.0 office replacement (see more).

Tools:

Using RSS and OPML

Personal RSS Reader to keep up with the latest

Public RSS Reader as a topic based attention news stream for our business unit

Social bookmarks group, re-syndicated into a blog for presentation, and also re-syndicated into the Public RSS Reader

Other bookmarks such as video, photo’s, wishlist, etc…

Podcasts

Internal Blogs, re-syndicated into an internal news Public RSS Reader

IM

Feed Directory (bb:library)

Calendar sharing

Task and note sharing

Knowledge base for reference queries (wiki or online database)

Communal/Subject guides (Squidoo or Zimbio)

Online office (word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, database, etc…)

People directory/Expert Locator (Ziki)

Wikis

I’ve tried to replace the spreadsheet for my Document Delivery schedule to using a social bookmarks manager like Furl. That was a while ago, now there are online spreadsheets and databases (eg. dabble db) that may do the trick, as you can maybe design these exactly for your purpose.

One of the most prevalent web 2.0 tools in libraries are wikis - see lis_wiki

…these can be used as an Intranet, subject guide, schedule or event guide, information page, local history, homepage, etc…

Then there are the collaborative aspect of wikis, everyone can help build the wiki…

Anyway

Part of my work is seeing to DD and ILL requests, or sometimes I conduct hours of research where I present the findings to my client (staff member, an engineer), and they may then choose the items for DD or ILL.

Sometimes the subject matter is very difficult to understand (even with a comprehensive reference interview), the main reason for this is I’m not an engineer.

In these cases as usual I seek various items by source type; such as web, news, journal databases, bookshops, industry sites, etc…and conduct sophisticated search queries (aware of using syntax and a thesaurus). But instead of plucking out the relevant hits, I send the search query results for the engineer to choose the relevant hits.

In these situations my skills are; I know where to look, and I know how to search…hopefully I can present my client with a handful of search query results for each source, where my client knows what’s relevant better than me.
NOTE: In other situations when I understand the subject matter completely I can go that step further and choose the items myself from the search query results, and present them as a report.
Another way would be to send my client my handpicked selections, but to also send the search queries in case I’ve missed out on anything…I tend to send a list of sources searched anyway, so it is no trouble adding in the search queries, actually sometimes this is requested.

The situation is that the engineer is consulting me firstly as I’m an expert in this area, and secondly my salary is less than an engineer…so the engineer paying me for my time is cheaper for the company then the engineer to spend their time. Plus, the opportunity cost of the time the engineer could of spent on other duties…time=value, in a way.

Not only that, even if we were paid the same, the engineer may take more time conducting research, and also may come up with less results.

Ramble, ramble….get to the point.

How do I collect and present my research?

One way I have done this is to share my login for a journal database eg. engineering village 2 (can I just say this is such an intuitive and powerful database, and is hip to blog this, and RSS).

Engineering village 2 allows you to save search queries, save hits from search queries in folders, and much more…
By sharing my log in, a client can inspect a folder/s and see the hits I’ve collected, and they can also re-run a search query, and if they see stuff I’ve missed out on, they can add items to a folder…irrelevant items in a folder can also be removed.
Another way to do this is just use the email results function, and then the client can email the selection.

Sharing a login enables us to easy exchange and communicate without having to rely on email…well, the only email will be “go check this out”…instead of the content in the email.

The only thing is will my space in the journal database live forever, or will I want to delete it once it gets too much, what I’m getting at is longevity of my research…plus it would be good if I could send my client a report that they can always refer to.

An alternative to using the login space in the journal database is to save the search queries and save the results in a social bookmark manager like Connotea (just seems appropriate as it is a more academic focused tool in its class).

Although I do like the idea of netvouz, clipmarks, diigo (and the like) as you can create folders
…a folder would represent the research title, then a tag would represent search queries, and another tag would represent search selections.

eg.
Folder = Innovations in the last 5 years of…(NOTE: this tag name is a phrase)
Tag = queries
Tag = selections

NOTE: Can’t remember if tags can be exclusive to folders…anyway if you are not using folders you can just use tag intersections.
eg.
Innovations in the last 5 years of…+queries
Innovations in the last 5 years of…+selections

The client can view the tag intersection, and delete irrelevant search selections, they can also view the search results and add any relevant hits to the search selections.

The good thing about this method is that we can bookmark search queries and selections from all sources, eg. open web, journal databases, news, etc…

Another thing I like is that whan I add search queries to a tag, and search selections to a tag, the client can receive the latest by RSS…so there is less reason to communicate by email.

The benefit of using clipmarks is that you don’t have to bookmark each search query from a journal database, you can clip (parts of the actual webpage) your saved searches page…from this one bookmark you can then click the hyperlink for each search query.

The benefit of using diigo is that you can not only clip webpages, but also add sticky notes to the actual webpage, these notes can also be seen in the bookmark manager…example (click expand all).

And of course with most of these services there is a comments field.

More ways…

Collecting and presenting results in an online word processor such as Writely…create and share documents, communal editing of documents, tag documents, URL’s for documents, RSS for updates, etc…

Each research taken for a client can be presented in a Google Notebook…again the client would have to share your login (see public notebooks).

Other tools are; e-snips, H20 playlist, notefish (example), etc…

Lastly a wiki can be used to collect, share and display research…

The benefits are customisation, edit your wiki (website) to your look and feel…the whole wiki can be dedicated to research, where you have an archive of all your past research.
In a wiki you can have a homepage, in the sidebar is a link to your research projects, the client can click on this and see your research projects page, then click on the current project.
This will be comprised of a further two wiki pages, one for search queries and one for search selections.
Actually make as many pages as you like, one for each source for search queries (same goes for search selections)…maybe you can even break down each source into organised topics for search queries (same goes for search selections).

The idea is that you can collect and display your research in the one place…it has a public URL…your client can communally edit the wiki (collaboration)…and notification by email or RSS.

There is an audit trail, each edit will highlight changes, and store versions, and notification is automatically generated.

The use of a wiki seems the best choice for collecting, presenting, sharing research with a client…it really saves on emails back and forth…and in the end you have your research distilled in a webpage…it can also double up as a report.

Post-research

How to keep clients in the loop of current happenings…

Most search sources have RSS, you could create a Public RSS Reader at SuprGlu, MySyndicaat, Blogdigger groups, etc…
these sites are populated with content via a spliced feed from all the search query feeds.

If you wanted to curate content, you could use your Newsgator or Rojo saved folder (RSS enabled) and re-syndicate this into a blog or any of the services above…you could bookmark content and use the bookmark manager to display your results (or you can re-syndicate into a service above)…you can use the MySyndicaat digest feature …similar to reBlog.

If the client wanted to get involved, others could bookmark in a group environment or use unique tags for clean results.

Going to the fullest extent would be a Community of Practice environment where the client may decide to set up a portal to keep up with the latest, using tools such as; complore, zimbio, GROU.PS, etc…

Similar:
Wiki and EDMS