Library clips

This was going to be a comment in Dave Snowden’s blog post (which was a comment about one of my posts) but it has turned into a blog post.
It’s basically riffing on Dave’s comment about librarians having the real KM attitude of being people connectors, which gets knowledge flowing.

It also connects to a few library oriented posts I have published lately,
Why did I become a librarian?
Library 2.0 local

I’m in document management at the moment, but in my previous corporate librarian role a big part was in researching and sourcing information for staff, as well as updating people on the latestest in their industry.

This results in the librarian knowing the interests of lots of people in the organisation. We have to capitalise on this as we are one of the few people in the organisation who knows who likes what…so we introduce these people that have common interests, this is especially interesting if it’s cross disciplinary.

Introducing and linking people slowly creates a network, the librarian is overworked, but hopefully the network will start to manifest its own connections, but how will this happen (assuming people want to network) without enabling technologies.

Currently, and in most instances, people that have been introduced sustain their new relationship by sharing information by email, they might invite others to their informal group. This technology doesn’t provide a way to bump into others who may be interested in sharing this topic based information, in this situation we are still limited to physical connections a la the librarian.
The other part is that since this relationship doesn’t have a place (like a forum/CoP or profile pages) it may not sustain connectivity.

I wish I was using Google Reader in those days, as I could subscribe to various feeds related to a staff members interests and tag those subscriptions in a folder with that persons name. When I’m reading the feeds in that folder I tag useful items and they appear on a public page.
That person can bookmark that page or subscribe to it’s feed for daily updates.
But once they are updated, it becomes static, unless they email a link to someone else…there are better ways.

How can the librarian do this for everyone?

…instead people need to learn how to find feeds (librarians can still do their job of sourcing quality feeds) and use an RSS Reader themselves, and do their own bookmarking or link blogging.
Others can perhaps subscribe to their bookmarks or link blog feeds, and perhaps visit their public RSS Reader to see the feeds they read.

Plus people need to then push the information they are reading elsewhere, this works OK in email, but what is more effective is a more open and connected environment.

Explode this into a social network, and we all have profiles (listing expert tags), we have a blog, we add friends, compare feeds, subscribe to each others bookmarks, send links to each others, updated on friends activity, send private and public messages.
This is a sense of place that solidifies our relationship and interests, but much more than a group page, as it’s a profile network, endless connections and discovery can be made, it’s more an ecosystem.

See an RSS Reader social network like FeedEachOther, a Lifestream/people network like Ziki and Mugshot groups, link sharing networks, link blogs like and Siphs and Google Shared Stuff, collaborative recommendation, or everyone’s darling of 2007, Facebook.

Social networks can now replace the librarian being the people connector; RSS Readers enable people to read content from both internal and external feeds, we can send links to our friends, discover people, and now we have blogs to share thoughts and feedback and to spread and discuss news that we read.

These technologies are much more enabling, in the past the librarian would create various topic newsletters for various audiences, I guess now we could call this topic blogging and bookmarking.
Now everyone can do it for themselves, they can subscribe to content, do their own blogging and bookmarking and we can subscribe to each other (our trust filter, common abstraction, shared context) in a network and share and communicate.
This connection is with trusted people, we can also discover people and content (capitalise on weak ties).

So perhaps Dave Snowden is right…librarians being people connectors are what KM is about…creating knowledge flow.

The librarian can take a sigh of relief and let the network do its thing, and once again the librarian becomes the facilitator.

A post from yesterday on Library 2.0 got a comment from Suelibrarian, she re-phrased something I was trying to say for the better (that’s the thing about blogging sometimes, it’s so quick to publish you don’t really go over things much, as there is something to publish round the corner).

Anyway Sue put it “…being a librarian didn’t shape us that way- we become librarians because we are shaped that way”.

Now this got me thinking, why did I become a librarian?

Even though I don’t currently work in a library, I’m still a librarian through and through.

NOTE: Since I no longer follow the biblioblogosphere I’m not sure if this meme has done the rounds…

When I was changing career from the film/music industry and I wanted to work somewhere that reminded me of the open space and and peacefulness of the cinema, the library came to mind.

Ever since a kid I’ve always been a researcher (as is my brother), whatever topic we were exploring we had to read old and new books on the topic, actually we were bibliography hoppers, we had to explore authenticity by reading everything in the bibliography of every book (checking sources like a detective)…how did a writer come to their conclusions-who were they heavily influenced by, etc…

I think our interest in reading and researching mostly came about because we had the whole Britannica encyclopedia in our bedroom, as it didn’t fit anywhere else in the house…so we’d research all night on existential philosophers like Swedenbourg, Nietzsche, Sartre, Huxley…or plant medicines…Atlantis…etc…

Anyway, when we are interested in something we have this addictive nature to know everything about it, and become quite emersed…it’s quite a burden.

I’ve always organised my music, video’s (even clothes at one stage) into categories…this is the sure sign of a librarian…I think being a Virgo helps as well.

Lastly, I have a nature to update people about the latest about stuff.
As I mentioned when I’m into a topic I’m emersed, so when I was into the Melbourne music/film scene I worked in a eclectic video shop, played in a band and went to underground shops. I’d let my friends know what was happening most nights (there is so much art/media culture in Melbourne).

So when it comes to the web, I’m the same, I come across so much information, that if I see a blog post on real estate, I can’t let it slip, so I send it to a friend.

I haven’t mentioned anything selfless here, like helping people…yikes!

And I am not a typical introvert or extrovert (actually I’m kind of in the middle), I’m quite vocal in the company of people I know.
It astounds me that the librarian archetype of the stern older lady with her glasses hanging from her chest shhhhhing people, is still in the general psyche. And that people who don’t frequent libraries think they are stale, boring and for bookworms or geeks. Libraries are essential as too many people are being entertained these days instead of entertaining themselves. Our society has more than ever before got this fetish with celebrity and entertainment culture, this illusion of intimacy, and just being the passive spectator (viewer).
This is not a good thing, people can become bored easily, are not as creative, cannot entertain themselves, leading to frustration, etc…

Anyway, they are the basic qualities:

- perpetual organising and categorising
- open space and sanctuary
- researcher
- information consumer
- messenger

Coming full circle this comment rings true, “…being a librarian didn’t shape us that way- we become librarians because we are shaped that way”.

Why did you become a librarian, or how did it come to be?

I’m so addicted to podcasts lately, I can’t walk to and from work these days without listening to my own personal radio station.

Yesterday I listened to an On The Pod episode with Kathryn Greenhill about Library 2.0.
Kathryn has the blog Librarians Matter and is also part of the multi-author blog Libraries Interact (anyone is welcome to register and become and author, just like a Cit J site like Perth Norg, infact I think they both work on the WordPress Multi-user platform).

Anyway, it turns out that I followed Kathryn on Twitter, but not her blog (I am now a subscriber of her blog being impressed by the podcast). A couple of weeks earlier I also found another aussie librarian blog the same way, I was following HeyJude on Twitter and now have subscribed to her blog.

This is quite a refreshing experience for me, over a year ago I moved from Libraries to Document Management, so I’ve lost touch will all things library 2.0, dropping 50 or so blogs I used to read. I’m subscribed to only a handful now, but I don’t really read them that often, but now with two cutting edge aussie library blogs I’m happy to know what’s happening on a more local scale.

Out of interest the library blogs I read nowadays apart from the two already mentioned are Tame The Web, The Distant Librarian, Information wants to be Free, and ResourceShelf.

My blog posts used to be library oriented, as you would expect coming from a blog called Library clips, but now my posts are more about web 2.0 tools, the user generated web and the participative culture…also knowledge management. Check out the Library category on my blog.

Since I’m doing a personal trip down memory lane, here are a few library posts from the past:
OPAC in a blog and library 2.0 (includes links to all my library related bookmark tags)
Library 2.0 Reference
SLE feeds for Library OPAC’s
OPML for OPAC
Library Reference blogs
Internal Library blogs

Back to it…

The podcast was not just on Library 2.0, it also touched on the modern library and librarian in general…plus an extensive portion on a library’s experience on SecondLife.

Kathryn mentioned it all started with RSS and then she was thrown into a new world, where she adopted social tools such as blogs, Flickr, wikis, and toolbars such as LibX for FireFox (search your catalogue from the toolbar or right-click, click articles in Google Scholar that are available in your library, or click on an ISBN to see if your library has that book).

A few interactive web 2.0 ideas were patrons taking photo’s on library event days and tagging them so they appear on the library website…and photo blogs where people can leave comments.

Other web 2.0 tools not mentioned that some libraries are using are Twitter, Meebo (IM), Squidoo (Topic guides), OPAC 2.0 (user tags and RSS…actually I here moreso Museums experimenting with user generated tags), podcasts, startpage widgets, etc…

As far as a librarian community, the biblioblogosphere was mentioned, which Crawford at large tackled at one stage. Librarians networking through the blogosphere sharing advice on new tools and library methods, it astounds me that this enigmatic way of sharing of intellect has not caught on like wildfire in the enterprise, why the snail pace. Maybe it’s culture, and as Kathryn mentions librarians are web savvy, so it’s natural they adopt blogs in a big way.

BTW, I like the term the biblioblabosphere for librarians that tweet.

Also a mention of librarians using wikis for best Practices and documentation eg. Library Success.

And I totally identify with the librarians perpetual nature of finding things for people, almost like everyone’s personal information agent…I know being a librarian didn’t shape me this way, I’ve always been of character to be excited about the latest and share it with everyone.

I guess part of the job is evolving to less personal agent and more helping people construct their own news radars…personalisation and customisation.

The librarians role as facilitator is more than ever cemented as a guide and perhaps gardner in the, using the old school term, information highway. Librarians organise information to make it more usable, and the web has so much more information that a librarian now has a bigger job.
Some say the difference is people don’t need to go to the library as they can navigate the web themselves. But not all people:
- do they have a computer
- do they know how to use a computer
- do they know how to search for content and sources
- do they know of websites that specialise in a topic
- do they know how to determine authoritative sources
- do they have access to research sources like journals, etc…

The library itself is also changing, I now hear that some public libraries are ditching Dewey (DDC) for more bookshop like topics, other things:
- Community space and information
- Coffee shop and food
- Fast Track
- Couches
- PC’s
- Laptop area
- Learning centre (social space)
- Print/Bind/Photocopy
- 24 hr access

And the old things like:
- Record History (archive newspapers, books, etc…)
- Deposit library (local heritage)
- Borrow instead of buy

The question was also asked is Library 2.0 augmenting the social captial in an online social space, maybe a Facebook group, or a MySpace page, a meebo room, a Ning network, etc…in Perth I see local social networks like Loconut in a similar space.

Another question was asked will you be able to browse the stacks in SecondLife, is the idea to mimic a physical space. I tell you what, it sounds like a fun experience to visit a virtual supermarket like Kinset, pick things off the shelf and read some metadata about the product, calculate the cost. I suppose you could just look at your previous shopping receipts and select things so the present trip auto-fills up your trolley, but that may take out the fun.

Direct Download

ChaCha is a different search experience, it seems more akin to asking a reference librarian for help.

You can use it as a normal search engine by hitting the search button, or you can choose to hit the “search with guide button”.

This opens up a sidebar window where a chosen expert or guide (according to your search term) is available then and there to chat with you in order to help you find what you are looking for…so far they have employed 10,000 Guides.
After a chat they will return some useful websites, and you can rate their service, very interesting indeed.

The great thing is that it learns from itself (turns this information into knowledge so to speak), from the website:

“The more you use ChaCha, the smarter and faster ChaCha becomes! Because ChaCha indexes all the questions that are asked and associates them with the search engines and resources used by Guides, and the links visited by the users, ChaCha knows where to look and what the best human-approved resources are for each question or topic. “

It’s kind of achieving a similar purpose as a Q&A (expert locator) service eg. Yedda, but has more of the immediacy of Qunu (ask an expert via an IM chat).

I wonder how they get enough people to cover all topics, maybe it could be made social, kind of like Yedda…since Yedda knows your interests, questions from one user are sent to other users for a possible answer, plus whoever else notices the question posted on Yedda.
This way if there are 500,000 users, the system has from 500,000 people to choose, but it has to know who is online now…the plus side is you have more experts, but will they really experts (quantity vs. quality).

This brings me to attention, being asked questions according to my interests is great, but what about the other services I use, I bet Yedda would be even more precise in the questions they ask me if they knew my whole social identity or personal content network.
If I had an attention file representing my personal content network (bookmarks, photos, RSS reading, searching, etc…) and plugged this into Yedda (as well as explicitly telling it what my interests are) it would be able to more accurately target experts and inturn have more of a chance of getting an accurate answer.
Pity attention is proprietry, why can’t we just all get along with OPML.

NOTE: Other services like StumbleUpon could really benefit from attention data, as their game is recommendation]

This is a very clever idea for libraries to adopt, perhaps a network of libraries could offer their own version of ChaCha, kind of like ChaCha closed groups.

[ADDED: I just discovered ChaCha Underground which seems like a social version of ChaCha…it lists topics and guides (a way to get a profile is to be invited by a guide).
Each guide has a profile page and an RSS feed, and their latest search results, visitors can leave comments…what about having an online status so a visitor can IM a guide.]

Related:
Attention in APML
whonu then ZingBoxx : pre-made search topics

LibWorm is like someone made a Rollyo with over 1000 LIS related blog feeds. In fact even made smaller Rollyo’s according to subject…technically this is incorrect as Rollyo searches the HTML content of blogs, whereas LibWorm is searching in the RSS content of blogs, so it’s more like ScoopGo. See more search rollers.

Actually I’m not sure if you can limit your search to a category or subject, since each category or subject doesn’t list its source list, I can’t test this…

What is interesting is that it is also a newsmastering portal for all things LIS, taking the baton from LIS feeds. If you look on the category or subject page, you will see lots of topics, each has a spliced RSS feed, clicking on one will show you the latest posts from the blog sources populating a topic, each hit will link to the source, but only thing is the topic doesn’t list the sources.

And that’s not all, you can even clip a hit to your own clippings folder (have to sign up to use this feature), signing up to MyLibWorm also gives you a space to subscribe to feed categories or subjects in an RSS Reader called “Reading List”:
- posts you read will go into your reading history, and you can remove a post as well, in all it’s the basic elements of an RSS Reader, only thing is your reading choice is default to a river of news.

The sources you chose for your Reading List live in “My Favourite Feeds”, basically a list of the feed categories or subjects you have subscribed to, and each displaying an RSS feed, all it needs is an OPML.
Problem I have is “My Favourite Feeds” should really be called “My Reading List”, and “My Reading List” should be called “My river of news”.

For LIS journals see Informed Librarian, for LIS e-prints see e-LIS, and more.

A a post from Michael Casey and and Meredith Farkas hone in on the loss of knowledge in libraries.

Libraries have a real value in mainataining a reference knowledge base as librarians are asked questions all the time, there is no need to re-invent the wheel everytime, leveraging on already present information certainly maximises effectiveness…this also applies to internal knowledge (staff needs).

Reference librarians empower people to help themselves by creating subject guides, but they can further capitalise on their collective knowledge by capturing more specific topic based resources in an internal reference base.
Previously librarians used card-based files, which moved to electronic versions, which are now moving to web-based services.

Common needs for a reference file

- most commonly asked questions
- student/worker needs eg. term papers or leave form
- hot topics of the week or month
- reference eg. always use this dictionary over the other one for law definitions…eg. I really found this database is the best for economic statistics, works for me everytime…eg. you wouldn’t expect it, but this book has a brief Italian cinema filmography
- direct questions eg. Where’s the closest book shop?
- staff needs eg. Certain PC’s may have individual problems, in this case do this…

Beyond this are subject guides and the library website, but having ready stored answers to unique and common requests is going to help reference staff procure answers without having to repeat what others may have already done, and also giving prompt answers to easy requests makes sense.

Attached to this is the recording of reference transactions to generate statistics on what types of questions are being asked and what answers we were able to give…this also gives insight into filling in the gaps in expertise and materials

Sharing culture

Besides a process and technology for directly codifying and accessing information, there also needs to be a information sharing culture.

I see 2 aspects of this:
- codifying and indexing your experiences in a knowledge base, eg. reference transactions
(the culture will decide if people want to do this, if not education and learning is required)
- web 2.0 tools for general information sharing

Sure, the fundamental part is a repository for reference experiences…but what about just general information sharing. Like Luis Suarez mentions in respect to expert locators, if we have a knowledge sharing culture, we are bound to know who the experts are because we read their stuff, or our colleague reads their stuff, or we could search or browse by tag in the web 2.0 base and find who is responsible for the relevant content you find.
That is, sometimes we may not need to refer to the locator system as we already are aware of certain experts because of the open social information sharing system.

In our example, if key library staff (perhaps reference staff) had blogs and social bookmarks, then we could be exposed to their writings daily, this is informal learning.

Maybe sometimes we don’t need to search the reference experience knowledge base as a colleague may have blogged about the experience before and submited it to the knowledge base…or the blog and the knowledge could be the same thing.

Anyway back to the fundamentals…

The key aspect is that of a direct or explicit knowledge base, that is, after a reference transaction you add that information to the knowledge base….this applies to email, f2f, IM, etc…types of reference experiences.

NOTE: it would also make it easier if you could post to the knowledge base from email or IM or publish your blog post to the knowledge base simultaneously.

The web 2.0 way

A knowledge base can be some kind of simple database…as long as you can query it or browse by topic.
You could use a blog as a knowledge database, or a group of blogs re-syndicated into a Public RSS Reader…even a wiki is an easy solution.
See Wikis in the Workplace: How Wikis Can Help Manage Knowledge in Library Reference Services…this is a basic way to capture resources and reference transactions…coupled with a blog, any library can set this up this type of environment in less than an hour.
For some current examples see Meredith’s coverage of Wikis: Enabling Library Knowledgebases.

These web 2.0 tools are great as each entry can be discussed (comments), re-edited, re-syndicated, etc…
You could even make Squidoo type guides for the most FAQ.

Speaking of FAQ, what about FAQQLY (scroll down)…for example if a company has librarians scattered all over the globe, you could set up a system like FAQQLY, where staff (clients) could ask questions, these questions are tagged when you answer them.
If I was asked a question I’d first check the FAAQLY tag cloud or do a search to see if any of the other librarians have answered a similar question.

The great thing about this is that the same page that you ask questions and receive answers contains the content of all past questions and answers…so you can ask a question or read past questions in the same service.

NOTE: those questions not asked through FAAQLY (eg. a staff member asks you a question in person or via email), then perhaps the librarian can enter the “question and answer” themselves in order to add it to the knowledge base.

The added benefit is that staff (clients) could browse and search FAQQLY in hope of finding an answer, before having to ask a question.

NOTE: FAQQLY has released groups , maybe the open web could have a librarian reference topic expert group.

Similar to FAQQLY is CommonGate where librarians could set up 10 or so topic reference blogs (this would be good if you could set up your own version of CommonGate)…I guess you could use a multi blog platform as an alternative.
I like the idea of of a kit (similar to CommonGate) where you create multiple blog spaces in an instant, and each librarian has a space of their aggregated posts…they don’t, per se, have their own blog, when they post an entry is has to be assigned to a topic blog, and it is just aggregated into their user space.
This is not an alternative to their own personal blog, but it is a great way to share reference information, maybe the use of tags for each entry could hone in on specific topics/keywords. The cream of this content could then maybe make it to a wiki, the stock and flow idea.

Something kind of similar is Otavo, and also tag-based forums (these work on a similar principle to CommonGate).

At the moment my library doesn’t have a system to document reference questions, which I guess we could do in any of the services mentioned above or even in a simple social notes system like TagFacts (but I’d like each entry to have a permalink), maybe we could create our own with Ning.

I’d like to see a dedicated web 2.0 service as a reference librarian knowledge base…I’m thinking of it having a blogging module, that way when you publish your blog post you can also choose to add it to the knowledge base (tags included). This could be an internal system just for your library collective or on the open web (maybe you could form a group on the open web version).

NOTE: Maybe librarians on the open web could share a reference knowledge base, not a directory of resources by subject type, but reference experiences by subject type. Whenever you blog your post you could trackback a central site (similar to LazyWeb)…but then the tags wouldn’t carry through.
We could re-syndicate the posts to a Public RSS Reader, but then not all posts will be relevant, maybe we can just re-syndicate certain posts via a tag feed…see Edgeio.

For those non-bloggers you could allow people to register and manually publish their experience and tag it…heck why not just use a wiki…I just think it’s handy to be able to publish to multiple place at the same time.

Non web 2.0 reference knowledge bases

The only information I share is for extensive literature searches…if I do some research for a client I finish up with a report of my findings, this same report is codified into a folder in the EDMS (Electronic Document Managament System). Even though we don’t have a subject field, we could use any field to type in subject terms, this is OK for searching, but what about browsing subject terms.
In my own work I’d like to extend this codifying to unique and common reference questions (sorted by title and topic).

Anyway at least this way, before you undertake a research project you can consult our global EDMS to see if anyone has already touched on this area.

Check out some of the literature about traditional (non web 2.0) approaches in forming not only a reference base, but a total knowledge base.

See KM in a metro library, where it has a brief on a searchable knowledge base, as well as an expert locator.

Also see the Reference Desk tab section in Creating an Internal Content Management System…here’s a screen shot.
Here is an article about the same reference database. This article is more on the reference workflow, whereas this blog post is more focused on the reference knowledge base that would be an aspect of a bigger system.

Then there is, Making tacit knowledge explicit: the Ready Reference Database as codified knowledge, this is a great article on knowledge transfer and codifying more than just reference experiences in an RRD…this doubles up as a knowledge map and knowledge respository for all types of information.
This article goes beyond workflow and a reference repository into a whole knowledge base for all types of information.

The article Knowledge management in academic libraries: special tools and processes to support information professionals demonstates how a library can create a simple knowledge base…in this example the repository is being used to capture reference resources. Check it out here.

This is exactly what I’m getting at, after a reference transaction you may discover great resources for a particular topic, these can be documented by title and by subject for staff and public use.
Subject guides or pathfinders are broad in nature, the reference base is there to capture more specific questions and resources, and to identify commonly used, unique, and hard to find resources.

Organizing Ready Reference and Administrative Information with the Reference Desk Manager also succinctly defines the problem and solution, again this heads towards an Intranet type solution…I guess my blog post is more specific to an aspect of this system.

Knowledge management and reference services is an indepth paper about km in general and cites some great examples of km in libraries.

Related posts:
Internal Library blogs
Library Reference Blogs (This blog post has a link to Lyceum: A Blogsphere for Library Reference).

Similar posts:
The different ways of finding experts
Internal communication blogs and km2.0
Research librarian and web 2.0
OPAC in a blog and library 2.0
km 2.0 adoption and organic km
Enterprise social sharing structure
Microsoft Knowledge Network Expertise Locator

For the latest on Library 2.0 see, Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries and Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software…also Library Technology NOW 2.0.

See my del.icio.us tag for km in libraries - LIS_km

Also check out this blog used a bibliography for km in libraries.

See the kmwikis coverage of km in the library.

Feedback

Please use the comments to provide some discussion on how your library shares information, and more specifically on how you share/codify reference transactions.

I’m looking for homemade DIY examples.

What are peoples experiences?

Maybe I’ll submit this to the Carnival of Infosciences.

ADDED: I just realised I haven’t mentioned IM, see Tame the Web for IM in libraries.

In an earlier post I mentioned the possibility of setting up an expertise locator/Q&A service for topic reference librarians using FAQQLY groups.

I just came across a wiki dedicated to IT in libraries called Pay IT Forward…it is basically a member directory for those who need help with IT issues in libraries.

Check out the member directory, it includes peoples interests…search here by name or topic.
This is very primitive, this could be perhaps set up in a Q&A service just for IT in libraries, perhaps using Ning, see this example.

With a little web 2.0 enhancement, we can have a member directory as well as a Q&A service in the one place, the essentials would be like Yedda, but it would be a whole website dedicated to your own topic, eg. Library IT experts.

Essential features:
- see recent questions
- tag questions
- people tags (tag yourself)
- public user space

[via TechEssence.Info]

I’ve posted about FAQQLY in my post about expert locators, basically FAQQLY is a Question & Answer Social Network, similar to Otavo…also check out Qunu for real-time IM expert help.

Anyway, the idea before asking a question is rummaging through the knowledge base to see if any relevant content may answer or help in your quest…search, browse content tags.

You can also browse FAQQLY for people tags, just like Ziki, soon Ziki will also allow others to tag you, as well as being able to tag yourself.

FAQQLY allows for self tagging, but I only see a search function, it needs a tag cloud…this way you can find self acclaimed topic experts.

Groups

What if you could group a collective of experts on a similar topic to form a kind of mini FAQQLY?

This URL would be the one-stop place for Q&A on a certain topic…this is the next best thing to creating your own topic based Q&A service…perhaps with Ning.

Well you don’t have to as FAQQLY now allows you to join and create groups, and describe the group with tags.

I suppose you could also just sign yourself only as a group…protected visibility.

Groups have an option as public, protected (joing by approval), private (content is privy to members only, and membership by invitation).

This is something Ziki is already doing, in Ziki you tag youself, in Ziki Groups, people join a group and collectively tag the group.

NOTE: Ziki is not a Q&A service, it is a social network personal content manager.

Findability I’d like to see:

- Browse recent, popular questions or answers
- Search/Browse name of person
- Search/Browse people tags (tag cloud)
- Search/Browse content tags (tag cloud)
- Search/Browse group names
- Search/Browse group tags (tag cloud)
- Search/Browse people tags within a group (tag cloud)
- Search/Browse content tags within a group (tag cloud)

Enhancements

At the moment you can view the group knowledge base by topic tag or simply ask the group a question…you can also view the members of a group and ask the member a question directly.
But at the moment you have to click on each member to see their tags, ie. what they specialise in.

So besides the group tag cloud, I’d also like to see another tag cloud, ie. all the personal (group member) tags in one cloud…and also a personal tag cloud next to the thumbnail of each member.

The problem is that if you bypass the group and ask a member a question directly in their user space, then this will not be included in the group knowledge base…there could be a way for a member to re-direct or re-publish a Q&A in the group space.

The good thing is that you could view the aggregated personal tag cloud for the group or view one person’s tag cloud via a member thumbnail, and ask the right question to the right person, this is even more essential if there is IM communication in the future.

Another feature would be for an individual to re-direct a question they were asked in their own user space to a group member.

More

On second thought groups still aren’t quite like creating your own mini FAQQLY, I’m thinking the library blogosphere could get together and create a Reference Library FAQQLY, within this you could create groups eg. engineering reference, business reference, medical reference, etc…

I was going to create a Reference Library group, I guess the tags would separate the content by topic, the problem is that I don’t want to be alerted business questions if I’m an engineering librarian.

Anyway I have decided to create an Engineering Librarian’s FAQ, I’m no expert as I’m the first to ask a question.

Who can I invite to answer a question or join the group, I don’t think any Library blog lists are broken down into topics, but I know a few lists:

DMOZ - Top: Reference: Libraries: Library and Information Science: Weblogs
Yahoo! - Directory > Reference > Libraries > Weblogs
PubSub - The Librarian List
Libdex - Library weblogs
LISfeeds
Blogging Libraries Wiki

Here are some science related library blogs:

GSU Library - Science News
Confessions of a Science Librarian
STLQ
Christina’s Library Rant
Information Overlord
DU Library - Engineering Resources
Eng Lib
Science Library Blog (Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Geology/Environmental Studies)
Science Library Pad
Really Simple Sidi
SD Librarian
Rowland Institute Library Blog
SciLib
ISEL Update
from your science librarian’s desk

[ADDED 18/08/06: I guess what I like about these Q&A services is that instead of using email to ask questions, we are using a public space. The benefit is that instead of asking one person, you are instead asking the world at large, allowing more chance to gain an answer.
Also these transactions are tagged and documented so they can be of help to others that may be asking the same or similar question.

Form what I understand in Otavo you are asking a question to no-one in particular, you are asking the world at large…people can follow the recent stream of lists/questions. Whereas in FAQQLY it seems you need to direct a question to an individual, and there isn’t an overall FAQQLY recent stream, this is a lacking feature, or perhaps it is designed as a more person to person service. The group feature opens this up a little as when you ask a question, all people in the group will be alerted.]

Steven Cohen put me onto librariesinteract.info (Blog central for libraries in Australia)…must add this to my aussie blogs post.

Anyway checking out the blogroll I found Letters from Adelaide, inline with my post OPAC in a blog and library 2.0, is a post about a DDC tag cloud…check out the cloud.

From the post:

“I think it works well: you can see at a glance where our collection strengths lie. And each heading links to a Catalogue search for that call number. One thing I didn’t expect, but should have: there are quite a few Unassigned and Optional headings, which presumably reflect local practice and historical changes, so I guess I’ll need to update my tables.”

Check out the post on Life as I know it…it is a round up of the latest blogosphere talk about OPAC’s.

Wow, all that from the blogosphere in the last couple of months, such a plethora of information.

Blogs are so cutting edge compared to journals…by the time this stuff gets into journals the future OPAC’s will already be up and running.

Without the immediacy of blogs things would be much slower, blogs allow anyone to publish thoughts, people find your blog in an aggregated list or a collective group or are recommended your blog or come across a post in a search result, etc…reading your posts gets them thinking, and they publish a post, and so on.

Then someone comes along like Jennifer and consolidates it all…other ways are a blog engine search or tag or a social bookmarks tag.

Anyway the point is that blogs allow thoughts, ideas and the resulting discussions to move so much faster, and since more minds are connected there is more chance we are going to influence each other to think of things we would have never thought of…we created and use this technology that has spurred a cultural activity that can generate news and discussion instantly by anyone who would like to participate.
It’s not to say the result of this easy participation, immediacy of news and decentralised discussion may not be to the detriment sometime, after all news is news.

Whether blogs are considered authoritative or not, they are certainly having impact.