Musings about librarianship

Using QRcodes to trigger actions in native phone apps

2012-02-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

I have written about QRcode uses and I am a little unsure about the future of QRcodes .

Despite this, let me share with you a very interesting trick I learnt from the article "Getting the Most Out of QR Codes Using URI Schemes".

Essentially, think about the mailto URL which allows the browser to open the systems' default mail client. It seems such non-http URI schemes can be done for mobile phones allowing you to scan a QRcode to open your smartphone native apps to carry out an action. Somewhat similar to mailto: is tel: which instead of launching your mail client with a sender email, it will call the number on your phone.

It seems if your mobile browser opens say tel:, it will call that number on your phone. So make your Qrcode go there and you are done right?

Unfortunately if you put such non-html strings into most qrcode readers it won't work. To get around this problem you shorten tel: in a url shortener first and then use that shortened URL to generate the QRcode. The article suggests using tiny url

How about using url shorteners like bit.ly or goo.gl that both shorten the url and generate qrcodes? Unfortunately both seem to fail to accept such URI schemes. The QRCode below when scanned via QRcode reader will call my office number on your phone.

Scan this QRcode to call my office phone

Steps are:

1. Shorten tel:6516xxxx (xxxx are real numbers) in tiny url to get http://tinyurl.com/8897uk

2. I use http://tinyurl.com/8897uka with bit.ly to generate a QRcode http://bit.ly/z4LDXD.qr you could of course use any QRcode generator not just bit.ly

As the article states you can do the same trick to email (mailto:?query), SMS (sms:) etc.

Even more interesting the same method works for many apps as they register URI schemes when installed.

Scan this QRcode to skype me (Aaron-Tay)

Doing a FourSquare campaign and want to have it easy to check-in on your FourSquare app? Use this

Scan this QRcode to open our NUS Central Library venue on your Foursquare app

Other interesting ideas includes a QR code that when scanned Facetime specific numbers, use gtalk, yahoo messenger, AOL, Windows Livemessenger to chat with librarian etc.

For more apps URI see this, or this .

Obviously to be able to use QRcodes to carry out actions this way is really powerful compared to just opening a webpage or displaying info on your screen. Libraries have or could use this to automatically sms, call numbers for help (great time saver) and maybe even open a IM app to talk to a librarian.

As you open the app as opposed to webpage, you speed things up. For example you could of course generate a QRcode which could push to your FourSquare venue on web but then the user would have to login to Foursquare on his mobile browser before he could check-in (chances are high if he is a regular user of FourSquare he uses the app to check-in), while this technique opens the app immediately and brings you to right venue for check-in. Automatically entering phone numbers or SMS by scanning saves a lot of time as well.

The main drawback is that firstly if the user does not have the Foursquare app already this doesn't work. So it might be a good idea to use this for apps everyone or almost everyone has eg Youtube, Google maps, iTunes (scan to go to specific iTune app),ibooks, Facebook! Secondly, some of this might work differently on iOS versus Android or other phones.

So I guess in the case of FourSquare campaigns if you were promoting to newbies trying to attract them to use FourSquare then a Qrcode that links to the mobile web might be better?

"What makes this particular technique so amazing is that it doesn’t rely on the QR-code reader being very advanced; all it needs is for the app creator (be it Skype, Evernote or Angry Birds) you want to launch and interface with to use the system development API to register a URI scheme." -- Getting the Most Out of QR Codes Using URI Schemes

The article also lists very interesting ideas such as calling a bookmarklet, certain IM clients, opening native Apple apps etc, I am still mulling over library ideas

In any case, I wonder if anyone creating a library native app, has done something like this and registered URI schemes so you can do something clever?

Day in the life of a librarian - An academic librarian in Singapore 2012

2012-02-10T07:33:00.000-08:00

While the world wide library meme/project "Library day in a life" which was started by Bobbi Newman occurs twice a year, it seems for some reason I only take part in the Jan/Feb ones, having done it early 2010 and 2011. So here's the 2012 edition. As usual I am reconstructing this from looking at my emails and online calender.

Monday 30 Jan 2012

My daily morning routine is pretty similar everyday involving scanning of emails from the main library help account, search queries made by users etc, reading tweets via Flipboard on way to work, so I won't repeat this again.

People always say Monday are busy days, I usually don't see why this is so, but today it really was!

Just after I came in I found a email from the EndNote Team requesting that I repeat a webex webinar on EndNote I conducted last year (as it was surprisingly successful). I happily agreed of course. Followed by continued discussions via email about FourSquare promotions we are currently doing and plan to do in Feb.

But first order of day at 9am, Information desk duty! Haven't done many recently, but the term just started so it was quite busy.

I had also arranged a advisory session last week with an undergraduate who needed assistance for a paper writing competition he was in, but he cancelled on me and didn't turn up on Monday. This monday was also special as I had to shoot a video to showcase what I do in the library so with the assistance of my colleague we did a couple of quick recordings.

One of the things I like to though it's not quite official duty is to walk around the OPAC terminals to observe users search and offer help if they seem confused. I find it particularly effective at the start of the term.

I am not sure why but when comparing users who approach me at the desk and ask for help vs those I approach while they are searching, it seems for the former group when I help them search they seem less interested , ask less questions and I generally learn less about what they were thinking etc as compared to when I approach them while they are at the point of searching to offering help. Logic tells me it should be the opposite, that the ones who actually *do* approach me at the desk are the self-selected ones who are more passionate about learning, yet the opposite seems to be happening.

One possibility is that when you "pounce" on them at the point of searching, their frame of mind is still in terms of searching, so their minds are more active, they are be able to express what they are thinking and are curious to compare it with the technique I am showing them.

On the other hand, if they do walk to the desk, by the time they reach the desk, they pretty much forgotten what they tried and they become very passive when I show them how to search. Obviously, I very much prefer the later type of interactions.

Today, I had two really good interactions. One of the users was really curious when I showed her how to find a relevant book and then use LC subject headings to browse and I explained the concept of subject browsing. It's really enlightening to remember that in this day of Google, many of our users have no concept of subject browse, to them using keywords to search is the only technique they have in their own tool-kit. After explaining to her the reason for controlled vocabulary, she curiously asked me who were the librarians who sat around all day, assigning subject headings? :) They are called catalogers....

It's the beginning of the year, so everyone was busy with planning new performance targets, new teams were being formed, so quite a bit of time was spent in discussions with superiors on team formations, targets etc. This was on-going a lot throughout the week.

Afternoon was spent in a meeting with the cited reference team. I am beginning my 3rd year in this team, so I am fairly comfortable by now with finding citation counts, h-index etc, though there was a new Web of Science interface to deal with and minor Scopus changes.

Evening was spent late in office trying to do a quick and dirty edit of the video I shot in the morning, adding voice-overs , and because I am relatively bad at such things, it took me a long time to do it, even with assistance from my colleague.

Tuesday 31 Jan 2012

Another busy day! Today I am on Ask a librarian duty which means I am answering the library's main email help account for the day and manning the corresponding Chat reference duty in the afternoon.

To make matters interesting, I was also conducting a class to about a dozen librarians on how to do chat duty in the afternoon! This is the 2nd run of four sessions I would eventually do this month.

Chat training is really tough as we have limited time to train, though it helps that this is about the 7th time I have done a training class and I have about 2 years doing chat duty so by now I could anticipate what tends to confuse our librarians and share experiences on the type of queries they would get, common pitfalls when answering such questions.

This does not mean I am a very good trainer, not by the long shot! Though this year, I got smart and divided classes into classes with librarians who had Instant Messenging experience (if only on a personal basis) and those who did not and were unsure even about the concept of IM, hence needed more hand-holding.

While training is hard and investment of manpower is huge, chat reference is a project very near and dear to my heart, as I think it's something that our users take to very easily with little promotion (in fact we did almost none) and is one of the easiest ways to ensure we remain relevant and ensure we can reach our users who don't like or need to come to the physical library. It helps that our users love it too.

I was trying it on and off myself since early 2010 and only managed to gain a foothold with some passionate colleagues helping me in Aug 2010 where we embeded chat boxes on our FAQ systems. It eventually expanded to all staff in my department, and then to selected librarians in other libraries by 2011, but it was only in 2012 we finally started training almost all full-time librarians and a number of associates to staff the chat. Looking at the 60 or so chat accounts that exist now, I can't help but feel a sense of pride. Of course, there will be some resistance and uncertainty but I have no doubt this can be overcome, and this is not the final step by far.....

As we are gearing up to eventually launch our Unified Discovery index service, I shared this very interesting article with members of the team.

Also discovered a new FAQ was added by one of the law librarians on the FAQ team and I helped to make it more consistent with the other FAQs and added keywords to help increase findability in the LibAnswers System.

Stayed back late again to create chat accounts for the dozen or so new "Graduates" of the class.

Wed 1 Feb 2012

Today, some of the new "graduates" of my chat class began doing chat duty. I checked-in with those doing duty today to make sure they were ready, helped the ones who needed who hand-holding to install pidgin, briefed the old hands at chat via email who were assisting etc. Much of the day was spent, observing in the background how the staff new to chat was handling chat and assisting when I could. Pretty much the rest of the week, I was spending a significant portion of my time each day doing this.

As it was the beginning of the week, I also did monthly maintenance tasks including archiving of chat logs from Libraryh3lp, statistics from LibAnswers/LibGuides etc. This was when I discovered a bug in Libraryh3lp logs and reported it.

I also planned a joint session on statistical sources with two other librarians to be done via webinar which would be a first.

Lunch time, I was kindly invited to a celebration lunch by another department.

After lunch, discussed with EndNote team leader on how the webinar for EndNote would be done, I would basically still do it but team members from EndNote would understudy me and hopefully eventually learn to do webinars using webex in the future. After finalizing dates for the webinar and practice sessions, spent some time preparing the online registration details etc.

Got an email from a researcher I helped during orientation on some point about library policy and yet another from a professor needing help with access to a database.

In the afternoon I attended a small meeting to discuss the IT projects that were targeted to be launched this year and the budget available. I was also briefed on the team I would be leading this year and the possible projects I could target (the team I lead has fairly broad terms of reference).

Thurs 2 Feb 2012

I was on leave today. Basically because I committed myself to present for 15 minutes on some of the techniques we use to scan Twitter for mentions of libraries at Handheld Librarian IV. Compared to the longer webinar I gave in Nov last year, this one was less theoretical and more practical and I planned to demo the actual techniques. Unfortunately, I did not have as much time to practice as I hoped and I prefer much fumbled everything from the controls to what I wanted to say. Pretty embarrassing. A reminder that you should take even short presentations very seriously indeed. In fact shorter presentations might even be harder!

Though I was not at work, I continued to receive emails of course. Had to handle some minor incident on our social media channels, got some comments from team members on the link-resolver page etc.

Fri 3 Feb 2012

More chat training today in the morning. By the time I finished I was really tired out, this being my second session in a week. The Foursquare promotions we were planning for in Feb was coming really close, so was spending a lot of time on logistics and promotion. I am more comfortable with online marketing modes so I was handling the online channels, while other members of my team was working on print posters which just arrived today etc. Also created a couple of FAQs in our Library FAQ system about FourSquare (most were just links to the official FAQ on FourSquare) just in case our staff were asked about it and searched there. Our pilots with FourSquare Special on smaller libraries already tipped us off on some of the most common questions e.g "Why isn't the badge unlocked even though I checked-in?" (Answer is usually, they checked-in too far away.)

Had a bit of a shock when I logged-into our Foursquare account and saw one of our claimed venues was missing. Further adding to the pain was getting an email, assigning almost all of my team members and myself to a course, on the day we planned to do our Foursquare promotion! Checked with the team whether we should postpone the promotion (but posters was printed already!).

And today, the team members of the teams that I was leading including the social media team was finalised!

Conclusion

As I always said in the past there is no typical academic librarian job and even for me no typical librarian week as I am called upon to do very varied tasks. If this recording was done just one week later, the tasks I would have done would have seemed very different.

This year I seem to be doing more training and coordination type jobs which I guess reflects my increased seniority? I must admit while I enjoy training, co-ordination of events isn't an area where I have comparative advantage usually but I suppose it is good to stretch a little.

There seems to be a very high "tech" component to my job this week (e.g Chat training, webinars, social media, Discovery search), admittedly I have gravitated towards such areas due to my interests but I seriously doubt many academic librarians would say tech isn't a big part of their jobs.

I'll end by quoting myself from last year again :)

"I'm definitely not saying every librarian should be a programmer, or even everyone should be on Twitter/Facebook/Social Media and own a smartphone and I probably suffer a bit from technolust (but I try to keep it in check at work) but libraries are essentially about information , and in this day and age the primary way to handle & organize information today is through computers and the internet. But that's hardly a earth-shaking insight and anyone looking to get into libraries probably knew that already."

Is Wikipedia really the library's competition?

2012-02-02T11:37:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia was on strike for 24 hours on 18 Jan 2012. Many libraries attempted to take advantage of this backout to turn it into a "teachable moment" . Libraries Tweeted (Topsy finds about 500 mentions of Library and wikipedia during the period), blogged, posted on Facebook, created libguides to help students survive the blackout and otherwise advertised the importance of libraries.

This was despite @libodyssey's very sensible tweet

RT @libodyssey: Libs: the #SOPA protest is *not* a chance to re-emphasise the value of lib resources, but to re-emphasise value of openness
— Sam Searle (@datalibsam) January 18, 2012

Admittedly, I tried to market my library during the blackout. Arguably part of the reason was that we librarians are naturally helpful and was preparing to assist our panicky users once they couldn't get to Wikipedia.

In any case, the Wikipedia blackout hit my region at around 1pm and I prepared a couple of tweets and Facebook posts to firstly mention the library and secondly mention workarounds to access Wikipedia. I suspect it was the later that got us some retweets, and some compliments.

Really have to commend @NUSLibraries for their use of social media.
— Syafiq Rahman (@syafiqrahman) January 18, 2012

I also monitored tweets with the keyword Wikipedia within a location of 1km around our library, to see what people (presumably our users) were saying.

What made me truly curious was whether Wikipedia downtime would lead to increase library usage, whether it be access to library website, eresource usage, reference desk usage etc. I happened to be on desk duty during the Wikipedia blackout and my impression was that while usage was up from the day before it didn't seem to be attributable to Wikipedia but was simply the effect of the academic year advancing (The term just started a week ago here). My tweet scan also didn't really pick up much panic, just general moaning though it was good that a few of our loyal fans actually tweeted at their friends who were moaning, to use the online library resources.

Still impressions are not everything and I was going to look at our statistics but it seemed Ken Varnum already did a pretty comprehensive analysis at his library (University of Michigan) The results he got at his library was very similar to ours basically.

"the increase was about the same as for the day before and the day after -- reflecting the increasing workload of the academic semester more than any Wikipedia-inspired bump."

Pretty much every article, commentary about how libraries are dying tends to mention Google and Wikipedia being some of the reasons why we are in trouble, so Wikipedia going down should have a bigger effect but it didn't. Why? Let me speculate.

1. The blackout was too easy to circumvent.

You could turn off javascript, click Escape below the page loaded, access via mobile, use services that relied on the Google cache and probably more methods. While technical restrictions have always being circumvented by the savvy, the Wikipedia Blackout set a bar that was extremely low (on purpose).

2. The period wasn't long enough. 24 hours really isn't that long.

Perhaps if the blackout was 1 week or even 1 month....

3. The period was during a time in the academic calender where University students weren't really doing assignments.

In our University it was just the beginning of term. Assignments weren't due yet.

4. Wikipedia wasn't that important to our students after all, there are other non-library substitutes

While our students like to use Wikipedia to look up quick facts, to get a quick overview of topics, they didn't really *need it* , after all they still had access to Google.

5. Wikipedia isn't a substitute for libraries after all

This basically argues that even if Wikipedia disappeared forever, and no similar substitutes appeared, library usage wouldn't increase at all. Alternatively imagine Wikipedia goes down for 6 month, and there is no way to access it easily, usage of library wouldn't increase at all.

Under this view, Wikipedia and libraries are not substitutes at all (independent goods). Why? Let's assume they know the library exists and what it can do (a big assumption granted).

a. They would have never used the library anyway, whether Wikipedia existed or not

b. They might have used the library if they haven't used Wikipedia before , but being exposed to Wikipedia means they would never go back. Our students are so used to Wikipedia, nothing we have in our library, not our books, eresources, shiny new discovery interfaces are sufficient to lure them back.

c. They *are* using the library resources already, together with Wikipedia, so Wikipedia's blackout isn't going to increase library usage at all. See Daring librarian's Wikipedia is not Wicked.

No doubt all 3 reasons apply to different users but I get a feeling that b. seems to be the reason most people are thinking why libraries are in trouble, so librarians should hypothetically be cheering the fall of Wikipedia. I am not so sure....

Of the 5 reasons, I postulated of course all 5 are factors, but I suspect, even if #1-#3 are not factors, #4 and #5 would still mean no impact to usage. What do you think?

Other blackouts?

It's interesting to speculate what would happen if Google went down, or the reverse

"So what would happen if say on April 1, 2012 academic libraries around the country turned off their proxies? Would the world notice or would people just think that the servers at Science were down for the afternoon?" -- WHAT IF? The Library Blackout Scenario

Honestly, I don't think strategies for library survival should be based on hoping other people fail, so all this is hypothetical anyway and we can never go back to the way the world was pre-google and wikipedia, so we can only look forward.

Of course, all I have argued is based on the premise that library usage did not increase during the blackout. Anyone have evidence otherwise? For example, one could argue that Public Libraries might see far more increased usage during the blackout than academic libraries because of the nature of users and queries (quick reference) , which users tend to rely on Wikipedia to handle.

Adding social & gamification to the library - Catalogues & Lemontree

2012-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

First a recep of the story so far.

Libraries first came online with webopacs and it was good. Then came the wave of next generation library catalogues (including Encore, Aquabrowser, Primo) and they were suppose to be better. How much better? They were supposed to be more "google like" (no more field searches and boolean!), they had faceted browsing, relevancy ranking, autocorrect and "did you mean" features? And above all they were SOCIAL, allowing users to tag, rate, add comments etc.

Now 5 years down the road, while some of the other features like faceted browsing and relevancy ranking seemed to have had some value (e.g. Facets are used more than advanced searches), social features seems to have mostly being a failure particularly at academic libraries (anyone disagree?).

The main reason seems (1) Users have no incentive to use social features leading to (2) lack of mass. Even Google with all their clout are laboring mightily to push their Google+ social network, would libraries on their own institution by institution stand a chance?

It's heartening to notice that ILS vendors seem to have finally grasped this point.

Innovative Interface's recent press release, Encore Release 5 brings social networking capabilities to discovery platform says this

" In Release 5 of Encore, users will be able to "like" all kinds of library content such as books, movies, and music. Sharing these finds on social networks will be easy, with the use of a standard set of sharing links that include Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. Encore Release 5 will also provide users with the ability to create and share their own home page with options to include a profile, reviews, reading lists they create, or items they have checked out or put on hold. What's more, library users will find more content created by their peers thanks to a pool of reviews and shared lists created by Encore users worldwide."

Under the heading the "right kind of social"

"The new capacities of Encore represent the right way to approach social features in libraries," says Encore Product Manager Alan Dyck. "We've formally surveyed librarians and found that an approach that connects with social activities, rather than recreating a social platform, will be most desirable for them and their communities. At many points, users will find options to share things to social networks patrons are already using, while also discovering the views and reviews of their peers in Encore."

Exactly right! No point creating a separate social platform if it does not connect to current dominant ones like Facebook. The idea of pooling content from all users of the system not just from one library is another good step, though one wonders if one could pool with only academic libraries etc. Another system that does the pooling user generated content trick across institutions is Bibliocommons and LibraryThing for libraries.

But these new features, brings the user who is already on library pages to user's social media world, but what about the reverse? Getting users who on social media platforms to the library?

Another press release SirsiDynix announces SirsiDynix Social Library, industry’s first native Facebook app

"Patrons of SirsiDynix Social Library can securely log in to their library via Facebook, just as they do today at their physical library using the same credentials. Among other capabilities, the SirsiDynix Social Library solution also enables library users to:
Search their local library catalog and place holds on materials of interest right from the library's Facebook page.
Access My Account features including checkouts, hold management and payment history.
Share and ‘like' library materials within the social environment where users worldwide currently spend more than 700 billion minutes each month."

Brunel University Library, Facebook app

Brunel University Library, Facebook app (check account)

Native facebook apps that allow logins (not just a search box) are not easy to do (I know of only 2 libraries that have done so), so this is a very amazing feature. With so many users already stuck on Facebook for them to be able to do all their library searching in Facebook would help tremendously

Next steps?

It seems to me that the next obvious thing to do is to include such social features into the latest "Discovery" or unified index products like Summon, Ebsco Discovery Service, etc, many of which currently do not have much.

After all if this works for books, it's probably even better for articles, particularly the "pooling" of all user generated content in the system across institutions feature which might suddenly become the fabled "Facebook for Scientist/Researchers" that people have being trying so hard for the last few years without success (many are dying off, Mendeley & ResearchGate seem to be around?).

Incidentally I am not sure why database platforms insist on trying to create private workspace type features that are supposed to serve as a way to manage one's research, are these really going to takeoff? The chances of me wanting to go learn this one interface to manage my research project is limited as it's a very closed and worse yet limited silo that can't easily pull in other articles from other sources.

Compare to Summon-like solutions which while not being close to 100% complete, are close enough to be worth using (though I imagine they should include ways to pull in papers not indexed if they really want to function as a place to manage research, though frankly my money is more on online citation managers finding winning the crown)

I can imagine though I am searching Summon etc and I find a couple of papers that might be of interest to my collaborators, one click and it goes off to a Facebook list of my research collaborators.

But I guess that's a longshot, as for that to succeed, a lot of other features have to be put in, beyond a posting of reviews to Facebook feature so my money is still on something like say Mendeley or citeulike or ResearcherID winning the crown for "Facebook for researchers"

The other stumbling block is that there is still some confusion over whether such unified index products can eventually take the place of webopacs etc, so will there ever be a Facebook app for say Summon or EDS that allows you to check your loan account in Facebook? (Note: some products are all-in-one)

Gamification

But the above is still pretty trivial and the library automation industry is typically a few years behind what is cutting edge in silicon valley etc, so all the announcements coming out last week from ALA MidWinter is still really playing catching up.

So what's currently hot? Gamification ! In my opinion in the lead among libraries now I believe is University of Huddersfield's implementation of Lemon Tree , current development blog

The idea here is obvious to use game and social based techniques to encourage increased usage of resources.

"You get points for doing all sorts of things in and around the library like; visiting it, borrowing items, doing things at specific hours, returning items in certain combinations and much more..." .

As you might expect there are achievements and badges, levels to gain etc.

Lemon Tree

As far as I understand it (you can't do much without having a library card), you associate your card to the system and it will keep track of all your activities and will give you points even if you don't interact with the Lemontree system from that point on. Though of course you can choose to comment, review, annotate.

It's a really interesting project , that has been live for only a few months with little promotion, and it already has 120 users, 44,585 points scored and 333 badges unlocked!

Here's the game in the words of the developers themselves

I also highly recommend downloading and watching the presentation by Andrew Walsh to get for a full view.

But here are some screenshots. You can see what is happening currently, and performance by schools

Lemontree page

Leaderboard

You can see a leaderboard, including by schools. Here's what you can see of the current top Lemon Tree player

It's curious how much of the data is open even to someone unregistered like me. When you register you can choose to hide the titles of books borrowed though.

But I guess this reflects perhaps the current trend of being open, after all users of LibraryThing, Goodreads, and traditional Social networks like Twitter are by default open. However, these are generally for non-academic uses, so it's unclear if students might be uneasy with letting other students see what they are reading particularly if it can be keyed to a course for competitive reasons.

Facebook app

It goes without saying Facebook apps are available and you can login to Lemon Tree using it. Roughly 50% of current Lemontree users use the app, selected achievements, activities like reviewing books are posted to Facebook.

Cool badges

Points for reviews, comments

Provides a reason for users to comment, review items. Currently points cannot be exchanged for anything tangible real world rewards currently, because developers want to focus on getting the game mechanics correct for people to play Lemontree for the game itself (ie incentive is the game itself)

View library with friends to gain more points - Shades of FourSquare checkins - specials?

It's by a company called Running in the halls who are very into libraries and who state that they want to

"Work with specialists to support more library systems and interoperate with other services. we’re obviously really keen on talking to Talis, Axiell and SirsiDynix as well as the people behind enrichment services such as librarything *which we love*..."

The project has a Twitter account and a Facebook page

The library people involved in the project are the fabulous Andrew Walsh and Dave Pattern. For more, I also recommend watching the video presentation.

This project is in very early phases, they are planning mobile, linking to their own in-house reading list software where users can perhaps get lemon tree points for clicking on links, adding comments etc..

I can imagine one could give points for all sorts of things from exploring the library portal, search for FAQs, using email or chat service to contact the librarian, contributing book reviews, recommending books for purchase etc, Points for scanning qrcodes on instructional material etc.. Pretty much anything you want to encourage. Really exciting.

One must consider I suppose the possibility that users might start gaming the system and even in the case of Lemon Tree where there are no tangible rewards (unlike say Foursquare Mayorship at Starbucks), there has already being one case of slightly "naughty" behavior.

Andrew Walsh in the presentation mentions they are pretty unique and the closest is perhaps Summer Game at AADL.

Summer Game at AADL badges

He also mentions this is a "Vanilla" basic build and that the company Running in the halls are planning other library themed games for other university libraries as well as other "favours" for Public Libraries..... which may even work better given the population size they serve.

Receiving the LAS Outstanding Newcomer award

2012-01-15T06:56:00.000-08:00

2011 has been an amazing year for me professionally, I got to attend my first overseas conference (ALA annual 2011), spoke overseas, contributed a few articles and a book chapter or two. More amazingly, I was named a LJ Mover & Shaker 2011 in March, voted best speaker at a LAS (Library of Association) Library seminar in April and my luck continued towards 2012, where I was voted one of several "NUS Libraries Shining Stars" by my colleagues and last week I was awarded the LAS award for outstanding newcomer and to top it off I was promoted to the rank of Senior Librarian!

The above sounds really boastful & self congratulatory but I am also humbled by all the accolades which makes me pause and think about what I can do to help the profession. The traditional 5 year period which marks one as a newcomer expires for me in Aug 2012, so very soon I can no longer hide behind the "I'm still a newbie" excuse.

To begin with I was asked to say a few words at the LAS event to encourage future and current librarians. I was somewhat surprised to have to do this, as I was under the impression all I had to do was to go up stage and shake hands. :)

This is what I came up with.

"Thank you all for the award, I am humbled to receive this award. I am sure you all read or heard much talk about the predicted demise of libraries with people talking about libraries becoming extinct. I remember even at my very first LAS conference a few years back, the guest of honour- a non-librarian said that he sensed gloom and doom from us and of course last year at this very event a similar sentiment was expressed.

But while I feel there is much to do and change in libraries, we are far from finished. Recently even Richard Watson, the futurist who placed libraries in the extinction timeline in 2020 recently said that he repents (so I guess he feels like the people in Aljunid now”) and that he got it “Totally wrong”.

The danger lies in us librarians admitting defeat and discouraging other bright new passionate minds from joining the profession and contributing the fresh ideas that we so very need. Believe it or not librarians-to-be look up to us and they want to be us. I experienced this first hand, as a newly minted librarian, where a few students would come up to me and say they wanted to be a librarian. How should one respond?

In my personal and professional life I have seen the difference been positive and believing and fighting for what you believe can do. I have won professional battles simply by believing something is possible and going for it.

But you can’t win all battles, and inevitably you will feel fustrated. But if there is one thing I have learnt is that being frustrated is normal.

Roy Tennant from OCLC perhaps said it best in An Open Letter to New Librarians

" Deeply committed and visionary people will also tend to be frustrated and impatient. But I’m here to tell you that with dedication and patience you will not only survive, but thrive. Our profession is counting on you to do so. Only the best and the brightest are frustrated. Everyone else is bored, or unengaged, or biding their time for retirement. You are the ones we simply cannot do without.”

Personally I have suffered setbacks that made me consider leaving the industry and it was only with the support of friends, family, peers from the library world, colleagues in particular my direct boss and the senior library leadership of NUS Libraries that did not happen.

I know this is just the beginning of my career and my speech sounds almost like I've won an oscar, but like most of you, libraries is my life and I am looking forward to working with you all to contribute towards the future of libraries

Thank you."

Okay, while that was what I planned to say, in actual fact I was so nervous I forgot what I wanted to say and pretty much messed it up. :) I did manage to get Roy Tennant's quote correctly and it draw applause (thanks Roy!)

While I am still fairly junior and still have a very long way to go myself, I pledge in 2012 to focus less on myself and focus more when I can on helping, encouraging and sharing my experiences with my bright, passionate & inevitably impatient and often frustrated juniors.

After all we need as many talented and passionate librarians working side by side to secure the future of libraries and we all have to play our part to ensure this.