What I Learned Today...

Using the News Tool in Koha 3.2 and 3.4

Nicole — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

The Koha News Tool allows librarians to post news items to the OPAC and the staff client. In Koha 3.4 the news tool can also be used to add news items to your circulation receipts or slips. This tutorial will walk you through the simple steps of adding and viewing news items.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Koha Offline Circulation Tool

Nicole — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

As a web based system, Koha becomes inaccessible if you lose your Internet connection. That doesn’t mean you can’t continue to handle the functions of your circulation desk. The Koha Offline Circulation Tool developed by Kyle Hall at Mill Run Technology Solutions is a handy way to circulate items when you’re offline and this tutorial will walk you through the process.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

OPAC Privacy in Koha 3.4

Nicole — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Koha 3.4 is still being developed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give you a preview of a new development sponsored by one of our partners! BibLibre developed the OPAC Privacy functionality last year and ByWater updated it for integration into the upcoming release of Koha at the request of our partner the Los Gatos Public Library.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Managing Suggestions in Koha 3.2

Nicole — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

In Koha you can allow patrons to make purchase suggestions via the OPAC. The following tutorial will walk you through placing, accepting and ordering from purchase suggestions.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Managing Comments in Koha 3.2

Nicole — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Managing comments in Koha is pretty easy, but sometimes it helps to see it in action! This tutorial video will walk you through adding and managing comments in Koha 3.2.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Bookmarks for April 13, 2012

Nicole — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 00:30:21 +0000

DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
Protopage
Protopage is your own personal page. Use it to read your own selection of news and blogs, keep bookmarks, to-do lists, sticky notes, and much more

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Learn about Open Source from Me and Infopeople

Nicole — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:07:08 +0000

I will be teaching a course for Infopeople in May all about open source software in libraries!

With the growing popularity of applications like Koha, Evergreen, Open Office, and Ubuntu, the library community is abuzz about open source software. Open source usually refers to an application whose source code is made available for use, change, or improvement in a public, collaborative manner. More than just programming, open source is about following a philosophy of free distribution and access. The open source world and the library world live by the same principles.

What does open source mean to you and your library? The benefits are immediately evident:

More flexibility and freedom than using software purchased with license restrictions

More affordable options than other alternatives on the market

The ability to provide exceptional service with ever-decreasing budgets

This course will introduce you to what open source is, how easy it is to implement, and how to evaluate open source software options. You’ll be able to separate the facts from misconceptions and come away with a toolbox of over 60 open source applications that you can start using right away at your library.

Managing Tags in Koha 3.2

Nicole — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Koha has the ability to allow patrons to leave tags on items in the OPAC, but how does that effect us as librarians? This tutorial will walk you through how tags are added and how they’re managed in Koha 3.2.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Bookmarks for April 2, 2012

Nicole — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:30:59 +0000

Bookshelf Porn
Porn for book lovers. A photo blog collection of all the best bookshelf photos from around the world for people who *heart* bookshelves.
HTML5
Mashable’s HTML5 Articles
HTML5 Rocks
A resource for open web HTML5 developers

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Setting default values for item records in Koha 3.2

Nicole — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

We got a support request recently asking how a librarian could set a default value for new item records and so I thought what better way to answer that than in a video. This video will show you how to set default values for your item records in Koha 3.2.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Bookmarks for March 30, 2012

Nicole — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:30:04 +0000

Qnotero
Qnotero provides lightning quick access to your Zotero references. Zotero is an excellent open source reference manager, but it lacks a simple and direct way to access your references at the click of a button. That is why I created this simple program, which lives in the system tray and allows you to search through your references by Author and/ or Year of Publication. If a PDF file is attached to a reference you can open it directly from within Qnotero.
Coursekit
Free learning management system
Canvas
Open Source Learning Management System
Kuali Mobility for Enterprise
An enterprise class mobility platform and set of mobile tools for higher education
Sigil
Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor. Create your own ebooks.
Proto.io
Proto.io is a new UI prototyping tool specifically tailored for mobile and tablet applications. The web based environment allows you to start off by creating a project for iPhone, iPad, Android phones or tablets.

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Another News API

Bookmarks for March 29, 2012

Nicole — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:30:22 +0000

FOSS Advocacy: Resources for directors and library technicians
Open Source Living
Open Source Alternative
DAITSS
DAITSS is a digital preservation software application developed by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) with some support from the IMLS.
GetBack Library Backup System
The GetBack backup system is designed specifically for use by libraries for ILS and Repository backup and recovery.
instantwatcher.com
A tool for Netflix users who want to traverse and explore Netflix’s catalog of streaming titles more efficiently and painlessly

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Bookmarks for March 27, 2012

Nicole — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:30:26 +0000

Open Educational Resources
TWiki
The Open Source Enterprise Wiki and Web 2.0 Application Platform
Piktochart
Stories from Data. Your presentation/data visualization tool. Infographic creator.

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My CIL2012 Presentations

Nicole — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:21:34 +0000

David Lee King posted the slides from some of his talks at Computers in Libraries last week and I figured I should probably do the same thing so here we go.

My first presentation was with Louise Alcorn and Christa Burns, I talked about Open Source Tools :

Open Source Tools for Libraries

View more presentations from Nicole C. Engard

Next I was on a panel with fellow systems librarians (Marshall Breeding, Edward Iglesias and Lisa Carlucci Thomas) talking about the challenges we face as a systems librarian today. The real power of this session was the fact that we were all just talking with the audience, but we did put together some slides with questions/contact info that you can get on the InfoToday site.

Finally I gave a post conference workshop with Cheryl Peltier-Davis. My slides covered a few of the tools we were covering and she did an intro and a couple other tools.

Web 2.0 Tools & Applications in Libraries

View more presentations from Nicole C. Engard

Technorati Tags: cil2012, cildc

Adding a Staff Patron in Koha 3.2

Nicole — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

After a short holiday break, it’s time to resume the video tutorial series. This week we’re going to talk about adding a staff patron in Koha 3.2. The process is very similar to adding an adult patron except that you need to assign permissions to allow the staff member to access the staff client.

If you have an idea for a video, please just let me know and I’ll add it to my list of things to record.

Pinterest Terms Updated

Nicole — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:00:55 +0000

Since Pinterest has come in to the public eye, there have been many articles and posts about the inappropriate sounding terms of service. This week I got an email from Pinterest letting me know that they will be updating the terms to alleviate some of these concerns.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on an update to our Terms. When we first launched Pinterest, we used a standard set of Terms. We think that the updated Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy are easier to understand and better reflect the direction our company is headed in the future. We’d encourage you to read these changes in their entirety, but we thought there were a few changes worth noting.

Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.

We updated our Acceptable Use Policy and we will not allow pins that explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse.

We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.

Finally, we added language that will pave the way for new features such as a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.

We think these changes are important and we encourage you to review the new documents here. These terms will go into effect for all users on April 6, 2012.

Like everything at Pinterest, these updates are a work in progress that we will continue to improve upon. We’re working hard to make Pinterest the best place for you to find inspiration from people who share your interest. We’ve gotten a lot of help from our community as we’ve crafted these Terms.

Thanks!
Ben & the Pinterest Team

Bookmarks for March 23, 2012

Nicole — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:30:02 +0000

ThinkUp: Social Media Insights Platform
ThinkUp is a free, open source web application that captures all your activity on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
unglue.it
Unglue.it offers a win-win solution: Crowdfunding. We run pledge campaigns for books; you chip in. When, together, we’ve reached the goal, we’ll reward the book’s creators and issue an unglued ebook.

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Ebook Trends: Info Pros Perspectives

Nicole — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:07:33 +0000

Andy Woodworth was up first in the Ebook Trends talk. Andy’s talk was super fast and super awesome. I do hope that he shares his talk with us all so you can read that instead of my shortened summary.

Andy started by summing up his opinion of the current Ebook frontier as “Everything is amazing and no one is happy” He summed up all of the technology changes that have happened in our lifetime and that we take for granted.

What could possible be wrong with a product you don’t have to pay to print, don’t have to use gas to deliver and everyone from 4 to 400 can easily use?? Andy (appropriately) yelled the answer – EVERYTHING! Many publishers will not let libraries to lend they ebook content to start. It’s not that publishers don’t want library money, it’s that publishers do not trust our customers. While we try to uphold the policies of copyright, we can’t guarantee that our patrons will be honorable. The publisher things that they can then steal all of this content.

It all comes down to a problem with sharing! Not that we don’t share everything else everywhere else already. This is the horror that comes from breeding technology and culture together.

People are not waiting for libraries to solve the ebook lending problem – they’re coming up with their own ways to do it. We need to trust our users, we need to facilitate sharing. Every item that’s shared through your service is a book in a hand of someone who would otherwise be holding a competitors product.

Sarah Houghton was up next. Sarah started with some gratuitous cursing. Then we moved on to Sarah’s grandmother. She used to tell several lies to her grandchildren

Eat your crust it makes your hair curly
Only loose women get tattoos
Santa’s watching you

She had a tell whenever she lied – all the grandkids knew when she was lying because of the tells. Which brings us to some other lies that we’re being told:

Lies that library ebook vendors told you:

We’re broke:
How many of you have indoor basketball courts in your library? Overdrive does.
300% is as bad as it’s gonna get:
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It has to be so bad that the public starts to roar. If gas prices went up 300% there would be riots in the street
The publishers are forcing us to prevent you from owning these.
Sarah has talked to the publishers – they actually don’t care.

There are lies that publishers tell us:

Libraries cost us money/steal our profits
Without digital rights management chaos will reign and no one will write anymore. (audience comment -we’re not doing it for the money)
Our business model has worked for hundreds of years and will work for hundreds more.
It’s a failing business model.

We’re not without blame – lies we tell ourselves in libraries:

Everyone reads ebooks
If you look at your circa stats you’re probably around 5-10%
We read our contracts and we negotiate hard
“You don’t read your contract – most of you don’t.” Sarah says you need to learn to negotiate – take classes and learn legalese
Without ebooks our libraries will die
We’re about communities and so much more than ebooks

Last up was Michael Porter (slides are on his site and slideshare). He started by asking us to think about what those before him said and what we all think. What used to make libraries work doesn’t make libraries work anymore. Michael feels that in the next 10 years the majority of content accessed in the library will be econtent not print materials. More and more people are using digital content already – we don’t buy as many CDs or DVDs anymore. I think that if we’re going to compete we have to find new solutions because what we have are broken.

“Libraries = Content + Community”

What we’re using now to facilitate the delivery of electronic content is broken. The current methods are very expensive, very inefficient and very unsustainable. We need something new and innovative.

Michael is here to represent a non profit (Library Renewal) made up of libraries who are trying to facilitate this change. He said it started with a question – what if we realized that we actually have control?

So Library Renewal is an organization that works on behalf of libraries to deal with the publishers. Right now we have vendors going in to secret meetings with the publishers to negotiate costs that benefit them – not us. And they are inviting libraries to come to Library Renewal and take back the control.

For the last 1.5 years they have been doing a lot of research at Library Renewal so they’ve been pretty quiet. They have been negotiating and building partnerships and developing solutions. At this point they are seeking funding to build the infrastructure.

The bottom line is that the system Library Renewal proposes will allow for more money for the rights holder and publishers and a huge savings for libraries.

Technorati Tags: cildc, cil2012

Keynote: Creating Innovative Libraries

Nicole — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:03:18 +0000

Susan Hildreth, director of the IMLS gave the keynote this morning.

Susan started by introducing us to the IMLS and the grants that they offer to libraries and librarians. There were many great ways to get funding for your library and/or your professional education. The one grant program that makes the most sense to share (given the session title and my audience) are the Sparks! Ignition Grants which include small grants (up to $25,000 I think she said) to help fund innovative projects in libraries.

We in libraries should promote the tools that allow our patrons to create content! Susan also stresses that partnership is the key to success and we must be embedded in our communities. Our communities will not come to us we need to go to them. The 21st century library can no longer stand alone, collaboration is going to be key.

One of the goals outlines in the IMLS strategic plan is to focus on learning/education. Our patrons want access to learning resources 24/7 and we should be providing the tools for this. It’s also important to note that learning is a lifelong process! The IMLS has created some guides/tools to help with this goal in your library: www.imls21stcenturyskills.org.

Susan talked about the Maker Culture – where people want to learn by doing. Libraries can help these learners by providing the space for these “makers”, using some of our space to allow for our patrons to learn by doing in our organizations. Susan focused specifically on physical making – but I think we can more easily (in a time when space is at a premium) provide digital spaces for these learners. Online education, tutorials and collaborative environments using tools like Moodle.

The second goal in the strategic plan is a focus on community. Libraries are at the heart of our communities and campuses. In addition to being physically in the center of our communities, with the proliferation of mobile devices we need to make sure we provide digital spaces as well. Susan showed a graph from www.tomorrow.org/speaku to show mobile usage information.

One key initiate that will improve public access to information is the Digital Public Library of America. The DLPA is in the proof on concept stage at this point. The goal is to provide broad public access to information on a free for all basis. This kind of thing has been done more brooding in Europe so the US is a bit behind in this. The group involved in building this product is made up of librarians, technologists, educators, students and others. This diverse group is looking in to developing an open source product that can handle multiple metadata formats and multiple types of content.

Sounds to me like they want Kete or to use that as the basis for their project.

The recommendations for this project and a prototype are due in 2013.

Bookmarks for March 21, 2012

Nicole — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:30:07 +0000

PortableApps.com
Portable software for USB, portable and cloud drives
Spark IM Client
Spark is an Open Source, cross-platform IM client optimized for businesses and organizations. It features built-in support for group chat, telephony integration, and strong security. It also offers a great end-user experience with features like in-line spell checking, group chat room bookmarks, and tabbed conversations.
Open Source Initiative
Poll Everwhere
the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print — anywhere. It can help you to raise money by letting people pledge via text messaging.

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Capturing, Sharing and Acting on Ideas

Nicole — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:02:00 +0000

Adam Shambaugh and Jill Luedke from Temple University gave the next talk I attended. They talked to us about the Capture and Idea project at Temple.

Adam introduced us to the term “Fuzzy Front End of Innovation” which means ideas in their infancy. This is the window of time before an idea becomes reality. Some of obstacles during this phase of innovation include:

Limited ‘buy in’
Ideas of ill-defined
Decisions are made on an adhoc basis

The Fuzzy Front End has three stages:

Idea Generation
Ideas can come from hunches, observations or even accidents. The importance here is to capture the ideas as they come about.
Idea Screening
This is when ideas of articulated to others in a public forum to allow others to evaluate the ideas
Concept Development
This is when ideas move from the abstract into reality. The idea ceases to be so fuzzy at this point.

Some tips for managing this stage of idea generation

Consider many possibilities for fuzzy ideas.
Any idea a this this stage has the potential to be successful or unsuccessful. Don’t discount ideas at this stage.
Build an information system
Establish a means of communication so that people can share their ideas with each other. This is a way to reduce resistance to change/innovation.
Attain internal cooperation and support
This gives you a broader perspective on what innovation looks like and it reduces conflict. It leads to innovation that is smoother and less time consuming.

Up next was Jill to give us the practical way they’re using this in their library.

At Temple they were trying to improve the user experience at the library. They decided to star the ‘Capture an Idea Project’ as a way to gather ideas. They handed out an idea book to everyone where they could jot down their ideas for improving the library spaces.

One other way to gather and share ideas was the TU Experience Blog. They also had annual public services retreats where the staff could gather and capture and share and act on the ideas that were being shared.

One thing they learned was that even though the tech services people don’t sit out front in the library they had ideas to share so while they were invited to the first event, they were invited to the second. During the retreat they all put ideas up on boards and at the end of the day each person had 7 stars and they put their stars on the ideas they liked the most so that they could find the top 3 ideas and create an action plan to make those things happen.

One of these top ideas was to create a task force to “fix what’s broken”. This team was named the “Fix it team” and many of the staff actually volunteered to be on this task force. They were then able to create a mailing list for sharing things with the Fix It Team.

So .. why capture ideas?

#1 reason – so you don’t forget it! Mental notes don’t work, you need to capture the ideas and share them with others.

You also want to do this so that you can generate more ideas and allow them to percolate. You don’t have to know what to do with the idea, how to fix the problem, but by capturing it you can then come up with solutions.

What kind of things should we capture?

Problems you encounter
Behaviors you observe – especially those that are unexpected
Questions you have been asked repeatedly
Complaints you receive (there is a problem already in this case)
Cool stuff – this can be anything like if you see a cool display while out shopping

How to capture ideas?

Write it
Type it
Text it
Tweet it
Record it
Photograph it

Some tools to use to capture your ideas:

Keep your ideas separate from your to do list!

What did they learn at Temple?

Suggest various platforms for capturing ideas – not everyone likes using technology for this
Make capturing accessible – papers pinned up around the work area
Make sharing accessible – they have a blog, but not everyone knows how to use it
Give suggestions on what to capture – help to get people thinking about ideas
Give incentives – everyone has ideas, give them something for coming up with and sharing ideas
Be inclusive – make sure everyone is involved in capturing ideas! Don’t limit who can come in with ideas

The talk ended with the speakers asking us to answer a question about how we’re gathering idaes in our libraries using Poll Everywhere a tool I had never heard of before!

Technorati Tags: cil2012, cildc

7 Essential Elements to an Awesome Library Website

Nicole — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:26:22 +0000

First up this morning was David Lee King sharing library website tips with us. I’m not working in this field so much anymore (web design) but I still wanted to see what cool tips David had for us all so here I am.

David started by blaming Ned Potter, author of The Library Marketing Toolkit (http://thewikiman.org) for this presentation because Ned asked him for some tips for elements every website should have. It started David thinking and he went where we all go – hours, directions, etc. But that’s not we should all be thinking.

#1 Customers want something to read, watch and listen to when they visit the library

At least that’s what it’s like in our buildings, but not so much on our websites. An example is a blog post on your website that talks about a neat art exhibit at the library – writing/reading about it is not the real goal. We all have a link to our catalog, using the catalog is not the goal of the patrons – the goal is to read!

So some examples of giving patrons something to “do” on your library website is to include steaming videos, provide downloadable ebooks, and download free (or subscription) music.

Ebooks for example are perfect for your ‘digital branch’ or website. It’s not easy to download ebooks once in your physical building. They’re meant to be downloaded on mobile devices.

Another way to interact with patrons is to use social media and ask questions and promote discussion – an example from Topeka Shawnee was that they asked patrons what books kept them up late at night. You could also sign up for sites like GoodReads and LibraryThing and then embed a group’s activity right on your library website.

You could also do videos of book discussions or interviews and once again people can watch them on your website.

The Goal? These are all things that people can ‘do.’

#2 Customers have questions and ask at the library

We all answer questions in person when patrons come up to us. How about our digital branch? Do we make it friendly and easy to use?

Add an ‘Ask Now’ or ‘Ask a Librarian’ button that is big and colorful and easy to find. David pointed out a cool tool for this (and an open source one at that!) called Spark. You can use this to communicate with your patrons. For text messaging you can use Google Voice. These two tools are both free to use (but Spark does take some time to set up).

Another way for patrons to contact you is to allow for emailing questions

Arapahoe Library has a nice ask us page where they list all the ways to contact them including Twitter, Facebook, Email, Texting, etc.

The Goal? Answering questions!

#3 Customers need to know the normal stuff too

Patrons need to know things like your address and phone number. Don’t make your patrons dig for this!!

A footer is a common place for people to look for this info. Include hours, phone numbers, address, contact us link, etc. Also include on every page of the website a way to ask a librarian, get a library card, contact the library. These are the normal things people come to the library site to find.

When it comes to directions to your library site, make sure you get in your car and try out the directions you’re providing! David has worked in two libraries where this info on the website was actually wrong.

Make it easy to find frequently asked questions like circulation policies, fine policies, etc. And don’t make these PDFs filled with Library Jargon.

The Goal? Tell people the normal stuff!

#4 Library’s need actual staff

David asked how many of us hire volunteers to design our library buildings? People who just kind of think they know how to catalog to catalog your books? Why do that for your website?

Websites = Actual Work

Hire someone to do your website! Don’t just ask the most tech savvy person in your library and hope that it turns out right. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need an IT person, there are many content management systems such as WordPress and free themes you can get. This allows the staff to focus on the important stuff – updating the content!

Website = Real Staff

Include a staff directory on your website! Many libraries don’t include contact info for specific people at the library. It makes it really difficult to contact someone specific. At Topeka Shawnee they not only have a directory, but a photo of the staff member. So many libraries are about hiding the staff when it comes to the website. This is not good customer service!

Every blog author at David’s library also have an author bio page. There is a picture and short bio for each of them. They also include links to social networks for the blog authors which is a nice way to connect with the librarian in the digital world.

Shockingly at David’s library they want people to contact them!

The Goal? Staff the website

#5 Have Goals!

A lot of us strategic plans in our libraries, sometimes also a technology plan and other goals. Our websites need to be in these kinds of plans as well! There should be overlap between the library’s plan and the website plans. So if you have a collection development policy include things in there like writing blog posts about the new titles.

Keep statistics to see what tools are successful.

#6 Reach beyond your webbish boundaries

Go where people gather! Find out where you patrons are and then make sure you’re there. If a new one pops up – like Pinterest – do a pilot project. Ask patrons if they’re there and if they want the library to be there too. Topeka Library is on Pinterest now because their patrons asked them to be and they told their patrons to test it. They’re keeping stats and watching patrons usage to decide if it’s worth staying on there.

You can also turn these online gatherings in to in person gatherings like Tweetups or the PodCamp Topeka.

This is a way to meet your digital branch patrons.

The Goal? Be where people are.

#7 Be mobile friendly

A way to do this is use Boopsie to create a library mobile app.

You could create a mobile website using examples like this. http://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples

Make sure you brainstorm first though. Don’t just jump in to creating a mobile site. Think about how your patrons are going to want to quickly interact with the library website while on the go.

Also once you go live, ask for suggestions. What else do your patrons want to see on the mobile site or app? The whole point of providing this mobile site is for your patrons to use it!

The Goal? Be Mobile Friendly!

Conclusion

At the Disney Store there is a sign that says to visit the store online to get the full experience. Maybe we should do the same thing on our library websites. Use the website to provide the full library experience.

Technorati Tags: cildc, cil2012

Bookmarks for March 20, 2012

Nicole — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:30:05 +0000

Librarygame
Librarygame™ adds elements that make games engaging and delightful, directly into the library experience. As well as giving library users a fresh and useful social discovery interface, librarygame provides librarians with useful at a glance statistics on how their library is being utilised.
Design Seeds®: For All Who Love Color
A blog about color. “It is my pleasure to share with you my journey and inspiration as i continuously track and forecast emerging colors and palette combinations.”

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On Pinterest

Nicole — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:43:39 +0000

Tonight I attended a talk on Pinterest given by John LeMasney. Pinterest does one thing and does that one thing very well – it’s an image sharing/bookmarking tool.

Social Visual Bookmarking Precedents

John started by showing us sites that came before Pinterest that had/have a similar purpose :

Delicious
The idea of social bookmarking became popular with Delicious, but has lost a lot of users because of Yahoo!’s poor management of the news that they were no longer going to support it.
Diigo
Diigo sort of picked up the pieces when it looked like Delicious was going away. They took the model of Delicious and then built more features on to it.
FFFFOUND
This tool allows a limited set of users who were found to be digital content curators to share their images with others. The limit to users means that you probably can’t get an account, but it also means that you’re going to find many amazing images. This site is geared more toward the visual designer versus the average user.
We♥It
Another visual sharing site, but is much less exclusive than FFFFOUND is.
Vi.sualize.us
Another visual sharing site.
Piccsy
Yet another visual sharing site.

Pinning, repinning, following and liking

Which brings us to Pinterest. John gave us a brief tour of the features of Pinterest including: Searching, Pinning, and Pinboards

Pinning is how you share images on Pinterest. Like on Delicious where you would ‘bookmark’ a page, on Pinterest you ‘pin’ it. You then organize your ‘pins’ by putting them on Pinboards. You can also create group managed Pinboards like my ‘Picture for Presentations‘ board. What you can’t do yet is create a private board – all boards that you create a public at this time (this is one of the suggestions John has on his Pinterest Suggestions board).

We’re going to come back to this, but if, when you pin something, you take the time to enter a citation in the description box, you will avoid some of the potential trouble with Pinterest’s terms of service.

Another thing we found while asking questions and poking around was that people can add you to groups without your approval, you can remove yourself from groups. If you’re seeing things on your Pinterest list of ‘Pinners you follow’ from people you don’t know it might be that you were added to a group, so click on the image and see if you can track down why you’re seeing it and remove yourself from the group if you’re not really interested in that topic.

Lots of people are using Pinterest to try and sell things – but we’re not trying to sell – we’re just trying to get people in the library. Free is so much easier than selling, we just have to be in people’s faces and right now those faces are in front of Pinterest.

You can also ‘Repin’ items. This is when you find an image that someone else shared and you re-share it. One example is if you have a cooking program. You can find the board owned by the chef showing pics of his/her recipes and repin them to the library board to promote the event.

Branding best practices

Some obvious best practicees – participate! So many people and organizations sign up and then don’t use the tool. This looks very bad for you and for your brand. I have found several companies on Pinterest that have never shared a thing! Don’t do this. And along with that participation is to do something regularly.

Obviously you want to respect copyright and ownership. Add citations to descriptions and educate others how to do this.

Include links! You want to add a link to the description or by editing the image you have posted and adding in a link. You want to make sure you link back to your library site or ILS or whatever page at your library you’re posting content from.

Make sure you remember your brand! If you’re sharing content on your library site on Pinterest you want to make sure you stick to your brand. Make sure you use language that you’d use in a press release or on your website in your descriptions. That said, don’t only pin your own stuff. Make sure you share things from other boards that have to do with your events, your philosophy, your mission, etc. This makes you a member of the community on Pinterest.

Use group boards. Collaborate with colleagues and patrons so that you can benefit from their participation and extend your community even more. A group you could share with your patrons is to say ‘What I Like About Libraries’ and have your patrons share things they like about libraries – it gives you ideas and promotes libraries in general. Always remember to add keywords and hashtags to add metadata to a system where there is no other great method for metadata (yet).

More tips: http://bloggingwithamy.com/pinterest-tips.

Copyright and fair use

What do Facebook, Pinterest and a scholarly article all have in common?

It could be peer review, it could be respecting copyright, it could be proper citations – you just have to make it that way!

Why does Pinterest say they own all of your pins?

Because they’re trying to cover their behinds. In Pinterest’s terms of service they say that they own everything you post on Pinterest. In reality what they’re trying to say is that they’re not responsible if someone illegally shares your work on their site. They don’t want to be sued because they provided a platform for copyright infringement.

Copyright is not given – so in the end Pinterest cannot say that they “own” your content, they’re just trying to protect themselves.

Filtering and search

Basically you can search for images, boards and people. Nothing much else to say here.

Settings

Going to your settings in Pinterest will allow you to turn off sharing on Facebook and other social networks. So if you use Pinterest for personal reasons and Facebook for professional or vice versa you might not want to share content from Pinterest on Facebook automatically. You can also limit emails that you receive and other general settings.

Suggested improvements

Improved searching. It would be great to search by color, camera, etc etc etc.
Metadata. Adding tags and tag clouds would help you find information and see what type of things certain people are pinning.
Tagging people and places. It would nice to geotag and tag faces like you can in Facebook and Flickr.
Android App. There is only an iPhone app right now.
Licensing options. I should be able to say that this is not mine, or is mine, or put a creative commons license on it – again this is something that Flickr does already.
Threaded discussion. There is no way to reply to a specific comment – it’s a flat discussion format.
See John’s Pinterest Suggestions

Slides

John will be posting his slides and a video online and I’ll add that when it’s available, but I didn’t want to wait to share all I learned with you all!!

[update] Slides and video are now online on John’s site [/update]

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Nicole — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:30:04 +0000

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