Posted November 17th, 2008 by mstephens
We recently presented a workshop in London at Internet Librarian International, based on our writings here, and realized that throughout the columns we’ve identified a set of mile markers for the journey toward transparency.
Give everyone an avenue to talk.
Play nice and be constructive.
Grow and develop your support community.
Be willing to accept anonymity.
Tell the truth. Lies don’t work.
Focus on user-driven policy, not driving users away.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 20th, 2008 by mstephens
The rules of marketing have changed. Do libraries know that?
Corporate PR-types used to control the message. Sitting behind a desk, they’d write a carefully crafted press release and then send it off to newspapers and upload it to their web site. The attention the company got might barely justify the salary of the PR professional.
Today’s world is fundamentally different. Neither news nor brand identity are controlled through press releases or carefully choreographed newspaper articles. Brands are molded and shaped by the audience—and the audience is everyone. People talk. And people listen.
Social tools, social media, and social engagement are the norms for many large advertisers that have populated sites like Facebook and Twitter with brand-focused pages and interactive techniques. Are you following your favorite brand?
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
As the buzz around social networking continues, consider that author Kevin Kelly has called the emerging web “One Machine” and predicts that “total personalization in this new world will require total transparency.”
So, where do we fit in? Where do we position ourselves as professionals? We two don’t completely agree, so we thought we’d try to tease out the relationship between personal/social transparency and library transparency.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
Sometimes, it’s simply not easy. When life throws us $4-a-gallon gasoline, rising unemployment, a housing credit crunch, and tight local, state, and federal budgets, libraries feel the pinch…
Yet getting serious is almost always the wrong way to encourage more from staff. Study after study illustrates this, and conventional wisdom reminds us that when work becomes more pressure-ridden, turning up the heat won’t result in a more efficient and productive workforce.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
The ego…can be a very damaging thing. Inflated. Overbearing. Egos create rules for rules’ sake. Egos complicate procedures and keep good people down. Egos squash good ideas and can take the best of an organization and turn it on itself.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
Dear MLS grad…
Do your best to enact change, learn as much as you can, and then start to look elsewhere. Build bridges and move on.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
When did it become an acceptable customer service response to try and push out an entire age group of users?
If we don’t get them in as kids and keep them as teens, we likely won’t see them later in life. Kudos to librarians embracing service to teens.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
The most difficult part of 2.0 librarianship is not the creation of new services nor even the job of convincing those in charge to let you try those new ideas. No, the hardest part is often the reexamination of ideas. It’s a key factor of any library service and part of the definition of Library 2.0 that sometimes gets overlooked.
Remember, whatever you choose to use must conform to your library’s mission and vision. Simply adopting a tool without having it fit these criteria is a waste.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
We’ve been writing the Transparent Library for a year, so it’s time for some thumbs up and thumbs down.
Read the whole column here.
Posted October 13th, 2008 by mstephens
This column is directed to front-line librarians and staff, who deliver customer service and have damn good ideas for what can be done to improve things.
Read the whole column here.
