Online Privacy

Online identity is the persona that is presented to the world on the internet.  An organization will be very stringent about what and who present aspects of the organization to the world.

People allow different degrees of intrusion to their privacy.  As Pearson (2009, p. 72) states:

“The excessively prudent opt out.  The moderately prudent shut the hell up.  The extraverts gamble on un-interest or an implausibly generous reception.”

 Information used to be gathered by big brother and tucked away in government databases.  Now it is big business that is doing the gathering.

Teens (major users of Facebook) have addressed the issue of privacy with a shift to privacy pragmatism where a social benefit outweighs the loss of some privacy.  (Raynes-Goldie, 2010, para 18)  Teens managed such things as inappropriate friend requests and managed privacy by using an alias or often deleting wall posts and photo tags.  (Raynes-Goldie, 2010, para 10-11)   Facebook is necessary since the social consequence of not being on is being left out of the communication loop.  (Raynes-Goldie, 2010, para 22)

Adults considering privacy issues have a broader range of concerns.  Activities online range from banking, investment, homes emails (very private), to search engines, social networking sites, social media, online books stores ( less private), and library websites (least private).  (De Rosa, Cantrell, Havens, Hawk, & Jenkins, 2007, p. 3.8)  In a survey of over 10,000 comments very few respondents indicated concerns of privacy from non-fraudulent sources.  (De Rosa, et al., 2007 p. 3.7)

However, every time an action occurs online it is recorded somewhere.  So care needs to be taken that financial information doesn’t go over an unsecured line, that personal details such as a home address or private telephone number isn’t placed in a public forum, that teens are taught to be circumspect in what they put on their profiles and that they don’t accept friend s in a social networking site if they aren’t familiar with them and children that they shouldn’t go online without adult approval.  Institutions have rules and policies concerning information being made public and people need to make rules as well.

 

Reference

De Rosa, C., Cantrell, J., Havens, A., Hawk, J. & Jenkins, L. (2007). Section 3: Privacy, Security and Trust. In Sharing privacy and trust in our networked world: A report to the OCLC membership. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC.  http://www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/sharing_part3.pdf

Pearson, J. (2009). Life as a dog: Personal identity and the internet. Meanjin, 68(2), 67-77. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=200906244;res=APAFT

Raynes-Goldie, K. (2010). Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook, First Monday, 15(1), 4 January. Available http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2775/2432 

Reasons Why Libraries Should be on Social Media

Harvey (2009, para 6) states that new technologies should not be used because they’re new and fun to use.  She notes that questions to an audience aged from 18-29 revealed that they experimented with new tools but used a limited few on a regular basis.  (Harvey, 2009, para 10) Social networking tools (SNT) cover a range from blogs, wikis, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, del.icio.us, RSS feeds, podcasts and so on. What social media should libraries use?  It depends on their users.  Wikis can be used for internal projects and del.icio.us to set up bookmarks for a journal club.  Every library can use RSS feeds for alerting whether to emails or phones.

Collaboration, conversation, community and context creation are the 4C’s of social networking.  This comes back to communication which is a main reason for using SNT.

The three libraries chosen were national (National Library of Australia [NLA], http://www.nla.gov.au), state public (State Library of W.A. [SLWA], http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au) and university (Charles Sturt University [CSU], http://www.csu.edu.au/division/library). 

RSS feeds were used by all three libraries from their blogs and the NLA from Facebook.  A blog is an alerting tool that can cover a wide range of new happenings, list newly acquired items, changes occurring within the library, etc.  It puts a human face to the library, makes it approachable and is a good promotional tool.  NLA and CSU have three subject blogs and the SLWA one.  It is also a way of marketing/advertising that will reach a more diverse audience.  (Burkhardt, 2009, para 4.)

Other prominent communication tools are Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.  Does a medical or law library need a profile on Facebook or MySpace.  Would their clients use Twitter?   On the other hand would students be without it.   The NLA and CSU both use Twitter with 2349 and 337 followers respectively.  The NLA (1561 likes) and SLWA (309 likes) use Facebook.  Having a space where comments can be left gives clients useful feedback access, and librarian’s better understanding of their clients.

Reasons to use SNT are connecting to a wider audience, communicating well, serving clients more effectively and responding to feedback.

Reference

Harvey, M. (2009). What does it mean to be a Science Librarian 2.0? Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, (Summer). Retrieved from http://www.istl.org/09-summer/article2.html.

Andy Burkhardt’s (2009, August 25). Four reasons libraries should be on social media. Message posted to http://andyburkhardt.com/2009/08/25/four-reasons-libraries-should-be-on-social-media/.

A to Z

The five items I chose are A, F, G, L and T to bring the Library to Web 2.0.

The Riverton Library (http://canning.wa.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=61) is a public library that embraces Web 1.0 and uses it competently.  It offers online access to the catalogue (Amlib) so clients can view and select books online, place reservations for books and renew their loans online.  There are online request forms to obtain interlibrary loans.  There is a bank of fourteen computers that can be reserved for clients to access the internet free and non-clients can pay for access.  They can email notification that a reservation has arrived.  The library is mention in Wikipedia but has no other Web 2.0 presence.

T- text messaging.  Since the library already emails arrival of reservations, texting to mobiles should not be a difficult step to take.  A site like BusinessTechnologyGuide.com.au lists a number of ways of using SMS to mobile phones from computers and some of these are at no extra charge.

G – good reads.  New items received into the library are placed on display and there is a process whereby clients can purchase early one week access to new titles.  Setting up a list of like-authors or creating a list of reviews when selecting exchanges to post as a good read is a reasonable step.

L - LibraryThing.  This could be built up over a period of time to list the permanent collection within the library and as a list to let clients know what is part of the library’s special collection.  In W.A. the public library stock rotates every six weeks and an exchange moves some of the collection from suburb.

F – Facebook.  There are computer savvy people working in the library so setting up a page on Facebook is certainly possible as far as skills are concerned.  It would require a passionate person to promote the idea initially to get is past the administrators.  Since Facebook is free it would require only staff time.

A – Active.  Once Facebook and text messaging have been embraced other social media technologies will seem more enticing.  Setting up a RSS feed for listing new titles placed on LibraryThing and alerting for new social activities within the library are just some of the activities that can be embraced.

Reference

Brown, A.  (2010, January 22). A to Z of social networking for Libraries Posted to http://socialnetworkinglibrarian.com/2010/01/22/a-to-z-of-social-networking-for-libraries/.

ASU

The 4 Cs of social networking consist of collaboration, conversation, community and context creation (co-creation).  Within the ANU many of the Web 2.0 social networking themes have been embraced.  The library minute videos cover many of the 4 Cs particularly conversation where the client is encouraged to contact the library to inform them of their needs.  The minute videos cover many aspects of utilizing the libraries resources but two items outside ‘normal’ library items use Web 2.0 technologies.

The first of these is the musical databases that stream music to the clients desktop while studying (http://lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/).  This music can be selected from the music clip guide and there is a link to a free download to iTunes10 arranged for Arizona State University to manage the music stream.

The second is the Twitter (http://twitter.com/LibraryChannel) account which gives news of current occurrences within the ASU Library such as unexpected closures and has a RSS feed to allow updates to be sent automatically to clients.

Miller (2005) discusses working for the user and Casey and Savastinuk (2006) discuss the long tail and these items follow their precepts.  The music stream during studying is a conversation of care for the clients and enhances the feeling of a community.  Having an account on Twitter where a tweet on an unexpected library closure will certainly be re-tweeted to many others who may not have direct access enforces all aspects of accessing the long tail. 

This library is using the 4 Cs of social networking in a very skilled manner.  It is contacting a wide audience and creating a strong community.

Reference

Miller, P. (2005). Web 2.0: Building the new library, Ariadne, 45, 30 October. Retrieved from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue45/miller

Casey, M. & Savastinuk, L. (2006). Library 2.0: Service for the next-generation library, Library Journal, 1 September. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6365200.html

Web 2.0 Technology

The interesting thing about Web 2.0 that doesn’t seem to be discussed is hardware.  So a computer that was bought in 2006 that hasn’t been used for gaming or storing pictures functions perfectly well.  It does the internet, emails, word processing and YouTube without difficulty.  Second Life however does not compute.

My computer had three sessions with an online repair group before it was decided that it needed a graphics card.  This introduced me to a local computer expert which is always nice.  But the computer kept blue screening with the graphics card so back it went again to be doctored.  This time apart from an occasional screen freeze it was fine.  However discussion decided that rather than having the computer reconfigured an upgrade was more economical.  So the computer has been back to the doctor for a complete upgrade and functions perfectly.

It certainly has plenty of space to store the photos that will be taken with the new digital camera acquired at the end of 2010.

The assumption is or course, that in 2011 everyone has a really recent computer or laptop, a phone that takes digital pictures or a digital camera, access to the internet that enables unlimited downloads and plenty of time to use these facilities.  It must be remembered that an information rich society such as Australia has these resources for some of its people but not all and certainly the rest of the world has similar or greater limitations.

RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are a way of alerting someone when an update has occurred on a website.  It can cover new, media releases, blogs, updates on library new titles, training and changes in radio and television programs.  It is a way of keeping up to date with many different web places without having to take the time to personally visit each of these sites.

To access a RSS feed it is necessary to subscribe to the feed.  Once completed updates can be sent to the home computer or other communication device.

AIA has a blog that covers the Health Library Australia section (http://hlablogs.blogspot.com) which has a RSS feed.  This is an Australia wide section that is only updated at irregular intervals.  By having a RSS feed in this section clients are advised of any information that they need to know without the tedium of regularly visiting a site that has not been recently updated.  It also ensures that information that should be alerted is available immediately.

The National Library of Australia uses a number of Web 2.0 technologies including Facebook and Twitter and also has three blogs (http://blogsnla.gov.au/).  These cover behind the scenes, events and library labs.  Each of these blogs is accessible by RSS and can be subscribed to in the usual manner.  Again having the blogs accessible via RSS enhances the usability of the blog.  This is especially so with these three subject types since library labs has not been updated since 2009 and events since June 2010.  Behind the scenes is the most current blog and was updated in January.

By applying a RSS feed with these blogs NLA has ensured that the clients will be able to receive information of interest in good time and be alerted to any other occurrences of which they should be aware.  They are also being informed without wasting their own time on an irrelevant search.