Promoting Online Resources

025.04: Michael's blog: Full of BS

Head over to 025.04 Michael's blog for a great practical idea - using a video loop of online resources on a projector in the reference library to promote the resources.

Public libraries in the UK have a fantastic range of online resources available - Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oxford Dictionary of Natinal Biography, Grove Dictionary of Art and a whole lot more. I recently discovered that many of these 'general reference' tools aren't available in academic libraries so they're a great resource for students and the general public alike! I particularly like the Oxford Reference collection which includes gems like The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations - where I found the perfect quote for my mum...

A hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.

"Johnson, Samuel" The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Ed. Elizabeth Knowles. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Southampton Libraries. 25 April 2008

Libraries and Flickr

Flickr: The Commons
Thanks to The Shifted Librarian for highlighting this new project which brings together Flickr and the Library of Congress. There are links to more information on the Shifted Librarian post but my favourite part is this quote from the Library of Congress blog post My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven

"We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images."

The Flickr Commons pilot is limited to the Library of Congress at the moment but Flickr are looking for expressions of interest from other museums and libraries. They are also asking Flickr users to get involved and tag some photos so that they can gauge the interest in the project and see if it is worth continuing. Even if you're not interested in tagging I recommend heading over and having a look, some of the photos are fascinating!

My favourite use of Flickr by a UK public library at the moment has to be Plymouth Libraries who use their account to show pictures of their new library and events alongside archive pictures of library history. They also show the adventures of Bookstart Bear who appears to have travelled around the world at least once! Unlike a number of library Flickr accounts which seem to have started and then faded away, Plymouth Libraries post new photos regularly and give a real feel of what is happening in their library. They even use Flickr tools to illustrate links to their book reviews. As far as I know this is the only UK public library regularly updating and using a Flickr account in this way but I'd love to hear about any others...

Book Express in Newport

While reading a thought provoking post from Embervision about RFID as a potential stress buster a bracketed comment jumped out at me "Newport Libraries has just launched a home delivery service". This seemed rather too exciting to be true so I had a nose at Newport Libraries home page and there it is Book Express, a service which allows up to 50 books a year to be chosen from the library website and posted direct to the user with a return postage paid envelope. I've posted about direct end user delivery before and I look forward to finding out more about this project. Strangely it seems to only be open to people living in Newport but not already a member of the library, I assume this is because they are targeting new members with this project but I'm surprised they have chosen to restrict a service that many current library members would probably love to try. Once I've caught up on the backlog at work I'll see if someone at Newport can tell me more but in the meantime if anyone knows anything about this project please feel free to leave a comment or email me directly.

UK Public Library on Flickr

Plymouth Libraries have a Flickr account and are uploading photos regularly. Many of them seem to be documenting the travels of the Bookstart Bear, BB but there are also pictures of library displays, new buildings and library events. I hope they continue with it as I'm enjoying the glimpse into a public library not too far away! Very few comments so far so why not pop over and say hello to them?

Simple Ideas, Great Results, Library 1.0

I think that sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the exciting ideas of Library 2.0 and online services and forget that there are simple, good ideas out there completely unconnected to computers! Michelle McLean, an Australian librarian, has written a post about Improving User Service which is all about libraries making users happy by changing loan limits and dropping reservation fees. Probably the most radical part is their change to print loans, from a maximum of 20 items across all categories to unlimited print loans, yes that does read unlimited! They do limit AV items with a rather low limit on DVDs but their unlimited print loans do include audio books and CD Roms.

The part that interests me is the reservation fees - they dropped them from $1 to free. This is the fee for placing a hold on books at other branches or out on loan. I love this part of Michelle's post...

"Now that's a good thing. Although it creates more work for us, its amazing what good will it has expressed. The people who wouldn't place holds because of the charge, love it because they don't have to pay and the people who were used to paying love it, because they no longer have to. They would not necessarily have thought of suggesting that as a service improvement, but they love it!"

She goes on to talk about other positive results such as people coming in more often and her reassuring final statement is...
"And despite fears, we haven't had anyone place holds on everything in sight, yet!"

It's so good to hear someone blogging about simple, effective ideas like this that help to give users a great service. It's always difficult to sell something to management that will cost the library service money, such as giving up a source of revenue, however small the amount. So congratulations to the staff at Michelle's library for doing this and I will be forwarding her post to my library manager in the morning...