Web 2: Oxford libraries - Recently Updated Pages

Twitter

omassey — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:54:09 CST

Key functionality
The ability to send quick status updates and let others see what you are doing, it has proved useful with business people who are known to use it instead of business cards. Easy to use and set up online and update via mobile phone. Not unlike the status updates on Facebook but dedicated to that alone.

Examples in Oxford

Copyright and Intellectual Property
They have rather a nice copyright statement; basically it’s ‘What’s yours is yours’. They claim no rights to the intellectual property of the material anyone provides to Twitter. It remains yours. They do encourage use of contributing to the public domain if you create anything or ‘consider progressive licensing terms’ – I take that to mean, make it creative commons please! They will also chase up copyright infringements on your behalf. They say they’ve borrowed their copyright statement from Flickr.

Branding and advertising

Can use the default twitter style or use your own and upload background images as well as changing text colours, name colour, link colour, sidebar filler colour and sidebar border colour. If you are changing colours, you should know the HEX codes for colours. It doesn’t deal with CSS.
Also possible to change the picture used. Unlike Facebook they seem to have good alt text for the pictures. It admittedly reads out the username you registered with Twitter, but it’s better that than a list of numbers!
It’s free to make changes to the look of Twitter in this way.
There are a range of different widgets which no doubt could be incorporated into the website through the CMS and in other pages if they could take widgets: http://twitter.com/downloads.
Currently none. Although it is a website, its main use is for quite updates and use with mobile phones, making advertising not particularly useful or wanted.

Stability, reliability and support “The Twitter service makes it possible to post images and text hosted on Twitter to outside websites. This use is accepted (and even encouraged!). However, pages on other websites which display data hosted on Twitter.com must provide a link back to Twitter.”

This, from the Terms of Service, does not suggest it can be locally hosted, but that we can link back to the information. As it is an immediate and for the most part ephemeral service, do we wish to locally host and keep all the status updates we have used?

No information on whether we can export information from it.

The Twitter website is (notoriously) often unavailable and there may naturally be delays with the delivery of text messages dependent on the network.

NB Twitter discontinued SMS notifications (in the UK) on 13 August, which reduces its advantage over existing ways to communicate with readers.

What key functionality does the application have?
Easy updates of information snippets – e.g perhaps the library has to close early, or books are due back on a particular day? Or a load of new books has come in that people have been asking you about all day?

Twitter for Librarians: the ultimate guide - Interesting article on libraries and Twitter:

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - Some pointers on how to use Twitter. Although it comes from a business perspective it gives you an idea of what could be achieved.

A guide to Twitter: what it is, how to use it and Twitter tools

Is Twitter a must for academic libraries?

Known local alternatives? None.

Sainsbury Library

EmmaCragg — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:32:36 CST

Delicious
http://delicious.com/sainsburylibrary

We are in the process of transfering all the library's links to useful web resources from a static page on the library intranet to a delicious account. Using delicious to store our bookmarks allows both the easy addition of new sites and the ability for our users to subscribe to updates from our account to easily see when we have added something new.

When all of our current bookmarks have been uploaded we will push the feed from our delicious account to Facebook so every new addition is also posted there.

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/SainsburyLibrary

At the start of the 2009-10 academic year we created a page for the library on Facebook. The aim of this page was to act as a public face for the library in a place we know our users frequent. We are currently using OxItems to publish library news to our Wall and will add the feed from delicious soon.

We also have a tab of boxes where users can search SOLO and OxLIP+, Copac, and JStor.

Language Centre Library

Lucile_Deslignères — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:10:52 CDT

Virtual tour: virtual library for learning languages

The exchange of experience day was great: seeing what others have done elsewhere (the science cloud on delicious @Cambridge particularly, but everyone on the day really) has convinced me of the positive points of web 2.0.

The Staff Conference was great too, especially the Information overload? Sit back and let the information come to you with RSS

Blog

I have created a blog , inspired by the St Stephen's House Library example.
Thanks to Jane, I have now installed a counter, using SiteMeter ... Let's see how many people have a look at it. If not many people, work more on marketing the blog. Update (July 09): for a while SiteMeter did not work because I had forgotten to properly install it... interesting to see the world map of users, and how long they stay (usually not very long...)

Delicious

I have two delicious accounts, one for the library, and one personnal.

1.The e-library is going well in delicious It is a regular work done by the Extended Hours Library Assistants.

I'm happy with: the beauty of the cloud and how good non-latin funts look like.

I am trying to get some logic between the physical library and the e-one, so that's why you will have similar tags, such as "reference" for grammars etc... I really like the esthetic of the "cloud" and it has influenced my day style with html for building the language links index, a faux-web 2.0 style. Also the html index now is best for people with visual disabilities (we cancelled the table we used to have).

And this is a question I am asking, how good is web 2.0 for people with visual, or mobile, or hearing disabilities?

Update: tried to create a new account "languagelibraryatOxford" (instead of my Librarian379) and to move my bookmarks. Glad I have not yet deleted the previous account. Failing to do that so far.

Update2: I have given up trying to transfer my bookmarks to the new account. Apart from that, students and staff are very impressed with the system when I do my class presentations.

2. Just started (May 2009) to build a delicious account for myself. It will be mainly for web2.0 stuff and copyright. I'm interested for example, in the Hadopi law in France.

Update (July 09): just trying out a broken link checker for Delicious called Fresh Delicious. It's very slow (43 minutes) but my delicious account for the Language Centre has got many entries thanks to the wonderful work done by the Assistants (1312 links!). I have checked a few of the broken links indicated by the sofware, some are broken links, some are not (the fantastic Omniglot website for example!). So it is perhaps best to choose the option of deleting the links after several tests to make sure that only broken links go...

FaceBook

I have been using Facebook personnaly for a few good months now. I have both colleagues and friends there. Update: I have decided not to use FaceBook as a "base" for my library. Inspired by Stephen's House Library, I have created a blog instead. Update (July 09): I have changed my mind about FaceBook and just created a page. I am struggling to get something as nice as Warwick University Library (presented by monsieur le grand méchant homme at the last all libraries conference). I am particularly struggling with boxes at the moment... Queen's Library looks fabulous. I also like the Union Library and Nuffield, from which I take the idea of doing rss feeds from librarything. It is possible, in the Notes' section, to import your blog, it is then possible for readers to do a rss subscription.
Weirdly enough: I have found FaceBook really hard to work with (not with perso page) creating a public page for the library. I do think it is worth it though as so many students and staff are on Facebook.

Google Docs

Can't remember exactly when Jane used this, but I was quite impressed and decided to use the presentation tool of Google Docs that I can now produce for everyone to see from the blog so I can start from the LC website and blog when I visit LC classes. So far students looked quite impressed!

LibraryThing

Seeing what Nuffield Library has been doing, I have created a LibraryThing account for the library and have purchased a CueCat barcode scanning device from LibraryThing. Thanks to Alison for telling me about adding a "," for my subject keywords. (I was thinking it was the same as in Delicious). NOTE: Just a word of warning for those who are purchasing the CueCat using a departmental credit card, the transaction appears as fraud, so the finance department calls you... Having said that, it's good to see that there is a good security system in place.

Update: happily uploading books onto LibraryThing. The evening Assistants seem to have no problems with it when uploading Japanese material. Errors done by most Assistants: not separating keywords with commas.
Problems encountered:
1. if you stay in the English interface, Librarything does not cope well with foreign letters, such as ç à é etc... As I am trying to give the language names in both English and the language itself, it is annoying. Solution found: go to the French version. Seems, so far, to cope well with Chinese and Japanese letters. Philip Garrett, my new Wed/Th Assistant to attempt entering our Japanese collection.
2.doesn't do videos, or very few, which is a shame. Perhaps I should write to them and ask why not?
3.as much of my material is more likey to be found on amazon than Oxford Uni Catalogue, the standards are quite low (I've already noticed mistakes in dates etc...)

Update2: I have contacted LibraryThing and enquired about DVDs. Abby Blachly kindly replied: "we don't promise the perfect system for non-book materials :)". I just need to find a similar website that would be good with uploading DVD records. But, apart from that, I am very happy with LibraryThing and so are the students and teaching staff of the Language Centre. (many thanks to Abby for letting me quote her)

RSS feed: Netvibes & Google reader

I have chosen Netvibes, and not i-google or pageflakes because someone (Isabel Holowaty?) said at the Staff Conference (Information overload? Sit back and let the information come to you with RSS training) that Netvibes offers more Audio-Visual material. And it is therefore something more relevant to my library. I'm currently setting up a public + perso page. But I do understand why most Subject Librarians would prefer i-google: more space on the screen for text RSS.

So far I have installed a podcast search for languages, rss feed from MIT courseware, and, my favourite: a video search widget which allows you to search: you tube, google video, metacafe (though the Inspector Clouzot "French learning English" video does not quite convince me of the seriousness of the material on offer...funny though.. ) and My space (some good stuff it seems for English and English as a sign language videos). Searches quite limited, does not seem to go beyond SEARCH= keyword(s) + site:co.uk and seems to miss out on site:.fr or any other countries... must explore more.

Like very much the Jaman movie search widget with a "language learning" search you get trailers of new foreign (ie not in English) films.

Have explored the ticTOCs Journal tables of contents service to create a Librarianship Reading page on Netvibes. It was very easy to use.

I have now set up an google reader from the Librarianship Readings because the view on Netvibes is not good enough for what I need, even with the "quick details" or "headline" view. On google-reader I can read much more text in one go without having to use the mouse. Pretty cool: thanks to the ticTOTCs (not to be confused with the tic-toc-choc from Couperin...) I was able to send an interesting article to Alison regarding Library systems. I would never have found this article, because, quite simply, I would never have looked for it. The video RSS in plain English on the RSS page explains that pretty well.

I'm currently (May 09) working on my netvibes page, inspiring myself from the Law Library's page (though on Pageflakes, can't wait for them to move to netvibes). But it's pretty much not finished (started?). I speak about the netvibes page in LIP (Language Centre in Print) our internal weekly asking all Tutors to check their own pages so that they can help me get rss feeds for newspapers they think are relevant, preferably from different political viewpoints. Sent a query to netvibes, asking if people can fully contribute to my page (similarly to blogger and other web 2.0 stuff) because if yes, I'd be very happy to let others I trust, contribute.

Latest update: Netvibes people got back in touch saying, thanks for the idea but it's not possible at the moment (to completely share the making of pages). No Tutors has gone back to me and I have decided, after adding not-sure-I-know-what on the Arabic and Chinese and Portuguese pages, to make the netvibes pages live. There is a link from the blog to it. I have participated in the 3i (i3?) competition, speaking about my web 2.0 adventures... we will see...

Screencasting

After a visit to the screencasting page, am trying Jing. Downloading was easy and I have done two tests: one for using the catalogue, another one for a virtual visit of the web 2.0 library. Very easy to use so far, but the free version is pretty basic and it seems that sound is not that easy to have. I have also downloaded Camtasia studio (free trial for 30 days), possibility there to "film/record" powerpoint presentation.
Will try the other screencasting, Wing, if I find the time.
Wish recording of voice would be as easy as with a macintosh...
Update (the day after): I have finally managed to put sound on my screencasting, very happy. No need, so far to use Camtasia studio. I have used one of the headphone/microphone we have in the Language Centre (not the costly type) and used Jing + Screencasting.com . You can see the result from the screencasting page, or go to the library blog. (It was a bit complicated to add the code in blogger, my blog provider, as I had to change the object width and lenghth, from 1024 and 712, I did 414 and 312 so that it was fitting nicely in the blog without hiding the right-hand column.
Tried to download Wing twice, there was a problem. Shame. I will not try again. Happy with Jing. The only thing perhaps missing (or that I failed to learn how to do perhaps) is the lack of captions. Apart from that, I'm really happy.
Warning: watch out for the 5 minutes limit! It goes fast...

YouTube

Asked the Copyright Librarian about e-copyright and YouTube. As I am pointing in the direction of, ie providing a link to, I am not the owner of the content. Furthermore people, when they upload their YouTube video do sign some sort of stating agreement. That allows me to get a good collection of different formats, and it's good for songs with interesting lyrics, extracts of movies with regional accents, or slang.

Mini-thoughts: Regarding copyright: as nor the IT Officer nor I, are the authors of the codes nor the owners of those sites, we will continue to develop the LC website. Library web 2.0 is great, but the copyright is not ours, and these fanstastic websites could disappear without a trace one day, so it is important to keep updating the Language Centre website. Yet Delicious helps me finding popular language learning websites, so I am very grateful for that.

Home

PeterSaunders — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:02:58 CDT

Do Web 2.0 tools provide useful opportunities for libraries to engage with readers and deliver services?

This wiki is a growing resource of information, links and case-studies for supporting Oxford librarians in using web 2.0. It is hoped that it will provide a forum for sharing ideas and best practice amongst colleagues. In particular, it would be useful to build up an evidence-base of how and why readers are (or are not) using web 2.0 in relation to library services and information resources.

As the wiki has grown and web 2.0 has expanded within Oxford libraries, so the wiki has outgrown its initial structure. There are now seven sections, reflecting the different areas of work that have been going on since last December:

Web 2.0 tools: This section aims to provide a reference manual to various web 2.0 tools and applications. It contains evaluations and examples, and links to pages elsewhere in the wiki with Oxford examples and training exercises. If you have come across other ideas, applications or examples, please add them to the relevant page(s).
Oxford case studies: This section is to gather together evidence and experience from using web 2.0 in Oxford libraries. If you experiment with any web 2.0 tools or applications, please add a page to this section to share what you're doing and how you've found it. Doesn't matter how big or small, it all helps contribute to our collective knowledge!
Issues and Guidelines: This section includes further information on various general issues relating to the use of web 2.0 in libraries. A subgroup of the Web 2.0 Working Party is currently drawing up a guidelines document for Oxford librarians, which will be posted here in due course.
Training and Resources: This section contains training exercises and resources for events such as the Oxford Study Day in March 2008.
Web 2.0 working party: The Web 2.0 Working Party was formed in April 2008, following the Study Day and the initial report to Cabinet. All the information relating to the work of the group can be found in this section.
Initial report to Cabinet: This section includes the first report on social networking that was written for Cabinet in January 2008, along with some general consideration of issues and recommendations.
Bibliography and useful links: What it says on the tin! There is also a page in this section to link to Oxford librarians' pages on social networking sites like delicious.

Please feel free to add information to any page! You have to be logged in to edit pages - if you do not have an account you can sign up by clicking on the yellow 'join this site' button in the menu bar above. You can contribute to the discussion threads at the bottom of each page anonymously if you wish.

Contact for queries or comments

Social bookmarking

PeterSaunders — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:33:34 CDT

Definition

“Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but depending on the service's features, may be saved privately, shared only with specific people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, via a search engine, or even randomly.”

From Wikipedia

Examples

How can libraries use social bookmarking?

Easy way to maintain and make available lists of links to web resources - easier than continually updating or having messy lists on 'useful links' pages on library websites?
Tagging allows for classification within the list
Newly discovered resources can be shared via RSS feeds, blog widgets, Facebook applications, and within the site to other users
Resource discovery: as a jumping off point, looking at who else has saved the same sites and what other links they have saved.
Midway point between Google and Intute - user- and librarian-mediated so more focused and meaningful than a search engine, but not as carefully or comprehensively catalogued as Intute so should offer more serendipity.
Users can contribute by linking to the library's list and/or saving/submitting links.

Further information

Delicious:

Training exercise
Evaluation
Oxford examples: VHL, Education, HFL, Law, St Stephen's House, Bodleian Rare Books, Nuffield College, EResources, Language Centre.

Checking broken links on Delicious: Fresh delicious

Facebook and social networking

janelib — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:18:45 CDT

Definition

'Pure' social networking sites, such as Facebook and Myspace, exist primarily to connect people and enable communication. All function on the same basic principle - users have individual pages or profiles, which they link to those of their friends.

Facebook is potentially the most useful site for Oxford. A recent survey showed that 92% of freshers have Facebook accounts, and Facebook was originally designed to connect university students. It is structured as a collection of networks, often based around universities - the Oxford University network has over 33,000 members. It also offers built-in and additional features which can be used by organisations.

Examples

Facebook

Myspace

Bebo

Orkut

How can libraries use Facebook?

Set up a page or a group, which users can join or link to.

Pages and groups do essentially the same things - both allow you to include information and contact details, add photos and other content, create events that you can invite your members to, and have a 'wall' (for comments) and discussion boards. The main difference is that pages allow a 'corporate identity', whereas groups need to be set up by an existing Facebook user. Groups also seem to be focused on promoting discussion between members, whereas pages seem more information oriented. Pages are a new facility for organisations, launched in November 2007. The main advantage of pages is that you can see usage statistics and also add applications.

Vere Harmsworth Library's group and page
Nuffield College Library's page
Oxford examples:Oxford Union Library, Linacre, Lincoln,Queen's

Facebook pages can be customised using the Static FBML application. Jen Wray at the EFL has adapted the OULS 'Search SOLO' web widget for use on Facebook - instructions as follows:

Steps for adding this SOLO widget to Facebook
In Facebook, search for 'Static FBML'
Select 'Add to my page' and select your page.
Go to your page and click on 'Edit Page'. There should be a new box under 'Applications' called 'FBML-FBML'
Click on the pencil in the top right corner of the FBML box, click Edit.
Change the Box Title to SOLO.
Copy and paste the code (below) into the text box.
Click 'Save Changes'.
Go to 'Edit Page'.
Click on the pencil in the top right corner of the FBML box and click 'Application Settings'. (At this stage SOLO will appear in your Boxes tab.) If you want SOLO to appear as a separate tab, click 'add' after Tab:Available.
There should now be an individual tab for SOLO, and it will also appear in the Boxes tab. For the EFL page we have moved the copy from the Boxes tab to the main Facebook wall. To do this, click on the Boxes tab, click on pencil to edit SOLO, click 'Move to Wall tab'. Alternatively, click 'Remove Box' to avoid duplication.

The code
(this is a pared down version of the code behind http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/widget, and what I could get to work with FBML. I am not a code guru, so apologies if any of it is redundant!)

<div id="header"><div id="search_box">
<div id="new_div_43680">
<table border="0" align="left"><tr><td>
<div class="tabber" id="tab2">

<div class="tabbertab tabbertabdefault">
<h2>SOLO</h2>
<div style="display:none;">
main_search_layout***form.rta=none***delCtegory=***sourceSystem=***activeSourceSystem=[Aleph]***ct=***isActivatedSystem=******
</div>

<form name="searchForm" method="post" action="http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?fn=go&ct=search" class="simple" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8" target="_blank">

<div style="display:none">
institution = University of Oxford
institution code = OX
</div>

<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="Basic"/>
<input type="hidden" name="tab" value="local"/>
<input type="hidden" name="indx" value="1"/>
<input type="hidden" name="dum" value="true"/>
<input type="hidden" name="srt" value="rank" id="str"/>

<input type="hidden" name="vid" value="OXVU1"/>
<input type="hidden" name="frbg" value=""/>

<div class="searchLimit">
<label for="search_field" style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Search OULS Library Collections</label><br />
<input type="text" class="" id="search_field" style="margin-left:6px;" name="vl(freeText0)" value='' onkeydown="" accesskey="s" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0" accesskey="g"><br />
</div>

<div class="searchLimit2">

<input type="hidden" name="vl(726876UI1)" value="all_items"/>
<input type="hidden" name="vl(1UI0)" value="contains"/>
<input type="hidden" name="vl(726878UI0)" value="any"/>
<input type="hidden" name="scp.scps" value="scope:("OX")"/>
</div>
</form>
</div>

<div class="tabbertab">
<h2>OxLIP+</h2>
<form method="get" action="http://oxford1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com:8331/V/" target="_blank">
<input type="hidden" name="func" value="find-db-1-title">
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="titles">
<input type="hidden" name="azlist" value="N">
<input type="hidden" name="scan_utf" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="restricted" value="all">

<input type="hidden" name="search_type" value="contains">
<div id="find_db_form">

<label for="scan_start" style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Search Titles</label><br />
<input class="bordered_input" type="text" style="margin-left:6px;" name="scan_start" id="scan_start" value="" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0" accesskey="G"><br />

</div>
</form>
</div>

<div class="tabbertab">
<h2>e-Journals</h2>
<form method="get" target="AZ_Window" accept-charset="UTF-8" action="http://sfx7.exlibrisgroup.com/oxford/az/default" target="_blank">
<input type="hidden" name="param_perform_value" value="searchTitle">
<input type="hidden" name="param_jumpToPage_value" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="param_type_value" value="textSearch">
<input type="hidden" name="param_chinese_checkbox_active" value="1">

<label for="param_pattern_value"><font style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Oxford University e-Journals</font></label><br />
<input type=text style="margin-left:6px;" name="param_pattern_value" id="param_pattern_value" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0"><br />

<input type=hidden name=param_chinese_checkbox_value id=param_chinese_checkbox_value value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="param_textSearchType_value" value="contains">
</form>
</div>

Develop library-related applications which users can add to their profiles

For example:

OPAC search - these already exist for some libraries, and there are JSTOR (who also have their own page) and COPAC search applications.
Ask-a-librarian widgets (example)

Developing applications on Facebook requires some technical expertise, so perhaps is less appropriate for individual libraries. Information on Facebook for developers can be found here.

Library-related applications also don't seem to be very well used, but whether this is a lack of promotion or a lack of desire on the part of users is unclear.

Advertise on the Oxford network page

All networks have their own page, where events can be advertised and which also have a wall and discussion boards. The Oxford network page can be found here.

Advantages and disadvantages of Facebook

Facebook is very well used and fast becoming the social communication method of choice for a large proportion of our readers. Its localised structure makes it particularly good for individual libraries to use, where their readers feel a sense of ownership. It is probably less suitable for OULS/Oxford-wide things - anything wider-scale would need to be promoted from the local level up, ie, not just creating an event, but linking it with a local group. Facebook is still geared very much towards fun and social interaction, but increasingly this is blurring as more serious applications and groups are being added. Possibly the biggest disadvantage of Facebook is its closed nature - in order to see anything you have to be registered, so passive use by non-members is difficult, unlike many other social sites.

Further information

Training exercises

English Faculty Library

JenniferWray — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:58:15 CDT

Facebook
Inspired by the recent Web 2.0 drop in session, we have recently set up a Facebook page for the EFL: http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=english+faculty+library+oxford&init=quick#/pages/Oxford-United-Kingdom/English-Faculty-Library-University-of-Oxford/123908545763?ref=search&sid=524934723.1505080688..1

We hope to use the page to highlight library training sessions and news and to point readers to our website which remains the main source of online information for the EFL. We will be advertising the Facebook page in time for the start of term and hope to gain a lot more fans then, although it seems that some have already found us!

One unique selling point for our page is an adapted version of the SOLO widget- readers can search SOLO, Oxlip+ and e-Journals directly from the EFL Facebook page. It looks slightly different to the usual tabbed SOLO search box, but the changes were necessary to work within the Facebook HTML editing application Static FBML and the functionality is still the same. If other libraries would like this for their Facebook pages please get in touch.

It will be interesting to see how future Facebook applications such as Static FBML allow libraries to tailor their pages to their readers' needs.

Steps for adding this SOLO widget to Facebook
In Facebook, search for 'Static FBML'
Select 'Add to my page' and select your page.
Go to your page and click on 'Edit Page'. There should be a new box under 'Applications' called 'FBML-FBML'
Click on the pencil in the top right corner of the FBML box, click Edit.
Change the Box Title to SOLO.
Copy and paste the code (below) into the text box.
Click 'Save Changes'.
Go to 'Edit Page'.
Click on the pencil in the top right corner of the FBML box and click 'Application Settings'. (At this stage SOLO will appear in your Boxes tab.) If you want SOLO to appear as a separate tab, click 'add' after Tab:Available.
There should now be an individual tab for SOLO, and it will also appear in the Boxes tab. For the EFL page we have moved the copy from the Boxes tab to the main Facebook wall. To do this, click on the Boxes tab, click on pencil to edit SOLO, click 'Move to Wall tab'. Alternatively, click 'Remove Box' to avoid duplication.

The code
(this is a pared down version of the code behind http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/widget, and what I could get to work with FBML. I am not a code guru, so apologies if any of it is redundant!)

<div id="header"><div id="search_box">
<div id="new_div_43680">
<table border="0" align="left"><tr><td>
<div class="tabber" id="tab2">

<div class="tabbertab tabbertabdefault">
<h2>SOLO</h2>
<div style="display:none;">
main_search_layout***form.rta=none***delCtegory=***sourceSystem=***activeSourceSystem=[Aleph]***ct=***isActivatedSystem=******
</div>

<form name="searchForm" method="post" action="http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?fn=go&ct=search" class="simple" enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8" target="_blank">

<div style="display:none">
institution = University of Oxford
institution code = OX
</div>

<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="Basic"/>
<input type="hidden" name="tab" value="local"/>
<input type="hidden" name="indx" value="1"/>
<input type="hidden" name="dum" value="true"/>
<input type="hidden" name="srt" value="rank" id="str"/>

<input type="hidden" name="vid" value="OXVU1"/>
<input type="hidden" name="frbg" value=""/>

<div class="searchLimit">
<label for="search_field" style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Search OULS Library Collections</label><br />
<input type="text" class="" id="search_field" style="margin-left:6px;" name="vl(freeText0)" value='' onkeydown="" accesskey="s" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0" accesskey="g"><br />
</div>

<div class="searchLimit2">

<input type="hidden" name="vl(726876UI1)" value="all_items"/>
<input type="hidden" name="vl(1UI0)" value="contains"/>
<input type="hidden" name="vl(726878UI0)" value="any"/>
<input type="hidden" name="scp.scps" value="scope:("OX")"/>
</div>
</form>
</div>

<div class="tabbertab">
<h2>OxLIP+</h2>
<form method="get" action="http://oxford1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com:8331/V/" target="_blank">
<input type="hidden" name="func" value="find-db-1-title">
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="titles">
<input type="hidden" name="azlist" value="N">
<input type="hidden" name="scan_utf" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="restricted" value="all">

<input type="hidden" name="search_type" value="contains">
<div id="find_db_form">

<label for="scan_start" style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Search Titles</label><br />
<input class="bordered_input" type="text" style="margin-left:6px;" name="scan_start" id="scan_start" value="" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0" accesskey="G"><br />

</div>
</form>
</div>

<div class="tabbertab">
<h2>e-Journals</h2>
<form method="get" target="AZ_Window" accept-charset="UTF-8" action="http://sfx7.exlibrisgroup.com/oxford/az/default" target="_blank">
<input type="hidden" name="param_perform_value" value="searchTitle">
<input type="hidden" name="param_jumpToPage_value" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="param_type_value" value="textSearch">
<input type="hidden" name="param_chinese_checkbox_active" value="1">

<label for="param_pattern_value"><font style="text-decoration:none; font-family:tahoma; font-size:9px; margin-top:2px; margin-bottom:1px; margin-left:6px; font-weight:normal; color:#3458a7;">Oxford University e-Journals</font></label><br />
<input type=text style="margin-left:6px;" name="param_pattern_value" id="param_pattern_value" size="18" />
 <input type="image" name="go" src="http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/solo/images/searchgo.gif" border="0"><br />

<input type=hidden name=param_chinese_checkbox_value id=param_chinese_checkbox_value value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="param_textSearchType_value" value="contains">
</form>
</div>

Oxford Study Day Blogs

louiseclarke — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:07:32 CDT

This page is for use during the Web 2:0 study day (Thursday 27th March).

Participants are invited to add a link to their blogs...

Craig Finlay
Jane Rawson
Emma Sullivan's blog
Ruth H's Blog - areweallweb2crazy
gen's blog
Kate A-S's blog
Lawrence Mielniczuk
Sue's blog
Mike Neville's blog
Empty space
Chris's Comments
Judy Reading
Sally's bod blog
Ann's blog
Roz's Blog
LegalIT
AH
Alison F's Blog

OIL

jamesnfishwick — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:53:09 CDT

James Fishwick james.fishwick@bodley.ox.ac.uk has set up a whole range of Web 2.0 utilities for the Oriental Institute Library recently. The idea is to try and get them working together and feeding into each other- we'll see how that goes!
We’re aiming to advertise these tools widely when the 2009-2010 academic year begins, and to then use them to keep in touch with users. Giving them news and getting their views.
We’re also re-vamping the OIL OULS webpage at the moment. So we should have a good detailed & informative web presence soon…

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oxford-United-Kingdom/Oriental-Institute-Library/137472003754
Our Facebook page, with all the normal sort of stuff. We're hoping to promote this among new students in the up-coming academic year, use it as a portal to give them information about the Library and to get information from them about their needs.

Wordpress Blog
http://oiloxford.wordpress.com/
Our blog, updated weekly (so far!) This has an RSS feed, that is imported into our Facebook page as notes.
We’ve been using the blog to talk about big projects going on in the library, fill people in with our news. We’re also planning on publishing our new accessions lists there.

LiveJournal
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/oiloxford/
A simple syndicated stream of our blog's RSS feed. You need to have a Paid Livejournal account to set up a syndicated feed, but luckily James has one.

LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/venue/32855/Oriental-Institute-Library,-Oxford-University
Someone called Rivendell added a load of OULS libraries to Library Thing. James has now claimed the OIL page (it's very simple), and put our basic info up there along with links to our main webpage and our Facebook page. Doubt we'll do anything more with LibraryThing, but it's another way that people might try to find us.

Social cataloguing

Lucile_Deslignères — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:07:58 CDT

Definition

Sites whose primary purpose is the cataloguing of material owned by its members (books, DVDs, music), while also building a community of users with that shared interest. Above and beyond the standard cataloguing, users build up a vast quantity of social data around the records, such as reviews, recommendations, ratings and tags.

Examples:

LibraryThing (books - over 20 million catalogued using records from libraries with open Z39.50 servers and from Amazon)
Shelfari (books)
Bookjetty (books)
Flixster (films)
GoodReads (books)

How can libraries use social cataloguing sites?

Adding books onto sites like LibraryThing gives libraries access to the social data and web 2.0 aspects (blog widgets, RSS feeds), which can be used to promote new accessions, and offer more information to readers about the books arriving in the library.

LibraryThing has just launched LibraryThing Local, with the aim of building up listings of libraries and bookstores which are searchable by location. Adding our library information on to here would be another way of reaching out and giving us more of a presence elsewhere on the web.

Social OPACs

LibraryThing is experimenting with making its social data available for integration into web OPACs with their LibraryThing for Libraries project, and other libraries are also building 'social' OPACs, incorporating tags, reviews, recommendations and personalisation etc into their catalogues. This allows users to contribute to the catalogue and add value, without undermining the traditional functions.

OCLC has launched a web 2.0 version of WorldCat, which allows users to add reviews and information to WorldCat records, as well as create and share personalised lists of records. It's still pretty new, and there's not as much participation so its social data is not as expansive as LibraryThing's, but it has great potential for use by libraries eg with reading lists, new accessions lists, specific subject lists etc.

Google Books' My Library offers similar functionality.

Examples:

Further information

LibraryThing:

Training exercise
Evaluation
Oxford examples: VHL, Law, Language Centre, Nuffield College Library, St Stephen's House

My WorldCat:

GoodReads:

Oxford examples: Linacre

Nuffield College Library

MichelleMumford — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:28:48 CDT

Delicious:http://delicious.com/NuffieldCollegeLibrary

Our Delicious page is set up for both staff and our readers. We've linked to some of the most useful social science sites and popular elements within our own website. We've also created "private" links for staff to use after logging in (such as our fund codes). Delicious is easy to use, although sorting by tags is not necessarily intuitive for all staff. It does seem like a site you have to use regularly to really maximize its features. We haven't received any feedback from readers on this page yet, but we hope they're referring to it.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oxford-United-Kingdom/Nuffield-College-Library/6379864542
We set up an institutional page for Nuffield in December 2007. We already have a very complete website and didn't want to recreate that through facebook. Rather, we wanted to provide a space where readers could ask questions if they wished, or simply express their support of the library. We think it's a fun way for them to connect themselves with an institution that has a big effect on their experiences as students/faculty.

Since we set up the page, we've acquired 187 fans. We haven't seen a huge amount of participation, but we never expected it would drastically alter the way we communicate with readers. The page is easy to maintain and one more way the library is available to readers.

LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/NuffieldLibrary
We started a LibraryThing page mostly so we could offer RSS feeds of new books to our readers, which we couldn't do with our current accessions pages. We may only use LibraryThing until OULS develops more RSS tools, but in the meantime, it's a useful website. Each week, we add all our latest books to the site. The visual representation it provides is simple, yet vibrant.

It's unfortunate that some aspects of the site aren't set up more for what a library would like it to do. For instance, it would be really great if you didn't have to log into LibraryThing to set up Oxford as the default library to borrow from (after you click on the individual titles). Hopefully our readers will investigate a bit themselves on all the ways they can customise their experience of the site.

Twitter:http://twitter.com/NuffieldLibrary

We have been using Twitter to share useful/interesting websites and news of what's happening in the library. It's been a bit challenging to find useful content that fits within Twitter's strict length limitations, but we have acquired a few followers and managed to update our status about once a week. We've found that once you start looking for information that will fit into a tweet, it gets a lot easier.

Wordpress:http://nuffieldcollegelibrary.wordpress.com/

We felt that we wanted to do something different with our blog and are using it to post longer tutorials on the library and the social sciences in general. Our other web 2.0 pages tend to have similar or shared content, while our blog is more unique. The current approach demands more of the reader (and us), but hopefully does fill a niche. We'll try to keep updating it every fortnight or so with thorough descriptions of how to use certain services.

History Faculty Library

Holowaty — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:10:30 CDT

The HFL has been dabbling with Web 2.0 for a bit:

1. RSS feeds for news and for events (http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/history/services/training) and Twitter, using Twitterfox and bit.ly.
2. Flickr for photos, e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hflcanapeswith_clio_2008/sets/72157604583484086/
3. Delicious for bookmarks and Tweeticious. We are trying to get tag rolls (ie the cloud) displayed in CMS. The script doesn't work in CMS and Thaddeus promised to get back to me on that.
4. Staff wiki.
5. Point to video streams, e.g. http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/history/eresources#ealerts. It would be nice to embed them in the webpage, so that's something else I need to learn.
6. I've also experimented with Meebo for instant messaging. Technically it seems to work with CMS which is the good news, but we need to thinko more carefully whether/how to introduce such a service.
7. We don't have a facebook entry, though might at some point. However, we've encouraged our student reps, The Historians Assembly, to create one. Firstly, they have difficulty communicating with each other and secondly, it would be "owned" and driven by students, not librarians.
8. Our trainee, Ian, is now blogging. Bethan blogs too. The rest of us haven't got the time...

If anybody has anything useful to comment on, I'd be delighted to hear from you. In the meantime, I shall browse more in this wiki and learn more the group.

Isabel

Bibliography & useful links

janelib — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:24:17 CDT

Blowers, Helene. 2006. Learning 2.0: 23 Things

Blyberg, John. 2006. 11 reasons why library 2.0 exists and matters

Booth, Andrew. 2007. Using evidence in practice: blogs, wikis and podcasts: the 'evaluation bypass' in action?

Bradley, Phil. 2007. Practical uses for web 2.0 in a library environment.

Brogan, Chris. 20-08-08 50 Ideas on using Twitter for business

Commoncraft Explanations in Plain English (short video introductions to a variety of web 2.0 applications)

Digital Inspiration. 06-01-09 How to embed almost anything in your website

Educause Learning Initiative's 7 Things You Should Know About... series

Farkas, Meredith. 2006. Five weeks to a social library

Farkas, Meredith. 2009. It's not all about the tech - why 2.0 tech fails

HEFCE. 2007. JISC In their own words: understanding the issues and benefits of social software

Internet Librarian International 2007. Conference presentations

JISC. Web2Rights Project

Kelly, Brian, et al. 2009. Library 2.0: Balancing the risks and benefits to maximise dividends

Kelly, Brian and Ellis, Mike. Web 2.0 How to stop thinking and start doing: addressing organisational barriers

Kelly, Brian Blog

King, David Lee. What can you do with a [library] Facebook page?

Kroski, Ellyssa. 2008. A quick guide to screencasting for libraries

Lost art of blogging. A guide to Twitter: what it is, how to use it and Twitter tools

Near Time/Collaboration 2.0. Web 2.0 glossary

OCLC, 2007. Sharing, privacy and trust in our networked world

O'Reilly, Tim. 2005. What is web 2.0 (The document that started it all)

Secker, Jane. 2008. Social software, libraries and distance learners: literature review, LSE.

SLAINTE (CILIP Scotland). Tagging guidelines [PDF].

Spalding, Tim. 2008. What's the big deal about tagging? (YouTube)

UCL Ciber Briefing Paper 2008. Information behaviour of the researcher of the future

Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/Using Us (YouTube)

Web 2.0 Wiki CILIP Kent (Peanut Butter Wiki)

Blogs

Lucile_Deslignères — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:56:28 CDT

Definition

Blogs offer a more flexible and social way of posting news updates, with automatic RSS feeds and the ability for readers to comment directly. Most blogging software also allows you to incorporate other things on the page, such as links lists and widgets, and has archiving, labelling and searching facilities built in.

Examples:

Blogger and Wordpress are less social than LiveJournal, which makes more of a feature of the links between members, but for news blogs they do offer more functionality on the page.

How can libraries use blogs?

Replacing static news pages, and encouraging responses and feedback via comments.

Example: Vere Harmsworth Library

Subject-specific blogs, keeping users up-to-date with new resources, as well as opportunites for user education with focuses on particular databases etc.

Example: University of Bath Library Health News

Further information

Blogger:

Training exercises (set-up and advanced)
Evaluation
Oxford examples: VHL, ContEd, Language Centre, ORA, St Stephen's House

Wordpress:

Evaluation
Oxford examples: Law, Bodleian Special Collections, Staff Development, EResources, Nuffield College Library

Screencasting

Lucile_Deslignères — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:00:41 CDT

Definition

A screencast is a recording of every action that happens on your computer screen. This recording can also be accompanied by an audio track or captions to explain the actions as they happen.

"Just as a screenshot is a picture of a user's screen, a screencast is essentially a movie of what a user sees on their monitor" from Wikipedia

Software examples

Proprietary
Adobe Captivate
Camtasia Studio

Freeware
Jing (with 2GB free hosting on screencast.com)
Wink

How can libraries use screencasts?

User education
Staff training

Useful links:
Kroski, Ellyssa. 2008. A quick guide to screencasting for libraries

Examples of libraries using screencasts:
Duggan Library (using YouTube as a host)

Ohio University - Biz Wiki (using Captivate and Wink)

Oxford University Language Centre (Jing) Introduction to the library catalogue & Visit to the virtual library for learning languages As I'm just testing right now, all comments welcome.

University of Waterloo (Wink)

University of Wisconsin Law Library (Jing)

RSC - SSL

cfinlay — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:42:54 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Social Science Library

louiseclarke — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:01:58 CDT

The Social Science Library is using Web 2:0 tools for several purposes:

1. To explore new ways of consulting with our users, we are trialling an online forum (launched 20.02.08), and hope that it might also prove to be a useful space for users of the SSL to discuss ideas or issues with each other. Whether it will work or not depends entirely on whether our users wish to participate...

Link: SSL Forum

UPDATE: This site has been closed (Hilary Term 2009). After limited initial interest, students did not wish to use the forum as a channel to communicate with the library or each other. The library printed comments book continues to be used on a daily basis!

2. To provide information about the library in an engaging way, we have created an induction video for freshers and posted it on YouTube (launched 17.04.08). It has been watched more than 1,000 times to date, and has a 5 star rating.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8POQ9YB7V0

3. To faciliate easy communication between staff working at the issue desk, and to avoid cluttering up everyone's email inboxes, we have created an SSL issue desk blog (launched 02.04.08). The chronological format, and the ability to add keywords and comments, particularly suits this activity.

Link: restricted to SSL staff.

UPDATE: This blog has been hugely beneficial and is used daily by all staff. Out of all our Web 2:0 trials, this is the one which has worked really well on a long term basis, as it meets a clear need for a defined community.

4. To promote services and resources, and to help keep readers informed about library-related activities, the Social Science Library provides an RSS feed using Oxitems. We hope to implement RSS feeds for new acquisitions (both purchased and legal deposit) by subject and area later this year.

Link: http://www.ssl.ox.ac.uk/

5. Reference enqurieis of general interest are now summarized on the Question Mark@SSL blog, which acts as a referral and contact point for other readers with reference enquiries. Readers of the blog are encouraged to add comments to help their fellow social scientists.

Link: http://questionmarkssl.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: No posts since November 2008

Evaluating RSS feed management applications

EmmaCragg — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:44:40 CDT

Services which provide some or all of the following funtionality:

Collect and analyse statistics for subscriptions to your feed (e.g. Feedburner)
Allow users to receive items from your feed as e-mails (e.g. Feedburner)
Facilitate subscriptions to your feed (Feedburner)
Allow you to amalgamate multiple feeds into one one feed(e.g. Feed Informer, RSS widget from SpringWidget )

Feedburner

Key functionality
Takes an existing RSS feed and provides the following services:

Facilitates subscription to the feed by providing easy buttons for subscribing using a range of services (Google reader, bloglines, pageflakes etc)
Allows users to receive items by e-mail (instead of subscribing using a feed reader)
Collects and anayses statistics re visitors to your feed on the web / subscriptions to your feed
- Numbers subscribing
- What feed readers/aggregators they are using
- Number who link back to your blog / web site
- Note Feedburner Pro (paying) users can also collect statistics on which items subscribers have viewed or clicked.

Pricing model

Basic services are free
Pro account offers wider range of statistics

Copyright and intellectual property

Not relevant? - actual content resides in blog itself or RSS publisher (e.g. oxitems).

Branding and advertising

Feedburner pages can not be branded. However, this may not be an issue. Typically a user would initially view the feed on a web site or blog which itself would have been branded. They would then click on a "subscribe" option which would take them to the unbranded Feedburner page. Since users would have passed through a branded page initially lack of branding opporunities on Feedburner may not be an issue.
Can opt out of adverts.

Stability, reliability and support

Loss of content - Not relevant. Content resides in the feed/blog not in Feedburner.

Known local alternatives.

None

Feed Informer

Key functionality

Takes multiple feeds and mixes them into one feed
Generates code to embed the new mixed feed in to your web page
Offers a range of options for the look and feel of the embedded feed.
Adds buttons to facilitate subscriptions

Pricing modelComplicated.

Free account - offers limited number of feeds/subscriptions and limited numbers of subscriptions to the feed.

Account Level	Digests (max)	Sources (max per)	Items (maxper)	Annually (US $)
Free	6	15	25	$0.00
Basic	12	20	50	$24.99
Plus	75	100	100	$69.99
Pro	200	150	250	$249.99

Problems

User forum full of complaints about service levels even with pay for accounts.

Copyright and IP

Not relevant.

Branding and advertising

Not relevant. One feed is created from several feeds. You can them embed this feed in your own web site.
No advertising

Stability, reliability and support

Content resides in blogs or feeds not in Feed Informer

Known local alternatives
None.

RSS Widget from Spring Widget

http://www.springwidgets.com/widgets/view/23

Key functionality

Creates a single feed from mulitiple feeds
Generates code to embed the new mixed feed on your website
Offers a range of options for the look and feel of the embedded feed
Single use - mix your feeds and copy and paste the code into your web site. Does not require further involvement from Springwidgets

Evaluating instant messaging applications

EmmaCragg — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:25:35 CDT

Meebo/Meebo Me

Key functionality

Simple embeddable widget to allow IM communication through a web page

Copyright and IP

No upload/storing of content so not a problem
Chat history through widgets not currently saved (though may be in future)

Branding and advertising

Can customise the look of Meebo Me widgets to a certain extent - choice of colours, size and wording. All free.
Widgets designed for embedding - copy and paste into the HTML
There is no advertising

Stability, reliability and support

No content so not really applicable
Partially owned by AOL

Known local alternatives

None. Closest would be the OULS ask-a-librarian, but this runs on email. The OCLC Ask-A-Librarian service did apparently include a chat function, but we no longer subscribe.
Future incarnations of the VLE may include IM, as may the Groupware project

Evaluating video sharing applications

EmmaCragg — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:24:19 CDT

YouTube

Key functionality

Used to create training and promotional videos

Upload, manage and share video content

Facilitates embedding video content in web pages and web 2.0 apps such as blogs, Facebook

Easy to use

Copyright and IP

When you upload content to YouTube you agree that YouTube can distribute and modify it for any purpose and that other YourTube users can access, reproduce, distribute and perform you submissions. When you remove materials from YouTube the licence is terminated.
Copyright - From YouTube terms and conditions: "For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. "
Re-use - From YouTube terms and conditions: "You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service.... The above licenses granted by you in User Videos terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your User Videos from the YouTube Service. You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Comments are perpetual and irrevocable."

Branding and advertising

Channels can include a background images which could be used for branding purposes.