Thursday, December 10, 2009

One year later...

Wow! It's been a year since our Finish Line event at the BPL...my how the time has flown! Over the past calendar year we've implemented a number of 2.0 tools in my Library, and I now have some time for some 2.0 reflection. I hope some of my fellow 2.0 marathon runners will find them helpful.

1. We've implemented our blog! We were in the planning stages during the 26.2 course, and we went live in January 2009. It hasn't been the vehicle of interactivity that we had hoped for, but we do feel it has been successful in disseminating information to our patrons. We conducted a online survey last spring regarding the blog, and we received positive responses overall. The committee continues to meet once or twice a month to discuss the blog, but we've since transformed the committee into a general outreach group that focuses on improving our outreach to the College community.

2. We did decide to implement a Twitter feed. The feed has been added to our Library web site using a widget provided by Twitter. We have been using for general announcements and updates (perhaps some snow closing announcements as winter continues...) and to direct patrons to our blog. It has been easy to implement and does not require much staff time. Overall, we have been happy with this implementation.

3. I continue to maintain the Library's Flickr site. In addition to highlighting print discretionary purchases, I have also added "mosaics" of titles that we now get through Credo Reference and photos from the ongoing Alumni Archives digitization project. I continue to use notes for the book "mosaics" with links that direct our patrons to the online catalog or directly to Credo Ref.

4. This semester we had our Library student workers make two videos to place on the blog - a Welcome Back video and a Reserving a Study Room video. The student workers have had a lot of fun with these videos, and we hope that it makes them feel like this is their Library too. We hope to do more of these videos in the spring.

So, what now? I don't have any immediate 2.0 aspirations, but I am constantly looking for new 2.0 ideas that we might implement here. I am attending the ACRL Institute "Text Messaging, Twitter, and Libraries" presented by Joe Murphy at ALA Midwinter. I am really excited to learn more about texting/SMS implementations in libraries. I am also planning to attend the SPARC-ACRL forum at Midwinter to find out what is going on in the OA/SC world right now. Maybe I will see some of you at these events!

Non 2.0 aspirations for 2010...
My professional New Year's Resolution is to start using this blog as a vehicle for my thoughts regarding libraries, librarians, professional literature, etc. (My personal New Year's Resolution, for those of you that are interested, is to increase my 'cinematic literacy' by subscribing to Netflix and allowing my friends to control my queue...they sometimes ask if I even know what a movie is.). By doing this I hope to have a place where my professional thoughts are gathered and perhaps engage with other librarians on a range of topics. I also plan to continue working towards some of my long-term professional goals: becoming more active in professional associations (I hope to apply for the Emerging Leaders program...this is my last year of eligibility), contributing to the field, and, when I'm eligible, applying for the Fulbright Specialists Program.

I hope that 2009 has treated you all well and thank you for reading (my very looong post)!

2 comments:

Michael C. said...

Hey Amanda! How great to hear an update from you on all the great 2.0 services you have initiated in the last year! If the Boston Region's online CE course helped get some of this stuff accomplished even a little, I am very happy!

Amanda said...

Hi Michael! It certainly did; it was a great course! I hoping to take advantage of some more BRLS CE courses in the spring. Happy New Year!