Back from Vala2010

I'm back from the conference in Melbourne and I am now the proud owner of some red heels. Wish I'd got the black versions as well because I really like them.

I'm still processing stuff from the conference.  I'll publish my "official librarian thoughts" on the Diligent Room blog but here are some not so librarian thoughts.

• Twapperkeeper is great for archiving tweets and looking at the archive refreshes my memory of the sessions I attended. 
• I {heart} Twitter and conferences.  I think Twitterers have more fun at conferences.
• I {heart} meeting people I have met online IRL.  I had 2 dinners out with some other Twitterers and Bloggers and we had a blast.  Somehow some non-Twittering librarians came along to one dinner and we overheard them remarking, "I was asked my Twitter name before my real name!" Heh - well it was organised on Twitter. Doh.

• Automatic Cafe along the Yarra River front serves enormous chocolate cake portions.  It's also incredibly hard to find if you use Google Maps instructions.  The cake below was about 12cm across the widest part of the wedge and about 15 cm high.

 

Nope - that's not my dessert.  I had lemon tart.

 

•  I missed my family a lot particularly on the first day when I had no other company.  Skype is great.  High internet charges is not.  
• A technology conference that doesn't have power outlets in the main plenary auditorium is a major oversight.
• There is less singing at Australian library conferences.  But some folks do interpretive dance in their sessions and some knit during the plenaries.
• I forgot my toothpaste.  Hotel housekeeping services are very handy.
• The current trend for vendor schwag is shopping bags that fit in your handbag - very cool!  I scored 3 but only kept the National Library of Australia one which is an Onyabag.  The rest + plus the other things (post its, pens etc) I took into work for my colleagues.
• Leaving the shower curtain outside the bath while having a shower results in a flood over the tiled floor.  Thank goodness for bathrooms with drains in the floor.

•  This bed was very comfy but it didn't have DH in it so I didn't sleep that well.  The hotel was very pleasant though (Holiday Inn on Flinders).
• Apparently I should have taken more pictures of trams and trains according to Mr 6.

National Digital Forum

National Digital Forum

My notes from a few of the sessions I attended.
I enjoyed going along to this.  It was a last minute thing as another staff member couldn't go for the whole time and suggested I go instead.  I certainly felt energised by the whole thing and re-inspired about the whole digital content + web 2.0 thing + libraries.  (This was somewhat flattened today by some staff members quibbling about the need for IM. *sigh*)

Web Metrics

Seb Chan Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

More and more people are not going through the front page.  Google provides them with a “fire escape” entry.  This can create a problem because stat counters/log stats might not pick them up.

Some good free web metrics include:

 Google analytics

• Use for web sites, blogs etc
• Use the segmentation option
• Google trends

Feedburner

• Tracks RSS subs for blogs and podcasts
• Can report on those who just read in their feed reader

Technorati

• Measuring blogs
• Some people prefer to count how many comments they get
• Or who blogs about them

 Howsociable.com

• Scores your site in different social networking apps

Net promoter score:

% promotors - % detractors = NPS

Summary

• Set goals, segment, observe trends
• Use appropriate measurement tools
• Find benchmarks (e.g. World internet report)
• Combine quantitative with qualitative
• Visits do not equal satisfaction

http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/chan-metrics/chan-metrics.html

Seb blogs at the museum 

Useful book: Web analytics: an hour a day by Avinash Kasushik

 Open Source initiatives at Archives New Zealand

Kathy Longson Archives NZ (www.archives.govt.nz/)

• Cost effective, not necessarily free

• Adaptable and flexible
• User supported communities
• Contributed to by the community
• Enables rapid development
• Open source and open standards digital continuity

 Open Source products

• Drupal
• Used by NZ War Art (http://warart.archives.govt.nz/)
• NRAM (http://www.nram.org.nz/)
• Continuum website (http://continuum.archives.govt.nz/)
• Fedora/Fez – digital repository software ( fedoraproject.org/)
• Dspace – digital repository software (www.dspace.org)

 
Need ongoing access to expertise

• Software developers who understand your organisation are significant advantage 
  

Using Social Media

Seb Chan Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (www.powerhousemuseum.com)

 "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

From The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams).

Lesson: When something is loved, it doesn’t stay preserved

When something is made available via social media it will not “stay preserved” but it will be real and have meaning to those who “play” with it.

Think about

• Strategy
• Measurement
• Impact on business models e.g. putting up a Youtube video about an exhibition can bring more fee paying people through your door

 The web is now about participation, not just information

• No longer web sites but web presence
• User patterns are now social not informational
• Messaging, social networks, casual gaming, multi-tasking/multi-channel
• High noise ratio

 Macarthur Typology

• http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/
• interest driven practices
• friendship driven practices - if your friend recommends it, you are more likely to follow it up

 Using social media means

• Have to give up some control
• Sharing
• Conversations
• E.g. how we share experiences today – via photos, txt, videos

 Resourcing a web presence

• Increases over time, doesn’t drop off once the ‘launch’ is over
• Community or persona “managers” needed for
• Customer service 24/7
• Doesn’t scale ( e.g. 1 to 1)

 It's quite frustrating for me to work in a place where I am one of 2-3 staff members who are interested in Web 2.0 and it's applications to libraries.  Our student base at this campus appears to be a step behind in terms of embracing social networking compared with other institutions too.

 

 

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