OCLS and Library 2.0

Well, talking a little bit about the Orange Seed here at OCLS, I have to say it's very important not only for me, but for the Library itself. As part of the Strategic Goal I, OCLS wants to have a good reputation among libraries and also wants to be established as an Employer of choice. Who wouldn't want to work in a place, that among other things, will allow you to propose or suggest ideas by posting them in a web page accessible to everyone that works there so you can get help developing it?
Plus having the Orange Seed, contributes to the Achievement of Strategic Goal II because it is beyond the traditional library experience, allows ideas to become an integral part of innovation and demonstrates that values the free flow of the employees ideas.
It is important for me because it allows me to see ideas posted by others and interact with them and I can even post my own so my opinions and ideas can be known.

Now talking about Orlando Memory... According to Strategic Goal I, OCLS wants to use psychographics (which is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles) to develop and market services. Orlando Memory will precisely show what are the values, lifestyles and interests of the community we offer our services to here in the Orlando Area because they will not only post comments, they will post any kind of media item that is significant to them, so we can see, hear or read about what they enjoy or think. I see it as something that definitely goes beyond the traditional library experience since it's completely digital, it allows electronic communication and connects the community with us.


The strategic plan makes me see in the horizon a lot of changes specially regarding embracing new technologies. The new OCLS widget that was developed it's a great example of that. With this widget we can be part of patron's webpages, and it will be easier for them to keep in touch with us. (You can see the widget on the left hand side of my screen below my Blog List)

Also the (now being tested)new OCLS catalog which you can see here will be a great way of "connecting the community to our services and products", it is also another way of electronic communication and it will give OCLS psychographics since it will allow patons to comment, tag and rate items. Test it, search by the keyword "Dogs" and check those new features and comments posted.



This strategic plan also reminds me of how important, patron's thoughts are and how important their feedback is. Because without them we wouldn't be here. If they are not able to share their thoughts and ideas we wouldn't be able to give them the services they would prefer and they could stop coming.

It also tells me how different some libraries, the ones that embrace the 2.0 concept, will be 5 or 10 years from now.

I saw a picture about this in another blog:

Where will the 2.0 take the library?


Picture was posted on the Boroondara City Library Blog

Web 2.0 Continues

Wow!
Browsing through the Seomoz awards page (http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0#cat_117) was awesome. I saw so many cool websites. A fun one was www.hairmixer.com in which you can upload your picture and change your hairstyle, you can even see your face reduced 50 pounds!


But some of them that we can really use at the library are:
Vufind in which the Library's catalog can be customized with open source software. (I know in a meeting I went to they spoke about changing the catalog to something similar, but I don't know if it was using this same software.) Anyway you can quickly sort the search results using the categories on the right of the screen. You can bookmark your searches, add tags to the items and even leave comments. If you click on the "review" tab for a book, it will display the review from Amazon.com and you don't even have to leave the page. When the search results are displayed and you choose one of them, it's going to show you similar items. This will definitely help patrons personalize and keep a record of their search, it will definetly make it easier for them to find what they want and it will let them say their opinion about items, making their opinion count.
See it yourself:

VuFind: Social Features from Falvey Memorial Library on Vimeo.


Another one is www.docstoc.com which compiles a wealth of legal, educational, technical and business documents for you to download for free. You can upload your own files in a number of formats. So this can help patrons when they need help typing documents like an eviction letter, they can get the document from here free!