BiblioTech Web

We have really become a 24-hour culture. With the growth of the Internet has come an expansion of the time window that people use to communicate or to get information. No longer do people work 8:00 – 5:00 and then go home and forget about work. People often take their work home or even work from home, and that more than 40 hours a week. Since people are doing work at all hours, or looking for information at all hours, those of us who SUPPORT them (either with technology or information) must provide service at all hours.

This is a radical notion for many readers, I’m sure, but it’s true. Our high-school- and college-age students are definitely online at all hours, often looking for information at 2am, when all but the 24/7 libraries are closed. Someone has to fill that need. If it’s not libraries, then we’re ceding the position of Primary Information Source over to Google and other online sites. For the library as we know it to exist dynamically in the future, we have to offer 24/7 service.

Now, that DOESN’T mean that we have to be STAFFED 24/7. People using Google at 3am are not interacting with people. They’re interacting with a computer. The same can be done by our libraries. In fact, most libraries are doing at least an element of this. That’s by putting their OPAC online. By having the catalog online, the library can interact with its patrons at any time of day and from any place. To the end user, the library resource that they’re using REPRESENTS the library! In fact, for all the people that visit us online before (or instead of) walking through our doors, our online presence IS the library. It affects what people think about us and provides the first level of service.

For a library to continue being viable into the future, we have to have quality websites and oodles of information. The more resources we make available online and in a user-friendly manner, the more value we have in the eyes of our patrons. Especially those that hardly ever walk through our doors for whatever reason. Collections of links to quality websites, blogs for reading clubs or reviews of new books, options for communicating with a librarian via Instant Messenger or email… these are just a few ways that we can rather painlessly improve our value in our patrons’ eyes and being offering them 24/7 information. It just takes some work and a willingness to try.

This afternoon I posted a review and comparison of the four major online map programs. Not exactly education related, but these programs can help in teaching geography, planning field trips, or even just getting from Point A to Point B. They’re also an essential tool of library reference services. Every Reference Desk should have at least one of these sites bookmarked for easy access.

Read the review at: Battle of the Maps

One of the drawbacks of creating web pages with links to selected websites is the necessity of checking up on those links from time to time to make sure the links are still valid. Websites appear, disappear, and move with alarming frequency. So you’ve made a page with relevant links to quality websites on a particular topic, to allow your website visitors to learn more on the topic. But a week later, are the links still good? You certainly can’t go click every link on every page on your site once a week! You need some kind of program that will do it for you.

Xenu’s LinkSleuth is that kind of program. You just enter a URL and it will check all the links on it and let you know whether they’re working or broken. You can even set a depth level. For instance, a depth level of 2 will check all the links on the URL you entered, and then also check the links on THOSE pages. And “links” includes images, frames, i-frames, backgrounds, style sheets, and more.

It’s a free program, has a simple interface, and is small (less than 1MB). Just what you want in a freeware program!

CNet posted this article recently:

When Esquire magazine writer A.J. Jacobs decided to do an article about the freely distributable and freely editable online encyclopedia Wikipedia, he took an innovative approach: He posted a crummy, error-laden draft of the story to the site.

Jacobs decided to craft an article about Wikipedia, complete with a series of intentional mistakes and typos, and post it on the site. The hope was that the community itself would be able to fix the errors and create a clean version that would be ready for publication in Esquire’s December issue. According to the Wikipedia page for Jacobs’ story, the article was edited 224 times in the first 24 hours after Jacobs posted it, and another 149 times in the next 24 hours.

If you want to see the original article, it’s still on Wikipedia, along with the version history, etc.