It's all about the Twitterverse..really? How is Social Media working for you?

Went to an excellent exchange of experience event yesterday at Mimas in Manchester organised by Nowal (title above). This was a great opportunity to share stories with other library people about how they used social media in the professional lives, whether personally or for their service... and I crazily volunteered to speak about our experience at LJMU.

Lisa Jeskins from Mimas kicked us off introducing the day and explaining about what Mimas is and does. We all introduced ourselves and gave a reason why were were there. The was a mixture of experiences of using social media and a range of reasons for attending.

I was up next talking about what we've been doing at LJMU - we are at the very early stages having just set up a Facebook page and Twitter feed, with two blogs currently feeding both of these - the Electronic Library blog and the Customer Services blog which was set up by a colleague Simon Turner. I offered my 5 tops tips:

1. Get the boss on side - they can advocate upwards for you and on the whole makes it much easier to get things done
2. Preparation is everything - I showed the group our Facebook page drawn out on flip chart paper - we did this before we even went online
3. Listen up - we got good advice from others so I would recommend talking to others that have already done this
4. Adapt and overcome - be aware that things change in the world of social media so you need to be prepared for this
5. Strategy - make your social media presence part of your organisational strategy. If you have a strategy you can more easily move onto the next big thing when it happens. By making it part of the strategy you're not just relying on keen individuals - if you do this you run the risk that when they leave it all falls apart.

I was really pleased that this stimulated a lot of questions and discussions and it's really weird reading tweets after the event where you are quoted. No longer does what you say remain in the room but it is broadcast to a much wider audience without you knowing what is being said. Very scary and exciting.

Next up was Beth Ruddock who talked about her use of social media for professional development. Beth finds Twitter a valuable tool for making key contacts in the profession as well as for following events (like this one) that you have been unable to attend physically. Beth reads lots of professional blogs and blogs herself as it's a great way to progress within your profession. She received an award and being a modest person said she didn't know that she was necessarily doing more than others but that she was doing it publicly. This led to other things including an article in Update about her. Having a good Twitter presence can help your career. She also talked about the success of projects @theREALwikiman and @Woodsiegirl have been involved in that has come about because of engagement with social media.

Social media is a great tool to "grow" ideas and in her experience Twitter displays professional generosity - people are willing to help out. Through Twitter people have been asked to speak at conferences, be part of projects etc.

I thought what Beth had to say was really interesting and has made me want to be more active in my use of Twitter and other social media. I do post but not very often and am maybe not getting as much out of it as I could. I certainly use Twitter more for work than Facebook and get useful contacts and interesting links from others but maybe there is more... hmm something to ponder.

Next up was Sue Lawson from Manchester libraries. Her presentation was really inspiring, they seem to be doing so much. It seems that one area of developments leads into other things, sometimes by accident. The more engaged you are with social media the more opportunities seem to develop. I thought their Facebook page looked really good. Sue said she did used to spend ages get the boxes just right on the page but realised that many people only look at the news feed and never actually get to the page so she now spends more time writing interesting items for the feed - this is definitely something I will take away from the session. I was getting a bit hung up about what else we needed to put on our page but maybe we just need to focus on writing some more positive and interesting posts - it follows that I'll try to do this for the E-Library page too (this was my action point from the day).

I liked their use of flickr, which includes photos of central library before the refurb, much of this content is user generated.

Sue also showed us her "listening Wall" - this is a Netvibes space which collects what people are saying about the libraries and all the transformation team have logins to this - I thought this was a really good idea, bringing it all together in one space. Other things to investigate later would be Hootsuite and Issuu

After all that we needed some lunch and further sharing went on whilst we were eating. After lunch Lisa Jeskins talked about her experiences of using Twitter for work and how she's started a blog. Lisa talked about how tweeting at an event is a great marketing tool - the Mimas cupcakes - a few tweets to friends, spread and news of the Mimas cupcakes spread far and wide (Internet Librarian International 09)

Lisa also talked about the value and challenges of using twitter as a supplementary tool for training courses. You need to be careful not to alienate potentially half of your training course by providing information prior to the course via Twitter that those who are on Twitter don't get. She has set up a training blog herself and said that by using Twitter first this gave her the confidence to set up the blog.

After this we split into two groups for a very stimulating and interesting discussion. Rather than reinvent the wheel Beth summarised the discussion really well in her tweets on the day so check out them out for the main points - available here: http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/nmee

I have to say whilst writing this I've been re-reading the tweets to supplement the notes I made and that has been really helpful. So thanks to all those who tweeted and thanks for a great, stimulating and inspiring day.

Social Networking and libraries - MMIT event

Last Friday I attended an event held in our very own Aldham Robarts LRC, on social networking in libraries. Given that we are about to embark on this area it was timely. I attended with my colleague Pauline Smith and this post is based on both our notes from the session.

First up was Gareth Johnson from the University of Leicester who premiered his new weasel video all about social networking. At Leicester they started off with a library blog, with clear house rules for content to ensure style and purpose - it's very important to decide who your audience is. It started quietly but gained voice as it was inclusive for the whole university. It has now gained official recognition and is referenced in the new staff pack. The team (core of enthusiasm) support each other and prompt each other for articles.

Leicester also have a Facebook page, it's maintained by librarians but they don't post content directly to it, it all comes from feeds from other places. It's seen as providing information and there is very little interaction. In comparision the Graduate school at Leicester have a Facebook page which is updated much more regularly and is a good example of a two way conversation.

Twitter - this is a good way of finding community and encouraging professional awareness. It's also been used an another channel for support.

Gareth said that using such tools humanizes the library and that a lot depends on the personalities, ethos and culture. It is better to start small and often and be responsive to feedback from users.

Next up was Zelda Chatten from University of Liverpool. In early 2006 Liverpool had many many subject blogs but it proved hard to keep this going - eventually you run out of things to say. However the most successful blog was the e-resources blog, which continues to be updated. This blog now filters information into Facebook and Twitter. In late 2007 a Facebook page was set up as another way to promote new resources and services and does get a good response.

Twitter was set up for welcome week 2009 and was publicised in all library inductions. Relevant and interesting tweets are retweeted. They found it valuable to follow others as another source of information - I hadn't really thought about this for our twitter feed (about to be set up imminently) but I will now.

Liverpool Uni like Facebook and Twitter - it sparks interest and keeps users aware of the library as well as giving the library staff a more "human" face. Facebook reaches those who never make it as far as the web pages and its free. Zelda also said don't forget the "lurkers", you may be reaching many more people than those who choose to engage with you.

Dave Pulpett from London School of Economics was next talking about their experiences. They have a marketing and communications manager - which I think is key when trying to promote library services. Their motivations for getting involved in social media was a need to keep up, a feeling that they should be doing it and to fill gaps. The approach is very much experimental - see what happens, some things will work others won't.

They used Twitter as feed for discussion on their library catalogue but as it was so successful continued it to cover all areas of the library. Like others they also have a Facebook page and their page is interactive not just static. They use Delicious and have >1000 bookmarks. It has proven to be a good tool for both students and sharing with colleagues. Dave talked about the way forward being mobile - Mobile usage will increase and we need to develop support for this. LSE have LSE mobile for iPhone, soon to develop an android version - this is something that is under development at LJMU too. He also saw feedback and how we respond to this as key, what do we do with what they are telling us via Facebook, Twitter etc?

Last up was Andrew Walsh, who had the unfortunate task of being last as the presenters before him had talked about a lot of the areas in his presentation. As well as a Facebook page they have two twitter feeds, one for the main library and one for the digital repository @hudeprints - the second proving very successful for academics to promote their own work .The twitter feed has been embedded on library web pages as well. They have a number of blogs for different purposes, some of which have proved useful for internal communications e.g. Information Literacy blog has helped networking continue between meetings.

Andrew also talked about comments and star ratings - they started with the library catalogue but now have moved onto other pages - we need to think about whether this is useful. The university have also used other web 2.0 tools previously mentioned by other speakers but Andrew also spent some time looking ahead. Some tools to be aware of are location social networking tools like foursquare - these sites use GPS software on phones to tell you and other people where you are. Layering information on these sites could be a useful tool.

All in all the afternoon was very interesting, as it's always good to see what other people are up to. I am glad we are about to embark on some social stuff ourselves, as we don't want to be left behind. But it was heartening to hear that we weren't the only ones who hadn't created a Facebook page yet.... I say yet... watch this space..

LJMU Learning and Teaching Conference 2010 - Wednesday am

So it was back to a chilly Marsh for day 2. Coffee and biscuits on arrival helped a bit. First session was led by Phil Carey and Pat Eastwood and I liked the title of this one "Developing inclusive teaching and learning - a tortoise, mouse or dragonfly?" was interested to see what that was all about. They were looking at inclusivity in teaching and learning and certain metaphors kept reoccurring during the project, that of the tortoise, mouse and dragonfly. They were defined as this:

• tortoise - tenacious but slow (perhaps a little dull), ability to see the long game, willing to get things done - in some ways it reflected some of their concerns (especially in relation to speed)
• mouse - scurry around, very busy but not many people notice them, quick, adaptable - could the mouse frighten the elephant of the institution?
• dragonfly - captures you imagination but can be quite fleeting - was what they were doing sustainable?

Higher Education still excludes lots of people so we need to look at widening participation and enabling access for people with disabilities. We have equality policies, procedures, action plans, assessment principles in place already so we are demonstrating some direction of travel but how we progress this further?

They wanted to include all areas of inclusivity not just disability and raise awareness across the university. Their focus was on the faculty of health and they worked exclusively in the faculty - so it needs to be looked at how this can be disseminated across the university.

We then did a task taking one of the metaphors and considering the qualities that are needed for change in relation to those metaphors, which was interesting. Our group chose the tortoise and focused on the need to see the long game, be tenacious and stay on track, to appreciate that things can take time and not be swayed.

The next session looked at assistive technology and was run by Phil Bakstad and Max Fossard. They talked about technology that can assist students with a particular need but argued we should be promoting inclusion in a general sense. Many of these technologies can be used to help all students not just those with a disability. Inclusive teaching isn't just about satisfying legislation - we have students have individual needs and are from diverse communities and we need to take this into consideration. They demonstrated a couple of pieces of equipment, stressing that there was much more they could show us. We got to play with tablet PCs, drawing on screen with a pen, they could then display all four of the individual displays on the main screen split into four. It was possible to focus in on a particular groups work.

Throughout the presentation they used a microphone and there were speakers located at the back of the room as well as the front. This is really helpful in drowning out background noise for all students. I think we should have employed this technology for the whole of the conference and any future conference. I don't have a particular hearing problem but do find some speakers harder to hear than others. I know using a microphone is a bit daunting for some but to encourage inclusivity we should be doing this as a matter of course, rather than singling out those with hearing difficulties, which can cause embarrassment or make people feel uncomfortable. They also passed around a portable hearing loop kit, which was really discreet and I thought would be useful for staff in meetings as well as for students in user ed sessions. It can be set up in advance so is discreet. Multiple receivers can be plugged into one transmitter.

Recording sessions was also discussed as a really useful way for students who missed lectures to catch up.

I thought this session was really good and gave practical demonstrations of how this technology can be used to help everyone.

After coffee I went to a session by Carol Maynard and Claire Milsom "Great teachers: how shall we know them?". They said that we are not good at evidencing our excellence relating to teaching and learning. They talked about student evaluations of teaching and how we need to be aware of what they are judging good teaching . Student evaluations are important but we need to add our own ways of evaluating what is good teaching - to support and encourage best practice across the institution. According to the research good teaching is

• developing critical learners
• student-focused
• scholarly - researching your own teaching and your subject area
• set of virtues - teaching attributes like respectfulness, openness, pride etc.

We engaged in a task to look at what we should be doing to evidence good teaching as an institution, as a team and as a individual - I found the task quite hard not coming from a teaching background but it was interesting to hear what was already in place and what staff thought should be in place.

The final session of the morning was about teaching with twitter by Maria Barrett - Maria used twitter in to different ways for two off her modules. For Music Theatre and Entertainment Management, in the module The Producers she used the twitter community to gauge what the industry looked for in a good producer to bring this into her teaching. She found when she asked a general question she got no response. When the question was directed at specific people more responses were given. She got some responses from key figures in the industry thereby giving some authority/credibility to the answers. Graduates also responding, which was encouraging. the almost liveness of it was a big advantage, rather than refer to something written in a book 10 years ago this was what was needed now. The disadvantage of something like twitter is that's it a public space and views are subjective.

Maria then went on to talk about how she used the for the Contemporary Issues in Arts Management level 3 module. This is a speaker module where various external speakers come in to present to the students. The final assessment is presentation of a paper at the student-led conference. The presentation is 80% and continuous assessment is 20%. Maria offered the opportunity for the continuous assessment to be assessed by engagement with social media (including twitter). The students used twitter in lots of ways from general questions - help anyone got any ideas, to setting up study groups, providing moral support and sharing resources in a public space. The conference communication was also put out via twitter and it was used at the conference, with groups of students tweeting as the students presented their papers. A big advantage of using this was that there was much more awareness of what was happening across the college, others attended the conference from within the college and some "real" guests as well (this was unusual before). Also the Daily Post got in touch via twitter to ask if they could do a feature on the conference.

The advantages is that it allows students to contribute in their own time, in their own place., they could keep connected to the module whilst on placement and it makes continuous assessment more tangible. The disadvantages are that it can be distracting, time-consuming and does need some caution, with regards authority and veracity. Also its not a private site and there are ethical issued of privacy for students information, but we should be teaching them this anyway.

And then it was time for lunch.....

PPRG Annual Conference - Day 2 afternoon

Lunch was again lovely with another “pot licking” dessert (we didn’t, we just wanted to). Sharon Tuersley, who I mentioned earlier kicked off the afternoon and got us all up on our feet to do a bit of post-lunch exercise so we didn’t slump from too much food (very good idea). You couldn’t possibly of slept whilst she was on though, because she’s very good presenter and very easy to listen to. Sharon is from Warwick University and they have developed a very strong library brand over the last couple of years. There was major remodelling at Warwick which facilitated the creation of the brand. I mentioned in my previous post about a clear message and making that part of everything you do and Warwick’s message is “Connecting you with information, support and your community”. They ran an “it’s my library” campaign, which included snazzy bags with great imagery on the front and back up text on the back. I thought it was a great way to get users to take ownership of their space and hopefully then to respect it.

So how did they get there well they have a marketing advisory group, they did the branding in stages, they communicated well with other colleagues outside the advisory group and they provided support for staff in using the new brand. They have a library style guide (very glossy – nice) but not just that which reinforced what I’d heard earlier about supporting staff using the brand to get them on side, so they take ownership of the brand. This is your internal branding which allows staff to see where they fit into the grand scheme delivering the brand and creates a strong brand culture. It should provide inspiration to increase productivity and clarifies what is on brand and off brand.I like their small concertina leaflets and the Warwick library rocks rock. They also provided students with a card holder to put the leaflet in but that had space for your library card etc. Some of you may have seen their picks of the trick or treat stall – Sharon said this was a light bulb moment. A student who came to their staff at arrivals weekend said all you need is a pumpkin (in reference to the mass of orange on the stall) – so they very quickly set up their trick or treat idea. Students answered questions about the library for treats and the trick if they got it wrong was another question. As well as showing the human/fun face of the library but also gave insight into what students had and hadn’t picked up about the library service – could inform future campaigns. Their stall at arrivals weekend looked really professional (we need to get a table cloth for our welcome week events) and they said even though they clearly had their library branding all over it students came to talk to them. In the past we’ve deliberately not stood under a sign that said LIBRARY as we are in direct competition with pubs, clubs and societies etc. – but maybe arrivals weekend is a different set up to welcome week – I do not know. This year we did have Library and Student support on our new publicity behind us on the stall but I don’t know if it made a difference – something to think about.

This was followed by a library discussion - check out the tweets from PPRG on Twitter.

ALT-C Day two - first session

Fantastic first session with Lilian Soon and David Sugden - "Active Learning with mobile and web 2.0 technologies" This is what a workshop should be. I was feeling sleepy on the train over from Liverpool and so this woke me up because I had to think and actively engage in the session. I also got talking to my neighbour who I didn’t know (didn’t catch his name either, which was a shame, we were too busy working on the tasks).

There was hardly any tweeting going on in that session because everyone was too busy apart from when tweeting was part of the task of course. We texted, tweeted, contributed to a blog, took a photo of a picture we had drawn to represent an idea and emailed it to the blog. The fruits of our labours can be seen here: http://molenet.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html – a resource we can now go back to and share the ideas of others in the room for how we can use technology like texting to enhance our interaction with students. Good session which definitely did what it said on the tin.

ALT-C Day one - afternoon

Well day one at ALT-C was interesting and for the most part engaging. Wish my eeepc (borrowed from work) had lasted the distance though. I didn’t use it for a couple of sessions so the power was saved for the last session of the day on Twitter in teaching but the battery still died before the end. Difficult to do a practical Twitter session with no technology. There is definitely a lack of plug in points for delegates to charge up their devices and given that this is a conference focusing on and actively encouraging the use of technology and that I wasn’t the only one tweeting about failing batteries that is a great shame. My only other complaint is the lack of suitable rooms for practical workshops. A workshop on twitter really ought to happen in an IT suite so that those delegates who don’t have netbooks, or iphones or whatever can take an active part in the session. Mind you given how many people attended the Twitter session I’m not sure there would have been an IT suite big enough to accommodate us all.

That said I enjoyed the Twitter session and it stimulated lots of questions and discussion, particularly for those in the room who hadn’t really used Twitter much before. Personally I had but it was good to see what others were saying and to start thinking about how we could practically use this tool for teaching and learning.

Before that session I attended a very interesting session looking at the challenges of online learning for some students. The group in question were from a university in Canada, were a diverse group, average age 39 and they had a mixture of face to face and online learning. The course started with online input followed by an intensive 3 week face to face period. Then it was back to online. This was the point at which 15% of the students were lost – the approach was taken to look at why the students who stayed with the course did rather than look at why the others left. I thought this was a positive way to approach things. The students who stayed highlighted 4 areas that helped them get through; presence, review and reflect, social context and skill set and they were also asked what tools could be provided that may have helped them more in their blended learning.

The things that came up were:
Presence – video conferencing, audio, webinars
Review and reflect – video clips, powerpoint
Social context – discussion areas, asynchronous and synchronous tools
Skill set – train faculty on the use of online technology and pedagogy

The first session I attended after lunch (yes I know I’m doing this backwards) was on collaboration in the free world. This unfortunately was disappointing. The room was not great for a workshop environment (lecture theatre style) and although it started off well as a workshop and promised lots – we were going to do collaboration without the technology but using the principles of the technology – it descended into just a discussion so maybe would have been better as a symposium rather than a workshop. We began by using pieces of paper to introduce ourselves as though on Twitter, we then swapped papers and noted down people we wanted to follow – this was a way to engage in a room where there were few people with laptops etc and so got everyone involved. The presenters used the whiteboard to create three areas – expectations, social space and conclusions. The social space was supposed to be our wiki and though they said anyone could get up and write on the board during the session, this didn’t happen, I think mainly because we were all trapped in a lecture style environment and also because we were unsure what to contribute – this was a shame because this could have been a really useful way to demonstrate the collaborative elements of a wiki in a physical way. I think others in the group maybe got more out of the discussion than I did, I hope so. The presenters seemed quite happy with the way things turned out

Will update on the morning session later, it's 80% written