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No real content here – just a test! Apparently, the email version of my feed has been acting up. So, I’m testing it out, making sure everything is working!
Can you do me a favor? If you read my blog via email, can a couple of you visit this blog post and leave a comment, letting me know everything’s working ok? I’d appreciate it!
I also appreciate all you readers! You guys are truly awesome. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!
Related PostsZemantaI’m headed to BEA next week (I’m on the conference advisory board for the BEA Bloggers part of the conference), and will have a good three days of listening to publishers talk about ebooks (and hopefully libraries).
So I thought it would be a good idea to see where we stand right now with ebooks, the Big Six, and some of our current ebook vendors.
Here’s a list of the major ebook vendors, and what they offer in relation to the Big Six publishers:
3M, Baker & Taylor Axis 360:
OverDrive:
What does each publisher offer?
So – at this point, we have all Big Six publishers willing and able to sell [at least some] ebooks to [at least some] libraries. With wildly varying models and price points:
Pic by pazca
Related PostsZemantaI’ve been doing a lot of reading on responsive design lately (because my library is headed towards that), and that made me think. When designing websites, we tend to design for devices. That’s what responsive design is all about – it’s coding in such a way that your website “responds” appropriately to different screen sizes (i.e., desktops, tablets, smartphones). We design for things: for a desktop; for a screen; for a browser; for a tablet or smartphone.
Nothing wrong with that – a modern website has to work on all those devices, right?
But I also think we need to shift our focus a bit, to where it really counts. And that focus is not on the screen.
We need to design for people.
What’s that change?
We still need to do all the usual stuff – i.e., use great css, work on making our websites responsive, think about screensizes, readability, contrasting colors, etc.
But let’s also focus on people:
Simply put – put people first.
pic by Nicola Albertini
Related PostsZemantaI just saw some great reviews for my new book Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections, and wanted to share.
The first one comes from College & Research Libraries. The review was written by John Repplinger. Here are some highlights:
“David Lee King, the author of Face2Face, has put together a wonderful resource for those just beginning to investigate social media as tools to deepen their connections with customers and patrons. Essentially, this book is about how to transition in-person communication to the Internet. It is geared to reach a broad audience, and most of the examples are equally applicable to businesses, organizations, and libraries both large and small.”
and
“He takes his own advice and writes casually in a second-person perspective to readers, and this is largely what makes this book so engaging and refreshing.”
Read the whole book review here.
The second one comes from HispanicBusiness.com, written by Cheryl Terisi. Here are some highlights (read the whole review here):
“I brought Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections to bed with me, mistakenly thinking an explanation of how social media tools can help create customer service is just what I needed to lull me to sleep. Ha! Once I started to read this very common sense book, I could not put it down.”
and
“Face2Face is invaluable for organizations that currently use social media or those who want to improve their image. There are abundant examples as well as in-depth information to help you become more comfortable and relaxed, letting your customer know you care about them by showing the real face of your organization.”
and (my favorite):
“This book isn’t written like a text, but reads more like a mystery. By the time you reach the end, you don’t find out who did it but rather how to do it!”
Thanks John and Cheryl for the reviews!
Oh – and don’t forget. Face2face is on sale this summer. It’s a good time to get it if you haven’t yet
Related PostsZemantaHas your library ever really thought about the experience around becoming a library card holder, or worked to improve it?
At most libraries, when someone gets a library card for the first time, here’s what we do: we give the person their library card. We might also hand them a printed list of either “stuff you can do” or “stuff you can’t do ” (i.e., rules, regulations and circulation policies).
Are balloons released? Does anyone celebrate? Does it usher our new customer into some cool, “members-only” club? Do we follow-up with the customer after 3 months or so to see how it’s going? Nope. For most of us, nothing else happens.
What happens with other types of membership cards?
Now back to libraries. Is there something else we can do with a library card to make it more “membership” friendly? Reword that brochure we give out? Check back with our customers after 3 months to see how they’re doing (remember, we have their email address and snail mail address)?
How about give perks for use? For example, if they check out five books, they get that 3-day express movie for a week?
What do you think? Anyone do something special for library card holders that isn’t just “here’s your card, now go check stuff out?”
Image by Leo Reynolds
Related PostsZemantaThese are some notes I took on podcasting at last fall’s Podcamp Topeka. I “rediscovered” them, and decided they could be useful to some of you.
Rob Walch, who’s Vice President of Podcaster Relations for Wizzard Media/Libsyn and does the Today in iOS podcast, gave this presentation. Here are the notes – maybe more libraries need to start a podcast!
Some podcasting facts:
iTunes and podcasting:
September 2012 podcasting stats from Libsyn (a major podcasting service):
Submit your podcast to:
Some How-To’s for Podcasting:
Pic by owaief89
Related PostsZemantaJust a quick note on my book, Face2Face … it’s on sale! Information Today is running a really cool sale on some of their books from May 6 until June 10, 2013. They are offering 30% off the retail price on these books:
From InfoToday: “There is no need for customers to use a code – the web order sale prices are on the book’s web pages and the Yahoo store pages. Standard shipping is free for orders shipped within the continental United States. NJ residents must pay state tax. Ebook purchases are not included in this sale and the discount cannot be combined with other promotions.”
So, for those that haven’t bought my book yet, 30% off is a good deal Even better, there are some really good books in this list. Get em if you’re interested!
Related PostsZemantaEver wanted to know what your customers think is missing from a service point in your library?
There’s an easy way to find out … just ask! Post something that asks “what’s missing?” and start gathering answers. For example:
You can ask a similar “what’s missing” question on a website, in a room of the library, or even in the stacks. The point is this: if you want to make improvements in the library, you need to find out what’s missing … and fix that stuff.
Pic by crdotx
Related PostsZemantaI recently saw this post at problogger.net about strategies for growing community on your blog, and thought the suggestions were great. Here are the 7 strategies mentioned:
I’m curious – anyone do any of these? Which ones are the most useful in your library or blog?
Pic by Chiot’s Run
Related PostsZemantaHere are the presentations I gave while at Computers in Libraries (not counting my presentation on 15 Web Design Trends for 2013):
Outreach 2.0: the Digital Revolution of Public Relations from David King Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out: Dealing with Tech Change and Customer Engagement from David King Social Media for Customer Connections from David King Digital Hangouts: Reaching Outside the Building from David King Related PostsZemanta
Here’s one of my presentations for Computers in Libraries 2013 – great conference! I’m posting this one separately, since there’s some good stuff here. I poked around in Google, and condensed a lot of “web design predictions” posts into this handy list of 15 web design trends for 2013. Which ones are you thinking about?
Enjoy! I’ll post links to my other CIL 2013 presentations in another post.
Related PostsZemantaI gave this presentation last week at a webinar for the Southeastern New York Library Resources Council. There were a LOT of great questions afterwards. Lots of libraries are thinking about hackerspaces, makerspaces, etc … and trying to answer the “why” – as in why should we do this? What’s available? What are other libraries doing?
This presentation gave an overview of what’s happening, and also gave some tips on where to start.
Fun times!
Related PostsZemantaI gave a webinar for PLA last week on digital branches – fun stuff! Here are my slides… if a recorded version appears, I’ll link to it here!
Related PostsZemantaHave you heard about the EveryoneOn campaign? I saw some early info about it, then didn’t hear anything else. But I met some people working on the project while at SXSW, and it actually does sound like a great idea (assuming they can get buy-in from local libraries)!
So – here’s some info they sent me to explain what’s going on:
The goal of the campaign is to help get every American online so they can enrich their lives through access to more job opportunities, education, government resources and saving time and money.
The messaging for EveryoneOn includes the promotion of libraries as a vital tech hub in the community. The campaign sentiment is “we love the Internet” AND “we love libraries.” Especially on the social media communities, we’re sharing a lot of data about the role of libraries in digital literacy and also promoting the types of innovative services they provide. The training center locator (searched by zip code) includes many libraries, so this is helping to connect libraries to their communities.
Libraries can get involved by:
All of the info on how to get involved is aggregated in an online toolkit for libraries and partners, and a new site with digital literacy resources can be found here.
One BIG thought I had was this – how does this benefit libraries? In talking with the two people I met, they thought that libraries were already working hard to bridge the digital divide, but not everyone knows about it. So this national Ad Council campaign has the potential to give the issue … and libraries a lot of much-needed visibility.
Sounds cool to me – definitely worth finding out more! Here’s a video connected with the project:
Related PostsZemantaWhile I was at SXSW in Austin, TX last week, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation/interview/livestream at the #ideadrop house. The video is embedded in this post.
What’s the ideadrop house? From the livestream text:
“On 3/8, DLF brings you a live stream of the ER&L + ProQuest #ideadrop house in Austin, TX. The #ideadrop house is a space dedicated to library and information professionals to experience the diversity of SXSW speakers in the context of libraries and library-related technologies and topics.
Influencers, thought leaders, artists, hacktivists, academics and creators join the #ideadrop library house during March 8-12 at SXSW Interactive to discuss many topics including: SOPA/PIPA, free speech, privacy, open access, archives, values, humanity, civic start up efforts, civil liberty, liberty, network freedom, information access, open data, museums, community engagement, ux, social media, digitization and open source technologies.
Live streaming made possible by the Digital Library Federation (DLF)”
So – Lisa Carlucci and I talked about online conversations and community in the library world – fun talk! Make sure to watch and listen … then leave a comment here!
Related PostsZemantaGoogle just announced the demise of Google Reader – a tool I use to read RSS feeds with, and am in pretty much every single day. That’s probably how many of you guys read my blog, too – darn that Google!
But never fear – Stephen Abram is here to help! He has gathered some relevant stories, blog posts, and alternatives together, so you and I don’t have to - go read his post. Looks like I’ll be checking out Feedly, NewsBlur, and The Old Reader for sure.
Here are some other ideas for subscribing to my blog and others:
Other options? Let me know in the comments. And – thank you for reading! You’re awesome!
Pic found at Silicon Valley Business Journal
Related PostsZemantaSo I’m at SXSW 2013 this week, and I’m learning about some really cool, potentially useful apps, tools, etc. Here’s a partial list of some of them:
CratePlayer – I met the CEO of this startup, and he described CratePlayer like this: think Pinterest, but for media of all types, like video and music. Their website says this: “CratePlayer lets you discover, collect, play and share your favorite online media all in one place.” Nice. They call the Pinterest board-like thing a “crate.” So for a library, gather local media, news media, subject-specific or educational media into a crate, and share away!
Takes – a new iPhone camera app that turns your pictures into videos. Might be useful for video creation!
WeVideo – cool new online video editor. This one is freemium, as in the free version is fine, but to get HD videos and more than 15 minutes of exports, you have to pay a monthly fee. They told me that organizational pricing is available. So … instead of buying lots of copies of video editing software, think about using this online tool.
JumperCut – really interesting video tool. JumperCut lets you collaborate with others to make video. Think crowdsourced videos, multiple takes of the same scene, etc. And … then think about your smartphone-wielding teens. Could be a fun project!
modit – lots of basic online games that you can edit, or “mod,” using their browser-based editor. Then you can save it, share it, and play. This sounds like an easy way to make some localized games pretty easily! The guy I talked to mentioned making customized crossword puzzles, for example.
izik – a new search engine app built for smartphones and tablets. It has a more “Pinterest-like” search results display, and is built on top of Blekko (though the search results for the same searches come out different using the two tools … not sure what’s up with that).
meltwater – an online social media monitoring, management, and engagement service. Looked pretty extensive (but they didn’t tell me how much the service costs).
Nestivity – this looks interesting to Twitter users. It turns your Twitter handle into a “nest,” which helps you better organize, track, and save Twitter conversations. Analytics are provided, and the archive of the conversation is saved.
simplemachine – this looked cool. It’s a peer-to-peer cinema marketplace that allows anyone to book films for exhibition in a theatrical setting (think public viewing of videos). That generally costs money – with simplemachine, they’ve already done the hard work of tracking down the rights holder, and act like a go-between broker (so you don’t have to).
Xi3 – one cool newish hardware tool – check out Xi3. They make really tiny, inexpensive (relatively), power-saving computers. Definitely an alternative to the larger companies like Dell or HP! The picture included in this blog post is one of the computers. Here’s another image of the same computer side-by-side with a smartphone, just to see how big it really is (and a very low-light, grainy image, too – sorry about that!). They had some of these bolted onto the backs of computer monitors – pretty tidy setup!
Treeswing - not really a library app at all. It’s a cool new financial investing tool, and looked sorta promising. Why am I mentioning it? Because it’s sponsored by DST in Kansas City … and I worked for DST during the summers while in college! That was in the 1980′s, and my big job was taking huge dot matrix printouts upstairs to the programmers, so they could actually look at the coding work they just did. Weird job in a weird time. My how times have changed!
Related PostsZemantaI’m headed out to SXSWi tomorrow (woo hoo!), and wanted to let y’all know about something I’m participating in on Friday. I’m heading up a discussion about being human online on Friday at the #ideadrop House.
What’s the #ideadrop House? It’s a fun event hosted by Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) and ProQuest. The goal is to “serve as a seriously fun place to drop ideas and a seriously great opportunity to dialogue about topics affecting libraries during SXSW when the creative juices are flowing and where the big ideas are percolating.”
For most talks at the #ideadrop House during SXSW, there’s a small space for people to actually attend (I think). And, the talk will also be livestreamed at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ideadrop - so you can still watch and participate, even if you’re not in Austin!
My talk is scheduled for 4pm Friday March 8 – I’ll be talking about how organizations can make real connections to customers using online tools.
Please come by, tune in, and discuss! Should be a blast! You can also follow along via Twitter using #ideadrop or @ERandL.
Related PostsZemanta
Just a quick note that my book, Face2face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and Other Social Media Tools to Create Great Customer Connections has been nominated for a small business book award by Small Business Trends.
So here’s what I’d LOVE for you to do – go vote for my book! It’s easy to do – go here, and click that blue Vote box next to the title of my book. Simple, huh?
While you’re at it, if you haven’t read my book yet … click the book link in this post, go to Amazon, and buy it! Ok, or check it out at your local library. Or get the library to buy it for you
Either way – thanks for reading! You guys ROCK.
Related PostsZemantaWhy can’t annual reports be cool? Or at least interesting enough to actually read, watch, etc?
That’s what my library tries to do with ours, anyway. For the last two years, our annual report has been video-only. This year, we improved upon that a bit, and did three things:
Here’s our 2011 annual report, for those interested.
Why do this?
We have to create some type of annual report each year. And honestly … people mostly DON’T look at these. Sure, you can mail them to everyone. Print them out and place them in strategic locations in the library. Send them to parter organizations in your community.
But read them? Maybe some people will give it a cursory glance … and them toss it into the trash, like a greeting card.
With our video? There’s enough eye candy there for people to watch, and maybe learn something more about their library, and what their tax dollars are actually going to.
That’s the idea, anyway!
Related PostsZemanta
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