Thing #43: Libraries and Hyperlocal Information

While one of the great things about the Web is its ability to connect people across great distances, it is also useful for bringing together people in the same local community. The recent trend of hyperlocal (meaning extremely local, or relating to a very specific location) journalism highlights the fact that people want to be able to go online and find information about their own community. As this article explains, in a time when some newspapers are in decline, hyperlocal web sites have emerged as a new way for people to receive news and information.

Hyperlocal sites take a few different approaches. Some sites hire authors and editors to generate content, which they may supplement with feeds from local news sources. Others rely entirely on aggregated news from other sources. Some choose to focus on a few locations, while others aggregate content for almost any location and allow users to search for a location that interests them.

What does this mean for libraries? This blog post by Emily Clasper, a librarian in New York, outlines some of the reasons she believes hyperlocal news should be important to libraries. As she points out, libraries are a traditional source of information about a community. These web sites could be competition for libraries, but they could also be an opportunity.
Here are some more details about particular hyperlocal news sites:

Patch
On Patch’s home page, you can see that the states that it serves are still quite limited. Patch hires writers and editors to create content relevant to each local community. In addition to reading news stories, visitors to the site can find local events, browse a directory of local businesses, and ask questions about local topics in the Q & A section (users must create an account to use this section.)

EveryBlock
EveryBlock is similar to Patch in that it only focuses on certain locations. EveryBlock focuses on larger cities, and then allows users to find information by searching by zip code, neighborhood, or street. You can even narrow your search down to a particular block - this site truly illustrates the meaning of hyperlocal! The information on EveryBlock is aggregated from a number of sources. In contrast to Patch, which focuses mostly on news stories, EveryBlock provides information like crime reports, real estate listings, and restaurant reviews, all provided by outside sources.

Outside.in
Outside.in does not create original content, but aggregates news stories from local sources. You can search for a particular city and find the latest headlines. The variety of content is not as great as that found on Patch or EveryBlock, but it does have the advantage of providing a place to find content about many different communities, rather than a select few. Each state has a page with links to various cities, which makes it convenient to find Nebraska headlines, for example.

Placeblogger
Placeblogger is a little different from the sites listed above. Instead of hiring authors to write content, or aggregating news feeds, Placeblogger focuses on compiling information from blogs about a particular location. Content is collected by users adding blogs to the site, so it is only as good as the blogs provided. Not all cities have a lot of content. (For example, Omaha has one blog listed, and Lincoln has five. However, Chicago has quite a few.) Placeblogger also has a social networking aspect. Users are encouraged to create profiles and track the places they’ve lived and visited.

Assignment:

1. Read the article and blog post mentioned above.

2. Explore at least two of the hyperlocal sites from the list above. (They don’t all have Nebraska information, but you should still be able to pick a community and get an idea of the types of information provided.)

3. Write a blog post recounting your experience with the sites. Do they have any features that particularly interested you? Do you think these sites serve a useful purpose? If you lived in a community served by these sites, would you use any of them as sources of information?

What is your opinion on libraries and hyperlocal information? Should libraries partner with hyperlocal services? In communities without a Patch or EveryBlock web site, should libraries fill this role and promote hyperlocal information on their web sites? (Or are they already doing so?)

Thing #42: Pimp Your Twitter

Twitter was Thing #13 in our previous Nebraska Learns 2.0 program, back in November 2008.  It's been a couple of years, and Twitter has evolved since then, so we figured it might be a good time to revisit Twitter.

Some of you may have never used Twitter before, some of you did the original Thing for Twitter, and some of you may be using Twitter on a regular basis. No problem! We have options for all levels of Twitter users.

So, for this month's Thing, you have 3 choices. You can do the Beginner activity, the More Than a Beginner activity, or you can do both!

First, for those of you totally new to Twitter, watch this short video to learn how to get started:



Twitter allows users to post 140 character updates, answering the question: “What's happening?”. These posts are shared via the web to either the world or to the users’ friends.

Users can access Twitter messages - called tweets - on the Web, thru an RSS feed, via text on their cell phones or with any number of third part apps. Accessing a Twitter account, one might find an update on a users' day, a direct message to another Twitter user, a link to something the user wants to share with their friends, or a bit of wit and wisdom.

Libraries are using Twitter as well as a means to update content on the Web or for alert services.

Check out some of these articles to learn more about how you can use Twitter, both personally and for your library:

How to Use Twitter

Twitter for Beginners: 5 Steps for Better Tweeting

How to Twitter - Wall Street Journal

Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)

How Your Library May Not Be Using Twitter But Should

Beginner Assignment:

1. Visit Twitter and sign up for a free account. Try a few tweets.

See how other libraries are using Twitter:

Libraries Using Twitter - from Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

Follow one of us - Allana, Christa, Michael, or Susan.

Or follow one of the Nebraska Library Commission's Twitter accounts: NLC News, NLC Tech, or NLC Reference.

2. Search Twitter for mentions of your library, school or anything that interests you to explore how people use this tool. What conversations did you find?

3. Blog about the experience. Did you like micro-blogging? How could libraries use Twitter? How could you use Twitter?
 
There are Many Apps for Twitter

The Twitter web page is where you start using Twitter. But as you use it more, you may discover that the web page is a bit lacking. Maybe there are some features you wish it had. Did you know that you can post pictures via Twitter? And that you can track your account statistics? What if, like we do at the Library Commission, you have multiple Twitter accounts to update? There are services that can do all of these things, and more.

To help users interact with their Twitter account(s), many third party apps and web sites have cropped up. Take a look at these articles about sites and applications that can make Twitter more useful to you and your library:

Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience

5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools

11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates

25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts

More Than a Beginner Assignment:

1. Try out 1 or 2 of the sites or apps listed in the articles above.

2. Share your impressions of the sites or apps you tested. Write a blog post about what you thought was good or bad about the apps. Did you find them useful? Would you have liked them to do something more or less? Do you think you'll continue using them? How could libraries use them?

Thing #41: There's No Excuse Not To Learn! (or "How To" 2.0)

Lifelong learning is often discussed in the context of professional development, but most of us have things we want to learn for purposes of personal development as well.

Sometimes we need to learn something new out of necessity. Perhaps you’re a first-time home-owner who suddenly needs a crash course in basic home repairs. Or maybe a diabetes diagnosis requires you to learn a whole new way of cooking. Other times we want to learn something just for fun—like knitting, cake decorating, or Chinese!

In the past, if we didn’t want to enroll in a formal class we could usually go to a bookstore or library and find instructional books or tapes designed to help us learn desired skills. Self-instruction books and DVDs are still widely available in bookstores and libraries, but in recent years the variety and quality of free online instructional resources has skyrocketed. And I can think of a number of instances in which I—or someone I know—relied primarily on a free online resource to learn something new.

Examples:

• Last year, half-way through vacation at a lakeside cabin in Minnesota, I hit a knitting roadblock. I’d finished the “easy” part of my project and I now needed to perform a different and more complicated stitch. For the life of me I couldn’t follow the written instructions or decipher the diagrams in my book. If I couldn’t figure this out I was done with knitting for the remainder of the week. In desperation I took our laptop to the car and drove closer to the resort owners’ house in order to access the wireless signal they provided to guests. Once online I quickly located a short video clip of someone demonstrating how to perform the stitch. That made all the difference! I was able to return to the cabin and resume my project as though I’d never had a problem!

• On a recent trip to visit my friend Karen, she cooked us steak for dinner. I’ve known Karen since junior high and she’s never had the slightest interest in cooking. So where had she learned to cook steak? Some video she found on YouTube!

• My son has difficulty with handwriting, so several educational advisors have recommended he learn keyboarding as soon as possible. So how do people learn keyboarding these days? No longer do they sit in a classroom in front of a typewriter while a teacher rhythmically calls out letters. Now they use free, online typing tutorials like Dance Mat Typing or E-Learning for Kids Keyboarding Skills.

It’s certainly possible and often quite productive to search for exactly what you need, using your favorite search engine. For instance, click on the following links to see Google search results for the following:

• picking up stitches while knitting socks
• how to cook a steak video
• free keyboarding tutorials for children

However, it’s also fun to browse some of the numerous “how to” sites that have sprung up to host or serve as directories to free instructional videos on the web. And that’s what we’re going to do for Thing #41!

General Interest "How To" Sites

The first three sites I’d like to direct your attention to host instructional videos on such a wide range of topics that probably everyone can find something of personal interest or value. All can be used without registration, but signing up for free accounts gets you additional functionality. Take a look and see what you think!

• Graspr: The Instructional Video Network
• Instructables
• MonkeySee

School "How To" Sites

These next three sites are probably of greatest interest to students who need help with schoolwork—or the adults they ask to assist them. I know as the parent of an elementary student I sometimes have trouble helping my son with math not because I can’t do the problems, but because I wasn’t taught to solve them the same way he’s being taught.

In these instances I’ve found it useful to go online and search for lessons that present the material in the same way it’s being presented in his classroom. If I can find such lessons—and I almost always do on sites like those listed below—it gives me the background information I need to provide my son with the type of assistance he needs.

• WatchKnow - Thousands of great short videos, and other media, explaining every topic taught to school kids. Videos come from many sites include YouTube, eHow, National Geographic, TeacherTube, and more.

• TeacherTube – An educationally focused, safe venue for sharing instructional videos; designed for teachers, schools, and home learners.

• Khan Academy – Thousands of short videos created by Salman Khan to explain math concepts from simple to advanced. Useful to students of all levels. (Watch this 3-minute CNN clip to learn more.)

The instructional video sites I’ve highlighted above are only a sampling of what’s available. In fact, the “how to” video phenomenon is becoming so widespread that someone even created a Google Custom Search Engine to search across multiple instructional video sites. It is called the How Do I? Instructional Video Search. (Note to Michael: Try searching for “move a shed.”)

Assignment

1. Explore the "How To" sites referenced above. In your blog post identify and link to at least two lessons or tutorials that particularly interest you.
2. Describe your experience exploring the sites and explain what you like about the resources you chose to highlight.
3. Finally, spend some time reflecting on the advantages and/or disadvantages you think these online "how to" sites have over more traditional "how to" resources. How do the online resources compare to physical "how to" resources owned by your library? Are these sites competition for our collections or are they welcome supplements to them?

Postscript: On Friday, September 24, Google awarded Khan Academy two million dollars "to bolster its free online library of educational videos and translate core works into the world's most widely spoken languages." Khan Academy was one of five groups chosen to receive funds through Google's Project 10^100

And here's a final interesting anecdote: According to an article on the CNNMoney.com site, Khan Academy creator Salman Khan is supposedly Bill Gates' favorite teacher!