Mar 1, 2010

Thing #34: Is this Our Competition? Online Answer Sites

More and more people seem to turn to the Internet and anyone on the Web to answer their questions. Has this affected library reference service? Should we be worried? In this month's Thing, we ask you to take a look at some popular answer sites, consider some librarians' responses to the sites, and share your opinions.

You have read lots about the "future of reference" and "are libraries necessary" in the professional and popular press. With "everything on the Internet" and everyone considering themselves a Googling expert, do people need our help finding information? Wikipedia and other online reference sites make finding information easy from our easy chairs or desks. Add in online answer sites that allow you to post a question and anyone to offer an answer, and people willing to accept answers from anyone and their dog on the Internet, and we could begin to question our worth. In an era of wide acceptance of user-generated content and the "cult of the amateur," where do public, academic, special, and school librarians come in?

According to a report in Marketing Charts, the market share of US visits to Question and Answer websites for the week ended March 15 [2008] was 118% more than during the equivalent week in 2007 - and over the past two years US visits to the category have increased 889% (Feb. ‘08 vs. Feb. ‘06).

What is the appeal of an anonymous site that offers answers on everything from relationships & pets to parenting & shopping, along with books, cooking and travel and so on? You may read many of the questions and think, "Call your library!"--or Google it, at least. There are a lot of relationship questions --"Should I break up with him/her?" or "My parent is (fill in the dysfunction), what should I do?"--that may not be appropriate for the library as stated. One can see the appeal of anonymity--like telling your life story to a stranger on a plane.

But do you trust the answer? This is where information literacy comes in--can we identify the information we need to solve a problem/answer a question, can we find it, can we evaluate the information and the sources, and can we apply the information to the question or problem? And why do people trust some stranger's opinion or info rather than ask a trustworthy librarian who can back up the answer with reliable resources?

Maybe it's library policies that drive people to the answer sites. David Lee King has a post on his blog about libraries treating people using libraries' email and chat reference differently than in-person users. Be sure to read the comments, too.

Apparently people do trust the answers. From the abstract of Predictors of answer quality in online Q&A sites: "we investigate predictors of answer quality through a comparative, controlled field study of responses provided across several online Q&A sites. Along with several quantitative results concerning the effects of factors such as question topic and rhetorical strategy, we present two high-level messages. First, you get what you pay for in Q&A sites. Answer quality was typically higher in Google Answers (a fee-based site) than in the free sites we studied, and paying more money for an answer led to better outcomes. Second, we find that a Q&A site's community of users contributes to its success. Yahoo! Answers, a Q&A site where anybody can answer questions, outperformed sites that depend on specific individuals to answer questions, such as library reference services."

Librarians Respond

Slam the Boards is a group of librarians that is taking the bull by the horns. The 10th of each month is Slam the Boards Day. Librarians invade the various Web answer board sites such as Yahoo! Answers, Amazon’s Askville, The Wikipedia Reference Desk, and others—answering as many questions as they can using authoritative sources. The goal is to make sure readers know a librarian provided the answer and thereby raise awareness of library services.

Read more about it on WebJunction - Slam the Boards! Predatory Reference and the Online Answer Sites. Here is a discussion of the first effort by Jeffrey Pomerantz.

The Slam the Boards wiki, Answer Board Librarians, has lots of tips and tricks, suggested tag lines for your answer board response, and lists of "best answer" ratings earned by members.

Answer Sites

Questions are wide-ranging on these sites, including a lot of chat-type questions ("What comes to mind when I say 20/20?").

AskMetafilter (requires paid membership to post)

Part of Metafilter. "Metafilter is a weblog that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they find on the web. This website exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members."

ChaCha

A service for mobile devices. "Ask your question from your mobile phone. We'll instantly route it to the most knowledgeable person on that topic in our Guide community. Your answer is then returned to your phone as a text message within a few minutes."

Allexperts

"Allexperts, created in early 1998, was the very first large-scale question and answer service on the net! We have thousands of volunteers, including top lawyers, doctors, engineers, and scientists, waiting to answer your questions. All answers are free and most come within a day!"

WikiAnswers

"If you have a specific, unique, complex or more social question, and you are seeking a to-the-point answer, WikiAnswers is the place for your question. Anyone can ask, answer, edit or collaborate on answers in thousands of categories." Part of Answers.com.

Yahoo! Answers

"Yahoo! Answers is a place where people ask and answer questions on any topic." Earn points for answering, best answer, and choosing best answer to your questions.

Askville

Part of Amazon. "Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic." Has a complicated point system for good answers, experience, etc.

Answerbag

"Answerbag is a community where you can ask, answer and interact around questions and answers with thousands of other people throughout the world."

Mahalo Answers

"Mahalo Answers is a community of Internet researchers that was founded in December 2008. Users and the public can submit questions regarding any topic to our broad-based, informed community of users."

SnappyFingers

This is a search engine that searches FAQs across the Web.


ReadWriteWeb has a roundup of Q & A sites.

FeedMyApp lists Web 2.0 Answer Applications & Sites.

Assignment

  1. Take a look at several of the answer sites. Keep in mind--it's the Internet and people often seem to ask questions about sex and other NSFW topics. Don't click on those questions or any other question/answer that could offend you
  2. Explore the Slam the Boards wiki. Consider participating in the next event.
  3. Create a blog post about what you discovered and what you think of these type of sites.

Some ideas for your blog post:

1. What is the appeal of an online answer site?
2. What kind of questions did you see at the sites you looked at?
3. Are these the kinds of questions that can--or even should--be directed to a library? Why/why not?
4. Do people use these sites because they don't know of other resources--like their library?
5. What do you think of the Slam the Boards events? Did you participate?
6. Did you answer any of the questions on a site? Which site? What type of question?

Challenge (optional)

Join Slam the Boards and try your hand at answering questions. Let us know how it went!

Credit: This Thing was based on the Minnesota Multitype Library Systems' More Things on a Stick program and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commerical-Share Alike license.
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Feb 1, 2010

Thing #33: Screencasting

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture with audio is...priceless! And that's what you get with a screencast!

Screencasting lets you create a video recording of exactly what is happening on your computer screen. It shows not only where you are clicking with your mouse, but also what happens when you click: Does a drop-down menu appear? Does a new window open? Is your cursor positioned in a text box so you can begin inputting text? If you have a microphone, most screencasting software also allows you to record audio along with your video so you can describe what you are doing on the computer screen as you do it.

So what do you do with the screencast once you've recorded it? You share it, of course, by embedding it in a blog or web page, or by sending out a link to it via email, Twitter, or IM. In some cases you can upload your finished product to YouTube or blipTV!

As I'm sure you can imagine, screencasting has many applications in libraries. First and foremost, it's a quick and easy way to create short online tutorials demonstrating how to search a database, navigate a web site, or perform a task using a particular piece of software. Your target audience could be patrons or staff!

Screencasts can also be used for on-the-fly technical support. How often have you found yourself on the phone with a patron (or your mother!) trying to describe the sequence of steps they need to take to accomplish a particular computer task -- which button to click on, where on the screen to look for it, what they should see after they click it, etc. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to create an on-the-fly screencast of yourself going through the steps so you can send it to them?

Or how about when you are on the receiving end of tech support? The guy on the other end of the phone insists that if you do A, B, and C, then D should happen, and you can tell he doesn't believe you when you tell him it doesn't. Again, wouldn't it be nice to be able to send him a screencast proving that you really are doing A, B, and C, but D isn't happening?

Here are a few examples of librarian-created screencasts to get your creative juices flowing:

If you cast about on the web it's not hard to reel in a long list of screencasting tools (e.g. Whopper List of Every Screencasting Tool on the Planet). Two of the most frequently mentioned commercial products are Camtasia Studio and Adobe Captivate. Both are feature rich but pricey.

Don't worry though. If you are new to screencasting and just want to test the waters, there are also plenty of free products from which to choose (see Free Screencasting Tools: Guide To The Best Tools To Record Your Screen for a sampling.)

Assignment

1. Rather than setting you loose with a long list of possibilities, your assignment for Thing #33 is to check out at least one of the following three free screencasting tools:

  • ScreenToaster (online) -- This screencasting tool requires no download, and it is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ScreenToaster is free and you can try it without an account, but registration is required if you want to publish your video. Videos can be published to ScreenToaster.com or YouTube.com. They can also be embedded on a blog or web site or shared via email or a service like Twitter or Facebook. Audio is supported if you have a microphone.

    View the ScreenToaster Demo for a quick overview of how the service works or refer to the FAQ for more detailed help. I tried out ScreenToaster by creating a short video demonstrating the Nebraska Library Commission's new Grant Recipient Database.

  • Screencast-o-Matic (online) -- Screencast-o-Matic is another free service that doesn't require a download. You can create a video of up to 15 minutes in length, which you can upload to Screencast-o-Matic (you'll be prompted to create a free account). Once it's uploaded to Screencast-o-Matic you will be presented with a URL you can use to refer people to your video, as well as coding that you can use to embed the video in a blog or web page. Other options include uploading your video to YouTube (maximum length of 10 minutes) or exporting it as a Quicktime (MP4), Windows Media Player (AVI), or Flash (FLV) file.

    To learn how to use Screencast-o-Matic, view How to create a screencast v2.0 on Screencast-o-Matic's youTube channel. (It's also embedded on the Screencast-o-Matic home page.) I tried out Screencast-o-Matic by creating a short video demonstrating how to use the Wilson OmniFile Journal Directory.)

  • Jing (download required) -- A free account allows you to capture videos, with accompanying audio, in SWF format. Videos can be uploaded to Screencast.com, TechSmith's content hosting site, saved to your computer, or shared via Twitter. Videos can be up to 5 minutes in length. Jing can also be used to capture and annotate static images. Because they are all TechSmith products, Jing integrates easily with Snagit and Camtasia Studio if you want additional editing capabilities.

    To learn how to use Jing go to the Jing Help Center where you can watch a video, or download the PDF Getting Started Guide. Or, if you like the irony of learning how to use one screencasting service via a video created using a different screencasting service, view a Jing tutorial created using ScreenToaster! I tried out Jing by creating a short video describing how to find juvenile fiction books on World War II through WorldCat.

2. After familiarizing yourself with one of the above tools, create a brief screencast and either embed it in your blog or point to it from your blog. It doesn't have to be long or formal -- just record yourself navigating a web site, performing a search, using a favorite tool, or something similar. If you can track down a microphone, try to include some audio.

3. Write about your experience in your blog. Which tool did you choose? Was it easy or hard to figure out? Can you see work applications for screencasting? Personal applications?

Sources of Additional Information on Screencasting:

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Jan 4, 2010

Thing #32: NetVibes

Thing #32 is a bit different then some of the other Things we’ve explored in the past. This month we are going to use NetVibes as a tool to create a personalized start page bringing together information from a variety of resources we’ve already explored. There are many tools that will allow users to create their own personalized start page, some examples include: Pageflakes, iGoogle, and Yahoo.com. The reason I selected to explore NetVibes is because it allows users to create a public page. This public page can then be shared with friends, colleagues, and patrons or even used as a starting page for computers in the library.

Before going any further let’s take a look at some examples of pages created by other libraries around the world.
For Thing #32 your assignment is to create your own public Netvibes page. You can make it as simple or complex as you’d like however as you are creating it try to incorporate as many of the previous 31 Things as appropriate and include items your patrons would find useful. You may be wondering why I wanted everyone to create a public NetVibes page designed with your patrons in mind and incorporating the previous 31 Things. First of all with the start of the New Year I think it’s a great time to look back over the previous 31 Things and remember what we’ve looked at, what Things you have embraced and what Things you may want to go back and revisit. Second I think creating a public NetVibes page is a great way to show your patrons what you’ve been working on and expose them to these great Things. (I realize some of you are not in a position to actually share this page with your patrons but just pretend. :) ) Here’s a sample page that I created. As you’ll see I’ve included items from libraries across the state. I’ve included a blog, Google Map, Twitter, delicious, LibraryThing, Facebook, Flickr, IM and a ton of RSS feeds.

Are you ready to jump in and start creating your own site? Feel free to head on over to Netvibes and jump in. If however you feel you need a bit more guidance then read on and I’ll share with you what I learned as I created my own public site.

Creating Your Own Netvibes Account

Before digging in, it might be useful to look at the Netvibes Tour. It provides a nice overview of what Netvibes is and how you can customize your pages.

Like a lot of the Things we’ve explored over the past year, you will need to create a Netvibes account. As I previously mentioned, Netvibes allows users to create a public page in addition to a private page. As the names imply the public page can be seen by anyone while only you will be able to see the private page. To start let’s activate your public page.
  1. Go to the dropdown menu in the upper left corner that’s located to the right of the green Add Content button. The wording on this menu is going to vary depending on what you’ve already done in Netvibes. It may read “Create my Public Page” or it may be the name of your private page.

  2. From that menu select Activate My Public Page and complete the three steps. Give some thought to your URL because I haven’t found any place where you can change it. You may NOT want to use the library’s name if you are only going to be using this site for your NE Learns 2.0 assignment. You will however be able to go back and change your picture, Title, Description, Category and Keywords. Those options can be found in the Account area. The Account area can be found on the dropdown menu labeled with your username. You will find it in the top right corner of the page.

  3. In the future you will use this same dropdown menu to switch between your public and private page. Simply select the page you’d like to view from the menu.
As you work with Netvibes you will see that your pages are made up of one or more tabs. Each tab contains one or more widget. You will be able to customize the layout of each tab along with selecting a theme that controls the look and color of your page.

At this point you can decide if you want to work directly on your public page or first create your Tabs in your private area and then move them over to your public area. When I worked on my Tabs I chose to first create them in my private area and then move them over to my public area. This way I could mess around as much as I wanted and not worry about the world seeing my page until I was happy with it. I’ve include instructions below in the Tabs area on how to move a Tab from one area to the other.

Here’s some basic information to get you started.

Tabs
  • Create a new Tab by clicking on the New Tab link. It will be located just to the right of your last Tab.
  • Before you can edit a Tab you must be viewing the Tab you’d like to work on.
  • To the right of a Tab name will be an Edit link. There are a number of options available in the Edit area.
    • You can change the name of the Tab.
    • Select a different icon for the tab. To do this click on the box that’s just to the left of the box that contains your Tab name. You can select one of the icons they provide or enter a URL for your own icon.
    • Share this tab – here’s where you can copy a Tab from your private page to your public page. Select the Public on your page tab then select Copy.
    • Layout allows you to select the number of boxes or columns you would like to appear on that Tab. You can always come back and change this at any time even after you’ve added content.
    • The last option on this page allows you to Delete this Tab.
    • To close the Tab Edit options click on the red X located in the right corner of the edit area.
  • To change the order of the Tabs click on a Tab and drag it to a new location.
Adding Content Using Widgets

There is over 148,000 widgets available but don’t let that number overwhelm you. For the simple page that I created, I mainly used the Add a Feed option or an Essential Widget. As you are looking at the Widgets keep in mind that some of them may not be appropriate for a public page.

Most, if not all, of the widgets provide you with options that can be edited. The Edit link will be located in right hand corner of the widget. After a feed is added there are a few options that you can edit. I’d suggest playing with the option until you achieve a look that works for that particular feed.
  • To add content to a tab click Add Content. It is located in the top left corner.
  • Add a feed: I used this option for a large portion of my content. I used it for the Alliance Public Library blog, Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, LibraryThing, and the all of the information on the News and Sports tabs.
  • Essential Widgets that might be useful

    • Flickr – On my Pictures tab I used the RSS widget and the Flickr widget to display the same images. As you see they look different. The widget on the right is the Flickr widget.
    • Bookmarks – I tried the bookmark widget but it didn’t really do what I wanted it to. Looking at the Dublin City Public Libraries it appears they added their bookmarks to delicious and tagged so they would have individual RSS feeds for each topic they want displayed. For example, on their Home tab there is a widget labeled Full Text online. That is a RSS feed for this Delicious page.
    • HTML widget – The HTML widget allows you to insert chunks of HTML code that has been provided by other sites. Here are some examples of widgets you may want to include.
    • Link module widget – Use this widget to create a link to a website.
    • To rearrange the widgets simply click on the title bar and drag it to a new location. (Don't forget the layout of the page is controlled under the Tab settings!) Widgets can also be moved to a new tab simply by dragging it to the tab name.
Controlling the Look of Your Page

Netvibes uses Themes to control the look of your page. Access the Themes under the Settings option. The Settings link is located in the top right had corner. Under Themes you have three options.
  • Gallery - select one of the 1,800+ available
  • Customize - Select one of Netvibes Top and Bottom Wallpaper options or select a image from an online source.
  • Create - create your own custom look
Assignment

As you know this month's assignment is to create a public Netvibes page. After you have finished your page write a short blog post providing the URL of your Netvibes page along with a few sentences expressing your thoughts about Netvibes.
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