1. Building the Social Library Online Meredith Farkas Norwich University

2. Web 1.0: Democratized Access to Information

3. Web 2.0: Democratized Participation

4. What is social software? My definition: To be defined as social software, a tool must meet at least two of the following conditions: 1. It allows people to communicate, collaborate and build community online 2. It can be syndicated, shared, reused or remixed, or it facilitates syndication 3. It allows people to easily learn from and capitalize on the behavior or knowledge of others

5. Examples Blogs RSS Wikis Social networking sites (MySpace/Facebook, etc.) Social bookmarking sites Other online communities Instant messaging / VoIP / Webconferencing Podcasting Video blogging/screencasting Multi-user virtual environments and games

6. Characteristics of Social Software

7. Easy Content Creation and Sharing

8. Online Collaboration

9. Conversations: Distributed

10. Conversations: Real Time

11. Capitalizing on the Wisdom of Crowds

12. Transparency

14. Personalization

16. Portability

17. What Can Social Software do for Libraries?

18. Disseminate Information

23. Get Feedback! Start a Conversation!

28. Provide Services to Remote Users

30. Provide Services Where our Users Are

35. Capitalize on the Collective Intelligence of Colleagues and Users

40. Strategies for Implementing Social Software

41. Avoid technolust

42. Will it improve library services? Will patrons use it?

43. Involve staff at all levels in planning

44. Encourage staff to play (and kick the tires!)

45. Consider barriers to use and break them down

47. Seek out strategic partnerships

48. Consider maintenance and sustainability

49. Must be able to integrate into staff workflow

50. Training for staff and patrons

51. In marketing focus on the functionality

52. Be willing to experiment. Avoid analysis paralysis!

53. Start small and keep it simple

54. Questions? mgfarkas@gmail.com AIM: librarianmer Links and presentation at http://meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com Questions? Just Ask!