William, it was really nothing...

I was having a conversation with one of my student workers the other day and it inspired me to write this post. 

Social media and technology. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about em'.

First topic.

At the ALA conference a few weeks ago, I saw two products that I believe could be game changers.

The first one was an app that scans a barcode and gives the person a citation (APA, MLA, Chicago, whatever), and an app that is the most user friendly ebook search tool I have ever seen. 

https://www.refme.com/i/

http://www.librarysimplified.org/

I work at a college library and most faculty and many students are not fans of the ebook.

My theory is that one reason is that they are not the easiest to maneuver within a library catalog. 

Many require an additional login, they do not talk to a particular device, and/or the "bookshelf" is not user friendly. The Library Simplified application seems like it would make patron interaction easier, but what I believe is the "game changer" part is that the search capability that lacks with so many ebook repositories is there. The ebooks can be searched by genre, there is a librarian suggested feature, and the reader works with (most) ebook providers. Recent conferences have had panels on electronic purchase models changing and instead of someone else providing the bundle packages there is an al a carte kind of choice. I am not saying that the bundle packages are not going away or will no longer serve a purpose. I mean, I don't know what I would do if I did not have the EBSCO Textile Technology Complete. And when I was working in a school with medical degrees the Allied Health collection through Gale saved me over and over again. With that being said, I like the idea of making ebooks for borrow an easier process. I myself am not a super fan of ereading books, but I love it for periodicals. The constant battle to try and convince faculty to try an ebook can be emotionally taxing and if there was not so many steps involved I believe that our ebook circulation would go up.

As far as the reference creation app, well anything to help students. 

Second topic.

One of my workers is 18 and just got a smart watch. It isn't an Apple Watch, so I have no idea what it is called. 

I asked him why? He has a phone that talks to the watch.  His answer was that it was a distraction from a distraction. Basically, it is technology for technology's sake. With our watch talk, we ended up talking about friends. And I don't remember what he said exactly, but it was along the lines that he feels a disconnect, even though he is so connected. I told him that I hang out with friends about once a week and he seemed impressed and surprised.

He doesn't hang out with friends as much and he is a lot younger with no children. His final point was social media is a ruse and actually isolating. 

Not that I am surprised, but coming from a digital native who has known life with home computers and cellphones, it was kind of deep. 

Runk Pock Librarian: Don't you want me baby? Don't want me ooooooooh oo...

Runk Pock Librarian: Don't you want me baby? Don't want me ooooooooh oo...: I have a question. How does one get past the first round of the application process at a public library. I am still technically considered...

Don't you want me baby? Don't want me ooooooooh ooooooh...

I have a question.
How does one get past the first round of the application process at a public library?
I am still technically considered a librarian I, so I would think any library experience would be a plus.
Yes, I have only worked in an academic ("for-profit" schools to boot) setting, but in my cover letter/supplemental questions I tie in how I help students with GAIN papers, online job applications, and the like. Also, how that I have experience with a diverse population (including varied economic statuses) and that I do programming to appeal to the students that is less academic and more general (life stuff- resume workshops, voter registration, that sort of thing).
But alas, out of the many, many, and many applications that I have submitted to public libraries, I have had made it past the first round only 3 times. With that being said, I have also applied to numerous colleges and universities and got even less.
Though I will not go on record and say that I am looking for another job (uh-hem), I am just curious if anyone has suggestions about what I am not doing on my resume or cover letter.

Here are things I do already-
Cater cover letter to specific job requirements
Alter resume to include additional information that is in the job description

I am plum out of ideas.
Any help?

He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?

In March my friend was a trooper and helped me with my social media "experiment."

She posted on three social media sites- Twitter, FB, and Instagram every hour. This included re-posts, likes, and original thoughts and pictures. 

Looking over her great notes that she gave me here are some things I noticed. 

Photos of food, mention of her cats, and her posts about Mildred Howard (Bay Area artist) got the most "likes and comments." My favorite of her posts was "Social media is tiring." This was posted on Sunday early evening. It got 5 likes and 2 comments.

Another observation is that the posts that were not mentioned earlier that did get likes were posted in between meals. Also, the Monday posts did not get the same "attention" that the Sunday posts received. This could be because they were not about food and cats, or it is because people are back to work and not on social media as much. 

Her notes were interesting as well, below are some excerpts. 

This is like being on a diet, I am always thinking about it. I hardly ever think about social media in my daily life, but today it's either "what's next?" "Nothing interesting happened so what do I post ?" "How and why are people so obsessed with putting everything out there" "Do they really need the validation?" Ugh, what a chore.

No wonder social media obsessed people don't seem motivated outside of their relationships with technology, it's a full time job.


She also quipped that the way to build a following on social media, besides being interesting (or a celebrity) is to post a lot of material.

I was going to do the same as my friend, but decided that I would probably have a similar experience. So,  I decided to pick some of my followers and see what kind of social media persona they have, and I also spent an entire lunch hour looking at friends, friends. I will explain later.

First, I wanted to define myself.

I am a creator (duh, I have blogs), a dipper (someone who does not post daily to any social media), and a lurker (someone who goes on social media, but does not post anything, just looks at other people's posts).

Since I am the most active on FB, I decided to check out my friends and see what they were up to...

I chose 3 people. One is someone that requested my friendship after seeing them at my high school reunion (FBA), one I did a one project with years ago (FBB), and the other is a family friend who is older than me, and I have known for awhile (FBC).
Okay.

FBA likes to post a lot of stuff. I mean a lot of stuff! In the week I checked in on this person, they had posted an average of 10 posts a day. No reposts, all original thoughts. Some of the statuses were that they had a headache and cryptic messages that if you knew them better would probably understand. I would call this person a quizzer (someone who asks questions not for answers, but to start conversations), and maybe a mild ranter (opinion only posts). Will like a lot of other people's posts.

FBB uses Facebook to promote their activities. This individual has quite a bit going on and uses this avenue to let others know what they are doing. I would say a definite promoter, and maybe a little bit of a approval seeker (posts things that are trending first, I often find if this person comes up in my feed first and there is something trending (like the plane almost missing the volcano) that this person will have shared the information already. Not so much into giving out "likes." And really likes selfies.

FBC this person likes to share/re-post. A LOT. Some of it is regional, national news, cat videos, you name it.
Also, this person is a liker. Not so much a commenter, but definitely likes the like button. Not big on posting photos, but I suspect that much of the liking and such is on their mobile phone. Which in some cases could result in lots of photos or none.

So, there are definitely different ways people use social media and I am making my observations from one week of data. This could have been a fluke week and this is nothing like how they typically behave on social media. I am just saying.

The second task was kind of creepy, but whatever.

I recently started playing music with some new folks and they all friend-ed me on FB. We were complete strangers when we met, so there was no so and so said you play guitar kind of thing. So during my lunch hour I looked through their friends to see if we had any common friends.

There were of course music people. A total of 6 or so between the three of them. My favorites though were an old co-worker from Southern California, someone I used to pet sit for in the early 2000s, and someone I went to grad school with, who lives in the south. One of the new band folks is friends with someone who is friends with my really good friends. But that is as close as they got. Surprisingly the person who has lived here the longest has the least 6 degrees of separation to me.
Yeah, I know a little creepy. But get over it.
Not sure what my next social media step will be. I will keep you posted. 

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.

What was the last social media platform you posted to?

What was the nature of the post?

How big was your intended audience?

Did it get “likes?”

How many social media platforms do you use on a regular basis?

Female, 21

Instagram- not a selfie- small audience-4 likes-4 social media platforms

Male, 21

Tumblr-re-blog of images-big audience- no likes- 6 social media platforms

Male, 18

Re-tweet-funny video-small audience- no likes- 6 social media platforms

Male, 25

Instagram-not a selfie-small audience-7 likes-6 social media platforms

I also asked what I thought their average follower number is and all thought it was somewhere between 100-200 people.

The intent was for personal expression with the exception of the tumblr post. None of their posts were supposed to evoke any reaction, per se.

 I asked a few of my friends, who are a bit (ah-em) older.

Male, 43

Uses mostly Instagram, but does have a FB account.

Female, 44

Has tried a bunch of social media avenues, used to like Twitter, but now sticks with FB, with pics going to Instagram too.

Male, 37

Has a FB account, checks it once a month. Never posts anything.

The general answers for the questions were-it was for a small audience, selfies are stupid, and it probably got likes. They would have to check.

To be honest, I forgot what the average follower number was for them. They probably wouldn’t know without looking.

There is nothing earth shattering about my findings to be honest.

The next post will be some of the interesting things that people have done using social media and I will spend a day in the life with FB. 

Ballroom Blitz!

Social Media.

It is quite a complex beast.I have decided to devote a handful of blog posts to this and I hope to gain some kind of understanding or at least acceptance of my attitude and behavior towards it.
In the past couple of weeks I have participated in some debates about the subject. Also, to the horror of my friend's teenage daughters, posted to multiple social media outlets with their mother's at one time. Exclaiming with a figurative high five that our social media experience was successful.

There seems to be multiple layers of  "success" (I can't think of a better word) in social media.

First, identify the nature of the post. 
-Personal (I have a headache kind of remark)
-Political (there are so many subcategories here, but that is for a different time)
-Remark on something else on a particular social media
-Current event
-Advertising (your art show, friend's art show that sort of thing)
-Link to something else (GoFundMe, Buzzfeed quiz)
-Other (Because I am sure I forgot  a million somethings)
Type of post-
-Text (Words, not the other kind of communication that one does on a phone)
-Photo
-Link
Intent of the post
-Funny
-Opinion
-Commentary
-Provocative
-Mad
-Verbal Diarrhea (I will get to that one later)
Where?
Fbook
Tumblr
 Blog (too many avenues to name)
Instagram
Vine
Snap Chat
Twitter
and so on, and so on.

Once these three things are established then a post can be presented to the information superhighway via social media.
Like I stated before, I am putting together some posts about social media and user.
Using the three scheme system-
Nature of post- Personal
Type- Text
Intent-Commentary, opinion, with a side of verbal diarrhea.
Where- my blog.
Okay! A presented this set up to a friend and their comment was, "oh novice user, there are more components to be considered."  Really?
Yes.
Some more questions and considerations.
Who do you want to see it?
What time is it where you are located? 
What are the best times to post for the most viewing?
Is the intent to connect with someone or many? 
Depending on the media chosen is getting validated or "likes" important. Is re-posting an option?

To use social media and be successful for an individual there is a good chance that all of these factors are not considered. But thinking about a library, or an artist, or rock band, or small business (or big business for that matter) many if not all of these considerations must be mulled over before the publish button is pushed.

I got a dress the other day and the women at the store had a hashtag for her product, so if you are wearing the dress and snap a photo of it. Tag it on social media. This piggyback will be the next installment of me versus the volcano.

Apparently, there are books about this, but what kind of fun would that be?

Zurück in schwarz

Last week I went to a talk sponsored by BayNet and SLA. Sarah Houghton (Librarian in Black) is a librarian and blogger who I really respect and admire. Her talk was about taking the "love" of libraries out of marketing.
I love my library
I love my librarian
Love Your Library
There is even a website devoted to the love notion and the library. The problem that Ms. Houghton brought up in her talk was that it was geared toward librarians and not patrons.
The message seems needy and I totally agree.
With these thoughts in my mind I have been trying to figure out ways to market the library where I now work. It is academic, so people do come here anyway for the computers (free printing up to 30 pages), and to photocopy (10 cents a copy)  the textbooks on reserve.
There is a lot of potential to what can be done here. There is a room that could be made into a quiet and/or maker's space. Also, there is this weird little cubby that I cannot figure out what to do with.
Truly, it is dead space. It is by the emergency exit and after hours book drop. It is big enough for a small table and a couple of chairs, but that is about it. Currently, it houses a punishment chair, which I think is funny, but serves no real purpose. Suggestions?

Here is Sarah Houghton's blog http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/

One step takes me home. Two steps back on my own. Three skips to each stone. Four steps back and I'm gone...

Happy New Year!

New job. New city. New address.
I did not get into the PhD program, but I did get a new job.
So much has happened from my last post.
Laid off. Hired. Holidays. Packing. Moving. Training.
It has been a whirlwind.

So I went from vocational to art school. Who would have thunk it?
I feel a little more in my element, but I really need to brush up on all the databases and resources that go along with photography, digital art, fashion, and culinary. No one really cares about my knowledge of the LIRN Allied Health database.
One thing that I have found amusing about my new job that I guess just goes with being a librarian is that there is an assumption that I must know everything that the library has to offer.
A faculty member stopped by and asked me to find some resources, when it took me more than 2 minutes she walked away as if I knew nothing. Twenty-five minutes later when I had found 8 really decent resources that I emailed to her, I felt better.
I have learned that the interwebs have made people impatient.
Years ago I worked for someone who had something similar to this at his desk.


http://www.infront.com/blogs/the-infront-blog/2011/10/25/internet-marketing-fast-cheap-effective


If you want the job done fast and for cheap it probably won't be very good. If you want cheap and good it probably won't get it done quickly. You get it? If you want it quick and good, well, it will cost ya.
Not quite sure where I was going with this...
Anyway, new job. New obstacles and adventures. 2015.