Award Winning Websites

I'm always trying to find new restaurants and places to go and love the Zaget guides so the website I decided to explore was Yelp. It offers user suggestions in almost every category. Just for fun I asked about libraries in Scottsdale and here are some of the reviews on us:

Reviews for Scottsdale Public Library - Civic Center
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jason c.
Scottsdale, AZ
3 star rating02/19/2008
Not a lot separates the Civic Center library from the tiny library we had in Fincastle. Books still smell musty, computers are still 5 generations old, librarians are still caricatures... They didn't have The Sun Also Rises when I went the other day, and there have been several other times that they don't have the books I want. Sure, I know that libraries can only please so many people at a time but it is a bit off-putting to go there and find that rather than replace the lost Hemmingway, they renewed the subscription to (insert unread magazine title here). The wireless internet also is really slow. Somehow I think they figured out how to use AOL 3.0 with a 28.8 modem through a wireless network.
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Elite '08
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Kristin C.
Phoenix, AZ
4 star rating02/24/2007
I think the best think I can say about this is it felt like a Scottsdale library instead of a Snotsdale library. That is a really good thing! There were very real looking people, doing very real library things. I"m not sure what I expected at first, but I was nervous it would have books, big screen internet and a bar like AZ 88 I guess.... It's a nice facility and easy to get around - though it can be a bit hard to find the place. One of the best things is a book drop off right in the parking garage! I thought that was awesome. We went there for a meeting, and found the general meeting area and auditorium/lecture hall were quite nice. Even had those college era mini desks that you could slide in front of you from the arm of the chair. Gotta love that.

Googledocs Rock!!

I love the collaboration potential with Google Docs and Zoho writer. It's easy to see how people can live anywhere and still work on project teams. At a recent 3M presentation they said they had to work on projects 24/7 just to keep up the competitive advantage and teams all over the world would work on a project (so when the NY office shut down, someone in Asia would pick it up etc. and work around the globe).

Very neat!

Rowing Away from the Icebergs

Rick Anderson's article made some excellent points in collection development, service delivery, and the role of our librarians. http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm

This combined with the information given by Envirosell at PLA has inspired a new analysis of our role in the future.

His point that building a comprehensive "just in case" collection of materials that anticipates the user's every need (without providing wastefully where no need exists) doesn't work and is no longer the direction we need to go in light of online resources. As Web 2.0 begins to emerge, customer will have to everything. This will be a great new opportunity for libraries.

He also questioned our role as "teachers". He said to check the ratio of staff members to community (we have around 150 staff members compared to a community size of 236,000). The goal should not be to teach, but to eliminate the barriers between customers and what they want.

He also says it's time to change the "come to us" model of library service and bring services out into the community and online.

He concludes that we can't wait for the industry ship to change direction, but must do it one library at a time.

Technorati is tops

I love this site! I love how it pulls together blogs plus other sources like Youtube etc. I found a neat 20th Anniversary show:

Virginia Beach Central Library: 20 Years
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vXITznW6Gxs
Celebrating Central Library's 20 Year Anniversary

and forwarded it to Kerry Fiske to see if she could get our anniversary presentation up on YouTube as well.

Wiki

I started using a wiki on a regular basis when my son started a new school. It was great because the majority of his teachers had their own pages with assignment info, blogs etc. In addition, all of the afterschool activities were on there plus info from the office, lunch menu etc.

I'm also helping on the AzLA conference program committee and instead of meeting every month, about 1/2 of our communication and planning etc. is done on a conference wiki. It's been great so far. My favorite feature on Wikis is being able to look at what was most recently added. I noticed on some of the Wikis that were listed on our 2.0 training that they featured 2006 info and seemed kind of outdated.

I think this is something we could you in project planning - especially the SRP programs that run from year to year and other programming that involves multiple branches. I think we could have set one of these up for the Mustang renovation as well. It would have been a great way to share all of the planning info, furniture selected etc.

Is Del.icio.us Delicious?

I tend to be a serendipitous searcher of the web with few "Favorites" that I go to on a regular basis. I can see the advantage of Del.icio.us in terms of compiling a research portfolio on a particular topic or area or if a person does have favorites and uses multiple computers. I will have to try this one out a bit more before incorporating it into my web use.

Play Week

Having fun trying out the image generators. Arabian surprised Mustang with a CREST launch basket!

Cool UTube Video - Shift Happens

I saw this at the 3M Leadership conference and it was great to be able to find it again on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

RSS

I love the personalization of RSS feeds - now if I could just get some of the organizations I interact with to get onboard. My daughter's school still sends a huge newsletter each week - and I really only need about 10 percent of the information. The same is true for my healthclub and the animal shelter where we volunteer.

My favorite nugget I just picked up is:

Mouthonomics
By Jackie Huba
A new study from Satmetrix provides some new numbers on how customer evangelists can help grow your business. And how customer vigilantes can hurt it.
The study examined customers in the computer hardware industry and found, using the Net Promoter methodology, that "promoters" would spend about $1,818 of their own money and refer an additional $816 of revenue from friends and associates.
http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/27/picture_6.pnghttp://www.churchofthecustomer.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/27/picture_6.png
That means a customer evangelist helped inspire sales that was nearly equal to 50% of what she'd purchased.
Some quick math shows the potential of customer evangelists more dramatically: Let's say a business has 1,000 evangelists whose average purchase during a period of time is $1,818. That means the group will have spent $1.8 million of their own money and referred $816,000 of business for a total of $2.6 million. Very quickly the cost of goods sold begins to decline while gross margins go up.
Satmetrix found that detractors (or customer vigilantes, as we like to call 'em here) spend a little less, but their bad buzz caused lost sales amounting to $1352 per detractor, nearly negating any of their actual value as a customer.
The bottom line with evidence like this: diligent listening is key. It's imperative to know whether customers are referring you or bad-mouthing you.
The talkative ones are the leading indicators of your future.

New Favorite Hobby - Geocaching

My kids and I discovered this two weeks ago and have been on the hunt for Scottsdale Caches. So far we've found five and hidden two. What amazes us that in such a short period of time, thirteen people have found our caches and added to them - the items ranged from a cool pirate coin to a rubber chicken. We're still trying to determine what our signature "treasure" will be.

More info at http://www.geocaching.com/

Furniture Frenzy

The Mustang crew took a road trip to the Herman Miller showroom to test drive chairs for the Caper chairs for the new teen space. They felt great and we're ready to order!

Every Monday Matters

I was on vacation in New Mexico and saw an EVERY MONDAY MATTERS poster. Weekends are wonderful - but this has given me a whole new way to look at the start of a week:

Monday used to be the least favorite day of the week. Monday was the day that ended the weekend; the day you had to go back to work; and the day you started a diet or decided to start exercising again. Not anymore! Authors Matthew Emerzian and Kelly Bozza do a total makeover on the bad image of Mondays and make that day mean something amazing, something incredible, something unbelievable. Every Monday Matters does this by taking 52 Mondays, providing 52 creative but doable activities, giving 52 down-to-earth ways to make a difference, one for each Monday of the year. It's a perfect way to have a positive impact, get others involved, and make a difference in your life and the lives of others.

2 Mondays, 52 Activities, 52 Ways to Make a Life-Enhancing Difference.