Listened to another Age of Persuasion episode again today. This one was called "Old Media, New Media, Borrowed Media, Blue Media" and was about the fall of television and the rise of, well, other things: events, the web, viral video, and other wacky things. This was a very entertaining episode. You should listen to it.

Of course, I had to listen to it with my librarian-ears. This is what I heard:

1. Just like some companies are "marketing" with things other than "media", such as GE's purchase of a water recycling plant to make an impression for their sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics, librarians and libraries could do something to make ourselves known and liked. Given the non-profit nature of librarianship, we can't go out and buy utilities for the townsfolk, but maybe volunteering time in some way would help?
2. Like I said before, this episode talks about how TV advertising is dropping. I've always thought that libraries should advertise on TV given how popular the medium is. But if it's dropping (and I'm sure it is) off the map, then perhaps we can hop on other media without missing the boat this time.
3. "No brand can afford not have to have it's own web site." Now pretty much all libraries have web sites nowadays. But we're certainly not treating them as the seat of our "brands". We need to do that. Somehow.
4. Finally, be different. Just like stunts like the counterfeit Mini Coopers or the Honeyshed shopping channel.

C'mon people... these ideas are golden! Or are they? Hmmmm...

Labels: aboutLibrarianship

 

I like listening to Terry O'Reilly's radio show on CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/radio/) called "The Age of Persuasion" (http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/program/age_of_persuasion). But the latest I heard (not on the radio but rather from a blog for CBC podcasts - http://cbcpodcasts.wordpress.com/) was called "The Sport of Persuasion" (http://cbcpodcasts.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/episode-2-the-sport-of-persuasion/) and was about the connection between sports and advertising. Now, I'm not a huge sports fan but I am a little OCD so, since this was next on my rather hastily compiled list of things "2" listen to (http://delicious.com/mjthomas43/2listen), I had no choice but to give it a go. Also, as a librarian and productivity-fanatic, I always try to pull something useful related to librarianship out of whatever I'm experiencing.

Try this on for size: Since we librarians want patrons to act a little more like us, in that we'd like people to give a little more thought to how authoritative their sources are, to read more or at least learn more, and to plan their searching a little more, particularly in the realm of academia (read university students and professors), there are a couple things that this podcast indirectly suggests we could do.

1. Just like sports stars are popular at least in part because of the amazing things they do, we librarians need to showcase some of the "amazing" things that we can do. Patrons are often surprised and thankful for some of the things that we can and will do but this information does not get out enough. We need to brag and communicate such bragging. lol
2. People tend to act like the people they admire. Also people admire the people they act like. This may be used in the library by us emulating the people that our patrons admire. Academic librarians can and should act more like faculty in some important ways. (This also seems like a supporting reason for faculty status.)
3. And just like advertisers attach celebrity sport stars to their product to add instant attraction, the library should select and connect ourselves with a "celebrity" of sorts, again, perhaps a popular prof for us university libraries.

I don't know if these would work or not. But they seem promising to me. What do you think? We don't want to embarrass ourselves. lol

(Of course can you even comment about the effectiveness of a marketing effort on yourself? We all think advertising doesn't work on us, and we are all wrong...)

Labels: aboutLibrarianship

 

There was an online presentation and q&a period on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009, about the proposed redesign of the primary PubMed pages. This was scheduled to be released this summer but is not up at this time yet.

My overall impression is certainly an improvement. It's a much simpler, streamlined and current design, which should ease public use and enjoyment of the product, both of which are rather important. There were the usual questions about functionality, but, as the presenter David Gillikin, Chief of NLM’s Bibliographic Services, repeatedly pointed out, this is an upgrade of design only. Strict functionality will not be touched.

Krafty Librarian points out:

Since most of the "cool" or helpful things like Details, History, Citation Matcher are only available from the Advanced Search, many people may want to have a nice short cut straight to that area.

I would have to suggest that NLM considers adding random reminders if not fixed links to tools like this in with the boxes on the right "Related Articles", "Recent Activity", etc.

I love forward to the the release of the redesign. I can't wait to play around with it and explore. It certainly welcomes a bit of curiosity and playing more than the current interface. What do you think? Are you excited?

[ "PubMed Redesign 2009" presentation, 45 min, learned of from a Krafty Librarian blog entry ]

Labels: aboutHealth, aboutInformation, aboutLibrarianship, aboutOnlineTools, aboutTechnology, aboutWeb2.0, reviews

 

There was a recent article in the Library Journal about the dismissal of the head of the public library system in Lexington, Kentucky. Without much information, which is kind of the point of this article, it's hard to really take sides but there are two points that jump out at me when discussing something like this.

Firstly, the CEO makes some pretty strongly negative claims about the behaviour of the local newspaper and their role in all this. As I've said before, I've never been too impressed with most "professional" journalists. They seem more interested in selling papers than disseminating information. Honestly, if it comes down to a librarian's word versus a journalist's word, all else being held equal, I'd have to pick the side of the librarian, despite my obvious bias.

Also, one of the criticisms of the article and the CEO is that she was fired with no explanation. What on earth is that? What kind of open and transparent government runs things like that (rhetorical question, thank you)? I've always thought that very few, at least in an official sense and regarding important issues, decisions should be made without a specified and sufficient reason. Voting? You should have to write at least a couple paragraphs as to why you think this party or this candidate is better than the other(s). Government decisions? Whole reports could be provided explaining the reasoning and the consideration of other possibilities and options. Ethical beliefs? Well, its certainly got to include something more than, "it seems like the right thing to do." Without some clarification of our actions that will affect others to a meaningful degree, we're just animals (which is exactly what we are but nonetheless), which is not what we WANT to be. We seem to like to consider ourselves somewhat more advanced, somewhat more conscious, somewhat more enlightened. Setting aside any arguments as to whether we are or not, we should at least act like what we want to appear as.

What do you think? Am I being too hard on journalism? And should we really be held to account for our actions in some "literal" way?

[ From Lexington PL CEO Imhoff Fired; Threatens Suit, Criticizes Newspaper Coverage by Norman Oder at Library Journal ]

Labels: aboutEvents, aboutHumanNature, aboutInformation, aboutLibrarianship, aboutReason, aboutWork