Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T18:19:32Z

Ty21:

I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, The Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of a growing number of free online resources for East Asian studies. The basic idea of FOREASt is to facilitate the discovery and use of open access resources with web 2.0 technologies--blogging, tagging, and social bookmarking. The main website of FOREASt is built on WordPress.com and all the resources covered by FOREASt are also bookmarked and shared on del.icio.us, so that it can reach librarians and researchers active in different information realms. In addition to its unique geographic focus (China, Japan, and Korea), what is different between FOREASt and existing Internet directories is that it chooses to focus on web-based free databases (textual, visual, or numeric).

By all measures, FOREASt has had considerable initial success: there were over 700 hits to its WordPress site in the 48-hour period following a formal announcement to a librarians' listserv; collaborations with other librarians and scholars have started; some librarians have posted the link to FOREASt on their own subject guides or blogs. I am planning on taking FOREASt to the larger East Asian studies community after another round of development.

In retrospect, using the WordPress.com to host the main site seems to a key to these early successes: it is easy to set up, flexible, functional, attractive enough, and easy to use. The design of the main site imitates the layout of many real East Asian Libraries in North America, which helps users navigate. The user comments feature in WordPress is facilitating the participation of East Asian studies librarians across North America, especially in terms of suggesting new resources and identifying issues with existing resources. Also, because FOREASt is hosted and branded in an independent and neutral fashion, librarians have showed greater willingness to advertise it on their institutional web pages, which helps FOREASt reach end users. Choosing to focus on databases has also provided FOREASt with a niche area and a distinctive identity.

If you are interested, please go to:
http://foreast.wordpress.com/ and
http://delicious.com/foreast

Thanks!

Tao Yang

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T15:45:43Z

Ty21:

I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, The Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of over 100 free online resources for East Asian studies. The basic idea of FOREASt is to facilitate the discovery and use of open access resources with web 2.0 technologies--blogging, tagging, and social bookmarking. The main website of FOREASt is built on WordPress.com and all the resources covered by FOREASt are also bookmarked and shared on del.icio.us, so that it can reach librarians and researchers active in different information realms. What is different between FOREASt and previous Internet directories is that it chooses to focus on web-based free databases (textual, visual, or numeric) on East Asia.

By all measures, FOREASt has had some initial success: there were over 700 hits to its WordPress site in the 48-hour period following my formal announcement to a librarians' listserv; collaborations with other librarians and scholars have started; some librarians have posted the link to FOREASt on their own subject guides or blogs. I am planning on taking FOREASt to the larger East Asian studies community after another round of development.

In retrospect, using the WordPress.com to host the main site seems to a key to these early successes: it is easy to set up, flexible, functional, attractive enough, and easy to use. The design of the main site imitates the layout of many real East Asian Libraries in North America, which helps users navigate. The user comments feature in WordPress is facilitating the participation of East Asian studies librarians across North America, especially in terms of suggesting new resources and identifying issues with existing resources. Also, because FOREASt is hosted and branded in an independent and neutral fashion, librarians have showed greater willingness to advertise it on their institutional web pages, which helps FOREASt reach end users. Choosing to focus on databases has also provided FOREASt with a niche area and a distinctive identity.

If you are interested, please go to:
http://foreast.wordpress.com/ and
http://delicious.com/foreast

Thanks!

Tao Yang

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T15:41:38Z

Ty21:

I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, The Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of over 100 free online resources for East Asian studies. The basic idea of FOREASt is to facilitate the discovery and use of open access resources with web 2.0 technologies--blogging, tagging, and social bookmarking. The main website of FOREASt is built on WordPress.com and all the resources covered by FOREASt are also bookmarked and shared on del.icio.us, so that it can reach librarians and researchers active in different information realms. What is different between FOREASt and previous Internet directories is that it chooses to focus on web-based free databases (textual, visual, or numeric) on East Asia.

By all measures, FOREASt has had some initial success: there were over 700 hits to its WordPress site in the 48-hour period following my formal announcement to a librarians' listserv; collaborations with other librarians and scholars have started; some librarians have posted the link to FOREASt on their own subject guides or blogs. I am planning on taking FOREASt to the larger East Asian studies community after another round of development.

In retrospect, using the WordPress.com to host the main site has been a key to these successes: it is easy to set up, flexible, functional, attractive enough, and easy to use. The user comments feature in WordPress is facilitating the participation of East Asian studies librarians across North America, especially in terms of suggesting new resources and identifying issues with existing resources. Also, because FOREASt is hosted and branded in an independent and neutral fashion, librarians have showed greater willingness to advertise it on their institutional web pages, which helps FOREASt reach end users. Choosing to focus on databases has also provided FOREASt with a niche area and a distinctive identity.

If you are interested, please go to:
http://foreast.wordpress.com/ and
http://delicious.com/foreast

Thanks!

Tao Yang

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T15:30:01Z

Ty21:

Collaborative Tools in Libraries

2009-06-16T15:24:50Z

Ty21: /* Specific Projects using Collaborative Tools */

= Major Collaborative Tools =

*[[Blogs]]

*[[RSS]]

*[[Microblogging]]

*[[Wikis]]

*[[Social Bookmarking]]

*[[Social Networking Software]]

*Peer-to-Peer Networks

= Success Stories =

= Examples and Information =

= Specific Blog Posts, Articles, and Presentations on Collaborative Tools =

*[http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16236 Social Machines] by Wade Roush in <i>Technology Review</i> August 2005

*[http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2006/09/5-more-notable-social-networking-sites.html 5 More Notable Social Networking Sites] by Robert J. Lackie at the <i>Library Garden</i> blog September 2006

*[http://plablog.org/2007/06/wiking-the-blog-and-walking-the-dog-social-software-virtual-reality-and-authority-everywhere.html Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog: Social Software, Virtual Reality, and Authority Everywhere]

== Online Surveys ==

*[http://trainingwiki.pbwiki.com/f/Online%20Surveys.pdf Step by step guide to making your first online survey using SurveyMonkey (PDF version)] by [http://trainingwiki.pbwiki.com/Cindy%20Boeke Cindy Boeke]. PPT version: [http://trainingwiki.pbwiki.com/How%20to%20Make%20an%20Online%20Survey Step by step guide to making your first online survey using SurveyMonkey] (Click on the link).
*[http://fedlinksurvey.pbwiki.com/?cat=edu FLICC-FEDLINK Surveys]: Analysis and documentation of an online user feedback survey for the Library of Congress's FLICC-FEDLINK division, containing 484 responses. The wiki includes findings, documentation, survey data, and other information, including a [http://fedlinksurvey.pbwiki.com/f/FLICCFEDLINKSurveys2006Mar31Final.pdf 50-page report (PDF)] and [http://fedlinksurvey.pbwiki.com/f/FLICC-FEDLINKSurveys18Apr06.pdf "Collaborative Surveys - Using Feedback from Stakeholders to Build New Services"(PPT)] by [http://fedlinksurvey.pbwiki.com/Survey%20Design%20and%20Analysis%20Team Cindy Boeke and others.]
* [http://cii.wikispaces.com/ Cii Wiki]: An online wiki directory of survey software and survey hosting services
* [http://www.skmatic.com/projects/evaluation.php Instant Instruction Feedback Forms]: Instant Instruction Feedback Forms are web-based surveys that are designed to offer librarians a simple way to evaluate their information literacy/bibliographic instruction sessions. These forms are open source software and are available for free download under the GNU General Public License.

= Specific Projects using Collaborative Tools =
*[http://ants.wetpaint.com/ ANTS: ANimated Tutorial Sharing project by COPPUL ] This project was designed to enable librarians to share in the development of point-of-need animated tutorials for a multitude of e-products. The project makes use of new Collaborative Information Technology (CIT) via an Open Source Institutional Repository (DSpace), a Wiki, RSS Feeds and Web Pages. This enables participants to (1) identify tutorials for development and (2) keep others up to date on their work. Initially only COPPUL librarians could add content to the Repository; but as of October 2006, any librarian can add content as well as download open source tutorials. It should also be noted that as its list of e-resources for tutorial development is on a Wiki, the list is considered to be a starting point for development. Anyone can add new e-products to the list of tutorials for development. Similarly, other types of library tutorials are welcome. One need only indicate that it exsists on the wiki and ensure that the source code for the tutorial is uploaded into DSpace.

*[http://foreast.wordpress.com/ FOREASt: The Internet East Asian Library] This project aims at facilitating the discovery and use of free and open access resources in the field of East Asian studies with web 2.0 technologies. The main site is built on WordPress.com, which includes a blog, static web pages, and RSS feeds, while all the relevant resources are also bookmarked and shared on del.icio.us. The user comments feature in WordPress is facilitating the participation of East Asian studies librarians across North America, especially in terms of suggesting new resources and identifying issues with existing resources. Because FOREASt is hosted and branded in an independent and neutral fashion, librarians have showed more willingness to advertise it on their own institutions' web pages, which is another level of collaboration that helps FOREASt to reach end users.

[[Category:Technology]]

Free Online Reference Resources

2009-06-16T15:07:52Z

Ty21: /* Our Own List of Free Online Reference Resources */

= Websites with Lists of Free Online Reference Resources =
*[http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Online/onlindex.htm Best Information on the Net] O'Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University
*[http://www.ipl.org/ Internet Public Library] subject collections and ready reference sites online
*[http://lii.org/ Librarians' Internet Index] a searchable, browsable collection of over 16,000 high-quality Websites
*[http://web.mel.org/viewtopic.jsp?id=53 MeL Internet Reference] Michigan eLibrary list of online reference sources
*[http://www.virtuallrc.com/ Virtual Learning Resources Center] a searchable, browsable collection of over 50,000 academic information pages recommended by teachers, librarians and educational and library consortia
*[http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaourassoc/rusasections/mars/marspubs/MARSBESTIndex.htm/ ALA MARS Reference and User Services Association] "an index of the web sites included in the 1999-2006 annual lists issued by the Mars Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section(MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association(RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web."

= Our Own List of Free Online Reference Resources =
*[http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11534 The Changing Face of the Scholarly Web: Finding Free, Quality, Full-Text Articles, Books, and More!] by Robert J. Lackie in ''MultiMedia & Internet@Schools'' July 2006
*[http://foreast.wordpress.com/ FOREASt: The Internet East Asian Library] by Tao Yang, which has many free online reference tools for studying East Asia.

= Blogs/Websites To Watch =

[[Category:Reference Services and Information Literacy]]

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T15:04:09Z

Ty21:

I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, the Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of over 100 free online resources for East Asian studies. The basic idea of FOREASt is to facilitate the discovery and use of open access resources with web 2.0 technologies--blogging, tagging, and social bookmarking. The main website of FOREASt is built on WordPress.com and all the resources covered by FOREASt are also bookmarked on del.icio.us, so it can reach librarians and researchers active in different information realms.

By all measures, FOREASt has had some initial success: there were over 700 hits to its WordPress site in the 48-hour period following my formal announcement to a librarians' listserv; collaborations with other librarians and scholars have started; some librarians have posted the link to FOREASt on their own subject guides or blogs. In retrospect, choosing WordPress.com to host the main site has been the key to these successes: it is easy to set up, flexible, functional, attractive enough, and easy to use.

If you are interested, please go to:
http://foreast.wordpress.com/ and
http://delicious.com/foreast

Thanks!

Tao Yang

User:Ty21

2009-06-16T15:01:46Z

Ty21: New page: I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, the Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of over 100 free online reso...

I am the East Asian Librarian at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I recently developed ''FOREASt, the Internet East Asian Library'', which consists of over 100 free online resources for East Asian studies. The basic idea of FOREASt is to facilitate the discovery and use of open access resources with web 2.0 technologies--blogging, tagging, and social bookmarking. The main website of FOREASt is built on WordPress.com and all the resources covered by FOREASt are also bookmarked on del.icio.us, which reaches librarians and researchers active in different realms.

By all measures, FOREASt has had some initial success: there were over 700 hits to its WordPress site in the 48-hour period following my formal announcement to a librarians' listserv; collaborations with other librarians and scholars have started; some librarians have posted the link to FOREASt on their own subject guides or blogs. In retrospect, choosing WordPress.com to host the main site has been the key to these successes: it is relatively easy to set up, flexible, and fully functional.

If you are interested, please go to:
http://foreast.wordpress.com/ and
http://delicious.com/foreast

Thanks!

Tao Yang

Wiki User List

2009-06-16T14:30:24Z

Ty21: /* Members of the LibSuccess Wiki Community */