Personal Tweets on a Professional Account, Can It Be Done and Still Be Professional?

I read an interesting article this morning, “Strictly business? Personal tweets make profs more “credible” the author, Jacqui Cheng, referred to a study in the March issue of Learning, Media and Technology that “students perceive instructors who make social tweets as more credible than instructors who remain strictly business.”

It seems that the students like to know that their professors are human, and have a life besides their profession. In some way that sharing of personal information increased their perceived credibility to students more so than those who completely did scholarly tweets.

Interesting.  While I consider this a professional blog, I do let my personality seep through often.  Whether it is a story about the realization that  being a librarian is in my DNA when I organized my attic, or quick little references to the 80’s or other pop culture items, I find that these stories or analogies best convey my point or thought to readers.  If it just happens to provide a brief window into my mind, so be it. 

I would say for most people it is ok to mix a little personal stuff in with your professional Twitter, blog or Facebook account.  A funny picture of a cat or an appropriate story, isn’t going to hurt anyone.  But what if I were tweeting, blogging, or managing the Facebook page of my library or another professional site where it is clear that it is an institution not a individual’s account? Credibility is extremembly important for an institution, especially medical. Is it possible to inject some personable or social bit of information on to an organization’s professional site?  What is the “personality” of the library/organization and how do you show it and remain professional?  The organization’s “personality” is made up of more than just the person blogging, tweeting, etc. so this can be even trickier.

Is there a difference between personal social media and organizational/institutional social media regarding credibility?  Can an organization, business, or institution have a social media presence that is professional yet have “social” type tweets or posts?  I think it is very tricky to do well, and that is why you often have some spectacular failures when businesses try to reach out and get personal with their customers.   The fear of an epic #fail probably causes many business to be strictly professional, with little “personality.” Yet, when there is a company that puts some personality into their social presence like, Old Spice, they are highly profiled (there is case study on Old Spice’s success).  Now does that mean that Old Spice is considered more credible than similar brand companies that play it straight?  Kind of hard to compare a men’s shower gel and shaving cream company to the same notion of credibility regarding science and medical institutions.  But what is the harm in showing something like the image of the Bookmas Tree in your library or the nurse at Mass General (article) who made the Cal Stat Rap (YouTube video)?

If you have a personal professional presence, you can certainly infuse a little social personality into it and remain professional, as long as you don’t over share with things that have your readers mimicking  the Hear No Evil, See No Evil monkeys while chanting “TMI!”  If you are responsible for an institutional or organization site, it might be more difficult to interject some personality, but it can be done.

MLA Annual Meeting Reminder

Don’t forget to register for the MLA’11 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN before April 13th to take advantage of the early registration discount. 

As a one of the section programmers I can tell you that there are a lot of great programs on a fairly wide variety of topics.  I always seem to come back from the annual meetings with several things that I can use at my work.  Some things seeem to be tailor made and fit perfectly into my situation, while others are interesting ideas that with some creative tweeking could work well too.

While I would love to see you at the meeting, I know that getting the money to attend a meeting can be difficult.  That is why I encourage everybody who is unable to attend the meeting in person to register to attend virtually through the e-Conference (Package D).  Last year was the first time MLA offered e-Conference registration and at the time I was a little unsure of what an e-Conference attendee would get.

If you register as an e-Conference attendee you will have online access to audio recordings of most of the meeting sessions with related visuals, video of selected plenary sessions and posters. 

To get an idea of what all that entails, I looked what things were/are available to e-Conference attendees (and other attendees) online. 

If you phyically attended the conference or virtually attended you can access videos, MP3, PDF, or slides for the following things:

  • Plenary Sessions I, II, III
  • NLM Update
  • NPC Program Session
  • MLA Business Meeting I, II
  • Open Forums: Informal Publication Methods, Interviewing Tips & Techniques/Branding, MLA Librarians without Borders Issues
  • Section Programs: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
  • Lightning Poster Sessions

I counted it and there over 40 audio or video downloads available for the 2010 meeting.  Based off of what is online from 2010, I am pretty sure if you spend $100 for the e-Conference package for 2011, you will get your money’s worth.

If you are attending the conference in person, stop and say hi to me at MLA 2012 booth.  But if the 2011 meeting is not in the cards this year, consider attending virtually.

Congratulations Library Journal’s 2011 Movers and Shakers

Library Journal’s 2011 Movers and Shakers have been announced and congratulations to all of these people.  I want to specifically congratulate two librarians doing medical and health information services, Healther Holmes  and Rosalind Lett  

Heather, who is listed as a “Change Agent,” is an information services librarian for the Summa Health System in Akron, OH.  She developed a clinical medical librarian program at the Akron City Hospital with a general internal medicine team providing point-of-care reference service.

Rosalind, listed as “Advocate,” is the associate director of Public Services at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library.  Saw a need to increase health information literacy in north Alabama and got a grant from the  National Networks of Libraries of Medicine to bring health literacy skills to all 12 branches of her library.

The MLA Guide to Managing Health Care Libraries has been published

My book is out!  Ok truth be told it isn’t my book, I just co-wrote a chapter.  A lot of people (especially the editors) could call it their book too since they worked hard on it as well.  So I really should be saying…. Our book is out!

The MLA Guide to Managing Health Care Libraries is available.  If you are interested in purchasing the book (hint, hint) Neal-Schuman has a new promotion linked to the video produced by Charles Bandy (who I suspect might have secret life as a DJ in techno clubs).

Go to the link to view the video and get a $15 discount coupon code.

http://www.neal-schuman.com/blog/2011/03/02/watch-us-on-youtube-and-save/
On a personal note, I want to thank the editors Maraget and Roz for editing the book, also the co-authors on our chapter.  While I have written several journal articles, this is the first time I have ever co-authored a book chapter.  It was difficult but interesting and I am glad I got the opportunity to do it.

http://www.neal-schuman.com/blog/2011/03/02/watch-us-on-youtube-and-save/

Thoughts About Journals at 2am

At 2am while feeding a newborn, a lot of random thoughts pop in and out of my head, including one about the cost of online journals and usage. 

Have we gotten to a time in libraries where the print version of a title is worthless?  Ok worthless is probably too strong of a word.  How about forgotten?  Have we gotten to a point in time where users forget about printed journals and use only online titles.  This is not to say that they don’t know that there are printed titles. When they do a search or are given search results what do they do first?  They scroll through and print off or save all of the articles that are available online.  The ones that aren’t available online are left to the end only to be retrieved if they need a few more articles to answer their question or do research.  If they feel they have enough articles already from the ones they downloaded online, they don’t bother with the ones that are available in print only.  Those articles become the forgotten articles.  I am not saying this is the best or most comprehensive way to do research, but it happens all the time. 

Librarians rely on usage stats to make decisions on what journals they intend to keep our purchase (ILL request stats).  So have we gotten to a point where a printed journal automatically gets less use (despite quality of articles) because it is not online?  Would going online make that journal more useful?  What if the online version of the journal is too expensive for your library, do you hold on to the print because it is one of those titles that you feel you should keep?  Or do you dump the title?

If you dump the title in print and you don’t get it online, the publisher is losing your money.  Do you think there should be a trial year online subscription (let’s say for twice the cost of print) allowing you online access to the title? This way both you and the publisher can determine a “fair” online price based on a year of usage data? 

Determining what a “fair” price after that year may be sticky, and the pricing details/levels should be worked out a head of time before you embark on a year trial.  That way as the year progresses you can tell your supervisors that you currently have a year trial subscription to the Journal of Big Toe Science and it is getting X amount of usage and if that usage trend continues that means next year it will cost approximately $Y to have.  Everybody can plan ahead of time.

I am not entirely sure how well this would work, like I said a lot of things float through my head at 2am.

Get Your Library Site Mobile Without a Mobile Budget

Last week I ranted “The Mobile Web is Not an Alternative,” our current or soon to be current patrons are increasingly using their mobile devices to access the Internet.  In 2010 43% of students used mobile devices daily to access the Internet compared to 10.2% in 2008 (The Chronicle of Higher Education).  I mentioned this is big increase in mobile Internet usage and as the article in the Chronicle mentioned, many colleges and university are still treating their mobile sites (if they have one) as an afterthought or “low-stakes experiments.”  I believe if there are a lot of higher education institutions treating their mobile sites this way, there are probably just as many medical libraries and library resource vendors doing the same. 

As I mentioned some medical libraries are beholden to their institutional IT departments.  For those libraries it may be difficult to get a mobile site.  However, if you don’t HAVE to go through your institutional’s IT department for web pages or strictly adhere to their web design, then there are ways to get your library site mobile.

Check out “Edupunk goes mobile: Mobile library sites with zero budget,” where Tiffini provides some suggestions how librarians can make their website mobile for little to no cost by using things like LibGuides or WordPress (examples and screen shots are provided) .  In addition to the suggestions, she addresses mobile library web skeptics who say mobile library websites receive little use therfore providelittle ROI.  Her belief (and mine) is that “everyday information needs are increasingly being met by searching apps or web browsers.”  While there is explosive growth we are still at the beginning of mobile searching and usage.  It may have little use right now which is all the more reason to look for inexpensive or free ways to create one, but as people’s searching, strategies, and usage evolve they will become more aware of available apps, resources, and mobile sites such as the library’s site.  We are already seeing this in the medical world, the website iMedicalApps.com is perfect example along with its most recent post, “Finding the best PubMed search app for the iPhone & iPad: Review of 6 PubMed applications.” 

Best to get our toe in the door now than to have it shut in our faces later.

Bloggers for 2011 Wanted: Apply Now

Sign up to be an MLA blog correspondent! This year the official MLA ’11 meeting blogwill have covering the meeting from different points of view in order to avoid excesive duplication and to also to cover as many topics as possible.  

For information on these changes and the types of bloggers that are needed go to the annual meeting blog.  Applications will be accepted Monday, January 31st – Monday February 28th, 2011. Bloggers will be announced in early March.

Wireless cards are available for select positions (indicated on the website).

As a blogger who has participated several times on annual meeting blog, I can say that I have always found it a great experience.  Here are some of the postive things I have found about blogging a meeting:

  • Notes – I usually always take notes at the meeting but writing a blog post helps me take those notes and turn them into something more permanent for me to remember. 
  • Feedback/Discussion – I always enjoy discussing librarian topics with others and the meeting blog is one of the best places to do it.  Some helpful people comment on things that I missed making the post more in depth while others give their opinions on certain topics adding to the discussion.  All of that feeds the librarian circle of communication.
  • AHIP – It is a nice way to get some AHIP points in addition to the points you get for going to the conference.
  • Writing – There are different writing styles for writing an article, book chapter, review, letter, or blog post.  The only way to become a better writer is to practice and keep writing.   When I first started blogging years ago, the mere thought of writing an article scared me to death but I developed more confidence and later published my very first paper “The Use of Blogs in Medical Libraries” in JHL. 
  • Free wifi – I gotta say I am a sucker for free wifi.  I wish I could say that I can disconnect from technology, but really I can’t.  So if somebody offers me free wifi to write, I will jump at the chance.

Despite all of those positive things, I will be really busy during the 2011 meeting and I am not sure I will have the time to write good blog posts.  I would love to write something about the 2012 program and the things the NPC are doing, the 2011 meeting as a section programming chair moving to section chair, and finally my experiences as a new MLA Board member at the annual meeting.  I will have to see how my schedule shakes out.

Friday Fun: Nominate a Librarian Superhero, Winners Featured on Collectible Lunchbox

Gale is running a “Are You a Librarian Superhero” contest on their Facebook Fan Page from Feb 1st-Feb 28 2011. 

In 250 words or less tell why you or somebody you know is a librarian superhero.  The Fantastic Four librarian winners will join the ranks of Wonder Woman, Superman, the Hulk and be featured on a collectible lunch box as cartoon superheroes by the Unshelved guys. 

In the nomination please include what kind of superhero traits are most apparent to the library user and the superhero’s “normal” identity such as their name, day job, name of library/institution.  Every nominator will also receive a special prize.

So maybe it is just me, but I gotta think that we at least one medical librarian out there that qualifies as a Librarian Superhero.  So medical librarians start picking your brains because it would be really neat if we could get somebody as animated librarian superhero.

The Mobile Web Is Not An Alternative

Wednesday’s post on medinfo alerted me to this interesting article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “As the Web Goes Mobile, Colleges Fail to Keep Up.”  The article states that more and more college students access the web using the mobile devices.  From the graph in the article, in 2010 43% of college students use mobile devices daily to access the Internet compared to 10.2% in 2008.  That is a huge jump in mobile web usage.  Yet according to the article many colleges “treat their mobile web sites as low-stakes experiments.” 

Of course right away my mind is thinking, “If colleges are treating the mobile web as a low stake experiment, what are the libraries doing?”  Depending on the library’s relationship with the college, it may beholden to the college IT department or it may have its own IT department.  That relationship will help drive a lot of the mobile web direction.  However, what is also driving the libraries’ mobile web direction are the library resource vendors.  How many ILS systems have GOOD mobile web platforms?  In the days of shrinking budgets (state and institutional) how affordable is it to add these ILS companies’ mobile platform to the library’s system?  How can a library justify that extra cost when it is faced with a flat or shrinking budget and may have to cut journals, books, hours, staff, etc? 

How many databases and online books are available/optimized for mobile devices?  Let’s ignore the Nook and Kindle like devices, students ARE NOT using them as mobile devices.  They aren’t carrying them around all the time like they are their smart phones.  They are going to use their smart phones to order Chipotle, text a friend about meeting up or an upcoming test, then they are using it to do research (usually on Google) to find a title/resource and read it.  So how many online medical text books are smart phone optimized?  Not many.

Libraries are beholden to not only their institution’s response to the mobile web but also to their own profession’s resource vendors’ response.  I remember talking to one rather high ranking sales rep for a major medical database/journal/online book provider.  I asked him if his company had created an mobile optimized version of their search database and whether there were plans to gradually optimize their many online books and journals.  He said that quite frankly that he couldn’t see why anybody would want to search that way or read an article or book chapter that way.  He didn’t see as important.  That was about a year ago.  I was gracious and said that I don’t think that way of searching and reading is for everyone but I see it as a large growth area and I know we would eventually get people asking about it.  

Well guess what Mr. Sales rep, the college students of today are my residents and staff physicians of tomorrow.  They are also the current users of your products in college libraries NOW.  Their mobile web usage has jumped tremendously and you along with the libraries are missing out.  If my users don’t usage statistics on your resources drop below a certain line, guess what we drop your resources.  If people aren’t accessing your resources that I subscribe to because they aren’t mobile friendly and they are using the mobile devices, your usage statistics will drop.  How far?  Is it below that magic dropping line?  I don’t know but usage won’t grow, and you and I both want usage to grow.

Just to be fair, NLM’s PubMed smart phone app isn’t burning up the 3G networks either.  Just today, Wouter Stomp MD and Nick Genes MD, PhD who reviewed the 6 of best PubMed apps for iPhone and iPad for iMedicalApps.com said, “Although Pubmed has a mobile version of its website, it looks outdated and is not the easiest to use.”  So just because a library or vendor creates an app or mobile interface doesn’t mean that rest easy.  They need to find out how users use it and what other competitors or libraries are doing to improve their product. 

Are we starting to feel that we are missing the users?  I don’t know, I would guess it depends on your users and your library technology.  But I don’t think this mobile web access is a passing fad.  I think librarians, libraries, and library resource providers are behind the curve on this.