December 31, 2009 · 12:13 am

Vendors

I have been thinking a great deal about how our vendors control us.  I hear countless stories of librarians wishing databases did this or that.  We wish our OPACs were more user-friendly.  We wish that database A talked to database B etc…

Why does it have to be this way?  When will we have taken enough?  Many of these companies were started by us.  Why did we give up control?  Why do we let these companies make record profits while we count every penny? 

We need to unite together.  We need to stand up for ourselves.  We lose and our patrons lose.  I, for one, have had enough!

3 Comments

Filed under information activist, vendors

December 29, 2009 · 8:56 pm

Books and the future

Today I am thinking about the fact that …

In the future, our patrons will no longer look for books, the books will find them. 

How will that affect library services?  We will need to rethink readers’ advisory.  How will our books need to be cataloged and classified for a reality like this?  What a great time to be a librarian.  What a great time to be alive.

Leave a comment

Filed under social media

December 28, 2009 · 10:46 pm

Social Media Marketing: Tapping into our patrons

Social Media Marketing: Tapping into our patrons

Librarians have been paying close attention to social media, aka web 2.0, social networking etc for some time, but are we missing an important part of the social media explosion?  Books like Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, and Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, among many others, discuss the importance of social media marketing. 

Did you know that it took nine months for Facebook to add over one hundred million users?  Did you know that the fast growing demographic segment of Facebook are users between 55 and 65 years in age?  Did you know that businesses are expected to quadruple the segment of their marketing budget allocated for social media marketing?

Leave a comment

Filed under social media