Biggest Issues on Social Media Faced by Librarians

12 December 2011 :

Prepared by Lisa Surihani Aziz (Senior Librarian/Head, Automation Division) 

Bloggers, what I would like to share today? What is the hot issue? Oh ya, social media using Web 2.0 technologies is a phenomenon in today’s world right?? If we were to just walk around, we would see how many of people are looking at social media especially Facebook, twitter, blogs, chat and Youtube. However, there are several biggest issues faced by librarians personally and professionally need to think.

Personally:

One of the issues is not all librarians are ready to employ Web 2.0 applications. Some of them do not ‘believe in’ or ‘are fearful of’ using these online tools (Rogers, 2009). The most common reason associated with librarians’ inability to accept and use social media tools are lack of interest, skills, knowledge; lack of understanding of Web 2.0 or social media; and fear of change and fear with technology. Some of the libraries want to increase the use of social media, but the issues is having know one who knows enough about them to implement them. So to make librarians are ready and confident to employ social media such as blogs, Facebook, Youtube, twitter and second life for the library are through education, training, use of successful examples and make them understand of these technologies. These may be can change their minds and they begin slowly implement with all these online tools.

In addition, privacy is a concern as well. For example, the librarians cannot completely control or make it private their answers, message, comments, response and content to the library users through social media. Once they on the social media, everybody can see and access. This is because they are ‘servicing’ and ‘satisficing’ not only the library users, but also the Google community. Besides that, Librarians’ behaviour and content is not only a reflection of themselves but also of to the Library. Librarians must know what they should do and should not do. That means, librarians don’t share secrets, bad mouth, complain, do stupid things, defame and so on through social media. Librarians need also to think about privacy, confidentiality, permission to use other people’s content and show everyone respect.

Professionally:

Having a social media presence is a commitment. Keeping up with the information, constant communication with friends and followers and maintain the quality of social media, so that it always consistent and up-to-date are an issue faced by librarians. These are because a staff and time constraint. The librarians busy are doing their daily duties such as cataloguing, acquisition, reference services, user education programs, etc. and they don’t have a quality time to give their commitments or to do an effective job with these social media. Some of the libraries are understaffed and they don’t have a lot of time to really devote to the development of these social media. Proper library planning and investigating the staff time necessary to participate in theses social media are required for the better future of library services.

Another issue is not every library will benefit from the same social media tools. Librarians need to experiment to see what works for their library and make a library planning based on their users needs. Before plan anything, every Web 2.0 tool needs to go through an evaluation process before it is used in the library. Librarian who is involved in the social media strategy must clearly understand the role and goals of this initiative. There is nothing worse than joining a social network with no purpose, plan or a way to measure what we are doing.

Be serious on planning library strategy using social media. It would be useful if library social media provided information on rights and limitation of library users. For example, if the libraries provide reference chat service, IM or Facebook, the libraries need also to provide a users’ guide that contained information on different issues such as who can use the chat service, types of valid questions, how to create a new entry, how to reply/make a comment to library Facebook, what they’re allowed to say or respond, how to configure chat programs as well as technical support information, and provide solutions for potential technical issues. Not all library users could be familiar with such issues, especially new users. In addition, with this social media, librarians are also sometimes difficult to sort out ‘official’ library use from sanctioned-but-independent use (Rogers, 2009). This is where a social media policy and guidelines come in. The way by making sure everyone who is involved in library’s efforts understands what to do. A specific measurement to measure the social media effectiveness is also required, so that the library’s mission can be achieved.

With this development of social media in the libraries, the role of librarians has also changed. Librarians not only become a cataloguer, information provider, knowledge manager, or information consultant, they are now become a knowledge engineer or information gatekeeper. In this regard, librarians in the today’s world require new skills, knowledge, abilities and competencies to adapt this kind of technologies especially knowledge and skills in web 2.0 applications. We also can refer “Competencies for information professionals of the 21st Century” guidelines developed by the Special Library Association for library staff development and continuing education purposes. This is because without clear guidelines on competencies, a library profession is likely to get lost when marching toward an increasingly dynamic future (Luo, 2007).

Overall, it can be believed that social media and Web 2.0 have proven to be of great use for online communities and sharing online information and resources. They are not only helping communicate a libraries’ message to current and potential customers, but also demonstrates their popularity and impact. From this development, librarians easily can build their own social media authority which may give a good influence on their profession. However, there are two concerns about the library users’ and librarians’ attitude. With this social media, the library users reluctant to come to the library. If this continues, in the not-to-distant future some library users will arrive at universities with no concept of what a library is, or what a library does. While, librarians are becoming heavily reliant on social media, incapable of communication, lose contact with reality, lose their relationships with other people and no real life experience. So, we need to be working together and not undermining the traditional work we still do, that is still overwhelmingly appreciated by the people we serve. Traditional methods are still used because we’re able to reach an extremely wide audience, regardless of their technological skills and they are still relevant. There can be a balance to using new technology to promote, support and enhance traditional, as well as new, programming and resources.

References:

Luo, L. (2007). Chat reference competencies: identification from a literature review and

librarian interviews. Reference Services Review, 35(2), 195-209.

Retrieved November 15, 2011, from Emerald Database.      

Nguyen, C. L. (2008). A survey of the application of Web 2.0 in Australasian university

libraries. Library Hi Tech, 26(4), 630-653. Retrieved November 13, 2011,

from Emerald Database.

Nielsen. (2011). Nielsen: social media report: Q3 2011. Message posted to

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/

Rogers, C. R. (2009). Social media, libraries, and Web 2.0: how American libraries are using

new tools for public relations and to attract new users. Paper presented at Germany

Library Association Annual Conference. Retrieved November 7, 2011, from

http://www.slideshare.net/crr29061/social-media-libraries-and-web-20-how-american-

libraries-are-using-new-tools-for-public-relations-and-to-attract-new-users

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Impact Factor and h-Index

 1 December 2011 :

Prepared by Husriati Hussain (Librarian, Reference & Research Division) 

Impact Factor:

n  The only quantitative way of ranking a journal

n  A quantitative measure of the frequency with which the "average article" published in a given scholarly journal has been cited in a particular year or period.

n  Is used in citation analysis

n  It is calculated each year by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) for those journals which it tracks, and are published in the Journal Citation Report.

n  Impact Factors have a huge, but controversial, influence on the way published scientific research is perceived and evaluated

h-Index:

The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications. The index can also be applied to the productivity and impact of a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country. The index was suggested by Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist at UCSD, as a tool for determining theoretical physicists' relative quality and is sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number.

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Knowledge Society Indicators

28 November 2011 :

Prepared by Erra Fazira Hashim (Librarian, Customer Relation Division) 

Last month, I have attended one seminar about “Knowledge Society”. For me, the seminar is very good and I get more new knowledge. Here, I would like to share several indicators of knowledge society. An overview, knowledge society is all about creating, sharing and using knowledge to bring prosperity and sense of well-being to its people. With this new paradigm, the information society evolves and we are now entering the knowledge society. In this relation, a number of knowledge society indicators have been developed. Here, there are few indicators can be considered to measure the knowledge society such as:

Number of educational institutions

We can see the number of educational institutions has increased from time to time. For example in Malaysia, the public university has increased from 14 universities to 22 universities. All these universities have their own specialty and uniqueness. From this growth, we know that university as a knowledge organization can contribute a new ideas or new knowledge and give a positive impact to the society.  However, we must make sure that the quality of lecturers, resources to education, management and of infrastructure are improved, so that no one will deny on the quality of education.

Qualitative measurement of the use of, and access to, modern ICTs

With these modern ICTs like chat, e-mail, blog, tweeter and the most popular one is facebook, we can say that the knowledge can be created, distributed, disseminated, manipulated, used and shared in real time without time and space barriers. More people can be reached simultaneously and be exposed to more information and knowledge in an interactive way. The society is heavily reliant on ICTs and they also can build their own social authority easily and efficiently. They might be smart and proactive but on the other angle, they can become too dependent on ICTs, not proactive in manual work, naive, to spoiled, easily led to be online and they have no experience with life, which is what they need to survive.

Number of Research and Development (R&D)

R&D and higher education increasingly play a crucial role in knowledge production and innovation to meet new demands in today’s environment (Britz, Lorc, Coetzeee & Bestere, 2006). This has led to greater investment in knowledge production and innovation-led society. It’s true because we know that R&D can contribute the new knowledge and creative work in order to increase the stock of knowledge, and the use of this stock of knowledge can give big impact on social and cultural value, educational programs, political activities and economic growth. For example in library perspective, by doing research in information literacy programs, a new idea on online and interactive teaching module can be created. Findings of the research can give positive impact to the teaching, learning and research programs in the University.

 Number of scientists or researchers in a country

Scientist or researcher is a person who does research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. They are also engaged in a continuous learning process involving the recombination of codified information and tacit knowledge to generate new knowledge (Mansell & Wehn, 1998). With this regard, that’s why number of scientists or researchers can be considered one of the indicators for knowledge society.

Number of patents filed in a country

A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives us ownership and rights related to our invention and subsequent product(s). A patent protects our invention so that others can’t create, market or sell the product without our expressed consent (Ballew, 2011). Here can be concluded that one way to know the creation of new idea or knowledge is from the intellectual property or this invention and they are listed in patent. In patent no duplicate of idea or invention and information in patent can be trusted and reliable. In addition, patent also shows the development of knowledge and in line with knowledge society.

Number of articles published in highly ranked scholarly journals

Articles published in highly ranked scholarly journals are one evidence to indicate the proliferation of knowledge. They are widely used in academic circles and one of the research evaluation tools in all universities in the world. The general purpose of this is to measure the university productivity and quality. This is also one of the medium which knowledge can be shared, disseminated and finally gives influence to the knowledge society.

From the analysis, it can be concluded that development of knowledge society depends, to a large extent, on developments in socioeconomic sectors, such as education, R&D, ICT, telecommunication, and the media. Information and knowledge bring phenomenal power, not only for economic reasons, but for achieving a desired quality of social, cultural, and political life. But one issue need to give attention with this development is our society can become ‘media-obsessed’ or ‘sms native’. They don’t have a quality of life, everything in shortcut way and highly dependent on these media (especially computer, internet, television and cellular phones). Media saturation can appear to have an adverse effect on knowledge society. So these worrying trends need to be controlled and necessary plan and action should be taken for sustainable development of society.

References

Bhargava, P. M. (2007). How to make India a knowledge-based society. Futures, 39,

997–1007. Retrieved November 1, 2011, from ScienceDirect Database.

Britz, J. J., Lorc, P. J., Coetzeee, I. E. M., & Bestere, B.C. (2006). Africa as a knowledge

society: a reality check. The International Information & Library Review, 38, 25–40. Retrieved November 1, 2011, from ScienceDirect Database.

Mansell, R., & Wehn, U. (Eds.). (1998). Knowledge societies: information technology

for sustainable development. UK: Oxford University Press.

Available from Google Books.

Norsiah Abdul Hamid & Halimah Badioze Zaman. (2008). Preliminary study on knowledge

society criteria and indicators: a cognitive informatics approach. Paper presented at

Information Technology International Symposium, 2008 (ITSim 2008). Retrieved

November 1, 2011, from IEEExplore Database.

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Role of Libraries and Librarians in Managing Digital Information

20 October 2011 :

Prepared by Husriati Hussain (Librarian, Reference & Research Division) 

Today my turn to give my point of view and the topic is the role of libraries and librarians in managing digital information. First, what is digital information, digital library and digital librarian? There are several definitions on them. For my simple understanding, I can conclude that:

Digital information – are resources which deal with born-digital materials and digitized materials which can be either accessible from library’s in-house database or from the world-wide-web. The digital information collection may include digital books, digital scanned images, graphics, textual and numeric data, digitized films, audio-video clips, etc.

Digital libraries – are electronic libraries in which large numbers of geographically distributed users can access the contents of large and diverse repositories of electronic objects – networked text, images, maps, sounds, videos, catalogues of merchandise, scientific, business and government data sets – they also include hypertext, hypermedia and multimedia compositions. Meanwhile, according to Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science, digital library is a library in which a significant proportion of the resources are available in machine-readable format (as opposed to print or microform), accessible by means of computers. The digital content may be locally held or accessed remotely via computer networks.

Digital librarian – a type of specialist information professional who manages and organizes the digital library, combines the functionality for information, elicitation, planning, data mining, knowledge mining, digital reference services, electronic information services, representation of information, extraction, and distribution of information, co-ordination, searching notably CD-ROMs, online, Internet-based WWW, multimedia access and retrieval.

With regards to the above definitions, I can say that the roles of digital librarians are:

−        manage the digital libraries;

−        organize digital knowledge and information;

−        disseminate digital information from the computer-held digital information;

−        provide digital reference services and electronic information services;

−        provide knowledge mining from the emerging knowledge warehouses;

−        handle the tasks of massive digitization, digital storage process, and digital preservation;

−        provide universal access and retrieval of digital knowledge, ultimately access to all;

−        catalogue and classify digital documents and digital knowledge;

−        acts as guardian of the information superhighway/the universal digital library or the global digital library; and

−        acts as a symbiotic human-machine guru

While, the roles of digital libraries are:

−         hosting digital information;

−         making digital information visible and accessible via search and browsing;

−         supporting certain kinds of collaboration, i.e., feedback about digital resources, in support of re-use;

−         using the Web as an end-user interface for these capabilities; and

−         supporting teaching, learning and research activities

My conclusion is the digital library is expected to provide access to the digital information collections and the digital librarian need to take care of digital libraries and to manage the digital information system. This situation can improve intellectual access to knowledge sources in a digitized world.

References

Digital library. (2010). In Joan M. Reitz, Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science.

Retrieved October 20, 2011, from http://www.abc-clio.com/ODLIS/searchODLIS.aspx

Ingwersen, P. (1999). The role of libraries and librarians in organising digital information.

Libri, 49, 11-15. Retrieved October 20, 2011,

from http://www.librijournal.org/pdf/1999-1pp11-15.pdf

V. Sreenivasulu. (2000). The role of a digital librarian in the management of digital information

systems (DIS). The Electronic Library, 18(1), 12-20. Retrieved October 20, 2011,

from Emerald Database.

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