Sandra Lang
Librarian
Indexing. Curation. The Future of the Written Word. Impact on Library Circulation. Facebook Tutorial. Reader Discovery. What Patrons Teach Us—and Publishers Should Learn. Print and ebooks go hand in hand for active library users, and publishers should take note Illustration © Court Patton, pattonbros.com A new report from LJ indicates that it is vital for libraries to connect with digital patrons, especially ebook readers, and satisfying their expectations has a meaningful upside for both the library users and the publishing community.
The report, “Mobile Devices, Mobile Content, and Library Apps,” a part of LJ’s ongoing Patron Profiles series, points out that even though digital users—defined as a patron who uses a smartphone, ereader, or tablet—remain a minority, they are, nonetheless, more active than the general patron not only in digital services but also “in virtually every metric of library activity.” As such, they could guide librarians in understanding the intersection of their print holdings and their growing digital collections. The ebook patron However, the report also shows that ebook patrons are not just about ebook consumption. 5 Ways to Use Pinterest in Your Library. Pinterest is a digital pinboard application which started just last year but has quickly become one of the top 10 most trafficked social networking websites according to Hitwise.
During the second week in December the website had over 11 million visitors. This is pretty impressive considering that the site is still in the invite-only stage. Pinterest’s inspiration boards have a lot of potential for libraries and other organizations for creating visual displays of resources and services. All of Pinterest’s boards and posts can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Here are some ideas for how you can make the most of this popular social network for your library: ;Click for larger image 1.)
Pinterest is a great visual tool which can help you draw in your readers, so why not set up boards of book covers to engage your patrons. 2.) Use Pinterest’s photo boards to spotlight your friendly and helpful library staff. 3.) 4.) 5.) Additional Resources. Vote for Your Favorite ‘New Librarianship’ Pinterest Board! The contest is now over. Congratulations to our winners, Brooklyn Biblio, Jessica Short and Rick Thomchick. And thank you to everyone who participated, you’ve all contributed to our definition of The New Librarianship! Our ‘New Librarianship’ contest has generated so much excitement and interest!
We were very impressed with the work that our contestants put into their boards and the varying ways you have defined what it means to be a New Librarian. While it has been a tough chore to decide ‘the best of the best’, we have come up with our Elite 8 boards, as shown below. Now it’s your turn to vote! Check out all the boards and then vote for the one you believe best represents the future of librarianship. Voting will be open until this Friday at 5pm EDT (March 30) and winners will be announced 9am Monday (April 2) at 9am EDT. Kelly Lux. Pinterest Now Generates More Referral Traffic Than Twitter: Study.
Freading Ebook Library from Library Ideas, LLC. Last week, a salesman from Library Ideas, LLC, came to demo their new ebook product, Freading. This is the same company that has the DRM-free music download product Freegal, so I was curious to hear their approach to ebooks (tl;dr version is their excellent FAQ). Ebooks are more popular than ever in my library, and our Overdrive ebook catalog (which we share with 36 other libraries in my consortium) just cannot keep up.
Patrons are disappointed that everything they want to read isn't available for immediate download (either because the publishers won't deal with Overdrive or because other patrons already have that ebook checked out). And that's how Freading is different: instead of the Overdrive model of building your library ebook collection by purchasing one ebook that only one person can use at a time, the Freading model gives immediate access to their entire 15,000+ ebooks, and any number of patrons can download the same ebook at the same time.
A Better Model?
Getting started.