Posts Tagged ‘social_networks’
Items about books I want to read, #34
Posted by: A. Rivera on: March 13, 2013
And here we go with list #34 of the ever popular (well, to me at least) series of books and stuff about I want to read. I have not posted this for a while, but it is not for lack of books I want to read. I hope now that some things are settling down that I can get back to posting them more regularly. So, here we go.
Items about books:
- I will admit that I am not much into the modern incarnation of vampires in fiction. I will keep my opinion of that abomination known as Twilight to myself this time. However, the plot description and review of The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa caught my eye. It is classified as a YA book, but it might be something to take a chance on. Find the review here at My Favourite Books.
- I have kept a personal journal for years. Though I have always fantasized about adding a bit of art to my notebooks, I never really get to it. Maybe I need a book like Quinn MacDonald’s Raw Art Journaling. The book is reviewed in A Penchant for Paper.
- Via Grist, Wenonah Hauter is interviewed and discusses her book Foodopoly: the Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America. From her interview, something to think about: “Just 20 companies produce most of the food eaten by Americans (yes, even organic brands). These companies are so large, they have the economic and political power to dictate food policy, from laws on advertising junk food to children and manipulating nutrition standards to weakening federal pesticide regulations and blocking the labeling of genetically engineered foods.” If you need a bit more convincing, AlterNet has an excerpt of the book.
- This story by Sarah Posner in AlterNet caught my eye about one of those Christian megachurch huckster con-men who had his church put in foreclosure (he, however, kept on reaping money and paying himself handsomely. No surprise there). The story certainly has a nice ironic element to it, but what caught my eye as well was the fact that Ms. Posner has a book out, and I may be interested in reading it. The book is God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters.
- Via Lambda Literary, a review of Chicago Whispers: a History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall.
- Early review (Spanish language) of a new forthcoming complete collection of Gabriel García Márquez short stories. Published by Mondadori, it is simply titled Todos los cuentos. (link to publisher as there is no WorldCat record yet) Review from Papeles Perdidos.
- Something work-related for me. Via Marketing Matters for Librarians, a small recommendation for 101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits: A Field Guide. Apparently, it has a few things we librarians can use.
- Via Bookgasm, a review of The Year’s Best SF 17 edited by Hartwell and Cramer. This is the one anthology series I pick up every year, even if I do not get to it right away. The Better Half reads them as well. Initially just Hartwell, and then with Cramer, for me, this is the anthology that really does a good job putting a compilation of solid hard science fiction stories. The Dozois series is usually pretty good as well, but it is not one I read regularly. I have not tried the ones edited by Horton.
- Something different via Bending the Book Shelf blog, some transgender romances. Not the usual stuff I read, but I am always curious about new (to me) things to read. For the most part, these are e-book editions, so I may not get to them right away, but I am jotting down for reference, plus for the unlikely possibility someone may ask, “can you recommend something” in this topic. First, a review of Shemale Vice by Crystal Veeyant. I admit I giggled a bit at the title, which yes, did make me think of the Miami Vice series (the original 1980s television series, not the piece of shit movie remake Hollywood pooped out later). The book seems to be about a prostitution ring and corrupt cops (not a bad combination) with some good sex thrown in. Next, a set of short reviews of novels by Prudence MacLeod. In addition, the blog also features an interview with MacLeod.
- Jessa Crispin, writing for Kirkus, reviews Eddie Campbell’s book about money in the art world entitled The Lovely Horrible Stuff. By the way, it’s a graphic novel.
- Blogging for a good book provides a review of Jay Bahadur’s The Pirates of Somalia. According to the reviewer, Bahadur “provides excellent analysis on the evolution of piracy in Somalia.”
Lists and bibliographies:
There are a couple of 2012 award lists here. I will likely add the 2013 lists in a later post if I find items of interest. The links have been in my reader for a bit, so I am catching up now in adding them here. I hope readers out there looking for some ideas find these useful. I know I do.
- Katherine Dacey, The Manga Critic, offers a list of “7 Essential VIZ Signature Manga.”
- From IO9, a list of “Essential Star Trek Novels That Even Non-Trekkers Should Read.” I think that the Better Half has read all of them already. From the list, I have read Peter David’s Imzadi.
- An award list. This one is the Goldies, which are the literary awards of the Golden Crown Literary Society, which is “a literary and educational organization for the enjoyment, discussion, and enhancement of lesbian literature.” This is the 2012 list. The 2013 awards are soon to come. Hat tip to Lambda Literary. I am always looking to expand my reading horizons, and there are some items in speculative fiction that may be of interest.
- For more science fiction and speculative, here is the 2012 Locus list.
- From Bookgasm, a Eurocomics roundup with some interesting items. Not sure how easy or not some of these items will be to find. More often than not, by the time I read about some of these, they have already gone out of print, making them a pain in the ass to find since I would rather avoid, as the blogger describes it, “the overpriced black pit known as Amazon Marketplace.”
- Via The Prosen People, here are “Five Comix about Israel Worth Reading.”
Reactions to the Delicious drama
Posted by: A. Rivera on: December 17, 2010
Now that it seems Yahoo! is going to sell Delicious, and things are calming down a bit, we are getting some thoughtful reactions. Here are a couple of posts I have come across that provide some calm and lessons.
- Walt Crawford on things being “free as a cloud.”
- Colleen, of Guardienne of the Tomes, gives us “some takeaways from Yahoo’s Delicious debacle.”
I don’t know if I can add much else other than the need to back up things in more than one place. Some good food for thought there. If you need an alternative, Phil Bradley has compiled an excellent list of “28 delicious alternatives.”
Notes on analytics and assessment for online social media
Posted by: A. Rivera on: December 16, 2010
Some things with ideas I think I can use for work mostly. Some may have personal application.
- “6 Social Media Success Metrics to You Need to Track.” I personally do not care much for social media metrics for my own blogs and other social media presences. This in large part because I mostly do it for myself either as a form of professional development or as a hobby. However, for the library’s social media efforts, we do need to be doing more assessment, in large measure because the big honchos want assessment done as part of accreditation, and if I can somehow use some measurements that could go into those assessments, someone would be happy. I could go on a whole rant about some people being overly obsessed with numbers and forms, but I will restrain myself. At any rate, for the library there are some metrics I would be curious about since it would help me then improve content and engagement.
- “26 Tips for Enhancing Your Facebook Page.” Our Facebook page is a primary way for us at this point to communicate and engage with our community. However, I am always looking for ways to make it work better for us. There are some items that might not be applicable due to being too business-oriented, but I think there are some good ideas here. Given my workload, I can use all the help I can get.
- “21 Ways Non-profits Can Leverage Social Media.” This is a post with some basics, but it still has a few ideas I have tried that may be worth exploring for the library.
- “26 Twitter Tips for Enhancing Your Tweets.” Personally, I do not use Twitter very much. I do have an account on it, and I mostly have a couple of other social media linked to it so they post automatically. I probably could do much more with it, but microblogging just seems way too short for me, and some of the mechanics of Twitter are just not too intuitive for me. In terms of the library, the director has asked me to look into it. So far, I am not convinced it would work for us based on our other social media presences. But I have to be prepared for the day when it may be inevitable (we’ll probably do it anyways regardless, and no, I am not commenting further). It is not that I am being negative about Twitter. It is just that it does not work for me personally, and as the outreach librarian, which includes our online social media tools, I don’t think we would have that much use for it at this point in time (later, maybe, but that would be later).
- “3 Simple Ways to Rapidly Create Custom Facebook Landing Tabs.” This I definitely have to look into and implement at some point. Given that Facebook pretty much eliminated apps. (or made them so invisible as to practically not letting them exist) from profiles and pages, I may need to do some enhancing.
From Musings about librarianship:
- “Two developments in Google Places. Should you claim your library’s?” This is something I admit that I have to explore more– the whole thing with place and location social media. I do wonder if for the library it is something I should go ahead and do, but before I do so, it is something I have to investigate a bit more.
Via Lost Remote:
- “BBC Posts Guidelines for Online, Social Journalism.” I am more interested in the links provided. We could do some more work on our social media guidelines here.
Via Librarian in Black:
- She gave a presentation on “Online Marketing for Libraries.” Definitely a topic I am interested in. She posted her slides.
- She made some notes on a presentation by Patrick Sweeney about Social Media Capital. I think this goes well with the post above about Google Places. Some good reminders.
Via Mashable:
- “10 Tips for Aspiring Community Managers.” In some ways, I am a community manager for my library, so this is certainly useful for me.
Neat quote on librarianship and reputations
Posted by: A. Rivera on: October 25, 2010
This is in the context of the lack of academic rigor in library schools and the fact that the librarians who distinguish themselves in spite of said library schools often do so via online social media. I also noticed the quote as I was finishing a recent blog post about librarians who build their reputations online and look down on those who don’t.
“These days librarians don’t even have the excuse of no travel funding. Reputations are made online. Look at me. I’ve earned the ire of half the profession, and I don’t even exist!” — from the Annoyed Librarian.
This is sort of a webliography or list of items I have recently seen on the topics of online social media, library marketing, outreach, and related concepts. This is mostly for personal reference. Some of the posts are from Librarian Blogsville, but a few others come from other places outside librarianship.
- Stephen Abram, of Stephen's Lighthouse, points to a post on "Dealing With Employees Who Are Social Media Celebrities." This is a bit separate from the basic topic I had in mind for this webliography, but it struck me as interesting. Then again, the angle of dealing with such an employee does fall within marketing since such a worker can have a lot of influence over your library/company image. (Update Note: 8/11/10): The Annoyed Librarian came up with an excellent response to Abram's link. Certainly worth a look, and it made me think a bit because while Librarian Blogsville may have its celebrities, they definitely do not wield as much influence as they think they do or as the rest of Librarian Blogsville gives them. She (I assume AL is a she) writes, "I could also add that unless some librarian 'social media celebrity' could make a living from social media, they’re much more dependent upon their libraries than their libraries are upon them. If they’re such divas they don’t do their jobs, get rid of them." For all the celebrity, we yet have to see a librarian who could leave their job and actually make a living blogging or on some other social media operation. Librarians, including me, are very expendable. In my case, I strive to keep my skill set up and do my job, which is what I get paid to do, so I can stay employed.
- Sarah Houghton-Jan, the Librarian in Black, has a presentation on "Coordinating a Social Media Presence for Your Library." I have to look at this a bit more closely and then see what ideas I can implement for my library. I am thinking that use of social media can be very beneficial for us, especially as the administration is looking at more ways to use online education.
- Via Mashable, "HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online." The idea here is to have your employees, or as I am envisioning your library workers, be your brand evangelists and promoters.
- Via Stephen Abram, of Stephen's Lighthouse, a guide on "Introduction to Social Media." This is one to explore more in-depth when I get a chance.
- Dean Holmes writes on "Top 10 Ways to Drive People to Your Event Using Social Media." A hat tip here to Stephen Abram.
- Cites and Insights for August 2010 has something on the topic. I have to admit I have not had the time to read it as of this posting, but I am linking it because I know it will be insightful.
- Via Stephen Abram, "Job Hunting and Social Media." Stuff like this is something we as librarians can work to teach and make our students more aware.
- Two more from Mashable. One, on "5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity." I am a bit more interested in the second one, which is "HOW TO: Evaluate Your Social Media Plan." The evaluation post has some insight I think I can use for our library.
- I think we need to have a bit more conversation on this topic at my library. I think this post on "Anytown Public Library's Social Media Policy" may provide a starting point. From Tame the Web.
- From Mashable, "4 Tips for Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom." I am thinking there may be some potential here for library instruction, but the post is good to share with education students. Found via Libraries and Transliteracy blog.
- Stephen Abram links to a presentation on "Faculty Use of Social Media."
- Inside Higher Ed had a piece on "Professors and Social Media." It looks at the work that Abram links to above.
- From Mashable, "10 Do's and Don'ts for Brands on Twitter." We do not use Twitter in the library at this point. I have a personal account, but to be honest, I am not quite sure what to use it for. It does not provide for anything I can't do already (blogging, posting links to Facebook to share with friends and colleagues, so on), but I am still willing to explore it a bit more and see if it catches on. There is also "5 Unique Ways to Use Twitter for Business." In addition, Mashable has a bunch of "15 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed." This is part of their series on, well, stuff you may have missed, but I clipped this one because there are some good links to review.
- From Self Check, "'Spontaneous' Library Programs: a Fantasy." Because sometimes basics like word of mouth are best.
- From The Quick and the Ed, an argument on why "Teachers Ought To Tweet." This definitely provides some good ideas for why librarian ought to tweet more. Something to consider as I ponder my own use of Twitter.
- Kasia Grabowska has a guest post on Tame the Web. The topic is "Social Media Best Practices for Libraries."
- Drew McLellan offers a "Social Media Cheat Sheet." A hat tip to Stephen's Lighthouse.
- I am including this Mashable piece on "HOW TO: Make the Most of Your Twitter Profile Page" because, even though this applies to individuals, I think there is a lesson or two for libraries who use Twitter as well. Also from them, "7 Things to Consider for Social Media in the Enterprise." Some of it is geared to the corporate world, but the stuff about review and approval and reputation are still applicable. In addition, there is "HOW TO: Create a Successful Company Blog." This has some ideas to keep in mind as you start a blog for an organization.
- On promoting events via social media, also via Mashable. Also, I liked this one of "8 Things to Avoid When Building a Community." For example, according to the article, "site visitors need to know that there is someone at the other end of the online community who’s listening, and who will respond and engage with them." This is much of what I do in my role as the social media librarian for the library.
- Stephen Abram has some links on "Social Media for Employees–Rules?" I think some of these things, the dynamic at least, has changed a bit since this post, which by the way is not that long ago. Goes to show how swift change online can be. Still, this is worth a look.
- Michael Stephens, of Tame the Web, with some thoughts on "Librarians Are the Ultimate Community Managers."
