As I mentioned in the previous post, I was at the 2011 annual conference of the New England Library Association this week. Now that I've had a day back to unpack and get caught up, I thought I'd share a few of notes I wrote to myself.
Again though, be sure to check out the session slides/handouts at http://nelaconference.org and notes from attendees at the NELA conference blog.
General Interestingness
- A great way to encourage patron interaction on Facebook is to just ask questions - What's your favorite book? What are you reading right now?
- A fun game for online social interaction is to post part of a book or album cover, and then have people guess what it is (also give hint - new book, published 50 years ago, etc)
- I'm not a Childrens Librarian, but I thought the idea of rethinking the "Childrens Room" as the "Family Room" was interesting. Something mentioned was providing furniture for adult-child reading/working together
- When you create a book display, put a list of books for display on the back of the sign, so it's easy for staff to refill as the books go out
- 21% of Americans have no internet access at home - that's double the unemployment rate, and can have just as big an impact, but there are no initiatives to address it
My To-Do List
- Check out http://maps.nypl.org - it overlays historical maps onto Google Maps, to compare where things were/are. They may have plans to make it open source, so it could be something we could all use for our own maps
- I was surprised to see the Delicious linkroll on our Chelmsford History site wasn't working (but those on our main library website are fine). A good time to double-check your own linkrolls just to be on the safe side
- Plan to have a program in January on ereaders and other gadets - not a
talk, but more like a general help/troubleshooting session, focused on accessing library materials - Play with Join.me for a screen-sharing tool
Easy Ways to Improve a Mobile Website (that I should have thought of on my own but didn't)
- add link to Overdrive for ebooks
- add link to OCLC QuestionPoint chat or other 24x7 chat reference
- add links to Twitter/Facebook/Flickr accounts to contact page
- hide the browser address bar on mobile sites (to save display room)
For more tips, check out #nelaconf11 tweets - many people are linking to their own blog posts, in addition to passing on ideas they heard. I hope everyone got something out of the conference - it really was a good time.
