Zotero: The Sequel

 Picture from the Daily Telegraph

Banzai! With a lot of help I have managed to work out Zotero. It's just me and not Zotero's fault... My essay writing days are long behind me (in the days before computers) so I have never submitted word processed essays or used Endnote. This means that Zotero was a little challenging to start with. However, after my tutorial this morning "By jove I've got it!" to paraphrase Professor Higgins.

Zotero provides lots of online help, you just need to be a bit patient and spend some time navigating around the site. I managed to download a tailor-made bibliography dervied from a Newton search and to transfer it to a word document.

Zotero takes out all the hassle out of citations and it works like magic. It is a brilliant tool for scholars, graduate students and undergrad essay writers. You can build up different book lists and store them in folders - a great way to organise your research in different fields and to have the information at your fingertips. It should definitely be promoted within the University, possibly through training sessions at the UL, in the Departments and by the Computing Service (I have found that students do not look to their College library for this kind of training - I have offered training sessions but have met with a very lukewarm response). It is a free service which is a tremendous bonus for students. I am looking into ways of using Zotero in the library and it could be useful for building up subject specific accessions lists for targeted distribution. I'm so glad to have been introduced to this application.

Zotero: The Prequel

I went to Dan Cohen's enthusiatic Arcadia Seminar on Zotero and Mendeley. He was very interesting about the background to his involvement in developing these tools and incredibly keen to get libraries using them. So it is great that the 23 Things programme has given me a nudge to try them out.

I've registered for Zotero but the Zotero toolbar is nowhere to be seen ... a slight hitch but I will get help from Library Wanderer and report back on this application pronto!

Not yet on the home strait

Here we go again! This time it's LinkedIn. I know a lot of people use this for professional networking - so I've created an account. I was surprised to see how many people from my college are already on LinkedIn. Our college Development Director hopes to use it to create a network of alumni in various professions so that they can help new graduates. The idea is for them to be available to provide advice, information and links to particular professions. This seems an excellent use of LinkedIn - a network for professional use.

I found searching LinkedIn a bit frustrating. You have to sift through a lot of results to find the person you want. However, I expect this problem is circumvented once you have created your network. Also, I haven't joined any groups yet - so I'm going to do that now! On balance I think this is a great tool for linking professionals and I will certainly use it in the future.

Facebook

Great! I've already got a Facebook account and so has the library. This means I can have a bit of a rest! Jubilation**!!""

The Jerwood Library Facebook page was created in January 2010, just after the last libraries@cambridge conference. Inspired by John McNaughton's closing speech, a member of our grad team, Bettina, set up a group page and then a fan page for the Jerwood. All three of us are administrators for the Jerwood Library account and we all post messages. Helen has developed the Jerwood page further, adding boxes, links and some great books.

We use the Jerwood page as a community message board. We have a cohesive group of users and we like to think of the library as at the heart of the College. We use Facebook to reinforce our friendly, informal and approachable image. Not all of our students have become fans so we communicate with them in a variety of ways: by email, through our library web pages and with a printed termly newsletter (also available as a pdf). Oh yes, and of course we talk to them too!

Later I asked Bettina to set up a Supporters of the Old Library  at Trinity Hall page too. Yes, I'm a dab hand at delegation! This page has a slightly different function. It is intended to generate interest in our special collections and is linked to a fundraising initiative. I also use it for news of events, projects and discoveries.

I enjoy having an informal way to get news out there and the ability to add photos too. It's nice that people can comment on things too - so you get some feedback. I'm not sure I am using Facebook to its full advantage. I'm very impressed by some of the other Cambridge library pages and what they offer so I will continue to explore its potential. Although Facebook is not the only way to communicate with readers it has a valuable place in the service we offer to our students. We also have some fans who have already graduated, so perhaps they have a soft spot for the library or an insatiable thirst for any news from their alma mater.

Knit one

Creating my own LibraryThing account was easy - choosing a topic for my collection was less so. However, now I've got the start of my own knitting library on LibraryThing. Not quite sure what use it is, except that it is quite fun and LibraryThing suggests other people's lists that I might be interested in. Knitters have such creative names - how about DrChopSuey, Fibermonster or Knittingwarrior? Anyway, I've been adding tags and writing reviews and feeling quite at home in the LibraryThing environment.

LibraryThing

I've heard about LibraryThing lots of times before but I've never investigated it so now's my opportunity. I've probably misunderstood what the site is for because I've thought of it as a rather nerdy way of "cataloguing" the books on my shelves at home. I do plenty of that at work and I'm quite content to leave my own books in happy confusion (yes, I can find a book when I want it...). Well, looking at Thing 14, I realise that LibraryThing is much more interesting than I thought!

The list of libraries who have integrated LibraryThing into their catalogues is impressive - it has really taken off in the USA, but it is also used by libraries worldwide including some in the UK. I like the way they have integrated it into their catalogues, though some of them look very similar to Amazon as a result.

I've had a look at the Central Science Library and Nuffield Oxford's LibraryThings and I'm struggling a bit to see what they add to the user experience: on the plus side there are nice cover images for each book and people can add reviews and tags, but on the minus side the book details come from Amazon (and so are of uneven quality) and none of the users of these two libraries seem to write reviews! I think integration into a library catalogue is more useful.

Perhaps our students are not the target sudience for this application - they are simply trying to find books on their reading lists (i.e. books already selected as worth reading by an academic) as QUICKLY as possible. LibraryThing would be great for someone who is undecided about what to read because they can see how popular a book is, read reviews and search by tags than by LCSH. Another use of LibraryThing is to create 'libraries' or book lists for groups. Anna's idea of using LibraryThing for her college book group is brilliant - it helps to create a group identity and is a forum for interactivity.

Don't panic!

Back from holiday ten days ago and HELP ... I'm only on Thing 14. There's a whole load of catching up to do. I've been wading through emails at work and Cam23 has gone on the back-burner. Well, I'll just take a deep breath and get on with it - though it is taking an age for my brain to get back into gear!

Picture of Clive Dunn from the Big Picture http://www.bigpictureblog.info/