Reaching Patrons:

Online Outreach for Public Libraries

A 20-Item Checklist

Sarah Houghton-Jan, MA, MLIS

Information and Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library

Librarian in Black: http://www.librarianinblack.net

October 2006

slides version | printable version

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Our users—all of them, not just the kids—are increasingly wired and libraries need to meet them on their own turf.
Their own turf is now largely virtual.
So, as we've always done outreach in the physical sense, we must now do the same virtually.

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Your users are out there: where the $%#@ are you?
It is arrogance of the worst kind to expect them to come to us.
We need to put ourselves out where they already are.
Online, everyone’s patrons are your patrons.
Otherwise, we lose and libraries become quaint mockeries of our former glory.

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Everything in today’s presentation is free.

However, you have to give staff time to do this on an ongoing basis.

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Search major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, AOLsearch) for variations on your library’s name.
Are you at the top (with a good title, a good blurb, the right URL)?
If not, figure out why.
- Nonexistant of insufficient metadata
- Search engines haven't crawled your site lately
Ask the engines to crawl your site
Expand to more minor or metasearch engines

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When people look for a library in your area, you should be there. And make sure your information is accurate!

LibDex: http://www.libdex.com/
MapMuse: http://www.mapmuse.com
Libraries411: http://www.libraries411.com/
PublicLibraries.com: http://www.publiclibraries.com/
Libraries on the Web: http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/Public_main.html

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Create an account in Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/
Enter your Library in the Other Links section of the entry for your town or county.
Put something in the main text about how this town or city has a stellar library, citing any awards you may have won.
Do this in the English Wikipedia and any other language spoken heavily in your area.

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Add locations for your libraries and other community features of interest to your residents to Wikimapia: http://www.wikimapia.org.

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List events, classes, and other services for free at:
Look for other community-based websites and calendars as well that might allow you to list events and services. These sites are often run by:
- cities and towns
- counties
- newspapers
- television and radio stations
- non-profit community groups
- local business associations (chambers of commerce)

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Town, county, region, state websites
High schools, universities, community colleges, technical schools, elementary schools, middle schools
Educational community services, literacy services, volunteer services, other community non-profits
What do existing listings say about your library? Is this the image you want to put forth? If not, contact the webmasters.
Ask for link love--it's ok.

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Find local blogs and subscribe to their feeds.
Find local forums: technology interst groups, continuing education groups, and any others where members of your community are discussing issues.
Monitor these forums and blogs to:
- get a sense of what your community cares about
- offer your expert research advice and assistance wherever appropriate
Don’t intrude—but be available.

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MySpace gets more hits each day than Google does.
Create a swanky profile on MySpace (public libraries) or Facebook (academic libraries).
For a list of libraries with MySpace profiles (to get ideas), see: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=MySpace_%26_Teens
Are we welcome in this space?
Be sincere and schmaltz-free

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For many users, not being available via IM is like not having a phone.
free
a simple way to make yourself accessible, especially to traditionally hard-to-reach users: single twenty-somethings and teens.
huge ROI
For tons of information on IM Reference, see the Library Success Wiki page on IM Ref at: http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Online_Reference

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WiFiFreeSpot: http://www.wififreespot.com/
WiFiHotSpotList: http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/
WiFi411: http://www.wifi411.com/search/index.php
ABC News list of wi-fi spots in 30 most populous U.S. cities: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/popup?id=2103816
WiFinder: http://www.wifinder.com/
JiWire: http://www.jiwire.com/
Wi-Fi Zone: http://wi-fi.jiwire.com/

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Decide up front if you want to participate and reply, and how.

CitySearch: http://www.citysearch.com/
InsiderPages: http://www.insiderpages.com/
JudysBook: http://www.judysbook.com/
Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/

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This allows people to find the library and see that it has a blog (undoubtedly a surprise).

Frappr: http://www.frappr.com/c/user/createamap
FeedMap: http://www.feedmap.net/BlogMap/
Blogwise: http://www.blogwise.com/
gFeedMap: http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~kkalu/gfeedmap/browse.php

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OCLC started opening up its member libraries’ holdings to Google and Yahoo! fhrough Open WorldCat.
Many of us were disappointed with the results.
Now they’ve made a renewed effort with WorldCat.org, which makes their entire database open and crawlable by the search engines.
This has great potential for putting our resources where our users need them--in the search engines that they use for finding things.

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If you do a search in Google Local for “Library, YourCity, YourState,” does your library show up? If not, why?
Google Local does a crummy job of including libraries that are parts of systems or branches.
School libraries mostly not included.
Special libraries get best billing (yellow page ease?)
If you’re not listed, or listed incorrectly, go to http://maps.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=1481 for instructions.

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Harvest users’ e-mail addresses from your ILS if you can (per the terms of your library card agreement) and start sending e-mail newsletters.
Make them monthly or weekly.
Feature local events, suggested reading, listening, and viewing, what’s new at the library, special articles from subject experts and the director, etc.
Make the same newsletter available in HTML with an RSS feed.

Push the information out to them.

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People like to game--and not just kids.
Second Life is a free multiuser game.
Second Life has a library: the Second Life Library 2.0 on Info Island, with reference service, events, classes, displays...
Participating here is one way to reach beyond the physical borders of your library.
Read the Library’s website or blog for more info.

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AllExperts.com: http://www.allexperts.com/ Experts choose categories/subjects they are willing to answer questions about.
Ziki: http://ziki.com/ Using social tagging, Ziki connects questioners with answerers.
Illumio: http://illumio.com/ Not yet released, Illumio connects you with experts and lets you search the documents on others' computers.
Qunu: http://alpha.qunu.com/ Qunu uses IM to connect people who have software or tech-related questions with experts.
FAQQLY: http://www.faqqly.com/ Ask questions of your network of friends, who see the questions on their own pages and can reply.
Otavo: http://otavo.com/ User creates a “quest” and other users suggest resources that will help.

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Upload videos to:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/
Google Video: http://video.google.com/
Blinkx: http://tv.blinkx.com/ Submit your site here: http://searchus.blinkx.com/registration/
SingingFish: http://search.singingfish.com/ Submit your site here: http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/submit.html

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Upload audio to, or make sure the audio is listed in:

Yahoo Podcasts: http://podcasts.yahoo.com/
Podcast.net: http://www.podcast.net/
Podcast Alley: http://www.podcastalley.com/index.php
Digital Podcast: http://www.digitalpodcast.com/
Podscope: http://podscope.com/ Submit your site here: http://podscope.com/submiturl.php
iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Odeo: http://www.odeo.com/
SingingFish: http://search.singingfish.com/ Submit your site here: http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/submit.html

Transcribe your audio content.

Podzinger: http://podzinger.com/ A free tool to make the words spoken in your online audio content (podcasts) searchable and findable—available in both English & Spanish.

For more sites to submit to, see: http://www.podcast411.com/page2.html

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Feed Submitter: http://www.feedsubmitter.com/ Submits your blog’s feed to 15 sites at once.
Robin Good’s list of where to submit your blog and feed: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
RSS Specifications list of where to submit your feed: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

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To find blog posts, news stories, and more that mention your library:

Google News: http://news.google.com Conduct keyword searches for variations of your library’s name in Google News, and then click the text that says "RSS” for the feed.
Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com Conduct a search for variations of your library’s name, then click "view as RSS" in the right column for the feed.
Ice Rocket: http://www.icerocket.com Search Ice Rocket for variations of your library’s name then click the RSS 2.0 button to get the feed.
Technorati: http://www.technorati.com Create a Technorati account and add variations of your library’s name as watchlist items, then subscribe to the feeds.
Feedster: http://www.feedster.com Search for variations of your library’s name and then click on the “Subscribe to this Search” button at the top for the feed.
Bloglines: http://bloglines.com Search for variations of your library’s name and then click on one of the options under “Subscribe to this search” to get the feed.

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To find videos taken in/of your library:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com Follow the instructions (http://www.youtube.com/rssls ) for finding videos tagged with variations of your library’s name.

To find photos taken in/of your library:

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com Search for photos tagged with variations of your library’s name and then subscribe to the feed, whose icon will be in the lower left corner of the results page.

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Getting out of our own little websites is a good thing--find where your users are and go there.

[credits]

You can contact Sarah Houghton-Jan at houghton-jan@smcl.org or IM her at LibrarianInBlack.

This presentation was created in HTML using CSS. There was no PowerPoint involved in this presentation. The layout and stylesheet are available to borrow via a share and share alike creative commons license. See source code for details.

Reaching Patrons:

Online Outreach for Public Libraries

A 20-Item Checklist

Information and Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library

Librarian in Black: http://www.librarianinblack.net

October 2006

What is online outreach?

Why is online outreach essential?

The Cost

#1: Ensure that you are findable in the major search engines

#2: Make sure you’re listed in library directories

#3: List your library in Wikipedia on the appropriate town or county entries

#4: Make sure you’re in Wikimapia

#5: List your library events and services in local community websites and calendars

#6: Ensure that your library has a presence on local government, school, and community websites.

#7: Monitor local blogs, technology boards, continuing education boards, and other forums.

#8: Create a profile for your library in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

#9: Offer assistance (reference and circulation help) via instant messaging.

#10: List your library in Free WiFi directories if you offer free wireless.

#11: Check reviews of your library on social review sites.

#12: List your library’s blog on geographic blog search engines.

#13: Are your items listed in WorldCat?

#14: Make sure you’re in Google Local.

#15: Push newsletters out via e-mail and RSS feeds.

#16: Consider being present in Second Life and other online game environments.

#17: List your staff as experts in various free expert-finding tools.

#18: Make your audio and video content findable.

#18: Make your audio and video content findable.

#19: Make sure library blog is listed in blog search engines.

#20: Subscribe to feeds to find discussions/content about your library.

#20: Subscribe to feeds to find discussions/content about your library.

To sum up....

« credits »

Reaching Patrons: Online Outreach for Public Libraries

A 20-Item Checklist

Information and Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library Librarian in Black: http://www.librarianinblack.net

October 2006

What is online outreach?

Why is online outreach essential?

The Cost

#1: Ensure that you are findable in the major search engines

#2: Make sure you’re listed in library directories

#3: List your library in Wikipedia on the appropriate town or county entries

#4: Make sure you’re in Wikimapia

#5: List your library events and services in local community websites and calendars

#6: Ensure that your library has a presence on local government, school, and community websites.

#7: Monitor local blogs, technology boards, continuing education boards, and other forums.

#8: Create a profile for your library in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

#9: Offer assistance (reference and circulation help) via instant messaging.

#10: List your library in Free WiFi directories if you offer free wireless.

#11: Check reviews of your library on social review sites.

#12: List your library’s blog on geographic blog search engines.

#13: Are your items listed in WorldCat?

#14: Make sure you’re in Google Local.

#15: Push newsletters out via e-mail and RSS feeds.

#16: Consider being present in Second Life and other online game environments.

#17: List your staff as experts in various free expert-finding tools.

#18: Make your audio and video content findable.

#18: Make your audio and video content findable.

#19: Make sure library blog is listed in blog search engines.

#20: Subscribe to feeds to find discussions/content about your library.

#20: Subscribe to feeds to find discussions/content about your library.

To sum up....

« credits »

Reaching Patrons:

Online Outreach for Public Libraries

Information and Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library

Librarian in Black: http://www.librarianinblack.net