Cali the Librarian

The Sad State of Social Media Privacy [Infographic]

From OhMyGov!’s Top 10 Social Media Infographics

OhMyGov: How to Protect Yourself from Social Media Blunders

Written with government in mind, but applies to anyone using Twitter for professional/organizational purposes.

Post information only on a need to know basis.
Make your passwords foolproof.
Respect other’s personal boundaries.
When it comes to posts on Facebook or Twitter, the less personal the better.
Change your privacy settings often.

Oh, look, it’s actually Thursday now! :) It’s also the last day I have this week to really get stuff done—tomorrow I’m only working a half-day and have a ref desk shift and an all-hands meeting, so I won’t have much time to focus.

Paperwork is first on the agenda: printed expense report in order to be reimbursed for the travel cost of working in the other office yesterday (which required rebooting our massive copy/print/fax machine, which takes FOREVER), tallied up reference question stats for January and collected that sheet and my timesheets to turn in for the month, started new stat sheet for February.
Email management: skimmed/deleted new messages, did the filing I couldn’t do yesterday. Checked email periodically throughout the day.
Reference monthly report: evidently I’m the first person to put stuff in for the January report, so I created the file and pasted in my bits under the appropriate headings—this involves checking my calendar for committee/inter-unit work, picking a few ‘interesting’ reference questions to mention, and checking my finished tasks for things like training/prof dev items to include. January was a pretty quiet month, in retrospect.
First check of my Twitter feed and gmail, but skipped greader for now in favor of getting something done before my 10:30a refdesk shift (it’s easy to skim feeds while on the refdesk).
Worked on the announcement that I’ve been poking at for two days. Debating whether to present the improvements as bulleted list or group them into like-items and write a short paragraph about each group. Have now written drafts both ways and I don’t know which is preferable. [I’m probably spending way too much time on this, but it’s the first thing like this that I’ve done, so there’s a lot of agonizing time involved. :) ]
Sent both variants (plus a detail question) to the systems guy who did the improvements for an initial critique to make sure I’ve represented things accurately.
Two hours on the refdesk. Mostly a quiet shift, but I had one of those exceedingly well-timed interactions where a coworker and I had been discussing who was handling an email about a certain topic (I hadn’t seen it yet, so I skimmed it while we were talking) and right afterward I got a phone reference question on a very closely related topic. So I was able to use some of the information from that email to help the patron. :) Also skimmed Twitter and Tumblr during the shift.
Did my Twitter stats wrangling for January while on the refdesk.
Upon returning to my desk, I sent the final drafts (haha, talk about a contradiction in terms!) of that new features announcement to the systems guy and the head guy; after this they’ll send it to the entire team for review/critique.
Responded to an opinion question about checkboxes within the system’s search results (i.e. when you select a citation, how long should that selection persist? Across pages is obvious, but what if you run a new search? Should they stay or go?).
Read some of the articles I found on Twitter and Tumblr during my refdesk shift; added a few things to my Tumblr queue.
Reviewed the funds summary report to see if I’m one of the subjects that is guilty of not having made any selections yet this fiscal year—looks like I’ve ordered a few books, whew, but I should find some more. Added that to my to-do list for Monday to consider when I’m reviewing the weekend notifications of new items in GOBI3. (I primarily select for library and computer science but also get item notifications for biotechnology.)
Over lunch (which didn’t occur until nearly 2pm, haha, but that’s pretty typical for me) I added notable new Twitter followers to my masterlist. I really ought to convert the list into a database or something rather than the massively messy word doc that it is, but when I started it I don’t think I expected the library account to have so many followers. :)
Composed and sent the Twitter summary emails; one general summary goes to most of the library staff—and provides the deadline for the next month’s tweets—then more specific summaries are sent to each of the contact people from the areas that contribute content to the account.
Finally tackled my RSS feeds, checked in on Twitter again.
Worked a bit on the library tweets for February; scheduled tweets for tues/wed and added a note to my calendar for Monday to check up on the tweets still awaiting approval if I haven’t gotten a response by then (need to have a response in order to go any further with the scheduling). Did as much as I could to work around the missing tweets, including tweaking a few #followfriday posts and adding them to the schedule. Verified links for the tweets I scheduled.

And that’s it for me today.

Today’s soundtrack:

#libday8: Tuesday

Ah, Tuesday… somehow this morning I got confused and fleetingly thought it was Thursday (if only!).

Arrive, turn on some of the patron computers (I was backup librarian for first shift again)
Took a few minutes while the email was loading to call the vet and schedule an appointment for my tabby cat
Throughout the day: sort through the messages in the reference email box; forwarded, answered, or assigned the questions that came in (last day of the month, so I’m almost done with my tour of duty, woo!)
Throughout the day: sort through my email box and the Twitter account mailbox, responding, deleting, or filing messages as appropriate [oh, look, my morning meeting was cancelled! :) ]
Briefly chased away from my desk by the vacuum cleaner (it’s easier to get out of the way than stand around awkwardly while my corner is being vacuumed)
Deal with my Gmail account and cruise through the new listserv messages
First check of personal Twitter feed
Library Twitter account: update the working spreadsheet with the new mentions/retweets
Over popcorn, ponder the request for me to write an announcement of new features we’ve added to the library-designed database search platform and look over past announcements we’ve made and the list of new features to include
Played around with some searches to make sure I was familiar with all of the new features to be announced; emailed for clarification on a few points
Dropped in on my Twitter feed while waiting for some things to execute on the system
Remembered it’s the end of the month; faxed in my timesheet
Returned to planning the schedule of tweets for February that I couldn’t finish yesterday; there are a few gaps, but I’m also waiting for 7 more to be approved by higher-ups
Scheduled February 1-6 tweets and verified the shortened links for those tweets lead to the correct pages
Checked on my Twitter feed and skimmed through the stuff in Google Reader and Tumblr while eating lunch
Received response to my request for clarification about improvements—a couple will be not be included in the announcement I’m to write; also included a follow-up/opinion question in response to a related-but-not question I asked, so I spent a while longer poking around the system in order to have an informed opinion for my response
Spent the last few minutes before my ref desk shift going over the Computers in Libraries schedule
Staffed our reference desk for the last 2 hours of the day, which mostly involved retrieving books from the book lift, transferring phone calls to the proper person, and putting paper in copiers/printers. I also managed to do a preliminary draft of that announcement and helped a pair of regulars track down a couple of call numbers that eluded them.

Tuesday’s soundtrack:

LSO: Verdi Requiem
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows -Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (some song titles are spoilery if you haven’t seen the movie, just fyi)
Within Temptation: The Heart of Everything
[no music while on desk, alas]

#libday8: Monday

I am primarily a reference librarian with additional tasks pertaining to Twitter and our digital services. This is roughly how my Monday went.

Arrive, turn on and log in the patron computers in preparation for opening (I was backup librarian for the opening shift)
Sort through the weekend’s messages in the reference email box; forwarded, answered, or assigned the questions that came in (we rotate handling the ref box on a monthly basis)
Sort through my email box and the Twitter account mailbox, responding, deleting, or filing messages as appropriate
Skim through my Twitter feed, Google Reader, and Tumblr dashboard, add a few posts to my Tumblr queue
Twitter: collect Twitalyzer stats for the week, update the working spreadsheet with the new mentions/retweets, skim the Twitter feed for the library account I manage and add a few items to RT to the library schedule (I use SocialOomph to schedule the tweets rather than posting by hand)
Deal with my Gmail account and cruise through the new listserv messages received over the weekend
Lunch
Deleted an email alert for a user that retired in December (this is a new task for me; I should probably learn xquery, but for now I have the commands to copy/paste into the system)
Dealt with new emails in reference/twitter/my email boxes (recurs ad nauseaum throughout the day, so I’ll stop mentioning it, same goes for Twitter-checking)
Spent a good while researching a reference question and answering it, then answered another
Started planning the schedule of tweets for February
Stopped Twitter planning to respond to the ‘thank you, but I really had X in mind’ response to the reference question I did earlier (seriously, TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT FROM THE START OR I CAN’T ANSWER YOUR QUESTION EFFECTIVELY—not doing so just frustrates both of us, and in this case, I wouldn’t have had to spend nearly so long researching if I’d had more information up front)
Second and last check of Google Reader for the day, as it’s now after 4pm and I don’t have time to get back into Twitter planning this afternoon
Updated the library’s retweet counts in my master list for January

And that’s it for me today.

Music for the day:

Sample & Hold: Browsing Now (2)

Browsing and serendipity are not limited to the book stacks. Skimming and scanning are habits of mind, and can lead to unexpected discoveries anywhere. Like millions of other people, I use Twitter to bring a mix of relevant and entertaining content to my attention. While Twitter’s brief messages and links rarely include books, they do provide a loosely-shaped browsing experience that often leads to useful information I might not find otherwise.

The first post about browsing, Browsing Now, describes browsing in the context of books/libraries.

The Atlantic: 'Highly Tweeted Articles Were 11 Times More Likely to Be Highly Cited'

The bottom line is simple: articles that many people tweeted about were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than those who few people tweeted about. Its implications are even more interesting. It generally takes months and years for papers to be cited by other scientific publications. Thus, on the day an article comes out, it would seem to be difficult to tell whether it will have a real impact on a given field. However, because the majority of tweets about journal articles occur within the first two days of publication, we now have an early signal about which research is likely to be significant.

(Source: twitter.com)

LISNews: Is the Loss of Objective Search a Bad Thing?

Imagine a research database, that upon searching for “wind energy,” gives top results about the benefits of turbine technology to one student, while another student (with a different search history, or in a different state) is instead shown articles that focus on the noise and vertigo that wind turbines produce. Sound fishy? Google has unveiled a more personal search that does exactly this sort of thing, called “Search, plus Your World. Is this more about advertising revenue than providing access to information? For a nice review of the issue, see a competitor’s Escape your search engine Filter Bubble! When, if ever, would you want filtered results?

thelifeguardlibrarian:

Why Authors Tweet

When they use social media, authors have as many personae to choose from as they do in their other writings. Some strike poses that effectively increase the distance between them and their readers, foiling voyeurs.

govloop: New Twitter Guides for Government Agencies and Employees

Some of the guidelines are the same for agencies and employees, and while this is labeled for government, these guides should be useful for anyone tweeting on behalf of a company/organization/business/etc (I’m thinking specifically of libraries, of course, but that’s not the only possibility).

The 15 commandments for agencies:

Social Media Statistics of the Day [infographic]

(Source: lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com)

Infographic: What Are People Doing Online?

Pew Internet: New report: Why Americans use social media

pewinternet:

Our latest report takes a quick but informative look at why Americans use social media:

Two-thirds of online adults (66%) use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn. These internet users say that connections with family members and friends (both new and old) are a primary consideration in their adoption of social media tools. Roughly two thirds of social media users say that staying in touch with current friends and family members is a major reason they use these sites, while half say that connecting with old friends they’ve lost touch with is a major reason behind their use of these technologies.

Other factors play a much smaller role—14% of users say that connecting around a shared hobby or interest is a major reason they use social media, and 9% say that making new friends is equally important. Reading comments by public figures and finding potential romantic partners are cited as major factors by just 5% and 3% of social media users, respectively.

Who Decides Who You Are Online?

infoneer-pulse:

The writer Salman Rushdie hit Twitter on Monday morning with a flurry of exasperated posts. Facebook, he wrote, had deactivated his account, demanded proof of identity and then turned him into Ahmed Rushdie, which is how he is identified on his passport. He had never used his first name, Ahmed, he pointed out; the world knows him as Salman.

Would Facebook, he scoffed, have turned J. Edgar Hoover into John Hoover?

“Where are you hiding, Mark?” he demanded of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, in one post. “Come out here and give me back my name!”

» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)

A team of computational linguists at Carnegie Mellon University… has used geocoded tweets to build maps of regional language use across the United States. …

From these mountains of data can be gleaned hidden patterns of informal English, like the profusion of hella as a form of emphasis in Northern California, as in, “It’s hella cold out there.” Slangy phonetic spellings also show distinct patterns of distribution, with New Yorkers preferring suttin to sumthin (for something) and Californians writing koo or coo for cool. Even emoticons differ from region to region

— Twitterology - A New Science? - NYTimes.com (via interestingsnippets)