userslib.com

• 50 Online Accessibility and Usability Tools
  (tags: Accessibility Usability tools)
• Hot Library Smut
  beautiful pics of libraries and library things
  (tags: Library Art books photography)
• The Photojojo Forum / General
  Nice example of using graphics to indicate data (# of topic responses in a forum)
  (tags: InformationDesign)

Yesterday during Scott Martin & Eric Frierson’s MLibrary2.0 Social Networking workshop, Eric mentioned that the UM Usability Working Group has used Facebook to find user testing participants. So here’s a little more information on that…

The Usability Working Group is currently preparing to conduct usability tests on various Library services and finding willing participants is always difficult, even when we offer incentives like we are for this test. We decided to advertise 3 different ways: a news item linked to from the main library homepage, a Facebook marketplace ad, and a Facebook Flyer.

The marketplace listing is free and from what I can tell, the ads only appear on the marketplace listings page. The Flyer is not free and the least amount you can spend is $5 for one day and the ad will be shown to 2,500 users (within the network of your choice) and the ad is larger and appears on the left side of various facebook pages.

We only had the flyer for 1 day, but had the marketplace ad and library website ad for a few days. So, in 5 days we have received 22 total responses. Unfortunately, since we put all our ads up at the same time, it’s difficult to tell where the respondents saw the ad. Perhaps as part of the actual usability tests, we’ll ask them how they found out about our call for participants. What I do know from looking at the web stats, is that there were 45 hits from the marketplace ad and 8 from the flyer. Granted, the marketplace ad was up for much longer, but still I think it turned out to be more successful (and you can’t beat free).

Facebook also offers a poll service. For $6 you can ask one question to a target audience of your choice. Hmmm. I wonder if this could also be useful for getting a quick response about some library issue – like “If your librarian was on facebook, would you add her/him as a friend?”

I (with help from some others) am planning on polling University of Michigan Library users about what library resources they use, what web 2.0 resources they use (and how often), and their perception of the library’s online resources. Does anyone have any suggestions for questions they think would be interesting to include?

• 30 Scripts For Galleries, Slideshows and Lightboxes | Smashing Magazine
  (tags: CSS portfolio ajax slideshow)

A recent British Poll asked internet users about their most hated web terms. Unfortunately, the actual survey report is no where to be found but according to the Communication Overtones blog, the top 10 hated words are (in no order): Folksonomy, Blogosphere, Blog, Netiquette, Blook, Webinar, Vlog, Social Networking, Cookie, and Wiki.

Topping the list of words most likely to make web users “wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard” was folksonomy, a term for a web classification system.

Yahoo Article

• Ohio University Libraries Learning 2.0
  (tags: Library2.0)
• Flickr: Photos from ugliflickr
  (tags: flickr Library2.0)

• UM Library: MLibrary 2.0 | Social Bookmarking
  hi this is my site
  (tags: Library2.0)
• UM Library: MLibrary 2.0 | flickr
  (tags: Library2.0 flickr)

13 Book Hacks from LifeHacker. I haven’t tried the 3 library integration tools they mention, but I have used the libX firefox extension (click the link “56 academic and public libraries” to see if there is one for your school) and think it’s pretty useful.

OCLC Worldcat just added list-making functionality. You have to create an account to use it – here’s the FAQ. This is great to see – especially since I’m currently working on something similar.

I’m curious how many people would use something like this if their OPAC offered it (I know some OPACs do have a “my shelf” type thing – but I don’t think they typically allow you to share your list with others).

I think this could be great for profs to make reading lists, or more social Amazon-like lists so you can create a recommended reading list on a topic.

Now available online – The MLibrary2.0 uberfeed!
http://www.lib.umich.edu/lib20/uberfeed.html