userslib.com

The 2008 Bad Usability Calendar is out. Check it out.

http://www.badusability.com/

I posted recently about our library web survey but I thought it’d be interesting to talk a little about one particular question:

If you could contact a librarian via Facebook or MySpace for help with your research, would you? If not, why?

The main impetus for this question comes from a current trend for libraries to create Facebook apps that allow OPAC searching and other library related functionality from within Facebook. There has also been a lot of discussion and experimentation with using Facebook for reference and outreach.

There were a total of 330 responses. This was a free-text entry field so responses were organized and coded into basic categories.

The Data:

Breakdown of coded responses:

The data was cross-tabulated based on the respondent’s status to see if there were any trends in how they responded.

Responses by UM affiliation/status:

A total of 23% of respondents stated that ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ they would be interested in contacting a librarian via these two social networking sites. Undergrads had a slightly higher than average percentage of 34%.

Nearly half of the total respondents stated they would not be interested, but for various reasons - the biggest reason being that they feel the current methods (in-person, email, IM) are more than sufficient. 14% said no because they felt it was inappropriate or that Facebook/MySpace is a social tool, not a research tool. Though this latter category does not represent a majority, these responses were the most emphatic. Of those who stated their reason as having to do with seeing Facebook/MySpace as a social thing and not a research thing, undergraduates and graduate students comprised the largest group.

Some of the interesting responses:

“Sure because its something that I check often and is quick and easy to use.”

“I wouldn’t, because I feel as if I can do most of the research on my own.”

“…facebook and myspace are very public sites…it’d be weird to contact a librarian that way.”

“No, facebook does not seem like a site I would use for school purposes. I don’t want librarians looking at my profile. Facebook is not for school, it’s for fun.”

“No, because you can already chat with them online through the library website and I wouldn’t want to contact a faculty member using my personal networking site.”

“No. I would rather just send an email or go to the library and talk to them in person.”

So what can we learn from this? There is definitely some interest in using facebook as a tool for more than just social interactions even though some perceive it as pretty weird. The weird factor is likely to change as more apps (like lookabee and CourseFeed) are created and adopted, more students friend their professors, and they start to realize more and more that privacy on facebook isn’t a given.

And what’s the harm? We’re not talking about friending every student in your subject specialization and sending them vampire and zombie invites (or whatever those stupid things are)… we’re just talking about being where our users are, marketing our services, and trying not to be left in the dust.

[Link to the full survey report pdf] [Link to all usability reports]

If you know me, you know that I LOVE CHARTS! So obviously I was pleased to learn that Google has just released an API for making charts - pie charts, bar charts, venn diagrams, scatter plots, and line charts.

Here’s a test chart I made showing the holdings of the UM library as of 2006 (note: I rounded and simplified the categories). Its fairly easy to do - you just link to an image that is called via a URL, plug your chart type and data into the URL, and the graphic will be dynamically generated for you.

So, there are no more excuses for showing tables and tables of boring stats - put it in a chart!

[Link: Google Chart API]

Who needs prehistoric attractions like pheromones when you can smell like an old book?

A new perfume called “In The Library” is described as:

English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition of one of my very favorite novels, Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish

[found via BB-blog]

Here you go, just in time for Black Friday - lots of gift ideas for you or the librarian in your life.

Library inspired book plates	kateblack’s Reading is Sexy badge
Library Card Journals (via Indie Fixx)	BiblioGifts (many lovely products)
AliciaBock’s “the Library”	Jillian Ditner’s “Out of Circulation” print series
Threadless T-shirt “November Was a Good Month”	Library Date Due Stamp T-Shirt
Elfrida’s Library Catalog print	Sarahkat’s Specs Moleskine Notebook

And even more by me!

Here’s a cool video of paper prototyping in action (minus the tedious bits). The device being tested is a PDA for meeting new people.

{ found via www.guuui.com }

The University of Michigan’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Society recently announced the winners of their Bad Designs on Campus Contest.

Since these folks are from the engineering department it’s no surprise that many of the submissions were for bad design on North Campus - specifically the Duderstadt Center and Pierpont Commons. I worked in the Duderstadt Center for 4 years so I can personally attest to how frustrating some of the entries really are. I don’t think I ever went to the library stacks area without having to help someone figure out how to move the compact shelving or made it to the bathroom without having the external doors open unnecessarily.

{ link to contest | found via Field Guide }

Our web team and I recently did a survey to better understand our University of Michigan library patrons – their web use, their library use, and their perceptions of the library. It was mostly successful in that now we have more information about our users than we did before. As with all usability/survey studies, the results merely provide a window into understanding our users. The things we learned in this survey can now be used in conjunction with other studies and log analysis to form a more complete picture. This is just a preliminary report… A full analysis will be put online at some point in the near future. We also plan to do a version of this survey annually - so we will also be assessing the survey itself to determine what worked or didn’t.

[Library Web Survey Fall 2007 Results & Preliminary Analysis]

Paul Courant, economics professor, former provost, and currently the University Librarian at the University of Michigan has just started a new blog Au Courant. His first post is about the UM’s relationship with Google and addresses some of the project’s recent criticisms. Welcome Paul!

All of Amazon’s Search Inside!™ books now show stats about the content of the book: the book’s 100 most frequently used words, number of words, words per sentence, “readability” (difficulty), etc.

find stats by hovering over the cover of a book that has “Search Inside!™” and choose “Concordance” or “Text Stats” | link to example

[via information aesthetics]