Library Voice

The RSS and JavaScript Cookbook

Meredith Farkas and Paul Pival

paulandmeredith.pbwiki.com

Paul says every single tool they will show us will be usable by librarians.

Using the traditional subject page as an example of how to generate dynamic content
Most subject guides are not often updated
Not easy to add content if you don’t know HTML

Dynamic Content
-lives elsewhere, but pulled into a page

RSS
RSS is a format for syndicating on the web

What is javascript?
A simple scripting language that can interact with HTML source code, enabling web authors to spice up their sties with dynamic content

What sort of content might be on a subject page?
useful databases
useful journals
useful books

What you can do with RSS on a subject page?
Blog posts on the sidebar
database search feeds on specific subjects
–pubmed
–Ebsco
–ProQuest
some catalog search feeds
Collect journal RSS feeds
RSS for new books feed
RSS from social bookmarking sites
Syndicate podcasts, screencasts, videocasts

Simple RSS Tools
Feed2JS–probably the most popular service
-you can install the js on your own server

Paul demonstrated how this could be used within blackboard. This would be a cool way to let users know of resources that are specific to their topic.

FeedBlendr
-blends multiple feeds

R-Mail.org
use to send RSS to email

RSS calendar
-put events and stuff into
–rsscalendar.com

Technorati Tag: IL2006

MySpace and Facebook

MySpace is not the best website ever.  It can be hard to use, it can give a bad user experience.  Nevertheless, people still use it because of the social experience.  

Aaron got a teenager to update the Thomas Ford MySpace page.

————

Cliff Landis

What is the nature of the beast?
Profiles as Identity Performance
-Dynamic and Static
-user can change profile and picture and information regularly
Social Networking
-Connections between individuals creat a network
Groups and Identity

Using Facebook to benefit students
Reference
-consultations
-groups
Marketing
-photos
-flyers
-events
Instruction
-groups
-links to traditional resources

Innovatie services
Acquisitions
-asking students on their own turf
Ubiquitous librarianship
–using a student’s public profile to assist them

The user-centric approach
-Karen Schneider’s “The User is Not Broken”
-meet the people where they are, not where you want them to be
–point of need service

Cliff created an ASK-A-Librarian group in Facebook
-librarians should represent themselves as an individual–create a group

Technorati Tag: IL2006

Shari Thurow
Web Presence for Internet Librarians

Shari is the Webmaster/Marketing directory at Grantastic Designs
She says she loves librarians.
She’s working on a PHD in Library Science
She says that librarians will be the heroes of the web

Goals of this presentation:
Define a search engine friendly web site design
Search engine optimization essentials
Other design considerations

Search engine friendly design:
-is not a design that increases Google ranks
-rather, it si a user-friendly design that can be easily found on both crawler-based and human-based search engine
Search engines are the “third browser”

5 basic rules of easy desing
-easy to read
-easy to navigate
–people should know where they are at at all times
-easy to find
-consistent in layout and design
-quick to download
–the majority of the web page needs to download in less than 30 seconds on a 56k modem

FAQ page
You put the question at the top of the page, which then links to the answer below (with and anchor tag)

Search engines:
they index text
they follow links
they measure popularity

If you make a flash-based site, your site will not get rankings in search engines
-search engines don’t like to index javascript based links

Do your words or phrases on your page match what your target audiences type into search engines?
Do you provide easy access to keyword focused text that spiders can easily follow?

successful search optimization depends on:
text component (index text)
–giving lots of keywords on page
–average search query is 2.3 words
–every web page should have a unique title tag
–breadcrumbs links on page
–use hyphens not underscores
link component (follow links)

If you need to figure out what text the search engines are indexing, select all on the web page, then paste into NotePad.

Link Component
Site & Page Architecture

Link component essentials include:
-site navigatgion scheme
-cross lining

types of site navigation
-text links
-navigation buttons
-image maps
-menus (form and DHTML)
-flash
these are ordered from most search engine friendly to the least friendly

Search engines do not fill out forms, so they do not index drop-down menus

Shari stresses that you need to design for your users, not for the search engines.  If your users want flash (for example, the entertainment industry) then use flash
–always have two forms of navigation on your web site
–combination of graphic images and graphic links

Most important rule in marketing
MPABS
“Most People Are Basically Stupid”

Site map should not be a bandaid
–if the search engines can only access your site via a site map, then your site needs a redesign

Informational pages
–contain information your target audience is interested in
–do not contain a lot of sales hype or industry (library) jargon
–often have a simpler layout

15-20% of search queries have location qualifiers

Cross-linking is very important
Cross linking communicates that you think a page is important

Technorati Tag: IL2006