Help Me Integrate Technology to Increase Customer Reach
As a member of the newly formed Strategic Planning Group, I am charged with researching ways our library can integrate technology to increase customer reach. We already have a number of initiatives in place, the most obvious being the ILS upgrade.
Another future initiative is the concept of a "smart card", one card that customers use to check out books, make copies, register for computers, etc.
Another way to integrate technology to increase customer reach would be to increase our online presence. I have gathered a number of ideas under the del.icio.us tag "Online Presence" (found on the sidebar). What are some of these ideas that other libraries have been implementing? MySpace accounts, Flickr accounts, Wikipedia entries, and more.
Do you have any other suggestions on possible ways to use technology to increase customer reach? Let me know by adding a comment.
2 comments:
I would like to second (or third?) the need for a library MySpace account.
This year is my third year as a Girl Scout leader for a group of teenage girls (all turning 16) and I have found that the best way to communicate with them is through MySpace. Why? Because they no longer check their email...everyone has MySpace!(or so they tell me). In fact our troop now has an account with MySpace--full of pictures from activities, links to their pages, music produced by one of the girls and the all-important bulletins that remind them of the up-coming activities. Our Girl Scout Troop blog, carefully created the year before, has gone inactive due to the MySpace craze.
MySpace has taken over the teen generation. They don't blog or check email...but they can tell you all about MySpace. I do wonder what will take its place. (And if the library will be there ready to join those teens in the new(est) technology craze.)
--Beth, Highland Branch
One of the best examples of a library using MySpace is the Denver Public Library MySpace page.
As you say, who knows what will replace MySpace, but something surely will. So what Denver has done, basically, is created their own Teen site, eVolver, that allows teens to create music reviews, movie reviews, get homework help, among other things.
Then, they have a MySpace account with links to those sections of their teen page. While they also have some content that is unique to their MySpace page, they mainly use the page to draw attention to their existing resources.
So whenever people move on to something else, Denver can easily move with it.
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