#cpd23 Thing 3 or why can't you just let me be me?

Right, please dismiss the words that follow as completely naive, but I've been moved to write about library branding after being inspired by all the fabulous blog posts I've read on the subject, such as those from Library Wanderer, Blog On and rampersandk. The same as the first two, when I google myself and check my online identity, there are millions of people with the same name as me as I also have a very common name, but it was mostly taken up with a certain wedding dress designer. Despite being intimidated; some of the posts made me feel like I was facing a 150mph serve from Andy Roddick, some were more subtle like a sliced Nadal backhand; I feel I have something to say on the matter. I am coming from an entirely different angle, I won't use another tennis reference, I promise. Wimbledon has finished now and I must let it go.

I work in a business school where branding is obviously very important and not only for our students, we even have a department trying to maintain a consistent image. This has its own problems. How can you have one brand for everyone, for an entire organisation with all its departments? So my trick is don't try and just be yourself. Here's Will Young, unashamedly being just that:

It has nothing to do with branding, it's just called Who Am I, is one of my favourite songs and a fantastic video. It's a song about being honest, unashamedly, unequivocally and uncompromisingly yourself. As I was a late developer in this sense, not developing my own identity until I was sixteen; before that I was just a sheep, a clueless sheep; I am now adamant that I won't be anything less than myself. Plus I am very impressionable and my sense of self is very shaky. For example, my boss was trying to convince me last week that my second favourite film of all time, The Princess Bride, doesn't even exist and I almost started to doubt my own mind!


A lot of people have been concentrating on themselves rather than their job or their organisation's brand and this is where it gets tricky. I find it very confusing if I think of myself in terms of my job when putting things out there in the public sphere; the lines can be so easily blurred. I have my own Twitter @judgesarah account and maintain our @JudgeInfo account too, we have our own site and I have a blog and I email as myself and as part of my job, that last one from the same address. The way I see it, as long as you aren't representing your organisation, you can be yourself. Whether it means I have different names for my Twitter, my blog, my facebook, is all for the better as you are catering your "brand" to the specific audiences. If you haven't seen it yet, here is a video of Phil Bradley's brilliant CILIP Wales speech comparing web 2.0 applications to the various incarnations of Doctor Who.



Twitter for me is predominantly my work image, though I can't help a few more personal things coming through, my blog is simply for anyone who cares to happen upon my random musings and facebook is now unfortunately all old school and uni friends. So it makes sense that they will all be different. You can't admit that your favourite TV series is Alias in a place where your colleagues or students will see it, actually... I would, but most wouldn't. That's why having students friend you on facebook, like one did to me very recently, is a contentious issue. Even I, who claims to be open and honest in all things, in writing this post, have realised that I unconsciously "brand" myself.

So I guess, you need to tread carefully when it comes to branding, consider your audience and the people that will see what you're writing or creating. The idea for this post came to me when I thought of Merlin; like the eponymous wizard, you need to think about what you reveal to whom. And yes, as all the people who've read my blog posts before will know, I did mean the title to rhyme so much. That's just me. I reference popular culture as much as I can, namedrop my favourite actors, films and music, litter posts about LibraryThing with Shakespeare quotes, use Travis songs for the titles of my posts and I rhyme whenever I can. And I have no plans to change, if only on here...

The playing's the thing, wherein you'll get the most out of LibraryThing

During Cam23 when I first looked at LibraryThing, I said, and I quote, “I feel I'm missing the point on this one.” Never were truer words spoken, or written, as not only did I most definitely miss the point, I didn’t even contemplate it. I’m actually glad I did because now I’ve returned to it, all the little niggling issues seem to have been ironed out, or are less annoying now, in the grand scheme of LibraryThing; it’s much ado about nothing. I don’t think I realised the possibilities of its practical application for libraries, but when our blog was created, it opened up the opportunities as we weren’t constrained by CamTools limited setup. I have delayed this blog post, initially because I started using it for more things, then because I needed to create themed lists and now because I’m hoping to use the widget. Once that has been figured out, then I’ll publish this post. So if you’re reading this, everything has been sorted. Read on to find out how.

LibraryThing for me started off as a way to keep track of all the new books, one of my responsibilities. I used to create a monthly Word document which listed all the newest, in both senses of the word, books that had come in. It featured a picture of the book cover, the book’s details and the shelfmark. Using Photoshop, I then created an A3 poster of the most important or interesting books that had come in that month with all the same details and a description, usually taken from the back cover or flyleaf. As much as I love the quaint way of doing things, as well as going about things the hard way, when the blog came into existence, I realised that my posters and Word document weren’t suitable anymore. In fact they were obsolete, old-fashioned and just looked plain wrong on our brand new shiny platform. Nevertheless I carried on regardless, not thinking of LibraryThing. That is until, like Gregory House, a chance comment from someone provided me with the answer. I am now a total convert. I may doth protest too much, but despite its limitations and frustrations, it has since taken root in some of my other responsibilities too such as ebooks and faculty publications. It’s made my life, well, my job, so much easier. But in getting to this point, it made my job so much harder, not to mention more stressful and to tell you the truth, it still is.

LibraryThing may be very easy to use and set up, but to make it work the way you want it to is a whole other matter. This is the time-consuming part, but once that is done, it is simple. Here is my LibraryThing comedy of errors:

• I created an account, made a list and then started adding the books. However simply typing in an ISBN isn’t enough, you first have to select from the range of different sources. I found Amazon is the best and am patriotic so I’m using the British site. It seems to have the majority of the books, apart from the ones that don’t have ISBNs or are very obscure. The sole annoyance is when they don’t have a cover image, you can either select one from a range of options as the default is a bland, blank and dark cover, upload an image or use one from the web using the image address.
• Once you have selected the correct book, most of the information is imported for you. So you only have to add the classmark and make any necessary alterations to the title and author/editor fields.
• The first major issue I had was working out how to put the LibraryThing lists onto the blog. I spent weeks and weeks in a winter of discontent trying to find a way round the JavaScript limitations on wordpress.com, on the help pages, both WordPress and LibraryThing forums and emailing them direct. It was a tale of woe, so in the end I gave up on the widget and posted a simple link. At first I thought when we transfer the blog to Wordpress.org, there would be no problems at all. But I must have jinxed us as the special WordPress widget doesn’t work properly either; the book link in the widget also won't take you to the place you want it to go to: the book's home page rather than the details. I burned, I pined, I perished, but to no avail. LibraryThing takes a lot of tweaking and patience, as Miranda Hart would say, "Such fun!"
• Another problem is direct links to ebooks. You can’t post a simple link into any of the fields, but it took a week or so before I discovered a solution; you can put html code into the reviews or comments fields. That’s when I discovered LibraryThing has even limited the code so you can’t make the link open in a new tab or window, so it will only open in the same tab or window unless you right click. This is annoying, but you can live with it. You will find your expectations broken like that a lot when using LibraryThing, slowly wearing you down like Rafael Nadal breaks his opponents' spirits; “it has to do that” turns into “that’ll have to do.”
• Finally, each list has a permanent link which you can use. The lists can be customised as you like it, so that it appears with all the relevant details including ebook direct links, the tags and the classmark. Annoyingly, it won’t automatically appear and you have to accept the ‘suggested viewing style’ before it will, otherwise it uses a default style which includes basic details; tags are incorporated, as well as the standard title, author and date, but not the comments field so none of my links. The default also includes the star ratings and entry date which are most likely irrelevant; fair is foul and foul is fair.

Now instead of the documents and posters, I simply update the LibraryThing link on the blog so it goes to the latest new books list and write a short blog post, usually including any particularly interesting books that have come in that month. When we migrate to the new blog next month, I’ll just have to update the widget so it shows the latest books.

I have since branched out from the new books and created a comprehensive list of faculty publications: those books written by members of our staff. I also have started to add a list of ebooks, but it quickly became too unwieldy. Instead of creating lots of lists categorised by theme, I’ve discovered the tagging feature and spent the best part of a week labelling each book with the best descriptive tags possible, tying them in with all the other books on the list, whilst simultaneously trying to keep them relevant, concise and clear. This was no easy task as I had to remember what my tags were, juggling them all in my head, or referring to the ever increasing tags list, doubling back on myself each time I created new tags and using the subject field on the catalogue to help me with the less classifiable books. As some of the titles cross over into the other lists, and there are a few that are a faculty publication, new book and ebook, I soon found I had to tag all 304 books I have added so far to the LibraryThing lists. That’s why it took so long. Now you can simply click on a tag and see all the books that have that tag. However the tags will initially work within the particular list you’re in; you have to select the ‘All collections’ list to search them all. Once I have added all the ebooks on though, it will work to its full potential. It makes browsing the lists so much easier. LibraryThing may have a catalogue of flaws, but as a catalogue, it’s flawless. All's well that ends well. My job is made easier and it makes our students’ lives easier too, the rest is silence.

Turn

I wouldn't say I've done an about-turn; I still prefer to do things the old fashioned way: pen and paper as opposed to a computer, tangible CD rather than an ethereal mp3 file and face-to-face instead of phone, skype, email, IM or text. I sometimes feel like Alice in Wonderland with all this new technology, stumbling through a completely bizarre world that's like ours, but not quite right. All the advances are starting to make me feel small, but the power they give just blows everything out of proportion. To further the analogy, the Queen of Hearts is undoubtedly Steve Jobs, bringing out new innovations each year and cutting his opposition down to size at every turn. The Mad Hatter is Mark Zuckerberg, mastermind behind facebook, a genius who has lost his sense of self. Bill Gates is the White Rabbit, a minor character now but still doing a lot behind the scenes, and seemingly always rushing around, never having enough time. The Jabberwocky is a synecdoche for all the nefarious characters who exploit everything in their path: the hackers, the viruses and the spammers. Tweedledum and Tweedledee can represent Twitter, voices struggling to be heard in the sheer mass of communication, saying the same thing over and over, finishing people's sentences and trying to outdo each other. And the Cheshire Cat? All of us. Sending out every aspect of our personalities into the internet ether, until all that's left is a grinning facade. Still looking out for a caterpillar smoking a hookah though...However I must admit, some of the applications we've been looking at have turned my head, if not made me do a double-take. I had one of those the other day; a driver honked his horn at me and I wasn't even wearing anything special. I'm not one of those who takes offense at that kind of thing, but I wish the guy who did it was a bit younger, more attractive and not a white van driver. Here is what I was wearing, sorry about the blatant advertising on the bottle:

My friend Chris' little brother

Being of the right generation (and having a boss who is an advocate of web 2.0 helps), I was using quite a number of the applications already, along with others we haven't covered thanks to my technical wizard of a brother. He's recently got a smartphone and is having fun downloading the free apps. I must admit the GPS one is quite cool; I'm a fan of Google Earth and Street View as well, the supposed Big Brother; privacy issues are blown out of all proportion. I'm on Street View, several times, when looking from behind; I can't believe I missed the camera going past, though it looks like me and my Dad are unpacking the car after coming back from holiday:

Google Street View

The applications I already use are Zotero, facebook personally and professionally, Google Calendar for work timetables, wikis, Delicious - my colleague is well up on it, see their blog here: - Youtube and RSS feeds though I barely have anything to do with ours as it's automatic. I've started to use Doodle, but only because others are: the book club, other communities and colleagues for example. I created a Twitter account for Cam23 and have tried to update it daily, that reminds me... I'm not sure I'll carry it on if others abandon it, but a few friends I've made within the library community tweet, so maybe I will. I'll use LibraryThing for my books at home, but when I find the time. The only ones I know I won't use are LinkedIn as I think professional networking is more insalibrious than social networking (I prefer to make friends with someone I've actually met and genuinely like first and have someone want to help me, rather than contacting an avatar and using them for my own advancement), podcasts as I am disinclined to acquiesce to watching them and Slideshare as I prefer to create my own from scratch. I'm using Flickr more as the Google images set up has changed and it's a lot less user-friendly. iGoogle has been the most successful with me as I can see the weather forecast, the latest news and what's happening each day on our Google Calendar all in the same place. Nevertheless the best bits are the daily literary quote and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. Here's today's for old time's sake:I can't believe that we've come to the end and I'm missing the closing ceremony; it clashes with my summer holiday. I love writing a blog post every week and I may even keep it up. There's our new library induction video for a start; filming began yesterday and carried on today. It's going surprisingly well and has ben a lot of fun, but can't say much more than that as we're sworn to secrecy. Check my Twitter account for more details @judgesarah. There's also the library blog which is going to usurp our written newsletter. I think the last word should go to Wordle, I adore the eclecticness of my tags:

Love will come through

When I first saw LibraryThing I immediately thought of Flixster, which is a similar website, but for films. I have a humongous list of films on there, all with reviews and a star rating:

However I'm over a year's behind on that so I don't see myself doing any better with LibraryThing, especially as I don't think it's as good as Flixster, either the main website or the Facebook application. LibraryThing's layout is simplistic in style, complicated in structure and frankly unattractive; if you're anything like me or your book collection is like mine, it will take you a while to build up your list of books, so you're gonna have to want to spend the time on the website. I would have to do a lot of customising to get my profile and homepage the way I need them. The search function is overly convoluted; basically you have to do two searches, one using the LibraryThing search and the other often limited to the website chosen to import from. Downloading the book profiles from elsewhere is necessary, I chose Amazon due to the pretty pictures, but it causes problems; it timed out several times while searching. The zeitgeist tab is useful, but not obvious enough, I only found it just as I was about to give up; it should be the first port of call. That might've been my fault though... Anyway, that's enough of a rant. Here is my LibraryThing list:
It's taken up with all my Alias spin-off books at the moment, mainly as they're the only ones I know I definitely have, but also to promote my favourite TV series. Everyone should check it out and for those who know nothing about it, you can't go wrong with a sci-fi spy show with a spectacular female role model as the heroine. If that isn't enough, it was created by J. J. Abrams who's the genius behind Lost, Mission Impossible 3 and the new Star Trek.
The season one cast, makes me all nostalgic. Yes, that is Bradley Cooper at the... back to the point. The other problem with LibraryThing is that most people don't know what books they have; film reviewing is a lot easier, I should know I've written film reviews for websites, for the Cambridge Film Festival and reviewed films on community radio. My books are scattered across two houses and five separate rooms: my bedroom and living room, and my old bedroom, the computer room and the loft at my parent's house. Problematic. Then there is the subject of editions, which edition of Jane Eyre do I have? Short of going to my bookshelf and digging out the ISBN, I won't know. It's partly my fault as I'm a perfectionist, I suppose most people would choose the first one on the list rather than the exact one. In my eyes, that defeats the object. Or is that we build a library of books that we've read but don't own? which would be frankly ridiculous. So in that case, the only application I can see for it, is on a professional basis. Which is the reason why we're looking at it. However, Cambridge already has a list of all the books in our libraries; the Newton catalogue makes LibraryThing superfluous if not for the reviews, which we can go to Amazon for anyway. I gather it can recommend books either from your list, or from individual books, but I'm always a bit wary about that as what factors are being used for the recommendations? Of those libraries that do use LibraryThing already, the Central Science library lists only 95 books out of how many? And of those libraries that have integrated it into their catalogues, almost all of them are in the US. There's literally a handful in the UK and another few in Ireland. I feel I'm missing the point on this one. Here's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon: