The simplest AJAX: writing your own code (1)

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

*** This blog post has been originally published in ACRL TechConnect 0n September 12, 2012. ***

It has been 8 months since the Code Year project started. Back in January, I have provided some tips. Now I want to check in to see if how well you have been following along. Falling behind? You are not alone. Luckily there are still 3-4 months left.

Teaching oneself how to code is not easy. One of the many challenges is keeping at it on a regular basis. Both at home and at work, there seems to be always a dozen things higher in priority than code lessons. Another problem is that often we start a learning project by reading a book with some chosen examples. The Code Year project is somewhat better since it provides interactive tutorials. But at the end of many tutorials, you may have experienced the nagging feeling of doubt about whether you can now go out to the real world and make something that works. Have you done any real-time project yet?

If you are like me, the biggest obstacle in starting your own first small coding project is not so much the lack of knowledge as the fantasy that you still have yet more to learn before trying any such real-life-ish project. I call this ‘fantasy’ because there is never such a time when you are in full possession of knowledge before jumping into a project. In most cases, you discover what you need to learn only after you start a project and run into a problem that you need to solve.

So for this blog post, I tried building something very small. During the process, I had to fight constantly with the feeling that I should go back to the Code Year Project and take those comforting lessons in Javascript and JQeury that I didn’t have time to work through yet. But I also knew that I would be so much more motivated to keep learning if I can just see myself making something on my own. I decided to try some very simple AJAX stuff and started by looking at two examples on the Web. Here I will share those examples and my review process that enabled me to write my own bit of code. After looking at these, I was able to use different APIs to get the same result. My explanation below is intentionally detailed for beginners. But if you can understand the examples without my line-by-line explanation, feel free to skip and go directly to the last section where the challenge is. For what would your AJAX skill be useful? There are a lot of useful data in the cloud. Using AJAX, you can dynamically display your library’s photos stored in Flickr in your library’s website or generate a custom bibliography on the fly using the tags in Pinboard or MESH (Medical Subject Heading) and other filters in PubMed. You can mash up data feeds from multiple providers and create something completely new and interesting such as HealthMap, iSpiecies, and Housing Maps.

Warm-up 1: Jason’s Flickr API example

I found this example, “Flickr API – Display Photos (JSON)” quite useful. This example is at Jason Clark’s website. Jason has many cool code examples and working programs under the Code & Files page. You can see the source of the whole HTML page here . But let’s see the JS part below.

<script type="text/javascript">
//run function to parse json response, grab title, link, and media values - place in html tags
function jsonFlickrFeed(fr) {
    var container = document.getElementById("feed");
    var markup = '<h1>' + '<a href="' + fr.link+ '">' + fr.title + '</a>'+ '</h1>';
    for (var i = 0; i < fr.items.length; i++) {
    markup += '<a title="' + fr.items[i].title + '" href="' + fr.items[i].link + '"><img src="' + fr.items[i].media.m + '" alt="' + fr.items[i].title + '"></a>';
}
container.innerHTML = markup;
}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=cil2009&format=json">
</script>

After spending a few minutes looking at the source of the page, you can figure out the following:

  • Line 12 imports data formatted in JSON from Flickr, and the JSON data is wrapped in a JS function called jsonFlickrFeed. You can find these data source urls in API documentation usually. But many API documentations are often hard to decipher. In this case, this MashupGuide page by Raymond Yee was quite helpful.
  • Line 3-8 are defining the jsonFlickrFeed function that processes the JSON data.

You can think of JSON as a JS object or an associative array of them. Can you also figure out what is going on inside the jsonFlickrFeed function? Let’s go through it line by line.

  • Line 4 creates a variable, container, and sets it to the empty div given the id of the “feed.”
  • Line 5 creates another variable, markup, which will include a link and a title of “fr,” which is an arbitrary name that refers to the JSON data thrown inside the jsonFlickrFeed fucntion.
  • Line 6-8 are a for-loop that goes through every object in the items array and extracts its title and link as well as the image source link and title. The loop also adds the resulting HTML string to the markup variable.
  • Line 9 assigns the content of the markup variable as the value of the HTML content of the variable, container. Since the empty div with the “feed” id was assigned to the variable container, now the feed div has the content of var markup as its HTML content.

So these two JS snippets take an empty div like this:

<div id="feed"></div>

Then they dynamically generate the content inside with the source data from Flickr following some minimal presentation specified in the JS itself. Below is the dynamically generated content for the feed div. The result like this.

<div id="feed">
<h1>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cil2009/">Recent Uploads tagged cil2009</a>
</h1>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthew_francis/3458100856/" title="Waiting at Vienna metro (cropped)">
<img alt="Waiting at Vienna metro (cropped)" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3608/3458100856_d01b26cf1b_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/3448484629/" title="Laptop right before CIL2009 session">
<img alt="Laptop right before CIL2009 session" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3389/3448484629_9874f4ab92_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/christajoy42/4814625142/" title="Computers in Libraries 2009">
<img alt="Computers in Libraries 2009" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4082/4814625142_f9d9f90118_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianinblack/3613111168/" title="David Lee King">
<img alt="David Lee King" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3354/3613111168_02299f2b53_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianinblack/3613111084/" title="Aaron Schmidt">
<img alt="Aaron Schmidt" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3331/3613111084_b5ba9e70bd_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianinblack/3612296027/" block"="" libraries"="" in="" computers="" title="The Kids on the ">
<img block"="" libraries"="" in="" computers="" alt="The Kids on the " src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2426/3612296027_6f4043077d_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pegasuslibrarian/3460426841/" title="Dave and Greg look down at CarpetCon">
<img alt="Dave and Greg look down at CarpetCon" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3576/3460426841_ef2e57ab49_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pegasuslibrarian/3460425549/" title="Jason and Krista at CarpetCon">
<img alt="Jason and Krista at CarpetCon" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3600/3460425549_55443c5ddb_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pegasuslibrarian/3460422979/" title="Lunch with Dave, Laura, and Matt">
<img alt="Lunch with Dave, Laura, and Matt" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3530/3460422979_96c020a440_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436564507/" title="IMG_0532">
<img alt="IMG_0532" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3556/3436564507_551c7c5c0d_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436566975/" title="IMG_0529">
<img alt="IMG_0529" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3328/3436566975_c8bfe9b081_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436556645/" title="IMG_0518">
<img alt="IMG_0518" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3579/3436556645_9b01df7f93_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436569429/" title="IMG_0530">
<img alt="IMG_0530" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3371/3436569429_92d0797719_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436558817/" title="IMG_0524">
<img alt="IMG_0524" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3331/3436558817_3ff88a60be_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3437361826/" title="IMG_0521">
<img alt="IMG_0521" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3371/3437361826_29a38e0609_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3437356988/" title="IMG_0516">
<img alt="IMG_0516" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3298/3437356988_5aaa94452c_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3437369906/" title="IMG_0528">
<img alt="IMG_0528" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3315/3437369906_01015ce018_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436560613/" title="IMG_0526">
<img alt="IMG_0526" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3579/3436560613_98775afc79_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3437359398/" title="IMG_0517">
<img alt="IMG_0517" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3131/3437359398_7e339cf161_m.jpg">
</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezmynne/3436535739/" title="IMG_0506">
<img alt="IMG_0506" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3646/3436535739_c164062d6b_m.jpg">
</a>
</div>

Strictly speaking, Flickr is returning data in JSONP rather than JSON here. You will see what JSONP means in a little bit. But for now, don’t worry about that distinction. What is cool is that you can grab the data from a third party like Flickr and then you can remix and represent them in your own page.

Warm-up 2: Doing the same with JQuery using $.getJSON()

Since I had figured out how to display data from Flickr using Javascript (thanks to Jason’s code example), the next I wanted to try was to do the same with JQuery. After some googling, I discovered that there is a convenient JQeury method called $.getJSON(). The official JQuery page on this $.getJSON() method includes not only the explanation about JSONP (which allows you to load the data from the domain other than yours in your browser and manipulate it unlike JSON which will be restricted by the same origin policy) but also the JQuery example of processing the same Flickr JSONP data. This is the example from the JQuery website.

$.getJSON("http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?jsoncallback=?",
  {
    tags: "mount rainier",
    tagmode: "any",
    format: "json"
  },
  function(data) {
    $.each(data.items, function(i,item){
      $("<img/>").attr("src", item.media.m).appendTo("#images");
      if ( i == 3 ) return false;
    });
  });

As you can see in the first line, the data feed urls for JSONP response have a part similar to &jasoncallback=? at the end. The function name can vary and the API documentation of a data provider provides that bit of information. Let’s go through the codes line by line:

  • Line 1-6 requests and takes in the data feed from the speicified URL in JSONP format.
  • Once the data is received and ready, the script invokes the anonymous function from line 7-11. This function makes use of the JQuery method $.each().
  • For each of data.items, the anonymous function applies another anonymous function from line 9-10.
  • Line 9 creates an image tag – $(“<img/>”), attaches each item’s media.m element as the source attribute to the image tag – .attr(“src”, item.media.m), and lastly appends the resulting string to the empty div with the id of “images” – .appendTo(“#images”).
  • Line 10 makes sure that no more than 4 items in data.items is processed.

You can see the entire HTML page codes in the JQuery website’s $.getJSON() page.

Your Turn: Try out an API other than Flickr

So far we have looked through two examples. Not too bad, right? To keep the post at a reasonable length, I will get to the little bit of code that I wrote in the next post. This means that you can try the same and we can compare the result next time. Now here is the challenge. Both examples we saw used the Flickr API. Could you write code for a different API provider that does the same thing? Remember that you have to pick a data provider that offers feeds in JSONP if you want to avoid dealing with the same origin policy.

Here are a few providers you might want to check out. They all offer their data feeds in JSONP.

First, find out what data URLs you can use to get JSONP responses. Then write several lines of codes in JS and JQuery to process and display the data in the way you like in your own webpage. You may end up with some googling and research while you are at it.

Here are a few tips that will help you along the way:

  • Verify the data feed URL to see if you are getting the right JSONP responses. Just type the source url into the browser window and see if you get something like this.
  • Get the Firebug for debugging if you don’t already have it.
  • Use the Firebug’s NET panel to see if you are receiving the data OK.
  • Use the Console panel for debugging. The part of data that you want to pick up may be in several levels deep. So it is useful to know if you are getting the right item first before trying to manipulate it.

Happy Coding! See the following screenshots for the Firebug NET panel and Console panel. (Click the images to see the bigger and clearer version.) Don’t forget to share your completed project in the comments section as well as any questions, comments, advice, suggestions!

Net panel in Firebug

 

 

Console panel in Firebug

Posted in Coding, Web | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The simplest AJAX: writing your own code (1)

How Not To Kill Your Own Creativity

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Yesterday, I ran into this news about Darien Library. They were doing a campaign about “Donate Blood and Your Library Fines Waived.”  Immediately I thought ‘What a wonderful idea!’ Library fines can be a hassle. Lots of times people accumulate library fines by missing the due dates without intending and then get a headache later on. Library fines are not in any way a positive part of library experience even if they are the result of a user’s own fault.

I was most impressed by the fresh perspective on the whole library fine matter. The campaign by Darien Library was actually addressing this negative issue and changing it to something positive and even exciting. Getting library fines waived is like getting a free cookie. We are drawn to freebies. The condition for the freebie is a great cause – donating blood. This little one-day event page even lists “Facts about blood donation from the Red Cross.”

  • Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.
  • The blood used in an emergency is already on the shelves before the event occurs.
  • A single car accident victim can require as many as 100 pints of blood.
  • Roughly 1 pint of blood is given during a donation.

It is a great marketing event that brings in many library patrons’ goodwill with an educational element thrown in. But after I tweeted about this campaign, immediately a few librarians commented about those who are not eligible to donate blood for health or other reasons. And for a moment there, I wondered, ‘Wow that’s right… I didn’t think about that. Is this whole idea discriminatory?’

Homer & Splash from Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dongga/5887286736/

Then I had a light-bulb moment. No it is not a discriminatory idea. And this is exactly how we kill our own creativity before even it grows out of a seed!

The concern about those who are ineligible to donate blood is legitimate. ‘But’ it disregards a very important fact that what Darien Library is doing is an one-time event (or so I assume). It is a not a standing policy; blood is not an all-the-time accepted means to pay out your library fines (as far as I surmise). Just one day one time, the library is creating an event based upon a cool and interesting idea, that is: ‘Let’s invite those who are willing to donate blood gather at the library location – the bonus is if they have library fines, those fines will be waived!’  Getting library fines waived is just a hook, an excuse for bringing people in and having a good day that is dedicated to a good cause. It’s more like an icing on a cupcake.  Yes, it could be that there are some people who would donate blood only truly one hundred percent because they want their library fines waived. But this kind of case is probably rare.

But what happened to me for a moment was interesting. When I saw those concerns about those ineligible for blood donation, my mind immediately flipped from the creativity mode to something completely opposite. I started scrutinizing a cool one-time event idea as something like a standing policy. I started to forget what the original idea was about (bringing people together under the good cause of blood donation) and began to worry about all sorts of consequences and distant considerations. This is dangerous. But the transition in my mind was so smooth that I didn’t even notice what was happening. Sometimes, you have to consciously fight with yourself to preserve your own creative ideas.

We all have a pattern in the way we think and it is hard to escape from that pattern. Many patterns are common. We tend to exaggerate the negative and overlook the positive. We do not appreciate normalcy until we get into a crisis. We tend to act instead of observe and listen first because acting is often easier than observing and listening. Most of all, we tend to kill our own creativity often as soon as it springs up and start asking questions that are not really relevant. Thinking about long-term consequences and policy implications for an one-time event for example is such a case. We get mired in so many possible concerns and considerations that we get too paralyzed to even act. There are cases in which consequences must be thought out seriously. But even in cases that are not so, we tend to think in the same way.

Breaking this habit is difficult. For example, we tend to think that we can just do things if we really put our mind to it. As this very Aristotelian blog post points out, “Just do it” often doesn’t cut it because our action is the result of our habit as much as our motivation or idea in our mind. So we need to train our mind not to kill our own creativity. We need to practice nurturing our own creativity. We need to say to ourselves and our ideas first “Why Not” instead of “Why.”

 

 

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Why Gamify and What to Avoid in Library Gamification

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

*** This blog post has been originally published in ACRL TechConnect 0n August 7, 2012. ***

In my last post, “Applying Game Dynamics to Library Services,” I presented several ideas for applying game dynamics to library services. After the post, I have received a comment like this, which I thought worthwhile to further explore.

  • What about the risk of gamification – the fact that it can deprive people of internal motivation for serious activities by offering superficial external rewards?

We tend to associate the library with learning, research, scholarship, and something serious. By contrast, games make us think of fun. For this reason, it is natural to worry about a library or any library-related activities such as reading, studying, researching becoming frivolous and trivial by gamification. In an effort to address this concern, I will point out that (a) gamification is a society-wide trend (and as such, highly likely to become not so frivolous after all), (b) what to avoid in gamifying libraries, and (c) what the limit of gamification is in this post. The key to successful gamification is to harness its impressive power while being fully aware of its limit so that you won’t overestimate what you can achieve with it.

Why gamify?

SCVNGR plans to create a game platform as Facebook built a social platform.

Gamification is not just a hot topic in libraries or higher education. It is a much bigger society-wide trend. In a similar way in which Facebook has evolved from a single website to practically ‘the’ social platform and layer of the real world with over 900 million active users as of May 2012, now a game layer is slowly being built on top of the real world. Just as the social layer effectively fused social elements into the world, the game layer brings gaming elements into reality. A game layer that we can compare to Facebook has not yet emerged. Nor is clear how far gamification will penetrate our daily activities. But we can imagine what a semi-universal social platform is going to be like from location-based smartphone apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla. Instead of building a virtual world for a game, these apps gamify the real world. Our mundane everyday activities in the non-game context turn into gaming opportunities for rewards like badges, points, rankings, and statuses.

But why apply game design elements to the non-game context in the first place? The short answer is that people are more motivated, engaged, and often achieve more in games than in the real world. Why are people better at a game than in real life? It is because games offer an environment intentionally designed to provide people with optimal experience by means of various gaming mechanisms and dynamics. Games make people perform better in the way the real world does not. It was in this context that a game designer and game studies researcher, Jane McGonigal, stated that reality is broken.”1 Gamification aims at extracting those game mechanisms and apply them to reality in order to make the real world experience more interesting and engaging.

Gabe Zichermann’s definition of gamificaion as“the process of game-thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems” expresses the goal of gamification well.2 In this definition lies a good answer to the question of why libraries need to pay attention to games and game dynamics. Game dynamics can raise library users’ level of engagement with library resources, programs, and services. They can help library users to solve problems more effectively and quickly by making the process fun. A good example of such gamification is the NCSU Mobile Scanvenger Hunt, which was described in the previous post here in ACRL TechConnect blog.

What to avoid in library gamification

Since games can induce strong motivation and spur a high level of productivity, it is easy to overestimate the power of game dynamics. Perhaps, everything we do will turn into a game one day and we will be the slaves of omnipresent games that demands ever more motivation and productivity than we can summon! However, not all games are fun or worth playing. Designing good game experiences is nothing but easy.

The first thing to avoid in gamification is poor gamification. Gamification can easily backfire if it is poorly designed. Creating a library game or gamifying certain aspects of a library doesn’t guarantee that it will be successful with its target group. Games that are too challenging or too boring are both poorly designed games. Naturally, it is much more difficult to design and create a good game than a bad one. The quality of the game – i.e. how fun it is – can make or break your library’s gamification project.

Second, one can over-gamify and make everything into a game. This is quite unlikely to happen at a library. But it is still important to remember that people have a limited amount of attention. The more information we have to process and digest, the scarcer our attention becomes. If a library offers many different games or a variety of gamified experiences all at once, users may become overwhelmed and tired. For this reason, in pioneering the application of game dynamics to libraries, the best approach might be to start small and simple.

Third, a game that is organization-centered rather than user-centered can be worse than no game at all. A game with organization-centered design uses external rewards to increase the organization’s bottom line in the short term.3 Games designed this way attempt to control behavior with rewards. Once users feel the game is playing them rather than they are playing the game, however, they are likely to have a negative feeling towards the game and the organization. While a library doesn’t have the goal of maximizing profits like a business, which can easily drive a business to lean towards organization-centered gamification, it is entirely possible for a library to design a game that is too heavily focused on the educational aspect of the game, for example. Such gamification is likely to result in lukewarm responses from library patrons if what they are looking for is fun more than anything else. This doesn’t mean that gamification cannot make a significant contribution to learning. It means that successful gamification should bring out learning as a natural by-product of pleasant and fun experiences, not as a forced outcome.

Harnessing the power of game dynamics

Games are played for fun, and the fun comes from their being ‘not’ real life where one’s action comes with inconvenient real-world consequences. For this reason, when a goal other than fun is imposed on it, the game begins to lose its magical effect on motivation and productivity.  It is true that games can achieve amazing things. For example, the game FoldIt revealed the structure of a specific protein that long eluded biochemists.4 But people played this game not because the result would be revolutionary in science but because it was simply fun to play.

It is probably unrealistic to think that every task and project can be turned into a fun game. However, games can be used to make not-so-fun work into something less painful and even enjoyable to some degree, particularly when we lack motivation. In his book, Game Frame, Aaron Dignan cites the story of tennis player Andre Agassi.5 Agassi played a mental game of imagining the tennis ball machine as a black dragon spitting balls in an attempt to smite him. He did not hit 2,500 balls a day purely because it was fun. But by making the grueling practice into a game in his mind and tying the game with his own real-life goal of becoming a successful tennis player, he was able to endure the training and make the progress he needed.

In applying game dynamics to library services and programs, we can take either of two approaches:

  1. The ultimate goal can be simply having fun in some library-related context. There is nothing wrong with this, and at minimum, it will make the library a more friendly and interesting place to patrons.
  2. Or, we can utilize game dynamics to transform a more serious task or project (such as learning how to cite literature for a research paper) into something less painful and even enjoyable.

 

Gamification with little investment

Budge, a gamification website

Gamification is still a new trend. A pioneering gamification app, Gowalla lost to Foursquare in competition and was acquired by Facebook last December, and it is yet to be seen how Facebook will put Gowalla to use. Another gamification tool, Budge is closing down at the end of this month. For this reason, those who are interested in trying a gamification project at a library but may wonder if the result will be worth investment.

In this early stage of gamification, it will be useful to remember that gamification doesn’t necessarily require complicated technology or huge investment. You can run a successful game in your library instruction class with a pencil and paper. How about rewarding your library patrons who write to your library’s Facebook page and get most “likes” by other patrons? Or perhaps, a library can surprise and delight the first library patron who checks in your library’s Foursquare or Yelp page by offering a free coffee coupon at the library coffeeshop or simply awarding the Early-Bird badge? In gamification, imagination and creativity can go a long way.

What are your gamification ideas that can engage library patrons and enliven their library experience without huge investment? Share them with us here!

Notes
  1. Jane McGonigal. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.  (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 3. ↩
  2. Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham. Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps. (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2011), xiv. ↩
  3.  The distinction between games with organization-centered design vs. those with user-centered is from Scott Nicholson, “A User-Centered Theoretical Framework for Meaningful Gamification,” (pre-print) http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/meaningfulframework.pdf. ↩
  4. Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, “Foldit Game Leads to AIDS Research Breakthrough.” CNET, Sep. 19, 2011, http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20108365-247/foldit-game-leads-to-aids-research-breakthrough/. ↩
  5. Aaron Dignan, Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success, (New York: Free Press, 2011), 80. ↩
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Applying Game Dynamics to Library Services

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

*** This blog post has been originally published in ACRL TechConnect 0n July 9, 2012. ***

There is a lot of talk about games at libraries. Public libraries in particular have been active in incorporating games in their programs and collections. Even for academic libraries, gaming is no longer a foreign topic. The 2012 Horizon Report sees Game-Based Learning to be on the 2-3 years horizon for adoption. That is not a very long time away from the present.

I am not going to talk about games here, of which I am a rather poor player in general. Instead, I would like to talk about game dynamics and how they can be applied to library services. I am really late for writing about this idea, which I heard about a few years ago. But probably now is as good a time as any as the Horizon Report this year mentions gaming.

A light bulb in my head lit up when I listened to the TED talk, “The game layer on top of the world” by Seth Priebatsch during my commute. (See the video below.) There, he talks about the game layer as something that is being built now after the social layer that Facebook has pretty much established. Just as the social layer has fundamentally changed the mode of human interaction and the way of our lives as a result, Priebatsch sees a similar potential in the game layer.

What has attracted my attention in this talk about the game layer was not so much the game per se as the the impressive power the game dynamics wield to human beings. Once you hear those examples of the game dynamics, their impact is immediately obvious. But until now, I haven’t had a conscious understanding about how successful well-designed games can be at providing people with such engaging and immersive experience.

According to Priebatsch, among those game dynamics are: (a) appointment dynamic, (b) influence & status, (c) progress dynamic, and (d) communal discovery. (He says that there are three more but he only mentions four in the talk.) Since he details what each of these dynamics mean in the talk below with clear examples, I am not going to repeat the explanation.

Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

To simply put, these game dynamics are very powerful motivators for human action. Did you know that Farmville can change the behavior pattern of over 70 million people by simply changing a rule for how often a Famville user needs to water the crop? The power of these game dynamics stems from the fact that they require meeting relatively simple conditions in return for attainable rewards. Games usually begin with simple tasks that award you with some goods and elevation in your status or level. Then gradually, the tasks become complicated for more challenging rewards. The game dynamics drive game players to plan and perform simple to complicated actions. These often motivate individuals to exert a significant level of diligence, creativity, and resourcefulness.

What is really cool about these game dynamics is that they are applicable to any human action in the real world, and not just in the gaming world. Sure, you can create a game to tap into people’s creativity and diligence. (In another TED talk, “Gaming can make a better world,” Jane McGonigal explores the possibility of harnessing the human energy and creativity spent on gaming to solve the real-world problems. See the video below.) But, you do not have to. You can just as easily embed these game dynamics outside the traditional game sphere. These dynamics tend to be quite effectively utilized in games. But they do not have to be restricted to online games.

So my question is whether these game dynamics can be applied to make library services more engaging and interesting to library users? Can libraries take advantage of these game dynamics to help library users to attain the goals that they themselves probably want to reach but often fail to?

Here are some of my thought-experiments applying game dynamics to library services.

  1. Provide level-up experience for library users.
    Suppose your user logs into a library proxy system every time for browsing library’s databases, e-books, and e-journals. How about based upon the time spent and the number and frequency of log-ins, allowing the user to level up from ‘novice library user’ to ‘super researcher’? Of course, you would probably want to use way more appealing terms such as “Paladin level 20 Killer Ninja Researcher” instead of “Super Researcher.”
  2. Award some status and powers associated with library use that can be admired (with the addition of visible tokens for them).
    Allow users to tweet, Facebook, and G+ their updated status and powers as they level up, so that it can be boasted to others. Status and power is meaningless unless it is looked up to by others in one’s own community. How about re-issuing library cards as in Judo with some sort of belt system: red belt, black belt, brown belt, white belt etc.? Add up some sleek mini-posters that celebrate some of those high belt status in the library space where everybody can see. Or even better something users can boast in their Facebook pages. It might just work to motivate library users to study more, read more, and research more.
  3. Show the progress bar in library catalog.
    The progress bar makes you goal-oriented. It gives you satisfaction whenever you move the bar one notch to the right. It makes you feel that you are moving towards something good. Why not show the progress bar in the library OPAC? If a user run a search, show the progress! If a user selects a record in the search results, move one notch up in the progress bar. If s/he clicks holdings or the links in the record, how about showing the Happy Face or a Dancing Penguin for a second before moving on? Humans have such a soft spot for positive feedback that if a required action is simple and easy enough, they might just do it for fun.
  4. Color-code the status of checked-out books.
    In the library’s “My Account” page, mark past-due books as red and newly checked-out books as green. Items that are about the midway of the check-out period can be in yellow. Or show it as an hourglass that loses its sand on the top part as you pass the due date of library books. This may make people more compelled to return the overdue items.
  5. Library currency to accumulate and spend?
    Let users to boast taking out and returning books from the library to others. Maybe give them points per transaction? Social reading is already a big phenomenon. Combined with a library, it can create even more fun experience. Maybe it can be just like Gowalla or Foursquare. Maybe users can trace their reading history and find others with a similar reading pattern. How about letting library users to accumulate and spend library points (or currency) for coffee at a library cafe? Now some students may seriously start reading.

Game dynamics are significant because they can be used to build a foundation for our willing participation in a project for our own optimum performance. Libraries have been an indispensable means for individuals who aspire for learning, experience, and knowledge, and serving those individuals has been always a crucial mission of libraries. Game dynamics can be utilized to help libraries to serve such mission more effectively.

PS. Also check out the talk below by Jane McGonigal about her explanation regarding why people are so much more successful at games than at the real life and how we may perhaps harness that potential to solve the real life problems.

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

 

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My Talks and Presentations at ALA Conference

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

Here are the presentations and talks I gave at the ALA conference 2012. This year’s ALA conference was a challenge because I was swamped with work until the last minute I left work for the conference. So I wasn’t able to write any blog post before the conference. And of course, I spent more time on polishing the slides once I got to Anaheim.  Although I was not fully prepared both physically and mentally, however, the ALA Annual Conference was, as always, invigorating and informative. I am still digesting much of what I have learned from the conference and hopefully I can summarize some of those things later to share.

In the meantime, here are the slides of the talks and presentations that I gave at the conference. Big thanks to my co-presenters, Jason Clark and Tod Colegrove. It was one of the most amazing collaboration experience I ever had. Also special thanks to the LITA Heads of Library Technology Interest Group for inviting me to serve on the panel discussing the adoption of open source software at libraries. And as always, I greatly enjoyed the lively discussion at the LITA Mobile Computing Interest Group meeting.

Here are the final slides.

“I Can Do It All By Myself”: Exploring new roles for libraries and mediating technologies in addressing the Do-It-Yourself mindset of library patrons  with Tod Colegrove and Jason Clark.

From a Small Library’s Perspective – New Library Technology Paradigms: OS vs. Black Box vs. Hybrids
It’s Time to Look at Your Library’s Mobile Website Again!
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The Mobile Web and the Mobile Websites of Libraries

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

I have given a talk at the 2012 Amigos Online Conference – Access by Touch: Delivering Library Services Through Mobile Technologies last Friday. Thanks to all who attended my session!

I won’t be really write any post on my blog on this until I come back from the ALA Annual Conference. But I wanted to share the slides for now. And for those who rather prefer words than slides, here is the super-short summary of my talk.

  • We are moving into the era of the Mobile Web which is now a competitor to the Desktop Web.
    (If you haven’t heard about the Mobile Web, it’s a good time for you to do now!)
  • The user behavior on the Mobile Web is significantly different from that in a few years ago already.
  • The new mantra for the Mobile Web is “Don’t Dumb Things Down on Mobile.”
  • In the last few years, library mobile Web sites have been changing slowly but with some definite trend. The trend is more and more support for the use of library resources and account transactions on the mobile itself as one of the primary tasks on a library’s mobile Website.
  • So my recommendation is:
    • If you library doesn’t have a mobile site yet, build one.
      (In the poll I did, 70% of my audience reported that their libraries do not yet have a mobile website.)
    • Ensure discoverability
      : If your library has a mobile site, please enable redirect (either auto or with a choice) to the mobile version so that a user can discover your mobile site in the most perfect context, i.e when they are getting to your library website on their mobile.
    • Then think about updating your mobile site in keeping with the recent trend of the Mobile Web.

I am also chairing the Mobile Computing IG meeting at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference.
So if you are interested and will be at Anaheim, come by to the meeting!

Slides: The Mobile Web and the Mobile Websites of Libraries: How They Changed for the Last Few Years

View more PowerPoint from Bohyun Kim
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Big Type and Readability

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

** This blog post has been originally published in ACRL TechConnect 0n May 30, 2012.  **

The Big Type

Jeffrey Zeldman published a post that explains his choice of big type in his website/blog last week.  If you are curious about how huge the type is in his site, see below my screenshot (or visit his site: http://zeldman.com).  It is pretty big. Compare it to any Web site or this current site of mine. Yea, the type is huge.

zeldman.com

He says people either hate or love the big type and the simplistic/minimalist layout of his site or just spends time processing them. I found myself loving it because hey, it was so fr**king easy to read without any other distraction in the site. As Zeldman himself says, “It’s over the top but not unusable nor, in my opinion, unbeautiful.” And in my opinion, being fully functional counts to a great degree in favor of beauty.  

Readability

The strange satisfaction that I felt while reading the articles in his site set in the big type has led me to realize how hard it is to read the main content of any common web page. It is usually so hard that the first thing I do before reading any Web page is to increase the font size inside a Web browser (thereby also removing the top navigation and all other things on both sides except the main content out of my sight). Sometimes, I also use the ‘Print’ preview, just to read, not to print anything (since this removes all ads and images etc.). Also handy is a plugin like Readability. Zeldman’s site was the first site where none of these actions was necessary.

The Web design convention with must-have items such as a top navigation, header image, navigation on the left, ads and numerous links on the right forces us to take out those very items by manually manipulating the browser in order to make the main content simply readable! This is an irony that is more than fully appreciated by those who build and manage Web sites in particular. We (the universal we as Web workers) follow the convention as something canonical because we want to build a Web site that is usable and pleasant to interact with. But while interacting with any such conventional site, our own behavior reveals that we try to eliminate those very canonical elements.

It’s not that we can or should eliminate right away all those conventional items. They are useful for various purposes. But the point is that no matter how useful they are, those things are also great distractions in reading. In a Web site or a page where reading is the primary activity, the readability of its content is a greater problem than other sites or pages.  Zeldman’s Big Type experiment would be simply bizarre if it is applied without any modification to, say, the WSJ homepage. But it probably is not a bad idea to apply it to an individual article page in the WSJ Web site.

Zeldman’s experimental design with the big type reminds me of what the application, Flipboard, does. (See below the demo video if you are not familiar with the Flipboard app.) It strips off elements that are distracting to reading and re-formats the page in a way that is attractive and functional. Where the design fails to help one to read a Web page, an app comes to rescue.

Now you may ask how all these relate to libraries. My question is: (a) how much of the main function of a library Web site is reading, and how much is not, (b) what parts of a library Web site is to be read and not, and (c) how we can balance and facilitate those different uses of a library Web site. Rarely a Web site is designed solely for reading, but reading is an important part of almost always a certain section of any Web site. So this is an issue that is worth thinking about and matters to not only library Web sites but also any other Web site. Just asking these questions could be a good step towards making your Web pages more usable.

In the next post, I will discuss how we read on the Web and how to design and serve the content for the Web in a user-friendly manner.

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When Browsing Gets Confusing

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

***** This blog post has been originally published in ACRL TechConnect 0n May 7, 2012. *****

——–
During the usability testing I ran a while ago, there was one task that quite baffled at least one participant. I will share the case with you in this post. The task given to the usability testing participant was this: “You would like to find out if the library has a journal named New England Journal of Medicine online.”

The testing begins at the Florida International University Medical library website, which has a search box with multiple tabs. As you can see below, one of the tabs is E-Journals. Most of the users selected the E-Journals tab and typed in the journal title. This gave them a satisfactory answer right away. But a few took a different path, and this approach revealed something interesting about browsing the library’s e-journals in the E-Journal portal site which is a system separate from the library’s website.

Browsing for a Specific E-Journal

1. In the case I observed, a student selected the link ‘Medical E-journals’ in the library homepage above instead of using the search box. The student was taken to the E-Journal Portal site, which also presents a search box where one can type in a journal title. But the student opted to browse and clicked ‘N.’

2. The student was given the following screen after clicking ‘N.’ He realized that that there are lots of e-journals whose title begins with ‘N’ and clicked ‘Next.’

3. The site presented him with the following screen. At this point, he expressed puzzlement at what happened after the click. The screen appeared to him the same as before. He could not tell what his click did to the screen. So he clicked ‘Next’ again.

4. He was still baffled at first and then gave up browsing. The student typed in a journal title in the search box instead and got the match.

Lessons Learned

A couple of things were learned from observing this case.

  • First, this case shows that some people prefer browsing to searching even when the search could be much faster and the search box is clearly visible.
  • Second, a click needs to create a visible change to prevent a user’s frustration.
  • Third, what is a visible and discernible change may well be different to different people.

The first is nothing new. We know that some users prefer to search while some prefer to browse. So both features – search and browse – in a Web site should work intuitively. In this example, the E-Journal portal has a good search feature but shows some confusing aspect in browsing. I found the change from step 2 to 3 and step 3 to 4 somewhat baffling just as the student who participated in the usability testing did. I could not discern the difference from step 2 to 3 and step 3 to 4 right away. Although I was familiar with the E-Journal portal, I was not aware of this issue at all until I saw a person actually attempting to get to New England Journal of Medicine by browsing only because I myself have always used the search feature in the past.

But, when I showed this case to one of my colleagues, she said the change of the screens shown above was clear to her. She did not share the same level of confusion that the student experienced. Also, once I had figured out what the difference in each step, I could no longer experience the same confusion either. So how confusing this browsing experience can vary. I will go over the process one more time below and point out why this browsing process could be confusing to some people.

The student had difficulty in perceiving the change from step 2 to 3. The screen in step 3 appeared to him to have unchanged from step 2. The same for the screen in step 3. from step 4. Actually, there was a change. It was just hard to notice to the student and was something different from what he expected. What the system does when a user clicks ‘Next,’ is to move from the first item on the sub-list under N to the second item (N&H-Nai -> NAJ-Nan) and then again from the second item to the third item (NAJ-Nan -> Nat-Nat). This, however, did not match what the student expected. He thought the ‘Next’ link would bring up the sub-list beginning with the next of the last entry, ‘Nat-Nat,’ not the next of the currently selected entry. The fact that the sub-list shows many ‘Nat-Nat’s also confused him. (This is likely to be because the system is bundling 50 e-journals and then extract the first three letters of the first and last journal in the bundle to create items on the sub-list.) A user sees the last item on the sub-list in step 3 and 4. stay the same ‘Nat-Nat’ and wonders whether his clicking ‘Next’ had any effect.

Making browsing a large number of items user-friendly is a challenge. The more items there are to browse, the more items the system should allow a user to skip at once. This will help a user to get to the item s/he is looking for more quickly. Also, when there are many items to browse, a user is likely to look for the second and third category to zoom in on the item s/he is looking for. Faceted browsing/search is an effective way to organize a large number of items so that people can quickly drill down to a sub-category of things which they are interested in. Many libraries now use a discovery system over an OPAC (online public access catalog) to provide such faceted browsing/search. In this case, for example, allowing a user to select the second letter of the item after selecting the first instead of trudging through each bundle of fifty journal titles would expedite the browsing significantly.

What other things can you think of to improve the browsing experience in this E-Journal portal? Do you have any Web site where you can easily and quickly browse a large number of items?

 

** Below are the screens with the changes marked in red for your review:

2′.


3′.

4′.

 

 

Posted in Usability, Web | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

What Do Libraries Call Users, and What Do Library Users Think of Themselves in relation to Libraries?

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

 

Do library users think of themselves as library “patrons?”

In American Libraries Magazine, Anthony Molaro wrote a piece titled “Just Who Do We Serve?”  There, Molaro mentioned an interesting fact that caught my eyes. Did you know that library users actually preferred to be called “member” rather than “patron”, “customer,” or “user?” According to a recent survey, that is the case.

“You Must Focus on Connection Management Instead of Collection Management” R. David Lankes posted in his Work In Progress blog a while ago. He details a strategic planning session in which library consultant Joan Frye Williams decided to end the eternal debate about what we should call library patrons by asking them directly. Unexpectedly, those surveyed responded that instead of being called a library “patron,” or “customer,” or “user,” more than half preferred the term “member.”

(Side note: Some information about the survey mentioned is found at http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/?page_id=1052 . See the second comment by Lankes. Thanks to David Lankes for the link.)

Throughout my entire library career since early 2000s, the term that refers to library users which I heard most from the library staff was “patron.” I don’t recall any library staff calling a library user “customer” or even “user” back then.  As a very new part-time library assistant, I took it that this term “patron” meant pretty much “customer” in the sense that it is the customer (=patron in the library) that is the king.

At that time, I found the term “patron” odd and was curious about the fact that libraries were so patron-oriented. As a total library novice, I found the term ‘patron’ antiquated. (Could be just me, I admit.) Secondly, I just had no idea that libraries I frequented had such a patron-oriented culture even though I was a good library user/grad student. I was greatly impressed and amazed at how seriously the library staff take each and every small comment they receive from their “patrons.”

Now of course, I no longer feel the same curiosity about the term ‘patron,’ as I was brainwashed through my formal LIS education. (Kidding, kidding… ) But I still feel odd calling a library user “library patron.”   When I hear the term “patron,” I automatically think of patrons of the arts and culture, like the Medici who were the patrons of Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Now, certainly library users don’t consider themselves as playing the role of that kind of “patron.” Do they? If patronage means just some support, probably a term for this type of patronage that library users can better relate to would be rather “friends of the library.”

Library membership = CVS or Costco Membership?

I am not against the idea that as the library staff, we do and should strive to create and support the maximum satisfaction of library users. I am just pointing out that there seems to be some interesting difference between how libraries and library staff view library users in their operation and how library users consider themselves in relation to the libraries they frequent.

Side note: I have realized that I often use the term “user” to refer to library patrons. But that’s just because I work mostly in the context of web services. I use this term ‘user’ out of habit, not as any result of reflection. Interestingly, I found that some who work in the areas of web design and development (not library-related) actually prefer a term different than “user.” Jenifer Hanen, a web developer/designer, said once on Twitter that she preferred “people” or “customers / clients” opposed to “user.” I am guessing here, but it is probably because all the other terms than “user” seems to imply that they are not just some abstract entity that comes into a website and click links but the actual people with certain interests and preferences etc.

The survey result that Molaro cites seems to point out the very same kind of  interesting difference that I have noticed between how libraries and library staff view library users in their operation and how library users consider themselves in relation to their libraries. It shows that library users (in lieu of no better term here) think of themselves as library members rather than library patrons, library customers, or library users.

Molaro continues to detail his view on what each term is likely to signify. According to him, “library patron” as a term represents the worldview in which libraries are indebted to them, patrons. By the way, this matches with what this term brings to my mind.

“Library user,” on the other hand, makes Molaro think of those who consume without creating. And he opposes to the use of this term because, in his opinion, this term implies that the users need something the library offers but the library do not need them.  I disagree on this. I actually like the term ‘library user’ because it always reminds me of the fact that there are many other places where they can go for their information needs. It reminds me that libraries are not the only source for them and it is unrealistic to, say, argue that all library users should start their research at their library homepage rather than Google. But again, this could be just me working mostly in library web services.

Molaro likes the term “library member” since he thinks that this term implies ownership and an active role. And he says “people served by libraries view themselves because they carry a library card.” Now, I am in 100% favor of library users or patrons or members having the feeling of ownership and active role in relation to their libraries. But I do not think that library users prefer to be called library members because of the feeling of ownership and their active role in libraries.

I carry and use the CVS and the Costco card. This doesn’t make me feel ownership towards these companies, or in any way I imagine myself playing an active role in them. Am I a member? Probably,  since I have a card, a membership card.  If the membership costs money, then, definitely the term, ‘membership’ is more fitting because it implies that some kind of services and privileges are rendered to me once I join (whether free or not). I get points at CVS and enter/buy stuff in bulk at a lower price at Costco with my membership. Now as a library member, I don’t pay the membership fee, but I get to borrow books and other library items. So there, in my mind, I am a member in relation to my local library just as I am a member of CVS or Costco.

I am not saying that this is the mental perception that libraries want their users/patrons/members to have in relation to them. I am simply saying that this might be the actual mental image that most of our library patrons/users/members have about their relation to their libraries.

The Million-Dollar Question

If libraries want those people who sign up for a library card to feel the ownership to their library and play an active role, what can they do to achieve that?  Molaro thinks that perhaps “Preferred Member card” can help in this respect. He says:

Much like other organizations, institutions, and businesses, libraries should consider implementing a preferred member card program. This preferred member card could be purchased through an annual fee and would have perks and privileges. For example, hot new bestsellers are purchased for regular library members and extra copies purchased for preferred members. Perhaps preferred members would not be subject to late fines, or entitled to extended loan periods, being cited on an honor roll, or invited to a special party? The preferred member card could be a part of a larger membership and fundraising drive. Much like NPR or PBS, libraries can incorporate preferred membership drives into their National Library Week or National Library Card Month promotions.

Well, what do you think? I am divided on this idea for many reasons. And I am not going to go into those reasons here, because at this point, many of us, librarians, will have minds bouncing left and right and up and down just thinking about those reasons and what the best direction would be. So it might be the best to let them percolate a bit before shooting ideas to the sky.

In the meantime, it would be worthwhile to just break down the question to see where the difficulty exactly stems from. It really originates from the conflict of these two things:

  1. How do you make the library members care about their libraries?
  2. Anyone can become a library member (no investment required) and there is nothing they gain by being an active member (no incentive provided).

Just as a reminder, we all know that libraries do 2. intentionally as its mission is not to generate profit but to provide equal access to information for both the under-served/underprivileged and the well-to-do. Now 2. has the problem:  no investment and no incentive. Human beings tend to care much less about the things they get for no investment; they are also highly likely to be involved very little with things that they have no incentive to do so.  So 2. creates an obstacle to achieving 1.

How can libraries achieve 1. without endangering 2.?  That’s a million dollar question for libraries.


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Making Library e-Books on the e-Book Reader Visible

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Bohyun (Library Hat)

***  This post has been originally posted to the ACRL TechConnect blog. ***

Browsing Experience in the Virtual vs. the Physical Space

However entangled our lives are in virtual spaces, it is in the physical space that we exist. For this reason, human attention is most easily directed at where visual and other sensory stimuli are. The resulting sensory feedback from interacting with the source of these stimuli further enriches the experience we have in the physical space. Libraries can take advantage of this fact in order to bring users’ fleeting attention to their often-invisible online collections. So far, our experience on the Internet, where we spend so much time, is still mostly limited to one or two sensory stimuli and provides little or no sensory feedback. A library’s online resources, often touted for its 24/7 accessibility anywhere, are no exception to this limitation.

Flickr - "augmented reality game bibliotheek deventer"

Think about new library books, for example. The print ones are usually prominently displayed at a library lobby area attracting library visitors to walk up and browse them in the physical space. By thumbing through a new book and moving back and forth from the table of contents to different chapters, we can quickly get a sense of what kind of a book it is and decide whether we want to further read the book or not. The tactile, olfactory, visual, and auditory sensory input that we get from thumbing through a newly printed book with fresh ink contributes to making this experience enjoyable and memorable at the same time.

Now compare this experience with reading a library Web page with the list of new online library books on a computer screen. Each book is reduced to a string of words and a hyperlink. It is hard to provide any engaging experience with a string of words and a hyperlink.

The Invisibility Problem of Library e-Books

Like many libraries, Florida International University (FIU) Library started an e-book reader lending program that circulates e-book readers. Each reader comes with more than one hundred titles that have been selected by subject librarians. But how can a library make these library e-books on e-book readers noticed by library users? How can a library help a user to quickly figure out what books are available on, say, a library Kindle device when those are specifically what the user is looking for?

Well, if a user runs a keyword search in the library’s online catalog, say, with ‘Kindle,’  s/he will find more than sufficient information since the library has already neatly cataloged all titles available on the Kindle device there. But many users may fail to try this or even be unaware of the new e-book reader lending program in the first place. The e-book reader lending program offers a great service to library users. However, the library e-books offered on the e-book readers can be largely invisible to users who tend to think that what they can see in a library is all a library has.

Giving Physical Presence to Library e-Books on e-Book Readers

The problem can be solved by giving some physical presence to e-books on the library’s e-book readers using a dummy bookmark on the stacks. This is particularly effective as it quickly captures users’ attention while they are already browsing the library stacks looking for something to read.

Users are familiar with a dummy book on physical shelves that marks a print title that is often looked for under different names or the recent change of the location of a title. Applied to Kindle e-books, a dummy bookmark is just as effective. A user can walk around the space where stacks are located and physically identify those e-books that the library makes available on a e-book reader in each subject section. By a visible cue, a dummy bookmarks create a direct sensory association between an e-book and something physical (that provides a visible and tactile feedback) in a user’s mind, thereby effectively expanding a users’ idea of what is available at a library.

When you pull out the bookmark, it looks like this. The bookmark includes the book’s cover image, title, author, and call number, which help a user to locate the title record in the library’s online catalog. But in reality, users are more likely to just walk down to the Course Reserves area to check out an e-book reader after reading this sign.

I tweeted this photo a while ago when I accidentally found out the idea was implemented while looking for some book in the stacks. (See the disclaimer below.)  I was quite surprised by many positive comments that I received in Twitter. Many librarians also suggested adding a QR code to the dummy bookmark next to the Call Number. The addition of the QR code would be an excellent bonus on the bookmark. It will allow users to check the availability of the title on their mobile devices, so that they can avoid the situation in which the e-book and the e-book reader device have been already checked out.

If you are running a pricy e-book reader lending program at your library, a dummy bookmark might be an inexpensive but highly effective way to make those e-books stand out to users on the library stacks. What other things do you do at your library to make your online resources and e-books more visible to users?

Disclaimer: I have suggested this idea at the E-resources group meeting where all FIU libraries (including Medical Library where I work) are represented. But the implementation was done solely by the FIU main Library for their Kindle e-book collection on their stacks. For those who are curious, I was unable to find the exact number of dummy bookmarks on the stacks. 

 

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