Solinet and OCLC Potpourri

Last week I had the opportunity to make the fun drive across I-10 to Tallahassee for the Solinet Florida Users Group Meeting. It was definitely worth the trip and hopefully next year we can host this meeting in the NEFLIN region.

The Solinet Update by Robert Aaron, the Senior Library Consultant for Florida, was one of the highlights of the day for me. Some things that might be of interest...

• Solinet is going green - there will be no more print schedule (it's available online)
• SAMM08 - May 8-9 in Atlanta
• the Solinet website has undergone a major revision
• when making purchases - don't forget to check and see if Solinet has negotiated a discount through their Library Products program (some products I thought were interesting - Early Literacy Station a turnkey computer for kids and bLogistics who take your discards and turns them into cash)

Great presentation by Karen Schneider, the Free Range Librarian - We have a blog! Now what? Karen spoke to why blog, what makes a good blog, and she gave some examples of interesting sites which she promised to blog about.... Here are some of the ideas I took away from her presentation...

• You don't need a blog if you know how to connect to your users
• Have a plan before you start - who is your user? where do you link from? who writes it? what do you include? what do you write about? do you need a policy? how will you staff it? what fits for your organization?
• How to keep up with it - evergreen (pile up stuff), plan and calendar posts, communicate that you're taking a break
• What you might include - book reviews, link loads
• What gets people's attention - title as question, recruit good writers (and editors), crazier the title, the higher the spike in readership, readable and engaging
• Libraries using blogs and flickr to document construction
• Some libraries are doing a great job of tagging in del.icio.us

Finally, the OCLC Update by Danny Overstreet provided some interesting info about what's coming from OCLC.

• new logo and brand identity with a complete overhaul of the website
• the newest study from OCLC, Sharing, Privacy & Trust in our Networked World reports that 13% of the public thinks it’s the role of the library to create social networking sites for their communities
• WorldCat Registry is a free Web tool that provides a single location from which any library can manage and distribute data that describes its institutional identity and services
• WorldCat Selection allows for integrated, automated, online selection of materials
• WorldCat Identities which can be reached from "About the Author" links beneath the Details tab of an item record, presents a profile of a particular person or company based on bibliographic information and associations stored in WorldCat.
• Add library materials to your social bookmarks at sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us and Facebook using the AddThis widget available on item record pages
• WorldCat Local is coming....

Interested in learning more about the services available from Solinet?

• Check out the Florida User Group website
• Attend SAMM08 - The Transformed Library - May 8-9 in Atlanta (Keynote by Michael Stephens and closing by Karen Schneider)
• Read Check It Out! A SOLINET Blog for Informed Members