Collaboration Is Inevitable: Reinventing the Information Center Web Site
by Shinjoung Yeo
Whether you are a student, faculty member or staff, you have probably come to the Information Center (IC) Desk in Green Library for research help. Librarians at the desk are devoted to helping library users navigate and explore the world of knowledge within and beyond the Stanford library system. To that end, we have launched a new IC Web site to expand on our assistance model, promote collaboration, and meet the needs of librarians and users.
There is a general misperception that with new search and digital technologies, users are able to serve their own information needs. To a certain extent, this might be true; however, as the digital environment continues to expand, users, in fact, need more assistance in navigating and combining traditional print resources with digital information and in using the Internet's associated tools.
Currently the Stanford libraries have more than 700 subscription article databases and more than 7 million volumes - and this increases daily! In addition, there are countless Web sites of research interest and Web tools that facilitate the use of these Web sites. To fully utilize and overcome the complexities of this digital environment, collaboration among librarians and users is increasingly important.
Web Tools Used
The IC chose an open source content management system (CMS) called Drupal, along with Delicious, and IM to help:
- Facilitate collaboration among librarians;
- Inform users about our services and get feedback/comments;
- Provide various ways to communicate between users and librarians;
- Highlight our collections; and
- Create content quickly and easily without much technical expertise.
Drupal
Drupal, a popular and extensible open source content management system, uses a mysql database to dynamically generate a Web site and includes various modules including blog, book review, forum, and taxonomy. Drupal allows IC librarians to generate content quickly and easily and makes that content searchable for easy access. Utilizing Drupal and a few other free Web tools, the IC Web site is being used to share knowledge among librarians, document our processes, and inform users about library services and collections - we're creating a reference knowledge base.
Del.icio.us Tags for Collaborative Web Site Collection
Del.icio.us is a a social bookmarking Web service. The IC has started a collaborative delicious account (sulinfocenter). Although del.icio.us, which is used to collect, describe, organize and share Web sites, is usually used by individuals, the IC has adapted it for a collaborative collection tool. Librarians frequently come across valuable Web sites in their daily work. With del.icio.us, we are describing/tagging those sites for use by other librarians and the Stanford community. With a bit of javascript code, we are also displaying our del.icio.us tags on the IC Web site, making a de facto Web portal of selected research-oriented Internet resources for our users.
Q&A for Reference Questions
Librarians answer interesting reference questions every day - from the simple to the complex - using various tools and resources. On the new IC Web site, we've begun to post our questions and answers including the resources and Web sites that were used to answer a question. In this way, we're creating a knowledge base pointing to appropriate databases, Web sites, and library policies and procedures. Users can post comments to expand on answers and suggest other resources that may not have been mentioned.
Information on New Collections and Resources
In the center column of the site, librarians will periodically post information highlighting new and notable collections, resources, and databases, which are often buried among many thousands of titles. Using the book review module with book cover images makes the library collections more visible and gives users more detailed information about titles and resources. More importantly, this section offers a way for Stanford librarians subject specialists to contribute information and highlight their own areas of interest.
Communication with Users
Each post/page has the ability for users to comment. User-created information - as sites like Amazon, Flickr, and YouTube have long known -- is crucial for the library in order to create better collections and services. Comments allow library users to communicate with the library as well as facilitate the academic community's ability to communicate among themselves. As a result, the IC Web site can be a place where we can build a knowledge community.
What's Next
We're not stopping there. The IC Web site is evolving and we're considering other technologies to enhance our research services and reach out to the Stanford community. In Spring Quarter, we are launching Instant Message (IM) reference. IM (a form of synchronous Web communication) is free, low-tech, requires very little training, and is already widely used among Stanford students. IM can be used effectively to provide reference services and assist students and faculty members in the far reaches of the library and away from the physical building itself.
Collaboration in the library is crucial where librarians rely on each other's expertise, as well as the knowledge of our user community. We hope our new IC Web site will facilitate collaboration and enhance the mission of the library - to collect, organize, preserve and provide access to knowledge and information. More importantly, the Web site will give users additional opportunities to communicate their research needs and participate in the ongoing process of building a dynamic knowledge community.
Let Us Know What You Think
Check out the Information Center Web site and let us know what you think. We're always interested in feedback and suggestions for new ways to help us help you.
