During the last decade the web changed drastically. It is not anymore only about searching for specific information but it is about connecting to other people, exchanging ideas, sharing experiences and information, passing messages. Clearly, this affected the way we do business on the web as new marketing and advertising practices have evolved.
Undoubtedly, libraries need to adjust to the new digital reality to be of better service to their patrons. There are several web and mobile services available and different ways to socialize electronically. However, along with the opportunities come, obviously, the troubles and the concerns. Which social network to choose, what to share online, what policies are needed, which services to support? The book Google This! Putting Google and Other Social Media Sites to Work for Your Library by Terry Ballard, covers a significant number of these issues. The text introduces readers to the variety of online opportunities for libraries, presents completed projects which can be used as paradigms and analyzes various factors that affect the development of an online presence. The book covers mainly the Google's tools but it presents many other services like Facebook, Twitter, LibraryThing, IMDB, etc.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the origins and history of the internet, the web and Google.
Chapter 2 presents Google Custom Search. The text explains how the service works and how it can be integrated with the existing library's web content. The author presents DRAGNET which is a customized searching service developed in Mendik Library of New York Law School. This search engine retrieves information from specific legal databases, providing thus focused access to specialized content to the users of the library. Relevant projects from other libraries are also discussed to help readers appreciate the uses of Google Custom Search.
The next chapter is about Facebook and Twitter. Some brief historical notes on their development are discussed and some cases studies of using these social networks from British Library, Rodman Public Library and the New York Public Library are considered. The experiences, concerns and gains for these Libraries are presented in an interview style. The chapter ends with a conversation with Professors Marie Radford and Chirag Shah of the LIS department of Rutgers University who also brought LibraryThing and SecondLife into the discussion. The main conclusion from these interviews is that using social networks are definitely worth the effort. However, to be of real use, the organization and the users need to engage in discussions and contributions, otherwise it will be a one-way communication like in the case of a regular site.
Chapter 4 follows Flickr, from its launch in 2004 to its acquisition by Yahoo! The cases of Library of Congress and of the Lester Public Library in Two Rivers, Wisconsin are presented. This chapter provides guidance on how to use Flickr and ends up by pointing the reader to Flickr commons and the pages of a number of Libraries which use the service effectively.
Next, chapter 5 is mainly dedicated to Google's tools. Google groups, Google mail, Google Analytics, iGoogle, Gadgets, Google Docs and Google Voice are presented. Readers are introduced to other online tools as well, i.e. StatCounter, Skype, GIMP, IMDB, LibraryThing, KaywaQRcode. For the most demanding tools, the author provides step-by-step instruction on how to use them. Library staff will definitely benefit from this chapter as it presents the main features of several useful tools.
Following, is a chapter about YouTube. We are all committed YouTube users, but through this chapter we visit YouTube headquarters, getting a better idea of some of their future plans. The text also explains how to add a video YouTube and how to make some amendments to videos.
Chapter 7 is about Google Scholar, which tends to be the most useful resource for searching scientific texts. However, as the author mentions, most of the information the service retrieves, point to inaccessible resources, since they come from services which demand a subscription. The author presents some workaround techniques which really help libraries to support their users to find the full resources through Google Scholar.
Chapter 8 is mostly about Blogger but it also mentions WordPress. This short chapter gives information on how to use some features of a blog and presents briefly a specific blog.
Google Maps and Google Earth are discussed in chapter 9. The chapter demonstrates the ways these tools can be used by libraries to highlight their services. Useful ideas are introduced through the description of some projects. The reader needs to have some technical background to understand the information presented but overall the chapter is quite informative.
Chapter 10 focuses on electronic books and introduces Google Books and the Internet Archives projects. The actions taken in some digitization projects are analyzed and then the author interviews Alexis Rossi, a web collections manager of Internet Archive. The project Open Library of Internet Archive is also introduced in this chapter.
The next two chapters are about discovery platforms and mobile applications. Examples of how these technologies are currently exploited by various libraries are discussed. Services realized with these technologies, like LibraryAnywhere, are presented and the effects on traditional library functions are reviewed.
The last chapter concludes the work and helps readers reflect on what they learnt. Issues like what is next, what can go wrong and the important competences of next generation of librarians are discussed.
From the above review of the main features of the book, it is clear that the coverage of the book is broad and all the material and experiences derive from well tested and working projects. Librarians and technical staff, as well as future librarians, will benefit from this book no matter how technologically literate they are. Those who have solid technical backgrounds and are familiar with the presented tools will get some fresh ideas on how to use them in the library setting. Other people, with less technical capacities, will find several working paradigms which could fit into their library or museum. The writing style is semi-formal which makes the text easy to follow. A minor point, concerns the conclusions section of each chapter. A better summary of this section with a brief list of what to do and what to avoid could probably better serve the goals of the book, but overall it was great to find intelligent ways to creatively use popular web tools.
