ILS 599 Plan to Improve Story Time at Greenville Public Library: Part 3

Part 3: Technology and Requirements:

I have reviewed the problem that many community members are not able to attend our largely successful story time, and after careful consideration I chose to use these 3 Web 2.0 technologies because they are: free, easy to use/participate in, and help us better serve our community. I will provide a more in depth description of these tools after I briefly explain ‘Web 2.0’ for those who are not familiar with the term or technology. Web 2.0 is not a ‘newer’ version of the internet, rather a change in how programs are developed and how we, as users, use the web. Web 2.0 reflects a trend towards online community and social networks, and a focus on the user themselves. Some examples are software made freely available to all, such as Google Maps, to be used in any way users can think up, such as combining Google Maps with the locations of restaurants in the area and directions how to get there.

Budget:

This year the town of Greenville received a grant from the Greenville Early Learning Opportunities Project (GELOP) from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Child Care Bureau; the town library is one of three recipients of this grant. The library’s portion of the grant was estimated at roughly: $2000; I am requesting a small part of the monies to fund the purchase of a digital video camera (that records to flash memory) for the recording of stories. I have found one model: the Pure Digital Flip digital camcorder (1/4” CMOS 1.5” LCD 30 minute 512MB) available for $80.99 from NewEgg, an online store; the cost would end up around $100 after shipping and if we decide to purchase an extended warranty. I chose this specific recorder for low cost and high rating of simplicity and ease of use to upload content to the internet. Some libraries have multiple recording devices such as this and even make them available for loan. I would suggest this camera be solely for in house use, with future recorders available to the public.

Blog:

I choose to use a blog as the main basis for delivering information and receiving feedback for many reasons. For those unfamiliar with a ‘blog’ (short for web log), it is a sort of ‘online journal’ which has become popular medium of expression. There is no cost to create a blog, and I would sign up for a story time themed blog at Blogger and I would create and control the content on the site. A blog would be beneficial for the library because it would provide a documentation of what was successful or not, and could be used as a guide for our staff or other libraries attempting do the same. The other goal is to increase community involvement in story times; community members could R.S.V.P (or decline) in advance to give the library a better idea of the amount of seating and craft supplies needed. I even plan on installing a weekly poll on my blog to allow community members to vote on preferred story time themes, as well as pick from a potential list of books to be read. I have searched and found many blogs from public libraries, such as ours, using this Web 2.0 technology to bring information and better serve their community.

Del.icio.us:

I choose to use Del.icio.us because it is a free web service that allows users to bookmark web sites of note or favorite links; it also allows for the storing, sharing, and discovery of more sites in an online social community of users, where someone can access their favorite links away from their home computer, or view others favorite sites and share information. The story time blog will contain an easy to use link to connect parents and others to high quality and recommended sites. Del.icio.us is a simple way for us to collect and gather relevant websites and articles for parents on the topic of story time and early childhood literacy, as well as providing links to more works in the Public Domain for them to read themselves. Currently, our library offers no similar service and if this proves successful then more Del.icio.us accounts could be created by library staff as a resource.

YouTube story time recordings:

I choose to use YouTube because it is a free video sharing website that will broadcast our story time videos, without the burden of spending a great deal of time and money to create our own video sharing system. Other video sharing websites were considered, but we choose YouTube, even though it has some notoriety for not controlling uploads of copyrighted material; our library will use non copyrighted material for our story time videos. Our usage of YouTube will allow members of the community to view story times from anywhere with an internet connection, at any time, day or night. Story time “on demand” service will provide another option to satisfy our target audience because it can be utilized on site at the library if someone shows up at the wrong time or day. Even traveling or vacations will not prevent children from missing a story time if they have a computer and internet access; an added benefit will be if a child is sick they can enjoy themselves from the comfort of their own home, without the risk of exposing the other children to their sickness. On an even larger scale, broadcasting on YouTube can potentially expose our program and library to the widest audience imaginable: the internet community. If this program is successful there is potential for the creation of an RSS feed to let users know when new recordings are available.