nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
nowhere placemark geolocation by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
I was alerted to Toby Greenwalt’s great blog theanalogdivide by Sophie Brookover of Library Link NJ, in which Toby just proposed a series of design problems as they relate to libraries. I love a good design problem. Here he introduces the first problem, and below I answer it in my own way.
“Your first challenge? Create a online library card signup. You could say that signing up for a library card is our equivalent of what websites refer to as onboarding – the process with which a user becomes part of that site. Sites invest significant work-hours and enormous sums of money to make this process as appealing as possible?
Libraries? Not so much. Whether through requiring in-person visits, confusing policy, or resorting to PDFs, libraries tend to get in their own way when it comes to attracting new users. We can do better than this. I’d like to use this inaugural Challenge to prove it.
Your criteria:
Design a workflow that a hypothetical user would use to sign up for your hypothetical library. You’ll need to use this design to address the issue of proving residency.
If there’s a policy that needs to be set in order to make your design work, you’ll need to explain that policy.
Any medium is OK. Pencil-and-paper. Google Form. Flowchart. Photoshop mockup. Working prototype.
If you draw inspiration from somewhere, cite your sources. I’d love to hear a bit about your process.
You must have your design published by Monday, May 5th. Remember to email me (toby at theanalogdivide dot com) with the link. If you don’t have your own web space, feel free to send me the design and I’ll publish it here.”
~ theanalogdivide » Blog Archive » The Librarian Design Challenge –
So my answer is as follows:
Advertise a shortened URL (via whatever advertising channels you wish) to a Google Form in which you allow a new patron to fill out a form. Form logic should require all required fields, such as full name, address, email, and phone number, etc. If payment is required, payment information can also be collected, but should occur later in the process, after address is verified.
As you may or may not know, all google forms publish results to a spreadsheet, which can be exported to a CSV for use in a mail merge.
Daily or weekly, a mail merge can be used to create mailable postcards with a unique code (autogenerated) that is sent to the address of the new patron.
A patron who receives the postcard at the indicated address will submit the code and payment information to a second URL (encrypted) if any payment is required. The code validation reasonably proves residence to the degree that this is possible through electronic means.
Upon code submission and or payment processing, the patron’s new card is mailed out, or made available for pickup, depending on the patron’s preference.
This mimics Google’s own location verification process for business registration listing in Google Places service https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778?hl=en&visit_id=637299706572194876-2550561397&rd=1).
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The following posts were written and proposed as a book chapter on Pinterest for Libraries, but the chapter was not accepted. Sad, except that now it means that I have some content to share publicly with you! Over the next few days, I’ll be publishing the chapter as a series of posts.
John LeMasney of LeMasney Technology and Design Consulting will discuss Pinterest, a visual social bookmarking system that is often dismissed as simply a place for wedding photos and pictures of vegetarian recipes. Pinterest is a way to collect, curate, share and discuss photos and videos of any kind, and this article will discuss 10 ways you can use it to engage patrons and other stakeholders in the visual brand, items, and topics at libraries. You can increase the visibility of your programs, and give people new ways to click through to discover and borrow your assets.
A Pinterest glossary
fig 01 – lemasney on Pinterest
I thought that it would be useful to start with a short glossary of terms related to Pinterest for the uninitiated. There is a culture to Pinterest, and with any good culture comes a kind of vocabulary.
Pin – A pin is a single shared image or video on Pinterest. A pin consists of a digital image or video, an optional link to the original site, and a description for the pin, up to 500 characters long. Great pins are attractive regardless of their context, but their context, history, and source should be present. Think of a pin as a way to inform people of information literacy, scholarship, and ideological respect in addition to the basic idea of the pin itself. Libraries can use pins to share elements of their organizational brand: what makes them unique as a library.
Pinning – Pinning is the act of sharing a pin on Pinterest. Pinning can be done exceptionally well or rather lazily. Pinners who care will add metadata, a reasonable description, links back to source sites, and encourage discussion. Pinners who are just passing the time will put up a single word description, not consider the link or source, and not respond to discussions, repins, and other cultural niceties. A library pinterest effort might include an emerging technologies librarian as the sole pinner, but there is a potential for richness when administrators, staff, and patrons are all invited to pin.
fig 02 – also pinned to
Repin – A repin is the act of taking a pin that already exists on Pinterest and sharing it on one of your own boards, effectively giving it a vote of confidence and admiration. Repinning is a kind of moral engine on Pinterest, helping people’s pins to reach larger and larger audiences. When libraries repin pins, they show that they are looking at other people’s pins, making a decision about their alignment with that person, and inviting them to check out the library’s pins. Repins are important in building a community.
fig 03 – the pin it button
Pinmarklet – A combination of the words Pinterest and Bookmarklet, the Pinmarklet is a javascript button that you copy to your bookmarks bar and click whenever you are on a site where you find something worth sharing. It greatly simplifies the pinning process compared to the “share pin” feature on the site itself. Libraries who use pinterest should consider adding the pinmarklet to staff computer images, so that they are encouraged to pin library related pins.
Comment – each pin on Pinterest has the ability for anyone to comment. By commenting, you effectively notify the pinner of your interest in the content, and give them the opportunity to begin a conversation with you. One can argue that the very point of social media in any form is to begin a discussion. If you pin a new acquisition and have it link through to your ILS, that’s an invitation to borrow that item. If you start a discussion to talk about why the media was acquired for your collection, you engage not only patrons and potential patrons, but also give the opportunity for a better understanding of why your library makes the choices it does.
Board – A board is the curation space on Pinterest, where you add, share, comment, and collaborate on pins. Your boards for your library should be essentially a visual version of your catalog, but also a business card, a note of thanks, a reminder of programming, and an insight into what your library really is, behind the buildings, people, and things in it.
Shared board – Boards can be co-curated by 2, 10, 100 or more pinners. You can invite other pinners that share the common interest of the board. The board’s creator may remove pinners at any time, or pinners can remove themselves. For libraries, shared boards are great opportunities. You could have a “patrons’ picks” board, in which only patrons post. You might carry a theme for the month, like “flying” or “government” and make boards that invite experts amongst your staff and patronage in those topics to pin what they know.
Follow – Pinners can follow boards that they like, with the key benefit being that they see new pins from those boards prioritized on their homepage. Pinners can choose to follow another pinners individual boards, or can follow the pinner wholesale. One can unfollow tiresome boards at any time. It is essential that you follow people with the library account. Following shows that you are not just interested in yourself, and also makes your home page far more interesting. When you follow people whose pins are related to yours, you see more of those kinds of pins when you open Pinterest.
Private Board – One innovation that Pinterest implemented in response to users was the ability to pin to a private board, which can also be a shared (collaborative) board. Their key example in explaining the function was to do party planning without the party’s purpose knowing about it, but many others cited that the prurient or otherwise controversial nature of some pins makes one less likely to repin them if others are watching. Private boards solve that issue. As a library, you might have private planning boards for upcoming events where you can collect pins related to the idea. Then when it is time to advertise the event, you can make the board public.
Like – One may like a pin rather than repin it, which adds it to a liked list, a kind of board in itself. Liked pins have all of the function and purpose of a pin or repin, but are useful especially in cases where the pin does not easily fit into your existing boards. You might like things that you do not necessarily want to associate with your library directly, e.g. an academic science library might want their boards to focus on science topics, but they might also ‘like’ pins about food. If the food is science related, even better.
Pinner – A user on the Pinterest system; one who pins. In creating an account for a Library, it is better if your personal Pinterest account is not used, so that you can separate your personal brand from the library brand. In fact, it is better to have a Library as a business account in Pinterest, so that you can get the added benefits of that mode (below).
Certified users and business accounts – you can associate yourself with a particular URL by going through an authentication process that allows you to gain statistical insights about pins from your web site. Libraries on Pinterest should consider this process since they may want to know if people are clicking on pins to visit their ILS for instance. Polaris, amongst other social media aware cataloging systems, allow for the pinning of assets by patrons right from the catalog if enabled.
I recently had the opportunity via LibraryLinkNJ to speak on the topic of Consumer Device Support in Libraries at several of their Tech Speed Dating gatherings, in which librarians from across the state of New Jersey come together to learn about the technologies they might love. It is a platform for dissemination of new technologies and best practices, but also potentially a place to introduce an idea. My idea: New library policy documents about the support for Consumer Devices in Libraries. Please take a look at this document, and use it as you wish, as it is Creative Commons – Attribution licensed. If you use it as is, you need do nothing. If you decide to change it, please mention that is was by John LeMasney via lemasney.com and thanks!
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
This is a three-dimensional coffee cup created in SketchUp, the Trimble-owned, free, three-dimensional modeling application. Given the increased importance of making and three-dimensional printing in contemporary libraries, I have decided to focus a bit on 3D modeling as an area to extend myself into. I taught a class on this for a full-day staff development session recently for the Long Island Library Resource Council (LILRC), a long-time friend of LeMasney Consulting. I think we discovered a few architects in the audience.
I fell in love with it when Google purchased it. The thing I love about it, despite also loving open source tools like Blender, is that it is incredibly easy to use and learn, comparatively. Honestly, after watching four short ‘getting started’ videos on http://sketchup.com, you’ll know enough to start building very complex shapes. A beautifully simple tool.
Sunday Stovetop Frittata by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Sundays are leisurely here at LeMasney Consulting. I woke up to eggs, but no bread, and a few bags of frozen vegetables to remind me of summer in the wintertime. I decided to make a frittata. Frittatas are egg based vehicles for meat and vegetables, and are a quick meal. They differ from Quiche in the missing crust, and are different from a Spanish Tortilla in that those typically require potatoes. Many cooks finish them in the oven or under a salamander, but I used neither of those here. Let me show you how to build one for about 300 calories.
This fritatta is spicy, layered, and savory, but with a tweak of the spices and other elements, it could be sweet or Chinese or Thai or Indian or Japanese themed. Eggs are beautiful in this way especially: they are flexible and influenceable by their counterparts. To cut on fat, you could choose egg whites, but there is good protein and other nutritional value in this dish. A 3 egg dish is not one to have daily, as your cholesterol would skyrocket, but for a once a week indulgence, this is perfect.
Ingredients:
3 eggs, mixed
.25 cup frozen spinach
.25 cup frozen corn
.25 cup frozen peas
paprika to taste
curry to taste
salt and pepper to taste
.125 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Mix the eggs and cheese and set aside.
Eggs and cheese mixed
Saute (prepare in a medium heat pan with a touch of warmed oil) the frozen vegetables, moving the ingredients until they are soft. Season them with the spices.
Sauteed frozen vegetables
Add the sautéed vegetables to the egg mix and add the mixture back to the medium low heated, freshly cleaned and oiled pan.
Sauteed vegetables added to egg cheese mix
Heat on one side until the egg loses its shine, about 5-7 minutes. Flip carefully to complete cooking for 3 minutes.
Frittata mixture over heat
Slide on to a pan and top with hot sauce, parmesan cheese, or other accoutrement.
54 of 365 That thing gives me the creeps by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
54 of 365 That thing gives me the creeps by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
I was recently on a chat with a friend, and she explained that she really loved this breed of dog that has abundant wrinkles, very short legs, and clipped ears. The name of the breed escapes me, but my reaction was “that thing gives me the creeps”. I paused for a moment and thought about how odd that phrase is, which is usually a trigger for me to illustrate it. I pictured a 1970’s style treatment, dark, and playful.
In Inkscape, I placed the text, and applied the font Ballpark, a staple of my illustrations. I skewed the lines up and to the right. I duplicated and applied an outset to the duplicate, twice. Each time moving the outset shape backwards. I imported a lovely foggy image of red trees in summer morning, and used those colors for the palette.
I picture it being used in social media threads in which one person shares an image or idea that is full of creepiness, and someone shares my illustration as a response.
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