NSW public library wiki

• Frank Inkster, Manly Library
• Ellen Forsyth, State Library of NSW
• Merilyn Hills, Hornsby Library
• Jenn Martin, Auburn Library Service
• Kathy Maltby, Ryde Library
• (Please email jenn_martin@auburn.nsw.gov.au if you were at this meeting, as we have misplaced the attendance sheet. We believe that there were also representatives from: Warringah, Pittwater, Marrickville, Tamworth, Woollahra, City of Sydney and Vision Australia).

• Hornsby – Photos of Readers Day on flickr, but need to organize a people in photographs permission form before they can be made public. Pennant Hills and Epping have strong book groups, but hard to get one off the ground in Hornsby.
• Auburn – Static display in Library – people reading in different parts of the world – used photos with creative commons shared license from flickr. Difficulty engaging community and encouraging them to join a book group.
• Ryde – Had the annual Ryde Writers festival the week before Readers Day, building contacts for next year.
• Warringah – Book Club seminar – how to run your own book club – now have 5 self-supported book groups run in the library. Secured Section 94 funding for buying book club collections. Normal reservation fee is the only cost associated with joining the book group.
• Manly – looking forward to next Readers Day in September 2008 – Manly Art Festival is in September.
• Pittwater – Runs regular themed reading groups – fiction and non fiction. Has really broken participants out of old reading habits and opened up different parts of the library – eg, biographies, non fiction etc. Looking for opportunities to build a local writers network.
• Marrickville – Comfortable chair with posters and advertising, a ‘readers corner/chair’. Regular Readings groups fell on different days that week. New themed book clubs – readers choose their own theme and what books they read.
• Tamworth – Read @ your library was a busy month – Friends Group had a ‘new books’ afternoon – very popular. Local personalities contribute book reviews to a pyramid display. Author Talk - Rene Goossens – pain management book – non fiction author on a popular subject. 1000 Splendid Suns for regulary book group – changed their meeting to Readers Day to take part in the simultaneous book group – new people came due to advertisement and promotion of a state-wide simultaneous book group. Meet in a public area in the library – great promotion in itself – customer asked ‘can I have what they’re having?’
• Woollahra – Book Fair. Friends Group hosts ‘Writers and Readers’ at night (have a good community network to find/secure speakers), mainly organised by Events Librarian. Community Services is organising similar events for during the day. Book clubs choose their own books and library secures the resources.
• City of Sydney, Ultimo – Community Centre Open Day on Readers Day. Lots of Author talks through City of Sydney. New book group started in June. 15-70+ age range, do not like reading just one book.

More direction needed for next year. Use wiki (http://readersadvisory.wikifoundry.com/) as a tool for discussion and planning.

The NSW Readers Advisory Working Group will be seeking volunteers to help plan 2008 Readers Day events. An email will be sent out to nswreference seeking participants for a Readers Day Working Group. Seeking volunteers from rural libraries as well - conference calls can work well for planning when members of the working group are geographically distant from one another.

Ideas - May want to choose one book – a one book, one state promotion? - Promoting NSW writers – maybe a vote on most popular NSW writer. - Maybe select a group of NSW writers and let each library community vote individually, present different books at a book group etc. - Contact with writers and their publishers etc – range of writers that appeal broadly, fiction/non fiction, rural and metropolitan, young adult crossover. -Promoting back catalogue. - Set up an interactive blog with comments, building up to Readers Day. - Suggestions for NSW authors: Judy Nunn, Markus Zusack. - Nominate a working group to work on this project, liaise Marketing Group etc. - Grants - what are the closing dates. State-wide – may have to apply at an association level. Ellen will look into what grants are available. - Tie-in bookmark with Marketing Group – would need to be funded from elsewhere, as the @ your library campaign is winding down (as a free campaign). - Engaging writers and online promotion can be free. - Mix of authors and titles. - For the wiki – information for all public libraries, tips for how to secure authors.

– Update from Ellen

• The Seminar Working Group is still seeking speakers for the March Seminar.
• Working Group is approaching another Bookseller (last year’s Science Fiction Bookseller was a seminar highlight). Another genre specialist will be chosen – breaking down assumptions and prejudice from Library Staff about certain genres.
• Please respond to emails seeking information/speakers. The seminar working group will also be looking for people to help on the day (distributing name tags etc).

The NSW Readers Advisory Working Group extends thanks to the Multicultural Working Group for community language booklists that were created. The lists are now publicly available on the wiki: http://readersadvisory.wikifoundry.com/page/Authors+in+other+languages

If you would like to apply to be a writer on the wiki and update pages, contribute booklists etc, when you apply please let the admin know who you are and where you are from (which Library Service you work for).

The group needs to organise an ownership disclaimer on the bottom of each booklist – “if you want to use this in the library please credit the wiki”. Fiction-L booklist example:

"Copyright of Fiction_L postings belongs to their respective authors; postings may only be reused with the author's permission. Compiled lists (compilations of titles or authors from earlier postings on a particular topic) may not be reused for commercial purposes. To use a compiled list for non-commercial purposes, please credit "Subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list."

Multilingual glossary The new glossary of common library terms and phrases in different languages on the State Library of NSW website is a very useful tool for Readers Advisory.

Wiki authors could create a link on the wiki to the new multilingual glossary - great phrases that can be used for Readers Advisory promotion/posters etc.

Eg. أقرأ بخوانید Okuma 閱讀 독서 Đọc

Read in Arabic Persian Turkish Chinese Korean Vietnamese

Delicious is a social network community that would provide a good opportunity for collaboration on collecting Readers Advisory links.

Jenn has created a delicious signon for the group - nswreadersadvisory (password: wel0vebooks)

You can visit the NSW Readers Advisory page by going to: http://del.icio.us/nswreadersadvisory

You can add and tag links by signing in with the username and password at http://del.icio.us/ (you can be signed in to delicious on multiple computers at the same time, so it shouldn’t matter if ten people are all tagging sites at once)

If you already have a delicious page, please make the NSW Readers Advisory page part of your network.

Please pay attention to what people are tagging sites as, to try and keep some kind of consistency with our tagging (for example, use the tag bookgroup instead of bookclub)

There are sometimes issues with IT departments when it comes to installing the delicious buttons required to post new items to your delicious page. You can get around this by posting manually, but it is not nearly as quick and convenient.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/537199@N21/ - The Readers Day group on flickr.

All you have to do is join the group, and you can then post photos to the group pool from your own flickr page.

Please tag Readers Day photos with 'readersday' and 'read[at]yourlibrary'.

For those who do not yet have flickr accounts: All you need to make a flickr account is a yahoo id, you can sign up from the main page: http://flickr.com/. If you already have a yahoo id, you can use that, or you may want to make a new generic id for your library.

There are sometimes issues with council IT departments. Jenn from Auburn Library is writing a proposal to her IT department in January to make the Auburn Library Service flickr site official. She is happy to share the proposal with other Libraries facing similar problems.

People in photograph permission forms. These are essential if you are going to put photos of library customers in a public forum like flickr. You need permission from all people who can be identified in photos. The easiest way to navigate this barrier is to have an approved permission form and assign someone at public events to take photos and carry permission forms ready to be signed. Other Web 2.0 possibilities

Some libraries are using tagging on catalogues to improve qualitative information about Fiction. State Library of Tasmania will be running Library Thing tags etc in their catalogue soon.

Working with IT – There can be issues with technology, code of conduct, pre-approval of publication etc.

What people do recreationally (internet as community) the library can do professionally – this may be a valid argument to IT departments/managers who are resistant to libraries embracing Web 2.0 technology and practice.

Alia Read

A good forum for information exchange – useful answers to book questions etc, ideas for book groups, help from the ‘brains trust’ when preparing booklists. A lot of ideas are coming through the email list.

The group should organize a system for moving suggestions onto the wiki – eg the recent emergency reading suggestions discussion would make a great booklist.

If you are on the list and a writer on the wiki, please also start the discussion on the wiki, and start compiling the suggestions that you receive from the list.

Novelist

Please send Ellen examples of reviews, blurbs etc as examples of possible Australia content for Novelist.

Promote Novelist in your libraries, it is an excellent self-help tool and customers can access information (information literacy approach).

West Ryde Library: Monday 5th May, 9.30 for 10am. RSVP to Kathy Maltby kmaltby@ryde.nsw.gov.au