I’ve already mentioned I’ll be doing a little presentation on LISNews at Computers in Libraries in just a couple weeks, so I’ve been writing about LISNews in my journal much more than usual in anticipation of that presentation. I have plenty of ideas on what I’d like to talk about in D.C., but I’d really like to know what You’d like me to talk about. Even if you’re not going to make it to CIL this year, think about what you’d like to see if you were going. What topics would interest you? What questions do you need answered? Since I don’t have all that much time (45 minutes) I need to try and squish 5 years worth of LISNews stories into just one little session. Are there any burning questions that have been lurking deep inside of you that must be answered? Below is a bit of an outline I’ve cobbled together to get myself started, feel free to let me know your thoughts.
Also note, if you can’t make it to CIL, if all goes well I’ll be doing something similar @ LITA this fall. (My travel is currently limited for financial reasons)
I’ve already mentioned I’ll be doing a little presentation on LISNews at Computers in Libraries in just a couple weeks, so I’ve been writing about LISNews in my journal much more than usual in anticipation of that presentation. I have plenty of ideas on what I’d like to talk about in D.C., but I’d really like to know what You’d like me to talk about. Even if you’re not going to make it to CIL this year, think about what you’d like to see if you were going. What topics would interest you? What questions do you need answered? Since I don’t have all that much time (45 minutes) I need to try and squish 5 years worth of LISNews stories into just one little session. Are there any burning questions that have been lurking deep inside of you that must be answered? Below is a bit of an outline I’ve cobbled together to get myself started, feel free to let me know your thoughts.
Also note, if you can’t make it to CIL, if all goes well I’ll be doing something similar @ LITA this fall. (My travel is currently limited for financial reasons)For me, the best part of LISNews is the collaboration, so here’s our big chance to write a great presentation together.
I don’t plan on writing myself a speech, just a few notes. I’ve found that I’m best when I am talking about things I know, from memory, and if I can’t spend 45 minutes talking about LISNews, without much help, I probably have no business doing any public speaking whatsoever.
- Some kind of introduction: (past)
- It may just be safe to assume that whoever shows up already knows a thing or two about us, so this should be short, right? Just a quick general
intro.
- What’s LISNews? It’s a mailing list, blog, it’s a collection of blogs, it’s comments, it’s the news, it’s the authors, it’s all about the
collaboration, and community
- What’s the story? (history, who built it, who helped, where was it hosted, what did it run on, etc..)
- How many library blogs are there? (LISFeeds)
- Why are we better than the other sites? (Comments, journals, discussions, more visitors, more submissions)
- Why are we worse than other sites? (Flamewars, bad feelings)
- How does this format compare to others (use Walt’s C&I issue as a nice starting point)
- What’s LISNews? It’s a mailing list, blog, it’s a collection of blogs, it’s comments, it’s the news, it’s the authors, it’s all about the
- The numbers: (present)
- How many visitors do we receive?
- How many authors are there?
- How many stories, comments, journals, all that jazz
- (Build a dynamic page for this database stuff & make some Urchin screen shots)
- How many authors are there?
- Things about the stories (news)
- The most popular stories (What makes a good story? What makes a popular story? What makes a story get a lot of comments)
- The biggest stories in my mind (just some discussion on things that have stuck out)
- How do we find our stories, how do we decide what gets posted?
- Some stories behind the stories.
- The biggest stories in my mind (just some discussion on things that have stuck out)
- Things about the people (community)
- The odd submissions
- Funny user names
- The regulars, the odd balls, the kooks and the good people
- Politics & other discussions that are popular
- The journals & comments
- Funny user names
- Things about the site (code)
- What powers the site? Linux, Slashcode, perl, LISHost, etc… Geeky details
- What’s the backend stuff look like? A tour of all my super secrete and exciting seclev 10,000 powers.
- Thoughts on blogging and our place in the blogosphere (big picture)
- Is what we do all that different from other sources of library news? (yes, and no, compared to LJ or ALA)
- Our strength lies in our diversity and our numbers the good stories come from the submissions, it’s the “million eyes” theory for OS development
applied to news gathering.
- Our strength lies in our diversity and our numbers the good stories come from the submissions, it’s the “million eyes” theory for OS development
- So now what? What’s next for LISNews? (future)
good outline
I think I find the community aspects of a site like this interesting, so if I was going to the presentation I’d be interested in some discussion about anon commenting — turning it off and turning it on again as well as the response to the call for donations to keep the server going earlier.
Vital Question!
Am I right by saying that parents are responsible for their children, or is Greg right in saying government and librarians are responsible for parents?
Just kidding, well thought through outline.
Demographic data
You might want to think about using the poll (or a seperate page) to do a user survey of demographic data. You might look at age, gender, education level, library type, position held at library, and other sorts of things. Who is the typical LISter?
Presentation
Here’s what I most value about LISnews.com: 1) world view — many stories come from other countries. This is an easy way to get a sense of libraries around the world. 2) variety — human interest stories are my favorites (odd and/or interesting stories about people and books and/or libraries) 3) It’s easy — I don’t want to take the time to seek out any of this. Blake and colleagues deliver it to my virtual doorstep. I scan the summaries and click to those I most want to read. Thanks so very much!
P.S. I do have an account. Just too lazy at 5 p.m. on Friday to look up the info.