Last updated on November 1, 2016
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 Internet Librarian conference in Monterey. There were scores of excellent and informative sessions — you can grab the slides for most of them at this site — and sometimes the best part of the presentations was the information about cool tools for improving everything from library websites to library surveys. None of these tools are particularly new, but many are relatively unknown in the library world. Below are four that I heard about, either for the first time or as a reminder, and I’m sure there are many others buried in the slides of the presentations I could not attend.
- AMP HTML
Get AMP’d: Here’s what publishers need to know about Google’s new plan to speed up your website (Nieman Lab | Joshua Benton) “Facebook has its Instant Articles to make certain news stories load more quickly in an app; Apple wants to move you into its slick new Apple News app. Google’s effort has more to do with changing the mobile web than building its own app or environment, which is why AMP is debuting with a ton of partners in technology (Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Chartbeat, Parsely) and publishing (The New York Times, Vox Media, the Financial Times, Gannett, Hearst, the Posts Washington and Huffington). There are a ton of smart ideas in AMP. And it works — cutting the load times of article pages enormously.” - Canva
Canva brings professional design to anyone with its new iPhone app (TechCrunch | Sara Perez) “Canva today offers an online editor and a library of templates, graphics, fonts, photos and more some of which can be used for free, while others may be available for just a dollar, given their one-time use cases. The platform lets you design a range of graphics for things like slideshows, handouts, posters, cards, collages, invitations, as well as those graphics needed for social media posts, Facebook Pages and more.” - IFTTT (If This Then That)
The ultimate IFTTT guide: Use the web’s most powerful tool like a pro (MakeUseOf) “Whatever the case may be for you, you will eventually ask to yourself if there’s a way to do the more repetitive tasks automatically. This is where IFTTT comes into play. Using the tools laid out in this guide properly, you’ll be able to save enormous amounts of precious time that you can use as you see fit later on. Furthermore, if you’re an employee who is looking to automate some of her work, this will allow you to do that without so much as breaking a sweat. Yes, IFTTT could give you an edge on your career as well!” - Net Promoter Score
NPS for newbies: The beginner’s guide to the “One number you need to grow” (Zapier | Chad Keck) “NPS is deceptively simple because, to the respondent, it doesn’t appear to be a burden to answer. In fact, you can even ask this question in an email or text message and ask for a direct response without sending them to another web page. Compared to traditional surveys with pages of questions, it’s far simpler. Why is this important? Because every time you ask someone to do something (click somewhere, reply to an email, etc.), you create a barrier to your goal, and intrinsically fewer people will complete it.”
Articles from Ohio Web Library:
- Google readies content publishers for Accelerated Mobile Pages. (eWeek, 1/20/2016, p.1 | Jaikumar Vijayan)
- This automation recipe website really cooks. (PC Magazine, Sept.2013, p.87-91 | Jill Duffy)
- Why you need to know about Net Promoter Scores. (Corporate Meetings & Incentives, Nov.2013, p.11 | Betsy Zikakis)
