George Mason University's Betsy Appleton on e-books, social media, and online communities

Betsy Appleton, Electronic Resources Librarian for George Mason University, talks about why e-books are on her radar, as well as what social media and online communities mean to her, at CIL 2011 in Washington, D.C.

TRANSCRIPT

Janelle: I'm Janelle Kozyra. We are here at the CIL 2011 Conference in Washington, D.C. I am with Betsy Appleton. Hi Betsy.

Betsy: Hi.

Janelle: And Betsy is an Electronic Resources Librarian at George Mason University. So what brings you to CIL this year?

Betsy: Well, I came mostly, today was a great day for me with the e-book track that was going on today, learning a little bit more about the new and emerging models and technologies with e-books.

Janelle: You know I've heard that from several attendees so far that e-books is a big thing for them. Why is that so hot right now?

Betsy: I think it's probably the big new thing in electronic publishing. Journals have been online fairly successfully for the past, I'd say, decade at least, if not 15 years, and e-books are kind of the next step in that progression.

Janelle: So how do you see e-books folding into what George Mason University's doing?

Betsy: Oh, I see it very well. We're a very large campus in terms of student population. We have about 30,000 students headcount, and only about 5,000 of them are actually residents on campus. So it's very much a school of people that are not always present on campus, and we're able to better serve people within the library with having more online resources available to them.

Janelle: What do you think of the whole Web 2.0 and social media technology movement as it relates to libraries?

Betsy: It's interesting. As it relates to libraries. I think it has to relate to libraries to make it actually worthwhile and I think that we have to be very careful in implementing that which is actually useful to the library, not just technology for the technology's sake. That being said, I think there's a lot of potential for getting information out to students in a different way than there was just a few years ago.

Janelle: So that kind of leads to a discussion about online communities, which is another kind of big phrase circulating right now. What do you think of online communities? What does that mean to you?

Betsy: That's a very good question. When I think about communities, I, the first communities I think of aren't necessarily online. The most communities that I think of aren't necessarily online. However, the online component can be a great tool for building a community of interregional people with the same interests.

Janelle: Right, so I mean it just spans the globe. So there's communities physically, and then they go online. And it's vice versa as well. So it's kind of a whole feedback loop, I guess you could say, among your constituents.

Betsy: Having an online community is another tool in the toolbox.

Janelle: Great, thank you, Betsy. Enjoy the rest of the show.

Betsy: All right, thank you very much.

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Betsy Appleton
• George Mason University
• GMU
• Librarians
• Colleges
• Universities
• Education
• Libraries
• e-books
• Social media
• Online communities
• CIL 2011
• Inmagic