“The library will meet, by offering a professionally selected and well-organized collection, the educational, recreational, informational and cultural needs, including the collection, preservation and dissemination of local history material, of the Franklin Park Public Library District Community.”
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I enjoyed 768. I especially liked that is was practical as well as theory based. I have become less and less interested in theory as graduation loomed because I am not able to put theory down on a resume, but I certainly can put down “created podcasts,” “active blogger,” etc.
I knew of most of the technologies we discussed in class but had not used them and had not thought about uses for them within a library environment. I am excited about all of the technologies and am starting to implement them.
I find myself somewhat in charge of the Franklin Park Library’s website (I know it isn’t great, but, wow, you should have seen it a few weeks ago) and I am creating a new web presence for the library as well using the Drupal CMS. If you want to follow the creation process it is online (talk about a transparent library), but I have only been working on it for a day or two ( busy upgrading the old site). But we have integrated a Flickr badge, a Meebo chat widget, and a del.icio.us cloud. I am planning on creating blogs for every department and service (with comments enabled). I will set up RSS feeds for the front page and the blogs, as well as an aggregator for new items to do with Franklin Park or the Chicagoland. I hope to set podcasts and vodcasts some time in the future as well as that super cool toolbar thingy.
As you can see LIS 768 has been very valuable to me and beyond that valuable to the library that I work for.
Any suggestions about the site would be great.
We created a few podcasts for our group project. I felt we all did a good job learning all aspects of making a podcast. I would be plenty comfortable making a publishing a podcast on my own if asked (and I am sure I will be asked in the near future).
Making a podcast is fairly simply.
2. Download the MP3 plug (this allows you to export files from Audacity to whatever medium you so desire).
3. Play with Audacity for awhile to learn all the cool effects and get comfortable with the software and the mic.
4. Decide what to record (this may be the most difficult part, Annie did an excellent job tracking down uses for libraries).
5. Record, preferably with two or more people.
6. Save, I saved to my desktop because I knew I would be storing the podcasts online.
7. Upload to Divshare or a another audio storage site (think of them as Flickr for podcasts).
8. Post to a blog/Myspace/Facebook/website
9. I used Feedburner to better be able to get statistics on how many people are subscribing to the podcast and also for lots of interesting goodies.
Podcasts should be used on library websites and should definitely not be feared (if anybody has questions just e-mail me).
Check out all our stuff at http://podcastpractice.blogspot.com/
I love del.icio.us. I feel rather crippled when I have to work on a terminal that does not allow me to add the del.icio.us toolbar and icons used to tag and view.
Del.icio.us is what got me into the whole web 2.0 technology thing. I was assigned a project at work which involved adding a bunch of sites to the New Lenox Library del.icio.us account. I am not sure how much it was used (no roll out or staff instruction), but it served me very well.
I was so impressed with it I decided to give an instruction about how to utilize del.icio.us for my user instruction class. I credit del.icio.us to be the final factor in causing me to switch to Firefox.
An aspect of del.icio.us that is often ignored is the excellent results it returns. I know other search engines are trying to do something along the same lines e.g. Mahola. I do wish they would make a more complex search mechanism, something along the lines of an OPAC or even Google.
My links are to the right, you will probably see a lot of Drupal and Spanish collection development sites recently added. I suppose if you wanted to keep tabs on peoples research, you simply need to subscribe to their RSS feed. Feel free to add me to your network.
I wrote the final paper about question and answer websites, specifically Yahoo Answers, Askville, Live QnA, Wiki Answers, the Wikipedia Reference Desk, and ChaCha. I learned about these kinds of sites from the recent “Slam the Boards” event in which librarians went to these sites to provide quality answers and to market the library and librarians as a, ahem, good source of information. Playing around on these sites started me on the path of wondering what these sites can be used for by libraries?
Questions on these websites range from PhD level (Wikipedia Reference Desk mostly) to increadibly juvenile (Yahoo Answers) to attempts at being offensive (sadly, all of the sites at one time or another). Subjects vary as much as content, questions on how to set up a Wii to questions about the history of Serbian sharpshooters in WWI.
I believe librarians should start to use these sites and go to where the questions are. This will lead to the users receiving more authoritative information and librarians improving their reference skills (find new excellent websites etc.). I consider this to be a type of interlibrary loan of reference skills. Librarians may not be answering the tax or tuition paying patrons who support their library, but if enough librarians start doing this another librarian most likely is.
Going to the question sites will also, hopefully, crossing my fingers, perhaps, lead a new generation to discover the library and the virtual reference services that many libraries are implementing.
Has anybody tried ChaCha yet?
ChaCha is a new search engine which has a “Search with Guide” option. They advertise themselves as an alternative to Google because they have “experts” to help you find sources, if you need them. To use the guide option you just sign up, takes a few minutes at most.
ChaCha defines itself as a…
“LIVE GUIDED SEARCH - Instant search not cutting it? One click hooks you up with a live ChaCha Guide. A real person that will ask you questions, understand exactly what you want, and send you results that are dead-on. Computers can’t do that. It takes a community of people who are motivated to help you get the answer you seek - no matter what it takes. The brainpower behind ChaCha.”
This is direct competition with libraries, isn’t it?
Well, not yet at least. I have used ChaCha (writing a paper that has to do with online question and answer sites) a few times. Each time I was shocked at what are the so-called experts (5-10 dollars a “research” hour experts I seem to recall) are recommending. I actually had a race against them a few times to see what websites they would come up with and ones that I would. I am happy to say I won every time.
No reference interview takes place and, it seems, to be an expert one has to simply know how to type in keywords to Google. I read an article (sorry I don’t have the link handy at the moment here it is) by an ex-ChaCha guide in which he wrote something along the lines that 90% of the questions are pranks.
Another article I recently came across told of a 10 million dollar investment in ChaCha by the state of Indiana. What is this? That 10 million dollars would build an awesome library statewide IM reference center/interface and get the news out about it too. Getting info out is probably the hardest part in fact, need to look into marketing ourselves much better.
ChaCha isn’t very good, but is this the future of search engines? What does that mean to online reference?
Mostly what I was hoping for is for people to try this and report back. Get a couple reference questions and see if they do better than us. If you want to read some interesting/funny experience with ChaCha TechCrunch has forum in which people have submitted transcripts of interviews.
Have fun with it if you have the time.
This is the final section of the 7 part LibGuide marathon. I will talk about the profile of the LibGuide author. I will not spend very much time on this aspect of designing a LibGuide because Springshare has created an excellent how-to video, but I will briefly discuss why having a good profile is important.
Here is my profile.
To have a good profile I recommend providing as many as possible access points to yourself . I inserted a Meebo widget for instant messaging. I did not add a Yahoo, AIM, Google, MSN contact information because I rarely if ever on them, and also because of the transitory nature of my time at Northeastern. It is also possible to add a link to your website or blog. I was not writing a blog that would be beneficial my patrons so I did not add that as well, but if this was a full time position I would have done so.
I was hesitant about adding a photo of myself for no particular reason but to maintain an idea of privacy. However, after receiving encouragement from Michael Stephens, I decided to do so. I have not regretted it. Students have mentioned that they recognize me from a LibGuide (I admit this has only happened a few times but I imagine it would happen more as time went on). Recognizing and perhaps being more comfortable with me may very well have increased my approachability and in turn reference questions.
What would I like to see added to the profile? I would like to see a particular place to add a link to a Facebook page, a MySpace page, an invite to a Ning group, and other social networking sites.
In the 5th part of the rapidly becoming epic length (I originally imagined this to be a single post and done) LibGuides tutorial I will discuss how I used or did not use the Utility Boxes.
Documents and Files
The documents and files inserted are PDFs, Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations. I have not used this function extensively. Adding handouts as Word documents or PDFs could be useful e.g. how to site sources, critical thinking for websites, etc. The use of adding a PowerPoint is self evident as is an Excel table. Like the Web Link you are given valuable usage statistics.
I have not found a way in which to add Google document or any of the other open office equivalents in the same manner. It is possible to publish the open office document and link to it.
Dates and Events
I have not added Dates or Events to a LibGuide. It didn’t make sense for a one-shot class or for a general introduction to reference sources guide. I am not really sure how this function can be used in a Library context, unless the librarian is meeting with the students more than once. If a public library (very doubtful) decided to buy LibGuides this option might prove valuable.
Interactive Polls/Voting
Of the three Utility Boxes this is the one I had the most fun with and used often. The software makes it simple to design and/or edit a poll.
Everybody not just the LibGuide author can see the results of a poll.
It is also possible to make each poll choice a link. I did not use this tool because I couldn’t think of a good way in which to do so in regards to the LibGuides I designed. I do think this could be a great way in which to tailor a LibGuide to a particular patron. Perhaps design a poll in which a student would be linked to websites or other asynchronous instruction tools (Adobe Captivate would be excellent for this) designed to help them navigate an OPAC/database/Google depending on their perceived skill level or create a poll that will take art students to recommended websites depending on their favorite painter or painter they happen do be studying (if they choose Dali they get taken to an excellent website about him).
I also used polls to try and have the LibGuide interact with students. To have the students believe that their opinion is important (which it is).
Utility Boxes are another very useful function offered to LibGuide authors.
Part 6 (really part 7 when including the philosophy of LibGuides) will be on the profile of a LibGuide author. Part 6 will be final post in this series of LibGuide tutorials.
In part 4 of the continuing saga of designing a LibGuide I will discuss embedding videos and adding tag clouds from del.icio.us.
Videos
Springshare provides a LibGuide author with ability to embed videos. Embedding a video is fairly easy, just grab the embed code from either YouTube or Google Videos and add it exactly where you are told to do so.
The creators of LibGuides suggest only adding videos to the center column because of size constraints. If a video is embedded in the smaller left hand column it will break the border of the boxes and make the LibGuide look terrible. I warned about pictures also breaking the border of boxes in LibGuides part 1.
However, I have managed to have videos in both columns and even next to one another.
The way in which to have videos in both columns is to modify the object width and height in the html in two places (circled below).
I found a width of 200 and height of 125 worked well for the left hand column.
Embedding videos are an excellent way in which to further engage the patron. While putting together the Lexicology LibGuide for an in class instruction I came across an outstanding video of Erin McKean, a lexicographer, discussing the future of lexicology, etymology and dictionaries. I also found a young lady who was challenged to actually sing the dictionary and managed to do so. I decided to add these two videos because the students would be able to engage, perhaps identify with, and have an interest in the individuals. I also added the videos in order to spice up an instruction session that was going to mainly consist of how to use the dry (unless you are a librarian or very interested in the topic) Oxford English Dictionary Online.
I added two videos to the Psychology LibGuide as well. It was much easier finding videos for this topic and I had a choice amongst many. I decided on a short interview with Carl Jung to give the students a visual representation of a giant in the field, and a video explaining the difference between psychology and psychiatry (a difference that many seem to have a problem with).
A way in which to further utilize the embed video option would be recorded readings or speeches by guest speakers, having students make videos, have teachers/profs. make videos, screen capture videos of how to search the OPAC or relevant databases, etc. The ways in which to utilize this resource are limitless. Use Youtube or Google to store the library made videos and add them to your LibGuides as wanted.
Del.icio.us tag clouds
I love del.icio.us. It comes in handy and I find it to be an excellent method to search for “good” websites, but I have not discovered a worthwhile use for del.icio.us tag clouds for a LibGuide.
The tag clouds can be organized alphabetically or by frequency. It is also possible to add a tag count.
I have not used a del.icio.us tag cloud because they can be huge if the librarian actually adds many websites and tags.
I also don’t see the point in having an embedded tag cloud when it is possible to actually add website hyperlinks to a LibGuide. Springshare even offers a Post to LibGuides button in order to directly import websites to a LibGuide giving the author the possibility of bypassing del.icio.us all together.
The only way in which I could see a del.icio.us tag cloud being useful is to have separate del.icio.us accounts for each LibGuide. If the list of websites is getting unwieldy then perhaps add a cloud.
Part 5 will be about the “Utility Boxes.”
Before getting to third installment of how to put together a LibGuide there are two matters I want to mention.
First, I wanted thank Springshare (the creators of LibGuides) for mentioning this blog and embarrassing me with some nice complements on their support blog. I hope people are finding my ideas somewhat useful (all 20 of you, lol).
Second, I wanted to point out that I have turned over the two LibGuides I created to the knowledgeable, wonderful librarians of Northeastern (Nancy Murillo and Bonnie Chauncey). I am sure they will do a great job improving/updating them (They better, I will be keeping an eye them).
Northeastern was kind enough to designate my LibGuides as private in order for them to have persistent URLs. Lisa, the web design librarian, copied the contents, republishing them and transferred the administrative roles to Bonnie and Nancy (job hunting is getting serious and I need things to point at such as LibGuides). The LibGuides have been transferred because my internship/practiucm is nearly finished (about 2 more weeks) as is my final semester at Dominican.
Enough housekeeping, lets get to part 3 of designing a LibGuide.
RSS
It is possible to add RSS feeds to a LibGuide. I highly recommend using them.
It is as simple as adding the URL of the feed and how many items you want displayed. The LibGuide will automatically retrieve the RSS summary and display it as a pop up balloon. I like to add as many or as few feeds as necessary to maintain balance between the two active columns of a LibGuide.
I used them to suggest research topics.
To covertly/subliminally explain subject headings. This is especially a good use of RSS feeds when it comes to an Ebsco based databases such as Academic Search Premier. I also like using this for PubMed to explain a MESH subject heading and a limiter e.g. only humans.
Another way I used RSS feeds is for news on a subject. It may be necessary to search the internet for this, but I suspect most subjects will have something along the same lines.
I also used the Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Day” RSS feed in the Lexicology LibGuide to help jazz it up. The picture below also contains the mouse over balloon pop up.
I tried (in fact I think this is the first RSS feed I grabbed) to get an RSS feed of Flickr images with the tag of “words” or “psychology.” I also tried to get a feed from a particular Flickr group, but this led to links to the images and not the actual images themselves.
I have considered using the RSS feature to grab a del.icio.us tag, but after brief consideration decided against it. If somebody else went ahead used RSS for this I would have no complaints, but I am was not sure how I could make this work for the two particular LibGuides I put together. The tags would either be too small or too large. A tag of “psychology” could grab anything, while the tag of “lexicology” may have to few. But as I consider this now perhaps I made a mistake and should have used del.icio.us in this manner. It is hard to put something you may not trust on a published pathfinder though. You can see my dilemma, if anybody is still reading that is.
I imagine that many more ways of using RSS feeds exist and I have only scratched the surface.
Podcasts
Podcasts are very much like RSS feeds. It is the same procedure to add them to a LibGuide. First type in the URL and then the amount of items to be displayed. Again, I use the amount to be displayed to even out the columns. Podcasts and RSS feeds are excellent for the left most column because they do not require much space for explanation in comparison to recommended print or online resources.
A podcast is just another manner in which to have the users engage with the subject matter.
I have not made a podcast for either of the two LibGuides I created (I would but time is limited as I mentioned earlier), but I imagine doing so would be useful. This would be doubly true if it was possible to get the students involved in the creative process (advice on assignments, giving synopsis of their papers, recommending topics, useful sources, etc.), or interviewing the professors, recording guests speakers, advice from subject specialist librarians, etc.
I will talk about embedded videos and del.icio.us clouds in part 4.
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