Alt Ref

all good things must come to an end

2006-05-22T17:33:00.000-05:00

They say to ‘quit while you’re ahead’—so it’s time. Alt-Ref has had a good run. By some estimates I have 8 subscribers, by others over 120.

Regardless, I am moving on. That’s right, a new blog: The Ubiquitous Librarian

At Paul’s urging and my own sense of shifting direction I decided it was time to leave the reference desk theme behind (not that I ever posted about that!) and really focus on the larger concept of interaction within the community. The new blog will focus on thoughts, experiments and observations with the objective of participation. It’s about having more to offer than ‘information literacy’ and finding new ways to have a real relevance to patrons.

So please follow me with this transition—add me to your bloglines!

I’d love for others to take control of Alt-Ref. Maybe a group of young librarians or MLS students who have fresh ideas and want to push the boundaries and move us beyond the antiqued established traditions? If you’re interested drop me an email or IM.

Adieu

inflation

2006-05-19T12:39:00.000-05:00

Georgia Tech = $1.40 for a 20 oz bottle of coke, seriously? That is almost as bad as Elsevier dropping their shared consortium deal...

Camtasia & Ipods - early thoughts: they won’t work together

2006-05-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

I finally had a chance to experiment with screencasting. One of my summer projects is to generate some videos for engineering students—more on that in the coming weeks.

Paul and I shared enthusiasm toward creating content for the video ipod. However recent tests using Camtasia have failed to produce a clear video for that medium.

This is the best quality I could create; this screenshot is actual size of what users would see on their ipods:

And this is using the Zoom feature. It’s a little clearer, but still not that great:

I tried a lot of different experiments. My theory was that if I made a high resolution video, I could shrink it down to a smaller screen and retain the quality. Wrong! I created three clips: .wmv, .avi, and .mov at 1150 x 834 and they are terrible. Very blurry and basically unwatchable. Next I created clips using a moderate screen size, 760 x 530, which allowed me to still show most of the web page, or at least enough to get the point across—anything smaller and it would be too small.

There was a remarkable difference – the quality was great and nearly identical across formats—however the audio was noticeably better with QuickTime. Check it out: QT clip.

The problem is size. These clips are 10 seconds and huge: .wmv (1.01 MB), .avi (780KB), and .mov (1.06MB)—the m4v for ipod was 515 KB—but as viewed above, poor quality.

I know the popular approach is to produce Flash files and embed or link to them allowing students to view them streamed. I like this approach, but I am also trying to get beyond the library web site and to create ‘walk away’ content—allowing the video to be downloaded and viewed at the user’s preference also allowing the video to be uploaded in various environments, such as email, a course management system, a professor’s site, where ever. My latest ambition was to use youtube a free, open access video sharing site that allows users to interact with the content (post messages/comments) – offering an unlimited amount of videos, file sizes up to 100 MB and direct linking to each individual clip. Ah, but is it too good to be true? I loaded all three clips which looked great via a media player and they appeared second-rate via youtube. Evidence: wmv avi mov mov w/ zoom

The Zoom example offers the best quality and is at least readable, but when you show a main page it looks so slooppy. I’m still going to proceed with my videos for web based instruction, but my enthusiasm has diminished a little. I am also going to step back from screencasting for the ipod, although I hope to produce some non-instructional content for that medium in the near future.

Oh yeah, and this post isn’t an attack on Camtasia. I thoroughly enjoy their product, even though everyone seems to be jumping on the Captivate bandwagon. I frequently produce short video clips to answer student emails; it’s much easier to show someone how to use Web of Science than to write it out!

Republican Librarians Unite!

2006-05-15T09:46:00.000-05:00

So somehow I give off the Republican vibe? Maybe I should try to get on Fox News or the Colbert Report? I’m flattered that my angsty ramblings are considered “required reading” but seriously, I am much more loyal to the Roman Republic than to George Bush’s vision of America.

In defense of social networks

2006-05-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is a comment I made on Paul’s blog regarding Thoughts on privacy and libraries and social networks This sort of sums up my feelings on the topic.

The big issue I have is the librarian mentality to formalize everything. To create a committee, to create guidelines and policies, to actually read the Terms of Service. Seriously, social networks are all about organic growth and individual expression. It’s about reaching out to friends and strangers and making informal connections.

If librarians, or businesses, go in with a “spammer” mentality of “hey you need my help—the library is cool, see we have a myspace account” then you’ll fail. Libraries are NOT cool. I mean, we think they are: we have sexy computer labs, and cafes, and DVDs, but so what?

I would not say that using Facebook or MySpace is a “waste of time” anymore than trying to provide library instruction sessions on using the catalog to freshmen composition students.

You have to approach it with sincerity. If you just go in trying to push your agenda and services, students could view it as intrusive. I only show up when there is a clear information need, like this one:

“I'm ready for school to be over, but that means working on my massive research paper. We had to turn in preliminary topic ideas/a short essay on preliminary research we've done. Mine was pretty much shit and I'll probably have to rework a lot of my ideas, or choose a new topic altogether. It has the potential to be a lot of fun, (did I really just say that about a research paper?) if I do it correctly. I've been inside the library at Georgia Tech a total of 6 times in the three years I've been at Tech. That number is about to grow geometrically in the next few weeks methinks.”

I’m sure that eventually this student would come to the ref desk, probably close to the deadline—but by using my approach I was able to interact with the student and get him the info he needed. This also helps to spread the “value” of the library via grassroots outreach—since his roommate contacted me later with a similar need.

It’s sort of like if you get a flat tire and someone pulls over and offers to help—you’re there when it’s appropriate, when they need you.

That’s why I favor student blogs over student spaces, like myspace--- on myspace you essentially setup a library front—sure, you’re a little closer to them, but it’s too passive. With the blogs I’m in the trenches with them rather than standing around on the sidelines.

academic library 2.0

2006-05-12T13:08:00.000-05:00

Camus was once asked about being an existentialist and he claimed that he wasn’t—that he was a humanist. That’s sort of how I feel about the ‘library 2.0’ movement. Granted, several of my ideas, approaches and guiding philosophies could easily be grouped in that movement, but I don’t necessary wave the L2 banner.

That being said, here is my podcast on Academic Library 2.0

I am a little embarrassed because it was composed and recorded while I had strep throat—but here are the main notes:

What it really boils down to is have flexibility and adaptability, rethinking everything, physical space, virtual space, service points, policies -- it’s about creating a community of users, or a community of learners, who participate and interact with each other as well as with the library. It’s about examining what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and questioning the validity and effectiveness. Just because something’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it has to continue in that manner. So to sum it all up, to me, library 2.0 is about knocking down barriers, or at least lowering them, and trying to improve the library for our current patrons, while trying to attract new users to our services.

Perhaps my last comments ever on Facebook

2006-05-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

I’m sick—which only happens about once a year, but I wanted to quickly post a comment on this article that will be hitting your mailbox soon: Do You Facebook?

My stance toward online social networks has changed. In the Summer and Fall semesters of 2005 I was really into using MySpace and Facebook, but I have backed off since then. Or rather, I am very opposed to setting up a “Your Library” account and interacting with students in that fashion, although I do like what they’re doing at UT. I use FB almost daily. One thing I have found particularly successful is joining classes that I know involve research and hawking my services. I also look up students before I meet with them one-on-one or as a class. And I also follow campus news and frequently dash off messages to ‘noteworthy’ students— my humble attempt at a grassroots approach toward promoting the library.

I’m starting to look at the big picture though. These social sites are going to change—there is already backlash toward both MS & FB. Students will move on to something else—so rather than librarians investing time and aggressively trying to develop a presence in these particular environments, it’s probably more valuable to join them, using them, learn about them, and seek creative ways to interact with students, but PLEASE don’t attend a conference and brag about how your library set up a Friendster account last week, seriously! If you’re going to get into the social software game, just be prepared for the new systems that roll out every other month. That’s what makes them fun!

My point is: yes, join facebook, but be yourself! There are other staff and faculty members on there too. However if you’re really looking to make an impact, drop your QuestionPoint, LSSI/Tutor, LiveHelp or whatever lame virtual reference service you’re using and just setup AIM with an aggregator like Trillian. Then plaster your sn every where possible, yes this means also outside the library!

I’ve had students send me an email question—I’ll look them up on FB, grab their aim, see they’re online and respond with my answer. We’ll chat a little bit—clear up anything and end both feeling satisfied. However I’m sure the good folks at UM would view this type of outreach as intrusive (comment #4) and crossing the line of good and proper librarian etiquette.

Oh yeah, and PLEASE don’t schedule hours of when chat is offered—we can help you from 2:00 – 6:00 when it is convenient for us. If you have someone at a public services desk then you should have IM covered.

Ok, TheraFlu time…

Fun with Library Catalogs!

2006-05-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of thoughtful analysis regarding library catalogs: Cornell, UC, and the ACRL Blog.

All I have to offer are these two video clips:

Why don’t patrons use the library catalog?

Library Catalog Anomalies

Fun stuff!

Dancing in Savannah

2006-04-24T10:49:00.000-05:00

Heading to Savannah for the Off-Campus Library Services Conference. Something odd in the program: dancing!

We’ll see how that works out. I wonder if there was actually a demand for this in past assessments of the conference. Anyway here are some items that look promising.

Collaboration with ILL
Designing Library Services for the PDA
Experiments with online tools to deliver off-campus library instruction
The development of RoboDemo tutorials in an OCLS blackboard space
When faculty behave like students: teaching faculty about online library resources
Blackboard on a shoestring: tying courses to sources

Oh and 8:30 AM start times are ridiculous, especially since many attendees are not in the Eastern Time Zone.

Technorati Tag: OCLSC06

What does SGA have to say about YOUR Library?

2006-04-21T10:47:00.000-05:00

Last week the campus was littered with SGA candidate posters—so I took the opportunity to email all of them a question.

Hello,
I read through your info in the Technique (student newspaper) and on your website. I'm just curious, as a student leader, how do you feel the library can be improved?
Good luck,
Brian

Seven of the eight leaders responded. Sure libraries use LibQUAL+, collect feedback, conduct surveys, and hold focus groups—but this taps into a more political perspective. There was really nothing shocking or revolutionary, but it helps reinforce our ideas and adds a new flavor of assessment. Plus it is interesting to hear from student leaders and possibly opens the door for future collaboration. If would be great next year to have candidates add “improvements” to the library within their platform and really get our agenda pushed by this active and vocal presence on campus.

Here are some insights:

I think that the main issue I see as a student leader is that many graduate students seem to feel that the library, not just our library, but all academic libraries, is becoming irrelevant. They get the information they need from online journal access, provided by the library, yes, but I don’t believe they understand the role that librarians play in that, and rarely, if ever, set foot in the actual library building.
I appreciate the importance of the library and all that it provides, but I believe that one thing that should be worked on is ensuring that all students know what the library is doing for them and that it is a valuable resource on campus.
I do notice the long queues to use the computer labs whenever I'm at the library. I would suggest adding more computer labs, but I suspect new computer labs are mostly an issue of available space rather than anything else.
There is some lack of awareness about how the library can help students out.
I would recommend better signage over things like the information desk to let people know that they can be used to help with research.
I know you have the online system for asking questions, but it really isn't apparent that it is research help. It's just like questions...
Another area where I think the library can be improved is making the spacemore productive for studying.
Can there be a system of emailing retrieval requests to the circulation desk, so that the books are ready to be picked up by the time the students arrive at the library?
Some other students have complained about the long wait that occasionally follows a request to recall a checked out book. One student suggested having a better enforced late penalty charge for overdue recalled books.-- I know after talking with some chem and chem engr. majors that they would like additional ports for some of their chemical database searching programs.
I think that the selection of books and magazines for students who want to read for pleasure is very lacking.
More conference rooms
Projectors students can check-out
Better video collection
Jazzman's- Open 24 hours a day- and more food options!
Individual seats with built-in laptop holders
Outdoor study area
I’d like to see the hours extended on Fridays to Midnight.

So, what do we do now…..? I encourage others to contact candidates at their schools. I think this is mutually beneficial and allows us to further push our needs and concerns, yet let the students be the voice.

Next Gen

2006-04-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

I am really starting to dislike the Next Gen label. Actually I’m not really sure that I can define it, but that doesn’t stop be from babbling on about the topic:

http://cto.libsyn.com/

http://laurenpressley.com/library/?p=121

Tag: Blatant_Self-promotion

Lacrosse & Podcasting

2006-04-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

Ok, so the hot topic this week is Microsoft’s Academic Search product. I’m sure everyone will be eager to compare it with Google Scholar and those library databases that we spend millions of dollars on… but honestly, I’m more interested in the Johns Hopkins Women’s Lacrosse Team. I wish lax received more cable coverage, I mean, it’s better than bass fishing or paintball or whatever else ESPN2 is playing during the off-season. I wish I had checked out JHU lax when I lived near Wash DC.

I spoke with Jim Milles today on his podcast show about Next Generation Librarianship in reference to my coup. I feel like I have so much more to say on the topic and I am thinking about releasing a supplemental podcast next week.

Jim also gave me some great ideas and advice for podcasting. This has been hovering in my mind for a while. I thought it would be nice to do a podcast supplement to various writings and presentations—a way to sum up or expand on the concept. It’s going to be interesting to see how ISI handles all these new mediums with their citation reports in the future.

I also got to thinking about a podcast for my library. One of the challenges is that we follow the subject specialist model and it would be hard to present a united podcast beamed out to our patron community. Therefore, I’m thinking for the Fall of creating a weekly series called MEcast—directed toward the ME community of about 2,000 students and faculty. A 10-15 minute weekly segment, blending lib & resource info, interviews, news, pop culture, music, whatever. I’m going to read up on the tech specs this weekend.

Jim suggested using LibSin as a host, which only costs $5 a month for the type of project I want to do. So here is a typical Next Gen attitude (oh and I hate the term ‘next gen’ --more on that later) rather than talking with our Systems Department about hosting it, or forming a committee to cover content and workflow, I’m going to spend the $5 myself and generate my own product. One of my core job duties is to ‘promote the Library to the School of Mechanical Engineering’ and we’re given the freedom to carry out this charge anyway we choose. So stay tuned: screen and podcasts are the emerging theme of my Summer.

OMG! We should IM!

2006-04-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

So it seems that IM has recently become the hot topic. I can’t wait until three years from now when librarians ‘discover’ ipods and start talking about new ways to reach students through mobile devices.

Anyway, on the topic of IM, I want to build an AIM Bot. Tag this as a pipedream, but I had a good talk with Ross a few weeks ago and there is faint possibility that we might work on this over the summer.

Now granted, bots are not new. I’ve seen a presentation on this at CIL (not AIM though) several years ago--- however after a little searching I could not easily find an AIM BOT for libraries. If you know of any, post the screen-name, please!

This is the main menu from the ShoppingBuddy bot:

I’d like to customize it to fit our needs with options like:

Find Books
Find Articles
Explore a Topic
Get Help (IM us!)
Library Hours
Library Classes & Workshops
Check Your Account
Renew Your Books
Reserve the Rehearsal Studio

It could really supplement to our website. I think if marketed correctly it could be kind of cool. Go strong with it during the freshmen orientation. Plaster the screen-name (illegally) all over the dorms and campus. Print napkins for the café with the name on it. Buy a full page add in the student paper with the entire page blank except in the middle: GTLibraryBot, buddy list us! Create a since of mystery/intrigue. Let people find it. Make them want to b-list you to see what the hype is all about. Word of mouth with take over after that.

Good Old Gorman!

2006-04-10T10:37:00.000-05:00

When will Michael Gorman stop embarrassing us? Seriously, I think he's set us back 20 years!

Show me the.....

2006-04-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

I really hate pretentious library schools that feel the need to gloat about how great their rankings are on public listservs… but I do like money and that’s the topic today.

I was fortunate to participate in a Georgia Tech fellowship in which we were given $1000 to use toward teaching—actually there are no restrictions on the funds, other than they cannot supplement our own salary.

I’ll post later about my project; it is still too premature to talk about. I love this concept of flexible money. I really wish our admin would empower us each with $500 a year to use without question. Books, software, subscriptions, whatever. I think that as outreach becomes a key, if not the key duty, of a subject specialist librarian, that we need money to wine and dine our clients. For example, there are several distance learning staff members that I would like to take to lunch and talk casually about how to improve services and PR for the library. Trying to do this through formal meetings and office visits is just not working—but if I could take them to a local restaurant and start by talk about anything but Georgia Tech, I think that would open some new doors. Same thing with the faculty members I interact with (or wish I was interacting with). We have a serials review coming up and we’re gathering feedback from professors about journal priority-- it would be great to be able to invite of few of them over for coffee and/or something from our café and sit around with laptops and work through all the data.

What I’m getting at is that academic libraries need to borrow a page from the sales world and support their frontline people financially. I mean, technically, I can fill out a form to request software or supplies and could probably swing a “business” lunch every now and then, but having flexible funds each semester would be so much easier, especially for the spontaneous opportunities that arise. Like the other day I worked with a PhD student on a Lit Review for nearly two hours and would like to have bought him lunch. I learned a lot from him about departmental politics as well as the curriculum and some new instructional opportunities. I just think it would be a nice gesture by the library and positive PR, which we can always use more of.

Music in the Library

2006-04-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

For the next 3-4 Tuesdays, a freshman student violinist will play in the rotunda from 11-noon. Students tell us that they want to see (and in this case "hear") creative expressions by fellow students.

A big aspect of the Library East Commons will do this by portraying student art, great research, and fascinating speakers. We have noticed that no where on campus can one serendipitously have encounters with musicians. If this test is well received, expect to hear more musicians in the fall, perhaps during the "dead hour" from 11-noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Intuitive Revelations: The Ubiquitous Reference Model

2006-03-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

I’ve been trying to merge “the library” with student blogs for nearly two years now. It’s been a long evolution, but I think I found the most efficient manner given the current technologies available.

A sneak-peak is available here:
Intuitive Revelations: The Ubiquitous Reference Model

Essentially, the paper describes a proactive approach toward interacting with college students. While the library world has just discovered blogs, these students have been keeping online journals for years. They use services like LiveJournal and Xanga, and even MySpace and Facebook to interact—often providing insight and commentary on their hectic lives. My interest was mining this data for educational opportunities.

The Major Theme: We need to get out from behind the desk and help students when and where they need it.

“An Experiment of Unusual Partnerships”

2006-03-22T13:42:00.000-05:00

The latest experiment at the Georgia Tech Library:

The Resource Center, aka: "The Cage"

Nothing revolutionary here, but it’s kind of cool. I’ve read about similar efforts at Marquette. UGA has also explored the concept too. Essentially the library gave space to various departments to offer a variety of services. Some of the terms used to describe the project include:

“A nexus and convergent point for students”
“An experiment of unusual partnerships”
“A coordinated student support entity”

So what is it? The Library merging space with the Office of IT, Tutoring, and Advising. Students can get tech help with wireless, viruses, spyware, etc, they can also demo new software and products, and pick up large print jobs. Students will also be able to meet with academic advisors and get tutoring help. Tutoring has real potential because it’s not just your traditional calculus and composition, but also applications such as MATLAB and AutoCAD. They reported helping nearly 2,000 students last year in over 82 courses.

Opens the first week of April.

more on myspace, social networks and academic libraries

2006-03-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

I’m very into the mobile internet—but the other day I was in the bathroom and could hear a guy typing on his laptop in one of the stalls. Maybe GT students are just hardcore like that?

I have been attacking MySpace a lot recently, so why stop now? In recent conversations, as well as tons of press, I’m finding out about parents creating accounts so that they can monitor what their kids are doing online as well as in life. And that is why Facebook is so great because it blocks out nosey parents and predators. Sure there have been reports about cops and campus officials clamping down on FB, but whatever. I support an individual’s personal freedom to do stupid things and share them with friends.

I predict, again, that MySpace will fail because of privacy issues. Kids, who are the bulk of users, will want to go somewhere more private / excusive. It’s kind of hard to be cool when you know your mom is lurking on your site and checking out all your pics and comments, as well as your friend’s information too.

Anyway, in my comment on the ACRL Blog, I stated that while I think it’s good for libraries to explore new ways to interact with patrons and that social networks are hot, that we need to choose our outreach carefully. Being everywhere that they are is not the solution, but rather strategic placement and being in position to provide appropriate service is going to be essential. That is shaping up to be my theme for the next two years. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags:
myspace
social networks
facebook
academic libraries

The Inevitable Gen X Coup

2006-03-17T13:32:00.000-05:00

I guess it is really trendy to bash ALA these days. I could not resist either.

I wrote that over the Thanksgiving weekend. The original tile was:
“The Inevitable Coup: taking over the library profession is just a matter of time."

But LJ softened it to:
The Inevitable Gen X Coup

So it goes....

Using Students to Promote the Library

2006-03-13T10:20:00.000-05:00

One of my brothers is halfway through police academy training--- hopefully he’ll give me the “secret word” you can tell cops when they pull you over… in Atlanta you have to drive 80 mph just to keep up with traffic.

Here is the latest of our student-athlete poster series:

You can also read about here: Creating a BUZZ: Attracting SCI/TECH Students to the Library! The MIT article in that issue is very good too.

The U of Florida offers similar posters, however they use faculty. In my POV it works better to feature “celebrities” and student-athletes are the biggest draw—especially from a power conference like the ACC. I am trying to get a baseball player now since GT is ranked #1.

On Being Platform Agnostic

2006-03-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

Don’t worry Kiera-- you’ll get your date with Oscar eventually.

Just to back up for a minute on MySpace. My interest in the site has been waning, however then I attended a seminar hosted by an Atlanta marketing association that featured two corporate types from Myspace. They cemented by distrust and mounting aversion to the company.

The only interesting note by them was that they call themselves a “next-generation lifestyle portal” and emphasis that it’s all user generated content.

I was thinking about this last night and wouldn’t it be cool if universities actually made a “portal” that students wanted to use. A way to synthesize the library, with webCT, email, and file sharing? Blend in elements from facebook and myspace. Instead of having a portal that links you to other campus sites, bring them into one and make them work together. Let students collaborate with each other as well as faculty.

While the Association was really pushing the Myspace presenters, the real star was Jason Hirschhorn, the chief digital office at MTV networks. He blew me away and made me question why I was working in a library rather then at Viacom.

An interesting concept he discussed was multi-plat-fornication or being platform agnostic. They don’t consider themselves a cable station, but rather a content provider. It goes like this…. A fan watches a program on TV, then logs online to get extra footage and insider info, then blogs about it, shares the experience with friends and makes new friends who have a common interest, downloads a photo to a cell phone, and loads additional content into an ipod. On air, online, on-the-go. They strive to push their content everywhere their viewers are. They want to be on every platform possible since their viewers are using all types of technology in a social context.

Jason also noted that MTVuber is going to be a pure online channel—and that they could get around FCC broadcasting restrictions since it is all online.

Also—rather than a web site be viewed as an online menu, it should be an entertainment experience. This circles back to my “portal” comment above. Create an social networking environment that also has functional aspects like financial aid, tutoring, class assignments, grades, and library resources.

Lastly, the question was asked about why doesn’t MTV play music and he answered: “because music videos don’t rate well” – they do play 8 hours of videos per day though.

Overall it was quite inspiring.

MySpace is lame, now

2006-03-03T10:45:00.000-05:00

There is a Dr Seuss story about people who have stars on their chest, they had become special, the elites, and then there was everyone else, the masses. The masses eventual found a way to get stars too and that rocked the whole social class system. Then the originals found a way to get rid of their stars and it become cool not to have a star.

That’s how I feel about myspace.

Just say "no" to library 2.0

2006-03-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while—but I’m dusting this thing off.

I really have to disagree with M Stephens on a recent post about librarian attitudes. His premise is that librarians tend to think negatively toward new ideas, particularly in public services. While I will admit there is a lot of conservatism in how we operate, this is not my reality.

I guess academic libraries have led the way in listening and responding to users. It helps that we have a consolidated market, whereas public libraries have to try and please everyone. But I really don’t get this Library 2.0— this is stuff we were talking about 5 years ago.

Anyway, here are the examples he claims libraries say “no” to:

IM on public computers
(We give patrons Trillian. I also encourage them to IM me directly.)
Skateboarders visiting the library
(What next, no Emo kids in the library?)
Use of PSPs or other new devices
(If someone wants to sit in a bean-bag before class and play GTA, I say enjoy.)
No Cell Phones
(I was so happy when we killed this rule last summer. We have noisey
floors and quiet floors. What’s the difference if I am talking with a group of friends vs on my phone? I’ve actually seen students use them productively, getting help from friends and working on project collaboratively.)
No Eating or Drinking
(We have a café so this doesn’t really apply to us. Students will also have pizzas delivered to the library.)

wiki stuff

2006-02-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve been playing around with wiki software lately. Yes, I know, that’s very trendy these days, but beyond all that, I have to say they are not as intuitive as they should be.

I’ve been using:
http://www.pbwiki.com/
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

PB is free and pretty straight forward, but too simple and plastered with advertising.

MediaWiki is sexy (Wikipedia uses it) but the search feature sucks and it’s just kind of weird. It also involves server installation.

The point of a wiki is to make collaboration quick and easy and unfortunately both products fail in this regard. I pitched the wiki idea at a reference meeting and people didn’t seem to care. I’m hoping maybe the idea was too new because the potential value is immense. I’ve been using the PB one myself the past few weeks and it’s been great.

The real problem, particularly with mediawiki, is the clunkiness of the editor. I don’t feel comfortable trying to persuade librarians to learn how to use it. It needs to be simpler, like a blog or message board—but I don’t want to use those technologies. I fear that it will come down to three or four of us being the “editors” rather than a collective contribution.

The Rainy Day Outreach Model

2006-01-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

We’re getting lots of rain today and I noticed several “trapped” students around the library entrance—so I offered to walk one of them (David) to wherever he needed to go. Conveniently it was the Student Center, which is close by

During our walk I asked him if he was able to find what he needed in the library and if there was anything we could do to improve our service. (More computers! No surprise.) I also found out he was an Industrial Engineering major and so I pushed some of our classes and databases. It was a nice talk.

I know it’s not much, but it’s a simple way to make a personal connection with patrons and create a postive impression of the library.

more comments on the over-hyped Google Book Search

2006-01-13T15:19:00.000-05:00

Well, Google Book Search seems to be the hot topic these days. I did a search for fuel cells and the first entry was an Elsevier title, interesting. But what’s missing is the ability to buy the book directly online.

Ok, sure, Google is going to let us see a handful of pages- and then link to Amazon and other vendors—but they are missing that key step of instant gratification. I guess they see profits through users clicking the Amazon link – but I think it would be more user-friendly/efficient to allow online purchases and instant PDF downloads.

I ran another search for qualitative coding and the first entry was a Sage encyclopedia, which is good, however the font is too small on the references and I don’t have the ability to save, copy, print or adjust the text.

I have to say that Google is not living up to its potential. I saw that Amazon and Random House are going to test the pay-per-view model for books. This is the future… at least for academic titles. Many of the engineering students I help just need a chapter or a few pages of a text. If we don’t have the title, then they have to order it and wait. It would be more efficient to “use what you need”—however I fear publishers will follow the music industry in failing to see how the web has changed user behavior and expectations. I don’t want to buy a whole CD—I’d prefer to “obtain” a copy from a friend and keep the songs I like, however if you give me a cheap price like iTunes 99cents per song—then I’m more inclined to buy in.

We’ll see how things unfold. It would be interesting to hear from the ILL folks on this. Rather than spending $25-50 to borrow a book from MIT, why not pay a few dollars for the chapter the student needs and send it to them in PDF later that day, or better yet, provide them with a license to obtain the titles they need without us getting in their way.

Lots of doom and gloom talk out there— but we’ll see. We don’t want to become like Agent Smith—purposeless.

And just a side note: I think the library world’s reaction to Wikipedia is hilarious. You sound like my grandmother. Why do we choose to remain so archaic?

Cell Ref

2005-12-20T16:28:00.000-05:00

Mobile Reference is starting to generate some hype. Personally I’d like to make our catalog available to users via their cell phones. And no, I’m not talking about a simple text-based version for the browser, but a full SMS messaging system.

Another feather in the cap of Google—they have a very intriguing and addictive SMS system. You can send them a text message and find out contact information, directions, movie times and locations, stock prices, weather, and even facts, such as population.

I’d like to see this technology adapted for libraries. Maybe send in a book title and get a message back about location and availability. Or perhaps send in a keyword and receive some suggested call numbers for browsing. There are a lot of possibilities.